Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, is a young and abused Black boy with Asperger's syndrome, and is hated by his guardians, the Dursleys. A little over a week before his birthday, he discovers that he is also a wizard, and the Dursleys knew all along. Not only is he a wizard, but he's also famous in the wizarding world! An AU fanfic.
(Transgender character introduced in chapter 7)
Fayanora
Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, is a young and abused Black boy with Asperger's syndrome, and is hated by his guardians, the Dursleys. A little over a week before his birthday, he discovers that he is also a wizard, and the Dursleys knew all along. Not only is he a wizard, but he's also famous in the wizarding world! An AU fanfic.
(Transgender character introduced in chapter 7)
Author's note: Harry Potter is J.K. Rowling's work, not mine. I only wish I'd written it so I could be wealthier than the queen, but alas, such is not the case.
Year One: The Philosopher's stone
Chapter One: Little Whinging
Little Whinging, Surrey was what Americans would call the suburbs, inhabited by upper middle class people, most of them white, so boring and normal looking that all the nearly identical houses lacked was white picket fences. What was more, the residents of number 4 fit in well, one could even say abnormally well. Which, given that Petunia Dursley's sister (whom she kept secret) was anything but normal by the standards of the town, meant Petunia was probably overcompensating. Or maybe not. Be that as it may, the town didn't have a single abnormal bone in its metaphorical body.
So it was probably good that the most abnormal-looking man imaginable that appeared (at least by the poor imaginations of the neighborhood's residents) had come by dark of night. Looking like something out of a King Arthur movie, Professor Dumbledore magically made the area even darker with his silver, cigarette-lighter shaped Deluminator, and went over to number 4. When he got there, he was met by a cat.
Professor Dumbledore smiled. “Fancy seeing you here, Minerva.”
The cat changed into a rather austere woman, whose expression was of shock. “How did you--”
“--know it was you? Yes, well, I did read the Animagus registry after all. And even if I had not, you were far stiffer than any cat I have ever seen.”
“You'd be stiff too if you were sitting on a brick wall all day.”
“What, no parties for you on this frabjuous day?”
“Frabjuous?”
“Pardon me, I have been reading books by the muggle author Lewis Carroll, and I rather forgot you would not get the reference.”
Professor McGonagall blinked at him. “Anyway, Albus,” she said, recovering her composure, “is it true about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?”
“Yes, he really does seem to be gone. I do think he may return, but for now his power is broken.”
“And Lily and James?”
Dumbledore hung his head, his eyes behind their half-moon spectacles watering. “Both dead, I am sad to say.”
Her voice cracking with emotion, Minerva struggled to speak more. “And Harry?”
“It appears he did indeed somehow manage to survive the killing curse Voldemort aimed at him. How, we may never know.”
“All those people he killed, Albus, and he couldn't kill a little boy?” Dumbledore did not know what to say to that, so he decided to treat it as a rhetorical question and ignore it. Anyway, McGonagall was struggling to cry silently. He placed a hand gently on her shoulder for emotional support, but continued to say nothing.
When she once more regained composure, McGonagall asked, “So... so where is Harry? Is he with you?”
“Oh no, no no no. Harry is with Hagrid.”
“Do you think that wise? Hagrid--”
“Has my complete confidence. I would trust him with my life.”
She opened her mouth to say something else, but the silent night was suddenly assaulted by the roaring of a motorcycle engine. The motorcycle generating the sound soon crashed onto its wheels from the sky; given the enormous size of the man riding it, no doubt magic prevented it from breaking apart under him.
“What the devil? Hagrid? Where did you get that motorbike?”
Hagrid turned off the bike and walked over to the two Hogwarts teachers. “Young Sirius Black lent it ter me, ter get young Harry here.”
“Is that him?” McGonagall asked. “The Potters have been in hiding so long, I don't think I've ever seen him before.”
She looked into the basket and saw a small black boy with bright green eyes and a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead, which was lighter in color than the rest of his skin.
“Yes,” she said, “I know he's only a baby, but I can see James in him. And of course, Lily's eyes. Yes, that has to be Harry.”
“Aye, Professor McGonagall ma'am, tha's Harry alrigh. I seen him meself tha day he was born, long with Sirius an' Peter an' Remus.”
Dumbledore sighed. “Yes, and a magical scar forever marking him. I wonder if it will be as useful to him as the one I have, of the London Underground.”
McGonagall looked at Dumbledore with an expression of confusion, but said nothing.
“Well,” Dumbledore said with a sigh, “give Harry to me, Hagrid, so we can leave him here.”
McGonagall blanched. “Here? Albus, you cannot seriously think of leaving him here , with these... these people . They're horrible! Worse muggles I doubt I've ever seen. And that bratty son of theirs was kicking his mother down the street, screaming for lollies. Harry Potter, come to live here ?”
“I have set up old magic here that will protect him for as long as he can call the place home. I have corresponded with Petunia in the past, and thus I have no doubt she will care for the boy. He is, after all, her sister's son.”
“Dumbledore, I don't think--”
“It is already done, Minerva. I am an excellent judge of character, I do know what I am doing. It may not be an ideal life, but he will be fine, I am certain.”
Though she still had her doubts, Professor McGonagall did not argue further. Dumbledore got out the letter for Petunia, putting it in the basket next to Harry, and Hagrid gave the small black boy a very whiskery kiss goodbye, before bawling his eyes out. While McGonagall shushed him, Dumbledore set Harry's basket down on the stoop. McGonagall noticed this and frowned.
“You're not leaving him out in the open, are you, Dumbledore? I mean to say, anybody could snatch him up. Or he might catch a cold or worse.”
“Relax, Minerva. Along with the old magic I told you of, I have placed a warming charm on the blankets, and I will be casting a spell that will keep him hidden from all eyes but ours and Petunia's until she lifts the basket up. He will be fine.”
“Well, it just seems odd to me, you going to all that work to protect him and then just leaving him on the stoop like a set of milk bottles.”
Dumbledore sighed. “Do you think me incapable of protecting him? Or unwilling to protect him?”
The austere woman looked uncertain. “Well, no. Of course not.”
“Then trust that he will be fine.”
She still looked uncertain.
“If it would put you at ease, Minerva, you could continue to stay here as a cat, and watch over him until the morning?”
She considered it for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, I think I will do that, Albus.”
“It's settled, then. Until later, Minerva.”
McGonagall nodded back, morphed once more into a cat, and retook her previous position on the wall, while Hagrid flew off on that noisy motorcycle, and Dumbledore returned the lights from his Deluminator, then disappeared with a small pop.
And so Harry lay in his warm basket, not knowing he was famous, not knowing that he and Professor McGonagall would soon be shocked awake by Petunia Dursley screaming like she'd been murdered when she found him on the doorstep, not knowing that a very tired McGonagall would reluctantly leave him to be pinched and prodded by his cousin Dudley, unwittingly leaving him to a life of abuse and neglect.
Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, is a young and abused Black boy with Asperger's syndrome, and is hated by his guardians, the Dursleys. A little over a week before his birthday, he discovers that he is also a wizard, and the Dursleys knew all along. Not only is he a wizard, but he's also famous in the wizarding world! An AU fanfic.
(Transgender character introduced in chapter 7)
Author's note: Harry Potter is J.K. Rowling's work, not mine. I only wish I'd written it so I could be wealthier than the queen, but alas, such is not the case.
Chapter Two: Snakes and Ladders
Years later, Harry woke up to his cousin Dudley stomping on the stairs over his cupboard, having been interrupted from a very good dream. “Wake up, Potter! Wake up!”
Automatically, Harry came out and began making breakfast, as his aunt and uncle had insisted he cook for them since he was three years old. He quickly shut down memories of standing on a stepladder - crying as hot grease from the bacon burned his young skin, and went about his duties. It was Dudley's birthday, and he knew from painful experience that the slightest mistake would cost him dearly. Despite this, he did get brave enough to carefully pour the remaining bacon grease onto his plate after he was done, and put his toast on top of it, so he could get some protein for the day in the form of grease-soaked toast, since he wasn't allowed butter or jam. And since the Dursleys would not let him stay in the house unsupervised, he was looking forward to spending time with Mrs. Figg, the batty old cat-obsessed neighbor that was his occasional sitter. The smell of all those cats was difficult on his senses, but Mrs. Figg had a soft spot for him, and always fed him well whenever he was over, so he could endure the smell for her.
This was rather saying a lot more, for Harry, than it would of your typical boy. For the 10 year old black boy had an especially keen sense of smell. So keen that Petunia would call him a liar if he let slip that the smell of her flowers when she had a window open was giving him a headache, and Vernon – his uncle – would occasionally wallop him, to “give [him] something to have a real headache for.” But by now, Harry had gotten used to both his nose and his ears causing him headaches from excessive stimuli, and had taken to wandering far away from number 4 to earn money doing chores for other people whenever he could get away, just so he could buy pain reliever, which he hid in a hole in the wall inside his cupboard under the stairs, a hole he plugged with a piece of drywall he'd bought with some of his earnings.
Sitting down to eat with the others, Harry had to ensure his very loud cousin assaulting his ears with his fervent present unwrapping, and then his spoiled whines when he got fewer presents than last year, a tactic calculated to guilt trip his parents into getting him extra presents. Harry may not like his cousin very much, and Dudley may not be very book smart, but he was clever enough when he put his mind to it. The trouble was, he rarely put his cleverness to anything good.
The telephone rang, and Petunia got it. Shortly thereafter, she said, “It's no good, Vernon; Mrs. Figg is ill, she can't take him.”
“No! He can't come,” Dudley fake-wailed. “He r-ruins everyth-thing!”
Harry's stomach fell. As much as he hated the smell of her house, he liked Mrs. Figg a lot. “I could always take care of her. I wouldn't mind bringing her chicken soup, or bringing her a hot water bottle, or whatever.”
“And have you tracking home whatever damn bug she's caught, and getting Dudders sick,” Uncle Vernon growled at him. “I don't bloody think so.”
“Okay, then you could always let me stay here. I could stay in my cupboard and read.”
Vernon glared at Harry in a familiar way, a sneering way. It was part outrage over the thought of Harry staying behind, and part disdain for Harry's habit of reading.
“Reading,” Vernon sneered. “Like any normal boy reads for enjoyment. But you're not normal, are you boy? Of course not. Ugly, no-good, worthless... just like your horrible father. Why your damned mother had to marry someone... someone like him , I'll never understand.”
Harry ignored this rant; it was as familiar to him as Vernon's belt was to his backside. It was unpopular to be openly racist, so of course his uncle could not go right out and say what was really on his mind; he had to talk around it.
“And comb your hair!” he barked at Harry. Harry ignored this, too. Everyone present knew very well that nothing short of expensive hair treatment in a salon would have any hope of taming his wild hair. And the one time they'd given in and tried it, it hadn't worked. His aunt had even shaved him bald once – a style that looked horrible on him, no matter what his uncle said, and it had grown back by the next morning. The whipping he'd received for that still made him wince to think about.
“Vernon, what are we going to do with him?”
“What? Oh yes, thought you could change the subject, did you, boy? Well no siree. You are not staying here, either. I will not come home to the house destroyed, no I will not.”
“Well what about your sister?” Aunt Petunia asked him.
“Don't be ridiculous, Marge hates the boy more than we do. No, he'll have to come with us.”
Dudley, of course, did not like this one bit, and began to fake-cry and scream again. But the doorbell rang, which shut him up at once, because Dudley's friend Piers Polkiss was at the door, to join them in the trip to the zoo.
As Harry walked to the car, he stomach felt like it had snakes crawling through it. This was too good to be true; there was no way he was going to get to the zoo without something very bad happening. Predictably, Vernon gave him a stern lecture about 'no funny stuff' during the trip before letting him into the car. Harry wasn't stupid, he knew something was different about him other than being black and being mentally... he stopped himself from saying Vernon's favorite word, 'abnormal,' and instead thought mentally divergent , a word he had read in a book many weeks ago. It was a good word, a nice way of saying he wasn't like most boys. But there was more, of course; weird happenings centered around him that his aunt and uncle knew something about, something they were keeping a secret. What exactly that was, he wasn't sure. But he'd read an X-Men comic once, and ever since then he thought he might be a mutant. He knew it was a work of fiction, but it was the only explanation that made sense to him, for some of the weird things that had happened to him growing up.
The zoo trip was good, better than anything he'd had in his whole 10 years of life. He got a lemon ice lolly when the lady at the ice cream shop had asked him what he wanted before the Dursleys could get away, and when Dudley had a fit over his Knickerbocker Glory being too small, Harry got to finish it after Dudley got a replacement. And the whole time, the snakes in his belly grew more and more agitated. This was all going to go wrong somehow, it was just a matter of time. Knowing this, he could not relax. He had to remain vigilant, so he could spot the danger and prevent it.
When they got to the reptile house, Harry went away from the Dursleys and Piers so as to avoid trouble. Nervously looking around, he walked right up to a gigantic boa constrictor that Dudley had already gotten bored with. He barely noticed the snake, but it noticed him.
“You look scared,” it said, quite clearly in English. This did not help Harry's nerves, and he frantically looked around to see if anyone else had heard. Even when he saw that they hadn't, he barely calmed down at all. I cannot have a snake talking to me right now, he thought.
To his horror, he realized he had actually said that aloud. But again, nobody noticed.
“You understand me?”
Harry sighed, resting his head against the glass. If this was the other shoe dropping, he might as well earn it.
“Yes, it seems I do. Not sure how, though. Maybe I'm a mutant.”
“I don't know what that means.”
“It means-- no, never mind. It's too hard to explain. Anyway, where are you from?”
The snake jerked its head, directing Harry's eyes to the sign. Boa Constrictor, Brazil.
Resigned to the inevitable, Harry asked in a tone that was a little hysterically amused, “Was it nice there?”
The snake jerked its head again. Bred in captivity.
“Ah,” Harry said. “Well, we have something in common, then. I never knew my parents.”
“Is that unusual with your species?” the snake asked.
“Yeah, it is. You see--”
“DUDLEY! MR DURSLEY! YOU'LL NEVER BELIEVE WHAT THIS SNAKE IS DOING!” That shout was all the warning Harry had before Piers and Dudley shoved him out of the way. He felt a surge of anger as he glared at them, then did a double-take as the glass disappeared and the snake slithered out.
It was absolute bedlam. Everyone was screaming and running around, except for Harry, who was in shock. The snake slithered up to him and said, “Thanks, mate. I'm going to see if I can get to Brazil. Wish me luck!”
“Uh... good luck,” he said after the snake. Then the snakes in his belly turned to ice as he felt his uncle glaring at him knowingly.
That's it, Harry thought. I'm dead. He's going to murder me at last.
~
Vernon did not murder his nephew, but it was a close thing. Once they were safely home, the man was too angry to do more than lock Harry in his cupboard, but the next morning after breakfast, he summoned Harry to the living room and whipped Harry as hard as he could with the leather of his spare belt. Harry silently bore the punishment, even though it only angered his uncle more, because he refused to give Dudley any more ammunition against him than the spoiled brat already had.
What was far harder to deal with was being locked in his cupboard until the start of the summer holidays, and given even fewer meals than usual. It was a situation that called for a skill Harry had learned from a library book years ago. Using an old hairpin, Harry picked the lock on his cupboard door and snuck out in the dead of night to pick a few things out of the fridge that nobody would miss, especially given how much Dudley ate. Harry would say Dudley ate Harry's weight in food every day, but honestly, it was more like Dudley ate his own weight in food every day.
He chided himself silently for picking on Dudley for his weight. Dudley may pig out shamelessly, but there were lots of people who were overweight for reasons they had no control of. It was far more satisfying, anyway, to pick on Dudley for being a spoiled rotten waste of air.
Once he was let out of his cupboard, he immediately left the house to go to the library. Some of the books he'd gotten out were months overdue because of the snake incident, and he dreaded having to pay the fines. To his astonishment, though, the librarian took pity on him and waived the fines. He tried to pay her what little he had in his pockets, but she refused to take it. He decided, on balance, to not check any more books out, just in case he got in trouble again. Instead, he spent as much time as possible reading in the library.
Weeks later, while Aunt Petunia was dyeing some of Dudley's old clothes gray for what she claimed was the uniform at Harry's new school, Stonewall High, the mail came, and he was forced to get it. When he picked it up, he saw a strange letter written in glittering green ink, addressed to him. It even had his cupboard on it. Whatever it was, he knew if any of the Dursleys saw it, they would confiscate it from him and likely destroy it. Thinking quickly, he shoved it into his sock and handed the rest of the mail to his uncle. Then he went into his cupboard for his coat and left the house, heading for the library.
Harry loved the library not only because he loved reading and learning, but also because Dudley would never be caught dead in a library. In his favorite secluded corner, Harry retrieved the letter from his sock, opened it carefully, and read it. He had to re-read it several times to be sure it really said what it did. Even then, the had to put it down and think.
“Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,” he whispered to himself. A school of magic. Did this mean he was a wizard? Did this mean all the weird stuff in his life – his hair growing back overnight, finding himself on a roof somehow, the incredible shrinking sweater, talking with a snake, disappearing glass, and more – was magic? Could it be? He thought back to the day of the snake incident, to what he'd said as he desperately tried to explain himself to his uncle. He had said “it was like magic,” and his uncle had nearly blown a gasket, shouting “there's no such thing as magic!” Almost like... he was trying to convince himself, as much as convince Harry?
But Magic was impossible, wasn't it? Still, he'd known something was unusual about him; he'd known for a long time. Was magic any more unbelievable than being a mutant? Could it really be magic? Or was this a practical joke? But who did he know who would bother with something like this, or had the brains to think of something this clever? No, hard as it was to believe, he believed. Or at least, he believed enough to decide to write back. He had no idea how to write back, but he reasoned that since it had come in the post, maybe the post office would take it. He would have to buy a stamp, though, even though there was no stamp on the letter.
The letter had been sent by Professor M. McGonagall, so he decided to address the letter to her. Pausing long enough to buy an envelope from one of the librarians, he went back to his corner and tried to think what to write. After long deliberation, he began.
Dear Professor M. McGonagall,
I was astonished by your letter, and honestly I am having difficulty believing it's real, but things have happened in my life that convince me you are being honest. I have a great many questions, but I have to start by saying that I don't think my aunt and uncle will let me come to Hogwarts. They hate magic and they hate me, and they are opposed to anything that would make me anything less than miserable. It was only from quick thinking that I was able to hide your letter to read it, I am certain they would have burned it if they'd found it first.
Also, I have no money, except what little I manage to secretly earn to pay for medication for headaches I'm prone to, so I would frankly be astonished if they paid my tuition, or paid for any of the things your letter says I'll need. So that's another obstacle to my coming. But if there is any way possible for me to come, I would love to get away from these people and come to Hogwarts.
Oh, and I don't think it would be wise to send me a reply in the post. The odds are high my aunt or uncle or even my cousin would get to it before I did, and doubtless burn it. What's more, if they found that I had hidden this first letter and sent you a reply, I know they would punish me, and I've only recently stopped being punished for the last weird thing that happened, in which I accidentally set a boa constrictor loose in the local zoo by accidentally making the glass vanish without a trace.
I have no good suggestions for how you should respond to this letter, unless by some chance you were willing to drop by, but if you do, you should be ready to defend yourself; my uncle gets very violent when he gets angry. He has a little more self control around adults than around me, but I don't know by how much.
Hoping to hear from you soon,
Harry Potter
Harry re-read the letter a few times to make sure he liked it. When he was satisfied, he started on the envelope, and was immediately stumped. The return address on the letter didn't even say what country Hogwarts was in; for all he knew, it was in China. So, thinking the whole time that this was a poorly thought out system, and that people who knew nothing of this Hogwarts ought to be sent a person to explain rather than a letter in the post, he just wrote “Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry” as the address. It felt silly to him; even Santa Claus had a better address than this school did.
He left the library and went to the post office, bought a single stamp, and dropped it in the box, hoping it wasn't a joke, hoping the letter would get through somehow, and wondering what would happen if it really were real and not an elaborate prank by person or persons unknown. And so it was that he spent the rest of the day lost in thought, nearly earning himself another whipping when he almost burned dinner, and later fell into a fitful sleep.
~
The next day seemed normal when Harry woke up, and his doubts tripled. He tried to push them down, though, and focus on his cooking. He wondered how long it would take the letter to reach Hogwarts, assuming it wasn't a bad dream or a trick. What he had not expected was for the doorbell to ring after breakfast, soon followed by Uncle Vernon roaring in rage and fear. Harry ran toward the sound of his uncle's anger, against every survival instinct he had, to see what was the matter. He found a very angry woman with black hair in a tight bun and an austere appearance waving what looked like a twig at Uncle Vernon like it was a weapon, and shouting at him to calm himself. Vernon – who would normally have been shoving her out the door by now – was regarding the twig like it was a gun pointed at his face, and backed off, letting the austere woman come into the house and close the door behind herself.
He regarded this woman with confusion. Figuring out that the twig must actually be a wand, he figured this must be a Hogwarts representative. But aside from the wand and her age, she didn't look like a witch to Harry. She was dressed in a black dress that looked a bit old fashioned, but was clearly not a... well, he didn't actually know what to call the clothing witches tended to wear in TV and movies. Robes, perhaps? No, this was clearly a dress. A dress from the turn of the century perhaps, but still a dress and not robes or a cloak or whatever.
“Ah, there you are Mister Potter. Yes, you look just like your father; Arabella wasn't lying, then. Not that I thought she was, but... oh yes, and your mother's eyes. Lily's eyes...”
“Vernon,” Aunt Petunia shouted, running into the room at last. “Vernon, what is...” she trailed off, staring blankly at the woman. Then she noticed the wand, and shrunk back. “WHO ARE YOU?” she demanded of the woman, “AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY HOUSE?”
The austere woman regarded his aunt with a frown over her glasses. “I am Professor Minerva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. You are Petunia Dursley, I presume?”
“YOU'RE NOT WELCOME HERE,” Vernon shouted, his face turning puce. “LEAVE AT ONCE, YOU ARE TRESPASSING ON PRIVATE PROPERTY!”
“I will do no such thing. You let me into your house of your own accord.”
His uncle's face turned an even darker shade of puce. “UNDER THREAT OF INJURY!”
“Yes,” the woman said with derision. “Do you really wish to explain to a muggle policeman why you felt threatened by an elderly woman wielding a small piece of wood?”
Vernon opened his mouth to speak, but had no rebuttal. So Harry spoke instead, filling the silence.
“Muggle?”
“It is what we in the wizarding world call those who have no magic, at least the ones that do not live in the wizarding world.”
“There are non-magic people who live in your world? Why?”
“They are called squibs. Born to magical parents, they have no magic. The opposite of a muggle-born witch or wizard.”
“SHUT YOUR--” Vernon began, but Professor McGonagall wordlessly cast a spell on him that made his voice vanish, which she then did to Petunia as the horse-faced woman began to scream. This hadn't really helped matters, though, as the two were now gesticulating madly and trying to attack the professor, who had to keep them at bay with some other spell from her wand.
“WILL YOU TWO STOP BEHAVING LIKE A PAIR OF BABBOONS, OR AM I GOING TO HAVE TO MAKE YOUR SILENCE PERMANENT?”
At this, the two Dursleys blanched, but stopped moving, save to back away from the professor.
“Good heavens, I am getting too old for this kind of nonsense,” she said to herself. Then she turned to the Dursleys and said, “Please sit down, we have things to discuss. And if you refuse to sit down, then I shall turn you into rats.”
Terrified by the prospect of being something so dirty and disgusting as a rat, Petunia quickly sat down in the nearest chair, and Vernon followed suit, sitting in another chair. Harry and Professor McGonagall sat down across from them.
“Good. Now--”
She was interrupted this time by a knock on the door, a knock that rattled the house.
“Oh for goodness sake, Hagrid,” the professor shouted at the door as she got up to open it, “please do try to be more careful. I do not want to have to repair their home if I can help it.”
“Sorry bout tha, Professor,” said a very large voice from the door as an even larger man came inside. He was so vast that he had to duck to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling.
“Oh, it's fine, Hagrid. I didn't mean to snap at you, it's just these muggles are the worst I've ever met in thirty-five years of this job. Oh here, let me conjure you something to sit on in there, Hagrid. You'll never get in here unless I shrunk you.”
“Tha's okay, Professor. I can stand.”
But the older woman insisted on conjuring the giant man a chair, and so Harry saw his first proof of magic.
“It's REAL! Magic is REAL?”
The two new faces stared at him, agog, for a moment. Then Hagrid got angry and faced his aunt and uncle as best as he could from the entryway. “YEH MEAN TER TELL ME HE ENT EVEN BEEN TOLD NUTHIN BOUT OUR WORLD? HARRY JAMES POTTER, MOS' FAMOUS PERSON IN OUR WORLD, AN' HE'S NEVER BEEN TOLD ABOUT MAGIC?”
“Of course we didn't tell him,” Petunia snapped, surprised to find her voice returned. “My dratted sister being what she was. We swore, when we took him in, we'd put a stop to all that dangerous nonsense. And yet here you are anyway, breaking into our home, threatening us--”
“YEH THINK YEH BEEN THREATENED SO FAR DURSLEY, YEH'VE NO IDEA WHAT--”
“Hagrid, do please calm yourself!”
Hagrid's face was covered by his big shaggy beard, but his eyes looked abashed. “Sorry, Professor McGonagall.”
“It's quite alright, Hagrid, just try to remain calm.”
“Wait,” said Harry, rubbing his head. “Wait, I'm trying to think. But so much noise, I can't... god, my head...”
“A headache, Mister Potter? Like the ones you mentioned in your reply?”
“WHAT? Am I to understand, boy, that you've been writing these freaks?”
“And no doubt hiding his... his dratted acceptance letter from us too, Vernon.”
“Here, Mister Potter, Poppy – our school nurse – gave me a few vials of a headache cure after I showed her your letter. Drink one up, it will get rid of the pain.”
Harry took the proffered potion and drank it up. Now that he had seen proof of magic, he trusted this woman. Hard as it was for him to trust adults, he trusted her anyway for some reason.
“Thanks, that's better.”
“YOU NEVER ANSWERED US, BOY! DON'T THINK YOU CAN--”
“SHUT UP, DURSLEY, YOU GREAT PRUNE! DON'T MAKE ME COME OER THERE AN' INTRODUCE YEH TO YOUR OWN--”
“HAGRID! Calm yourself!”
Hagrid muttered an apology, glaring darkly at the Dursleys. Harry wondered, suddenly, where Dudley was in all this. Then he spotted his cousin far away, hiding but still watching the scene unfold.
“Anyway,” Harry said. “So, I don't know where to start. Wait, no, I do. You said I look like my dad?”
“Yeah,” Hagrid said before McGonagall could answer. “Yeah, now yeh mention it, yeh do look zactly like yer dad. But yeh got yer mum's eyes.” His own began to water, tears rolling down his beard.
“So you two knew my parents?”
McGonagall nodded, her own eyes tearing up. “Y-yes, Mister Potter. I've been teaching in Hogwarts since 1956. I taught your mother and father when they were in school. And Hagrid here has been keeper of the keys and grounds at Hogwarts for 49 years, so he knew them as well.”
“An a better witch an wizard I ent never known. Kind, yer mum was. And yer dad, too, in 'is own way. Bit of a prankster, yer dad. Sad it was, when You-Know-'Oo kill--”
“I FORBID YOU TO SPEAK,” his uncle bellowed.
“I'D LIKE TER SEE YEH TRY AN STOP ME!”
Harry was confused and angry. He rounded on his aunt and uncle and shouted, “YOU TOLD ME MY PARENTS DIED IN A CAR CRASH!”
Hagrid stood up and left a divot in the ceiling with his head. “A CAR CRASH!? A CAR CRASH KILL LILY AN JAMES POTTER!? IT'S AN OUTRAGE! A SCANDAL! I'VE 'ALF A MIN' TER TIE YER LIMBS INTO A--”
“HAGRID!”
Hagrid, apparently, was too incensed to do more than growl. And Harry was starting to feel angry himself, from what he'd heard. But more pressing was his curiosity.
“Murdered? My parents were murdered? By who?”
Both Hogwarts representatives looked discomfited. McGonagall spoke first. “Well, Mister Potter, you see... just like muggles,” she gave the Dursleys a glower, “not all witches and wizards are good. Some go bad. The wizard who murdered your parents was the most powerful evil sorcerer in over 100 years. I don't know his real name, but he went by a pseudonym which is infamous; so infamous that, well... even though the war has been over for almost 11 years, most of us are still too terrified to speak that name. But, well, let me write it out for you.” She summoned a quill, ink, and parchment from nowhere, eliciting squeaks of fear from the Dursleys, wrote something on it, and handed it to him.
“Voldemort?” The reaction this name elicited in the two Hogwarts representatives was even more pronounced than the Dursley's reaction to the word 'magic.' Hagrid jumped so much in fear that the chair he was sitting on got flattened, and the house shook. And Professor McGonagall, her hand to her chest, looked like she was in danger of having a heart attack.
“Yes, that... that is correct, Mister Potter. Now if you please, I beg you not to say the name again.”
“Alright, I'll try.”
“Anyway, this... this He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, he went to your house on Halloween, and... and killed Lily and James. Then he tried to kill you, but for some reason that nobody knows, he couldn't. Scores of powerful witches and wizards he murdered, maybe even hundreds, and you, just a baby boy, somehow survived.”
Harry didn't know what to say, so he said nothing, just looked pensive.
“Yeah,” continued Hagrid from McGonagall, “an yer house blew up an all, too. Fished yeh outta the wreckage meself, an brought yeh here on Dumbledore's orders.”
Harry glared at these words. “Dumbledore is the reason I ended up here? Here with these people who hate me, who beat me, who don't feed me enough?”
Both of them had the decency to look very uncomfortable, at least.
“Er... Harry, yeh see... well I guess Dumbledore – an I can hardly believe I'm sayin this, but... I guess he misjudged yer aunt and uncle. I guess even Dumbledore can make mistakes. He swore up an down yeh'd be safe here, that the Dursleys would care fer ya like a son...” Hagrid stopped talking upon seeing the expression crossing Harry's face.
“Well they sure as--” he stopped himself saying something rude. “They didn't. Dudley is far from malnourished. Dudley has no burn scars, or scars from being whipped till he bled. Dudley isn't treated like a slave or worse. Dudley isn't hated so much that the word 'hatred' hardly seems strong enough.”
McGonagall looked shocked. She looked like the news was making her ill. Then she looked murderous. With deadly quiet, she said, “Harry, I promise you... I don't know what exactly I will do, but these... these monsters will pay for their crimes. I shall have you see Poppy after the Sorting, she can take a record of the abuse, that will be the first step. But please don't be angry with Professor Dumbledore; even I never would have dreamed anything like this would happen. I guess we're both too trusting, him and I.”
There was almost a whole minute of silence, before it was rudely broken.
“If you think I'm going to pay for some crackpot old fool to teach him magic tricks, I--” Vernon's surprise rant ended when Hagrid nearly put his head through the roof, and McGonagall pointed her wand at Vernon's heart, murder in her eyes.
“I warn you, Mister Dursley, if you insult Albus Dumbledore again, you will both live out your remaining days as seats in a very filthy public toilet. You would deserve far worse.”
At this, Vernon got very small, and both him and his wife turned a very sickly looking pale.
“HA! Couldn't 'ave said it better meself, Professor.”
“See, it's like I told you in my letter,” Harry said, pushing his feelings back down in order to charge ahead. “I haven't the money to go, and they're not going to let me.”
“Mister Potter, the laws of our world – of the wizarding world, I mean – clearly state that young witches and wizards must receive a magical education, to control their gifts. As you age, your power will only grow, and power without control could end up coming out very dangerously. There's no telling what could happen if you don't learn that control,” she said, pointedly looking at the Dursleys. “You could end up blowing the house up, or worse. Anyway, you do not have to go to Hogwarts for this education, as there are other schools, such as Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, both on the European mainland. But you need to go somewhere to learn, and as Hogwarts has accepted you, if you wish to go, legally nobody can stop you from going.”
“And besides which, yeh've--”
“Hush, Hagrid,” she said, giving him a significant look. He looked perplexed for a moment. Then, understanding lit up his face and he nodded.
“Anyway, as I was about to say, there is a fund for students who cannot afford tuition and supplies. Since your guardians will not pay your way, the fund can pay your way through all seven years of your education.”
“Oh. Well that's one hurdle overcome, I guess,” he said. He looked at the Dursleys, then back at McGonagall. “But how will I get there? I doubt these two will take me.”
“I will have Hagrid here collect you on the first of September, if you wish to go. He will be authorized to get you to Hogwarts in any way that does not violate wizarding law. Well, except for magic.”
“Er, yeah,” Hagrid said. “Strictly speakin, I'm not allowed ter do magic. But nothin short of a dragon or a manticore could stop me gettin' yeh ter school, an yeh can bet on tha'.”
“Why aren't you allowed to do magic?”
“Er, Professor, have yeh told 'im bout Platform 9 and ¾ yet?”
“Platform WHAT?” exclaimed Mr. Dursley.
“Never you min', Dursley. Ent noneyer bin'niss.”
“Yes, good idea, Hagrid. At King's Cross Station, there will be what appears to be a blank wall between platforms 9 and 10. You run at it, with your eyes closed if it helps, and it will transport you to platform 9 and ¾.”
“Hold on, let me write that down,” he said, scribbling it down on a piece of spare paper.
“At any rate, Hagrid will also take you to Diagon Alley today to get your school supplies.”
“Today?”
“Yes, it's still plenty early enough. Hagrid, Albus gave me a pair of portkeys to give you for the trip. They both activate by a countdown from 3 while you're holding them in your hand.” She handed him a filthy rubber duck and a crushed McDonald's cup, to Harry's confusion. Hagrid took them and put them in his pocket.
“Understood, Professor McGonagall.”
“As for me, I will be returning home to have a nice long soak in a warm bath. It has been years since I had a day as stressful as this one. Well, Mister Potter, I shall see you on the first of September.”
“See you,” Harry said back.
Professor McGonagall stood up, got out her wand, turned on the spot, and disappeared with a loud CRACK that startled the Dursleys onto the floor.
“Harry, come over 'ere an put a hand on this,” he said, holding out one end of the crushed drink cup. Perplexed, Harry nonetheless did as instructed.
“Good, good. Ready? Good. Now three, two, one!”
Harry felt a jerk behind his navel, and the sensation of wind rushing past him for about 10 or 15 seconds, then fell over sideways into a table that hadn't been there before, knocking someone's beer over.
“Oy, watch it!”
“S-sorry,” Harry said. But the man had barely finished his exclamation before diving out of the way, barely missing getting crushed by Hagrid's immense form, which crushed the table instead.
The man passed out from terror, and a toothless, wizened old man came over and helped Hagrid up, then pointed a wand at the table and repaired it magically.
“Wh-where are we?”
“You're in the leaky cauldron,” the toothless old man said, pointing his wand at the passed-out man, waking him. “Next time, Hagrid, don't portkey into my pub?”
“Sorry bout that, Tom. Professor McGonagall forgot ter mention where tha portkey went ter.” He regarded the other one with great wariness. “Sure hope this 'un don't take us inter your house later, or somebody might hafter fish us outta the wreckage.” He put it back for now, and started to head toward the back of the pub, when a man in a purple turban came up to Harry.
“P-p-p-p-potter. P-p-p-p-pleased t-t-to m-m-meet you. I'm P-p-p-p-professor Quirrel.”
He shook the man's hand as Hagrid explained that Quirrel was the Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher. And then Tom the barman made an exclamation about Harry, and suddenly every witch and wizard in the place was swarming him, trying to get a handshake or a word from him. And despite the headache cure McGonagall had given him, he felt it returning.
“Hagrid. T-too many p-people. Can we get out of here?”
“Okay, evryone, tha's quite enough. Poor lad's gettin' a headache, and we've got ter get his school things. BACK, I say!”
Tom, despite having started the ruckus, helped Hagrid calm it down, and Hagrid led Harry out the back to a brick wall.
“Here, Harry; before we go in, I got another headache potion for yeh. Poppy gave me a bunch, too, an told me how ter use em. Yeh can have up ter four in an hour, but best ter not do any more. She said it could make em worse past that point.”
“Thanks, Hagrid,” he said, taking the potion and feeling relief speeding to his head. “Do you happen to know if there's any risk of drug interaction if I were to take my ibuprofen after that point?”
“Er, no idea, sorry. I don't know nothin bout muggle med'cine, an Poppy dinnit say nuffin bout it. Anyway, yeh better enough ter watch?”
“Yes.”
Hagrid nodded approvingly, then showed Harry how to open the entryway to Diagon Alley with a pink umbrella that Harry suspected was really a wand. He tapped a certain brick in the wall, and a hole opened up smoothly and quickly into an archway before them.
What lay before him was a wonder to behold, and he took a moment to feel the awe before going in. It was a good thing, too; after just a couple minutes, he began finding it harder and harder to enjoy Diagon Alley. There were lots of familiar sounds – animal screeches, bangs, cracks, and pops – that startled him ever few seconds, making his heart race and his airway constrict. He tried calming himself, but it was difficult; a difficulty made worse by the equally overwhelming visual noise. Without his glasses, he was probably legally blind, but that didn't mean his vision couldn't still be overwhelmed. It was all making him sick, and he had to lean against a wall, cover his ears, and shut his eyes to block it all out, and it still wasn't enough.
“Oy, them Dursleys really did a number on-- oh, sorry. I'll shush up.” Hagrid waited patiently, looking with great concern at Harry for several minutes, before saying, “Er... d'ya want me ter give yeh a piggyback ride?”
Harry looked up at Hagrid, thinking. They had things to do, and if he was stuck here trying to cope with the noise...
“Yes, please.”
Riding on Hagrid's shoulders helped, though he had to look into the sky to cut down on the visual noise. Before going to Gringott's, Hagrid stopped by at a small shop that sold earmuffs with a silencing charm on them. He put them over Harry's ears; Harry looked foolish wearing earmuffs in July, but he quickly recovered almost fully with the absolute silence that the earmuffs afforded him. At another shop, Hagrid added a pair of extra-dark sunglasses to Harry's sensory-coping arsenal. That done, they finally headed toward the giant white stone building that was the wizarding bank, Gringott's.
Harry took the sunglasses and earmuffs off inside, just to test the waters. The bank was busy, but much, much quieter than outside had been.
“Young Harry Potter wishes ter make a withdrawral,” Hagrid told one of the goblins. Harry tried to get a good look at the goblin without staring; he had no wish to be rude.
“And does young Harry Potter have his key?”
“Aye, got it right here. Oh, and there's something else as well. Important Hogwarts bin'niss.” Hagrid handed the goblin a very secretive looking piece of parchment, then whispered, “It's about the you-know-what in vault you-know-which.”
Harry supposed Hagrid thought Harry couldn't hear him, but with Harry's hearing being what it was, Hagrid might as well have been using his normal voice; the whisper was just as clear.
“Very well,” said the goblin. “Griphook!”
Another goblin, much younger than the first, grabbed a lantern and led them into a cart like the mine carts in old shows about the American 'wild west.'
“Hang on ter yer valubles, Harry, an yeh might want ter close yer eyes, this is gonna be a rough ride. Even I get sick on these damned carts.”
Harry nodded, and closed his eyes just in time for the cart to go whizzing off at breakneck speed, twisting and turning this way and that. Hagrid sounded very ill, but managed to keep his food in. Harry was not so lucky, managing to hold it in just long enough for the cart to jerk to a stop before tossing his breakfast over into the abyss below.
Luckily, the goblin patiently gave Harry a couple minutes to find his land legs again, and staggered over to the vault door. It was only then that he registered something that had been said earlier. “Wait, did you say I had a key? Where are we, Hagrid?”
The goblin answered instead. “Vault 687, held in trust for Harry James Potter, by his parents, Lily and James Potter.”
“My parents had a vault here?”
“Yes,” Griphook replied. “Very old wizarding family, the Potters. They go back all the way to the Peverells at least.”
Harry had no idea what that meant, so he just nodded. He watched the goblin place a small golden key into a lock and turn it, opening the vault door. Then he looked in, and began to gibber. Before his eyes was an enormous pile of gold, and smaller piles of silver and bronze. This was more money than he could ever have imagined. There was no way the Dursleys knew of this, and he wasn't going to tell them, ever; they would steal it from him, even if it meant coming into the wizarding world to do it.
“How... how much?”
“I don't know the exact figure off the top of my head, Mister Potter, but I would estimate at least fifteen million galleons. It is quite a large vault.”
“How much is that in pounds sterling?”
“At the current exchange rate, a galleon is worth about five pounds. A sickle is worth about 30 pence, and a knut is one pence.”
“I'm a millionaire?”
“Yes, Mister Potter,” Griphook said with a grin, “you are. Happy early birthday, Mister Potter.”
“From dirt poor to independently wealthy in less than a day. Wow.”
Using the information Griphook had given him, Harry took out 60 galleons, 100 sickles, and 25 knuts and put it in his bag. Then he asked the goblin, “You mentioned an exchange rate, so I take it that means I could exchange some of this for pounds?”
“Yes, Mister Potter. You can exchange money with any of the tellers upstairs.”
He nodded and got back into the cart. He and Hagrid then endured another ride to a deeper vault, vault 713. Harry barely had the presence of mind to pay attention to Griphook opening that door, but caught a glimpse inside. The only thing in that vault was a grubby little package, which Hagrid collected. He wondered what could be that valuable, that it would have its very own vault all the way down here.
“Er, don't mention this ter anybody, Harry; it's secret stuff. Come ter think on it, maybe I shouldn't have gotten it with you around.”
“Don't worry, Hagrid, your secret's safe with me.”
Apparently his word was good enough for Hagrid, and so he had a moment of cheerfulness before they had to endure the trip back up. By this point, Harry had nothing left in his stomach, so he was dry heaving over the side. They quickly got out, and as soon as the both of them got their land legs back, they went to the teller, where Harry got gave the goblin 4 galleons and some sickles, and got about 20 quid in muggle money in exchange. Then he put his earmuffs back on, but Hagrid was too woozy to trust himself to carry Harry, so instead, they went hand in hand to the Leaky Cauldron to get some soup and pumpkin juice for Harry, and an enormous tankard of ale for Hagrid.
“Drinking on the job?” Harry teased.
“Aye, jes a lil pick-me-up. Don' worry, I'm so big I'd haf ter drink at leas' four times this to even start ter get tipsy.” He drank half of it in one gulp before continuing, “Sides which, if I never got ter drink on the job, I wouldn't get ter drink very often.”
When they finished their meal and felt human again, Harry put his earmuffs on and braved Diagon Alley with Hagrid again. He found, with the earmuffs on, that the visual noise was tolerable, and so with relative ease they went all over the place, getting books, a cauldron, potions supplies, and more. Finally, the last thing was a wand.
“Listen, I'm gonna get yeh a birthday present. I know it's a bit early, but I won't be able to come round again til the first o' September. Don't look at me like that; I don't spect yeh've ever had a birthday present before with them Dursleys. It's me own money, an I want ter get yeh somfin. I know, I'll get yeh an owl. Dead useful they are, carry yer mail an all. Yeah, you get yer wand 'ere an I'll be back before three shake of a bowtruckle.”
Hagrid, humming happily, wandered off to find Harry an owl, and Harry went into Ollivander's and looked around.
“Hello?” he called out experimentally.
Suddenly, a pale-eyed old man rolled into view on a ladder. “Ah, Mister Potter, I wondered when I would meet you. Oh, and here's another customer, too. First come first serve, miss... uh, miss...”
“Granger, sir. Hermione Granger. And these are my parents,” said a black girl, her hair even wilder and bigger and bushier than his own, grinning back at her mother and father, both of whom were also black.
“Hmm, Granger, eh? Any relation to Hector Dagworth-Granger?”
“Doubtful, sir. I'm muggleborn.”
“Ah yes, good good. Well anyway, Miss Granger, Mister Potter was here first, so I shall tend to him first.”
She nodded, and the three of them sat down. Mister Ollivander began measuring him with a measuring tape that was moving of its own accord, while he looked through boxes. What followed was 15 minutes of trying one wand after another without luck. Instead of being frustrated by this as Harry was, Mr. Ollivander got more excited with every failed wand. Finally, though, he paused at one wand and said, “I wonder,” before picking it up and handing it to Harry to try. Harry swished the wand like all the others, not expecting anything to happen, and was pleasantly surprised to find it created sparks.
“Wonderful, wonderful! Here, let's get you paid up, and I'll box that up for you. After all, students are not allowed to do magic except in Hogwarts, at least until they come of age.”
As he took Harry's money, he muttered to himself. “Curious, very curious...”
“Sorry, but what's curious?”
Olivander eyes the Grangers briefly, then cast some sort of spell wandlessly.
“There, silencing charm. Now they can't hear us. What is curious, Mr. Potter, is that the phoenix whose tail feather comprises your wand's core gave only one other feather. Wands choose their wizards, Mr. Potter, so it is curious that you should be fated to this wand, when it's brother gave you that scar.
“Ah,” Harry said, feeling ill. “Are you sure they can't hear us?”
“I would not tell you something so grave and private if I thought there was any risk of another overhearing us, Mr. Potter; on that, you have my word.”
Swallowing a hard lump in his throat, Harry took his wand and moved away from the register. Hagrid still wasn't back yet, so Harry waited while Hermione got her wand. It only took Ollivander five tries to find her a wand. Where Harry's was made of holly wood with a phoenix feather core, Hermione's was vine wood and dragon heartstring.
Hagrid finally showed up, tapping the window gently to show he couldn't come in. He was holding a lovely snowy owl in a bronze-colored cage.
“Oooh, what a lovely owl,” Hermione exclaimed. “Oh mum, can I get an owl too?”
“No, dear, not this year anyway. Your father and I will think about it.”
“Well, it was nice meeting you, Hermione.”
“You too, Harry. See you on the train, I hope.”
Harry waved goodbye, put his earmuffs back on, and left with Hagrid. Before long, they were taking the rubber-duck portkey back. To both their relief, the portkey took them to a sheltered part of the Dursley's back yard. To their consternation, however, this startled Petunia, who was gardening, and she screamed, running into the house in terror.
Hagrid did not go right away. During their soup earlier, Harry had mentioned his cupboard under the stairs, so the giant man was going to have a few words with the Dursley's. Before he left, Harry was able to move all his things into Dudley's spare bedroom. With Hagrid's help, they cleared out all of Dudley's rubbish and chucked it in the bin, which caused a whole new ruckus. Eventually, though, Hagrid terrified the Dursleys into submission, and Harry watched Hagrid reuse the first portkey and vanish into thin air. Already, Harry began to count down the days til September the first.
~
Note: Don't worry, things will get better for Harry in the next chapter.
Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, is a young and abused Black boy with Asperger's syndrome, and is hated by his guardians, the Dursleys. A little over a week before his birthday, he discovers that he is also a wizard, and the Dursleys knew all along. Not only is he a wizard, but he's also famous in the wizarding world! An AU fanfic.
(Transgender character introduced in chapter 7)
Author's note: Harry Potter is J.K. Rowling's work, not mine. I only wish I'd written it so I could be wealthier than the queen, but alas, such is not the case.
Chapter 3: Freedom
Harry barricaded the door of his new bedroom after Hagrid left, fearful of his uncle getting retribution on him. Luckily, his uncle didn't come into his room that night; he was probably terrified of Harry, but Harry didn't know how long that would keep the man away, especially since they'd known all along he had magic. To try to take his mind off his worries, he opened his History of Magic textbook and began to read it. He found a name for his owl there, calling her Hedwig.
He was about to go to bed when an owl tapped on the window. He opened it and took the letter from its leg. It was from Professor McGonagall.
Dear Mr. Potter,
The incident today, and the things you told me, have been weighing on my mind all day long, and so I talked with Dumbledore about it. He then looked into what he could do. He is still investigating long-term solutions, but he agreed with me that your relatives cannot be trusted with your safety. I have sent this owl to warn you that I will be dropping by tonight, to relocate you to a place called The Burrow, where the Weasley family will keep you for the remainder of the summer holidays. They are well known and trusted, and are very warm and loving people. See you soon.
Yours sincerely,
Professor Minerva McGonagall
He had barely finished reading the letter when the doorbell rang, soon followed by his uncle bellowing.
“Who the BLOODY HELL is calling at this hour of the night?”
Harry stayed in his new room, not wanting to be anywhere near his uncle while this was happening. He did listen at the door, however, and heard the door slam open, his uncle begin to speak, and then fall dumb. Finally being curious enough to risk coming out of his room, he hung around at the top of the stairs.
"What are you back for? And at this late hour of the night, no less? Do you have any idea what TIME it is? No, I suppose you don't; your lot don't---"
"MISTER Dursley, IF you would be so kind as to shut up for a minute and let me in so I can explain, I would gladly do that. Unless you'd rather we wake up the whole neighborhood?"
Harry could not see his uncle from where he stood, but could hear the grinding of teeth, and could almost swear he heard the pounding of the vein in his uncle's temple. But he must have seen the wisdom in this, and reluctantly let McGonagall in, closing the door behind her.
"Thank you. Now, I'm sorry to be here so late at night, but after the appalling spectacle you put on earlier, and after some of the things Harry said, I had a talk with Professor Dumbledore, the Hogwarts headmaster, and he quite agrees with me that it is unsafe for Harry here, at least for the time being. We have not made any permanent changes to the arrangements, and we're not even sure if we will or not. Dumbledore explained to me that he set up blood wards that protect Harry from You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters while he lives in this house, but if you have been mistreating him anywhere near as bad as--"
"We haven't done anything to the boy that he didn't deserve! Young hooligan, he should thank his lucky stars we haven't sent him to Saint Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal B--"
Harry peered down to see why Vernon had suddenly gone quiet, save for some whimpering, and saw that McGonagall was pointing her wand at his nose.
"That boy has not deserved any of the treatment you have given him. He is malnourished, was living in a cupboard under your staircase until Hagrid forced you to move him to a proper bedroom, he has been worked like a slave and treated like dirt by you and your whole family. And after I explained all that to Dumbledore, he was so upset with you that I am quite surprised he did not send you a Howler, which would have been a very rude awakening for you indeed. Right now the only thing standing between the Ministry turning you in to the Muggle authorities for child neglect and abuse are the blood wards I mentioned, and a thorough examination by a trained Healer for evidence. And if we can figure out a protection for Harry that does not involve the three of you being in charge of his welfare, you and your wife will go to prison.”
"HOW--"
"NO, not a single word, Mr. Dursley! You and your wife have let your anti-wizard bigotry and your... your... anti-Black racism - a ridiculous reason to hate someone, by the way - and have used it as an excuse to mistreat a relative of yours, a child who should have been loved and cared for. Frankly, on top of child abuse, you ought to also be charged with illegal slavery, as well.
"For the meantime, however, we are taking Harry off your hands for the remainder of the summer. A very nice wizarding family has volunteered to care for him until he can go to Hogwarts. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, both very loyal to Dumbledore. So, Harry, why don't you pack your things, so we can leave this miserable lot to their own devices for now."
"Oh, uh... yes, sure. Be right back!"
It didn't take long; he hadn't actually unpacked his school things yet, so all he had to do was add his few other meager possessions to his trunk, and then drag the heavy trunk to the top of the stairs. When McGonagall saw how much trouble it was giving him, she charmed the trunk to float down the stairs.
"Um... thanks, Professor."
"It's no trouble, Mr. Potter."
"So how are we leaving, Professor?"
"Professor Dumbledore gave me a portkey," she said, pulling a battered looking teddy bear with a missing eye from her robes. Harry looked at it curiously.
"I'm unsure how good of a choice this one was, but it won't be a portkey once we get to the Burrow. Anyway, just let me send your trunk and owl along first." She pointed her wand at his trunk with Hedwig in her cage atop it, and they vanished with a small pop.
"Now, hold the bear with me."
He took the bear's leg, Vernon staring at the two of them like they were mad. "And three, two, one..."
Harry felt a jerk behind his navel and a rushing of wind as he and Professor McGonagall flew through a swirly, blurry space, then he landed hard on his bottom in grass, and the world re-formed around him. Straightening his glasses, he looked behind McGonagall and saw a tremendously tall house that looked like it had been a barn once before being added to again and again. It looked like it only remained standing because of magic. Which, he mused, was probably true.
"Welcome to the Burrow, home of the Weasley family. It's in a village called Ottery Saint Catchpole. By the way, Potter, your glasses have seen better days. May I...?"
"Um... may you what, Professor?"
"Repair them for you, of course."
"Oh, okay."
He was about to take them off and hand them to her when she pointed her wand at them and said "Oculus reparo."
The tape holding his glasses together vanished, but they stayed in place; his glasses had been repaired.
"Thanks. Hey, do you know if magic can correct eyesight?"
She blinked at him significantly. He wasn't great shakes at figuring out facial expressions, but he did notice she was wearing glasses.
"Oh. I take it that's a no."
"Not as yet, Mister Potter."
"Why not?”
"Hmm... well I don't know why we haven't figured it out yet, but maybe if you can figure out how to do it, you could make a name for yourself. Well, one you'd properly earned, rather than by accident of fate. Anyway, we need to get up to the Burrow."
Nobody was awake at the Burrow, with the exception of a plump, kindly woman with flaming red hair, and an apron hastily flung over her nightgown. "Professor McGonagall, how nice to see you again," the kindly woman beamed, holding her arms out. The two women hugged, which struck Harry as a little odd for the severe, rigid Professor McGonagall to do.
"Likewise, Molly."
"Ah, and this must be young Harry." She glanced briefly at the lightning-shaped scar on his head, pretending hastily she hadn't done so. Then she clucked disapprovingly. "You're skinny as a rail dear, what have those horrible people been feeding you, birdseed?"
"So I take it Dumbledore explained the situation to you, Molly?"
"Yes, he did. I hope you throw the book at those people, Minerva. And I hope it's a very large and heavy book at that. Have a safe trip back, Minerva. Anyway, Harry m'dear, I have some stew on the fire for you, leftover from earlier tonight."
"W-what? No no, that's okay. I ate earlier at the Leaky Cauldron, with Hagrid."
"Yes, dear, but that was hours ago," she said, taking his hand and pulling him gently along to the house. "You're a growing boy, you need food to fuel that growth."
"I don't want to be a burden," Harry said, practically whispering.
"Oh now don't talk like that, it's no trouble at all. Minerva may not have told you, but I have a very large family, so one more mouth won't be any bother at all. And anyway, even if it was, I'd manage. We Weasleys always do. Anything to help out a child in need."
Harry looked back as they got to the porch, and saw McGonagall disappear with a pop from where she had been standing, then looked forward again just in time to avoid tripping over the stoop. Not long after that, he was sitting at a large and battered table, and a bowl full of thick, beefy stew was flying through the air to land in front of him, a spoon quickly following it. It was only then that he realized Mrs. Weasley had been right; he was hungry. So with no other thought beyond that, he began to dig in.
"Anyway, Harry, I guess we weren't properly introduced," Mrs. Weasley said, sitting across from him. "But I'm Molly Weasley."
"Thanks for getting me away from the Dursleys."
"No problem, dear. I don't know what Dumbledore was thinking, putting you with those people, but at least he's now starting to see sense. I hope he won't be making you go back. I'll hex him myself before I let that happen. Anyway, in Dumbledore's letter he told me to tell you that Minerva will be back tomorrow to take you to Saint Mungo's to get looked at."
"Saint Mungo's?"
"Ah yes, you were raised by Muggles. Saint Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, it's the local wizarding hospital. Their Healers will examine you for evidence of child abuse and neglect. Then it will be up to Dumbledore and McGonagall to figure out what to do with that evidence. And, I suppose, what to do with you over the summer. I hope they'll let you come here."
"McGonagall said there are blood wards at the Dursley's that protect me from the Death Eaters."
"Death Eaters? But You-Know-Who is gone, and most of his followers are in prison or abroad."
"Most?"
"Yes, well, a few of them escaped prison by claiming they'd been controlled. Problem is, there's a lot of people who were legitimately being controlled by You-Know-Who, but it's nearly impossible to tell who's lying and who's telling the truth. Anyway, you don't need to worry about them, they haven't made any trouble for 11 years, they're not about to start now. Eat, Harry, you-- oh, you're done? Well you're probably tired now. I'd normally put you in with Ron, but he's asleep right now, and I want to introduce the two of you before I put you with him. So just for tonight, I'll transfigure the sofa for you."
"You'll... what now?"
"Just you follow me and watch," she said. So he followed her into the living room, where she pointed her wand at the sofa, and it stretched out into a bed. With a couple flicks of her wand, she summoned sheets, a pillow, and a comforter from a cupboard and made the bed magically. She even summoned privacy curtains to go around it.
"Thank you, Mrs. Weasley."
She smiled warmly at him. "You're welcome, Harry." She tucked him in, and he felt more loved than he could ever remember, even though she'd only just met him. He fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
* - *
The smell of cooking woke him up, which was a novel experience for him. Usually Aunt Petunia's shrill voice woke him up, and cooking smells didn't start until he began cooking for the Dursleys. He sniffed as he opened his eyes, ignoring the blurriness of the world for the moment as he took in the smell of eggs, bacon, and toast. Then he looked around and saw what looked like a table, blurry as it was. He fumbled his hands on it for a while, looking for his glasses. He found them shortly, and put them on his face. As he did, he paused, his mind reeling from the sudden realization that in just three days, he'd gone from downtrodden abuse victim to finding out he was a wizard and living in a house where he was treated like a human being instead of a work horse.
A few minutes later, he walked into the kitchen/dining room to see seven bright-red heads around the table. He recognized Mrs. Weasley, and he thought the balding man might be Mr. Weasley, but he didn't know anyone else.
"Oh Harry, you're up. Everyone, this is Harry, he's our guest for the rest of the summer,” said Mrs. Weasley.
"Harry?" Mr. Weasley asked, looking up curiously. "Harry Potter?"
"Yeah, dad, it is! See his scar!" one of two male twins said excitedly.
"Now Fred, don't be rude. He's a guest, not a museum exhibit."
"I'm Fred! He's George! Honestly woman, you call yourself our mother."
"Oh, sorry Fred."
"Ha! Only joking, I am George!"
"Oh now, stop that you too. Anyway, Harry, one of these two idiots is Fred, the other is George."
A younger boy, nearly as tall as the twins, waved at him. "I'm Ron. The one staring at you like a deer in wandlight is Ginny, my little sister."
"Hi Ron, Ginny. Fred, George."
An older boy, looking very serious, stood up and held a hand out to Harry pompously. "Welcome to the Burrow, Harry Potter. My name is Percy Weasley. How do you do?"
The others rolling their eyes at Percy, Harry took his hand and shook it. "Um, quite well. And you?"
"Oh yes, quite well indeed. Honor to meet you at last, of course."
"Likewise," said Harry, not knowing what else to say.
"Sit down, dear, and have some bacon and eggs," Mrs. Weasley said.
He did as she asked; he was practically starving, after all. After he'd eaten for a few minutes, Mr. Weasley said, "So, raised by Muggles, right? Muggles are fascinating. Tell me, Harry, do you know how an aeroplane stays in the air?"
"Oh come now, Arthur, he's 11, how's he supposed to--"
"Through a process called lift. Muggle scientists figured it out. The wings of the plane move the air in such a way that there's a vacuum above the wings, and wind swirls below the wing, pushing it up into the vacuum. And that's how huge metal devices can be supported by nothing more than air. Something similar happens with bird wings, but it's a slightly different process, since they flap their wings."
Everyone had gone quiet, looking rather impressed.
"Wow, Harry," one of the twins said, "you've got quite a brain on you. You'll probably be a Ravenclaw, brains like that. The teachers will love you."
"Except Snape, of course, but he hates everyone," said the other twin.
Harry shrugged. "My aunt, uncle, and cousin hate me, as in 'they truly despise me.' Dudley made sure I had no friends. My only friends were books. My uncle wouldn't let me get a library card, so I had to read everything in the library, but that didn't really do more than slow me down a little."
"Weh, iv oo wuv buks--"
"RONALD! Don't talk with your mouth full!"
Ron swallowed loudly, then said, "If you love books, Harry, you'll love Hogwarts. I hear they've got an enormous library."
"Yeah, and Flourish and Blotts, the biggest bookstore in Diagon Alley."
Harry beamed. "Yeah, I've been to Flourish and Blotts, with Hagrid. It was amazing! And since I discovered my parents left me... uh, some money, I bought a few extra. It was a great feeling, I'd never had money before then."
Ron balked. "What, none at all?"
"The Dursleys never let me have any."
Ron looked incredulous. "Wow, mate. I mean, we're not exactly... having a lot of money ourselves, but even I get pocket money to spend now and then."
Harry shrugged. "Yeah, well, there's a lot I didn't have growing up. Heck, the only reason I have glasses is because I kept dropping things and bumping into stuff when they made me work, and eventually they figured out I wasn't doing it on purpose. But I don't want to talk about it anymore."
"Yes, and that's all well and good here, but later when Minerva takes you to Saint Mungo's, they're going to need you to talk about it with them."
Harry nodded. "I think I can talk with doctor about it."
“Doctor? You mean those Muggle nutters that cut people up? Nah, Saint Mungo's uses Healers.”
Harry shrugged. “Either way...”
Everyone nodded, and regular breakfast conversation started up again. Harry tuned it out, though, getting lost in his own thoughts. He didn't speak again until after he was done eating.
"Mrs. Weasley, do you know when Professor McGonagall is supposed to come pick me up?"
"Oh, not until around 2pm, dear."
Harry looked at the battered wristwatch that had briefly been Dudley's before his cousin chucked it out the window saying he didn't like the color; it was 9 AM. He had five hours.
"May I go out and explore the village? I never got much opportunity to leave the house with the Dursleys always wanting me to do stuff."
"Hmm... what do you think, Arthur?"
"Well... Percy? Could you go with him? I'd feel better if you were watching him."
"As much as I would love to oblige, father, I'm not of age yet and so I'm not allowed to do magic outside of school."
"Yes, but if you were defending Harry's life, they'd let you off."
"Hmm... well, I have all my homework done, so I guess I can do that."
"Can I come too?" asked Ron.
"Yeah, we can come as well, if you like," said one of the twins.
"If it's okay with your parents, I don't mind."
Mr. and Mrs. Weasley nodded. Mr. Weasley said, "The more, the better. More witnesses, if nothing else. But you all be back before 2, okay?"
"Right, mum, no problem."
A few minutes later, Harry and four of the Weasleys were walking to the village of Ottery Saint Catchpole, which wasn't very big and wasn't very interesting, but Harry was just glad to be able to have the freedom to be outside in the warm summer air. The whole time, Ron talked at him about Quidditch, and Hogwarts, and the wizarding world. The twins interjected now and then, but mostly it was Ron talking, which Harry was glad for. He didn't mind walking with the five Weasleys, but if all of them had been talking, he would have minded very much.
Naturally, Harry found the village's tiny library. He was not impressed, but browsed the shelves anyway with mild interest. The others seemed much more impressed, though; they'd never thought to come here before, with the exception of the twins, who were browsing the non-fiction section for books about Muggle magic tricks.
"A lot of wizards don't value Muggle learning, but we do," said either Fred or George. Harry had a hard enough time telling the other Weasleys apart, and the twins were impossible for him to differentiate.
"Yeah, we learned how to pick locks, and other useful things, by coming here. After all, we're underage wizards, we can't magically open locks when we're home, so we had to learn the Muggle way, which got us interested in other stuff."
Though it didn't have much in the way of books, the library did have a small periodicals section, which included some science magazines that Harry read with enthusiasm. Even Ron managed to get interested in reading; he was reading Muggle children's books with expressions ranging from amusement to confusion to one of being impressed.
After about an hour, someone else came into the small library, a blond girl about a year younger than Harry, who had a far-off expression on her face and wore a painfully yellow dress. Her hair was a little messy, and she was barefoot up until she got to the door, at which point she took some sandals out of her bag and put them on, under the watchful glare of the librarian.
"Ah," Ron said, looking up. "Loony Lovegood."
"Ronald," Percy said reprovingly, "her name is Luna."
"Yeah," said Harry. "Don't poke fun, it's not nice."
Ron's ears went red. "Sorry," he mumbled.
"Don't be sorry, be nice. Anyway, is she a Muggle?"
"No, she's a witch. Well, her father is a wizard, and I think I saw her do accidental magic once," said Ron. "Anyway, she won't be going to Hogwarts til next year, if she gets her letter, which I think she will."
"And she lives in the village?"
"Outskirts, like we do; only, the other side of the village. I've never seen it before, though."
Harry put a bookmark in the magazine, set it aside, and walked over. Ron and the Weasleys were nice enough, and maybe they'd become friends, but they were... well... they were neurotypical, a word he remembered from a book about Asperger's Syndrome, a condition he thought he had. And this girl, there was something different about her. He didn't know what, but he was drawn to her. Also, having never had friends before, now he could it made him a little... greedy? Yes, he was for friends.
He walked over to her and held out his hand. "Hi, I'm Harry."
The odd girl looked up at him with mild curiosity in her face, Her eyes flicked to his scar. "Hello, Harry," she said in a dreamy, far-off voice. "I'm Luna Lovegood. Is your surname Potter?"
"Yes, it is."
"Ah. Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, Harry. I didn't know you lived in town."
"I don't. I'm staying with the Weasleys for the rest of the summer."
"Ah, good. I like the Weasleys, they're nice. Ron judges me a little, but he mostly keeps it to himself."
"Yes, I noticed that as well."
"So you like reading Muggle books too, then? It's always good to see wizards take an interest in Muggle writing. They've accomplished so many amazing things without magic. Did you know they've even been to the moon? Or at least they say they have. Some Muggles aren't so sure it actually happened."
"Uh, yes, I knew that. I was raised by Muggles. We learned about the moon landing in school."
"Wow," said either Fred or George, having overheard. "Muggles have been to the moon?"
"I wonder what would happen if you put a werewolf on the moon?" asked the other one.
"Well," Harry said, "unless they had a spacesuit on, they'd probably die from lack of air before they had a chance to transform."
"Yes, but what if they had a spacesuit on? Would they change? Would they be able to change, in the suit? Or would the suit rip and they'd die of lack of air?"
"No idea. Probably."
"My daddy thinks a werewolf on the moon would only change if they saw a full Earth in the sky. But he wouldn't want to try to find out, unless the werewolf volunteered. My daddy thinks lycanthropy should be treated like an illness, not like something dangerous. Werewolves are only dangerous during the full moon, after they've transformed. Now an umgubular slashkilter, those are dangerous all the time."
Harry stared at Luna, lost for words. Ron whispered in his ear, "Luna and her dad believe some weird things."
"No need to whisper, Ron," Luna said in her same dreamy voice, "I know what you're saying about me. But that's okay, I'm used to people talking about me behind my back. And even in front of me. I forgive you."
Ron looked embarrassed. His ears were red again, and he hung his head a little. "Sorry," he mumbled.
"It's alright. I know I'm unusual. But really, who isn't? And Harry's even more unusual than me, aren't you, Harry?"
"Um... am I?"
"Well you survived a killing curse from a very evil man, and your brain doesn't work the same way most other people's brains do, though those two things are not connected at all."
"Yeah, that's true. I tend to be mildly to moderately uncomfortable around other people. The Weasleys are nice, and I want to be friends with them and I think I will, but even they make me mildly uncomfortable. You don't, though. Something about you... you're the only person I've ever met that I think I could spend a lot of time with and not get my headaches."
"Really? Well that's nice of you to say. I wish I could go with you to Hogwarts this year, but sadly I'm not old enough yet. Next year, though. It will be nice to have friends before I even get there. I've never had friends before."
"Neither have I; my cousin wouldn't let me have any. Anyway, I'll write you when I get there. I have an owl now, named Hedwig. Do you... would you like to meet her?"
"That sounds wonderful. That is, if they Weasleys don't mind."
"Actually," Percy said, "I do think mother would be more comfortable if we went back. So yes, you may come with us, Luna. Harry, if you want to check out those magazines, get them on Fred or George's card."
Not long after that, they'd gotten their books and magazines checked out, and were walking back to the Burrow, Harry and Luna trailing behind. Luna was barefoot again, her eyes tracking something flying around them that only she could see.
"What are you looking at?" Harry asked.
"Oh, just a wrackspurt. I'm watching it in case it flies into one of our heads and makes our brains go fuzzy. Do you think that's weird?"
"No. Until recently, I didn't believe in magic, so who am I to say what does and doesn't exist? If I can have a conversation with a boa constrictor about Brazil, I don't see that wrackspurts would be any--"
"WHAT?" Ron shouted, whirling around. "What did you say?"
Harry frowned a little, a headache starting to threaten to manifest. "I said 'if I can have a conversation with a boa constrictor about Brazil'--"
"You can speak with snakes?"
"Well boa constrictors were snakes last I knew, so yes. Why?" Everyone was staring at him, even Luna. Admittedly, Luna was looking impressed, and everyone else was looking uncomfortable.
Percy spoke before Ron could. "Speaking with snakes is called parseltongue, Harry, and it is a rare gift. One that most wizards and witches associate with the dark arts."
"Oh that's silly," Luna said. "Snakes are just animals. Talking with them isn't a dark art. Animagi can speak with animals when they're in animal form. Just because Salazar Slytherin and the dark lord Vol--"
Everyone gasped. "--demort," she continued, "could speak with snakes doesn't make parseltongue a dark art."
"Well, I guess not," Percy said. "Harry doesn't strike me as being evil, at least. But still, Harry, you should keep that fact about yourself as secret as you can. A lot of people will judge you ill for it."
"And what about the rest of you?"
"What Percy said, mate," Fred or George said. "In fact, we think it's pretty cool."
Harry turned to Ron. Ron nodded. "A bit startling to hear someone just blurt it out like that, but I agree with Percy and Luna."
"Hmm... maybe I should get a pet snake, too?"
"You'd have to ask Professor McGonagall about it first. Only owls, cats, and toads are officially allowed at Hogwarts," said Percy. "I've seen a few other pets there, which were allowed. The official rules are in place merely so the school doesn't become a zoo or a menagerie. And also because some people have kept some very strange and even dangerous animals as pets, before."
"You mean like how Hagrid wishes he had a dragon?"
Percy nodded. "Yes, but even if Hogwarts rules allowed it, our laws forbid dragons being kept as pets. They're enormous, they breathe fire, and they cannot be tamed. It would be a serious breach of the International Statute of Secrecy. It's hard enough keeping Muggles ignorant of wild dragons in Britain and elsewhere without keeping them as pets in populated areas."
Harry's eyes went wide. "There are dragons in Britain?"
"Yeah," Ron said. "Common Welsch Green and Hebridean Blacks."
"Anyway, all,” Percy interrupted, “we're here now."
"Lunchtime!" Ron shouted, running ahead. Harry checked his watch; it was 12:45.
Lunch was sandwiches and crisps - home made by the look of it. Luna tried to politely decline a sandwich, but Mrs. Weasley insisted, so Luna insisted on "paying" for her meal with a free copy of her father's magazine, the Quibbler. Mrs. Weasley merely rolled her eyes and sighed, but Harry took the copy and read it while eating. He found it nearly impossible to believe anything written in it, but he did try to keep an open mind about it. And so, like nearly everything else he read, he remembered it all, no matter how absurd it was.
After lunch, Harry introduced Luna to Hedwig, whom Luna called a “gorgeous owl.” Luna gave Hedwig an owl treat, and she and Harry talked for several minutes.
Eventually they got tired of standing, so they sat down in the sitting room and Harry dug out his Potions textbook and began to read, to relax himself as he waited for McGonagall to show up. Ron kept looking oddly at Harry as Harry read his book while still managing to add to the conversation now and then, and so did the other Weasleys to a lesser degree, but Luna acted like it was perfectly normal. In fact, she was reading her own copy of the Quibbler in the same manner Harry was reading his Potions book.
"Why are you doing schoolwork before school's even started?"
"To you, this is just schoolwork. To me, it's a fascinating look at a world I've only recently become aware of. Plus, I've always liked the learning part of school, even if I hated the bullying and the not having friends."
At 2pm on the dot, Professor McGonagall showed up to take Harry to Saint Mungo's with her. Luna waved goodbye and said she'd stay at the Burrow at least until he got back.
Harry managed to keep a headache away during the trip to Saint Mungo's by immersing himself in the Potions book, but did look up now and then to see where he was going and watch for threats. Given his apparent history, he thought it prudent to begin working on ways to pay attention to his surroundings without letting them overwhelm him, and this was an important first step.
The Saint Mungo's building itself was outwardly very mundane, appearing to be the front of a shop that was closed for remodeling, with some dummies modeling boring clothing. He was only mildly surprised when one of the mummies moved slightly, letting them in. Then the noise and fuss in the lobby threatened to overwhelm him again, so he tuned it out and kept reading his Potions book, all through McGonagall's explanation of what they were there for, the brief wait, and then all the way to the room one of the Healer's assistants led them to.
The Healer's assistant had Harry put his book down to get his weight, and let him go back to his book once that was done and some questions answered. He was very glad this room was quiet. When the Healer came in, he put the book down.
"Let's see, Harry James Potter," said the Healer, a kindly looking blond woman in her early 30's. "Ten years old until July 31st, African heritage. Hmm..." she said a few other things he barely registered, then began the examination. It was much like the few times he'd been to the doctor, but the magical equivalent of an x-ray was done by wand, and there were magical devices he didn't understand taking readings he couldn't fathom.
When the physical exam was done, she asked him a lot of questions, including some of a nature he hoped nobody outside this room would ever know he'd been asked; even McGonagall looked uncomfortable. By the time the Healer finished, she had to give him a potion for the headache he'd gotten.
"You were right, Professor McGonagall," the Healer told her. "He has indeed been abused and neglected. The physical abuse isn't as bad as I'd feared, after what you and Dumbledore said, but still bad enough. And he's very malnourished; I could feel his ribs too easily, and he's much too short for his age. If you want to press charges, there's more than enough here to convict."
"Thank you," Professor McGonagall said. "Please hold onto it for now. We still haven't figured out what to do about his security arrangements, and until we do, we have to wait. I hope we do figure out something, because I don't think he's actually safe there."
"Yes, given what I've observed, and what you reported, Mr. Potter, I'm frankly astonished you've turned out as well as you seem to have done. I would recommend a return visit to see a mental health specialist, because you have a lot of symptoms that could be PTSD - hardly surprising. But there appear to be other things going on as well, that I'm not qualified to diagnose."
"Thank you very much, Healer Green."
Harry thanked the Healer too, and followed McGonagall out, his nose once more in his Potions book.
Later, when she dropped him back off at the Burrow, he made the effort to bid Luna farewell, made easier by her picking up on his distress and accommodating it. More difficult was getting Ron to understand he needed some time alone to recover, but the twins helped him out in that regard, taking Ron outside for some Quidditch while Harry - whose things had been moved into Ron's room - went up to his bed and switched from the Potions book to History of Magic. At this rate, he was going to be well on his way to the top of his class by the time he got to Hogwart's.
Note: I mostly abhor the movies, at least from the third one and later, and mostly dislike the use of movie canon in fanfics (as opposed to book canon), but "oculus reparo" is one part of movie canon I like, and there are a few other details from the movies I prefer.
Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, is a young and abused Black boy with Asperger's syndrome, and is hated by his guardians, the Dursleys. A little over a week before his birthday, he discovers that he is also a wizard, and the Dursleys knew all along. Not only is he a wizard, but he's also famous in the wizarding world! An AU fanfic.
(Transgender character introduced in chapter 7)
Note: A bit of harmless fanfic fun for no money, written by a fan who only WISHES she owned the Harry Potter rights.
Chapter 4: Hogwarts At Last
The rest of his month-plus time at the Burrow was pretty easy, a mix of socializing with the Weasleys or Luna, and hiding away in Ron's room to recharge. It was a little hard with the painfully orange colors of Ron's Quidditch team everywhere in that room, but if Harry read under the blankets with a magical torch he'd gotten for his birthday, he could manage it without a problem. The earmuffs occasionally helped too, whenever Fred and George started making loud bangs in their room.
On the day before he was to leave for Hogwart's, Harry carefully packed everything up and put it by Ron's door. Because of this, he was the first person ready to go in the morning, which gave him time to help Ron get ready, including finding Ron's pet rat Scabbers, who was sleeping in one of the kitchen cupboards, apparently after gorging himself on biscuits. It was difficult dealing with the panicky lateness of the Weasleys, but Harry managed it by putting his earmuffs on and reading his Transfiguration book. He had switched to that one because he realized History of Magic would be easy for him, and Transfiguration not as easy, so he wanted to get a head start.
They made it to platform 9 and 3/4ths with several minutes to spare, but still had to hurry to get their things aboard. Ginny hid behind Mrs. Weasley's skirts. During his short stay there, the only person who did not yet know Ginny had a crush on Harry was Harry himself, who was oblivious to such things.
Ron opened the door to the compartment where Harry was with relief. "There you are. Been looking for you. Ah, nose in a book again, why'm I not surprised?" Ron was grinning in amusement at his friend's swottiness. He closed the door behind him and sat down. "You're gonna be top of our year at this rate. Bet you could already do spells if you put your mind to it. You know we're allowed to do magic on the train, right?"
"Oh, that's good to know. I've been excited to try, now I have a chance." Harry put his book away and got out his wand. "What spell should I try?"
Ron shrugged. "No idea. Only spell I know is one to turn Scabbers yellow, but I don't think it's a real spell. Fred and George taught me."
"Did it work for them?"
"Well, they couldn't do it out of school any more than I could."
"Go ahead and try it."
"Okay. 'Sunshine, daisies, butter mellow, turn this stupid fat rat yellow.'"
Nothing happened.
"Ah well, like I said, probably not a real spell."
A round faced boy came into the compartment just then, out of breath and looking woebegone. "Have either of you seen a toad named Trevor? He's missing."
Harry looked at Ron, who shook his head. "Sorry, we haven't seen any toads."
"He keeps getting away from me," the boy moaned.
"Well do you have a cage for him?"
"A cage that would keep a toad in but not break and be a danger to him? No."
"I think I read somewhere that glass can be enchanted to be unbreakable."
"Really? Well I'll look into that later. Assuming I ever find him." The boy closed the door, calling for his pet toad.
"Do toads come when called?" Harry asked.
"Regular toads, no; but magical toads might. Dunno."
A plump woman came by pushing a trolley full of food. "Anything off the trolley dears?"
Intrigued by the unusual treats, Harry bought a little of everything and shared with Ron, who was pleasantly surprised by Harry's wealth and generosity.
"When you said you had money from your parents, you weren't kidding."
"You think that's impressive..." Harry started, trailing off.
"Go on," Ron prompted.
"Well... I don't want to sound like I'm bragging or anything. But there was... well, I won't have to worry about money until after I graduate, at least."
"Makes sense, I guess. I think your mum and dad were Aurors. Not sure, though."
"Aurors?"
"Dark wizard catchers."
"Sounds like a cool job."
"Yeah it is." Ron looked at a Chocolate Frog card he'd gotten. “Dumbledore again. You want him? You can start collecting.”
Harry took it, and read the card:
ALBUS DUMBLEDORE
CURRENTLY HEADMASTER OF HOGWARTS
Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the Dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon’s blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel. Professor Dumbledore enjoys chamber music and ten-pin bowling.
Harry was astonished that the photograph was moving, even more so when it left the frame to wander off. Ron assured him Dumbledore would be back later.
They were three-fourths the way through the huge pile of sweets when the compartment door opened and a bond boy with slicked-back hair and a smug expression came in, two thuggish cronies behind him. "I heard rumors Harry Potter was in here. So you're him, then?"
"Uh, yes." Harry held out his hand. "Harry Potter. And you?"
"Malfoy. Draco Malfoy," the boy said, shaking hands. Ron snorted with laughter, and Draco turned to glare at him.
"Think my name's funny, do you? No--"
"Don't be rude, Ron," Harry said, cutting off Draco.
"Yeah, Weasley, don't be rude," Draco sneered.
"Draco," Harry said warningly. “Don't you be rude either, please.”
"What? You'd tell me not to be rude to a blood tr--"
"I had enough enemies in my old schools, I don't want any here. But Ron is my friend, and I expect you two to at least be civil to one another, if you want to be my friend too."
Draco and Ron both looked affronted, but Draco remained quiet and pensive, regarding Harry with immense curiosity. "Yes, of course," Draco said, his whole manner changing to one of refinement and politeness. "My apologies; in all the excitement of going to Hogwarts at last, I quite forgot my manners. Please accept my apologies. To... both of you."
"Apology accepted," Harry said.
Ron grunted. Harry and Draco both accepted this.
"Anyway, these here are my associates, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle."
"A pleasure," Harry said. "And this is my friend, Ronald Weasley. His family took me in for the last part of the summer."
Draco sat down next to Harry. There wasn't enough room for Crabbe and Goyle, at least not without Ron making a scene, so Draco had them remain standing. He then turned back to Harry, the strain of thinking before speaking obvious on his pale face. "You stayed with them? May I inquire why?"
Harry thought about it. "Well, I don't like my aunt and uncle very much, and the feeling is mutual. They're Muggles, and terrified of magic. Let's just leave it at that."
"I see. Well, since you were raised by Muggles, I doubt you've heard of my family before. We are very wealthy and have connections in the Minstry of Magic, if ever you need a favor. My father would be delighted to perform a favor for the famous Harry Potter."
"A generous offer. I'll keep it in mind. Please give your father my greetings."
"Of course. And... and give Mr. and Mrs. Weasley my greetings as well."
"I shall."
Ron scowled. Draco gave Ron a slight sneer when Harry wasn't looking.
"Well, it was a pleasure to meet you, Harry Potter. But I'm feeling a little peckish, so I'm going to go see if I can still get something off the trolley. Hope you're in Slytherin house with me, I could help you out much easier from there. Until later, Harry Potter."
"Likewise, Draco Malfoy."
Draco stood up and inclined his head at Harry. "Crabbe, Goyle, come." And with that, they left the compartment and closed the door behind them.
Ron got up and peeked through the door to watch them go. Once he was sure they were gone, he sat next to Harry (on Harry's other side so as to not get Malfoy cooties) and whispered, "What was that all about? Why are you being friendly with the Malfoys? His father was a Death Eater, one of the ones that avoided going to Azkaban."
"Azkaban?"
"It's the wizard prison for Britain and Ireland. Don't change the subject."
"It's like I said before, I've had enough enemies in my life already without making new ones."
"But he thinks Muggles, Muggle-borns, and blood traitors - people who like Muggles and Muggle-borns - are all scum. His family hates my family."
"Well maybe I can change their minds. I've been a victim of bigotry all my life, I refuse to just accept it here in the wizarding world, too. Even if it's futile, I'm going to fight bigotry. And making friends with people like Draco stands a better chance of changing his mind that declaring war on him would. He's just a kid, like us; he's just parroting his father's beliefs. But it's not too late to change his mind, you see?"
"I guess."
"You gonna be civil around him?"
Ron gritted his teeth, but nodded. "Yes, if he's civil with me."
Harry shrugged. "It'll do."
Just then, the door to their compartment opened again, startling them both. Harry recognized the new person as the black girl from Ollivander's; she was already dressed in her school robes. "Oh, hi Harry!" she exclaimed.
"Hi Hermione!"
"You two met already?"
"Yeah," Harry said. "We met in Ollivander's. Hermione... Granger, right?"
Hermione nodded. "Nice to see you again. Who's your friend?"
Ron held out his hand. "Ron Weasley."
She shook his hand, smiling. "Oh, I almost forgot, have either of you seen a toad? A boy named Neville's lost one."
"Oh," said Harry, "so that's his name? He was here earlier, ran off before we could make introductions. Like we told him, we haven't seen Trevor yet."
"Oh, okay. Hey, who were those three boys in here earlier? They looked an unpleasant lot."
"Draco Malfoy was the blonde. The other two were Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. They were making introductions."
"Oh, well that's good. When I saw them, I was worried they were picking a fight or something." She looked at Ron. "Um... you have dirt on your nose, by the way. Right there. Ah, there, you got it. Anyway, I'm going to go help Neville some more. See you two later. Oh, and you should get changed, I have it on good authority we're almost there."
She left hurriedly, and Ron stared after her, bewildered. "Well that was an experience. But I reckon she's right, Harry, we should get changed. Even if she's wrong, it couldn't hurt."
Harry nodded, and so they got changed into their school robes and hats, the sky outside getting darker and darker. "Where is Hogwarts, anyway?"
"Dunno. Somewhere in Scotland. But they keep the exact location a secret, with magic. I know the village of Hogsmeade is nearby, cuz that's where the train stops, at Hogsmeade Station."
Thinking again, Harry sat down and began going through his books. One of the books he'd gotten was called "Hogwarts, A History." He silently chided himself for not reading this book sooner.
He only got to read for 20 minutes before the train stopped and everyone began getting out. They left their things on the train as instructed, since their things would go up separately, and followed Hagrid to a whole bunch of boats on the great black lake. Harry found himself wondering why they didn't just take the carriages up, as the older students were doing, but then he saw why: this route gave them a spectacular view of the castle for several minutes before it took them inside through a special access.
Grateful they were on dry land again, he trudged up the stairs with the others to the entrance hall just outside the Great Hall. McGonagall came to talk with them before long, talking about how the school houses would be like their families. Then she escorted them in, to stand in line before the Sorting Hat.
The old hat sang a song about the four school Houses first, Harry hanging on every word. Ravenclaw sounded excellent to him, and Griffindor sounded okay. He wasn't so sure about Slytherin, but was withholding judgment for now. He had no real preference at the moment, tough; he just wanted to end up wherever one or more of his two friends were.
Since their names were farther up the list than his, they both got placed before him. Both Hermione and Ron ended up in Griffindor, so Harry began to hope for Griffindor, too. He could still be friends with them in any House, but it would be easier in Griffindor. Also, he wasn't sure Ron would forgive him if he ended up in Slytherin.
Finally, it was his turn. The whole school went silent when his name was called, and then the mutterings began, about "the famous Harry Potter." He ignored it all and stepped forward, sitting on the stool. The hat was placed on his head.
"Difficult, difficult," said a voice in his mind, from the hat. "Plenty of brains, I see. Good heart, lots of bravery. Loyal, too, and hard working. Oh, and a thirst to prove yourself. But where to put you?"
Harry wasn't bothered too much where he went, of course, though it would be nice to be with Ron or Hermione, so he'd have at least one friend in his House; he concentrated on that.
"Ah yes, friends are important, Potter. Especially to someone who's never had them before. But you know, Slytherin would be an excellent fit for you as well; you could meet your true friends there."
He pondered that. He wasn't sure that was wise, given the House's reputation. Draco would be thrilled, of course, but that would complicate things too much. So he finally got firm about it, and decided not to go with Slytherin.
"Are you sure? You could be great, you know. It's all here, inside your head, and Slytherin would help you on your way to greatness, no doubt about that."
No, that's alright. I want to be with my friends.
"Well if you're sure, better be... GRIFFINDOR!"
The last word was shouted, and there was so much cheering Harry fought to keep a headache away. He removed the hat and went to join Ron and Hermione, who were already sitting together.
Once everyone was sorted, Professor Dumbledore - who looked like Gandalf, if Gandalf had been flamboyantly gay, gave a very odd yet brief statement before letting them tuck in. Food magically appeared before them in the golden dishes, and everyone began to stuff themselves like they were Christmas turkeys.
Percy was nearby, too, and Harry listened to the conversation as he ate, sometimes joining in. Partway through the meal, his gaze went over to the teachers' table and fell on a man wearing a purple turban, and a sallow, hook-nosed man with greasy black hair next to him, who was glaring at Harry with an all too familiar look of utter hatred. And, at the same time, his scar burned with pain.
"Ow!" He cried out, unwittingly.
"'Samatta?" Ron asked through a mouth full of ham.
"Nothing, just another headache starting. Too many people in here." It was at least partially true, he was indeed fighting another headache.
"Hey Percy, who's that man next to the guy with the turban? For that matter, who are they both?"
"Oh, the man with the turban is Professor Quirrell," Percy said. "He teaches Defense Against The Dark Arts. And the other man is Professor Snape. Snape wants Quirrell's job, never gets it for some reason, though, despite the fact we go through one DADA teacher a year."
"What does Professor Snape teach, if not DADA?"
"He teaches Potions."
Harry groaned. It figured, the one class that sounded the most interesting was the one taught by a man who already didn't like him. He wondered why Snape hated him. He also wondered if there was any way to get the man to change his mind about that hatred.
There were some warnings and announcements after the feast was over, including a strange one about it being deadly to go to a forbidden corridor on the third floor. Harry made a mental note to learn where that was so he could avoid it. But before long, Percy - a prefect - began leading them all to the Griffindor common room, and up to their dormitories. Harry managed to get a dormitory with Ron, Neville, and one other boy named Seamus Finnegan. Their things were already there, fortuitously, so he changed into his pajamas and went to bed, falling asleep almost at once.
The first school day that next morning was very uncomfortable for Harry. He was just trying to find his way to classes in the confusing corridors, but people kept trying to look at him due to his unwanted fame. He ignored it best he could, though, so he could focus on the task of finding his way to classes.
Worse, though, was trying to write anything with quill and ink. Hadn't wizards ever heard of ballpoint pens and paper? He suspected they only used parchment because they made it magically; true parchment was a pain to make as well as to use, without magic. Harry kept messing up his page with ink blots, and whenever the ink didn't blot, it didn't come out at all.
By the end of the day, he was so frustrated that he went to Professor McGonagall, his head of house, to ask if he could use pen and paper.
She nodded after he explained. "Ah, Potter, you're far from the only Muggle-raised person to have that concern. We don't accept assignments on paper, of course, but here, I have something for you." She handed him a purple quill. "This quill is charmed to release ink more smoothly, and the tip has been transfigured to be rounded, as well as a hardening spell put on the tip and shaft to make them hard as metal. And there's a simple spell to put horizontal lines on a parchment. Watch me."
She pulled a piece of parchment from a pile, pointed her wand at it, and incanted, "Membranis linea."
"Cool," he said. "So this quill will work like a ballpoint pen, but on parchment?"
"Yes, it will. Oh, while you're here, here's a few spares. You can even give them to your Muggle-born friends like Miss Granger," she said, giving him a handful of spare purple quills. "Anyway, try the spell yourself."
Putting the quills in his bag first, he pointed his wand at a new piece of parchment, and incanted the spell, "Membranis linea." It worked.
"So I can turn parchments in with these lines still on them?"
"Yes, Potter, you can. Professor Snape may not like it, but if he says anything, let me know, and I will remind him of Professor Dumbledore's stance on it."
“Thank you. Oh, and what if I need to correct a mistake?”
“There's an erasure spell, lapsus delens, to erase a mistake completely, and lapsus rectus is used to fix a mistake by replacing it. For the second spell, you have to be concentrating on the word you wish to have replace the mistake with, when you say the incantation, which makes that one a little more difficult.”
He wrote down a sentence with a mistake made on purpose, then tried the more difficult correction spell first; it worked, erasing the mistaken word and replacing it with... well, it was an entirely different wrong word, but he'd practice with it later. He then tried the simpler erasing spell, and the word disappeared.
"Thanks a lot, Professor. I really appreciate it."
“You're welcome, Mister Potter.”
Having the special quills helped a lot. The parchment still felt weird under his fingers, but the quills worked perfectly, just as easy as a ballpoint pen, but better because it was refillable by dipping the tip into an ink pot. As McGonagall predicted, Hermione and a few other Muggle-borns in Griffindor appreciated them too. Before long, news of these quills spread, and by the end of the week, he saw people in Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and even a couple people in Slytherin using the purple quills. And even purebloods could be seen using the spell to make guidance lines on the parchments.
The classes themselves were a mixed bag. Harry wasn't sure what he thought of herbology; the magical plants were interesting, but working with them reminded him a bit too much of the yardwork Aunt Petunia often made him do.
History of Magic disappointed him; it was a fascinating subject, but Professor Binns made it extraordinarily dull with his monotonous lecturing. It was too much for Harry, and he didn't know how Hermione managed. It was so bad that he decided to try to find out if there were dictation quills that would take notes for him.
Charms was cool. Professor Flitwick was so short that Harry wondered if he was half goblin or something of the sort. The tiny wizard, standing on a pile of books to see over his desk, fell over with an excited squeak when he read Harry's name on the class register.
When Harry had guessed McGonagall would be strict, he had been right. But though she was strict, she was fair. After warning them to not mess around in her class, she demonstrated transfiguration by turning the furniture into a pig and back again. Their own task was much simpler, though: matchsticks into needles. By the end of the lesson, only Harry and Hermione had managed it. Having two students in the same class do so well the first day made Professor McGonagall beam with a rare grin, and they both got points for Griffindor from her.
Their Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was a bad joke, as Professor Quirrell was a fraidy cat who stuttered a lot. The classes had him jumping at his own subject half the time, and he didn't seem to like to talk much about his personal experiences. Harry wondered why the man didn't transfer to something less frightening, or retire.
By Friday, Harry had figured out how to navigate to his classes, and even Ron had sorted it out. But it was also the day of their first Potions class with Professor Snape, a double period with the Slytherins. From what he'd heard over the week about Snape, Harry thought the man sounded worse than he'd feared. He would later realize he'd had no idea how bad the man was.
That morning in the Great Hall, Harry got a letter from Hagrid. It was not Harry's first letter, since he'd gotten one from Luna on Tuesday. This letter asked him (and his friends, too, if they wanted to) to come over to Hagrid's house after classes that day. That was good; he'd have something to look forward to, after Snape.
They waited down in the dungeons outside Snape's door, and before long he appeared, ushering them in. Then he, too, took roll call. When he got to Harry's name...
"Ah yes," Snape said softly, "Harry Potter. Our new... celebrity."
A few of the Slytherins sniggered, including Crabbe and Goyle. Draco motioned to them to shut up, though it looked like an afterthought. It seemed Draco had taken Harry's words to heart and was trying to stay on Harry's good side, though. It made sense; who wouldn't want the famous Harry Potter on their side? Well, except for Snape, of course.
"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art that is potion making," he began. He was barely louder than a whisper, but he had their complete attention and they caught every word. "There is little foolish wand waving or incantations in this class, so many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really comprehend the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind and ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death. If you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."
Harry had already been interested, but Snape's speech had him absolutely enthralled. Hermione, too, was on the edge of her seat, eager to prove she wasn't a dunderhead.
"Potter!" Snape snapped suddenly. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
He remembered this from his Potions book. Ignoring Hermione's outstretched arm, he said, "A sleeping potion so powerful it's called the Draught of Living Death."
Snape looked impressed, despite himself, and very annoyed about that fact.
"Lucky guess. Let's try another one: where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"
"In the stomach of a goat, sir."
Snape seemed to be waiting for something. When Harry didn't continue, he made an impatient motion and said, "And what does a bezoar do, Potter?"
"It will save the person you use it on from most poisons."
The professor again looked very torn between a desire to continue hating Harry, and being impressed.
"So you opened a book before school started, did you? Trying to suck up, no doubt? Potter, what is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"
Hermione bouncing in her seat for attention was a little annoying, but he again ignored it. "There is no difference, Professor. It's the same plant, a flower that is also known as aconite, and is pretty common in England. It's also poisonous."
The look on Snape's face was beginning to resemble the angry look on Uncle Vernon's face. "Sit DOWN," he snapped at Hermione. "I see, Mister Potter, that you are every bit the arrogant know-it-all that your father was. Not only famous, but with a need to show off as well. Five points from Griffindor for your insolence, Potter."
Harry was getting angry with Snape, but years of experience taught him to hide that anger, so he did. Besides which, nothing would be served by adding rudeness atop perceived arrogance. Snape had clearly decided to hate him, for whatever reason, and since the reason did not appear to be anything Harry had done, he didn't think there was any more chance of changing Snape's mind than there was of changing his uncle's mind. The reference to his father seemed to mean it wasn't racism, at least, or not just that. Snape clearly had a personal vendetta against Harry's father. He decided to just do the best he could in class and not give Snape more reason than he already had, to single him out.
"As for the rest of you," Snape said to the class at large, "why aren't you writing all this down?"
At that, everyone hurried to get out their quills and write down Harry's answers to Snape's questions.
Things got little better in that class. They were paired up to work on a potion to cure boils, and Snape swept through the class like an angry vulture while they brewed it, glaring at everyone and criticizing everyone but Malfoy, who he seemed to have a soft spot for. He was praising Malfoy when Neville's cauldron melted in a noisy smoking mess, burning holes in things. Neville himself was drenched in it, moaning in pain.
"Idiot boy!" snarled Snape, clearing the potion away with his wand. "I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking it off the fire? Take him up to the hospital wing," he added to Seamus.
"Potter! You're so smart, why didn't you tell him not to add the quills? Thought he'd make you look even better if he got it wrong, did you? That's another three points from Griffindor!"
This was completely unfair, of course, but Harry was no stranger to being unfairly accused of things, so he let it slide, despite being angry about it.
"I don't know how you stayed so calm back there," Ron said later as they left the dungeons, "but it's a good thing you did. I hear Snape can get really nasty. But don't worry too much, Fred and George get points taken away from them all the time. Anyway, can I go with you to Hagrid's?"
"Yeah, he said you and Hermione could come over too if you wanted. Where is-- oh, there she is."
Hermione came running up at that moment to greet them and ask them about their day. Harry invited Hermione to join them real quick first, in case he forgot later.
At five the three of them went to Hagrid's house, a little wooden hut that was barely big enough for a normal person, let alone a giant of a man like Hagrid; he also had a big, cowardly dog named Fang living in there with him. While they were at his place, they found a copy of the Daily Prophet saying "Gringott's Break-In Latest," an article about a break-in at Gringott's on 31st July.
"That was my birthday! Hagrid, that was several days after we were there! I wonder what they were after."
“No idea. So, uh, how's your school week been, Harry?” Hagrid said. Harry immediately launched into an account of his week, especially about Snape.
After they left Hagrid's, Ron turned to Harry and said, "Hagrid sure was nervous about that Gringott's break-in. Every time it came up, he looked really uncomfortable."
"Did he?" asked Hermione. "I didn't notice."
"Nor did I,” said Harry. “I wonder why." He thought about it a moment. "Well, he did get some top-secret package from Gringott's the day he took me there, something tiny in a grubby package. I don't know what that was, but it could be whatever the would-be thieves were looking for, given how difficult it is to break into and out of Gringott's."
It was a mystery, a real mystery. And as Harry's librarian in Little Whinging could attest to, Harry loved a mystery.
Later Harry, Ron, and Hermione were sitting in the Griffindor common room, talking. "I love these classes, except for Snape of course," Harry said, "but I miss Science. I even miss Maths. I'm not great shakes at Maths, but I still think it should be taught. Also Art. I'd like to know how to make drawings and paintings that move."
"What's Science?" asked Ron. Harry and Hermione stared at him incredulously. "What? It's a legitimate question."
"Science is the study of the way the world works. Things like the laws of motion, animal anatomy, how plants work, so on."
"How plants work? Well they just work with magic, don't they?"
"No Ron," Hermione said patiently, "they don't. Animals don't work with magic, either. If they did, there would be no Muggles."
"So how does a plant work, then, eh?" Ron asked, a slight challenge in his voice.
"Well first," Harry said, "All living things are made up of these things called cells."
"What, like prison cells?"
"Well, that is how they were named, but no. A cell is a tiny living thing, so small you have to use a microscope to see it."
"Microscope? Is that like, the opposite of a telescope?"
"Yes, actually, that's a good definition," Harry said. "I should bring a microscope into Hogwarts, one of the ones that just uses light, not an electric one. I could show you cells.
"Anyway," he continued, "the smallest living things are single-celled organisms called bacteria. But animals and plants are multi-celled organisms, so we're made of trillions upon trillions of cells."
"Bloody Hell!" Ron exclaimed.
"Yes. Now plant cells, at least the ones in the leaves, take in sunlight and use that sunlight and something called carbon dioxide - CO2 - from the air, and turn the CO2 into sugar. They store the sugar, then use oxygen to burn the sugar for energy when they need it."
"And they do that without magic?"
"Yes. It's a chemical reaction."
"Chemical reaction?"
Hermione defined a chemical reaction, which by necessity included explaining elements and atoms. Ron was so fascinated that they explained what atoms were made of, too. "Wow, that's impressive. So the whole world and everything in it is made of these tiny atoms? How small are they? Can they be seen?"
"I'm not sure if Muggle scientists have seen one yet," Harry admitted. "I'll have to check. But they're so small, they can't be observed directly."
"Wow."
"If you think all that's interesting, Ron," Hermione said, "I have more for you. Have you heard of electricity?"
"Yeah, that's what Muggles use to make lights and power a lot of their things. What about it?"
"Remember the electron?"
"Wait, are you saying Muggles know how to strip electrons off atoms and harness them?"
"Well, yes. Electrons aren't attached to atoms, they just orbit atoms. And they tend to move around in their orbits and between atoms anyway. Lightning is electricity."
"Really? COOL!"
"You know," said Harry, "maybe, since Hogwarts doesn't teach these things, we should make like, some kind of club where we study Science, Math, and other Muggle subjects. I suspect wizards could do a lot with Muggle learning, especially some of the higher sciences like quantum physics."
Before Ron could open his mouth, Hermione said, "Quantum physics is too hard to explain right now, even if I understood it myself."
"Yeah, same here. In fact, it kind of baffles even the scientists."
Ron looked almost stunned. "You know, if you wanted to start a club like that, I'd definitely join. It kind of makes me wonder what Muggle Studies is like, too, but we won't find out until third year, it's an elective course."
"Really?" Hermione said. "You'd think, with all these Muggle-borns, and with so many Ministry jobs involving working with Muggles, that Muggle Studies would be a required course, at least for anyone who isn't Muggle-born."
"Yeah, and I could really use Wizard Studies as a course. I've been in this world for a month and a few weeks, and I've already come across a bunch of cultural stuff wizards and witches all take for granted that I could really use some help with."
Hermione nodded. "Me too. Maybe we could ask McGonagall about it? Even if there isn't one yet, maybe they'd start one up if there was enough demand. We should find out who else is Muggle-born and have them talk with their heads of houses, too."
"Who teaches Muggle Studies? If they're any good at that class, they might understand Muggles enough to teach a Wizard Studies class."
Hermione pulled a piece of parchment out of her bag suddenly, and started writing down everything they'd said regarding Wizard Studies, so she could remember. Then, on another piece of parchment, wrote down ideas for the club they were thinking of making, for Science and Maths and so on.
"Back to that club idea," Hermione said, pulling her bushy hair back into an Afro puff to get it out of her face, "we need a name for it?"
They sat there, silently thinking about it for several minutes.
"Muggle Academia Club?" mused Harry.
"Ooh, I like that one. Because all subjects of learning are academia, and 'Muggle academia' would specify subjects in the Muggle world."
"I'll have to figure out how to buy Muggle science and maths books, among other subjects, via owl order."
"Yeah," said Ron. "Or, if that doesn't work, you could give a list to a willing adult, tell them where to go, and they could buy those things for you. They'd have to convert their gold to Muggle money first, of course, but they could do it.”
"We'll also have to find out how much the required books would cost, first."
They continued talking about that for another hour, before going up to bed. As Harry lay there trying to get to sleep, he mused that he now had three things to occupy his thoughts: Wizard Studies, the Muggle Academia Club, and the mystery of the thing Hagrid had taken from Gringott's on Dumbledore's orders. That made it very hard to get to sleep, but finally he managed it, those thoughts still going through his mind in his dreams.
Note: No, I am not a Harry/Draco shipper, so this will not be going that direction. I reserve the right for Draco's and Harry's tenuous acquaintence to fail at some point and become enemies, I just think this Harry has a hard enough time coping to make new enemies needlessly.
Also, I am aware that lapsis delens and lapsis rectis aren't canon. I looked through the official lists of canon spells and couldn't find any correction spells, so I made a couple up for this story. I don't know how good the Latin is, but considering that the canon spells are a mix of good Latin, pseudo-Latin, and non-Latin, I don't think that really matters.
Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, is a young and abused Black boy with Asperger's syndrome, and is hated by his guardians, the Dursleys. A little over a week before his birthday, he discovers that he is also a wizard, and the Dursleys knew all along. Not only is he a wizard, but he's also famous in the wizarding world! An AU fanfic.
(Transgender character introduced in chapter 7)
"Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals"
By = Fayanora
Note: A bit of harmless fanfic fun for no money, written by a fan who only WISHES she owned the Harry Potter rights.
Chapter 5: Discoveries
Harry was just getting into the swing of things when it was announced that Thursday would be flying lessons, with the first year Slytherins. Harry wasn't too pleased with the idea, said he'd make a fool of himself in front of all the Slytherins.
"You don't know you'll make a fool of yourself," said Ron.
"Maybe not. But you have flying experience, and I don't. Closest I ever came was ending up on the school roof once. I had no idea how it happened back then, but of course now it must have been accidental magic."
"Really? Tell me more."
Harry described the experience in more detail, and Ron said, "Wow, sounds like you accidentally apparated--disappeared then reappeared elsewhere," he added by way of explanation.
"Well I wasn't fond of the height, and they had to open the roof access door to get me down. I'm not sure if I'll like flying."
"If you're worried about falling, you shouldn't. You might break a few bones or get a concussion, but between accidental magic and the magic of Hogwarts, I doubt you'd be hurt too bad to be fixed."
"Gee thanks, that's such a comfort."
Thursday morning in the Great Hall at breakfast, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were sitting by Neville Longbottom, the round-faced, forgetful boy who'd lost his toad on the train. His grandmother had sent him a package. It contained a small glass ball that filled with red smoke the moment Neville touched it.
"What's that?" asked Harry.
"It's a Remembrall!" Neville explained. "Gran knows I forget things - this tells you if there's something you've forgotten to do. Only, it doesn't tell you... what you've forgotten."
"That doesn't sound very useful. I'm sure everyone's got something they've forgotten. I don't know much about magic yet, but surely if a device can detect you've forgotten something, it could be modified to tell you what you've forgotten."
Neville shrugged, and continued trying to remember what he'd forgotten when Draco Malfoy, who'd been passing by, snatched it out of his hand to examine it.
Ron jumped up hotly, but Harry stayed seated, looking at Malfoy over his glasses. "Draco," he said warningly. Mrs. McGonagall started hustling over as well, her keen nose for trouble having alerted her. Struggling to suppress a scowl, Malfoy gave the Remembrall back.
"My apologies," he said with forced politeness. "I was just curious." He skulked off with Crabbe and Goyle.
At half past three in the afternoon, the Griffindors and Slytherins met outside for flying lessons with Ms. Hooch. The weather was perfectly calm and warm, great for flying.
The teacher, Ms. Hooch, looked a little like a hawk or owl with her grey hair and yellow eyes; Harry had never seen eye color like that on a human before, and wondered if it meant she was part-human. He didn't know how to find out, though, without being rude, so he set that thought aside.
She lined them all up and gave them directions for preparing their brooms. Harry's was one of the few that shot right into his hand when he commanded it to. Hermione's merely rolled around on the ground. After a brief explanation of what she wanted them to do, she counted down from three. Neville got ahead of her from nerves, and meandered into the air in an uncontrolled fashion. Then he shot around the courtyard and ended up falling and breaking his wrist.
Ms. Hooch commanded that nobody should enter the air while she took Neville to the hospital. But once she was gone, Malfoy walked over to where Neville had dropped his Remembrall, and picked it up, a look in his face signifying potential trouble brewing.
Harry sighed, and walked over to Malfoy. Giving the boy the benefit of the doubt, he said, "Ah, Neville's Remembrall. I'm in Neville's House, Draco, I can get his Remembrall back to him," and held out his hand for the ball.
Years of watching his uncle's facial expressions helped Harry see the internal battle in Draco's face as he fought between his desire to stay on Harry's good side, and his desire to bully Neville. Finally, though, the former won, and - sticking his nose up in the air like he was above it all, Draco handed the Remembrall to Harry, said "I quite agree," and walked away with exaggerated dignity and grace.
Harry worried that it was only a matter of time before Malfoy lost his self control and became a bully to Harry. He spent time thinking on this potential problem, and eventually decided he would have to give Malfoy something other than judgment of his behavior. Harry didn't know what he could do toward that end yet, but at least knowing what he didn't know yet was useful to him.
Draco wasn't the only thing on Harry's mind, other than schoolwork, not by far. He still occasionally mulled over the mystery of the grubby package. It was obvious to him that whatever it was had been brought to Hogwart's, and was in the forbidden third floor corridor. And while it might not have been the smartest thing ever, he had a powerful desire to know what exactly was guarding it. His initial thoughts were things like the traps in Indiana Jones movies, and he wondered how magic could make such traps and obstacles even more formidable, but he didn't get far.
He also tried finding a map of Hogwarts somewhere in "Hogwarts: A History" and other books, to no avail. In fact, he even found out that the castle was "unplottable," meaning it couldn't be put on a map. That seemed a little odd to him, seeing as the castle wasn't far from Hogsmeade, and unless the entire village was also unplottable, well... that would give potential enemies at least some idea where Hogwarts was.
The biggest problem was, there wasn't really an ideal time to go looking into the mystery of the forbidden corridor. Between students and teachers coming and going, Filch and his cat lurking about looking for troublemakers, Peeves the Poltergeist flying around causing mischief, and teachers patrolling the halls at night, Harry would have to be either mad or reckless or both to try to find the forbidden corridor at any time of the day or night.
He tried looking through the library for some way to do it, but the librarian - Ms. Pince - did not appear to have heard of a card catalog, let alone have one. A lot of things were fairly easy to find by way of how things were arranged on the shelves, but a lot more could have been there, there just wasn't any way to find it. Well, unless he asked the librarian, and she seemed to have an almost Filch-like dislike of children being in her precious library and touching her precious books.
In the end, all his careful planning turned out to be unnecessary, for one day he, Hermione, and Ron were talking and walking without paying attention, and just happened to wander up to the forbidden third floor corridor. It was dark when they entered, but torches lit up when they got there.
"This is the third floor corridor," Hermione said in a worried tone, flapping her hands in terror. "It's forbidden!"
"Bloody hell, Harry," Ron said, ducking back in from having checked the exit. "I think I saw Mrs. Norris out there."
"Did she see you? Or smell you?"
"No, she was facing the other way. But what if she smells us?"
"I found a handy spell for that the other day," Harry said. He waved his wand, said an incantation, and air started flowing gently in from the exit. "There, now we're upwind of her. While we're here, I want to take a look around. Listen, just hide behind these statues if you're worried."
Harry examined the wooden door at the end of the corridor, with Ron and Hermione behind him. It seemed Hermione didn't want to be alone in another part of the hallway.
"Alohamora," Harry said at the door, and it unlocked. Cautiously, he peeked in. What he saw made his face turn as pale as his brown skin allowed, and he carefully closed the door and re-locked it. The other two heard great booming barks, muffled by the closing door, and also turned sickly looking.
"What? What was it?" Ron demanded.
"I'll tell you later," Harry said, his voice shaking. “Hominem revelio,” he intonated, casting another spell that was beyond his years.
"Okay, I don't detect Filch or any students," he said. "I don't know how to detect poltergeists or cats, though." He peeked out the door and saw no sign of either. He waited for the stone staircase to start to shake with pre-moving shakes, then gestured for the other two to follow him. They got on the staircase just before it began to move, and got off it at a safer area of the castle. Then, as nonchalantly as they could manage, they made their way back to the Griffindor common room.
When they got there, the common room was busy with people talking, so the three of them sat at a table and began to talk quietly amongst themselves.
"So what did you see?"
Harry inhaled for strength, then said, "A massive, three headed dog. Luckily, it was asleep. But it began to get up as I watched it, and I briefly saw a trapdoor under it." He was worried that they wouldn't believe him, but his voice was still shaking, and so were his hands, which seemed to give him more credibility.
Ron turned white, and Hermione's dark skin looked sickly. "What?" Ron whispered hoarsely. "A giant three-headed dog?"
"Yes. Given what I've read of Greek mythology, I'd guess it's called a Cerberus. Muggles know about a lot of magical creatures, probably from the days before the statute of secrecy. Only, most Muggles think those creatures are imaginary."
"What do they think they're doing, keeping a great beast like that locked up in the school?"
"I think that the grubby package Hagrid took from Gringott's is down there, under that trap door. Possibly with other stuff between the door and it, to make it even more difficult to get to. But I agree, something like this would not be done at a Muggle school; Muggle schools frown on putting kids at danger. And it wasn't exactly difficult to get in there. You'd think, at the very least, that they'd cover the corridor's entrance with a brick wall like the one in Diagon Alley."
"Well you could always go tell Dumbledore you think his security is lacking, if you don't mind getting expelled for breaking the rules," Hermione snapped. Harry was about to snap back angrily, but he noticed her eyes were watering and she was shaking. Harry wasn't great with most facial expressions, but he could read signs that obvious; she'd snapped at him out of fear.
"What if that dog had bitten you, Harry? You could have died! Or worse," she continued in the same terrified tone, "been expelled."
"I'm pretty sure death is worse than being expelled, Hermione," Ron said.
Harry nodded. "Yeah, look at Hagrid. He once told me, offhand, that he'd been expelled in his third year."
"When'd he tell you that?"
"Oh, I went to see him the other day. I couldn't find either of you at the time, and it came up in our chat. Anyway, we got off track. What could be so important you'd need a Cerberus guarding it?"
The discussion went on for over an hour, but none of them could agree on anything that fit, so eventually they gave up. Harry decided to do some schoolwork. Hermione did some reading, too, which left Ron with no choice but to work on his schoolwork, too.
Life at school went on, as it does, with no more real excitement beyond the interesting things in most classes. Snape continued to be very annoyed with Harry for being so good at potions, and so had to find other excuses to dock points from Griffindor unfairly. The fact that Harry just took the abuse without reacting seemed to infuriate Snape even more, but not enough to have any more excuses to bully him.
It wasn't until Halloween that anything else happened. The three of them went into the Great Hall for the Halloween feast, talking eagerly about Halloween. Hermione was explaining Muggle Halloween traditions to Ron. Ron's eyes went wide at her explanation.
"You mean to tell me that Muggle children dress up in costumes and go get candy from random strangers by going door to door? That's insane!"
"Now Ron, the kids have their parents with them, and the parents go through the candy first before they get to eat any, so it's safe."
"That's not what I mean," Ron explained. "In the wizarding world, we stay indoors on Halloween. It's said to be the one time of year that Dementors and other dark and dangerous creatures get to roam free. We put Jack-o-lanterns out to scare those kinds of creatures away. I was baffled by the feast until Hermione explained Muggle traditions; Dumbledore really likes Muggles, must be why our Halloween here is more Muggle like."
"What's a Dementor?" asked Harry.
"They're the guards of Azkaban prison," Ron said. "They're horrible. Tall, hooded figures that glide around like ghosts, and being around one makes you feel cold, and sucks all the happiness out of the room."
"Holy crud!" Harry exclaimed. "They have things like that guarding wizarding prisoners?"
"Yes. Dad says Dumbledore hates them, thinks they should be expelled from Azkaban."
"You know, the wizarding traditions for Halloween are very similar to old Halloween traditions I read about," Harry said. "Muggles used to do the same things, but they were scared of ghosts and monsters and stuff. And witches, too, come to think of it."
"Makes sense. Muggles can't see Dementors, so they'd have to be scared of something else. I wonder why their traditions changed and ours didn't?"
"They stopped believing in magic, obviously. For the most part."
Just then, Professor Quirrel ran into the hall, panic on his face. "TROLL IN THE DUNGEONS! Troll in the dungeons! Thought you ought to know," he finished, before fainting. Most people in the room began screaming and making a huge ruckus, which grated on Harry's nerves, but he also understood. He'd read about trolls, they sounded dangerous.
Dumbledore made some bangs come from his wand, getting everyone's silence and attention. "Please, everyone, you'll be safe here in the Great Hall. Prefects, please watch the other students while I and the other professors go take care of the troll. I will lock the doors so it cannot get in, if it wanders up here."
Everyone sat back down, and began talking anxiously about the troll. A few minutes in, Harry looked around in confusion.
"Where did Quirrel go?"
Ron looked at him. "What? Oh, I dunno. Prob'ly went off with the other teachers."
"That coward, going to face a troll? No, he's gone somewhere else, I'm sure. Last I saw him, he was on the floor. No idea when he snuck out."
"Harry," Hermione said gently, "there was a lot of noise. He may not have been sneaking around at all."
"Yeah, you're probably right. Hey wait, did anyone check to make sure nobody was caught out in the halls? Don't the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs have their dorms in the dungeons?"
"Hey Percy," Ron called to his brother. "What is it, Ron? I'm a little busy at the moment keeping an eye on you lot."
"Hi," Harry said. "I wanted to know if anyone checked to make sure nobody was caught out in the halls or dungeons."
"I've checked with the other Prefects, and everyone seems to be accounted for. At least, nobody appears to be missing anyone from their Houses."
"Well that's a relief," Harry said with a sigh.
About a half an hour later, the teachers returned. Dumbledore went up to the teacher's table and stood at his lectern. "You'll all be happy to know that the troll has been subdued and is even now being removed from the premises by Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sinistra. If you have not felt comfortable eating during this trying time, I hope you will be able to continue the feast now."
Unlike a lot of other people, Harry, Ron, and Hermione had not stopped eating during the crisis, and ended up leaving early. As they went back to Griffindor Tower, Harry spotted Snape on his way from the third floor to Filch's office; he was limping, and his leg was bloody. He pointed this out to the others.
"Wonder what happened to his leg?" Hermione asked.
"Dunno, but I hope it really hurts, the bullying git," Ron said vehemently.
"He was coming from the third floor. Which is where that Cerberus is."
"What?" Ron exclaimed. "You think he was trying to get past that massive mutt?"
"Oh come now, Harry, what would a teacher be doing trying to get past that giant dog?"
"I dunno, but if he got attacked, he can't have been there on official business."
Harry pondered the mystery silently all the rest of the way back to their common room. First Quirrel slipped out unnoticed in the midst of the chaos he stirred up, then Snape was coming from the forbidden third floor corridor with a bloody leg. It was too strange to be a coincidence. Sure, Hermione had a point that Quirrel could have just left without being sneaky, or may have gone with the other teachers, but they hadn't been making noise very long before Dumbledore silenced them, and Quirrel had supposedly fainted. He didn't know how long it took someone to recover from fainting, but it had to take longer than that. The mystery kept him awake for several hours in bed before his exhaustion finally took him to sleep.
The next day, the trio went down to Hagrid's hut to visit again. While they were there, they talked about the troll, which was a perfect opening to mention Snape's strange activities and bloody leg, and the fact that they'd accidentally found out about the massive three-headed dog. Harry also mentioned that Snape and/or Quirrel might be trying to steal whatever the Cerberus was guarding.
"Oh now, stop it yeh three," Hagrid said dismissively. "Snape's not tryin' ter steal nuthin, and neither is Quirrel; in fact, they're two o' the teachers protectin the--"
"Yes?"
"Never you mind. 's nunyer bizness wha Fluffy is guardin--"
Ron's eyes goggled. "You named it Fluffy? Massive, three-headed dog, and you name it Fluffy?"
"Well why shouldn't he?" asked Harry. "I read an etymology of the word 'Cerberus' once, since it appears in Greek mythology, and apparently it's the Greek word for 'Spotted.' IE, the official term for it is the Greek version of 'Spot,' one of the most popular dog names in the world."
Both Ron and Hermione goggled at that one, while Hagrid guffawed deeply.
"They named a great beast like that 'Spot'?"
"Now Ron, don' be mean ter Fluffy, he's jus a seriously misunderstood creature, he is."
They rolled their eyes at this; Hagrid and his monster obsession.
"But you're sure whatever Fluffy's guarding is safe?" asked Harry. "I mean, somebody got into Gringotts, and then out again, and that's supposed to be impossible. Makes me think a clever enough person could do the same here."
"Never you mind wha Fluffy's guardin, tha's strictly between Professor Dumbledore and Nickolas Flamel."
"Ah, so someone named Nickolas Flamel is involved, is it?" said Ron.
Hagrid's face - what little of it could be seen with his bushy hair and beard - went white. "Forget I said tha, I shouldn't've said that. Damn, makes me wish I could do obliviate, tha does. You lot keep yer noses outta what ain't yer bizness, mind? Yer kids, yer not ter be meddlin in dangerous stuff like tha, you unnerstan?"
They all three nodded, and solemnly swore they would nose out, but all of them had their fingers crossed behind their backs.
As they walked back up to school, Ron started conversation. "Nickolas Flamel, huh? I wonder who that is."
"Well that's no mystery," Harry said.
"It's not?" Ron goggled. "How do you know something about the wizarding world I don't?"
"Because I remember reading that name, when reading about Dumbledore on my first Chocolate Frog card."
"Really?"
"Yes."
When they got back to the common room, Harry ran up to his trunk and brought down the card in question. "See, 'Considered by many the greatest wizard of modern times, Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon's blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel.'"
"Yeah," Ron said, "but that doesn't tell us who he is. Unless you read something else about him? Or you, Hermione?"
Hermione shook her head, but Harry nodded. "Nickolas Flamel is known to Muggles. I don't know if he predates the Statute of Secrecy or what, but the Muggles know about him. I read a book in the library once about him and some other alchemists. It's a topic of interest for Muggles because alchemists are considered to be some of the first scientists, at least according to Muggle sources. Isaac Newton was an alchemist, in fact."
"Who's Izak Nooden?" Ron asked.
"Isaac Newton. He was the first person to mathematically describe gravity, and he came up with a lot of really important laws of physics, like the law of conservation of energy."
"You do know what gravity--" Hermione began to ask.
"Of course I bloody well know what gravity is! It's what sticks us to the ground, keeps us from flying off toward the moon."
"Well that's a relief. Honestly, I wasn't sure, the state of science education in the wizarding world is absolutely horrendous, I wouldn't have been surprised if you hadn't been taught about gravity."
"Yeah, well, a few things leak in, prob'ly from Muggleborns and halfbloods. Anyway, so do you know why Flamel is important to the mystery?"
"Yes. Alchemy was concerned with creating the Philosopher's Stone, which supposedly could transmute any metal into solid gold, and make The Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal."
"Immortal?"
"It means you'll never die," Hermione explained.
"I know what it means!" Ron shot back hotly. "Anyway, no wonder Snape's after the stone, if it makes endless gold and makes you live forever. Who wouldn't want it?"
"I wouldn't have wanted to be immortal, if it'd meant spending any more time with the Dursleys. Though I suppose with all that gold, I could escape and live on my own... but no, that's too much power for one person to have. And put too much gold on the market and eventually it becomes worthless. A large part of why gold is worth so much is because it's not exactly common."
"Still, if you were careful not to make too much..." Ron trailed off.
Later that night, Harry again had trouble sleeping, the thought of Snape, that miserable git, being immortal and unbelievably wealthy haunting him. He very much hoped Hagrid was right, and that nobody could get the stone unless they were authorized to. Which, considering Dumbledore's partnership with Flamel, probably meant Dumbledore was the only one authorized to retrieve it. He fell into a fitful sleep that night.
Note one: I thought hard about the events of this chapter, and finally I decided that this Harry wouldn't care for the noise and commotion of Quidditch, and would think of Quidditch as a waste of time. If offered a position on the team he'd probably say something like "And waste all those hours I could be studying or reading? No thank you." He'll probably watch it at least once, just to see what the fuss is about, but I doubt he'll enjoy it. There are, of course, aspies that like sports, but this Harry is not one of them.
Note two: Yes, they discover Flamel earlier. No, it's not going to make the final battle with Professor Two-Face happen any faster.
Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, is a young and abused Black boy with Asperger's syndrome, and is hated by his guardians, the Dursleys. A little over a week before his birthday, he discovers that he is also a wizard, and the Dursleys knew all along. Not only is he a wizard, but he's also famous in the wizarding world! An AU fanfic.
(Transgender character introduced in chapter 7)
"Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals"
By = Fayanora
Note: A bit of harmless fanfic fun for no money, written by a fan who only WISHES she owned the Harry Potter rights.
Chapter Six: Erised Eluys Sam T'Sirhc
November sped by fast for Harry, what with schoolwork, helping Ron on his schoolwork, and working on preliminary details for a Muggle sciences club, and so very quickly the Christmas holidays crept up on Harry.
"Oh goody, Christmas," Harry said aloud with dread when he heard about it.
"You got something against Christmas, mate?"
"Just that I never got any presents for Christmas before, and, well..." he paused, not knowing if he wanted to continue or not, before continuing. "I more have a problem with the name and the reason for the season."
Ron stared blankly at him.
"What I mean is, Christmas comes from Christ mass, and it's Jesus Christ's birthday, supposedly. Actually, he was born in the spring, according to the Bible. But, well... the Dursleys went to church every Sunday. I never had to go, thank goodness; they didn't want to associate with me in public unless they had to. Also, they told me I was a lost cause, doomed to Hell no matter how hard I prayed. I never understood why, really, until now. I used to think they thought all black people were Hell-bound, but it might have more to do with the fact they knew I was a wizard."
"That's horrible, mate."
"Yeah, sorry."
"Don't apologize, it's them that should be sorry. Anyway, Christmas in the wizarding world isn't like it is in the Muggle world, or at least according to Dad. He said something about the Old Ways being lost in the Muggle world."
"Old Ways?"
"Yeah, before Christianity came through Europe." Ron waved a hand vaguely. "Like, a lot of the old pagan ways survived in the wizarding world because of us being... well, because we had to keep secrets. Only, Christianity is mixed in there too somehow. I dunno, there's books on the subject that'd know more'n me."
This information lit a fire under Harry. He had never heard of any religion other than Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, and finding out about a religion that predated Christianity... the first opportunity he had, he went looking through the library for books about it.
According to the books he read about the subject, Ron was right; the wizarding world was a mix of old pagan paths and Christianity. In fact, most wizards these days believed in a hybrid of Christianity and paganism; very few were just one or the other.
It made sense to him; the wizarding world was socially behind the Muggle world in many ways, and given their need for secrecy for so long, even before the Statute of Secrecy, it made sense that the old ways would survive.
What survived to the modern wizarding era were largely the more acceptable parts of the old ways. Human sacrifice was gone, animal sacrifices were rare and when they did happen, usually only happened as part of a ritual meal where the sacrificed animal gets eaten; only the blood went to the gods.
What spoke to him the most was a description of pagan ways as revering nature, the divinity in all living creatures, and how the whole world was sacred, a church. Thinking back, Harry remembered all the times he'd gotten away from other people and gone to the park, how comforting it had been to be around trees and animals, even in the middle of a town like Little Whinging, where everything was landscaped to within an inch of its life. He even thought about gardening; not his favorite chore, but one of the ones he least minded, because it got him out of the house and usually got him away from the Dursleys, but also because he kind of liked making things grow.
Harry spent hours in the library every day reading up on the old ways, learning more and more. None of the gods or goddesses really spoke to him at first, but he was new; it would take time if any came, and they might not. There was also pantheism to consider, too.
Best of all, taking a path with no Christianity or other rule-centric religion stifling him meant that he could follow his own conscience, and it helped him with some of the anger against the Dursleys that was starting to seep into his consciousness more than ever. It wasn't a new emotion-- he'd been angry at them for years, but a lot of that anger had been directed at God, for letting the Dursleys abuse him. But if there were no all-powerful God that claimed to also be all-loving... if the world just is, and nobody was to blame for his life but the Dursleys and circumstance, then that was very liberating to him.
None of this made Christmas (or Yule as a lot of wizards also called it) come any slower, and Harry was worried about where he would go during the vacation. He expressed this worry to Ron one day while they were playing wizard chess together, and Ron's eyes went wide.
"Oh, sorry, Mum told me to invite you over weeks ago, didn't I tell you?"
That made Harry beam. "Thanks!" he hugged his friend.
"You're welcome. Anyway, given everything you've been reading, should I ask Mum to get the Yule log out?"
"Why, do your parents do Christmas rather than Yule?"
"Yeah, they're Christopagan," said Ron, using the term Harry had told him days ago for the hybrid between the old ways and Christianity. "So some years they do a Yule log, too, just for the heck of it."
"Well I'm still new to all this, but the old ways call to me. I think I've been a pagan all my life and never knew it til now."
"Cool. I'd better write Mum a letter before I forget," Ron said, pulling parchment and quill out to scribble off a letter really quick. "Gotta go find an owl now Harry, see ya!"
"See ya!" he shouted at Ron's retreating back.
Leaving for the Weasley's was a lot like leaving Hogwarts, but in the dead of winter, and with his trunk still in the castle. He'd brought along a rucksack full of clothes and another bag full of some reading material, though. Also, they weren't taking the train. Instead, they used something called The Knight Bus. It was a horrible experience, as the driver didn't so much drive as aim the bus in the general direction of where he was going and ride roughshod over the landscape while trees and buildings leapt out of the way. It made Harry very ill, and he'd had to shut his eyes for most of the ride to avoid getting a headache.
When he finally got off the bus, he vomited his bacon and eggs onto the side of the road. He wiped the sick from his mouth and wobbled in the direction of the Burrow's front door.
His experience was offset by Mrs. Weasley making them all a large lunch, for which Harry was very grateful. After lunch, instead of going upstairs to read, he bundled up and went outside. It was cold but beautiful, the snow virgin in most places. He was looking for someone though, as he had sent Luna an owl the day before.
"Hey, slow down mate, Mum wants us to come with you."
Harry looked up and saw Ron, Ginny, and Percy came running behind him.
"Oh, duh, I forgot. Thanks, guys."
It didn't take as long to find Luna as they'd thought it would, she had already been en route to the Burrow, and they met her at the edge of the property.
"Good," said Ron, shivering. "Now we can go back. I didn't know it was going to be quite this cold today."
"Luna!" Harry said excitedly, holding both hands out to her. She smiled and took his hands in hers. Ron looked askance at that, holding in a snort of laughter. Ginny turned red and turned away, and even Percy raised an eyebrow, but both Luna and Harry were oblivious. They walked arm in arm back to the Burrow, talking about the Old Ways, which Luna was very knowledgeable about, as her father was strictly pagan.
Sitting around the fire in the Weasley's living room, they continued their conversation, everyone nursing hot cocoa; everyone but Ginny, who had gone to her room.
When Luna got up to use the restroom, Harry finally noticed Ginny's absence.
"Where'd Ginny go?"
"To her room."
"Why?"
"Well, she fancies you, mate, and you're kinda stuck on Luna. I guess she got upset."
Harry's face turned red. "Luna and I are just friends."
Ron shrugged. "Yeah, well, Ginny doesn't know that. I mean, you were holding hands and walking arm in arm."
"Yeah, but I... that doesn't mean..."
Ron said nothing, just sipped his cocoa again.
Harry was saved by Luna returning. He quickly forgot his embarrassment, getting caught up in conversation with her again. And in the process, forgot about what Ron had said.
The next day, Mrs. Weasley took the family to Diagon Alley in the family car, so everyone could do Christmas shopping, stopping at Gringott's first so they could get some more money.
Even though he was supposed to be shopping for others, he did find some books at Flourish and Blotts for himself, buying copies of some books about the old ways. He made sure to let the others know he'd done this, in case they were buying him books, so they wouldn't get him the same ones.
At one point, Harry dragged Ron away to go try to find something Luna might like. He'd already gotten her one thing, but thought it wasn't thoughtful enough, so he wanted to get her something else, too. Ron was smirking the whole time but not saying anything, beyond occasional suggestions that Harry kept shooting down. He knew he could have gotten her one of the books about Crumple-horned Snorkacks or whatever, but he felt like he should get Luna something else. After wandering around Diagon Alley for a half an hour, he finally found a place that might have what he was looking for.
Called Wyrd Wyrm Emporium, it was a place full of all kinds of odd-looking artifacts. A quick look around revealed that it was a magical cryptozoology store, with things like billiwig propellers, Specter-Specs, nargle repellant spray, and charms against wrackspurts.
"Yup," said Ron, "this is definitely the place to shop for Luna." He chuckled and started rifling through some of the objects for sale.
"Anything I can help you with, young man?" the proprietor asked Harry.
"I'm looking for something for a friend of mine. Luna Lovegood; do you know her?"
"Ah yes, the Lovegoods, they come in here a lot. Let's see..." he trailed off, looking around.
As he searched, he talked, mainly about what Luna and her father Xenophilius had been into recently, in a way that suggested he was thinking aloud. Harry thought it was a little like Ollivander trying to find him a wand earlier in the year, but more pleasant, as he listened to what the different things were.
Finally, though, they found something that Harry thought Luna would like (and didn't already have). He made sure Ron was out of hearing range before paying, as he didn't want his friend to know how much he was spending on Luna.
"So what'd you get her?"
"You'll find out later."
"Aw, cummon, can't I see now?"
"You'd laugh. Or tease. I'd rather put that off as long as possible."
Ron opened his mouth to object, but then stopped and shrugged. "Yeah, I probably would."
On Christmas morning, Ron woke up Harry with a cry of, "Oy, presents!"
Harry put his glasses on and looked around. "Where?"
"Well not here, of course. Under the tree, downstairs."
"Ah yeah, sorry."
When he got downstairs, he was surprised by the tree; it was a living tree, being kept watered, and was still a sapling without being too small. It was surprisingly bushy, too, and was decorated with candles and tinsel and popcorn. Mrs. Weasley noticed his surprise.
"Yes, dear, it's our tradition to plant our tree after it's done its duty inside. Of course, that means we have to keep it in the house until spring, but it sure does make the house smell great during the winter. Really livens up the place."
Harry grinned. He'd never liked the thought of cutting down a whole tree just to decorate its corpse for a single holiday. The Yule Log, on the other hand, was a sacrifice he could approve of, as it was from just a single branch cut from a tree (holly in this case), done with gratitude and apologies to the tree for its sacrifice, and the log was burned for the god of the forests as a fertility symbol, to help ensure spring came on time.
It was the best Yule/Christmas of his life. Surrounded by his surrogate family, with good food, songs, and presents. The presents, oh the presents. He got a chess set from Ron; Mrs. and Mr. Weasley got him a Weasley sweater and some sweets, he got some sugar-free candy from Hermione (since her parents were dentists), and a roughly-carved wooden flute from Hagrid. Luna wasn't there, because she and Harry had already agreed to exchange their presents the next day, since Luna was spending Yule with her father.
The next day, Luna came over, and she and Harry exchanged their gifts. Luna got Harry a magical artifact that clipped to the stem of one's glasses and, when you pushed the button, it would send a burst of soothing magic into your head, that Luna thought might be able to prevent at least some of Harry's headaches.
"Thanks a lot, Luna, this sounds awesome." He clipped the thing to his glasses and gave it a try. Of course, he wasn't feeling the need for it, so he didn't get the full effect, but it was doing something that felt good.
Ron and the twins craned their necks around to try to see what Harry had gotten Luna, which was annoying him, so he just told them to come in, which they did. Harry handed two small packages to Luna, and she opened up the first one with slow and deliberate care to not rip the packaging, even though Harry's attempt at wrapping was hardly neat. Very carefully, she took out a hand-held mirror, looking at it curiously.
"It's a two-way mirror. So we can talk to each other, instead of just owling back and forth. It'll be especially useful this winter, as Hedwig doesn't really like being out in the cold."
"Thank you, Harry, it's very thoughtful. I do miss having people to talk to. Ginny's nice, of course, but I miss you. And the more friends, the better."
She placed the mirror gently in a pocket of her trousers, and gently folded the wrapping and placed that in her pocket, too. Ron and the twins gave each other significant looks.
When the wrapping was put away, Luna took the other package and again carefully unwrapped it as though the paper itself was precious. A long golden chain slid out into her hand. Ron and the twins gave each other even more significant looks. Luna beamed, and held out the chain. There was something hanging from it, a glass marble held onto the chain with golden metal.
"It's a charm to repel wrackspurts," Harry explained. "Brand new type, Mr. Dunhaven swears you don't have one yet."
"Oooh, thank you Harry. Mr. Dunhaven was right. Wow," she said, trying to put the necklace on, "this is very thoughtful indeed."
"Here, let me help." Harry helped her with the necklace. As he did so, Ron let out a small snort of laughter, and one of the twins thwapped him on the back of the head for it. Ron glared at the culprit but didn't say anything. Luna beamed at the necklace, and thanked Harry with a hug.
Presents exchanged, Harry and Luna sat on the sofa by the fire together, watching the remains of the Yule log burn as they chatted about this and that.
"Come on, little brother," said Fred to Ron, "let's leave those two alone together. We can play some Quidditch outside together."
Ron looked back at Harry and Luna one last time before following them with a sigh. "I guess so. We might as well be furniture when they're together."
In January, everyone returned to Hogwarts with their gifts. Harry refused breakfast on the grounds that he didn't want to puke all over the Knight Bus, so Mrs. Weasley packed him a bagged breakfast. It was unnecessary, as the school would have food, but he nonetheless appreciated it. The Weasleys were what parents/guardians should be like, always putting their kids first, without spoiling them. He had offered, once, to help pay for his keeping, thoughts of the Dursley's complaints about how expensive he was to them bouncing in his head, but they had refused his money, no matter how hard he insisted.
Since it was still technically the holiday, and Harry wanted to take a break from reading, he and Ron spent the afternoon playing wizard chess. Harry had thought that using his own set for this game would have given him an advantage over Ron, since Ron's set was old and knew him well, but Ron remained good at the game even with the slight handicap of Harry's pieces not trusting him. Of course, they didn't trust Harry much either, so it wasn't much of a plan on Harry's part.
Just before dinner, Harry went up to his room and got a surprise when he pulled the covers back. There, on the bed where it had been under his covers, was a silvery package with a note pinned to it. Harry was just unpinning the note when Ron came in and saw it.
"What's that?"
"Dunno. The note says 'Your father left this in my possession before he died. It is time it was returned to you. Use it well.' But there's no name signed."
Harry handed the note to Ron so he could read it, too, and picked up the package. What unfolded was a long, silvery swath of cloth that felt like water woven into material.
"Woah," said Ron. "Is that... is that an invisibility cloak?"
Harry put it on, and everything but his head vanished.
"It is! Those are really rare, and really valuable."
"Wow, this used to be my dad's? Hmm..."
After looking at himself in the mirror, to see his disembodied head floating in midair, Harry started to think. He'd never been one to break school rules before, because years of living with the Dursleys meant you didn't break rules unless you were reasonably sure you could get away with it, or if circumstances were dire enough, such as raiding the fridge or pantry at night to hold off starvation. But an invisibility cloak? The possibilities were endless.
He thought about the cloak all through dinner in the Great Hall, and later in bed as he tried to sleep. As Ron snored and the other boys slept, he decided to try out his new cloak that very night. It had been his father's, so he decided to go alone this first time. He could take Ron later if he wanted to, but this time, he was going to go alone.
But where to go, exactly? What could he do at night that he couldn't do during the day? He thought about it, and decided he was curious what was in the Restricted Section of the library. Mere curiosity would not have been enough before, but now... as long as he didn't bump into anything, or make any noise, he would be fine.
A few minutes later, Harry was sneaking through the corridors. It was dark and creepy, but he could see well enough. Before long, he was in the library, and sneaking into the Restricted Section, looking at the old, creepy-looking books, trying to decide which to pick up. Using his wand as a light, he browsed them, but most did not seem to have titles. This was even worse than the usual lack of organization in the library. He ended up picking one at random.
He opened it, and immediately it began to scream. He slammed it closed and rammed it back in place, but it kept screaming. Running, he heard Filch approach, so he slowed down and snuck past the man. A little later, he heard Filch tell Snape that there was a student out of bed, that one of the books in the Restricted Section had been disturbed. So Harry ducked into an empty classroom to hide.
Only, the classroom wasn't empty; it had a huge, antique mirror standing in it, as though put there temporarily until a better place could be found to put it. It had writing on it, but the writing didn't make any sense. He moved closer to get a better look, and nearly jumped out of his skin. He should have been invisible, but the mirror was showing him standing there, and a whole bunch of other people were there as well. He spun around to look behind him, but nobody was there. He felt around, but felt nobody.
They're not really there, then, he worked out. So what are they?
Taking a closer look, he saw a man with brown eyes, dark brown skin, and Harry's exact wild, kinky hair. The man also had an older version of Harry's face, but not a lot older. The man couldn't have been more than 25 years old.
My dad! He realized. So that meant the woman... yes, the white woman with red hair had his exact same green eyes. So that had to be his mother. Which meant that all the other people behind them were his other family, from both sides of the family. He kept seeing familiar features, so that seemed right.
Family, he thought. Real, honest-to-goodness family. He stared, entranced, for who knew how long before a distant noise brought him back to his senses. He whispered to the mirror that he'd be back, then got back under the cloak, which had slipped off at some point, and began making his way back to the Griffindor dormitories.
The next night, he took Ron with him; Ron was excited to see Harry's family. It was a little more difficult with two of them under the cloak, especially with Harry being in a hurry and not knowing for sure where the room had been, but they made it. Making sure the door was closed, they took off the cloak and Harry had Ron look in the mirror.
Only, Ron didn't see the same thing. He instead saw himself as head boy and Quidditch captain, holding the Quidditch cup. This was so different from Harry's vision that Harry stood there, baffled, trying to think why there was a difference. But that thought didn't occupy him long, as it was swiftly supplanted by the desire to look in the mirror at his family again. He was filled with an uncharacteristic anger at Ron; Ron was spending so much time staring at his reflection, and what did it show? Only him being great. He had all the time in the world to be great, but Harry would never get another chance to see his family.
Naturally, they fought over whose turn it was, briefly, before another outside noise alerted them, and they got under the cloak. It was Mrs. Norris, Filch's cat. Worried that she would fetch Filch, as soon as she left they began hurriedly sneaking back to bed.
The next day, all Harry could think about was the weird mirror, interrupted only by a bit after classes where he got out the two-way mirror to talk with Luna about the other mirror.
"Hmm," said Luna in her slow, airy voice. "Well I understand wanting to use that mirror again, Harry; if I could see my mother again, that would be lovely. But from what you told me about what Ron saw, I don't think it's actually showing their spirits or anything like that, just using some sort of magic to pull their images from Earth's memory. So what you're seeing, I doubt it's real in the sense of being their souls. I don't know of any way of communicating with the dead. I don't even know if it's possible, Harry."
"Yeah, well, that's not the point. The point is, they're there. I can see them. Which I've never done before."
"Well, you told me Hagrid knew them. Maybe he can ask around among others who knew them and find you some photographs. Wizarding photographs move, you know."
"I did actually know that. But yeah, you've got a point."
"Good, Harry. In the meantime, I'll ask Daddy if he can help find photos of them."
"Thanks, Luna."
"You're very welcome, Harry."
Despite his assurances to Luna, however, Harry was once more drawn to the mirror, and that night he rushed into the room, throwing off the cloak so fast he didn't notice Dumbledore in the room with him. So when the old man spoke, Harry nearly jumped out of his skin.
"Back again, Harry?"
Oh shit, he thought. I'm in deep now.
"Um... Professor. Didn't, uh... didn't see you there," he said, lamely.
"Funny how short-sighted being invisible can make you," Dumbledore said. Harry noticed he was smiling, and his eyes were twinkling. Maybe he would get out of this trouble-free after all?
"I see you, like hundreds before you, have discovered the delights of the Mirror of Erised. Have you perchance worked out what it does, yet?"
"Um... well, it shows me my parents."
"And showed your friend Ron as head boy?"
"How did you---?"
"I don't need a cloak to make myself invisible, Harry."
Well that's disconcerting, Harry thought. He could be anywhere in the castle at any time, with a trick like that up his sleeves.
"Oh," he said simply.
"Do you have any idea at all what it shows us?" Dumbledore asked.
"Well, I would give practically anything to have a proper family. And Ron always feels small and insignificant compared to his siblings, so... I suppose that means it shows us our heart's truest desire?"
"Right on the nose, Harry. But what's more, the happiest man alive could look in the mirror and see only himself, exactly as he is."
"Ah, so it shows us our heart's truest, desperate desires. Desires borne out of, like, pain or frustration, and so on?"
"Indeed. But the Mirror of Erised gives us neither truth, nor wisdom. Men have wasted away, dreaming of the things it shows, but never striving to try to achieve them. Or, in cases like yours and--- well, in cases like yours, to overcome them. Dwelling on dreams, and forgetting to live, that is a dangerous road, Harry. Even more dangerous when the dreams you dwell on are impossible in this world."
Harry could only nod silently.
"The mirror will be moved later today, Harry, and I beg you to not go looking for it again. But if you should run into it again later, you will now at least be prepared, and able to understand it."
Harry nodded again, and started putting his invisibility cloak back on. "Sir? Before I go... if you don't mind, what do you see when you look in the mirror?"
A small haunted look briefly crossed the headmaster's face, before returning to normal. "Me? I see myself wearing a pair of great woolen socks. So many people insist on getting me books, but sometimes it is the little things, Harry, that become the most precious, and my feet do tend to get cold at night. Anyway, Harry, you should run along back to bed now."
Harry later pondered Dumbledore's answer. Obviously he had lied, Harry felt silly for even asking; it was an incredibly personal question, and Dumbledore was a very old man. Whatever it was he saw in the mirror was probably pretty embarrassing.
Note: Rowling once made a tweet that said Wicca (and paganism in general by association) was "incompatable" with the wizarding world, which struck me as utter boloney, and offended me as a neo-pagan. So this is me rejecting her reality and substituting my own.
(Hey, a lot of what drives people to write fanfic is the desire to see people like themselves represented, in a world in which most media doesn't like to represent anyone who isn't straight, white, cisgender, Christian, and usually male.)
Note 2: Yes, I plan to "ship" Harry/Luna. Those two had far more chemistry together in canon than Harry ever had with Ginny, and Harry/Ginny always felt extremely forced to me.
Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, is a young and abused Black boy with Asperger's syndrome, and is hated by his guardians, the Dursleys. A little over a week before his birthday, he discovers that he is also a wizard, and the Dursleys knew all along. Not only is he a wizard, but he's also famous in the wizarding world! An AU fanfic.
(Transgender character introduced in chapter 7)
"Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals"
By = Fayanora
Note: A bit of harmless fanfic fun for no money, written by a fan who only WISHES she owned the Harry Potter rights.
Chapter 7: Quidditch and Dragons
~O~
Dumbledore had convinced Harry to not go looking for the Mirror of Erised again, but he had a hard time exorcising the desire to see it again from his mind. As Luna suggested, he did go to Hagrid and tell the large man about not having any pictures of his parents; Hagrid promised to look into it as soon as possible. In the mean time, Luna sent him an owl with a couple wizarding photos of his parents that her father had managed to track down for him. Having these comforted him, and helped him get over the mirror faster. Hermione, of course, disapproved of him going out and risking getting in trouble for no good reason, but eased up on him when he promised her he'd gotten meaningless night-time wandering out of his system.
The second game of Quidditch involving Griffindor was coming up. Harry hadn't watched the first match, not being interested and suspecting it might not be good for his head to do so, but so many people were still talking about Griffindor's narrow victory against Slytherin (beating them by only 10 points) that he decided to watch the Griffindor and Hufflepuff match just to see what all the fuss was about. Just before leaving for the match, Harry stuffed his invisibility cloak inside his robes for reasons even he didn't know, and was still trying to puzzle out as he got to the Quidditch stadium with Ron and Hermione. Hermione wasn't terribly interested in Quidditch either, but when Harry had expressed the desire to see what it was like, she had decided to go with them.
As Harry had suspected, the experience was a disaster for him. The noise of all the screaming and booing, and the press of the flesh of all those people stuffed into such a small area, conspired to give him a headache so bad that taking twice the usual dose of headache potion was barely helping. He'd been getting headaches so frequently that he'd finally mastered a simple yet strong headache remedy potion so he could brew his own, and wouldn't have to bother Ms. Pompfrey all the time.
What was worse than the headaches, though, was the panic attack at the danger of it all. His classmates, some of whom were friends, were up there, on both sides (he had been seeking friends in other houses lately), and seeing them all up in the air, with bludgers trying to unseat them, with them swooping around one another and risking life and limb for a stupid pointless sport was too much for him. Every time there was a near miss, his heart felt like he was going to have a coronary, and his stomach twisted into knots. His breathing got rapid and shallow. When he almost fainted and puked over the edge onto the pitch, Hermione got so concerned that she insisted he leave. She also insisted on escorting him off the bleachers.
Once he got off the bleachers, though, he insisted he could make it to the Hospital Wing just fine on his own, and she relented, returning to watch the rest of the game. So he proceeded to wobble in the general direction of the school.
He did not, however, go to the Hospital Wing. He'd experienced panic attacks before, so he had a small bottle of Calming Draught with him, that he downed. He then wobbled over to Hagrid's hut, thinking that spending time with his large friend and his friend's large and harmless dog Fang would be more soothing to him than a hospital bed with a distressed Matron Pompfrey hovering over him.
Knocking on the door, he did not hear Fang's booming bark. Hagrid did not answer the door. Harry sat down on Hagrid's stoop and leaned against the door, feeling the Calming Draught returning him to normal, then to even calmer than normal.
In fact, he was getting sleepy. The adrenaline wearing off artificially must have been the reason, but whatever the reason, Harry's drowsy brain wanted to nap but did not want to get up, and could not abide the sunlight in his eyes, so he pulled out his invisibility cloak and put it over himself, which made no sense, but he wasn't feeling particularly sensible. Despite this having little effect on the sunlight in his eyes, he nodded off anyway, his sleepy brain not having considered the possibility of Hagrid accidentally stepping on him.
Luckily, that didn't happen. What happened instead was a particularly loud bout of cheering from the stadium waking him up just enough and just long enough to register that everyone was flowing out of the stadium and back to the school. He watched this impassively, having no thoughts in his head at all about it, or about anything at all, really.
It was only when he spotted Snape and Quirrell moving toward the Forbidden Forest that he woke up completely, the gears in his brain whirring curiously. This was suspicious, the two men he suspected of trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone both heading off towards the secrecy of the Forbidden Forest together. He hurriedly got up, was momentarily surprised he was covered in the invisibility cloak, then shrugged and followed them, as quietly as he could manage.
Luckily, they did not go far. Even so, he got held up by enough underbrush that he only caught up to them in time to hear part of the conversation. From what he heard of it, Snape was asking Quirrell if he'd found out how to get past Fluffy yet, something about Quirrell's “bit of hocus pocus,” then said "You don't want me as your enemy, Quirrell. Let me know when you decide where your loyalties lie." It wasn't much, and wasn't conclusive enough to rule either of them out as suspects, though it did make Snape a little more likely. Harry didn't buy Quirrell's stuttering, given his previous suspicions, but if it was a performance, it was convincing enough to fill Harry with more doubts than he'd previously had. Either Quirrell was innocent, or they were working together. And if they were working together, it sort of looked to Harry like it wasn't necessarily by Quirrell's choice.
Once they stopped talking and left, Harry waited for them to get ahead; it was unlikely they'd say more, and he didn't want to risk them hearing him. He had been lucky so far, but luck could only take one so far.
When he got back to the common room, Ron looked in surprise at him. "Ms. Pompfrey let you out of the hospital wing already? You looked like you were about to die out there, mate!"
"I didn't go to the hospital wing, I took a Calming Draught and leaned against Hagrid's door. But forget that for now," he said, and launched into a furtive explanation of what he'd seen and heard, and how he'd managed it.
"Well, Harry," said Hermione, "that makes it sound like Quirrell is being bullied into working for Snape."
"Yeah," agreed Ron. "Snape could have been working on Quirrell from the start. Could've let the troll in as a diversion, had Quirrell run in as part of it, while Snape went looking for the troll."
"Yeah, and maybe Quirrell did sneak out, like I suspected. Ya know," he waved his hand vaguely, "to help Snape get past Fluffy. And ya know, this makes a lot of sense; I can't see someone like Quirrell doing this on his own, but I can totally see someone as cowardly and weak-willed as he is being bullied into helping Snape."
Hermione, who had been skeptical before, began to look thoughtful, her brown eyes pensive in a way that suggested she was beginning to believe this theory, despite herself.
"Oh wait," said Harry, remembering something. "There was another part of the conversation, Snape said something like 'We'll talk again, when you've had time to decide where your loyalties lie.'"
"Well that sounds like Quirrell's having second thoughts about helping Snape. Which kinda supports the whole 'he's being bullied into helping' theory. Sounds like he's grown enough of a spine to resist Snape a little."
Hermione finally spoke again. "Does that mean the stone is only safe as long as Professor Quirrell stands up to Snape?"
"It'll be gone by Tuesday," Ron said.
*
Quirrell must have been braver than they thought, however; either that, or they'd been wrong about him standing up to Snape, and was merely having a hard time figuring out how to get past Fluffy. Either way, there was no sign that anyone had gotten past Fluffy, and Quirrell didn't look any different than he usually did. Snape also kept stomping around the castle, looking angry about something. They thought of these as good signs.
One day, Ron walked into the library looking for Harry, and saw his friend talking with an older Slytherin girl at one of the tables. Either a second or third year, the girl was of apparent Indian descent, with long black hair, and she was tall for her age, about 5' 8''. Ron went somewhere he could watch Harry and the girl talking, but couldn't make out what they were saying. The conversation looked friendly, however, which Ron couldn't stand. First Malfoy, now this other Slytherin? Granted, Malfoy and Harry were merely civil, and not exactly friends, but this looked different; Harry was smiling now and then, odd in itself as Harry's default expression always made him look a little annoyed by something.
Finally, Ron couldn't take it anymore, and stepped into view.
"Oh hey Ron, come over here and let me introduce you to Antigone Dreyfuss."
The girl held out her hand for Ron. Ron just stared at it, then looked back at Harry. "She's a Slytherin, Harry."
"So?" said Harry. "Slytherin may be popular with Voldemort supporters and their kids, but that doesn't mean everyone in that House is like that."
Antigone frowned at Ron, and put her hand down. She folded her arms instead. "This must be Ron," she guessed.
Harry sighed. "Yeah, this is Ron Weasley. Ron, this is--"
"I heard her name. So, Antigone, is it? How did you two meet?"
"Here in the library," Antigone answered, surprisingly calmly, despite her gray eyes flashing dangerously. Ron glanced at Harry, who nodded.
"She saw me reading some third-year material, and since she's in the third year and hasn't gotten to that material yet, she was asking me about it."
"Yeah," she agreed, a little more friendly in tone now, "if there's someone smart enough to understand stuff two grades ahead of his own, you can bet that a smart Slytherin is going to want to pick his brain, get a little help ahead of time."
"Makes sense to me. We've met in here several times since November. Sometimes I help her, sometimes she helps me."
Ron bent over and whispered into Harry's ear. "But she's a Slytherin, Harry."
Answering Ron in normal volume, Harry said, "I don't like to judge people based on what others say about them. I had no friends growing up because of the things Dudley said about me."
Ron's ears went red, and he shut up and held his hand out tentatively for Antigone. She took it, and they shook hands.
"Glad to make your acquaintance," Antigone said politely yet without enthusiasm.
"Likewise," Ron responded in kind.
"Anyway," said Antigone, "this talk was fun, Harry, but I have to be going now. I wish I could stay, Ron, and help you see that some Slytherins are good people, but I promised Angela I'd help her on her Charms homework. See you, Harry!"
"See you, Antigone!"
When the Slytherin girl left, Ron sat down. They both noticed Hermione, who had apparently seen Antigone leave this table.
"Was that girl bothering you, Harry?" Hermione asked him.
Harry sighed. "You too? She's a friend, Hermione. I've been making friends in other houses. A few Hufflepuffs, like Justin Finch-Fletchley; a few Ravenclaws, and a couple of Slytherins so far."
"A COUPLE?" Ron said hotly. Ms. Pince glared at him, and he quieted down, whispering at Harry. "A couple of Slytherins? You have more than one Slytherin friend? Is the other one Malfoy?"
"Not yet. He's a tough nut to crack; all I've managed so far is some polite conversation with him. I think he wants to be friends with me, but we have such different beliefs that it's hard for him. But it's like I told Ron earlier, I don't like to take other people's word for what someone is like, having been on the short end of that stick myself most of my childhood."
"Well that's great, Harry," said Hermione. "I completely understand. I didn't have any friends in school, either. I've always been weird to most of them, and I struggled with simple social stuff. It was a lot easier connecting with you, Harry; you must be an aspie too."
"Harry's not a snake, he's a Griff--"
"Not an asp, Ron, an aspie. It's short for Asperger's Syndrome."
Ron stared blankly at her. "What's that mean?"
"Oh goodness, I'm not terribly surprised you don't know. It was Muggle scientists who figured it out, after all."
"Figured what out?"
"Asperger's Syndrome is a..." she pondered her words carefully before continuing, "Well, do you remember I told you animals and plants are made of cells?"
"Yeah. What about it?"
"Well there are different kinds of cells. Liver cells, skin cells, bladder cells, muscle cells, and brain cells."
"Okay."
"The cells in the brain are a bit like a Muggle computer. Do you--"
"Those boxes that Muggles keep facts in? Some kind of thinking machine?"
"Well, yes. How did you know that?"
"I've been doing some Muggle Studies reading in my spare time. Anyway, go on."
"Okay, well, computers can only think about things they're programmed to think about. But the human brain is like a computer that can learn, and program itself by that learning."
"Okay..."
"And in computers, a major bit of programming is the operating system. It controls how the computer's thoughts interact with humans, how they interact with one another, and is kind of the, well, foundation of the whole computer; the other programs can't function without the right operating system."
"So a program is...?"
"A program is a set of instructions that do a certain task. Computers can do lots of different tasks, after all; they can do maths, or show pictures, or show text, and some programs can display text but can't let you edit the text, and other programs let you write or edit text."
"Wow, that's pretty cool. So... so if our brains are like these computers..." he struggled to think, and it looked difficult. "...then things like, like walking, or talking, or eating, are programs in our brains?"
Hermione nodded. "Exactly."
"Wait, so, given what you said already... are you trying to say you and Harry have different... otterating systems, from other people?"
"Operating systems, but yes. Most people manage to have the same operating system as everyone else, but some people are born different, and their brains program themselves differently, with a slightly different operating system. It's still mostly the same, usually, or we wouldn't be able to understand each other at all, but still different."
"So 'azbee'---"
"'Aspie,' Ron."
Ron giggled. "That sounds like 'ass pee.'"
"Yes, well," Harry took over from Hermione, "'aspie' is short for 'a person with Asperger's Syndrome.'"
Ron stopped giggling, and asked, "Does that explain your headaches? Or is that something else?"
"Actually, you're right Ron. I get overwhelmed by my environment easier than other people, because my brain makes everything more... well, intense. Like, the brain filters out most of what its senses pick up, to avoid being overloaded. But my brain doesn't filter out as much as most brains do. And my emotions are set higher than other people's, too. Which is why I got ill earlier at the Quidditch pitch. I was feeling fear and worry about the friends of mine up in the air in this dangerous game, and the feelings were so overwhelming that I felt like I was dying."
"Of course, panic attacks like that are more of a sign of PTSD than Asperger's," Hemione said. “But intensified emotions would sure make that worse.”
"What's PTSD?"
"Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder," explained Hermione. "People who live through traumatic events, especially as kids, tend to get emotionally damaged by the events; their brains self-programmed under stressful circumstances, and that can make a mess of how people respond to ordinary events."
"Ever seen me take a Calming Draught in Snape's classes before?" asked Harry.
"Yeah, a few times. Why?"
"Because he's an abuser, and I was abused by the Dursleys. A lot of what he does triggers panic attacks and other problems with me, and the Calming Draughts help with those."
"What about the headaches?"
"Well that's more to do with my being an aspie. My brain gets overwhelmed by stimuli like noises and visual stuff, which causes stress, which results in stress headaches. And going somewhere quiet, preferably also dark, helps too. Remove the offending stimulus, and the stress levels begin to go down."
Ron nodded. "I think I get it. And honestly, I'm beginning to get what you mean, my own head feels like it's overflowing right now."
They sat in silence, then, for several minutes while Ron put his head down, trying to sort through everything. He was still working through it when Hermione said, "Hagrid? What are you doing in the library?"
Ron's head shot up to look. Sure enough, Harry and Hermione were talking with Hagrid, who was hemming and hawing about what he was up to, and generally acting very suspicious. Since he was there, Harry and Hermione goaded him with what they knew about the mystery, revealing to him that they knew about the Philosopher's stone. He told them to shut up about it in the library, and to come see him later in his hut, before leaving.
When he left, Hermione got up. "I wonder what he was looking at."
A few minutes later, she came back. "Dragons," she whispered to them. "He was looking up stuff on dragons."
"Hagrid's always wanted a dragon," Harry said. "He told me once, he's always wanted one, ever since he was a kid."
Ron groaned. "Well he can't. Not legally, anyway. They're illegal to keep as pets. They can't be tamed, and they're too hard to hide, outside of dragon preserves. And even then..." he shrugged. "You should see the burns Charlie gets from the wild ones he works with in Romania."
Harry sighed very deeply, a long-suffering sigh. "Hagrid must have gotten his hands on a dragon, then. And he lives in a wooden house..."
"We'd better go to talk to him, then."
When they got to Hagrid's hut an hour later, the windows were covered in drapes, looking suspicious. The inside of the hut was boiling hot, too. They spoke with Hagrid about the stone, a subject he was very reluctant to say anything about despite the fact they already knew about it. They did, however, manage to get a little out of him: there were things guarding the stone apart from Fluffy. He didn't know what they were, which was probably a smart move on Dumbledore's part, but several of the teachers had contributed something to it; Dumbledore, McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout, Snape, and Quirrell had all contributed. They gave one another significant looks, since two different suspects were playing a role in protecting the stone. What's more, Snape had been working at the school for years, and doubtless had some idea what the other teachers might provide. In fact, things they'd overheard sounded like all Snape and Quirrell needed to get the stone was how to get past Fluffy.
"I still don't get why they didn't put up a wall to keep students out of there," Harry said. "We stumbled onto Fluffy, which is how we know about him?"
"WHA?" Hagrid nearly spilled his tea. "Yeh didn' get hurt, did yeh?"
"No. Admittedly, I had to get past a locked door, but that's not terribly secure, given that alohamora worked on it."
"Well yeh didn' go back, did yeh?"
"Of course not. Once was more than enough, seeing a beast like that."
"Hermione and I didn't see it," Ron said. "Glad I didn't. Might still be having nightmares if I had."
"Hagrid," Hermione said, fanning herself with a spell, "why is it so hot in here?"
It turned out, Hagrid was keeping a great black dragon egg in the heart of the fire. Since dragons blew fire on their eggs, he had to keep it hot in order to get it to hatch. Since dragon eggs were illegal, naturally they were curious about how Hagrid got one. He explained that a stranger in The Hog's Head had given it to him, after losing a game of cards to Hagrid. Harry thought that was highly suspicious, but didn't have the energy to really think about it, the heat was so stifling.
So now, on top of everything else, they had to worry about Hagrid getting in trouble for keeping a dragon. Harry also found himself annoyed by how slowly plans for his Muggle Academia Club and the possibility of a Wizard Studies Club. Frustrated by his lack of action on these, he asked Hermione about them one day. She had a few ideas for the MAC, and she'd sounded a few people out, but schoolwork and being a mere First Year had slowed her down. She told Harry he might have more luck.
"What about Wizard Studies?"
"Oh darn, I forgot about that entirely."
"Well let's talk to McGonagall later."
That afternoon, after classes but before dinner, they went to McGonagall's classroom and caught her before she left. She let them in, and they told her about their idea. She hadn't realized the need for it, but could see it was a great idea.
"Well Potter, Granger, I'll talk to Dumbledore about it. Knowing him, he'll likely support the idea. Frankly, I'm not sure why he didn't think of it himself. Anyway, it's almost dinner time, so we should get going."
"Thanks, Professor."
Of course, they could just start MAC with three students, but after he was done eating, he got Antigone's attention with a secret hand signal between them that meant 'Let's meet in the library in an hour.' She gave the affirmative symbol, so Harry went on to his other Slytherin friend, Danzia McCullough, with the same signal. After that was done, he went first to the Ravenclaw table to meet with his friends there, then to Hufflepuff, then back to his friends at his own House's table, giving them a similar message.
Harry had sent Antigone, Danzia, and Angela to the library, but everyone else to an unused classroom, mainly because he didn't have a hand signal for the unused classroom yet, and he didn't want to burn any bridges by going over to the Slytherin table in front of all these witnesses. Maybe later, but not yet.
He went into the library a little nervously. This would actually be the first time he'd met Angela. Screwing up his courage, he went in, and saw them at once. Antigone was sitting in her usual spot, her brown Indian skin looking great in the library's lighting, sitting next to a raven-haired girl of Asian descent that he assumed (correctly, as it turned out) was Angela.
Of course, he already knew the short, deceptively adorable strawberry-blond second-year Danzia, her blue eyes twinkling with potential mischief. It hadn't taken him long to classify her as being Slytherin House's answer to the Weasley twins, and smart enough to give most Ravenclaws a run for their money.
"Angela," Antigone said, "This is Harry Potter. Harry Potter, this is Angela Whitechapel."
They shook hands and smiled. "It's great to meet you at last, Harry,” she said.
"Great," said Antigone, with an air of eager impatience. "Now we've got that taken care of; you wanna come with, Angela?"
Angela cast her brown eyes down then back up again with a sigh. "Yes, I think I'm ready."
"Great, come on."
As he'd feared, Antigone, Danzia, and Angela were not well received by the collection of mostly Griffindors, Ravenclaws, and Hufflepuffs.
"What the--" Seamus Finnegan exclaimed. "What are you three snakes doing here?"
"Be nice to my friends, Seamus," said Harry, to almost everyone's surprise. Ron looked like he wanted to agree with Seamus, but couldn't see the point of it. Hermione was a little nervous; she'd never met a friendly Slytherin before, let alone three. Most of the Slytherins that deigned to communicate with other Houses were the bullying type. But everyone else was flabbergasted.
"You're friends with a trio of s--Slytherins?"
"Yes, Seamus. Well, technically, I've only just today met Angela, but whatever. Now I know there are a lot of unpleasant people in Slytherin, Antigone and Angela here will agree with you on that, but I didn't have any friends at all before Hogwarts, because of people judging me without bothering to get to know me, so I give everyone the same benefit of the doubt, regardless of House."
"Yeah," Danzia said, "and this whole thing about Slytherin being the only House to churn out dark wizards is just nonsense. And Slytherin House has its share of great and good people."
"Oh yeah?" Seamus asked. "Name one good famous Slytherin."
A smug grin crept onto the strawberry-blonde girl's face before she answered. "Merlin. Merlin was a Slytherin." She then pulled a book out of her bag, called 'Famous Slytherins Through History,' and opened it to the page about Merlin.
Everyone there was astonished, staring in disbelief at the evidence. Everyone but the two Slytherins and Harry, of course.
"Besides which," Harry said, "I was almost in Slytherin. I wouldn't have minded it if I'd gone there. Sure, some of the people there are unpleasant to others, but seeing how everyone treats Slytherins, I've been beginning to wonder how much of that is due to how Slytherins are treated."
The order erupted into a disarray of talking at various volumes, as this was a fact nobody quite knew how to deal with. Even Angela and Danzia looked astonished. Antigone seemed to have been told this already, though.
"Okay, you got us on Merlin," said Justin Finch-Fletchley, "and Harry here's a nice guy; if he almost got put in Slytherin, I'm willing to be open minded." He stood up and held out a hand to Danzia. "I'm Justin Finch-Fletchley. And you?"
She took his hand and shook it. "Danzia Victoria McCullough at your service."
"Charmed," Justin said, sounding genuine. "And you?" he asked Antigone, again offering his hand.
She took it. "Antigone Aconite Dreyfuss. Nice to meet you."
"Likewise."
He then held his hand out to Angela, who introduced herself as Angela Keiko Whitechapel.
"Oh yeah," said Antigone, "something else to make note of, about Slytherins. I'm a halfblood. My father, also a Slytherin, married a Muggle."
"And I'm Muggleborn," said Angela, "but please don't talk about that outside this group. I'm trying very hard to hide my blood status from the bigots."
Everyone turned to Danzia then. She grinned. "Both of my parents are wizards. I mean that literally; I have two dads, who I call Daddy and Papa. Both are halfbloods, if that means anything."
"Were you adopted?" asked Justin, curiosity writ large on his face.
"No. My biological mother is Papa's sister; I call her Aunt Rose, by her own insistence. Daddy is my biological father."
This was the proverbial straw that broke the back of bigotry; everyone got a lot more friendly to them, once they processed the idea of Slytherins with Muggle heritage.
"Good, now we've gotten that out of the way," Harry said, "we can start the meeting."
The meeting itself, largely to sound out interest in MAC and Wizard Studies, went fairly smoothly, and pretty well. Once Harry and Hermione started explaining some of the things Muggles had figured out, interest went from 'meh' to 'WOW!' Not everyone there thought they could make every meeting, once that was nailed down, especially this late into the school year, but even they were interested.
Naturally, all Harry's Muggleborn friends were deeply interested in Wizard Studies. Those who didn't need such a class volunteered to help out if they had to make it a club, too. And better yet, they all agreed to tell their heads of House about it, to drive up interest.
All in all, Harry was proud of what he'd accomplished that day. Ron was still a little weird about Antigone, Danzia, and Angela, but he had made a lot of progress already, so Harry felt confident he could get Ron to be friendly with his Slytherin friends.
It was good that he was making progress with MAC and Wizard Studies, because Hagrid's dragon egg was getting nearer and nearer hatching. Harry, Ron, and Hermione made a pact to not discuss the issue anywhere where anyone else could overhear, and Harry started reading up on spells for privacy. Even though he and Draco were civil to one another, he wasn't sure Draco could resist getting Hagrid in trouble if he found out.
Eventually, the dragon hatched, and their predicament only got worse. Harry talked with Luna on the two-way mirror about it. The stress of everything must have been getting to him, because she remembered something he'd mentioned before, and so was the one to suggest they involve Charlie, Ron's brother who worked with dragons, to get the dragon, whom Hagrid had christened Norbert.
He was in the library one day with Angela and Antigone, when Antigone said, "Harry, you look very worried about something. What's going on?"
"What? Oh, sorry. I... I can't talk about it here. Someone might hear, who shouldn't."
"Nonsense," the older girl said, casting several privacy spells. "There. Now nobody will be able to hear us, and they won't be able to read our lips, either; that last spell will blur our mouths."
"Wow. You're going to have to teach me those."
"Yeah, later. For now, what's going on?"
"Well, you know Hagrid, right?"
Antigone nodded enthusiastically. "I love Hagrid, he's awesome. Like a giant teddy bear. So what about him?"
"He... he has a dragon."
Both girls gasped, and tried talking at once, but Harry hushed them. "Yeah, I know, dragons are illegal. That's why I'm worried. He didn't seek it out, but once he got it, he hasn't been able to think about anything else. He's been neglecting his duties. And he's been calling himself it's mummy."
Antigone got an odd look on her face at this point, and quietly said, "Oh that poor dear soul." Then, snapping out of it, the Indian girl continued, "If you need help getting rid of it without Hagrid getting in trouble, let me know. Hagrid is awesome, I want him to stay here always."
"Thanks for the offer, but we have a plan. Somehow, we're going to cart Norbert - that's the dragon - from Hagrid's hut to the top of North Tower in the dead of night, under my invisibility cloak, and Ron's brother Charlie and some of his friends will take it to Romania for us."
"Wow, you have an invisibility cloak? Cool. Anyway, that sounds difficult. It'd be too difficult for me to be there in person, but I can teach you a spell to make the crate float. And silencing wards strong enough to be useful on a dragon. Oh, and the Disillusionment Charm, so you can't be seen if the cloak falls off. It would work on the crate, too."
"Wow, really? That's great! We have three days."
"Well, let's go to the MAC room, then, and get started."
Harry was very grateful for Antigone's help. By the last of their three days, Harry was accomplished enough at the charms she'd taught him that all they'd have to worry about was accidentally bumping into something, or maybe Mrs. Norris smelling them. Since Ron would not be happy about a Slytherin knowing about all this, Harry pretended he'd read about the spells.
The afternoon before their trek, the three of them visited Hagrid one last time. He was inconsolable, like a mother having her baby taken away from her.
Hagrid sniffed. "Th-thanks, the three of yeh, fer helpin me out. I shouldn' 've accepted Norbert's egg, I know, an I know I havter do the righ thing, buh tha' don' make it any easier."
"There, there, Hagrid," Harry patted the large man's arm, "he'll be with others of his own kind."
Hagrid burst into great sobs for several minutes. When he calmed down a little, he said, "An', an' as if it weren' bad enough Norbert's leaving, summat's been killin' the unicorns, poor sweet, innocent things. Been neglectin me duties, I'll have ter sort out wha's goin on tomorrah."
"What? Something's killing unicorns?" Ron asked incredulously. "What's fast enough to catch a unicorn?"
"Not much. Nothin tha's s'posed ter be in the forest, anyway." Hagrid began bawling again at that point, and they could get nothing more out of him.
As they walked away from Hagrid's hut and toward dinner, Harry said, "Something's killing unicorns, and it's nothing that should be there?"
"I know that look, Harry," Hermione said. "Please tell me you're not thinking of...” she looked around to see if anyone was in hearing range, “of going out to the forest at night."
"No, of course not," Harry lied. "The forest is no place for students."
"Good. Because there's no point endangering yourself for no good reason, alright?"
"Yes, you're right," Harry said.
Thanks to the spells Antigone had taught Harry, the trip from Hagrid's hut to North Tower went smoothly and efficiently. They ran into nobody, not even Mrs. Norris. Charlie and several of his friends on brooms arrived at midnight and carried Norbert off into the night, Charlie finding it weird to talk to a bunch of Disillusioned voices. When he left, they put the cloak on, even though it had largely been superfluous, and got safely back to the Griffindor common room, where they undid the Disillusionment Charm and went to bed.
Note: I have to admit, I've been putting a lot of myself in this Harry. After all, I'm autistic, I was bullied in school, and bullying is a form of abuse, so I know how abused people think. I wasn't abused by family, but I do have personal experience being abused by peers, and that gives me some insight. A lot more insight, apparently, than Rowling does; her Harry's personality doesn't make any sense at all, given the abuse he went through. Which is a large part of what made me decide to write this series.
Note #2: I really love the idea of good Slytherins, as my other story may attest to. Look forward to a few more of them popping up eventually; I even plan to have them be part of Dumbledore's Army, eventually. Oh and yes, if you're recognizing some names and traits of some of these Slytherin OCs from "We Are Not Death Eaters," I very much did that on purpose. But don't go thinking you know them; I may well change facts about their history.
Note #3: I have a secret in store about Antigone. But it's a secret. Just thought I'd give you a little warning, make you wonder what the secret is. It does not relate to note #2.
Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, is a young and abused Black boy with Asperger's syndrome, and is hated by his guardians, the Dursleys. A little over a week before his birthday, he discovers that he is also a wizard, and the Dursleys knew all along. Not only is he a wizard, but he's also famous in the wizarding world! An AU fanfic.
"Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals"
By = Fayanora
Chapter 8: Fighting Voldemort
Note: Not mine. Fanfiction. No money made. Please do not sue.
Note two: My computer ate my first attempt at this chapter. Four or five hours of hard work, with me fully In The Zone, just lost to the aether. So I took that as a sign to go another way with it.
~O~
Despite the recklessness that his invisibility cloak seemed to inspire in him, and despite how well the Norbert mission went, Harry had second thoughts about going out again after Hagrid. The unicorn thing didn't really seem relevant to the Stone. Sure, it was a little coincidental, but it didn't seem relevant. So he was leaning very hard towards keeping his promise to Hermione.
However, he did talk about it with Antigone, Angela, and Danzia later, when they were working on helping Harry study for the end of year tests. He didn't think much of the conversation, as his mind was not really there, so he didn't notice his three Slytherin friends taking the mystery more seriously than he did.
Later, in their common room with privacy spells up so they could talk safely, the three Slytherin girls discussed the unicorn problem.
"Harry doesn't think it's relevant, of course, but that's a bit of a coincidence," said Antigone. "Unicorn blood has regenerative powers, I've read. Not many would want to risk it, since there's a curse that goes with it, but that's not far removed from the Philosopher's Stone in function."
"Do you think it might be You-Know-Who?"
"That's kind of a leap, Danzia. What makes you think that?"
"Well, his body was never found. Maybe he's really weak, maybe he's dying. Not sure how he's kept alive all these years if I'm right, but what if he's here now, using the unicorn blood until he gets what he really wants?"
She pondered her own words for a moment. "One conversation I had with Harry once, he said Hagrid figures Voldy-whatsit never died, just got really weak. Ever since I heard that, I kind of, well... I've been scared, since then, that he'd come back."
The others stared blankly, so she continued. "And now this whole Stone thing crops up. It's been safe for centuries, hasn't it? And now all of a sudden somebody is trying to steal it? You-Know-Who may be weak, but he's still going to be very knowledgeable. And Quirrell has been a bit stranger than he used to be, since he came back from his trip to wherever he went."
"Do you think he brought You-Know-Who back with him?"
"Let's just say it's something I've worried about recently. And now this whole unicorn thing... the man is a seriously dark wizard, he's probably not going to care about killing unicorns and drinking their blood, curse or no curse."
"I still think you guys are reaching. But, well... if there's any chance at all of a connection, maybe we should check it out."
The next night Antigone, Angela, and Danzia Disillusioned themselves and snuck out of the castle into the darkness towards Hagrid's hut. Luckily, he was there, crossbow in hand, so they followed him, silencing themselves as they went so Hagrid wouldn't hear them. It was difficult, not being able to see where they were going, since the moonlight was mostly obscured by the thick forest top-growth, but they managed. Fang, Hagrid's dog, kept looking back at them, and they silently berated themselves for not thinking about the dog.
They'd been out there for who knew how long before Hagrid stopped dead. They just narrowly avoided running into him, but somebody behind them ran into them, and they screamed. Hagrid spun around, aiming his crossbow in their direction. They ran, not having time to undo the spell.
"Harry, what're yeh doin out here?" Hagrid boomed, stopping them. They turned around, and sure enough there was Harry, his cloak falling off of him. He hemmed and hawed, then finally confessed that he had decided to see if the unicorn thing was relevant.
Antigone put a silencing ward up quickly. "Wish he'd told us he was going to go anyway."
"Was that you I ran into, Hagrid?"
"What? No, yeh didn' run inter me, Harry. Was that you screamin?"
"No. Sounded like some girls."
"Does that mean someone else is out here? Yeh don't think they have summat to do with this, do yeh?"
Antigone pulled her friends forward, undoing the Disillusionments. Hagrid and Harry both jumped.
Hagrid's eyes narrowed. "Bunch o' Slytherins out in the forest at night? What're yeh doin out here? You the ones killin the unicorns?"
"Relax, Hagrid, it's my friends. Remember? Antigone, Angela, and Danzia."
Hagrid squinted more, and Harry turned his wandlight on them. "Oh yeah," Hagrid said. "Hi there, Antigone. Blimey, I feel right foolish. Ain't seen you two yet, but Antigone an I go back a couple years. Anyway, you lot still ain't supposed to be out here. But it'd take too long ter get back now. Might as well come with me. I can keep yeh safe."
They did as he commanded, and helped him look. He showed them the unicorn blood, a bit like sticky mercury, but lighter, and they followed the path of the dying unicorn.
However, at one point the remaining unicorns stampeded between the kids and Hagrid, and they got so lost in the mass of panicking animals that they couldn't find Hagrid again. Not thinking terribly straight, Harry and his friends wandered off looking for the path of the wounded unicorn again, in hopes Hagrid would find them that way.
What they saw at the end of the path, however, made them go stock still. There was the unicorn, dead; something horrible, like a living cloak, bent over the unicorn, drinking its blood. The thing then looked up at them. Harry's scar began to burn like a red-hot poker was being held to it, and a headache unlike any other made him fall over in a daze.
"Harry, get up! That thing is coming this way!"
They were still struggling to get Harry back up when something jumped over the three of them; it was a beautiful albino centaur, nearly as white as the unicorn. The centaur reared, and the slithering cloak creature fled.
With the danger passed, the centaur approached them. "Harry Potter, you and your friends should not be out here. It is especially dangerous for you, Mister Potter."
"Thank you for saving me..." he trailed off, not knowing their savior's name.
"My name is Firenze. Come, you three; climb on my back. I will take you to safety."
The three of them climbed on Firenze's back and he trotted off.
"What was that thing you saved me from?"
Firenze opened his mouth to speak, but Danzia beat him to it. "Voldemort! That was Voldemort!"
"Wow," said Harry. "You said his name. I thought I was the only one who did that."
"Well, normally I don't, but I didn't want there to be any doubt."
As they rode to safety, Danzia explained why she thought it was Voldemort, and Firenze nodded.
"By the way," asked Antigone when Danzia had finished. "What pronouns should I use for you, Firenze?"
"Wow. Thank you very much for asking, instead of assuming. My people are almost always misgendered as male, given our anatomy and human assumptions. Especially vexing, as we do not understand this concept of 'gender.' It does not apply to us anyway; it is not possible to tell from looking at us which of us can bear foals."
"Oh. Really? So how do you... if it's not too personal a question... um..."
"That," Firenze explained, "is indeed personal. It is of nobody's concern unless two or more of us wish to produce foals. Those of us who can bear foals know who we are."
"Sorry," she said, embarrassed. "If it helps make up for it at all, I, uh... I rejected the gender assigned me at birth. With the aid of magic, I have come to fit my preferred gender."
"That was not necessary, but I appreciate the gesture all the same."
"So what pronouns should I use?"
"Use the feminine pronouns for me today, if you would. If we meet again, it may change."
Two more centaurs appeared in the forest ahead of them, looking angry. One had a chestnut body below the waist, the skin tone above the waist matching the fur perfectly. Though the beard and the hair atop the head were bright red. The other one was practically coal black all the way through, though that one's head hair and beard were even darker. The two centaurs were in such a temper over Firenze carrying them on her back that they didn't attempt to find out pronouns. They just quietly slipped off and watched the row.
Luckily, Hagrid showed up then. "Gallopin gargoyles, there yeh are. Come on, back to the castle with yeh. Get invisible, too. Sorry for the problem, Bane, Ronan, and Firenze. We'll be going."
"Yes," said Ronan. "Human foals should stay in the castle where they belong."
As they got out of range of the centaurs, Hagrid said, "Don't worry yerselves none about the centaurs; they'd never hurt foals--I mean kids."
"Hagrid, the unicorn is dead. Something was drinking its blood."
"It was You-Know-Who," exclaimed Danzia. “He's still alive, after a fashion. Barely alive, but still alive."
Hagrid turned white. "Well I hope this'll be a lesson to yeh, not to go out at night. Come on, we're almost there."
Under his cloak, Harry made it back to his dormitory. The girls, under their Disillusionment Charms, made it safely to theirs, too.
The next day, the six friends got together so Harry and the three Slytherin girls could relate the previous night's events to Ron and Hermione. Those who had seen Voldemort were terrified, trying to argue to the others that something needed to be done post-haste. Finally, they agreed that telling anyone yet was premature; Fluffy was still where he was supposed to be, awake and guarding his trapdoor (Harry had checked on his way back the night before).
With the stress of Voldemort possibly returning, Harry and the three Slytherin girls had a hard time focusing on the end-of-year tests. All that got them through it was checking every now and then on Fluffy. Quirrell and Snape remained unchanged, too, which helped.
Only after the last test was over did something finally clunk into place for Harry. In a hurry, he ran to Hagrid's, dragging Ron, Hermione, and Antigone behind him.
"What's the matter, Harry?"
"I just realized something. Who carries dragon eggs around with them if they're illegal? Isn't it odd that Hagrid's dream was to have a dragon, and a stranger comes by who just happens to have an egg?"
"Shit," said Antigone. "Now you mention that, it is pretty odd."
"Hagrid," Harry said, having nearly run into him right outside the hut's door, "the stranger who gave you the dragon egg, what did he look like?"
"No idea. Kept his hood up. Well," he said when they looked flabbergasted, "it's not unusual in The Hog's Head. Bit of a fashion, really."
They gently interrogated him some more, and it turned out that the stranger had gotten Hagrid drunk and coaxed the secret to getting past Fluffy out of him; play Fluffy music, and he goes right to sleep. As Hagrid was berating himself for telling them that, they were running off back toward the school.
"Harry, Harry, wait," Antigone begged. "Slow down!"
"I can't, Voldemo--"
"Listen, Harry, think about it, how long ago did Hagrid get Norbert? Weeks ago, right? So in all that time, the stone's still been safe."
"Well yeah," Danzia said. "But Dumbledore's been here this whole time. Knowing how to get past Fluffy is easy compared to how to get past Dumbledore, and You-Know-Who feared Dumbledore, even when he was fully powered."
"So you reckon that stone's still safe?" Ron asked. "You don't think he could have taken it out from under Dumbledore's nose?"
"No. Dumbledore always seems to know what's going on. There've been little clues in the last few years, that he knows pretty much everything going on in the school."
"Might have something to do with not needing a cloak to be invisible."
"Yeah, I guess that would tend to help. That and an air of mystery. Anyway, we should talk to him, tell him what we know."
They tried to tell Dumbledore, but McGonagall waylaid them, and they found out that Dumbledore had been called away on Ministry business. This panicked them into revealing what they knew, which shocked McGonagall. She assurred them the stone was safe, and told them to go outside.
Of course, they didn't. They tried going to the third floor corridor, but McGonagall had headed them off, and threatened them with detention if they came back, so they left for the MAC classroom, where they agreed they had to meet later, after everyone had gone to bed; McGonagall wasn't going to stop guarding that corridor until all students were in bed.
That night, they set out very carefully, and met at Fluffy's door.
"Oh, you have a flute!" Angela quietly exclaimed. "I can play that."
With Angela playing the flute, the rest of them moved Fluffy's massive paw from the trapdoor and opened it. One by one they jumped down into the unknown, followed at last by Angela.
They landed on something soft, something that began to try to strangle them at once. "Devil's Snare!" Hermione and Antigone exclaimed at once. "I'll start a fire," said Antigone.
"But there isn't any wood!"
Antigone cast fire before anyone could respond to that, and the plant let them slip onto the stone floor underneath.
"No wood?" teased Ron. "Honestly..."
From there, they went into a new room, filled with hundreds of glittery birds. They walked to the other door and tried it, but it was locked. Alohamora didn't work on it, and neither did a Reductor curse from Antigone.
"You're not the only one ahead of your years, Harry, Hermione," she said. "Pity it didn't work."
"Hey you lot," Ron called. "I found six brooms. Dunno why."
Harry squinted at the 'birds.' "Because those aren't birds, they're keys."
"Oh. Well in that case, we'll need a rusty, old fashioned key, like the handle."
"There!" Harry pointed.
"Where?"
"There!"
"Harry, you have some really keen eyesight for someone who needs glasses."
They all climbed on the brooms, and spent several minutes trying to corner the key. Only the fact that it was wounded let them catch up to it in the end, wounding it more by pinning it to the wall. Then they flew back down and unlocked the door, tossing the key back as they left.
"That must have been Flitwick's," Danzia said. "First was Sprout's, of course. Unless Fluffy was the first? Anyway... what's this now?"
It was a giant chess set, with human-sized chess pieces made of stone, transfigured to be alive. They stood there, looking bored, until the six kids came in, at which point the pieces looked at them with interest.
"Oh shit," Ron said. "Yeah, I can do wizard's chess, but there's six of us. Dunno if I can protect all of you from harm. No idea how these guys will treat us."
Angela sighed. "Well, in that case, I can go back and use one of those brooms to see if I can go get Dumbledore."
"You giving up already?" Antigone asked.
Angela shrugged. "If I have to."
"No, no need for that yet." Ron stood there looking at the board, and then looking at his friends. "Harry needs to go. I need to be on the board, too. I think Hermione and Antigone can be on it too. Sorry, Danzia."
Danzia shrugged. "I'll live."
Harry took the place of a bishop, Antigone and Hermione took the rooks, and Ron was a knight, by Ron's decision. When they were in place, the others going back to the key room, the game began when white moved. Ron tested a hypothesis, and deliberately put a pawn in danger. The other pawn violently wrestled his pawn off the board and knocked it unconscious before returning to position.
"Well that answers that question," Ron said.
The next half hour (or was it an hour? It was hard to tell) was very tense, as Ron worked to win the giant chess game without endangering his friends. Somehow, he managed it, at least until the end.
"Yes," Ron said softly. "It's the only way. I've got to be taken."
"What?"
"Isn't it obvious?" asked Antigone. "He's going to sacrifice himself."
"No, you can't!" cried Hermione.
"There's no other way! Do you want to stop You-Know-Who getting the Stone or not?"
Hermione went quiet then.
"Good. Now, here I go," he said.
He stepped forward, and the white queen pounced, dragging him away and knocking him out before returning to the right spot. At this, Harry went where Ron had told him, and checkmated the white king, who threw down his crown in defeat.
"Antigone, can you take Ron back to the key room with Danzia and Angela?" asked Harry.
"Sure thing, mate." The older girl was tall enough and, apparently, strong enough that she hoisted Ron up in a fireman's carry and hauled him back to the key room. When she came back, with assurances that the other two were taking care of Ron, the three of them continued on.
On the other side, they found a great stench and an even greater troll, already knocked out. They were all glad of that; they'd never fought a troll before, and had no idea what one had to do. So they continued on.
As soon as they crossed into the second-to-last room, purple fire rose up behind them, blocking their exit. The way forward was also blocked, but by black fire.
"Snape's," Harry said, pointing out the bottles. There was a rhyming riddle in a scroll there, too. The three of them read the riddle aloud. It basically said that three bottles were poison, one bottle would get you forward, and another would let you go back. The rest were harmless but useless.
"Don't look at me," Harry said. "I suck at riddles."
"Alright, we'll figure it out." The two girls proceeded to talk it out between them. Before long, they had it figured out: the smallest bottle let them go forward. Only...
"There's only enough for one. Harry, it'll have to be you."
"Wait, hold up," said Antigone. "Why him? If Moldywart is back there, the pain in Harry's scar is going to render him useless."
"Yeah, but I beat him once before."
"When you were a baby! And nobody knows how that happened!"
"Maybe I'll get lucky again. Maybe I've got some kind of protection against him?"
"You don't know that! And besides, I'm older than you."
"And we both know that if we were the same age, I'd far outstrip you in ability anyway. And that's almost true now."
"So?"
"Listen, Antigone, I get what you're trying to do. You're worried about me, I know. Ideally, all three of us would go in there, but we can't. I'm the one with some weird connection with Voldemort. If nothing else, maybe the fact that he failed to kill me will buy me some time. Anyway, we don't have time to argue about it!"
Antigone slumped. "Fine. Hermione and I will go back to the chess room and keep watch, make sure Moldy doesn't get out. Or try, anyway."
"No, you two go find the others. Get Ron to the hospital wing, and contact Dumbledore, tell him what's going on. Gah! I can't believe I forgot to do that before!"
"Fine, fine," she said, and the two girls took the potion for going back. Harry took the one to go forward, and they parted ways. Harry paused a moment, then Disillusioned himself before he stepped through the black flames, his wand out, and saw... Quirrell. No Snape, just Quirrell.
The man was examining the Mirror of Erised in frustration, trying to figure out how to get the stone out of it, and hadn't noticed Harry come in. (It helped that Harry was Disillusioned.) But someone knew he was there, because a horrible voice, weak but terrifying, said, "The boy is in this room, Quirrell. He is Disillusioned."
Harry crept about stealthily, drawing on his experience stealing food at the Dursley's to be quiet as possible. Quirrell had turned around to face the exit, his wand out, looking around in confusion.
"To your right, fool!" the horrible voice said.
"Incarcerous," Quirrell shouted, Harry ducking the ropes, but making enough sound in the process that Quirrell tried again, and got Harry's left hand, rendering the Disillusionment Charm moot. Trying to run and sever the ropes at the same time earned Harry a cut arm, giving the man another means by which to track him.
"Incarcerous--"
"Protego!" The ropes from Quirrell's wand bounced off his shield charm.
"You are very clever, Harry," the horrible voice said. "But not clever enough! I will subdue you, and you will help me, or you will die!"
"Never!" He shot a Jelly-Legs Jinx at Quirrell, then Expelliarmus, successfully disarming Quirrell, the man's wand flying into Harry's hand.
"ENOUGH!" the horrible voice screeched in anger, and pain flooded through Harry's scar. He downed a pain-relief potion quickly, which helped, and used Incarcerous and a stunner on Quirrell.
"I'm familiar with pain, Voldemort! It's not going to stop me!"
"Pain? I have not caused you any pain yet, boy, but rest assurred, I will."
Somehow, the ropes around Quirrell came undone, and the man stood up and lunged at Harry. Harry ducked, wondering how they knew where he was, but it wasn't enough; he was caught, the wands wrested from his hands, and was soon tied up, the Disillusionment Charm broken, and Quirrell dragged him over to the mirror.
"Tell me what you see!" demanded Quirrell.
Harry looked at the Mirror, against his better judgment. He saw his reflection wink at him and drop the Stone in his pocket. Then he felt the lump of the stone there.
"I refuse to cooperate. I'll die before I let you get the Stone!"
"He knows!" the horrid voice of Voldemort said. "He knows!"
"Give it to me, Potter!"
"Go to Hell!"
"Let me face him."
"Master, you are not strong enough!"
"I have strength enough for this."
Quirrell unbound Harry. Without his wand, Harry was helpless. He watched as Quirrell unwrapped his purple turban, exposing a second face jutting out of the back of the man's head. He felt like he was going to be sick.
"You see what I've become? Living off another to survive. Unicorn blood has sustained me, but I need the Stone to rebuild my body. Give it to me, and I will reward you greatly, Harry."
"You killed my parents! You tried to kill me, when I was just a baby. I'll never join you! Go to Hell!"
"GET HIM!"
Quirrell turned around and leapt forward, grabbing Harry. Without a wand, he was terrified about his prospects. Acting on instinct, he grabbed Quirrell's arm, trying to force it away. The skin on Quirrell's arm began to burn and bubble, causing the man pain; he let go of Harry and stared in disbelief and agony at his arms.
"What... what is this magic?"
"FOOL! GET THE STONE!!!"
Goaded on by his master, Quirrell tried again. Harry grabbed the man's face, and the same burning happened there. Quirrell could not touch him without burning. Harry grabbed the man's throat, and the burning spread there as well. Quirrell lay there gagging, dying, and as he did, Voldemort - little more than a ghost - came out of him. This Harry witnessed as the exhaustion took hold and he passed out.
He woke up later, a glint of gold over him. Someone had put his glasses on him, so he was able to make out the source of the gold, as the spectacles of Albus Dumbledore.
"Sir! The Stone, it was Quirrell! He might have it!"
"Relax, dear boy. Quirrell does not have the stone. He does not, in fact, even have his life anymore. He died a little bit ago. The Stone is safe."
"But who has it? Where---"
"Hush, please, before Madam Pompfrey kicks me out. The stone has been destroyed."
"Destroyed? But your friend Nicolas---"
"Ah, you know about Nicolas. Good. Harry, he and I discussed things, and we decided it was for the best that the stone was destroyed. Besides which, Nicolas and his wife have been alive so very long that they've grown tired of living. But they have enough elixir to set their affairs in order before they pass on."
"What?"
"Yes, I know. It may seem incredible to one so young, but to those of us who are old, life grows tiresome eventually. Everything is still so very new for you, but after decades of life, things like eating several times a day can get dull."
Harry nodded. He and Dumbledore discussed a lot of other things after that, but Harry's attention got more and more distracted the longer they talked. He was distracted by something. Finally, he couldn't stand it anymore, and spoke.
"Sir? What about this summer? What are we doing this summer?"
Dumbledore looked suddenly grave. "I'm glad you mentioned that, Harry. I never got a chance, before, to personally apologize to you for how you grew up. I really am very sorry about all that, I thought I had a better estimation of your aunt and uncle's personalities than that. I was absolutely astonished and horrified to hear about what you've gone through."
Harry nodded mutely.
"Anyway, Harry... that issue is a little... complicated. You see, when your mother died, she left you the protection that you used against Quirrell, and that protection was strengthened when I tied it to certain ancient magics. In short, as long as you can call the place where your mother's blood relatives live home - in this case the Dursley's house, since you have no other blood relatives - the protection remains. You have to spend only a few weeks a year there to keep the protection going, but if you don't... then the protection goes away."
"I see."
"That said, it is your choice whether or not to go back. But, because I feel the blood protection is necessary, I can offer you something that will make your stay with the Dursleys bearable. Obviously, they cannot be allowed to mistreat you or neglect you again."
"What is it you're offering?"
"I am offering to cast a number of spells on your family and their house, to ensure they cannot hurt you. One spell can grab them and prevent them from hitting you. Another can tie their tongues if they attempt to emotionally abuse you. And..." Dumbledore smiled. "I pulled a few strings at the ministry to let one of the school's house elves stay with you while you're there." He coughed once, then said in a commanding tone, "Netty."
A tiny, humanoid creature with giant floppy ears and eyes the size of dinnerplates appeared on the bed in front of Harry, making him jump. He'd never seen a house elf before; he tried not to stare, as he didn't want to be impolite.
"Harry, this is Netty the Hogwarts school house elf. She works in the kitchens here. If you accept my offer, she will be a sort of bodyguard for you at the Dursleys, and will ensure you get enough to eat, and that you are treated with civility."
Looking at the creature, who was wearing a tea towel as a toga, he had to suppress a giggle at the thought of how Aunt Petunia would react to this.
"So, what do you think of the offer?"
Harry smiled. "Well... I'd much rather not have to go there, but you're right; that blood protection saved my life, it might do so again. And I really want to see Aunt Petunia's reaction to Netty. I accept your offer."
"Good. Then I will meet you at the train station, and escort you to the Dursley house, where I will inform them of what I will be doing, and introduce Netty to them."
Harry laughed aloud at this. "Thanks."
"But first, formal introductions are in order. Netty, this is Harry Potter. He is the boy we discussed earlier, that you will be helping, if you are amenable to it."
In a squeaky little voice that he knew would grate on Petunia's nerves, Netty said, "Oh my, the famous Harry Potter! Netty is most honored to be helping the one who is defeating He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, she is indeed! Of course Netty will help Harry Potter, Professor Dumbledore sir! And Netty will gladly keeps your secrets and her silence as well, Harry Potter sir!"
"Nice to meet you, Netty," Harry said, holding out his hand for her to shake.
"Oh my! Harry Potter is treating house elves as equals? You is even greater than they is saying, Harry Potter sir!" She shook his hand excitedly.
This summer is going to be fun, Harry thought to himself.
"Well, Harry, I think that's all for now. Anyway, I'm sure you'll want to see your friends. As you can see, they have left you many tokens of their admiration. Netty, you may return to the kitchens for now, or pack any belongings you may require. We shall call you later when we've explained things to his family."
"Righty-o, Professor Dumbledore sir!" Netty said, disappearing with a small pop.
"Wait, sir, before you go, I have one more thing to ask."
"And what would that be, my dear boy?"
"You said rumors are flying about what happened down there. Are you planning on telling the school anything about it?"
"Well, I was planning on a little something, yes. You stopped Voldemort from returning; that's something worthy of recognition."
"Could you... could you not? Or, or downplay it or something? I don't like a fuss being made over me. I don't think I could handle the whole school like, cheering for me or something. The very thought is giving me some anxiety."
"Well I can't guarantee you anything, Harry; I have to put the rumors to bed somehow. And you wouldn't be the sole recipient of acclaim anyway. Six of your friends were involved, too."
"Six? But only five of my friends were down there with me."
"You're forgetting Neville Longbottom."
"Neville? He tried to stop us."
"It took a lot of bravery to stand up to his friends, Harry. He felt you were endangering Griffindor's good standing, it took a lot for him to defy you."
"I... suppose. Well, just..."
"Don't worry, Harry. I think you'll like my speech."
Harry nodded, still thinking. When his friends came into the room after Dumbledore left, he smiled. He smiled even more on noticing that Ron was being almost as friendly with Angela, Antigone, and Danzia as he was with Hermione and himself.
They discussed the events as much as they could before the matron demanded Harry needed more rest. Before they left, he asked Ron to retrieve something for him from his trunk. A few minutes later, Ron returned with the two-way mirror, and Harry began to tell Luna what had happened; she was grateful for this... she'd heard somewhere that Harry was in the hospital wing, but hadn't been able to come out to visit him.
Later that evening, Harry got to go to the leaving feast; apparently Dumbledore had requested he be allowed to attend. When they'd all eaten, Dumbledore stood up and got their attention.
"It is now time to announce the winner of the inter-house championship." He read off the points, and it turned out there was a tie between Griffindor and Slytherin. There was a lot of cheering, and also a lot of booing, at this.
"Well done to both Houses, well done. Of course, we must break the tie somehow, mustn't we? Or must we?"
The cheering and booing turned to mutterings, at this point.
Dumbledore sighed. "In my day, the four Houses were friends, and the rivalry was friendly. But ever since Voldemort came to be a student here in Hogwarts - yes, he was a student here once - ever since he came here, the Houses have been more divided than ever. Largely it is Griffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw against Slytherin, but there's not as much inter-House unity among the other three Houses as there should be, either. And so we find this competition has become... not as friendly as it should be."
Harry sat up straighter, wondering where Dumbledore was going with this.
"It is only fitting, therefore, that the boy who somehow survived Voldemort's killing curse should start healing that wound, bridging that divide. For young Harry Potter has, this year, done something that few others outside of Slytherin House have done since Voldemort poisoned this school with his influence: Harry made friends among the Slytherin students."
There was briefly a great uproar over this, before Dumbledore got the room to order with loud crackers from his wand.
"Thank you. Yes, young Harry Potter saw something that few if any of the rest of you seemed to see; that there are those in Slytherin who are good, honest, hard working people. Being in Slytherin does not make you evil, and Harry saw this. It is about time more of you saw this, too.
"I must also address the rumors of what happened between Harry and Professor Quirrell. This, here, is the truth: that the Philosopher's Stone, capable of giving the user immortality, was kept away from the hands of a greatly weakened, barely alive Voldemort, by Harry Potter and five of his friends. Three of whom are Slytherins."
Dumbledore waited a few minutes this time for the uproar to die down before continuing, pausing every now and then for the inevitable cheering."Griffindor student Ron Weasley defeated Professor McGonagall's giant chess set to help Harry beat Quirrell to the Stone. Griffindor Hermione Granger used logic to solve a puzzle toward the same end. Slytherin student Antigone Dreyfuss got them past the Devil's Snare and got help when it was needed, along with Slytherin student Danzia McCullough, and those two girls taught Harry and the others spells that helped them out, and helped Harry evade Quirrell long enough to stay alive.
"Also, Slytherin student Angela Whitechapel got them past the giant cerberus guarding the labyrinth's entrance, with some very nice flute playing.
"But we should also not overlook Neville Longbottom. Not knowing what was going on, and fearing they would get Griffindor into trouble, Neville stood up to his friends... a far greater challenge than standing up to your enemies."
Neville looked stunned. He'd rarely been praised for anything, and now the whole school was cheering him.
"It falls to the headmaster, when there is a tie, to break that tie. But, I have made another decision. I am letting the tie stand; Griffindor and Slytherin will both share in the win, this year, for their show of inter-House unity. And all of the students I have named in this speech will be rewarded with awards for Special Services to the School."
He clapped his hands, and suddenly there appeared hangings of both Griffindor and Slytherin. This was met with... well, there was some cheering, but mostly bewilderment, and talk of how weird Dumbledore was. But most did seem to get the point that he'd been trying to make. How well that point would stick, time would only tell.
As they boarded the train the next day for home, Hagrid stopped to give him a present; the photo album he had promised Harry. Harry, tears in his eyes, thanked Hagrid and hugged him before boarding.
Harry and his friends all got a compartment together, and Harry was glad to see that Ron was treating the three Slytherins no differently than he did Harry or Hermione. Closing the door, Harry began to tell them all about Dumbledore's plan for the Dursleys, which had everyone cracking up, stitches in their sides from laughing so hard.
"The best part," Harry said, "is that the Dursleys don't know I'm not allowed to use magic out of school!"
Harry was right, this was going to be a great summer.
End of book 1.
Note: Because the numbering system got so messed up, I am going to be posting the second book of this series as its own story, so it will have proper numbering. Stay tuned for a link, here, to the second book.
I actually copied the code straight from the AO3 version, and I forgot about this note when I did. So here on BigCloset, that note does not apply.
Note 2: Please leave feedback, I welcome your feedback! :-)
“Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book 2”
By = Fayanora
Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, is a young and abused Black boy with Asperger's syndrome, and is hated by his guardians, the Dursleys. A little over a week before his birthday, he discovers that he is also a wizard, and the Dursleys knew all along. Not only is he a wizard, but he's also famous in the wizarding world! An AU fanfic.
Note: Fanfiction. Not making money off this. J. K. Rowling gets all the credit for the Potterverse.
Book Two: Aspie Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Chapter One: My, How The Tables Have Turned
After getting off the school train at Platform 9 3/4th, he went through the platform with his trunk and saw Dumbledore there. He was looking very odd in a three-piece purple velvet suit, shoes made of what looked like snakeskin but was clearly (to Harry) dragon hide, his beard trimmed so it went no farther than the middle of his silver tie with green stars.
“Nice suit sir,” Harry told him when he got in range.
“Why thank you, Harry. That's nice of you to say. Come, we are going to take a cab to The Leaky Cauldron before we go to your aunt and uncle's house.”
“You trimmed your beard,” Harry noted.
The old man chuckled. “Oh no, my dear boy; I didn't trim it. I...” he looked around carefully for eavesdroppers before continuing in a whisper, “I used magic on it, of course. It will return to normal later.”
“Well that's good. It's a fine, distinguished beard you have, sir.”
Dumbledore chuckled again and called a cab. Two cabs passed them by, their drivers almost crashing from staring at Dumbledore's suit, before one finally stopped. This man's jaw was open most of the time they got situated, and it was only with a mighty effort of will that he closed it again and forced himself to focus on the road as he drove them to their destination.
Once they got into The Leaky Cauldron, Dumbledore sent Harry's trunk ahead to his bedroom, and had Harry take his arm for side-along apparition.
“I warn you, Harry, the first trip usually makes people ill for a time.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
Sure enough, when they found themselves in a familiar but unexpected house smelling of cats, Harry bent over sick. Luckily, there was a bucket right there, which he vomited into.
As he wiped the sick from his mouth, he said, “Lucky this bucket was here.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it, Harry m'dear,” said a familiar female voice. “Dumbledore told me you were coming, and that it was your first apparition trip.”
Harry looked up, and was astonished to see Mrs. Figg in her slippers, navigating a living room floor full of cats to walk over to him.
“M-Mrs. Figg? You're a witch?”
“Me a witch? Ha! Don't I wish. I couldn't so much as transfigure a teabag, boy. I'm a squib, I am.”
“Oh. I thought squibs only lived in the wizarding world?”
“Oh no, no. Squibs are born to wizarding parents, it doesn't matter which world we live in. I live a little in both worlds, I guess you could say. Here, have some tea, get the nasty taste out of your mouth.”
Harry took it and sipped, recovering fully at last. The tea seemed to work mostly by replacing one disgusting taste with another, but at least this one was more tolerable. “Begging your pardon, both of you, but why are we here? Why didn't we just apparate into... wait, never mind. I answered my own question.” Suddenly appearing in the Dursley's house, with a loud crack? That would have been suicide.
“Yes, quite right, Harry,” Dumbledore said. “It is, of course, rude to apparate right into someone's house. Unless, of course, you call ahead and get permission first.”
“Well that's one reason,” Harry agreed. “I suppose this was only possible because you're a squib, Mrs. Figg? A wizarding household would have wards, I'm guessing.”
Mrs. Figg blinked, impressed. “You always surprise me with your intelligence, young man. Not that... oh dear.” she turned red.
“Oh don't worry about it,” Harry said, knowing what she was saying. “You were raised in a different culture, one with a different definition of racism. It's taken me a bit of getting used to myself.”
After he finished the horrid tea, Harry said his thanks, and he and Dumbledore left to go to the Dursley's. Harry felt very nervous about this, very worried despite everything. After all, he was going back to the house where he'd been abused for 10 years, and the precautions Dumbledore had promised were still abstract to him, Netty the house elf aside.
It was only then that he began to really think about the house elves. They were something he was going to have to do more research about. He wasn't sure what he thought about them, yet, except that he got the feeling they were an entire species of servants. He wondered if they got paid, and if so, how much?
When the door of the Dursley house opened up, Vernon's face went from 'oh it's you is it?' to 'whaaaa?' in two seconds flat, as he stared agog at Dumbledore.
“Greetings, Mr. Dursley. I am Professor Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts. May we come in?”
Vernon said nothing; he didn't look like he could even think at the moment.
“I shall take that as a yes, then. Come, Harry.”
They stepped in, as Vernon gave no resistance.
“Vernon, who is it? Who's at the...” Petunia saw Dumbledore and she, too, imitated a Venus Flytrap with her mouth.
“Greetings, Mrs. Dursley. I am Professor Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts.”
“Mummy, what's going oaAAAAHHH,” Dudley shouted, running away from Dumbledore so fast he tripped over his own feet, and slammed his bedroom door shut. Dudley must have picked up on Dumbledore's wizardishness even through the weird suit.
“Dudders?” Petunia had been brought out of her fugue by her son's scream. “Dudders? Are you...” Confused, she turned back to Dumbledore, recognizing at last what she'd missed before. “You!” she snapped. “What are you doing in my house?”
“Your husband graciously let us in.”
Petunia looked at Vernon, who was snapping out of his own fugue at last, then turned back to Dumbledore with a look that could have broken glass.
“Anyway, as I said, I am Professor--”
“I heard you the first time,” she rudely interrupted.
Dumbledore's eyes twinkled gleefully. “Good,” he said. “I was concerned; you seemed to have lost the ability of independent movement. Glad to hear that I needn't have worried.”
The idea that Dumbledore worried about them made strange, conflicted expressions cross both the Dursley's faces.
“Well, now that I am here, I can do as I told you in my letter I would do, and explain Harry's continuing arrangements. Please, sit down, both of you. Dudley,” he called across the house, “you will need to be here, too.”
Neither of them looked pleased to be ordered around in their own house, but complied all the same. Dudley poked his head out of his bedroom and shouted “NO!”
“Dudders,” Petunia said in a shaky voice. “Best do what he says, popkin.”
Dudley glared at Dumbledore, then slowly made his terrified way over, sitting next to his mother.
“Good,” Dumbledore said, sitting down himself. “Now, when I asked you two to watch over Harry like he was your own son--”
“You mean when you dropped him on our doorstep without so much as a by-your-leave?” Petunia shot back.
“Yes, sorry about that. But time was of the essence. The blood wards that protect Harry from Voldemort and his supporters while he lives here could only be put up within a limited time. And given our...
previous correspondence
Petunia, I naturally assumed the two of you would be fit for the job.”
“We almost didn't take him,” Petunia snapped. “I don't know why I did. Moment of weakness, I guess. Should have dropped him off at an orphanage.”
“Given what Harry has told me about his treatment here, and what Poppy has said about the scars she found in her examinations of him, it may have been better if you had.”
“ARE YOU ACCUSING US OF CHILD AB--”
“YES, Mister Dursley, I am indeed accusing you of child abuse,” Dumbledore snapped, the sparkles in his eyes gone and a tone of cold fury in his words. “And were it not for the blood wards and the threat of Voldemort returning, I would give him over to a kind and loving family like the Weasleys in a heartbeat. In fact, had I known what sort of a life he would have had here, I would never have left him here to begin with.”
He sighed, calming down a little in a way that reeked of sorrow. “But what's done is done. The wards have proven themselves invaluable, having saved Harry's life just a few days ago. Even so, when I offered Harry certain protections from the three of you while he lives here, a part of me hoped he would decline the offer. But rest assured, you will not be abusing or neglecting your nephew ever again. I have authorization from the Ministry of Magic to cast certain--”
“MINISTRY OF MAGIC?” roared Vernon. “Weirdos like you in the govern--”
“QUIET!” Dumbledore said so loudly and angrily that even Harry fell backwards in fright.
“Better,” he continued. “Now, as I was saying, I have been given authorization to cast certain spells on the house that will keep you three from hurting young Harry ever again.” He stood up, waved his wand a few times, and then sat down again.
“There. Let us test it, shall we. Mr. Dursley, if you would attempt to hit your nephew.”
Vernon glared suspiciously at Dumbledore, his desire to hit Harry fighting the knowledge that this was surely a trap. “Why should I? Not saying the little fr—EEK!” Mr. Dursley put his hands to his mouth in a panic, standing up and gesticulating madly. This set off Mrs. Dursley, but when she tried ranting angrily at Dumbledore, she did the same thing as her husband. Dudley took off running back to his room.
Harry laughed, remembering the tongue-tying hex Dumbledore had told him about, knowing this must be the result of the hex. Then he noticed that his uncle had been stopped from throwing things at Dumbledore by another spell, his arms being forced behind his back. Harry snorted with laughter at this, but refrained from more laughter out of habit.
“An excellent test, don't you think, Harry?”
“Quite, Professor.”
They waited while the Dursleys finally realized the futility of fighting, and stopped struggling, sitting down again once the spell eased up on them. With a flick of his wand, Dumbledore made Dudley come zooming back into place as well. When the chaos died down again, he spoke.
“Good. Now, prepare yourselves, for I have someone I want you to meet. She will be Harry's bodyguard while he is here, making sure he gets enough to eat, and giving him a person to speak with, who doesn't hate him. Aside from friends he may wish to have over, of course.”
Both Dursleys no doubt wanted to say something, such as 'he has friends?' or 'over my dead body!' but they didn't dare, for fear their tongues would be tied again. So they just blanched, instead.
“I must also warn you not to have muggle visitors over,” he explained to the Dursleys. “For the being of whom I speak is not a human; she is a house elf.”
The Dursleys didn't know what to make of this, and it showed on their faces.
“You should call her, Harry, as she is your tertiary guardian now.”
“Um, okay Professor. Uh... Netty!”
A small pop and then screaming from the Dursleys announced the arrival of the short, green-skinned female elf with her large, batlike ears and large protruberant eyes; eyes that Harry finally noticed were bright, sky blue.
Luckily, the spells soon had the Dursleys down for the count and quiet. Netty was glaring at them and clucking her tongue disapprovingly momentarily, before turning to Harry. “Hello again, Harry Potter sir,” she said, bowing.
“There's no need for that, Netty,” Harry said uncomfortably.
She stood back up, looking uncertain. “Sorry, Harry Potter sir. Netty is not familiar with your ways, yet. Netty is doing better next time, sir.”
“Netty, relax. You're doing fine,” Harry said. “I know we barely know each other, but please, try to think of me as a friend. We're just friends, and you're just here helping out a friend.”
Netty raised an eyebrow. “Um... okay, Harry Potter sir.”
“And please, you can just call me Harry.”
The house elf's face contorted in confusion so badly that Harry was concerned briefly, before she said, “Begging your pardon, Harry Potter sir, but Netty is not feeling comfortable with that order. It is contradicting Netty's training.”
“It wasn't an order. Nothing I tell you is an order unless I specifically say it is, okay Netty?”
She relaxed at that. “Thank you, Harry Potter sir.”
“If you need to be more formal, then you can just shorten it to 'sir.' You don't have to say my name every time.”
Netty bowed again, stopping halfway as she remembered he didn't want that, and stood back up. “Understood, sir.”
“Yes,” Dumbledore said with amusement. “Netty here is charged with keeping watch over young Harry here. She'll make sure you're feeding him enough and treating him, at the very least, with civility. She will not go anywhere she can be seen by your neighbors or any other muggles. But I warn you, she does have magic that she can employ if she needs it to do her job as I have defined it. So if you don't want to see any magic in the house, I suggest you do your duty as guardians.”
They made no response but to nod mutely, like their spirits had been broken.
“Good. Now, I must be off. Harry, Netty, I shall see you in September.”
“Fare well, Professor Dumbledore sir!”
“Bye, Professor!”
He twirled on the spot, and disappeared with a tiny, barely audible pop. Once he left, Netty looked around the house, inspecting it. Harry, not knowing what else to do, followed her.
“Netty is afraid she is going to get bored here, sir. This house is almost
too
clean. Is your family doing all this without magic, sir?”
“Yeah, my aunt is a bit of a neat freak. Cleans all the time, sometimes even if I'd already cleaned it. And sometimes... but never mind.”
“Well, this is going to be... ah, this is being much better,” Netty said, upon opening the door to his room. “Netty is having something to clean! Er... if it is being fine with you, sir?”
“Of course. Just make sure not to throw any papers out without consulting me first, unless I've already chucked it in the bin. And make sure I can find my stuff.”
He went over to his trunk and rifled through it for a book to read. It was late, and he'd had a long day. But then he set the book aside, and took out his two-way mirror instead. He spent the next hour or two telling Luna about the day, while Netty cleaned Hedwig's cage, got Hedwig some food, and did his laundry for him. Before that, though, she brought him sandwiches and some tomato soup and insisted he eat, for which he was grateful, and thanked her. She grinned and bowed just her head, then continued with the rest of her work.
Life at Privet Drive now was... interesting. He no longer had to worry about being hit, or yelled at. In fact, the Dursleys hardly said two words to him all week. Nor did they look directly at him, as though afraid they'd lose their self control if they did. But this was far from a problem for Harry, especially now that he had Netty to talk with.
The second week back, Harry invited Luna over to the house, just to meet there before going to the local library together. Netty didn't like them going off out of her sight, but he convinced her that he'd never run into trouble in Little Whinging before, so she didn't press the issue.
“You must be Netty,” Luna said when they first met. She held out a hand to the little elf. “I am most pleased to meet you, Netty. My name is Luna Lovegood.”
Netty took Luna's hand, grinning. “Netty is liking you, Luna Lovegood ma’am.”
“And I like you, too, Netty. Ready, Harry?”
Harry put his wand in his pocket just in case, and followed her out the door. “We'll be back by suppertime, Netty.”
“What? Is you not coming for lunch?”
“I've got money, we'll get something out. Don't worry about it, Netty.”
“Okay, if you is saying so.”
Harry rushed out the door, walking arm in arm with Luna. They talked about interesting things they'd read for a few minutes. It was only when they were well away from number 4 that Luna changed the subject.
“By the way, Harry, Ron wanted me to tell you he's still waiting for a reply to his last letter. I told him it's only been a week, but you know Ron.”
“What letter? I haven't received any letters from anyone yet.”
“Really? Well, we'll have to talk with Hedwig about it when we get back.”
“Are you sure he didn't use Errol? If he did, the poor bird probably passed out halfway here and is resting on a tree or something. That's assuming he's not an ex-owl.”
“If he's not an owl, what else would he be?” she asked curiously.
“Never mind, it was an obscure reference.”
When they got back from the library, they did indeed check with Hedwig. It was hard, but Luna thought Hedwig's exasperated and annoyed looks meant she'd been mysteriously losing his mail, and was really peeved about it. But with no better form of communication with her, they had no idea what was going on.
“I suppose I could ask Netty to look into it,” he said.
“Ah, good thinking, Harry.”
“Netty?”
Netty popped into place in front of him. “Yes, sir? You is wanting me for something?”
“We think someone's been intercepting my mail. Ron sent a letter that I should have received by now, and Hedwig informs us the mail has been vanishing en route. Is it possible you could investigate this for me, whenever you have spare time?”
She bowed her head a little, and said, “Yes, sir! Netty is looking into it right now!” Then she disapparated.
Over the next week, the mail kept getting intercepted, and Netty kept popping away to look into the matter. Harry had to resort to using Luna to relay messages to Ron. He had no idea about Hermione; did she have an owl? No, he remembered she didn't. But she hadn't phoned, either, and she had his number. He also hadn't heard anything from his three Slytherin friends or Hagrid, either.
Finally, halfway into the third week, Netty popped into place in front of Harry's bed, wrestling another house elf. This one was little like Netty. His eyes were green and shaped like tennis balls, and he was filthy, wearing a pillowcase that looked like it hadn't been washed in decades.
Netty is bringing you the culprit, sir!” she announced as she wrestled a stack of letters from Dobby and tossed them at Harry, who caught them and set them aside.
Harry got up and leaned over to look at the other house elf. When the elf saw him, he relaxed, and bowed his head at Harry. “So long has Dobby wanted to meet you, sir! The famous Harry Potter, who defeated the Dark Lord. Dobby--”
“Why did you steal my mail?” Harry asked, a lot more calmly than he felt.
“Oh sir, Dobby is terribly sorry. Dobby is come with a warning, sir. Dobby is overhearing something most dire, plans to make terrible things happen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year. And Dobby must keeps Harry Potter safe, for he is too precious--”
“That doesn't explain why you stole my mail.”
“Harry Potter must not go back to Hogwarts! It is very dangerous for him now. Dobby is thinking, if Harry Potter is not hearing back from his friends, that he may not want to go back.”
Harry actually laughed at this. “Oh my goodness... Dobby, if you knew what it was like here before I got Netty here to help me, you would understand. I hate it here! I'm only here to fulfill my part of a spell that protects me from Vold--”
Dobby and Netty both gasped.
“--emort,” Harry continued, “and his followers. Hogwarts is my home. Dangerous or not, I
am
going back. By the way, what
is
supposed to happen at Hogwarts? What's the danger?”
Dobby gritted his teeth. Still being held down by Netty, Dobby banged his head against the floor.
“What are you doing?” Harry shouted, horrified. “Stop it! Stop hurting yourself!”
To Harry's surprise (but not Netty's), Dobby stopped at once. “Sorry, Harry Potter sir. But Dobby is almost saying something he ought not, and had to punish himself.”
“Well I forbid you to punish yourself, Dobby.”
“Thank you, Harry Potter sir. You truly are greater than Dobby has heard.”
“Is there anything at all you can tell me about the danger?”
“Only that dark things are being plotted, sir.”
“Does this have anything to do with Vold-- sorry, with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?” Harry asked, a tone of sarcasm in his voice.
Dobby looked strangely at Harry. “Not... not He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, no.”
Something in the elf's behavior seemed to be trying to give him a clue. “Does he have a brother?”
“Not to my knowledge, sir.”
“Well if not him, I don't know who else could do horrible things at Hogwarts.”
Dobby was still behaving strangely. But whatever clue he was trying to indicate, Harry couldn't figure it out. He walked away to think a little, barely noticing Dobby and Netty discussing him; Netty told Dobby how Harry treated house elves with respect like equals, how polite and kind he was, and when Dobby asked about the rumors that Harry had faced Voldemort at the end of his first school year, Netty looked to Harry as if to ask him the same question.
“Yes, I did meet You-Know-Who a few weeks ago at the end of school.” At which Dobby began to wax poetic about how brave and bold Harry was. It was distracting him from thinking, though.
“Dobby, I don't care how dangerous it is, Hogwarts is my home. My true home.”
“Begging your pardon, sir?” said Netty. “But what is we to do with him?”
“Dobby, you work for someone else, right?”
“Yes. Dobby has a family, sir.”
“Then why do you look so filthy?”
“It is... it is how the family is wanting Dobby to be, Harry Potter sir.”
Harry examined the small elf. “Are those... are those bandages on your hands?”
Dobby sniffed. “Y-yes, sir. Dobby is not allowed to be out here, to be warning you. The only way Dobby is able to do it, is he had to iron his hands.”
Tears welled in Harry's eyes, and he knelt on the ground by the small elf, putting a comforting hand on Dobby's shoulder. “I'm sorry to hear that. I guess you and I have something in common.”
“W-what? What is you meaning, Harry Potter?”
“Before Netty came into my life, and the spells Dumbledore put on this house to make them behave, I... well, I spent 10 years of my childhood a slave in this house, beaten and abused, underfed and...” Harry shuddered, and was unable to continue. He had to take a few minutes to calm himself down from saying that much. He hadn't noticed before how bad these slips of his made him feel, but here with Dobby, he finally noticed. It was hard, talking about these things.
“Dobby is sorry to hear that, Harry Potter sir. Dobby is having no idea. Still, you is doing better now. And you is alive. You
must not go
to Hogwarts
.”
“You're not stopping me.”
Dobby surprised Netty and broke out of her grasp, running off to another part of the house. They ran after him, and found him in the kitchen hovering a crock pot in the air.
“Don't you dare, Dobby.”
“Sorry, sir, but I must.”
“Netty will catch it, Harry Potter sir!” she leapt up and it began to fall. She snapped her fingers and it slowed to a stop. But Dobby had vanished with a loud crack.
As she put the crock pot back, Harry looked bewildered. “What did he do that for? Why not just disapparate the moment he got free of you?”
“WHAT THE BLAZES WAS THAT?”
They turned, and saw Vernon Dursley standing in the door.
“Honestly, boy... one of those...
things
is bad enough, without two of the little ACK!” He growled and went to the living room to wait for his tongue to untie.
Harry and Netty shrugged. Harry resolved to ask Dobby what he'd been attempting to do if he ever saw the elf again, and went about his business.
Later that day, Netty was getting dinner ready when Harry came in. Noticing she was carrying a very large dish that obscured her vision, Harry said, “Here, Netty, let me help you with that.” He took it from her and set it on the table.
She sighed with relief as he followed her into the kitchen. “You is ever so polite and kind, Harry Potter sir. Netty is not knowing where you is getting it from,” she said, glaring behind her at the Dursleys. “But it is surely not coming from
them
.”
“Actually, it
is
from them, in a way,” he whispered. “I was their servant for 10 years. More like their slave, really. Being polite was expected of me.”
“Oh, Harry Potter sir, Netty is wishing she is knowing back then and is being able to help, she is. Being a servant is no place for a wizard, sir.”
This made him think about Dobby's words. “Netty, are house elves paid for their work?”
She shook her head very violently. “Oh no, Harry Potter sir. House elves is not paid, sir.”
“So you're slaves, then?”
“Well... some muggle-born wizards is thinking so, Harry Potter sir, but, well... I is not really supposed to say this, sir, but we house elves have long memories, we do. We is passing knowledge from one generation to the next, through the centuries, as well as training our children to work. One story tells of how house elves is once free, long ago.”
“Oh?”
“Yes,” she said, shuddering. “Freedom is being scary and dangerous for house elves, though. We is being even shorter when we is living free back then, and there is many things in the world that would eat house elves.”
“But you can do magic. Didn't that help?”
“We... we is having magic back then, yes... but that magic is being very weak, sir. The Story is telling how we is seeing wizards with many animals in their warm houses, protected from dangers by magic, and we Bargained with them one day. Wizards is getting loyal servants, and house elves is getting strong magic, protection, and food in exchange.”
“I see. So it's supposed to be a symbiosis—a mutually beneficial relationship?”
“Yes, Harry Potter sir. But, well... some wizards is forgetting that. Some wizards is taking us for granted, sir. They is knowing we dare not disobey.”
“And thus, poor souls like Dobby.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So what do you want, if not freedom?”
“We is wanting kindness, compassion, good treatment, loyalty, appreciation for our own loyalty, and praise for our good work, sir.”
“Well I just want to tell you, in case I forget, that I do appreciate your work, and your loyalty.”
“Thank you, sir. Netty appreciates it.”
“Do you get treated well in Hogwarts?”
“Oh yes. Hogwarts house elves is very happy.”
“How many of you are there, in Hogwarts?”
“Well over one hundred, sir. Netty is not sure the exact number.”
He nodded. It was good to know, and made him feel a little better. They were sentient beings, and could talk, but their relationship with wizards was of a nature similar to that between dogs and humans. Still, he felt bad for Dobby; poor, mistreated Dobby.
“Dobby would probably take freedom, even if it meant his magic got weak,” Harry said.
“If Dobby were freed, sir, Dobby's magic would not get weak. He is only one house elf. As long as most house elves is working, sir, the magic remains. All of us would have to be freed for our magic to weaken, sir, and Netty is hoping that never happens.”
“Well if it means that much to your people, I have the same hope. I just wish there were something I could do for Dobby.”
“Netty too, sir; Netty too.”
[End of chapter 1]
Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, is a young and abused Black boy with Asperger's syndrome, and is hated by his guardians, the Dursleys. A little over a week before his birthday, he discovers that he is also a wizard, and the Dursleys knew all along. Not only is he a wizard, but he's also famous in the wizarding world! An AU fanfic.
Note: Fanfiction. Not making money off this. J. K. Rowling gets all the credit for the Potterverse.
Note 2: Italics means a private thought but "italics in quotes is parseltongue." Unless it's an incantation or emphasis.
Chapter Two: Prudence
The next day, Harry tested a theory, by sending a letter to Ron with Hedwig. If that didn't work, he would have to rely on Luna to get messages to Ron, and maybe she and Ron could owl the others. He hoped, though, that seeing Harry's resolution, Dobby would give up on trying to waylay his mail. He was relieved, and surprised, when a letter arrived for him late in the evening.
“Netty sees you has got a letter, sir. Dobby is hopefully gone home then.”
“I hope so too, Netty.”
He read the letter, which was apparently Ron trying to sum up the letters he'd tried sending before. Luckily, Harry would be going to the Weasley's again soon. But knowing that this letter got through, he wrote letters to Hermione, Danzia, Antigone, and Angela, updating them on everything. Then for good measure, he sent one to Hagrid as well. He had a hard time figuring out how to get all the letters on Hedwig's legs, and couldn't. But then he looked at Netty folding the last of his laundry, and had an idea.
“Hey Netty, do you think you could pop over to Hogwarts and borrow four school owls and bring them to me? I've got too much here for Hedwig to get alone.”
Netty jumped with joy at this and said, “Oh yes, sir! Netty is glad to be doing that for you. It is very interesting indeed.”
“Oh, and if you could deliver this one to Hagrid before you go to the owlery, that would save a sixth owl trip.”
Netty took Hagrid's letter and saluted. “Netty is being back soon, sir!” And with a crack, she vanished.
While he waited for her to get back, he tied his letter to Antigone to Hedwig's leg and told her who to send the letter to. She blinked her understanding and took off out the window.
Ten minutes later, another crack announced Netty's return. She looked very peculiar with an owl in each hand, one on her head, and another on one foot. He quickly relieved her of the feathery burdens, setting them on the bed.
“Thank you, Netty. You're awesome.”
“You is most welcome, sir. Netty has this for you too, sir.”
She pulled a letter from Hagrid out of her tea towel toga, which he took. Reading it, he saw it basically said that Hagrid was glad to know what was going on; he'd been worried Harry was snubbing him.
Soon, the four owls were flying away from the house, and Harry sat down to read a book he'd owl-ordered a week ago. An example of wizarding fiction, it was quite an interesting read. (Why Dobby had let that through, he didn't know, but that was a mystery for another day.) But this time, something in the book made him pause. It was a reference to a wand holster. Naturally, this made him think. Given all the things wands could do, and given that accidental magic was still possible with wands (especially if you moved the wand wrong or said the wrong incantation), it was remarkable that they weren't required safety equipment.
He couldn't let the idea go; he put the book down, and wrote a letter to Dumbledore. Since Hedwig had done so much lately already, especially with Dobby messing about, he decided to send it later. However, when Netty saw who he was writing to, she offered to take it to him. Shrugging internally, he let her do it, once it was finished.
Dear Professor Dumbledore,
I was reading a book just now that referenced wand holsters, and I realized that wands are very dangerous, and should probably have holsters. I don't yet know where I can buy one, but I intend to get one for myself, and I thought perhaps I'd bring it up with you as a school safety issue.
Since Netty has volunteered to take this letter to you, I'll save myself some more writing by having her explain what has happened with another house elf named Dobby here recently. Thank you for your time, sir.
Hoping you are well,
Harry J. Potter
It was a bit sparse of a letter, but he was tired of writing today, so he left it at that. He folded the letter and handed it to Netty, who vanished off to Hogwarts again to deliver the letter.
*
Albus Dumbledore was upset. It had been a whole year since he'd found out he was wrong about the Dursleys, but he had recently been to see them himself, which had finally made the situation real in a way it hadn't before. Seeing their behavior, in combination with the images in their minds he'd gotten from his legilimency, he felt very upset with them and with himself for so misjudging them. He prided himself on being a good judge of character, and he had failed. Granted, he'd never actually met Petunia or her husband in person before that day, merely corresponded with Petunia when she was a child. People change a lot when they grow up, he knew that better than most.
Of course, he was more upset with himself for trusting someone so precious to somebody he'd never actually met before. What had he been thinking? Had he been so impressed with his own cleverness at knowing how to strengthen the protection Harry's mother had given the young man, that he'd not even stopped to consider the foolishness of putting a child with someone he only knew from one letter when she was a child?
Sighing, he leaned back in his chair. Yes, that had to be it, he thought. It was a known failing of his, that he sometimes got so caught up in his own cleverness, so excited that he could do a thing, without really stopping to consider if he should do it. But never before had this known failing resulted in something this bad. A child had been abused, and neglected. And considering how important this child was, and how important it was that Harry be whole and loving and good, it was a lucky thing indeed that he'd turned out as well as he had, under those circumstances. Sure, he had issues with headaches among other things, and some of that was due to his having what the Muggles called Asperger's syndrome – he'd seen that information in Harry's eyes, and his own research seemed to indicate it was accurate – but how much of that was nature, and how much was nurture (or lack thereof)? He didn't know.
Then Netty came with a letter from Harry, which he read. Then she told the story of Dobby and what he had been doing, and as much about the why of it as Dobby could say. This worried Dumbledore even more; what danger was coming to Hogwarts? There had already been danger last school year. Danger that had resulted in the passing of an old friend of his. Dumbledore sent Netty back, and continued to brood. When Dumbledore had told Nicolas that Voldemort had almost gotten the Stone, Nicolas had been so horrified, he'd insisted the Stone be destroyed. Albus had tried to dissuade his friend, tried to come up with alternatives for protecting it, but it had been to no avail. Nicolas and Perenell were adamant about it; they did not want someone as evil as Voldemort becoming immortal and unbelievably wealthy, and they were prepared to die for their convictions.
He cursed himself. What had he been thinking, bringing something like the Stone into a school? And bringing in a dangerous Cerberus and a troll to help guard it, no less! It seemed like madness, now. He could not figure out what he'd been thinking at the time.
Albus read over the letter again. Harry was more concerned with safety at almost 12 than he, the bloody headmaster, had been lately. And how? He'd been through a war, for Merlin's sake! He should be more concerned about safety than most.
“Fawkes, please tell Professor McGonagall to come to my office.”
The phoenix nodded, then vanished in a puff of flame, returning a few minutes later. Dumbledore waited patiently until there was a knock on his door.
“Come in, Minerva.”
The door opened, and sure enough, it was his deputy.
“What is so urgent, Headmaster?”
“Sit, please.”
She sat, looking expectant. He, however, stood and paced, arms behind his back.
“When you told me last year about Harry's situation, Minerva, I was shocked and upset. But it did not really become real to me until I saw things for myself recently. It has made me think. I was not sure what to do about these thoughts, however; not until I received this letter from young Mr. Potter.”
He handed the stern woman Harry's letter for her to read. She read over it carefully. When she opened her mouth to talk about the second part of the letter, he headed her off by telling her what Netty had told him.
“But that is not why I called you. Dobby's warning is cryptic and will need more time to work out. But I do believe young Harry is right, about wand holsters. I believe we should add them to the list of requirements for all students.”
“Yes, I see your point, Dumbledore, but have you seen Gilderoy's book list? The Weasleys and who knows who else are going to have a hard enough time paying for all that without wand holsters for,” she paused, thinking, “five children. And you know them, they don't take charity. They won't even take help from the Fund,” she said, referring to the fund that paid for materials and books for poor students.
He nodded thoughtfully. “Good point. Tell Gilderoy he is allowed no more than two required books on the syllabus. If the others are so important, he can use gemino to make copies of his own editions. Tell him he is to submit his revised list by no later than 4 o'clock tomorrow afternoon. And add wand holsters to the list of required equipment, please.”
She nodded. “I'll do that, Headmaster.”
He nodded at her in the way they both knew meant she was dismissed. But before she left, he said, “And if you can let the others know I shall be attending tomorrow's staff meeting, I would much appreciate it, Minerva.”
“Of course, Headmaster,” she said before leaving.
With her gone, he sat down again, lost in thought once more.
*
A couple days after Netty delivered the letter to Dumbledore, the man himself finally sent him a letter back.
Dear Harry,
This letter is to let you know that I will be coming to pick you up from the Dursleys at 5 o'clock tomorrow. Please have your things ready to go before then, and please warn your aunt and uncle of my arrival.
Yours sincerely,
Albus P. W. B. DumbledoreP. S. = I received your letter, and we shall discuss it in person once we have arrived at the Burrow, as I feel a letter would be too impersonal.
Throwing the letter aside, he rushed to get his things together, but Netty couldn't stand him just tossing stuff in the trunk, and dug it out to organize it for him. He rolled his eyes and let her carry on. Instead, he focused on getting all his stuff onto the bed and letting her do it.
While she did that, Harry went downstairs and coughed to get his aunt and uncle's attention.
“What is it now, boy?” Vernon asked irritably.
“Professor Dumbledore is coming to pick me up tomorrow. He'll be taking me to a friend's house for the rest of the summer.”
“Good. What time is this... man... coming to get you?”
“Five PM, the letter says.”
“Well you let him know he'll be getting you and leaving, there'll be no mucking about, understand?”
“I understand. I'll tell him.”
Luckily, Hedwig had been back for over a day, having brought a letter from Antigone with her. He went back up to his room and wrote a quick reply.
“Got a letter for you, Hedwig. It's for Professor Dumbledore,” he said as he tied it to her leg. “Go on to Ron's place when you're done, I'll be there tomorrow in the afternoon. Ron can take care of you until then.” She blinked her understanding and flew out the window with it.
~
The next day, he spent switching between pacing his room and attempting to read, until he finally took his trunk down to wait for Dumbledore. His aunt and uncle were dressed in their best clothes, hoping to be a little intimidating.
At five o'clock exactly, the doorbell rang. Harry ran to get it. Dumbledore was wearing a completely different suit, one which was yellow with blue stars and looked like it was made of silk. He also wore a bright purple stetson.
It went surprisingly smoothly, considering his aunt and uncle could only stand there grimacing or biting their tongues. They weren't sure the enchantments prevented them from speaking their mind about Dumbledore in front of Harry, and they weren't about to test it. So Dumbledore came in, helped Harry with his trunk, and they left for Mrs. Figg's place to disapparate.
After getting to the Burrow but before anyone had noticed them, Dumbledore said to Harry, "The letter we shall discuss in front of the others. First, though... I think I know what Dobby was trying to do by dropping the crock pot."
"Oh? What's that, Professor?"
"I believe Dobby did not realize that Netty being there meant I had gotten number 4 added to the list of wizarding households, as part of the strings I pulled to make your circumstances there more bearable. Which means that Dobby was laboring under the misconception that doing magic in your aunt and uncle's house would get you in trouble with the Ministry."
"I don't quite understand, Professor."
"Well, the Trace can only detect magic done in the home or basic area of an underage witch or wizard, and cannot detect exactly who did the magic. So had your relatives' house still been listed as a Muggle household, Dobby's actions would have gotten you in trouble for using magic out of school."
"Do you mean, sir, that kids in wizarding households can do magic all they want and the Ministry would never know?"
"That is correct in essentials, yes. The Ministry relies on wizarding parents keeping their children in check."
"I suppose that makes sense, given the Statute of Secrecy. Still seems a little unfair to me, though. Without Netty there, there would have been no witnesses to what would have been a very odd situation of a house elf in a Muggle house."
"Yes. Luckily for you, Dobby's plan did not work. I believe Netty was a surprise to him."
They were approaching the house now, and Molly Weasley came running up to meet them. Harry prepared himself mentally for her to make some comment about how underfed he was, but she didn't this time. He wondered if that meant Netty's meals had helped him fill out a bit. Then too, their first week there, Netty had bemoaned the state of his hand-me-downs from Dudley, and with his permission, she had shrunk them so they fit him properly; so that may have helped his appearance, too.
When he got inside, he was only mildly surprised to see Luna calmly sitting at the table nursing a cup of tea. Hearing him come in, she stood up and held her arms open. Ginny, who had been at the table too, got up and left as Harry and Luna embraced.
"Harry!" Luna said. "It's been much too long since I've gotten to touch you. Touching someone you care about is the only way to keep away Voojles, you know."
"Voojles?" he asked curiously.
"Yes. They're related to Dementors, but they're tiny and invisible. They make you sad but they're not very dangerous."
"Well I'd be glad to help you ward off Voojles," he said, holding her hands.
Fred and George came in and wolf-whistled. Luna didn't react; Harry just rolled his eyes.
"Fred! George! That's enough of your teasing, both of you. Why don't you go outside, unless you'd rather I give you work to do?"
"Sorry Mum," they said in twin-stereo. "We'll be good," they said, slipping outside.
"Hmph," Mrs. Weasley said good-naturedly. "That'll be the day. Hello, Harry my dear, would you like some tea?"
"Yes please, Mrs. Weasley."
"Such a polite young man, you are. I know some people who could do with taking lessons from you."
As Molly bustled around the kitchen preparing Harry's tea, he and Luna got to talking. It was only after several minutes of this that they noticed Dumbledore had come in and was sitting down.
"Dumbledore!" Molly said, astounded. "Would you like some tea as well?"
"No thank you, Molly. My bladder would protest if I had anything else to drink right now. Anyway, Harry?"
"Yes, sir?"
"I mentioned in my letter that I would discuss your recommendation with you here. If you're amenable to it, I should like to get that out of the way now so you can get on with spending time with the lovely Ms. Lovegood, even though the others are not present."
Harry blushed, his brown cheeks darkening from it, but he nodded.
"Well I thought it was an excellent suggestion, the wand holsters; Alastor, I know, would approve."
"Alastor?"
"Alastor Moody, an old colleague of mine, an Auror. Dark wizard catcher," he said when Harry looked confused. "Yes, he's always bemoaning the lack of wand safety. Which reminds me, I should inform him of this change, he'll be interested to know."
"Okay," Harry said, curious why Dumbledore hadn't said this in a letter.
"Dumbledore," Molly said, "did I hear you say something about wand holsters?"
"Yes, Molly. Wand holsters, thanks to Harry's suggestion, are now required equipment for all students."
Mrs. Weasley beamed. "Excellent! I used to use one, but lately I've been using my wand so much I'm afraid I've lost track of it. Oh, let's see," she said, absent-mindedly setting down Harry's tea and wandering off talking to herself, "five wand holsters to buy now, and who knows what the book lists even look like yet..."
"Anyway, Harry, there is more I wish to discuss."
"Okay, sir."
"It seems you and your friends made some other suggestions, which came up in a staff meeting. Suggestions I very much agreed with. Thanks to you, Harry, there is now a Wizard Studies class for Muggleborn students."
"Wow, cool. Can I sign up?"
"Yes, I thought you might like to, given that while you're technically halfblood, you were raised by Muggles. Professor McGonagall assumed you would want to join."
"Who's teaching it, sir?"
"Why, I am, Harry."
Harry's and Luna's eyes both went wide. "You'll be teaching classes, Professor?"
Dumbledore chuckled. "Why yes, Harry, I will. After all, I used to teach Transfiguration. But since that position is taken, and I have the necessary skills, I decided to take up the post."
"Well that sure will be different. I look forward to your classes, sir."
"Thank you for your kind words, Harry. Or, as I shall have to get used to saying again, Mr. Potter. And Ms. Lovegood," he said, nodding at her.
"Why thank you, Professor Dumbledore."
Dumbledore smiled. "Now let's see... ah yes, and one other thing. Your Muggle Academia Club is also being given official club status, and as such, you will be allowed to put up signs about it on all the House notice boards."
"Cool, thanks! Sir."
"You are again welcome. Oh, and that reminds me, Muggle Studies will also be a required course for all wizard-raised students below NEWT level. We decided the NEWT students had quite enough to be going on with as it is."
Harry beamed. "Wow! Makes me almost wish I could go, if only to see Draco Malfoy's reactions."
The three of them laughed about that.
"So who's teaching Muggle Studies?"
"A kind and gentle soul named Charity Burbage; she has been our Muggle Studies teacher ever since Professor Quirrell switched to Defense Against The Dark Arts."
"That evil git, teaching Muggle Studies?"
"Yes, in hindsight maybe not the best choice, but he showed no signs of being evil until long after he returned from a sabbatical to study his new subject in person the summer before he taught.
"Anyway, Harry, I believe that is all. Feel free to tell the others these things, even though they will find out soon enough. I must be getting back to Hogwarts. I shall see you again in September, the both of you." He winked at them and left the room, saying goodbye to Mrs. Weasley before he left.
~
Harry had a good time at the Weasley's the rest of that summer. True, his news of a new required course that most of the Weasleys would have to take and he didn't caused a mixed response. Mr. Weasley, of course, was fascinated. It turned out Muggle Studies hadn't been offered in Hogwarts at all back in his day, or he would have been among those taking it. He was looking forward to learning second-hand from his children.
What caused a bit more controversy even than that, was Harry inviting his three Slytherin friends over to his birthday party. He had at least asked the Weasley's permission first, but it was only when he asked that he remembered that he'd never sent any letters to the Weasley's parents; it had never occurred to him to do so. And Ron had apparently forgotten to mention the three Slytherins, too. In the end, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley decided to trust his judgment, but they were disappointingly wary of the three girls during the party, even after he'd explained their role in the adventures his previous year.
"Don't worry, Harry," Antigone had told him at one point. "We're used to it by now. And honestly, I'm kind of surprised they're taking it even this well. Our two Houses have been at odds... well, ever since Moldywart came to power. Maybe even before then."
"You shouldn't have to be used to it. There are bad people in every House, and good people too."
"Yeah, well... something else to work on, eh?"
He nodded his agreement, and continued eating his cake, trying to ignore the fact that either Mr. or Mrs. Weasley were always somewhere they could keep an eye out on the three Slytherins.
Of course, it didn't help that Danzia had brought a python to the party, wanting to see Harry's parseltongue firsthand. Not wanting to make Mrs. Weasley any more uncomfortable by revealing this gift of his to her or Mr. Weasley, he and the others - even Ron and Hermione, and even Ginny - snuck off to where they normally played Quidditch to watch.
"Her name's Circe," Danzia explained. "Go on, say something to her."
"Uh," he said, looking at the drowsy snake. "Hello. How are you?"
The snake looked up at him, as though astonished. "You speak our language?" it asked.
"Yeah, I guess. I don't know how, I just do. So... how are you?"
The snake cocked its head. "Well, I suppose I'm fine. My human keeps me warm and fed. I guess my only complaint is that dark green room she takes me out in, in that one place. It's a bit creepy, and chilly."
"What'd she say?" Danzia asked impatiently.
"She's fine, mostly. Doesn't like the dark green room you take her out in."
"Dark green room?" Danzia said, thinking.
"The creepy, chilly one."
"Oh! The Slytherin common room! We have a view of the underside of the lake, the light coming through is dark green."
"Do you mean the room with the view from beneath water?"
The snake nodded. "Yes, that's the one."
"Looks like you're right. She agreed there's a watery view."
"Wow, this is so cool. I wish I could do that, too."
Harry continued practising parseltongue with Circe for another hour, before the snake grew tired. But it was long enough for Harry to begin recognizing when he was speaking parseltongue and when he wasn't. He'd even managed to look right at the snake and speak English at it. Of course, Ron was uncomfortable the whole time; he didn't like being reminded that his best friend had what was considered a dark gift.
~
Despite some friction, though, Harry enjoyed his stay, and was sad when it was drawing to an end. Also excited to be returning to Hogwarts, though, too. The Weasleys, Harry, Hagrid, Luna and her father, and Hermione all met up in Diagon Alley in the last fortnight of August to go school shopping.
Mr. Lovegood was... interesting. Strange like Luna, but more vivacious, unlike his daughter's calm and centered vibe. But his energy seemed to bring the same energy out in Luna, which Harry enjoyed seeing; for even then, something about her made her easy to be around.
The trip first took them to Ollivander's, where Luna got her first wand; everyone else was there, too, getting wand holsters. From there they went to get other equipment, potions supplies, and finally ended up in the bookstore, which was absolutely packed with people, because someone named Gilderoy Lockhart was signing books. Harry couldn't go in there, the noise was too much. He gave some gold to Luna, who had volunteered to get his books for him, and waited outside with Xenophilius, Luna's father, listening to him talk about crumple-horned snorcacks.
When Harry saw Draco Malfoy and his father go into the store, apparently having not noticed him, Harry got a vibe of potential trouble, and went inside, braving the noise. Mr. Lovegood followed him in, and so they both witnessed the elder Malfoy perusing one of Ginny's books just before the fight that broke out between him and Mr. Weasley, until Hagrid appeared and pulled them apart.
"Ere now, ere now," Hagrid said disapprovingly. "Yeh're both grown men! Why can't yeh be more like yer sons, eh? Harry and Draco ent too keen on each other, but at leas they're polite an civil ter one another!"
Harry glanced at Draco, who did indeed look embarrassed by his father's actions, and was glancing at Harry as if to gauge his reactions.
The two men gave pseudo-apologies and went their separate ways, just in time for--
"Did someone say Harry Potter?" A blond, handsome man with a face more gleaming teeth than skin came over. "It IS! It IS Harry Potter! Hey you, over here, let's get us both in the picture."
His eyes wide with horror, Harry tried to run for it, but the strange man grabbed his shoulders and pulled him into a photo. The bright lights added to Harry's already growing sensory distress, and he felt a headache coming on. By habit, he tried to grab a headache cure potion, but the man's grip on him didn't let him. So the pain just grew as the man talked. Harry could scarcely make out what he was even saying, something about he was going to be teaching at Hogwarts? That thought made him even sicker.
And so it was that in front of dozens, maybe scores of witnesses, Harry puked all over the front of Gilderoy Lockhart's robes, due to his position at the time.
"Uh-oh!" Lockhart exclaimed. "Poor boy is just so excited to see me he tossed his cookies, poor lad. But no worries, my boy. Evanesco!" he said, causing both the sick and part of his robes to vanish. Seeing this, Harry ran the other way to get away and out the door. Those of his friends who could, followed him.
"Harry?" Luna asked. "Here, drink this, if you think you can keep it down," she said, handing him a bottle of headache cure potion. He took it with shaky hands and nodded, unwilling to risk opening his mouth just yet.
Ron glared toward the bookstore. "Malfoy - the one still in school I mean - was laughing fit to burst. Strange thing, though, I don't think he was laughing at you, not exactly anyway. I heard him say something like 'Did you see the look on that great git's face when Potter got sick all over him?' "
Harry shrugged, but said nothing. His head was still pounding, though, amping up towards more sick; since the only thing worse than the migraine he was having was puking with said migraine, he risked things long enough to down the headache potion. Thankfully, it did its job quickly and, now the pain was gone, it only took him a few more minutes to recover, Mrs. Weasley now fussing over him, taking his temperature with her hand.
Once Harry was feeling better, they went to the Leaky Cauldron, where he got something to eat before they finished up their shopping. Thankfully he was done, though others weren't, giving him time to look in on Quality Quidditch Supplies. Though he had no interest in playing Quidditch, he did remember how flying had felt, and decided it would be prudent to get himself a broomstick. So it was that he returned later with a Nimbus 2000 under his arm.
~
When it finally came time for them to leave for school, they rushed about making sure they had everything, it all fitting in the Ford Anglia Mr. Weasley owned because of magic expansions he'd done. The fact that they had to keep going back for things, including Ginny's diary, slowed them down considerably. They were almost late to the platform.
Everyone else having gone ahead, only Ron and Harry remained. They ran at the barrier like normal, and BOOM! They smashed right into it, causing chaos as books, clothes, and owl feathers flew everywhere, Hedwig squawking so loudly some people were talking about animal cruelty.
Getting their things together, trying to reassure the Muggles, they finally went off to the side, checking the barrier again a couple times.
"It's stuck, what're we gonna do? The train's leaving in... about 20 seconds!" Ron said, beginning to panic.
"Don't worry," Harry said. "We have options. This is probably Dobby's work, I'll bet anything. We've never had a problem before, have we?"
"Well no. What're you gonna do, though?"
Harry opened his trunk, hoping what he sought wasn't broken, and was delighted to find the two-way mirror intact.
"Luna?" he said at the mirror.
"Harry? Where are you? I saved you a seat."
"We have a bit of a problem. The barrier sealed us out. I suspect Dobby's interference."
"Oh. Well I'll tell the others, then. What are you going to do in the meantime?"
"I have someone I can call for help. She can get Dumbledore or someone to get me."
"Netty?" Luna asked.
"Yes, exactly."
"Well, I wish you luck then, Harry."
He bade her farewell as well, and then put the mirror in his pocket.
"Netty? You can't call a... her here, Harry! Not in front of all these Muggles!"
"I know that. Come, let's find somewhere safe."
After a few minutes of looking, they decided to leave the trunks and things by the car, Ron outside keeping watch. Harry climbed into the boot of the car and, Ron shielding the inside of the boot from view, Harry whispered, "Netty?"
A muffled pop came from the back of the magically expanded boot. "Young sir is calling for Netty?" the house elf asked.
"Yes. The barrier into the station at platform 9 and 3/4th sealed us out. We suspect Dobby."
"Is sir wishing Netty to unseal it?"
"No, it's too late for that now anyway. I was thinking more along the lines of alerting Dumbledore of the problem."
"That is being one possibility, sir. But Netty is having another idea."
"Oh? What's that?"
"Netty is thinking she could be be taking your things to the train, sirs. You could put the things in here, and Netty can get them on the train, then you and your friend could climb in for Netty to take you."
"Okay, I think that will work." Harry climbed out of the boot and the two of them put everything in. A few muffled pops signaled their stuff was in the train. Finally, they were ready. Harry climbed in first, then Ron.
"Netty is thinking, she can have words with Dobby when she is done here, if you would like, sir?"
"Well, if you can catch him, feel free to try."
She nodded. They each took one of her hands, and with a pop they appeared in the train compartment with the others, startling everyone and making Circe's cage almost fall to the floor.
Once Netty was gone, they started explaining what had happened, and their suspicions about who caused it.
"Blimey," Ron said at last. "Can you imagine if Harry didn't know Netty? We might've had to fly the car to school, or something equally barmy."
Harry shook his head. "No, we had Hedwig, too. Granted, Dobby's interfered with her before. But if nothing else, your parents would have returned to the car eventually."
With that little adventure over, Harry and his friends began to focus on enjoying the trip to school.
~
When they got off the train, Harry hugged Luna farewell before she went with the others on the boats. "See you at the Sorting," Harry whispered before they parted.
Following his older friends, Harry had his first ride in the horseless carriages that took everyone but the first-years up to school, glad that Dobby's foolish plans hadn't gotten him into any trouble. Before long, they were exiting the carriages and walking through the gates and on up toward the school.
As they walked, Harry's eyes turned toward movement, and saw a large tree in the distance swinging some of its branches around like fists, at something unseen.
"What's that?" he asked his older friends, pointing.
"Oh that," Antigone supplied. "That's the Whomping Willow. It punches things that get too near it, so don't go near it if you can avoid it."
"So noted," Harry said.
~
Harry excitedly watched the Sorting, despite his growing hunger. He was hoping Luna would end up in Griffindor, even if her family had a history of being in Ravenclaw. He barely paid attention to anyone else, even. But he clapped for everyone Sorted, even the Slytherins, which made Snape look at him with suspicion. Still, his example led others to do the same, even if their applause for Slytherin students was less than enthusiastic.
"Lovegood, Luna!" Professor McGonagall called, slipping the hat onto her head.
After a few minutes of deliberation, the hat finally cried out, "Ravenclaw!" Harry clapped, trying to hide his disappointment. A few minutes later, Ginny joined the Griffindor table.
The table filled up with food, and Harry began eating, stopping just long enough at one point to ask Percy if it was allowed to sit at other tables.
"Well," the older Weasley boy said, "it's generally expected to sit with your own House during the welcoming feast and other important feasts, and its considered a very rude faux pas to do otherwise at such times. During the rest of the school year, though, if you wish to join friends from other Houses for meals, it's generally acceptable, as long as you don't do it too frequently. People tend to think you're unfriendly if you avoid your own House too much."
Harry nodded. "Thanks, Percy."
"Not a problem. Always glad to help out where I can."
"Oh Harry," said either Fred or George, "missing your girlfriend already? How sweet."
"You two knock it off," Percy chided.
"Yes, perfect prefect Percy," they said in twin-stereo.
Someone moved, and Harry's gaze turned toward the movement; it was Ginny, moving down the table more. He frowned, wondering what that was all about.
After the feast was over, Dumbledore gave some announcements, which filled them in a little on the new classes, including where Wizard Studies and Muggle Studies were taught at, for those not in the know. Naturally, there was a fair deal of dark muttering from the Slytherin table, at least until Antigone and her friends shushed them.
On his way out the hall, Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall pulled him and Ron aside to discuss the incident with the barrier sealing them off. One of the happy takeaways from this was that Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had gotten back to their car just fine; mildly annoyed at the lid of the boot being left wide open, but as nothing had been in there to steal, they were forgiven.
And so Harry went to bed a little smug that Dobby's plans were failing so far, and fell into a relatively peaceful slumber.
--o--
“Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book 2”
By = Fayanora
Note: Fanfiction. Not making money off this. J. K. Rowling gets all the credit for the Potterverse.
Book Two: Aspie Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Chapter 3: Rumors and Scary Voices
The next day they sat down at the Griffindor table and had breakfast, Harry's Slytherin friends popping over for a few minutes to catch up on things that had happened since the last letters they'd gotten from him, but eventually got ushered back to their own table by McGonagall, when it was time to hand out the class schedules. Harry looked at his and saw they had Herbology with the Hufflepuffs first.
While walking over to Herbology, Harry spotted Lockhart, who was their new DADA teacher, and hastily Disillusioned himself so Lockhart wouldn't see him. Once they were safely inside greenhouse 3, and Lockhart was safely away, Harry undid the spell.
"Wow!" said one of the Hufflepuffs. "You're only in second year and you can do a Disillusionment charm?"
"Uh, yes. So can Ron and Hermione. I taught them."
"Cool! How'd you learn it so fast?"
"Actually, an older friend of mine taught me. Antigone Dreyfuss, a Slytherin."
The blond boy scrunched up his face. "You're friends with Slytherins?"
"Well yeah. They're good people, regardless of their house."
"Who are you?" Ron asked the boy, heat in his voice.
"Zacharias Smith. And who are you?"
"Ron Weasley. Anyway, didn't you hear Dumbledore at the end of last year? Antigone, Angela, and Danzia helped us keep the Philosopher's Stone away from You-Know-Who."
This shut the boy up, making him look slightly abashed. He opened his mouth apologetically, but couldn't say anything else because Professor Sprout was talking.
"Good, now I have all your attention, we'll be re-potting mandrakes today. Now, who can tell me the properties of a mandrake?"
Harry's and Hermione's hands were in the air so close to one another that Professor Sprout picked Harry apparently at random.
"Mandrake is a very potent restorative," Harry said. "It's used to do stuff like restoring petrified people to their normal state."
"Excellent; ten points to Griffindor." Hermione looked annoyed at Harry.
"Mandrakes are an essential part of most antidotes. They are dangerous, however. Can anyone tell me why? Yes, Hermione?"
"The cry of the mandrake is fatal to anyone who hears it."
"Precisely. Ten more points to Griffindor. Now the mandrakes we'll be working with today are young, so their cries won't kill you yet, but as they will knock you out for several hours, it's best to take the same precautions.
"Everyone take a pair of earmuffs," she continued, and everyone scrambled to get a pair that weren't pink and fluffy. Neville didn't succeed, and looked very embarrassed. Harry, feeling bad for him, traded with him. Neville got a black pair, and Harry's brown skin contrasted his new pink earmuffs, making several people giggle. Harry didn't notice, though.
"Make sure, when you put them on, that your ears are completely covered. When it's safe to remove them, I will give you a thumbs up."
Professor Sprout put her own earmuffs on, and they all followed suit. Then she rolled up her sleeves, grabbed the plant by its base, and yanked up an ugly, pale green, mottled root-baby, which immediately began screaming and flailing about, struggling the whole time Professor Sprout fought to get it into a newer, larger pot, covering it with dirt. Finally, she gave the thumbs-up, and everyone took their earmuffs off. She began giving other instructions about them, and everyone started getting their things ready to do it themselves.
Since they were doing things four to a pot, it leant them some time for chatter. Another boy, whom Harry recognized but didn't know his name, came up and introduced himself.
"Justin Finch-Fletchley," he said. "I know who you are, of course, the famous Harry Potter. And Hermione Granger, one of the best students of our year." (Hermione smiled as he shook her hand, too.) "And Ron Weasley, right?"
"Er, yeah," Ron said, shaking Justin's hand.
"My name was up for Eton, you know. I can't tell you how glad I am I came here instead. Mom was a little disappointed, of course, but I showed her the two Lockhart books assigned, and she came round to the usefulness of having a wizard in the family."
"Yeah," said Harry. "I think I know how you feel, about being excited to be here. I was raised by Muggles. I didn't know I was a wizard until I got my letter. Hogwarts is so much better than where my aunt and uncle were going to send me before I got my letter."
"What?" asked Zacharias Smith. "I heard you were raised in a castle!"
"Nope. I had no idea I was a wizard until shortly before my 11th birthday. Didn't know I was famous, either. And I was very startled to find my parents had left me some gold; I'd never had more than a few pounds at a time before then, and that I had to get by getting jobs behind my aunt and uncle's backs."
"What do you mean by 'pounds'?" asked Zacharias.
"That's what Muggles in Britain use for money," Justin said, showing the other boy a pound coin.
Though all the wizard-borns were fascinated by it, their gawking was cut short by needing to get back to work. It was very difficult work, fighting the dirty little humanoid roots into new pots, and they were all dirty by the end of the class, and had to wash up before going on to their next classes.
For the first time they could remember, the Griffindors were split up for their next class. Ron and other wizard-raised kids went to Muggle Studies, and Harry and Hermione and other Muggle-borns went to Wizard Studies instead.
The classroom that Wizard Studies was in was open when they got there, but empty, so they sat down and began to chat while they were there. The class was a mix of people from all four Houses. There were also first years in the class. A lot of the Griffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws were surprised to see a pair of Slytherins there; Angela Whitechapel and a first-year boy with long brown hair tied back in a ponytail; the boy had striking violet eyes as well. Many were surprised Harry was there, too, but they honed in on the Slytherins instead of him.
"Slytherins, in a Wizard Studies course?" someone asked incredulously.
"Yes, Mr. Thomas," said the calm, soothing voice of Dumbledore, who had suddenly appeared behind the teacher's desk at the front of the room. "And the blood status of these students is to be kept secret; Muggle-borns are not well thought of in Slytherin House, so it is a matter of their safety that nobody outside this room should know."
"Oh. Uh, yes, Professor Dumbledore," Dean said.
"Do I have the word of everyone else here?" Dumbledore asked. Harry finally noticed, as he asked, that the door had been closed.
"Yes, Professor Dumbledore," everyone intoned.
"Good. I will hold you to that. Now, let us start the class today by having everyone introduce one another with your name, and something interesting about yourselves, like a hobby or an interesting birthmark or scar. I shall start. I am Professor Albus Dumbledore, and I have a scar under my left knee that is a perfect map of the London Underground."
He then picked Dean Thomas to go next, and they went down the rows from there. The Slytherin boy, they found out, was named Willem Stone. Harry made a note to try to add Willem to his list of friends from other Houses.
Then it was Harry's turn. “Well, I'm Harry Potter. I like to read and I don't like loud noises and crowds. Um... that's it.” He motioned to the next person that it was their turn.
When they were done, Dumbledore beamed. "Good. Now that we all know one another's names, we may proceed. Welcome to Wizard Studies. This class was founded at the request of several students who felt they were struggling to navigate the rules and regulations of wizarding society's culture, as well as running into obstacles of understanding stemming from not knowing many of the things that wizard-raised children take for granted and don't think to explain to Muggle-borns, such as attitudes about giants, the rules of Quidditch, or facts about house elves."
He walked around the front of the classroom as he spoke, his arms behind his back. "I appointed myself teacher of this class for two reasons. First, I have long experience with the wizarding world, being immensely old as I am. Secondly, I am fond of Muggles, and have educated myself about them to a degree that many wizards and witches have not. While that trait would also make me a good Muggle Studies teacher, we have one of those already, and I feel this knowledge will help me understand what you need to know. But please, if you feel my knowledge has a hole in it, let me know. You're never too old to learn, and even at my age I still feel I do not know nearly as much as I should.
"Also, there are many popular wizarding-world beliefs I disagree with, such as the poor treatment of Muggles, and the prejudice against other magical creatures, even giants. So I will be able to teach you about these beliefs, I hope, in a way which will keep your minds open about whether you agree with them or not. For, just because somebody tells you something does not necessarily make it true. This goes for all things, even your classwork. On the whole, your teachers are right about what they teach, insofar as most magic has worked so well for so long that it barely changes over the centuries; most of our incantations today would be recognizable by ancient Roman wizards and witches. But there is, I wish to stress, always room to grow. There may be better ways of doing things. As Muggle-born or Muggle-raised individuals, hopefully your unique perspective on the wizarding world will help us to grow and change and expand.
"Anyway, my speech is done. Are there any questions?"
There was silence at first, but then Hermione raised her hand.
"Yes, Ms. Granger?"
"I noticed there was no book for this class. Why is that?"
"Ah. Yes, that is because nobody has yet thought to write such a book. Perhaps, after you graduate, Ms. Granger, you could write one."
"So how will this class be structured?" she asked.
"In the weeks since I decided to make this course, I have been working on a syllabus for it. We shall start with a summation of important historical events, in case, uh, in case any of you were not paying attention in History of Magic."
There started a chatter at this, most of it boiling down to "Professor Binns is so dull he could bore a ghost to death," before Dumbledore raised his hands for silence.
"Yes, I am aware of Professor Binns's abysmal record. And the events that made me consider the changes I've already made to classes have made me also ponder removing poor Professor Binns and replacing him. But for now, I shall like us to begin."
After coughing a little to clear his throat, Dumbledore continued. First, he added that his summations of history would include recent history as well, to put the modern wizarding era in a proper context, before moving on to classes about various beliefs, cultural norms, manners, etc.
His summation of the events leading to the statute of secrecy was far more fascinating that the Binns version, and prompted questions from a curious class. They were still discussing it when the bell rang to go to their next class, and so had no homework from it yet. Harry felt sure he was going to enjoy that class very much.
Transfiguration was just as it usually was for Harry. He wasn't quite as good as Hermione, but at least he was better than Ron. He gently suggested to Ron that he spend at least 15 minutes of non-class time practicing so he could get better. Ron kept staring at his old, battered wand though, with a strange look on his face.
"What's wrong?" Harry finally asked.
"This wand is so old, I don't know how much life it's got left. It still works, but, well... I dunno. I've just been feeling, lately, like it's tired. Do wands age like people do?"
"I don't know. That's a question for Mr. Ollivander. Anyway, if you want a new wand, I'd be happy to--"
"No."
"But you didn't even--"
"If I get a new wand, I'll get it myself or get one from Mum and Dad somehow. Anyway, I'm probably imagining it. Just forget I said anything."
Harry didn't say anything else, but it did make him think. He realized that Ron was never able to get his to work as well as most students, and had been among the last to get the levitation charm to work last year; only Neville had done as poorly. In fact, thinking about Neville made Harry think he spotted a pattern. Ollivander said the wand chooses the wizard... Ron's wand was a hand-me-down, and Neville's wand used to be his dad's. He wondered if they were being held back by their wands. It was something to look into more.
The lunch bell rang; class was over. They went down to the Great Hall, where Harry started talking about seeing Luna, ignoring the smirk on Ron's face. When they got there, Ron and he split up, Harry going over to the Ravenclaw table, looking for Luna. He caught her before she sat down, and he invited her over to his table.
She stood there, pondering the question for a minute before deciding. "Well, okay. But I'm going to eat breakfast and possibly dinner at my own table, at least for now. Okay, Harry?"
"Sure thing."
As they left, a bunch of other Ravenclaws stared after them, and began muttering amongst themselves about how the famous Harry Potter was friends with that weird firsty; what was her name? Loony? Loony Lovegood?
These mutterings spread to Hufflepuff and Slytherin tables, too; even Griffindors were looking askance at the two of them sitting there, chatting and laughing; some of them whispered carefully, not wanting to offend the famous Potter boy.
On their way out the hall, they ran into another first-year, a small, mousey-haired, excitable boy holding what looked like an ordinary Muggle camera. When Harry looked at him, he went bright red.
"Hello, Colin," Luna said to him. He blinked at her, waving quietly back, then turned to Harry again.
"Hi Harry! I'm Colin Creevy," he said breathlessly, taking a step forward. "I'm a Griffindor, too. I wanted to know... I mean... could I get a picture?"
Harry's mind worked quickly. It was clear Colin was a Harry Potter fanboy. He had to head this off quickly. "I'd rather not, Colin. No offense, but I have sensory issues, and camera flashes make me ill." This wasn't entirely true; sure, the flash at Flourish and Blotts had been the proverbial straw breaking the camel's back, but he had no reason to think camera flashes would bother him on their own.
"Yeah," Ron said, supporting him. "You should've seen it in Flourish and Blotts, when Lockhart tried getting a photo with him; he puked all over the git's shirt!"
Harry frowned slightly. "Gee thanks, Ron, for telling him that. That's really something I want everyone to know. NOT."
"Oh," Colin said, his face falling. "I just wanted proof I've met you. Everyone's told me how you survived when You-Know-Who tried to kill you, and how he's been gone ever since, and about the scar on your forehead from it" (his eyes raked Harry's hairline) "and a boy in my dormitory said how you can develop pictures in a potion that will make them move!"
Sensing he was going to keep going, Harry interrupted, "Yeah, well, from what Dumbledore told me last year, it wasn't anything I did. It was my mother dying to protect me that did it. She cast powerful magic with that self-sacrifice. And you know what?"
"What?" Colin asked excitedly.
"She was a Muggle-born. A Muggle-born witch's self-sacrifice defeated Vol-- er, You-Know-Who."
Colin's eyes went so wide Harry worried they'd pop out, and just said "Wooooowwww..."
"Oy," said Ron. "How come you never told me that?"
Harry shrugged. "It never came up before. Anyway, Colin, I'm sorry to disappoint you. Aside from the sensory issues, I... well, I'm still uncomfortable with being famous. Like I was telling someone earlier today, I was raised by Muggles and didn't know I was famous, or special, or important at all until after I got my letter. Professor McGonagall and Hagrid told me about it all the next day. People keep telling me I'm famous and stuff, and I just don't feel like anything but an ordinary kid. Well, aside from the magic. But otherwise, I'm just Harry."
"Wow, really?"
"Yeah. Imagine if it'd been you instead of me."
Colin stopped talking, lost in thought about going from a regular kid to someone famous overnight. Others in earshot looked thoughtful, too; even, Harry noticed, Draco Malfoy.
"So," Colin said, coming out of his thoughts, "you just want to be treated like a regular kid?"
"Exactly."
Colin nodded. "Will do, Harry. So... wanna be friends?"
"Sure. I like having friends. Never had any before I got my Hogwarts letter. Now, the more the merrier. Just as long as I don't have to deal with too many people at once. Crowds make me ill."
"Is that part of your sensory issues?"
"Right, Colin."
Just then, he saw Lockhart coming, and hastily pulled Colin away in a friendly gesture, attempting to be casual. "So, Colin, how you doing finding your classes? And you too, Luna, come on. I know I had trouble my first week, I can help you find things if you'd like."
"Thanks! That'd be great!"
"You're most kind, Harry," Luna agreed.
"Yeah, and I can show you some of the shortcuts, and places to look out for, and so on..." Harry said, continuing to talk as they got farther from Lockhart, while Ron and Hermione attempted to keep up with him.
Later, on their way to Defense Against the Dark Arts, Harry told Ron and Hermione, "As much as I dislike Lockhart, it's a good thing he came by when he did."
"Why's that?"
"Because that thing I did, showing Colin and Luna the way to their next class, gave me an idea; we upper years should show the first-years around in depth; take them under our wings. Nobody did that for us, and we had so much trouble that first week or two. So I think we should help them."
"That's a great idea, Harry!" Hermione said. "We should tell other people, too. Get it spread around like your other ideas."
"Oh, speaking of that, we need to discuss MAC at a..." he trailed off, and sunk low in his chair as he could, for Lockhart had come in.
Harry didn't know how much more difficult it was to hide behind his books than it might have been, for he hadn't known that Lockhart had tried to get his entire collection on the book list. As it was, he'd only managed to get Voyages With Vampires and Holidays With Hags on the book list, having picked two at random when he'd been informed he couldn't have more than that.
The class with Lockhart was... interesting; but not for good reasons. After giving them a quiz on how well they'd read the two assigned books, he released a bunch of Cornish pixies into the room, tried to do a spell on them that did nothing, got his wand chucked out the window, and caused utter bedlam. It was only thanks to Hermione and Harry stunning them out of the air one at a time that order was finally restored. By then, Lockhart was long gone and the bell was ringing.
As they left, Ron and Harry complained loudly about how inept Lockhart was, and Hermione defended him.
"Listen, Hermione," Harry said, becoming irritated by her defense of the buffoon, "just because someone writes something in a book doesn't mean it's true, even if it's labeled non-fiction. Publishers exist to sell books, and they don't always care if what they're printing is truth or tripe."
"But he's a teacher!" she shot back, as though this made him a god.
"Teachers are just humans, like anyone else. Dumbledore told me even he makes mistakes; he admitted that sending me to the Dursleys was a mistake."
She looked unsure of her position, but still like she wanted to believe.
"Anyway," Ron added, "the position's cursed. We've known it for years; everyone says so. New DADA teacher every year for years, after all. And the last one actually died. There probably wasn't anyone else who wanted the job. And if the position's cursed, even certain other teachers might not be so keen on it now," he said, referring to Snape's desire to teach DADA.
"Well... I don't know," she admitted. "Those are good points."
"Trust me, Hermione. I read a lot of tripe in Muggle libraries too. It's a universal fact of life that you can't always believe what you read. If everything written in books claiming to be true were actually true, then the world would literally be like ten thousand years old, the planet would be flat and sitting on the back of a turtle or something like that, or other such rubbish that science has since disproved. And the fact he couldn't even handle pixies on his own is a scientific observation that makes me think he's rubbish and a liar."
She frowned, her worldview shattered. "Okay, okay, you convinced me. It's just... well, he's just so handsome."
The boys rolled their eyes.
~
It was lucky Harry had his new idea of helping out first-years to help him avoid Lockhart, because the git seemed intent on cornering him to chat him up. Probably knew, subconsciously, that Harry was more famous than him and wanted to smarm up to him, but Harry was having none of that.
When the weekend came, Harry and his friends in MAC gathered for their first meeting of the year, to discuss how they would do things this year. They'd already gotten permission to advertise on the House bulletin boards, so Angela - who was good at art - helped in that regard. Luna was there too, and she was at least as good as Angela in art, so they worked together. Harry was glad to see that Luna shared his enthusiasm for open-mindedness towards Slytherins, and got along quite well with Angela and the other Slytherins. Heck, she got along with them better than she did with almost anyone else in school, excepting himself, probably because they, too, knew what it was like to be outcasts.
Things had not been great for them, he found out, before last year's end of year speech by Dumbledore, and now the three Slytherins were having an even harder time of it this year than before, since they'd been known to have helped Harry. About their only saving grace, it seemed, had been the unexpected support of Draco Malfoy, who seemed to be taking his pro-Potter stance more seriously.
"That reminds me," Antigone said, "Draco wanted me to give you a message. He... how did he put it? Ah yes, he 'extends his hand in friendship, not mere civility.' He admits you and he may still have ideological differences, but he's interested in trying to overcome those. Apparently, he had ideas about you very similar to some of the others' ideas about you, like living in a castle and other rubbish."
"Well that's promising," Harry said. "I don't know how much I trust him and his two bodyguards, but I'm glad to hear this. If you see him, tell him I'll meet him in the library tomorrow after lunch, if he's free."
"Okay, will do."
While Angela and Luna were designing the MAC advertisements, Harry and Hermione discussed the syllabus for the club, aided by the fact that both of them had brought a bunch of Muggle books on various subjects with them, having bought them over the summer. This process was also aided by Ron, whom they looked to for his input as a wizard.
Just before they left, Ron promised to send an owl to his dad, asking for his input as well, since Mr. Weasley was fascinated by Muggles.
"There's no more time now," Harry said, "as it's almost dinnertime, but we need to work on other ways to spread interest. One idea I had was seeing if I could give a speech on the subject of Muggle academia to the Muggle Studies class. I figure, with my fame - as weird as that still is to me - they'd be more likely to listen to me."
"Good thinking, Harry. Do you want help writing it?"
"Sure, sounds good to me."
He wasn't looking forward to speaking in front of a class, but as long as it was just a class at a time, and as long as everyone was largely quiet, he felt he could do it.
The next day, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Luna went to Hagrid's after breakfast. It was the perfect excuse to avoid his cooking, after all. Luna, being polite, took a rock cake, and politely refused another after nearly breaking a tooth on it.
A little harder to do was refuse Hagrid's lunch offer, but they managed it without hurting his feelings and ate in the Great Hall as usual. Luna was still eating lunch with Harry every day and other meals with her own table, so they got to talk at lunch some before Harry's meeting with Malfoy.
Harry really wasn't sure what to expect at this meeting with Malfoy, and so just in case, he took his two-way mirror with him so he could call Luna and the others if need be. And so, screwing up his nerve, he went into the library.
Draco was sitting at a table in the back, alone and reading a book about Quidditch. When Harry came up to him, he looked up, put the book aside, and stood up, holding out his hand.
"Harry Potter," Draco said, his voice devoid of any bad attitude, "I apologize for my attitude and comments on the train last year. Such behavior is unbecoming of a Malfoy."
"Apology accepted," Harry said, shaking his hand. Having done this, Harry cast some privacy charms and the two sat down.
"Wow," Draco said with greed in his voice, "those charms are quite advanced for us second years. Can you teach me those?"
"Yeah, I can do that sometime. Not right now, of course."
Draco put his face and posture back to prim and proper. "Yes, of course, completely understandable. Naturally, you want to know why I asked to meet you."
"Antigone said something about a new overture of friendship?"
"Well, sort of. I understand we still have ideological differences, so maybe an acquaintanceship would work for now, maybe work our way up to friendship?"
Harry scratched his chin, thinking. "I can do that, on one condition."
Draco looked wary, but hopeful. "And what might that be?"
"You attend at least one meeting of our Muggle Academia Club. And actually pay attention and contribute to the conversation in a non-hateful way."
The blond boy's face momentarily contorted in disgust, but then changed to 'pensive,' before he got it back to a stoic mask. He did not immediately respond, and also scratched his chin.
"May I ask why you're asking this condition?" Draco asked, his annoyance barely masked.
"It's simple. You've been taught certain things about Muggles by your parents; parents who have likely never gotten to know anything about Muggles first-hand. I know you're being required to take Muggle Studies, but since even my friend Ron gained a newfound respect for Muggles after some of our discussions about Muggle science and academics, I decided this would be an excellent opportunity to expose you to the same information; it might help you expand your point of view on Muggles."
The other boy's face went from flabbergasted and annoyed to pensive. Then a sly grin split his face and he chuckled. "Potter," he said jovially, "you would make an excellent Slytherin."
Harry smiled. "Does that mean you accept?"
Draco held out his hand. "You have a deal, Potter." They shook hands. "So when is the next meeting of this... this club of yours?"
Getting out his notebook to check, Harry soon said, "We have one scheduled for Tuesday after dinner. Meet me at the library, and I'll guide you to the classroom we use for it from there."
"Tuesday after dinner," Draco said, writing it down in his own notebook. "Got it. I'll be there."
"So, in the meantime, did you want to talk about anything else?"
"Well," he said, looking a little embarrassed. "I am curious to hear the real story of what happened with Quirrell last year."
Harry nodded, smiling. "Okay then," he said, and launched into the tale from the very beginning.
Between MAC and Malfoy, Harry was having a great weekend. He spent so long speaking with Malfoy that it was almost curfew when they stopped, hurrying back to their dormitories without running.
As they walked out of the library, he heard a voice to chill the marrow.
"Come... come to me... Let me rip you... Let me tear you... Let me kill you..."
Harry jumped, looking around for the source of the voice.
"You okay, Potter?" Draco asked him. "You look like you've seen a monster."
"Did you hear something?" Harry asked, testing a theory without giving too much away.
"Hear what, Potter? There's nobody here but us. Are you going to be okay? I don't fancy telling any of the Professors I'm out after curfew because I had to walk you back to your dorm."
Harry forced his emotions under control. "No, sorry. Just... sudden noises make me jumpy, and I thought I heard something. I'll be fine."
Draco didn't look so sure, but after a pause, he shrugged and walked away. Harry watched him go. When he was out of sight, Harry ran for it, not caring if he got in trouble. He had to get away from that voice.
When he got into the common room, he went over to Hermione and Ron.
"Hi Har-- Harry, why are you out of breath? You been running, mate?"
Harry gestured for silence, then got out his wand and put up privacy wards around the three of them before sitting down. Even then, he had to catch his breath before he could say more than a few words. But finally, he explained what he'd heard.
"A voice only you could hear?" Ron said, looking at him like he was crazy. "Even in the wizarding world, mate, that's---"
"I thought you might say that. But I recognized it. I'd been practicing with Circe so much that I recognized it. It was parseltongue."
"Parseltongue? So you heard a snake?" Hermione asked. "Did you see any snakes in the area?"
"No, I didn't. So I've no idea where it might've been hiding, and I really wasn't keen on finding out. I got out of there as soon as I could."
"Well if it was a snake, it was probably just talking about..." Ron lowered his voice because Scabbers was in the room, "rats or mice or something. Y'know, cuz snakes eat them?"
"Maybe. But I've spoken with snakes before, and they sounded normal. This sounded... deeply evil. And big, and dangerous. I got the impression it was talking about killing humans."
"Harry," Hermione said in a pacifying tone, "snakes don't kill humans unless they feel threatened. Snakes aren't evil."
"I don't know if I believe that. Magic makes all kinds of thing possible. Couldn't magic make a snake smart enough to be evil? Maybe there's some kind of magical snake monster?"
"Harry, I know the voice must have been terrifying, but I've never heard of a magical snake creature that could be a threat to humans. I think you're overreacting."
"Yeah, mate. I haven't heard of anything like that either, and my brother Charlie was in Care of Magical Creatures, and he talked about his classes in his letters and over the summer all the time."
Harry put his head in his hands, letting the darkness calm him. Finally, when he came back up, he spoke.
"You're probably right. Given how big, drafty, and old this castle is, I guess I shouldn't be surprised I'm hearing snakes around. I've always wondered why there were so few mice and rats in a place like this, not counting pets."
"Well, lots of people bring cats, too. Toads are out of fashion, so that leaves rats, cats, and owls allowed for pets in school. And with Mrs. Norris hanging around, I doubt many people with rats let theirs run around loose."
The rest of the night Harry spent trying to forget the scary voice, but wasn't having great luck. It didn't surprise him that he had nightmares about a great venomous snake that night.
Note: I've had time to think about it, and I've decided that, given his attitude when forced into being a Death Eater, I believe most of Draco's racist behavior in the books was due to essentially hurt feelings when Harry rejected him. Oh sure, he was actually racist against Muggles at the start, but I believe he was largely just parroting his father; Harry rejecting him so completely and publicly just cemented Draco into his beliefs. Like, "Potter acted exactly as rude as father always said blood traitors do, thus father must be right." Whereas in this AU, Harry's response and Draco's subsequent response made him more open minded. He's still a spoiled rich kid, and will have lots of privilege to become aware of and hopefully attempt to take into account for in dealings with other people, but yeah, still open minded as regards blood traitors at the very least.
Note 2: Given that basilisks can only be made by hatching a chicken egg under a toad, can be killed by a rooster's crow, how they're basically the snake version of Voldemort, and they can only be controlled by a parselmouth, I figure they're rare enough that Hermione only found out about them in the canon books by looking through really obscure books about even more obscure monsters. So knowing it's a snake monster isn't going to help them much.
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Two.
Or, "Aspie Potter and the Chamber of Secrets."
Chapter 4: Halloween
Note: Sorry for the postspam, but I was very behind on posting chapters for this one, and I have a new one coming up soon.
"You did WHAT?" Ron exploded in the MAC classroom Monday afternoon. Harry had called an emergency meeting to inform them of what he'd forgotten in the midst of the scary voice the night before. "No way, that racist git? No bloody--"
"I think it's brilliant," Antigone said. "If Malfoy had any idea the kinds of things Muggle science has come up with, he'd never believe anyone calling Muggles stupid animals ever again!"
Ron opened his mouth and spluttered at her like a fish out of water, but then closed his mouth and admitted defeat by sulking.
"Yeah, Antigone, that was my thought as well. Anyway, we need to work on what to talk about in tomorrow's meeting."
~
The next day, after classes, Draco met Harry at the library and Harry led him to the MAC classroom. It didn't look so good to start with, as Draco sighed a lot and rolled his eyes at first. However, after several minutes of discussing Muggle science, the blond boy's expression began to change subtly, and after another few minutes, he sat up and began listening in earnest. Harry had to stop himself doing a happy dance when Draco actually started asking salient questions, questions that didn't sound forced. It was clear that Draco had gone into this meeting expecting it to be really horrible, but by the time the curfew was drawing near, it was difficult to tear him away. His attitude appeared to have completely changed. And as Harry had noticed Draco wasn't a very good liar (he tended to wear his heart on his sleeve), Harry believed it. Even Ron had to admit, later, that Draco seemed changed by the experience.
During the rest of that week, Draco kept finding Harry in the halls or at the meal tables, asking him in cautious words when the next MAC meeting was. They had a new member, an unexpected one at that.
The next week and a half boded well for MAC in general; the advertisements in the different Houses were bringing in a few new people, but it was Harry's speeches to the Muggle Studies classes that started bringing in even more people. Soon, MAC had Neville, Seamus Finnegan, Dean Thomas and Justin Finch-Fletchley (who missed Muggle classes), and many others would come into meetings as their schedules allowed. So it was that by the time October came around, MAC was one of the most popular extracurricular clubs in the school.
Harry noticed that Ginny had joined them, too. She looked ill, he noted. The weather was bad, cold and rainy, so a lot of people were coming down with colds; he wondered if she was, too.
On one of the weekend days when it wasn't raining, but had been, Harry decided to cure his cabin fever by taking his broom out and flying around the grounds. He mounted his Nimbus on the paved part of the path right in front of the steps, and flew off in a random direction. He looped the castle a few times, even the highest towers, then flew out over the black lake a little bit, but moved back to being over the ground before long, as he didn't fancy falling into the lake when he couldn't swim.
Not that it was safer to fly so high above the ground, of course, when there was nobody around to save him if he fell. But as long as he kept his consciousness, he felt he could summon his broom mid-fall or cast a feather-light charm on himself before he landed.
For hours he flew all around the grounds, even out over the Forbidden Forest and back. Then the weather changed suddenly, the rain returning. Harry aimed for the pavement, but ended up touching down in mud instead, having misjudged the spacing.
"Oh bloody hell," Harry said, his shoes and robes muddy. He knew the vanishing spell, of course, but he wasn't sure enough of his skills with it yet to risk vanishing the mud off his clothes. He might pull a Lockhart and vanish part of his clothes, or even part of his body. So he made muddy footprints along the path. He tried a cleaning spell, but cast it so badly it made the problem worse. Then he tried Vanishing the mud, and to his horror Vanished a hole in the stone.
"Ffff--" he started, holding himself back in case anyone heard. "Fudge." He had no idea how to fix that, so he just stopped trying and walked back into the castle.
When he walked in, he found the Griffindor ghost, Sir Nicolas. The ghost seemed to be in a bad mood, and had a letter in his hand. He and Harry spoke, and Harry found out that Nicolas had been denied a part of something called the Headless Hunt, and was very sore about it.
Then Mrs. Norris appeared, and ran off to tattle on him to Filch, however that worked. Harry tried getting out of there as fast as he could, but was too late; Filch, who had the flu, got mad at him and dragged Harry to his office.
While there, Harry tried to talk the man down. "Sir, if you're ill, shouldn't you be in the hospital wing? Why are you working when you're--"
"Well this castle isn't going to clean itself, boy! I can't afford to stop working, and you've just made my job a lot worse."
"Why not find one of the Professors, and ask them to Vanish the mud? I'd do it myself, but I don't have enough control of it yet."
"You know you little worms aren't allowed to do magic in the corridors!"
"Surely you'd make an exception for people cleaning up after themselves?"
"No, boy! Rules are rules. Now let's see, punishment, punishment..."
SLAM! came a noise from above.
"PEEVES!" Filch went off to find out what Peeves had done this time, leaving Harry in the office. Harry, not wanting his punishment to be any worse, just sat there, waiting. His gaze wandered around the room, and he spotted a purple envelope with silver lettering on the outside. He stood up and cocked his head to read it. It was for something called Kwikspell.
Curiosity warred with common sense, and despite images of Filch whipping him invading his mind, common sense lost the battle. Harry read the letter, figuring out from it that Filch wasn't a wizard, but was non-magic. It explained a lot, like his hatred of students, but raised many other questions, like Why do they have a non-magic person cleaning the school, when a witch or wizard could do it faster with a wand? And for that matter, why not have a house elf do it? They'd be glad to do it.
A noise got Harry's attention; Filch was coming back. He hastily put the letter back in the envelope and tried to put it back where it was. He managed to sit down just in time for Filch to come in complaining. Surreptitiously, Harry eyed the Kwikspell letter. It wasn't where it had been. But maybe he wouldn't notice?
Filch did notice, though, and turned white. Harry denied having read the letter when asked. Filch hemmed and hawed about it, tried to pretend it was for a friend; but finally - to Harry's astonishment - Filch let Harry go, on the promise he was to tell nobody. Harry swore he wouldn't. Filch didn't seem entirely satisfied, but let him go anyway.
Harry kept his promise to Filch; that was the kind of person he was. He even contemplated sending an apology letter to the man, but decided against it, as it might further anger him.
While it had been Peeves that broke the vanishing cabinet that got Filch out of there, Nicolas had put him up to it, probably feeling like his conversation had kept Harry from getting to safety in time. Very thankful for this, Harry had somehow gotten guilt-tripped into doing a favor for Nicolas in turn... he would be going to Nicolas's Death-Day party.
When he'd told his friends about it, Hermione and Luna had been fascinated. Ron thought it was weird to celebrate the day you died. His Slytherin friends had mixed reactions as well.
On Halloween, he was regretting his promise, but he went anyway. Ron, Hermione, and Luna went with him. Because it was a party, Luna wore a dress: neon blue with bright red polka dots. Harry wasn't the only one to get woozy looking directly at it, as the red polka dots wobbled around on the blue background.
The party itself was exactly as Ron had predicted: depressing. As they came in, Hermione pulled them all to one side. "I don't want to talk to Moaning Myrtle," she explained.
"Who?" asked Harry.
"She haunts a toilet in the girl's lavatory on the first floor," Hermione and Luna said in near synch.
"She haunts a toilet?" Ron said incredulously.
"Yes," said Hermione. "It's been out of order all year because she keeps flooding the place. I never went there anyway if I could avoid it, it's awful having to pee with her wailing at you."
"Look, food!" interrupted Ron.
It was food, yes, but rotten food, moldy food. Nobody had predicted that there'd be nothing here for them to eat. They supposed the food was let to spoil to give it a stronger flavor for the ghosts. Even so, they could only "almost" taste it.
"Well this won't do," Harry said. "Netty?"
The house elf appeared before them almost at once, her eyes growing wide at all the ghosts, and shivering a little in the cold.
"S-sir c-called N-Netty?"
"Yes. As you can see, this death day party has no food we can eat. I was wondering if you could get us some food from the kitchen? We'd go to the feast, but it would be rude to break a promise."
"M-Mister P-Potter is always s-so k-kind and c-considerate. N-Netty will be m-most glad to help." And without another word, she popped away.
Hermione looked at Harry. "So that's Netty?"
"Yes."
"House elves look kinda weird, don't they?" asked Ron. "Cute, though."
"I like her. I wish I'd gotten to introduce myself properly," Luna said.
"Your dress prob'ly scared her off. Between it and the spoiled food..."
"Ron," Harry said warningly.
Ron's ears went red. "Sorry. I'm hungry, and it's not helping my mood."
Hermione decided to change the subject. "I saw she had a Hogwarts crest on her... on her toga. She works for the school?"
"Yes. There's lots of house elves that work here. I think Netty said once that there are over 100."
"Over 100? How come we never see them?"
"They work in the kitchens by day, only come out to clean at night. Heh, kinda like those old fairy tales, in fact. I wonder if they're where those stories came from?"
Hermione looked affronted. "Do they at least get paid?"
"No. They seem to loathe the idea of getting paid."
Her eyes went wide. "You mean Hogwarts is using over 100 slaves?"
"Well, that's what I thought at first, too. But Netty explained that it's more like a mutually beneficial relationship, or at least it's supposed to be that way. There are exceptions, like Dobby, but on the whole, it's safer for them to work as servants to wizards than it is to fend for themselves in the wild."
"Well that doesn't mean they can't get paid."
"They don't value the same things we do. They don't value gold, or vacations. They value other things. If you want to do the equivalent of paying a house elf, Netty says to praise them for their work, appreciate them, treat them with kindness and compassion, and generally just be good to them. And uh, don't talk about wages or vacations or sick leave around them. They get very offended when others disrespect their values."
As Hermione digested that, Netty returned with two other house elves, who left several platters of food for them on a small table they'd brought along for the purpose. Ron and Harry praised them highly for their service, and even Hermione did so, though she was still pondering his words. Harry noticed her pull Netty aside and have a conversation with the elf, probably to confirm what he'd said. Luna drifted off to talk with one of the ghostly nuns, a sandwich in one hand and a glass of pumpkin juice in another.
Harry was eating some roast beef when Nicolas came over. "Ah, good thinking, Harry, good thinking. I can't believe I forgot to mention the lack of edible food here. My apologies, dear boy." Then he spotted something, and his whole mannerism changed. "Oh, pardon me, I er, I saw a friend of mine across the room. See you soon, Harry!" He floated away as fast as he could manage, almost at a run.
Ron looked curiously back at the ghost, too, but they didn't wonder about his motives for long. Peeves had drifted over, cackling. "Nibbles?" he asked, holding up some moldy peanuts.
"No thanks, Peeves. We've got some food."
Hermione came back, and Peeves grinned maliciously at her. "Heard you talking about poor Myrtle earlier. Rude you was to her, in fact." He then bellowed, "Oi! Myrtle!"
Hermione frantically tried to get him to stop, but it was too late. Myrtle came floating over, looking glum and morose as usual. The resulting conversation did not go well, despite Hermione's every attempt, because Peeves kept saying rude things, and soon Myrtle was running off in a tantrum.
The rest of the night went a little better. The headless hunt ghosts arrived, making a spectacle and embarrassing poor Nick at his own party. Harry, without prompting, told the leader how terrifying he thought Nick was, but they were unconvinced.
Between the chill of the dungeons and the way the party was going, they ended up leaving early, taking as much food with them as they could hold, leaving the rest to the house elves. Luna seemed reluctant to leave, but went with them anyway.
They were on their way to the entrance hall to see if they could join the feast in time for puddings, when Harry heard the horrifying voice again.
"... rip... tear... kill..."
He froze, grabbing the stone wall, looking around desperately for the source of the voice.
"Harry, what're you--"
"It's that voice again! Quiet, I'm trying to hear!"
"Soo hungry... for sooo long..."
"It'll sound like hissing to you. Any idea where it's coming from?"
"Kill... Time to kill..."
It was growing fainter, moving upward. He followed it, the others lagging behind.
"Harry, we don't hear anything," Hermione said.
"I smell blood... I SMELL BLOOD..."
"It's going to kill someone!" Ignoring them all, he ran up the stairs, and only stopped when confronted with a huge puddle of water. On the walls, written in what looked like blood, it said:
THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.
Even worse, Filch's cat, Mrs. Norris, was hanging from a sconce by her tail.
"Oh shite," Harry said. "We need to get out of here."
It was too late, though. The feast had ended, and everyone was coming up this way to get to their dormitories. Everyone was talking amongst themselves, until they saw the scene before them and it all went dead.
"What's all this? What's all this now?" As if the situation couldn't get worse, that was Filch coming up to see what all the hubbub was about. Naturally, he had a freakout when he saw his cat petrified.
Filch was in the middle of putting the blame on Harry when the teachers arrived. Dumbledore and some of the other senior teachers were studying Mrs. Norris, while Lockhart made Filch cry by talking about what he thought killed her.
"She is not dead, Argus," Dumbledore said. "She has been petrified. But how, I cannot say."
"Ask him!" Filch said, pointing at Harry.
"Not even a second year of Harry's skill could have done this, Argus. I doubt if even a sixth year could. This is very, very dark magic indeed."
"He did it! I know he did! He saw my Kw--"
"I kept your secret, Mister Filch. Are you going to reveal it just to put the blame on me?" He began rubbing his head. "I didn't hurt your cat. I don't hurt animals; it's against my nature, especially having been hurt before myself..." he trailed off.
Changing tack, Filch leaned over to Dumbledore's ear. Harry was close enough he could just barely make out the word "Squib."
"If he's telling you what I suspect he's telling you, Professor Dumbledore, I don't care. I'm not a bigot. And I've never heard of this Chamber of Secrets before."
"Argus, Harry could not have done it. He says he did not do it, and I believe him, even if he could have done it somehow."
"If I might speak, Headmaster," Snape said, which could not possibly be good. "Potter and his friends may have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But it is rather suspicious, the circumstances. What were you four doing so far from the rest of the students?"
"We were at a death-day party for Sir Nicolas," Harry said. "There were hundreds of ghosts there, they can all testify to us being there."
"Yes," Luna agreed dreamily. "And that lovely house elf, Netty, was there as well."
"A death day party? Really? I did not know they served food fit for human beings at such places."
"They don't. Netty was there because I called her to bring us some food, when I saw there wasn't any there. I didn't want to be rude to poor Nicolas, by leaving."
"How considerate of you," Snape said, sneering. "But that still doesn't explain why you were up here ahead of everyone else."
"It got too chilly for us in the dungeons, so we started coming back. Since we already had food, we decided to go back to our common room."
"Enough, Severus; I have already said Harry could not have done it."
"My cat has been petrified. I want to see some punishment!"
"We will be able to cure her, Argus. Professor Sprout has a wonderful crop of mandrakes even now. When they are done maturing, we will be able to make a restorative draught for Mrs. Norris, and she will be fine once more. Anyway, you four may go now."
Harry was tempted to ask his friends what a squib was, but as he had managed to keep Filch's secret despite Filch's own mistaken judgments, he didn't want to break his word now. Not when his friends would demand he explain. He decided to ask Dumbledore later, after Wizard Studies class, what it meant.
~
The school could talk of nothing but the Chamber of Secrets for the next few days, especially since Filch kept trying to scrub the words off the wall, to no avail, snapping at any student that happened by.
Ginny still looked ill, and to top it off, she was extremely disturbed by Mrs. Norris's fate. Fred and George didn't help matters, talking ill of the feline around her, until Percy snapped at them to stop.
Considering the situation they'd been found in, nobody who'd been attending MAC seemed to think Harry had anything to do with the situation, no matter what Filch said. And only some of the Slytherins seemed to believe it, or at least they teased Harry about it. But most of the school knew, either by being part of MAC or knowing someone who was, that Harry wasn't the type to attack people.
One day in History of Magic, Hermione actually interrupted Professor Binns and convinced him to tell them the tale of the Chamber of Secrets, of how Salazar Slytherin - who believed only wizard-born students should be admitted to Hogwarts - had a falling out with the others and supposedly made the Chamber of Secrets, in which he had hidden a monster. He made clear, however, that he considered the whole story errant nonsense.
"Obviously, wherever the Chamber is, if the monster's a magical snake of some sort," Harry said later under privacy wards, "then it stands to reason that the entrance is password-protected, and the password is something in parseltongue."
"Yeah, but we still don't know where it is," Ron said. "And all we know for sure is you heard parseltongue just before we found Mrs. Norris. Might be a coincidence."
"Maybe, but I doubt it."
"Well," said Hermione, "I've been reading in the library on magical creatures. It's amazing how many books there are about them. I haven't found anything yet. Whatever it is, it's either very obscure and rare, or something lost to history."
"Or you just haven't found the right book yet," Ron pointed out.
She shrugged. "I suppose. Well, I guess I'll just have to keep trying."
"I wonder if Draco knows anything about it."
Ron snorted. "Way he was raised, Harry, he might be the Heir of Slytherin for all we know. He could just be smarming up to you, pretending to play along with MAC meetings, to get close to you."
"That's a possibility. I doubt it's true, but it could be. And even if it isn't, I don't know how he'd react to knowing I'm a parseltongue. I can't tell him. Nobody but the core - you, Hermione, Luna, Angela, Antigone, and Danzia - can know."
"Percy knows too, remember? Of course, that was over a year ago, he might've forgotten. He's a self-centered git, so he probably forgot about it by the following morning, as it didn't really affect him."
"Does Dumbledore know?"
Harry shook his head. "I haven't told him. He's such a good wizard, he might think less of me for knowing."
"I doubt it, Harry. Dumbledore doesn't strike me as the type to let one fact like that change his whole point of view on somebody. You should tell him."
"Yeah, okay," Harry said, while secretly thinking there was no way in Hell he was going to take that risk.
A couple days later, while walking in the corridors, they happened upon the scene of the crime. Nobody was around for once, so they went in looking for clues. When they got in, Harry was surprised to find that it was Myrtle's lavatory.
"Oh, hi Myrtle. How're you?" Hermione asked.
Myrtle, who was floating over one of the toilet tanks, frowned over at them. "This is a girl's toilet, and they're not girls."
"We wanted to look around," Harry said. "And I wanted to ask you if you saw anything, on Halloween night."
"I don't know, I wasn't paying attention. Peeves upset me so much I came in here and tried to drown myself. Then of course, I remembered that I... that I'm..."
"Already dead?" supplied Ron. Harry glared at him. He was an aspie, and even he had more tact that that.
Myrtle understandably began crying again, and dived into the toilet, splashing them with water. Harry shuddered.
"Honestly, that was almost cheerful for her. But Ron, you need to learn some tact."
"What? I was just trying to help."
"You know, Hermione, sometimes I wonder if Ron's an aspie, too?"
"God, I hope not. Though it would explain a few things. After all, not all aspies are brainy; some are downright dumb. Just like anyone else, they come in all kinds."
"Hello, standing right here!" Ron shouted. This was a mistake, as it got the attention of Percy, who saw them come out of Myrtle's bathroom, and began giving them the third degree about it.
When they finally got away, they started talking again, this time about suspects. Ron brought up Draco Malfoy as a suspect.
"Ron, he's been going to MAC meetings. I doubt he's the heir."
"Yes," Harry said. "I doubt it too, but Ron did have a point the other day, Draco could be lying. I just wish there was some way to be sure..."
"Well, we could all sneak down to their common room while Disillusioned," Ron suggested. "Danzia or one of the others could let us in, on some pre-arranged signal, and we could listen in on Malfoy's conversations."
"That's a good plan, but I don't think it's quite good enough. We need some way of goading the information out of him, and we can't do that if we're invisible. We'd have to pretend to be friends of his, Slytherin friends. Like Crabbe and Goyle."
"And how do you propose we do that? We haven't done human transfiguration yet," Ron pointed out.
"We don't need to. There's something called Polyjuice Potion, Snape's mentioned it in class before; it lets us change into other people."
Harry stared at Hermione. "That sounds like a potion just begging to be abused in so many ways I don't even want to think about."
"Yes, well it is illegal to use it without Ministry approval. And we'd be breaking so many school rules, too."
"We've been a bad influence on you Hermione," Ron said. "Anyway, how do we make it? Potion that illegal, I doubt they have the recipe in school."
"Oh, but they do. It's in the restricted section. I know the book to get; Moste Potente Potions."
"But we'd need a teacher's permission to get it out. Remember when Harry tried sneaking in there at night? It didn't go so well. And any teacher we asked would want to know what it was for, unless they were a total idiot."
There was silence at these words, as they all knew what that meant.
"No," said Harry. "I'm not smarming up to that buffoon just for this. Listen, Dumbledore taught us in Wizard Studies class the other day how to owl-order stuff without sending gold in the mail, if we have Gringotts accounts. I can owl-order the book, and then later any ingredients we don't have access to. But I am not going to get any closer to Lockhart than I need to."
"Oh fine, be that way. Just make sure to have them send it fast, we can't afford to waste any time."
"I'll make out and send the form tonight, if that helps."
She nodded.
True to his word, Harry owl-ordered the book from Flourish & Blotts, with instructions to get the gold for it from his Gringotts account, as Dumbledore had shown them. The very next day, in the afternoon, an owl came in and dropped a package on the table in front of him, then took off again. Taking the package, unopened, to the MAC classroom, putting up privacy wards, they opened it up and Hermione read the instructions for the Polyjuice Potion.
"This is the most fiddly and complicated potion I've ever seen. Harry, you'll have to order a couple things. Boomslang skin and powdered horn of a bicorn look to be the only things on here we can't get from the store cupboards."
"Good. I'll put another order in tonight. Just write down how much we'll need..."
"That's good, Harry. Wow, this potion is difficult. If I'm understanding these directions right, it'll take a whole month to brew."
"A month! But if Malfoy is the Heir, he could attack half the muggleborns in the school by then."
"Yes, but it's the only plan we've got right now. Until we think of something better, we have to go with it."
Later, Harry filled Antigone, Luna, Angela, and Danzia in on what they were doing, Ron glaring at him the whole time, and asked the three Slytherin girls where the Slytherin common room was. Antigone told him, but...
"If this potion takes a month," Luna said in her dreamy voice, "then to use it, you'll have to stay here at Hogwarts over the Christmas break."
"That won't be a problem," Ron said. "My parents are going to visit Bill in Egypt this Christmas, so Harry and I will have to stay anyway."
"Oh. Well I'm sure my daddy would be thrilled to have you over, Harry."
Harry's face suddenly turned inexplicably hot at the thought of spending the Christmas in Luna's house. "Er, uh... well, I'd love that, but well, as you say, if it takes a month to brew... well..."
Luna sighed wistfully. "That's okay, Harry. I did want to show you my bedroom, but I guess that can wait til the summer."
His face grew even hotter at this, and for a time, he lost his ability to speak. Instead, he opened his mouth and made a strange sound, like a cross between a moan and the sound of a sick cow.
On Saturday, Harry woke up earlier than usual, but felt awake almost instantly, so he went down to get some breakfast, grabbing his Nimbus before he did. He knew, vaguely, that today was the Quidditch match between Griffindor and Slytherin, but as he wasn't on the team, and the only match he'd ever gone to made him literally sick from fear for his classmates, he decided to go flying around the grounds for a change, vowing to be much more wary of mud when he landed this time.
The first few hours of this were without incident. After a couple hours of flying high and fast, he switched to hovering low and slow in circles around the lake, staring out over the water, wondering what was beneath the lake's surface, other than the giant squid.
He was still looking out over the water when his eye caught movement. Something was flying in the air toward him. He sat up at attention on his broom, ready to fly away at a moment's notice, still trying to figure out what the darned thing was. Finally, he saw it well enough to recognize it from an old memory; it was one of the Quidditch balls; a bludger, if he wasn't mistaken.
Knowing that this could not possibly be good, he took off fast as an arrow in the other direction, but it was catching up to him. So he looped back toward the Forbidden Forest, passing it in such a way that it had to take extra time to change its trajectory to follow him.
As he approached the forest, he spotted a bunch of people on the ground, coming from the Quidditch pitch. He couldn't hear what they were shouting, but they were pointing at the bludger, so he figured they were looking for the rogue ball. He kept trying to dodge it, and it kept following him.
He was a little too slow at one point, and the bludger smashed into his arm, breaking it. But being no stranger to pain, he fought to hold on, continuing to try to get away from the bloody thing.
Getting an idea, he flew up higher, then looped back around slow enough for the ball to be able to follow him, then shot straight toward the ground at full tilt, leaning forward on his broom. This caused the other people to shout and scream in worry for his safety, but at the last possible second, he shot off in a completely different direction, the bludger smashing into the ground. Turning around instantly, as he'd been prepared to do, he cast a Vanishing Charm at it. Half the ball disappeared, and the remaining half shuddered and died.
Landing at last, he noticed who the others were. It was Hermione, Ron, his three Slytherin friends, and Lockhart. Dozens of other students had witnessed the past few minutes worth of the struggle as well. He lay there, clutching his broom in his good arm, and passed out.
He woke up to the glittering teeth of Lockhart. "Not you!" Harry said, trying to get away.
"Delusional lad, doesn't know what he's saying. Don't worry Harry, I can fix your arm. I've done it hundreds of times."
"No, I need to go to the hospital wing, see a trained Healer."
"Nonsense, boy. Just lie back, and I'll--"
But Harry had no intention of lying back. Having dropped his broomstick, he used his good arm to try to grab his wand, but it was on his other side, so by the time he got it in his hand, he heard Lockhart say an incantation, and felt his arm go limp. The git had removed all the bones in his arm.
"Uh, well, yes, that can sometimes happen. But no worries, Madam Pompfrey will be able to clear it all up."
Harry whipped his wand out and shouted a hex at the git. Fittingly, it caused the handsome teacher to break out in painful pox marks all over his face. The man felt his face in terror and ran screaming away, shouting "My face! My beautiful face!"
Then McGonagall was there, and he felt his stomach drop. "Professor. I... I'm sorry. I'm sorry I let my temper get the better--"
"Don't you worry yourself, Mister Potter," McGonagall said. "Your actions are understandable, given the circumstances. Just don't do it again, and you won't be in any trouble, if I can help it."
"Oh, good. Thank you, Professor." He put his wand away, and let her conjure a stretcher and float him up to the hospital wing.
Madam Pompfrey was very angry when she found out what had happened, and gave Lockhart the third degree about it, letting him suffer untreated pox marks while she tended to Harry. Only after she'd forced him to drink a truly horrible potion called Skele-Grow, and informed him of the rough night he had in store, did she finally heal Lockhart. She was so angry with him that, instead of insisting he stay the night (as she usually did), she kicked him out the moment he was spotless again; literally kicked him out.
After that, his friends came by to see how he was doing, and they talked for a time about the incident and various things, until Madam Pompfrey ushered them out as well so Harry could focus on getting better. But it was more difficult without people to distract him. He wished he had a book to read, but he didn't want to bother Netty. Getting to sleep was very difficult.
Hours later, he awoke with a start, to somebody sponging his forehead in the dark.
"Get off!" He shouted. "Wait, Dobby?"
Yes, it was the same golf-ball sized eyes, the same face, the same filthy pillow case in lieu of clothing. There was no doubt it was Dobby.
"Harry has come back to Hogwarts. Dobby warned and warned Harry, but Harry did not listen. Why did Harry not go back home when he missed the train?"
Harry sat up, forcing the sponge away. Something clicked in his brain at Dobby's words. "So I was right; the barrier was your doing."
"Yes, Harry Potter sir. Dobby hid and waited until the time was right, and then sealed the barrier. Dobby had to iron his hands for it."
Looking at his bandaged and blistered hands, Harry felt very little sympathy, given the circumstances.
"If you're here now, would it be correct to assume you fixed that bludger so it would go after me and kill me?"
"Not kill you, sir, never kill you!" Dobby said with horror. "Dobby is just wanting you maimed enough to go back home, where it is safe."
"Listen, Dobby, I appreciate that you think you're trying to save my life, but I do. Not. Want. Your. So-called. Help," he said, poking Dobby in the chest at each punctuation. "Hogwarts is my home. If I died, that's not going to change anything for you. Now go away before I strangle you."
"Dobby is used to death threats, sir. Dobby gets them five times a day at home." He paused to blow his nose on the filthy pillow case.
"Don't you ever wash that thing, Dobby? The house elves here all have clean towels every day."
"No, sir. Dobby's master is wanting Dobby to be filthy. He says it's Dobby's place to be like dirt."
Harry noted that he now knew the gender of the mysterious master, and was very careful not to mention to Dobby that he'd let that slip, in case the elf began hurting himself again.
"If you're going to try to send me home in pieces, Dobby, can't I at least know why?"
"Oh, sir, if only Dobby could. If only you knew what you mean to us dregs--"
"Cut the guilt tripping, it won't work. Just tell me what's going on and who's plotting it."
"Dobby can't, sir! Dobby cannot let the dark days return! But return they do. At Hogwarts, terrible things are to happen, are perhaps already happening, and Dobby cannot let Harry Potter stay here now that history is to repeat itself, now that the Chamber of Secrets is open once more--"
Dobby froze, horror-struck. Harry grabbed him by the pillowcase and held him up before he could hurt himself with anything.
"So this does have something to do with the Chamber of Secrets? And it's been opened before? Tell me, Dobby, who opened it last?"
Dobby stretched a bony hand fruitlessly toward the water jug. Harry spoke again. "I'm not a Muggle-born, Dobby, how could I be in any danger? Are you sure this has nothing to do with Vol-- I mean, You-Know-Who?"
"Ask no more, Harry Potter!" Dobby whined. "Ask no more of poor Dobby! Just go home, Harry Potter!"
"I am home, Dobby. Hogwarts is my home, and my friends are my true family. I have no love of the Dursleys, no loyalty to them. But if something is going to happen here, and Muggle-borns are in danger, I will fight and I will die to protect my new family, if I have to. You might as well give up trying to save my life, Dobby, because I. Am. Not. Leaving!"
"Harry Potter risks his life for his friends! How noble! How valiant! But Harry Potter must leave this place, go back to the Dursleys, you simply--" They both heard a noise. Harry was unsurprised; Dobby was making a racket, and Harry had not put up any privacy wards.
"Dobby must go now, Harry Potter," the elf whispered, terror in his eyes. With a crack, he was gone. Harry silently cursed to himself and rolled over, feigning sleep, as someone was approaching the hospital wing.
Harry turned to watch as Dumbledore came in, wearing his night things and seeking the matron.
"What happened?" Madam Pompfrey asked.
"Another attack. Minerva found him on the stairs."
"We think he was bringing grapes to Potter," said McGonagall.
Harry silently watched in horror as Colin Creevy, a camera to his eye, was carried in, stiff as stone. A comment by the matron confirmed he was petrified. The teachers tried opening the camera to see if he'd gotten a picture of his attacker, but the puff of acrid smoke that resulted made that a no-go.
"Melted. What does this mean, Dumbledore?"
"It means the Chamber of Secrets is indeed open once more."
"But then, Albus, who?"
"Not who, but how," Dumbledore said cryptically. McGonagall clearly had no idea what he meant, either.
Note: I pronounce "Moste Potente Potions" with the e's at the end silent, unlike Steven Fry, and I will fight anyone who disagrees. :-D Call it an aspie thing.
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Two.
Or, "Aspie Potter and the Chamber of Secrets."
Note: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made.
Note 2: There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though.
Note 3: Sorry for the postspam, but I was very behind on posting chapters for this one, and I have a new one coming up soon. This is the last one to catch us up, the new chapter won't be out til tomorrow or so.
Chapter 5: The Dueling Club
The next morning, Harry woke up in the hospital wing momentarily confused, before he remembered what happened. He glanced over at Colin. He didn't know the boy well, but he wondered what his parents were being told, if anything, as he was released and made his way to look for Ron and Hermione.
After speaking with Percy Weasley, he figured out they were in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, so he headed up there, finding them brewing the potion in a cauldron in a toilet, a waterproof fire under the cauldron.
"This is so unsanitary," Harry said. "But I suppose the fire takes care of any germs."
"Your arm all better?"
"Yeah. And guess what?"
"What?"
"It turns out Dobby did the bludger, supposedly to save my life. He wanted me maimed enough to be sent back to the Dursley's."
"Wow, mate. If he doesn't stop trying to save your life, he's going to kill you."
Harry nodded. "Oh, something else happened as well."
"You mean Colin?" Hermione asked. "We heard. The whole school knows."
"Oh, figures you would. But there's more. Dobby said the Chamber has been opened before!"
They stared at him a moment.
“The Chamber of Secrets has been opened before?” Hermione said.
"Well that settles it, Lucius must have opened it last time, and he taught Draco how to do it."
"I dunno... from things Dobby's said before, I don't think the Malfoys are involved. I once asked him if Vol--er, You-Know-Who was involved, and he said he wasn't, but he looked like he was trying to hint at something, like it might be connected to Voldy after all."
"Well Lucius was a Death Eater. One of You-Know-Who's followers," Ron explained. "He claimed he'd been under a spell, but my dad never believed it. Got out of Azkaban cuz of his money, Dad reckons. Anyway, Lucius being a Death Eater, that's a connection to You-Know-Who."
"Hmm... maybe. I asked Dobby if Voldy had a brother, and Dobby's response made me think I was getting warmer."
"Maybe You-Know-Who is a Malfoy?” Ron mused.
"Voldemort Malfoy?"
“No no, the name he uses can't be real, unless it's foreign. Which I suppose it could be. But anyway, he could be... his surname could be Malfoy."
“Well possibly. But they can't be brothers, or Dobby would have said yes to my question.”
"Yeah, but I think You-Know-Who is older than Lucius. Could be Lucius's father, or uncle. That'd explain Dobby trying to hint that you were getting warmer."
Harry pondered a moment. "If the monster in the chamber is some kind of snake, I think the Heir would have to be a parseltongue," he said thoughtfully.
"You've hidden yours pretty well, considering you were raised in the Muggle world. The Malfoys could be hiding their parseltongue gift."
"But Draco was with me when I heard the monster that first time. And if he's a parseltongue, he's a great actor; he didn't react at all to the voice I heard."
Ron looked uneasy. "He could've... given the creature a pre-arranged signal? Maybe? To take some of the suspicion off him, you know?"
"I guess..."
"Harry, I'm already making this potion,” Hermione said to him. “I might as well--"
The door opened then, and they all went quiet.
"Harry?" asked a familiar dreamy voice.
"Over here, Luna."
Harry saw Moaning Myrtle come up out of her stall and look at Luna. "Oh hi there, Luna," said the miserable ghost, sounding a little happier than usual.
"Hello, Myrtle. How are you today?"
"Miserable, of course. But it's nice to see you. I wish I'd known someone as nice as you when I was alive."
Ron rolled his eyes at the both of them. Luna and Mytle kept chatting quietly as Harry and the others continued brewing the Polyjuice Potion. When Luna and Myrtle finished talking, though, Luna came to talk with the three of them, and they filled her in on what they'd been talking about. When told about the possible Malfoy/Voldemort connection, she got all wide eyed.
“Oh yes,” she said excitedly. “I've heard that the Malfoys have been funding the Ministry's research into Imperio-Worms.”
“Imperio worms?” Ron asked, holding back laughter. “What the bloody hell are Imperio worms?”
“They crawl in your ear and take over your brain. Fudge wants them so he can make an army of soldiers that never disobey commands, and will die for him. You can read all about it in the latest edition of The Quibbler.”
“That sounds like the Imperious Curse, but with creatures” Hermione noted.
“Yes, that's where the name came from.”
“But the Imperious Curse is illegal. And even if it weren't, they wouldn't need creatures to do it, since the curse already exists.”
“Yes, but Imperious Curses can go wrong. They're difficult to do. Anyone can put an Imperio Worm in someone's ear, though.”
“Like I said, it's ill-”
“Yes, but 'illegal' just means the general public isn't allowed to use it. Governments have all the power, and power tends to corrupt. Add magic to the mix, that's basically absolute power. Which tends to corrupt absolutely. You should read what some of the Muggle governments do, Hermione. They have their own research into mind-controlled soldiers, and they don't even have magic. When you get back to the Muggle world, you should look up 'Project MK Ultra.' It'll open your eyes.”
Hermione looked to Harry for support against Luna's ravings, only to find Harry looking impressed. “What?” he asked. “I've heard of it, too. Years of reading anything I could find at the library, I've run into some weird things. But she's right, the American group called the CIA really has done experiments into mind control. So Luna's theory about these Imperio Worms could have merit.”
“Thank you, Harry, that was kind of you.”
He shrugged. “Not really. Just honest.”
Luna nodded vaguely. Hermione rolled her eyes and went back to work on the potion.
~
The next few weeks passed without incident, aside from Ron giving Draco side-eyes every time they had a MAC meeting. The more such meetings they had, the more Harry was convinced Draco had nothing to do with this whole Chamber business, but he kept his mouth shut; they were brewing the potion already, and it was almost done. Might as well try it to see if the theory had any merit.
One day, they saw - pinned to the notice boards - something about a Duelling Club. Harry thought that was a great idea, and wondered why he hadn't thought of it himself. Deciding it was useful, Harry, Hermione, and Ron all went, and convinced Luna to come with them as well.
At 8 o'clock that night, they hurried to the Great Hall, where all the House tables had been moved out of the way, and a golden stage put up in the middle of the room, presumably for demonstrations.
"I wonder who's teaching us? Someone told me Flitwick was a dueling champion in his youth, maybe it'll be him."
"As long as it's not--" Harry started, then groaned. Gilderoy Lockhart stepped out onto the stage, accompanied by Snape.
Lockhart waved for silence. "Can everyone see me? Can you all hear me? Great!
"Now Professor Dumbledore gave me permission to start this little dueling club, to train you up in case you have to defend yourselves, as I have done on many occasions. Blah blah blah blah," it sounded to Harry as he began tuning it out.
"Blah blah blah my assistant, Professor Snape," he continued to drone on in his insufferable voice. As if he needed that shite added to the press and noise of the crowd.
"Wouldn't it be good if they killed each other?" Ron muttered in Harry's ear.
Harry didn't react to that, but did twitch his lip in amusement at how much disgust and loathing Snape was directing at Lockhart; it was good to see Snape directing his loathing at someone other than himself, for once.
The demonstration duel between Lockhart and Snape went much as he'd expected: Lockhart being a bumbling fool, and Snape soundly knocking the dunce on his arse. Harry almost laughed aloud at Lockhart's poor attempt to demonstrate the Protego charm, feeling glad he knew how to do it already. Given the recent Chamber of Secrets stuff, he'd been spending some spare time every week practicing defensive spells.
When Lockhart finally noticed Snape's murderous facial expression, he started pairing them off. Ron and Harry were going to duel, but Snape split them up, putting Ron with Seamus and Harry with Draco, which did make some sense, since Ron's old wand had started doing odd things in the last couple weeks. Draco grinned at Harry, a hint of malicious glee there despite their budding civil acquaintance. Hermione got paired off with a Slytherin named Millicent Bulstrode, who was very sturdily built, and Luna got to spar with Angela.
Draco and Harry climbed onto the stage, Harry feeling very nervous. He didn't like being the center of attention one bit, and here he was in the middle of a crowd. He took a moment to take a sip of Calming Draught, which helped. It helped even more to focus on Draco instead of the crowd.
"Face your partners and bow," called Lockhart. "Wands at the ready!" he shouted.
"When I count to three," he continued, "cast your charms to disarm your opponents - only to disarm them. We don't want any accidents."
Harry had been thinking while Lockhart talked, and as the man counted up to three, was not surprised by Draco starting on two; it was a very Slytherin thing to do. He countered it with a shield charm, which impressed everyone in the room; even Snape looked impressed despite himself.
Almost the instant Draco's spell bounced off his shield, he shot back "Expelliarmus!" The blond boy's wand flew into the air and Harry caught it with his free hand. Draco did not look pleased.
Lockhart had him give Draco his wand back, and they tried again. Once more the count up to three. Draco tried going at one, but that didn't surprise Harry either. He shot a few things that bounced off Harry's shield, then Harry shot back with Expelliarmus again, even though Draco was shooting actual jinxes at him. But the other boy was managing to dodge Harry's spells or else snatch his wand out of the air whenever one of Harry's spells hit its mark.
Finally, one of Malfoy's jinxes got past Harry's defenses, and Harry was knocked back on his arse. That was the point where Harry grew tired of Malfoy ignoring the rules, and decided to ignore them himself. He shot back with several jinxes and hexes of his own, and soon it became a shooting match, Lockhart running around shouting at them, stopping them temporarily.
This time, before the count-up, Snape whispered something into Draco's ear, and Draco looked both gleeful and concerned, but nodded. When they went again, Harry once more did a shield charm, but it was unnecessary.
"Serpensortia!" Draco had bellowed.
Exploding out of the end of his wand came a long black snake with a hood; some kind of cobra? It looked very angry, and slithered toward Harry. Harry paused, not knowing what to do. He didn't want to talk to it, giving away his secret power; and speaking at all around a snake would require concentration to stay in English. But people were screaming. Harry stepped back a few steps.
"Don't move, Potter," Snape said with an air of droll amusement. "I'll take care of it for you."
Harry had just enough time to wonder if Snape meant he was going to kill the snake, when Lockhart stepped in and tried taking care of it himself.
It was a disaster, of course. Whatever spell the imbecile had used made the snake fly into the air and land with a smack, making it go from angry to pissed the hell off. It reared and hissed at the nearest person it could see, ready to strike.
Not trusting himself to speak, Harry screamed out 'Stupefy!' in his mind, pointing his wand at the snake. It had been a long shot, as he didn't even know if it was possible to do spells without speaking, but it paid off; a burst of red light hit the snake and it fell over, passed out.
Everyone stared at him, even Snape, who looked dumbfounded. The looks were so stunned and impressed that he wondered if he'd invented some new technique on the fly. Taking advantage of their stunned silence, he walked forward and knelt down to look at the snake. Then he saw Antigone nearby, and got her attention.
"Antigone, do you know how to conjure a cage or something?"
"Wha? Oh, yeah... I think so."
She took her wand out and conjured a weird, flawed goldfish bowl with a metal lid. It looked equivalent in craftsmanship to a bowl he'd made in first grade art class once, but served well enough. He levitated the snake into the fishbowl and put the lid on, glad to see the lid had holes in it.
"What are you doing, Potter?" Snape asked derisively.
Harry looked up at Snape so he wouldn't accidentally slip into Parseltongue. "I'm rescuing this snake, sir. It's just an innocent animal, it never asked to be used as a weapon."
Snape sneered. "Potter, it is a spell snake. It isn't real."
"Water from a wand is real enough to drink. Chairs conjured with magic are real enough to burn. This snake is real enough to have instincts and feelings. So I'm rescuing it."
"Potter, I do realize your fame may be getting to your--"
"I don't care about my fame. I never knew I was famous until I got to school, and I've never liked being famous. I doubt I ever will. I can barely tolerate lots of people looking at me."
"Be that as it may, you cannot keep a venomous snake in your dormitory, Potter. It is a danger to other students."
Harry glared at the man. "Maybe you should have thought of the danger to the students before you told Draco to use that spell, Professor," he snapped at the man, who looked taken aback.
First pausing to take a breath, Harry said more calmly, "I will find somewhere safe to keep him, sir, while I try to figure out how to get him back to his natural environment. He won't be in the dormitories or the common room."
With that, he took the snake in its container off the stage, everyone giving him a wide berth to let him through. There was some muttering as he left, but he didn't care. He had seen himself in this snake - brought into this world he didn't understand suddenly, some people fearing him and others trying to hurt him. He wasn't going to let it be another victim.
He got as far as Griffindor Tower before he realized he had no idea where to put it. He needed help from someone who knew the castle better than he did. Suddenly, Netty came to mind.
"Netty," he said aloud.
With a crack, she appeared. "Sir is calling Netty, sir?"
"Ah yes, Netty. I need your help, if you can." He explained the situation to her as best he could, and what he wanted, not sure she could help. When he finished, she looked excited.
"Netty is knowing a place, sir. We call it the come-and-go room. Come, sir, Netty will show you!"
A few minutes later, they were on the seventh floor corridor by a tapestry of dancing ballet trolls, and Netty was teaching Harry how to get into the come-and-go room, also known as the Room of Requirement. He walked three times past the place, thinking of a place to keep a snake for an unknown amount of time. On the third time past, a door appeared in the previously blank wall, and he and Netty went in.
The room inside was mid-sized. It had a huge terrarium against one wall, and was full of branches for a snake to climb on and places to hide or nest, with magically-heated rocks to keep its cold blood warm. There were also comfy chairs for people to sit on and look at the terrarium.
Against another wall was a different, smaller terrarium made for rats, and several confused-looking rats stood around in there, exploring their new environment. Leaning next to that terrarium was a rat-trap on the end of a long wooden handle, which Harry guessed was to catch rats to feed the snake.
As he was levitating the snake into its terrarium, it began to stir. By the time it woke up completely, the lid was on the terrarium.
"Hi," he said to it in parseltongue. "Sorry about stunning you, but it was the only way I could save your life without revealing my status as a parselmouth to the whole school."
The snake looked up at him. "You... saved me? But I was going to attack you. And then I was going to attack that other human."
"It's okay, that wasn't your fault. The human that flung you into the air is an idiot. He was trying to kill you, I think, but did something else by accident. If you had bitten that boy you were hissing at, they would have destroyed you for sure."
"Then I thank you for saving my life."
"You're welcome. Are you hungry?"
"Not at the moment. Thanks for the offer, though."
"Do you have a name?"
"No. My people do not use names, usually."
"Do you want one?"
The snake looked thoughtful. "I suppose so."
"Are you a boy snake or a girl snake?"
"I have laid eggs before."
"Girl, then. Hmm... what do you think about the name Cleopatra? Cleo for short?"
"I like that. It sounds regal."
"Netty," he said to the elf, "I'm going to have to go back to my common room now. If you could keep an eye on Cleopatra here, just once in a while, I would appreciate it."
"Netty will do that, sir."
"Thanks."
He turned back to the snake. "I need to go to my own nest, Cleo. Netty will keep an eye on you now and then whenever I'm not here. I'll see you later, okay?"
"That is fine. It is warm in here, I shall sleep as well. I thank you again."
“You're welcome.”
Rushing out the door as soon as he could, he had to run to get back to the common room before curfew. He came in to see a lot of people staring at him. He ignored most of them and went over to Ron and Hermione.
"You rescued that snake, mate," Ron said. "Not quite as bad as it could've gone, I know, but people are still talking about it."
"Where is the snake now, Harry?"
"Her name is Cleopatra, and it's a long story where she is. She's locked up safe away from anyone else, though." He said that last loud enough for others around them to hear, which immediately set them off telling everyone else.
That out of the way, he cast privacy wards. "Now for the long story," he said, and launched into the story of the Room of Requirement.
"Woah!" Ron said, amazed. "That place sounds awesome!"
"Yes," Harry agreed, "it's quite cool. Might be useful as well. I think we should keep it a secret for now."
"For sure. Now tell us, why'd you save that snake?"
He sighed with annoyance. "I told Snape why, didn't you hear me?"
"But there's more to it, isn't there, Harry?" Hermione asked.
"Well, yeah. I empathized with her. You know, given what she said in the Room, I reckon she's real. An actual, live snake, summoned from who-knows-where."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. She says she's laid eggs before. Which means she has memories from before today. And she has a personality."
"Hmm... well that's something else to look into. I don't know anything about that, but you had a point earlier that water from a wand is drinkable."
Harry nodded, and got his books out to do some schoolwork, with his earmuffs on to drown out the chatter in the rest of the room. But music would have worked better; he had always done his best work listening to an old cassette tape he'd played on one of Dudley's old Walkmans, that he'd broken and Harry had repaired. He began wondering if it was possible to make a portable magical music player, briefly, before getting back to work.
~
The next day, they awoke to find that a blizzard had come through, and the snow was so thick that Herbology had been canceled. So Harry went to the library to study and do some work. At the table next to his were a bunch of Hufflepuffs, including Justin Finch-Fletchley. Harry worked quietly for a long time, the whole time also aware that the Hufflepuffs were talking quietly. It annoyed him mildly, but he ignored it.
Eventually, though, Justin came over and stood there like he wanted to say something. Harry looked up at him.
“Hi, Justin.”
“Hi Harry. Er... I wanted to thank you for saving me from that snake, last night. Even if you did rescue it as well. But you had a point, it's just an animal. And that spell of Lockhart's made it angry. Anyway, thanks,” he finished a little lamely, holding his hand out.
Taking and shaking the boy's hand, Harry said, “No problem.”
Another boy came over, holding out a hand and looking pompous. “Ernie McMillain,” he said. “That was an impressive bit of spellwork last night. Second year, and you not only did a stunning spell, but did it non-verbally, too! Stunning spell is a fourth-year spell. And the teachers don't start teaching non-verbal spells until sixth year.”
“Really? Well I knew about the stunning spell being advanced; I checked out some copies of the later-year spellbooks and read ahead for the stunning spell. Figured it would come in handy, what with You-Know-Who having been after me last year, and now this Chamber of Secrets business.
“As to the non-verbal spell, well...” he looked uncomfortable. “I didn't even know if it was possible, but that snake just appearing all of a sudden struck me dumb, and I just reacted without thinking. It's a bloody miracle it worked at all. I've tried a few other non-verbal spells since then, and nothing's happened.” This was true; he'd tried some last night before bed, and nothing had happened. “So it was a fluke.”
“Still impressive, though.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Justin smiled, then looked like he'd suddenly remembered something. “Oh, damn. I left my Charms book in my dormitory, I'd better go get it now, it'll take ages to get there and then to Charms. Well thanks again, Harry.”
“You're welcome, Justin.”
Justin waved as he left the library, and the other Hufflepuffs all sat back down to study again. But after a couple minutes, something occurred to him. Harry turned to them in concern.
“Should he be going out alone with the Chamber of Secrets monster on the loose?”
They all looked in horror at him, nodding fervently. So he and they grabbed their things and rushed out after Justin. But it was too late; they found him in a corridor, petrified. Even more alarming, Nearly-Headless Nick was petrified as well, and had turned pitch black, and smoky.
All the nervous talking and scared noises that broke out at this sight must have attracted Peeves, because he showed up, saw the scene, and started screaming at the top of his voice, “ATTACK! ATTACK! ANOTHER ATTACK! NO MORTAL OR GHOST IS SAFE! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! ATTAAAACK!”
Crash — crash — crash — door after door flew open along the corridor and people flooded out from classes that were in session. Harry and the Hufflepuffs gathered around Justin to keep him from being stepped on by the others, but some people managed to have the unsettling experience of standing inside Nearly-Headless Nick.
McGonagall made a loud crack from her wand for attention, and organized the students so Justin could be taken to the Hospital Wing, while one of the students was tasked with wafting Nearly-Headless Nick there with a fan.
With that done, she turned to Harry and the Hufflepuffs. “Did any of you witness the attack?” she asked hopefully.
“No Professor,” said Ernie. “Justin had gone to get his Charms book from his dorm, as he'd forgotten it. He was barely gone for three minutes when we rushed to get our things together and go after him...” he looked distraught. “I should have just left my stuff and rushed out! This is all my fault!”
Several others began saying things to the same effect, but McGonagall made more noise for attention.
“Now, boys and girls, don't lose your heads. This isn't your fault. If you'd left your things behind, you might've gotten attacked as well, and one of you might have died. So don't blame yourselves, any of you.”
She then noticed Harry. “Mr. Potter? Where were you during this?” Harry gulped, remembering how he'd been found by the first attack site.
“Harry was with us, Professor,” Ernie said. “He was the one who said he didn't think it was safe for Justin to go out alone.”
“Yes,” Hannah Abbot agreed. “And before that, Harry was studying at the table next to ours, then Justin was talking with him before he took off.”
“Oh. Well that's good. I didn't think Mr. Potter was to blame, and this seems to prove that. If Harry was with you the whole time, he could not possibly be responsible. I just wish we knew who was.”
Harry once more considered telling one of the teachers about the voice he'd heard before the first attack, but once again, he was too afraid to reveal such a hated and feared gift to anyone in a position of power, even if it might save lives. He knew it was kind of cowardly, but hey, he was only 12 years old, and who knew what the consequences of teachers having that information might be in the years to come? So, angry at himself, he continued to keep his silence.
~
This new, double attack had everyone scared, especially with what happened to Nick. What could do that to a ghost, after all? It was a real mystery, and a terrifying one at that. Harry was starting to wonder why the school wasn't being evacuated, given the circumstances. Granted, it was a bit different from his old schools, not the least of which reasons was it was a boarding school, but still... he wondered if the reason for the school still being open was some cultural difference of the wizarding world.
As Christmas approached, very few people were signing up to stay at the castle over the break; just Harry, Ron, Hermione, Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle. It was suspicious behavior from Malfoy; his parents doted on him, so why was he staying? But it was useful, since the potion wouldn't be ready until Christmas.
The day before everyone left for home, Harry was talking with Antigone, Ron, and Hermione in the MAC classroom. He was telling Antigone about the Polyjuice Potion and their theory.
“Ah, Polyjuice Potion. You got the bits of whoever you're changing into?”
“What?” Ron exclaimed. “I'm drinking nothing with Crabbe's toenails in it!”
“You could pluck out a few hairs,” Antigone pointed out.
“Well that's better, I guess.”
“As a matter of fact,” Hermione said, holding a vial of hair up, “I have mine. Millicent Bulstrode. Got it off her robes at the dueling club the other day, when she was trying to strangle me.”
Antigone winced. “I wouldn't use that if I were you. Millicent has a cat in her dorm. Sheds all over everything, it does.”
“Oh,” Hermione said, tossing it in her bag. “Yeah, that would be bad.”
“Why? What would happen if you tried cat hair?”
“She'd look like a were-cat or something. It would take weeks for a Healer to undo that damage.”
Ron snickered. “I wouldn't mind seeing that, but I guess it's just as well.”
Antigone sighed. “I'd offer one of my hairs, or Angela's, or Danzia's, but we're known associates of yours, so Malfoy would never open up around us. Anyway, Harry, the newest password is,” she made a face, “
pure-blood.
”
They raised their eyebrows at her.
“Don't look at me like that, I sure as Hell didn't pick it. Dunno who did, in fact.”
She then spent some time drawing them a map of how to get to the Slytherin common room. It was a very good map, very detailed.
“Do you have a plan for getting Crabbe and Goyle's hairs?”
“Yes,” Hermione said. “They're gluttons and idiots, they'll eat anything they find. So I plan to make some muffins with sleeping draught in them, and have these two float them somewhere for the lumps to find them.”
“Excellent plan. I can attest to their stupidity. Though they are clever in their own way, on some things. Nothing terribly useful for Hogwarts, though, best I can tell.”
A small sound caught Harry's attention, and he looked up. Luna was in the doorway, looking as though she'd wandered in by accident.
“Hi Luna!”
Antigone giggled and gave Ron a significant look, but he ignored her. Harry got up and went over to Luna.
“Well I might as well go,” Antigone said. “Let those two have some more time together before the break, since Harry's not leaving but she is.”
~
Though they'd been a bit worried that something might go wrong, when the day finally came to do the plan, everything went smoothly. Harry and Ron floated the muffins in the middle of the hall, and the two gluttonous idiots snatched them up, ate them right there, and passed out at once. They then took the larger boys' shoes, and went back to Myrtle's bathroom with them and a pair of larger uniforms to change into.
Hermione ladled out two doses of the potion, and Harry and Ron put their bits of Crabbe and Goyle in their potions, which hissed, frothed, and changed color. Crabbe's looked like boogers, while Goyle's looked like dark, murky brown mud.
Going into separate stalls to change out of their clothes and transform into Crabbe and Goyle, they drank their potions. Harry's tasted like overcooked cabbage. After some painful moments, their skin boiling and bubbling and their bodies aching as they grew in height and mass, finally it was over, and Harry looked into the mirror. He had to take his glasses off and put them in his pocket, since Goyle didn't need glasses. Pulling Goyle's shoes on, he then left the stall.
Hermione sighed, wishing them well as they left.
Antigone's map was a huge help, they found the place in short order and said the password, going through the hole in the wall that opened up. When they walked in, Draco looked up.
“Were you two in the Great Hall all this time? I was just about to go looking for you. I know we're all pure-bloods, but with no idea who the Heir is, it doesn't hurt to be too careful.”
They both stared, dumbfounded, at him. This must have been a common thing for them, though, because Draco didn't react to it. “Don't you have any ideas?” Harry said, hearing Goyle's voice as he did.
“Of course I don't, Goyle, how many times do I have to tell you? Father hasn't told me anything about the last time it was opened, as I'm not supposed to know about that. I heard somebody actually died that time, though.”
Despite all the time he'd been spending with Draco, Harry was surprised to hear a tone of slight sadness in the blond boy's words. As though sensing Harry's thoughts, Draco glared at him.
“I know what you're going to say, Goyle, and I don't care. Father's never had anything to do with Muggles, and I have, thanks to Potter. I'm not going to stop going to Potter's MAC meetings just because you don't like it. I'm not my father. If you don't like it, you can shove it up your backside. And that goes for you, too, Crabbe. You don't have to share my opinions, god knows you're too thick to get anything useful out of MAC, but what does it matter? The Dark Lord is dead. And I don't know if you've noticed or not, but the wizarding world isn't doing too well either. I reckon we could use some fresh blood. I'd rather we all became mudbloods than go extinct. Nobody would be around to keep the Muggles ignorant of magic if that happened, and even though they're not as bad as I thought they were, god only knows what would happen if they suddenly came face to face with unicorns or dragons or whatever. Probably hunt them to extinction.”
When they still didn't say anything, he continued. “Just face it, our parents are wrong. Not having had any real experience of Muggles, they make assumptions, rumors about them spread, and it's all just ignorance and misinformation. Then people like the Dark Lord feed on all that nonsense as a tool to get power.” He sighed. “You don't like it when people hate on us Slytherins just because they're ignorant of what we're really like, so I'd think you two would've thought at least a little about how Muggleborns feel.”
Ron opened his mouth to speak, and once more Draco interrupted. “Yeah, Crabbe, I know Salazar Slytherin didn't like Muggles or Muggleborns. But that was back when Muggles were killing witches and wizards, so his feelings made sense for the time. But that was hundreds of years ago, and a lot's changed since then. They've gotten a lot smarter, for one, thanks to their science. You know they actually make movies about magic now? Movies where magic is shown in a positive light, no less. I reckon most of them would be fine living with wizards and witches, these days.”
Finally recovering his wits, Harry asked, “D’you know if the person who opened the Chamber last time was caught?”
“Oh, yeah … whoever it was was expelled,” said Malfoy. “They’re probably still in Azkaban.”
“Azkaban?” said Harry, puzzled.
“Azkaban — the wizard prison, Goyle,” said Malfoy, looking at him in disbelief. “Honestly, if you were any slower, you’d be going backward.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway, you two, I'm going to bed now.”
With that, Draco left and went up the stairs, leaving the two of them to be silently impressed.
“You know, it's a real shame the real Crabbe and Goyle didn't hear all that,” Hermione said after they told her all about what Draco had said. “It would be good for them to hear it, even if they didn't listen.”
“I dunno, I kind of got the impression he was repeating things he's said before.”
“Ah well,” she said. “They're thick enough that repetition might be needed to get the message through to their brains.”
“I doubt that'd help,” Ron said.
That night, Harry lay in bed thinking about Draco's words, feeling warm inside that he had been right about Draco, and even more warm that he was the reason for the blond boy's change of heart. He had very happy dreams that night.
Note one: Since the Room of Requirement cannot make food, even for animals, the rats the room provided for Cleo had been loose in the castle, until the Room summoned them, which is why they looked confused. Just wild rats were used, though; no pets.
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Two.
Or, "Aspie Potter and the Chamber of Secrets."
By = Fayanora
Note: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made.
Note 2: There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though.
(Genuinely new chapter!)
Chapter 6: Riddle Me This
The next day, Harry woke to find himself wondering what was going to happen with the Dueling Club. It seemed a shame for it to stop, just because it had an inept teacher. He decided to find out its status, and suggest a different teacher for it if it was still ongoing.
Standing up and going over the the mirror, he took off the satin 'bonnet' that protects his hair at night, and got to work trying to get his hair into some semblance of order.
At breakfast, still a small affair because of so few people being there the day after Christmas, Harry walked over to Dumbledore at the staff table and waited for the headmaster to finish his bite of scrambled eggs.
“Why hello there, Har-er, Mr. Potter,” Dumbledore said, remembering he was teaching these days. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Well I was just wondering if we could discuss the Dueling Club later, when we're both done eating.”
Dumbledore blinked. “Why of course, Har- Mr. Potter. You know where my office is, I take it?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“Well, in that case, I do rather like lemon drops.”
Harry stared at him curiously.
“It's the password for the gargoyle,” Dumbledore explained quietly. “Lemon drops, I mean.”
“Ah. Okay. Thank you, sir.”
“You're quite welcome, young man.”
After breakfast, Harry went to the gargoyle, gave it the password, and went up the revolving steps to wait for Dumbledore. The room was empty still, but for a young bird with feathers that were starting to look very pretty, and – oddly – a pile of ash at the bottom of the cage. Surely Dumbledore didn't smoke, did he? And surely he wouldn't put his ashes out in his pet's cage? Harry was still regarding the ashes with confusion when Dumbledore came into the room.
“Ah, I see you have met Fawkes, my pet phoenix,” the old man said.
“Oh! Well that explains the ashes.”
Dumbledore chuckled. “Yes, he had a burning day recently. He's looking much better now than he did then, but still not to his usual glory. Anyway, Harry—er--oh nevermind... anyway, you wished to discuss the Dueling Club?”
“Yes. I was wondering if it was going to continue.”
“I had not been planning on it, no. Not after young Mr. Malfoy summoned a dangerous snake during a duel.”
“I believe that was Professor Snape's idea, sir. At least, he was whispering in Malfoy's ear just before it happened.”
Dumbledore frowned slightly. “Thank you for telling me this, Harry. I will discuss it with Professor Snape.” He brightened suddenly. “So it seems we need to replace Professors Lockhart and Snape for the Dueling Club to continue. Did you have any suggestions?”
“Someone said Flitwick was a dueling champion in his youth.”
“Yes, indeed he was. But that many students, we shall need at least two teachers to keep order.”
“What about yourself, sir? You defeated Grindelwald in a duel, and Voldemort still feared you, even at the height of his powers.”
“Me? Well, I suppose I do have the talent, and I do like to teach. One Dueling Club lesson a week should not be too much of an added burden to my Wizard Studies course.”
The headmaster thought for a moment. Then his eyes twinkled. “Yes, Harry, I believe I shall ask Professor Flitwick and perhaps also Professor McGonagall, if she's willing, to help me out. With Voldemort having tried to regain his body last year, and all this Chamber business this year, continuing the Dueling Club would not go amiss, with the right teachers. Ah, but I shall have to disappoint poor Gilderoy. Oh well, he will just have to live with it.
“So, with that all settled, was there anything else, Harry?”
Harry thought. “No, I think that's it for now.”
“Good. Now run along, enjoy your holiday.”
Harry nodded, and left the room.
~
The next several weeks went by without much of any note happening. Malfoy continued coming to MAC meetings, Wizard Studies class was very interesting, Dumbledore had indeed started the Dueling Club up again with Flitwick and McGonagall helping him ensure there were no more incidents, and the attacks had stopped for now.
About the only thing unusual in that time was that Malfoy's standing among most of the Slytherins seemed to be going down; he was no longer hanging out with Crabbe and Goyle, and started spending time with Angela, Antigone, Danzia, and Willem Stone instead, schedules permitting. The rest of the Slytherins gave him the cold shoulder, but he kept his head high and seemed happy with his new friends.
It wasn't until the final week of January that something else happened. Harry, Antigone, and Ron were on their way to the MAC classroom one day when they heard yelling from the bathroom of Moaning Myrtle.
“What the heck is Filch yelling about?” Antigone asked.
“You don’t think someone else’s been attacked?” said Ron tensely.
They stood still, their heads inclined toward Filch’s voice, which sounded quite hysterical.
“...even more work for me! Mopping all night, like I haven’t got enough to do! No, this is the final straw, I’m going to Dumbledore!”
They kept listening, as they heard footsteps, and when they were sure he was gone, they went around the corner for a closer look. The corridor floor was flooded again, and Myrtle was wailing. Harry cast Impervious on his robes and shoes, and went inside. Antigone and Ron followed suit.
There was water everywhere; even the candles had been doused by the water. If Harry hadn't been so sure nobody ever used this bathroom because of Myrtle, he'd be more disgusted than he was.
“What's wrong, Myrtle?” Harry asked.
“Who’s that?” glugged Myrtle miserably. “Come to throw something else at me?”
“Why would I do that? That would be rude.”
“Don’t ask me,” Myrtle shouted, emerging with a wave of yet more water, which splashed onto the already sopping floor. “Here I am, minding my own business, and someone thinks it’s funny to throw a book at me. …”
“But it can’t hurt you if someone throws something at you,” said Harry, reasonably. “I mean, it’d just go right through you, wouldn’t it?”
He had said the wrong thing. Myrtle puffed herself up and shrieked, “Let’s all throw books at Myrtle, because she can’t feel it! Ten points if you can get it through her stomach! Fifty points if it goes through her head! Well, ha, ha, ha! What a lovely game, I don’t think!”
“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound cruel. I'm not very good at this whole 'social' thing,” he explained. “So, er... who threw it at you?”
“I don’t know. … I was just sitting in the U-bend, thinking about death, and it fell right through the top of my head,” said Myrtle, glaring at them. “It’s over there, it got washed out. …”
The three of them looked where she pointed. A small, thin, shabby, wet book lay there. Harry stepped forward to pick it up, but Ron suddenly flung out an arm to hold him back.
“What?” said Harry.
“Are you crazy?” said Ron. “It could be dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” said Harry, confused. “Come off it, how could it be dangerous?”
“He's right,” Antigone said, nodding.
“Trust me, I know what I'm talking about,” said Ron, who was looking apprehensively at the book. “Some of the books the Ministry’s confiscated — Dad’s told me — there was one that burned your eyes out. And everyone who read Sonnets of a Sorcerer spoke in limericks for the rest of their lives. And some old witch in Bath had a book that you could never stop reading! You just had to wander around with your nose in it, trying to do everything one-handed. And —”
“All right, I’ve got the point,” said Harry. “But what do we do about it, then?”
Antigone got out her wand and floated the book as close to her as she dared, turning it around in the air with her wand, even opening it that way. Then she cast several spells for revealing hidden magic, and got nothing.
“Okay, I know I'm only a 4th year,” she said, her gray eyes regarding the book, “but it appears to be an ordinary book to me.”
Harry snatched it out of the air and flipped through it. He saw at once that it was a diary, and the faded year on the cover told him it was fifty years old. He opened it eagerly. On the first page he could just make out the name “T. M. Riddle” in smudged ink.
“I wonder who this Riddle guy is?” Harry said. The others shrugged.
Harry flipped through it. There was nothing at all written on it, it seemed. If it had been written in, surely there would be some faded words somewhere; the whole thing couldn't wash out without leaving some sort of sign of having been used.
“Either he never wrote anything in it, or the words are hidden by magic,” Harry said.
“I wonder why someone wanted to flush it away?” said Ron curiously.
Harry turned to the back cover of the book and saw the printed name of a variety store on Vauxhall Road, London.
“He must’ve been Muggle-born,” said Harry thoughtfully. “To have bought a diary from Vauxhall Road. Or Muggle raised, like me.”
“Well, it’s not much use to you,” said Ron. He dropped his voice. “Fifty points if you can get it through Myrtle’s nose.”
“Ron!” Antigone said in disapproval.
Harry, however, pocketed it.
For reasons even he didn't know, Harry was fascinated by the diary, carrying it around with him and opening it on occasion to look at it, even though it was blank. The name even sounded familiar, even though it wasn't possible, as he'd had no friends before Hogwarts thanks to Dudley. So he found himself going everywhere he could to find the name, and actually – by some miracle – managed to find it in the Trophy Room, where Riddle had two awards displayed; one for magical merit, another was an award for special services to the school.
When he was done looking at those, he went to the library to try to find some reference to Riddle in the archives, but he found nothing.
He even thought briefly about asking Dumbledore about Riddle, since the headmaster was old enough to have been teaching 50 years ago, but immediately part of his mind said that was silly, that Dumbledore had known too many students over the years to recognize the name, even if Riddle – whoever he was – had won a special award for services to the school the year the Chamber had last opened. Especially since he had no legitimate way of knowing that fact. And so he listened to that warning voice in his mind, and kept quiet.
After finding nothing more about Riddle, they took Riddle's diary to Hermione. But alas, this didn't help any, either. Her only unique contribution was to use something like an eraser called a Revealer, which did nothing to the diary.
“There has to be something written in it, hidden by magic somehow,” Harry said in frustration. “I doubt someone would throw away a blank, fifty year old diary, when we know the Chamber of Secrets was opened 50 years ago, and Riddle got an award for special services to the school at the same time. It can't be a coincidence. Gah! If only we knew why he got a special award.”
“Could’ve been anything,” said Ron. “Maybe he got thirty O.W.L.s or saved a teacher from the giant squid. Maybe he murdered Myrtle; that would’ve done everyone a favor.”
“That's not funny, Ron. Don't joke about murder.”
Ron turned red. “Sorry, mate.”
~
For whatever reason, as Valentine's Day approached, there still hadn't been any attacks. The mandrakes were getting closer to growing old enough to be used for the restorative potion, and between these facts and the sunlight starting to shine again, the mood in the castle was lifting.
Harry was focusing so much on MAC and his schoolwork that the only thing he had time left for were his friends, which was largely Ron and Luna because the others were studying as well, and some of them had extra-curricular activities, too.
In fact, he was so focused on school and friends that he was taken completely by surprise when, the morning of Valentine's Day, the Great Hall was bedecked in lurid pink flowers, heart-shaped confetti raining from the ceiling. Harry cast a spell to make the confetti blow sideways just enough to avoid getting all over the food, and even then he had to blow some off of his bacon, trying the whole time he ate to not wonder where that confetti had been before.
“Hello, Harry,” Luna said, sitting next to him and handing him a card. “Happy Valentine's Day.”
“Happy Valentine's Day, Luna,” Harry said, turning red. “I... well,” he said, pulling something out of his pocket. “I got you something. Not a card, though. Should I have gotten a card, too?”
“Oh no, a gift is more than enough.”
He handed her the hastily-wrapped gift, and looked at the card she'd given him as she unwrapped her present, knowing she would do so slowly and deliberately, careful not to rip the wrapping.
The card was bright yellow, painfully so in fact, with an even more painfully red-and-blue heart on the front, the blue and red swirling together in a ghostly fashion suggesting movement and making him feel sick to his stomach with something like vertigo. He hastily opened the card, only to find it was neon orange with bright blue lettering, which was even worse.
“Can you read this to me, Luna? It's painful to look at, and is making me ill.”
“Oh,” she said, looking sheepish. “Sorry. I guess I forget not everyone shares my love of interesting color combinations. The card says, 'A brightly colored Valentine's Day card for you, because you brighten my life.'”
“Ah. Cool. Just... please don't use any of these colors around me in future, especially not together.”
“Sure thing, Harry. Ooooh!” She had opened the present at last, a silver friendship bracelet with 'H.J.P. & L.L.' inscribed on it.
“It's lovely, Harry,” she said, giving him a hug. “I got you a gift as well, I just didn't bring it with me. I can bring it to the MAC classroom later.”
“Okay. Before or after dinner?”
“Before, I think.”
Luna opened her mouth to say something else, but then Lockhart addressed them all, and introduced a bunch of surly-looking dwarfs as his 'friendly, card-carrying cupids,' available for anyone to send Valentine's to others. He also mentioned love potions, which had Harry frowning disapprovingly.
All day long, Harry kept eyeing the 'cupids' warily, half expecting one of them to try to give him a Valentine, but they didn't, much to his relief. He made it all the way to his meeting with Luna without being bothered by any of them.
Luna's gift for him turned out to be a book about the old pre-Christian holidays, and their modern wizarding equivalents, with explanations about how they differed from both the oldest ways and from modern Christian ways. She also changed the colors on his card to soft, gentle colors that soothed his eyes, and changed the text to read 'A gently colored card for a gentle soul I feel comfortable with.'
When he got back to the Griffindor common room, he was still looking at his card.
“Oooh, Harry,” Ron teased, “your girlfriend get you that? Can I see?”
Ron grabbed it, but Harry held on. They had a brief tug-of-war with it, and Harry got it back, but knocked a bottle of ink all over Riddle's diary in the process. Harry put the card away and cleaned the ink off the diary, noticing as he did that the ink was disappearing into the book. He looked at Ron, who was talking with Hermione and hadn't noticed. Harry put the diary in his pocket, and took his things up to his dorm.
He was about to try writing in the diary, when he saw a card on his bed. It was solid red with black ink. He opened it up curiously and looked at it. It was addressed to him, and read:
His eyes are as green as my envy,
Which cuts to the quick like a sword;
I wish he was mine, he's truly divine,
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord.
He blinked at these words, then turned the card all around, but there was no 'from' on it. He had a secret admirer, it seemed, and one who was in Griffindor, or knew someone in Griffindor willing to deliver it to his bed. But why speak of envy? He was single, after all. But this person seemed to think differently for some reason, and was upset about it. He wondered who it was, if only to ask why they thought he was dating someone, but ended up shrugging for now.
“One mystery at a time,” he said, as he put the mysterious card in his trunk to look at later, and sat down with Riddle's diary open.
He first tried a blot of ink on the page, which was sucked completely into the book when he tried it. 'Successful first experiment,' he thought.
Next he tried writing in it. He wrote, “Hello?”
Then, oozing out of the page in his very own ink, came words.
“Hello, stranger, my name is Tom Riddle. Who are you?”
'Yeah, not creepy at all,' he thought. But he was still intrigued. After all, for all he knew it could just be like a written-word version of one of the portraits, or a magical computer programmed to respond in certain ways.
“Hello, Tom Riddle. My name is Harry Potter,” he wrote back.
“Nice to meet you, Harry Potter. How did you come by my diary?”
“Someone tried flushing it down a toilet,” he wrote in reply.
“Good thing I recorded my memories into something more lasting than ink. But I always knew there would be those who would not want this diary read.”
“Why's that?” Harry asked it.
“Because this diary holds memories of terrible things that people tried covering up. Events that happened in this very school, bringing shame to those who ran it.”
Scribbling so fast it was barely legible, Harry replied, “I'm there now, at Hogwarts. Terrible things are happening again. Do you know anything about the Chamber of Secrets?”
“Of course I know about the Chamber of Secrets. In my day, they told us it was a legend, that it did not exist. But this was a lie. In my fifth year, the Chamber was opened and the monster attacked several students, finally killing one. I caught the person who’d opened the Chamber and he was expelled. But the headmaster, Professor Dippet, ashamed that such a thing had happened at Hogwarts, forbade me to tell the truth. A story was given out that the girl had died in a freak accident. They gave me a nice, shiny, engraved trophy for my trouble and warned me to keep my mouth shut. But I knew it could happen again. The monster lived on, and the one who had the power to release it was not imprisoned.”
Harry paused, thinking. 'So the victim was a girl. Interesting.'
Writing again, he said, “I had heard he wasn't imprisoned, but not who it was. Now there've been three attacks and nobody knows who's doing it. So who was it last time?”
“I can show you, if you like,” came Riddle’s reply. “You don’t have to take my word for it. I can take you inside my memory of the night when I caught him.”
This confused Harry; he'd never heard of such a thing before.
“You could do that?” he asked Riddle in hasty scrawl. “How?”
“The how is not important, Harry, and would take too long to explain. May I show you?”
After hesitating for a moment, he wrote back, “Ok.”
The book's pages moved like they were in a high wind, stopping sometime in June. A little screen appeared on the page, so small he had to bend closer to see it. And as he did, he tipped forward and fell into the diary, landing after a rush of colors and shadows.
He looked around, and recognized the place as being the headmaster's office, but none of the signs of Dumbledore were there. Instead there was a man he'd never met before sitting behind the desk, a wizened, frail-looking wizard, bald except for a few wisps of white hair; he was reading a letter by candlelight.
Figuring he was in Riddle's memory but needing to make sure, he waved his hand in front of the man's face. There was, of course, no reaction, which confirmed his suspicions.
A moment later, there was a knock on the door, and a second confirmation appeared in the form of a tall, 16 year old boy wearing a Prefect badge, who knocked and was let into the office. From what he knew of Riddle, Riddle had been a Prefect and Head Boy.
“Ah, Riddle,” said the headmaster, the final confirmation for Harry that he was in Riddle's memory.
“You wanted to see me, Professor Dippet?” said Riddle. Even Harry could tell he was nervous.
What followed was an exchange in which he found out that Riddle, a half-blood orphan, lived at a Muggle orphanage, which seemed strange to Harry. The Ministry was always so keen on keeping the two worlds separate, so it seemed odd they would lose track of a wizarding-world orphan. Especially when the boy had such a strange middle name as Marvolo.
They continued talking, about Tom's request to stay the summer at Hogwarts. Harry got the impression that the place was worse than the Dursleys, at least to Riddle. But the headmaster had to refuse, because of the “unpleasantness” with the Chamber of Secrets, which included the death of a girl.
“Sir — if the person was caught — if it all stopped —”
“What do you mean?” said Dippet with a squeak in his voice, sitting up in his chair. “Riddle, do you mean you know something about these attacks?”
“No, sir,” said Riddle quickly.
But Harry was sure Riddle wasn't being honest, that he knew something but for whatever reason wasn't telling.
This professor 'Dippet' was disappointed that Riddle didn't appear to know anything, and dismissed him. Harry followed Riddle out the door, sure the boy was going to go bust the person responsible.
On their way to wherever it was Tom was going, they ran into a much younger Dumbledore, with auburn hair and beard. He was so astonished that he almost didn't notice that it was odd to ask a Prefect why they were wandering out in the halls. But then, he supposed, maybe it wasn't Riddle's night to patrol? Or had they forbidden Prefects from patrolling, with the Chamber being open, in order to protect the students?
His mind was taken from these thoughts as Riddle continued down the steps to the dungeons. Harry blinked at this. Was Riddle a Slytherin, like his friends Antigone, Angela, and Danzia? He scoured Riddle's uniform for any sign of a Slytherin badge or colors, and found none. Of course in a standard uniform there wouldn't be, but some students liked to add scarves, pins, or other embellishments with a House crest or in House colors, to show off their House pride. Riddle, it seemed, was not among the people who did that.
Instead of going to the Slytherin common room, Riddle went to the dungeon that Snape taught Potions in. Riddle closed the door almost completely shut, then peered through the crack of the almost-closed door, waiting.
After a very long time, in which Harry spent a long time wondering why Riddle didn't just fast-forward to the good part, they saw someone else skulking about out in the corridor, passing the dungeon where they hid. Once the person had passed, Riddle sneaked out into the hall again, Harry following him.
Five minutes they walked, until the other person opened a door and started talking.
“C’mon … gotta get yeh outta here. … C’mon now … in the box …”
'Hagrid?' Harry thought, recognizing the voice. He frowned at Riddle, confused. But they boy wasn't aware of him, of course. Instead, he jumped around the corner. Harry followed him, and sure enough there was a much younger – but almost as vast – Hagrid, crouching near an open door, a large box next to it.
What followed was Riddle confronting Hagrid about how the monster he was keeping in here had killed someone, and Hagrid protesting that it hadn't. Then, without much warning, Riddle cast a bright spell that hit the door behind Hagrid, and out came an enormous spider that nearly bowled him over. Harry found himself screaming at this, though only he could hear it.
Then the scene fell apart in a swirl of mist, and Harry was at his desk again, the still-open diary now blank.
Before he had had time to regain his breath, the dormitory door opened and Ron came in.
“There you are,” he said. “Why you all sweaty, mate?”
Harry shook his head. He needed time to process things, to think, before he told anyone this story.
“I'll tell you later, Ron. Right now, I need to think.”
~
The next day, he gathered his core friends – Ron, Hermione, Luna, Antigone, Angela, and Danzia – after classes and told them to meet him at the MAC classroom. When they got there, he had them help him set up privacy wards and sweep for magical 'bugs.' Only when he was certain the room was secure did he tell them about what Riddle's diary had shown them.
Of all of them, the ones who were surest Hagrid was innocent were his Slytherin friends.
“But the attacks must have stopped after Hagrid was expelled,” Harry said, “or else Riddle wouldn't have gotten his award.”
“I dunno, though, Harry,” Antigone said. “He's facing the threat of going back to this orphanage, and just like that he knows who did it? Why didn't he tell someone sooner, if he thought it was Hagrid? Why wait? It just seems too suspicious to me.”
“What, d'ya reckon Riddle's the culprit himself?” Ron asked. “He was a Head Boy and a Prefect, doesn't sound to me like the type that would go around setting monsters on people.”
“Oh,” Danzia said, her tone dripping with sarcasm, “I wasn't aware that you'd joined Hermione in thinking that all Authorities are pure and innocent souls who never do any wrong.”
“Hey!” Hermione protested, weakly.
Danzia opened her mouth to speak, but Ron interrupted. “No I don't, but come on! He sounds like Percy, obsessed with rules and stuff.”
“Then I repeat: why did he wait? Why not tell someone right away?”
“I dunno,” Ron admitted. “Maybe he didn't have any proof? Or maybe he knew Hagrid, didn't want to think he could be responsible?”
“Ron,” Danzia cut in before she could be interrupted again, “I dunno about you, but if I was the Heir of Slytherin, and if I was evil, what better way to disguise myself than to be a model student?”
“All we have is circumstantial evidence on Riddle,” Harry said. “And we're agreed that's all Riddle had on Hagrid, so let's not go jumping to conclusions. Besides, he could've just made a mistake. Maybe he honestly thought it was Hagrid. Doesn't mean he can't still be innocent himself.”
“So why did the attacks stop, then?”
“I dunno,” Harry admitted. “Maybe the Heir knew that Riddle knew something about it, and got scared, and stopped?”
“But why not go back to it later? We know Hagrid didn't go to Azkaban, not for long anyway. He was expelled, and now he's the gamekeeper. The Heir could have started up again when Hagrid got his job.”
“Yeah, but Hagrid was 13 when he got expelled, and Dumbledore wasn't headmaster then, that Dippet bloke was. He wasn't gonna get hired until he was 17 at least, and we don't even know when Dumbledore became headmaster, could've been ages later. The Heir prob'ly would've graduated by then, unless 'e was only 13 'imself when 'e did it,” Ron countered.
“Something to research, then,” Antigone said.
“I think we should ask Hagrid about it,” Luna said serenely, as though they were discussing Hagrid's favorite flavor of Every-Flavor Beans.
“Oh, that'd be a cheerful visit,” Ron said, rolling his eyes. “ 'Hello, Hagrid. Tell us, have you been setting anything mad and hairy loose in the castle lately?' ”
In the end, they decided that they would not say anything to Hagrid unless there was another attack, and as more and more days went by with no whisper from the disembodied voice, they became hopeful that they would never need to talk to him about why he had been expelled. It was now nearly four months since Justin and Nearly Headless Nick had been Petrified, and nearly everybody seemed to think that the attacker, whoever it was, had retired for good. What was more, the mandrakes were almost ready to be used.
“I feel bad for Colin and Justin, missing out on so much schooling because of this,” Harry said one day.
“Oh, they'll probably be summer-schooled to get caught up. If not, we can help get them caught up,” Hermione assured him.
~
The second years had something new to think about, though; classes for next year. They would be getting new classes next year, and would get to pick them. This was something that Harry and Hermione were taking very seriously, as it would affect their future career possibilities. Ron, however, wasn't taking it so seriously, and had picked Care of Magical Creatures and Divination because he thought they'd be easy. Harry, however, had picked Runes, Arithmancy, and Care of Magical Creatures. Hermione had given up trying to pick, and just signed up for all of them.
Even though he didn't care for Quidditch himself, Harry still made note of the fact that Griffindor would be playing Hufflepuff on Saturday. Everyone would be there, because Griffindor had been doing pretty well this year and was ahead on points. One more match, and they'd win the Quidditch cup for the first time in a long time.
On the night before the match, Neville Longbottom came to find Harry and told him someone had trashed their dorm, focusing on Harry's stuff. Harry followed Neville up, and sure enough, the place was a mess; desk drawers were pulled out, the sheets on the bed undone, torn pages from books everywhere, and the pockets of his robes were turned out; whoever it was had been looking for something.
Only when he'd repaired everything he could and thrown away or straightened up the things he couldn't did he realize Riddle's diary was gone, and quietly told Ron.
They went downstairs to tell Hermione, who was reading a book about ancient runes. She was aghast when they told her, and pointed out that only a Griffindor could have done it.
It was only later that night that he noticed that the mysterious red valentine's day card he'd gotten was intact, not even bent. His card from Luna, however, was torn into four pieces, and he had to repair it with his wand.
~
Deciding he'd rather be with people when the Heir was running amok, even if it had been quiet lately, Harry decided he would put his special earmuffs and sunglasses on, closing his eyes as he sat with his friends. He had the sunglasses perched on his forehead and the earmuffs around his neck as he and his friends gathered to go to the match.
On the way downstairs, Harry heard that monstrous voice again.
“Kill this time … let me rip … tear …”
He shouted aloud and Ron and Hermione both jumped away from him in alarm.
“The voice!” said Harry, looking over his shoulder. “It's going to kill again! And now I'm absolutely certain it's Parseltongue.”
Hermione and Ron both looked very worried. “Let's get out of the castle now,” Ron said. Then he turned to Hermione. “You had any luck finding out about snake monsters?”
Hermione shook her head, her floofy hair threatening to pop out of the single large elastic holding it back. “It's like Nicolas Flamel all over again. The library here is such a mess! Especially compared to Muggle libraries. There's no card catalog, people keep putting the books back in the wrong places, half the books don't even have titles visible on the spines, and there are a bunch of books in languages I can't even identify. If I could find the right book, I'm sure I could find the monster, but finding it is the problem.”
“Have you tried asking the librarian?”
She snorted. “Yes. About as helpful as dry rot, that one.”
In the stands, Harry put his sunglasses on over his glasses as well, and closed his eyes. So it was that he had to be poked by Hermione to realize something had happened. Taking off his earmuffs and sunglasses, he realized McGonagall was informing them that the match was canceled, much to Oliver Wood's dismay, because someone else had been attacked. Harry looked around himself, and didn't see any of his friends missing. Still, he wondered who it was.
McGonagall came up to him.
“I'm glad to see you here, Mr. Potter,” she said. “With this being the second attack you've got a solid alibi for, I can cross you off my list of suspects completely, which is a relief. I just wish we knew who it was.”
“Oh. Thanks?” he said, a little annoyed that he'd been on her list at all after being with the Hufflepuffs during the last attack.
“Professor,” Danzia said, sounding panicked, “I don't know where Willem Stone is. Please, he wasn't the one attacked, was he?”
“No, Miss McCullough, Mr. Stone was not the one petrified. This attack was another double attack. One of the victims was a Ravenclaw Prefect by the name of Penelope Clearwater.”
“Penelope!” Percy shouted, standing up and rushing away.
“The other victim was a Slytherin Prefect, Miss Maki Yasu.”
Harry and the rest of his friends followed everyone else back into the castle. He was thinking about calling an emergency friend meeting in the MAC classroom, but soon McGonagall's voice rang throughout the school, informing them of new rules that included a 6 pm curfew, and teachers escorting kids through the halls.
While they were still together, Harry turned to Danzia and said, “We need to find out if we can get a look at these latest victims. Of the attacks so far, Colin had his eyes up to his camera at the time he was attacked, and I'm pretty sure Justin was looking at something or someone through Sir Nicolas. It may be important.”
“Gotcha. I'll pass it on.”
Then they went their separate ways to their own common rooms.
In the Griffindor common room, McGonagall was waiting, and went over the rules again, and also added that she thought the school would be shut down if the attacks didn't stop soon.
When she left, people started to talk.
“That’s one Gryffindor down, not counting a Gryffindor ghost, one Ravenclaw, and one Hufflepuff,” said the Weasley twins’ friend Lee Jordan, counting on his fingers. “Haven’t any of the teachers noticed that the Slytherins are all safe? Isn’t it obvious all this stuff’s coming from Slytherin? The Heir of Slytherin, the monster of Slytherin — why don’t they just chuck all the Slytherins out?” he roared, to nods and scattered applause.
“Excuse me,” Harry said, “but the other victim of this latest attack was a Slytherin Prefect, Maki Yasu.”
That rather took the wind out of everyone's hate-sails.
“I don't know her blood status, having never met her before” he continued, “but there are half-blood and Muggle-born people in Slytherin, too. Not to mention blood traitors. They have to keep a low profile in Slytherin, but they exist.”
There were some mumbles of shame at this, which pleased Harry, but he was already moving on to speak with Ron and Hermione, casting privacy spells before sitting down.
“We need to do something,” Harry said. “The Heir is attacking Slytherins too, now. Whoever it is, is getting bolder.”
“But what are we supposed to do?” Hermione asked.
“I think we need to talk with Hagrid. I know it's a slim lead, but it's all we have.”
“Right,” said Ron. “Well let's hope it works out better than our last lead.”
“How, though? We're under curfew.”
“We'll have to use my dad's old cloak again,” Harry said.
“Just us, or do we invite anyone else along?”
“Well we don't have any way of communicating with Danzia and the others. I wish I'd thought to get them one or two magical two-way mirrors, but I didn't.”
“What about Luna?”
“I dunno. We'd have to swing by Ravenclaw tower to do that, and that increases our odds of getting caught. So just the three of us, this time.”
~
After waiting for everyone to go to bed, the three of them got under the invisibility cloak Harry had inherited from his father, and headed out into the castle. It was a lot more difficult this time than previous times, because there were far more adults in the corridors than usual, all watching out for signs of danger. Harry was glad, seeing this, that he'd decided not to invite Luna along.
They had a close call when they ran into somebody invisible just before the oak front doors, but the area was presently otherwise unoccupied.
“Ow, who's there?” Harry whispered.
“Harry? Is that you?”
“Antigone. Why am I surprised you're here?”
“Me and Angela are here, too,” said Danzia's voice.
“Of course you are. Well, let's get out of here before someone catches us,” Harry said, easing the large front doors open, then closed again when they all got out.
The six of them – three under the invisibility cloak, and three Disillusioned – made their way under the starry sky to Hagrid's hut. When they got there, the three under the cloak lifted it up so Hagrid would be able to see them, and knocked on his door.
The second they knocked, he flung the door open, crossbow in hand. Fang the boarhound barked at them.
“Oh,” he said, lowering the weapon. “What're you three doin' here?”
“Six,” said Harry. “Antigone, Danzia, and Angela are Dis--”
“Not 'nough room fer six of yeh an' me too. Jes you three, in. Rest of yeh, sorry, but you need ter go back.”
“We'll stay out here,” they said as Harry, Ron, and Hermione entered Hagrid's hut.
He closed the door behind them.
“What's that for?” Harry asked, referring to the crossbow.
“Nuthin. Jes bin expectin'... but never mind. Don't matter none. Sit down, I'll make tea.”
But Hagrid was so nervous that he poured hot water into empty mugs, spilling most of it.
“Are you okay, Hagrid? Did you hear about those two Prefects?”
“Yeah, I heard, all righ',” he said, a slight break in his voice.
There was a loud knock at the door, making Hagrid drop some fruitcake. The three of them glanced at one another in near panic as Hagrid took up his crossbow again. Then they ducked under the invisibility cloak again, retreating into a corner.
When they were hidden, Hagrid opened his door. Standing there were two men: Dumbledore, and a man in a lime-green bowler hat. Ron gasped, whispering about that man being Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic.
Hagrid had gone pale and sweaty. He dropped into one of his chairs and looked from Dumbledore to Cornelius Fudge.
“Bad business, Hagrid,” said Fudge in rather clipped tones. “Very bad business. Had to come. Three Muggle-borns and a Half-Blood petrified. Things’ve gone far enough. Ministry’s got to act.”
Hagrid protested, pleading his innocence in a terrified voice, begging not to be sent back to Azkaban. But despite Dumbledore's assurances of Hagrid's innocence, too, the Minister was adamant that he had to go back.
Then there was another knock on the door. Dumbledore answered it, and this time Harry gasped, recognizing Lucius Malfoy. Of course, Ron and Hermione knew him as well, both having been there at Flourish and Blotts when he and Mr. Weasley had fought.
The three of them watched as the elder Malfoy informed them that he'd come looking for Dumbledore, to show him that the School Governors had voted unanimously to boot him from his position, an action that Hagrid thought highly suspect. All the signatures were there, though, and despite even protestations from Fudge, Dumbledore had to step down.
“However,” said Dumbledore, speaking very slowly and clearly so that none of them could miss a word, “you will find that I will only truly have left this school when none here are loyal to me. You will also find that help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.”
For a second, Harry was almost sure Dumbledore’s eyes flickered toward the corner where the three of them were hidden.
Nor was that the only mysterious thing said. As they all left with Hagrid in tow, Hagrid paused and gave a cryptic message about following the spiders, as well as saying someone would need to feed Fang.
The door banged shut and Ron pulled off the Invisibility Cloak.
“We’re in trouble now,” he said hoarsely. “No Dumbledore. They might as well close the school tonight. There’ll be an attack a day with him gone.”
Fang started howling, scratching at the closed door.
Harry looked out the window very carefully, watching the three adults heading for the front gates. When they were gone, there was a knock at the door. He opened the door and let his three Slytherin friends inside.
“What's going on? Where's Hagrid going?” Angela asked.
Harry, Hermione, and Ron took turns recounting what they'd witnessed. The three girls echoed Ron's earlier sentiment about the results of Dumbledore's dismissal.
“So now what?”
“For now, we go back.”
And go back is exactly what they did, all of them making it safely back without getting caught.
End note 1: On a whim, I looked for pictures of gray-eyed Indian women, and even though I knew it was possible, I was pleased to see proof that there really are people who look like Antigone. I mean, I'd seen blue eyed Indian people before, and gray eyes are just a shade of blue eyes, but still cool to have proof.
End note 2: I Googled “painful color combinations” as research for this chapter, and now I regret it because I react to them the same way this fic's Harry does.
End note 3: I didn't know who the Slytherin Prefects for this year were, so I made a (this time minor) OC for the second victim of the second double attack. She is a half-blood, secretly a blood traitor but pretends to be a blood purist. She is in the same year as Penelope and Percy.
Note: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made.
Note 2: There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though.
Chapter 7: Riddle Me That
Dumbledore's removal from the school only made everyone's fear increase, because if Dumbledore was the only one Voldemort feared, how could they think the Heir of Slytherin would be any different? The Heir would have free reign now, or at least freer reign.
His removal also complicated other matters. Wizard Studies class was canceled for the time being, becoming a free study period, but with as paranoid as all the teachers were, everyone who'd been taking the class ended up in their dorm rooms during that period.
Luckily, though, McGonagall and Flitwick kept up the Dueling Club, despite the 6 o'clock curfew. At 7 PM, when it was over, they would escort everyone to their respective dorms, which let Harry, Ron, and Hermione see where the Hufflepuff dorms were at last: near the kitchens.
MAC was canceled for the foreseeable future, of course. This gave them very little time around Draco now. Draco's standing in Slytherin wasn't increasing any, though, as he kept complaining loudly about his father's “stupid decision” to remove Dumbledore.
“Yes, the man's eccentric,” they heard him saying in class once, “but he defeated Grindlewald in a duel, and he was the only one You-Know-Who feared. The Heir will be afraid of him too, I've no doubt. I've already sent an owl to father about his idiotic decision, but I haven't gotten a reply back.”
Another time, they heard him worrying aloud that he thought his father couldn't have heard yet about Draco's current standing in Slytherin, or that the Heir was attacking Slytherins now, too.
“And I'm a blood traitor now! I've been going to MAC, questioning father's ideology. I'm terrified to leave my dorm! I'm terrified to stay in my dorm, too; the Heir is surely a Slytherin, after all. I'm bound to be next! I explained all this in my letter to father; I wish he would hurry and write back.”
“Draco, try not to worry too much,” Harry told him. “Danzia, Willem, Antigone, and Angela are there with you, too. Power in numbers, and all that.”
Draco nodded, but didn't look very convinced.
They were having no luck figuring out what the monster was, either. Between the disorganized library and the librarian's unhelpfulness, it was still an uphill battle trying to figure that out. Nor was looking for the spiders helping, as they all seemed to have scarpered already.
In fact, it wasn't until Herbology class one day that Harry noticed some spiders fleeing, making a beeline for the Forbidden Forest. He pointed this out to Ron and Hermione.
“Forbidden Forest, right,” Ron said. “But with the teachers taking us from class to class now, and the curfew, there's no way we'll be able to get away!”
“Not without my father's cloak, anyway,” Harry said.
Hermione twisted her mouth uncertainly. “I see your point, Harry,” she said, “But that didn't go so well last time, remember? And what about that giant spider that was in Hagrid's box, in the vision Riddle showed you? It could be out there.”
“I think that's why Hagrid wants us to go there, to talk with it.”
Ron's eyes bugged out. “No way! No, I am not going to go talk with a giant talking spider!”
“Hermione and I will be there, too, Ron.”
“Yeah, but I came across something in one of those creature books the other day, about giant spiders called acromantulas. If that's what Hagrid had in that box, they grow to the size of cart horses and eat humans!”
“Well, maybe. But there's good things in there, too. Like the centaurs.”
Ron snorted. “I really doubt the centaurs and an acromantula are gonna live in the same parts of the forest.”
“Yeah, but they have weapons. And anyway, there's only one acromantula.”
“That we know of,” Ron snapped. “You know Hagrid as well as I do. I wouldn’t put it past him to have thought his pet giant spider was lonely, and gotten it a mate.”
“Hermione, do you know any spells against acromantulas?”
“Arania Exumai,” she said. “Not sure how effective it is, though.”
“Well if we're going into the Forest, we can take Fang with us,” Ron said.
“Fang is a coward though, remember?” Harry answered. “He'd be useless.”
“Oh, right.”
They had to stop talking, then, because class was over, and Professor Sprout had to escort them to Defense Against the Dark Arts. Harry used the time to think about the planned trip into the Forest.
“Don't worry too much, Harry,” Ron said when they sat down. “If we can somehow get your Slytherin friends in there with us, they'll know some more effective spells, since they're older.”
“I suppose so. Not sure how we're going to get a message to them, though.”
“If we survive this year, you should get some two-way mirrors or something from Diagon Alley.”
Harry nodded to this.
Just then, Professor Lockhart came in, looking for all the world like the world couldn't be more beautiful, as opposed to everyone else's fear. Harry barely listened as he expressed his certainty that Hagrid was the culprit; he didn't feel like getting in trouble for hexing a teacher. Not even one as idiotic as Lockhart. As it was, Harry had to stop Ron blabbing things they shouldn't be able to know, by kicking him under the desk.
At some point during class, Harry made a decision, and scrawled a pair of notes to Ron and Hermione, saying 'Let's do it tonight.'
Ron looked grim, but determined. Hermione looked unsure. She scribbled a note on the other side and passed it back to him. The note said, 'But the Slytherins?'
Grabbing another piece of parchment, he sent back another reply, which said, 'I'll give them a note at dinnertime.'
After reading the note, she nodded.
At dinnertime, Harry went over to Antigone, and passed her a note. Well, really it was more of a letter. He'd taken the precaution of writing most of it in invisible ink, too. If a teacher looked at it, it was just a short note saying he missed them, hoped the Heir problem would be solved soon so they could restart MAC, and contained a coded message (without being obvious) that instructed her to use a Revealer on the other side of the page. He hoped she would figure it out. Antigone being a quintessential Slytherin, it was hard to doubt she'd miss it, but he still worried.
Since it was so hard to get away from the common room these days, being as they had nowhere else to go because of the curfew, Harry ended up sitting on his cloak all night long, playing games with people to pass the time. But the place was so crowded and noisy, especially with games like Exploding Snap, that he started getting a headache after a couple hours, and after taking a headache cure, he put his earmuffs on and took to reading a Defense book of his instead.
Finally, though, the three of them were the last people in the common room, so they seized on the opportunity to slip away under the invisibility cloak and out the portrait hole. But getting through the hallways was difficult, as they were full of teachers and Prefects patrolling. While sensible, it was annoying, and it took almost a whole hour to slowly make their way out the front doors, where to nobody's surprise they bumped into Antigone, Angela, and Danzia, who were Disillusioned.
“Everyone here?” Harry whispered outside the door.
They answered in the affirmative, so he told them where they were going.
When they got into the Forbidden Forest, Harry and the other two Griffindors took off the cloak, and the three Slytherin girls undid their Disillusionment Charms so they could see each other as they followed the spiders. Then they all lit their wands - except for Ron, who feared his might explode if he did - and followed the little trail of arachnids.
By the light of five wands, they went deeper and deeper into the Forest, until they had to leave the forest path – something Hagrid had warned them not to do, but he'd also told them to follow the spiders. Reluctantly, the six of them continued through the ever-darkening forest after the thin trail of arachnids.
They walked for over an hour, according to Danzia's wristwatch, their robes getting snagged frequently on the thickening brush. Several times they had to stop for minutes at a time, either to find the spiders again, or to find a way past an especially thick patch of brambles or bushes that the spiders were just blithely going through or over, but every time they managed to find their little eight-legged leaders again. After a while, they noticed that the ground seemed to be sloping downward, though the trees were as thick as ever.
Antigone stopped them all with a raised arm and a whispered admonition. She'd heard something, and needed to listen.
“What is it?” Ron whimpered, clutching Hermione's arm.
Harry heard it too. Something large was coming through the thick woods, breaking branches as it moved through the brush.
“Oh, no,” said Ron. “Oh, no, oh, no, oh —”
“Shut up,” said Harry frantically. “It’ll hear you.”
The darkness seemed to be pressing on their eyeballs as they stood, terrified, waiting. But the sound was gone.
“We've lost the trail,” Antigone said quietly, searching the ground for spiders.
The others made to look with her, except for Harry, who was looking at Ron. Ron's face had gone pale as death, and he was staring at a point 10 feet above the forest floor, right behind Harry. It was plain that Ron was very close to pissing himself in terror.
With a sudden clicking noise, Harry found himself being hoisted into the air, hanging facedown. Struggling, terrified, hearing more horrible clicking, he saw the legs of Ron and a few others being hoisted as well, while others were making a lot of terrified noise, not sure what was going on. Then he saw only darkness as whatever had him walked very fast away from the lights of the wands and into a hollow that had been cleared of trees. He had brief glimpses of giant hairy spider legs, and a massive structure made of webbing, and starlight overhead. They had found the acromantulas, then; Ron had been right, there was more than one. Who knew how many there were, after all these decades?
Craning his neck, he got a better image of the hollow, and what he saw made him want to wet himself. Hundreds of massive spiders, large as cart horses, as well as myriad other smaller spiders, all swarming over a massive area. From what he could tell, he wouldn’t have been surprised if there'd been 1000 or more of the horrible acromantulas living there, it was like a small domed city made of webbing.
What was worse, dozens – nay, scores – of the monsters were gathering around, clicking in excitement at Harry and whoever else had been caught. They released him and Ron, and he also saw Hermione at his other side. He felt mildly relieved, as it looked like there'd only been three of the giant spiders that found them, unless there were others that were being held up. He hoped that the three Slytherin girls, at least, had escaped. But at the same time, he was annoyed that they hadn't tried to fight the things, as far as he could remember from the chaos that the monsters had sown.
He took a better look at his two Griffindor friends. Ron's eyes were popping, his mouth in a silent scream, his whole body like a statue, except that he was quivering in terror. Hermione, too, looked utterly terrified, covering her eyes and weeping silently. Harry felt much the same; he wondered how bad he looked.
Harry forced himself to calm down a little, trying to think of what spells he could use to get out of this situation, as this clearly had been a horrible idea. But his thoughts were interrupted as he realized the spiders were speaking, saying over and over again the word “Aragog.” It had been hard to tell at first, because they clicked their pincers whenever they spoke.
And from the middle of the misty, domed web, a spider the size of a small elephant emerged, very slowly. There was gray in the black of his body and legs, and each of the eyes on his ugly, pincered head was milky white. He was blind. He was clearly very old, too, which made Harry wonder if this was Hagrid's original pet, the one from the vision.
“What is it?” the old spider said, clicking his pincers rapidly.
“Humans,” clicked the spider that had been carrying Harry.
“Is it Hagrid?” said Aragog, moving closer, his eight milky eyes wandering vaguely.
“Strangers,” clicked the spider who had brought Ron.
“Kill them,” clicked Aragog fretfully. “I was sleeping. …”
“We’re friends of Hagrid’s,” Harry shouted. His heart seemed to have left his chest to pound in his throat.
Click, click, click went the pincers of the spiders all around the hollow.
Aragog paused.
“Hagrid has never sent men into our hollow before,” he said slowly.
“Hagrid’s in trouble,” said Harry, breathing very fast. “That’s why we’ve come.”
“In trouble?” said the aged spider, and Harry thought he heard concern beneath the clicking pincers. “But why has he sent you?”
Unable to trust himself to stand, he stayed seated, speaking as calmly as he could.
“They think he's the Heir of Slytherin. They think he's setting a monster on students, so they took him to Azkaban.”
“But that was years ago,” said Aragog fretfully. “Years and years ago. I remember it well. That’s why they made him leave the school. They believed that I was the monster that dwells in what they call the Chamber of Secrets. They thought that Hagrid had opened the Chamber and set me free.”
“So it wasn't you?”
“I? No, I was not the monster they sought. Hagrid got me as an egg from a distant land. I never saw anything in the castle except for the box he kept me in until I had to escape, the night I was discovered.”
“You never attacked anyone?”
“Never,” croaked the old spider. “It would have been my instinct, but out of respect for Hagrid, I never harmed a human. The body of the girl who was killed was discovered in a bathroom. I never saw any part of the castle but the cupboard in which I grew up. Our kind like the dark and the quiet. …”
“So... what did kill that girl?”
“We do not speak of it!” Aragog shouted to a backdrop of hundreds of angry clicks. “The thing that lives in the castle,” said Aragog, “is an ancient creature we spiders fear above all others. Well do I remember how I pleaded with Hagrid to let me go, when I sensed the beast moving about the school. But do not ask me to speak more of it!”
Harry nodded, sensing he'd gotten all he could out of the spider, and beginning to plan an escape. But just in case it was reasonable, he spoke again.
“Thanks for that. We'll just go back now and tell the teachers that, so Hagrid can be released.”
“Go?” said Aragog slowly. “I think not.”
“So you don't want Hagrid released?”
Aragog paused, thinking.
“It matters not, one way or another,” the blind spider said. “I do care for Hagrid, but I have my family to care for now. There are many mouths to feed here in our hollow, and while I myself do not attack humans for Hagrid's sake, and my children do not harm Hagrid on my command, I cannot deny my sons and daughters fresh meat when it wanders so willingly into our midst. So farewell, friends of Hagrid.”
Harry stood up suddenly with his wand and shouted, “Arania Exumai!” at the nearest spiders. A burst of light hit the thing, but hardly did anything to the spider. The light itself had far more effect, as the spiders flinched away from it.
“LUMOS MAXIMA!” he shouted, blinding the spiders, causing an uproar of furious clicks.
“Dobby! Netty!” he said, as he grabbed Ron and Hermione.
The two house elves appeared with a loud crack, confused at first. They barely had time to regard the spiders with terror before Harry forced his friends' hands into the elves' hands and shouted, “GO! BACK TO THE CASTLE! TAKE THEM WITH YOU!”
With a loud crack, the four of them vanished, leaving Harry alone with the monsters. Hermione might have been useful, if she hadn't been nearly as catatonic as Ron had been, so he'd gotten them to safety instead.
He ran, shooting more bursts of light after him, but it was hopeless; the spiders were so fast that they would surely catch him at any moment, light or no light.
But then, he saw flashes of variously colored lights up ahead, and then heard shouts. He recognized the voices as Antigone, Angela, and Danzia. They hadn't run away after all, but were instead shooting various spells and hexes at nearby spiders.
Getting close enough for him to see her, Antigone jumped out and shot several bombarda spells at the nearest spiders, causing fiery explosions that not only made charbroiled, exploded spider guts fly everywhere, but also made bright lights. Harry did the same, using the spell for the first time ever. It didn't work the first couple times he tried, but on the third time he got it.
Danzia and Angela arrived, too, and he heard words like defodio, confringo, and expulso, which all had various destructive effects on the attacking spiders. He even saw one of them, with a shouted 'vocabo acidum,' send a torrent of burning acid at the acromantulas, resulting in a lot of inhuman screams of agony.
All these and more, poorly aimed because they were all running for their lives and firing blindly behind them, slowed down the giant spiders enough for Harry to call back Netty and Dobby. Dobby took Angela's and Antigone's robes, Netty took Harry's free hand, and they all Disapparated away, appearing in an unfamiliar dorm room with a view of the underside of the lake.
Harry collapsed, panting with exhaustion, trying to calm down his racing heart. They were bloody lucky to be alive. If he hadn't thought to call for the two elves, they'd probably be dead now.
“Where are we?” he asked when he finally calmed down enough to speak.
“This is our dorm room,” Antigone responded. “Angela's and mine.”
Dobby stood up on shaking legs, but Netty was still on the floor, crying and shaking. Dobby disappeared with a crack, and Harry didn't blame him. But a few minutes later, he reappeared, and handed Harry something, which he took in bewilderment.
“Dobby is finding Harry Potter's invisibility cloak, Sir,” the elf said by way of explanation.
“Thank you, Dobby. And Dobby, Netty, thank you both for saving our lives.”
“You is most welcome, Harry Potter sir,” said Dobby proudly. Netty merely nodded.
“Where are the others, Dobby?”
“Dobby is putting the two Griffindors back in Griffindor common room, Sir. The other Slytherin girl--”
Danzia burst into the room then, hugging Dobby thankfully.
“Is here, Sir,” Dobby explained unnecessarily.
She let go of Dobby, and moved on to hugging Netty. Free of her squeezing embrace, Dobby cleared his throat.
“So,” he said, “is Harry Potter wanting Dobby to take him back to the Griffindor common room?”
“Let me check something first. Antigone? Angela? You two okay?”
Angela nodded, but said nothing. She was crying, and holding her knees. Antigone nodded as well.
“And you, Danzia?”
“I may have nightmares about giant spiders for the next few months, but yeah, I'm fine.”
“Good. I better go reassure the others. Dobby, I'm ready.”
He took the elf's hand. No sooner had they reappeared in Griffindor Common Room than Hermione tackled him with a crushing bear hug, that Ron soon joined.
“Oh thank God you're alright! I was afraid you'd been eaten! What took you so long? How'd you get out of there?”
“Well I probably wouldn’t have escaped if not for Danzia and the others showing up, helping me slow down the acromantulas with various exploding spells and other destructive spells and curses, which bought time for Dobby and Netty to come back for us. They took us to Antigone's dorm room, and we had to recover a little before--”
Ron had spotted Dobby, and was giving the little elf a giant hug. Hermione, seeing this, joined in as well. The two Griffindors praised Dobby's bravery and help, which made the little elf grin ecstatically. Then Harry called Netty, and she appeared, looking like she was recovering, and they all praised her, too, before finally dismissing the two elves.
Harry and Ron had a hard time getting to sleep that night, understandably. It took over an hour of whispered conversation between the two friends before they started to drift off at last. But Harry sat up like a bolt just before falling asleep, and woke Ron up to tell him what he'd figured out.
Ron awoke with a yelp, looking frantically around for the danger, before seeing Harry just wanted to talk with him again.
“Ron — that girl who died. Aragog said she was found in a bathroom,” said Harry, ignoring Neville’s snuffling snores from the corner. “What if she never left the bathroom? What if she’s still there?”
Ron rubbed his eyes, frowning through the moonlight. And then he understood, too.
“You don’t think — not Moaning Myrtle?”
~
After relaying to Hermione the revelation about Moaning Myrtle being the girl who died, she gasped and slapped her own face, clearly thinking she should have put it together herself already. It was only a shame that not even Hermione could get away with using that bathroom anymore, what with it being the site of the first attack and the words in red on the wall still being stuck there, Filch unable to clean them off.
But something happened in Transfiguration that drove the Chamber out of the minds of everyone, for they found they were still having exams. The only person, to Harry's knowledge, who didn't look surprised by this was Hermione, and even she looked like she thought it might not be a great idea in the current climate. Even workaholic Hermione would doubtless find it hard to study while worrying about some giant monster attacking people at any time.
Ron took it worst of all, though; he looked as though he’d just been told he had to go and live in the Forbidden Forest.
“Can you imagine me taking exams with this?” he asked Harry, holding up his wand, which had just started whistling loudly.
“If you let me buy you a new wand via owl order, it might arrive in time.”
“Maybe. But I dunno about that, either. 'The wand chooses the wizard,' remember? How can I trust some random wand that didn't pick me?”
“The wand you have now is hand-me-down, isn't it?”
“Yeah, but that's different. Family wands tend to be much more likely to accept new users from the same family. And even so, this one took me a few months to get the hang of. Everyone but me and Neville got the hang of theirs faster.”
Harry didn't know what to say to this.
Three days before their first exam, though, McGonagall announced some happy news: the mandrakes were almost ready to be made into a restorative draught, so they'd soon be finding out who the culprit was.
Harry glanced at the Slytherin table, and saw Draco looking relieved, and talking with Danzia.
“It won’t matter that we never asked Myrtle, then!” Ron said to Harry and Hermione during dinner. “I feel bad for the kids that missed most of the year, though; how're they gonna pass exams when they've missed so much?”
“Probably they'll be tutored to get caught up,” Hermione mused.
Just then, Ginny came up to Harry, looking very nervous.
“I have to tell you something,” she said to him. But she hesitated, looking worried and reluctant.
“Does this have something to do with the Chamber of Secrets?” he asked.
Before she could answer, Percy Weasley appeared, looking tired and wan.
“If you’ve finished eating, I’ll take that seat, Ginny. I’m starving, I’ve only just come off patrol duty.”
Ginny jumped up as though her chair had just been electrified, gave Percy a fleeting, frightened look, and scampered away. Harry rushed after her while Ron and Hermione berated Percy for his timing, but she disappeared in the crowded room, and he lost track of her. He continued trying to find her, asking people if they'd seen her. But she'd made a clean getaway. Given that the teachers were ushering them through the halls for everything, this worried him more than anything. He headed up to the staff table to talk with McGonagall.
“Professor McGonagall?”
“What is it, Potter? We're trying to eat dinner.”
“I know that, but I can't find Ginny Weasley anywhere. She was about to tell me something that I think was about the Chamber of Secrets, given her nervousness, but Percy scared her off, and she vanished into the crowd. I've been looking for several minutes, but nobody's seen her.”
McGonagall frowned a little. “She's probably still in the room, Potter. Nobody's allowed out into the halls without a teacher escort, you know.”
“I know, but I have an instinct that she's given whoever's at the door the slip.”
“You think she gave Professor Snape the slip?”
“If that's who's at the doors, then yes.”
“Whatever for?”
“It's hard to explain, but I think she might know who the Heir of Slytherin is. Or she at least saw somebody or something suspicious. I got that vibe from her, before she got spooked.”
The stern older woman sighed. “I'll have the Prefects look for her, then.”
“You might want to exclude Percy from that, since he spooked her.”
“Yes, yes, Mr. Potter, I'll do that. Students shouldn't be wandering about, and if he's the reason for it, we can't chance her running away from him again.”
Harry nodded. She dismissed him, and he went back to Ron and Hermione to tell them what had happened.
Thankfully, because they still had exams to study for, Hermione was able to convince McGonagall to escort the Griffindors to the library after lunch one day. They wouldn’t be able to stay long, because of the curfew, but it gave the three of them the chance to check out a bunch more creature books to look through for a giant snake monster when they returned to the common room. McGonagall gave the three of them a weird look when she saw they were all carrying so many books they could barely see where they were going, but said nothing as she escorted them back.
The three of them had been there for less than an hour going through their books when Hermione stumbled on the right creature.
“Harry! Ron!” she whispered excitedly at them. “I found it!”
She pointed to the page in the book she had open, and Harry got there first, reading:
Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken’s egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it.
“Wow, Hermione! I think you're right. It all fits! A giant snake, which explains how I can understand it, we knew that much already.”
“And you said you thought people were seeing it through things, right?” Hermione asked.
“Yeah. Colin through his camera, and Justin through Nick. But since Nick is already dead, he can't die. I don't know about the last one, though.”
“I do,” Hermione said. “I asked around, and the two Prefect girls who were attacked had been found with a mirror. From what I've heard of the two of them, the Slytherin Prefect was probably checking her hair, and Penelope Clearwater may also have been looking at the mirror, too.”
Ron’s jaw had dropped.
“And Mrs. Norris?” he whispered eagerly.
“The water,” Harry and Hermione said in stereo. Harry let Hermione continue.
“Mrs. Norris saw the basilisk's reflection in the water, Ron,” she finished. “Myrtle's bathroom was flooding, remember?”
“Oh yeah.”
“'The crowing of the rooster is fatal to it,'” Harry read. “And Hagrid said his roosters had been killed. The Heir had to get them out of the way. Then 'spiders flee before it.' Even Aragog and the other acromantulas were terrified of this thing, like it was a monster You-Know-Who.”
“But how’s the basilisk been getting around the place?” said Ron. “A giant snake, someone would’ve seen it?”
“Pipes,” said Hermione with a smirk.
“It's been using the plumbing? Which is why Harry can hear it in the walls, and we didn't; Parseltongue sounds like hissing.”
“This means,” said Harry, “I can’t be the only Parselmouth in the school. The Heir of Slytherin’s one, too. That’s how he’s been controlling the basilisk.”
“Wait, Harry. Wasn't You-Know-Who a Parselmouth, too?” Hermione asked.
“So?”
“Well he might be old enough. Maybe he was in school the same time Tom Riddle was?”
“Damn. Wish I'd thought of that before. I could've asked Tom if he knew of any ugly snake-looking guys in school.”
“I doubt he looked like that in school, Harry. Guy without a nose would kinda stand out, right? Hard to think Riddle would suspect Hagrid when someone like that was about. So if it was You-Know-Who, then he could've looked like anything! Hell, he could be this Tom Riddle bloke for all we know. He could've set Hagrid up as a fall guy. You said Riddle didn't want to go back to that orphanage, right? He hears his plot is going to get him sent back there, he sets somebody up to take the blame so he can stay at Hogwarts.”
“But Riddle is handsome!”
“Think that matters? Dad said something once about dark magic often deforming the people who used it. He could've been handsome in his youth, but then the dark magic took his nose away, among other deformities, from what I've heard of him.”
“Could it really be Tom Riddle?” Harry asked Hermione.
“How should I know? But Ron might be right. I've never heard of a diary acting like that before. I mean, it could just be something similar to a pensieve – a sort of stone bowl to watch memories from. But, like, combined with something like a portrait, in writing? And if so, it would have the self awareness and memories to reopen the Chamber.”
“Yeah!” Ron said. “And it's really suspicious it just showed up here at the right time, just as the Chamber was open, to conveniently point the finger at Hagrid again.”
“I don't know,” Harry said, uncertain. “I got a malevolent vibe from You-Know-Who the first time, but Riddle seemed alright. Charming, even.”
“Well, Harry, I've heard serial killers are often charming. And You-Know-Who is basically a power-hungry, magical serial killer.”
“But the Voldemort I met by the Mirror of Erised wasn't charming. I think he was trying to be, but failing miserably. He was about as charming as something pale and slimy under a stone.”
“Yeah, Harry, but there were no attacks when you had the thing with you, and they started up again when it got nicked.”
“But if the diary is just a written-word portrait, how is it acting?”
“It must be using somebody,” Hermione said. “Using some living human as an accomplice, you know? It wouldn’t be able to act on its own, if it's like a portrait.”
“But doesn't that kinda leave us at square one? We have no idea who it's using, who the accomplice is. Unless...”
“Unless what, Harry?” Ron said.
“No, it couldn't be. Too much of a coincidence, two DADA teachers in a row being evil. But Quirrell pretended to be a stuttering coward; Lockhart could be pretending to be a total idiot.”
“What’re we going to do?” said Ron, whose eyes were flashing. “Should we go straight to McGonagall?”
“Let’s go to the staffroom,” said Harry, jumping up. “She’ll be there in ten minutes. It’s nearly time for the next class.”
They ran out the portrait hole and over to the staff room. Not wanting to be discovered hanging around in a corridor without an escort, the three of them went straight into the deserted staffroom. It was a large, paneled room full of dark, wooden chairs. The three Griffindors paced around it, too excited to sit down.
But the bell to signal the next class never came.
Instead, echoing through the corridors came Professor McGonagall’s voice, magically magnified.
“All students to return to their House dormitories at once. All teachers return to the staffroom. Immediately, please.”
“Not another attack, surely?” Hermione fretted.
“What’ll we do?” said Ron, aghast. “Go back to the dormitory?”
“No,” said Harry, glancing around. There was an ugly sort of wardrobe to his left, full of the teachers’ cloaks. “In here. Let’s hear what it’s all about. Then we can tell them what we’ve found out.”
“I don't know about this, Harry,” Hermione said. “We might—”
“If we get in trouble, so what? We need to get this information to McGonagall, and I can't think of another way.”
Sighing with resignation, Hermione nodded. They hid themselves inside the wardrobe, which was a tight fit for three second year students, listened to the rumbling of hundreds of people moving overhead, before the staffroom door banged open. From between the musty folds of the cloaks, they watched the teachers filtering into the room. Some of them were looking puzzled, others downright scared. Then Professor McGonagall arrived.
From what they witnessed, there was indeed another attack, but this one was different. Nobody had been found. Instead, another message had been left by the Heir of Slytherin, saying 'Her body will rot in the chamber forever.' And what was worse, the student who had been abducted was Ginny Weasley. Ron slid to the bottom of the wardrobe in despair, and Hermione – barely visible in the dark – looked like she was trying very hard not to cry. It was hard, just then, but Harry continued listening, and there was talk about closing the school and sending the students home.
Then Lockhart came into the room, and he was beaming, clearly with no idea what was going on. This didn't make him any less a suspect in Harry's mind.
“So sorry — dozed off — what have I missed?”
He didn’t seem to notice that the other teachers were looking at him with something remarkably like hatred. Snape stepped forward.
“Just the man,” he said. “The very man. A girl has been snatched by the monster, Lockhart. Taken into the Chamber of Secrets itself. Your moment has come at last.”
The look that took over Lockhart's face almost made Harry want to laugh, as his beauty and happiness melted into ugly cowardice, and a weak chin. The rest of the conversation didn't fare much better for the man, as he got backed into a corner, metaphorically speaking. He had no choice but to agree to going after the monster, leaving the room quickly, looking utterly terrified.
“Right,” said Professor McGonagall, whose nostrils were flared, “that’s got him out from under our feet. The Heads of Houses should go and inform their students what has happened. Tell them the Hogwarts Express will take them home first thing tomorrow. Will the rest of you please make sure no students have been left outside their dormitories.”
The teachers rose and left, one by one.
How the three of them got back to the common room after that, they could never remember, they were all so dejected and terrified about Ginny being taken. They weren't alone, either; everyone in Griffindor was quiet for once, all of them feeling the same thing.
No afternoon ever lasted as long as that one, nor had Gryffindor Tower ever been so crowded, yet so quiet. Near sunset, Fred and George went up to bed, unable to sit there any longer.
“She knew something,” said Ron, speaking for the first time since they had entered the wardrobe in the staffroom. “That’s why she was taken. You missed this when you looked for Ginny the other day, Harry, but I thought she'd seen Percy doing something embarrassing, and told him as much. But now it's clear I was wrong. It wasn’t some stupid thing about Percy at all. She’d found out something about the Chamber of Secrets. That must be why she was —” Ron rubbed his eyes frantically. “I mean, she's a pureblood. There can’t be any other reason.”
Harry looked at Ron and Hermione, and came to a decision.
“I think she's still alive. We have to go find her. We have to stop Lockhart, if it's him.”
“You think it's him? He looked like a coward, when the teachers sent him after Ginny.”
“Could be an act. He's convinced people all over the world to buy his stupid books, hasn't he?”
“Do you really think he's that clever?”
“After Quirrell, I won't dismiss the possibility so easily.”
“Good point. You coming too, Hermione?”
“Of course I am. You two in the Chamber alone? I shudder to think. But let's stop at Lockhart's office first, just in case you're wrong about him.”
“Alright, then,” Harry agreed, standing up.
Getting out of there was absurdly easy; nobody so much as looked at them as they left, all of them being lost in worry for Ginny. And the halls, despite everything, were almost deserted. He supposed the teachers were busy with plans to get the students out of there.
As they made their way to Lockhart's office, Harry's heart pained him, his mind having suddenly thought about Luna for the first time in days or longer, given everything that was going on. He made a mental note to go straight to her if he survived this, and hoped she was safe.
There was a flurry of activity in Lockhart's office, given all the noise. Noise that stopped suddenly the moment they knocked. The door opened a crack and they saw one of his blue eyes peer out at them.
“Oh, Misters Potter and Weasley, and Ms. Granger,” he said, opening the door a bit wider. “I’m rather busy at the moment, so please be quick.”
Harry turned his wand on the bewildered man.
“Tell the truth now,” Harry demanded, “are you the Heir of Slytherin?”
After a moment of gaping open-mouthed at Harry in bewilderment, Lockhart said, “Me? Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly’s Most-Charming-Smile Award, the Heir of Slytherin? Madness! Sheer lunacy! Your brain must be going, young man.”
“Yeah, okay, there's that, but our last DADA teacher was secretly evil, too. Pretended to be a coward. You say you've done all this stuff, but either you're a lying imbecile, or you're pretending to be a lying imbecile. Either way, I think it would be best if we accompany you to the Chamber of Secrets.”
The door suddenly closed, but Harry hit it with bombarda, blasting it to splinters. His friends stared at him in shock, but followed Harry inside, where Lockhart was freaking out and almost crying.
The room was almost completely stripped. Luggage lay open, as well. The man had clearly been packing.
“Going somewhere?” Harry asked.
“Er, well, yes,” said Lockhart, ripping a life-size poster of himself from the back of the door as he spoke and starting to roll it up. “Urgent call — unavoidable — got to go —”
“What about Ron's sister?” Hermione demanded.
“Well, as to that — most unfortunate —” said Lockhart, avoiding their eyes as he wrenched open a drawer and started emptying the contents into a bag. “No one regrets more than I —”
“You’re the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher!” said Hermione. “You can’t go now! Not with all the Dark stuff going on here!”
“Well — I must say — when I took the job —” Lockhart muttered, now piling socks on top of his robes. “nothing in the job description — didn’t expect —”
“You mean you’re running away?” said Ron disbelievingly. “After all that stuff you did in your books —”
“Books can be misleading,” said Lockhart delicately.
“You wrote them!” Ron shouted.
“My dear boy,” said Lockhart, straightening up and frowning at Harry. “Do use your common sense. My books wouldn’t have sold half as well if people didn’t think I’d done all those things. No one wants to read about some ugly old Armenian warlock, even if he did save a village from werewolves. He’d look dreadful on the front cover. No dress sense at all. And the witch who banished the Bandon Banshee had a hairy chin. I mean, come on —”
“So you’ve just been taking credit for what a load of other people have done?” said Harry incredulously.
Lockhart started to explain, but Harry's head twinged.
“Enough! Villain or simpleton, I don't care. Let's go to the Chamber now.”
Lockhart lifted his wand then, taking Harry by surprise, but Hermione disarmed the teacher with a spell first. Ron caught the wand and tossed it out an open window.
“What d’you want me to do?” said Lockhart weakly. “I don’t know where the Chamber of Secrets is. There’s nothing I can do.”
“You’re in luck,” said Harry, forcing Lockhart to his feet at wandpoint. “We think we know where it is. And what’s inside it. Let’s go.”
They marched Lockhart out of his office and down the nearest stairs, along the dark corridor where the messages shone on the wall, to the door of Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom.
Upon opening the door, they saw Antigone and Danzia.
“Hi guys,” Harry said. “I know why we're here, what about you?”
“Figured out Moaning Myrtle was the girl killed,” Antigone answered.
“Us too. Where's Angela?”
“Too scared to join us, after the spiders.”
“Ah, okay. Probably best.”
“What's with him? Why are you keeping him at wandpoint?”
“I suspected he's working with the Heir. Only now, he's proving to be so useless that I think he's innocent, but I don't care. He couldn't even disarm second year students!”
“Yeah, that's incompetent alright, even if one of you is Hermione. Why's he here, though?”
“Human shield, at this point.”
“So where's the Chamber, d'ya reckon?”
“I dunno, let's ask Myrtle.”
“Someone's talking about me,” said the gloomy ghost, who was floating above one of the cubicles. “I don't like it when people talk about me behind my back. What are you all doing here?”
“To ask you how you died,” said Harry.
Myrtle’s whole aspect changed at once. She looked as though she had never been asked such a flattering question.
“Ooooh, it was dreadful,” she said with relish. “It happened right in here. I died in this very stall. I remember it so well. I’d hidden because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses. The door was locked, and I was crying, and then I heard somebody come in. They said something funny. A different language, I think it must have been. Anyway, what really got me was that it was a boy speaking. So I unlocked the door, to tell him to go and use his own toilet, and then —” Myrtle swelled importantly, her face shining. “I died.”
“How?” said Harry.
“No idea,” said Myrtle in hushed tones. “I just remember seeing a pair of great, big, yellow eyes. My whole body sort of seized up, and then I was floating away. …” She looked dreamily at Harry. “And then I came back again. I was determined to haunt Olive Hornby, you see. Oh, she was sorry she’d ever laughed at my glasses.”
“Where exactly did you see the eyes?” said Harry.
“Somewhere there,” said Myrtle, pointing vaguely toward the sink in front of her toilet.
Everyone looked where she pointed, except Lockhart, who was plainly terrified.
It looked like an ordinary sink. They examined every inch of it, inside and out, including the pipes below. And then Harry saw it: Scratched on the side of one of the copper taps was a tiny snake.
“That tap’s never worked,” said Myrtle brightly as he tried to turn it.
“Harry,” said Ron. “Say something. Something in Parseltongue.”
Harry nodded; it made sense. Only, he wasn't sure he could do it without a real snake there. But he focused on the feeling of it, and spoke.
'Open,' he said.
At once the tap glowed with a brilliant white light and began to spin. Next second, the sink began to move; the sink, in fact, sank, right out of sight, leaving a large pipe exposed, a pipe wide enough for a man to slide into.
Harry heard Ron gasp and looked up again. He had made up his mind what he was going to do.
“I’m going down there,” he said.
Ron nodded. “Me too.”
“And me,” Hermione said. “If there's any chance at all Ginny's still alive, we need to go.”
“Well you seem to have things covered, then, so I'll just be going now,” Lockhart said. He made for the door, but all five of their wands were pointed at him, which drove him toward the opening.
“Remember,” Harry said, “you're our human shield.”
“Me? But why?”
“Better you than us.”
“Um... good point there.”
Ron jabbed him with his wand, making the wand spark dangerously, and Lockhart fell hollering down the hole.
“Really quite disgusting down here,” they finally heard him comment.
Harry approached the lip of the pipe and sent a scourgify spell down there before jumping in. It didn't really help, as he got dirty anyway, but he cleaned himself off with his wand when he stood up, keeping a wary eye on Lockhart as he did.
He looked around as the others all took turns coming down, using his lit wand to see in the dark. It was indeed disgusting, with mud and slime and copious rat bones everywhere. They were a long way down, possibly under the lake.
Directing the others to be careful, and shutting their eyes the moment they saw any movement, they continued on through the debris of centuries of snake poop and/or snake vomit, with Lockhart in the lead.
When they turned a corner, they saw something that made them all freeze in terror, but it turned out to just be an enormous snake skin. But while they had their guard down, Lockhart grabbed Ron's wand and jumped back, shouting “Expelliarmus!” at them.
The old, dying wand exploded violently, rocks falling noisily, people screaming and trying to flee. When the dust settled, Harry and Antigone found themselves on one side of a wall of fallen rock.
“Ron! Hermione! Danzia! Are you okay?”
“We're fine,” said Danzia.
“Yeah, we're all fine,” Ron said. “Except for Lockhart, though. Git got blasted by the wand, and... oh shit.”
“What?”
“I... Harry, I think Lockhart is... wait, no, there's a pulse. But he's in a bad way, bleeding from his head.”
“Well... try to stop the bleeding, see if Danzia can help with that. Then try to clear some rocks away. We'll be back later, but we've got to continue on, rescue Ginny if we can. If we're not back in an hour...”
“Gotcha,” Danzia said. Ron repeated her.
“Come on,” Harry said to Antigone.
They continued on, Harry feeling a lot of dread about what would be at the end of the tunnel, but feeling better for having someone here with him. He couldn't see her well in the dark, even with his wand light, but he knew Antigone was there.
He and his friend turned another bend, and saw a solid wall with two entwined serpents there, looking very lifelike. He said 'Open' to them in Parseltongue, and the two halves of the wall split open. Harry, shaking with worry, stepped inside.
As soon as he entered, he turned his head barely in time to see Antigone Disillusion herself and vanish from his vision. She winked at him just before it happened, which made him realize she had a plan. Of course she has a plan, he thought, she's a Slytherin.
He was standing at the end of a very long, dimly lit chamber. Towering stone pillars entwined with more carved serpents rose to support a ceiling lost in darkness, casting long, black shadows through the odd, greenish gloom that filled the place.
He worried that the basilisk might be behind a pillar somewhere, and found himself wishing he knew a spell to make himself temporarily blind. It didn't help his nerves that the columns looked like snakes, and all seemed to be alive.
Then, as he drew level with the last pair of pillars, a statue high as the Chamber itself loomed into view, standing against the back wall.
Harry had to crane his neck to look up into the giant face above: It was ancient and monkeyish, with a long, thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of the wizard’s sweeping stone robes, where two enormous gray feet stood on the smooth Chamber floor. And between the feet, facedown, lay a small, black-robed figure with flaming-red hair.
Every Griffindor instinct he had told him to run to her. But – whether because there was a friendly Slytherin in the room with him or something else, he decided to be more cautious. Remembering some TV shows he'd seen in the past, involving urban warfare, he emulated their behavior, hiding behind columns, looking around for the enemy, ready to shut his eyes at a moment's notice, before finally making it over to her pale body.
He checked for a pulse with his free hand, and while it was weak, it was there. He pointed his wand at her.
“Rennervate,” he incanted. But nothing happened.
“She won’t wake,” said a soft voice.
Harry jumped and spun around on his knees.
A tall, black-haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though Harry were looking at him through a misted window. But there was no mistaking him.
“Tom Riddle.”
The boy nodded.
“You're doing something to her, aren't you? My friends were right, you are the one opening the Chamber. You're Voldemort.”
“Very good, very good indeed. Yes, Potter, I am the boy who grew up to become the Dark Lord Voldemort. And yes, I am doing something to her. Poor little fool thought I was a mysterious magical friend in a diary, and so she poured her heart into my Diary, which was just what I needed. I fed her a bit of myself in turn, and used her like a puppet. Ginny daubed threatening messages on walls, Ginny killed the school roosters, and set the basilisk on the mudbloods. Or at least, her body did. Ginny had no idea what she was doing, of course. But when she suspected what was going on, she wrote about it to me. At least, until she realized I had something to do with it. Then she tried to get rid of the diary, but it ended up in your hands. Which was excellent, as I have been wanting to meet you for a very long time.”
“I don't doubt it.”
“So now, enough about me. I want to talk about you, Harry Potter.”
Harry considered Ginny, who was fading fast.
“No.”
“No? What do you mean, no?”
“You're probably going to ask me how I survived your killing curse, rendering the other you less than a ghost, right? Well I don't know the answer, and wouldn’t tell you if I did. BOMBARDA!”
The spell passed right through Riddle/Voldemort, doing nothing.
“Ouch, ouch, the pain the pain,” Riddle said in a flat, sarcastic tone. “How ever shall I manage?” Then he grinned viciously. “That won't do much until Ginny is dead, and by then it will be too late. Then you will be faced with the greatest sorcerer who ever lived!”
“No I won't.”
“Pardon?”
“You're not the greatest sorcerer who ever lived. That's Dumbledore.”
Riddle glared at Harry.
“You're trying to goad me, Harry Potter. But I will have that information from you, if I have to wait for Ginny to die so I can torture it out of you.”
“Okay, fine, so I fudged facts a little. Dumbledore said something about my mother dying to protect me being what saved me. But I don't know if that's all there is to it. If it was that simple, I wouldn’t be the first person to survive the killing curse, or even the 100th. I don't have any other explanation, though.”
“Hmm... well, that is enough for me to extrapolate what happened. But I shall be like you, and keep the information from you. You seem in a hurry to die, anyway, so I shall call the basilisk to kill you.”
He turned to the giant statue of Salazar Slytherin and said in Parseltongue, 'Salazar Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four, speak to me!'
Harry spotted the Diary, then, and grabbed it, tossing it somewhere where he could hit it with another bombarda spell. He hit it with the spell, but nothing happened.
“Foolish boy! That will not work! No spell you can squeeze out of your pitiful wand will hurt me!”
The statue's mouth was opening now, and Harry caught a glimpse of movement and something acid green, before he turned away, snatching up the Diary as he ran off. He wondered, as he hid from the basilisk, where Antigone had gone. He tried putting himself in her shoes, so to speak. She would want to observe the situation and then try to work out the best course of action. But what was that? He was only a second year student, and she was two years ahead of him. And what could a fourth year do in this situation? What could even a fully qualified wizard do against an old monster and his even older pet monster snake? About his only real hope was that Riddle was no more intelligent or skilled than he'd been at 16, but that assumed the elder Voldemort hadn't written in his Diary since then, to keep his younger self up to date.
Then there was a strange, ethereal birdsong, and a beautiful red and gold feathered bird flew into the room, dropping something on Harry before flying over to the basilisk and attacking it. At least, it sounded like an attack; Harry had his eyes closed, but he could hear inhuman screaming and wet sounds like talons through meat.
“NO!” Harry heard Riddle screaming. “LEAVE THE BIRD! LEAVE THE BIRD! THE BOY IS BEHIND YOU! YOU CAN STILL SMELL HIM! KILL HIM!”
Harry opened his eyes to look at the basilisk, and saw that it was blinded. But he barely had time to process this fact before various destructive spells hit the basilisk's side from another place. He looked to the source and saw nobody, which told him Antigone was still Disillusioned. Smart, that; hard to hit a target you can't see.
But not smart enough. The basilisk was momentarily confused, probably smelling both him and Antigone, and not sure which to attack. But since her spells hadn't done more than annoy it, it went off in Harry's direction. He ran, holding the thing the bird (a phoenix?) had dropped on him, recognizing it as the Sorting Hat. That was absurd! The bird had at least blinded the basilisk, but what good was the Sorting Hat?
Well, information is power, and this hat contains the minds of the four House founders, so I guess I'll try that.
Harry found a place to hide, sliding between some bars that the basilisk wouldn’t be able to fit through, and put the Hat on his head.
Help me! Sorting Hat, you're here for a reason! I need help! Something, anything!
There was no answering voice. Instead, the hat contracted, as though an invisible hand was squeezing it very tightly.
Something very hard and heavy thudded onto the top of Harry’s head, almost knocking him out. Stars winking in front of his eyes, he grabbed the top of the hat to pull it off and felt something long and hard beneath it.
A gleaming silver sword had appeared inside the hat, its handle glittering with rubies the size of eggs.
“This will do,” he said. Then, in a sudden inspiration, he crept over to the current source of Antigone's spells, and found her by bumping into her.
“Ow! Harry, what are you doing?”
“Put this on your head! It gave me a sword, maybe it'll give you something, too.”
“What?”
“Just do it!”
“Fine, fine. Cover me.”
“Cover you?” he asked, confused.
“You know, cover fire?”
“Okay,” he said. And, taking her literally, cast fireballs at the basilisk. Which, of course, bounced right off its hide, and it ignored them, still sniffing for him. But it bought time for Antigone to put on the hat and presumably ask for help.
“Ouch! What the...?”
It was very weird seeing a hat floating on a Disillusioned person. It was even weirder seeing said person pull a plain-looking sword out of the hat, and toss the hat aside. But the sword, for all it looked normal, wasn't. In Antigone's hands, its blade glowed red-hot and caught fire.
“A flaming sword. Pretty awesome,” Antigone said. “Shall we?”
“Yes.”
The two friends charged the basilisk, hacking pieces off the giant snake; the pieces Antigone hacked off became great burns on the creature's flank.
In rage, it turned its head and tried biting them, but that made its head their new target. One of them even managed to cut one of its enormous curved fangs off, where it went clattering away.
“You keep hacking its head, I have an idea,” Harry said.
“Okay.”
He stabbed the thing in the side and held on, remembering something he'd read in Dune by Frank Herbert, and hoping he wasn't just being an idiot. But sure enough, the basilisk turned its body away from the wound, pulling him up on top of it. Only then did he pull out the sword, and made his way up its length as best he could without falling over, up to the back of its head. It was a struggle, getting to the right spot, but when he did, he rammed the sword into the back of its neck, killing it. Antigone leapt backwards as its head fell.
“NOOOO!” Riddle screamed, at his snake being killed.
When Riddle calmed down, though, he sneered at them.
“No matter. Soon Ginny Weasley will be dead, and I will live again, then I will kill you both!”
Harry looked at the severed fang, and figured that any creature that could kill by looking at you might have venom powerful enough to destroy the undestroyable, so he grabbed the fang by its base, took out the Diary, and stabbed it with the fang.
There was a long, dreadful, piercing scream. Ink spurted out of the diary in torrents, streaming over Harry’s hands, flooding the floor. Riddle was writhing and twisting, screaming and flailing and then...
He had gone. Harry’s wand fell to the floor with a clatter and there was silence. Silence except for the steady drip drip of ink still oozing from the diary. The basilisk venom had burned a sizzling hole right through it.
“We should come back down here sometime,” Antigone said, after making herself visible again. “Basilisk venom, basilisk skin, and who knows what else... probably worth millions.”
Harry shrugged, being too keen on going over to check on Ginny, who was waking up. Antigone, in the meantime, was staring thoughtfully at the flaming sword, trying to figure out how to turn it off.
When Ginny sat up, she looked bemusedly at Harry and the dead basilisk, and the ink on Harry's hands from the dying diary. Then she looked over at Antigone, who had put the Sorting Hat back on to ask it how to turn the flaming sword off. She drew a great, shuddering gasp and tears began to pour down her face.
“Harry — oh, Harry — I tried to tell you at b-breakfast, but I c-couldn’t say it in front of Percy — it was me, Harry — but I — I s-swear I d-didn’t mean to — R-Riddle made me, he t-took me over — and — how did you kill that — that thing? W-where’s Riddle? The last thing I r-remember is him coming out of the diary...”
“It’s all right,” said Harry, holding up the diary, and showing Ginny the fang hole, “Riddle’s finished. Look! Him and the basilisk. C’mon, Ginny, let’s get out of here.”
“Yeah, short stuff,” Antigone said, the sword finally cooling down. “No lasting harm done. We're all alive.”
“I’m going to be expelled!” Ginny wept as Harry helped her awkwardly to her feet. “I’ve looked forward to coming to Hogwarts ever since B-Bill came and n-now I’ll have to leave and — w-what’ll Mum and Dad say?”
“Probably be glad you're alive, I'd reckon.”
Harry urged Ginny up and over to the Chamber entrance, where the phoenix was waiting for them. When they got up to it, he thought he recognized something in its eyes.
“Fawkes?” he asked.
It sang in response, its eyes twinkling like Dumbledore's did. He took that as a yes.
So the three of them started their way out the Chamber and into the tunnel, back to where the others were waiting, lit only by the light of their wands, and light emanating from the phoenix's feathers.
When they heard the sound of rocks being shifted, Harry called out.
“Ron! Hermione! Danzia! I've got Ginny! All three of us are alive!”
They heard three cheers, and saw a huge hole in the fallen stones. Ron and the two girls had been clearing stone the whole time, though right now Danzia was casting spells to keep what they'd cleared from causing another collapse, strengthening the remaining stone.
“Ginny!” Ron ran to her and hugged her. “You’re alive! I don’t believe it! What happened? How — what — where did that bird come from?”
“He belongs to Dumbledore. Not sure how he knew to show up, but he was a life saver.”
“You've both got swords! How'd you get those?”
“From the Sorting Hat, oddly enough,” Antigone said. “Mine doesn't look like much, but when needed, it catches fire. A flaming sword! Biblical power! And it's got Slytherin's crest on it. Harry got what I think is Griffindor's sword, and I got Slytherin's sword.”
“We should get out of here, now. Where's Lockhart?”
“He's still where he was,” Hermione said as everyone passed back through the hole to the escape side. “We got the bleeding to stop, but he hasn't woken up yet. Rennervate didn't work, and I'm afraid to try again, or to move him. We need to get Madam Pomfrey down here. Is it... is it safe to leave him here for now?”
“Well the Heir and the basilisk are both dead, if that's what you mean. But someone should stay with him until we can get Pomfrey down here, just in case of like, rats or something.”
“I'll do it,” Danzia volunteered.
“Okay, the rest of us will go on. I'll be back for you two.”
“Understood.”
Ginny and the others continued on to the place where the pipe came out at.
“Damn. How're we gonna get out, mate?”
Fawkes the phoenix had swooped past Harry and was now fluttering in front of him, his beady eyes bright in the dark. He was waving his long golden tail feathers. Harry looked uncertainly at him.
“He looks like he wants you to grab hold …” said Ron, looking perplexed. “But you’re much too heavy for a bird to pull up there.”
“Ronald, Fawkes is a phoenix,” Hermione said. “They can carry immensely heavy loads, and their tears have healing pow--”
“Okay okay, I got it. Thanks, 'mione.”
It took a bit of work, but they managed to daisy-chain themselves to the phoenix, who lifted them all up in such a way that Harry thought the bird had to have cast some sort of version of a feather-light charm.
When they alighted on the bathroom floor, Myrtle gasped.
“You're alive? Except... two of you are missing.”
“Lockhart is wounded, so Danzia is tending to him. I'll go back for them later. For now, we have to get Madam Pomfrey.”
“Why, Myrtle? You disappointed?”
“Well, I was just thinking, if you died, Harry, you're welcome to share my---”
“Thanks, but no thanks. Come on, let's go before the school is closed.”
“Where now?” said Ron, with an anxious look at Ginny, who was still crying. Harry pointed.
Fawkes was leading the way, glowing gold along the corridor. They all strode after him, and moments later, found themselves outside Professor McGonagall’s office.
Harry knocked and pushed the door open.
For a moment, as the five of them stood there, covered in slime, dust, and – in Harry's case – ink, there was silence. Then there was a scream, as Mrs. Weasley – tearful with joyous relief, flung herself at her daughter, hugging her like she'd never let go again.
“You saved her! How?”
“I think we’d all like to know that,” said Professor McGonagall weakly.
Mrs. Weasley let go of Harry, who hesitated for a moment, then walked over to the desk and laid upon it the Sorting Hat, the ruby-encrusted sword, and what remained of Riddle’s diary. Antigone followed him, putting her own sword down next to his.
It took an hour for the two of them to relate the tale of what had happened. As soon as they mentioned about Lockhart and Danzia being down there still – and how Harry had left the door open – McGonagall sent something silver out of the room, and soon Madam Pomfrey was there, being directed to where a patient was. She nodded, and left at once.
Then they got to the part of the story that included Ginny, and they both paused, looking at one another. How to tell the tale without implicating Ginny? But Antigone winked quickly at him and took over the tale, telling the truth but leaving out Ginny's involvement. Harry tried hard to keep his face from betraying his thoughts, which were that the story had a massive hole in it.
Instinctively, Harry looked at Dumbledore, who smiled faintly, the firelight glancing off his half-moon spectacles.
“What interests me most,” said Dumbledore gently, “is how Lord Voldemort managed to enchant Ginny, when my sources tell me he is currently in hiding in the forests of Albania.”
Antigone frowned at Harry as if to say 'Gee thanks, I go to all that trouble and you ruin it. Silly kid.' But Harry didn't mind. They would have pointed out the hole in the story eventually.
“W-what’s that?” said Mr. Weasley in a stunned voice. “You-Know-Who? En-enchant Ginny? But Ginny’s not … Ginny hasn’t been … has she?”
“It was this diary,” said Harry quickly, picking it up and showing it to Dumbledore. “Riddle wrote it when he was sixteen. …”
Dumbledore picked up the diary, admiring the genius of it, which Harry thought a bit odd, but then, it was Dumbledore, who had always been odd. He listened with half his attention as the others put everything else together, about Riddle being Voldemort, and how that connected to the Diary.
Then Dumbledore was calling for Ginny to go to the hospital wing, and also mentioned that Madam Pomfrey had been in the process of giving the basilisk's victims Mandrake Restorative Draught when she'd been called away. Everyone was going to be okay!
After calling, also, for a celebratory feast, Dumbledore ushered the adults and Ginny out of the room.
“Misters Potter and Weasley,” he said. “Ms. Dreyfuss, and Ms. Granger. You and Ms. McCullough will all be receiving special awards for services to the school, for your brave acts today. And one hundred points apiece for the three Griffindors, I think. Also, one hundred and fifty points to each of the Slytherins, which evens things out, as there were only two this time around. Hmm... that puts Griffindor in the lead on points. We can't have that, can we? I'll give Ms. Whitechapel another 50 points to Slytherin, so we once more have a tie between the two houses, and a shared house cup once more. Which is only fitting, as it was a joint effort.”
Several of them cheered. Even Hermione, who hadn't cheered, beamed instead.
“Now, Mr. Weasley and Ms. Granger, if you wouldn't mind going to the hospital wing too, just in case. There was a rockslide, after all.”
They nodded, and left. Dumbledore waited a few heartbeats after the door closed, then turned to Harry and Antigone.
“Sit down, you two, please.”
They did sit, feeling nervous about what they were going to be talking with Dumbledore about.
“First of all, Harry, I want to thank you,” said Dumbledore, eyes twinkling again. “You must have shown me real loyalty down in the Chamber. Nothing but that could have called Fawkes to you.”
He stroked the phoenix, which had fluttered down onto his knee. Harry grinned awkwardly as Dumbledore watched him.
“Secondly, I want to remark upon something else that happened down there in the chamber. It is no surprise to me that someone as brave as Harry called Griffindor's sword in an hour of need. But for all that Griffindor House focuses on bravery over other things, the other Houses value it as well. If that were not the case, Ms. Dreyfuss, the Flaming Sword of Slytherin would not have come to you.”
Antigone beamed.
“Of course, they are historical relics, and belong to the school, so you will not be getting them back.”
Harry nodded, fully expecting that. Antigone looked disappointed, though.
“Now, Ms. Dreyfuss, I would like to talk with Mr. Potter alone, if you please.”
“Um... Harry?”
“Go ahead.”
“Okay,” she said, smiling, taking one last look at the currently inactive sword she'd pulled out of
the Hat before she did.
“So, Harry,” Dumbledore said when they were alone together. “You met Tom Riddle. I suspect he was rather eager to meet you.”
“Yes. He wanted to know how I survived as a baby. I told him what you told me, that it was my mother dying to save me.”
He briefly considered telling the man the rest of what he'd said, but decided that Dumbledore might not even know more himself, as unprecedented as the whole thing was.
“Did he make any other remarks? Did he, for instance, comment on your similarities?”
“Our similarities? What do you mean?”
“Well, you're both orphans, both half-bloods raised by Muggles, both highly intelligent, and when Riddle was young, his home situation was also rather less than ideal. Nobody at the orphanage ever liked him, you see, even as a small child. Even as a baby, the fact that he never cried rather disturbed a lot of people there, among other issues.”
Harry was confused.
“Yeah, those are all good points, but... well, I'm black and he's not, and I have autism and he doesn't. Though I wouldn't call him normal by any means. Pretty sure he's either a psychopath or a sociopath, but I don't know which; I always get those two confused. But now you mention it, there is something else as well.”
“What is that, Mr. Potter?”
“Well... I'm only telling you this because I get the sense you're wise enough to be discreet about it, and also it's been bugging me for a long time, the coincidence of it all, but... you see, I'm a Parselmouth.”
Dumbledore nodded. “I did wonder, given what I know of what Tom has been up to over the years, and given the intelligence I've received that your scar hurts you sometimes, if perhaps Tom accidentally transferred some of his powers to you. It is rather too coincidental to be coincidence, you two having that same ability, when none before you in your family's history had the same gift.”
“You knew my scar was hurting me?”
“Oh yes, I hear things here and there. I wasn't certain of it, though, until you confirmed it.”
“So he accidentally gave me one of his powers the night he tried to kill me? How does that work?”
“Ah, well, that is rather complicated I'm afraid, and contains information that I do not think appropriate for one so young as yourself just yet, Harry, but in time I will fill you in on what little I know of the situation, and the much greater amount that I have deduced about it. But not today, I'm afraid.”
Harry didn't like that much. He opened his mouth to argue, but then someone came into the room with a slam of the door and marched over to Dumbledore's desk. It was a white-blond man Harry instantly recognized as Draco's father. The man looked absolutely livid. And cowering behind his legs, heavily wrapped in bandages, was Dobby.
“You! So you've come back, have you? The governors suspended you, and yet you dare--”
“Yes, Lucius, I am back. When Ginny Weasley was taken into the Chamber of Secrets, the other governors seemed to think I was the best man for the job after all. And very odd stories they told me, too; according to them, the only reason they voted me out to begin with was because you threatened their families if they did not comply.”
Mr. Malfoy went even paler than usual, but his eyes were still slits of fury.
“So — have you stopped the attacks yet?” he sneered. “Have you caught the culprit?”
“We have,” said Dumbledore, with a smile.
“Well?” said Mr. Malfoy sharply. “Who is it?”
“The same person as last time, Lucius,” said Dumbledore. “But this time, Lord Voldemort was acting through somebody else. By means of this diary.”
He held up the small black book with the large hole through the center, watching Mr. Malfoy closely. Harry, however, was watching Dobby.
The elf was doing something very odd. His great eyes fixed meaningfully on Harry, he kept pointing at the diary, then at Mr. Malfoy, and then hitting himself hard on the head with his fist.
“I see …” said Mr. Malfoy slowly to Dumbledore.
“A clever plan,” said Dumbledore in a level voice, still staring Mr. Malfoy straight in the eye. “Because if Harry here” — Mr. Malfoy shot Harry a swift, sharp look — “and his friends hadn’t discovered this book, why — Ginny Weasley might have taken all the blame. No one would ever have been able to prove she hadn’t acted of her own free will. …”
Mr. Malfoy said nothing. His face was suddenly masklike.
“And imagine,” Dumbledore went on, “what might have happened then. … The Weasleys are one of our most prominent pure-blood families. Imagine the effect on Arthur Weasley and his Muggle Protection Act, if his own daughter was discovered attacking and killing Muggle-borns. … Very fortunate the diary was discovered, and Riddle’s memories wiped from it. Who knows what the consequences might have been otherwise. …”
Mr. Malfoy forced himself to speak.
“Very fortunate,” he said stiffly.
And still, behind his back, Dobby was pointing, first to the diary, then to Lucius Malfoy, then punching himself in the head.
And Harry suddenly understood. He nodded at Dobby, and Dobby backed into a corner, now twisting his ears in punishment.
“Don’t you want to know how Ginny got hold of that diary, Mr. Malfoy?” said Harry.
Lucius Malfoy rounded on him.
“How should I know how the stupid little girl got hold of it?” he said.
“Because you gave it to her,” said Harry. “In Flourish and Blotts. You picked up her old Transfiguration book and slipped the diary inside it, didn’t you? I didn't witness it, but I heard about the fight you picked with Mr. Weasley.”
“Why don't you prove it!”
“Oh, no one will be able to do that,” said Dumbledore, smiling at Harry. “Not now that Riddle has vanished from the book. On the other hand, I would advise you, Lucius, not to go giving out any more of Lord Voldemort’s old school things. If any more of them find their way into innocent hands, I think Arthur Weasley, for one, will make sure they are traced back to you.”
Lucius Malfoy stood for a moment, and Harry distinctly saw his right hand twitch as though he was longing to reach for his wand. Instead, he turned to his house-elf.
“We’re going, Dobby!”
He wrenched open the door and as the elf came hurrying up to him, he kicked him right through it. They could hear Dobby squealing with pain all the way along the corridor. Harry stood for a moment, thinking hard. Then it came to him —
“Professor Dumbledore,” he said hurriedly. “Can I give that diary back to Mr. Malfoy, please?”
“Certainly, Harry,” said Dumbledore calmly. “But hurry. The feast, remember. …”
Harry grabbed the diary and dashed out of the office. He could hear Dobby’s squeals of pain receding around the corner. Quickly, wondering if this plan could possibly work, Harry took off one of his shoes, pulled off his slimy, filthy sock, and stuffed the diary into it. Then he ran down the dark corridor.
What happened next was both brilliant and kind of stupid. Brilliant, that part is obvious, but stupid that it worked. Mr. Malfoy took the diary out of the sock and – incredibly – he absent-mindedly tossed the sock to the side, and Dobby caught it. Which of course meant Dobby was free; and judging by Dobby's tone of voice and watering eyes when he said 'Dobby is free!' about himself, the elf was ecstatic about it.
Mr. Malfoy was, naturally, pissed as all Hell about it, and drew his wand, ready to hex Harry, but Dobby defended him with his elf magic, throwing the racist git to the ground and scaring him off at last. The man said something along the lines of “You haven't seen the last of me, you meddling kid” and took off in a huff.
Once Harry was safe from his old master, Dobby too took off, to enjoy his freedom. And Harry left for the impromptu feast Dumbledore had called for, wondering all the way there if the tie would persist until the end of term, then deciding Dumbledore would likely ensure it would.
As a school treat, and understandable given the circumstances of that year, Dumbledore canceled all the exams, leaving the rest of the term for everyone to enjoy and play in the sunshine until the Hogwarts Express would take them back home.
Professor Lockhart had suffered brain damage from the cave-in, and was still in a coma. Nobody knew if he would wake up, or when, or how he would be when he did. Lucius Malfoy had also been sacked as a school governor, for his part in the whole thing (the parts they could prove, anyway).
Ginny Weasley, on the other hand, was feeling a lot better. She had to see a mind healer because of the trauma of having her mind repeatedly violated, and then the stuff down in the chamber, but she was already doing a lot better by the end of the year.
Hagrid also came back from Azkaban, a little shaken up but otherwise unharmed.
On the train home, Harry found out why Percy had scared Ginny off when she was trying to tell Harry about her role in things, and also why Percy was so weird about it to Ron and Hermione; apparently he and the Ravenclaw prefect Penelope Clearwater were a couple, and Ginny had caught them snogging; Percy had thought Ginny was going to tell on him.
On a more positive note, Harry made sure to give his phone number to his friends, with instructions on how to use a phone for those who needed them, though he didn't think Dobby would be a problem anymore, and there was always Netty anyway.
Then, as they pulled into the station, he prepared himself for another summer with the Dursleys. He smiled when he saw Dumbledore at the platform waiting for him in another lurid three-piece suit that drew quite as much attention as the man's wizard robes would have, and took his headmaster's hand once they were somewhere safe to Apparate from. And with a twirl, they were away.
Endnote one: Vocabo acidum – the acid-conjuring spell – is my own creation, for this fic.
Endnote two: Sorry for the long wait. Hope the long chapter made up for it. :-)
Note: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made.
Note 2: There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though.
Chapter 1: Escape
At Number 4, Privet Drive, in Surrey, a nice young black man named Harry Potter, less than a month from being a teenager, was packing the few of his belongings he'd not already unpacked after a mere fortnight at home with his aunt, uncle, and cousin. He was glad for it, too; even with the spells in place to protect him from them, even with Netty around to make sure he was being fed enough, the Dursleys were always unpleasant, and had been even more so this time around, due to a phone call he'd received from his friend Ron Weasley his first week back.
Ron, being a wizard, didn't know how to use a phone, and had shouted into the mouthpiece so loudly Harry could hear it from the dining room. Naturally, his uncle had bellowed back. It was only the enchantments in place and Netty's presence that forced the beefy man's anger to be replaced by fear and remembering when he'd rounded on his nephew and come face to face with a house elf instead. His expression had frozen into a mix of the two emotions, then he'd stormed off without saying a word. Harry had been tolerating similar looks from all the Dursleys for the past week since then, so he was especially glad to be leaving.
As if that wasn't enough, he'd overheard the Dursleys discussing inviting Aunt Marge over for an extended stay. He was very glad that they were both agreed it was impossible until Harry was out of the house, and found himself very relieved to have Netty and Dumbledore's magic to protect him while he was here. Aunt Marge – who was Uncle Vernon's sister and so not a blood relative, thankfully – hated Harry worse than his aunt and uncle did, and never missed an opportunity to express this hatred. Harry had enough bad memories from her visits to last three lifetimes, so he was quite glad to be leaving long before she would be arriving. Not even a brief thought of revenge was enough to make him even consider staying behind a moment longer than he needed to. If that meant Aunt Marge would be convinced he had been sent back early to St. Brutus's School for Incurably Criminal Boys – the school the Dursleys told everyone he went to – for bad behavior, then so be it.
Hedwig – his owl – squawked in her cage, not liking to be cooped up.
“Sorry girl,” he said sympathetically, “but Dumbledore will be here soon to pick us up. Once we're at Ron's place, I'll let you fly free, okay?”
She blinked with annoyed acceptance of this, and settled down.
There was a ring of the doorbell. Harry went downstairs and heard arguments; his relatives didn't want to answer the door, knowing who it would be. So Netty finally shouted back at them in her high-pitched little voice.
“FINE! I IS GETTING THE DOOR THEN FOR THE DURSLEY FAMILY, THEN IS I?”
Before the Dursleys could protest, Harry heard the door open.
“Professor Dumbledore, sir. Welcome back. Come in, come in please, sir.”
“Thank you very much, Netty. You are most kind.”
Having confirmation that it was Dumbledore, Harry went back to his room to grab his trunk.
“Locomotor trunk,” he said, pointing his wand at his trunk, forgetting he wasn't technically allowed to do magic, and forgetting that there had been an exception put on this house for Netty and the protective spells. It was only when the Dursleys shrieked at his blatant display of magic, and he spotted Dumbledore again, that he remembered.
“Er... oops.”
“'Oops' what, Harry?” Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling. “I saw nothing unusual.”
Harry canceled the spell anyway, and let Netty grab the trunk and disapparate with it in tow, the loud CRACK! making the Dursleys jump in fright. Dudley took off running for his room.
“So, Harry, that was everything of yours in there?”
“Yes, sir. I've been ready to go since yesterday.”
“Good. Then take my hand, Harry, and we will leave your relatives alone.”
He did, and they twirled on the spot, disapparating with a soft pop. And Harry once more felt the sensation of being squeezed through a very tight tube before appearing in the grass outside the Burrow. Having purposefully foregone his most recent meal, his retching didn't bring much up.
Hedwig screeched at him the moment he stood up. He paused to wipe his mouth.
“Yes, girl, I'm coming. Hold your hippogriffs.”
When he opened her cage, she immediately flew out, looking very happy to be free, and went off hunting.
“Feeling better, Harry?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good,” Dumbledore said. “Let us go find Molly now.”
Mrs. Weasley, and the other Weasleys, were all at the dinner table. Harry had arrived just as she was pouring stew into everyone's bowls. He was pleased to notice they'd set a place for him.
“Hello, Harry my dear!” Mrs. Weasley said cheerfully. “Go wash up and then you can sit down, you're just in time for dinner.”
Harry smiled. “Thank you, Mrs. Weasley,” he said, then went off to the loo to wash up.
When he came back and sat down, the pot of stew magically tipped some stew into his bowl. It smelled delicious, and tasted even better than it smelled; Mrs. Weasley was an excellent cook. He wondered if she'd done well in Potions in school, since Potions is a lot like cooking.
As he ate, he was oblivious to the fact that Ginny was pointedly looking anywhere but at him. He was enjoying his meal far too much. But once he got enough food in his stomach, he started looking up, and noticed he was sitting right next to Percy. He began to talk with Percy. He liked talking with Percy; he had some suspicions about Percy having Asperger's as well, since the older boy liked to talk all about the things he'd achieved or was interested in to anyone who would hold still long enough, and didn't mind when Harry did the same thing back at him. But then, that was only one potential Asperger's trait, a trait that Asperger's shared with quite a few other conditions. And even neurotypical people could have that character trait, too.
Percy was currently talking all about his upcoming N.E.W.T.'s, the tests seventh years had to take to get good careers. Percy was taking a lot of subjects, and had a particular affinity for arithmancy, something that interested Harry as well, as he was going to take it this year. Harry always appreciated any chance to learn from older students, but a lot of what Percy was talking about was years ahead of him and made no sense to him as a result.
“Oh for goodness sake, Perce, shut up already,” one of the twins said, exasperated.
“Excuse you, but Percy was talking and I was listening.”
“You could stand to listen to that prattle?”
“It was a lot more interesting than a lot of what you go on about,” Harry snapped back.
“Oooh, Harry's defending Perce. Does Harry lurrrve Percy?”
Harry looked at him, confused. “What are you on about?”
“Yeah, Fred, that was lame. Everyone knows Harry and Luna are an item,” said George.
“Doesn't mean Harry can't be involved in a torrid love square.”
“Love square?” asked George.
“Yeah, a love square. Because if Harry fancies Luna and Percy, and Ginny fancies Harry, that's four people, so not a love triangle, but a love square.”
“'Love quadrangle' would fit the spirit of the term better, and would be more accurate,” Harry said. “But I'm not in love with anyone. Luna's a friend, and so is Percy. He listens to my prattle, so I listen to his. It's as simple as that.”
“And I am grateful, Harry,” said Percy pompously, “that there's someone in my life who gets as excited about things as I do, someone who listens to me.”
“What's a quadrangle?” asked Ron.
“Fancy-pants way of saying a square, Ronniekins,” said George.
“Yeah, triangle has three angles. Quadrangle has four.”
“Not all quadrangles are squares,” Harry said. “There's rectangles, for one. And diamonds, among others.”
“There we go, then; 'love rectangle.'” Fred said.
“Love diamond,” countered George.
“Oh for heaven's sake, would you lot just eat and stop arguing with each other?” Mrs. Weasley asked, exasperated.
With a few grumbles, they went back to eating. A few minutes passed before Harry and Percy went back to their discussion. Percy was talking with him now about entry-level arithmancy stuff, which Harry was having more luck with, as it was basically just primary-school level maths.
That night, in Ron's room, he got out his two-way mirror and used it to talk with Luna, as he'd done every day of the holidays. The two of them talked about many things, including about Harry visiting Luna at her house. He hadn't yet had a chance to meet her father or see her house.
And so the next morning, he ate quickly and then asked Mrs. Weasley about it.
“Mrs. Weasley? May I go visit Luna at her house?”
“Oh, I don't know, dear,” she said, thinking.
“You let me go to the village library last time I was here,” he pointed out. “She lives in the village.”
“Hmm... well, go ask Percy if he'll go with you again. If he will, then you can. If not, then no. Unless you can find someone else responsible like Percy.”
“Okay, Mrs. Weasley,” he said.
He went upstairs and knocked gently on Percy's door. The door opened sharply and an irate Percy looked out, but softened when he saw Harry.
“Oh, hello there, Harry. I thought you were Fred or George bothering me again.”
“Hi. I wanted to visit Luna at her house today, and your mum said I could only do it if I could get you or someone equally responsible to come with me.”
Percy opened his mouth to speak, but paused, thinking.
“Well, I was going to write another letter to Penny, but I daresay she's busy with things at the moment. I guess I can do it later.”
“Letters? You mean you and Penelope don't have a two-way mirror to talk with each other through?”
Percy turned red. “Yes, well, that would be nice, but you know, the expense of it. So we use letters.”
“Oh, okay. So, um... are you coming with me?”
“What? Oh, yes Harry. Yes I am. I'm interested to see Xeno's house, too.”
He and Percy went downstairs, where they met Ron and the twins. Percy scowled at the twins.
“You two going to the village, we hear? George and I might as well go with you, we want to stop at the library.”
Percy relaxed a little. “I suppose that's okay. And you, Ron? Are you coming, too?”
“Yeah,” said Ron. “I'm curious about Luna's house and her dad, too. Unless you and Luna want to be alone together?”
Harry's dark face went momentarily darker in embarrassment, “No, that's fine. Ron, you can come with Percy and me.”
And so a few minutes later, the five boys were headed off to Luna's house, Harry using the two-way mirror to get directions to it from Luna. Despite a few wrong turns, they found it. The twins, having decided they wanted to see the place before going to the library, were there.
“It looks like a giant chess rook,” Ron said.
The twins chuckled. “Oh yeah, this is the Lovegood house alright,” George said. “From what I've heard of the Lovegoods, this is exactly their style.”
There was a bush on the property as well, with floating fruits. A sign next to it indicated they were 'dirigible plums.' One other sign nearby identified Xenophilius Lovegood as the editor of a magazine called The Quibbler (which Harry remembered was an... interesting read), and another said 'Pick your own mistletoe.'
“Well, we've seen the place now, so Fred and I are heading off to the library,” George said. They waved the twins goodbye, and proceeded to the gate and opened it.
The path from the gate to the door was overgrown with a variety of plants, some of them possibly dangerous. They were all glad to see the door at last, which was thick, black, studded with iron nails, and had an eagle-head door knocker. Harry reached out and knocked three times with the knocker.
Harry had hardly let go of the knocker when the door opened, and Luna stood there in baby-blue robes, smiling at Harry.
“Harry, how nice to see you,” Luna said as though his appearance was a pleasant surprise. “Harry, Percy, Ron, please come in.”
The three boys entered the house, looking around curiously. They were standing in the most peculiar kitchen Harry had ever seen. The room was perfectly circular, so that it felt like being inside a giant pepper pot. Everything was curved to fit the walls — the stove, the sink, and the cupboards — and all of it had been painted with flowers, insects, and birds in bright primary colors. Harry thought he recognized Luna’s style: The effect, in such an enclosed space, was slightly overwhelming.
In the middle of the floor, a wrought-iron spiral staircase led to the upper levels. There was a great deal of clattering and banging coming from overhead. Harry wondered if Luna's father were making that noise, and what it was he was doing if so. But then a man in neon green robes walked in, and he was unmistakably Luna's father. His hair was long and white and looked like candyfloss, and one eye was pointed at his own nose, apparently stuck in that position. He beamed at Harry when he entered.
“This must be Harry Potter,” Xenophilius Lovegood said with excitement, shaking Harry's hand with great fervor. “My Luna has told me all about you, Mr. Potter. It's a pleasure to meet you at last.”
“Likewise, sir,” Harry said politely.
“And who are these other two strapping lads? Hmm... red hair and freckles, are you Weasleys?”
Ron and Percy nodded. Percy held his hand out pompously for Mr. Lovegood to shake.
“Hello, Mr. Lovegood. Percy Weasley, seventh-year Griffindor Prefect. It is a pleasure to meet you.”
“A pleasure to meet you, too, young Mr. Weasley. I've met your father, of course. Charming man, a connoisseur of everything Muggle.”
“Yes, that is our father indeed,” Percy answered.
“And you are... no, let me guess. You look to be Harry's age, so you must be Ronald Weasley. Correct?”
“Yes. Everyone calls me Ron, though.”
“Of course, Ron, of course. Anyway, pleasant as it is to meet you, I must go upstairs and stop the printing press before it goes overboard again. I daresay you'll want to spend time in a quiet house, as opposed to one with all this racket. Excuse me.”
Mr. Lovegood went up the spiral staircase and disappeared upstairs. A few seconds later, the clattering noise stopped, and the room was blessedly silent.
“Printing press?” Harry asked.
“Oh yes. My daddy is editor of The Quibbler. He prints it himself.”
“Ah yes, The Quibbler. How much for the new issue?”
“For you, Harry, you can have one free,” she said, pulling one off of a pile on a chair and handing it to him. “Just make sure to be seen reading it once we get to school. Harry Potter liking our magazine is good for sales.”
“Will do. I'll save reading it for later, then, so I don't have to pretend to be reading it.” He rolled it up and put it in his robe pockets.
She beamed at him. “Excellent. Now, I know it's nowhere near tea-time yet, but would anyone care for some tea?”
The three boys all agreed, and so she tapped a tea kettle with her wand, making it boil at once. Soon, they were all sitting down at the kitchen table and drinking tea. Harry was seated right next to Luna, and Ron giggled every once in a while as he caught the two of them holding hands.
“Luna my love,” her father said, carrying several large boxes in his hands, “could you get the door? I need to get these to the owl-post office.”
“Yes, Daddy,” she said, getting up at once and holding the door for him. Then she got the gate for him, leaving the front door open. Harry and the others watched as he turned on the spot and disapparated.
When she came back in, closing the door, and sat down again, she spoke.
“Daddy has been selling more copies lately. Not much more, but more. I think having seen you reading them has helped sales.”
“Speaking of which, I need to get a subscription. And I insist on paying for it.”
“Well, if you insist,” she said, and told him the price. He handed over the money.
“Daddy will be pleased,” she said, pulling a list out of a drawer and adding Harry's name to it.
As the rest of the afternoon unfolded, Ron and Percy were largely fifth wheels, since Harry and Luna were so engrossed in their own discussion. Though Percy did get to speak once in a while, as some of the things they talked about overlapped his own interests. But Ron was quickly very bored, and got up to look around the house, admiring Luna's art.
“Oh,” Luna said, spotting Ron examining her paintings. “That reminds me, Harry, I want to show you my bedroom.”
There was an awkward silence as Ron and Percy both looked at Luna. Percy was disapproving, but Ron was stifling giggles.
Perhaps picking up on their thoughts, Luna said, “You two can come as well. I have more art in there.”
Mollified, Percy stood up and smiled. Ron was still trying not to giggle, but it looked easier now.
“Lead the way, Luna,” Harry said.
She led them up the spiral staircase into a room much like a cross between a living room and a workspace. There were loads of piles of papers everywhere, as well as the wooden printing press that had been clattering earlier, and many models of strange creatures. But this wasn't her room. They continued up the stairs to the next level.
Luna had decorated her bedroom ceiling with three beautifully painted faces: Harry, Ron, and Hermione. They were not moving as the portraits at Hogwarts moved, but there was a certain magic about them all the same: Harry thought they breathed. They weren't alone, either; four more portraits were in varying states of completion. Of the four, only one was recognizable as anyone yet, and just barely looked like Ginny. Another was barely begun, and the other two were just empty rectangles. If he'd had to hazard a guess, the others would be Antigone, Angela, and Danzia. But that was just a guess.
What appeared to be fine golden chains wove around the pictures, linking them together, but after examining them for a minute or so, Harry realized that the chains were actually one word, repeated a thousand times in golden ink: friends … friends … friends …
Harry felt a great rush of affection for Luna. He looked around the room. There was a large photograph beside the bed, of a young Luna and a woman who looked very like her. They were hugging. Luna looked rather better-groomed in this picture than Harry had ever seen her in life.
“My mother,” Luna explained. “She died when an experiment of hers backfired.”
Harry felt sad for Luna, and set the picture back down, hugging her fiercely.
Luna could have cried then, but she didn't. She just hugged Harry back, stroking his hair as though she were comforting him, not the other way around.
When they pulled apart at last, Luna spoke.
“Of course, this doesn't look the same as it did before Christmas. Harry's and Ron's portraits I did after meeting you before your first year in Hogwarts. I started Hermione's and Ginny's during the Christmas holidays, but only finished Hermione's a couple nights ago. Ginny's was barely recognizable at the time.”
“Who's gonna be in the others?” Harry asked.
“Angela, Antigone, and Danzia, of course,” she replied.
“Of course.”
“Shall we go back to get more tea?”
“Sure, I could have some more.”
“Luna,” Ron said, “these are amazing!” He indicated the paintings.
“Thank you, Ron.”
~
Harry wanted to visit Luna everyday, but between Percy having homework over break and Harry's own homework, he and Luna only saw one another once every two or three days. Sometimes she'd come over to the Burrow, other times he'd visit her at her house. The latter was made easier when Mr. Lovegood started coming over to fetch Harry, and then escorting him back after.
The whole summer looked to be going that way, until one day Mr. Weasley came back with the news that his family had won a ton of galleons from some Daily Prophet giveaway, and that they were going to go on a trip to Egypt. Harry was very excited for them, but at the same time, he was concerned. He didn't know if he would be allowed to go or not, and he didn't want to go back to the Dursley's any time soon.
He was worrying about this at dinnertime when Percy paused his babble and looked in concern at Harry.
“Harry? You haven't been listening, which is unusual for you. Are you alright?”
“What? Oh... yeah, I've been thinking.”
“About what?”
Harry paused. The words were right there in his brain, aching to get out. He need only say them. But he suddenly found speaking to be impossible. At first he was panicky; what was this? Had the pathway from his brain to his mouth collapsed? But then he remembered something he'd read once about Asperger's and realized that he was simply having a non-verbal incident. Some people with Asperger's or other conditions could find themselves unable to speak when under stress. Knowing this, and knowing that it would pass, he felt better. But he still couldn't speak.
Unable to speak, he scraped his fork back and forth across his plate. It made a noise that made everyone else grit their teeth, but something about the sound comforted him, relaxed him. And before Mrs. Weasley could tell him to stop it, he stopped it on his own and found his voice.
“I'm just wondering where I'm going to go while you're all in Egypt.”
“Oh Harry, sweetie,” Mrs. Weasley said comfortingly, “you're coming with us, of course.”
Harry perked up. “I am?”
“Well yes. We already talked with Dumbledore about it. He didn't see any reason not to. Death Eaters wouldn't think to look for you there, and even if you got lost, you could just call for Netty and she could help you.”
“You can call house elves from that far away?”
“According to Dumbledore, yes. He would know better than we would.”
“Wow! Thanks, Mrs. Weasley!”
“You're welcome, dear.”
~
For the next few days, while they got ready to go, Harry could speak of nothing else. When he wasn't packing, he was either reading about Egypt from Muggle library books or talking people's ears off about what he'd read. This exasperated most of them, even Ron, but Percy would just smile and listen, or add what he knew about wizarding Egypt to the conversation.
On the day they were to leave, all packed and dressed for Egypt, they walked into the International Wizarding Travel Agency office. Before they could get their portkey out, though, a man from the Daily Prophet insisted on taking a photo of them in front of a very large wizarding photo of Egypt, for the paper. Harry had to take some potions and do some meditating while standing before he was ready to be in the photo, but he managed to do it without being sick. Though now he was in a state to be paying attention, he noticed that the purple smoke the camera made when it went off smelled bad; very bad. Like rotten eggs mixed with week-old dirty diapers.
When that was done, they all went to a large room full of people leaving and returning by magic. They would be given all sorts of strange rubbish before leaving, and would leave behind weird rubbish upon their return.
“Portkeys,” Mr. Weasley said, spotting Harry's confused look. “They have to look like rubbish so Muggles won't go picking them up.”
“Oh,” Harry said. Then, after thinking about it for a moment, said, “Just one flaw in that plan; some Muggles pick up rubbish to make places look nicer, and because some kinds of rubbish are dangerous to animals.”
“Yes, well, it's not foolproof. Occasionally Muggles like that do have to have their memories modified. But most Muggles ignore rubbish, so it's the best option.”
Harry nodded.
When it was their turn to go, a bored man in a purple robe handed Mr. Weasley an old, beat-up, and bent golf club. The Weasleys all took hold of part of it; catching on quickly, so did Harry. He looked up at the man, who noticed his scar with the usual shock of recognition. But before the man could say anything, there was a jerk behind Harry's navel, and the world was swirling around him; he was being jostled against the bodies of the other Weasleys, too.
Then, as suddenly as it had started, they landed, falling down, and Harry hastily turned himself over so he could vomit without drowning himself.
Another equally bored-looking woman, a witch wearing a hijab, lazily cleaned up the sick with her wand, and took the golf club and tossed it into a box.
“Welcome to Egypt,” the woman said in what Harry guessed was an Egyptian accent. “Please enjoy your stay in our lovely country. In the next room, you will find the information kiosk and help desk. Have a lovely time.”
“That we shall, thank you.”
The next room was more than a kiosk, though; it was a large room filled with all sorts of brochures, maps, postcards, and souvenirs. Harry had never been in a gift shop before, but from what he'd seen on the telly, it was obvious that this was one.
Having already gotten money from Gringott's before leaving, they shopped around. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley already had maps and brochures from previous trips, so they didn't need to buy any maps, but they looked around anyway.
There were books, too, he soon found; books about wizarding Egypt. He didn't even hesitate before buying one. Along with text, it had loads of wizarding photos of things like the pyramids, tombs from the Valley of the Kings, and reproductions of ancient wizarding Egyptian art, stuff the Muggles had never seen before. There was even a section in the book about how the “explorers” from Europe – Muggle and magical alike – had damaged or destroyed a lot of things back in the day, including everything from blasting the noses off statues to hide the fact that the ancient Egyptians were “negroid,” to how people used to ingest ground-up mummies for various odd reasons. It was all so fascinating that he decided he was going to add some of this information to his History of Magic essay.
“Hey Ron,” Harry said excitedly. “The ancient Egyptians were black, like me! Oldest human civilization on Earth that we know stuff about, and they were black!”
“Cool,” Ron said, lost in his own thoughts about what to buy.
Harry found another book, about modern-day Egypt and its people; the wizarding kind, anyway. Harry bought it, too, and made a mental note to himself to look into buying similar books from Muggle shops.
When they had bought everything they were going to in the gift shop, the Weasleys and Harry went on to a nearby wizarding inn. Its sign was in Arabic, but Harry had bought a pair of Translator Glasses in the gift shop; it looked like a set of opera glasses, but the eyepieces were much bigger. He held it up by the thicker stick it needed because of the extra weight, and looked at the sign through it.
'Pharaoh's Bones Inn' came the translation. Harry moved his eyes away from the Translator Glasses and noticed an image carved in stone over the name, of what looked like a pirate's skull and crossbones, but was wearing one of those colorful Pharaoh hats instead, and a Pharaoh beard. Also, the crossbones were the ancient Egyptian hook and flail that their kings always held in their art, and the skull's eye sockets had glittering stones in them that looked like the shiny, multi-colored surface you see on scarab beetles.
Harry could see the sign so well because it was up in the sunlight, whereas they were down in the shade. Harry was thankful for this, as the air was already hot enough that he was starting to wonder if brains could melt.
They went into the inn, which was much brighter and nicer looking than the Leaky Cauldron. It was also a lot larger on the inside than it had seemed to be on the outside. So much so that he was momentarily shocked, before he remembered that magic could do all sorts of cool things.
There were cooling charms on the inside of the building, of course, which meant Harry's thoughts were no longer slowed down by the sluggish feeling of one's brain melting in the heat. The inn also supplied them with magical white robes to wear outdoors, since these robes had built-in cooling charms. Apparently these robes were part of the travel package, as the Weasleys seemed to not recognize them.
After packing everything away, they had dinner, which was a buffet of familiar and foreign foods. Harry, thinking back to the Dursleys and how they refused to eat anything foreign, decided to take a mix of things both foreign and familiar so he could try some things and still have something to eat if he didn't like the things he tried. But he found that most of the things he tried were good; there were only a few things he tried that he didn't like.
After dinner, Harry and Ron talked for a while. Then Ron went to bed. Harry sat up reading for an hour before going to bed himself.
“This summer is going to be awesome,” he said to himself as he began to drift off.
~
The summer was indeed awesome for Harry. He still had issues being around crowds of people, still had headaches, and still carried helpful potions around on his person everywhere he went, but aside from that, he was having a blast. There were pyramids and ancient wizarding tombs full of mutant skeletons from the curses the wizards had left behind for unsuspecting tomb robbers. Fred and George tried locking Percy in a tomb, but Mrs. Weasley caught them, and Harry agreed that it was a horrible thing to do to someone, even a brother.
There were also other things to see; the Egyptian version of Diagon Alley; its name, translated into English, meant 'Wizarding Way.' ('Way' in the sense of a road.) There were all sorts of shops, more even than Diagon Alley, that sold a plethora of unfamiliar objects. The books came in different languages, and Harry had some fun reading the foreign-language books with the Translator Glasses. This set appeared to be best suited for Arabic-to-English translation; translating any other language than Arabic would usually end in hilarity as the words would be either complete or partial nonsense. Harry could've sworn he even saw, in one of the books, a phrase that got garble-translated into the words 'my hovercraft is full of eels.'
On July 31st, Harry awoke to the sound of owls. He hastily opened his window and let them in, and they carried in a large package. Neither of them seemed happy about the sand in their feathers, so he gave them some owl treats. One was a school owl, and the other was Hedwig. He took the Hogwarts letter from the school owl, and, fed and watered, it flew back out into the hot Egyptian morning.
The big package was a birthday present, the first he'd gotten on time since Netty had needed to steal his post back from Dobby the year before. There was also a birthday card. The gift and card were from Hermione. There was also a letter from her in there, too.
Dear Harry,
Happy 13th birthday! You're officially a teenager now!
I’m on holiday in France at the moment and I didn’t know how I was going to send this to you — what if they’d opened it at customs? — but then Hedwig turned up! I think she wanted to make sure you got something for your birthday for a change. I bought your present by owl-order; there was an advertisement in the Daily Prophet (I’ve been getting it delivered; it’s so good to keep up with what’s going on in the wizarding world).
I'm so excited for you and Ron, going to Egypt. I bet you're learning loads. I’m really jealous — the ancient Egyptian wizards were fascinating.
There’s some interesting local history of witchcraft here, too. I’ve rewritten my whole History of Magic essay to include some of the things I’ve found out. I hope it’s not too long — it’s two rolls of parchment more than Professor Binns asked for.
Ron says you two will be in London in the last week of the holidays. Is that right? I hope it is. Either way, I'll see you on the Hogwarts Express on September the 1st.
Love from
Hermione
PS. Ron says Percy’s Head Boy. I’ll bet Percy’s really pleased. Ron doesn’t seem too happy about it.
Harry wondered what was in the package. Knowing Hermione, it was probably a book. He opened it up carefully and looked inside. It was not a book at all, but was in fact a Muggle chemistry set. The set came with a book, though. Harry smiled; it was a bit like getting Potions stuff for his birthday, but different enough that he was fascinated. (Though his life experiences needing potions for things meant he wasn't shabby at Potions.) He'd heard all about chemistry sets before, of course, but there was no way Dudley would ever get one; it was too brainy for him, and even if he'd had an interest in it, Harry didn't like the thought of Dudley getting access to potentially dangerous chemicals.
“Thanks, Hermione,” he said aloud.
There was another parcel that had been left, which he'd only just now noticed. He recognized Hagrid's untidy scrawl. He tore off the top layer of paper and glimpsed something green and leathery, but before he could unwrap it properly, the parcel gave a strange quiver, and whatever was inside it snapped loudly — as though it had jaws.
“Shit,” he said, leaping back. He knew Hagrid would never send him anything dangerous on purpose, but the large man didn't have a normal idea of what constituted 'dangerous.'
Hagrid had been known to befriend giant spiders, buy vicious, three-headed dogs from men in pubs, and sneak illegal dragon eggs into his cabin.
Harry poked the parcel nervously. It snapped loudly again. Harry reached for the lamp on his bedside table, gripped it firmly in one hand, and raised it over his head, ready to strike. Then he seized the rest of the wrapping paper in his other hand and pulled.
And out fell — a book. Harry just had time to register its handsome green cover, emblazoned with the golden title The Monster Book of Monsters, before it flipped onto its edge and scuttled sideways along the bed like some weird crab.
“Shit,” Harry said again.
Knowing he couldn't use his wand, in case whatever magic kept track of underage magic could work in Egypt, he snuck around behind it as it scuttled about, trying to catch it. He finally managed to coax it out into the open, where he jumped atop it, flattening it. As Hedwig watched with interest, he wrestled one of his spare belts around it. The monster book shuddered angrily, but could no longer snap, so Harry threw it down on the bed and reached for Hagrid’s card.
Dear Harry,
Happy birthday!
Think you might find this useful for next year.
Won’t say no more here. Tell you when I see you.How's Egypt? Seen any interesting creatures there yet?
All the best,
Hagrid
Harry snorted with a mix of amusement and sarcasm. He very much hoped he wouldn't see any 'interesting creatures' as Hagrid called them, or 'monsters' as other people called them, on this trip. But Hagrid's question conjured up images of giant sandworms out in the desert swallowing unwary tourists whole, or some kind of man-eating crocodile/hippopotamus hybrid in the Nile's waters, or maybe some kind of magical beetle that lived in great big hives and swarmed over people, gnawing the meat off their bones while they screamed. Those were the sorts of things Hagrid thought were cute and cuddly and misunderstood.
He put Hagrid's card next to Hermione's, and moved on to the Hogwart's letter. Noticing that it was rather thicker than usual, Harry slit open the envelope, pulled out the first page of parchment within, and read:
Dear Mr. Potter,
Please note that the new school year will begin on September the first. The Hogwarts Express will leave from King’s Cross station, platform nine and three-quarters, at eleven o’clock.
Third years are permitted to visit the village of Hogsmeade on certain weekends. Please give the enclosed permission form to your parent or guardian to sign.
A list of books for next year is enclosed.
Yours sincerely,
Professor M. McGonagall
Deputy Headmistress
Harry pulled out the Hogsmeade permission form and looked at it, no longer grinning. It would be wonderful to visit Hogsmeade on weekends; he knew it was an entirely wizarding village, and he had never set foot there. But how on earth was he going to persuade Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia to sign the form? Especially since he was staying with the Weasleys for the rest of the summer? He didn't want to go back, even to ask them to sign something, and he doubted they'd want to sign it anyway, unless he told them it would be dangerous, which would be a lie, as far as he knew.
He considered asking the Weasley twins to forge Uncle Vernon's signature, or do it himself since he didn't think anyone at Hogwart's had ever seen the man's signature, but then how would he explain how he got the signature when he hadn't had a chance to get the real thing?
His thoughts were interrupted when Ron came in.
“Oh good, you're up. Happy birthday!” Ron said, handing him a gift and a birthday card.
The card just said 'Happy birthday, Harry' and Ron's signature. So he set it next to the others and opened the small gift. Out popped what looked like a top, a top that was always magically balanced on its point.
“It's a pocket sneakoscope,” Ron explained. “It's supposed to light up and spin and make noise when anyone untrustworthy is around. Though I don't know how good it is, it kept making noise the night I bought it, at dinner.”
“So that's what that sound was. Also explains why you ran off and came back a bit later.”
“Yeah. I reckon it was going off because of the twins. They were putting beetles in Percy's soup.”
Harry frowned at this. “That's not very nice.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“So is it true that Percy is Head Boy?”
“Oh yeah, he got his letter ahead of the rest of us for some reason; his came in yesterday. Gave me time to mention it to Hermione. She responded already?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow. That's pretty fast for Errol. All the way from Egypt to Britain in less than a day?”
“Hermione isn't in Britain. She's on holiday in the south of France.”
“Oh. Well that explains it, then. He just had to fly over the Mediterranean, then over to France. I wonder when he'll be back.”
“I'd be more inclined to wonder if he'll come back. He can barely manage flights within Britain, but international flights? I hope he hasn't fallen into the sea.”
“Oh. Yeah, hadn't thought of that.”
A couple more owls arrived, then. He didn't recognize these, but when he took their loads from them, he recognized Danzia's handwriting, and Antigone's as well. He read the letters first, before opening the gifts.
“Danzia and her family are on holiday in the states. Oregon, to be specific. They have relatives there, apparently.”
“Oregon? Where's that?”
“West coast, between California and Washington state.”
“Oh. That doesn't really help me, but whatever. What does Antigone say?”
“She and her folks are in Rome.”
“Cool. Well, you gonna open your gifts?”
Harry nodded, and picked up Danzia's gift first, opening it. It was a slice of petrified wood about the size of his fist, and came with a booklet about the magical properties of petrified wood.
“Cool!”
He handed it to Ron so his friend could examine it, too, and moved on to Antigone's present. It was in a large, very fancy green box with silver ribbons. When he opened it, he found another box. Only, this was a silver lock-box encrusted with what looked like emeralds, and had very lifelike emerald serpents on it, with rubies for eyes.
“Bloody Hell! That must cost a fortune!” Ron exclaimed.
“Wow, Antigone...”
“She must fancy you, Harry.”
“Oh don't be silly, Ron; she's dating Angela. Hey, there's a note taped to the bottom.”
Harry,
This is something my father's family bought a century or two ago, as a curiosity. It's said to have belonged to Slytherin, but we both doubt it; it looks like his style but doesn't have his crest or markings anywhere on it. Also, the gems are all fake, and the silver is low quality. Probably a replica. Though whoever used to own it was likely a Parselmouth like Slytherin, as nobody's ever been able to open it, and there's no keyhole. When I told my dad I was trying to find a gift for you, well... given that I accidentally let slip about your gift once to him, and he remembered that fact, daddy suggested this. I thought it was too much, even if it is mostly fake, and maybe it is too much, but he insisted. Though he told me if there's anything inside when you open it, he wants the contents back so he can examine them. He's a historian, you see.
Anyway, happy birthday!
Your friend,
Antigone Dreyfuss
“Wow,” Harry repeated. Then, wanting to know if anything was in it, he switched to Parseltongue. 'Open,' he commanded.
There was a click, and the box opened up. Sadly, though, there didn't appear to be anything in it.
“Drat. I was hoping something cool would be in it. Oh well.”
“Check it for secret compartments.”
“A secret compartment in a box only a Parselmouth can open?”
Ron shrugged. “You never know.”
Harry felt around inside the box, and felt only the green felt it was lined with.
“If there's a secret compartment, it's well hidden. I'll keep trying, later.”
“Mr. Dreyfuss is going to be disappointed.”
“He's not the only one.”
Harry closed the box and put it in his trunk, along with Danzia's gift.
Yet another owl swooped through the window then. He took its burden from it, and saw it was from Luna. It had a great long letter from her, even though they'd been using the two-way mirror, as well as a card. He added the three new cards to his collection, and looked at the gift. It was smallish. He wondered what it could be.
“Well, open it.”
Before he could open it, two other owls flew in.
“A parliament of owls,” Harry said as he set Luna's gift aside to check these owls.
He was shocked to recognize one of them; it was Draco's eagle owl. There was no gift, just a letter and a card.
“You got something from Malfoy?” Ron said in bewilderment.
“Looks like it.”
“Careful, Harry!”
“Oh come now. He may not be a friend exactly, but he hangs out with us at MAC meetings, so he's not an enemy either.”
Contrary to Ron's fears, neither the card nor the letter were booby trapped. The card had a design of serpents on it, naturally. The inside of the card said simply, “Happy Birthday, Harry Potter, from your friend Draco Malfoy.”
He looked at the letter, and read it.
Dear Harry Potter,
Happy birthday to you, Mr. Potter. I apologize for the formal style of this letter and the card, but as I'm still unclear about the precise nature of our relationship, I decided that this level of formality was called for. I also apologize for not getting you a gift, but again, with the complicated nature of our relationship, I wasn't sure if I should. Nor would I know what to get you if I could. But I wanted to send you my regards on your birthday anyway, that much seemed only polite. Especially since you have opened my eyes and made me question the hatred my parents have for a people they don't even understand, the hatred I shared with them until you opened my eyes.
It has not been an easy thing, having my eyes opened. Many of my friends are not speaking to me anymore, and my parents do not understand. Father gets angry, but thankfully he restrains himself to yelling, being unable or unwilling to harm his only child and heir. But as much as I love my parents, it will be something of a relief to return to Hogwarts. At least I have been becoming friends with a few new people in Slytherin. You know them, of course: Antigone Dreyfuss, Angela Whitechapel, and Danzia McCullough.
But I did not write you to burden you with my problems. I wrote you to express my thanks for opening my eyes, for taking a chance on me, and also to wish you well on your birthday. Which I have now done. I hope the rest of your summer is fun and amazing.
Best wishes,
Draco Malfoy
PS = I have instructed my owl to wait for your reply, if you wish to reply, but if you would prefer not to, you may send him away instead. I will not be offended.
Harry handed Ron the letter to read himself, and went on to the last owl. It was another with a card, a gift, and a letter, this time from Angela. He set her card and Draco's with the others, and opened the gift. It turned out to be a candy sampler from Honeyduke's. There were ice mice, sugar quills, fizzing whizbees, and several varieties of chocolates. It reminded him of Ron's usual gifts of chocolates or other candy. He guessed candy was generally a good thing to send when you didn't know what to get the other person, or didn't have much money to spend. Unless it was fancy chocolates, for some reason.
Suddenly, he remembered Luna's gift, and picked it up from its spot on the bed. He opened it, and there was a small box in there, like a jewelry box. Ron watched him as he opened the box and took out some sort of weird-looking amulet on a chain. He grabbed Luna's letter and read it for clues.
Dear Harry,
Best wishes on your birthday, Harry!
Since you're probably wondering about the gift, I'll tell you. Unless you're reading this letter first, in which case you should open the gift before reading further. I'll wait for you.
Ready now? Good. So the amulet makes different sounds when you press the different jewels. When you press the green gem, it makes a musical tone that's supposed to chase away Scrabjabbles, which are creatures that hide out of sight and give people headaches. Play that tone and they will go away.
The blue gem, when you press it, emits a tone that humans can't hear. Animals can hear it, and it drives them wild, but humans, not even Animagi, can hear it. I don't know why they included that feature in the amulet, but maybe you'll find a use for it.
The purple gem emits a harsh, low tone like gravel being crushed sideways. I was told it is the mating call of the Lesser Bagrack; bagracks look like stones, and only move at night, so slowly you almost can't see it. If you can capture one, they will tell you three prophecies about your life in exchange for their freedom. If you don't let them go after they've given the prophecies, though, then when you die your soul will remain earthbound, which is worse even than leaving a ghost behind, so be careful. Because it's a Lesser Bagrack, they will range in size from pebbles to no larger than fist-sized.
As to the red gem, that one will scream very loudly if you press it. But don't worry about accidentally pressing it, because you have to press it very hard to get it to do it. I tried pressing it for hours, and only managed it once.
Well, I'll leave the rest for our talk later. Hope you enjoy your gift. :-)
Love from
Luna
Harry smiled. He put the weird amulet around his neck, and tried out the green gem. Sure enough, it played airy, tinkling music that did indeed sound very soothing. How it would sound when he had a headache, though, he didn't know.
He tried the blue gem. Immediately, all the owls went nuts, flapping and shrieking, so he stopped, and they began to calm down, giving him angry glares.
The purple gem did indeed sound like a bunch of gravel being crushed sideways by a larger piece of stone. It was soothing, in a way, relaxing, like the sound of silverware on plates was for him. He played it a few more times before Ron's glares made him decide to stop.
He decided to take Luna's word for what the red stone did. He slipped the amulet under his shirt, put his gifts and cards away, and decided to go to breakfast. He would write his friends thank you letters later.
Halfway through breakfast, Harry got out the amulet and tried the blue gem again. The shrieking of the owls in his room immediately carried all the way down to the table, though, so he stopped at once. Shaken, he reached over a sleeping Scabbers for some more eggs.
Later on, when they were going out again and he was thus far away from any animals, at least as far as he could tell, he played with the blue gem some more. No animals were around to react to it. But he noticed something else; it hadn't been noticeable before, due to the owls shrieking, but Harry could hear the sound. It was faint, but he could hear it. And it was mildly annoying to him, the sound.
“Can you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Ron asked.
“This,” Harry said, pressing the button.
“No. Should I?”
“Humans aren't supposed to be able to hear it, Luna said. So why can I hear it? Granted, it's quiet to me, and only mildly annoying, but I can hear it.”
“No idea. Could it be cuz you've got Assburger's?”
“Asperger's,” Harry automatically corrected. “Maybe. Yeah, that must be it. We can have enhanced senses, sometimes more than one.”
~
On the 22nd of August, Harry surprised Percy by giving the older boy a birthday present.
“Harry, this is... you didn't need to get me anything.”
“I know I didn't need to. I wanted to. The way your siblings act around you, I thought you could use a gift.”
Percy stared at the unopened present.
“Are you going to open it?”
“Oh, yes.”
Percy opened the gift with a care that suggested he wasn't used to getting gifts, and pulled it out of the wrapping. His face scrunched up in confusion for a moment before he turned to Harry for an explanation.
“It's a set of two-way mirrors. Send one to Penelope, and you'll be able to talk face-to-face with her from great distances.”
“Wow. Harry... this is the most thoughtful gift I've ever gotten.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. My parents usually get us jumpers and food for gifts. On the rare occasion I get something better, like Hermes, it's things I picked out. And my siblings just get me chocolates or candy. This is amazing. I'll send one to Penelope straight away, thank you!”
Percy shook Harry's hand with his free hand, smiling the whole time, then ran off to send his girlfriend her half of the set. Harry grinned at the boy's back, happy for him.
~
Harry was exhausted in a happy way when they returned on August 25th. This happiness was shared by all the Weasleys, but it didn't last long in the adults, for something was making them nervous and scared. Harry had no idea what was making them feel that way, though, and they wouldn't answer when he asked about it.
This frustrated him. But he paid attention, and noticed that their feelings seemed to be centered around newspapers, so he tried to get a hold of the Daily Prophet, but the adults always beat him to it. After a couple days, he got frustrated enough to send Hedwig off to the Daily Prophet to buy a subscription for himself.
The next morning, he got his first paper, and he saw what had them worried. A prisoner had escaped from some place called Azkaban, the wizarding prison that Hagrid had been sent to in the year previous, before being cleared and returned. A prisoner, moreover, who had been a prisoner for 12 years, who had apparently killed 13 people with a single curse.
But something bothered him about the man's face, there was something familiar in it. He couldn't figure out why, though.
For the next few days, he pondered on the problem every chance he got, talking to the other Weasley children – including Percy – when he could, even asking Luna about the man. But nobody knew anything.
It was after dinner that he got the idea. They were, after all, very good at doing things, and people tended to not take notice of them...
“Netty!”
With a small CRACK, Netty the house elf appeared before him.
“Harry Potter is calling Netty for something? What is it Netty can be getting for Harry Potter?”
“Hello, Netty. Thanks for coming. I was wondering if you could please find me information about this man, Sirius Black?”
Netty shuddered.
“You know something?”
“Well, yes, Harry Potter. Netty is hearing things, of course. Sirius Black is a bad man, they says. He is killing--”
“--thirteen people with a single curse, yes I know about that. I want to know about what he was doing before that. I want to know, if you can find out, why he killed all those people, as well. There's something familiar about the man, and I can't figure out why. I want to know why, so any information you can find about him would help me.”
“Netty can ask around among the other house elves, sir. They sometimes hears things that isn't secrets. We keeps our masters secrets and our silence, but some things we is able to speak about because they isn't secrets. I is seeing what I can find out for you, sir,” she said, bowing.
“Thank you, Netty.”
The disapparated with a CRACK, and Harry went back to thinking on the problem.
There was, of course, more to it than the familiarity of the man's face. There was also the fact that the adults seemed very worried for Harry in particular, and also unwilling to say anything about it. And given Harry's track record in the wizarding world so far, he suspected the man was after him in particular for some reason. Maybe he was in league with Voldemort during the last war? Harry didn't know why he would escape after 12 years, but then, maybe it took that long to work out how to do it. So the man might be wanting to help his old master? Or, if he thought his old master dead, maybe he wanted revenge on Harry? No matter what the reasons, though, he needed to know all he could, in case the man was a threat.
Since he was getting nowhere without more information, he decided to write thank-you letters to his friends. Deciding that gave him the idea, then, to ask them about Sirius Black. And, what they heck, why not ask Draco as well? Ron had said Mr. Malfoy had been a Death Eater, and his involvement with Tom Riddle's diary seemed to confirm that, so maybe he'd told Draco something about Sirius Black at some point.
Between asking about Black and telling about his time in Egypt, it took him all night to write his letters to his friends. In the end, there were so many of them that he ended up borrowing Errol and Hermes as well as using Hedwig, and even then it took a couple days to get all the letters sent off. He sent Hedwig to deliver his letter to Draco. That letter he'd written informally, to indicate that he was willing to count Draco as a budding friend. His hand was very cramped after he was done with the letters, so much so that he began thinking about buying a dictation quill. He wouldn't be able to use it for homework, of course, but it would be great for letters. He put one on his list for Diagon Alley before going to bed.
~
The day before their trip to Diagon Alley, Harry got back letters from his friends. Most of them didn't know anything more about Sirius Black than he did. But his idea to write Draco had paid off.
Dear Harry,
Thank you for your letter. It was a relief, to be honest. I've been avoiding my parents lately, except at meals, to avoid fights. So being able to have someone to communicate with, even by letter, is a pleasant relief.
Your trip to Egypt sounds amazing! I've been abroad myself, of course, but I don't think father has ever taken me to Egypt before. If he did, I don't remember it. We've been to France, Belgium, Italy, and even Greece, though.
As to Sirius Black, yes, I have heard something. Father made some snide remarks about the man when he read the news. I asked him about it, and despite our fights this summer, we had a remarkably civil conversation about Black. I think he was glad to have something to talk with me about that wouldn't end in shouting.
I don't even know if I should tell you this, because it might upset you, but you asked, and you should know. It shouldn't be kept from you. According to father, Sirius Black was your dad's best friend in school and later. He was even your father's best man at the wedding. The Ministry thinks the man was secretly a Death Eater and betrayed your parents to Voldemort. He says it's possible, but he doubts it; father was pretty high up the chain of command, and if Black was a Death Eater, the Dark Lord never told father about it, which would be odd because father was one of the Dark Lord's three most trusted lieutenants.
Anyway, apparently your parents were made aware of the Dark Lord's plans to kill them and you, so they went into hiding using something called the Fidelius Charm. This involves the hiding of a secret in a single human soul. Sirius Black was said to have been the Secret Keeper, i.e. the one in whose soul the secret was kept, and the only one who could tell anyone the secret. Since the Dark Lord was able to get in to kill your parents, it must be true that Black betrayed them. Father says he doesn't think there's any other way it could have happened.
As to the event he was imprisoned for, a man named Peter Pettigrew apparently went to confront Black about the betrayal, and Black blew the man to smithereens, which blew up the street and killed 12 Muggles as well. The biggest bit of Pettigrew the Ministry found was a single finger. With so many witnesses, they didn't even give the man a trial. Which father sneered about, since all the witnesses were Muggles, and therefore not reliable in his opinion. But with their memories modified, they can't be questioned again, so I see his point there.
Father also says that Minister Fudge and the rest of the Ministry thinks Black escaped to kill you and rejoin the Dark Lord. But... well, Black came from a family that was pretty vehement about blood purity, but he frequently and loudly rejected all that tosh, and got disowned as a result. I suppose it's possible he went back on his beliefs to rejoin the family, but he doesn't seem the type.
Well, that's all of what father told me. I hope you aren't too upset at me for telling me this.
Sincerely,
Draco Malfoy
Harry set the letter down and sighed. Then he clenched his fists and pressed them against his eyes, silently crying. He'd been their friend? A friend of theirs had betrayed them? He tried to imagine Hermione or Ron betraying him like that, and couldn't. Had it been the same for his parents?
Standing up suddenly, Harry got out the photo album Hagrid had given him at the end of his first year, and looked. After flipping through a dozen pages, he found it, the photos of the wedding. He presumed the laughing, handsome man with long black hair was Black, but that was a guess; the man in the photo looked nothing like the newspaper's photo, aside from the color of the hair and something about the face.
But there was doubt about his guilt. Mr. Malfoy sounded like he was pretty sure he'd know if Black had been a Death Eater, and there was all that stuff about being disowned by his pureblood-obsessed family. As upset as he was, he didn't know enough about this Fidelius Charm to know how it worked. Though Dumbledore was on the wizengamot... surely he'd have fought for a trial? The fact they didn't have a trial didn't mean he didn't fight for one. Dumbledore was a powerful man, but the Ministry had ignored his advice before. But it was still fishy.
Harry was just about to write another letter to Draco, to ask if he knew if there was any way to know for sure if someone was a Death Eater or not, but then he realized that tomorrow was the last day of August, and then the day after that was the Hogwart's train ride. He could ask Draco on the train. So instead, he just lay in bed, thinking about things until he finally stumbled into the arms of sleep.
~
Because they were going to stay at the Leaky Cauldron that night, they all had to make sure they brought their trunks and anything they wanted to take to Hogwart's with them. So it felt a lot like going to the train, just more sedate.
When they got everything packed into the car, they all got in and drove to London, parking in a special hidden car park for wizards so they could get their ridiculous amount of things out of the magically-expanded boot of the car without being spotted by Muggles. When all their stuff was settled into their rooms for the night, everyone went out the back into Diagon Alley to go to Gringott's, then do their shopping.
Harry had a hard time getting away from Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, and only managed it by agreeing to let Percy accompany them. But Percy was itching to leave and find Penelope, so he convinced the older boy to leave him be. Percy only agreed, though, when Ron and Hermione showed up.
With his two friends in tow, they went all over Diagon Alley. Harry spent a lot of time in the bookstores, looking for information that might help him with his questions about Black, among other subjects. He also went to Ollivander's to buy a spare wand to hide from view, surprise people trying to hurt him. Ron got a new wand as well, since his had exploded in the Chamber of Secrets the year before, and had been dying for a long time anyway.
Ron's rat Scabbers was also not doing well, he'd been getting thinner ever since they got back from Egypt, and for a rat that did nothing but eat and sleep all day, that was worrying. So they went to the Magical Menagerie as well, to get him some rat tonic.
While they were there, Harry looking at the many magical creatures in fascination, an ugly, flat-faced, bandy-legged cat named Crookshanks attacked Scabbers, driving Ron out of the shop. Harry went with his friend, but Hermione stayed behind. This was both good and bad; good because Hermione brought back the rat tonic Ron had forgotten, and bad because she bought Crookshanks instead of getting an owl as planned, which Ron was not happy about.
Dinner at the Leaky Cauldron was great that night. The Weasleys, Harry, and Hermione sat at three tables and ate a five course meal. It wasn't as good as Mrs. Weasley's cooking, but it was close.
After dinner, they were packing so they'd be ready to go in the morning. The Weasleys were hoping that being in London would mean they could avoid the usual rush of almost being late for the train every time. In the midst of this, Percy had mislaid his Head Boy badge, but thought Ron had taken it, so he was making Ron help look for it. But since Ron had left his pet's rat tonic downstairs, and now couldn't go after it, Harry volunteered to fetch it for him.
On his way, he caught the two adult Weasleys talking about him from the parlor. Talking about how Black was after Harry, wanted to kill him. Even though he knew this already, he stayed, because this was verifying Draco's letter.
“But no one’s really sure that Black’s after Harry,” Mrs. Weasley said at one point.
There was a thud on wood, and Harry was sure Mr. Weasley had banged his fist on the table.
“Molly, how many times do I have to tell you? They didn’t report it in the press because Fudge wanted it kept quiet, but Fudge went out to Azkaban the night Black escaped. The guards told Fudge that Black’s been talking in his sleep for a while now. Always the same words: ‘He’s at Hogwarts … he’s at Hogwarts.’ Black is deranged, Molly, and he wants Harry dead. If you ask me, he thinks murdering Harry will bring You-Know-Who back to power. Black lost everything the night Harry stopped You-Know-Who, and he’s had twelve years alone in Azkaban to brood on that.”
He continued to listen, and found that Dumbledore didn't like the Azkaban guards at all. But soon after, the conversation ended, so Harry went back to fetching Ron's rat tonic.
The bottle of rat tonic was lying under the table they had sat at earlier. Harry waited until he heard Mr. and Mrs. Weasley’s bedroom door close, then headed back upstairs with the bottle.
Fred and George were crouching in the shadows on the landing, heaving with laughter as they listened to Percy dismantling his and Ron’s room in search of his badge.
“We’ve got it,” Fred whispered to Harry. “We’ve been improving it.”
The badge now read Bighead Boy.
“That's not funny. He's very proud of his accomplishment, as well he should be. I don't know if you're jealous or what, but you're being bullies to him, and I should know, I was raised by a bunch of bullies.”
“You're comparing us to the Dursleys?”
“Yes. Bullying comes in all kinds. I even saw kids at school who were bullying victims become bullies themselves. Remove the enchantments from the badge and give it to me.”
The twins looked at one another, then at Harry, looking a little abashed. One of them – George, he thought – removed the enchantment from the badge, and handed it over.
“Thank you,” Harry said, going back upstairs.
“Percy,” he said when he got inside the room, “I rescued your badge from the twins.”
“You did? Oh thank you, Harry!”
“AHEM,” Ron said angrily. “I think somebody owes somebody else an apology.”
“I'm sorry I thought it was you, Ron. I should've known it was the twins. They didn't do anything to it, did they, Harry?”
“Yes, but I made them undo it. And they did, I saw it.”
“Thank you again,” Percy said, taking it back and pinning it to his robes.
Harry gave Ron back the rat tonic.
That night in bed, while listening to muffled shouts from the other room, Harry thought about Black, worrying on the problem like a dog with a bone. He was thinking, especially, about why the confirmation of Black being after him didn't scare him. But he'd faced down Voldemort himself, how much worse could one of his Death Eaters be?
Then, too, there was the question of Black's betrayal. It confused him. He tried imagining one of his friends betraying him, and couldn't manage it. Was his father just really bad at judging character? Or had Voldemort scared Black into betraying Harry's family?
But what was worse than that for Harry, just then, was that even if he could somehow have gotten the Dursleys to sign the Hogsmeade permission slip, the teachers would no doubt find some excuse to prevent him from going. If the Azkaban guards were going to be at the school, he doubted he'd ever be allowed to go. Not until Black was apprehended again.
He sighed, and rolled over to concentrate on getting to sleep.
~FAYANORA~
Note: Sorry this took so long. I got stuck trying to figure out if Harry should go with the Weasleys to Egypt or not. If this were my only fic, there'd have been no hesitation in letting him go with them, but he goes with them to Egypt in my other fic, “The Many Faces of Harry Potter,” so I didn't know what to do. But then I realized this Harry's experience of Egypt would be very different from the other's.
Also, I blame the summer heat. It turns me into a flobberworm.
Note two: Ah, so I don't know if you noticed or not, but shortly after introducing the concept of stress-induced non-verbal episodes, I introduced you to the concept of a stim. I don't recall if I've done this yet before or not, but here we are. Like myself, Harry has auditory stims. A stim is a sensory input that someone finds comforting. This makes sense, since many sensory inputs can irritate and frustrate myself and other aspies, so of course the opposite exists. A fork scraping on a plate is not one of my own stims, but it's one that makes sense, since there are sounds I and others find comforting that drive others crazy. I even heard, once, about an aspie whose stim (one of them) was styrofoam squeaking against styrofoam, which is a sound that I can't personally tolerate.
Note: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made.
Note 2: There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though.
Note 3: I re-read this series recently, and OMG the number of continuity errors is embarrassing. I blame it on a combo of reading too much HP fanfic and having a poor memory.
Chapter 2: Trapped
Chapter 2: Trapped
The next morning was exciting as usual on school train days, with all the Weasleys, Harry, and Hermione getting ready. Harry figured he and Hermione held up the Weasleys with their hair care routines, since even wearing do-rags overnight (something the Dursleys had never let him do, because they said it made him look like more of a hooligan than usual, which just made his hair harder to manage), their hair took at least an hour to wrangle into some sort of order. Hermione just brushed hers out daily and washed it every 2 or 3 days, but Harry was starting to experiment with different hairstyles, made easier by some simple hair charms he was learning. Today he'd decided to go with dreadlocks, which – with a hair charm that Angelina Johnson had taught him – were pretty easy. Dreadlocks needed to be cleaned daily, but there was a hair-washing charm that would work without them losing their shape. Harry began wishing he'd thought of this the day before. One quick hair-washing charm and he'd have been ready to go already.
The fact that they were in London already helped speed things along, so there was some idleness and talking. Harry frowned as Mrs. Weasley told Ginny and Hermione about making a love potion when she was younger; he didn't like the sound of love potions, they sounded really creepy to him.
“I've got something to tell you,” Harry tried to tell Ron, but Ron was distracted; Percy had accused him of spilling tea on his picture of his girlfriend, and Ron was understandably sore about it. By the time Ron was paying attention again, the chaos of leaving was making it impossible to speak, so Harry decided to wait.
Once Hermione got Crookshanks inside the car in his cat basket and everyone got their trunks in the boot, everyone got inside the car. Even in the magically-expanded car, it was crowded with all of them in there. Especially since Ron and Percy had to sit together.
At the station, they took the barrier in pairs. Apparently remembering the incident of the barrier last year, Mr. Weasley went first with Harry, but there was no problem this year. Soon, the others joined them. Percy went looking for Penelope as soon as he came in. Harry focused on trying to keep a headache away as he helped get the trunks on the train.
When they got their stuff stowed in their compartment, they went back to say goodbye to the adults.
Mrs. Weasley kissed all her children, then Hermione, and finally, Harry. He was embarrassed, but really quite pleased, when she gave him an extra hug.
“Do take care, won’t you, Harry?” she said as she straightened up, her eyes oddly bright. Then she opened her enormous handbag and said, “I’ve made you all sandwiches. … Here you are, Ron … no, they’re not corned beef. … Fred? Where’s Fred? Here you are, dear. …”
“Harry,” said Mr. Weasley quietly, “come over here a moment.”
He jerked his head toward a pillar, and Harry followed him behind it, leaving the others crowded around Mrs. Weasley.
“There’s something I’ve got to tell you before you leave —” said Mr. Weasley, in a tense voice.
“It's fine. I already know what you're going to say.”
“You do? How could you?”
“Black is supposed to be after me, right? So yeah, I worked it out for myself,” Harry said, not wanting to admit he had overheard them. It was true, anyway. “You and Mrs. Weasley were so tense once we got back from Egypt, I knew something was up. You kept avoiding the papers, so I took out a subscription. And your worry seemed to be centered around me. So it wasn't difficult to work out. Plus, Draco confirmed it.”
Mr. Weasley's face turned stony. “Draco? You don't mean Draco Malfoy?”
“Yes. He's not like his father, Mr. Weasley, not anymore. He's my friend now, he's been going to MAC meetings, and he's been converted over to our side. His parents fight with him over it, and he's lost most of his previous friends because of it.”
“Oh. He told you, then? Well... it's not how I'd like you to find out.”
“It's fine,” Harry said. “I'm glad he did. He told me everything, you know. How Black betrayed my parents, supposedly.”
“He did betray them, Harry. He was their secret keeper.”
“Well Mr. Malfoy says that as far as he knew, Black wasn't a Death Eater, and Mr. Malfoy was one of Voldemort's top lieutenants, so he would know, wouldn't he?”
“Be that as it may, Harry, innocent men don't break out of prison. The Ministry thinks Black is after you, so you should avoid him if at all possible. Assume he is a threat, Harry.”
“I will be cautious, Mr. Weasley. I always am. And I never said I thought he was innocent, just that there's some doubt. Enough that he should have been given a trial, but apparently he never got one. Which tells me quite a lot about wizarding Britain's justice system, and nothing good.”
“Arthur!” called Mrs. Weasley, who was now shepherding the rest onto the train. “Arthur, what are you doing? It’s about to go!”
“He’s coming, Molly!” said Mr. Weasley, but he turned back to Harry, talking in a low and hurried voice. “Well unfair or not, avoid the man. He is still an escaped prisoner, been in Azkaban for 12 years, so he's bound to be a bit unhinged even if he is somehow innocent.”
“Don't worry, Mr. Weasley, I'll be cautious. I'll stay in the castle and be good. I promise.”
“Good. Now hurry, Harry!”
Harry nodded and hurried back into the train just before it started to move. The Weasley kids, Harry, and Hermione waved goodbye to the two Weasley adults as the train sped off, until they could no longer see the adults.
“I need to talk to you in private,” Harry muttered to Ron and Hermione as the train picked up speed.
“Go away, Ginny,” said Ron.
“Oh, that’s nice,” said Ginny huffily, and she stalked off.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione set off down the corridor, looking for an empty compartment, but all were full except for the one at the very end of the train.
This had only one occupant, a man sitting fast asleep next to the window. Harry, Ron, and Hermione checked on the threshold. The Hogwarts Express was usually reserved for students and they had never seen an adult there before, except for the witch who pushed the food cart.
The stranger was wearing an extremely shabby set of wizard’s robes that had been darned in several places. He looked ill and exhausted. Though quite young, his light brown hair was flecked with gray.
“Who d’you reckon he is?” Ron hissed as they sat down and slid the door shut, taking the seats farthest away from the window.
“Professor R. J. Lupin,” whispered Hermione at once.
“How d’you know that?”
“It’s on his case,” she replied, pointing at the luggage rack over the man’s head, where there was a small, battered case held together with a large quantity of neatly knotted string. The name Professor R. J. Lupin was stamped across one corner in peeling letters.
“Wonder what he teaches?” said Ron, frowning at Professor Lupin’s pallid profile.
“That’s obvious,” whispered Hermione. “There’s only one vacancy, isn’t there? Defense Against the Dark Arts.”
Harry, Ron, and Hermione had already had two Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers, both of whom had lasted only one year. There were rumors that the job was jinxed.
“Well, I hope he’s up to it,” said Ron doubtfully. “He looks like one good hex would finish him off, doesn’t he? Anyway …” He turned to Harry. “Are Luna and the others gonna join us?” he asked.
“No. Eight people in one compartment would a bit crowded. I'll tell Luna, Antigone, Angela, and Danzia later.
“Okay then. So what were you going to tell us?”
Harry explained about what he'd figured out, what Draco had told him, and the argument he'd overheard between the Weasley adults, since it had confirmed his suspicions, as well as Mr. Weasley's words just now.
When he was done, the looks on his friends faces were mixed.
“Yes?” he prompted, looking at Hermione first.
“Well... I mean, it is very unfair he wasn't given a trial, but I'm sure Dumbledore must have fought for one. Or, if he didn't, he must have thought the man's guilt was obvious. I mean, I don't know what this Fidelius Charm entails, but I'm sure Dumbledore does. And Mr. Weasley is right, if he broke out of prison, it must be for a reason. And you said Black had been saying 'He's at Hogwarts.' If Black didn't mean you, who could he possibly mean?”
“What if he thought Harry was his father?” Ron asked.
“Pardon?”
“If they were friends... well, everyone who knew your parents say you look like your dad. If Black has been in Azkaban for 12 years, he might indeed be crazy.”
“I wonder why he escaped?” Harry asked, thinking aloud.
“Well I think Dad's right, Harry, you should assume he's guilty. They probably should've given him a trial, yeah, but the fact they didn't must mean they knew it wasn't needed. They must have had proof. And he was their secret keeper.”
“Yes, people keep saying that. But I'm still going to keep an open mind. If it turns out he is guilty, then so be it. But I want to be sure first.”
“First?” Hermione asked. “What do you mean by 'first'?”
“I mean, before I condemn him. I'll be cautious, yes, but I'll withhold condemnation for now.”
“Good. Don't go looking for trouble, Harry.”
“I don't. Trouble usually finds me well enough on its own.”
“Yeah, Harry; I don't trust anything Malfoy says, to start with, and anyway, Black broke out of prison. If he didn't use some kind of dark magic, how'd he do it, huh? I don't think any decent wizard could do it.”
“I'll bet Dumbledore could.”
“Yeah, well, that's Dumbledore. He's a special case.”
“Ron's right, you know. Most wizards couldn't break out of there. And why did he break out, anyway? He was content to be there for 12 years, and then all of a sudden, he escapes? After saying 'He's at Hogwarts'? If he's not going after you for some reason, what did he escape for?”
“I don't know. Maybe I'll never find out. But I'm not going to assume he's evil. I'll avoid him, just to be careful, though.”
“There's still the fact he was your parents' secret-keeper. Doesn't that anger you? Or make you upset?”
“I was upset at first, yes. But, well... there's a lot I don't know about the wizarding world. Most people think it's pretty certain he was their secret keeper, but how many of them know enough about the Fidelius Charm to really know for sure?”
“What gets me, Harry,” Ron said, “is that you're taking Malfoy at his word about all this. Now Draco might be on our side, I dunno, but his father sure isn't. He could have been lying to Draco, especially if he thought Draco was going to relay this information back to you, Harry.”
“That is a good point,” Harry conceded. “Still... I find it weird that someone who was so happy at my parents' wedding could have betrayed them. It's possible, I guess, but do you understand that I just want to be sure, before I condemn the man? I'm going to continue digging into this, without putting myself at risk. I promise you, I'm not going to go looking for Black.”
This, finally, appeared to mollify his two friends.
“What's that noise?” Ron said, suddenly, having only noticed it in the sudden silence.
A faint, tinny sort of whistle was coming from somewhere. They looked all around the compartment. Harry cocked his head, tracing the source.
“It’s coming from your trunk, Harry,” said Ron, standing up and reaching into the luggage rack. A moment later he had pulled the Pocket Sneakoscope out from between Harry’s robes. It was spinning very fast in the palm of Ron’s hand and glowing brilliantly.
“Is that a Sneakoscope?” said Hermione interestedly, standing up for a better look.
“Yeah … mind you, it’s a very cheap one,” Ron said. “It went haywire at the dinner table the night I got it. But then, the twins were putting beetles in Percy's soup.”
Harry grabbed the noisy thing and shoved it in some old socks, then started digging through his trunk for a place to stow it. He spotted the box Antigone had given him. He wondered if he wanted to put it in there or not. It was tempting, but in the end, since he was the only person in Hogwarts who could open it, as far as he knew, he decided against it, in case it wasn't soundproofed. Besides, even if it was fake jewels, he didn't think flashing it on the train was a wise idea. He'd show Hermione later.
“What could be setting it off now, I wonder?” Harry asked himself as he put it away somewhere in his trunk where it couldn't be heard.
That was a stumper of a question, as it turned out. Harry trusted the other two with his life, and if Dumbledore trusted Professor Lupin, it couldn't be him. That just left Hedwig and Crookshanks, who were animals. Well, and Scabbers, another animal, but he'd been Ron's pet for years, so that couldn't be it, either.
Ron shrugged. “Dunno, mate. It's a cheap thing, probably not working right.”
But Harry wasn't sure. His magical translator glasses were still working alright, and even a cheap magical item surely couldn't be breaking already, could it? Or could it? Ron had been in this world longer than he had, so he must know better about these things. After all, what if their roles were reversed? What if Harry had gotten Ron a cheap plastic toy from a burger joint? Those things broke within minutes, sometimes.
“Yeah, that must be it,” Harry said.
Ron and Hermione went on to discuss their summers. Harry took out a book, but he was only pretending to read. He was, in fact, thinking about Sirius Black again, and how his father could have been fooled.
Intellectually, Harry knew his father had been human, and humans make mistakes. Heck, even non-human people made mistakes. It was life. But on an emotional level, he couldn't make heads or tails of it. If only there was someone to talk with about this, someone who wouldn't scoff or argue, someone who already was thinking along the same lines he was.
Then it came to him: Draco! He stood up, putting his book aside.
“You going somewhere, mate?”
“Yeah. Uh... the loo,” he said. It was a lie, yes, but he didn't want to hear Ron's arguments if he told the truth.
Ron nodded. Hermione looked sceptical. But Harry ignored her and left the compartment, searching the train for Draco.
After a few minutes, he literally ran into a nervous-looking Draco, both boys falling over from the impact.
“Ouch! Watch it, you--- Harry? Oh, sorry about that,” Draco said, blushing. With his skin as pale as it was, he lit up like a traffic light when he blushed. He stood up, and helped Harry to his feet.
“I'm sorry, too, Draco. I should've paid more attention to where I was going. Anyway, I was looking for you.”
“Good, good,” Draco said, distracted, looking back behind him with a worried expression on his face. “Let's find a compartment.”
“Every one I've checked so far was pretty much full. I think the emptiest one I saw was the one I'd been in with Ron and Hermione, and the new Defense teacher.”
“A teacher? On the train? Only adults I've ever seen on the train once we left was the witch pushing the trolley and the conductor.”
“Yeah, us too. But he's there. He's been sleeping the whole time, so far.”
Draco looked behind himself again, then back at Harry. “Okay, sure, let's go there.”
Harry sighed. “I'll have to explain this to Ron. He still doesn't really like or trust you.”
“Yes, well, that makes sense. Our families have so often been at odds. But still, let's go there anyway,” he said, grabbing Harry's arm and dragging him along, despite not knowing which compartment Harry had been in.
“Draco!” Harry cried out, trying hard not to fall over. “Draco, slow down!”
“Which one is it, anyway?” Draco asked, looking around.
Harry pulled out of Draco's grasp. “What is your problem today?”
Draco sighed. “If you must know, I'm avoiding Crabbe and Goyle.”
“Why?”
“Well... it's complicated. But the short version is they're angry. And you know what they're like when they're angry.”
“Ah,” Harry said. “It's over here.”
Harry opened the door and the two boys ducked in.
“Oy, what's he doing here?”
“He's trying to escape Crabbe and Goyle,” Harry said, ignoring Draco's exasperated expression.
Ron looked about to say something scathing, but something made him stop and think instead. If he was remembering the same thing Harry was, he was about to realize that this made sense.
“Ah,” Ron said. “Alright then.”
With no more said, Draco sat down next to Harry.
“You said you were looking for me, Harry? What for?” Draco asked.
Ignoring Hermione's 'I was right' look, Harry said, “I was thinking about Black again. I was kind of wanting a private discussion with you.”
Hermione nudged Ron, who was in the middle of examining a Chocolate Frog card, to see if he had that one already or not.
“Oy, what'd you do that for?”
She just gave him a look.
“Fine, fine. I have to go to the loo myself anyway. For real.”
When the two friends left the compartment, Draco looked over at Professor Lupin with a brief look of curiosity at first, then disgust. At Harry's answering look of annoyance, though, Draco held his hands up in a placating gesture.
“Sorry. Old habits, you know. Not everyone can be as fortunate as a Malfoy, I know I shouldn't judge. Just...”
“Never mind that for now,” Harry said, in lieu of accepting the apology. “So, I was wondering what else you could tell me about Black. Or about the Death Eaters, anything might help.”
“Well, I don't know a lot about it. Father doesn't talk much about it. He's trying to keep up the pretense of innocence, after all. But he lets things slip sometimes. And I notice things.”
“Like what?”
“Well, little things. Like the way he talks about some of his friends, has made me suspect some of them were Death Eaters, too. Vincent's father, Gregory's father.”
“The elder Crabbe and Goyle, you mean?”
“Yes. Also MacNair, works at the ministry now, disposing of dangerous animals.”
“Sounds like a job a Death Eater might enjoy.”
“MacNair does seem to enjoy his job, yes. But going on, Knott's father was one too, I'll bet.”
“Any others?”
“Well, Aunt Bellatrix, but she's in prison now.”
“Aunt Bellatrix?” Harry asked, offering Draco a Bertie Bott's.
Draco took the proffered gift, opening it as he spoke. “Yeah. My mother's sister. Narcissa Malfoy nee Black.”
“Wait, your mom and your aunt are related to this Sirius Black fellow?”
“Yeah. He's their brother. I guess that makes Sirius Black my uncle. Or it would have, if the family hadn't disowned him for being a Griffindor, and a blood traitor.”
“Blood traitor?”
“That's what the purebloods call other purebloods who are... who believe in equality for Muggle-borns, and fair treatment of Muggles.” Draco sighed. “Which makes me a blood traitor now, I guess.”
“Does that...” Harry trailed off. “Are your parents going to disown you?”
Draco snorted. “I doubt it. I'm their only child. The sole heir. And my parents were lucky to have me. Pureblood families tend to be large, lots of children. Well the Weasleys have that part down pat. And my mother, of course, had one sister, Aunt Bellatrix LeStrange nee Black. But try as they might, I have no siblings. I doubt either of them would dare to disown me, no matter what I did. Besides, mother loves me too dearly to do so, even if I had brothers and sisters.”
“Your mother was a Black? Any relation to Sirius Black?”
“Yes, Sirius Black is my mother's cousin. And he had a brother, Regulus Arcturus Black. Never met him, he died during the last war. He was a Death Eater, but he turned against the Dark Lord, supposedly. Though how he died, nobody knows. His body was never found.”
“Your family is fond of naming people after stars, it seems. Only your mother was named after something else, a flower in her case. Gives us something else in common. My mother was Lily.”
“Yeah,” Draco said, smiling wryly. “It's a Black family tradition, naming kids after stars or constellations.”
“Did you know that your father was responsible for the events of last year?” Harry asked him gently.
Draco's head jerked up to look at Harry. “He was? Seriously?”
“Yes. He slipped an old diary of Vol---er, of the Dark Lord's, into Ginny Weasley's cauldron at Flourish and Blotts before school started. It was ensorcelled somehow, seemed to have a piece of his mind inside it, or more. In the Chamber of Secrets, it was coming alive as it drained her of life. I killed it before he could return.”
The pale boy's face went even paler, which Harry hadn't thought possible, his grey eyes wide with terror. He clutched his head, and began trembling.
“The Dark Lord almost... almost returned?”
“Yes. But I stopped him. And used the dead diary to trick your father into freeing Dobby.”
“Dobby?” Draco said, regaining some of his composure. “What does our old house elf have to do with it?”
Harry explained briefly what had happened, how Dobby had kept warning him and trying to prevent him coming to school, then trying to get him injured enough to be sent home.
“He nearly killed you several times, and you rewarded him for it?”
“Yes, well, he was trying to save my life. And your father treated him terribly, kicking him right in front of Dumbledore and me.”
Draco sat there, many emotions crossing his face as he thought. If Harry had to guess, he'd say Draco was suppressing an urge to scoff at the pain of a creature like a house elf, then thought better of it. The blonde boy's series of emotions stopped at what looked like a reluctant thoughtfulness, like he hadn't really thought about it before, and still needed to do more thinking to sort out his feelings about a creature like Dobby, but recognizing Harry's feelings and trying to see his point of view.
“Ah, yes. I do remember that,” Draco said. “I wasn't very nice to Dobby either. I wouldn't blame him if he attacked me, now he's free. I was never as bad as Father, but not by a lot. I have a lot of my parents' garbage to clear out of my head. I'm glad I have someone to help me figure out what's garbage and what isn't.”
“You're welcome.”
“Anyway, we got off track, didn't we? We were discussing the Death Eaters. I almost forgot to mention one other thing; my father always wears long sleeves. Always. I've never seen his bare arms.”
“What's special about that?”
“On its own, nothing really. But I've noticed Father seems particularly keen on hiding his left arm for some reason. I don't know if it means anything or not, but it might.” Draco sat there thinking for another few moments before continuing. “Dobby might know something more. Dobby was Father's personal elf. We had others. Still do. Anyway, Dobby drew Father's bath and helped him in and out of his clothes. My own elf did the same for me, until the day I decided I didn't want anything looking at me nude, and insisted on doing it myself.”
“Well, I was assigned one of the Hogwarts house elves, to help protect me from the Dursleys while I'm staying there, and she comes when I call at other times, too. I could see if she can find Dobby and bring him to the castle for me to question.”
Draco was about to respond, when the door to the compartment opened, revealing Crabbe and Goyle, both cracking their knuckles. Draco stood up, hiding his fear behind a mask of bravado.
“You two!” he said sharply, like it was an insult.
“Malfoy,” Crabbe said. “You need to come with us now, so we can finish our talk.”
“Ha! Talk! As if!” Draco said, his knees shaking just visibly. “I'll go nowhere with you.”
“Now or later, Draco, you can't avoid us forever. We're in the same House.”
“It'll have to be later, then, because I was in the middle of a conversation with Harry here.”
“On a first name basis now, eh?” Goyle sneered. “Your blood traitor pal can't protect you forever, Malfoy!”
“Blood traitor or not, Goyle, if either of you lay a finger on me, my father will hear of this!”
“And what'll he do, exactly? Get us a detention?”
“Yeah,” Crabbe said. “Boo hoo, cry to yer daddy.”
“You dare not doing anything here, we're right in front of a teacher,” Draco pointed out, gesturing at Lupin.
This scared the two boys where Draco's bravado hadn't. Thick as they were, they knew better than to fight in front of a teacher.
“Fine. Later, then,” Goyle said, closing the door behind him as they left.
“Dare I ask?”
“I---”
“Your friends popped by, I see,” Ron said as he opened the door.
“They're not my friends anymore.”
“I know, we heard everything,” Ron said, sounding sympathetic. He sat down across from Draco. “I guess if Crabbe and Goyle want to beat you up, that means we're on the same side.”
“And I wasn't before?”
Hermione sat down next to Ron.
“Ron wasn't convinced, before. But you are now, I take it?” Hermione asked.
“Not completely. I'm still gonna keep an eye on you. But the evidence is in your favor.”
“I'm thrilled, of course,” Draco said, a bit of the old sneer returning to his voice.
“Anyway,” Ron said, opening another Chocolate Frog. “Were you two done, or did we need to go wander the train some more?”
Draco looked at Harry. Harry looked back at Draco, and shrugged. Draco shrugged at Ron.
“Good enough for me.” Ron said, cramming a Chocolate Frog into his mouth, and looking up at Professor Lupin.
Hermione's eyes went the same place as Ron's. “Good Heavens, is he still asleep?”
Ron swallowed his frog. “Is he asleep, though? He might be dead.”
“No, he's still breathing.”
“I wonder what's got him so tired he's sleeping on a noisy train full of people talking?” Draco wondered aloud.
“What, no snide comment about the state of his clothes?” Ron asked.
Draco did not dignify this with an answer. Merely took a Pumpkin Pasty and bit into it.
“So,” Draco said some minutes later, breaking the silence, “Hogsmeade sounds fun.”
“Do you know much about Hogsmeade?” asked Hermione keenly. “I’ve read it’s the only entirely non-Muggle settlement in Britain.
“I reckon it is,” Ron said, “but that’s not why I want to go. I just want to get inside Honeydukes!”
“Ah yes,” Draco said, with an air of remembering something pleasant. “Father's taken me there before, several years ago. It is quite nice. It was a little disappointing over the summer, when business is so poor it's a wonder they weren't shut for the season. I look forward to seeing it at its peak, with all the Hogwarts students inside it.”
“Honeydukes? What's that?” asked Hermione.
A sneer flickered across Draco's face, almost too fast to notice. But Ron noticed.
“It's a sweetshop,” Ron explained, his expression changing to one of bliss as he thought about it. “I've been there, too. They have everything! Pepper Imps — they make you smoke at the mouth — and great fat Chocoballs full of strawberry mousse and clotted cream, and really excellent sugar quills, which you can suck in class and just look like you’re thinking what to write next.”
“If you use quills,” Harry said. “I'd use a pen and paper if I could. As it is, I had to get a special quill from McGonagall.”
“Pen and paper? You mean that Muggle stuff?”
“Oh, like a train isn't a Muggle thing. And Muggles used to wear robes too, you know,” Harry said.
“I wasn't saying anything bad about it. Just wanting to make sure I understood,” Draco said a little stiffly.
“Sorry. It's just, paper takes ink so much better than parchment. And Muggles gave up on parchment ages ago, because for them paper is so much easier to make and use. You know parchment is sheep skin, right? It's a wonder it takes ink at all. And you'd think the wizarding world would've gotten at least as far as a fountain pen. Has a quill-like tip, you see, and uses ink, but uses suction power to hold in a fair amount of ink, so you don't have to dip it in the ink very often.”
“Isn't that basically a Muggle version of the purple quills I've seen you and Granger using?” Draco asked.
“Yeah, I guess so. I still prefer paper and ballpoint pen, though. I still use that for non-school stuff. With the money my folks left me, I got some nice metal ones. Ballpoint pens let the ink flow enough to write with, without making ink splotches, which you get with quills and fountain pens.”
“Muggle quills, maybe. Wizarding quills don't mess as much. Sure, there's the occasional blot when you're holding the pen up, thinking what to write, but beyond that, there are spells on our quills to keep them from making messes when writing with them. Also, they're charmed to hold more ink than Muggle quills. But since Muggles don't have magic, I guess they would need to come up with some sort of non-magical equivalent.”
“Oh, so you don't use random feathers for quills?” Harry asked.
“No self-respecting wizard uses random feathers for a quill, they buy them. Quills are cheap enough even W-- er, even those with very little to their names can buy them for 20 a knut. The spells on them are simple enough even a third year student could cast them, so they're not difficult to make.”
“Yeah,” Ron said, glaring at Draco, “but cheap quills don't last long before they start having the same problems as non-magic quills. The spells wear off.”
“So you re-cast the spells, Weasley. Problem solved.”
“Eh,” Harry said. “This is all moot. I use ballpoint pen and paper when I can, and the purple quills McGonagall gave me when I can't. It's what I'm used to.”
“Well, let me try it sometime, Harry,” Draco said. “Dipping a quill, even an expensive, long-lasting quill, gets tiresome at times. But tell me... how does one dip a ball point pen?”
“You don't. They have their own ink supplies, in little tubes of plastic or metal. The tubes last for weeks, even months. Years, if you don't use the pen often. And when the tube is empty, you replace it. At least, you do for the refillable kinds. The cheaper pens are disposable, you just throw them away when they run out of ink.”
“Throw them away? How wasteful.”
“Yeah, I guess so. But they're even cheaper than cheap quills. I don't know how much a knut is in Muggle money, off the top of my head, but for one pound you can get 20 disposable pens. Maybe even more.”
“Pound?” Ron asked. “What, it weighs a whole pound?”
“It's a unit of Muggle money, here in the UK. It doesn't have anything to do with the unit of weight, as far as I know of.”
“Well, actually,” Hermione began.
“Please don't, Hermione,” Ron said. Hermione huffed, but said nothing, and soon forgot her ire.
“Well that got off track,” Draco said. “Diverting, of course, but we were talking about Hogsmeade, I believe?”
“Yes,” Hermione said. “Hogsmeade’s a very interesting place, isn’t it? In Sites of Historical Sorcery it says the inn was the headquarters for the 1612 goblin rebellion, and the Shrieking Shack’s supposed to be the most severely haunted building in Britain!”
“Oh yeah,” Ron interrupted, “and Honeyduke's has these massive sherbet balls that make you levitate a few inches off the ground while you’re sucking them.”
“Fizzing Whizbees, yes,” Draco said, looking enraptured.
Hermione looked around at Harry.
“Won’t it be nice to get out of school for a bit and explore Hogsmeade?”
“ ’Spect it will,” said Harry heavily. “You’ll have to tell me when you’ve found out.”
“What d’you mean?” said Ron.
“I can’t go. The Dursleys didn’t sign my permission form. By the time I got the letter, I was in Egypt with you lot, and I never went back, did I? Anyway, I reckon I won't be allowed to come, what with Black out to kill me.”
“Harry Potter, not allowed to come to Hogsmeade?” Draco said, preempting Ron. “Even if you weren't famous, you're of an old family; that alone makes it a minor scandal, if they don't let you go. I could talk to my father for you. We haven't been getting along much lately, but... oh wait, you cost him his servant, I guess he wouldn't be too keen on helping you. Still an outrage, though. You should ask your head of House. Or Dumbledore, if you can reach him.”
Ron looked askance at Draco. “I thought you didn't like Dumbledore?”
“My father doesn't like him. I didn't either, when I parroted father's beliefs. Now... now, I don't know what I think of Dumbledore. I have to make up my own mind now, and I don't have enough information with which to form an opinion.”
“But if you're on our side, surely that means you like Dumbledore?”
Draco snorted. “I'm not going to put blind faith in a man just because we agree on a few things. He is a powerful man, but power tends to go to people's heads. Dumbledore may not be in the Ministry, but he's in the Wizengamot, and he's the headmaster of the only school of magic in the UK, as well as being a major player in the last war, fighting against the Dark Lord. It would be wise to be wary of powerful men. Even the best intentioned of them can make disastrous decisions.
“Anyway,” Draco said, turning to Harry. “If you want, I could fake a signature for you. If you're given permission by a guardian, they can't deny you without a good reason, like punishment for something.”
“I thought of that already. But I don't have any samples of his signature; I don't know if the school does or not either, so I don't know if they could compare it to something and prove me a liar. And if there was even the slightest doubt, given that I haven't had an opportunity to even ask them, the teachers could show up at their door and check to see if it was legitimate, and then I'd be in real trouble.”
“So you're just going to accept defeat?”
“Did I say that? No. I'll think of something.”
“But Harry, if Black is after you--”
“Yes, Hermione, I know your concern. But even if he is, there will be hundreds of students there, as well as teachers and other adults.”
Hermione didn't answer, but not for lack of wanting to. Instead, she fumbled with the straps of Crookshanks’s basket.
“Don’t let that thing out!” Ron said, but too late; Crookshanks leapt lightly from the basket, stretched, yawned, and sprang onto Ron’s knees; the lump in Ron’s pocket trembled and he shoved Crookshanks angrily away.
“Get out of here!”
“Ron, don’t!” said Hermione angrily.
Ron was about to answer back when Professor Lupin stirred. They watched him apprehensively, but he simply turned his head the other way, mouth slightly open, and slept on.
Draco smirked at Ron. “Is Ronald Weasley afraid of a little cat?”
“Little? That thing is the size of a small lion,” Ron said. “But anyway, I'm not afraid for my sake, I'm afraid for Scabbers' sake. That beast keeps trying to eat Scabbers.”
“Oh,” said Draco. “Well Granger, maybe if you told your cat to leave other people's pets alone, he would?”
“Call me Hermione.”
“Of course, Hermione. And you may call me Draco.”
“Good. Anyway, Draco, I've already talked with him, he knows better.”
“Ah, well there you are, then.”
There was a silence, in which Draco finally leaned forward to get a better look at the cat. “That cat looks like he's run into a wall,” he said.
“Hey!” Ron snapped. “We're not good enough friends yet. Only I or Harry or one of the others can make fun of Hermione's cat!”
“Ron! I don't want anybody making fun of my cat!”
“My apologies,” Draco said, sounding sincere.
Hermione gawped at him. “Um... thank you.”
“You're welcome.”
Something occurred to Draco then, and he smiled at Ron. “'We're not good enough friends,'” he repeated Ron's words. “Does this mean we are friends, then?”
“No it bloody well does not. We're acquaintances. It was a slip of the tongue.”
“Ah, my mistake then,” Draco said, still smiling.
Ron mumbled something, which sounded to Harry like “I'll hit that smug look off your face if you're not quiet, Malfoy.” Draco looked like he heard too, but didn't respond, except to smirk even more.
~
The rest of the afternoon passed in reasonably good spirits, despite the stormy weather outside as they got closer to Hogwarts. They discussed this and that, mostly potential MAC meetings, the return of Wizard Studies since Dumbledore was back, and wondering what food would be at the feast. Once in a while, Ron tried to get Draco to say what Crabbe and Goyle were angry with him for, but Draco would go conveniently deaf at these times, so Ron gave up for a while. Crookshanks settled on Draco's lap, something Ron didn't seem to be able to decide what he felt about, but mostly seemed to look like he'd find it funny if the bandy-legged cat attacked Draco instead of Scabbers, for a change.
Harry got up at one point to find Luna, but she was in a crowded compartment with Neville, Ginny, Antigone, and Angela. He went looking for Danzia, and found her with the Slytherin boy, Willem Stone, whom Harry recognized from Wizard Studies. They were with several others Harry didn't know, but looked to be other friends of Willem.
Returning to the compartment with Ron, Draco, and Hermione in it, Harry stared out the window at the weather, thinking about what Draco had told him earlier.
“We must be nearly there,” said Ron after a time, leaning forward to look past Professor Lupin at the now completely black window.
The words had hardly left him when the train started to slow down.
“Great,” said Ron, getting up and walking carefully past Professor Lupin to try and see outside. “I’m starving. I want to get to the feast.”
Draco frowned, and consulted a wristwatch. “We can't be there yet. It's too early by far.”
“Yes, Draco's right,” Hermione agreed, checking her own watch.
“Then why are we stopping?”
“I don't know. Should we speak with the driver?” Hermione wondered.
The train was getting slower and slower. As the noise of the pistons fell away, the wind and rain sounded louder than ever against the windows.
Harry got up, walked past Draco to look into the corridor. All along the carriage, heads were sticking curiously out of their compartments.
The train came to a stop with a jolt, and distant thuds and bangs told them that luggage had fallen out of the racks. Then, without warning, all the lamps went out and they were plunged into total darkness.
“What’s going on?” said Ron’s voice from behind Harry.
“Ouch!” gasped Hermione. “Ron, that was my foot!”
Harry felt his way back to his seat.
“Harry, that's my hair, don't muss it up,” Draco said, batting his hand away.
“Sorry,” Harry said.
“God, now I have to comb it again, and I don't have a mirror.”
“Vain, much?” Ron said. “It doesn't matter what you look like, you prat! If you haven't noticed, it's dark in here.”
“Thank you, Weasley, but I did notice the darkness, on account of my being unable to see.”
“Oh stop bickering, you two,” Harry said.
“D’you think we’ve broken down?” Hermione asked.
“Dunno …”
There was a squeaking sound, and Harry saw the dim black outline of Ron, wiping a patch clean on the window and peering out.
“There’s something moving out there,” Ron said. “I think people are coming aboard.”
The compartment door suddenly opened and someone fell over onto Draco's lap.
“OUCH! Who is that? Who's there?”
“Malfoy?” Neville asked, incredulous. “Sorry, I was looking for Harry.”
“I'm over here, Neville.”
“Oh. Hi, Harry.”
Harry fumbled around to help Neville up, but Draco beat him to it.
“Here, Longbottom, I'll help you up. Don't give me that silence, it's not a trick. Any friend of Harry's is a friend of mine.”
“Thanks, Malfoy. Does anyone know what's happening?” Neville asked.
“No idea,” Harry answered. “Here, sit between Draco and me, I think there's just enough room.”
“Yes, don't mind me,” Draco said sincerely. “I used to ride the train with Crabbe and Goyle. Those two practically fill an entire compartment just by themselves.”
“Used to?”
“Not now, Neville. Sit down.”
There was a loud hissing and a yelp of pain; Neville had tried to sit on Crookshanks.
“Ouch! Longbottom, you just made that cat scratch me!”
“Sorry, Malfoy.”
“I’m going to go and ask the driver what’s going on,” came Hermione’s voice. Harry felt her pass him, heard the door slide open again, and then a thud and two loud squeals of pain.
“Who’s that?”
“Who’s that?”
“Ginny?”
“Hermione?”
“What are you doing?”
“I was looking for Ron —”
“Come in and sit down —”
“Not here!” said Harry hurriedly. “I’m here!”
“Ouch!” said Neville.
“There isn't room!” Draco practically shouted.
“Malfoy?” Ginny asked, incredulous.
“Why does everyone always sound so surprised I'm here?”
“Quiet!” said a hoarse voice suddenly.
Professor Lupin appeared to have woken up at last. Harry could hear movements in his corner. None of them spoke.
There was a soft, crackling noise, and a shivering light filled the compartment. Professor Lupin appeared to be holding a handful of flames. They illuminated his tired, gray face, but his eyes looked alert and wary.
“Stay where you are,” he said in the same hoarse voice, and he got slowly to his feet with his handful of fire held out in front of him.
But the door slid slowly open before Lupin could reach it.
Standing in the doorway, illuminated by the shivering flames in Lupin’s hand, was a cloaked figure that towered to the ceiling. Its face was completely hidden beneath its hood. Harry’s eyes darted downward, and what he saw made his stomach contract. There was a hand protruding from the cloak and it was glistening, grayish, slimy-looking, and scabbed, like something dead that had decayed in water.
But it was visible only for a split second. As though the creature beneath the cloak sensed Harry’s gaze, the hand was suddenly withdrawn into the folds of its black cloak.
And then the thing beneath the hood, whatever it was, drew a long, slow, rattling breath, as though it were trying to suck something more than air from its surroundings.
An intense cold swept over them all. Harry felt his own breath catch in his chest. The cold went deeper than his skin. It was inside his chest, it was inside his very heart.
Harry’s eyes rolled up into his head. He couldn’t see. He was drowning in cold. There was a rushing in his ears as though of water. He was being dragged downward, the roaring growing louder...
And then, from far away, he heard screaming, terrible, terrified, pleading screams. He wanted to help whoever it was, he tried to move his arms, but couldn’t … a thick white fog was swirling around him, inside him —
“Harry! Harry! Are you all right?”
Someone was slapping his face.
“Potter! You alive, Potter?”
“What's with the sudden formality, Draco?”
“I thought it would sound more familiar in your state.”
Harry opened his eyes, to see several familiar faces looking down at him. The lights were back on, too, he noticed. And the train was moving again. He seemed to have slid out of his seat onto the floor. Ron, Hermione, and Draco were kneeling over him; above them he could see Neville and Professor Lupin watching. They all looked shaken, but Draco was pale and clammy. Suddenly, Harry realized Draco's voice had been full of anxiety, verging on panic.
“Good, he's awake. I'm going to go huddle in a ball in the corner now,” Draco said, leaving Harry's sight. The two remaining kneeling over him helped him up. Harry felt very sick; when he put up his hand to push his glasses back on, he felt cold sweat on his face.
Ron and Hermione heaved him back onto his seat.
“Are you okay?” Ron asked nervously.
“Yeah,” said Harry, looking quickly toward the door. The hooded creature had vanished. “What happened? Where’s that — that thing? Who screamed?”
“That would be Malfoy,” Ron said.
“No, there was a woman screaming.”
“Like I said, that was Malfoy.”
“Har har. No, seriously, I heard a woman scream. She was screaming words, too.”
“No, the only screaming was Malfoy's. No joke,” he said, sounding worried.
Harry looked around the bright compartment. Ginny and Neville looked back at him, both very pale. Draco was in the corner, hugging his legs, staring and gibbering.
“But I heard screaming —”
A loud snap made them all jump. Draco squealed in fright. Professor Lupin was breaking an enormous slab of chocolate into pieces.
“Here,” he said to Harry, handing him a particularly large piece. “Eat it. It’ll help.”
Harry took the chocolate but didn’t eat it.
“What was that thing?” he asked Lupin.
“A dementor,” said Lupin, who was now giving chocolate to everyone else. “One of the dementors of Azkaban.”
“Those things are the Azkaban guards?” Harry asked, shocked.
“Yes.”
Everyone stared at him. Professor Lupin crumpled up the empty chocolate wrapper and put it in his pocket.
“Eat,” he repeated. “It’ll help. I need to speak to the driver, excuse me …”
He strolled past Harry and disappeared into the corridor.
“Are you sure you’re okay, Harry?” said Hermione, watching Harry anxiously.
“I don’t get it. … What happened?” said Harry, wiping more sweat off his face.
“I'm kinda curious myself, to be honest,” Ron said. “I thought you were having one of your headaches, at first, but then you slid to the floor and started twitching, having a fit of some kind.”
“And Professor Lupin stepped over you, and walked toward the dementor, and pulled out his wand,” said Hermione, “and he said, ‘None of us is hiding Sirius Black under our cloaks. Go.’ But the dementor didn’t move, so Lupin muttered something, and a silvery thing shot out of his wand at it, and it turned around and sort of glided away. …”
“It was horrible,” said Neville, in a higher voice than usual. “Did you feel how cold it got when it came in?”
“I felt weird,” said Ron, shifting his shoulders uncomfortably. “Like I’d never be cheerful again.”
Ginny, who was huddled in her corner looking nearly as bad as Harry felt, gave a small sob; Hermione went over and put a comforting arm around her. Neville stared at Draco, as if wondering if he should comfort the blond boy, then apparently thought better of it.
“But didn’t any of you — fall off your seats?” said Harry awkwardly.
“No,” said Ron, looking anxiously at Harry again. “Ginny was shaking like mad, though. And Malfoy was screaming and crying.”
Harry looked to Draco, who was too lost in his own emotions, apparently, to have a clever comeback against Ron.
Harry didn’t understand. He felt weak and shivery, as though he were recovering from a bad bout of flu; he also felt the beginnings of shame. Why had he gone to pieces like that, when no one else had? Well, not as bad as anyone else, anyway.
Professor Lupin had come back. He paused as he entered, looked around, and said, with a small smile, “I haven’t poisoned that chocolate, you know. …”
Harry took a bite and to his great surprise felt warmth spread suddenly to the tips of his fingers and toes.
“We’ll be at Hogwarts in ten minutes,” said Professor Lupin. “Are you all right, Harry?”
“Yes,” Harry said, not asking how the man knew his name. He figured the scar gave it away. Given how pale his skin was, judging by his hand, the scar doubtless stood out like an angry wound.
“Why was that dementor here?”
“Looking for Sirius Black. Some of them are stationed at Hogsmeade, and around the school's perimeter. Dumbledore won't let them onto the grounds.”
“Thank goddess for that,” Harry said.
“Ah, so you're of the old religion?” Lupin asked, brightly.
“Yeah. Haven't done a lot, yet. Still doing reading.”
“Well I know of a few books in the library that will help with that. Books you might have overlooked, with Ms. Pince's... peculiar... system of organizing things. Did you know that Halloween is an important holiday in the old religion? Marked the de---er, the passing of one year into the next. And the end of the harvest season.”
“Really? Er... wasn't that also when my parents died?”
Lupin looked very sorrowful, suddenly. “Y-yes,” he said with a cracking voice. “It was. But Halloween, or Samhain as it was called, is also a time when the veil between the worlds is thinnest, when its said to be the best time to communicate with the spirits of the dead.”
“What's that word, 'Saw-when'?”
“Yes, that's how it's said. It's Welsh, I believe. Spelled S-A-M-H-A-I-N. A lot of people mispronounce it 'sam hayn,' but it's 'saw-when.' Anyway, you should eat more of that chocolate. I'll get you those books tomorrow.”
Nobody spoke the rest of the way. The only sounds came from the train itself, or animals like Neville's toad or Hermione's cat. When they stopped, there was a lot more noise as everyone clamored to get out. It was freezing on the tiny platform; rain was driving down in icy sheets.
“Firs’ years this way!” called the familiar voice of Hagrid. Harry, Ron, and Hermione waved to him. Harry had to wave with his left hand, because his right was helping Draco, who was still in a near-catatonic state. Draco seemed to be doing better; by the time they reached the horseless carriages, he was standing and walking on his own, and looked a little calmer.
The four of them climbed into a carriage with Ginny. Harry was a bit annoyed that he hadn't had a chance to chat with Luna yet, but it's not like she'd be hard to find.
As the carriage trundled past the iron gates of the school, Harry saw two more of the towering, cloaked dementors, and felt a wave of cold sickness threatening to engulf him again. He was very glad when they were past, and parking up by the front doors of the castle.
“You fainted, Potter? Is Longbottom telling the truth? You actually fainted?”
Harry turned to look at the source of the voice, but was unsurprised to see Goyle. But somebody was surprised.
“He speaks?” Ginny said in wonderment. “That bipedal gorilla can speak?”
“Goyle isn't a gorilla, however much he may look like one. And smell like one. Gorillas are gentle creatures, usually.”
“Oh, my mistake. Should've known. He's more like a cross between a really fat flobberworm and a very small troll.”
“And you, Malfoy, screaming like a little girl, I hear,” said Goyle.
“Funny,” Harry said, turning to Ginny. “All that grunting; if I didn't know better, I'd swear it was language.”
Ginny, Ron, and Hermione began to guffaw or giggle. Even Draco smiled.
Harry grinned. Not being great at coming up with comebacks on the fly, Harry spent a lot of his free time running through various scenarios in his mind, rehearsing for social situations that might come up. And comebacks were a subset of such social situations. Harry was very clever when he was writing or thinking on his own, but in the presence of other people, that cleverness sometimes broke down. So he compensated for this by rehearsing, and it worked pretty well. By now, he had a whole litany of rehearsed lines he could use, even against Voldemort.
Either undaunted by Harry's wit, or – more likely – too thick to have worked out he was being insulted, Goyle kept on.
“Did you faint as well, Weasley?” said Goyle loudly. “Did the scary old dementor frighten you too, Weasley?”
“Is there a problem?” said a mild voice. Professor Lupin had just gotten out of the next carriage.
Goyle gave Lupin a dumb stare, as though a wildebeest in pajamas had just recited Shakespeare at him, and gave Lupin a good look up and down, taking in his shabby robes.
“Er...” Goyle said, having apparently burned through his week's supply of wit like a candle made of napalm. “No, Professor.”
“Then move along, please. The feast awaits.”
Hermione prodded Ron in the back to make him hurry, and the three of them joined the crowd swarming up the steps, through the giant oak front doors, into the cavernous entrance hall, which was lit with flaming torches, and housed a magnificent marble staircase that led to the upper floors.
The door into the Great Hall stood open at the right; Harry followed the crowd toward it, but had barely glimpsed the enchanted ceiling, which was black and cloudy tonight, when a voice called, “Potter! Granger! I want to see you both!”
Harry and Hermione turned around, surprised. Professor McGonagall, Transfiguration teacher and head of Gryffindor House, was calling over the heads of the crowd. She was a stern-looking witch who wore her hair in a tight bun; her sharp eyes were framed with square spectacles. Harry fought his way over to her with a feeling of foreboding: Professor McGonagall had a way of making him feel he must have done something wrong.
“There’s no need to look so worried — I just want a word in my office,” she told them. “Move along there, Weasley, Malfoy.”
McGonagall then did a double-take, apparently only now realizing Malfoy had been hanging out with the golden trio, but she said nothing about it.
Harry sighed, thinking he had an idea what this was about. Glancing back briefly at Ron and Draco, he went with McGonagall and Hermione.
As it turned out, he was right. Professor Lupin had sent an owl ahead about him, and now she and Madam Pomfrey were fussing over him. He insisted to them that he didn't need help, explaining about getting chocolate from Lupin. Harry didn't want to miss the Sorting. He got out of there fast as he could. McGonagall requested he stay to wait for Hermione, but as it wasn't an order (or at least it could be argued that it hadn't been an order), he went to the feast instead, sneaking in under a Disillusionment Charm. Little Professor Flitwick, who looked as short as a goblin, was in the middle of the Sorting. Everyone was so intent on the sorting that nobody noticed him making himself visible once he was sitting next to Ron. Not until he started clapping for all the new students, even the Slytherins, as was his custom; it made Ron jump and spin round to face him.
“Where's Hermione?”
“Still back with McGonagall, I suspect.”
Another Slytherin student got Sorted, so Harry clapped and cheered; he was the only one at the Griffindor table to do so. Though he noticed Luna, over at the Ravenclaw table, was doing the same thing he was.
When the Sorting was over and Flitwick began putting the Sorting Hat away, Hermione showed up, looking annoyed.
“You didn't wait for me!” she hissed at Harry.
“I didn't want to miss the Sorting. I'm the only Griffindor who ever applauds the Slytherins.”
She sighed. “Right. I guess I forgive you. But McGonagall wasn't happy, either.”
Sure enough, as the stern witch went up to her empty seat at the high table, she gave Harry a disapproving look.
“She didn't order me to stay, just requested I stay. I decided I'd rather not.”
Hermione sighed. “I wish she'd seen us after the feast. I wanted to see the Sorting.”
“So what was that all about?” Ron asked.
Harry started to explain in a whisper, but at that moment the headmaster stood up to speak, and he broke off.
“Welcome!” said Dumbledore, the candlelight shimmering on his beard. “Welcome to another year at Hogwarts! I have a few things to say to you all, and as one of them is very serious, I think it best to get it out of the way before you become befuddled by our excellent feast.”
Dumbledore cleared his throat and continued, “As you will all be aware after their search of the Hogwarts Express, our school is presently playing host to some of the dementors of Azkaban, who are here on Ministry of Magic business.”
He paused, and Harry remembered what Mr. Weasley had said about Dumbledore not being happy with the dementors guarding the school.
“They are stationed at every entrance to the grounds,” Dumbledore continued, “and while they are with us, I must make it plain that nobody is to leave school without permission. Dementors are not to be fooled by tricks or disguises — not even Disillusionment Charms, nor even Invisibility Cloaks,” he added blandly, and Harry and Ron glanced at each other. “It is not in the nature of a dementor to understand pleading or excuses. I therefore warn each and every one of you to give them no reason to harm you. I look to the prefects, and our new Head Boy and Girl, to make sure that no student runs afoul of the dementors,” he said.
Harry couldn't help notice Percy, who was Head Boy, puff up with pride. He smiled fondly for the older boy. Dumbledore paused again; he looked very seriously around the hall, and nobody moved or made a sound.
“On a happier note,” he continued, “I am pleased to welcome two new teachers to our ranks this year.
“Two?” Harry heard Ron say.
“First, Professor Lupin, who has kindly consented to fill the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.”
There was some scattered, rather unenthusiastic applause. Only those who had been in the compartment on the train with Professor Lupin clapped hard, Harry among them. Professor Lupin looked particularly shabby next to all the other teachers in their best robes.
“Look at Snape!” Ron hissed in Harry’s ear.
“Do I have to?” Professor Snape hated Harry for ridiculous and childish reasons, and the dislike was mutual. But he looked anyway.
He was astonished. He'd thought Snape hated him, but judging by the look the hook-nosed Potions Master was giving Lupin, Harry was simply an annoyance by comparison. He detested Lupin, loathed and despised him. If humans had the power to kill with a look, Lupin would be dropping dead before their eyes, and probably the wall behind him would be scorched as well.
“As to our second new appointment,” Dumbledore continued as the lukewarm applause for Professor Lupin died away. “Well, I am sorry to tell you that Professor Kettleburn, our Care of Magical Creatures teacher, retired at the end of last year in order to enjoy more time with his remaining limbs. However, I am delighted to say that his place will be filled by none other than Rubeus Hagrid, who has agreed to take on this teaching job in addition to his gamekeeping duties.”
Harry, Ron, and Hermione stared at one another, stunned. Then they joined in with the applause, which was tumultuous at the Gryffindor table in particular. Harry leaned forward to see Hagrid, who was ruby-red in the face and staring down at his enormous hands, his wide grin hidden in the tangle of his black beard.
“We should’ve known!” Ron roared, pounding the table. “Who else would have assigned us a biting book?”
Harry anticipated more speech, but Dumbledore was done. The feast had begun, and they all started loading up their plates.
“Well Hagrid will be thrilled. Though with his fondness for monsters, I'm not sure if we will,” Harry said honestly.
“I'm happy for him. I don't care how his classes are.”
“Don't get me wrong, I am too. But I think we should probably wear thick leather armor to his classes.”
“Shm wh dnt gd nny,” Ron uttered.
“Don't talk with your mouth full, Ron,” Hermione chided.
Ron swallowed. “I said, 'Shame we didn't get any.' Armor, I mean.”
“Oh, it'll be fine,” Hermione said.
“Yeah,” agreed Ron. “Madam Pomfrey can heal anything.”
The two boys snickered. Even Hermione found it hard not to smile.
~
After the feast, the three of them congratulated a joyous Hagrid, but also tried to warn him not to do anything too monstrous or spectacular for his first day. Draco might be on their side, but there were other Slytherins who weren't, and who knew what kind of trouble they might brew up.
As they left the Great Hall, though, they found out it wasn't just Slytherins they had to worry about. They overheard a blond Hufflepuff boy, Zacharias Smith, talking to someone else about Harry, and not in a good way.
“I don't care who you heard it from first, Longbottom was saying the same thing. Potter fainted on the train, had some kind of fit. He's always having funny turns, headaches. I think that curse may have addled his brains. He doesn't seem right, you know? Never looks you in the eye, have you noticed that? Instead, he looks at your mouth, like he's deaf.”
“You're being shallow, Smith,” the other boy responded.
“Am I? I haven't even started on his oddities. He twitches sometimes, in odd ways, like he's a snake trying to shed its skin and not having any luck. And speaking of snakes, befriending a snake in second year? Palling around with Slytherins, too. Even Malfoy has latched onto him now, if you can believe it. You know his father was a Death Eater, right? Probably trained his son in the dark arts, too.
“And as to Potter,” Smith continued, “all these Dementors are because of him, I've heard.”
“What? No way, where'd you hear that?”
“My father knows someone who works at the Ministry, and she says that Minister Fudge said that Sirius Black escaped to kill Potter.”
“I guess that makes sense...”
Whatever else they were saying got cut off, as the Hufflepuffs went down the stairs to their common room. Harry glared after Smith.
“Ignore him, Harry.”
“I'll try, Hermione.” He looked up. “Drat and blast, I missed Luna. She and the other Ravenclaws are already gone.”
“You'll see her later, Harry.”
“Yeah, I know. Still, I wish I'd gotten to talk with her on the train.”
“Well, you didn't talk with Danzia or the others on the train, either.”
“Gee, thanks for reminding me. At least I got to see Luna over the summer, a little.”
When they got to the Griffindor portrait hole, guarded by the Fat Lady, they stopped and waited for Percy to tell them all the password.
“Coming through, coming through!” Percy called from behind the crowd. “The new password’s ‘Fortuna Major’!”
“Oh no,” said Neville Longbottom sadly. He always had trouble remembering the passwords.
“It's Latin, Neville. Means 'Major Fortune.'”
“Thanks, Harry, but I don't think that will work.”
“Just try repeating it to yourself over and over again for a few minutes every now and then, or for an hour straight, until you remember it. Do it now and then for days if you have to. You repeat something often enough, you'll remember it.”
“Yeah, but I'm tired. I want to go to bed, and I'll forget by morning.”
“Well I'll wait up for you, tell you what it is in the morning, okay? Then you can repeat it in your mind on your way to breakfast, and while you eat.”
“I suppose so.”
Ron, Neville, and Harry went up to their dormitory and got ready for bed. Harry lay in bed thinking about Neville, and Ron. He knew, from Ron using a few simple spells to test his new wand at Ollivander's, that Ron was finding it much easier to cast magic with a new wand, with his own wand. How much of that was due to the ancient age of the dead wand, and how much of it was because this wand chose him? Ollivander had told him the wand chooses the wizard, but Ron's wand had been hand-me-down. So too was Neville's wand, it having been his father's wand, though it looked practically brand new. Was it a coincidence that the two boys, both with wands that hadn't chosen them, were bad at magic? Or was Ollivander more right than he'd let on?
Then another thought occurred to him. If Neville was using his dad's wand, when it looked in such perfect condition, why was he using his dad's wand? Ron had used Charlie's old wand because his family couldn't afford one for Ron. Charlie was presumably making enough money working with dragons to afford a brand new wand of his own, so had given his old, worn out wand to his brother. But why would Neville's father give a perfectly good wand to his son, rather than buy him a new one?
Harry remembered Neville lived with his Gran. He'd never heard the other boy mention his parents, except in connection to the wand, or when telling about how his Gran was disappointed at Neville not being more magical. No, he'd only ever talked about his Gran and Uncle Algae, specifically. Were Neville's parents dead? Did they die in the last war? Did Voldemort kill them? The few times he could remember Neville mentioning his parents, there was a strange sort of emotion on his face there, something like a mix of sadness, worry, and pride. Harry wondered what that meant.
Tired as Harry was, he kept thinking about Neville, and Ron, and wands, because he knew if he didn't, he'd think about Sirius Black. It was frustrating, thinking about that man. He didn't know what to think about Black. Part of him wanted the whole thing to have been a misunderstanding, for Black to be innocent somehow, so he could connect with his dad's best friend, anyone who had really known his parents as something other than a student at Hogwarts.
That part of him wanted Black to be innocent so he could stop having doubts about his own friends, or more accurately stop having doubts about his ability to judge their character. But that was hard; contrary to popular opinion, people with Asperger's don't generally lack empathy; Harry knew, from his own experience mostly, that he could tell what others were feeling just fine. What bewildered him a lot was why they felt the way they did. It had only been from years of hard work trying to imagine what it would be like in other people's shoes that Harry had managed to work out possible reasons. But it was a lot of work, required getting to know someone very well, and only had about a 75% success rate at best. It seemed to come naturally to other people; Harry, though, had to work hard at it, like he was compensating for a missing limb. But actually, it was like a missing part of his brain. It felt like... like he imagined it must feel to be blind, and trying to figure out what the world looked like to those who could see. Which was an easy metaphor to think of, for him; without his glasses, he was legally blind. He could make out rough shapes, and kind of work out enough details to recognize people before they spoke, but he couldn't read at all without them, and he shuddered to imagine himself driving or flying without them.
So yes, part of him wanted Black to be innocent somehow. Yet another part of Harry was convinced that Black must be guilty. Everyone seemed convinced that Black had been their secret-keeper, and if Black had gone to prison – without a trial, even – he presumed Dumbledore knew enough about the Fideleus Charm to say Black was guilty. There didn't seem to be any way Black was innocent, even if Mr. Malfoy didn't think Black had been a Death Eater. But Voldemort liked keeping secrets; it was possible Black had been Voldemort's secret weapon, something he kept even from his most trusted lieutenants, just in case one of them was spying on him for the opposition. After all, Regulus Black had turned against Voldemort, so they said. So it made sense Voldemort might be cautious in case of betrayal.
And of course, why break out after 12 years in prison? That was an important question. The answer to that question felt key, like it could tip the scales in Harry's head, make one outcome more likely than the other, transmute his doubt into certainty, one way or another.
Realizing he was thinking about Black after all, he was annoyed at himself, and started instead to focus on getting to sleep. He tried to think of nothing, to blank out his mind. Finding that too difficult, he switched to thinking about geometric shapes; circles, squares, polyhedrons, triangles, stars, and so on. He let the shapes swim in his mind's eye. They began to blend with the colors and patterns he saw when his eyes were closed in a dark room for long enough, until he was no longer thinking of them, but still seeing them.
Finally, he got to sleep.
Endnote: So I finally fixed the mistake I made where I had Draco claiming Sirius was his mother's brother, it now reads that Sirius is his mother's cousin, as it is in canon.
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Three.
Or, "Aspie Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban."
Note: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made.
Note 2: There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though.
Chapter 3: Trouble Smith
Despite having a hard time getting to sleep the night before, Harry found himself awake much earlier than usual. He tried rolling over to go back to sleep, but he wasn't tired enough for it, so he gave up and started getting ready.
When he got to the Great Hall and found breakfast wasn't ready yet, he headed out the front door to take a walk around the grounds. The air was still warm, the grounds still beautiful. He walked around the lake, smiling at the giant squid's lazy tentacles coming out of the water, breathing in the fresh air.
He was farther from the school than he'd been in that direction before when he spotted movement in the trees. Wary, he got out his wand. But then whatever it was moved into the open. He thought it might be a large black wolf at first, but as it got closer, he saw it was just a dog. A skinny, sickly-looking dog with filthy fur.
“Aww, poor boy,” he said, getting closer.
The dog turned out to be happy and friendly despite being a stray. It came right up to him and sniffed him. He held out his hand and the dog licked it. He wasn't quite happy with this, but he let it happen. The dog, seeming to sense his mood, stopped and cocked its head at him. He wiped his hand off on his robes, then cleaned them properly with his wand.
“That's okay, boy. You're still a good pup.”
The dog wagged its tail excitedly.
“You must be hungry. You look like skin and bones. You know, when breakfast is ready, I'll bring you something, okay? Hmm... it should be ready soon. You stay here, I'll be back later.”
He scratched the dog behind its ears and took off. The dog lay down and watched him leave, tongue lolling out.
Harry ate as fast as he could without getting sick, squirreling away some bacon for the dog. A few minutes later, he was out there by the dog again. As he approached, it perked up and stood. He tore some of the bacon and tossed the pieces at the dog, which caught them in its mouth and ate them with great joy.
“If you meet me here later, I can bring you stuff from lunch and dinner, too.”
The dog barked softly and wagged its tail.
“You need a name. What should your name be?”
Naturally, the dog did not answer.
“Well I'll think about it. Wouldn’t do to rush these things.”
When all the bacon was gone, Harry sighed and checked his watch.
“I'd better get back. I have to get to class. I have Arithmancy first, and I still have to go get my things from Griffindor tower. See you at lunchtime, okay boy?”
The dog said “Whuff!” and appeared to smile, its tongue hanging out.
Harry left. After a minute, he turned around and saw that the dog was gone. He hoped it would be there later.
~
“Where were you?” Hermione asked him as he brought his bookbag with him to sit next to her.
“I woke up early, took a walk. Met a dog out by the lake, over by the wooded area. He was unhealthily thin, so I came back here, then took him some bacon.”
“Hey, Potter!” shrieked Pansy Parkinson, a Slytherin girl with a face like a pug. “Potter! The dementors are coming, Potter! Woooooooo!”
Harry ignored her just long enough to show he was ignoring her, then turned toward the Ravenclaw table to look for Luna. She spotted him and waved. He waved back, then he looked over at Hermione, who was examining her schedule.
“Ooh, good, we’re starting some new subjects today,” she said happily.
“Hermione,” said Ron, frowning as he looked over her shoulder, “they’ve messed up your schedule. Look — they’ve got you down for about ten subjects a day. There isn’t enough time.”
“I’ll manage. I’ve fixed it all with Professor McGonagall.”
“But look,” said Ron, laughing, “see this morning? Nine o’clock, Divination. And underneath, nine o’clock, Muggle Studies. And” — Ron leaned closer to the schedule, disbelieving — “look — underneath that, Arithmancy, nine o’clock. I mean, I know you’re good, Hermione, but no one’s that good. How’re you supposed to be in three classes at once?”
“Don’t be silly,” said Hermione shortly. “Of course I won’t be in three classes at once.”
“Well, then —”
“Pass the marmalade,” said Hermione.
“But —”
“Oh, Ron, what’s it to you if my schedule’s a bit full?” Hermione snapped. “I told you, I’ve fixed it all with Professor McGonagall.”
“You have Arithmancy? So do I.”
“Oh really, Harry? Doesn't it sound amazing?”
“It sounds interesting,” he conceded.
Just then, Hagrid entered the Great Hall. He was wearing his long moleskin overcoat and was absentmindedly swinging a dead polecat from one enormous hand.
“All righ’?” he said eagerly, pausing on the way to the staff table. “Yer in my firs’ ever lesson! Right after lunch! Bin up since five gettin’ everythin’ ready. … Hope it’s okay. … Me, a teacher … hones’ly. …”
He grinned broadly at them and headed off to the staff table, still swinging the polecat.
“Wonder what he’s been getting ready?” said Ron, a note of anxiety in his voice.
The hall was starting to empty as people headed off toward their first lesson. Ron checked his course schedule.
“We’d better go, Hermione. Look, Divination’s at the top of North Tower. It’ll take us ten minutes to get there.”
Hermione suddenly looked between Ron and Harry, looking worried.
“Er, yes. Okay, Ron. See you later, Harry.”
He watched them leave. A few minutes later, he got up to go to Arithmancy. It was a lot closer than Divination, and he felt glad that he was taking this instead.
The door was already open, so he went in and sat down. Others filed in over the minutes. Then, to his utter astonishment, Hermione walked in, looking nervously at Harry. She sat next to him.
“I thought you had Divination.”
“Don't worry about it. Like I told Ron, I've got it taken care of with McGonagall.”
Harry nodded, saying nothing. But in his mind, he was already putting things together. Magic could do a lot of things; could it copy a human being and have them rejoin later? Or maybe they had some kind of time machine? No, on second thought, that last was absurd. If they had time machines, they could just go back and stop Voldemort before he'd gotten started. But clearly there was some kind of magic going on here. He would have to check with Ron later to see if she'd been in Divination with him.
The teacher came in at last. She had dark brown hair and brown eyes, and a severe look to her, a little like Professor McGonagall.
“Good morning class, I am Professor Vector, your Arithmancy professor. Put your wands away, this class does not use much wandwork.”
They put their wands away. When that was done, she spoke again.
“For those of you who aren't sure what it is, Arithmancy is the use of numbers and maths to predict the future. Some of this is straight-forward enough, something even Muggles can do, things like using maths to predict the trajectories of flying or thrown objects and that sort. Others are more esoteric, which is a fancy way of saying 'magical.' There is much we can divine about the present and the future using maths.
“A question I often hear is 'how is this different from Divination class?' Well the main difference is that Divination class is really only useful for those who are Seers. Nobody else is going to get much out of it, so it really should be an N.E.W.T. or higher level class, or reserved for those who have the Sight. Whereas with Arithmancy, all you need is a knowledge of maths and how to apply them to making predictions. It is very scientific, very academic and logical, whereas Divination is more intuitive.
“Aside from the obvious applications, Arithmancy is also often used to predict or determine the effects of certain spells, charms, and other magic, especially how these magics interact with one another, and thus is very useful for magical artificers in their work of coming up with magical objects such as Pensieves, Secrecy Sensors, or Sneakoscopes. Arithmancy can also be used in repairing such items, by helping determine what is wrong with the item. Furthermore, it can also be applied to Healing, in determining the effects of mixed hexes or other spells upon the human body, or to potion making, for similar reasons. Thus, as you can see, it is a very useful subject for many magical careers later in life.
“A lot of it will be far beyond O.W.L. level, but that will come later. For the first few weeks, we will be taking a series of quizzes to see how much maths you already know, so we know where to begin to get everyone up to the same level. Do not worry that you haven't studied, these will not be graded. They are simply to determine how much you know. We shall start our first one after roll call. Then, when all the quizzes are done, we shall work on getting everyone up to the same level, so we can then move on to more complicated maths.”
Professor Vector did the roll call very quickly, barely pausing at Harry's name. When that was done, she pulled a large sheath of parchments from her bag and passed out the quizzes.
The quiz started out easy and got more difficult, but Harry still finished so quickly that the only person to finish before him was Hermione. When she saw they were done, Professor Vector came over and collected their quizzes, handing them another to do. By the end of class, Harry and Hermione had both gotten through four quizzes, most other people getting through only two. Harry left class feeling drained but pleased with himself. He knew he hadn't done very well on the last quiz before time had been up, but just the fact that he'd gotten to it was impressive enough.
When he remembered that Transfiguration was next, he groaned aloud. Two difficult classes in a row! Mondays were going to be horrible. Well, at least there was Care of Magical Creatures after lunch.
He had been intending to go to Transfiguration with Hermione, but when he looked around, she was nowhere to be seen. He popped his head back into the classroom to see if she was in there still, but she wasn't. So he shrugged at the minor mystery, and went on to class without her.
She showed up with Ron, the two of them getting in just barely on time. He found this odd, but said nothing, just filed it away with the other weird things about Hermione this year. Then he noticed that Ron was looking worried. He didn't get a chance to ask after him, though, because class was starting. But he noticed other people were looking worried, too. Many of them were looking at him and Ron like they knew the two of them had just been told their best friends were terminally ill. It made it very hard for him to concentrate on what McGonagall was saying about Animagi (wizards that could turn into animals). And he wasn't the only one. Even Hermione looked worried. Ron must have told her something when they'd met up on the way to class.
He was so distracted by their weird looks that he wasn’t even watching when she transformed herself in front of their eyes into a tabby cat with spectacle markings around her eyes.
“Really, what has got into you all today?” said Professor McGonagall, turning back into herself with a faint pop, and staring around at them all. “Not that it matters, but that’s the first time my transformation’s not got applause from a class.”
Everybody’s heads turned toward Harry again, but nobody spoke. Then Hermione raised her hand.
“Please, Professor, we’ve just had our first Divination class, and we were reading the tea leaves, and —”
“Ah, of course,” said Professor McGonagall, suddenly frowning. “There is no need to say any more, Miss Granger. Tell me, which of you will be dying this year?”
Everyone stared at her. Especially Harry, who was confused. Unless she hadn't meant to include herself in that, it seemed like she really was finding a way to be in two places at once.
“Er,” Hermione said. “Ron. And Harry.”
“Me? But I'm not even in that class.”
Professor McGonagall seemed surprised, too.
“Two students this time? She's outdoing herself this year. But you should know, Potter, Weasley, that Sybill Trelawney has predicted the death of one student a year since she arrived at this school. None of them has died yet. Seeing death omens is her favorite way of greeting a new class. If it were not for the fact that I never speak ill of my colleagues —”
Professor McGonagall broke off, and they saw that her nostrils had gone white. She went on, more calmly, “Divination is one of the most imprecise branches of magic. I shall not conceal from you that I have very little patience with it. True Seers are very rare, and Professor Trelawney —”
She stopped again, and then said, in a very matter-of-fact tone, “You look in excellent health to me, Potter, so you will excuse me if I don’t let you off homework today. I assure you that if you die, you need not hand it in.”
Hermione laughed. So did Harry. Ron still looked worried, though. Lavender whispered something about Neville's cup, a reference Harry had obviously missed, but seemed to be significant.
When the Transfiguration class had finished, they joined the crowd thundering toward the Great Hall for lunch.
“Ron, cheer up,” said Hermione, pushing a dish of stew toward him. “You heard what Professor McGonagall said.”
Ron spooned stew onto his plate and picked up his fork but didn’t start.
“Harry,” he said, in a low, serious voice, “you didn't say what color that dog was, earlier.”
“Well yeah, it was a large black dog. But it was just a stray. It was friendly. And nothing has happened to me yet.”
Ron let his fork fall with a clatter.
“Like Harry said, it's just a stray.”
“Hermione, if Harry’s seen a Grim, that’s — that’s bad,” he said. “My — my uncle Bilius saw one and — and he died twenty-four hours later!”
“Coincidence,” said Hermione airily, pouring herself some pumpkin juice.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” said Ron, starting to get angry. “Grims scare the living daylights out of most wizards!”
“Ron, that sounds like the same kind of nonsense that used to be centered around black cats during the Black Death.”
Ron looked confused. “Whadda ya mean?”
“I don't know if it reached the wizarding world, but around the 14th century in Europe, in many countries black cats were thought to be spreading a disease called the Black Plague or Black Death, and they were outlawed and killed. Which just made the spread of the disease worse, because the going theory is that the disease was the Bubonic Plague, which was spread by rats.”
“They outlawed black cats? Why? Were they like Grims to Muggles?”
“Pretty sure Grims exist in Muggle lore, too. I seem to recall a story like that in elementary school. Anyway, cats were outlawed because they thought black cats were witches' familiars. Which, to their thinking, made black cats not cats, but cat-shaped demons.”
“But that's bollocks!”
“Yes it is. But it isn't any more absurd than the thing about Grims. It's just a superstition.”
“Maybe,” Ron conceded. “But that doesn't explain Uncle Billius.”
“He just saw the Grim and died of fright, probably,” said Hermione. “Making the Grim the cause of death, not an omen. And Harry’s still with us because he’s not stupid enough to see one and think, right, well, I’d better kick the bucket then!”
Ron mouthed wordlessly at Hermione, who opened her bag, took out her new Arithmancy book, and propped it open against the juice jug.
“I think Divination seems very woolly,” she said, searching for her page. “A lot of guesswork, if you ask me.”
“But Neville's cup!”
“Oh come on, Ron, it doesn't take a seer to know Neville is clumsy, and goodness knows how much Snape complains about him in the teachers' staff-room. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy!”
“And she did tea-leaves for Harry even though he wasn't there, and she saw a Grim!”
“Harry gets into a lot of dangerous trouble, she probably didn't see a Grim at all. She just figured, logically, that predicting Harry's death was a safe bet.”
“She showed me the Grim, remember?”
“And you thought it looked like a sheep. Seamus thought it looked like a donkey. It's just guesswork.”
“Professor Trelawney said you didn’t have the right aura! You just don’t like being bad at something for a change!”
He had touched a nerve. Hermione slammed her Arithmancy book down on the table so hard that bits of meat and carrot flew everywhere.
“If being good at Divination means I have to pretend to see death omens in a lump of tea leaves, I’m not sure I’ll be studying it much longer! That lesson was absolute rubbish compared with my Arithmancy class!”
She snatched up her bag and stalked away.
Ron frowned after her.
“What’s she talking about?” he said to Harry. “She can’t have been to an Arithmancy class yet. It's at the same time as Divination!”
“She was, though. She had it with me.”
“She did? Well maybe you can tell me how she's doing it, then.”
“I wish I could. It's a mystery to me, too. And whatever it is must not be common knowledge if you don't know, either. Or at least, not common knowledge for people our age.”
“If she was with you, why didn't she come to Transfiguration with you? Isn't the Arithmancy classroom closer to Transfiguration?”
“It is. But she disappeared when I wasn't looking. When I saw her with you, I assumed she had met up with you.”
“She and I went straight from Divination to Transfiguration, though.”
“There's still the fact she had two different classes, on different ends of the castle, in the same hour. Maybe she's got a clone?”
“Clone? What's a clone?”
“A copy of herself. Maybe McGonagall knows a spell that can copy a person, and then merge them back together again later. And maybe she taught it to Hermione.”
Ron snorted. “If anyone could master a spell like that, it'd be you or Hermione.”
“Anyway,” Harry said, gathering up the table scraps he'd collected for the stray dog. “I'm off to feed that dog.”
“I dunno, Harry. An ordinary dog getting into Hogwarts on its own?”
“It probably went through the Forbidden Forest or something. Or it could be a magical dog; Hogsmeade is an all-wizarding village, it might've gotten lost from there. Or abandoned. Anyway, catch you later.”
Before leaving the Great Hall, Harry checked for Luna. She was busy eating. He popped over and sat down next to her.
“Can't stay long, I found a stray dog today that's skin and bones, the poor thing.”
“Oooh, that's sad. Glad to hear you're helping it. Here, I'll help collect scraps for it, too.”
He stayed with her while she ate a little faster, setting bits of her meal into a napkin for the dog. When she was done, they left together.
*
The dog had been in the same place when they went looking, and it gobbled up the table scraps greedily, then wagged its tail. Harry spent a few minutes talking with Luna about this and that while he fed and then petted the dog, looking at his watch every now and then. When it finally was time to go to Care of Magical Creatures, he said goodbye to the dog and walked off toward Hagrid's hut with Luna, who split off to go back to the castle. Harry arrived at Hagrid's just in time to see the Slytherins from his year coming toward him. He groaned quietly, but perked up when Draco split away from the group with a sour look on his face and stood over next to Harry.
“Aww, the little blonde blood traitor is hiding behind his littler brown friend.”
“Shut up, Crabbe,” Draco snapped peevishly at him, stepping forward. “I'll take you on anytime. Wizard's duel.”
Crabbe went silent, glaring at Draco. He didn't dare accept the challenge; Draco was much more skilled at dueling than he was, and he knew it.
“That's what I thought,” Draco said, brushing his robes as though they had dust on them.
“'Nuf o' that, you lot,” Hagrid said, coming into view at last, just as Ron and Hermione arrived. “Got a real treat for yeh today! Great lesson comin’ up! Everyone here? Right, follow me!”
Harry worried for a moment that they were going into the Forbidden Forest, but instead, Hagrid took them to a paddock around behind his hut. It was empty.
“Everyone gather ’round the fence here!” he called. “That’s it — make sure yeh can see — now, firs’ thing yeh’ll want ter do is open yer books —”
“How?” Draco said, slipping into his old drawl. At Harry's look, he hastily added, “Professor.”
“What's that?” Hagrid asked.
“I mean, how do we open our books? They attack us when we try.”
He took out his copy of The Monster Book of Monsters, which he had bound shut with a length of rope. Other people took theirs out too; some, like Harry, had belted their book shut; others had crammed them inside tight bags or clamped them together with binder clips.
“Hasn’ — hasn’ anyone bin able ter open their books?” said Hagrid, looking crestfallen.
The class all shook their heads.
“Yeh’ve got ter stroke ’em,” said Hagrid, as though this was the most obvious thing in the world. “Look —”
He took Hermione’s copy and ripped off the Spellotape that bound it. The book tried to bite, but Hagrid ran a giant forefinger down its spine, and the book shivered, and then fell open and lay quiet in his hand.
Draco's face turned sour, like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Mumbling something about Professor Kettleburn, he stroked his own copy. Only when it shuddered and relaxed did he take the rope off. It remained relaxed.
“Oh what a laugh,” Goyle said sarcastically. “Books that attack us unless yeh stroke 'em. Har har.”
“I — I thought they were funny,” Hagrid said uncertainly to Hermione.
“It's okay, Hagrid, they are. You just should have included instructions in the letter,” Harry said.
“Righ’ then,” said Hagrid, who seemed to have lost his thread, “so — so yeh’ve got yer books an’ — an’ — now yeh need the Magical Creatures. Yeah. So I’ll go an’ get ’em. Hang on …”
He strode away from them into the forest and out of sight.
Crabbe and Goyle looked at each other, and began talking in whispers. Harry caught the word 'Smith,' but nothing more. He had a suspicion, though, what the context was. He expected them to say something, but if Zacharias Smith was supplying their wit, they had run out of it, and since he wasn't in either of their Houses, he wasn't there to give them ideas.
“Oooooooh!” squealed Lavender Brown, pointing toward the opposite side of the paddock.
Trotting toward them were a dozen of the most bizarre creatures Harry had ever seen. They had the bodies, hind legs, and tails of horses, but the front legs, wings, and heads of what seemed to be giant eagles, with cruel, steel-colored beaks and large, brilliantly orange eyes. The talons on their front legs were half a foot long and deadly looking. Each of the beasts had a thick leather collar around its neck, which was attached to a long chain, and the ends of all of these were held in the vast hands of Hagrid, who came jogging into the paddock behind the creatures.
“Gee up, there!” he roared, shaking the chains and urging the creatures toward the fence where the class stood. Everyone drew back slightly as Hagrid reached them and tethered the creatures to the fence.
“Hippogriffs!” Hagrid roared happily, waving a hand at them. “Beau’iful, aren’ they?”
Harry could sort of see what Hagrid meant. Once you got over the first shock of seeing something that was half horse, half bird, you started to appreciate the hippogriffs’ gleaming coats, changing smoothly from feather to hair, each of them a different color: stormy gray, bronze, pinkish roan, gleaming chestnut, and inky black.
“So,” said Hagrid, rubbing his hands together and beaming around, “if yeh wan’ ter come a bit nearer —”
“Er,” he said quietly to Hagrid. “aren't they a bit, well, advanced for our first ever class?”
Hagrid's face fell a little, and he considered the hippogriffs. “Er, yeh may have a point there, Harry. But well, I wanted something impressive fer yer first class.”
Harry smiled wanly. Of course Hagrid would go for the impressive creatures first.
“Now, firs’ thing yeh gotta know abou’ hippogriffs is, they’re proud,” said Hagrid. “Easily offended, hippogriffs are. Don’t never insult one, ’cause it might be the last thing yeh do.”
Harry looked over at Crabbe and Goyle. Surprisingly, they seemed to be getting ideas. He could almost hear the grinding of gears and the smoke of burning oil from here.
“Yeh always wait fer the hippogriff ter make the firs’ move,” Hagrid continued. “It’s polite, see? Yeh walk toward him, and yeh bow, an’ yeh wait. If he bows back, yeh’re allowed ter touch him. If he doesn’ bow, then get away from him sharpish, ’cause those talons hurt.
“Right — who wants ter go first?”
Most of the class backed farther away in answer. Even Harry, Ron, and Hermione had misgivings. The hippogriffs were tossing their fierce heads and flexing their powerful wings; they didn’t seem to like being tethered like this.
Harry turned to look at Draco. Draco snorted at him, saying without words 'You must be joking.'
“No one?” said Hagrid, with a pleading look.
“I’ll do it,” said Harry.
There was an intake of breath from behind him. Parvati and Lavender said something about Trelawney's predictions. Harry ignored them.
“Good man, Harry!” roared Hagrid. “Right then — let’s see how yeh get on with Buckbeak.”
He untied one of the chains, pulled the gray hippogriff away from its fellows, and slipped off its leather collar. The class on the other side of the paddock seemed to be holding its breath. Malfoy’s eyes were narrowed maliciously.
“Easy, now, Harry,” said Hagrid quietly. “Yeh’ve got eye contact, now try not ter blink. … Hippogriffs don’ trust yeh if yeh blink too much. …”
“Eye contact?” Harry nearly shouted, panic-stricken. “No, no. Forget that, Hagrid. Sorry.” He backed away. He hated making eye contact with humans. He didn't think eye contact with a cruel-looking monster would be any better.
“No?” Hagrid said, sounding dispirited.
“S-sorry,” Harry said. “I don't like eye contact.”
Harry couldn't stand Hagrid looking so disappointed.
“Does it have to be direct eye contact?” Harry asked him. “Can't I look between his eyes or just above?”
Hagrid sighed. “No, Harry. He'll know the diff'rence, Beaky will.
Crabbe and Goyle said something to each other, snickering. Harry had a suspicion why.
“Well alrigh' then, I'll jes pick someone else, if there's no volunteers. Ron, yeh do it.”
“Me?” Ron said, sounding anxious.
“Yes you, Ron,” Hagrid said.
“Well, okay I guess.”
Harry watched as Ron nervously stepped forward, looking into the creature's eyes while also bowing, which looked very difficult. There was a moment where Hagrid thought Buckbeak was going to attack, but then it knelt in an unmistakable bow. Hagrid rewarded it with a dead ferret.
Ron seemed to feel better about this, and reached forward tentatively to pet it. The large animal seemed to enjoy it.
The class applauded, except for Crabbe and Goyle. Even Draco clapped, looking impressed, though somewhat disappointed that it hadn't attacked Ron.
“Righ' then, Ron, I reckon he might let yeh ride 'im now!” Hagrid said, pulling Ron up onto its back and hitting its backside.
Ron looked terrified as he clutched Buckbeak's neck to keep from falling off as it flew around. When Buckbeak landed again, Ron still looked scared, and scrambled to get off.
“Nothing like a broom,” Ron said. “Terrifying, that was. Thought I was gonna fall off.”
“Good work, Ron!” roared Hagrid as everyone except Crabbe, and Goyle cheered. “Okay, who else wants a go?”
Emboldened by Ron’s success, the rest of the class climbed cautiously into the paddock. Hagrid untied the hippogriffs one by one, and soon people were bowing nervously, all over the paddock. Neville ran repeatedly backward from his, which didn’t seem to want to bend its knees. Ron and Hermione practiced on the chestnut, while Harry watched, his fear of making eye contact with the hippogriffs excusing him.
Crabbe and Goyle took over Buckbeak, looking nervous as Ron had. Crabbe tried three times before giving up. Goyle tried twice, looking annoyed.
“Why you giving me trouble?” Goyle asked Buckbeak. “Just bow, you stupid beast!”
It happened in a flash of steely talons; Goyle let out a strangely high-pitched scream and next moment, Hagrid was wrestling Buckbeak back into his collar as he strained to get at Goyle, who lay curled in the grass, blood blossoming over his robes.
“I’m dyin'!” Goyle yelled as the class panicked. “I’m dyin', look at me! It’s killed me!”
Hagrid, reassuring Goyle that he wasn't dying, picked the large boy up as easily as lifting a suitcase and took him back to the castle in a fireman's carry. Meanwhile, the reaction of the class was mixed. Some people, even some of the Slytherins, thought it served Goyle right for insulting the creature. Others were upset and calling for Hagrid to lose his job.
“That was a really bad thing to happen in Hagrid’s first class, though, wasn’t it?” said Ron, looking worried. “Trust Goyle to mess things up for him.”
They were among the first to reach the Great Hall at dinnertime, hoping to see Hagrid, but he wasn’t there.
“They wouldn’t fire him, would they?” said Hermione anxiously, not touching her steak-and-kidney pudding.
“They’d better not,” said Ron, who wasn’t eating either.
Harry was watching the Slytherin table. A large group including Crabbe was huddled together, deep in conversation. Harry was sure they were cooking up their own version of how Goyle had been injured. Another group – Harry's friends – were glaring daggers at Crabbe.
At the end of dinner, Harry took more table scraps out to the dog. But since it was getting dark, Ron and Hermione insisted on coming with him. Luna followed along too, with her own contribution.
“So this is the dog, is it? You're right, Harry,” Ron said, “he really doesn't look like he's doing very well.”
“We shouldn't be out here after dark, Harry. What if Sirius Black comes looking for you?”
It may have been his imagination, but the dog looked sad at these words. Maybe it was just wondering what the hold-up was, re: food. Harry fed it, and it looked happier.
“Well if I run into Sirius Black, I'll get my wand out and be ready in case he attacks, but I'll ask him for his side of the story, and I'll listen. Oh look at that, he's loving the food. You like pork chop fat, do you boy?”
The dog's spirits were much higher than they'd been all day. If not for his matted fur and his skeletally thin appearance, he would almost be a normal, happy dog.
“I should ask Madam Pomfrey if I can get, like, some kind of potion for you, boy. You're probably malnourished.”
“He seems fond of my green beans,” Luna said.
“I hope nothing we feed him makes him sick.”
“Why would it make him sick?” Ron asked.
“Well aside from the fact that dogs can't have things like chocolate, I read somewhere that people and animals that are starving can get sick if they eat too much at once. I think it was called Refeeding Syndrome, and it can be deadly.”
Hermione nodded absently. She was looking off in the direction of Hagrid's hut. “There's a light on in Hagrid's window,” she said. “We should see how he's doing.”
“Yeah, I think it's still early enough. We should see if he's okay. Sorry boy, that's all of it. I'll bring you more tomorrow morning, okay?”
“Whuff!” said the dog.
He waved goodbye to the dog, and led his friends over to Hagrid's hut. When they reached it, they knocked, and a voice growled, “C’min.”
Hagrid was sitting in his shirtsleeves at his scrubbed wooden table; his boarhound, Fang, had his head in Hagrid’s lap. One look told them that Hagrid had been drinking a lot; there was a pewter tankard almost as big as a bucket in front of him, and he seemed to be having difficulty getting them into focus.
“ ’Spect it’s a record,” he said thickly, when he recognized them. “Don’ reckon they’ve ever had a teacher who lasted on’y a day before.”
“You haven’t been fired, Hagrid!” gasped Hermione.
“Not yet,” said Hagrid miserably, taking a huge gulp of whatever was in the tankard. “But ’s only a matter o’ time, i’n’t it, after Goyle.”
The next few minutes passed with the three of them trying to convince Hagrid that it wasn't his fault, that Goyle was to blame, and that Goyle was lying when he said it still hurt. Harry felt sure that Smith had given Goyle that idea.
“I think you’ve had enough to drink, Hagrid,” said Hermione firmly. She took the tankard from the table and went outside to empty it.
“Ar, maybe she’s right,” said Hagrid, letting go of Harry and Ron, who both staggered away, rubbing their ribs. Hagrid heaved himself out of his chair and followed Hermione unsteadily outside. They heard a loud splash.
“What’s he done?” said Harry nervously as Hermione came back in with the empty tankard.
“Stuck his head in the water barrel,” said Hermione, putting the tankard away.
Hagrid came back, his long hair and beard sopping wet, wiping the water out of his eyes.
“Tha’s better,” he said, shaking his head like a dog and drenching them all. “Listen, it was good of yeh ter come an’ see me, I really —”
Hagrid stopped dead, staring at Harry as though he’d only just realized he was there.
“WHAT D’YEH THINK YOU’RE DOIN’, EH?” he roared, so suddenly that they jumped a foot in the air. “YEH’RE NOT TO GO WANDERIN’ AROUND AFTER DARK, HARRY! AN’ YOU THREE! LETTIN’ HIM!”
Hagrid strode over to Harry, grabbed his arm, and pulled him to the door.
“That was quite loud,” Luna commented. Hagrid ignored her.
“C’mon!” Hagrid said angrily. “I’m takin’ yer all back up ter school, an’ don’ let me catch yeh walkin’ down ter see me after dark again. I’m not worth that!”
Guess I'm not going to get to feed that dog after dinner from now on, Harry thought miserably as Hagrid frog-marched them back up to the school.
*
The next morning, Harry fed the dog again. Luna, though she ate alone at breakfast, came out to help feed the dog, too.
“He needs a name,” Harry said.
Luna considered that. “How about Adalbert?”
“Adalbert?” Harry asked her.
“It means 'noble or intelligent.'”
The dog whined.
“He doesn't like Adalbert.”
“Hmm... Casnar? It means 'legendary nobleman.'”
Again, the dog whined.
“Strike two,” Harry said with a smile.
“Xanthus?” Luna suggested.
“What's that mean?”
“It means 'yellow, blonde.'”
Harry laughed. “He's black! No white or yellow on him at all.”
She shrugged. “I like the color yellow.”
“Well I can tell he doesn't like that either. You know what? I think I'll go for simple and call him Shadow.”
The dog woofed happily.
“Ah, he likes it. Shadow he is, then.”
They talked and petted Shadow for a few more minutes before heading back to the castle to go to class. He wondered, as he went to class, which class Luna had.
*
Goyle didn't come back to classes until Thursday, when the Slytherins and Gryffindors were halfway through double Potions. He lumbered into the dungeon, his right arm covered in bandages and bound up in a sling.
“How is it, Goyle?” simpered Pansy Parkinson. “Does it hurt much?”
“Yeah,” said Goyle, putting on a brave sort of grimace. But Harry saw him wink at Crabbe when Pansy had looked away.
“Settle down, settle down,” said Professor Snape idly.
Harry and Ron scowled at each other; Snape wouldn’t have said “settle down” if they’d walked in late, he’d have given them detention.
Because of his poor position in Slytherin, and an unpopularity in his own year, Draco had sat down next to Ron and Harry. Which turned out to be lucky, because Goyle glared at Draco like he'd taken the large boy's seat.
“Great lump probably wants someone to do his work for him,” Draco said. “Partnering with him is a nightmare, honestly. Crabbe and Goyle have the collective intelligence of a slug.”
Harry couldn't help notice that there was a note of sadness in his voice as he spoke.
“You miss their friendship, don't you?”
“Yeah. They're not big on talking, but they listen well. They didn't understand half or more of what I told them, but they still listened.”
“Well I hear you're getting new friends, though.”
“Yes, I am. Still...”
Snape glared at them, and looked at Draco with what looked like disappointment.
“Potter,” Snape snapped. “Five points from Griffindor for disrupting class. Keep quiet and focus on your work.”
“Yes, sir.” Harry answered.
Goyle had taken the seat behind them, though, something they only just now realized as Draco tapped them on the shoulders to point it out to them.
“Sir,” Goyle called, “sir, I’ll need help cutting up these daisy roots, 'cuz of my arm —”
“Weasley, cut up Goyle's roots for him,” said Snape without looking up.
Ron went brick red.
“There’s nothing wrong with your arm,” he hissed at Goyle.
Goyle glared at Ron. “Do it, Weasel. Or I'll give you a wounded arm to match mine.”
Ron seized his knife, pulled Goyle's roots toward him, and began to chop them roughly, so that they were all different sizes.
“Professor,” whined Goyle, “Weasley's doin' it wrong on purpose!”
Snape approached their table, stared down his hooked nose at the roots, then gave Ron an unpleasant smile from beneath his long, greasy black hair.
“Change roots with Goyle, Weasley.”
“But, sir — !”
Ron had spent the last quarter of an hour carefully shredding his own roots into exactly equal pieces.
“Now,” said Snape in his most dangerous voice.
Ron shoved his own beautifully cut roots to Goyle at the other table, then took up the knife again.
“And, sir, I’ll need this shrivelfig skinned,” said Goyle.
“Potter, you can skin Goyle's shrivelfig,” said Snape, giving Harry the look of loathing he always reserved just for him.
Harry angrily resisted making a comment about kicking Goyle in the shrivelfig, and just went to work as Ron tried to repair his mangled daisy roots.
“How's your big pal?” Goyle asked maliciously.
“You mean Hagrid? Yes, I've seen him. What of it?”
“He's gonna be sacked soon, I figger,” Goyle said.
“I doubt it,” Harry said.
“Keep talking, Goyle, and I'll give you a real injury,” snarled Ron.
“My dad knows Draco's dad, you know. And Mr. Malfoy knows the minister, and the school gov'ners. My dad says Mr. Malfoy is talking with 'em all about my arm, for dad.”
“So that’s why you’re putting it on,” said Harry, accidentally beheading a dead caterpillar because his hand was shaking in anger. “To try to get Hagrid fired.”
“Partly, Potter,” said Goyle, “But there's other good things too. Weasley, slice my caterpillars for me.”
“Goyle, you overgrown gorilla,” Draco said to him, before turning back to Harry. “Don't worry, Harry, I'll talk to father for you.”
“Ain't gonna work, Draco,” Goyle said. “He don't listen to you no more.”
Draco grumbled at this, but didn't answer. Which was answer enough.
A few cauldrons away, Neville was in trouble. Neville regularly went to pieces in Potions lessons; it was his worst subject, and his great fear of Professor Snape made things ten times worse. His potion, which was supposed to be a bright, acid green, had turned —
“Orange, Longbottom,” said Snape, ladling some up and allowing it to splash back into the cauldron, so that everyone could see. “Orange. Tell me, boy, does anything penetrate that thick skull of yours? Didn’t you hear me say, quite clearly, that only one rat spleen was needed? Didn’t I state plainly that a dash of leech juice would suffice? What do I have to do to make you understand, Longbottom?”
“Maybe be a halfway decent teacher?” Harry muttered just loud enough for Ron to hear. Ron fought to suppress his giggles.
Neville was pink and trembling. He looked as though he was on the verge of tears.
“Please, sir,” said Hermione, “please, I could help Neville put it right —”
“I don’t remember asking you to show off, Miss Granger,” said Snape coldly, and Hermione went as pink as Neville. “Longbottom, at the end of this lesson we will feed a few drops of this potion to your toad and see what happens. Perhaps that will encourage you to do it properly.”
Snape moved away, leaving Neville breathless with fear.
“Help me!” he moaned to Hermione.
It became a tense class after that, with Hermione furtively helping Neville fix his potion. Personally, Harry wasn't sure it could be done, given how bad it was already. So he was surprised when Snape later gave the potion to Neville's toad, and it shrunk the toad down to a tadpole.
“That's not shrinking, that's de-aging,” Harry muttered.
The Gryffindors burst into applause. Snape, looking sour, pulled a small bottle from the pocket of his robe, poured a few drops on top of Trevor, and he reappeared suddenly, fully grown.
“Five points from Gryffindor,” said Snape, which wiped the smiles from every face. “I told you not to help him, Miss Granger. Class dismissed.”
As they started getting ready to leave, Harry came up with an idea. Next potions class, he'd hopefully have things rearranged so he could partner Neville. Ron could take Draco; they didn't like each other much, but they could be civil to one another. And he and Neville would be nearby anyway, he vowed.
“Five points from Gryffindor because the potion was all right! Why didn’t you lie, Hermione? You should’ve said Neville did it all by himself!”
Hermione didn’t answer. Ron looked around.
“Where is she?”
Harry turned too. They were at the top of the steps now, watching the rest of the class pass them, heading for the Great Hall and lunch.
“She was right behind us,” said Ron, frowning.
Harry frowned, too. More weirdness from Hermione to add to the list.
“Hey, there she is,” he said, spotting her.
Hermione was panting slightly, hurrying up the stairs; one hand clutched her bag, the other seemed to be tucking something down the front of her robes.
“How did you do that?” said Ron.
“What?” said Hermione, joining them.
“One minute you were right behind us, the next moment, you were back at the bottom of the stairs again.”
“What?” Hermione looked slightly confused. “Oh — I had to go back for something. Oh no —”
A seam had split on Hermione’s bag. Harry wasn’t surprised; he could see that it was crammed with at least a dozen large and heavy books. Harry took his wand and repaired it for her.
“Thanks, Harry.”
“Why are you carrying all these around with you?” Ron asked her.
“You know how many subjects I’m taking,” said Hermione breathlessly. “Couldn’t hold these for me, could you?”
“You should get a magically-expanded bookbag.” said Harry. “I think they sell them at the place we get our trunks.”
“That sounds like a good idea. Thanks, Harry.”
“But —” Ron was turning over the books she had handed him, looking at the covers. “You haven’t got any of these subjects today. It’s only Defense Against the Dark Arts this afternoon.”
“Oh yes,” said Hermione vaguely, but she packed all the books back into her bag just the same. “I hope there’s something good for lunch, I’m starving,” she added, and she marched off toward the Great Hall.
“D’you get the feeling Hermione’s not telling us something?” Ron asked Harry.
“Yes. She must have a good reason, though.”
*
Professor Lupin wasn’t there when they arrived at his first Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson. They all sat down, took out their books, quills, and parchment, and were talking when he finally entered the room. Lupin smiled vaguely and placed his tatty old briefcase on the teacher’s desk. He was as shabby as ever but looked healthier than he had on the train, as though he had had a few square meals.
“Good afternoon,” he said. “Would you please put all your books back in your bags. Today’s will be a practical lesson. You will need only your wands.”
“Hope this goes better than the pixies last year,” Harry said, referring to their moronic DADA teacher from last year, and the memorable incident when he released wild pixies into the room.
“Right then,” said Professor Lupin, when everyone was ready. “If you’d follow me.”
Puzzled but interested, the class got to its feet and followed Professor Lupin out of the classroom. He led them along the deserted corridor and around a corner, where the first thing they saw was Peeves the Poltergeist, who was floating upside down in midair and stuffing the nearest keyhole with chewing gum.
After a brief exchange with Peeves, who was ruder to Lupin than he usually was to teachers, Lupin showed them a spell that shot the gum up the poltergeist's nose, then led them on to their destination, which turned out to be the teachers' staff-room.
The staffroom, a long, paneled room full of old, mismatched chairs, was empty except for one teacher. Professor Snape was sitting in a low armchair, and he looked around as the class filed in. His eyes were glittering and there was a nasty sneer playing around his mouth. As Professor Lupin came in and made to close the door behind him, Snape said, “Leave it open, Lupin. I’d rather not witness this.”
He got to his feet and strode past the class, his black robes billowing behind him. At the doorway he turned on his heel and said, “Possibly no one’s warned you, Lupin, but this class contains Neville Longbottom. I would advise you not to entrust him with anything difficult. Not unless Miss Granger is hissing instructions in his ear.”
Neville went scarlet. Harry glared at Snape; it was bad enough that he bullied Neville in his own classes, let alone doing it in front of other teachers.
Professor Lupin had raised his eyebrows.
“I was hoping that Neville would assist me with the first stage of the operation,” he said, “and I am sure he will perform it admirably.”
Neville’s face went, if possible, even redder. Snape’s lip curled, but he left, shutting the door with a snap.
“Now, then,” said Professor Lupin, beckoning the class toward the end of the room, where there was nothing but an old wardrobe where the teachers kept their spare robes. As Professor Lupin went to stand next to it, the wardrobe gave a sudden wobble, banging off the wall.
“Nothing to worry about,” said Professor Lupin calmly because a few people had jumped backward in alarm. “There’s a boggart in there.”
Most people seemed to feel that this was something to worry about. Neville gave Professor Lupin a look of pure terror, and Seamus Finnigan eyed the now rattling doorknob apprehensively.
“Boggarts like dark, enclosed spaces,” said Professor Lupin. “Wardrobes, the gap beneath beds, the cupboards under sinks — I’ve even met one that had lodged itself in a grandfather clock. This one moved in yesterday afternoon, and I asked the headmaster if the staff would leave it to give my third years some practice.
“So, the first question we must ask ourselves is, what is a boggart?”
Hermione put up her hand.
“It’s a shape-shifter,” she said. “It can take the shape of whatever it thinks will frighten us most.”
“Couldn’t have put it better myself,” said Professor Lupin, and Hermione glowed. “So the boggart sitting in the darkness within has not yet assumed a form. He does not yet know what will frighten the person on the other side of the door. Nobody knows what a boggart looks like when he is alone, but when I let him out, he will immediately become whatever each of us most fears.
“This means,” said Professor Lupin, choosing to ignore Neville’s small sputter of terror, “that we have a huge advantage over the boggart before we begin. Have you spotted it, Harry?”
“Er, because there's so many of us, it won't know what it should turn into?”
“Exactly! It’s always best to have company when you’re dealing with a boggart. He becomes confused. Which should he become, a headless corpse or a flesh-eating slug? I once saw a boggart make that very mistake — tried to frighten two people at once and turned himself into half a slug. Not remotely frightening.
“The charm that repels a boggart is simple, yet it requires force of mind. You see, the thing that really finishes a boggart is laughter. What you need to do is force it to assume a shape that you find amusing.
“We will practice the charm without wands first. After me, please … riddikulus!”
“Riddikulus!” said the class together.
“Good,” said Professor Lupin. “Very good. But that was the easy part, I’m afraid. You see, the word alone is not enough. And this is where you come in, Neville.”
Lupin asked Neville what his worst fear was, and after a false start, they found out it was Professor Snape. A bit more questioning about Neville's grandmother’s clothes, and Harry was starting to get an idea what was going to happen. He was not amused. When the boggart-Snape ended up in a dress, a woman's hat, and a handbag because of the Riddikulus charm, Harry alone did not laugh. He thought of Antigone, and how she would probably be mortified. He didn't know how many people knew her secret, after all. He didn't know who knew she was a trans girl.
After Neville, others took turns. But Harry's greatest fear was the dementors, and he had no idea how to make that funny. One by one they took turns, until finally it was Harry's turn. Lupin, however, moved in front of him, and the boggart became a glowing orb. Harry stared at it; it looked familiar, but he couldn't place it, in the brief time between its appearance and Lupin turning it into a cockroach.
Neville got a second crack at it, and this time he laughed at the boggart, which exploded into a thousand wisps of smoke before disappearing completely.
Lupin gave points to everyone who faced the boggart, and points to Harry and Hermione for answering his questions correctly. Harry, while glad he wasn't going to have to face another dementor, was annoyed that Lupin hadn't given him a chance to face the boggart. Did Lupin think, after the train incident, that he was too weak to face a boggart?
But no one else seemed to have noticed anything.
“Did you see me take that banshee?” shouted Seamus.
“And the hand!” said Dean, waving his own around.
“And Snape in that hat!”
“And my mummy!”
“I wonder why Professor Lupin’s frightened of crystal balls?” said Lavender thoughtfully.
“That was the best Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson we’ve ever had, wasn’t it?” said Ron excitedly as they made their way back to the classroom to get their bags.
“He seems like a very good teacher,” said Hermione approvingly. “But I wish I could have had a turn with the boggart —”
“What would it have been for you?” said Ron, sniggering. “A piece of homework that only got nine out of ten?”
*
Later that day, after dinner, Harry went back to Lupin's office and knocked on the man's door, hoping he was in there, since he hadn't been at the staff table. To his luck, the door creaked open and Professor Lupin looked out in astonishment at Harry.
“Harry? Is something wrong?”
“I want to talk with you.”
“Oh. Now?”
“Preferably. But I could come back later.”
“Oh no, now is fine. Come in, come in,” he said, opening the door wider. “I was taking my dinner in here tonight. I didn't feel like putting up with Sev---er, Professor Snape staring at me. Please, sit down.”
Harry sat down in front of Lupin's desk. The man did indeed have a dinner plate, his meal half finished, on his desk.
“What did you want to talk about?”
“Well mainly... I, er... I wanted to say that the boggart-Snape wasn't very funny. We have students here that are transgender, and making fun of a man in a dress just strikes me as mean. Because, well... clothes are just clothes, for one. And also, some people might think trans girls are boys in dresses, and that boggart kinda supports that bigoted notion, whether that was the intention or not.”
Lupin blinked. “I'm sorry, Harry. I didn't think of that possibility.”
“Plus, it was kinda mean to Snape. I'm not saying he doesn't deserve a bit of meanness in his direction at times, because he bullies Neville horribly in class, but, well... I can't see this helping at all. Word will get back to him. He'll be worse than ever to Neville.”
Lupin sighed and rubbed his face with his hands. “You're right, of course Harry. It was stupid and childish of me. Severus and I... well, we went to school together, and we had a rivalry. I was one of your father's friends.”
“Ah,” Harry said, nodding. “That explains it. I figure Snape had to have known my dad, to hate him so much. At first, I thought he hated me because he was racist, but the way he talks about my dad... you don't talk that way unless you hate someone on a deeply personal level.”
“Yes, that's right. Your father and Professor Snape were enemies in school, and I was one of your father's friends, so I got... involved at times. Hence Professor Snape's hatred of me as well.”
“Okay. Well, just try not to do anything like the boggart-Snape again. It could hurt someone other than Snape.”
“I understand, and I agree to keep my childish ideas to myself from now on,” Lupin said with a grin.
Harry sat there a moment in thought before speaking again. “Professor?”
“Yes, Harry?”
“If you were friends with my dad, you must have been friends with Sirius Black as well.”
Lupin's face turned pale. It was lucky he hadn't been eating or drinking.
“What makes you say that?”
“Well one of my friends is Draco Malfoy. Don't look at me like that, he's not like his father. He was at first, but I won him over. He's unlearning his bigotry. Anyway, he told me that he and his father discussed Black, and that as far as Lucius knew, Sirius wasn't a Death Eater. And Lucius was, apparently, right in Voldemort's inner circle, so if anyone would know, it'd be him, right?”
Lupin was frowning.
“Harry, what are you saying?”
“I'm saying I know all about how Black supposedly was my parents' secret-keeper, how he's said to have betrayed them. But he never had a trial, so he could be innocent.”
“I... Harry... I wanted him to be innocent, too. He was my second-best friend in Hogwarts, after all. But if you know that much, surely you know he murdered Peter Pettigrew, another friend of ours?”
“I know that part of the story, yes. But the only witnesses were Muggles, who don't know about magic. Maybe they didn't see what they thought they saw. Is there any way Peter could have gotten away? Maybe he was the traitor, and set up Black?”
A strange look came over Lupin's face then, sort of thoughtful but also something else. Then he shook his head. He looked like he was about to speak, but then he didn't. He was gaping like a fish out of water for a minute before closing his mouth.
“I... I'd have to think about that for a while, Harry. But... well... Peter wasn't the secret keeper.”
“Hmm... people keep saying that. But the Fidelius Charm sounds like a very complicated charm. If anyone could do it, the war wouldn't have gotten very far last time. Sounds like only someone like Dumbledore or Voldemort could do that charm. So can you really know?”
“Dumbledore gave evidence against Sirius, though. There wasn't a trial, of course, but there was a... some sort of meeting of important Ministry and Wizengamot people, about his case. Nothing official, mind you. But Dumbledore gave evidence that Sirius was your parents' secret-keeper. If anyone would know, it would be him. I think if there was any doubt, he would have mentioned it.”
“Maybe. It's just... weird. From what I know, Sirius was disowned by his family for going against their bigoted ways. And he looked so happy at their wedding. Not like he was plotting murder at all.”
“What does someone plotting murder look like, eh?”
“I don't know. But not like that.”
“Mmm. Well, Harry, there's also the fact that Sirius broke out of prison. Why'd he do that, then? And how, if not with dark magic?”
“I have no idea how. But the why... Draco says the Ministry thinks Black is after me. Wants to snuff me out. And just in case they're right, I'm avoiding the man and being careful. But something doesn't sit right about the whole thing.”
“You have a good heart, Harry. It's commendable to want to give people the benefit of the doubt. But Sirius Black was deranged when they brought him in. The whole street blown apart, and he was laughing like a maniac.”
“Yes... but there's lots of reasons people laugh. Not all of them are because they're amused. All they found of Pettigrew was a finger, and I just find it awfully weird that they stopped looking after that.”
“There was a hole in the street, Harry. And Muggle bodies everywhere. In... in pieces. If we weren't hiding from Muggles, maybe a more complete investigation could have been done, but as it was, most of the pieces of Peter were likely lost in the clean-up process.”
“Yeah, others have said that, too...”
“Anyway, Harry, this discussion is putting me off my dinner. Could we change the subject? Or better yet, talk another time? It's getting late, and you should probably head back to your common room and get a start on your homework.”
Harry sighed. “Okay. Sorry to put you off your food, Professor.”
“It's okay, Harry. My appetite will return. Now run along. It was nice getting to know you, by the way.”
“Can I ask one last thing before I go?”
“I suppose so. I retain the right to refuse to answer, though.”
“Agreed. So my last question was... er... how come I never heard anything from you when I was younger?”
“I would have contacted you at your aunt and uncle's house before, but, well... Dumbledore was keeping your mail held at Gringott's. The whole point of having you there, after all, was the keep you away from your fame. That, and protecting your life from Death Eaters. So nothing was getting through. Including, if I'm correct, an awful lot of fan mail.”
Harry's eyes went wide. “Fan mail?”
“Yes. In fact, I think most of your mail is still being held at Gringott's. Only mail from friends and the school are allowed through.”
“Sounds like I need to look into that.”
“You want to read all that fan mail?”
“No. But people might have sent gifts, too. And something should be done with it instead of just sitting around.”
“You'll have to take that up with Dumbledore, then. By the way, Harry, I have those books I mentioned before. Got them out for you from the library. Where are they? Ah, here they are,” he said, pulling half a dozen books from a shelf. “Here you are, Harry. Books about the old religions and the tradition of Samhain.”
“Wow, thanks! Professor,” he added hastily.
“Not a problem, Harry. Anyway, you should get going now.”
“Okay. Thanks again, Professor,” Harry said, carefully stowing the books under his arms.
“You're welcome, Harry.”
Harry nodded, and left the office.
*
The next morning at breakfast, Harry went around to the different House tables to talk with members of Muggle Academics Club, and to see if the posters they'd been putting up had been attracting any more members. He soon had a nice long list of members old and new. Along with Ron, Hermione, Draco, Luna, Antigone's lot, and himself, the members included Neville, Ginny, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Dean Thomas, Colin Creevy, several Ravenclaws whose names Harry barely knew, that Willem Stone boy from Slytherin, and another Slytherin girl he didn't know yet from first year, a girl named Qintar Contee. There were also a few other Hufflepuffs like Susan Bones and Ernie McMillain. Harry was quite pleased at the size of the group. The only problem was that they would have to switch to a larger classroom to get everyone inside it. He had contemplated using the Room of Requirement, but he wanted somewhere they could go without him in case he ended up in the hospital again. Plus, he was still keeping that snake from last year in there, and Netty was helping take care of it. Which reminded him that he should find somewhere to set the cobra free, which meant doing some research.
Between different Quidditch practices, classes, and other scheduling conflicts, the first MAC meeting was going to be Sunday after lunch. Not everyone would be able to make it even then, but most of them would be there. He spent most of his free time til then planning out what to do, and working out where they should move to.
On Sunday, they all met at the original classroom, where he explained they were going three doors down the corridor to a classroom three times the size of this one. They left a sign on the door for any stragglers, and then went over to the new classroom.
“Welcome, everyone, to Muggle Academics Club. I've decided this first meeting will start out with us all working out what to do first. I can run some ideas past everyone if need be. But before we do that, we should all go around introducing each other, with names and maybe one fact about ourselves. I'll start. I'm Harry Potter,” he said, as though they didn't already know. “I really like reading about dinosaurs, though I haven't for a couple years, now I think about it.”
From there they went on to Hermione, who told the room that her favorite class was Arithmancy. Ron went next, saying he wanted to know more about atoms. Luna then told everyone her name, and told the room that aside from being the editor of the Quibbler, her father was also a cryptozoologist. She had to define the term for everyone.
Then it was Antigone's turn.
“Antigone Dreyfuss,” she said. “Slytherin, fifth year student. Halfblood and blood traitor. Might have to stop coming to this later, I have O.W.L.'s later on. Anyway, my great-grandparents are from India, and I really like pomegranate ice cream. Angela?”
“Me?” the shy Asian girl asked. “Oh, okay. Angela Whitechapel. Also Slytherin, also fifth year. My mom's family are from Japan, my dad's side are white and British all the way back. I want to train to become an Artificer.”
“Are you in Arithmancy?” Harry asked.
“Yes. It's one of the required courses for becoming an Artificer.”
“Cool. Maybe you can help me with my homework when I get stuck. That is, if Hermione is also stuck.”
Laughter went around the room at that. Then Angela nudged Danzia, whose strawberry-blond head swiveled to look at Angela.
“Ah, me? Okay. Danzia McCullough. Slytherin, 4th year. Me and these two goofballs helped Harry, Ron, and Hermione against Quirrell in Harry's first year. But you knew that already, so... new fact... um... I wear reading glasses,” she said, pulling said glasses from a pocket in her robes to show people. “Not a huge fact, I know, but hey.” She shrugged.
Then they went around to Ginny and the other Griffindors, through the Hufflepuffs. Harry was anxious to get to the two Slytherins he didn't know well yet. His patience was eventually rewarded, though.
“Hi everyone,” Willem said. His brown hair was a little long, some of it going over his eyes; in the back, he had his hair in a ponytail. But Harry saw the boy's eyes well enough through the bangs to see that they were bright violet, which he understood to be quite a rare eye color in humans. The second-year boy still had a nice tan from the summer.
“So,” he continued, “I'm Willem Stone. Slytherin, second year. Fun fact about me: The Sorting Hat almost put me in Hufflepuff. Not sure quite why I ended up in Slytherin.” He shrugged, looking confused.
Even Harry picked up on something in Willem's manner of speaking that said 'Probably very gay.' Nobody was rude enough to comment on this, though.
Now, however, was time for the last new MAC member. She was very striking, a black girl with green eyes and red hair; the top of her hair was in cornrows, while the back was in Afro-puffs, which would have looked like pigtails except that her hair was naturally very bushy, like Hermione's. She also had freckles; most of her skin was hickory colored, while her freckles were much lighter, a tawny color.
“Is it my turn? Goody! It's been very hard, waiting so long. I'm Qintar Contee,” she said (her first name said 'kin-tar') in an American accent, “Slytherin first-year. My family moved here from the states recently, cuz my dad got a job here. Nobody in my family has ever been in Hogwarts before! My mom and her parents moved from Namibia to the states. My dad's family doesn't know their heritage, though, because their ancestors were, well... they were slaves. But I looked into it, and though we don't know what part of Africa they came from, my great-great grandparents bought their freedom and moved up to Maine to start a family. I'm Muslim, too, so you might see me doing prayers sometimes because we do them five times a day, plus another on Fridays. Um... and I really like puns.”
Her voice had been breathless and bubbly; she was clearly excited.
“Should I say something related to MAC?” she continued. “Well my dad is a contractor, and I'm really curious how wizards make buildings. Do they do it the same way? Or, well, probably with magic. But there might still be similarities. Though you probably don't build many buildings anymore, since yours are so old. But I dunno, maybe you do... too?” she trailed off, looking down at her feet in sudden embarrassment.
“What does your mom do?” Harry asked her amicably.
“What? Oh, she's a wandmaker.”
“Cool. So Ollivander's gonna have competition, then?”
“Harry,” Ron said, exasperated, “Ollivander already has competition. But he's the best. Er... unless Qintar's mum turns out to be better.”
“If you're a Muslim,” Ernie McMillain asked, “How come you don't have one of those head scarf things?”
“Well, it's because those are optional, and I decided not to wear one.”
“Oh,” Ernie said. “They are? Well. Okay. Live and learn.”
There was a lull in the conversation then, and one of the Ravenclaw girls said Qintar's name.
“Yes?” Qintar asked.
“Oh, I just wanted to say I adore your hair. Tell me, what charm do you use to color it?”
“None. I don't color my hair. This is my natural color.”
“Ah, okay,” said the girl, in a way that sounded very sarcastic even to Harry.
Qintar frowned. “I mean it, I don't color my hair. I was born with this hair color.”
“I believe you, Qintar,” Harry said. “Malcolm X – a famous black American – had light hair and freckles. It's not a very common color combo, I think, but it's natural. The dyes look much different than her hair does. I don't know how many of you were here before for the talk about DNA, but just like red hair and freckles in white people, red hair and freckles occurs in black people, too. There's a lot more color combos among humans than most people think. For instance, most black people have brown or hazel eyes, but Qintar and I both have green eyes. And there are black people with blue eyes. In non-white populations, blue or green eyes is usually a form of albinism that affects only the eyes.
“There's even people in China who have the usual Chinese facial features and skin colors, but have blond hair, and it's an entirely different mutation than blond hair in white people. Which means those Chinese blond people don't have any European heritage at all.”
“What's a mutation?”
“What's DNA?”
Harry smiled. “Okay, so this looks like a good direction to go in. Anyone who's already heard this, please bear with me. Maybe even help me if you can.”
And so the first MAC meeting got underway, as Harry began to explain about cells and molecules and atoms and DNA, and how that relates to coloration and 'race.'
*
After the meeting, Harry was practically all talked out, but he stuck around to speak with his Slytherin friends. Willem and Qintar not being more than acquaintances at this point slipped out, but he made a mental note to try to get to know them better.
It was a lot of fun getting back into the swing of things with Antigone and the other girls. They talked about Danzia's trip to Oregon, Antigone's trip to Rome, Hermione's trip to France, and Harry and Ron's trip to Egypt.
In the middle of a conversation, Angela let loose a very loud and smelly fart. Everyone hurried to stand up and get away from the smell as Angela – normally shy and quiet – guffawed at them.
When he was done gagging, Ron goggled at Angela. “You farted!”
She giggled. “Yes. Sorry.”
“And then you laughed like a lunatic!”
“Yes, I did.”
“But... but you're so quiet usually!”
“This is more what she's like in one of the dorms when we're together,” Antigone said. “She's shy and quiet until she gets to know you really well, then she starts to get louder and stinkier. You should see her part of her dorm, it's a mess. She's a right slob!”
“But you're always so organized and neat looking in public!” Ron said.
Angela shrugged. “I am a woman of many facets.”
“Yeah. And give her half a chance, once she's comfortable with you, and she'll talk your ears off about the things she loves. My little geode,” Antigone said, kissing Angela on the lips.
Ron's eyes got big, and he turned away, his face going beet red. “Oi!”
“Oh Ronald,” Hermione said, slapping his shoulder, “leave them be.”
“I don't care that they're, well... together. I just don't want to see it. And by 'it,' I mean people getting all kissy in front of others. Doesn't matter who it is.”
“Grow up, Ronald.”
Danzia was laughing so hard her eyes were watering. “Yeah, Ronald,” she teased, “get with the 20th century.”
Antigone and Angela looked from Ron to one another, then Angela flowed onto Antigone's lap and the two began to snog very heavily. Harry could feel the heat from Ron's face from feet away. Ron was pointedly not looking at them.
Danzia laughed at Ron again. He turned to look at her. “What, aren't you gonna snog someone in front of me, too? Everyone join in the laugh at my expense, why not?”
“Well A. I don't have a partner, and B. I don't have any interest in sex or romance. Cuddling I enjoy. But snogging or more... maybe I could enjoy those, too, but I don't have any interest.”
“None at all?” Ron asked.
“None whatsoever.”
“Don't you, y'know... get crushes on people?”
“Haven't so far, no.”
“Oh. Well... I mean, you're only 14, right?”
“Not til November 3rd.”
“Still...” Ron said, trailing off.
“I concede that things might change. But most people I know – including my older sister and older brother – were putting up pictures of people they fancied as young as 11. And here I'm almost 14, and I've never seen the appeal. Some people are easy on the eyes, I'll grant that, but I've never wanted to snog anyone before, nor date anyone. But I've definitely been visited by the puberty fairy. You can't see 'em well in these school robes, but I've got a nice pair of boobs growing. And I had my first period on my 11th birthday. So for now, I think it's just how I am.”
“But I've seen you flirt with people!”
She shrugged. “So? You think I'm gonna be a total antisocial cold fish or something just because I don't want to snog people? If that was true, little kids would be antisocial cold fish. I'm a people person, friendly. I flirt with them as a way of saying hello. But if anyone takes my flirting seriously, they're barking up the wrong tree.
“Anyway, it's entirely possible I might never get interested in sex or romance. My biological mom is exactly the same way in that regard. She and Papa only had sex cuz she's Daddy's sister and Papa and Daddy wanted a kid. Which, despite not being sexually attracted to anyone, is something she did for them three times.”
“Your mom doesn't want... you know... either, but she still did it?”
“Just because she's got no sexual desire for anyone doesn't mean she can't still have sex for whatever reasons. Hell, who knows? She might even enjoy it; I've never asked. And I like to flick my button on occasion. No idea if she does or not, though, since she doesn't live with us.”
“Eww, too much information! WAY too much information!”
Danzia laughed a great big belly laugh at Ron's discomfort.
“Oooh,” said Luna, wide-eyed and looking thoughtfully at Danzia. “You do that too, Danzia? And here was me thinking I'd found a new body part.”
“Okay, I'm going now. This is too much for me,” Ron said, his whole face red as a tomato.
“It wouldn't hurt us all to do research into sex education,” Harry said. “It's a very neglected area in our education.”
“'It's a very neglected area,'” Danzia quoted Harry. “That's what she said!”
Harry started at her, confused. She sighed, leaning back in her chair.
“Never mind, Harry. Bad joke.”
Harry looked over at Hermione, and saw – difficult as it was with her skin tone – that she, too, was red with embarrassment. But she wasn't trying to leave.
“Something to add to the growing list of things to research, then,” Harry said, taking out a piece of parchment and making a note of it, as Ron left.
“Hey Harry,” Angela said, from her position on Antigone's lap, “I just realized, where's Draco? I thought he was coming to these?”
Harry frowned in thought. “You're right. I know he was there when I was telling you lot about the meeting. He didn't show up.”
“Do you think he was late?”
“Even if he was, we left a sign.”
“Yeah... and Peeves could easily have removed the sign.”
“Damn,” Harry said, getting up and putting his things together.
“What are you doing?” Danzia asked him. “It's been hours since the meeting began. He might be back in the Slytherin common room, or his dorm. Who knows where he went when he missed the meeting.”
“Or why he missed it,” Hermione added. “Harry, don't you remember him saying he was having problems with Crabbe and Goyle?”
“Oh yeah. Damn,” he cussed again. “Let's go find him.”
It didn't take long. They found Draco in the previous MAC classroom.
“There you are, Potter,” Draco said, slipping into the formal again in his annoyance. “Where were you? Was the meeting canceled?”
“No. It was down the hall. Too many people for this room. Peeves must have removed the sign we left behind. Guess we should've left a person behind instead.”
“Oh. Well that explains it, Harry.” Draco said.
“You've been here this whole time?” Danzia asked.
Draco shrugged. “I waited without doing anything for about half an hour. Then I decided it must have been canceled. But I was already sitting at a desk, I already had my schoolbag with me, and going back to the common room meant avoiding Crabbe and Goyle, so I just stayed here doing homework.”
“Well let me show you to the room the meetings are in now, okay?”
“Okay. Just let me dry this ink out first,” Draco said, using his wand to dry the ink. He put his things away in his bag, put it over his shoulder, and stood up.
“Lead the way, Harry.”
Later, in the Griffindor common room, Harry found Ron sitting at a table doing homework. He sat next to his friend and began working on his own homework. Both boys were silent for several minutes before Ron broke the silence.
“I didn't want to say anything about it around them,” Ron said, “in case they got offended, but Danzia has put on some weight. She's still really pretty, just, well... she's filling out, and it's not just because of puberty.”
“So?” asked Harry, who was working on homework.
“Er... nothing, I guess. I dunno. Just something I noticed, is all.”
“It's her business, not anyone else's. But thanks for letting me know; if anyone tries making fun of her for it, I'll hex them.”
“I wasn't--”
“I know you weren't, Ron. Relax.”
“Good. Because I don't care if she's a little on the heavier side. I just... it's new. I mean, she's never exactly been, y'know, real skinny or anything. Just...” he trailed off.
Harry, not knowing what to say either, said nothing at first. Then something occurred to him, and he smiled.
“You're trying to picture her naked, aren't you?”
Ron's face went instantly fire-engine red, and he sputtered, unable to speak.
“I think Danzia would find it amusing. Heck, she might even be willing to give you a show if you ask nicely.”
Ron frowned, and muttered something.
“What was that?”
“I said 'shut up,' okay? I can't... this conversation...”
Harry patted Ron on the back. “Okay, Ron. I'll go back to my homework.”
“No, that's okay. Let's just change the subject.” Ron cast around in his mind for a topic. “Hey, where was Malfoy today?”
Harry sighed. “Peeves must have stolen the sign we left behind. It wasn't there, but Draco was. He waited for us for a while, then when nobody showed, instead of looking for us, he started doing homework.”
“What, in the classroom?”
“He didn't want to risk running into Crabbe and Goyle.”
“Ah, that explains it.” There was a pause of a few beats, before he continued, “He was still there? We must've been in there for hours. In fact,” he checked his watch. “Blimey, it's almost dinner!”
Ron hurried to put his things away. Harry was a little more careful with his own things, but he too put his things back in his room before following Ron to dinner. He realized with a pang of guilt that he hadn't fed the black dog since dinner the night before. He hoped it would still be there. He also knew he might get in trouble going out at night again, so he tucked his invisibility cloak into his robe pocket before leaving for dinner.
Keeping his scraps-gathering secret from the others wasn't easy, but he managed it. He left early, claiming to be going to get something at the library. As soon as the coast was clear, though, he whipped his cloak over his head and headed out the front door to the spot where he always met Shadow.
To his surprise and relief, the big black dog was there, waiting patiently. It couldn't see him, of course, but it began to sniff the air as he approached, plainly smelling the table scraps. Harry pulled the cloak off when he was still several feet away, so he wouldn't startle the dog. When it saw him, it said “Woof!” in a happy tone.
“Sorry I forgot breakfast and lunch today, boy. Hope you're not too hungry.”
“Woof!” Shadow barked, smiling his doggy smile. Then it turned its head up at the moon, then looked to one side of him.
Harry blinked. “Are you trying to tell me that Luna brought you food earlier today?”
“Woof!”
“Wow,” Harry said. He gave the dog a searching look. It stared impassively back, but kept glancing at the food in Harry's pocket. Harry wasn't sure how smart dogs were, so he didn't know if this was was normal for dogs or what. But he figured that even if it wasn't, it might be a magical dog, and magical creatures did tend to be smarter than Muggle animals.
Satisfied with that answer, Harry pulled the table scraps out of his pocket and began feeding Shadow a piece at a time.
When the dog was done eating, it woofed gently again, and jumped up to put its front paws on Harry's shoulders, putting its head on Harry's own, making Harry chuckle. He petted the dog, and it went back to all fours, its tail wagging. It then lowered its head and began to sniff Harry all around, focusing on Harry's other pocket.
“There's nothing for you in there, boy. No, really. No-- okay, fine, I'll show you. It's just my two-way mirror. I use it to communicate with Luna. She's in a different House than me. She's a Ravenclaw, I'm Griffindor.”
The dog climbed up on Harry again, sniffing his chest, then trying to sniff down the front of his robes.
Laughing, Harry pushed the dog gently aside. “What're you looking for? Oh there you go again. Fine, I'll pull that out, too.”
Harry pulled on the chain around his neck, showing Shadow the odd little necklace she'd given him for his birthday.
“It's a gift from Luna. Each stone plays a different tone. Here, this one supposedly chases away Scrabjabbles,” he said, pressing the green gem. Airy, tinkling music came from the necklace.
“And this stone, the purple one, I'll show you.”
Pressing the purple stone, it made a noise like rock grinding against rock. The dog regarded the sound curiously.
“You don't want to hear the red stone, trust me on that. That just leaves the blue one. You probably won't like that one, either. Animals don't like it.”
Harry pressed on the blue stone. The dog just looked curiously at the stone, then at him. Harry let go of the necklace.
“Er... didn't that bother you? It made my owl go nuts when I pressed it. Though I suppose it could be broken. Or... well... I don't think it works on all animals. Scabbers – that's Ron's pet rat – couldn't hear it either.”
Shadow immediately began barking, loudly, over and over again.
“Okay, okay, stop, I'm not supposed to be out here this late, stop please” Harry begged, managing to grab the dog's muzzle and hold it shut.
“Crap,” he said.
Harry had heard something from the castle. He tossed the invisibility cloak over himself and stood behind Shadow. The dog didn't follow Harry with its head, but instead whined, looking over at the front doors of the school, which were wide open. Filch was coming this way.
“Shit. Filch. See you later, Shadow.”
At Harry's words, the dog disappeared into the woods. Harry blinked at this in confusion before heading off towards Hagrid's hut, hoping he could get back inside the castle without running into either Filch or Mrs. Norris. He found himself wishing he knew how to become an Animagus, preferably something with wings, so he could fly back to the school.
If Mrs. Norris was with Filch, Harry couldn't see her anywhere. But she could still be in the building, waiting for someone to sneak in. Filch could've left the door open as a trap for miscreants; it was the sort of thing he would do.
Peeking inside, Harry didn't see Mrs. Norris anywhere. Figuring she must be out in the grass with her master, he made his way through the shortcuts he knew to get as close to the Griffindor common room as he could, looking around one more time before taking off his cloak and hiding it in his robes again. As nonchalantly as possible, he gave The Fat Lady the password and went inside, glad that he'd not gotten caught.
End note: I'm probably going to stop making Slytherin OC's now, after Qintar, except for the occasional minor character like relatives. But I reserve the right to change my mind later. :)
End note 2: Reminder that “snogging” is British for “making out; kissing passionately.”
End note 3: Yes, Danzia is asexual and aromantic. Also, while we're on the subject, Danzia reminds me of Amythest (from Steven Universe) in some ways, mostly personality-wise. She's also becoming a heavier girl. Taller than Amythest, though, I think. I don't think Amythest's height is established anywhere, really, beyond “She's short.”
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Three.
Or, "Aspie Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban."
Note: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made.
Note 2: There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though.
Chapter 4: Shadows
Professor Lupin's classes ended up being the best Defense Against the Dark Arts classes – maybe even the best classes of any topic – ever. Everyone but Crabbe and Goyle and their friends liked Lupin. Every class was about another fascinating dark creature, from Red Caps to Hinkypunks, Kappas and others.
As predicted, Snape was worse than ever to Neville in Potions, but Harry mitigated this a little by partnering Neville. Ron and Draco ended up together, and Hermione partnered Seamus Finnigan, which was good because she kept him from blowing up the cauldrons by having him prepare ingredients while she put them in and did all the stirring and so on. Nobody was really happy about the arrangement, especially Ron, but Neville was happier with Harry. Harry's presence deflected some of Snape's wrath, and Harry just sat there and took the abuse. He'd dealt with much worse from the Dursleys, after all. And knowing that Snape's behavior was personal and childish helped him not be so angry.
Still, it was hard. He didn't let on much, but he did get angry, and it came out later in other ways and at other targets, but it was safer than letting Snape know how much he was getting to Harry. Though not letting on much had its own dangers; Snape was one of those people who was never really happy with any kind of reaction or lack thereof. Over the years at home, Harry had learned to play Vernon and Petunia almost like fiddles; he'd figured out what to say and do, and when/how to say and do it, in order to manage their feelings and reactions. Snape was a work in progress for Harry. Even after more than two years of classes with the man, Harry was still mostly observing, because the man was harder to read than most people. Harry's experiments in influencing Snape were few and far between at the moment because of it.
Arithmancy was a difficult but rewarding class. The teacher was still focusing on getting everyone to the same level. Since most people were far behind Hermione and Harry in maths, Professor Vector let them get a head start on some of the maths she'd be introducing to the others in class later. Aside from giving them something to do that wouldn't bore them, Harry suspected her plan was to have them help the others as tutors when the time came.
Dumbledore's Wizard Studies class was only once a week this year, and they didn't often have homework. There was a lot of discussion, mostly. What homework there was, was mostly reading books from the library about various topics. Some of it was wizarding-world literature.
Care of Magical Creatures wasn't much fun anymore. After the disaster Goyle had made of Hagrid's first lesson, the depressed large man was focusing on boring animals called flobberworms, which seemed to flourish best when left alone.
When Quidditch season started back up, the MAC meetings got smaller, as those who had practice found it harder and harder to come. The Griffindors and Slytherins especially were affected by this, given that theirs was the first match of the year. Harry heard rumors that Oliver Wood, the Griffindor Quidditch captain, was getting especially vehement about winning.
Harry was annoyed that he wouldn't be able to go to Hogsmeade yet, but the part of him that had doubts about the man's guilt was glad he hadn't been caught. Though he also wished the man would leave the country, so the security would be dropped and he could go to Hogsmeade.
Shadow the dog had taken to playing with Harry on the weekends. It had started after breakfast one Saturday morning. After eating all Harry's table scraps, the big dog – who was beginning to fill out a little at last – ran into the trees and brought out a stick, urging Harry to play Fetch with him.
“Oh fine,” he'd said with a slight grin, and had thrown the stick toward the trees.
The dog joyfully bounded off to hunt for the stick. The first few times, it came back quite quickly, ready for more. Around the seventh time, though, it took so long that Harry went deeper into the trees to see where Shadow had got to.
He'd found the dog still sniffing around for the stick. Shortly after finding Shadow, the dog saw him and found the stick soon after. He brought it back to Harry, but Harry was too tired to play again. He found a nice convenient rock to sit on, and petted Shadow's head instead. Shadow didn't appear to mind.
This began a pattern. Every Saturday or Sunday, depending on when MAC meetings were, Shadow took Harry into this same area. Harry liked the place; being of the old religion, even though he was still reading the books Lupin had given him, the little clear spot surrounded by a roof of tree canopy and the pillars of the tree trunks felt like a spiritual experience. He wondered if this is what it felt like for most people to be in church.
Harry liked the clearing so much that he sometimes went there before breakfast. Shadow seemed a little annoyed that there was no food, and that Harry had to leave and come back with food, but the dog was still happy enough.
“This is an amazing little place,” Harry said one of these times. “I'm glad you showed me this place, Shadow.”
Shadow was curled beside the rock, not asleep but resting. He gave a small “Whuff!” in response. It felt like the dog version of “You're welcome.”
Harry had taken his shoes and socks off and was sitting cross-legged on the sitting stone, which let him lean against a tree. He looked up into the canopy of the trees. The light that came through the canopy was grey, but still pleasant. It had been just on the cold side of cool on his way up here, but the trees kept the wind away, so this little spot of theirs was warmer. Harry still made a mental note to bring a cloak next time, or wear a sweater under his robes. The castle itself could get pretty cold too, even with fires and tapestries and warming charms.
Harry sighed. “Sorry I can't come here in the evenings anymore. It's this whole Sirius Black thing.”
Shadow's head lifted up and he looked curiously at Harry.
“Yeah. This guy named Sirius Black broke out of prison, supposedly to kill me. But the man never got a trial, and... well... it would be pointless to explain it to you, since you're just a dog, but something doesn't add up. I think it's possible the man is innocent.”
An inquisitive-sounding noise came from the dog, whose ears were perked up. Harry smiled at him.
“You're such a good listener. Well okay, why not go on? Okay, so he supposedly betrayed my parents, but the father of a friend of mine... it's complicated, but this friend's father was one of Voldemort's lot—”
“GRRRR,” Shadow growled.
“Calm down, boy. It's okay. My friend is alright. He was a bit of a bigoted berk at first, but I won him over to my side. He's working on his bigotry, rejecting this whole blood purity thing of his father's. He's gotten into huge rows with his parents about it. I trust him.”
The growl vanished as Shadow calmed down, looking curious again. And strangely, Harry thought the dog looked... pensive. Could a dog be pensive?
“Anyway, yeah. I'm not gonna go looking for this Sirius Black fellow, but if we run into each other, I'll listen to his side. I'll be wary, of course, but I'll listen.” He sighed. “Oh, why am I telling you this? It doesn't mean anything to you. It can't.”
He sighed again, closing his eyes. He just sat there, listening to the gentle sounds of nature around him. The breeze through the leaves, the few remaining insects and birds chirruping, and the creak of wood as the tree branches swayed in the breeze. It was very relaxing. So relaxing that he fell asleep where he sat.
Something wet on his hand woke him up. He blinked, and saw Shadow looking at him. Harry realized he had fallen asleep on the stone. He looked around and saw it was darker. Checking his watch, he saw it was just past 5.
“Well, I'd better get back to the castle, boy. Dinner isn't far away now.”
Shadow whined but wagged his tail as Harry scratched his ears.
“Don't worry, I'll be back tomorrow with some breakfast for you.”
“Woof!”
Harry chuckled and waved, heading back to the castle. Shadow seemed very intelligent to Harry; the big dog never followed him once he said he was leaving, like it could understand English.
As he walked back, he huddled against the chill air. This made him wonder where Shadow would go during the winter. Which made him wonder if dogs would be allowed as pets in the castle. But he immediately dismissed this idea; Shadow was much too large to fit anywhere in the castle. But he was going to find somewhere for the stray to hide away from the winter cold. Maybe Hagrid knew somewhere. Not Hagrid's hut, of course; the hut was barely large enough for Hagrid and Fang without adding another large dog. But maybe he could build a little dog house for Shadow, cast warming charms on it. Or buy one, since he didn't know how to make one.
*
The Saturday before Halloween, Harry was going to go to see Shadow again, but on his way out the Great Hall, he ran into Draco, who grabbed his arm and began to pull him away.
“Sorry about this, Harry, but Crabbe and Goyle are after me. I just need you with me for a little while.”
Harry sighed. “Fine. But you need to figure something out. Get a new dorm room or something. Put up wards around your bed, that sort of thing.”
“Already did that. It's getting from the bed to other places that becomes problematic.”
“Still...”
“Yes, I'm working on it, okay?”
“Have you thought of mailing your father? Have him talk to their fathers? You may disagree with them, but that's no excuse for attacking the sole Malfoy heir.”
Draco paused, looking thoughtfully at Harry before walking again. “That's a good idea. Can't believe I didn't think of it myself.”
By the time Harry shook Draco off, he was outside Lupin's office. The door was open.
“Harry? Was young Mr. Malfoy bothering you?”
“What? Oh. No, Professor. We're friends. He just needed some help avoiding Crabbe and Goyle. Remember, Draco is a friend of mine.”
“Oh yes, I'd forgotten you told me you befriended Draco Malfoy. Sorry about that, I'll try to remember from now on.”
Harry nodded, about to go so he could meet Shadow again.
“Harry, come in a moment will you?”
“Oh. Er, okay Professor. Will this take long?”
Harry came in and took the same seat he had last time.
“No, I don't think it should take long. Unless you have plans I'm interrupting?”
“Oh, no. Nothing I can't do later.”
“Good, good. Care for some tea?”
“That sounds good.”
Harry cast around for something to say.
“What's that?” Harry asked, referring to a tank full of murky water and a sickly green creature with horns and long fingers.
“Grindylow. For our next lesson. Water demon,” said Lupin, surveying the grindylow thoughtfully. “We shouldn’t have much difficulty with him, not after the kappas. The trick is to break his grip. You notice the abnormally long fingers? Strong, but very brittle.”
The grindylow bared its green teeth and then buried itself in a tangle of weeds in a corner.
Lupin tapped his kettle, and the water instantly boiled. He poured some into a cup with a teabag in it for himself and one for Harry.
“So, if it's not too forward of me, Harry, what plans did you have that got derailed?”
“Oh, I like to go out for a walk among the trees by the lake. The Forbidden Forest may be out of bounds, but that area isn't. I found a nice place to sit and listen to the trees.”
“That sounds lovely. That reminds me, how are you liking those books I got you?”
“Quite a lot, thank you. I may have to purchase copies of my own.”
“Glad to hear it. I'm always glad to help out a fellow member of the old religion.”
They sipped their tea.
“So what did you want to discuss, Professor?”
“I wanted to ask if you were worried at all about Professor Trelawney's predictions of your and Ron's demise.”
“You heard about that too, eh?”
Lupin grinned. “Yes. Professor McGonagall was complaining about it in the teacher's lounge. So, are you scared?”
Harry shook his head. “From what Hermione's told me, she's an old fraud, makes wild guesses.”
“That's what many of the other professors tell me as well.”
They sipped their tea again, Harry thinking as he did. Lupin had asked him if he was afraid. Did Lupin think he was a coward? After the Dementor, maybe he did.
Something of Harry’s thoughts seemed to have shown on his face, because Lupin said, “Anything worrying you, Harry?”
“No,” Harry lied. He drank a bit of tea and watched the grindylow brandishing a fist at him. “Yes,” he said suddenly, putting his tea down on Lupin’s desk. “You know that day we fought the boggart?
“Yes,” said Lupin slowly.
“Why didn’t you let me fight it?” said Harry abruptly.
Lupin raised his eyebrows.
“I would have thought that was obvious, Harry,” he said, sounding surprised.
Harry, who had expected Lupin to deny that he’d done any such thing, was taken aback.
“Why?” he said again.
“Well,” said Lupin, frowning slightly, “I assumed that if the boggart faced you, it would assume the shape of Lord Voldemort.”
Harry stared. Not only was this the last answer he’d expected, but Lupin had said Voldemort’s name. The only person Harry had ever heard say the name aloud (apart from himself) was Professor Dumbledore.
“Clearly, I was wrong,” said Lupin, still frowning at Harry. “But I didn’t think it a good idea for Lord Voldemort to materialize in the staffroom. I imagined that people would panic.”
“I didn’t think of Voldemort,” said Harry honestly. “I — I remembered those dementors.”
“I see,” said Lupin thoughtfully. “Well, well … I’m impressed.” He smiled slightly at the look of surprise on Harry’s face. “That suggests that what you fear most of all is — fear. Very wise, Harry.”
Harry didn’t know what to say to that, so he drank some more tea.
“So you’ve been thinking that I didn’t believe you capable of fighting the boggart?” said Lupin shrewdly.
“Well … yeah,” said Harry. He was suddenly feeling a lot happier. “Professor Lupin, you know the dementors —”
He was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Come in,” called Lupin.
The door opened, and in came Snape, carrying a goblet that was smoking like mad. It looked like a Halloween decoration made of dry ice, only darker.
“Ah, Severus,” said Lupin, smiling. “Thanks very much. Could you leave it here on the desk for me?”
Snape set down the smoking goblet, his eyes wandering between Harry and Lupin.
“I was just showing Harry my grindylow,” said Lupin pleasantly, pointing at the tank.
“Fascinating,” said Snape, without looking at it. “You should drink that directly, Lupin.”
“Yes, yes, I will,” said Lupin.
“I made an entire cauldronful,” Snape continued. “If you need more.”
“I should probably take some again tomorrow. Thanks very much, Severus.”
“Not at all,” said Snape, but there was a look in his eye Harry didn’t like. He backed out of the room, unsmiling and watchful.
Harry looked curiously at the goblet. Lupin smiled.
“Professor Snape has very kindly concocted a potion for me,” he said. “I have never been much of a potion-brewer and this one is particularly complex.” He picked up the goblet and sniffed it. “Pity sugar makes it useless,” he added, taking a sip and shuddering.
“Why — ?” Harry began. Lupin looked at him and answered the unfinished question.
“I’ve been feeling a bit off-color,” he said. “This potion is the only thing that helps. I am very lucky to be working alongside Professor Snape; there aren’t many wizards who are up to making it.”
So whatever was ailing Lupin required a specialized potion to help with it. Harry wondered what Lupin had. He didn't seem to be any different from other people, except disheveled and tired a lot.
“So you trust him, then?” Harry asked.
“Yes, Harry, I do. Dumbledore trusts him, so I do too.”
“Well, Dumbledore also trusted the Dursleys, and that didn't turn out so well.”
“Er, yes, I suppose so.”
Lupin drank the rest of the potion and shuddered. “Disgusting.”
Harry opened his mouth to say something else, but he got cut off.
“Well, Harry, I’d better get back to work. I’ll see you at the feast tomorrow.”
“Right,” said Harry, putting down his empty teacup.
The empty goblet was still smoking.
“One more question, first?”
“Yes?”
“Do you know a spell to find true north?”
*
On Halloween day, since he couldn't go to Hogsmeade, Harry returned to the clearing with food for Shadow in one pocket, and a candle in the other. The large dog greedily ate up the food, then jumped around excitedly for several minutes. Then it noticed Harry taking his shoes off, keeping his socks and thick cloak on. Shadow watched as Harry sat cross-legged on the sitting stone, setting the candle in front of him in a holder.
Sensing the solemnity of what Harry was doing, Shadow lay down and watched him quietly.
Harry stood back up. He took out his wand and stood in front of the stone. First, he put his wand in his open palm and said “Point me!” The wand jumped into the air an inch from his hand and swung around to point at north.
This information gathered, Harry took the wand in his hand again and moved to stand at the north side of the stone, facing outwards toward north. He then drew a five-pointed star shape in the air with his wand, the star inside a circle. It hung in the air in glowing red lines.
“Earth and soil, o elementals of the north, please bless and protect this space with your power. Amen.”
Walking clockwise from there, his wand tip facing outward and trailing a faint gray line, he stopped at east. He drew another star in the air, this one white, and said, “Wind and air, o elementals of the east, please bless and protect this space with your power. Amen.”
He walked around to the back of the tree that made the stone's back rest, and faced south. He drew an orange star in the air.
“Flame and heat, o elementals of the south, please bless and protect this space with your power. Amen.”
He went around to face west, drawing a blue star in the air.
“Water of the rivers, oceans, lakes, and rain, o elementals of the west, please bless and protect this space with your power. Amen.”
He completed the circle at north again. He then used his wand to trace out an invisible star over his heart. “Soul and specter, o elementals of the spirit, please bless and protect this space with your power. Amen. And now the circle is complete. May nothing intending harm be able to cross the threshold. Amen.”
With these words, many things happened all at once: the gray circle became silver and significantly brighter, connecting the four colored stars together. The red star made a pebble appear and fall to the ground. The white star made a brief gust of wind blow outward. Behind the tree, the orange star created a flash of magical fire. And the blue star wet the ground under it.
Harry put his wand in its holster again, and sat down on the stone like he usually did. Shadow looked up as he did, apparently noticing that Harry had cast the circle to include him, before laying down again to quietly watch.
“Twelve years ago, on this night,” Harry began to say softly, even though it was still daylight, “my parents James Potter and Lilly Evans Potter, were murdered. I have come here in their memory, as their only son, hoping to communicate with them.”
Even while he said this, he had to hold back a snort. He knew from the books he'd read that any communication with them was going to be one-way only. There was no way to get messages from the dead, according to the books. And that was fine by him.
“So Mom, Dad, if you're out there, I hope you're listening.”
He paused, gathering his thoughts.
“I don't know you. I only know what you look like because of that Mirror of Erised thing, and the photo album Hagrid gave me. I wish I could have gotten to know you. I wonder what you'd think of me. What you'd think of the Dursleys having 'raised' me. I wonder what you'd make of my Slytherin friends. I'm hungry to know anything I can about you. I don't even know exactly how old you were when you died. But given how old I think Professor Lupin and Snape are, and they were in your year, I'm guessing in your early to mid twenties.”
Shadow whimpered very, very softly, as though to give Harry emotional support without disturbing him.
“And now there's this man, a friend of yours, who's supposed to have been involved. Everyone – the adults, anyway – are so convinced Sirius Black was responsible for betraying you to Voldemort. I just wish I knew what the truth was. I wish you could appear before me, and tell me the truth. Though I dunno, maybe you don't know the truth either. You got taken by surprise, after all.”
Harry began to hug his legs, and leaned his head against his knees, taking his glasses off first and pocketing them.
“I just wish I could have known love growing up,” he said, his voice quaking. “Your love. Not the hatred the Dursleys showed m-me.”
His last shred of self-control broke, and he began to cry.
He'd been crying for a few minutes when he felt Shadow's nose against his leg. He sat up again, still crying. He couldn't tell what the dog's expression was without his glasses, but he wouldn't have been able to see through the tears anyway. He moved the candle to the other side, then put his legs out. Shadow reared up against the stone and lay his head on Harry's lap consolingly.
Harry kept crying, secure in the knowledge that most of the students were at Hogsmeade, and stroked Shadow's fur as he did. As he did, he eventually noticed bumps on the dog's skin that felt disturbingly alive.
He sniffed. “Feels like I need to get you something against fleas and ticks. And whatever kind of magical bugs you might catch around here, Shadow.”
Harry wiped his eyes with his sleeve and put his glasses back on. The dog was looking at him placidly.
They sat there like that for hours, silent, the light of the circle spell still glowing around them. At some point, Harry started to very carefully burn some of the bigger bugs out of Shadow's fur with his wand. But when he noticed the sun getting low in the sky, he checked his watch.
“It's not quite time to go yet, boy, but I'd better anyway. I'll need to wash up before the feast. Gotta get up now, okay?”
Shadow pulled his head back and put all four feet back on the ground, watching Harry as he got up and went to stand at the blue star in the spell.
“Water of the rivers, oceans, lakes, and rain, o elementals of the west, thank you for your help and your protection. Go if you must, stay if you will. Amen.”
In backwards order, he dismissed the other elements at each point. The stars dimmed as he dismissed their elements, but remained visible.
After dismissing the final element, he kept his wand held out.
“The circle is open, but unbroken. Amen. Finite!” At that spell, the glowing circle and stars blinked out.
*
After washing up, he went right to the Great Hall for the feast. Among the first to arrive after him were Ron and Hermione, who had bought him loads of sweets from Honeyduke's sweet shop, and talked to him all about Hogsmeade.
The feast itself was delicious, too. Best of all, Luna and his friends from Slytherin came over to the Griffindor table halfway through to shoot the breeze while Harry and the others continued to eat. Antigone got into a discussion about Rowena Ravenclaw with Luna, and Danzia was entertaining others at the table by sticking licorice sticks out her mouth like tusks and pretending to be a walrus. Even Draco had come over, though he kept sneaking worried looks behind him to make sure Crabbe and Goyle weren't sneaking up on him, but they were too busy stuffing their faces to care about him.
Harry was very full and very happy when he returned to Griffindor tower that night, despite his earlier tears. He fell asleep quickly in the warm bed.
*
On that week's Friday, they met an unexpected sight during their Defense Against Dark Arts class; Lupin wasn't there, but Snape was. He was filling in, apparently. Harry felt annoyed and angry; it was bad enough they had to put up with this emotionally abusive, childish berk for Potions class without him subbing for his favorite class as well.
“Sit down and be quiet,” Snape snapped at the class. “Better. Now, as even the most dunder-headed among you should be able to figure out, Professor Lupin is ill today. Nothing life-threatening, I assure you,” he said as though sorry it wasn't.
“So since Lupin is unable to teach today, I have taken his place. I expect your behavior in this class to adhere to the same standards I expect in Potions class, do I make myself clear? Good. Now, I see Professor Lupin has not left any record of the topics you have covered. So you will turn to page--”
“Please, sir, we’ve done boggarts, Red Caps, kappas, and grindylows,” said Hermione quickly, “and we’re just about to start —”
“Be quiet,” said Snape coldly. “I did not ask for information. I was merely commenting on Professor Lupin’s lack of organization.”
“He’s the best Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher we’ve ever had,” said Dean Thomas boldly, and there was a murmur of agreement from the rest of the class. Snape looked more menacing than ever.
“You are easily satisfied. Lupin is hardly overtaxing you — I would expect first years to be able to deal with Red Caps and grindylows. Today we shall discuss —”
Harry watched him flick through the textbook, to the very back chapter, which he must know they hadn’t covered.
“— werewolves,” said Snape.
“But, sir,” said Hermione, seemingly unable to restrain herself, “we’re not supposed to do werewolves yet, we’re due to start hinkypunks —”
“Miss Granger,” said Snape in a voice of deadly calm, “I was under the impression that I am teaching this lesson, not you. And I am telling you all to turn to page 394.” He glanced around again. “All of you! Now!”
With many bitter sidelong looks and some sullen muttering, the class opened their books. Harry stared at Hermione in puzzlement; he'd never seen her interrupt a teacher before.
Perhaps sensing his gaze, she looked back at him. He mouthed 'What are you doing? Don't antagonize him.' at her. Her response was a shrug.
“Can anyone tell me the differences between a werewolf and the true wolf?” Snape asked.
Everyone sat in motionless silence; everyone except Hermione, whose hand, as it so often did, had shot straight into the air. Harry, not having read the entire textbook, didn't know the answer. Something which must have shown in his face somehow, because Snape rounded on him.
“Ah, Mr. Potter. Since you were so knowledgeable in your first Potions class a couple years ago, perhaps you'd care to enlighten us on the differences between a werewolf and a true wolf?”
“I... I don't know, sir.”
“You don't know? But surely you've had plenty of time to read the textbook, Mr. Potter? You read the Potions textbook before school your first year, after all. Are you getting lazy now that you've gotten used to your fame, Potter?”
Harry's cheeks felt hot. “No, sir. I just haven't gotten that far in it yet. I have new classes this year, Arithmancy and Ancient Runes.”
“Hmm... I see. Well maybe, Potter, if you would spend less time going outside before and after breakfast to take in the fresh air, you'd have more time to read your textbooks.”
Harry didn't know what to say. “Er... perhaps. But the, ah... the fresh air wakes me up. I'm groggy all morning otherwise.”
This had the benefit of being true, even if it wasn't why he went out anymore, for it had been why he'd started the practice.
“I see,” Snape said. “Well, Potter, I suppose after over two years of grading your work in my class, I came to expect better of you. Five points from Griffindor for failing to do your best work in this class.”
There was an instant uproar from the rest of the class, but Harry was too stunned to listen to it. It had been Snape's usual mean, nasty tone, but... well... had that been a... a compliment? He replayed the words in his head again. Yes, that was right; Snape had complimented him. Harry reeled a little. It was even stranger to him than the talking boa constrictor had been. It was like facing down an angry cobra and witnessing it bark like a dog and wag its tail. Or like hearing one of the Dursleys say they loved him.
When the bell rang at last, Snape held them back.
“You will each write an essay, to be handed in to me, on the ways you recognize and kill werewolves. I want two rolls of parchment on the subject, and I want them by Monday morning. It is time somebody took this class in hand. Weasley, stay behind, we need to arrange your detention.”
When he met Hermione at the door, he said, “Detention? Ron got a detention?”
“Weren't you paying attention? I spoke out of turn again, and Snape called me a... a know-it-all. Then Ron defended me, and he got a detention for it.”
“Snape’s never been like this with any of our other Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers, even if he did want the job,” Harry said to Hermione. “Why’s he got it in for Lupin? D’you think this is all because of the boggart?”
“I don’t know,” said Hermione pensively. “But I really hope Professor Lupin gets better soon. …”
Ron caught up with them five minutes later, in a towering rage.
“D’you know what that —” (he called Snape something that made Hermione say “Ron!”) “— is making me do? I’ve got to scrub out the bedpans in the hospital wing. Without magic!” He was breathing deeply, his fists clenched.
*
The afternoon of the first Quidditch match of the season, Harry woke up to see that there was a downpour outside. His idea of getting Shadow a doghouse looked to be more important than ever. So he spent some time before breakfast in the library, getting in right as Ms. Pince opened it, and began looking through the books for ones about caring for dogs. While looking through one book, he found a spell for using your wand like an umbrella. With this knowledge, he decided that he might as well visit Shadow again, since not many people would be in the castle anyway. He went after breakfast, putting his new books in his room first.
He was taking more food with him for Shadow than usual because of the rain – sausages and some egg this time. He put a spell on his shoes to keep the water from the soggy ground out of them. The big black dog was waiting for him, wagging its tail happily, its mouth open like a smile.
He smiled as the dog ate the proffered food with gusto.
“I can stay for a few more hours again today. There's a Quidditch match on, but I don't want to see it,” he said as he led Shadow to his favorite stone seat.
Shadow cocked his head at Harry and made a little sound that put Harry in mind of the words 'Why not?'
“I get scared for my friends high up in the air like that. And the crowd noises overwhelm me and give me headaches.”
The dog whined in a sympathetic way and pressed himself up against Harry's leg. Harry smiled again and patted Shadow's head before sitting down cross-legged on his favorite rock to listen to the rain with his eyes closed.
Some time later, he wasn't sure how long, he heard the sounds of lots of excited people coming from the direction of the castle. He made a note of it and continued meditating.
Not long after that, though, he felt a sudden wave of coldness come over him, that startled his eyes open. He shivered, despite being dressed as warmly as possible in a sweater, sweatpants, robes, a winter cloak, and a woolen hat. Shadow was hiding behind the tree at Harry's back and shivering too, with his ears back and tail tucked between his legs. The dog was clearly terrified.
“What is it, boy?”
The cold spell passed, but then started up again, making Shadow whimper quietly in fear, and breaking Harry's umbrella spell. Luckily, they were under the trees and didn't get nearly as soaked as they might have. But these odd occurrences made Harry decide to look around. Soon, he saw a figure in the distance. It was clad in black and floated along like a ghost. He knew at once what it had to be. And there were others of its kind, too, he saw. At least a dozen, floating toward the Quidditch pitch.
“Crap! Sorry, boy, but my friends are in danger, I have to go help.”
He ran off without another word, not even knowing what he could do to help. Maybe he could warn people? He ran soaking wet through the downpour, not bothering with the umbrella spell so he could have his wand ready if he needed it. He had to stop soon, though, and put the Impervious spell on his glasses so he could see where he was going. Once he had them back on, and could see, he took off running again.
The cold increased as he got closer to the stadium. He climbed the steps hurriedly, looking for a teacher. But the cold was getting worse, and the sound of the rain was getting quieter and quieter. Harry glanced out toward the pitch, and saw nearly a hundred dementors out there, their hidden faces looking up at the airborne students.
It was as though freezing water were rising in his chest, cutting at his insides. And then he heard it again. … Someone was screaming, screaming inside his head … a woman …
“Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!”
“Stand aside, you silly girl … stand aside, now. …”
“Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead —”
Numbing, swirling white mist was filling Harry’s brain. … What was he doing? Why was he flying? He needed to help her. … She was going to die. … She was going to be murdered. …
“Not Harry! Please … have mercy … have mercy. …”
A shrill voice was laughing, the woman was screaming, and Harry knew no more.
He woke up to lights, and dry warmth. His world was all fuzzy, meaning his glasses were off. But he could see shapes well enough to guess he was in the hospital wing.
“What happened?” he asked.
The no-nonsense voice of Madam Pomfrey issued forth. “Oh you're awake at last, are you? Sit up then. You had another run-in with dementors and passed out again.”
“Oh,” he said, sitting up. His memory was returning. He frowned as Madam Pomfrey put some chocolate in his mouth, but only because he knew he'd witnessed his mother being murdered. How he could have remembered that, he didn't know, but then, magic could do all kinds of weird stuff.
“You have visitors,” Madam Pomfrey said. She didn't sound like she approved.
“Who is it?”
“Several Weasleys, that Granger girl, and several Slytherin students,” she said. “You can't all come in at once, you know. Mr. Potter, who would you like to invite in?”
“Which Weasleys and which Slytherins?”
“The twins, and your friend Ronald, for the Weasleys. Mr. Draco Malfoy and--”
“It's us!” Danzia called in. “Me and my lot of girls.”
Decisions, decisions, Harry thought. He put his glasses back on, and noticed they were cracked. Quite how that had happened, he didn't know. He took out his wand and repaired them with a spell.
“You may have up to four at once.”
“In that case, Ron, Hermione, Antigone, and... um... Draco.”
“Draco?” Ron said, disbelieving. “I know you two are pals now, but Draco over Danzia or Angela?”
“We don't mind,” Danzia and Angela said in stereo.
“Well you four, in you get. The rest of you wait out there.”
Ron got in first, followed by Hermione. Draco was next, followed by Antigone.
“Anyone know where Luna is?”
“She was out here earlier. She said she'd come in after the rest of us were done, if she could,” Antigone said. “She was concerned, of course, but once we found out you were okay, she wandered off, saying she'd be back later.”
“Prob'ly wants to give you a get-well kiss,” smirked Ron.
“Where were you earlier?” Hermione asked. “You weren't watching the game, as far as any of us could tell. You just showed up, and passed out.”
“I was in my special spot, listening to the rain. I was keeping dry until I sensed the dementors and ran to warn people.”
“Well mate, you were a bit late for that. Dumbledore had already noticed them. Just after you passed out, he shot something silver at them, and they took off,” said Ron.
“I've never seen Dumbledore so angry,” Hermione said, shuddering. “It was terrifying. No wonder you-know-who's scared of him, if he can look like that.”
“What, did he turn into a monster?” Harry asked.
“No. Just got extremely grim, and sort of... grew, with power. Not literally, just appeared to get taller and scarier.”
“What, like Gandalf?”
“Who's--”
“Yes, just like Gandalf,” Hermione agreed. “Ron, it's a story from a Muggle book. Gandalf was a wizard in that story.”
The conversation continued among them for several more minutes, until Madam Pomfrey urged them out of the hospital wing for Harry to interact with the next group. Then the same thing happened again, until Madam Pomfrey grudgingly let Luna in on her own, the Weasley twins making kissy noises at Harry as they left.
“I brought you something, Harry,” she said without preamble, handing him a book. It was about dementors. “I got it from the library.”
“Thank you, Luna. Maybe it'll have something in here about how to fight them.”
“I brought you something else, too. I had Neville get it for me,” she said, handing him something.
He took it and looked at it. It was his two-way mirror, half of the pair that let him talk with Luna when they were both in their respective towers.
“Thanks, Luna! This will help a lot.”
“You're welcome.”
He grinned. This would make the inevitable night spent in the hospital wing more bearable, by letting him talk with Luna.
*
On Monday, Professor Lupin was back at work. Most people complained about Snape assigning them homework. Lupin told them they didn't have to do it. Harry, who had already done the essay, raised his hand.
“Yes, Harry?”
“I've already done mine. If we've already done it, can we hand it in for extra credit?”
“Yes, Harry. Anyone who did Professor Snape's essay may hand it to me for extra credit.”
He and Hermione weren't the only ones to pass theirs up. In fact, roughly half the class had done it.
Just before turning his in, Harry wrote something on a margin: “Your boggart... I know what it is. Don't worry.”
Lupin froze, reading Harry's note on the essay. He then tapped it with his wand, and bent down next to Harry.
“You made a slight mistake here, Harry,” he said, pointing at the note. It now read 'See me after class.'
“Ah, so I did,” Harry said, erasing the words with his wand. “Nice catch, Professor.”
They spent the rest of the class learning about hinkypunks, little one-legged creatures who looked as though they were made of wisps of smoke, rather frail and harmless-looking.
“Lures travelers into bogs,” said Professor Lupin as they took notes. “You notice the lantern dangling from his hand? Hops ahead — people follow the light — then —”
The hinkypunk made a horrible squelching noise against the glass.
When the bell rang, everyone gathered up their things and headed for the door, Harry among them, but of course he had to stay behind. Lupin closed the door behind him, locked it, and put up silencing wards.
“Sit down, Harry.”
Harry took a seat. He would be worried if not for previous encounters with Lupin, and Lupin's pleasant expression.
“Don't want anyone overhearing our conversation,” Lupin explained.
“Understandable.”
“So, Harry, my boggart. You say you know what it is. So, what is it?”
“The full moon. You're a werewolf.”
“Correct on both counts. Snape's essay?”
“Yes. I figured out you were always ill during the full moon. But it was realizing that your boggart was the moon that let me finally put the pieces together. I assume Dumbledore knows?”
“Yes. Everyone on the staff knows.”
“How long have you had this illness?”
“Since I was a small child. Dumbledore let me come to Hogwarts despite it. You know the Whomping Willow?”
“Yes. What of it?”
“It was planted the year I came to Hogwarts. I used to go through a secret tunnel to the Shrieking Shack to change. Kept me away from humans, leaving me to have to bite and scratch myself instead of humans.”
“That sounds horrible.”
“It was. But now I have Professor Snape to brew the Wolfsbane Potion for me. You saw me drinking it once. It's very difficult to make, and I've never been very good at potions. Now, Harry, I must ask you to keep this a secret from the other students. I know, especially with Professor Snape dropping hints, that the secret will come out eventually, and when it does, I'll have to resign. Parents will not want a werewolf teaching their kids, even with me on the Wolfsbane Potion. But I would like to try to make it the whole year before resigning.”
“Your secret is safe with me, sir.”
“Good.”
“Sir? Did you hear about the match, too?”
“All those dementors, yes. I heard. Dumbledore was very angry. He was against them being brought here to begin with. If it were up to Dumbledore, they would all be taken away to a starvation colony in Siberia.”
“Starvation colony?”
“The only way to kill a dementor, that we know of, is to starve them to death. Which means taking them far away from people. Just a handful of wizards live at such places, in order to cast patronuses to keep the dementors from escaping. But they themselves are out of reach of the powers of the dementors.”
“Patronuses? What are those?”
“The Patronus Charm is the only defense wizards have against dementors. The charm summons a sort of anti-dementor, a projection of all the things dementors feed off, but they cannot feel despair as humans can, so the dementors have no power over them.”
“Is that what Dumbledore used against them at the match?”
“Yes, it is.”
“And you did it on the train, too, right?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Could you teach me that spell? With these dementors about, I don't want to be caught without a defense again. If I were to pass out, they could Kiss me.”
“Ah, so you know something about dementors?”
“My friend Luna got me a book from the library about them. I read about the Dementor's Kiss. It terrifies me, to think they can suck out souls.”
“As well it should. But Harry, I don't claim to be an expert. Far from it.”
“Yes, but you know how to do it. Sure, I could go to Dumbledore, but then I'd have to explain everything all over again, and... and the last time I passed out, I heard my mum being murdered.”
“Lily?” Lupin said, looking grim. “Okay, Harry. If it means so much to you, I'll do it. But it’ll have to wait until next term, I’m afraid. I have a lot to do before the holidays, and turning into a werewolf every month takes a lot out of me. Now, run along for now,” he said, unlocking the door.
With the promise of anti-dementor lessons, Harry's mood lifted a little. He still went outside to meet Shadow and speak to the dog about his dementor visions and the sadness they brought. Shadow continued to be a really good listener, even if he was starting to occasionally look preoccupied. Harry figured the dog was getting tired of listening, and wanted to play, so whenever he could, he started running around the wooded area, letting the large dog chase him.
Because it was getting colder, Harry had started to look into making a dog house for Shadow. Not being great shakes at transfiguration, he found it easier to ask Hagrid for help locating trees to get wood from. Since he didn't want to kill the trees, he picked ones with nice big branches to prune, explaining beforehand his intentions. Hagrid made a point of picking out trees that needed pruning anyway in case ice would hit, explaining that the heavy ice would damage the trees far more than pruning a few branches would.
The branches harvested, Harry looked up spells for woodworking, since he didn't have any woodworking tools, and was thus able to shape and treat the wood magically with his wand. Then Hagrid let him have some nails and a hammer to use. It took a lot of work, and occasionally he had to use his wand to remove the nails or repair the wood, but he managed to finish the doghouse a little before two weeks til the end of term. With help from Antigone, he carved runes into the wood and imbued them with the power of warming spells, a spell to keep wild animals away, and some security spells to protect Shadow.
He took the completed doghouse out to his rock by levitating it along with his wand. Shadow jumped around excitedly as Harry used a sticking charm to attach the doghouse to a large flat stone he'd discovered a little farther into the wooded area. He had dragged the flat stone closer to his favorite boulder. Even with his wand to help him, dragging that rock had been very difficult. But now it was close enough to see from his boulder, and the warming spells on the outside of the house would keep most of the snow away, so Shadow didn't get buried in the white stuff.
Miraculously, he had completed the project and set it in place just in time. The next morning he woke to an opaline white sky and frost all over the muddy ground. He checked on Shadow, and found that he was cozy and warm, still asleep inside the house Harry had built for him.
Inside the castle, there was a buzz of Christmas in the air. Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, had already decorated his classroom with shimmering lights that turned out to be real, fluttering fairies. The students were all happily discussing their plans for the holidays. Both Ron and Hermione had decided to remain at Hogwarts, and though Ron said it was because he couldn’t stand two weeks with Percy, and Hermione insisted she needed to use the library, Harry wasn’t fooled; they were doing it to keep him company, and he was very grateful.
To everyone’s delight except Harry’s, there was to be another Hogsmeade trip on the very last weekend of the term.
“We can do all our Christmas shopping there!” said Hermione. “Mum and Dad would really love those Toothflossing Stringmints from Honeydukes!”
Resigned to the fact that he would be the only third year staying behind again, Harry got out some catalogs he'd ordered so he could owl-order what presents he hadn't already bought for people. At least he could hang out with Luna, who was only a second-year, while the others went to Hogsmeade.
On the Saturday morning of the Hogsmeade trip, Harry bid good-bye to Ron and Hermione, who were wrapped in cloaks and scarves, then turned up the marble staircase alone, and headed toward Ravenclaw Tower to look for Luna. Snow had started to fall outside the windows, and the castle was very still and quiet.
He was interrupted by a beckoning whisper from the Weasley twins, who beckoned him into a spare classroom beside a statue of a one-eyed witch.
“What's up? Why aren't you two off for one last trip to Zonko's?” Harry asked.
“Decided you could use an early Christmas present. Er, I mean Yule present. Forgot about that, sorry Harry.”
“It's fine. So what's this early Yule present?”
Fred pulled something from inside his cloak with a flourish and laid it on one of the desks. It was a large, square, very worn piece of parchment with nothing written on it. Harry, suspecting one of Fred and George’s jokes, stared at it.
“What’s that supposed to be?”
“This, Harry, is the secret of our success,” said George, patting the parchment fondly.
“It’s a wrench, giving it to you,” said Fred, “but we decided last night, your need’s greater than ours.”
“Anyway, we know it by heart,” said George. “We bequeath it to you. We don’t really need it anymore.”
“You're winding me up.”
“You wound us, Harry! When have we ever done you wrong?”
“Do you want a list?”
“Never mind that. We're serious, for once.”
“Yeah, this is no ordinary bit of parchment.”
And so Harry listened as they told the tale of finding the parchment in Filch's “confiscated and highly dangerous” cabinet, how Filch probably didn't know how to work it, and so on, without actually saying what it was.
“Okay, that's all interesting, but what is it?”
“Impatient, I see. Well, watch this,” said George.
He took out his wand, touched the parchment lightly, and said, “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”
And at once, thin ink lines began to spread like a spider’s web from the point that George’s wand had touched. They joined each other, they crisscrossed, they fanned into every corner of the parchment; then words began to blossom across the top, great, curly green words, that proclaimed:
Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs
Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers
are proud to present
THE MARAUDER’S MAP
It was a map showing every detail of the Hogwarts castle and grounds. But the truly remarkable thing were the tiny ink dots moving around it, each labeled with a name in minuscule writing. Astounded, Harry bent over it. A labeled dot in the top left corner showed that Professor Dumbledore was pacing his study; the caretaker’s cat, Mrs. Norris, was prowling the second floor; and Peeves the Poltergeist was currently bouncing around the trophy room. And as Harry’s eyes traveled up and down the familiar corridors, he noticed something else.
“Secret passages,” he said.
“Yes. And these two go into Hogsmeade. Seven in all. Now, Filch knows about these four” — he pointed them out — “but we’re sure we’re the only ones who know about these. Don’t bother with the one behind the mirror on the fourth floor. We used it until last winter, but it’s caved in — completely blocked. And we don’t reckon anyone’s ever used this one, because the Whomping Willow’s planted right over the entrance. But this one here, this one leads right into the cellar of Honeydukes. We’ve used it loads of times. And as you might’ve noticed, the entrance is right outside this room, through that one-eyed old crone’s hump.”
“Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs,” sighed George, patting the heading of the map. “We owe them so much.”
“Noble men, working tirelessly to help a new generation of law-breakers,” said Fred solemnly.
“Right,” said George briskly. “Don’t forget to wipe it after you’ve used it —”
“— or anyone can read it,” Fred said warningly.
“Just tap it again and say, ‘Mischief managed!’ And it’ll go blank.”
“So, young Harry,” said Fred, in an uncanny impersonation of Percy, “mind you behave yourself.”
“See you in Honeydukes,” said George, winking.
They left the room, both smirking in a satisfied sort of way.
Harry stood there, gazing at the miraculous map. He watched the tiny ink Mrs. Norris turn left and pause to sniff at something on the floor. If Filch really didn’t know … he wouldn’t have to pass the dementors at all.
He briefly thought of something Mr. Weasley had said, 'Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain.' But since Griffindors trusted something of that exact description every day – the portrait that guarded the entrance into their dorms – and there were scores of such portraits around, among all sorts of other similar thinking objects, it was pretty rubbish advice. And anyway, Fred and George had been using the thing for ages without it hurting them. And Riddle's diary had definitely felt far more alive than any portrait. This was, in fact, probably far less intelligent than any of the portraits.
Harry supposed the twins would have expected him to just shoot off on a whim, but it was cold outside, and he wasn't dressed for going out. So he wiped the map, stowed it in his pocket, and went up to Griffindor tower, where he retrieved his winter cloak and his money. And, since he'd seen a bunch of second-years hanging around, including Colin Creevy, he put his invisibility cloak over himself and used it to sneak away.
Just to be extra careful, he waited until somebody left through the portrait hole, following behind her. A first-year, she closed the door on his face, making him have to fight to not cry out. She glared curiously at the portrait. Seeming to decide the joints were stuck, she examined them.
“Anybody know a spell to make lubrication?” she called in.
As Harry left, he heard a fifth-year call back “Aren't you a bit young for a spell like that?” followed by laughter.
“Har har,” the girl said. “For the joints on the portrait, I mean!”
Harry didn't hear the rest of it, for he was too busy focusing on making it back to the one-eyed witch without bumping into anybody.
When he got there, he quietly activated the map again to make sure nobody was going to catch him at this. Also, he didn't know how to activate the secret exit. But the map, thankfully, could see him through the cloak, and showed him an image of himself tapping the hump and saying 'Dissendium.' So Harry did exactly that. The hump opened up, he checked one last time for Filch or Snape or any of the teachers, and when he saw nobody, he climbed in.
Once in, he lit his wand, wiped the map, and went along the passageway. It was long and twisty, and reminded him of a rabbit burrow. It took him ages to get to Hogsmeade, but finally he got to the end of the tunnel, where there was a trapdoor.
“Hominem revelio,” he said. The spell revealed someone coming toward the trapdoor, so he put the invisibility cloak on in case they came down it.
Several minutes passed, and he tried the spell again. Whoever it had been was gone. He couldn’t hear any sounds above him. Very slowly, he pushed the trapdoor open and peered over the edge.
He was in a cellar, which was full of wooden crates and boxes. Harry climbed out of the trapdoor and replaced it — it blended so perfectly with the dusty floor that it was impossible to tell it was there. Still, he decided to put some spells on the inside later to trap anyone other than himself that came down it. He was already compiling a list of such spells as he knew while he crept slowly toward the wooden staircase that led upstairs. Now he could definitely hear voices, not to mention the tinkle of a bell and the opening and shutting of a door.
Before long, he was up the stairs, still under the invisibility cloak in case someone caught him and asked why he was there. But he escaped, and soon had the cloak off. He had another thought, and looked around for a bathroom. There was a tiny one back there, single-occupancy only. He went in and locked the door.
Looking into the mirror, he used his wand to lengthen his fringe and fought to get it to go over his scar. He ended up having to hold it down with a Sticking Charm. But once he managed that feat, he changed his hair color to a light brown.
His glasses, though, were going to be a problem. He was still wearing the ugly old glasses his aunt and uncle had grudgingly gotten for him when they realized he wasn't banging into things on purpose. He made a mental note to get new ones. In the meantime, though, he changed their color to a dark blue, and squared off the lenses. He wasn't very confident in this, but if Clark Kent could be Superman with just a pair of glasses and parting his hair different... he shrugged, and put the glasses back on.
For one last disguise – and this was a tricky one because he couldn't have his glasses on when he did it, he changed his eyes' color to blue. He examined his handiwork in the mirror, with his glasses on. Yes, he looked different enough. They weren't strong transfigurations, so he'd revert to normal before supper, but that was plenty of time. He left the bathroom fairly confident nobody would recognize him until he spoke.
Harry waded through the mass of students, his eyes looking at all the amazing candies. He felt like he was in a Willy Wonka store. He half expected to see Everlasting Gobstoppers there.
Harry squeezed himself through a crowd of sixth years and saw a sign hanging in the farthest corner of the shop (UNUSUAL TASTES). Ron, Hermione, Antigone, and Danzia were standing underneath it, examining a tray of blood-flavored lollipops. Harry sneaked up behind them.
“Ugh, no, Harry won’t want one of those, they’re for vampires, I expect,” Hermione was saying.
“Ooh,” Danzia said, taking the jar. “I want to try one.”
“You're not a vampire!” Hermione exclaimed.
“So? I can't be curious?”
“How about these?” said Ron, shoving a jar of Cockroach Clusters under Hermione’s nose.
“Definitely not,” said Harry.
Ron nearly dropped the jar. Danzia burst out laughing at this.
“Harry!” squealed Hermione. “What are you doing here? How — how did you — ?”
“Wow!” said Ron, looking very impressed, “you’ve learned to Apparate!”
“Of course he hasn't,” Antigone said. “Though with Moldy's fixation on him, it wouldn't hurt to learn. You can't apparate in or out of the school unless you're a House Elf.”
“So, Troublemaker,” Danzia said, picking out a blood-flavored lollipop for herself and putting the jar back, “how'd you get past the dementors? Flying?”
“Didn't go over them, no. Doubt that would work anyway, they can fly. No, I went underneath them.”
He dropped his voice so that none of the sixth years could hear him and told them all about the Marauder’s Map.
“How come Fred and George never gave it to me!” said Ron, outraged. “I’m their brother!”
“You just answered your own question, Ron,” Danzia said with a smirk.
“But Harry isn’t going to keep it!” said Hermione, as though the idea were ludicrous. “He’s going to hand it in to Professor McGonagall, aren’t you, Harry?”
“No, I’m not!” said Harry.
“Yeah, why should he?” Danzia asked.
“Because of Sirius Black! He used to go to school here, you know. He could know about these passageways.”
“Which is why I intend to set some traps so only I can use the passageway into Honeyduke's. Filch knows about a bunch of them, and the only other one goes into the Shrieking Shack. I suppose you've heard that it's haunted?” Harry said. He had a hard time lying effectively, but this wasn't a lie, so it didn't count.
Hermione didn't look convinced.
“Don't fret, Hermione, I can help him out. I'll give him some runes and stuff he can use. Then we can work on the Hogwarts end of it later.”
“Well...”
“Plus,” Harry added, “the entrance is really hard to see. Blends in perfectly with the floor. I doubt even the owners know.”
“Yeah, and if Black broke in,” Ron said, “they'd hear. They live right over the shop.”
“Well okay, but what if Sirius Black comes to Hogsmeade to find Harry?”
“The whole town is swarming with dementors,” Danzia pointed out.
“And he's disguised. I barely recognize him even knowing it's him,” Antigone said.
“Also, there's loads of students here,” Ron said. “He'd get lost in the crowd.”
“I bet there's also aurors hanging around town, too,” Danzia added.
“Okay, okay,” Hermione said, exasperated. “I give in. But I don't like it.” She bit her lip, still worried.
“Are you going to report me?” Harry asked her, grinning.
“Oh — of course not — but honestly, Harry —”
“Seen the Fizzing Whizbees, Harry?” said Ron, grabbing him and leading him over to their barrel. “And the Jelly Slugs? And the Acid Pops? Fred gave me one of those when I was seven — it burnt a hole right through my tongue. I remember Mum walloping him with her broomstick.” Ron stared broodingly into the Acid Pop box. “Reckon Fred’d take a bit of Cockroach Cluster if I told him they were peanuts?”
Ron and the others took Harry around the store to look at everything. Among other things, Harry found something in a section for foreign imports. They were balls of some sort of bread with sesame seeds on the outside and a sort of bean curd on the inside. They were both sweet and savory. The owners gave him a free sample, and he liked it, so he bought a couple dozen.
Just like on the trolley, Harry ended up getting a bit of many different things. He wanted to get a bit of everything, but the store was so large that he doubted he'd ever be able to carry even one of everything, even if he skipped over the blood-flavored lollipops and other unusual tastes.
“Acid pops, honestly. Some of the things people like are weird,” Danzia said as she paid for her blood-flavored lollipop, a bit of cockroach cluster, and a dozen more normal candies.
“You're one to talk,” Ron muttered.
When they'd all paid for their sweets, the five of them left Honeydukes for the blizzard outside.
Hogsmeade looked like a Christmas card; the little thatched cottages and shops were all covered in a layer of crisp snow; there were holly wreaths on the doors and strings of enchanted candles hanging in the trees.
“That’s the post office —”
“Zonko’s is up there —”
“We could go up to the Shrieking Shack —”
“Tell you what,” said Ron, his teeth chattering, “shall we go for a butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks?”
Harry was more than willing; the wind was fierce and his hands were freezing, so they crossed the road, and in a few minutes were entering the tiny inn.
It was extremely crowded, noisy, warm, and smoky. A curvy sort of woman with a pretty face was serving a bunch of rowdy warlocks up at the bar.
“That’s Madam Rosmerta,” said Ron. “I’ll get the drinks, shall I?” he added, going slightly red. Harry noticed Antigone checking out Madam Rosmerta as well.
The rest of them made their way to the back of the room, where there was a small, vacant table between the window and a handsome Christmas tree, which stood next to the fireplace. Ron came back five minutes later, carrying three foaming tankards of hot butterbeer.
“Merry Christmas!” he said happily, raising his tankard.
Harry drank deeply. It was the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted and seemed to heat every bit of him from the inside.
A sudden breeze ruffled his hair. The door of the Three Broomsticks had opened again. Harry looked over the rim of his tankard and choked.
Professors McGonagall and Flitwick had just entered the pub with a flurry of snowflakes, shortly followed by Hagrid, who was deep in conversation with a portly man in a lime-green bowler hat and a pinstriped cloak — Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic.
“Calm down, Jacob,” Antigone said to him, smirking. “You'll be fine.”
Hermione, apparently less convinced of the power of Harry's disguise, moved a Christmas tree in front of them with her wand.
Harry did his best to ignore the teachers and minister. It was hard, though, when their conversation was so loud. They ended up talking about Sirius Black, repeating the story Draco had told him. Hagrid clearly believed in Sirius's guilt, he was very vocally angry about it. There wasn't any new information in it, though, for Harry.
When the conversation ended and the teachers began heading back to the castle, he wondered if he should go back. The secret passage was long, and he had spells to cast. Resigned to such a short trip, he said his goodbyes and headed back to the secret passage.
End note 1: Yes, those of you in the know, Harry's Samhain ritual is a little unusual. I was taking into account the differences between the wizarding world and the Muggle world in this AU. I also took into account that Harry doesn't have any gods or goddesses yet, and might not ever. I haven't decided yet.
End note 2: Sorry this took so long. It's been like trying to get blood from a turnip lately with this story. That's on top of my usual depression and scheduled things I have to do.
End note 3: I wish I could remember which fanfic I originally read the idea of dementor starvation grounds in. But I've read so many HP fanfics they all kinda blend together. The only other things I remember about it was that Harry took a plane to Albania to study where Voldy had been hiding, and made friends with a young girl while there, then helped the Albanian government take away a dementor to Siberia.
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Three.
Or, "Aspie Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban."
Note: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made.
Note 2: There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though.
Note 3: My writing has suffered from my fear of the Trump administration. :( As if I needed more things getting in the way of my writing. But that's why it's been so long between chapters.
Chapter 5: Yuletide Surprises
Harry woke up the next morning feeling blue. He hadn't gotten an invitation to spend Yule and Christmas with the Weasleys this year because Sirius Black was after him (and had been spotted a few times in the area), so the Burrow wouldn't be safe. Ron and Hermione had decided to stay behind, though. They gave excuses for why, but he knew the real reason was to be with him during the holidays, since he couldn't go to the Burrow. He appreciated it very much.
Sighing, he finally dragged himself out of bed and got ready to go down to breakfast. As usual, he squirreled away some spare food for Shadow the stray dog, and went out after breakfast to feed said stray. Since he knew he'd be doing this, he had carried his winter cloak with him to breakfast, shrugging it on before heading outside, with a woolen hat on over his head. He hated the texture of wool, it made him cringe, but it was a warm hat, so he tolerated it.
Shadow didn't come out to meet him as usual. Harry found him in the doghouse Harry had made, with its warming charms. He lured the dog out into the cold with sausage and bacon, and while Shadow ate the food, Harry renewed the warming charms. He hadn't yet gotten far enough in Ancient Runes to put any runes on the doghouse, as they were just learning the runes for the first half of the year. Shadow, shivering, went back into the dog house as soon as this was done and went back to sleep. Harry smiled, though he was a little disappointed.
Instead of moping, though, he got up and went back toward the castle. He met Ron and Hermione on the way there.
“Where're you two off to?” he asked.
“Hagrid's hut. We thought maybe you'd gone there.”
“Nope. Went off to feed Shadow. But going to Hagrid's sounds like a good idea.”
Ron nodded, and the three of them set off to Hagrid's hut, trailing a trench through the thick snow as they did, the only marks on the snow except for the trail from Shadow's doghouse.
When they got there, they knocked, but there wasn't any immediate answer. There was, however, an odd noise from within, that sounded like a wounded dog. Concerned, they knocked again, harder.
There was a sound of heavy footsteps, then the door creaked open. Hagrid stood there with his eyes red and swollen, tears splashing down the front of his leather vest.
“Yeh’ve heard?” he bellowed, and he flung himself onto Harry’s neck.
Harry made a noise like a squirrel being trodden on. Having a man as huge as Hagrid hanging onto you when you were a 13 year old boy who could pass for 11 was not a fun experience, and soon Ron and Hermione were helping Harry out from under the massive man.
“Hagrid, what is it?” said Hermione, aghast.
Harry spotted an official-looking letter lying open on the table.
“What’s this, Hagrid?”
Hagrid’s sobs redoubled, but he shoved the letter toward Harry, who picked it up and read aloud:
Dear Mr. Hagrid,
Further to our inquiry into the attack by a hippogriff on a student in your class, we have accepted the assurances of Professor Dumbledore that you bear no responsibility for the regrettable incident.
“Well, that’s okay then, Hagrid!” said Ron, clapping Hagrid on the shoulder. But Hagrid continued to sob, and waved one of his gigantic hands, inviting Harry to read on.
However, we must register our concern about the hippogriff in question. We have decided to uphold the official complaint of Mr. Lucius Malfoy and Mr. Goyle, and this matter will therefore be taken to the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures. The hearing will take place on April 20th, and we ask you to present yourself and your hippogriff at the Committee’s offices in London on that date. In the meantime, the hippogriff should be kept tethered and isolated.
Yours in fellowship …
There followed a list of the school governors.
“Oh,” said Ron. “But you said Buckbeak isn’t a bad hippogriff, Hagrid. I bet he’ll get off—”
“Yeh don’ know them gargoyles at the Committee fer the Disposal o’ Dangerous Creatures!” choked Hagrid, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “They’ve got it in fer interestin’ creatures!”
A sudden sound from the corner of Hagrid’s cabin made Harry, Ron, and Hermione whip around. Buckbeak the hippogriff was lying in the corner, chomping on something that was oozing blood all over the floor.
“I couldn’ leave him tied up out there in the snow!” choked Hagrid. “All on his own! At Christmas.”
They gave one another significant looks. Hagrid had a fixation on monstrous beasts. Though by Hagrid's usual standards, Buckbeak was a kitten.
“You’ll have to put up a good strong defense, Hagrid,” said Hermione, sitting down and laying a hand on Hagrid’s massive forearm. “I’m sure you can prove Buckbeak is safe.”
“Won’t make no diff’rence!” sobbed Hagrid. “Them Disposal devils, they’re all in Lucius Malfoy’s pocket! Scared o’ him! An’ if I lose the case, Buckbeak —”
Hagrid drew his finger swiftly across his throat, then gave a great wail and lurched forward, his face in his arms.
“What does Lucius Malfoy have to do with it?” Harry asked, confused.
“He's friends with Goyle's father, remember?” Ron said.
“Oh yeah. And still evil. So, er... what about Dumbledore, Hagrid?” said Harry.
“He’s done more’n enough fer me already,” groaned Hagrid. “Got enough on his plate what with keepin’ them dementors outta the castle, an’ Sirius Black lurkin’ around —”
They continued to reassure Hagrid that they would do everything they could to help. Ron made everyone some tea as they talked. In the end, they got him to buck up. They began to speak of other things, then, like the boring flobberworms they'd had to do in class lately, which had all died from overfeeding. And, depressing as it was, the conversation turned to Azkaban, since Hagrid had to walk past the dementors to get to Hogsmeade for a drink. Harry briefly considered telling him about the secret passage into Honeydukes, but decided against it. Among other considerations, Hagrid would not have been able to fit through the entrance.
They assured Hagrid they would help him with research to defend Buckbeak, and tried to press on. But Hagrid was too depressed to be good at conversation today, so eventually they went back up to the castle and on to the library to do research for Hagrid's case.
They did a lot of research for Hagrid the week leading up to Christmas, with time-out on the 21st for Ron and Harry to do the ritual burning of the Yule Log, which Hermione watched on in fascination, her own parents being culturally Christian but not greatly religious. She'd never even heard of paganism still existing before Harry told her about it.
Shadow, when Harry visited him, was acting agitated for some reason. Harry would have said the dog was preoccupied, but he wasn't sure dogs could be preoccupied. But then, maybe Shadow was a magical dog; magical animals, be they owls, rats, or cats, tended to be more intelligent than Muggle animals. So for all he knew, the dog was preoccupied about something. He just wished he knew what it was.
About the only clue he had was that the dog seemed to get more agitated whenever Harry mentioned Ron. Something about Ron was bothering the dog. With this possibility in mind, Harry brought Ron over to Shadow one day, to see what the dog's reaction would be.
As they approached, Shadow appeared on a snowbank and looked curiously at them. When they got closer, he sniffed Ron with what looked like a concerned look in his eyes. He sniffed Ron's pockets the longest, with the most scrutiny, and even pawed at the pockets, but then looked disappointed when he didn't find whatever it was he was looking for.
“Oy, what's he sniffing me for?”
Harry shrugged. “No idea. Something's been bothering him for a while. Not sure what.”
“I don't have any food for you, boy, if that's what you're after,” Ron said.
But when Harry offered Shadow some sausage from breakfast, Shadow sniffed it, then took it and ate it with a reluctance that made Harry think the dog was disappointed, and was only settling for the offer.
“They didn't have any bacon today, sorry boy,” Harry said.
Shadow looked up at him as though to say 'Don't patronize me,' but then shook himself and looked a little more relaxed.
On the day before Christmas, Harry went out on his own to Shadow again, giving the dog some ham from breakfast. The dog still looked worried, but didn't move around as much, as though thinking. Harry appreciated the calmer energy, and cleared the snow off his favorite stone with his wand so he could sit down and watch Shadow pace back and forth a little. It was odd, but the pacing did make it seem like he was thinking.
After a few minutes, Harry got bored. Wondering what Hermione and Ron were doing, he got out the Marauder’s Map. When he said “I solemnly swear I am up to no good,” Shadow froze in place, his head snapping around and ears perking up. Then the dog came over and looked, goggle-eyed, at the Map.
“You like that, boy? Well just remember to look, not touch.”
The dog whined in a way Harry had a hard time identifying, and kept looking at the map, as though looking for something specific. Then the dog's gaze froze, looking at the Griffindor tower, and he whuffed several times, poking his nose at it.
“Oh yeah, that's my friend Ron. Wait a minute... what??”
Harry pulled the Map closer to his own eyes, to get a better look.
“Now that has to be a mistake. It says 'Peter Pettigrew.' But he's dead!”
Shadow barked at full volume several times.
“What's wrong, Shadow?”
The dog looked at Harry, then played dead, got back up, and ran off, before coming back, looking at Harry expectantly. Harry just looked confused. Shadow did it again.
“Yes, dead. That's what dead means. But dead people don't get back up again.”
Shadow did it yet again.
“I told you, dead people don't-- wait... unless he's not dead. Could he have faked his death? That would explain the oddity of only one finger and some robes being found. But that's silly. Even if he were alive, why would he fake his death? And he couldn't be here at Hogwarts.”
Shadow barked, then got up close to the Map again and pointed, whuffing, at McGonagall in her office.
“What? What about Professor McGonagall?”
Shadow began, then, to act like a cat. It was confusing Harry even more, even when Shadow would pause this cat behavior to bark and point at McGonagall.
And then he got it, and gasped. “Wait, McGonagall is an animagus. What if Pettigrew was one, too? SCABBERS! He's missing a toe! And didn't Ron say he's at least 12 years old? That's an... interesting number, given what happened 12 years ago. And rats don't live that long, normally.”
Shadow barked in a way that sounded like agreement.
Then Harry shrewdly looked at Shadow. “You know, if I didn't know a very clever cat, I'd almost suspect you were an animagus, too. But that would be a bit unbelievable.”
Something about Shadow's body language made Harry suspicious. Then several things clicked into place in his mind. It was impossible, surely? But then, this was the wizarding world. If Peter Pettigrew was an unregistered animagus...
“Shadow? If... well, if you are an animagus, you can reveal yourself to me. I think I know who you are, anyway.”
Shadow whined and cocked his head.
“Yes, I'm sure.”
The dog nodded, looked around to make sure they were alone, then, suddenly, was a man. Harry had to work at not flinching, even though he had been kinda expecting this. For right in front of him was Sirius Black, who was kneeling in the snow with his hands in the air. Harry got out his wand and pointed it at the man, more as a just-in-case measure.
“I'm sorry for the ruse, Harry,” said a voice that sounded like it hadn't been used in years, “but it's not safe for me out here. In fact, it's cold enough out here I won't be able to feel the dementors coming. I know somewhere we can talk in private, if you're willing to trust me.”
Harry didn't say anything at first. He was still trying to rearrange his thoughts. This morning, he had been talking to his pet dog. Now he was faced with the truth that his pet was actually a man. And as weird as that was, if Harry was right about Pettigrew, Ron was in an extremely creepy situation that made his own look like hilarious hijinks by comparison.
Finally, he said, “No, I don't know you enough to trust you. Yes, you could have killed me at any time this year, but still, I don't even know you.”
Sirius nodded. “I understand.”
“Good. Do you have a wand?”
Sirius gave an unhappy bark of laughter. “Of course not. It's still in Azkaban, or wherever it is they put prisoners' wands. I don't need a wand to transform, though.”
Harry nodded. “Immobulus,” he said, gluing the man to the ground with a spell. “So you can tell me why you're here, explain the situation to me best you can, as quickly as you can, then turn back to a dog.”
“Thank you. So, what happened. Well, to start, I wasn't your parents' secret keeper. I was going to be, but then I convinced your parents to switch to their other friend Peter at the last minute. I thought it was a great ruse. Nobody would suspect the weak, talentless Peter. The way the Fidelius Charm works, the secret keepers are chosen by the people who have to be hidden. We didn't even tell Dumbledore, who cast the spell, that we'd switched. The night it happened, I went to check on Peter, but he wasn't where he should have been. I'd had no idea til then that he was a traitor, but there was no sign of a struggle, so I figured it out. I rushed to your parents' house, but it was too late.
“Hagrid was there by the time I got there, collecting you from the debris. He told me Dumbledore said you were to go to your aunt and uncle's. I thought even then that was a stupid idea, but I trusted Dumbledore and Hagrid, and I was too beset by grief to object too strenuously. And then I made the second greatest mistake of my life, and went after Pettigrew without even telling Hagrid the truth. I could have; the house and two of its three occupants were dead, so the Fidelius Charm was not working anymore. But like I said, I wasn't thinking straight.
“I chased Pettigrew down, thinking to stop him and turn him in, telling Dumbledore the truth. But he called out for everyone to hear that I was the traitor, blasted the street apart, turned into a rat, and ran away. Between Peter outwitting me, the dead bodies and debris everywhere, and the fact I had almost no chance to find him after that, I had a bit of a mental breakdown and started laughing like mad. I think I was still laughing when they threw me in Azkaban.
“And then other things happened in the aftermath of Voldemort's fall. Several of his most loyal lieutenants went looking for him, and tortured the Aurors Frank and Alice Longbottom for information. They went too far, driving the pair of them insane, because of course nobody but Voldemort knew where he was at that time. That drew so much outrage from the community that between that and the rest of the post-Voldemort chaos, they forgot about me, and I never got a trial as a result. I think there was some kind of unofficial hearing where Fudge testified against me, since he was there when I was arrested.
“Now, I didn't know any of this at the time, I've only pieced it together since then from newspapers and eavesdropping and other scattered news sources.”
“Okay,” said Harry. “I have some questions. But before I ask them, we should go somewhere safer. You said you knew somewhere we could go?”
“Yes. But, er... it's daylight out. And there aren't as many students to keep track of. The entrance to the place I had in mind is kind of out in the open. You might want to go back for your father's cloak.”
“You know about--- of course you do, you were friends in school. But, er... it's kinda snowy out there, people might spot that.”
“Right. But from a window? When all the light is bouncing around? Anyway, I'll be in front of you as Shadow, that'll disguise it somewhat. I'll wait here for you in dog form.”
Sirius then turned into a dog again, and sat there waiting.
Harry wiped the Map, put it away, and went back up to the castle to fetch his invisibility cloak. He avoided the library, which he knew from looking at the Map before wiping it, was where Ron and Hermione were. Within 20 minutes, he was heading back to Shadow—er, Sirius with the Cloak in his pocket.
Shadow was there waiting. He waited for Harry to put the Cloak on, and then led the way. As soon as Harry saw they were heading toward the Whomping Willow, he had half a notion where they were going. Harry watched Shadow weave through the swinging branches and hit a knot, freezing them in place, allowing Harry to climb through the hole in the roots behind Shadow.
Once they were in and along the path enough to reasonably not be heard, Harry asked, “Where are we going?”
Shadow just whuffed in an annoyed sort of way.
“Oh yeah, changing in here might be a little painful. Sorry.”
As they went along, Harry's mind was going, processing the strange situation. You are trusting an escaped prisoner, who was accused of mass murder, and a name on a questionable magical artifact, it said.
Yes, but he could have killed me at any time. He could have torn my throat out and it would just seem like an animal attack.
His mind didn't have an answer to that one yet. So he knew he was trusting his own understanding of the situation, and not just an escaped prisoner charged with murder.
The tunnel began to rise, until it got to the end. Shadow did something, disappearing, and suddenly there was a square of dim light shining down from the ceiling. It was a trapdoor, and led into a very disordered, dusty room. Paper was peeling from the walls; there were stains all over the floor; every piece of furniture was broken as though somebody had smashed it. The windows were all boarded up. He climbed up after Shadow/Sirius and shut the trapdoor behind him, very much aware as he did what Hermione and Ron would say if they knew he was here in what looked like the Shrieking Shack with Black.
Black, for his part, remained a dog until Harry was standing and had his wand out. When he turned back to a human, he was again kneeling and had his arms in the air in surrender. Though Harry realized now he only had the man's word that he was unarmed, and wasn't sure how good a wand would do against a 30-some year old Animagus. He stood back a bit from Black just in case.
“Expelliarmus!” he cast at the man just in case. Black was pushed back a bit, but managed to keep from falling over.
“Good thinking, Harry. Can't be too careful. I don't suppose you've learned the Summoning Charm yet?”
“Not yet. I am ahead of my year in a lot of things, but I haven't learned that one yet.”
“Ah. Well I'd tell you how to do it, but it might take even you a day or two to actually figure out how to cast it. But I assure you I don't have a wand. Where would I get one? They don't let prisoners have wands.”
“True. I believe you on that. Doesn't mean you couldn't have stolen one somehow. Anyway, I have some questions, as I said.”
“I'll try my best to answer them.”
“How did you escape Azkaban? For that matter, how did you keep your powers in Azkaban, after 12 years?”
“I'm not sure. But I think it's because I knew I was innocent. I stayed there because I felt I deserved it for convincing James and Lily to switch secret keepers to Peter, but that didn't change the fact I knew I was innocent. It wasn't a happy thought, so the dementors couldn't take it from me. So when things got to be too much, I would transform into a dog in my cell. Dementors are blind, sensing people by their emotions, and animal emotions are hard for them to sense.”
“How did you know where Peter Pettigrew was?”
“Only by luck. It can get boring in Azkaban if you're able to keep your mind like I did, so one day I asked Fudge for the paper when he was inspecting the place. I told him I wanted to do the crossword, but really I wanted news of you, since you're my godson and all that's left of my best friend and his wife. That's when I spotted... well, if you'll let me pull it out of my robes, it's a newspaper clipping, I assure you.”
“Go ahead.”
Black cautiously pulled out a newspaper clipping from his robes and showed it to Harry. It was a picture of himself and the Weasleys in front of a backdrop that looked like sand, from just before their trip to Egypt.
“Ah... Fudge said you were saying, 'He's at Hogwarts.' You recognized Pettigrew?”
“Yes, I did. And from what else it said, I knew he was in a position to hurt you if any hint of Voldemort rising again reached his ears. He's a coward. He ran not from me, but from the other Death Eaters who thought he was the reason Voldemort fell. But if Voldemort rises again and Peter takes you to Voldemort, who would dare say he betrayed the Death Eaters? So I was worried for you, with that traitor so close to you.”
“Makes sense. Now the biggest question: why are you and he unregistered Animagi?”
“It was because of a friend of ours in school, named Remus Lupin---”
“You know Professor Lupin?”
“Professor?” Black barked with laughter. “So Moony got a job as a teacher? Figures Dumbledore would let him. Not sure how he convinced the others, though.”
“Moony? Wait! Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs?”
“Yes, we were the Marauders in our school days. We made that Map you were looking at earlier. Which is why I perked up when I heard you say the phrase that turns it on. We were rather clever in school. That Map took a lot of work; arithmancy, ancient runes, charms, even a potion or two. Took us longer than working out how to become Animagi.”
“And why did you and Pettigrew become--- wait, did you say you became an Animagus in school?”
“Yes. Took us most of three years to work it out, but we did. It was very dangerous and irresponsible of us to do, but we were young and full of ourselves at our cleverness. And we did it because we very quickly figured out that one of our best friends, Remus Lupin, was a... now, I don't want you to panic, but he's, well... a--.”
“--werewolf, I know. I figured it out not long after my first class with him.”
Sirius laughed again. “Why am I not surprised? You've got brains on both your mom and dad's sides, after all.”
“So how did you and Peter becoming Animagi help Lupin?”
“Wasn't just him and me. It was James as well. He was Prongs. I'm Padfoot. Peter is Wormtail. Naturally, Lupin is Moony. So what's he teaching, anyway?”
“Defense Against The Dark Arts. And he's pretty good at it.”
“Oh boy. That means he'll be out by the end of the year. That position is cursed.”
“Yeah, I've heard that rumor, too.”
“Not a rumor. Dumbledore verified it to me and a few others. Voldemort cursed it after being refused the job, back before the war started.”
Harry's eyes went wide. “He wanted to teach here?”
“Yes. He wanted to use it as a recruiting tool. He might've gotten in if Dippet had been the headmaster still, but Dumbledore was headmaster by then, and saw right through Voldemort.”
“Wow... so, getting back on track, you, my dad, and Peter became unregistered Animagi to help Moony somehow? How did that help?”
“Well werewolves, when they transform, are driven to bite or scratch humans, to infect them. But animals are immune to the disease. So too are animagi. We could keep him company, which calmed him a lot. And Prongs and I were such big animals we could keep a werewolf in check if he got too rowdy. We did a lot of stupid things back then after that, running around the grounds with Moony along for the ride. He could have escaped and bitten someone, but we were too young and stupid and carried away with our cleverness to care at the time, even after several near misses. Anyway, we got to know the castle and grounds so well we made the Marauder's Map. It never lies, and can see through invisibility cloaks and animagus transformations. If Peter's on the Map, that means he's alive. And he's hiding as your friend Ron's pet Scabbers.”
Harry stood thinking, his wand wavering only a little. Then he slapped his face in sudden realization. “Luna's necklace!”
“Pardon?”
Harry reached under his robes and pulled out the necklace. “There's a button on this necklace Luna Lovegood, a friend of mine, gave me. The button in question drives animals nuts, but it never worked on Scabbers. Humans aren't supposed to be able to hear it either, but I can sort of hear it. It's not very annoying to me, at least not compared to what it does to animals.”
“Ah, yes. Even in our animal forms, there are some things animagi can't hear, that animals can. The transformation isn't complete, after all. If it were, we wouldn't be able to turn back, nor to think like humans. Granted, our thoughts are kind of simplified in animal form, but we're still damn clever as animals.”
“I noticed.”
Sirius nodded.
“Anyway,” Harry said. “So everything you've said so far makes sense, but there's the problem of proof; that is, you have none. Sure, you might be telling the truth that this Map was made by you and my dad, and that it never lies. But two other possibilities exist: you could be lying, and using a glitch in the map to give me a plausible excuse to get me in here. Or you really did help make the Map, and you can somehow affect it from a distance to make it lie for your benefit.”
“But I don't have a wand, so how would I do that?”
“You could be lying about having a wand.”
“True. But I'm a very large dog when I'm an Animagus. If I was trying to hurt you, I could have killed you that way.”
“Yes. And that's the main reason I've trusted you this much. The other reason being that I've always thought something was off about the story of the crime you were accused of. And your story fills in the missing pieces perfectly.”
“I swear to you, on my magic, that I didn't betray your parents. I as good as killed them by convincing them to switch to Peter, but I didn't know he was a traitor. I would have died rather than betray Lily and James. I would have been tortured into insanity rather than betray them.”
“Hmm... I know aspies don't have a reputation for being good with body language and emotions, but I lived with emotionally abusive guardians, so I'm pretty good at that stuff.”
“What's an aspie?”
“It's short for Asperger's Syndrome. It's a mental condition I have. It manifests differently in everyone who has it, but is usually characterized by social impairments, issues with certain sensory inputs, a hard time making and maintaining eye contact with others, a tendency towards honesty---even to a fault, obsessive interests, tendency towards rigid daily rituals, a tendency towards higher than average intelligence (but not necessarily so), and the ability to focus for hours at a time on tasks that others would consider monotonous and dull. There are other possible symptoms, but those are the big ones.”
“Oh. That must be something the Muggles worked out. They're a lot better than wizards at that sort of mind-healing stuff.”
“Yes, I read about it in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual at the library. Because the Dursleys don't like spending money on me, I don't have an official diagnosis, but I'm pretty confident in my self diagnosis. I'll get it confirmed as soon as I'm able. Though come to think of it, I could probably pay for the psychiatrist time from my Gringott's account.”
“Ah, okay. I don't know what else to say to that, for now. So, er... do you have any other questions for me?”
“Yes, I do in fact. I take it you escaped to save me from Pettigrew. But what do you intend to do about him, anyway?”
“I was thinking I'd capture him and commit the murder I was imprisoned for. His, I mean.”
“Well that wouldn't be very smart,” Harry said. “You'd still be on the run if you did. We need to capture him and force him to become human again, if that's even possible.”
“I don't know if it is or not, but Moony might know.”
“That's another thing; if Lupin knows you're an Animagus, how are you not captured yet?”
“I've been wondering the same thing myself. I'm sure you'll have to ask him yourself, but my guess is that he's feeling guilty about violating Dumbledore's trust when we were in school. He was always the goody-two-shoes of the group, though he always made excuses for not turning us in when he should have.”
“Okay. But you still have no proof. We have no proof. How should we proceed?”
“Well, we have to find a way to get proof. But we need allies for that. Unless you can capture Peter yourself.”
“I'm not sure how I'd do that. If he was just a rat, sure. But an Animagus? I'd need help with that.”
“Do you have any friends you can trust with this?”
“Hmm... I dunno. Ron and Hermione believe your guilt, they'd be harder to convince then me, and horrified I'd trusted you this much. Draco's on my side about being unsure of your guilt, so maybe he could help when he gets back after the holidays.”
“Draco? Is that the Malfoy boy?”
“Yes. He's on my side now. I think I told you, in fact, when I thought you were just a dog.”
“I remember. I don't like you trusting a Malfoy, but you're trusting me, so I'll withhold judgment of the Malfoy boy for now.”
“Good,” Harry said absently. “Well I don't have any plans at the moment, but I'll work on something. I have some other Slytherin friends who might believe me, too. But like Draco, they're all at home for the holidays. Something for later, then. In the meantime, I have another question.”
“What's that, Harry?”
“Have you been getting enough to eat? I can't imagine table scraps is enough for a full-grown man, and you're pretty large as a dog, too.”
“Oh, I've been supplementing my diet with rats and rabbits, the occasional snake. I know it's a bit risky, even as a dog, but I'll take the risk of parasites over the certainty of starving.”
“Well I can get you some more food easily enough by going to the kitchens and asking for some dog food for my pet dog.”
“Ah, well, I can't imagine it tastes very good, but has to be better than raw rats and other animals. But you know, wolves will often eat rats if they can't find larger prey, and they're surprisingly nutritious, at least in wild areas like this. I don't think even I could get hungry enough to eat city rats, though.
“By the way, Harry, I've been communicating with a bandy-legged Persian cat lately. He didn't trust me at first, but I've started to get through to him. He lives in Griffindor tower, I think. Might be an ally. He seems clever enough for humans to communicate with him, too.”
“You've been communicating with Crookshanks?”
“Oh, is that his name? I didn't know. Animal language is mostly body language, at least with cats and dogs. And I'll tell you, it's not easy for a cat and a dog to communicate; cat and dog languages are very different. Wagging a tail, for instance. In dog, that's happiness or excitement, but in cat language, that's the equivalent of 'sod off.'”
Harry laughed. “No wonder cats and dogs don't often get along with each other. I can just see it now, a cat watching a dog bounding toward it, the dog's tail saying 'sod off, sod off, sod off' from the cat's point of view. Must be pretty intimidating.”
“Yeah, it is. Which is why I was trying to speak Cat to Crookshanks before, but I think he must be part kneazle, because he knew I wasn't a dog from the off. I suspect he saw right through Peter's disguise, too.”
“Now that you mention it, Crookshanks did attack Scabbers in the Magical Menagerie, and continues to attack him every chance he gets. And it hadn't occurred to me before, but it now seems obvious to be that cats don't normally fixate on one animal like that. Especially with all the rats that must live in this castle.”
“Exactly.”
“By the way, what's a kneazle?”
“Magical creature a bit like a large cat with a lion-like tail. They're very loyal, intelligent, can detect untrustworthy people, and have an excellent sense of direction. But full-blooded kneazles tend to be aggressive, so they've got a triple-X rating from the Ministry when they're full-blooded. You need a special license to keep a full-blooded kneazle, so unless whoever owns Crookshanks has that, he must be at least half house cat.”
“Yeah, I think you're right. He's Hermione's cat. And now I think about it, the sneak-o-scope was going off around Scabbers. Ron thought it was broken, because it's a cheap one he got in Egypt, but now I don't think so.”
“You sound like you're coming around.”
“Well there's still no proof, of course, but it is the most logical explanation. I'll double-check your words on kneazles, and owl the Magical Menagerie about Crookshanks. That'll help ease my mind even more while I try to think of what to do about Scabbers. Anyway, I should be heading back. If you could guide me back to your doghouse so I can make it seem I was in there the whole time, that would be a big help.”
“Anything for my godson,” he said, turning back into a dog and heading back into the secret passage.
~
“Where've you been all morning?” Ron asked indignantly when Harry finally got in for lunch. “We were in the library researching stuff to save Buckbeak, we thought you were gonna join us after you fed Shadow.”
“Oh sorry, I was playing with him for a while and lost track of the time.”
“Well alright, but you can feed him again later. Help us in the library after lunch.”
He nodded, and they ate lunch. He asked them if they'd found anything yet, but they hadn't found a whole lot.
“I still reckon we should ask Dumbledore. Hagrid may not want to involve him, but it's worth at least asking him, isn't it?” Harry asked.
“Yeah, I guess so. But later. Maybe we can find something in the library first.”
After lunch, they went together to the library, but Harry was having a hard time concentrating on researching animal attacks for Buckbeak's case, consumed as he was with the whole Sirius Black/Peter Pettigrew conundrum. Despite his words to Sirius, he was certain Sirius was right, because the whole story made too much sense to Harry to think otherwise, but the fact remained that they did still still need proof. The ultimate proof would be forcing Scabbers into his true form, but Harry didn't know how to do that, and it sounded like an N.E.W.T.-level spell at least. Plus, there was the matter of holding him down long enough to cast the spell without putting him in a cage.
If Harry had just needed to kill Pettigrew, it would be easy enough. Just take his pet snake out of the Room of Requirement and sic it on the rat; he'd just have to do it when Ron and Hermione were elsewhere in the castle. Those venomous fangs would take care of the little sod quick enough. But he couldn't risk using Cleopatra against Scabbers to capture him, because he wasn't sure Cleo would understand well enough to not bite the rat.
He wondered if he could enlist the Weasley twins in this. He momentarily thought it was very odd that they'd never spotted Peter on the Map, but usually there were too many people in Griffindor tower to spot one person in the chaos, and even when there were only a few people here, they might have thought it was a glitch in the Map, or else showing a ghost. Or maybe they didn't even use the Map during the holidays, when they were here?
Another possible ally was Lupin, of course. But he wasn't sure how his professor would take the news. Still, if he explained things properly, maybe Lupin wouldn't freak out. The only problem was that the full moon was approaching in a few days, and Lupin always started looking more ill than normal a few days before that. He didn't want to bother the professor during that time of the month.
He considered Dumbledore. Dumbledore would understand, and he had the suspicion the man had some way of knowing when he was being lied to, but it was still a daunting prospect, telling the headmaster. He had the power to sack Lupin and call in the minister and Aurors, if he didn't believe the story.
After a great deal of thought on the matter, Harry decided to talk with Lupin first, run some hypotheticals past the man. That would give him at least another week to think and plan even more.
Just before they gave up researching for the day, Harry asked Madam Pince for a few other books. He asked first about dog food recipes, then for anything about the Fidelius Charm, not caring if anyone knew that he knew about it. He could always say Draco told him about it, as it was the truth; he'd known about the Fidelius Charm since before school started, thanks to Draco's letter.
He also asked for books about Animagi, but Madam Pince refused flatly, saying that those books were in the Restricted Section. That made sense to Harry, but disappointed him. He had only wanted to see how likely it was for three Hogwarts students to be able to become Animagi on their own during school. But he didn't push it, since Lupin could confirm or deny the allegation.
“Whatcha got there?” Ron asked. “Dog food recipes and a book about the Fidelius Charm?”
“First book is for Shadow. He's a big dog, but it didn't occur to me to wonder how a few table scraps were making him gain so much weight, until I witnessed him eating rats. He's risking parasites that way, so I decided to see if I could get the house elves to make some dog food for him. I got the recipe book to see how nutritious the recipes are for dogs.”
“And the other book?” Hermione asked shrewdly.
“I got curious about what all is involved with the Fidelius Charm. Everyone seems so certain they know how it works, but just from reading the first chapter, I can tell you that it's such a complicated spell that they don't even teach it at N.E.W.T. level. It's the kind of spell only Charms Masters know, and even then only the best of the best. I hate to say it, but I'm not sure even Flitwick is that good.”
“What's that matter?”
“It matters, Ron, because it means not many people actually know how the spell works, so there may be something in here that contradicts the usual story about my parents' death.”
“Oh, that again. Why can't you just drop it?”
“I can't drop it for the same reason I couldn't drop the mystery of the philosopher's stone, or the mystery of the Chamber of Secrets. It's a mystery to me, doesn't sit right. I mean to say, what kind of spell only leaves one finger and a bit of robes but also blasts the street apart, killing 12 other people? And don't tell me 'some Dark spell,' Ron. It doesn't make any logical sense. Spells may be magic, but they have rules, we've been learning that in Arithmancy. And I've done a bit of reading ahead in Transfiguration, too, and there are rules there as well. Like, you can't transfigure edible food, and you can't actually turn one thing into something else, just into something that looks and acts like something else. To even begin to approach something that might conceivably be able to rearrange the actual atoms of an object, you have to go into Alchemy, and even that has its limits. Though that may be more a conceptual limit than anything else. Since most wizards don't know about atoms, I wonder if knowing about atoms might change the rules of transfiguration or alchemy? Hmm... I'll have to look into that later, in 6th or 7th year or beyond; if I can make breakthroughs in that area, I could become famous for something I actually achieved myself.”
“Whadda ya mean 'beyond'?”
“Well it is possible to stay in Hogwarts for longer than seven years, if you want to take some Mastery-level classes like Alchemy, from Dumbledore. You can't get an actual Mastery at Hogwarts, as N.E.W.T. is the highest qualification the school has, but you can get a head start on Mastery-level stuff here at Hogwarts, and finish up elsewhere.”
“And you want to be that much of a swot?”
“Hey, if I can expand the range of wizarding powers with knowledge from the Muggle world, not only will that get me in textbooks and other books, maybe even win me awards, it should also put a sizable hole in the whole pureblood mania thing. Plus, I'd go from being just the Boy-Who-Lived to someone more like Dumbledore. You know, famous for some actual accomplishment. Plus, it might help if Voldemort ever rises again.”
Ron flinched at the name. “Say You-Know-Who will you?”
Harry sighed in exasperation at Ron.
~~~
Dear Harry,
I don't remember if I told you this or not, but I wasn't looking forward to going home this Christmas. Well, seems I was right to dread it. I'm fine, but Father and I had another row. It was a bad one. Mother had to beg me not to run away from home, and she struggled to calm Father down. I suspect he'll be sending you a letter at some point demanding you stay away from me, but I want you to ignore him if he does. Not completely; you should still reply to him if he writes you. I don't know what you should say, but he'll be even angrier if you don't respond.
Anyway, I'm including my Yule gift to you in this package. Sorry it's late; I forgot until just yesterday that you don't really like Christmas. I hope you like it.
Sincerely,
Draco Malfoy
Harry set the letter aside and put Draco's package next to a small decorated Yule tree he'd bought at Hogsmeade. It was a sapling in a planter, and thus alive. He was planning to keep it until Spring and then plant it on the grounds somewhere, probably over near where Shadow's doghouse was. Sure, he preferred Yule, but since Christmas was what many of his friends celebrated instead, he didn't mind waiting to open his presents then.
As he set the present down with others from his friends, it occurred to him that Sirius had probably only used the doghouse to humor Harry, since he could get into the Shrieking Shack, which had to be a lot cozier than a doghouse, even if there were no warming charms there because of Sirius's lack of a wand. He made a mental note to cast some warming charms on the Shack the next time he was there.
He had finished reading through the book of dog food recipes. He had cross-referenced it with a book about what kinds of things dogs were allergic to. He didn't know if that would make a difference for an animagus or not, since transfiguration didn't really change what something was, just what it looked and acted like, but since he didn't know much about the animagus transformation yet, he decided it was better to be safe than sorry. He had found out enough, though, to come up with his own dog-food recipe that would hopefully taste better to Sirius.
Since he didn't want to be out past curfew, he called Netty the House Elf and asked her to give the recipe to the house elves, and why. Netty was only too pleased to help, as usual.
~ ~ ~
On Christmas, Ron and Hermione woke him up and the three of them opened gifts in their pajamas. Harry was pleased to note that his Slytherin friends Antigone, Angela, and Danzia had sent Ron and Hermione gifts as well. Even Draco had decided to give Ron and Hermione gifts as well. Harry was a little concerned about how Ron would react to this. Ron was suspicious, but after having Hermione do some tests on it with her wand, he opened it and looked to see what it was. He was surprised to find that Draco had sent him a brand-new Cleansweep 7 broomstick.
“WOW!” Ron said in awe. “My own broomstick! Hmm... maybe Draco isn't half bad after all.”
“This must be his way of apologizing for making fun of your family in the past,” Hermione said.
“Well if so, apology accepted. I'll have to send him a thank-you note.”
“He knew enough not to get you a really expensive broom, too, in case you didn't accept something so pricey.”
“Yeah. Wow, we'll have to take this to the grounds later so I can fly it. What'd he get you, Hermione?”
She searched around for her gift from Draco. As she did, Harry leaned over to Ron.
“You're not upset Draco got you such an expensive gift?” Harry asked Ron so only Ron could hear. “You don't usually like people to get you expensive gifts.”
“Yeah, well... it's only because he got me a broomstick my parents could afford, if I did something to earn one, like becoming Prefect. If he'd gotten me something pricier, I might have thought he was trying to rub in my face that he's rich, even if he's gotten better.”
“So if I had gotten it for you instead of him?”
Ron shrugged. “You could probably get me a Nimbus and I wouldn't have minded. It's you, after all.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I'm trying to be better about that kind of thing. Try to not be so prideful.”
Harry blinked, surprised but pleased.
“Are you two done talking now? I was waiting to open my gift from Draco until you were done.”
“Sorry, 'mione, go ahead,” Ron said.
She nodded, and tore open the paper covering her gift from Draco, then opened the box. From inside, she pulled out... a book.
Ron chuckled. “He's got you pegged, 'mione.”
She pulled out the large tome and Harry caught the title. “'Advances in Modern Arithmancy' by Archimedes Lancaster,” Harry read aloud. “Oh yeah, you and Draco are the two top Arithmancy students in our year, aren't you?”
“Er, yes,” she said.
“What, Draco's doing better in a class than you, Harry?”
Harry shrugged. “We can't all be good at everything. I struggle with maths. If I had a calculator that worked in Hogwarts, that would help me a lot. And I don't know how to use an abacus.”
“Really? Well I could teach you, if you'd like?”
“Sure thing, Hermione. That would be useful. Can I look at that book a little?”
“Of course, Harry. I still have my other gifts to open.”
Harry looked inside the large book. It was over 1000 pages long, and the pages were huge. He looked at some of the maths in it. He didn't understand any of it at all. But then, it looked to be Mastery level maths.
“This looks well past N.E.W.T. level, Hermione. Will you be able to understand it?”
“Probably not without help from Professor Vector. Even with her help, it'll likely be very challenging. But it'll be fascinating to try.”
“What'd he get you, Harry?” Ron asked.
Harry opened his own gift from Draco. When he looked at it, he burst out laughing.
“Oy, what's funny?”
Harry managed to stop laughing, and took the gift out. It was a book.
“It's not really funny, it's just that I've been thinking lately about this subject.”
He held up the book. It was called “An Introduction to the Animagus Transformation” by Asena MacLir.
“Oooh!” Hermione cried out all of a sudden, from her examination of the book Draco had gotten her. “Lancaster is a Muggle-born, and all of the maths in this book are taken from higher-level Muggle maths from his time studying at Muggle university, which are well beyond anything wizards have yet on their own!”
Harry chuckled. “I guess that proves Draco is taking Muggles seriously now.”
“Anyway, Harry, is that book Draco got you about how to become an Animagus?”
“I think so. Hold on, there's a note.”
Harry, the note read, I had a hard time getting this book for you without Father or Mother finding out, but I figured with You-Know-Who after you that it might be useful later. I'm given to understand he's still a spirit right now, but if it's true that he can get a new body, then you might need this. As the title suggests, it is a book about how to become an Animagus. I wouldn't recommend doing it on your own, but I also wouldn't recommend going through the Ministry. You-Know-Who went after the Ministry last time, so it might be best to keep it a secret if you become an Animagus.
“Wow, this is a really good gift. I'll be giving Draco a thank-you note when he gets back.”
“What? Oh, right; his father might not appreciate us sending him things to his house. By the way, did you get him something?”
“Yeah. I gave it to him before he left.”
“Oh? Mind telling us what you got him?”
“A few books about Muggle subjects. A used science textbook, a book about the history of science, and a few Muggle novels.”
“Oh? Which novels?” Hermione asked with interest.
“Let's see... Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm, 'To Kill a Mockingbird' by Harper Lee, and 'White Fang' by Jack London.”
“Ooh, we should do Muggle classics in MAC! We could start with those.”
“Muggles write novels?”
“Yes. I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure they invented novels. I know about the people who invented novels, and they're probably all Muggles. They were all women, too, come to that.”
“They were?”
“Yes. Mary Shelley wrote the first science fiction novel. Then Baroness Orczy wrote the first superhero novel when she wrote 'The Scarlet Pimpernell.' And the first ever 'modern' novel was written in 1007 AD in Japan, by Murasaki Shikibu. It was called 'The Tale of Genji.' And I seem to recall, also, that there may have been one even older than that. Some woman, I forget her name, wrote a book back in like, Assyria or Mesopotamia. But I don't remember any more about it than that.”
“Wow, Harry,” Hermione said. “Even I didn't know all of that. I knew about Mary Shelley and Baroness Orczy, but I didn't know about 'The Tale of Genji.' I'll have to look into that later, just to see for myself.”
Harry shrugged. “The history of writing was a special interest of mine for a time.”
They went back to their Christmas/Yule gifts, then. From Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Harry got a dozen home-baked mince pies, some Christmas cake, and a box of nut brittle, as well as a Weasley sweater. The Weasley twins got him a couple things from Zonko's. From Ron, he got a wizarding novel that took place back during the witch hunts in Europe. Hermione got him a copy of “The Handmaid's Tale” by Margaret Atwood.
The gifts he got from his other Slytherin friends came next. Antigone got him a catalog of magical glasses frames from a wizarding optometrist in Diagon Alley, which he appreciated because the cheap glasses he had, his aunt and uncle had only got him because he kept knocking over things and running into walls without them. It hadn't really occurred to him before to get new ones. Inside the catalog was a gift certificate for the place, in the amount of ten galleons. Harry thought that was a little pricey for glasses, but considering what some of the glasses in the catalog could do, the price made sense.
Angela had gotten Harry a nifty gadget that was like a portable Foe Glass crossed with a sneak-o-scope. According to the instructions, it would detect enemies like a Foe Glass and even showed them in a little mirror inside the device (which opened like a makeup compact), and would vibrate and heat up in his pocket if it detected they were close enough to see the whites of their eyes. It was so amazing and useful that Ron and Hermione both fawned over it, too.
He set that aside and opened his gift from Danzia. It was a box of 77% cacao dark chocolate, with a note inside saying 'I have it on good authority that dark chocolate makes a better dementor treatment than milk chocolate does. And it tastes better, too.'
Now there, all that was just was his gift from Luna. He opened the box and found a book about Crumple-Horned Snorkacks and other such creatures from cryptomagizoology. He shrugged and looked through it anyway.
“Ooh,” Hermione said, looking at one of her own gifts; one from him, in fact. “Thank you for this, Harry!”
“Another book, 'mione? Between the two of you, you're going to have more books than the Hogwarts library before long,” Ron joked.
Hermione stuck her tongue out at Ron briefly, then eagerly opened up the book from Harry and began reading it.
Harry reflected on what Ron had said, though. It was true that his trunk was getting to the point where he had to shrink most of his books to fit them in there. He was going to have to get a better trunk at some point.
Now that all the gifts were exchanged that he could be seen exchanging, that just left a gift for Sirius. Other than the dog food, that was. There wasn't much he could do on such short notice, but he did harvest a couple of the mince pies and some of the nut brittle from Mrs. Weasley's present to regift to Sirius.
After gift-giving was done, they went down to breakfast, and as usual Harry went out to feed Shadow, but this time it was with dog food the house elves got for him, as well as an extra Christmas ham as a special treat for his dogfather, along with the fudge and a bar of the anti-dementor dark chocolate Danzia had given him. The dog-food he gave Shadow at the doghouse. The other gifts he gave Sirius at the Shrieking Shack.
“You got me gifts? Even though we don't have proof of Peter being alive?”
“Yes, well... I do believe you. And even if that turns out to be false, you haven't tried to hurt me, so what's the harm?”
“Harry, you're a good kid. Your parents would be proud of you.”
“Thanks. By the way, once term starts up again, Lupin is going to teach me to fight dementors. I gave it some thought last night, and I think I'll wait til the second lesson to tell him about Peter. I'll do it directly, by showing him the Map.”
“What if Peter gets lost in the mass of kids?”
“Oh. Yeah, that could be a problem.”
“Can't you show Moony the Map during the holidays?”
“I doubt it. The full moon is tonight.”
Sirius frowned, confused. “Are you sure? I managed to check a calendar before I came to Hogwarts and looked up the dates of the full moon, and I'm certain it's the 29th this month.”
“Really? Well the way he's been getting ill the last few days tells me it's tonight.”
“Now that is odd. Of course, I don't know where Hogwarts actually is. I know the castle is Unplottable. I think Hogsmeade is, too. Not sure how that would influence the full moon's timing, or if it would. I can't think why it should.”
“That is odd indeed. Maybe it's something related to the place being Unplottable?”
“I can't see how that would work. I know from my time in Hogwarts that the Unplottable spell messes up the times of the constellations rising to make it harder to find where Hogwarts is that way. But the moon is the same everywhere, as far as I know, so what would be the point to messing up when the moon is full?”
Harry shrugged. “Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he's only really starting to get sick now, and I misread things?”
“Maybe. But the full moon ought to be four days away. I've never known Moony to get sick so far from the full moon. And you said he's been looking peakier than usual for a few days now?”
“Yes. Ever since I figured it out, I've been paying attention. He normally gets peaky a few days before the full moon. It was happening again, so I assumed it meant Christmas was the full moon.”
Sirius slapped his face suddenly.
“Yes?” Harry asked.
“I forgot something important. While the moon is technically only fully full for about a second or two, we can't tell without a telescope. The moon looks full for about three days.”
“Yes, but that would be the 28th through the 30th if your numbers are right. And he's been ill for...” he paused to count from memory. “Oh. Only two days now.”
“Counting today, or not?”
“Counting today. He started getting ill yesterday.”
“That's still four days before the moon starts looking full.”
“Does it make a different if it's only like, 75 or 85 percent full?”
“I think you'd have to ask Moony. It's been 12 years since I was around him enough to be paying attention. And who knows, maybe it gets worse as he gets older?”
“He's taking the Wolfsbane Potion. Would that influence it?”
Sirius shrugged. “No idea. It wasn't around when we were in school. In fact, I think it was invented while I was in Azkaban. Anyway, enough about that mystery. I, uh... I wanted to be able to say I got your a Christmas present, but I have no idea what you'd want. I've never seen you fly, so I figured I should find out about that before I assumed.”
“That was a good move. I don't really like flying, so a broomstick would be wasted on me. But how would you even get me anything? You're an escaped prisoner.”
“Oh, that's not a problem. I could take some money out of my Gringott's account by taking a signed request in as Shadow. The goblins don't care about wizarding legal matters enough to report money being taken from a known criminal's account as long as they can magically verify that the note was written by someone who's authorized to get into the account.”
“Really? That sounds ridiculous.”
“Well try to see it from their point of view. Would you care if a goblin who broke a goblin law having some business with you, as long as he or she was authorized and gave you some plausible deniability by not showing up in person?”
“Probably not. Ok, point taken.
“But back on track,” Harry continued. “You don't have to get me anything for Christmas.”
“I don't have to, but I would have liked to. I would have been getting you Christmas and birthday presents every year for the last 12 years if things had gone differently.”
“We'll worry about that when we get this Peter thing taken care of, okay?”
“Yeah. And whenever Lupin gets better, that's when I'll start.”
Then, struck by a sudden urge, Harry went over to Sirius and hugged the man, who – after looking shocked by the sudden show of trust – broke down crying.
Endnote: The idea for Draco's gift of the Arithmancy book by Archimedes Lancaster was inspired (vaguely) by an HP fanfic called “The Arithmancer” by White Squirrel, and the sequel, “Lady Archimedes.” I highly recommend both fics, as well as the fic that inspired them, titled “Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality” by Eliezer Yudkowsky (formerly under the pen name “Less Wrong.”). Slight trigger warning for HPMOR: character death, but it doesn't stick.
Endnote 2: The name of the author of the Animagus book Draco sent Harry is meaningful. I'll write a short fic taking place in this story's world for the first person to tell me what the correct significance is. If you win, feel free to give me a prompt for the short fic. It may or may not be considered canon to the main fic's story, depending on various factors.
Endnote 3: The books by women that Harry talks about in this chapter are true, to the best of my knowledge and Google skills.
Last endnote: Does anyone with better memory than me know if Harry got himself any decent Muggle clothes in this fic? My memory is crappy, my notes are disorganized and full of things that haven't happened yet or never came to pass, and I don't really feel like re-reading the whole thing to find out, so it would help me out. It's not for anything major, just curious. Feel free to ignore this request.
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Three.
Or, "Aspie Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban."
Note: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made.
Note 2: There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though.
Note 3: My writing has suffered from my fear of the Trump administration. :( As if I needed more things getting in the way of my writing. But that's why it's been so long between chapters.
Note 4: I had to edit something in this chapter. Something Harry said didn't match the history of the story.
Chapter 6: Sniffing Out A Rat
Harry was sitting in his room, staring at the Marauder's Map. Specifically, he was staring at the dot labeled both 'Ron Weasley' and 'Peter Pettigrew,' down in the Common Room, silently annoyed that he couldn't do anything yet about Peter without tipping the animagus off. As it was, he needed to keep on the alert to hide the Map away from Peter in case he recognized it.
He wanted to go to Lupin about it, too, but Lupin was still ill from the full moon. After asking the headmaster, it transpired that Lupin generally slept for almost an entire day and a half after each full moon to recover his strength. The Wolfsbane potion, the headmaster had explained, made Lupin much more ill, made him ill sooner, and made the after-effects last longer, so it wasn't an ideal solution, but prevented needing to use his old standby of the Shrieking Shack, which was a security risk with Black on the loose. Harry didn't tell Dumbledore anything else yet, of course, but he was sorely tempted to.
So until his second anti-dementor lesson with Lupin, unless he changed his mind and did it sooner, Harry alternated between staring at Pettigrew on the Map and helping Ron and Hermione with Hagrid's defense of Buckbeak in the library. Or, when he couldn't do either, he read his books from Christmas.
The Animagus book was a fascinating read, especially, but he tried to read it whenever Scabbers wasn't around, in case the rat animagus got too nervous about it. After all, animagi could always sense other animagi, at least up close in their animal form, according to Sirius. Harry tried to remember if McGonagall had ever gotten close to Scabbers in her cat form. It didn't seem likely; she didn't seem to do it much, though if she used it for patrolling hallways, he wouldn't be surprised. Mrs. Norris was good at sneaking up on people, and he suspected a cat animagus would be even better at it. Which made him wonder if Mrs. Norris was part kneazle like Crookshanks too, since she didn't really seem like a normal cat.
On the 31st, Harry had something else to worry about, though. Because that day he received a letter from an eagle owl that was bigger than Draco's, and looked meaner. He cautiously took the letter from the owl by holding the letter in a piece of cloth in case it was hexed, and the owl took off at once, which was odd; owls usually wanted a treat for their work.
The letter, which he had Hermione scan for magic first, was sealed with the Malfoy family crest, which he recognized from Draco's letters, but he had a suspicion it wasn't from Draco. After cautiously opening it despite Hermione saying it was safe, he found it was from Mr. Lucius Malfoy.
When he was done reading it, he tossed it aside in disgust.
“What's it say, Harry?”
“Uses a lot of fancy words and formal style to tell me to leave Draco alone, that there are Death Eaters who wriggled out of going to Azkaban, and that it is thus unsafe for him to associate with me. Though he does also acknowledge that he doesn't really have any control on what either of us do or who we associate with while in school. I can't say I'm terribly surprised by it.”
“So what're you gonna do, mate?” Ron asked.
“Ignore it, of course. Assuming Draco wants to ignore it, that is. I'll have to wait till he comes--- never mind,” he said, as a more familiar eagle owl flew to the window. He took its letter and thanked the owl with an owl treat.
“That from Draco?” Ron asked.
“Yes.”
Dear Harry,
Sorry about my father's letter. I swear it's not hexed, I watched him write it, telling him not to the whole time, but of course he won't listen to me. He's not happy with me. Honestly, if I had any other siblings, especially brothers, I'm sure he'd be disowning me by now for associating with you. But between his hatred of you and your ideals, and mother's worries about me being known to be a blood traitor now, I'm not surprised he's trying to intimidate you. But I'm not going to let his disapproval stop me from being your friend, if you feel the same way. Don't write me your answer, it'll just anger father. You can tell me when I get back. But for now, just don't send any more letters to me while I'm here at home. Neither of my parents will like that much.
Hoping we're still friends,
Draco
PS = Hermione might find something interesting in this letter if you hand it to her.
Confused, Harry showed the letter to Hermione, who read it and also looked confused by the postscript. Then she had an aha! moment and checked the letter with her wand. Nothing happened at first, so she tried a few more. When that failed, she had one more idea to try. Using her wand to prick her finger, she dropped a single drop of blood on the letter before either boy could stop her. The blood evaporated from the page, and more words appeared under the postscript:
Just so you know, mother never agreed with father becoming a Death Eater. She's still a blood purist, but she never approved of You-Know-Who or his tactics, even before marrying father. She believes that whatever our differences of opinion, the magical world is too small to afford to spill any magical blood. Don't let that information around too much, though; despite this, she's never resisted You-Know-Who, as she values her own life and her family too much to resist him.
The words faded after a few minutes, and no matter what Hermione did to it, even bleeding on the page again, they didn't return.
“That's a clever spell he did on the letter,” she said. “He wrote a secret message that resists the usual litany of spells used to reveal hidden messages. All I got from 'specialis revlio' was a faint sense that there was magic on the page. It's gone now, by the way. The magic disappeared as the message did.”
“I don't like it,” Ron said. “It sounds like dark magic.”
“Blood magic isn't all dark,” Hermione said. “Blood seals aren't, and I think this was some sort of blood seal. The goblins of Gringott's require blood seals for some things far more powerful and binding than this. Honestly, Ron, just because it's a little icky doesn't mean it's dark magic.”
“It's useful, too,” Harry said. “If you knew to key it to a specific person, somehow, then only that person could reveal the message. That could come in handy in the future. I'll have to get him to teach me that one.”
“Yes, that's what he did. I don't think your blood would have done it, Harry.”
“How'd he get Hermione's blood signature, though?” Ron demanded.
“Probably from a hair sample. Blood and hair both contain DNA, which is unique to the individual, aside from identical twins. And even then, there might be some magical component to it that's unique to each person, even in the case of identical twins.”
“Well... that's alright then, I suppose.”
Hermione just rolled her eyes at his over-protectiveness.
*
The third of January was the start of term again. Hagrid was feeling a little better, and instead of flobberworms, he had a bonfire full of magical salamanders for them all to keep warm around as they watched the little fire elemental creatures scamper around the burning logs.
He was most anxious to get to Defense Against the Dark Arts first, though, to remind Lupin of the anti-dementor lessons.
“Ah yes,” said Lupin, when Harry reminded him of his promise at the end of class. “Let me see... how about eight o’clock on Thursday evening? The History of Magic classroom should be large enough. I’ll have to think carefully about how we’re going to do this. We can’t bring a real dementor into the castle to practice on.”
“Still looks ill, doesn’t he?” said Ron as they walked down the corridor, heading to dinner. “What d’you reckon’s the matter with him?”
Harry looked at Hermione, who – by the look on her face – knew what he did.
“Well, Ron... we'll tell you in a bit. Come here,” Hermione said, pulling them into an unused classroom and setting up quick wards so they wouldn't be overheard.
“So what's wrong with him?”
“Well let's see,” she said, enjoying herself a little too much, “he's always sick once a month, isn't he?”
“Yeah, I guess. Wait... do you reckon he's a werewolf?”
“I don't know for sure,” she said, “but it makes sense.”
“He is,” Harry said. “He confirmed it to me a few weeks ago when I asked him about it. I figured it out after Snape's werewolf essay. Also, his boggart is a full moon.”
“What? You're sure? Wow, better not tell Dumbledore then, or he'll get---”
“Dumbledore already knows Lupin's a werewolf. Lupin was a werewolf when he went to school as a kid. The rest of the staff know, too. He takes Wolfsbane Potion Snape brews for him, and curls up in his office as a harmless wolf.”
“Seriously? Wow, they sure kept a lid on that one. Oh! That's why Snape skipped ahead to werewolves?”
“Yes. He hates Lupin, just like he hated my father. He and my father were friends in school, and were enemies of Snape.”
“So he's trying to get Lupin found out so he'll have to resign?”
“Sounds right. But of course he probably made a promise to Dumbledore to not tell anyone, so he was reduced to dropping a huge hint.”
“Yes, Harry wasn't the only one to figure it out from that essay. I did, too. I don't know if anyone else did, though.”
“About half the class did the essay. For all we know, all those people know now. But we can't exactly ask in case we're wrong. I wasn't even sure about Hermione knowing, but I took a calculated risk because I trust both of you.”
“Well my lips are sealed, mate. I like Lupin, I don't care if he's a werewolf, especially if he's taking precautions. But I reckon Antigone or Danzia might have figured it out.”
“I'll have to do some careful probing to figure out if they know,” Harry said.
*
At eight o’clock on Thursday evening, Harry left Gryffindor Tower for the History of Magic classroom. It was dark and empty when he arrived, but he lit the lamps with his wand and had waited only five minutes when Professor Lupin turned up, carrying a large packing case, which he heaved onto Professor Binns’ desk.
“What’s that?” said Harry.
“Another boggart,” said Lupin, stripping off his cloak. “I’ve been combing the castle ever since Tuesday, and very luckily, I found this one lurking inside Mr. Filch’s filing cabinet. It’s the nearest we’ll get to a real dementor. The boggart will turn into a dementor when he sees you, so we’ll be able to practice on him. I can store him in my office when we’re not using him; there’s a cupboard under my desk he’ll like.”
“Okay,” said Harry, trying to sound as though he wasn’t apprehensive at all and merely glad that Lupin had found such a good substitute for a real dementor.
“So …” Professor Lupin had taken out his own wand, and indicated that Harry should do the same. “The spell I am going to try and teach you is highly advanced magic, Harry — well beyond Ordinary Wizarding Level. It is called the Patronus Charm.”
“How does it work?” said Harry nervously.
“Well, when it works correctly, it conjures up a Patronus,” said Lupin, “which is a kind of anti-dementor — a guardian that acts as a shield between you and the dementor.”
“Er... do you think I could see yours, to know what to expect?”
Lupin smiled. “Of course, Harry.” He took out his wand and stood a moment thinking before he cast the spell. “Expecto patronum!”
Out of Lupin's wand came a translucent wolf made of bright, silvery light.
“As an aside, there's also an advanced trick for those who can cast a corporeal patronus, where we can send messages to other people; messages that cannot be faked or intercepted. If you'll go to the other side of the room, I will demonstrate.”
Harry nodded and got in place. When he got there, he saw Lupin whisper something to the patronus, at which point the patronus ran through the air quick as a wink and opened its mouth, saying in Lupin's voice, “This is a test of the patronus communication method, Harry.”
“That's brilliant, Professor,” Harry said as the wolf faded. Harry went back over to Lupin.
“Of course, yours will look different, I'm sure. Every wizard who can conjure a patronus has a different animal. Well, I suppose there may be some overlap given the limited number of known animals in the world, but I believe you know what I mean.”
“Yes. It's a little like animal guides, isn't it?”
“Indeed. Many cultures have similar ideas. And there are cultures of wizards who don't use wands for one reason or another, but can still cast a patronus. I wouldn't recommend trying it without becoming proficient at wandless magic first, though, and that takes years, even decades, to master.”
“So the incantation is Expecto patronum?” Harry asked.
“Yes. But there's more to it than that. There is an emotional component to the spell. You have to concentrate on a single, very powerful happy memory when you cast it.”
“A powerful happy memory?” Harry asked, sounding worried.
“Do you not have happy memories?”
“Oh I do. I just don't know if I have any strong enough for this.”
“Harry, I am a werewolf who was bitten as a young boy. I have spent most of my adult life shunned, unable to work, usually homeless, often starving, because of what I am. If I can find a happy memory sufficient to cast a patronus... well I know everyone is different, but I would be very surprised if you didn't have one.”
“That is a good point,” he conceded.
“Okay, ready to start?”
“Yes.” Harry closed his eyes and started to cast his mind about for a happy memory. Certainly, nothing that had happened to him at the Dursleys’ was going to do. Finally, he settled on the moment when he had first found out he was a wizard.
“Concentrating on your happy memory?”
Instead of answering, he tried casting the spell. “Expecto patronum. Expecto patronum. Expecto patronum!”
A small whisp of light came out of his wand.
“Did you see that?” said Harry excitedly. “Something happened!”
“Very good,” said Lupin, smiling. “Right, then — ready to try it on the boggart dementor?”
“I don't know, shouldn't I learn to do it first and then try it with the boggart?”
“Hmm... I hadn't considered that, but that's a good idea. Alright then, try it again.”
He tried it again, with the same memory, trying to feel how excited he had been. “Expecto patronum!”
More wispy gas, barely there at all.
“Actually, I think that one's not right. I was thinking of when I first found out I'm a wizard, but that one was tainted by worry and a little confusion and disbelief. So maybe that's not a good one.”
“Hmm, yes, that doesn't sound quite right to me either. But from what I've read in my studies, it doesn't have to be a pure happiness. The patronus charm can be powered by love for friends, family, or others, especially love mixed with protectiveness. That would be a hard emotion to conjure in a situation like this, of course, but something to keep in mind.”
“Friendship, you say?”
Harry started thinking again, and picked a new memory: meeting his first ever friend, Ron Weasley.
He tried casting the charm with that memory twice, but both times the mist was just as pathetic.
“Don't punish yourself, Harry. For a thirteen-year-old wizard, even an indistinct patronus is a huge achievement. As you saw on the train, it's enough to make a single dementor back off.”
“Yes, but what if there's another crowd of them like before? I need to protect my friends.” Then, on a whim, he cast it again. “Expecto patronum!”
The vapor was stronger this time, brighter.
“Open the box,” he said.
“You're sure? You wanted to cast a corporeal patronus first, didn't you?”
“I did. But with what you said... I had an idea, and it requires the boggart dementor.”
“Alright then,” Lupin said, getting into position.
Lupin grasped the lid of the packing case and pulled.
A dementor rose slowly from the box, its hooded face turned toward Harry, one glistening, scabbed hand gripping its cloak. The lamps around the classroom flickered and went out. The dementor stepped from the box and started to sweep silently toward Harry, drawing a deep, rattling breath. A wave of piercing cold broke over him. Harry concentrated on Lupin, whom he was fond of, trying to concentrate on thinking of the boggart as a real dementor, as Lupin in real danger.
“Expecto patronum!” Harry yelled.
But the classroom and the dementor were dissolving. Harry was falling again through thick white fog, and his mother’s voice was louder than ever, echoing inside his head — “Not Harry! Not Harry! Please — I’ll do anything —”
“Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!”
“Harry!”
Harry jerked back to life. He was lying flat on his back on the floor. The classroom lamps were alight again. He didn’t have to ask what had happened.
“Sorry,” he muttered, sitting up and feeling cold sweat trickling down behind his glasses.
“Are you all right?” said Lupin.
“Yes …” Harry pulled himself up on one of the desks and leaned against it.
“Here —” Lupin handed him a Chocolate Frog. “Eat this before we try again. I didn’t expect you to do it your first time; in fact, I would have been astounded if you had.”
“Thanks, professor, but I brought my own this time,” he said, pulling the bar of dark chocolate Danzia had given him from the pocket he'd had it in.
“Harry, won't that chocolate be melted?”
“I put a Cooling Charm on the pocket, so I doubt it.”
As he ate the chocolate, Lupin looked at the wrapper and nodded.
“Seventy-seven percent cacao dark chocolate. Impressive. Where did you get it?”
“My friend Danzia got it for me.”
“Danzia McCullough?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Because I believe one of her fathers is an Auror.”
“Ah, so that's the 'reliable source' she mentioned in her Christmas note.”
It seemed she'd been right, too. He remembered how the milk chocolate on the train had made him feel, and this was so much better. The taste was a bit bitter, not something he'd probably want to make a habit of eating otherwise, but he was eating it for its medicinal use.
“Kinda bitter.”
“Dark chocolate takes some getting used to, especially at that high a concentration of cacao.”
Harry nodded and put the last of that piece of chocolate in his mouth.
“Ready to try again?” Lupin asked when Harry had swallowed it.
“Yes.”
“All right then … ,” said Lupin. “You might want to select another memory, a happy memory, I mean, to concentrate on. … That one doesn’t seem to have been strong enough.”
Harry frowned a little at that, but nodded, and thought. He thought of Luna, thought of his friendship with her and imagined needing to protect her.
“Ready?” said Lupin, gripping the box lid.
“Yes.”
“Go!” said Lupin, pulling off the lid. The room went icily cold and dark once more. The dementor glided forward, drawing its breath; one rotting hand was extending toward Harry —
“Expecto patronum!” Harry yelled. “Expecto patronum! Expecto pat —”
White fog obscured his senses … big, blurred shapes were moving around him … then came a new voice, a man’s voice, shouting, panicking —
“Lily, take Harry and go! It’s him! Go! Run! I’ll hold him off —”
The sounds of someone stumbling from a room — a door bursting open — a cackle of high-pitched laughter —
“Harry! Harry, wake up.”
Lupin was tapping Harry hard on the face. This time it was a minute before Harry understood why he was lying on a dusty classroom floor.
“I heard my dad,” Harry mumbled. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard him — he tried to take on Voldemort himself, to give my mum time to run for it.”
Harry suddenly realized that there were tears on his face mingling with the sweat. He bent his face as low as possible, wiping them off on his robes, pretending to do up his shoelace, so that Lupin wouldn’t see.
“You heard James?” said Lupin in a strange voice.
“Yes. Sorry, I forgot for a moment you knew my dad.”
“It's alright, Harry. Pain shared is pain that becomes easier to cope with.”
“Thanks, Professor.”
“You're welcome. But Harry, listen — perhaps we should leave it here for tonight. This charm is ridiculously advanced. I shouldn’t have suggested putting you through this.”
“No!” said Harry. He got up again. “I’ll have one more go! I’m not thinking of happy enough things, that’s what it is. Hang on.”
He racked his brains. A really, really happy memory … one that he could turn into a good, strong Patronus...
Sirius Black is innocent, he thought. He's my godfather, and when we prove he's innocent, maybe I can go live with him.
Harry got to his feet and faced the packing case once more.
“Ready?” said Lupin, who looked as though he were doing this against his better judgment. “Concentrating hard? All right — go!”
He pulled off the lid of the case for the last time, and the dementor rose out of it; the room fell cold and dark —
“EXPECTO PATRONUM!” Harry bellowed. “EXPECTO PATRONUM! EXPECTO PATRONUM!”
The screaming inside Harry’s head had started again — except this time, it sounded as though it were coming from a badly tuned radio — softer and louder and softer again — and he could still see the dementor — it had halted — and then a huge, silver shadow came bursting out of the end of Harry’s wand, to hover between him and the dementor, and though Harry’s legs felt like water, he was still on his feet — though for how much longer, he wasn’t sure —
“Riddikulus!” roared Lupin, springing forward.
There was a loud crack, and Harry’s cloudy Patronus vanished along with the dementor; he sank into a chair, feeling as exhausted as if he’d just run a mile, and felt his legs shaking. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Professor Lupin forcing the boggart back into the packing case with his wand; it had turned into a full moon again.
“Excellent!” Lupin said, striding over to where Harry sat. “Excellent, Harry! That was definitely a start!”
“Can we have another go? Just one more go?”
“No, I think not, Harry. You’ve had enough for one night. Have some more chocolate, then go back to your dorm. In fact, have three or four pieces, or else Madam Pomfrey might just hex the both of us.”
He nodded, and ate four pieces of the dark chocolate, sitting at a desk to rest as he did.
When he was done with those, he got up and gave Professor Lupin a wan smile.
“Thank you for helping me, Professor.”
“You're welcome, Harry. Same time and place next Thursday, Harry?”
“Sounds good to me. See you then.”
“You too, Harry,” Lupin said as Harry headed toward the door.
He put his hand on the doorknob, but a thought occurred to him as he did, making him stop.
“Professor?”
“Yes, Harry?”
“How am I able to remember something from when I was one year old? Most people can't remember things from before they were six, and even fewer can remember things from before they were four.”
Lupin looked thoughtful. “I don't know, Harry. But you're right, it is unusual. I've never heard of a dementor making someone remember something that far back before. Quite apart from the memory issue, a child that young doesn't generally know much of what's going on around them, or more accurately doesn't understand much of what they're aware of. And to a child that young, there isn't a lot of difference in the emotional component to different things that upset them, due to that lack of understanding. Unless whatever upsets them is physically hurting them, of course. So I suppose it's possible that you might remember the scar being formed. But you wouldn't have understood what was happening to your parents...”
Lupin paused, frowning, before continuing. “In fact... you wouldn't have been able to understand what they were saying. It would have sounded like gibberish to you at that age. You should be remembering it as gibberish, too.”
Harry didn't know what to say to that, since Lupin was the expert. So he just waited for Lupin to speak again.
“Well,” Lupin said at last, “that's a mystery for another night. I think I'll discuss it with the headmaster later. He might have heard or read something I haven't, some time in his very long life.”
“Oh, okay. Thanks.”
“You're welcome. Good night, Harry.”
“Good night, Professor.”
*
With two new classes, anti-dementor lessons with Lupin, regular MAC meetings, and working with Sirius to try to plan Peter Pettigrew's capture, Harry was busier than ever before. But clearly, Hermione was having it far worse. Her immense workload finally seemed to be getting to her. Every night, without fail, Hermione was to be seen in a corner of the common room, several tables spread with books, Arithmancy charts, rune dictionaries, diagrams of Muggles lifting heavy objects, and file upon file of extensive notes; she barely spoke to anybody and snapped when she was interrupted.
“How’s she doing it?” Ron muttered to Harry one evening as Harry sat finishing a nasty essay on Undetectable Poisons for Snape. Harry looked up. Hermione was barely visible behind a tottering pile of books.
“Doing what?”
“Getting to all her classes!” Ron said. “I heard her talking to Professor Vector this morning. They were going on about yesterday’s lesson, but Hermione can’t’ve been there, because she was with us in Care of Magical Creatures!”
“But she was,” Harry said. “She never misses Arithmancy, we have it at the same time.”
“Yeah, and that's just weird, but that's not even the half of it. Ernie McMillan also told me she’s never missed a Muggle Studies class, but half of them are at the same time as Divination, and she’s never missed one of them either! Not to mention all the Arithmancy classes going on during both those classes, too. Somehow, she's able to take three classes at the same time!”
“I don't know what to tell you, it's a mystery to me too. Unless wizards have figured out time travel, but that's just silly. If they had, surely they could just send someone back in time to kill Voldemort when he was a baby, prevent the whole war.”
“Time travel? You can't travel in time, Harry, that's impossible. I mean, I suppose everyone technically travels in time, but only in one direction.”
“Actually, time travel is theoretically possible, according to advanced Muggle physics. But it would take an immense amount of energy. I don't know how much offhand, but I'm pretty sure that it's more energy than the entire human race is capable of even generating, even if we knew how to do it.”
“Yeah, but that's the Muggles. They don't know about magic.”
“Unless magic is more powerful than it seems to be, by several orders of magnitude, I doubt it. I mean sure, magic can do some things that ought to be impossible. Transfiguration, even though it fades in time, ought to be impossible by conventional laws of physics. And I'm convinced that conjured objects are always either actually summoned from somewhere else, like my pet snake Cleopatra, or are just constructs made of magic, because Albert Einstein, a famous Muggle physicist, has some pretty hefty mathematical proof to back up his statement 'matter can be neither created nor destroyed,' and its tie-in concept, that energy and matter are two forms of the same thing. So magic as a force comes from somewhere, maybe another dimension, but I would be astonished—no, flabbergasted, if it was able to make actual atoms.”
“Mate, I know I've been going to MAC with you for years now, but most of that went right over my head.”
“Well all that's really important is I don't think magic can create anything real, or even permanently alter its structure except by damaging or destroying it, and since magic is energy and matter – physical stuff – is made of energy, with enough magic I think one could make matter. But matter is so complex, structurally, that I don't think wizards have ever managed to make any real matter with magic. Though that could just be because there isn't enough magic in the world to do it. And more importantly, the amount of energy it would take to make even a single atom, though immense, would probably be trivial compared to the energy needed to travel back in time.”
Ron, he saw then, still looked very confused.
“Would it help if I mentioned that physicists are pretty sure that the only time matter was ever 'created' was at the beginning of the universe, in an explosion that would wipe out our entire galaxy in a nanosecond if it happened again?”
“Wow! That'd be a HUGE explosion!”
“Larger than you know. Probably larger than anyone can know. But for a start, the galaxy is so large it takes light millions of years to get from one side to the other.”
Ron's eyes got huge, and his jaw dropped.
“Wait, so you think it would take more energy than that to travel back in time?”
“I'm not certain, since I'm not a physicist, but it sounds right from what I've read.”
“Wow. Well then maybe one or more of these Hermiones everyone keeps seeing is, I dunno, an illusion? If you don't think magic could make real objects, maybe she's not really there.”
“I dunno. I mean, she still carries her things, and turns in her schoolwork. But I suppose there could be a spell to move stuff like that around, even invisibly. So she could still be an illusion. Possibly an illusion that's capable of, like, recording the whole class to view it later?”
“That'd be a hell of an illusion. But with McGonagall helping her, I bet she could do it, or learn how to do it herself from McGonagall. Anyway, we should try to touch her in classes, see if she's real.”
“Hmm... but I'm fairly sure conjured objects, even things that look and act like animals, are just some kind of magical illusion with magical force-fields to make them seem real. It's possible someone could do that with a human form, too. But yeah, we should still test if she's tangible – touchable, I mean – for completeness' sake, if for no other reason.”
“Right.” Ron said, then paused, thinking. “Say Harry, this is that Muggle science thing we're doing, isn't it? Come up with a hyposis, make osser... obzer... observations, refine the hyposis, and so on?”
“It's not 'hyposis,' it's 'hypothesis,' but yes, you're right. Observation: Hermione appears to be in multiple places at once during some classes. Given the unlikeliness of time travel, we hypothesize she's making illusory copies of herself. Now, as you pointed out, we just have to test that hypothesis with more observations, like trying to touch her in classes to see if she's tangible. Let me just write this all down.”
“Cool. I never thought this science thing would be fun, but it kinda is. It's like solving a mystery. Which I guess it is. Muggles see things they don't understand, they come up with ideas to explain them, they test the ideas with observations, then if what they see doesn't match their ideas, they come up with better ideas, and start over again. Huh. I wonder what would've happened if we'd done that with the Philosopher's Stone thing?”
“We kinda did. When we thought it was the philosopher's stone, we tested that idea by telling Hagrid, and he confirmed it for us.”
“No I mean like, I wonder if we could have tested if it was Snape who wanted the stone?”
“Huh. No idea. I mean, we could have asked him about it, I suppose.”
Ron snorted. “Yeah, I can see it now. Hypothesis: Snape wants the stone. Test: We ask him if he wants the stone. Result: He either kills us or has us expelled. Yeah, I don't think that would have worked.”
Harry laughed. “Good point. Sometimes science is risky. But good scientists know better than to take unnecessary risks.”
*
Having been inspired by his and Ron's conversation about the scientific method, Harry decided to take a similar approach to the problem of Pettigrew. He met Sirius in the Shrieking Shack one Saturday after lunch for a brainstorming session.
“So,” Harry said, “our problem: we have to capture a rat animagus without him realizing what we're doing and running away.”
“Crookshanks told me that Peter has been very nervous all year, more nervous than could easily be explained by Crookshanks being after him all the time. So I reckon he found out I'd escaped and was scared I'd hunt him down.”
“Makes sense. I remember he was nervous ever since we got back from Egypt.”
“Yes. He probably thought I either wouldn't recognize him in the picture, wouldn't see it at all, or would be too out of my mind to do anything about it. Plus, I'm the first person to ever escape from Azkaban, as far as I know, and I only managed it because the ministry didn't know I'm an animagus.”
“Right. So I was thinking, to figure this out, we have to look at it like a puzzle to solve. First problem: he's already scared, so he'll be jumpy and prone to fleeing. Right now I think he's certain he's still safe in the castle, Crookshanks aside, which is the only reason he hasn't run off yet.”
“I agree. And I have an idea.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. I hate to suggest this so soon, especially as it'd be risky for me, but what if I left and let myself get spotted going away from Hogwarts, possibly even going abroad to get spotted there? Then he'd think I had given up, and you could work with Moony to capture him. He'd be easier to catch if he lets his guard down, after all, and he has no reason to think anyone in the castle suspects him.”
“I dunno. He knows you really well, remember? He might get suspicious. You broke out of Azkaban, presumably to find him and kill him, and then you just give up without even once making it into the castle? When he knows that you're an animagus too, and that you know of at least two secret entrances into the castle? No, I don't think he's that stupid, do you?”
“Damn, you're right. He's never been very book smart, but he's still pretty clever. He was clever enough to be a double agent for years without anyone ever suspecting, wasn't he? So yeah, that wouldn't work.”
They thought about the problem for several more minutes in silence.
“The problem is,” Harry finally said, “that we're limited. You coming into the school will scare him, and if anyone spots you inside the castle, it'll be like last year with the Chamber of Secrets all over again. They'll lock the castle down, search high and low for you, and all in all the task will be even harder. And then me... I don't know if I could just grab him. I mean, I know I live in the same dorm as Ron and Peter, but in two and a half years, I don't think I've ever once touched him, even by accident, and I don't think he'd take well to my sudden and ineffable desire to pet him or hold him. With you about, he'll be paranoid. After all, as unlikely as he might think it, you could always tell someone else. Like Lupin. And you did. He'll be considering every possibility if he's smart, no matter how unlikely they may seem to him.”
“Hmm... yes. You know, I wish we could tell Dumbledore. He's always been good with this cloak-and-dagger stuff.”
“Why don't we tell him? I mean, we don't have to tell him you're involved. I did, after all, get the Map from Fred and George, and I could show it to Dumbledore. Though Fred and George might be mad if I did, they gave it to me in good faith. After all, Dumbledore could listen and let me keep the map, or he could not listen and take the map, or listen to me but still take the map. After all, it's kind of a dangerous thing to keep around.”
“Yeah, I guess it is. But it was also dangerous to run around the grounds of a school at night with a barely controlled werewolf tagging along. We were so carried away with our own cleverness that we were dangerously reckless idiots. The Map is nowhere near as stupid an idea as that.”
“How'd you make it, anyway? I thought the school was Unplottable?”
“It is. But we found a way around that. See, the school's wards know everything there is to know about Hogwarts, insofar as its dimensions, rooms, secret passages, and the locations and true names of everyone on the grounds. We tried mapping out the inside of Hogwarts normally at first, to no avail. It wasn't until the year we became animagi that we knew enough from Ancient Runes and Moony's Arithmancy class to sneak into the ward room at the bottom of the school and made some additions to make the Map possible. We would've been expelled if we'd been caught, but we did so many things that could get us expelled that I've forgotten half of them by now, I'm sure. Hell, I once did something to Snape that would've gotten me expelled for sure from anyone other than Dumbledore, and would've landed me in Azkaban if James hadn't saved the day.”
“Oh? What was that?”
“This boy in our class, whom James and Moony and I all hated, but whom was very clever, was getting suspicious of where Moony went every full moon. So I, er... told him how to get past the Whomping Willow.”
“You didn't!”
“Like I said, I was an idiot. I thought it a perfect prank. I remember I was smiling when I told James, later. But James was properly horrified, which was infectious, thankfully, and he ran off like a demon from Hell to stop Snivelus before he went in after Moony. And he made it just in time to grab Snivelus before he could get bitten or worse, but he still saw Moony. James saved his life, and I was properly ashamed, and Snivelus was fine. All of which is, I think, the only reason we weren't expelled. Well, that and the fact Dumbledore would probably have been sacked if the incident had come to light. He'd been on pretty shaky ground with the Board of Governors on letting Lupin in to begin with, after all.”
“Wait, 'Snivelus'? You don't mean Severus Snape, do you?”
“Yeah, I do. How do you know that name?”
“He teaches Potions here.”
“WHAT? That slimy git, teaching? When he was almost certainly a Death Eater?”
“He was?”
“Yes. In school, he always hung around with Lucius Malfoy, Bellatrix LeStrange, and a bunch of other people who later became Death Eaters. And he always had his nose so far into the Dark Arts that it's a wonder he didn't smear the ink with his nose.”
“He hung out with Draco's father? Hmm... he probably was a Death Eater, then. But Dumbledore trusts him, now.”
“Well we already know Dumbledore can be fooled. Peter fooled him, and so did the Dursleys. Granted, I don't think he ever actually met Petunia or her husband before he put you with them, but they had corresponded. I remember Lily telling me once that her sister tried to plead to be allowed to come to Hogwarts, but of course she's a Muggle.”
“Wait, the Snape thing made me think of something. Just in case, roll up your left sleeve.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Just humor me, please.”
“Fine, fine,” Sirius said, rolling up his sleeve to show Harry.
“Hmm... I don't see anything odd. Then again, I don't know what I'm looking for. I just know Draco said his father was especially keen on hiding his left arm for likely Voldemort-related reasons.”
“Your friend reckons Voldemort was stupid enough to put a visible mark on his followers' arms?”
“Stupid or not, you have to admit that even Dumbledore never figured it out. If he had, he would've told the Ministry, and they would have checked everyone arrested as Death Eaters for marks on their left arms, and you would have been freed.”
“Good point, Harry. Anyway, it'll be useful once we catch Peter, but until then it's not of much use.”
“It proves you're not a Death Eater.”
“First, all we have to go on for that is the word of the son of a suspected Death Eater, and even that's speculation on Draco's part since he's never even seen whatever it is that's supposed to be there. Second, we don't know if said mark is visible now that Voldemort's powerless, if it even was when he was powerful. And of course, we don't know what this mark even looks like. Though... if I had to venture a guess, I'd go with the Dark Mark. It was a shape they used to cast into the sky over the houses of people they killed, we never did figure out the spell they used for that. It was a green skull with a snake for a tongue. But this possible left-arm mark might have been a picture of a daisy for all we know. Not very likely, I know, but possible.”
“Is there some way we could look at Snape's arm?”
“You know him almost as well as I do, do you think that has any chance of succeeding? And anyway, nobody on our side was ever certain he was a Death Eater. Except for Dumbledore, I suppose, but we haven't asked him about it.”
“Ugh, we're getting off track again. How do we capture Peter?”
“I wish I knew, pup. Until you get Lupin on our side, though, I don't have any other ideas for now. I can keep thinking while you're up at school, though. Just leave me some conjured parchment and quills and so on, so I can write my ideas down.”
“Sure,” Harry said, conjuring those things for Sirius. He sighed. “This would be so much easier if I could get my friends in on this. But Hermione thinks I'm mad to even suggest you might be innocent, same with Ron. Draco's on my side, but I don't know how he'd react to you being at the school and interacting with me. Even if he thinks you're innocent in theory, he's been raised thinking of you as a mass murderer, so the fear might bypass his reason.”
“That, and I'm not so sure I want to trust a Malfoy, no matter how much you trust him, Harry.”
Harry sighed. “Well unless we think of something before then, I guess I'll just have to get Lupin in on this with the Map.”
“Agreed. Anyway, pup, it's getting late. You should head back before you're missed.”
“Okay, Sirius,” he said, hugging his godfather. “You stay safe, okay?”
“I will, Harry, I will.”
*
Professor Lupin had been meaning to ask Dumbledore about Harry's dementor lesson for weeks, but had only gotten around to it four days before January's full moon. He would have put it off til even later, except that he knew the stress of the full moon would make him forget again, possibly until the next full moon, so he decided to get it out of the way sooner rather than later.
“Ice mice,” he told the gargoyle guarding the headmaster's office, and the gargoyle let him by.
When he got upstairs, the door opened on its own and he heard Dumbledore say “Come on in, Remus.”
He came in, noting as he did that Dumbledore was across the room and sitting behind his desk.
“What can I help you with tonight, my good man?”
Remus closed the door behind himself. “You remember I'm giving Harry lessons on how to cast the Patronus Charm, headmaster?”
“Yes, I do. How is he progressing?”
“Quite well for his age. Having some difficulty resisting the allure of hearing his parents voices, of course, even given the context.”
“Understandable for an orphan who, unfortunately, did not know love growing up.”
“Yes. But something he said after the first lesson made me realize I had to talk with you about it. But I've been so busy I quite forgot until now.”
“I am listening,” Dumbledore said.
“Well, he asked me how he's able to remember that at all, when he was only an infant at the time. And he's right, it is extremely unusual for dementors to pull up memories that old. What's more, the words he hears in the memory are in English. He can understand them, headmaster, when by rights he should be remembering it as gibberish.”
Dumbledore was a hard man to read, but Remus had gotten to know him over the years, and the old man looked downright disturbed by this news. But not surprised, he noted. If he had to guess, the headmaster was more disturbed that Harry had even made note of the oddity of it, and further disturbed that he'd told someone about it.
“I see you know the reason, headmaster,” he said placidly, inviting the older man to continue.
“I have a suspicion. I cannot be certain yet. Certain things about Harry have bothered me since his first year.”
He paused, thinking, for several moments before continuing.
“Tell me, Remus, do you know Occlumency?”
Remus frowned slightly. “No. I know of it, but I'm afraid I never bothered to learn it. Why?”
“Because unless you learn Occlumency, I'm afraid I cannot tell you all of what I suspect about this issue. In fact, I believe I cannot tell you anything about my suspicions, given your cleverness, lest you figure it out from even a modified version of the truth. It is much too dangerous, that information.”
The hair on the back of his neck rose. “So I take it this has something to do with Voldemort?”
Dumbledore winced slightly.
“Yes. And this is why I cannot tell you more. I'm sorry, Remus. But if you wish to learn Occlumency, I can teach you.”
“I think I'll take you up on that, headmaster. I came in here today with a minor curiosity, and you've just turned it into a major one for me. I don't think I could go the rest of the year not knowing. How does February first sound to you, for my first Occlumency lesson?”
Dumbledore chuckled. “I should have known. Yes, the first sounds good to me. Let's say 9 pm, shall we?”
Remus nodded. “I'll see you then, headmaster.”
“Likewise. And Remus, before you go, let me fetch you a book on the subject. I had these books removed from the library because I do not feel most students should be learning this art.”
Dumbledore went into a door behind his desk for a few minutes and came back with a book called Guide to Advanced Occlumency by Maxwell Barnett, which he handed to Remus.
“That should start to prepare you for our first lesson if you have the time, Remus, but if you don't, do not worry yourself about it.”
“Understood, Professor.”
“Good. Oh, and Remus? Do not tell Harry we had this discussion. Or anyone else, either, for that matter.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
“That Harry is clever enough to be suspicious of these dementor memories is disturbing. I wish you to try to nip his curiosity about this in the bud if he brings it up again. Lie if you must, but this issue is so dangerous I fear what his curiosity will uncover. I doubt he'll figure it out himself, especially with nothing more to go on than curiosity, so my fear is more about who he might accidentally tip off by digging into it. Perhaps I am being a touch too paranoid, but with Voldemort, even in his weakened state, it is best to take no unnecessary chances.”
Remus felt a shiver go up and down his spine. This was far more intense than he'd even remotely been prepared for when he came into Dumbledore's office.
“I understand, headmaster. You have my word, I won't tell anyone else of our conversation. And I'll do what I can to keep Harry away from this... little curiosity. At least until I find out what has you so scared.”
“Excellent. Now I bid you goodnight, Remus.”
“Good night, headmaster.”
(End chapter six)
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Three.
Or, "Aspie Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban."
Note: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made.
Note 2: There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though.
Note 3: Sorry for the wait. Been having writer's block with this one on top of other issues. As you'll be able to see, I defeated this writer's block by doing something a bit different this time and changing the point-of-view away from Harry for a while.
Chapter Seven: Prelude to Catching a Rat
Their first week back from the holidays, and already Antigone, Angela, and Danzia were annoyed. Draco, who had gotten more withdrawn since getting back, had been spending so much time with them that Antigone and Angela had almost no time together alone. What was more, they weren't sure whether or not Draco realized the two of them were together. He was even getting on Danzia's nerves, but of course he was Harry's friend and he wasn't doing anything wrong as such. They felt for him, they did, but he couldn't spend the rest of his Hogwarts career like this. For one thing, the three girls were all in fifth year, and would be graduating Hogwarts in Draco's fifth year. For another, he was driving them spare.
Of course, they had tried to introduce him to Willem, but the two boys didn't really click. Willem was... well, he was probably in the wrong House, to be honest. Hufflepuff would have been a better fit, probably, because he had a strong sense of justice and was very outspoken in favor of Muggles, muggleborns, and others, as well as being a lot of fun to be around when he was in good spirits, but he was rubbish at Defense magic, and he tended to get very moody. But where most moody boys they knew about tended to switch between happiness and annoyance or anger, Willem tended to cry a lot instead. So he ended up getting on Draco's nerves just as much as Draco got on the girls' nerves, or would have, except Willem didn't seem to like Draco any more than Draco liked him.
The only other person in Slytherin they could potentially foist Draco off on was Qintar, the first-year black girl with red hair and freckles, who was also a Muslim. Except she and Willem had hit it off, and she was nearly as prone to crying jags as Willem was, despite normally being very silly and gregarious. Also, as a first-year, Draco didn't really want to spend a lot of time with her because he was at that stage where she was too young for him to really want to spend much time around. And yet he didn't see how three fifth-year girls might feel the same way about a third-year boy.
On the first Friday night back, the three girls were hanging out in their dorm together and talking about the issue. Their other dorm-mate was somewhere else, probably studying.
“So what are we going to do?” Antigone asked when they'd finished outlining the problem.
Danzia, who was sucking on a blood-flavored lollipop, took it out of her mouth to speak. “Dunno. I like Draco, he's gotten more interesting than he was before, but honestly, he needs some friends his own age, and not just Harry, Ron, and Hermione.”
“Exactly,” Antigone said. “He's the kind of personality who needs to be popular, and he's not doing well being so unpopular. He's a leader, not a follower. He needs to find his confidence again. Honestly, he's scared of Crabbe and Goyle, when he could hex them into oblivion faster than they could crack their knuckles. It's pathetic. I don't know how he stands being that way, it's so unnatural for him.”
“What can we do about it, though?” Angela asked.
“No idea. But something needs to be done. If he can get back his confidence, and some of his cockiness, I'm sure he'll be alright and won't annoy us so much. He could bring the more neutral Slytherins in line. Hell, he could probably even sway some of the not-so-neutral people.”
“Like who?”
“Well,” Antigone said, thinking, “the Greengrasses would be easy. And Pansy still won't shut up about him. Sure she's a bit miffed that he's gone over to Harry's side, but she genuinely likes Draco, and I'm certain she'll be fawning over him again if he finds himself. And with that kind of devotion, he could sway her.”
Danzia popped the lollipop out of her mouth again. “Yeah, and then there's Tracy Davis, she'd be relatively easy for him to collect. A bit more difficult would be Zabini.”
“Yeah. So, ideas? Danzia?”
“Hmm... the problem, as I see it, is he thinks he can avoid Crabbe and Goyle forever. He also doesn't see that his position is eroding. I think he might be convinced his position is gone already. I don't think he realizes the truth of the situation, or how much potential there is for him. Plus... he could easily couch things in terms of who's stronger.”
“Pardon? I don't understand.”
“Well, Angie, what I mean is that right now, people think the side of the Death Eaters who avoided Azkaban is the stronger side, politically. I think most of them believe the Dark Lord is gone forever, and even the ones who don't think that way still don't have any real loyalty to him, or they would have gone to Azkaban for him. They're the sort that go wherever the strongest wind is blowing. If someone like Draco could convince people that Harry is the way the wind is blowing, that could sway them.”
“But it's more complicated that that,” Antigone countered. “There's blood bigotry in the mix, too. The former Death Eaters have power because they're in line with that.”
“Yes, but I think most of that bigotry is based out of fear. They're afraid of Muggles because Muggles outnumber witches and wizards by such a huge margin.”
“If they had any idea what Muggles were really capable of, how clever they are and how far science has progressed, they might be even more scared.”
“And yet,” Danzia said, “Draco has some inkling of that, and didn't go deeper into his bigotry. Why?”
“Um... I don't know. Why?”
“I think, whether he realizes it or not, that at some level he's realized that Muggle knowledge could be useful to expand wizard powers. Think of it; done right, Muggle knowledge could not only be used to make wizardkind more secure against the Muggles, thus alleviating some of that fear, but also it could lead to a solution to the problem of wizardkind dying out. We know being a witch or wizard is hereditary, and may sometimes be a mutation. If we could discover the Wizard Gene and how that all works, we could make sure every child born into the wizarding world would be magical. No more squibs! It might even be possible to take in Muggle orphans and make them magical. Muggle knowledge could turn things around and maybe even reverse our fortunes.”
“Holy crap! That'd be amazing if it turned out to be true. The trouble is, it's just conjecture. What if we found out the opposite? That the magical world was dying and nothing could be done about it? Then we'd be selling people on false hope.”
“Well at the very least, there's enough solid Muggle science to show that inbreeding is a massively stupid idea. It's a wonder people like Draco aren't horribly hideous with debilitating genetic diseases and deformities.”
“Yeah but it's like Hagrid said, most wizards and witches are half-blood, even if they claim otherwise.”
“True enough, Tig, but--”
Antigone banished a large pillow right into Danzia's face. “Don't call me Tig!”
Danzia laughed. “Fine, fine. Anyway, I'm bored now. We should make a project of Draco and write down ideas as they come to us, check in every now and then to see what we have.”
“Ooh, can I name the project?” Angela asked.
“Sure, my angel,” Antigone said, kissing her on the lips.
“Alright then, I want to call it Project Ladon.”
“Danzia, your thoughts?”
Danzia had the lollipop in her mouth, and so just gave Antigone a thumbs-up.
“Project Ladon it is, then,” she said, writing it down.
~
Harry was in the library when Luna came in and sat next to him on Saturday the 29th. They'd met a bunch of times since the term had begun again already, but Harry was fully in the swing of thinking about his Sirius problem. He'd had several anti-dementor lessons with Lupin since his first one, but he still hadn't told Lupin about Sirius. He kept losing his nerve, fearing Lupin wouldn't listen and would go straight to Dumbledore, and Sirius would end up back in Azkaban.
Luna was just studying next to him as she sometimes did, but this time he had a brainwave as he looked at her. He couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it before!
“Luna?”
She set her book down and looked at him with a serene smile on her face. “Yes, Harry?”
“If I told you something really secret, you'd keep the secret for me, right?”
She paused a moment, thinking. “As long as the secret wasn't hurting anyone, then yes.”
He paused too at this point. That wasn't a very helpful response for what he was thinking of doing. He reminded himself that she was nothing if not open-minded. He tried to think how to proceed.
“Well, nobody's been hurt so far, and I can't imagine that's likely to change anytime soon. In fact, what we'd be doing would help keep someone from getting hurt.”
Luna looked intrigued. “What do you mean, Harry?”
“How do you feel about going for a walk on the grounds? We can discuss it more privately there.”
“Well, okay. Just let me drop my things off at my dorm, and see if I can find my outdoor clothing.”
“Okay. Meet me at the front entrance in 15 minutes?”
“Better make it 20. My things have a tendency to be difficult to locate.”
“Er, okay. See you soon!”
Luna gathered her things. Harry gathered his. Then they left the library and went to their respective dorms to get their things ready for the outdoors. In twenty minutes, Harry was waiting at the front door of the castle for Luna, who arrived fully 10 minutes late.
“Sorry for being late, Harry. I had a harder time finding my boots than I had anticipated.”
“Ah okay. Well come on, let's go.”
She followed him out onto the grounds, both of them bundled in heavy winter cloaks. Luna had on a very colorful sweater under her cloak, that he could just see part of. They both also had scarves on. Harry used a spell to clear the way ahead of them and he lead her out far enough away from the castle to be sure they wouldn't be overheard, and so that he could see anyone coming with enough warning to stop talking before they could be within earshot. Only when he was certain they were far enough away did he start to talk.
“So, er... you remember Shadow, right?”
“The stray dog that you feed sometimes? Yes, he's adorable. I couldn't forget such a cute dog. What about him, Harry?”
“What if I told you there was more to Shadow than meets the eye?”
“Ooh, is he a talking dog? I've heard that can happen sometimes. They stand up on their hind legs and speak in full English.”
“Er... well, in a manner of speaking, that's true. He's... an animagus.”
“An animagus? Your dog? You mean like Professor McGonagall?”
“Yes. Only he's unregistered.”
“Hmm... Harry, I don't know about this. He could be part of the Rotfang Conspiracy. I've heard the Rotfang Conspirators sometimes use animagi to scout out potential double agents. You're famous enough that could be useful to them.”
“Er... no. He's my godfather.”
“Oh? You have a godfather?”
“Yes. Well... don't freak out, but he's Sirius Black.”
“Oh, is that all? You had me worried there for a moment, Harry.”
“Wait, what? You're not freaking out? Why not?”
“Well I've known Sirius Black is innocent for years. A friend of Daddy's has been working on an article for the Quibbler, doing research to prove Sirius Black is really Stubby Boardman, lead singer of the Hobgoblins. So he's an animagus, is he? Interesting.”
Harry's brain ground to a halt as he tried to process where this conversation had gone.
Finally, he found his words again.
“Er, I don't know if he's ever been a singer; I haven't asked him. But uh... does this mean you'd be willing to help me figure out how to clear his name?”
“Of course, Harry. And if it's not too bold, how did you come to the conclusion he's innocent?”
He sighed, and proceeded to tell her all about how long he'd been spending time around Shadow, and how Sirius had revealed himself during the Christmas holidays, as well as the full story from Sirius's side. She listened quietly, nodding and asking questions now and then.
“So that's everything,” he finally finished. “And now I have to figure out how to get the truth out in a way that doesn't put him in more danger, and doesn't tip off Pettigrew.”
Luna continued to walk alongside him, both of them lost in thought.
“Well Harry,” she said after many minutes, “tell Lupin. If you need support, I can be there with you when you do it. I think you can do it if you try, and I don't think Professor Lupin will rush to judgment. From what you told me, it seems like Professor Lupin already knows that Shadow is an animagus, and hasn't told Dumbledore yet for some reason. Hmm... I think maybe he's feeling guilty that they violated Dumbledore's trust, and is trying to convince himself that Shadow's animagus powers have nothing to do with his escape. And it's also possible part of him doesn't really believe Shadow is guilty.”
“So you think that will be enough to keep him from freaking out and going to Dumbledore?”
“I believe so. And with two of us there, we might be able to slow him down if I'm wrong.”
Harry nodded. Okay. The anti-dementor classes are in his classroom at 8 pm on Thursdays.”
“I'll be there for the next one, Harry.”
“Oh, er... okay. But the next one is on February third, not next week.”
“Okay then, I'll be there for that one.”
“Thanks.”
“You're welcome, Harry.”
He smiled, as did she, and they continued their walk, hand in hand.
~
Not caring if Filch caught him, Draco was running through the corridor, escaping Crabbe and Goyle once more. He was in a bind, though, because Crabbe was around one corner, and Goyle was flanking him from another. He kept going back and forth, looking for a place to hide. Finally, he found a door he hadn't noticed before, and went into it, closing it and locking the door behind him.
As he panted, catching his breath in what looked like a cupboard for cleaning supplies, he felt himself feeling very angry. He was the scion of house Malfoy, for Merlin's sake! And here he was running from two morons that used to be his goons. What was he doing? Why was he letting himself be cowed like this?
Oh, right; he'd gone over to Harry's side, and lost his position in Slytherin. He sighed, annoyed now.
A few minutes later, he heard the two buffoons give up and leave. He waited a few more minutes before coming out of the cupboard and making his careful way back to the library, the one place he knew they wouldn't go looking for him.
He was wandering the stacks when he overheard a conversation composed of familiar voices whispering. It was Antigone, Angela, and Danzia. He was about to get out to greet them when the conversation turned to him, prompting him to continue eavesdropping.
“So Antigone, anything new to add to Project Ladon?” Danzia asked.
“Maybe. I've been giving it some thought, and I decided we should use the Network to make a couple clandestine deals for people to talk about Draco where he can hear them, saying things like 'a disgrace to the name Malfoy' or 'pathetic' to goad him into getting angry enough to come back to himself.”
“Yeah, that might work. Or it might backfire. We don't know how far gone he is. He's convinced he's lost his position, isn't he? He might hear those things and believe them. He may already believe those things about himself. After all, he's been acting kinda pathetic.”
“So I'm not the only one to worry that. Damn. And here I thought it was such a good plan.”
“Yeah, well, we need to find some way to do recon, find out what he really thinks. We can't keep going with guesses and half-baked theories. Like, does he think he's completely lost his position in Slytherin, or does he realize there's still hope? Does he realize that if he shaped up, he could bring the neutral Slytherins over to Harry's side along with him?”
Draco was shocked, but kept stock still, listening. There was more. These girls seemed to think he could bring a whole bunch of other Slytherins over to Harry's side with his natural leadership abilities if he could just get his confidence back. Little did he know, they were rehashing everything they'd already discussed in their dorm weeks ago, so he heard far more than he could have even guessed.
He was still standing there when they got bored of talking about him again and moved on to talking about homework. With nothing more to listen to, he sneaked away and left the library to do some thinking.
“Is he gone now?” Antigone asked.
Danzia stood up and checked. When she returned, she said, “Yeah, he's gone now.”
“Do you think it'll work?”
“I hope so. Otherwise we spent weeks of planning on nothing.”
“He won't suspect that was staged, will he?”
“Merlin, I hope not. Otherwise it won't work.”
Draco was sitting in the MAC classroom to think. So that's what they really thought of him, was it? Acting pathetic, but really having forgotten himself and his strength and confidence. They really thought he could turn many of the other Slytherins, did they? He grinned at this knowledge.
Crabbe and Goyle wouldn't be as easy to convert as they seemed to think, in his opinion. They were following Smith now. Slytherins following a Hufflepuff? Now that was shameful. He'd have a job convincing them of that, and convincing them to follow him again. But a good start would be standing up to them in Slytherin common room and giving them what-for. A verbal dressing-down wouldn't suffice, though. Hexing them would be seen as unfair. He'd have to get right up in their faces, fearless, daring them to do their worst. As much as they'd been threatening him, they'd be hesitant to actually attack him, since that would risk private Slytherin problems being exposed to the rest of the school. In a sense it already was; who knew how many people knew he'd been avoiding—no, running away from—them already. But they still wouldn't want to risk attacking a fellow Slytherin, it would be bad form, and even those two gorillas knew as much.
He grinned, writing down ideas. So much to plan, oh so much to plan indeed.
~
Danzia, Antigone, and Angela were all in the Slytherin common room the following evening when it happened. Draco came into the room with all his old confidence back, and sat right down in the middle of the room. The previously relaxed atmosphere suddenly changed, getting tense. Crabbe and Goyle, who had been sitting across the room struggling with their homework, felt the change and turned to see the source. When they saw Draco, they glared at him. He didn't respond, just got out a book and started to read.
Not taking this attitude lightly, Crabbe and Goyle got up and went over to stand menacingly over Draco. The blond boy looked up with a sneer on his face.
“Would you two move? You're in my light,” he said, every bit of his old arrogance poured into the words.
Crabbe and Goyle, for their part, blinked in confusion. He wasn't acting like they'd expected him to. But they recovered, probably deciding it was bravado, and cracked their knuckles menacingly.
“Are you two deaf as well as stupid? I said move!”
“Make us!”
Faster than the eye could track, Draco was standing with his wand out.
“I'd be glad to make you move, if you need the motivation. You've seen the sort of spells my father has taught me. I wonder which one I should use?”
The two large boys started to look nervous, even with their own wands out. They were no match for him where it came to magic. Not where legal magic was concerned, anyway.
“Let's see,” Draco said, appearing to be thinking. “Which spell would do the most damage, without being too much for Madam Pomfrey to fix? Decisions, decisions.”
As he mulled it over, Crabbe and Goyle looked nervously at each other.
“Bluff and bluster!” called Zabini, who was standing now too.
Draco lazily turned to consider the black boy.
“This is between Crabbe and Goyle and me, Zabini.”
“I can see what this is about, Draco,” Zabini said, sneering. “You've been a coward for months, and now suddenly you've grown a spine? You really expect us to believe it?”
“I admit, I forgot myself for a while. But I'm back now.”
“Oh, so you're done kissing Potter's arse and you're back to being the good little pureblood, is that what we're to believe?”
“Not exactly. I still think Potter is right. 'Pureblood' is just another word for 'inbred.' If we keep going the way we've been going, where we're going to go is extinct. As distasteful as it may seem, it's either breed with Muggles or die out forever. Or worse, become insane and powerless from inbreeding. I hope it hasn't escaped your notice that one of the most powerful wizards alive today, Dumbledore, is a half-blood? I don't know how I feel about Dumbledore, but I do know he's more powerful even than the Dark Lord was at his height. That much is undeniable.
“Then, too, look at Granger. Muggle-born, she and Potter – another half-blood – are the top of our class in everything. That's proof right there that purity of blood doesn't mean a damned thing.”
“You dare to say these things so brazenly, in Slytherin? What would Salazar Slytherin say?”
“Who cares? He lived a thousand years ago. In his time, his feelings were perfectly justified. But we've been dying out slowly ever since then. And if you hadn't noticed, we've been able to keep ourselves secret for centuries.”
“You're only saying this because you've been going to those Muggle lover meetings,” Zabini said hotly.
“I've been learning about Muggles, yes. True things, not just the idiotic drivel our parents have taught us. Muggles aren't stupid, they're just as smart as wizards are. And probably more clever, because they have to be, not having magic to do everything for them. It would be stupid to deny it, if for no other reason than 'know thy enemy.' Did you know they have bombs that can destroy entire cities in a flash of light? They do. And maybe your grandparents have told you about the bombs that fell during Grindelwald's war, that came from his German allies? They have poison gases, too. All that and more, without magic. They could kill us all overnight if they wanted to, but they don't even know we exist.
“There's even more. The things they know, if we knew those things too, we could expand our powers. Did you know they discovered the secrets of heredity? If we knew what they knew, we could find what makes someone a wizard, and use that knowledge to make sure there would never be squibs ever again, by turning squibs into wizards and witches. Think of that, no more squibs! We could potentially increase our numbers to match those of the Muggles.”
“Rubbish!”
“How would you know? Have you ever met a Muggle? Have you ever read any of their writings? Any of their science books? Besides which, you already use Muggle technology. Phonograph players are Muggle technology. The Hogwarts Express is magically modified Muggle steam engine technology. Wizarding Wireless was inspired by Muggle radio technology. And there's so much more there to explore. They can send moving pictures and sound across the world in real time. They can send letters and other communications around the globe in the blink of an eye. They're even making mechanical automatons to do difficult work for them! Not to mention, if we knew the secrets of their science of physics, we could make huge strides in alchemy.”
Crabbe and Goyle had had enough, it seemed. They grunted, and turned as one to clobber Draco, but he turned his wand on them and hit them with some sort of hex that had them both on the ground, moaning.
“The Dark Lord was brought down by the sacrifice of a Muggle-born witch for her half-blood child. He was arrogant and foolish. He slaughtered anyone who disagreed with him. In a time when we should be doing our best to preserve every wizarding life and working on a way to prevent our world's extinction, he murdered people by the scores and threatened to bring our whole world crashing down in flaming ruins.
“You're scared of the Muggles. I don't blame you. I'm scared, too. But pretending that we can go out and subjugate them when they outnumber us twenty to one or more is a fool's errand. What we need to do is embrace all wizardkind, or at least stop trying to kill or oppress one another, and use the knowledge of the Muggles and Muggle-borns to save our civilization from extinction. And if that means we align ourselves with Potter and Dumbledore, then that's what we do. You don't have to like them; Merlin knows I don't know if I like Dumbledore or not.”
He paused a moment, as if gathering strength for something, before continuing again.
“Voldemort is dead,” he said, waiting for the horrified gasps to stop before continuing. “Or at least near-dead and powerless. And even if he weren't, he was insane, arrogant, and power-mad. He used a blood purity stance to manipulate people into following him, but in the end his power came from fear. Fear of dying, or fear of loved ones dying, or worse things. But he would have brought us to extinction even faster than we were already going, if he hadn't been stopped. So will blood purity madness, if we let it.”
With a final sneer, Draco put his wand back and sat down, going back to his reading. It was a testament to the power of his speech that nobody spoke, not even Zabini, who quietly undid the hexes Draco had cast on Crabbe and Goyle before returning to his dorm room.
Antigone and Angela blinked, and shared looks with one another and with Danzia. They hadn't been expecting anything like that. They'd have to tell Harry and the others about it later.
~
“Malfoy did what?” Ron asked, dumbfounded, the following Monday afternoon when Antigone found the three of them at lunch to tell them about it.
“Yeah, great big amazing speech, right out of nowhere. You should've seen it. And I think it might have had an impact. Not sure how much of one, but I know Pansy Parkinson was giving Draco interesting looks the rest of the night and into the morning, almost like she wanted to fawn over him, but was hesitating, maybe wondering if it was too soon.”
“So he's not running from Crabbe and Goyle anymore?”
“Nope. They're avoiding him now. I don't know if or when those three will get back together again, but at least he's earned their grudging respect for now. And the respect of the rest of Slytherin House.”
“Even Zabini?”
“Even Zabini. A lot of them still think he's mad for associating with you, and even madder for saying You-Know-Who's name, but respect is respect.”
“It could be useful if he does manage to sway more people in Slytherin,” Harry said between bites. “That's not why I became friends with him, but it would certainly be a plus.”
Hermione finished her food then and said goodbye quickly before running off for the library.
“What's she in such a hurry for?” Antigone asked.
“We've been researching cases of animals charged with being too dangerous to let live, trying to find cases where they won their case, for Hagrid.”
“Oh damn, I should help with that, too.”
“You lot are in fifth year, aren't you? O.W.L. year. You need all the time to study.”
“Oh yeah, good point, Harry. It's just I wish I could do something for Hagrid.”
“I understand that.”
“So Harry,” Ron said, “you made any progress on finding out how Hermione is being in two places at once?”
“Nope. What about you?”
“Nope.”
“Ah, Hermione is in multiple places at once, is she?” Antigone asked with a smirk.
“What, do you know something about that?”
“If I did, I couldn't say anything.”
“Whadda ya mean? You're our friend, aren't you?”
“And so is Hermione.”
“Yeah, but she's a stickler for rules.”
“Well this is one rule I'm not going to break, Ron. You two are going to have to either figure it out yourselves, or live forever in suspense.”
“I suppose you're taking multiple classes at the same time too, are you?”
“Nope. But I know someone who did, once. It was too much for her. She had to reduce her workload.”
“From what I've seen of Hermione,” Harry said, “she should do the same thing. Maybe you can talk to her about it.”
“I'm not even supposed to know about it myself, and the person I know it from isn't in school anymore.”
“What, and that stops you from talking to her about it?”
“Well... maybe, maybe not. I'll think about it. Anyway, wouldn't it be more fun to work it out for yourself?”
“I've had fun, and that's not it,” Ron said.
“Whatever. Anyway, I'm gonna go find Angela now. You two have fun with your little side project.”
“See ya!”
“You too, Harry.”
~
They had a MAC meeting on Wednesday after dinner, but not many people were there. The fifth years were studying more, two of the Quidditch teams were practicing a lot in preparation for an upcoming match, and it was after dinner in the middle of the week. But Draco was there, as were Harry, Ron, and Hermione. They tried talking with Draco about his little speech, but he wasn't cooperating.
“I'm very annoyed that Antigone and her friends told you about that,” he said. “What happens in Slytherin is supposed to stay in Slytherin.”
“So you weren't going to tell us?”
Draco looked put out, and didn't respond.
“I think he wanted to be the one to tell us, actually,” guessed Hermione.
“Astute as ever, Hermione,” Draco said. “Yes, that's the real reason I'm miffed. But there's an element of truth in what I said before, too. She really shouldn't have told anyone outside of the House.”
“She only told us. It's not like she blabbed to the whole school. I don't think most people know, to be honest. They know something went down, because you're back to something resembling your old cocky self, but I don't think they know any specifics.”
“Good, that's how it should be.”
“You don't want others to know you're on my side? And how much so?”
“I go to MAC meetings. If that hasn't told the rest of the school where I stand, nothing will.”
“Fair point.”
“So, what are we doing tonight, with so few of us?”
“Not a lot. Maybe a little literature talk. Have you read any of the books I gave you for Christmas?” Harry asked Draco.
“Yes. I finished '1984' a couple days ago. I hope You-Know-Who never reads it, it might give him some nasty ideas.”
“What, you're not gonna say his name again?” Ron asked.
“I said his name once, for effect. I don't like saying it, though, so I'm going to continue to refer to him either as You-Know-Who or the Dark Lord.”
“You could call him Tom. That's his proper name, after all. Tom Marvolo Riddle.”
“There's a lot of Toms.”
“Yes. That's kind of the point of calling him Tom. Makes him more human. Makes him common. He doesn't like being common, or human.”
“I'll think about it. But most people won't know who I mean when I say Tom.”
“Good point.”
They went back to talking about Muggle literature then, spending a couple hours discussing “1984” before it was time to start getting going.
Harry whispered something into Draco's ear quickly as Ron and Hermione got ready to go.
“We'll just make sure we haven't left a mess, okay? See you in a few minutes.”
“What? Oh okay. But if you and Draco want to discuss something privately, Harry, you can just tell us, we won't mind.”
“Speak for yourself, 'Mione. What're you gonna talk about with him but not with us?”
“Black,” he said.
“Oh god, not that again. Fine, have your little discussion. Cummon, 'Mione.”
But she was already gone.
“Oy, did she vanish again or just leave?”
“No idea.”
“What are you two on about?”
“Hermione has some way of being in two places at once,” Ron said. “Antigone knows how she's doing it, but won't tell. And we haven't had any luck figuring it out, even with doing experiments to help.”
“Yeah, all we know so far is she remains solid in every class we have with her.”
“Interesting. Can I help you with that?”
“Sure. I'll catch you up on it after we have our other chat.”
“If that was a hint, don't worry, I got it. See ya, mate.”
“See you, Ron.”
Ron left the room and closed the door behind him. Harry cast privacy spells just in case anyone was eavesdropping.
“Is this about Black?” Draco asked at last.
“Yes, in fact it is. What if I told you I had evidence that Sirius Black was innocent?”
“I'd be curious what kind of evidence you thought you had.”
“He and I have met, and talked, on several occasions.”
Draco's eyes went wide. “And he didn't kill you?”
“Didn't even threaten me. And he could have killed me any number of times without my even knowing there was a threat. But he didn't.”
“Well, that's certainly interesting. I don't know if it counts as evidence, per se. He could have some reason to keep you alive, still. Like trying to get information out of you.”
“What kind of information?”
“Like the Dark Lord's whereabouts.”
“Voldemort's barely come up in any of our conversations. Mostly we've talked about how to prove his innocence. He came here to Hogwarts because one of the people he went to prison for killing is still alive. Faked his own death, in fact, and framed Sirius for the deaths of those Muggles.”
“You'd better start from the beginning, Harry.”
Harry sighed, and once more recounted the whole tale from the start.
“You told Lovegood before me?” Draco said when he was done, sounding offended.
“She and I have been friends longer than you and I have.”
“Well, I suppose that's true. But you haven't even told Ron and Hermione.”
“Yeah, well, they both think he's guilty. Luna is open-minded, and you're open to the possibility of him being innocent.”
“Yes, I suppose that makes sense. So, he and this Pettigrew were both animagi? Or 'are,' I guess I should say.”
“Yes.”
“And Professor Lupin is a werewolf? And Dumbledore knows?”
“The whole staff do. Lupin was bitten as a small child, only got to go to Hogwarts at all thanks to Dumbledore.”
Draco's face was contorted in disgust and fear. When he saw Harry's face, he forced his face to look normal.
“Sorry, Harry. It's just... a werewolf? As a teacher? If too many students find out, that won't go well for him. How many know?”
“No idea. I know, and Hermione and Ron know. Now you, too. But I don't know if anyone else knows. I haven't even asked Antigone and the others.”
“What? Why not? Honestly, it was a dangerous risk telling me. I still have a lot of powerful prejudices against werewolves, I'm not sure how I'm going to manage in Lupin's classes now, to be honest. I'll try very hard to act normally, but I can't guarantee anything. Antigone and her friends probably wouldn't have been a risk, why haven't you told them yet?”
“I... I don't know. I mean, I only told you because I wanted your help clearing Sirius's name, if you're up to it.”
“And I am. I'm curious about this; if he's innocent, I want to know how. I want proof. And if he's guilty after all, you really should have backup, so it works either way. But you really should tell Antigone and the other girls about Lupin, too. They may already know, as you pointed out. And you told Ron and Hermione. Come to that, I'm surprised Ron didn't freak out in class. Werewolf fear is one of those nearly universal things in the wizarding world.”
“Yeah, well, I think Lupin was fighting against Voldemort with Dumbledore and the Weasleys, so I think they knew him already, which would help.”
“I suppose so. Anyway, I don't know what I can do to help with this Black conundrum, but I'll think about it. I suppose you've considered Dumbledore?”
“Yeah. I can't be sure he'll listen.”
Draco scoffed. Literally scoffed. “Are you kidding me? Dumbledore is a trusting soul, even I know that much. Black was unhinged when he was arrested, and didn't get a trial, either. He probably didn't get a chance to tell his side of the story. Not that he would have been believed, either. Veritaserum was highly experimental at best back then. I'm not sure when it came into common use at the Ministry, but he'd likely been in Azkaban years before then.”
“Yeah, probably.”
“Anyway, go to Dumbledore. He's got a soft spot for you. He'll believe you.”
“I guess so. But I'm going to tell Lupin first, tomorrow. Then maybe he and I can go together to Dumbledore. I only worry that Pettigrew will run for it.”
“I doubt that. Where was he earlier today?”
“Ron left him in our dorm.”
“Well unless he left the dorm room and overheard this conversation, which is unlikely given the privacy spells you used, he shouldn't have any reason to be worried. And even if he does do a runner, Dumbledore can always use veritaserum to get the truth out of all of you. If you believe the truth of Black's innocence, it should at least give Dumbledore reason to use veritaserum on Black, too.”
“Okay, that sounds reasonable. Thank you for this talk, Draco.”
“You're welcome, Harry.”
~
At dinner on Thursday evening, Harry stopped by the Slytherin table to talk with Antigone and set up a time to talk Friday with her, Angela, and Danzia, because he intended to at least try to figure out if they knew about Lupin already. Antigone told him that as soon as she found where Danzia had wandered off to, she would tell her.
After dinner, Luna met Harry outside the DADA classroom to be there for him in his talk with Lupin. Harry took out the Marauder's Map after saying hi to Luna, so he could look for Pettigrew. Since Ron had decided to take Scabbers with him to dinner tonight, he was relatively easy to find, being right in the same spot as Ron on the map.
Harry put the Map in his pocket without wiping it first, and knocked.
“Come in, Harry.”
Harry opened the door and went in, Luna following behind.
“Ah, Miss Lovegood, did you want something too?”
“I'm here to help Harry with something. But if you'd be willing, I wouldn't mind learning the Patronus Charm either.”
“I suppose I could take on one other student. But what is it you're here to help Harry with?”
Harry looked at Luna for support. She smiled at him and nodded. He nodded back, and took out the Marauder's Map, setting it on the desk and pointing at Pettigrew.
“What do you make of this, Professor?”
Lupin's eyes went wide.
“How did you get this map, Harry? It's very--- wait, what?” he snatched the map up and stared at it in disbelief. “What? How? What?”
“I thought Peter Pettigrew died, Professor,” Harry said. “But according to this map, he's---”
“Harry,” Lupin said, interrupting, “does your friend Ron Weasley happen to own a pet rat?”
“Yes, but it appears that the rat is in fact an Animagus,” Harry said.
Lupin looked up at Harry in surprise. “How did you---no nevermind, I don't even know what to ask at this point. Or rather, where to begin asking. Wait, no... on second thought, how did you know Peter is supposed to be dead?”
“Well I don't wish to say how I got the map, because it might incriminate friends of mine. And as to the story of Peter, Draco Malfoy told me.”
Lupin's eyes scanned the rest of the Map, and then stopped suddenly. Harry guessed by the look in his eyes that he had found Sirius on the Map.
“Did you find Sirius on the Map, too, then?”
“You knew Sirius was on the school grounds?”
“Er, yes. I might as well tell you everything.”
“That can wait. We need to go to the Headmaster at once. Damn, he's in the Great Hall. As is Peter. If Peter's alive, it means he faked his death, and I can't think of any good reason why he would do that, so I don't know how to get Dumbledore's attention without attracting Peter's attention as well.”
“What about Netty?” Luna asked. “She and Harry are friends, and she's one of the Hogwarts elves. She might know a way to get Dumbledore's attention covertly.”
“Good thinking, Luna. What do you think, Professor?”
“Hmm... yes, go ahead, Harry.”
Harry nodded, and said firmly, “Netty?”
With a loud crack, Netty appeared in front of the three of them.
“Mister Harry Potter is wanting Netty for something, sir?”
“Yes. We need to get Professor Dumbledore's attention without drawing too much attention to the rest of the people in the Great Hall to the fact he's got a message. Do you know of any way to do that, Netty?”
“Hmm...” Netty said as she stood there thinking. “Well, there is being one way, sirs and miss. If a professor is to be making a fire-call to Dumbledore's office, he is being told magically of the incoming call, and will come to investigate.”
“Thank you, Netty. You've been a big help.”
“You is most welcome, Mister Harry Potter, sir. Is you needing anything else?”
“Not right now, Netty. You may go back to whatever you were doing.”
Netty smiled and bowed, then with a crack she disapparated.
“This way, into my office,” Lupin said.
They followed him to his office. As soon as they got in, he took a pinch of Floo powder from a pot and tossed it into the fire, then got down on his hands and knees to fire-call Dumbledore's office. He continued to wait there for nearly 10 minutes before they heard him talking again.
“Professor Lupin? What is it you need, that you couldn't come into the Great Hall to find me?”
“May we come through, Professor? I'd rather not discuss this over an open Floo connection.”
“'We'?” Dumbledore asked. “Who else is with you?”
“Mister Potter and Miss Lovegood are with me, sir.”
“Well do come on through, then, all three of you.”
One by one, they walked through the green flames, keeping the connection from closing by grabbing the cloak of the person ahead of them.
Once they were through and the fire returned to normal, Lupin started the discussion with Dumbledore.
“Professor Dumbledore, sir, there's something I have to tell you that is rather complex, but very important.”
“Well everyone, sit down, and you can begin the tale.”
Once they all took their seats, Lupin said, “Back when I was in school, Professor, my friends and I produced a rather clever magical artifact we called The Marauder's Map. It is a map that shows the inside and grounds of the castle, and everyone within it.”
He set it down on Dumbledore's desk. Dumbledore picked it up and examined it.
“Ingenious! How ever did you manage to make this?”
“It's a very long and involved process, and I'd rather get to the point first, Professor, if that's okay by you?”
“Of course, of course,” Dumbledore said, handing the Map back.
Harry, not knowing why Dumbledore hadn't noticed Pettigrew, looked over at the Map, and saw that Ron wasn't in the Great Hall anymore.
“Suffice it to say that among other things, the Map is tied into the school wards, and so always knows who everyone really is, and displays their true name.”
Dumbledore's blue eyes twinkled. “Ah, that sounds the sort of thing the Marauders would have done, breaking into the ward room to make this remarkable Map possible.”
“Yes. Now let's see... where'd he go? Ah, here, in that corridor. Look, Headmaster.”
Dumbledore looked where on the Map Lupin had pointed. It was clear when Dumbledore saw Peter on the Map, because his eyes went wider than Harry had ever seen Dumbledore's eyes go before.
“Peter Pettigrew? But how?”
“That's what I'd like to know, too. But that has to be him, unless there's another rat animagus with the same name who happens to be hiding out as a rat in the school.”
“Peter Pettigrew, an animagus? What do you mean, Remus?”
Lupin sighed, and began – hesitantly, his face full of shame – to tell Dumbledore the whole story of how his friends had become unregistered animagi during school, and how he had violated Dumbledore's trust and gone running on the grounds with only a stag, a large dog, and a rat to keep him in check.
When that was done, Harry added in how he'd met Sirius Black, how they'd discussed all this, and were looking for a way to clear Sirius's name and imprison Pettigrew as the real traitor. Dumbledore even got Luna to talk, adding that she'd been around Shadow as well and despite having not met him as a human yet, still believed Harry and say that she was able to vouch for Sirius having had plenty of opportunity to hurt Harry without doing so.
“You were quite right that we need proof. The best proof will, of course, be to capture Pettigrew so he may be interrogated. And I think I know just how to begin.”
Without explaining first, Dumbledore cast a Patronus shaped like a phoenix, which immediately flew off out of the office. A few minutes later, Professor McGonagall came into the room.
“You called me, Headmaster?”
“Yes, Minerva. Sit down, this could take some time.”
~
Danzia was late to dinner that night, and barely got enough to eat before it was time to leave. She got up and left the Great Hall, almost running into Professor Trelawney.
“Oh sorry Professor,” she said.
“It's quite alright dear, you didn't hurt me. Are you okay?”
“Yes, Professor. Actually I'm a little glad I ran into you. I had some questions about the last lesson I was hoping you could help me with.”
“Of course, my dear. Come, follow me. My inner eye tells me I shall need my books to answer your questions fully, and they are in the classroom, of course.”
“Of course,” Danzia said.
She followed the peculiar woman all the way up to the seventh-floor corridor and up the ladder into her weird classroom. Once there, they sat on poufs by one of the table as Trelawney perused the books to answer Danzia's questions.
When her questions were finished, she stood up to say good-bye and leave, but then a loud, harsh voice came from Trelawney.
“It will happen tonight.”
“What?” Danzia asked, astonished.
But Professor Trelawney didn’t seem to hear her. Her eyes started to roll. Danzia stood there in a panic. Trelawney looked as though she was about to have some sort of seizure. Danzia hesitated, thinking of running to the hospital wing — and then Professor Trelawney spoke again, in the same harsh voice, quite unlike her own:
“The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers. His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before midnight … the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his master. The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant’s aid, greater and more terrible than ever he was. Tonight … before midnight … the servant … will set out … to rejoin … his master. …”
Professor Trelawney’s head fell forward onto her chest. She made a grunting sort of noise. Danzia stood there, staring at her. Then, quite suddenly, Professor Trelawney’s head snapped up again.
“Oh so sorry, my dear girl. The heat of the fireplace, you know. Must've dozed off.”
Danzia just kept staring at her.
“Is something the matter, dear?”
“You — you just told me that the — the Dark Lord’s going to rise again … that his servant’s going to go back to him!”
Professor Trelawney looked thoroughly startled.
“The Dark Lord? He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named? My dear girl, that’s hardly something to joke about. … Rise again, indeed —”
“But you just said it! You said the Dark Lord —”
“I think you must have dozed off too, dear!” said Professor Trelawney. “I would certainly not presume to predict anything quite as far-fetched as that! Now run along before curfew is up.”
Danzia reluctantly left, wondering if she'd just heard a real prophecy or not. She decided she should tell the Headmaster or Professor Snape just in case. She thought about it, and decided it was better to tell Dumbledore. Snape wouldn't believe Trelawney making a real prophecy, she was sure of that. So Danzia went as fast as she dared down to Professor Dumbledore's office.
She didn't make it. Instead, she turned a corner and saw Crabbe and Goyle standing there, blocking her path.
“You!” Goyle shouted, pointing a finger at her. “You and your blood-traitor friends did it!”
“Did what, gorilla-boy?”
“Malfoy. He became a blood traitor because of you and Potter and your friends!”
“That's right,” Crabbe agreed, cracking his knuckles.
“I don't have time for this, it's almost curfew. Besides, Slytherins don't air our dirty laundry in public, remember?”
“I don't care right now. At least if we hold you up, you get in trouble, and that's better than nuffin'!”
“Seriously, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, are you really going to pick a fight now? I was actually on my way to the headmaster's office.”
“You ain't goin nowhere!”
Danzia pulled her wand out. “You two are third-years with the collective intelligence of limp lettuce, and I'm an exceptional fifth-year student who's been on massive scary adventures with Harry Potter twice, and lived to tell the tale. You don't scare me.”
The two boys, despite being dumb and huge, were surprisingly fast. They rushed her before she could get a spell off and soon the fight was on. Her wand rolled away out of reach, but she had older male cousins that hung out at her house so much that most of their neighbors thought she had half a dozen older brothers, and so she was no slouch when it came to brawling, either. Also, she didn't hesitate to fight dirty. Crabbe and Goyle were only using their fists, but Danzia was also biting, poking eyes, pulling hair, and anything else she could think of to disable her attackers.
In the end, though, she fell to a well-placed punch to the face, her world going black.
Endnote 1: I'm stopping the chapter here because I have a lot planned for the next bit, which would make it a VERY long chapter if I included that in this chapter, and you've all waited too long for this chapter already. I'll get on doing the next chapter and try to publish that one in a week or two.
Endnote 2: Sorry about the repeat of the letter in the last chapter. Didn't notice that until I was re-reading the last two chapters. Ugh. I've gotten so keen on my Many Face of Harry Potter fic that I've lost a lot of enthusiasm for this one. I'll try to work on that, balance the two out a bit more in my schedule. But chronic depression and a memory like a rusty sieve also contributes to the flaws and slow updating of this fic. Sorry about that. Maybe I'll counteract that by re-reading the entire fic (the 3rd year part anyway) before writing each chapter. It shouldn't slow things down any more than they're already going.
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Three.
Or, "Aspie Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban."
Note: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made.
Note 2: There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though.
Chapter Eight: Catching A Rat
McGongall was soon announcing to the whole school that there were concerns about a communicable disease among people's pets, and that everyone should bring their pets to the Great Hall at once for examination and possible quarantine. She and Hagrid made a good show of checking every pet brought them until they finally got to Ron's pet Scabbers, who of course was quarantined for showing signs of illness. It even made sense, given how ill Scabbers had been looking since getting back from Egypt. So Ron was none the wiser when Scabbers was put into a cage and carted off. He was, of course, very worried, and naturally McGonagall let him come with her as she took the rat into quarantine, so he could be with his beloved pet while they tried to make him better.
Which was, of course, how they got Ron and Scabbers securely into Dumbledore's office.
Ron watched in some confusion as Scabbers was transferred into an absurdly large cage for such a small animal. Once the cage was locked, McGonagall turned to Ron and spoke.
“Mr. Weasley, I'm sorry to say this, but we lured your rat here under false pretenses. We have very good reason to think he is not really a rat, but in fact an animagus.”
“You're mental! Sorry, Professor, but honestly, he's just a rat! Give him back!”
“A rat that's been alive for 12 years?” McGonagall asked pointedly.
“We... we just took really good care of him.”
“Mr. Weasley, even magical rats do not live for 12 years. Common garden rats only live about four years, and magical rats only live about six years. There is no way this rat is really a rat. And we have a harmless, painless way of revealing the truth. If he is really a rat, nothing will happen to him. You have my word on this.”
Ron sighed. “Fine, whatever. But I'm telling you you're wrong.”
“We shall see, Mr. Weasley, we shall see.”
Before anything else could happen, the fire in the grate turned green.
“Ah,” Dumbledore said, “here is Cornelius.”
A portly little man with rumpled grey hair and a lime-green bowler hat stepped out of the fire.
“What is this all about, Dumbledore?” he asked at once. “You called me on some urgent business and didn't even tell me why, and now... what is all this?” he asked, gesturing at the scene before him.
“Just remain silent, please, and watch, Minister,” Dumbledore said.
“Well alright then, I suppose. But I hope this doesn't take long, I'm rather busy at the Ministry, Dumbledore.”
“It will not take long.”
Dumbledore stepped forward and used a spell to hold Scabbers in place on the bottom of the cage. Then he and McGonagall both cast another spell on him at the same time. A flash of blue-white light erupted from both wands; his small gray form began twisting madly — Ron yelled. There was another blinding flash of light and then —
It was like watching a sped-up film of a growing tree. A head was shooting upward from the ground; limbs were sprouting; a moment later, a man was standing where Scabbers had been, cringing and wringing his hands.
He was a very short man, hardly taller than Harry. His thin, colorless hair was unkempt and there was a large bald patch on top. He had the shrunken appearance of a plump man who has lost a lot of weight in a short time. His skin looked grubby, almost like Scabbers’s fur, and something of the rat lingered around his pointed nose and his very small, watery eyes. He looked around at them all, his breathing fast and shallow. Harry saw his eyes dart to the door and back again.
“Galloping gargoyles!” Fudge exclaimed. Ron, on the other hand, yelped in surprise and jumped back.
Harry, who had considered his luck and thought ahead, raised the camera he had borrowed from Colin and with several flashes, took several pictures of the man, making sure to get Fudge or Dumbledore or Ron in the pictures, to date the images as being from the present.
“Peter Pettigrew,” Dumbledore said pleasantly, as though pleased to run into an old acquaintance. “How very good to see you. You look quite well for someone who is supposedly dead.”
“D-Dumbledore! You have to help me! Sirius Black is trying to kill me!”
“That is rather interesting, Peter, seeing as he already spent 12 years in Azkaban for killing you.”
“He tried to kill me, but he failed! He got all those Muggles, but he missed me. I've been hiding all this time. I knew when he broke out he would try to finish the job!”
“You knew he would break out when nobody else had before, in Azkaban's entire history?” Dumbledore asked.
“Yes! He has dark powers I can only imagine! Powers taught him by the dark lord!”
“As amusing as it might be to listen to your taradiddles, Peter, I think it would be much more efficient if Minister Fudge were to first authorize the use of the veritaserum I asked him to bring.”
“What? Oh yes yes. Of course, Dumbledore,” Fudge said, pulling out a small bottle of what looked like water and handing it to Dumbledore.
“Open your mouth, please, Peter.”
Pettigrew stubbornly refused.
“Open your mouth or I shall open your mouth for you, and I will not be gentle.”
Pettigrew opened his mouth reluctantly, and Dumbledore put three drops into the man's mouth. His face then relaxed, his gaze unfocused. When Dumbledore and Fudge interrogated him, he answered all questions calmly, in a monotone. Aside from hesitating now and then, he showed no emotion. He confirmed everything that Sirius had told Harry, and everything Lupin had said as well. The whole time, Ron – standing beside Harry – stared at the man with disgust all over his face.
When the interrogation was over, Fudge said, “Well I'd better get back to the Ministry and summon the Aurors, Dumbledore. He'll have to go straight to Azkaban pending trial.”
“No need to summon the aurors, Cornelius. I have already done so. In fact, I believe that is them approaching my door right now.”
The door opened, and a broad-shouldered black man, bald and sporting a single gold hoop earring, came in next to a tough-looking wizard with very short, wiry grey hair.
“Ah, Aurors Shacklebolt and Dawlish, welcome,” Fudge said.
“Minister,” Shacklebolt said, nodding.
Then both men noticed Pettigrew. Dawlish blinked at the caged man, looking rather foolish. Shacklebolt looked almost as surprised as Dumbledore had before.
“Now that they're here and have seen the situation, Cornelius, can I trust you will be suspending the search for Sirius Black, now?”
“Oh no, Dumbledore, he's not been proven innocent yet. He'll need to be re-tried before he can be released, or at least Pettigrew will need to be found guilty first.”
“You mean he'll have to be tried first, Minister, I assume?”
“What? No, I said re-tried, Dumbledore.”
“Yes, but you see, Mr. Black never received a trial in the first place. I will confess I rather forgot that myself, in all the excitement of those days, in addition to being a very old man.”
“Er, yes, he'll have to be given a trial, at any rate.”
“Excellent. And am I correct that you will, in the meantime, recall the dementors? Surely the aurors or the hit-wizards can bring in Black, now that it seems he might be a free man before long.”
“Yes, yes, I'll recall them. Auror Shacklebolt, how soon do you think we will be able to get the prisoner to Azkaban?”
“With the right messages to the right people, Minister, we can move him tonight. We'll have to take some precautions, of course. Anti-animagus spells, for one.”
“This cage was made precisely to keep the prisoner trapped, Kingsley,” Dumbledore said. “Now that he's been forced into his human form, the cage will keep him that way.”
“Good, good,” Fudge said. “Then I shall get to work on what needs to be done. See you again later, Dumbledore!”
With that, Fudge was going back through the green flames to, presumably, the Ministry of Magic.
As McGonagall led them out of Dumbledore's office, Ron turned to Harry. “I'm going to be sick. That man was sleeping in my bed with me for years! I think I need a mind healer.”
“I'll see what I can do about that, Mr. Weasley,” McGonagall said gently.
~
Danzia awoke to a dimly-lit Hospital Wing, in a great deal of pain. She checked herself over as best she could, and didn't seem to be bleeding, but it still hurt all over.
“Ah, Miss McCullough, you're awake. Good. I mended your cuts and bruises as best as I could, but those two beasts did quite a lot of damage. I mended many broken bones, but they'll still hurt until they heal the rest of the way, and I gave you some potions to stop the internal bleeding, but that takes time to heal as well. You'll be in the Hospital Wing for the rest of the night, possibly most of the morning as well.”
“How long was I out?”
“Only around an hour.”
“I need to talk to Professor Dumbledore!” she said. “It's urgent! I was on my way to talk with him when those two goons waylaid me.”
“I'm afraid that will have to wait. Professor Dumbledore is busy right now.”
“Can you just please go tell him to come talk with me? Tell him it's urgent!”
Madam Pomfrey sighed. “Fine, I'll go tell him. But don't you dare move from where you are. You need to heal. If I find you've gotten out of bed, I'll confine you there for the next two days, understood?”
“I understand and agree, Madam Pomfrey.”
“Good. Now rest up if you can. I'll be back shortly.”
Danzia sighed and watched the matron leave the room. She waited, thinking of plans to get back at those two goons once she was well enough. Looking around the room, she was pleased to note that they were there, too, both asleep. She wondered how badly she'd hurt them, and if Madam Pomfrey would tell her if she asked.
She was in the middle of wondering if she could get away with hexing them in their sleep when the matron came back. Dumbledore came in behind her.
“Dumbledore! I was with Professor Trelawney earlier, and she went all rigid and started talking all harsh and growly, then when she went normal again, she thought I was mad when I told her what she'd said! I think it was a real prophecy!”
Dumbledore, who had looked merely curious before, suddenly looked alarmed. “What did she say?”
“She said that the servant of You-Know-Who was chained for 12 years, but he's going to break out and rejoin his master tonight! And that You-Know-Who will rise again, greater and more terrible than ever before!”
Dumbledore paled.
“Tonight? You're sure she said tonight?”
“She repeated it at least three times. Tonight, before midnight.”
“I must be going. Thank you for telling me this, Miss McCullough.”
Quicker than she thought such an old man could move, he turned around and left. She blinked in confusion, wondering if that meant he was going to prevent the prophecy from happening, or what?
“You need to rest, Miss McCullough. If you don't think you'll be able to, I can give you a sleep potion.”
“I... but what if the prophecy isn't stopped in time?”
“There's nothing you can do about it either way, Miss McCullough. You told the headmaster, he'll take care of it. There's nothing more you can do but sleep and recover from your injuries.”
“I... well, okay, fine.”
~
“Careful, Dawlish. Mind your step,” Kingsley Shacklebolt warned his partner.
“Yeah, yeah. I made one misstep...”
“All it takes is one.”
“This cage was made by Dumbledore, I should hope it would take more than a single misstep to mess this up.”
Pettigrew, his hands and feet bound, his mouth gagged, was inside the large cage the two aurors were floating along with their wands. They were carefully making their way down to the gates of the castle so they could take Pettigrew to Azkaban. Just as they were passing Hagrid's hut, they heard a voice speak, a voice rough from long disuse.
“So you caught him at last,” Sirius said. “That means I can safely be taken in as well, pending his conviction?”
Kingsley – whose wand hand had shot to point the wand at Sirius, returned back to Pettigrew's cage once he processed that Sirius wasn't likely a threat.
“Yes, that's correct. Does this mean you're coming willingly?”
“Yes. But maybe you should tie my hands anyway, for appearances.”
“And confiscate your wand.”
Sirius barked once with wry amusement. “What wand? You lot still have my only wand, and I never stole one after escaping. I could never deprive another person of their only defense. Well, unless it was a Death Eater, I suppose. The lot of them can burn in Hell.”
“You mean you avoided capture this long without a wand?”
“Yes.”
“Astonishing,” said Dawlish.
“I heard you wanted to kill this man. How were you going to accomplish that without a wand?”
“Oh, didn't they tell you? I'm an unregistered animagus, too. My form is a large black dog.”
“Maybe you should get in the cage, then?”
Sirius eyed Pettigrew with hungry anger.
“Just don't kill him. You kill him, it's back to Azkaban indefinitely for you.”
“Don't worry, I won't kill him.”
Shacklebolt unlocked the door to the cage, two wands on the door threateningly. Sirius approached the cage, but suddenly the temperature in the air dropped rapidly, an all too familiar sensation.
“DEMENTORS!” he shouted. “Quick, let me in!”
But he didn't make it to the door. The dementors being so near made him collapse to his knees.
“BACK, YOU LOT!” Kingsley shouted at the dementors. “We're aurors! We're taking these prisoners into custody! You're not needed here!”
But the dementors didn't slow down, as they were blind. All they knew was their prey was ahead of them, and they were hungry. As they kept advancing, the levitation spells on the cage went out, the cage crashing to the ground. Pettigrew jumped out of the cage as it fell, turning into a rat to flee his bonds, and running off.
“NO!” Sirius shouted. “YOU'RE NOT GETTING AWAY AGAIN!”
He tried to transform into a dog, but years in Azkaban had weakened him, and the dementors were too near. Instead, he fell onto his back on the ground, clutched his head, and wailed. There were just so many of them, over 100 of the foul non-beings, and his head was full of dark and depressing thoughts.
“EXPECTO PATRONUM!” two voices said simultaneously from a ways off.
Almost immediately after, a bright shining phoenix made of white light and a similar shining stag charged the dementors down and fought them off. The phoenix scratched at the faces of the monsters, and the stag attacked them with its antlers.
With many of the dementors fleeing, Kingsley was able to conjure a shining lynx patronus. Dawlish, for his part, could only conjure shining vapor. But with three patronuses in the fight, the rest of the dementors fled, leaving only the memory of their presence behind.
“Where's Peter? Where'd he go?” Sirius shouted, turning into a large black dog and sniffing madly to try to find him.
Dumbledore cast a non-verbal spell, but judging by his expression, it didn't yield any results. Sirius, though, began barking and running full tilt for the gates of the school. The three adults and Harry ran to catch up, and saw a rat running just in time to see it turn back into a human and disapparate with a loud crack!
Sirius howled and barked and growled, then turned back to a human and sat there with his head in his hands.
“He got away again! Damn him! Why didn't you two stun him when he was in the cage?” he demanded of the aurors.
“Excuse me, Mr. Black,” said Dawlish, “but I seem to recall you didn't stun him either.”
“I DON'T HAVE A WAND, YOU NITWIT!”
“Sirius, my dear boy, do calm down. It is disappointing, yes, even infuriating. And terrifying, if I'm honest; a Death Eater with nothing to lose and everything to gain, loose to look for his master. But it is not a total loss. Minister Fudge and two highly regarded aurors saw him alive and well, along with myself, Minerva, Harry, and Ronald Weasley, and many of us heard his confession under veritaserum. Their memories shall be enough to get you freed, Sirius.”
“Also,” Harry added, holding up Colin's camera, “I took pictures. At least one of the pictures has Ron in it, too, so there's proof right there.”
“Ah yes, that is correct. Excellent show of forethought, Harry.”
“Yes,” said Kingsley. “And if I can convince Fudge of it, we'll put you in Saint Mungo's instead of the prison or any of the holding cells at the Ministry. You shouldn't have to go back to Azkaban, between Pettigrew being exposed and the fact you turned yourself in.”
Dumbledore nodded. “And I shall be making sure that everyone at the Ministry knows you were never given a trial, Sirius. All of these things should make the Ministry very contrite. But in the meantime, aurors Shacklebolt and Dawlish, would it be too much to ask for Sirius to go to the Hospital Wing for treatment?”
“I'm not sure that's a good idea, Professor Dumbledore,” Shacklebolt said. “Until the Prophet can declare him innocent, he shouldn't be at the school hospital wing, it might panic the students and parents. We can take him to St. Mungo's, though, as I said. We'll just need to take him in to the Ministry first for permission.”
“That sounds reasonable. What do you think, Sirius?”
“Fine by me. But, er... can I say goodbye to my godson Harry first?”
“Harry? Harry Potter?” Dawlish asked, blinking foolishly, then turning to look at Harry.
“Yes, I don't see why not, as long as Harry is okay with it.” Dumbledore said.
Harry re-sheathed his wand and nodded. “I'd like that.”
Sirius came over to Harry and hugged him. Harry relaxed into the hug. When they pulled apart again, Sirius smiled at Harry.
“Thank you, Harry, for helping me out. It didn't go well, but that's nobody's fault, really. We should have thought to stun him. Ah well. With any luck, I'll be released before the summer is over so I can get my life back on track. And, well, if I do... Once my name’s cleared … if you wanted a … a different home …”
Some sort of explosion took place in the pit of Harry’s stomach.
“Yes! Yes, I would! I mean, they've been a lot better with the spells in place, and with Netty around, but honestly, yes, I'd rather--”
“I'm afraid I must slightly burst your bubble, as it were, Harry. There are powerful protective spells around your home, that also protect you elsewhere. You need to live there for at least two weeks out of the year to recharge those protections. But if Sirius is freed and finds somewhere acceptable for two people to live before the end of that two weeks, then you may stay the rest of the summer with him.”
“Oh. That's not nearly as bad as I feared. But, er... what if that doesn't happen by then? I know it's February, that's only about five months to have a trial and get a job and find a flat. And I read that trials can sometimes take a long time. At least, they do in the Muggle world.”
“Don't worry about that, Harry,” Sirius said. “Now that my parents and my brother are dead, and my cousin Bellatrix is in Azkaban, I inherit the Black family fortune. Including their house. Which is going to need a professional cleaning job after all these years, but that's fine, I'll have more than enough money to afford it.”
“Well that's a relief,” Harry said.
“Okay, this is taking enough time already,” Dawlish said. “I've got reports to file, and we've got to start the manhunt for Pettigrew. Which, by the way, it would help if you send us some copies of those photos, Mr. Potter. Anyway, say your goodbyes and let's go.”
Harry and Sirius hugged again, said their goodbyes, and Sirius went with the two aurors. They took him by the arms and side-along disapparated together with him.
“Well, Harry, time to return to the school. You need to get back to your common room, and I need to send an owl to make sure Cornelius is actually going to recall the dementors.”
Harry nodded, and the two of them headed back toward the castle together.
~
Since Harry had already set up a time to talk with the Slytherin girls about Lupin, he used that time to bring Draco in as well. He'd been up late last night telling Ron and Hermione, and was getting a bit tired of telling the story already, but Ron and Hermione would be there too, so they could help tell the story. Danzia would be there too, having gotten out of the hospital wing before breakfast, so she'd be able to tell them about her fight with Crabbe and Goyle.
“Yeah,” she said with a grin on her face after they asked her about it, “they won't forget that fight in a hurry. I was in the hospital wing with a bunch of broken bones and internal bleeding, but from what I was able to cajole out of Madam Pomfrey, they were hurt just as bad.”
“Wow,” Ron said, his eyes wide. “You took on Crabbe and Goyle both, at the same time, and hurt them as bad as they hurt you? Impressive.”
“Yeah, when you've got as many older male cousins as I do, it's second nature. Sometimes I pick fights with them just because I like a good tussle. It's a pity Hogwarts doesn't have a wrestling team. I know it's not the same as a proper brawl, but it'd be better than nothing. Hey, speaking of fighting, whatever happened to Dueling Club? Did they stop doing that this year?”
“I don't know,” Harry admitted. “I'd forgotten all about it, with everything that's been going on. I'll look into it. Apart from the first one last year, the rest went pretty well.”
“Yeah,” Antigone said. “Oh hey, with Sirius possibly getting his name cleared, and the dementors back in Azkaban, does that mean you get to go to Hogsmeade?”
“I don't know. I doubt I could get the Dursleys to sign the form, and there's only one Hogsmeade weekend left in the year anyway.”
“What about Sirius?” asked Danzia. “Couldn't he sign it? Might take a few days to get through the Ministry, as they're probably watching his mail pretty closely, but might be worth looking into.”
“That's a great idea, Danzia! I'll send a letter to him later and ask.”
“Good. Now that I've told you about my fight with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, I can tell you about the prophecy I heard from Trelawney.”
She proceeded to tell them all about it, in detail, because she had been surprised that Dumbledore had believed her so quickly, and knew she couldn't count on the same thing happening here, too.
“And Dumbledore believed you when you told him?”
“Yes. I was flabbergasted, to be honest. I just gave him the basic information about it, and all he asked about it was if I was sure she said 'tonight.' I told him that she repeated it twice, seemed to want to make sure whoever heard it knew it was happening before midnight.”
“Yes,” drawled Draco, “but Pettigrew wasn't exactly chained, was he? He was with Weasley by choice. He could have left whenever he wanted, even after finding out Black was loose. After all, a rat could easily escape Hogwarts even if Black was looking for him.”
“True, but Sirius is an animagus too, and he knew Pettigrew's scent. He could have hung around the entrance and kept lookout there if he wanted.”
“There were dementors by the gates, Harry,” Draco said, “at least until this morning, there were. He would've been mad to go so close to them. Plus, there are other ways into and out of the castle. Through the Forbidden Forest, for instance.”
“With acromantulas and centaurs and who knows what else in there? Possible, I suppose, but difficult and risky.”
“Black would've killed him, from the sound of it, if he'd caught up to the rat first. Maybe Pettigrew was hoping Black had given up.”
Danzia snorted with disbelief. “Not likely; clearly Pettigrew was smart enough to figure out that Sirius escaping not long after Pettigrew had his picture in the paper was no coincidence, I doubt he'd think Sirius would just give up. More likely he thought Sirius got killed by something on his way here. Like, eaten by an acromantula. Was he there with us when we were in there?”
Ron shook his head. “No, but he probably overheard us talking about it. Merlin, I still can't believe it. I might have nightmares for months.”
“Yeah. Just one more reason why there's an animagus registry: preventing creepy stuff like that,” Antigone said.
Everyone nodded fervently.
“But going back to Crabbe and Goyle, Danzia, should we hex them for you?”
“Oh no, I want to take care of it,” she said, something dangerous creeping into her voice.
“R-right. Okay, mate,” Ron said.
After that, the conversation mostly went back to MAC topics and other various things.
~
As it turned out, when he asked McGonagall, the Dueling Club had been continuing. Somehow, he and his friends had all missed the notices about it. He supposed that made sense, with the worry about Sirius Black being on the loose. Now that this was no longer an issue, he informed all his friends about this, and they all started going to it, even Luna. McGonagall was pleased by this; there hadn't been many people in the club during the first half of the year, and Harry and his friends made the club's numbers more than double.
Harry got another nasty letter from Draco's father after having sent a reply back saying that it really wasn't Lucius's business who his son was friends with. Harry had also pointed out that Voldemort was a classic serial killer but with magic, that he had no regard for the lives of other human beings and likely thought of everyone other than himself with no more regard than Lucius and many other purebloods thought of house elves. Harry's letter had also gone on to compare Voldemort to Adolf Hitler or Stalin at length, explaining how millions of Jews, homosexuals, transgender people, black people, political prisoners, and others had died at the cruel hands of the Nazis, and that Voldemort's reign would be similar, and that even if Draco went back to being a blood bigot, as soon as Mr. Malfoy made a big enough mistake, Voldemort would turn on him and treat him and his family with similar disdain and cruelty; perhaps a little better than others, given his blood status, but not by much. Harry suspected Mr. Malfoy knew this already, given his fear of Draco's association with Harry, but he'd thought it might be helpful to remind the man of this in a way that might nudge him over to defecting.
Mr. Malfoy had not responded well to this. His reply was quite polite and formal, but even Harry could practically feel the rage and malice oozing from the words. Among other things, he implied that he would withdraw Draco from Hogwarts and send him to Durmstrang instead if Harry didn't end the friendship. He also made a great many veiled threats, some of them so subtle that Harry only found out about them after Draco pointed them out to him.
Harry wrote back saying that even if he complied, Draco had made friends with many others, and while he was perfectly welcome to try to threaten Antigone, Danzia, Ron, and Hermione, among others that Harry insinuated existed but did not explicitly name, he wouldn't have a lot of luck convincing anyone, informed him that Draco had already started to regain some of his lost position in Slytherin, and that Lucius would have to be prepared for Harry, Sirius, Remus, and many of Harry's friends to hire solicitors to charge him with harassment and making threats. After this, Harry received only one more letter from Lucius, politely apologizing for losing his temper, claiming he had not intended any threats to anyone, and wishing him a pleasant rest of the school year, in a tone that even Harry knew implied Lucius hoped it would be Harry's last few months alive.
Harry and Draco shared these letters with their friends, Dumbledore, and Sirius, of course. Everyone was properly angry at Lucius, and most of them were amused by Harry's replies. Even Draco was amused, once he got past the feeling of panic anticipating his father's reactions.
Sirius did well in St. Mungo's, where the Ministry was keeping him pending the trial, which is where he likely would've been anyway, so bad was his dementor exposure and “trauma shock” as the Healers called it. Harry made a note to take Sirius to a Muggle psychologist for some help, as wizarding mind healers were not very good in his opinion.
His godfather's solicitor was pushing for a speedy trial, since it had already been 12 years, and they had enough evidence to release him, now that Harry's photos of Pettigrew had been dispersed and even printed in the Daily Prophet. A reporter named Rita Skeeter, who apparently rarely had anything good to say about anyone, had surprisingly been very complimentary of Sirius in her articles about the Pettigrew issue, but mostly – it seemed – as a way to make the Ministry look bad. But Harry only cared about the moment in the trial when he got to hear his godfather declared officially innocent of all charges.
~
Harry was at dinner on April first when he got another letter from Sirius. He opened it and read it at the table:
Dear Harry,
According to my solicitor, who has hired some people to help me get my life on track again as soon as I can after the trial assuming I get found not guilty, my parents' house is almost cleaned out now. I think they just have the drawing room left to get before they declare it habitable by humans. I'm still in St. Mungo's, recovering and awaiting the trial. They're trying some potions and charms to fix my memory, which has seriously degraded after twelve years in that horrible place. I don't think I'm nearly as bad as they think, memory wise. Anyway, the healers at St. Mungo's are trying to fix my memory, which has seriously degraded after... wait, what was I saying again?
Ha! Just kidding, pup. Gotcha! My mind is sharp as ever, I exaggerated things. The Healers are mildly concerned about memory issues, but not too much so. Honestly, I think half the damage they're worried about came from my childhood; my parents were pretty horrible, and my cousins weren't all that great, either. I'm still not sure what to do with Kreacher, my parents' old house elf. I don't want him around, but I'm afraid setting him free will kill him from shock. Though that might be best for him, honestly. Except that he might be too tough to die.
Kreacher hasn't taken to the cleaning well. He keeps trying to sneak things away, and he cried for six hours straight after they took my mother's portrait down. She had the blasted thing stuck to the wall with a sticking charm so powerful they had to remove and replace that section of the wall! When they're done, I'm going to decorate the whole place in Griffindor colors just to spite the lot of them.
Come to it, I might ask Dumbledore if I can sell Kreacher to Hogwarts. Not sure what use he'd be, but the other elves could keep an eye on him, keep him out of trouble. Yeah, I think I'll do that.
My solicitor is working on speeding up the criminal trial, but it's difficult because the event in question was so long ago. If that goes well, we plan on suing the Ministry for wrongful imprisonment, and holding me for 12 years without a trial. She's pretty sure they'll settle out of court rather than go to the expense of a civil trial. We're planning on asking for my Auror job back as part of the settlement, with the stipulation I don't have to work anywhere near dementors or Azkaban. As much as I'm angry at the Ministry, once I'm recovered enough, I want to go back to work, especially as Dumbledore thinks Pettigrew is going to help Voldemort get a new body. Only problem is that my mentor, Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody retired after the war was wrapped up, so I won't get to see him around. Oh well, I'll manage. But that'll be brilliant, won't it: Sirius Black, long thought an infamous mass murderer, working as an Auror. James would laugh his arse off at that!
I have included a signed copy of the permission slip for going to Hogsmeade. I understand there's one last Hogsmeade visit the weekend of June fifth. If I'm a free man by then, I'll be there to show you the sights. Assuming the trial goes in my favor, I get out of the hospital in time to be there for you, and my house should be re-furnished by then, so I'll be living there.
Let me know how you want your bedroom decorated, or if you want to do it yourself, or whatever. I don't know what you like and don't like. I suppose Griffindor colors might work, since you're in Griffindor and you see those colors all the time, but I don't know, that's also a very good reason why you might want something different for your room. Let me know, okay?
I may be getting rid of Kreacher, but I do need to get another house elf, because I can't cook to save my life. I can manage toast and scrambled eggs, but that's about it. Hey, you mentioned you freed an elf once, do you know if he needs or wants any work? He can remain free if he wants, I'll even pay him if he likes. Though now I think about it, I'm not sure how you'd even go about finding a freed house elf, since he's not bound to you in any way that I'm aware of, unless your getting him freed is good enough to call him. Try calling him sometime, and if it doesn't work, I'll add it to the list of things to have my solicitor look into.
Anyway, pup, I think that's about it. I'll keep you updated. See you on the last Hogsmeade weekend!
Love from,
Sirius
PS = Almost forgot, I've started paying my solicitor to help defend Buckbeak for Hagrid. It's the least I can do for him for keeping my motorbike safe all these years.
Harry made a mental note to try calling Dobby later, and put the letter away in his bag.
Later, in his dorm before writing a reply to Sirius, he tried it, tentatively.
“Dobby?”
Nothing.
“Doby the house elf!”
Still nothing.
“Dobby!”
Strike three. He shrugged, and reached for his quill, but another thought struck him.
“Netty?”
With a CRACK!, Netty appeared.
“Harry Potter is wanting something? How can Netty help?”
“You remember Dobby, right?”
She huffed disapprovingly. “I is remembering Dobby, sir. Why?”
“You wouldn't happen to be able to contact him, would you?”
Netty raised an eyebrow. “Why is you wanting Dobby, sir? He is making much nuisance of himself last school year. And now he is being free, and getting up to such hijinks, sir, as is unbecoming of a house-elf, from what Netty is hearing, sir.”
“So you've heard things about him since he was freed?”
“Yes, sir. Dobby is keeps trying to find work, and is finding no masters willing to hire him on. I is even hearing he is... he is wanting...” here, her face crinkled up like there was a skunk in the room, “paying, sir.” She shuddered with revulsion at the thought.
“Well try to see things from his point of view. For years, possibly longer, he was being abused by his masters. He doesn't want to risk being bound to abusive masters again.”
“Sixty years, sir. Dobby is being the Malfoy's house elf sixty years before he is being freed, sir.”
“He's over sixty years old?”
“Yes, sir. He is being sixty years old when he is being freed.”
“Wow. And I thought I had it bad living alone with the Dursleys for 10 years.”
Netty looked suddenly thoughtful at these words. Then, her expression softening, she sighed. “Netty is supposing it makes sense Dobby is wanting p-- is wanting fr--, er... is not willing to risk being bound again.” She looked shrewdly at Harry. “Does Mister Potter has an idea for where Dobby can finds work, sir?”
“Yes. My godfather and his house elf don't get along at all with each other, he's going to see about selling that elf to Hogwarts and getting a new elf, but he doesn't really agree with house elf slavery. He heard about Dobby from a letter I sent him, and is willing to pay Dobby. So, er... is there any way to contact Dobby?”
“Yes, sir. Bound house elves is higher up than freed elves, sir, so unless Dobby is being in the middle of being bound again, he is ought to come when Netty is calling him, sir.”
“Really? Why is that?”
“It is being so the masters can track down a freed elf if they is wanting to hire them, sir.”
“Oh, that makes sense. So, er... would you please call Dobby for me, Netty?”
She sighed again. “Yes, Harry Potter sir, Netty is doing that for you, even though Netty does not has to do that for students, and only because it is for you. DOBBY!”
A second later, there was another CRACK!, and Dobby appeared, looking bedraggled and bewildered.
“Dobby!” Harry said. “You look like you've been through heck!”
“Harry Potter, sir!” Dobby cried out excitedly, and started to jump toward him to hug him, but Netty grabbed him by the nape of his neck and kept him back.
“Dobby! You is filthy! You is living out in the outside, isn't you?”
Dobby nodded. “Yes. Dobby is wanting paying for his work, and is not finding any work.”
“Netty is not surprised at all. House elves is not working for pay.”
“Dobby is!” Dobby said proudly, folding his arms.
“And look where it is got you, Dobby! What is you been eating lately?”
“Dobby is finding food left out in odd, colored dishes outside Muggle houses. Don't worry, Harry Potter sir! Dobby is being very good at hiding himself from Muggles.”
“Dobby?” Harry asked carefully. “Did any of these colorful dishes happen to have a paw print shape on them in black? Maybe with a name?”
“Dobby is not knowing about a name, Harry Potter sir, as Dobby is not knowing how to read, but yes, some of them is having paw print shapes on them.”
“Pet food! You've been surviving all this time on cat food and/or dog food?!”
Dobby shrugged. “If Harry Potter is thinking that is what it is being, then Harry Potter is probably being right. But now you is mentioning it, Dobby is sometimes running from angry animals, and some of them is confined so they cannot give chase.”
Harry sighed, and wiped his face with his hands. “Dobby, my godfather is looking for a new house elf, and he's willing to pay. He just has to wait until after his trial, assuming he gets declared free as he should be. He knows you want to remain free, too, and he's fine with that. In fact, he prefers a free elf.”
Dobby stared incredulously at Harry. “Harry Potter is surely joking with Dobby?”
“No, I'm being serious. He really does. He inherited his parents' elf, but the two of them hate each other.”
“He is having a house elf he is not getting along with? May Dobby ask who is this elf?”
“An elf named Kreacher.”
Dobby's eyes went wide with terror, but sensing danger, Harry interrupted before Dobby could speak.
“It's a little complicated, but my godfather was falsely accused of being a murderer and traitor working for Vol—er, the dark lord. He's currently in St. Mungo's awaiting his trial, but the real traitor was caught but then escaped again, it was Peter Pettigrew! A whole bunch of people saw he was alive and heard him confess under veritaseum, so once he's been released from Azkaban after being given a trial and found innocent, he'll be able to hire you. He's a Black, but he was in Griffindor, and he hates blood purists and other bigots.”
“Is Harry Potter sir meaning Sirius Black?”
Harry turned; the question had come from Netty, not Dobby.
“Yes,” Harry said.
Her eyes went wide, but with astonishment, not fear. “He is being innocent this whole time? He is not killing all those people?”
“Exactly. The real killer was Peter Pettigrew, faking his own death. Everyone thought it was Sirius, because Pettigrew framed him, and Sirius was thought to have been my parents' Secret Keeper. But it was really Peter Pettigrew. You can verify it with Dumbledore if you'd like, Netty.”
“Okay, sir,” she said.
She disappeared with a CRACK!
“Dobby believes Harry Potter, sir. Dobby is not needing confirmation. Is Harry Potter's godfather being a nice man?”
“Well, he's willing to let you stay free and to pay you. And he's been nice to me when I've been around him this year. Don't ask, it's too much to get into now.”
“Okay, Harry Potter sir.”
“I think Dumbledore would also vouch for him. He can be a bit of a prankster, Sirius can, but it's all in good fun.”
“That is all being very good, Harry Potter sir. But, er... is it being good for Dobby to meet Sirius Black and make his own judgment before he is being Dobby's new master?”
“I don't see why not. I'll add it to the letter.”
“Thank you, Harry Potter sir. Dobby wants you to know he is not looking a gift Abraxan horse in the mouth, sir, but Dobby is wanting to make sure he is being with good masters, not like his old ones.”
Before Dobby could move, Harry grabbed him by the arm to stop him from punishing himself for speaking ill of the Malfoys.
“Thank you, Harry Potter sir.”
“Er... can I ask you another question, Dobby?”
“Anything, sir!”
“Why do you call me by my full name so often?”
“Oh, that. Well, Dobby's last master, er... he is wanting Dobby to say his whole name. Dobby is not knowing why, he is just obeying.”
“Ah, that explains it. Well you don't need to do that for me or Sirius. Netty just calls me 'sir' most of the time. Honestly, you don't even need to do that much, but, well... you do whatever you're most comfortable with, Dobby.”
Dobby saluted Harry. “Dobby understands, sir. Dobby is trying to not say sir's name so much. You is so considerate of Dobby's feelings, Dobby is repaying your kindness by being considerate of sir's feelings, too!”
Harry smiled at Dobby.
“Er... sir?”
“Yes, Dobby?”
“Now we is on that subject, Dobby is curious of something. Is there being a reason why sir never looks Dobby in the eye? Dobby is not normally noticing such a thing in wizards, for Dobby is being familiar with being overlooked and looked down on, but Harry Potter is such a great and kind wizard... is Dobby doing something that displeases Harry Potter?”
“No no, Dobby, I'm so sorry for the misunderstanding. You haven't done anything wrong. It's just... looking in people's eyes is difficult for me. I do the same with other wizards and witches, and with Muggles. It's... it's not painful, per se, but there's a very strong pressure to look away, when I make eye contact. It's very uncomfortable to me. Like it's too intimate to do on a whim, or to do very often.”
Dobby nodded. “Dobby understands, sir. Dobby feels the same way whenever he is making eye contact with wizards by mistake. It is also different, though, Dobby thinks. Because wizards is your equal, but isn't Dobby's.”
Harry, feeling bad for Dobby, crouched down to Dobby's level and looked him straight in his large tennis-ball shaped green eyes, holding it as long as he could before turning away. Dobby was so touched by the gesture that he broke down crying, just in time for Netty to return.
“Dobby, what is you blubbering for?” she asked, but in a playful tone.
“It's too complicated to go into now, Netty. Maybe Dobby can tell you. I take it you got confirmation?”
“Yes, it is confirmed, sir.”
“Good to hear. Now, if it's allowed, would you help get Dobby to somewhere he can bathe. Oh, and, uh...” he took a pair of old, worn trousers out of his trunk and shrunk them to Dobby's size. “Er... I guess you couldn't take these for Dobby to cover his nakedness with, without being freed--”
“Good to hear. Now, if it's allowed, would you help get Dobby to somewhere he can bathe. Oh, and, uh...” he took a pair of old, worn trousers out of his trunk and shrunk them to Dobby's size. “Er... I guess you couldn't take these for Dobby to cover his nakedness with, without being freed--”
“Begging sir's pardon, but sir is a student. House elves is to take orders from students, unless we think them unsafe or they breaks rules, but students is not our masters. Only the headmaster or deputy headmistress is being able to free us. We can takes clothes from you without problems, sir. Just don't makes a habit of giving clothes directly to us, sir, it is being offensive to try to free us.”
“Oh, okay. Well this is for Dobby. He won't want to wear a tea towel, I'm thinking.”
“Netty is thinking you is right,” she said, taking the shrunken trousers from him. “Come, Dobby, you is more dirt than elf right now.”
~
Sirius was awoken from his nap in Saint Mungo's by a knock on his door. Once he got his wits about him, he said, “Who is it?”
The door opened a crack. “It's Healer Davison. Your solicitor, Ms. Pennyroyal, is here to talk with you, Mr. Black.”
Sirius looked at the clock on the wall.
“At nearly midnight? I was sleeping.”
“She says it's urgent.”
“Fine, let her in then.”
The healer moved away, and soon his solicitor came in, carrying a briefcase that he knew had copies of every single file she might need for her work contained in its infinite depths. From his position on the bed, she seemed tall, her chestnut-brown hair and pleasant face looking down at him in the bed, but he knew she was short enough that in his youth he could have picked her up with one arm and carried her over his shoulder. She was also a bit plump. Lily had shown him and James a Disney cartoon called Sleeping Beauty once, and Ms. Pennyroyal looked like the short, fat fairy Merryweather from that movie, complete with the pleasant face. Despite that, and despite her normally pleasant personality, he knew her well enough by now that he'd sooner wrestle a manticore than try to pick her up without permission. And she looked grim and professional at the moment, projecting the sort of intensity she normally reserved for the courtroom.
“Mr. Black, you're awake. Good.”
“I am now that you woke me up. What's so important you're here at almost midnight to tell me about it?”
“One moment.”
She turned and cast locking spells and anti-eavesdropping spells on the door and around the room, before turning back to him.
“The cleaners found something very dangerous in your parents' house that I felt you should know about immediately. I have already informed the Ministry and the Aurors. I will also be contacting Albus Dumbledore about it, with your permission. I feel it necessary, though, given the severity of the situation, and I believe you'll agree it was necessary, once I brief you about it.”
“I know my parents had a lot of dangerous stuff, but what could be so dangerous that the Ministry, the Aurors, and Dumbledore all need to know about it?”
“Since you were an Auror, and hope to be one again, I can tell you. Do you know what a horcrux is?”
Sirius went as pale as a corpse at the sound of the word.
“A-- a WHAT? A horcrux? WHAT? WHY? HOW? Shit... it's not my mother's, is it?”
“We don't yet know for sure who it belongs to, but given it's been cast into a locket that once belonged to Salazar Slytherin, we have a shrewd idea about the identity of the owner.”
“Voldemort?” he asked. He was intrigued to note she was one of the few people he'd ever met who didn't flinch at the name.
“Exactly. We don't know how he found it, but I understand from Mr. Dumbledore that Riddle was related to Slytherin via his mother, Merope Gaunt.”
“What was it doing in my parents' house?”
“That is an excellent question, Mr. Black, and one the Ministry is looking into. They've taken your elf, Kreacher, in for questioning. But obviously it's going to be impossible to get anything out of him without your help.”
“Kreacher? Well I suppose that makes sense, he was there. I don't know what he could possibly tell you, though.”
“We know he knows something. When we tried to take the locket away, he began crying very loudly, and banging his head on the floor.”
“Shall I call him here?”
“Yes. That is one reason I wanted to speak with you.”
“Kreacher!” Sirius called.
With a CRACK!, a very dirty, old, and wrinkly elf wearing rags appeared, crying and banging his head on the floor. His bulbous, snout-like nose was bleeding.
“Kreacher! Stop hurting yourself!”
Immediately, the elf froze. Then he relaxed a little before snapping his head around to glare at Sirius.
“The filthy blood traitor is back then, is he? Should've known he was the reason my mistress's house has been invaded and looted by common criminals!”
“It's called cleaning, Kreacher, perhaps you've heard of it?”
Muttering loud enough to be heard but quiet enough to pretend he couldn't be heard, Kreacher said, “What Mistress would say if she knew he was back, she always hated him, the foul little beast.”
“You will stop muttering right now and tell us why you were so upset at the sight of Slytherin's locket.”
“Kreacher does not know what you mean, Master. Kreacher knows of no 'Slytherin's locket,' Master.”
“The locket they took out of the house earlier, that made you start crying and beating your head on the floor when it was taken away.”
“It was gold, and had a shape like an S on it,” Ms. Pennyroyal added.
“Yes, what she said. Well? Answer me!”
“Kreacher was upset because the family treasures were being looted, Master, that is all.”
“Tell me the truth or we will destroy the locket!”
Kreacher stared impassively at Sirius. “Whatever Master feels is best.”
“Okay, different approach. Kreacher, tell me the truth of how that locket came to be in the house to begin with.”
Kreacher jerked, and frowned, fighting the geas he was under as a bound house elf, but he failed. He shuddered again, and began to cry.
“M-m-master R-regulus!” Kreacher sobbed. “He b-brought it! He gave it to Kreacher!”
Sirius's face grew tight with anger. “Regulus!” he spat. “I should've known! He always-- wait, what? Just a moment... Kreacher, did you say Regulus gave you that locket?”
“Y-y-yes!”
“When did he give it to you? Tell me.”
“M-master Regulus gave it t-to K-Kreacher, many years ago!”
Sirius and his solicitor looked at each other in confusion for a moment.
“Tell me why he gave it to you. What did he want you to do with it?”
“He t-told Kreacher to d-destroy it, but Kreacher failed! Nothing would scratch it! Kreacher tired EVERYTHING!” The elf began sobbing into his hands with renewed vigor.
Sirius softened. “It's not your fault, Kreacher. Nothing short of basilisk venom or fiendfyre would have hurt that locket. My idiot brother clearly had no idea he'd given you an impossible task.”
Kreacher stopped crying, sniffing a bit, and looked up at Sirius. “Kreacher couldn't have destroyed it without basilisk venom or fiendfyre?”
“That's right, Kreacher. It's an immensely powerful dark object. House elf magic is no match for it. Very little is a match for it.”
Kreacher wiped his eyes with the back of his hands.
“Kreacher, tell us the whole story, from the beginning. Help us understand what my brother was doing in his final days.”
The old elf blinked, and actually smiled for a moment, before looking very sad again.
It took nearly a half an hour to get the whole story out of Kreacher, for he kept bursting into tears again. What they heard was horrifying. Kreacher had been forced by Voldemort to test the defenses of a secret chamber that was no doubt the hiding place for the horcrux, and had nearly died. He'd only come back because Regulus had ordered him beforehand to come back.
Kreacher and Regulus had always been very close. Upon finding out what Voldemort had done to his best friend, Regulus worked out that the thing placed in the cup at the center of the chamber had been a horcrux. Regulus turned on his master, took Kreacher with him back to the chamber, drank the horrible potion that protected the locket himself rather than hurt his best friend, gave the locket to Kreacher, ordered him to go home and destroy it, then got pulled into the water by inferi.
“Idiot. Why didn't he go to Dumbledore with this information? Damn fool got himself killed for nothing. Bloody locket went from one hiding place to another, and all this time we could've been free of that monster if Regulus had just taken steps to get this locket and the knowledge of what it is to Dumbledore!”
“Well don't worry, Mr. Black, we know now. We can take this information to Dumbledore. He'll have some way to destroy it.”
“Yes,” Sirius said, looking over at Kreacher, who was once more in tears. “Then we can avenge Regulus Black and all the others who died because of Voldemort.”
Ms. Pennyroyal nodded. “I'll head over there now.”
“Bring me some pastries when you come back in the morning, if you'd be so kind. The food around here is horrible.”
She laughed. “Will do, Mr. Black, will do.”
Once she left, Sirius got out of bed and knelt down beside Kreacher.
“Come here, Kreacher. Listen, I... I'm sorry for how I treated you growing up. I hated living there, I hated my parents' pureblood mania. But now I see I was wrong to hate you, you were as you were because of how my parents were. You and Regulus... you know, he really was an idiot. Not his fault, though. I'm glad you were there for him, Kreacher; he needed you. And thanks to his love for you, he finally pulled his head out of his arse and did something noble and brave for once, even if it was also stupid and got him killed. He's a hero, for trying to stop that madman.”
This was... a bit much. Kreacher stared at him, wide-eyed with disbelief and pride for his lost master, then burst into fresh wails of tears. But he let Sirius hold him like a man comforting a frightened child, crying into Sirius's robes.
Endnote 1: So there we are. I wasn't entirely sure where I was going with this, whether Sirius would be free or a fugitive still, but I'm a sucker for Sirius being free, so that's going to happen now, since I found a way to prove his innocence and still have Pettigrew out there to find Voldemort.
Also, the whole Kreacher/Sirius thing was unplanned. But once the locket was discovered, things took an unexpected twist and I went with it. I probably should've seen this coming once I decided Sirius was going to have his parents' old place professionally cleaned out.
I was also going to end book 3 here, but there's enough material for at least one more chapter before moving on to book 4.
Endnote 2: I'm torn about something. I would be astonished if canon Luna weren't on the autism spectrum, she shows so many signs of it, but there's already two autistic characters in this fic, so I don't know if I should say Luna is one, too. Granted, autistic people are, at least in my own experience, more common than most people think they are, and here in Portland, Oregon I am friends with at least two or three other autistic people. We tend to find our own kind quickly, since non-autistic people tend to be difficult for autistic people to get along with.(1) Britain is large, a lot larget than Portland, and Hogwarts appears to include students from Ireland and Scotland and Wales as well, so even if the wizarding community is small, three autistic Hogwarts students isn't out of the realm of possibility. Especially when Harry is a half-blood, Hermione is a Muggleborn, and I'm not sure about Luna. *Goes to look it up.* Okay, the wiki doesn't know either; it says “pure-blood or half-blood.”
Anyway, if I do end up going that route, it'll be a slower reveal. I'll also have to think about how both the Lovegoods would feel about getting a diagnosis from a Muggle doctor. Just off the top of my head, it occurs to me that Xeno might be the kind to not want a label for Luna, and Luna might agree with that. If anyone has any thoughts on Luna being on the autism spectrum or how she or her dad might react to the suggestion of being diagnosed, let me know. Please be courteous, as I don't have much tolerance for jerks in my inbox, and will block people if I feel they're being too rude.
(1) = Non-autistics tend to be at least as bothersome to autistic people as autistic people seem to bother most non-autistics. I do have plenty of non-autistic friends, so it's not a given, just a tendency.
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Three.
Or, "Aspie Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban."
Note: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made. Not by me, anyway.
Note 2: There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though. And the more this deviates from canon, the less that will happen. But some descriptions and things like that are too good to skip or try to reword.
Note 3: Between this being long, my having had to rewrite parts of it, and the fact I had a cold for two weeks starting on the ninth, that's why this has taken so long to get done.
Part of the reason for the rewrite is funny, even; I was so caught up in writing one night, despite being tired, that I actually got to a point where I couldn't remember where the prosecuting attorney was going with his argument. It's a pity, too; the PA was a bit of an evil badass, not wanting to give up despite overwhelming evidence of Sirius's innocence, but he only got as far as he did because I was too tired to realize he was fighting a losing battle.
Also, I apologize if this is based a lot off American TV trials, I've never been part of an actual trial, except for being present at the sentencing part. Almost was a witness for one, but they never called me up, so I don't even have any real trials, American or British, from which to gain experience.
Chapter Nine: The Trial of Sirius Black
With a slight pop, a short, fat, and pleasant looking woman in navy blue robes appeared at the gates of Hogwarts. In the same instant she appeared, she shouted “Expecto patronum!” and a wolverine made of silver light came barreling out of her wand, ready to tear into the dementors she'd been expecting were there. When it found there weren't any, it turned its head both ways as though to make sure, then bared its teeth in frustration and winked out.
“So Fudge finally recalled them, did he? Good,” she said to nobody.
The gates of the school were, of course, closed, as it was past midnight. She re-conjured her wolverine patronus and sent it up to the school with a message, then stood there humming a jaunty tune as she waited.
A few minutes later, she spotted a familiar face coming down to open the gates.
“Lilith Pennyroyal? What are you doing here this late?”
“Professor Sprout, I'm here on urgent business. I must speak with Dumbledore at once.”
“Well alright. But you know you could've flooed into his office.”
“It's not that urgent. Plus, that would be quite rude to do without being invited first.”
“True,” Professor Sprout said, opening the gates. “Well come on in, Lilith.”
She did, and as soon as the gates were closed behind her, the two women walked together up to the castle.
“So, Professor Sprout, how's my old House doing?”
“Oh, we're getting on as usual. How are you? I hear a lot about you, you know. It's always amusing to hear tales about you, people either love you or they're terrified of you. Or both, now that I think of it.”
Ms. Pennyroyal laughed. “I guess I'm doing Hufflepuff proud, then?”
“Quite. But you didn't answer my question.”
“Business is good. I keep getting angry letters from the old pureblood law firms, but it's not my fault if they're losing business to a law firm owned and operated by a half-blood and a Muggleborn.”
“How is Valerie, anyway?”
“Quite well. She and her wife are expecting their first child soon. Eight months pregnant, and Valerie has hardly slowed down at all at work.”
Professor Sprout chuckled. “Oh yes, that sounds like Valerie alright.”
“Well,” Ms. Pennyroyal said when they got to Dumbledore's office, “it was fun catching up, Professor, but I have business to attend to.”
“Of course. Hope to see you later.”
Lilith turned to the gargoyle as Professor Sprout left and said, “Lilith Pennyroyal with urgent business for Dumbledore. Tell him it concerns You-Know-Who.”
The gargoyle nodded, but didn't otherwise move. She waited, examining her nails as she did. Soon enough, the gargoyle moved aside, and she got on the moving staircase, but climbed up it as it moved because she was too impatient to just stand there.
“Come in,” said a tired voice as she knocked on the door. She opened it and saw the headmaster, still old, wearing a nightgown and cap with a fuzzy puffball on the tip, which drooped comically. Both were white with little printed blue stars.
“You said you had urgent business with me, Lilith?”
Lilith considered Dumbledore. It was hard to read the man, but she'd had years of practice. She'd been the foremost troublemaker in this school until James Potter and Sirius Black had arrived, after all.
“Is this room secure from eavesdroppers?”
Dumbledore waved his wand a bit, then said, “It is now.”
“Good. You might want to sit down.”
Dumbledore's blue eyes twinkled. This was just like her, after all; telling him to sit down in his own office, herself sitting in a chair in front of his desk without being invited to do so first.
“I'll get right to brass tacks, Dumbledore. The cleaners Sirius Black hired to make his parents' house habitable by humans again found what we believe is one of Voldemort's horcruxes.”
Dumbledore looked both scared and excited, to Lilith's expert eye.
“You found one of them?”
She blanched, her jaw dropping. “Wuh-One of them?! He has more than one?”
Dumbledore chuckled darkly. “Lilith Pennyroyal, speechless. It's a shame it took something so grave to achieve the effect. Yes, he had more than one of them. I take it you know occlumency?”
Lilith recovered her wits and snorted derisively. “Of course I do. What kind of solicitor would I be if I didn't?”
“A very poor one, of course, which I know from your reputation that you are not. With that in mind, then, I can say I believe he made at least three horcruxes.”
“Three?!”
“Or more. I knew, when no body was left behind at Godric's Hollow, that there had to be at least one horcrux, but when I found one of them, and found that it had been weaponized, I grew very disturbed.”
“A weaponized horcrux?! What did it do?”
“It was a diary, which tricked a young girl into giving enough of herself to it that it began to possess her. It almost killed her and resurrected itself before it was destroyed by young Harry Potter and his friends.”
“Children destroyed a horcrux?!”
“Yes. They should really not have been down there, but they figured out what the monster was and, well... they did have adult supervision, after a fashion. They took Gilderoy Lockhart down there with them.”
She snorted derisively again. “That idiot? They must've taken him down as a human shield, then.”
“Perhaps. Anyway, back to business. What makes you think the horcrux that was found is one of Voldemort's?”
“It's a large gold locket with an S on it. Slytherin's locket. I heard Tom Riddle, AKA Voldemort, was related to Slytherin via his mother.”
“Correct. I would ask where you heard that, but I imagine it's confidential client information?”
“Yes.”
“Where is the horcrux currently?”
“At the Ministry, awaiting confirmation you have a means of destroying a horcrux.”
“I do. During the fight with the Tom Riddle from the diary horcrux, Harry Potter and his friend Antigone both got swords from the Founders in the Chamber of Secrets, from the Sorting Hat I sent them, once I realized where they'd gone. Since I couldn't get into the Chamber, I sent Fawkes.”
Lilith remembered. She'd seen Dumbledore's phoenix often enough before.
“They killed the basilisk, and later I was able to go down into the Chamber and strip the basilisk's body for parts, the money going into the school's coffers.”
“How did you get down there? I heard only a parseltongue could get in there.”
“Luckily, some words in parseltongue have been saved inside of runes over the centuries. Once I knew where the entrance of the Chamber was, it was simple enough to use a Speaking Stone programmed with the parseltongue word for 'open' on the entrance and subsequent doors.”
“Okay. But what's the relevance of stripping the basilisk for parts?”
“Ah yes, that. I saved some basilisk venom for my own use. Some of which I poured into the sword of Godric Griffindor. Being goblin-made, it was not destroyed. In fact, it imbibed the basilisk venom, and is now a useful weapon against horcruxes. I did not do the same to Slytherin's sword, not knowing enough about its history to risk attempting it.”
“Slytherin had a sword too? Doesn't really sound like him.”
“Oh, of course it was like him. The Founders were alive at a time of war between the magical and Muggle worlds. A flaming sword would have made an excellent weapon against superstitious Muggles in a time when Christianity was spreading across Europe. Slytherin himself may not have needed the weapon, but he could have given it to a student who was less proficient at magic as he was, or else as a back-up weapon if his wand was lost.”
“Interesting. Anyway, should I call for the horcrux to be brought to your office to be destroyed?”
“Yes, we should get to that as soon as possible.”
She took a small mirror out of a pouch on a belt around her robes and spoke into it.
“Valerie, send the Auror over with the locket.”
“Right away, Lilith.”
A minute later, green flames appeared in the fireplace, and Kingsley Shacklebolt stepped through, holding a locked box in his hands.
“Bring it here, Kingsley. Yes, set it on the desk. I shall get the sword now.”
Another minute or two later, they had the locket laying on a steel plate to protect the desk. Dumbledore had secured the locket with a spell and stood ready with the sword in hand. Shacklebolt had the Speaking Stone in his hand, ready to activate it.
“Now!”
Shacklebolt activated the Speaking Stone, and it hissed in parseltongue. Responding, the locket opened up, a small and ugly eye inside. Mist came out of the locket and formed into the appearance of a 14-year-old girl with blond hair and eyes the same distinctive blue as Albus Dumbledore's.
“Albus! You--”
Dumbledore interrupted the apparition by stabbing the eye with the sword. The horcrux screamed, the apparition and the mist it was made of disappeared, and all that was left of the locket was a smoking ruin.
“Was that--”
“It is done,” Dumbledore said tersely. “Kingsley, dispose of its remains for me. Don't let Voldemort find out it has been destroyed. I believe there to be at least one more horcrux we haven't yet... that we haven't destroyed yet.”
Kingsley nodded, and used his wand to hover the remains of the locket back into the lock box.
“Lilith, you are dismissed. You may leave by the Floo once Kingsley has left.”
Without waiting for her response, he put the sword of Griffindor back into place, his whole body tense. He was upset about the apparition, clearly, and she wasn't going to ask, so she waited. Soon, she was exiting via the green flames.
“Pennyroyal and Reece law firm,” she said, disappearing in a whirl of green flame.
~
Monday afternoon after classes, Harry, Antigone, Ron, and Hermione went down to Hagrid's hut to see how he was doing. Harry was surprised Hermione was coming, as she looked exhausted and dead on her feet, and she'd been stressing out more and more with each passing week since January, but she'd insisted on coming along. When they got there, they knocked on the door, and they could hear Fang barking, but Hagrid didn't answer.
“Hagrid! Open up! It's Harry!”
They knocked and shouted a few more times before a voice from behind them startled them.
“I'm o'er here, yeh lot.”
“Hagrid! We...”
Harry had trailed off because Hagrid wasn't dressed in his normal garb, nor was he wearing his horrible hairy suit and ugly yellow tie. He was in proper formal robes, which were black robes under a long navy blue suit jacket with silver buttons. He was also wearing a black tie made of what looked like silk, and large black shiny leather shoes with white spats. But oddest of all, his hair was sleekly slicked back like Draco's, but Hagrid's normal salt-and-pepper color. Also, his beard was trimmed up to look nice and even.
“Wha ch'yall starin at, yeh lot?”
“You, Hagrid!” Harry said.
“How...? Why...?” said Antigone. “Why're you dressed like you're going to a formal ball?”
“Sirius got me a new s'licitor. Yeh shoulda seen the look on 'er face when she saw me in meh other suit, looked like she couldn' decide whether ter laugh or cry. She took me shoppin' today before the hearin' fer Buckbeak. Wanted me ter look smart fer the hearin'. Tailored suit an' robes, this is.”
“Your hair, Hagrid! How...?”
“Sleakeazy's Hair Potion. She musta bought out the whole stock they 'ad. Ne'er seen a clerk so pleased as that before.”
He grinned, and a bit of his hair popped up from its potion prison. However much they'd used on him, it was clearly losing its effectiveness.
“She tried me on some Muggle hair gel first, seein' as I'm, well, my hair's resistant ter magic, but it didn' work. Musta used a whole gallon of it on meh hair, an' it jes kept poppin' back up, so Sleakeazy's it was.”
“Well, you look nice. Very nice.” Hermione said.
“Amen to that. You clean up well, Hagrid.”
“Thanks, Antigone. Anyway, glad yer all here, I got great news!”
“What is it?”
“Buckbeak got off! Took Ms. Pennyroyal all afternoon, arguin' with the Committee fer the Disposal o' Dangerous Creatures, makin' lots o' arguments, citin' loads o' old cases relevant ter the case, collected eyewitness accounts, too, of the day it happened. Exhaustin', it was, and I was scared an' nervous even with the Calming Draughts she gave me, but we got through it, and Beaky gets ter live!”
“Congratulations, Hagrid!”
“That's amazing!”
“Yay!”
Hagrid sniffed, wiping a tear from his eyes with a white lace hankerchief. “Thanks, yeh lot. I dunno what I'da done without Sirius gettin' me the help o' Ms. Pennyroyal. Anyway, yeh wait out here, I gotta go change inter somethin' more comfy before I let yeh in.”
They nodded, and he went inside, with cries of “Back, Fang! Back!”
Harry turned to the others.
“Eyewitness accounts? So that's what that thing with the memories was, last Friday.”
“What thing with the memories?” asked Antigone.
“This short, fat woman with a strangely familiar face came around the school last Friday collecting memories about the Buckbeak incident with her wand. She pulled something white and thread-like out of our heads, and put them in these glass vials she had.”
“Oh yeah, I recognize that now,” Antigone said. “My dad told me about that, it's a way of collecting evidence. There's a spell that can make copies of memories so they're viewable by other people in something called a pensieve. It's pretty cool magic.”
“That does sound pretty cool. I bet those pensieve things are expensive, though.”
“Oh yeah. They cost a fortune. You could probably buy one, Harry, but most people could never afford one in their lives.”
Hermione looked fascinated, and as they waited for Hagrid to finish, she asked Antigone a bunch of questions about it until he finally opened the door and invited them in again.
~
It took his solicitor until the end of May to get Sirius's case sorted out at last so he could have the criminal trial he'd been denied the first time. On May thirtieth, he had a trial for the first time ever. Harry, Ron, and McGonagall had been ordered to attend to testify, and since they also had to go in to talk with Ms. Pennyroyal in her office on Diagon Alley the day before, they got both days off while someone took over McGonagall's classes. But as Ms. Pennyroyal mentioned on that first day, the trial could take two days or even longer, maybe even a week.
Harry's second impressions of her weren't much different from what his first impressions had been; he was unsure if this woman was up to the task of being Sirius's solicitor, even though she'd won Hagrid's case, as she looked far too kind and gentle to be effective at her job. Though the pattern of her movements regarding her briefcase and its contents testified that she at least knew how to file paperwork. And the way she talked with them all day seemed to indicate she knew what she was talking about, even if a lot of it went over his head.
Ron didn't have any nice clothes to wear for the trial, and Harry's nice clothes were Muggle and wouldn't be suitable for this situation, so Ms. Pennyroyal got them both some semi-formal robes for the trial. They weren't anywhere near as spiffy as Hagrid's had been, but then, they were just witnesses. The rest of the trip, aside from lunch at a restaurant in Diagon Alley, consisted of Ms. Pennyroyal and an Auror collecting Pensieve memories from all of them concerning the recent Peter Pettigrew incident, and other relevant memories.
Because they were all going together with Dumbledore, McGonagall came and got them after breakfast and escorted them to a changing room for them to get ready for the trial, then up to Dumbledore's office so they could all Floo to the Ministry. Harry almost didn't fit in the fireplace at first because his knapsack was in the way; he'd brought it because Ms. Pennyroyal had explained that the witnesses weren't allowed in until it was their turn to testify, and not allowed to leave the Ministry except for lunch in case they needed to be brought back up on the stand, so there would be a lot of waiting. Harry had brought some books and other things to entertain himself and Ron with.
When they popped out of the Floo into the Ministry, Dumbledore took off ahead of them and McGonagall used her wand to siphon the soot off of their nice clothes. As she did this, Harry looked around the atrium of the Ministry in awe. Ron, for his part, looked unimpressed, even bored; doubtless, he'd been here loads of times with his father. But that didn't spoil it for Harry. The atrium was huge, a splendid hall with a highly polished, dark-wood floor. The peacock-blue ceiling was inlaid with gleaming golden symbols that were continually moving and changing like some enormous heavenly notice board. The walls on each side were paneled in shiny dark wood and had many gilded fireplaces set into them. Every few seconds a witch or wizard would emerge from one of the left-hand fireplaces with a soft whoosh; on the right-hand side, short queues of wizards were forming before each fireplace, waiting to depart.
Halfway down the hall was a fountain. A group of golden statues, larger than life-size, stood in the middle of a circular pool. Tallest of them all was a noble-looking wizard with his wand pointing straight up in the air. Grouped around him were a beautiful witch, a centaur, a goblin, and a house-elf. The last three were all looking adoringly up at the witch and wizard. Glittering jets of water were flying from the ends of the two wands, the point of the centaur’s arrow, the tip of the goblin’s hat, and each of the house-elf’s ears, so that the tinkling hiss of falling water was added to the pops and cracks of Apparators and the clatter of footsteps as hundreds of witches and wizards, most of whom were wearing glum, early-morning looks, strode toward a set of golden gates at the far end of the hall.
“Move it!” shouted someone as they almost ran into Harry and Ron, who had been standing too near the Floo. The two boys quickly moved away, following McGonagall, who checked their clothes for soot again.
Since they were visitors, but had not come through the visitor's entrance, they had to get a visitor's badge from the security kiosk manned by a badly shaven wizard in peacock-blue robes who looked up as they approached and put down his Daily Prophet.
“I’m escorting two visitors,” said McGonagall, gesturing at the two of them with bobs of her head.
In a bored voice, the wizard waved something like a golden television aerial over them each, directing Ron and Harry to hand over their wands temporarily to be registered. He did this by putting them on a strange brass device that looked like a set of scales with only one tray. The device printed out the details of their wands, including how long they'd been in use, and they got their wands back, along with visitor's badges that had their names and 'Criminal trial' printed on them.
The bored wizard had just noticed Harry's scar when McGonagall whisked them away toward one of the lifts with the golden grilles.
“How come you didn't need to register your wand, Professor?” Harry asked curiously as they headed toward the lift.
“Because, Mr. Potter, as the deputy headmistress of Hogwarts, I am a regular visitor here. They know me very well. Besides which, I have taught so long that most of these people would recognize me at once anyway.”
Harry nodded at this, and because of this, almost got knocked over when she suddenly stopped. Ms. Pennyroyal was waiting for them by the lift.
“Ah good, you're here. Follow me, please.”
They all got into the lift, and Harry silently watched the people and flying memos until they got down to the bottom-most level of the Ministry. The cool female voice that had been telling them the details of each floor said simply “Department of Mysteries” when they stopped and got off.
“As this is a fairly serious criminal trial, they're holding it down in one of the old courtrooms,” Ms. Pennyroyal explained. “Courtroom ten, in fact, and the lifts do not go down that far.”
True to her word, they had to go down a bunch of stairs until they got to a corridor where an unfamiliar wizard was standing guard over an open door, apparently stopping people to make sure only those here for the trial were allowed in. But once he saw their badges, he let them into another corridor, long and lined with benches and chairs.
Waiting at one of these benches was Professor Lupin.
“Harry, Ron, Professor McGonagall,” he said warmly, “come sit by me, will you?”
“Of course, Professor Lupin,” McGonagall said, and they did.
“Do you know why exactly they're having the trial down here, Lilith?” Lupin asked.
“Fudge cited the size as the primary concern. There will be a great many people here testifying, it seems.”
“Surely not that many?”
“Well, they also need the full Wizengamot for... certain kinds... of criminal trials. The charges are, after all, fairly serious.” The look on her face as she said this told them not to dare making serious/Sirius jokes.
“Anyway,” Ms. Pennyroyal continued, “you lot need to wait out here. There is a restroom down that way on the left. Don't go to the right, that door is usually locked. There is a drinking fountain down there as well if you need any water. Do not leave this corridor until I give you the go-ahead, you will need to be retrieved quickly when they call for you. They will wait if you're in the restroom, but do try not to take too long in there, okay?”
They all nodded their understanding.
“Good. Now I must go visit with my client. See you later!” She waved and bustled off.
The wait was boring and yet full of anxiety. Even with himself, Ron, and the two teachers there, not many words were exchanged, because everyone was anxious for how this would go. All of them knew that what they said in there would be critical to Sirius's freedom or lack thereof, and even though Ms. Pennyroyal was highly optimistic, that didn't mean they couldn't still say the wrong thing. Also, the prosecutor would be brutal, questioning everything he could, doing his best to get Sirius declared guilty, because that was his job. So Harry tried reading, but after a while he started noticing he was reading the same paragraph over and over again without taking in a word. It didn't help that Ron started playing Exploding Snap, so anxious himself that there were a great deal more explosions than usual. Harry put down his book and fidgeted with the necklace Luna had given him while he waited.
A dozen or more people came in a few at a time for several minutes, taking seats and relieving the monotony as they did, though once they were all settled, the most they contributed aside from even more tension was a few whispered conversations here or there.
Other people would come and go, probably clerks and other Ministry employees as well as solicitors. Ms. Pennyroyal kept coming in and out of both the corridor and the room the trial was in, often with other people, most notable of which was a pregnant woman dressed in the same navy robes as Ms. Pennyroyal. One time, Harry saw Ms. Pennyroyal come out of the room and almost run into an unfamiliar wizard, tall and dignified, with olive skin, black hair, and a goatee. Something about him reminded Harry of Lucius Malfoy, even though they looked nothing alike.
When they passed each other, he and Ms. Pennyroyal nodded at each other politely with forced smiles. As soon as he wasn't looking anymore, Ms. Pennyroyal's expression grew dark with dislike and a surprising intensity. Before, she'd reminded Harry of a much younger and cleaner Professor Sprout, but now she reminded him more of a plump, female Professor Snape. At least, until her expression went back to its previous pleasantness.
It was impossible to tell if the trial had even begun yet, as they hadn't seen a judge or any Wizengamot members going into or coming out of the room, at least not by the main entrance. It seemed they had some private entrance, and the main entrance was for solicitors and witnesses, as they never saw any sign of Sirius, either.
Harry was still fidgeting with his necklace when a new group of people came into the corridor, and went right straight into the courtroom. One of them stood particularly out of the crowd, a curly-haired blond woman in magenta robes and ridiculous jeweled spectacles like something out of the 1950's. Her fingers had red nails so long they were basically talons, and she clutched a crocodile-skin handbag.
“Rita Skeeter,” McGonagall told him when she noticed who he was looking at. “Horrible woman, rarely a kind word for anyone. Writes the most horrible garbage, yellow journalism of the worst sort. Works for The Daily Prophet. Don't let her corner you into an interview, Mr. Potter. Just politely decline to comment if she asks you anything.”
“Understood. Thanks, Professor.”
At the tail end of the reporters was a familiar cross-eyed man in canary-yellow robes, his hair white as bleached bone but faintly silvery. Xenophilius Lovegood almost walked by Harry without stopping, but then did a double-take and beamed at Harry.
“Harry Potter, nice to meet you again! Luna keeps telling me all sorts of good things about you.”
“Thank you, sir. You here to cover the trial for The Quibbler?”
“Yes indeed, young man, yes indeed. I am quite excited to see whether or not the Ministry has yet uncovered the truth that young Mr. Black is in fact Stubby Boardman, lead singer of the Hobgoblins. The friend of mine who has been investigating that story hasn't uncovered nearly enough in her research so far, but the Ministry has resources we common citizens don't, so I remain optimistic!”
“Ah, okay,” Harry said. “Well, I'm glad to know at least one trustworthy reporter will be in there to cover it. I haven't heard good things about Rita Skeeter.”
“Understandable, young man. She is, after all, a member of the Rotfang Conspiracy. I'd tell you about it, but I really must be going, now. Ta-ta, Harry!”
“Bye!”
Minutes passed, boredom set in. Time was doing this weird thing where minutes felt like hours, and time was getting harder to keep track of. But he knew from watching his watch obsessively that about ten minutes or so passed from the time the reporters went in to the time that Lupin was called in as the first witness.
Of course, that had been another brief blip in an otherwise boring day, and Harry went back to reading to try to pass the time. He ended up having to take one of the Calming Draughts he'd been given the night before, to use for the trial like Hagrid had at his hearing. This done, he was able to go back to reading.
He looked up when Lupin came back out and another wizard went in. Ron tried asking Lupin about it, and Lupin shook his head.
“We're not to discuss anything in there until after the verdict is handed out, Mr. Weasley,” he explained.
“Oh,” Ron said, who had apparently been reading a book about Quidditch, as he went back to it.
The rest of the day went much the same. An excruciatingly long time after Lupin came back from testifying, the court recessed for lunch, and Ms. Pennyroyal took them back to the restaurant in Diagon Alley for lunch before taking them back to the boring corridor outside the courtroom.
Hours more passed, and nobody was going into the courtroom via the only door Harry knew about. It was driving him mad, and he began to pace. He paced for an entire hour until, at three pm, Ms. Pennyroyal came out briefly.
“Given the agreed-upon lineup of witnesses for this afternoon, Professor McGonagall, you and the boys can head back to Hogwarts until tomorrow.”
“We have to come back?” Ron nearly shouted. He, too, had been pacing, but had stopped at her words. “We're not testifying today?”
“No, Mr. Weasley, not today. But yes, you'll all have to come back tomorrow.”
“Bollocks!”
“Mr. Weasley!” McGonagall snapped. “Do mind your tongue! We are still on school time, I can still take points from you if I feel I need to.”
“Sorry, Professor.”
“Well, see you three tomorrow!”
~
Neither Harry nor Ron were pleased to have to go back the next day, but they came prepared. This time, Ron had brought his wizard chess set, and he and Harry played chess while they waited. But almost as though the universe wanted to keep them off-balance, they only got through half a game when Ms. Pennyroyal came out.
“Harry, you'll be testifying this morning, in about half an hour. Because of that, and because there's nobody testifying ahead of you, you can come on in.”
“Do you have the photos of Pettigrew I gave you the other day in your office?”
“My business partner Valerie has them. Come on in, Mr. Potter.”
He sighed and got up, following her into the courtroom.
The courtroom turned out to be a large dungeon. The walls were made of dark stone, but the room was brightly lit by torches in brackets. The benches were all facing a chair with chains dangling from it, but another much more comfortable chair sat in front of it.
He saw Mr. Lovegood again, and they waved at one another. He wanted to sit next to the man, but Ms. Pennyroyal directed him away from there and over to a section of seating that was mostly empty, and well away from the press, especially Rita Skeeter, who was looking both predatory and disappointed.
Fidgeting with his necklace again, Harry waited for a half an hour in increasing anxiety. His palms were sweating, the parts of his body exposed to air were shivering with cold sweat. He took a Calming Draught, having forgotten before, and started to immediately feel better.
Everyone stood up all of a sudden, Harry rushing to stand, too. In filed Albus Dumbledore and fifty other people came in via an entrance in the back of the room, all wearing plum-colored robes – even Dumbledore. Every set of robes had an elaborately-worked silver W on their front. The Wizengamot witches and wizards spent several minutes talking and getting settled in their benches, which was the signal for everyone else to finally sit, too.
Once the Wizengamot members were settled, it didn't take long for Dumbledore – the head of the Wizengamot – to call the room to order with a few loud taps of a small black stone on some surface Harry couldn't see.
“Thank you,” he said. “I believe we can begin now. This is, of course, the second day in the 12-years delayed trial of Sirius Black. Are the solicitors for the prosecution and the defense ready to proceed?”
The olive-skinned man with a goatee and a smug aristocratic manner stood up. “The prosecution is prepared, Chief Warlock.”
“Good, good. You may sit down, Mr. Rowle. Is the defense ready?”
Ms. Pennyroyal stood up, barely any taller than when she'd been sitting down, and beamed warmly at Dumbledore with a smile that made Harry think of fresh-baked apple pie for some reason.
“The defense is prepared, Chief Warlock.”
“Excellent. You may be seated, Ms. Pennyroyal.”
She nodded and sat down.
“Would you please call today's first witness, Ms. Pennyroyal?”
Still beaming at Dumbledore, she stood again, nodding cheerfully. “Yes, Chief Warlock, I would be delighted to do that. The defense calls Mr. Harry Potter to the stand.”
She was looking in his direction, and naturally everyone else in the room followed suit. Harry chose to look at Dumbledore, who was twinkling at Harry.
“Would Mr. Harry Potter please come to the stand now?” Dumbledore said.
Harry nodded, and stood up so abruptly that he banged his knee on the bench in front of him and nearly toppled over, just barely managing to keep his balance. With that graceful beginning, Harry felt his cheeks turn hot as he skulked up to the big, reasonably comfortable-looking chair for witnesses. A sudden memory from a stolen glimpse of an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus about 'the dreaded comfy chair' made him smile a little as he went up, but he still felt like he was going to be sick.
“Please state your name for the record,” Ms. Pennyroyal said, her voice soothing to his frayed nerves.
Swallowing a lump in his throat, he said, “Harry James Potter.”
“Excellent. You're doing fine, dear. You look thirsty, would you like some water first?”
“Yes please.”
She conjured him a cup of water, which he drank greedily.
“Good. Now, Mr. Potter, do you swear on your magic to tell the truth to the best of your ability in these proceedings?”
“I do ind--er... I do swear by my magic to tell the truth to the best of my ability in these proceedings.”
“Wonderful! Now we may proceed, as it were. Are you ready?”
Harry nodded.
“Excellent. Now, in yesterday's trial, it came to light that one Peter Pettigrew, supposed victim of an attack by one Sirius Black and presumed dead, is in fact alive. Unfortunately, he appears to have slipped away somehow, which is a shame, because his incarceration would have made this whole ordeal so much easier. But we carry on. Mr. Potter, please tell the court, in your own words, what happened on Thursday the third of February?”
Harry closed his eyes, remembering, then opened them up and looked up at Ms. Pennyroyal's lips.
“Well, it's a little more complicated than that. There's backstory to it.”
“There's backstory to everything, Mr. Potter. We just need to know about the third of February, this year. But if you still feel you need to add backstory, please give us as succinct a summary of the backstory as possible.”
“Okay then. Well... okay, so first you have to know that I own a magical artifact made by my father, my godfather, and... and Peter Pettigrew, when they were all in school. It's called the Marauder's Map, and shows a map of the Hogwarts castle and grounds, and displays where everyone is, and their legal names. I'd been given it by someone I trust, on the day of the Hogsmeade visit just prior to the holidays.
“Then later, during the Yule holidays, in which I was staying at Hogwarts, I was looking at the Marauder's Map and noticed a name next to my friend Ron Weasley, but it wasn't his name. It was Peter Pettigrew. Now, I thought at first it was a glitch, because I thought like everyone did that Peter Pettigrew was dead. But, er... well, I guess I should have added that Sirius Black had sneaked onto the Hogwart's grounds in his animagus form of a large black dog. He and I had actually been acquainted for months, sort of. He was... well, I thought he was a stray dog, and he was so thin and pathetic looking, so I started feeding him. I even made him a dog house.”
Harry tried to ignore the talking that had arisen from this, as well as the scratching of several quills. He felt a headache start to form from all the noise.
“Ms. Pennyroyal, may I take a headache cure potion?”
She turned to Dumbledore questioningly. Dumbledore nodded. Harry gratefully swallowed one of his vials of potion. By the sound of it, several people were astonished that he already had one to hand.
“Ready to go on?”
“Yes.”
She gestured at him to go on.
“So yeah, he had plenty of opportunity to hurt me, but he didn't. It wasn't me he was after, it was Peter. But I'm getting ahead of myself. So, er... okay, so when I noticed Pettigrew on the Map, I was talking to Shadow – that's what I called Sirius when I thought he was just a dog – about the weirdness of it, and over the next few minutes, his agitation and oddly high intelligence even for a dog made me figure out who he was. He transformed, into a position where he was on his knees with his hands straight up in the air.
“Even though I'd been suspicious about the whole story of his supposed guilt for months, I was still wary. He did his utmost to validate my caution and to not come across as threatening. We, uh... he didn't feel comfortable so exposed in his human form out in the relative open of the copse of trees we were in, so I let him change back to a dog. We went to the Shrieking Shack, my wand on him the whole time, and I questioned him there, back in his human form.”
“Hmm... that was rather dangerous, wasn't it? You had no proof the name on the Map was genuine, no proof Sirius wasn't a killer.”
“Yes, it was dangerous. But I'd been hanging around him as a dog every morning and some nights after dinner for months. I wouldn't have stood a chance, he was so big and powerful as a dog. But he never made himself threatening, so on the strength of that, I trusted him enough to question him at wandpoint. Plus, I figured if I could handle Voldemort in my first year and again in my second year, as well as a giant basilisk in my second year, I could probably handle an unarmed man. It was a calculated risk.”
“Understood. So what happened after you questioned him?”
“His story made enough sense to me that I trusted him a little more. We tried making plans to catch Pettigrew, for most of January. It wasn't until I told my friend Luna Lovegood about the whole thing that events began to move forward again. She went with me to show the Map and Pettigrew's name to Professor Lupin, and he went straight to Dumbledore from there, with us. Then Dumbledore, McGonagall, Lupin, Luna, and I came up with a plan to catch Pettigrew. We began our plan the next morning. And that brings us to the third of January.”
Having finally gotten to the meat of his testimony, Harry retold the story of the details of that day, how they'd tricked Ron into bringing Scabbers in, how they and Ron and Minister Fudge had witnessed Pettigrew being put back to his human form, as much as he could remember from the interrogation of Pettigrew, how he'd left Dumbledore's office after that, how he and Dumbledore had gotten outside just in time to cast patronuses at the attacking dementors, and finally how the cage had fallen, Pettigrew got free by turning into his rat form, and how he ran off in all the chaos. He did not mention the prophecy Danzia had witnessed, as he didn't feel it was relevant.
Ms. Pennyroyal questioned him some more as the photos of Pettigrew that Harry had taken with Colin's camera were passed around the Wizengamot. Harry glanced at Rowle, and was pleased to note that he was looking displeased and a little ill, like he couldn't see a way to win if there were recent photos of the primary supposed murder victim.
When it was Rowle's chance to cross-examine Harry, the man stood up rather shakily, and took a moment to collect himself before approaching Harry.
“Mr. Potter, how is it that you just happened to have a headache cure potion on your person? Surely it isn't usual for someone your age?”
“Um...” Harry looked to Ms. Pennyroyal, who looked at Dumbledore. The headmaster didn't look pleased, but nodded for Harry to answer.
“Er, well... crowds and loud noises tend to overwhelm me. I get frequent headaches because of it.”
“I see. And how long has this been going on?”
“As long as I can remember. My guardians didn't believe my headaches were genuine. Not until I was in so much pain I got sick on their floors, anyway. Still, it remained such a difficult job getting any medicine from them that I eventually got a job mowing lawns for the neighbors to earn money to pay for pain relief medication.”
“Excuse me, but if I'm not mistaken, Muggles mow their lawns with machines that are extremely noisy. Wouldn't that be a bad choice of jobs for someone with sensitivities to sound?”
“The first time was very difficult for that reason, yes, but I earned enough to buy a pair of sound-muffling ear coverings in addition to pain relievers, and it was much easier from then on.”
“I see. And did your guardians ever take you to a Healer to find out the cause of these headaches?”
Harry laughed a little. “No, they never took me to a doctor – the Muggle equivalent of a Healer, not for the headaches. They only took me to the eye doctor to get glasses after I bumped into a few too many valuable things. Took ages for them to realize I wasn't lying about being nearly blind without glasses.”
“Chief Warlock, objection; what is the relevance of this line of questioning?”
“Indeed, I am curious too, Mr. Rowle. Is there relevance, or are you grasping at straws?”
Rowle actually paused to think, looking a little deflated by the time he was done. He looked around the room, including at Harry, then sighed.
“Sorry, Chief Warlock. I got carried away. The prosecution rests.”
“Understandable, Mr. Rowle. Does the defense have any more questions for the witness?”
“Not at this time, Chief Warlock.”
“Then the witness may leave the courtroom now.”
Harry nodded, got up, and left. As he got up, he noticed Rowle glaring at him and then at Ms. Pennyroyal, but Harry's experience with the Dursleys told him it was a glare that basically said 'I've been beaten and I know it. I'm not at all happy about it, though.' Which made Harry grin on his way out.
~
It was Ron's turn after his, and Ron seemed to take even less time than Harry for some reason. Of course, Harry rather suspected Rowle, who seemed like the kind of person who hated losing, had been trying some harebrained scheme to discredit his testimony, and that the objection to it had made him realize his plan was either flimsy or pointless or both. After all, the Ministry had veritaserum, and might have used it on Sirius. Plus, they had pensieve memories of Pettigrew from half a dozen or more witnesses which included the Minister of Magic himself and several aurors, as well as photo evidence of Pettigrew being alive. Harry admired Rowle for his dedication to his job, but there was so much evidence in favor of Sirius's innocence that Rowle wasn't going to win this one no matter what. At least, that's what Harry hoped.
After Ron, McGonagall was called in again for some reason. An hour after she returned, they had a lunch break. During the lunch break, Ms. Pennyroyal came to find them and told them all they could go back to Hogwarts for the day.
The next day they came in again, and this time waited until after lunch with none of them being called in to testify. Ms. Pennyroyal said it was unlikely they'd be needed, but she'd let them come in anyway because the overwhelming evidence of the pensieve memories from eight different witnesses and Harry's photos of Pettigrew was speeding things along nicely, and the verdict would likely be in at any point in the day.
And so it was at 4 pm on the afternoon of the third day of the trial that Ms. Pennyroyal called them in to hear the verdict. Everyone had filed out for a couple hours while the Wizengamot deliberated and watched the pensieve memories.
When they reconvened, and all the witnesses from the trial who cared to stick around were called into the courtroom to hear the verdict, Harry was very nervous for his godfather, despite how well it appeared to have gone. There had been parts of Harry's part of the trial in which he was certain that a few of the Wizengamot members didn't believe the whole story, including one short, ugly, toad-faced woman sitting next to the Minister, among others.
Sirius was brought out to sit in the creepy chair to wait for the Wizengamot members to finish deliberating. Its chains clinked a little but didn't bind him. When the Wizengamot warlocks filed into the room, Sirius looked anxious enough to faint or cry or something. Harry understood the feeling, sort of; he was feeling much the same way himself.
“We the Wizengamot have deliberated in the case of Sirius Black, and charges against him of turning traitor and giving up the Potters to Voldemort,” said Dumbledore. “And so now, the final vote. All those in favor of further imprisonment...?”
The toad-faced woman and a couple other people raised their hands.
“And all opposed?”
Nearly everyone raised their hands.
“In a vote of 51 to 3 against, I – Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot – do declare Sirius Black not guilty of all charges. Sirius, you are now a free man.”
Ron, Harry, Lupin, and Sirius all cheered. Even McGonagall gave a quick whoop of delight before returning to her usual decorum, though Ms. Pennyroyal just looked like a kindly aunt whose favorite nieces and nephews had come for a visit. Sirius ran over at once to hug Harry, who ran to Sirius so they met in the middle, Sirius hugging him with such fervor that he picked Harry up off the ground, the two of them cheering.
“Congratulations, Padfoot!” Lupin said.
“Come here, Moony, join our hug,” Sirius said, grabbing Lupin with his other arm and pulling him into a hug.
“Oh this is great. Now I can start getting my life back on track in a serious way.”
“That went well,” Ms. Pennyroyal said, grinning at them. “One little speed bump early in the first day aside. I knew Dolores Umbridge wouldn't budge, the horrid woman, and the other two weren't surprising either, but still, that went even better than I'd hoped.”
“A hug for you too, Lilith, if you don't mind?”
“Oh sure, go ahead then,” she said, accepting the hug with a little pleased smirk.
“Thank goodness there were no dementors,” McGonagall said.
“Yes. As I said, the Ministry is very contrite about the whole thing. They felt it best, especially seeing as he turned himself in when he saw Pettigrew had been captured, and let them take him in even after the rat escaped.”
Harry's attention was then drawn to Rita Skeeter, who was approaching them. Sirius, Remus, and Lilith all turned to look where he was looking. Before she could open her mouth, the four of them said, in unison, “NO COMMENT!” and then left together, pausing to add Lilith's pregnant business partner to their group first.
~
Because they were curious, and because Dumbledore knew they would be, the next Saturday Harry, Ron, and McGonagall used Dumbledore's pensieve to view the rest of the trial. He poured in some memories from several vials first.
“This will be a somewhat truncated version of the trial. There are parts of the trial with testimony that is classified, and other parts which are merely boring and unnecessary to watch. So with that in mind, here are the highlights of the trial.”
The three of them stepped forward and touched the surface of the pensieve.
They fell through the darkness and landed perfectly in the familiar black-stoned dungeon courtroom. The benches were mostly empty, but for the three of them, and they weren't really there, of course, this being a memory. Harry looked to where he'd been seated while testifying, but only the creepy chained chair was there yet.
It was boring, waiting there for people to filter in, even more boring than the wait at the trial itself had been, because now they knew the verdict and thus had no more anxiety about it. Some of the people Harry didn't recognize, and didn't think he would recognize later either, mostly people working either for one of the solicitors or for the Ministry, clerks and so on. Harry fidgeted with the necklace Luna had given him while he waited.
After who knew how long, Ms. Pennyroyal came into the room, talked to several people for a while, then sat down. Not long after she got settled, her pregnant business partner came in as well. Ms. Pennyroyal greeted the pregnant witch with a nod and a grin. When the pregnant woman sat down next to Ms. Pennyroyal, she got out her own briefcase and papers, and the two witches sat quietly discussing something that Harry presumed was his godfather's case. Being a memory, he could have gone over there to eavesdrop, but it didn't seem very important now.
A few minutes later, prosecutor Rowle – the man with the olive skin, goatee, and Malfoy-esque demeanor – came in. He, too, had a briefcase, and was wearing similar navy-colored robes. He sat about ten feet away from Ms. Pennyroyal and the pregnant witch. Ms. Pennyroyal glared at his turned back with the same intensity he'd seen earlier when they'd passed in the corridor.
The memory blurred, time skipping ahead, and when it went back to normal, everyone was standing except for them as Albus Dumbledore and the rest of the Wizengamot entered, everyone making so much noise talking that Ron woke up out of a doze and looked bleary-eyed at them.
While the Wizengamot wizards and witches got settled, more people came in. Rita Skeeter was most prominent among them. She opened her crocodile-skin handbag and pulled out an acid-green quill that she sucked on before setting it magically upright on some parchment. Harry guessed some of the others were reporters as well; they couldn't be witnesses, after all; he knew the witnesses had all been in the corridor outside.
Once the Wizengamot members were settled, Dumbledore called the room to order.
“Thank you,” he said. “I believe we can begin now. This is, of course, the long-overdue criminal trial for Sirius Black, who was held without trial for 12 years in Azkaban. Are the solicitors for the prosecution and the defense ready to proceed?”
Mr. Rowle stood up, but before he could speak, the door opened again, and in came Mr. Lovegood.
“My apologies, Chief Warlock,” Mr. Lovegood said, finding a place to sit down.
Dumbledore twinkled at Mr. Lovegood, but Rowle glared at the interruption, still standing. When Mr. Lovegood finally sat down, Rowle turned to Dumbledore and spoke at last.
“The prosecution is prepared, Chief Warlock.”
“Good, good. You may sit down, Mr. Rowle. Is the defense ready?”
Ms. Pennyroyal stood up as well, giving her familiar warm, friendly smile.
“The defense is prepared, Chief Warlock.”
“Excellent. You may be seated, Ms. Pennyroyal.”
She nodded and sat down.
“Please bring forth the accused, Auror Williamson.”
Harry watched Williamson leave the room through a third entrance. A few moments later, he came back in with Sirius at his side. Harry was heartened to see that Sirius hadn't been bound. When he sat on the chair, the chains clinked a little on their own, but that was all. Williamson went to stand over by the entrance.
“Sirius Black,” Dumbledore said with a neutral tone of voice, “you have been brought here in front of the Council of Magical Law to answer charges relating to the activities of the Death Eaters during the war. How do you plead?”
“I plead not guilty of all charges, Chief Warlock.”
“As I expected,” Dumbledore said with an upward twitch of the corners of his lips. “Would you like to give your testimony under veritaserum at this time?”
“Yes I would, Chief Warlock.”
“Auror Williamson, please administer the veritaserum.”
Williamson nodded, and retrieved a small vial from one of the Wizengamot members before dropping several drops on Sirius's proffered tongue.
Sirius's gaze unfocused, and he looked a lot calmer than he had been all of a sudden. Mr. Rowle stepped up and asked Sirius many questions about the night Harry's parents had been killed, and about any previous Death Eater activity he may have engaged in. And, of course, about the deaths of all those Muggles which Pettigrew had framed him for. The story matched everything that Harry already knew about. Rowle tried his hardest to pick it apart, but didn't get very far. After all, Sirius answered everything completely truthfully. It was hard to argue with a man under the influence of veritaserum answering 'no' when asked point-blank if he'd been a Death Eater or in any way working for Voldemort or any of his followers. Rowle did, however, imply strongly that there really was no proof he wasn't a Death Eater, beyond Sirius's word. He also called Sirius's character into question, though how this was going to help him when Sirius was under veritaserum, wasn't clear to Harry.
When the prosecution rested, Ms. Pennyroyal got up for cross-examination.
Her cross-examination wasn't terribly impressive to Harry. It re-emphasized some important points in favor of Sirius's innocence, but nothing new or dramatic was added. He was left underwhelmed, and confused at how she'd managed to get him off. Had the trial been that much of a breeze? The part he remembered of it, his own testimony, hadn't felt so easy to him.
When Sirius was done testifying, he was removed from the room. A much nicer chair was conjured for other witnesses.
Next up was Lupin, who was asked to swear an oath to be truthful, which he did, swearing by his magic that he would tell the truth in its entirety without leaving anything relevant out.
“Excellent, Mr. Lupin,” said Rowle, having stood up to question Lupin. “Now Mr. Lupin, is it true that you are currently working at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as a teacher for Defense Against the Dark Arts?”
“That is correct, yes.”
“And is it true that you are a werewolf?”
There was a surge of voices talking about this turn of events. Which was weird to Harry, as this information had already come out in Sirius's testimony.
“Order, order,” Dumbledore said, tapping his stone for attention. “Professor Lupin, please answer the question.”
“Yes, it's true I am a werewolf.”
Muttering, now, much quieter this time, as though people didn't want to get brought to task again.
“And is it true that you were, in fact, bitten as a young child?”
“That is true, yes.”
“I see. And is it also true that you attended Hogwarts as a child anyway, despite being a werewolf?”
“Yes, I did. And precautions were taken at the time to ensure I wouldn't be dangerous to anyone during my transformation.”
“Indeed? So Headmaster Dumbledore let a known werewolf stay in a school full of innocent children for seven years, and now he has let you teach there as well?”
Lupin looked like he was struggling to remain calm. “Yes,” he said. “Your baited wording aside, that is correct in essentials.”
“Pardon me, Chief Warlock,” interrupted Ms. Pennyroyal, “may I speak?”
“Yes, Ms. Pennyroyal, you may.”
“Thank you. While I'm sure the esteemed Mr. Rowle merely wishes to clarify the facts in this matter, I would like to ask he refrain from using emotionally-loaded words such as 'innocent children.'”
“Agreed,” Dumbledore said. “Mr. Rowle, please watch your wording.”
Rowle glared at Ms. Pennyroyal, but nodded politely at Dumbledore. “Agreed, Chief Warlock.”
“Also,” continued Ms. Pennyroyal, “I would like to remind everyone present that werewolves are only dangerous and contagious during the full moon, when they are transformed.”
“Indeed. You may be seated now, Ms. Pennyroyal. Mr. Rowle, please continue.”
“Thank you, Chief Warlock. Now Mr. Lupin, so you admit to being a werewolf, and to having been to Hogwarts as a student?”
“Yes.”
“And you are now a teacher at the school?”
“Yes. You already asked that, and I answered. I'm sure you're aware by now that the Defense Against the Dark Arts post is said to be cursed. So if you are worried, Mr. Rowle, don't be. I'll be leaving at the end of the year. I really only agreed to the job because of the curse in the first place; after all, with every teacher in that position for the last 22 years being forced away by the curse via scandals or even bodily harm, there aren't many left who will take the job, and I did do very well on my Defense O.W.L.'s and N.E.W.T.'s.”
“I see.”
The rest of Lupin's question under Rowle went smoother for a while, Rowle getting the story from Lupin's point of view, all of it. Harry noted that Lupin and Sirius had both left out the little fact that they'd taken Lupin out onto the school grounds during the full moon, both making it sound like the three animagi had just spent time in the Shrieking Shack with Lupin in his werewolf form. Despite knowing the outcome already, Harry worried that this lie by omission would come back to haunt them.
At first, Ms. Pennyroyal's cross-examination mostly just reminded people of several important points, including that werewolves were only dangerous at the full moon. Then she asked him a number of questions about the measures taken to ensure he couldn't hurt anyone at school, and the details of the Shrieking Shack and the secret passage under the whomping willow were rehashed in detail. Then she asked about his school history, like grades, detentions (very few and far between, despite being friends with James and Sirius), and verified that he had been a prefect during school. Then she went through his history after school, including his work fighting against Voldemort, and an apparent lack of any incidents involving being a danger to others by being loose or discovered by errant Muggles.
When she was done, Rowle got up again and asked if she had any witnesses to verify Lupin's lack of incidents after school. She did, and soon, Lupin was stepping down, the witness's chair being filled by a member of the Magical Accidents and Catastrophes department, head of the Werewolf Task Force, who were the ones to deal with the aftermath of werewolf attacks.
That man's questioning and cross-examination went pretty well, and were followed by another equally good testimony by Rufus Scrimgeour, head of the Auror Office. Aurors were the ones who dealt with the werewolf attacks themselves, as opposed to the aftermath. Like the man before him, he was able to testify that there had been no werewolf attacks in any of the places Lupin had lived over the years. There had been one incident many miles away from one of Lupin's residences, but that had been proven to have been caused by an escaped werewolf child. Anyway, nobody had died or been bitten during the incident, just some very scared Muggles running away from what they'd thought had been a rabid puppy.
At this point, Dumbledore called for a lunch-period recess. Before the memory could skip forward, McGonagall pulled them all out of the memory for their own lunch period.
When they went back to the memory later, it resumed where they'd left off.
Several members of a group called 'The Order of the Phoenix' were called to testify about Lupin's anti-Voldemort work. First up – coming from the entrance of the room that Sirius and the aurors had used – was a very alarming-looking man, covered head to toe in scars, one leg made of wood, and two differently-colored eyes, one of which was artificial, bright blue, and never stopped moving, looking around at everything and everyone. It even occasionally rolled up in a way that looked like he was trying to see out the back of his own head.
“Mad-eye Moody!” Ron said. “He's a famous Auror, half the cells in Azkaban are full because of him. But he's retired now, and paranoid, they say.”
The man, his voice gruff and his mannerisms gruffer, testified as to Lupin's positions and activities for the Order. Occasionally the memory would skip ahead in his testimony, a bit like a skipping phonograph record or a spliced VHS tape to keep sensitive information from Ron's and Harry's ears.
Even Dumbledore testified, giving control of the proceedings temporarily to Fudge until he was done. His own testimony went much the same as Moody's had.
Harry thought it was ludicrous that Lupin had to defend his credibility like this, but he knew the testimony of a werewolf was never taken very seriously, and Ms. Pennyroyal wanted to make as strong a case as possible for him being a reliable witness.
And then, for reasons unknown, when Professor McGonagall was testifying, Ms. Pennyroyal finished off the questioning with questions about Sirius's sordid history of mischief in school. It went on for over an hour, making Harry more and more curious why she appeared to be working against her own client. He wasn't the only one, either; everyone in the room looked confused to some degree or another, but nobody objected to it.
When McGonagall left the room, Dumbledore turned to Rowle.
“Mr. Rowle, who do you wish to call for your next witness?”
Mr. Rowle grinned smugly, and said, “I would like to call Severus Snape as a witness.”
Uproar in the courtroom again. Even Ron and Harry were standing up, booing Snape as he came in via the Auror entrance, despite the fact nobody could hear them in this pensieve memory aside from McGonagall, since they knew this couldn't be good.
Once Dumbledore got the court back in order, Mr. Rowle swore-in Snape and turned to him with a smile.
“Mister Snape,” Rowle said, “Is it true that you work at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as Potions Master?”
“That is correct, Mr. Rowle,” Snape said with an slight smile that boded ill.
“And is it true you went to school with Mr. Remus Lupin?”
“Indeed I did,” Snape said, his expression turning sour.
“Did you two get along with one another?”
“No, we did not.”
“How would you characterize your relationship with Mr. Lupin?”
“Not good. He was friends with one James Potter and one Sirius Black, who both bullied me relentlessly in school.”
Harry glared at Snape at this accusation.
“And did Mr. Lupin join in this bullying?”
“No. But neither did he do anything to stop them. He did not even stand up to them, the coward.”
“How do you feel about Mr. Lupin?”
“Loathing. I despise the man.” His face looked angry and sour in equal measure.
“Just for not standing up for you?” Rowle said in a fake-incredulous tone.
“No. Something far worse.”
“And what was it that Mr. Lupin did to make you hate him so?”
“It is... a bit involved, the story.”
“Please, we are eager to hear the tale.”
Snape nodded. “I was very curious in school where Mr. Lupin went every month. I had gone so far as to follow him and the nurse when he was taken out to the whomping willow, which Black and Potter found out about. One day in our fifth year, Sirius Black told me how to get past the whomping willow to see what Mr. Lupin was up to in there, and not suspecting the danger, I went in after Mr. Lupin that night, thinking I would catch him at something embarrassing. James Potter, finding out what Black had done and knowing he and his friend would be expelled or worse if I died, took off after me and pulled me out just before I got inside the Shrieking Shack. But I saw Lupin transformed as a werewolf, so I knew what he was. The headmaster swore me to secrecy, but since it is now known he is a werewolf, there is no reason to keep that promise anymore.”
“So you're telling me that Mr. Black, at the age of 15, sent you, victim of his years of bullying, to a certain death or being turned into a werewolf yourself, and only the self-serving actions of Mr. James Potter saved you?”
“Yes, Mr. Rowle, that is correct.”
Ms. Pennyroyal stood up. “Chief Warlock?”
“Am I to presume you object to Mr. Rowle's use of emotionally-loaded words?”
“Yes, Chief Warlock.”
“My apologies, Chief Warlock,” Rowle said with a smirk. “Allow me to rephrase. Mr. Snape, is it correct that at the age of 15, Sirius Black sent you after Mr. Lupin on a full moon night, knowing full well he was a werewolf and that you could die or be bitten?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“And is it also true that, upon hearing of what Black had done, James Potter saved your life in the nick of time?”
Grinding his teeth for a moment first, Snape finally answered, “Yes, Mr. Rowle, that is correct again.”
Mr. Rowle grinned and sauntered up jauntily to the front of the Wizengamot. “No further questions, Chief Warlock.”
The uproar of the crowd returned. Harry noticed Rita Skeeter's magical quill going so fast across the parchment it was in danger of catching something on fire. Then he turned to look at Ms. Pennyroyal, whose face was one of unsurprise and – strangely – unconcern.
Harry just felt confusion, now. Well, that and a headache from all the noise in the faintly echoing courtroom; it sure was a noisy memory. He downed one of the vials of headache potion he always carried with him, and tried to think why Ms. Pennyroyal seemed so unconcerned by testimony that undid all of her work bolstering Lupin's reputation and certainly made Sirius look like a murderer.
“Would Ms. Pennyroyal like to cross-examine the witness?” Dumbledore asked.
“Why yes, I would. Thank you, Chief Warlock.”
When Rowle saw the still-cheerful look on her face and the bounce in her step, he started to look worried, like he'd missed something and was trying to figure out what it was. But whatever was causing her to remain buoyant was not immediately apparent.
“Professor Snape,” she said to him with a sweet smile, making his own face falter like Rowle's had, “I'm curious to know the details of the conversation in which Mr. Lupin and Mr. Black were talking about sending you into the maw of a transformed werewolf. Will you enlighten us, please?”
Snape blinked, looking confused. He turned to Rowle, who looked just as baffled, and shrugged.
Turning back to Ms. Pennyroyal, he said, “I am not sure what you mean.”
“Well, you said Mr. Black told you how to find your way into Mr. Lupin's hiding place. You also said you loathed and despised Mr. Lupin. So clearly you must have overheard young Mr. Black discussing his plan for you with Mr. Lupin. I would like to hear the details of that conversation.”
“You are mistaken. I heard no such conversation.”
“Truly? Now it is I who am curious what you mean, sir.”
Snape, who looked like he'd just eaten a rotten egg, said carefully, “I never heard anything to indicate that... Mr. Black had ever discussed his plan with anyone.”
“Can you please describe for me, then, young Mr. Black's demeanor when he told you this?”
“His... demeanor?”
“Oh you know, where was he sitting, how was he positioned, where this conversation took place, and his apparent mood and body language when he told you how to get into the whomping willow passageway, that sort of thing.”
He looked to Rowle again, who looked confused himself and indicated with a wave that Snape should continue.
Snape sighed, and turned back to Ms. Pennyroyal. “As I recall, it was a study period. I was having a discussion with Lucius Malfoy about Mr. Lupin, wondering aloud where he went every month, and why it required going through a secret passage. Sirius Black was at a nearby desk, leaning back in his chair, his feet on the desk. I believe Mr. Peter Pettigrew was there as well.”
“Was Mr. Lupin present?”
“He was not present. He had just been pulled out of study hall, which is why I brought the subject up to Lucius.”
“What about Mr. James Potter?”
“He had a different class that period, I believe. Something on one of the upper floors.”
“Thank you. You may continue with your recollection.”
“Indeed. Well, Mr. Pettigrew and Mr. Black had been discussing something of their own, I believe, but stopped when I started talking with Lucius. As I said before, Black was quite at his ease, not doing any schoolwork, which was a common enough sight. He was one of those people who always managed to coast through school while the rest of us studied hard every day, or at least it appeared so to me and others I spoke with. Anyway, he was still leaning back in his chair as before when he told me, casual as you please, that if I was really so curious about where Mr. Lupin went, all I had to do was touch a knot on the base of the tree to freeze the willow long enough to get through the entrance, which is a gap in the roots. I used the information that very night, in fact.”
“Would you say that young Mr. Black was relaxed, perhaps even bored at the time, or would it be more correct to say he looked conspiratorial, perhaps conspiring with Mr. Pettigrew?”
“I would say he was relaxed and bored. I do not know what was said in his conversation with Pettigrew, but from previous experience with them and from Black's body language at the time, I would say Pettigrew was gabbling on about something that was supremely boring to Mr. Black. That Black was simply letting Pettigrew prattle on because he had nothing better to do. That is, until he overheard my conversation with Lucius.”
“I see. And did you see Mr. Lupin at any point between then and when you began to follow him later?”
“No, I did not.”
“Were there any other classes after that study period?”
“No. It was right before dinner.”
“Was Mr. Lupin present for dinner?”
Snape glared at her in annoyance. “No. I did not see him at all between the time he was pulled out of study hall and the time I began following him to the willow, as I already said. He was ill, probably in the Hospital Wing, because the school nurse accompanied him to the whomping willow, and it was from the Hospital Wing that I began to follow them.”
“Was Mr. James Potter at dinner?”
“Yes, he was at dinner. And before you ask, so was Mr. Black.”
Without any obvious changes to her expression or tone of voice, something about her pleasant demeanor turned predatory then.
“Are you saying that, to the best of your knowledge, Mr. Lupin had no idea Mr. Black was going to endanger your life by sending you after him on the full moon, likely did not even see Mr. Black himself after Black's conversation with you as he was ill at the time, and that in fact, Mr. Black's instructions to you were likely – by the sound of his demeanor – the result of a spur-of-the moment decision by a teenage boy who – according to Professor McGonagall's testimony – had a long history of making rash decisions and getting into trouble for them?”
If Snape had looked sour before, it was nothing to how he looked now, and Rowle looked even worse. “Yes,” Snape said, barely intelligible because he was saying it through teeth that were grinding audibly even from Harry's distance away.
She smiled sweetly. “Sorry, what was that? We didn't quite hear your answer.”
“I said yes. To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Lupin did not know, could not have known what Black was planning, because Black's decision was likely a whim, and because I acted on his information that very night.”
“Oh you did? I see. Very enlightening, Professor Snape. And while I have you here, may I ask if you think 15-year-olds are mature enough to fully understand the consequences of their actions?”
Snape folded his arms, glowering. “No, they are not.”
“Yes, that does appear to be the consensus of most of society, since witches and wizards cannot be tried as adults until they are at least 17. No more questions, Chief Warlock,” saying that last with a musical quality to her voice, and sat back down.
“Thank you, Ms. Pennyroyal. We will now adjourn for lunch, if there are no objections.”
~
Next in the memory, they heard testimony from Cornelius Fudge, who had been present at the incident where Pettigrew had killed all those Muggles and faked his death, as well as for Pettigrew's unveiling in Dumbledore's office recently. Also testifying were Bartemius Crouch, who had been the head of the magical law enforcement back then. Then Dumbledore himself testified that though he'd thought 12 years ago that Sirius had been the Potters' Secret Keeper, the people subject to the Fidelius Charm were ultimately the ones to decide, and since the plan had been intended to try to fool Voldemort into going after Sirius to torture him instead, they wouldn't have wanted to let anyone but him and Pettigrew know.
Harry wasn't pleased that they had to rewatch his testimony, but Ron and McGonagall hadn't seen it. Harry then saw Ron's testimony, which had not been terribly interesting; mostly just verifying what others, like Harry, had said.
Everyone else who'd been present to see Pettigrew in Dumbledore's office, including the two Aurors who'd been present when he escaped, testified as well, but these ended up skipping a lot because they were boring and repetitive. When the memory started playing normally again, they saw Ms. Pennyroyal – looking very smug – use her wand to play part of Pettigrew's interrogation for the whole room, the large size of the pensieve she used to do it making him appear nearly twice life-size, as he told the room about the Dark Mark that Death Eaters were branded with. His image pulled up its sleeve and showed them the mark, which was a faint pinkish-red outline, but was just visible.
Still looking very pleased, she then called Sirius back to the stand. When he was sworn in again, she asked him to roll up both sleeves all the way. Several Aurors and several members of the Wizengamot examined his arms and then his naked torso for nearly 20 minutes with both eyes and wands before declaring he had no Dark Mark.
Then the memory stopped, since the deliberations would have been classified and boring anyway, and because they'd already seen the verdict. The three of them went flying up through darkness and landed upright back in Dumbledore's office.
“How the ruddy He—ck,” Ron said, catching himself in time, “did the Ministry not know for 22 years that Death Eaters have Dark Marks on their arms?”
“I asked Dumbledore about that myself when I spoke with him earlier, after he told me about it,” McGonagall said. “He said he believed there was powerful magic woven into the thing, that made it impossible to talk about or show to anyone who didn't already know about it, and that the only reason Pettigrew was able to tell them about it at all was the fact You-Know-Who is powerless and the Dark Marks nearly invisible now, as well as a double dose of veritaserum. Plus, of course, nobody ever thought to look on their arms. Who would have thought the clever You-Know-Who would have marked his followers so plainly? It's absurd and illogical to do so, after all.”
Whatever anyone was going to say next was interrupted when Ms. Pennyroyal came into Dumbledore's office.
“That was amazing, Ms. Pennyroyal!” Harry said. “I was confused for a lot of it, but looking back, I saw you were playing a game of chess with the whole affair. Tell me, were you by chance a Slytherin in school?”
She chuckled. “I don't know whether to be pleased or offended by that, Mr. Potter, but no, I was in Hufflepuff.”
“Really? Well it wasn't meant as an offense. I have several Slytherin friends, and they're great, so I meant it as a compliment.”
“Then that is how I shall take it, Mr. Potter. But you know, between you and me, the Hat did offer me Slytherin. And I might have taken the offer, too, if a very close friend of mine hadn't already been sorted into Hufflepuff.”
“Cool. The Hat offered me Slytherin, too. But my friend Hermione was in Griffindor, and given that House's reputation, I didn't fancy the complications being a Slytherin would bring me, so I chose Griffindor instead.”
“Ah, well, I am at least glad you made friends with some Slytherins. I had a few Slytherin friends myself, in school and later. Of course, the Slytherin/Hufflepuff connection goes back centuries, well before Slytherin started being viewed negatively after Voldemort began infecting it with his filth.”
They talked a little bit more, but Ms. Pennyroyal was there to see Dumbledore, so it didn't last long before they left to go tell their friends about the trial.
~
After Sirius's trial, they later found out in the papers, the Wizengamot had taken another hour to decide on a time for a trial for Peter Pettigrew in absentia. During that trial, in which Pettigrew was found guilty, they decided they would also repeal Pettigrew's “posthumous” Order of Merlin, which they did. Soon after that, wanted posters for Pettigrew began going up in places, and there was another front-page article in the paper about Pettigrew's escape.
Lupin did in fact resign at the end of the year, and wouldn't be coming back because Rita Skeeter spread to the whole country that Lupin was a werewolf, and the parents weren't happy with a werewolf teacher, even if most of their kids were. Sirius invited him to stay at his house for a while, convincing him only by saying, finally, that Lupin could pay rent once he got a job.
With help from hired hands and from Kreacher the house elf, Sirius had gotten his house ready in time to welcome Harry in, but of course Harry had to stay with the Dursleys for a week to recharge the blood protection wards. But he was very much looking forward to that. How Kreacher and Sirius had made up, Sirius didn't know, but Sirius planned to hire Dobby as well, since Kreacher was so old that he had maybe a decade or two left before he'd die.
They never did find out how Hermione had gotten to all her classes, and it didn't seem likely they would, as she had dropped out of Divination and Muggle Studies and so would have a normal schedule next year.
And so, Harry was very happy on the train back, despite Pettigrew's escape, because he was looking forward to having someone to call family, and really feel like they were family, for the first time in his life.
Endnotes: Ah, the end of another year. This story will continue in Autistic Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
I didn't notice until writing this chapter that I made a mistake in book 1, and said Ron got sorted into Griffindor before Harry did, which didn't happen in canon. Whoops! Oh well, I can fix it later.
In response to a message I received on FanFiction.net, I felt it necessary to repeat the information in that message here:
Yes, Autism Speaks is a hate group. Among other things, they're trying to find a cure for autism, and they have a long history of paying for the defense attorneys for parents who murdered their autistic kids, and of their board members talking about murdering their autistic children in front of their autistic children on video.
You can help stop them by spreading the word of them being a hate group, and send people here instead: http://autisticadvocacy.org/
Here's more information: https://thecaffeinatedautistic.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/why-...
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Four.
Or, "Aspie Potter and the Goblet of Fire."
Note: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made. Not by me, anyway.
Note 2: There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though. And the more this deviates from canon, the less that will happen. But some descriptions and things like that are too good to skip or try to reword.
Note 3: Just as a reminder, so I don't have to shoehorn in descriptions in the text of the story as a reminder, but in this fanfic Harry and Hermione, apart from having Asperger's Syndrome, are both black as well.
Note 4: I'm just as bad as Rowling at forgetting about birthdays of characters other than Harry, at least in this fic. So I'll just act as though Harry and the others remembered in the past offstage, and I'll try to be better in future to at least mention them.
Note 5: I would've had this up weeks ago, but I forgot that I hadn't done it.
Book Four, Chapter One: Dog Star Man
Harry had been met at the train station by Dumbledore again, who was his escort to the Dursley house, since Netty couldn't be seen by Muggles. Harry was excited, because in just one short week, his godfather would be picking him up to take him to Sirius's house.
Dumbledore was wearing a purple suit with a silver tie, a purple pork-pie hat, and black shoes with white spats. Harry eyed his outrageous outfit and suppressed a laugh at the thought of the Dursleys' reaction to him.
“Ready, Harry?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Netty has already taken your things ahead, I believe. So if you take my arm, we can apparate there.”
Harry nodded, and took the man's arm. This time, Harry managed just barely to avoid being sick. He looked around and saw they were in a blind alley. Dumbledore started walking out of it, Harry following behind.
“I know it was a bit unexpected,” Harry said, “but did you get my letter I sent you from the train?”
“Yes, Harry, I did.”
“And what do you think?”
“I did as you suggested and checked the room you referenced, and did indeed find the cobra from last year. Interesting that you've managed to keep such good care of it for so long.”
“Yeah. But I can't really keep it as a pet, so, uh...”
“Agreed, Harry. As you said in your letter, I agree Cleo is better off in a zoo. I had Professor McGonagall take care of it. It will likely take a few days to be taken fully care of, as there is the Muggle government to deal with first.”
“Yeah, that makes sense. So she really is a real snake?”
“It would appear so. If not, then she is such a remarkable facsimile as to be utterly unique, and I cannot imagine such magic coming from a second-year student, even one as clever and academically gifted as young Mr. Malfoy.”
“And Snape wanted to destroy her.”
“Indeed.”
“If I got another snake, one that isn't venomous, would that be allowed?”
“Despite what the Hogwarts letters say, we do allow more familiars than just cats, toads, or owls. It's just that it would be rather tedious listing all of what is allowed or not, in the letters.”
Harry nodded.
“So Sirius's house is supposed to be really big, at least on the inside. That sounds neat.”
“Agreed. But the best part, Harry,” Dumbledore said as they walked down the street, “is that Sirius's parents had put every imaginable ward and security measure on the house. It is also unplottable, meaning it cannot be put on a map. It has everything one could hope for in a secure location, shy of a Fidelius Charm.”
“I've been wondering something about the Fidelius Charm, Professor.”
“I will endeavor to answer you, Harry.”
“Was there some reason one of my parents couldn't have been the secret keeper? I mean, it's like the old adage goes, 'Three men can keep a secret if two are dead.'”
Dumbledore chuckled. “Well, now that is complicated to answer. The simplest answer I can give is that the charm is already highly complex, and part of it is a complex ritual. The complexity of that ritual triples in difficulty if one of the people subject to the charm is the secret keeper.”
Harry thought a moment. “But sir, isn't it just keeping the secret of a single location? Anybody could be in there, if they had the secret divulged to them. You could theoretically put a Fidelius Charm on Hogwarts, even, if you needed to, couldn't you?”
“Another part of the difficulty of the charm, Harry, is that if there are people who already know the secret before it has been placed under the charm's protection, the complexity of the whole thing increases the more people knew the secret before the charm went up. If there were three of me, Harry, the three of myself could probably band together to cast the Fidelius Charm on all of Hogwarts, but I'm afraid the effort of doing so would kill all three of myself.”
“That doesn't really answer my actual question, which was 'why can't we just cast the Fidelius Charm so that someone living at the secret location could be the secret keeper?'”
“It is a complex answer, as I said. Perhaps I will send you a letter to explain it. It would be rather a long letter. Anyway, we should probably go inside before your uncle has a fit of temper at us on the lawn for talking of magic in front of his house.”
“Oh yeah, okay.”
Harry knocked on the door, and it immediately flew open, Uncle Vernon glaring at Harry in undisguised hatred.
“Don't worry, Uncle Vernon,” Harry said, “I'll only be here a week. You stay out of my hair, I'll stay out of yours, okay?”
Vernon grunted angrily, then said, “Well are you coming in or not, boy? You're letting all the cold air out of the house.”
“Sorry, coming now.”
Dumbledore stepped inside as well. Uncle Vernon looked like he wanted to object, but he didn't. He just slammed the door behind Dumbledore.
“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley,” Dumbledore said when he spotted Petunia crossing her arms and chewing her tongue, “lovely to see you again. I won't take up much of your time, but there have been some updates over the past school year that you should be made aware of.”
Petunia snorted. Vernon stood beside her and glared at Dumbledore. “Well get on with it, then.”
“It seems that Harry had a godfather who was being falsely imprisoned for a crime he did not commit, and so was unable to take Harry in after Lily and James died. His name was cleared at the beginning of June this year, and he has been released. Harry will be going to his home at the end of the week. He needs to stay here for a week to recharge the blood wards that keep him and your family safe from Voldemort and his followers. Harry will also need to come back for a time next summer as well, and on until the summer of his 17th birthday.”
The Dursleys nodded curtly.
“Excellent. Netty?”
The little female house elf appeared with a crack. Both Dursleys present jumped (Dudley was nowhere to be seen; probably out bullying some first graders), but had apparently been expecting this enough to not scream.
“Netty is here now for Harry Potter, Dumbledore sir.”
“Thank you, Netty. Now, are there any other questions, Mr. and Mrs. Dursley?”
They gave non-committal grunts.
“Excellent. Now Harry, you may go to the library during the day, but take your wand with you. I do not think you will be attacked by anyone or anything from our world, but best to have it with you just in case. With that in mind, I shall now be going. See you at Hogwarts in September, Harry.”
“Wait, so does that mean Sirius is picking me up?”
“Yes, he is. I believe he's planning to send you an owl about it, so you two can settle the details.”
“Cool. Thanks, sir.”
“You are most welcome, Harry. Now one last thing before I leave. Netty, you have brought all Harry's things to his room already, correct?”
“Of course, master Dumbledore sir. Netty is being waiting in Mr. Potter's room for you to be calling Netty, sir.”
“Excellent. And now, at last, I go. Au revoir!”
Dumbledore tipped his porkpie hat and went out the door.
“Sirius?” Aunt Petunia said. “Why does that name sound familiar?”
Harry thought about that a moment. Netty looked to him for permission to speak. Coming to a decision, he shook his head ever so slightly. As fun as it might have been to let them scream in terror when Sirius showed up on their front stoop, he worried they might have a gun and shoot him in self defense.
“Sirius Black is his full name.”
The Dursleys frowned in thought. It looked painful.
Vernon was the first to figure it out. “What the bloody Hell do you mean, boy? How can he be one of your lot? He was on our news!”
“He, uh... he escaped from our prison. They thought at the time that he was dangerous enough to warn the Muggles, since the crime he was framed for involved the murder of 12 Muggles with a single curse. But this year, we found out one of his supposed victims was the real murderer, and there was proof, so he's free now.”
Petunia snorted. “I remember now. They even canceled the hunt for him on the news. And here was me thinking he'd been caught again.”
“He was innocent.”
She snorted derisively at this. “Not Guilty and Innocent are two different things. Now go get out of our hair like you promised.”
Harry sighed, and climbed the stairs to his room. He didn't bother to unpack, but he did look through his trunk and took out a book to read. He wasn't sure he wanted to leave the house or not yet, because the Dursleys got angry if he was out later than Dudley, and he didn't exactly trust them not to damage or destroy library books.
He was just about to read his book when an unfamiliar owl came to the window bearing a letter for him. Getting up, he got the owl some owl treats and took the letter. It was from Sirius.
Dear Harry,
I made a plan with Hagrid to pick up my motorbike this week at The Three Broomsticks. I don't know if you'd want to ride on it or not, I understand you have a problem with loud noises. Let me know one way or another soon, so I can know whether or not to get you a helmet and dragon-skin bike leathers. Heck, I might get you something in dragon-skin anyway, if you don't have any issues with it, because dragon skin is very resistant to magic, and can deflect a lot of hexes.
Oh wait, silly me, I can just put a silencing charm on the motorbike. There are enough charms keeping us safe from Muggle traffic that the noise isn't really necessary. But let me know if the vibration, the wind, or anything else is likely to be a problem, okay?
Love from,
Sirius
Harry sat there and thought about it for a few minutes before replying.
Dear Sirius,
Well, every form of magical transportation I've experienced thus far has been horrible in some way or another, so I might as well try something as relatively Muggle as a motorbike. Silencing it would be great. I've never felt dragon hide clothing before, so I don't know how I'll respond to it yet. I know we have dragon-hide gloves, but I've never felt their outside. Just a second while I go do that now.
Back! Dragon skin clothes should be fine. The dragon-hide gloves are nice and bumpy now that I've finally bothered to feel their outsides.
I'm excited to see what your house is like! I'm excited to have a room of my own that I can decorate as I please and leave stuff there without having to worry the Dursleys are going to burn my things in their backyard.
I know I haven't even gotten there yet, so apologies if this is too soon to ask, but could I have a friend or two over? I'm not sure which one, yet. But I know Hermione would appreciate having somewhere to get away with using magic at without getting in trouble with the Ministry, and Ron already has that.
Also I don't think you've met any of my friends. You went straight from the Hogwarts gates to St. Mungo's that one day. I mean, Ron kinda saw you at the trial and he met you as Shadow, but you never officially met as far as I know of, and there's still Hermione, Antigone, Angela, Danzia, Luna, and Draco to meet besides. So if there's some way to introduce them all to you and vice versa, and you're up for it, that would be awesome. If not, I understand.
Oh and did I tell you I'm a practitioner of the old ways? Well I am. Do you know any stores at Diagon Alley or elsewhere that might have stuff for like, altars and stuff? I want to honor nature, I want to have an altar or two. One at your place and one for school, is what I was thinking. Or maybe Moony knows somewhere? He gave me a bunch of books about the old ways, after all.
Dumbledore was impressed by the security on your house, saying that the only way to make it any more secure would be a Fidelius Charm. I have to say, that is indeed pretty impressive.
Say hi to Ms. Pennyroyal for me if you see her. I know it was her job, but we owe her so much.
Anyway, that's all I can think of for now.
Love from,
Harry
PS = I don't know if you noticed that day or not, but I did; my patronus is a stag! Didn't you say Dad's animagus form was a stag?
~
The next day after breakfast, Harry found a different owl – a barn owl – with a letter for him from Sirius.
Dear Harry,
Say hi to my new owl, his name is Frodo. The other owl was an owl post owl. I decided that if we were gonna write a lot of letters this year, I should get an owl, so I went down to the Magical Menagerie and got Frodo here.
I'd love to meet your friends. I'm not 100% sure about the Malfoy boy, but if you trust him, then I guess I'll try to do so too. After all, my parents were just as bad as his. Maybe worse, despite not being Death Eaters themselves. Though I'll admit I was always confused why Narcissa would marry a Death Eater, she never seemed quite as bigoted as her sister Bellatrix did. Never hung out with most of the Death-Eater wannabes in school, Lucius and Snivelus being two major exceptions. Well, and Bellatrix of course.
Anyway, yeah, we can invite some of your friends over. You can start out writing them about their availability this summer. Especially for July 31st, because I want to throw you a birthday party if you're up for it. And if you are indeed up for it, I'd welcome your input to help me make it as friendly to your sensitivities as possible. Let me know if you're up for a party, okay?
According to Dumbledore, I can come get you on the 26th of June. Technically it's a little past a week, but since the 'one week' marker the spell needs is late at night on the 25th, I can't get you until the morning of the 26th. Is 9 am too early for you? Also, I recall you're not fond of flying, so that will make the journey take longer, since we'll have to take the Muggle route and stick to the speed limit.
Well let me know about 9 am on the 26th, okay pup?
Love from,
Sirius, your lovable dogfather
Harry wrote a quick note back saying that 9 am was fine, and he was looking forward to the day, and then sent it off with Frodo.
“Fly, you fool!” Harry couldn't resist quipping as Frodo flew away into the twilight. But just to himself, in case it offended the owl.
~
The rest of the week passed slowly. Harry did homework to pass the time, since it occupied his mind and would get the work out of the way for the summer if he did. He ended up finishing it all with two days to spare, which meant he had to find something else to occupy himself with. When he could, he had conversations with Netty, but the two of them only saw each other a short time every year, and the life of a house elf sounded pretty boring to Harry, from what Netty related to him. So he wrote to his friends instead. He didn't have much to say after only a week aside from asking about the possibility of them visiting, but he did it anyway.
Finally, though, the last two days passed. Not needing to pack, since he'd never unpacked, he spent most of the morning in a state of high anxiety. He found himself wishing he'd said 9 am wasn't early enough, because he was up at 6 am and spend the next three hours climbing the walls, figuratively speaking. He ended up in such a state of agitation that he spent the last hour tapping out patterns on the wood of the floor in his bedroom until Petunia screamed up the stairs for him to stop driving her mad with his relentless tapping.
All in all, everyone was thoroughly happy when the doorbell rang.
“You can get it, boy. I've no interest in being civil to one of your lot.”
Silently thinking Vernon didn't know how to be civil to anyone, really, he answered the door. As soon as he opened it, Sirius excitedly shouted Harry's name so loudly that everyone in the neighborhood peeked out their windows to see what was going on. Sirius gave Harry a hug, Harry hugging his godfather back. Harry wondered if any of the spying neighbors recognized Sirius from his wanted photos. He looked a lot better now, more well-fed, more filled out in the face, and his hair was clean and trimmed but still long. And he was wearing motorbike leathers made of dragon skin. Harry felt the material under his skin, and reveled in the sensation. He would have to see what the inside felt like.
Wasting no time, Sirius got Harry's own bike leathers out, and Harry got changed in his room. He found the leathers a little stiff but otherwise acceptable. Then Sirius sent Harry's things to his house with his wand, Netty went back to Hogwarts, and Harry followed Sirius outside to his motorbike.
“Sidecar or riding bi—er, well, behind me?”
“Um, I think the sidecar looks more secure. I'm gonna look ridiculous in it, but that's okay.”
“Alrighty then. Here's your helmet. Gotta keep you safe.”
It was a mostly plain black helmet, with lightning bolts on both sides. Harry snickered at this and got into the sidecar, which was actually kinda comfortable. He found a seatbelt, too, and belted himself up.
“Like the helmet, do you?”
“Yeah, it's funny.”
Sirius nodded and donned his own helmet, a plain black affair, but very shiny. The neighbors were staring disapprovingly at Sirius and Harry and the motorbike. But he saw enough to see that they were very surprised when the motorbike didn't make any noise except a little engine noise when he got it started. The two of them put their visors down and Sirius rode off down the road and out of Little Whinging.
With the helmet protecting him from the wind and the vibration of the bike pleasantly stimulating, Harry found to his surprise that the nearness of the speeding-by road only made him a little ill, which he could avoid by closing his eyes and leaning back in the sidecar.
“Hey Harry, can you hear me?” said Sirius's voice from inside his helmet.
“What...? How...?”
“Just a simple spell on the insides of the helmets to let us talk with each other. It would work even if the bike wasn't silenced.”
“Nifty. That could come in handy. You should teach it to me.”
“I was hoping you'd say that. By the way, I put an engorgement charm on the sidecar, making it much roomier. I think even Moony could fit comfortably in it now.”
“It's very nice. I like the vibration. I might even fall asleep.”
Despite this, they didn't talk much on the ride over. Sirius liked to concentrate on driving, and Harry enjoyed leaning back. And just as he had predicted, Harry did indeed fall asleep on the drive from Little Whinging to London.
After some time, Harry was woken by Sirius talking to him.
“Huh?”
“Ah, you're awake now. Good. I said we're almost to London. Do you want to go out to eat anywhere?”
“Sure. I've always wanted to try pizza.”
“You live with Muggles and you've never had pizza?”
“The Dursleys consider it 'foreign rubbish.'”
“Wow. Well I'd better take you to Rubian's. It's the best place I know of for pizza.”
“Cool.”
A few minutes later, they pulled into the parking lot of a place that looked like an Italian villa, with a large sign saying 'Rubian's' that had a slice of pizza on the sign as well. Harry got out of the sidecar, grateful to stretch his legs at last.
“Aren't you worried about the bike getting stolen?” Harry asked Sirius as they left it behind.
“Not even a little. It's got every anti-theft measure on it possible. Even a wiz-- er, one of our lot would have a hard time stealing it. Oh, we can leave our helmets in the sidecar, by the way. Don't worry about rain.”
Harry was a little surprised to find that they were at a Muggle pizzeria, but pleasantly so. He was even more pleasantly surprised to find that Sirius had no trouble at all with Muggle money, except that prices had gone up quite a bit since he'd last been out in Muggle areas of the world.
After conferring with Harry on his tastes, Sirius ordered them a pepperoni pizza with mushrooms and black olives. The pizza was huge, too; nearly as big as the table itself. It smelled heavenly, too. Sirius served Harry and himself a pair of slices, and they began to eat.
Both of them moaned in pleasure as they ate their pizzas. Harry, because he'd never had proper pizza before and was suddenly eating the best pizza ever; Sirius because he hadn't had pizza at all for at least 12 or 13 years.
Since Harry had been eying the Parmesan and hot pepper shakers while they'd waited, for his second piece he tried a little of each on his pizza. He liked it so much that his third piece was so red with pepper that Sirius goggled at him, and dropped his jaw comically when Harry ate it all with barely any reaction to the heat of all that pepper.
“Wow. I think even James would've balked at that much hot pepper!”
“I like the sensation it makes in my mouth,” Harry said. “I like the burn.”
“That one of those 'stims' of yours? A sensory experience that really hits your pleasure centers?”
Harry nodded. “I guess so. You might have to buy me some hot sauce for Hogwarts, now. Not sure I could go back to bland old British food now.”
Sirius barked with laughter. “Right, I'll do that. But what are you doing now?”
Harry had been opening his mouth and just standing still.
“Just letting the pepper oils continue to burn. Opening my mouth like this makes a really interesting experience.”
Finally taking a drink of his soda, Harry did something similar with that, holding the soda in his mouth for a minute before swallowing.
“The carbonation in my mouth feels awesome too.”
Sirius tried it with his own soda for a minute. “I see what you mean. That's a pleasant feeling. Neat. I guess even us non-autistic people can have stims.”
They kept on eating their pizza until it was halfway gone and the two of them were stuffed like Christmas turkeys, leaning back in their seats to digest awhile before attempting to get up. Their waiter got them a to-go box for the rest of their pizza and they eventually managed to leave.
Sirius rode the motorbike into a rather grungy looking neighborhood that the Dursleys would have been horrified to be anywhere near, and pulled into a parking space that apparently was in the back yard of his house. The house itself was nestled between two Muggle houses and nobody but them appeared to even be aware of it.
“Welcome to number 12, Grimmauld Place, London.”
Sirius took Harry in through the back door, which led into a hallway that connected to the kitchen, among other places.
“Welcome back, Master Sirius,” said a very croaky voice.
“Thanks, Kreacher. Harry, meet Kreacher. Kreacher, Harry Potter.”
The ancient elf bowed to Harry. Wearing a clean pillowcase with the Black family crest on it, Kreacher looked ancient. His skin seemed to be several times too big for him and though he was bald like all house-elves, there was a quantity of white hair growing out of his large, batlike ears. His eyes were a bloodshot and watery gray, and his fleshy nose was large and rather snoutlike.
“Would Masters like anything to eat?”
“Not now, Kreacher. We just got back from having pizza. Harry had never had any before.”
“Kreacher has never heard of pizza before. Should Kreacher learn to cook it for Masters?”
“Uh, sure,” Sirius said, shrugging. “I'll find some recipes for you when I can.”
“Kreacher could ask other house-elves for the recipe.”
“Well you could try, but I don't know how successful you'd be. I don't think I've ever heard of purebloods eating it, unless they were Italian.”
“Kreacher knows some house-elves who serve Italian masters. Kreacher could talk with them.”
“Really? That's brilliant. Thank you, Kreacher.”
Kreacher smiled and bowed. “You are most welcome, Master Sirius. May I go search for the recipe now?”
“If you want to, sure thing.”
“Thank you, Master Sirius.” In mid-bow, Kreacher disapparated with a crack.
“I, er... I thought you two didn't get on?” Harry asked.
“You're right, we didn't. But, er, something happened that forced a reconciliation. I'd tell you about it, but Dumbledore would want you to learn occlumency before I could do that. All I can say for now is that I helped Kreacher to finally be able to obey my brother Regulus's final order. It had been bothering him an awful lot, apparently.”
“Wow. I might take you up on learning this occlumency stuff, just to hear that tale. Is Dobby here, too?”
“Yes, actually. Netty helped introduce us formally. Dobby?”
A much younger elf appeared. “Harry Potter sir! You is here at last!”
Dobby grabbed Harry round the middle in a surprisingly strong hug which Harry returned. Then they pulled apart and Harry looked a little more closely at his elf friend. He looked almost exactly as Harry remembered him; the enormous, green, tennis-ball shaped eyes, the pencil-shaped nose, the batlike ears, the long fingers and feet — all except the clothes, which were very different.
When Dobby had worked for the Malfoys, he had always worn the same filthy old pillowcase. Now, however, he was wearing the strangest assortment of garments Harry had ever seen. He was wearing a tea cozy for a hat, on which he had pinned a number of bright badges; a tie patterned with horseshoes over a bare chest, a pair of what looked like children’s soccer shorts, and odd socks. One of these, Harry saw, was the black one Harry had removed from his own foot and tricked Mr. Malfoy into giving Dobby, thereby setting Dobby free. The other was covered in pink and orange stripes.
Thinking of the Malfoys made Harry think of Draco, and suddenly he worried about inviting Draco over. Dobby sensed the change in Harry's face and looked concerned.
“Is Harry Potter not happy to see Dobby, sir?”
“Oh sorry, no, it's nothing like that. I'm glad to see you, Dobby. I'm thrilled you've got a job for Sirius. I just was wondering about something.”
“What is it, Harry Potter sir? If Dobby may be so bold?”
“No problem. Um... were you aware that I'm now friends with Draco Malfoy?”
Dobby's face twitched a little, but he nodded. “Master Sirius is telling Dobby about your friendship with the Malfoy boy, yes. Dobby...” now it was Dobby's turn to look thoughtful for a moment before answering. “Dobby would not mind too much if young mister Malfoy were to come over. He is not hurting Dobby, unlike his father. He has not been very nice, either, when Dobby is knowing him, but if Harry Potter says he is mending his ways, Dobby will keep an open mind, sir.”
“Well, Dobby, if you ever feel uncomfortable around Draco, like if his presence reminds you too much of your past with his family, you can leave the room whenever you need to without worrying what we'll think about it. Right, Sirius?”
“Right. My godson may not have been beaten or kicked around like you, Dobby, but he knows what emotional abuse is like, and neglect as well, so if you ever feel like being around the Malfoy boy is too much for you to handle, neither of us will mind you going somewhere safe to recover. We want you to feel safe in this house.”
Dobby burst into joyous, thankful tears at this, crying into Harry's bike leathers. Harry gently stroked the elf's ears in sympathy.
“Dobby knew of Master Harry's goodness, but Dobby is having no idea he is so blessed to have two good and kind masters!”
After a minute of this, Dobby blew his nose on a handkerchief and dabbed at his eyes with the clean end. “May Dobby go now to regain his composure?”
“Of course, Dobby.”
Dobby smiled and disapparated.
“Er, Sirius?”
“What is it, pup?”
“Is there enough work, even in a house this big, for two house-elves?”
“Not really, no. But Kreacher is getting very old and slow. I mostly have him cooking and keeping the kitchen clean, now. Well, that and the boiler room. He was living in there when the cleaning crew found him. But I have him in a converted cupboard now, with his own bed. Yes, I know those Dursleys had you in a bloody cupboard, but he wouldn't accept his own bedroom no matter how hard I tried to insist, short of ordering him to. And Dobby is sleeping in one of the cupboards as well. But both are quite large cupboards. In fact, in most houses I think they'd qualify as entire rooms. Not as big as your bedroom in that wretched house, but roomy for elves.”
“Oh, well I suppose that's alright, then. So then Dobby does the cleaning for most of the house and Kreacher does all the cooking?”
“Er, not all of it, no. I had a devil of a time moderating their squabble over who got to cook. It seems Dobby likes cooking, it got him away from his old masters more often than any other task did, apparently. So they take turns. Kreacher cooks on Sundays through Wednesdays, Dobby cooks during the rest of the week. I've had to keep an eye on him, though; he has a bad habit of shutting his ears in the over door.”
Harry winced. “Yeah, he had it pretty bad with the Malfoys. Er... speaking of that, you should watch him around the ironing, as well.”
“Why's that?”
“I know of at least one occasion where he said he had to iron his hands.”
Sirius growled angrily at that. “Bloody Lucius Malfoy! I wish there were laws against house-elf abuse so I could nail him for it. Of course, even if there were laws passed now, we wouldn't be able to nail him for abusing Dobby, since that happened when it was legal. But I'm damned well going to get my solicitor to getting me on my family's Wizengamot seat so I can introduce legislation to protect house-elves. In fact, I'm going to owl her right now. You should get changed into something more comfortable, pup.”
“Okay, yeah. And I wish you luck on that. I want to help house-elves too.”
Sirius nodded at Harry approvingly and went off to go write to Ms. Pennyroyal.
Harry grinned at his godfather's righteous anger on behalf of Dobby, and went to his room to change out of his bike leathers.
Looking around the house, he thought it looked very nice. A little old and creaky, but nice. It was only later, when Sirius explained to him the many changes, that he had any idea of what it had been before. He goggled at Sirius's descriptions: a screaming portrait of Sirius's mother that took four professional arithmancers, a retired auror, and three Charms experts to work out how to remove from the wall; a number of other magical portraits which were now in storage in a Gringott's vault, including one so badly degraded they had no idea who the portrait was supposed to depict.
In fact, one of the few remaining relics left behind was a restored family tree. Sirius explained that several good people had been blasted off by his mother, who were now back on the family tree. But others, Sirius had blasted off himself; Bellatrix Lestrange, for one. He'd done the same for Narcissa Malfoy as well. But there were others who had been blasted off who were back now.
“You'll be meeting some of them, too. Andromeda Tonks, her husband, and their daughter Nymphadora; I've already started writing them about a time to come over. It's a little difficult getting them all together at once, since Nymphadora is a brand-new auror, only just qualified like, last month I think. You'll love them, they're great. The only downside, really, is that Andromeda looks scarily similar to Bellatrix LeStrange.”
“No idea who that is,” Harry said.
“Bellatrix LeStrange nee Black, a Death Eater currently serving time in Azkaban.”
Harry's eyes went wide, and he gasped.
“Like I said, my family were horrible people. Well, except that Regulus – who had been a Death Eater as well – apparently turned against Voldemort in the end, for all the good it did him. Berk may have gotten himself killed, but I'm proud of him nonetheless.”
Sirius sighed wistfully.
“Are you okay?”
“What? Oh, yeah. I will be. I was never close to Regulus. Hated the lot of them. But he was still my brother. Ah well, no sense moaning about it. When are your friends coming over?”
“We haven't settled anything yet. But now I know where the house is, I can relay that information to them.”
“Excellent. This house is so big, it'll be good to have some more people in here. You can have friends over as many days as you want, Harry. Just make sure to check with me and their parents before letting any of them stay overnight. Especially your friend Luna, eh?” Sirius winked at Harry. Harry raised an eyebrow back.
“Why'd you single her out, Sirius? I'm friends with five girls in total.”
Sirius sighed, shaking his head and clucking his tongue. “Never mind, pup, never mind.”
~
A couple days later, Harry received something unexpected from a familiar owl, Mr. Malfoy's owl. It arrived when Sirius happened to be passing, and Sirius stopped him from taking the letter in case it was cursed.
“We've been writing back and forth before without him cursing me yet.”
“That may be, but I'd feel safer checking first.”
Sirius got out his wand and scanned the letter and the owl for curses or any other kind of spell.
“Well, there's some magic on here, but it seems benign. I'd better investigate more.”
A few minutes of waiting later, and Sirius said, “Aha! It's very subtle and well done, to the point I doubt I would've found anything at all if I weren't one of the intended recipients, but I think there's a Blood-Secrets Charm on it.”
“A what?”
“Didn't you mention to me once that your friend Draco sent you a letter that added an extra postscript to itself when Hermione bled onto it?”
“Yeah, I did. Is that the Blood-Secrets Charm?”
“Yes. I think it's set to you. That makes sense; he could just ask his son for help, if you two traded hair or blood samples. You should bleed on it a little. Pinprick's worth will do.”
Harry took the letter from the owl, which waited there, probably for a response. Slitting the letter open with his wand, he took it out. It looked, outwardly, like another angry letter from Mr. Malfoy, but since they knew it was a decoy, Harry used his wand to produce a tiny drop of blood that he smeared on the page. The parchment burned off the blood and the text of the letter changed before their eyes. Harry read the letter to himself first, then aloud to Sirius.
To Mister Harry James Potter,
I have given the matter a great deal of thought over the summer, as well as discussing it with my wife, Mrs. Narcissa Malfoy nee Black. While I am still concerned for my son's safety, I have decided to make you an offer. I will give the friendship between you and my son my blessing and stop harassing you about it if you will promise on your magic to do everything you can to keep him safe if the dark lord rises again.
If you accept this accord, there are some things I can offer. First is that I will allow him to remain at Hogwarts rather than sending him abroad to another school. I will also permit him to visit you over the summer at your godfather's house, something I would not have permitted before this deal. But I understand your godfather's house is very well protected, so I ask you this: if the dark lord rises again, please implore your godfather to put his house under a Fidelius Charm, and when he does, please keep Draco safe there. He is our sole heir, despite many attempts to produce a spare, and has inherited his mother's stubbornness. I cannot talk him out of his friendship with you, and I have not been able to intimidate him out of it, so I am shelving my pride to ask you and your godfather and yes, even Dumbledore if needs be, to keep my son safe. I have no doubt the dark lord will return someday, and I fear that day is drawing nearer even as we speak.
I would also like your godfather to swear on his magic to protect my son if the dark lord returns as well. I know he has no love for our family, and I understand that, but hopefully he will also understand my desire to keep my son safe.
I realize this is all rather an unbalanced accord, perhaps more so than you do. In truth, if the dark lord rises again as I fear he will, there really would be nowhere safe on this earth for my son if the dark lord were sufficiently determined to hurt him, save possibly under a Fidelius Charm. So you stand to both lose little and win little in the deal, realistically, and my family gains much if you accept it. I do not know what else to offer to balance the equation. I hope that either your Griffindor values will prompt you to accept the accord anyway, or else ask for something else from myself or my wife to balance things out more in your favor.
Whether you accept this accord or not, please also destroy this letter once you have read it and responded to it. I do not wish any physical evidence of this accord between us to remain, in case the dark lord should discover it. He may misinterpret this as disloyalty from me, or use my son against me. As you may have guessed, the parchment is spelled with a Blood-Secrets Charm, so it will look different once activated by your blood for a time, but there is still a risk he may find out, so best to not tempt fate overmuch.
Please let me know your answer as soon as you are able to. You need not rush into a decision, of course, but the sooner we have your answer, the better for our sanity.
Yours in fellowship,
Mister Lucius Malfoy, Lord of House Malfoy
and
Mistress Narcissa Malfoy nee Black, Lady of House Malfoy
The letter faded back to the decoy. Harry, testing a theory, tried activating the spell again. Nothing happened. The magic was gone, the real message with it. It was a true testament to the degree of their paranoia to want them to destroy the letter even though the magic that made the secret message, along with the message itself, was gone as though it had never been.
“Well that's interesting,” Sirius said, stroking his chin in thought. “Hmm... do you think I should discuss this with my solicitor?”
“I don't know. Maybe not. I mean, the more people know a secret, the harder it is to keep. 'Three men may keep a secret if two are dead,'” he quoted.
“I wouldn't go that far,” said Sirius. “There are entire branches of governments devoted to keeping secrets from the people and from other governments. Of course, there are spies who can find out those secrets, but still... anyway, moving on. I know Ms. Pennyroyal knows occlumency, so I suppose she's safe to talk with.”
“Do you know it?” asked Harry. “Because I don't.”
“Well, I was being taught it when I was training to be an auror, but I hadn't progressed terribly far on it when I was arrested, and I've been out of practice for over 12 years.”
“Do you think Mr. Malfoy knows about this occlumency thing?”
“It's possible. He was certainly a Death Eater, but kept out of Azkaban. Largely with his money and power, but there may have possibly been more to it than that. Anyway, if he's aware of occlumency, he's trusting us with a secret I'm sure he knows is insecure with you, since you don't know occlumency.”
“Well he wants to keep his son safe. That's not a terribly huge secret. I mean, it puts Draco in danger, but Mr. Malfoy can just say his son turned against him. It'd be the truth, even.”
“True. Anyway, I'll probably get my solicitor or one of her people to help with this. This is too good an opportunity to pass by.”
“Oh? Why's that?”
“According to Ms. Pennyroyal, Lucius and Narcissa are holding my family's seat. I can ask for it back. Might even be able to leverage them to vote however I do.”
“I don't know about that second one, Sirius. If he's this worried, he's probably going to have to go back to Voldemort and serve him to keep his family safe, and he can't be seen supporting our side in public.”
“Damn, you're right. In fact, even if they do agree to give me my seat on the Wizengamot, they'll have to at least appear to put up a good fight. It won't be easy for them or for us. And their solicitor is Rowle.”
Harry winced. “Oh boy. And that man hates to lose.”
“Worse, I doubt they'll be able to tell him about the deal. Even if he knew occlumency, his politics are pretty Death-Eater friendly. I think he has at least one relative who was a Death Eater, in fact. So he'll fight as hard as he can, thinking it's what the Malfoys really want.”
“Plainly we need to get together with them somewhere and discuss things.”
“But how to respond to his letter? I know the spell he used, it's an old pureblood spell, but I don't have any hair or blood or skin of his.”
“We can address it to Draco. He hasn't gotten around to teaching me the spell, but I have a small vial of his hair.”
“Ah, that's that solved then. You go write out a decoy letter and fetch that hair, and I'll plan out the real response.”
“Gotcha.”
It took them over an hour to complete the secret letter to Sirius's satisfaction, but they eventually got it. They sent it off with Mr. Malfoy's owl and destroyed his letter as he requested.
To Mister. Lucius Malfoy,
We received your letter and we wish to discuss this in person with you in a secure and mutually agreed-upon location if you are amenable to doing so. We're also curious if it would be acceptable to have a witness there for the meeting, such as Ms. Pennyroyal – our solicitor – with us. Or perhaps Albus Dumbledore, if you feel you need more security? Aside from the obvious trust issues between us, an arbiter might be useful anyway.
Please let us know as soon as possible what you think of this.
Your in fellowship,
Mister Sirius Black, Lord of House Black
and
Mister Harry James Potter
Less than an hour later, they got back another response.
To Mister Harry James Potter and Mister Sirius Black, Lord of House Black,
My wife and I agree to a meeting in person. We agree to have Chief Warlock Albus Dumbledore there as arbiter and witness. In light of this, would it be amenable to meet in the office of same, at Hogwarts? If so, and if you will contact the Chief Warlock to arrange a time convenient for him as well as for the two of you, we will make ourselves available at any hour you choose.
Yours in fellowship,
Mister Lucius Malfoy, Lord of House Malfoy
and
Mistress Narcissa Malfoy nee Black, Lady of House Malfoy
Once the words faded away again, Sirius went into the kitchen and tossed some Floo powder into the fireplace to fire-call Dumbledore. Dumbledore came on through the Floo into their kitchen once Sirius gave him permission.
“Is there any evidence of these letters?” Dumbledore said, sounding wary.
“Just our memories.”
“I see. Sirius, do you know how to extract memories for pensieves?”
“Yes.”
“I wish to extract such memories to review them, if that is fine by you two?”
They nodded. Within minutes, they were providing Dumbledore with the memories. He went back through to his office. Within twenty minutes, his head popped up in the fire.
“Sirius, Harry, I have reviewed those memories. I believe them to be genuine in this desire. You may let them know I am available at any time to arbitrate the meeting.”
“Thanks, Dumbledore,” Sirius said.
“You are quite welcome. Of course, I am very curious. This is rather an unexpected turn of events. One which is, at the same time, somewhat worrying.”
“Yes, he seems so certain Voldemort will come back soon.”
“He may know something we do not, which is relevant. But I must be going now, my knees are complaining. I should put a thicker rug down here in future. Goodbye for now, Sirius, Harry.”
They waved him goodbye, and his head disappeared from the fireplace, the green flames returning to normal fire.
~
Their meeting with the Malfoys ended up getting set for the next Friday at noon. That left several days free, during which Harry managed to settle plans to get Ron and Luna over one day, Antigone and Hermione the next, and Angela on the third. Danzia and her family had plans to go to China for the summer, but she promised to come over on the Saturday following their meeting with the Malfoys (not that she knew they were doing so; they had told nobody but Dumbledore about that).
That first day, an owl and a very large raven showed up at Harry's window. The owl, Errol, smacked pathetically against the closed window and onto the planter box that Harry had been preparing to plant a small garden in. He opened the window to let Errol in, and a raven nearly as big as Errol perched on the sill and cawed at Harry, its leg held out, a letter tied to it. This raven was distinctive. Not only was it bigger than any raven Harry had ever seen before (and Harry had seen a lot of ravens), it also had a white mark on its back that looked a little like the letter W.
“You must belong to the Lovegoods,” Harry said as he untied the letter from the raven's leg. “It'd be just the sort of thing they'd do, using a bird that's only active in the daytime, as opposed to owls which are nocturnal.”
The raven cawed at him again, in an impatient sort of way.
“Yeah yeah, I'm doing it fast as I can.”
He untied the final knot and pulled the message off at last. The raven cawed in a more friendly way and flew inside all the way, snooping around through his things for shiny objects.
“What, you don't want food?”
The raven cocked its head thoughtfully, then cawed again.
“Greedy, aren't you?” he said, giving the raven some owl treats. He hadn't been sure the raven would like them, but it seemed pleased with the offer.
He read the letter, from Luna of course.
Dear Harry,
This is Writing Desk, our raven. We named him that partly because of the W shape on his back, and partly because Daddy and I love both Edgar Allen Poe and Lewis Carroll. Writing Desk also likes the name Edward, though. We like him much better than owls. He doesn't cough up the skeletons of small animals, for one thing, and he loves shiny objects. He's been collecting things for years, and has quite a huge collection by now; it has its entire room in our house, his collection. Well, it's also the room Writing Desk sleeps in, but mostly it's taken up with shells, buttons, coins, bits of shiny thread, pieces of colored glass, and even the skulls of what we think are deceased friends or family of his. Those he keeps in a special space that looks a lot like an altar, which he decorates with ribbons, wire, and his shiniest trinkets, including several gold galleon coins. He even honors his fallen loved ones once a week by sitting silently on the altar for half an hour, then cawing rather loudly at the ceiling for twenty minutes. It's so sad and beautiful all at once, the poor dear.
Writing Desk likes to collect names, too. Along with his given name and Edward, he will also answer to Karl Marx, Napoleon, Merlin, Black Swooping Death, and Apostle Thomas. We don't know why he does this, or how he chooses the names he collects, but we respect his creativity.
Yes, I would very much like to visit you today if I can. You can fire-call if you want, I'll take Writing Desk home with me in the Floo. He likes it, for some reason. I think he likes being able to go home without putting forth any effort, the laz---
“CAW! CAW! CAWWW!!!” Harry's reading was interrupted as Writing Desk started cawing loudly, flapping his wings defiantly at a much larger Hedwig, who was shrieking in an outraged sort of tone and puffing herself up angrily.
“Hedwig! Leave him alone, he's Luna's familiar!”
She turned her head all the way around to glare at him, then turned to glare at Writing Desk, who somehow managed – without an expressive face – to look very smug as he continued picking through Harry's belongings for something shiny to take home with him.
---the lazy dear. He even tolerates the Knight Bus, though sometimes he'll land on the back of the driver's seat and screech at the driver as though he knows better than the driver how to steer a bus. Anyway, I can tell you more about him when I come over. When should I come over, anyway?
Sorry for having to communicate with letters instead of the two-way mirror, but Writing Desk and I had a row the other day and he hid it from me to show his displeasure. He'll give it back in a day or two, though; he always does. He's a forgiving soul. And he's good at understanding when something is an emergency; he'll return it if there's an emergency.
I know I've sent you things by owl before, back on your last birthday, but that was a post owl. Writing Desk doesn't like taking most packages, he only tolerates taking letters.
Looking forward to visiting you!
With love,
Luna
PS = Daddy says to say Hi to you for him.
Harry chuckled at the rich personality of Writing Desk and put the letter down to go fire-call Luna.
Kneeling to put his head in the fire, he said Luna's address and felt his head spin around. When it stopped in her fireplace, it still felt like it was spinning. He wondered what would happen if he were to get sick with his head magically detached from his body like this, until he looked up into the familiar kitchen of the Lovegoods.
“Harry! There you are. My, that was fast. Writing Desk will sometimes take hours extra to make a delivery, just because he values his own time so much, so I was worried it would take longer. Anyway, can I come over, now?”
“Of course you can. Sirius just doesn't want anyone staying overnight without his say-so. But during the day, I think he just wants a little fore-warning, a fire-call or something first.”
“Good. Daddy! I'm going to Harry's place now!” she called back at him.
Xeno poked his head out from the other room. “Have fun, my delightful moon-calf! Hi there, Harry!”
“Hello sir. Well I'd better pull my head out of the Floo so Luna can come over.”
“Watch out for Floo bugs,” Xeno warned. “They'll make your head feel like it's floating along like a balloon on a string if you're not careful.”
“I'll keep an eye out for them, sir. See you!” Harry said, and pulled out of the Floo.
Luna came out of the Floo a couple minutes later, and Harry only now registered what she was wearing. She had on a knee-length dress that looked like it had been designed by Picasso, in concert with Rene Magritte. She also wore a red beret on her blond hair, and great big hoop earrings of pink wire with pentagrams of wire inside of them. Her fingernails were also painted, in ten different colors: one color for each finger. Harry saw bubblegum-pink, Kelley green, red, sunflower yellow, periwinkle, gold, silver, lavender, sunset orange, and mauve. He looked down at her feet; she was wearing one white sandal and one green one, and her toenails were all painted different colors too. In this case: forest green, black, dandelion, a metallic dark blue, the 'salmon' shade of pink, indigo, red wine, brown, neon orange, and white.
What was more, she or her father had painted multi-colored flowers and green leafy vines on her face and down her neck to her collarbone, which continued down along both of her arms to her hands. And there was a painting of a hippogriff on her left leg. He didn't understand how he could've missed it during the fire-call.
“Harry, is that your friend Luna coming ov---” Sirius said, freezing mid-sentence when he came in and saw Luna. He gaped at her strange appearance as she smiled and waved at him.
“Er, welcome, Miss Lovegood,” Sirius said with a grin, holding a hand out for her to shake.
Luna looked at his hand, held both of hers out to her sides, spun herself rapidly around three times, waited a moment for the dizziness to pass, and only then took his hand to shake it.
“Sorry about that, Mr. Black,” she apologized quietly. “But I could feel the shake-wraiths trying to get inside me, and I couldn't risk them passing on to you.”
“Er, okay,” Sirius said, confused, as Harry tried hard to suppress his laughter.
“Um, anyway Luna, you can just call me Sirius. I shall always think of Mr. Black as my father, I think, and I never much liked the man.”
“Okay, Sirius. Thank you for inviting me into your home.”
“Any friend of Harry's is a friend of mine.”
She beamed at him, then turned immediately to Harry. “So where's Writing Desk?”
“Pardon?” asked Sirius.
“He's my familiar. He's a raven.”
When he was able to stop snickering at Sirius's continued bafflement in regards to Luna, Harry said, “He's upstairs in my room looking for something shiny to take with him.”
“You left him up there alone?” she asked in concern.
“No, Hedwig is up there with him. Why?”
“Harry! If you leave Writing Desk unsupervised in your room, anything could happen! Come on, let's hurry!”
She took his hand and they ran up the stairs to Harry's room. What they found when they got there was best described as bedlam. Writing Desk was wearing an origami admiral's hat and a sock as a scarf while flying around the room carrying Harry's entire coin purse in his talons; he was trying to get away from Hedwig, who was screeching and flapping after him in a rage, several of her feathers – plucked out – lying on the bed. Harry's Sneak-o-scope was spinning and whistling on his desk, probably in response to Writing Desk, and Dobby had joined the fray and was trying to corral the two familiars. He was somewhat hindered by Writing Desk tossing heavy gold coins at his head every now and then and cawing in a way that sounded like mocking laughter.
“EDWARD WRITING DESK NAPOLEON APOSTLE THOMAS!” Luna said in a very loud and cross voice, “YOU PUT HARRY'S COIN PURSE DOWN THIS INSTANT!”
The large raven somehow managed to trip in midair, falling down and dropping Harry's coin purse. When he got back up – his admiral's hat on crooked and his feathers ruffled – he hopped over to Harry and bowed his head, giving a mournful sort of croak that Harry took to be an apology.
At this, the Sneak-o-scope stopped spinning and whistling. Hedwig looked angry enough to spit nails, but she landed on her perch and preened herself in an annoyed fashion instead.
Harry looked to Luna for direction. She nodded at him, smiling.
“Er, Writing Desk, I forgive you. Try not to do it again,” he said.
“Caw!” quoth the raven, and began preening himself as well.
“Miss's raven is being very disruptive,” Dobby said. “Begging Miss's pardon,” he added, looking scared.
“Oh it's fine, you poor sweet little man.”
Dobby blinked at her in surprise, mouthing the word 'man' in bewildered astonishment.
Smiling at him, Luna held out her hand. “Hello. I'm Luna Lovegood. Are you Dobby?”
Tentatively, Dobby took her hand in his and shook it. “Yes, Miss Lovegood, I is Dobby.”
“It's an honor to meet you at last, Dobby. Harry has told me so much about you.”
“An... honor?” Dobby said, his eyes growing wide as dinnerplates. “Me? Miss is honored to meet... D-Dobby?”
“Of course I am. Any friend of Harry's is a friend of mine. Or at least, I attempt to make friends with them. They're not always interested in being friends with me.”
Dobby's eyes dribbled great runnels of tears as he smiled and then bowed to Luna.
“Miss Lovegood is truly as great and as good as Harry Potter, Miss. Dobby is also being very honored to be meeting you, Miss.”
“Please, call me Luna.”
“Yes, of course Miss Luna.”
She smiled at him.
Harry turned to Luna. “You are very colorful today, Luna.”
“Why thank you, Harry,” she said, curtsying. “I was experimenting with some new art styles earlier – well, new to me – and I wanted some inspiration from Picasso and Magritte.”
“Did you get it?”
“Yes. I had just finished a painting of Writing Desk on his perch before you called.”
Harry felt a tug on his pants leg and looked down. Writing Desk was looking pleadingly from him to a shiny fifty-pence piece and back again.
“Did you find that in my things?” Harry asked gently.
Writing Desk nodded his feathery head, still looking pleadingly at Harry.
“If you want it, you can have it. But that's it for now, okay?”
The bird nodded, rubbed his head against Harry's leg, readjusting his origami hat before taking off to go play with his shiny new toy.
“Hey Dobby, you've been bored lately, right? Not enough to do?”
“Er, yes, Harry Potter sir. What would you likes Dobby to do for you, sir?”
“Do you know how to knit?”
Dobby bobbed his head enthusiastically. “Yes, Dobby does indeed, sir.”
“Well... it probably won't take you long, but I'm hoping you'd be so kind as to knit Writing Desk here his own little scarf.”
The bird turned around at these words and cawed, hopping up and down excitedly. Then he flapped his wings and contorted in a weird way, rather insistently.
“Oooh, he's playing charades, Harry! Let's see... two words. First word, something that starts with R. Has two limbs... flies—OOH! A raven?”
The bird nodded, and started miming the second word.
“Feet? Legs? Toes? Wait, talons? No, claws? AHA! You want a Ravenclaw scarf?”
Writing Desk nodded, cawing excitedly.
“Wow,” Harry said. “I knew ravens were intelligent, but this much so?”
“Well, Harry, he is a magical raven. Magical animals are more intelligent than their Muggle counterparts. Owls, for instance; Muggle owls aren't really the brightest of birds, at least among birds of prey. But of course magical owls are very clever indeed.”
Hedwig looked annoyed for a moment, then shrugged her shoulders as though conceding the point.
“So,” she continued, “with Muggle ravens being so very clever, of course magical ravens are even cleverer still.”
Writing Desk puffed himself up proudly and gave what could only be described as a regal pose, especially considering the hat he was wearing.
Harry laughed at the bird. “Now Luna, if you inflate his ego too much, he might explode!”
“CAW!” Writing Desk said in a very put-out sort of tone, and went back to playing with the fifty-pence piece.
Harry turned and just happened to notice Errol sitting on his bed.
“Oh crud, I forgot Ron sent a letter too!” he said, running over to get the letter from Errol's leg.
He read the short letter as quick as he could and ran down to the kitchen, Luna – with her raven on her shoulder – following shortly behind.
“What's the rush, pup?”
“In all the excitement of Writing Desk's company, I forgot Ron wrote to me too. The Burrow!” Harry shouted as he stuck his head in the green flames.
“Harry! About time! What took you so long? Did Errol pass out halfway there?”
“No, Errol made it here fine. I just got distracted by Luna's raven.”
“Luna's... raven?”
“She and her dad use a raven instead of an owl.”
Ron chuckled. “That figures. But don't you and she have those two-way mirrors?”
“She and Writing Desk – her raven – got into a fight, and he hid her mirror.”
Ron laughed again. “A raven named Writing Desk, that's classic Luna!”
When Ron came through the Floo and finished brushing the soot off himself, he looked up and stood transfixed by the weirdness of Luna and Writing Desk.
Sirius barked with laughter. “Close your mouth, Ron, you'll catch flies if you don't!”
Ron closed his mouth and blinked at Luna, looking her up and down.
“Very colorful,” he said at last. “Ah, member of the old religion, I see?” Ron continued, pointing at Luna's earrings.
“Yes. What about you, Ron?”
“More of a hybrid, really. I guess. I mostly just like Christmas and Easter.”
“They're very lovely holidays, I agree.”
“Yeah, plus we get out of school on them.”
“That too.”
The three of them, accompanied by Writing Desk, started exploring the house. There were quite a lot of bedrooms, a parlor, a sitting room, a library, a ballroom, and even a dueling room. Ron was especially amazed by the size of the place, with its many levels. Harry was impressed, too, as he hadn't gotten as good a look as he'd wanted to before.
Luna gave her raven a ball of yarn to play with when they went into the massive ballroom to run around in. It was an odd thing to give a bird, but he seemed to enjoy it, attacking it with gusto and rolling around with it.
The three of them had tea that afternoon, Luna giving Writing Desk his own place setting and tea, casting a cooling charm on the tea so he could drink it without getting hurt. The bird also got a biscuit and half a scone, which he ate with excitement.
Sirius, who had been staring at the raven all during tea, got up as tea was ending to sit next to the bird and look right at it. The bird stared back in annoyance.
“Say 'nevermore,'” Sirius told it.
“HAR HAR HAR!” quoth the raven, sounding very peevish.
Sirius laughed. “Worth a try, anyway!”
They ended up staying for dinner, too. Kreacher made steak and kidney pie. Harry thought about using hot sauce, but didn't want to risk offending the elf, so he didn't. For desert they had black pudding and leftover biscuits from tea.
Harry was a little sad when they went back home, but he was looking forward to tomorrow when Hermione and Antigone would show up, and he had lots of fun today, so he fell asleep to pleasant dreams.
Endnote: The character of Writing Desk AKA Edward, etc the raven came about by accident. I forgot about the two-way mirror for several minutes, and decided the Lovegoods would use a raven instead of an owl, and it just kinda snowballed from there. But I like him, I'm keeping him.
I've been ashamed of the diminishing amount of humor in this fic lately, so I'm glad to say I've started making up for that here. :-D And what better way to do so than with Luna?
Speaking of Luna, in the next chapter we will be seeing VERY strong hints about Luna being autistic as well, since I'm certain she was meant to be autistic in canon. (Thus, I don't consider Luna's being on the spectrum to be part of the AU of this story, rather an expansion on canon.) If I ever meet Rowling in person, I'm going to ask her about Luna's and Hermione's neuro-status. (Whether they're autistic or not.)
American readers: I'm an American myself, but I use a lot of British terms in my HP fanfics. Sorry if that's confusing at all.
One last thing: Along with thinking Luna is autistic in canon, I'm really convinced now that Hermione is also autistic in canon. As a friend of mine pointed out in this Quora post of his: https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-of-your-Harry-Potter-the... Not sure what this says about canon Harry now that it appears two of his closest friends appear to be autistic. (There's also a theory out there that Ron is on the autism spectrum as well, but I don't really see it. I mean yeah, he's a chess prodigy and he focuses on Quidditch a lot, but there are non-autistic people with similar characteristics as well. I'll keep looking for evidence, but I'm not convinced on that one.)
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Four.
Or, "Autistic Potter and the Goblet of Fire."
Notes: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made. Not by me, anyway.
There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though. And the more this deviates from canon, the less that will happen. But some descriptions and things like that are too good to skip or try to reword.
Just as a reminder, so I don't have to shoehorn in descriptions in the text of the story as a reminder, but in this fanfic Harry and Hermione, apart from having Asperger's Syndrome, are both black as well.
I'm just as bad as Rowling at forgetting about birthdays of characters other than Harry, at least in this fic. So I'll just act as though Harry and the others remembered in the past offstage, and I'll try to be better in future to at least mention them.
I also fixed the mistake in book 2 of this fic where Draco claimed Sirius was an uncle, when Sirius is, in fact, Narcissa's cousin. I fixed that before I posted this chapter.
Chapter Two: Building Bridges
The next day, Sirius side-along apparated Harry to the Granger house where they picked up Hermione to take her to Grimmauld Place. Sirius had gotten strong enough since his release to where he side-along apparated both Harry and Hermione without splinching anyone, though he had to sit down at the dinner table and recover while Kreacher served Sirius tea and biscuits.
Antigone, for her part, came by Floo.
“Ah,” Sirius said when he saw her come out of the kitchen fireplace, “so you must be Antigone, one of Harry's Slytherin friends?”
The Indian girl smiled and brushed her black hair out of her face. “Yeah, that's me. Antigone Dreyfuss.”
She held out her hand, and he shook it jovially.
“Nice to meet you, Antigone. I hear you helped Harry out during his first and second year against Voldemort, is that right?”
She nodded. “Yes, I did. In the Chamber of Secrets, I got Slytherin's flaming sword from the Sorting Hat!”
“A flaming sword, that's perfectly Biblical,” Sirius said.
“That it is.”
“Well you go run along and meet with your friends.”
“It's nice to meet you, Sirius.”
“Likewise. Now go, you don't need to keep this old codger company.”
She grinned and ran off to find Harry and Hermione.
“Oh good, there you are Antigone. Now I only have to tell the story once. Come on, I'll tell you about my day yesterday, it was loads of fun!”
~
They were all still laughing about the antics of Luna's raven when Sirius came to the doorway and said, “Harry, Luna and her father are here. Their raven is missing, and they thought they'd check here.”
“What? Oh okay,” Harry said, getting up. Hermione and Antigone followed him, and as they came out of the drawing room, they came face to face – so to speak – with Luna and Xeno.
This time, Luna was dressed in a dress that looked made of spider silk, it was so gauzy. She had some short pants and a tank top on underneath, which was good because they could see it clearly. Luna also had a wreath made of various sorts and colors of flowers, very artfully done, with a daisy the size of a fist as the crown jewel. She also had flowers attached to the gauzy silk dress, around the fringe of the bottom and around the neckline, which continued down to her abdomen. She was barefoot, and her ankles had anklets of tinkling bells. Her skin art from the day before was still there, looking almost as good as it had the other day. She had her back to them when they first saw her, and Harry had seen a brief glimpse of a large sunflower with green vine rays emanating from it painted between her shoulder blades before she turned back around.
Xeno, for his part, was wearing an outfit that looked like someone from Robin Hood's era had made an outfit out of green fabric that bore a strong resemblance to actual leaves. He wore a similar, but understated, flower crown on his head, more on the order of a flower circlet than a crown. He wasn't barefoot, but his sandals looked like he'd woven them by hand from corn husks.
Catching the stares of everyone, Xeno smiled as he gently turned Luna around to face them.
“Admiring out religious garb, I see?”
“Er... is that what it is?” Antigone asked.
“Religious garb?” asked Hermione in confusion.
“Well it is for me,” Xeno said. “For my little fairy gift here, I suppose it counts as part of her cultural heritage.”
“Xeno, Luna! I found your bird. He was in the library,” Sirius said, coming into view carrying Writing Desk on his shoulder.
“Ah, excellent. He was probably trying to see if you had any Edgar Allan Poe or Shakespeare books in your collection, he's a connoisseur of fine literature.”
Writing Desk flew over to land on Xeno's shoulder instead. Luna looked momentarily disappointed at this, but smiled.
“He must want to feel tall today,” she said.
“What did you mean by 'cultural heritage,' Mr. Lovegood? And 'religious garb'?” Hermione asked, sounding like she was waiting for confirmation of something before she went off on an Aspie rant.
“Yes,” Harry said. “And 'fairy gift'? Why'd you call her that?”
“Well... when my Luna was little, some ignorant people used to call her a Changeling Child, saying she was stolen away by the Fair Folk and replaced with a changeling, like in the old stories. But they had it all wrong. Pandora – my wife – was having so much trouble getting pregnant that she and I sought the help of the Fair Folk using some of the ancient rituals. Well, the very night after we did that, Pandora was taken away by the Fair Folk overnight. They plied her with ambrosia and food, and several Fair Folk – including a satyr, a faun, and a Tuatha de Danaan – er... 'made merry with her' as they say, and in the morning she was returned. Two weeks later, though we hadn't tried again ourselves, Pandora was with child. Luna was born nine months later. Hence, she's a gift from the Fairies.”
“Aren't fairies the little human-looking creatures with insect wings?” Hermione asked, looking incredulous.
“Oh no, those are just one of the kinds of fairy to still live in our world. Those of us who still believe in the Fair Folk call them nixies. Others include pixies and doxies, trolls, mer-people, centaurs, dwarves, goblins, and elves. Anyway, the land of Fairy cut itself off from ours one or two thousand year ago, at least officially, but there were known to be hundreds of species of Fair Folk. Some of them were human-sized and mostly human-shaped, as well, like the Tuatha de Danaan. The fact that they answered our prayers and gifted us with Luna proves they still care about our world.”
“Do you have any proof of any of this?”
“Did you have any proof of magic before you got visited by Professor McGonagall?”
“Well, no. But---”
“My dear, there's all kinds of evidence of these things if you know where to look. Ever seen rooms or trunks or bags that are larger on the inside than on the outside? Ever wonder how those work? Ever wonder where all the missing mass goes when you transfigure a hippopotamus into a garden snake? Well the answer is simple, Miss Granger: between our world and the land of Fairy is a dimension known as The Borderlands. Trunks that are bigger on the inside than the outside are really portals to constructs within The Borderlands, and the missing mass of the transfigured hippo slides into The Borderlands until it needs to return.”
“Yes, Hermione,” said Luna. “The land of Fairy is how we have magic in our world at all. All magical creatures can trace their lineage from Fairy in one way or another. The Fair Folk bred with humans and made witches and wizards, too. And of course, the Fair Folk and their magic are why we have magical versions of normally non-magical animals, like owls and ravens.”
Hermione opened her mouth to object, but didn't seem able to find an argument. Either that, or she decided not to bother. She closed her mouth again and sighed.
“And these are some reasons why my Luna and I worship the Fair Folk, especially the Tuatha de Danaan, the High Lords and Ladies of Fairy. Our home altar is dedicated to them, especially to Brigid and Lugh.”
“Well that explains the 'religious garb' bit, but what about 'cultural heritage'?” Antigone asked.
“Isn't it obvious, Miss, er...?”
“Dreyfuss.”
“Ah yes, Miss Dreyfuss. Isn't it obvious, Miss Dreyfuss?”
“Um, no.”
“I told you how Luna was gifted to us. I don't know... you seem old enough to know how these things work, how babies are made, I mean---”
Her face turning so red it was visible through her brown skin, Antigone hurriedly said, “Yes I know okay don't tell me!”
“Well, when I say some of the Fair Folk 'made merry with' my wife---”
“I GET IT, I get it! Forget I asked.”
“Of course, that term usually has some darker connotations, I suppose,” he said, looking thoughtful. “So I should specify that Pandora was completely willing. She knew why she was there, after all; she'd asked for their help, and she knew their help always comes at a cost.”
Hermione frowned. “So you think Luna is half Fairy, and half mortal?”
“Oh no, not at all.”
“But---”
“No, you misunderstand, Miss Granger. Given that Pandora was most likely sterile, I'd say Luna is more likely full-blooded Fairy. Probably Tuatha de Danaan, since she never had a tail or faun ears, and she's never shown any sign of horns yet.”
“Yes, I was very disappointed by that. Horns would have been fun to have, even if people would make fun of me for it,” Luna said.
“It'd certainly be a talking point,” Antigone said, trying not to laugh.
“But yes, Miss Granger, I do think my Luna is one of the Fair Folk. Just like those mean people who called her a changeling, but in this case she's a good thing, a special gift, a child for a barren couple. And I have other evidence of this, too. She took far longer than other children to start talking, skipping the babbling stage altogether, and her first words were an entire sentence – 'I love you, Mummy and Daddy.' She's extremely creative, she can see things we humans can't, has always been very curious about animals and even plants but has always been very gentle with them, she's honest to a fault – a well-known trait of the Fair Folk, and she always seems to be standing in two different worlds, like part of her attention is always back in the land of Fairy. Isn't that right, my Luna?”
Luna smiled in that far-off way of hers. Now that Harry thought of it, 'away with the fairies' sounded like a good description of the way Luna often looked.
Hermione, her arms crossed, snorted in disbelief. “That sounds like what Harry and I have, Asperger's syndrome. Nothing to do with fairies at all!”
“If that's what you believe, Miss Granger, you won't hear any condemnation of it from me. To each their own, after all,” Xeno said.
“Yes, Hermione,” Antigone said. “If it's not hurting anyone, what's the harm? And arguing about it just makes you sound rude, I'm sorry to say.”
Looking hurt and defiant at the same time, Hermione turned to Antigone, but backed down at the older girl's gentle expression. “I didn't mean to be rude,” Hermione finally said in a small voice.
Xeno chuckled amiably. “Don't worry about it, Miss Granger, I'm well accustomed to accidental rudeness. Like I said, my Luna is honest to a fault.”
There was suddenly one of those silences that meant the conversation was over, simply because it had run its course, and it was time for a new one.
Taking this as a hint, Sirius said, “How'd that raven even get into the house in the first place?”
~
On the Friday of their meeting with the Malfoys. After a delicious breakfast of truly sublime cinnamon rolls, fresh-squeezed orange juice, and the fluffiest, richest omelet Harry had ever tasted – made by Dobby, who was trying to outdo Kreacher's cooking, and after sitting for a couple hours in the sitting room digesting and waiting to leave, they were on their way through the Floo to Hogwarts. Dumbledore greeted them and bade them sit down. Harry noticed there were five chairs around a round table, where Dumbledore's desk had been before. Knowing Dumbledore, he probably transfigured his desk into a table for this meeting.
As they sat waiting for the Malfoys to arrive – since they were early themselves – Sirius and Harry talked.
“I got you an appointment with a Muggle mind healer, Harry. Psychiatrist, I think the term is. She'll be able to get you an official diagnosis at last.”
“Good. I don't really need it, because I know I'm right about my self diagnosis, but it'll be nice to have anyway. When is it?”
“It's on this coming Wednesday, if you're up to it. If not, I can reschedule.”
“No, Wednesday is fine. Thanks, Sirius.”
“You're welcome, pup.”
“So, have you heard from this Malfoy boy at all since his parents sent their letter?”
“Yeah, I got something yesterday from him. He was astonished that his father was being so reasonable. But he thinks Lucius is being genuine about it.”
“Well even if it is some clever ploy, at least it can't be an outright trap. Not under Dumbledore's nose, anyway. Still, don't touch anything from either of them in case it's a portkey.”
“Sirius, my dear boy,” Dumbledore said with a twinkle in his eye, “you're getting quite as paranoid as Alastor.”
“My godson is marked for death by an immortal dark lord who blames Harry for being a powerless wraith for the last 12 or 13 years. Paranoia is a survival trait, in this context.”
Something in Dumbledore's collection of whirring, puffing, and occasionally whistling collection of unidentified artifacts made a tinkling chime.
“Ah, that will be Minerva letting the Malfoys in through the gates. I give it 10 minutes before they're at the gargoyle.”
Sure enough, 10 minutes later, a small gong went off from the artifact cabinet.
“That will be them,” he said.
A short while later, there was a knock at the door.
“Enter,” Dumbledore said.
The door opened, and in came the familiar Mr. Malfoy, looking very similar to the first time Harry had seen him, but in a different set of robes. He held his snakes-head cane casually at his side. Despite what he was here for, his expression still looked like he was disapproving of a very bad odor in the room.
Following behind him was a blond woman who had to be his wife. She was wearing an elegant dress, her hair in a knot at the back of her head. She looked like she was here for a formal dance or a ritzy party. Well, they both did, now Harry thought of it. He was reminded strongly of how Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon would dress up fancy to impress people. From there it further reminded him of the kind of dominance displays he sometimes caught glimpses of when the only thing on the telly that didn't bore Dudley to tears was nature documentaries. He had to fight to keep from laughing at the image of Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy as a pair of silver-back gorillas putting on a display.
“Welcome, Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy,” Dumbledore said. Harry was momentarily thrown by this; Dumbledore usually addressed adults by their first names.
“Thank you,” Mr. Malfoy said, making it sound like a threat.
Harry regarded Mrs. Malfoy. Unlike her husband, it looked like she was trying for 'icy bitch' and was failing at it. She couldn't quite hide her concern for her son, if Harry's guess was right. He figured most people could tell right away without thinking about it, while he himself had to guess based on a mix of experience with the Dursleys and the greater context of why they were here. He looked at Sirius in silent question. Sirius wasn't looking at him, he was looking at Mrs. Malfoy, but the expression on his face suggested that he was thinking along similar lines.
“Please, Lucius, Narcissa, have a seat,” Dumbledore said.
“Thank you kindly,” Mrs. Malfoy said this time. Her tone suggested she was feeling slightly ill.
“Is this room protected from eavesdroppers?” Mr. Malfoy asked before sitting down.
“Yes, Lucius. I have put every relevant security spell on this room for the day. Nobody will be hearing us but we who are seated at this table.”
Mr. Malfoy looked up at the portraits of old headmasters. “What of them,” he asked, gesturing with his head.
“The portraits? Lucius, I have trusted them with things far more sensitive than this matter. They are as secure as house elves. More so, even, as they are very limited in where they can go.”
“Good,” Mr. Malfoy said, and pulled a chair out for his wife, waiting for her to be seated before he took his own seat.
Once seated, Dumbledore said, “So, Sirius here tells me you are both very concerned for Draco, and you wish Sirius and Harry to pledge to protect your son.”
“A succinct summary,” Mr. Malfoy said with a sneer. “But true in essentials.”
“Very interesting, how far we've come in less than two years,” Dumbledore said.
Mr. Malfoy looked a little paler than before, and he was gritting his teeth. “Are we here to trade barbs at each other, or are we here to negotiate?”
“I meant no offense, Lucius. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
“Headmaster Dumbledore,” Mrs. Malfoy said, the ice back in her voice, “we have no wish to be here at all. But our son is more important than our comfort or its lack. Let us dispense with the small talk and get right to the meat of the matter.”
“Indeed,” Dumbledore said. “But relevant to the matter at hand, I find myself very curious why you feel it necessary. Perhaps I should clarify; I understand that you seem certain Voldemort will return, and soon. And I understand that Draco is siding with his enemy. What I seek to ascertain is why you did not simply send Draco away to Beauxbatons or Durmstrang, as I know you are capable of doing. If Draco were away from Harry, it would be very difficult indeed for Voldemort to have any quarrel with Draco. In fact, such a thing might make it easier to get Draco back on Voldemort's side.”
Harry was impressed; the two Malfoys had barely flinched at all when Dumbledore said Voldemort's nom de guerre. Most people jumped, and some people even shrieked. Even Professor Snape would flinch slightly at the sound of the name.
Mr. Malfoy sneered at Dumbledore more intensely than before. “Clearly, you have forgotten what it is to be young. Sending Draco away would only drive him further from the Dark Lord's views, and put more of a target on him as a result. Plus, how would we forbid owls between him and Potter? We couldn't.”
“At least not without making things look even more suspicious,” Sirius said.
Mrs. Malfoy glanced briefly at Sirius. “My cousin is unusually perceptive today.” Her emphasis on the word 'cousin' sounded about the same as Harry's did when he talked about Dudley.
“Avoiding the question, are you?” Sirius asked. “I'm curious for the answer, too. A real answer, I mean. Not just the obvious answer.”
“Whatever do you mean, dear cousin?” Her words made Harry shiver.
“I think what my godfather means is, have you changed sides? Not completely, I'm sure; you probably still think yourselves superior to Muggles and anyone who isn't pureblood. But Draco once told me, Mrs. Malfoy, that you always disagreed with your husband being a Death Eater, that you disagree with Voldemort's tactics. He said that you believe magical blood, no matter how impure, was too precious to be spilled.”
Breaking her icy facade completely, her eyes widened in surprise momentarily before she got her face back under control. She didn't respond right away, looking like she was mulling over what to say. Her husband looked to her for guidance, waiting to let her speak. Harry was again impressed; this was a marriage dynamic Harry had never seen before. It was plain, even to Harry, that Lucius respected his wife a great deal, and valued her opinion, giving her first crack at a conversation instead of presuming to speak for her. Likewise, she plainly felt the same respect for her husband, as she looked at him as well, almost like they were communicating with glances alone.
Finally, she spoke. “Surely my son also told you I have never opposed the Dark Lord, however much I may privately disagree with him. He is a powerful man, and he has my respect, despite my opinion of his tactics.”
“You mean 'was,'” Sirius said. “He's powerless at the moment.”
“Yes, but he yet lives. No body to speak of, and yet he isn't dead. That in itself is worthy of respect. And then there's your little rat problem to consider.”
“You think Pettigrew is going to go back to Voldemort?”
Mr. Malfoy sneered. “Of course he will. He fears the rest of us. The Dark Lord went to the Potter house on his information, and met his downfall there. There is nowhere safe in the world for Pettigrew to go, save for the side of the Dark Lord.”
“Enough of this,” Mrs. Malfoy said in a tone like a blade rammed into the table. “My husband and I do not trust your security, Mr. Potter. Nor yours, dear cousin. We have ways of keeping ourselves safe. We tried giving Draco the same training, but it didn't take. So we are here to make other arrangements. We will brook no more irrelevancies.”
“Alright, then,” Sirius said. “In that case, let's talk about what we're going to want from you in return.”
“Make your offer, cousin.”
“For starters, my seat on the wizengamot returned to me.”
“You mean the Black family wizengamot seat?”
“Yes, that.”
She glanced slyly at her husband a moment. Then---
“That can be arranged. But it won't be easy. Mr. Rowle will expect us to fight to keep it.”
“Expected as much. Ms. Pennyroyal can take care of it.”
Mr. Malfoy snorted as though he didn't believe that.
“Anything else, cousin?” Mrs. Malfoy asked.
“It would be nice if I could count on your own vote for things.”
“You ask too much, Black. It would not be safe for us to side openly with you.”
“Oh I'm sure there's some clever Slytherin way of doing it while keeping plausible deniability.”
Mrs. Malfoy paused to consider this. Her husband looked thoughtful as well.
“I do not think we can guarantee being able to side with you on everything,” she said. “It will depend on what is up for vote, as well as your arguments in favor of your side. Did you have anything specific in mind?”
“Legal protections for house elves, similar to how Muggles have legal protections for animals.”
“Like some sort of Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to House Elves?” Mr. Malfoy sneered.
“Yes, something like that. What you did to poor Dobby is a crime against human decency, for instance.”
Mr. Malfoy looked suddenly ill, but also angry. Mrs. Malfoy looked at him in a way which seemed to say 'I told you so.'
“I see,” Mrs. Malfoy finally said. “I think, if I give it some thought, I could find a way to make it seem reasonable I would support that. Everyone knows my husband and I are equal partners in how we vote on the Wizengamot. Yet I am a trend-setter, I could see myself successfully starting a new trend among pureblood circles. 'Oh, you punish your house elf with physical pain? How gauche.' 'You still find their pain entertaining? How dull. I have much better things to do with my time.' Yes, I could have the majority of the pureblood elite on your side of that issue in a matter of months, and it would be far more effective than a mere law being passed, though at that point passing the law would be child's play. Yes, cousin, I could do that for you if we can come to an agreement.”
Mr. Malfoy actually smiled, then, as he considered his wife. “You are a wickedly clever woman indeed, my love. I never cease to be amazed by your cunning.”
Sirius didn't quite manage to suppress a gagging noise at this.
“Excellent,” Dumbledore said. “We're making progress, it seems. So is it agreed? Sirius's seat on the Wizengamot returned to him, and efforts made to vote his way when possible?”
“My husband and I are in agreement with that, assuming you hold up your end of the bargain.”
“If Voldemort returns, I'll be putting a Fidelius on the house anyway, to protect Harry and any of his friends who need the protection. That includes your son.”
“Would you swear an Unbreakable Vow to it?”
“HA! No way. I'm not suicidal. I'm a Griffindor, my word should be good enough. But if you want, I'll sign a contract about it.”
“We want no physical evidence of this accord,” Mr. Malfoy said.
“In that regard, I have a solution,” Dumbledore said. “As much as I do not like them, there are some magically-binding rituals that would be akin to a contract, but with no physical evidence, and without the dangers inherent in things like the Unbreakable Vow.”
“We are game if Sirius is,” Mrs. Malfoy said.
“I'm game. What does this ritual entail?”
Dumbledore summoned a book with his wand, and opened it up. “A little blood from all the signatories mixed together in a small bowl, and some ritual words. Simple enough.”
“Er... I'm not a signatory, am I?” Harry asked.
“No, Harry. You are a minor. Sirius will be signatory in your place.”
“Good to hear.”
Dumbledore summoned a small metal bowl with his wand, and set it in the center of the table. Then the two Malfoys and Sirius pricked their fingers over the bowl, where the blood mixed. Dumbledore was swirling his wand over their hands the whole time in a spiral pattern, making a faint spiral of light in the air that traveled through their wrists toward the bowl. Taking their cues from Dumbledore, they said the ritual words.
“I, Lucius Malfoy, do hereby swear that I will do all I can to get Sirius Black his seat on the Wizengamot, and to make serious attempts to vote as he does unless I believe doing so will put my family at risk. I swear to do these things unless Sirius Black breaks this accord first. So shall it be.”
“I, Narcissa Malfoy nee Black, do hereby swear that I will do all I can to get Sirius Black his seat on the Wizengamot, and to make serious attempts to vote as he does unless I believe doing so will put my family at risk. I swear to do these things unless Sirius Black breaks this accord first. So shall it be.”
“I, Sirius Black, do hereby swear that I will do all I can to keep Draco Malfoy safe, especially in the event of the return of Lord Voldemort to power, including putting my house under a Fidelius Charm if Lord Voldemort should return, unless I truly believe doing so will put my godson at risk. I swear to do these things unless either Lucius Malfoy or his wife Narcissa Malfoy nee Black breaks this accord first. So shall it be.”
“I, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, do hereby bind this accord among Lucius Malfoy, Narcissa Malfoy nee Black, and Sirius Black. So shall it be.”
The spiral of light flashed brightly, then vanished.
“It is done.”
“Good. I am sure my son will be glad to spend some time with his new friend,” Mrs. Malfoy said, practically glaring at Harry.
“I bid you good day, Dumbledore, Black, Potter,” Mr. Malfoy said, again sounding like he wished they would all drown. He took his wife's arm in his, and the two beat a dignified yet hasty retreat from Dumbledore's office.
“Well, that was an experience,” Sirius said. “What do you think she meant by 'I do not trust your security'?”
Harry blinked. That must have made a huge impression on Sirius for his godfather to bring it up after all this time.
“She meant occlumency. Theirs is very good, and would have had me fooled if she had not said that; she did, after all, specify the two of you but not myself. They know occlumency, and they know I do as well. Whatever their secrets, they will not tell us until you and Harry know occlumency as well, if even then.”
“Yeah, I kinda want to learn that anyway, because Sirius and Kreacher made up over the summer, and Sirius won't tell me why until I learn occlumency.”
“Indeed? Well, that sounds like a good thing for you to learn anyway, Harry, given that Voldemort is a legilimens. It means he can peruse the surface thoughts of others, and correctly interpret them, generally as a means of knowing whether or not someone is lying to him.”
“Oh. And occlumency protects against that?”
“It does.”
“Even more reason to learn it, then.”
~
The next day, by way of plans changing, Angela and Danzia both showed up at Number 12, within five minutes of each other. First to arrive was Danzia, who came out of the kitchen hearth looking like a Muggle tomboy in a football jersey, shorts, and dirty trainers. Her strawberry-blond hair was tied up in a hastily-done knot in the back that looked like she'd just wrapped her hair around the base of her ponytail and kept it contained with a purple hair scrunchy.
Looking up at Sirius's incredulous stare, Danzia raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“A Slytherin wearing Muggle clothes when she doesn't need to?”
Danzia shrugged. “I like this style when I'm at home. At school, not so much; some of the other Slytherins would have fits. Anyway, I was playing football with my brother and some cousins not long ago.”
“Slytherins playing football, too? Well, you're very interesting, Danzia.”
“Oh you haven't seen interesting yet,” she said, a mischievous spark in her eye that reminded Harry of a similar spark in the eyes of the Weasley twins.
As Harry and Danzia left the room, Sirius said, “I don't know about that one, Remus. Something in her eyes reminds me of myself at that age.”
Lupin smiled, pouring himself and Sirius some tea.
“Yes, I hear she can be a bit of a troublemaker. Or at least, suspected to be. She doesn't often get caught, from what I hear.”
Just then, the flames in the hearth turned green and out popped Angela.
“Let's see, older girl with glasses, black hair, Japanese ancestry if I'm not mistaken... you must be Angela.”
Angela nodded silently.
Danzia came back in. “Is that—oh Angela, there you are! Sorry, didn't know you'd be here so soon. Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, this is Angela Whitechapel. She starts out shy, takes some getting used to people before she opens up.”
“Well I promise I don't bite,” Sirius said.
Angela smiled a little. “H-hello, Sirius. Um... Harry said to call you Sirius, because you and your father didn't get along.”
“That's correct. My parents weren't Death Eaters, but they approved of Voldemort. I very much do not.”
She nodded again.
“I notice you didn't flinch at Voldemort's name,” Sirius said. “Interesting. Most people do.”
“I'm a Muggle-born. I never learned to fear the name.”
“Ah. Muggle-born Slytherin, that must be difficult.”
“I've had some help pretending to be otherwise. I met Antigone at Diagon Alley over the summer before my first year, and she helped me out.”
“Well that was lucky. Anyway, you two go join your friends, I know you'd rather be with them than a couple old mutts like us,” Sirius said.
Angela looked uncertainly between Sirius and Danzia for a moment. Danzia took her arm and pulled, so Angela nodded and took off with her friend.
“So, Remus,” Sirius said as the girls left the kitchen, “any word on who's replacing you this year as the Defense teacher?”
“I hear Dumbledore is trying to get Alastor Moody to do it,” Remus answered.
“Really? Mad-Eye? He retired. And an ex-auror for Defense, that'll be an interesting year if he manages it.”
“I hope Mad-Eye won't curse any of the students.”
“Oh, he won't. Might jinx them, or hex them, but even in his old paranoia he won't curse kids.”
“Good, good. And I hear you're taking Harry to a psychiatrist for an official diagnosis?”
“This coming Wednesday, yes.”
“Have you ever been to any kind of Muggle hospital before?”
“Once. I went with James and Lily on one of their pre-natal trips to the hospital. Lily wanted to have Harry in the hospital, but James and I finally convinced her to go to St. Mungo's, the maternity ward.”
“How'd you convince her?”
“Well of course, St. Mungo's does water births, they're so much easier on the mother and the child. We did a lot of research on Muggle hospitals, how they deal with births. They actually lay the women flat on their backs and have them push with no gravity assist, of all the ridiculous things. And then, I dunno if this applies to the UK or not, but apparently in many Western Muggle hospitals, if a baby is born with unusual bits between their legs, the doctors will operate on their bits without even asking permission from the parents, or even informing them. They do a similar thing if the baby is a boy, something called circumcision, sounds painful. Believe me, you don't want to know what that entails. And again, without the parents' permission or awareness.”
“That's terrible!”
“Exactly. And I'm glad that was sufficient to get her to change her mind, because I imagine a witch trying to give birth the Muggle way would result in the hospital's electronics burning out, maybe even causing a blackout. We watched some on video, it looked incredibly painful. Not that water births are a walk in the park either, but those are still a lot easier than the way Western Muggles do it.”
Remus shook his head disapprovingly. Then he paused. “Wait... we got off on a tangent, what were we discussing?”
“Harry's appointment with the psychiatrist.”
“Oh yes, that. Anyway, I'm not sure a psychiatrist's office is going to be the same as a hospital. I believe some hospitals have psychiatrists, but others have their own offices.”
“You sure you're not thinking about psychologists?”
“Possible. But I think they can both have their own offices. Well, I suppose they do have all sorts of specialists with their own offices outside of a hospital, so that would make sense.”
“Well I can tell you for a fact that psychiatrists do sometimes have their own offices. The one we're going to does, anyway.”
“I see. Well Sirius, do try to behave while you're there, won't you?”
“Yes yes, I will. I don't want the Ministry to have to arrive to clean up any messes.”
“Good. Now, do you have the necessary paperwork from Gringotts and the Ministry? Muggles are fond of paperwork, you know. And theirs are on actual paper, too.”
“Yes, Moony, I got everything I need. I checked with Dumbledore and with Charity Burbage as well just to be sure.”
“Ah yes, Professor Burbage. Lovely woman. Well it does sound like you've done the thing properly. All the same, I think I'll double-check your work.”
Sirius sighed. “If you want to go to the extra work, then do so. Not like I've ever been able to stop you.”
“Yes, well this is rather more important than schoolwork, Padfoot old pal.”
“It may come as a shock to you, Moony, but I am a responsible adult now.”
Lupin raised an eyebrow like an expert. Sirius barked with laughter in response.
“Okay, fine, so I'm not. But I do know how to fake it, and how to ask others – like my solicitor – for help.”
“He can be taught! I may die of shock!”
Sirius punched him in the arm and the two men laughed over their tea.
~
Harry received an owl from Draco over the weekend, and they exchanged a few more owl letters nailing down a time for Draco to come visit, and after checking with their guardians, decided on the Tuesday before Harry's appointment.
So, on Tuesday morning after breakfast, Sirius was pacing around the kitchen as Remus and Harry sat at the table waiting. When the fire in the hearth turned green, Sirius stopped and straightened, turning to face the fire. His face was thus the first Draco saw as he popped out of the fire and into the kitchen, exiting the Floo as gracefully as though he were stepping down from a horse-drawn carriage.
Draco froze on seeing Sirius, then bowed, taking Sirius by surprise.
“Thank you, Lord Black, for your hospitality. I am most grateful.”
Sirius blinked. “Er... okay. Um... you can just call me Sirius.”
Now Draco blinked. “Oh. Thank you, Sirius.” Draco turned. “Ah, Harry. There you are. And... Professor Lupin?”
“Just Mister Lupin now, Mr. Malfoy.”
“Ah. I see why you wish to be called Sirius, now. Mr. Lupin, you and Sirius can call me Draco.”
Lupin smiled. “And you may call me either Lupin or Remus, whichever you prefer, Draco.”
“Thank you, sir. I still think of you like a teacher, though, so I suppose I'll call you Lupin, in that case.”
Lupin sipped his tea. Beside him, Harry had stood up and went to Draco's side.
“How 'bout I show you around the place, Draco?”
“Oh, yes. That sounds lovely. Hmm... I remember this place, somewhat. It looks very different now.”
“You've been here before?” Sirius asked.
“If I was, it was right before great-aunt Walburga died. I don't remember much, just that it's familiar, but different.”
“Well yeah, I had to hire professionals to clean this place out, it was a death trap crossed with a pigsty in here. Kreacher had stopped cleaning years ago. I think I know why that was now. He was pining for my brother.”
“Kreacher is still here?”
“Did Master call Kreacher?” came a croaky voice from the kitchen entrance. Kreacher was there, walking in.
“Kreacher thought he heard Master say Kreacher's name. Did Master want something of Kreacher?”
“Sorry, Kreacher, we were just talking about you. But since you're here, meet Draco Malfoy, a friend of Harry's.”
“Malfoy? Master Malfoy? Begging your pardon, young master, but are you Narcissa's son, by chance?”
“Hello, Kreacher,” Draco said. “Yes, my mother is Narcissa Malfoy nee Black. Mother still talks of you fondly, Kreacher.”
Kreacher's eyes went wide and watery. Some tears rolled down his cheeks, and he wiped them off. “Mistress Narcissa still speaks fondly of Kreacher? Kreacher is touched. If you would be so kind, master Draco, would you tell mistress Narcissa that Kreacher sends his fond regards to her in turn?”
Draco smiled. “I will gladly relay the message, Kreacher.”
“Um... 'master'? Does that mean Kreacher takes orders from the Malfoys as well?”
“I don't think so, Harry,” Sirius said. “If he did, I think he would have gone to the Malfoys when my mother died. Am I correct about that, Kreacher?”
Kreacher nodded. “Yes, Master Sirius. Kreacher was very lonely when Mistress Walburga died. If Kreacher could have gone to mistress Narcissa, Kreacher would have done so.”
“Well, maybe we can arrange a reunion sometime,” Sirius said without enthusiasm. “She and I are at least on speaking terms again now, even if it isn't exactly amicable.”
“Master would do that for Kreacher?” Kreacher said, his voice breaking with emotion.
“I would try, at least,” Sirius said. “And if you're going to cry loudly, Kreacher, please do it elsewhere. That's not an order, just a request.”
Kreacher wiped his eyes again. “Kreacher will not weep tears of joy just yet, Master. Kreacher has masters to serve now, because Master has a guest. Would young master Malfoy like anything to eat or drink?”
Draco looked to Harry and the two adults as though seeking permission. Sirius gave a 'go ahead' gesture, and Draco asked, “Do you have any biscuits, Kreacher?”
“Yes, master Malfoy. Several kinds. There is chocolate chip, peanut butter, snickerdoodles...” he went on, listing more than he could count on two hands.
“Merlin's pants!” Sirius said. “We have that many kinds of biscuits in the house?”
“Yes, Master. Dobby started making biscuits during his turns in the kitchen, then Kreacher made better biscuits, Dobby tried to outdo Kreacher and so Kreacher made better ones still--”
“Are you telling me that you and Dobby have gotten into a biscuit-making contest with each other?” Sirius asked.
“Yes, Master, you could call it that. We compete for your favor.”
Lupin chuckled. “I'd wondered why there have been so many biscuits around here the last few days. They've been offered at every meal, Sirius, or hadn't you noticed?”
“Kreacher, I won't order you to cut down on the biscuit-making, at least until after I've talked with Dobby. But it sounds like you've made more biscuits than we could possibly eat before they go bad.”
“Oh no, Master. Kreacher and Dobby both know how to keep food fresh. All of the biscuits are under charms, as fresh and warm as they were when they came out of the oven. Which kind can Kreacher get for you, young master Malfoy?”
“Well, with so many options, I'll take one of each of the first five you listed, Kreacher.”
“Right away, master Malfoy.” Kreacher bowed, then with a crack, he disapparated.
Another voice spoke up then, higher-pitched. “M-master S-sirius? Dobby's ears is burning.”
“WHAT?” Sirius shouted, spinning around with his wand already in his hand. “Here, I'll put them out for you!”
Dobby jumped back with alarm, his hands up in the air defensively as Sirius brandished his wand at him.
“Sirius, I don't think he meant it literally,” Harry said.
“What? Oh. Sorry Dobby. I... Dobby? Dobby, it's okay, I wasn't going to hurt you. I thought you were hurt, and I was going to help.”
Dobby peeked out from behind his arms. Then he looked thoughtful, probably reviewing the recent conversation. After a few moments, he relaxed, chuckling nervously.
“Sorry, Master Sirius. Dobby is only meaning people is talking about---”
CRACK!
Dobby jumped back in alarm again, but it was just Kreacher with a tray of biscuits.
“Would Master Harry or master Lupin like any biscuits too? There is being plenty for everyone.” Kreacher asked.
“Sure, I'll have a chocolate-chip one or three. Dobby, Kreacher? Do you want any biscuits?”
Both elves looked in astonishment at Harry.
“Master Harry is offering biscuits to... Kreacher?” Kreacher said.
“And Dobby?” Dobby added.
“Well, yes. This is your house, too, both of you. And you said there's plenty for everyone.”
The two elves looked at one another, confused.
“Dobby... Dobby will have one later, Master Harry.”
“Kreacher will as well, Master Harry. It is not proper for elves to eat in front of masters.”
“Why not? Why can't you eat at the table with us for meals?”
“Harry, it just isn't done,” Draco whispered gently. “I mean, if you want to invite them, go ahead. But don't be surprised if neither of them want to.”
Dobby finally seemed to realize that Draco was in the room. He backed up a few paces, his back against the door to the kitchen, wringing his hands and looking nervously from Sirius to Draco to Harry and back again.
Draco, too, noticed Dobby, his face falling when he did. He set his biscuits down on the table, and slowly walked a couple paces toward the cowering elf. Dobby started shivering against the door, but didn't move. Then, to everyone's astonishment, Draco got down on one knee and bowed to the elf.
“Dobby,” Draco said, “I offer my humble apologies for my own role in your abuse when you lived in our home. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. I will understand if you can't. The way you were treated was truly terrible. I'm sorry, Dobby.”
The moment seemed to freeze like that, everyone – Harry, Sirius, even Kreacher – completely at a loss for words. Most with surprise bordering on shock, though in Harry's case, he was waiting to see what Dobby would do or say.
“Young master Malfoy is...” his throat seemed unable to form the words 'asking forgiveness.' “Is... is... to Dobby?” Dobby finally said, a distinct note of awe and bewilderment in his voice.
Harry didn't know how long it had been, but Draco's head was still nearly touching the floor. Finally, though, he looked up at Dobby, though he was still bowing and kneeling before the elf.
“Yes, I am. And you needn't say anything yet, Dobby. I... I guess this must be a lot to process, for you. I'll... is it okay by you if I stand up again? I'll back off when I do.”
Still looking stunned, Dobby nodded. Draco stood up in a way that took him no closer to Dobby, and went back to his biscuits once he was up.
“Master Sirius?” Dobby asked, finally.
“What is it, Dobby?”
“May Dobby please be excused?”
“Of course, Dobby.”
“Thank you.”
And, so stunned he apparently forgot about apparating, Dobby walked out the kitchen door with one or two glances back at Draco before leaving.
“Well, that was certainly unexpected,” Lupin said, taking a biscuit for himself from the still-confused looking Kreacher. This seemed to wake Kreacher out of his state of confusion. He walked over to Sirius, mutely offering some biscuits – Sirius taking a few – before leaving the room himself.
The rest of Draco's visit went a lot more normally, Harry showing Draco around the house, the two boys playing some card games and talking in the sitting room until lunchtime.
For dinner, Harry did in fact invite the two elves to join them. Kreacher refused, saying he was still serving people and thus was busy. But Dobby tentatively took Harry up on the offer, looking positively gleeful to be sitting with wizards like an equal at their dinner table, even though Draco was there. In fact, Dobby kept looking at Draco, and didn't seem afraid anymore. He didn't say whether he forgave Draco or not, but his behavior seemed to indicate he was at least being open-minded about Draco.
“Oh Remus,” Harry said halfway through dinner. “I just remembered. You helped me with stuff about the Old Ways before. Do you know somewhere good to buy stuff for an altar?”
“Ah yes, I remember Sirius mentioning that before. Yes, I do happen to know an excellent place in Diagon Alley. What time is Harry's psychiatrist appointment tomorrow, Sirius?”
“It's 8:30 am. Should only take a couple hours at most, from what I understand. But we've got plenty of time. Why do you ask, Moony?”
“Because I want to take Harry to the store I mentioned after his appointment, if he's up for it.”
“Oooh! Can I, Sirius?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Lupin,” Draco said. “Do you, by chance, mean Moonrise Supplies?”
“Why yes, Draco, I do. Are you of one of the old faiths, too?”
“Yes and no. I believe in magic, and nature. Beyond that, I don't know, and personally find it pointless to speculate. And I don't worship either one. But Father goes to druid circles often, and Mother has an altar to Aradia. So I've been to Moonrise Supplies before. They're quite good.”
“Excellent, I have something to look forward to after my appointment.”
“Do you think I could join you?” Draco asked, curiosity in his voice. “I've never been inside a Muggle hospital before.”
“We won't be in a hospital, but a clinic. They're a lot smaller than a hospital. And since it's dedicated to the psychiatrist, there's not going to be physically sick people there. It's just going to be a lot of waiting and boredom for anyone who goes with Harry.”
Draco's face fell somewhat then. “Oh. Never mind, then.”
“Curiosity is a good thing, Draco,” Remus said.
Draco nodded, going back to his food. “Thank you. But if it's going to be boring, I'll just stay home.”
~
Harry was nervous the next morning, but not so badly he couldn't still enjoy his breakfast. After breakfast, he and Sirius got into their dragon-hide bike leathers and took the motorbike to the psychiatrist's office.
“You know,” Harry said when he got off the motorbike. “I just noticed that this bike looks kind of... old fashioned. Why is that?”
“That, Harry, is because it's a classic. It's an American bike, the Indian Sport Scout. It was made back during World War II. They don't even make these anymore, but they're the best motorbike in the world, even now. Their name is a bit unfortunate, but they're excellent motorbikes.”
“Wow. A motorbike they don't even make anymore? It must have cost a fortune!”
“It was a bit pricey, yeah. An uncle gave me some money when my family disowned me, and he gave me enough I had some leftover after rent on a flat to treat myself to this beauty. Naturally, it has a few enchantments on it now, so those would have to be removed first if I ever wanted to sell it to a Muggle. But I have no desire to do that, and no need, now that I have my family's money.”
“If you were disowned, how do you have the house and money and a house elf?”
“According to my solicitor, it's because after Regulus died, they changed their mind about disowning me. They may not have liked me at all, but I was their only heir at that point.”
“What about Narcissa?”
“If it was just about the money and property, they would have given it all to her, I'm sure of that. But if they'd done that, then all that stuff would belong to a Malfoy and not a Black. Unless I have children of my own, the Black name will go extinct in the male line. Meaning the surname – at least the one associated with my family – will be gone forever. They wouldn't want that to happen. As much as they hated me, I'm their only hope for their family name continuing, now.”
“Ah, okay. That makes sense.”
They checked in at the front desk, and then sat down to wait. Harry got out a Muggle novel to read, while Sirius picked up an out-of-date magazine to read, a magazine about motorbikes. He made a lot of scoffing noises as he did, which was a little distracting.
After half an hour, Harry was called into the office, and Sirius waited out in the waiting room for him.
When Harry came out again, so did the psychiatrist, who went over the results with the two of them. Harry had gone into great detail about the experiences and perceptions of his that were relevant to a diagnosis. Given what Harry had described to her, and the results of some written tests she'd had him do, she'd declared that Asperger's Syndrome best fit Harry's symptoms, and so she agreed officially with his self-diagnosis.
With official papers now showing Harry's diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome, Harry and Sirius secured everything and rode the motorbike to The Leaky Cauldron. Remus was, of course, waiting for them inside, and the three of them went together into Diagon Alley to go shopping for altar items.
Endnotes: So there we are. Luna is an Aspie, too, not that Xeno will ever acknowledge that particular label. His label is suitably weird, and takes a negative (“changeling baby,” which a lot of historians are certain really was a reference to autistic kids) and turns it around to a positive, in his own weird way. (I have decided I headcanon that explanation into the canon story as well.)
Also, given that I wasn't diagnosed until my 20's, my parents are artistic creative types, and Mom is a New Ager, I can relate to Luna's experience, even if it's still very different from my own in other ways.
Just as there are many different kinds of neopaganism, the Lovegoods help show there are many different ways to do The Old Ways, by worshiping the Fair Folk instead of gods and goddesses.
Writing the Malfoys for this chapter was a lot of fun! And yes, I know in a previous chapter (of the third year's fic) I misidentified Narcissa as being a sibling of Sirius, rather than a cousin. That was a mistake, one I'll fix before I post this chapter.
It seems that I never mentioned Danzia's school year, unless I'm just being forgetful again, even though the file with my notes about the OC's in this fic has always said she's a year ahead of Harry. Whereas Antigone and Angela are two years ahead of Harry. So here, in Harry's year 4, Danzia is in her fifth year, Antigone and Angela in their sixth year. Or will be, that is, when school starts again. Sadly, none of them is old enough to try out for the Triwizard Tournament.
The things Sirius says in this chapter about intersex babies being operated on (including circumcision for non-intersex infants designated boys) without asking or even informing the parents is true in the US at least. Like Sirius, I don't know if it happens in the UK or not, and it was easier to have Sirius be ignorant than to waste hours going off on another research tangent. (Seriously, I think I may have ADD in addition to autism.)
Harry's experience with the psychiatrist might be a little inaccurate, I dunno. I don't remember any psychiatrist trips when I was a minor; I was an adult when I got my own diagnosis. I tried looking up if guardians had to go with minors into the office for the appointment itself, but the Internet wasn't cooperating.
But yeah, getting a diagnosis was, for me, pretty much go in, describe my experiences and the reasons I thought it was Asperger's, do some tests, and then I got the diagnosis. I gather it's that way for a lot of people, too. But not everyone, of course. Not everyone knows what they have when they go in, so for them there would be a lot of the psychiatrist going “Well it might be this, or this” and reading the diagnosis criteria off, which could take a dozen or more appointments before they find one that fits, or they might get the wrong one, try a medicine, find it doesn't work right, and keep trying other stuff til they find something that fits.
Assuming, of course, that your shrink isn't an arse or arrogant. Some really not-good psychiatrists will be like “Oh you have this. If you disagree, well that's tough turds because I know better than you, nyeh!” Which is silly, because it's not like physical illnesses, where you can look in someone's throat or whatnot and say for sure “Oh looks like you have whooping cough” or “I'm afraid you have a terminal case of brain weasels.” With mental illnesses, pretty much all the shrink has to go on is what the patient tells them, and the results of written tests, or studying someone's behavior. There's a lot of uncertainty in the field, as it's practically a brand new field. Conventional medicine has been around for thousands of years, and look how long it took us to get out of the “four humours” and bloodletting and other nonsense: hundreds, thousands of years. Whereas psychiatry/psychology as a field is what, 100 or so years old? And there are still people who take Freud seriously! Sure, he was the founder of the field, but his theories are the equivalent of the “four humours” thing.
Not that modern psychology is much better, of course. Sure, scans of patients who are pretty securely diagnosed as one thing or another can show differences in brain scans from able-minded people, but it's still early days yet. It's going to take a few hundred more years at least before there might be enough certainty in the field for a psychiatrist to be able to scan your brain and say with certainty “You have X, because of these bits here in the scan.”
Autistic rant over with now.
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Four.
Or, "Autistic Potter and the Goblet of Fire."
Notes: Trigger warning: In the scene just after Harry has woken up from his vision of Voldemort killing Frank Bryce, Harry describes to Sirius what Voldemort looked like, using some terminology that is graphic if you know what it means, or if you Google it. I genuinely don't know how to tag this trigger warning without it being triggery on its own. But when you get to that part, if you want to skip the description, do a CTRL+F (or Open Apple + F or whatever) and search for “Voldemort is a legilimens.” That will take you past the bad part.
I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made. Not by me, anyway.
There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though. And the more this deviates from canon, the less that will happen. But some descriptions and things like that are too good to skip or try to reword.
Just as a reminder, so I don't have to shoehorn in descriptions in the text of the story as a reminder, but in this fanfic Harry and Hermione, apart from having Asperger's Syndrome, are both black as well.
'Italicized text between single quotes is almost always Parseltongue.'
Chapter Three: Familiar Things
The next few weeks flew by in a comfortable pattern of Harry having one or more friends over, or spending the day quietly reading on his own, interspersed with the occasional time spent at his altar. Upon his altar he'd put some pretty stones he'd found in Moonrise Supplies, a couple of incense holders for when he burned cone incense, a small magical painting of a forest scene, and a picture of his parents. He had also added some interesting bits of driftwood he'd found one day when Sirius had taken him to the beach to see the ocean for the first time. Fourteen years he'd been alive, and all that time he'd never seen the ocean.
A full week prior to Harry's birthday, Sirius took him on a special trip. The Muggles had built a tunnel under the English Channel, and there was a shuttle that could transport vehicles as well as passengers, so they drove to Cheriton to take the shuttle into France, where they spent several days taking a motorbike tour of France and part of Germany, staying at a series of Muggle inns for those few nights, taking in some of the sights in places like Paris, and buying things like German chocolate and souvenirs. Sirius had also brought a camera, and they got pictures of themselves in different places, which of course would be made into wizard photos later.
When they came back from their trip, Harry was glad to be home. He'd had a lot of fun of course, but he liked the familiarity of home again. Also, he was looking forward to his birthday party. They hadn't taken Hedwig with them of course, since she wouldn't have liked the wind from the motorbike, but there had been places to send owls from in some of the cities they went to, and so they'd been able to plan Harry's birthday party from abroad.
On the day of his birthday, the kitchen hearth became a thoroughfare as Luna (along with Xeno and Writing Desk), Ron, Ginny, the twins, Percy, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Antigone, Angela, Danzia, and Draco came through. Hermione even came in through the Floo, because Remus had gone to pick her up and side-along apparated her to The Leaky Cauldron to use their Floo. It was such a riot of people that Sirius told Remus to remind him to get the Floo switched over to the hearth in the drawing room later.
Lunch that day was amazing. Kreacher had found out how to make pizza from another elf, and had made half a dozen very large pizzas for the party. The slices were so huge they took two hands to eat, but they were the most delicious pizzas Harry had yet eaten. They'd come in a number of varieties, including pepperoni, Canadian bacon with black olives and mushrooms, a veggie lover's pizza, sausage pizza, and even a Hawaiian pizza that was a hit with the Weasley twins and Danzia. Kreacher had also made spaghetti for anyone who didn't want pizza (or wanted it in addition to pizza), and breadsticks with marinara dipping sauce.
There were several puddings to choose from as well, including spotted dick and chocolate gatto. And, of course, there was a cake. It was very tall, being three-tiered, and each tier was a different flavor. One was chocolate, another was yellow cake, and the top was strawberry. It was all covered in vanilla icing, that had been made with real vanilla. Even Writing Desk had a slice of cake, preferring strawberry cake. The bird was wearing a party hat that he had apparently made with Luna's help before coming over, much like the origami admiral's hat he'd worn many weeks ago, except this one was glued together due to its conical shape.
Next, of course, was presents! Sirius got him a two-way mirror that linked to one of his own. Harry had to mark it with an S to differentiate it from the one that linked to Luna's mirror. Sirius also gave him a bag full of spending money.
Like Harry and Sirius, Hermione had also been to the mainland via the Chunnel this summer with her parents, and had spent a few weeks in Italy, so she'd bought him a birthday present there, a little snow-globe of the Arch of Constantine in Rome. Being a wizarding snow-globe, it didn't need to be shaken to make the snow; the snow was constantly going down, vanishing when it hit the bottom. Also, there were minuscule little people and motor vehicles moving around in it.
Mr. and Mrs. Weasley got him homemade fudge, cakes, and a pie. Ron got him a medallion of wood that he had somehow burned the shape of a triskelion into. Harry was surprised, especially as it was rather well done, if a simple version of the symbol. He turned to Ron.
“Wow, thanks Ron! It's lovely! How'd you make it? I thought wood-burning kits were electric.”
Ron shrugged, grinning. “I had Percy use his wand to heat up the tip of a metal tool and burned it into the wood that way. Took a few tries to get it right, but I managed it.”
“You went to all that work for it? Thank you, Ron! I'll put it on my altar later.”
Ron blushed. Harry set the piece aside gently and went on to the next present.
From Angela he got several Chocolate Frogs and a box of Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans. The twins got him some Zonko's products of the non-noisy variety. Remus got him some more photos of his parents that Remus had dug up somewhere. Danzia got him a wizarding phonograph player, that was built into a portable wooden box. Being magical, it didn't need any speakers.
“I didn't know what kind of music you like, so I couldn't get you any records. You'll have to get some later.”
“Sounds like something to do tomorrow,” Sirius said, smirking.
“Thank you, Danzia! A music player that will work in Hogwarts, that's really cool!”
“Yeah, and even better, it came with these,” she said, handing him what looked like wooden earmuffs with cloth padding on the ears.
“What is it?”
“Magical headphones. To switch from the main 'speakers' to the headphones, tap them with your wand. To switch back to the 'speakers,' tap the phonograph's box.”
“This is amazing, Danzia! You must have spent a fortune on it.”
“Er, actually I didn't. I have a friend who knows a guy, so I got a discount on it,” she said, glancing at Antigone for some reason.
“Huh?” Harry said.
“Oh, you'll find out,” Danzia said.
“She's talking about my dad,” Antigone said. “My dad is an artificer. Wizarding phonographs are easy, he could whip one up in his sleep, but this one was likely made by one of his underlings. They're probably one of the cheapest magical artifacts there are, not counting small things like Sneak-O-Scopes.”
Harry opened Draco's gift next. He carefully removed the wrapping paper, as he always did because he kept it. (Dudley always tore his off and threw it away. Naturally, Harry did things differently.) Opening the box, he pulled out another, smaller box, that was flat and long. Curious, he took the lid off the box and revealed what was either a long knife or a short sword, Harry couldn't really tell, except that the blade was thin enough he was leaning to the side of 'knife.' It was oddly plain, for a gift from the wealthy Draco. It was polished and bright, and looked to be made of silver, but it had no decorations on it, not even simple lines. It had a wooden handle, and even that hadn't been carved.
“A knife? Or is it a sword?”
“You can think of it whichever way you like,” Draco said. “It's not sharp, don't worry about that. It's not meant to cut anything. It's a magical athame. If you cast your circle with it, calling the elements with it, it will let you draw lines of light in the air, like some of the rituals ask you to do, so you can do it without your wand. Won't set off the Trace, you see. Also, it can find true north. Hold it, say 'Point me,' and it will move your hand toward north.”
“Oh my goodness, this is cool! I've been wondering how to do rituals during the summer. I mean, technically I could use my wand here because of Sirius, but I couldn't help worrying that the Trace would figure it out and get me in trouble anyway. Thank you, Draco!”
“You're welcome, Harry.”
“Er... is this silver?” Harry asked, glancing at Lupin.
“Why?” Draco asked, then noticed Lupin. “Oh. Right. Sorry, I didn't think of that. Yes, it's silver. As long as Mr. Lupin doesn't touch it by the metal part, though, he should be fine.”
“Oh, no worries there. It's very rude to touch someone else's ritual items without permission. I doubt I'd ever have reason to want to touch it no matter what it was made of.”
For some reason, Percy got Harry a pair of books, one about the wizarding culture in France, and another about the wizarding culture in several of the countries in eastern Europe, mostly Slavic nations. The look on his face told Harry there was some special significance to this, but he refused to tell anyone anything about it. Harry looked through them a bit and was surprised to find that there were two other schools of magic in Europe – Beaxbatons Academy and Durmstrang Institute. He'd figured there had to be other schools, but he hadn't known anything about them until now.
The next gift to open was from Luna, in a smallish box. He opened it up. There were three things inside it. The first thing he pulled out was a necklace of a five-pointed star, which as Harry knew represented the four elements and spirit. He put it on, thanked Luna, and took out the next thing, which was...
“Er... a stone with a hole through the middle of it? And it's on a leather cord?” Harry said, confused.
“It's for seeing Faery creatures through. Some creatures from Faery are invisible unless you look at them through a stone with a hole in it.”
“Oh, uh... okay,” Harry said, putting that necklace on as well. He now had three necklaces, and it was a bit too much. He'd have to put one or two of them away later, but for now he was fine.
“There should be one more thing in there,” Luna said.
Harry reached in and pulled out a bracelet. It was like a bangle bracelet, but it was covered in dragon hide.
“You told me one night that you loved the sensation of dragon hide under your fingers, so I got you that so you could feel it whenever you want.”
“Thanks, Luna!” He put the bracelet on, and immediately started caressing it.
“Okay, Harry, one last present,” Antigone said. “I think you'll like it. My dad's company made this, too, but Daddy made this one himself.”
The box was big enough to put a loaf of bread in, but not the size or shape of a breadbox. He opened it up and reached inside. What he pulled out baffled him. It looked like a very large bracelet, or like one of Wonder Woman's arm cuffs, but more than twice as long, made of what looked to be bronze rather than gold, and one side of the thing was thick enough to hold a paperback book in it, but was curved like the rest of the thing.
“What is it?”
“It's a custom-made piece. My dad invented it, he only made seven of them, and there's nothing else in the world like them. Put it on, with the thick side facing up.”
“What is it, though?”
“It's better if I show you before I explain. Put it on! The thick part goes on top of your arm.”
Harry sighed, and put it on as instructed. It slid on so easily he wondered how it would stay on until it suddenly shrunk its circumference to exactly fit his arm, which it didn't do until the thick part was facing up.
“Okay. It's a fancy bracelet?”
“Oh, it's more than that. Here, come over here where there's plenty of room. Yes, right there. Now before I tell you what to do next, remember you need to expect a sudden loud noise and movement when you open it, and move your hand toward your body first, to get it out of the 'blast radius.' Got that? Good. Now point the top out, and say 'Volvere.'”
Confused, Harry did as he was told, holding the top of the bracelet? Gauntlet? Whatever it was called, he held it top out, and said, “Volvere.”
With a very loud SNAP!, something green and flat had snapped open like a cross between an umbrella and a car's airbag. The green thing, whatever it was, was flat and covered Harry's entire body from view of anyone in front of him.
“What is it?”
Looking and sounding extremely excited, she said, “It's a basilisk-skin shield.”
The whole room gasped and then muttered.
“Say what?” Harry said.
“Dumbledore was selling off parts of the basilisk for more money for the school. Dad heard about it and bought some of the skin. Most of it, really. Dad used the basilisk skin he bought to make this shield. Harry, this shield will deflect most curses. And since it's a solid object and is magically reinforced on top of the basilisk skin's existing magical properties, it could even take a hit from a Killing Curse without taking much damage. I know because he tested it on a small bit of basilisk skin before making any of these. If it only gets hit by one or two Killing Curses, the damage is repairable, but on the third one it would lose its extra protection and start to get scorched. Fourth time, and the Killing Curse would burn a hole right through it, and you'd die.”
Harry was speechless. He just stared at the shield, amazed, examining the skin, the metal slats that held it open, and the bronze part of it. Then he noticed there was a realistic-looking snake emblazoned on the bronze part.
“It's got a snake on it,” Harry said.
“Special design just for yours. It's just in case you want to change the password for opening it to something in Parseltongue.”
“Oh, cool. This is... I don't have words that are good enough. Amazing? Awesome? Spectacular? Something like that.”
“You're welcome, Harry. Dad likes inventing things, and given your history so far, running into old snake-face twice in two years, he thought you could use something like this. Dad's one of those people who's certain that old what's-his-ugly-face will come back some day.”
“Thank you both. Man, I'm going to have to write one heck of a thank-you letter for this!”
“Yeah Harry, you could buy a small mansion with that!” Percy said. “Antigone, your father just gave this to Harry? When he could've sold it for a fortune?”
Harry's brow creased with thought. “You know, that's a good point,” Harry said. “There's this... then there was that box you gave me last year, the antique that opens with parseltongue. I know you said it was probably a replica, but still...”
She stared at them, looking confused. “He just wants Harry to say that Apollyon Dreyfuss made it, if anyone asks. I mean, he likes Harry as a person for being my friend, but still, Harry Potter wearing something my dad made would be great advertisement for daddy's business. Not that he really needs the advertising, but still, why not?”
“What do you mean he doesn't need the advertisement? And why give me something he could sell for a fortune? I mean, I know you said he made seven of them, but still...”
She looked even more confused now. But then something clicked in her mind and she said, “Ohhhh! Wait, you mean you guys don't know?” she asked.
“Know what?” Percy and Harry asked in stereo.
“Um... well, not to brag, but we're bloody loaded. Filthy rich. Daddy has made and sold things that make the two gifts he gave Harry look like cheap baubles by comparison. He made his fortune founding Dreyfuss Artificing.”
“Your dad is the founder of Dreyfuss Artificing?” Percy asked, bewildered.
“What's that?” Ron asked.
“They sell magical artifacts all over the world. Her family is probably richer than the Malfoys! Hell, her dad's company probably made that athame Draco gave you, too.”
“It did, actually,” Draco agreed, nodding.
There was a lot of muttering at this.
“Yeah, well I didn't want to make a big deal of it,” Antigone said, blushing. “I wanted people to like me for me, not for Daddy's money. Still, I thought word would've gotten around to you lot over the years.”
Angela leaned over and kissed Antigone on the lips briefly. “And I do love you for you, Tig, you know that. We were dating for a year before I found out, remember?”
“Yeah, I remember, Angie,” she said, kissing her girlfriend a bit longer this time. “And you didn't treat me any differently after you found out.”
“Did you know about this, Danzia?” Harry asked.
“If I had, I would've asked for 1000 galleons for my birthday. Just kidding, Tig!”
“That nickname is reserved for Angie's use only,” Antigone said haughtily.
“Sorry, Antigone.”
“You're forgiven, 'Zia.”
Danzia stuck her tongue out at Antigone and blew a raspberry at her.
“Antigone, I thought your father was a historian?” Harry asked.
“Well yes, but it's not his primary thing. He and mum have that in common. She's the real serious historian, though. For Dad, it's mostly a hobby though it's useful for his line of work at times too, but for Mum, it's her life and her living. They met at one of her lectures.”
“Cool.”
“How did none of us guess Antigone Dreyfuss was related to the founder of Dreyfuss Artificing?” Percy said.
“No idea. Does it matter?” Harry asked, getting up to try out some of his new gifts.
With presents and drama over with now, the party changed shape. Harry got out his magical phonograph player, and Sirius got out some of his own records to play for the party. Everyone there started dancing, or at least all the kids and some of the adults danced. Since Sirius was playing something by The Kinks, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley opted out, the music too strange for them. But even Writing Desk the raven was getting in on the action, unmistakably dancing to the music by bobbing up and down on his little legs and spreading his wings, sometimes rocking his body back and forth to make his wing tips go up and down.
During the party, there was butterbeer and other things to drink like apple cider and pumpkin juice, as well as some light snacks people could eat once the memory of lunch was a bit more distant in their bellies.
Ron was looking down, upset about something. Harry went over to talk with him.
“What's the matter, Ron?”
“What? Oh, nothing, Harry.”
“Don't give me that line, I know something's up with you. Out with it.”
Ron sighed. “Well, only because you're gonna keep pestering me about it until I do. I'm annoyed that so many people were giving you gifts so much better than I could.”
Harry paused a moment, cleaning his glasses while he thought.
“Ron, money's easy to spend when you have it. Remember there was a time I didn't have much money either; I had to earn money myself by mowing lawns and stuff. I know what it's like to be poor. You put a lot of thought and effort into this,” Harry said, taking the wooden medallion out of his pocket. “Even more thought than Remus put into his gift, and probably a lot more effort than his, too. All he had to do was send some owls or visit people. Not that I don't appreciate his gift, I do. But you put what, hours? Yes, you put hours of work into this gift, possibly days, you talked with Percy to get him to help you, and it can't have been easy burning a shape like this into wood when you had to have Percy keep heating up the tool with his wand. I'm going to cherish this, Ron. It's going to go on my altar. The home one for now, and then the school one later.”
“You really are? You'll really cherish it? I mean, it's just a bit of wood.”
“A very beautiful piece of wood that you made even more beautiful with your hard work and skill, Ron. Of course I'll cherish it.”
Ron was blushing and looking down at his feet. “Well, thanks, Harry.”
“In fact, let's go up to my room right now, I'll put it there right now.”
Harry and Ron went upstairs then, and Ron watched Harry put the piece prominently on the altar.
But that hadn't been the only thing bothering Ron. Harry asked him what else was wrong. Ron was hesitant at first for this one, too, but finally it came out. As Ron pointed out, Writing Desk had been acting so much like a person during the party – eating cake, dancing to the music, even cawing to the tune of the birthday song they sang for Harry before the cake was served – that since they were up there already, Ron got out Harry's Sneak-O-Scope and they went downstairs and checked the bird with it. The Sneak-O-Scope spun and whistled, but Xeno told them that didn't mean anything; he'd tried a Sneak-O-Scope around regular corvids and it often went off around some of them, too. Ravens and crows were just natural trouble-makers, and magical ravens could be a lot worse. Hermione confirmed this a little by saying she'd seen a scene in a nature documentary once showing a raven hopping onto the back of an eagle, grabbing some feathers in its beak, and riding the eagle like it was a hippogriff, much to the eagle's chagrin. Ron still made a point to tell Harry he was going to run the bird past Crookshanks later just to be sure. Harry didn't blame him at all for this paranoia, after Scabbers.
To try to put Ron's mind at ease, though, he got out his necklace that Luna had given him last summer and pressed the button that made the sound that only Harry and animals could hear, making sure to be out of sight of Writing Desk so he couldn't fake it, but with Ron watching the bird. Harry pressed the button, and Writing Desk at the party along with Hedwig upstairs both went nuts, the raven going nuts first because he was closer to the noise. Hedwig was shrieking very loudly, and Writing Desk was cawing and flapping around the room angrily trying to locate the sound. Harry turned it off, but the bird was still hunting for the source of the noise. When he finally located it, he glared angrily at Harry and very pointedly pooped right on Sirius's carpet before flying off again. Harry told Sirius about this, and once Sirius stopped laughing, he cleaned it up with his wand.
“I'm still not convinced, Harry. I mean, you can hear it too, even if it doesn't bother you like it does them. What if Luna's bird is an animagus with Asperger's? He might be able to hear it well enough to fake it. I'll wait til Crookshanks can check him before I warm up to him.”
Harry shrugged. “Okay. That makes sense.”
~
The day after Harry's birthday, Remus and Sirius took him out into London to find the Muggle shops that still sold phonograph records so Harry could get some of his own music, after first exchanging some of Harry's spending gold for Muggle money. Since the albums he got failed to deplete the large bag of spending money Sirius had given him, they went to Diagon Alley. First they stopped at Flourish and Blotts to browse the books. Remus and Sirius having an in with Dumbledore, they got most of Harry's books for school year while they were at it (Sirius bought those himself.) Since there wasn't a new DADA teacher yet, and they'd heard that Binns was being fired but they didn't yet know if there would be any new books for History of Magic, they couldn't get all of them.
Harry also missed Cleo, the snake he'd rescued from Snape's wand in second year. He'd had to get rid of her because she was venomous. Even though he had an owl already, he decided to get a snake, too. They went to the Magical Menagerie, and he browsed the selection of snakes. On his way there, though, he noticed something colorful in a cage and made a detour to check it out.
“'Occamy,'” Harry read from the plague. “'it can shrink or grow to fill the available space. Price on request, special handling licenses needed. Very aggressive species, do not attempt to put your fingers in its cage.'”
“I guess you're not getting an occamy, then. Given they're endangered, I'm surprised there's one for sale here at all,” Sirius said.
“Oh, I don't want to buy it. I just saw an actual, honest-to-goodness feathered serpent and had to test a theory, which I will now do.”
As the two men stared at each other in confusion, Harry cleared his throat, then spoke in Parseltongue to the occamy.
'Can you understand me?' Harry asked the occamy. The snake-like bird cocked its head at him quizzically and chirped several times. Harry didn't understand the chirps.
“I guess that's a 'no,'” Harry said. “Too bad. It would've been interesting to hear what an occamy was thinking.”
His curiosity satisfied, he examined the various magical snakes available, which weren't many. Harry suspected the owners had the same silly superstition against snakes a lot of people did, which especially annoyed him since he knew the pagans of old used to worship snakes. Just because some of the venomous ones could be used in dark magic didn't mean they were evil themselves. After all, bicorns and boomslangs could be used to make Polyjuice Potion, and they weren't considered evil.
Though he'd read about magical species of snakes like runespoors and horned serpents, these snakes were magical versions of normally non-magical species of snakes like boas and pythons. Harry wondered if they were naturally born magical like wizards and witches were, or if there was something else that made them magical, but had no way to answer these questions.
Harry looked at a lot of different snakes, of the ones they had available. A few boas, some corn snakes, a couple pythons. And then Harry spotted a beautiful Rosy Boa that was black with yellow stripes, and about a foot long.
'Hello there, you're very pretty.' Harry said to it in Parseltongue.
The snake looked up at him. 'If you wish to mate, you're not my type. I'm a male.'
Harry chuckled. 'Well I'm a boy too, and anyway, I'm not even a snake, or hadn't you noticed?'
Harry could have sworn he heard the snake chuckle, too. 'Oh I know. You're one of the humans who can understand and speak our language. Well, I use “speak” rather loosely here, as snakes are deaf.'
'So all this hissing and spitting we humans hear when I speak snake-language isn't what you hear?'
'No, it's not. I don't hear anything. I just feel the meaning slither into my mind.'
'Fascinating. I guess that makes sense, since it works on all sorts of species of snakes. So would you be interested in being my pet?'
'I think you mean you would be my pet, human. After all, all I have to do among humans is sit around looking pretty, and I get warmth, food, and shelter. But yes, if you're willing to be my pet, I would like that.'
Harry laughed again. 'I like you, you have a good sense of humor. I'm glad you want me to be your pet, I think we'll get along great.'
'Good. Tell the human currently caring for me of our decision so I can get out of this awful place. I may not be able to hear anything, but the noise is often strong enough to feel, and the smell leaves much to be desired.'
'Alright then, I'll do that.'
The clerk, who had been conspicuously ignoring Harry while he talked with the rosy boa, was still absent. Harry had to enlist Sirius and Remus to help get her attention, and she came over only reluctantly. Once she came over, she quickly handled the necessary steps as quickly as possible. They bought the snake, a 20-gallon magically-reinforced glass terrarium for it, some interesting gnarled branches for it to crawl on, some moist moss in a smaller tub, a magical heating box for the enclosure, some aspen bedding, and a container full of magically-preserved dead mice.
“How often do I need to feed him?” Harry asked the clerk.
Not looking at Harry as she spoke, she said, “He's pretty young, that one, only a year old as of yesterday. So feed him every week until he's three. Once he turns three, you can feed him once every two weeks, but they're still going to prefer weekly feedings even at that age. There's some books about caring for snakes over there,” she said, pointing at a display rack of books. Harry picked one up and added it to the pile. “You'll need it.”
They picked up a copy of the book and added it to the pile. When all was paid for, Sirius called Dobby and Kreacher to move the terrarium and supplies back to Harry's bedroom, while Harry kept the snake curled up around his arm, inside his sleeve.
'What's your name?'
'Snakes don't have names, usually, but I'm smarter than the average snake, being magical. You may call me Mouse-Stalker.'
Harry laughed again.
“That must be a very funny snake,” Remus said. “You keep laughing at things it says.”
“He is, yes. He just told me to call him Mouse-Stalker.”
Remus smiled. “Sensible name for a snake.”
“Does he do any tricks?” Sirius asked.
“You mean like magic stuff? Well he said he's magical, so I suppose so. Let me check.”
'Hey Mouse-Stalker, you said you're magical. Do you do any tricks? Do you have any powers?'
'Yes, I do. I can predict rain, snow, frost, storms, earthquakes, and other weather or natural disasters about an hour before they happen, longer for some things. That's not my only power, though. I can also sense attacks and other dangers, sometimes. It's not foolproof, as it isn't every time, but it's an edge when I can do it.'
'How do you communicate the threat of danger to those who don't understand your language?'
'I have my ways. You humans have Parselmouths, we magical snakes have Apemouths, which is what we call the ability to communicate with humans. And I am an Apemouth. Observe.'
Mouse-Stalker turned his head to face Sirius, who wasn't watching where he was going. Instead of running into someone, like he almost did, Sirius instead danced gracefully around the person, looking almost like a ballerina.
“Holy... why did I just do that?”
Mouse-Stalker turned to face Remus, who slapped himself on the face.
“Harry, did Mouse-Stalker just make me do that?” Remus asked.
“I think so.” 'Did you do that?'
'Yes, human, I did. It took a lot out of me, though, since they are not my humans. If you were a normal human, it would be the same with you until we grew closer. But of course, I can 'speak' my own language instead around you, which is much easier.'
“He did, but it's not easy for him. He was just demonstrating one of his powers. Did either of you hear anything when he did it?”
“Just the sound of my hand smacking my face,” Remus said. “Sirius?”
“Not a thing.”
'So, Mouse-Stalker, I assume this Apemouth doesn't register in people's minds consciously?'
'Not usually, but it can. Some species' versions of the ability are quite different. I've heard stories that the horned serpents of the New World can make themselves understood by humans, in a way that the humans realize is a form of communication, and not just with Parselmouths like you. And if you were a normal magical human, you would eventually be able to hear my meaning in your mind.'
'Amazing.'
Turning to Sirius, Harry relayed the snake's words back to them.
“Apemouth, eh? I find the name somewhat offensive,” Sirius said.
“Well, humans are apes, so the term makes sense.”
“Pardon me? I am not an ape. I'm a dog.”
Harry sighed. “Remind me to get you some books about the theory of evolution.”
“It was just a joke, pup. I know about evolution. Lily told me about it once.”
'Come to think of it,' Mouse-Stalker said, 'I think if I practice my Apemouth skill enough, I can be understood by even ordinary humans on a conscious level. But that make take months to master.'
'Well it sounds like something to try, anyway. It could come in handy if you do. Like, if I got in danger I could release you and you could fetch help.'
'I could do that anyway even without the practice, but it would be less work if I could make them understand consciously.'
'Good. It's a plan, then.'
~
Harry, Sirius, and Mouse-Stalker got into a comfortable routine over the next few weeks. Sirius occasionally had to leave Harry with Lupin, while Sirius went to see his solicitor or others. Some of the highlights, from what Harry heard, was the Ministry settling out of court for damages from Sirius being imprisoned for 12 years without a trial or even a proper questioning; they apparently settled for 374,400 galleons plus Sirius's old job back as an Auror, for which he would have to retrain. That would start in September, while Harry was at Hogwarts.
Also, after a month of fighting with Mr. Rowle over it, Sirius got his family's seat on the Wizengamot back. He named his solicitor, Ms. Pennyroyal, as a proxy in case he was ever unable to attend the Wizengamot meetings.
According to Sirius, the first couple Wizengamot meetings he went to were dreadfully dull, but he'd always had the kind of mind that could tune out the dull while pretending to be daydreaming and still get the important information, something that had given his teachers a lot of grief in his school days.
“I won't bore you with the details,” Sirius said, “but that anti-werewolf legislation that Umbitch woman proposed is not progressing in either direction very fast, and apparently that's pretty normal. Ms. Pennyroyal said it could be almost a year before they're ready for a final vote on it, and in the meantime there's a lot of little votes to fix wordings and stuff, make amendments or retractions, that sort of dull rubbish. Then there's a lot of bloody politics involved as well. She's hired on someone to help me with that aspect of things.”
One new thing was Harry taking the Floo a couple times a week to go to Dumbledore's office to learn occlumency. He wasn't very good at it, as it was kind of the opposite of something he did a lot to cope; usually, he had to tune out the outside world and get lost in his own mind to block out the excess input, but in the case of this skill, he had to try to close his mind of emotion. Strangely, Harry found this easier the more overwhelmed he already was, and his ability to occlude his mind was rather hit or miss as a result. Not that he was doing very well anyway; in a month, he kept Dumbledore out of his mind a few times, but never for very long. Worse, it didn't feel like Dumbledore was trying very hard yet.
So it was probably no surprise when he had some kind of vision in his sleep, of a cowering Wormtail helping Voldemort get healthy in a new body. Harry somehow managed to get a glimpse of Voldemort just as he murdered an old man who was the caretaker of the house Voldemort was staying in. The image was grotesque, and horribly familiar.
Sirius came running when Harry screamed in his sleep, and woke Harry up by poking his shoulder. Harry immediately hugged Sirius like a drowning man might clutch a life raft.
“You're awake now, Harry, it's all over. It was just a nightmare.”
Harry wiped his eyes and sniffed, only then realizing he'd been crying as well.
“Thanks, Sirius. But I'm not going to be able to sleep now.”
“That bad, is it?”
“I don't think it was a normal dream. I don't know how, possibly the same way I sense him when he's near, but I think I had a vision of Voldemort.”
Harry explained what he could of the nightmare, which was fading fast. He could only tell Sirius that Wormtail was nursing Voldemort back to health in a horrible small body, and that they were planning something to do with Harry, which wasn't terribly surprising. Harry looked about ready to cry all over again when he came to the point of trying to describe what Voldemort had looked like.
“I don't know how I saw it, but I saw Voldemort, his temporary new body. It... gods, I'll never forget what it looked like. Mainly because I've seen something like it before.”
“You have? Where?”
Harry paused, weighing his words before speaking.
“Have you ever heard of something called 'harlequin-type ichthyosis'?”
“Can't say that I have, pup.”
“Years ago, I was reading through some medical texts in the library once, in Little Whinging, and stumbled onto a picture of it. It's a birth defect. The babies with it are born with a horrible deformation where their skin grows into these thick diamond-shaped plates. It affects their whole appearance, and no written or spoken description does it justice. The condition is horribly painful, makes it hard to breathe, and most born with it die within a month. Apparently the symptoms can be... eased somewhat. But given what they look like, and the agony they must be going through, I'd say death is probably the most merciful thing for them. The day I saw that image was the day I stopped believing in the Christian God.”
“That... wow. Just... wow. That must've been a hell of an image, Harry.”
“Yes. If you don't want nightmares for a year or more, I suggest you never, ever look up pictures of anyone with the condition.”
“And in this vision, Voldemort looked like one of these babies?”
“Not an exact match, but close enough that I'll be having nightmares of it again, I'm sure. Only thing I don't understand is how I could see it at all. I was seeing Voldemort from the old man's perspective, there at the end.”
“Well, Voldemort is a legilimens, remember. Maybe you were viewing the old man's thoughts as Voldemort was using legilimency on him?”
Harry nodded. “Sounds about right. But then of course, how did I see into Voldemort's mind at all? I think there's something Dumbledore isn't telling us. He told me Voldemort transferred some of his powers to me the night he tried to kill me the first time, and that explains the parseltongue and being able to sense him, but it doesn't explain this vision thing. There's some missing piece of the puzzle, Sirius.”
“Hmm... you may be onto something there, Harry. Of course, I doubt Dumbledore will tell me unless I know occlumency as well. I suppose I should learn, too. I'll talk with Dumbledore about it. In the meantime, pup, if you can't sleep anymore tonight, then feel free to do whatever, as long as you don't make too much noise or break any laws or rules. Also, don't leave the house.”
“I won't, Sirius.”
“One quick thing before you go, Harry.”
“Sure. What is it?”
“About how far away would you say Voldemort is.”
“I don't know. Far. In Britain somewhere, but not very close to London. Wherever they were, Voldemort seemed familiar with it, like he'd been there before.”
“Well Dumbledore has been digging into Voldemort's past for years, maybe he'll find it.”
“I guess we'll find out later, eh?”
“Yeah, I reckon he's sleeping at the moment, we wouldn't want to wake him.”
Harry nodded. “Well, Sirius, you can go back to bed. I'm going to stay up and read or something, since I don't think I'll be able to get back to sleep.”
Sirius nodded and left the room to go back to bed. Harry got up to grab a book. As he did, he couldn't help but feel a bit more scared now that Sirius wasn't in the room anymore. It wasn't likely Voldemort was in London, and the wards on the house would hold him back long enough for them to escape if he was. But even the thought that Voldemort was a weak, ugly, baby-looking abomination didn't ease his frayed nerves much.
'I smell fear, Master. Are you in danger?'
Harry jumped with fright, turning his wand on the source of the voice. He put it down as soon as he saw it was his pet snake, Mouse-Stalker.
'No. At least, I don't think I am. I just had a scary dream.'
'Would you like me to keep you company? If danger comes, I will most likely be able to sense it. Depending on the nature of the danger, of course.'
'Sure, that would help.'
He picked up the snake, draping it over his shoulders. The black and yellow snake tickled his cheek with its tongue, making Harry laugh as he retrieved his book and sat down in an armchair to read, idly stroking Mouse-Stalker's scaly head and neck, enjoying the sensation of the scales under his fingers. Mouse-Stalker had been right, he felt much better now with the comforting weight of the snake around him, such as it was for a snake that was only currently a foot long. And if the information in the book he was reading was accurate, Mouse-Stalker would only ever get two, maybe three or three-and-a-half feet long, depending on which specific kind of Rosy Boa he turned out to be.
When Sirius walked by Harry's room a couple hours later to check on him after having gotten up to go to the loo, he saw Harry asleep in the armchair, his book in his lap but having closed itself when he let go, and Mouse-Stalker still in place around his shoulders. Sirius thought it was looking at him at first, until he remembered that snakes don't have eyelids. He carefully closed the door and went back to bed.
~
The next day, Harry woke up still in the armchair, Mouse-Stalker stirring in response.
'I hungerrrr for fleeeesssshhh...' Mouse-Stalker said in a half-joking tone. 'Mouse-Stalker demands his weekly tribute! Appease him, mortal, or suffer his wrath! FEEED MEEEE!' The snake wiggled its head around in the air in a funny way at this last bit.
Harry – who had been suppressing giggles from the moment the snake started to talk – burst out laughing at that last bit of silliness.
'Fine, fine,' Harry said in response. 'Patience, youngling, while I fetch the tribute.'
Harry lay Mouse-Stalker down in his terrarium and went over to the container of magically-preserved mice.
'Would you like a pinkie or an adult?'
'Oooh, choices, choices. Hmm... give me a pinkie. I'm only feeling slightly peckish today.'
Harry got out one of the dead baby mice with the metal tongs and set it down in front of Mouse-Stalker.
'At some point, Master, I think it would be fun to hunt and eat a live one every so often, for the thrill of the hunt and to hone my skills in case we ever need to rough it in the wilderness. Do you think you could arrange that sometime?'
'I'll look into it. In the meantime, eat your dinner.'
Mouse-Stalker flicked his tongue out at the dead mouse.
'It's too cold. Make it warmer.'
Deciding to trust that the Trace wouldn't be able to tell if the spell came from him or Sirius or Lupin, Harry got out his wand and cast a warming charm on the dead mouse. Mouse-Stalker flicked his tongue again.
'Acceptable. Thank you.'
'You're welcome.'
Harry stayed put to watch the snake eat its meal. It was fascinating, how Mouse-Stalker bit the mouse to hold it and constricted it even though it was already dead. Also fascinating was how his jaws unhinged, and he swallowed the baby mouse whole.
The snake done, Harry went about his morning routine, and went down to his own breakfast.
“Hey pup. I noticed your snake helped you get to sleep last night.”
“Yeah. It was comforting having him around my neck. And I like the feel of his scales under my fingers.”
“Ah yes, that makes sense. Similar to dragon hide in that way, I suppose. Oh hey there, Moony!”
“Hello Sirius, Harry. What's for breakfast?”
It being Saturday, Dobby had made breakfast. There was eggs, bacon, sausage, toast with jam, and fluffy, fresh-baked croissants. Harry ate with gusto.
“You did remember to wash your hands after handling that snake all night, right? Reptiles do have some diseases humans can get.”
“Yes, Sirius. I took a shower this morning. Dried my hair with magic.”
Sirius chuckled. “Yeah, might as well take advantage of that convenient loophole in the rules, Harry, that's what it's there for.”
The three of them chatted about this and that while they ate, Sirius finally finishing but choosing to stay at the table to read the paper. Harry was on his third helping of bacon when Hedwig flew into the room, dropping a letter in Harry's leftover egg yolks. He gave her a strip of bacon and read the letter.
“Glad we got that owl-window installed. I remember when I lived here before, we had to go to a special room in the back of the house to send and receive owls.”
“Oh hey, it's from Ron. He says his dad can get tickets to the Quidditch World Cup. Wants to know if any of us want to join him.”
“The Quidditch World Cup? Wow, how's Arthur paying for that? Those tickets cost a fortune!”
“Says here he's getting them free from Ludo Bagman.”
“Ah, that would explain it. Anyway, doesn't Ron know you don't like Quidditch?”
Harry sat there, thinking and chewing his bacon, for several moments. He knew it was something that didn't happen often in Britain, and Ron liked Quidditch. He liked hearing Ron talk about it, even if he couldn't watch his fellow students playing it. But this was different. He thought some more before finally speaking.
“I want to go,” he finally said.
“What? But I thought... I heard you had a panic attack the one time you watched a Quidditch game,” Sirius said.
“Yeah, because friends of mine and other fellow students were playing a dangerous sport. I think I could watch professionals play, though. They know what they're doing, and they're adults. Plus, I don't know any of them.”
Sirius and Lupin both gaped at him.
“Harry,” Lupin said, “what about all the noise? Both visual and auditory. I thought you had issues with those?”
“Oh I do. But I've got those sound-blocking earmuffs. And between the two of you, you could probably modify them to be able to let the commentary through while still blocking out everything else. Also, if the visual noise gets to be too much, I've got those special sunglasses.”
The two men looked at each other, then back at Harry. Harry shrugged.
“What? It's a difference between being prepared or not. If I'm prepared for it mentally, I can deal with it.”
“What if you're wrong?”
“Then I put the sunglasses on, take a headache cure, and close my eyes. Anyway, Luna and her dad have already been there a week.”
“Ahhh,” both men said in stereo.
“It all makes sense now, Remus; Luna is there,” Sirius said, grinning wryly.
Harry's face felt hot for some reason. “Hey, Luna's like me, even if her dad thinks she's one of the Fair Folk. If she can do it... well, I want to at least try. At least two of my friends will be there.”
“From what I know of the World Cup, Harry, the stands are quite high. Higher than the ones at Hogwarts. And if Ludo Bagman is providing the tickets, it'll be up in the nosebleeds. Probably the Top Box, since that's where the commentator sits, which will be Ludo's job.”
“It will also be very crowded, Harry. Lots of people crushing their bodies up against one another.”
“Earmuffs, sunglasses, headache cure, calming draft, something to stim with,” he lifted up his arm, showing off the dragon-skin bracelet he was wearing. “I'd be prepared. It may still be a challenge, but I think I'm up to it.”
The two men still looked uncertain.
“Am I Griffindor or am I Griffindor?” Harry added.
Sirius barked with laughter. “He's got us there, Moony. The Hat did sort him into Griffindor. What do you say, Moony old pal? Since you're the voice of reason.”
Remus sighed. “I suppose if you're willing to try, then we'll go.”
“Yes!”
“But if it gets to be too much for you,” Sirius said, “don't hesitate to let us know. I don't know if they'll allow apparition there or not, so getting out of there fast might be difficult.”
“Does the letter say who all is invited?” Lupin asked cautiously.
“It's addressed to all three of us, and asks if any of us want to go. We could always fire-call for clarification, though.”
“I guess so. If you want to go do that, go ahead. You know where the Floo is.”
Harry got up and ran to the drawing room, where the Floo had been relocated to. Before long, his head was in the Floo for the Burrow, and he was talking to Ron. Ron still hadn't remembered Harry's usual problems in his excitement, but Ginny happened by mid-conversation and expressed the same concerns Sirius and Remus had done, which got Ron siding with her now that he remembered. But he told them he was going, had convinced Sirius and Remus, and he explained his preparations to them as well, which finally convinced them. And so they had finalized plans for Harry, Sirius, and Remus to join them at the Quidditch World Cup.
Endnotes: Cutting this chapter a little short because the next part is the World Cup, which will be longish because while I won't be including everything, there are enough differences that it'll be enough for its own chapter.
Yes, ravens and other corvids do sometimes ride eagles and other large birds like they're hippogriffs. It's hilarious to watch. Corvids are my favorite birds. Of course, real-world crows ravens are intelligent enough that frankly, I think they should be given personhood recognition. Speaking of which, just to clarify something, Writing Desk is not an animagus, he's just a smarter than usual raven because magic. But someone sent me a comment wondering if he was an animagus, and it made sense that Ron would be suspicious, which is why I included those parts. Ron will become convinced in time.
I hadn't been planning on giving Mouse-Stalker any powers, but then I realized he was being bought at the Magical Menagerie, and instead of having them go somewhere else instead, I looked up snake symbolism and use in magic, and came up with some powers for him. Like he says, it's not foolproof.
Also, my apologies if anyone looked up [that thing that's triggery] on Google as a result of this chapter, or had PTSD flashbacks of such images, but I did put in a trigger warning at least. Anyway yeah, when I first read about Voldemort's ugly homunculus/baby body being so hideous it made a seasoned war veteran scream in horror and drop his cane, that's the image that came to mind.
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Four.
Or, "Autistic Potter and the Goblet of Fire."
Notes: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made. Not by me, anyway.
There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though. And the more this deviates from canon, the less that will happen. But some descriptions and things like that are too good to skip or try to reword.
Just as a reminder, so I don't have to shoehorn in descriptions in the text of the story as a reminder, but in this fanfic Harry and Hermione, apart from having Asperger's Syndrome, are both black as well.
'Italicized text between single quotes is almost always Parseltongue.'
Chapter Four: Bagman, Crouch, and Winky
The three of them took the Floo over to the Burrow the next day so they could all set out together on the following morning. Since they would have to dress as Muggles to go, Harry had on jeans, a polo shirt, and his trainers. Sirius was wearing a Led Zepplin shirt and the pants from his bike leathers, with some pretty rad looking boots. Remus was dressed in a red sweater with a white, collared shirt underneath and a red-and-gold tie on. His pants were blue and he wore Keds brand trainers. He looked like Mr. Rogers, if Mr. Rogers had cool scars on his face.
“Sirius Black! Remus Lupin!” said the familiar voice of Fred, who was coming into the room just as the last of them got through the Floo.
“Or should we say Padfoot and Moony?” George said.
“Hello boys,” Sirius said, grinning.
Fred hugged his twin in a melodramatic way, appearing to be so overcome with joy that he had tears in his eyes. “Oh George, this is the happiest day of my life! One of my absolute heroes actually spoke to me!”
George hugged his twin in the same manner, also putting on a show of crying. “I know, Fred! I know exactly how you feel! If I start sobbing like a small child, please make sure you get a copy of their autographs for me! Do that, Fred, will you? Please?”
“Of course, George! And will you do the same for me?”
“In a heartbeat, Fred!”
“You're the best, Gred!”
“No, Forge, you're the best!”
And the two boys burst into tears of joy, sobbing into one another's shoulders, occasionally laughing as they did, to the bemusement of some and the amusement of others. Harry, for his part, was trying to stifle his laughter; he didn't want to miss a word of their performance.
“Okay you two, that's enough of that goofing around,” Mrs. Weasley said, coming into the room. “Sirius, Remus, welcome to our humble home.”
But the twins weren't listening; they were both kneeling on the ground, crying and laughing at high volume.
“FRED! GEORGE! I SAID QUIT GOOFING AROUND!”
They stopped crying at once, grinning like a pair of Cheshire cats.
“Sorry Mum, just got a bit carried away,” said Fred.
“We're in the presence of gods, after all.”
“Mischievous gods, to join the ranks of Loki,”
“Eris,”
“Coyote,”
“And Crow.”
“All hail Moony and Padfoot, Gods of Pranking! HAIL! HAIL!”
“ENOUGH!” Mrs. Weasley barked.
The twins stood up at once and looked at their feet, abashed.
“Sorry Mum,” they mumbled in stereo.
Ron and Ginny were laughing fit to burst at their antics. Harry lost control of himself and started to guffaw as well, and Sirius was actually turning blue, he was laughing so hard. Remus, who was simply grinning, helped Sirius up into a nearby armchair.
“What is going on in here?” asked the familiar, slightly bossy voice of Hermione. She had just entered the room.
“Nothing, dear, just the twins making fools of themselves again,” said Mrs. Weasley.
“Ah. A normal day at the Weasley house, then.”
When everyone had themselves back under control, Mrs. Weasley went into the kitchen, and Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny followed. Mrs. Weasley picked up her wand and started pointing it at things in preparation for cooking.
“We’re eating out in the garden,” she said when they came in. “There’s just not room for thirteen people in here. Could you take the plates outside, girls? Bill and Charlie are setting up the tables. Knives and forks, please, you two,” she said to Ron and Harry.
“Can I help, too, Molly?” asked Sirius.
Mrs. Weasley looked uncertain. Harry thought he knew why; Sirius was still a prankster, even though his pranks had been fairly mild since his release from Azkaban.
“I suppose so,” she said. “You and Remus can take the cups, and maybe the jugs of pumpkin juice as well, if you can.”
They were all getting their respective items while Mrs. Weasley cooked, having to stand in line for them in the small kitchen, when in the middle of pulling out extra saucepans, her wand emitted a loud squeak and turned into a giant rubber mouse.
“OH NOT AGAIN! One of their fake wands again!” she shouted. “How many times have I told them not to leave them lying around?”
She grabbed her real wand and turned around to find that the sauce on the stove was smoking.
“C’mon,” Ron said hurriedly to Harry, seizing a handful of cutlery from the open drawer, “let’s go and help Bill and Charlie.”
They left Mrs. Weasley and headed out the back door into the yard. Dodging Hermione's cat Crookshanks, Harry asked, “Fake wands?”
“The twins,” Ron said. “They're trying to start a business, joke shop sort of thing. Calling it 'Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.' Mum found this stack of order forms when she was cleaning Fred and George’s room,” said Ron quietly. “Great long price lists for stuff they’ve invented. Joke stuff, you know. Fake wands and trick sweets, loads of stuff. It was brilliant, I never knew they’d been inventing all that.”
“You talking about Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes?” Ginny asked, and they approached her and Hermione.
“Yeah,” said Ron.
“We’ve been hearing explosions out of their room for ages, but we never thought they were actually making things,” said Ginny. “We thought they just liked the noise.”
They had to pause their conversation then because Bill and Charlie were using their wands to float the tables in a game of mid-air dueling tables, creating loud bangs as the tables knocked into one another, each attempting to knock the other’s out of the air. Fred and George were cheering, Ginny was laughing, and Hermione was hovering near the hedge, apparently torn between amusement and anxiety.
Bill’s table caught Charlie’s with a huge bang and knocked one of its legs off. There was a clatter from overhead, and they all looked up to see Percy’s head poking out of a window on the second floor.
“Will you keep it down?!” he bellowed.
“Sorry, Perce,” said Bill, grinning. “How’re the cauldron bottoms coming on?”
“Very badly,” said Percy peevishly, and he slammed the window shut. Chuckling, Bill and Charlie directed the tables safely onto the grass, end to end, and then, with a flick of his wand, Bill reattached the table leg and conjured tablecloths from nowhere.
“Cauldron bottoms?” asked Harry.
“Yeah,” Ron said, groaning. “Percy's got a new job at the Ministry. Department of International Magical Cooperation. He'll talk your ears off about cauldron bottoms from foreign imports if you let him. Though with you, I suspect you'd enjoy listening to his prattle.”
“It does sound interesting,” Harry admitted. “At least, I'm curious why he's talking about them.”
“You can ask him later. Anyway, about the twins and their business; most of the stuff they were trying to sell — well, all of it, really — was a bit dangerous,” said Ron, “and, you know, they were planning to sell it at Hogwarts to make some money, and Mum went mad at them. Told them they weren’t allowed to make any more of it, and burned all the order forms. She’s furious at them anyway. They didn’t get as many O.W.L.s as she expected.”
Harry sighed. “Honestly, I know she wants them to have 'respectable' jobs, but destroying their property isn't right. And anyway, it's just going to make them even more determined to keep doing it.”
“What? Why d'ya think that?”
“Psychology. The science of how people think. People – at least the people in Western culture – tend to respond to forbidden things by pursuing them with even more passion. Make those same things permitted, though, and most people will lose interest, or at least they won't be nearly so tempted to try it.”
Ron's expression went pensive for a few moments, then he nodded. “Yeah, I can see that being true.”
“Anyway, so you said they didn't get enough O.W.L.s?”
“Oh yeah. Their Ordinary Wizarding Levels. I don't think they really tried, on most of them. The twins aren't stupid, especially not if they're inventing all sorts of cool things. But their plans don't require good grades. They did just well enough to keep from having to redo their O.W.L.s. It makes sense, I guess; they still want to learn more so they can invent more stuff, but they don't really care about N.E.W.T.s. All they need for their joke shop is money, which is really the only reason they're going back to Hogwarts at all.”
“Well I think they'll be brilliant at it,” said Harry. “Mind you, I've only seen their fake wands, but that was impressive enough.”
By seven o’clock, the two tables were groaning under dishes and dishes of Mrs. Weasley’s excellent cooking, and the nine Weasleys, Harry, Hermione, Sirius, and Lupin were settling themselves down to eat beneath a clear, deep-blue sky. Despite having two different house elves competing over who could make the best food for their employers back at home – and Harry took a moment to appreciate that he'd just thought of the house Sirius and he shared as home – this was paradise, and at first, Harry listened rather than talked as he helped himself to chicken and ham pie, boiled potatoes, and salad.
Harry had sat next to Percy, as he often did, and now that he had someone willing to listen to him, Percy was telling Harry all about his report on cauldron bottoms. Ron sat on Harry's other side, and Hermione and Ginny were down that way as well.
“I’ve told Ms. Selby – new head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation – that I’ll have it ready by Tuesday,” Percy was saying pompously. “That’s a bit sooner than she expected it, but I like to keep on top of things. I think she’ll be grateful I’ve done it in good time, I mean, it’s extremely busy in our department just now, what with all the arrangements for the World Cup. We’re just not getting the support we need from the Department of Magical Games and Sports. Ludo Bagman —”
“I like Ludo,” said Mr. Weasley mildly; he'd been sitting on Percy's other side. “He was the one who got us such good tickets for the Cup. I did him a bit of a favor: His brother, Otto, got into a spot of trouble — a lawnmower with unnatural powers — I smoothed the whole thing over.”
“Oh Bagman’s likable enough, of course,” said Percy dismissively, “but how he ever got to be Head of Department … when I compare him to Ms. Selby! I can’t see Ms. Selby losing a member of our department and not trying to find out what’s happened to them. You realize Bertha Jorkins has been missing for over a month now? Went on holiday to Albania and never came back?”
Harry's eyes widened, and he forced himself to swallow. “Someone who works at the Ministry has been missing for a whole month and her boss isn't looking for her? Why not?”
“Well,” Mr. Weasley said, “she is a bit of a hopeless case, keeps getting shuffled around from department to department, has for years. And she is known to get lost frequently.”
“Yes,” agreed Percy. “A bit more trouble than she's worth, but still, someone ought to be looking for her.”
“I'll say,” Harry said. “In the Muggle world, if someone goes missing for longer than a day or two, the police and rescue crews put out a manhunt looking for them. I don't know if they do it every time or not, but usually I think that's what they do.”
“Yes, I agree someone should be looking for her,” Mr. Weasley said. “Still, it's been very busy lately, what with the arrangements for the Quidditch World Cup. The Ministry doesn't really have the manpower to spare for a search and rescue, especially in another country. We're all running around like a bunch of headless cockatrices as it is. I was extremely lucky to get myself and Percy time off to watch the match.”
“Maybe Mr. Crouch can spare somebody in his sub-department, Father. Some of the other interpreters, you know. I mean, he's been taking a personal interest in her disappearance. She worked in our department at one time, you know, and I think Mr. Crouch was quite fond of her — but Bagman just keeps laughing and saying she probably misread the map and ended up in Australia instead of Albania. However” — Percy heaved an impressive sigh and took a deep swig of elderflower wine — “but you're right that we’ve got quite enough on our plates at the Department of International Magical Cooperation without trying to find members of other departments too. As you know, we’ve got another big event to organize right after the World Cup.”
Percy cleared his throat significantly and looked toward where Harry, Ron, and Hermione were sitting. “You know the one I’m talking about, Father.” He raised his voice slightly. “The top-secret one.”
Ron rolled his eyes and muttered to Harry and Hermione, “He’s been trying to get us to ask what that event is ever since he started work. Probably an exhibition of thick-bottomed cauldrons.”
In the middle of the table, Mrs. Weasley was arguing with Bill about his earring, which seemed to be a recent acquisition.
“… with a horrible great fang on it. Really, Bill, what do they say at the bank?”
“Mum, no one at the bank gives a damn how I dress as long as I bring home plenty of treasure,” said Bill patiently.
“I think it's cool,” Sirius said. “Where can I get one, Bill? It'd go great with my outfit.”
Mrs. Weasley looked at the two of them as though this proved her point exactly.
“And your hair’s getting silly, dear,” said Mrs. Weasley, fingering her wand lovingly. “I wish you’d let me give it a trim.”
“He's young and rebellious, Molly, but he's of age. Leave him be,” Sirius said.
She glared daggers at him. “You mind your own business, or I'll make your two Black eyes into two black eyes,” she threatened, pointing her wand in his direction.
“I'm shutting up now, Molly,” Sirius said, putting his hands up in a placating gesture.
Next to Mrs. Weasley, Fred, George, and Charlie were all talking spiritedly about the World Cup.
“It’s got to be Ireland,” said Charlie thickly, through a mouthful of potato. “They flattened Peru in the semifinals.”
“Bulgaria has got Viktor Krum, though,” said Fred.
“Krum’s one decent player, Ireland has got seven,” said Charlie shortly. “I wish England had got through. That was embarrassing, that was.”
“Ye gods yes,” Sirius nearly shouted. “I listened to that game on the wireless, I nearly cried when it was over.”
“What happened?” asked Harry with mild curiosity.
“Went down to Transylvania, three hundred and ninety to ten,” said Charlie gloomily. “Shocking performance. And Wales lost to Uganda, and Scotland was slaughtered by Luxembourg.”
“Hey Harry,” Ron said. “Have any of your other friends mentioned coming to the World Cup?”
“I sent some owls off after our fire-call yesterday, and got them back by evening. Danzia's going, no surprise there. Angela's family are in Japan visiting relatives. Antigone is going, though. And so is Draco and his family.”
“Doubt we'll run into the Lovegoods, if they've already been there a week,” Mr. Weasley said. “Those are the cheapest tickets possible, I think, and we'll be in the top box. Draco being from a rich family, we'll probably see them there. Not sure about Antigone or Danzia, though.”
“Antigone's dad is an artificer, he makes cool wizarding devices. Given that he recently bought enough basilisk skin from Dumbledore to use as a down payment on a large mansion and then gave me one of the finished products as a gift, I imagine he'll either be in the top box or very near it.”
The people who hadn't been at Harry's birthday party – Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Bill, and Charlie – gaped at him.
“Harry, Mr. Dreyfuss bought basilisk skin to make something for you? Why?” asked Mr. Weasley.
“In Antigone's words, her family is 'bloody loaded. Filthy rich.'”
Harry pulled something out of his pocket. It was the shield, shrunk.
“Can you do the honors, Sirius?”
“Sure thing, pup,” Sirius said, tapping the thing with his wand to make it return to its normal size.
Harry put it on his arm, top out away from his body, and stood a ways back from the table while everyone watched.
“Volvere!”
With a loud SNAP, the basilisk-skin shield snapped open.
“WICKED!” the twins shouted in unison, even though they'd already seen it.
Harry closed it up again. “I thought I should bring it with me just in case. It's a magically-reinforced basilisk snake-skin shield.”
“Harry, that thing must be worth... well... more than Sirius's house!”
“Arthur,” Sirius said. “Apollyon Dreyfuss is the founder of Dreyfuss Artificing, so like Harry said, they're filthy rich. Probably richer than the Malfoys.”
“Also, Harry's a world famous celebrity, so him wearing that is great advertisement, not that they need it,” Ron said, remembering what they'd said on Harry's birthday.
“And he made seven of them in all, so doubtless he made a killing from the other six,” Sirius added. “Or will, in time.”
“Look at the time,” Mrs. Weasley said suddenly, checking her wristwatch. “You really should be in bed, the whole lot of you — you’ll be up at the crack of dawn to get to the Cup. Harry, if you leave your school list out, I’ll get your things for you tomorrow in Diagon Alley. I’m getting everyone else’s. There might not be time after the World Cup, the match went on for five days last time.”
“That shouldn't be a problem, Mrs. Weasley. We got most of my stuff already. All we weren't sure about was the History of Magic book.”
Mrs. Weasley used her wand to summon Ron's booklist and read it to herself.
“Well, Harry,” Mrs. Weasley said, “there's a new Defense book of course, always is every year, but it sounds like you have that. There's a new history book, too. It's called, 'An International Perspective on Magical History' by Jala Dreyfuss.”
Silence.
Then, after several heartbeats, “Dreyfuss?” Ron asked. “I wonder if that's any relation to Antigone?”
“She did say her mum is a pretty serious historian.”
“Oh hold on, there's a parenthesis here. Says the author of the book has pre-paid for 500 copies of the book at Flourish and Blotts, and students' families can pick up the copies they need for free. Well that's very generous of them.”
Harry's brow furrowed in thought. “The author donated 500 copies of the new book we need? Isn't that a bit convenient?”
“What are you thinking, Harry?” Ron asked.
“I'm not sure.”
“It must be someone very well off,” Hermione said.
The three of them looked at each other. “Antigone's mum?” they all said at once.
“What's that, dears?”
“Mrs. Weasley, we think the new History teacher might be Antigone's mum,” Harry said.
“Why do you think that?”
“She's a serious historian, she wrote that book, and her family is wealthy enough where paying for 500 books would barely register to them.”
“You know,” Sirius said thoughtfully, “I wouldn't be at all surprised if you're right, now that you mention it. I guess you'll find out for sure at the welcoming feast.”
“Or owl Antigone.”
“True. But in a week, you'll be on the school train. So you might as well ask then.”
“Well fascinating as this is, you all really do need to go to bed now,” Mrs. Weasley said, and hurried them inside.
~
Harry felt as though he had barely lain down to sleep in Ron’s room when he was being shaken awake by Mrs. Weasley.
“Time to go, Harry, dear,” she whispered, moving away to wake Ron.
Harry felt around for his glasses, put them on, and sat up. It was still dark outside. Ron muttered indistinctly as his mother roused him. At the foot of Harry’s mattress he saw two large, disheveled shapes emerging from tangles of blankets. It was the twins.
Groggily, they all got up. Sirius looked like he was sleepwalking, even though he'd managed to get dressed. He looked basically the same as yesterday, except he was wearing a Blue Oyster Cult t-shirt. As it turned out, Sirius, Mr. Weasley, and Mrs. Weasley were the only adults who were up. The rest were going to apparate to the game later and got to have a lie-in.
“Why can't we apparate?” Ron asked peevishly. “I mean, Dad could take me, Sirius could take Harry, Percy could take Hermione, Charlie could take the twins, and Bill could take Ginny. Then we wouldn't have to be up so bloody early!”
“Percy isn't licensed for side-along apparition, Ron,” Mrs. Weasley said. “And mind your tongue, young man!”
“So Remus could take Hermione, then. Or Dad could. Cummon, let us sleep some more!”
“He's got a point there, Molly. I'm barely functional. I won't be much good like this.”
“For Heaven's sake, you'll have tents. Catch up on your sleep when you get there, if it's so important. It's a lot safer to take a portkey than to have everyone going side-along. You can't get splinched by a portkey.”
“That's not a bad point. Okay, fine. We will. Since we're already up.”
After a breakfast of porridge, Harry got Mouse-Stalker to curl up around his arm under his sleeve, and they walked together to the portkey site, which was at the top of a huge hill so hard to climb that everyone had to rest a few minutes before they could look for the portkey. Someone else had already found it, though.
“Over here, Arthur! Over here, son, we’ve got it!”
Two tall figures were silhouetted against the starry sky on the other side of the hilltop.
“Amos!” said Mr. Weasley, smiling as he strode over to the man who had shouted. The rest of them followed.
Mr. Weasley was shaking hands with a ruddy-faced wizard with a scrubby brown beard, who was holding a moldy-looking old boot in his other hand.
“This is Amos Diggory, everyone,” said Mr. Weasley. “He works for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. And I think you know his son, Cedric?”
Cedric Diggory was an extremely handsome boy of around seventeen. He was Captain and Seeker of the Hufflepuff House Quidditch team at Hogwarts.
“Hi,” said Cedric, looking around at them all.
Mr. Diggory looked at Sirius oddly.
“What?” Sirius asked.
“I don't think you should be advertising your religion like that where we're going, son,” he said, pointing at Sirius's shirt. “Most of these Muggles are Christians, you know, and just as rabid against anything they perceive as paganism as they are against magic.”
“It's a Muggle shirt, actually, and has nothing to do with religion. I'm an agnostic, myself. The shirt is a picture of one of the albums of a Muggle music group called Blue Oyster Cult. Occultism is becoming a fad in Muggle music, and has since the 70's at least.”
“What? Really? Hmm... well now you mention it, there was that one fellow, Crowley I think his name was? Wanted to reintroduce the Old Ways to the Muggles.”
“He had some success at that. One of his Muggle friends, Gerald Gardner, had more success though,” Mr. Weasley said.
“Quite, quite,” Amos said. “Sirius Black, correct?” he said, having turned back to Sirius.
“That's me.”
“Shame what happened to you, I can't quite believe it. Twelve years in prison with no trial! Dreadful, simply dreadful. It's a miracle you survived.”
“Yes, it is.”
Apparently at a loss for anything else to say to Sirius, due to the awkwardness of the situation, Amos Diggory peered good-naturedly around at the three Weasley boys, Harry, Hermione, and Ginny. “All these yours, Arthur?”
“Oh no, only the redheads,” said Mr. Weasley, pointing out his children. “This is Hermione, friend of Ron’s — and Harry, another friend —”
“Merlin’s beard,” said Amos Diggory, his eyes widening. “Harry? Harry Potter?”
“Er — yeah,” said Harry.
Harry was used to people looking curiously at him when they met him, used to the way their eyes moved at once to the lightning scar on his forehead, but it always made him feel uncomfortable.
“Harry here is the reason I'm free. He helped me catch Pettigrew, and had the foresight to take photos of the man before he escaped again.”
“And you're his godfather now, right?”
“Yes. We're living in my parents' old house. Of course, I had to have it professionally cleaned out. The place was a death trap even before it turned into a pigsty on top of that, my parents had so much dark stuff there. It's all gone, now, all destroyed or sold off if it was harmless enough. Like the silver goblets, I think Gringotts bought those.”
“Is it true you're being retrained as an auror?”
“Yes. I start training on the second of September. Kingsley Shacklebolt is going to be training me.”
“Excellent choice, he's a very capable wizard. Quite handsome, too. I may not be queer, but I can recognize a handsome man when I see one!”
“Must be nearly time,” said Mr. Weasley quickly, pulling out his watch again. “Do you know whether we’re waiting for any more, Amos?”
“No, the Lovegoods have been there for a week already and the Fawcetts couldn’t get tickets,” said Mr. Diggory. “There aren’t any more of us in this area, are there?”
“Not that I know of,” said Mr. Weasley. “Yes, it’s a minute off. … We’d better get ready.”
He looked around at Harry and Hermione.
“You just need to touch the Portkey, that’s all, a finger will do —” This must have been more for Hermione's sake, because Harry already knew that, having traveled by portkey before.
With difficulty, owing to their bulky backpacks, the ten of them crowded around the old boot held out by Amos Diggory. They all touched a finger to it, Mr. Weasley counted down, and off they went flying through the air after feeling like they'd been hooked behind their navels.
His feet slammed into the ground; Ron staggered into him and he fell over; the Portkey hit the ground near his head with a heavy thud.
Harry looked up. Mr. Weasley, Mr. Diggory, Sirius, and Cedric were still standing, though looking very windswept; everybody else was on the ground.
“Seven past five from Stoatshead Hill,” said a voice.
~
Once they got disentangled and Arthur had a quick conversation with the men tending the portkey station – one of whom was wearing a kilt and a poncho to Harry's confusion, they walked over to the campsite manager, one Mr. Roberts. Though they were registered under Mr. Weasley's name, Sirius – who was intimately familiar with Muggle stuff, having spent his after-Hogwarts years in mostly Muggle areas – paid the rent for the night.
Mr. Roberts rummaged around in a tin for some change.
“Never been this crowded,” he said suddenly, looking out over the misty field again. “Hundreds of pre-bookings. People usually just turn up. Strangest thing, too; some of 'em tried paying with great big gold coins big as hubcaps!”
“Is that right?” said Sirius, his hand held out for his change, but Mr. Roberts didn’t give it to him.
“Aye,” he said thoughtfully. “People from all over. Loads of foreigners. And not just foreigners. Weirdos, you know? There’s a bloke walking ’round in a kilt and a poncho.”
“Shouldn’t he?” said Mr. Weasley anxiously.
“It’s like some sort of … I dunno … like some sort of rally,” said Mr. Roberts. “They all seem to know each other. Like a big party.”
“Have you ever heard of a Renaissance fair?” Sirius asked.
“You mean where people dress up like knights and court ladies and jesters and whatnot?”
“Yes. This is a bit like that. Or like a fantasy convention. People dress in costumes, they talk geeky things with one another, and there's entertainment. The theme of this festival is that we're all pretending to be aliens who are trying to fit in with humans, and not all of us are very good at it. But the really funny costumes will come out when it's time for the big concert later.”
“I see,” Mr. Roberts said. “Well that makes sense, then. So these people having trouble with money are...”
“They're in character, of course. Their characters did just enough research to know gold was something highly valued, assumed it was human currency, then get flustered when they find they were wrong, you see?”
“I do see, now.” He chuckled. “Well isn't that just the funniest thing. Ah, yes, well I wish you all good luck with your entertainment, everyone. Na-nu na-nu and all that!”
He gave Sirius his change back and the map of the campsite, and they all went walking toward the campsite.
Once they were out of earshot, Mr. Weasley said, “That was a very clever story, Sirius. I think that man just avoided being obliviated thanks to you.”
Just ahead of them, there was a POP and a wizard in plus-fours stood there. “Quite right, Arthur,” he said. “Roberts has been giving us a lot of trouble. Needs a Memory Charm ten times a day to keep him happy. And Ludo Bagman’s not helping. Trotting around talking about Bludgers and Quaffles at the top of his voice, not a worry about anti-Muggle security. Though maybe now he'll be happier and it'll make our jobs easier. Thank you for that by the way, Mr. Black.”
“Call me Sirius.”
“Of course, Sirius. Anyway, I’ll be glad when this is over. See you later, Arthur.”
He Disapparated.
“I thought Mr. Bagman was Head of Magical Games and Sports,” said Ginny, looking surprised. “He should know better than to talk about Bludgers near Muggles, shouldn’t he?”
“He should,” said Mr. Weasley, smiling, and leading them through the gates into the campsite, “but Ludo’s always been a bit … well … lax about security. You couldn’t wish for a more enthusiastic head of the sports department though. He played Quidditch for England himself, you know. And he was the best Beater the Wimbourne Wasps ever had.”
They trudged up the misty field between long rows of tents. Most looked almost ordinary; their owners had clearly tried to make them as Muggle-like as possible, but had slipped up by adding chimneys, or bellpulls, or weather vanes. However, here and there was a tent so obviously magical that Harry could hardly be surprised that Mr. Roberts was getting suspicious. Halfway up the field stood an extravagant confection of striped silk like a miniature palace, with several live peacocks tethered at the entrance. A little farther on they passed a tent that had three floors and several turrets; and a short way beyond that was a tent that had a front garden attached, complete with birdbath, sundial, and fountain.
“Always the same,” said Mr. Weasley, smiling. “We can’t resist showing off when we get together. Ah, here we are, look, this is us.”
They had reached the very edge of the wood at the top of the field, and here was an empty space, with a small sign hammered into the ground that read WEEZLY.
“Couldn’t have a better spot!” said Mr. Weasley happily. “The field is just on the other side of the wood there, we’re as close as we could be.” He hoisted his backpack from his shoulders. “Right,” he said excitedly, “no magic allowed, strictly speaking, not when we’re out in these numbers on Muggle land. We’ll be putting these tents up by hand! Shouldn’t be too difficult. Muggles do it all the time. Here, Harry, where do you reckon we should start?”
“No idea. The Dursleys never went camping. Aunt Petunia hates nature because it's so dirty. I suppose I should count my blessings for that, though; if they did go camping, they would've taken me and left me to starve to death atop some mountain somewhere.”
“Here, Arthur. James and I went camping once. I think I remember how it works.”
In a matter of minutes, Sirius had the small tents up.
“Um... I don't think we're all going to fit in there.”
“Magic, Harry, remember?” Sirius told him.
“Oh.”
They went inside, and sure enough the place was bigger on the inside. He had walked into what looked like an old-fashioned, three-room flat, complete with bathroom and kitchen. Oddly enough, it was furnished in exactly the same sort of style as Mrs. Figg’s house: There were crocheted covers on the mismatched chairs and a strong smell of cats.
“Well, it’s not for long,” said Mr. Weasley, mopping his bald patch with a handkerchief and peering in at the four bunk beds that stood in the bedroom. “I borrowed this from Perkins at the office. Doesn’t camp much anymore, poor fellow, he’s got lumbago.”
He picked up the dusty kettle and peered inside it. “We’ll need water. …”
“There’s a tap marked on this map the Muggle gave us,” said Ron, who had followed Harry inside the tent and seemed completely unimpressed by its extraordinary inner proportions. “It’s on the other side of the field.”
“Well, why don’t you, Harry, and Hermione go and get us some water then” — Mr. Weasley handed over the kettle and a couple of saucepans — “and the rest of us will get some wood for a fire?”
“But we’ve got an oven,” said Ron. “Why can’t we just —”
“Ron, anti-Muggle security!” said Mr. Weasley, his face shining with anticipation. “When real Muggles camp, they cook on fires outdoors. I’ve seen them at it!”
“About that, Arthur, once you've got the wood, I have the tinder,” Sirius said, pulling from his pockets a strange assortment of things: a clump of steel wool, a rod of some sort of metal that looked like it had pieces cut from it, a piece of rock, a different metal rod, and a knife. He considered them all, put the first metal rod and the knife away.
“What's all that, then?” Mr. Weasley asked.
“Steel wool, something Muggles make. Usually used to scrub hard-to-clean messes, it makes great tinder. The shaved metal rod was magnesium, but that stuff burns pretty hot and is hard to put out, so I decided against it. Too dry. If it was wet, we could use it; magnesium burns even wet wood. And this is a flint stone and a steel rod to strike against it. Makes sparks.”
Everyone wanting to see this, they all helped Mr. Weasley gather some wood. Soon they had a nice bundle, and Sirius arranged it, wedging the steel wool in there. Then he used the flint and steel rod to make lots of sparks that landed on the steel wool. It took him a few tries, but then the steel wool caught fire. Sirius was right, it made great tinder, because it burned hot enough and long enough that it caught the wood nicely on fire as well.
Mr. Weasley was gaping at this display. “Muggles know how to burn metal?”
“Yeah. Something about how steel wool is designed means it burns well as a side effect. And magnesium is a kind of metal that naturally burns pretty nicely with not a lot of encouragement. The trick is getting it out of the ground and purifying it first.”
“It's the surface area,” Harry said. “Of the steel wool, I mean. A chunk of steel like that rod won't easily burn, but as you saw, it does make sparks. The steel wool has lots of surface area, and is full of air, so it burns well because of those things.”
“Muggle science is so cool,” Ron said.
Fred turned to George and said, “Are you thinking what I'm thinking, George?”
“If you're thinking we need to get books about Muggle science, then I think so, Fred.”
“Well it's basic chemistry. The science of chemical reactions. Um... a bit like Potions, but cooler. And some chemical reactions involve powders and other dry stuff. Like burning steel wool.”
“Wicked! Definitely something for our list!”
When Mr. Weasley started making sausages over the fire, Sirius joined the kids to fetch some water from the tap. Fred and George moved next to Harry.
“Hey Harry,” Fred whispered to him. “Want to help us prank Sirius and test a Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes product at the same time?”
“What kind of a prank?”
“A harmless one. Here, just give him this toffee. Don't eat it yourself, obviously.”
“What does it do?”
“You'll see. It's harmless, but funny.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“A chance to prank a prankster? Especially the legendary Padfoot? Are you kidding me?”
“I see. Okay. Give me two, then, so I can pretend I'm gonna eat the other one.”
He took the toffees and decided to wait, as giving Sirius something so soon after talking with the twins might be suspicious.
They saw a great many things on their way to the tap. Little boy wizards and little girl witches, American wizards and witches, African wizards cooking over a purple fire, and much more. They briefly met Seamus Finnigan in what appeared to be the Irish quarter, where all the tents looked like green hills covered in shamrocks.
“All those shamrocks, Seamus,” Sirius said after they assured him they were supporting Ireland. “You should demand your money back, get some real rocks!” Then he barked with laughter at his own joke.
“Har har, never heard that one before in me life,” Seamus said sarcastically. “Anyway, you should see what the Bulgarians have on their tents.”
They said their farewells to the Irish, and moved on. They did indeed see the Bulgarian tents, which were covered in wizard posters of Viktor Krum, though you couldn’t really tell they were wizarding photos because he wasn't moving much. Just some blinking and scowling.
“He looks really grumpy,” said Hermione, looking around at the many Krums blinking and scowling at them.
“ ‘Really grumpy’?” Ron raised his eyes to the heavens. “Who cares what he looks like? He’s unbelievable. He’s really young too. Only just eighteen or something. He’s a genius, you wait until tonight, you’ll see.”
They finally got to the queue for the tap. While they waited, two men were arguing nearby. One of them was a very old wizard who was wearing a long flowery nightgown. The other was clearly a Ministry wizard; he was holding out a pair of pinstriped trousers and almost crying with exasperation.
“Just put them on, Archie, there’s a good chap. You can’t walk around like that, the Muggle at the gate’s already getting suspicious —”
“I bought this in a Muggle shop,” said the old wizard stubbornly. “Muggles wear them.”
“Muggle women wear them, Archie, not the men, they wear these,” said the Ministry wizard, and he brandished the pinstriped trousers.
“I’m not putting them on,” said old Archie in indignation. “I like a healthy breeze ’round my privates, thanks.”
“He can wear what he likes,” Sirius said. “I gave the Mr. Roberts a good excuse about what we're doing here, that we're pretending to be aliens trying and failing to blend in among humans. He'll just think Archie is wearing a costume.”
“Plus, I've seen Muggles wearing more outlandish stuff than that as everyday wear,” Harry added.
The Ministry wizard gave up, Archie looking quite smug.
“Thank you, sonny. What's your name?”
Sirius held out a hand. “I'm Sirius Black.”
Archie looked panic-stricken for a moment. Before he could start shouting, though, Sirius added, “You know, the innocent man who was recently released from Azkaban?”
Archie calmed down at once. “Oh yes, I remember that now. Sorry, old habits you know.”
“I understand,” Sirius said.
Soon, they had their turn at the tap. Walking more slowly now because of the weight of the water, they made their way back through the campsite. Here and there, they saw more familiar faces: other Hogwarts students with their families. Oliver Wood, the old captain of Griffindor House Quidditch team (according to the twins, who were on the team). Wood had just left Hogwarts, dragged Harry over to his parents’ tent to introduce him, and told him excitedly that he had just been signed to the Puddlemere United reserve team. Next they were hailed by Ernie Macmillan, a Hufflepuff fourth year.
Harry caught a brief bit of French as they passed some teenagers. “I wonder if they go to Beauxbatons,” Harry said.
“To what now?” Ron asked.
“Beauxbatons Academy, one of the other major European schools of magic,” Harry said. “I read about it in a book Percy got me.”
“Oh yeah, I 'spect they are,” Ron said in a bored sort of voice. “You know, Bill once had a penfriend at a school in Brazil – this was years and years ago – and he wanted to go on an exchange trip but Mum and Dad couldn’t afford it. His penfriend got all offended when he said he wasn’t going and sent him a cursed hat. It made his ears shrivel up.”
Within a few more minutes, they got back to the campsite, where Mr. Weasley was cooking some sausages and eggs. They dropped off the water and went into their respective tents to get some more sleep until the match.
~
A few hours later, Mr. Weasley woke them all up. Bill, Charlie, Remus, and Percy had all arrived and Mr. Weasley was making more sausages, and a pot of coffee was bubbling away on the fire. Though they'd only gotten a few more hours sleep, it was enough added to their previous sleep. Everyone sat around the fire awaiting breakfast, talking as Mr. Weasley served everyone, starting with the girls. When it was Harry's turn, he gave Mouse-Stalker a bit of sausage, once it had cooled down to body temperature. The snake said he liked it, but preferred mice.
Mr. Weasley was in the middle of a conversation with Ludo Bagman when Luna showed up, looking like she'd wandered over after being lost. Harry almost didn't recognize her, because she was dressed as a leprechaun, complete with red beard and sideburns. Her green suit and green top hat were rather ridiculous, it made Harry smile.
“Over here, Luna,” he said, patting the ground next to him.
“Thank you, Harry.”
“Let me guess,” Sirius said, looking thoughtful. “You're supporting... Bulgaria?”
“No, silly; I'm supporting Ireland.”
“Yes! Quite! I thought that outfit looked familiar for some reason,” Sirius said, winking at her.
Mr. Weasley handed Luna some eggs and sausage, which she took with a grateful bow, pulling her beard off to eat without dirtying it.
Ludo Bagman and Mr. Weasley then continued their conversation.
“Anyway, Arthur, if you see Mr. Crouch, let me know will you? I know he's around here somewhere, and I need an interpreter, my Bulgarian opposite number’s making difficulties, and I can’t understand a word he’s saying. Barty’ll be able to sort it out. He speaks about a hundred and fifty languages.”
“I still can't believe he didn't he get fired for his role in my wrongful incarceration,” Sirius said, annoyed.
“Yes, it was a very near thing,” Mr. Weasley said. “But they decided if things were hectic enough even Dumbledore overlooked it, that they just demoted him. He's no longer the head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, he's been demoted to an interpreter. I guess his language skills were too important.”
Sirius frowned. “Yes, I'm not terribly happy with Dumbledore about that, either.”
“Barty's an interpreter now you say? Ah, well, he should still be around then in any case,” Ludo said. “Any idea who's the new head? I haven't been to the office for a few days until just before coming here, and that was just to pick something up quick.”
“They've promoted Caroline Selby to Head of that department,” Mr. Weasley said.
“Ah yes, Caroline, I like her. First time we met, she had me sign her, ah... well, she's a fan, let's leave it at that.”
“Yes, she is rather intense at times, but she's good at her job.”
“That she is, that she is.” Bagman turned to Percy. “Ah yes, Percy Weasley, I believe you work in the DIMC as well, do you not?”
Percy, beaming, nodded. “Yes sir, I do. Just started this summer, after school ended.”
“Good lad, good lad,” Bagman said.
Bagman turned to Mr. Weasley again. “Fancy a flutter on the match, Arthur?” he said eagerly, jingling what seemed to be a large amount of gold in the pockets of his yellow-and-black robes. “I’ve already got Roddy Pontner betting me Bulgaria will score first — I offered him nice odds, considering Ireland’s front three are the strongest I’ve seen in years — and little Agatha Timms has put up half shares in her eel farm on a week-long match.”
“Oh … go on then,” said Mr. Weasley. “Let’s see … a Galleon on Ireland to win?”
“A Galleon?” Ludo Bagman looked slightly disappointed, but recovered himself. “Very well, very well … any other takers?”
Sirius shook his head. “I know your reputation, Ludo; I don't trust you'll pay anyone back.”
Fred and George had been counting money, doubtless to make a bet, and looked disappointed at this news, putting their money away.
“Oh come now, Lord Black, I'm good for it. I admit I had some asset liquidity issues a while back, but that's all settled now.”
“Not buying it. And even though I'm a Lord now, don't call me Lord Black. Call me Sirius.”
“Er, sure, Sirius.”
“Any news of Bertha Jorkins yet, Ludo?” Mr. Weasley asked.
“Not a dicky bird,” said Bagman comfortably. “But she’ll turn up. Poor old Bertha... memory like a leaky cauldron and no sense of direction. Lost, you take my word for it. She’ll wander back into the office sometime in October, thinking it’s still July.”
“You don’t think it might be time to send someone to look for her?” Mr. Weasley suggested tentatively as Percy handed Bagman his tea.
“Barty Crouch keeps saying that,” said Bagman, his round eyes widening innocently, “but we really can’t spare anyone at the moment. Oh — talk of the devil! Barty!”
A wizard had just apparated at their fireside, and he could not have made more of a contrast with Ludo Bagman, sprawled on the grass in his old Wasp robes. Barty Crouch was a stiff, upright, elderly man, dressed in an impeccably crisp suit and tie. The parting in his short gray hair was almost unnaturally straight, and his narrow toothbrush mustache looked as though he trimmed it using a slide rule. His shoes were very highly polished. Mr. Crouch had complied with the rule about Muggle dressing so thoroughly that he could have passed for a bank manager; Harry doubted even Uncle Vernon would have spotted him for what he really was.
“Pull up a bit of grass, Barty,” said Ludo brightly, patting the ground beside him.
“No thank you, Ludo,” said Crouch, and there was a bite of impatience in his voice. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. The Bulgarians are insisting we add another twelve seats to the Top Box.”
“Oh is that what they’re after?” said Bagman. “I thought the chap was asking to borrow a pair of tweezers. Bit of a strong accent.”
“Are you trying to tell us members of the Bulgarian government, specifically sent here to help you lot with this business, can't speak English? I think they're having you on, Mr. Bagman,” Harry said.
“Oh come now, Mr. Potter, they wouldn't do that! These are important government officials, they're quite serious!”
“I quite agree, Ludo,” Mr. Crouch said, looking like he'd rather not be agreeing with Bagman.
Harry thought about pointing out that Mr. Bagman wasn't exactly taking his job seriously, but decided against it. Not with Mr. Crouch there, anyway.
Mr. Crouch talked with Mr. Weasley for a bit as well, something about a man wanting to import flying carpets into the country, and they talked of that for a while. Then Bagman mentioned something else they were organizing later, at Hogwarts. That got everyone's curiosity up, but the two men wouldn't answer. Nor would Mr. Weasley.
Just before they were about to go, Mr. Crouch turned to Harry, looking at him oddly. “My boy, it's the end of August, why are you wearing earmuffs?”
Harry's face twitched. “I'd really prefer if you didn't call me 'boy,' sir.”
Mr. Crouch frowned. “And why not? You are a boy, not a man yet.”
“Complicated emotional-baggage reasons, sir.”
“Harry here was raised by Muggles,” Sirius said. “And Muggle racism is a bit different than ours. 'Boy' is an offensive thing to call someone with his skin tone, in their world. The Muggles who raised him were racist against him for multiple reasons.”
“I see. Well I apologize, Mr. Potter. I was unaware of that fact, and I meant no disrespect.”
“Apology accepted,” Harry said.
“Still, you didn't answer my question. About the earmuffs.”
“It's very noisy here. I have several sets of these earmuffs; this one blocks out all noise but lets in the voices of those nearby me. If I didn't have them on, I'd be curled in a ball with a migraine.”
“I see,” he said, nodding. “Anyway, I must be going. I have more interpreting work to do,” he said, sounding disgusted that he'd been reduced to such a lowly position.
With that, he stood up and disapparated with a slight POP.
Bagman stood up as well. Before he could go, Harry said, “Mr. Bagman sir?”
“Yes Harry? You wanted something?”
“I was just curious if you could upgrade the tickets of my friend Luna and her father to Top Box tickets? I can pay the difference, if it helps.”
“Oh my dear b—er, young man, no no, there's no need to pay. Anything for Harry Potter, anything at all. Yes, I believe we do have a couple more seats available up there. Yes, bring them both along, that's fine by me. Here you are,” he said, handing Harry a couple more tickets. “Lucky, that, really; I think those are the last two available. A couple of minor Irish dignitaries were going to come, but they dropped out at the last minute, something about their daughter catching dragon pox, I think. Anyway, I'll see you lot in a bit. Ta-ta!”
With that, he apparated away.
“Oh Harry, you didn't need to do that,” Luna said.
“I know I didn't. But as much as I hate being famous, if I can use it to do something good for a friend, why not?”
Sirius smirked at Harry. Harry pointedly ignored him, but knew Sirius was still smirking at him. Remus was as well. Harry let some time pass until Sirius stopped smirking at him, then a bit more. He hadn't seriously been considering pranking his godfather, but after that, well, it was so much easier. Remembering the trick sweet the twins gave him, he took one out after Sirius was done eating and said, “Fancy a sweet? I'm having one too.” He showed Sirius the other one.
“Oh alright then,” Sirius said, trusting his godson, and took the sweet.
The twins were pretending they weren't watching as Sirius popped the candy in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. There was a brief pause, and then...
“AHH!” Sirius shouted, standing straight up. His tongue was swelling, growing to enormous size, quickly getting big enough where he could've licked the back of his own head if he'd wanted to, and just kept getting bigger, as Harry, Ginny, and the twins burst out laughing. Ron looked horrified at first, then spotting everyone laughing, joined in. Remus chuckled at his friend's expense. Hermione was even having a hard time keeping her laughter in. Luna was giggling so hard she was leaning against Harry.
“Not to worry, Sirius, I'll shrink it for you,” Mr. Weasley said, pointing his wand at the massive thing. He said some incantation Harry didn't catch, and the tongue started shrinking back to its normal size.
“Bleh, I tasted grass and my own clothes there for a moment,” Sirius said before rounding on Harry and glaring at him, his fists on his hips.
“That was a mean and nasty trick, Harry James Potter!”
Harry froze, worried. “Um...”
Sirius burst out laughing, laughing so hard he fell over. When he got it out of his system, he stood up and said, “Well, I'll just have to get you back for that at some point!”
“Get back at the twins, too; they put me up to it.”
Fred made a pained noise, then began melodramatically wailing. George said, “Traitorous tattle-tale! What did we ever do to deserve this treachery?”
“Do you want a list? Because I can get a pretty good one going for this week alone,” Harry said.
The twins smiled. “Nah, that's fine Harry, we don't mind being pranked by the legendary Padfoot!”
After the last of their food was eaten and the adults filled up on coffee, Harry and the other kids, Remus, and Sirius got up and started wandering around. As the match got closer, people stopped hiding their magic as much, and there were even salespeople apparating every few feet selling merchandise and souvenirs.
“Been saving my pocket money all summer for this,” Ron told Harry as they all strolled through the salesmen, buying souvenirs. Though Ron purchased a dancing shamrock hat and a large green rosette, he also bought a small figure of Viktor Krum, the Bulgarian Seeker. The miniature Krum walked backward and forward over Ron’s hand, scowling up at the green rosette above him. Sirius got an Ireland Quidditch team shirt and dancing shamrock hat, as well as paying a face painter to paint all their faces with the Irish team's colors and symbols. He insisted on getting the same for Remus, over his objections. Harry, for his part, got a hat for himself and an action-figure sized hat for Mouse-Stalker, which he attached to the snake's head with a sticking charm. It made Mouse-Stalker look absolutely adorable.
“Wow, look at these!” said Harry, hurrying over to a cart piled high with what looked like brass binoculars, except that they were covered with all sorts of weird knobs and dials.
“Omnioculars,” said the saleswizard eagerly. “You can replay action … slow everything down … and they flash up a play-by-play breakdown if you need it. Bargain — ten Galleons each.”
“Wish I hadn’t bought this now,” said Ron, gesturing at his dancing shamrock hat and gazing longingly at the Omnioculars.
“Ten galleons?” Harry said, confused. “But a wand is only seven, and there's a lot of hard work that goes into those. Not that omnioculars don't have a lot of work put into them too, but they're still less work than a wand.”
“Actually, no they don't just cost 7 galleons,” Sirius said. “Hogwarts subsidizes a student's first wand. They're actually 47 galleons. If you ever get a second wand, you pay full price.”
Everyone gaped at Sirius. “Forty-seven galleons?” Ron said. “Thank gods for that subsidization, then. Without it--- wait a minute, Mum only paid seven galleons for my new wand in the summer before third year!”
“Your first wand was second-hand, thought, right? So that would have counted as your first school wand.”
“Oh. Right.”
“I'll take eight pairs,” Sirius said.
At the objections of the Weasleys, Harry said, “Sirius is loaded, right Sirius?”
“Yes. Nowhere near as rich as Antigone's family, but right up there with the Malfoys. And it amuses me to think what my mother would say if she knew I was spending the family gold on omnioculars for a bunch of 'blood traitors' and a Muggle-born.” Seeing their continued uncomfortable looks, he said, “If it helps, consider them an early Christmas present.”
“Oooh, thanks, Sirius,” said Hermione. “And I’ll get us some programs, look —”
“So who were you two going to bet on to win?” Harry asked the twins.
“We were going to bet Ireland would win, but Krum would get the snitch. Too bad Bagman's not trustworthy.”
Their money bags considerably lighter, they went back to the tents. Bill, Charlie, and Ginny were all sporting green rosettes too, and Mr. Weasley was carrying an Irish flag. Fred and George had on hats and face paints as well, but were keeping most of their money for their joke shop business.
And then a deep, booming gong sounded somewhere beyond the woods, and at once, green and red lanterns blazed into life in the trees, lighting a path to the field.
“It’s time!” said Mr. Weasley, looking as excited as any of them. “Come on, let’s go!”
~
Clutching their purchases, Mr. Weasley in the lead, they all hurried into the wood, following the lantern-lit trail. They could hear the sounds of thousands of people moving around them, shouts and laughter, snatches of singing; well, everyone but Harry could hear them, since he was wearing his earmuffs. The atmosphere of feverish excitement was highly infectious anyway; Harry couldn’t stop grinning. They walked through the wood for twenty minutes, talking and joking loudly, until at last they emerged on the other side and found themselves in the shadow of a gigantic stadium. Though Harry could see only a fraction of the immense gold walls surrounding the field, he could tell that ten cathedrals would fit comfortably inside it.
In addition to his earmuffs, Harry also had on some sunglasses that could be turned off and on, letting him see when he wanted to and blocking things out when he didn't. He held hands with Luna as they all went up into the Top Box, which was empty except for a house-elf in the row behind them. But it wasn't Dobby, and it wasn't Netty. The elf had its face hidden in its hands, so he didn't know who it was.
“Hello,” he said, holding out his hand. “I'm Harry. Who are you?”
The elf stretched its fingers, revealing enormous brown eyes and a nose the exact size and shape of a large tomato. It looked at Harry's hand in confusion, then at Harry's forehead.
“Harry Potter?” squeaked the elf curiously from between its fingers. Its voice was higher even than Dobby’s had been, a teeny, quivering squeak of a voice, and Harry suspected — though it was very hard to tell with a house-elf — that this one might just be female, like Netty, but probably younger given the high-pitched voice. He wasn't sure, though; elf voices were all pretty high pitched. “Is you Harry Potter?”
“Yes I is--I mean am. And who are you?”
“Er... I is Winky, sir.” She stared at his hand. “Why is you holding your hand out, sir?”
“I thought wizards knew what handshakes were.”
“Yes, they does, but none has ever wanted to shake hands with Winky, sir.”
“Well I would,” he said. “I'm pleased to meet you, Winky.”
“Er,” she said, taking his hand in one of hers. It was like shaking hands with a five year old, if five year olds had very long fingers. “Winky is pleased to meet Harry Potter as well, sir. Dobby is talking about you all the time, sir. Netty speaks of you sometimes too. Does you know them?”
Shaking her hand and then letting go, Harry said, “Yes, Dobby and Netty are friends of mine.”
Winky's eyes looked wide under her fingers, with were all covering her eyes again. “You is friends? With house elves?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Dobby is telling Winky, sir, that he is working for Sirius Black, with the house elf Kreacher, and that you is living with Sirius Black now. Is that being true, sir?”
“Yes, Dobby was telling the truth. He and Kreacher have something of a rivalry going on between them. So how do you know Dobby, Winky?”
“Oh, all house elves in Britain and Scotland and Wales is knowing each other, sir.”
“Ah, I see.”
Luna turned around and knelt into the chair next to him, her father sitting down on her other side and turning around too. Luna held her hand out to Winky.
“Hello Winky,” she said. “It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Luna Lovegood.”
Winky reluctantly shook Luna's hand, immediately covering her eyes up again. “It's a pleasure to meet you too, miss. Is you a friend of Harry Potter?”
“Yes, we've been friends for years.”
Harry nodded. Winky smiled a little.
“Why are you hiding your lovely eyes, Winky?” Luna asked.
“I is not liking heights at all, sir and miss” — she glanced toward the edge of the box and gulped — “but my master sends me to the Top Box and I comes, sir.”
“Why’s he sent you up here, if he knows you don’t like heights?” said Harry, frowning.
“Master — master wants me to save him a seat, Harry Potter. He is very busy,” said Winky, tilting her head toward the empty space beside her. “Winky is wishing she is back in master’s tent, Harry Potter, but Winky does what she is told. Winky is a good house-elf.”
She gave the edge of the box another frightened look and hid her eyes completely again. Harry and Luna turned back to the others.
“She's not being entirely honest,” Luna muttered to Harry. “I don't think her master intends to come up at all, whoever he is. She's here for some other reason, I just don't know why.”
“Well he must have told her to come up here, otherwise she wouldn't be here. You saw how terrified of heights she is.”
Luna shrugged. “Well it's a mystery. We'd need more information to solve it.”
“Hello again, Mr. Lovegood,” Harry said, waving at Xeno.
“Hello to you as well, Mr. Potter. Thank you for getting us seats up here. It's quite swanky. Don't tell anyone but, er, I scalped our old tickets.”
Harry chuckled at that. “They won't hear it from me.”
The box filled gradually around them over the next half hour. Mr. Weasley kept shaking hands with people who were obviously very important wizards. Percy jumped to his feet so often that he looked as though he were trying to sit on a hedgehog. When Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic himself, arrived, Percy bowed so low that his glasses fell off and shattered. (Harry made a mental note to remind Percy about sticking charms.) Highly embarrassed, Percy repaired them with his wand and thereafter remained in his seat. Minister Fudge came along then, and greeted Harry as though they were friends, which confused Harry because they'd never actually met before.
“Harry Potter, you know,” he told the Bulgarian minister loudly, who was wearing splendid robes of black velvet trimmed with gold and didn’t seem to understand a word of English. “Harry Potter … oh come on now, you know who he is … the boy who survived You-Know-Who … you do know who he is —”
The Bulgarian wizard suddenly spotted Harry’s scar and started gabbling loudly and excitedly, pointing at it.
Xeno looked like he wanted to say something, but just smiled knowingly and sat back in his seat.
“Knew we’d get there in the end,” said Fudge wearily to Harry. “I’m no great shakes at languages; I need Barty Crouch for this sort of thing. Ah, I see his house-elf’s saving him a seat. … Good job too, these Bulgarian blighters have been trying to cadge all the best places … ah, and here’s Lucius!”
Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Luna turned to see Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy and Draco edging along the row towards them. Draco waved at Harry, his parents giving each other disgusted and long-suffering looks as he did. There was a seat on Hermione's other side, and Draco sat down there. He tried talking to Harry from there, but Hermione, Xeno, and Luna were between him and Harry. There weren't any other seats, either; Ron was on Harry's other side, and Sirius was just past Ron, the other Weasleys and Remus were in the next row down.
“He says he's surprised to see you here,” Luna relayed to Harry. “Harry, I think he's out of range of your earmuffs.”
Harry pulled one of the muffs aside, and immediately put it back at the sudden inundation of noise.
“Well I guess we can always meet up after the match,” Harry said. “Tell him that for me.”
She relayed the message to him through Hermione, and Draco sent back a thumbs-up of understanding.
“Ah, Fudge,” said Mr. Malfoy from the row behind them. “How are you? I don’t think you’ve met my wife, Narcissa? Or our son, Draco?”
“How do you do, how do you do?” said Fudge, smiling and nodding to Mrs. Malfoy. “And allow me to introduce you to Mr. Oblansk — Obalonsk — Mr. — well, he’s the Bulgarian Minister of Magic, and he can’t understand a word I’m saying anyway, so never mind. And let’s see who else — you know Arthur Weasley, I daresay?”
It was a tense moment. Mr. Weasley and Mr. Malfoy looked at each other and Harry vividly recalled the last time they had come face-to-face: It had been in Flourish and Blotts’ bookshop, and they had had a fight. Mr. Malfoy’s cold gray eyes swept over Mr. Weasley, and then up and down the row.
“Yes, I know him,” Mr. Malfoy said with a disgusted look on his face, but for once he didn't have anything mean to say. Instead, he just ignored Mr. Weasley.
Fudge said, “Lucius has just given a very generous contribution to St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, Arthur. He’s here as my guest.”
“How — how nice,” said Mr. Weasley, with a very strained smile.
Mr. Malfoy’s eyes had returned to Hermione, who went slightly pink, but stared determinedly back at him. Harry knew exactly what was making Mr. Malfoy’s lip curl like that; for all he was allying himself with them for Draco's sake, he was still a pureblood bigot. Draco glared at his father, who looked at his son, huffed air out of his nose in annoyance, and proceeded to ignore Hermione as well.
Luna turned to the Bulgarian Minister of Magic and started gabbling at him in Bulgarian. The man soon had the bemused look most people got from talking with Luna. Fudge looked excitedly at her, glad to have another interpreter. No doubt Luna was asking Mr. Oblansk something strange, like whether or not he thought crumple-horned snorcacks were real, or maybe asking if there were any sightings of satyrs or other Faery creatures in Bulgaria lately.
“Your friend knows Bulgarian, Mr. Potter?” Fudge asked.
“It appears she does.”
“Well that's a relief. I can't find Mr. Crouch anywhere. What's your friend's name?”
“Luna Lovegood.”
“Miss Lovegood, what are they saying?”
“Oh, we're having a lovely conversation about the Bulgarian three-toed fire weasel, Mr. Fudge. It's quite rare, been endangered for years.”
“I don't think I've ever heard of it.”
“Neither has Mr. Obalansk. A pity, that. But I guess he's got a department that handles things like protecting endangered animals for him.”
Before he could hear Fudge's response, Harry saw Antigone and her parents go past him farther up the box. She waved at him, and he waved back. So did Luna and Ron and Hermione. But that was all they could do; she was too far away to even hope to talk with her from here.
Ludo Bagman charged into the box then.
“Everyone ready?” he said, his round face gleaming like a great, excited Edam. “Minister — ready to go?”
“Ready when you are, Ludo,” said Fudge comfortably.
Ludo whipped out his wand, directed it at his own throat, and said “Sonorus!” and then spoke over the roar of sound that was now filling the packed stadium; his voice echoed over them, booming into every corner of the stands. The voice was loud in Harry's ears, but not too much so; Harry suspected the earmuffs were muffling the magically amplified voice.
“Ladies and gentlemen … welcome! Welcome to the final of the four hundred and twenty-second Quidditch World Cup!”
The spectators screamed and clapped. Thousands of flags waved, adding their discordant national anthems to the racket. The huge blackboard opposite them was wiped clear of its last message (Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans — A Risk With Every Mouthful!) and now showed BULGARIA: 0, IRELAND: 0.
“And now, without further ado, allow me to introduce … the Bulgarian National Team Mascots!”
The right-hand side of the stands, which was a solid block of scarlet, roared its approval.
“I wonder what they’ve brought,” said Mr. Weasley, leaning forward in his seat. “Aaah!” He suddenly whipped off his glasses and polished them hurriedly on his robes. “Veela!”
“What are veel — ?”
But a hundred veela were now gliding out onto the field, and Harry’s question was answered for him. Veela were women. Or at least, they looked like women. Harry looked at them through his omnioculars. They appeared to be dancing and singing, but of course Harry couldn't hear them. But something about the dancing... it was doing something funny to his brain that he didn't like, so he shut his eyes and put the omnioculars down.
“RON!” Hermione shouted, and Harry opened his eyes in time to see her pulling Ron back into his seat as he tried climbing down to jump at the veela.
Angry yells were filling the stadium. The crowd didn’t want the veela to go. Draco had tried getting up, but his mother had stopped him; Mr. Malfoy had his fingers in his ears and was glaring at the veela. Ron was absent-mindedly shredding the shamrocks on his hat. Mr. Weasley, smiling slightly, leaned over to Ron and tugged the hat out of his hands.
“You’ll be wanting that,” he said, “once Ireland have had their say.”
“Huh?” said Ron, staring openmouthed at the veela, who had now lined up along one side of the field.
Hermione made a loud tutting noise. She reached up and pulled Harry back into his seat. “Honestly!” she said.
“Hermione,” Luna said in her dreamy voice, “Ron can't help it. Veela magic is very seductive to most men. And some women, too. It's a magical compulsion, very powerful.”
Hermione rolled her eyes but didn't argue the point; even she could see Luna was right this time.
The Irish team mascots were, of course, leprechauns, like Luna's bearded costume. Clouds of tiny little men in green outfits floated around making shapes with their bodies, like a murmuration of sapient starlings made of green sparkly light. They tossed gold onto the people below them, and the fact that nobody got knocked out or killed by the falling gold clued Harry in to the fact it was fake even before Sirius could confirm it, to Ron's chagrin.
And then the players were introduced. Soon after, the game begun. Harry had to hide his face on occasion, but mostly he'd been right that watching people he had no emotional investment in, professional adult players who knew the dangers involved, was a lot easier. Didn't stop him from getting queasy when the Irish seeker hit the ground so hard he had to be revived by medi-wizards. Harry was thankful magical people were sturdier than Muggles, or any one of those would have killed the man.
It was a fast game, too. Bagman only had time to say the names of the players the quaffle had been passed to, and occasional comments on fouls and scores. Ireland's team was so much better than the Bulgarian team that the game quickly became heated, to the point that the mascots fought each other and the veela threw fireballs at the referee, who tried having them sent off. In the end, it got so bad that Krum caught the snitch even though it wouldn't help his team win, and it seemed the twins had been right in the bet they never got to make.
Everyone was cheering, even Harry, whose earmuffs had slipped long enough to give him a slight headache from all the noise before he got them back on. On the way back to the tents, he had his sunglasses on and blocking all his vision as Sirius and Mr. Weasley took him by the arms and guided him along like a blind man to the tents.
Endnotes: Again had to cut the chapter “short,” sorry. Lot going on in the next bit.
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Four.
Or, "Autistic Potter and the Goblet of Fire."
Notes: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made. Not by me, anyway.
There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though, but there's a lot more in this one than usual because it was unavoidable. Still, lots of details are changed, so don't skip by familiar parts or you might miss something.
Just as a reminder, so I don't have to shoehorn in descriptions in the text of the story as a reminder, but in this fanfic Harry and Hermione, apart from having Asperger's Syndrome, are both black as well.
'Italicized text between single quotes is almost always Parseltongue.'
Warning: This chapter has some naughty language in it. Sirius, in one part, makes liberal use of the f-bomb, among other words.
Chapter Five: Danger, Will Robinson!
They talked about the match well into the night, and only stopped when Ginny fell asleep at the table, spilling her cocoa. Luna and Xeno went back to their tent before that happened, though, as they were both exhausted.
“Oh I am glad I’m not on duty,” muttered Mr. Weasley sleepily. “I wouldn’t fancy having to go and tell the Irish they’ve got to stop celebrating.”
Harry, who was on a top bunk above Ron, lay staring up at the canvas ceiling of the tent, watching the glow of an occasional leprechaun lantern flying overhead, and picturing again some of Krum’s more spectacular moves. He fantasized about getting into a flying race with Krum, since he did like flying, just not playing Quidditch. At some point, the fantasy drifted into a dream instead. A dream of what, he didn't know, as he was soon awoken suddenly.
'HUMAN, WAKE UP! DANGER! I SENSE DANGER!'
Harry bolted up, grabbing his wand holster, checking to make sure his wand was there, and strapped his wand to his side.
'I don't hear anything unusual,' Harry told the snake.
'My danger sense is tingling, telling me something is happening, or is about to happen. Something not good. Get everyone up.'
'This better not be a false alarm.'
'I don't think it is.'
As he climbed out of bed, Harry thought he heard something. The noise of the celebration had changed. The singing had stopped. He could hear screams, and the sound of people running. He went over to where Ron was.
“Ron, wake up! Something bad is happening!”
“Five more minutes,” Ron muttered.
“No, NOW! DANGER!” He shook Ron awake, and Ron finally bolted up.
“Fine, fine, I'm... wait, what's those noises?”
Sirius, Remus, and Mr. Weasley ran into the room then, momentarily surprised Ron and Harry were already awake, but recovering quickly.
“Ron! Harry! Grab your wands and let's get out of here. It's not safe!” Sirius said.
“Got mine,” Harry said.
Ron grabbed his wand holster, and goggled at it. “My wand is gone!”
“Is it on the table?”
“No, I always have it in its holster. Bloody hell, I don't know where it is!”
Sirius tried Summoning Ron's wand, but nothing happened.
“No time, Ron!” Mr. Weasley said. “Grab a jacket and go with Sirius and Remus, they'll protect you. We'll go help the Ministry.”
Harry did as he was told and hurried out of the tent, Ron at his heels.
By the light of the few fires that were still burning, he could see people running away into the woods, fleeing something that was moving across the field toward them, something that was emitting odd flashes of light and noises like gunfire. Loud jeering, roars of laughter, and drunken yells were drifting toward them; then came a burst of strong green light, which illuminated the scene.
A crowd of wizards, tightly packed and moving together with wands pointing straight upward, was marching slowly across the field. Harry squinted at them. They were masked and hooded. He'd read the description before, so he knew they were Death Eaters, Voldemort’s followers.
More wizards were joining the marching Death Eaters, laughing and pointing up at the floating bodies. Tents crumpled and fell as the marching crowd swelled. Once or twice Harry saw one of the marchers blast a tent out of his way with his wand. Several caught fire. The screaming grew louder.
The floating people were suddenly illuminated as they passed over a burning tent and Harry recognized one of them: Mr. Roberts, the campsite manager. The other three looked as though they might be his wife and children. One of the marchers below flipped Mrs. Roberts upside down with his wand; her nightdress fell down to reveal voluminous drawers and she struggled to cover herself up as the crowd below her screeched and hooted with glee.
“That’s sick,” Ron muttered, watching the smallest Muggle child, who had begun to spin like a top, sixty feet above the ground, his head flopping limply from side to side. “That is really sick.”
The twins, Hermione, and Ginny joined them then, along with Sirius and Remus, with their sleeves rolled up and their wands out.
“We’re going to help the Ministry!” Mr. Weasley shouted over all the noise, rolling up his own sleeves. “You lot — get into the woods, and stick together. I’ll come and fetch you when we’ve sorted this out!”
Bill, Charlie, and Percy were already sprinting away toward the oncoming marchers; Mr. Weasley tore after them. Ministry wizards were dashing from every direction toward the source of the trouble. The crowd beneath the Roberts family was coming ever closer.
“Come on, you lot,” Sirius said, guiding everyone to the nearby wood they'd walked through to get to the match. Remus hung back to cover their flank.
Sirius lit his wand and told everyone else to do the same; the trace wouldn't know who had done what anyway, and the situation was one where the Ministry would forgive any magic anyway even if that weren't the case. Only Ron was left out, his wand missing. Sirius kept him and Harry as close to him as he could.
“Harry? Is that you?”
Draco came out of the shadows. He looked terrified, but relaxed a little when he saw Harry and Sirius.
“Draco? Where's your parents?”
“I don't know where they are. They told me to hide and find you, and then they both took off.”
“Gone to join that masked lot, have they?” Ron asked nastily.
“I don't bloody well know, Weasley! I just bloody told you that! Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. I'm not sure what they're doing, because I don't know for sure where their loyalties are anymore. But I'm concerned; Mother leaving me alone in this situation isn't something I would have expected.”
“Draco,” Harry said, “do you know any spells to find specific people? Or you, Sirius?”
“What? Why?” asked Sirius. “Oh wait, you're looking for Luna? Well, I do know one.”
With complicated patterns drawn in the air, he did something that looked both familiar and not familiar to Harry, and drew a series of runes in a small circle in the air with his wand. Then Sirius pointed his wand at the runes, they glowed, and rearranged themselves in the air so the circle was like a watch made of light on Sirius's arm, one of the runes pointing like a compass arrow.
“Ah good, she's deeper in the wood, let's go,” Sirius said.
“What is that thing, Sirius?”
“Runic casting circle, one type of them anyway. Slightly different use for runes than the usual, and they don't last as long as regular runes, but useful. Complicated technique to learn, but worth it.”
In a few minutes, they found Luna and Xeno. They both looked scared, which was unusual for both of them. Harry held Luna in a close hug to comfort her. Xeno hung back, covering their flank with Remus just in case the Death Eaters got too close.
A huddle of teenagers in pajamas was arguing vociferously a little way along the path as they all went deeper into the wood. When they saw Sirius, Harry, Ron, and the others, a girl with thick curly hair turned and said quickly, “Où est Madame Maxime? Nous l’avons perdue —”
“Er — what?” said Ron.
“Oh …” The girl who had spoken turned her back on him, and as they walked on they distinctly heard her say, “ ’Ogwarts.”
Draco stepped forward and said something in French to the teens. Then Sirius joined in the conversation. When it was over, the French teens all stayed with Sirius and their group.
“What were you two talking about with them?” asked Harry.
“Sirius and I invited them to stay. Strength in numbers, and all that. Plus, we explained that he's had auror training, even if it's been years and he has to retrain. Well okay, Sirius explained that.”
“Sirius can speak French?” Ron asked, amazed.
“Of course he can, you dolt, he's a member of the ancient and most noble house of Black. A pureblood. Most purebloods can speak French at least, as well as others. I wouldn't even be surprised if your mother knew French, she was a Prewett before she became a Weasley.”
“She's never spoken it around any of us.”
“In that case, if she wasn't rusty before, she'll be rusty now.”
A rustling noise nearby made all three of them jump. Winky the house-elf was fighting her way out of a clump of bushes nearby. She was moving in a most peculiar fashion, apparently with great difficulty; it was as though someone invisible were trying to hold her back.
“There is bad wizards about!” she squeaked distractedly as she leaned forward and labored to keep running. “People high — high in the air! Winky is getting out of the way!”
And she disappeared into the trees on the other side of the path, panting and squeaking as she fought the force that was restraining her.
“She's not telling the whole truth again,” Luna said quietly to Harry. “I wonder what she's hiding, and why.”
“What’s up with her?” said Ron, looking curiously after Winky. “Why can’t she run properly?”
“Bet she didn’t ask permission to hide,” said Harry. He was thinking of Dobby: Every time he had tried to do something the Malfoys wouldn’t like, the house-elf had been forced to start beating himself up.
“You know, house-elves get a very raw deal!” said Hermione indignantly. “I realize things are different for them than for humans, that their psychology is closer to dogs than to humans, but still, the mistreatment! I wish there was some way to give them a bit more freedom at least, like the right to refuse orders as long as they have a good reason, something like that. Winky's master made her go up to the top of the stadium, and she was terrified, and he’s got her bewitched so she can’t even run when they start trampling tents! Why doesn’t anyone do something about it?”
“Hermione,” Sirius said, “this isn't the time or the place. Anyway, I'm working on it. Ask Harry about it later, he knows what I mean.”
Another loud bang echoed from the edge of the wood.
“Let’s just keep moving, shall we?” said Ron. Sirius nodded, and they continued on. Draco translated for the French teens.
They followed the dark path deeper into the wood, passing a group of goblins who were cackling over a sack of gold that they had undoubtedly won betting on the match, and who seemed quite unperturbed by the trouble at the campsite. Farther still along the path, they walked into a patch of silvery light, and when they looked through the trees, they saw three tall and beautiful veela standing in a clearing, surrounded by a gaggle of young wizards, all of whom were talking very loudly.
“I pull down about a hundred sacks of Galleons a year!” one of them shouted. “I’m a dragon killer for the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures.”
“No, you’re not!” yelled his friend. “You’re a dishwasher at the Leaky Cauldron. … but I’m a vampire hunter, I’ve killed about ninety so far —”
A third young wizard, whose pimples were visible even by the dim, silvery light of the veela, now cut in, “I’m about to become the youngest ever Minister of Magic, I am.”
“No he's not, he's Stan Shunpike, a conductor on the Knight Bus,” said another. “But I'm a dragon killer for the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures.”
He turned to look at Ron, and saw Ron’s face had gone oddly slack, and next second Ron was yelling, “Did I tell you I’ve invented a broomstick that’ll reach Jupiter?”
“Honestly!” said Hermione, and she and Harry grabbed Ron firmly by the arms, wheeled him around, and marched him away, Sirius laughing at Ron's problem. By the time the sounds of the veela and their admirers had faded completely, they were in the very heart of the wood. They seemed to be alone now; everything was much quieter.
Harry looked around. “I reckon we can just wait here, you know. We’ll hear anyone coming a mile off.”
The words were hardly out of his mouth, when Ludo Bagman emerged from behind a tree right ahead of them. Sirius's wand snapped up to point at the man.
“Ludo, what are you doing here?”
“What? I could ask you lot the same thing.”
They looked at one another, surprised.
“Well — there’s a sort of riot going on,” said Ron.
Bagman stared at him.
“What?”
“At the campsite … some people have got hold of a family of Muggles.”
“Death Eaters, Bagman,” Sirius added. “The wizards in question are Death Eaters.”
Bagman swore loudly.
“Damn them!” he said, looking quite distracted, and without another word, he disapparated with a small pop!
“Not exactly on top of things, Mr. Bagman, is he?” said Hermione, frowning.
“Yes,” Sirius said. “He does seem oddly distracted. I wonder what he's up to?”
Ron was saying something about Bagman's history as a Quidditch player, but Harry wasn't paying attention. He had a headache from all the noise earlier, and now everything was quiet it was all he had left to focus on. He pressed the green gem on the necklace Luna had given him the year before, and its soothing musical tone eased his headache symptoms just as she'd told them it would. He was grateful for this; too many headache potions could be toxic, and now he knew he had an alternative.
“I hope the others are okay,” said Hermione after a while.
“They’ll be fine,” said Ron.
“Those poor Muggles, though,” said Hermione nervously. “What if they can’t get them down?”
“They will,” said Ron reassuringly. “They’ll find a way.”
'I sense danger, human,' Mouse-Stalker said, looking in one direction in particular. 'Over there.'
“Mad, though, to do something like that when the whole Ministry of Magic’s out here tonight!” said Hermione. “I mean, how do they expect to get away with it? Do you think they’ve been drinking, or are they just —”
“Hush, Mouse-Stalker senses danger,” Harry said, pointing the way the snake had.
Hermione looked over her shoulder. Sirius, Harry, Ron, Draco and the others all turned to look around too. It sounded as though someone was staggering toward their clearing. They waited, listening to the sounds of the uneven steps behind the dark trees. But the footsteps came to a sudden halt.
“Identify yourself!” Sirius shouted into the trees, his wand pointing at the location of the sound. “Now!”
There was silence. Harry got to his feet and peered around the tree. It was too dark to see very far, but he could sense somebody standing just beyond the range of his vision.
“I SAID IDENTIFY YOURSELF!” Sirius shouted.
'Human,' Mouse-Stalker said, his head poking out of Harry's sleeve.
'What is it?'
'I don't know. The danger to us is lesser now. The danger is not turned toward us. Best remain wary though.'
'Thanks.'
“Sirius, Mouse-Stalker says the danger isn't turned toward us, but we should remain wary.”
Not answering Harry, Sirius shouted, “IDENTIFY YOURSELF NOW OR I'LL HEX YOU!”
And then, without warning, the silence was rent by a voice unlike any they had heard in the wood; and it uttered, not a panicked shout, but what sounded like a spell.
“MORSMORDRE!”
And something vast, green, and glittering erupted from the patch of darkness Harry’s eyes had been struggling to penetrate; it flew up over the treetops and into the sky. Immediately, Sirius fired a stunner into the trees, as did Remus and Xeno, who were closer now. They followed it up with half a dozen more just in case.
“What the — ?” gasped Ron as he sprang to his feet again, staring up at the thing that had appeared.
For a split second, Harry thought it was another leprechaun formation. Then he realized that it was a colossal skull, comprised of what looked like emerald stars, with a serpent protruding from its mouth like a tongue. As they watched, it rose higher and higher, blazing in a haze of greenish smoke, etched against the black sky like a new constellation.
Suddenly, the wood all around them erupted with screams. Harry didn’t understand why, but the only possible cause was the sudden appearance of the skull, which had now risen high enough to illuminate the entire wood like some grisly neon sign. He scanned the darkness for the person who had conjured the skull, but he couldn’t see anyone. Of course, they were probably knocked out.
“Did you get him?”
“I hope so. Stay there, I'm going to check it out.”
“Harry, come on, move!” Hermione had seized the collar of his jacket and was tugging him backward.
“No! You lot stay here.”
“What’s the matter?” Harry said, startled to see her face so white and terrified.
“It’s the Dark Mark, Harry!” Hermione moaned, pulling him as hard as she could. “You-Know-Who’s sign!”
“Voldemort's sign?”
“Quel est ce crâne?” one of the Beauxbatons students asked.
“C'est le symbole du Seigneur des Ténèbres,” answered Draco.
“Vol de la mort?”
“Oui.”
Suddenly, a series of popping noises announced the arrival of twenty wizards, appearing from thin air, surrounding them.
Harry whirled around, and in an instant, he registered one fact: Each of these wizards had his wand out, and every wand was pointing right at himself, Ron, and Hermione.
Without pausing to think, he yelled, “DUCK!”
“DESCENDRE!” Draco yelled in French.
“STOP!” Sirius shouted. “THEY'RE KIDS!”
But they weren't listening, so Sirius quickly turned into a dog and fell to his belly.
“STUPEFY!” roared twenty voices — there was a blinding series of flashes and Harry felt the hair on his head ripple as though a powerful wind had swept the clearing. Raising his head a fraction of an inch he saw jets of fiery red light flying over them from the wizards’ wands, crossing one another, bouncing off tree trunks, rebounding into the darkness —
“Stop!” yelled a voice he recognized. “STOP! That’s my son!”
Harry’s hair stopped blowing about. He raised his head a little higher. The wizard in front of him had lowered his wand. He rolled over and saw Mr. Weasley striding toward them, looking terrified.
“Ron — Harry” — his voice sounded shaky — “Hermione — are you all right?”
“We're fine, Arthur,” Sirius said. He was human again.
“Que se passe-t-il?” asked one of the Beauxbatons girls.
“Je ne sais pas,” Draco said. “Mais le Ministère de la Magie est là.”
“Out of the way, Arthur,” said a cold, curt voice.
It was Mr. Crouch. He and the other Ministry wizards were closing in on them. Harry got to his feet to face them. Mr. Crouch’s face was taut with rage.
“Which of you did it?” he snapped, his sharp eyes darting between them. “Which of you conjured the Dark Mark?”
“We didn’t do that!” said Harry, gesturing up at the skull.
“We didn’t do anything!” said Ron, who was rubbing his elbow and looking indignantly at his father. “What did you want to attack us for?”
“Do not lie, sir!” shouted Mr. Crouch. His wand was still pointing directly at Ron, and his eyes were popping — he looked slightly mad. Then he turned to Sirius. “You have been discovered at the scene of the crime!”
Sirius brandished his wand at Crouch. “Listen here, Crouch. I already spent 12 years in Azkaban because you were too incompetent to give me a fucking trial or even question me at all, and I don't fancy doing it again. If you want to arrest me for something, you'd better damned well get my solicitor over here before you do, because I'm not taking any of your shit ever again!”
“Sirius,” Remus said warningly, putting a hand on his shoulder. Sirius brushed him off.
“And anyway,” Sirius continued, “The three of us already stunned the berk who did it before you lot even got here, we must've sent half a dozen stunners in there!”
“Out of the way, Barty,” Mr. Weasley said. “You're not in any position to be making threats anymore.”
“Oh yeah, that's right,” Sirius said, half-smirking. “You're just a lowly interpreter now, aren't you? Oh how the mighty have fallen.”
“Don't antagonize him, Sirius,” Mr. Weasley said. “Where did the Mark come from, you lot?” said Mr. Weasley quickly.
“Over there,” said Hermione shakily, pointing at the place where they had heard the voice. “There was someone behind the trees … they shouted words — an incantation —”
“Oh, stood over there, did they?” said Mr. Crouch, turning his popping eyes on Hermione now, disbelief etched all over his face. “Said an incantation, did they? You seem very well informed about how that Mark is summoned, missy —”
“You shut the fuck up, Crouch! Leave these kids alone, you paranoid old git! It's not bad enough you have to have a go at me, but now you're accusing children of dark magic? Pull your head out of your arse!”
“I WILL NOT BE SPOKEN TO IN THIS MANNER! I AM--”
“A DISGRACED OLD LOONY! That's what you are! A washed up old has-been, reduced to--”
“SIRIUS! BARTEMIUS! This isn't helping, you two!” Mr. Weasley said.
“Hermione is right,” Remus said. “Right, Xeno?”
“Yes. The voice was an adult human's voice. Though I suppose it could've been a vampire, but they generally don't have wands, and I didn't hear any of the usual vampire accents from the voice.”
None of the Ministry wizards apart from Mr. Crouch seemed to think it remotely likely that Harry, Ron, or Hermione had conjured the skull, and they looked doubtful Sirius had done it either; strangely, nobody even considered Xeno for having done it, though some of them were giving Remus distrustful looks. So at Hermione’s words, they had all raised their wands again and were pointing in the direction she had indicated, squinting through the dark trees.
“We’re too late,” said the witch in the woolen dressing gown, shaking her head. “They’ll have Disapparated.”
“I don’t think so,” said a wizard with a scrubby brown beard. It was Amos Diggory, Cedric’s father. “Our Stunners went right through those trees. There’s a good chance we got them.”
“Yes, and then there was the stunners Sirius, Remus, and Xenophilius shot through the trees before you even got here,” Harry said.
“Amos, be careful!” said a few of the wizards warningly as Mr. Diggory squared his shoulders, raised his wand, marched across the clearing, and disappeared into the darkness. Hermione watched him vanish with her hands over her mouth.
A few seconds later, they heard Mr. Diggory shout.
“Yes! We got them! There’s someone here! Unconscious! It’s — but — blimey …”
“You’ve got someone?” shouted Mr. Crouch, sounding highly disbelieving. “Who? Who is it?”
They heard snapping twigs, the rustling of leaves, and then crunching footsteps as Mr. Diggory reemerged from behind the trees. He was carrying a tiny, limp figure in his arms. Harry recognized the tea towel at once. It was Winky.
Mr. Crouch did not move or speak as Mr. Diggory deposited his elf on the ground at his feet. The other Ministry wizards were all staring at Mr. Crouch. For a few seconds Crouch remained transfixed, his eyes blazing in his white face as he stared down at Winky. Then he appeared to come to life again.
“This — cannot — be,” he said jerkily. “No —”
He moved quickly around Mr. Diggory and strode off toward the place where he had found Winky.
“No point, Mr. Crouch,” Mr. Diggory called after him. “There’s no one else there.”
But Mr. Crouch did not seem prepared to take his word for it. Harry didn't blame him; Diggory had only been there a few seconds. They could hear Crouch moving around and the rustling of leaves as he pushed the bushes aside, searching.
“Bit embarrassing,” Mr. Diggory said grimly, looking down at Winky’s unconscious form. “Barty Crouch’s house-elf … I mean to say …”
“Oh come off it, Amos,” Sirius said. “The voice we heard was deep, a wizard's voice, not an elf. And you'd have to be a fool to think the elf could do it anyway. For one thing, she'd need a wand.”
“Yeah,” said Mr. Diggory, “and she had a wand.”
“What?” said Mr. Weasley and Sirius at the same time.
“Here, look.” Mr. Diggory held up a wand and showed it to Mr. Weasley. “Had it in her hand. So that’s clause three of the Code of Wand Use broken, for a start. No non-human creature is permitted to carry or use a wand. With occasional exception,” he said, glaring at Remus.
“Oh, that's fair,” Harry said sarcastically.
“Pardon me, young man?”
“Gods,” Harry swore. “Bloody humans and their egotistical nonsense. It's no bloody wonder the goblins rebelled so many times.”
“Harry, let's not antagonize the Ministry officials,” Remus said.
“Why not? Mr. Diggory is being foolish. There's no way an elf would turn a wand on a human, or use one at all; it's not in their nature. And if, by some chance, she knew enough to cast that thing, she would've had to have been ordered to do so!”
“Good thing Crouch wasn't here to hear you say that, pup.”
“Winky was trying to get away from the Death Eaters, sir,” Hermione cut in. “She's afraid of heights, and they were floating people in the air. She was disobeying an order, but her safety was at risk, so I don't blame her.”
Just then there was another pop, and Ludo Bagman apparated right next to Mr. Weasley. Looking breathless and disorientated, he spun on the spot, goggling upward at the emerald-green skull.
“The Dark Mark!” he panted, almost trampling Winky as he turned inquiringly to his colleagues. “Who did it? Did you get them? Barty! What’s going on?”
Mr. Crouch had returned empty-handed. His face was still ghostly white, and his hands and his toothbrush mustache were both twitching.
“Where have you been, Barty?” said Bagman. “Why weren’t you at the match? Your elf was saving you a seat too — gulping gargoyles!” Bagman had just noticed Winky lying at his feet. “What happened to her?”
“I have been busy, Ludo,” said Mr. Crouch, still talking in the same jerky fashion, barely moving his lips. “And my elf has been stunned.”
“How do we know you didn't do it, Mr. Crouch?” Harry snapped.
“Excuse me?” The man said, gritting his teeth.
“Harry, now would be a great time to shut up,” Draco said.
Mr. Crouch's attention turned to Draco. “Aha! You, boy: son of a Death Eater! YOU did this!”
“That was never proven! And anyway, I don't believe that bigoted rubbish anymore! I'm on Harry's side now.”
“Draco was with us the whole time, Crouch,” Sirius growled. “And does he look like an adult wizard or sound like he has a deep voice to you? If so, you need your eyes and your ears checked!”
“I don't know HOW he did it, but I know---”
“My godson trusts the boy, Crouch, and I trust Harry's judgment. Just because someone comes from a bigoted family doesn't make them bigots. You're trying to pull the same shit on Draco that you pulled on me, and I won't stand for it!”
“I say we check the clearing again, in case Mr. Crouch missed someone,” Harry said. “He's acting oddly suspicious.”
“Do you doubt my veracity, boy?”
Harry frowned. “Don't call me boy, ever again. I don't like that word, remember? And yes, I do doubt your veracity. Your behavior is very strange tonight, sir. How do we know you didn't conjure that mark?”
Draco and Sirius both groaned at this.
“NOW who's throwing around baseless accusations?”
“Baseless? You're an adult male, with a deep voice. You fit the profile better than any of us do. Even Sirius's voice isn't the right pitch or timbre to be the one who cast that thing!”
“What evidence do you have for this?”
“If you want, we can all provide memories of the incident, to peruse in a pensieve. We could take veritaserum, too, if you'd like.”
“Harry,” Remus said, “I really don't think Mr. Crouch had anything to do with it. You would too, if you knew his reputation from the war.”
“Enough of this!” Amos Diggory said. “I found this elf holding a wand. If it’s all right with you lot, I think we should hear what she’s got to say for herself.”
“Admittedly, that is a bit odd,” Harry said. “But I'm sure she just picked it up off the ground, found it.”
“If so, then she would've been close enough to have seen the culprit!”
Nobody had anything to say to this, not even Sirius. So Mr. Diggory raised his own wand, pointed it at Winky, and said, “Rennervate!”
Winky stirred feebly. Her great brown eyes opened and she blinked several times in a bemused sort of way. Watched by the silent wizards, she raised herself shakily into a sitting position. She caught sight of Mr. Diggory’s feet, and slowly, tremulously, raised her eyes to stare up into his face; then, more slowly still, she looked up into the sky. Harry could see the floating skull reflected twice in her enormous, glassy eyes. She gave a gasp, looked wildly around the crowded clearing, and burst into terrified sobs.
“Elf!” said Mr. Diggory sternly. “Do you know who I am? I’m a member of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures!”
Winky began to rock backward and forward on the ground, her breath coming in sharp bursts. Harry was reminded forcibly of Dobby in his moments of terrified disobedience.
“Oh for fuck's sake, Amos!” Sirius shouted. “Even I was treated better than that when I was being arrested and thrown in bloody Azkaban for a crime I hadn't committed! Let me question her instead!”
“No! This is my jurisdiction, my department! You're just a bloody Auror recruit, Mr. Black!”
“Yes, and a sad state of affairs the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures is in if people like you are working there!”
“What is THAT supposed to mean?”
“It means you're a wizard supremacist, with little or no respect for the other sapient beings we share this planet with!”
“Just because I don't shag a bloody werewolf--”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Mr. Weasley said. “Neither of you is in a fit state to question anyone calmly. How about I do it?”
The two men, their arms folded, said nothing, just glaring daggers at each other. Mr. Weasley took this as assent. He turned to Winky and sat down on the ground in front of her so she didn't have to crane her neck at him.
“Winky dear, you were found with a wand in your hand. How did it get there?”
“I – I – I is finding it on the ground, sir. Over there, sir,” she said, still rocking back and forth. Harry sat down next to her as well, and handed her his dragon-hide bracelet, to see if stroking it would help calm her. To his relief, it did. She smiled at him.
“Th-thank you, Harry Potter. I is being very grateful, sir.”
“Is this the wand you found, Winky?” Mr. Weasley said, holding it up.
Before she could answer, Ron shouted, “Hey! That's mine!”
Everyone in the clearing looked at him.
“Excuse me?” said Mr. Diggory, incredulously.
“That’s my wand!” said Ron. “I lost it!”
“You lost it?” repeated Mr. Diggory in disbelief. “Is this a confession? You threw it aside after you conjured the Mark?”
“Amos,” Sirius said warningly. “Don't you start in with this nonsense too!”
“Er... right.” Mr. Diggory said. “Sorry, got carried away.”
“I didn’t lose it there, anyway,” Ron said. “I noticed I was missing it when I grabbed my holster in the tents. It must've been snatched up or snagged on something during the match, or on our way to or from it.”
“So,” said Mr. Diggory, his eyes hardening as he turned to look at Winky again, cowering at his feet. “You found this wand, eh, elf? And you picked it up and thought you’d have some fun with it, did you?”
“WOULD YOU STOP THIS NONSENSE?” Sirius shouted.
“Enough! You two, separate! Now!”
Grumbling, Crouch and Sirius moved apart. Mr. Weasley nodded, and went back to talking with Winky. He was kind and gentle, but she was so shaken up by the fighting that he couldn't get a word out of her, though he tried for several minutes.
“Arthur,” Xeno Lovegood said, “I think I can help in this matter. I know elf-speech.”
Mr. Weasley sighed. “Fine, alright. Might as well give it a shot, I'm not making any progress. You take over, Xeno.”
Xeno took Mr. Weasley's place on the ground, did something to his throat with his wand, and started speaking to Winky in a high-pitched language that barely even sounded like language. It was squeaky, like he had inhaled helium just before speaking, and yet it was also oddly musical; suddenly the elves' naturally high-pitched voices made a lot of sense. Though Harry hadn't the foggiest idea how Xeno was able to get up into some of the higher registers the language apparently required, though that was probably what he'd used his wand on his throat for. Point was, he was managing it somehow, and it seemed to soothe and comfort Winky even more.
Mr. Diggory was suspicious, though. He was glaring at the two of them like they were doing something obscene. If Harry had to guess, he thought Mr. Diggory was suspicious of what they were saying in a language he clearly couldn't understand. Mr. Crouch looked suspicious as well.
Ron, on the other hand, was trying to hold back laughter at the sound of Mr. Lovegood talking like a sped-up tape of a chorus of mice practicing for a big concert at Disney World. He wasn't the only one, either; the twins were laughing into their hands, the girls were giggling, and even Harry was starting to crack up. The adult wizards who'd come when the Mark had been made were also holding back laughter, with the exception of Mr. Diggory and Mr. Crouch.
Xeno put his wand to his throat again, then stood up.
“She's calmer now, Arthur, if you want to start questioning her again.”
“Right. Thank you, Xeno.”
They traded places again, and Mr. Weasley said gently, “Is this the wand you picked up, Winky?”
“Yes, sir. That is being the wand Winky is finding.”
“Good. And where did you find it?”
“I is finding it over there, sir. In that part of the woods, sir.”
“Did you see anyone else when you found the wand, Winky?”
“No, sir. I is seeing no-one, sir.”
“Okay. Why did you pick it up, Winky?”
“I is not doing magic with it,” she said earnestly. “I is not knowing how, sir. I is just finding it, sir, on the ground. Some wizard or witch is lost their wand, sir, and Winky is wanting to return it.”
“Well we should probably see if whoever had this wand before you was even the culprit.”
Mr. Weasley put the tip of his wand to the tip of Ron's.
“Prior Incantato.”
Harry heard Hermione gasp, horrified, as a gigantic serpent-tongued skull erupted from the point where the two wands met, but it was a mere shadow of the green skull high above them; it looked as though it were made of thick gray smoke: the ghost of a spell.
“Deletrius,” Mr. Weasley said, and the smoky skull vanished.
Mr. Diggory opened his mouth to speak, but Sirius pointed his wand at the man, and suddenly Mr. Diggory was voiceless. He glared at Sirius, who glared right back.
“I is not doing it,” Winky said, her eyes watering. “I is not knowing how.”
“I believe you, Winky,” Mr. Weasley said. “Did you hear anyone before you found the wand?”
“I is hearing a wizard shouting something; a spell, I is thinking. I is not remembering the words, sir.”
“And how close to you was the voice?”
“Not far, sir. Several feet. But I is seeing no-one sir.”
Xeno asked Winky something in elf-speech. She answered back.
“She says, after I asked her for clarification, that whoever it was was invisible.”
“Thank you, Xeno. Winky, did you recognize the voice of the person who conjured that skull?”
Winky shifted in place uncomfortably a little, wringing her hands, then said, “I is never hearing such a voice before in my life, sir.”
Mr. Weasley sighed. “Well thank you, Winky. It's not terribly helpful, but that's not your fault.”
“Amos,” said Mr. Crouch curtly, “I am fully aware that, in the ordinary course of events, you would want to take Winky into your department for questioning. I ask you, however, to allow me to deal with her.” He glared at her. “You may rest assured that she will be punished,” Mr. Crouch added coldly.
“M-m-master…” Winky stammered, looking up at Mr. Crouch, her eyes brimming with tears. “M-m-master, p-p-please...”
“Are you mad?” Sirius shouted. “She didn't do it, and she didn't see who did it! What're you punishing her for?”
Mr. Crouch stared back at Winky, his face somehow sharpened, each line upon it more deeply etched. There was no pity in his gaze.
“Winky has behaved tonight in a manner I would not have believed possible,” he said slowly. “I told her to remain in the tent. I told her to stay there while I went to sort out the trouble. And I find that she disobeyed me. This means clothes.”
“No!” shrieked Winky, prostrating herself at Mr. Crouch’s feet. “No, master! Not clothes, not clothes!”
Harry knew that the only way to turn a house-elf free was to present it with proper garments. It was pitiful to see the way Winky clutched at her tea towel as she sobbed over Mr. Crouch’s feet.
“This is just like my lack of a trial all over again, Crouch! What is with you and punishing innocent people for things they didn't do?”
“And she was frightened!” Hermione burst out angrily, glaring at Mr. Crouch. “Your elf’s scared of heights, and those wizards in masks were levitating people! You can’t blame her for wanting to get out of their way!”
Mr. Crouch took a step backward, freeing himself from contact with the elf, whom he was surveying as though she were something filthy and rotten that was contaminating his over-shined shoes.
“I have no use for a house-elf who disobeys me,” he said coldly, looking over at Hermione. “I have no use for a servant who forgets what is due to her master, and to her master’s reputation.”
Winky was crying so hard that her sobs echoed around the clearing. There was a very nasty silence, which was ended by Mr. Weasley, who said quietly, “Well, I think I’ll take my lot back to the tent, if nobody’s got any objections. Amos, that wand’s told us all it can — if Ron could have it back, please —”
Mr. Diggory handed Ron his wand back, Ron putting it back in his holster, carefully securing it the way he should have to begin with.
“Just a moment, Arthur. I've had about all I can stand of this... this... man. This Crouch. How dare you punish your elf when she did nothing wrong!”
“I told you, Black, she disobeyed me!”
“So what? If kids break the law and use magic out of school because their lives are in danger, we don't punish them. Your elf's life was in danger, that's why she disobeyed!”
“She is my property, I can punish her if I so choose!”
“We'll see how long that remains true, Crouch. Remember that I'm a Lord with a seat on the Wizengamot now.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“If that's what it takes to convince you to treat your house elf with the dignity and respect she deserves, then yes!”
“She is a house elf, not a person. I am well within my rights--”
“You really are a piece of work aren't you? No mercy, no compassion. Probably no soul.”
“I'm warning you, Black...”
But Sirius was ignoring Crouch again. He whispered something to Xeno, who nodded at Sirius and then turned to Winky, speaking with her in elf-speech again. It took him a little bit to get her to stop crying enough to listen, but when she did they had another conversation for several minutes.
“What was that you were saying to her?” Crouch demanded.
“That's between Winky and Xeno and I,” Sirius said. “You're dismissing Winky anyway, what do you care?”
Crouch narrowed his eyes at Sirius. “If this is about that mistake with your incarceration---”
Sirius let out several barks of laughter. “Oh that's a good one, Crouch. You know, I was going to just chalk it up to incompetence, but now I see you're a malicious bastard, in your own way. There's nothing more important to you than your bloody fucking reputation, is there, Crouch? You even sent your own bloody son to Azkaban, I heard. The boy died in prison, and you didn't even attend his damn burial. I know, because I saw it from my cell's window. Come on, you lot,” Sirius said, grabbing Harry's hand. “If I have to be around this man any longer I might just puke.”
But Hermione didn’t seem to want to move; her eyes were still upon the sobbing elf. “Hermione!” Mr. Weasley said, more urgently. She turned and followed Harry and Ron out of the clearing and off through the trees.
“What’s going to happen to Winky?” said Hermione, the moment they had left the clearing.
“I don’t know,” said Mr. Weasley.
“I do,” Sirius said. “Once he dismisses her, she's going to come work for me. That's what I had Xeno talking with her about in that last elf-speech conversation they had.”
“Exactly,” Xeno said. “Such fascinating beings as house elves, they need to be treated with honor and respect.”
“Work for you?” Hermione said, confused. “But you already have two elves.”
“Not a problem. Dobby is going to be going to Hogwarts on loan to Dumbledore, so he can help keep Harry safe, since something always seems to happen every bloody year. I don't know whether she'll get on better with Kreacher or Dobby, but whichever one she does, I'll put her with, to try to keep her stable.”
“Stable? What do you mean 'stable'?” Hermione said.
“House elves don't like being freed, usually; Dobby was a highly unusual case. Ever abandon a dog, Hermione? No I didn't think you had, but surely you've seen things on the telly about it. They pine for their masters. Sometimes they manage to adjust, and other times they die of a broken heart. House elves are much the same way. She might be fine, or she might become extremely depressed. I want to try to make sure she'll be fine. I'm going to go have Dobby track her down in case she decides not to take me up on my offer.”
“You're a good man, Sirius,” Luna said.
“Thanks, Luna.”
“Well I'm glad you're taking her in, Sirius,” Hermione said. “I don't blame you getting angry with those two idiots. Mr. Diggory, calling her ‘elf’ all the time... and Mr. Crouch! He knows she didn’t do it and he’s still going to sack her! He didn’t care how frightened she’d been, or how upset she was. It's just good she'll have you afterwards, Sirius.”
“Yes. Though I admit I'm not terribly hopeful she'll be okay. The level of devotion she has to that man, I could hear it in her elf-speech; she's going to be a wreck, the poor dear.”
“You know elf-speech too?”
“Not really. But I heard enough of it growing up that I could understand her tone at least, and a few words here and there. She adores Crouch for some bloody reason.”
“Dad, why was everyone so uptight about that skull thing?”
“I’ll explain everything back at the tent,” said Mr. Weasley tensely.
But when they reached the edge of the wood, their progress was impeded. A large crowd of frightened-looking witches and wizards was congregated there, and when they saw Mr. Weasley coming toward them, many of them surged forward.
“What’s going on in there?”
“Who conjured it?”
“Arthur — it’s not — Him?”
Before Mr. Weasley could answer, Sirius cut in. “No comment! No really, no bloody comment!”
“Right,” Mr. Weasley said, catching on. “No comment!”
“Not to worry,” Xeno said to the crowd, “I'll print up a special edition of The Quibbler all about it later, never you fret. But suffice it to say nobody was hurt.”
When they were away from the crowd, Mr. Weasley said, “Thanks for that, Sirius. In all the fuss I almost forgot and said something. Better Xeno said something than I; he doesn't work for the Ministry, so the most Skeeter can do is lampoon Xeno.”
“I figured you needed the reminder, with all the hubub. I know I was tempted to say something too. But that Rita Skeeter cow would've twisted it around somehow, as you say. I remember her from back during the war, and from what I've read of her tripe in the Daily Profit, she hasn't gotten any better.”
The two men kept leading them all back, the French teenagers from Beauxbatons catching up with the adults in charge of them along the way. A few minutes later, Draco found his parents and left with them.
When they were gone, Luna turned to Harry and whispered, “I didn't want to say anything in front of those horrible men before, Harry, but Winky wasn't being entirely honest again.”
“What? She was lying?”
“Not exactly. Everything she said was true. Elves can't really lie, it's not in their natures, but they can refuse to speak, dance around the truth, word things so they can be deliberately misinterpreted, or leave things out and let you fill in the gaps yourself. She wasn't lying, but she wasn't telling the whole truth, either. She was leaving something out. And that last answer she gave was so close to a lie it almost wasn't allowed, I could tell by her body language. She knows who did it, and isn't telling anyone for some reason.”
“But why? Who's she protecting, her master?”
“It's possible. Elves are bound to keep their masters' secrets and their silence. They might be able to tell other elves, but I think that depends on a lot of other factors. And I don't think she'll tell anyone – human, elf, or otherwise – unless she trusts them. Which at this point, I think that means she'll only tell family members, if she tells anyone at all.”
Harry didn't know what to say to that, so he said nothing.
“Well, Harry,” Xeno said, “Luna and I are going back to our tents, assuming they're still there. Later!”
“Bye!” he said, waving.
When the rest of them got to their own tents, Charlie’s head was poking out of the boys’ tent.
“Dad, what’s going on?” he called through the dark.
“Did you get them, Dad?” said Bill sharply. “The person who conjured the Mark?”
“No,” said Mr. Weasley.
Between him and Sirius, they managed to relay to the others the important parts of what had happened in the woods. When they had finished their story, Percy swelled indignantly.
“Well, Mr. Crouch is quite right to get rid of an elf like that!” he said. “Running away when he’d expressly told her not to … embarrassing him in front of the whole Ministry … how would that have looked, if she’d been brought up in front of the Department for the Regulation and Control —”
“Not you too, Percy!” Sirius growled.
“Sirius, let me handle Percy,” Harry said.
“Fine, you know him better than I do.”
“Percy, she didn't do anything wrong,” Harry said. “She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He shouldn't have punished her.”
“But she disobeyed an order!”
“She was scared of heights. And there were bad men hurting people. Really, can you seriously blame her for being scared?”
“She was running amok with a wand!”
“No, she picked it up off the ground, to return it to whoever lost it. If she were a human child doing the same thing, would you say she should be punished?”
“I... well no, but she's not a human child, she's a house elf!”
“So what? She's still an innocent.”
“I...” something about Harry's tone and expression melted Percy's resolve. “But... she disobeyed.”
“Do you think rules are always right, Percy? If the Minister of Magic told you to murder your dad, would you?”
Percy's eyes went wide with shock. “Of course not! Don't be absurd!”
“So she disobeyed, so what? She only did it because she was terrified. Sure, Mr. Crouch can't predict everything that might happen, but he should have had some kind of understanding with her, exceptions to her orders, orders to get to safety if she's in danger, over-riding any other orders. Crouch didn't punish her so much for disobeying as he did for his own failure to take her terror into account, and for his failure to care about her life and safety. He was being unreasonable.”
Percy sighed, running his hands through his hair. “I suppose you have a point, Harry. I just... I don't know. No, you're right. Sorry for being... well, sorry for being a bit of an arse.”
“Apology accepted, Percy.”
“Look, can someone just explain what that skull thing was?” said Ron impatiently. “It wasn’t hurting anyone. … Why’s it such a big deal?”
“I told you, it’s You-Know-Who’s symbol, Ron,” said Hermione, before anyone else could answer. “I read about it in The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts.”
“And it hasn’t been seen for thirteen years,” said Mr. Weasley quietly. “Of course people panicked … it was almost like seeing You-Know-Who back again.”
“I don’t get it,” said Ron, frowning. “I mean, it’s still only a shape in the sky.”
“Ron, You-Know-Who and his followers sent the Dark Mark into the air whenever they killed,” said Mr. Weasley. “The terror it inspired … you have no idea, you’re too young. Just picture coming home and finding the Dark Mark hovering over your house, and knowing what you’re about to find inside.” Mr. Weasley winced. “Everyone’s worst fear, the very worst.”
“It's a trigger,” Harry said. “The war would've given anyone who lived through it PTSD, and seeing that skull thing would've been like being right back in the middle of all that terror and death again.”
“Oh,” Ron said, turning green. “Bloody hell, no wonder everyone was so scared.”
There was silence for a moment. Then Bill, removing the sheet from his arm to check on his cut, said, “Well, it didn’t help us tonight, whoever conjured it. It scared the Death Eaters away the moment they saw it. They all Disapparated before we’d got near enough to unmask any of them. We caught the Robertses before they hit the ground, though. They’re having their memories modified right now.”
“We can’t prove it was them, Bill,” said Mr. Weasley. “Though it probably was,” he added hopelessly.
Sirius slammed his fist on the table, startling everyone. “What the hell were those berks thinking?”
“No idea, Padfoot old pal,” Remus said wearily. He looked exhausted.
“I reckon they got drunk and wanted to relive their glory days,” Mr. Weasley answered in disgust.
“Sorry,” said Harry quickly. “But what were You-Know-Who’s supporters up to, levitating Muggles? I mean, what was the point?”
“The point?” said Mr. Weasley with a hollow laugh. “Harry, that’s their idea of fun. Half the Muggle killings back when You-Know-Who was in power were done for fun. I suppose they had a few drinks tonight and couldn’t resist reminding us all that lots of them are still at large. A nice little reunion for them,” he finished disgustedly.
“But if they were the Death Eaters, why did they Disapparate when they saw the Dark Mark?” said Ron. “They’d have been pleased to see it, wouldn’t they?”
“Use your brains, Ron,” said Bill. “If they really were Death Eaters, they worked very hard to keep out of Azkaban when You-Know-Who lost power, and told all sorts of lies about him forcing them to kill and torture people. I bet they’d be even more frightened than the rest of us to see him come back. They denied they’d ever been involved with him when he lost his powers, and went back to their daily lives. … I don’t reckon he’d be over-pleased with them, do you?”
“So whoever conjured the Dark Mark,” said Hermione slowly, “were they doing it to show support for the Death Eaters, or to scare them away?”
“Your guess is as good as ours, Hermione,” said Mr. Weasley. “But I’ll tell you this: it was only the Death Eaters who ever knew how to conjure it. I’d be very surprised if the person who did it hadn’t been a Death Eater once, even if they’re not now. Listen, it’s very late, and if your mother hears what’s happened she’ll be worried sick. We’ll get a few more hours sleep and then try and get an early Portkey out of here.”
Harry looked at Remus, but he was falling asleep in his chair, so Harry instead looked at Sirius, who caught his eye. Harry mouthed, “Dream: coincidence?”
Sirius shook his head and stepped outside, a white light briefly flashing after he did. Harry was glad Sirius agreed that it wasn't a coincidence. Three days ago — it felt like much longer, but it had only been three days — he had awoken with his scar burning. And tonight, for the first time in thirteen years, Lord Voldemort’s mark had appeared in the sky. What did these things mean?
When Harry went back to bed, he thought about these things for a very long time, unable to sleep, until exhaustion finally caught up with him and he dozed off at last.
Endnotes: Ugh, all those italics... *piteous whine* So much formatting! *moans* Stupid em and strong not working on here, making me have to replace them all with i and b.
Borrowed the idea of runic casting from “To Reach Without” by inwardtransience (fanfiction.net and Archive Of Our Own), but in this 'verse some forms of runic casting are legal, just difficult to learn; some other applications of it may still be illegal. If you like long, well written stories with transgender characters in them, “To Reach Without” is a great one, as it features trans-girl Harry! That story also gave me the idea for elves having their own language. As to where Xeno learned it, well, he's a magizoologist among other things. Primarily into cryptids, but still, it makes sense he'd want to learn elf-speech.
I may have gotten slightly carried away with the scene where Winky got caught with Ron's wand (Harry's in canon). But Sirius is a good man and doesn't suffer fools or bigots lightly.
By the way: in this fic, Crouch Junior stole Ron's wand instead of Harry's because Harry's was too well secured in its holster. Ron – being lazy – had his wand unsecured in its holster, it was a lot easier to slip his wand out than it was to try to figure out all the straps and buckles and buttons Harry has his wand secured by when he isn't using it much, like in the summer months when he's technically not supposed to be using it at all.
Also, I spelled it Daily Profit (with an F) on purpose, because that's the spelling Sirius was picturing in his head.
I don't actually know much French, so those parts are thanks to Google Translate. Any mistakes are Google's.
I haven't decided if Sirius and Remus are an item or not. But they are close enough it does get noticed and talked about.
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Four.
Or, "Autistic Potter and the Goblet of Fire."
Notes: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made. Not by me, anyway.
There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though, but there's a lot more in this one than usual because it was unavoidable. Still, lots of details are changed, so don't skip by familiar parts or you might miss something.
Just as a reminder, so I don't have to shoehorn in descriptions in the text of the story as a reminder, but in this fanfic Harry and Hermione, apart from having Asperger's Syndrome, are both black as well.
'Italicized text between single quotes is almost always Parseltongue.'
Sorry this took so long, my life is full of issues. Depression, IBS, writer's block, etc.
Chapter Six: Back in Black
Something occurred to Harry when he woke up that morning, and he bolted out of bed and found Sirius, who was already cooking breakfast.
“What's the matter, pup?”
“Mrs. Weasley doesn't know we're safe! What if she reads the paper and worries about us? And then there's that clock of hers!”
“Don't worry, I thought of that myself last night and sent her a patronus message about it. 'Spot of bother at the match, might be in the paper. Don't worry, we're all safe. Nobody got seriously hurt.' Good message?”
“A great one, thanks for thinking of her. Wish I'd thought of it myself.”
Sirius tousled his hair. “Not a problem. Her kids were involved. If something happened and you were involved, I'd want to know as soon as possible.”
Harry smiled at this, and speared a sausage on his fork.
When everyone else was up, they all ate as fast as possible, and the tents got put away and stowed so they could get an early portkey back to the Burrow as quick as they could. Mrs. Weasley was still worried despite Sirius's message, and chided him for saying the Dark Mark showing up at the match was “a spot of bother,” but it could have been a lot worse. The event did indeed get into the paper; no doubt Skeeter had been to cover the match anyway and took advantage of the chaos to write an article about it titled “SCENES OF TERROR AT THE QUIDDITCH WORLD CUP,” complete with a twinkling black-and-white photograph of the Dark Mark over the treetops.
Bill handed his father the newspaper. Mr. Weasley scanned the front page while Percy looked over his shoulder.
“I knew it,” said Mr. Weasley heavily. “Ministry blunders … culprits not apprehended … lax security … Dark wizards running unchecked … national disgrace … Who wrote this? Ah, of course … Rita Skeeter.”
“That woman’s got it in for the Ministry of Magic!” said Percy furiously. “Last week she was saying we’re wasting our time quibbling about cauldron thickness, when we should be stamping out vampires! As if it wasn’t specifically stated in paragraph twelve of the Guidelines for the Treatment of Non-Wizard Part-Humans —”
“Do us a favor, Perce,” said Bill, yawning, “and shut up.”
“Xeno's mentioned,” Mr. Weasley said. “Listen to this: 'If the terrified wizards and witches who waited breathlessly for news at the edge of the wood expected reassurance from the Ministry of Magic, they were sadly disappointed. A Ministry official emerged some time after the appearance of the Dark Mark refusing to comment. Though infamous kook Xenophilius Lovegood, who was walking with the Ministry official, claimed that nobody was hurt. Whether this statement will be enough to quash the rumors that several bodies were removed from the woods an hour later, remains to be seen.’ Oh really,” said Mr. Weasley in exasperation, handing the paper to Percy. “Nobody was hurt. Rumors that several bodies were removed from the woods … well, there certainly will be rumors now she’s printed that.”
An owl flew in just then and dropped something on Harry's lap before flying off. He opened it up and looked at it.
“That was fast,” Harry said.
“What is it?” Mr. Weasley asked.
“That special edition of the Quibbler that Mr. Lovegood mentioned.”
The magazine was much, much thinner than usual, and was titled “Death Eaters Resurface At Quidditch World Cup.” The picture on the cover was a color version of the same picture the Prophet had. He opened it up and read.
Death Eaters Resurface At Quidditch World Cup
By Xenophilius Lovegood
For the first time in thirteen years, members of the terrorist organization known as the Death Eaters have resurfaced to cause mayhem and panic at the Quidditch World Cup, though thankfully nobody was hurt or killed, despite the appearance of the Dark Mark. (This is according to Xenophilius Lovegood, who was there personally and witnessed the Ministry actions to try to stop these dangerous criminals.) These Death Eaters, who somehow managed to worm their way out of a sentence in Azkaban, staged a riot on Monday night after the match to remind us all that they escaped imprisonment through deceit, and that they are still just as dangerous and vile and hateful as once they were.
Once led by Tom Marvolo Riddle, better known by his nom de guerre of 'Lord Voldemort,' these cowards pleaded ignorance, coercion, and bewitchment to avoid Azkaban after Mr. Riddle fell from power mysteriously on Samhain of 1981, but their resurfacing at the match for a spot of Muggle torture and chaos proves them all liars and cowards.
The identity of the one who cast the Dark Mark is still under investigation by the Ministry of Magic, but whoever it was, the appearance of the Dark Mark scared away all the other Death Eaters, further cementing their reputation as cowards. It became clear, in that moment, that no matter how much they may still enjoy being sadistic monsters who love torturing and killing innocent people, that they are still nonetheless no more keen to see Tom Riddle return to power than any of the rest of us are.
I don't know about you, dear readers, but I for one am deeply concerned that these violent terrorists we saw at the Quidditch World Cup are not only free to do as they like, but are also in the Ministry either as employees – like Mr. Walden MacNair, an acquitted Death Eater who now works for the ministry as an executioner for the Committee For the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures, or independently wealthy yet with the ear of Minister Fudge and giving him bribes like Mr. Lucius Malfoy. Why are these men, who bribed and tricked and pulled strings to get out of trouble for their monstrous crimes, allowed power in the Ministry of Magic? If Tom Riddle were to return to his full power again, as many of us believe he will some day, doesn't their presence in the Ministry mean they may be weakening it from within, preparing for his return? And even if they think him dead, as many do, could he not still take advantage of their positions of power on his return?
Given the nature of many of the laws that have been passed or repealed in the last 13 years, I lean more toward the belief that they're weakening the Ministry from within, preparing for his return. It took Mr. Riddle and his gang of terrorists 11 years of war to try and fail to take the Ministry, but with 12 years for these lying cowards to worm their way into positions of power, and possibly even many more years (we hope!) for them to keep doing so, who knows how swift the next war may be lost to the Death Eaters?
Instead of letting these people run amok, preparing our country as a sacrifice to their dark master upon his return, we should instead cut the corruption out of our government. Anyone who was so much as accused of being a Death Eater should be given a proper trial with veritaserum, pensieve memory evidence, and hard evidence to exonerate them, rather than back-alley bribes and political tits-for-tat. We should look for Dark Marks on the left arms of all the accused, such as the Dark Mark seen on the arm of convicted-in-absentia Death Eater Peter Pettigrew. We should be able to know for sure that our government is free of this corruption. Even if all of the accused are truly innocent – which the riot at the Quidditch Cup tells us is not so – they should still prove they are innocent in a court of law. For as it stands now, the only accused Death Eater to be proven truly innocent of the accusations against him was Lord Sirius Black, thanks to his recent and long overdue trial.
Friends, country-men, the chaos at the match was a wake-up call: there are vipers hiding in the Ministry, ready to strike the moment their master tells them to. Tom Riddle, AKA You-Know-Who, may not be back yet, but we cannot afford to sit idle while his followers infiltrate the Ministry, no matter their reasons or motivations.
Harry checked the rest of the magazine, what little of it there was. It was mostly reprinted articles about the unofficial hearings of accused Death Eaters who avoided Azkaban, though there were also ads for subscribing to the magazine, and an order form for ordering back issues. Harry saw familiar names in it like Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Crabbe, Mr. Goyle, Mr. Knott, but also a few he didn't recognize.
“Not exactly up to professional standards,” Harry said, “but I like his bias a lot more than Rita's.” He paused for a moment, then added, “I wonder if I should tell Xeno that Tom is a half-blood?”
“Bloody stupid fool is going to get himself killed!” Sirius said, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Yes, I rather think that's a distinct possibility,” Mr. Weasley said. “Wasn't Igor Karkaroff one of the people who was released? He's not going to be happy with Xeno.”
“He was, yes. He was actually convicted of being a Death Eater in a trial. He only got released because he named names. Bloody stupid if you ask me. By all rights, he should still be in Azkaban. If anyone deserves Azkaban, it's scum like Karkaroff. And no matter what Dumbledore says, I don't trust Severus Snape, either.”
Harry's eyes went wide. “Professor Snape was a Death Eater?”
“Yes, he was. Dumbledore admits as much, but claims he turned tailcoat on the Death Eaters before Voldemort's fall. But the slimy git was always fascinated by the dark arts, was always hanging out with a whole load of people who became Death Eaters later.”
“So you're telling me that Dumbledore let someone who was essentially a magical Nazi into a school to teach children?”
“Exactly! You understand my feelings exactly, Harry.”
“And Dumbledore trusts him?”
“Yes. But Dumbledore is a trusting man. And he won't tell anyone why he trusts the git.”
Mr. Weasley stood up then. “Molly dear, I'm going to go into work to help smooth all this over.”
“Why?” Mrs. Weasley asked. “It's not your fault, you said no comment! It's Xeno that said something.”
“Yes, but more importantly, Rita Skeeter said something, and now it's going to be bedlam at the Ministry, I just know it. And since Xeno was there with me...”
“Arthur, it's not your problem.”
“Maybe not, but they're going to need all hands on deck. Anyway, I'll get paid overtime if I do.”
Mr. Weasley and Percy were soon both rushing off to work. Harry understood Percy going, but Mr. Weasley's motives were still a bit muddled to Harry.
“Oh by the way, Harry dear,” Mrs. Weasley said, “I got your last textbook, the new History of Magic book. Accio Harry's history book!”
A huge tome, easily 2000 pages thick, came hurtling through the air. Mrs. Weasley had to Banish the book slightly to slow it down before she could catch it, lest it break her hand. She almost dropped it when she did, Sirius having to jump up to catch it for her because it was too heavy to be held by just one hand.
“Good gods!” Harry exclaimed. “It's like, two or three times the size of the Bagshot book!”
Sirius shrunk it for him with his wand and handed the shrunken book to Harry. Harry took it, amazed at the fact that the shrinking spell reduced the book's weight as well as its size.
“Wow,” Harry said. He opened the book and looked at the inside book covers, squinting at the small text.
“'Jala Dreyfuss, wife of artificing magnate Apollyon Dreyfuss of Dreyfuss Artificing,'” he quoted. “So we were right! Our new teacher is Antigone's mom!”
“Well that sounds interesting,” Sirius said.
Ron came in then. “Hope she's a better teacher than Binns,” he said.
“It'd be difficult to be worse than Binns,” Harry remarked.
When Sirius and Harry went home shortly thereafter, Harry turned to Sirius.
“Do you think I should tell my friends about the dream I had the other day?”
Sirius sighed. “I don't know, pup. That's entirely up to you. On the one hand, they might worry. On the other hand, maybe worrying about the possibility will make it less shocking if he ever does manage to come back. And maybe we can stop him before he can do that. How's your occlumency going, anyway?”
“Not great. What about you? You getting lessons?”
“Kingsley Shacklebolt is going to train me in it, among other things. It was on the schedule during the first war, but we hadn't gotten around to it before your parents had to go into hiding. Now it's going to be prioritized.”
“Well I wish you better luck than I've had so far.”
~
A couple days later, Antigone and Harry were visiting the Weasleys again. They'd just gotten in from outside, where Mouse-Stalker had been doing tricks for the three of them, and were about to go eat lunch when Harry got a fire-call from Sirius. Harry went to take it, while Antigone wandered around looking at things.
“Yes, Sirius?”
“Well, Harry, good news. I talked with Ms. Pennyroyal, then talked with the Gringotts goblins, and I've managed to get the Exile Order on Andromeda Tonks lifted, so she and her family are officially part of the Black family again, in all but name. I haven't talked to them yet about whether they want to keep their Tonks surname or become Blacks in name again, I'll do that later. But I also owled them with the news, and since they're relatives of yours as well via James, they'd like to meet you if possible. Are you interested? Their daughter Dora is pretty fun, and she's training to be an auror.”
“Yes! When are we meeting them? And where?”
“I was thinking we could meet them in the drawing room of the house, tomorrow or the day after.”
“Excellent! I look forward to it,” Harry said, grinning. Real, genuine magical family members, even if they were distant relatives? He was looking forward to it.
“Wait, does this mean you and I are related, too?”
“Yes. Charlus Potter, your great-great-grandfather on your father's side, married Dorea Black. I'm sure that's not the only connection between our families, either, given how much pure-blood families inter-marry.”
“Um... are there any other black people among, well, the Blacks?”
“No. Euphemia Potter, James's mum, was black like you. She was a half-blood.”
“Ah, I see. And she only had the one kid, or what?”
“Yes. James was her only offspring. Not for lack of trying, I assure you. I suspect Fleamont – James's dad – was the issue. Inbreeding can create fertility issues, after all, and I'm pretty sure both of Euphemia's parents were either Muggleborn or had Muggleborn parents. Anyway, my knees are hurting, so I'm gonna go. You have fun there, okay? I'll come get you at five.”
“Sure thing, Sirius.”
With that, Sirius's head vanished from the flames, which in turn vanished because it was still summertime.
“Mrs. Weasley,” Harry heard Antigone say, “where did you get this clock?”
Mrs. Weasley came over to check which clock she meant. It was the one that told where everyone in the family was, and included options like 'work,' 'home,' 'traveling,' 'jail,' and 'mortal peril.' Harry wondered which one it would go to if someone ended up in Azkaban, since being around dementors could put you in mortal peril. He also knew he didn't want to ever find out the answer.
“Oh that old thing? I made that shortly after Arthur and I got married.”
Antigone's eyes went wide. “You made that? Mrs. Weasley, I'm reasonably certain this is completely unique. Daddy would pay you a generous percentage of the profits if you'd tell him how you did it and let him make and sell copies.”
Mrs. Weasley blinked. “Would he really?”
“Yes. Daddy is a good and honorable man, and I would make sure he kept his word. And while I'm not an expert, I'm pretty sure you'd never want for anything again for decades to come with a contract like that.”
“Really? I mean, it was just something I threw together one week, didn't seem all that difficult to me.”
“Well maybe it is and maybe it isn't, I dunno, but I am fairly certain nobody else has anything like it. Do you mind if I talk with my dad about it?”
“Well, goodness knows we could do with some more money, and if it's money for having invented something other people will find useful... sure, Antigone, you do that. Tell him to owl me with a time to meet.”
“And I'll see if Sirius can get you Ms. Pennyroyal there too, just in case. A little peace of mind, you know.”
“Oh my, but solicitors are so expensive!”
“I doubt Sirius would mind. Heck, it'd probably amuse him to use his bigoted family's money to hire a solicitor to help a 'blood traitor' family. And if it pans out, you can pay him back for her fee.”
“Well... I'll have to talk with Arthur about it before I agree to anything.”
“Naturally,” Antigone said.
That out of the way, Harry and Antigone went back outside.
“So, Antigone, your mum is our new History of Magic teacher, isn't she?”
“Drat! Should've known you'd figure it out. Yes, she is.”
“Cool. What's she like as a teacher, do you know?”
“Pretty good. She tutored me in History because she knew about Binns being horrible. I can't stay awake in that class, and nobody in my year can, but I still managed to ace all my tests thanks to Mum.”
“That sounds pretty good to me,” Harry said.
~
The next day – a Friday, Sirius had Harry get dressed in his nicest Muggle clothes, since Andromeda and Nymphadora Tonks were coming over to meet Harry for the first time, and Harry didn't have any robes that were nice enough without being too much for the occasion (he'd gotten some dress robes but those were way too fancy for meeting family). He put on some black slacks, a white button-up shirt, and some black loafers and waited with Sirius by the Floo. (Off to one side in case it wasn't someone friendly, so they couldn't get a clean shot right out of the grate.)
With a whoosh, green flames rose in the grate and out stepped a tall, beautiful woman with kind eyes and brown hair. She was regal in bearing and had come out of the Floo with almost unnatural grace, something Harry wondered strongly how she managed.
“Andi! Good to see you again!” Sirius said exuberantly.
“Siri,” she said with a smile and a nod, still getting out of the way.
The green fire rose up again, and a better reason for being off to one side occurred: Nymphadora shot out of the Floo like a bullet, tripped on the hearth rug, and fell in a heap on the ground.
“I'm okay,” she said, standing up again and siphoning dust off her robes with her wand.
“Harry Potter, meet Andromeda Tonks. Andromeda Tonks, Harry Potter.”
Andromeda and Harry shook hands, both smiling.
“And the human cannonball over there is her daughter, Nymphadora Tonks.”
“Yes, and if you know what's good for you, you'll never call me Nymphadora again. I'm just Tonks.”
“Though as her mother, I know she tolerates being called Dora by family members.”
“Ones I like, anyway,” Tonks said. “I haven't made up my mind yet on you two, though.” She looked warningly at Sirius and Harry.
“Harry Potter, Auror Tonks,” Sirius said. “Auror Tonks, Harry Potter.”
Harry and Tonks shook hands.
“You're an Auror?” Harry asked with a note of disbelief in his voice.
“Yeah, only just qualified back in April,” she said. “Old Mad-Eye – my mentor in the program – was glad I finally managed it, so he could finally get around to retiring, like he'd been planning. I nearly didn't manage it, almost failed on stealth and tracking – I'm dead clumsy. But I made up for it in Concealment and Disguise.”
“Glad to hear it,” Harry said with an indulgent smile.
There was silence, Tonks looking at Harry with an expression he couldn't decode for about 30 seconds before she got impatient and said, “Aren't you gonna ask me how exactly I made up for it?”
“Um... should I?”
Tonks sighed, as her mother chuckled. “Well I suppose I'm just used to people taking the bait I set up for them. Anyway, it's because of this,” she said.
Before Harry's eyes, Tonks screwed up her face like she was concentrating on something, and she shrank down, her skin color darkening, her face changing shape, her hair turning black and unruly, and her eyes turning bright green. In seconds, he was looking at a replica of himself, but without his glasses.
“Wow! That's some impressive transfiguration,” Harry said.
“Thanks,” she said (and boy was it weird to hear a woman's voice come out of what looked like his body), “but the only part I did with my wand was changing my robes. The rest is because I'm a metamorphmagus!”
“That's the one where you can change your appearance at will, right?”
“Yes.”
“Cool!”
“Thanks,” she said, shifting back into her normal appearance, but with bubblegum-pink hair.
“Hmm... you know, I think I know why you're clumsy,” Harry said.
“Oh? Why?”
“Well if you're always changing your body's appearance, even its size and proportions, that's got to be playing havoc on your proprioception. It's a Muggle scientific word. See, for a long time Muggle scientists have been debating how many senses humans actually have. Most agree we have more than the well-known five. Proprioception is one of these other senses, it refers to the sense the human brain has for what the body feels like. It allows us to move around without always running into things, but any changes to the body that happen faster than the brain can adjust to, like growth spurts during puberty, can make people clumsy because their brain doesn't know the dimensions of the body anymore. It's why people going through puberty can be awkward, hormones aside.”
“Oh, I think I get it,” Tonks said. “So because I keep using my conscious mind to change my body, the subconscious part of my brain that does that proprioception thing can't keep up, so I get clumsy. Hmm... you know, I think you're right. There have been times I've gone months without doing more than changing my hair color, and I was a lot more graceful during those months. Then I started changing more again, and got clumsy again.”
“You know about subconscious versus conscious minds?”
“Oh yeah. My dad insists I keep up with my Muggle schooling, including taking some college correspondence classes.”
“All that on top of your Hogwarts classes and then Auror training?” Harry asked.
“Yep,” she said proudly.
“Cool!”
“So, young Harry,” Tonks said in an affected tone of voice, “what do you want to do when you grow up?”
“I don't know. The only wizarding jobs I know about are Auror, Ministry worker, teacher, and curse-breaker.”
Tonks frowned in concern. So did Andromeda.
“Aren't you about to enter fourth year, Harry?” Tonks asked.
“Yeah. Why?”
“Well what did your Head of House tell you about your career options?”
“Nothing. Why? Should she have?”
Tonks and her mom looked at each other significantly.
“I thought careers advice was a fifth year thing,” Sirius said.
“Well yes,” Andromeda said, “there is a careers advice meeting in fifth year before O.W.L.s, but for me it was my second meeting. The first was at the end of second year, to help me choose my electives.”
“Me too,” Tonks said. “Mum was a Slytherin, I was a Hufflepuff. What are you, Harry?”
“Griffindor.”
“So was I,” Sirius said.
“In that case, Sirius,” Andromeda said, “Professor McGonagall is slacking in her duties as Head of House. Harry, did you ever discuss careers with her in any of your other meetings with her?”
Harry looked confused. “What other meetings?”
“Sprout had monthly meetings with every student when I was in school,” Tonks said, “and that was only back in '91 and '92.”
Andromeda nodded. “My Head of House, Professor Slughorn, met with the Slytherins monthly too. I've heard from some of the recent graduates that Professor Snape does the same thing.”
“Some of the Ravenclaws I've, uh, dated over the years have mentioned similar meetings with Flitwick,” Tonks said.
Harry blinked. “Uh... the only time I ever see Professor McGonagall is in classes or in the corridors or Great Hall. I haven't heard of it being any different for anyone else in Griffindor. In fact, I've only ever seen her at the dorms like, two or three times, and those were during that whole Heir of Slytherin fiasco.”
Andromeda was shaking her head and clucking her tongue. “Sounds like Professor McGonagall is taking on too much work. Head of House, Deputy Headmistress, and Transfiguration Teacher to boot, I always did wonder about that. Seems I was right to wonder.”
“Heir of Slytherin fiasco? Where all those kids got attacked? I heard about that from Mad-Eye, but it wasn't in the papers. Thought he was having me on. But you say it was real?”
“Uh, yeah, it was. Voldemort – a younger version of him trapped in a book – took over er, someone's body, a first-year, and was attacking people with a basilisk.”
Andromeda nearly fell over in a faint at this, her daughter catching her just in time.
“A basilisk? In the school? Why wasn't the school shut down and thoroughly searched before reopening?”
“Um, well, by the time anyone knew what was attacking students, Antigone and I had killed it, down in the Chamber of Secrets.”
“That was real?” Andromeda said.
“Yes.”
She shook her head. “Maybe Lucius wasn't so wrong about Dumbledore after all, if that's what's become of the school. A Head of House not doing her full duty, and the school not being thoroughly searched for basilisk eggs or babies after one of them was running around the school for a year. You do know basilisks are always female, right? And that they can lay viable eggs?”
“I didn't. But uh, I think all she had to eat down there was rats. And she was huge! I doubt she had enough food to do more than sustain herself.”
“Well I very much hope you're right, but I'm not at all comfortable with you being there anymore. I know I have no say at all over that, I wasn't implying I should, but honestly, I'm glad Dora got out of there before that thing got loose.”
Thinking back to something he remembered, Harry added, “If it helps, Armando Dippet wasn't any more helpful. Nobody knew what was causing the attacks fifty some years ago when Voldemort was attacking people with the basilisk back then, and someone actually died during that one.”
“Perhaps, but I would hope Dippet would have had enough sense to tell the Ministry immediately upon finding a basilisk in the school, even if it was dead.”
“If it helps, I can have Mouse-Stalker, my pet snake, explore the castle looking for basilisks and their eggs.”
“Whadda you mean by that, Harry?”
“I'm a Parselmouth. And even if I wasn't, Mouse-Stalker is a magical snake, he can communicate with ordinary humans.”
“Oh. Um... does he know what their eggs look and smell like?” Andromeda asked.
Harry shrugged. “Dunno. I'll have to ask him later. He's upstairs napping now.”
“I'm bored now,” Tonks said. “This conversation is boring. Come on, Harry, is there anything fun to do around this place?”
Sirius scoffed loudly. “Harry mostly reads, talks to his snake, or goes to his friends' houses. The most fun that's been had in this house was when his friends have been over. Especially Luna and her bird, that raven of her's. But at least my mother isn't around to make our lives miserable.”
“Oh well then, I'll just have to find a way for us to have fun,” Tonks said, grinning.
“There's a dueling room if you're interested. Harry keeps running into trouble, he could use as much dueling training as he can get, and you're an auror.”
“Cool. Whadda ya say, cousin Harry?”
Harry smiled too. “Sounds like fun. I'll just have to do a few things first to prepare, since it's likely to be noisy.”
~ ~
In a dark alley, a feral cat was picking through garbage for something tasty when a small CRACK rent the air, making it run off in fright. Under a stolen invisibility cloak, two men had appeared, if the word “appeared” could apply to two people under an invisibility cloak. But even though they were unseen, they were making some noise as one ran into the other and cursed at him under his breath.
“Honestly, Wormtail, you're worse than useless,” Crouch said irritably. “If it was anyone less than Moody, I wouldn't have brought you along. No, don't say anything, we're trying to be sneaky here.”
The smaller, rat-faced man glared at his fair-haired partner in crime but complied. If he didn't cooperate, Crouch would no doubt tell their master, and he would be... displeased. Peter shuddered at the thought of his master's displeasure. Then he remembered what his master looked like, and he shuddered again.
Peter nodded and sighed, thinking as he followed along. He was mostly just here to help watch Crouch's back, he wasn't even really necessary. His only skill had ever been as a spy. He wouldn't even be any good at any heavy lifting, if it was needed.
It didn't help that Peter didn't like Crouch to begin with. It had been Crouch that had gotten him into all this shit to begin with. Peter had just been trying to get a desk job at the Ministry, something easy enough he could do but paid well enough for him to help his aging mother. He and Crouch Junior hadn't been friends in school – Peter's only friends had been the Marauders – but Crouch had been polite to him in school, and had tutored him a little when James, Sirius, or Remus had been unavailable, so he'd tried talking to Crouch to see if he could do anything to help him get a job. He hadn't known that the man hated his father, and that his father hadn't been too fond of him in turn. But Crouch Junior had taken advantage of his ignorance, had worked his charm on Peter, and had tricked him. By the time he'd figured out what he'd gotten involved in, it was too late to back out.
He had considered telling Dumbledore, and becoming a spy against Voldemort, but the thought had filled him with pants-wetting terror. Voldemort was a legilimens, among other things, and Peter was a talentless blob. It would've taken a master occlumens to be a spy against Voldemort, and he'd die horribly or, from what he'd heard over the years, something far worse like tortured into insanity, if he failed. So he'd gone along with it. It hurt him to do so, and there had been many nights he'd cried himself to sleep, but if he didn't cooperate, they might kill his mother. He was afraid for his own life, of course, but it was even worse considering his mother was at risk.
And here he was helping the powerless Dark Lord rise again. Why? He could've just run for it. He'd figured out how Sirius had found him, so he could have taken a Muggle plane to the states or something and hide. But that would have involved getting hold of Muggle money, and a passport, and all that stuff. No, that hadn't been a real option. He could have slipped onto a barge or some other boat as a rat, but he got seasick easily; just the short trip to the continent had made him too miserable to ever try that again.
“Hey rat-face, I need you to scope out the place. Become a rat and do it.”
Without complaint except to glare at the man, Peter nodded and turned into a rat, running out to check out the defenses on Moody's house, sniffing around for as much as he could.
Maybe a train? He could have slipped onto a train as a rat and gone to China or India. Some of those cities would've been a great place for a rat to live, eating remains of various Chinese or Indian dishes. No, wait; India was too hot. Maybe northern China, or Mongolia? Yes, he could have done that. So why had he gone to Voldemort?
Oh, right. Because Dumbledore, Harry, Remus, and McGonagall knew about him. The Minister had seen him. Some Aurors had seen him. And they had photos of him. He'd since heard that he'd been tried and convicted in absentia and would go to Azkaban if the Ministry found him. And the Ministry would hunt for him, even if they had to send Aurors around the world to do it. It might be hard for them to find one particular rat in a world where billions of rats lived at any given moment, but, well... he knew himself well enough to know he'd have to become a pet. The life of a wild rat wasn't for him. He'd gotten pampered. He'd hid among a family with lots of great food, out of fear the other Death Eaters would hunt him as the Aurors would be now, and he would die. He'd grown spoiled.
Finishing his reconnaissance, Peter crawled under the cloak again and turned human once more to give Crouch his report. Then he followed along as Crouch did his own tests of the wards. He had no idea what Crouch was doing, exactly; the man was a brilliant sorcerer, could probably see or feel the wards like he'd seen Dumbledore do before. He remembered Crouch had received 12 O.W.L.'s, and just as many N.E.W.T.'s. He couldn't help remembering it; Crouch had mentioned it so many times in his rants against his father (“12 O.W.L.'s, 12 N.E.W.T.'s, and nothing is ever good enough for him! Just because I'm asexual and refuse to have a nice proper marriage and have kids, as though it's my fault he and mother only had one child!”)
It was too late to back out now. Either Crouch or their master had some kind of animagus tracking spell or ritual or something, he was sure those two massive brains would know how to find him now they knew he was alive. Why had he done this again? Oh right, proof he was alive. The Death Eaters who hadn't gone to prison would be looking for him. Even if they didn't have proof, even if he hadn't been caught in that cage, he was sure Sirius would have eventually told Remus, and Remus would have told Dumbledore. Dumbledore had resources, too, and he would call on those to find Peter, certain he'd do... exactly as he'd ended up doing: running back to Voldemort, because what other option did he really have? Powerful wizards would be after him no matter what he did. Might as well get the biggest, baddest one of the bunch on his side.
During the interrogation, Remus had sighed in response to telling them he'd been afraid to die, and then Remus had said, “Then you should have died to protect your friends, as we would have done for you.” It had been weighing on his mind ever since. Sure, running away would have meant being hunted forever, but well... he hadn't wanted any of this to begin with. Voldemort's return would mean Sirius or Remus could die, and he still loved them, despite everything that had happened. But his mother was still alive. She'd be fine, she was a pureblood and didn't rock the boat. As long as Peter remained loyal to the master he'd been tricked into following, she'd be alright.
Still... they'd all be fine if he'd just gone into hiding again. Voldemort couldn't rise again without help, and he'd had only one unsuccessful try in 12 years. But then, Crouch was alive. He hadn't known that at the time, of course, but it was still true. Eventually, his father's control over him would have slipped, or the old man would have died. And Voldemort – an undying wraith – would have had a loyal follower seeking him out at the first opportunity. Given that Crouch had broken through the Imperius curse enough to steal a wand and cast the Dark Mark into the sky at the Quidditch World Cup, Peter figured it would've been another year at most before the man broke free on his own. So even though the most logical choice at the time would have been to just flee, he'd somehow still made the best choice for himself and his mother. Yes, he was convinced. Probably.
“Okay, it's time.”
Snapping out of his thoughts, Peter listened to the plan. He didn't understand most of it, but something about Crouch having some tools he'd enchanted to help him slip through the wards. Peter didn't know much about wards or enchanting, but given this was Crouch Junior, he assumed these enchanted tools had to be something ridiculously difficult to do, if they could get through the wards of the oldest still-living and still sane (mostly) Auror in a long time, even if he was extremely paranoid. He trusted that Crouch was smart enough to do it.
Crouch got out the tools, and they absolutely reeked of Black Magic, which went some ways to explaining how they would work. Peter was just worried that they'd set off some alarm. But, as if anticipating this, Crouch did something to the tools that made the Black Magic in them retreat inside themselves so they no longer gave off the reek of Black Magic. Then Crouch got to work.
After a long, tense period of time, Crouch said “Aha!” and led the way forward through the wards and up to the house. He paused for another space of time to check for more wards or traps, and after carefully undoing the few he found, they quietly sneaked into the house.
Creeping through the house, they soon found Moody's bedroom, where the man was asleep. He still had that horrible magical eyeball in its socket, and so was literally sleeping with one eye open, after a fashion.
It should have been a simple matter to stun the man in his sleep and replace him, but despite all their careful ward-cracking, Moody apparently had something unknown to Crouch on his bed, and was able to duck out of the way of the stunner just in time, feathers flying everywhere from the impact of the stunner on the mattress.
Peter ran off as a rat when the fighting broke out, amazed at the epic battle. Moody didn't have his fake leg in, but he was still hopping around, spells flying and splashing off each others' shields. This was no good; the noise would alert the neighbors, and the Ministry would soon come, if Moody didn't win the duel first. So Peter sneaked behind Moody in the chaos and turned human again, stunning the man in the back. He fell over, but Crouch caught him and put him on the bed, taking the time to draw some sort of runic casting spell over him with his wand, which he briefly explained would keep Moody asleep until the spell was manually lifted.
Crouch dug a flask out of his pocket, plucked one of Moody's hairs for the potion. It bubbled and fizzed and changed colors, finally settling on the shade of yellow that had been really popular in the Muggle world during the 70's, very similar to the color of dijon mustard. Crouch pulled the magical eye out of Moody's socket, washed it off with the aguamenti spell, then pulled his robes off and downed a dose of the potion. His skin bubbled sickeningly and his body shifted into the scarred form of Moody. Peter hurried to fetch the wooden leg for Crouch, who put it on, and put the eye in his own socket. With some more help from Peter, Crouch got dressed like Moody, and got the real Moody into his own magical trunk, which was in the room because he'd been packing for his new job at Hogwarts.
Then Peter hid under the bed as a rat while Crouch as the fake Moody talked to the Muggle policemen who came to investigate the disturbance, and later people from the Ministry. Crouch went to the Ministry with them to try clearing things up, and when he did, and the coast was clear, Peter waited for him, still as a rat.
Hours later, Crouch returned, pulling a little mirror out of his pocket to inform their master of their success. With that out of the way, Crouch and Peter both got some sleep, Crouch taking the bed while Peter slept as a rat.
After waking up and having breakfast, Crouch incapacitated Moody with some more runic casting spells before lifting the one that made Moody sleep. The ones he'd added made Moody unable to move on his own (except for his eyes), or speak, or make any kind of noise. Nor could he apparate or even use magic. Crouch then Imperiused Moody to make him compliant, using the same spell to wake him up the rest of the way. Then Crouch looked into Moody's eye and cast a spell: legilimens! Peter knew just enough about that spell to know that Crouch was scanning Moody's memories, probably to better imitate Moody. Crouch would, after all, be very close to Dumbledore for a year. Not only was the old man a legilimens capable of reading someone's mind without using a wand, he was also very perceptive and wary, despite always being willing to give people second chances.
In fact, it had been such a worry to Peter that he'd actually spoken up about it to his master's face – well, his back actually, because Peter found it hard to keep from vomiting when he saw the face of Voldemort's ugly baby-sized homunculus body. No, wait; “ugly” wasn't a strong enough word. “Ugly” applied to Moody, his body so scarred by curses he looked like a mutated tree that had been through a hurricane and then attacked by a troop of angry baboons wielding woodcarving tools, but Moody was as gorgeous as Bellatrix compared to Voldemort's vile, hideous, grotesque, grisly, horrid, revolting monster-baby body. No, even those words weren't strong enough. Repugnant? Frightful? Monstrous? An abomination that should be immediately killed by throwing it into the hot, cleansing fire of the sun itself? Yes, that was better.
Wait, he'd gotten off track there. What had he been thinking about? Oh yes, that's right; he'd been worried enough about Dumbledore figuring out Crouch wasn't really Moody that he'd brought it up to his master, summoning his weak courage to poke a hole in the plan. He knew Harry had been talking with Sirius, he could have just brought Peter to Sirius, but he turned him in instead. And even if that weren't true, he didn't want any of his friends to die, nor did he want Harry to die. But Voldemort's return was inevitable; at least this way, he could try to help his friends and Harry a little.
His master had put his mind at "ease," though; Crouch was an accomplished occlumens, their master had taught him during the first war for reasons Peter didn't know. So with Crouch being an occlumens, all he had to do was act the part and have enough of the right memories to say the right words and do the right actions, and Dumbledore could be fooled. And Crouch was brilliant, with a nearly photographic memory. Which was a good thing, because today was September the first, and Crouch had to be there in time for the feast. They were running out of time, but Crouch spent most of that time sorting through Moody's memories, the Imperius Curse making Moody compliant enough to cooperate with the process, making it faster and more efficient.
“Good thing I was in the drama club in Hogwarts back in the day,” Crouch said. “And thank goodness for The Method. That will make this mission much easier.”
Crouch ended up leaving – as Moody – late enough that even Apparating straight to the gates of the castle, he'd still be late for the feast. But Peter was just glad to see the back of him. He sighed, and steeled himself before returning to his master for the most miserable and disgusting year of his life to date.
~ ~
(The Hogwarts Express.)
Harry and Sirius took the Floo directly to King's Cross Station – which was something you could do, Harry hadn't known that – with Kreacher floating his trunk along ahead of them. Dobby had wanted the job, but then Winky had shown up on Sirius's back doorstep, bawling her eyes out over being dismissed by Mister Crouch. That had been a couple days ago, and she was still wearing the neat little dress and shoes Crouch had dressed her in. Well, Harry supposed it had been neat once upon a time; she'd apparently gone wandering through some very dirty places in the days between her dismissal and her appearance at Grimmauld Place. She was still prone to crying jags, and had taken to drinking butter beer, which apparently was strong enough to get House Elves drunk. Kreacher refused to have anything to do with her, so it fell to Dobby to take care of her. Thus, Kreacher was with them at the train station.
As Kreacher loaded the trunk onto the train and into a compartment filled with Luna, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny, giving Hermione a nasty look as he did so, Harry wondered why people didn't just Floo to Hogwarts, or to some place in Hogsmeade. He was still glad he had permission to go there now, he hadn't had that last year. He'd been to the village to see Sirius, but he hadn't really properly seen the village yet, and he was looking forward to that.
“Hello, Harry,” Luna said, smiling, as she looked up from an issue of the Quibbler.
“Hi, Luna,” he said back with a smile. He went on to say hi to the others as well.
Ron got up to say goodbye to his parents after this, and Harry and Hermione followed him, since they liked the Weasleys, and it would give Harry a chance to say goodbye to Sirius. As they hopped onto the platform, they saw Charlie and Bill were there for some reason.
“I might be seeing you all sooner than you think,” said Charlie, grinning, as he hugged Ginny good-bye.
“Why?” said Fred keenly.
“You’ll see,” said Charlie. “Just don’t tell Percy I mentioned it … it’s ‘classified information, until such time as the Ministry sees fit to release it,’ after all.”
“Yeah, I sort of wish I were back at Hogwarts this year,” said Bill, hands in his pockets, looking almost wistfully at the train.
“Why?” said George impatiently.
“You’re going to have an interesting year,” said Bill, his eyes twinkling. “I might even get time off to come and watch a bit of it. …”
“A bit of what?” said Ron.
But at that moment, the whistle blew, and Mrs. Weasley chivied them toward the train doors.
“Ask Draco,” Sirius whispered to him while giving him one last hug before the train left. Harry nodded – the only reply he had time for – and quickly joined Hermione in boarding the train.
Hermione stuck her head out the window; they'd picked a compartment very close to the exit for once. “What's happening at Hogwarts?” she asked. “If it's big enough, I think we ought to be forewarned.”
“Oh no, I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise, Hermione,” Mrs. Weasley said.
“Mum!” said Ron irritably. “What d’you three know that we don’t?”
“You’ll find out this evening, I expect,” said Mrs. Weasley, smiling. “It’s going to be very exciting — mind you, I’m very glad they’ve changed the rules —”
“What rules?” said Harry, Ron, Fred, and George together.
“I’m sure Professor Dumbledore will tell you. … Now, behave, won’t you? Won’t you, Fred? And you, George?”
The pistons hissed loudly and the train began to move.
“Tell us what’s happening at Hogwarts!” Fred bellowed out of the window as Mrs. Weasley, Bill, and Charlie sped away from them. “What rules are they changing?”
But Mrs. Weasley only smiled and waved. Before the train had rounded the corner, she, Bill, and Charlie had Disapparated.
“Hey Gred, Forge,” Harry said with a grin.
“What is it, Harry?”
“Yes, do you know something we don't? Maybe from a certain dogfather?”
“No, but Sirius told me to ask Draco about it.”
“Oh,” one of the twins said, his face falling. “Well okay, Draco's not so bad anymore. Alright, let's go find out what Draco knows. You coming too, Ron? Hermione?”
Ron got up to join them, but Hermione decided to read and wait for them to tell her what Draco had said. But she hadn't gotten far in her book, because they found Draco in less than a minute. He was with Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis, apparently deep in some kind of discussion, which stopped the moment the door of the compartment opened. Draco excused himself, promised they'd talk again later, and went to see what Harry and the others wanted, following them into the compartment with Hermione in it.
“Yes, Harry? You wanted something?”
“Hi, Draco. We wanted to know if you know what big event is supposed to be happening at Hogwart's this year.”
Draco's eyebrows raised. “You mean you didn't know? Weasley has family in the Ministry, I know Sirius is rejoining the Aurors, and nobody's told you yet?”
“No, we're asking on a lark,” Ron said sarcastically. “Of course we don't know! Wouldn't be any point asking if we already knew, would there?”
“Alright, Weasley, no need to get snippy with me. I'll tell you.” Draco paused for dramatic effect. “You may want to sit down for this.”
Anyone who wasn't already sitting sat down at this.
“Good. So... for the first time in hundreds of years,” Draco said in a dramatic voice with dramatic hand gestures to match, “Hogwarts will be hosting the event of a lifetime! Full of danger, daring stunts, puzzles, and a cash prize at the end. For glory and honor, long ago canceled because so many people died--”
“The Triwizard Tournament,” Hermione interrupted. “I've read about it. Am I right?”
Draco made a frustrated noise something like a growl or a groan. “Yes, Hermione! Gods, why did you have to go and ruin the moment?”
“What's the Triwizard Tournament?” Harry asked.
Looking annoyed now, he said, “Oh, well... it used to be, a long time ago, that the three most prestigious schools of magic in Europe – Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang – would have this contest every few years or so, the Triwizard Tournament. They'd have to get through three Tasks, often involving dangerous magical creatures, like cockatrices or chimeras or whatever.”
“Cool!” the Weasley twins said in stereo.
“Fame---
“--glory--”
“--babes--”
“--and you said there's a cash prize at the end?”
“Yes. This year it's 1000 galleons.”
“WOW! Fred, think how many snackboxes we could make with that!”
“Yeah, we could totally get our business off the ground with that!”
“We should enter!”
“Hold on, you two,” Draco drawled. “There's more to it. Father told me, they're restricting who can enter to ages 17 and older.”
“WHAT? But that means only seventh years will be able to do it!”
“Well, and a few sixth years.”
“Which would be us, dear brother, if... wait a minute, when does this thing start?”
Draco looked thoughtful, trying to remember. “Hmm... I think it starts on Samhain.”
“Damn!” the twins shouted.
“What's the matter?” Hermione asked.
“We're not 17 until April.”
“We need to research ways of restricting things by age, and how to circumvent them. If we figure it out, any of you want in?”
Draco smiled. “I'd like that. If I were the school's Champion, that would further strengthen my new position in Slytherin.”
“A Slytherin champion?” one of the twins said.
“Well hey, Gred, they're cunning, resourceful, and ambitious. A Slytherin could make a good champion. A Griffindor would be a better choice, but still, a Slytherin wouldn't be bad at it.”
“I see what you mean, Forge. Sure, Draco, we'll let you know when we've figured something out to get you considered. But in exchange, you need to tell us absolutely everything you know about the Tournament. Any detail might be the one that helps us unlock getting into it.”
“Plus, Antigone's helped Harry do dangerous stuff before. She'd make a good Champion, too.”
“Speaking of Harry, do you want in, Harry?”
“What? Oh no no no. No thank you. I doubt I could do that even if I wanted to. I imagine you have to do it in front of a crowd, right? With lots of screams and other noises?”
The twins' faces fell. “Oh, right. Forgot you can't handle crowds and loud noises very well.”
“Wait,” Draco said, “weren't you at the World Cup? Rhetorical question by the way, I know you were there, and you know I know.”
“Yeah, but I had my earmuffs and sunglasses and potions and stuff to prepare me. They cut down on the noise and stuff so I could watch the thing. But adding in the stress of being in front of all those people, which I've never done before... well, I highly doubt I could do it. So no thank you. It'll be difficult enough just watching the thing. Which I will, because it's such a big deal.”
“Ah, okay,” Draco said, nodding. “Never mind, then.”
They continued talking amicably about the other schools of magic, the Triwizard Tournament, and other things for a while, before Draco wandered off to talk with Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis again. The remainder of them kept talking until lunch, when they too started wandering around to visit with other friends in other compartments.
Like last year, the weather got worse the farther along they went. Harry wondered why this was; there weren't any dementors left at the castle, they'd long since been removed back to Azkaban.
All in all, it was a rather uneventful train ride this year; no dementors, no mysteries to solve, and nobody bothering them. Some people, like Crabbe and Goyle, were standoffish, but largely it was an easy train ride.
Harry and the others, sans Draco, were back in their original compartment when it was time to get ready. Ginny left to find another compartment to change in, and Harry waited, assuming Luna would follow her, but instead Luna got up, nonchalantly pulled her dress off over her head to everyone's shock, and put her robes on. Harry had been looking right at her when she'd done it, and had gotten an eyefull of Luna's knickers and bra. They had been brightly colored, in eye-watering neon yellows and blues. He stood there, frozen with shock and... other feelings. It took Ron dragging him out to find another compartment to change in before he snapped out of it.
The Hogwarts Express slowed down at last and finally stopped in the pitch-darkness of Hogsmeade station. As the train doors opened, there was a rumble of thunder overhead. Hermione bundled up Crookshanks in her cloak and Ron made to grab Scabbers, pausing when he remembered and looking disgusted. Soon they left the train, heads bent and eyes narrowed against the downpour. The rain was now coming down so thick and fast that it was as though buckets of ice-cold water were being emptied repeatedly over their heads.
They said Hi to Hagrid on their way past him to the carriages, expressing pity for the poor first-years who had to cross the lake in the downpour. They were much relieved to finally enter the warm, dry castle. Well, it was dry at least.
Or it was, until Peeves started chucking water-bombs at them. They'd just happened to enter around the same time as Antigone, though, and after the first one landed on Ron, she used her wand to catch the others and chuck them back at Peeves.
When McGonagall came to the rescue, Antigone dried the floor with her wand and led them all into the Great Hall, where they took their seats at their respective tables. They sat down with the rest of the Gryffindors at the far side of the Hall, next to Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost. Pearly white and semitransparent, Nick was dressed tonight in his usual doublet, but with a particularly large ruff, which served the dual purpose of looking extra-festive, and insuring that his head didn’t wobble too much on his partially severed neck. Harry wondered how ghosts changed clothes, it didn't seem like something they should be able to do.
“Good evening,” he said, beaming at them.
“Says who?” said Ron, taking off his sneakers and emptying them of water. “Hope they hurry up with the Sorting. I’m starving.”
Just then, a highly excited, breathless voice called down the table.
“Hiya, Harry!”
It was Colin Creevey, a third year to whom Harry was something of a hero.
“Hi, Colin,” said Harry warily.
“Harry, guess what? Guess what, Harry? My brother’s starting! My brother Dennis!”
“Er — good,” said Harry.
“He’s really excited!” said Colin, practically bouncing up and down in his seat. “I just hope he’s in Gryffindor! Keep your fingers crossed, eh, Harry?”
“Sure thing,” he said, masking his sarcasm well.
Harry looked up at the staff table. There seemed to be rather more empty seats there than usual. Hagrid, of course, was still fighting his way across the lake with the first years; Professor McGonagall was presumably supervising the drying of the entrance hall floor, but there was another empty chair too, and Harry couldn’t think who else was missing. But he did notice a woman of Indian heritage up there, too; must be Antigone's mother.
“Where’s the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?” said Hermione, who was also looking up at the teachers.
“Dunno,” said Harry.
“Maybe they couldn’t get anyone!” said Hermione, looking anxious.
Harry scanned the table more carefully. Tiny little Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was sitting on a large pile of cushions beside Professor Sprout, the Herbology teacher, whose hat was askew over her flyaway gray hair. She was talking to Professor Sinistra of the Astronomy department. On Professor Sinistra’s other side was the sallow-faced, hook-nosed, greasy-haired Potions master, Snape — Harry’s least favorite person at Hogwarts.
On Snape’s other side was an empty seat, which Harry guessed was Professor McGonagall’s. Next to it, and in the very center of the table, sat Professor Dumbledore, the headmaster, his sweeping silver hair and beard shining in the candlelight, his magnificent deep green robes embroidered with many stars and moons. The tips of Dumbledore’s long, thin fingers were together and he was resting his chin upon them, staring up at the ceiling through his half-moon spectacles as though lost in thought. Harry glanced up at the ceiling too. It was enchanted to look like the sky outside, and he had never seen it look this stormy. Black and purple clouds were swirling across it, and as another thunderclap sounded outside, a fork of lightning flashed across it.
“Oh hurry up,” Ron moaned, beside Harry, “I could eat a hippogriff.”
The words were no sooner out of his mouth than the doors of the Great Hall opened and silence fell. Professor McGonagall was leading a long line of first years up to the top of the Hall. If Harry, Ron, and Hermione were wet, it was nothing to how these first years looked. They appeared to have swum across the lake rather than sailed. And one young boy, who Harry soon learned was Colin's brother Dennis, had even fallen into the lake, and was wrapped up in Hagrid's coat, struggling to pull it along with him. The effect was like putting a half-drowned chihuahua inside of a woolly mammoth pelt and watching it try to drag the enormous thing around. His small face protruded from over the collar, looking almost painfully excited, despite his predicament.
Harry traced shapes on the skin of his hand as the Hat sang its song for the year, and all through the Sorting. Harry couldn't help but think they could make the train a little faster, or serve everyone a proper lunch, so the wait wouldn't be so aggravating every time.
Naturally, Dennis ended up in Griffindor with his brother, to Harry's chagrin. The situation with Creevey wasn't as bad as it could have been, but Colin still annoyed him, and Dennis looked worse.
Finally, the Sorting was over and the food appeared. Harry was so hungry he ate without talking at all, even though Sir Nicholas kept trying to talk with him. Ron engaged Nick in conversation instead, talking with his mouth full.
They talked of this and that during the feast, whenever they weren't eating. But finally the feast was over, and Dumbledore did his usual announcements. Aside from adding to the list of banned items and introducing the new History of Magic teacher Professor Jala Dreyfuss (to much enthusiastic applause), he also declared that Quidditch wasn't going to be played this year because of the Triwizard Tournament, which didn't surprise Harry at all. But Dumbledore had barely begun to say anything about the Tournament when there was a deafening rumble of thunder and the doors of the Great Hall banged open.
A man stood in the doorway, leaning upon a long staff, shrouded in a black traveling cloak. Every head in the Great Hall swiveled toward the stranger, suddenly brightly illuminated by a fork of lightning that flashed across the ceiling. He lowered his hood, shook out a long mane of grizzled, dark gray hair, then began to walk up toward the teachers’ table.
A dull clunk echoed through the Hall on his every other step. He reached the end of the top table, turned right, and limped heavily toward Dumbledore. Another flash of lightning crossed the ceiling. Hermione gasped.
The lightning had thrown the man’s face into sharp relief, and it was a face unlike any Harry had ever seen. It looked as though it had been carved out of weathered wood by someone who had only the vaguest idea of what human faces are supposed to look like, and was none too skilled with a chisel. Every inch of skin seemed to be scarred. The mouth looked like a diagonal gash, and a large chunk of the nose was missing. But it was the man’s eyes that made him frightening.
One of them was small, dark, and beady. The other was large, round as a coin, and a vivid, electric blue. The blue eye was moving ceaselessly, without blinking, and was rolling up, down, and from side to side, quite independently of the normal eye — and then it rolled right over, pointing into the back of the man’s head, so that all they could see was whiteness.
The stranger reached Dumbledore. He stretched out a hand that was as badly scarred as his face, and Dumbledore shook it, muttering words Harry couldn’t hear. He seemed to be making some inquiry of the stranger, who shook his head unsmilingly and replied in an undertone. Dumbledore nodded and gestured the man to the empty seat on his right-hand side.
The stranger sat down, shook his mane of dark gray hair out of his face, pulled a plate of sausages toward him, raised it to what was left of his nose, and sniffed it. He then took a small knife out of his pocket, speared a sausage on the end of it, and began to eat. His normal eye was fixed upon the sausages, but the blue eye was still darting restlessly around in its socket, taking in the Hall and the students.
“May I introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?” said Dumbledore brightly into the silence. “Professor Moody.”
Instead of the normal applause at such announcements, there was dead silence. Well, he had made a rather dramatic entrance, hadn't he? And he was rather scary looking. Harry wondered if maybe another Auror mightn't have been a better choice.
“Mad-Eye Moody? Damn, that reminds me, Harry. I forgot to mention, in all the fuss on the train, but Moody got into some kind of trouble with the Ministry earlier and Dad had to help him out of it. I can tell you more about it later.”
“What happened to him?” Hermione whispered. “What happened to his face?”
“Dunno,” Ron whispered back, watching Moody with fascination.
Moody seemed totally indifferent to his less-than-warm welcome. Ignoring the jug of pumpkin juice in front of him, he reached again into his traveling cloak, pulled out a hip flask, and took a long draught from it. As he lifted his arm to drink, his cloak was pulled a few inches from the ground, and Harry saw, below the table, several inches of carved wooden leg, ending in a clawed foot.
Dumbledore cleared his throat.
“As I was saying,” he said, smiling at the sea of students before him, all of whom were still gazing transfixed at Mad-Eye Moody, “we are to have the honor of hosting a very exciting event over the coming months, an event that has not been held for over a century. It is my very great pleasure to inform you that the Triwizard Tournament will be taking place at Hogwarts this year.”
The noise level in the room went back up to normal, then slightly higher, at these words.
“Some of you will not know what this tournament involves, so I hope those who do know will forgive me for giving a short explanation, and allow their attention to wander freely.
“The Triwizard Tournament was first established some seven hundred years ago as a friendly competition between the three largest European schools of wizardry: Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang. A champion was selected to represent each school, and the three champions competed in three magical tasks. The schools took it in turns to host the tournament once every five years, and it was generally agreed to be a most excellent way of establishing ties between young witches and wizards of different nationalities — until, that is, the death toll mounted so high that the tournament was discontinued.
“There have been several attempts over the centuries to reinstate the tournament,” Dumbledore continued, “none of which has been very successful. However, our own departments of International Magical Cooperation and Magical Games and Sports have decided the time is ripe for another attempt. We have worked hard over the summer to ensure that this time, no champion will find himself or herself in mortal danger.
“The heads of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving with their short-listed contenders in October, and the selection of the three champions will take place at Halloween. An impartial judge will decide which students are most worthy to compete for the Triwizard Cup, the glory of their school, and a thousand Galleons personal prize money.”
“I’m going for it!” Fred Weasley hissed down the table despite already knowing about the Tournament, his face lit with enthusiasm at the prospect of such glory and riches. He was not the only person who seemed to be visualizing himself as the Hogwarts champion. At every House table, Harry could see people either gazing raptly at Dumbledore, or else whispering fervently to their neighbors. But then Dumbledore spoke again, and the Hall quieted once more.
“Eager though I know all of you will be to bring the Triwizard Cup to Hogwarts,” he said, “the heads of the participating schools, along with the Ministry of Magic, have agreed to impose an age restriction on contenders this year. Only students who are of age — that is to say, seventeen years or older — will be allowed to put forward their names for consideration. This” — Dumbledore raised his voice slightly, for several people had made noises of outrage at these words, and the Weasley twins were suddenly looking furious — “is a measure we feel is necessary, given that the tournament tasks will still be difficult and dangerous, whatever precautions we take, and it is highly unlikely that students below sixth and seventh year will be able to cope with them. I will personally be ensuring that no underage student hoodwinks our impartial judge into making them Hogwarts champion.” His light blue eyes twinkled as they flickered over Fred’s and George’s mutinous faces. “I therefore beg you not to waste your time submitting yourself if you are under seventeen.
“The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving in October and remaining with us for the greater part of this year. I know that you will all extend every courtesy to our foreign guests while they are with us, and will give your whole-hearted support to the Hogwarts champion when he or she is selected. And now, it is late, and I know how important it is to you all to be alert and rested as you enter your lessons tomorrow morning. Bedtime! Chop chop!”
Dumbledore sat down again and turned to talk to Mad-Eye Moody. There was a great scraping and banging as all the students got to their feet and swarmed toward the double doors into the entrance hall.
“Who’s this impartial judge who’s going to decide who the champions are?” said Harry.
“Dunno,” said Fred, “but it’s them we’ll have to fool. I reckon a couple of drops of Aging Potion might do it, George.”
“Dumbledore knows you’re not of age, though,” said Ron.
“Yeah, but he’s not the one who decides who the champion is, is he?” said Fred shrewdly. “Sounds to me like once this judge knows who wants to enter, he’ll choose the best from each school and never mind how old they are. Dumbledore’s trying to stop us giving our names.”
“People have died, though!” said Hermione in a worried voice as they walked through a door concealed behind a tapestry and started up another, narrower staircase.
“Yeah,” said Fred airily, “but that was years ago, wasn’t it? Anyway, where’s the fun without a bit of risk? Hey, Ron, what if we find out how to get ’round Dumbledore? You never said, before.”
“Sure,” Ron said. “It'd be cool to enter.”
“What about you, Harry?” Neville asked.
“Not interested. I'd probably get badly sick from the stress and the noise,” Harry said. “Besides, we're in fourth year, we probably haven't learned enough yet.”
“I definitely haven’t,” Neville said gloomily. “I expect my gran’d want me to try, though. She’s always going on about how I should be upholding the family honor. I’ll just have to — oops.”
Neville’s foot had sunk right through a step halfway up the staircase. There were many of these trick stairs at Hogwarts; it was second nature to most of the older students to jump this particular step, but Neville’s memory was notoriously poor. Harry and Ron seized him under the armpits and pulled him out, while a suit of armor at the top of the stairs creaked and clanked, laughing wheezily.
“Shut it, you,” said Ron, banging down its visor as they passed.
Endnotes: This is the second chapter I've named after a song. :)
Ended the chapter there because it's been so long since I updated, and if I went on, it'd be another couple weeks before I got to publish this.
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Four.
Or, "Autistic Potter and the Goblet of Fire."
Notes: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made. Not by me, anyway.
There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though, but there's a lot more in this one than usual because it was unavoidable. Still, lots of details are changed, so don't skip by familiar parts or you might miss something.
Just as a reminder, so I don't have to shoehorn in descriptions in the text of the story as a reminder, but in this fanfic Harry and Hermione, apart from having Asperger's Syndrome, are both black as well.
'Italicized text between single quotes is almost always Parseltongue.'
Heh, this year in aspie Potter's adventures looks like it'll have the most chapters of them all so far. Already on chapter seven, and we've not even gotten to Samhain yet.
Sorry this took so long. I've been mostly focusing on an original-fiction project of mine that is really entertaining to write. But since I can thank the Aspie Potter fanfic story and my Many Faces fanfic story for being able to do that one as well as I am, and for giving me loads of ideas for it, and because I'm going to be using these fics to test out things like writing about the emotions of characters with anxiety and so on, I won't be giving up on them. (You'd think, with my having anxiety and depression, that it'd be easy to write that stuff for characters, but honestly I generally ignore all that stuff, so it's going to be a challenge.) I know this chapter is short, but hey, it's been a month, you've waited long enough. Anyway, enjoy!
Chapter Seven: X-Ray Eyes
In the morning, Harry realized he hadn't told his friends about his dream with Voldemort. He'd told Sirius immediately, and had remembered it again after the fiasco at the Quidditch Cup, but had forgotten about it since then. He felt like they should know about it, but he couldn't think when would be a good time to tell them now, without a bunch of other people overhearing.
He pulled them aside after breakfast, which hadn't been easy. Hermione had wanted to go to the library for some reason, but upon seeing Harry's expression, she had agreed to delay her trip. Danzia was worried she'd miss her first classes, but came anyway, while Antigone and Angela left, Danzia promising to pass on the tale later. So the four of them had gone into a spare classroom and set up privacy wards their older friends and Sirius had taught them, so they wouldn't be interrupted or overheard.
“What’s up, Harry?” said Ron, the moment they were sure they couldn't be eavesdropped on.
“There’s something I haven’t told you,” Harry said. “On the Saturday before the Quidditch Cup, I woke up with my scar hurting again.”
All their reactions were almost exactly as Harry had imagined them. Hermione gasped and started making suggestions at once, mentioning a number of reference books, and everybody from Albus Dumbledore to Madam Pomfrey, the Hogwarts nurse. Ron and Danzia simply looked dumbstruck.
“But — he wasn’t there, was he?” Ron said. “You-Know-Who? I mean — last time your scar kept hurting, he was at Hogwarts, wasn’t he?”
“I’m sure he wasn’t in London,” said Harry. “But I was dreaming about him … him and Peter — you know, Wormtail. I can’t remember all of it now, but they were plotting to kill … someone.”
He had teetered for a moment on the verge of saying “me,” but couldn’t bring himself to make Hermione look any more horrified than she already did. Danzia, however, looked at him like she'd seen something in his expression, but she didn't say anything.
“It was only a dream,” said Ron bracingly. “Just a nightmare.”
“Yeah, but was it, though?” said Harry. “It’s weird, isn’t it? … My scar hurts, I have this very vivid dream, and three days later the Death Eaters are on the march, and Voldemort’s sign’s up in the sky again.”
“Don’t — say — his — name!” Ron hissed through gritted teeth.
“Sorry, I keep forgetting,” Harry said.
Danzia was looking thoughtful.
“And remember what Professor Trelawney said?” she asked. “At the end of last year?”
Professor Trelawney was their Divination teacher at Hogwarts. Hermione’s terrified look vanished as she let out a derisive snort.
“Oh Danzia, you aren’t going to pay attention to anything that old fraud says?”
“You weren’t there,” said Danzia. “You didn’t hear her. This time was different. I told you, she went into a trance — a real one. And she said the Dark Lord would rise again, greater and more terrible than ever before. Said he’d manage it because his servant was going to go back to him … and that night, Wormtail escaped.”
There was a silence in which Ron fidgeted absentmindedly.
“Yes,” Hermione said, “but you also told us the servant in the prophecy was 'chained' for 12 years. Pettigrew wasn't chained, he was in hiding.”
“Well who else could it have possibly meant? Harry had a dream with Wormtail in it! Clearly he went back to Voldemort!”
“Why would he do that, though? Couldn't he have run and hidden somewhere else?”
Danzia shrugged. “No idea, Hermione. Maybe he didn't like his chances.”
“But You-Know-Who has been a powerless wraith for the last 12 years! He only had the one shot at returning, and we cocked it up for him,” Ron said. “So I don't reckon he'd be coming back anytime soon without Wormtail helping him.”
“It's weird, I'll admit,” Harry said. “But the fact of the matter is, for whatever reason, he went back to his old master. So the prophecy is at least partly coming true. And Sirius and Dumbledore both seem very concerned; why else get Moody out of his very short retirement to become a DADA teacher? They could've used Aurors every year this whole time and didn't, why use one now all of a sudden? And Moody's said to be the best of the best, isn't he?”
“Um, yeah, maybe,” Ron said. “I mean yeah, he's the best for sure, I was saying 'maybe' to the rest of it.”
“Well as interesting as this conversation is,” Danzia said, “I need to get to class before I'm late. Adios!”
The others nodded and took off as well to get to their own classes.
~
Harry, Ron, and Hermione were outside all morning. They had Herbology with the Hufflepuffs first, where they squeezed horrible pus out of a plant called a bubotuber; it smelled like petrol. Harry wondered first how something so horrible could possibly be used to fight acne (especially when it caused skin problems when undiluted) and then wondered if it was just the smell or if the pus was actually chemically similar to petrol, and whether or not a Muggle car would run on bubotuber pus as a fuel source.
After Herbology was Care of Magical Creatures with Hagrid. Harry had some hope that Hagrid's first year had taught him to teach them more normal magical creatures rather than monsters or boring things like flobberworms, but the moment he saw Hagrid standing around several open crates, he had a very bad feeling he wasn't going to like what was in the crates. As they drew nearer, an odd rattling noise reached their ears, punctuated by what sounded like minor explosions. This did not fill Harry with hope.
As it turned out, his suspicions were correct. For in the crates were some of the most foul creatures Harry had ever seen. Called blast-ended skrewts, they looked like deformed, shell-less lobsters, horribly pale and slimy-looking, with legs sticking out in very odd places and no visible heads. There were about a hundred of them in each crate, each about six inches long, crawling over one another, bumping blindly into the sides of the boxes. They were giving off a very powerful smell of rotting fish. Every now and then, sparks would fly out of the end of a skrewt, and with a small phut, it would be propelled forward several inches.
“On’y jus’ hatched,” said Hagrid proudly, “so yeh’ll be able ter raise ’em yerselves! Thought we’d make a bit of a project of it!”
“And why would we want to raise them?” said an annoyed voice.
The Slytherins had arrived. The speaker was Theodore Knott. Crabbe and Goyle were chuckling appreciatively at his words.
Hagrid looked stumped at the question.
“I mean, what do they do?” asked Knott. “What is the point of them?”
Hagrid opened his mouth, apparently thinking hard; there was a few seconds’ pause, then he said roughly, “Tha’s next lesson, Knott. Yer jus’ feedin’ ’em today. Now, yeh’ll wan’ ter try ’em on a few diff’rent things — I’ve never had ’em before, not sure what they’ll go fer — I got ant eggs an’ frog livers an’ a bit o’ grass snake — just try ’em out with a bit of each.”
“First pus and now this,” muttered Seamus.
Harry didn't know if he really wanted to do this, but he liked Hagrid, so he did. But the skrewts burned people when they shot off, even through dragon-hide gloves. Harry would even swear he felt their slime through the gloves.
What was more, some of them had stingers, and others had suckers on their bellies, which Hagrid supposed was to suck blood. Harry idly wondered how they were supposed to learn about the skrewts when even Hagrid didn't seem to know much of anything about them.
“Well, I can certainly see why we’re trying to keep them alive,” said Knott sarcastically. “Who wouldn’t want pets that can burn, sting, and bite all at once?”
“Just because they’re not very pretty, it doesn’t mean they’re not useful,” Hermione snapped. “Dragon blood’s amazingly magical, but you wouldn’t want a dragon for a pet, would you?”
Harry and Ron grinned at Hagrid, who gave them a furtive smile from behind his bushy beard. Hagrid would have liked nothing better than a pet dragon, as Harry, Ron, and Hermione knew only too well — he had owned one for a brief period during their first year, a vicious Norwegian Ridgeback by the name of Norbert. Hagrid simply loved monstrous creatures, the more lethal, the better.
On their way back to the castle after class, Draco pulled up alongside them and said just loud enough for them to hear, “Theo may be an arse, but he has a point. If Hagrid wants to keep his job, he really should tone it down a bit. If we have another incident in class once those foul things grow up, even that solicitor Hagrid had last year won't be able to save his job.”
“Well let's all hope it doesn't come to that,” Harry said.
After lunch, Ron went to double divination, while Harry, Hermione, and Draco went to Arithmancy. It was still mostly just learning maths at this point; there wouldn't be any spell crafting for another year or two yet, that was more of an NEWT level thing. So far, Harry was struggling in this class. Maths had never been his strong suit, and it wasn't any better now. He was a little jealous of Hermione and Draco, to be honest; the two of them were #1 and #2 in the class, respectively. Harry wondered if Draco being so good at maths was due to the private tutoring he'd gotten growing up.
“Hey Draco,” Harry said as they made their way to dinner, “what do middle and lower class people do to learn to read and stuff, do you know?”
“Oh, they have their own school. I have to say, when I first heard about it, I was a little jealous to be honest.”
“Really? Why is that?” Hermione asked.
“Oh, well, it's just that it gets kind of lonely sometimes, being an upper-class kid. Wizarding population has been going down for centuries, and sometimes that becomes very obvious. My family used to live in France before moving here before the last war. According to Mother, they moved because their house was too big for their needs. Malfoy Manor feels too big for our needs now, in fact. It's made for fifty people or more to live or work in, and with just the three of us there now, it just feels so... wrong.
“Plus, of course, I hardly ever saw other kids my own age. Oh sure, there were planned gatherings with the other pure-blood children, but there weren't nearly enough of those. And I spent so much time being tutored I didn't have much time for anything else. Occasionally several of us would be tutored together in one location, but it's a mark of prestige to have a private tutor, so that only happened with subjects that were difficult to find tutors for. Thus, a lot of long, lonely days. Which is why I was jealous of the middle and lower-class school. Especially since they start there when they're about seven and stay together until they're seventeen.”
“What?” Harry asked. “They do? How? I mean, they have to go to Hogwarts at some point, don't they?”
Draco sneered slightly, then sighed. “Did you really think Hogwarts was for all classes of wizards and witches, Harry? Think of the people who come here. Almost all of them are from old noble families. The ones that aren't are Muggle-borns. It's in the school charter that Hogwarts has to take the Muggle-borns. It's been there since the beginning; debate over that clause in the charter is why Slytherin left the school. He didn't trust Muggle-borns, and at the time that point of view made sense. It's obsolete now, of course, but the school was founded long before the Statute of Secrecy.”
“So the middle-class and lower-class witches and wizards go to a different school?” Hermione asked.
“Yes. There's a couple of them. One of the two isn't very popular, it struggles to stay open; I don't remember its name, even. The other one, though... Winterbloom School, they call it. It may teach mundane topics for most of the years, but it does also teach magic, which is why they named it after another name for witch-hazel.”
Harry shook his head, amazed. “Wow. So that's why the school population here is so small?”
“Yes. The pure-blood elite used to have huge families that would have made the Weasleys look like slackers. Only the first-born could inherit, of course, but the whole family would live in the manors their whole lives, and there would be human servants as well as house elves. For instance, some of the older fashions were easier to get on and off attended by wizards or witches than by house elves.”
“Wow. Houses built for so many people, and there's only the three of you there?”
“Well, and we have a house elf. We used to have two of course. We got Dobby at a time when the family was larger.” He sighed sadly.
They might have continued, but as they met up with Ron and then reached the entrance hall, which was packed with people queuing for dinner, a loud voice rang out behind them.
“Weasley! Hey, Weasley!”
Harry, Ron, and Hermione turned. Knott, Crabbe, and Goyle were standing there, each looking thoroughly pleased about something.
“What?” said Ron shortly.
“Your dad’s in the paper, Weasley!” said Malfoy, brandishing a copy of the Daily Prophet and speaking very loudly, so that everyone in the packed entrance hall could hear. “Listen to this!
FURTHER MISTAKES AT THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC
It seems as though the Ministry of Magic’s troubles are not yet at an end, writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent. Recently under fire for its poor crowd control at the Quidditch World Cup, and still unable to account for the disappearance of one of its witches, the Ministry was plunged into fresh embarrassment yesterday by the antics of Arnold Weasley, of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office.”
Knott looked up.
“Imagine them not even getting his name right, Weasley. It’s almost as though he’s a complete nonentity, isn’t it?” he crowed.
Everyone in the entrance hall was listening now. Knott straightened the paper with a flourish and read on:
Arnold Weasley was yesterday involved in a tussle with several Muggle law-keepers (“policemen”) over a number of highly aggressive dustbins. Mr. Weasley appears to have rushed to the aid of “Mad-Eye” Moody, the aged ex-Auror who retired from the Ministry when no longer able to tell the difference between a handshake and attempted murder. Unsurprisingly, Mr. Weasley found, upon arrival at Mr. Moody’s heavily guarded house, that Mr. Moody had once again raised a false alarm. Mr. Weasley was forced to modify several memories before he could escape from the policemen, but refused to answer Daily Prophet questions about why he had involved the Ministry in such an undignified and potentially embarrassing scene.
“And there’s a picture, Weasley!” said Knott, flipping the paper over and holding it up. “A picture of your parents outside their house — if you can call it a house! Your mother could do with losing a bit of weight, couldn’t she?”
Ron was shaking with fury. Everyone was staring at him.
“Get stuffed, Knott,” said Harry. “C’mon, Ron.”
“Oh yeah, Potter, you've stayed at their hovel before, haven't you? So tell me, is her mother really that porky, or is it just the photo?”
“Why do you want to know, Knott? Want to see if she's fat enough for your own mom to eat?” Harry said in a rare fit of wit, then looked at Ron to see if he was okay.
“Oh Hell,” Draco muttered. “Harry, let's go. Now.”
“Why?”
Draco pointed jerkily at Knott, whose face was a shade of puce that Uncle Vernon would have been proud of. His hands were flexing into and out of fists, like he was fighting the urge to grab his wand.
“DON'T. YOU. DARE. TALK. ABOUT. MY. MOTHER!”
“Whatever you're going to say, Harry, Ron, I suggest you don't. Knott's mother died years ago.”
Harry went a paler brown at this.
“Knott, I'm sorry, I didn't know. I--”
“I DON'T WANT YOUR PITY, BLOOD TRAITOR!”
“Come on,” Draco said, trying to get them to leave. “He won't accept anything less than a duel at this point.”
Harry turned around to go with Draco when it happened.
BANG!
Several people screamed — Harry felt something white-hot graze the side of his face — he plunged his hand into his robes for his wand, but before he’d even touched it, he heard a second loud BANG, and a roar that echoed through the entrance hall.
“OH NO YOU DON’T, LADDIE!”
Harry spun around. Professor Moody was limping down the marble staircase. His wand was out and it was pointing right at an all-brown ferret, which was shivering on the stone-flagged floor, exactly where Knott had been standing.
There was a terrified silence in the entrance hall. Nobody but Moody was moving a muscle. Moody turned to look at Harry — at least, his normal eye was looking at Harry; the other one was pointing into the back of his head.
“Did he get you?” Moody growled. His voice was low and gravelly.
“No,” said Harry, “missed. But that's... what did you do?”
“LEAVE IT!” Moody shouted.
“Leave — what?” Harry said, bewildered.
“Not you — him!” Moody growled, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at Crabbe, who had just frozen, about to pick up the white ferret. It seemed that Moody’s rolling eye was magical and could see out of the back of his head.
“Wait,” Harry said, comprehension dawning, “is that ferret... is that Knott?”
Moody started to limp toward Crabbe, Goyle, and the ferret, which gave a terrified squeak and took off, streaking toward the dungeons.
“I don’t think so!” roared Moody, pointing his wand at the ferret again — it flew ten feet into the air, fell with a smack to the floor, and then bounced upward once more.
“I don’t like people who attack when their opponent’s back’s turned,” growled Moody as the ferret bounced higher and higher, squealing in pain. “Stinking, cowardly, scummy thing to do.”
“Stop it!” Harry shouted. “You're going to hurt him!”
Moody paused, the ferret in midair. “He attacked you when your back was turned. By the look of it, that spell would've hurt a lot, put you in the hospital wing. I heard enough of the conversation before it to know the context, Potter. I don't care how upset he was or how much right he had to be upset. He should've challenged you to a duel instead of attacking you when you couldn't defend yourself.”
Moody went back to bouncing the ferret, and Harry rushed forward to rescue Knott. Just as he was about to grab the ferret, Moody spoke again.
“I wouldn't do that if I were you, Potter. If you grab him going one direction and I'm moving him with my wand in another, that'll hurt worse. But if you're that keen on helping this scum, I'll let him go,” Moody said.
Knott dropped to the floor, becoming human again in the same instant. His hair was ruffled, he looked bruised, and he was clutching his arm in pain. But when Harry tried to help him, Knot yelled.
“Don't touch me, freak!”
“Professor Moody!” said a shocked voice.
Professor McGonagall was coming down the marble staircase with her arms full of books.
“Hello, Professor McGonagall,” said Moody calmly. “Lovely weather today, isn't it?”
Professor McGonagall glared at Moody. “Don't think I didn't see that, Professor Moody. We never use Transfiguration as a punishment! Surely Professor Dumbledore told you that?”
“He might’ve mentioned it, yeah,” said Moody, scratching his chin unconcernedly, “but I thought a good sharp shock —”
“We give detentions, Moody! Or speak to the offender’s Head of House!”
“I’ll do that, then,” said Moody, staring at Knott with great dislike.
Knott, whose eyes were still watering with pain and humiliation, looked malevolently up at Moody and muttered something in which the words “my father” were distinguishable.
“Oh yeah?” said Moody quietly, limping forward a few steps, the dull clunk of his wooden leg echoing around the hall. “Well, I know your father of old, boy. … You tell him Moody’s keeping a close eye on his son … you tell him that from me. … Now, your Head of House’ll be Snape, will it?”
“Yes,” said Knott resentfully.
“Another old friend,” growled Moody. “I’ve been looking forward to a chat with old Snape. … Come on, you. …”
And he seized Knott's upper arm and marched him off toward the dungeons.
When Harry came back, he thought Ron looked like he was fighting to keep from laughing. He glared at Ron.
“It wasn't funny, what Moody did to Knott. Even if he did attack me when my back was turned, that's no excuse.”
“I don't know, Harry,” Draco said. “In a combat situation, taking out an enemy who's hexing you in the back is probably a good thing. I mean, he shouldn't have bounced him around like that, but honestly I think we're lucky he didn't do something worse to Knott.”
At dinner, Fred and George tried talking about how cool Moody was. Harry didn't say anything, just focused on his food. He supposed he shouldn't let one bad experience with the man color his perceptions, but he thought Rita Skeeter might have had a point where it came to Moody.
~
Moody was in front of his third-year class of Ravenclaws and ready to start taking roll when a blond girl who looked like her head was permanently in the clouds wandered in as though she was just exploring the castle and had spotted something interesting inside this room she wanted to look at. Her eyes were large, making her look permanently surprised.
“Can I help you, missy?” he asked her.
“I'm sorry I'm late, Professor. I was having trouble finding my shoes. I think the nargles were hiding them, the little tricksters.”
There were stifled titters throughout the class at this. Moody glared at them, and they stopped.
“Well sit down, missy, I'm just about to start taking roll.”
“I like rolls,” she said as she began to practically float, like a cloud on a lazy summer day, toward her seat. He stared at her, bewildered, until she sat down.
He began to take roll. When he got to 'Lovegood, Luna,' the weird blond girl who'd been late said happily, “I'm here. More accurately, my physical body is here, and my mind is mostly focused on the here and now. Other parts of me are elsewhere, but I suppose for the purposes of your question, it's the same thing as saying 'I'm here.'”
“Rrright. Moving on...”
When he finished taking roll, he began. When he told his students to put their books away, he'd noticed the Lovegood girl hadn't even taken hers out. He found he couldn't remember if she'd even had a backpack with her.
“Right then,” he said, when they'd all put their books away. “I’ve had a letter from Professor Lupin about this class. Seems you’ve had a pretty thorough grounding in tackling Dark creatures — you’ve covered boggarts, Red Caps, hinkypunks, grindylows, Kappas, and werewolves, is that right?”
There was a general murmur of assent, but there was also a voice.
“Are you going to teach us about umgubular slashkilters, heliopaths, and other highly dangerous dark creatures?”
It was the Lovegood girl again. He was confused about how to answer. He'd never heard of umgubular slashkilters, even after studying every dark creature he could find out about, but he couldn't preclude the possibility she'd discovered something new. Some magical creatures had only been discovered fairly recently, by Newt Scamander, after all. But the other students were laughing at her. So he wasn't sure the best answer. He tried to think of what the real Moody would do in this situation, as was his standby.
“No, girlie, we're doing curses now. I reckon you've all got a pretty good handle on the kinds of dangerous magical beasts you're likely to run across in everyday life. But you're far behind on what wizards can do to each other, so we're going to be studying curses so I can get you lot up to scratch in case you ever need it, and I only have one year to do it.”
As expected, someone made a comment about that, and he told the class that yes, he was only doing it as a favor to Dumbledore before going back to his quiet retirement. Then he went back to teaching the class.
Just as with all his other classes, he was starting out with the Unforgivable Curses. That had been hard to convince Dumbledore about, especially where it concerned the younger students, but the old goat had agreed it was necessary, if his worries and suspicions were true.
Giving essentially the same speech for the demonstration with the spiders that he did in all his classes, the reactions were much as expected. Most students laughed at his demonstration of the Imperius Curse. A few looked sick. The Lovegood girl's expression didn't change at all, though. She watched it attentively, but she might have been looking at something completely normal, for all the reaction to it she showed in her face.
It went much the same way for the Cruciatus Curse. Many people screamed, many looked sick, others just jumped back in their seat or quivered in terror. But Lovegood just looked mildly disapproving, like he'd said 'arse' or some other mostly harmless thing.
For the Killing Curse, the whole room was frozen in horrified awe, and even here she stood out, for her expression looked no different than the one she'd given for the Cruciatus Curse.
When he had them taking notes afterward, as he was writing on the board (by looking out the back of his head – this magical eye really was miraculous and useful!) he noticed the Lovegood girl wasn't taking notes. He paused and turned around.
“Miss Lovegood! You're all supposed to be taking notes now. Why aren't you writing this down?”
“Oh, I don't need to, sir. I'm memorizing it all.”
He blinked at this. “You can do that, can you?”
“Yes. I used to take notes, but they kept disappearing, so I started working on mnemonic devices to memorize everything important instead. If things start going missing from inside my head, I'll have bigger problems than failing tests and missing homework.”
He decided to test her. “Okay, girlie, then repeat what I said right after I shrunk the second spider back to normal size.”
“You said, 'Pain. You don’t need thumbscrews or knives to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse. That one was very popular once too. Right … anyone know any others?'”
His magical eye stopped looking every which way and looked right at her along with his other eye. “Impressive. And after the third spider?”
“That time, it was 'Not nice. Not pleasant. And there’s no counter-curse. There’s no blocking it. And only one known person has ever survived it. You all know his name, I'm sure, but I'll say it anyway: Harry Potter.'”
Crouch Junior was suddenly reminded of himself as a kid. Not in demeanor, he and this girl could not have been more different. But it sounded like she got bullied. Missing shoes, missing notes, who knew what else. And so she adapted by memorizing everything. They had the missing notes and the memorization in common, his notes used to keep going missing until he got to be a strong enough duelist to make the bullying stop. It was an interesting experience, seeing part of himself in someone else.
“Right. Carry on then,” he said, turning back to the board to continue the lesson.
He paid a bit more attention to her after that, especially at dinner that evening. She had gone over to sit with the Griffindors, next to Potter, in fact. It looked like she was friends with the boy, along with the Weasley boy and the Granger girl. That was potentially useful. Very useful indeed.
It was Potter's friendship with the Malfoy boy that had surprised him the most, though. It seemed Potter had gotten his hooks into the lad, making Lucius's boy turn blood traitor. Oh well, he was still angry at Lucius for wriggling out of being sent to Azkaban. He wasn't going to go out of his way to hurt the Malfoy boy, but if it happened to become a good idea to hurt or even kill him, well so much the better. Lucius deserved to suffer, after failing their master so thoroughly.
On Thursday, he finally had the Potter boy in class. Potter was predictable, where his Ravenclaw friend wasn't. He laughed with the others for the Imperius Curse demonstration, until 'Moody' ruined the mood by chastising them for it. Potter had also stared in horror as he tortured the spider, until Granger's shouting pointed out to him that one of the other students wasn't taking it well. He turned to look.
Ah, Longbottom, he thought. His greatest regret. He still believed it had been necessary to question them, even to torture them, even if Bella went too far. If she hadn't done that... if he'd been brave enough to stop her, they wouldn't have made the Aurors so keen on finding them and arresting them. What was more, their master had wanted to kill the Longbottoms himself, and would have done so if his curse against the Potter boy hadn't backfired on him.
Granger wasn't the only one concerned. Crouch could see in Potter's eyes that he was concerned, too. It looked like he and Longbottom weren't close friends, but were still friendly with each other, and Crouch already knew they shared a dorm. Well, he'd already been planning to give the boy that book, might as well use this as the impetus.
For now, back to the role of teacher. He'd already lifted the curse from the spider. He shrunk it, and went on with his lesson.
Potter's reaction to the Killing Curse was as predicted. He looked ill, and upset, but was bearing well under it. Crouch had heard the boy had been taken away from some pretty nasty Muggles, to live with the formerly imprisoned Sirius Black. Poor bastard; 12 years in Azkaban, and he hadn't even done what they'd accused him of. Crouch himself had nearly died in there, but at least he'd been given a trial. Honestly, didn't people see the rot that was infecting this government?
When the lesson was over, he clunked over to Longbottom, having to go down some stairs to catch up to him. Now it was time to play the caring teacher, suck up to the boy a little, and give him that book about water plants. It would be important for Potter to get through the Second Task alive. So he had tea with Longbottom. As predicted, the boy was cheered somewhat by the praise of his Herbology acumen and took the book readily. The seeds, figuratively speaking, were planted.
~
After his memorable first class with Professor Moody, Harry was glad to be sitting down to eat dinner, and even gladder to head upstairs afterward, even though he still had homework to do. He was putting the finishing touches on his Transfiguration homework when there was a tapping at the window. Harry got up to see what was making the sound. It was a raven. Assuming it was Luna's raven, Harry opened the window to let it in. It flew in, looking harried, and landed on a desk nearby.
Harry closed the window and looked at the raven. Unlike Writing Desk, this one was completely black. And it looked worried, somehow.
“Harry!” it said, in a voice he recognized as Luna's, while hopping up and down, flapping its wings in alarm. “Harry! It's me! Luna Lovegood!”
Harry's eyes went wide with shock. He knew ravens could talk, but that was Luna's voice alright. It couldn't really be her, could it? But then he remembered Moody had turned Knott into a ferret.
“Luna?” he asked.
“Yes, Harry. It's me! Help me! I'm a bird! Get Professor Flitwick!” The bird was again flapping its wings in distress.
“Right,” he said, bolting from the room so fast that he left the Fat Lady's portrait open, even though it was well past curfew.
The moment he got out there, he realized in a panic that he didn't know where Flitwick's office was, and anyway McGonagall's was closer. Running right past Filch's cat, he hurried as quick as he could to her office, hoping he didn't run into Filch on the way.
He made it to her office, and he hammered on the door.
“You don't have to knock so hard!” came McGonagall's voice. She opened the door. “Potter? You look like you've seen a chimera!”
“You gotta come quick, Professor! It's Luna, she's been turned into a bird!”
“Luna Lovegood?”
“Yes, in the Griffindor common room! Hurry!”
She nodded and he tried to run, but she grabbed his robes. “Slow down, Mr. Potter. I doubt she's going to get hurt in the few minutes til we get there. Try to keep it to a fast walk.”
“Right,” he said.
The two of them, walking as quickly as they dared, headed to the Griffindor portrait. They were waylaid by Filch.
“Not right now, Mr. Filch, we're in a hurry.”
Filch grumbled and let them pass. Not long after, they got to the portrait, which was closed now. McGonagall gave the password and they went inside.
The raven was still sitting where he'd left it. It looked up as they came in and started flapping around again.
“Professor McGonagall! It's me! Luna Lovegood!”
“Yes, I'll help you Miss Lovegood, don't fret.”
McGonagall waved her wand at the raven. Nothing happened. She frowned in confusion and tried it again, using a different spell this time. Again, nothing happened.
“Mr. Potter, I'm afraid this is an ordinary raven familiar, and not your friend Miss Lovegood.”
“But... what? But she spoke!”
“Ravens can speak, Mr. Potter. They can even imitate other voices.”
A sudden suspicion fell over him then, and Harry touched the feathers on the raven's back. When his fingers came away, they were slightly damp with a small amount of ink.
“Do you know a spell to siphon ink away?” Harry asked.
“Yes, of course. Why?”
“There's ink on this bird's back.”
Taking up her wand again, McGonagall removed the ink from the raven's back without even ruffling a feather. There was a large white mark there, shaped like a W.
“WRITING DESK!” Harry shouted in hurt anger.
Writing Desk opened his beak and laughed raucously, falling over on his back and rolling around as he did so. The noise was so great that several people came downstairs to see what it was all about.
“I'm going to hex all your feathers off, you little git!” Harry shouted, his wand out.
The raven's laughter stopped abruptly as it hurriedly got back on its feet and took off flying. Harry shot several hexes at the raven, who was squawking in true alarm now.
“MR. POTTER! Please stop it at once! You'll hit some bystander if you're not careful!”
He stopped throwing hexes around. McGonagall Summoned the bird into her hand, where it squawked louder than before.
“To whom does this raven belong, Mr. Potter?”
“He's Luna's. And given what I know of her sense of humor, she probably wasn't in on this trick. Writing Desk is just an over-intelligent, feathery git.”
McGonagall mouthed the words 'Writing Desk' in disbelief, then shook her head. “Thank you, Mr. Potter. You will not be punished for being out after curfew, this bird tricked you after all. I shall ask Miss Lovegood about it, and if she gets punished or not depends on her responses.”
“Just don't hurt him. Luna will be sad if he's hurt.”
“Understood, Mr. Potter. You should go to bed now.”
With that, McGonagall left the common room.
“Luna Lovegood has a bird that plays awesome pranks like that?” one of the Weasley twins said.
“A bird after our own heart,” said the other.
“Hey Fred, maybe we can re-form the Marauders. Us, Lee Jordan, and Writing Desk.”
“Yeah, Padfoot and Moony will bust a gut laughing when we tell them we've got someone's pet raven as a fourth neo-Marauder!”
“We're all doomed,” Harry said.
~
The next morning, Luna pulled Harry into an empty classroom before breakfast.
“What's this about, Luna?”
“Writing Desk needs to apologize,” she said, pointing at the raven sitting on the teacher's desk. He looked suitably abashed, his head down, somehow managing to look glum.
“Oh,” said Harry. “Did you get in trouble, Luna?”
“No, Harry. I promised to thoroughly scold him, make him apologize. If he does anything else that mean, I'll send him home to Daddy.”
“Okay. Well let's hear it, then.”
Writing Desk rolled over on his back and put his legs down. Harry didn't know if this was a normal avian submission posture or if Writing Desk was just being weird, but it was a start.
“Use your words, Writing Desk.”
“Sorry I tricked you, Harry,” he said in Luna's voice.
“Why is he still speaking in your voice?” Harry asked.
“He can only mimic words he's heard. But he's clever about it. He can cut and paste things together from different things he's heard, making entirely new sentences from pieces of other sentences. I suspect he did something like that last night. He's heard me say my name and your name plenty of times, after all. What did he say, exactly?”
“Well first he said, 'Harry! It's me! Luna Lovegood!' Then after I said 'Luna?' he said 'Yes, Harry. It's me! Help me! I'm a bird! Get Professor Flitwick!'”
“Writing Desk, can you repeat what you said last night, the same way you did?”
The raven did so. Luna turned to verify it with Harry, and he nodded. It sounded exactly the same.
“If you listen carefully to what he said, you can hear where he cut and pasted words. I think 'Harry! It's me!' is a complete sentence I've said before, but I'm not sure. I know I've said my first and last name together around him before as well. 'Yes, Harry' is another complete sentence. So are the two after that. And I know I've told people to get Professor Flitwick at least once around him.”
“What about 'I'm a bird'?”
“Hmm... yes, a few weeks ago I was saying to him something like, 'Who's a good bird? Are you a good bird? Can you say 'I'm a good bird' for me?' I heard a bit of a slight... off-ness to 'I'm a bird' that suggests he cut the word 'good' out to make that sentence.”
“I dunno. I'm starting to think he should be checked out, see if he's an animagus.”
“Oh I doubt that. I've had him since he was old enough to leave his nest. But you can run him by McGonagall if you want.”
“Good idea,” Harry said.
“Forgive me?” Writing Desk asked in what sounded like Xeno's voice.
Harry pondered for a moment. “Say 'I promise not to play mean pranks on Harry Potter again,' and I'll forgive you.”
“I promise not to play mean pranks on Harry Potter again,” Writing Desk said.
Harry recognized his voice from the few times he'd ever heard it on a tape recorder. It was a little unnerving to hear his own voice parroted back at him like that. Especially since it was a lot harder to tell the difference between the raven mimicking his voice and a parrot mimicking people. A parrot could repeat words, but only in its own voice, so far as Harry knew.
“Okay, I forgive you. Just keep your promise not to do it again.”
Writing Desk got back up on his legs. “I'm a good bird!” he said.
“Yeah, and the Weasley twins are sticklers for rules,” Harry said, grinning. “Oh by the way, we should introduce him to them, they were talking about making him a partner in crime.”
Luna giggled. “That sounds funny. Let's do it.”
Taking Writing Desk onto her shoulder, they left the unused classroom and walked back to breakfast, where the table was fast filling up. They sat as close as possible to the Weasley twins.
“Ah, there he is now, Fred! The master of chaos himself! Did you lot hear? Last night that raven, the white part of his feathers covered in ink, tricked Harry into thinking Moody had turned Luna into a bird! And that he – that bird – was Luna!”
Harry felt his face grow hot as everyone in earshot of George's loud voice laughed at the tale. Harry distracted himself by scooping food onto his plate.
“So... Writing Desk is your name, is it?”
“Yes. I'm a good bird.”
“That you are. But Writing Desk, mean pranks should only be played on people truly deserving of it, like Theodore Knott, Vincent Crabbe, or Gregory Goyle.”
“Yes. People truly deserving of it,” he answered, and started preening his feathers.
“Fred and I are starting up the Marauders again. Want to join, Writing Desk?”
The raven looked up from his preening and cocked his head curiously at George. “Napoleon,” he said.
“Pardon?”
“Napoleon. Call me Napoleon today.”
Now Harry knew what to listen for, he could hear the slight deviations in the bird's speech that meant he was stringing cut and pasted words together from various sources.
“Okay Napoleon, want to be a Marauder?”
“What is a Marauder?”
“The original Marauders were Harry's dad, his godfather, Remus Lupin, and another bloke. They were pranksters extraordinaire, becoming legends for the pranks they pulled when they were in school. We aim to make the new Marauders just as legendary.”
Napoleon/Writing Desk looked like he was thinking, again. Then he spoke.
“Napoleon, want to be a Marauder?” he said, mimicking whichever twin had said it. “Yes. Napoleon, Writing Desk, is a Marauder.”
“Excellent!”
“Ha,” Ron said. “Now you two really are bird brains.”
“Comparing us to such a handsome, majestic, and devilishly clever raven? Best compliment we've gotten in a long time!”
“I'm such a handsome, majestic, and devilishly clever raven,” Writing Desk/Napoleon said. By replacing the word 'raven' at the end with one the twins had said previously, he had changed it from a question into a statement.
The table burst out in laughter. Even Harry was laughing.
~
A couple weeks after his first class with them, Crouch (disguised as Moody) had the Ravenclaws again, which meant that same odd little blond girl that was Potter's friend, looking again like she'd wandered in and was sitting down to rest her legs before wandering off again.
He announced he was putting them all under the Imperius Curse to help them build up resistance to it. There were a couple protests, as he expected, but he quickly shut them down. He had Dumbledore's permission, after all.
So he began beckoning students up to the front to put them all under the Imperius Curse, one at a time, and made them do entertaining and incredible things. When it was Lovegood's turn, he thought at first that it was working, for she was doing the pirouettes he had told her to do, but when he told her through the spell's connection to slap a fellow student, she just stood there passively, not doing anything at all. He tried a few more things, making the spell stronger each time. Some things she did, others she didn't.
“I can't figure you out, girlie,” he said after lifting the spell from her for the last time. “Tell me, what do you remember of the experience?”
“Hmm,” she said. “Well at first I didn't think anything was happening at all, after you said the incantation. I thought maybe a wrackspurt had gotten into your head and made the spell fail. But then I heard your voice in my head telling me to do pirouettes, and I thought, 'Oh that's a lovely idea, I haven't done that in a few weeks, thank you for suggesting it,' and so I did it.”
“I see. And did you have similar thoughts when doing the other things I told you to do?”
She nodded, smiling. “Oh yes.”
“What about when I told you to slap someone?”
“Oh, I don't agree with slapping someone unless it's the only way to wake them up in an emergency, or if they want you to do it because they enjoy the sensation. I did pause to consider asking her if she enjoyed being slapped, but we hardly know each other, so I thought the question might be a bit too forward. Also, I was hoping Ha-- one of my friends would realize he's attracted to me finally, and I didn't want to risk doing anything that might be seen as cheating later, even though I'm currently single.”
He blinked at her. Ignoring both the laughter of the other students and most of what Lovegood had said, he simply said, “I don't think I've ever met someone with a natural immunity to the Imperius Curse before today, Miss Lovegood. You're lucky; they won't be able to control you, and you won't even need any discipline to do it. I'm envious, Miss Lovegood. It wasn't so easy for me.”
“Oh, I don't think it's a natural immunity. I've been working on my mental discipline for years. It's got so many uses, you know. For instance, it's a lot harder for wrackspurts to get into your head if your mind is well-disciplined. Wrackspurts don't like order, which is why they try to confuse people to begin with. They're a bit like Dementors that way, except Dementors eat positive emotions rather than cause mental confusion.”
He thought about that for a moment, trying to figure it out. But then it clicked.
“I think I see what you mean, Miss Lovegood. A disciplined mind is to these... wrackspurts... as a Patronus is to a Dementor?”
“Exactly,” Lovegood said, nodding.
He ignored, again, the laughter of the other students. A girl like this – free-thinking, nerdy, and a bit dotty – was doubtless the target of bullies; he'd thought so before, but was even more sure of it now. He used his own memories of being bullied to try to manipulate her a little so he could use her later. She seemed a decent person, and decent people were always so easy to manipulate. Though she was also extremely clever, so he'd have to proceed with caution.
“You have a keen mind, Miss Lovegood,” he said, and the laughter stopped in an instant.
“Thank you, Professor.”
Potter was another stand-out here, he found out the next day. He could feel Potter fighting the curse from the very beginning. The boy had bent his knees to obey, and then had paused. Crouch had needed to increase the power to get him to finally attempt to jump onto the desk, and even then he sort of half-disobeyed and smashed into the desk instead, knocking it over. Crouch was impressed.
“Now, that’s more like it!” he growled. “Look at that, you lot, Potter fought! He fought it, and he damn near beat it! We’ll try that again, Potter, and the rest of you, pay attention — watch his eyes, that’s where you see it — very good, Potter, very good indeed! They’ll have trouble controlling you!”
He watched the boy leave with his magical eye, keeping an eye on him whenever he could. He'd noticed something odd lately; Potter was making weekly visits after dinner to Dumbledore's office for some reason. Crouch could see inside, of course, and it looked like Dumbledore was casting some spell on the boy repeatedly, and the boy was fighting it. But since he couldn't read lips and there wasn't any light coming from the wand to clue him in on what spell it was, he was stumped. He wondered if he dared ask. Probably not; Moody may have been paranoid, but he doubted the man would have taken another second to watch Potter once he'd figured out where the boy was going.
After thinking about it, he decided to risk sending an owl to his master about it. His master might have some ideas about what was going on.
Endnote: I don't always name chapters after song titles, only when I find one that's fitting. This chapter is named after the Blue Oyster Cult song “X-Ray Eyes” from their album “Heaven Forbid.” Given that the fake Moody gets his big introduction here, I think you can see how it's fitting.
I again feel the need to clarify that Writing Desk is just a raven, and a familiar. And remind people that in this fic, magic makes animals smarter than normal; ravens being scarily smart to begin with, increasing their intelligence further with magic is bound to create interesting results.
As to these scenes from Crouch Junior's perspective, I was having a lot of trouble keeping going on this chapter, didn't feel like redoing the same old scenes with slightly altered details. So a change of perspective helped.
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Four.
Or, "Autistic Potter and the Goblet of Fire."
Notes: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made. Not by me, anyway.
There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though, but there's a lot more in this one than usual because it was unavoidable. Still, lots of details are changed, so don't skip by familiar parts or you might miss something.
Just as a reminder, so I don't have to shoehorn in descriptions in the text of the story as a reminder, but in this fanfic Harry and Hermione, apart from having Asperger's Syndrome, are both black as well.
'Italicized text between single quotes is almost always Parseltongue.'
Note: I made a mistake and forgot to include the first day of History of Magic in the last chapter, so we'll be backtracking a little to cover it.
Also, I had been intending to get this out by Thanksgiving, but well, clearly that didn't happen.
Chapter 8: “The Importance of History”
One other class Harry and several of his friends were most looking forward to was History of Magic, now that they had a new teacher. The first class, on the day after their first DADA lesson with Moody, everyone had entered the new History of Magic classroom (the old one was still haunted by Binns) and were waiting to find out what the class would be like, now. A few people complained about lost nap time, but mostly people were glad they'd have an actual class for once.
When they were all seated, they waited only a couple minutes before the teacher came in and closed the door. She was a woman of Indian descent, tall for a woman, and looked like an older version of Antigone.
“Hello, students,” she said with the faintest of Indian accents, getting everyone's attention. “I am Mrs. Dreyfuss. I am your new History of Magic teacher. And yes, before you ask, I wrote the textbook, too. I do not normally approve of teachers writing their own textbooks, it's a bad habit some universities let too many professors get away with, but in this case, the only decent textbooks around are all in other languages. Both the UK and the US, I hate to say, have their own peculiar biases, and there's more fiction than fact in history books from both countries. I did write the textbook, though, but I had not intended to also be teaching it. But since nobody was stepping up to take the position, I took the job when Dumbledore offered it to me.”
Harry was already impressed; her voice caught the attention, and made you want to hear what she had to say. Though her reference to universities made him wonder if she was Muggle-born. Not that it mattered, but it would be cool if she was.
“First, I'll take roll.”
This was another change. Binns never paid any attention to his students, not even to take roll. It had been an easy class to get away with skipping. No more, it seemed. She went through roll, and Harry was impressed to note that neither her voice nor her mannerisms changed when she reached his name. Either his fame meant nothing to her, or she'd braced herself to act normally towards him. Either way, he approved.
“Good,” she said when roll was done. “Now on to history.”
She paused to consult some index cards for a moment, then set them aside to begin.
“First off, I want to tell you right now, there's no such thing as facts in history, not really. And why not? Well, for the same reason eyewitness testimonies in the Muggle justice system are fraught with error. People all have their own perspectives on the world, their own reality tunnel that colors everything they experience, and beyond that, memory is very suggestible to change, very fallible.
“Have you ever heard of 'leading questions'? Those are questions where the solicitor asks a question in a way that loads the meaning with emotion or changes the entire context of the question and answer, often resulting in changes of content. Muggle scientists have done studies that found it is scarily easy to alter someone's memories, even implant false memories, without even needing to use magic. The brain, given the right verbal stimuli, will often accept something stated as fact by another person and accept the lie, filling in the blanks until suddenly you're remembering something that never happened. You may have even experienced this effect in your lifetime; ever had a vivid memory of doing something, or being somewhere, and later you found out it was just the memory of a dream? That's the sort of thing I mean, except it happens when one is awake as well, and often the brain forgets that the false memories are false.
“The only reason I specified this as a problem with the Muggle justice system is because the magic of Pensieves is slightly related to time-turners; it takes your memory of the event, and looks back in time to fill in the details. Without that aspect of Pensieves, eyewitness accounts in the wizarding justice system would be just as unreliable. In an alternate universe where Pensieves didn't have that aspect to them, Pensieve memories would be basically worthless as testimony, because our brains don't know things, they tell themselves stories about their lives, and stories can easily change the more you tell them, which is why we need hard evidence. Take the recent trial that exonerated Sirius Black, for instance. In a world where Pensieves couldn't look through time to fill in details, the only worth all those eyewitness accounts of Peter Pettigrew being alive would be that they all agreed that the man was alive, and only the photographs of the man taken after his capture would have been worth anything as evidence.
“And so, what we historians call 'facts' in history is really nothing more than 'two or more sides of this issue agree that such-and-such happened at such-and-such time and place.' Did it really happen at all? Well, we have to assume it did, because we don't have any better information without using a time turner and risking damaging the timeline, or contemporary written accounts, photographs, archaeological evidence, and so on. In the wizarding world, we have other options as well, for instance Pensieves, but those have limitations. Biases can also get in the way; it is easy to get wizard or witch Pensieve memories for events, but getting the same thing for Muggles, Goblins, and other sapient races is not so easy. First, they're not allowed wands, so they can't do it themselves. And second, most wizards or witches never offer to help them copy those memories. And let's be honest here, most of them wouldn't trust us to do that anyway, because the memory copying spell involves a wand right to the temple, and they don't exactly trust us.”
There was some laughter here. She paused, smiling, and waited for it to pass before continuing.
“Perception can also change the content of memories and 'facts.' For instance, did you know that the ancient Greeks didn't have a word for the color 'blue'? We know this from the writings of Homer. His color descriptive palate was limited to metallic colors, black, white, yellowish green and purplish red, and those colors he often used oddly. He calls the sky "bronze" and the sea and sheep as the color of wine, he applies the adjective chloros (meaning green with our understanding) to honey, and a nightingale.
“Now this might just be a quirk of Homer, but we've seen the same thing in other cultures, living cultures. Some call the daytime sky a shade of black, for instance. And some cultures have words for colors that English doesn't. But my point here is, if something as fundamental as color can be so subject to perception differences, anything can.”
She paused to take a drink of water before continuing.
“And so, we don't really have facts, we have a bunch of stories that say what happened. Which is why the word 'history' has the word 'story' in it. What's more, a lot of history around the world has been entirely one-sided, only one story being told. In a world so full of uncertainty in the form of fallible memories, quirks of perception, and problems with bias, we can't rely on one side of the story to get the facts. We need to hear other sides, compare them, see where they agree and disagree. But there are other benefits to hearing other sides of history, as well.”
She paused, walking a little ways as though thinking, before going on.
“You've learned over the years all kinds of lists of names, dates, and other facts and figures about things like the goblin rebellions, but have you ever stopped to wonder why the goblins rebelled? Or what exactly a goblin rebellion is? We don't often stop to think about the motivations behind these events, because our prevailing idea is that it all happened in the past, it's over and done with, it has very little to do with our present. But that's incorrect, in so many ways. History is important because the past informs our present, and because we can draw parallels to the modern day. History has a tendency to repeat itself, especially if we don't pay attention to history. Many of the same problems our ancestors faced, we still face today, whether we are aware of it or not.
“So let's take the goblin rebellions for a start. Goblin and human relations haven't gone very well for a very long time, but it might surprise you to know that our two races were once very friendly. Way back before wands or staffs were invented, human magic was mostly just wandless magic, runic magic, or ritual magic. Wandless magic is, of course, basically accidental magic that people can learn to control and shape with the power of their Will. It used to be the most common form of magic in use by humans, until staffs and wands were invented, which made learning wandless magic mostly obsolete. Aurors sometimes use it, mainly to summon their wands if they lose them, but also often to keep on fighting if their wand gets broken or irretrievably lost. But wands and – to a lesser extent staffs – are incredibly useful. They speed up the process of controlling one's magic by a significant margin, and make it significantly easier to do at the same time.
“See, if wands and staffs hadn't been invented, we'd all be starting to learn how to control our magic as young as seven years old, if not earlier, and most of us would still be working on mastering it into our early twenties, if not longer. But despite this, it was more popular than runes and rituals because it was faster, easier to control than either, and needed no tools to use. Also, ritual magic can be very dangerous and unpredictable, as it usually requires the same kind of focused Will power and control as wandless magic, but usually uses far greater amounts of magic. To compare the two, wandless magic is like learning to move streams into new paths, while ritual magic is like learning to do the same to rivers.
“Well these kinds of issues aren't just limited to humans. Some species, like house elves, have a greater innate control over their magic. Even Goblins have this extra innate control, to an extent. But there are limits. I doubt a house elf's magic would be much helped by a wand, but Goblins are another matter altogether. Wands would help them almost as significantly as they helped humans, but humans refused – and still refuse – to share the knowledge of wand making with Goblins.
“And there, students, is where the enmity began. Human magic took a great leap forward in power and control. The speed and ease it took to learn magic with a wand, even if wand magic has to wait until the student is around age 11 to best master it, means that wands freed up a lot of time for humans, time we spent inventing new spells, where once we used to use that time to struggle to learn the old spells.
“Because of this leap forward, we quickly became a force to be reckoned with. Species that used to prey on us started to fear us. Even allies like the Goblins – and yes, our two races were once allies – started to fear our power. Being allies of ours, the Goblins asked for us to share our new technology, these wands, with them. But by then we'd already grown inflated by our newfound power. The human race wasn't keen on slipping back so quickly into a world where we were prey, for our ancestors feared the secrets of wand lore getting to sapient races that were not as friendly to them as Goblins were, so they refused to share wand lore with the Goblins or any other sapient race, a policy which still dominates the globe to this day.
“Out of their understandable fear and jealousy, the Goblins and the humans started to wage war on each other. And despite being a warrior culture with great magical metal-smithing skills, the Goblins started to lose to us. It eventually got to a point where their race was being threatened with possible extinction. And so they made peace with humans in order to survive, accepting we would not give them wand technology. They even gradually convinced us to let them handle our gold and our banking for us, using their magic to make counterfeiting impossible, something that didn't go over very well until Christianity started to overtake Europe, for despite paganism still having a good foothold in the wizarding world, Christianity is still rather popular among us as well. With Christianity back then banning usury – money lending, that is – the Goblins eventually gained control of the wizarding banking system for much the same reason so many Jewish Muggles got into banking and finance: because they didn't have a cultural stigma against usury, and finding a job they could do where they weren't persecuted was difficult, for both groups also struggled to survive in a world that hated, distrusted, and even feared them. Thus, going into banking helped both of these groups survive and even thrive, despite the oppression.
“So now I think we have a good idea of the root cause of the Goblin rebellions: a proud warrior race reduced to being thought of as greedy, gold-loving bankers, when Gringott's only exists as a means to ensure the survival of the Goblin race. Such a culture, knowing its history and still valuing its martial nature and its weapons-crafting skills but being oppressed by another species that had proven repeatedly it could end their species, well... if you were in their position, wouldn't you lash out on occasion? Wouldn't you want to have the same edge as your oppressors, so you would no longer have to demean yourself to survive?
“Why am I telling you all this, you may be wondering. Well, I admit I am an optimist. I hope that in the centuries we've been around, we've learned a thing or two. Sure, countries like Britain have become corrupted by a blood purity mania that doesn't exist in most other places around the world, where we're fighting each other over whether we're old blood or new blood, the whole time letting it become the downfall of many ancient Houses via the negative effects of inbreeding. Still, those attitudes are being fought, and good thing, too; intermarrying with Muggles has made the wizarding communities of a great many countries around the world thrive, where British wizarding culture is on the decline thanks to this whole blood purity nonsense. Anyone telling you the wizarding population as a whole has been declining in numbers is repeating a falsehood; that is only true here in the UK.
“What's more, all over the Muggle world, people are rising up for social justice causes, fighting hatred, ignorance, and fascism to make the world a better place for everyone living in it.
“So as I say, I'm an optimist. An optimist who hopes that by educating you on the complex nature of history and how it affects us in the modern era, that you'll recognize the old mistakes that are being re-made in the present day, and fight them so that our world can continue to thrive and prosper. Which extends to other races, too. For as intelligent and crafty as the Goblins are, they will eventually figure out how to make wands. It would be better if we shared that information with them freely with an aim for peace, rather than force them to develop the technology in secret and surprise us. For nothing good can come of continuing to deny the Goblins the chance to expand their powers via wands.
“I'm going to warn you now, I will also be teaching some Muggle history as well. Prior to the Statute of Secrecy, Muggle history and Magical history were deeply intertwined, even inseparable in places. Even after the Statute, events in the Muggle world have affected our world, and vice versa. For instance, there will be a section in this class about World War One and World War Two, Muggle wars that impacted the wizarding world too. World War II is going to get the greater bulk of the coverage, because of Gellert Grindlewald's hand in it. Also there are some other parallels between World War II and the wizarding world that I will get into later.
“But that's not where we'll be beginning. No, to start with we will be going back to the beginning of the persecution of witches and wizards, and exploring that era, for that was the time when Muggle and magical history began to divide. But in the process of exploring the differences, we'll also explore the similarities, the ways that Muggle history is our own history, even into the modern, post-Statute world.”
Hermione raised her hand.
“Yes, Miss Granger?”
“Will we be learning dates and names and so on, as well?”
“Yes. But those will be secondary to the greater context of events, the motives of those involved, and how those events are relevant to the modern day. Because names and dates and that sort of thing are dry and boring. History is a story, as I said before. How many stories have you remembered that were boring and dry? Probably not very many. How many years would you remember a boring old tale like that? I'm sure the figure would be closer to 'weeks' or 'months' for most of you!”
She paused while many people laughed.
“No, dry and boring is not the way. The stories we remember are the ones that grab our attention, hold it, and fill us with a thirst to learn more. Stories like that are hard to forget, which is why I'm teaching history as a series of stories. My hope is you'll remember them for decades to come.
“But now, we are almost out of time. I'd like you to read the first two chapters of the textbook, take notes, and be ready to participate in a class discussion on them next Friday. I suggest you read through your notes the day before, to refresh your memory. That is all. See you next week.”
The bell rang then, and they all got up to leave, talking excitedly among themselves about the lecture, for only the second time in the history of the class, as far as Harry could remember. The first had been when Hermione had convinced Binns to tell the story of the Chamber of Secrets, back in their second year.
Harry had since read the two assigned chapters, dealing with the events that led up to the witch persecutions, and he got so hooked on the story that he read the next couple chapters as well, which went into the witch persecutions themselves. According to the textbook, there weren't very many burnings; most witch trials involved being held under water, or heavy stones put on a person's chest, and the use of many gruesome torture devices. What was more, this book referenced the Bagshot book, the bit about Muggles being pants at finding real witches and wizards and burning not being very effective, and ripped into it mercilessly. The first part wasn't even true; at first, they'd been quite good at finding real witches and wizards, and hurting or killing them. But then the witches and wizards got cleverer, getting away more often, and the witch hunts died down eventually. Witch persecution was a thing that came and went over the centuries, waxed and waned, and the more recent European witch hunts hadn't involved any witches and wizards at all, but had instead been mostly an excuse to persecute women – especially old women who knew useful things like herbalism and how to perform an abortion.
And the idea that burning had no effect was only relevant if you managed to keep your wand somehow, knew the flame-freezing charm, and could get out of the ropes binding you. There were also children to consider, the fact that staffs were almost as common as wands back then (and it was a lot harder to hide a staff), and also there were squibs who could do potions but not other kinds of magic (or just happened to be living with witches or wizards when they got caught). The book also said there was no evidence at all that Wendelin the Weird ever got caught even once, but plenty of evidence to suggest she liked to tell tall tales for attention.
These weren't all baseless suppositions, either; she gave a great many references, both magical and Muggle, in her book. There were footnotes on every page, an endnotes section, a bibliography even; it was like no other book Harry had ever seen in the wizarding world. Most wizarding books rarely cited any sources, and now he came to think about it, you pretty much just had to take it on faith that most wizarding books were accurate. It was no wonder Gilderoy Lockhart had gotten away with stealing other people's achievements for so long, it was like nobody in the wizarding world had ever thought to attempt to verify things said to be facts.
According to Draco, the Slytherin reaction to Professor Dreyfuss's lecture was markedly different than the other Houses' reactions. There'd been interruptions, arguments, and detentions assigned for disrupting class. Harry worried, after hearing this, about how long she would be able to teach before the parents of the Slytherins pressured someone into firing her. Dumbledore wouldn't fire her, but the school governors probably could, and Harry worried they might. He hoped they wouldn't, though; controversial as her lecture might have been, it still left an impression that didn't easily vanish. Even Ron was talking about it still a week after the fact.
~
Crouch Junior was dismissing the last class of the day when he saw an owl in the classroom window, waiting for him. He ushered everyone out and closed the door, moving to the window to let the bird in and take its package. It was a two-way mirror from his master. He stumped along to his office, locking it behind him as he went in, and covering the room with as many anti-eavesdropping spells as he could think of, which was quite a few more than the average person could, some spells covering methods of eavesdropping that only dark wizards and witches knew. Once he knew it was safe to talk, he pulled out the two-way mirror and spoke.
“Master,” he told the mirror.
A moment later, his master's face appeared in the mirror.
“Master,” he said again reverentially, this time in lieu of greeting.
“Greetings, Barty,” said the cold voice. “I called to discuss the Potter issue you brought up in your letter. I assume it is safe to speak?”
“Yes it is, Master. I remember your lessons well.”
“Good. I do not know, of course, what Potter is doing with Dumbledore. I could make a joke suggestion, but no, I will not. For all his faults, he is not that depraved.
“But I digress. Have you seen any new developments since your letter?”
“No, Master. Just more of the same. Potter visits Dumbledore every week, and it appears as if Dumbledore is casting a spell on him, and he is resisting. The old goat did, to my surprise, let me do the old auror training routine of casting Unforgivables on the children to teach them resistance, it's possible he's doing more of the same. But... no, I don't think so. He doesn't behave the same way in Dumbledore's office as he does in my class, fighting the Imperius. I think it is another spell.”
“Interesting. Am I to understand that the two spells look somewhat similar to one another, though?”
“There are indeed similarities to the Imperius curse, my lord.”
“Hmm... well the only thing that makes sense in that case is occlumency, the art of occluding the mind from external penetration. But we cannot be sure. It is too bad you cannot eavesdrop on them, Barty.”
“Would that I could, Master, but I have a magical eye, not a magical ear.”
His master laughed with genuine amusement at the joke.
“Oh my, you are a witty one, Crouch. Perhaps you could turn your talents toward inventing some sort of magical ear. Hmm... I think it could be done, and it wouldn't even be very difficult. Surprising nobody's thought to do it yet.”
“I shall put my mind to that task, Master.”
“Good, good,” his master said distractedly. “But that is for later. For now, this Potter problem. Is it occlumency the old fool is teaching him? And if so, why? That is what I do not understand. Is there any way for you to find out more without being suspicious?”
“I doubt it, my lord. Moody would not think twice about why the boy goes to see Dumbledore, I think. But...”
“Yes?”
“Well, Moody is quite paranoid. And even someone he trusts as much as Dumbledore might get looked at askance for seeing so much of the boy without any other witnesses around. If I play my cards right, I might be able to work up a case for asking about it. Maybe come in toward the end of one session and express curiosity that way. Something like 'The boy was in here with you pretty late tonight, Dumbledore. Just the two of you in here together? I trust you, Dumbledore, but if the wrong person saw it, they might come to the wrong conclusion,' that sort of thing.”
“Excellent. I see your mind is still as sharp as ever, even after your long imprisonment under the Imperius curse. Yes, proceed with that plan if you are able to, and report back to me later. I shall think more on this conundrum.”
“Thank you, Master. I will do that, Master.”
His master grinned. “I know you will, Barty. You are my most faithful, and my most capable, servant. Go, continue your ruse.”
With that, his master's image disappeared from the mirror. Barty hid the mirror in one of the compartments of Moody's trunk. He tore down the anti-eavesdropping spells, and continued on with his greatest acting role ever.
~
One day, when they arrived in the entrance hall, Harry, Ron, and Hermione found themselves unable to proceed owing to the large crowd of students congregated there, all milling around a large sign that had been erected at the foot of the marble staircase. Ron, the tallest of the three, stood on tiptoe to see over the heads in front of them and read the sign aloud to the other two:
TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT
The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving at 6 o’clock on Friday the 30th of October. Lessons will end half an hour early —
“Brilliant!” said Harry. “It’s Potions last thing on Friday! Snape won’t have time to poison us all!”
Students will return their bags and books to their dormitories and assemble in front of the castle to greet our guests before the Welcoming Feast.
“Only a week away!” said Ernie Macmillan of Hufflepuff, emerging from the crowd, his eyes gleaming. “I wonder if Cedric knows? Think I’ll go and tell him. …”
“Cedric?” said Ron blankly as Ernie hurried off.
“Diggory,” said Harry. “He must be entering the tournament.”
“Who's he?” said Ron as they pushed their way through the chattering crowd toward the staircase.
“He's on the Hufflepuff Quidditch team, at least from what I've heard. He sounds pretty smart and capable, I hope he ends up being the champion for the school.”
“Oh him. Yeah, I remember him. But a Hufflepuff, school champion?”
“Why not? They value hard work and fairness. Who better than a Hufflepuff?”
“Well yeah, I guess. Better a Hufflepuff than a Slyth—er, nevermind.” Ron said, turning red in the face. “I guess Antigone or one of the others would make a great Champion. Heck, even Draco wouldn't be bad at it.”
“I dunno about Draco,” Harry said. “I like him and all, but he's a bit of a scaredy-cat. Dunno if he could manage a cockatrice or whatever.”
Ron laughed. “Yeah, he'd probably scream and run away.”
The appearance of the sign in the entrance hall had a marked effect upon the inhabitants of the castle. During the following week, there seemed to be only one topic of conversation, no matter where Harry went: the Triwizard Tournament. Rumors were flying from student to student like highly contagious germs: who was going to try for Hogwarts champion, what the tournament would involve, how the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang differed from themselves.
The school was getting extra cleaning as well, from the halls and the suits of armor to the paintings, which were somehow getting scrubbed clean without damaging them. And all the teachers were on edge, Professor McGonagall even snapping at Neville about what Durmstrang would think after he switched his ears onto a cactus.
When they went down to breakfast on the morning of the thirtieth of October, they found that the Great Hall had been decorated overnight. Enormous silk banners hung from the walls, each of them representing a Hogwarts House: red with a gold lion for Gryffindor, blue with a bronze eagle for Ravenclaw, yellow with a black badger for Hufflepuff, and green with a silver serpent for Slytherin. Behind the teachers’ table, the largest banner of all bore the Hogwarts coat of arms: lion, eagle, badger, and snake united around a large letter H.
Sitting next to Fred and George at the Griffindor table, most of them began to discuss the Tournament. Soon Harry's Slytherin friends came over to join the discussion. After Fred and George mentioned that the teachers wouldn't tell them how the Champions were picked, Ron took a turn speaking.
“Any of you lot going to try to join?”
“Don't look at me,” Harry said. “It took me loads of planning and coping tools just to watch the Quidditch World Cup without needing the hospital, I don't even want to think about trying this Tournament thing. What about you, Antigone?”
“Can't. I don't turn 17 til November 5th.”
“Ouch! That's some rotten luck,” Fred said.
“Yeah, worse than ours. We won't be 17 til April.”
“What about you, Danzia?”
“I'm only 14 until November 3rd,” Danzia said.
“Darn. Angela?”
“I'm younger than Antigone by a month,” she said. “Sorry.”
“Damn. Oh well, we'll figure something out.”
There was a pleasant feeling of anticipation in the air that day. Nobody was very attentive in lessons, being much more interested in the arrival that evening of the people from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang; even Potions was more bearable than usual, as it was half an hour shorter. When the bell rang early, Harry, Ron, and Hermione hurried up to Gryffindor Tower, deposited their bags and books as they had been instructed, pulled on their cloaks, and rushed back downstairs into the entrance hall.
The Heads of Houses were ordering their students into lines, so they couldn't stand with their Slytherin friends. But they could see them, and Draco seemed to have bulked up his entourage again, this time with Daphne Greengrass, Tracey Davis, Blaise Zabini, and a couple other Slytherins Harry didn't recognize.
Professor McGonagall was chiding people for the way they were dressed, so she must have still been on edge. When she was done, they filed down the steps and lined up in front of the castle. It was a cold, clear evening; dusk was falling and a pale, transparent-looking moon was already shining over the Forbidden Forest. Harry, standing between Ron and Hermione in the fourth row from the front, saw Dennis Creevey positively shivering with anticipation among the other first years.
The wait was long and cold and annoying, but eventually something happened. First, a giant carriage pulled by enormous winged horses arrived. The carriage was the size of a house, and the size was soon explained. For, along with several dozen students was a woman who had to be 11 feet tall. Whatever caused Hagrid to be absurdly tall had affected her as well, but where Hagrid was bumbling and looked a bit like a mountain man, Madame Maxime was beautiful and elegant, even regal as she walked down the steps.
The boys and girls of Beauxbatons being all cold, she and her students were led indoors while the rest of the school waited for Durmstrang. Again the wait was kind of long and annoying, but soon something was happening; the lake appeared to be boiling. Then it swirled around, and a ship came out of it, like a reverse whirlpool. Soon, a bunch of boys and girls in furred capes were climbing the gangplank down to land, led by a man in sleek silver furs, who spoke to Dumbledore in a fruity, unctuous voice. The man was tall and thin like Dumbledore, but had a goatee instead of a Gandalf beard like Dumbledore had. It didn't quite hide his weak chin.
“Dear old Hogwarts,” the man, Karkaroff, said, looking up at the castle and smiling; his teeth were rather yellow, and Harry noticed that his smile did not extend to his eyes, which remained cold and shrewd. “How good it is to be here, how good. … Viktor, come along, into the warmth … you don’t mind, Dumbledore? Viktor has a slight head cold.”
Karkaroff beckoned forward one of his students. As the boy passed, Harry caught a glimpse of a prominent curved nose and thick black eyebrows. He didn’t need the punch on the arm Ron gave him, or the hiss in his ear, to recognize that profile.
“Harry — it’s Krum!”
“Huh. Didn't know he was a student still,” Harry said.
“Me neither! Oh my god, I need to get his autograph!”
Harry rolled his eyes. He'd gotten the impression, from Krum's usual behavior, that the boy didn't much care for his fame, either. But Harry didn't want to presume, so he didn't say anything.
Ron was far from the only person excited by Krum; girls and boys alike clamored for a look, bemoaned not having quills or parchment or even paper and pen on them, and other such silliness.
In the press of bodies on their way back into the castle, Harry ran into Antigone.
“Has it ever struck you as odd that the thing most people want most from celebrities is their signature?” he asked. “I mean, how do they sign checks if they're always giving out their signature? Surely someone could use the autograph to forge their signature on a check?”
“No idea. Maybe they use a different signature for autographs. Or, you know, they're famous, so who's going to accept a check in Krum's name if it's handed over by a 30 year old Chinese woman, or something of the sort?”
“Good points.”
“Have you ever given any autographs?”
“No. And I never will. If it bothers people, so what?”
“What if it's a small child suffering from cancer or dragon pox?”
“Maybe I would, then. Dunno for sure.”
They walked over to the Gryffindor table and sat down. Ron took care to sit on the side facing the doorway, because Krum and his fellow Durmstrang students were still gathered around it, apparently unsure about where they should sit. The students from Beauxbatons had chosen seats at the Ravenclaw table. They were looking around the Great Hall with glum expressions on their faces. Three of them were still clutching scarves and shawls around their heads.
“It’s not that cold,” said Hermione defensively. “Why didn’t they bring cloaks?”
“They might not need cloaks where they're from," Harry said.
“Over here! Come and sit over here!” Ron hissed. “Over here! Hermione, budge up, make a space —”
“What?”
“Too late,” said Ron bitterly.
Viktor Krum and his fellow Durmstrang students had settled themselves at the Slytherin table. Harry could see Krum talking with Draco and his new entourage.
“Oh well. At least he went to Draco and avoided Theodore Knott,” Ron said.
“Where d’you reckon they’re going to sleep? We could offer him a space in our dormitory, Harry … I wouldn’t mind giving him my bed, I could kip on a camp bed.”
Hermione snorted.
“They look a lot happier than the Beauxbatons lot,” said Harry.
The Durmstrang students were pulling off their heavy furs and looking up at the starry black ceiling with expressions of interest; a couple of them were picking up the golden plates and goblets and examining them, apparently impressed.
When everyone was seated, Dumbledore said, “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, ghosts and — most particularly — guests,” said Dumbledore, beaming around at the foreign students. “I have great pleasure in welcoming you all to Hogwarts. I hope and trust that your stay here will be both comfortable and enjoyable.”
One of the Beauxbatons girls still clutching a muffler around her head gave what was unmistakably a derisive laugh.
“No one’s making you stay!” Hermione whispered, bristling at her.
“The tournament will be officially opened at the end of the feast,” said Dumbledore. “I now invite you all to eat, drink, and make yourselves at home!”
He sat down, and Harry saw Karkaroff lean forward at once and engage him in conversation.
The plates in front of them filled with food as usual. The house-elves in the kitchen seemed to have pulled out all the stops; there was a greater variety of dishes in front of them than Harry had ever seen, including several that were definitely foreign. Harry tried some of them out of curiosity, but Ron avoided them, and even moved them to where the Beauxbatons boys and girls could see them.
Hagrid showed up late, because he'd had some issue with the skrewts, and Ron's gambit paid off, for a girl with long, silvery hair came over to ask for the bouillabaisse. Ron gaped like an idiot at her, and Harry took over for him, passing her the soup. She took it carefully over to the Ravenclaw table. Harry laughed at Ron, which snapped him out of it.
“She’s a veela!” he said hoarsely to Harry.
“Of course she isn’t!” said Hermione tartly. “I don’t see anyone else gaping at her like an idiot!”
But she wasn’t entirely right about that. As the girl crossed the Hall, many boys’ heads turned, and some of them seemed to have become temporarily speechless, just like Ron. Even some of the girls were staring at her in much the same way.
“I’m telling you, that’s not a normal girl!” said Ron, leaning sideways so he could keep a clear view of her. “They don’t make them like that at Hogwarts!”
“They make them okay at Hogwarts,” said Harry without thinking. Luna happened to be sitting next to the girl Ron had been goggling at, and was talking with her. Harry laughed at the perplexed expression on the French girl's face as Luna talked.
“When you’ve both put your eyes back in,” said Hermione briskly, “you’ll be able to see who’s just arrived.”
She was pointing up at the staff table. The two remaining empty seats had just been filled. Ludo Bagman was now sitting on Professor Karkaroff’s other side, while Ms. Selby, Percy’s boss, was next to Madame Maxime.
Eventually, the feast ended and Dumbledore began to speak. He introduced the judges, and then Filch brought in a 'casket' – a wooden chest encrusted with jewels. Harry wondered briefly if the one who chose the Champion was a zombie, but then he looked closer; if it was a zombie in there, it was the zombie of a toddler, for the casket was rather small.
“The instructions for the tasks the champions will face this year have already been examined by Ms. Selby and Mr. Bagman,” said Dumbledore as Filch placed the chest carefully on the table before him, “and they have made the necessary arrangements for each challenge. There will be three tasks, spaced throughout the school year, and they will test the champions in many different ways … their magical prowess — their daring — their powers of deduction — and, of course, their ability to cope with danger.”
At this last word, the Hall was filled with a silence so absolute that nobody seemed to be breathing.
“As you know, three champions compete in the tournament,” Dumbledore went on calmly, “one from each of the participating schools. They will be marked on how well they perform each of the Tournament tasks and the champion with the highest total after task three will win the Triwizard Cup. The champions will be chosen by an impartial selector: the Goblet of Fire.”
Dumbledore now took out his wand and tapped three times upon the top of the casket. The lid creaked slowly open. Dumbledore reached inside it and pulled out a large, roughly hewn wooden cup. It would have been entirely unremarkable had it not been full to the brim with dancing blue-white flames.
Dumbledore closed the casket and placed the goblet carefully on top of it, where it would be clearly visible to everyone in the Hall.
“Anybody wishing to submit themselves as champion must write their name and school clearly upon a slip of parchment and drop it into the goblet,” said Dumbledore. “Aspiring champions have twenty-four hours in which to put their names forward. Tomorrow night, Halloween, the goblet will return the names of the three it has judged most worthy to represent their schools. The goblet will be placed in the entrance hall tonight, where it will be freely accessible to all those wishing to compete.
“To ensure that no underage student yields to temptation,” said Dumbledore, “I will be drawing an Age Line around the Goblet of Fire once it has been placed in the entrance hall. Nobody under the age of seventeen will be able to cross this line.
“Finally, I wish to impress upon any of you wishing to compete that this tournament is not to be entered into lightly. Once a champion has been selected by the Goblet of Fire, he or she is obliged to see the tournament through to the end. The placing of your name in the goblet constitutes a binding, magical contract. There can be no change of heart once you have become a champion. Please be very sure, therefore, that you are wholeheartedly prepared to play before you drop your name into the goblet. Now, I think it is time for bed. Good night to you all.”
“An age line!” Fred Weasley said. “Well, an aging potion might work for that. Anyone else want us to put their names in if we can?”
“No way,” Harry said.
“But I don’t think anyone under seventeen will stand a chance,” said Hermione, “we just haven’t learned enough.”
“Speak for yourself,” said George shortly. “But Fred and I are a lot more clever than we appear to be.”
“Yes, but only one of you would be able to be Champion.”
Fred shrugged. “So what? We'll still be co-conspirators. Doesn't matter which of us gets made Champion, we'll both share in the glory.”
“And much more importantly, the gold. A thousand galleons! We'd be able to start our joke shop for sure, with that kind of money!”
Everyone started to get up, then, and they made their way to the doors. Karkaroff was talking with Krum and another student, then turned and led his students toward the doors, reaching them at exactly the same moment as Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Harry stopped to let him walk through first.
“Thank you,” said Karkaroff carelessly, glancing at him.
And then Karkaroff froze. He turned his head back to Harry and stared at him as though he couldn’t believe his eyes. Behind their headmaster, the students from Durmstrang came to a halt too. Karkaroff’s eyes moved slowly up Harry’s face and fixed upon his scar. The Durmstrang students were staring curiously at Harry too. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw comprehension dawn on a few of their faces. The boy Karkaroff had been talking to nudged the girl next to him and pointed openly at Harry’s forehead.
“Yeah, that’s Harry Potter,” said a growling voice from behind them.
Professor Karkaroff spun around. Mad-Eye Moody was standing there, leaning heavily on his staff, his magical eye glaring unblinkingly at the Durmstrang headmaster.
The color drained from Karkaroff’s face as Harry watched. A terrible look of mingled fury and fear came over him.
“You!” he said, staring at Moody as though unsure he was really seeing him.
“Me,” said Moody grimly. “And unless you’ve got anything to say to Potter, Karkaroff, you might want to move. You’re blocking the doorway.”
It was true; half the students in the Hall were now waiting behind them, looking over one another’s shoulders to see what was causing the holdup.
Without another word, Professor Karkaroff swept his students away with him. Moody watched him until he was out of sight, his magical eye fixed upon his back, a look of intense dislike upon his mutilated face.
As the next day was Saturday, most students would normally have breakfasted late. Harry, Ron, and Hermione, however, were not alone in rising much earlier than they usually did on weekends. When they went down into the entrance hall, they saw about twenty people milling around it, some of them eating toast, all examining the Goblet of Fire. Even Mouse-Stalker poked his head out of Harry's robes to look at it. It had been placed in the center of the hall on the stool that normally bore the Sorting Hat. A thin golden line had been traced on the floor, forming a circle ten feet around it in every direction.
“Anyone put their name in yet?” Ron asked a third-year girl eagerly.
“All the Durmstrang lot,” she replied. “But I haven’t seen anyone from Hogwarts yet.”
Someone laughed behind Harry. Turning, he saw Fred, George, and Lee Jordan hurrying down the staircase, all three of them looking extremely excited.
“Done it,” Fred said in a triumphant whisper to Harry, Ron, and Hermione. “Just taken it.”
“What?” said Ron.
“The Aging Potion, dung brains,” said Fred.
“One drop each,” said George, rubbing his hands together with glee. “We only need to be a few months older.”
“We’re going to split the thousand Galleons between the three of us if one of us wins,” said Lee, grinning broadly.
“I’m not sure this is going to work, you know,” said Hermione warningly “I’m sure Dumbledore will have thought of this.”
Fred, George, and Lee ignored her.
“Ready?” Fred said to the other two, quivering with excitement. “C’mon, then — I’ll go first —”
Harry watched, fascinated, as Fred pulled a slip of parchment out of his pocket bearing the words Fred Weasley — Hogwarts. Fred walked right up to the edge of the line and stood there, rocking on his toes like a diver preparing for a fifty-foot drop. Then, with the eyes of every person in the entrance hall upon him, he took a great breath and stepped over the line.
For a split second Harry thought it had worked — George certainly thought so, for he let out a yell of triumph and leapt after Fred — but next moment, there was a loud sizzling sound, and both twins were hurled out of the golden circle as though they had been thrown by an invisible shot-putter. They landed painfully, ten feet away on the cold stone floor, and to add insult to injury, there was a loud popping noise, and both of them sprouted identical long white beards. Neither of them had even gotten close enough to try putting their names in.
The entrance hall rang with laughter. Even Fred and George joined in, once they had gotten to their feet and taken a good look at each other’s beards.
“I did warn you,” said a deep, amused voice, and everyone turned to see Professor Dumbledore coming out of the Great Hall. He surveyed Fred and George, his eyes twinkling. “I suggest you both go up to Madam Pomfrey. She is already tending to Miss Fawcett, of Ravenclaw, and Mr. Summers, of Hufflepuff, both of whom decided to age themselves up a little too. Though I must say, neither of their beards is anything like as fine as yours.”
Fred and George set off for the hospital wing, accompanied by Lee, who was howling with laughter, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione, also chortling, went in to breakfast.
“Oh well,” Harry said. “At least they tried.”
As Harry went toward the Great Hall, he was stopped by an older Slytherin student, a boy, who handed him a pamphlet. “I heard from a mutual friend, Potter, that this might interest you. There's an Old Ways club in school, you're invited to join our Samhain ritual tonight. Sorry I didn't get this to you sooner.”
“Oh. Thanks. Um... is the invitation just to this ritual? Or to the club?”
“Both. If you're not interested in this ritual, and still want to join the club, I can invite you to the Imbolc ritual. There won't be a Yule ritual this year, because there's going to be a Yule Ball instead, thanks to this tournament. As to the Samhain ritual, that's tonight at midnight in the same wood where you do your own ritual. Oh don't look at me like that, Potter. Your spot in the woods leaves enough magical traces behind that we've run across it on our way to our rituals before. I didn't know whose spot it was until Draco clued me in. Anyway, the club gets special dispensation to be out after curfew for religious rites. And if you doubt my word, just ask McGonagall or any of the other teachers.”
“Hmm... well I was going to do my own ritual, but... I suppose if this one isn't enough for me, I could always do my own on November 1st.”
The older boy smiled. “That's the spirit, Potter. So I'll see you there?”
“Yes, I'll be there.”
“Great!”
“Hey, what's your name, by the way?”
“Oh sorry, I got excited and forgot that part. My name is Anton Selwyn.” He held his hand out. Harry shook it.
“Harry Potter.”
“Yes, I know.” Anton Selwyn said, smiling.
Harry shrugged. “It's in the script for the interaction we just had. I don't know how to go off-script in that instance.”
“Uh... okay,” Selwyn said, looking bemused. “Well anyway, for the Samhain ritual, we meet in the Great Hall beforehand. We leave the Great Hall at a quarter til midnight. Tonight, of course.”
“I'll be there.”
“Good. Draco and I will both be pleased. Some of your other friends might be there, too; Draco has been inviting some others. And since you're you, Potter, you can invite as many as three people along for the ritual, too. Your Slytherin friends are already invited, don't worry about that.”
“Oh. Thanks. Um... would it be a problem if I invited Hermione?”
Selwyn's eyes widened a little in surprise. “Well I hadn't been expecting that, Potter, but if she's interested, it shouldn't be a problem as long as she follows the rules: first, save questions for before the ritual or after, but once we've started, everyone is to be quiet unless their role in the ritual calls for speaking, or if those in charge of the ritual tell others to speak. Second, if the ritual gets too intense for you, get down on one knee and bow your head, this will be the sign, and the people in charge will let you out of the circle. Third, do what you're told during the ritual or you'll be let out of the circle and expected to leave. And fourth, be respectful to everyone at the ritual.”
“Huh. That's surprising. I was worried Hermione wouldn't be let in.”
“I understand your surprise. But the thing is, the reasons for the blood bigotry have largely changed over the centuries. At first it was distrust of Muggle-borns. Now it's mostly a mix of horrible lies about them and fear of our culture dying out. Which honestly, our culture is in danger of dying out if we don't accept Muggle-borns in, but try telling the worst of the blood bigots that. Those of us who think as I do, though, want to introduce Muggle-borns to our culture, to... convert them, I guess. And since Draco stopped believing his father, that turned the tide of the group in favor of Muggle-borns. Sure, she'll get some dirty looks from some people, but that'll be the most she gets if they want to keep being in the ritual.”
“Cool. I'll ask her, then. Thank you.”
“You're welcome, Potter. Oh by the way, don't forget your wand when you come.”
“Thanks,” Harry said.
They nodded to each other, and Selwyn left. Harry hurried to the Griffindor table to sit with Ron and Hermione for breakfast. They were already eating.
“What'd he want, mate?” Ron asked.
“He was inviting me to a Samhain ritual held by the school's Old Ways club.”
“Really, Harry? Oh that sounds so fascinating, a real group ritual with people who probably learned from their parents. I'm so jealous!”
Harry chuckled. “Don't worry, Hermione, I can invite up to three people, and my Slytherin friends were already invited. I already asked if I could invite you, and he said it was okay.”
Ron's eyes narrowed. “I think I've heard of that group, Harry. It's inter-House, but there's a lot more Slytherins in it than just about any House. Did that boy know Hermione's a Muggle-born?”
“Yes, Anton Selwyn knows she's Muggle-born.”
Harry told them about the rules Selwyn had given them, and what was expected of the others in the group as well, and Ron relaxed.
“Well that's good,” Ron had said. “And Antigone and the others will be there, too. Just take your wand with you just in case.”
“Selwyn told me to bring my wand. I gather it might be needed for the ritual.”
“Yes, and we'll be out in the woods at midnight,” Hermione said. “Not the Forbidden Forest, of course, but there could still be dangers.”
Harry piled food onto his plate and began to eat. “You know,” he said, thinking, “I might see if Luna wants to come along, too.”
“Listen!” said Hermione suddenly, before anyone could respond to Harry.
People were cheering out in the entrance hall. They all swiveled around in their seats and saw Angelina Johnson coming into the Hall, grinning in an embarrassed sort of way. A tall black girl who played Chaser on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, Angelina came over to them, sat down, and said, “Well, I’ve done it! Just put my name in!”
“You’re kidding!” said Ron, looking impressed.
“Are you seventeen, then?” asked Harry.
“ ’Course she is, can’t see a beard, can you?” said Ron.
“I had my birthday last week,” said Angelina.
“Well, I’m glad someone from Gryffindor’s entering,” said Hermione. “I really hope you get it, Angelina!”
“Thanks, Hermione,” said Angelina, smiling at her.
After breakfast, the three of them went down to Hagrid's hut. Hermione was telling them that she was thinking about starting a group, which she wanted to call Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to House Elves, and in her spare time she'd been writing out ideas for how to go about it, including talking to more house elves. She knew Netty, of course, and had spoken with her. But she wanted to be sure she was representing their best interests, so she needed to talk with as many as possible.
“I'd suggest Kreacher, but he's not too keen on Muggle-borns, last I knew,” Harry said.
They stopped talking then, because they were at Hagrid's hut. They knocked on his door, and when he finally opened it, they stood there staring at him, dumbstruck. He was wearing the fine suit Ms. Pennyroyal had bought him for his hearing about Buckbeak, and they could smell the frankly ridiculous amount of Muggle hair gel he'd put in his hair to tame it. His hair looked like he'd been trying for Draco's slicked-back look, but had given up halfway through the attempt.
Hermione, deciding not to comment on his appearance, said, “Erm — where are the skrewts?”
“Out by the pumpkin patch,” said Hagrid happily. “They’re gettin’ massive, mus’ be nearly three foot long now. On’y trouble is, they’ve started killin’ each other.”
“Oh no, really?” said Hermione, shooting a repressive look at Ron, who, staring at Hagrid’s odd hairstyle, had just opened his mouth to say something about it.
“Yeah,” said Hagrid sadly. “ ’S’ okay, though, I’ve got ’em in separate boxes now. Still got abou’ twenty.”
“Well, that’s lucky,” said Ron. Hagrid missed the sarcasm.
At Hagrid's, they talked about the Tournament, and Hagrid nearly ruined the surprise of the first task. They also talked about Harry's invite to the Samhain ritual.
They ended up having lunch with Hagrid, and the beef casserole Hagrid had made wasn't really beef, unless cows had started growing talons lately without Harry hearing about it, for Hermione found one in hers, which made the trio lose their appetites. However, they enjoyed themselves trying to make Hagrid tell them what the tasks in the tournament were going to be, speculating which of the entrants were likely to be selected as champions, and wondering whether Fred and George were beardless yet.
A light rain had started to fall by midafternoon; it was very cozy sitting by the fire, listening to the gentle patter of the drops on the window, watching Hagrid darning his socks and discussing SPCHE with Hermione.
“Good on yeh, Hermione, fer tryin' a help 'em out. Mos' these days are fine, a course, but evry once in a while yeh get some berk like Mr. Malfoy mistreatin' em. I wish yeh luck on that, hope yeh can get the laws changed.” Then he paused, thinking, and continued, “Ain't Sirius doin' somethin' long those lines at the Wizengamot?”
“Uh, yeah. I don't know how that's going, but--”
“You mean you didn't hear, mate?” Ron interrupted.
“Hear what?”
“Oh wait,” Ron said, thinking. “I guess I just found out about it myself yesterday.”
“WHAT?” Harry asked, louder.
“Oh, sorry. It's just, Dad wrote me yesterday and I forgot to mention it in the excitement over the Tournament starting. Sirius and Narcissa Malfoy are spearheading a move to get house elf protections in the laws.”
“Really? I wonder why Sirius didn't tell me.”
“Well, it's just in the early stages, I doubt the press even knows about it yet. Dad only found out about it because one of his contacts in the Wizengamot let him in on the rumors.”
“Mrs. Malfoy an' Sirius, workin' together on summat?” Hagrid got up and peered out his windows.
“What're you doing, Hagrid?”
“Oh nuthin, jes makin' sure the sky ain't fallin' down round our ears.”
The three of them laughed at this, Hagrid chuckling along too as he sat back down again.
“Anyway,” Harry said when the laughter stopped, “I kinda forgot to tell you, I think, that that was happening. We uh, made a deal with the Malfoys. Sirius and I, I mean. They'd help us with a few things, and we promised that if Voldemort ever came back, Sirius would put a Fidelius Charm on his house and Draco would stay with us, to keep him safe.”
The room went silent, so Harry looked up. They were all staring up at him.
“Well think about it,” he said. “Draco isn't going along with the pure-blood supremacy rubbish anymore, and they haven't been able to get him to stop it. He's their sole heir, they want to make sure he's safe, even if they disagree with him.”
Ron frowned. “No offense, Harry, but Draco doesn't exactly strike me as brave. What if he pulls a Pettigrew, betrays you?”
“Or gets Imperiused!” Hermione said.
“I'll take that chance. After all, it could happen with either of you, or my other friends.”
The three of them were staring at him open-mouthed.
“Don't look at me like that, you know it could. I don't think any of you would betray me willingly, but I'm not discounting the possibility completely. I'm more paranoid than my dad was, I have less reason than he did to trust people. If he'd had my healthy amount of paranoia, he and mum might still be alive. They weren't holding their wands when he killed them. They'd gotten careless, trusting too much in the Fidelius Charm and their secret-keeper.”
Now they were looking sad. He sighed.
“Listen, Ron, Hermione. I trust you two, Antigone, and Danzia with my life. Angela too. Draco hasn't quite proven himself fully, but I mostly trust him too. So it's not that I distrust you. It's just that, well, I'm leaving my mind open to the possibility I might be wrong about one or more of you, so I can keep an eye out for signs of betrayal – not that I'm probably terribly good at spotting such things – and not be totally taken off-guard if someone I trust betrays me. It's just... I guess what I'm saying is it's just me taking Moody's 'constant vigilance' advice to heart.”
“Oh,” said Hermione. “Well that makes sense, I suppose.”
Ron exhaled a sigh of relief. “Thanks for explaining it, mate. You had me worried for a minute there.”
“It's not just my friends, either. Something has happened every year for three years, so I'm watching all the adults and all the other students as well. I don't want to be taken by surprise.”
“Right, we get it mate,” Ron said. “Can we talk about something else now?”
At half-past five, it was getting dark, and Hagrid said he was going to take them back to the Great Hall to hear the announcement of the Champions, but then he got distracted by Madame Maxime, whom he seemed to fancy, walking with her instead. They went back to the castle by themselves instead, and caught sight of the Durmstrang students coming from their ship.
When they entered the candlelit Great Hall it was almost full. The Goblet of Fire had been moved; it was now standing in front of Dumbledore’s empty chair at the teachers’ table. Fred and George — clean-shaven again — seemed to have taken their disappointment fairly well.
“Hope it’s Angelina,” said Fred as Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat down.
“So do I!” said Hermione breathlessly. “Well, we’ll soon know!”
Harry put some earplugs in his ears. These didn't block out as much sound as his magical earmuffs did, but muffled the extra noise of the busier-than-usual Great Hall enough that it made being there bearable.
“Well I'm just glad I'm not eligible. Not that I'd be be trying out for it even if I were. Being in the crowd to watch is going to be hard enough as is, I don't even want to think about being a Champion.”
The Halloween feast seemed to take much longer than usual. Perhaps because it was their second feast in two days, Harry didn’t seem to fancy the extravagantly prepared food as much as he would have normally. Like everyone else in the Hall, judging by the constantly craning necks, the impatient expressions on every face, the fidgeting, and the standing up to see whether Dumbledore had finished eating yet, Harry simply wanted the plates to clear, and to hear who had been selected as champions.
They waited. Finally, the Goblet of Fire began deciding. With a sudden change of color to its flames from reddish to bluish, it spat out a singed piece of paper, and Viktor Krum became the Durmstrang Champion. People cheered as he left the room for the place the Champions were to wait for instructions, and they waited again. Another minute later, and the Goblet had picked Fleur Delacour – the girl Ron thought was a veela. Next was the Hogwarts Champion.
And the Goblet of Fire turned red once more; sparks showered out of it; the tongue of flame shot high into the air, and from its tip Dumbledore pulled the third piece of parchment.
“The Hogwarts champion,” he called, “is Cedric Diggory!”
“Damn!” Ron said, but only Harry could hear him; the Hufflepuffs were cheering too loudly and exuberantly.
“Good,” Harry said. “They deserve some glory.”
“Excellent!” Dumbledore called happily as at last the tumult died down. “Well, we now have our three champions. I am sure I can count upon all of you, including the remaining students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, to give your champions every ounce of support you can muster. By cheering your champion on, you will contribute in a very real —”
But Dumbledore suddenly stopped speaking, and it was apparent to everybody what had distracted him.
The fire in the goblet had just turned red again. Sparks were flying out of it. A long flame shot suddenly into the air, and borne upon it was another piece of parchment. He grabbed it out of habit and looked at it with more astonishment than Harry had ever seen on his face. There was a long pause as he continued staring at the name, before he spoke.
“Harry Potter.”
Endnotes: Some of the text about color in Professor Dreyfuss's lecture was lifted from this page:
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/ananda-triulzi/ancient... And there's more evidence of it here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2976405/Could... I know it's possibly a slight anachronism, as I don't know if people were aware of that fact before 2006, but if nothing else, the wizarding world might. (They might have more surviving ancient Greek texts, for one.)
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Four.
Or, "Autistic Potter and the Goblet of Fire."
Notes: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made. Not by me, anyway.
There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though, but there's a lot more in this one than usual because it was unavoidable. Still, lots of details are changed, so don't skip by familiar parts or you might miss something.
Just as a reminder, so I don't have to shoehorn in descriptions in the text of the story as a reminder, but in this fanfic Harry and Hermione, apart from having Asperger's Syndrome, are both black as well.
'Italicized text between single quotes is almost always Parseltongue.'
Note: Samhain is pronounced "saw-when."
Chapter 9: “No Way Out”
Harry sat there, aware that every head in the Great Hall had turned to look at him. He was stunned. He felt numb. He was surely having a nightmare. He had not heard correctly. His head felt fuzzy, his vision narrowing as the sides blacked out. It took him a few moments to realize he'd developed a spontaneous headache. Just a baby one at the moment, but he knew it would grow. He thought about taking a pain relief potion, but he couldn't get his body to move; he was frozen in place.
There was no applause. A buzzing, as though of angry bees, was starting to fill the Hall; some students were standing up to get a better look at Harry as he sat, frozen, in his seat.
Up at the top table, Professor McGonagall had got to her feet and swept past Ludo Bagman and Professor Karkaroff to whisper urgently to Professor Dumbledore, who bent his ear toward her, frowning slightly.
Harry turned to Ron and Hermione; beyond them, he saw the long Gryffindor table all watching him, open-mouthed. He tried to speak, and found he'd gone mute. Well, that was hardly surprising. He pinched himself instead, managing to yelp with pain. So he was awake after all. He started to hyperventilate, and his heart in his chest began beating faster than felt healthy or safe. He broke into a cold sweat and was shaking and dizzy, light-headed. Harry clung to the table for support, but found he was too weak to hold himself up, and was sliding out of his chair.
His vision had narrowed so badly that he could only see a narrow strip in front of him, and that was very blurry, even though he could still feel his glasses on his head.
Hermione looked at Harry as soon as her own shock wore off enough to move, and saw he looked very ill. He was sweating, breathing shallowly, and falling out of his seat, clutching his chest. For a moment she worried he was having a heart attack, but he was so young that another more likely possibility came to mind. Remembering something she'd read in one of her parents' medical books over the summer after she'd told her mother about her DADA test the week before, Hermione was the first to speak.
“He's having a panic attack! Stay back! Don't touch him, you'll just make him worse!”
Hermione got up and used her wand to push people away from Harry, and Silenced the area around him. Harry had fallen out of his chair entirely.
Popping her head into the area where she knew he'd be able to hear her, she said, “Harry? Harry, breathe. Try to breathe. Big, deep breaths. Oh, what did the book say? Right. I know what to do.”
Getting Harry's attention, she started to ask him to think about the maths they'd been doing in arithmancy lately. Harry didn't respond at first, but as she kept it up with a gentle tone of voice, his eyes turned toward her, and his expression looked thoughtful. He was trying, but people kept crowding around the invisible bubble she'd made with her wand, so his eyes kept falling on them, making him slip back into panic.
Taking her wand out again, she cast a blindfold over his eyes and levitated him toward the door. She wished she knew a way to hide him from everyone's eyes, but she didn't. Luckily, though, Antigone came running up and cast some sort of spell on him that turned the image of Harry into a blurry, shapeless blob.
“Thanks, Antigone.”
“Miss Granger,” Dumbledore said, not touching her but freezing her with his voice.
“I need to take Harry somewhere quiet to calm down,” she said, sounding on the
“Harry needs to go back with the other Champions.”
“NO,” she snapped angrily at him, making everyone in earshot gasp. “I've read about panic attacks, he needs a quiet place to calm down before he can do anything else. You can't die of a panic attack, I don't think, but they can make people feel like they're dying. So I'm very sorry, Professor Dumbledore, but I'm taking him out of here.”
Dumbledore sighed. “Alright then, Miss Granger. I shall go explain to the other Champions what has happened.”
She ignored him, and continued moving Harry out of the room, glaring so vociferously at anyone in her way that she looked like she might use accidental magic to hex them while her wand was occupied. It struck her that it really was quite inconvenient that she only had one wand. She'd have to see about getting a spare when she could.
“Over here, Hermione,” Antigone said. “This room ought to work.”
It was one of the unused classrooms. She took Harry in, set him down in a corner, and closed and locked the door behind her, warding it with every spell she'd learned from books and from the older Slytherin girls. She then cast a dispel on Antigone's blurring spell, and sat across from Harry, using a conjured parchment and quill to try to distract him with maths. She would have preferred wizard chess or checkers or something like that, but she didn't have any of that on her, so maths it was.
It took a long time to begin working, and longer to really get working. But slowly, as Harry's mind focused on the maths, he began to calm down. His breathing eventually returned to normal, his face looked more relaxed, and he began to slowly get the color back in his face. She kept it up anyway; the books had said to keep the panic attack sufferer distracted until they were thoroughly bored.
It took over an hour for Harry to get to that point. Only then did she risk talking with him about what happened next.
“Dumbledore said you have to go meet with the other Champions. Do you feel up to that yet?”
Harry took a bracing breath, and nodded. “I think so. I just... I hadn't been expecting this.”
“I don't think any of us did. Even Dumbledore looked astonished.”
“Where are we supposed to go, anyway?”
“No idea. I can go find out for you.”
“Okay. And find if there's a way there that I can use to hide from everyone.”
“Right.”
Hermione undid the wards on the door and opened it, seeing Sirius pacing in front of the door. He stopped and turned when he heard the door open.
“Sirius, stay back. He's okay for now, but it's possible to trigger him again if you're not careful.”
“Right. Okay, Hermione, I'll trust your judgment. At least I know he's okay.”
“Do you know where he's supposed to go?”
“Yes, only I'm not sure I'd recommend it, after what you said. Karkaroff is livid, in the middle of a shouting match with Moody and Maxime. Dumbledore has been trying to calm them down. I tried listening to some of it but I had to come here instead, once Antigone told me where you were. She's been keeping me updated.”
“I'm better now, Sirius. It was scary while it was happening, but I'm better now.”
“Have you ever had one of those 'panic attacks' before?” Sirius asked.
“Yes, but it was years and years ago. The Dursleys used to... but never mind. Point is, I trained myself out of them. I guess the last few years have made me out of practice.”
“So what's the verdict, Sirius?” Hermione asked. “He can't possibly be expected to compete, surely?”
“I have no idea. I hope he doesn't have to. I've already sent a message to Moony, Harry, and he's fetching your diagnosis papers and Ms. Pennyroyal. They should be here any minute, it's been nearly 40 minutes since then. Then we can get this sorted out. You've got a diagnosis that shows you can't compete in this bloody competition, that has to count for something. They wouldn't expect a quadriplegic to compete in a swimming contest, it's unfair of them to expect you to do this.”
“They might be able to make a case for it, though, Sirius,” Hermione said. “He fought You-Know-Who twice and survived.”
“Yes, but he had help, and he wasn't in front of a bloody crowd of over a thousand spectators when he was doing it, either.”
Professor McGonagall showed up then.
“Ah good, Potter, you look a little better. I'd take you to the Hospital Wing, but the headmaster insists you come with me to meet the other Champions, if you're up to it.”
“I think I can do that. Come, let's get this over with,” he said.
Harry swallowed a Calming Draught and let McGonagall lead the way. Hermione slapped her own forehead for not thinking of a Calming Draught. But clearly Harry hadn't thought of it himself either until now, or hadn't been capable of taking it.
When the four of them got to where they were going, McGonagall only let Harry and Sirius join her. Hermione stood outside the door while they went in and closed it. From the sound of it, unless they thought to ward the door, she'd be able to hear them.
When Harry went in, he saw Dumbledore, Moody, Karkaroff, Maxime, Mr. Bagman, Ms. Selby, and the other three Champions in the room. Snape was there as well. Now he and McGonagall had joined, the room was starting to get a little crowded.
“There he is, finally!” Karkaroff shouted. “We have been waiting for you for over an hour, you cheating scoundrel! What have you to say for yourself!”
“Quiet, Igor. I will handle this. Harry,” he said calmly, “did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire?”
“Are you kidding me? Of course I didn't. That panic attack wasn't enough to convince you lot of that?”
Dumbledore nodded. “And did you ask an older student to do it for you?”
“No, I did not,” he said vehemently.
“Ah, but of course ’e is lying!” cried Madame Maxime. Snape was now shaking his head, his lip curling.
“We have been over this, Madame Maxime,” Dumbledore said calmly, if with a touch of annoyance. “The age line worked as expected with Mr. Fred and George Weasley, they could not have gotten close enough to put their names in before they were pushed back and given beards. At no point did Mr. Potter come in with a beard, nor did any of his other friends, the Weasley twins excepted. And there were many witnesses to the attempt those two made.”
“'e could 'ave done eet when nobody was looking!” Madame Maxime protested.
“If he had, he would have a beard. Minerva, you asked Poppy about it, did you not? What did she say.”
“Mr. Potter hasn't been in the Hospital Wing all school year so far,” she said.
“Good.”
“That proves nothing!” Karkaroff spat.
The door opened suddenly, and the short, fat, and usually pleasant form of Ms. Pennyroyal came bustling in, a briefcase in her hand.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am Ms. Lilith Pennyroyal, solicitor for Mr. Harry Potter and his guardian, Mr. Sirius Black. And regardless of how this has happened, it cannot be allowed to continue.”
“Well, on that we can agree, Ms. Pennyroyal you said it was?” Karkaroff said.
“Yes. Now clearly, this young man was entered into this competition against his wishes, for he knows his own limitations and knows he cannot possibly compete. I have proof with me that he cannot be allowed to compete, for he is not emotionally equipped to handle the demands of this competition.”
She pulled out a copy of his diagnosis papers, a much thicker file than Harry remembered having seen before.
“What is this?” Karkaroff said, flicking through the papers. Ms. Pennyroyal was passing out copies to the others to look through as well.
“Mr. Potter here has been to see a Muggle psychiatrist and gotten a diagnosis of a mental and emotional condition that impairs his ability to cope with certain kinds of situations, such as social situations, especially those involving large numbers of people. He has been observed on many occasions becoming ill when forced to be around too many people. The stress of a competition such as this, performing in front of a thousand or more people, is too much for him to cope with and he cannot be allowed to compete, for his own mental and physical health and well-being, as evidenced by the file I have given you all copies of.”
“I don't claim to understand this Muggle rubbish, Ms. Pennyroyal,” Karkaroff said, “but if it means we agree, then I will say no more of it.”
“'ere 'ere,” Madame Maxime said.
“I'm sorry to have to contradict you, Ms. Pennyroyal,” Ms. Selby said. “If I could agree, I would; this should not be permitted. But the Goblet of Fire is older than our laws; his name was entered into the Goblet, it came out of said Goblet, therefore he is obliged to compete under penalty of his magic being stripped from him.”
“He was entered against his will,” she countered.
“That doesn't matter,” Ms. Selby said. “His name came out, the geas says he must compete.”
She glared at Ms. Selby. “If the Goblet of Fire was so poorly made that it could be tricked into putting in the name of someone who has no desire to compete, then I move we destroy the accursed thing and find some other way to pick Triwizard Tournament Champions in the future.” Harry noticed Bagman gaping at her like an idiot.
“There will BE no more Triwizard Tournament after this outrage,” Karkaroff shouted, “for Durmstrang will not be competing again!”
“Professor Karkaroff, there have been so many centuries between now and the last time the Tournament was played, that it may well happen again in a century or two, under different headmasters.”
“Destroy the Goblet of Fire? It's a priceless artifact!” Bagman shouted.
“We do not even know if that would work,” Ms. Selby said. She looked sympathetic. “We cannot risk the life of the savior of the wizarding world on something we don't even know will work.”
Ms. Pennyroyal snorted. “'Savior of the wizarding world' indeed. He survived the Killing Curse, which makes him famous, but the so-called 'Lord' Voldemort has never been strong enough to be a real threat outside of Britain. The rest of the world has had many dark lords and dark ladies far more formidable than him and his Death Eaters, so calling Mr. Potter the savior of the wizarding world is to forget that there exists a wizarding world outside the bounds of the United Kingdom.
“And anyway,” she continued, “by your own admission he wouldn't lose his life, just his magic.”
“Lilith! Are you hearing yourself?” McGonagall asked. “With all the people after him, who want him dead? Losing his magic would be as good as losing his life!”
“I doubt that, Minerva,” Ms. Pennyroyal countered. “Without his magic, he's no longer a threat to Voldemort, they'd have no reason to go after him. They might capture him and parade him around a bit, but there'd be no reason to kill him. But I do agree that I'd rather he not lose his magic. It would be a terrible waste of potential. That's why I suggested destroying the Goblet of Fire. The worst that can happen if we do is he lose his magic before the Goblet dies.”
“And what of us?” Fleur snapped. “Are we three, the rightful Champions, to risk losing our magic as well? I assure you, eef that 'appened, my family's solicitors would come down on you like an 'erd of angry dragons!”
“Yes!” Karkaroff agreed. “My star quidditch player, a squib? I will not hear of it! No, we are not destroying the Goblet of Fire!”
Ms. Pennyroyal looked around at all their faces, then sighed. “You're right, legally we can't risk you all for the sake of one teenager. But surely there must be some way of getting him out of this?”
“Like I said,” Ms. Selby told her, “it is an old geas. He is bound to compete, and to try his best, or he loses his magic. Or he might die, even. The records aren't exactly clear on that point.”
“You should have led with that,” Ms. Pennyroyal said. “But the fact remains, he is not emotionally equipped to compete in this tournament. I hear he had a panic attack when he found out he'd been chosen.”
“Be that as it may, he must compete. However this happened, we are left with that fact.”
“ENOUGH,” Karkaroff exploded. “After all our meetings and negotiations and compromises, I little expected something of this nature to occur! I have half a mind to leave now!”
“Empty threat, Karkaroff,” growled a voice from near the door. “You can’t leave your champion now. He’s got to compete. They’ve all got to compete. Binding magical contract, like Dumbledore said. Convenient, eh?”
Moody limped from the door toward the fire, and with every right step he took, there was a loud clunk.
“Convenient?” said Karkaroff. “I’m afraid I don’t understand you, Moody.”
Harry could tell he was trying to sound disdainful, as though what Moody was saying was barely worth his notice, but his hands gave him away; they had balled themselves into fists.
“Don’t you?” said Moody quietly. “It’s very simple, Karkaroff. Someone put Potter’s name in that goblet knowing he’d have to compete if it came out.”
“Evidently, someone ’oo wished to give ’Ogwarts two bites at ze apple!” said Madame Maxime.
“I quite agree, Madame Maxime,” said Karkaroff, bowing to her. “I shall be lodging complaints with the Ministry of Magic and the International Confederation of Wizards —”
“If anyone’s got reason to complain, it’s Potter,” growled Moody, “but … funny thing … I don’t hear him saying a word. Though his solicitor has.”
“Why should ’e complain?” burst out Fleur Delacour, stamping her foot. “ ’E ’as ze chance to compete, ’asn’t ’e? We ’ave all been ’oping to be chosen for weeks and weeks! Ze honor for our schools! A thousand Galleons in prize money — zis is a chance many would die for!”
“Maybe someone’s hoping Potter is going to die for it,” said Moody, with the merest trace of a growl.
An extremely tense silence followed these words. Ludo Bagman, who was looking very anxious indeed, bounced nervously up and down on his feet and said, “Moody, old man … what a thing to say!”
“We all know Professor Moody considers the morning wasted if he hasn’t discovered six plots to murder him before lunchtime,” said Karkaroff loudly. “Apparently he is now teaching his students to fear assassination too. An odd quality in a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Dumbledore, but no doubt you had your reasons.”
“Moody's got a point,” Sirius said. “Champions have died before in this damned contest, we all know that. It's the reason the age was restricted to 17, to reduce the chances of deaths. Harry here has faced Voldemort twice now, I wouldn't be surprised if Voldemort or one of his cronies is trying to kill off my godson. Put his name in the Goblet, then if he gets killed during a Task, it looks like an accident. And there's a lot of Death Eaters in the government I know could pull off the skills needed to hoodwink the Cup like that.”
“Hoodwinked ze Goblet? Ah, what evidence is zere of zat?” said Madame Maxime, throwing up her huge hands.
“Isn't it obvious?” asked Moody. “That thing is old and powerful. It would have needed an exceptionally strong Confundus Charm to bamboozle that goblet into forgetting that only three schools compete in the tournament. I’m guessing they submitted Potter’s name under a fourth school, to make sure he was the only one in his category.”
“You seem to have given this a great deal of thought, Moody,” said Karkaroff coldly, “and a very ingenious theory it is — though of course, I heard you recently got it into your head that one of your birthday presents contained a cunningly disguised basilisk egg, and smashed it to pieces before realizing it was a carriage clock. So you’ll understand if we don’t take you entirely seriously.”
“There are those who’ll turn innocent occasions to their advantage,” Moody retorted in a menacing voice. “It’s my job to think the way Dark wizards do, Karkaroff — as you ought to remember.
“Alastor!” said Dumbledore warningly. Moody fell silent, though still surveying Karkaroff with satisfaction — Karkaroff’s face was burning.
How this situation arose, we do not know,” said Dumbledore, speaking to everyone gathered in the room. “It seems to me, however, that we have no choice but to accept it. Both Cedric and Harry have been chosen to compete in the Tournament. This, therefore, they will do.”
“Ah, but Dumbly-dorr —”
“My dear Madame Maxime, if you have an alternative, I would be delighted to hear it.”
Dumbledore waited, but Madame Maxime did not speak, she merely glared. She wasn’t the only one either. Snape looked furious; Karkaroff livid; Bagman, however, looked rather excited.
Sirius spoke, then. “Is there any way Harry can be allowed someone to help him get through this? Just for moral support? And he's going to need his coping tools. Calming Draughts, his sunglasses, pain relief potions---”
“He cannot be allowed to cheat!” Karkaroff shouted. “Hasn't he done enough already?”
“These aren't cheats,” Ms. Pennyroyal said. She looked at Harry. “Harry, are those earplugs in your ears?”
“Yes.”
“How long have they been there today?”
“Since before going to the feast. It was so noisy with the extra people the night before, I needed them to prevent a headache. Got one anyway from the panic attack, but it's a dull ache now.”
“You get headaches from that sort of noise?”
“Yes.”
“How bad are these headaches?”
“If I don't take the potion in time, they become migraines very quickly. Not sure why this one hasn't yet, in fact; I didn't take a pain relief potion for it yet.”
“You see, Karkaroff, Maxime,” she said. “A few dozen extra students in the Great Hall and he needs ear plugs and pain relief potion to cope with that. He's going to need his coping tools if he's going to have any chance of getting through this Tournament.”
Karkaroff said nothing. Dumbledore spoke instead.
“Lilith, what all does Harry need?”
“Harry?” she asked him. “What do you need?”
“Bare minimum, based on what I needed to cope with the Quidditch World Cup--”
“You went to the World Cup but expect us to believe you need all this--”
“Igor,” Dumbledore said warningly, cutting the man off.
“As I was saying, what I needed to cope with the World Cup was sound-blocking earmuffs, my sunglasses, pain-relief potion, Calming Draught in case I'm getting near a panic attack or jump right into one like today. Let's see, what else? Oh, this,” he said, holding up the dragon-skin bracelet.
“It's... well, it's an emotional comfort object. Calms me down. And then there's this,” he said, showing them the necklace Luna had given him.
Ms. Selby held her hand out. “May I check those objects to see what they are?”
Harry looked to Sirius, who didn't object, so Harry nodded and handed him the objects. Selby scanned them with her wand.
“A simple metal bracelet covered in dragon skin,” she said, handing it back to Harry. “And... some sort of magical artifact.”
Harry explained briefly what it did.
“It was given to me by my friend Luna Lovegood. Each stone plays a different tone. Here, this one supposedly chases away Scrabjabbles, whatever those are,” he said, pressing the green gem. Airy, tinkling music came from the necklace. “I find it soothing.”
Everyone who didn't already know about it stared at him, except for Dumbledore, who smiled, and Snape, who sighed and shook his head slightly.
“And this stone, well... it does this.”
Pressing the purple stone, it made a noise like rock grinding against rock.
“You don't want to hear the red stone, trust me on that. It makes a horrible ruckus. That just leaves the blue one. Only animals can hear that one. Well, I can hear it faintly, but most humans can't hear it. Not even animagi.”
Harry pressed on the blue stone. There weren't any animals in range, at least none he could hear reacting to it.
“The animal one, if it really works, could be used to unfair advantage.”
Harry shrugged. “I can leave it in my room before the Tasks. It's the only thing I can manage without. Well, I could most likely manage without the bracelet, but somehow I doubt that one's gonna get shot down.”
“But the rest you truly need?” Ms. Pennyroyal asked.
“Yes. The potions, the sunglasses, and the earmuffs are non-negotiable. I won't be able to even enter the ring, or whatever you call the competition area, without those. I'd probably have a panic attack without the Calming Draughts, I'd be blinded with pain if I tried to function with a migraine in the middle of a Task, and I sometimes get those even with the earmuffs and sunglasses.”
The adults who were directly involved with the Tournament talked it over for fifteen minutes in the corner with silencing wards up. When they were done, they came out. Karkaroff and Maxime looked annoyed. Ms. Selby handed Harry's necklace back to him, but Sirius intercepted it and scanned it with his wand first, Moody making a noise of agreement with this.
“We've talked it over, and you will be allowed your coping tools, sans the necklace. The Calming Draught is to be taken only if you're on the edge of a panic attack. Both potions will be given to you by Madam Pomfrey, you are not to take your own usual supplies into the Tasks. And your bracelet will be scanned before every Task to ensure it remains at its current level of mundanity,” Ms. Selby said.
“You will also be allowed one companion, who will be in charge of judging your coping level and helping you recover mentally if you are unable to cope, or pull you out of the Task if you are unable to recover to complete the Task. This companion will not be allowed to use their wand to help you, and their wand will be confiscated before the start of the Task and only returned when the Task is complete.
“They will also, during the Tasks, only be allowed to talk to you enough to inquire about your state of mind and anything you need related to your state of mind, if it does not also relate to gaining an unfair advantage in the competition. There will be a spell put on you both to monitor your words during the Tasks; only the judges will be able to hear these exchanges. If the judges agree that something said gave you an unfair advantage in the Task, you will lose points equal to the amount of help received. If the judges agree that your companion managed to use wandless magic to give you an unfair advantage in the Task, that will also count against your points.
“Standard rules apply as well; teachers or other school or Ministry staff will not be allowed to help you at any point during the Tournament, except of course librarians, and then only in the context of their usual duties.”
Harry raised an eyebrow. Ms. Pince barely liked to help kids at all, she wouldn't give him more help than she absolutely had to.
“Do you agree to these terms?” Ms. Selby asked.
Harry turned to Ms. Pennyroyal, who nodded.
“Yes, Ms. Selby, I agree to those terms.”
“Who do you choose for your companion?”
“Sirius? Do you want to do it?”
“I don't like not having my wand. But I guess with everyone watching, nobody would be fool enough to attack you in the open. So yes, Harry, I'll be your companion for the Tasks. If there are no objections.”
“Do you think you'll be able to resist the urge to help him win, Black?” Snape said, sneering.
“Even if I can't, Snivelus, better he try his best, fail completely, and get out alive than the alternative.”
Snape had nothing to say to this. He settled for more sneering.
“Do you accept the terms, Mr. Black?”
“Yes, I accept your terms.”
“Even though you are training to be an Auror, are thus a Ministry employee in training, and are thus bound to abide by the rule to not help any of the Champions to cheat, even between Tasks?”
Sirius's face fell a little at this, but then he looked determined. “Yes, I still accept the terms of being Harry's companion during the Triwizard tasks.”
Ms. Selby nodded. “Good. This is all highly irregular, but if you break your word and Mr. Potter fails completely, I daresay the others would be somewhat mollified.”
“Well, shall we crack on, then?” Bagman said, rubbing his hands together and smiling around the room. “Got to give our champions their instructions, haven’t we? Caroline, want to do the honors?”
“Yes, yes, fine,” Ms. Selby said. She looked like the day had been wearing hard on her, but she soldiered on.
“The first task is designed to test your daring,” she told Harry, Cedric, Fleur, and Viktor, “so we are not going to be telling you what it is. Courage in the face of the unknown is an important quality in a wizard … very important.
“The first task will take place on November the twenty-fourth, in front of the other students and the panel of judges.
“The champions are not permitted to ask for or accept help of any kind from their teachers or Ministry staff to complete the tasks in the tournament. The champions will face the first challenge armed only with their wands. They will receive information about the second task when the first is over. Owing to the demanding and time-consuming nature of the tournament, the champions are exempted from end-of-year tests.”
Ms. Selby turned to look at Dumbledore.
“I think that’s all, is it, Albus?”
“I think so,” said Dumbledore, who was looking at her with mild concern. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to stay at Hogwarts tonight, Caroline?”
“No, Dumbledore, I should get back to the Ministry,” said Ms. Selby. “It's a very busy, very difficult time at the moment. I’ve left young Percy Weasley in charge. Very enthusiastic; a little over-enthusiastic, if truth be told.”
Dumbledore tried again, but Ms. Selby refused. Nobody else seemed interested in a nightcap either, except for Ludo Bagman. Maxime and Karkaroff were already leaving.
“Harry, Cedric, I suggest you go up to bed,” said Dumbledore, smiling at both of them. “I am sure Gryffindor and Hufflepuff are waiting to celebrate with you, and it would be a shame to deprive them of this excellent excuse to make a great deal of mess and noise.”
Harry groaned and pulled out his earmuffs. “I wish I could turn into a mouse or a lizard or something small to avoid the others.”
“Do you want any help fending off your well-meaning if misguided fans?”
“Yes please.”
Harry glanced at Sirius, who nodded, and they left together. Hermione was there, too, but she didn't speak except to say his name in a sympathetic way. Harry supposed she was waiting until later, when Cedric wasn't there; he was currently tagging along at Harry's other side.
The Great Hall was otherwise deserted now; the candles had burned low, giving the jagged smiles of the pumpkins an eerie, flickering quality.
“So, we're playing against each other,” Cedric said.
“I s’pose,” said Harry. He really couldn’t think of anything to say. The inside of his head seemed to be in complete disarray, as though his brain had been ransacked.
“So tell me,” Cedric whispered, “how did you get your name in that goblet?”
Harry stopped walking, making the others stop short. Harry was glaring at Cedric, his fists clenched, his teeth grinding. The first thing that came to his mind to say was shot down by a part of his mind that told him Cedric hadn't been there to witness his panic attack. He wondered if it would have made a difference.
“Harry?” Sirius asked, concerned.
Hermione was looking from him to Cedric; Cedric had spoken softly enough Harry didn't think she'd heard him, because she looked confused. Harry wanted to tell them both what was going on, but he was so angry he couldn't speak. Nothing he could think of to say was good enough. He'd been through an hour, more or less, of Hell even before being in there with all those other people arguing back and forth, and he thought the only thing that could get his point across, really, was to make Cedric feel as he'd felt, but since he didn't know how to do that, he could only stew in his anger.
“If you believe I would put my name in that bloody goblet, Cedric, then you are just... SO completely stupid!” he shouted at Cedric, who recoiled in alarm. “I would no more have put my name in that bloody goblet than I would join the Death Eaters! If I find out you've been telling people that lie, I'll hex you so thoroughly it'll take them a week just to figure out who you are!”
He was about to storm away angrily, but Cedric shot back angrily, “They're all thinking it anyway, Potter! Don't hex me if they're all saying it. Even the other Griffindors will be thinking it! Because it's obviously the truth, no matter what Dumbledore thinks.”
Harry swung a fist at Cedric, he was so mad, but he missed; Hermione yelped in surprise.
“YOU WEREN'T THERE!” he yelled at Cedric. “You weren't there when my name came out of that goblet, you bloody berk! I couldn't breathe! My heart was going a thousand kilometers an hour! I felt like I was going to die, really truly die! I had cold sweats, my vision was blacking out, I was dizzy, and I couldn't bloody move! Hermione had to levitate me into an unused classroom to give me somewhere to calm down, and it took me over an hour! I wasn't making you all wait out of some stupid celebrity reason, I felt like I was having a bloody heart attack! So don't you go thinking you know what I'm like! You have no fucking idea what my life is like! All I've ever fucking wanted is peace and bloody quiet! I just wanted to watch this fucking thing like everyone else, be a normal damned kid for once! But gods-damned fucking Voldemort won't even fucking give me that much!
“So if you think I put my name in that fucking goblet, then you can just go to Hell! You and everyone else who thinks it!”
With that, he stormed off, not even knowing or caring if Sirius was with him. He was still in a seething rage when he got to Griffindor tower and barely noticed Hermione running along after him, trying to keep up.
Harry got a shock to find himself facing the Fat Lady already. He had barely noticed where his feet were carrying him. It was also a surprise to see that she was not alone in her frame. A pale, wizened witch he'd never seen before was now sitting smugly beside the Fat Lady. She must have dashed through every picture lining seven staircases to reach here before him. Both she and the Fat Lady were looking down at him with the keenest interest.
“Well, well, well,” said the Fat Lady, “Violet’s just told me everything. Who’s just been chosen as school champion, then?”
“Balderdash,” snapped Harry.
“It most certainly isn’t!” said the pale witch indignantly.
“No, no, Vi, it’s the password,” said the Fat Lady soothingly, and she swung forward on her hinges to let Harry into the common room.
The blast of noise that met Harry’s ears when the portrait opened almost knocked him backward. A dozen or more people tried to grab him, which he was not in the mood for. He whipped out his wand and threw a dozen harmless but effective jinxes at people so vociferously that it only took about 10 seconds for people to clear a path, letting him storm up to his bedroom.
To his great relief, he found Ron was lying on his bed in the otherwise empty dormitory, still fully dressed. He sat up when Harry slammed the door behind him. The door opened up again a moment later, and Hermione appeared, looking questioningly at Harry.
“Come on in, Hermione,” Harry said, a bit of an apology in his tone. She came in after him, closed the door, and locked it with a spell. She then sat cross-legged on the floor.
“Er... what happened, mate? If you don't mind saying.”
“What happened, in a nutshell, is that it took me an hour to calm down from a full-blown panic attack before I was able to join the other bloody Champions. Oh yeah, and I have to compete. Doesn't matter I didn't put my name in or have someone else do it for me. Apparently I could either die or lose my magic if I don't compete, Ms. Selby didn't seem all that sure. And then Cedric had the gall to ask me how I'd gotten my name in the goblet! I was so angry I tried to punch him and failed, so I settled for yelling at him about what a panic attack feels like, instead.”
Hermione nodded solemnly, confirming his story. “I heard it all through the door. They didn't bother warding it.”
“Damn. So you really have to compete?”
“Yes.”
“How're you gonna manage that?”
“Well, Ms. Pennyroyal was there. She tried getting me out of it, but failed, so she managed to get them all to agree to let me keep most of my coping tools. And Sirius is going to be there too. He won't be allowed to help beyond emotional support, but still, I might be able to get through this alive, with his help.”
“Wow. Hell of a day you had, mate.” Ron sighed. “The others were talking about how they thought you put your name in the Goblet, too. I tried talking some sense into them. I mean, that 'panic attack' thing... that was scary. Dunno how anyone could think you'd done it willingly after witnessing that.”
“Well, if you and Hermione are on my side, I can get through this. It can't be worse than second year. Wait, you are on my side on this, Hermione, right?”
“Of course I am, Harry.”
“I didn't really doubt it, but I didn't want to presume. Thanks.”
“Not a problem, Harry.”
“Yeah, and you'll have Luna, too,” Ron said. “And Sirius. Right?”
“Sirius, yes. Luna... I'm sure she'll believe me too.”
“What about Draco?”
“Hmm... he can get a bit jealous at times. I guess we'll find out later.” A pause, then Harry said, “You're not jealous?”
“I didn't say that, Harry. I am jealous. Extremely jealous. But I'd have to be a right idiot to let that get in the way of our friendship, especially after witnessing that panic attack of yours. You say you didn't put your name in that goblet, so I believe you.”
Harry smiled. “Thanks. I'm glad to hear it. Even if the rest of the school hates me for it, I've got my friends on my side.”
“Harry Potter!” came a voice from Harry's trunk. He opened it up and dug out the two-way mirror he used to communicate with Luna.
“Luna?” he said into the mirror.
“Oh good, there you are. I've been calling every fifteen minutes checking for you. How are you? You looked terrible tonight at dinner, after Dumbledore read out your name.”
“I'm better now, Luna. Thanks for thinking of me.”
“I waited for you outside the classroom until Dumbledore told me you would have to go back with the other Champions when you were better. He also told me to go back to my dorm. Very kindly, though. So I went back like he said, and started calling you then.”
“Thanks, Luna. I appreciate it. I'm okay now. Not fond of the idea of having to do this Tournament, but they're letting me use my coping tools, and letting me have Sirius with me as a mental health monitor. He's not allowed to help at all with the Tasks themselves, just to monitor my state of mind and help me get functioning if I start having another panic attack. But that's still a huge comfort.”
“Yeah, I heard it all through the door,” Hermione said, “and they'll be monitoring everything the both of them say with eavesdropping spells. During the Tasks, anyway. They can't monitor Harry and Sirius between Tasks.”
“Cool,” Ron said, smiling. “So maybe he can help you after all.”
“Ron! I don't think Harry should be cheating!”
“He'll be up against three much older, more experienced students though! The Tasks were probably designed with the age limit in mind, too. What if Harry can't do whatever he needs to do?”
“If worst comes to worst, and he's tried his best and failed, he'll lose that round of the Tournament but get to keep going. All that matters is we get him through this alive.”
“Fair point,” Ron said.
“You've got at least four Slytherin friends on your side, Harry,” Luna said. “Did any of the rules say other students were banned from helping?”
Harry looked thoughtful. “No. Just that teachers, school staff, and Ministry staff aren't allowed to help me or any of the other Champions.”
“Good. Then all your friends can help, including Hermione, whose help would be quite significant, I expect.”
Hermione nodded, then said aloud, “Yes, I'll help of course. Even if I was banned from helping, I'd find a way anyway. If rules get in the way of saving a friend's life, then the rules can go hang. Remember the polyjuice potion?”
“Excellent,” Luna said, her tiny face in the mirror smiling. “Eight heads are better than one. That's why nobody has ever caught the Ghanian hydra except for glimpses, they're too clever to be captured.”
The trio's heads turned toward Luna's voice. Harry smiled. By Luna's standards, that was very sensible and logical and realistic. Given hydras were in Muggle mythology alongside chimeras and dragons, Harry would have been surprised if hydras hadn't been real once, too, if they weren't still real.
“Well now we've settled that,” Harry said, “I'm tired. I've had a long, hard day, and I need to sleep.”
Hermione nodded and stood up, pausing to hug him first before leaving. Harry said goodbye to Luna, and got ready for bed. A few minutes later, he was laying in bed, Mouse-Stalker in his arms under the blankets, stroking the snake's scaly skin idly as he thought. The snake's presence made him realize he hadn't been carrying Mouse-Stalker around with him, but if someone was trying to kill him, maybe he should. He didn't think there was a rule against taking a familiar into classes, as long as it didn't disrupt class, but he'd have to ask Professor McGonagall to be sure. After an hour of troubled thoughts going through his head, he finally drifted off to sleep.
~ ~
When Harry woke up the next morning, it took him a moment to remember why he felt so worried. Then the memory of the night before came back to him, and he sighed. He had his friends, or at least Ron, Hermione, and Luna. He'd have to find out about the others today if he could.
Harry looked over into Ron's bed; Ron was still asleep. Harry decided to let him sleep in, and got up to go to breakfast. He considered Mouse-Stalker, too, but the snake was sleeping soundly in its enclosure after Harry had moved him there upon waking. The snake had slept through the whole process of moving.
Harry dressed and went down the spiral staircase into the common room. The moment he appeared, the people who had already finished breakfast broke into applause again. The prospect of going down into the Great Hall and facing the rest of the Gryffindors, all treating him like some sort of hero, was not inviting; it was that, however, or stay here and allow himself to be cornered by the Creevey brothers, who were both beckoning frantically to him to join them. He walked resolutely over to the portrait hole, pushed it open, climbed out of it, and found himself face-to-face with Hermione, Antigone, Angela, and Danzia. It suddenly struck Harry, for no apparent reason, to realize that all but two of his friends were girls. He liked Neville, too, but he didn't really know Neville well enough to call him a friend yet.
“Hey there,” Danzia said. “We figured you'd want to be away from adoring fans and hissing enemies alike. Picnic breakfast?”
She was holding up a basket that was steaming faintly.
“It was Hermione's idea,” Danzia specified. “Well, she was thinking toast, and I was like, 'I know how to get to the kitchens, why not get him some sausages and scrambled eggs as well? Oh and there's some fresh fruit in here, too. A well-balanced breakfast.”
“Thanks, girls,” he said, smiling. “Where should we go?”
“Would it be presumptuous to have you lead us to your special boulder in the forest?” Antigone asked.
“Not enough room there for five people,” Harry said.
Luna appeared then, looking like she'd wandered in by accident. “I know a lovely place for six people, if you're up to it.”
“Sure, Luna, that sounds good.”
“Is Ron still asleep?” Danzia asked. “Hermione says he took it well. He might want to join us. If there's room?” she asked Luna. Luna nodded serenely.
“I'll go check,” Harry said.
“I'll fend off the Creevy brothers for you,” Hermione said.
A few minutes later, Ron was dressed and coming along with them. He still wasn't entirely comfortable with Luna, even after all this time, but he'd gotten good at keeping it to himself. So the seven of them followed Luna out to a spot by the lake that had some tree cover and plenty of space to sit down on the ground.
“Where's Draco?” Harry finally asked Danzia.
“Probably either asleep or at breakfast,” she responded.
“Do you happen to know his take on last night's events?”
“Not really, sorry. He was in the room when we were all talking about it, but he didn't say anything. He's hard to read, he's got the pureblood Slytherin 'don't let on much' face down pretty good. Not as good as our illustrious head of House, but pretty good.”
“Right,” Harry said, trying not to worry. He didn't know Draco's casual, amongst-other-Slytherins behavior well at all, so he couldn't begin to guess at Draco's mood from what Danzia had said.
“That's actually a good sign,” Antigone said. “Well, kinda. If he had an opinion one way or another on the topic, he wouldn't have hesitated to let it be known. I think he might be waiting for your side of the story. Which would mean he's giving you the benefit of the doubt. So, not a great sign, but not bad either.”
“Is he jealous?” He served himself some sausage and eggs.
She shrugged, grabbing a piece of toast and an apple. “Probably. Enough for it to be a problem? Probably not. I guess we'll find out later. You want one of us to send him your way?”
“Yes, please. He's one of only two bloke friends I have.”
She chuckled. “Alright then, we'll send him your way later. Library?”
“Sounds good.”
Since the Slytherins hadn't actually heard anything of what happened after Harry's panic attack, they listened as Ron and Hermione and Luna told them the story for him so he wouldn't have to repeat it again.
“Wow. Sucks you were entered against your will, even worse that you have to compete,” Danzia said between bites of sausage. “But at least you'll have your coping tools and Sirius. And us to help you between Tasks.”
“We figured you'd been entered against your will,” Antigone said. “Knew that you didn't want to be in the Tournament, didn't have the temperament for it. Which the panic attack proved for us.”
“That must've sucked,” Danzia said. “Sure looked like it sucked.”
“That's putting it lightly,” Harry said.
“Did you and Sirius get a chance to talk about it yet?”
“Oh damn, no we didn't. I ran off after the fight with Cedric. I'll call Sirius on the mirror later if I don't see him before then.”
“Yes, do that,” Hermione said. “The Tournament hasn't truly started yet, you can still talk until the First Task without having to worry about cheating. And he might have some ideas about how to fend off the Daily Prophet.”
Harry went a paler brown and looked up at Hermione. “The Daily Prophet?”
“Well yes. This Tournament is famous, and you're famous. You and Sirius should talk with Ms. Pennyroyal about how to deal with the press.”
“The press. Great. Lovely. Just what I need.”
“You might also talk to Draco about the press, if he's on your side. His father is famous, at least within the UK anyway. Or infamous as the case may be. Point is, Draco might be able to help. Possibly.”
“I'll keep it in mind.”
“Hey,” Danzia said. “What'd they say about the First Task again?”
“It's supposed to test our daring, so they won't tell us what it is.”
“Could be anything, then. But you know, I've read all about the Tournament,” Danzia continued. “Once I knew it was happening, anyway. I'm guessing the First Task is gonna involve getting past a creature. Probably something big and showy, since they haven't had the Tournament in a long time.”
“Oh, like the cockatrice I read about?” Hermione asked.
“That's a possibility, but they're kinda small. Let's see, big and showy... they could probably get creatures from all over the world, too. So... sphinx is a possibility, they're pretty big. Though they just ask riddles, so doesn't really fit the 'showy' category.”
“What about a snallygaster?” Angela asked.
“What's a snallygaster?” Ron asked.
“American magical creature. Like a cross between a bird and a dragon.”
“Yeah but those are a lot smaller than dragons,” Danzia said. “They're dangerous, sure, but small. Not showy enough.”
“Heliopaths!” Luna exclaimed. “Harry, you should learn a fire-proofing spell.”
Ignoring Luna's weird suggestion, Ron said, “I'll bet it's dragons. That'd be big and showy for sure. Can't think of anything else big enough, in fact.”
“Well thunderbirds are pretty big,” Danzia said, “and changing the weather is showy. But I'm not sure how to make that into a Task. Dragons, though; that's easier. Best case scenario, just get past one. Worst case scenario, knock it out somehow in order to 'vanquish' it without hurting it for real.”
“Gods, I hope it's not dragons,” Harry said. “I'd even take a basilisk over dragons. At least with a basilisk, I'd be able to tell it to leave me alone.”
“It's not gonna be basilisks. The one you and Antigone fought was over 1000 years old, there's no way there's any more that big, or if there are, they're gonna be too hard to find. And even if they could be found, they're too dangerous for a Task.”
“Besides,” Antigone said, “dragons are probably too big and showy. It takes dozens of wizards to subdue a single dragon, I can't see how even 17 year old students would be able to get past one.”
“Cunning and trickery!” Danzia exclaimed. “If it's any kind of creature, Summon your invisibility cloak, walk right past it!”
“What if it can smell him?” Antigone asked.
“If so, then... okay, good point. Are there potions or salves that can hide a human scent?”
“No idea. But he could slather himself in mud.”
“Wouldn't that involve him getting like, naked? Or at least down to his skivvies? Not sure he'd be able to live that down, even if it would be entertaining to watch.”
“Hey!” Ron said. “I thought you were asectional?”
“Asexual. And that just means I don't look at people and go 'ooh la la I want to get in their pants!' Doesn't make a naked Harry any less funny to imagine.”
“I'll hold that idea in reserve,” Harry said. “My dignity isn't worth my life.”
“Anyway, if it's dragons, well... they're giant lizards. And people used to consider them giant snakes with legs. Maybe parseltongue will work with dragons.”
“I doubt it,” Ron said. “My brother Charlie works with dragons, he says they roar, growl, and shriek. He never mentioned hissing.”
“Well whatever it is, if its a creature, at least I have one plan,” Harry said. “Get naked, muddy, and invisible. I just hope mud will wash out of the invisibility cloak.”
That got a laugh out of everyone, Harry included, making him feel a little better about all this.
When they were done with breakfast, they all went their separate ways, Harry going to the library to wait for Draco, stopping to pick up Mouse-Stalker first. He was now in the library reading a book about the Triwizard Tournament to try to get ideas about what the First Task might be, Mouse-Stalker curled around Harry's shoulders. Ms. Pince had frowned at Harry and Mouse-Stalker when they'd come in, and snapped something about snake poop, but had let them in.
It was almost lunch before Draco showed up and stood in front of Harry.
“Hi Draco. Sit down.”
“Thank you, Harry, I would like that,” Draco said, and sat down across from Harry.
“So, uh... did the girls tell you what we told them?”
“Yes, they did. Honestly, I wasn't terribly surprised to hear you hadn't put your name in. I can't recall ever seeing you like that before. I thought you were really dying somehow, but Hermione seemed to think you'd recover if you could just get calmed down, and between that and the words 'panic attack,' I trusted her judgment. I didn't really know what a panic attack was, but I made a guess based on context that you were beyond even 'freaking out.'”
“I'm relieved to hear you're on my side, too.”
“I wasn't sure what to think after the panic attack, honestly. I thought you had put your name in somehow – I tried to put my own name in, of course – but then when the reality of it struck, you... well. But then I thought about it, and it started to sound ridiculous, didn't fit what I knew of you. The incident in Flourish and Blotts our second year stood out in my mind. And if you had found a way to put your name in, I didn't doubt you'd find a way to tell me, too.”
“Okay,” Harry said, not sure what else to say.
“So the story they told me made sense. Any ideas on who put your name in?”
“Nope. Sirius reckons a former Death Eater. Gives them motive and the skills to do it.”
“I see. Yes, that makes sense. In that case, Harry, you should know Karkaroff was a Death Eater. The ones in Azkaban aren't happy with him; he gave up a lot of names when he was captured, to get out of prison. This was after the dark lord fell, of course.”
“Okay... but what's his motive? I doubt Vol-- sorry, You-Know-Who would welcome him back after that.”
“Hmm... unless he was trying to make up for it by killing you. Father has been acting strangely all summer, rubbing his left arm a lot. Then making that deal with you and Sirius.”
“You know about that?”
Draco sneered. “Of course I do. Mother and Father left me home with the house elf so they could go somewhere together, after appearing to worry about the return of the dark lord, and arguing with me less, like they didn't have the time or energy to spare arguing with me, and were focusing on worrying about their sole heir, who had gone blood traitor.
“And if that wasn't enough to convince me they thought he was returning, I also heard about Mother and Sirius working together on protections for house elves, and I was around for one of mother's little soirées where she all too casually turned around her peers' thoughts on the issue. If Mother were a widow or divorced and changed her opinion like that, I'd believe she really felt that way and no longer had Father to overrule her. But since Father is still in the picture, clearly he agreed with her. And since he was the main one in the family who abused Dobby, I doubted he'd agree to that without the promise of something more important in return.
“Then I figured that if Mother were aligning herself with Sirius – who had been exiled from the family, though not disinherited – that she had made some deal with him. Since he lives in the old Black home, it wasn't difficult to figure out she wanted me to live there with you and Sirius if the dark lord ever comes back, probably under a Fideleus Charm. Since they're worried about that possibility... well, I had a hard time not freaking out when I figured that out. But it's what I would have done in their position. Thus, not surprised.”
“Wow. That's... you figured all that out on your own, just by watching and listening?”
“Yes. Unlike Crabbe and Goyle, I'm in Slytherin for a very good reason.”
“I'll say,” Harry said.
“Anyway, Harry, that actually brings me to my next point. If the dark lord is getting stronger, if he's about to rise, then it's likely Karkaroff is trying to get back in his good graces by getting you killed in this Tournament. If so, it's a horrible plan. The dark lord was – is – the vengeful sort. You spurned him in our first year, stopped him getting the Philosopher's Stone. He's not going to be happy about that. He'll want you dead, yes, but by his own hand.”
“Well according to Dumbledore, he can't. I'm protected by my mother's sacrifice. If he tries to kill me with magic, it'll rebound on him again.”
“Really? Well that's useful, and explains a lot. Especially since he wouldn't think to try killing you the Muggle way. Hmm... if he really wants you dead by his own hand, that's a significant hurdle to him killing you himself. He'd have to find some way around that. Though I suppose he could use magic to collapse a wall on you, crushing you under the stones.”
“Gee, thanks for that.”
Draco smirked. “You're welcome.”
After a few moments of silence, Draco spoke again. “So... I forgot to mention it earlier, but in light of you being a Champion now, I figured I ought to tell you that the reason we were told to bring dress robes this year is because there's a Yule Ball this year. And since you're a Champion, you'll be expected to attend. With a date.” Draco smirked again.
Harry stared agog at Draco, mouth gaping like a fish. “A date? You mean with a girl?”
“Or a boy, if you prefer.”
Harry's eyes narrowed at this. “Are you asking me out? Because--”
Draco snorted with laughter and burst out laughing, smacking his hand on the table as he did.
“Mr. Malfoy!” Ms. Pince snapped, “No laughter or hitting tables in the library! Don't make me kick you out!”
Draco stopped, still struggling to not laugh, and said, “Sorry, Ms. Pince.”
'The other human is making noise. Laughter, I think. Is he a friend?'
'Yes, Mouse-Stalker, Dragon is a friend.' Parseltongue didn't really have a better translation for Draco's name.
'Dragon? A noble name.'
Draco had stopped laughing, but was still struggling not to.
“So I take it this means you weren't asking me out?” Harry asked quietly, to appease Ms. Pince.
Draco shook his head, holding his mouth closed with his hand as he continued to fight laughter.
“Good, because I'm not into blokes.”
When Draco finally recovered from his struggle to not laugh, he said, “I'm flattered, of course, and if you did ask me out, I'd take you up on the offer even though I'm not into blokes either. It would be hilarious on the one hand, and score me social and political points on the other hand, what with you being both the Boy Who Lived and Triwizard Champion. Though it would be something of a minor scandal, too, the last scion of House Malfoy essentially declaring he's dating a boy. But the look on Ronald's face would be priceless.
“In fact,” he continued, “you should have Creevy bring his camera. You and I could dance just to get a rise out of people, and Creevy could take a picture of Ronald's face for posterity.”
“You're not... angry or indignant at the suggestion you might be gay?”
“Not at all. Why should I? I said it would only be a minor scandal, after all. Now if you and I got married, that would be a major scandal. Marriages, in pureblood society, are for producing children. Nobody cares if you don't love the person you married, nor if you only have one child together and then you go out and be a pouf the rest of your days. All that matters is producing a child, and raising it to adulthood. You know, fulfilling the terms of the contract.”
“Oh. This cultural divide is still something I'm getting used to. Where I was raised... oh boy. If I'd casually asked... oh gods... the Dursleys! Uncle Vernon would kill me!”
Draco chuckled quietly, but stopped when Harry shot him an angry and incredulous look.
“I'm not kidding around! If I had said something like 'are you asking me out?' to another boy where one of the Dursleys could hear, I'd be dead, unless Netty stepped in.”
“Sorry, I forgot Muggles can feel so strongly about something as random as who someone loves.”
“It's not your fault, I'm just a little scared. I mean, I should be fine. I'm not gay myself, I doubt there'd be much reason to bring it up. As long as... well, if I ever need to mention Angela and Antigone, I'd have to be careful to call them friends. Oh man, Uncle Vernon wouldn't like Antigone at all. He'd call her a foreigner, she's dating a girl, and then there's—uh, I mean... never mind.”
“The fact she was born a little different, you mean? Mislabeled at birth?”
“You know about that?”
“They're my friends, too, Harry. So yes, I know. It's another thing that isn't a big deal with wizards. I'm fairly certain she's been taking potions regularly for it. I'm not sure if she's gone through the blood alchemy rituals yet, but she's old enough to have done so already.”
“There's an age limit on that, is there?”
“Yes. But only because it's an unsafe procedure before you turn 15. Before 15, your magical core is generally not up to such a major change. It can go disastrously wrong. Anyway, as curious as I am about it, there's really no polite way to ask. It's not really anyone’s business but hers and Angela's, right now. And that's only if she and Angela are having sex yet. Which is another personal question I have no right to ask about. Not that I really want an answer, mind.”
Draco looked at Mouse-Stalker suddenly. “Harry, you haven't introduced me to your new familiar yet. We've been here two months now, and I'm only just now meeting them.”
“Sorry, he spends weekdays in his enclosure under his heat lamp, and he tends to hide inside my robes most of the time. His name is Mouse-Stalker.”
Draco smiled. “I take it that's the English translation of his Parseltongue name?”
“Yes.”
“Introduce him to me?”
“Sure,” Harry said in English before switching to Parseltongue. 'Mouse-Stalker, meet Dragon. I have told him your name already.'
'Excellent. Tell Dragon I am honored to meet someone so noble as to be named after one of the great fire-lizards.'
“Mouse-Stalker says he's honored to meet someone named after one of the great fire-lizards. Your name translates to the Parseltongue word for Dragon,” he explained.
“I'm not surprised; that's what it means in Latin as well. Tell him I am honored in turn, to meet a magical serpent.”
“You know he's magical?”
“I guessed. Mundane snakes don't understand concepts like honor, and from what I've read, the word doesn't translate well for them.”
'Dragon says he is honored to meet a magical serpent,' Harry told the snake.
'Naturally,' Mouse-Stalker said with amusement in his voice. Harry relayed this to Draco, who chuckled quietly.
“So, Harry, Selwyn says he was disappointed you didn't turn up to the Samhain ritual, but he understands. You're still invited to Imbolc, of course.”
“Yeah, but that means I miss out until February.”
“Well,” Draco said, “you and I and our other friends could do one. The girls and I missed the ritual, too, from worrying about you.”
“Really? Cool. When?”
“Tonight or tomorrow, either one. The Samhain season doesn't really end until after November second.”
“Tonight if possible. Um... but we won't have permission to be out late.”
“So we'll do one after dinner, and get back before curfew. There's plenty of time.”
“Right. Can Luna come? I haven't asked her, but I want to.”
“Yes, Luna and Hermione can come. The more, the better.”
“Cool. Thanks for this.”
“Hey, it helps me too, remember?”
“Yeah, I guess. Thanks anyway.”
The two boys talked about this and that some more before settling down to read at the same table together. When lunch came, they put their things back in their dorms and then went to dinner, where Harry went over to the Ravenclaw table, quailing a little at all the angry faces there but braving them to tell Luna about their new plans for tonight, and to ask if she wanted to come with. She did, so he thanked her, hugged her, and went over to tell Ron and Hermione.
Hermione, of course, wanted to go. Even Ron said he'd go.
“Great. So there's Draco, you two, Antigone, Angela, and Danzia, then Luna and me. That's eight people.”
“Enough for a proper circle, at least,” said Ron.
“I've been doing some reading about Samhain since you invited me to the one for last night, Harry, and it's fascinating.”
“Uh huh,” Harry said, concentrating on his food as Hermione began chattering away about what she'd read. He listened with part of his attention, just in case she said something new and interesting, but mostly it was stuff he already knew from his own reading. He smiled as he ate. Tomorrow's ritual was going to be a lot of fun.
Endnotes: I've never quite had a full-blown panic attack myself, but I've had minor, brief panic attacks that I managed to fight off, so writing this chapter was difficult for me, as I've felt some of the symptoms at times, and writing this out made me feel an echo of them again. Hence the trigger warning. But I felt it's a realistic reaction, and I wouldn't have been surprised if canon Harry had had the same reaction, given all he'd been through by then.
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Four.
Or, "Autistic Potter and the Goblet of Fire."
Notes: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made. Not by me, anyway.
There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though, but there's a lot more in this one than usual because it was unavoidable. Still, lots of details are changed, so don't skip by familiar parts or you might miss something.
Just as a reminder, so I don't have to shoehorn in descriptions in the text of the story as a reminder, but in this fanfic Harry and Hermione, apart from having Asperger's Syndrome, are both black as well.
'Italicized text between single quotes is almost always Parseltongue.'
Note: Samhain is pronounced "saw-when."
Chapter 10: “Fight For Your Life”
The next day, the day of their new Samhain ritual, was a school day. And as bad as he'd thought it would be, it was worse. Practically everyone in school but Harry's friends thought he'd entered himself somehow, despite his panic attack, and only the Griffindors were impressed by it. He found out from overheard comments that most people were convinced he'd entered himself on a lark and had a panic attack because he hadn't actually expected to get in. Which was ridiculous; if he's simply put his name in as the Hogwarts champion, he would've been the only Hogwarts champion. Draco tried explaining this to some people, and they just looked at him like he was a slimy snake. Probably they thought Draco had helped him.
Harry wasn't surprised that the Hufflepuffs were especially put out with him, for they thought he'd stolen Cedric's glory, and they rarely got any glory. They all seemed to have forgotten he'd been rooting for a Hufflepuff champion as well. Either that, or they were thinking he'd only said that to deflect suspicion.
After Herbology – during which the Hufflepuffs had laughed at him for getting hit by a bouncing bulb, was Care of Magical Creatures with the Slytherins. His only friend there in his year being Draco, he and his new entourage – Daphne Greengrass, Blaise Zabini, and Tracey Davis – didn't join in Theo Knott's comments, but they didn't speak against them, either, just stood apart from them, over near Harry. Draco later explained this was part of Slytherin code; Slytherins show a united front in public even if they disagree with one another, and they discuss those disagreements in the safety of the Slytherin common room.
Hagrid talked to him quietly during class, while everyone was distracted by trying to take the horrible Skrewts on a walk. It was basically Hagrid saying he believed Harry didn't put his name in, and wondering who had.
In Potions, Harry had taken to wearing his magical earmuffs in class once Snape was done talking, so he could ignore Knott's lot of Slytherins. This worked pretty well, but made Snape cross with him on occasion when he had to wave his hand in front of Harry's face to get his attention. He'd lost some points that way, but he didn't care. He'd probably lose even more points if he listened to Knott and his lot, because he'd probably react badly to their bologna.
After class, Draco asked him, “Ready for the ritual tonight?”
“Yes, very much so.”
~
That night after dinner, eight students went out to the grounds, Draco leading the way with a black candle, black being the color of protection. He led them out past the place where Harry always did his rituals, into a clearing where a bonfire had clearly been burning a couple nights before.
The ritual itself had been fairly straightforward, if slightly different. Draco had lit a magical fire in the ashes of the previous bonfire, and they had each taken lit candles from Draco and arranged themselves at the eight cardinal directions around the circle. Draco had done something differently with his silver athame knife (which acted somewhat like a wand), the point of the four pentacles he drew at the four main directions around the circle had had their points pointing various directions, not just up. The first had been pointing down, the next pointed right, the one after that pointed left, and the final one pointed up. The silver line he'd drawn around the circle, connecting the stars, had briefly become a sphere before returning to a line, and Harry could still see a faint grayish light in a sphere around them, protecting them. Draco's words to the elements had been different as well; instead of saying “amen” at the end of each call to the elements, he had said “So Will it Be.”
With that out of the way, Draco had led them in remembering the dead. They each spoke about someone they'd lost. Harry spoke about his parents of course. Luna had remembered her mum, Ron his uncle Billius, and Antigone, Angela, Hermione, and Draco all remembered grandparents of theirs. Then Danzia had spoken the saddest thing of all, in Harry's opinion.
“Uncle Alfonse Jacobson,” said Danzia. “Taken from us in what should have been his prime by a horrible disease called Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS for short. Another promising young gay man taken from the world too... too soon. Another death that could have been prevented, if only the world cared enough to try!” Danzia began to cry quietly, but not quietly enough to not be noticed. Harry felt his own eyes tear up at her pain.
They hadn't just mentioned these people; many of them spoke at length about them, remembered happy memories, Danzia included, once she recovered from her crying. Draco had been one of the people who had refrained from sharing memories, as had Angela. Angela because she was crying; Draco... he just looked sad and regretful, though it was hard to tell in the weird light of the fire and the glowing silver line and stars of the circle.
“We shall not let their lives have gone in vain,” Draco had said. “We will remember them, keep them in our hearts, better the world in their name.” Here he looked at Harry and then at Danzia.
Levitating a large stone from around where the bonfire had been (and technically was again, now that there was another fire there), Draco had used his wand to carve the names of the dead, making sure everyone was okay with their dead loved ones' names being carved there first. When the names were all in place, he put the stone back where it had been. Harry looked and noticed there were dozens of other names on that and other stones, most carved a lot more neatly than Draco had done, but Draco had still done a lot better than Harry thought he could have.
With that all done, the ritual soon wound down. Draco dismissed the elements and opened the circle, all the magic lights going out. He put out the fire, and all the candles, and they walked back to the castle by wandlight.
~
On the second Thursday since the Champion announcement, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were waiting outside Potions class. The Slytherins arrived, and Draco tried to warn him about something, but Theo beat him to the punch.
“Look here, Potter, see what I made?” Theo asked.
Harry looked, and saw what he thought was something Hermione had been trying to get people to buy lately, badges for her Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to House-Elves. But on closer inspection, he saw they said, instead, “Support Cedric Diggory, the real Hogwarts Champion!”
“Like them, Potter?” Theo asked. “Look what else they do,” he said in an exaggerated slow tone like Harry was an idiot.
Theo pressed down on the badge, and it changed to say, in glowing green letters, the words, “Potter stinks!”
Theo's lot howled with laughter. Each of them pressed their badges too, until the message POTTER STINKS was shining brightly all around Harry. He felt the heat rise in his face and neck.
“Oh very funny,” Hermione said sarcastically to Pansy Parkinson and her gang of Slytherin girls, who were laughing harder than anyone, “really witty.”
“Shove it, Knott!” Ron shouted.
“Want one, Granger? Weasley?” said Knott, holding out badges to Hermione and Ron. “I’ve got loads. But don’t touch my hand, now. I’ve just washed it, you see; don’t want a Mudblood or a blood traitor sliming it up.”
Harry turned red with rage. He was about to do something very rash when Draco leaped forward, his own face pinker than Harry had ever seen, glaring at Knott. All thought of Slytherin solidarity forgotten, Draco had whipped out his wand and was pointing it at Knott. Knott had barely any time to react, ducking out of the way just in time to avoid getting hit with Draco's jinx, firing off one of his own a moment later. But Draco was already reacting, and had fired off another spell at the same time, the two spells hitting each other and bouncing randomly. One hit Goyle, another hit Hermione.
Goyle bellowed and put his hands to his nose, where great ugly boils were springing up — Hermione, whimpering in panic, was clutching her mouth.
“Hermione!”
Ron had hurried forward to see what was wrong with her; Harry turned and saw Ron dragging Hermione’s hand away from her face. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Hermione’s front teeth — already larger than average — were now growing at an alarming rate; she was looking more and more like a beaver as her teeth elongated, past her bottom lip, toward her chin — panic-stricken, she felt them and let out a terrified cry.
“And what is all this noise about?” said a soft, deadly voice.
Snape had arrived. The Slytherins clamored to give their explanations; Snape pointed a long yellow finger at Malfoy and said, “Explain.”
“Malfoy attacked me, sir —”
“We attacked each other at the same time!” Malfoy shouted.
“— and he hit Goyle — look —”
Snape examined Goyle, whose face now resembled something that would have been at home in a book on poisonous fungi.
“Hospital wing, Goyle,” Snape said calmly.
“Knott got Hermione!” Ron said. “Look!”
He forced Hermione to show Snape her teeth — she was doing her best to hide them with her hands, though this was difficult as they had now grown down past her collar. Pansy Parkinson and the other Slytherin girls were doubled up with silent giggles, pointing at Hermione from behind Snape’s back.
Snape looked coldly at Hermione, then said, “I see no difference.”
Hermione let out a whimper; her eyes filled with tears, she turned on her heel and ran, ran all the way up the corridor and out of sight.
What happened next was bedlam. Draco, Ron, and Harry all rushed Snape, wands drawn, but all three of them ran into each other on the way to the teacher and collided, falling to the ground cussing up several blue streaks. It was lucky their voices echoed so much in the stone corridor, for in the confused din, it was impossible for him to hear exactly what they were calling him. He got the gist, however.
“Let’s see,” he said, in his silkiest voice. “Fifty points from Gryffindor, 15 points from Slytherin, and a detention each for Potter, Weasley, and Malfoy. Now get inside, or it’ll be a week’s worth of detentions.”
Harry’s ears were ringing. The injustice of it made him want to curse Snape into a thousand slimy pieces. He passed Snape, walked with Ron and Draco to the back of the dungeon, and slammed his bag down onto the table. Ron and Draco were shaking with anger too. On the other side of the dungeon, Knott turned his back on Snape and pressed his badge, smirking. POTTER STINKS flashed once more across the room.
As Snape talked about poisons and antidotes, Harry imagined the man being eaten by a blast-ended skrewt, or being thrown into a pit full of basilisks, or something else nasty like that. But it didn't last long before Colin Creevy was knocking on the door and coming in for some reason. Which, to Harry's horror, turned out to be for a Triwizard Tournament related photo shoot.
“Shit!” Draco said. “I was trying to warn you about that before class. I found out from Father, who found out from Rita Skeeter. She's going to be there. Listen, she's going to want to sensationalize this, don't talk to her. Hand her this.”
He handed Harry a rectangular card that read 'Draco Malfoy, Public Relations for Harry Potter.'
“Tell her 'Any questions you have, you can ask my PR manager,' then hand her the card. Oh, and drink this before the pictures,” he added, handing Harry a bottle. “It'll prevent you getting ill from the flash.”
“You've assigned yourself my--”
“POTTER!” Snape shouted. “take your bag and get out of my sight!”
Taking the card and his bag, Harry left with Colin.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it, Harry?” said Colin, starting to speak the moment Harry had closed the dungeon door behind him. “Isn’t it, though? You being champion?”
“It's horrifying, Colin. I didn't enter. I don't want to be in this stupid tournament.”
“What? What d'ya mean?”
“Didn't you see my panic attack on the night it was announced? I thought I was going to die. I probably will die. You should know by now I loathe crowds and loud noises. This tournament is going to be utter Hell for me, even with Sirius there to help me cope.”
Colin's face fell. “Oh. Sorry, I forgot. Um... so who d'ya reckon put your name in?”
“No idea yet. Probably a Death Eater, though.”
Colin's face now went white as chalk. He didn't speak again all the way there, except to mumble 'good luck' to Harry at the end.
Harry drank the potion before entering the room where the photoshoot was taking place. It didn't feel like it was doing anything, but he supposed he'd find out soon.
He was in a fairly small classroom; most of the desks had been pushed away to the back of the room, leaving a large space in the middle; three of them, however, had been placed end-to-end in front of the blackboard and covered with a long length of velvet. Five chairs had been set behind the velvet-covered desks, and Ludo Bagman was sitting in one of them, talking to a witch Harry had never seen before, who was wearing magenta robes. From talks he'd had with Draco before, he figured this must be Rita Skeeter.
Viktor Krum was standing moodily in a corner as usual and not talking to anybody. Cedric and Fleur were in conversation. Fleur looked a good deal happier than Harry had seen her so far; she kept throwing back her head so that her long silvery hair caught the light. A paunchy man, holding a large black camera that was smoking slightly, was watching Fleur out of the corner of his eye. Harry was a bit creeped out by that.
Bagman soon spotted him, and Harry put up with the man in order to find out what exactly was going on. Which, as it turned out, was something called a 'wand-weighing ceremony,' which was meant to make sure the Champions' wands were functioning right. Why they weren't doing this the day of the Tournament, or the day before, he didn't know. Except that, he supposed, if there was something wrong with the wand, he'd have over a week to get a new one before the First Task.
The door opened then, and Sirius came in, looking wind-swept and irritated. “Came here fast as I could, Harry,” he said. “Blasted tournament... Dumbledore only told me about this stupid wand-weighing crap an hour ago. I was in the middle of Auror training, too. I might have to take a leave of absence for this thing. How are you?”
“Harry was just about to talk to me, weren't you Harry?” Skeeter said.
“No I wasn't,” Harry said. “Any questions you have, you can talk to my Public Relations manager.”
Harry handed Skeeter the card. She looked at it like it was some strange new creature she'd never seen before. She looked up at him, baffled.
“In other words, no comment at the present time.”
“Yeah Harry, you tell her. Hey, is that the Malfoy boy's name?”
“Later, Sirius.”
Skeeter recovered, pocketing the card and smiling at Sirius. “Ah, Mr. Sirius Black, what a pleasure! I hear you're helping young Harry here with the tournament.”
“I'm only going to be there to help him cope, to keep him from going catatonic, like a human comfort object and mental health monitor all in one. The rest is up to him; I'm not allowed to help with the tasks themselves. And just so you know, Skeeter, if either Harry or I don't like the article you write about this wand-weighing ceremony, I have my solicitor – Ms. Lilith Pennyroyal – ready and willing to sue you for libel.”
“Oh now, there's no need for that, Mr. Black. I never lie in print.”
“I'll believe that when I see it,” Sirius said. “Come on, Harry, over here away from this woman.”
When they were out of earshot of her, Sirius bent down over Harry's ear and whispered, “You should get someone better than her to represent you in the press. Draco's idea was good, but we can do better.”
Thinking back to his special edition of The Quibbler, Harry had an idea about that, but didn't want to discuss it where Skeeter might overhear.
Several minutes later, the ceremony began. The other champions were now sitting in chairs near the door, and he sat down quickly next to Cedric, looking up at the velvet-covered table, where four of the five judges were now sitting — Professor Karkaroff, Madame Maxime, Ms. Selby, and Ludo Bagman.
“May I introduce Mr. Ollivander?” said Dumbledore, taking his place at the judges’ table and talking to the champions. “He will be checking your wands to ensure that they are in good condition before the tournament.”
Harry looked around, and with a jolt of surprise saw an old wizard with large, pale eyes standing quietly by the window. Harry had met Mr. Ollivander before — he was the wand-maker from whom Harry had bought his own wand over three years ago in Diagon Alley.
Mr. Ollivander first checked Fleur's wand, telling the whole room that the wand was rosewood with the hair of a veela – Fleur confirmed it was from her grandmother, meaning Fleur was part veela. Harry frowned; he hoped Ollivander wasn't going to announce his wand specs to the whole room, too.
When Ollivander checked Cedric's wand, Harry was shocked to find some wizards polished their wands. Sirius snickered at Cedric's admission of polishing his wand; Harry didn't want to know what Sirius was thinking. Harry's wand was kind of gross with finger marks and stuff, but he decided not to try polishing it here, in case it made Sirius burst out in full laughter.
After Krum's wand – a Gregorovitch creation – was checked, it was Harry's turn.
Harry got to his feet and walked past Krum to Mr. Ollivander. He handed over his wand.
“Aaaah, yes,” said Mr. Ollivander, his pale eyes suddenly gleaming. “Yes, yes, yes. How well I remember.”
Harry was again worried Ollivander would reveal the fact his wand shared a core with Voldemort's wand, but he didn't. The old man just examined it for a lot longer than the others, then used it to make a small fountain of wine come from the wand.
The photo-taking went fairly smoothly with Sirius helping run interference against Skeeter. It was a bit difficult to get Madame Maxime into the photo, but finally they managed it, and everyone got to leave for dinner. Sirius went down to dinner with Harry, sitting next to him and telling Ron what had happened for Harry. He would have told Hermione as well, but she was missing; probably getting her teeth fixed still.
“By the way, Harry, we've got our detentions with Snape tomorrow in Snape's dungeon.”
“Detention?” asked Sirius, who was chuckling. “What'd you do, set Sniv's robes on fire?”
“Nah,” Ron said, “Hermione did that back in first year, but he never found out. Harry, Draco, and I have detentions because, well...”
He paused a moment to think, then launched into a retelling of the incident that had gotten Hermione in the hospital wing.
Sirius frowned. “Snivelus actually said 'I see no difference,' did he? I'm going to be having some words with Dumbledore about that, I can tell you right now.”
Ron shrugged. “No point. I heard Snape gets a dozen complaints a week from parents, Dumbledore never does anything about it.”
“Well I'm going to try anyway. I'll do it in person so he can't ignore me, and remind him that I have a very clever solicitor on my side, who I'll use if I have to. Snivelus is a Death Eater. Reformed, supposedly, but honestly, what a crock of shite. Once a Death Eater, always...” Sirus trailed off, then, looking thoughtful, even wistful. “Well, maybe some of them can reform, but Snivelus was always fascinated with the dark arts. Hmm... well I suppose my brother was, too...”
Slamming his fist on the table, startling everyone in earshot, Sirius said, “Damn him! Everything was always so clear before I found---well, never mind. Point is, I guess I'll give Sniv the teensiest benefit of the doubt. But I still don't think he should be teaching, if he's that much of a bully to students.”
Harry and Ron looked at each other in confusion, but Sirius didn't seem inclined to explain himself, so they went back to their food.
“Anyway, Harry, we still haven't really talked like we should. I have some things to tell you that you need to know.”
“Well now's as good a time as any, there's so much noise.”
“Right. Okay then, first of all, Karkaroff was a Death Eater. He was caught, he was in Azkaban with me, but he got released. I’d bet everything that’s why Dumbledore wanted an Auror at Hogwarts this year — to keep an eye on him. Moody caught Karkaroff. Put him into Azkaban in the first place.”
“Karkaroff got released?” Harry said slowly — his brain seemed to be struggling to absorb yet another piece of shocking information. “Why did they release him?”
“He did a deal with the Ministry of Magic,” said Sirius bitterly. “He said he’d seen the error of his ways, and then he named names … he put a load of other people into Azkaban in his place. … He’s not very popular in there, I can tell you. And since he got out, from what I can tell, he’s been teaching the Dark Arts to every student who passes through that school of his. So watch out for the Durmstrang champion as well.”
“Okay,” said Harry slowly. “But … are you saying Karkaroff put my name in the goblet? Because if he did, he’s a really good actor. He seemed furious about it. He wanted to stop me from competing.”
“Yes, I saw his performance too, Harry. But we already knew he's a good actor, because he convinced the Ministry of Magic to set him free, didn’t he?
“Now, I’ve been keeping an eye on the Daily Prophet, Harry, and reading between the lines of that Skeeter woman’s article last month, Moody was attacked the night before he started at Hogwarts. Yes, I know she says it was another false alarm,” Sirius said hastily, seeing Harry about to speak, “but I don’t think so, somehow. I think someone tried to stop him from getting to Hogwarts. I think someone knew their job would be a lot more difficult with him around. And no one’s going to look into it too closely; Mad-Eye’s heard intruders a bit too often. But that doesn’t mean he can’t still spot the real thing. Moody was the best Auror the Ministry ever had.”
“What, you reckon Karkaroff's trying to do Harry in? Why? I mean, he turned against the Death Eaters to keep out of Azkaban, I don't reckon he'd be welcomed back, do you?”
“No I don't. I suspect that if Voldemort ever returns, Karkaroff is a dead man walking. He might be trying to get in Voldemort's good graces by killing you, though. I reckon Old Ugly might give him a second chance if he managed to do that, and could prove he'd done it.”
“But Voldemort is still a spirit-thing, right? He's not a threat, surely?”
Sirius hesitated.
“I’ve been hearing some very strange things,” he said slowly. “The Death Eaters seem to be a bit more active than usual lately. They showed themselves at the Quidditch World Cup, didn’t they? Someone set off the Dark Mark … and then — did you remember about that Ministry of Magic witch who’s gone missing?”
“Bertha Jorkins?” said Harry.
“Exactly … she disappeared in Albania, and that’s definitely where Voldemort was rumored to be last … and she would have known the Triwizard Tournament was coming up, wouldn’t she?”
“What, you reckon she just stumbled into You-Know-Who? Quite a coincidence, two people doing that in four years, don't you reckon?” Ron asked.
Sirius looked quizzically at Ron. “Two people?”
“Professor Quirrell, our first-year Defense teacher,” Ron said. “He was possessed by You-Know-Who. The old monster was sticking out the back of Quirrell's head, so he was wearing a turban to hide it.”
Sirius's eyes went wide. “Voldemort was in the castle for a whole year and nobody figured it out?”
“Dumbledore knew,” Harry said. “I'm sure of it. Couldn't prove it, I guess, but Snape suspected Quirrell was up to something, and Dumbledore always gave me the impression he knows most things that go on in this school. In fact, I half suspect the obstacle course leading to the Mirror of Erised was meant to be a trap. It was absurdly easy to get through. I bet me, Ron, and Hermione could've gotten through it without our other friends. I'm only in fourth year, and I'm sure I could think of a much more effective series of obstacles right now. Couldn't do half the things I thought of, but that's not the point.”
“I really hope you're wrong on that, Harry, because I'm already starting to distrust some of Dumbledore's decisions as it is.”
Harry shrugged, and took another bite of his food.
“Anyway, I knew Bertha Jorkins in school. She wasn't very bright, but she was extremely nosy. If she was in Albania and saw something remotely suspicious, she could and would have stuck her nose in where it didn't belong, and it might have gotten her captured or killed. She'd have been easy to lure into a trap, as well. And don't forget, Wormtail is loose in the world, and he's the kind of person who'd go running back to his master to help him, in the hopes his master would protect him from the wrath of those who want revenge on him.”
“So you think Voldemort could have found out about the Tournament?” Harry asked. “Is that what you mean? You think Karkaroff might be here on his orders?”
“I don’t know,” said Sirius slowly, “I just don’t know … Karkaroff doesn’t strike me as the type who’d go back to Voldemort unless he knew Voldemort was powerful enough to protect him. But whoever put your name in that goblet did it for a reason, and I can’t help thinking the tournament would be a very good way to attack you and make it look like an accident.”
“If half the things I've read about the Tournament are true enough to give an idea what the Tasks are going to be like, it's looking like a good plan to me.”
“About that, Harry. We don't know what the First Task is, but nothing says we can't make some educated guesses. It wouldn't even count as me helping you cheat, since I don't have a bloody clue what they're actually going to do.”
“Yeah, we've discussed that, my friends and I.”
“Right,” Ron said. “I reckon it's dragons. It's been ages since they've done this Tournament, they'll want something big and showy for the First Task, and I can't think of anything half as big and showy as dragons.”
“Hmm... yes, that's a logical guess. I reckon you might be onto something, Ron. There are other big and showy magical creatures, of course, like thunderbirds, snallygasters, and even sea serpents. But a dragon has the benefit of being the easiest to use. There's dragons in Britain, after all, whereas thunderbirds and snallygasters are American creatures.”
“There's dragons in Britain?” Harry asked. “But wouldn't people see them?”
“I'm sure some of them do. It's not an easy job, covering up a truth that big from the Muggles, but it gets done, for the most part. Anyway, if it is dragons, and honestly I'm half convinced it won't be just because the universe likes to play jokes on us, but if it is dragons, there's a simple spell to deal with dragons. It's called the Conjunctivitis Curse, hits the one weak spot a dragon has, right in the eyes. It's a painful curse, but not life-threatening, though its only counter-curse is some kind of potion, I forget the name of it offhand. I remember thinking it sounded expensive to brew.”
“Oh, right, I'll hit a dragon in the eye with something painful from a distance of like 30 or 40 feet away, depending on how big dragons are, and then let it crash around in agony, to stomp me underfoot or crash into the stands, what a brilliant idea!”
“Okay, stow the sarcasm, it was just an idea.”
“Wow, I really hope it's anything at all but a dragon, if that's the only thing that can be used against it. Except... Ron, you said Charlie is a dragon handler? How do wizards handle dragons?”
“Takes loads of wizards, like seven or nine at least, I think. Maybe even a dozen. Takes loads of stunners to take one out, they're powerfully magical, and magic just splashes off their hides. I think they may have to aim their stunners at a dragon's eyes, if that's the only weak place on them.”
“I wonder if I could use a stunner, then? Can stunners be made extra powerful?”
“Yes. But that's not a technique you're going to be able to master before the First Task. You'd have better luck looking up a more advanced stunning spell, I think. Or... hmm... you're in Ancient Runes, aren't you, Harry?”
“Yes. But we're still mostly learning the different runic languages. We won't start on actual rune enchantment until after Christmas.”
“Well you're ahead of your class on a lot of things, right? And you have friends in years ahead of you?”
“Yeah. You reckon I should learn something with runes?”
“Couldn't hurt. Runes can be used to do things that take a lot more power than a wand spell can do, or for longer than can be sustained with a wand. And hey, whatever the First Task is, a powerful enough sleeping rune couldn't hurt. It's most likely to be a creature of some kind, I think you've got that much right.
“Or, wait... I just had a thought. I remember something from my own Hogwarts days... I don't remember what it's called, but oh, right, I can ask Moony.”
Sirius pulled a two-way mirror out of his pocket and said 'Remus Lupin' into it. Soon, Moony's face was in the mirror.
“Sirius? Is something wrong?”
“Nothing's wrong. I was just trying to remember something we did in school once. Azkaban kinda shot my memory to heck, you know, but I recall you using some kind of rune thingy in our dueling club. You used to draw it with your wand on the ground, then cast spells into it, and it acted like some kind of trap that went off when your opponent stood on it.”
“Ah yes, I know what you're talking about. But uh... you're not trying to help Harry cheat, are you?”
“Not at all. We don't know what the First Task is, even though we have some shrewd guesses. Anyway, this is just a general knowledge sort of a thing, we don't even know if it would be any use during the Tournament.”
“Hmm... but the odds are high it will be useful at some point in the Tournament.”
“Perhaps. But he could always look it up himself now, even without knowing what it's called. Just might take him a while. Besides which, the Tournament hasn't really begun, doesn't truly begin until the First Task.”
“I find that extremely shaky reasoning, Padfoot. But well... he is at a bit of an unfair disadvantage, just based on his age, and moreso with his other issues. Hmm... okay, I'll tell you what it's called. Honestly, if your dueling club was half as good as ours had been, you would've run across it on your own already. It was called a Second Wand Sigil, because it functioned as a second wand, holding onto a spell for you so you could activate the sigil either as a trap or on a timer, or from a distance with a bit of Will pressure. It's not easy to aim, though, which is really the only reason it was allowed. But if your target is big enough, or not moving a lot, then it's useful. Or if your target is likely to step on it, that's useful as well.”
“Second Wand Sigil, eh? So would that be in the runic magic section of the library.”
“Yes. By the way, I heard how long it took you to find Nicolas Flamel in your first year. There's a trick to using the library; if you touch your wand to any of the bookshelves and say 'Library, find me X,' where X is what you're looking for, it will find it for you. It's sometimes a little tricky to use. Ask your friend Luna, she's a Ravenclaw; if anyone will know about that, it's a Ravenclaw.”
Harry smacked his forehead with his hand. “All that looking, and we could've just asked the library to find us a book about Nicolas Flamel?”
“Yeah, I know the feeling,” Remus said. “McGonagall wasn't telling us about that in our day, either. I had to find out about it two years into my schooling from a Hufflepuff, who seemed quite shocked that I didn't already know.”
“Wow,” Ron said. “Studying is gonna be a lot easier, now!”
Harry snorted. “You study?”
“On occasion,” Ron shot back.
“Oh by the way, Sirius, I have an idea. I didn't want to tell you in front of Rita Skeeter, but I want to give Xeno Lovegood exclusive interviews about the Tournament. We should arrange for him to come here for the First Task, and we can talk to him after that, somewhere private.”
Sirius barked with laughter. “Oh that's brilliant! He's a great journalist when he's not talking about mad things, and it'll irritate Rita that you take him more seriously than you do her. Yeah, let's do that!”
“Great. I'll talk with Luna about it later, then owl him if she agrees.”
After dinner, Harry went to the library and tried out Remus's trick.
“Library, show me the Second Wand Sigil.”
There was a sound that sounded rather like a robot saying no with sound. So he tried it again.
“Library, show me books about sigil magic.”
The tone that sounded this time sounded positive, and a little ball of white light popped out of the bookshelf and flew ahead to the end of the row, looking like it was waiting for Harry to follow it. So he stowed his wand in its holster and followed the little ball of light. It led him to a part of the library he recognized from Ancient Runes class, and down a little further to a part of the row he hadn't been to before. A whole quarter of the row was lit up with a faint yellow glow. When he stood in front of it, all the lights went out, including his guide light.
Putting his wand back on the shelf, he said, “Library, show me books about the Second-Wand Sigil.”
The negative tone sounded again, so he tried again. “Library, show me books about sigils that can be used in dueling.”
There was a pause as though the magic behind this system was thinking, then two of the shelves lit up.
“Library, show me books about sigils that can store wand spells for later use.”
This made only six books light up, books that had been in the section about combat sigils. These were actually several copies of two books, so he took one of each and took it over to a table to read through.
The books themselves weren't nearly as helpful as the shelves had been; like many wizarding books, there was no index or even table of contents. So he tried something. He put his wand on the open book and said, “Show me the Second-Wand Sigil.”
He was startled when the book actually started to move as though in a breeze, right to a page about the very sigil he'd been looking for. Well, that was something to remember from now on, and to tell Ron and the others. Harry took out some paper and a pen and started copying down the relevant instructions for the sigil. It sounded simple enough until you tried to aim it, if you could work out how to distract your opponent long enough to make the sigil. The book recommended conjuring disks of wood or ceramic with your wand, putting the sigil on those, and tossing them about to lay traps, but Harry didn't have the skills to conjure much of anything useful, and the rules said you couldn't take anything into the Task except your wand.
As he thought that, he paused and sat up, thinking. It occurred to him after a minute's thought that the rule said only that you couldn't take anything but your wand in with you. (Well, with the exceptions being made for his coping tools.) It had not at any point said you couldn't use your wand to summon something you needed. It then occurred to him that, whatever creature he had to fight, the gift he'd gotten from Antigone – the unfolding basilisk-skin shield her dad had made – would be an excellent thing to Summon. So he made a note to himself to do that, which he wrote in the margins of his notes about the Second-Wand Sigil.
Then, too, he could summon a bit of wood from somewhere, cut it into pieces with his wand, and use those like the disks the book mentioned. He wondered what would be useful to deal with a creature. Would he have to tame it, or just get by it? It seemed unlikely he'd have to tame a wild animal, so the more likely thing would be getting past it. So a distraction would be useful. But what kind of distraction could he, a 14 year old wizard, use? He couldn't transfigure well enough to make anything that moved, not reliably anyway.
It suddenly occurred to him to wonder why, in four years of living in the wizarding world, he'd never heard of a class teaching how to cast illusions. He knew illusions were possible, there was one on the castle that made it look like an old ruin to Muggles. Then too, wizards somehow managed to hide an entire train as it chugged along the countryside. And Muggle fantasy was full of wizards and witches and other magic-wielding beings who could make others see things that weren't there, or not see things that were. If there was something in the library about illusions, or glamours, or whatever they were called, he might be able to manage one of those. It'd be a lot easier than transfiguring something, anyway. Unless there was some reason, in the laws of magic, that it wasn't possible, or was more difficult, but he didn't see how that could be.
When he was done writing out his notes about the Second-Wand Sigil, he put the books back on the shelf and set to work asking the library about illusions and glamours. It took a bit of creative asking before he found what he wanted, but there was indeed an entire section of the library about illusions. He wondered why he hadn't heard of a class that taught them.
The rest of his time in the library he spent looking through the books about illusions, trying to find ones he could reasonably expect to learn in the weeks he had left before the First Task. He was also on the lookout for a way to combine the Second-Wand Sigil with an illusion.
Of course, illusions weren't without their drawbacks. One reason illusions weren't often used was that they weren't solid, and they didn't smell. There were a great many magical creatures who could 'see' right through the illusions by the fact they didn't have a scent, or because the light of the illusion hadn't been designed to fool eyes that could see spectra that humans couldn't, for instance snakes could sense body heat through pits in their noses. And so it became clear that he wasn't going to learn an illusion to fool most magical creatures, not without years of hard work, anyway.
Was there something he could do to make up for the limitations of illusions? Maybe a spell to create a horrible stench that would disguise the fact the illusion had no scent?
Of course, illusions weren't easy even if they were just images, either. It was one thing to create something that could only be seen from one angle, that didn't move; it was something else entirely to make a 3-D moving illusion that could be seen from any angle.
However, he did find a few interesting possibilities for a much easier alternative to illusions. He'd stumbled upon something that had great potential, if he could make it big enough. He'd have to ask his friends for help with the maths to adjust its size, but there wasn't a rule against them helping him. He wouldn't be able to take notes in, so he'd have to memorize whatever they came up with, but he thought he could do that in the weeks they had until the First Task.
And the best part of all of this was that the plan he was cooking up would probably work no matter what creature it was, though he'd probably be out of luck if it wasn't a creature but something else instead. Oh well. The sigil thing might help in any case.
~
It was a good thing Harry had his First Task project to focus on, because the following weeks were very difficult. Rita Skeeter had published her piece about the Triwizard Tournament, and it had turned out to be not so much a report on the tournament as a story about Harry. Much of the front page had been given over to a picture of Harry; the article (continuing on pages two, six, and seven) had been all about Harry, the names of the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang champions (misspelled) had been squashed into the last line of the article, and Cedric hadn’t been mentioned at all.
Skeeter had been as good as her word, and had not written any lies in the article about him. Instead, she'd made him out to be some kind of tragic hero, and had speculated heavily about his life, and the lives of his friends. She also appeared to have gotten around her promise not to lie, in places, by being grossly misinformed. The article had begun with a retelling of his past and had a lot of parts that were difficult to tolerate when people quoted them back at him.
Starved for love after being raised by emotionally distant guardians, young Harry Potter has since found two different kinds of love. He now lives with Sirius Black, his godfather who was pardoned by new evidence after a twelve year stint in Azkaban, reunited with his deceased family through this old friend of the family.
Harry could almost laugh at that; he wished the Dursleys had merely been emotionally distant. It would have been a huge improvement. But there was more.
But Harry has also found romance, it seems. His close friend Colin Creevy says he is often seen in the company of a number of girls, all apparently vying for his attentions, including several Slytherin girls. Yet of all the girls trying to snag him, Harry seems to spend the most time with a stunningly pretty Muggle-born girl named Hermione Granger, a fellow Griffindor who, like Harry, is one of the top students in the school.
By far the worst part, which filled him with shame, was this part:
However, it seems the boy who lived might not even be interested in girls that way at all. A source who wished to remain anonymous claims to have witnessed Harry asking young Draco Malfoy if he (Draco Malfoy) was asking him out after young Mr. Malfoy informed him he'd need a date for the Yule Ball being at Hogwarts this December, and seemed quite distraught at being very kindly rejected.
Draco had raised his eyebrows all the way up when Harry had showed him that. Draco would not have been bothered about it for his own sake, but when he finished reading it, he glared at the page for Harry's sake.
“Who in the ruddy Hell did that woman hear from about that conversation we had in the library? Who told her about that?”
“I dunno. I don't remember seeing anyone, but someone could have been hiding in the stacks.” He sighed again. “I wish I could legally contest it, but I can't; it's not a lie, just a truth bent with a heavy load of speculation.”
“Well however she found out, Harry, I think we should use privacy spells when we talk from now on. That might further fuel her speculation, but there'd only be so much she could do without being able to eavesdrop, however she's doing it. You might have the rest of your friends take that advice as well.”
“Right. Sounds like a good idea.” Harry sighed. “I wonder if I can get away with Disillusioning myself between classes?”
“Not without bumping into everyone who can't see you. If I knew a spell to make you intangible as well, I'd tell you. But sadly, only ghosts and certain spirit creatures can do that.”
“Well I guess I could always just block out all sound and ignore other people entirely, unless they're friends.”
“I wouldn't if I were you. It would open you up to being hexed without you having any warning.”
“I doubt that, after what Moody did to Knott.”
Draco's face grew pinched. “Yes... about that. I may not care much for Knott anymore, but Moody should not have done that.”
“Yeah, I told him off for that.”
“Good. It's not right, someone who's been an auror for over 70 years should not be in the habit of hexing minors. Especially not someone as paranoid and unstable as Moody. He could have hit Knott with something life-threatening instead!”
“Yeah... anyway, enough about this stupid Skeeter article. I have a plan for what to do about the First Task, and I'd like your help on the arithmancy for it.”
“How can you have a plan? You don't even know what the task is!”
“My plan works no matter what creature it is, and can even be adapted to possibly help with other possibilities.”
“Oh. Well in that case, I'm very curious to see what you've cooked up.”
~
From the moment the article had appeared, Harry had had to endure people — Slytherins, mainly — quoting it at him as he passed and making sneering comments.
“Want a hanky, Potter, in case you start crying in Transfiguration over Malfoy not wanting to date you?”
“Since when have you been one of the top students in the school, Potter? Or is this a school you and Longbottom have set up together?”
Whenever this would happen, Harry thought back to some of his old coping habits from the Dursleys, and sort of drifted off in his mind, as though his head was 100 miles from the taunts and jeers, though it made paying attention in class difficult; he had to choose between not being able to concentrate due to spacing out, or due instead to snide remarks stage-whispered at him.
Hermione had come in for her fair share of unpleasantness too, but she was handling the situation even better than he was. So well he wished he knew her secret.
“Stunningly pretty? Her?” Pansy Parkinson had shrieked the first time she had come face-to-face with Hermione after Rita’s article had appeared. “What was she judging against — a chipmunk?”
“Ignore it,” Hermione said in a dignified voice, holding her head in the air and stalking past the sniggering Slytherin girls as though she couldn’t hear them. “Just ignore it, Harry. You too, Ron.”
“How can I, 'mione? They're making fun of you!”
“And if it isn't bothering me, why ought it bother you?”
“I... it just does, okay?”
“I admire your loyalty, Ron, but it's fine. Reacting to them just gives them more ammunition. Ignore them and they'll get bored and go away.”
Harry snorted. “More likely they'll try even harder, in my experience.”
She sighed. “Well whatever. No matter how hard they try, if you don't react they'll eventually give up.”
Harry didn't say anything, but he privately thought that wasn't very likely. Stop reacting to words, and bullies resort to more painful ways of getting your attention. Like hexes to the back. Which, speaking of hexes to the back, since Harry had been practicing carving and using the Second-Wand Sigil anyway, he'd taken to using his more successful attempts to cast a Shield Charm into, wearing it around his neck and activating it between classes, especially out on the grounds, since he didn't know how to make it activate itself in response to incoming hexes, nor if it were even possible to do so. He had to keep re-casting the charm into the sigil before getting into the classroom, something fraught with danger of getting him caught doing magic in the corridors by a teacher or Filch, but he thought it was worth the risk.
The real problem with the sigil wasn't so much the times he messed up and had to start over again with a new piece of wood, it was more the fact that it was slow, and he was trying to do it as fast as possible without messing it up. He needed to get fast enough and good enough to make one set of workable sigil disks in five minutes or less, he could use a handy copying spell for the rest of them once he'd managed that. He contemplated just making a perfect pair and Summoning them with the rest of the things he was Summoning, but he wanted to show people he was doing the work himself and not having others fighting his battles for him; it might shut some of them up, at least. And if not, hey; it might come in handy someday as a battle technique, since Voldemort kept coming after him.
With all the work he was doing for the First Task, he and Hermione were spending a lot of time in the library, sometimes joined by Draco or one of the Slytherin girls they were friends with, and sometimes Luna joined them as well. Harry didn't mind Ron not wanting to join in, he knew it would be dull for anyone who wasn't in on the project to have to sit through their technical discussions.
Viktor Krum was in the library an awful lot too, and Harry wondered what he was up to. Was he studying, or was he looking for things to help him through the first task? Hermione often complained about Krum being there — not that he ever bothered them — but because groups of giggling girls often turned up to spy on him from behind bookshelves, and Hermione found the noise distracting.
“He’s not even good-looking!” she muttered angrily, glaring at Krum’s sharp profile. “They only like him because he’s famous! They wouldn’t look twice at him if he couldn’t do that Wonky-Faint thing —”
“Wronski Feint,” said Harry, amused at the thought of Ron's face if he'd heard Hermione refer to it as a 'Wonky Faint.'
~
It is a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow down time, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up. The days until the first task seemed to slip by as though someone had fixed the clocks to work at double speed. Harry’s feeling of barely controlled panic was with him wherever he went, as everpresent as the snide comments about the Daily Prophet article.
On the Saturday before the first task, all students in the third year and above were permitted to visit the village of Hogsmeade. Hermione told Harry that it would do him good to get away from the castle for a bit, and Harry didn’t need much persuasion. But he really didn't want to be seen by anyone quoting that stupid article at him, so he insisted on coming under the Invisibility Cloak. Luckily for Hermione and Ron, they were both visible, so it didn't look like either of them was talking to themselves.
Harry felt wonderfully free under the cloak; he watched other students walking past them as they entered the village, most of them sporting Support Cedric Diggory! badges, but no horrible remarks came his way for a change, and nobody was quoting that stupid article.
Hermione and Ron were both put out by trying to figure out where he was to talk to him, though. They wanted to be able to see his expressions, too. But he refused.
“Come on, please just take off your cloak for a bit, no one’s going to bother you here.”
“Oh yeah?” said Harry. “Look behind you.”
Rita Skeeter and her photographer friend had just emerged from the Three Broomsticks pub. Talking in low voices, they passed right by Hermione without looking at her. Harry backed into the wall of Honeydukes to stop Rita Skeeter from hitting him with her crocodile-skin handbag. When they were gone, Harry said, “She’s staying in the village. I bet she’s coming to watch the first task.”
As he said it, his stomach flooded with a wave of molten panic. He didn’t mention this; instead, he focused on reminding himself that he had a plan. He had no idea if the plan would even work, no idea what he was facing, but he still had a plan, a plan that would work on a lot of possible things, he hoped.
They ended up going to the Three Broomsticks for some butterbeer, the three of them talking. Harry had taken up a third seat that had been left open. He just hoped nobody tried to sit on his lap. The three of them talked, secure in the fact they were off to one corner in a crowded and noisy room. For once, Harry didn't mind the noise. It was a little grating on his nerves, but in a way the discomfort of that was distracting him from his impending panic.
Naturally, a couple of their other friends came to join them. Luna wandered over, looking lost as usual, and Danzia was with her.
“This seat taken?” Danzia asked.
“Yes. Harry is in it, under his cloak.”
“What? Oh.” She poked at the air surreptitiously and made Harry say “Ow!”
“She's right, Luna, there's an invisible person there, and it sounds like Harry.”
Luna nodded wisely. “Good thinking. The fnords won't be able to find you that way. If the fnords can't see you, they can't hurt you. Or was it the other way around?” She lapsed into thoughtful silence and took an empty chair at the table, Danzia leaning against the wall instead, like she'd meant to do it all along and didn't care to sit down in that perfectly good empty chair, which was also next to the wall she was leaning against. Nothing suspicious to see here, run along now.
Ron rolled his eyes at Luna's talk about weird creatures, but otherwise made no comment. Hermione sighed, but also refrained from commenting.
Harry was only half listening to the conversation his friends were having. He was too busy trying not to panic about the upcoming First Task. But when it came time to drink his butterbeer, he had to duck under the table so people wouldn't see the bottle vanishing into thin air. Ron handed him a bottle under the table.
While Harry drank his butterbeer, he watched the people in the pub. All of them looked cheerful and relaxed. Ernie Macmillan and Hannah Abbott were swapping Chocolate Frog cards at a nearby table; both of them sporting Support Cedric Diggory! badges on their cloaks. Right over by the door he saw Cho and a large group of her Ravenclaw friends. She wasn’t wearing a Cedric badge though. This cheered up Harry very slightly.
What wouldn’t he have given to be one of these people, sitting around laughing and talking, with nothing to worry about but homework? He imagined how it would have felt to be here if his name hadn’t come out of the Goblet of Fire. He wouldn’t be wearing the Invisibility Cloak, for one thing. They would all probably be happily imagining what deadly dangerous task the school champions would be facing on Tuesday. He’d have been really looking forward to it, watching them do whatever it was... cheering on Cedric with everyone else, safe in a seat at the back of the stands.
He wondered how the other champions were feeling. Every time he had seen Cedric lately, he had been surrounded by admirers and looking nervous but excited. Harry glimpsed Fleur Delacour from time to time in the corridors; she looked exactly as she always did, haughty and unruffled. And Krum just sat in the library, poring over books.
Harry thought of Sirius, and the tight, tense knot in his chest tightened. He worried that without a wand, Sirius would get hurt. He decided he'd give Sirius one of the sigils, one charged with... what? A shield spell didn't defend against anything but spells, and not even all of those. What could he charge the sigil with that Sirius would find useful? And how close to Harry would Sirius be, in all this? Presumably close enough to see if Harry was feeling well, though how close that would be, he didn't know.
“Look, it’s Hagrid!” said Hermione.
“And Sirius!” Ron said.
Harry wondered how he hadn't spotted Hagrid at once. The man, who had mercifully stopped trying to use up the entire world's supply of hair gel on his hair, was enormous. But he'd been bent over talking with Professor Moody, and Sirius had been behind Hagrid's great bulk.
As he watched, Hagrid started to leave. Without thinking, Harry waved at Hagrid under the cloak, then remembered that Hagrid couldn’t see him. Moody, however, paused, his magical eye on the corner where Harry was standing. He tapped Hagrid in the small of the back (being unable to reach his shoulder), muttered something to him, and then led Hagrid and Sirius over to them.
“All right there, Hermione? Ron?” Hagrid said loudly. “And you too, o' course, Luna, Danzia?”
Everyone smiled and said their hellos back to Hagrid, and greeted Sirius as well. Luna, however, bowed her head and said something in a foreign language.
Moody limped around the table and bent down; Harry thought he was reading Hermione’s S.P.C.H.E. notebook, until he muttered, “Nice cloak, Potter.”
Harry stared at him in amazement. The large chunk missing from Moody’s nose was particularly obvious at a few inches’ distance. Moody grinned.
“Can your eye — I mean, can you — ?”
“Yeah, it can see through Invisibility Cloaks,” Moody said quietly. “And it’s come in useful at times, I can tell you.”
Harry looked to Hagrid and Sirius. He wasn't completely sure, but it looked like they were looking at him; Moody must have told them Harry was under the cloak. Sirius and Moody began a discussion with the others about something, and Hagrid used the opportunity to whisper so low that only Harry could hear it, “Harry, meet me tonight at midnight at me cabin. Wear that cloak.”
Straightening up, Hagrid said loudly, “Nice ter see yeh, Hermione,” winked, and departed. Moody followed him. Sirius stayed behind.
“Why does Hagrid want me to meet him at midnight?” Harry said, very surprised.
“Does he?” said Hermione, looking startled. “I wonder what he’s up to? I don’t know whether you should go, Harry. It'll be dark, and it could be dangerous!”
“Oh, I think I can arrange a bodyguard for him, Hermione,” Sirius said. “I don't know why Hagrid wants Harry to join him at midnight of all times, but I trust him. Padfoot will keep an eye on Harry.”
Hermione relaxed. “Well, okay. Just... don't get him caught. We don't want him in trouble for being out past curfew.”
“I'm his guardian, I have a right to be out after curfew with my godson,” Sirius said. “If we get caught, I'll just remind them of that.”
Harry, too, wondered at Hagrid's request, but he too trusted Hagrid, and thought it must be important if Hagrid thought it worth the risk of being out after curfew; Hagrid didn't know Sirius would be with him, after all. At least, he didn't think he knew.
At half past eleven that evening, Harry, who had pretended to go up to bed early, pulled the Invisibility Cloak back over himself and crept back downstairs through the common room. Quite a few people were still in there. The Creevey brothers had managed to get hold of a stack of Support Cedric Diggory! badges and were trying to bewitch them to make them say Support Harry Potter! instead. So far, however, all they had managed to do was get the badges stuck on POTTER STINKS. Harry made a mental note to send them to Hermione for help, then crept past them to the portrait hole and waited for a minute or so, keeping an eye on his watch. Then Ron opened the Fat Lady for him from outside as they had planned. He slipped past Ron with a whispered “Thanks!” and set off through the castle.
Harry met Sirius a little ways past the portrait hole, since Sirius hadn't wanted to alarm the Fat Lady, Sirius pretending to study a portrait before apparently deciding he was bored, and leaving, though he was really walking alongside Harry once Harry had whispered to him that he was there.
When they were out of the castle, Sirius turned into the massive black dog that was his animal form. The fur that had once been matted, tangled, and filthy when they'd met was now clean and had a healthy shine to it, which he could see in the moonlight. Padfoot had also fleshed out a bit, though he was still slightly too skinny.
Without speaking, he and Padfoot walked along down to Hagrid's hut; lights shone from the hut, as well as from the Beauxbatons carriage. Harry could hear Madame Maxime talking inside it as Padfoot scratched and whined at the door.
“Sirius?” Hagrid said when he opened the door. “Is Harry with yeh?” he whispered.
Sirius barked once, wagging his tail and sticking his tongue out as he did.
“Good. Got summat to show yeh, then. Won't take Fang, he won't like it.”
Hagrid was plainly excited over whatever it was he wanted to show them. But at first, Harry thought he was just showing them Madame Maxime, for they went over to her carriage first.
Sirius whined, but Hagrid ignored him. So he turned back into his human form.
“Why are you taking us to the Beauxbatons carriage, Hagrid?”
“Oh, I want ter show Olympe, too. But I didn't know yeh were comin too, Sirius. Yeh should be a dog again.”
Sirius looked unsure, but turned back into a dog anyway.
Soon, Madame Maxime, also clearly excited, joined them. She didn't seem to know any more than he and Sirius did, because after a while she said playfully, “Wair is it you are taking me, ’Agrid?”
“Yeh’ll enjoy this,” said Hagrid gruffly, “worth seein’, trust me. On’y — don’ go tellin’ anyone I showed yeh, right? Yeh’re not s’posed ter know.”
“Of course not,” said Madame Maxime, fluttering her long black eyelashes.
Sirius whined again, getting her attention.
“Is zis your dog, 'Agrid?”
“Nah, it's Harry's. I'm, er, dog sittin' him fer the night.”
She looked confused by this, but shrugged and went back to facing the way they were going.
They walked a long time, Harry getting more and more curious about where they were going that both he and Madame Maxime would want to see. Something that would excite Hagrid. He hoped Hagrid wasn't going to show them anything dangerous. Though if he did, Hagrid and Sirius could protect him. And Madame Maxime must have been a formidable witch herself, to be headmistress of a major school of magic.
But then — when they had walked so far around the perimeter of the forest that the castle and the lake were out of sight — Harry heard something. Men were shouting up ahead … then came a deafening, earsplitting roar.
Hagrid led Madame Maxime around a clump of trees and came to a halt. Harry hurried up alongside them — for a split second, he thought he was seeing bonfires, and men darting around them — and then his mouth fell open. Sirius's canine ears pulled back in fright, but he looked back and forth between Harry and the sight before them.
Dragons.
Four fully grown, enormous, vicious-looking dragons were rearing onto their hind legs inside an enclosure fenced with thick planks of wood, roaring and snorting — torrents of fire were shooting into the dark sky from their open, fanged mouths, fifty feet above the ground on their outstretched necks. Each looked like a different species, colored differently and with different distinguishing features.
At least thirty wizards, seven or eight to each dragon, were attempting to control them, pulling on the chains connected to heavy leather straps around their necks and legs. Mesmerized, Harry looked up, high above him, and saw the eyes of the black dragon, with vertical pupils like a cat’s, bulging with either fear or rage, he couldn’t tell which. … It was making a horrible noise, a yowling, screeching scream.
“Keep back there, Hagrid!” yelled a wizard near the fence, straining on the chain he was holding. “They can shoot fire at a range of twenty feet, you know! I’ve seen this Horntail do forty!”
“Is’n’ it beautiful?” said Hagrid softly.
Harry stared in horror and rising panic as he witnessed it taking eight wizards using simultaneous Stunning Spells to knock out a single dragon, the giant mass of angry, dangerous muscle falling to earth with a thunderous BOOM!
The dragon keepers lowered their wands and walked forward to their fallen charges, each of which was the size of a small hill. They hurried to tighten the chains and fasten them securely to iron pegs, which they forced deep into the ground with their wands.
“Wan’ a closer look?” Hagrid asked Madame Maxime excitedly. The pair of them moved right up to the fence, and Harry followed. The wizard who had warned Hagrid not to come any closer turned, and Harry realized who it was: Charlie Weasley.
“All right, Hagrid?” he panted, coming over to talk. “They should be okay now — we put them out with a Sleeping Draft on the way here, thought it might be better for them to wake up in the dark and the quiet — but, like you saw, they weren’t happy, not happy at all —”
“What breeds you got here, Charlie?” said Hagrid, gazing at the closest dragon, the black one, with something close to reverence. Its eyes were still just open. Harry could see a strip of gleaming yellow beneath its wrinkled black eyelid.
“This is a Hungarian Horntail,” said Charlie. “There’s a Common Welsh Green over there, the smaller one — a Swedish Short-Snout, that blue-gray — and a Chinese Fireball, that’s the red.”
Charlie looked around; Madame Maxime was strolling away around the edge of the enclosure, gazing at the stunned dragons.
“I didn’t know you were bringing her, Hagrid,” Charlie said, frowning. “The champions aren’t supposed to know what’s coming — she’s bound to tell her student, isn’t she?”
“Jus’ thought she’d like ter see ’em,” shrugged Hagrid, still gazing, enraptured, at the dragons.
“Really romantic date, Hagrid,” said Charlie, shaking his head.
“Four …” said Hagrid, “so it’s one fer each o’ the champions, is it? What’ve they gotta do — fight ’em?”
“Just get past them, I think,” said Charlie. “We’ll be on hand if it gets nasty, Extinguishing Spells at the ready. They're juvenile males, so that'll make it easier. Far more docile than the females, you know. I heard the Ministry originally wanted nesting mothers for some reason, but the Dragon Handlers Associations of Britain and Romania both had fits over that, and finally convinced them that was a ridiculous idea. Honestly, endangering the eggs of several endangered species for a sporting event, truly mad idea.
“Anyway, I tell you this, I don’t envy the one who gets the Horntail. Vicious thing. Its back end’s as dangerous as its front, look.”
Charlie pointed toward the Horntail’s tail, and Harry saw long, bronze-colored spikes protruding along it every few inches.
“So, Hagrid, how's Harry?” asked Charlie.
“He's fine,” Hagrid said, still in awe of the dragons.
“Just hope he’s still fine after he’s faced this lot,” said Charlie grimly, looking out over the dragons’ enclosure. “I didn’t dare tell Mum what he’s got to do for the first task; she’s already having kittens about him. …” Charlie imitated his mother’s anxious voice. “ ‘How could they let him enter that tournament, he’s much too young! I thought they were all safe, I thought there was going to be an age limit!’ ”
Harry had had enough. Trusting to the fact that Hagrid wouldn’t miss him, with the attractions of four dragons and Madame Maxime to occupy him, he poked Sirius in the shoulder of his forelegs to get his attention, and whispered that he wanted to go back now. Sirius made a quiet wuff noise in response and guided him back the way they'd come.
He didn’t know whether he was glad he’d seen what was coming or not. Perhaps this way was better. The first shock was over now. Maybe if he’d seen the dragons for the first time on Tuesday, he would have passed out cold in front of the whole school … but maybe he would anyway. He had a plan, yes, a plan already tailored to dragons, but actually seeing one had put things into a terrifying sort of perspective. He was going to be armed with his wand — which, just now, felt like nothing more than a narrow strip of wood — against a fifty-foot-high, scaly, spike-ridden, fire-breathing dragon. And he had to get past it. With everyone watching.
Harry took a Calming Draught, since he'd felt the beginnings of a panic attack, and immediately relaxed enough to continue on behind Sirius, his nose to the ground as he sniffed out their path.
Sirius stopped without warning, and Harry nearly ran into him. When he was certain he wasn't going to fall over, he began to pay attention and heard Sirius growling at something in the woods.
“Go away, you filthy mutt!” a fruity, unctuous voice said. He recognized it at once as Karkaroff.
Sirius didn't obey; instead, he barked at Karkaroff, who took out his wand in response.
“Just leave him, Sirius,” Harry whispered. Sirius turned to glance at Harry, then relaxed. Karkaroff relaxed a tiny bit, too, but kept his wand trained on Padfoot as he continued on to where the dragons were.
When Karkaroff was gone, Sirius continued leading Harry back to the castle, huffing and puffing and growling in agitation all the while, clearly upset about meeting Karkaroff in the woods at night.
Harry had no doubt whatsoever what Karkaroff was up to. He had sneaked off his ship to try and find out what the first task was going to be. He might even have spotted Hagrid and Madame Maxime heading off around the forest together — they were hardly difficult to spot at a distance … and now all Karkaroff had to do was follow the sound of voices, and he, like Madame Maxime, would know what was in store for the champions.
By the looks of it, the only champion who would be facing the unknown on Tuesday was Cedric.
The two of them made it back to the castle, Sirius turning human again to escort an invisible Harry back to where they'd met up. Harry whispered a goodbye and continued on to the Griffindor common room. He said the password to the sleeping Fat Lady, but she woke up just enough to open herself up anyway.
Harry pulled off the Invisibility Cloak and threw himself into an armchair in front of the fire. The room was in semidarkness; the flames were the only source of light. Nearby, on a table, the Support Cedric Diggory! badges the Creeveys had been trying to improve were glinting in the firelight. They now read POTTER REALLY STINKS. He frowned at these, waited a half an hour for Sirius to get home, then took out his two-way mirror, the one marked as Sirius's.
“Sirius Black,” he said into the mirror.
“Heya Harry, glad to see you got back alright.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Yeah, it was really touch and go for that 20 feet from you to the common room, but somehow I soldiered through.”
“Ha! Sarcasm suits you. Anyway, how're you feeling?”
“Fine. No really, I took a Calming Draught. Had to; it wouldn't have helped either of us if I'd had a panic attack in the middle of the forest at night.”
“Right. Gods, I could use a different kind of calming draught myself, right about now. But first thing's first, Harry. So... dragons for sure, eh?”
“Yeah,” Harry said. “I thought as much, of course, but the reality of it... whoever organized this thing must be mad! It took eight adult, specially trained wizards to take out a single dragon!”
“Just be glad it's not nesting mothers, like they'd wanted. I shudder to think at the very idea!”
“Yeah. Anyway, nothing new to cover there, the plan already having been for dragons. I'll have to give Ron a thank-you note for thinking of that one.”
“Right, so we talk instead about Karkaroff being out there.”
“Clearly he saw two very large people wandering off at night, one of them being the gamekeeper and the other being the head of one of the competing schools, and decided to tag along. Now all the Champions but Cedric will know.”
“Damn, I really want to ask Hagrid what the Hell he was thinking, leading Maxime out there like that.”
“Probably thinking he could impress a lady he had a crush on.”
Sirius barked with sarcastic laughter. “Yeah. Bloke needs to think with the head on his shoulders instead of the head in... er... never mind.”
“Oh gods, too late, too late! The image is already burning itself into my memory!”
“Sorry about that, Harry.”
“I suppose I can forgive you for that. Anyway... Sirius, I'm worried.”
“I know. But you have a plan, and Charlie's lot will be there to keep it from getting disastrous, so--”
“Not for me, Sirius! I'm worried about you! You should sit this one out, for your own safety.”
“I'm not going to do that. If it comes down to a really dangerous situation, I'll use wandless magic. I've been getting back into practice. I can't do a lot with it, but it should be enough to secure a getaway for us. Better you lose that round than lose your life.”
“No! It's not--”
“Harry, seriously, it'll be alright. Worst comes to worst, I'll grab your wand and defend you with it. Like I said, it matters more that you get out alive than you winning. And if you get all zeroes, I'm sure a lot of people will be mollified by that. Like Maxime. And Karkaroff, too, assuming he's not the one who put you up to this.”
Harry grumbled. “Fine, fine. If you insist. But I'm doing this under protest.”
“Fine by me. Whatever lets me help keep you safe. Oh and hey, remember I don't need a wand to change to Padfoot. I can always become Padfoot, and I'm big enough as a dog that you can hop on and I'll run you out of there, okay?”
“I already said it was fine,” Harry said, sighing.
Harry heard someone coming down the spiral staircase. He turned around to see who it was, and saw Ron.
“Oh good, you're back,” Ron said. “What did Hagrid want?”
“Sit down,” Harry said, and Ron sat down next to him.
“Sooo... you gonna tell me?”
“Dragons. The first task is definitely dragons. Great, huge, fire breathing dragons.”
Ron's eyes went wide. “Holy crap, really?”
“Yes. You were right. I owe you a Chocolate Frog for that stroke of brilliance.”
Ron beamed. “Thank you. I look forward to it. In the mean time, though... dragons. Good thing you got a plan.”
“Yeah. Good thing you thought of dragons, so I could have a plan already.”
“Amen to that. The First Task is only a day and a half away, now. You'd have been dead meat if I hadn't guessed dragons weeks ago.”
“I might be dead meat anyway.”
“Well I hope not. Life won't be any fun around here without you, mate.”
The three of them chatted a bit more, catching Ron up on what they'd talked about plus a few other things, but then Harry yawned very loudly, and Sirius insisted he go to bed. Harry did so, gratefully.
Endnotes: Yes, I modified Draco's version of the ritual Harry did in book 3. I thought 'Amen' was too Christian-y for Draco, and there's other symbols there befitting Draco. The pentagram pointing downward is symbolic for the Earth element. That much I know for sure. The other variations on that theme I just kinda made up.
I had more, in fact I had most of the ritual written out in detail, but then I had this weird idea for something to happen during the ritual that I had half written before I decided it was stupid and so rewrote part of it, then I just kind of gave up, not knowing what to do. I almost decided to just go on to the next day and have them discuss the ritual a little bit, but I thought I ought to do something with the part I was cutting (especially since it had that bit about Danzia's uncle dying of AIDS), so I condensed it, which made it easier to know what to do with the rest of it.
Yeah, I titled the chapter after a song again. It's not so much for the literal meaning of the title, as it is for the lyrics of the song. Not sure who originally sang it, but the version I know is by Van Canto.
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Four.
Or, "Autistic Potter and the Goblet of Fire."
Notes: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made. Not by me, anyway.
There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though, but there's a lot more in this one than usual because it was unavoidable. Still, lots of details are changed, so don't skip by familiar parts or you might miss something.
Just as a reminder, so I don't have to shoehorn in descriptions in the text of the story as a reminder, but in this fanfic Harry and Hermione, apart from having Asperger's Syndrome, are both black as well.
'Italicized text between single quotes is almost always Parseltongue.'
Note: Samhain is pronounced "saw-when."
Chapter 11: “If I Die In Battle”
Sunday morning, Harry woke up, and for a few moments he was fine. Then he remembered the events of the night before, and felt a knot twisting in his guts that began to restrict his breathing. He closed his eyes and kept telling himself he had a plan, it was a good plan, he'd be fine. Sirius would be fine. He just had to convince himself it would be fine, and it would be.
It wasn't working. He ended up taking a Calming Draught, then checking the Potions book about the potion to find out how often he could take those before overdosing, because obviously.
He ended up dressing so inattentively that it was a while before he realized he was trying to pull his hat onto his foot instead of his sock. When he’d finally got all his clothes on the right parts of his body, he hurried off to find Hermione and Ron, locating them at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, where they were eating breakfast with Ginny. Feeling too queasy to eat, Harry waited until Hermione and Ron had finished eating, then dragged them out onto the grounds. There, he and Ron told Hermione all about the dragons, and about everything Sirius had said, while they took a long walk around the lake.
“Well you've got a plan, our brainstorming session helped, so you're prepared.”
“Yeah, I guess. And I can keep practicing for that. I've got it pretty good, but another two days of practice will distract me and make me even better. Even with the Calming Draught, I'm feeling pretty anxious.”
While on their walk, Harry Summoned a fallen branch and practiced cutting it into disks and carving the Second-wand Sigil as quickly as possible, empowering it to function and then casting the spell he was using into it. He tested it out, satisfied it was working, and kept practicing. He spent most of the morning doing that, then spent the afternoon practicing the other part of his plan, which was a lot easier; the trick there was doing it quickly without it exploding in his face.
~
Harry's dreams that night had him practicing his plan in his dreams, for what felt like hours, and he woke up on Monday morning feeling not very rested. His anxiety was growing despite his planning and practicing, and he briefly contemplated running away back to Sirius's house before dismissing the idea. He didn't want the Goblet of Fire to think he'd chickened out and punishing him for it, maybe in a fatal way.
As he, Hermione, and Ron got up from breakfast, he saw Cedric Diggory and realized Cedric didn't know about the dragons. Sure, the point of the task was to see what you could make of an unexpected danger, but he was the only one of the Champions who didn't know the task was dragons.
“I'll catch you lot up, I've got something important to do,” he said.
“Harry, you’ll be late, the bell’s about to ring —”
“I’ll catch you up, okay?”
By the time Harry reached the bottom of the marble staircase, Cedric was at the top. He was with a load of sixth-year friends. Harry didn’t want to talk to Cedric in front of them; they were among those who had been quoting Rita Skeeter’s article at him every time he went near them. He followed Cedric at a distance and saw that he was heading toward the Charms corridor. This gave Harry an idea. Pausing at a distance from them, he pulled out his wand, and took careful aim.
“Accio Cedric's bag!”
Cedric's bag jerked out of his grip, flying across the room but giving up halfway to drag on the floor. Harry Summoned it again, and Cedric went running after it, his friends staring in confusion after him.
When Cedric got to the bag, Harry was there.
“Wait, was that you messing with my bag?” Cedric asked.
“I had to get you on your own to warn you. Cedric, the First Task, it's dragons. They’ve got four, one for each of us, and we’ve got to get past them.”
Cedric stared at him. Harry saw some of the panic he’d been feeling since Saturday night flickering in Cedric’s gray eyes.
“Are you sure?” Cedric said in a hushed voice.
“Dead sure,” said Harry. “I’ve seen them.”
“But how did you find out? We’re not supposed to know. …”
“Never mind,” said Harry quickly — he knew Hagrid would be in trouble if he told the truth. “But I’m not the only one who knows. Fleur and Krum will know by now — Maxime and Karkaroff both saw the dragons too.”
Cedric straightened up, his bag dangling off one shoulder. He stared at Harry, and there was a puzzled, almost suspicious look in his eyes.
“Why are you telling me?” he asked.
Harry looked at him in disbelief. He was sure Cedric wouldn’t have asked that if he had seen the dragons himself. Harry wouldn’t have let his worst enemy face those monsters unprepared. Not even Knott or Snape. Well, maybe the Dursleys.
“It’s just … fair, isn’t it?” he said to Cedric. “We all know now … we’re on an even footing, aren’t we?”
Cedric was still looking at him in a slightly suspicious way when Harry heard a familiar clunking noise behind him. He turned around and saw Mad-Eye Moody emerging from a nearby classroom.
“Come with me, Potter,” he growled. “Diggory, off you go.”
Harry stared apprehensively at Moody. Had he overheard them?
“Er — Professor, I’m supposed to be in Herbology —”
“Never mind that, Potter. In my office, please.
Harry followed along, wondering what was going to happen. He hoped Moody wouldn’t turn him into a ferret, he might need his hands and wand, even if it would be easier to get past a dragon as a ferret.
He followed Moody into his office. Moody closed the door behind them and turned to look at Harry, his magical eye fixed upon him as well as the normal one.
“That was a very decent thing you just did, Potter,” Moody said quietly.
Harry didn’t know what to say; this wasn’t the reaction he had expected at all.
“Sit down,” said Moody, and Harry sat, looking around.
Moody was talking about his Dark Detectors, the Foe Glass and so on, but Harry wasn't really listening. He was worried Moody would punish him for doing the right thing.
“So … found out about the dragons, have you?”
Harry hesitated. He’d been afraid of this — but he hadn’t told Cedric, and he certainly wasn’t going to tell Moody, that Hagrid had broken the rules.
“It’s all right,” said Moody, sitting down and stretching out his wooden leg with a groan. “Cheating’s a traditional part of the Tri-wizard Tournament and always has been.”
“I didn’t cheat,” said Harry sharply. “It was — a sort of accident that I found out.”
Moody grinned. “I wasn’t accusing you, laddie. I’ve been telling Dumbledore from the start, he can be as high-minded as he likes, but you can bet old Karkaroff and Maxime won’t be. They’ll have told their champions everything they can. They want to win. They want to beat Dumbledore. They’d like to prove he’s only human.”
Moody gave a harsh laugh, and his magical eye swiveled around so fast it made Harry feel queasy to watch it.
“So … got any ideas how you’re going to get past your dragon yet?” said Moody.
“Yes. Weeks ago, my friends were wondering what the First Task might be, Ron guessed dragons, we prepared for that with a plan that would work equally well for most other creatures.”
“Mind telling me about it?”
“Um, okay,” Harry said, and outlined the idea for him.
When Harry was finished, Moody whistled. “Clever idea. A little bit time consuming and probably boring to watch until you really get it going, but clever nonetheless. Well good. Sounds like you're in for a good chance of getting out of that alive, which is the important part. Good on you. I look forward to seeing it.”
“Um, thanks.”
“Well, you'd better run along to class now. Here's a note to excuse your tardiness from me.”
“Thanks,” Harry said, taking the note and leaving at once.
~
Harry had his plan practiced so thoroughly he firmly believed he'd be able to do it at a moment's notice just as quickly years from now, all he had left to do now was hide the things he needed over by his favorite boulder in the woods, so it would be easier to Summon. He cast warming charms on them, and some other spells to keep animals and vandals away. He contemplated putting a stasis charm on them, but decided it wasn't necessary.
Whenever the panic would start to creep in again, Harry recited the steps of his plan in his head, making it into a sort of mantra that calmed him. Time was behaving in a more peculiar fashion than ever, rushing past in great dollops, so that one moment he seemed to be sitting down in his first lesson, History of Magic, and the next, walking into lunch … and then (where had the morning gone? the last of the dragon-free hours?), Professor McGonagall was hurrying over to him in the Great Hall. Lots of people were watching.
“Potter, the champions have to come down onto the grounds now. … You have to get ready for your first task.”
“Okay,” said Harry, standing up, his fork falling onto his plate with a clatter.
Luna came over to the Griffindor table then, looking very worried. He wondered if someone had told her what was going on.
“Mr. Potter has to go to the First Task, Miss Lovegood.”
“I know. I just want to wish him luck first.”
Luna's voice had lost some of its airy quality. She sounded tense. Harry worried about her now. He opened his mouth to say something comforting to her, but before he could get any words out, she kissed him on the cheek and said, “Be safe, Harry. Come back to me.”
Harry stood there, stunned. He vaguely registered several people wolf-whistling at him, Fred and George among them. His face felt hotter than it had ever been, barring once when he'd had a very high fever when he was in second grade.
“This way, Mr. Potter,” McGonagall said, nudging him forward. “Your godfather is just outside in the entrance hall.”
Still stunned, Harry walked along obediently until they got to Sirius. Even in his stunned state, he thought Sirius looked nervous, too.
“Heya, Harry. It's time. You ready?”
Harry nodded vaguely.
“Now, don’t panic,” McGonagall said, “just keep a cool head, both of you. We’ve got wizards standing by to control the situation if it gets out of hand. The main thing is just to do your best, and nobody will think any the worse of you. Are you all right?”
“Yes,” Harry heard himself say. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“Oh Harry, I had a thought,” Sirius said. “I'm gonna take my dog form during the Task, only turn human if it looks like you need me to talk to you. That way, nobody can say I'm really helping you. Everyone knows Animagi can't talk in their animal forms. Well, I suppose Animagi who become parrots or ravens might be able to, but I don't become anything that's capable of speech.”
“Right,” Harry said, still sounding far-off.
McGonagall was leading the two of them to where the First Task was going to be, around the edge of the forest, but when they approached the clump of trees behind which the enclosure would be clearly visible, Harry saw that a tent had been erected, its entrance facing them, screening the dragons from view.
“You’re to go in here with the other champions,” said Professor McGonagall, in a rather shaky sort of voice, “and wait for your turn, Potter. Mr. Bagman is in there... he’ll be telling you the — the procedure. Good luck.”
“Thanks,” said Harry, in a flat, distant voice. She left him at the entrance of the tent. Harry went inside.
Fleur Delacour was sitting in a corner on a low wooden stool. She didn’t look nearly as composed as usual, but rather pale and clammy. Viktor Krum looked even surlier than usual, which Harry supposed was his way of showing nerves. Cedric was pacing up and down. When Harry entered, Cedric gave him a small smile, which Harry returned, feeling the muscles in his face working rather hard, as though they had forgotten how to do it.
Mr. Bagman was indeed there. So were Karkaroff, Maxime, and Ms. Selby. Ms. Selby confiscated Sirius's wand, checked him all over for spare wands or other suspicious items, then thoroughly checked Harry's sunglasses, earmuffs, and dragon-skin bracelet, then checked him for suspicious items that might help him. Then they reviewed the rules Sirius was expected to abide by, and she cast an eavesdropping charm on both of them, making it so she and the other judges would be able to listen in on everything either of them would say. Sirius asked if the charm would stay on him through Animagi transformations. They tested it out and found that it did. When she and the other two judges were satisfied, they left the tent. All except for Bagman.
Bagman looked somehow like a slightly overblown cartoon figure, standing amid all the pale-faced champions. He was wearing his old Wasp robes again.
“Well, now we’re all here and ready — time to fill you in!” said Bagman brightly. “When the audience has assembled, I’m going to be offering each of you this bag” — he held up a small sack of purple silk and shook it at them — “from which you will each select a small model of the thing you are about to face! There are different — er — varieties, you see. And I have to tell you something else too … ah, yes … your task is to collect the puzzle box!”
Harry glanced around. Cedric had nodded once, to show that he understood Bagman’s words, and then started pacing around the tent again; he looked slightly green. Fleur Delacour and Krum hadn’t reacted at all. Perhaps they thought they might be sick if they opened their mouths; that was certainly how Harry felt. But they, at least, had volunteered for this.
Sirius was pacing back and forth in dog form, probably because his emotions were less complex in animal form. Harry was reciting the plan in his head again. As such, he almost didn't hear when Bagman got the bag out and offered it to each of them in turn. There were little moving dragon figurines inside the bag. Fleur got the Welsh Green, Krum got the Chinese Fireball, Cedric got a Swedish Short-Snout, and Harry of course got the nasty Norwegian Ridgeback. They all had numbers on them as well, and the order was Cedric, Fleur, Krum, Harry.
It was Hell waiting for each of the others to go first, hearing the shouts and screams of the crowd and the occasional vague commentary from Bagman. Harry felt close to a panic attack by the time it was his turn, and when his turn was announced, he thought he was very close to going over the edge into full-blown hysteria. But Padfoot nuzzled his hand, calming him down at once, at least enough to get moving. He put his earmuffs on and walked forward into the arena.
He saw everything in front of him as though it was a very highly colored dream. There were hundreds and hundreds of faces staring down at him from stands that had been magicked there since he’d last stood on this spot. And there was the Horntail, at the other end of the enclosure, standing there agitated, his wings half-furled, his evil, yellow eyes upon Harry, a monstrous, scaly, black lizard, thrashing his spiked tail, leaving yard-long gouge marks in the hard ground. The crowd was making a great deal of noise, but whether friendly or not, Harry didn’t know or care. Sirius was at his side, in dog form, a comforting presence. It was time to do what he had to do. He lifted his wand.
“Accio cauldron!”
He waited. A few moments later, a cauldron full of supplies flew into the arena and right at him. He caught it, and hurriedly lit a fire and began to brew his potion. Once he had it to where he could set the stirring stick to stir by magic, he stood up again.
“Accio branch!”
A moment later, a small branch flew into the arena and into his hand. He immediately set to work cutting it into disks with his wand, and carving the sigil he needed, looking up every now and then at the dragon in the distance, which wasn't moving much.
When he had the first set of sigils carved, he copied the others with his wand, empowered the sigils, cast the spells he needed into them, and levitated them into place. This took a few minutes. Once they were in place, he Summoned one last thing – the Basilisk-skin shield, put it on his arm and deployed it with a SNAP! Then he Disillusioned himself and Sirius, levitated the potion contents out of the cauldron, and chucked it through the air at the dragon, activating the sigils once the potion was on its way. They activated just as the potion exploded, filling the entire arena with the stench of rotten eggs. He heard the crowd reacting in horror to the stench, but wasted no time thinking about it; instead, he ran forward.
Anyone distracted by the stench of the potion he'd dispersed would be excused for missing the gigantic, razor-thin mirror suddenly standing right in front of the dragon. Even the dragon didn't notice at first, distracted as it was by the stink assaulting its giant nostrils. But once it noticed, it tensed up and glared at what it thought was another male dragon invading its territory. The reflection, delayed by a half second, tensed up as well. The dragon growled, clawing at the ground threateningly. A half second later, so did the reflection. The dragon roared, flailing its tail. A half second later, so did the reflection, complete with an actually noisy roar.
It was working; the plan was actually working. He'd been right to guess that a dragon wasn't smart enough to recognize itself in a mirror, especially a mirror on a slight delay. Add to this the fact that its nose was full of nothing but the stink of rotten eggs, and it had no way of knowing that this other dragon wasn't a real threat. But who knew how long it would be until the dragon attacked? So Harry ran for it.
The magic mirror illusion the sigils were conjuring was far enough away from the other dragon to lure it away from the puzzle box it was guarding, but close enough to be a threat. And so once the roaring challenge was accepted with the mirror's own roar, the dragon leaped forward, flapping its great wings in a display that said 'Look at how big and impressive I am!' Naturally, the mirror followed suit. Harry was halfway to the puzzle box, hoping the dragon would be distracted long enough for him to make it.
He glanced back and saw the dragon leaping forward again, right at his opponent, and then right through the mirror. The dragon emerged from the other side looking very confused and angry, turning back to see the back of the mirror, which – because it had been simpler to do it that way – was also a mirror. The dragon looked even more confused and angry than before, swiping at the mirror with one of its fore arms; it passed right through, like moving through mist.
Harry and Sirius were almost to the puzzle box when the dragon figured out he had been tricked. He reared up, looking around the arena for something to attack for this indignity, but didn't see anything. He took a tentative sniff, but the air still reeked of rotten eggs, and the dragon sneezed, a giant gout of flame rushing forward as he did. Harry snatched up the puzzle box, but got burned by the fire, his robe sleeves on fire, because the Basilisk-skin shield was on his other arm and he hadn't pulled it up in time. He screamed, which drew the dragon's attention to him, where it saw the fire moving as Harry hurried to put it out by beating his arms on the ground. Sirius whined in concern, but Harry managed to put the fire out on his own, but the Disillusionment Charm had collapsed, he was visible again.
The dragon roared again and rushed forward at Harry. The fire out, Harry grabbed the puzzle box in his burned hands and ran full tilt for the exit, but they wouldn't make it in time to avoid another jet of flame, so Harry stopped, grabbed Sirius with his burned hand, and knelt, shield up, the fire splashing against the shield. Some magic in the shield shot the fire to the sides so it didn't spill over the shield and burn him anyway, but he still felt uncomfortably hot.
When the dragon's fire stopped, Harry activated another set of sigils he'd prepared at the same time as the main mirror's sigils as a 'just in case' measure, and ran for it, Sirius ahead of him. The newly-activated sigils – also set with variations on the mirror spell – made it look like there were a dozen sets of Harry and Sirius running in a dozen different directions, confusing the dragon long enough for them to get away and through the exit.
Harry ran right into Hagrid, falling over backwards but getting caught by his robes and pulled back up just in time. Moody and McGonagall were there too, sharing Hagrid's look of concern at his burned hand.
“Oh my goodness, Potter! You're injured!” cried Professor McGonagall. He noticed that her hands shook as she pointed at his burned hand. “You’ll need to see Madam Pomfrey before the judges give out your score. Over there, she’s had to mop up Diggory already.”
“Yeh did it, Harry!” said Hagrid hoarsely. “Yeh did it! An’ agains’ the Horntail an’ all, an' yeh--”
“Thanks, Hagrid,” said Harry loudly, so that Hagrid wouldn’t blunder on and reveal that he had shown Harry the dragons beforehand.
Professor Moody looked very pleased too; his magical eye was dancing in its socket and he escorted Harry to Madam Pomfrey. His remaining normal eye was focused intently on Harry's Basilisk-skin shield, which he'd retracted just before following Moody to the medical tent.
Harry walked out of the enclosure, still panting, and saw Madam Pomfrey standing at the mouth of a second tent, looking worried. That must be the medical tent, he thought.
“Dragons!” she said, in a disgusted tone, pulling Harry inside. The tent was divided into cubicles; he could make out Cedric’s shadow through the canvas, but Cedric didn’t seem to be badly injured; he was sitting up, at least. Madam Pomfrey examined Harry’s shoulder, talking furiously all the while. “Last year dementors, this year dragons, what are they going to bring into this school next? Oh my, that looks painful. Hmm... you're lucky, though, Potter, these burns don't look very bad.”
She smeared some orange-colored salve over the skin of his hand, and it immediately felt better, healing in a couple of minutes.
“Now, just sit quietly for a minute — sit! And then you can go and get your score.”
She bustled out of the tent and he heard her go next door and say, “How does it feel now, Diggory?”
“I did it, Sirius! I really did it! Got hurt, but I did it! I'm alive!”
“That you did, pup!”
At that moment, Ron ran into the tent.
“Brilliant!” Ron said. “Absolutely brilliant!”
“Where's Luna and Hermione and the others?”
“Oh they'll be around, I ran ahead. Anyway, you were the best of all of them. Fleur did some kind of sleeping charm but got burned when the dragon blew fire in its sleep, Krum used the Conjunctivitis Curse and nearly gotten trampled for his trouble, and Cedric used transfiguration to distract the dragon, but it didn't work all that well, and he got burned, too! But really badly.”
Harry was going to answer, but several people barged into the tent. It was the judges. Maxime and Karkaroff looked furious.
“Cheater!” Karkaroff shouted at him. “You cheated again!”
“Say that again, Karkaroff, I dare you,” Sirius said angrily.
“Sirius,” Harry said. “Don't.”
Ron scooted back a bit, trying to look like he wasn't there. Probably he didn't want to get himself or Harry in trouble by saying the wrong thing.
Karkaroff looked at Sirius furiously and said quietly to him, “Been on any nightly walks, Black?”
“No more than you have,” Sirius said quietly back.
Karkaroff glowered at Sirius, but nodded slightly, apparently admitting they had a stalemate on that point.
“CHEATER!” Karkaroff bellowed again, pointing at Harry.
“Now now, Mr. Karkaroff,” Ms. Selby said, “let's not rush to conclusions.”
“There is no way he could have done all that on his own, and ahead of time no less!” Karkaroff shouted.
“Harry,” Ms. Selby said, “as angry as Mr. Karkaroff is, he has a point that it looks very suspicious. You clearly had this planned ahead of time.”
Stopping Sirius with a look again, Harry said, “Well I did. But I didn't know for sure it was dragons until today.” Which was a lie, of course, but close enough to the truth.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean my friends and I made an educated guess, weeks ago. We figured you'd want something big and flashy for the First Task since it had been so long since the Tournament had been held, and since the First Task was usually a creature of some sort, we figured it would be a dragon. Well, Ron thought of it. We couldn’t think of anything bigger or flashier. Still, I came up with a plan that would work on a great many creatures just in case.”
“Your godfather helped you!”
“I did not!”
“No, he really didn't. He wasn't there when my friends and I thought it might be dragons. And I came up with the plan myself.”
“Then you cheated with the help of your friends!”
“Now Igor,” Dumbledore said, “there is no rule against Harry's friends helping him, none of them are in the Ministry nor work at the school.”
“They didn't think of the plan. They helped me with the arithmancy a little, but the idea was all mine, and I probably could have figured it out without their help, it just would have taken longer.”
“You expect us to believe a fourteen year old wizard guessed correctly that the Task would be dragons, came up with a complex plan on his own, and only needed a little help from his friends to figure out how to do it?”
“Well yes. Because that's what happened. Anyway, as I said, it was Ronald Weasley who figured out it would be dragons, you can question him and the rest of my friends if they let you, that's Ron right there in fact. As to the rest, I ran into a useful sigil in dueling club and adapted it to a simple illusion, which was the one thing I could find that was within my ability to do. I couldn’t do transfigurations, I don't know any sleeping spells powerful enough for dragons, I didn't want to risk lives hurting a dragon with a Conjunctivitis Curse (and couldn’t safely practice it anyway), but it occurred to me that I might be able to do an illusion. As it was, I had to use that stinky potion to make up for the fact that the dragon would be able to smell that there wasn't anything there.
“Oh, and also, two of the friends who helped me were almost old enough to have entered the Tournament themselves. Angela Whitechapel and Antigone Dreyfuss.”
“Dreyfuss? Like the artificer?” Karkaroff looked at Harry's Basilisk-skin shield.
“Yes. Her father is the artificer you mentioned. He made this shield for me, gave it to me as both a gift and as free advertisement for his business. I included it in the things I decided to Summon.”
“I see. And you figured out how to do all this in just three weeks?”
“Yes. I'm pretty decent in Arithmancy class, the sigil instructions were simple enough, I've been friends with older students since year one, and ever since I found out I was a wizard I've been trying to learn everything about magic that I could, because it's amazing and cool to be able to alter reality with willpower and words, so whenever I'm not studying for classes, I'm usually reading ahead. I've been able to do the Summoning Charm for years. Also, the stink potion was pretty simple. Some eggs, boom berry juice, diluted bundimun solution, heat and stir, then deploy. I just put the things I knew I'd need outside where I could easily Summon them, and I've been practicing the sigil thing so much I could do it in my sleep.”
“I don't know about you, Igor, but that sounds reasonable for a fourteen year old wizard to manage with a little help from his friends. Especially such a bright student as Mr. Potter. Ms. Selby, am I correct that there's no rule against getting help from friends?”
“It's not against the rules. It's not encouraged, but it's not forbidden. I could show you the relevant passages, Mr. Karkaroff, if you wish?”
Karkaroff snorted. Maxime was looking at Harry like she'd suddenly realized she'd grossly underestimated him, and was now very wary. Or at least, that's what it looked like to Harry.
“Fine! But I'm taking points off for that horrible stench you made!”
He stormed off. Dumbledore tipped his hat at Harry, then he and the other two judges followed Karkaroff out of the tent. A moment later, two people came darting into the tent – Hermione and Luna.
“Harry, you were brilliant!” Hermione said squeakily. There were fingernail marks on her face where she had been clutching it in fear. “You were amazing! You really were!”
Luna ran up to him and hugged him, making his cheeks heat up again. “You're alive,” Luna said into his ear. “Thank the fair folk!”
He thought he felt wetness where her cheek was touching his neck. Had she been crying? He felt bad that she'd been crying, but he felt oddly good, too, some emotion he couldn’t identify, almost like... pride? Pride, at being cried over by Luna? That didn't make sense, that couldn’t be right. He wondered what this emotion was, and wondered how people knew what emotions were which. Anger was usually obvious, he had a lot of experience with anger. Fear, too. But others were not always so easy to identify. This one was especially odd.
“It's okay, Luna, I'm alright. There's no need to cry.”
“I know, silly. These were tears of joy. Well, relief anyway. You're my first ever friend. I don't want to lose you. I'm relieved I didn't, when I was terrified I would.”
She pulled away at last, smiling at him and dabbing at her eyes. She was looking at him oddly. He couldn’t identify the emotion behind the look, but it seemed familiar for some reason.
Harry finally noticed she was wearing a pin that said, in great glowing blue letters, 'Support both Hogwarts Champions!'
“Nice button. Did you make it yourself?”
She smiled at him. “Yes, I did. I'm glad you like it. I wanted it to say 'Support Harry Potter AND Cedric Diggory, Hogwarts Champions,' but there wasn't room.”
“It's brilliant. You're very clever.”
Luna blushed. “Thank you, Harry. That's kind of you to say. Oh, it does something else as well.”
She pressed the button and it changed to a sickly orange color, saying 'Bullying stinks!' Harry laughed at that. Even Ron and Hermione chuckled at that, and as they left the tent to go find out Harry's score, Ron and Hermione were asking Luna for buttons just like it.
“Oh, by the way, Luna, you should give some of those pins to the Creevy brothers, they'll want one.”
“Yes, I had planned to do that. Thank you for the reminder, though.”
Soon, they all reached the edge of the enclosure, meeting Danzia there, who had come to get the news for the rest of Harry's Slytherin friends; they hadn't wanted to crowd him, and knew there were three people with him already. Now that the Horntail had been taken away, Harry could see where the five judges were sitting — right at the other end, in raised seats draped in gold.
“It’s marks out of ten from each one,” Ron said, and Harry, squinting up the field, saw the first judge — Madame Maxime — raise her wand in the air. What looked like a long silver ribbon shot out of it, which twisted itself into a large figure eight.
“Not bad!” said Ron as the crowd applauded. “I suppose she took marks off for your burns.”
Ms. Selby came next, giving Harry an eight as well.
“Looking good!” Ron yelled, thumping Harry on the back.
Next, Dumbledore. He put up a nine. The crowd was cheering harder than ever.
Ludo Bagman — ten.
“Ten?” said Harry in disbelief. “But I got hurt. What’s he playing at?”
“Harry, don’t complain!” Ron yelled excitedly.
And now Karkaroff raised his wand. He paused for a moment, and then a number shot out of his wand too — three.
“What?” Ron bellowed furiously. “Three? You lousy, biased scumbag, you gave Krum ten!”
“They really should get judges from somewhere else,” Luna said. “Someone who can be as objective as possible. The heads of the schools shouldn't be allowed to be on the judges' panel, nor Ministry employees either. It's too biased.”
“Well it worked in his favor this time, Luna.”
“For the most part, yes. But I stand by my statement.”
“I'm with Luna on this one,” Danzia said.
“Second place, Harry! Right behind Krum!” said Charlie Weasley, hurrying to meet them as they set off back toward the school. “Listen, I’ve got to run, I’ve got to go and send Mum an owl, I swore I’d tell her what happened — but that was unbelievable! Oh yeah — and they told me to tell you you’ve got to hang around for a few more minutes. Bagman wants a word, back in the champions’ tent.”
Ron, Luna, Danzia, and Hermione said they'd stay behind, so Harry reentered the tent the Champions had waited in, Sirius following him in from the medical tent. The tent somehow looked quite different now: friendly and welcoming. He thought back to how he’d felt while dodging the Horntail, and compared it to the long wait before he’d walked out to face it. There was no comparison; the wait had been immeasurably worse.
Fleur, Cedric, and Krum all came in together. One side of Cedric’s face was covered in the thick orange paste that was the burn salve. He grinned at Harry when he saw him.
“Good one, Harry.”
“And you,” said Harry, grinning back.
“Well done, all of you!” said Ludo Bagman, bouncing into the tent and looking as pleased as though he personally had just got past a dragon. “Now, just a quick few words. You’ve got a nice long break before the second task, which will take place at half past nine on the morning of February the twenty-fourth — but we’re giving you something to think about in the meantime! If you look down at those puzzle boxes of yours, I know they don't look like much. But press your hand to a side and it will ask you a riddle. Answer the riddle, and the box changes slightly. Answer all six riddles in the right order and the box will open up and tell you what the Second Task will be, thus enabling you to prepare for it! All clear? Sure? Well, off you go, then!”
Harry left the tent, rejoined Ron, and they started to walk back around the edge of the forest, talking hard; Harry wanted to hear what the other champions had done in more detail. Then, as they rounded the clump of trees behind which Harry had first heard the dragons roar, a witch leapt out from behind them.
It was Rita Skeeter. She was wearing acid-green robes today; the Quick-Quotes Quill in her hand blended perfectly against them.
“Congratulations, Harry!” she said, beaming at him. “I wonder if you could give me a quick word? How you felt facing that dragon? How you feel now, about the fairness of the scoring?”
“You can have a word,” Luna said before Harry could. “Well, several words: Harry will be giving an exclusive interview to my father, Xenophilus Lovegood.”
Skeeter made a face like she'd smelled Harry's stink potion again. “That nutter? You're talking to him, but not me?”
“That's right, Rita,” Harry said. “His article about the World Cup was much more factual than yours, I trust him more.”
“Also,” Luna added, “it was very lucrative. If his article about the interview with Harry does well enough, he's going to launch a second magazine, one with nothing about fantastic creatures. I'm glad; articles like that don't really match the tone of the Quibbler.”
“Why, because they're grounded in reality, unlike that rag he prints?” Skeeter asked disdainfully.
“What would you know about reality, Skeeter?” Sirius asked. “Your own articles have a very tenuous affiliation with reality. That last one was riddled with false assumptions and speculations.”
“Sirius, come on, don't give her anything to work with. NO COMMENT!” Harry said, and pulled Sirius and Luna away.
To distract Harry from Skeeter having been there, Ron continued his play-by-play, which had been interrupted at the part where Bagman had explained Harry's coping tools and Sirius's presence.
Halfway to the castle, at the part about Cedric's attempt going badly, Harry froze. His friends and Sirius stopped shortly afterward, when they realized he had stopped walking.
“Griffindor is going to want to throw me a party, aren't they?” He knew they threw parties whenever the Quidditch team won, it made sense they'd do it for this, too.
“Probably, mate. I'll bet Fred and George are nicking things from the kitchen as we speak.”
“Is there any way I can get out of it?”
“Hmm... well, you could Disillusion yourself again, but you might bump into someone.”
“I don't suppose telling people I don't want to join the party is going to help?”
“Probably not.”
Harry sighed, but then he looked thoughtful and turned to Sirius. “Any chance you could get Dora to pretend to be me for the night?”
Sirius barked with laughter at the idea. “Oh my goodness, yes, I should ask. I'm gonna go to Dumbledore's fireplace, see if I can Floo-call her. Yes, what a prank that would be!”
He handed the puzzle box back to Harry and took off for the castle.
“Who's Dora?” Ron asked.
“Nymphadora Tonks, though you should call her Tonks if you value your life. She lets family call her Dora, but I don't know if that applies to you or not, Ron.”
“How's she supposed to pretend to be you?”
“She's a metamorphmagus.”
“Really? Cool!”
“I want to go to Hagrid's place,” Harry said.
“You do that if you want, Harry, but I wanna meet this Tonks girl. What're you two gonna do?”
“Do you want company, Harry?” Luna asked.
“Yeah, you two can come with if you want.”
The two girls nodded and followed Harry to Hagrid's.
~
When Harry got up the next morning, Seamus welcomed him.
“Wild party last night, Harry! Your cousin really had us fooled for a couple of hours. We thought you'd gotten drunk until she revealed the truth. That was a hoot and a holler!”
“Right. I'm just glad I didn't have to be there. Too many people.”
“You don't like parties, Harry?”
“No. They make me ill. Crowds always do. I think the only reason I didn't get ill yesterday was because the crowd were so far away. Also I was a bit too focused on the dragon to pay them any mind.”
“Ah, alright then. Well we'd better get to breakfast.”
Harry nodded, and followed Seamus and Ron down to breakfast. Harry thought back to last night, spending time at Hagrid's with Luna and Hermione. Then he realized he'd forgotten to try the puzzle box at all.
The mystery of the puzzle box bothered him all night long, until he could get back up to his room to try it out. Ron, Seamus, and Dean happened to be there when he tried it. First, Harry studied it. It looked like if the colored squares of a Rubik's cube was made with a hodgepodge of different shapes instead of squares, like diamonds, triangles, squares, star shapes, pentagons, and other assorted polygons.
He put his hand on one of its sides, activating the light and the riddle-telling part of that side of the box. The voice coming out of it sounded calm, polite, and androgynous.
“If you're 8 feet away from a door and with each move you advance half the distance to the door, how many moves will it take to reach the door?”
“Ooh,” Seamus said. “Um... four! Four moves!”
The box buzzed, turning briefly red. Harry reactivated the same side, and as soon as the box asked the question, he said, “You'll never reach the door, you'll always be going half the distance, no matter how small.”
The box turned green this time, and suddenly expanded into hundreds of floating pieces, rearranging itself. When it reassembled itself, the shapes were all different.
“Interesting.”
He tried another side.
“What relation would your father's sister's sister-in-law be to you?”
The boys all thought for a few moments before Ron said, “Your mum!”
Once more, the box turned green and rearranged itself. Harry didn't think any of the sides were any more or less one color or another, either time it had changed. He tried a different side.
“What begins but does not end, ends all things that begin, but begins nothing?”
“Death,” Seamus said.
It was correct. When it was done reassembling itself, one of the sides looked more red than it had before.
“You can easily touch me, but not see me. You can throw me out, but not away. What am I?”
“Air!”
Wrong.
“That was a stupid guess. How do you throw out air?”
They tried other answers.
“A quaffle?” Wrong. “Emptiness?” Wrong. “A house guest?” Wrong. “A pet?” Wrong. “Your hopes and dreams?” Wrong. They gave up on that one.
“I am a protector. I sit on a bridge. One person can see right through me, while others wonder what I hide. What am I?”
“Glass bottomed bridge?” Wrong. (“Of course not, you idiot, it sits ON a bridge!”) “Invisibility cloak?” Wrong. (“How would outsiders even know they were wearing one? And why would they be on a bridge?”) “Camera?” Harry asked. Wrong. (“You doofus, who wonders what's inside a camera?”) “Glasses?” Wrong.
“Sunglasses!” Harry said. That was right. The box reassembled itself, and suddenly looked more jumbled than ever.
“How was that the answer?” Seamus asked.
“Because they sit on the bridge of your nose, you twit!” Ron said.
“And they hide your eyes, so while you can see through them, others wonder what they hide.” Harry added.
There was one last riddle to try.
“I am a word of seven letters. My first three letters is the past tense of cut; my last four letters refer to a girl. My whole refers to a sharp metal object. What am I?”
“Well the past tense of cut is cut,” Harry said. “So that part is dumb. Cut... girl?”
“Oy, it's a cut lass!”
They tried that answer, and it was right. But the puzzle still wasn't solved. They tried the one about throwing out something you can't throw away.
“Oh wait, I think I know this one,” Ron said. “My dad said something about someone he worked with. I think the answer is 'your back.'”
Harry smacked his forehead. “Of course! Throwing out your back!”
They tried it, and it was the right answer, but the puzzle still wasn't solved.
“Puzzle unsolved. Resetting to original configuration,” the puzzle said, then rearranged itself to its original state.
“Hey Harry, I just noticed something,” Ron said. “Look, there's little numbers on the middle of each side!”
Sure enough, each side was numbered. They answered one of the riddles, and the box rearranged itself again, but the numbers remained.
“Bagman said we have to answer the riddles in the right order. These numbers must be the numbers of the faces, we have to get the right combination,” Harry said. Then he sighed deeply.
“What's wrong?” Ron asked.
“I don't know offhand how many possible combinations of six numbers there can be, but it's a huge number. A massive number, in fact.”
“How big could it be?” Ron asked.
“Let's put it this way: Muggle computers can calculate combos of numbers like that at a speed of hundreds, maybe thousands, per second, and it would take one of them probably 100 years or more to come up with all possible combos. And I may be way off, too. It could be some number so high that a Muggle computer would still be calculating it when the universe started to die.”
“Oh, well,” Seamus said, “there's six sides. I reckon you have to use all six sides, no repeats. Does that cut the number down?”
“I'm sure it does. Don't know by how much, though. Still probably more combos than we can go through before the Second Task, even going through them as fast as we can nonstop the whole time.”
“Well, what combos have we used already?”
They checked which riddles went with which numbers, then figured out from that that they'd first used 6, 4, 2, 1, 3, 5.
Harry wrote out something on a piece of paper then, related to their task:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 || 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 || 2, 4, 6, 1, 3, 5 || 5, 3, 1, 6, 4, 2 || 6, 4, 2, 1, 3, 5
6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 || 1, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 || 5, 2, 4, 6, 1, 3 || 2, 5, 3, 1, 6, 4 || 5, 6, 4, 2, 1, 3
5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4 || 2, 1, 6, 5, 4, 3 || 3, 5, 2, 4, 6, 1 || 4, 2, 5, 3, 1, 6 || 3, 5, 6, 4, 2, 1
4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3 || 3, 2, 1, 6, 5, 4 || 1, 3, 5, 2, 4, 6 || 6, 4, 2, 5, 3, 1 || 1, 3, 5, 6, 4, 2
3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2 || 4, 3, 2, 1, 6, 5 || 6, 1, 3, 5, 2, 4 || 1, 6, 4, 2, 5, 3 || 2, 1, 3, 5, 6, 4
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1 || 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 6 || 4, 6, 1, 3, 5, 2 || 3, 1, 6, 4, 2, 5 || 4, 2, 1, 3, 5, 6
“So that's just 30 possible combinations, not even close to being all of them,” Harry said.
“Well,” Ron said, “we could try some of these each day, write down any promising changes to the sides and which number combo those went with, and that at least would let us narrow it down some.”
“Yeah,” Dean said, “then we could put X's by the combos we'd tried, maybe put a little P for Promising, circle the part of the number that gave a positive result.”
“Great plan,” Harry said. “With thirty combos to start with, maybe we'll get enough of a positive hit to narrow it down. The more we narrow it down, the faster this will go.”
“Yeah, set this thing on your desk with the list of number combos to try, and we'll help you cycle through them, Harry,” Seamus said.
“Thanks, guys. If we do that, maybe the thing will actually get solved in time!”
~
The start of December meant wind and sleet for Hogwarts. It also meant they had to deal with the skrewts while being outside in the cold weather. As if that wasn't bad enough, the fumes from the whiskey that Madame Maxime's giant flying horses preferred were making them fuzzy-headed at the same time.
About the only good thing about the skrewts, besides providing a warming exercise as they chased you around the grounds, was the fact there were only ten of them left. It seemed the skrewts' favorite activity was killing one another.
Hagrid had also decided to try putting the skrewts in the boxes to see if they hibernated, which, as it turned out, they did not. They also did not like being forced into boxes. As such, the class was in a state of bedlam when the worst possible sound of all was heard.
“Well, well, well … this does look like fun.”
Rita Skeeter was leaning on Hagrid’s garden fence, looking in at the mayhem. She was wearing a thick magenta cloak with a furry purple collar today, and her crocodile-skin handbag was over her arm.
Hagrid launched himself forward on top of the skrewt that was cornering Harry and Ron and flattened it; a blast of fire shot out of its end, withering the pumpkin plants nearby.
“Who’re you?” Hagrid asked Rita Skeeter as he slipped a loop of rope around the skrewt’s sting and tightened it.
“Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet reporter,” Rita replied, beaming at him. Her gold teeth glinted.
“Thought Dumbledore said you weren’ allowed inside the school anymore,” said Hagrid, frowning slightly as he got off the slightly squashed skrewt and started tugging it over to its fellows.
“Hagrid, don't talk to her, she'll twist everything you say,” Harry said, not caring if Skeeter heard.
“Yeah, I kinda got that idear,” Hagrid said. “Seemed ter think Danzia and the others was trying ter court yeh. Ha! What little she knows.”
“Hagrid, hush! Don't give her any ammunition!”
“Oh, right. Sorry, Harry.”
“What are these fascinating creatures called?” Rita asked.
“Blast-ended skrewts,” Hagrid said automatically.
“Really?” said Rita, apparently full of lively interest. “I’ve never heard of them before … where do they come from?”
Harry noticed a dull red flush rising up out of Hagrid’s wild black beard, and his heart sank. Where had Hagrid got the skrewts from? Hermione, who seemed to be thinking along these lines, said quickly, “They’re very interesting, aren’t they? Aren’t they, Harry?”
“What? Oh yeah … ouch … interesting,” said Harry as she stepped on his foot.
“Ah, you’re here, Harry!” said Rita Skeeter as she looked around. “So you like Care of Magical Creatures, do you? One of your favorite lessons?”
“Yes. Now please go away; as Hagrid said, you're trespassing.”
“No, Harry, what he said was I wasn't allowed inside the school. I'm not inside the school, I'm on the grounds.”
“We're having a class here, so I think it counts as 'inside the school,'” Harry said.
“Toe-may-toe, poe-tah-toh,” Skeeter said.
“The expression,” Hermione said, “is toh-may-toe toe-mah-toe.”
Rita shrugged. “Been teaching long, Hagrid?”
Hagrid smiled and opened his mouth to answer, but noticed Harry's and Hermione's expressions, froze, his face falling. He said, instead, “No comment. Now git out before I have ter kick yeh out!”
“Whatever for?” she asked, fluttering her eyelashes.
“Fer trespassing, as I already told yeh!”
She sighed. “Fine, fine, if you insist, Mr. Hagrid. But you know what they say about angering writers. Good day to you, Hagrid!”
With a little wave, she took off. Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at each other fearfully. “Let's hope that wasn't her declaring war,” Ron said.
~
With the First Task over, most of the school had warmed up to him some. He no longer saw “Support Cedric Diggory” buttons except among Knott's group of Slytherins, and he was seeing far more of Luna's “Support both Hogwarts Champions!” buttons instead, anyway. Even Draco and his new entourage were sporting Luna's buttons. The Hufflepuffs were nicer, too; maybe seeing the danger they were in had helped. Also, he suspected Cedric had a hand in it as well; while he couldn't tell them that Harry had warned him about the dragons, Harry had still done that, and Cedric likely felt he owed Harry.
His mind free from worry about the First Task, and figuring out the puzzle box being such a tedious task of going through several permutations of the six sides every day, his mind was free for other things, now. Like who he was going to take as a date to the Yule Ball. It had been announced in transfiguration, after all. McGonagall had been surprised Harry already knew he'd need a date for the ball, at least until he told her that Draco had warned him about it weeks ago.
Before the ball had even been announced, he'd been thinking about who to take. The only girls he really knew who were available were Angela, Antigone, Danzia, Hermione, and Luna. Obviously the first two would be going with each other, Danzia being asexual might not be interested, Hermione was like a sister to him, and Luna... well, he liked Luna enough that he thought about asking her out as a friend. But he had a problem there, too, because he had figured out that Luna had feelings for him.
The first clues had been the good-luck kiss before the First Task and her tears of relief after it, but he hadn't figured it out then. Over the last two weeks, though, she'd been around him more often than ever before, like she was afraid he'd vanish if she didn't keep an eye on him. And when she was around, she held his hand a lot. The first time she'd done that, he had stared at her hand in confusion, heat rising in his face, but hadn't said anything about it.
So yeah, he'd figured it out. And now he didn't know what to do. Would asking her out as a friend hurt her feelings? There was also the fact that he felt a really strange feeling when he thought about asking her out as just a friend. A different strange feeling happened if he thought at all about just asking her out normally, as a date. The first feeling felt... kind of bad. Like guilt, or shame. Probably guilt; he didn't want to hurt her feelings, after all. But it also felt like there was something else to it, too, something he wasn't getting.
The second feeling was a bit harder to sort out. When he thought about asking Luna out to the Yule Ball as a regular date, something wriggly felt like it was squirming inside him, but unlike the nervous knots he sometimes got in his belly, this was different. It was a loose kind of wriggliness, not a tightening. In fact, it felt almost pleasant, but unpleasant at the same time. It was very confusing.
Still, he thought it likely he'd ask out Luna one way or another, and so he needed a script for all the other people who would be asking him. One had already asked him, and he'd just sort of stared at her in confusion; he didn't think he'd seen the girl in his life, and had no idea what to say. She had ended up walking away looking very hurt and confused.
“Antigone, I need your help,” he told her the day after the Yule Ball's announcement during class. “It's about the Yule Ball.”
“Harry, I'm flattered,” she said, “but Angela and I are already going with each other. And I'm not interested in boys that way.”
He stared at her. “Uh... I wasn't... I mean, I sort of figured that out already.”
She chuckled. “I was just having you on, Harry. What were you gonna say?”
“Um,” he said, since he had to pause to remember. “Oh, right. Uh... well first, I was curious if Danzia is going to the ball.”
“She is, but she's going by herself. She says she's determined to dance with everyone there. Boys, girls, doesn't matter.”
“But I thought she was asexual?”
“Well I don't think she's also aromantic, though I don't know for sure either way. Anyway, she's a huge flirt despite being ace, I thought you knew that already.”
“Um, what does 'aromantic' mean?”
“It means 'doesn't experience romantic attraction.' It's distinct from 'asexual' because some asexual people still have romantic partners. There's lots of different kinds of attraction, after all. Attraction is a whole mess of possible types that often overlap. There's not a lot of agreement on the different types, either. Some say the options are romantic attraction, aesthetic attraction, platonic attraction, sensual attraction, and sexual attraction. But I've also heard of emotional attraction, intellectual attraction, and physical attraction.
“Aesthetic attraction is when one is attracted to someone based on their looks, and can be sexual, but not necessarily. It's mostly just wanting to look at someone because they're pretty or handsome. So I think that could also be called 'physical attraction.'
“Platonic attraction... I'm honestly kind of confused by that one. I think it might be kind of an umbrella term that includes intellectual attraction – being enamored of someone for their mind and ideas, but can also include aesthetic attraction, or sensual attraction – which is when you want to be physically close with someone without being interested in a sexual relationship... things like cuddles, hugs, hand-holding, that sort of thing. But I've also heard Platonic attraction defined as wanting to be friends with someone, so I'm not sure.
“When young kids have crushes on people, they're usually experiencing aesthetic attraction, sensual attraction, and/or possibly platonic attraction. Maybe intellectual attraction, depending on the kids and their personalities.
“I think it's also possible that 'romantic attraction' might be a kind of nebulous umbrella term itself, in a way, since it can include any combination of aesthetic, physical, sensual, sexual, emotional, intellectual, or platonic attraction. It's kind of like a Venn diagram; you can take any of those kinds of attractions by themselves, in pairs, or in groups and make a Venn diagram of them and call it 'romantic attraction.' So uh, yeah... it can be confusing. But a person being 'aromantic' basically means they don't experience romantic attraction, however they define that.”
“Okay. That's... that's a lot to take in.”
“Yeah, sorry. Also, I got sidetracked. You said the first thing was curiosity about Danzia and the ball. What was the other thing?”
“What? Oh, right. Um... well, I thought Danzia might not be going, so I'd already decided I'm going to ask Luna. I just don't know whether to ask her as a friend or as a date. I think she has feelings for me.”
Antigone sighed and rolled her eyes. “Yes, she does. I've known for months. And anyway, you---er, never mind.”
“Um... okay. But what I really wanted help with was, what do I say to other people who ask me?”
“What? Why?”
“Because I don't know what to say. I need a script for this situation, I don't already have one.”
“Oh, right. Okay, well that depends. Easiest one I can think of is asking Luna out, then telling everyone, 'Sorry, I'm already going with someone.'”
“What if they ask who I'm going with?”
“Well that depends on if you want them to know it's Luna or not. There's pros and cons to both, and it depends on if you ask her as a friend or as a date, but you might want to ask Luna which she prefers, assuming you ask her before someone else does. I don't really see that being a problem with Luna, sadly, but you never know.”
“Yeah, the cons of telling everyone it's Luna is she might get teased or harassed for me choosing her.”
“That's a good point. They might even accuse her of using a love potion. Of course, anyone who's been paying attention would... but never mind.”
“What are you not telling me? That's twice now in this conversation you've stopped yourself saying something.”
“I don't think you'd believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
She looked at him appraisingly, then sighed. “Okay, fine, but don't say I didn't warn you that you might not believe me.”
“Just get on with it, will you?”
“Fine, fine. It's just... the people close to you and Luna – the girls and I, Draco, Hermione, even Ron – have noticed you and she seem to be rather into each other. We've been noticing it for years.”
“I... what?” Harry asked, confused.
“I mean you have feelings for her, too, we think. It's kind of obvious to us. What those feeling are exactly is up to you to decide, but well... You hang out with her a lot more than any of your other friends except Ron and Hermione, you're always holding hands or touching each other in some other way, and you routinely talk with her at night via that two-way mirror thing. You don't do that with any of your other friends, not even your Slytherin friends. Oh, and you give each other the most beautiful, thoughtful gifts. You put more effort into giving gifts to each other than you do for your other friends. So clearly something other than mere friendship is going on there.”
“I...” Harry said, trailing off, his mouth open.
“And there's the way you look at each other. You're both clearly smitten with each other in some manner.”
Harry stared at her, his eyes wide.
“Anyway, if you can remember all that stuff I said about the different kinds of attraction, maybe you can sort out your feelings with it. Or maybe I confused you even worse, I dunno. But whether you ask her as a friend or as a date or whatever, you need to decide that yourself. Oh, and there's other options as well.”
“Um... like what?”
“Well, friends can have dates too, so you could ask her out both as a friend and as a date. And you can always just set aside the question of yours or her feelings for another day and just ask her out. And of course, whatever you decide, you could always ask Luna for her opinion about it all first.”
“Ask Luna about---I can't do that! That's mortifying! I'm not even sure I can ask her out without tripping over my own knotted tongue!”
Antigone shrugged. “Who said you had to ask her verbally? You could make her a card that asks her.”
Harry sat there for several minutes, thinking, and Antigone went back to her homework.
“Well, thank you for your input, Antigone,” Harry said, getting up. “I'm going back to my room to think.”
She smiled at him. “Well good luck, whatever you decide.”
He nodded at her and left.
Endnotes: Once more I titled the chapter after a song. It seemed fitting. :)
A little shorter than usual, I know, but at least it's done and published. :)
Notes: Sorry this took so long. On top of my usual issues, I got a head cold that hung around for at least two weeks and decimated my energy to do things. I'm still not fully recovered, but I'm about 85 to 90 percent recovered.
I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made. Not by me, anyway.
There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though, but there's a lot more in this one than usual because it was unavoidable. Still, lots of details are changed, so don't skip by familiar parts or you might miss something.
Just as a reminder, so I don't have to shoehorn in descriptions in the text of the story as a reminder, but in this fanfic Harry and Hermione, apart from having Asperger's Syndrome, are both black as well.
'Italicized text between single quotes is almost always Parseltongue.'
After a delay in publishing that he'd never really explained clearly, Xeno Lovegood finally printed his own article about the First Task of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, a full two and a half weeks after the First Task on the Saturday right after Harry's talk with Antigone, despite the fact he'd tracked down Harry at Hagrid's the very day of the Task. It might have annoyed Harry more if it weren't for the fact that Rita Skeeter had apparently decided not to write about the First Task for some reason. Instead, another Daily Prophet reporter whose name Harry couldn't remember, had done it instead. It hadn't made the front page for some reason, possibly because it was dull reading.
Xeno's, however, was quite different, and it was featured heavily on the Quibbler's cover. Harry first spotted it across the Great Hall in Luna's hands as she read it, though she had to pause every now and then to sell copies to interested parties.
Sitting down to breakfast, Hedwig flew over to him and dropped off a copy of the Quibbler. He handed her some sausage, which she scarfed up. Mouse-Stalker chose this time to poke his head out of Harry's left sleeve, startling Hedwig. She gave Harry a dirty look and flew off. Harry hadn't noticed this, being too intent on the Quibbler.
'Might you spare some food for a poor starving snake?' Mouse-Stalker asked Harry.
Harry chuckled, handing the snake a sausage.
'You're incorrigible,' he told the snake. He'd apparently said it in Parseltongue without meaning to, because several people nearby jumped in alarm and scooted farther away.
“Don't worry, he's not venomous. He won't bite,” Harry said. Nobody answered him.
Shrugging, he went back to reading.
The Tri-Wizard Tournament First Task
by Xenophilius Lovegood
The Tri-Wizard Tournament, brought back after centuries of being nearly forgotten, has started this year off to a bumpy start. Despite many steps taken to make the Tournament less dangerous and restrict competitors to of-age (17 or older) contestants only, some foul fiend has managed to subvert the Tournament to serve their own unknown agenda. For, despite there being only three schools in the tournament, young Mr. Harry Potter (14) was entered against his will under a fourth (unidentified) school, alongside the three willing participants of Viktor Krum (Durmstrang), Fleur Delacour (Beauxbatons), and Cedric Diggory (Hogwarts). Investigation into the plot is ongoing, we at the Quibbler will update you with more information on that matter as soon as we have it, but for now I leave you with the words of Alastor Moody, retired Auror and current Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher: “only a very powerful dark witch or wizard could have tricked the ancient and powerful Goblet of Fire into thinking there was an extra school involved in the Tournament.”
For now, we move on to the First Task. All four contestants did very well when faced against the til-then unknown threat of dragons. Mr. Viktor Krum of Durmstrang Institute hit his with a Conjunctivitis Curse, very narrowly avoiding being trampled to death to get the puzzle box the competitors were tasked with retrieving.
Ms. Fleur Delacour of Beauxbatons Academy attempted to use some sort of sleeping spell to put her dragon to sleep. This worked well, except for the fact that the dragon caught her robes on fire in its sleep, which she put out with some water from her wand before carrying on.
Mr. Cedric Diggory of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry used inanimate-to-animate transfiguration, turning a rock into a dog to distract the dragon. This seemed to work at first, but he too got burned when the dragon changed its mind. His burns were much more severe, but the school Healer mopped him up very well indeed, and last I saw him he appeared to be in fine health again.
The real surprise was young Mr. Harry Potter. There were fears he wouldn't manage it because of his age and some problems with socialization and anxiety, and so he was allowed to have his guardian, Mr. Sirius Orion Black, on hand to keep him mentally steady. Mr. Black was not allowed a wand, and in fact took to the field in his Animagus form of a large black dog, standing back and letting his godson do the Task without interference; he was merely there for moral support and mental health monitoring.
Mr. Potter's own go at the dragon was much more impressive than the previous three attempts. Not knowing what he would be facing or if he would even be able to handle it, Mr. Potter and his friends analyzed previous Tournaments and deduced a magical creature would be involved in the first task. Not knowing which creature in particular would be involved, they came up with a brilliant plan that would work against most creatures. Using his wand to summon a cauldron and ingredients, he began brewing a potion while setting up something else with runes carved into bits of wood from a summoned tree branch. The end result of his initial prep work was a giant glamour in the shape of a mirror and a stench potion that were used together to trick the dragon into thinking it had a rival, distracting the dragon until it discovered that the mirror was a trick. Mr. Potter, too, got burned, but not very much. He too is in perfect health again after the care of Madam Poppy Pomfrey, the on-site Healer at Hogwarts.
While the rules forbid contestants getting help from adults including teachers or Ministry officials, and while only contestants or other participants are allowed on the field during the events, nothing in the rule book forbids help from friends during the planning stages, so what Mr. Potter and friends did was completely within the letter of the rules. And whether or not it defies the spirit of the rules is of little consequence, for Mr. Potter did not wish to compete and is merely trying to survive the Tournament so that whoever put his name in the Goblet of Fire will fail at their nefarious goal, so I think it would be in poor taste to blame Mr. Potter and his friends for using every loophole they can to their advantage so he can survive the event.
I interviewed the contestants after the Tournament. Going in reverse order, I start with some highlights of the interview with Mr. Potter.
Quibbler: “The mirror I get, but tell me, why the stench potion?”
Mr. Potter: “Dragons can smell pretty well. If I'd just used the mirror, it would've known it was a trick. It's possible it knew Cedric's transfigured dog was fake for similar reasons. So I had to fool it, and I did that by blinding its sense of smell with the stench potion.”
~
Quibbler: “I noticed something else you summoned, aside from the things you needed for the potion and the mirror. What was that?”
Mr. Potter: “If you're talking about what I think you're talking about, it was a basilisk-skin shield that was made for me by Mr. Apollyon Dreyfuss of Dreyfuss Artificing.”
Quibbler: “That must have cost you a fortune!”
Mr. Potter: “It didn't cost me anything. I killed a basilisk in my second year – with a little help from my friends – and aside from somehow managing to survive despite all odds, I also got an incredibly valuable basilisk carcass out of the deal. It was stripped down and sold off, and part of it went to Mr. Dreyfuss, who made the shield from it for me, saying it was free as long as I told him who made it. It opens up mechanically and unfolds into a pretty decent shield. It can fold back up again, too.”
Quibbler: (For a picture of the basilisk-skin shield in use, turn to page 6.)
Quibbler: “How is it you got burned, with a shield like that?”
Mr. Potter: “I was grabbing the puzzle box with the arm it was on, so I wasn't able to bring it up in time to not get burned.”
From there, the article moved on to interview highlights from the other three competitors, which were all done in a similar fashion. Harry liked how Xeno had stayed on topic and not gone wandering off to other issues like personal stuff. He didn't even appear to have asked Fleur about her Veela heritage, or if he had, he hadn't included it in the article. The article finished off with a quick recap and an expression of hope that the next Task would be at least as interesting as the first, while wishing all competitors a safe trip through all three Tasks.
“Do you like it?” Luna asked him.
“I love it! It's amazing, Luna!”
“Thank you for saying so. I'll tell Daddy you liked it. He got a lot of praise for his coverage of the Quidditch World Cup, and the Quibbler even sold out twice from it. If this one does as well, Daddy is going to make a second magazine for articles like that, so the Quibbler can stay about important conspiracies and articles about hidden animals.”
“Oh? What's he gonna call it?”
“Last I heard, he was going to call it Fortnight Wizarding News. He's looking for other reporters to add to it if he goes that way, so he's not doing two magazines by himself.”
“Well I wish him luck, whatever he decides.”
She smiled. “Thank you. I think he will do it, if school sales are anything to go by. They're higher than they've ever been in three years.”
“Does he advertise his magazine anywhere?”
“Oh no, that would cost too much money.”
“Well I've got a lot of money sitting around in my vault. If he needs some money to really get his second magazine, or newspaper, or whatever he calls it off the ground, I'll provide start-up capital.”
“You don't need to do that, Harry.”
“I know. But I want to. The Quibbler itself aside, it would be good for the Daily Prophet to have some competition. And I've got more than enough money to spend on doing just that.”
“Oh. Well, you can always ask him if you want. And I can tell him you offered.”
“Good. I want him to succeed, I like him.”
As she smiled and was about to turn away back to breakfast, Harry came to a decision. The way her smile made him feel had done it.
“Luna?”
“Yes, Harry?”
“Could we talk privately somewhere?”
“Well I would like to eat breakfast first, Harry. But once I'm done with that, we can talk privately.”
Harry nodded, and they both sat down at the Griffindor table to eat breakfast. Harry was nervous the whole time, but still managed to eat. Luna continued selling Quibbler issues, this time at Griffindor. Harry tried to mitigate his nerves by reading the rest of the magazine's articles, but found he had to keep repeating the same paragraph over and over again, so he finally gave up. It was frankly something of a relief when she finally finished eating and they went to find an abandoned classroom to talk in.
Remembering that Rita Skeeter had somehow heard about his conversation with Draco that one time, Harry cast a bunch of privacy spells around the room to make sure they weren't overheard. Then he put his wand away and turned to face Luna. He stood there awkwardly, trying to pluck up the courage to speak, but it wasn't happening. He'd gone mute again, like he sometimes did. So he tried a different tactic: charades.
Pointing at Luna, then himself, he then clasped his hands together and danced in place as though with a girl, then outlined a Christmas tree shape in the air with his hands.
Chuckling at him, Luna said, “Are you asking me to the Yule Ball, Harry?”
Harry nodded.
“As a friend, or... or something else?” she asked.
“Um,” he finally managed to say. Then the floodgates burst forth, and he began to babble. “I uh... I don't know. I know I like being around you. A lot. I know I like talking with you, and holding your hand, and being close to you physically. I know I love it when you laugh. You being happy makes me very happy, too. And I know you make me happy, too.
“I don't have much experience with, you know, love. My aunt and uncle hate me. So does my cousin. I don't know what love is supposed to feel like. I don't know if I'm in love or what. But I like how I feel around you, Luna. So, uh... Antigone mentioned we – you and I, I mean – could go on a date without putting a label on it, and put that question off til later, but yeah, a date, not just as friends, even though we are friends--”
“Harry, stop babbling. I would love to be your date for the Yule Ball. If you don't know what your feelings concerning me are yet, that's fine. Maybe I can help you figure them out?”
Harry grinned. “I'd like that.”
“Good. So it's a date, then.”
“Great. Um... just one other thing.”
Very awkwardly, he described his need for a script to turn down others who asked him out, his desire to be polite, his dislike of hurting people's feelings, and asked her about her thoughts on if she wanted people to know yet or not that they were going to the ball together.
“Harry, it's just one dance. Just because two people go to the dance together doesn't mean they're dating. And anyway, I think a lot of people think we're dating already anyway, even if they don't want to believe it. We're also known to be friends, so it wouldn't surprise most people. Most importantly, though, when have I ever cared what other people thought of me?”
“I know, Luna. It's just... Voldemort's still after me, he's probably why I got in this bloody Tournament in the first place, and then I keep hearing about you getting bullied. Missing clothes and stuff, that sort of thing. I don't want to make your life any harder than it already is.”
“You're sweet, Harry, but what Voldemort or the bullies do isn't your problem or your decision. They're going to do what they want no matter what. If I was worried about Voldemort coming after me because of you, I wouldn't be your friend to start with. For me... I'd been so lonely for so long that having friends is worth the risk of being targeted by dark wizards. You're worth the risk, Harry.
“And anyway, when Voldemort comes back, we'll all be at risk. He's not a nice person, even to his followers. Everyone would suffer. And I'd rather suffer with friends at my side than suffer alone. And I hope that whatever our relationship status, that we always remain friends.”
Harry grinned sheepishly. “I hope so too, Luna.”
She hugged him for a few moments before they tore down the privacy spells and left. They were halfway to the library before Harry realized she'd said Voldemort's name twice without even flinching at all.
“What are you going to do today, Harry?”
“Hmm... well, I don't know what's going to be coming in the Second Task, so until I decode that stupid puzzle box, I'm going to practice defensive spells in the Room of Requirement. I should see if anyone else of our group of friends wants to join. I'll start by asking you.”
“I'd love to help, Harry, if I can. I could use some defensive magic practice, too. I've been going to Dueling Club, but I could still use more practice.”
Harry nodded. He looked in on the Dueling Club sometimes, not nearly as often as he should. But last year he'd skipped most of it from worry about Sirius before finding out he was innocent, then it slipped his mind the rest of the year. Now this year there was being entered in the Tri-wizard Tournament against his will, and most of the school's reactions to it, that had distracted him.
“I need to do that myself more often. When's it held?”
“It's every Sunday afternoon after lunch,” she said. “Some people don't get to go because of Quidditch practice conflicts, so you're far from the only person who keeps forgetting about it or not being able to go. It's not all that unusual for a club to get forgotten by those who aren't in it often; how often do you think about the Gobstones Club, for instance?”
“Still, I helped make sure it stayed in existence after Lockhart, and it would be useful, so I should go more often.”
“Would you like me to come get you at lunch on Sundays and we can go together?”
“Sounds good. Let's ask the others, too.”
“Well some of them already go. The Slytherin girls in our friends group go semi-regularly, as does Draco. And Neville has been going regularly this year and last year. But yes, we should remind Ron and Hermione. But today we're going to the Room of Requirement, yes?”
“Yes, we are.”
They walked for several minutes in silence before Harry spoke again.
“So you're still having problems with bullies? I noticed you're not wearing shoes again today.”
She sighed. “Yes. They always return my things eventually, but it is rather vexing.”
“Don't you have a lock on your trunk?”
“Yes. But it's a mundane lock and mundane trunk. Daddy doesn't make a lot of money from his magazine.”
“So an alohamora is all they need to break into it?”
She nodded. Then she abruptly changed the subject by discussing what spells they would be practicing. He knew he was going to have to do something about this. But what? He'd told Flitwick when she wouldn't, but there wasn't a lot he could do without hearing it from her, and even then there had to be evidence. But if anyone could sneak into her trunk at any time with a first-year spell...
Well, had it not been Antigone who said he got Luna thoughtful gifts? So that's what he would do. There was, after all, another Hogsmeade weekend coming up before the Yule Ball, and Sirius could always get him out of school on weekends to go to London if what he needed wasn't in Hogsmeade. He had some important shopping to do soon.
~
Saturday afternoon had been fun and productive. He and all his friends had gotten together and took turns pairing off, because there was seven of them and that was an odd number. Whoever wasn't one of the pairs at the time would play around with the puzzle box, going through combinations and crossing out the ones that went nowhere, circling bits that seemed to go somewhere before stopping.
Sunday afternoon was also fun. Luna had gotten Ron and Hermione back to the Dueling Club with her and Harry, meeting their Slytherin friends there, including Draco. A few other Slytherins were there as well. Some were unpleasant, but others were okay. Tracey Davis, Blaise Zabini, and Daphne Greengrass were distant but polite enough, being part of Draco's new group in Slytherin.
Harry learned some more things about these three Slytherins from Draco during the Dueling Club meeting's quiet moments. Zabini's family were considered dark gray but had remained neutral during the Voldemort war. Tracey Davis and Daphne Greengrass were members of strictly neutral families as well. It seemed this was largely because they had too much to lose to risk joining either side. But Tracey and Daphne had their own ideas and had been thrilled when Draco went to Harry's side. It seemed they were also trying to convince their dorm-mate Lily Moon to join them, and were making good headway on that front.
When Harry asked about why she used to hang out with Pansy Parkinson, it turned out to have been protective camouflage. It wasn't wise to defy the status quo of Slytherin at the time, but Draco's defection to Harry's side and openness about it made Daphne and Tracey feel brave enough to let their true allegiance show. Though it wasn't so much that they were for Harry as they were against Voldemort. And they still thought Dumbledore was an old fool who was trying to do too much at once.
There was more. Tracey and Daphne didn't hate Muggleborns, but they feared wizarding traditions dying out, and so they agreed with the Wizarding Studies class that Harry had gotten started by suggesting it to the teachers, even though the headmaster had been fighting opponents of the class ever since its inception. But another part of wizarding tradition was that Muggleborns should know their place as basically foreign immigrants to wizarding culture. Harry could see their point, but at the same time, it's not like Muggleborns had a choice in the matter; you were either born with magic or not, and going from thinking you were a mundane person to knowing you were a wizard or witch was not the same thing as immigrating. Unless... well, it had some similarities to children forced to immigrate by parents. But Daphne and Tracey told Harry he was being too literal.
They didn't have the chance to explain further before the Dueling Club was over with and everyone was heading back to their common rooms. But knowing he had been too literal made Harry switch gears to think more metaphorically. There was a hierarchy, Harry knew. Lords and Ladies of the various Noble Houses were at the top of the social hierarchy, with Common Houses beneath them, and un-Housed commoners beneath the Common Houses. Muggleborns were considered un-Housed once they left Hogwarts, which put them at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Which is why so many wizard-raised witches and wizards didn't like it when Muggleborns tried imposing their own cultural biases on wizarding culture. For instance, Hermione would likely have gone on a major offensive against the owning of House Elves if Harry hadn't been able to educate her on why House Elves were kept.
Still... the fact that Hogwarts had in its charter to take in Muggleborns... there was something about that which confused him. What was the reason? Wouldn't it make more sense for Muggleborns to go to the Winterbloom school or the other one that was for common witches and wizards? Sure, it could be a simple case that Hogwarts was the only magic school for a long time, since he had no idea when the other schools were founded, or if there'd been any other schools of magic other than Hogwarts. But he still felt like he was missing something. After all, it sounded like Hogwarts had always been intended to be a school for the nobility. So why Muggleborns, too?
Well that was a dead end of thought. He would need more information, so he gave up on it for now.
Instead, he decided to mirror-call Sirius.
“What can I do for you tonight, young man?” Sirius said in a half-joking tone of voice. Harry felt his eye twitch at this, and was momentarily confused.
“I wanted to tell you something, and then ask you something related to it.”
“Cast, pup.”
Harry paused at this, confused. “Huh?”
“Oh, I guess Muggles would say 'Shoot,' rather than 'cast.'”
“Oh. Right. Anyway, um... at the risk of you taking the mickey, I uh... you know there's a Yule Ball this year, right?”
“Yes. I plan on crashing the party, to be honest. Why? Wait, don't tell me; because you're a Champion, you need to have a date?”
“Yes.”
“And you want advice from an old lady's man on how to ask out a girl on a date, huh?”
Harry grinned. “Well sure, if you know anybody who fits that description, you'll give me their contact information, right?”
Sirius looked disappointed for a moment before realizing it was a joke and laughing. “Nice one! You got me good!”
“In seriousness, Sirius,” Harry said, ignoring Sirius's snorts of laughter, “I already asked Luna to be my date to the Yule Ball.”
“Ah, so you figured it out, did you?”
“No. Antigone told me. But uh... Luna and I aren't dating. We're not putting a label on it yet. I don't really know what I feel; love is still something of a foreign emotion to me, the Dursleys never had any for me. So until I figure things out, we're just... it's just one date. For now.”
Sirius looked sad and angry. “I'm sorry you had to be raised by those... people. If Lily came back to life and found out you'd been put with her sister and her sister's horrible husband, she'd hex Dumbledore into oblivion for doing it.”
Harry shrugged, not knowing what else to say.
“So if it wasn't advice you wanted, what did you want to ask?”
Grateful for this change of subject, Harry said, “Help with a Yule gift for Luna. She's still getting bullied. Mainly by her stuff going missing, though I suspect there's more she's not telling me. Anyway, I was thinking she needs a trunk only she can get into. Or rather, that can keep seventh year students out of it unless it's her.”
“Ah, trunk shopping. I can do that. Hmm... if we're going that route, it'll be expensive enough you might as well get her name engraved on the trunk, too. And let's see... there are trunks with extra compartments and entire rooms inside them. Maybe give her one with a small bedroom in it so she has somewhere to sleep if the bullying gets bad enough.”
“If you do that, better make sure nobody but Luna, her dad, and house elves can pick it up.”
“I think that's doable. I'll ask the shop owner, anyway. But I'm curious, has Luna told her head of House about the bullying?”
“I don't think so. I get the feeling I'm the only person she's told.”
“Maybe you should talk to Flitwick for her, then. If she won't.”
“There's only so much he can do unless she talks to him herself.”
“Well then we need to convince her she should. But in the meantime, the trunk is a good idea. Also... if you can get some names, I'll see what I can do as Lord Black to punish the evildoers.”
“I'll look into it, Sirius.”
“You're a good man, Harry Potter.”
Harry felt his eye twitch again. “Thanks, Sirius.”
“You're welcome. Say, back to the dance... do you need any dance lessons before the Yule Ball?”
“McGonagall is providing dance lessons, but thanks for the offer.”
“Ah yes, I'd forgotten McGonagall did that. We used to have dances every year at Hogwarts, until after a spring formal in my fourth year erupted into chaos as the school's Death Eater supporters and the kids of Light families got into a huge duel that wrecked the Great Hall before the teachers could intervene. My date ended up in the Hospital Wing. Her name was Marlene McKinnon.”
Sirius sighed sadly at this. His voice had cracked as he'd said her name, too. Harry watched his face in the mirror, and thought Sirius looked about to break down.
“Sorry pup, gotta go,” he said, his voice cracking again. “It's... Dobby's burning the biscuits.”
Before Harry could return the goodbye, Sirius had hung up. Harry stared sadly at the mirror, wishing he could comfort his godfather. The man needed to date again. After losing so many people in the war, and then over a decade in Azkaban steeped in bad thoughts and memories, he needed to move on. Harry hoped the man was seeing a Mind Healer, too.
~
Harry was glad he was going with Luna to the ball, since for several days after asking her, he'd gotten a dozen girls and several guys asking him out, and he'd been able to politely decline, explaining he had a date for the Yule Ball. Loads more people had asked him who he was going with, most of them people who didn't really like him. To them, he simply said, “You'll find out on the night of the Yule Ball.” The truth he only told his friends. Luna might not mind extra bullying, but Harry wanted to avoid as much unpleasantness as possible for as long as possible.
Ron wasn't having much luck finding a date. Harry tried convincing him to go stag, but Ron wouldn't hear of it, said it was pathetic. Harry pointed out Danzia was going by herself. Ron had scoffed.
“Sure it's okay for a girl to go by herself, but if a bloke does it, it's just pathetic.”
Harry knew Ron well enough to read between the lines: Ron felt pathetic enough already, he didn't need more humiliation.
As if confirming this, Ron's face grew sour and he said, “Though I suppose I'll look pathetic anyway, with the hideous moldy maroon rags she bought me for my dress robes. They look like a dress, and were probably the height of fashion in the 1890's.”
“There's a Hogsmeade weekend the weekend before the Yule Ball. I'll buy you some decent dress robes.”
Ron's face went scarlet in embarrassment. But before he could speak, Harry said, “I insist. It can be an early Yule present from me if you want. Plus, it'll be a gift to myself in a way. If you're miserable at this thing, that'll make me miserable. So I insist on buying you some decent dress robes. I'll even give you the gold ahead of time, you can look like you're paying for it yourself.”
Ron sighed. “Okay, fine I suppose. I just feel bad about... about...”
“Accepting charity?”
“Yeah, that.”
“It's not charity if we're friends, Ron. Listen, I know what it's like being poor. The Dursleys never gave me any pocket money, they made me wear Dudley's old hand-me-downs which fit me like a circus tent, and they fed me just enough to keep me from dying of starvation. Also, I had to do lawn work for neighbors – despite being desperately hungry – to have the money for pain relievers for my headaches when I was growing up. Finding out I was filthy rich in the wizarding world is still pretty surreal for me. The least I can do is help a friend in need. 'Be the change you wish to see in the world,' and all that.”
His first friend still looked uncomfortable. “Yeah,” Ron said, “I get that, I do. I just... I don't like feeling like a mooch. Accepting expensive gifts from you feels like being a mooch. I don't want you to think I'm only your friend because I get expensive stuff from you.”
“I don't think that at all, Ron. Anyway, I can't let my best friend suffer. I couldn't bear to watch you suffer, not if I can do something to alleviate it.”
“You're a good man, Harry. Thanks.”
Harry's eye twitched again, but he smiled. “You're welcome.”
“Hey, if you're feeling like helping me enjoy this Yule Ball thing... any chance you could help me get a date for the Yule Ball? I don't know who to ask, and I'd rather not ask someone and get shot down. Also, I don't want to take someone... well... I'm gonna sound shallow for this, but I don't want an ugly date. For kinda the same reason I don't want to wear those ugly robes.”
“What about Hermione?”
“What? Oh... hmm... good idea. Yeah, I'll ask her. Thanks, Harry!”
“You're welcome.”
Along with helping Ron, something else making Harry happy was that there was no article about Hagrid in the Daily Prophet, which he supposed would've been hard to do with Hagrid wisely taking their advice not to talk with Skeeter. Still, he was worried she'd dig up something on Hagrid just to spite them both. Skeeter didn't seem to care what she said, as long as it sold papers.
On the other hand, Ms. Pennyroyal stopped by to see him one day after classes were over to inform him that she couldn't find any way out of the contract for him. He wasn't disabled enough to be declared legally unfit for the Tournament, which would void the contract if it happened, and the other Champions would have to resubmit their names into the Goblet of Fire. This had been put in place mainly in case someone submitted the name of a child too young to even wield a wand. But Harry was neither 'invalid' enough to get out of the Tournament nor was he too young to be allowed to compete. So that was a bust.
Ms. Pennyroyal did, however, find out he wasn't contractually obligated to go to the Yule Ball, as that was a tradition but not part of the contest. The fact he was going anyway rendered that a moot point, though. Also, she told him what the other two tasks were in general terms, according to the contract; the Second Task was some sort of race, and the Third Task was a maze of some sort, where the end of the maze was the Tri-Wizard Cup.
Since Draco was his PR manager, Draco was there too. After Ms. Pennyroyal stopped talking about the contract, Draco pointed out that if Harry wanted to make a point about how he hadn't entered willingly, that he should ask the judges to award him no more than one point each, that way it would be basically impossible for him to win.
“But Ms. Pennyroyal said the Second Task is some kind of race, though,” Harry said. “So points wouldn't really matter in that case, would they?”
“A fair point,” Draco said. “But consider: the magical contract says you have to compete. Does it say anything against throwing the competition? You know, being deliberately slow in the race?”
They turned to Ms. Pennyroyal. She turned some of the pages of the contract and skimmed through them. After several tense minutes of reading, she turned back to them.
“Okay, so the contract does forbid throwing the competition, unfortunately. But their definition of 'throwing the competition' doesn't include asking the judges to award them low points on purpose. It just means you have to try your hardest to win each Task. There's no punishment for being injured or held up by a creature or obstacle, unless you do it on purpose. It's intent-based.”
“Intent based? So if I intend to do my best, that's good enough?”
She narrowed her eyes and smirked at him. “Why do I see a Slytherin tactic in your eyes, young man?”
Ignoring his eye twitching again, Harry said, “I was wondering if intending to do my best and just having a bad day that makes me perform poorly would count against me with the Goblet? For instance... like, if there was a creature to get past to get the Tri-Wiz Cup, and I just... couldn't get past it?”
“Do you mean to say that you could get past it if you racked your brains, but you just gave up?”
“Yes. Mostly.”
“Sorry, but that's still intending to fail. The problem with trying to bypass an intent-based spell by deliberately warping your own intent is that if the spell caster is even remotely competent, it's impossible. Trying to intend to win while also intending to fail is still intent to fail. You do your best, no attempts at trickery, or you lose your magic, period, according to this contract. And it looks like the Goblet is clever enough to spot such deceptions, and has the power to do as is warned. Any attempt to harm the Goblet will count against you, too. Of course, the Goblet can't punish you for merely wanting to harm it, or even going so far as researching how to harm it, but the moment you raise your wand or your hand to it with the intention of harming it, it knows, and it strikes.”
“This is absurd! I didn't put my name in!”
“Yes, and normally that would make a difference, according to everything I've found out. If someone put your name in under Hogwarts without your consent, merely by putting your name in the Goblet and nothing else, then the Goblet would ignore your name, because consent does matter with it. But someone used a ridiculously powerful Confundus charm on it, according to Dumbledore's examination of the Goblet, as Moody surmised. So not only was it tricked into thinking there was a fourth school, it was also tricked into thinking you submitted your name intentionally.
“I did ask Dumbledore if he could use an equally strong Confundus on it to trick it into knowing the truth and therefore dropping you from its obligation to compete, but according to Dumbledore, a Confundus strong enough to fool something as old as the Goblet of Fire requires a boost from a Dark Magic ritual bad enough that he said nobody sane should risk using it. He wouldn't tell me more than that, not even the name of the ritual. But he did suggest that a decade in Azkaban would be preferable to the price such a ritual would exact from anyone foolish enough to use it.”
“So Dumbledore doesn't have the power to do it?”
“Dumbledore said that not even You-Know-Who at his height of power would have had the power to do it either, without the aforementioned Dark ritual. The Goblet is an extremely old and powerful artifact.”
“Damn. Oh well. Guess there really is no way out. I wouldn't want anyone to pay a price like that for my sake.”
“Good. Anyway, I like Mr. Malfoy's suggestion to ask the judges to award you minimal points. It sends a nice strong message, and isn't forbidden by the contract, as it doesn't really impact the chances of winning much. The points don't really matter, ultimately. They're merely used to determine what order the contestants enter the maze in the Third Task. So from a competition standpoint, you lose nothing of significance and gain the PR advantage. No matter how much you protest you didn't put your name in, and no matter how dangerous the Tasks are, there's always going to be those who say you entered willingly. Even with this PR stunt, there will be those people. But with it, those people will be few and far between.”
“Then that's what I'm going to do,” Harry said.
“Good,” she said, writing something on a blank piece of parchment as she spoke. “And also, a suggestion of my own: even though you've decided to go to the Yule Ball with Ms. Lovegood anyway, you could always send another PR message at the Yule Ball by refusing to start the dancing with the other contestants, and even refusing to sit with the other contestants for the dinner. And if anyone gives you any grief about it, like the teachers, remind them you were entered against your will, and hand them this.”
She handed him the parchment she'd been writing on. It was an official letter from her, with her wax seal on it, which explained what the contract said he was and wasn't obligated to do for the Tournament, with the things he was NOT required to do in nice big, bold letters. And an invitation to talk with her if they had any questions.
“Thank you, Ms. Pennyroyal.”
“It's what I'm being paid for, Mr. Potter. But you're welcome all the same.”
Reading the parchment, he frowned at some of the wording. “Hey wait, does this right here mean what I think it means?”
“What do you think it means, Mr. Potter?”
“I think it means you're going to be present at the Yule Ball.”
“Then it does indeed mean what you think it means. I wanted an excuse to drop in on the event anyway, and this is as good an excuse as any. Better, even.”
“Cool. Well I'll see you there, then.”
“Excellent,” she said, standing up and putting her papers away in her briefcase. “Is there anything else before I go, Mr. Potter?”
He looked to Draco. Draco shrugged.
“Not that I can think of, Ms. Pennyroyal. If I think of anything, I'll owl you.”
“Don't put anything sensitive in an owl. If in doubt, Floo call me. Your head of House is legally obligated to let you use her Floo if it's for a legal matter.”
“I'll do that, then. Thanks again, Ms. Pennyroyal.”
“You're welcome, Mr. Potter.”
She smiled, shook his hand, and left the room – an unused classroom they'd chosen for this meeting.
“So, now she's gone, who are you taking to the Yule Ball, Draco?”
“I'm not sure. Pansy Parkinson asked me, she's still interested in me for some reason, but I turned her down. I never really liked her much. I just hung out with her because it was expected of me.”
“Anyone you fancy?”
Draco's face turned pink, and he turned his eyes away from Harry's face. “Perhaps. But I'm not sure how to ask her. Also not sure she'd accept.”
“Is it Daphne or Tracey?”
“Er... no. Though one of them might make a nice backup.”
Harry blinked, trying to think who Draco could be meaning.
“It's not Danzia or one of the other Slytherin girls in our friend group, is it?”
Draco made a choking noise. “No, none of them. I doubt any of them would be interested, anyway. I know Antigone and Angela are only into girls, and I'm not 100 percent sure about Danzia's interests.”
“So then... oh. Hermione?”
Draco went even pinker than before, and silently nodded.
“Oh. Oh shit. You'd better ask soon, then. I uh... didn't know of your interest in her, and sort of suggested Ron ask her.”
Draco winced. “Damn! Blast and damn! Do you know where she is right now?”
“Um... probably either in the library, in our common room, or on her way between the two.”
“Thanks sorry gotta run bye!” Draco said, grabbing his bag and running off, ignoring several loose parchments spilling out of it. Harry Summoned them with his wand and put them in his own bag to return to the blond boy later.
Later, Harry tried to call Sirius on the mirror to tell Sirius all this. He didn't get an answer for several hours, making him very worried until Sirius finally answered.
“Shorry for the wait, pup,” he said, his speech slurred. “I wash at a rock concert, I didn't think it worf the rishk to talk on the mirror in front of a bunch of Mugglesh. Plush, the noishe would've been too much for it to be worth the time anyway. What's up?”
“You were at a rock concert?”
“Yeah. I had to get outta the houshe and go shomewhere other than work, for my mendal... menthal... for my shanity. So I went to a conshert. Again, what'sh up?”
Harry smiled at the knowledge Sirius was doing something social again, and told Sirius everything he, Ms. Pennyroyal, and Draco had discussed.
“Well that shucks you can't get outta it, but yeah, I agree with thoshe ideash for getting people to realishe you didn't enter willingly. Refushing pointsh for the tashksh would shend that meshage nishely.”
A muffled voice in the background of Sirius's side suddenly spoke. “You almotht done in there, Siriuth? I gotta pith like a rayshhorth!”
“Jusht a few minutesh,” Sirius called back.
Harry grinned at the mirror as Sirius turned back. “That was a girl's voice, Padfoot! You brought a girl home with you!”
“Er, not eggsagt... not ezag... um... not quite. I'm at her playsh, in fact. She'sh a Muggle, sho I couldn' bloody well take her to my playsh. Had to claim I don' live in town, wizitch... wish ish a lie ash we're in London ri' now. Anyway, nuff bout me.”
“Padfoot, you're at a girl's house?” Harry said teasingly.
“Yeah yeah, laugh it up, Chucklesh. I'll get ya back later. But I should go, she drank enough vodka earlier to drown a shmall village, and she's shtill vertical. I jusht wanted to make sure you were okay, and let you know I wash okay too. Drunker than I been shinsh before Ashbakan, but yeah.” Sirius giggled just then.
“Right. Well you'd better call when you're sober tomorrow night and tell me all about the girl whose house you're in. If you can still remember it, that is.”
“I'll conshider it, pup. G'night.”
“Goodnight, Sirius.”
Sirius gave Harry a drunken thumbs-up and closed the mirror, hanging up. Harry smiled at the disconnected mirror and chuckled to himself at his godfather's antics before getting ready for bed.
Endnote: Bit short I know, but since I'd been sick for half a month, I figure it's better than nothing.
Harry is a bit clueless about positive emotions like love here and in canon, likely because, well, he never had any love directed at him. It's honestly unrealistic that Harry turned out as good in canon as he did, rather than becoming a new dark lord. The only way that could happen in reality is if Harry had one good, loving adult in his life. And somehow I doubt Mrs. Figg would qualify for that; he didn't seem to like being around her. Only other thing I can think of is “because magic.” Like... because of magic, his mother's love was magically pushed into his mind and soul by her sacrifice.
Oh yeah and I only noticed while writing this chapter that Skeeter never covered the First Task in canon, or if she did it wasn't mentioned for some reason. It's odd. But seeing as I nearly forgot to have Xeno do the same thing, maybe Rowling just forgot?
Speaking of forgetting: yeah, I keep forgetting about Dueling Club being a thing in this AU. I don't do my best work on anything remotely resembling a deadline, I prefer to make up for gaps in my memory by taking my time with things and adding/subtracting stuff scores of times before being satisfied with a chapter, but I don't do that with fan fiction nearly as much; I tend to breeze through these fanfics by comparison to my usual writing habits because the longer it takes me to write and publish a chapter, the more antsy I get. Writing original stuff intended for eventual legit publication, where I can keep going back to previous chapters and adding or subtracting things, is my preference. There are SO many changes I would make to previous chapters of this story if it wasn't so much of an excess of hassle for me to do.
Oh and if you noticed certain clues: no, I'm not making Harry trans in this one. Not exactly. What I have planned won't change anything about Harry's gender presentation. If you want a trans Harry, go read my other fanfic “The Many Faces of Har—er, Adira Potter.”
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Four.
Or, "Autistic Potter and the Goblet of Fire."
Notes: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made. Not by me, anyway.
There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though, but there's a lot more in this one than usual because it was unavoidable. Still, lots of details are changed, so don't skip by familiar parts or you might miss something.
Just as a reminder, so I don't have to shoehorn in descriptions in the text of the story as a reminder, but in this fanfic Harry and Hermione, apart from having Asperger's Syndrome, are both black as well.
'Italicized text between single quotes is almost always Parseltongue.'
Chapter 13: “Important Answers”
The next day when classes were over for the day was a MAC meeting. With all the fuss about the Tri-wizard Tournament and the student body's anger at Harry for supposedly putting his name in the Goblet of Fire, attendance had dropped like a stone. Even Harry had stopped going, though that was mostly because he needed to train for the Tasks.
After missing meetings for weeks, though, he'd asked Hermione about MAC and she said there were still people going. Some of their friends, some first years who hadn't been around long enough to follow the anti-Harry anger on behalf of their Houses or just thought the whole thing stupid, Ginny was there, the Weasley twins popped in now and then, and there were also some new Slytherins in the group. Draco had brought Blaise Zabini, Tracey Davis, and Daphne Greengrass into the group, and apparently they were finding the experience interesting and enlightening. Daphne had also brought her younger sister Astoria into the group.
When Harry came in that day, Draco was helping some younger students with their maths. Harry smiled to see his club still going, even if attendance still hadn't recovered from what it used to be. He wondered who was maintaining it, because Hermione was with him and Ron so often he doubted it was her.
Harry got closer and Draco looked up at his approach. He gave Harry a wry grin, kind of an almost sneering smirk.
“So you're still alive after all, then, Harry?” Draco said.
“Er... yeah. I think if I'd died, it would be big news.”
Draco shook his head. “I just meant I haven't seen you around here much lately. A bit odd, considering you started this club.”
“Are you the person who's been keeping it up in my absence?”
“Yes, well, someone had to do it. I'm not quite qualified for the position, but there wasn't really anyone else. So I've been delegating. Having the newbloods get textbooks and stuff from their parents, that sort of thing.”
“Newbloods?”
“Ah, yes. New term several of our members here came up with for Muggle-borns. Since inbreeding is slowly killing off the old blood families, we need some new blood to keep magic alive. Oh yes, that reminds me: 'newbloods' actually replaces both 'Muggle-borns' and 'half-bloods.' That bit was Willem Stone's idea. If the idea is to end the stupid blood purity mania, then there's no need to differentiate Muggle-borns from half-bloods anymore.”
Harry looked around the room and spotted the violet-eyed, brown-haired, third-year Slytherin boy, who was watching their conversation with a blush in his face. His hair was even longer than Harry remembered it, and was braided with metallic green ribbons through it. He was also wearing a silver and green Slytherin choker. Harry couldn't help but classify Willem as 'rather pretty, for a boy.'
Next to Willem was the red-headed black Muslim girl named Qintar Contee, a year below Willem. Last time Harry had seen her, her hair had been in Afro puffs. Now it was in box braids that only went down to her chin. She was still choosing not to wear a headscarf.
“Cool,” Harry said, not really knowing what else to say.
Draco rolled his eyes. “'Cool'? That's the best you can do?”
“Er... really really cool? Sorry, I do think it's cool, and I don't really have any idea what else to say. Except maybe... oh yeah. Thanks for the cool idea, Willem.”
Willem, still blushing, gave a mumbled “You're welcome, Harry.”
Just then, Harry spotted someone else familiar.
“Cedric?”
Cedric Diggory stood up and shook Harry's hand.
“Hello there, Harry. Glad to see you back. Um... after the First Task, I decided to come back here, once in a while at least given the Tournament is still going. I haven't had much luck getting my friends to return, this club is still associated with you and they're still sore. I just can't get them to accept you didn't put your name in. They're stubborn.”
“Oh. Well at least you're here, and trying. Thanks, Cedric.”
“No problem. Er, by the way, can we talk in a private corner?”
Harry shrugged. “Okay, sure.”
With Draco and several others watching them, Harry and Cedric went into an unused corner. Cedric cast a bunch of privacy spells that Harry recognized.
“So, uh, what's this about?” Harry asked.
“Have you made any progress on that puzzle cube?”
“Not really. I've solved all the riddles, but there's an order to them I haven't cracked yet.”
“Damn! Me neither. Though I don't know whether I wanted you to have made progress or not. I kinda want to pay you back for helping me with the dragons.”
“I... well, I was going to say I didn't do it for a reward, but I reckon you'd say the same thing.”
“Yeah. You'd have made a good Hufflepuff, Harry.”
“I know. The Sorting Hat said I'd be well suited to any of the Houses.”
“What, even Slytherin?”
“Yes, even Slytherin.”
“Huh. Well it's a shame we didn't get you instead, but oh well.” He sighed. “Well, I guess if neither of us has made any progress on that cube, there's nothing left to discuss privately. Unless you want to satisfy my curiosity about who you're going to the Yule Ball with. There's loads of rumors flying around about it.”
“You'll find out when everyone else does, Cedric.”
“Right,” Cedric said with a grin. “Of course.”
Cedric tore down the privacy spells. Harry went over to sit by Draco.
“What was that about?”
“I'll tell you later,” Harry said, glancing at the other students.
“Of course.”
“Thanks for understanding. Now, where is everyone? While I'm here, I might as well contribute, but I need an idea where everyone is first.”
~
Harry was sitting at the Griffindor table Saturday morning when something unusual happened; Draco came over to sit next to him. Ron was still in bed, and Harry didn't know where Hermione was at the moment. He looked at Draco, who was looking annoyed about something. This impression was verified when Draco started scooping food onto his plate with unusual vehemence.
“What's the matter?” he asked.
“I asked Hermione to go to the Yule Ball with me. She said she already had a date, but wouldn't say who it was. Said I wouldn't believe her if she said. Which rules out Weasley, I'm sure.”
“Why does it rule out Ron?”
“Because I would believe she'd say yes to him. Though it is a bit odd if he managed to ask her.” Draco sighed. “I guess I'm more hoping it isn't Weasley. She's much too good for him.”
“Hmm?”
“He's a horrible student, and lazy. I hear things about it. Apparently he has Hermione help him on his homework frequently and he's still not doing well in the class rankings.”
“She doesn't do his homework for him, just reads it over and points out corrections that need to be made.”
Draco snorted. “It amounts to the same thing. Anyway, did I say she was doing it for him? No I did not. I know she wouldn't.”
He shook his head. “How he can be getting help from her and still be doing so poorly, I don't understand.”
“Tests,” Harry said.
“Right! Good point. He wouldn't be able to cheat on the tests. Still, with her giving him the answers, you'd think he'd be able to revise for tests with that.”
“So who do you think it is, if not Ron?”
“I don't know. I was hoping you knew. I didn't think to ask before my rant.”
“If I'd known she had a date already, I would have guessed she turned you down, rather than asking what was wrong.”
“Right, of course. Sorry. I just wish she'd tell me who it was. I mean, I assume she said yes to the first person who asked her, as she's not terribly popular and doesn't make much of an effort on her appearance. I just wish she'd known she didn't have to settle for some acne-scarred Hufflepuff berk, or whoever she's said yes to.”
Draco was suddenly very violent against his scrambled eggs, like he was punishing them for his problems. Harry watched this for a few minutes as he ate his own meal.
“Oy, what's he doing here?” asked a voice from behind Harry.
Harry looked up. It was Ron. He was glaring daggers at Draco.
“Why are you trying to kill Draco with your eyes, Ron?”
“Don't change the subject, Harry! I want to know what this git is doing here!”
“Weasley, if the sudden return of your belligerence toward me is due to you asking Hermione to the Yule Ball and being rejected, let me stop you right there. She rejected me as well.”
“Bollocks! She told me I wouldn't believe who asked her, and the only person I could think of that fit that description was you!”
“Really, Weasley? So if Adrian Pucey asked her to the Yule Ball, you'd believe that?”
Ron blinked, taken aback. “Er... alright, so there are other options. But the odds of Pucey doing that are like the odds of me suddenly being able to fly to Jupiter. Which makes you much more likely.”
“Well I'm terribly sorry to disappoint you, Weasley, but no amount of bluff and bluster is going to change the fact that she rejected me as well! I don't know who asked her, but I assure you I want to know just as much as you do.”
Ron examined Draco's annoyed and sour face for several moments, then deflated. “You really are telling the truth, aren't you?”
“Well spotted, Weasley,” Draco said, turning back to his food.
“Right,” Ron said. “But still, you're a Slytherin, yet here you are at the Griffindor table. Why?”
“There's no rule against eating at other tables, Weasley. Not unless it's the welcoming feast or the leaving feast.”
Ron sighed and sat down. “Whatever.”
When Hermione appeared ten minutes later, she froze in confusion at Draco and Ron sitting across from one another at the same table. She looked at Harry and chewed on her lower lip questioningly. Harry shrugged.
“Don't worry, Hermione,” Draco said. “No hard feelings. Come, join us.”
Shrugging, Hermione sat down on Draco's left side, but a person's width away, still looking at both boys worriedly.
“Who're you going to the ball with?” Ron asked the moment she sat down.
Hermione rolled her eyes and sighed, ignoring the question as she started doling out breakfast onto her plate.
“Ron, don't forget we're going down to Hogsmeade later today to get you some dress robes.”
Draco looked up, opened his mouth to speak. Harry glared at him, and he shut it quickly, going back to his food. Ron didn't seem to notice.
“Yeah, I remember.” He looked up at Draco. “I don't suppose you need anything there? Your parents already got it all for you, I expect.”
“Not that it's any of your concern, Weasley, but I do intend to go down to the village. I may not need anything, but one never knows until something pops out at them.”
“Can you two stop with the passive-aggressive BS?” Harry asked, rubbing the bridge of his nose like Snape sometimes did.
Ron's face turned red. “Sorry, Harry.”
Harry looked to Draco, who slowly looked up.
“What? I have nothing to apologize for. He's the one who was being an arse. I was just responding, rather politely I might add.”
“Okay,” Harry said, going back to his food. After all, that was an excellent point.
“So, Harry,” Draco said after a few minutes, whispering. “Are you going to tell me what Diggory said to you at MAC the other day?”
Whispering back, Harry said, “Just asking about the puzzle box. Neither of us have made any progress. He was hoping he'd made more progress than I have, so he could help out. You know, after I told him about the dragons?”
“I see,” Draco said at regular volume. “Explains why he's been coming to MAC meetings despite it being both his NEWT year and the Tri-Wizard Tournament.”
“Doesn't he get exempted from end of year tests, as a Champion?”
“Well yes. But that likely just means he'll study for his exams over the summer and take them in the autumn or later. It's NEWTs, he's not going to have put in all that work just to not do them.”
That made too much sense to Harry for him to ignore. He nodded, and finished the last of his breakfast.
After breakfast was over, Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Draco went down to Hogsmeade together, even though the tension between Ron and Draco was still fairly high. Ron kept asking Hermione who she was going with, as though hoping to startle an answer out of her, but she remained tight-lipped, doing rather a good impression of McGonagall by the time they were in the village.
Harry and Ron split apart from the group soon after arriving, with Hermione and Draco going different directions from one another as well. They went at once to the local dress robes shop and spent an hour getting something for Ron that wouldn't clash with his hair or cost more than he was willing to let Harry spend on him, which wasn't an easy balance to strike. Finally, though, they purchased a set of dark purple men's dress robes for Ron.
“I still say the green looked better on you,” Harry said as they left the shop with their purchase.
“Yeah, well, you're wearing green aren't you? I didn't want us looking like twins. Besides, green is a Slytherin color.”
“First of all, green is the color of nature. Secondly, the Irish have been pairing red hair with green for longer than Slytherin has existed, probably. Third, so what if it was? You know a bunch of good Slytherins. And fourth, we wouldn't look like twins. You're pale white with red hair and freckles, and I'm dark brown with black hair. We look nothing alike. Besides which, I'm sure lots of blokes are going to end up wearing the same or similar robes for the Yule Ball.”
Ron shrugged. “Maybe you're right. I just like the purple better.”
“The color of royalty.”
“What now?”
“Oh, probably not for wizards, but until a couple hundred or so years ago, making purple clothes was very difficult for Muggles. The natural dyes available to do it were expensive to produce and ship, so only royalty could afford purple. Of course, then Muggle chemists figured out how to make cheap purple dyes during the Industrial Revolution, and now it's one of the most popular colors in the Muggle world.”
Ron chuckled. “I bet the royalty didn't like that change.”
“Probably not. But there wasn't anything they could do about it.”
“Glad the purple wasn't as expensive as back then for the Muggles. You spent more than I'm really comfortable with anyway.”
“We can always return it afterwards, if you want.”
“You can't return tailored clothes, Harry.”
“With as easy as it is to re-tailor them with magic?”
“Oh. Right.” He paused a moment, then said, “Mum would probably insist I keep them, but I reckon by the time I need dress robes again, I'll be too big for this set anyway.”
They caught a glimpse of Hermione as they went around to their usual stops, and Ron looked disgruntled.
“Ron, it's just one dance. So someone beat you to Hermione, it's not the end of the world. It doesn't mean she's necessarily going to date whoever it is who asked her, after the ball is over.”
“It's a possibility, though.”
Harry sighed. He didn't know what to say. Mostly because he thought Draco had a point. Ron was a lazy student, not very motivated to do much of anything, which was a real shame because he had a great, clever mind when he put in the effort. Ron and Hermione had so little in common that Harry was pretty much the only reason they were even friends with each other. Harry couldn't really see anything being there between the two friends. Granted, he also thought Draco's parents would have a fit if he ended up with Hermione, so that wasn't a great option either.
“Anyway, with Hermione taken, you should probably find someone to ask to the ball,” Harry said.
“Yeah, I guess. Got any suggestions?”
“Anyone you fancy?”
“Not really. Well, there's that Veela girl, one of the champions, but if Hermione's got a date already, she surely does as well. And honestly, I think I only like the Veela girl because she's a Veela.”
“Well, how about Lavender Brown or Parvati Patil?”
“Oh. Right. Um... I suppose so. But I don't think I've said more than ten words to either of them before. But uh, I suppose it's worth a try. If I see one of them, I'll ask. I'll just... I'll blurt it out, or something.”
“I could ask for you, if I see one of them first.”
“Oh, would you?” Ron said in a relieved tone. “That'd be a huge load off. This whole Yule Ball business is a real pisser for the nerves.”
Harry grinned. “I get that. It'd be a lot easier for me to ask someone for you than it was for me to ask Luna.”
“Luna doesn't have a sister, does she?”
“No, sorry,” Harry said, privately thinking that if Luna did have a sister who was old enough to ask to the ball, that she and Ron would probably be an even worse match than Ron and Hermione.
~
As it turned out, neither of them got to ask Lavender or Parvati to the ball for Ron, because something completely unexpected happened instead. Draco came up to Ron in the Great Hall at dinner and sat down to talk with him.
“What do you want?” Ron asked grumpily.
“Listen, Weasley, you're angry with me over something stupid. Hermione isn't going with me. If she were, I could understand your anger, but she's not. Anyway, since I'm not sure you'd listen to that logic, I've decided to give you a peace offering.”
“I'm not going to the ball with you, either, Malfoy.”
Draco snorted with laughter. “That's not what I was going to say. Maybe you should listen to find out, instead of making snide comments.”
Ron sighed. “Fine, what is it?”
“I happened to run into Tracey Davis and Daphne Greengrass while in Hogsmeade. I'm going with Daphne to the ball, because I asked her earlier after Hermione turned me down. When I saw them I inquired of Tracey, casually, if she had a date yet. She said she did not. So I asked her for you. She was a tad reluctant, but I told her you were getting some nice dress robes from Harry, and I promised her that if you were a boorish lout during the ball, that she could hex the both of us. Please don't make her make good on that threat, she knows more hexes and curses than I do. Anyway... If you agree, I'll go tell her and then you can stop stressing out about asking someone.”
“A Slytherin? You want me to take a Slytherin to the Yule Ball?”
“You have at least three Slytherin friends, Weasley; I would have thought you'd be over this ridiculous prejudice by now.”
“Er... well I'm not really prejudiced against Slytherins anymore, not really.” - Ron ignored Draco's snort of disbelief - “But I'm worried what Mum will say if I take one to the ball. Er, one other than the ones she knows are Harry's friends, I mean.”
“How would she even know if you don't tell her?”
“The twins,” Ron said.
“Ah, that is a fair point. Anyway, Weasley, if it helps, you can inform your mother that Tracey Davis is firmly on the anti-dark lord side of things. And that she's a half-blood.”
“So is Voldemort,” Harry said.
Both boys winced.
“If you say so, Harry. Anyway, does that help, Weasley?”
Ron sat there thinking a moment. Then he sighed. “I suppose so. I don't really know Lavender or Parvati any better than I know Tracey Davis. So why not? Sure, go tell her I accept. I hope her robes match with my dark purple ones.”
“Good,” Draco said. “I'll tell her.”
Draco stood up. As he did, Ron said, “Wait, one more thing.”
“Yes?” Draco asked, looking curiously at him.
“You can call me Ron if you like. I get tired of hearing my surname all the time.”
“Good. I'm tired of saying it so much. I'll go tell her for you now, Ron.”
Ron nodded his acknowledgement and Draco left the table, heading back to the Slytherin table. Ron turned back to Harry.
“Now I have to tell Mum I'm going to the ball with a Slytherin she doesn't know. I don't know if that's easier than asking someone out myself or not.”
“Your mum will understand,” Harry said. “If she doesn't, I'll write her about it, give her a piece of my mind if I have to.”
“Thanks, Harry. You're a good friend.”
“You're welcome.”
~
The next day, a Sunday and the day before the Yule Ball, Harry and his friends went to dance classes all morning. After lunch, they all spent time in the Room of Requirement, where Harry was practicing defensive magic for the as-yet unknown Second Task. Luna was sitting cross-legged on the floor, playing with the puzzle box, answering its riddles in different orders. Harry was impressed; he hadn't gotten around to telling her any of the answers, she'd figured them all out on her own.
“Oooh, Harry, I think I found a pattern!” she said suddenly.
Harry stopped what he was doing and sat next to her.
“What did you find?”
“Well, I noticed from all the circled sequences that the ones that failed but had a promising start all start with one, then six. Then I went on to a '1 6 5' sequence, but it failed. So I tried 1 6 4 2 5 3, but that one failed after the first two digits, too.”
“What's next, then?”
With the others sitting nearby, Luna tried the next combo, which was 1 6 3 4 5 2, which failed. They tried some more sequences. They didn't make any more progress until the sequence 1 6 2 3 4 5, which got them up to three digits.
“So it starts with 1 6 2. Let's move on,” Harry said.
They tried 1 6 2 4 5 3, another failure. The last number left to try after that was 1 6 2 5 3 4, which – thankfully – was the right answer. The box opened up, its six sides unfolding like one of those 2D drawings of unfolded cubes, then flipped itself over and re-folded itself inside-out so that the box now had a big green button on the top of it that said “Press me.”
“Oh gods, I see what they did there,” Harry said before they'd even pressed the button.
“Huh?” Ron said, confused.
“That sequence, 1 6 2 5 3 4. Gods, I can't believe I didn't think to try that earlier!”
“See what sooner?”
“Think of the number sequence '1 2 3 4 5 6.' Now start with 1, then switch to the other end of the sequence, what do you get?”
“Er... a six?”
“Yes. Then back to the other end again, and you get '1 6 2.'”
“Ohhh,” Ron said, getting it now. “Then you go to the other end again, and it's 1 6 2 5. Then all that's left is the three and the four, to get 1 6 2 5 3 4.”
“Yes. Front to back to front to back, and so on. Or rather, outside numbers to inside numbers. So if the sequence options had been, somehow, one through ten, it'd be 1 10 2 9 3 8 4 7 5 6. Simple, but kind of clever. It's an easy way to encode a numerical password sequence but not so easy that anyone would think of it right away, if at all.”
“Right. But er, you should probably push the button, see what it does.”
“What? Oh yes, of course,” Harry said.
He reached forward and pressed the button. The box began to speak, then.
“Congratulations, riddle solver, on this first step of your quest!
But weary though you may well be, still you cannot rest.
“ A Second Task awaits you, to test your smarts and mettle,
So mind you listen well 'ere you then can settle.
“Like Odysseus of old, you'll be taken from one you love,
To find your way back to them while watched by those above.
“ Enemies and obstacles you'll fight with wit and wand,
An hour you shall have to find with whom you need abscond.
“To aid you on your journey, a seed I have to sow:
A clue to help you figure out where thou needst to go.
“As Homer in his great work wrote,
Thou shalt be traveling by boat.
“It docks where many people dread,
For danger lies within its spread.
“But tis not to black you need to seek,
Instead tis olive, thou temp'ry Greek.
“From there you go to the distant place,
To meet the challenges you must face.
“Survive the battles, resist the bait,
And escape the traps, lest ye be late.
“But worry not, if late, lost, or lame,
Or even if you fail, for this is just a game.
“ The stakes are not so dire as Odysseus once faced,
But you only have an hour, so please do make some haste.”
The box stopped speaking then, and remained as it was, the button still there. Luna got out some parchment and a quill, writing down the poem as Harry played it a few more times to make sure they had everything.
“A quest themed after 'The Odyssey,'” she said, scanning the parchment. “Sounds fun.”
Harry snorted. “I doubt it. I've read 'The Odyssey,' back in primary school. Odysseus faced a lot of monsters as well as other obstacles. A cyclops, some sirens, a couple possessive goddesses, and a many-headed monster were involved, as I recall. Among other things.”
“Well it's a good thing you've practiced a lot of defensive magic, then,” Hermione said.
“Yeah, but will it be enough? Hmm... I could always use the trick from the first task that I did.”
Ron said, “I'm pretty sure Snape would kill you if you did that. Plus, you don't know how many monsters there's gonna be there.”
“If any,” Antigone said.
“Yeah, but my point is he may have to do it a lot.”
“If this task is so far away from the school, I don't know how the spectators are going to see anything,” Hermione said.
“I think I know,” Antigone said. “I happened to overhear, over the summer, that Dad got an order from the Ministry for several flying omnioculars and half a dozen large magic mirrors for displaying images on. Now I know why, if this task is what those were for.”
“Good to know,” Harry said. “But what exactly IS this task? For instance, what thing of mine that I love am I going to be taken from?”
“I think, Harry, that you mean to ask which person you'll be taken from. The first relevant line is 'Like Odysseus of old, you'll be taken from one you love.' Odysseus was trying to get back to his wife and son. The second relevant line is 'An hour you shall have to find with whom you need abscond.' It says 'with whom.' You'll need to abscond with the person you've been 'taken' from. Not quite faithful to the epic, but I suppose they had to be a little creative with the theme.”
“Right, that makes sense. It also sounds like whoever it is I need to abscond with is going to be held somewhere that we'll both have to escape from, otherwise why use a word that relates to sneakiness and fleeing from consequences?”
“That makes sense too, in a way,” Hermione added. “Odysseus absconded into his own house as a beggar because of all the suitors there. You might have to do something similar to that, Harry.”
“What's all that about a boat?” Ron asked. “Surely you're not going out on the Black Lake in the middle of February? That'd be mad! What if you fell in? The water's bound to be cold enough to freeze to death in it, even with warming spells!”
Harry looked up at Ron in surprise and thoughtfulness. “Black Lake... Hmm... 'But tis not black you need to seek,' the poem said. It said I was looking for 'olive.' But that doesn't make sense either, olives are also black.”
“Only ripe olives are black, Harry,” Luna said. “Olives picked at full ripeness before being pickled or fermented are black. Unripe olives are green, though, and there's a color called 'olive,' which is a shade of green.”
“Oh, right. I feel silly now.”
“Olives are pickled or fermented?” Ron asked.
“Yes. They're much too bitter to eat otherwise,” she answered him.
“So what's dangerous but green, around Hogwarts?” Antigone asked.
“I think it means the Forbidden Forest,” Luna said, pondering. “Yes. Yes, that makes sense to me. Obviously they made a joke of sorts with the connection between olives and Greeks, to point us at something green. The poem is clearly talking about a place, refers to its 'span.' So if not the Black Lake, then the Forbidden Forest is where they mean.”
“Makes sense to me,” Harry said. “I just hope we're right. Is there anything else it could mean? Just so we can eliminate possibilities.”
They all stood there thinking for several minutes.
“There's lots of green around Hogwarts, during the spring and summer and part of the fall,” Ron said. “But dangerous and green? Yeah, I'm with Luna on that one. Can't think of anywhere else that could be. The Forbidden Forest is forbidden because it's known to contain loads of dangerous magical creatures. It's the only thing that fits.”
“It's also dark enough to contain shades of green like 'olive,'” Antigone added.
“Yes,” Harry said, “but catching a boat in a forest? I suppose it could be a flying boat, but the Forbidden Forest is huge! And what if it's a regular boat? Is there a river going through the Forbidden Forest? It might be large enough to have one. So where exactly in the Forbidden Forest am I supposed to go?”
“Well, the first part is probably supposed to be the easiest. Odysseus had no trouble getting to Troy, as I recall. It was getting home that gave him trouble. So I think you should just go into the section by Hagrid's hut.”
“I have a different concern,” Antigone said.
“What's that?” Harry asked.
“Well... how far away is this place going to be? Will it be outside the wards of Hogwarts? If so, how can we be sure someone can't come in and try to kill Harry? What's keeping the Champions safe?”
“Aside from the flying omnioculars?” Ron asked.
Harry sighed. “No, she's right. There are ways, if you're clever and driven enough, to get past those. Something to bring up with Ms. Pennyroyal, then. Have her look into the details, if she hasn't already.”
Antigone nodded. “Right. Well it looks like we solved it. Now you just have to get through the Second Task intact. I'll help you with that however I can.”
“We all will,” Ron said. The others agreed.
With that, they went back to helping Harry practice defensive magic.
Endnotes: Short chapter I know, but the next thing after this was the Yule Ball, which I figure should be its own chapter. And it could've been shorter; first draft didn't have the MAC stuff in it.
I haven't gotten any comments about it, but that on its own is enough for me to point out that in the previous chapter, the title of Xeno's proposed new newspaper – Fortnight Wizarding News – is inspired by the infamous Weekly World News. :D
This time the delay was at least partly wanting to sort out the Second Task's safety issues in the next chapter before publishing this chapter.
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Four.
Or, "Autistic Potter and the Goblet of Fire."
Notes: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made. Not by me, anyway.
Just to clarify: Yule Ball is actually on Yule because honestly, having it on Christmas always struck me as stupid because then the students didn't get to go home for Christmas. Fine for people like Harry who in canon didn't have anywhere to go that he wanted to be, but everyone else got the shaft.
There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though, but there's a lot more in this one than usual because it was unavoidable. Still, lots of details are changed, so don't skip by familiar parts or you might miss something.
Just as a reminder, so I don't have to shoehorn in descriptions in the text of the story as a reminder, but in this fanfic Harry and Hermione, apart from having Asperger's Syndrome, are both black as well.
'Italicized text between single quotes is almost always Parseltongue.'
Chapter 14: “The Yule Ball”
Since he knew she would be showing up to the Yule Ball, Harry hadn't bothered sending Ms. Pennyroyal a letter, instead deciding to find her and ask her during the ball to look into the Second Task's safety measures.
With that decided, he could go back to focusing on preparing for the Yule Ball. School was out, of course, but everyone was staying behind for the ball. The Hogwarts Express would take everyone home the day after the ball, after lunch. This just confirmed Harry's suspicions that the Express didn't travel across the country in a linear way, and so didn't have to leave at 11 AM on September 1st, nor take all day to get to Hogwarts.
Harry, Ron, Seamus, Dean, and Neville changed into their dress robes up in their dormitory, all of them looking very self-conscious. Ron might have been more self-conscious if he hadn't been so nervous about going to the dance with a girl he barely knew, who was also a Slytherin. When he thought about it, he realized he didn't even know for sure what Tracey Davis looked like. Harry only managed to calm him down by pointing out she was never far from Daphne Greengrass. When this was pointed out to him, Ron realized he did in fact remember what Tracey looked like.
“She's the blonde one, right? And Greengrass is the brunette who looks kinda stuck up all the time?”
“Yes to both questions,” Harry said idly, adjusting his collar. “And that 'stuck up' look is just, as I understand it, the facial expression of people who know occlumency but aren't like, great at it. Just passable. It's a blank look.”
“She looks unhappy when she does it.”
“Yeah, well so does everyone else who does it, unless they're really good. Even Snape does it most of the time.”
“Sure, but in his case he's just a grumpy git.”
The common room looked strange, full of people wearing different colors instead of the usual mass of black. The girls, especially, were colorful and a lot of them had dresses that revealed far more of themselves than they usually displayed. This was not true for the boys, though, which was something Harry thought was silly. Why was it more classy for girls to have dress robes that revealed more skin, but the same wasn't true for boys? People were just so silly, Harry thought.
“Did Draco tell you where you were meeting Tracey?”
“Yeah, yesterday on my way to the Room of Requirement,” he said quietly. “Said she was meeting me in the entrance hall. Is that where Luna's meeting you?”
“Yes. I asked her about it last night on the mirror.”
“Good. How do I look?”
“Fetching. Handsome. Royal,” Harry said. “What about me?”
“Like a reverse tree, but handsome. What'd you do to your hair, though?”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Rather than having it stick out in every direction, I used a hair charm to make it into these twists, then used a hair potion to get them to stick to my head like this. Got both from Dean.”
“Well it's a good look for you. Just gonna take some getting used to.”
Harry beamed at this. Ron was right, it was a good look for him, but he hadn't known for sure it was until Ron had said so. He'd have to see if others thought so, too.
He looked again at his outfit. Bottle-green dress robes of either satin or silk, he wasn't sure but probably satin. Silver pentacle cuff-links on the sleeves. It looked nice, but the neckline was too high, and it was making him feel like he was choking. It was bad enough that he left the boys' area and went looking around to see if any if the girls were available to take a message to Lavender Brown or Parvati Patil. He knew if anyone could help him, it would be one of them. Or, well, there was always Professor McGonagall, but he had no idea where she was. And Hermione of course, but he didn't want to bother her.
Finally he found someone willing to go upstairs to check for one of those two girls for him, and after ten minutes of waiting, Parvati came down looking curious. She was also dressed for the ball, looked very pretty in robes of shocking pink, with her long dark plait braided with gold, and gold bracelets glimmering at her wrists.
“What do you want, Harry? I'm not quite done with my makeup.”
“This neckline is too high, it feels like it's choking me. I figured if anyone here could help, it'd be you or Lavender.”
“Ah. Not quite our area of expertise, really, as we're more about makeup charms than transfiguration, but should be doable.”
She pulled her wand out of the front of her dress. Harry looked away suddenly, his ears burning, but Parvati didn't seem to care that she'd just casually reached down the front of her dress while a boy had been looking at her. She pointed her wand at his collar and concentrated. A moment later, the neckline dropped an inch. He shook his head to indicate it wasn't low enough yet, and she shifted it down another inch. But he wasn't satisfied even then, nor when it was three inches down from its original position.
“One more inch, Parvati.”
“Harry, are you sure? That already looks a little... feminine, at that position.”
“How does that--- never mind. I don't really care about stuff like that, I care about not feeling like there's a noose around my neck.”
She shrugged and lowered it again with her wand. When she did, he sighed with relief.
“Now if you could put a gap between the edges, that'd be even better.”
Sighing, she used her wand to put a half-inch gap between one edge of the fabric and the other. He sighed with relief again.
“Thank you so much, Parvati, that feels loads better.”
“You're welcome, Harry,” she said. “Anyway, you'd better let me seal that with a spell to make it last the night, or else you're going to be partway through a dance when it returns to normal.”
“Right,” he said, holding still. She cast the spell on it to seal the transfiguration for 24 hours just to be on the safe side.
“Anything else I can help you with?”
“No, that's all. Thanks again, Parvati.”
“Any time, Harry,” she said as he nodded at her and turned to go upstairs again to look at himself in the mirror.
Parvati was kind of right, the neckline did now look a bit on the feminine side, but he hadn't been lying when he said he didn't care about that kind of thing. It felt nice. In fact, the whole outfit felt nice, now he was no longer being choked by it. The slick coolness of the enchanted fabric against his skin was very nice, so much better than the usual Hogwarts robes. In fact, it felt a bit like changing out of a suit of armor and into pajamas. He hadn't realized quite how much the normal uniform had been bothering him all these years until today.
Ron showed up behind him as he was finishing looking at himself in the mirror, the two of them nearly running into each other.
“What happened to your robes, Harry?”
“They were choking me, so I had Parvati help me alter them to stop doing that.”
“Er, it kinda looks a bit--”
“Yes yes, I know. It looks slightly girly. I don't care. And no, it doesn't mean I'm really a girl like Antigone, it means I care more about comfort than appearances.”
Ron held his hands up in a placating gesture. “Sorry, mate. Didn't mean anything by it.”
Harry sighed. “Sorry for snapping at you, Ron.”
“Apology not needed, mate. Now, where's Hermione?”
“No idea, but she might be downstairs. I didn't see her earlier, though.”
"Probably off reading or sulking somewhere," Ron said. "You know, cuz she's too proud to admit she lied to me to make her point."
Harry chose to ignore this, he and Ron going down to the common room.
“Well we'd better get to the entrance hall to find our dates,” Harry said.
“Right.”
Colin Creevy ran into them just then.
“Oooh, looking good, Harry, Ron! I'm taking photos for the Yule Ball, gonna give copies to those who want them. But I'm asking permission first, Harry, you taught me that's polite. Can I take a photo of you two before you leave the common room?”
“You have my permission, Colin,” Harry said.
“Yeah, mine too.”
“Great.”
Colin lifted his camera up, stood back, and said, “Say cheese!”
Harry grinned. Ron looked nervous. The camera flashed.
Having known in advance what this ball was going to probably do to him, Harry had gone to Madam Pomfrey ahead of time and gotten a special potion from her that dulled the senses, as well as an anti-nausea potion. They should last the whole night, she'd said. He'd taken it before putting his robes on, and it was a weird sensation, being on these potions. Everything was quieter than he was used to, but sharper in some respects, like sometimes happened when he was tired and closed his eyes in a room where people were talking.
His vision was also quieter. Normally, with his glasses on he could see ridiculous levels of detail on things; when flying, he had frequently noticed he could see the grass petals moving at distances that should have been impossible to see more than just green. Whenever he was outside, he had over the past few months taken up the habit of seeing how far away a tree had to be before he couldn't see its leaves anymore. He wasn't great at judging distances, but he thought it was a lot farther than most people could see. And of course, on several occasions he'd read text from across the room that other people could barely recognize as even being text, from the same distance. So it was like his senses were normally turned up to 12 or 13, and the potion brought them down to like, a seven or an eight.
The difference was obvious to him. Instead of being able to count individual tree leaves of trees off near the horizon, he could now barely see the trees, so to speak. His near-range vision was dulled, too; from his current position, he normally could have seen tiny cracks in the stones of the floor that most people could only see by getting their faces as close to the stone as they could. Now, he could tell the floor was stone by the texture, but he couldn't see the cracks.
He couldn't help but notice that the difference in how it affected him was astonishing. There were presently so many people in the common room milling about and talking, even shouting, that on a normal day he would have been getting sick even before Colin's camera went off. But now with the sense-dulling potion, he felt like the noise level could triple, and the density of people in the room could double, and he'd still be okay.
But as tempting as it might be to ask for this potion all the time, he knew he wouldn't be able to. Over the years he'd found his absurdly powerful senses to be very useful. He was always the first to notice leaks in the roof, no matter how small, even when Aunt Petunia was in the room. He used to use his vision to expertly assess how much food he could steal from the fridge before his aunt and uncle would notice some had gone missing. And he still often surprised Hedwig when she tried to sneak up on him, for as quiet as she was, he could still hear the faint sound of her wings through the air if there wasn't some other noise covering up the sound. So no, despite the fact he was still going strong in the midst of all this chaos, he wouldn't be making a habit of using the sense-dulling potion.
Colin got some more photos of him and Ron, then moved on. Harry and Ron took off out the portrait hole and toward the entrance hall. On the way there, Harry answered Ron's inquiry about how he was able to stand all the noise.
The entrance hall was packed with students too, all milling around waiting for eight o’clock, when the doors to the Great Hall would be thrown open. Those people who were meeting partners from different Houses were edging through the crowd trying to find one another. Draco came up to Harry and Ron and guided Ron over to Tracey Davis, where Ron took her arm in a gentlemanly fashion. Harry could tell by his face that Ron was trying to be open minded and not ruin this day for Tracey, even if she was a Slytherin.
Draco was wearing dress robes of black velvet with a high collar, which in Harry’s opinion made him look like a vicar. Daphne was wearing metallic silver dress robes, though honestly Harry couldn't tell the difference between girls' dress robes and Muggle formal dresses. Daphne's silver dress robes were backless, and the front seemed to be stuck in place with a sticking charm. They also had a slit up both sides of the dress, showing off her legs now and then. Legs that ended with shoes that looked to be made of real silver. Daphne had Draco by one arm and a very small metallic-silver clutch purse in the other arm.
Daphne's hair was tied up in an elegant knot at the back of her head, the knot festooned with glittering emeralds in silver settings, another glittering emerald at her neck. Each piece was probably expensive enough to pay for new school things for the Weasleys for the rest of their time in Hogwarts.
Tracey's dress robes matched Ron's purple pretty well, seeing as they were a metallic gold color, but much more modest than Daphne's, exposing only Tracey's shoulders, arms, and her golden, heeled shoes. Both girls wore opera gloves in colors matching their dresses, and these gloves went all the way to just past their elbows. Tracey's clutch was metallic gold, like her dress.
Like Daphne, Tracey's hair was up, though hers was a braided bun. Also in her hair were dazzling red-and-orange fire opals, with another such fire opal at her neck.
Harry waited for Luna, not knowing where she was going to be. He asked several students he knew to be Ravenclaws, and most of them made faces of dislike and told him they didn't know where “Loony” was. He tore into each one who did that with a vicious verbal throw-down, and most of them apologized before fleeing. Harry made notes of names of people who called Luna names to his face, to talk with their head of house about it later.
Ron and Tracey remained nearby, along with Draco and Daphne. They chatted idly while Harry waited for Luna.
“Oh no …”
Ron bent his knees slightly to hide behind Harry, because Fleur Delacour was passing, looking stunning in robes of silver-gray satin, and accompanied by the Ravenclaw Quidditch captain, Roger Davies. When they had disappeared, Ron stood straight again and stared over the heads of the crowd.
“Where is Hermione?” he said again. Tracey rolled her eyes at this.
A group of Slytherins came up the steps from their dungeon common room. Pansy Parkinson was at the arm of some Slytherin boy Harry didn't recognize, and she looked very put out by it, glaring daggers in Draco's direction now and then. Behind that pair was Crabbe and Goyle, who were both wearing green; they resembled moss-colored boulders, and neither of them, Harry noted, had managed to find a partner. Unless... but no, that didn't seem very likely.
Finally, Harry spotted Luna coming down the stairs. It was rather difficult not to, though she wasn't quite as obvious as he'd anticipated. Luna's dress – a spaghetti-strap dress with straps made of what looked like the kind of ribbon you put on Christmas gifts – was striped red and green like wrapping paper, with a red satin belt in a fancy bow at her abdomen like the bow on a present. She had a smaller, matching red satin bow on her right wrist as well, held in place by a silver pentagram. Her earrings were miniature glass Christmas balls, one red and one green, lit from within so they were glowing.
Luna's shoes were black, buckled boots looking a lot like Santa boots, but they only went just past the ankle before ending in white fur trim. What little he could see of her legs – the dress went just past her knees – looked candy-striped like candy canes. Her purse looked like a Christmas gift box, wrapped with wrapping depicting half a dozen Yule logs drawn and colored by hand, an animation on the images making them look like they were cheerfully burning in a hearth. The purse straps were the same red string as the string around the “box” of the purse.
On her dress, Luna's corsage was a kind of flower Harry had never seen before. It was pale as moonlight, glowing faintly, and had five petals, making it look kind of like a pentagram without the circle, and stood out against the background of her dress.
Her hair was another matter. It was no longer blond, and no longer looked like she'd gotten out of bed without combing it. It was done elegantly in a crown of braids on top of her head, and had been colored red and white so that her hair looked like a braided candy cane. Some charm or potion on it even made it look like it was made out of candy. There was also the star from a Christmas tree poking out of her hair, and it was lit up like Christmas lights. As she approached Harry, he could even smell she was wearing peppermint perfume in her hair.
Even Draco, Tracey, Ron, and Daphne were staring at her as she approached, in awe of the effort she'd put into the outfit. Harry was staring, too; he'd never seen her look so beautiful before.
“Hello Harry. You look nice this evening. I like what you've done with your hair, it suits you.”
Harry swallowed, trying to speak. Finally managing it, he said weakly, “er... you too, Luna. Your hair looks good enough to eat.”
She smiled. “Yes it does, I know. But please don't, it might make you ill, and it wouldn't taste very good.”
He chuckled. “I'll try to restrain myself.”
The oak front doors opened then, and everyone turned to look as the Durmstrang students entered with Professor Karkaroff. Krum was at the front of the party, accompanied by a pretty girl in blue robes Harry didn’t know. Over their heads he saw that an area of lawn right in front of the castle had been transformed into a sort of grotto full of fairy lights — meaning hundreds of actual living fairies (or "nixies," as Luna and her father called them) were sitting in the rosebushes that had been conjured there, and fluttering over the statues of what seemed to be Father Christmas and his reindeer.
Then Professor McGonagall’s voice called, “Champions over here, please!”
“That's our cue, Harry,” Luna softly told him, gently pulling him by the hand, for he was still a bit stunned at Luna's appearance and had barely noticed Krum and his date.
Luna and Harry said “See you in a minute” to the others as they got in place with the other Champions and their dates, the chattering crowd parting to let them through.
Professor McGonagall, who was wearing dress robes of red tartan and had arranged a rather ugly wreath of thistles around the brim of her hat, told them to wait on one side of the doors while everyone else went inside; they were to enter the Great Hall in procession when the rest of the students had sat down. Fleur Delacour and Roger Davies stationed themselves nearest the doors; Davies looked so stunned by his good fortune in having Fleur for a partner that he could hardly take his eyes off her. Cedric had gotten Cho Chang, the Ravenclaw Seeker, for his date. He waved at Cedric, who waved back. Then Harry's eyes moved and fell on the girl at Krum's side. His jaw dropped.
It was Hermione.
But she didn’t look like Hermione at all. Her hair was no longer bushy; she'd changed it from her usual bushy Afro to a great many thin dreadlocks that she had then pulled back like a ponytail, but into a bun of sorts, so that the dreads were making a whirlpool sort of shape at the back of the bun. A few stray dreads hung like long bangs, framing her face without hiding it at all. She was wearing robes made of a floaty, periwinkle-blue material that looked good against her dark brown skin, and she was holding herself differently, somehow — or maybe it was merely the absence of the twenty or so books she usually had slung over her back. She was also smiling — rather nervously, it was true — but the reduction in the size of her front teeth was more noticeable than ever; Harry couldn’t understand how he hadn’t spotted it before.
“Hi, Harry!” she said. “Hi, Luna!”
Luna looked over to Hermione curiously, her eyes widening in surprise when she saw Hermione. Harry heard her say “Oh my!” in an impressed tone.
Nearby, Parvati Patil was gazing at Hermione in unflattering disbelief. She wasn’t the only one either; when the doors to the Great Hall opened, Krum’s fan club from the library stalked past, throwing Hermione looks of deepest loathing. Pansy Parkinson gaped at her as she walked by, too. Daphne was looking impressed though, as was Tracey.
Draco, however... his eyes burned with anger at the sight of her with Krum, and then he turned away and pretended he hadn't seen her. And Ron walked right past her without looking at her, in a very pointed fashion. Harry sighed, hoping Ron wouldn't make an arse of himself tonight. Nor Draco, either, but Draco had better manners than Ron and so Harry wasn't too worried about him.
As they went into the Great Hall, Harry spotted Antigone and Angela. Their dresses were pretty, but much more subdued than the others Harry had seen so far. Antigone wore a dress of a darkish pink satin, and Angela's dress, also satin, was robin's-egg blue. For jewelry they wore simple silver chains about their necks, silver bangles at their wrists, and silver crescent-moon earrings. All their jewelry matched one another's jewelry.
Then Danzia came along behind them. She was a sight to see, as she was wearing men's dress robes in black and white, which looked like a tuxedo from the waist up. In fact... it looked like she had a tuxedo top on over-top a black robe. But despite the masculine look of her robes, her strawberry-blond hair was done in a feminine, elegant knot at the back of her head, and she was wearing diamond earrings and diamond cuff-links, her fingernails painted with metallic silver nail polish. She was also wearing lipstick and eye shadow, and though it was well done, they'd never seen her with makeup on before, so the effect was quite striking. Especially since she had on her characteristic mischievous grin.
Once everyone else was settled in the Hall, Professor McGonagall told the champions and their partners to get in line in pairs and to follow her. They did so, and everyone in the Great Hall applauded as they entered and started walking up toward a large round table at the top of the Hall, where the judges were sitting.
The walls of the Hall had all been covered in sparkling silver frost, with hundreds of garlands of mistletoe and ivy crossing the starry black ceiling. The House tables had vanished; instead, there were about a hundred smaller, lantern-lit ones, each seating about a dozen people.
Harry concentrated on not tripping over his feet. Luna was enjoying herself, beaming at everyone, ignoring the stares and mutters of the people who didn't like her. He caught sight of Ron and Tracey as he and Luna neared the top table. Ron was watching Hermione pass with narrowed eyes. Tracey was glaring daggers at Ron.
Dumbledore smiled happily as the champions approached the top table, but Karkaroff wore an expression remarkably like Ron’s as he watched Krum and Hermione draw nearer. Ludo Bagman, tonight in robes of bright purple with large yellow stars, was clapping as enthusiastically as any of the students; and Madame Maxime, who had changed her usual uniform of black satin for a flowing gown of lavender silk, was applauding them politely. Ms. Selby, the head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation, was sitting at the fifth seat. Since she was the farthest from Karkaroff, he and Luna sat next to her.
When they sat down, Luna turned to wave at someone. Harry turned to look where she was looking, and saw Mr. Lovegood, Luna's father, waving back at them both. Harry waved as well, smiling. Mr. Lovegood must have been there in his official capacity as a member of the press.
“Sir?” Harry said to Dumbledore.
“Yes, Harry?” Dumbledore asked.
“Can we invite Mr. Lovegood over here? He's the only person I trust to cover this tournament and peripherals fairly.”
Dumbledore smiled, his blue eyes twinkling. “Of course, Harry, that's no problem. There should be enough room.”
With Dumbledore's help, Mr. Lovegood sat with them. Shortly thereafter, Ms. Pennyroyal joined too, taking the final seat. Now it was her, Mr. Lovegood, the judges, and the Champions and their dates. That made 14 people at the table.
“How are you doing, young man?” asked Xeno, holding his hand out to Harry.
Suppressing his confusing feelings about being called a young man, Harry took the man's hand and shook it, smiling.
“Quite well. Madam Pomfrey gave me a potion to dull my senses, it's making this whole night bearable. More than bearable; quite pleasant, in fact.”
“Well good to hear it, good to hear it. And you must be Ms. Pennyroyal?”
Harry ignored the introductions and looked around the room. It was all very pretty, the school going all out on the holiday decorations. Then he turned to Luna, and the two of them chatted idly while everyone else in the room found tables to sit at and settle down.
There was no food as yet on the glittering golden plates, but small menus were lying in front of each of them. Harry picked his up uncertainly and looked around — there were no waiters. Dumbledore, however, looked carefully down at his own menu, then said very clearly to his plate, “Pork chops!”
And pork chops appeared. Getting the idea, the rest of the table placed their orders with their plates too. Luna ordered a garden salad with raspberry vinaigrette dressing to start, her father doing the same. Salad sounded like a good idea to Harry, so he too ordered a salad, but with ranch dressing.
As they ate, he noticed Hermione talking with Krum, and suddenly realized he hadn't heard much of Krum talking, but he was certainly talking now, and very enthusiastically at that.
“Vell, ve have a castle also, not as big as this, nor as comfortable, I am thinking,” he was telling Hermione. “Ve have just four floors, and the fires are lit only for magical purposes. But ve have grounds larger even than these — though in vinter, ve have very little daylight, so ve are not enjoying them. But in summer ve are flying every day, over the lakes and the mountains —”
“Now, now, Viktor!” said Karkaroff with a laugh that didn’t reach his cold eyes, “don’t go giving away anything else, now, or your charming friend will know exactly where to find us!”
Dumbledore smiled, his eyes twinkling. “Igor, all this secrecy … one would almost think you didn’t want visitors.”
“Well, Dumbledore,” said Karkaroff, displaying his yellowing teeth to their fullest extent, “we are all protective of our private domains, are we not? Do we not jealously guard the halls of learning that have been entrusted to us? Are we not right to be proud that we alone know our school’s secrets, and right to protect them?”
“Oh I would never dream of assuming I know all Hogwarts’ secrets, Igor,” said Dumbledore amicably. “Only this morning, for instance, I took a wrong turning on the way to the bathroom and found myself in a beautifully proportioned room I have never seen before, containing a really rather magnificent collection of chamber pots. When I went back to investigate more closely, I discovered that the room had vanished. But I must keep an eye out for it. Possibly it is only accessible at five-thirty in the morning. Or it may only appear at the quarter moon — or when the seeker has an exceptionally full bladder.”
Harry snorted into his salad. He and Luna and Hermione knew full well what room Dumbledore was talking about, but Harry didn't dare talk to him about it here. He liked the Room of Requirement being a secret known to few.
He ignored Fleur Delacour, who was being dismissive of the castle's decorations. She was probably right that the palace of Beauxbatons was more opulent than Hogwarts, but he school preferred the sturdy stone walls, even if they could be improved with better warming charms or more insulating materials.
They moved on to their main course, and as they did so, Harry noticed that neither of the Lovegoods ordered anything with meat. He wondered if they were vegetarians. He tried to remember if he'd ever seen them eating animal products before, but he couldn't. He didn't pay attention to other people's food choices most of the time, and all he could remember of what Luna liked to eat was puddings, but that was rather vague and didn't tell him anything useful. He'd have to ask Luna about it later.
Harry looked around the Hall. Hagrid was sitting at one of the other staff tables; he was back in his horrible hairy brown suit and gazing up at the top table. Harry saw him give a small wave, and looking around, saw Madame Maxime return it, her opals glittering in the candlelight.
Hermione was now teaching Krum to say her name properly; he kept calling her “Hermy-own.”
“Her-my-oh-nee,” she said slowly and clearly.
“Herm-own-ninny.”
“Close enough,” she said, catching Harry’s eye and grinning.
When all the food had been consumed, Dumbledore stood up and asked the students to do the same. Then, with a wave of his wand, all the tables zoomed back along the walls leaving the floor clear, and then he conjured a raised platform into existence along the right wall. A set of drums, several guitars, a lute, a cello, and some bagpipes were set upon it.
The Weird Sisters now trooped up onto the stage to wildly enthusiastic applause; they were all extremely hairy and dressed in black robes that had been artfully ripped and torn. They picked up their instruments, and Harry, who had been so interested in watching them that he had almost forgotten what was coming, suddenly realized that the lanterns on all the other tables had gone out, and that the other champions and their partners were getting into place.
“Come on, Harry,” Luna said serenely. “They expect us to dance. Which is something I happen to want to do, too.”
“Of course, thanks for the heads-up,” he said quietly to her, following her onto the dance floor.
The Weird Sisters struck up a slow, mournful tune; Harry walked onto the brightly lit dance floor, carefully avoiding catching anyone’s eye moreso than usual (he could see Seamus and Dean waving at him and sniggering), and next moment, Luna had taken his hands gently in hers, placed one around her waist, and was holding the other in hers.
As the music started and the dancing began, Harry kept his gaze focused on Luna's lips, so that if she spoke he would know it. It always helped him to look at people's lips when they spoke, it helped him focus on what they were saying. ('Why the eyes?' He'd thought; he'd always wondered about everyone's obsession with looking people in the eyes. 'The lips are the parts that move, and draw my attention.')
Luna wouldn't mind he never looked her in the eye, like so many other people seemed to. She knew it was an issue he had, even if she didn't share that issue. She probably had Asperger's as well, but Harry had noticed Luna had the opposite problem concerning eyes – she tended to look too long and/or too intensely at people's eyes, making them uncomfortable.
Of course, his eyes tended to roam a bit, and they did now, too. He glanced at her hair, her earrings, a silver pentagram necklace around her neck he'd only just noticed, and of course the ribbons and bows of her outfit. But they always returned to her lips, in case she wanted to talk.
He also kept finding his attention drawn away from Luna entirely, watching other people. Very soon many of them too had come onto the dance floor, so that the champions were no longer the center of attention. Neville and Ginny were dancing nearby — he could see Ginny wincing frequently as Neville trod on her feet — and Dumbledore was waltzing with Madame Maxime. He was so dwarfed by her that the top of his pointed hat barely tickled her chin; however, she moved very gracefully for a woman so large. Mad-Eye Moody was doing an extremely ungainly two-step with Professor Sinistra, who was nervously avoiding his wooden leg.
Harry also spotted Antigone and Angela dancing with one another, and Danzia dancing with a very confused and uncomfortable looking Crabbe. Harry for a moment thought they were here together, but then he remembered that they couldn't stand one another, and Danzia had come alone. Doubtless she'd swept Crabbe off to dance with him just to bewilder him.
When the slow tune stopped, everyone applauded. Soon after, the Weird Sisters struck up a new song, which was much faster. Luna let go of Harry and began to dance with her arms waving in the air, the speed and tempo of her movements slow and ephemeral, at odds with the pace of the music. It was a dance more suited to a song with a title like 'Fairy of the woods.'
As much as he liked Luna, he didn't really feel like joining her in this odd dance, as it clashed so much with the rhythm of the music. So he stood there awkwardly and looked around instead. A ways away, he saw Fred and Angelina dancing so exuberantly that people around them were backing away in fear of injury.
Looking around for Ron, he spotted Ron sitting down along the edge of the room by a table of refreshments, his date Tracey standing beside him, her arms crossed, looking angry enough to spit nails.
“Er, Luna?”
“Yes, Harry?” she said without pausing her dance.
“Ron and Tracey seem to be having a disagreement, I thought I'd go see what that's about. Is that okay with you?”
She paused at last and looked at him.
“You don't have to ask my permission for that, Harry. But now I think on it, I guess you were just politely telling me where you were going so I wouldn't worry. I'll see you in a bit, Harry.”
“Okay, Luna. Thanks.”
She nodded, going back to her weird dancing as Harry made his way carefully through the throng of people.
It didn't take him long to find Tracey and Ron. She was hissing at him like an angry cobra, but it wasn't Parseltongue.
“I don't feel like dancing,” Ron said. “If you want to dance, I'm not going to stop you.”
“Weasley, I agreed to this 'date' hoping to have a good time with you despite the fact I barely know you. If I'd known you were just going to moon over some other girl and mope in the corner like a spoiled toddler, I would have gone with someone else!”
“Then go, if that's what you want!”
“What's going on over here?” Harry asked.
Tracey turned to him. “Potter, good. Maybe you can talk some sense into him. I ask you, what's the point of asking someone to a dance if you aren't even going to dance with them? If all he'd wanted to do was pout that the girl he really wanted to be with turned him down, he could have come stag. Right, Harry?”
“She's got a point, Ron.”
Ron just sulked even more.
“Who's he mooning over?”
“Granger,” she said. “It's not my fault he didn't ask her sooner, the child. Why should I have to suffer because of his idiocy?”
Ron stood up so suddenly Harry jumped back with a start.
“Fine, Davis! If you want to dance, we'll dance! We'll dance all bloody night long!”
She sneered at him. “No. If you're going to be petulant about it, I'm not interested. Maybe you should've come with an orangutan as your date instead, maybe she wouldn't mind that you're an insensitive wart!”
Tracey stormed off into the crowd of dancers. Ron sat down again, sulking.
Harry looked around the room, spotting Draco and Daphne.
“Draco seems to be enjoying himself, despite the fact he earlier looked angry at Hermione being with Krum,” Harry said.
Ron grunted, not looking up.
“Tracey has a point. Why'd you even come if you weren't going to at least try to have a good time?”
Ron glared at Harry. “Well let's see... first I get horrible ancient ugly dress robes, then I get better ones only thanks to charity from a friend, and then the girl I wanted to go to this thing with went with someone famous and good looking. Everything in my life is one pile of crap after another! I compete with five brothers for attention and possessions, I'm always outshone by the rest of my family, my only pet turned out to be an animagus in disguise and that thought just fills me with revulsion every time I think of it.
"My famous best friend gets unwillingly thrust into something I'd kill to be in myself, and now on top of everything else a world-famous Quidditch player gets Hermione out from under me because I'm to much of a pathetic, cowardly loser to ask her sooner. Oh yeah, and then there's wealthy Draco Malfoy competing with me for her too, which yeah, why would she ever pick someone as pathetic and poor as me when she's got all these much better options?”
Ron's eyes were watering now, and he angrily wiped them dry. Harry opened his mouth to say something, but Ron beat him to it.
“Sorry, Harry. I didn't mean to rain on your parade. Go have fun with Luna, I'm going to go back up to my room and be miserable in peace.”
As Ron walked quickly from the room, Harry measured whether or not to go after him. But Ron probably really did want to be alone for a while.
“Dobby?” Harry said to the air.
With a small CRACK that was lost in the din of the music and cheering, Dobby appeared.
“Harry Potter is calling Dobby? What can Dobby be doing for you, sir?”
“You know Ron Weasley, right?”
Dobby nodded vigorously. “Yes, Dobby is knowing your Weezy!”
“Good. He just stormed off, upset. I think he just wants to be alone, but I'm worried about him. Can you keep an eye on him, at least until he gets back to his room?”
“Does Harry Potter worry his Weezy will hurt himself?”
“No, nothing like that. Just... I want to make sure he gets back to his room safely.”
Dobby nodded. “Dobby be doing that, sir! Right away!”
“Thank you Dobby. You may go and do that, now.”
Dobby disappeared with another CRACK that was again drowned out by the rest of the noise.
That done, Harry went back to the dance floor to find Luna again. As he looked for her, he noticed that in the time from when he left her til now, at least two songs had played.
“Oh Harry, you're back just in time for the next slow dance.”
“Good,” he said vaguely as the music began.
“Would you like me to lead again, Harry?”
“What? Oh yeah, sure.”
Luna smiled at Harry a little sadly and took the lead in their dance. Harry didn't notice, he was too preoccupied.
“I should've worn my butterbeer cork necklace tonight,” Luna said as they danced.
Harry looked up. “You took it off? But you never do that!”
“It's safe with Daddy. But I took it off because it didn't really go with the outfit, and I thought I could do without it for one evening. But you've got quite the nargle infestation right now, Harry. Which is why I should have worn it.”
“Just thinking about Ron.”
“What happened?”
Harry told her quietly what had happened, including the part where Ron ran off, clearly trying to prevent himself crying.
“But don't let on you know that part, I shouldn't have told you that. Now I know what Hagrid felt like our first year.”
“The secret is safe with me, Harry.”
“Thanks.” He sighed. “I just wish I knew what to do. Should I have followed him?”
“I think you're right, he needs some time alone. But maybe you should talk with him tomorrow.”
“Yeah. I gotta tell him he's not pathetic. He got us past that giant chess set our first year, that's no small feat. He figured out the First Task would be dragons, and helped me figure out what to do. Anyone would be lucky to have him as their boyfriend. Or their friend.”
“You're a kind boy, Harry. I think you'll be able to help him.”
Like an annoying insect landing on his face, he twitched again, but this time part of the mystery clunked into place for him.
"Luna, please stop calling me a boy. I don't like that word, at least when it's associated with me, I don't."
"Oh sorry, Harry. Are you not a boy? Are you actually a girl in the wrong body?"
"Er, no. I just don't like the word. Bad associations."
"Alright then, I won't call you that. Should I call you a young man, or a gentleman?"
Harry twitched again, which confused him more.
"I don't know. I guess I don't like those either, for some reason. Not sure why."
"Hmmm... What do like to wear when given the choice?"
"Just whatever is comfortable. Which I have a different definition of."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. Take these robes for instance. The collar was too high, it made me feel like I was choking, until Parvati fixed it for me. Normal school robes don't do that, the collar is low enough on those."
“That was nice of her.”
“Yeah, it was.”
She nodded vaguely. “It felt like you had something more to say, though.”
"Oh, right. Yeah. Um... Okay, so when I wear Muggle clothes, the collar is too high on the boys shirts, so I er, prefer to shop for unisex looking blouses. Accidentally got one that was in the wrong part of the store once, it felt great, became a preference."
"I see."
"I guess I just... I really don't get why everything has to be gendered, it doesn't make much sense to me. It's not alive, clothing, so it doesn't really have a gender, I don't get why people have to give everything a gender."
That sparked a thought in his head. He pondered it, Luna remaining silent as she waited for the thought to complete itself.
"Now that I think of it... I don't get why anyone needs to be labeled with a gender, unless they choose one for themselves."
"Daddy says there's more than two genders. He's talked with a lot of people over the years, human and non human alike, heard a lot of interesting things. Other cultures have other ideas about gender. Many have three genders, or more.
"There are other options, too. The goblins let wizards think they're all male, but the truth is they don't even have any genders. They understand the concept, but they don't agree with it."
"Goblins don't have gender?"
"They don't. It makes sense. Nobody has ever seen a female goblin before, after all. Most people think they're cloistered away, but they don't have gender. Goblins value usefulness and contribution, and also social climbing. But every goblin has the same base value as any other goblin, until they earn more worth. There's a lot of things about their culture that wouldn't make any sense if they had genders."
"How do they, er..."
"Breed? Well I imagine they ask how the others in their marriages are equipped, and work it out from there."
After a moment of thought, he said, “That sounds familiar. I think... oh yeah! Firenze said something kinda similar, our first year. Firenze the centaur, I mean. When he... er... she... when Firenze rescued me from that thing in the Forbidden Forest that turned out to be Quirrelmort. Though now I think about it, that was more like... like gender, to centaurs, is like clothing. They put on a different one each day.”
“I like that one, too.”
Silence held for a few more moments.
“Yeah, I reject gender, for myself. I'm neither a boy nor a girl, nor anything else. Is there a term for that?”
“I believe it's called 'agender.'”
“Huh. That makes sense. 'Asexual' is already taken as a sexual orientation, and a- means 'without,' so 'agender' makes sense. 'Without gender.' I think that means I'm agender.”
He paused, considering the term like he was looking at a new outfit in the mirror. "Yeah, that feels right. I'm agender."
“Mmm hmm,” Luna said, smiling.
“Hmm... I wonder what that means for my sexuality. If I don't have gender, am I still heterosexual?”
“I don't know. But first, what pronouns should I use for you?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. The same as always, for now. At least until I've thought about it more. I don't mind he, his,him, and so on. It's 'boy,' 'young man,' and so on I don't like. Oh, and, Luna?”
“Yes?”
“Don't tell anyone else yet. I've just figured this out, I need time to mull it over.”
“I wouldn't have told anyone without your say-so first, even if you hadn't told me so.”
“I didn't think you would, but well... Thought I'd say so anyway, just in case.”
The song changed again, to something else up-tempo.
“Shall we get refreshments? I'm thirsty.”
“Sure, Harry. We can do that.”
Together, they went over to the refreshment table and got some punch, sitting down next to each other in companionable silence, both watching the other people on the dance floor. They spotted Danzia dancing with a confused-looking Tracey Davis, which made both of them chuckle. Antigone was dancing with Dumbledore, and Angela was dancing with Draco. Neither girl looked entirely comfortable with this. For his part, neither did Draco.
Next came Willem Stone dancing with another boy, which honestly only surprised Harry because he wondered who had invited Willem to the ball; Willem being a third year, he wouldn't have been able to come on his own. The boy he was dancing with might've been the answer to that, but it was hard to tell at this distance.
Then he saw Sirius for the first time all night, dancing with Ms. Pennyroyal. This reminded Harry he needed to talk with her. He handed his half-empty cup to Luna.
“Hold this for me, will you? I need to talk with Ms. Pennyroyal.”
“Of course, Harry. See you in a bit.”
He got up and went over to where she and Sirius were dancing.
“May I cut in?” he asked.
“Harry! There you are! I've been looking all over for you, pup!”
“Yes,” Ms. Pennyroyal said, “you may indeed cut in.”
“Sorry, Sirius. Later?”
“Sure thing, pup!”
Harry took Ms. Pennyroyal's hand and the two of them began to dance.
“You wanted to talk with me, didn't you?”
“Yes.”
Luckily, the music was quiet enough they could talk without too much trouble.
“What about?”
“I solved the puzzle box. There's going to be some kind of race or obstacle course in the mountains.”
She listened as he told her the contents of the poem the box had given him, and what he and his friends had worked out about it.
“So I was wondering how that's safe? I mean, if it's up in the mountains...”
“Ah, that. I did actually bully Bagman into giving up some more of the information about the Second Task. Had to swear to him I wouldn't tell you until after you solved the puzzle box, of course. Anyway, turns out that most people don't know this, but the mountains to the northeast of us are part of the Hogwarts grounds, and covered by the wards.”
“Really? Why?”
“Something about the Forbidden Forest going into part of the mountains, and it being easier to ward the mountains to cover the whole Forbidden Forest. Also, I think warding the mountains makes it easier to keep Muggles away. Not entirely sure how that works, but it isn't important. What's important is that the wards cover the mountains, and the way the wards work, those mountains get just as much protection as the school itself.”
“Oh. Well that's a relief. Thanks for finding that out for me, and for telling me. Can you tell me anything else?”
“No, sorry. Except that again, Sirius will be allowed to go with you as Padfoot. Oh, and there will be flying omnioculars keeping an eye on the Champions the whole time.”
“You know Sirius's other name then, eh?”
“What? Oh, that. Yes, he told me.”
“Good, good. Oh by the way, I don't like being called a Champion. I was entered into this thing against my will. I want people to refer to me as a participant or something like that.”
“I understand, Mr. Potter. I'll make a note of it.”
“Oh yeah, and I don't feel comfortable accepting points for the tasks, either. Maybe one point per judge. I don't want to win, I just want to survive this thing. So the points are meaningless to me. Let one of the other three get the points, since they chose to participate.”
She smiled at him. “I'll do that, Mr. Potter. I'll talk with the judges about that as soon as I can. In fact...”
The song ended.
“Now sounds good.”
Harry bowed to her, thanked her, and went back to find Luna, who was still sitting down, sipping her punch.
“You know you don't have to stay here if I go off doing something else, right? You can go do other things too.”
“I know, Harry. But I wanted to wait for you. After all, it would be difficult to let you know where I'd gone if I did that.”
Sirius appeared from the crowd just then. “Harry, there you are again!”
Harry grinned. “Hi, Sirius.”
“Wow, all these people and you're still okay? How's that?”
Luna looked curious about this too, so Harry explained briefly about the sense-dulling potion, explaining he wouldn't be making a habit of using it, and why.
“Oh. Well at least you're able to use it for special occasions like this,” Sirius said.
Harry nodded.
“Did you bring a date with you, Sirius?” Luna asked him.
“Nah. Came stag. Would've brought Zuzanna, but she's a Muggle, and we haven't known each other long.”
Harry perked up, interested. “Zuzanna? Is that the girl you were with that one day when you were drunk on the mirror-call?”
“Yes, that's who I mean. Even though we haven't known each other long, I wish I could've brought her here. Oh well. Anyway, you two enjoy yourselves, I'm gonna go see if I can get McGonagall to dance with me.”
He walked off back into the crowd. Luna stood up and took Harry by the hand.
“Shall we dance?”
“Yes, I believe we shall.”
As they danced again, Harry asked Luna about the odd flower she had for her corsage. She informed him it was a Moon Maiden, a magical flower that usually only blooms in the light of a full moon, but if you pick it while it's blooming, it stays open and lasts for seven months before it begins to wither. And what was more, Harry had been right about it seeming to glow. It did in fact emit a faint glow like moonlight, which was more obvious in the dark.
Harry had a lot of fun that night, as did Luna. They didn't just dance with each other; she danced with Danzia, Angela, Antigone, Draco, and Willem Stone. So did Harry, in fact. Draco got rather a kick out of Colin taking a picture of him and Harry dancing, kept saying he was looking forward to seeing Ron's face. When he then began to wonder aloud where Ron had gone, Harry deftly changed the subject. Well... Draco seemed to know what he'd done, so maybe not as deft as he'd like, but Draco didn't press him for any more information.
After dancing with Draco, Harry got asked to dance by Professor Moody. He didn't really want to, because he'd seen how bad a dancer Moody was, but he agreed anyway.
“So Potter, you figure that puzzle box out yet?”
Harry considered not telling him at first, but then changed his mind.
“Yes,” he said. Then he explained the rest of what it had said, and what he and his friends thought it meant. He also explained what Ms. Pennyroyal had said about the wards extending out there.
“Yeah, that's basically it. I don't know all the details myself, it's a bit of a long way for me to walk to with this blasted wooden leg. Good to hear it'll be safe, relatively speaking anyway. Well, I'll let you go find someone better looking to dance with now, laddie.”
Repressing a sigh, Harry nodded and went off to find Luna again.
~
Leaving the ball and heading out into the rose garden outside were a pair of giggling 6th year girls, who were very careful not to be spotted by any of the teachers, especially not the history of magic teacher. One girl's dress was pink, the other's was blue. The one in pink was pulling the other along by her hand, but not very hard because the other girl was not the least bit reluctant, she was simply shorter than the other girl. Only by five inches, true, but her stride was not as long as the other's.
The front doors stood open, making their exit smoother. Fluttering fairy lights in the rose garden winked and twinkled as they went down the front steps, where they found themselves surrounded by bushes; winding, ornamental paths; and large stone statues. They could hear splashing water, which sounded like a fountain. Here and there, people were sitting on carved benches. They set off along one of the winding paths through the rosebushes, but they had gone only a short way when they heard an unpleasantly familiar voice.
“… don’t see what there is to fuss about, Igor.”
“Severus, you cannot pretend this isn’t happening!” Karkaroff’s voice sounded anxious and hushed, as though keen not to be overheard. “It’s been getting clearer and clearer for months. I am becoming seriously concerned, I cannot deny it —”
“Then flee,” said Snape’s voice curtly. “Flee — I will make your excuses. I, however, am remaining at Hogwarts.”
Snape and Karkaroff came around the corner. Snape had his wand out and was blasting rosebushes apart, his expression most ill-natured. Squeals issued from many of the bushes, and dark shapes emerged from them.
“Ten points from Ravenclaw, Fawcett!” Snape snarled as a girl ran past him. “And ten points from Hufflepuff too, Stebbins!” as a boy went rushing after her. “And what are you two doing?” he added, catching sight of the two girls, still holding hands. Karkaroff, Antigone saw, looked slightly discomposed to see them standing there. His hand went nervously to his goatee, and he began winding it around his finger.
“It's a beautiful night. We were just out for a walk.”
Snape sneered at them. “I see. And I suppose you think I am unaware, Miss Dreyfuss, Miss Whitechapel, that you two are lovers? 'Just out for a walk' indeed!”
“We're both 17, professor. We can go out for a walk if we like.”
“You are in sixth year, are you not?”
“Yes, but like Hermione, we're a year behind because of how close our birthdays are to the start of the school year.”
Snape considered this in tense, aggravated silence for several moments before he sneered again.
“Go, then. Out of my sight! And wherever you go, don't make a spectacle of yourselves,” Snape snarled, and he brushed past them, his long black cloak billowing out behind him. Karkaroff hurried away after Snape.
“I wonder what that was all about? Why is Karkaroff scared?” Antigone thought aloud.
“Yeah, and since when have he and Professor Snape been on first-name terms?”
“Well whatever, let's keep going. Snape's right, it'll be easier if we can find someplace we won't be seen.”
“Oh my,” Angela said jokingly, “are you taking me somewhere to corrupt a young virgin such as myself?”
Antigone snorted in disbelief. Angela made an exclamation of shocked offense and punched her girlfriend in the arm.
“Ow! What was that for?” she asked, rubbing the area with her free hand.
“It sounded like you were implying that I am not, in fact, a daisy-fresh girl.”
“Ugh, don't use that phrase to describe it, please. You make me feel old and perverted saying it that way, even though we're the same age.”
“What? Why?”
“It's very close to sounding like a quote from a very infamous book by a certain Russian author.”
“An infamous book? What-- oh. Oh.” Angela blushed.
“Hold on, quiet please,” Antigone said. “Something is going on.”
They had reached a large stone reindeer now, over which they could see the sparkling jets of a tall fountain. The shadowy outlines of two enormous people were visible on a stone bench, watching the water in the moonlight. And then they heard Hagrid speak.
“Momen’ I saw yeh, I knew,” he was saying, in an oddly husky voice.
Antigone and Angela froze. This didn’t sound like the sort of scene they ought to walk in on, somehow. … Antigone looked around, back up the path, and saw Fleur Delacour and Roger Davies standing half-concealed in a rosebush nearby. She tapped Angela on the shoulder and jerked her head toward them, meaning that they could easily sneak off that way without being noticed (Fleur and Davies looked very busy to her). Angela nodded and they began to creep that direction. But with Fleur and Davies now blocking the path, they didn't get far before there was an answering voice.
“What did you know, ’Agrid?” said Madame Maxime, a purr in her low voice.
Antigone definitely didn’t want to listen to this; she knew Hagrid would hate to be overheard in a situation like this (she certainly would have) — if it had been possible she would have put her fingers in her ears and hummed loudly, but that wasn’t really an option. Instead she tried to interest herself in a beetle crawling along the stone reindeer’s back, but the beetle just wasn’t interesting enough to block out Hagrid’s next words.
“I jus’ knew … knew you were like me. … Was it yer mother or yer father?”
“I — I don’t know what you mean, ’Agrid. …”
“It was my mother,” said Hagrid quietly. “She was one o’ the las’ ones in Britain. ’Course, I can’ remember her too well. She left, see. When I was abou’ three. She wasn’ really the maternal sort. Well, it’s not in their natures, is it? Dunno what happened to her. Might be dead fer all I know.”
Antigone shook her head and dragged Angela down past Delacour and Davies, who had gone slightly deeper into the bushes. But the two were still hard to navigate around, and Angela was studiously not looking in Fleur's direction, which made getting them out of there even more difficult.
“Me dad was broken-hearted when she wen’. Tiny little bloke, my dad was. By the time I was six I could lift him up an’ put him on top o’ the dresser if he annoyed me. Used ter make him laugh.” Hagrid’s deep voice broke. Madame Maxime was listening, motionless, apparently staring at the silvery fountain. “Dad raised me, but he died, o’ course, jus’ after I started school. Sorta had ter make me own way after that. Dumbledore was a real help, mind. Very kind ter me, he was.”
Hagrid, you poor naïve fool of a man, Antigone thought.
Hagrid pulled out a large spotted silk handkerchief and blew his nose heavily.
“So anyway, enough abou’ me. What about you? Which side you got it on?”
What happened next, they missed most of it, as they'd finally got past Davies and his date, but the two large adults were loud enough they caught the jist of it anyway. Hagrid was a half giant, and he had assumed Madam Maxime was, too. She had to be, of course – purely mundane humans rarely get over six or seven feet tall and these two were easily 10 or 11 feet tall each. That didn't mean he should be talking about it where anyone could overhear. It was no wonder Madam Maxime was outraged at the suggestion. If he'd asked her about it somewhere private, maybe she would have responded better. But honestly, Hagrid should know better. He'd kept the secret this long, which for him was quite the feat, why couldn't he have kept it longer?
By the time Antigone and Angela finally found somewhere to be alone together, neither girl was in the mood anymore. They just sat there and talked, instead.
“Half giant. Well I'm not at all surprised,” Antigone said. “I figured he had to be, at that size.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“He must have gotten his kindly nature from his father, from what I've heard.”
“They can't all be bad. If they were, how would Hagrid's mum--”
“Stop, I don't want to think about it. If I think about that, I'll wonder about the mechanics of it, and then... damn, there it went anyway, I'm thoroughly grossed out now.”
“Should we tell the others?”
“I figure we should. There were so many other people around I doubt it'll stay a secret for long now. Maybe not all of them, but Harry and Hermione at least should know.”
“Yeah, I agree.”
Angela leaned her head against Antigone's shoulder and snuggled up close to her for warmth. Antigone took her wand out of her bag and cast Warming Charms on them both. Putting her wand back, she hugged Angela close and the two girls looked at the starry sky over the Black Lake in silence.
~
When the Weird Sisters finished playing at midnight, everyone gave them a last, loud round of applause and started to wend their way into the entrance hall. Many people were expressing the wish that the ball could have gone on longer, but Harry was perfectly happy to be going to bed; the ball had been fun, but his feet hurt and he was getting tired.
Out in the entrance hall, Harry and Luna saw Hermione saying good night to Krum before he went back to the Durmstrang ship. She waved at them again and approached to talk with them. But Cedric called to Harry before she could speak. Harry turned his attention to Cedric while the others waited.
“Hey, Harry!”
“Yes?” Harry asked curiously.
Cedric looked at the girls like he didn't want to say whatever it was in front of them.
“We'll meet you at the top of the stairs, Harry,” Luna said, and she beckoned Hermione to follow her. Harry waved back at them.
“Listen,” Cedric lowered his voice as the girls disappeared. “I still owe you one for telling me about the dragons. I made a breakthrough on that puzzle box if you're interested.”
“I think I know what you're going to say, but I'm listening.”
“Okay, so you answered all the riddles, right?”
“Yes.”
“And when you did, nothing happened? I mean, it didn't solve the box, right?”
Harry cocked his head, thinking a moment before saying, “Correct.”
“Well you have to answer the riddles in the right order. It took me weeks to sort out what order it was in, but well, it's 1 6 2--”
“--5 3 4?” Harry finished for him.
Cedric's face fell. “You cracked it already?”
“Just this last Sunday, with Luna's help. Sorry.”
“No, that's okay. There's still the poem thing to sort out.”
“Yeah, I think I have a fair idea what that means, too. Did you want the answer or did you want to work it out yourself?”
“Damn. No, I want to work it out myself. You're really good at this.”
“Not really. I have friends helping me.”
“You can do that?”
“As long as they're not teachers, other school staff, or Ministry workers, sure. Friends among the students, that's not against the rules.”
“Oh. Well I guess I'll ask my friends for help too, then.”
“I'm surprised you hadn't already, to be honest.”
“Well I'd better go finish saying goodbye to Cho. See you!”
He waved at Cedric as the older boy left and started up the stairs. As he did, Harry heard talking from behind him and turned to look. Draco and Daphne were passing the stairs on their way to their own dorm, talking in low voices. Judging by their expressions, they were having an argument. Tracey was trailing them, looking annoyed. She had on her arm a boy Harry didn't recognize. At least she hadn't let Ron's problems spoil her fun tonight, it seemed.
Harry met Luna and Hermione at the top of the stairs as she'd said, and the three of them walked together as Harry escorted Luna toward the Ravenclaw common room, talking about what Cedric had wanted and about the ball until it came time for Hermione to go on to Griffindor alone, Harry continuing to escort Luna back to her own common room.
“I had a lovely time tonight, Harry,” Luna said. “Thanks for asking me to go with you.”
“You're welcome. I hope we do another dance next year, that was fun. I know in the states, secondary schools have a 'homecoming' dance every year, whatever that means. They also have an annual 'prom' dance primarily for the final two years' classes of each year. I think it's a celebration of their impending graduation.”
“That sounds amazing. I agree, we should have more dances at Hogwarts. Of course you know if you want to go to a dance, there are such events among the upper class. You and Sirius are each wealthy enough you could go. And you could bring a date.”
“When are these events?”
“There's usually a winter dance, I know that much. And a spring one as well, I think. Beyond that, I think you'd have to ask Draco about it.”
“I think I might just do that. This was fun.”
“Yes. But I'm tired and my feet hurt, so I'm going to go to bed soon. Anyway, we're here.”
She reached toward the eagle-head shaped knocker, but Harry gently touched her hand, stopping her.
“Allow me to get the door for you, my lady.”
Luna giggled, then curtsied. “As you wish, my lord.”
Harry knocked on the door with the knocker, and the beak of the bird spoke.
“I am not water, but you can drown in me. I have no substance, yet you can float in me. I am nowhere, yet I am everywhere. What am I?”
“Ah,” Harry said, thinking. “Are you the void of outer space?”
“Correct,” the knocker said, and the door opened.
Luna and Harry said their last quick goodnight, and she left through the door.
By himself now, Harry went on to Griffindor tower, feeling like he was floating pleasantly along.
The Fat Lady and her friend Vi were snoozing in the picture over the portrait hole. Harry had to yell “Fairy lights!” before he woke them up, and when he did, they were extremely irritated. He climbed into the common room and was shocked to find Ron and Hermione having a blazing row. Standing ten feet apart, they were bellowing at each other, each scarlet in the face.
“I don't know what your problem is, Ron! Draco asked me out and got rejected too, for the same reason as you, but I didn't see him pitching a fit about it!”
“What's my problem? I'll tell you what my problem is! My problem is he's older than you, Hermione! He's probably some kind of creep trying to get into your knickers, or maybe he wants dirt on Harry so he can win the tournament!”
“He's only two years older than me, Ron, and he was a perfect gentleman. Which is more than I can say about you, tonight! We haven't discussed Harry at all, either, so you're just grasping at straws! You weren't even there most of the night, I don't see why you think you get to ruin my fun just because you were off having a pity party for yourself! And I don't care, either! Just grow up already!”
Hermione turned on her heel and stormed up the girls’ staircase to bed. Ron turned to Harry, looking for support. Harry lifted a hand up in a bid for the floor. Ron closed his mouth, waiting for Harry to gather his thoughts.
When Harry was ready, he said, “I'm not getting involved, Ron. All I'm going to say is something Luna told me when I was asking her to the dance. She said, essentially, 'it's just one dance. Just because two people go to the dance together doesn't mean they're dating.' Oh and also... one other thing I'm going to say is that if you have feelings for Hermione, getting into fights with her isn't going to win her over. Jealousy is never attractive.”
Harry paused a moment to think some more while Ron blinked at him. Then Harry continued, “Okay, and one last thing I just thought of. I just have to think how to word it... okay, so uh, okay, I got it.” Harry took Ron by the shoulders and looked him in the eyes, an action that got Ron's full attention, since it was so uncommon for Harry to make eye contact.
“You're not pathetic, Ron. You're clever, loyal, brave, fun to be around most of the time, you look out for and defend your friends, and you're caring. Those are the kind of things that are most important. When we graduate, it's not really going to matter if you were a prefect or not, a head boy or not, or whatever else it is your brothers have been. And if you're poor, yeah that's not ideal, but look at your parents: they're poor but they're happy with one another. I know these things bother you, Ron, but to the right person, those things won't matter. What will matter is that's you're a good person.
“You have flaws, of course. Everyone does. Yours are jealousy, a lack of confidence, and a hot-headed nature. Be aware of these flaws, try to improve yourself. Let the good parts of your nature shine. And be patient. We're still only in fourth year. I've heard from Sirius and Remus that my mum didn't even like my dad much at all for most of their school career until Dad mellowed out and let the good parts of his nature shine. It's not a guarantee, of course, because there are no guarantees in life except for the guarantee of dying eventually. But well... it can't hurt to try.
“Anyway,” Harry said, letting go of Ron's shoulders, “I know I'm ending this on a bit of an anticlimax, but I've run out of deep and meaningful things to say. Good night, Ron.”
With that, Harry went upstairs to go get changed for bed. Ron, for his part, stood there staring back up at the staircase, a thoughtful look on his face. He stayed there for quite some time, thinking, before going to bed himself.
Endnotes: Antigone and Angela were “in the mood” for a snog, AKA “making out” AKA kissing. Just wanted to clarify that.
Trying to find a map of Hogwarts and surrounding environs that makes sense to me and isn't shitty is a difficult task. But I finally found one I like, just had to reorient my thinking a little: https://is.gd/k6RFth
Harry's hairstyle: https://is.gd/Qzu5VM
The “infamous book” Antigone is referring to in that scene is, of course, “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov. Antigone is a halfblood, as her mother is Muggle-born. Angela is a Muggle-born. The quote in question was “I was a daisy-fresh girl and look what you've done to me.” Both would, thus, know about that book. But Antigone's parents being academic sorts (her father is an amateur historian as a hobby when he's not running his business) would make her more likely to remember that book and that quote from it.
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Four.
Or, "Autistic Potter and the Goblet of Fire."
Notes: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made. Not by me, anyway.
There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though, but there's a lot more in this one than usual because it was unavoidable. Still, lots of details are changed, so don't skip by familiar parts or you might miss something.
Just as a reminder, so I don't have to shoehorn in descriptions in the text of the story as a reminder, but in this fanfic Harry and Hermione, apart from having Asperger's Syndrome, are both black as well.
'Italicized text between single quotes is almost always Parseltongue.'
Chapter 15: “A Sirius Yuletide”
The next day was still at school because the teachers knew that expecting kids to be out past midnight the night before leaving for home on the train was asking too much, so the train wouldn't be coming to get them until the 23rd. This didn't preclude the possibility of parents or guardians coming to get their kids early, though, so by the end of the day about a third or more of the students at Hogwarts had been taken home via Floo or side-along apparition. This included Draco and several other of Harry's friends.
Still, there was enough time in the day before that happened that Antigone and Angela came over to the Griffindor table to talk with Harry and Ron. Hermione was still very angry with Ron, of course, but Ron for his part seemed to have taken Harry's words to heart and seemed to be making an effort to be polite and to look contrite about having fought with her and ruined her fun the night before.
Of course, whatever it was, they didn't want to talk about it in the Great Hall, so Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Luna went with them and Danzia to the Room of Requirement.
When the door shut behind them and they were seated in the comfortable fluffy chairs the Room had arranged in a circle around an open fire with some sort of magical, smokeless fire, Harry looked at the two girls, waiting for them to speak.
“So uh, we overheard something last night when we went outside into the rose garden they'd put up around the entrance.”
“What were you doing out there?” Harry asked, confused.
“Going for a walk,” Antigone answered almost before he'd finished asking, her face growing red. “Anyway, not important. What's important is we overheard Hagrid and Madame Maxime. We tried getting away, but someone was in our way, and the two of them were rather loud. Wouldn't surprise me if everyone knew by Easter, the way the Hogwarts rumor mill works.”
“Wouldn't be surprised if what was known by Easter?” Ron asked.
“Hagrid is half-giant!” Angela exclaimed. “And probably so is Madame Maxime. At least, Hagrid thinks she is. Though she denied it, said she was just 'big boned.'”
“Okay,” Harry said. “And?”
Ron goggled. “'And'? 'AND'?”
He knew immediately, from the look Ron was giving him, that he was once again revealing his ignorance of the wizarding world. Brought up by the Dursleys, there were many things that wizards took for granted that were revelations to Harry, but these surprises had become fewer with each successive year, especially with Wizard Studies being a class now. Now, however, he could tell that most wizards would not have said “And?” upon finding out that one of their friends had a giantess for a mother.
“What's the big deal with giants?” Harry asked.
Ron shook his head disbelievingly. “Well, they’re … they’re …” Ron struggled for words. “… not very nice,” he finished lamely.
“Who cares?” Harry said. “There’s nothing wrong with Hagrid!”
“I know there isn’t, but... blimey, no wonder he keeps it quiet,” Ron said, shaking his head. “I always thought he’d got in the way of a bad Engorgement Charm when he was a kid or something. Didn’t like to mention it.”
Antigone snorted. “I don't think that would have that effect, Ron. But I think most wizards would try to explain it away like that. They tend to do the same thing about Flitwick, though that's more on the order of nobody wanting to mention he's part Goblin.”
“Flitwick is part Goblin?” Harry asked. “How does that work?”
“Well, Harry,” Ron said sarcastically, “when a daddy Goblin and a mommy human love each other very much---”
“Har har,” Harry said. “I mean they're different species! They shouldn't be able to breed together. It should be impossible.”
“Oh Harry,” Luna said serenely, “I've explained before. They're from a fairy world. The fairies came into our world and bred with humans. The human-looking ones made wizards and witches.”
Ron snorted. “Fairies aren't big enough or smart enough to do that.”
“The creatures wizards commonly refer falsely to as 'fairies' are in fact nixies,” Luna said. “'Fairy' is a more general term, referring to beings from another world, one parallel to ours and more magical than our own. They crossed over to our world through the mists, or the veil between the worlds if you prefer that term, though that's a much more modern term. Fairies come in a myriad of species, and beings like the Goblins are fairies just as much as nixies, centaurs, and merpeople are.”
“I don't normally agree with the things Luna says,” Hermione said, “but as mad as that sounds, I've been doing some thinking about it since she told me about it over the summer, and it makes a lot of sense to me now. I don't know if it's true or not, as I don't have any evidence either way, but it's logical, so I decided not to just dismiss it anymore, which was my first instinct. Though I still maintain Luna is purely human, and not a Fairy. Or no more than any witch or wizard is, anyway.”
Ron sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Hermione, Luna... humans can breed with Goblins and Giants because of magic. It's no more complicated than that. It's not... not people from another world, it's just magic. The only world involved in it is Earth.”
“Wait, setting aside the genetics of interspecies breeding,” Harry said, “Giants are what, 20 to 30 feet tall? And humans normally don't go much taller than 6 or 7 feet tall, right? So how does that work? I mean, from a logistical standpoint. The nitty gritty of it, I mean.”
Antigone shook her head. “Trust me Harry, I don't want to know, and I doubt you really want to know either if you think about it.”
Hermione coughed nervously and looked away from everyone.
“Anyway, none of that is important,” Ron said. “All that's important is that it's possible, it happens sometimes. And it's bad.”
“But what’s it matter if his mother was a giantess?” said Harry.
“Well, no one who knows him will care, ’cos they’ll know he’s not dangerous,” said Ron slowly. “But Harry, they’re just vicious, giants. It’s in their natures, they’re like trolls. They just like killing, everyone knows that. There aren’t any left in Britain now, though.”
Hermione snorted. “That sounds like the sort of racist propaganda that people use against Muggles and werewolves. If that were true, how would there be any humans left? They're huge! They'd have trampled or eaten us all by now if that were true.”
“Yeah, and you could say the same thing of humans, and probably be right,” Harry said.
“Well it's not difficult for humans to set traps for them, even Muggles could do it. And wizards have a lot more options. Plus, well... they were dying out anyway because they keep killing each other, they fight amongst themselves so much. Then loads got themselves killed by Aurors, they were working with You-Know-Who. There’re supposed to be giants abroad, though. They hide out in mountains, mostly.”
“I don’t know who Maxime thinks she’s kidding,” Harry said. “If Hagrid’s half-giant, she definitely is. Big bones indeed. The only thing that’s got bigger bones than her is a dinosaur.”
Ron looked confused. “What's a dinosaur?”
“Ancient extinct animals from millions of years ago. Like dragons, but they probably didn't breathe fire. Though given that magic is real, maybe they did,” Harry said. “It's not like we could know for sure, all that's left of them is bones so old they've turned into rock.”
Ron rolled his eyes like it was Luna speaking, not Harry.
“Harry's right, Ron,” Hermione said. “It's called fossilization. If the body ends up in the right kind of environment, the flesh rots but the bones slowly get their calcium replaced with other minerals and basically turn to bone-shaped rock. Muggle scientists have known this for a long time. At least a century, I think.”
“Have you ever seen those bog mummies they sometimes find in peat bogs?” Antigone asked Ron.
“Oh yeah, I think I've seen some of those. What about them?”
“Fossilization is a similar process to that. I think.”
Harry turned to Antigone. “Hey, if Hagrid's part Giant and Flitwick is part Goblin, what do you reckon Madam Hooch has in her ancestry? Because those eyes of hers aren't natural for humans.”
Luna answered him, saying, “Probably some recessive Fairy blood making itself known. Some of the Fair Folk have eyes like that.”
Antigone shrugged. “Luna's guess is as good as mine.”
Harry looked at Luna, and suddenly realized that the kind of eyes Luna, her father, and Mr. Ollivander had weren't normal human eyes either. Either Luna was right about humans being party fairy, or magic just made more kinds of traits possible.
~
Harry ended up being one of the people who got taken home by a loved one, when Sirius and Remus came to pick him up and take Harry back to Grimmauld Place via Floo. They had Indian takeout that night, and in the morning Dobby made them a full English breakfast. They ate heartily until it was time to go to Diagon Alley for Christmas shopping. Though Harry was a practitioner of the Old Ways now and preferred Yule, he had no problem with Christmas if it was going to happen with a loving family.
He was a little sad to leave Mouse-Stalker at the house, but snakes don't like the cold, and it was rather cold outside at the end of December, even this much farther south than Hogwarts. So he left Mouse-Stalker under a heat lamp while Sirius and Remus took him out shopping.
Diagon Alley was packed with people, so many it was hard to move around. Sirius having anticipated this, Harry had his earmuffs and sunglasses on. He knew he probably looked absurd wearing sunglasses in the dreary London gray of winter, but he didn't mind. Besides, he was hard to see sandwiched between a protective Sirius and Remus.
If they'd been Muggles, the amount of stuff they had to buy would have added to their difficulties, but whenever they had bought more than they could carry, Sirius called Dobby to take it home for them. A house elf in public would have caught enough eyes already, but Dobby stood out even more than normal house elves because he was wearing a bright orange Muggle children's winter coat, a fat woolen hat with a pattern of dancing elves that Hermione had apparently knitted for him and animated with a charm, large plastic safety goggles over his huge tennis-ball shaped eyes to keep the cold and dry wind from drying them out, and yellow galoshes made for toddlers with a cartoon of a line of raincoat-wearing ducks on each boot.
“Hey, Dobby, you actually match for once,” Harry said. “Your boots are the same, I mean.”
Dobby looked down at the boots with an annoyed expression before looking back up. “Yes, Harry Potter sir. Mister Sirius Black is getting them for Dobby. Dobby is telling him he is making a mistake getting two the same, sir, but Sirius is saying he is not knowing that. Still, Dobby is thankful, sirs. They is keeping Dobby's feet dry. And Dobby is having properly mixed up socks, sirs.”
Dobby pulled off one boot, showing them a sock Dobby had knitted himself with what he said was Harry's face on the side (but looked more like a misshapen coconut), then he switched and showed them the other sock, which was rainbow striped. Harry thought Dobby could take fashion tips from Luna. Or the other way around. Both of them certainly knew how to attract attention. Of course, Harry couldn't really talk much; he and Sirius were both wearing Muggle attire, instead of the standard robes.
This was made even more apparent when he ran into Luna at Diagon Alley, outside the Magical Menagerie. She was wearing a thick poncho in neon yellow and neon pink, her own boots were rainbow striped, and she was wearing a baby-blue stovepipe hat with a silk band around it. Her father was almost normal compared to her, as he was wearing fuchsia robes and a canary-yellow cloak.
“Why hello, Harry. Fancy meeting you here,” Luna said dreamily.
“Hi, Luna. Hi Mr. Lovegood. You Christmas shopping too?”
“Yes, we just started. When we were in Gringotts, I got distracted speaking Gobbledygook with one of the Goblins. He was telling me that my accent wasn't half bad for a human, and I was getting tips for improving it from him. He was a very nice older Goblin gentleman named Urvek.”
“You speak Gobbledygook?” Harry asked in astonishment. “Your dad knows the House Elf language, and you know Gobbledygook?”
“Oh yes. I also know Elvish, Daddy taught me. I've been trying to learn Mermish as well, but it's a bit more challenging. I know a few phrases in it so far, but not any more than that yet.”
“I should be fascinated to hear a 13 year old speaking Mermish,” Remus said. “Care to demonstrate for us?”
“Of course I don't mind,” she said. She cleared her throat a little, then traffic froze to a standstill as everyone stopped to cover their ears at the horrible screechy wailing that came from her mouth. The owls and other animals screeched and hollered in response to this racket. Luckily, all the noise was over quickly, as whatever Luna said was brief, and the grumbling masses hurried away before it could start up again.
“I hear,” Remus said. “Or I did hear, until just then. What did you say?”
“I said... well, it's best translated as 'goodbye, and thanks for all the fish.'”
They talked for another couple minutes about this and that before the Lovegoods went off to go shopping some more. Harry, Remus, and Sirius went in the other direction.
For some reason, Remus and Sirius took him into Ollivander's, even though he had a perfectly good wand. They explained it once they got inside. Remus had thought, given Harry's tendency to get in trouble, that it might be nice to get a custom-made spare wand for him, that would not work for any other witch or wizard. Apparently, this would work by using one of his own hairs for the core, and they'd need to take a small bit of blood to mix into the glue and varnish. Remus would be watching Ollivander and this blood like a hawk with tracking spells on it so it could be found if it was stolen. Then when the wand was made, any remaining blood would be destroyed.
The whole point of this was so the wand would be tuned to Harry precisely, and nobody else would be able to use it. Not even Dumbledore could use a wand crafted in this fashion, unless it was one made with Dumbledore's own hair and blood. This would be a backup wand for Harry in case something happened to his holly wand, or in case his holly wand was stolen.
“If it uses my hair, does that mean it won't set off the Trace?”
“I'm sorry, Mr. Potter,” Ollivander said, “but while yes, that would normally be true, in order to legally be able to sell you this wand, I have to put runes on it that will cause any magic coming from it to register as normal wand magic. So it will, in fact, set off the Trace.”
“Oh. Well that's okay. Having a spare wand sounds like a good idea, especially if nobody can use it against me if it's stolen.”
“Excellent. Shall we get started, Mr. Potter?”
Under Sirius's and Remus's careful eye, Mr. Ollivander used his wand to fill a small vial half-full of Harry's blood. Then one of his hairs was magically grown to a foot long and plucked from his head.
“How much will it be?” Sirius asked.
“I am unsure. It will depend on the kind of wood I need, and other materials. Custom wands of this nature tend to be very picky about the kinds of woods that will work for them. But I would estimate between 300 and 350 galleons.”
“Merlin's pants!” Harry said. “That's an awful lot of money. My first wand was only 7 galleons.”
“Yes, well, the first wand is always subsidized by the Ministry. If it weren't, your first wand would have cost you 50 galleons or more. And custom wands are always much more expensive. I only use certain wand cores for the standard wands: unicorn hair, phoenix feather, or dragon heartstring. Custom wands have a wider range of possible cores and wood types. In fact, just last year I sold a custom wand that was American redwood and hydra heartstring. Actually, with the core taken care of, it should be closer to 300 galleons.”
Remus looked pale at this cost, but Sirius shrugged. “Not a problem, Mr. Ollivander. I have lots of money. I wouldn't mind dropping even 500 galleons on something like this for my godson. I still owe him for twelve missed birthdays and Christmases.”
Harry felt his face grow hot, but he didn't challenge this. He wasn't sure of the exchange rate, but he thought 300 galleons was almost £1000. He wondered if Dudley had ever gotten a single gift that cost £1000 from his parents. It was possible the racing bike cost that much, but--- oh right, the computer. That had to cost at least £1000. Oh well. A computer probably couldn't save your life in a crisis.
“Thank you, Sirius, and you too, Remus.”
“Thank us later, when it's finished and works for you,” Sirius said.
“Okay,” Harry said, hugging them both.
Remus cast the tracking spells and other spells on the vial of blood, and when he was done with that, they took Harry out for the rest of their shopping. It didn't take too long before they had sent the rest of their things home with Dobby. They passed through the Leaky Cauldron and out into Muggle London, taking Sirius's motorbike to get a bite to eat at their favorite pizza place. Remus looked a little odd riding on the back by hanging onto Sirius, Harry in the side car, but they were soon safely there.
“I like your helmet,” Harry said to Remus when they had pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant and parked next to another motorbike. Remus's helmet was black with a picture of a howling wolf on the sides.
“Thanks. Sirius's little idea of a joke,” he said with a half-grin.
Sirius ignored this, instead tucking his own helmet under his arm and coming up to Harry with a nervous look on his face.
“Um, Harry? Remus? I uh... I didn't want to spring this on you so quickly, but I guess I get chatty when I get drunk, and she was asking to meet you two, and um... so we won't be alone in there. I kind of agreed to meet her here. Just remember she's a Muggle, I haven't told her about magic yet. We've only been together for like, a few weeks now.”
“Are we going to get to meet the girl whose house you were at that one time?” Harry asked.
“Yeah. I mean... you see, I don't think I'd have agreed to it, but I really like her. It's kind of early to know for sure, I know, but I think I want to tell her about magic. Eventually, I mean. Not tonight.”
“Well, let's meet this woman,” Remus said with a smirk.
“Right. This way.”
When they entered Rubian's, they immediately saw someone sitting in a booth against the far wall, listening to music on a Walkman and playing air guitar to the music. Her skin – the parts not covered in tattoos – was olive in tone, and Harry thought she might be Middle Eastern. Her hair was long and black on one side of her head, but as he saw when she turned to look at them, the other side of her head had hair that was cropped close to her scalp and dyed in a rainbow of colors. Like Harry, she had on glasses, but hers had square-shaped purple rims. Her boots were black combat boots with rainbow shoelaces in them.
She stood up to greet them, pushing her headphones off her head as she did, and he saw she was tall – maybe 175 centimeters. He could see she was not skinny like a Hollywood actress, and was in fact solidly built. But it was also clear, in her sleeveless shirt, that it was mostly muscle. The shirt also made clear all her many tattoos, and looking right at her made clear that she would have had to remove a few pounds of metal from her face and body before she could go through a metal detector. Her nose was pierced, as were her ears and the cartilage of her ears, her nose, her eyebrows, and who knew where else.
She looked significantly younger than Sirius, but Azkaban had permanently aged him so he looked almost 45 even though he was only 35. So they might be the same age, come to think of it. Or close to the same age, anyway.
Hanging on a nearby hook on the wall behind the seat of the booth was a coat Harry was certain belonged to this woman. It was a black leather jacket with sewn-on patches all over it. One had a Nazi swastika that was being crossed out by a red circle with a line through it, there was a patch of a soaring eagle, a skull and crossbones patch, and Harry also noticed a patch on one shoulder of a pentacle.
“Sothis! Wolf-man! And this must be Harry,” she said. “Gimme five, Harry.”
Harry blinked a moment at her upraised hand, then looked at Sirius.
“It's fine, pup. This is Zuzanna.”
Shrugging, Harry 'gave her five' by slapping her hand.
“Cool! Man, we should come up with a cool nickname for you, Harry. How about 'Thor'?”
“Er, why Thor?”
“Cuz of that cool lightning bolt scar on your head, man.”
“Er... maybe sometimes, but I generally prefer 'Harry.'”
“No problem.”
“Pardon,” Remus said, “but did you call me Wolf-man? And what did you call Sirius?”
“Oh I called him Sothis. It's an alternate name for the star he was named after, and I get to avoid all the Sirius/Serious puns that way. And he's told me all about you, Wolf-man. Well, probably not everything, I can tell he's holding some stuff back, but it's cool. Gimme five, Wolf-man!”
Remus, too, gave her a high-five.
“Sweet,” she said, plopping back onto the seat. “So I'm Zuzanna. Zuzanna Tishtrya Nejem. Sothis tells me he already told you how we met.”
Sirius sat next to Zuzanna, and Harry and Remus sat in the booth across the table from them.
“Er, yeah. I called him one night, and he was in your bathroom.”
Zuzanna turned to Sirius and punched him in the arm. “How come you never told me you have a cell phone?”
“It's uh, just for checking up on Harry,” he answered, rubbing his arm.
“Cool. Good to hear you're being a responsible godfather, not letting your time in prison mess you up too bad.” She turned to Harry when he made a noise of confusion. “Sad story, he told me all about it. His best friend and his best friend's wife dead, and him in prison for their murder, til DNA evidence cleared him of the crime. Sad business.”
“Er, yeah. It sure is,” Harry responded.
“But hey, you got back on your feet and you're taking care of their son like they wanted. Good on you.”
“And what did he tell you about me?” Remus asked.
“Remus Lupin, nicknamed Wolf-man on account of the funny name. Said you had some kind of chronic disease, but it's only contagious once a month.” She paused a moment in thought, then said, “HA! If I didn't know better, I'd say you were a werewolf.”
The three wizards chuckled half-heartedly at her joke.
“Well I'm famished. We should order,” said Sirius.
“What were you listening to?” Harry asked Zuzanna.
“Blue Oyster Cult, 'Fire of Unknown Origin.'”
“I don't think I've heard that yet. My aunt and uncle and cousin... you know, I can't even remember any of them listening to music ever. But my aunt and uncle are the kind of people who probably think rock and roll is devil worship music.”
“Eesh, that sucks. I know how that goes, though. My parents are Muslim, immigrants from Palestine. They don't approve of anything at all about my lifestyle. Or they wouldn't, if they knew even half of what I get up to. I haven't spoken to them for 15 years. Disapproving parents, something Sirius and I have in common. Sounds like you've got basically the same deal, Harry.”
“Um, yeah. I guess I do. But I only have to spend a couple weeks at their place in the summer, it's not so bad.”
Harry could tell at once he'd said something wrong by Sirius's pained and frantic expression.
“The government didn't give your godfather full custody? Even with these Dursleys being neglectful and a little abusive?”
“Er,” Sirius said, “we couldn't prove anything. And uh, well it's complicated, the whole thing. But I make sure he's okay when he's there. Anyway, let's order.”
Sirius flagged down a waitress and they ordered drinks and pizza. Harry had a ginger ale. Sirius had a non-alcoholic beer because he'd be driving later. Zuzanna had the same. Remus decided to rub it in Sirius's face a little and ordered a beer.
“So uh, I noticed a pentacle on your jacket. If that er, is your jacket over there,” Harry said.
“Oh yeah, that's mine. I gather by your tone you're wondering if it's just a rock and roll thing, or more than that. And I'll tell you, it's more than that. It's part of why I don't talk to my parents anymore. Islam was never my scene. All that praying three times a day wasn't for me, and bugger if I ever knew for sure which direction Mecca was in. Plus, you know, not a lot of acceptance of bisexual people in Islam. But yeah, I'm a Wiccan. I worship nature and believe in magic. Ha! Bet you think that's pretty silly.”
“Not at all,” Harry said. “Sounds like what I believe, apart from the name.”
“Oh wow, really?”
“Yes, really,” Harry said.
“Sweet. What about you, Sothis?”
Sirius didn't answer right away. “I'm... open minded.”
“Cool. What about Wolf-man?”
“The same,” Remus said, smirking.
“So, how's school, Harry?”
It was a close thing, but Harry managed to not choke on his ginger ale. He swallowed, thinking.
“Good. I'm doing okay in my maths class. Not as well as Hermione or Draco, though. Those two are top of our year in that class. Most classes, actually.”
“You go to some kind of boarding school, right?”
“Yeah. My uh, my parents paid for it before they died.”
“Cool. What's your favorite class?”
Harry took another drink of ginger ale to give himself time to think.
“Um... the, uh... zoology class. Well, it's a class where we learn how to keep and care for, uh, exotic animals.”
“Oh? Are you planning to become a zoo trainer?”
“It's a possibility,” he said, taking another drink of his ginger ale. He realized he'd finished it already.
The waitress walked by then. She spotted his empty cup and he let her get him a refill.
“What do you do for a living anyway, Sothis? You never told me.”
“I didn't? Oh, um...”
Of course, Sirius could say he was working for law enforcement now. But was that a viable option after years of prison in the Muggle world? He had been innocent, after all, but Muggles had different rules for lots of things. What about this? Harry didn't know, and apparently neither did Sirius, because he finally answered, “I'm living off my inheritance for now. My parents didn't agree with my politics or my lifestyle, but they still left me everything after my brother died. Or, well, my father probably did. My mother hated me enough that she wouldn't have left me a single kn--- er, dime, if she'd had her way.”
“No idea what you're gonna do with yourself yet?”
“Well, I don't need a job, strictly speaking. My parents were very wealthy, and now I am too. But I have to have something to do with myself. Just... I don't know what, yet.”
She nodded, and turned to Remus.
“What about you, Wolf-man?”
“I have a job tutoring college students in maths,” Remus said without hesitation. “I took an ad out in the paper, I have a few students so far. Nothing fancy, just algebra and geometry, a little calculus.”
Harry and Sirius were staring at him. He met their stares with looks that told them nothing, and sipped his beer.
The pizza came at last, a huge relief to the three wizards who were tired of trying to think of believable lies about their lives. Soon all four mouths were too full of pizza to talk much.
“Pup, what is that you just put on your pizza?”
“Hot sauce,” Harry said nonchalantly, taking a bite. It burned his mouth in two different ways at once, and he was loving it.
Sirius grabbed the bottle and read the ingredients with wide eyes. Then he tried a little on one finger. After a few seconds of nothing, Sirius started to chug as much of his drink as he could to put out the fire in his mouth. Zuzanna laughed at him and borrowed the hot sauce to add some to her own pizza. Sirius was still panting like his tongue was burning.
After they'd been eating long enough for Harry to be mostly full, Harry asked Zuzanna a question.
“So what are you doing for Yule if you don't talk with your parents?”
She chuckled at that. “Oh, Harry... Harry, Harry, Harry... Muslims don't celebrate Christmas, so my family never did that. It was a bit disappointing asking my parents about Father Christmas and being gently told that there's no such thing, that it's a false doctrine.”
“No Christmas? No Father Christmas? So you didn't get gifts for the holidays?”
“No, my siblings and I never got Christmas presents. We just got birthday presents. Usually something small, modest, and/or practical. I don't know what most Muslims think about birthdays, but my parents... I guess I should be glad we got gifts for birthdays at all, since my parents thought birthdays should be spent in prayer, thanking Allah for bringing us into the world. By the time I was 10, I started to really hate my birthday.”
“Wow. No gifts for Christmas, and not much for birthdays. Well you're still doing better than me. I never got anything from the Dursleys for birthdays or Christmas unless it was meant as a cruel joke.”
“Don't get the wrong idea, Harry,” Zuzanna said. “My parents love their children, even me despite my being a willful apostate, and a 'sexual deviant.' Man, if they knew I was a neopagan as well, they'd flip their sh—lids.”
Harry snorted. “Flip their shlids?”
“Er, yeah. That's what I meant, exactly.”
“What a load of shlid,” Harry said with a grin.
This made all the adults laugh, even Remus, who was shaking his head disapprovingly as well.
“Anyway, so what do you do for the holidays?”
“Well, I usually celebrate Yule by getting drunk, listening to death metal albums, and pigging out on junk food. This year, I was gonna rock out on Yule to this cool new band I found called Marilyn Manson.”
“Marilyn Manson?” Sirius asked.
“Yeah, it's this cool new Industrial Metal band. Oh man, I've got to play some of that for you sometime, Sothis. Anyway, Harry, are you trying to invite me to your godfather's place for the holidays? I haven't even seen where he lives, and I'd like to. But, er... maybe not yet?” she said at the look on Sirius's face.
“Don't get the wrong idea, Zuz, I like you, but it's only been a month, and Harry is jumping the gun a bit here.”
“Hey it's fine, you lot can come over to my apartment instead sometime during the holiday. Not Christmas eve or boxing day, but maybe Christmas Eve Eve?”
“Sounds good,” Sirius said. “Sure, we can do that. Your flat is a bit small for four people, but could be a good time.”
“Sweet! I'll make the place presentable tonight.”
“I gotta go pay a penny,” Sirius said, getting up to go to the loo.
“And I'm going to see about getting another beer,” Remus said, getting up as well.
With just Harry and Zuzanna there, Harry thought momentarily that it was very trusting of them to leave him with this woman, but then he noticed Remus could keep an eye on him from where he was at, sitting up at the bar with a mug of beer.
Before Remus could get back, Zuzanna asked Harry, “Is Sirius's place like, a total mess? Or is there some sign remaining of how horrible his parents were?”
Harry didn't like lying to this woman. She believed in magic, she was a Wiccan. Granted, that might mean she would be jealous of them all when she found out magic of the fantasy variety was real and some people could do it, but not her. Still, if any Muggle had the potential to be cool with wizards and witches, it would be one who called herself a witch. Still, it wasn't his secret to tell. And Sirius might have a point; maybe Harry was feeling so happy for Sirius moving on that he was trying to push too hard? Then again, it had been Sirius who had introduced them to this woman after knowing her for not even quite a month.
“Um... well, no. I think he doesn't want to come off as conceited or showing off his wealth. I don't think he's gotten used to the idea of being wealthy, even though he was raised in wealth as a kid. He rejected his family because they were huge bigots and racists, and he didn't want anything to do with them for that. But then his brother died and his parents died, and when he got out of prison he discovered to his surprise that he had inherited everything.
“Heh... in that way, he and I have something in common. Being with the Dursleys was almost as bad as prison, and then I got released – mostly – and found myself rich, having inherited a bunch of money from my parents, that the Dursleys had never known about. My aunt and uncle thought my parents were unemployed. Well I suppose technically they were, but only because they didn't need to work, and they were only like, in their early 20's when they died.”
“Wow,” Zuzanna said. “And you can add me to the list of people you and he have stuff in common with, then. Not just for having shitty families, but well... I wouldn't call my parents wealthy per se, but Dad is a pediatrician, and Mom is the chief nurse at the hospital he works at. So I was pretty well off before I ran off. And they wanted me to marry one of the pediatric surgeons, which is a large part of why I ran away and cut off ties with them. Latif was a nice guy, but I barely knew him and I didn't want to be married to anyone who wanted kids, at the time. Raising someone else's kid as a foster parent or godfather is cool by me, even adopting a kid would be okay by me, but I didn't have any interest in getting pregnant at the time.”
“What about now?”
“Now, I'm open to the idea. But I want love to be there first. My parents' idea of marriage is like selling off a prize cow to be bred – you know, traditional marriage. I want to marry for love, have a baby with someone because we love each other and want to bring a new life into the world, not because it's expected of me.”
“I think Sirius probably feels the same way. He's the last of his family in the male line. But he told me he named me his heir presumptive. I don't think he cares about carrying on the line.”
“Wow, so you stand to inherit money from a second wealthy family when you die?”
Harry shrugged. “I guess. I don't want him to die before me, though. Not that I want to die before him, either. I was hoping we could both live to a ripe old age and die on the same day.”
“Goddess, I probably sound like a gold-digger with all these questions. But of course, if I'd wanted to marry for money, I'd have married that pediatric surgeon. He was wealthier even than my parents, which was, I think, the main reason they wanted me to marry him. That, and he was a friend of my dad.”
Harry nodded. He didn't think she had any idea how much money either of them had, so he wasn't worried about her being a gold-digger. Heck, even Harry didn't know for sure how wealthy he and Sirius were. He knew his trust vault held enough money in it to buy the Dursley's house out from under them, and probably have enough left over to buy a controlling interest in Grunnings, the company his uncle worked for. In fact, the money in that vault could probably do all that three times over or more, and that was just the trust vault.
“Anyway, I hated our house growing up,” Zuzanna said. “Big old thing, and it was just my parents, me, my two younger sisters, and my two older brothers living there. Even with all eight of us living in it, it was big enough to have twice as many people there, and always felt a little haunted. My flat now may be tiny, but it's just the way I like it. Big enough for me to sleep and cook in, and have a few guests over once in a while.”
Sirius came back then, sitting next to Zuzanna.
“Where's Remus?” Harry asked.
“He went to the loo after I was done with it. He'll be back soon. What're you two talking about?”
“Our families,” Zuzanna said.
“Ah.”
“Does Sirius know the things you told me?”
“Oh yeah, he and I have discussed that before. While sober, in fact.”
Remus came back a few minutes later. They talked some more, about this and that, but after another hour, they packed up and went their separate ways. When they got home, Sirius cast a stasis charm on the leftover pizza, and another charm to keep the bugs away. Not that the house had many bugs, with two House Elves cleaning up after it.
“Zuzanna is nice,” Harry said. “I like her.”
“Paws off my woman, Harry,” Sirius said half-jokingly.
Harry laughed. “No, she's all yours.”
“Yes,” Remus said. “Besides, Harry prefers younger women. Oh dear, that came out wrong.”
“Well, it's fair. Luna is younger than me by a year.”
“Yes, but I made it sound like--”
“We know, Moony,” Sirius said. “Don't worry about it.”
“So what were you and Zuzanna talking about?”
“Well, she asked me why Sirius didn't invite her over to his place, and I told her he didn't want to seem like he was flaunting his wealth, which she understood. Then we started talking about our families, and some more about why she cut off contact with her family. Sirius, did you know she doesn't want kids unless she and the person she marries love each other a lot first, and only if they both want to have kids out of love for bringing a new person into the world? She ran away from home at least partly to avoid being married off to have babies like some sort of brood mare.”
Sirius barked with laughter. “HA! We have that in common too, then. My parents wanted me to be a good little pureblood bigot, and to marry some similar pureblood bigot woman I'm related to and have little bigoted, inbred, pureblood babies with her. You know, upholding the family tradition and all.”
Thinking back to some things people had said over the years, and connecting it to something from the conversation earlier, Harry asked, “Sirius? Are you bisexual?”
Sirius somehow managed to choke on his own spit at this question, coughing and wheezing and clutching the wall for support. Remus burst out laughing at his distress, but still managed to interrupt his laughter long enough to point his wand at Sirius and incant, “Anapneo.” Sirius's breathing cleared up at once.
“Thanks, Moony. Harry... why do you ask?”
“Well I was curious if it's true that you and Remus are, well, 'involved' with each other.”
This time Remus was the one coughing and wheezing and needing help from Sirius.
“That, Harry, is really none of your business. But no. Well, 'no' to me and Remus being a couple. We never were. We're just good friends. But I think the rumors about us started because, well, I am in fact bisexual. I had just as many boyfriends in school as girlfriends. And so I guess with all the time we spent together, people started to assume. There was a time the Hogwarts rumor mill had me and... and Peter...” he shuddered “as partners, for the same reason. I think the only reason they never suspected the same of me and James was James being hopelessly smitten with Lily. Plus, I'm pretty certain James was completely heterosexual. But no, I'm not with Remus. I wouldn't cheat on other people, that's wrong no matter one's sexuality.”
“Yes, and I never had any interest in dating myself,” Remus said. “With my condition, I have never wanted to date because anyone I dated, I would feel honor bound to tell them about my condition. If I told them too soon, they would know my secret and might out me in disgust. If I told them too late, the same problem but worse.”
“So you could only date people who already knew. And your friends in school only knew because they were clever enough to figure it out for themselves. Even now.” Harry only knew himself because he had figured it out on his own, after all.
“Well, Peter had to be told by the others,” Remus said. “But yes.”
“So if someone who already knew about your furry problem, and they asked you on a date, would you?”
“It would depend. I think I would prefer to marry a fellow werewolf, someone at no risk of being in any danger from me during the full moon. Well, no mortal danger, anyway. But werewolves are, ironically, not very social. There are some places they live together, entire shanty villages of werewolves, but it's just a loose collection of people forced together by being in the same boat. Sure, you sometimes get people like Fenrir Greyback rousing the rabble among werewolves, but largely werewolves fight each other over shelter, food, clothing, and other amenities. And for myself, I'm not very popular among them. I've had proper schooling, which most of them haven't, and I've managed to hold down jobs for more than a few months at a time, something else they haven't done. So, all told, it's likely a permanent bachelor's life for me, Harry.”
“What if someone who wasn't a werewolf, but knew you were, and knew how to be safe during the full moon... like Sirius, but not him... would you consider it? I don't like the thought of you being lonely all your life.”
Remus smiled. “I don't know. Maybe. I doubt it, though. Wizards and witches tend to fear me when they find out what I am, and a Muggle wouldn't be able to keep themselves safe. Plus, if I dated a Muggle and then revealed magic to them, I'd have to also reveal my condition to them. And though Muggles and Muggle-borns tend to be more accepting of werewolves, it's usually coming from a place of not really understanding how dangerous it is. Only wizards and witches can be werewolves, after all. But the virus doesn't know the difference, the wolf always attacks humans. And Muggles tend to die, since they can't catch the condition.”
“Wait, only witches and wizards can be werewolves?”
“Yes. The condition is a magical virus that forces our magic to transform us once a month into the contagious form of the disease. Muggles don't have the magic for the virus to do that.”
“Oh. Why don't werewolves just... sacrifice their magic, then?”
Remus blinked at him. Then he blinked at Sirius.
“Don't you dare think of doing it, Remus. Let someone else be the test subject for that.”
“But Padfoot, most werewolves don't have the control over their magic they need in order to do that. And even if they did, they'd need wands.”
“Why would they need wands? Couldn't they use ritual magic?”
“It's a moot point, Harry,” Sirius said. “Don't you think if it was that simple, people would have tried it before now?”
Harry laughed once, derisively. “With as much as wizards talk about Muggles being beasts at worse, and wizards being better than them at best. With that kind of attitude, why would werewolves even think about sacrificing their magic? Remus is one of the smartest people we know, and it apparently never occurred to him until I mentioned it. So if it didn't occur to him, why would it occur to anyone born to the culture?”
“Harry has a good point. And think of it, Padfoot; if it works, it'd be a cure for the condition. Werewolves are only contagious when transformed, so a werewolf cured in that manner wouldn't be able to spread the infection. We'd have to monitor them during the full moon in case the virus finds some way around that problem, but I'm sure I could get a volunteer to try it. Harry's right, there might be a ritual an untrained wizard could do, with a little help, that would let them sacrifice their magic. For that matter, what if they could sacrifice their magic in exchange for the ritual using that magic to cleanse the body of the virus just in case?”
Remus had a light of excitement in his eyes Harry had never seen before. Sirius, too, looked like he'd never seen such excitement from Moony before.
“You're saying you'd test this on willing volunteers first before considering it for yourself?”
“Yes, Padfoot! Even if I have to keep my magic and remain a werewolf for the rest of my days to do it, if I could cure the condition in others, it would be worth it. Plus, if I'm correct about how magic is passed on, the werewolves cured by sacrificing their magic could still have wizarding children.”
Sirius's eyes went wide at this. “Oh. Wow. Well... I mean, if you think it might be possible. But Moony, don't put too much of your hopes into this, okay? If you're wrong... I don't want you getting more depressed than usual over this.”
Remus nodded. “I understand. You might be right, someone might have tried it before. But Harry has a point. Wizards have a tendency to overlook the obvious. As Severus would say, most wizards don't have an ounce of logic. Don't look at me like that, Padfoot, he's right. Most wizards accept things as 'magic' all too readily. They don't question what they already 'know.' Hell, most wizards still think the earth is the center of the universe.”
“Okay, okay. Just don't go running off just yet. We've got lots of books about ritual magic here in the house, you can start researching it from here. And you can use Black family funds to buy any books you can't find here or at Hogwarts. I'm sure Dumbledore would let you use the library if it was to try to cure lycanthropy.”
“Thank you, Padfoot. And Harry, thank you as well for giving me this idea. Even if it turns out to be a dead end, having hope for the first time in my life was well worth it.”
Before Harry could respond, Remus ran off upstairs to the Black family library.
“Heh,” Sirius said. “Maybe we should have more Muggle-born and Muggle-raised wizards and witches in the world, if they can have insights like that. It's good to see him hopeful. I just worry how he'll take it if it becomes a dead end.”
Harry nodded. “I get that.”
~
The next afternoon, Sirius took Harry to Zuzanna's flat, Remus staying behind because he was so keen on his new research project.
Zuzanna had been right; her flat was small. There was only just enough room in it for Harry and Sirius and Zuzanna to sit together in the living room drinking soda pop and eating biscuits and other snacks while the TV provided background noise as they sat around talking about this and that. This time, Harry mostly listened while Sirius and Zuzanna talked about rock bands and concerts and what tattoo Sirius should get. Harry was surprised to find Sirius hadn't gotten any tattoos of his own, save for the Azkaban prisoner ID tattoo he'd had removed magically a few months after his release.
“A dragon? Really? I'm not sure about that,” Sirius said, glancing worriedly at Harry.
“I wouldn't mind. I think it'd be cool to get a dragon tattoo myself.”
“You're only 14. Give it three more years, pup.”
“Don't you mean four years?” Zuzanna asked.
“Er, yeah, four. That's what I meant to say. Anyway, Harry, I think a phoenix would suit you more.”
“In that case, I think you should get one of a big black dog, Sirius.”
Zuzanna laughed. “Ha! Guy named after the dog star getting a dog tattoo, that'd be fitting. And black, too, like his last name.”
After a couple hours, Zuzanna turned off the TV and put a CD on into the CD player and started playing her Marilyn Manson CD. Sirius took another CD out of its case by the edges as she had, and was examining it.
“You stared at that thing the last time you were here, too,” she said. “Though you blacked out that night, so I guess you forgot. It's a compact disk.”
“How does it work?”
“The CD player shines a laser at it, and translates the interference pattern into electrical signals, and the signals into music.”
“Lasers? What are lasers?” Sirius asked.
“Wow, huh. I don't know how long lasers have been a thing, but man, I would've thought you'd know that by now. Um... crap, I don't know, man.”
“I do,” Harry said. “It's light that's been reflected a certain way between mirrors and through a crystal in such a way that all the light kind of syncs up to the same wavelength. Another word for a laser is 'coherent light.'”
“Huh?” the two adults said in stereo.
“Um... well, normal light is composed of a bunch of different wavelengths, which show up as different colors. See, light travels in waves, like water in the ocean. Some waves are small, others are large. Others are somewhere in between. Each color's waves are different sizes. But in a laser, they filter out most of the colors and you're left with just one color. Then that color is reflected until it intensifies and... well, it's like normal red light is a herd of buffalo, spread out. But with a laser, the buffalo are made to travel together in a straight line. Only it's light traveling in a straight line, not buffalo. So you can only see a laser when it reflects off stuff, because the light is traveling in the same line, instead of scattering pell-mell like it normally would.”
“Oh. I think I get it, pup. But how does that translate into music?”
“Well, phonograph records have grooves on them, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And the interference pattern of the needle traveling over the grooves becomes something the record player can turn into music, right?”
“Uh huh. Wait, so are you saying there's little grooves these lasers bounce off of, and the depth of the grooves the light bounces off of is what makes the music?”
“Yes.”
“Huh. So a CD player is like a record player that uses light for a needle?”
“Basically, yes.”
“Neat. Glad you explained it the long way, though. If you'd just said what I'd said, I doubt I would have understood.”
“Yeah, that's cool, Harry,” Zuzanna said. “You ever thought about being a teacher? You explain stuff pretty well.”
“Um, no. Not really.”
“Well maybe you should think about it, I think you'd be rad at it.”
“Electricity is pretty cool,” Sirius said. “It's amazing all the things it can do. Power lights, turn light into music, cook stuff with an electric range, and then there's television. Bloody cool, that. Wish I'd had one growing up.”
“You didn't have a TV growing up?” Zuzanna asked.
“Er, no. My parents were, uh, old fashioned.”
“My cousin would probably wither away and die without TV. Honestly, it's about the only thing he ever does with himself, other than bully other kids during the boring daytime TV shows.”
“I take it you didn't fall into the same trap?” Zuzanna asked.
“No, but only because my aunt and uncle didn't let me watch TV. I only got to see it if I was doing chores in a room while one was on. I did a lot of reading, instead, when I could find the time.”
“Yeesh, your so-called family sound worse every time you talk about them.”
“Eh, well, it could've been worse. At least they didn't beat me. Well, my cousin Dudley would if he could catch me, but he's always been out of shape, and I've always been too fast for him. Though sometimes he had a moment of intelligence and ambushed me with the help of his friends. But it's okay now. They're all too afraid of Sirius now to dare mistreat me. I guess they didn't quite grasp the concept that Sirius was innocent, they still think of him as a dangerous murderer who escaped prison before he was exonerated.”
Zuzanna looked like something had clicked in her brain, and she looked more closely at Sirius's face. After a moment, her eyes widened in shock.
“That was you? The escaped prisoner on the news? You look totally different! I didn't recognize you until now.”
“Prison didn't agree with me.”
“Wow. But you broke out, and they didn't give you more prison time?”
“Er, I think they were so contrite when they figured out I was innocent that they decided to forgive me that transgression.”
“Well that's odd. But I guess you being rich might've had something to do with that.”
“Could be. If so, they never said.”
“So, what'd you break out for, anyway?”
“I saw Peter – the actual murderer – on a newspaper clipping with the family of one of Harry's friends. I knew he was a danger to Harry. I was the only one who knew he was the real murderer. I had to protect Harry.”
“But wouldn't he have had, like, 12 years in which to hurt Harry?”
“Yes, but he was working for another man, who uh, fled the country 12 years ago and hasn't been seen since. But we know he's still out there, so if he ever returned, Peter would kidnap Harry and turn him over to his master. His master thought Peter betrayed him – it's complicated – but Peter bringing him the last child of the family he hated would go a long way towards repairing that broken trust.”
“Woah, that's like the plot of a suspense novel or something. Your lives are far more... interesting... than mine. That must suck.”
“Yeah, it does,” Harry said.
“So this Hogwarts, which incidentally I've never heard of, is it like, some elite school for the children of wealthy people with like, bodyguards and high security?”
Sirius grinned. “Yes, that's a good description of it.”
“Well that would explain why it's so low-profile. Hide your kids out somewhere nobody's ever heard of, beef up security around them, must be pretty safe.”
Harry snorted.
“Am I wrong?”
“Oh, it's just... the man who's after me went to Hogwarts, too. He doesn't have as much power now as he did when he was in this country, but he still manages to make attempts on my life now and then. He knows where Hogwarts is, and how to sneak in. Though he has to try a new tactic every time.”
“Sheeet. How many times has he tried to get you?”
“Er... well, only twice, but we think he's trying a third time this year. We just don't have any proof.”
“Damn. That sucks. Well I hope he fails miserably. And I hope he gets run over by a lorry and dies.”
Harry and Sirius both snorted with laughter at this. “Amen,” they said in stereo.
“This bad dude, he isn't trying to go after you too, is he, Sothis?”
“Not so far. But Peter escaped, so he might want revenge on me for outing him as the real killer. Though he knows I could always best him in a fight. The only thing he's got on me is I never did figure out how he uh, how he got away from me when I tried to make a citizen's arrest of him.”
Harry nodded. He thought he knew what Sirius was hinting at; Sirius didn't know what curse Pettigrew had used to blow apart the street to make his getaway. Neither did Harry, for that matter.
“It's weird I never heard about any of this when it was happening. Come to think of it, the news never said which prison you escaped from.”
“They didn't?” Sirius asked, sounding mildly nervous.
“Nope. I remember thinking it was weird. You could've been anywhere in the UK, you'd think they'd want to narrow it down for people. But I suppose if you'd nabbed a car, you could have gone anywhere in the UK.”
“Uh, yeah.”
“By the way, what are the names of those bad guys you mentioned? I want to know in case I ever run into them, so I don't trust them.”
“Er... Peter Pettigrew and uh...”
“Tom Marvolo Riddle,” Harry supplied.
“'Marvolo'? What kind of a name is 'Marvolo'?”
“What kind of a name is 'Tishtrya'?” Sirius countered with a grin.
“Ha! Fair point.”
“So Zuz, how much did that CD player set you back?” Sirius said, changing the subject. He kept changing the subject, too, every time the subject came back to the Tom Riddle business. Harry didn't press his luck; this was a minefield of a topic, and they'd been lucky to get through it relatively unscathed.
~
Later, when they got home, Sirius turned to Harry.
“I don't know how I got sucked into that, but that was kind of dangerous. Now she knows enough to get suspicious. Best case scenario, she thinks we're making up a tall tale. Worse case scenario, she keeps asking questions until one of us slips up and then we'd have to Obliviate her.”
“Why? She believes in magic. Sure, she doesn't know how real magic is, but she believes in it. She could take it well.”
“I barely know her! And if she figures it out or thinks we're lying before... well, before something, I don't know how to say it... if she has to be Obliviated, she might have to be made to forget me entirely! And that would... I don't think I could stand the pain of that.”
“That's just it, we're not lying. Leaving some things out, yes, but nothing really important.”
Sirius ran his fingers through his hair. “Harry, Harry, Harry... you're just too honest for your own good.”
“I know how to lie. I lie when it's necessary. But I have a feeling about her. We could tell her, she'd be cool with it. Anyway, you two seem to know each other pretty well. And you two have lots in common. I know it's only been about a month, but I'm telling you, I have a good feeling about her. And I can tell you two like each other. Why else would you have gone along as far as you did with our version of the truth?”
“Ugh... I dunno, pup. I'm just so worried. I didn't want to date at all... twelve years in Azkaban, I'm lucky to have my sanity still. I still have nightmares sometimes, about that place. And I'm severely out of practice on the whole dating thing. And she had a good point, our lives are kind of dangerous.”
“Yes, but would she be at any more risk than any other Muggle for knowing us? Before Voldemort returns or after – Goddess forbid, either way I doubt she'd be at any more risk than other Muggles. And you're training to be an Auror, Sirius! She'd be safer with you than ignorant in the Muggle world.”
“I don't know about that, Harry. There's a lot of Muggles, and not so many wizards. Power in numbers, and all that.”
“But you like her. And I think she likes you. Sure, it might not be love yet, but... well, relationships need honesty. She'll probably understand the need for secrecy, but if you really like her... if she figures out enough to be suspicious, I think you could tell her and she'd understand and maybe even be cool with it.”
“I'll think about it, pup. If things go well enough over the next several months, I'll think about it. After all, we might realize we're not really compatible, or don't have the right kind of feelings, and end up as friends instead of partners.”
“I guess. But Sirius, even if you and her end up as 'just' friends... if Voldemort returns, you should tell her anyway. If he comes back, she needs to know she's in danger.”
“But that Statute of Secrecy--”
“I'm not saying we should tell every Muggle in the country about it, just her. Whether lovers or friends, if you're close to her, she'll need to know.”
Sirius sighed. “Alright, pup. If he comes back, I'll tell her. Assuming we're still together in some capacity at the time, that is.”
“Good. Glad that's settled.”
Smiling at Sirius, Harry went upstairs to get a book to read.
~
Harry's first real Christmas with Sirius was a blast. After returning from Zuzanna's flat, he and Dobby began to decorate the house for the holiday, Sirius grumbling occasionally that he couldn't believe he'd left it so late. But by Christmas Eve, the whole house was festooned with tinsel, holly, wreaths, a huge Christmas tree in the drawing room, fairy lights, and other decorations. Sirius was so happy while doing this that he and Dobby started singing Christmas carols, and Sirius had taken to wearing a Father Christmas hat and beard around the house. In the Christmas spirit, Sirius even dressed Dobby in a Christmas Elf outfit, which both amused and confused the elf. Harry thought it was hilarious. He showed Luna in the two-way mirror and she cooed over him, saying Dobby was adorable in his elf outfit. This made Dobby blush and grin.
On Christmas Day, there was a hefty haul of presents under the tree. Sirius had even put a few things up for Harry that were clearly from 'Father Christmas.' Harry's stocking – big enough to hold both Dobby and Kreacher inside it – was stuffed with fresh fruit, Honeyduke's chocolates and other treats Harry liked, wizard crackers, and a candy cane so big Dobby could have used it to hold himself up if it had been a real cane. 'Father Christmas' also left Harry several phonograph records from groups he already liked and a few he hadn't heard yet, a binder for holding Chocolate Frog cards in, and – despite not being in Quidditch – a practice snitch “to practice your hand-eye coordination.”
From Sirius under his own name, Harry got a ring that one could tap out an emergency message on to send to the other ring, which Sirius had. The ring also went invisible when it was put on, and was supposedly undetectable. Sirius also gave him an old letter and photo of himself and his mum from before his parents' deaths. The letter mentioned that Bertha Bagshot claimed Dumbledore had been friends with Grindelwald in his youth, which sounded barmy.
Antigone, too, sent Harry some vinyl records. Somehow, none of them were the same as the ones 'Father Christmas' had gotten him. From Danzia he got a ring that had an outside part that spun when he made it do so with his fingers. Harry liked his neat new fidget ring.
Hermione had gone practical and gotten Harry a protective ink bottle holder that kept ink bottles from breaking, and contained any mess if they did somehow break. Harry smiled and opened one from Draco, which was also practical – mud repelling, self-cleaning boots. From Ron and Hagrid, he got a bunch of boxes of sweets from Honeydukes. There was also, of course, Mrs. Weasley’s usual package, including a new sweater (green, with a picture of a dragon on it — Harry supposed Charlie had told her all about the First Task), and a large quantity of homemade mince pies.
His gift from Luna, however, was slightly embarrassing. She'd gotten him a necklace that was part of a pair. Once the necklace bonded to him, it started to beat in sync with Luna's heartbeat, and according to the note with it, hers would beat in sync with his heart. Sirius prodded gentle, cooing fun at him about it off and on for the rest of the week.
It was a lot of fun watching Sirius and Remus open their own gifts. Sirius had gotten Remus a magical artifact that produced a sound said to soothe transformed werewolves. And from Harry, Remus got a transformation care package: indestructible toys to chew on in werewolf form, some meat snacks to eat rather than biting himself, some dried sow's ears to chew on if he wanted something a little less hard-wearing, and a laser pointer imported from America, where they'd apparently figured out how to shield such things from being damaged by magic.
“What's this for?” Remus asked, about the laser pointer.
“So Sirius can shine it around the inside of your cage through the bars, see if werewolves go as crazy about them as cats do,” Harry said with a grin.
“I see. Well, Sirius, you'll have to let me know how that goes when you try it next week.”
“Your turn, Sirius!”
Sirius opened the box from Harry, and tore off the paper, Harry grinning like a loon the whole time. Inside was a book.
“'The Wizard's Guide to Dating Muggles' by Quentin Pidd. HA! Nice one, Harry.” Sirius hugged him.
Sirius and Remus both got mince pies and Weasley sweaters from Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, which Harry was glad to see. Harry called Dobby into the room when the other gifts were all opened, and handed Dobby a gift. It was a mismatched pair of socks, one being red and white striped like a candy cane, the other being green and white striped. Sirius also gave Dobby a gift, another pair of child-sized boots with cartoon pictures of cats on them so Dobby could mix them up like he liked. Dobby was over the moon about his gift, and hugged both Harry and Sirius, tears of joy in his eyes.
After presents were all opened, they whiled away the hours with their new gifts while Dobby and Kreacher prepared a big Christmas meal. Sure, there were only three humans to serve in the house now, but if they made a lot, there would be leftovers for the rest of the week, and Luna was going to be coming over the next day.
An hour after lunch, an owl Harry recognized was brought in by Dobby from the owlery. He recognized it because it was a tawny owl he'd bought for Ron for Christmas. He took the owl from Dobby, gave it some leftover ham from lunch, and took the letter from its leg.
Dear Harry,
Thanks loads for the owl! And thanks for letting me know Sirius is sure it's not an animagus. I've named him Liat. Ginny tried to name him first, but I covered her mouth in the nick of time. God only knows what she'd have come up with!
Things are okay here. Percy is shut up in his room again, still obsessed with work. At least he's too busy to bug us about whatever it is he's working on. Good thing, too! If I'd had to listen to another rant about cauldron bottoms over Christmas break, I'd have shoved him into a cauldron and slammed a heavy iron lid on it!
Seriously, Percy tried doing some of his work at the dinner table this morning, ignoring Mum telling him to put it away. It wasn't until Fred spilled oatmeal on his parchments that Percy finally agreed and put his things away for the rest of the meal, once he'd Vanished the oatmeal off it, of course. He's worse than Hermione ever was, it isn't healthy.
Mum asked me about the Yule Ball. I tried not answering, but that just made her more suspicious, so I told her I went with Tracey Davis. I tried being evasive about her being a Slytherin, but that got out too. Mum is persistent. Then the weirdest thing happened: she asked me if Tracey had a good time! Didn't act suspicious of her, didn't ask what side of the war her family was on, none of it. I asked her why she didn't do any of that, and she said that after she'd gotten to know Antigone and Danzia, she trusted my judgment. But uh, she did sort of chew me out when I explained what happened. Said I shouldn't let my personal feelings get in the way of being a gentleman, and that a gentleman makes sure his date has a good time.
Mum and Dad told us all last night that they'd finalized the talks with Mr. Dreyfuss, and he was going ahead with making a few sales models of Mum's clock to see how much interest he could drum up. He did make some predictions based on other market sales and interviewing people about stuff that was related. He says if things go to plan, he predicts we'll get our first cut of the profits by June or July! Mum said she just about fainted when she saw the amount he was predicting we'd get, said it was more money than she'd had in her whole life!
Anyway, thanks again for the gifts, Harry. Hope you like yours, too. See you when term starts again, if I don't see you sooner.
Yuletide greetings,
Ron
Half an hour later, he had a letter from Luna, carried by Writing Desk, her raven. While Harry read the letter, Writing Desk played with some of the tinsel the room was decorated with.
Dear Harry,
Thank you thank you THANK YOU for the lovely gift you sent me. Dobby had some difficulty getting it here, I think elves usually transport trunks in pairs. Daddy was rather astonished by it, wondering what you got me that was so large. For once, he had no idea what it could be until I finally unwrapped it. I don't want to know how much a trunk like that cost, but it had to be a lot.
Harry smiled. He had gotten her a very expensive trunk with multiple compartments and multiple keys. It had been enchanted with a runic spell called Adamant Aura, which was a close equivalent to a very expensive Goblin-made metal called Adamant, which was indestructible. It was even said that the sword of Godric Griffindor had been Adamant. Luna's new trunk wasn't as good, but it was still the best wizards could do on their own. He was glad she liked it. Harry read on:
Did you like your gift from me? I think you did, I felt your heartbeat in my necklace before noon on Christmas day. I don't know if I told you before or not, but you can take it in the shower with you, though even if you take it off, it will keep beating as long as your heart does, unless yours were to get destroyed, Fair Folk forbid.
Daddy and I are going to spend the rest of today at our house, but he says I can visit tomorrow. I have your Floo address. If it is okay with you and Sirius, I will come over at 10 am tomorrow and head home by 5 pm. I look forward to seeing you.
By the way: Merry Christmas, or Happy Yule, whichever you prefer this year. May your day be merry and bright!
Love,
Luna
Harry smiled and looked up from the letter to see Writing Desk wearing a string of tinsel like a feather boa and strutting around the bed like a king, if kings hopped around rather than walking. Hedwig was watching him warily, but Harry thought she was amused by the raven all the same. Mouse-Stalker was watching, too, from his terrarium under the heat lamp. He, too, felt amused.
Half an hour later, Harry had his return letter for Luna tied to Writing Desk's leg. Hedwig glared at him for this until he gave her the job of taking his letter to Ron, including his thank-you note for Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. She hooted her forgiveness at him and playfully nipped at his fingers before flying off.
It was shaping up to be the best Christmas ever.
Endnote: Sorry it's been so long between updates, but between the original story I'm working on and the coming of summer, I've not had as much time or inclination to write fanfic as usual. The summer heat turns my brain dumb and melty.
Introduced Zuzanna a little earlier than intended. Oh well. It's funny. :) The 'possible cure for lycanthropy' thing was unplanned as well.
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Four.
Or, "Autistic Potter and the Goblet of Fire."
Notes: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made. Not by me, anyway.
There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though, but there's a lot more in this one than usual because it was unavoidable. Still, lots of details are changed, so don't skip by familiar parts or you might miss something.
Just as a reminder, so I don't have to shoehorn in descriptions in the text of the story as a reminder, but in this fanfic Harry and Hermione, apart from having Asperger's Syndrome, are both black as well.
'Italicized text between single quotes is almost always Parseltongue.'
Chapter 16: “An Annoying Buzzing”
Dear Luna,
Thank you for the gift you got me, it's awesome. I love hearing your heartbeat, I listened to it for an hour straight last night, falling asleep to the sound. I wear it all the time, even in the shower.
Dobby loved the scarf you got him. He wears it all over the house and I think I saw him sleeping with it in his cupboard. Which reminds me, Dobby is weird. I mean, we knew that already, but he actually prefers sleeping in the cupboard under the stairs! We offered him his own room, and he fainted. When he woke up again, he refused the offer, saying it was much too much room for him. Which, okay, the rooms in this place are huge, even the small rooms. I think the smallest room is bigger than Dudley’s room and the Dursleys' guest bedroom combined!
Speaking of Dobby, for Christmas I got him a nice leather belt to hold his pants up. I had to have one made especially to fit him, because they don't seem to make belts small enough for elves, normally. But it was worth the extra expense, to see the delighted look on his face.
I wanted to get something for Kreacher, too, but though he and Sirius have made up, Kreacher is still a more traditional elf. He did finally let me give him a pillow for his nest in the boiler room, mainly because it doesn't count as clothing in any sense. I think he still wanted to refuse, but was ultimately tempted by the softness of it.
Oh, and I might get something for Netty, too. I haven't figured out what yet, though. I don't know much about her, honestly. I'll ask Dobby, see if he knows anything. I'm not too hopeful, though; she still doesn't much like him after that fiasco in my second year. She's civil to him when they meet, but still wary and distant with him.
Winky is still here with us. Dobby has been taking care of her, trying to keep her sober, but she keeps drinking enough butterbeer to be drunk all the time, despite Dobby's best efforts. She's severely depressed, still thinks Crouch is her master, won't do any work. Or rather, can't do any work because she's too drunk to stand up most of the time. I wish I knew what to do for her. If you or your dad have any ideas, let me know, okay?
Well I only wrote this because it's basically a thank-you note that spiraled off into other topics, and I might tell you all this again later tonight via the two-way mirror, but here it is anyway. Hedwig likes the exercise anyway, she doesn't get much to do. I don't have many people I write letters to anymore, with the two-way mirrors for you and Sirius.
Happy holidays, Luna! Say “Happy Holidays” to your dad for me, too.
With love,
Harry
~
Dear Harry,
Thank you again for the gift of the trunk. I've got all seven compartments of it keyed into passwords in Elf-speech. I thought about using Mermish at first, but thought I have enough problems with my dorm-mates already without waking them up with screechy wailing noises. Elf-speech can be whispered, to make it less annoying. It's also easier for me to speak than Gobbledygook. What I'd really like, though, is if you could teach me Parseltongue. And yes, I am aware that people will likely be afraid of me if I start speaking Parseltongue. I am rather looking forward to the looks on their faces when I do, so if we could get started on that as soon as possible, that would be good. Before you object, I remind you that I don't have any friends in Ravenclaw, and plenty of enemies already. If someone can't like me for who I am, then I am fine not being friends with them.
Anyway, I am most enjoying the art studio in the fifth compartment, though the library in the sixth compartment is lovely as well. I most liked finding in it those three books about cryptomagizoology I didn't already have. I've been looking for a copy of “Callendar's Cornerstones of Crytomagizoology” for years, where ever did you find it?
I had Daddy try to use magic to break into the trunk using seventh-year spells, and he wasn't able to do it. He couldn't even lift it without being authorized first! I am quite satisfied with its security. I am, however, unsure why you got me a trunk with a bedroom in it. I already have one of those at home, and a bed in the dorm at school. Though now I think about it, I suppose you might be anticipating the other Ravenclaws who don't like me wanting to attack me in my sleep, and having somewhere safe to sleep is a good idea in that case. Is that what you were thinking? I think it must be, or else why include an attached bathroom with its own shower?
Which reminds me, as much as I appreciate it, and though I know you and Sirius are both quite well off, I am somewhat uncomfortable with you spending so much on me for one gift. I can't reciprocate that sort of expense. I know you don't expect me to, but it still makes me uncomfortable. I will ignore it this time, as it's a very thoughtful gift, and you're investing in my safety – probably the gift is as much for you as it is for me. But please, if you could spend much less on me in the future, I would appreciate that.
About Winky... I suggest Sirius order her to answer who her new master is, making it clear he's her new master, then order her to sober up, at least. House Elves don't respond to traditional human-style talk therapy, normally; they respond to orders. When they don't know what to do or how to behave, or when they're too upset to care about such things, they like having clear instructions, and orders.
If this letter reaches you before we talk tonight on the mirrors, then I will see you later. If it arrives later than that, well... either way, my apologies for being repetitive.
Happy holidays to you, Sirius, Kreacher, Dobby, and Winky!
With love,
Luna
~
The rest of the holiday was amazing. Harry had fun just spending time joking and laughing with Sirius and Remus, reading in the Black family library (which had somehow survived years of neglect mostly intact, with the dangerous books locked away in a vault in Gringotts), or having Luna or Ron come over some days to visit. (Hermione and the others were all visiting family abroad.) He even used some spending money he got for Christmas or Yule to order a book from India about the use of Parseltongue in healing magic, as well as a book of Parseltongue spells, jinxes, and hexes, both books ordered through a book seller on the continent that Sirius knew about.
On the last day of the holiday before going back (Saturday January 2nd), Harry was dueling with Sirius in the dueling room. They'd been doing a lot of that over the holiday. Between the Triwizard Tournament and the fact he had a vicious psychopathic murderer after his blood, Harry thought the more he practiced dueling, the better. And the last few days of the holiday, he'd been practicing with his new custom-made backup wand, which he kept in an invisible wrist holster. The new wand was made of African acacia wood, was 11 inches long, and wasn't quite as powerful as his phoenix wand because it used as its core one of his own hairs.
This particular day, he was trying a new spell from his Parseltongue spell book, a form of shield that could only be cast in Parseltongue.
'Cobra hood shield,' he said in Parseltongue, as Sirius shot a Stunner at him. A black, misty spell came out of his wand and hung in front of him like a slightly transparent giant cobra's hood taking hits for him. The other side of his body was protected by a mirror image of the cobra hood giving him full coverage. The way the shield took the Stunner was fascinating, as well; it seemed to reach out and devour the enemy spell, using its magic to strengthen itself. It took five hits in a row from Sirius's overpowered Stunners before it collapsed with a slight hissing sound.
“Impressive, pup. I have to say, I'm still uncomfortable with you being a Parselmouth, but if using this power keeps you safe, and if the people of India think of Parseltongue as Good magic, then I guess I can live with that discomfort.”
“Thanks, Sirius.” Harry said, then paused to think a moment. “But you know, it occurs to me that non-verbal magic has advantages over verbal magic. I need to work on that more, even with the Parseltongue magic, because Voldemort is a Parselmouth as well.”
“Okay, we can try again.”
Harry nodded, and they tried it with Harry trying to cast the spell non-verbally, but nothing happened. He thought maybe he had to be looking at a snake to cast the spell non-verbally. He'd been imagining snakes in his head for the verbal version, but that wasn't good enough, it seemed. So he called a time-out and retrieved Mouse-Stalker.
With his pet magical snake around his shoulders, he found he could cast the Parseltongue spells non-verbally by speaking down the Familiar bond with Mouse-Stalker, which registered as Parseltongue when he did. The spells weren't quite as powerful done that way as aloud, with the exception of a couple Parseltongue spells that had been specifically designed to be cast non-verbally, but it wasn't too bad; the Cobra Hood Shield took four hits before collapsing, instead of five. It was still an impressive shield. But of course, it had a down side: it was difficult to cast, with a tricky wand movement, and had taken Harry four tries before he got it right. That, and each hit to the shield drained his energy and made him sweat.
Harry took a break for lunch, flipping through the Parseltongue spell book as he did. He found one particularly interesting spell, a non-verbal shield spell, and started practicing the wand movements for it. When lunch was over, he and Sirius went back to the dueling room with Remus, and Harry practiced the new shield spell.
'Hibernation shield,' Harry cast non-verbally. What happened this time looked like a mass of 100 or more ghost-like, pine-green snakes writhing in a dome-shaped mass over his body. Whenever Sirius or Remus shot a spell at him, one or more of the snakes would take the hit and disappear. How many snakes took the hit depended on the power of the spell coming at him, so he could take anywhere from 100 really weak jinxes to a half-dozen or so really powerful hexes or curses. The down side was that it took a lot of effort to maintain. Harry only had it up for a couple minutes, and it took him ten minutes to recover from the effort.
“That spell is most impressive, Harry,” Remus said. “I just wouldn't recommend using any of these Parseltongue spells in the Tournament is all, unless you find a non-verbal Parseltongue spell that doesn't cleave to the theme of snakes in a way that's obvious to anyone watching. I don't think anyone outside of friends and family and Dumbledore know you're a Parselmouth, yet. And while other parts of the world think highly of Parseltongue, Britain is not one of those places.”
Harry nodded. “Yeah, I know. Anyway, I want to try some of these hexes. I think I have a couple that fit Tournament criteria, but I won't be certain until I try.”
Remus made him point out which spells he meant in the book before letting him try them, to make sure they sounded safe enough to try out. They did, since this particular book had been written by an Indian author on the Light-leaning side of Gray Magic. The first one he wanted to try, he practiced the wand movements for about 15 minutes before attempting the spell against a person.
'Dry-bite hex,' he cast non-verbally. Remus's torso got struck by two red points of light that had apparently crossed the space between the two of them at the speed of light, something most spells didn't do. As such, it had hit Remus before he could put up a shield in time. Luckily, the only thing the spell did was cause pain in the spots it struck, and knocked out the victim like a Stunner.
“Rennervate,” Sirius cast, waking Remus up. Remus groaned, rubbing his chest where the hex had hit him; apparently, it still hurt.
“Yes, Harry,” Remus said as Sirius helped him up, “I'd say that one is both effective and ambiguous enough in appearance to be passed off as simply an unusual Stunner. I think someone like Moody, Voldemort, or Dumbledore would be able to tell what it was, though. But most people should be none the wiser.”
“Thanks. By the way, Sirius, I've been thinking about the Second Task. The First Task didn't allow Mouse-Stalker, because I might have used him to cheat somehow. I don't think it's possible, but I'm curious if there's any rule against using him in the Second Task. Can you check to see if there's any rule against using Familiars in the Second and Third Tasks, Sirius?”
“I'll have Ms. Pennyroyal look into it, Harry.”
“Sirius,” Remus said, “I don't think that will be necessary. You can check with her anyway, but when I played your memory of the night Harry's name came out of the Goblet of Fire, I remember something from that. Ms. Selby said, and I quote, 'You will also be allowed one companion, who will be in charge of judging your coping level and helping you recover mentally if you are unable to cope, or pull you out of the Task if you are unable to recover to complete the Task.' Between that and the other provisos, like them not being allowed to use their wand to help you, and so on, I think a Familiar might be considered worthy of replacing Sirius if it's an either/or situation.
“What's more, as a snake, magical or otherwise, he likely wouldn't be considered intelligent enough to give you any kind of significant edge over the competition.”
“Well, we can talk with Ms. Pennyroyal about it, anyway,” Sirius said. “Later, though.”
Harry nodded, and they went back to practicing spells.
'Torpor of relief,' Harry cast aloud, in Parseltongue. This spell had the interesting effect of making Sirius giddy and giggly like he was high on laughing gas.
“What was that one?” Remus asked. “I don't recall approving that one, Harry.”
“Er, sorry. It's a pain relief spell intended for countering really serious amounts of pain. Broken legs, open wounds, that sort of thing. 'Awaken from torpor,'” he cast at Sirius, again in Parseltongue, and the effect was lifted.
“Hmm... clever, using a mostly harmless medical spell in a combat situation. A bit like a Confundus charm, used that way. Not quite, but certainly would make it hard for someone to focus on fighting.”
Harry tried out three more Parseltongue spells before they gave up for the night. One held the opponent in tight invisible snake coils, like an Incarcerous that didn't have any ropes to cut, and would tighten if the person tried wriggling out of it. Though unlike Incarcerous, it had to be held with a continuous input of magic or it would collapse.
Another was a spell that, when it struck true, caused a barely-visible spectral serpent to wrap around the victim's eyes and make it impossible for that one person to see the person who cast the spell, even though others could still see them fine. The serpent was only really visible up close, and only for a second before it faded from view. It had an advantage over the Disillusionment spell in that he was still visible to himself, and the spell also made it so the victim couldn't see where Harry was disturbing the environment if he bumped into something, and presumably would hide his movements through tall grass.
Harry also found he could overpower the spell and cast it wide to hit multiple people at once with the spell, though that took a lot more out of him and made the spell last a much shorter amount of time.
The last Parseltongue spell he learned that day was a spell that looked similar to the Dry-Bite Hex, but the twin lights hit the person's wand hand, making it swell up to the point it was unusable until the counter-charm was given. They were good spells, and he decided he'd try to go to the Dueling Club more regularly, since he was responsible for it still going in the first place, and try the new spells out in an actual duel.
~
Harry was glad he had a lot of room in his trunk, it being a multiple-compartment trunk like he'd given to Luna (he'd gotten it at the same time, having forgotten to do so before school), because along with gifts from Hermione and Draco and Luna, he had gifts from other friends as well. Antigone had gotten him another vinyl record, one by The Weird Sisters. Danzia had gotten him a ring that you can spin, nothing at all magical about it, just a fidget toy. With all his friends and other people who got him gifts now, he didn't think a regular trunk would have been anywhere near big enough.
On the train, Harry got a compartment with Luna, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, and Neville. His other friends dropped in on their way elsewhere; Danzia stayed to talk for 20 minutes before moving on. Antigone and Angela were holding hands when they stopped by; he knew they'd been girlfriends for as long as he'd known them, but he couldn't recall them holding hands before. He wondered if going to the Yule Ball together had given them more bravery to be more open about their relationship.
Draco joined them after half an hour and stayed. Harry was just leaning against Luna and staring off into space during the train ride. As he did, Luna noticed Draco reading a book about the basics of spell-crafting, and looking over the top of his book to look at Hermione every now and then.
“Should we try to help them out?” Luna asked. “Hermione doesn't seem to have any idea, after all. And Draco isn't going to get anywhere without just telling her; hints aren't enough.”
“I'll talk to Draco later,” Harry said.
“Oh good. Tell me how it goes after you do, will you?”
“Sure thing. What about Ron? He's still kinda down after that Yule Ball date went sideways. I think having a girlfriend would help his state of mind.”
“Yes, but these things have to happen at least somewhat naturally. Draco already fancies Hermione, and I think she only went with Krum to the ball because he was the first to ask her.”
“What are you two whispering about over there?” Ron asked.
“Sweet nothings,” Harry lied. Ron's face went red and he went back to his game of Exploding Snap.
“That wasn't true, Harry,” Luna whispered.
“Yeah, but it was better than telling him it's none of his business. That would've sounded rude.”
She chuckled at him, running her fingers through his hair.
“Anyway, thank you about that advice for Winky. Sirius ordered her to sober up and defer to Dobby for something to do with herself, and she's been responding well to it. She's still not very happy, but she's sober now and she's working. I wondered what three elves were going to do fighting over work in one house, but Sirius found a second Black family house in Italy. As soon as that one is professionally cleaned out like the first one, Dobby and Winky will have work over there, too.”
“Glad to hear she's doing better.”
The rest of the train trip was pretty languid. Harry actually slept through most of it, and was still feeling groggy when he got into the carriage with the same people who had been in the train compartment with him. But by the time they got out of the carriages, Harry was wide awake. He was a little bit groggy again later after dinner, but not too bad.
“'First dueling club meeting of the term after dinner on Wednesday,'” Harry said, reading off the announcement board in the Griffindor common room after dinner was over. “I want to go. I haven't been going enough, considering I convinced them to keep it going.”
Ron got out his wand and cast a spell to make it so others couldn't eavesdrop. “You just want to try out that Parseltongue spell that you told me about on the train,” Ron said.
“Well yeah.”
“Okay, but how're you gonna do it without revealing you're a Parselmouth to the world?”
“I'll have Mouse-Stalker with me. I can cast the spell non-verbally by speaking it down the Familiar bond.”
“Well okay. Just don't use any of those others in front of everyone. You start using snake-themed spells, people are gonna figure it out, especially since you have a snake Familiar.”
“Yes, I know. The two snake shields are cool and would be useful, but yeah, I'm not gonna use those in public. I've been scanning the book for spells that aren't obviously snake-themed, like you said. I found a few more so far.”
“Good to know. Rita Skeeter would have a field day if she knew you were a Parselmouth.”
“I know, I know. I'll be very careful.”
~
January 4th, 1995
On the first day of class for the term, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Draco had Care of Magical Creatures with Hagrid. So they were all quite surprised, when trudging through the thick snow from Herbology to Hagrid's class, to find that Hagrid wasn't there. Instead, there was an elderly witch with closely cropped gray hair and a very prominent chin standing before his front door.
“Hurry up, now, the bell rang five minutes ago,” she barked at them as they struggled toward her through the snow.
“Who’re you?” said Ron, staring at her. “Where’s Hagrid?”
“My name is Professor Grubbly-Plank,” she said briskly. “I am your temporary Care of Magical Creatures teacher.”
“Where’s Hagrid?” Harry repeated loudly.
“He is indisposed,” said Professor Grubbly-Plank shortly.
Soft and unpleasant laughter reached Harry’s ears. He turned; Theodore Knott and his group of Slytherins were joining the class. All of them looked gleeful, and none of them looked surprised to see Professor Grubbly-Plank.
Draco leaned up to whisper in Harry's ear. “They were talking at the Slytherin table during breakfast. Skeeter printed an article about Hagrid being part giant.”
“How did she find out about that?”
“Well from what Antigone said the day we went home for the holidays, he was talking rather loudly. This was bound to come out.”
“What's bound to have come out?” Ron asked.
“Hagrid's giant problem,” Draco said. “Rita Skeeter found out, and printed an article about it.”
“No talking, you lot,” Grubbly-Plank said. “This way, please,” she continued, and she strode off around the paddock where the Beauxbatons horses were shivering. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Draco followed her, looking back over their shoulders at Hagrid’s cabin. Harry wondered what emotional state Hagrid was in if he was locked up in his cabin rather than teaching class. Hagrid's passion was magical creatures; being made a teacher had him over the moon when it happened, so he must be pretty depressed.
Grubbly-Plank led them past the paddock where the huge Beauxbatons horses were standing, huddled against the cold, and toward a tree on the edge of the forest, where a large and beautiful unicorn was tethered.
Many of the girls “ooooohed!” at the sight of the unicorn.
“Oh it’s so beautiful!” whispered Lavender Brown. “How did she get it? They’re supposed to be really hard to catch!”
The unicorn was so brightly white it made the snow all around look gray. It was pawing the ground nervously with its golden hooves and throwing back its horned head.
“Boys keep back!” barked Professor Grubbly-Plank, throwing out an arm and catching Harry hard in the chest. “They prefer the woman’s touch, unicorns. Girls to the front, and approach with care, come on, easy does it.”
The girls walked slowly up to the unicorn. Before Grubbly-Plank could join them, Harry gently tugged on the sleeve of her robes to get her attention. She turned to consider him curiously.
“Professor Grubbly-Plank? What do you mean by they don't like boys? How can they tell?”
“Excellent question, Mr. Potter. There are many theories, ranging from scent to magic. But we aren't really sure.”
“Um, Professor? Can I whisper something in your ear so others don't hear it?”
“No need. I have a suspicion of what you're going to ask.”
“You do?”
She nodded, and whispered in his ear instead. “It's about Miss Dreyfuss, right?”
“Er, yes, that was one thing. But there's something else.”
“Well go ahead, Mr. Potter.”
Whispering in her ear, he told her, “I don't consider myself a boy. Nor a girl.”
“Hmm... well in that case, if you stay behind after class, we shall do an experiment, see what they make of you.”
The professor left him then to join the girls.
“Hey Potter, why no crying about Hagrid?” Theodore Knott asked. “Or,” he continued, breathing heavily in mockery, “maybe... you'll... panic... instead?”
The Slytherins around him laughed cruelly. Harry ignored them, trying to pay attention to the unicorn.
“Potter! Hey Potter! I was talking to you! Or are you deaf as well as a retard?”
Unfortunately for Knott, Professor Grubbly-Plank had heard that. As he and his cronies laughed, she turned around, marched over to Knott, and snapped, “Mr. Knott! I do not permit such language in my classroom! Ten points from Slytherin, and a detention! Meet me outside Dumbledore's office tonight at 6 PM sharp for your detention!”
Harry couldn't help but grin as Knott and his his cronies stopped laughing at glowered at Grubbly-Plank. Draco even snickered a little, defying the usual rule of “Slytherins present a united front.”
Grubbly-Plank returned to the group of girls around the unicorn, snapped at the boys and Harry to be sure to pay attention, and began to lecture loudly about unicorns for the rest of the class. Whenever Knott or his friends tried talking again, she'd glare at them so intensely it made everyone look her way. So the rest of the class was quite peaceful.
When the class was over, Harry stayed behind. Hermione, Ron, and Draco stayed behind too, looking confused.
“I'll explain later. You lot go on, I'll catch up later.”
They accepted this, and took off, looking back once in a while. Once they were out of hearing range, Professor Grubbly-Plank spoke.
“So, neither a boy nor a girl? That's a new one on me, but let's see what the unicorn makes of you.”
She guided Harry over to the unicorn. Feeling something crawling in his hair, Harry pulled a fat beetle out of it and tossed the creature aside. He watched it fly away for a moment before focusing on the professor.
“Well, Potter, put out a hand, see what it does.”
Harry put a hand out to the unicorn. It sniffed his hand and cocked its head in a manner that suggested confusion. It sniffed again, even more than before, and even licked him experimentally. It looked even more confused than ever for a moment, before seeming to come to a decision and rubbing its muzzle against his hand in a manner more reminiscent of a cat than a horse.
“Well, that's fascinating, Potter. With boys and men, unicorns are normally very skittish, and can be dangerous under those conditions. But this one seems to like you. It's not being nearly as affectionate as it would be if you were a girl, but still, this is interesting. Mr. Potter, would you mind if I used this information to write up a paper for “Magizoology Monthly”? I wouldn't use your name, just 'subject A identifies as neither male nor female,' and the results of how the unicorn responded?”
“Oh. Um, sure. Okay.”
“Excellent. I just wish I had more examples of people like yourself to try to rule out other possibilities.”
“Um... I dunno if this is helpful or not, but centaurs and goblins identify the same way.”
“Hmm... I'm not sure what unicorns would make of Goblins in general, to be honest. I know they don't mind the centaurs, but then they don't have a lot of contact with each other. It's worth looking into, anyway. Thank you.”
“You're welcome, Professor.
“I hope I can get your friend Miss Dreyfuss to agree to help as well. I don't think anyone’s ever knowingly observed the result of unicorn behavior around transgender girls before.”
“Er, would you like me to ask her about it when I see her next?”
“Yes, please, if you'd be so kind. Oh and, Mr. Potter? What pronouns should I use with you? And, um... I don't know any terms of address other than gendered terms like Mr. and Miss.”
“It's fine, I'm still using male pronouns and terms of address, for now.”
“Oh, okay, that's easier. But let me know if it changes, okay?”
“I will, Professor.”
“Good. Anyway, it's lunchtime now, I'll escort you back to the Great Hall.”
~
Harry begged off explaining why he'd stayed behind class until later, as he wanted to be as sure as possible of the conversation being private. Instead, he passed the latest copy of the Prophet around to Ron, Hermione, and Ginny.
Hermione was appalled. “How did that horrible Skeeter woman find out? You don’t think Hagrid told her?”
“No,” said Harry. “I reckon Antigone and Draco are right, he was just so loud somebody heard who shouldn't have, and they blabbed, and it eventually got to Skeeter.”
“Yes, but it wouldn't have had much time to get through the rumor mill, we went home on the 23rd!”
“Plenty of time for it to make the rounds,” Ginny said.
“Yes, but I don't think any of us heard the rumor at all in that time! And it's been weeks!”
Ginny shrugged. “So it made the rounds but didn't get to us before break, and then over the holidays, everyone who knew forgot to talk about it anymore when they got back. But someone might have told a parent the day they got back, and then the parent could have told Skeeter.”
Ron said, “Yeah, I can imagine Knott telling his father about it if he knew.”
“True, but he would have found us on the train and teased us about it,” Harry said.
Ron deflated. “Damn. Good point. Well it's still likely someone else told.”
“Was she at the ball?” Hermione asked.
“I don't know. I doubt it. I think Antigone and Angela would have mentioned it if they'd seen her. And she was banned from the grounds.”
“Maybe she's got an invisibility cloak?” Ron speculated.
“However she got in, if that's what happened, we've got to see him this evening after our classes to tell him we want him back,” said Harry. At the look on Hermione's face, he added, “you do want him back, right?”
“I — well, I’m not going to pretend it didn’t make a nice change, having a proper Care of Magical Creatures lesson for once — but I do want Hagrid back, of course I do!” Hermione added hastily, quailing under Harry’s furious stare.
So that evening after dinner, the three of them left the castle once more and went down through the frozen grounds toward Hagrid’s cabin. Casting privacy charms around themselves even though nobody else was in sight, they asked Harry why he'd been held back in Magical Creatures.
“I asked Grubbly-Plank about what the unicorn would make of me. Um... I don't think I've told you two yet, so might as well tell you now: I don't feel like a boy, but I also don't feel like a girl. Luna says it's called 'agender.' I wanted to know what the unicorn would make of me, and Grubbly-Plank didn't know, so once everyone else was gone, I went up to it to find out.”
“How did it go?”
“The unicorn was confused at first, but then accepted me.”
“How can you be neither a boy or a girl?” Ron asked.
Harry frowned slightly. “The same way someone declared a boy at birth can actually be a girl. The same way people who agree with their birth declaration of gender can match the gender they were declared. It's something deep down in, I dunno, the soul or something. If your gender matches what everyone says you are, you never question it. But from the moment I knew what the word 'boy' meant, some part of me was rebelling against it. But when I think about being called a girl, I feel the same rebellious feeling.
“And though I always knew, in some way, it took a lotta years to figure that out, and even more years to work out what was going on enough to find the words to describe it. And now 'agender,' meaning 'without gender,' it fits me, it feels comfortable. But if I hadn't met Antigone, and then talked about it with Luna, I might've gone decades or longer before realizing this about myself.”
“Yeah but I mean, what does it feel like? It just seems weird to me, I can't even imagine it. Are you sure you're not wrong about this?”
“Ron,” Harry said with forced calm, “where Antigone is concerned, can you imagine what it feels like to be a girl?”
Ron turned red and shook his head. “Of course not!”
“And yet you believe she really does feel like a girl?”
“Er... yes. Yeah, I do. Why?”
“It's the same thing. You can't imagine how it feels, but it's still true.”
“Sure, but I can tell Antigone's a girl cuz of how she talks, walks, dresses, smells, and so on. She even feels like a girl the few times we've accidentally bumped into each other, or shook hands. She feels different from a bloke. Honestly, it's a bit weird trying to imagine how anyone could have ever mistaken her for a boy.”
“So are you saying that I feel the same as a bloke? That I act the same way and stuff?”
“I...” Ron stood there, thinking. All three of them had long since stopped, about halfway to Hagrid's hut. “Well... hmm... I dunno. I never really thought about it before. I mean with Antigone, once I knew her secret, I was trying to figure it out, and I eventually got to thinking it's weird that anyone could've ever thought her anything but a girl. But I never had to think about you the same way before, so... well... and with Antigone, it was obvious she's a girl. She's never seemed to be anything else. Now if she'd started out dressing like a boy and cutting her hair short like a boy, and not using makeup... I guess I'd have thought she was a boy, and thinking of her as a girl might have been more difficult. I dunno.” He shrugged.
Harry nodded. Ron was rambling, his thoughts bouncing around from point to point, but Ron's point was clear; with Antigone, he'd never really had to adjust his thinking. With Harry, however...
“Then there's the fact girls are, you know, girls. I can't say I've ever met someone agender before. What does that even look like? Only things I knew could be agender before were, you know, plants and chairs and stuff.”
Harry suddenly noticed Hermione hadn't talked at all during this exchange, which was a bit odd for her. He looked at her.
“What do you think, Hermione?”
“I... well, I can see where you're coming from, sort of. I've always thought the things that girls should and shouldn't be or do were kind of stupid. Girls aren't supposed to be smart, girls are supposed to be more social than boys, girls are supposed to know all the social rules that nobody ever talks about and know them better than boys. Girls are supposed to care about their appearance, girls aren't supposed to be friendless, girls who read are considered weird unless it's romance novels or teen magazines or some other rubbish like that.
“And then I also thought it was stupid that if a boy did any of the things that 'only girls' are supposed to do, that he got bullied for it. It's stupid, and arbitrary, and I never understood it, and I don't think I want to understand it.
“But all that said, I still think of myself as a girl. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am. The idea of being neither a girl nor a boy doesn't appeal to me personally. But I can still see where it could. I can still see where it'd be possible to be neither gender.”
Harry grinned at her. Then he looked over to Ron. Ron still looked thoughtful and confused at the same time. When he caught Harry's eye, though, he shrugged.
“I don't get it, mate. But I don't really get Danzia's asexuality, either, and I still take her word for it. So I'm gonna take your word for it, Harry.”
“Thanks, Ron. Now, let's go to Hagrid's before it gets too dark out.”
They finished their walk to Hagrid's in relative silence, minds now on Hagrid again. They approached his door and knocked, and Fang’s booming barks answered.
“Hagrid, it’s us!” Harry shouted, pounding on the door. “Open up!”
Hagrid didn’t answer. They could hear Fang scratching at the door, whining, but it didn’t open. They hammered on it for ten more minutes; Ron even went and banged on one of the windows, but there was no response.
“What’s he avoiding us for?” Hermione said when they had finally given up and were walking back to the school. “He surely doesn’t think we’d care about him being half-giant?”
But it seemed that Hagrid did care. They didn’t see a sign of him all week. He didn’t appear at the staff table at mealtimes, they didn’t see him going about his gamekeeper duties on the grounds, and Professor Grubbly-Plank continued to take the Care of Magical Creatures classes. Knott was gloating at every possible opportunity.
“Missing your half-breed pal?” he kept whispering to Harry whenever there was a teacher around, so that he was safe from Harry’s retaliation. “Missing the elephant-man?”
By Wednesday, Knott had been mocking Harry so much over Hagrid that Harry was quite glad to see him in the Dueling Club after dinner that day, which was being held now in one of the old dueling chambers that had been out of use for decades. Professor Flitwick and Professor Moody were overseeing it, the two of them now focusing on teaching spells like stunners and a few more advanced spells.
Harry got paired with Draco, and the club meeting went pretty well, but the whole time Harry was itching to fight Knott. Luckily for him, Knott seemed just as keen on fighting Harry. During the last half hour of the meeting was a time during which people could challenge each other to duels if they wanted to, usually to hone their skills against a different opponent than usual.
So when Knott said, “I, Theodore Knott, challenge Harry Potter to a duel,” Harry smirked at him, making the other boy's confident face falter a little.
“I accept your challenge, Theodore Knott.”
Moody gave the rules for the duel; nothing deadly, nothing too dangerous, and the duel would be over when one of them was incapacitated or disarmed.
Harry and Knott got into their starting positions in the room's central dueling stage, got into the dueling stance with their feet firm and their wands out. Mouse-Stalker shifted place under Harry's robes and poked his head out of Harry's outer robes where Harry saw him momentarily.
“Start the duel on three! One, two, THREE!” Moody called.
Knott and Harry began pacing around each other, sizing each other up for a few moments. “STUPEFY!” Knott shouted. Harry ducked out of the way and shot back with “Incarcerous!” But his shot had been wide, and the ropes he'd summoned had hit the wards around the stage, dissolving into nothing in seconds because they had never been real.
“Impedimenta!” “Tarantallegra!” “Furnunculus!” Back and forth this went, until Knott cast “Bombarda!” and Harry cast “Protego zygós!” A shield spell appeared that was composed of large, overlapping scales, as it was ablative; Harry had learned it in a previous Dueling Club meeting. The Bombarda hit the shield and knocked some of the scales off; they disappeared and were replaced. Three more spells flew at the shield and knocked scales off.
When the shield collapsed, Harry was ready. The instant the shield fell, he was non-verbally casting down the link to Mouse-Stalker, 'Bite the hand!'
There was a flash of twin red lights on Knott's wand hand, making it fly upward, and his wand fell behind him, his hand swelling up like a balloon. “Accio Knott's wand!” Harry cast, and the wand went flying into his left hand.
“Potter wins!” Moody declared, then began stumping over to Knott to see if he could fix the hand that was now so swollen it couldn't be moved at all, the skin shiny like a balloon. Knott was annoyed and frustrated, but the hand didn't seem to hurt. Moody soon had the hand deflated and back to normal, but as Harry was tossing Knott's wand back to him, he noticed Moody's magic eye giving him an odd look, one that was much more prolonged than usual for Moody.
~
January 16th, 1995
There was a Hogsmeade visit halfway through January, and Harry had asked Luna to go with him to it. She was delighted to go, and was excited the whole week leading up to it.
On the day of the trip, Harry met Luna in the Great Hall, and together with Ron and Hermione, they made their way to Hogsmeade. On the way, they spotted Viktor Krum walking from the Durmstrang ship towards Hogsmeade ahead of them. Ron said nothing, but he glowered in Krum's direction. He also looked suspiciously between Krum and Hermione so obviously that even Harry picked up on it.
“Since you seem so keen on your accusative staring, Ronald, the answer is no, Viktor and I are not an item. We went to one ball together. He asked me because I was the only girl he'd seen who didn't fangirl over him like a twit. Yes, he also thinks I'm pretty, but we're not together, we're friends.”
Ron's expression eased up a little. “Just friends?”
“Yes. We went to one ball together. He asked me because I was always in the library and never fangirled over him, and it didn't hurt that I was pretty to him. I accepted because nobody else had asked me yet, I didn't think anyone was going to ask me, and I didn't want to go by myself. That's all there was to it.
“And then, when you finally asked me, I'd already promised Viktor I'd go with him, and I didn't want to hurt his feelings by breaking that promise. Besides which, the way you asked me made me think you only asked me because you didn't have anyone else who was up to your standards.”
Ron had the decency, at least, to look abashedly down at his feet from this comment. “Sorry I was such a git, 'mione.”
“Apology heard. I'll consider accepting it on the condition you try to improve your behavior. And so you don't wonder what I mean, I mean not acting like a jealous git when you don't even have any legitimate claim to jealousy. Honestly, jealousy is never attractive, Ron. I like you as a friend, Ron, but I won't even consider dating you until you exorcise yourself of this jealousy.”
“I... buh... bwa?” Ron said.
“Eloquent as always, I see,” she said, but it was with a bit of a smirk.
“Hermione is right, Ron,” Luna said. “You're quite fanciable, except for that jealousy, and your inferiority complex. Which is completely unjustified, by the way. Yes, I know you want to outshine your brothers, but you're a chess prodigy and you've helped Harry defeat You-Know-Who twice now. You're great at tactics, too. When You-Know-Who returns, I can easily see you being like a general, helping Harry guide troops around against the enemy.”
Ron stared at Luna open-mouthed, but for once seeming to have a glimmer of believing her in his face. “You really think so, Luna?”
“I wouldn't say it if I didn't think it, Ron. Lying is against my nature.”
Ron blinked. “So you really do believe in all those weird creatures?”
While Harry and Hermione sighed and rolled their eyes, Luna smiled. “Yes, Ronald, I do. And as Harry pointed out once, if Muggles can spend their whole lives thinking unicorns and dragons are imaginary, and find out they're wrong later, then isn't it possible most wizards and witches might not know every creature there is to know?”
“Yeah,” Harry agreed. “And what's more, some mundane animals Muggles discover were thought to be imaginary for a long time. The mountain gorilla of Africa was long thought to be a myth told by locals until the Western scientists actually found and documented some of them. Who's to say there aren't magical animals currently thought to be myths, that will turn out to be real some day?”
Ron opened his mouth to respond, but he stopped when he noticed they were in Hogsmeade now.
“I really am sorry, Hermione, about being such a git during the Yule Ball.”
“I know. I provisionally accept your apology, Ron. Now let's go see if Hagrid is in the Three Broomsticks.”
“Yeah, sounds good.”
“By the way, you should apologize to Tracey Davis as well.”
“Er, yeah. I'll work on that.”
Hagrid wasn't in the Three Broomsticks, though. When Ron asked her, Madam Rosmerta said she hadn't seen him since before Skeeter's article came out, which for Hagrid was unusual. But they did see Ludo Bagman talking with a bunch of Goblins. Luna had her head cocked, listening in on the conversation, which was mostly in Gobbledygook, on the Goblins' side, and whispered on Bagman's side. Harry looked at her to try to guess how much she understood, but she gave up after a bit and said, “They're talking much too fast for me to pick up more than a few words. I think they're talking about money, though.”
Then Bagman spotted Harry, and stood up.
“In a moment, in a moment!” Harry heard him say brusquely to the goblins, and Bagman hurried through the pub toward Harry, his boyish grin back in place.
“Harry!” he said. “How are you? Been hoping to run into you! Everything going all right?”
“Fine, thanks,” said Harry.
“Wonder if I could have a quick, private word, Harry?” said Bagman eagerly. “You couldn’t give us a moment, you three, could you?”
“Luna and I are on a date, Mr. Bagman. And anyway, anything you say to me I'm just going to relay to my friends anyway. So you might as well just say it here and now.”
“Er, well... I mean, I don't really want certain people to overhear us, if you know what I mean. A certain reporter, you know...”
Harry took out his wand and casually cast several privacy spells around them.
“There you go, now you can speak freely.”
“Er... well okay, then,” Bagman said. “First, Harry, I just wanted to congratulate you on your splendid performance against that dragon. Quite clever and spectacular.”
“Thanks. But if you could get to the point soon, that would be helpful.”
Bagman didn’t seem in any particular rush to spill the beans, though. Harry saw him glance into the mirror over the bar at the goblins, who were all watching him and Harry in silence through their dark, slanting eyes.
“Absolute nightmare,” said Bagman to Harry in an undertone, noticing Harry watching the goblins too. “Their English isn’t too good … it’s like being back with all the Bulgarians at the Quidditch World Cup … but at least they used sign language another human could recognize. This lot keep gabbling in Gobbledegook … and I only know one word of Gobbledegook. 'Bladvak.' It means ‘pickax.’ I don’t like to use it in case they think I’m threatening them.”
Luna smiled at him. “I could translate for you, Mr. Bagman. The Goblins would have to speak more slowly so I can understand them, but I do speak fairly decent Gobbledygook.”
“Oh er, you do, do you? Um...” he seemed to mull it over a few moments before saying, “well uh... I mean, I uh, I can understand more of it than I can speak, so I know what they want. And I think they know English enough to understand it. So no thank you, I don't think that will be necessary, young lady. I thank you for the offer, though.”
“What is it they want?” Harry asked.
“Er — well …” said Bagman, looking suddenly nervous. “They … er … they’re looking for Barry Crouch.”
Luna frowned ever so slightly at this.
“Why are they looking for him here?” said Harry. “He’s at the Ministry in London, isn’t he?”
“Er … as a matter of fact, I’ve no idea where he is,” said Bagman. “He’s sort of … stopped coming to work. Been absent for a couple of weeks now. Young Percy, his assistant, says he’s ill. Apparently he’s just been sending instructions in by owl. But would you mind not mentioning that to anyone, you lot? Because Rita Skeeter’s still poking around everywhere she can, and I’m willing to bet she’d work up Barty’s illness into something sinister. Probably say he’s gone missing like Bertha Jorkins.”
“Have you heard anything about Bertha Jorkins?” Harry asked.
“No,” said Bagman, looking strained again. “I’ve got people looking, of course …” (About time, thought Harry) “and it’s all very strange. She definitely arrived in Albania, because she met her second cousin there. And then she left the cousin’s house to go south and see an aunt … and she seems to have vanished without trace en route. Blowed if I can see where she’s got to … she doesn’t seem the type to elope, for instance … but still. … What are we doing, talking about goblins and Bertha Jorkins? I really wanted to ask you” — he lowered his voice — “how are you getting on with your puzzle box?”
“Oh, we solved that one already,” Luna said. “Before the holidays, even. Yes, a Task modeled after the Odyssey, sounds like fun.”
“You solved it, then? Well did you work out what all the clues mean? Do you know where you have to go?”
“Yes. We start at the Forbidden Forest.”
“Yes, quite right. Well Harry, you know, I feel bad about you being roped into this thing against your will. I know you've got your friends to help, but you know, if you need any help at all, I'm willing and able to help out a little. Prod you in the right direction, maybe give you some spells to help out... what do you say?”
Hermione gasped. Harry beat her to talking, though, saying, “I'd say that sounds like cheating, Mr. Bagman. And while I do need all the help I can get to get through this alive, I don't need to win, I just need to get through it. Sure, I did well against the dragon, but that's no guarantee I'll be any good at the other two tasks.”
“Yes, which is why I'm offering to help you.”
“Are you sure, Mr. Bagman?” Luna asked. “Because the Goblins were saying something about money earlier, and given your sudden interest in helping Harry, it seems to me you might be betting on Harry to win.”
Bagman blanched. “I... what a thing... can't... preposterous! Simply absurd! Why would I do such a thing?”
“Well, you were taking bets at the World Cup.”
Looking sour, Bagman said, “Oh, you were there, weren't you?”
“I was dressed as a leprechaun,” Luna said brightly.
“Ah, yes. Well, would it be so bad if I were? Harry, you and I could both profit off this. If you win, you'd be safe, and we could both win a lot of money. There'd be enough for both of us to share.”
“No thank you, I don't need any money. Between the Potter vaults and Sirius's access to the Black family vault, I have more than enough money to be going on with.”
“Well you could always donate your winnings to St. Mungo's or some other worthy charity.”
Hermione said, “A Ministry official betting on this Tournament and trying to help their champion win is unethical enough as is, Mr. Bagman, without you asking Harry to bet on himself!”
“Yes,” Harry added, “and I don't think I have a chance of winning, honestly. I think you'd be better off betting I lose.”
“Oh really? Hmm... You know, Harry, if you were to throw the Tournament--”
“Can't. I have to do my best, remember? Could lose my magic or worse if I don't. So no, I'm not going to throw the Tournament.”
“Right, right, sorry about that, I quite forgot. Forget I mentioned it.”
“Have you offered Cedric help?” Harry asked.
The smallest of frowns creased Bagman’s smooth face. “No, I haven’t,” he said. “I — well, I mean, I’ve taken a liking to you. Just thought I’d offer...”
“Well thanks, but no thanks. I'm just trying to survive this thing, and if getting help from you means you're betting on me for any reason, my answer is no.”
“Hmph... well Harry, if you change your mind, here's my card. It's enchanted to buzz its brother in my pocket when you put your wand on it and say my name. I'll be able to turn up as quick as possible.”
Harry took the stiff cardboard business card with “Ludo Bagman, Head of Magical Games and Sports, British Ministry of Magic” written on it.
“Er, sure thing, Mr. Bagman.” He pocketed the card.
“Good, good. Well, it was nice talking with you, Harry,” Bagman said, getting up to return to the Goblins.
“He shouldn’t be doing that!” said Hermione once he was out of range, looking very angry. “He’s one of the judges!”
“The Ministry is very corrupt, Hermione,” Luna said. “It's the Rotfang Conspiracy, you know. They're working to bring down the Ministry of Magic from within using a combination of Dark Magic and gum disease.”
Hermione rolled her eyes.
“Well, I don’t think Dumbledore would like it if he knew Bagman was trying to persuade you to cheat, Harry!” said Hermione, still looking deeply disapproving. “And he's not even trying to help Cedric! I mean, apart from the unfairness of that, it'd be a much safer bet to bet that one of the Hogwarts Champions would win, and help both of you.”
Harry chuckled, then, remembering something.
“What's funny?” Hermione asked.
“Oh, it's just that I forgot in the heat of the moment that I'm planning on asking the judges to award me one point apiece no matter how well or badly I do, since I didn't want to be in this thing in the first place. The rules say I have to do my best, they don't say I have to win, or even that I have to try to win, just that I do my best.”
“Wouldn't asking for low scores on purpose be considered throwing the Tournament?” Hermione asked.
“No, I went over this with Ms. Pennyroyal. The points ultimately don't matter, they just determine the order the contestants take when going into the last Task. Someone who goes into the last Task in last place apparently stands just as much a chance of winning it as everyone else. It's a race of some kind, with obstacles, and there's a prize at the end. I can't hang back deliberately, but I don't need points.”
“Yes,” Luna said, “the points system was added a century after the first Tournament, and was never programmed into the Goblet. Daddy got me a book about the Tournament for Yule this year.”
“Ha!” Ron said. “Bagman's going to wet himself when Harry tells the judges to give him one point apiece!”
“Well, I could still win, this just makes it a little less likely. But yeah, he'll probably do his nut.”
“I wonder where Crouch is?” Hermione wondered.
Harry noticed Bagman leaving the pub; the Goblins followed after him, looking upset.
“Maybe Percy’s poisoning him,” said Ron. “Probably thinks if Crouch snuffs it he’ll be made head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation.”
Hermione gave Ron a don’t-joke-about-things-like-that look, and said, “Funny, goblins looking for Mr. Crouch. They’d normally deal with the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.”
“He only claims they're looking for Crouch,” Luna said.
“Crouch can speak loads of different languages, though,” said Harry. “Maybe they need an interpreter.”
“The Goblin Liason Office will have plenty of those already, Harry,” Luna said.
“Oh, right. Good point.”
“Worrying about poor ’ickle goblins, now, are you?” Ron asked Hermione. “Thinking of starting up S.P.C.G. or something? Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Ugly Goblins?”
“Ha, ha, ha,” said Hermione sarcastically. “Goblins don’t need protection. Haven’t you been listening to what Professor Binns has been telling us about goblin rebellions?”
“No,” said Harry and Ron together.
“Well, they’re quite capable of dealing with wizards,” said Hermione, taking another sip of butterbeer. “They’re very clever. They’re not like house-elves, who never stick up for themselves.”
“Uh-oh,” said Ron, staring at the door.
Rita Skeeter had just entered. She was wearing banana-yellow robes today; her long nails were painted shocking pink, and she was accompanied by her paunchy photographer. (The effect of such eye-watering colors was enough to make Harry physically ill at the sight of her.) She bought drinks, and she and the photographer made their way through the crowds to a table nearby where Harry, Ron, and Hermione glaring at her as she approached, with Luna ignoring her. Skeeter was talking fast and looking very satisfied about something.
“...didn’t seem very keen to talk to us, did he, Bozo? Now, why would that be, do you think? And what’s he doing with a pack of goblins in tow anyway? Showing them the sights … what nonsense … he was always a bad liar. Reckon something’s up? Think we should do a bit of digging? ‘Disgraced Ex-Head of Magical Games and Sports, Ludo Bagman...’ Snappy start to a sentence, Bozo — we just need to find a story to fit it —”
“Trying to ruin someone else’s life?” said Harry loudly.
“Harry, don't taunt Rita Skeeter,” Luna said. “Come on, let's go get something to eat at Brews and Stews Cafe.”
A few people looked around. Rita Skeeter’s eyes widened behind her jeweled spectacles as she saw who had spoken.
“Harry!” she said, beaming. “How lovely! Why don’t you come and join — ?”
“I wouldn’t come near you with a ten-foot broomstick,” said Harry furiously. “What did you do that to Hagrid for, eh?”
Rita Skeeter raised her heavily penciled eyebrows.
“Our readers have a right to the truth, Harry. I am merely doing my —”
“Who cares if he’s half-giant?” Harry shouted. “There’s nothing wrong with him! He's a big harmless teddy bear of a man!”
The whole pub had gone very quiet. Madam Rosmerta was staring over from behind the bar, apparently oblivious to the fact that the flagon she was filling with mead was overflowing. Luna stood up and took Harry's hand, trying to get him to stand up.
Rita Skeeter’s smile flickered very slightly, but she hitched it back almost at once; she snapped open her crocodile-skin handbag, pulled out her Quick-Quotes Quill, and said, “How about giving me an interview about the Hagrid you know, Harry? The man behind the muscles? Your unlikely friendship and the reasons behind it. Would you call him a father substitute?”
“I'm not giving you the time of day, you twist everything anyone says to you. If I have an interview to give, it'll be with Xeno Lovegood. In fact, Luna, I think I will give your dad an interview about Hagrid. You should send him a letter with your raven when we get back.”
“An excellent idea, Harry. Now let's get away from this woman.”
Hermione stood up very abruptly, her butterbeer clutched in her hand as though it were a grenade.
“You horrible woman,” she said, through gritted teeth, “you don’t care, do you, anything for a story, and anyone will do, won’t they? Even Ludo Bagman —”
“Sit down, you silly little girl, and don’t talk about things you don’t understand,” said Rita Skeeter coldly, her eyes hardening as they fell on Hermione. “I know things about Ludo Bagman that would make your hair curl … not that it needs it —” she added, eyeing Hermione’s bushy hair.
“Let’s go,” said Hermione, “c’mon, Harry — Ron, Luna …”
“Oh ho there,” Rita said, finally noticing that Harry and Luna were holding hands. “Trouble in paradise? You and Miss Granger break up, did you?”
“Not that it's any of your business, but Hermione and I were never romantically involved. I don't know who you got that load of rubbish from, Skeeter, but Luna is the only girl – the only person at all – that I've been romantically involved with, or wanted to be involved with. I may not be able to sue you for libel from anything you've said so far, but by gods I'm going to find a way to get you back!”
“Oh please, Harry, you're kidding yourself. Not even Dumbledore could stand up to the power of my quill if I set my mind to really going after him. What makes you think you stand a chance, hmm? Anyway, let's not be quarrelsome, Harry. Just tell me all about your love life, and I can make a very flattering article about the boy-who-lived and his, er, unique girlfriend.”
“The only thing I have to say to you, Rita, is 'sod off'!”
He grabbed Luna's hand and they left; many people were staring at them as they went. Harry glanced back as they reached the door. Rita Skeeter’s Quick-Quotes Quill was out; it was zooming backward and forward over a piece of parchment on the table.
“She'll be after both of you next, Hermione, Harry,” Ron said. “With a side order of Luna.”
“Let her try!” Harry and Hermione said in stereo.
“Silly little girl, am I?” Hermione said. “I'll show her! I'll get her back for this! First Harry, then Hagrid!”
“You don’t want to go upsetting Rita Skeeter,” said Ron nervously. “I’m serious, Hermione, she’ll dig up something on you —”
“My parents don’t read the Daily Prophet. She can’t scare me into hiding!” said Hermione, now striding along so fast that it was all the others could do to keep up with her.
“Yeah, and Sirius doesn't take anything she writes seriously,” Harry said.
“Maybe not, but I've known Mum to believe her before,” Ron said. “Not about Dad, of course, but she doesn't apply the same suspicion to Skeeter writing about others as she does about members of our family.”
Hermione wasn't listening. She said, “And Hagrid isn’t hiding anymore! He should never have let that excuse for a human being upset him! Come on!”
“Er, but Luna and I were gonna---”
“We can always come back, Harry. Hagrid is more important,” Luna said, following along as Hermione led them back up to the school.
“I thought you didn't like his teaching?” Ron accused her.
“I don't. But I still like Hagrid.”
They ended up practically running back to the castle, and over to Hagrid’s hut. Hermione started pounding on the door so hard Harry feared she'd knock it over. “Hagrid! Hagrid, that’s enough! We know you’re in there! Nobody who matters cares if your mum was a giantess, Hagrid! You can’t let that foul Skeeter woman do this to you! Hagrid, get out here, you’re just being —”
The door opened. Hermione said, “About ti — !” and then stopped, very suddenly, because she had found herself face-to-face, not with Hagrid, but with Albus Dumbledore.
“Good afternoon,” he said pleasantly, smiling down at them.
“We — er — we wanted to see Hagrid,” said Hermione in a rather small voice.
“Yes, I surmised as much,” said Dumbledore, his eyes twinkling. “Why don’t you come in?”
“Oh … um … okay,” said Hermione.
Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Luna stepped into the cabin; Fang launched himself upon Harry the moment he entered, barking madly and trying to lick his ears. Harry fended off Fang and looked around.
Hagrid was sitting at his table, where there were two large mugs of tea. He looked a real mess. His face was blotchy, his eyes swollen, and he had gone to the other extreme where his hair was concerned; far from trying to make it behave, it now looked like a wig of tangled wire.
“Hi, Hagrid,” said Harry.
Hagrid looked up.
“ ’Lo,” he said in a very hoarse voice.
Dumbledore closed the door and got tea and cakes for everyone with a twiddle or two of his wand. He magicked it all onto the table, and everyone sat down. There was a slight pause, and then Dumbledore said, “Did you by any chance hear what Miss Granger was shouting, Hagrid?”
Hermione went slightly pink, but Dumbledore smiled at her and continued, “Hermione, Harry, Luna, and Ron still seem to want to know you, judging by the way they were attempting to break down the door.”
“Of course we still want to know you!” Harry said, staring at Hagrid. “You don’t think anything that Skeeter cow — sorry, Professor,” he added quickly, looking at Dumbledore.
“I have gone temporarily deaf and haven’t any idea what you said, Harry,” said Dumbledore, twiddling his thumbs and staring at the ceiling.
“Er — right,” said Harry sheepishly. “I just meant — Hagrid, how could you think we’d care what that — woman — wrote about you?”
“Yes,” Luna said. “And Daddy taught me the Giant language. I'd be fascinated to speak with one sometime, if you know any full-blooded Giants.”
Two fat tears leaked out of Hagrid’s beetle-black eyes and fell slowly into his tangled beard.
“Living proof of what I’ve been telling you, Hagrid,” said Dumbledore, still looking carefully up at the ceiling. “I have shown you the letters from the countless parents who remember you from their own days here, telling me in no uncertain terms that if I sacked you, they would have something to say about it —”
“Not all of ’em,” said Hagrid hoarsely. “Not all of ’em wan’ me ter stay.”
“Really, Hagrid, if you are holding out for universal popularity, I’m afraid you will be in this cabin for a very long time,” said Dumbledore, now peering sternly over his half-moon spectacles.
“'You can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself,'” Luna quoted.
Dumbledore's blue eyes twinkled. “Quite right, Miss Lovegood. As I was saying, Hagrid, not a week has passed since I became headmaster of this school when I haven’t had at least one owl complaining about the way I run it. But what should I do? Barricade myself in my study and refuse to talk to anybody?”
“Yeh — yeh’re not half-giant!” said Hagrid croakily.
“Hagrid, look what I’ve got for relatives!” Harry said furiously. “Look at the Dursleys!”
“An excellent point,” said Professor Dumbledore. “My own brother, Aberforth, was prosecuted for practicing inappropriate charms on a goat. It was all over the papers, but did Aberforth hide? No, he did not! He held his head high and went about his business as usual! Of course, I’m not entirely sure he can read, so that may not have been bravery.”
I don't want to know, thought Harry.
“Yes, Hagrid. And Professor Flitwick is part Goblin,” Luna said. “I'm part Fair Folk myself, a changeling child. We're considered quite strange and unusual, you know.”
“Er, right,” Hermione said. She shook her head to clear it. “Come back and teach, Hagrid,” said Hermione quietly, “please come back, we really miss you.”
“Yes,” Luna added. “Your classes are quite interesting. Perhaps slightly too much so, but still, we miss you.”
Hagrid gulped. More tears leaked out down his cheeks and into his tangled beard.
Dumbledore stood up. “I refuse to accept your resignation, Hagrid, and I expect you back at work on Monday,” he said. “You will join me for breakfast at eight-thirty in the Great Hall. No excuses. Good afternoon to you all.”
Dumbledore left the cabin, pausing only to scratch Fang’s ears. When the door had shut behind him, Hagrid began to sob into his dustbin-lid-sized hands. Hermione kept patting his arm, and at last, Hagrid looked up, his eyes very red indeed, and said, “Great man, Dumbledore … great man …”
They ended up spending the rest of the afternoon with Hagrid to make sure he was calmed down and reassured. If Luna was disappointed, she showed no sign of it, talking with Hagrid about Giants and other creatures whenever she had the chance. Harry decided he'd make it up to her anyway, at some point. He just didn't know how, yet.
Endnotes: Okay, so there was a scene in chapter 12 where some people jumped when Harry spoke Parseltongue at breakfast, but of course in book 2 he managed to not reveal his Parseltongue ability to the whole school. Rather than assuming the cat is out of the bag after that breakfast scene, I'm going to go with “they thought it was the snake hissing, not Harry, due to their backs being turned,” because if the cat was out of the bag, that would have been a huge deal. Yes, Dumbledore knew, but he's discreet.
As to where Luna would have learned Parseltongue from if she's serious about Harry teaching it to her so she can lock her trunk with Parseltongue passwords: well, she's Luna; who knows where she hears most of the things that come out of her mouth? :)
Protego zygós (pro-tay-go zee-go-s) = A spell headcanon to this series. Protego on its own is of course the shield spell, but the “zygós” part is Greek (modern, I believe, since I used Google Translate) for “Libra” or “scales.”
The way I figure things for unicorns is that unicorns are symbollic of women and girls. They're both beautiful, and men covet them. (Here, the unicorn's horn represents a woman's power, and men tend to want to remove that.) As it is a fact of life that many men are dangerous around things they covet, in this version of the Potterverse, unicorns and witches formed an alliance of mutual protection. Unicorns are, thus, capable of not just determining gender but also capable of determining trustworthiness. So in this version of the Potterverse, someone like Xeno Lovegood could approach a unicorn without making them skittish, because he strikes me as the type of man who respects both unicorns and women. (But nobody knows this yet because the men who might be accepted are operating under the assumption unicorns don't like men.)
The unicorn doesn't know what to make of Harry's gender, but can "smell" that he's trustworthy, so it basically does the unicorn equivalent of shrugging and saying "Eh, I'll take a chance."
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Four.
Or, "Autistic Potter and the Goblet of Fire."
Notes: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made. Not by me, anyway.
There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though, but there's a lot more in this one than usual because it was unavoidable. Still, lots of details are changed, so don't skip by familiar parts or you might miss something.
Just as a reminder, so I don't have to shoehorn in descriptions in the text of the story as a reminder, but in this fanfic Harry and Hermione, apart from having Asperger's Syndrome, are both black as well. Oh, and Luna has Asperger's as well, but as far as I'm concerned, that's just a part of canon, as Rowling heavily implied it. For this story, Luna is undiagnosed, as her father thinks she's part faery creature, a changeling child (but considers that a good thing for reasons).
'Italicized text between single quotes is almost always Parseltongue.'
Another note: Because it's been years since I read the Odyssey, and because I think the organizers wouldn't want someone familiar with the Odyssey to have too much of an edge over someone who wasn't, I'm going to be only *loosely* basing the Second Task off the Odyssey, and partially the Iliad. So don't have a fit if it's out of order or something. :)
Trigger warning: Harry has another panic attack in this one. Not long after the second time he goes into the Forbidden Forest. There's a note in text about where it begins, which also mentions where to jump ahead to.
Chapter 17: “The Second Task”
Harry, with the help of his friends, trained for the Second Task by practicing a bunch of different spells that might be useful for it, even though they weren't entirely sure what it would entail. He also started to go for runs around the grounds to build up his physical strength, since there was no telling how much or how little physical activity there would be needed. When circumstances didn't permit him to do that, he climbed up and down the Hogwarts stairs instead, since at least part of the Task would be up in the mountains.
Antigone had thought about the theme of the task, and since the theme involved going a long distance away by boat, likely representing the original journey to Troy, she thought that he might need to trick his way into someplace, or out of it if there was a part representing the cyclops. This was good to know, but he wasn't sure what to do with the information. If invisibility wouldn't work, there were glamours, but he was still very new to those. If he had some idea what kind of glamour he would need. But glamours weren't in the usual syllabus for Hogwarts, so he decided not to worry about it, he didn't think they'd require the use of magic that wasn't even taught at Hogwarts.
Ms. Pennyroyal found out some more rules about the Second Task. He wouldn't be allowed his familiar; while most modern “familiars” were mere pets, there was enough of a history of familiars being able to help their masters that, given the age of the Triwizard Tournament, it was considered cheating to use a familiar. There would also be wards against summoning, and since Fleur was a Veela, wards against Veela shape-shifting.
When Harry wondered to himself why there were anti-summoning charms, he thought it must be so the Champions didn't summon a broomstick to fly ahead of each other. This was confirmed when Ms. Pennyroyal said there would also be wards against casting flying charms. But she didn't mention the Featherlight Charm, so that might still be on the table.
Hagrid returned to work, as Dumbledore had told him. He seemed in a lot better spirits. Thankfully, he had also given up on the skrewts, and they were studying unicorn foals, which were easier to see and didn't mind boys as much.
As the Second Task approached, Harry got more and more nervous. The clue had still been rather vague, and he still didn't know if he was going to be able to get through the task unscathed, since he didn't know what all it entailed. But he kept up his training regimen, and that helped calm him down some.
The Thursday before the Second Task, Moody asked him to hang back after class to talk with him. Harry did, coming up to the desk curious what Moody wanted to talk about.
“Yes, Professor?”
“Potter, just a little bit of general advice for the upcoming Second Task, and life in general: if you can't out-fight an opponent, and running away isn't an option, trick the bugger. If someone's in the way, you don't necessarily have to fight them, is my point.”
“Er... okay, Professor. That's good advice.”
“Especially for you. You may be a Griffindor, but I've heard you've learned some Slytherin cunning from those friends of yours. Use that brain of yours to your advantage, laddie.”
“Right. Thanks, Professor.”
“No problem, Potter. Oh and by the way, if you can't find the Lovegood girl the morning of the Second Task, it's because she's your hostage.”
Harry thanked Moody again and went to dinner.
With that vague bit of advice, Harry started to worry even more than he had, as it seemed to indicate there might be something in the Task he wouldn't be able to fight. With that in mind, he decided to use his brain another way: re-purpose his plan for the First Task. There were lots of things glamours could work on, and he still had the knowledge of how to do that mirror glamour. He wouldn't be able to summon anything, but there was bound to be wood, or stone at least, that he could use. Stone was harder to carve with magic, and stone runes carved that way required a strong “finite” spell cast on them before they could be used, so the magic that carved them wouldn't contaminate the runes... but it was doable. He added “practice carving runes in stone with magic” to his list of preparations.
~
As it turned out, Moody was right about Luna not being there in the Great Hall at breakfast. He looked around the room throughout breakfast and noticed Cho Chang and Hermione were missing. Harry groaned inwardly at that; with Hermione gone, that had to mean Hermione was Krum's hostage. Ron and Draco were both going to be impossible to be around for a while after today.
When breakfast ended, everyone in the school went to the Quidditch pitch, except for himself, Cedric, Krum, Fleur, and the hostages that had been taken. The “Champions” went instead to the Forbidden Forest by Hagrid's hut, where four viking-style boats waited for them. It was a bit out of touch with the Greek theme of the Task, but Harry didn't mind. After all, it wasn't like he'd be able to recognize an Ancient Greek boat if he saw one.
Also waiting for them was Sirius, Mr. Bagman, Ms. Selby, and a swarm of a dozen golden flying things Harry thought were snitches at first, until he saw they were flying omnioculars. Ms. Selby scanned Harry and the other Champions for unauthorized devices or other cheating items. Finding none, she nodded at Bagman. He just stood there looking impatient for a few minutes before Ms. Selby's robes made a buzzing sound. She got a two-way mirror out of her pocket, and the person on the other side said all the audience was in place. She nodded at Bagman again.
Bagman cast 'sonorous' on his throat so it would sound like a loudspeaker, then said, “Welcome, Champions! See these flying omnioculars? These have been generously donated to us by Dreyfuss Artificing, and they mean you're already being watched by the crowd gathered in the Quidditch pitch.
“Now, there will be three of these for each of you, though if you're all in one group, some of them will hang back a bit so as to not crowd the air. Still, they'll follow you so everyone can see up close and personal what you're all doing. They've been enchanted with an eavesdropping spell as well, so the crowd will be able to hear everything you say. That includes whispers, so keep that in mind. Are you all ready?”
Cedric, Fleur, and Krum nodded. Harry shook his head. “I want to make an announcement before the Task starts.”
Bagman looked at Ms. Selby, confused. She looked confused, too.
“What kind of announcement? You can say now, the omnioculars are listening.”
“I did not put my name in the goblet of fire. I don't want to be here, but I've been bound by a magical contract to do so against my will, which honestly is terrifying, the implications as well as the tournament itself. But since nobody has believed me so far except friends and family and some of the teachers, I want to state that my solicitor, Ms. Pennyroyal, found out that while I am being forced to do my hardest to get through these tasks alive, the points system is relatively new and is not enforced by the Goblet of Fire. Since the points don't matter, aren't needed to win, and serve only to decide the order of who goes into the last Task, I hereby ask all the judges to award me no more than one point for this Task, no matter how well or badly I do.”
Bagman turned pale at this, and sweat beaded on his forehead. “Oh now, Mr. Potter, you can't possibly mean that!” he said.
“I do very much mean that, Mr. Bagman. Every year I've been at Hogwarts so far, there has been one crisis after another. Quirrell nearly killed me when we fought over the Philosopher's Stone. I nearly died at the hands of Lord Voldemort, who was the Heir of Slytherin in our second year. And the third year... was complicated.
“The point is, I wanted nothing more than a quiet year this year, for once. I wanted to watch from the stands with everyone else as Cedric competed in this tournament, and once more someone has conspired against me. Cedric Diggory is the true Hogwarts champion. Not only do I want no points, I also refuse the title of 'Champion' and insist on being called a 'participant' instead. And since I don't have any need of the 1000 galleon prize money or the Triwizard Cup either, if by some bizarre happenstance I win the Tournament, I will be giving both the prize money and the Triwizard Cup to the runner up. In short, if I happen to somehow win, I plan to forfeit that win. Since the contract only says I have to try my hardest to win, then as long as I do that, I can forfeit the win after the fact if necessary. I hope it isn't necessary. I want someone else to win. I just want to survive this bloody thing.”
Cedric and the other Champions all looked at Harry with wide-eyed disbelief. Sirius guffawed at Harry's speech, and laughed even harder at Bagman's look of horror. Bagman looked like he was going to be violently ill, in fact. He tried to argue with Harry again, but Ms. Selby cut him off.
“Enough, Mr. Bagman. Mr. Potter has made his position on the matter very clear, and his solicitor did inform me a few weeks ago of Mr. Potter's plans. I, for one, will be honoring Mr. Potter's wishes. Now let's not waste any more time. Tell the Cham--- I mean, tell the three Champions and our unwilling participant what they have to do for this Task.”
Still looking pale, Bagman nonetheless did as he was told.
“Um... right. Yes... of course... um... so there are these four boats, one for each Champion. And... and one for Mr. Potter as well. Um... and you... you get in the boats, and they will fly you to your first destination, which will be up in the mountains. There will be several locations you'll be going to during the course of the event, each one with a key to get into the next location. The third and final key opens the last location, where the hostages will be.
“To make things fair, there are spells on all the areas of the Second Task that prevent Summoning, and to prevent the casting of flying charms – though the levitation spell Wingardium Leviosa is an exception to that. Also, there will be a ward against shape-changing, which includes human transfiguration. Mr. Black, who is Mr. Potter's emotional health monitor, will be able to change into his animagus form here, but will not be able to become human again until they reach the Quidditch pitch.
“There will be obstacles along the way, as well as temptations. And knowing the Illiad and the Odyssey won't be as much of an edge as one would think, since this Task is only loosely based on the Odyssey. The quests within the Task might be familiar, but they are not necessarily in order, and not necessarily what you would expect.
“Anyway... are you lot all ready?”
When the three Champions and Harry nodded, Bagman – still looking ill – said, “Well, all our cham-- er, participants are ready for the second task, which will start on my whistle. They have precisely an hour to recover their hostage. On the count of three, then. One … two … three!”
The whistle blew, and Harry raced onto his boat along with the others, the taller boys getting into theirs much faster than Harry with his short legs. Even Fleur got into her boat faster, as she just jumped in one graceful attempt, pivoting on her hand as it clutched the side of the boat. Sirius, being disallowed from helping, jumped into the boat and waited while Harry struggled. Then Harry nearly hit himself when he realized the solution. He got out his wand, cast the Featherlight Charm on himself, and pulled. He was finally in the boat, the other three boats flying up, up, and away already, but he had to cancel the charm when he got in so he didn't get blasted out by a stiff breeze.
When his feet hit solid wood with a thump, Padfoot (Sirius's dog form) barked happily and the boat finally flew up into the air, far behind the other three. The boats seemed to be steering themselves, for Harry wasn't doing anything but sitting there waiting. He looked up and saw three flying omnioculars buzzing around his boat. He felt his cheeks warm up as he realized how he'd just made himself look foolish in front of the whole school, and who knew how many other people who had come to watch.
The boat soared high above the castle of Hogwarts, over the Quidditch pitch (which had been covered in what looked like wood, but he could still see the stands), and over part of the Black Lake until it landed at the shore of the lake. It hit the ground with a gentle thump, and Harry repeated his trick with the Featherlight charm to get out of it again. The three Champions were already well ahead of him.
It seemed there were four different possible paths. Three of them had brick walls in front of them, though, so he went with the only one that was available. As soon as he went through, he saw where the walls had come from; each path was intended for one participant apiece, and no more than that.
Padfoot, his tongue lolling, ran ahead (stopping now and then to look back at Harry). But this path wasn't easy. It was rocky and dusty, and he'd barely gone ten feet before it started to turn into a climb. Looking ahead, Harry didn't think there was any part of the path that he wouldn't be able to get through, but it would be difficult. Unless...
He tried casting the Featherlight charm on himself again, but nothing happened. He supposed that made sense, for multiple reasons. So he internally shrugged and kept going, picking up nice flat stones every now and then and putting them in his pockets for later use.
By now, Harry could only see one of the Champions ahead of him. He thought it was Krum, but he wasn't sure at this distance.
Towards the end of the climb, the path got so steep that Harry had to climb on all fours to keep making progress. He looked down behind him briefly. It was a long fall, but if he fell, it wasn't likely to be any worse than rolling the entire way down the hill again. In fact, it was giving him a few ideas for getting back down to the boat again, if he needed to.
He got to a shelf of rock on the mountain and saw a small stone fortress in the distance. It was a flat route now to the thing, so he took off running, Padfoot at his heels. He was almost there when he slid to an abrupt halt, just barely missing the pointy end of a spear that the suit of armor guarding the door had held out toward him. It moved, jabbing the spear at him. He ducked out of the way and scrambled to get away. When he was a few more feet away, the suit of armor went back into place in front of the door.
“Well, this is just great. How the bloody hell do I fight a suit of armor?”
Padfoot, unable to talk, just whined sympathetically.
A glint of gold caught Harry's eye, and he noticed the flying omnioculars again.
“Oh. I just cussed in front of the whole school, didn't I? Oh well. Gotta think how to get past this suit of armor.”
Deciding to be tricky, he sneaked around the edge of the shelf that bordered more mountain, trying to get close enough to the armor for it to be in range of his spell, but not so close it attacked. When he finally got to the right position, he cast “Bombarda!”
The suit of armor clanged like a bell, but didn't move more than an inch or three. It turned to face him and started running at him with its spear out. He put more power into the spell, and when that didn't work any better, he tried other spells he knew. Exploding spells, gouging spells, nothing. Not even a Disarming Charm or the Dry-Bite Hex worked. He tried attacking the ground around the armor, but it deftly avoided the holes he was putting there. So since none of that was working, he ran out of range again. Thankfully, the armor went back into its place in front of the door again.
Harry looked around at his surroundings a bit more carefully now. It was a mountain shelf, the only other things on it being the suit of armor and a stone building barely the size of Hagrid's cabin. Well, that and a few scraggly patches of grass. Also a lot of rocks. Some of which were big enough to be boulders.
“Hmm...” he judged the distance with his eyes, thinking. After a few minutes, he came to a decision and ran over to one of the smaller boulders. The armor looked in his direction for a moment, then returned to normal.
With his wand, Harry cut a piece of cloth off his robes and tied it around his mouth and nose. He took another piece from his other sleeve, and put it best he could over Padfoot's nose and mouth, Padfoot looking at him in confusion. Once that was done, he started carving a rune into the stone with his wand. If he did this right, he could kill two birds with one stone, pun intended.
This was taking him longer than he'd hoped it would, carving runes for levitation into the boulder, but after a lot of hard work, he had it. He cleared the runes of magic to prevent contamination, then empowered them with several instances of Wingardium Leviosa, two for each of the three runes. With each rune empowered, part of the flat-topped boulder lifted up, until the whole thing was floating a few inches above the air. Then he moved over to a place on the cliff's side of the armor. Since Summoning wasn't an option, he tried a spell he'd learned on the off chance he'd need to swing across a ravine: it created a whip that flew from his wand and wrapped itself around the boulder, so he just had to yank on the wand to pull the floating boulder over to himself.
When everything was in position, he undid the whip spell, judged the angles with his eyes, and then used a Banishing charm to send the boulder flying and crashing into the suit of armor, pinning it against one of the walls. Seizing his chance, he ran up to the door and turned the handle. He was inside! Padfoot barked and followed him inside.
As the door shut behind them, Harry realized this room had to be magically expanded, since it was a large room resembling a field full of flowers growing on a hill. There was a dais at the top of the small hill, that much was plain from here. That had to have the first key on it.
“Accio key,” he tried. It didn't work, but it had been worth a try. “Well, I guess we go through this meadow of flowers to get there, Padfoot.” Padfoot whuffed acknowledgement, and followed Harry up the small hill.
Harry couldn't help but think there was something familiar about this, but he couldn't place it. Not until he started to feel his eyelids drooping and realized he was on his knees. Padfoot shook his head to try to clear it.
“Oh,” Harry said drowsily. “Now I know why this is familiar. Wizard of Oz. The poppy field. But why...? Oh right, the lotus eaters. Loosely... based...”
Padfoot fell asleep, his tongue lolling as he lay on his back, his legs splayed. “Rennervate,” Harry cast, and Padfoot was up like a shot, looking annoyed he'd fallen asleep, but immediately beginning to feel drowsy again.
Harry slapped himself on the face and kept climbing the hill. Every now and then he had to wake up Padfoot or slap himself on the face again, but they finally got up to the top of the hill, and the dais on it. There was a box there, shaped like a Trojan horse. Harry opened the box and took out the key, putting it in his pocket. Then he levitated Padfoot and pulled him down the hill at a run. He fell, making Padfoot yelp in alarm, though the face-full of dirt Harry got woke him up again pretty well, and the two of them staggered the rest of the way down the hill and back out the door.
The soporific effect of the flowers ended the moment they got out into the fresh air again. The suit of armor was no longer pinned, but it was just sitting on the ground, somehow managing to look annoyed. The levitating stone was still there.
“Up on the stone, Padfoot. I have a plan. A cunning plan.”
Padfoot whined, but jumped up on the stone. Harry climbed up with a bit more difficulty, then used a Sticking Charm on both himself and Padfoot, to keep them on the stone. Then, with the whip spell, he grabbed the stump of a dead tree and pulled. Padfoot whined even more now, covering his eyes as they approached the edge of the rock shelf.
“Don't worry, the boulder is stablllllLLLLEEEEE!!!” His sentence morphed into a scream as they fell over the edge and started rocketing down the path at top speed. They bumped up and down, side to side against some kind of invisible ward, and went sailing through the air at one point, coming down with a hard thump that scraped the bottom of the boulder, and kept going, Padfoot howling and Harry screaming all the way down.
It was only as the brick wall came into view that Harry realized he'd forgotten about that. Their screams/howls intensified, and Harry closed his eyes. But they didn't hit anything. He risked opening his eyes again, just in time to see they were about to hit the boat. The wooden boat.
With a quick Banishing charm, he stopped their momentum. Only the Sticking Charm kept them from continuing on face-first into the boats.
Wait, boats plural? Were he and Padfoot the first ones back? He counted quickly. Yes, there were still four boats. Never mind that, he thought. He undid the Sticking Charm on Padfoot, who immediately leaped into the boat to cower inside it. Then he undid the charm on himself as well, and jumped from the floating boulder into the boat.
It floated up for a moment, then touched down on the water. A pair of oars lifted up from the bottom of the boat and attached themselves to the oar placements on the sides of the boat.
“I guess I have to do it the Muggle way. I wish I knew a spell to make the oars paddle themselves.”
Glancing up, he saw that the flying omnioculars were buzzing around them again. Though he realized, now, that the things had kept pace with them even as they'd zoomed down the mountain. Impressive.
He was about to paddle himself until he had a thought, and decided to try it out. Just to see if it would work, he tapped the oars with his wand, and they started to paddle by themselves.
“Oh. Well that's convenient.” He really hadn't fancied his chances of paddling by hand.
They were nearly twenty feet from shore when Cedric came running down the path, the brick wall disappearing as he approached it. A moment later, Fleur came through, then Krum. They all stared for a moment between the still-floating boulder and Harry out on the water, before coming to their senses and jumping easily into the boats.
“Hmm... I wonder if I can make this thing go faster?”
Harry tapped the oars again with his wand, but that made them stop, so he got them started again. It seemed there was one speed only on these boats, unless...
Krum grabbed the oars himself and began to paddle, going faster than the boat did on its own. Fearing the Goblet might punish him if he didn't, Harry also started paddling manually, but his arms hurt so badly so quickly that he just went back to letting the oars do it themselves. Cedric looked to be having the same issue, but Fleur was a lot stronger than she looked, for she was overtaking Krum, who glared at her, and tried hexing her with his wand. But the spell splashed against some kind of invisible shield instead of hitting her, so he gave that up.
They were beginning to approach an island on the lake that Harry was sure hadn't been there the day before. He squinted at it and saw what looked like Luna standing there, waving at him with a smile on her face. He waved back, smiling, but Padfoot was looking at him in a puzzled way. Padfoot looked at the island, let out a yelp, and started trying to jump out of the boat. Harry grabbed onto his shoulders and kept him inside the boat, wondering why Padfoot was so excited to see Luna.
He looked up, and saw Fleur was rowing harder than ever toward the island, shouting something Harry couldn't hear for some reason. All he could hear, aside from wind and the water noises, was Luna calling to him. He started to row harder himself, he had to get to Luna first.
SPLASH!
Harry broke out of a reverie when Krum jumped out of the boat to swim to the island. This seemed very odd to Harry, so he tried focusing on his Occlumency. He wasn't very good at it yet, it was challenging despite Dumbledore being a very good teacher, but he had gotten good enough he started to see what was really on the island: absolutely nothing.
“It's a trap! There's nothing there!”
No sooner had Harry said this than the water rose sharply as something within it displaced water on its way up. He shouted at the others to try to warn them, but nobody was paying attention. Fleur was on the island, desperately feeling around for someone who wasn't there, crying and shouting. Cedric was angrily shooting spells at Fleur and missing by a wide margin, and Krum was starting to slow down in the water. Harry realized the water had to be freezing cold, it was February in Scotland after all. Not caring about winning, or about what was coming up out of the depths toward them, he cast the whip spell at Krum, trying to pull him out of the water before he got hypothermia. Harry missed the first time and the second time, but got him on the third try and pulled him into the boat, snapping Padfoot out of his own vision just as he was about to try jumping overboard again.
WHOOSH! Something reared out of the water, nearly capsizing Harry's boat. Cedric went flying as his own boat capsized, and Fleur got doused with freezing water, snapping her out of her vision as she turned to see what had gotten her wet. Soaked and shivering, she looked up wide-eyed in terror along with Harry at the sight before them.
He'd been expecting the giant squid, but it was an enormous water serpent instead. It looked like a cobra rearing out of the water, but with a weird fleshy plume on its head. It flicked its tongue at them, flared its hood, and opened its mouth.
By instinct, forgetting he was being watched and listened to by the whole school, forgetting he was trying to keep it a secret, Harry spoke Parseltongue at the thing.
'DOWN! LEAVE US ALONE!'
The giant water-snake turned its head to look at him.
'A Speaker? Well now that's a surprise. But why should I listen to you? You are tasty meat, as are the others.'
'I'm a magic-stick wielder,' he said, his wand pointing at it. He'd been trying to say “wizard,” but Parseltongue didn't exactly have a word for that. 'I can hurt you with my magic stick!'
The snake looked annoyed at him, but it backed off. 'Oh fine, ruin my fun then. It's just as well, I wasn't really very hungry anyway.'
And with that, the enormous water serpent plunged back into the depths of the lake. With that done, Harry looked up to see how the others were doing. Krum, still shivering, was looking at him with fear, but a fear that Harry thought might be tempered with respect and gratitude. Harry dried Krum off with a spell from his wand that Hermione had taught him once.
Looking over for the others, Harry saw Cedric climbing back into his boat, using the same spell to dry himself off. Fleur was still on the island, staring at Harry in awe and fear.
“I spoke Parseltongue while those omnioculars were watching, didn't I?” he asked Krum and Padfoot. They both nodded.
“Damn,” Harry said. “Oh well.”
Harry used his wand to make the whip spell so he could drag Krum's boat over to his. Somehow, Krum's boat had righted itself, even though it was full to the brim with water. Probably magic. Krum used his wand to make the water start pouring itself overboard, getting back on his own boat once it was empty. Cedric was already under way again. Fleur was using the same whip spell to pull her boat over to the island so she could leave. As soon as Krum was on his own boat, Harry tapped his oars and continued forward.
“Well, that cat's out of the bag now,” Harry told Padfoot glumly as they waited for the boat to finish rowing over the Black Lake. “Unless all twelve omnioculars stopped working at the same time?” he added hopefully. But seeing as the things were quite clearly still flying around, that didn't seem very likely.
~
Over in the stands, Harry's friends had been watching the Tournament on the giant Jumbotron-looking magic mirrors that showed all four participants. A lot of people in the crowd had laughed at Harry trying to get into the boat and back out again. Knott and his cronies mocked Harry for being unable to stop the suit of armor with just his wand, as the other three had done. But really, the other three were much older and more skilled with magic. Harry, for all he was ahead of those in his year, was still only 14. There was only so much power someone that young could reasonably be expected to be able to channel.
While the room of poppies had been kind of dull, the crowd was nearly unanimous in its alarm at Harry's stupid idea of riding a floating rock down the side of a mountain like some kind of suicidal maniac. Nearly everyone screamed. Quite a few people fainted, including Professor McGonagall. Some of Harry's friends cried. Ron was going to kick Harry in the bum for being that stupid and reckless, and Draco was going to be there to hold Harry down.
As reckless as it was, it had bought him time. He'd spent so much time carving those three runes into that stone to deal with the suit of armor that if he hadn't ridden the bloody stone down the side of the bloody mountain (a phrase that had the same emotional impact to his friends every time they thought it as the event itself had done), he would have ended up getting into his boat about the time the other three finished the Task!
It was hard to count how many people were shouting at the screens when Harry and the Champions started seeing some kind of alluring illusion on that island. There were more screams and faintings when the Selma rose out of the water, looking like a giant water cobra with a fleshy crest on its head. The moment Harry's friends saw it, Antigone said “Oh shit. Oh god. He's gonna--”
When he spoke Parseltongue at it, even Bagman's running commentary on the match – which had barely paused the whole time – abruptly stopped. It was so quiet in the stands you could've heard a pin drop. Antigone wasn't alone among Harry's friends in putting her face in her hands and groaning. Especially once the frightened whispers and alarmed cries started up.
“Well that cat's out of the bag now,” they heard Harry say, once his boat was under way again.
“No shit, Harry,” Danzia said. “No shit.”
~
When the boats landed on shore again and they got out of the boats, they found four more paths like on the mountain, all of them blocked off from on another. Harry followed the paths with his eyes and saw their destination was the Whomping Willow. This was a violent tree that liked to swing its branches around like curled up fists at anything that approached it. Harry looked at Padfoot, who was wagging his tail and lolling his tongue. Harry grinned at him and they ran ahead into one of the paths, since Harry already knew how to get past the Willow.
When Harry got to the end of his path, there was a stone pillar there. He didn't know what it did at first, as the way ahead was blocked from view by a brick wall. But after a moment, the stone pillar spoke a riddle to him.
“Fists fly at the rage of this violent tree,
But there's a way past it if you stick with me.
Wood you believe a first-year student could find the way?
I would knot kid you about that, okay!”
“Yeah yeah,” Harry said impatiently. “I already know how to get past the Whomping Willow. Get on with it!”
The brick wall disappeared and Harry surged forward. Padfoot hung back. Padfoot had been the one to let Harry through before. This time, though, Harry cast a Sumerian Strike Hex at the knot that froze the tree. The simple hex, which felt like being punched, activated the knot. Harry ran up to the hole that was the entrance, Padfoot coming in behind him.
There were four doors here, which he could see because there was a diffuse magical light coming from the walls and ceiling of the passageway. One door already had an X over it. Harry tried the other three with the key he'd procured on the flowered hill until he found one that unlocked. He and Padfoot surged through it, the door closing behind them and the key switching to being in the inside keyhole of the lock. He guessed this meant they'd be coming back this way, later. Which was pretty obvious now he thought of it.
Going through the passage between the tree and the Shrieking Shack was long and dull as he remembered. It wasn't nearly as long a trip as the one to Honeyduke's was, but still, long enough.
When they came out of the path, they were faced with an unfamiliar entrance into the shack. Harry supposed that if they were trying to keep the participants from interfering with one another as much as possible, that Dumbledore or someone with the school had added extra routes into the Shrieking Shack, at least on a temporary basis. So Harry opened the entrance with his wand and looked up.
“Hominem revelio,” he cast. The spell couldn't get past the walls of the room the entrance led into, but nobody was in there, so he took a chance and poked his head up into the room.
The room was huge, had to have been expanded again, but what stood out the most to Harry was a familiar sight: Fluffy, Hagrid's three-headed dog. The dog's three heads all growled and barked at Harry, who ducked back into the passageway.
Ignoring for now the question of where Fluffy had been kept this entire time, Harry considered his options. Music was the answer. Then he noticed he'd gone right by another of those talking stone columns. He got closer to it, and it began to speak, but by the fifth word, Harry knew it was just going to tell him more stuff he already knew, so he went back.
Sighing as he looked at the flying omnioculars again, knowing what he would have to do, he screwed up his courage and popped back into the room in front of Fluffy. The cerberus had barely begun to growl when Harry began to sing a very poorly-remembered and tone-deaf version of “Don't Fear The Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult.
As predicted, Fluffy fell asleep at once. Harry kept singing, Padfoot joining in with a howl here and there, as Harry looked around the room for a trap door or something. And he found a trap door alright, but it was in the ceiling. Still singing, he popped it open with his wand, and a ladder descended on its own at a quick but measured speed. Harry didn't keep singing until after he had gotten both himself and Padfoot up the ladder into the room above.
When he closed the trap door again, he looked around the new room. There were four vampires in here, three men and one woman. They were pale and gaunt, and had visible fangs. The female vampire was sort of pretty, despite being plainly not human, but she was pretty in the way a tiger or a great white shark was pretty... beautiful but deadly.
“Um... do I have to fight you?” he asked the vampires, hoping the answer was 'no.'
“No,” said the female vampire. “Your journey below the earth represents Odysseus's trip to Hades. My brothers in blood represent the dead, while I represent the blind, dead prophet Teiresias, whom Odysseus sought for information about his trip home.”
Harry nodded. The trip to the mountains and up to the stone shack had represented Odysseus going to Troy for the Trojan War, that part combined with the lotus eaters. Then the island could have represented Circe, and the sea serpent probably represented Scylla and Charybdis.
“Okay,” he said. “So I'm ready for your information.”
She smirked at him, and began to recite a poem riddle:
“Deep in the dark of a sea of green,
That is where we set the scene.
Journey inside to a cavern to know
Where it is you need to go.
“You'll have no ship, for he did not,
While you seek what needs be sought.
In there you'll find a key to take,
If you do not first make a giant mistake.
“Take your treasure and flee for your life,
Going home like Odysseus went to his wife.
You'll need both pieces to finish, won't that be fun?
All the while helped by no-one.
“Once your treasure is in your grip,
Only then will you find your ship.
And once in your boat you may depart
To seek out the truest treasure of your heart.”
Harry used his wand to conjure a piece of parchment, a quill, and ink so he could write it down. He had her repeat the poem a couple times to make sure he had it, before he thanked her and left.
Thankfully, the exit wasn't past Fluffy; it was a simple door that had another route to the passageway. Harry was very thankful he didn't need to sing again. He and Padfoot went back down the passageway, out the door at the end, and up into the open air. Harry paused to press the knot on the tree before he and Padfoot went toward Hagrid's hut.
Harry was trying to get to the Forbidden Forest, of course, and Hagrid's hut was the closest landmark to the forest that they knew of. It was a bit of a long shot, but it was logical, and anyway--
“Oh, whadda ya know,” Harry said, as they spotted a sign not far from the cabin that pointed into the Forbidden Forest.
~
Fred and George looked at each other, impressed, as Harry was the second person past the Willow, though the feed from the omnioculars had blacked out for the riddle and the solutions, only resuming when the participants were underground. Fred and George figured Dumbledore hadn't wanted people to know how to get down there, but Fred and George could ask Harry what he'd done.
A lot of people were further surprised when Harry plainly knew how to get past the three-headed dog, too. Even his friends cringed at his singing, and Knott and his cronies were laughing. But bad as it was, it worked, and Harry was the first person past the beast. But where Harry's trap door was in the ceiling, Krum's was in the floor. Krum was the second to get past Fluffy, using three overpowered stunners, one for each head.
When Krum got into his trapdoor, some spell automatically woke up Fluffy, and Fleur was next up. She sang, of course, and beautifully. Most of the boys and men in the stands, and a few of the girls, were entranced as she sang Fluffy to sleep, and slipped past him to a secret door in the wall behind Fluffy. The walls rotated once when she left.
Cedric was last past Fluffy. He transfigured a stone into an oboe and played Fluffy a lullabye with it. There was another door behind Fluffy that Cedric went through, but since the walls had rotated, it went to a different chamber.
In the same order, the four participants exited through their different paths around Fluffy, and all eventually made it back up into the sunlight, and over to the Forbidden Forest.
~
Harry and Padfoot ran past the sign and into the forest, along the path. There were more arrow signs here, and they kept following the path. Harry thought they might be going deeper into the forest, but also felt like they were going north, which if true was well away from the nest of giant talking spiders Hagrid was responsible for. Harry thanked the gods for that favor.
At one point, Harry found a spot where the path split into four directions. One was crossed out with an X. Harry heard noise behind him, someone coming through the trees, and saw Cedric. Fleur was hot on his tail. Harry picked a direction and went, Padfoot right behind him. Cedric and Fleur went in different directions, and soon they lost each other in the dense forest.
After a few more minutes of running – how long exactly he wasn't sure – they came to a clearing. There was a cave entrance visible in the middle of it, but it was guarded by a massive security troll. Harry hid behind a tree before it could see him, Padfoot joining him.
His mind was racing, and his heart was following suit. A troll? A bloody great troll? It was bigger even than Hagrid, it had a huge club that looked made of an uprooted tree, it stank like an open sewer, and it growled and bellowed every now and then. It was sitting right in front of the cave entrance, hitting the ground with its massive club out of boredom.
(Trigger warning: panic attack ahead. Ends at “Slowly, Harry started to calm down.”)
Harry didn't know what to do. A giant snake he could talk to. The suit of armor had been made by people. The dragon he had fooled. He resisted the illusions, and the vampires had seemed nice. But trolls, despite being really stupid, were smart enough to have language, wear rudimentary clothing, and use tools. Harry couldn't think of a single bloody thing that he, a 14 year old kid, could do to get past a troll parked right in front of the entrance of the place he needed to be. There had been a troll in the castle in his first year, but he'd never seen it, being safe with everyone else in the Great Hall while the teachers sorted it out. And there'd been one down defending the Philosopher's Stone, but that one had been knocked out already.
His heart was racing faster, he broke into a cold sweat, and he was beginning to hyperventilate. He noted dully that he had fallen against a tree and was curling up at the base of it, watching the troll through the underbrush. A sudden thought struck him, and he suddenly had to worry about the troll spotting him in turn, but Harry couldn't force himself to move. He was shaking and dizzy and light-headed anyway, his vision closing into a narrow tunnel, and silent tears were rolling down his cheeks.
“Whuff,” Padfoot very quietly said, putting his head on Harry's lap. Harry put his hands on Padfoot's head and idly scratched him behind the ear. This helped him feel better, but he was still in a panic, still had no idea what to do about the troll.
Slowly, Harry started to calm down. He had no idea how long it had been, and didn't care. But he was getting back to himself. When he had calmed down enough to think clearly, he remembered Moody's advice. Outsmart the creature, if you couldn't fight it. Well, if that was the case, he would need a diversion, some loud noise to direct its attention away from the cave.
Making a strategic withdrawal, Harry got back far enough away from the troll so he could work without the troll overhearing. He took the flat stones out of his pockets, put the dust cover rags back over his and Padfoot's mouths and noses, and got to work carving Second Wand sigils with his wand. These were a little more complicated than he usually did, as he had to add in runes to act as countdown timers, so they'd go off at a certain time. The best he could do was giving himself five minutes on the countdown.
When he had two of these done and ready to take in magic, he put them back in his pocket. Using his wand, he said “Point me.” The wand pointed due north, which was right at the troll. Disillusioning himself first, he sneaked through the woods to the other side of the clearing behind the cavern entrance.
Once there, he touched the two runic sigils with his wand, one at a time, and cast the most powerful nonverbal Blasting Curses he could into them. He tossed both charged runes onto the ground where he was and took off back to where he'd started from.
When he got back, he waited almost another minute before it happened.
BOOM! With an explosion like an enormous cannon going off, the troll jumped up to its feet at the noise, and ran... away from the explosion?
“Shit!” Harry said, leaping to the left and running full tilt ahead, thankful the troll was making so much noise that it completely drowned out the sound of Harry and Padfoot running through the trees. They didn't go far, because the troll was so keen on getting away that it knocked a few trees over on its way out of the forest, giving Harry and Padfoot the time they needed to get into the cavern.
Inside the cavern was another box. Inside this box was a map and a key. The map was very simple, showing a “you are here,” an image of a Quidditch pitch, and a line from one to the other.
Not wanting to risk the troll returning, Harry and Padfoot bolted out the cave entrance and ran the direction they'd run to get away from the troll, since Harry didn't want to risk running into the troll on the way back along the route he'd taken to get here.
It only took a little over five minutes to get out of the Forbidden Forest this way. He spotted his boat and one other in the distance, and began to run at it, back toward Hagrid's hut. He was running so fast that he jumped right into the boat on the first try. It floated, but didn't move otherwise.
That's when he noticed there was a new addition to it; it now had a wheel, the kind you saw on sailing ships in the movies and on TV, and beside it was a lever. He grabbed it, and the boat was skimming the ground, barely an inch from the grass. On a guess, Harry pulled the lever back, and the ship rose higher in the air and turned east to fly up over the trees.
Wait, the trees? That wasn't right. He spun the wheel around, and to his relief the boat started to head northwest instead. But he had to fight with the wheel, as the ship would only go the right way for about a minute before it started drifting in a different, somewhat random direction every time it started to get back on course again. And he wasn't alone, either. In the distance he saw Krum's ship drifting southwest, toward the gates to the grounds. Krum was fighting it with obvious frustration.
Fleur was a little better off than Krum, as she was at least going north. But she kept drifting east. And when Cedric, limping and bloody, finally got into his boat, it just kept drifting higher up. He would come down and to the northwest sometimes, but it kept drifting after a minute or two, like all the others.
Thinking outside the box, Harry looked down at the ground and tried to Summon the ground ahead of him. Whatever ward had blocked Summoning before was down now, because he had to grab tighter hold of the wheel to keep from being pulled out of the boat, which was now flying in the right direction. He kept Summoning the ground a few times until he was in range of the castle. With the whip spell, he grabbed hold of one of the towers and pulled.
He kept using the whip spell to pull the boat along until he was floating past the castle, where he started Summoning the ground again.
The others had spotted what he was doing and were now mimicking it. Fleur was making the best progress, seemingly able to Summon spots farther away than the others. Cedric had apparently decided to let his boat keep floating higher and higher. When he was too far away from the ground to get much out of Summoning the ground, Cedric transfigured something into a sail, tied it to the empty mast, and used some kind of spell to make the sail billow in the right direction. Only when he was over the pitch did he find a way down again, using the whip spell Harry had been using as a long rope to rappel down to the ground. Only when he landed did the ship begin to come back toward the Earth.
Harry was second to land after Cedric, actually managing to land his. Fleur was next, followed by Krum. Cedric had landed on the roof, but he ran quickly to the edge and jumped off, ducking into the first door available. That door sealed itself with a big X over it.
Fleur was a faster runner than Krum, but both were faster than Harry. Padfoot, too, but only because he was hanging back to keep an eye on Harry. Anyway, Fleur made it to her door before Krum made it to his, and Harry was the last one inside.
“What the---” Harry said as he looked around at the space inside. It was a large room, and it was full of a dozen beds. There were people on all the beds, and every single one of them was asleep. But more importantly, they were all Luna, or looked like Luna anyway. They were identical down to the last strand of hair, and all dressed identically.
Harry went around the room poking them all to make sure they were real. When he found they were, he decided it must be Polyjuice Potion they'd used. And maybe transfiguration? Luna's style would be difficult to copy, even in her school robes. He tried casting “finite” at different parts of their wardrobes, but against all odds, nothing changed.
So instead, he cast “Rennervate” on each of them in turn. A few of them he knew at once weren't Luna. He marked them by turning their black robes blue with a color-change spell. They made no attempt to remove this spell.
The rest... they were all looking at him in the same serene manner that Luna almost always had about her. There were seven of them, and he couldn't tell them apart yet.
“Nargles are giant purple toads that live in the Amazon river,” Harry said to the room at large.
“Now Harry, you know full well nargles are pixie-like creatures that live in mistletoe and like to hide things from people,” chided the Luna nearest the far corner. The rest of the Lunas just looked bewildered. Smiling, Harry ran over to Luna and hugged her.
“Oh, I see what you did there,” Luna said. The others all looked relieved to not have to pretend anymore, and started talking amongst themselves as Harry and Luna left the building.
When they came out, Madam Pomfrey, Ron, Draco, and Antigone came over, Angela and Danzia following behind them. Madam Pomfrey scanned Harry with her wand, gave him a pepper-up potion in case of any lingering after-effects from being splashed by freezing water earlier. She offered him a calming draft, but he refused. He was sufficiently recovered from his earlier panic attack.
Cedric was not so lucky. Harry could see him and Cho over in a nearby medical tent, Cedric covered in bandages after presumably being attacked by a troll. Fleur was next out of the final building, walking alongside an eight or nine year old girl who could only be Fleur's little sister. Then Krum was last, followed by an annoyed Hermione.
“What's the matter, Hermione?” Harry asked.
“What? Oh, just--- depulso!” she cast, sending the flying omnioculars scattering to the four winds with her spell. “Dratted things. It's just that Viktor took so long trying to figure out which me was me that I got rather cross with him and started yelling.”
“Ve haff only been on vun date,” Krum said. “And yes, ve haff talked some since then, but still, I am barely knowink you. Still, I am sorry I vas not knowink which vun vas you.”
Hermione sighed. “Apology accepted. And I'm sorry I got cross with you.”
“Apology not needed. It is understandable.”
“At least he knew I wasn't one of the nine people making googly eyes at him when he came in the room.”
At that moment, all the spare Lunas, Chos, Hermiones, and Gabrielles came out of the building.
“I wonder who they all were.”
As if in answer, their skins began bubbling and changing, some people growing taller, others getting shorter. When they were back to themselves, Harry recognized some Ministry workers from the Quidditch World Cup last summer. Others were total strangers.
“Mix of Ministry employees and their family members,” explained a voice behind Harry. He turned around and saw Percy standing there.
“Percy? What're you doing here?” asked Ron.
“Watching the Tournament, of course. I work in the Department of International Magical Cooperation under Ms. Selby, after all. By the way, Harry, the scores will be announced soon.”
After a few more minutes of idle chatter, Bagman's voice boomed over the stands once more. A mirror Harry hadn't noticed until now changed to display a view of the judges' stand.
“And the scores are in now, let's see what our Champions have scored. Oh, and Mr. Potter, too,” he added in a sullen voice. “Anyway, first up is Mr. Cedric Diggory of Hogwarts, who finished his task first, ten minutes over the limit of an hour.”
The judges put up points for Cedric. They were almost all 8's or 9's, except for Karkaroff, who gave him a five. Next was Harry, who got mostly 1's like he'd asked for, except Karkaroff, who gave him a zero, and Bagman, who gave him a ten. Harry rolled his eyes at this.
Then Fleur got mostly 7's and 8's, with Karkaroff giving her a three. And lastly, Krum got pretty much solid 6's, and a ten from Karkaroff.
“Together with the points from the first task,” continued Bagman, “the ranks are as follows: Cedric Diggory in the lead with 77 points. Viktor Krum in second at 74 points. Fleur Delacour in third at 72 points, and Harry Potter... Harry Potter in fourth with... 51 points.
“The third and final task will take place at dusk on the twenty-fourth of June. The cham-- er, participants will be notified of what is coming precisely one month beforehand. Thank you all for your support of the champions. And Mr. Potter.”
Harry stayed behind with his friends as the excited crowd left the stands and went back toward the school, wincing every now and then when one or more of them would look at him with terror in their eyes.
On their way back to the castle, his friends told him what the other champions had done. Among other highlights, Krum had blasted the rock shelf apart under the suit of armor and then transfigured a bridge for himself to get inside. Cedric had tried the distraction trick again, having transfigured a rock into a dog and setting it on the suit of armor. It had worked a lot better this time than last time. And Fleur had frozen the suit with a blast of arctic wind from her wand, then shattered it to pieces with a Bombarda. Fleur had also been the most able to resist the sleeping spell of the flower room, ahead of Krum and Cedric. Then all three of them had rappelled down the side of the “cliff” until they got down low enough to run the rest of the way.
It seemed Luna hadn't been sleeping the whole time, either; she'd been watching up until the point when Harry got in his boat for the last time, and she and his other friends gave him a real stern talking-to about rocketing down what was essentially a cliff on a floating rock. Sirius, for his part, was torn between disapproval and excitement at the memory of it, his human side less afraid of it than his canine side had been.
~
Endnotes: The water snake in this chapter is an actual canon Potterverse creature called a Selma. It's a kind of lake serpent. Description is based on the picture of it on the 'harrypotter' wikia. I don't know if Parseltongue would really work on it or not, but it IS a giant snake.
I wasn't planning on Harry exposing his Parselmouth ability here, but I *had* been planning on using the Selma. When I first looked it up, there was no picture. When I looked it up again, as soon as I saw it was a giant snake, I knew Harry would be Speaking to it.
And no, the Selma isn't a permanent Black Lake resident, it was brought in for the Tournament for an obstacle and will be going back to its home again after the Second Task.
The Sumerian Strike Hex is one of those spells that's popular in fan fiction (I've seen it in several fics by different authors), but isn't listed in the Wikia, so it's not canon.
Oh and wow, reading the Wikia's description of nargles, I realized she's talking about what I call pixies. I've had pixies in every house I've ever lived in, and they do in fact hide things from people. Ever lost something, only to find it again later in a place you'd already looked, where it was obviously right there and there's no way you could possibly have missed seeing it when you looked there a dozen times before? That's pixies. Though they can also sometimes leave gifts, if they feel sorry for you or if you show them kindness. I once found a brand new blouse in my closet when I was living alone at the time and barely had money for food, let alone clothes. Either it was pixies, or someone broke into my house without any sign of forced entry and left me something instead of stealing from me. Pixies seem more likely to me than that. (I don't know what keeps pixies away. Wish I did, sometimes.)
Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals: Book Four.
Or, "Autistic Potter and the Goblet of Fire."
Notes: I do not own this. J. K. Rowling does. This is just fan fiction. No money is being made. Not by me, anyway.
Started putting dates on here because it makes writing easier for me. Dates come from the old version of the Harry Potter Lexicon site's timeline pages. (The new ones suck.)
There may be a few bits and pieces lifted word-for-word from the canon material. I tried to do that as little as possible, though, but there's a lot more in this one than usual because it was unavoidable. Still, lots of details are changed, so don't skip by familiar parts or you might miss something.
Just as a reminder, so I don't have to shoehorn in descriptions in the text of the story as a reminder, but in this fanfic Harry and Hermione, apart from having Asperger's Syndrome, are both black as well. Oh, and Luna has Asperger's as well, but as far as I'm concerned, that's just a part of canon, as Rowling heavily implied it. For this story, Luna is undiagnosed, as her father thinks she's part faery creature, a changeling child (but considers that a good thing for reasons).
'Italicized text between single quotes is almost always Parseltongue.'
Chapter 18: “What's Bugging Me”
February 26th, 1995
A couple days after the Second Task, when Harry sat down to breakfast, Luna and Danzia came over to the Griffindor table to sit next to him. There was a special edition of The Quibbler out, which detailed the events of the Second Task; Luna had just sold a copy to Danzia, and handed Harry his copy when she sat down. The two of them thanked her and read the article about the Second Task.
It was, as Harry expected, a very accurate and balanced description of the Second Task and what all the participants did during it. Cedric, Fleur, and Krum were all called Champions while Harry was called a “participant,” all four of them got equal coverage and focus, and there were quotes from all four of them. Harry's quotes included sections from his pre-Task statement insisting he be given only one point for each task, his refusal of the title of Champion, and the reasons why, which filled only a couple short paragraphs before moving on to the Champions. The article finished with the total scores so far, and indicated that this determined the order the participants would be entering the final Task.
Harry was annoyed that Xeno had included the fact he'd spoken Parseltongue, but enough people had seen it happen that he doubted the secret would have stayed secret for long, and Xeno did also have a sentence after that which said, “Of course, while Christian beliefs have poisoned European ideas about Parseltongue over the centuries, the magical gift of Parseltongue – hailing originally from India – has a long history there of being a gift for good, a gift used primarily by Healers the world over. For every one dark lord or lady with the Parseltongue gift in the world, there are roughly 10 good and kind people with the gift.”
“Well, Harry,” Danzia said as she put down The Quibbler, “now the whole school probably thinks you were the Heir of Slytherin all along and that you didn't really kill the Basilisk, even though you have a shield made of part of its skin. Pretty sure by this time tomorrow, the whole school will be convinced your fanged servant is just waiting for you to call it into action again.”
“The whole school? Probably more like the whole country,” Harry said.
“Nah, Dumbledore somehow managed to keep that whole Chamber of Secrets thing out of the papers. Not sure how he managed that, must have had Ministry help. It would have been a huge blow to Fudge if that had gotten out, after all.”
“Yes. Honestly, it's a little terrifying. If the Muggle version of any one of the bad things that happened in my first four years here had happened in a Muggle school, it would be national news, and the headmaster would be fired. With even half the things that happened, he'd be lucky to not get run out of the country.”
“I'm just worried what Rita Skeeter is gonna write, mate,” Ron said.
“You and me both, Ron,” Harry said.
~
March 5th, 1995
Knott, Crabbe, and Goyle were standing in a huddle outside the classroom door with Pansy Parkinson’s gang of Slytherin girls. All of them were looking at something Harry couldn’t see and sniggering heartily. Pansy’s pug-like face peered excitedly around Goyle’s broad back as Harry, Ron, and Hermione approached.
“There they are, there they are!” she giggled, and the knot of Slytherins broke apart. Harry saw that Pansy had a magazine in her hands — Witch Weekly. The moving picture on the front showed a curly-haired witch who was smiling toothily and pointing at a large sponge cake with her wand.
“You might find something to interest you in there, Granger!” Pansy said loudly, and she threw the magazine at Hermione, who caught it, looking startled. At that moment, the dungeon door opened, and Snape beckoned them all inside.
Hermione, Harry, and Ron headed for a table at the back of the dungeon as usual. Once Snape had turned his back on them to write up the ingredients of today’s potion on the blackboard, Hermione hastily rifled through the magazine under the desk. At last, in the center pages, Hermione found what they were looking for. Harry and Ron leaned in closer. A color photograph of Harry headed a short piece entitled:
Harry Potter’s Secret Heartache
A boy like no other, perhaps — yet a boy suffering all the usual pangs of adolescence, writes Rita Skeeter. Deprived of love since the tragic demise of his parents, fourteen-year-old Harry Potter likely thought he had found solace in his steady girlfriend at Hogwarts, Muggle-born Hermione Granger. Little did he know that he would shortly be suffering yet another emotional blow in a life already littered with personal loss.
Miss Granger, a plain but ambitious girl, seems to have a taste for famous wizards that Harry alone cannot satisfy. Since the arrival at Hogwarts of Viktor Krum, Bulgarian Seeker and hero of the last World Quidditch Cup, Miss Granger has apparently been toying with both boys’ affections. Krum, who invited Miss Granger to the Yule Ball and is openly smitten with the devious Miss Granger, has already invited her to visit him in Bulgaria over the summer holidays, and insists that he has “never felt this way about any other girl.”
However, it might not be Miss Granger’s doubtful natural charms that have captured these unfortunate boys’ interest.
“She’s really ugly,” says Pansy Parkinson, a pretty and vivacious fourth-year student, “but she’d be well up to making a Love Potion, she’s quite brainy. I think that’s how she’s doing it.”
Love Potions are, of course, banned at Hogwarts, and no doubt Albus Dumbledore will want to investigate these claims.
As if it wasn't enough to be manipulated by one ambitious girl, Harry Potter seems to now be the target of another girl with nothing to recommend her but cunning and ambition. Luna Lovegood – a girl who is in the year below Harry, and is the daughter of quack 'reporter' Xenophilius Lovegood of The Quibbler infamy – now appears to have her hooks in young Harry as well. The girl, whose peculiar and suspicious friendship with the Boy Who Lived began from her first day in Hogwarts, is said to have managed to con Harry Potter into inviting her to the Yule Ball when Miss Granger turned him down, now appears to have her claws dug into him even more than before.
If you are confused, dear reader, then I will explain: Part of the Second Task of the Triwizard Tournament involved rescuing hostages who were chosen via a form of Divination that divines the present rather than the future, in order to determine who each Champion would miss the most. No doubt due to some sort of trickery or potion, Miss Lovegood was chosen as the hostage for Harry Potter when Viktor Krum got Miss Granger.
“I always assumed it was a pity friendship,” said Slytherin student Pansy Parkinson. “You know – he felt sorry for her, so he hung around her to make her feel better. But now that she's tricked him into being his date to the Yule Ball, and then a hostage for the Second Task, I dunno... she's pretty weird, but she is a Ravenclaw, so she might be up to brewing a love potion too, especially if Granger decided to trade in Potter for a world-famous athlete.”
It is truly saddening to see such a kind-hearted, heroic boy as Harry Potter being manipulated by so many girls who only care about his fame. No doubt the headmaster of Hogwarts will be investigating the activities of these girls for wrong-doing, and punish them accordingly. In the meantime, Harry Potter’s well-wishers must hope that, next time, he bestows his heart on a worthier candidate.
“I told you!” Ron hissed at Hermione as she stared down at the article. “I told you not to annoy Rita Skeeter! She’s made you out to be some sort of — of scarlet woman!”
Hermione stopped looking astonished and snorted with laughter. “Scarlet woman?” she repeated, shaking with suppressed giggles as she looked around at Ron.
“It’s what my mum calls them,” Ron muttered, his ears going red.
“If that’s the best Rita can do to me, she’s losing her touch,” said Hermione, still giggling, as she threw Witch Weekly onto the empty chair beside her. “What a pile of old rubbish. I just wish she'd left Luna out of it.”
Harry was silently fuming. It was bad enough Skeeter was messing with his life, now she was casting aspersions against Hagrid, Hermione, and Luna! Harry made a mental note to talk with Sirius and Ms. Pennyroyal about what could be done about Skeeter. If he had to move heaven and earth to dig up enough dirt on that woman to ruin her career, he would!
“Rubbish it might be, Hermione,” Neville said, “but Witch Weekly is a national periodical.”
“Yes, in the wizarding world. I'm Muggle-born. Who do I know who would listen to that rubbish?”
“Lavender and Parvati?” Ron said.
“Point. I guess what I meant was 'who do I know and whose opinions I care about that would listen to that rubbish?'”
“I dunno, Mum reads Witch Weekly. Mostly for the recipes, but still... I think she reads the rest of it in the loo.”
“Yes, but your mum knows Rita Skeeter is full of rubbish,” Hermione countered.
She looked over at the Slytherins, who were all watching her and Harry closely across the room to see if they had been upset by the article. Hermione gave them a sarcastic smile and a wave, and she, Harry, and Ron started unpacking the ingredients they would need for their Wit-Sharpening Potion.
“There’s something funny, though,” said Hermione ten minutes later, holding her pestle suspended over a bowl of scarab beetles. “How could Rita Skeeter have known … ?”
“Known what?” said Ron quickly. “You haven’t been mixing up Love Potions, have you?”
“Don’t be stupid, love potions are rape and should be illegal,” Hermione snapped, starting to pound up her beetles again. “No, it’s just … how did she know Viktor asked me to visit him over the summer?”
Hermione blushed scarlet as she said this and determinedly avoided Ron’s eyes.
“What?” said Ron, dropping his pestle with a loud clunk.
“He asked me not long after that argument we had about how he didn't know me well enough to pick me from a crowd of look-alikes fawning over him. He said we barely knew each other, but he wanted to get to know me better, because he likes that I'm smart and that I don't care about his fame. So... he said, if I wasn’t doing anything over the summer, would I like to —”
“And what did you say?” said Ron, who had picked up his pestle and was grinding it on the desk, a good six inches from his bowl, because he was looking at Hermione.
“And he did say he’d never felt the same way about anyone else,” Hermione went on, going so red now that Harry could almost feel the heat coming from her, “but how could Rita Skeeter have heard him? She wasn’t there … or was she? Maybe she has got an Invisibility Cloak; maybe she sneaked onto the grounds to watch the second task. …”
“And what did you say?” Ron repeated, pounding his pestle down so hard that it dented the desk.
“Well, I was too busy seeing whether you and Harry were okay to —”
“Fascinating though your social life undoubtedly is, Miss Granger,” said an icy voice right behind them, and all four of them jumped, “I must ask you not to discuss it in my class. Ten points from Gryffindor.”
Snape had glided over to their desk while they were talking. The whole class was now looking around at them; Knott took the opportunity to flash POTTER STINKS across the dungeon at Harry.
“Ah … reading magazines under the table as well?” Snape added, reaching for the copy of Witch Weekly. “A further ten points from Gryffindor.”
In a panic and angry on Luna's behalf, Harry whipped out his wand and used Evanesco on the magazine, Vanishing it. Snape – who had been about to grab it – bared his teeth at Harry.
“Potter! In my class, wands are only to be used as required by the potion we're making at the time. Using it for anything else is potentially very dangerous, especially Vanishing! What if you'd Vanished the table leg instead? You'd have spilled unfinished potion all over yourself and your friends! Detention with me tonight! Stay after class for the details. And if I see your wand again in this class without me telling you to do so, it will be a week's worth of detentions! Do you understand, Potter?”
“Yes, sir,” Harry said in a small voice.
“Good. And 20 points from Griffindor for your carelessness, Potter.”
With that, Snape walked away dangerously and started to stalk around the room, keeping a close eye on Harry and his friends.
“Totally worth it,” Harry whispered just loud enough for his friends to hear. “Knowing him, he'd have read the article to the class.”
“You got detention and lost us points for that?” Hermione said, cross with him.
“Luna puts up with enough crap from people as it is,” he said.
Hermione's face softened at this, and she nodded. Not wanting to risk being caught talking again, the four of them didn't talk for the rest of the class. Though it was really tempting to do otherwise, since Snape was seen talking with the Slytherins soon after.
There was a knock on the dungeon door.
“Enter,” said Snape in his usual voice.
The class looked around as the door opened. Professor Karkaroff came in. Everyone watched him as he walked up toward Snape’s desk. He was twisting his finger around his goatee and looking agitated.
“We need to talk,” said Karkaroff abruptly when he had reached Snape. He seemed so determined that nobody should hear what he was saying that he was barely opening his lips; it was as though he were a rather poor ventriloquist. Harry kept his eyes on his ginger roots, listening hard.
“I’ll talk to you after my lesson, Karkaroff,” Snape muttered, but Karkaroff interrupted him.
“I want to talk now, while you can’t slip off, Severus. You’ve been avoiding me.”
“You can wait outside for me after the lesson, then. I have something to do with Potter at that time, and then I will be going to dinner. You can talk to me after Potter leaves.”
Karkaroff, still looking suspicious, nodded and left the room.
After class, when everyone else had left the room, Snape came up to Harry and said, “All this press attention seems to have inflated your already over-large head, Potter. You might be laboring under the delusion that the entire wizarding world is impressed with you, but I don’t care how many times your picture appears in the papers. To me, Potter, you are nothing but a nasty little boy who considers rules to be beneath him.”
Harry said nothing in response. Anything he said would just make things worse.
“So I give you fair warning, Potter,” Snape continued in a softer and more dangerous voice, “pint-sized celebrity or not — if I catch you breaking into my office one more time —”
“I haven’t been anywhere near your office!” said Harry angrily, forgetting his feigned deafness.
“Don’t lie to me,” Snape hissed, his fathomless black eyes boring into Harry’s. “Boomslang skin. Bicorn horn. Both come from my private stores, and I know who stole them.”
Harry was confused for a moment. Why was Snape bringing this up now, years after the fact?
“Don't play dumb with me, Potter! You and your little friends are playing around with Polyjuice Potion for the second time since you came here, and this time you won't get away with it!”
Now Harry glared at Snape. He was just so tired of hostility from other people, it made him tired. But he'd also had enough of people accusing him and his friends of things they hadn't done, and that was canceling out the tiredness with anger. Angrily he blurted out, “If you're going to berate me for something you think I've done, you might want to pick something more recent than my second year here. Sir.”
Since he wasn't very good at occlumency yet, and Snape – who was a very good occlumens and legilimens – was looking right in his eyes at the time (Harry was angry enough to not care how that made him feel), Snape pulled back in surprise at these words. But this surprise was short-lived.
“So you admit you stole potions ingredients from my personal stores?”
“Well yes. Obviously.”
Snape blinked in surprise at the admission.
“Then, Potter--”
“Whatever you're going to say, Sir, I should remind you that Professor Dumbledore already knows we brewed Polyjuice Potion in our second year to try to figure out who the Heir of Slytherin was. He and Professor McGonagall were there when I told them the whole story, after I came out of the Chamber of Secrets. It was a one-time thing, a stupid plan in hindsight, and we haven't stolen anything from you since then. And I can't for the life of me figure out what you think we'd be doing with it this time. Whoever stole from you this last time, it wasn't me or any of my friends.”
Snape didn't look like he knew what to say to this. Harry continued, “And as to your attitude about me, Sir, I am aware my father was a bully to you. On his behalf, I apologize for that, for whatever that's worth. But I am not a bully myself, Sir. I was bullied for years while living with the Dursleys. I had no friends in school until Hogwarts, and Dudley – my cousin – and his goons bullied me constantly at home and at school. I was abused by my aunt and uncle as well, Sir. They never told me I was a wizard, they never told me I was famous. They told me my parents died in a car crash! So I had no idea I was famous until my first year at Hogwarts, I hate being famous, and having been bullied and abused growing up, I wouldn't do that to other people. I can't express to you how angry it makes me when you accuse me of being like that, not without resorting to screaming.
“And so, Professor, I would greatly appreciate it if you would stop mistaking me for my father. He's dead, I'm nothing like him except in appearance, and your refusal to recognize that I am not my father makes you look childish in the extreme.” – here, Snape bared his teeth at Harry, but Harry kept going – “If you give me more detention or take more points from Griffindor for saying that, Sir, then I'm fine with that, because it needed to be said, and I'm not sorry I said it.”
Harry stopped talking, because he was out of things to say. He braced himself for impact, however that might come, but after several long moments of nothing, he looked up. Snape's face went back, slowly, to being impassive as usual. Harry waited, uncomfortably, for him to say something.
When Snape finally spoke, it was a lot calmer and less dangerous than he'd feared, but still with an angry snap to it. “I expect you in my office tonight immediately after dinner, Potter. That will be all.”
Harry blinked. “Sir?” he asked, confused.
“I have dismissed you, Potter. Please leave before I take even more points from Griffindor.”
Not needing any further encouragement, Harry grabbed his things and left as quickly as he could, relieved his sudden attack of temper hadn't gotten him in worse trouble... yet.
As Harry left, Snape watched him go in thoughtful silence.
Lily, he thought, that was truly a rant worthy of you. Is it possible I misjudged him? Is it possible he has more of you in him than just his eyes?
It seemed he needed to have a long-overdue talk with Albus about the boy. But not tonight. He'd give it a few days, first. And he had to talk with Karkaroff as well.
Harry made very sure to be seen leaving Snape's classroom, and carefully watched Karkaroff go inside, sneaking up to the door when the man's back was turned.
“What’s so urgent?” he heard Snape hiss at Karkaroff.
“This,” said Karkaroff, and Harry, peering around the corner of the classroom door, saw Karkaroff pull up the left-hand sleeve of his robe and show Snape something on his inner forearm.
“Well?” said Karkaroff, still making every effort not to move his lips. “Do you see? It’s never been this clear, never since —”
“Put it away!” snarled Snape, his black eyes sweeping the classroom.
“But you must have noticed —” Karkaroff began in an agitated voice.
“We can talk later, Karkaroff!” spat Snape. “Potter! What are you doing?”
“I think I forgot my--”
“Begone, Potter! Before I lose my temper with you!”
Harry rushed away, not wanting to push his luck any farther.
Nosy, too, just like his mother. Snape thought. It'll be the death of him someday, I fear.
~
March 6th, 1995
Harry's detention for Vanishing an object in Potions class had been, strangely, his least objectionable one yet from Snape. He'd been forced to sort rotting beetles from the fresh ones for several hours while Snape silently graded papers.
That had been yesterday. Now it was Saturday, and there was another Hogsmeade visit today. Harry was of course going with Luna. Hermione had come along as well, and once more they could see Krum ahead of them. But what was really surprising was something Ron said.
Harry and Luna had been discussing what they were going to do, and Hermione had mentioned that she was meeting Krum later, explaining that despite him inviting her to his home over the summer, she had made it very clear to him that they were just friends for now, and she trusted him to honor that.
“Viktor and I are meeting at The Three Broomsticks, Ron. You should come with, you can talk with him too, he's really nice.”
“Er, maybe. I mean, I'll have to ask Tracey what she thinks of Krum, first. I wouldn't want to ruin your date if she turns out to be a fangirl,” he said in a barely-audible voice.
Everyone stopped walking except for Ron, who ran into Harry.
“Ow! Watch it! Er... what'd you lot stop for?”
“You're going to Hogsmeade with Tracey? As in Tracey Davis?” Hermione asked. “The girl you took to the Yule Ball and then she had a horrible time because of your jealousy?”
“Er, yeah. But just as friends!” Ron protested.
“So you apologized? And it went that well?”
Ron was looking at his hands. “Er, yeah. I explained what had been going through my head, and some of what Harry said, and then I told her I shouldn't have let it get to me and I shouldn't have ruined the only school dance we've ever had, that wasn't fair to her or to you, 'mione. Then we kept talking, and it was really tense at first, because she was still kinda angry about it, but...” - he paused, hunting for words - “we kept running into each other, and we kept talking, and finally we decided to try to be friends with each other. And she didn't have a date for this trip, so I asked her if she wanted to go with me, so we could spend more time getting to know each other. Cuz we don't really see much of each other but classes and studying, and usually there's other Slytherins around making trouble...” He shrugged.
“Good for you, Ron,” Luna said. “I hope it goes well.”
He shrugged again. “Thanks, Luna.”
“You're welcome.”
“One word of advice, Ron,” Harry said. “Unless she's told you to call her by her first name, you should call her 'Davis.' I know she's not a pureblood, but she's still one of those people using that system of etiquette.”
“Thanks, mate. I'll remember that.” He looked thoughtful a moment before adding, “I'm gonna have to ask her about that, though. I don't remember if she mentioned it or not.”
As they continued walking, Harry hung back with Ron for a bit.
“Sorry to ask,” Harry whispered, “but you aren't doing this to try to make Hermione jealous or something, are you?”
“What? No! If I was doing that, there's a lot of girls far easier to... I mean, it'd be a lot easier to ask, like, Lavender or someone like that. Honestly, me trying to date a Slytherin to get Hermione jealous? Might as well ask me if I dropped out of Divination and joined Arithmancy instead, Harry!”
“Sorry I mentioned it,” Harry said. “I just... I didn't know what to make of this Tracey Davis thing. Guess I should've taken you at your word. Sorry, Ron.”
“No problem, mate.”
Harry went back up to Luna and took her by the arm.
“You could have just asked me if he was telling the truth, Harry. Though I'm not sure why you needed to ask at all. He's not a very good liar, after all.”
Harry shrugged. “Sometimes I get ideas in my head, and I can't get them out any other way.”
The weather was milder than it had been all year, and by the time they arrived in Hogsmeade, all four of them had taken off their cloaks and thrown them over their shoulders. Ron went off to meet with Tracey, Hermione went to The Three Broomsticks, and Harry and Luna went to an herbology store Luna knew about to look at all the different kinds of magical flowers, which Harry had to admit were pretty interesting. Then, inspired by all the different magical flowers, they went to a florist where Harry bought Luna a magical snapdragon, which really did snap at people's fingers and breathe little spurts of flame at them. Luna put a fireproofing charm on her hair and ears and tucked the snapdragon into her ear.
After that, they went to Honeydukes for a while and bought enough candy to last them a month at least. From there, they went to Zonko's and suffered through a few minutes of the noise there because the place had good stuff, then spent a couple hours at the book store, and finished off the day by trying on weird hats at McHavelock's Wizarding Headgear before heading back to the school after a long afternoon of leisure, shopping bags in hand, meeting Ron and Hermione again on the way up.
“Well that could've gone better,” Ron said. “It could've gone a lot worse, too, but could've gone better.”
“Oh? What happened?” Harry asked.
“Right. So Tracey and I met at The Three Broomsticks, on the other side of the room from Krum and Hermione. Draco and Daphne came over and joined us, which I didn't mind because hey, it's not like it was a date or anything. And I thought it was going okay. They were just talking, the three of them, really calmly. I mean, Draco and Daphne kept butting into the conversation between me and Tracey whenever there was a lull in it, and Tracey would say something back all polite. I didn't even realize anything was wrong until she stood up in a huff and told me we were going to Honeyduke's instead.”
“What was wrong?”
“I asked her that when we were on our way to Honeyduke's, and she explained it had been the pureblood version of a row. Draco and Daphne both think she's barmy for giving a git like me a second chance. Even after she explained it was just a friend thing, they still wouldn't let up, apparently. But it was all so calm and veiled in these polite little euphemisms and junk that I'd never've known if she hadn't told me about it. But of course, she was really upset by it. Worked out in my favor a little though, cuz she was defending her choice to give me a second chance, which is kinda like defending me, I guess.” He shrugged, putting his hands in his pockets. “Point is, it was weird. Purebloods are weird.”
“Ron, you're a pureblood,” Hermione pointed out.
“Yeah, if you wanna get technical about it, I guess. But we're not like, snooty about it, is what I mean.”
“I think that's probably more a case of the culture of wealth and nobility versus the culture of the common people,” Luna said.
“You mean poor people, right?” Ron asked sullenly.
“Yes, but that's not a bad thing. Daddy and I aren't wealthy either, Ron. Money attracts grobflons, you know.” she shuddered.
“Grobflons?” Ron asked.
“Yes, grobflons. They're like the hidebehinds of North America, but smaller, and exposure to their aura makes people fearful, jealous, possessive, greedy, and mean-spirited. The only way to be wealthy without attracting grobflons is to give regularly to the needy just because they're needy, and not because it'll make you look good or grant you favors with the right people.”
“Glad I don't have to worry about those,” Ron said.
“What about me, Luna? I'm wealthy, but I don't give it away to needy people.”
“Yes, well, that's because you're younger and you only have limited access to that wealth. When you get older and come into your full inheritance, you'll have to start working rather hard to avoid the grobflons.”
“Ah. Well forewarned is forearmed,” he said.
“I doubt forewarning you would cause you to sprout an extra pair of arms, Harry.”
Harry chuckled. “You know what I mean, though, right?”
“Yes, Harry, of course I do. That was a joke, silly!”
“Ah, good one. You got me,” he said, grinning.
“Anyway, Harry, we should wear our new hats to dinner tonight,” Luna said. “It'll give people something to talk about that's fun.”
“You got new hats?” Hermione asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Harry said, opening a hat box and taking out what looked like exactly half of a plain black pointed wizard's hat, like the kind they wore for their uniform. Only when he put it on his head, it fit there like a whole hat. Luna had the matching other half.
Ron, curious, grabbed at where the missing half of the hat should be and grabbed at it, mistakenly grabbing Harry's hair.
“Woah! I thought it was just half invisible, but it really is half a hat!”
“Yeah,” Harry said, grinning. “The woman at the shop said they're magically paired to hold each other up as though they were one complete hat. But that means if one gets destroyed, the other stops working and becomes a mundane, cut-in-half hat.”
“Awesome! I want a pair of them!” Ron said.
~
Later that night, Harry got on the two-way mirror with Sirius to tell him about his talk with Snape the other day. He'd thought to do it because he'd realized that someone had been in Snape's office stealing things. He didn't know for sure, but he thought it had sounded like the recent burglar had stolen the same things: ingredients for Polyjuice Potion, which was worrying.
“Yes, that is worrying. Polyjuce Potion... that expands the list of people who might have put your name into the goblet quite a bit. With Polyjuice Potion, it could be anyone.”
“I doubt it's any of my friends. I know them pretty well.”
“Still, it wouldn't hurt to check. Ask your friends questions only they would know. Don't accept delayed answers. Whoever's trying to kill you is probably getting really worried now, you've survived the first two tasks already. They might be tempted to try a more direct route.”
“Sirius, Polyjuice Potion takes a month to brew.”
“Yes, but they could already have a supply brought in from outside.”
“I guess. But if they have a way of getting it from the outside, why not just leave the castle for the supplies? Breaking into Snape's personal store cupboard is risky.”
“Hmmm... you have a good point there, pup. I don't know.”
“Anyway... if they have Polyjuice Potion already, they must be the most incompetent assassins ever. All it would take is stun a Gryffindor student, hide them away somewhere, and come into my room when I'm alone and... I dunno, kill me there?”
“And have the entire school coming down on their heads when they did? I'm fairly certain the Hogwarts wards would go crazy if they AK'd you or mortally injured you inside the school. No, I think you're safe in the Gryffindor dorms. Just don't go anywhere private with anyone. And yes, that means your friend Luna, too. She could be Imperioused or impersonated.”
“I think I'm fine with Luna. Did you see how I picked her out of the crowd at the Second Task? She's pretty much impossible to accurately impersonate.”
“Yes, that was impressive. I don't know, you might be right. But then again, who knows how good an actor this person is?”
“I'll be careful, Sirius. I won't go anywhere alone with anyone. Though... that probably means I shouldn't visit Hagrid anymore.”
“Oh, I reckon you'd be fine with Hagrid. He's not entirely human, and Polyjuice is only meant for human transformations. Given what giants are like, I reckon the potion either wouldn't work with his hair at all, would only work for half the usual time, or would get them stuck in some in-between state, between human and giant. So as long as you don't visit him past dark, I think you should be fine with Hagrid.”
“Right. Well I'll be careful. Oh hey, while I have you here, I forgot to mention that back in January, Bagman told me the goblins were looking for Crouch, and that nobody knew where he was because he hadn't been coming to work. Apparently he's been sending instructions in my owl. He told me Rita Skeeter thinks there's something sinister going on there.”
“By owl, you say? Not two-way mirror? Not Floo? Not House—oh right, he sacked his House Elf.”
“No, just owl. You know, letters.”
“Hmm... Rita might have a point. Normally if someone's too ill to go to work, they either don't send instructions at all, or they do it by Floo or by House Elf or something. Crouch is wealthy enough he could buy a replacement elf if he needed to. Yes, that is rather suspicious. Owls can be intercepted, or handwriting forged. Or he could be Imperioused.”
“What for, though? Why kidnap Crouch unless you're going to replace him?”
“Why kidnap Crouch at all, pup? He was an important man once, but now he's just an interpreter. No, there's nothing to be gained by replacing him, I'm sure. But maybe he knows something. Maybe he saw something he shouldn't have, and got kidnapped or killed to shut him up.”
“Yeah, and to make it less suspicious until they're done with whatever it is, they make it seem like he's sick. Maybe they Imperioused him to send in instructions. Though what instructions an interpreter would need to send in, I don't know.”
“Oh, I've done some digging, and he's actually head of the Foreign Languages Interpretation sub-department. So that part makes sense.”
“Maybe I should write Percy and ask him about Mr. Crouch,” Harry said.
Sirius's face in the mirror frowned curiously. “Why would you do that?”
“He's Mr. Crouch's personal assistant, according to Bagman.”
Sirius shook his head. “No he isn't. He's Ms. Selby's assistant. He has nothing to do with Crouch.”
“Huh. You sure?”
“Yes, I'm sure. Spoke with him just the other day, in fact.”
“Weird. Do you think Bagman's losing his marbles?”
“Probably just got confused. He's been dodging people who owe him for months now, I think the stress is getting to him. Probably forgot that Crouch isn't head of International Magical Cooperation anymore, but remembered Percy was assistant to that position. Very odd, though. You should probably avoid Bagman too, just to be safe.”
“That'll be kind of difficult. He keeps offering to help me with the Triwizard Tournament.”
“He does?”
“Yeah.”
“Well that's not right. But given the scuttlebutt around the Ministry, I'd say he's betting on you to win, to pay off his gambling debts.”
“Really?”
“As far as I know.”
“Huh. Well, that would explain why he looked like he was going to be ill, when I refused points for the Second Task, and again when I ended up in last place.”
“HA! Yes, that would do it alright.”
There was silence for a few moments, because Harry was thinking. Then he said, “Sirius, I think we should go back to discussing Crouch. I mean... we've been assuming he's gotten in trouble for seeing something he shouldn't have, but what if he's pretending to be sick? I mean, he was there when that Dark Mark was conjured. He seemed a bit too keen to pass the blame for it to his elf.”
“Oh, I don't think Crouch is a Death Eater. Crouch used to be Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, didn’t you know?”
“He did? What happened?”
“He was tipped for the next Minister of Magic,” said Sirius. “He’s a great wizard, Barty Crouch, powerfully magical — and power-hungry. Oh never a Voldemort supporter,” he said, reading the look on Harry’s face. “No, Barty Crouch was always very outspoken against the Dark Side. But then a lot of people who were against the Dark Side … well, you wouldn’t understand … you’re too young.”
“I hate it when people say that. Try me, why don't you?”
A grin flashed across Sirius’s face.
“All right, I’ll try you.” He paused a few moments, then said, “Imagine that Voldemort’s powerful now. You don’t know who his supporters are, you don’t know who’s working for him and who isn’t; you know he can control people so that they do terrible things without being able to stop themselves. You’re scared for yourself, and your family, and your friends. Every week, news comes of more deaths, more disappearances, more torturing … the Ministry of Magic’s in disarray, they don’t know what to do, they’re trying to keep everything hidden from the Muggles, but meanwhile, Muggles are dying too. Terror everywhere … panic … confusion … that’s how it used to be.
“Well, times like that bring out the best in some people and the worst in others. Crouch’s principles might’ve been good in the beginning — I wouldn’t know. He rose quickly through the Ministry, and he started ordering very harsh measures against Voldemort’s supporters. The Aurors were given new powers — powers to kill rather than capture, for instance. And I wasn’t the only one who was handed straight to the dementors without trial. Crouch fought violence with violence, and authorized the use of the Unforgivable Curses against suspects. I would say he became as ruthless and cruel as many on the Dark Side. He had his supporters, mind you — plenty of people thought he was going about things the right way, and there were a lot of witches and wizards clamoring for him to take over as Minister of Magic. When Voldemort disappeared, it looked like only a matter of time until Crouch got the top job. But then something rather unfortunate happened. …” Sirius smiled grimly. “Crouch’s own son was caught with a group of Death Eaters who’d managed to talk their way out of Azkaban. Apparently they were trying to find Voldemort and return him to power.”
“Crouch’s son was caught?”
“Yep. Nasty little shock for old Barty, I’d imagine. Should have spent a bit more time at home with his family, shouldn’t he? Ought to have left the office early once in a while … gotten to know his own son.”
“Was his son a Death Eater?” asked Harry.
“No idea,” said Sirius. “I was in Azkaban myself when he was brought in. This is mostly stuff I’ve found out since I got out. The boy was definitely caught in the company of people I’d bet my life were Death Eaters — but he might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, just like the house-elf.”
“Did Crouch try and get his son off?”
“Crouch let his son off? Of course not! Anything that threatened to tarnish his reputation had to go; he had dedicated his whole life to becoming Minister of Magic. You saw him dismiss a devoted house-elf because she associated him with the Dark Mark again — doesn’t that tell you what he’s like? Crouch’s fatherly affection stretched just far enough to give his son a trial, and by all accounts, it wasn’t much more than an excuse for Crouch to show how much he hated the boy … then he sent him straight to Azkaban.”
“He gave his own son to the dementors?” asked Harry quietly.
“That’s right,” said Sirius, and he didn’t look remotely amused now. “I saw the dementors bringing him in, watched them through the bars in my cell door. He can’t have been more than nineteen. They took him into a cell near mine. He was screaming for his mother by nightfall. He went quiet after a few days, though … they all went quiet in the end … except when they shrieked in their sleep.”
For a moment, the deadened look in Sirius’s eyes became more pronounced than ever, as though shutters had closed behind them.
“So he’s still in Azkaban?” Harry said.
“No,” said Sirius dully. “No, he’s not in there anymore. He died about a year after they brought him in.”
“He died?”
“He wasn’t the only one,” said Sirius bitterly. “Most go mad in there, and plenty stop eating in the end. They lose the will to live. You could always tell when a death was coming, because the dementors could sense it, they got excited. That boy looked pretty sickly when he arrived. Crouch being an important Ministry member, he and his wife were allowed a deathbed visit. That was the last time I saw Barty Crouch, half carrying his wife past my cell. She died herself, apparently, shortly afterward. Grief. Wasted away just like the boy. Crouch never came for his son’s body. The dementors buried him outside the fortress; I watched them do it.
“So old Crouch lost it all, just when he thought he had it made. One moment a hero, poised to become Minister of Magic … next, his son dead, his wife dead, the family name dishonored, and, so I’ve heard since I got exonerated, a big drop in popularity. Once the boy had died, people started feeling a bit more sympathetic toward the son and started asking how a nice young lad from a good family had gone so badly astray. The conclusion was that his father never cared much for him. So Cornelius Fudge got the top job, and Crouch was shunted sideways into the Department of International Magical Cooperation.”
There was a long silence. Harry was thinking of the way Crouch’s eyes had bulged as he’d looked down at his disobedient house-elf back in the wood at the Quidditch World Cup. This, then, must have been why Crouch had overreacted to Winky being found beneath the Dark Mark. It had brought back memories of his son, and the old scandal, and his fall from grace at the Ministry.
“Oh,” he said at last. “Well... maybe if he's so much against dark wizards... and with his latest demotion after you were exonerated, maybe Crouch is trying to catch dark wizards at the school? Maybe this whole fiasco with my name coming out of the Goblet of Fire made him come back up here to try to catch the culprit?”
“Not a bad idea, Harry. He always was obsessed with catching dark wizards. Could be he thinks he'll get his old popularity back if he catches another one. Could be he was the one breaking into Snape's office looking for evidence, and took some Polyjuice ingredients while he was at it.”
“So you think Snape could be up to something, then?” asked Harry.
“Could be. I know Dumbledore trusts him, but he's never told any of us why. Ever since I found out Snape was teaching here, I’ve wondered why Dumbledore hired him. Snape’s always been fascinated by the Dark Arts, he was famous for it at school. Slimy, oily, greasy-haired kid, he was. Snape knew more curses when he arrived at school than half the kids in seventh year, and he was part of a gang of Slytherins who nearly all turned out to be Death Eaters.”
Sirius held up his fingers and began ticking off names.
“Rosier and Wilkes — they were both killed by Aurors the year before Voldemort fell. The Lestranges — they’re a married couple — they’re in Azkaban. Avery — from what I’ve heard he wormed his way out of trouble by saying he’d been acting under the Imperius Curse — he’s still at large. But as far as I know, Snape was never even accused of being a Death Eater — not that that means much. Plenty of them were never caught. And Snape’s certainly clever and cunning enough to keep himself out of trouble.”
“That reminds me, last Friday in Potions, Karkaroff showed up. Wanted to talk with Snape. They talked after the lesson, after I left. But I sneaked up to the door to watch and listen. Karkaroff showed Snape something on his arm. It was getting clearer, and that worried him for some reason. I couldn't see what it was, though.”
“He showed Snape something on his arm?” said Sirius, looking frankly bewildered. He ran his fingers distractedly through his hair, then shrugged again. “Well, I’ve no idea what that’s about … but if Karkaroff’s genuinely worried, and he’s going to Snape for answers …”
Sirius stared off to the side of the mirror, then made a grimace of frustration.
“There’s still the fact that Dumbledore trusts Snape, and I know Dumbledore trusts where a lot of other people wouldn’t, but I just can’t see him letting Snape teach at Hogwarts if he’d ever worked for Voldemort.”
“Maybe Crouch wonders the same thing. That could explain the break-in.”
“It's possible. But all we have are wild guesswork so far. We have nothing but speculation about Crouch, as suspicious as his supposed illness is. And Snape... well...” Sirius sighed. “Anyway, someone out there might have Polyjuice Potion. As Moody would say, CONSTANT VIGILANCE! Be wary of everyone, don't go anywhere alone with anyone except Hagrid. Don't go out at night. The time for mischief isn't when your life is in danger. What time is it?”
“It's 10 PM. I wonder where the other boys are?” Harry thought aloud.
“Well, it's late. You and I both need to go to bed. I'll talk to you later, Harry.”
“Before you go, a couple quick things?”
“I suppose, if they really are quick.”
“First, how's Winky?”
“Ah, that. I tried Luna's suggestion to order her to sober up, and it seems to be working. She's clearly miserable, now that she's unable to drown her sorrows, but I've been ordering her to do extra work to keep her mind off things, which I think has been helpful so far. Dobby and Kreacher were annoyed by it, but then I ordered Dobby to make messes for her to clean. HA! I've never seen a House Elf look so shocked and appalled before. Took some cajoling, but I got him to do it.”
“Cool. And how're things going with Zuzanna?”
“They're going alright,” Sirius said evasively.
“Have you told her you're a wizard yet?”
“No. Never you mind about my love life, pup. Go to bed. I'll talk with you later, Harry.”
“See you later, Sirius,” Harry said, grinning.
Sirius's image in the mirror winked out, and Harry put the mirror away, getting up to go look for the others. He soon found Ron was talking with Hermione, and Dean and Seamus were doing homework.
~
March 8th, 1995
On Monday morning, Hermione eagerly awaited the owls. She had apparently taken out a subscription to the Daily Prophet because she was tired of finding things out from the Slytherins. When Ron asked her if she was going to get out a subscription to Witch Weekly as well, she rolled her eyes at him.
“Good thinking!” said Harry, also looking up at the owls. “Hey, Hermione, I think you’re in luck —”
A gray owl was soaring down toward Hermione.
“It hasn’t got a newspaper, though,” she said, looking disappointed. “It’s —”
But to her bewilderment, the gray owl landed in front of her plate, closely followed by four barn owls, a brown owl, and a tawny.
“How many subscriptions did you take out?” said Harry, seizing Hermione’s goblet before it was knocked over by the cluster of owls, all of whom were jostling close to her, trying to deliver their own letter first.
They were all baffled at first, but as soon as Hermione showed them a letter written from letters cut from the Daily Prophet, Harry told them all to stop opening them.
“We should leave this all here until we can get a teacher or other adult to deal with it. There could be curses in some of these, if they're all hate mail.
That gave Harry a horrible idea, and he went over to the Ravenclaw table, where Luna had also gotten a pile of hate mail. She had opened a few of them already. Harry watched in horror as she opened another one, and it covered her hands in undiluted bubotuber pus.
By now, Hermione had fetched McGonagall. She was over at the Gryffindor table, but Flitwick had seen Harry going to Ravenclaw, and he quarantined the rest of the letters as Harry escorted a crying Luna to the Hospital Wing.
“Mr. Potter?” Madam Pomfrey said. “What trouble have you gotten yourself into this---”
“It's Luna, she's hurt!”
Madam Pomfrey looked at Luna's hands as Luna cried into Harry's shoulder.
“Tsk tsk. Undiluted bubotuber pus. I'll be able to heal this of course, but it'll mean some bandages on your hands for a day or two. You won't be able to use your hands much until I take the bandages off.”
Harry watched and comforted Luna as she got her hands doused in some potion to neutralize the pus, another potion to stimulate healing of the skin, and then getting her hands wrapped in bandages. Then, since Madam Pomfrey insisted on keeping her under observation for a few hours, Luna insisted Harry go to his classes, she'd be fine.
As soon as Harry got out into the corridor, he said, “Dobby!”
With a CRACK, Dobby appeared. He was wearing an apron and holding a feather duster.
“Harry Potter is wanting Dobby?”
“Yes, thank you Dobby. I want you to find Sirius and tell him that Luna was attacked by someone sending her hate mail because of an article in Witch Weekly. Tell him I want Ms. Pennyroyal to do something legal to punish the magazine for opening her up to attack. Sue them or something, I don't know what, but I want to see some punishment. The article was written by Rita Skeeter. Tell Sirius I want to ruin her life for doing this.”
Dobby's ears had folded back in a little bit of fear at the look on Harry's face, but he nodded. “Dobby will be telling Master Sirius to be getting Ms. Pennyroyal on the attack against Rita Skeeter. Is there being anything else before Dobby is going?”
“That's all for now, Dobby. Thank you.”
Dobby smiled, nodded, and disappeared with a CRACK.
Harry went to go find McGonagall, to see what was being done about the hate mail. He hoped it wasn't being destroyed; he wanted the culprits found and charged with assault.
“Mr. Potter, there you are. I've had one of my NEWT students take over my classes until this matter is settled.”
“Professor McGonagall, where are all the hate mail letters for both Hermione and Luna?”
“Professor Flitwick and I have gathered them up and put stasis spells on them until a representative from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement can arrive to find the culprits.”
Harry blinked at this. He was surprised she'd thought to do that.
“It was young Mr. Malfoy's idea, in fact,” she said, as though answering the question he hadn't asked. “And I daresay it's a good idea. We can't let people who are presumably full grown adults get away with assaulting children. Not if anything can be done about it, anyway.”
“Thank you, Professor. And just so you know, if things go as I've planned, Ms. Pennyroyal should be coming here soon as well. I sent a message to Sirius with Dobby.”
“You sent a message with a house-elf?”
“Yes. Honestly, I don't know why more people don't do that. It's far faster than owls, and can be done from pretty much anywhere.”
“I see. Well I daresay the adults will handle it from here, Mr. Potter. You should go on to class. Oh, here's a note for you just in case,” she said, handing him a piece of parchment.
“Thank you, Professor.”
He was late for Herbology, but he ended up not even needing the note McGonagall had given him; Ron and Hermione had explained what happened, and so he wasn't in any trouble with Professor Sprout.
As they left the greenhouse for their Care of Magical Creatures class, they saw Knott, Crabbe, and Goyle descending the stone steps of the castle. Pansy Parkinson was whispering and giggling behind them with her gang of Slytherin girls. Catching sight of Harry, Pansy called, “Potter, have you split up with your girlfriend? Why was she so upset at breakfast?”
Draco had, by then, slipped behind Harry, and at Pansy's words whispered to Harry. As he listened, he smiled, which made Pansy and her friends stop giggling and look concerned. What Draco had just told him, he was going to enjoy making use of. In the meantime, making Knott and Parkinson wonder what he'd been told that made him look so happy was making them look very worried indeed.
Hagrid, who had told them last lesson that they had finished with unicorns, was waiting for them outside his cabin with a fresh supply of open crates at his feet. Harry’s heart sank at the sight of the crates — surely not another skrewt hatching? — but when he got near enough to see inside, he found himself looking at a number of fluffy black creatures with long snouts. Their front paws were curiously flat, like spades, and they were blinking up at the class, looking politely puzzled at all the attention.
“These’re nifflers,” said Hagrid, when the class had gathered around. “Yeh find ’em down mines mostly. They like sparkly stuff. … There yeh go, look.”
One of the nifflers had suddenly leapt up and attempted to bite Pansy Parkinson’s watch off her wrist. She shrieked and jumped backward.
“Useful little treasure detectors,” said Hagrid happily. “Thought we’d have some fun with ’em today. See over there?” He pointed at a large patch of freshly turned earth. “I’ve buried some gold coins. I’ve got a prize fer whoever picks the niffler that digs up most. Jus’ take off all yer valuables, an’ choose a niffler, an’ get ready ter set ’em loose.”
“They aren't real gold, are they, Hagrid?” Harry asked. It seemed unlikely Hagrid would risk his own money for something like this, but then the half-giant was a trusting man.
“Nah, it's leprechaun gold. Disappears after a few hours. So there's no point in nickin any, yeh lot.”
They took off anything shiny and put it in their pockets, then spent the rest of the lesson watching the nifflers dive through the soil like dolphins in water, bringing the leprechaun gold back to them. Ron's niffler got the most gold. He commented that he'd like a niffler for a pet, but Hagrid disappointed him by telling him they wreck houses in their quest for shiny objects.
At the end of class, Harry told Hagrid what had happened at breakfast, mainly because he didn't know when Luna had Hagrid's class.
“Tha's ruddy horrible! Poor Luner. I like her. A bit odd, can't always unnerstan' what she's on about, but a sweet girl. 'ope she's okay.”
“I think she'll be fine, Hagrid, once she heals up a little. Sadly, I think she's used to being bullied.”
“Ah, but it en't the same when it's comin from adults. Watch 'er, she might be more 'urt than she lets on. Anyway, I got some o’ those letters an’ all, after Rita Skeeter wrote abou’ me mum. ‘Yeh’re a monster an’ yeh should be put down.’ ‘Yer mother killed innocent people an’ if you had any decency you’d jump in a lake.’ ”
“No!” said Hermione, looking shocked.
“Yeah,” said Hagrid, heaving the niffler crates over by his cabin wall. “They’re jus’ nutters. Don’ open ’em if yeh get any more. Chuck ’em straigh’ in the fire.”
“Er, I wouldn't advise that,” Harry said. “What if they explode in the fire?”
“Oh. Tha's a good point. Er...”
“The Department of Magical Law Enforcement is investigating them.”
“Yes, that was my idea,” Draco said. “And if it gets to be enough of a problem, Harry, you can always go to Gringotts and set up an owl redirection ward. Then anything sent by an unfamiliar owl goes to them, and for a fee they'll sort out the harmful stuff and send along the rest. In fact... it's odd that you never get any fan mail, Harry. You might already have an owl-redirection ward in place. You should look into that, unless you already knew about it.”
“Huh. No, I didn't think of that. I'll look into that, Draco. Thank you.”
“You're quite welcome. Anyway, we should get going before we're late.”
~
March 9 – 13, 1995
The Department of Magical Law Enforcement tracked down a dozen different people who had sent dangerous things in the mail to Hermione and Luna, and they were charged with assault. A few avoided prison time by paying a huge fine – most of which went to Luna's father as restitution – but the ones that weren't wealthy spend a couple weeks in a relatively low-security part of Azkaban, which meant minimal Dementor exposure. It would be a miserable two weeks, but it shouldn't be too bad. It was certainly going to be a lot better than what Hagrid went through in their second year.
Ms. Pennyroyal got on the case against Witch Weekly for libel. It was a gossip magazine, of course, but a bunch of people had attacked Hermione and Luna over it. The magazine's lawyers, not sure they could win the case, made a deal instead. The magazine paid a 500 galleon restitution, printed an official retraction to the article that also said they were ashamed that some of their readers had taken illegal actions over their content, and promised they would never print anything by Rita Skeeter ever again.
Something about the wizarding world's laws prevented them from going after Rita Skeeter for libel for the same article, so that was a bust. But then Harry told her what Draco had discovered. Apparently it was something the other Slytherins had been trying to keep secret from Draco and the rest of Harry's Slytherin friends, but Draco was craftier than they knew and had discovered the truth anyway.
On the 13th, Rita Skeeter showed up at the Three Broomsticks as asked by Mr. Potter's and Mr. Black's lawyer, Ms. Pennyroyal. She had showed up with her own lawyer, one Mr. Cheetum of Dewey Cheetum & Howe. [NTS: did we do this in book 3?] Ms. Pennyroyal was already there, with Sirius, and after a few pleasantries, the two lawyers cast privacy spells to their satisfaction before getting down to business.
“What is this all about, then?” Mr. Cheetum asked. “You've already lost my client a lucrative market by getting her fired from Witch Weekly.”
“Oh, your client has been a massive thorn in my clients' sides ever since the beginning of this Triwizard Tournament. Young Mr. Potter was quite willing to leave you alone as long as it was only him your client targeted, but then your client impugned the reputation of his friend Mr. Hagrid. Mr. Potter was still willing to leave your client alone after that, but then your client – Ms. Skeeter – wrote that article in Witch Weekly that got his girlfriend Luna Lovegood hurt, and almost hurt his friend Ms. Granger. Not to mention, your client also came dangerously close to attacking the Dreyfuss heiress, Ms. Antigone Dreyfuss.”
“This was already settled,” Mr. Cheetum said. “It resulted in my client being fired from Witch Weekly.”
“Oh no, this is only beginning. Mr. Potter is furious with your client. He said he wanted to – and I quote – 'ruin her life' for this. Mr. Potter may be a Gryffindor, but he has a Hufflepuff's loyalty to his friends, a Ravenclaw's brains, and a Slytherin's cunning and guile. He also has several friends in Slytherin. And you've been spending a lot of time among the Slytherins this year, haven't you, Ms. Skeeter?”
“I advise you not to answer that, Ms. Skeeter,” Mr. Cheetum said. But the look on her face said it all. She had blanched, and now looked sickly.
“Oh, she doesn't need to say anything,” Ms. Pennyroyal said. Sirius was grinning, trying hard not to speak. Ms. Pennyroyal continued, saying, “because we have proof already.”
“Proof of what?” Mr. Cheetum demanded.
“Proof that your client, Ms. Skeeter, is an unregistered animagus.”
Rita was shaking now. Mr. Cheetum looked at her with an annoyed expression. “Pardon me a few moments while I confer with my client.”
The two of them moved to another table, casting privacy spells that not only blocked out their words but also blurred their entire bodies from Sirius's and Lilith's view. Even so, the exchange looked heated from how much the two of them were gesticulating.
Almost twenty minutes later, Mr. Cheetum and Rita Skeeter returned to the table with Sirus and Ms. Pennyroyal.
“What proof do you have of these claims?”
Ms. Pennyroyal slid an envelope over to Mr. Cheetum. He opened it up and looked inside. It was full of pictures of Rita transforming into a beetle, pictures of Knott and several other Slytherins talking to a beetle in their hands, and pictures of the beetle returning to human form.
“Those are not the only copies, of course.”
“I see. What do you intend to do with this information?” Mr. Cheetum asked.
“Well Mr. Potter wanted, at first, to just tell the Ministry and let Ms. Skeeter deal with the consequences. But I explained to him that the consequences were just a fine.”
“A steep fine that I know my client cannot afford, even if she sold off all her assets.”
“I thought so. That would, of course, mean time in Azkaban, as I told Mr. Potter. He doesn't hate you so much that he wants you to go there, Ms. Skeeter. At least, he doesn't hate you that much yet.”
“So what do you intend to do with the information?” he repeated.
“First, we want an official apology from your client, that will be run in the Daily Prophet and Witch Weekly, for which she will not get paid. If Mr. Potter accepts your client's public apology, then we will permit her to keep her job at the Daily Prophet, on the proviso that anything she intends to print in that paper will be run by my office before it gets published. She will also promise not to publish with any other periodical nor any book publisher without my office's prior consent. These terms will all be written out in a nice, neat contract of course. Breach of contract will result in the Ministry being told about her status as an illegal animagus, with corresponding proof.”
“That's blackmail!”
“Yes it is. Incidentally, blackmail has an interesting legal standing in the magical UK. I won't bore you with the details, Mr. Cheetum already knows them, but it boils down to 'if you get caught blackmailing someone, you pay a fine, and only go to prison if you can't afford the fine.' And since both Mr. Black and Mr. Potter are extremely wealthy, I daresay they wouldn't mind paying the fine. Fascinating, the way the laws have changed since You-Know-Who fell from power, isn't it?
“What's even better,” Ms. Pennyroyal said without letting them answer, “is that the fine for blackmailing someone is the amount of money the blackmailer demanded plus a 30% fine on top of that. Since we're not blackmailing your client for money or resources, just to behave herself when she writes articles, it would be very interesting to see whether the Wizengamot would even consider that blackmail, legally speaking. And even if they rule against us... 30 percent of zero is zero.”
Mr. Cheetum conferred with his client again for another ten minutes. When they came back, Mr. Cheetum said, “Let's draw up this contract then.”
Ms. Pennyroyal smiled like a Cheshire cat. “Excellent.”
Endnotes: Basically, I think of Ms. Pennyroyal as the Anti-Umbridge. Where Umbridge feels sadistic glee from hurting innocent people with the rules, Ms. Pennyroyal feels righteous, sadistic glee from putting the squeeze on people who deserve it with the rules. OMG, now I just pictured Ms. Pennyroyal versus Umbridge, and had a shudder of delighted anticipation. :D
Bit short, but it's taken long enough to get out, and this seemed like the perfect spot to stop the chapter.
Harry Potter is a wizard, which surprises him. But Harry Potter is also a Multiple, which surprises everyone. (Eventual trans Harry, changes her name to Adira.)
Fayanora
Summary: Harry Potter is a wizard, which surprises him. But Harry Potter is also a Multiple, which surprises everyone.
Harry Potter belongs to J.K.Rowling. This is fan fiction.
The Many Faces of Adira Potter
By = Fayanora
Chapter One: Feeling Sic
Harry Potter was awoken by the sound of banging on the ceiling above him as his cousin Dudley stomped and screamed at him. It was Dudley's birthday, and this made Harry dread the day even more. But, meek little slave that his aunt and uncle had made of him, he got up and went about the business of cooking breakfast for his relatives. At least it being Dudley's birthday, Harry would have one day away from them when Dudley got taken to the zoo. True, it meant he would have to put up with Mrs. Figg's many cats and her obsession over them, but that would be a welcome respite from cleaning and gardening. His life was such that he felt like he could cry all the time, but he'd stopped being able to do so years back. So anything that made him feel a little less miserable was good to him.
Thankfully, he managed to cook the food without burning anything, and his aunt and uncle seemed satisfied. Well, they seemed like they could find nothing to complain about but telling him to comb his hair, anyway. That was practically a cheerful 'Hello' for them, though.
Dudley, of course, was a spoiled little brat. Where Harry was the secret shame of the family, Dudley was the golden boy who could do no wrong, even though he was morbidly obese, a nasty bully, and a spoiled rotten brat. But to Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, he was perfect.
His very shit might as well be made of gold bouillon, they way they carry on about the great lump,
came the inner commentary of the sardonic aspect of his mind. He almost snorted with laughter, but luckily held it in before it could escape.
It's very sad, the way they treat him,
said another part of his mind, one that sounded motherly.
Oh?
asked the Sardonic Harry voice.
Yes. That is not a healthy weight, to say nothing of his personality. And everything he's witnessed them do to you...
He sighed. He knew, of course, that his situation wasn't normal. He knew it wasn't normal for one child to be worked half to death, abused, and neglected while the other one got everything the other didn't get. He knew his aunt and uncle were messed up in the head. Of course, there was nothing to be done about that; he was too afraid of retribution to report the situation to an adult. Too afraid that instead of being taken away from the Dursleys, he'd end up beaten to death. Or worse; beaten to within an inch of death and forced to work through the pain.
So when Mrs. Figg was indisposed to watch him, and none of the others the Dursleys could count on to keep the secret were able to watch him, and they reluctantly let him come to the zoo with them rather than let him have free reign of the house, he knew it was too good to be true.
The whole time there, he kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Every time something good would happen, like he got a lemon ice lolly because it was easier than explaining to the zoo employee why he wasn't allowed one, or he got to eat a giant ice cream because Dudley wasn't satisfied with its size, he just
knew
something bad was going to happen. And the better things went, the worse he knew the end result would be. Still, a part of him did dare to hope, to dream, to be a little happy.
He ended up in the reptile house, looking with fascination at the snakes and other reptiles, but Dudley and his friend Piers were being prats and banging on the glass, among other annoying things. Normally frightened or resigned at this behavior, he felt an inexplicable surge of annoyance, even anger. He glared at them as they went across the room, then sourly looked over at the snake they'd been bothering.
“Sorry about that,” he said in a voice that was his but slightly different; he recognized it as Sardonic Harry speaking aloud. “Stupid prat does worse to me, though, so count your blessings.”
The snake looked up at him, actually lifting its head as though it understood him.
“What? You can't understand me, can you?”
The snake looked momentarily confused, then nodded.
“Oh. Well, stranger stuff has happened to me, so okay. Let's go with that. Where you from?”
The snake pointed its tail at the sign that said it was from Brazil.
“Brazil, eh? What was that like?”
The snake once again pointed. Harry read the sign again, which was getting difficult. He took his glasses off and it cleared up, which he thought was odd, but he was used to weird things happening by now. And he was talking to a snake, which was very weird indeed.
“Ah, bred in captivity. Yeah, I know how that feels. I never knew my parents either.”
Just then, Piers shouted that the snake was doing something interesting, and he and Dudley pushed Harry aside. Harry felt a surge of rage, glaring with clenched teeth at the two idiots. As he did, the glass disappeared, and the two boys screamed in surprise.
Feeling a vindictive pleasure he'd never felt before, he looked at the snake and said, “Sic em!”
The snake looked confused a moment, then shot forward to try to bite them. It was, of course, a boa constrictor, and therefore was not venomous, but Piers and Dudley didn't know that. They screamed, and Harry laughed with a vindictive glee. The part of his mind that told him this was very very bad was quiet, and he just grinned and slicked his hair back, not noticing that his normal permanent bed-head was gone, his hair lying flat for once.
His aunt and uncle ran forward, and he pointed at them. “Them too,” he told the snake. It chased after them, and he laughed even harder.
“Now be free! Be free, my pretties!” All the glass in the reptile house vanished, and a bunch more snakes fled at his command.
Chuckling darkly, he ran off. His rage had been replaced with a soaring happiness, which was something of an alien sensation to Harry. He ran, and ran; he didn't care where to, he just no longer gave a damn.
He was on a bus downtown when something inside him shifted, and Sardonic Harry was replaced with Just Harry. Gone was the happiness, even the rage. Now there was only fear and anxiety. What the bloody hell had he DONE? Was he out of his bloody MIND? Never mind the glass disappearing, or the snakes taking orders from him, he had run off. Run off, with nowhere to go except back to an aunt and uncle who would be angrier than they'd been in their entire lives.
Getting off the bus, he sat down on a bench and ran his fingers through his hair, which was no longer lying flat, and had gone back to permanent bed-head. But he was too terrified to notice something so trivial.
Okay, okay, let's not panic,
Motherly Harry thought.
Panic isn't going to help. We have to think. What will happen if we go back to the Dursley's?
“I'll get locked in my cupboard until the heat death of the universe, and won't get food.”
Yes, and if we just... don't?
“Still no food, unless I get some out of a garbage or I beg for money or something.”
“Now why would you need to do that?” asked a stranger standing feet from him. He jumped, and looked up. Then his mind boggled. Before him was a man who looked like a very tall and thin Father Christmas, and was dressed in the most ridiculous pin-striped Zoot Suit with a big floppy sun-hat that didn't match.
Harry felt Sardonic Harry return. “What's it to you?”
The stranger blinked at him, surprised. Harry stared back. “Listen, if you're going to kidnap me, well... whether I cooperate or not depends on how what you plan to do with me compares to what I already go through with my relatives. I won't be a sex slave or anyth--”
“Oh now, boy, such language!” The way he said it made Harry think. Sardonic Harry left again, and Just Harry returned.
“Sorry about that, sir,” he said in his best meek, passive voice. “I'm just a little keyed up.”
“Natural, after what happened.” The man looked around a bit before continuing, “Vanished some glass and set a snake on your relatives, correct?”
“How did you—I mean, er...”
Blue eyes twinkled gaily. “Don't worry, my dear lad.” He sat down next to Harry on the bench, close enough to whisper but not
too
close.
“Harry,” he began.
“How did you know---”
“Please let me explain.”
Harry nodded.
“My name is Albus Dumbledore. And, Harry, I shall just be blunt with it: you are a wizard.”
He stared at the man. “What?”
“I said, you are a wizard. You possess magic.”
His eyes narrowed in suspicion, Harry asked, “What of it?”
“Well, as it happens, so am I.”
“Right, sure you are.”
He looked around, then took out a long piece of worked wood, and waved it about a bit.
“Yeah, nothing happened,” Harry said.
“Nothing happened that you
saw
, Harry. That was not a demonstration, just preparation, as we are among Muggles – non-magic folk. Here, now, is the demonstration.”
Albus Dumbledore pointed his wand at a stone, and the stone turned into a turtle, which walked toward them slowly.
“Okay, you're a wizard too. Doesn't explain why you're here talking to me.”
“Well, Harry, I just so happen to be the headmaster of a school of magic, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When the Ministry of Magic informed me of your rather impressive display of magic back at the zoo, and that they had not found the wizard responsible – though they knew who you were, I came looking for you.”
“Oh. Did I break some secrecy law, sir? Am I going to go to prison?”
“No no, nothing like that. Harry, you are young, and do not have a wand, and you were raised by Muggles. So it is forgiven. Doing magic in front of Muggles is not a crime until you have started going to school, and even then there is some leeway.”
“Oh. Good. So... er... what happens to me now? If I go back to the Dursleys, they'll lock me in my cupboard and not feed me for a month! And my relatives turn white and beat me if I so much as talk about anything that might be magic, they'll never let me go to this Hogwarts, sir.”
Dumbledore looked in some concern at the boy. But the boy was telling the truth, not exaggerating. He scratched his beard to give himself time to think.
“Be that as it may, Harry, they cannot prevent you from going. Even if they will not pay for it, there is a fund to pay for those who cannot afford it. But because your parents were well-off when they died, that fund will not be necessary.”
“Pardon?”
“Oh, Hagrid will explain it to you in more depth. I shall have him come round to collect you to go shopping later in the year, as the letters have not gone out yet.”
“Please, sir, I can't go back to the Dursleys! I'm not exaggerating, they beat me and starve me and work me like a slave all hours of the day! I can't---”
“Calm down, Harry, I believe you.”
“You do?”
“Yes. It makes me very... displeased... that I so misjudged your aunt and uncle. I put you with them because I thought you would be safe there. But I see now that was a mistake.” He looked at the boy sadly. The images coming from Harry's mind, and the terror in his eyes, decided Albus.
“No, you shall not have to go back. You shall become a ward of Hogwarts instead, and I shall protect you. You have already suffered much damage, much more than I had feared in my worst imaginings. No, I already let one boy like yourself down. I cannot let it happen again.”
“What did I need protecting from, as a baby? I mean, my parents died in a car crash. What's gonna hap--”
“Harry, your parents did not die in a car crash. They were murdered.”
It was difficult, but over the next few minutes, Dumbledore explained how Voldemort, the most evil dark wizard in a century had murdered his parents, and for reasons unknown had been unable to murder Harry. How the man had lost his powers, become a wraith, when he tried. That because of this, he was famous; famous for being the cause of Voldemort's downfall, and famous for surviving the Killing Curse, something nobody else had ever done before or since.
“Anyway, Harry. Given that the Dursleys cannot be trusted with you, and given that I do not yet have accommodations for you at Hogwarts, I shall take you to the Leaky Cauldron, and get you a room there. I will have Hagrid be your guard. Come, take my arm, we shall Apparate there.”
Harry still wasn't sure if he trusted this man, but took the man's arm anyway. Immediately, he felt like he was being squeezed through a rubber tube. When he reappeared, inside a dingy old tavern, Dumbledore quickly conjured a bucket for him to puke into, then vanished the mess with his wand.
After Dumbledore got him set up in a room, he paid for a meal for Harry, then left to go fetch Hagrid. Harry thanked the man before he left, and chowed down on beef stew, trying very hard to ignore the eyes staring at him.
That night, he went to sleep in an actual bed, feeling better than he had his whole life.
The next morning, Harry kept his eyes closed for several minutes, convinced it had all been a dream. But when he opened his eyes at last, he found he was in the bed he'd gone to sleep in. Once he was dressed and ready, he went down looking for breakfast.
“Um... I don't have any money, but, well, I can pay you later.”
“No, my dear boy,” the wizened old toothless owner said, grinning. “Hagrid already took care of it. And I'd gladly have given it to you on the house, but Hagrid insisted.”
“Oh. Which one is Hagrid?”
“He's asleep himself at the mo. But-- oh, there he is. Hello, Hagrid!”
Harry saw at once why Hagrid was his bodyguard; the man was too big to be allowed. But for all he looked intimidating, the man was a teddy bear in personality, complete with twinkling button-like eyes.
“Harry! I ain't seen you since you was a baby! C'mere,” he said, giving Harry a bone-crushing hug. “Yeh look jes like yer Da. But wif yer mum's eyes.”
Harry beamed, feeling ecstatic. As he did, Hagrid looked down at him and looked confused.
“Well, at leas I thought yeh had yer mum's eyes. Look more like James's eyes, now. And yer hair... coulda sworn it was black when I came in. Now it's like a dark auburn. Ah well, trick o' the light, I'm sure. Anyways, even though the lists ent gone out yet, Dumbledore gave me a copy of one anyways, we can get yer stuff.”
When they finished breakfast, Hagrid showed him how to get into Diagon Alley. Of course, Harry didn't have a wand yet to do it, but that would change soon. The brick wall opened up and he saw the most amazing place ever in his life. He became so excited that he began jumping up and down. Neither one of them noticed that Harry's hair and eyes were changing color and texture as he bounced, his bed-head hair becoming slick and normal, and turning redder; his eyes were also hazel now. But then he calmed down a bit and they went back to normal.
First they went to Gringott's, the wizarding bank, and got Harry's money, making another stop on the way at a vault that looked empty but for a small grubby package. When they got to Harry's parents' vault, Harry gaped. He had so much gold he probably could have bought his uncle's business, Grunnings, and still had plenty leftover. Sardonic Harry thought that idea was very amusing.
When they were done, Hagrid went back to the Leaky Cauldron for a drink, because the Gringotts carts made him ill. So Harry took his money around looking for the things on his list. The first thing he wanted was a wand, so he went to Ollivander's.
Ollivander's was an experience. The proprietor was a little creepy, and looked like he'd evaporate in a stiff wind. Then Harry spent the next half an hour or more trying every wand in the shop before one finally chose him. And on top of all that, he found out that his wand shared a core with the wizard that had murdered his parents.
Hagrid met up with him as he left Ollivander's, having bought Harry a beautiful snowy owl, and they went around getting the rest of his things, before returning to the Leaky Cauldron for the night.
Harry spent the whole summer reading his fascinating books, exploring Diagon Alley, and eating meals with Hagrid. And, occasionally, doing magic, since Dumbledore had said he wouldn't get in trouble for it until he started school. So it was that he had gotten pretty good at some of the spells they would be expected to learn his first year there, which he hoped would reflect well on his grades.
Some mornings, he woke up feeling weird, though; he didn't know why, and it always passed by the time he got to the bathroom, so he didn't say anything to anyone about it. But he bought a blank journal at Flourish and Blotts, one that could only be opened by the owner, and anything written in it would look like nonsense to anyone but the person writing in it. He bought it so he could describe the odd feeling before it passed.
He thought a moment, then began to write. The weird sensation was like his skin felt different, softer. His hands felt slimmer yet not skinny – more like slim in a healthy way, and more elegant. And one time, he'd fell groin-first on part of the bed and while it had hurt, it didn't hurt the way he'd expected. It hadn't hurt as much, or for as long, but still hurt. But when it happened again later, it hurt a lot more, threatening to make him cry. He made a mental note to avoid that part of the bed in future.
By the time September rolled around, Harry was starting to bore, and was glad school would be starting. He got all his stuff packed, and Hagrid took him to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, through the wall that was actually a doorway or something of the sort, where he spent some time wandering around talking to people, once he'd gotten his stuff in the train. One group he talked to was a group of red-heads, the Weasleys, whose mother was very nice.
At last, he got on the train and found a compartment, where he was shortly joined by the youngest Weasley boy – Ron, who claimed everywhere else was full. Harry didn't mind; maybe he could get a friend out of this. He'd never been allowed friends before, and now there was nobody to stop him.
“Oh wow, that's weird,” Ron said after sitting down. “I thought your hair was black, before. But it's kind of red, now.”
“Yeah, Hagrid's noticed that on occasion too. Says it's a trick of the light. As far as I know, it's always been black.”
Ron narrowed his eyes in concentration. “Oh, yeah. It's black now. Odd. Oh well.”
He and Ron had a lot of fun, once the trolley went by, trading Chocolate Frog cards and trying different candies and other treats.
At one point, a bushy-haired girl came by asking about some boy's lost pet toad. The motherly part of Harry felt stirred with worry for the unknown boy's pet, and so he excused himself to help the girl look.
There it was again, that odd feeling, as he and Hermione Granger looked for Neville's lost toad, but he barely noticed it, as he was too intent on finding the lost pet. They didn't find it, to his dismay, by the time they needed to go and change into their school robes.
When they got out, Hagrid directed the first years to a series of boats. Their stuff would go up without them while they did. Ron and Harry got a boat together, and Neville finally found his toad before they took off.
He soon saw why they approached the castle this way; it offered a very dramatic and beautiful view of the castle, that they got to enjoy for several minutes until they docked in an underground cavern, and headed up the stairs to the entrance hall.
“Ugh,” said a voice behind him once they were left alone. “More Weasleys.”
Harry turned around and saw a thin blond boy whose face, though better looking than Dudley's, nonetheless reminded Harry of his cousin. But when Harry looked at the boy, he looked confused.
“Oh, sorry. I thought you... well, your hair...”
“Great way to introduce yourself to new people, whoever you are.”
“Er, sorry. Malfoy, Draco Malfoy.”
Ron sniggered. Draco sneered back at him. He held his hand out to Harry.
“Harry Potter,” he said, shaking the proffered hand with a sneer of his own. He was amused to note the blond boy's face become embarrassed.
“S-so it's true then? You really are Harry Potter?”
“Yes. Don't expect that to mean much to me, though. I only found out I'm famous over the summer. Still don't know what I think about it.”
Draco then introduced him to Crabbe and Goyle. Harry looked down his nose at them both, but was otherwise polite. Ron seemed a little confused, but also amused, once he saw Harry's face.
A severe-looking woman, Professor McGonagall, came in then, and told them all about the sorting. Soon, they were being led into the Great Hall, to be Sorted before the whole school.
He looked at the sight before him. A grubby old hat on a bench, Sardonic Harry thought. What's that all about?
Oh now, it's obviously a magic hat. Maybe we have to pull a rabbit from it?
Harry snickered at that mental image. Ron looked at him curiously.
“Oh nothing,” he explained. “Just a funny thought.”
The hat sang a song about the characteristics of the different Houses; Griffindors were brave, Ravenclaws brilliant, Hufflepuffs were just and loyal, and Slytherins were cunning and sneaky. Sardonic Harry thought this was rubbish, just like the Zodiac he saw in the papers sometimes, but worse; they were going to live with a bunch of other people for 7 years based on this nonsense? It annoyed him. But at the same time, Motherly Harry was trying to decide between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff.
Malfoy, of course, went to Slytherin, which confirmed some things for Harry. He waited, the thoughts in his head arguing with one another over the merits of the different Houses. Sardonic Harry even wanted to go to Slytherin, just to increase the quality of people there.
His different aspects were still fiercely debating when McGonagall called his name, and the entire school went silent as the grave for a moment, before chatter about him began. The inner voices of his thoughts went quiet, too.
Swallowing a lump, he walked up and sat down on the stool. The large hat was put on his head. Then, he heard another voice in his head, not one of his.
Interesting, interesting. You have a very peculiar mind, Mr. Potter. Oh well, nothing wrong with that. Just makes Sorting you a little more difficult. Let's see, you have courage, I see. And you're highly intelligent and studious as well. Also very kind and compassionate, and loyal. Oh, and cunning. There's ambition, as well. A thirst, to prove yourself. Hmm... now, where to put you?
'Oh I don't know, Mr. Hat,' said Motherly Harry. 'But Slytherins sound like a bunch of icky bullying types.'
Yeah,
said Sardonic Harry,
but maybe they just need a bit of straightening out. I think I could whip them into shape.
This went back and forth for a couple minutes, before the Hat interrupted.
Enough. I've heard from two Harries. But what about the third?
Oh,
thought Just Harry.
I would rather not go to Slytherin. I've put up with enough people like that in my life.
You sure? You could be great, you know. It's all here, inside your head, and Slytherin could help you achieve greatness.
No,
Just Harry thought firmly.
Well if you're sure, better be
“GRIFFINDOR!” the hat shouted out that last for all to hear.
Damn,
Sardonic Harry thought as he went to join the Griffindor table.
Oh well. I might still be able to do something with them.
When the Sorting was over, the food appeared, and Harry began to eat. Having gotten used to larger and more frequent meals over the summer, he ate rather a lot more than he would have thought possible before the summer, chatting between bites.
After several minutes, he felt someone's eyes on him, and turned to look. There, a greasy-haired, sallow wizard with a hooked nose glared at him with intense loathing. Harry raised an eyebrow in confusion; how did this man hate him so, when he could not possibly know Harry yet.
Then something happened that had never happened before; his scar seared with pain, making him hiss audibly. But it passed just as quickly, and he was able to explain it away as a sudden muscle spasm.
He turned to one of the older Weasley boys, Percy. “Who's that man talking to the guy in the purple turban?”
“Oh, that's Professor Snape. He teaches potions. But everyone knows he's after Quirrell's job. Sorry, Quirrell is the one with the turban. That's new. Wonder when he got that?”
Harry thanked Percy, and went back to eating. Snape looked away, which was good, because he felt Sardonic Harry getting annoyed enough to glare back at the man.
That night, he fell asleep full to bursting, for the first time in his life.
.
There really needs to be some kind of tour of the school or something, before classes start,
Harry's sardonic side thought angrily as he and Ron struggled to find Transfiguration in time. They got in, thinking they were on time, only to find the teacher had been transformed into a cat. She changed herself back and glared at them.
“You're late, boys.”
“Yeah, well,” Harry said, annoyance filling him, “maybe if there was a Grand Tour, or a day to just explore before classes started, or something of the sort, we'd actually know where the heck we were going.”
She frowned at him.
“Professor,” he added as an afterthought. He suddenly felt worried he'd overstepped his bounds. Ron, too, was looking at him like he was mad.
“You have a point, Potter. But I'm taking that point from Griffindor for your cheek. Be glad it wasn't more. Now sit, we have class.”
Thankfully, the rest of the class went much better. Harry redeemed himself in McGonagall's eyes by being able to change a toothpick into a needle on his first attempt, which got him 10 points for Griffindor, and an annoyed look from Hermione.
'I had months of practice,' he mouthed at her from across the room. The look on her face at that told him she wanted to hear that story later. So he did, at dinner later that day.
The rest of the week went pretty well, but then at the end of it was Potions, with Snape. They all filed in, and only when they were all seated did Snape practically glide in, like a very solid looking ghost, his robes billowing despite there being no wind.
Wee, Snape's a fairy,
thought Sardonic Harry. Only years of practice kept him from snickering aloud at this thought. Still, Snape glared at him as though he'd heard the remark, but couldn't prove it.
Looking away from Harry, Snape went into this speech about how beautiful potions were, like he was in love with the subject. Harry ignored his sardonic side suggesting Snape marry his cauldron, and wrote down everything the man said.
Obviously looking for an excuse to pick on Harry, Snape 'mistook' his studiousness for indolence, and suggested that Harry was too good to pay attention.
A thought crossed his mind, a tactic he'd done with his relatives on occasion, so he tried it.
“I was taking notes, sir. Your words begged to be written down.”
The look on Snape's face made Sardonic Harry think,
Yeah, he's looking for reasons to pick on us alright.
“Think you're so smart, do you, Potter? Then tell me, what would I get if I mixed powdered root of asphodel with an infusion of wormwood?”
Oh, I remember this one!
Motherly Harry thought. “A powerful sleeping potion called the Draught of Living Death, Professor.”
Snape's frown deepened. “Lucky guess. Where would you look if I asked you to find me a bezoar?”
Ignoring Hermione's outstretched hand waving in the air, he said, “I... hmm... oh wait, I remember now. The stomach of a goat. A bezoar is a stone found in a goat's stomach, that will save you from most poisons.”
“Did you swallow the Potions book, Potter?”
“No, sir. I just got my books at the beginning of summer, and had a lot of time to read, and not much else, Professor.”
Snape pounded the desk, his teeth grinding. “What is the difference between Monkshood and Wolfsbane?”
“Trick question, sir. They're the same plant; also known as aconite. Professor.”
“FIVE POINTS, Potter. Five points from Griffindor!”
Harry frowned, feeling angry. But it wasn't Sardonic Harry anger. “May I ask why, Professor?”
“Because... because I said so, that's why.”
“You need a reason to take points, sir. 'Because I said so' is not a valid reason.”
“FINE! Then it's for your cheek, Potter. Any more and it will be detention.”
“You can't just goad someone in order to have a retroactive excuse to take points, Professor. It's not fair.”
“Life isn't fair, Potter! Life---” the man's face suddenly fell, and he turned pale as a ghost, backing up. Harry started to notice chatter, and looked around at Ron, to ask what was happening. But Ron's eyes were wide with shock; as were everyone else's. Ron gaped at him, pointing at his hair. Which, Harry finally noticed, was very long indeed. And bright red.
Taking a mirror out of his bag, he looked at his reflection. He... he had become a girl. His hair was bright red, his skin was paler, and his eyes were swiftly fading from bright green to hazel. Also, his glasses were missing, but he could see perfectly.
“Oh,” he said. Only, it wasn't his voice. It was a girl's voice. “Well this is odd.”
At those words, Snape fled the room without a word.
“You never told me you were a metamorphmagus!” Ron accused.
“A what?”
“You can change your appearance at will.”
“No I can't. I didn't want to look like this. Why would I?”
He suddenly turned his head like he was in pain. When her head came back up, she looked around.
“Where's the teacher at? Oh wait, nevermind, I remember. Well what do we do now?”
Before anyone could answer, Dumbledore came into the room, and looked right at her.
“I see what you mean, Severus. Just like her, except for the eyes. James's eyes. A bit like a reverse Harry.”
The girl that had been Harry waved and beamed at Dumbledore. “Hello, Professor Dumbledore. How're you?”
“I am well. What about you, Harry?”
“Harry? Oh no, I'm not Harry. He's listening, of course, but I'm Iliana.”
“Iliana?”
“Yes. Iliana Evanna Potter.”
“Well, Ms. Potter, would you please come with me to the Hospital Wing? We are naturally very curious to know what's going on.”
“Okie dokie, Professor,” Iliana said, grabbing her things with a smile. “See ya later, Ron, Hermione.”
She stood up, and everyone noticed that her clothing had changed as well; she was wearing a girl's uniform.
Madame Pomfrey fussed over Iliana, doing tests, but ultimately looked at Dumbledore and shrugged. “Well, she's not a metamorphmagus, Albus; at least not of any kind I've ever heard of. She truly does not have any conscious control of the transformation. Which is, er... a complete transformation, if you get my drift. As to whether she'll change back, I have no idea.”
“Oh I think I'll be able to change back, Madame Pomfrey. Unless Alastair shows up instead, which is possible.”
“Alastair?” Dumbledore asked curiously.
“Yes. Al was the one who set all those snakes loose at the zoo, Professor. He didn't do it on purpose, of course. He got a bit caught up in his emotions, and got carried away.”
“May I meet Alastair now?”
“That depends. I don't know how much control we have of the switch.”
“Ah. So tell me, Iliana, do you know if Harry has been having any blackouts?”
“Not so far. This is the farthest one of our switches has gone, though; no telling what, if anything, has changed. But until now, we've all been co-aware, sharing a collective memory. But each of us adds a different flavor to the memories.”
“I see.”
The matron turned to Dumbledore. “Multiple personalities?”
“It would seem so, Poppy. Iliana?”
Iliana sighed. “Yes, Professor Dumbledore?”
“How did you come by your name?”
She looked thoughtful at that. “Hmm... well, I heard the names Iliana and Evanna at different points, and liked them. But I didn't string them together until, well... until I transformed.”
“I see. And Alastair's name?”
“Oh, I gave it to him.” She cocked her head for a moment, then smiled. “But he likes it. Alastair Potter. I read it in a book at the library. Alastair Crowley is who I got the name from.”
“Ah yes, Alastair Crowley. I never met the man myself, of course. But he was rather infamous in the wizarding world at the time for wanting to abolish the statute of secrecy.”
“Cool. Oh, by the way, I was wondering something.”
“Yes?”
“Assuming I don't change back right away, will I have to go to the girl's dormitory?”
“Er, no. I don't think we should do that. If you went to bed Iliana and woke up Harry, that would be disruptive.”
“Ah, okay.”
“Still, I don't know if you should be in the boy's dormitory either.”
“Well, I could always change in the bathroom, Professor.”
“But would you feel comfortable there?”
She shrugged. “I know boys can be a bit gross, but if anyone tries anything, I can hex them.”
Dumbledore chuckled. “Well okay, if you insist, Ms. Potter.”
“Oh, one other thing, Professor.”
“Yes?”
“Why did Professor Snape react so strongly to my appearance?”
“Well, Ms. Potter, you bear a striking resemblance to Lily Evans Potter, your mother, when she was your age. And he was, er... rather fond of her.”
“Oh. Yeah, that would explain it.”
He turned to the matron. “Poppy, will you be wanting to call in experts from St. Mungo's?”
“Yes, I think so. I'm curious to know what the, uh... the Potters are.”
“Well, Ms. Potter, that seems all for now. Class is over with now, you should go to dinner.”
“Thanks, Professor!”
Stepping into the Great Hall, the talking stopped suddenly, then kicked back up again as Iliana sat down next to Ron and began eating, explaining things to him, the twins, Hermione, and Percy between bites.
“Well okay,” Ron said. “But it's gonna take some getting used to, my friend being two different people.”
“Three. So far.”
“Three?”
“Well we haven't fully transformed into Alastair yet, but we did a partial transformation at the beginning of summer. So eventually, he'll pop up.”
The only other thing Ron had a problem with was he used the wrong pronouns once. After a talking-to from Iliana, during which she shouted for all the school to hear that she was 100% girl in this form, he learned his mistake and did not make it again.
Naturally, Dumbledore had to make a statement to the school about it. Iliana, embarrassed, hid her face while he explained that Harry was a Multiple, and what that meant. Even including a bit where he said the three personalities they knew of might not be the only ones.
She looked up at the teacher's table. Snape was not up there. I guess he's still upset.
Naturally, Harry said in her mind.
Ah, there you are. I was beginning to wonder. You ready to come back?
I would, but I don't know how, yet.
Okay. Well don't worry about it too much.
She finished up, grabbed her things, and paused before leaving. “Harry says Hi, Ron.”
“Oh. Er. Say hi back, then.”
“Will do. Seeya.” She took off for Griffindor Tower.
Going to bed was... interesting. She didn't have any suitable sleepwear, just Harry's boy sleepwear. She shrugged; it would have to do. She changed in the bathroom, into the scratchy pajamas which Harry had bought over the summer for himself. She was going to have to find a way to order her own pajamas. Of course, the other problem was her uniform; if she transformed back to Harry in her sleep, his uniform might still be a girl's uniform. Lucky he had spares.
She went to bed before any of the boys could come up, closing the curtains and spelling them solid first.
Iliana did not change back to Harry, or change into Alaistair, for the next few weeks. It was interesting going to classes she'd gone to as Harry before; she had different skills than he did. She didn't know how he was at potions yet, but she was poor in transfiguration, almost as poor as Ron. She supposed Harry's practice over the summer hadn't carried over to her.
Experts from St. Mungo's came in during the week and did tests on her for several days before finally declaring that whatever she was, she was something completely without precedent, as far as they knew. They were going to do more research, but Iliana thought they were probably wasting their time. But it was theirs to waste, so she said nothing.
About the only thing constructive they'd told her was why she was still in this form. She had apparently used up whatever kind of magic was fueling the transformations, and it had to replenish itself before she could transform again. Though one did offer the hypothesis that powerful emotions might be able to fuel a new transformation ahead of schedule. They also seemed to be agreed that it was possible that the changes were like a muscle, that with enough work it would get easier and the magic powering it would replenish itself faster.
So it was that when the Griffindors and Slytherins had flying lessons together, Iliana was still Iliana.
The morning before, there was almost an altercation when Draco grabbed Neville's Remembrall, a device to help people remember things. Just as Iliana and Ron had jumped up to defend the timid boy, McGonagall showed up and prevented any trouble.
Later, Iliana, Ron, and Hermione walked with the other Griffindors to flying lessons. Their teacher was Madame Hooch, who looked rather like a human hawk. She gave them instructions, and then set them to trying to follow.
“Up!” Iliana said, and the broom shot into her hand. Neville's didn't even move, and Hermione's only rolled around. Ron's hit him in the face, but caused no damage, and thus was very funny.
When everyone got on their brooms, she gave them instructions to lean forward gently then touch back down. She counted down, but before she got all the way through it, Neville – who was very nervous – accidentally pushed off prematurely and too hard, thus he went rocketing up into the sky, and flew around at random a bit as she yelled at him, before falling down on his wrist with a crack.
“Not a single broom in the air while I take Mr. Longbottom to the Hospital Wing. If I see anyone breaking that command, I will have them expelled.”
When she left, Draco – smirking as he did – went over to pick up Neville's dropped Remembrall.
“Give it here, Draco.”
“No, I don't think so.”
“Please?”
“No,” he said, getting on his broom and taking off. “I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find.”
Without thinking, she jumped on her own broom. Ignoring Hermione's moralizing, she flew up after him. Her every worry and care vanished, and she felt such joy at the sensation. She'd found something effortless, something she knew how to do without learning.
Draco seemed shocked at her ability.
“Now give it back, Draco.”
“No.”
“Crabbe and Goyle aren't here to help you,” she said. “And I can hex you. Be a shame if you fell out of the sky because I put you in a full body bind.”
Draco turned even paler at that, but then sneered. “Have it then, if you can catch it.” With that, he threw it as hard as he could in the other direction.
Again not thinking, she rocketed after it, and caught it after a 50 foot dive. Ecstatic, she flew back to the cheering Griffindors, and landed.
“MISS POTTER!” the stern voice of Professor McGonagall shouted, sounding shocked.
A sinking feeling in her gut, Iliana turned round to face the teacher. “Sorry, Professor, but Draco took---”
“I don't want to hear it, Ms. Potter. You could have DIED. Come with me. Leave the broom here.”
She dropped the broom, but held onto the Remembrall.
“Good, yes, you should keep that for now, Ms. Potter; it's evidence.”
Iliana worried the whole time they walked, silently, to wherever the professor was taking her. That was a bit of a turnaround, as she was usually the one telling Harry to calm down. She wished she had her own voice to tell her that.
They finally got to Quirrell's room, where McGonagall asked for Wood.
Wood? Is she going to beat us?
But Wood turned out to be an older – and very handsome – boy. A boy that looked confused.
“Ms. Potter, this is Oliver Wood. He's the captain of the Quidditch team. Wood, I've found you a seeker!”
His eyes lit up, as he looked at Iliana as though sizing her up. “Really? You sure?”
“She caught that thing after a 50 foot dive, without a scratch on her. Charlie Weasley couldn't have done it.”
“She has the perfect build for a seeker, too. We'll have to train her up. You ever play Quidditch before?”
“N-no, I haven't. Ron's told me and Harry about it, though.”
“Oh, you know Harry Potter? Wait, Ms. Potter... are you his sister?”
“No, Oliver. Don't you remember, Potter is a Multiple.”
“Oh yes, I remember you telling me now. Iliana, was it? Come to the Quidditch Pitch this Saturday and we'll start your training.”
McGonagall turned to her and added, “I'd better not hear about you slacking off on your training, Ms. Potter, or I might change my mind about punishing you. Which I would hate to do, since it would be expelling three students at once, two of whom did nothing wrong.”
The next day, a Saturday, Iliana went to the Quidditch pitch as instructed, and met Oliver Wood there. She blushed as she saw him, for she was very taken with the boy. Harry and Alastair came more to the front to help her shake that off and concentrate, but their transformation magic hadn't replenished itself, so nothing else happened.
Wood ran her through the basics of the game, then had her practice catching golf balls instead of risking the snitch, which she was very good at. They did that until it began getting dark.
“Well, that was excellent. Keep up the good work, and that cup will have our name on it,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. She felt her face turn hot at the touch, and her vision went blurry for a moment.
“You okay, Iliana? I thought I saw something in your eyes.”
“Oh, I'm fine.” But she refused to talk all the rest of the way up the castle and into the common room. She went over to Ron and Hermione and told them all about practice.
Sunday went much the same, Wood wanting more practice, this time with a practice snitch. But they didn't practice as long, so she'd have time to do schoolwork. Which she had a hard time concentrating on, as thoughts of Wood kept invading her mind. Those thoughts didn't go away as she lay in bed, either, which made getting to sleep difficult.
The next day was again much like normal, until Iliana passed Wood in the hall. With Ron and Hermione there to witness it, her hair retracted into her head and turned black and wild; her height dropped an inch, and her eyes turned green. And then Harry's glasses returned. He also felt a pain in his crotch as the panties Iliana had been wearing took a little too long to transform into briefs, and squeezed him painfully enough that he cried out.
“Harry! You're back!” Ron cried out, hugging his friend.
“Yes. And before you ask, I remember everything that happened. We seem to have a collective memory.”
“Welcome back, Harry,” Hermione said. “You were gone for so very long!”
He shrugged. “Yeah, I know.”
“Oh crap,” Ron exclaimed.
“What?”
“Well, I suppose it's only Monday. But you might want to change back to Iliana before Saturday's practice, or Oliver will do his nut.”
“I guess we'll just have to see what happens. I can't control it, after all. Besides, I don't think I'll have any problem on Saturday, even if I stay me.”
.
Harry had a problem. It was Saturday, and it was Quidditch practice. Which, as it turned out, he was horrible at. He only caught the golf balls one out of ten times, and ended up spraining his ankle on a bad dismount, and had to go to the Hospital Wing to get it healed.
“Well,” he later told Ron and Hermione, “Wood isn't happy. And neither am I. I suck at Quidditch.” He then proceeded to give them a blow-by-blow description of how awful he was at it. They were a very good audience.
“Cheer up, mate. You'll change back at some point. Iliana's good enough she could probably miss every practice between now and the match, and still win. But I wouldn't recommend it, Wood might well lose his mind from the stress.”
Ron got up to go to the bathroom at that point, and Hermione scooted closer.
“So,” she said, sounding sly. “I noticed Wood passed by us, and y-Iliana turned beet red, and then there you were, Harry. I think she fancies Wood.”
“I do not!” Harry said, his voice shifting into Iliana briefly, eyes flashing hazel before returning to green.
“Er, I mean... god, this is confusing. It's Iliana's feelings, but I feel them when she does, we're connected in some way that isn't quite telepathy, but close; we can read each other's moods, and send messages to one another, but we also have some privacy from one another, which I suppose is where the bulk of the difference between us lies – that ability to be distinct. Yet there's also some thoughts shared unintentionally, sometimes. It's all so weird, and trying to sort out who's saying what and who's feeling what is confusing. Her feelings feel like mine, but different. Gah...” He ran his hands through his hair, exasperated.
Hermione patted his arm. “Don't worry, you'll find a way to manage. And I can help. Or try to, anyway.”
“Thanks, Hermione. We appreciate it.”
Summary: Harry Potter is a wizard, which surprises him. But Harry Potter is also a Multiple, which surprises everyone.
Harry Potter belongs to J.K.Rowling. This is fan fiction.
The Many Faces of Adira Potter
By = Fayanora
There is at least one small part that is mostly lifted word for word from the canon books. I try not to do that if I can help it, though, and it's only a very small part.
Chapter Two: A Little Problem
The next day, at breakfast, Draco Malfoy walked over to the Griffindor table where Harry was at and said, “Ah, the great Harry Potter returns at last. Good to see that insufferable redhead is gone for now. What's it like, Potter, having to pee sitting down?”
“I don't know, Malfoy,” his voice harsher because Alastair was talking, even though they hadn't changed, “what's it like having to put your head over the toilet to poop?”
Malfoy glared as everyone else laughed. “Watch your tongue, Potter, if you like it where it is.”
“Funny how much braver you are down on the ground, with your minions not far away,” Al-Harry said cooly.
“I'll take you on anytime myself. Tonight, even. Wizard's duel, midnight. No contact, wands only.”
“Sure, why not? Sounds like fun.”
“Uh yeah, I'm his second,” Ron said. “Who's yours?”
“Crabbe. So midnight's fine?”
“Well since high noon would be too conspicuous, midnight sounds like the next logical time.”
Malfoy looked confused. Harry grunted.
“It's a Muggle cultural reference, of course you didn't get it.”
Malfoy scoffed, but walked away.
“So I don't know what a wizard's duel is exactly, but I assume it's like a Muggle duel, but with wands instead of guns?”
“Er... I don't know.”
“I imagine it is,” said Hermione. “But you can't possibly go! Think of all the points you'll lose us if you get caught!”
Ron was about to speak, but Al-Harry interrupted. “Of course I'm not going, it's an obvious trap.”
“Oh. Well, that's good. But why did you accept?”
“Because I'm going to alert McGonagall that Malfoy might be out, just in case he really does plan to show up.”
“Why not Filch?”
“Because the man hates students and doesn't seem to serve any purpose. Sure, he cleans, but doesn't seem to use magic to do it; I'm not sure he can use magic. Which makes me wonder, why don't they have a janitor who can use magic? I wonder what Filch did to deserve having to work here with people he hates. Poor man.”
“You're feeling bad for Filch?”
Al-Harry snorted. “If I couldn't do magic, using Muggle cleaning methods to clean at a school of magic is the last place I'd want to be. I'd be a grouchy, spiteful, nasty git too if I had to do that.”
Harry's eyes shifted to hazel, his hair reddening, and said, “Al, you're already a grouchy git.”
Ron shook his head. “That is going to take so long to get used to.”
“You're telling us,” Harry said.
“Anyway, you think Filch is a squib?”
“No idea what that word means.”
“It means he's a non-wizard born to wizarding parents. The opposite of a muggleborn.”
“Maybe. I've never seen him use magic, other than potions. Not that I care, I just don't get why he's working here as a janitor when he can't do magic. Isn't there something else he could do? Something that doesn't anger him so much?”
Al-Harry shook their head, and sighed, going back to their work.
Harry ended up heading toward the common room early from dinner that night, but he made it no further than the library before he got dizzy and leaned against the wall. His head began to hurt, but before he could do more than moan a little, his hair became long and brown and straight, he felt his eyes changing, and he shrunk by at least a foot. Then, where Harry had been standing, was a little girl no older than 6, her skin brown enough to pass as bi-racial. She grinned, took out a mirror to look at herself, interested by having one green eye and one blue eye, then sneaked off.
Running into nobody else by some miracle, she followed some Slytherins to their common room, somehow also getting in without being seen. She hid behind a chair and pointed her wand at Draco, whispering incantations. Nothing appeared to happen, but she wasn't expecting anything to yet, anyway. She'd come up with the plan when Harry had been reading the other day, but hadn't known who she was going to target until Draco started being a git earlier that day. The plan involved a time-release spell, so of course it wouldn't look like anything had happened. But tomorrow, it would.
Her task complete, the little girl left the common room by just walking as though she belonged there. She was still dressed in a Hogwarts uniform, so doubtless people who saw her just thought she was a very short firstie. However it worked, she got out without a problem and skipped back to Griffindor's common room, going inside with a group of chattering first-years.
Going upstairs to Harry's room, she saw Ron changing, and wolf-whistled. His reaction was very funny, so she giggled as she watched him flailing about in a panic.
“YOU! You're a girl! You're not supposed to be here!”
“Sure I am. I live here.”
Ron spluttered. “No you don't!”
“Sure I do.” She held her hand out. “Hi, I'm Zoey Potter.”
Ron groaned. “Another one? How many people are in there, anyway?”
“Only four that I know of. But the others didn't know about me, so I could be wrong.”
Ron looked at her closer. “You don't look like either Harry or Iliana.”
She shrugged. “So?”
“Just seems odd, is all.”
“Well I do have one green eye and one blue eye. And though he hasn't shown up yet, I think Al has blue eyes, so I'm similar in that way.”
“Blue, green, and hazel?”
She shrugged. “It's magic.”
“Point. I suppose you're going to sleep in Harry's bed?”
“Yup.”
She went over to Harry's trunk and pulled out one of Dudley's old t-shirts, a really old one that wouldn't be
too
huge on her. Without any warning at all, she pulled her robes off, and Ron jerked his head away.
“Oy! Anyone could see you!”
“I'm six.”
“Yes, I had noticed. What's your point?”
“I'm
six
.”
Ron shook his head, giving up. “Is it safe to look?”
“Sure,” she said.
He turned and peeked, and saw her mooning him. “OY!”
She giggled. “What? Never seen a six year old's butt before?”
Ron peeked again, and – seeing she was decent at last – went past her and back downstairs.
“Where you going, Ron?”
“To see if I can find Hermione.”
“Oh goody! I'll come too!”
As he went down the stairs, she slid down the banister and landed barefoot on the floor before him. She shouted “Hermione!” Eyes turned her direction and stared at this small child in their common room.
Luckily, Hermione was still downstairs. She looked at Zoey curiously. Zoey walked up to her, bowed with a flourish, and announced with mock pomposity, “Greetings, Hermione Jean Granger. I am Zoey Potter.”
Hermione looked at Ron questioningly. He shrugged.
“Well hi there, Zoey,” Hermione said. “Welcome to Hogwarts.”
“Thank you.”
With that, she ran off upstairs, and everyone still in the common room started talking about the strangeness of Harry Potter in low mutters. Ron sat down next to Hermione, even though he was already in his PJ's, and put his head in his arms on the table.
“There, there, Ron, we'll get used to it eventually.”
*
Zoey was still around the next day, of course. She changed into her robes right there in front of Ron, Seamus, and Dean, and again their reactions were very funny to her. She hurried to get ready, and practically dragged Ron to breakfast.
“Oy, what's the rush?”
“We should sit where we can watch the Slytherin table, something very funny is going to happen. Hey Hermione, you should come with us!”
“Why, what's going to happen?”
“It's a secret. Oh, we should slow down so Filch doesn't get upset.”
They waited there, eating, for Malfoy to show up, trying to get the girl to speak, but she refused. When they finally saw Malfoy, nothing looked odd about him, but Zoey began to giggle.
“What are you--”
“Just watch him.”
They did. For a couple minutes, nothing happened. They were tempted to stop looking, but then they noticed something happen. Before their eyes, his hair turned bubblegum pink and went from sleek and slicked back to poking out everywhere worse than Harry's hair.
They burst into laughter. Within minutes, the laughter had spread, and Draco was looking confused. Then someone showed him what he looked like, and he screamed and ran out of the room.
The laughter was still going when Fred and George showed up.
“So who did that? Because that was bloody brilliant.”
“I think Zoey here did,” Ron said, indicating the young girl.
“Oh yeah, we heard about you last night. Fred Weasley,” Fred said, holding out his hand.
“And I'm George. Always glad to meet a fellow trouble maker.”
She took both their hands at once and giggled. “Thanks. Ah, I wonder how Ms. Pomfrey will try to deal with it. I've covered all the counters I know about. One will make his hair turn into snakes, another will turn his hair into seaweed. And a third will make all his hair fall out. It'll take a full day to grow back if that happens.”
“Wow. How does a first year become such a genius?”
“Oh, lots of reading. I may have been in hiding, but I was pulling strings from within, to get the others to read certain things, and then I compiled the information inside and worked it out. But now I'm out, I can read whatever I want, whenever I want to. So this is just the beginning.”
“As funny as that was, Zoey,” Hermione said, “that was very mean. I should tell McGonagall on you.”
Zoey shrugged. “What're they gonna do to me? I'm too adorable and young to punish too much. And if they decide otherwise, I'll just vanish. It would be unfair to punish the others for something I did. Anyway, Hermione, don't you want to know why I did it?”
Hermione sighed. “Why did you do it?”
“Because Malfoy tried luring us into a trap. Al saw right through it, but still, he tried. So I got him back.”
Hermione shook her head disapprovingly, but said nothing else.
Draco Malfoy wasn't seen all that day. From rumors they heard, his hair had undergone two disturbing transformations before falling out, when Madam Pomfrey tried fixing it, and she couldn't get it to regrow.
“I can't stand it,” Zoey said that night in the common room. “I need a picture. I'll be right back.”
“Where are--”
Suddenly, Harry stood there, bemused. “What's going---”
Before he could finish his sentence, Harry vanished again, and Zoey was back, holding a camera. Ron and Hermione were so shocked by this that Zoey was out the door before they snapped out of it. They immediately ran after her, as it was almost curfew, and in their haste left the portrait open.
She had been fast; they scoured the corridors for her, even down in the dungeons. They didn't find her until she was running away from several angry Slytherins, laughing like a maniac as they chased her. Hastily, Ron and Hermione ran to keep up with the girl.
“What'd you do?”
“Got a photo of Malfoy bald! For some reason the Slytherins didn't appreciate it.”
“Gee, I wonder why?”
On their way back, they ran into Peeves the Poltergeist. The colorful little man grinned maliciously at them, rubbing his hands together. “Oooh, students. It's past curfew now, ickle firsties. Should tell Filch, I should.”
“Please don't! We're on our way back now.”
“Hmm... do I or don't I? Decisions, decisions...”
“Shove it, Peeves!” shouted Ron. Hermione and Zoey both groaned.
“STUDENTS OUT OF BED! STUDENTS OUT OF BED DOWN THE CHARMS CORRIDOR!” he shouted, Ron's rudeness having decided him.
“Come,” Hermione said, grabbing them both and running away.
They got lost trying to get away, and ran into a dark corridor.
“Where are we? I don't recognize this.”
“Oh no! This is the third floor corridor! It's forbidden!”
They heard Filch coming, and looked around desperately. “Alohomora,” Hermione incanted at the door. It unlocked, and she dragged them in.
Ron and Hermione's first sign of trouble was Zoey gleefully shouting “DOGGIE! Pretty poochy!”
“What? What do you---” Ron started, looking where Zoey was pointing.
“Pretty little Spot! Such a nice wittle doggy!” she said, as Ron poked Hermione to get her attention.
The two were looking up at an enormous, three headed dog, and despite what Zoey had said, it did not look nice at all. In fact, it was only the fact they'd surprised it that they hadn't been attacked. It was recovering from that, though, and growling at them, then barking. They screamed. Zoey jumped forward and hugged the giant dog's leg. It stopped barking and looked down at her in confusion. They took advantage of this confusion to grab Zoey and carry her off running down the corridors and into the common room, panting with the effort.
“Aww, no more pretty doggie,” Zoey said sadly.
“UGH!” Hermione exclaimed. “That's it! I'm going to bed before either of you can try getting us killed again, or worse – expelled. Good night.”
“She needs to sort out her priorities,” Ron said, as Zoey giggled.
The next day, they talked about the experience of the night before, Hermione mentioning she'd seen it standing on a trap door, so it must be guarding something. They were still discussing what could be that valuable when the mail came and Zoey got a package, though it was addressed to Iliana.
“I know it's weird,” she said to the confused-looking owl, “but you can give it to me. Iliana isn't available right now. I'll give it to her.”
“She's right,” said Ron.
Hooting in a resigned way, the owl gave Zoey the package.
“Gee, it's shaped like a broomstick,” she said. “I wonder if it's that Underwear of the Month basket I ordered.”
“Underwear of the Month?”
She giggled. “Yes, if something like that existed, I would subscribe for sure. But yeah, obviously a broom. Yup,” she added, holding up a letter. “Says so here in this attached letter.”
Ron read it; it was from McGonagall, instructing her not to open it at the table.
“Like I would anyway,” she said. “It's not mine, is it? Anyway, wanna see the photo I got?”
She handed the two of them a copy each of a picture of Draco, bald, jumping in fright at the flash of the camera and running away, as the picture version of Zoey ran after him and dragged him back into the frame.
“Keep em. I have dozens. Oh, Fred, George, here, you can have copies too.”
“Brilliant!”
They looked over at Draco, whose hair was back to normal now, but he was looking very embarrassed, and left breakfast early.
However, he did not go far. When they left the Great Hall, he was there with Crabbe and Goyle, all three of them looking livid.
“YOU!” he shouted, pointing at Zoey.
“Who me? Innocent little me?”
“Yes you, Potter. You give me those photos NOW!”
“I'd be glad to give you copies,” she said, handing each one of them copies.
Crabbe did not manage to stifle his snort of amusement in time, and Draco glared daggers at him. Recovering quickly, Crabbe scowled at her. “Give us
all
your copies now, or else.”
“Oh, sorry, I've already given out a dozen copies today, and taught several people the copying spell. Maybe you shouldn't try to get other people in trouble by challenging them to midnight duels, in future, and we can call this first prank the last, whadda ya say?”
“Why you little...” he paused, looking at the package in her hand. “Oh you're in for it now, Potter! That's a broomstick, and first years aren't allowed their own brooms.”
“Special exception for Iliana, seeing as she's the new Griffindor Seeker.”
Before Draco could answer, Professor Flitwick appeared at his elbow.
“Not arguing, I hope, students?” he squeaked.
“Potter's been sent a broomstick, Professor,” said Malfoy quickly.
“Yes, yes, that’s right,” said Professor Flitwick, beaming at Harry. “Professor McGonagall told me all about the special circumstances, Potter. And what model is it?”
“Dunno yet, Iliana's not here right now, so she hasn't opened it. Wait, Ron, hold this for me,” she said, thrusting the package into his arms.
“What? I---”
Zoey vanished, and a bemused Iliana stood there in her place. “What?”
“Oh there you are, Iliana. I think Zoey wants--”
“Zoey?” she looked confused.
“Zoey Potter. The newest member of your collective to appear. Anyway, this is yours, open it.”
Still bemused, Iliana opened it. “A Nimbus 2000!” she exclaimed. Draco glared with jealousy.
“Ah yes, Potter, an excellent broom indeed. Use it well.”
Flitwick and the three Slytherins left them then, Draco grumbling loudly. Iliana suddenly found herself thrusting the broom into Ron's arms again. And with that, Zoey returned.
Ron blinked at her as she took the broom back. “Are you guys getting better at that, or is that just you who can do that?”
“No idea. Come on, I need to put this away before we go to class.”
“What's the betting the only two girls in their collective are both good at Quidditch?” Ron wondered aloud at Hermione. Hermione shrugged.
“I don't know. But I can't imagine Wood will be pleased if only Iliana can play Quidditch.”
“Nah, it'll be fine. You saw for yourself, twice now she switched on purpose to someone else and back again. When it's time to play Quidditch, if she sucks at it, she can just switch. There won't be a problem.”
There was a problem. Zoey was slightly better at Quidditch than the boys in the collective, but not by much. She flew well enough, but couldn't catch anything, and almost fell off her broom once in the attempt. And as it turned out, Zoey could only leave on a whim, and all attempts to switch on purpose were futile. Wood was in tears, pulling his hair out. The first match was only two weeks away, and Iliana had only had one practice session.
The next week's practice went no better, and by the end of it, Wood was screaming at Zoey. Despite not having been scared of Fluffy, Zoey reacted to his screaming much as any six year old would, and burst into genuine tears. This did not stop Wood from yelling; in fact, he screamed even louder.
Fred and George began stepping forward to defend her, when she fell to her knees and jerked in a way Ron and Hermione had come to recognize; it didn't surprise either of them that when she stood back up, she transformed. What
did
surprise them, though, was that there seemed to be two members of the Potter collective shouting in unison at Wood, and as a result, their transformation was still in flux, fighting between the two influences.
“AND NOFFER TINNNN,” they said, making so little sense that they paused and looked confused. “Whavatfra? GAH!”
They fell over, and the transformation settled; they were now stuck as a mix of two people. Both eyes were a strange mix of hazel and blue, their hair was a mix of red and black, some of it short and some long, some of it smooth and some of it sticking out. Their skin was splotchy; pale in places and tan in others. One hand was masculine with slightly thicker fingers than the other, which was thin and feminine. And one leg was several inches shorter than the other, which is why they'd fallen over; and the shock of the incomplete change made them pass out.
When they woke up later in the hospital wing, they looked no different. Their face glared up at their friends, angry and confused.
“What the bloody hell happened?” they said in Al's harsh voice.
“Ah so you're awake, then, Mr. and Ms. Potter,” the matron said. “Good.”
“What?” they asked, sounding more like Iliana. “What was that?”
“Well best as I can tell, two of you tried taking over at the same time, and it resulted in a rather messy hybrid transformation. I didn't dare do anything to try to fix it, because to be honest, as a likely unique case, I have no idea what to do, and I'm afraid anything I do could damage you all permanently. So it was safest to do nothing, and hope you can sort yourselves out.”
“Great,” said Al. “Now I look like some kind of mutant. Just bloody wonderful. Malfoy is gonna laugh his arse off.”
“And that's not all,” Iliana said. “I can't feel Harry.”
“I can,” Al responded. “But he's not even a little in control, at the moment. It's just the two of us as pilot and co-pilot, for now.”
Ron shook his head and sighed, then glared at Wood. Wood ignored Ron, and turned to Alastair and Iliana. “So does that mean you'll be able to practice?”
“Ugh...” the two said in unison.
“I'm issuing you a crutch,” the matron said, “to adjust for the one leg being shorter than the other. It's on your wand-arm side, though, which will make things difficult. I suggest you try using your wand with your left hand until this passes.”
They nodded, closing their eyes, and silently wished they could be normal.
As the weeks wore on, and the weird looks increased, at least they could console themselves that with Iliana co-piloting, they were good at Quidditch, so Wood was happy about that. On the ground, they were awkward and clumsy in their hybrid body, but in the air they were every bit as graceful as ever.
On Halloween, they woke up to delicious smells of baking pastries and limped on their crutch down to breakfast, glad that they had the Halloween feast to look forward to. It also helped Al's mood that co-piloting with Iliana was a lot like being tutored in the things she was good at, including the levitation spell in Charms.
Ron was doing it wrong; Iliana was tempted to tell him how to do it right, but Al growled at her when she suggested it, so she didn't. Instead, Hermione corrected him on the right way to pronounce the incantation. Al's bad mood must have spilled over to Ron, because Ron snapped at her. And later, as they were leaving class, Ron sniped something nasty about Hermione at Al and Iliana, which Hermione overheard, sending her away crying.
“Smooth move, jackass,” Al sniped at Ron. “Now you've made her cry. You and Wood should form a club, call it the We Make Girls Cry Club.”
Ron did, at least, have the decency to look abashed about that. But he didn't go after Hermione.
They went to the feast and sat down. As they ate, they overheard news that Hermione was crying in the girl's bathroom. Ron looked guilty again, but his feelings of guilt did not slow down his stuffing his face. Which ended up being a good thing, because the feast got interrupted by Professor Quirrell running in and shouting about a troll in the dungeon before collapsing.
Everyone burst into panicked screaming, until Dumbledore got their attention with some crackers from his wand.
“Prefects,” he said, “lead your Houses back to the dormitories immediately!”
As they followed Percy, Al and Iliana's face looked confused. “What? Dormitories? The troll is in the dungeons. Don't the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs have their dormitories down in the dungeons?”
“Er... that's a very good question. I think you're right.”
“Hermione!” Iliana shouted.
“What about her?”
“She doesn't know about the troll! We have to help her!”
Wait, shouldn't we just tell--
“Come on!” she said, ignoring Al, pulling Ron along. As they ran to find Hermione, they didn't notice that they'd left the crutch behind, and neither did they notice that the Potter body's hybrid appearance had changed, and now Iliana was running in her own body, the strange hybidization having become reversed.
“Percy!” Iliana exclaimed, hiding her and Ron behind a gargoyle. But it wasn't Percy, it was Snape.
“Well that's odd. What's he doing down here instead of being with the other teachers?”
“No idea.”
“He's heading up to the third floor. Why?”
“Hey, what's that smell?”
Iliana sniffed. “Eew,” she said. It was like old socks and an uncleaned public restroom of the foulest sort. It was the troll.
“Come on.”
They ran forward as it walked into a room, and Iliana made them hide again.
“What? We should close the door on it, trap it!”
“Ron you dunderhead, that's the girl's restroom it just walked into. Hopefully it'll look around and head back out, finding nothing interest--”
Hermione screamed. “Damn,” Iliana said, jumping out and whistling loudly. The troll didn't notice this at first, so she whistled louder. Ron joined in by screaming at it, and then Iliana fired sparks at it. This finally got the beast's attention, and it turned and lumbered in their direction.
“You keep distracting it, I'll extract Hermione.”
Ron nodded, continuing his attention-seeking, and Iliana ducked inside and pulled a terrified Hermione out and past the troll. Then she grabbed Ron's hand and they took off running, where they ran right into Professor McGonagall.
“Troll's back there! We barely got Hermione out of the restroom before it killed her!”
McGonagall nodded. “You three, back to Griffindor dormitories. We'll take care of the troll.”
But they were already halfway down the corridor before she'd finished speaking, and before long they were slamming the portrait shut and collapsing into chairs in the common room, panting like they'd run a marathon.
“Well that was a close shave,” Ron said.
*
With the icy chill of November, it was Quidditch season, and Wood was thrilled that Iliana was still hanging around for practices. Their first match, Griffindor versus Slytherin, was coming up, and everyone was excited about it.
One afternoon, they took advantage of some of the last nice weather for the season to sit outside in the sun, Hermione helping the situation with a little portable magical fire in a jam jar. Iliana was reading Quiddith Through The Ages, a library book, when they saw Snape limping past. Since they weren't sure the porable fire was allowed, they hid it, but their guilty looks got Snape's attention, and he confiscated the book on the excuse that library books weren't allowed outside.
“Odd, I wonder why he's limping?”
“I dunno, but I hope it's really hurting him.”
That evening, everyone was getting keyed up for the match, especially Iliana. She wanted her book back, to distract herself, so she went out to try to ask Snape for it back. She went down to the staffroom, which was flanked by a pair of gargoyles, but they didn't do anything but watch her as she knocked. There was no answer, so she knocked again.
“Is Professor Snape in there?” she asked the gargoyles.
“Should we tell her?”
“I don't see why not. Yes, he is.”
“Thank you.”
She knocked again. Still no response. So she opened the door, before the gargoyles could warn her not to, and saw Filch examining a bite on Snape's leg.
“Blasted thing,” Snape was saying. “How are you supposed to keep your eyes on all three heads at once?”
Iliana tried to close the door quietly, but Snape looked up and right into her eyes. He turned pale at first, then glared.
“I just wondered if I could have my book back.”
“GET OUT! OUT!”
Iliana ran off before he could take points off. She was halfway back when she had to lean against the wall.
“No, not now!”
She shrank, her hair changed color, and suddenly Zoey was there. Zoey walked back toward the staffroom, and went right in. Nobody was in there anymore. She looked around, found her book, and grabbed it, then headed back.
When she came through the portrait hole, Ron saw her and groaned. “Your timing sucks, you know.”
“Oh, don't worry,” Zoey said, putting the book on the table. “Iliana was having a Snape problem, so I came along to solve it. I'll be going now.”
“When you say you solved it--” he started, but she wasn't there anymore; Iliana was back.
“Did Zoey murder Snape?” Ron asked. “Because if you need to go on the run from the Ministry, I'd be willing to help.”
“Thanks, but no. I saw Filch helping Snape bandage a bad bite on his leg when I went into the staffroom, and he screamed at me to get out. I was heading back when Zoey took over, went back, and barged right in for the book. Luckily, nobody was in there that time. Anyway, from what Snape said before he noticed me, he tried getting past that three headed dog on Halloween, and got bitten.”
“What, d'ya reckon he tried stealing whatever it was guarding?”
“Yeah, why else would he be trying to get past it? He probably let the troll in, too, as a diversion.”
“I really doubt that, Iliana. He's a teacher.”
“Hermione,” Iliana said, “teachers are people. They can be thieves just as easily as anyone else.”
That night, Iliana tried to figure out what the dog was guarding, which kept her up rather later than she would have liked, given that their first Quidditch match was in the morning.
*
The next morning was pleasant weather for Quidditch, if a bit cold. Iliana was so nervous she had a hard time eating any breakfast. Seamus had perhaps the least helpful advice, to eat because seekers get clobbered the most by opposing teams, but his heart was in the right place.
Her stomach was still full of metaphorical rocks when they went out to the pitch to get changed. Her friends were in the stands holding a sign saying 'Potter for President,' which made her giggle, wondering how many wizard-born people were confused by the sign.
“Okay, men and women,” Wood said. “This is it.”
“The one we've been waiting for,” George said melodramatically.
“We have Oliver's speech memorized,” Fred explained.
“Shut up. We're going to win, everyone, I can feel it. Good luck, all of you.”
“Yeah, and if you lose, Oliver will pretend you don't exist.”
“Hush. Now, let's go play some Quidditch!”
They ran out, now in their Quidditch robes, and got into position in the air. Madam Hooch called for a fair game, her sights on the Slytherins, before she released the balls, and the game began.
Iliana flew around, looking for the snitch, listening to Lee Jordan's commentary along the way, giggling in places, but her focus on finding the snitch. Wood's plan, after all, was for her to stay out of the way until she saw it, so she would be less likely to be attacked.
There! She saw it! She pelted after it, but Marcus Flint blocked her on purpose, a foul that cost her the snitch. She went back to looking for it, annoyed that Slytherin felt they needed to cheat to win.
She was still looking minutes later when her broom jerked, starling a yelp out of her. Then it happened again, and again. Her broom was bucking around like a wild stallion trying to throw her off, which had her screaming and clutching the broom, getting the attention of everyone who could hear her.
As if a bucking broom wasn't problem enough, she felt her body trying to change to Zoey, and could finally sense the younger girl's thoughts; she, too, was screaming. Giant three headed dogs, no problem; but apparently Zoey feared falling. They both hung on tight, hoping the bucking would stop soon.
“Someone's jinxing Iliana's broom!” Ron exclaimed.
Hermione looked around with her binoculars, and saw Snape staring at Iliana, skin white as a ghost, muttering something under his breath. She gave the binoculars to Ron and ran off, sneaking over under the bleachers, and lit Snape's robes on fire. Once he noticed he was on fire and tried putting it out, he broke eye contact and fell against Professor Quirrell behind him.
The broom had stopped bucking, so Iliana composed herself quickly and sped toward the ground. In a flash, she was on the ground on all fours, choking. She spit something out, which turned out to be the snitch.
“Eew,” she said, thinking about the germs that must be on it. “I've got the snitch!” she shouted, holding it aloft.
Once people figured out what had happened, cheering erupted, and people joked about how she'd nearly swallowed it.
Given how she'd nearly fallen off her broom, and then nearly swallowed the snitch, she was soon at Hagrid's hut getting some tea.
“It was Snape,” Ron was explaining, “Hermione and I saw him. He was cursing your broomstick, muttering, he wouldn’t take his eyes off you.”
“Rubbish,” said Hagrid, who hadn’t heard a word of what had gone on next to him in the stands. “Why would Snape do somethin’ like that?”
Iliana, Ron, and Hermione looked at one another, wondering what to tell him. Iliana decided on the truth.
“I found out something about him,” she told Hagrid. “He tried to get past that three-headed dog on Halloween. It bit him. We think he was trying to steal whatever it’s guarding.”
Hagrid dropped the teapot.
“How do you know about Fluffy?” he asked.
“Fluffy?”
“Yeah — he’s mine — bought him off a Greek chappie I met in the pub las’ year — I lent him to Dumbledore to guard the —”
“Yes?” asked Iliana eagerly.
“Now, don’t ask me anymore,” said Hagrid gruffly. “That’s top secret, that is.”
“But Snape’s trying to steal it.”
“Rubbish,” said Hagrid again. “Snape’s a Hogwarts teacher, he’d do nothin’ of the sort.”
“So why did he just try and kill Iliana?” cried Hermione.
The afternoon’s events certainly seemed to have changed her mind about Snape.
“I know a jinx when I see one, Hagrid, I’ve read all about them! You’ve got to keep eye contact, and Snape wasn’t blinking at all, I saw him!”
“I’m tellin’ yeh, yer wrong!” said Hagrid hotly. “I don’ know why Iliana's broom acted like that, but Snape wouldn’ try an’ kill a student! Now, listen to me, all three of yeh — yer meddlin’ in things that don’ concern yeh. It’s dangerous. You forget that dog, an’ you forget what it’s guardin’, that’s between Professor Dumbledore an’ Nicolas Flamel —”
“Aha!” said Iliana, “so there’s someone called Nicolas Flamel involved, is there?”
Hagrid looked furious with himself.
“Enough. I'm not sayin another word, any of yeh.”
Iliana jerked, becoming Zoey. Hagrid looked at her bemusedly.
“Ello there,” he said. “Who're you now?”
“I'm Zoey Potter. I saw Fluffy the other day. He's gorgeous!”
Hagrid beamed. “Yeh like im, do yeh?”
“Pretty puppy!”
“Puppy?” Ron said, incredulous. “I hope not. If that's him as a puppy, I'd hate to see him fully grown.”
Hagrid and Zoey spent the next hour discussing the kinds of creatures Hagrid was most fascinated by, but sadly Zoey did not get anything else out of him about what the dog was guarding. Then again, it was hard to tell if she was even trying to do that.
With just half an hour left til they had to go back inside, Zoey got dizzy, and leaned against the table.
“Wha's tha matter?” Hagrid asked in concern.
She jerked, shouting, and the shout changed from that of a little girl to that of an older boy. She shot up in height until she was a couple feet taller than Harry, her hair went black again but got shorter and smooth, her one hazel eye went blue to match the other one, and suddenly a very handsome 14 year old boy was sitting there, everyone staring at him in shock. Like Zoey and Iliana, he didn't wear glasses either.
He glared, which somehow seemed to enhance his looks rather than detracting.
“Sirius?” Hagrid said in shock.
“What'd you call me?”
“Er, sorry. Nothin.”
Hermione sighed. “Are you Alastair?”
He nodded, still scowling. “Yes. Alastair Potter. And I've been seething silently inside for the past hour. How can you defend Snape, Hagrid? The man is an abusive arse who shouldn't be teaching children, and now it looks like he might be a thief and an attempted murderer.”
“I'm sayin nothin, Al. Dumbledore trusts him, and that's good enough for me.”
“Yeah, I'm really gonna value the opinion of someone who put me with child abusers for 10 years. Granted, he did say he misjudged them, and I'm going to become a ward of Hogwart's, unless he's forgotten his promise. Still, his judgment of people has been wrong before, so I don't have your faith in him, Hagrid. I'm open minded; maybe he's innocent. But I'm not going to go to the other extreme and trust him just because Dumbledore says he's good people.”
Hagrid looked thoughtful at that, if a little sad. “Well tha's yer right, o' course. I understand, I do. But I trust Snape. And I trust Dumbledore. He trusted me, got me this job after I was expelled.”
“Ah, I see. You owe him. Well I won't say anything else, then. There'd be no point.”
*
Alastair didn't leave after Hagrid, which of course led to more introductions and even more odd looks, seeing as he was a full three years older than anyone in their year. Harry Potter was also now known to be four different people, and people had begun taking bets on the likelihood of still more to come.
Meanwhile, it was plain from Al's grouchy and sarcastic attitude where Harry got that side of his personality from. Al always had a smart-ass response to everything, even if he didn't always share it. But he wasn't all grump all the time, thankfully; he did laugh and joke amiably at times, with a laugh like a bark, which got weird reactions from the teachers.
The teachers were, in fact, the people who gave Al the weirdest looks of all. The looks were best described as an odd mix of pleased nostalgia, fear, sadness, and anger. And whenever he spoke, they got even stranger. He tried asking McGonagall about it once, and she turned white and quickly changed the subject, so Al decided not to ask anyone else about it.
What was more, when Snape saw him for the first time, he set a new high mark for fury in his face that Al hadn't thought possible. Snape was actually so livid that he couldn't speak, and spent all of the class time pointedly avoiding looking in Al's direction.
Despite all that, he found there were benefits as well. Older students, girls mostly but also some boys, would stare at him like lovesick puppies, swooning and/or giggling as he walked by. It had made him annoyed at first, but as the weeks wore on, he began to enjoy it, soaking up the attention like a drug while simultaneously pretending he didn't notice.
Al was, unsurprisingly, horrible at Quidditch. Unlike the others, who could at least fly reasonably well, Al was even more prone to airborne accidents than Neville was, and actually broke both arms one Saturday afternoon, so Wood reluctantly decided that until Iliana came back, Al would stay firmly on the ground. Why Iliana was the only one in the collective to have that particular talent, nobody knew.
In fact, he was very clumsy on the ground as well. Whether this was from the transformation having thrown off his sense of his body or was just how he was, nobody knew. But he found himself apologizing for knocking stuff over almost as much as he was making sarcastic comments, most days.
He, Ron, and Hermione were going to the library a lot lately, looking for Nicolas Flamel. He was a hard person to find, though; they must have gone through half the books in the library by Christmas looking for him.
Draco Malfoy tried teasing him about staying in Hogwart's for Christmas, but he wasn't bothered. As long as he didn't have to see the Dursleys again, he was fine. Besides, Ron and his brothers were staying behind, too, because their parents were going to Romania to visit Charlie.
Hermione made them promise to keep looking for Flamel before she left for home.
“Yeah yeah, we know,” Al said, not looking up from his book.
“Hey Hermione, you could ask your parents about Flamel, that should be safe.”
“Very safe, seeing as they're both dentists.”
“Dentists?”
“Doctors who specialize in fixing teeth,” Al explained.
“Oh. Why do they do that?”
“What, specialize?”
“Yeah.”
“Because Muggle medicine is very complex and difficult to learn. It takes people eight or more years of university to become a general practitioner, and more time, I think, to specialize. Specialists are needed because there's too much knowledge about medicine for anyone to know everything. So for anything more complicated than easy fixes, you get foot specialists, nose and throat specialists, cancer specialists, and so on.”
“Dentists don't need that much education, Al,” Hermione corrected. “They're not like other specialists, since they don't need to know all that other medicine just to fix teeth.”
“I stand corrected.”
“Oh god,” Ron said, scooting away from some other students. “More of those giggling fourth-year girls.”
Al leaned back in his chair, smiling easily. “Eh, you're just jealous.”
“Not really. It's a little creepy, since you're actually 11, no matter how old you look.”
Al shrugged. “Whatever.”
“Even more so when you add that there's a six year old girl in your collective.”
“Yeah okay; point taken, Ron.”
On Christmas eve, Al was reading again, but stopped, looking bored.
“Well, this is boring. And I wouldn't want Harry to miss out on his first decent Christmas. So I'll see you around, carrot-top.”
“What did you call---”
But Al was gone, and Harry was back, sighing. “Sorry about him.”
Ron shrugged. “It's okay.”
*
On boxing day, Harry woke up without much excitement, but that all changed when he saw he'd gotten actual presents from Ron, Hermione, and Mrs. Weasley. It seemed Ron had told her Harry wasn't expecting any presents.
“Sorry I only got you one thing,” Ron said. “I'd love to give each of you stuff, but y'know, we don't have much money.”
“Hey that's fine, I wasn't expecting any presents at all, and even if I had, I wouldn't expect anyone to give each of us presents. If the others want something, they can buy it with the money my parents left me.”
He went through more of his presents, and found a wooden flute from Hagrid, which looked handmade. There was also a mysterious package from someone who didn't give their name. The note said that it had belonged to Harry's father. He opened it up, and felt something that felt like water woven into fabric.
“Bloody hell!” Ron exclaimed. “I wonder if that's... yes, it is! Put it on!”
Bemused, Harry put it on, and saw his body disappear.
“Invisibility cloak?” Harry guessed.
“Yeah, exactly. Those are really rare, and really valuable.”
Harry frowned, thinking. But his thoughts were interrupted by footsteps up the stairs, so he hid the cloak. Before long, he was dragged downstairs by the twins, for a day of Christmas fun and feasting, his first proper Christmas.
That night, as he lay in bed, Ron asleep, Harry sat thinking. After a while, he came to a decision, and got up, grabbed the cloak, and headed out into the corridors to sneak around the school.
Not knowing where else to go, he tried the library, sneaking into the restricted section to look for Flamel. He instead grabbed a screaming book, dropped the lantern in fright, and took off before Filch could find him. After some close calls, he ducked into an empty classroom and turned around, startled to see a very large mirror.
It was huge, and magnificent, and it had an inscription around it that looked to be in another language.
That's not another language, though, said Al in his head.
What is it, then? He asked silently, in case someone heard him.
It's English, written backwards. It says “I show not your face but your heart's desire.”
Harry squinted at it, trying to read it backwards. Sure enough, that's what it said, backwards and in disjointed words in an attempt to disguise the fact.
Curious, he took off the cloak and stepped closer to examine it. Suddenly, his reflection changed to show Iliana standing there, and all around her were dozens of people. One of the two closest, just behind him, looked very much like Iliana, but with Harry's green eyes. His mother, then. And the other looked like him, only older, and with Iliana's hazel eyes. So that was James, his father. The others had to be other family members, then.
He stared at this. He wondered why it showed Iliana instead of himself, but had no answer, so he just stood there staring at them, until a sudden noise made him realize he was hiding from Filch. He threw the cloak over himself again and left.
The next day, he was like a man posessed; all he could think of was the mirror, and after telling Ron about it, he said he'd show it to Ron. The day seemed to crawl by at a snail's pace as he waited for nightfall.
That night, he and Ron went out under the invisibility cloak, Harry struggling to find the place again. But finally they found it. He stood in front of it, and once more saw Iliana and his family surrounding her.
“I don't see anything,” Ron complained.
“Oh, well, maybe you have to stand here to see it.”
“Alright,” Ron said, stepping into place.
“See them? See my family, and Iliana?”
“Wow! I see me! And I look great. Head boy, Quidditch captain, and I'm holding the Quidditch cup! Do you think this mirror shows the future?”
“No,” Harry said, feeling Al speaking through him. “The inscription is backwards English, it says it shows you your heart's desire. So I want to see my family, that makes sense. And you want to outshine the rest of your brothers, that also makes sense. The only part I don't understand is why it shows me Iliana, rather than me.
“Anyway, what's so interesting about something achievable like that? This is the only time I've seen my family, let me have it again.”
“No, you had your turn!”
A sudden noise outside froze them, and Harry hastily threw the cloak over both of them just before Filch's cat, Mrs. Norris, came in the room. They didn't dare breathe as she looked around in confusion, not letting their breath go until she left the room. They waited a few heartbeats before heading back to their dorms.
He had a hard time sleeping again that night, with the mirror on his mind, and that sleeplessness haunted him all day long in the form of exhaustion. Despite that, though, he went back again the next night, on his own again.
Throwing the cloak aside casually, he went right to staring into the mirror.
“Back again, Harry?” a familiar voice asked.
His insides froze, and he looked to the voice's owner, Albus Dumbledore. He must have walked right by the man in his haste to get to the mirror.
“Professor. Er, I didn't see you.”
“Funny, how nearsighted being invisible can make you,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes, walking over to where Harry was.
“So,” said Dumbledore, slipping off the desk to sit on the floor with Harry, “you, like hundreds before you, have discovered the delights of the Mirror of Erised.”
“Oh, is that what it's called?”
“Yes. And of course, you know what it does.”
“ 'I show not your face, but your heart's desire,'” Harry quoted.
“Indeed. Your Alastair aspect is quite astute, to have spotted that little trick so quickly. Some people stare at the mirror for years never realizing the inscription is actually English. Of course, there is more to the mirror than just that.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. While the mirror shows us neither truth nor wisdom, and while many have wasted their lives away, going mad trying to sort out if what they saw was possible, the happiest man on Earth could look into it and see only himself, just as he is.”
Al snorted audibly, Harry's eyes flashing blue. “I doubt any such person exists. But if they did, I think I grasp your meaning. It shows you what you most want, the deepest and most desperate desires of our hearts.”
“Precisely.”
“So why does it show me Iliana, rather than myself?”
“Hmm... that, my boy, you'll have to figure out for yourself. I do not feel qualified to offer suggestions on that. Anyway, Harry, the mirror will be moved to a new home, tomorrow, and since it has the unfortunate tendency to drive people insane, I ask you not look for it again. However, if you should come across it in the future, you should be prepared for it now.”
Well that's an odd statement. Does he expect that's likely? And does this have anything to do with the thing hidden in the castle right now? Whatever the hell that is...
Harry nodded, ignoring Al's internal comment. “Yes, sir. I promise I won't go looking for it again.”
“Good. I'll hold you to that. For now, though, I shall be lenient with you. I did, after all, give you your father's cloak, so I'm not terribly surprised you used it.”
“You had it?”
“Yes. He loaned it to me before going into hiding, which is why it's not been... well...” he trailed off.
“Blown up, you mean?”
“Er, yes. That. Anyway, I think it's time you go back to bed, don't you think?”
“Sir — Professor Dumbledore? Can I ask you something?”
“Obviously, you’ve just done so,” Dumbledore smiled. “You may ask me one more thing, however.”
Smart ass, Al commented.
Takes one to know one, Harry replied.
“What do you see when you look in the mirror?” he asked aloud.
“I? I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks.”
Uh-huh. Sure you do.
Harry raised an eyebrow.
“One can never have enough socks,” said Dumbledore. “Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn’t get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books.”
“Okay. Well I'll be going back to bed now, sir.”
“Of course, my dear boy.”
Harry put the cloak back on, and went back. When he slipped back into bed, he thought about Dumbledore's answer, which had obviously been a lie.
Well what did you expect? That's a very personal question. For all you know, he could be gay, and he sees himself being--
God, Alastair, if you finish that thought, I will scream. I don't need any horrible images in my mind, thank you very much.
Whatever.
Harry sighed, and rolled over, concentrating on trying to get to sleep.
The Many Faces of Adira Potter
By = Fayanora
Note: Thanks, everyone who reviewed, I feel giddy from the praise! Sorry this chapter has been so long coming. Hope you enjoy!
Note two: I know this chapter follows the canon material a lot, I'm sorry for that, but I did try to avoid it. It gets better, I promise.
Chapter Three: Flamel and Murphy and Norbert and Voldy
Harry took Dumbledore's advice and did not seek the Mirror of Erised again, but he had a hard time getting it out of his head. He felt sick from withdrawal, and even had to retreat within, which was useful because Iliana came out, which Wood was pleased about.
“You see, Dumbledore was right; that mirror could drive you mad!” Ron said, facing away from him, and so didn't notice Iliana switching; but he heard the small sound of the magic changing their shared body, and turned to look.
“Oh, hi Iliana.”
“Hey Ron.”
“Well it's a shame you didn't at least find out who Nicolas Flamel is,” Hermione added.
“I wonder why Harry saw you, though, instead of himself? Isn't it supposed to work for whoever's in front of it?” Ron wondered aloud.
Iliana shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe it got confused, didn't know which of us it should work for. No way to test it again now, and I wouldn't try anyway. I never liked that mirror; it was creepy.”
When the term started again, they went back to trying to find out who Flamel was in their spare time, Harry in the background of Iliana's mind, certain he'd heard the name before somewhere but unable to think of where.
At practices, which were getting more frequent and difficult, Iliana had gotten over her nerves around Wood. She still fancied him, but she'd gotten used to him being around, and so she was more comfortable around the older student.
During one particularly muddy practice, the Weasley twins messing about got Wood angry, and in his anger he revealed that Snape was refereeing their match with Hufflepuff, which was ominous. Of course, Iliana rushed back as soon as she could to tell Ron and Hermione about his sinister new desire to be a referee. She found Ron trouncing Hermione at chess, and though he had been concentrating on his next move, Ron caught onto Iliana's mood and let her speak.
“Don’t play,” said Hermione once Iliana finished.
“Say you’re ill,” said Ron.
“Pretend to break your leg,” Hermione suggested.
“Really break your leg,” said Ron.
“I can’t,” said Iliana, flapping her hands with anxiety. “There isn’t a reserve Seeker. If I back out, Gryffindor can’t play at all.”
I have an odd suggestion,
piped up Alastair from within.
What?
Iliana asked him.
Have Zoey transform us if something happens, the magic of that might knock off the spell.
Sounds iffy, but I guess we can put it on reserve.
“Where'd you go?” Ron asked when Iliana began to focus on the real world again.
“Well Alastair had this idea, that if Snape tries the same spell or something, Zoey could transform us; that might throw off the spell.”
“Maybe...” Hermione said, sounding doubtful.
“Worth a shot, at least,” Ron said.
Just then, Neville came in, hopping, from having been leg-locked by Malfoy. Since she liked Neville, she helped him with the countercurse and also tried to improve his self-esteem. Hermione and Ron joined in.
“Go to Professor McGonagall!” Hermione urged Neville. “Report him!”
Neville shook his head. “I don’t want more trouble,” he mumbled.
“Oh, I understand that perfectly, Neville. In primary school, Harry was bullied a lot. Other than running away, there wasn't a lot he could do.”
“You’ve got to stand up to him, Neville!” said Ron. “He’s used to walking all over people, but that’s no reason to lie down in front of him and make it easier.”
“There’s no need to tell me I’m not brave enough to be in Gryffindor, Malfoy’s already done that,” Neville choked out.
Iliana grabbed a Chocolate Frog from her robes and gave it to him. “You're worth twelve of Malfoy, Neville. The Sorting Hat put you here, didn't it?”
“Yeah, and where's Malfoy?” Ron asked. “Stinking Slytherin, that's where.”
“Ron, don't be prejudiced. Slytherin isn't all evil,” Iliana chided. “And not all dark wizards were in Slytherin. Anyway, Neville, the fact you're in Griffindor means you ARE brave. Being brave isn't about being unafraid, it's about facing your fear.”
“Thanks, Iliana. I feel better now. I'm gonna go to bed,” Neville said. “You want the card? I know Harry collects them.”
“Thanks, Neville,” she said, taking the card.
As he walked off, she looked at the Chocolate Frog card he'd handed her. “Dumbledore again. He was the first one I—I mean we, ever... HEY!” She gasped. “I've found him! I've found Flamel!”
“What? Where?”
“Here, on Dumbledore's card. We told you we’d read the name somewhere before, Harry read it on the train coming here — listen to this: ‘Dumbledore is particularly famous for his defeat of the Dark wizard Grindelwald in 1945, for the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon’s blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner, Nicolas Flamel’!”
In response, Hermione took off excitedly and came back with an enormous book, which she slammed onto the table, making Iliana wince for the poor book's sake, and turned it frantically.
“I never thought to look in here!” she whispered excitedly. “I got this out of the library weeks ago for a bit of light reading.”
“
Light
?” said Ron, but Hermione told him to be quiet until she’d looked something up, and started flicking frantically through the pages, muttering to herself.
“I knew it! I knew it!”
“Are we allowed to speak yet?” said Ron grumpily. Hermione ignored him.
“Nicolas Flamel,” she whispered dramatically, “is the only known maker of the Philosopher's Stone!”
“What's that?” asked Iliana.
Hermione read aloud a section of the book, wherein it told that the Philosopher's Stone was a stone that could make people immortal and turn any metal into pure gold. It was plain to them all why Snape was trying to get it. Even
they
thought it sounded good to have.
Iliana decided to play after all, she didn't want to give Snape a reason to declare Griffindor losers by default. That didn't stop her from being anxious and scared, though. Running into Snape in the halls repeatedly didn't help her nerves, either, especially with the strange look he kept giving her whenever he saw her.
The morning of the match, Iliana was so anxious that she felt sick. So sick that she almost considered going to the Hospital Wing. Her teammates had to almost drag her down to the pitch.
As if things couldn't be any worse, when she saw Snape, something snapped inside her, and suddenly Al found himself standing there.
“Shite,” he said. “The universe hates us.”
“Iliana, time to...” Wood began, trailing off when he saw Alastair. When he recovered his wits, he started screaming and yelling and pitching a fit, the Weasley twins had to hold him away from Al.
Finally getting calm again, Wood said, “Well, we'll have to play. I just hope we don't lose too badly,” before storming off.
“Mate,” said one of the twins, “I guess you didn't know Dumbledore is here today, in the stands.”
“Well that's a relief. I just wish we'd known earlier. No idea how to switch back, and I can't imagine Zoey would be any help.”
Iliana? You in there at all?
Yes, I am.
Do you think you can take control, even if we can't switch?
Yes, I think so.
“Well Iliana says she can take control, even though we're in this form. I just hope it works.”
Al relaxed, feeling himself slip out of control of the body, even though he still felt the same feeling of being the one in the driver's seat. It was, to extend the metaphor, as though Iliana were grabbing the wheel from the passenger's side, only a little less awkward, and hopefully not as dangerous. But the fact that he nearly tripped on his own feet getting to the pitch did not bode well.
“Bollocks!” Ron cursed. “Hermione, look. It's Al.”
“Oh my, what a time for them to switch.”
Al/Iliana looked up into the bleachers and saw Dumbledore's silver beard. That was confirmation that they'd switched for no reason; not that Iliana had done it on purpose, of course. Only Zoey was able to switch on purpose, so far. Al tried to relax, thinking about nothing in particular to make it easier for Iliana to drive the body.
This is so weird,
she said internally.
I can feel your... your thingy. And the other thingy that goes with it. How do you manage with those things in the way all the time?
Dunno. I just do.
Up in the bleachers, Ron watched Al get on Iliana's broom with apprehension. Al was a horrible flier, which made the situation worse for safety reasons as well as for their hopes of winning. But there was something off in Al's behavior; he was being clumsy on the ground, which Ron had never seen Al do before, and Al's face kept switching between looking spaced out and looking keenly around.
“Hey Weasley,” Malfoy sneered at him. “How long do you think the Potter freaks will stay on their broom this time? Want to place a bet on it?”
Ron didn’t answer; Snape had just awarded Hufflepuff a penalty because George Weasley had hit a Bludger at him. Hermione, who had all her fingers crossed in her lap, was squinting fixedly at Al, who was circling the game like a hawk, looking for the Snitch, even if he did wobble dangerously on his broom.
“You know how I think they choose people for the Gryffindor team?” said Malfoy loudly a few minutes later, as Snape awarded Hufflepuff another penalty for no reason at all. “It’s people they feel sorry for. See, there’s the Potter freak, who’s got no parents and who's like a human nesting doll, then there’s the Weasleys, who’ve got no money — you should be on the team, Longbottom, you’ve got no brains.”
Neville went bright red but turned in his seat to face Malfoy.
“I’m worth twelve of you, Malfoy,” he stammered.
Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle howled with laughter, but Ron, still not daring to take his eyes from the game, said, “You tell him, Neville.”
“Longbottom, if brains were gold you’d be poorer than Weasley, and that’s saying something.”
Ron’s nerves were already stretched to the breaking point with anxiety about Harry.
“I’m warning you, Malfoy — one more word —”
“Ron!” said Hermione suddenly, “Al!”
“What? Where?”
Al had gone into a spectacular nose dive, everyone on edge as he shot to the ground like a bullet. A bullet that began to glow as he reached for the snitch.
“He's changing again!”
Sure enough, while it was Alastair who had reached for the snitch, it was Iliana who grabbed it.
“You’re in luck, Weasley, Potter’s obviously spotted some money on the ground!” said Malfoy.
Ron snapped. Before Malfoy knew what was happening, Ron was on top of him, wrestling him to the ground. Neville hesitated, then clambered over the back of his seat to help.
“Stop fighting, please! Iliana won! They won! Griffindor won!” cajoled Hermione.
Iliana jumped off her broom with relief, a foot from the ground. Despite having been in Al's form, despite the difficulty of trying to drive a body that wasn't hers at the time, they had managed it. In less than five minutes, no less. And they had another piece of the mystery of their transformations figured out; intense emotions seemed to be a trigger for their switches. Switches that were getting easier, and had less resting time between them.
“Well done,” said Dumbledore quietly, “glad to see you haven't been brooding over that mirror, been keeping busy. Excellent.”
Iliana left the locker room alone later with her broom, ecstatic to have won. But as she passed the shed, she saw Snape heading toward the Forbidden Forest.
What's he up to?
asked Harry.
“No idea,” she said quietly aloud.
Getting back on her broom, she followed Snape without letting him see her, then flew over the forest looking for him. When she found him again, he was with Quirrell.
“… d-don’t know why you wanted t-t-to meet here of all p-places, Severus …”
“Oh, I thought we’d keep this private,” said Snape, his voice icy. “Students aren’t supposed to know about the Philosopher's Stone, after all.”
Iliana leaned forward. Quirrell was mumbling something. Snape interrupted him.
“Have you found out how to get past that beast of Hagrid’s yet?”
“B-b-but Severus, I —”
“You don’t want me as your enemy, Quirrell,” said Snape, taking a step toward him.
“I-I don’t know what you —”
“You know perfectly well what I mean.”
An owl hooted loudly, and Iliana nearly fell out of the tree. She steadied herself in time to hear Snape say, “— your little bit of hocus-pocus. I’m waiting.”
“B-but I d-d-don’t —”
“Very well,” Snape cut in. “We’ll have another little chat soon, when you’ve had time to think things over and decided where your loyalties lie.”
Snape stormed out of the clearing, and Iliana and the others felt their insides fill with cold dread.
When Iliana found Ron and Hermione, she pulled them into an empty room to tell them what she'd seen and overheard.
“So it
is
the stone then? Well that's confirmed at least,” Hermione said.
“Snape's using Quirrell to help him?” Ron said. “That's not good. That man has no spine, it'll be gone by the end of the week.”
“Well let's hope he's braver than he looks.”
Ron snorted. “And sounds. And acts.”
Quirrell must have been braver than they thought, though, because in the following weeks, Fluffy was still there guarding the stone, whenever they checked.
In the excitement of that conversation, it was a couple weeks before Iliana remembered to tell her friends that she thought powerful emotions were a trigger for their transformations.
“Well that makes sense,” Hermione said, thoughtful. “It's not wand magic, is it? It can't be, since it seems to be unprecedented. And wandless magic works best with intense emotions; fear, anger, grief, and the like.
They were in the library, having taken a momentary break from their studying for exams. Iliana was about to speak again when she spotted Hagrid in the library, looking furtive.
“Hagrid, what are you doing in the library?”
I imagine he's reading,
Alastair commented.
It's not like there's a buffet in the middle of the floor...
Ignoring his smart-ass commentary, Iliana looked expectedly at Hagrid.
“Jus' lookin,” he said shiftily, which got Ron's and Hermione's attention as well.
“You're not a very good liar, Hagrid,” Iliana whispered kindly.
“An what're you lot up ter?” he asked her suspiciously. “Not still lookin fer Nicolas Flamel, are yeh?”
“Oh we figured that out ages ago,” said Ron offhandedly. “And we wanted to know if Fluffy was guarding anything else besides the Philos--”
“SHHHH! Yeh lot en't supposed ter know bout tha. Yeh want me ter lose me job?”
“Of course not, Hagrid. We'll talk about it later, then.”
“Right, sure. In me hut, nice 'n private there. Well, see you lot later.”
“He was hiding something. Let's go see what he was looking at.”
Nodding, the three of them went to where he'd been.
“Dragons!” Ron whispered. “Hagrid was looking up stuff about dragons! Look at these: Dragon Species of Great Britain and Ireland; From Egg to Inferno, A Dragon Keeper’s Guide.”
“Hagrid’s always wanted a dragon, he told us so the first time I ever met him,” said Iliana, mixing her pronouns up.
“But it’s against our laws,” said Ron. “Dragon breeding was outlawed by the Warlocks’ Convention of 1709, everyone knows that. It’s hard to stop Muggles from noticing us if we’re keeping dragons in the back garden — anyway, you can’t tame dragons, it’s dangerous. You should see the burns Charlie’s got off wild ones in Romania.”
“But there aren’t wild dragons in Britain?” said Iliana, horrified.
“Of course there are,” said Ron. “Common Welsh Green and Hebridean Blacks. The Ministry of Magic has a job hushing them up, I can tell you. Our kind have to keep putting spells on Muggles who’ve spotted them, to make them forget.”
“So what on earth’s Hagrid up to?” said Hermione.
Later, they knocked on the door to Hagrid's hut, noticing that the curtains closed for some reason. When he let them in, the mystery deepened, as the inside of the hut was boiling hot. Iliana wilted into her seat, wishing she knew a spell to summon cool air. She barely noticed Hagrid making them tea and stoat sandwiches, and couldn't have had any with this heat even if Hagrid's cooking wasn't horrible.
Her mind so sleepy from the heat that she was like the living dead, Al decided to take over the body. He tried doing what she'd done during the last quidditch match, but found it too awkward. He couldn't exactly summon strong emotion at will either, so he just let her body lay there limp, while he took control of the speech center. It had to look odd, her just laying there and him talking with her voice, barely moving, but it worked, and that's what counted.
“We were wondering what's guarding the stone apart from Fluffy?” he said in a voice that sounded flat even to him; he tried to ignore the weirdness of hearing his words in Iliana's voice. Harder to ignore was the weird looks from Ron and Hermione.
“Can't tell yeh. Don't know meself, fer one. The stone was almost stolen outta Gringott's, I reckon yeh worked that much out. Dumbledore agreed to guard it. Beats me how yeh even know about Fluffy.”
“It might help if you'd actually, you know,
locked the door
keeping the giant monstrous mutt from everyone else. We accidentally went in running from Filch, barely got out with our lives.”
Hagrid turned white. “Blimey, I don't understan. It
was
locked, last I knew. Saw Dumbledore lock it meself.”
“We only wondered who had
done
the guarding, Hagrid,” Hermione interrupted. “We wondered who else Dumbledore trusted besides you to guard it.”
Heh, yeah; appeal to his pride; good one Hermione,
Al thought.
As predicted, Hagrid's chest swelled, and he beamed at them.
“Well, I don’ s’pose it could hurt ter tell yeh that … let’s see … he borrowed Fluffy from me … then some o’ the teachers did enchantments … Professor Sprout — Professor Flitwick — Professor McGonagall —” he ticked them off on his fingers, “Professor Quirrell — an’ Dumbledore himself did somethin’, o’ course. Hang on, I’ve forgotten someone. Oh yeah, Professor Snape.”
“
Snape
?”
“Yeah — yer not still on abou’ that, are yeh? Look, Snape helped protect the Stone, he’s not about ter steal it.”
“Because teachers are
always
paragons of virtue and not human beings with flaws and foibles,” Al sneered with Iliana's face.
“Al? Is that you?” Ron asked.
“Yeah. Iliana doesn't like the heat. She's here, but not here at the same time. Anyway Hagrid,” he continued anxiously, “you're the only one who knows how to get past Fluffy, right? And you would never tell another soul as long as you live?”
“Not a soul knows except me an’ Dumbledore,” said Hagrid proudly.
“Well, that’s something,” Al muttered to the others. “Hagrid, can we have a window open? I’m boiling. Iliana is like a living corpse in this heat.”
“Can't, Al, sorry.” Hagrid said apologetically, glancing furtively at the fire. It took a lot of willpower, but Al managed to lift Iliana's head enough to look at it, too.
“Hagrid, what is that?” he asked, even though he already knew the answer. In the heart of the fire, under the kettle, was an enormous black egg.
“Oh yeah, that's, er...”
“Either you're making the world's largest hard boiled egg, or that's a dragon egg.”
“Yeah, yer right Al. Dragon egg.”
“Where did you get it, Hagrid?” said Ron, crouching over the fire to get a closer look at the egg. “It must’ve cost you a fortune.”
“Won it,” said Hagrid. “Las’ night. I was down in the village havin’ a few drinks an’ got into a game o’ cards with a stranger. Think he was quite glad ter get rid of it, ter be honest.”
“Well that's just a tad too convenient,” Al said scathingly. “Where'd
he
get it, the five and dime store?”
“But what are you going to do with it when it’s hatched?” said Hermione, as though Al hadn't spoken.
“Well, I’ve bin doin’ some readin’,” said Hagrid, pulling a large book from under his pillow. “Got this outta the library — Dragon Breeding for Pleasure and Profit — it’s a bit outta date, o’ course, but it’s all in here. Keep the egg in the fire, ’cause their mothers breathe on ’em, see, an’ when it hatches, feed it on a bucket o’ brandy mixed with chicken blood every half hour. An’ see here — how ter recognize diff’rent eggs — what I got there’s a Norwegian Ridge-back. They’re rare, them.”
He looked very pleased with himself, but Hermione didn’t.
“Hagrid, you live in a
wooden house
,” she said.
“Not to mention they're illegal, you great lump,” Al added. “Do you
want
to go to prison?”
But Hagrid wasn’t listening. He was humming merrily as he stoked the fire.
So now they had something else to worry about: what might happen to Hagrid if anyone found out he was hiding an illegal dragon in his hut.
“Wonder what it’s like to have a peaceful life,” Ron sighed, as they fanned Iliana outside of Hagrid's hut, in the cooler air. She finally started to come around, Al gratefully giving her back the driver's seat. Still, she wobbled a lot on her way back, and was still feeling ill that evening, as they continued studying for exams.
Then one day at breakfast, they received an owl from Hagrid. The note attached said simply
It's hatching.
“Honestly,” Al said, bypassing Iliana's control in his annoyance, “it's a bloody miracle the thing isn't already gone. What is Dumbledore thinking? Hagrid is well intentioned, but he's like a small child, overexcitable and doesn't keep secrets well. Might as well tell a parrot your secrets!”
“Hey Al,” Ron said in passing. “Anyway, Hermione, we should skip herbology and go down---”
“Shut it!” Al hissed angrily, annoying Iliana. “You two are almost as bad as Hagrid, airing your dirty laundry anywhere you--- oh Hell!”
With a glow of bright light, Iliana's body became Al's. “Well that's just peachy,” Al complained. “And here all I wanted was a nap, let Iliana drive. She's the better studier anyway. Hell, even Harry would be preferable.”
“Where's Harry been lately, anyway?”
“No idea. He talks, internally, sometimes. But mostly I think he just watches. He seems to prefer Iliana to me, though. He complains more when I'm out.”
I do not!
Thus proving my point.
Damn.
“Oh Merlin's saggy testicles,” Al said, pointing at Draco with his head. The blond boy had stopped dead to listen.
And no doubt he heard just enough to know Hagrid is up to something. Which is literally the last thing we need right now. And for all your talk of being quiet, Al, you were the one who who spilled the beans.
I hate it when you're right, Harry.
Ron and Hermione gave Al significant looks. They'd seen Malfoy too.
His two friends continued arguing all through Herbology. He rolled his eyes at them, tempted to tell them to get a room, but deciding against it, given their ages. It was awkward enough looking like a fourth year in a class full of firsties without being creepy. Anyway, the two of them finally agreed to go down to Hagrid's during the morning break. As soon as Herbology was over, they practically ran to Hagrid's, Al checking behind them, paranoid that Malfoy would follow. They weren't exactly being inconspicuous, after all.
Al's suspicion turned out to be true, Malfoy was sneaking around. Al threw a few dozen hexes at Malfoy so fast that the blond boy could do nothing but run away in a zig-zag pattern. Despite being enemies, Al nodded at this behavior, impressed that Malfoy knew to do it. He made sure he saw Malfoy go inside before heading back to Hagrid's.
Hagrid greeted the three of them, flushed and excited. Al sat down, leaning back in his chair, his feet on the table, arms crossed. Hagrid paused to look at him, a strange mix of emotions crossing his face.
“Take a photo, it lasts longer,” Al said, and Hagrid turned away.
The egg was lying on the table. There were deep cracks in it. Something was moving inside; a funny clicking noise was coming from it. Taking this as an ominous sign, Al changed position so he was sitting with the chair turned.
The others drew their chairs up to the table, and everyone watched with bated breath.
All at once there was a scraping noise and the egg split open. The baby dragon flopped onto the table. It wasn’t exactly pretty; Al thought it looked like a crumpled, black umbrella. Its spiny wings were huge compared to its skinny jet body, it had a long snout with wide nostrils, the stubs of horns and bulging, orange eyes.
It sneezed. A couple of sparks flew out of its snout.
“Isn’t he beautiful?” Hagrid murmured. He reached out a hand to stroke the dragon’s head. It snapped at his fingers, showing pointed fangs.
“How d'ya know it's a he, Hagrid?” Al asked casually. “It's a fire-breathing lizard, they don't have their junk hanging out like mammals do; you have to be a herpetologist to know how to sex them. Could be a girl for all you know.”
Hagrid shrugged. “He feels like a 'he' ter me.”
“Whatever.”
“Bless him, look, he knows his mommy!” said Hagrid.
“Never figured you for a pouf, Hagrid,” Al said. “Not that I'm judging, mind you. It's your life, love who you want.”
Ignoring Al's running commentary, Hermione asked, “how fast do Norwegian Ridgebacks grow, exactly?”
Hagrid was about to answer, when his face turned white and leapt for the window. Al jumped up behind him, both of them looking out the window to see a blond boy running away.
“Sneaky little maggot, that one,” commented Al on his way out the door. “Hold up, I gotta go crush a bug.”
He shot a bunch of hexes at Malfoy, and despite Malfoy's zig-zagging, managed to hit the Slytherin. Malfoy fell, and Al kept throwing hexes at him.
“Al, STOP! He's down already!”
Al shrugged, then blew on his wand tip like it was a smoking gun. “Just making sure he stays that way for the foreseeable future.” He eyed his handiwork, nudging the blond boy with a toe. “Oh yeah, he'll be in the hospital wing for a few days like this. Wish I knew the memory modification spell. Alas and alack, I do not.”
With a swish and a flick, Al levitated Malfoy and took him toward the castle.
“Where're you going, Al?” Ron asked. “You'll get in trouble!”
“Eh, whatever. Gonna get in trouble either way, I might as well get it over with quicker. You watch Hagrid, make sure his house doesn't catch fire or something. I'll catch you two later.”
Al was surprised when all he got for hexing Malfoy was 10 points off Griffindor and a single detention with McGonagall writing lines. He'd kind of been expecting more. He suspected that his act of bringing Malfoy to the hospital wing had earned him some mercy. Little did they know, however, that when Malfoy was awake, Al promised him that if he told on Hagrid, “They'll have to put you in St. Mungo's for a month just to figure out who you are.” He had gotten quite a chuckle thinking about the sickly pallor Malfoy's already pale skin had turned at that proclamation.
The next time they went to Hagrid's a week later, it had tripled in size and had begun learning how to breathe fire, though it wasn't very good yet, thankfully. The dragon, now named Norbert, was difficult to work with even on its cooperative days, and a menace on its bad days.
Al twirled his wand in his hand, looking irritably at Hagrid. “You know that thing's gonna be bigger than your house soon, right? I don't think Malfoy will dare tell anyone, but he's not big on brains, so who knows. Anyway, you can't keep that thing secret for much longer, Hagrid.”
Hagrid looked sad. “I know I can't keep him forever, but I can't just dump him. He's so little. Fer a dragon,” Hagrid amended when Al raised an eyebrow at him.
Al looked at Ron, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Your brother Charlie, you said he works with dragons in Romania, right?”
“Oh! Yeah, that's right. Can't believe I didn't think of it myself, mate.”
“Wot now?”
“Ron, you should send Charlie an owl, asking him if he'd take Norbert.” After a moment's thoughtful pause, he continued, “And tell him to say 'I got the chocolates you sent,' if the answer is yes, and 'I ate 11 of them in an hour,' or whatever other number... you know what,” Al said, seeing the bewildered look on Ron's face, “I'll write it, you sign it or something and then send it off. The point is, we don't want anyone intercepting the mail to know what's going on.”
“Um... okay.”
It took a couple days working together for Ron and Al to come up with a letter to Charlie that satisfied Al, and this is what they wrote:
Dear Charlie,
Hi, this is Ron. Have you heard about Harry Potter? He and I are friends. Or rather, THEY and I are friends. Harry turned out to have a bunch of other people sharing his body with him, is that weird or what?
Anyway, we have a bit of a problem here. I'm gonna hand it over to Alastair Potter, one of the others in Harry's body, to explain:
Hey. Al here. So someone we know here got a little too excited for Easter and now his Easter present (from Norway) is smoking in his house. Of course, smoking on the grounds is against the rules, has been for a long time. We don't want him to get in trouble, so can you and your mates come take care of the problem? It's a long tale, don't want to get into it, especially since Draco is involved. I hope you get what I'm saying here, because I don't trust certain people to not catch onto this plan. If you understand what I'm getting at, just send an owl back saying “I got the chocolates you sent me,” and then how many you ate is the time. Raspberry cremes is AM, Cockroach cluster is PM. If you don't understand, maybe you could come over here and floo us? Anyway, thanks for listening, either way.
Yours sincerely,
Alastair Potter
“I dunno mate, that might be too hard to figure out.”
Al shrugged. “If it is, then I'll try again.”
After a few days, they were at breakfast when Hedwig came soaring in with Charlie’s letter. Al took it from her, gave her some bacon, and read it.
Dear Ron,
Thanks for the letter. Norwegian Easter egg, huh? I hear the ridge where they make that has a recipe going back centuries. Unusual to see one in the UK, of course. I wish your friend luck with that.
Anyway, thanks for the chocolates you sent me, too. We have something like a castle here, too, and I ate 12 raspberry cremes at the northernmost tower last Saturday. I may have to do that again this Saturday too. I think I'll invite several of my friends. I need to get them an Easter present too.
Well it's been good hearing from you. Later Ron, Al.
Sincerely,
Charlie Weasley
“Ha! He got it. Well that's a load off,” Al said, lighting the letter on fire just in case.
“Does that mean--”
“Later, Ron. Too many eavesdroppers here.”
Ron kept bugging Al every few minutes about the letter, Al even threatening to turn his hair into seaweed if he didn't shut it, before finally they got to Charms. Under cover of everyone practicing their Charms work, Al finally spoke.
“Yes, it obviously means this Saturday at midnight,” he whispered at his friend. “I figured that out. Top of North Tower, too. Well that would be harder if not for the Invisibility Cloak.” He then repeated the information, more politely, to Hermione.
By the end of class, though, Al was getting irritable with everyone. “I don't like looking 14 and being in this class of 11 year olds. It's embarrassing and weird. I'll catch you lot later.”
A glow of light later, and Iliana was sitting there in his place. This was getting so common, hardly anyone even looked at them when it happened, and Iliana went right back to work as though nothing had happened.
“You know,” Ron said later after Potions class, “It's weird, but when you're Al or Harry, Snape is extra horrible, more so when it's Al than Harry. In fact, he looks downright murderous when it's Al; but whenever you're, well, you, Iliana, he gets quiet, grimaces like he's drunk poison, and stalks off, abnormally quiet for the rest of the class. And then there's how he reacted that first time... that was weird.”
“Not really. Remember, he knew my mother. I don't know the nature of their relationship, if she knew him in turn, but he knew her. And fancied her, apparently.”
“Oh. I keep forgetting about that. Snape fancying someone is just... odd. Strange to think about. Still, I wonder why he hates Al and Harry so much?”
“No idea.”
The next day, though, Ron got a nasty bite off the dragon. He tried to ignore it, but there seemed to be some poison in the bite, making it green and swollen. He had to go to the hospital, lying about what had bit him, and Madam Pomfrey didn't seem to believe him, but didn't make an issue of it. Malfoy was still in the hospital wing, looking ill but better. He kept giving Ron a hard time, sure that he knew what really bit him. Iliana went with Ron, glaring at Malfoy and letting Al drive long enough to give the blond a menacing grin and wink. The effect was somewhat muted coming from Iliana's face, but Malfoy appeared to get the message nonetheless.
When Saturday came around, Ron's hand was still too bad to help, so Iliana and Hermione went down to Hagrid's by themselves. It took a while to get Norbert in the crate and get away from Hagrid, who just had to stay behind to say goodbye and weep over the monstrous baby dragon before finally letting it go. Any later, and they might not have gotten to the top of the tower in time. Luckily, Al had done some research and found a spell to help.
“Locomotor crate,” Iliana incanted, the crate lifting up and floating ahead of them as they went back to the castle under the invisibility cloak. Between the noisy dragon and the fact they were still solid, it was tricky even then to get it up there. Al was on constant alert for Peeves, Filch, Mrs. Norris, or one of the teachers, his paranoia making the process of moving Iliana's version of the body easier, though it irritated her a little. Several times they had close calls, but at last they made it to the top of North Tower, and waited, Al holding onto the Invisibility Cloak like his life depended on it.
At last, though, Charlie and his friends came swooping down on brooms. How they'd gotten past the wards to do so was a question bothering Al, but he didn't waste time asking. They helped strap Norbert into the lift that Charlie’s lot had prepared, and before long Norbert was going, going, gone.
“Quick, get the cloak on,” he commanded with Iliana's voice. “No point taking chances. We're not out of the woods yet.”
Taking her cue from Al, the two girls got the cloak on and began to creep down the stairs, Al still on the paranoid lookout for trouble. All was going well, until he felt spasms through the shared body and fell down in pain, clutching his head.
“Get going! Leave me! I'll just slow you down.”
“What's going on?”
“I don't know, but GO.”
The body glowed again, and with the bright light they heard a familiar meow. Abandoning her friend, she took off under the cloak back to the common room, hoping Harry/Al/Iliana was okay.
Mrs. Norris approached the glowing Harry, meowing louder. The prone form looked up at her with a glare and red glowing eyes, hissing at her like a snake. The cat jumped back, her ears plastered to her head, and yowled. But he stopped glowing, and Harry was laying there on the ground, looking perfectly normal.
When he finally started to open his eyes, he saw Filch and Professor McGonagall staring down at him with twin glares.
“Fifty points from Griffindor and a detention in the Forbidden Forest?” Ron said, aghast, when an exhausted-looking Harry told him about it the next day.
“Never mind that, Ron,” Hermione said. “What happened last night? Did you just change? If so, why did it hurt you so much?”
“I... I honestly don't know. I felt the pain in my scar, first, like that one time with Snape. Then that seemed to trigger the change. I remember hissing at Mrs. Norris, which scared her, but I don't know why I did it. I... I think there may be another person in there I didn't know about. I hope not, but it's the only explanation I can think of. Though why my scar hurt, I have no idea.”
He thought about it some more. “I sensed a presence, just before my scar hurt. At the time I thought it was just Al's paranoia, but now I'm not so sure.”
Ron and Hermione shared a concerned glance.
“What's worse,” Harry added, “is that whatever happened drained our reserves. I can barely feel the others, I doubt we'll be able to change any time soon. May be a few days.”
He wasn't wrong. Later in the week, Wood was very frustrated when Harry was still Harry, needing Iliana to practice for Quidditch. But no amount of yelling at him made him change into any of them.
The draining of the reserves left Harry an exhausted wreck the whole week, too. He slept fitfully, too, which didn't help matters; dreams about red-eyed monsters haunted his nights. He was barely functioning in classes, needing Hermione's help to get through his schoolwork.
When he overheard Quirrell tearfully begging to be left alone, he sighed heavily, as though the mystery of the Stone was just a chore, but listened anyway. He later related the tale in an almost bored tone to his friends. This behavior seemed to be the final straw; Hermione demanded he go up to the hospital wing and tell Madam Pomfrey what was wrong. Sighing, he dragged himself up there and did as she told him. Very soon, she was insisting he stay overnight, making him drink some Dreamless Sleep. He had his first restful night's sleep of the week, and woke up refreshed.
His good mood was not to last, though; McGonagall stopped by with a note for him, informing him that his detention would be at 11 o'clock that night, and he was to meet Filch at the entrance hall.
Punishing us for going out at night and endangering ourselves by making us go out at night endangering ourselves, Alastair said, sounding stronger than he'd sounded in a week. How these people have managed to not get their pants sued off them, I shall never know.
Uh huh, Harry replied apathetically.
Come to Hogwarts, they said. You'll have fun, they said. Nothing dangerous here! Just a deadly mysterious forest, a three headed dog guarding an immortality stone, a lake monster, and goodness only know what the Hell else they have in this place. Honestly, the standards at this school make me wonder what Stonewall High would've been like.
Ignoring Al, Harry went about his day, feeling better but still not great. He had an even harder time that day with concentrating, given Al's running diatribe against the school, which he was ignoring because it would take too much effort to tell Al off, and wouldn't do any good anyway.
And mysterious Presences in the halls at night, setting off god-knows-what in our heads. Nightmares, haven't slept well in a week. Are there any other schools of magic we can go to? I don't know if I like this place anymore.
Shut up, Al. I know you're just scared.
Damn right I'm scared. It's bad enough we have this dangerous Forbidden Forest, but sending kids out there at night for a detention? I think I'd prefer Filch's thumbscrews.
Harry put his head in his hands and sighed loudly.
“Worried about your detention, mate?”
“Well, Al is. And he won't shut up about it.”
Why us, anyway? Why has Fate decided to pull down its pants and take a massive crap on US? What did we do to deserve--
“AHHHH!!!” Harry roared, frustrated.
Erm... Sorry.
I just want to retreat right now, let you take over.
Wish I could. Not enough energy.
I know. He sighed again.
At eleven that night, Harry went down to his detention. On the way there, he finally identified one of the sources of his discomfort as missing having Iliana's form. He'd gotten so used to being Iliana that it was weird to him now when he wasn't her. His own body felt... wrong somehow. But then he saw Filch, and that thought left his mind as dread of the coming detention came instead.
Harry barely listened as Filch ranted about the punishment he'd like to be giving Harry as they went to the forest. He wasn't paying attention to Al, either, or he might have caught Al's mood in time to stop him speaking.
“Why do you even work here if you hate this place so much? Do you even know how to do magic? Why do they employ you if you're a squib? Not that I care you're a squib, I just think maybe you'd be happier doing something else.”
Filch turned white and jerked his head around to face Harry. “How did you... Who told...?”
“I figured it out,” Al continued, using Harry's voice, Harry too weak to stop him. “It's not exactly difficult. Never seen a wand on you, never seen you use magic except for purchased potions. Gods, you must loathe this place. So why are you even here?”
“Never you mind. We're almost there.”
Harry blinked. He'd been expecting to be screamed at by an enraged Filch, but instead the man just went quiet, like he was scared to talk with Harry. Counting their lucky stars, neither he nor Al spoke again, until...
“Hagrid? We're having our detention with you?”
“Don't get too excited, boy,” Filch said, with less than his usual enthusiasm. “You're still going into the Forest. Hard work and pain, that's what you're in for. Think on this next time you consider breaking the rules again, boy.”
Still, his heart did lift. It wouldn't be pleasant, but with Hagrid it wouldn't be too bad. Or so he thought, until he found out what they were doing. Apparently, a unicorn had been hurt and was bleeding. Something had been killing unicorns, and Hagrid didn't know what was doing it.
“Oh hey, great!” Al said in Harry's voice, “Just lovely. Something that can run faster than a human, some unknown monster is killing them, and WE get to march in there and find it and stop it. Oh frabjuous day, caloo calay! What bloody FUN we're gonna have, being in mortal peril together, Hagrid! We should do this EVERY weekend. Invite Hermione and Ron along, too! Hell, invite the whole school along! Make a holiday of it!”
“Tha's enough cheek outta yeh, Alastair. This is wha's been decided, an we're gonna do it. No amount of bellyachin's gonna change tha.”
“Fine, whatever. Let's get this over with.”
“Besides which, yeh'll be with me, and ain't nothin in the forest that'll hurt you if yer with me or Fang.”
“Yeah, except that you don't know what's doing it, so that kind of suggests they're not from around these parts.”
Hagrid picked up a massive crossbow, armed it. Al resisted the urge to comment on how reassuring that wasn't, and followed Hagrid into the Forest, his wand out, his paranoia so strong that even he hadn't noticed Harry was no longer driving the body, even though they hadn't transformed. Fang the boarhound followed along, glancing at Al-Harry every now and then with concern in its doggy eyes.
“Damn it,” he muttered after a few minutes of jumping at every small noise. “Should've been in Slytherin. I'm no brave Griffindor.”
“Why would yeh want ter be in ruddy Slytherin?”
“I fit the traits. Clever, prideful, ambitious. I think my paranoia even fits. And maybe I could've made a difference, reached out to the other Slytherins, changed some minds. I doubt that'll work now.”
“Yeh're not pureblood.”
“You said yourself, nobody is these days. And being a Potter, I'm sure Slytherin house would've been thrilled to have me. Especially being Harry Potter.”
“Yeah, well... anyway, yeh should concentrate on bein quiet, Al. Not safe out 'ere.”
“Yes. And you can bet I will be lodging a formal complaint about this, if I survive.”
“Don't talk like that, Al; yeh'll survive fine. Now hush, and pay attention.”
A sudden noise startled Al again, and he almost fired at it, but it was just a centaur. He gaped at it in awe, having never seen one before. From the waist on up, a man, attached to a horse's body where the head would normally be. Looking at the naked torso of the centaur, he felt... certain feelings... from Iliana, and blushed.
Hagrid had a frustrating conversation with the centaurs, trying to get them to tell him if they'd seen anything unusual in the forest, but if they knew anything, they weren't talking about it; they just kept referring to how bright Mars was, as though that was some kind of answer.
Finally, Hagrid gave up and dragged Fang and Al/Harry on down the path to continue the search for the unicorn. The further they went from the comforting presence of the centaurs, the more scared Al got. Again, he kept jumping at every little noise. At one point, he even shouted.
“I ent gonna tell yeh again, Al, be quiet like, okay?”
Al nodded, and forced himself to calm down. It wasn't easy, but if he viewed the situation as being in a first-person shooter video game, it helped. Several minutes he concentrated on calming himself down, telling himself that what they needed was calm analysis of the situation; keep a level head in the face of danger, that was the best bet to get out alive and in one piece.
As he calmed down a bit, he was able to enjoy the smell of the fresh, tree-scented air. This, combined with the night-time noises from animals and the feel of the forest loam under his feet, lulled him into some kind of trance, which in turn triggered something in him. He froze, Hagrid not noticing because he was still checking on the unicorn blood. He fell to his knees, which alerted Hagrid, and felt his body go rigid.
“Harry? Al? Wha's tha matter?”
His body glowed, temporarily blinding Hagrid in the dark. When he could see again, Harry looked like Harry still, no apparent changes in form, though his body language was utterly transformed. No longer was he the nervous, tense Al, jumping at everything. Nor was he a wary but calm Al. He was standing up, alert but relaxed, his wand put away. The boy's head jerked around like a bird's from here to there, and something in his stance spoke of an animal, rather than a person. He was also sniffing the air like Fang, only more obviously.
“Er... wha's goin on, Harry? Wha---”
With no warning, Harry shot off like a bolt into the woods, going off the trail.
“Harry! Don't go orf-- damn.”
It was incredible. The fear had left him. Thought, or at least normal thought, had left him. He ran through the dark woods, some invisible force field ahead of him keeping obstacles like tree branches and twigs from snagging his robes. And he could see where he was going, as though the whole forest were lit with a mild twilight, rather than being dark and foreboding. And the unicorn blood, he could smell it. It smelled both delicious and dangerous at the same time; he did not stop to taste it. Instead, he tracked the animal. He could sense the dying animal's presence now, it wasn't far.
As he ran, his limbs thrilled with the movement. He was running faster than a human normally could, and not getting tired, as though he'd lived his whole life in the forest; running felt as easy to him now as walking did, if not easier. His heart pounding in his ears sounded like the most beautiful music to him, the music of life itself.
He came to a complete stop with supernatural speed and ease, looking at the now dead unicorn, and the dark, hooded creature atop it, drinking its blood from a gash in its body. Without words, without even images, he knew that what the creature was doing was an abomination. As delicious as the unicorn blood smelled, for some reason drinking it was more dangerous than drinking the most deadly poisons.
His lip curled, his teeth bared. This creature was dangerous. It cared not how dangerous drinking unicorn blood was; that alone would be enough, but there was more. There was malevolence in this thing, a malevolence that no normal creature could or would ever project.
Yet despite this, when it turned to look at him, he felt no fear. Only rage, a deep rage he couldn't have traced the source of even if he'd been capable of higher thought just then. He growled at it, the sound starting low and then getting louder than the human vocal cords were normally capable of. Light reflecting off the nearby underbrush told him his eyes were glowing red again.
The hooded creature cocked its head, curious and unafraid. His threat being ignored, he growled louder, turning it into an almost-roar. When the creature continued to ignore him, he stamped his foot angrily and gave a full roar; a roar that sounded like it came from a dragon; any nearby animals that hadn't already taken off suddenly departed.
Now THAT had an effect. The hooded creature jumped back, startled. He roared at it again, but the thing seemed to have decided he was all bluff and bluster, and started to advance. A pain erupted in the scar on his head, which only served to further enrage him. He leapt at the creature, and it jumped back. Though in the same instant he realized it was because a centaur had jumped over him, threatening the creature with bow and arrow, making it slither off like some weird levitating snake wearing a cloak.
He growled loudly at the intruder, displeased that anyone would be insolent enough to interrupt
his
battle, to get between him and his enemy.
“Harry Potter, please calm down. I mean you no harm.”
“Oh Firenze, you found 'im. Thank goodness fer that.”
“He appears to be wild, like an animal. He growled at me, and roared earlier.”
“Yeh, I heard. Reckon they heard it all the way down at the school. Be surprised if they dinnit, ter be honest.”
He relaxed. This big man was familiar to him; he smelled of family. And any friend of the big man was someone he could tolerate. He changed his whole posture, standing down. As he did so, the feelings that had anchored him to this state left. He glowed again, and felt thought return. She opened her eyes, and found she was Iliana, now.
“What the... where? Huh?” she said, confused. Then, as she hooked into the collective memory again, “Oh. Well, that was... interesting.”
“We should get out of here, Ms. Potter,” Firenze said. “It will be faster if you climb on my back.”
“Er, are... are you sure?” she asked, her cheeks turning red.
“Yes, now hurry.”
“Firenze, I'm---”
“Burdened with your crossbow and your dog, Hagrid. It is fine.”
Iliana struggled at first to get up onto the centaur's back, since Firenze had no saddle or reigns, but Hagrid helped her up, and soon enough she was clutching him around his abdomen as they trotted quickly through the forest, Hagrid struggling – despite his size – to keep up.
“What was that thing back there, anyway?” she asked the centaur. “Whoever was in charge of the body at the time wasn't scared of it, just... well... enraged. But it
was
scary, whatever it was.”
Firenze didn't answer at first. He took so long in answering, in fact, that she almost forgot she'd asked a question.
“Do you know what is hidden in the school at this very moment, Ms. Potter?”
“Yes; the Philosopher's Stone. What does that have to do with that thing? I mean, it was drinking unicorn blood, whatever it was.”
“It is a terrible crime to slay a unicorn. They are so pure, and innocent, that though drinking its blood will keep you alive even if you are an inch from death, the life you live from that point on will be a cursed life, a half life. Can you think of noone who would choose such a life? Noone who would cling so desperately to life at any cost?”
She narrowed her eyes in thought. “Do you mean... was that Vol--”
“Firenze!” one of the other centaurs, the one called Bane, called out. “What are you doing? You have a human on your back! Have you no shame? Are you a common mule?”
“Do you not recognize the Potter child? The chorus that sings the song against evil? The quicker they leave the forest, the better.”
“What have you been telling them? We have sworn not to set ourselves against the portents of the heavens!”
Oh great, dissension among the ranks. And us caught in the middle.
Hagrid finally caught up, breaking up the fight at last by grabbing Iliana and marching her out of the forest over his shoulder like she was a doll. Given that his crossbow was strapped to his back and a little too close for comfort, this did not please them. But they were close enough now that he put her down outside the forest and walked with her up to the castle, determined to guard her all the way inside.
When she got back, she told Ron and Hermione everything that had happened, though it was hard because there were lots of eavesdroppers around, lots of people having heard the dragonish roars from the Forest. It took a lot of finesse to convince them to scram, and only when it was just the three of them did she finish her story. Which, naturally, got them into a conversation full of fear about Voldemort.
That night, she had a hard time getting to sleep, thoughts of Voldemort worrying her. The Stone; Snape was trying to get the Philosopher's Stone for Voldemort. That evil git, immortal? Well, more immortal than he already seemed to be, anyway. Not a comforting thought at all. She fully expected to have nightmares that night. She was surprised, later, to find the only dreams she remembered were dreams about how amazing it had felt to be... well... whatever that animal-like Other had been, as he ran through the forest in their dreams.
The Many Faces of Adira Potter: Chapter 4
By = Fayanora
Note: Again, I copied and pasted in a few places. I do try to limit how much I do that, but sometimes I just can't improve upon the original.
Note two: There was a question about Harry's transformation in the Forbidden Forest, and so I will note here what happened: The animal-like Other (who gets named in this chapter) was the one transforming there, and the changes were all internal, in Harry's body, to increase strength, stamina, and give him night vision.
Note three: There was also a question about where I get inspiration for each of the other Faces. As to that, they match certain archetypes that a lot of Multiple collectives seem to have. Alastair is the Protector (in fact his name is a version of Alexander, which means "Defender of humanity." Lots of Multiples have an Alex or Alexander or Alastair in their collectives, I've found.) His personality is loosely based on my own Alex, though Al is much more likable than my Alex. Zoey is obviously the archetypal child member of the collective, loosely based on one of my system's child Faces, Molly. I'm not sure what, if any, archetype Iliana would fit under, but she is very, very, VERY loosely based on two of our collective's Faces, Fayanora and Tempest. The new animal-like Face (named Tier) is based loosely on what our collective member "Pi" was like when we first became aware of xer, except that Pi has always known language, where Tier doesn't so far.
"Write what you know," right? :-)
As to the physical appearances of Harry's others, yes, I deliberately made Iliana look like Lily and Alastair look like Sirius because thinking about the reactions of people around them who knew the people they resembled made me laugh. I never bothered coming up with an explanation for it, but I suppose if magic can let you remember the night your parents were killed despite you being younger than 5 (which most people can't remember their infancy because of the way the brain sacrifices memory for learning) and an infant, then it could let them remember other things from infancy, like the faces of friends and family.
I didn't intend on there being any similarities between Tier and Remus, though I can see the resemblance, personality-wise, between Tier and Remus's werewolf side. (Tier looks like Harry so far.) Tier is much tamer than a werewolf, though, and him biting someone would be no worse than any bite from a human, except that he'd have a little more power behind it because of the changes from the transformation.
Chapter Four: The Many Faces Face the Two-Faced
It was odd, at exam time, how they kept switching between pants-shitting terror of Voldemort, and their new collective mate's mournful pining for the Forbidden Forest. Both conditions were extremely distracting, and they were struggling to get through the exams.
"We've decided to call it Tier," Iliana said one day after a particularly annoying exam, pronouncing it 'tee-air.' "It means 'animal' in German."
"'It'?" Hermione asked her, confused.
"Him, I mean. Tier's a... well we think he's a male, so that's what we're going with for now."
Yeah, and I wish he would stop pining for the forest already, it's annoying.
Their mood did not improve, however; Tier just got worse, if anything. And for reasons none of them could fathom, Tier got most agitated around Professor Quirrell, and it took all their collective willpower to keep it from attacking the man's turban. And they kept finding themselves having to explain why they were growling, however quietly, whenever Snape was nearby as well. Only Iliana's effect on Snape had saved them from a detention at one point, because of it.
With all of that going on, it was no wonder they found it hard to think. But think they did, and in fact something kept bothering them collectively, and Al in particular, about the whole Stone mystery. It was only after their last exam in History of Magic that their mind cleared enough for Al, his concern wresting control of the body from Iliana but not triggering them to transform away from her appearance, to sit there staring into space, thinking, ignoring the conversation about the exams that Hermione insisted on, despite the fact that they'd finished with them all.
"What gets me," Al said, rubbing their shared scar in annoyance, "is how this damned thing keeps hurting all the time now. It would only hurt every now and then before, but ever since that night in the forest, it's been going off every few hours. And pain relief potions don't really help."
"Well go to Madam Pomfrey," Hermione suggested.
He continued to sit there, rubbing the scar, not talking, until suddenly he burst out in anger, "I wish I knew what this MEANS! This isn't some normal pain. This scar, it's magical somehow. I think it's a warning, danger's coming."
"Don't worry so much, Al. The Stone is safe as long as Dumbledore's around. Dumbledore's the only person You-Know-Who was ever scared of. Neville will play Quidditch for England before Hagrid lets Dumbledore down. Anyway, your glower looks weird on Iliana's face."
Al bolted up suddenly, standing, "Shit, that's it!" He began to march off, the other two scrambling to catch up.
"What's up, Al?"
"I forgot, when Malfoy almost got away with seeing Norbert, that I'd gotten to within an inch of it in our conversation with Hagrid. You two didn't appear to notice, but I said it was highly convenient for him to just find an effing dragon egg. The one thing Hagrid wanted the most since he was a kid, and some bloke in a pub just manages to have one, when they're illegal? How did I miss this? We're going to Hagrid's place NOW."
When they got to Hagrid's place, they found him shelling peas outside his house.
"Hullo there, finished yer exams? Got time fer a cuppa?"
"First question Yes, second question No," Al said, still in Iliana's version of the body. "We're in a hurry. Hagrid, we need to ask you something. The night you won Norbert's egg, what did the stranger playing you look like?"
"Dunno. Wouldn' take his cloak off."
"And this didn't strike you as suspicious?"
"No, Al. Yeh get lots of funny folk in the Hog's Head. That's the pub it happened at, down in the village. Might've been a dragon dealer, mightn' he? Kept his hood up the whole time."
Al frowned, resisting the urge to comment. "You must've talked, I doubt he just gave you the egg for no reason. What'd you talk about? Did he mention Hogwarts at all?"
"Might've come up," Hagrid admitted, frowning in thought. "He asked me what I did, told him I'm gamekeeper. He asked about the animals I look after, told him that too. Lessee... that got us on interestin' creatures, and I think I mentioned I've always wanted a dragon. Kinda fuzzy there, he kept buyin me drinks. He said he had a dragon egg, wanted ter know if I'd play him for it. But he wanted ter know I could handle it. I told him, after Fluffy, a dragon'd be easy."
Again resisting the urge to box Hagrid's ears, Al asked, "Did he seem... interested in Fluffy?"
"Well yeah. How often do yeh come across a three headed dog, even if it's yer trade? So I told him Fluffy's a piece o' cake if yeh know how to calm him. Just play him a bit o' music and he falls straight to sleep." Hagrid's frown deepened, then turned to horror.
"I shouldn've told yeh that! Forget I said it! Wait, where're yeh goin?"
"Don't blame yourself, Hagrid," Al called back, his temper rising but not at the gamekeeper, "you were hoodwinked."
Fighting the body's attempt to transform, he said to the others, "Come on, we need to go tell Dumbledore that Hagrid accidentally spilled the beans about Fluffy. He needs to know Snape is after the Stone. Damn, must've been easy once he got Hagrid drunk, poor man. He'd never betray Dumbledore while sober. Now where's Dumbledore's office?"
They struggled for several minutes to try to find the headmaster's office, to no avail. Just as they were about to give up, Professor McGonagall appeared, demanding to know why they were indoors on such a lovely day. They told her they were looking for Dumbledore, and to their horror she told them he was out, that he'd received an urgent owl from the Ministry. This resulted in Al biting back a swear word, and the three of them attempting to get her to understand and believe them that the Stone was in danger. It did not work out so well, and they got chased back outside.
As soon as they could, they went back in. "It's tonight," Al said. "Obviously. Why else get rid of Dumbledore? I'd be really surprised if that urgent owl was genuine. More likely the Ministry is going to be confused when he turns up."
"But Al, what can we-" Hermione gasped, and Al turned to look where she was. With a sinking heart, he saw none other than Snape.
The man grimaced in Iliana's direction again, then turned pointedly away to face Ron and Hermione. "Good afternoon," he said with forced nonconcern. "And what would three young Griffindors be doing indoors on a beautiful day like today?"
Al couldn't help himself, he snorted. Snape gritted his teeth. "This coming from the man who's pale as a vampire, and spends all his time in the dungeons where it's dark and dank. Interesting how you assume everybody just likes bright sunshine and fresh air, especially when you don't appear to do so yourself."
He grinned to himself at the sound of Snape's teeth grinding. The man otherwise ignored Al-liana.
"You want to be more careful," said Snape. "Hanging around like this, people will think you're up to something. Now LEAVE, before I MAKE you leave."
They turned to leave, but Snape called back, "Potter, be warned. That face you're wearing right now will not protect you from me forever. Do not think I will hesitate to have you expelled if I catch you at any more night-time wanderings."
Thankfully, he then strode off toward the staffroom.
When they were out on the steps, Al turned to Ron and Hermione. "Alright, so we need to watch that git, make sure he doesn't head towards Fluffy. Hermione, you do that. You can pretend to be waiting for Professor Flitwick, you're always so abnormally worried about failing your tests, you really should see a therapist for that, by the way."
She blushed, but nodded. "I'll go keep an eye on Snape then," she said, stalking off.
"You and I, third floor corridor."
"Right."
This did not go exactly as planned for them. McGonagall got very cross with them, complaining that two 11 year old wizards weren't going to be any help and that their help wasn't needed anyway, and they had to rush away to the common room to avoid further invoking her wrath. Soon after, Hermione showed up, Snape having waylaid her by bringing out Flitwick and taking off while she was talking with him to try to keep her cover. Al stood there thinking.
"Well there's nothing else for it. If we can't get the teachers to take us seriously, and we can't stand guard, we'll have to go out tonight. It's insane, it's suicidal, but if there were any other option, I think we'd have thought of it by now."
"Al, that's ridiculous! What if you get expelled?"
He glowered at her. "Better expelled and Voldemort foiled than in school with him running the place or worse. Haven't you heard what it was like back when he was powerful? Death, destruction, and dark arts everywhere! No, I won't risk that happening again. If that means I'm expelled, well, I'll just see if I can join Hagrid as apprentice gamekeeper. I'm not letting the man who murdered my parents come back to life, I'm not letting that Stone fall into his hands!"
They looked grim, but nodded.
"So what's the plan?" Ron asked, knowing Al never acted without one. Hermione nodded, and chimed in that she would help too.
Al blinked in surprise, then looked thoughtful. "You two sure you're willing to risk being expelled? If they'd expel the Boy Who Lived, I doubt they'd hesitate to expel the two of you."
"I'd almost like to see them try," Hermione said. "After I got a hundred and twelve percent on my Charms exam. Flitwick told me. If they throw me out after that, they're mad."
He nodded curtly. "Right then. So let's talk plan..."
While they waited for night-time, the three of them researched for anything that might help them. Al sat around, Iliana long since resigned to him making her face look intense as he tried to work out what might face them soon, and how to counter it.
When the common room finally emptied, Al had the invisibility cloak and Iliana's broomstick with them, as well as a roughly carved wooden flute Hagrid had given him for Christmas. Fortuitous, that, he thought to himself.
He was just discussing the cloak when Neville got up from a chair. How they hadn't spotted him, Al didn't know. He glowered at the boy, wondering if Iliana's face gave the glower more or less of an impact.
"What are you three doing? Iliana, you shouldn't be out again. You lost 50 points last time. And now three of you? What if she takes 50 points apiece? We're almost done for the year, we'll lose if you're caught!"
Al paused to weigh his options. He considered telling Neville the truth, but they were already running late. Who knew how far Snape had gotten? It might already be too late.
"Sorry, Neville, but this is an emergency. Literally life and death, and we don't have time to explain further."
Neville stood in the way of the portrait hole. "Don't give me that. I'm not stupid, you know. If it was that important, you'd tell the teachers."
"We did. They don't believe us."
"Well I don't believe you either. If you want past me, you'll have to fight me!" He put his hands up like a boxer.
Al sighed, and gave Hermione a pointed look.
"Petrificus totallus!" she said, wand pointing at the boy, and Neville went into a full body bind, falling over on his back.
While Ron looked in fear upon Hermione, Al passed Neville and said, "Sorry, Neville; we'll explain later."
"I'm really very sorry about that," Hermione apologized on her way past.
"Yeah mate, you'll understand later, if we don't die."
Great, thanks for that reminder, Ron, Al thought, feeling the fear returning. Bloody Griffindor traits. Ah well, nothing else for it.
It was a very tense time, winding their way silently through the dark castle under the cloak. As it was, they had a close call with Filch's cat, and nearly got caught out by Peeves, which had Al freezing up, unsure what to do. If it hadn't been for Harry in the back of their mind coming up with a great plan, tricking Peeves into thinking they were the Bloody Baron, they wouldn't have gotten past.
"Brilliant, Al!" whispered Ron.
"That one was Harry's idea."
"Nice one, mate."
Al felt himself sweating, his heart racing, as they opened the door to Fluffy's chamber. It looked very menacing, growling at their invisible forms, sniffing the air for their scent. Al put the flute to his lips, and began to play, badly. But that didn't seem to matter; from the very first notes, the enormous dog's eyes drooped, and it was soon fast asleep. So asleep, in fact, that Ron was able to push its paw away from the trapdoor without waking it up. But the moment he stopped playing, it started to wake up again, so he had to keep it up. This made giving orders a mite difficult.
"Wow, I can't see the bottom," Ron said.
Al blew extra hard on the flute to get Ron's attention, and pushed the brooomstick over to him with his foot. Taking this as a cue, Ron commanded it to go UP! Soon, the three of them were on the broomstick, flying down the hole. Al stopped playing once they were in, and almost immediately heard Fluffy barking.
Putting the flute away, he used his wand to shine a light. When they reached the bottom, the light shone on some ugly-looking black plant thing.
"Devil's snare!" Hermione said. "It's very dangerous, it likes strangling people to death."
"Okay, so how do we get past it?"
"It doesn't like light and heat."
"Okay, so let's use fire then."
She nodded, getting out her wand. The other two did as well, and soon they had a brilliant fire going, which scared the Devil's Snare to move toward the walls, leaving an opening big enough for them to fly through. In a flash, they were through and stepping off onto the floor.
"Given that we didn't see any corpses, I'd take it as a sign Snape got through okay, too."
They walked on through the dark corridor, Al and company sincerely hoping that there were no dragons down here, like there were in some of the Gringott's vaults. He was both relieved and annoyed when they found a room full of what looked like glittering birds.
Ron went to check the opposite door, which was locked.
"They're keys," Al said, Iliana's sharp eyes coming in handy. "This must be Flitwick's. The Devil's Snare was Sprout's, obviously."
"And there are brooms here."
"You guys take those, I'll use Iliana's."
"We're looking for big, old-fashioned one, probably silver, like the handle," Ron said.
They got on their respective broomsticks. Al, recognizing that he sucked at this sort of thing, gave control of the body back to Iliana. She'd been listening in on everything and was thus able to take control without any adjustment period, before zooming off after the key, helped along by the fact that the one she sought had a bent wing; Snape must have manhandled it on his way through. Even with that edge, though, there were still thousands of keys, and they moved like a great hive mind, in murmurations like starlings. As such, it took strategy and teamwork, Iliana shouting orders at the others, to finally pin the thing down and wrestle it into the keyhole. But at last, they were through the door.
The next chamber was dark at first, then lit up when they got in. A giant chess set met them, with a whole lot of bored-looking stone chessmen standing around, which glanced up as they entered. The opposing white pieces, on the other hand, had no faces.
"We defer to you on this one, Ron," Al and Iliana told him. Playing their way across a giant chess set, it had to be Ron for that; he beat Hermione, Al, Harry, and Iliana every time any of them tried to play him, often in a handful of moves.
Ron considered things for a few minutes before nodding and giving commands. At his command, Iliana and Hermione took the place of a bishop and a castle, respectively. Ron took the place of a knight.
It was an intense game, made all the more so by the fact that the white players bashed the black pieces into unconsciousness. Al winced whenever it happened, not wanting to know how bone would fare under the kind of power needed to knock out a stone man. He and Hermione had several close calls, where Ron almost didn't rescue them in time, making Al worry he'd piss himself. Or rather, piss Iliana's pants... whatever.
Then they came to a spot where Ron stood there for a very long time staring at the white queen, considering, thinking so hard Al could almost hear the gears turning.
"Right. Sorry, but there's only one way to win this. I've got to be taken."
"Are you crazy? Those bloody things could KILL you!"
"That's chess!" snapped Ron. "You've got to make some sacrifices! I make my move and she'll take me — that leaves you free to checkmate the king, Al!"
"Yes, but-"
"Do you want to stop Snape getting the Stone or not?"
Al glared at him. "Yes, but-"
"Well we're running out of time! This will work, and it's the only move that will."
"Fine then. But if you die, I'll kill you."
Ron grinned. "Understood. Now don't hang around once you win, okay? I don't mind dying. Prefer not to, but to stop You-Know-Who..."
"Just tell us what to do."
Ron told him where to move, once the queen took him. He nodded. Ron took a bracing breath, then moved into position.
"Check."
The queen marched right at him, and swung at him, hitting him on the head. He was out cold. Hermione almost moved, but Al stopped her. Then, gritting his teeth, he moved into position.
"Checkmate."
The white king took off its crown and threw it down at Al's feet. They'd won. Quickly, they rushed over to check on Ron. He appeared to still be alive.
"Damn it. But he's alive. You heard what he said, let's go on."
It pained them to do so, but they moved on.
In the next chamber was a giant troll, knocked out.
"Thank goodness for that," Al said, hurrying past the stench.
The next room they ran into had a line of bottles. They'd scarcely even noticed this when a fire sprang up behind them, blocking the way back. A black fire blocked their way forward.
Al noticed a scroll by the bottles, and read it. It was a riddle. Handing it quickly over to Hermione, he said, "This one's all you. My brain hurts just reading it."
She read it, and reread it, several times, moving along the row and obviously working it out. It took her over ten minutes, though how long he didn't know, not having a watch on him. But at last, she perked up.
"I've got it. The smallest bottle moves us forward."
Al looked inside the bottle. "Only enough here for one person. Which one gets us back?"
Hermione pointed at a rounded bottle at the right end of the line.
"Right. You take that one. No, hear me out. Take Iliana's broom and get Ron to the hospital wing. Then let Dumbledore know where I am, if you can. If not him, then McGonagall. We need help with this, I'm no match for Snape."
"But Al, what if You-Know-Who is with him?"
"Well we were lucky once, maybe we'll be lucky again. Heck, for all I know there were even more of us before, and one of them died protecting me, like a cat with nine lives. Anyway, get going, we're in a hurry."
"Al... you and the others are really great, you know. So don't die, okay? I'll be very cross with you if you die."
"If I die, I'll haunt you, okay?"
She laughed, a broken laugh.
"Now scram, okay? I'll see you later, one way or another."
She nodded, taking the potion to get back. He watched her go through the flames before taking his own. It was like ice flooding his body. Iliana's body. Whatever. Screwing up his courage, he stepped through the black flames and saw... not Snape. Not even Voldemort. It was... Quirrell?
In just a few seconds, everything clicked into place. Suddenly he felt like a fool. Of course it wasn't Snape; Snape had fancied his mum, he must have been protecting them, even if Harry looked like his father and Iliana like their mother. And this explained why Tier always got so agitated around Quirrell. He remembered Percy saying the turban was new; he remembered overhearing Quirrell begging mercy from someone. In an instant, he knew Quirrell wasn't alone. Voldemort was under that turban, had been the whole time. He felt sick at the thought.
The man was smiling at him; he must have heard them talking in the other room. His wand already out, Al recovered his wits and fired hexes at the man, who parried them expertly. Gone was the quivering, shivering, scaredy-cat fake Quirrell; he was seeing the real man for the first time ever.
"What, not surprised, Potter?" Quirrell bantered. "Was it so obvious? No wait, I saw those gears clicking into place in your face; you were surprised, but not shocked. You put it together, when you saw me here."
"Stop talking and fight!" Al shouted, still hurling hexes.
"Oh Ms. Potter, I haven't even started fighting yet. I'm playing with you, like a cat with a mouse."
His scar flared with pain, and he felt Tier wake up. But he couldn't afford to let Tier have control, so he fought with all his might to keep control. Fought so hard that he triggered a transformation into his own version of the body, at last.
"Ah, so it's Alastair Potter I duel with, not Iliana. No matter, you just lost!" Quirrell said, hitting Al with a spell binding him with magical ropes.
"Now do hold still while I go back to trying to figure out this damnable mirror," he said, turning back to stare at what Al recognized as the Mirror of Erised.
Dumbledore, he thought. He wondered if he could scoot closer, maybe see how to get the stone before Quirrell could. He attempted it, and fell over. So he went with option B: distraction.
"I take it that troll in the dungeon, on Halloween, was your doing?"
"Yes, Potter, indeed. I have a special gift with trolls — you must have seen what I did to the one in the chamber back there? Unfortunately, while everyone else was running around looking for it, Snape, who already suspected me, went straight to the third floor to head me off — and not only did my troll fail to beat you to death, that three-headed dog didn't even manage to bite Snape's leg off properly."
Wish he'd bitten YOUR leg off, you evil git.
"This mirror is the key to finding the Stone," Quirrell murmured, tapping his way around the frame. "Trust Dumbledore to come up with something like this … but he's in London … I'll be far away by the time he gets back. …"
"Voldemort is under your turban, isn't he?"
Quirrell shuddered at the sound of his master's name. "Y-yes," he said, sounding briefly like his fake nervous self again. "You're quite right. I am never alone."
"Well that's just bloody disgusting. Why are you helping him, then, if he's just a parasite? What could he possibly do to you?"
"It's not what he could do to me that concerns me, Potter, but what he can do for me. Once he is restored to power, to life, the one who helped him will be rewarded greatly. In fact... well, I hesitate to share the credit, but I must admit this mirror is confounding me. If you'd like to help me, I'm sure my master could forget his quarrel with you, and give you anything you want."
"Oh really? Can he bring my parents back to life, then? Or is that just a little beyond him?" Al asked, reading the answer in Quirrell's annoyed face. "Well if that's the case, tell Moldywart he can go suck an egg."
"Such a mouth on you, Potter," said a hoarse whisper of a voice, chuckling at his cheek.
"At least I have my own mouth," Al shot back. "Well, kinda. More so than you do, at any rate."
"You speak parseltongue?" the harsh whisper said in surprise.
"No idea what that means."
"Never mind," the voice said, sounding different in some way to Al's ears now. "Use the boy, Quirrell."
Quirrell untied Al's bonds and dragged him over to the Mirror.
"Tell me what you see," the man demanded.
Al looked in the Mirror. As he did, he felt Harry looking as well. But it was, again, Iliana who appeared in the Mirror. And once more, they saw Harry's parents, their parents. And their mother was winking at them, and mouthing the words "I love you all, my brave children," just before slipping something into their pocket. Something that they felt as a real, solid weight.
Well that's interesting, he thought. Now what?
"Tell me what you see, Potter!" Quirrell demanded.
Lie, of course, Iliana said.
Knowing the best lies were half truths, Al said, "I see my parents. Our parents. Harry's parents. They're saying they love us."
"Oh how touching," Voldemort said sardonically. "But I sense you're hiding something from me. TELL THE TRUTH!"
"Yes, Potter, tell the truth! What do you see?"
"I see Dumbledore hexing you to oblivion, destroying what little is left of you, and your name being gleefully forgotten, Moldywart."
"INSOLENT WHELP! Let me speak to him face to face!"
"M-master, you are not strong enough."
"I know my own strength, Quirrell. Now do as I command!"
Oh god, Hell no, Al thought as he felt bile and vomit rise in his throat in anticipation of what was coming. He tried to look away as Quirrell undid his turban, in slow motion, the world crawling past inch by inch. He tried to run, but he was powerless.
Still rooted to the spot, the back of Quirrell's head became exposed, and it was like he'd turned over a stone and exposed some disgusting, maggoty, rotting corpse underneath. Before he could stop himself, he felt vomit exit his mouth and splatter to the floor, his legs weakening at the sight. Voldemort's snakelike face was sticking out of the back of Quirrell's head, an image he knew would forever be burned into his retinas.
"Alastair and Harry Potter," the disgusting thing spoke. He sensed a monologue coming on, and tried to say something to stop it, but he just leaned over and retched onto the floor again, the scar on his forehead burning like a branding iron.
"See what I have become?" the face said. "Mere shadow and vapor … I have form only when I can share another's body … but there have always been those willing to let me into their hearts and minds. … Unicorn blood has strengthened me, these past weeks … you saw faithful Quirrell drinking it for me in the forest … and once I have the Elixir of Life, I will be able to create a body of my own. … Now … why don't you give me that Stone in your pocket?"
"Fuck!" he shouted, and bolted for the door, not caring if he could get through the fire or not. But he didn't get there; Quirrell grabbed his foot. He kicked the man in the face with his other, but then the man got wise and shot spells at him, making him have to zig-zag like Malfoy.
"Don't be a fool," snarled the face. "Better save your own life and join me … or you'll meet the same end as your parents. … They died begging me for mercy. …"
"LIAR!" Al shouted.
Quirrell was walking backward at him, so that Voldemort could still see him. The evil face was now smiling.
"How touching …" it hissed. "I always value bravery. … Yes, boy, your parents were brave. … I killed your father first, and he put up a courageous fight … but your mother needn't have died … she was trying to protect you. … Now give me the Stone, unless you want her to have died in vain."
"Not even when Hell freezes over!" he shouted.
"SIEZE HIM!"
Before he could get away, Quirrell grabbed his arm. They struggled, but Al faltered as he sensed Zoey coming out. He tried to fight it, but they glowed, and the little girl was being lifted by her arm. She grabbed the Stone from their pocket and screamed "FUCK YOU!" at the top of her lungs, the glow of transformation already suffusing them, enveloping them. As Al returned, he felt the Stone vanish Inside with Zoey, wherever the Hell things went when she took them with her. He was utterly astonished; he'd never before seen her take anything Inside that she hadn't brought out, and thus made, herself. Voldemort roared with rage.
"GIVE IT TO ME! GIVE ME THE STONE!"
"I CAN'T, ASSHOLE! Zoey took it Inside, only she can bring it back! And I'm fairly certain if you killed me, you'd never get it back in a million years."
The hideous face contorted with rage, and he pushed Al down, the two bodies struggling again. "I'LL TORTURE IT OUT OF YOU, THEN!"
"Good luck with that, maggot-breath!"
Tier suddenly joined the fray, eyes glowing red like hot coals, his roar echoing in the stone chamber, deafening both of them. Al took the opportunity to lunge at his attacker, clutching the man's face in his desperation for something to do, too amped up to even think about his wand. Luckily, it paid off, and Quirrell's skin burned at the touch. The man screamed, and tried to stop, but Voldemort egged him on. He lunged at Al, and Al pressed his advantage, burning every inch of the man with wild abandon.
As the man's screams intensified, something shifted Inside, and Iliana came out completely, finding herself burning the man, the strange magic causing him to fall over dead before her very eyes, which became wide as dinner plates. She'd killed a man! She'd never killed anything in her life before, not even insects, but here was a human being, who had been alive only moments ago, lying dead on the stone floor, and she was the cause. Al had initiated it, but she had delivered the killing blow.
Her body filled with numb dread. She couldn't even think, or feel. And like her state of mind, the body was also frozen in place. It wasn't until the ghostly apparition of Voldemort rushed her and went right through her, past the black fire, that she felt anything again; surprise, terror. She fell backwards, her eyes rolling into the back of her head. She saw a tall figure just before passing out, heard a voice call her name. Then all was black.
Consciousness took its sweet time returning to them, caught as they were in fitful nightmares. Over and over again, she saw the dead man, face burned like charred meat on a grill, pointing an accusing finger at her. His dead eyes burned with rage, with condemnation. Then consciousness flooded back like a tidal wave, and she woke screaming. She felt hands hold her down, and panicked; were they attacking her? What if she killed more people in her desperate bid for safety? She begged them to stop, pleaded with them, wept openly. Don't let me be a murderer! Please no! Stop! For your own safety, STOP!
Hands grabbed her head, forced her mouth open, and forced liquid down her throat. She felt herself shudder, then relax. But she was still crying, tears hot and wet and salty ran into her mouth. No... I don't want to hurt anyone. I... no... please...
When next they awoke, it was Al whose eyes took in the daylight. Memories flooding back to him, he looked Inside in some concern. Where was Iliana? He couldn't sense her anywhere. He sensed Harry groggily awaken, and Zoey, and even Tier. But Iliana was conspicuously absent.
"Ah, they're awake," a voice said. "And not screaming this time, that's good."
Dumbledore, he thought, recognizing the voice. He turned to look at the man through eyes thick with sleep dust, then rubbed the crud out of his eyes.
"Alastair?" Dumbledore asked.
"Yeah, tha's me."
"Ah good. Of course, it's Alastair's version of the body, but I've learned that doesn't necessarily mean anything. How are you, my boy?"
"I feel horrible. How long were we out?"
"Three days. Mr. Ronald Weasley and Miss Granger will be most relieved you have come round, they have been extremely worried."
"Three days? Wow." He grimaced suddenly, his face a rictus of pain, as he remembered Quirrell. "What happened? Did you get Hermione's owl?"
"We must have crossed in midair. No sooner had I reached London than it became clear to me that the place I should be was the one I had just left. I arrived just in time to pull Quirrell off you —"
"It was you, then."
"I feared I might be too late."
"You nearly were, I couldn't have kept him off me much longer."
"I hate to ask so soon, my boy, but the Philosopher's Stone. I know Voldemort did not get it, for I saw his spectral form exiting the chamber, but I could not locate the Stone. It wasn't in the mirror."
"Ah, yes. About that. Zoey appeared, in the middle of the fight. She grabbed the Stone, and took it Inside with her."
"Indeed? Well, that is very curious indeed. Is it still there?"
"Yes. I can sense it. I don't know where it is exactly, but it's Inside. It's safe."
"Hmm... well, Nicolas will be quite pleased to hear that. I did suspect, given some of the things I've heard about the youngest of you, but there was no way to know for sure until you woke up. Neither Poppy nor myself were able to find any trace of the Stone in your body. So where it is, exactly, is anyone's guess."
"Yeah. And it's weird. I didn't know she could take real objects Inside with her."
"It is entirely possible that she cannot. The Stone is a magical artifact, made of a form of crystalized magic, in fact. Very difficult to produce, very difficult indeed. But seeing as it's made of magic, it isn't exactly real per se, and that is, I suspect, how young Zoey was able to take it Inside with her."
"Sounds like a good theory to me." He frowned a little. "But Harry's glasses vanish and reappear later, so maybe that's not accurate."
"Hmm... that is indeed a good point, that I admit I had not considered. So perhaps there is more to it than that." Dumbledore sighed. "Of course, this complicates things a little. Nicolas will have to produce his Elixir of Life here in the castle, and I shall have to personally guard young Zoey when she brings the stone back out again, until she can put it back. But that's something we should only need to do once a year at the most, barring unforeseen circumstances."
Al nodded. "Sounds good to me."
"And now, my dear boy, I am curious... how is Iliana?"
"No idea. I can't sense her. None of us can. It doesn't feel like she's gone, though; just... just hiding. Or something."
Dumbledore nodded gravely. "I understand. From what I gather, she was the one in control when Quirrell died?"
"Yes."
He wanted to add how he'd been the one to start the process, how something had unexpectedly gone wonky Inside, forcing her out at just the wrong moment, saddling her with the weight of having killed a man, when it should have been him. He was the strong one, he was the one who fought the hard battles, not her. But the words would not come.
Dumbledore, however, seemed almost to read his mind, and smiled at Al kindly. "You wish it had been you instead? So she would not have to feel that pain?"
He couldn't speak, so he just nodded, a tear rolling down his cheek.
"I understand. But I rather suspect that unpleasant job went to the one most capable of bearing it. That's nothing against you, my boy, but you seem to me much like an oak, projecting an air of strength to mask a gentleness and frailty you find shameful, putting on a brave face against the world, (which is important in its own way), while Iliana is more like a reed, appearing weak but bending under the weight of the winds of life, surviving where an oak would crash to its death."
Alastair wanted to be offended, but the man's words had a ring of truth about them, so he merely nodded.
Move aside, Al.
What? Oh Harry... sure thing.
Without transforming, Harry took over, and looked at Dumbledore. The elderly wizard smiled at him. "Yes, Harry?"
How did he know?
No idea. Not important right now.
"Even assuming Zoey keeps the Stone away from Voldemort forever," Harry said aloud, "does that mean he can't come back?"
"Ah. I'm afraid there are other ways he can come back. He has, shall we say, taken certain steps to guard against death. Steps that appear to have succeeded, more or less. But even if all we can do is thwart him time and again, that is still a major victory, Harry."
"Sir, there are some other things I'd like to know, if you can tell me … things I want to know the truth about. …"
"Ah, yes. The truth. A dangerous thing, the truth can be. But, given my own foolishness in my quest to protect you, Harry, given my mistakes, I will endeavor to answer truthfully. I may refrain from answering, depending on circumstances, but I promise you I will not lie."
Loquacious bastard, aren't you?Al thought.
He wasn't sure why, but for some reason he believed Dumbledore, despite the man's overdone answer.
"Okay then. Voldemort said that he only killed my mother because she tried to stop him from killing me. But why would he want to kill me in the first place?"
Dumbledore did not answer right away, his face was deep in thought, as though weighing whether or not to speak.
"Alas, Harry... I do not wish to say this, but I must refuse to answer that one, for now, especially in light of Iliana's condition. She does not need any additional stress right now. I shall tell you one day, but not today. I beg your forgiveness on this, for I know it must be frustrating to hear, but you will know when you are older."
Figures, Al grumbled internally.
"Okay. I disagree about not being ready for that. And I get a sense that whatever it is might actually help Iliana, but I accept your answer, for now."
"Thank you, Harry."
"So why couldn't Quirrell touch me? Us. Why couldn't he touch us?"
"Because of the most powerful force in the world; love. Your mother, who loved you greatly, died to protect you, and that protection is – I think – what saved your life that night in Godric's Hollow. It is an old magic, a powerful magic, and one that Voldemort – who has never known love – cannot understand. And because he cannot understand it, he constantly underestimates its power. Quirrell, full of hatred, greed, and ambition, sharing his soul with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good."
I smell manipulation there. The stink of clever propaganda, Al said to Harry.
I agree, Al. That was just a little too perfect. But I think he has a point about Voldemort not knowing love. It sounds like him.
Agreed.
"Professor Snape. Why does he hate me? Is it because of my father?"
"Ah, yes. They were enemies in school, rather like yourself and Mr. Malfoy. And then, to complicate matters, your father did something that was, to Professor Snape, unforgivable."
"Oh? What's that?"
"He saved his life."
"What?"
"Yes, funny how the human mind works sometimes. Professor Snape wanted to hate your father's memory in peace, but he owed the man a debt, and so tried to save you from Quirrell. Peculiar, is it not?"
Yeah, 'peculiar' is the word alright. He's hiding something. I don't know what, though.
"And sir, there's one more thing …"
"Just the one?"
Smart ass.
"How did we get the Stone out of the mirror?"
"Ah, now, I'm glad you asked me that. It was one of my more brilliant ideas, and between you and me, that's saying something. You see, only one who wanted to find the Stone — find it, but not use it — would be able to get it, otherwise they'd just see themselves making gold or drinking Elixir of Life. My brain surprises even me sometimes. … Now, enough questions. I suggest you make a start on these sweets. Ah! Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans! I was unfortunate enough in my youth to come across a vomit-flavored one, and since then I'm afraid I've rather lost my liking for them — but I think I'll be safe with a nice toffee, don't you?"
From raging egomaniac to clever distraction in less than twenty seconds, Al quipped. This guy should've been in Slytherin. Oh well, we'll get nothing more out of him now.
Tasting a bean, Dumbledore pulled a face, coughing and hacking most convincingly. "Alas, earwax."
Al flashed Harry an image of himself holding up a large white card saying "10.0." Harry actually laughed aloud at that image, and Dumbledore appeared to think he'd laughed at the man's Every Flavor Bean antics.
"Oh, one last thing, Harry, before I go. You'll no doubt recall I promised to make you a ward of Hogwarts. Well that is precisely what I have done; the paperwork and wandwork are almost complete, all that is required now is your signature here on this line," he said, pulling out a roll of parchment, and pointing at a line on the bottom.
"Please read the entire document before you sign, Harry; it is a Gringott's form, and will subsequently not become binding unless you read the entire thing first. Thankfully, it is not long. And I assure you, understanding is not required; just reading."
Harry took a few minutes to read the very boring, jargon-filled parchment. He did manage to get the jist of it, at least. Signing the document meant he would spend his holidays either here at the school or with friends; his affiliation with the Dursleys would be terminated, as would – by the nature of the spell – the protection of his mother's blood, the very thing that had killed Quirrell. Reading this, he did hesitate for the briefest of moments, pondering what he would be giving up. It had saved his life, after all. But then he reminded himself what he would be going back to if he didn't sign, as well as what that protection had cost Iliana, and that decided him. The risk of death was worth the freedom and chance for happiness. He happily signed it and returned it to the headmaster.
"And with that, the deed is done. You are now a ward of Hogwarts."
He wondered if he ought to feel different, because he hadn't felt anything change.
When the headmaster left, Harry triggered a transformation back to his original body, and then had a heated discussion with the matron about visitors, a discussion he won. Soon after, Ron and Hermione came in, and he started getting them up to speed on what had happened, then it was their turn to tell the rest of their side of things.
"Well, I got back all right," said Hermione. "I brought Ron around — that took a while — and we were dashing up to the owlery to contact Dumbledore when we met him in the entrance hall — he already knew — he just said, 'Harry's gone after him, hasn't he?' and hurtled off to the third floor."
"D'you think he meant you to do it?" asked Ron. "I mean, if he knew... and he gave you the cloak to begin with. Passed it on, anyway."
This idea so horrified Hermione that he decided not to tell Ron that he agreed. But when Hermione wasn't looking, he did give Ron a rather pointed look, communicating without words that he seriously believed Dumbledore had tested him and the others in the collective. A thought that infuriated him even as he thought it, because if true, that meant Iliana's post-traumatic stress over being a killer was Dumbledore's fault.
That thought was then followed by other thoughts, and Alastair realized that being tested like that had to be for a reason. He thought of Voldemort trying to kill him as a baby, and failing. He thought of how Dumbledore had felt the need to protect him from the wizarding world until the last possible legal moment for a wizard, from Death Eaters. He thought of his ability to use his scar as a diving rod to find Voldemort. And he thought – bizarrely – of all the books he'd read in the library growing up, and it all clicked together. He and Voldemort were linked, and the whole thing had the stink of destiny to it. He groaned aloud; that had to be it! He was a bloody trope! He was the Destined Savior. It was going to have to be up to him-up to them, rather-to stop Voldemort.
Oddly, though, this comforted him. He'd half suspected it anyway, he thought, ever since he first heard about that night in Godric's Hollow. Even then, he'd known that being the only person to ever survive a Killing Curse had to be Significant. There was no way it could be anything else. Especially with what the centaurs had said about the signs in the stars and planets. What had Firenze called them? The Chorus That Sings The Song Against Evil?
Oh, and the fact that Dumbledore was withholding information, and trying to manipulate him, that had to mean Dumbledore knew. Not only that, the man was using him. He was a bloody pawn, and Dumbledore fancied himself the chess master.
What the man hadn't said suddenly became as significant as what he had said. Dumbledore thought him too weak to bear this burden. The man wanted to preserve his innocence, or some similar nonsense. As though he could even remember having such a thing after years of living, unloved, in a house where he was worked like a slave and fed sporadically by people who hated him just for existing.
No, he'd been conscripted as a soldier in the war against Voldemort from the tender age of 1, and everything else in his life thus far had been meant to mold him into the perfect soldier. Hardened by neglect and child abuse, yet apparently the memory of his life before all that stuck around in his subconscious, giving him the ability to love; his mind multiplied into who knew how many different minds, because two heads are always better than one when tackling difficult problems; and of course, having friends at last, loyal friends that were willing to risk death at his side, tying him to the world, helping him to care about its people.
Well, he would show Dumbledore. He would show them all, by accepting the burden willingly. And when Dumbledore finally saw fit to inform him, he could say he knew, from this point on. He would face this war willingly, and he would win, or die trying.
"Harry? You okay, mate?"
Should he tell them? He didn't know. He felt Iliana stirring again, felt her plug into the common memory and get updated. He felt her go through the same series of emotions he and Harry had already been through, felt her come to the same conclusion.
"We're fine. Iliana's back, by the way. She was missing in action until now."
"Yeah, we wondered about her, mate; we heard she woke up screaming the other day."
"I don't think she's over it yet. Killing Quirrell, I mean. She may never be over it. But she's better than she was."
Ron nodded. "Listen, you've got to be up for the end-of-year feast tomorrow. The points are all in. We won, but it was a very narrow victory; Slytherin almost won. I think if Iliana hadn't tried so hard to make up the points you lost that night, we wouldn't have managed it. Oh, and you missed the last Quidditch match, we were steamrollered by Ravenclaw without Iliana — but hey, we won the house championship, and the food'll be good."
"I doubt that will console Wood."
His friends laughed at that. "Too true," Ron agreed.
At that moment, Madam Pomfrey bustled over.
"You've had nearly fifteen minutes, now OUT," she said firmly.
That night's sleep was not exactly great; they had nightmares about Quirrell again, to which were added nightmares about Voldemort killing everyone they loved before torturing and killing them, but regardless, they still felt well enough to go to the feast. He feared it would take a lot of cajoling to get the matron to agree, but she grudgingly admitted that Dumbledore had said he was to go.
"Oh, and you have another visitor."
"Oh? Who?"
As it turned out, it was Hagrid. The large man took one look at Harry in the hospital bed, and burst into tears, throwing himself on Harry like a weepy polar bear.
"It's — all — my — ruddy — fault!" he sobbed, his face in his hands. "I told the evil git how ter get past Fluffy! I told him! It was the only thing he didn't know, an' I told him! Yeh could've died! All fer a dragon egg! I'll never drink again! I should be chucked out an' made ter live as a Muggle!"
"Oh Hagrid, it's not your fault. Voldemort is a manipulative git. He'd have figured it out one way or another, you just had the misfortune to be hoodwinked by him."
"Yeh could've died!" sobbed Hagrid. "An' don' say the name!"
"VOLDEMORT!" Harry bellowed, and Hagrid was so shocked, he stopped crying. "I've met him and I'm calling him by his name. Please cheer up, Hagrid, we saved the Stone, Zoey has it safely locked up Inside."
Consoled at last, Hagrid nodded, then suddenly remembered something; it was a present for Harry.
"Photos. Searched high an low for em, asking everyone who knew your mum and da. Reckon you ought to have something ter remember em by."
None of them could speak. But Iliana took control and hugged the large man, bursting into tears herself. Now it was Hagrid's turn to awkwardly attempt to comfort a weeping person. Such was the intensity of her tears that neither of them noticed the body transform into Iliana's form when it happened.
"I killed a man, Hagrid! I've never killed anything before! And there he was, burned and bleeding, the life gone from him! I'm a murderer! I should be in prison! Why am I not in prison?"
Hagrid couldn't answer at first, he was crying again along with her. Eventually, though, he gained enough control to answer.
"Yeh're not 'orrible, Iliana. It was self defense, kill or be killed. If a hippogriff were ta kill summat who threatened its life, that wouldn't be a bad hippogriff, fer doin what it could ter protect itself. And you was protectin everyone else You-Know-Who might kill, too, if he came back. Yer not a bad person, Iliana, yer a hero!"
She cried with renewed vigor, but the cadence was still the same.
"I know it don't feel like it now, but yeh'll feel better. Yeh'll prolly never forget it, and that's a good thing, but it'll hurt less in time. You jes remember that I love yeh no matter what, ya hear? You're no monster, Iliana; trust me, I know a thing or two bout monsters."
That managed to get a chuckle out of her, at least. Hagrid grinned.
"There's my smilin young Iliana," he said tenderly. "There's my beam o' sunshine. You buck up, ya hear? Try to remember he was an evil git, and was tryin ter kill yeh, or worse. And remember that I love yeh no matter what. Never forget that, yeh hear me?"
She nodded, still sniffling, but feeling better again. The two of them sat there on the bed, Iliana leaning against the large man's comforting warmth for as long as she could.
Despite his words, Iliana had broken down at least twice more before the day was over, and though they didn't transform again, she still retreated, leaving Harry to pilot the body, by himself, down to the Great Hall. He took a moment to conceal the puffy redness under their eyes from her crying beforehand, though, knowing Malfoy would be there.
On his way to the Griffindor table, Harry could hear everyone talking loudly about him and what had happened down in the Mirror room with Quirrell. Given some of the content, he was glad Iliana had checked out again; positive as it was, it could still trigger her.
Fortunately, Dumbledore arrived moments later. The babble died away.
"Another year gone!" Dumbledore said cheerfully. "And I must trouble you with an old man's wheezing waffle before we sink our teeth into our delicious feast. What a year it has been! Hopefully your heads are all a little fuller than they were … you have the whole summer ahead to get them nice and empty before next year starts. …
"First of all, I would like to congratulate Slytherin House for winning the Quidditch cup yet again!"
Cheers erupted from the Slytherins. Everyone else was silent.
"Well done Slytherin, well done Slytherin. Second, as you are all no doubt aware, the House points are in, so I say congratulations to Griffindor House, for winning the House Cup!"
Now everyone but the Slytherins cheered; the Slytherins' boos were drowned out by all the cheering.
Dumbledore then launched into a somewhat vague account of the events beneath the school, which made Harry wonder why he bothered, though it was punctuated by various students chiming in with accurate facts about what had happened, such as Percy boasting that his brother Ron had gotten past McGonagall's giant chess set. He was also interested to note that even Neville standing up to them had been noted, the man saying it took just as much bravery (if not more) to stand up to your friends, and his curiosity deepened.
"And so it is with great pleasure that I award Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Ronald Weasley, and Neville Longbottom special awards for services to the school!"
Stunned by both this proclamation and by the wall of ecstatic noise that hit him, Harry couldn't help letting Iliana's jaw slacken with shock. But however stunned he was, was as nothing to Neville's face. It took several groups of people working together to pry the two stunned kids off their seats and up to the front to receive their awards. Or rather, to have their pictures taken with the awards before said awards went up into a case in the trophy room.
While a part of him was elated, he was also annoyed; he could feel pressure from Iliana building, and resisted it, pushed her down for now; it wouldn't help either of them for her to surface now. He just concentrated on looking pleased as punch as the Great Hall erupted into jovial chaos.
Having almost forgotten about exam results, he was later surprised once more to have passed, despite all the trouble he'd had concentrating. Before long, all of his friends were packing, getting ready to leave; everyone but him, of course. He just watched, back in his original form again.
There were many extended, and repeated, goodbyes, as he saw his friends off outside the doors of Hogwarts, watching them board the carriages. He smiled, feeling bittersweet. His mind began to wander, but it didn't get far; his stomach fell out of his body, or so it felt, as he noticed the strange skeletal, horse-like winged creatures that pulled the carriages. In mute horror, he wondered how it was that nobody else was noticing these blank-eyed monstrosities, even when the creatures' movements should have been catching their eyes.
"Whatcha lookin at, Harry?" Hagrid said, suddenly at Harry's side.
Harry pointed at the horse things, gaping.
"Oh," said Hagrid. "Ah yeah, I figgered you'd be able ter see em now, what with everything that happened."
"You... you see them too?"
"Yup. Don't worry, Harry. They're harmless, long as yeh don't rile 'em. They're called thestrals. Only people who can see em, are people who've seen someone die. Makes me right glad so few people can see em, specially after the dark times we 'ad back some twelve years back, I tell ya what."
Harry sighed, relieved that he wasn't going mad.
Ron's and Hermione's carriage was the last to leave. Just before leaving, Ron said, "You must come and stay this summer, both of you — I'll send you an owl."
"Thanks," said Harry, "I'd love to meet your family, Ron. And yours, Hermione."
His friends waved goodbye to him, and he waved back, watching them go, until he couldn't see them anymore.
"Right. Well now tha's done, Harry, welcome to yer new home. Wanna join me in a cuppa?"
"That sounds great, Hagrid."
So he followed his large friend, wishing he could take the large man by the hand, but forced to try to walk very fast to keep up with Hagrid's large stride.
Well this should be an interesting summer.
“The Many Faces of Adira Potter: Chapter 5”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Five: Stones, Snakes, and House Elves
Note: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note two: A little canon-y dialogue and narration in here, too. The Dobby scene in canon just has so much that's still great that works here, too. Again, I try to avoid it as much as possible.
One week. One week they had to stay in Hogwarts before being sent to spend the rest of the summer with the Weasleys. At first, Harry and the rest of the collective thought that was a ridiculously short amount of time, as they were keen on exploring the castle. But in that week, the only people in the castle besides them, Dumbledore, Hagrid, and Filch was... well, that was it, really. Even Snape had left, to who knew where. Hagrid was still busy with his gamekeeping chores mostly, Dumbledore remained as aloof as usual up in his office, and Filch had a nasty habit of following them around everywhere they went, sure they were up to no good. They occasionally got out to visit Hagrid, but mostly it was a lot of boredom in the empty Griffindor tower, unless they wanted to spend every five minutes facing Filch's wheezy accusations or dodging his cat, Mrs. Norris.
The only reason they were spending any time at all in the castle over the summer, from what Dumbledore had intimated, was because they were waiting for Nicolas Flamel to arrive. He would need a couple days to use the Philosopher's Stone to make enough gold and Elixir of Life to last him and his wife another year or two, and of course this required Zoey's presence and cooperation. Though nobody said why he was making extra, the collective knew it was in case Voldemort made Harry and the others pop their clogs.
Iliana had been gone almost that entire week, vanished Inside, hopefully recovering from the trauma of having killed in self defense. Dumbledore did come down from his office a couple times that week to ask after her and suggest that she see a mind healer over the summer, but Harry had no satisfactory answers for him, for she rarely appeared even internally.
Of all the things about that week, Iliana's disappearance was bothering Harry the most. He'd gotten so used to the body being in Iliana's form that the body having his original form again just felt weird to him. And... wrong, somehow? He worried, as he tried to get to sleep at night, that he'd been fading away and might die out, to let Iliana replace him, which he most assuredly did not want to do. But all the same, it felt weird being in a boy's body all the time again.
Pretty much the only sign they'd had all that week that Iliana was even still around was the fact that she continued to have nightmares whenever they slept. Nightmares that often woke them up in a cold sweat, making further sleep pretty much impossible.
On the sixth day, Dumbledore and Harry were sitting at the lone table in the Great Hall having breakfast (because with so few people in the castle there seemed no point to have more than one table, according to Dumbledore) when the headmaster coughed slightly to get his attention.
“Yes, sir?”
“Ah yes, Harry, I wanted to let you know, Nicolas sent an owl, and he will be here by noon at the latest. He will need an hour to set up his equipment in one of the labs in the dungeons, but he will need the Stone after that point. So I will fetch you at 1pm. Please let Zoey know to be ready to retrieve the Stone.”
Harry nodded, continuing to dig into his kippers. “Yes, sir.”
“Good. With that out of the way, has there been any word from Iliana?”
Harry swallowed, then shook his head. “No, sir. She keeps having nightmares, though, at night. I've been up since 4 am today because of one of them, in fact.”
“Hmm. I will send some owls today, to try to speed up getting a mind healer appointment for her, in that case. She should not be hiding from her troubles, they will only get worse the more she does.”
“Okay, sir. I'll continue to try to coax her out.”
“Excellent.”
After breakfast, Harry glumly went back up to Griffindor tower, taking a number of shortcuts so he could minimize the chance of running into Filch. When he got up there, he stared at his belongings, thinking about Iliana, about getting out of the castle in two days, and – oddly – about what he would wear when he did. He of course had Muggle clothes, if the circus tents that had been Dudley's counted as clothing. Looking at the hideous things again, he suddenly knew he didn't want to wear any of it ever again. He was free of the Dursleys, so he wanted to be free of any reminders of them. On a sudden, unexpected whim, he grabbed up all his old Muggle clothes (except his underpants), carried them downstairs in his arms, and threw them all in the fire, watching them burn. This meant he wouldn't have any Muggle clothes for the trip to the Weasleys, but he didn't care; he could Floo directly to the Burrow if he needed to, right? And from there to Diagon Alley, no doubt.
“Harry,” Dumbledore said, making Harry start and turn. The headmaster was there in the Griffindor dormitory, looking into the fire at the burning clothes.
“Er...” Harry said. But the headmaster just chuckled.
“Nothing to worry about, my dear boy. If I'd been forced to wear such hideous apparel, I can imagine I'd want to burn it as well. No matter. You have your inheritance, and Gringotts can exchange wizarding money for Muggle money, so buying new Muggle clothing will pose no problem for you. The only sticking point, of course, is what you will wear to the Muggle stores. But I shall solve that now for you.”
Dumbledore got out his wand and drew in the air with it, making a folded black t-shirt and folded pair of blue jeans appear on a nearby chair. Harry looked at them and felt, oddly, that they looked wrong too. But he couldn't figure out why he felt that way, so he just picked them up and smiled at Dumbledore.
“Thank you, sir. Shall I put them in my room before we go?”
“Yes. I am early anyway, and Nicolas learned patience many centuries ago besides.”
Harry nodded at this and ran up to put away his new clothes in his trunk. When he got back downstairs, Dumbledore nodded.
“This way, Harry.”
Harry wrinkled his nose slightly. Something had been bothering him for a long time, something he'd only become aware of now, as Dumbledore spoke; he had realized that he didn't like being called Harry.
More accurately, he'd been aware of this for some time, he just hadn't been aware of being aware of it; and no, it wasn't a Multiple thing. It was like when Al had become aware of the absurd convenience of Hagrid managing to find a dragon egg without looking for one, but not really fully getting it until later.
As Dumbledore led him down to the dungeons to find Flamel, Harry thought about this new realization, wondering about its origins. Was it because he'd thought his name was Boy for so long, because of the Dursleys, that he'd actually introduced himself as Boy in kindergarten and become an instant laughingstock? He'd only heard any of the Dursleys say his real name after that incident, when he had – angry and embarrassed – demanded to know his name, and Aunt Petunia had finally told him, once she'd stopped laughing at him long enough to get it out. Dudley said it sometimes, of course. The name was associated with pain and ridicule... so was that it?
His introspection was cut short when Dumbledore announced that they were there. He let Harry in, and Harry got his first look at Nicolas Flamel.
The man was short, hardly taller than Harry, and had a full beard, but he looked no older than 40, so his resemblance to Dumbledore ended there.
“Harry,” Dumbledore said, “this is my good friend Nicolas Flamel.”
“Ah, you must be the Potters,” Flamel said, in an accent that Harry couldn't place. Al couldn't, either.
But then, he's several hundred years old, so that complicates matters, Al thought.
“Yes, that's us.”
“Dumbledore tells me that one named Zoey has the Stone.”
Harry nodded, looking around at the lab the man had set up. It was quite complex, like something out of an old gothic mad scientist movie, but without the Muggle technology.
“I'll see if I can get her out, then, sir.”
Zoey? He inquired within.
They glowed bright white, shrinking; suddenly a 6 year old with black hair, light brown skin, and one green eye, one hazel eye was standing there, wearing a pink pinafore dress and black Mary Janes, with a pink ribbon in her hair. She was holding a blood red stone in her right hand.
“Hello Mister Flamel. Are you looking for this?” She handed it to him.
“Yes, indeed. Thank you, my dear.”
Dumbledore twinkled at her. “Well best run along, dear. This will take a few hours. There's no point waiting around for that span. I will fetch you when it is time to resecure the Stone.”
“Righty-o, Mister Dumbledore Sir” she said cheerfully, before literally running along out the door.
“Oy there, no running in the corridors!” a wheezy voice shouted at her as she left the room. She turned to see Mister Filch slouching quickly in her direction. “Don't think I'm afraid of whipping you just because you're a little girl, missy.”
“Sorry, not my scene,” she said innocently. “But maybe Madam Pince will let you whip her instead?”
As Filch gaped in red-faced astonishment at her, Zoey skipped away, humming a happy song to herself.
She decided it was a beautiful day to go outside, and so she did, spending her time hunting around the grounds for animals to coo at. She saw several rabbits, a fox, and some frogs, but none of them wanted to stick around for long. But then she spotted a grass snake by the black lake.
'Hello there, little snakey,' she said to it. 'How are you this fine afternoon?'
The snake lifted its head and regarded her curiously. 'I am well. How are you?'
'I'm good, too. Are you hunting?'
'I was.'
'Should I leave you be?'
'Yes please.'
'Okie dokie. I wish you luck!'
'Thanks, strange human.'
She watched the snake slither off into the water until she couldn't see it anymore, and went off in search of more snakes.
When Dumbledore approached Zoey later, she was sitting cross-legged on the grass, stroking a grass snake's head, appearing from a distance to be speaking to it. As he got closer, however, he thought he heard her hissing and spitting at it without drawing breath, which froze him in his tracks. He suddenly remembered Iliana having said, at the beginning of the last school year, that Alastair had been commanding the snakes. Dumbledore had wondered, then, if it had been Parseltongue, and now he was certain. This fact lent some weight to a theory of his he'd been rather hoping he was wrong about, especially given that the Potter collective had an innocent (more or less) child among them.
He started walking again, and – apparently sensing his presence at last – Zoey looked up and smiled at him.
“Is it time to put the Stone back already?”
“Yes, I'm delighted to say that Nicolas and his wife are now well prepared for another year. More, in fact. It is always best to have extras, in case of emergencies. So your new friend shall have to slither off now, I'm afraid.”
“Okay, Mister Dumbledore Sir,” she said. She turned to the snake and said, 'See you later, Miss Snakey.'
'I hope so. You are warm, and I like warm things.'
The child let the snake go, and got up to follow him back to the dungeons. He considered her in silence the whole way there, wondering if he should tell her about the meaning of her gift, or not. Finally, though, he decided he ought to.
“Miss Potter?”
“Yes, Mister Dumbledore Sir?”
“I am curious about something. Were you able, perchance, to understand what that snake was saying?”
“Well, yes. Can't all magical people speak with snakes?”
“No, it is a rare gift, called Parseltongue.”
“Partial-tongue?”
“No, Parseltongue. With an S, not a T. And it is a gift I think you would do best to keep quiet. I do not personally have any prejudice against the gift, but many in the wizarding world consider the gift to be associated with dark magic.”
Oh lovely, something else to worry about, Al said.
Ignoring him, Zoey nodded at Dumbledore. “Okay, I'll keep it quiet.”
Zoey was pensive the whole rest of the way back, and during the process of re-securing the Stone. Harry briefly appeared before Zoey came back out. Having secured the Stone, Flamel said his goodbyes, and Zoey went back outside to speak with her new friend.
The conversation was much more subdued after that, though; even the snake noticed.
'What bothers you, human?'
'I just found out that being able to speak with you like this is considered bad by a lot of people, just because a lot of bad people had this ability too. It's a rare gift, the headmaster told me.'
'Ah. So you must keep it a secret?'
'Yes.'
'Does that mean you have to withdraw the offer to let me inside the castle where it is always warm, even in the cold months?'
'No. I'll keep you anyway. I'll just have to be careful. Maybe if I concentrate, I can tell the difference between this partialtongue and English.'
She sighed, then invited the snake to crawl up and around her arm. Then she took it inside, up to their room in the Griffindor dorms, and let the snake coil around her shoulders as she packed their belongings, as they would be going to the Burrow soon. She kept the snake, which she named Aqua, with her all day long and even into bed with her, explaining to it about being a Multiple before she went to bed, just in case they switched in their sleep.
Zoey woke up the next morning surprised to find that Iliana's nightmares had felt distant, like a storm on the horizon, during the night. It was curious, and Al wondered if it was because Zoey was so bubbly. Zoey just shrugged and went down to breakfast.
The headmaster was there at the table already when she sat down.
“Ah, Miss Zoey Potter. Still with us, then? Good, good. Incidentally, my dear, you'll want to pack today, for I will be taking you to the Burrow in time for lunch today.”
In between bites of her scrambled eggs, she said, “Yeah I kinda figgered. So I packed last night.”
“Good, then we can leave all the sooner. Shall we leave after breakfast, then?”
“Sure. How're we getting there, Floo?”
“I think it would be more secure, actually, if I were to take you by side-along Apparition.”
“What's that?”
“Apparition is disappearing from one place and instantly reappearing elsewhere.”
“Oh, like teleporting?”
He chuckled. “Yes, I suppose that is the Muggle term for it. But, er... the experience is often unpleasant for beginners, and tends to cause nausea. But if you lose your breakfast, my dear, Molly will be more than happy to replace it for you.”
“Molly is Ron's mum, right?”
“Correct. I call her Molly, but you would probably be best to call her Mrs. Weasley.”
“Yeah, I noticed – or Al noticed, really – that you tend to call adults by their first names, even other professors, and with kids it's a mix of first names and Mr/Miss Whatever, or something like 'my dear boy.' Al thinks it's weird, and says that the adults look either offended or exasperated depending on how used to it they are. Like, he's not sure but he thinks it's some kind of rule you're breaking.”
“Ah, yes. Well I hope you all will forgive an old man his eccentricities,” he said, twinkling at them before going back to his bacon.
Sounds to me like another way of saying 'I'm Dumbledore, muthafuckas, I do what I waaant.'
Zoey giggled at this. Dumbledore looked curiously at her, apparently cluing into the fact she wasn't giggling at him.
“Am I to assume that Alastair has said something amusing to you?”
“Yeah. But it was a little rude.”
He twinkled at them again, to which Al replied with an image of himself rolling his eyes. She snorted into her pudding at this.
After breakfast, Dumbledore helped Zoey get their trunk downstairs by calling a house elf to do it. Zoey stared in amazement at the elf, with its large head, huge eyes, and batlike ears for the brief time that it was there. When it left, she looked up at Dumbledore.
“What was that?”
“That was a house elf. They are magical creatures that are servants for us. Hogwarts is home to over 100 of them. They clean, cook, tend the fires, make the beds, and other things besides.”
“Really? So why do we need Mr. Filch?”
“Ah. As to that, the mark of a good house elf is that it is never seen unless summoned, or unless you were to find your way into the kitchens. So we need Mr. Filch for messes in places and times that elves cannot do it, as well as to maintain order in the corridors.”
“Al wants to know why, if that's the case, you need someone who can't do magic for that job. He says it would be better to have a fully qualified wizard do it.”
“Mr. Filch is more than capable.”
Zoey's face contorted into a scowl, which was a strange thing to see on her face. “What a load of rubbish. That's not an answer. I mean, I have nothing against the man, it's just that he's obviously miserable here, surrounded by constant reminders of his perceived inadequacy. It's no bloody wonder he hates the students.”
“Ah. Alastair, I presume?”
Zoey's face raised an eyebrow at the man. “Yes.”
“Well, now is not the time to discuss it, my dear boy. I--”
“Don't call me 'boy,'” Al-Zoey interrupted. “That term has a lot of baggage for us, it's what the Dursleys called us. Harry didn't even know his real name until kindergarten.”
“Ah. I apologize, Alastair. I was unaware of that. I will endeavor to remember not to do it again. Ah, here come the carriages.”
Zoey's face lost Al's annoyed expression at once as she beamed. “HORSIES!” she shouted, pointing at the thestrals pulling the carriage. “Horsies horsies horsies HORSIES!”
“Thestrals, my dear; they're thestrals.”
“Yeah I know, Hagrid said so already. But they're also horsies!”
Dumbledore chuckled at that. “I suppose they are, at that.”
“Why're we getting in the carriage if we're using side along teleportation?”
“Apparition, my dear. Hagrid had this one ready already because I had originally planned to use the Floo at the Three Broomsticks, so I wouldn't need to go to the trouble of connecting the castle to the Floo network, but then I remembered that Voldemort had been here recently, and decided it was more secure to do side along Apparition. But it seems that your unexpected readiness caused me to forget to inform Hagrid to unhitch the thestrals, so here they came as originally scheduled. We may as well use them, since they are here. It is rather a lengthy walk to the gates, after all, and I am not as young as I used to be.”
Zoey nodded at this and climbed into the carriage. Dumbledore got in behind her, and the two thestrals began heading down at a light canter to the gates. It wasn't until they got there that Dumbledore spoke, giving a command to them to stop, which they did. They got out, got Zoey's trunk out, and Dumbledore sent the thestrals back to Hagrid.
“I will send your trunk along ahead of us, it will be easier this way.”
She nodded. He pointed his wand at the trunk, and it vanished.
“Take my arm now, dear. And prepare yourself.”
She did, and soon she felt like she was being squeezed through a dark rubber tube, before suddenly appearing in a grassy field. She felt a little woozy, but managed to keep her breakfast down. She still had to lean against Dumbledore, though.
When Zoey regained her composure, she looked up at the sight of a very tall house that looked like a barn had been added to multiple times until it was a tall structure that was plainly being held up by magic.
“Oh. My. Goodness!” she said, her eyes wide. She began to laugh delightedly at it.
“Welcome to the Burrow, Miss Potter.”
They began walking toward it. They'd barely begun when a rubenesque woman with flaming red hair came bustling toward them from the door.
“Mrs. Weasley?” Zoey asked Dumbledore.
“Yes, that is Molly Weasley. Hello, Molly!” he said to the woman, who had gotten within earshot.
“Dumbledore! And...” she looked at Zoey curiously. “Who is this?”
“This is one of the Potters. Her name is Zoey. Zoey Potter, meet Molly Weasley.”
Zoey held out her hand. Mrs. Weasley took it, still looking confused. “One of the... OH! Yes, she has the... well...” she trailed off, her eyes flicking to the scar that was always on their forehead no matter who was Out, “and I remember you explaining it to me, Albus. Several people in one body, and the body changes form from some of the switches, right?”
“Yes, ma'am. It is very nice to meet you at last. Ron talks about you a lot.”
“Thank you, dear. He talks of you a lot too. Well, I don't think he's mentioned you in particular, but he's mentioned Harry, Alastair, and Iliana. Er... how many of you are there, anyway? If it's not rude to ask.”
“It's fine. So far, it's just me, Harry, Iliana, Alastair, and Tier.”
“Tea-air?”
“It's German,” Zoey explained. “Means 'beast, animal.' He's a little feral, but nice.”
“Ah. So just the five of you, then?”
“So far as we know.”
“Two girls and three boys, then?”
Something in their shared mental space twinged at that, but Zoey didn't know what it meant, so she just replied, “S'far's we know, ma'am.”
Mrs. Weasley tut-tutted. “No more of this 'ma'am,' business please, dear. Just call me Mrs. Weasley, if you call me anything at all.”
“Okie dokie then.”
Dumbledore coughed slightly to get their attention.
“Sorry to interrupt, Molly m'dear, but I have matters to attend to back in Hogsmeade, so I shall have to leave you for now. Enjoy your summer, Zoey, Everyone.”
Mrs. Weasley and Zoey said their goodbyes to the man, who tipped his hat before disappearing with a small pop, and soon Zoey was following Mrs. Weasley into the house.
“Iliana! Is that--” Ron shouted, falling short in both speech and momentum as he saw Zoey. Recovering quickly, he smiled and said, “Hey there, Titchy.”
“Ronald, don't be rude to the poor dear.”
“S'okay, Mrs. Weasley.” She turned to Ron, punching him so hard in the arm that he exclaimed in pain. “Right back atcha, Lanky.”
“Ah, do our ears deceive us?” said one of the twins, who were coming down the stairs. “Are those the dulcet tones of our favorite troublemaking Potter, the esteemed Zoey Potter?”
She blushed, and exaggerated looking embarrassed. “Flattery will get you everywhere. Well, maybe not everywhere.”
The twins, to everyone's surprise, turned beet red. Molly blinked, then laughed.
“Well, now I've seen everything.” She shook her head, then turned to Zoey. “Did Dumbledore bring you along by side along Apparition? Were you sick in the grass, dearie?”
“He did, but I'm fine. I got a little woozy, but everything's still in there.”
“All the same, dearie, from what I've heard of those relatives of yours, I'd feel better if you ate something else.”
“Well, maybe a biscuit, if you have one.”
Mrs. Weasley summoned the biscuit tin with her wand. “There you go, dearie.”
“Do we get biscuits, too?” asked the twins and Ron.
“No. You had some already, and knowing you, you'd eat yourself sick if I let you.”
“Ah well,” said Fred. “Doesn't hurt to ask.”
Ron started to lead Zoey up to his room, but Mrs. Weasley stopped him.
“No, Ron; I don't feel comfortable letting her sleep in your room. She can sleep in Ginny's room.”
“Mom! She's 6! What do you think I am, some kind of sicko? Besides which, they already sleep in our room at school.”
“Yes. With three other boys. I don't understand why Dumbledore allows it, honestly.”
“Where're they supposed to sleep? There's two boys in their collective, they can't use the girl's dormitory.”
“They should have their own room, if that's the case.”
“If it'll help, I can bring Harry back.”
“Hmm... but what about Iliana, dear?”
“She's been in hiding ever since she killed Quirrell in self defense.”
Molly looked concerned again. “Yes... yes I heard about that. Of course Dumbledore explained it all in an owl, the poor dear. I hope something can be done for her. But no, dear, you can stay if you want; there's no need to switch on our account. If nothing else, you can always kip on the sofa.”
“Well can she at least come up and see my room without me getting the third degree?”
“Yes yes, just leave the door open.”
Ron sighed and rolled his eyes, leading Zoey upstairs. She followed along behind, her eyes going every which way, taking in everything she could.
“Sorry about Mum back there. Honestly, of all the daft things... I don't know what her problem is. Anyway, here's my room.”
“Ouch,” she said, shielding her eyes from the glare of all his myriad neon orange Chudley Cannons posters. “Okie dokie, I don't think I'm gonna go in there, it's painfully orange in there. Gah...” she backed away carefully, then turned about and went around the corner.
“Sorry, Ron. Maybe Harry or Al can look at it later. But my head still hurts from all the orange.”
Ron blushed. “Sorry about that, mate. I guess it is a bit much. Wanna go outside? Mum says we're to stay on the property, because some people from the ministry were here the other day putting up wards for you lot, but there's plenty to do out there.”
“Alrighty. But I think I'm gonna retire, let Harry out.”
“Ah, okay. Later, then?”
“Later for sure. Hold on a moment, gonna go to the loo first.”
Zoey ran into the loo, closing the door, and turned the tap on. Then she said, in Parseltongue, 'Come out, Aqua. I have to switch, and it's best if you're not coiling around me at the time, just in case.'
'If you say so, human.'
Once the snake was waiting on the bathroom sink, she glowed, grew, and became Harry.
'Ah, you smell different, but similar. So she wasn't exaggerating.'
'Yeah,' said Harry.
'May I curl around you again?' she asked.
'Yeah, go on.'
'Ah, so warm.'
When Harry came back out, he found Ron again.
“Let me see your room, Ron; maybe I'll have a better time of it than Zoey.”
As it turned out, Harry had no problem with Ron's room. He could see where it could cause others problems, but as for him, he had no problem of it. After getting a good look around, they decided to go outside and play some Quidditch, so Harry grabbed his broom and headed downstairs with Ron.
On their way out the door, Mrs. Weasley spotted them.
“Is that you, Harry?”
“Hi Mrs. Weasley. Yes, it's me.”
“Glad to see you again. You two going outside, then?”
“Yeah, Mum. Gonna play some Quidditch.”
“Ah, is that so little brother? Well wait for us, and we'll come too,” George said.
“The more the merrier.”
“Where's Ginny? Maybe she can join us, too.”
“I would, but she'd take one look at you and run off, mate. She fancies you, and anyone she fancies makes her very nervous.”
Harry blushed. “Ah. Anyone else available to join in?”
“Nope,” said Fred. “Charlie and Bill live abroad, and perfect Percy is too busy with whatever it is he does in his room to condescend spending time with us plebes.”
“I guess we'll just have to make do.”
It wasn't easy, as it turned out, to play Quidditch with just four people, so they ended up giving up and just practiced tossing the Quaffle around and catching it, going for ever more difficult passes and laughing at one another whenever they failed.
Later that day, as they headed back for dinner, they saw Mr. Weasley Apparate in at a distance some ways away, so they waited for him to walk the rest of the way to the door.
“Hey Dad,” Fred said. “Look, it's Harry. Harry Potter!”
“Ah yes, so it is. Good to meet you, Harry,” he said, holding out his hand. Harry took it with a resigned feeling.
They went in and sat down around the dinner table. As they waited to be served, Mr. Weasley looked straight at Harry and asked him to explain how airplanes stay up in the air. Harry blinked, a bit bemused, but answered.
“I'm not sure, but there's some scientific principle called lift, where if you shape the wings a certain way, it does something with air pressure that pushes the plane into the sky.”
“Amazing! I wonder how they discovered that?”
“No idea.”
“And what about this ekeltricity?”
“Electricity. That's from...” he strained his memory, concentrating. “Well, matter is made of these tiny little things called atoms, and the atoms are made of smaller bits called protons, neutrons, and electrons. Protons and neutrons make a nucleus, and electrons buzz around it like planets around the sun. But they can move from one atom to another, the electrons. Magnets do that a lot. I'm not sure how the magnets make the electrons move, but they're part of the electric generators, and that electric power makes lights and stuff work.”
“Absolutely fascinating. And what about--”
“Arthur, don't pester him, it's dinnertime.”
“Sorry, Molly dear.”
Sheesh. Didn't Ron say this guy works in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office at the ministry? Al commented internally. You'd think he'd know this stuff already.
After he'd gotten a solid amount of food into his belly, Harry turned to Mr. Weasley again.
“Did you take Muggle Studies class in Hogwarts?”
“Well yes, of course. I work with Muggles, so an O.W.L. in Muggle Studies is required. Why do you ask?”
Seriously? Must be a shit class, then, Al said to Harry.
“Oh. Just curious, Mr. Weasley.”
As they went back to eating, Harry made a mental note to get Mr. Weasley a book or two about some Muggle science stuff for him for Christmas.
From the kid's section, would be best.
Summer at the Weasley's was a lot of fun. Ron (and the twins, when they weren't shut in their rooms making explosions) always found ways to have fun, because boredom in the Weasley household was a surefire way to get set doing chores. But even some of the chores were fun, like de-gnoming. Harry felt bad tossing the grubby little potato-shaped gnomes at first, but they proved to be stupid and mean, so he quickly lost sympathy for them.
Sure enough, Ginny turned out to flee the room if Harry turned up unexpectedly, and turned red and got clumsy other times when he was in the room. Harry pretended not to notice, even while Al wanted to roll his eyes, and Zoey giggled somewhere deep Inside.
Going to bed the first night in Ron's room had been met with an unexpected complication. Harry had been on autopilot, his mind wandering, and only when Ron shouted “Oy! What the...?” did Harry notice he had been about to change into one of Iliana's nightgowns. He put it away, but strangely he didn't feel embarrassed by the mistake, just annoyed.
Even with Iliana still hiding, and Mr. Weasley's constant questions about Muggle technology, it was the best summer he'd ever had. (Yes, even counting the previous one spent in Diagon Alley and The Leaky Cauldron.) And it was proving to get better, for by the week before his birthday they finalized plans for Hermione to come to his first ever birthday party. Though he'd been free of the Dursleys the summer before, and Hagrid had gotten him a cake and taken him out for ice cream and given him presents, it hadn't been a party; it takes more than two people to have a party, after all. So Harry was very excited for the upcoming birthday.
The next morning, however, something happened that put a slight damper on his excitement. He had gotten an owl from Dumbledore telling him of Iliana's first appointment with a mind healer, to happen two days before his birthday, with a man called Healer Young. He sighed, but accepted this. Iliana needed to get better, after all, and he missed her terribly. So he sent the owl back with a quick scribbled note relaying his understanding.
On the night before the appointment, Harry went to bed as usual. Perhaps sparked by the impending appointment, Iliana's nightmares – which had spent most of the weeks at the Burrow barely noticeable to Harry – came back in full force. They were right in the middle of one about an angry zombie Quirrell grabbing their arms and shaking them, screaming accusations at them, when they woke up screaming. A hand immediately clapped over their mouth, Iliana's mouth (for they had apparently transformed in their sleep), cutting off the scream quickly. Ron grunted, but did not wake up.
Panicking, struggling against the hands holding her down, Iliana began to cry. Not only was she terrified that someone was in her room holding her down, but she was also terrified that Dumbledore had been wrong, that they still had their mother's protection, that she would kill someone else.
'What was that?' she heard Zoey's pet snake say from inside her bedclothes. 'Human, what is wrong?' she asked, but of course Iliana could not answer. 'I will bite anyone who hurts you, though I don't think that will do much more than annoy them.'
“Miss Potter will please settle down, Miss. Dobby is not meaning Miss no harm. Dobby is a good elf. Please, Miss,” said the high-pitched voice. “Please be settling down and be quiet. Dobby is promising you is not to be harmed. In fact, Dobby is here to warn Miss of danger coming to Hogwarts!”
Though unsure whether to believe the voice or not, Iliana calmed down just enough to remember TV shows they'd seen that showed it was a good idea to comply even if your kidnapper meant you harm, at least for a little while.
“Does Miss Potter promise to be quiet please for Dobby to speaks with her?”
Iliana nodded. A part of her was very curious how Ron was sleeping through Dobby's high-pitched voice, even though the elf was whispering. For she now recognized that he was a house elf.
“Good. Dobby is letting go now, Miss, but Dobby is ready to quiet Miss again if Miss screams again.”
And with that, he let go of her. She immediately pushed away from him, squeezing herself as tight to the wall as she could. Aqua, the snake, stuck her head out of Iliana's nightgown (as Harry's pajamas had transformed along with the body) and sniffed the air with wary curiosity.
'You are tense and I smell fear on you. Is that green creature with the large ears the source of your fear?'
Iliana didn't want to find out what Dobby would say if she spoke Parseltongue around him, so she just started stroking the snake's head.
'I shall take that as a no, then,' Aqua replied, and settled back inside Iliana's nightgown.
“Oh Miss,” Dobby said sadly. “Dobby is so very sad that Miss is scared. Dobby is hoping Miss is not being scared, but Dobby is prepared for Miss being scared, for Dobby heard tell of Miss being very scared after she is getting away from the bad dark wizard who is trying to take the Philosopher's Stone.”
I guess they never taught this fellow about the past tense, eh? Al commented to Iliana, but she wasn't in the mood for levity.
“Shut up!” she responded to Al, aloud.
Dobby jerked back, his lip quivering, his large wet eyes watering.
“Not you, Dobby. Sorry, I was talking to Al. But... you probably don't know what I mean by that, do you?”
Dobby looked relieved by this.
“Oh no, Miss, not at all. Dobby is knowing all about your condition, Miss. Dobby is hearing of it from several sources. Dobby is knowing all about the Potters, about Misses Iliana and Zoey, and of Harry Potter, and of Alastair Potter. Dobby is even knowing of one who people is calling Tier.”
“Who'd you hear all this from, Dobby?”
“From other house elves, mainly. They is also saying how great the Potters is, how the Potters is defeating even You-Know-Who. They speaks of your bravery, too. Such an honor it is, Miss Iliana Potter, to be meeting you.”
Iliana wanted to argue with him on some of those points, but got the impression that it would be a waste of time, so instead, she just said, “You said something about danger coming to Hogwarts?”
Dobby nodded so hard his ears flapped.
“Yes, Miss. Dobby has come to tell you, Miss. It is difficult, Miss. Dobby wonders where to begin?”
“Why don't you sit down?” she said politely, pointing at the bed in front of her.
To her horror, Dobby burst into very noisy tears.
“S-sit down!” he wailed. “Never … never ever …”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, “I didn’t mean to offend you or anything —”
“Offend Dobby!” choked the elf. “Dobby has never been asked to sit down by a witch or wizard — like an equal —”
Iliana, trying to say “Shh!” and look comforting at the same time, ushered Dobby into a sitting position on the bed where he sat hiccoughing, looking like a large and very ugly doll. At last he managed to control himself, and sat with his great eyes fixed on Iliana in an expression of watery adoration.
“You can’t have met many decent wizards,” she said, trying to cheer him up.
Dobby shook his head. Then, without warning, he leapt up and started banging his head furiously on the window, shouting, “Bad Dobby! Bad Dobby!”
“Don’t — what are you doing?” Iliana hissed, springing up and pulling Dobby back onto the bed. “You'll wake Ron!”
He must sleep like the dead, to sleep through this racket.
“Not to worry, Miss. Dobby is putting a silencing bubble around the two of us. Your weezy will not wake, he is not hearing us.”
“Then why'd you--”
“Dobby is having very sensitive ears, Miss,” he said, pointing at his large, batlike ears.
“Ah, that explains it.”
“Anyway, Miss... Dobby had to punish himself, Miss,” said the elf, who had gone slightly cross-eyed. “Dobby almost spoke ill of his family, Miss. …”
“Your family?” This time it was Harry that had spoken, using Iliana's voice. Dobby did not, of course, notice.
“The wizard family Dobby serves, Miss. … Dobby is a house-elf — bound to serve one house and one family forever. …”
Harry decided it would be too complicated to explain to Dobby that he was talking to Harry now, when they were still in Iliana's body, especially since that could change at any moment. And anyway, Iliana was still present, listening raptly, so he let the elf continue to think he was speaking only to her.
“I've seen house elves before, at the school,” Harry said. “Do your family know you’re here?” he asked curiously.
Dobby shuddered.
“Oh, no, Miss, no … Dobby will have to punish himself most grievously for coming to see you, Miss. Dobby will have to shut his ears in the oven door for this. If they ever knew, Miss —”
“But won’t they notice if you shut your ears in the oven door?”
“Dobby doubts it, Miss. Dobby is always having to punish himself for something, Miss. They lets Dobby get on with it, Miss. Sometimes they reminds me to do extra punishments. …”
“But why don’t you leave? Escape?”
“A house-elf must be set free, Miss. And the family will never set Dobby free … Dobby will serve the family until he dies, Miss. …”
Harry stared.
“You're a slave,” he said. “Holy shit... This makes the Dursleys sound almost human. Can’t anyone help you? Can’t I?”
Almost at once, Harry wished he hadn’t spoken. Dobby dissolved again into wails of gratitude. Despite what Dobby had said, he and Iliana couldn't help but turn to look at Ron, who was still fast asleep.
“Iliana Potter asks if she can help Dobby … Dobby has heard of your greatness, Sirs and Misses, but of your goodness, Dobby never knew. …”
Harry, who was feeling distinctly hot in the face, said, “Whatever you’ve heard about our greatness is a load of rubbish. We're not even top of my year at Hogwarts; that’s Hermione.”
“Harry Potter is humble and modest,” said Dobby reverently, his orb-like eyes aglow. “Harry Potter speaks not of his triumph over He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named —”
“Voldemort?” said Harry without thinking.
Dobby clapped his hands over his bat ears and moaned, “Ah, speak not the name, Miss! Speak not the name!”
“Sorry,” said Harry quickly. “I know lots of people don’t like it. Ron complains about it all the time. But it's just a name, isn't it? It doesn't even sound like a real name. I bet he made it up.”
“Miss is...” Dobby looked thoughtful, as though weighing whether he could speak or not. “Miss may possibly be... may possibly be not exactly totally on the inc--” he gritted his teeth, his whole body tensing, then started bashing his head against the bedside table. In a panic, Harry and Iliana both tried grabbing him, and ended up nearly knocking him over instead, almost falling out of bed themselves.
“Thank you, Miss. Dobby is almost saying too much.”
“It's okay, Dobby. I understand it's difficult for you.”
Dobby nodded. Harry opened his mouth to ask a question, but Dobby beat him to speaking.
“Dobby heard tell,” he said hoarsely, “that Harry and Iliana Potter met the Dark Lord for a second time, just weeks ago … that the Potters escaped yet again.”
Harry nodded and Dobby’s eyes suddenly shone with tears.
“Ah, Miss,” he gasped, dabbing his face with a corner of the grubby pillowcase he was wearing. “The Potters is valiant and bold! They has braved so many dangers already! But Dobby has come to protect the Potters, to warn them, even if he does have to shut his ears in the oven door later. … for Harry and Iliana Potter and the others must not go back to Hogwarts.”
There was a silence broken only by Ron's grunting snores in the other bed.
“W-what?” Harry stammered. “But I’ve got to go back — term starts on September first. I belong here, in this world — the wizarding world — and at Hogwarts.”
“No, no, no,” squeaked Dobby, shaking his head so hard his ears flapped. “The Potters must stay where they is safe. They is too great, too good, to lose. If the Potters go back to Hogwarts, they will be in mortal danger.”
“Why?” said Harry in surprise.
“There is a plot, Iliana Potter. A plot to make most terrible things happen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year,” whispered Dobby, suddenly trembling all over. “Dobby has known it for months, Miss. Iliana Potter and the others must not put themselves in peril. They is too important, Miss!”
“What terrible things?” said Harry at once. “Who’s plotting them?”
Dobby made a funny choking noise and then banged his head frantically against the wall.
“All right!” cried Harry, grabbing the elf’s arm to stop him. “You can’t tell me. I understand. But why are you warning me?” A sudden, unpleasant thought struck him. “Hang on — this hasn’t got anything to do with Vol — sorry — with You-Know-Who, has it? You could just shake or nod,” he added hastily as Dobby’s head tilted worryingly close to the wall again.
Slowly, Dobby shook his head.
“Not — not He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, Miss—”
But Dobby’s eyes were wide and he seemed to be trying to give Harry a hint.
“You seemed to be agreeing when I said his name sounded made up. Was he known by another name before?”
Dobby said nothing, and didn't move, which said everything.
“Do you know his previous name?”
Again, another significant silence from the elf.
“But you can't tell us?”
“Oh Miss, would that Dobby could, Miss!”
“I understand. Is his previous name known to many?”
At this, Dobby tensed up, wringing his hands.
“Okay, you can't tell me. Got it. Lemme think...” but he was out of questions.
Ask him if Moldywart is foreign.
“Was... was You-Know-Who born on mainland Europe?”
“Dobby---”
Ron gave such a loud snore that both of them froze. Dobby regarded Ron, and though Ron appeared to be going back to sleep, he looked panicked.
“Dobby is sorry, Miss,” he whispered, “but Miss's Weezy is waking up. Miss must promise Dobby she is not going to Hogwarts! It is much too dangerous! You need to be going back to the Dursleys, Miss, where Miss is safe!”
“Can't, Dobby. I no longer live with them. It's not safe there anymore. And it wasn't really very safe there to begin with. The Dursleys are horrible people, they barely fed me, my bedroom was a cupboard under the stairs, they worked me half to death, and I had no friends until I came to Hogwarts. Even if you told me the only way to avoid dying this coming Thursday from a painful death was going back to them, I wouldn't go back, even if there was any point. I'd rather die than abandon the wizarding world and my friends.”
Dobby's look of horror intensified the more he spoke. “What?” Dobby said, struggling to whisper, but his voice rising sharply into almost the dog-whistle range. “Why is Miss not staying with Miss's family anymore?” The panic in his squeakier and squeakier voice was clearly climbing, and fast. He jumped up, crying and moaning and pulling on his ears, as he ran around the room.
“Miss is not safe! Miss is not safe! No no No No NOOooooOOooo... this is not happening, this is can't be happening, Dobby can't be failing, NONONONONONO....”
“Uhhhh,” Ron moaned. “take the kettle off the fire, mate...”
“Dobby, quiet down!”
'Shall I bite him now?' Aqua asked peevishly, slithering out of Iliana's nightgown entirely.
'No! No biting!' Harry commanded her, not even noticing or caring he was using Parseltongue.
Dobby began bashing his head against the wall, tears falling from his eyes.
“Stop it!” Iliana had taken control again and was pleading with him, trying to pull him away from the wall. “Stop hurting yourself!”
“DOBBYISFAILINGDOBBYISFAILINGDOBBYISFAILIIIIIINNNNGGGG!”
With a pronounced grunt, Ron woke up. He took in the strange scene before him for a split second – the self-harming elf, Iliana trying to stop him, and an annoyed snake slithering off the bed fast as it could – before shouting and falling backwards out of bed, tangled up in his sheets, cussing fit to make a sailor blush.
By this point, Dobby was wailing at the top of his lungs, so much water coming from his eyes that you could've filled a Thermos with his tears thrice over, still banging his head against the wall, which had set the ghoul in the attic off, moaning and clanking up a storm. Iliana was hardly surprised when Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and the rest of the Weasleys came running to see what all the ruckus was about, the two adults with their wands out, looking sure there was danger... until they gaped in bewilderment at Dobby banging about, Iliana (whom the adults had not met yet) trying to pull him from the wall, and Ron trapped in his bedding, his language getting more and more foul with every passing second.
“What in blazes...?” Mr. Weasley asked weakly, having no effect on the chaos before him.
It wasn't until Mrs. Weasley snapped out of her astonishment and shouted at the top of her voice, that Dobby stopped, going still as stone. This abrupt stop took Iliana off-guard, and she fell over backwards onto Ron's bed.
Dobby turned slowly towards Mrs. Weasley, his panic-stricken eyes quivering.
CRACK! The room fell into fresh chaos at Dobby's sudden Disapparition, until once more Mrs. Weasley restored order.
It took a solid hour, once they'd extricated Ron from his sheets, for Iliana to relay the parts of the night the others had missed. When she was done, everyone stared at her for a moment, then at each other.
“Well,” Mrs. Weasley said. “I don't know what to think, so I'm going to make some tea and then send Dumbledore an owl about all this. I suggest you send one too, Iliana; yours should be more accurate.”
Without another word, she hurried off to the kitchen. Everyone else followed her, sitting around the table. Everyone but Iliana, however; she couldn't sit still, so she insisted on helping Mrs. Weasley, who set her to fetching cups and saucers for everyone.
“Well that was certainly a night I'll never forget,” said Ron.
Neither will I, Iliana thought. Neither will I.
Unable to sleep again, Iliana wrote a letter to Dumbledore about the incident, and sent Hedwig off to deliver it for her. Then she carefully went around the house hissing for Aqua, finally finding the snake in the loo, drinking out of the toilet. Luckily, it had not gone in all the way, and was quite dry when it slithered back around her arm. She went back to bed, even though she couldn't sleep, and just stared at the ceiling, waiting for her appointment later in the day.
“The Many Faces of Adira Potter: Chapter 6”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Six: Snakes and other slithering things
Note: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
In all the chaos, Mrs. Weasley had forgotten to be uncomfortable with a girl sleeping in one of her boy's rooms, but when Iliana came downstairs that morning for breakfast, her appearance seemed to remind the Weasley matriarch of it.
“Iliana, dear, are you sure you're comfortable sleeping in the same room as a boy?”
“It's fine, Mrs. Weasley. Ron is a gentleman, despite all evidence to the contrary at times. Dumbledore was uncomfortable with me being in a boy's dormitory too, at first, but like I told him, I can take care of myself. Any boy tries anything they shouldn't, I'll hex their heads on backwards. Or I would, if I knew that particular hex.”
“Well if you insist, dear.”
Aqua slithered out of Iliana's school robes and onto the table, sniffing around for something she could eat. When she found nothing, she said, 'Going out to hunt,' and slithered off.
“Why are you wearing your school uniform, dear?”
“Oh, uh... our normal daywear was Dudley's old clothes, which fit even Al like a circus tent. Harry threw them away in the fire in a fit of pique. Dumbledore gave Harry a T-shirt and jeans to wear, but they're in the wash at present. And though we got my nightgowns from an owl order service, we didn't think to get any other clothes.”
“Well when is your appointment? Maybe we can squeeze in a store run before or after.”
“I dunno, Mrs. Weasley... do we have time to go all the way to Diagon Alley? I'd have to get some more gold out of our vault for that.”
“Ah, excellent point, dearie. Well, we can do that tomorrow, since the day after tomorrow is your birthday. We need to get everyone's school things, and school owls should be coming in today.”
“Sounds good. By the way, the appointment is at 1pm today, and he'll be coming here with Dumbledore, so the letter said.”
Mrs. Weasley nodded, almost finished with making breakfast. She was about to respond when the rest of the Weasley kids came down for breakfast. Iliana noted that Ginny sat down right next to her without reacting at all. She supposed that Ginny only fancied Harry, not her. Iliana decided not to tell Ginny that Harry was just as present as he would be in his own form of the body, though in the background of their shared brain at present.
“Hey there Il,” Ginny said.
Iliana grimaced. “Please don't call me that. Or Illy, or Liana. I'm Iliana.”
Ginny blushed. “Sorry.”
“Don't worry about it. Just wanted to nip that in the bud, was all.” Her grimace became a smile, and Ginny relaxed. “Though I suppose if you want to call me a nickname, I wouldn't mind 'Lee.'”
“Ah,” said Fred, leaning in her direction, “let me just move Leeward, in that case.”
She blushed, and pushed him away from her. When that didn't work, she took a page from Zoey's book and punched him in the arm.
“Alright, alright, I know when I'm defeated,” he said, holding his hands up placatingly.
As Mrs. Weasley had predicted, the school owls came that day with their booklists, which meant a trip to Diagon Alley would be imminent; pretty much perfect timing, that. Iliana wondered if Dumbledore had timed it that way on purpose.
It was tense, waiting for the mind healer to arrive. Iliana barely ate anything for breakfast or lunch, and couldn't focus on anything, so she ended up just laying down on the bed in Ron's room that she slept on, trying to distract herself from the appointment that day by wondering how long it would be before Mrs. Weasley tried to convince her to kip on a camp bed in the living room. Time seemed to both creep by like a snail, and zip along like Roadrunner simultaneously, somehow.
At last, Mrs. Weasley called her down, for Dumbledore and Healer Young had arrived. With a sensation in her stomach like something wriggly trying to free itself, she went down to face her doom.
“Ah, Iliana, long time no see my dear,” Dumbledore said fondly. “I would like to introduce you to Healer Young. Iliana, Healer Yonas Young. Healer Young, Iliana Evanna Potter.”
Healer Young was... old. He looked about 60 years old, though she wasn't sure how old he really was; wizards and witches seemed to be a lot longer lived than Muggles, and tended to look younger. She'd heard things that suggested Dumbledore was over 100 years old, but despite looking like the very stereotype of a wizard, he also seemed no older to her than his mid to late 70's.
She took in the rest of Healer Young's appearance. His long white hair was pulled back in a ponytail, his white mustache was curly almost like a handlebar mustache. He had a kind face, too, and kind eyes, which were a dark blue. Next to Dumbledore's canary yellow robes with bright blue stars, his own magenta robes looked mild.
Iliana felt Alastair looking into the man's eyes. She knew what he was doing; none of them had ever mentioned it before, but Al could see things in people's eyes that they tried to hide. It wasn't like mind-reading, more like heart-reading; he could tell if they meant Harry and company harm or not. He didn't always trust it, especially as it had never really worked with Dumbledore for some reason (nor with Quirrell or Snape), but it was a good starting point. Al seemed to like what he saw in the man, for he retreated to the background of their shared brain with satisfaction.
Healer Young held out his hand for her, and she shook it.
“Nice to meet you, Iliana.”
“Hi,” she said without enthusiasm.
You know, Dumbledore never really explained this whole “mind healer” thing, Al pointed out to her.
“So whatis a mind healer, anyway? Is that like a psychiatrist or psychologist?”
“If I understand the Muggle terms properly – which I assure you I do,” Healer Young said jovially, “more like a psychiatrist than a psychologist, insofar as I have a Healer's certification and work at St. Mungo's in the Mind Healing ward. It includes everything from spell damage that causes mental injury, to non-magical complaints of the mind. I personally specialize in helping with post traumatic stress, as well as having an interest in... well, unusual psychology. What is normally referred to as abnormal psychology, but I don't like that term.”
“Oh,” she said, unsure what to think of that.
Healer Young turned to Dumbledore. “Were they given Calming Draught after the incident?”
“They were out cold for several days after the incident, but when Iliana awoke screaming and crying, Madam Pomfrey gave her both a Calming Draught and a Dreamless Sleep.”
Iliana felt her face go hot as they discussed her like this.
“Well that's good. That will help. Calming Draught delivered in a timely fashion tends to minimize the chance of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
“That sounds like a Muggle term,” Iliana said. “Did you study Muggle psychology?”
“Yes. A lot of Healers don't, as wizards have been doing Mind Healing for centuries and Muggle psychology and psychiatry are very new in comparison, but I do. The Muggles may have been late to the game, but they've made amazing discoveries in a short span of time.
“Anyway,” he continued, “I'm sorry it took so long for us to meet, but I was on vacation until recently, and Professor Dumbledore wasn't satisfied with any other Mind Healer. They all either felt unqualified to help someone with your unique condition, or they had preconceived notions about your condition. I have worked with people with various forms of Multiplicity before. Some collectives are unhealthy, but others function quite well and may even function better than if they were singletons. And since I oppose integration as the murder of a sentient being, you need not worry about that. But if you ever feel you wish to go that direction, I would be willing to refer you to professionals who could help with that.”
“Integration? Does that mean... what does that mean?”
“Come, let's find somewhere private. These sessions are meant to be confidential, after all.”
“Okay.”
Soon, they were sitting in the Weasley's living room, Healer Young having cast more privacy spells than any of the Potter collective knew existed, Dumbledore having gone off to speak with Mrs. Weasley about something.
“There, now we won't be overheard or spied upon, even unintentionally. So, to answer your question, having multiple sentient minds in the same body is not common. It isn't nearly as rare as many people think, since most Multiples have learned very quickly to hide their condition, even before they know what's going on. If it hadn't been for your transformations, in fact, I doubt you'd even be aware of being any different from others.”
“Yeah. Harry used to think me and Al were just different aspects of his personality. He thought everyone thought like that. The apparent mood swings resulting from our different reactions to the same stimuli, depending on who was at the front... that confused him a lot, though. But we have a common memory, so before the transformations, he just thought it was him all the time, even when he would feel like a powerless observer of his body's actions.”
“I don't doubt it. Your form of the condition is interesting. I've seen the like before, though there isn't a term for it yet, as far as I know. But it is somewhere in the middle of the spectrum between full MPD and single-mindedness.”
She stared at him, not really knowing what to say.
“But of course, fascinating as all that is, it's not what we're here for. Feel free to ask questions about it, though, if you want. I don't mind going off on a tangent, when it's educational, or if you're feeling overwhelmed by other things.”
“Okay.”
The rest of the appointment wasn't nearly as interesting. Healer Young spent most of it getting to know her, or trying to. She wasn't feeling especially talkative. But the man appeared to be satisfied with their progress nonetheless, once they were done. She supposed a necessary part of therapy might be getting comfortable with the therapist, so that made sense to her. Still, she was exhausted by the end of it, and when he and Dumbledore left at last, she went back upstairs and went to bed.
Next week, she thought as she lay there trying to sleep, remembering something Healer Young had said before going. Another appointment next week. Ugh.
Shrugging internally, she rolled over and let her exhaustion take her into sleep.
Iliana had been too preoccupied the day before to really read her school letter, but now that she did, as she was eating breakfast, she was astonished at its contents. There were eight new books on the list, and seven of them were Gilderoy Lockhart books. Apparently they were on everyone else's lists, too.
“Sure are a lot of Gilderoy Lockhart books here,” she commented.
“New DADA teacher must be a witch,” Fred said. “Or a pouf guy, not that I'm judging.”
“Yeah, that lot won't come cheap,” said George, eyeing his parents. “Lockhart's books are expensive.”
“Mrs. Weasley, let me buy everyone's Lockhart books, please?” Iliana pleaded. “My parents left me so much money, that lot's nothing to me, and I don't care about money.”
“No no, dear, that's all your savings, you need to save up for when you're out of school.”
“Mrs. Weasley, you weren't there when I opened my vault last year. I don't know what the exchange rate is between galleons and pounds, but there were at least a million galleons in that vault, and probably just as many sickles, so I very much doubt a few dozen books is going to make much of a dent in that.”
“No really, dear,” Mrs. Weasley tried to protest, turning red. “We'll manage some--”
“Seven books for five people, that's 35 books. Fred said they're not cheap. Assuming they cost as much as a wand – 7 galleons – that's 245 galleons. If we assume a knut is like a penny, and it's...” she paused, thinking, before continuing, “493 knuts to a galleon, that's about 5 pounds to a galleon, sounds like. So if the books are 7 galleons each, that's 35 pounds per book, or over 1200 pounds for the lot. I think even the Dursleys would balk at that price, and they buy Dudley over 30 expensive gifts every year on his birthday and again on Christmas. I don't pretend to know how much you have in your vaults, Mrs. Weasley, but from what Ron's said and from the evidence of my own eyes, I'm going to have to pull an Al here and insist you shove your pride and let me get the Lockhart books for you. You can get the rest of everyone's school things.”
“But---”
“I know you didn't take me in expecting anything in return, but honestly, I think Dumbledore must be mad to let them put this many expensive books on the school booklist. Since I can't go back in time and slap some sense into him before the lists go out, I'm going to insist on paying for these books for you. Two or three hundred galleons is, I assure you, a drop in the bucket compared to what my parents left me. And I know what it's like to be poor; my aunt and uncle never gave me any pocket money, and they barely fed me (well, Harry rather), so I rather like being able to share.”
Mrs. Weasley wrung her hands, her face red, but looked like she was considering it, if very reluctantly.
“If it helps, consider it an early – or a late – Christmas present from me.”
The Weasley matriarch sighed resignedly. “I suppose, if you insist. Just... don't tell Arthur, please? He'll be even harder to convince than me.”
“Done.”
Discomfited, Mrs. Weasley left the room, pretending to dust. Iliana turned to see the other Weasley kids staring at her, red-faced – except Percy, who was paying a bit too much attention to his bacon and eggs.
“Mate, I---”
“I'm serious, Ron. I know how much poverty sucks. Worse, I know how it feels to be poor while others are flaunting their wealth in front of you. If I didn't do this, I'd feel as bad as the Dursleys. I'll try not to make a habit of it, for all your family's pride, but if you think I'm going to let someone I care about struggle to pay such a ridiculous amount for something they have no choice about getting, you're mad. Now if you don't mind, I don't want to hear any more protests. I'm doing it, and that's final. Learn to live with it.”
Ron nodded, gravely, and went back to his food.
As she shoved some of her own eggs into her mouth with such ferocity that you'd think the eggs had insulted her parents, Fred leaned toward her and whispered, “Thanks, mate. Not all of us are as proud as our parents. Mind you, we'd still have put up a fight if it was us, but we're thankful all the same.”
“You're welcome.”
She didn't tell them that there was more to it. That would have been enough, of course, but ever since Quirrell... well, she felt like doing this would be a drop in the bucket towards atoning for her sins. But she was so angry with Dumbledore right now for this, that when she finished her meal, she spent an hour writing an angry letter to the headmaster berating him, as politely as she could manage, for letting this travesty happen.
She was just sending Hedwig off to deliver the letter when Ron came in to tell her they were going to be going to Diagon Alley soon.
About half an hour later, they were all standing around the fireplace. For all that she knew about the Floo, Iliana and company had never actually used one, so she regarded it with some apprehension.
“Um... Mrs. Weasley?”
“Yes, dear?”
“I've never used the Floo before.”
“Oh well, it's simple enough.” She tossed some green powder on the flames, turning the flames green. “You walk into the green flames here, then you clearly state your destination, and it whisks you there. By the way, Arthur, we're almost out of Floo powder, we'll have to buy some more while we're there.”
“Sure thing, dear.”
“Anyway, Iliana, let me show you,” Fred said. He walked into the already ready flames, said “Diagon Alley!” and disappeared. George followed, taking a pinch of Floo powder to re-ready the flames before he, too, vanished.
“You must speak clearly, dear,” Mrs. Weasley told her. “And be sure to get out at the right grate. …”
“The right what?” said Iliana nervously as the fire roared and whipped George out of sight, too.
“Well, there are an awful lot of wizard fires to choose from, you know, but as long as you’ve spoken clearly —”
“She’ll be fine, Molly, don’t fuss,” said Mr. Weasley, helping himself to Floo powder, too.
They gave her further instructions – tuck in your elbows, shut your eyes, don't fidget. It was a lot to remember, and when she got into the green flames (which felt like a warm breeze), she opened her mouth, inhaled hot ash, which made her say “D-Dia-gon Alley.”
It felt as though she were being sucked down a giant drain. She seemed to be spinning very fast — the roaring in her ears was deafening — she tried to keep her eyes open but the whirl of green flames made her feel sick — something hard knocked her elbow and she tucked it in tightly, still spinning and spinning — now it felt as though cold hands were slapping her face — squinting at a blurred stream of fireplaces and snatched glimpses of the rooms beyond — her breakfast was churning inside her — she closed her eyes again wishing it would stop, and then —
She fell, face forward, onto cold stone, getting a bloody nose. Dizzy, she took in her surroundings. It was some kind of store with all kinds of nasty looking things in it, like a shriveled hand on a cushion, evil looking masks, human bones, and instruments of torture. What was worse, when they looked out the window, they saw they were clearly not in Diagon Alley.
The sooner they got out, the better. Iliana began to head for the door, but she saw two people coming into the store, so she bolted for cover, hiding in a cabinet. And not a moment too soon, for through a small crack in the cabinet's doorway, she saw Draco Malfoy and a man who – judging by his having the same white blond hair – was Draco's father. They were the last people Iliana wanted to meet when she was lost, covered in soot, and bleeding.
Mr. Malfoy crossed the shop, looking lazily at the items on display, and rang a bell on the counter before turning to his son and saying, “Touch nothing, Draco.”
Malfoy, who had reached for the glass eye, said, “I thought you were going to buy me a present.”
“I said I would buy you a racing broom,” said his father, drumming his fingers on the counter.
“What’s the good of that if I’m not on the House team?” said Malfoy, looking sulky and bad-tempered. “the Potter freaks got a Nimbus Two Thousand last year. Special permission from Dumbledore so Iliana could play for Gryffindor. She’s not even that good, it’s just because they're famous … famous for having a stupid scar on their forehead. …”
Malfoy bent down to examine a shelf full of skulls, then went on raving about Iliana, in a way that sounded almost like he had a crush on her. She felt disgusted by the thought. Malfoy having a crush on her wasn't quite as bad as if Dudley had done, but the idea was similar to her mind.
I don't much fancy that thought either, Harry said internally.
Iliana and the others watched in apprehension, listening as Mr. Malfoy made plans with the store owner to sell some things, dark items, that he kept in a secret room in his mansion. Well that would make a nice tidbit to tell Mr. Weasley, if they lived to tell the tale.
It seemed to take an age for them to finish, and as it was, Iliana was ready to hex Draco as he got closer and closer to her hiding spot. But finally they left, and the store owner went away as well. Iliana waited a moment, then bolted out of there. But she took one look at the outside and worried. They were so young, and the place looked so sketchy.
Before she knew it, they were glowing and growing, and Alastair stood there, looking 14 years old, which was an improvement. He kept their wand out, his long hair hiding their scar. This worked surprisingly well, as the few people they ran into in the narrow and dark alley jumped back at the sight of him and gave him a wide berth. It was a little confusing, but useful, so he didn't question it.
Then he ran into Hagrid, who shouted, turned to look at him, and said, “Sir---er, Alastair. What're yeh doin in Knockturn Alley, of all the dodgy places?”
“Is that where we are? I got lost in the Floo and ended up in a place called Borgin & Burke's. Can you get me back to the Weasleys?”
“Sure, Al, leh's go, shall we?”
Relaxing now that they were leaving, and Hagrid was with them, Al got his thoughts together enough to notice something.
“Hey,” he said. “What were you doing back there, if it's dodgy?”
“Jes getting some flesh eating slug repellent.”
“Does that repel flesh eating slugs, or is it a slug repellent that eats flesh?”
“The firs' one, Al.”
“I don't know whether to be relieved or terrified by that.”
When they got to Gringotts, they saw Hermione on the steps with her parents.
“Damn!” they said, Al shifting back into Harry. “I forgot I wanted to check a price at Flourish and Blotts. Oh well.”
“Harry!” Hermione said, running to meet her. “Hi Hagrid! You coming into Gringott's, Harry?”
“Odd,” Harry said, feeling his nose. “When we fell into Borgin and Burke's, Iliana got a bloody nose. But neither me nor Al show any sign of that.”
“Hey Harry, 'ere come the Weasleys,” Hagrid said, gesturing.
Sure enough, a large chunk of the Weasley family came sprinting up after them.
“Harry,” Mr. Weasley panted. “We hoped you’d only gone one grate too far. …” He mopped his glistening bald patch. “Molly’s frantic — she’s coming now —”
“Where did you come out?” Ron asked.
“Knockturn Alley,” said Hagrid grimly.
“Excellent!” said Fred and George together.
“We’ve never been allowed in,” said Ron enviously.
“I should ruddy well think not,” growled Hagrid.
Mrs. Weasley now came galloping into view, her handbag swinging wildly in one hand, Ginny just clinging onto the other.
“Oh, Harry — oh, my dear — you could have been anywhere — But you didn't even get dirty, it seems.”
“Iliana did. She was covered in soot, and had a bloody nose. It must've gone away when we shifted to Al, then to me.”
On their way into the bank, Harry regaled them with the tale of what happened in Borgin and Burke's. Right enough, Mr. Weasley was very interested in the secret room in the Malfoy manor, under the drawing room. Hagrid said his goodbyes, though, apparently going off somewhere else.
Mr. Weasley got rather distracted by the Grangers, them being Muggles and all, but they finally got in. When Harry got to one of the goblins, he asked the goblin very politely if they did checks or money orders. They did indeed have something like a check, so he ordered one for the amount of 350 galleons, bought a book of extras in case he needed them for something later, got an exact count of his money from the goblins (over 3 million galleons in his trust vault, another 10 million in a vault he'd get access to at 17, and both earning money from various stocks and bonds, much to his amazement) then went down to his vault to fill his money bags with gold for the year, and got some of it exchanged for British pounds.
Mr. and Mrs. Granger and Hermione took Harry into Muggle London to shop for clothing, and they all agreed to meet at Flourish and Blotts in a couple hours, which should be enough time to go clothes shopping, then return to Diagon Alley for all his other school supplies.
Harry followed Hermione around the store, going into the girl's section with her. Hermione might've been embarrassed, if not for the fact that Iliana shared a body with Harry. Harry, for his part, seemed to forget where he was, and picked up a few things for himself without realizing.
“Hermione,” Harry asked as he noticed the Grangers coming back toward them. “How much have you told your parents about me?”
“Oh. Well, it was difficult, but I figured I should tell the truth, as weird as it is. Oddly, they accepted it almost as easily as they accepted magic being real. More easily, even.”
He laughed. “Well I guess that once you accept magic as real, it opens your mind.”
“Harry,” she said, noticing the things he was wanting to try on. “I don't think those would look very good on Iliana. Her coloring is much different from you.”
“What? No, these are for me.”
“We're in the girl's section, Harry.”
“Are we?” he shrugged. “Well, I don't care. I'm a girl more than I'm a boy.”
Hermione looked at him thoughtfully. He stared back at her.
“Okay then. But you'll have to go to the boy's dressing rooms.”
He nodded, and went to find them.
Later, when he had a bunch of things picked out for him, mostly rather unisex looking blouses and comfortable girl's slacks, as well as a couple packages of underpants from the boy's section, even though he'd been eyeing some of the girl's panties, he knew Iliana would need to shop as well, so he called Zoey, knowing she had the power to force switches. He decided they should change in the boy's changing room, so that's where he was when he talked to her.
Zoey, we need to be Iliana now.
Righty-oh, Harry, she said. Then, Oh wow! I can talk with you all now! That's new.
With a glow, they shrunk but then shot up again, Iliana appearing. She came out, startling Hermione's parents.
“Ah, you must be, er... Iliana,” Mrs. Granger said. “Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” Iliana said, smiling.
And so they started over again, Iliana wandering the store with Hermione, getting things specifically for her. Luckily, they didn't appear to need anything for the others; Zoey and Al both manifested their own clothes. Sure, so did Harry and Iliana to a point, but they were Iliana or Harry so often that some of Harry's clothes ended up permanently transformed, since the clothes only transformed if they were being worn during a transformation.
Neither of the Grangers seemed terribly comfortable with them, though, after transforming. They were clearly trying, but still, Iliana was glad when they were done buying their things and rejoining the Weasleys at Flourish and Blotts.
When they got there, the place was packed. Apparently, Gilderoy Lockhart was handing out signed copies of his autobiography. Why he needed an autobiography, when his other books appeared to be tales from his adventures, Iliana didn't know. But it made getting their books very difficult. Iliana went to the bloke at the desk and ordered all the copies of the Lockhart books for herself and the Weasleys, told him to hold them there at the front while she got the rest of her books. Before she took off, though, she made sure he would take a check for it, which he said he gladly would.
Even with all the other people, it wasn't too hard to find her other book, The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2. She spent the rest of the time looking around at the other books. Al and Harry put in suggestions for books, too. She got a few Defense Against the Dark Arts books that weren't on the list, a book of hexes for Al, a wizarding novel just to see what their writing was like, and even though Care of Magical Creatures wasn't til next year, she got a copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them by Newt Scamander, as well as a small book on the care and feeding of grass snakes. She felt Aqua shift against her arm, under her robes.
She met up with Hermione again, who had so many books with her that she had grabbed what looked like a wooden wheelbarrow to carry them all. Most of them were Lockhart books, but of course Hermione had also bought a bunch of books that weren't on the curriculum, too.
“Where do you find those barrows? I could really use one.”
“Sure. Oooh, what did you get?” Hermione looked eagerly, tearing herself away just long enough to grab a barrow for Iliana. “Iliana, do you really think you should be getting a book of hexes?”
“Seeing as we've got an evil dark wizard after our blood, we need all the fighting edge we can get. And anyway, this isn't even the one Al really wanted, but the section he wanted to check is off limits to anyone under 17.”
“Oh, did I tell you about my new pet?”
“Pet?”
“A grass snake that Zoey found at Hogwarts. Which is useful, because then if snakes aren't allowed, we can just let her go on the grounds. But I've seen animals other than cats, owls, and toads there, so it shouldn't be a problem.” She smiled and looked around, deciding it was safe.
'Aqua,' she whispered in Parseltongue, 'come on out.'
Hermione's eyes went wide at the barely audible hissing and spitting sound, then again at the sight of the grass snake.
“You weren't speaking English there. I don't know what you were doing.”
“Dumbledore says it's called Parseltongue. Shoot, I forgot it's a secret. But I trust you, Hermione.”
“Why is it a secret?”
“It's a rare gift, one associated with dark wizards. You-Know-Who can do it too.”
At this, Iliana's brow furrowed in thought. Well that's an odd coincidence.
I doubt it's a coincidence. This is Significant, I know it. I don't know how, but it is, Al said.
“Don't worry, I'll keep it a secret. What's her name?”
“Her name is Aqua. And just to be plain, Aqua isn't a secret, just the fact I can speak with her. Honestly, I'm glad Dumbledore told me. I was confused when we couldn't do the same with other animals, I thought speaking with animals was just a thing wizards could do, like maybe Dr. Doolittle had been a real person, a wizard or witch. But apparently not.”
A few minutes later, they found Mrs. Weasley again, in line to meet Lockhart. She seemed a little too excited to meet him, for a woman who was happily married, but Iliana said nothing.
Lockhart came into view, then, looking like a male model with supernaturally shiny teeth and robes of forget-me-not blue that exactly matched his eyes. Iliana felt herself get very hot in the face and wriggly in the tummy as she looked at him. Apparently it wasn't all blond-haired, blue eyed men she had a problem with, just ones that were horrible people. She glanced over to Hermione, who looked to be feeling the same. She felt Al and Harry roll their eyes from within, and ignored them.
To her horror, Lockhart noticed her scar. He leapt to his feet and practically shouted, “It can't be the famous Potter, er... girl, can it? Sorry dear, what's your name? I only know Harry Potter's name."
“Um... Iliana Potter.”
“Iliana Potter, yes.”
The crowd was excitedly jostling around them as he pulled her forward into view. Harry screamed inside her head to get away, but she couldn't move, she was like a deer in headlights.
“Great big smile, Iliana,” his own teeth gleaming enough for the both of them. “Together, you and I are worth the front page.”
When he let her go at last, she tried to get away back to the Weasleys, but the man put his arm around her in a very familiar gesture, trapping her there.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said loudly, waving for quiet. “What an extraordinary moment this is! The perfect moment for me to make a little announcement I’ve been sitting on for some time!
“When young Iliana here stepped into Flourish and Blotts today, she only wanted to buy my autobiography — which I shall be happy to present her now, free of charge —” The crowd applauded again. “She had no idea,” Lockhart continued, giving her a little shake that made glare at him, “that she would shortly be getting much, much more than my book, Magical Me. She and her schoolmates will, in fact, be getting the real magical me. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have great pleasure and pride in announcing that this September, I will be taking up the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!”
Lovely. This guy is such a ponce. Al grumbled to her. She grimaced, and tried harder to get away.
The crowd cheered, and she found herself being presented with Lockhart's entire collected works, which she put in her wheelbarrow with a mental note to give this set to Ginny and take the extra set off her order. In fact, when she finally got away, she dumped them in Ginny's cauldron.
“Here you go, I don't want this set.”
“Bet you loved that, didn’t you, Potter?” said a voice Iliana had no trouble recognizing. She straightened up and found herself face-to-face with Draco Malfoy, who was wearing his usual sneer.
“Famous Harry Potter and company,” said Malfoy. “Can’t even go into a bookshop without making the front page.”
Iliana's face contorted with rage and embarrassment. Al was pissed too, but Iliana was angrier, so she continued controlling the body. “Buzz off, Malfoy, you great albino git,” she snarled.
“Such language for a girl, I wonder if that's one of the boys talking. Hey Harry, Al, what's it like having nothing between your legs?”
“Keep talking, Malfoy, and you'll soon find out for yourself.”
She was glad to see him turn paler than usual.
“Why see here, you little--” he stopped, as someone approached.
Ron and Hermione fought their way over, both clutching stacks of Lockhart’s books.
“Oh, it’s you,” said Ron, looking at Malfoy as if he were something unpleasant on the sole of his shoe. “Bet you’re surprised to see Iliana here, eh?”
“Not as surprised as I am to see you in a shop, Weasley,” retorted Malfoy. “I suppose your parents will go hungry for a month to pay for all those.”
“You may have loads of money, Malfoy, but the Weasleys are richer than you'll ever be, because they love one another. I'm sorry your daddy never tells you he loves you, that he tries to buy your love with material possessions, but just because you're jealous doesn't mean you have the right to bully people.”
Now Malfoy was turning red, his own face contorting in rage.
“Don't you dare talk that way about my family, Potter. Just because I find it amusing to point out how you're rooting around in this Weasley garbage doesn't mean--"
He stopped in panic as Ron, who had gone beet red, dropped his books into Ginny's cauldron, too, and started toward Malfoy, but Iliana and Hermione grabbed the back of his jacket before he could pound Malfoy into hamburger.
“Ron!” said Mr. Weasley, struggling over with Fred and George. “What are you doing? It’s too crowded in here, let’s go outside.”
“He called us garbage, Dad!”
He glared at Malfoy. He looked like he wanted to say something scathing, but was too polite to do so. And then the elder Mr. Malfoy appeared, giving Mr. Weasley another reason to look scathing.
“Well, well, well — Arthur Weasley.”
“Lucius Malfoy,” Mr. Weasley said coldly.
“Busy time at the Ministry, I hear,” said Mr. Malfoy. “All those raids … I hope they’re paying you overtime?”
He reached into Ginny’s cauldron and extracted, from amid the glossy Lockhart books, a very old, very battered copy of A Beginner’s Guide to Transfiguration.
“Obviously not,” Mr. Malfoy said. “Dear me, what’s the use of being a disgrace to the name of wizard if they don’t even pay you well for it?”
Mr. Weasley flushed darker than Ron.
“We have a very different idea of what disgraces the name of wizard, Malfoy,” he said.
“Clearly,” said Mr. Malfoy, his pale eyes straying to Mr. and Mrs. Granger, who were watching apprehensively. “The company you keep, Weasley … and I thought your family could sink no lower —”
There was a thud of metal as Ginny’s cauldron went flying; Mr. Weasley had thrown himself at Mr. Malfoy, knocking him backward into a bookshelf. Dozens of heavy spellbooks came thundering down on all their heads; there was a yell of, “Get him, Dad!” from Fred or George; Mrs. Weasley was shrieking, “No, Arthur, no!”; the crowd stampeded backward, knocking more shelves over; “Gentlemen, please — please!” cried the assistant.
But it wasn't the assistant that managed to break up the fight. Iliana was so furious at Mr. Malfoy, that her magic exploded out of her and sent both men flying backwards away from each other. Then, louder than anyone else in the room---
“Break it up, there, gents, break it up —”
Hagrid was wading toward them through the sea of books. In an instant he had pulled Mr. Weasley up to his feet, almost tearing his arm out of its socket by accident as he did. “No more fightin, now, please,” Hagrid said, attempting to help Mr. Malfoy up as well and getting a death glare for his trouble. Mr. Weasley had a cut lip and Mr. Malfoy had been hit in the eye by an Encyclopedia of Toadstools. He was still holding Ginny’s old Transfiguration book. He thrust it at her, his eyes glittering with malice.
“Here, girl — take your book — it’s the best your father can give you —” Pulling himself together, he beckoned to Draco and swept from the shop.
“Yeh should’ve ignored him, Arthur,” said Hagrid, almost lifting Mr. Weasley off his feet as he straightened his robes. “Rotten ter the core, the whole family, everyone knows that — no Malfoy’s worth listenin’ ter — bad blood, that’s what it is — come on now — let’s get outta here.”
The assistant looked as though he wanted to stop them from leaving, but he barely came up to Hagrid’s waist and seemed to think better of it. They hurried up the street, the Grangers shaking with fright and Mrs. Weasley beside herself with fury.
“A fine example to set for your children … brawling in public … what Gilderoy Lockhart must’ve thought —”
“He was pleased,” said Fred. “Didn’t you hear him as we were leaving? He was asking that bloke from the Daily Prophet if he’d be able to work the fight into his report — said it was all publicity —”
Still, they were all subdued as Iliana filled out the Gringott's check for the Weasley's books – one of which was now hers, since Ginny had the ones he'd given Iliana for free. This may have been for the best, as Mr. Weasley didn't seem to be paying enough attention to realize what she was doing, and thus didn't try to object. She also paid for the rest of her books, with gold from her bags.
They were still subdued when they got to the Leaky Cauldron, though Iliana – getting a prompt from Harry – spoke with the Grangers and the Weasleys about getting Harry new glasses to replace the ugly ones that had been broken many times, that their aunt had paid a pittance for at some place with bargain basement prices. This took their minds off the fight for a little while as they talked it out, finally deciding to go back into Diagon Alley and find the wizarding optometrist's shop.
Hermione and her parents were fascinated by the place, when they got there. So was Iliana, though she didn't stay long, having Zoey help them pull Harry out all the way, since it was he who needed glasses. The glow of their transformation lit the poorly lit shop enough to get the attention of a portly old man who looked like Benjamin Franklin with a ponytail and bangs.
“Hello there, he—oh my! Good gods, my dear child, where ever did you get those horrendous glasses?”
“At some very cheap Muggle shop,” Harry answered. “My aunt purposefully picked out the ugliest pair she could, that didn't cost too much. I won't need my prescription from there, will I?”
“Oh heavens no, I--” the clerk noticed Harry's scar. “Ah, you're the famous Potter boy, are you? Very good, very good. This way, the Vis-o-matic is over here.”
The Vis-o-matic turned out to be a wizarding device that he looked into, got his eyes flashed with purple light, and it spit out a prescription. The clerk grinned at this.
“Take a look around, Mr. Potter, pick out something you like.”
With the help of the Weasleys and Grangers, he spent nearly an hour looking at the different wizarding glasses. Almost all of them were guaranteed unbreakable by most usual means. Others had charms cast on them that would keep them stuck to your face until you or someone else took them off deliberately, and there was even a pair that had a button letting you see behind you. Harry and Al both thought this was so useful they decided to get it, even though it was the most expensive variety. Harry picked out a slender set of frames with oval lenses, the frames a violet color that looked surprisingly good on his face, made his eyes pop, and made his face look better than the ugly old set had.
The clerk took the set he chose and took them in the back to transfigure the lenses. When he came back, he had Harry try them on.
“Wow, I can see even better with these than with my current set.”
“Yes, the Vis-o-matic is superior to Muggle optometry. Cost a hefty sum, but I wouldn't want to be without it. Well, Mr. Potter, I'll give you a discount if you tell people you got your glasses here at Wally Gorey's Wizarding Eyeglasses and Monacles, okay?”
“Um, okay. How much?”
“That'll be fifteen galleons, Mr. Potter.”
“Fifteen galleons?” Ron said incredulously.
“Down from our usual 20 for that pair.”
“TWENTY?”
“Well Ron,” Harry said, “To be fair, there is this button here on the side that lets me see out the back of my head. That alone makes it worth it. Then he said they're unbreakable and stuff, too.”
“Yes indeed. Certified unbreakable or twice your money back. Nothing short of a basilisk fang would break them, and there aren't many of those banging about. And of course the Stay-On charm, so they won't fall off by accident and get lost.”
Harry handed over the gold gladly, ignoring Ron's stares of incredulity.
As they walked back to the Leaky Cauldron to say their goodbyes to the Grangers, Ron kept looking sullen.
“Sorry. I'm not like, meaning to flaunt my wealth or anything, it's just I get so tired of looking like the scruffy nerf-herder my aunt and uncle think I am, that it feels good to get some nice stuff for myself. In fact, HA! I can just imagine what they'd look like if they saw me now.”
“What? Oh, no worries, mate. I'm just a little jealous.”
“There's no need for that. If you want anything, I love sharing. I love having stuff to share with friends.”
Ron turned red. “I won't be a moocher.”
“Ron, I don't mind, really. You heard what that goblin said. Three million galleons, more when I turn 17. I--”
“No. Birthdays and, and Christmas gifts are fine. But only those.”
Harry shrugged. “Okay, if you insist. But if some emergency comes up, I may well insist helping out.”
“Like with the Lockhart books?”
“Or something more dire. I can't think of an example, though. But like, if your wand broke, I'd replace it for you.”
“Yeah, I can see that counting as an emergency. It's a deal; birthdays, Christmas, and emergencies.”
“Good.”
Even with them being unbreakable and charmed to stay on his face, Harry was tempted to stow his new glasses in his trousers before Flooing back to the Burrow, but he didn't. He didn't like the Floo, and hoped there were other, less horrible means of magical travel. But for now, he just walked into the green flames.
Even with Iliana's appointments every week, the summer still went by faster than they would have liked. Harry spent most of the time Out, mostly only switching to Iliana for her appointments. But she tended to hang around after, come early, or both, and spent a lot of that time talking with Ginny, and hanging out in Ginny's room. Ginny would blush like mad and go silent when Harry was around, but around Iliana she was comfortable. They still hadn't informed Ginny of the fact that Harry could hear everything they talked about, but so far they hadn't discussed anything that would embarrass Ginny, and Iliana intended to keep it that way, steering the conversation away from certain topics if she had to, which wasn't often. If Ginny ever insisted on pursuing those topics, Iliana vowed to stop her and explain before the other girl could blunder on.
But for all her crush on Harry, Ginny didn't seem to want to discuss it. Thinking about Harry seemed to be like gum in the gears, freezing her mind in place, and Iliana couldn't decide if that was a relief or not. Especially since something about the nature of their conversations had changed after the trip to Diagon Alley. Ginny had seemed comfortable and open around Iliana, but after the Diagon Alley trip, she got harder to talk with, and was in her room a lot more. Iliana was a little sad, but knew it was the nature of young people like themselves to get moody. Puberty came for people at different ages depending on lots of different factors, including caloric intake, and considering how well the Weasleys always ate (despite their poverty), it was likely Ginny would be hitting puberty earlier than the Potter collective, with their history of malnutrition.
The day they went back to Hogwarts was chaos, everyone running around pell-mell, and several times they had to go back for things, including Ginny's diary. They were running so late that when they finally got to King's Cross, they had to dash like mad to platform 9 and 3/4ths.
Ron and Harry – as Iliana hadn't had an appointment for days – were the last two to go through the barrier. They both went ahead together, running at the barrier in their hurry---
BANG! They smashed into a solid wall and everything went flying.
Ignoring the dark mutters and strange looks from the Muggles around them, they struggled to get their stuff together, giving the flimsy excuse that they'd lost control of their trolleys.
“Why can't we get through to the platform?” asked Ron.
“I don't know,” admitted Harry.
How much you wanna bet this has something to do with Dobby? He was pretty insistent we should stay away from Hogwarts.
“Oh right,” Harry said aloud. “I'll bet Dobby is doing this.”
“We're going to miss the train!”
Harry looked at the clock. Sure enough, the seconds til the train left ran out before his eyes.
“It’s gone,” said Ron, sounding stunned. “The train’s left. What if Mum and Dad can’t get back through to us? Have you got any Muggle money?”
Harry checked his bags. “Yeah, there's still some left from my clothes shopping. Enough to get us some food if we needed, anyway. But that won't help us get to school, and I don't know how to get to the Leaky Cauldron from here.”
“Why would we need to go there?”
“Well we could use the Floo to go to somewhere in Hogsmeade.”
Ron visibly relaxed at this. “Yeah. Yeah, we have options.”
“For now, though, we should probably wait by the car in case your parents can get through.”
“Harry!” said Ron, his eyes gleaming. “The car!”
“What about it?”
“We can fly the car to Hogwarts!”
If Al rolled Harry's eyes any harder at this, they would have pulled a muscle.
“Oh yeah, fly an illegal flying car to school,” Harry heard Al say with his voice, “when we don't even know where school is from here, thus breaking the statute of secrecy; what a brilliant plan! Or we could just, you know, wait for your parents to get back. Or, if all else fails, send Hedwig to let the headmaster know where we are.”
“They don't need the car,” Ron said. “They can Apparate. And the car has an invisibility booster.”
“Oh yeah, it won't bother them at ALL that the car is suddenly missing. They won't assume some Muggle stole it and now has access to the magic of a world they're not supposed to know about. Honestly, Ron...”
“Okay, okay, so it's a stupid idea. Sorry for suggesting it.”
They went back to the car to wait for the Weasleys. In the meantime, Harry wrote out a letter to Dumbledore explaining what was going on, just in case they didn't get back.
Sure enough, the Weasleys turned up.
“Ronald Billius Weasley,” Mrs. Weasley snapped as they approached. “Why aren't you and Harry on the train?”
“Don't blame him, Mrs. Weasley. The barrier sealed against us. We suspect Dobby's the cause.”
“Well,” Mr. Weasley said, “house elf magic is quite different from our own. If Dobby was sent by his masters to stop you, there's not much that could prevent him from managing it. A house elf's highest law is obeying orders.”
“What about the Floo?”
Mrs. Weasley looked unsure. “Well normally, yes, we could Floo to Hogsmeade, but with this Dobby business, and your previous experience getting lost...”
“So one of you could go ahead, then the other come on after me.”
“No dear, that won't be needed. We'll just use the Knight Bus.”
“The... what now?”
“Arthur, dear, you drive the car home, since I don't know how to do it. I'll take Ron and Harry to school.”
“Sure thing, Molly dear.”
Mrs. Weasley took Ron, Harry, and their things to the nearest road and demonstrated by holding her wand arm out over the road, with her wand in her hand. With a BANG a violently purple triple-decker bus appeared, nearly hitting a fire hydrant that leaped out of the way of the bus.
A pimply-faced young wizard stepped out and announced, “Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. Just stick out your wand hand, step on board--”
“Yes, yes, I know that already.”
“Hey, ent you 'arry--”
“HUSH you, just help us get our stuff onboard.”
The pimply wizard rolled his eyes. “Alright, alright, keep yer 'ead on, lady.”
Once their things were aboard, Harry paid for the ride before Mrs. Weasley could protest.
“Now Ron, Harry, you'll have to hang on. It's a very bumpy ride.”
The doors shut. Harry sat down in an armchair that was loose.
“Where to?”
“Hogsmeade.”
“'ogsmeade? Wot, like 'ogwarts? Why dinnit you use the train?”
“Missed the train through no fault of our own. Now would you go already?”
“Sure thing. Ern?”
“This thing would fail every single Muggle safety regulation on the books,” Harry said, not entirely sure which one of them was actually speaking.
When the thing took off, he found out how right he was. The furniture slid around like mad whenever they started or stopped, as the bus shot forward unnaturally fast and stopped with equal quickness. It was a wonder the chairs stayed on the floor at all, in fact. Probably more magic. Though why they couldn't have used magic to just bolt the chairs into place, he didn't know.
Every time they took off, they would suddenly be somewhere completely different; the bus appeared to be able to do something similar to Apparating, though instead of going straight to its destination, it went somewhere close and sped through the intervening space barely paying attention to where the road was. It was all such a jostling ride that it was no wonder everyone on board looked ill. He wasn't surprised that so many people lost their breakfast on the ground when they stepped off at their destination.
It must have taken over an hour for them to finally get to Hogsmeade. But finally the pimply wizard – whose name he found was Stan Shunpike – announced they were there, and helped Ron and Harry get their things out. They got out finding themselves facing Hagrid checking the hitches on the thestrals pulling the school carriages.
“Harry? Ron? What're you lot doin here already? Oh, hey Molly.”
“We missed the train, Hagrid! The barrier closed against us. Harry reckons... well, it'd be too difficult to explain now.”
“Don't worry, I told him about Dobby in a letter.”
“Barrier sealed against yeh? An yeh reckon Dobby did it?”
“Yes. He was very keen on us not going. He had a full blown hysterical fit when he found out we weren't staying at the Dursleys at all anymore.”
“Well let me get yer things to the castle. Elves?” he said with authority, but politely. A pair of house elves, looking very different from Dobby – better fed and clean, for instance – appeared.
“Sir is requesting help?”
“Yeah. Can yeh take these things up ter the Griffindor boy's dorm for them? They ran into a bit o trouble and had ter come up a different way.”
The two elves saluted him. “Yes sir, we is getting your things, sirs!”
“Hold on a moment, we need our school robes,” Harry pointed out.
“Oh, right!”
They pulled their school robes on over their Muggle attire, then closed their trunks.
“There you go, guys.”
“Thank you, sirs!”
With a CRACK, the elves and all their school things vanished.
“So how are the thestrals, Hagrid?”
“Thestrals?” Ron asked.
“The school carriages are pulled by winged horse-like things that people can only see if they've seen death,” Harry explained. “And I – we – can see them.”
Ron stretched out a hand and felt leathery hide. “Wicked!” he said.
“Now boys, enough of that. You should get on up into the castle where it's safe.”
Molly seemed relieved that Hagrid was there to guide them up to the castle. They said their goodbyes to Mrs. Weasley, who Disapparated as the carriages trundled up to the castle.
It was weird being in the Great Hall with nobody else there but Sir Nicolas. None of the teachers were even there, so they had an idle conversation with the Griffindor ghost, mostly consisting of them explaining why they were early.
When the teachers finally came in, Snape looked like he wanted to swoop down on them like an angry bat, but McGonagall glared at him before striding over.
“Hagrid told me what happened with the barrier, but I don't understand.”
“Well I wrote a letter to Dumbledore in case the Weasleys couldn't get back. It might explain things, Professor.” Harry said, handing her the letter.
She read it with a stern scowl, then nodded. “I shall inform the headmaster. Thank you for this excellent explanation, Potter.”
“You're welcome, Professor.”
So they waited, Ron's stomach growling louder and louder the longer it took. But finally, a mass of students began streaming in, giving the two of them odd looks. But they didn't speak until the twins, Hermione, Neville, Dean, and Seamus arrived. Harry retold the story, and – as he was getting tired of telling it already – asked them to explain for him if anyone else asked.
Harry was pleased to witness a Sorting that wasn't his own. It was a lot of fun cheering for Ginny and the other new Griffindors. Al and Iliana both bristled in anger when the first two new Slytherins to be Sorted were booed, and after that Harry began cheering for everyone, including new Slytherins, which got him a lot of weird looks from his fellow Griffindors, and even some of the people from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff.
As the feast began, Fred and George nodded at Harry to get his attention.
“Why'd you cheer the Slytherins, mate?”
“Because they're only kids. Eleven year old kids who have done nothing wrong, and are being booed only because they got sorted into an unpopular House. Anyone who boos them should feel ashamed of themselves for bullying little kids.”
The twins both did, at least, have the decency to look ashamed, as did everyone else in earshot. The subject got quickly changed, though.
“You have new glasses, Harry,” Dean noted.
“Yeah. I hated the ugly ones my aunt and uncle got me. I also got new Muggle clothes; burned all the old stuff handed down to me from Dudley. Oh, I'm supposed to say I got them from Wally Gorey's Wizarding Eyeglasses and Monacles.”
“Good for you, mate. I never understood why you wore that stuff.”
“It was all I had. And it took me a whole year to realize I have enough money now to replace it all.”
“How's Iliana been?” asked George.
“She seems to be getting better. Still doesn't come out a lot anymore, though now it's mainly because I decided I wanted to be Out more than I was. I feel like I'd been hiding all last year. And given that I suddenly went from the hated scum of the earth to world famous overnight, I guess I just wanted to get away from the stress of it. But am I a Griffindor, or not? So I've decided to stop hiding.”
“Good on you, mate. Iliana's fun and all, but I've been wondering about you for a long time. Glad to hear it.”
Throughout the rest of the feast, whenever he wasn't eating, Harry would demonstrate the new glasses, including the see-behind-you feature, to great effect.
So it was that Harry was happy enough, when he fell asleep that night, to not have any nightmares for once.
End note one: I came up with Healer Young's name interestingly. The surname I got from Carl Jung's surname (Jung being normally pronounced “Young), and “Yonas” I came up on my own by doing the same J-as-Y thing as Jung's name, on the name Jonas. Only when I had the thought to Google “Yonas” did I discover it was already a name, meaning “Dove.” I think it fits him perfectly. (Apparently the Jonas spelling means the same thing, as well.)
End note two: There is, of course, now a term for the Potter's version of Multiplicity: mid-continuum multiplicity. But I don't know how far back in time the online Multiplicity community goes, or when the term was coined, so I'm assuming that in the early 1990's it either hadn't been coined, or it wasn't well known enough for Healer Young to know of it. Also, back in the early 90's, they were still using the term Multiple Personality Disorder. It wasn't changed to DID until after 2005, I think, which is when our own collective started to join the online Multiplicity community. We personally prefer a term from the book Blindsight by Peter Watts, though: “Multiple Consciousness Complex.”
End note three: Yes, I know Iliana's estimate of pounds to galleons is incorrect, but I'm assuming she doesn't know the actual exchange rate, and is guessing.
End note four: In a review on FF.net, a guest asked me where the Stone goes when Zoey is out but didn't bring the Stone with her. Admittedly, I did not answer that then. The answer is based on something in the Djao'Mor'Terra collective (my collective) called the Cellar. Our shared mindspace has two areas: the Living Room and the Cellar. The Living Room is where all conscious activity happens, where we all live and watch through the senses and argue and stuff. The Cellar is where one or more of us goes to hide, sometimes. We have no idea what goes on inside the Cellar, because we can't see into it when we're in the Living Room and we don't remember anything we did in the Cellar when we come out from there. But things can be down there indefinitely, and it's possible that there are secret Others down there, because every now and then stuff floats up from there, like entire completed poems.
Zoey's personal internal space is loosely based on the Cellar, in that she can stick stuff in there or pull it out as she pleases. The Stone is in their version of the Cellar whenever she's in or out and only leaves that area when she wills it. The camera she manifested in an earlier chapter is in there, too.
End note five/last: A reviewer at FF.net mentioned that this story "blots over all the bad parts that could have caused [the multiplicity].” I would like to point out here, as I did to them, that this is because I do not believe multiplicity is caused by trauma. If it were, there'd be so many multiples that nobody would doubt they exist, as there would be probably several hundred million individual human bodies (or more) with the condition if trauma/abuse caused it.
I believe people who are multiples are just born with an inclination towards multiplicity, and trauma might drive wedges between the different people, the multiplicity being latched onto as an escape/coping mechanism that makes the different people lose awareness of each other, but that they might have become a Multiple even without the trauma.
I say these things because of my own experience of being a multiple. This story is a thinly veiled tale of my own experiences. The most trauma I've had in my early life was being bullied, and I've never heard of bullying being sufficient trauma to cause DID/MPD. There's a whole litany of data recovered from my memories over the years, too, that has led me to the conclusion that I just was always inclined to become a multiple, and for mysterious reasons it just happened. I admit the bullying may have exacerbated things a little, but all of us can communicate with one another and always could. Just like Harry in this fic, I just thought I was ridiculously moody or something until something that is a very long story happened to introduce me into taking the multiplicity idea as a serious consideration for ourselves. I hadn't, before, despite having read Sybil, because the popular depictions of MPD/DID are - when not laughably inaccurate - very far removed from our own experience of multiplicity.
We also do not consider being a Multiple to be inherently a mental illness. True, there are many whose experience of DID/MPD is one of mental illness. Our collective, however, functions - if anything - better than I (Tempest) did when I thought I was a singleton, the others beginning to join me in here starting in my teen years to help me function in a world I was not doing well in before, and in order for something to be a mental illness, it has to 1. Impair functioning and/or 2. Be distressing to the person who has it. Neither of these is true for us, and therefore we prefer a term for it that we found in Blindsight by Peter Watts: “Multiple Consciousness Complex.”
So this fanfic is our attempt at portraying a healthy Multiple collective that, while they have had a tough life, are not a trauma-created collective.
Chapter Seven: Lurking Dangers
Note: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there.
Note 3: A Christmas update!
The next day, Harry made sure to ask Professor McGonagall about whether or not Aqua was allowed. She seemed a little surprised, but as it was just a harmless grass snake, the only thing she said about it was “Do try to prevent it eating Longbottom's toad, will you?”
After breakfast, they had Herbology with Professor Sprout, who looked distinctly pestered as she tried to get rid of Lockhart. His immaculate turquoise robes and hat could not have been more of a contrast to her patched, frayed, and dirty clothing if he'd tried. Harry felt a stirring of fancy from Iliana, and got a flash image of Al miming retching.
“Oh hello there,” Lockhart beamed at the students. “Just been showing Professor Sprout the right way to water Mandrakes. Oh, she's quite capable, I assure you, but they can be finicky blighters, and I've run into several wild ones on my many adventures, so I was just offering her the benefit of my unique experience.”
“Greenhouse three today, chaps!” said Professor Sprout, who was looking distinctly disgruntled, not at all her usual cheerful self.
There was a murmur of interest. They had only ever worked in greenhouse one before — greenhouse three housed far more interesting and dangerous plants. Professor Sprout took a large key from her belt and unlocked the door. Harry caught a whiff of damp earth and fertilizer mingling with the heavy perfume of some giant, umbrella-sized flowers dangling from the ceiling. He was about to follow Ron and Hermione inside when Lockhart’s hand shot out.
“Harry! I’ve been wanting a word — you don’t mind if he’s a couple of minutes late, do you, Professor Sprout?”
Judging by Professor Sprout’s scowl, she did mind, but Lockhart said, “That’s the ticket,” and closed the greenhouse door in her face.
Harry glared at the man, wondering what could be so important as to pull him out of class.
“Harry,” said Lockhart, his large white teeth gleaming in the sunlight as he shook his head. “Harry, Harry, Harry.”
Completely confused, Harry said nothing.
“When I heard — well, of course, it was all my fault. Could have kicked myself.”
Harry had no idea what he was talking about. He was about to say so when Lockhart went on, “Taking the Knight Bus to school instead of the train, honestly. Now I know that after that taste of fame I gave you in Flourish and Blotts, taking the train with the rest of those peasants must've felt degrading, but Harry, you're going about it all wrong.”
Harry was feeling such a bizarre mix of emotions from himself, Al, and Iliana that he didn't know where to even begin classifying it, so he just continued to stare, perplexed, at the man as he spoke.
Lockhart sighed, but grinned. In point of fact, he had not stopped grinning the whole time he'd been there, and Harry wondered if his face had frozen that way permanently.
“Now I know you've already got this whole thing with You-Know-Who, and surviving his killing curse and all. I know, I know — it’s not quite as good as winning Witch Weekly’s Most-Charming-Smile Award five times in a row, as I have — but it’s a start, Harry, it’s a start.”
Harry glared deeper at him, feeling his face turn red. Alastair took the opportunity to look into Lockhart's eyes. Whatever he saw there made him hiss like an angry cat Inside and pull back.
“But really, Harry, you're getting ahead of yourself. Besides that and our shared photo in the Daily Prophet, what have you really done? Yet here you are, buying fancy new glasses for yourself, riding the Knight Bus to school, showing up in the Great Hall before everyone else. It comes off just a bit egotistical at this stage. But I can help you work up your image, Harry, because you remind me of me when I was young.”
“I couldn't get through the barrier at platform 9 and 3/4th, sir. That's why I had to take the Knight Bus. And really, I would have preferred being on the train with my friends. I don't even like being famous.”
“Ah yes, that's the cover story you need right there, Harry. You're really quite clever at this, aren't you?”
“It's not a cover story, you twit! And I got the glasses because the others were hideous and I want to get rid of every reminder of the Dursleys that I can. Now if you don't mind – and even if you do mind – I'm going back to class.”
Harry stormed off back into class, leaving that addle-pated nincompoop alone, and apologized irritably to Professor Sprout.
“Sorry about that, Professor. That idiot wanted to bleat at me like a brain damaged goat about some nonsense.”
Professor Sprout snickered at this, and gestured him to get into position.
“We shall be repotting mandrakes today,” Sprout said. “Now, who can tell me the properties of the Mandrake?”
To nobody’s surprise, Hermione’s hand was first into the air.
“Mandrake, or Mandragora, is a powerful restorative,” said Hermione, sounding as usual as though she had swallowed the textbook. “It is used to return people who have been transfigured or cursed to their original state.”
“Excellent. Ten points to Gryffindor,” said Professor Sprout. “The Mandrake forms an essential part of most antidotes. It is also, however, dangerous. Who can tell me why?”
Hermione’s hand narrowly missed Harry’s glasses as it shot up again.
“The cry of the Mandrake is fatal to anyone who hears it,” she said promptly.
“Precisely. Take another ten points,” said Professor Sprout.
Harry listened carefully to the instructions. So did Iliana and Al, which he'd always found helpful. If he missed something, then one of the others would catch it. So when they all got their earmuffs on, he felt very ready. He watched as Professor Sprout repotted a mandrake. It looked like an ugly, muddy baby made of wood.
After the demonstration, she told them that the seedlings wouldn't kill you yet, but knock you out for several hours. Al wondered if a recording would be enough, and was annoyed that there was no way to find out.
“Four to a tray — there is a large supply of pots here — compost in the sacks over there — and be careful of the Venomous Tentacula, it’s teething.”
She gave a sharp slap to a spiky, dark red plant as she spoke, making it draw in the long feelers that had been inching sneakily over her shoulder.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione were joined at their tray by a curly-haired Hufflepuff boy Harry knew by sight but had never spoken to.
“Justin Finch-Fletchley,” he said brightly, shaking Harry by the hand. “Know who you are, of course, the famous Harry Potter. … And you’re Hermione Granger — always top in everything” (Hermione beamed as she had her hand shaken too) “— and Ron Weasley.” (Ron shook his hand, too.)
“That Lockhart’s something, isn’t he?” said Justin happily as they began filling their plant pots with dragon dung compost.
Before Justin could continue on, Al took over Harry's body and spoke.
“He's something, alright. Something nastier than he claims to be. A liar and a fraud, specifically.
Justin blinked.
“What makes you say that?”
Rather than try to explain a gift that was hard to explain, one that he hadn't run by Dumbledore to see if it, too, was a problem in this world, Al said, “A hunch. The way he talks gives me a distinct vibe of 'Egomaniacal blowhard blowing smoke out his arse.'”
Justin looked annoyed by this, but Al interrupted.
“So, Eaton eh? Impressive.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“I know what it's like suddenly finding out you're a wizard. My aunt and uncle never told me I was a wizard, they never spoke of magic being real. If I hadn't accidentally set a snake loose at the zoo, I'd probably be going to school at Stonewall High right now. Thank god for accidental magic, eh?”
They ran out of time to speak, then, because they had to put their earmuffs back on and repot mandrakes.
When they left Herbology for their next class, they caught sight of Lockhart again. Cutting off Ron mid-sentence with the glow of transformation, Zoey suddenly appeared and ran off without explanation.
Hiding behind things, Zoey snuck up on the man, and pointed their wand at his legs when he was facing away, locking his legs in place, which knocked him over. Then she ran off again and rejoined Ron and Hermione.
“What was that all about?” Ron demanded.
“Oh, just taking care of something.”
They tried getting more out of her, but she clammed up. They were still trying when they got to Transfiguration.
Today, McGonagall had set them to turning a beetle into a button. While Harry or Iliana would have had a hard time with this, Zoey got hers done on the first try, producing a perfect silver button with a leafy design on it. Even Hermione hadn't managed that, and glared mutinously at her as McGonagall awarded Zoey 10 points for Griffindor.
Ron was having worse problems than usual. His hand-me-down wand, which was so worn that the unicorn hair was visible, was beginning to malfunction. Trying to transfigure his beetle resulted in a cloud of smoke that smelled of rotten eggs, and one very distressed beetle. Zoey gave him a Significant Look, and he gave her an equally Significant answering Look.
At the end of class, Ron was cussing out his wand. Zoey pulled Harry back up to the front, transforming them at the same time.
“Write home for another wand, Ron,” Harry said.
“Like my folks could afford one. Even with you paying for the Lockhart books and all.”
“And your damned pride doesn't permit you to ask me to pay for it, or to accept if I offered, so soon after that, I suppose?”
Ron's silence was all the affirmative answer Harry needed.
They went down to lunch, where Ron’s mood was not improved by Hermione’s showing them the handful of perfect coat buttons she had produced in Transfiguration, with a distinct air of trying to either prove herself to them or one-up Zoey. He knew Hermione felt herself a failure if she got anything less quickly than anyone else, but he thought she should have realized Zoey would be a natural at Transfiguration.
“What’ve we got this afternoon?” said Harry, hastily changing the subject.
“Defense Against the Dark Arts,” said Hermione at once.
“Why,” demanded Ron, seizing her schedule, “have you outlined all Lockhart’s lessons in little hearts?”
Hermione snatched the schedule back, blushing.
“Iliana fancied him at first, too. But then Al looked in the man's eyes and saw he's a lying fraud.”
“What's this now?”
“Oh. I don't think I've ever mentioned it to anyone, but might as well mention it to you, Ron, Hermione. Al can look into someone's eyes and usually tell their intentions.”
“What, like mind reading?”
“No, more like heart-reading. Like that old saw about the eyes being the windows to the soul.”
“You know,” Hermione said, her 'I am going to tell you an interesting fact' voice on full, “I've heard that people who've been, you know, abused, or bullied, or both, really, since bullying is abuse, and very few--”
“The point, 'mione?”
She huffed, annoyed.
“Anyway, I've heard that people who've been abused can often read people like that, even without magic. People – humans, anyway – give away a lot of information about their emotional state in their body language, especially their eyes. They can't help it, there's no way to train yourself out of it, because it's just something the body does. It makes sense, too, that people who've been abused would develop the ability to read those signs.”
“Yeah, come to think of it, I can always tell when Vernon is about to go into a screaming fit. I got good enough at it to sometimes manipulate his emotions to calm down, usually by diverting his attention to something that he didn't feel as strongly about.”
His friends looked at him with mixed emotions in their gazes.
“Well, thank goodness I won't need to do that with him again. Nor with any of the Dursleys, come to that. Hey, what's for lunch?”
After lunch, Hermione was reading one of Lockhart's books, and Ron and Harry talked about Quidditch. During the course of it, Harry explained that though he sucked at finding the snitch, he did enjoy flying, the soaring feeling it gave him. But then he felt eyes watching him, and looked in the direction it came from.
Looking up, he saw the very small, mousy-haired boy he’d seen trying on the Sorting Hat last night staring at Harry as though transfixed. He was clutching what looked like an ordinary Muggle camera, and the moment Harry looked at him, he went bright red.
“All right, Harry? I’m — I’m Colin Creevey,” he said breathlessly, taking a tentative step forward. “I’m in Gryffindor, too. D’you think — would it be all right if — can I have a picture?” he said, raising the camera hopefully.
“No,” Harry said. “I don't like my picture being taken. Sorry, Colin.”
“B-but... but you were in the paper the other day!”
“Yeah, and that one was taken against my will. I don't like being famous. I'm famous for something I can't even remember, famous for not dying when my parents did, and it was brand new information to me. How would you feel if, after being told you were a wizard, you were told you were famous for being some kind of weird, unkillable orphan?”
Colin turned redder. “Oh. Hadn't thought of that.”
“But hey, if you hang out with us, maybe we can be friends. I wouldn't mind getting in a group picture with friends of mine.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Come on, sit down, Colin. We were just talking about Quidditch.”
Colin did sit down, but mostly stared, silent and awestruck, at Harry as he and Ron spoke. It was a little unnerving, but not as bad as having his picture taken.
Halfway through the conversation, Malfoy ambled by with a group of other Slytherins.
“Well if it isn't Hairy Potty,” Malfoy sneered. “Smarming up to your fanboys, are you Potty? Maybe I should go fetch the Weasley bird, I hear she's got a shrine to you in her bedroom. You can start a fan club.”
Harry raised an eyebrow as Malfoy and his admirers laughed at his poor excuse for wit.
“You know, Malfoy, from the first time I met you, you reminded me of my cousin Dudley, only a lot smaller. You're spoiled rotten just like him, and every time you talk I get this strong feeling of 'Why can't everything always be about me?' from you. You're worse than Lockhart in that respect; at least he's got his books to gain him attention, whereas you're just a homesick kid who's out of his element and lonely because of it. If you want me to be your friend, Malfoy, I suggest you stop bullying people, especially me and my friends.”
Malfoy glared at this. The other Slytherins snorted with repressed laughter, which didn't help his mood. He glared first at them, and then sneered at Harry. “I wouldn't want to be your friend, Potty; you associate with Muggles and their half-breed spawn,” he said, indicating Colin and Hermione.
Recalling the conversation he overheard between Draco and his father, Harry smirked.
“Oh, I see. How could I forget that you always want your daddy's approval? And the fact that Daddy Malfoy expects better of his high-born son than to be outperformed in classes by a Muggle-born witch?”
Draco went deathly pale at these words. “How did you...? I mean...”
“Accidentally ended up getting out at the wrong grate over the summer, overheard a very interesting conversation involving your father, you, and a certain store clerk after hiding in a cabinet.”
“Figures you would be hiding and eavesdropping on other people's conversations, Potter.”
“Well it was either that or be at the mercy of two – possibly three – people who hate me, in an unfamiliar place. What would you have done?”
He sneered again. “I thought you Griffindors were supposed to be brave?”
“Brave yes. Stupid, no. Your father was suspected of being in league with Voldemort. Couldn't risk being around him in a situation like that. I thought cunning was a Slytherin trait. Aren't you a Slytherin?”
“Are you making accusations against my father?”
“Figures that would be the only part of what I said to get your attention. Maybe I am, maybe I'm not. But paranoia is a survival trait, when there are people after one's blood. So I'll gladly err on the side of paranoia, even if it means you take offense at it.”
“Ho ho, what's all this now, boys?” a disgustingly familiar voice cut in. They all looked up to see Lockhart's grinning git face. “What seems to be the disturbance?”
“Nothing, Professor,” smarmed Malfoy. “Just having a conversation with Potter. Talking about his fan club.”
“Fan club? Oh Harry, Harry,” Lockhart said sadly. “And here I thought our earlier conversation had gotten through to you.”
“He's making stuff up, Professor. I don't have a fan club, and I don't want one.”
“Now now, Harry, there's no need to lie to Gilderoy Lockhart. I know how seductive fame can be, boy. But you're getting ahead of yourself, as I said before.”
Malfoy glanced at Colin's camera.
“You don't know the half of it, Professor Lockhart. Colin came here to get signed photos from Potter.”
“Signed photos? Well, Mr. Creevy, if you must. But here, let's get the both of us, make the picture even more valuable.”
Oh you wanna play that game, do you? Harry heard Zoey think.
“But Harry doesn't want--” Colin began to say.
“Nonsense, my dear boy, nonsense! Why--”
But whatever he was going to say got cut off as Zoey appeared in a glow of white light. She stood up primly, the picture of innocence.
“Professor Lockhart, sir. Mr. Malfoy just didn't want to admit to being a huge fan of yours, because otherwise your attention would surely leave him very embarrassed. He's always talking about how brave you are, how handsome you are, and how he wants to be just like you when he grows up. He was hoping that getting a signed photo from Harry would give him the excuse he needed to get one from you, but he's not really interested in Harry, just in you, Professor.”
She wrinkled her nose in concentration, then pulled from behind her back a parchment that hadn't been there before.
“Look, see, he was having us proofread some fanmail he wanted to send to you,” she said, handing Lockhart the parchment.
“Oh my, really?” Lockhart beamed. Malfoy looked confused, then angry as a wolverine at Zoey, who grinned innocently back at him. “Well,” Lockhart continued, “I am touched. Thrilled to meet such fans as you, Mr. Malfoy.”
“Read the letter aloud, Professor, I know he'd want you to.”
“Really? Oh okay, if he wants it so badly I guess I have no choice,” Lockhart said, beaming like never before.
Malfoy's face went panicky, and he ran to try to grab the parchment out of Lockhart's hand. The other Slytherins turned their noses up at this undignified display of panic. Lockhart smiled indulgently, holding the letter higher than Malfoy could reach.
“Now now, Mr. Malfoy, you'll get it back when I've read it and signed it for you. Let's see, yes,” he began, reading out.
“Dear Gilderoy Lockhart, I am your #1 fan. I own every book you've ever written, and the walls of my bedroom at home and my dorm room in Hogwarts are simply plastered with posters of your amazing face. I even wear your personal brand of underpants every day of the week...”
Ron and Hermione began laughing so hard that they were both beet red and having difficulty breathing. Colin just stood there, transfixed. Zoey took the opportunity to drag her two friends away from the fiasco, even though she wanted to stay and listen, and watch as Draco's face went red enough to set the grass on fire, still desperately trying to get the fake letter away from Lockhart.
Not being able to get them all the way back into the castle, Zoey settled for getting them into Hagrid's hut; even that seemed to be assisted by wandless magic. Hagrid looked at them as they came in, bewildered, and tried to speak, but Zoey hushed him politely, telling him they needed time to recover from a hilarious sight.
“Oh my god, Zoey,” Ron said at last, clutching a stitch in his side. “That was brilliant!”
“I agree... though you shouldn't have,” Hermione said, once she got her wits about her. “Malfoy's bound to be furious, now.”
“I did it as a diversion, to get us away from Lockhart and Malfoy both,” Zoey explained. “And who knows? Maybe if he's mortified enough, he'll think twice before picking on us.”
“I dunno. He's pretty thick, mate.”
Zoey transformed back into Harry, and they left for Defense Against the Dark Arts.
Lockhart's idea of a Defense class turned out to be a ridiculous waste of time. He started out giving a quiz about his books, supposedly just to see how much they'd already taken in, which turned out to be all about him, with nothing at all about Defense. Even Iliana was starting to feel Lockhart was a blowhard, and was rapidly losing interest in his ridiculous egotistical face. Hermione, however, was still under the man's spell, getting every question right and appearing smitten by him still, which figured; Hermione had an unhealthy level of respect for rules and authority, such that they wondered if she realized that authority comes from people, and that people are fallable and thus are often wrong. And anyone who wrote a book, no matter how obviously full of tripe they were, was automatically an authority to Hermione. The fact that Dumbledore had, for whatever reason, decided to let this strutting, brainless peacock in as a teacher just made it worse. It made Harry feel better for not having even looked at the books once since getting them.
Dumbledore must be mad as a hatter to let this guy teach anything, let alone Defense, Alastair thought snidely at Harry. Harry privately agreed.
Lockhart was now bending over a covered cage. Very dramatically, building up their suspense and nearly scaring Neville off his chair, he finally tore off the cover to reveal... Cornish pixies.
Like tiny winged, blue people with odd faces and squeaky voices, the pixies looked very excitable. But, as Seamus Finnegan pointed out in near hysterical laughter, they didn't look terribly dangerous. However, when the idiot released them into the room, they began flying everywhere destroying everything they could find, resulting in utter bedlam. Lockhart tried dealing with them himself, but the only effect his spell had was to annoy one of the pixies into stealing his wand and chucking it out the window, at which point he just took off running.
Harry ducked behind some furniture with Ron and Hermione, and took advantage of Al's fascination with hexes to blast the little things out of the air with a spell he was fairly sure wouldn't hurt them much, but there were so many of them that even with Hermione doing the same spell, that didn't help much.
Then matters were made worse when Ron tried to help, for instead of knocking out the pixies, the spell from the aging wand backfired on him, knocking him out. Several people, Harry included, tripped over Ron before they realized what had happened, which distracted them long enough that the pixies picked up Neville by his robes and hung him from a chandelier. Harry was astonished; he hadn't thought the pixies knew how to cooperate and focus on something long enough to do that.
Hermione focused on trying to rescue Neville while Harry kept knocking out pixies. Dean, who had also lost his wand, went around picking up the pixies Harry had knocked out and returning them to their cage.
Once Neville was freed, Hermione and Harry worked double-time until at last the pixies were all contained. They woke up Ron with a few shakes, and together they left the room.
“Can you believe him?” roared Ron as they walked the corridor.
“He just wants to give us some hands-on experience,” said Hermione, immobilizing two pixies at once with a clever Freezing Charm and stuffing them back into their cage.
“Hands on?” said Harry, who was trying to grab a pixie dancing out of reach with its tongue out. “Hermione, he didn’t have a clue what he was doing —”
“Rubbish,” said Hermione. “You’ve read his books — look at all those amazing things he’s done —”
“He says he’s done,” Ron muttered.
“I agree,” Harry said. “If he couldn't even handle pixies, I don't see him being able to handle werewolves, trolls, or vampires. And anyone can write a book, doesn't make it true. Even if someone's duped into publishing it.”
Hermione blushed, but said nothing more.
On Friday morning, Ron's decrepit wand, which hadn't done anything right in days, malfunctioned in a truly spectacular way as it shot out of his hand and gave Professor Flitwick a nasty green boil between his eyes.
“Okay, that's it,” Harry said, “you need a new wand.”
“Yeah, I do. But we can't get one anytime soon. If only it'd started doing this before school started. But we're not old enough to go to Hogmeade yet, and the next chance to go to Diagon Alley isn't til the Christmas holidays. But I think I can last til then.”
“Ron, that wand is a menace to everything and everyone around it. I can owl-order you a new one.”
“Ollivander says the wand chooses the wizard,” Ron said.
“And yet here you are with a hand-me-down wand, that was working fine until recently. But that thing is so dangerous now that everybody knows it. The other day, you pointed it at Scabbers, and he woke up from his nap right away and took off running. So even your rat knows to avoid your wand.”
“No, Harry. It works sometimes. You just don't notice when it does because--”
“Because I'm so focused on the times when it nearly destroys something or someone?”
“Well I have to at least discuss it with Mum. They might have the money to replace it themselves, and as it's not exactly an emergency...”
“When is it going to qualify as an emergency, though? When it takes someone's leg off?”
But Ron was insistent that it still wasn't an emergency, and therefore didn't need replacing yet. Harry sighed, wondering how Ron could be so delusional, but saying nothing more.
On Saturday, the three of them planned to go down to Hagrid's, but Harry found himself being shaken awake at the asscrack of dawn by Oliver Wood.
“Quidditch practice!” Wood barked. “You need to be Iliana.”
Grumbling, Harry said, “Don't worry. We know how to control it now. But I need breakfast first.”
“Forget that, Harry, you can eat later. We need to get ahead of everyone else to win this year, and that means getting onto the pitch as early as we can. Don't waste time, just get dressed, transform, and come down to the pitch.”
Harry considered hexing Wood, but did as he was told. Zoey whined at being woken up so early, but triggered the transformation to Iliana with an annoyed grunt all the same. She got on her Quidditch robes, grabbed her broom, and headed down to the pitch.
As she left, she ran into Colin Creevy, who was saying something about Harry. He fell short when he saw her, then stared at her scar, his eyes going wide.
“Oh, you're Iliana Potter, aren't you? I haven't met you yet. I'm Colin Creevy. Hey, do you mind if I go down with you and take some photos? I've never seen Quidditch before!”
Oh lovely, she thought. He's a morning person.
Damn, and I left the rifle at home, Al thought back at her.
“Yeah okay, I suppose I can't stop you.”
“You were the youngest House player in a hundred years, weren’t you, Iliana? Weren’t you?” said Colin, trotting alongside him. “You must be brilliant. I’ve never flown. Is it easy? Is that your own broom? Is that the best one there is?”
Iliana didn’t know how to get rid of him. It was like having an extremely talkative shadow. All she could really think to do was to answer his questions as succinctly as possible. But when he ran out of Quidditch questions, he began asking about their collective.
“So I know you and Harry, but who else is in there? Do you think there'll be any more people showing up? Why are there so many people in one body anyway? How does that work?”
“No idea why we're a Multiple collective. I really hope no more are going to show up, it's already crowded enough in here with five people.”
“Who--” he began, but she cut him off.
“There's me, Harry, Alastair – he's older looking and has long black hair, then Zoey – who's younger, about 6 years old, and finally Tier. He doesn't seem to have his own specific appearance, at least not so far.”
Wearily answering more questions than she ever wanted to hear, Iliana was very glad when she was able to leave him behind to go into the changing rooms, even though she had already changed, in more ways than one.
Alas, she had traded an exasperating little kid for an older boy who was exasperating in a whole other way, and boring to boot, as Wood got them all together in front of a chalkboard and began regaling them with Quidditch tactics til several people on the team were falling asleep. This did not please Wood at all.
“I’ve got a question, Oliver,” said George, who had woken with a start. “Why couldn’t you have told us all this yesterday when we were awake?”
Wood wasn’t pleased.
“Now, listen here, you lot,” he said, glowering at them all. “We should have won the Quidditch Cup last year. We’re easily the best team. But unfortunately — owing to circumstances beyond our control —”
Iliana felt both guilty and annoyed. Guilty because she'd been knocked out and that had cost them the game and the Cup. Annoyed because A. She couldn't help that, and B. It was Wood's own fault for not training a reserve Seeker.
“Wood,” she said. “I'm not going to be made to feel guilty just because you couldn't be arsed to train a reserve Seeker.”
The Weasley twins snickered at this.
“Is that you, Al?”
“No,” Iliana said. “He and I just have similar attitudes after being dragged out of bed at Bugger O'Clock in the morning to listen to something we could barely understand when properly awake.”
Wood glared at her, and everyone else for laughing. When they'd stopped, and he'd regained control of himself, he spoke again.
“Anyway, this year, we train harder than ever before. … Okay, let’s go and put our new theories into practice!” Wood shouted, seizing his broomstick and leading the way out of the locker rooms. Stiff-legged and still yawning, his team followed.
'What is going on, human?' asked Aqua, startling Iliana, who had forgotten she still had the snake on her arm. She fell back and looked around carefully, then whispered, 'Sorry, explain later. Maybe you should go hunting.'
'Okay,' the snake agreed, slithering down onto the ground.
Iliana looked around again. Nobody appeared to have seen or heard anything unusual, which was good.
They'd been in there so long the sun was properly up all the way, and Ron and Hermione had joined Colin in the stands.
“Aren't you done yet?” Ron asked.
“Haven't even started yet,” Iliana grumbled. “Wood's been going over tactics with us.”
They began practice, the wind from flying making Iliana feel loads better, more awake. She went immediately into the act of hunting for the snitch, ignoring the clicking of Colin's camera. Wood, however, could not ignore it, and eventually commented on it. She had to reassure him that Colin was a Griffindor. He had been convinced the boy was a Slytherin spy.
The Slytherins didn't need a spy, however, because the whole team was headed right for them. Smelling danger, the Griffindor team followed their captain to confront Flint, the Slytherin captain.
“Flint!” Wood bellowed at the Slytherin Captain. “This is our practice time! We got up specially! You can clear off now!”
Marcus Flint was even larger than Wood. He had a look of trollish cunning on his face as he replied, “Plenty of room for all of us, Wood.”
“But I booked the field!” said Wood, positively spitting with rage. “I booked it!”
“Ah,” said Flint. “But I’ve got a specially signed note here from Professor Snape. ‘I, Professor S. Snape, give the Slytherin team permission to practice today on the Quidditch field owing to the need to train their new Seeker.’ ”
“You’ve got a new Seeker?” said Wood, distracted. “Where?”
And from behind the six large figures before them came a seventh, smaller boy, smirking all over his pale, pointed face. It was Draco Malfoy.
Why am I not surprised? thought Al.
Little shit bought his way onto the team, thought Harry. Look, his father's bought the whole team new brooms. Puts them at an unfair advantage.
Iliana nodded, forgetting only she could hear them at the moment.
The argument continued, and Iliana wasn't surprised when Ron and Hermione joined to see what all the fuss was about.
“What’s happening?” Ron asked Iliana. “Why aren’t you playing? And what’s he doing here?”
He was looking at Malfoy, taking in his Slytherin Quidditch robes.
“I’m the new Slytherin Seeker, Weasley,” said Malfoy, smugly. “Everyone’s just been admiring the brooms my father’s bought our team.”
Ron gaped, openmouthed, at the seven superb broomsticks in front of him.
“Good, aren’t they?” said Malfoy smoothly. “But perhaps the Gryffindor team will be able to raise some gold and get new brooms, too. You could raffle off those Cleansweep Fives; I expect a museum would bid for them.”
The Slytherin team howled with laughter. But Al was grinning internally with a sudden inspiration.
The idiot's just given me a great idea, Al thought at the others. 'Perhaps the Griffindor team can get new brooms too.' Yes, Malfoy, we're going to do exactly that. Same make and model, too. Don't tell him, though, I want it to be a surprise.
And better yet, let's get new brooms for all the school teams, nullify their advantage completely.
Great thinking, Harry.
“At least no one on the Gryffindor team had to buy their way in,” said Hermione sharply. “They got in on pure talent.”
The smug look on Malfoy’s face flickered. Iliana grinned.
“No one asked your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood,” he spat.
Well that sounds like a very rude word, Al thought.
And look at them all shouting in rage, that must be the wizarding equivalent of the n-word, thought Harry.
The whole fight happened so quickly that almost as soon as Harry stopped thinking those words, Ron had attempted to hex Malfoy, but his aged and doddering old wand blew up in his own face, leaving him puking up slugs onto the grass.
“Shit,” Iliana said, grabbing Ron and dragging him off toward Hagrid's, hoping the large man would know what to do.
“What happened, Iliana? What happened? Is he ill? But you can cure him, can’t you?” Colin had run down from his seat and was now dancing alongside them as they left the field. Ron gave a huge heave and more slugs dribbled down his front.
“Oooh,” said Colin, fascinated and raising his camera. “Can you hold him still, Iliana?”
“This isn't the time or place, Colin!” Iliana snapped at the boy.
Between her and Hermione, they managed to drag the increasingly green looking Ron to Hagrid's hut.
They were within twenty feet of Hagrid’s house when the front door opened, but it wasn’t Hagrid who emerged. Gilderoy Lockhart, wearing robes of palest mauve today, came striding out.
“Oh hell no,” Iliana and Al said in unison, trying to figure out a way to avoid Lockhart and get to Hagrid at the same time. They managed to duck behind some weeds to wait the buffoon out. Once he was gone, they continued on to Hagrid's.
Getting there at last, they knocked urgently.
Hagrid appeared at once, looking very grumpy, but his expression brightened when he saw who it was.
“Bin wonderin’ when you’d come ter see me — come in, come in — thought you mighta bin Professor Lockhart back again —”
“We feel your pain, Hagrid. But right now we're more concerned with Ron's,” Iliana said.
“Better out than in,” he said cheerfully, plunking a large copper basin in front of him. “Get ’em all up, Ron.”
“I don’t think there’s anything to do except wait for it to stop,” said Hermione anxiously, watching Ron bend over the basin. “That’s a difficult curse to work at the best of times, but with a malfunctioning wand...”
“So what was that word that got everyone so riled up? Must've been pretty bad.”
“It was bad,” said Ron hoarsely, emerging over the tabletop looking pale and sweaty. “Malfoy called her ‘Mudblood,’ Hagrid —”
Ron dived out of sight again as a fresh wave of slugs made their appearance. Hagrid looked outraged, and verbally abused Malfoy for using the word.
“It's a vile word,” Ron said, explaining. “Means 'dirty blood,' because Muggles are scum to people like him. Load of rubbish, of course. There aren't any true purebloods left, if there ever were any to begin with; everyone has some Muggle in them. If we hadn't married Muggles, we'd have died out ages ago. And anyway, blood purity doesn't affect ability at all. Look at Neville, he's a pureblood, and can hardly do anything right. And Hermione's Muggle-born and probably couldn't fail at anything if she tried.”
Hermione blushed at this and tried to protest, but Hagrid – who hadn't noticed – but her off.
“Well, I don’ blame yeh fer tryin’ ter curse him, Ron,” said Hagrid loudly over the thuds of more slugs hitting the basin. “Bu’ maybe it was a good thing yer wand backfired. ’Spect Lucius Malfoy would’ve come marchin’ up ter school if yeh’d cursed his son. Least yer not in trouble.”
“Not any more trouble than belching slugs, anyway,” Al quipped with Iliana's voice.
“Anyway, Iliana,” Hagrid said in a blatant attempt to change the subject, “got a bone ter pick with yeh. Heard you've been giving out signed photos. Why ent I got one yet?”
She felt her face go hot, and began stammering a response when Hagrid laughed.
“Jus kiddin! Nah, I don't believe a word that Lockhart says bout nuthin.”
They continued with some idle chitchat for a while, about Lockhart mainly, in which they found out from Hagrid that literally nobody else wanted the DADA job because of rumors it was cursed. After Quirrell dying, Iliana didn't blame them. She felt panic start to rise in her at the thought of Quirrell, and the thought of how she'd been forgetting about what she'd done, how she should be atoning more for her sins. Luckily, the conversation continued, and Iliana – feeling horrible no matter what – went along with the change and tried to put the thought of Quirrell out of her mind, which wasn't easy.
At some point, Hagrid showed them some enormous pumpkins that he'd apparently been using his pink umbrella (that was, by this admission, obviously an illegal wand) on. Iliana found herself wondering what Hagrid had done that was bad enough to get expelled and his wand snapped in half, and him forbidden to use it legally, but of course he wouldn't discuss it, so she didn't bother to ask.
But the thoughts of Quirrell wouldn't go away. They were drowning her. Her heart was racing, and she was breathing too fast. Hermione looked at her curiously, and that look was like the proverbial straw on the camel's back. Unable to cope, she retreated to her hiding place within, which forced a transformation back to Harry.
Hagrid, who still hadn't gotten used to these transformatons, gave a start at this. But Ron and Hermione barely even blinked.
“Well you've done well on your pumpkins,” Hermione said, continuing where she'd left off.
“That’s what yer little sister said,” said Hagrid, nodding at Ron. “Met her jus’ yesterday.” Hagrid looked sideways at Harry, his beard twitching. “Said she was jus’ lookin’ round the grounds, but I reckon she was hopin’ she might run inter someone else at my house.” He winked at Harry. “If yeh ask me, she wouldn’ say no ter a signed —”
“Oh shut it,” Harry snapped, making everyone laugh.
Then, suddenly remembering something, he said, “Be right back,” and went running back to the Quidditch pitch, hunting around for Zoey's snake. After several minutes of looking, and calling out for her in Parseltongue, Aqua finally emerged.
'There you are, human. I've been looking all over for you. I ate a mouse, and then came back and you weren't here.'
'Sorry about that, Aqua. My friend Ron got sick. As soon as he was taken care of, I came back looking for you.'
'I am glad. You are warm. I think next time I will fly with you instead of hunting, though.'
When they got back into the castle later, Ron had the misfortune of running right into Filch and having a slug attack all over the man's clothes. After a lot of yelling and screaming, Filch grabbed both him and Harry and dragged them into his office. Harry tried to protest that he'd done nothing wrong, and that Ron couldn't help his slug attack, but the man was too livid to listen, even if he'd ever been so inclined. He assigned them both detentions, cleaning the trophies in the trophy room without magic. He would listen to no protests, so they went to McGonagall.
Finding her in a corridor, they explained everything. Most unfortunately, Lockhart overheard and insisted on taking Harry's detention, to help him answer his fan mail. Harry tried to beg McGonagall not to allow it, but she did. Their detentions would be served tonight.
As time was wont to do whenever he had something unpleasant ahead of him, the afternoon slipped away all too quickly, and Harry found himself in Lockhart's office, set to the mind-numbing task of addressing envelopes. What was most annoying was that if it had been cleaning, Harry could have just set a part of his mind he'd taken to calling the Automaton to the task, and just daydreamed about whatever he wanted as it toiled away. He'd gotten through many tedious hours at the Dursleys that way, trading in the tedium for a sort of fast-forwarding of time from being barely aware of what his body was doing. But this task required more thought than the mindless Automaton could manage, so time was going to drag on like a zombie begging to be put out of its misery.
Still, there was a different sort of coping mechanism for the tedium, as his brain became torpid and stupid under the crushing weight of the tedious task and Lockhart's pointless nattering. He set the Automaton to nodding and making noncommittal noses in the right places as he focused on addressing the envelopes, and as such, not a single word Lockhart said got past the ramparts of his Automaton and into the castle of any of their conscious minds.
And then the Automaton was poking them to get their attention, for it was hearing something its simplistic programming couldn't identify. Not the sounds of the candles, and not Lockhart's prattle, it was a cold, cruel voice that chilled them all to the marrow.
'Come … come to me. … Let me rip you. … Let me tear you. … Let me kill you...'
He gave a start, looking around for the source of the voice.
“What was that voice?”
Lockhart blinked. “Sorry? What voice?”
“That — that voice that said — didn’t you hear it?”
Lockhart was looking at Harry in high astonishment.
“What are you talking about, Harry? Perhaps you’re getting a little drowsy? Great Scott — look at the time! “We’ve been here nearly four hours! I’d never have believed it — the time’s flown, hasn’t it?”
The brain torpor from earlier had evaporated completely, and now all five of them were on high alert. Tier was so keyed up that Harry heard himself growl, which got a strange look from Lockhart.
“Harry?”
But Harry wasn't in control anymore. Tier was more alert than any of them, and Harry's body glowed, but didn't outwardly change, as Tier took over. The animal-like Tier sniffed around, unnerving Lockhart, and took off out the door.
Tier was hunting. For what, he knew not. But that smell... dusty and old, yet alive. It smelled of venom, it smelled of decay and blood, it smelled of great power. It was dangerous, whatever it was.
But then the smell was gone. The voice was gone. Tier waited, still as stone, for he knew not how long. Finally, though, he gave up. With an annoyed huff of air, Tier changed the body back to its normal sensory configuration, and put Harry back in the driver's seat. Frightened, Harry bolted for the Griffindor common room.
Ron began regaling him with the tale of his own detention and how he'd vomited slugs over some of the trophies, blithe at first to Harry's upset, but eventually he noticed and asked about it. Harry explained what happened as well as he could, quietly enough to not disturb the other boys, who were asleep.
“And Lockhart said he couldn’t hear it?” said Ron. Harry could see him frowning in the moonlight. “D’you think he was lying? But I don’t get it — even someone invisible would’ve had to open the door.”
“I know,” said Harry, lying back in his four-poster and staring at the canopy above him. “I don’t get it either.”
End note: Thanks, everyone, for all the praise, the follows, and the kudos! I'm glad to know so many people are having fun reading this. I sure am having fun writing it. In fact, as of the time I'm writing this end note, I've already got chapter 8 done, too, and started on chapter 9. Chapter 8 just needs proofing. Though I'm not going to release these chapters any faster than once a week, just in case I hit any writer's blocks or depressive episodes. That way I might be able to work up a backlog to release until I get my mojo back, if that happens.
Chapter Eight: The Chamber of Secrets Opens
Note: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there.
The next morning, Harry sat in bed for an unknown amount of time pondering Malfoy's having bought his way onto the Slytherin team. It really was an unfair advantage. He considered, for a time, just complaining about it, but what would that really accomplish?
Well, are you forgetting about that 13 million galleon inheritance? Al pointed out to him.
“Ah,” he said very quietly aloud. “Brilliant, Al!”
Harry got up at once and started to write a letter to Quality Quidditch Supplies in London, since he didn't know if there was any kind of similar shop in Hogsmeade. Once he finished it, he got dressed in slacks and a blue top, and headed up to the owlery to find Hedwig. She blinked sleepily at him. To get on her good side, he petted her and gave her some owl treats. Appeased, she let him tie the letter to her leg, tell her where to go, and watched her fly off. That settled, he went down to breakfast.
He was halfway through a second helping of kippers and eggs when Ron showed up.
“Hey mate. Not practising today?”
“If I am, Wood hasn't told me yet.”
“Maybe Wood's still sore about Malfoy.”
Harry considered telling Ron his plan, but decided it was too early. And Ron reacted to things concerning money in strange and sometimes unpredictable ways, so he decided to leave it be for now.
“Yeah, can you believe the nerve of that berk? I don't think buying one team – and only one team – new brooms is fair.”
“Ah regum weh shud gomflaim,” Ron said, his face stuffed like a chipmunk preparing for winter. Harry gave him a disgusted look.
“Well we can try, but I doubt there's any rule against it.”
Ron swallowed before speaking, for once. “Is Zoey gonna get back at Malfoy?”
His legs uncrossing and re-crossing in his seat and his head cocked upward with a mysterious smile on his face, Harry said, “We have a plan. But we don't know how it will work, so we're not telling you what it is until we're sure we've got things set up.”
Ron chuckled. “Is it gonna be amazing?”
“Malfoy will be knocked down several pegs, maybe even a dozen pegs, if it works.”
Hermione came into the Great Hall then, and the two of them looked up at her. They gave one another a quick glance that said they weren't going to tell Hermione anything of this, because she'd just nag them about it, even without having a clue what Harry was up to.
She must have thought something was up, though, because she stopped in place and stared at Harry with an odd expression on her face. For some reason, her eyes flicked down to his legs. Completely bewildered, he turned back to his food.
When Hermione sat down, she asked, “Iliana?”
Harry blinked at her.
“No, it's Harry. Why?”
“Oh. It's just, sometimes you don't transform. And well... never mind. Ah, bacon!”
Hermione started piling food on her plate, seeming more like Ron than Hermione, at least until she started eating.
~
Try as he might, Harry had a hard time keeping from Hermione that he was planning something. This time, her suspicions had very little evidence beyond Harry being very secretive about his letters. Ron was disappointed that Harry was keeping the letters secret from him, as he figured they had something to do with the plan – given that Harry's only regular correspondence was from Hagrid. But Harry was adamant about keeping it a secret until the big reveal.
The first Quidditch practice after the incident with the Slytherins was the following Saturday. It was an experience, Wood being more ferocious than ever in training, as though he could compensate for Slytherin's unfair advantage with pure force of will. Iliana didn't tell him that they had a meeting this afternoon that would pave the way towards Wood feeling better. Though they'd meant to tell Ron and Hermione once Harry had set up this meeting, they decided their friends would be better off as surprised as everyone else.
Ron and Hermione stared in bewilderment at Harry at lunch as he wolfed down his food like he'd been starving for a week, rushing off and nearly running headlong into a pale and sickly looking Ginny in the doorway.
“Oh, sorry Ginny,” he said as she turned redder than her hair.
“W-wait!” she called back as he exited the Great Hall.
He stopped in confusion, turning around. Ginny did not speak, but she held out a sealed letter for him.
“Oh, thanks Ginny,” he said, unsealing the letter and seeing familiar thin, slanting writing.
It was a note from Dumbledore, who was calling Harry up to his office. Harry grinned, guessing what this was about, and walked as fast as he could to the headmaster's office.
“Chocolate frogs,” Harry told the gargoyle, which leapt aside at the password.
Harry got on the moving staircase, climbing the steps to make the trip even faster. He had his hand up to knock when the door opened, Dumbledore smiling and twinkling at him.
“Hello there, my dear lad. It seems you have a visitor. And given who he is, and what he's told me of the nature of his visit, I have a private room just over here, that you can use,” Dumbledore said, unhinging a bookcase so it swung out.
The man, middle aged with thinning brown hair, held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Potter. I understand you want to make an order?”
“Yes; yes, I would.”
“Well let's get down to business, then.”
They stepped into the private room, closing the bookcase behind them, and sat facing one another at a table with two chairs.
“So you said in your letters that you wanted to make a large purchase for donation to the school?”
“Yes. I'm sure you're aware of Mr. Malfoy's generous contribution to the Slytherin Quidditch team?”
“Ah yes, I figured he was buying seven Nimbus 2001s for something like this. It's not very often we get mass orders for brooms. The professional teams get theirs from us, of course, but all our brooms are guaranteed good for 10 years at least. So, did you want to order 7 of the same for the Griffindor team?”
“No. I want to order 30 of them. That makes seven for each of the remaining three teams, and nine spares for stuff like teaching first years to fly.”
The shopkeeper's eyes went wide in shock, before his face widened into an excited grin. “Thirty broomsticks? Same model as Mr. Malfoy?”
“Yes. All four teams should be on equal speed footing. How much will the order cost?”
“Well, the Nimbus 2001 is 35 galleons. That would mean 1,050 galleons for the lot, except that there's a bulk discount. With the discount included, that brings your total to just 1,000 galleons.”
“Sounds good to me. Can you make sure the donor is anonymous?”
“You... don't want credit for the donation?”
“No. I don't like being famous. I'd rather not draw more attention to myself.”
“What about Dumbledore?”
“The headmaster knows how to be discreet. I'll let him know my wishes before I leave. So can you do it?”
“Yes, I can – and will – do that for you.”
“Excellent. When can I expect the delivery?”
“I can have them delivered here by next Saturday, Mr. Potter.”
Harry's face twitched a little, but he smiled and began filling out the Gringott's check for the agreed amount. He handed it to the shopkeeper, who beamed at him and shook his hand.
“Thank you very much, Mr. Potter, you've made my year, you have. If you ever need something again, don't hesitate to ask.”
“You're welcome,” Harry said, and bid the man farewell.
When they got out of the small room, Dumbledore twinkled at Harry.
“Making a charitable donation to the school to one-up young Mr. Malfoy?” Dumbledore asked jovially.
I swear to Merlin, that man can read minds, Al thought at him.
Must be quite the experience reading our minds, Harry thought back at him.
“Yes, headmaster. Only, I want to keep the origin of the broomsticks a secret.”
“Ah, then in that case I have no idea whatsoever of what you are talking about, and I shall be ever so surprised if someone were to give the school a gift.”
“Thanks, sir.”
Dumbledore smiled at him again, and Harry left the room feeling very smug.
~
The next week was an agony of waiting and trying to shake off Ron's questions. Even worse, Hermione had figured out he was up to something and was assuming the worst, nagging him frequently about it. It was no good trying to get her to stop, nothing he said short of revealing the surprise would quell her, and Ron would kill him if he told Hermione before he told Ron. So he kept trying to insist he wasn't doing anything wrong, and assure her she'd feel foolish when things finally unfolded. She was not, however, convinced by this, so he took to ignoring her instead.
On Friday afternoon, both their nagging changed from deeply annoying to extremely amusing, as he knew it would happen tomorrow. When exactly, he wasn't sure, but one way or another it would finally be over.
Wood had woken him up early Saturday morning, and excitedly he had Zoey switch them to Iliana before going down to breakfast.
Whenever they'd thought the order would come, they hadn't counted on it being at breakfast that morning. But that is exactly when Mr. Filch came into the Great Hall with four unfamiliar wizards in tow, guiding several large crates floating along with their wands. The teachers, the Griffindor Quidditch team, and the few other people already down in the Great Hall rubbernecked like mad, trying to figure out what was going on. Professor McGonagall, looking bewildered, put down her napkin and walked up to the men.
“These men have a delivery for the school, marm,” Filch said.
One of the wizards set his crate down and tipped his hat. “Greetings, Professor. I'm Simon Monroe from Quality Quidditch Supplies. We're here to deliver a charitable donation to the school of 30 Nimbus 2001s.”
McGonagall looked like a fish out of water as she gaped at this. Everyone else in hearing range, save for those who already knew about the delivery, gaped as well.
“Thirty... did you say 30 broomsticks?”
“Yes. Thirty Nimbus 2001s. Seven each for Griffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff Quidditch teams, seeing as Slytherin already bought some of their own. The remaining nine are spares, which you can use at your discretion. Though the donor suggested using them to train first years how to fly.”
“And who is this donor?”
“The donor wished to remain anonymous, Professor. But my boss knows who it is, as he negotiated the sale with the donor personally. Now, where should we put them?”
Ron and Hermione rounded on Iliana, who was finding it hard to hold back her laughter.
“Later,” Iliana told them, trying not to grin. “After practice.”
Wood was, of course, delighted by the donation, as were others on the team whose own brooms were rather old and battered. The practice that day consisted of an hour of everyone just zooming around on the Nimbus 2001s – Iliana preferring her own Nimbus 2000 – before they were settled down enough to get to actually practising.
Nobody seemed to know who the donor was, except the Weasley Twins, who had a shrewd idea Iliana was behind it. They knew, after all, that the Potter collective were rich, after all. But after practice was over and they and Iliana were the only ones still at the Quidditch pitch, they cornered her.
“Hey, thanks for the broomsticks, Iliana,” said George.
“I'm sure I have no idea what you mean,” Iliana said in faux innocence.
Fred winked at her. “Right, you don't know any more than we do who the donor was. Should've known. Oh well, I guess if I thank enough people, I might thank the donor eventually.”
The best part, of course, was catching glimpses of Malfoy's sour face as he tried to look inconspicuous spying on the Griffindor team.
~
As October came around, the weather got cold and wet and muddy. If anyone thought this would make Wood give them a weekend off from training, though, they were wrong. And so it was that Iliana found herself coming in from the muddy weather one day. Out of consideration for the grumpy old Filch, she was Vanishing the mud as best she could. She was so distracted by this that she walked through Nearly Headless Nick, which was like falling into a sudden cold spot.
For what it was worth, he appeared to be as distracted as she was. She caught a few words he was muttering to himself before he realized what was going on, something about 'don't fulfill their requirements' and 'half an inch if that,' comments that made Al snicker internally.
“Oh! Sorry my dear, didn't mean to walk into you.”
“It's fine, I wasn't paying attention.”
“You look troubled, young Potter.”
“No, I'm just exhausted from practice. But you seem troubled, too”
“Oh, a matter of no importance. It's not like I really wanted to join them, the puffed up... but I don't fulfill their requirements. I'd show them fulfilled requirements if I weren't a man of peace.”
Somebody's got sour grapes, Al thought at Iliana.
“But you would think, would you not, that getting hit in the neck 45 times with a blunt axe would qualify you for the Headless Hunt.”
TMI, dude, Al thought. Iliana ignored him.
“Oh, uh. Yeah. Yes. Quite.”
He went on about the Headless Hunt, which was fascinating if a little gross. Headless ghosts from all corners gathering for fun and games like Head Polo. But Nick was mostly complaining about the head headless ghost, Sir Patrick Delaney-Podmore. Or, as he called the ghost to Al's delight, “Sir Properly-Decapitated Podmore.”
Suddenly, a familiar pair of amber eyes appeared. Mrs. Norris, Mr. Filch's cat, had spotted the mud she was tracking in and running off to fetch Filch.
“You'd better flee, Iliana, before Filch catches you. He's got a terrible head cold.”
“I--”
But whatever she'd been about to say got cut off as Filch was there, wheezing and furious.
“Filth! Mess and muck everywhere! I've had enough of it, I tell you! Follow me, Potter!”
“I've been Vanishing the mud!” she protested.
“Bah,” Filch snorted. “Like you miserable students ever get it all. No, I'll have to clean up the rest. I can see great spots you've missed even from this distance. Well I'm not doing it, not this time! To my office with you, girlie. Going to make an example of you!”
Gloomy now, Iliana followed the caretaker to his office with a glum backward glance at Nick.
The office, which none of the collective had been in before, matched Filch to a T. The place dingy and lightless and gave off an air of neglectful malice, like a very small and dingy dungeon. It was even equipped like a dungeon, with instruments of bondage and torture.
Filch is into some kinky shit, Al thought. Not that I'm judging.
Oh thank you SO MUCH, Al, for that horrible image that is now burned into my brain. As if we didn't have enough nightmares.
He and Mrs. Pince probably--
DO NOT FINISH THAT SENTENCE, AL!
It was a good thing, though, that Al was making her feel gross, because if she'd been laughing with him, she doubted Filch would appreciate it. But as it was, her expression befitted the situation to his pleasure.
“Dung,” he muttered furiously, “great sizzling dragon bogies! Frog brains! Rat intestines... I’ve had enough of it! Make an example of you. Where’s the form? Yes.”
He retrieved a large roll of parchment from his desk drawer and stretched it out in front of him, dipping his long black quill into the ink pot.
“Name, Iliana Potter. Crime... befouling the castle.”
“Listen, I was Vanishing the mud specifically out of consideration for you. I know your job is hard, so I was---”
“Ha! Like you little monsters ever care about anything but getting caught. Hang you by your thumbs in the dungeon if I could, put the proper fear of trouble into you, I would.”
Forget it, he's determined to be difficult, Al thought at her.
“Punishment,” Filch said, thinking.
As Filch lowered his quill, there was a massive BANG above them, making his oil lamp rattle.
“PEEVES!” Filch roared, completely forgetting Iliana as he and Mrs. Norris stormed toward the door. “I'll have you out this time, Peeves!”
Well that was close. Let's scram while we can.
No, he'll just track us down and be even angrier.
I'm sure he'll forget all about our tiny bit of mud with whatever Peeves has done.
We still have mud on us. We'll spread more if we go, and we don't have the time to Vanish it this time.
Good point. Fine, whatever.
Iliana sat down on the moth-eaten chair by the desk. As she did, she noticed something on his desk, a large, glossy, purple envelope with silver lettering on the front. With a quick glance at the door to check that Filch wasn’t on his way back, Iliana picked up the envelope and read:
KWIKSPELL
A Correspondence Course in Beginners’ Magic
Well that's that confirmed. He's a wizard-born Muggle, then. Poor man. Like I've said, working here must be Hell for him.
One line of the letter especially caught Al's attention: 'My wife used to sneer at my feeble charms, but one month into your fabulous Kwikspell course and I succeeded in turning her into a yak!'
Sounds more like an ad for a potion to grow your dick longer than a magic correspondence course.
AL! Put that back!
But Al had grabbed control of the right arm and continued reading through the Kwikspell letter.
I wonder if this stuff actually works?
I doubt it, Harry replied. From what I've seen, either you're magic or you're not. I suppose a Muggle could learn Potions, as it's the ingredients that are magical, and maybe there are other classes a Muggle could do well at, but anything requiring a wand would be pointless. Does Filch even have a wand? If not, what's the point of trying this Kwikspell thing?
Maybe he bought one anyway?
They didn't get to discuss it any more than that, though, because they heard Filch returning. Hurriedly, they returned the Kwikspell letter to its envelope, though they noticed too late they'd done it poorly.
“That vanishing cabinet was extremely valuable!” Filch said triumphantly. “We'll have Peeves out this time, my sweet!”
Filch froze as he spotted the disturbed letter, eying Iliana with a face that was rapidly changing from maggot-belly white to brick red.
“Have you... did you read...?”
“Sorrry, Mr. Filch. Al read your letter. I tried to stop him, but--”
Liar, Al thought with a chuckle.
“That's my private... not that it's mine... for a friend... be that as it may...”
“We already knew you're a wizard-born Muggle. We've mentioned it to you before, and like we said before, we only care insofar as you're clearly miserable at this job, and take it out on the students rather than trying to find something more suited to you. But if it's a secret, don't worry. We won't tell.”
Filch clearly had a lot of conflicting emotions crossing his face. But finally he said, “Very well... but if I find you've told anyone... not that... just go, I have to write Peeves' report.”
As Iliana got up and left, Al thought, That was almost like blackmail, that. Maybe we should've been in Slytherin after all.
We had this discussion back when the hat went on our head.
Yes, but that was before we figured out the whole multiplicity thing.
“Iliana! Iliana, did it work?” Sir Nicolas said, floating toward them.
“Was that you? Yeah, we didn't get into any trouble thanks to it.”
“I convinced Peeves to drop that cabinet over Filch's office, since it was me who was holding you up in the corridor.”
“Well you really oughtn't have done it, but we're thankful all the same.”
She walked alongside the gloomy ghost in the corridors, and noticed he still had his rejection letter from the Headless Hunt in his hand.
“I wish I could do something for you about the Headless Hunt,” she said.
Oh no you did not! To Hell with that shit.
“Well, maybe there is something you can do...”
Damn and blast, bother and busticate!
“What is it?” Iliana asked, rubbing her temple to try to ignore Alastair.
“This Halloween is my 500th Death Day, and I'm holding a Death Day party down in the dungeons...”
Al groaned internally, but Iliana didn't, and in the end they ended up agreeing to go to this Death Day party, and agreed also to mention to Sir Podmore how impressive they find Sir Nicolas.
Hermione found it fascinating, of course, and though Ron wasn't, they still managed to rope the two friends into coming with.
By Halloween, though, the idea was wearing on them. Al wouldn't shut up about it for long, and Hermione's reminder that Iliana had promised Nick became the only thing stopping Iliana from changing her mind.
Can we at least ask Fred and George how to get into the kitchens, and get some food before we go? You know they're not going to serve food there. Why would they? Ghosts don't eat.
Fine, okay.
So shortly after noon on Halloween, Iliana went up to the twins and explained the situation. The twins happily dragged her down to the dungeons and showed her how to tickle the pear on a still life of a bowl of fruit. Once inside, they were practically stampeded by helpful house elves offering them food. Before long, they had plenty of food to take up to Ron and Hermione to eat before the party.
“Good thinking, mate. Al is right, ghosts won't eat food, they're dead.”
So with full stomachs, Iliana and her two friends went down into the dungeons to where Nick had said the party was, Iliana only pausing to leave Aqua behind on a magically-warmed rock, since the snake didn't like the dungeons.
Upon arriving, their senses were immediately assaulted by something that was clearly intended to be music, but sounded like fingernails on chalkboards. The room was also cold and lit with black candles that released a blue light, the only other light being the pearly ghosts themselves, of which there were scores. The few windows in the room covered with black velvet drapes.
“This is like a bad stereotype,” Al broke through Iliana's control to say with her voice. “I feel like they should sue themselves for defamation of character or something. If this scene showed up in a book, I'd think the author was having me on.”
“Hey Al,” Ron said casually.
“Is my tone really that obvious, even with Iliana's voice?”
“Yes, it is.”
“I wish I'd thought to bring a cloak,” Hermione complained, shivering a little in the cold.
“Yeah, good point. Ghosts feel cold when you walk through them, it makes sense that a place with this many ghosts would be like an icebox. Especially since we're underground.”
They were welcomed warmly by Sir Nicolas, who led them around, giving them a tour. The horrible music was being produced by 30 musical saws.
“Ever so cheerful, this lot,” Al continued, still via Iliana. “But I guess a deathday would be a bit like attending your own funeral.”
“Oh no, turn back! I don't want to talk to Moaning Myrtle,” Hermione said.
“Who?” Ron asked.
“She haunts one of the toilets in a girl's bathroom on the first floor,” Hermione explained before Iliana could.
“She haunts a toilet?”
“Yeah, it is a bit odd. Ghosts can go wherever they like, I don't know why she hangs around there,” Iliana said. “But she's absolutely miserable all the time, so she must get some kind of comfort from being in there.”
But to their chagrin, Peeves had heard them. He came over, and after offering them moldy peanuts, said, “Heard you talking about poor Myrtle, I did. Rude you was about poor Myrtle. OY, MYRTLE!”
“What is it?” Myrtle asked sulkily.
“Miss Granger was just talking about you,” Peeves said.
“Just saying how nice you look tonight.”
“You're making fun of me,” she replied, her eyes beginning to well up with tears.
“No, honestly, didn't I just say how nice she's looking?” Hermione said, nudging Ron and Iliana to help her out. Ron complied, but Iliana decided to remain quiet.
“Don't lie to me,” Myrtle gasped, crying in great rivulets now. “Do you think I don't know that people make fun of me behind my back? That they call me Fat Myrtle, Ugly Myrtle, Miserable, moping, moaning Myrtle.”
“To be honest, Myrtle, I don't think most people think about you that much, and even if they did, why should you care what they think? And you, Peeves, should be nicer to people. You're not funny when you poke fun of people.”
“Oooh, ickle second year thinks she's so high and mighty, does you? Shift the blame to old Peevesey, then, don't admit you were talking about Myrtle. But I heard you saying she could haunt any place, so why a toilet?”
Myrtle burst into tears at this and flew away, Peeves chasing after her, pelting her with peanuts.
“I appreciate you're a kind person, Iliana, but it's wasted on Myrtle. She's determined to be miserable.”
After that, the Headless Hunt showed up, interrupting Nick's speech. Iliana tried helping out with Podmore, but the headless ghost wasn't impressed. The Hunt left Nick in a bad mood after that. Between Nick's bad mood, the cold, and the stench from the rotting food, the three of them decided to leave early, and head to the feast, even though they'd eaten already, in case there were puddings left.
It was on their way there that it happened. That chilling voice again, like ice down Iliana's spine.
'Rip, tear, KILL!'
Their terror pushed Tier to the fore, and Iliana glowed but did not outwardly change, though Ron and Hermione knew it was Tier by his behavior, for he'd gone still as stone, head cocked to listen, then sniffed the air.
“Tier?” Ron asked tentatively. But of course, Tier didn't answer; couldn't answer.
Instead, Tier's head jerked as he heard the dangerous voice again. 'So hungry... for so long... kill... time to kill...'
The voice was growing fainter, moving away. Tier huffed air out of his nose, not daring to growl, and chased the voice so fast that the boy and the girl struggled to follow him.
“Tier, where are we--”
Tier hissed at Ron like an angry cat, then turned back to hunt for the voice again. He sniffed the air, and smelled that dry, musty scent again. It bugged him, like the scent was familiar, but he couldn't place it.
Tier growled. He considered the boy and the girl, wondering if it was safe to leave them behind, but thought better of it. But the looks on their faces begged some kind of explanation.
Tier screwed up his face in concentration. It took a Herculean effort to figure out how to do it, but after almost a minute of trying, he managed to croak out words.
“Danger,” he said in a rough voice. “Scary voice. Dangerous.”
Hermione blinked.
“You can talk?” she said in awe.
“Whadda ya mean, 'dangerous'?”
Tier chuffed in an irritated fashion and ignored them both, returning to investigating the voice and sniffing for the dry, musty scent. Words were too much work for him to try to explain. The others could do that later.
There was... another scent there, too. It was human, but it was not the boy or the girl, and it was too fresh to be any of the students in the Great Hall. He did not recognize the scent, though something about it was familiar.
'I smell blood... I smell BLOOD!'
The hair on Iliana's neck prickled up as Tier growled threateningly at this latest from the voice. He ran around the corner, the boy and girl behind him, hearing himself shouting “It kill! Voice wants kill!”
But the passage was deserted. Both the unidentified scents vanished, and he heard no more trace of the voice. But now there was a new scent, the smell of blood. But it wasn't human. Some sort of bird? And it was arranged in writing. Tier knew he was out of his depth now. They glowed again, and for some reason transformed into Harry.
“Harry, what was that all about?” asked Ron. “Tier said he heard some kind of voice, but we didn't hear anything.”
Hermione gasped and pointed.
“Look!”
They, too, had spotted the writing in blood on the wall. In huge letters, it said, “THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR BEWARE.”
“Blood!” Hermione gasped.
“Don't worry, it's not human blood,” Harry said.
“How do you--”
“Tier could smell it. It's from some kind of bird.”
“What's that hanging underneath it?” Ron asked shakily.
It was Mrs. Norris, Filch's cat. She hung from a torch bracket by her tail, and she was petrified, still as stone but otherwise looking like she could start moving again at any moment. And there was water all over the floor.
“Let's get out of here,” Ron said. “We don't want to be found here.”
But that ship had sailed already. A rumble of something like distant thunder was all the warning they got before every other student in the castle came up from the Great Hall. Everyone stared at it in silence for many heartbeats, before the silence was broken by a familiar sneering voice.
“Enemies of the heir beware? You'll be next, mudbloods!”
Malfoy, Al thought, resisting the urge to take a page out of Tier's book and attack him like an animal.
But he wouldn't have had a chance to anyway, because just then Filch came through and saw his cat petrified. He immediately rounded on Harry.
“You! You little freaks murdered my cat! You've killed her! I'll--”
“Argus!”
It was Dumbledore. He and several other teachers had come to see what the commotion was. He quickly took in the sight, then wordlessly took Mrs. Norris down off the bracket. He then adjourned the teachers, Filch, Harry, Ron, and Hermione to Lockhart's office, because the fool had offered the space.
Lockhart, of course, ran off his mouth about what he thought killed her and how he could have saved her, which served nothing but to make Filch bawl like a small child, and make the Potter collective feel even sorrier for the man than they did already.
“Mrs. Norris is not dead, Argus,” Dumbledore finally announced to the grieving caretaker.
“Not dead? But why's she all stiff and frozen?”
“She has been petrified. But how, I cannot say.”
“Ask THEM!” he shouted, pointing at Harry. “Those little freaks--”
“You will refrain using that offensive word, Argus. No second year could have done this, not even one with innate talents such as the Potters have. This is dark magic of the most advanced--”
“They did it! They did it! They know I'm a... a Squib!”
Al felt a stab of irritation so strong they transformed into his taller form. “I don't know what that word means.”
“Liar! You saw my Kwikspell letter!”
Al growled. “How many damn times do I have to tell you I don't give a rat's arse if you can do magic or not, my only issue with you is that you're clearly miserable here at Hogwarts. I don't hate you, I feel sorry for you. And I don't know what this has to do with that writing anyway.”
“The writing,” Dumbledore explained, “Refers to a secret chamber that Salazar Slytherin supposedly made in the school. The heir it references is Slytherin's heir.”
“Oh. Well that explains some things.”
“If I might speak, headmaster?” Snape said. Al glowered at Snape, whose face briefly became a rictus of loathing before relaxing again. The man turned his gaze away from Al, saying in a voice of forced calm, “Potter may have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the circumstances are suspicious. Why were these three here, and not in the Great Hall and the feast?”
“I got roped into going to Sir Nicolas's deathday party, so that's where we were. Hundreds of ghosts saw us, including Nick.”
“But why not join the feast afterward? I doubt ghosts serve food humans can eat.”
“Oh gee,” Al said in a voice dripping with sarcasm. “Why didn't I think of that? Oh wait, I did. We ate before going, of course. Hermione and Ron can confirm, as can all the house elves and the Weasley Twins.”
Snape looked even angrier at this, like he was trying to trap them and was irritated that he was failing.
“Then why were you up in that corridor? There are myriad other paths to the Griffindor tower,” Snape snapped at them.
“We were actually going back to the feast at first, then I heard something weird. I don't remember it very well, because Tier took over the moment we heard it and went looking for it, sniffing around. His nose is what led us to that corridor. He smelled the blood. Which is from some sort of bird, by the way, though Tier didn't know what kind.”
Dumbledore gave him a searching look. Al felt like he was being x-rayed. Almost as soon as it started, the man was twinkling at them again.
“Innocent until proven guilty, Severus.”
Snape looked furious; his hands twitched like he wanted to strangle Al. Filch looked equally furious, and began demanding punishment for his cat being petrified.
“I have already said this is far beyond the capability of a second year student, even one as remarkable as the Potters. Furthermore, we will be able to cure her. Professor Sprout is growing a healthy crop of mandrakes, which will be used to make a potion to restore her to full health.”
Lockhart said some more stupid things, which Snape countered, but then Dumbledore was letting them go. They took off quickly as they dared, and ducked into an unused classroom to talk.
“Tier heard a voice. It was a terrifying voice, like ice down the spine. We've heard it before, it was the same one we heard in Lockhart's office during that detention. It was talking about killing, and blood, and being hungry, this time. It was mostly that voice Tier was following, not the scent of the blood; that came after. Should I have told Dumbledore about that?”
Ron looked grave. “Not in front of Snape and the others, no. Even in the wizarding world, it's not a good sign to hear voices nobody else can. Well, except for you lot communicating with one another, but that's not the same.”
“You do believe us, though?”
“Yes. It's weird, but yes.”
Al nodded.
“What's a Squib? They didn't explain that. But given the context, the Kwikspell letter, I'm guessing it means a wizard-born Muggle?”
Ron nodded. “Yeah, that's a good way of putting it, cuz they are like the opposite of a Muggle-born witch or wizard.”
“Yeah. I guess my theory was right. I've been saying that for a long time.”
“It explains a lot about Filch. He's bitter.”
A clock chimed somewhere, and they took that as their cue to head to bed.
~
The next few days, nobody could talk about anything but the message about the Chamber of Secrets. Filch was more horrible than usual, finding all kinds of flimsy excuses to lash out at students, whenever he wasn't trying fruitlessly to clean the bloody message off the wall or standing guard over the area. Then Ron, ever the master of tact, tried to comfort an upset Ginny and ended up making things worse. Al didn't even bother to comment at this, it wasn't worth trying to grab control again over. (He had retreated within before going to bed that fateful night, leaving Harry in his place.)
Another effect was Hermione going to the library at all hours, trying to get ahold of “Hogwarts, A History,” because she wanted to research the Chamber of Secrets, but she'd left her own copy at home due to all of Lockhart's paperweights. (That was his books' only real use, seeing as parchment sucked as toilet paper, and Hermione would have dropped dead from shock if Al even suggested desecrating any book for any reason.) Too bad for her, all copies of the book were checked out.
In fact, Al was seething in frustrated rage at the essay he was trying to write, on one of the few days he was fully Out, as he kept getting splotches of ink all over it. He tossed the essay across the room in a fury.
“Haven't wizards heard about PAPER, yet?” he roared. “It's the NINETEEN-NINETIES, for Chrissake, why the bloody Hell are we still writing on dead animal skins and using shitty quill pens when dead trees and ballpoint pens are so much more efficient? Fuck this, I'm using paper and ballpoint pen! If the teachers don't like it, then bully for them.”
“But Al, our essays are measured in inches,” Hermione reminded him.
“Fine, then I'll tape the pages together. But I'm not using this old-fashioned bullshit again, I'm just not.”
“Iliana has no problem with parchment and quill.”
“Yeah, and she can also fly like a dream and catch tiny winged balls out of the air, and I can't. So pardon me if I don't care what she can do that I can't.”
“Al? What's really bothering you.”
Al was digging around through his bag for a pen, and was about to go up to his trunk, when Hermione's question got through to him.
“Gee I don't know,” Al said sarcastically, “it certainly couldn't be because some bloody berk is going around daubing threatening messages on the walls of a school in bird's blood, because that would just be silly!”
“Just drop it, Hermione,” Ron said. “Al is... it's just how he is.”
“No it's not. He's usually content to hang back and watch the--”
“I mean when he's Out.”
Al snorted loud enough to be heard around the room, but said nothing. Instead, he went up to check his trunk. Only when he came back with a black BIC pen and a college-ruled notebook did he speak.
“Also, you know, there's Snape, who hates all of us, but seems to have an extra special place in the black hole in his chest for me in particular. Specifically, the order of his hatred seems to be me at the top of his hit list, followed by Harry, then Iliana. No idea what he thinks of Zoey or Tier, though. So of course he insinuates that we must have been up to no good when we found the message.”
“At least he doesn't seem to think you did it.”
Al started copying what he could see of his essay onto the paper.
“Yeah, but did you see his rictus of hatred when he saw Harry change to me? As though he were a Jew and I turned into Hitler right in front of him.”
“Who's Hitler?”
“He was a sort of Muggle Voldemort,” Al said without thinking. Ron shouted about using the name, but Al ignored him and continued. “He gained control of Germany in the, what? The 40's, I think? Spread his empire across Europe and he ordered millions of people killed; mostly Jews, but also homosexuals, gypsies, and political prisoners, among others.”
“Millions?”
Al sighed. “Wizard education must be shit. Yes, millions of people.”
Ron gaped at him like a fish for several minutes.
“Millions of people... it's too much to really think about, mate. There might be millions of wizards and witches worldwide. If someone in our world killed millions of wizards and witches, there'd be almost nobody left. And yet there's so many Muggles that they just... recovered from that?”
“Pretty much. Though it was a lot bigger number at the time, in terms of scale. There's billions more Muggles in the world these days than there were in the 40's.”
Ron was stunned speechless by this. Which was just as well for Al, he had an essay to finish.
~
Later that week, in History of Magic, Hermione actually got the ghost teacher's attention and managed to also get him to tell them all the tale of the Chamber of Secrets. Harry listened raptly, as did the others in his collective.
“I always knew Slytherin must've been a twisted old loony,” Ron later said.
Al grabbed control of Harry's body and sighed.
“Is that the most you could get from that story? Honestly...”
“What are you on about?”
“This school was founded at a time when witches and wizards were being hunted and killed because of Muggle fear of magic. Slytherin had the right idea back then to be wary of Muggle-borns. But now modern racists cling to his outdated point of view, when everything has changed. Muggles don't believe in magic anymore, and when they do run across it, there's usually wizards right behind them to modify their memories. Wizards are in control, but they act like Muggles are going to gang up on wizardkind at any moment.”
“Well, he had a horrible monster in a secret chamber! A monster only he could control.”
“A terrible monster under his control, in a room only he and his heirs could get to. Sounds like a panic room to me.”
“A panic room?”
“A place to go when there's a threat, to be safe. He was afraid of Muggles attacking the castle, because that's what they were doing at the time. So he builds a secret chamber to hide people in if that happens, and a secret weapon, a terrible monster, to fight the invading armies and make the school safe again. But of course people forget historical context. I blame Binns for killing people's interest in history.”
“How do you know so much about history?”
“Well aside from remembering things I've heard, I read. I've read our History of Magic book cover to cover, it's fascinating. That class could be amazing if Binns wasn't teaching it. You know, I might even get some more history books the next time I go to Flourish and Blotts.”
“I never knew you were a bookworm, Al.”
“We don't read as much as Hermione, but yeah, we like reading. I... we used to go to the library to read. We didn't dare get a library card or check anything out, in case our uncle destroyed them, but anything we could read before they closed we'd suck up like a sponge. It was our only escape. Hey, what's this?”
They'd wandered to the scene of the crime, in their discussion. Luckily, Filch wasn't there to snipe at them.
“Heck, let's poke around,” Al said.
And poke around they did. It was Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, and had an Out of Order sign. The water was all cleaned up, but there were scorch marks in places, which was odd. And there were spiders moving so fast they looked like they were running away from something, all going in the same direction. Al looked at Ron, who was terrified of the spiders, and filed that information away, barely listening to Ron and Hermione talking about it.
Once they ran out of stuff outside to look at, they went in, over Ron's objections. Al took in the place with his eyes; it certainly matched Myrtle's usual mood, being just as gloomy as she was, and old looking.
Then, naturally, Myrtle showed up.
“This is a girl's bathroom,” Myrtle said, eyeing Ron and Al. “They're not girls.”
“Not at the moment, anyway,” Al said. “But for me, that could change at any moment.”
“What are you lot doing here, anyway?”
“Snooping,” Al said before Hermione could speak. “A cat was attacked just outside, and a message written in blood, back on Halloween. Did you see anything that night?”
“No,” Myrtle pouted. “I was too busy crying because of Peeves being mean to me, to see anything. I came in here to kill myself, only then I remembered I'm... I'm...”
“Already dead?” Ron asked.
“Way to go, jackass!” Al shouted as Myrtle began wailing again. She jumped into a toilet and only by dodging quickly did Al avoid getting splashed with toilet water. He stormed out, muttering under his breath, and the other two followed.
“RON!”
It was Percy Weasley. He was staring in shock at the three of them coming out of a girl's loo.
“That's a girl's bathoom! What were you--”
“He had to pee, and it was an emergency. Anyway, we were with him and nobody else was in there, so what's it to you?”
“You're not supposed to be in there either, Al,” Percy commented.
“Okay fine, we were snooping. Looking for clues.”
This did not go over well.
“Don't you care what this looks like?”
“Not particularly, no. Dumbledore knows it wasn't any of us, and there isn't a measurement small enough to measure how much I care about the opinions of any of the students.”
“Yeah, we didn't lay a finger on that cat,” Ron snapped.
“That's what I told Ginny, but she's still very upset over it. All the first years are thoroughly overexcited by this business.”
Al rolled his eyes. “Yeah, it's just an unknown horrifying monster with the ability to petrify people running loose in a school, can't see what there is to get excited about there.”
“You don't care about Ginny! You're just worried she'll ruin your chance of being Head Boy,” Ron accused.
Percy took offense at this, said “Ten points from Griffindor. Let that be a lesson not to play detective. Don't do it again or I'll write mum!”
As he stormed off, Al snorted, then chuckled.
“What's so funny?”
“He forgot only teachers can dock points, the prat.”
~
Despite knowing Percy couldn't dock points, Ron was still in a foul mood as they worked on schoolwork later. His increasingly glitchy wand set the parchment on fire, though that may have been his anger. It was enough of a gray area that Al didn't comment.
They didn't get far in their work when Hermione closed her book.
“Who could it be, though? Who'd want to scare the Muggle-borns and Squibs?”
“You mean aside from Moldywart?” Al asked.
“Gee, who do we know who thinks Muggle-borns are scum?” Ron said, ignoring Al.
“Are you talking about Malfoy?” Hermione asked.
Al snorted.
“Malfoy doesn't have the brains. He and his two pet gorillas are only in Slytherin because they wouldn't want to be anywhere else.”
“Well maybe he's got help. Maybe his father told him how to get into the Chamber.”
“You're basing your argument entirely on circumstantial evidence. And even that's being generous.”
“What about what he said when we all found the message. 'You'll be next, Mudbloods.'”
“Malfoy is the human equivalent of a vulture, all apologies to vultures for the insult; he's an opportunistic scavenger, couldn't think of a clever scheme if God Itself came up and stuck one in his spoiled blond head. He's got just enough wit to take advantage of situations he finds, and occasionally tries to goad people into getting themselves in trouble, but otherwise he's not much brighter than Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Crabbe and Goyle, I mean,” he said, at Ron's confused look.
“Look, I'm telling you it's Malfoy. He's got the hatred, he's from an old family who have been in Slytherin for loads of generations, they've probably been handing the key down all these centuries...”
Al rubbed his head, tuning out the rest of Ron's anti-Malfoy rant. How could he explain that he'd looked Malfoy in the eye and seen the little puffed up popinjay wasn't capable of this? That Malfoy was just a coward who liked to boast and looked up to his father and all the man stood for, but ultimately didn't believe those things enough to actually act on them, and that his only evidence for this was one of those varied abilities like Parseltongue that he didn't know how it would be received in the wizarding world? Seeing that Lockhart was a lying fraud was one thing, but this was very complex, and Al didn't have the energy to explain it.
“Okay, fine, it might be Malfoy. But unless you have some way of proving it, all you have is a suspicion.”
“I might have a way,” Hermione said. “Of course, it's difficult and dangerous, illegal, and breaks a whole mess of school rules, I expect--”
“Care filling us in sometime in the next month?” Ron snapped.
“Well, we'll need to get into the Slytherin common room and ask Malfoy questions without him realizing it's us.”
Al gave her an annoyed look.
“Okay, we don't have enough control of our powers to just take any form at all, and we can't pass it on to anyone else, so if that's what you were thinking--”
“No, I mean we'll need to brew some Polyjuice Potion.”
“And what, pray tell, is that?”
“It's a potion to transform us into other people. We become three Slytherins, someone Malfoy trusts, and talk the secret out of him.”
“I don't know, Hermione. I don't know how this potion would react with our transformation magic. It could be harmless, but it might interact--”
“You're human, and the potion is for human transformations. Unless you're radically different from other humans on a genetic level, like so different you couldn't have kids, I doubt you'll react with it. You've use other potions before without problems, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Well it should be fine, then.”
“Okay, but I reserve the right to hex you if you're wrong.”
For another hour, they discussed the particulars of the potion. Among other things, they would have to fetch the book from the Restricted Section.
“We'll need a teacher's signature to get in there,” Hermione noted.
“Who is thick enough to sign it without asking us what we want it for?”
Al was idly picking at a spot on his chair when he felt both their eyes on him. He looked up, and saw they were giving him a significant look.
“Oh fucking Hell no,” he said, when he got it. “I'm not going near Lockhart willingly. Neither is Iliana or Harry.”
“So have Zoey do it. She handled him like a dream.”
“Al,” Hermione said, her hand on his. “Please? We need to find out who it is.”
Al glared and gritted his teeth. His eyes went unfocused as the collective had a quick but heated argument internally. When his eyes focused again, he was glaring in a manner similar to Snape.
“We'll do it,” he said. “Or rather, Harry will. I'll be hiding as deeply inside as I can.”
“Oh, thank you, Alastair!”
“Yeah yeah, whatever. I'll get you back for this somehow, though.”
When they went to bed later, Al grumbled, “How the hell do I always get roped into shit I detest?”
End note 1: Google gave me 32 galleons ($150 USD) for the price of Harry's Nimbus 2000, but I have no idea how they came up with that number. Though with something as high quality, long lasting, and important as a wand being only the equivalent of $35, I guess that makes sense. So I made the 2001 be 35 galleons.
End note 2: Yes I know the gypsies are properly called the Roma, but since that's not exactly common knowledge even now, let alone then, I'm assuming Al doesn't know that yet.
Chapter Nine: Rogue Bludgers and Other Dangers
Note: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there.
After much debate, the collective finally decided that Zoey would, indeed, be getting the Lockhart signature. Wanting to get a head start on it, they had Zoey take over and transform before DADA class. This was safe, as Lockhart didn't bring live creatures into class any more after that first debacle with the pixies. Instead he read passages from the books that the collective, Ron, and a few other boys were now pretty sure were a pack of lies, as the darkest creature Lockhart seemed capable of handling was a bowtruckle, and even that was questionable.
Zoey volunteered to help play the part of a werewolf to get him in a good mood, lots of people laughing at her cute “Rawr!” The gambit seemed to pay off, though as Zoey put the permission slip underneath his nose, he seemed hardly to notice what he was signing, with his big peacock-feather quill.
“Well that was super-de-duper easy,” Zoey said, skipping alongside Ron and Hermione. “I think he'll sign anything you give him.”
Ms. Pince was a little harder to convince. She took many minutes trying to find a forgery, but finding none she finally relented and got the book for them, a book called Moste Potente Potions. She seemed very reluctant to let them have it, even after accepting Lockhart's signature, but get it they did.
They adjourned to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, since it was abandoned, and Filch had finally gone back to his usual rounds, giving the horrible place his cat had been attacked a wide berth now. Hermione got out the book and found the pages about the Polyjuice Potion.
I hope those illustrations are artist's creative license and not accurate depictions of the transformation, Al said internally. Because those look very painful.
The potion itself was fiddly, very difficult to make, and would take an entire month to brew. And two of the ingredients were hard to come by: powdered horn of a bicorn, and shredded skin of a boomslang. Ron pointed out that they'd have to steal the ingredients.
Zoey became Al before their eyes, midway through the conversation.
“I don't want to piss off Snape. He'll know we broke in, I just know it. Can't I just owl-order them?”
“First of all, Al,” Hermione started, “we've no idea how long it would take the owl order to come in, we don't know if the apothecary in Diagon Alley carries them, and it's a highly restricted potion, illegal to brew without permission from the Ministry. If you owl-ordered two of the major ingredients for it, especially since we don't know what else these ingredients are used together for, that would look very suspic--”
“Yeah yeah, okay, I get it. We'll have to risk death and dismemberment from Snape to get these ingredients.”
“Good. Because we need to get this started as soon as we can.”
Ron turned to Al. “It'll be a lot less hassle if Iliana can just knock Malfoy off his broom tomorrow.”
~
Iliana felt nervous the next morning, but in a good way. Slytherin had tried wrong-footing them, and she'd turned it around in their favor, leveled the playing field. No cheating from the brooms, anyway; they'd either have to play fairly (HA!) or else cheat some other way. And she was determined not to give them too much opportunity to cheat; she would be finding the snitch as soon as she could.
It didn't help her nerves, though, when she received an owl from Healer Young about her upcoming mind healing session with him. She'd been going to these sessions once every fortnight upon getting to school, but a lot had happened since the last one. No matter how comfortable Healer Young made her feel, there was always the background discomfort of knowing that he would eventually want to go into territory that was still raw and wounded in her mind, and most of the sessions' hours were a tug of war between trying to be comfortable with Healer Young and trying to avoid thinking about those things they were skirting around for now. Because every time she thought too much about... those things... she would have a freakout and end up going into hiding, letting someone else come to the front instead. And she knew running away wasn't going to help anything.
So she shoved the letter away for now, and concentrated on her breakfast, which suddenly tasted like shag carpeting and rubber.
Still struggling with her thoughts and emotions, she finally went down to the pitch and got changed into her Quidditch robes. She barely listened to Wood's pre-game pep talk, either. It wasn't until she was on her broom and in the air that the wonderful sensation of flying filled their shared brain with joy and freedom, that she was able to cast away those thoughts and concentrate on the game.
Madam Hooch counted down, then blew the whistle that started the game. Iliana flew around the rest of the players, sometimes above and sometimes below, looking for that elusive golden ball.
“Alright there, scarhead?” Malfoy taunted as he flew around in his Nimbus 2001. Iliana suspected the fact that she was still using her old Nimbus 2000 was what was giving him this lesser amount of gloating that he was clutching so tightly to. Hers was the only older broom in the whole school's fleet, because she and Harry both loved this broom too much to replace it needlessly.
She didn't have time to say any of this, though, as she barely had time to even think it, due to one of the heavy black Bludgers pelting straight for them. Speeding off in reaction, she felt it whip her hair as it went past.
“Close one, Illiana!” George said, going after the ball to hit it at Slytherin. It flew toward Adrian Pucey at first, then changed direction midair and came for Iliana again.
Not stopping to think about it, she bolted off fast as she could to get away, scared now. That wasn't normal; Bludgers weren't supposed to target any specific player.
For many minutes, Iliana kept trying to get away from the Bludger, making hairpin turns the heavier ball couldn't manage, while Fred and George tried to keep it away from her. And as if that wasn't bad enough, it was raining.
Finally, someone called a time-out. Thankfully, the Bludger didn't pursue her to the ground.
“What's going on?” Wood started. “We're ahead by twenty points, but Slytherin is getting nastier, I don't know how long we can stay ahead. But we'd be doing a lot better if Angelina had been able to score; twice she missed it because of a Bludger. Where have you two been?” he asked the twins.
“We've been concentrating on keeping Iliana alive,” George said angrily. “The other Bludger keeps targeting her, turning in midair. It's been fixed! The Slytherins must figure she had something to do with the school's new brooms,” he said, giving her a knowing look that also looked very concerned.
“But the Bludgers have been locked up in Madam Hooch's office since our last practice, and they were alright then,” Wood pointed out.
“Listen,” Iliana said. “I can't concentrate on finding the snitch with you two buzzing around me. I appreciate you keeping me safe, but I can handle the Bludger.”
In the ensuing argument, one of the twins accused Wood of having told Iliana to catch the snitch or die trying, which Iliana couldn't remember him saying. Then again, she hadn't been listening then, either.
“No, really; I didn't give in when Malfoy cheated his way onto the Slytherin team, I'm not about to let them win this latest volley. Let me handle the rogue Bludger, Oliver. If nothing else, maybe Zoey can turn it into a pillow or something.”
The twins didn't seem pleased by this, but Wood agreed, and soon they were up in the air playing again.
The game became a complicated dance of zigging, zagging, and other tricks for Iliana, anything to get away from the Bludger and give herself time to look for the snitch as well. The crowd, seemingly oblivious to the danger, laughed at her antics, but she barely noticed, being too intent on surviving.
Then, as it whistled past her head once more after a stupid midair twirl to avoid it, she heard Malfoy speak.
“Training for the ballet, Potter?”
She glared at Malfoy in hatred, and as she did, she saw the snitch. It was right by the blond git's left ear, and he was too busy taunting her to notice. Stuck in a moment of indecision, she had paused just a little too –
WHAM!
Someone was screaming. It was her; the Bludger had broken her arm at the elbow. She fought down the pain and rushed Malfoy, who thought she was attacking him.
“What the---”
Iliana took her remaining hand off the broom and made a wild grab for the snitch, grabbing it. She bolted for the ground, trying to get away from the Bludger. She hit the mud with a splat, and passed out.
She came around a bit later, rain in her face, and saw a lot of glittering teeth.
“No, not you!”
“Doesn't know what she's saying,” Lockhart said to the Griffindors pressing around them. “Not to worry, Iliana, I'm about to fix your arm.”
“No. No need. Zoey will fix it. Once I get enough... energy...”
ZOEY! HURRY! BEFORE---
But it was too late. Lockhart pointed his wand at her arm, said an incantation, and suddenly the pain went away. But her arm felt very weird, like rubber.
“You bloody moron!” she screamed at him, punching him in the nose with her remaining arm. He yowled, his nose bleeding, and ran from the scene.
Heh, good one. Now he is a bloody moron, literally, Al thought.
Colin Creevy snapped a photo of her as she lay there, her arm like Jello.
“How many times do I have to tell you I don't like my photo taken, Colin?” she snapped irritably at him. She didn't get to find out his response, though, because he was being moved out of the way by others, who needed to help her get to the hospital wing.
~
Madam Pomfrey was not pleased. “You should have come to me straight away. Mending bones I can do in a trice. Regrowing them, though...”
“It's not our fault. It was that idiot, Lockhart. You will be able to regrow them, won't you?” Iliana wasn't sure Zoey could have mended the break, and was even less sure about regrowing bones.
“Yes, it can be done. But it'll be very painful. You're in for a long night, and because I'm not sure how it will affect things, you should try not to transform.”
“Lovely. An overnight stay, lots of pain, and no transforming. Understood. What do I need to do?”
“Here, drink this,” she said, handing Iliana a dose of something called Skele-Grow.
Iliana drank some, and had to fight the urge to spit it out or vomit, it tasted so foul. She did manage to get it all, though.
“That tastes the way Dudley's sweat socks smelled. Or worse.”
Luckily, she had her friends to distract her from the pain that was starting up in her arm. Ron and Hermione talked about the catch, the Bludger, and Malfoy's face when his team captain berated him for missing the snitch right by his head. It made Iliana feel better. Naturally, it didn't last; Madam Pomfrey eventually made them leave, leaving her with nothing to distract herself but an internal conversation.
I hope that git was in a lot of pain when you broke his nose.
Me too. But did you see him in the other bed earlier? A simple spell and he was alright again. Thank goodness Madam Pomfrey kept him away from us.
I wonder if there's a way to make him feel the pain this potion is causing us?
If there is, I suspect it's illegal.
Oh?
Yes. A curse to cause pain would be a torture spell. I would sure hope that wasn't legal.
Point. Maybe we can just return the favor. I think I heard the spell he used.
Forget it, Al. There's no telling what that spell was intended to do, or that it would work the same way twice. Maybe Zoey can jinx his shoes together later.
The conversation tapered off a little, then. They sent each other images of Lockhart being turned into a slug, or being given feathers, or his beautiful face being hexed with terrible swelling or something, until the pain finally lessened enough that they slid into sleep.
Hours later, they awoke in the dark, their arm hurting. But what woke them instead was giant eyes staring at them. Triggered by this, Iliana tried to scream, but Dobby put his hand on her mouth and tried shushing her. She fought her way away from him, curling her knees up under her, hyperventilating.
“Dobby is sorry for waking Miss, and sorrier still for scaring Miss.”
When she finally started to calm down, she asked shakily, “What are you doing here, Dobby?”
“Dobby is wanting to ask Miss the same question. Dobby warned Miss not to come to Hogwarts, why did Miss not listen?”
“Because, if you recall, the protection of my mother's blood is broken now, and Hogwarts is the safest place to be, with Dumbledore here.”
Dobby flapped his ears, he shook his head so hard. “No, Miss! Miss is wrong. Hogwarts is where the danger is. Miss should be far away from here. Why did Miss not stay away when she is missing the train?”
She glowered at him. “Oh, so we were right about you being the cause of the barrier not working.”
“Indeed, yes. Dobby is hiding and waiting to stop the barrier, thinking this is keeping Miss and company from danger, but later Dobby is hearing you found a way around it. Dobby is so shocked, he let his master's dinner burn. Such a flogging Dobby never had, Miss...”
I can't tell if he's being genuinely miserable or if he's manipulating us. I guess my heart reading doesn't work so well on non-humans, Al said to Iliana. Though I am certain he's genuinely trying to keep us alive.
“That's horrible, Dobby. They shouldn't do that to you.”
“Dobby thought his bludger would be---”
Al seized control of the body but didn't transform it. “Oh, so you're the reason that thing tried to kill me, are you?”
Missing the change in tone to Al entirely, Dobby said, “Not kill you, Miss, never kill you.”
“Just maimed enough to have to go home, is that it? Did it ever occur to you that such might leave me helpless and at someone else's mercy? Even if I had no chance of winning, I'd rather die fighting than just let Voldemort kill me like shooting fish in a barrel.”
Dobby shuddered at the name, of course, and looked about to speak, but paused, thinking a bit, before continuing, “Dobby is not thinking of that, Miss. And for that, Dobby is sorry. Miss is so brave, and Dobby is so sad. But Dobby is sadder if Miss is killed.”
His eyes watered, and he blew his nose on the pillowcase he was wearing. Al/liana pulled a face.
“Why do you wear that disgusting thing, Dobby?”
“This, Miss? Tis a mark of a house elf's enslavement. Dobby can only be freed if his master presents him with proper clothes, Miss, which master will never do.”
“Are you at least going to let me in on why you want me sent home in pieces?”
“Oh, if only you knew, Miss! If only you knew!” Dobby wailed, giant tears going down his front. “If she knew what she means to us, to the lowly, the enslaved, we dregs of the magical world! Dobby remembers how it was when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was at the height of his powers, Miss! We house-elves were treated like vermin, Miss! Of course, Dobby is still treated like that, Miss,” he admitted, drying his face on the pillowcase. “But mostly, Miss, life has improved for my kind since you triumphed over He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Harry Potter survived, and the Dark Lord’s power was broken, and it was a new dawn, Miss, and Harry Potter shone like a beacon of hope for those of us who thought the Dark days would never end, Miss, and still you do, even more. … And now, at Hogwarts, terrible things are to happen, are perhaps happening already, and Dobby cannot let the Potters stay here now that history is to repeat itself, now that the Chamber of Secrets is open once more--”
Dobby froze, horror-struck, and grabbed an empty water jug, beating himself about the head with it.
Iliana tried to stop him hitting himself, but Al wouldn't let go control of her arms.
Damn it, Al, let me stop him!
He's responsible for breaking our arm, nearly killing us. Good intentions or not, I'm willing to let him carry on a bit.
This made Iliana so angry at Al that she finally got control of her body back, and rescued Dobby from his self-harming.
Al, he's a SLAVE and he was being magically induced to hurt himself, and you would have had me just stand there and not stop him? Are you really that cruel?
Al didn't respond in words, but she could sense his shame, so she concentrated on Dobby instead.
“So this Chamber of Secrets is real, then? And you say it's been opened before? Tell me, Dobby, please. Forewarned is forearmed, and knowledge is power, after all.”
Dobby struggled against her grip, pleading with her. “Ask no more, Miss, ask no more of poor Dobby! Dark deeds are planned in this place, and you must go anywhere away from here, go abroad, get away from the danger!”
“If you could offer any help on who's planning it or how, that would help us so maybe we could stop it before it got really bad. Honestly, I'm not Muggle-born, so if it's the heir of Slytherin, I should be safe.”
“Dobby can't say, Miss! Dobby can't!”
“Who opened it last time?”
Dobby shook his head violently, still fighting to get out of her grip.
If we're in danger despite being wizard-born, that kind of implies the heir has a grudge against us. Which would suggest Moldywart, but Dobby already said it wasn't him.
No, Harry replied. What he said was it didn't have anything with 'he who must not be named.'
So we're back to 'Voldemort' being a pseudonym? But we don't know who he was before. Do we know anyone who might know his real name?
“Dobby, you said before it wasn't to do with He Who Must Not Be Named. Al thinks you meant that the name he now goes by is fake. Is there some way we can find out his true name?”
“Dobby can't, Miss! Miss must go far away from here!”
“We have friends here, Dobby. One of my best friends is Muggle born. We're not going anywhere. We're not leaving them to this heir of Slytherin, whoever it is. Especially not if it's Voldemort.”
“The Potters risk their own lives for their friends! So noble, so valiant. But they must save themselves! The Potters must not---”
Dobby suddenly froze, his bat ears quivering. Iliana heard it, too. There were footsteps coming down the passageway outside.
“Dobby must go!” breathed the elf, terrified. There was a loud crack, and Iliana's fist was suddenly clenched on thin air. She slumped back into bed, her eyes on the dark doorway to the hospital wing as the footsteps drew nearer.
Next moment, Dumbledore was backing into the dormitory, wearing a long woolly dressing gown and a nightcap. He was carrying one end of what looked like a statue. Professor McGonagall appeared a second later, carrying its feet. Together, they heaved it onto a bed.
Iliana and the others listened as the teachers moved around and spoke in hushed tones. She fought back tears when she found out Colin was the statue, that he'd been attacked while trying to bring her food, that he had apparently forgiven her for her earlier outburst at him. She listened, and heard the hiss of steam from Colin's ruined camera; he had not managed to get a photo of his attacker, then.
“Melted,” said Madam Pomfrey in wonder. “What does this mean?”
“It means,” Dumbledore said, “that the Chamber of Secrets has indeed been opened again.”
“But Albus,” Professor McGonagall asked, “surely... who?”
“The question is not who. The question is how.”
By the sounds Iliana heard them making, none of the other adults knew what he meant. But she did.
He knows it's Voldemort, Al said in their mind. Does he know who Voldy was before? We should ask him.
~
Finding Dumbledore to ask him about Voldemort, however, was more difficult than just needing to. When Iliana left the hospital wing the next morning, she found she had no idea where his office was, and he didn't exactly wander the halls. In fact, aside from mealtimes, nobody in the collective had really seen Dumbledore out of his office. There'd been the Mirror of Erised, the time he'd come to the Quidditch game, the time after... after she saved the Philosopher's Stone, and then twice because of this whole Chamber business.
It wasn't like she could just ask someone either, without a good reason. She would have to explain about Dobby, which might get him into trouble, and explain how they'd worked out what he'd meant, and they weren't even sure they had the right answer despite Dumbledore's words the night before. And the last time they'd tried to talk to Dumbledore about something important, Professor McGonagall had waylaid them.
So it was that she found herself in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom instead, trying to explain to Ron and Hermione what they'd figured out, and trying not to laugh at the sight of a cauldron and a fire inside of a toilet.
“You reckon it's You-Know-Who again?” Ron asked dubiously. “I dunno, Iliana. You already took care of him last year. He can't have found a new... a new person to share a body with already, can he? We've only got one new teacher, too, and Lockhart doesn't even wear a wizard's hat most of the time, it musses his hair. He's so vain, I can't see him risking his good looks to have You-Know-Who sticking out the back of his skull.”
“Yes, well, Dumbledore doesn't know how, either, as I said. I wanted to ask Dumbledore if he knew about Vol--- okay fine, Moldywart's past. But I'm certain his name is fake. In fact... something about Moldywart's nom de guerre sounds familiar. Like I should know its meaning or origin somehow.”
“Nom de guerre?” Ron asked.
“It means 'name of war,'” Hermione explained. “You've heard of 'nom de plume' in reference to writers' pseudonyms, haven't you?”
“Yeah.”
“Same thing, but for battle, for war. To make yourself sound more impressive.”
Ron chuckled. “Yeah, I'll bet You-Know-Who's real name is something stupid, like Thomas Q. Throckwaddle the fourth. Bet he got teased for it all the time, and that's why he's an evil git.”
Hermione shuddered. “You-Know-Who, at school. I can't even imagine.”
“Yeah,” Ron nodded gravely. “You-Know-Who as a kid. Hard to believe he didn't just pop out from under a rock somewhere, fully formed. But he's human, so far as we know, which means he had to have a childhood. Wonder where he went to school?”
“Well if Iliana's right, and he was the one who opened the Chamber before, it had to have been Hogwart's he went to.”
“Bloody Hell. And his name could've been anything.”
“If we're right,” Iliana said, “this takes both of the Malfoys out of the running. We know Mr. Malfoy was one of his followers, and he's a school governor, so it can't have been him. He and Moldy are two different people.”
Hermione paused her stirring and looked pensive.
“That doesn't mean,” she said, “that Malfoy couldn't have sneaked something dangerous into the castle, though. We know You-Know-Who can inhabit living beings, but he doesn't have to. He could've been brought in in a box, and inhabited someone once inside.”
Ron went pale all of a sudden. “What if he's... what if he's inhabiting the monster?”
The other two went pale at this as well.
In a tremulous voice, Iliana finally said, “Well... that would explain how he was controlling it.”
“But how did he control it before? When he was a kid, I mean?”
Ron shrugged. “Maybe he inherited some kind of magical monster-charming flute or something from his parents.”
Iliana opened her mouth to say something, but suddenly Moaning Myrtle flew in, looking like she wanted their attention.
“Sorry to interrupt you, I know you're having a lovely time boiling foul potions in my bathroom and all, but the teachers are looking for Iliana, and they're starting to sound quite alarmed.”
“Shite! My session with Healer Young! I forgot all about it!” Iliana jumped up and bolted out of the room, careful to not get seen by Myrtle's bathroom.
Several minutes later, she ran to the front entrance, out of breath. “Sorry, Healer Young, I forgot about our session in all the hubbub.”
The older man smiled understandingly at her. “Understandable, my dear. I was just speaking with Dumbledore, and he updated me on it all. Which reminds me...” he trailed off, and used his wand to shoot something silvery out of it, something that looked a little like an animal, but they didn't get a good look at it, as it was bolting down the hall at an incredible speed, and they didn't see where it went.
“What was that?”
“Oh, just sending a message to the teachers, so they'll stop worrying about you. Anyway, the same spot as usual again, m'dear.”
The spot he spoke of was an unused classroom on the first floor, that Healer Young charmed to give them privacy as they spoke. She sat down and waited for him to finish the charms. As she did, she couldn't help looking at the back of his head. She was more relieved than she could express that he looked normal. That didn't mean he was entirely out of the running, of course.
She hated these thoughts, because she trusted him. But she had trusted Quirrell, too, and... well, that hadn't worked out so well.
Iliana clenched her teeth, her whole body tensing up. There they were, already, the thoughts she didn't want to think about. The images she didn't want to see again danced on the edges of her consciousness, teasing her like malevolent monkeys. A man screaming in agony, a man falling to the ground, dead. The light in his eyes going out.
As the world went blurry with tears, she dug her fingernails into the palm of her hand. The pain helped focus her thoughts away from things she didn't want to focus on.
“What's the matter, Iliana?” Healer Young asked softly.
“Nothing,” she lied as she dried her eyes out with her sleeve. “Got something in my eye.”
Healer Young didn't look like he believed her, but didn't press the issue. When Iliana got her emotions under control again, she gave him a sign that she was ready. He nodded, and sat down across from her.
Talking with him this time was a lot harder than usual. He asked her questions, and she mostly just sat there, trying to figure out what – if anything – to say. Finally, she settled on talking about things to do with the Chamber.
“The Chamber of Secrets is open,” she said quietly. “I suppose Dumbledore told you that.”
“Yes, he did.”
“So far a cat was attacked. Then last night... last night, Colin Creevy got attacked.”
Sensing something in her tone, he asked, “Did you know Mr. Creevy?”
“Not well. He's starstruck by me. A bit odd, seeing as he's Muggle born, but there we are all the same. He keeps trying to get photos of me. And... did you hear about the Quidditch match?”
“A bludger broke your arm, as I understand.”
“Yes. And Colin took a photo of me after Lockhart accidentally removed all the bones in my arm.”
She paused, not really wanting to go on.
“Would I be correct to guess that you told young Mr. Creevy off?”
She nodded.
Healer Young waited.
“I snapped at him. Asked how many times I had to tell him I don't like my photo taken before he figured it out. That was the last thing I said to him, before... before...”
She wiped her eyes again, and sniffed, looking anywhere but at the Healer.
“And they said he was bringing grapes to the hospital wing. They said he was trying to bring them to me. So he forgave me, I guess.”
“He forgave you for losing your cool in a heated moment. He sounds like a kind young man. I don't know about you, but I think it sounds like he'd want you to forgive yourself, too.”
She glared at empty air, her emotions mixing weirdly; it didn't help, either, that the emotions of the others in the collective were blending in with hers and confusing her. She'd read about MPD before, or Harry had. They thought they'd known what it was like. But this... this was like some strange hybrid between MPD and being normal. The lines between them were blurry, and yet not blurry enough, given their condition. There shouldn't be lines, but there were. And they all knew they didn't want that to change, confusing as it was.
And now, where she was feeling sad before, now she was feeling angry. Angrier than she'd ever felt before. An anger that scared her.
“I DON'T KNOW!” she burst out. “I DON'T KNOW WHAT HE'D WANT ME TO DO, BECAUSE HE ISN'T HERE ANYMORE! HE'S DEAD AND...”
She froze. That isn't what she'd meant to say.
“Mister Creevy isn't dead, he's petrified,” Healer Young said gently. “Once he's given a Mandrake Restorative Draught, he'll be fine again. But you weren't talking about Mr. Creevy, were you?”
Iliana ran for the door, and tried to escape. But the door wouldn't open. She pounded on the door, screaming at it.
“LET ME OUT! LET ME GO! I'M DANGEROUS!”
Healer Young made no move from his seat, just watched her scream and cry at the door. He watched her slump to the ground, to her knees, where what she was saying began to change.
“LET ME IN! LET ME BACK IN! ZOEY POTTER, I'M WARNING YOU! LET ME IN NOW!”
But there was no glow of transformation. There was only more screaming, more frustration, and more tears.
Finally, Healer Young got up and walked over to her. He squatted down to get closer to where she lay, in the fetal position, crying.
“You can't run from your emotions, Iliana. And it sounds like Zoey understands this. She's making you face them, come to terms with them, because bottling up your feelings makes them get worse; it makes them get stronger, the way bottled grape juice becomes wine.”
The rest of the session consisted of Iliana crying, crying until she ran out of tears, and just lay there in a quiet torpor that belied the chaos in her brain. She didn't even have the others, anymore; they'd scurried off to some dark corner of their shared mind to wait out the storm. Knowing they'd be back helped, a little, but she felt more alone now than ever before.
~
It took her two more hours to calm down enough to shakily pull herself up to her feet. Healer Young said something to her about progress and their next session, but she couldn't hear it very well past the rushing sound in her ears. Just standing on her own without holding onto something made her feel dizzy and way too tall. But somehow, she made it to the Great Hall and sat down to lunch.
People tried talking to her, but she didn't respond. She looked so distraught, her eyes still puffy from crying, that they didn't press the issue. They just let her stare at her soup, taking occasional half-hearted bites that more often than not ended up back in the bowl, her hands shook so much.
~
It didn't take long for news of Colin being petrified to spread. And Iliana was not the only one distraught by the news; Ginny Weasley, too, looked just as upset as Iliana, who was still being forced to stay Out by the others. She and Ginny were both doing very good impressions of Moaning Myrtle, an impression that Iliana didn't come out of at all until she caught Fred and George – covered in boils and hair – jumping out at Ginny from behind a statue in an ill-advised attempt to cheer her up. Iliana ended up shouting so loudly at them in her rage that Filch came trumping along to find out what the matter was, and she stormed off before he could give her a detention.
Percy Weasley also yelled at the twins for this, and threatened to write home to their mother and tell her that Ginny was having nightmares. Iliana didn't blame her; she was having her own nightmares. This in itself was nothing new, but now Colin was in them, not just Quirrell. She even had one dream where Colin was sticking out the back of Quirrell's head, shouting about how it was her fault he was dead, and that he was going to get his revenge from beyond the grave. After that one, Iliana didn't sleep at all for the next several nights.
Even Neville was worried; though a pureblood, he was almost a squib, and the heir didn't seem to like squibs any better than they liked Muggles and Muggle-borns.
~
In the second week of December, McGonagall collected the names of the people staying at Hogwarts. Iliana was staying, of course, as she really didn't have anywhere else to go. Ron and Hermione signed the list, too, but the three of them were some of the few to do so, understandably.
Because of the possibility of Draco knowing something, even if it seemed like he wasn't the Heir, they were going ahead with the plan. Iliana was glad for this, as it gave her something to distract herself with.
The potion was only half done, though; they hadn't yet gotten the last ingredients.
“What we need is a diversion,” Hermione said. “Then we can sneak into Snape's office and take what we need.”
Iliana and Ron looked nervously at one another.
“I think I'd better do the actual stealing,” Hermione continued. “Snape pays far too much attention to you two for it to escape his notice you've slipped out. He'd never suspect me of it, though, as I have a clean record. So you two will just have to keep him busy with something for five minutes or so while I grab what we need.”
Iliana nodded mutely, feeling a little ill. Deliberately cause mayhem in Snape's class? She didn't think looking like her mum would save her from his wrath if he found out she'd done that. But she agreed anyway.
That Thursday's Potions lesson, Iliana was so worried about the planned mayhem that she almost melted her cauldron. It didn't help that Zoey and the others were having a discussion Inside without her. A discussion that was also about her.
She's so nervous, she's gonna give us away, argued Al. One of us needs to take her place.
But how? Asked Harry. Snape will spot the glow when we transform. And seizing control of her body might not work well enough.
Hmm... now you mention it, that glow is a tactical disadvantage. What if we needed to transform in a dark room, when an enemy like Moldywart might see us?
Don't worry! I'll give it a try!
Before they could stop her, Zoey pulled Iliana back In, and then concentrated very hard. When Snape was looking away, she did it; there were a couple false starts where a small amount of light came out, but finally – her entire Will focused on the task – the body shrunk without making any light. Zoey sat there, sweating from the effort. Everyone else was so intent on their potions that nobody appeared to have noticed her change.
She nudged Ron to get his attention, then did the same for Hermione. Once she had their attention, she managed to communicate with them about the plan via very subtle mime. They nodded, understanding that it was time.
With Snape's attention still elsewhere, Zoey screwed up her concentration again, using her wandless magic to make Goyle's cauldron explode, showering the whole class with Swelling Solution. People shrieked as splashes of the Swelling Solution hit them. Malfoy got a faceful and his nose began to swell like a balloon; Goyle blundered around, his hands over his eyes, which had expanded to the size of a dinner plate — Snape was trying to restore calm and find out what had happened. Through the confusion, Zoey saw Hermione slip quietly into Snape’s office. Ducking behind something, she switched back to Iliana, whose expression of horror fit perfectly into the chaos.
Snape yelled for silence, vowing to get whoever was responsible, something Iliana didn't hear because Zoey started singing the Piña Colada song at top volume in their head the moment Snape opened his mouth to speak. This so vexed Iliana that her expression remained believable to the situation even when Snape – after having Deflated everyone – stared right into her eyes as though determined to find wrong-doing. Iliana didn't even notice he was staring at her, she was so distracted and confused, though the others did.
Ten minutes later, they were in Myrtle's bathroom again, Hermione adding the ingredients she'd stolen.
“It'll be ready in two weeks,” she said happily.
~
The next week, Hermione, Ron, and Al (the collective had taken pity on Iliana at last) were walking across the entrance hall when they spotted a bunch of people reading a notice on the notice board. They went up to investigate, and saw it was a notice about a new Dueling Club.
“Good idea,” Al said. “Given how much Moldy wants us dead, we could use some dueling practice.”
“Yeah, and being your friends, we should do it, too. You-Know-Who's bound to go after us, too, eventually,” Ron said. “Though I don't know what good it'd do against Slytherin's monster.”
At 8 o'clock that evening, they all congregated in the Great Hall, where the Dueling Club was to be located. The long dining tables were gone, and a golden stage had been set up against one wall.
“I wonder who's teaching us? Someone said Flitwick was a dueling champion in his youth.”
“As long as it isn't... oh Hell.” Al said, groaning. Lockhart had stepped onto the stage, followed by Snape. The man's gaze searched the room and found Al with a grimace of hatred. Al frowned back at the man; though he was sure Snape hadn't suspected them at the time, Snape had been keeping an extra eye on them ever since the day after the cauldron explosion, so he seemed to suspect they'd stolen from his office, somehow.
Well two can play that game, Al thought, deciding to observe Snape as much as he could from now on. The man was so hard to read with his heart-reading ability that it couldn't hurt to see if scientific observation could help. Zoey sent him an image of her dilligently writing notes down on paper, which made the corners of his mouth twitch in response.
Lockhart waved an arm for silence and called, “Gather round, gather round! Can everyone see me? Can you all hear me? Excellent!
“Now, Professor Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this little dueling club, to train you all in case you ever need to defend yourselves as I myself have done on countless occasions — for full details, see my published works.
“Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape,” said Lockhart, flashing a wide smile. “He tells me he knows a tiny little bit about dueling himself and has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration before we begin. Now, I don’t want any of you youngsters to worry — you’ll still have your Potions master when I’m through with him, never fear!”
“Hey, maybe Snape will kill Lockhart for us. Wouldn't that be a hoot?” Al whispered at Ron.
Snape's upper lip curled. He looked like he didn't want to wait much longer to kill Lockhart. But Lockhart was, of course, oblivious.
Lockhart and Snape turned to face each other and bowed; at least, Lockhart did, with much twirling of his hands, whereas Snape jerked his head irritably. Then they raised their wands like swords in front of them.
“As you see, we are holding our wands in the accepted combative position,” Lockhart told the silent crowd. “On the count of three, we will cast our first spells. Neither of us will be aiming to kill, of course.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that,” Al murmured, watching Snape baring his teeth.
“One, two, three!”
Both of them swung their wands above their heads and pointed them at their opponent; Snape cried: “Expelliarmus!” There was a dazzling flash of scarlet light and Lockhart was blasted off his feet: He flew backward off the stage, smashed into the wall, and slid down it to sprawl on the floor.
Some of the Slytherins cheered. Al frowned. It really was hard to decide who to root for. He didn't like either of these men.
“You think he's alright?” Hermione asked.
“Who cares?” Al and Ron said in stereo.
Lockhart bleated on some more like a confused goat, the gist of which was they'd be having the kids pair up to try it. Snape got to Al before he could pair with Ron. The batlike man grimaced the special, extra-hateful grimace always reserved for Al, and then paired Al with Malfoy, and Hermione with a Slytherin girl called Millicent Bulstrode.
Far from being annoyed, though, Al grinned. “Good. Love a good challenge.”
Malfoy strutted over, smirking. Al smirked right back at him. This, along with Al's height, gave the Slytherin boy a slight pause.
“Intimidated, Malfoy?”
“You wish, Potter.”
“Face your partners,” called Lockhart, “and bow.”
Al and Malfoy barely even nodded at one another.
“On the count of three, disarm only. Only to disarm them. We don't want any accidents.”
Al snorted. He already knew Malfoy wouldn't be abiding by that rule. The little twerp never met a rule he wouldn't break if he thought he could get away with it.
“Wands at the ready! When I count to three. One, two--”
Malfoy started at two, something Al had read in his body language, and jumped out of the way just in time. Wasting no time, he shot a 'Rictumsempra' hex at Malfoy, knocking the boy over with silver light, the wind knocked out of him.
“I said disarm only!” shouted Lockhart, as Malfoy sunk to his knees. The Tickling Hex had him laughing so hard he couldn't move. But Al remained wary, just in case.
Gasping for breath, Malfoy tried shooting a spell at Al's knees, but Al jumped aside again and shot another spell at Malfoy, which knocked him onto his back.
“Stop! Stop!”
Snape sneered at Lockhart, and took charge. He undid the Tickling Hex and helped Malfoy to his feet.
The room was full of a haze of green smoke. Ron's old and decrepit wand was the source, and Ron was apologizing to Seamus for whatever it had done. Hermione was being held in a headlock by Millicent; Al went over to pull them apart, but that was difficult; though bigger than his peers in Griffindor, Millicent – also in his year – was the same size as him.
Then the pompous prat Lockhart tried teaching them the shield charm, and did so badly he dropped his wand. But of course, he pretended like his wand had gotten overexcited.
Tis a poor workman who blames his tools, Harry quoted. Al nodded.
Al and Malfoy got paired up to demonstrate this spell further. Al was annoyed; shown how to do it by a competent teacher, he would have had no problem with the shield charm. As it was, there was no way he could do the spell until he saw somebody else do it, and Snape wasn't being so helpful.
In fact, Snape seemed to be helping Malfoy, by whispering something in his ear. Al frowned; he knew this couldn't be good.
They got in place, and Lockhart counted down again. On three, Malfoy raised his wand and shouted, “Serpentsortia.”
The end of his wand exploded, and out came a long black snake, looking poised to strike. Al stared at it, thunderstruck. He knew of only one way to deal with a snake, and he didn't dare do it here.
“Don't move, Potter, I'll get it for you,” Snape said.
“Allow me,” said Lockhart.
As though time were slowing down, Al watched in horror, too slow to stop the idiot, as the man did some spell that threw the snake into the air and made it land with an angry slap on the ground. The snake, frightened and angry, rounded on the closest available person, and Al – without thinking – shouted, 'DOWN!' at the snake, even gesturing downward for emphasis. 'LEAVE HIM BE!'
At his tone, the snake turned to look at him, then slumped down meekly. It made no more move, even as Snape destroyed it with his wand. But now the cat was out of the bag. And by the look of it, his emphatic gesture hadn't helped.
“Well everyone don't thank me for saving Justin's life all at once,” he said.
“What do you think you're playing at?” shouted Justin, looking terrified.
“Gee, I could've sworn that was English that time. I just saved your life, you prat. You're welcome.”
Snape, too, was looking at Al strangely. It was a shrewd and calculating look. Al wanted to return the look, but now he was beginning to notice the ominous muttering.
“Bugger,” he said.
“Come on, let's get out of here,” Ron said in his ear. Al didn't resist. The idiots were going to think whatever they wanted, the truth be buggered.
Ron and Hermione dragged him through the crowd of people who were giving him a wide berth, and didn't stop dragging him until they were all three alone in the Griffindor common room.
“You're a Parselmouth. Why didn't you tell us?”
“Gee, you find out from Dumbledore that Zoey being able to ask a grass snake about its day and get an intelligible answer back means you have a rare gift that makes people think you're evil, wow... I can't think of a single reason why I wouldn't tell anyone about that, can you?” Al said, his words oozing sarcasm.
“You've done it before?”
“Yeah. Remember I told you I set a whole bunch of snakes loose on Dudley's birthday? Well I guess I was doing it then. And we've done it in secret with Aqua.”
“You talk with your pet snake?”
“Uh huh. And before I set all those snakes loose at the zoo, I'd been talking with a boa constrictor about its origins, and it was responding. Well, not with words. Might've done, though, if Dudley hadn't pushed me to the ground. I went a bit mad with power at that, started shouting 'Be free, my pretties' as all the reptiles in the zoo escaped. Sicced them on Dudley and my aunt and uncle, too, before I ran off.”
Ron nodded absent-mindedly, as though unsure what to say to that. Finally, though, he spoke again.
“What did you say to that snake, just now?”
“I said 'DOWN!' and 'LEAVE HIM BE!' And, as you saw, it backed down. But nobody else seemed to notice that. Wait... do tell me you noticed that?”
“Yeah, kinda. But I was a bit distracted by hearing you hiss and spit without drawing breath. That was downright creepy; no wonder Justin panicked.”
Al nodded. “Uh huh. But you know, I wonder why it sounds like that, anyway? Snakes can't hear very well, they mostly hear through their bellies. So that hissing and spitting can't really be their language. It's not what I hear when they speak to me, anyway. Maybe it just sounds that way to humans because it's what we expect it to sound like, and it's more like... magical inter-species telepathy?”
“What's telepathy?”
“It's direct mind-to-mind communication.”
“Oh. Well anyway, is this really the time to dissect Parseltongue? Your secret's out, and now the whole school probably thinks you're the Heir of Slytherin.”
“What? Why's that?”
“You mean you don't know? Slytherin was famous for being a Parselmouth. That's why his house's symbol is a snake.”
“Oh lovely. I... wait a minute... Slytherin was a Parselmouth?”
“That's what I just said, isn't it?”
“Slytherin could speak with snakes?”
“Well yeah.”
“I wonder if the monster is some kind of magical snake monster, then?”
The two of them blinked at him. Then Hermione slapped herself on the head.
“That makes so much sense! Al, didn't you say you lot heard a scary voice? And you were following it when we found Mrs. Norris. What if you were hearing the monster speaking?”
“Or whoever's controlling it,” Ron added.
“That makes sense. Now, do we know of any magical snake creatures?”
At this, Hermione faltered. “Well, no. I mean, there's the ashwinder, a snake that forms in magical fires that have been left to burn unchecked, but it doesn't do anything at all like this creature does. It just lays its eggs and dies. Only the eggs are dangerous; if they hatch, they burn houses down.”
“Well there were scorch marks on the floor by Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.”
“Yes, Al, but nothing else fits. We're going to have to look in the library to try to find it.”
“Okay, guys, great. But Al and the others are still going to be thought of as Slytherin's Heir.”
“But I'm not!”
“You could be. He died a thousand years ago. You'll have an awful hard time proving you're not.”
~
They lay in bed that night, tossing and turning for hours, unable to stop thinking. They didn't want to be related to Slytherin, but if Al had had his way under the Sorting Hat, they would be in Slytherin now.
Al would just have to explain to Justin later in Herbology, if that would do any good, even though any idiot could have seen he'd saved Justin's life, and been grateful.
~
This did not turn out as planned, however; for the next morning they awoke to find there'd been a blizzard so bad that Herbology was cancelled. Al spent a long time by the Griffindor fire angry about Justin's stupidity, everyone's stupidity, and finally Hermione told him to go find Justin to explain. Not wanting to stay there and stew anymore, Al went to the library to look for Justin.
What he found, instead, were a bunch of Hufflepuffs having a secretive discussion. He hid, and eavesdropped.
“So anyway,” a stout boy was saying, “I told Justin to hide up in our dormitory. I mean to say, if Potter’s marked him down as his next victim, it’s best if he keeps a low profile for a while. Of course, Justin’s been waiting for something like this to happen ever since he let slip to Potter he was Muggle-born. Justin actually told him he’d been down for Eton. That’s not the kind of thing you bandy about with Slytherin’s heir on the loose, is it?”
“You definitely think it is Potter, then, Ernie?” said a girl with blonde pigtails anxiously.
“Hannah,” said the stout boy solemnly, “he’s a Parselmouth. Everyone knows that’s the mark of a Dark wizard. Have you ever heard of a decent one who could talk to snakes? They called Slytherin himself Serpent-tongue.”
There was some heavy murmuring at this, and Ernie went on, “Remember what was written on the wall? Enemies of the Heir, Beware. Potter had some sort of run-in with Filch. Next thing we know, Filch’s cat’s attacked. That first year, Creevey, was annoying Iliana at the Quidditch match, taking pictures of her while she was lying in the mud. Next thing we know — Creevey’s been attacked.”
“They always seem so nice, though,” said Hannah uncertainly, “Iliana and Harry, anyway. That Alastair has a bit of a sarcastic mouth on him, but otherwise seems okay. And Iliana was so distraught about Colin.”
“I heard she wasn't crying until later in the day, or looked like she'd been crying. She was in the hospital wing, surely she would have known before anyone else that Colin was in there. So I don't think she was crying about him.”
“Now that's not fair, Ernie. Maybe she was in shock before. Not everyone grieves the same way; I had a cousin who didn't cry for their grandmother until a whole two weeks after she'd died.”
“Hannah, why would she be crying over him anyway? She barely knew the kid.”
Hannah didn't have an answer for this. Instead, she said, “Well, they're the ones who made You-Know-Who disappear. They can’t be all bad, can they?”
Ernie lowered his voice mysteriously, the Hufflepuffs bent closer, and Al edged nearer so that he could catch Ernie’s words.
“No one knows how he survived that attack by You-Know-Who. I mean to say, he was only a baby when it happened. He should have been blasted into smithereens. Only a really powerful Dark wizard could have survived a curse like that.” He dropped his voice until it was barely more than a whisper, and said, “That’s probably why You-Know-Who wanted to kill him in the first place. Didn’t want another Dark Lord competing with him. Then there's that whole thing of transforming into other people. And I've heard some stories about people with multiple personalities. You can't trust them, there's usually an evil one in the mix somewhere. Besides, I wonder what other powers Potter’s been hiding?”
He couldn't take it anymore. Stepping forward, he said, “Actually, it was my mother and father dying to protect me, that saved my life. I don't know all the details myself, but Dumbledore says it's powerful magic, sacrificing yourself for another.”
The way they all looked, you'd think he was a monster shouting Woogedy Boogedy at them.
“First of all,” he said, walking slowly towards them. “That whole 'evil alters' thing is a load of shit. It's just that the whole 'I'm not responsible for murdering that man, it was my evil altar' thing is a popular defense. But it's right up there with 'evil twin,' 'the devil made me do it, and 'it wasn't me, it was the one armed man' as excuses. Meaning that I'm sure at least 95% of the idiots claiming that defense are liars and aren't Multiples at all.
“So whatever you think you know about Multiples is most assuredly rubbish. Especially if you're believing tripe about evil alters. We're people, we're no more or less likely to be evil than anyone else. And less so, given that we can hear one another's thoughts and feel each other's feelings.”
“You were listening to our private conversation, then?”
“Well I was here to speak with Justin Finch-Fletchley, but found you were talking loud enough for anyone to hear, so I decided to eavesdrop a little, yes.”
“W-what do you want with Justin?”
“To explain that I was telling the snake to leave him alone. It was the only thing I could think of to save his life after that prat Lockhart pissed it off. I mean honestly, didn't you see that it moved toward him before I said anything, and that it backed down as soon as I told it to stop?”
“All I saw,” said Ernie stubbornly, though he was trembling as he spoke, “was you speaking Parseltongue and chasing the snake toward Justin.”
“I didn’t chase it at him!” Al said, his voice shaking with anger. “It didn’t even touch him!”
“It was a very near miss,” said Ernie. “And in case you’re getting ideas,” he added hastily, “I might tell you that you can trace my family back through nine generations of witches and warlocks and my blood’s as pure as anyone’s, so —”
“I don’t care what sort of blood you’ve got!” said Al and Harry fiercely, though nobody would have been able to hear Harry with Al's being the body they were using. “Why would I want to attack Muggle-borns? One of my best friends is Muggle born, and the other is a Weasley. Hell, I thought I was a Muggle til Dumbledore told me I was a wizard, my aunt and uncle were so afraid of magic I never knew all the odd stuff I was doing – all the stuff we were doing – was magic!”
“We've heard rumors about your aunt and uncle. They abused you, and that's why you don't live with them anymore. Sounds like motive to hate Muggles to me!”
“Yes, they abused Harry. And us, I think we were there the whole time. But never so badly that we went full-blown MPD with blackouts and all. And anyway, we knew plenty of good Muggles, we're not going to hate all Muggles because we hated our guardians. We're not that kind of people.”
“Yeah? Well...” Ernie said, plainly not wanting to lose this argument, “you're a Parselmouth, so I don't believe a word you say anyway!”
Al felt a sudden, strange calm come over him.
“Fine. Fine, if you're going to not listen to me, if you're going to insist on villifying me for no good reason, then... then... 'Hiss hiss, motherfuckers!'” he ended in Parseltongue, lifting his hands up dramatically, scaring them all so badly that Ms. Pince came over to shush them all.
“No, get off me you old bat! You know what, McMillan? 'Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!'”
The situation was rapidly breaking down. Ms. Pince was shouting, the Hufflepuffs were shouting, Al was alternating between shouting in English and in Parseltongue, and it was probably the most hubbub the library had seen in its entire lifetime.
Finally, though, Ms. Pince shoved Al out the door and slammed it behind him just after he shouted, 'I FART IN YOUR GENERAL DIRECTION!'
In a huff, grumbling under his voice, trying to ignore Aqua in his robes chuckling at the funny things he'd been saying in Parseltongue, not paying attention to where he was or where he was going, he ran smack into Hagrid, covered in snow and holding two dead roosters.
“Hi Hagrid.”
“Hey Al. Whatcha doin outta class?”
“Class was cancelled. What about you?”
Hagrid held up a limp rooster.
“Second one killed this term,” he explained. “It’s either foxes or a Blood-Suckin’ Bugbear, an’ I need the headmaster’s permission ter put a charm around the hen coop.”
He peered more closely at Al from under his thick, snow-flecked eyebrows.
“Yeh sure yeh’re all righ’? Yeh look all hot an’ bothered —”
Al couldn’t bring himself to repeat what Ernie and the rest of the Hufflepuffs had been saying about him.
“It’s nothing,” he said. “I’d better get going, Hagrid, it’s Transfiguration next and I’ve got to pick up my books.”
He walked off, his mind still full of what Ernie had said about him.
“Justin’s been waiting for something like this to happen ever since he let slip to Potter he was Muggle-born. …”
Al stamped up the stairs and turned along another corridor, which was particularly dark; the torches had been extinguished by a strong, icy draft that was blowing through a loose windowpane. He was halfway down the passage when he tripped headlong over something lying on the floor.
He turned to squint at what he’d fallen over and felt as though his stomach had dissolved.
Justin Finch-Fletchley was lying on the floor, rigid and cold, a look of shock frozen on his face, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. And that wasn’t all. Next to him was another figure, the strangest sight Al had ever seen.
It was Nearly Headless Nick, no longer pearly-white and transparent, but black and smoky, floating immobile and horizontal, six inches off the floor. His head was half off and his face wore an expression of shock identical to Justin’s.
“Nope,” Al said. “Nope, I'm out of here.”
He began to turn around the way he came, but then Peeves appeared. Al broke into a run.
Floating ahead of Al, Peeves said, “Naughty naughty little Potty, no running in the hallsies! What is little Potty running from, any...”
Peeves trailed off, stopping in midair, having noticed Justin and Nick at last. Al ran into Peeves, who was oddly solid for a poltergeist, and fell over backwards.
Grinning, Peeves filled his lungs and, before Al could stop him, screamed, “ATTACK! ATTACK! ANOTHER ATTACK! NO MORTAL OR GHOST IS SAFE! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! ATTAAAACK!”
“Damn it all,” Al said, resignedly, as all the doors in the area crashed open and people ran out into the halls, an action that was stupidly dangerous but very human. Then the Hufflepuffs came in from the library, and Ernie McMillain pointed at him and shouted, “Caught in the act!”
Peeves was bobbing overhead, now grinning wickedly, surveying the scene; Peeves always loved chaos. As the teachers bent over Justin and Nearly Headless Nick, examining them, Peeves broke into song:
“Oh, Potter, you rotter, oh, what have you done,
You’re killing off students, you think it’s good fun —”
“That’s enough, Peeves!” barked Professor McGonagall, and Peeves zoomed away backward, with his tongue out at Al.
Justin was carried up to the hospital wing by Professor Flitwick and Professor Sinistra of the Astronomy department, but nobody seemed to know what to do for Nearly Headless Nick. In the end, Professor McGonagall conjured a large fan out of thin air, which she gave to Ernie with instructions to waft Nearly Headless Nick up the stairs. This Ernie did, fanning Nick along like a silent black hovercraft. This left Al and Professor McGonagall alone together.
“This way, Potter,” she said.
“Professor,” said Al at once, “we had nothing to do with this!”
“This is out of my hands, Potter,” said Professor McGonagall curtly.
They marched in silence around a corner and she stopped before a large and extremely ugly stone gargoyle.
“Lemon drop!” she said. This was evidently a password, because the gargoyle sprang suddenly to life and hopped aside as the wall behind him split in two. Even full of dread for what was coming, Al couldn’t fail to be amazed; he felt the others' amazement, as well. Behind the wall was a spiral staircase that was moving smoothly upward, like an escalator. As he and Professor McGonagall stepped onto it, Al heard the wall thud closed behind them. They rose upward in circles, higher and higher, until at last, slightly dizzy, Al saw a gleaming oak door ahead, with a brass knocker in the shape of a griffin.
He knew now where he was being taken. This must be where Dumbledore lived.
Well that's one way to find him to talk with him.
Chapter Ten: Polyjuice Potion
Note: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there.
Note 3: It struck me that while I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Harry, and Zoey, I didn't have a different one for Iliana. There aren't many choices that translate over to FF, AO3, and BigCloset, so I went with this (bold, italic, and underlined). Which is also sometimes used for emphasis in Al's speech.
The collective was in a panic. Only Al was calm, his fury at Ernie and being falsely accused keeping him steady while Harry and Iliana had a panic-stricken internal conversation without him. Tier was agitated too, and Zoey was crying. They were all worried they'd be kicked out of school for this, which was absurd but then, a lot about the wizarding world was absurd.
The internal chaos paused in shock as they took in the amazing sight of Dumbledore's office, with its strange whirring and puffing machines of silver and gold, the many portraits of old headmasters that were snoozing in their frames, and the Sorting Hat.
Al looked at the hat and had an idea. He put it on. It was still too large for him.
A small voice said in their ear, “Ah, the Potters. I'd heard rumors. I can see a bit more clearly now what confused me that first time. Anyway, bee in your bonnet, Potters?”
“Oh, a hat pun, how clever,” said Al sardonically. “Hats off to you for that clever wordplay.”
The hat chuckled.
“But yes, I had a question. I know this probably violates some privacy policy or something, but it's kind of important. Is there anybody in this school who might be the Heir of Slytherin.”
“You're right, Alastair Potter, I could not tell you, even if I knew.”
“So you don't know. Well that's interesting.”
“Whoever it is might not have known they were the Heir when they came in,” the hat said. “Or they might have been hiding it. I tend to find a number of students, purebloods mostly, and especially Slytherins, tend to be a lot harder to read than other students. They've been taught secrets from an early age. But don't let that color your opinions of people. Everyone has some degree of secrets. Why, I couldn't get a good read on you at first, either.”
“Well thank you,” Al said, taking the hat off and putting it back. Then a gagging noise behind him startled him, and he saw what looked like a plucked chicken, but skinnier and longer, sitting on a perch.
“Oh crap. You look unwell.”
It did indeed look unwell. It was sallow, its eyes had the exhausted look of illness, and as he spoke several more feathers fell out. Then, as he looked at it, it burst into flames, startling him so much he fell backwards. He looked around in panic for water, but too late; it shrieked one last time, then turned to ash before his eyes.
“Jesus Christ,” Al shouted, horrified.
“Funny you should mention that most famous of wizards,” Dumbledore said, shocking Al again (he hadn't heard the man enter the room). “The two have a lot in common, strangely enough.”
“Professor. Your bird, I couldn't do anything, I... wait a minute,” Al said, taking in Dumbledore's words. “Let me guess, your bird is a phoenix.”
“Aha! Yes indeed, you guessed correctly. How did you know, my dear boy?”
“Well, the Muggles know a surprising amount about magical creatures; I suppose it wasn't possible to purge their whole history of stories about cerberuses, phoenixes, centaurs, and other creatures.”
“Ah yes, that. You're correct of course. Now, my dear lad, what brings you to my office?”
“There was another attack. A double attack. Justin Finch-Fletchley and Sir Nicolas.”
“Ah, and I take it you once more found yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
“Yes. McGonagall seemed to think--”
“Not to worry, Alastair, not to--”
The door slammed open, making Al jump. It was Hagrid, still holding the dead roosters.
“It wasn' Al, Professor Dumbledore!” said Hagrid urgently. “I was talkin ter him seconds before that kid was found, he never had time--”
Dumbledore tried to interject, but Hagrid kept rambling on. Al found Hagrid's passion touching but also bizarre, and made note of it in case it foreshadowed something.
“Hagrid, Hagrid!” Dumbledore finally managed to get Hagrid's attention. “I do not think either Alastair or any member of their collective attacked those people or the cat.”
“Oh,” Hagrid said, relaxing. “Right, I'll wait outside, then, Headmaster.” He stomped out looking embarrassed.
“I appreciate your confidence, Headmaster,” Al said, “but I'm a bit curious how you're so sure it wasn't me.”
“As I said before, Al, it is magic far beyond your age level.”
“Yes, but the story goes that it's a monster doing these things. I could be controlling the monster.”
“I find, generally speaking, that the guilty do not admit it could have been them. There are exceptions, of course, but the guilty usually look to place the blame anywhere but on themselves.”
“Okay, yeah, that makes sense. So we're not going to get kicked out?”
“You have done nothing worth such an extreme punishment, to my knowledge.”
Al felt Iliana give a guilty squirm thinking about the illegal polyjuice potion they were brewing in Myrtle's bathroom, but ignored it.
“Oh, hey, I just remembered something. Someone told me Slytherin was a Parselmouth. Well it turns out I am, too. And then Ron said Voldemort is one as well, so that got us thinking... well, I think it's Voldemort somehow.”
Dumbledore nodded. “Yes, that was my conclusion as well. But I do not know how.”
“Yeah, we wondered that, too. Maybe he came in in a box?”
“The problem is, the only followers of his who believe he is still alive are all in Azkaban. That's Wizarding Britain's prison. So I do not know who could be helping him.”
“We had another theory, sir. You see, we heard a terrifying voice a couple times. A voice nobody else could hear. Once a few days before the first attack, and then just before we found Mrs. Norris. We didn't mention it before because we didn't know what to make of it, it could've been in our head.”
“Understandable. Go on.”
“Well we figured out it was Parseltongue. So we think the monster, whatever it is, is some sort of magical snake. Because if Slytherin could control it, and Moldywart could control it, then it stands to reason they used Parseltongue to control it.”
“An excellent theory, Alastair. But now I must stop you. Despite how well you did against Professor Quirrell last year, it really is very dangerous to hunt down these clues. You are only 12 years old, my boy. You barely survived against Quirrell, and I fear losing you to whatever this monster is. I must ask you, for your own safety and the safety of Miss Granger and Mr. Weasley, to stop looking into this. You have done your due dilligence, and I thank you for the information. We adults will take it from here.”
Al glared at Dumbledore. “Oh, you're going with that angle, are you?”
“The angle of keeping a charge of mine safe, in a place I thought should be safe? Especially now that the protection of your mother's blood is broken? Yes, I am taking that angle with you.”
Dumbledore began to pace back and forth. “If I had known something like this would happen, I would not have let you break that protection. If it meant putting someone in the house with you to protect you from Petunia and Vernon's wrath, I would have done it. I regret that decision, now.”
“Yeah, well, given how much grief that protection gave Iliana, I'm glad to be shot of it.”
“Yes, well... Alastair, I must ask you, on behalf of the entire collective, to swear you will not go prying any further into this mystery. Swear it, please?”
Al sighed. “You're not going to let me leave until I swear it, are you?”
“You have guessed correctly. If I have to tutor you myself to keep you safe, I will.”
Zoey? Cross your fingers.
Yes indeedily! Zoey replied, sending him an image of her crossing eight of her fingers in pairs. And my toes!
Good.
“I give you my word, and the word of the entire Potter collective, that we will not go digging into the Chamber of Secrets or related mysteries, and leave sorting that out to the adults.”
Dumbledore looked into his eyes as he said that, trying to read their mind, Al was certain, and must have liked what he saw, because he twinkled at Al.
“Good. Thank you, Alastair. You may go now.”
And go he did. They were all the way out of the staircase before Zoey asked, Can I uncross my finnies and toesies now?
Yes.
Al did not tell Hermione or Ron what Dumbledore had made him promise. Hermione would dump the potion and insist they keep their word if he told her, and Ron would act weirdly around Hermione until she figured out what he was hiding, if he told Ron. He settled on telling them that Dumbledore had been very quiet, lost in thought, barely noticing anything Al said, and not responding with anything useful. This frustrated the others just as much as Al was frustrated with Dumbledore. Having successfully lied to his friends, Al felt weariness overcome him, and had Zoey pull him back In. With a glow of transformation that was much less bright than normal, Harry appeared.
~
The double attack had everyone in a right panic, especially since one of the victims had been a ghost. So it was that hardly anyone was staying behind for Christmas. Harry and company, because they had nowhere else to go (though they were surprised Dumbledore wasn't sending them off like Dobby would have liked) and Ron and Hermione of course. Also Malfoy and his two goons, for some reason, which worked in their favor.
Harry was glad of this, though; he was getting just as many terrified and sometimes defiant looks as Al would have done, and he was getting thoroughly sick of it. It would be good to have some time away from all that.
Snape was watching them just as much as he had been, if not more. They always made sure to stare blandly back at him. They'd been watching him like a hawk in turn, and learning a lot from it. Though Snape had some ability to block Al's heart-reading, he gave away clues to his mood and thoughts in his movements; everyone did, it was impossible to not. So after several days of intense observation, they could grin to themselves with the knowledge that they could tell some of what Snape was thinking and feeling. It was only broad strokes, no details, but still useful.
When the Weasley Twins, having not learned their lesson when Iliana had snapped at them before, said to Percy one day, “Harry's in a hurry, better get out of his way so he can have tea with his fanged servant,” Harry grabbed them both by the ear.
“OW! Harry, leggo! Geroff us!”
“Yeah, ow! We're sorry! We're sorry!”
“You boys,” Harry said waspishly, “think you're so funny, and usually you are, but we don't like you joking about this. We're glad you think it's absurd that we're the Heir, but please try to express this sentiment in another way.”
“Yes, we promise!”
“Cross our hearts, hope to die--”
“Stick a needle in our eye!”
“Good,” Harry said, letting them go and walking away with his nose in the air.
Fred turned to George. “Is it just my imagination, or was that Iliana using Harry's body?”
“I dunno. But yeah, does seem a bit girlish, the way he's walking right now. But not quite the way Iliana moves, I think. And Zoey kinda skips, even when she's walking. So not her, either.”
“Is there someone else in there we don't know about, maybe?”
George shrugged. “No idea. Anyway, let's go before he decides to come back and get our other ears.”
Ginny, who'd been nearby as well, watched them go. She looked back at Harry. She wished, if Iliana really had been using the body just then, that she'd come Out. Iliana was easier to talk to than Harry; Ginny had a crush on Harry, but not on Iliana. And she very much wanted to talk with Iliana. But when she'd been Out earlier, Iliana hadn't been in the mood to speak. Ginny sighed, and walked on.
~
When the term ended, the snow deep on the ground, Harry found that Fred, George, and Ginny had decided to stay at school as well. Apparently, the Weasley matriarch and her husband were going to Egypt to spend some time with Bill, their eldest son, and didn't have enough for the whole family to go.
Harry had mixed feelings about being Out. He liked it, yes, because he hated being a backseat driver in his own body, but at the same time, whenever he wasn't studying or spending time with his friends, he kept looking at his hair in the mirror, wishing it would lay flat like Al's or Iliana's. He had also found a very small hair on his chin the other day, and was still in a bit of a panic about it. He remembered reading about puberty, and he'd thought he would have more time. He couldn't pin down exactly why it made him anxious, beyond knowing his body would be completely changed; and unlike switching from one member of the collective to another, this would be a permanent change. He liked his voice, and his body, mostly. He didn't want a deeper voice, or body hair, or facial hair. He liked the thought of being taller, but that was it.
He also kept feeling uncomfortable around his chest, for some reason. He found himself staring surreptitiously at older girls. Being a boy, he was sure this was normal, but something about what he felt when he looked at them didn't feel like what he observed in other boys. It didn't feel like what Iliana had felt for Oliver Wood once, either. All in all, he was very confused. He knew being confused was normal for someone in puberty, but he had the niggling sense that this was different, somehow; he just couldn't put his finger on how. And the others had no more idea about it than he did.
What was most peculiar to him was that he felt most comfortable when they shifted to Iliana's form, even though he didn't like being out of control of the body. Even Zoey's form was more comfortable to him than either his or Al's. Just something about how those bodies moved felt better to him, more natural. And every moment he stood there before the mirror, trying to sort it all out, the more frustrated he became. Which gave him more excuse to spend time with others, when he could, to distract himself from the confusion.
On Christmas day, Harry woke up early and was brooding in front of the mirror, attacking his unruly hair with a comb, when Hermione came in. He barely glanced at her as she went by him and opened up Ron's curtain.
“Wake up,” she told Ron.
“You're not supposed to be here,” Ron protested. “Harry, why didn't you stop her?”
“I dunno. Didn't seem important.”
“Merry Christmas to you too,” Hermione said. “I've been up nearly an hour, adding more lacewings to the potion. It's ready.”
Harry turned in place to look at her. “You sure?”
“Positive. If we're going to do it, it should be tonight.”
She turned to look at Harry. “Harry, what's upsetting you?”
“What? Oh nothing, just my hair. Wish it would stay flat.”
“Have you tried Sleakeazy's Hair Potion? It's said to tame even the wildest hair. I don't bother myself, it takes me hours to get it to work, but it might work better on yours.”
“Thanks, I'll try that.”
They went downstairs and started opening presents. Ron got him a book called 'The Shield Spell: Tips and Tricks.' Harry was glad; he knew it couldn't be easy buying gifts for them, they all had different interests, but this was something he, Iliana, and Al would find useful. Ron also got a gift for Zoey, a cheap magical toy teddy bear, pocket sized, that walked around and occasionally scratched its head in a bemused way. This was surprising because Ron was poor, but the bear turned out to be one of Ron's old toys, and the book was second hand but in fair condition.
Hermione had bought them a magical fountain pen that never ran out of ink and had a rounded tip for easier writing, as well as a spell on it to prevent ink spills. Al was especially pleased by this; he didn't know how to create paper out of nowhere, had no paper of his own, and ballpoint pens didn't write worth crud on parchment, so he'd been having a lot of difficulties. From Ron's parents he got a large plum cake and a hand-knitted Weasley sweater with all their initials on it – A.P., H.P., I.P., Z.P., and thankfully just T for Tier.
Harry and the others, for their part, had given as good as they got. He gave Ron a book called “Flying With The Cannons,” all about Ron's favorite team the Chudley Cannons. Hermione got a magical organizer that could be set to remind you about important events, and had a piece of bewitched parchment fused to the back cover that could store thousands of pages of notes on it – just tap the green corner when you were done writing a page, and it would move on to the next empty page, automatically storing anything you wrote on the page for later. You could move through the pages with the blue and yellow corners, or sort by subject by tapping the red corner.
“And it's password protected, too,” Harry said. “Or rather, it can be set to be password protected. It's not set that way right now, though.”
“Wow, Harry! This is amazing!” Hermione hugged him ecstatically.
As she took off to go test out her new organizer, Ron gave him an amused grin.
“Only Hermione could get that excited over an organizer.”
“Probably. But I got one for myself as well. The password makes it just as useful as a journal as it does for notes. I've already got a journal started in it.”
“Oh yeah, I hadn't thought of that. Where'd you get it? Maybe you can get me one next year.”
“Or your birthday?”
“Or then, yeah.”
“I think a new wand would be more useful, don't you?”
“Er...” Ron looked at his old and dying wand. Even now it was sparking a little, like a live wire. “Maybe there's a new wand from Mum and Dad. Let me look.”
But there was no new wand. Just a sweater, an extra large cake, and a note saying they didn't have the money to get him a new wand.
Ron pouted. “Can't get me a new wand, but they can go to Egypt to visit Bill. Granted, he's probably feeding them on his money, but still...”
“Does it cost money to go to Egypt? Like, I know it costs money to take an airplane or a boat that far. Does the Floo network operate outside of Britain?”
“Nah. Well, it works in Scotland and Wales, too, obviously. But it doesn't go anywhere internationally. Can't cross water. Anyway, Mum doesn't like broom travel, and doesn't have one of her own. Nor does Dad. Nah, they'll have taken a portkey, most like. And those aren't cheap. Their use is restricted by the Ministry; only authorized people are allowed to make them.”
~
Even with the tiny number of people staying behind, the castle still looked amazing in its Christmas decorations, and the feast was still sinfully good. Even fretting about taking Polyjuice Potion later, they all became stuffed like Christmas geese with the delicious food. They were just finishing their third helpings of pudding when Hermione started ushering them out of the Great Hall and off to Myrtle's bathroom to finish the potion.
“We still need a bit of whoever we're changing into,” Hermione said. “Hairs will do, Ron, so don't go on at me about toenails again, please, I just ate. Anyway, Crabbe and Goyle will be the obvious targets, they rarely leave Malfoy's side for long. And you'll need larger robes, as they're enormous. I've already got spare ones for you.”
“How are we going to keep the real Crabbe and Goyle from barging in? And get hairs from them?”
“I've already thought of that,” she said, pulling out two chocolate cakes. “I've put a simple but effective sleeping draught in these. They're horrible gluttons, they're bound to eat them. Just put these where they can find them, and wait. Then you can hide them in a cupboard until you're done.”
This potion was beginning to creep them out. Al pointed out that this was basically identity theft, and pointed out all the kinds of horrible things that could be done to someone's reputation with this. Harry ignored him, not wanting to think about it.
“What about you?” Ron asked.
“I've already got mine,” Hermione said. “Milicent Bulstrode. Got these off her robes at the duelling club. I can just say I changed my mind about staying.”
“Are those hairs long? They the same color as Milicent's hair?” Al asked, using Harry's body and voice.
“Yes. Why?”
“You're sure she doesn't have a cat? It's just, hair from her robes could be anyone, or anything with fur. And you said the potion was only for human transformations.”
Hermione looked apprehensively at the hairs. “Um... I don't know. And I don't have any way of finding out; I don't know a spell to divine its source.”
“Better safe than sorry, I'm thinking.”
“Uh... yeah,” she said, throwing the hairs away into the next stall. “Only now I don't know what I'm going to do.”
“I could go up and get the invisibility cloak, you can hide under that.”
She nodded. “Good thinking.”
So Harry, careful not to be seen coming out of that loo, left and went back to his room. A few minutes later he came back with the cloak, handing it to Hermione. Then he and Ron went off with the cakes, looking for Crabbe and Goyle. They spotted them, setting the cakes down where the two would be lumbering past any moment, and hid to wait.
Sure enough, Crabbe and Goyle spotted the cakes and didn't even hesitate shoving them into their mouths. They swallowed without chewing, and immediately fell to the ground. Harry and Ron dragged their enormous bodies into a nearby wardrobe, glad that so few people meant they were unlikely to be caught at this. They grabbed the hairs, and the boys' shoes, their feet being enormous, then took off for Myrtle's bathroom again.
Hermione poured out two doses of the thick mud-like potion into tumblers, and once Hermione made sure she had everything right, each boy put the hair they'd taken into it. Goyle's bubbled and hissed and turned khaki color; Crabbe's turned a dark, murky brown.
“Ugh. Essence of Crabbe and Goyle.”
Going into separate stalls because of the size change they'd be going through, they changed into the bigger robes, then pinched their noses and swallowed the foul-smelling mixture. Immediately, Harry's insides felt like writhing snakes, he doubled up in pain, and his whole body started to feel like it was burning. Then it melted, and bubbled, and he was growing alarmingly fast, his body thickening. He was glad he'd changed out of his shoes, Goyle's feet were like elephant feet. He got out of the stall and looked at himself in the cracked mirror, taking off his glasses as they were not needed, and gaped. Suddenly, the unidentified feelings felt much worse. He had recovered from the ill feeling the potion had given him, only to feel fresh waves of illness, and Wrongness, about every aspect of this body. It took every ounce of willpower he had to keep from smashing the mirror, puking, and crying. They didn't have the time for that, though.
Forcing himself to look over at Ron, who looked like a very bewildered Crabbe. Ron said a few expressions of horrified wonder at the effects of the potion. He barely noticed, as he was still fighting sickness.
“Are you okay, Harry?” Hermione asked him as she held the invisibility cloak in her hands, ready to go.
“I... I'll be okay. Just feel sick.” Hearing Goyle's voice instead of his own, an experience he should be alright with given the collective's frequent transformations, just made his feeling of being sick get worse. He leaned against a wall to steady himself.
“Ugh... Let's... let's just get this over with. Ron, you ready?”
“What?” Crabbe's voice called. “Oh wait, gotta change into Crabbe's shoes.”
Hermione got all but her head under the cloak, while Harry took some calming, bracing breaths. In less than a minute he and Ron were both ready. Hermione gave him one last unsure look.
“You sure you're okay? It could be a reaction to the potion, or an allergy.”
“I'll be okay. Let's just go.”
“Where is the Slytherin common room, anyway?” Ron asked.
“Zoey knows. And I know. Follow me.”
After checking they wouldn't be seen exiting the bathroom, they left with an invisible Hermione at Harry's right side, Harry pointing which ways to turn as they came to them, and within 10 minutes they found the Slytherin common room. The only problem was, they didn't know the password.
They quietly debated what to do; there weren't enough students for them to just wait to follow someone in, as Zoey had done. They had no idea where Malfoy was, after all. Finally, though, they decided to try some likely passwords. They went through a full dozen of them before finding the right one – 'pure-blood.'
I am both unsurprised and surprised all at once, Al thought.
Try to keep your emotions in check, everyone, Harry told the others. The last thing we need is to transform in front of Malfoy.
That probably wouldn't be a problem, though; their magic felt dulled by either the potion or the sickness or the change.
Harry checked his watch; they were making good time. Now where was Malfoy?
“There you are,” a familiar drawling voice said. “I've been looking all over the dorm for you two, I was about to head out to hunt for you. Were you two in the Great Hall all this time, pigging out?”
Not sure what to say, and not sure he could speak without feeling ill again, Harry grunted. This satisfied Malfoy, who apparently didn't expect Goyle to be very talkative. Come to think of it, neither Harry nor any of the others could remember either Crabbe or Goyle saying more than a couple words total.
“Whatever. Anyway, I'm glad you're here. Mother's sent me one last late Christmas present that she lost track of earlier, come look.”
The gift Malfoy spoke of turned out to be a book called “Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy.”
“Nice, isn't it? I know you two don't like reading, but I'm sure you'd get a kick out of some of these entries.”
But the stuff he read to them was mostly very boring or confusing, or both. After a few minutes, Malfoy looked up and noticed they were bored.
“Ah, too high brow for you? No matter,” he said, putting the book back, then relaxing in his chair. “What shall we talk about instead, then?”
Harry screwed up his courage and – making sure to look thoughtful first – said in Goyle's booming voice, “The Chamber of Secrets. Who d'ya reckon the next victim will be?”
“Ah, yes, that's always good value. Obviously I don't know, but I hope it'll be that mudblood Granger.”
Crabbe's face suddenly looked furious as Ron bristled at these words. Harry surreptitiously stepped on his foot before he said something stupid.
“What's up with you, Crabbe?” Snapped Malfoy.
“Stomachache,” Ron lied quickly.
“Well, go up to the hospital wing and give all those Mudbloods a kick from me,” said Malfoy, snickering. “You know, I’m surprised the Daily Prophet hasn’t reported all these attacks yet,” he went on thoughtfully. “I suppose Dumbledore’s trying to hush it all up. He’ll be sacked if it doesn’t stop soon. Father’s always said old Dumbledore’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to this place. He loves Muggle-borns. A decent headmaster would never’ve let slime like that Creevey in.”
Malfoy started taking pictures with an imaginary camera and did a cruel but accurate impression of Colin: “ ‘Potter, can I have your picture, Potter? Can I have your autograph? Can I lick your shoes, please, Potter?’ ”
Iliana felt a flash of fury, immediately followed by Zoey grabbing her and holding her down, preventing a transformation. Alastair also took over for Harry, because Harry kept his heart on his sleeve, and Al was better at hiding his emotions. But Malfoy dropped his hands and looked at Al and Ron.
“What’s the matter with you two?”
Far too late, Al and Ron forced themselves to laugh, but Malfoy seemed satisfied; perhaps Crabbe and Goyle were always slow on the uptake.
“Saint Potter, the Mudbloods’ friend,” said Malfoy slowly. “Bunch of freaks with no proper wizard feeling, or they wouldn’t go around with that jumped-up Granger Mudblood. And people think they're Slytherin’s heir!”
My, my, but someone's got a ton of sour grapes, Al thought with an unexpressed grin.
Ron and Al waited with bated breath. Malfoy seemed on the edge of admitting his guilt, which would've been news to Al.
“I wish I knew who it is,” said Malfoy petulantly. “I could help them.”
Ron’s jaw dropped so that Crabbe looked even more clueless than usual. Fortunately, Malfoy didn’t notice, and Al, thinking fast, said, “Any ideas on who it might be?”
“You know I haven’t, Goyle, how many times do I have to tell you?” snapped Malfoy. “And Father won’t tell me anything about the last time the Chamber was opened either. Of course, it was fifty years ago, so it was before his time, but he knows all about it, and he says that it was all kept quiet and it’ll look suspicious if I know too much about it. But I know one thing — last time the Chamber of Secrets was opened, a Mudblood died. So I bet it’s a matter of time before one of them’s killed this time. … I hope it’s Granger,” he said with relish. Al thought this a little repetitive.
Ron was clenching Crabbe’s gigantic fists. Feeling that it would be a bit of a giveaway if Ron punched Malfoy, Al glared at Ron and said, “D’you know if the person who opened the Chamber last time was caught?”
“Oh, yeah … whoever it was was expelled,” said Malfoy. “They’re probably still in Azkaban.”
“Ah,” Al said, forcing himself to chuckle. “Sucks to be them.”
Barely noticing Al's comment, Malfoy shifted restlessly in his chair and said, “Father says to keep my head down and let the Heir of Slytherin get on with it. He says the school needs ridding of all the Mudblood filth, but not to get mixed up in it. Of course, he’s got a lot on his plate at the moment. You know the Ministry of Magic raided our manor last week?”
Harry tried to force Goyle’s dull face into a look of concern.
“Yeah …” said Malfoy. “Luckily, they didn’t find much. Father’s got some very valuable Dark Arts stuff. But luckily, we’ve got our own secret chamber under the drawing-room floor —”
“Ho!” said Ron.
Malfoy looked at him. So did Al. Ron blushed.
“Just thought of something funny,” Ron said, recovering. “D—Mr. Weasley, uh, sacked.”
Malfoy laughed, almost a cackle.
“Good one, Crabbe.”
Al looked at his watch while Malfoy was looking away. They had twenty minutes left.
“So nothing?” Al asked. “Not even some half-baked ideas about who it is?”
Malfoy sighed. “If only I did. If it's anyone in Slytherin, which it must be, I haven't seen anyone looking suspicious. Well, no more so than usual, I mean. You know how well Slytherins are at keeping secrets.” He looked up at Al as though reconsidering his words. “Well, most Slytherins, anyway. Honestly, a part of me is glad I don't know who it is; the only reason you two can keep secrets is you hardly ever talk. But that doesn't mean you might not still let something slip.”
Okay guys, Al asked the other members of the collective, is there any point continuing? I don't think he knows anything worth knowing.
Ask him if he knows anything about who died last time. Worth a shot.
“Do you know anything at all about the mudblood who died last time?” Al asked in Goyle's voice.
“No, Goyle, I don't. I don't see what it matters, anyway; it's not bloody likely to be anyone we know, obviously.”
His last word, 'obviously,' was so reminiscent of Snape's mannerisms whenever he made a word drip with derision that Al nearly grinned at the similarity.
“Honestly, Goyle, I've already told you everything I know. All you're doing now is making me annoyed. Whether I'm more annoyed with you for asking or at Father for not telling me anything, I don't know. Can we maybe talk about something less aggravating?”
Al checked the time again. Then made a decision, and clutched his stomach and moaned.
“What's wrong now, Goyle?”
“I think I ate one too many puddings. Gonna go to the hospital wing.”
Catching on, Ron too moaned and clutched his stomach. “Me too. Sorry.”
Malfoy, who was staring at the ceiling with one leg over the arm of his chair, waved vaguely at them. “Good. Spit on Creevy for me while you're there, won't you?”
As they walked back to the exit, Al hoped very much that Hermione was still following them. He worried about it until they were far enough away from Slytherin's common room that she whispered at him that she was there.
Once they were back in Myrtle's bathroom, they began to change back to themselves. Al slid away, leaving Harry in control again. The first thing he did was find a working toilet and vomit into it. He felt sweaty and feverish, but changing back to himself made him feel a lot better. Getting up, he flushed and staggered out of the stall.
“Blimey, Harry,” Ron said. “You look more flushed than that toilet does.”
“Har har,” Harry said weakly.
With a muted glow, Harry disappeared and Iliana took his place.
“Poor lamb,” she said of her headmate.
“Well, it wasn’t a complete waste of time,” Ron panted. “I know we still haven’t found out who’s doing the attacks, but I’m going to write to Dad tomorrow and tell him to check under the Malfoys’ drawing room.”
“And we know somebody died last time,” Hermione added. “That's something, too.”
“Later. We need to tie up loose ends,” Iliana said.
So they did; Hermione flushed the rest of the potion down the toilet, Iliana changed into Harry's robes – which didn't fit her well, Ron changed back into his own robes, and they returned Crabbe's and Goyle's shoes to them in the wardrobe where they still dozed, stirring faintly like they'd wake soon. When they went back, Iliana and Ron took separate showers to wash the stink of Crabbe and Goyle off them.
As she showered, she found herself being very glad that the boys respected her enough to let her shower alone. Still, boys were often pigs, especially as they got older, so she didn't know how long this chivalry would last. She began to wonder if she should ask Dumbledore for access to the Prefects' bathrooms. She still didn't think switching to the girl's dorms, with two boys in the collective, was a good idea.
Freshly cleaned, Iliana went down to the common room and made to sit next to Hermione, but then noticed Ginny by the fire, looking anxious and ill. So she bypassed Hermione and sat next to Ginny instead.
“Hey Ginny. What's wrong? You look ill. And worried.”
“What? Oh... it's... I think it's...” she trailed off, shrugging, and looking over at Hermione.
“Do you want to talk somewhere private?” Iliana asked.
Ginny looked thoughtful, but then Percy came down into the room, looking very pompous. Though apparently just passing through, Ginny gave a frightened squeal and took off back to her dorm.
Well that was odd. Wonder what she's worried about.
I was inclined to think she knew something about this Chamber business until Percy scared her off.
Why would that change your mind? She could know something.
I suppose. Though I can't think what it is. Unless she saw the Heir? Or a glimpse of the monster. I guess either/both of those things would make her worried. It would for me, too.
Well maybe you can wheedle something out of her later.
Iliana nodded vaguely, then got up and went back over to Hermione. The two girls were soon joined by Ron, and they spent hours talking about Malfoy's words and how they related to the Chamber.
When Iliana got back to her dorm, Aqua poked her head out.
'Where were you, human? I missed your warmth. The warm stone is adequate, but not the same as your soft, warm flesh.'
Silently thankful that Ron was the only one in their dorm over the holidays, she answered, 'Sorry. I was hunting for information about the monster in the school and the one controlling it.'
The snake shuddered before starting her slide up Iliana's arm. 'Yes, I can sense it sometimes. It is a great and terrible beast.'
'Do you know anything about it?'
'No more than what I just said. Sorry,' that last word said in a distinctly drowsy tone. Soon, Aqua was asleep, curled up around Iliana's arm.
Iliana changed into her nightgown and climbed into bed, thinking for over an hour before sleep took her.
~
Several weeks later, after all the students returned to Hogwarts, Harry was back, walking with Ron and Hermione and talking about nothing much when an angry outburst from the floor above reached their ears.
“That’s Filch,” Harry muttered as they hurried up the stairs and paused, out of sight, listening hard.
“You don’t think someone else’s been attacked?” said Ron tensely.
They stood still, their heads inclined toward Filch’s voice, which sounded quite hysterical.
“— even more work for me! Mopping all night, like I haven’t got enough to do! No, this is the final straw, I’m going to Dumbledore —”
His footsteps receded along the out-of-sight corridor and they heard a distant door slam.
They poked their heads around the corner. Filch had returned to his post by Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, and immediately saw the flood of water on the floor of the bathroom and half the corridor, which had to be what Filch was on about; and it looked as though it was still seeping from under the door of Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. Now that Filch had stopped shouting, they could hear Myrtle’s wails echoing off the bathroom walls.
“Now what’s up with her?” said Ron.
“Let’s go and see,” said Harry, and holding their robes over their ankles they stepped through the great wash of water to the door bearing its OUT OF ORDER sign, ignored it as always, and entered. Harry knew he could have Vanished the water, but that would be pointless if the source wasn't turned off, first, so off they went to find the source.
The bathroom echoed painfully with Myrtle's horrible wailing; she was clearly very upset about something.
“What's wrong?” asked Harry.
“Don’t ask me,” Myrtle shouted, emerging with a wave of yet more water, which splashed onto the already sopping floor. “Here I am, minding my own business, and someone thinks it’s funny to throw a book at me.”
Harry paused. He didn't think it could hurt her physically, but it might set her off wailing more if he pointed this out. He glared at Ron, too, in case the tactless boy had the same thought. Ron looked back at Harry in confusion.
“Who threw it at you, anyway?” asked Harry.
“I don’t know. … I was just sitting in the U-bend, thinking about death, and it fell right through the top of my head,” said Myrtle, glaring at them. “It’s over there, it got washed out. …”
Harry and Ron looked under the sink where Myrtle was pointing. A small, thin book lay there. It had a shabby black cover and was as wet as everything else in the bathroom. He was about to pick it up when Alastair nearly had a fit in his head so loud that he covered his ears to try to block it out.
YEAH OKAY LET'S JUST TOUCH SOME UNKNOWN THING SOMEONE THREW AWAY WHEN THERE'S MONSTERS AND HEIRS OF SLYTHERIN LURKING ABOUT HURTING PEOPLE, BECAUSE THAT IS BOTH WISE AND CAUTIOUS, I THINK NOT!
SHUT UP, AL! I get the point!
No I don't think you do get it. Remember the horrible books in the Restricted Section, like the screaming book? Magic can do all kinds of things, we have no idea how dangerous a book could be made to be. Besides, it gives me the creeps.
Okay okay.
“Good thinking, mate,” Ron said when Harry drew back suddenly, not noticing Harry covering his ears in a fruitless attempt to drown out Al's voice. “That book could be cursed. Some of the books the Ministry’s confiscated — Dad’s told me — there was one that burned your eyes out. And everyone who read Sonnets of a Sorcerer spoke in limericks for the rest of their lives. And some old witch in Bath had a book that you could never stop reading! You just had to wander around with your nose in it, trying to do everything one-handed. And —”
“All right, I’ve got the point,” said Harry, dropping his hands. “Honestly, you and Al both...”
The little book lay on the floor, nondescript and soggy.
“Wingardium Leviosa,” Harry said with a swish and a flick of his wand. The little book floated up, and he concentrated on making it float toward them.
Very carefully, Hermione performed several spells, checking for things she wasn't explaining. Once she declared it a normal book as far as she could tell, she handed the soggy thing to Harry, who opened it. Neither of them died or got hurt touching it.
“It's a diary. T. M. Riddle.”
“Hang on, I know that name,” said Ron.
“How on Earth do you know that?”
“Because Filch made me polish his shield about fifty times in detention,” said Ron resentfully. “That was the one I burped slugs all over. If you’d wiped slime off a name for an hour, you’d remember it, too.”
Harry peeled the wet pages apart. They were completely blank. There wasn’t the faintest trace of writing on any of them, not even Auntie Mabel’s birthday, or dentist, half-past three.
“He never wrote in it,” said Harry, disappointed.
“I wonder why someone wanted to flush it away?” said Ron curiously.
Harry turned to the back cover of the book and saw the printed name of a variety store on Vauxhall Road, London.
“He must’ve been Muggle-born,” said Harry thoughtfully. “To have bought a diary from Vauxhall Road. …”
Or Muggle raised, like us, Al pointed out.
“Well, it’s not much use to you,” said Ron. He dropped his voice. “You should toss it.”
Harry, however, pocketed it.
~
The three of them continued talking about Riddle's diary when they got back to the common room. There, Hermione made the logical leap that if Riddle won a special award for services to the school 50 years ago, and the Chamber opened 50 years ago, it might be that Riddle knew something about the Chamber opening; that he may have even caught the Heir of Slytherin the first time. Though, as they pointed out to her, the one flaw in this hypothesis was that the diary appeared to be blank. Of course, Harry and company knew from their Christmas gift giving that there were ways to turn parchments into magical computers for storing text, so maybe the book was password protected. There weren't any colored tabs, and it was a Vauxhall Road purchase, but maybe Riddle was very clever and made his own magical diary.
Harry kept finding himself carrying the thing with him wherever he went, and took it out sometimes to look at it. He wanted to try to unlock the diary, but Al pointed out their going theory – substantiated by Dumbledore – that Voldemort was the Heir, and Draco had been told that the Heir had been caught and that he or she was in Azkaban. That suggested that Draco had been lied to, or his father mistaken, because Voldemort clearly had never been caught. Unless he'd broken out of Azkaban?
It also seems to me that people he'd gone to school with would recognize him when he came back. If they didn't recognize him, then that suggests he changed his appearance drastically.
I wonder if, when he's alive, he has that snakelike face we saw in Quirrell's skull? Harry asked.
Possibly. Which would explain why nobody recognized him. Anyway, my point is, for all we know, this Riddle could be Voldemort.
What?
Well think about it. Isn't it a bit too much of a coincidence that this 50 year old diary happens to appear the same year that the Chamber opens again? I mean, I know it seems like an ordinary diary to Hermione, but as clever as she is, she's only a 2nd year student. It could be hiding powers that we can't detect.
Hmm... you have a point.
Also... and this is kind of a stretch, I know, but there haven't been any attacks while this thing was with us. I think we should hold onto it, in the trunk, and see if the attacks stop.
But if it is somehow responsible, would us holding onto it even help? Would it find a way to do its business anyway?
Well, added Iliana, maybe we should test it anyway? If we're cautious, maybe we can get some information without activating it, if it is dangerous.
Hmm... maybe. I don't like it, but we don't actually know that it isn't just a blank diary, or a just a password protected magic diary.
How do we test it?
They looked around. Too many people here. They could test it later.
~
They kept carrying it with them. Of all of them, only Al seemed to be able to resist picking it up on occasion and rifling through it, even though they all knew it was apparently blank. No spell, no magical Revealer, had yet given any indication that it was anything more than a blank diary. The only remarkable thing, so far, was the fact that it had dried without warping or growing mold on it. But that could be explained easily enough; Riddle could've cast Impervious on it. It had been wet before, but not the way paper normally was wet; like the water was stuck to the pages, but didn't get absorbed into them.
Determined to find out more about the mysterious Riddle, they went to the trophy room to look at the trophy Ron had mentioned. It wasn't very big, and just had his name on it, and the words “Special award for services to the school.” But they also found Riddle's name on an old medal for Magical Merit, and a list of old Head Boys.
“Sounds like Percy,” Ron said. “Prefect, Head Boy … probably top of every class —”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” said Hermione in a slightly hurt voice.
“He's just jealous, Hermione. His brothers cast a long shadow.”
If the collective thought the continued lack of attacks would get other people to stop treating them like a bomb about to go off, it didn't. It just made most of them more sure that he was the Heir, that he'd given himself away at the Dueling Club.
One of these days, when Al was the one fully Out, he glared at some passing people who were looking weirdly at him.
'NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!' Al hissed at them in Parseltongue, making the shriek and skitter away.
“Al,” Hermione said with a sigh.
“It's bloody insulting, it is,” Al said, not bothering to keep his voice down, “the fact they think that, were I evil, I'd be so terrible at it as to reveal my secret to the whole school, and be found at the scene of the crime twice now. And we were in the bloody hospital having our damn bones regrown when Colin was attacked! I expect they think I dragged my agonized carcass past Madam Pomfrey, through the school past curfew without running into anyone, all the way to the Chamber – wherever the bloody hell that is – and around to find Colin to attack him in the midst of the agony of regrowing bones?
“Though the fact they think I somehow managed to attack Nick and Justin in the 30 seconds between leaving the library and running into Hagrid is interesting, I suppose. Glad to see they think I'm able to stretch time so 30 seconds becomes 30 minutes. I almost wish that were true; it would make getting schoolwork done in time a hell of a lot easier.”
~
Gilderoy Lockhart seemed to think he himself had made the attacks stop. Al overheard him telling Professor McGonagall so while the Gryffindors were lining up for Transfiguration.
“I don’t think there’ll be any more trouble, Minerva,” he said, tapping his nose knowingly and winking. “I think the Chamber has been locked for good this time. The culprit must have known it was only a matter of time before I caught him. Rather sensible to stop now, before I came down hard on him.
“You know, what the school needs now is a morale-booster. Wash away the memories of last term! I won’t say any more just now, but I think I know just the thing. …”
He tapped his nose again and strode off.
“Gee, I can't wait to see what that monumental ass has planned. I'm sure I'm going to utterly loathe and detest it,” Al said sarcastically.
~
Lockhart’s idea of a morale-booster became clear at breakfast time on February fourteenth. Iliana hadn’t had much sleep because of a late-running Quidditch practice the night before, and she hurried down to the Great Hall, slightly late. She thought, for a moment, that she’d walked through the wrong doors.
The walls were all covered with large, lurid pink flowers. Worse still, heart-shaped confetti was falling from the pale blue ceiling. Iliana went over to the Gryffindor table, a disgusted look on her face, where Ron was sitting looking equally sickened, and Hermione seemed to have been overcome with giggles.
“I don't know which of us is more disgusted; me, Al, or Harry. Zoey thinks it's great, of course. But she sometimes starts singing horrible annoying 80's songs when we're trying to get to sleep.”
“What? I never hear her singing,” Ron said.
“You wouldn't. She does it internally, so only we have to put up with it. Al has tried strangling her several times. Anyway, what's going on?” Iliana asked, wiping confetti off her bacon.
Ron pointed to the teachers’ table, apparently too disgusted to speak. Lockhart, wearing lurid pink robes to match the decorations, was waving for silence. The teachers on either side of him were looking stony-faced. From where she sat, Iliana could see a muscle going in Professor McGonagall’s cheek. Snape looked as though someone had just fed him a large beaker of Skele-Gro.
“Happy Valentine’s Day!” Lockhart shouted. “And may I thank the forty-six people who have so far sent me cards! Yes, I have taken the liberty of arranging this little surprise for you all — and it doesn’t end here!”
Lockhart clapped his hands and through the doors to the entrance hall marched a dozen surly-looking dwarfs. Not just any dwarfs, however. Lockhart had them all wearing golden wings and carrying harps.
“My friendly, card-carrying cupids!” beamed Lockhart. “They will be roving around the school today delivering your valentines! And the fun doesn’t stop here! I’m sure my colleagues will want to enter into the spirit of the occasion! Why not ask Professor Snape to show you how to whip up a Love Potion! And while you’re at it, Professor Flitwick knows more about Entrancing Enchantments than any wizard I’ve ever met, the sly old dog!”
Professor Flitwick buried his face in his hands. Snape was looking as though the first person to ask him for a Love Potion would be force-fed poison.
“Please, Hermione, tell me you weren’t one of the forty-six,” said Ron as they left the Great Hall for their first lesson. Hermione suddenly became very interested in searching her bag for her schedule and didn’t answer.
“I've read about love potions,” Iliana said. “I think they should be illegal. They're magically assisted rape, is what they are.”
Hermione looked shocked, then thoughtful, then ill. She nodded silently.
“I can't take this. See you guys later,” Iliana said. A short glow later, Harry appeared.
All day long, the dwarfs kept barging into their classes to deliver valentines, to the annoyance of the teachers, and late that afternoon as the Gryffindors were walking upstairs for Charms, one of the dwarfs caught up with Harry.
“Oy, you! ’Arry Potter!” shouted a particularly grim-looking dwarf, elbowing people out of the way to get to Harry.
Hot all over at the thought of being given a valentine in front of a line of first years, which happened to include Ginny Weasley, Harry tried to escape. The dwarf, however, cut his way through the crowd by kicking people’s shins, and reached him before he’d gone two paces.
“I’ve got a musical message to deliver to ’Arry Potter in person,” he said, twanging his harp in a threatening sort of way.
“Not here,” Harry hissed in English, trying to escape.
“Stay still!” grunted the dwarf, grabbing hold of Harry’s bag and pulling him back.
“Let me go!” Harry snarled, tugging.
With a loud ripping noise, his bag split in two. His books, wand, parchment, and quill spilled onto the floor and his ink bottle smashed over everything.
Harry scrambled around, trying to pick it all up before the dwarf started singing, causing something of a holdup in the corridor.
“What’s going on here?” came the cold, drawling voice of Draco Malfoy. Harry started stuffing everything feverishly into his ripped bag, desperate to get away before Malfoy could hear his musical valentine.
“What’s all this commotion?” said another familiar voice as Percy Weasley arrived.
Losing his head, Harry tried to make a run for it, but the dwarf seized him around the knees and brought him crashing to the floor.
“Right,” he said, sitting on Harry’s ankles. “Here is your singing valentine:
His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad,
His hair is as dark as a blackboard.
I wish he was mine, he’s really divine,
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord.”
Harry would have given all the gold in Gringotts to evaporate on the spot. Trying valiantly to laugh along with everyone else, he got up, his feet numb from the weight of the dwarf, as Percy Weasley did his best to disperse the crowd, some of whom were crying with mirth.
Harry was very glad Percy had helped, and used the opportunity to get away as quick as possible. He repaired his bag clumsily with Reparo and shoved everything in. He could clean it all later.
“Off you go, off you go,” Percy said. “The bell rang five minutes ago, off to class, now,” he said, shooing some of the younger students away. “And you, Malfoy —”
Harry, glancing over, saw Malfoy stoop and snatch up something. Leering, he showed it to Crabbe and Goyle, and Harry realized that he’d got Riddle’s diary.
“Give that back,” said Harry quietly.
“Wonder what Potter’s written in this?” said Malfoy, who obviously hadn’t noticed the year on the cover and thought he had Harry’s own diary. A hush fell over the onlookers. Ginny was staring from the diary to Harry, looking terrified.
“Hand it over, Malfoy,” said Percy sternly.
“When I’ve had a look,” said Malfoy, waving the diary tauntingly at Harry.
Harry shot a curse at Malfoy that made the blonde's face erupt in painful hives, dropping the diary. Harry snatched it up and finished taking off.
“Harry!” said Percy loudly. “No magic in the corridors. I’ll have to report this, you know!”
But Harry didn’t care, he was one-up on Malfoy, and that was worth five points from Gryffindor any day. Malfoy was in pain, running through the corridor toward the hospital wing, Harry and Al looking forward to calling him Spot.
Ginny covered her face with her hands and ran into class, for some reason, though Harry barely noticed.
He grumbled and growled in a good imitation of Alastair all the way to Charms, when he was stopped cold by noticing that Riddle's diary was completely clean. This was different from how it reacted to water, so the collective made note of this. He tried to point this out to Ron, but Ron was having trouble with his wand again; large purple bubbles were blossoming out of the end, and he wasn’t much interested in anything else.
~
They went to bed before anyone else did, mostly to avoid people singing the “Pickled Toad” song at them, but also to experiment with the diary. They dropped some droplets of ink on the page at first, and watched the ink get sucked away without leaving any mark on the page.
Then he tried writing in it, writing, “My name is Harry Potter.”
The ink went away, and a different handwriting style appeared, with words saying “Hello Harry Potter. My name is Tom Riddle. How did you come by my diary?”
Harry felt a surge of distrust and alarm from Al, but ignored it.
“Someone tried flushing it down a toilet,” he wrote back.
“Lucky that I recorded my memories in some more lasting way than ink. But I always knew that there would be those who would not want this diary read.”
“What do you mean?” Harry scrawled.
“I mean that this diary holds memories of terrible things. Things that were covered up. Things that happened at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”
“That’s where I am now,” Harry wrote quickly. “I’m at Hogwarts, and horrible stuff’s been happening. Do you know anything about the Chamber of Secrets?”
His heart was hammering. Riddle’s reply came quickly, his writing becoming untidier, as though he was hurrying to tell all he knew.
“Of course I know about the Chamber of Secrets. In my day, they told us it was a legend, that it did not exist. But this was a lie. In my fifth year, the Chamber was opened and the monster attacked several students, finally killing one. I caught the person who’d opened the Chamber and he was expelled. But the headmaster, Professor Dippet, ashamed that such a thing had happened at Hogwarts, forbade me to tell the truth. A story was given out that the girl had died in a freak accident. They gave me a nice, shiny, engraved trophy for my trouble and warned me to keep my mouth shut. But I knew it could happen again. The monster lived on, and the one who had the power to release it was not imprisoned.”
Harry nearly upset his ink bottle in his hurry to write back.
“It’s happening again now. There have been three attacks and no one seems to know who’s behind them. Who was it last time?”
“I can show you, if you like,” came Riddle’s reply. “You don’t have to take my word for it. I can take you inside my memory of the night when I caught him.”
Harry hesitated, his quill suspended over the diary. What did Riddle mean? How could he be taken inside somebody else’s memory? Feeling even more alarm from Al, he glanced nervously at the door to the dormitory, which was growing dark. When he looked back at the diary, he saw fresh words forming.
“Let me show you.”
NO. I don't trust this thing! This is not like anything I've read or heard about, this is like it's... alive. It's creepy.
Come now, Al; it's probably just programmed to respond this way. Besides, we talk with portraits, they act alive. There are mirrors people use that talk back to their users. This is probably just like that.
I can't explain it beyond “Bad vibes,” but this thing is dangerous.
Fine, fine.
“No thank you,” Harry wrote back. “You can just tell me.”
“Harry, I perfectly understand your reluctance in these dark times,” Riddle wrote back, “but seeing is believing, and the things I have to show you are hard to believe even when you see them. I promise you won't be hurt. It will take only minutes, and then you will be safely back to your chair. May I please show you?”
Harry hesitated. Al's alarm was diminishing a little into wariness. Riddle's politeness was what had clinched it for them; Voldemort had never been patient or polite in the one time they'd faced him. It seemed unlikely that this polite young man could be Voldemort.
“Well, since you asked nicely,” Harry wrote back. “Okay.”
The pages of the diary began to blow as though caught in a high wind, stopping halfway through the month of June. Mouth hanging open, Harry saw that the little square for June thirteenth seemed to have turned into a minuscule television screen. His hands trembling slightly, he raised the book to press his eye against the little window, and before he knew what was happening, he was tilting forward; the window was widening, he felt his body leave his bed, and he was pitched headfirst through the opening in the page, into a whirl of color and shadow.
He felt his feet hit solid ground, and stood, shaking, as the blurred shapes around him came suddenly into focus. Al's renewed alarm flooding him, he jumped up, pointing his wand around warily, expecting an attack.
He knew immediately where he was. This circular room with the sleeping portraits was Dumbledore’s office — but it wasn’t Dumbledore who was sitting behind the desk. A wizened, frail-looking wizard, bald except for a few wisps of white hair, was reading a letter by candlelight. Harry had never seen this man before. The portraits of former headmasters were largely the same, but everything else about the room was different; no Fawkes, no whirring silver instruments. This was not Dumbledore's office, even though it was the same room.
A quick succession of thoughts occurred within the collective, and in several seconds they realized that Riddle had somehow pulled them into his memory. Either that, or time travel. But since the unknown wizard hadn't noticed their sudden appearance, and didn't respond to them speaking, time travel seemed unlikely, if that were even possible.
There was a knock on the office door.
“Enter,” said the old wizard in a feeble voice.
A boy of about sixteen entered, taking off his pointed hat. The collective analyzed him. A silver prefect’s badge was glinting on his chest. He was much taller than Harry, but he, too, had jet-black hair. Iliana also noticed that he was extremely handsome. But Al noticed that his heart-reading ability wasn't working on Riddle. Though that could be explained if Riddle were nothing more than a magical memory with no soul. Al focused on his body language instead, the little subconscious tells people always give away.
“Ah, Riddle,” said the headmaster.
“You wanted to see me, Professor Dippet?” said Riddle.
Riddle was nervous; Al saw that right away. That, too, was to be expected given what he'd said before, about the Chamber being open back then.
“Ah, Riddle,” said the headmaster.
“You wanted to see me, Professor Dippet?” said Riddle. He looked nervous.
“Sit down,” said Dippet. “I’ve just been reading the letter you sent me.”
“Oh,” said Riddle. He sat down, gripping his hands together very tightly.
“My dear boy,” said Dippet kindly, “I cannot possibly let you stay at school over the summer. Surely you want to go home for the holidays?”
“No,” said Riddle at once. “I’d much rather stay at Hogwarts than go back to that — to that —”
“You live in a Muggle orphanage during the holidays, I believe?” said Dippet curiously.
“Yes, sir,” said Riddle, reddening slightly.
“You are Muggle-born?”
“Half-blood, sir,” said Riddle. “Muggle father, witch mother.”
“And are both your parents — ?”
“My mother died just after I was born, sir. They told me at the orphanage she lived just long enough to name me — Tom after my father, Marvolo after my grandfather.”
Dippet clucked his tongue sympathetically. Al and Harry were sympathetic, too. Given his body language, this orphanage must've been at least as bad as the Dursleys. If that were true, no wonder he didn't want to go back. They themselves would rather stay behind, even with the Chamber still being open, than go back to the Dursleys, if that were still on the table.
“The thing is, Tom,” he sighed, “special arrangements might have been made for you, but in the current circumstances. …”
“You mean all these attacks, sir?” said Riddle, and Harry’s heart leapt, and he moved closer, scared of missing anything.
“Precisely,” said the headmaster. “My dear boy, you must see how foolish it would be of me to allow you to remain at the castle when term ends. Particularly in light of the recent tragedy … the death of that poor little girl. … You will be safer by far at your orphanage. As a matter of fact, the Ministry of Magic is even now talking about closing the school. We are no nearer locating the — er — source of all this unpleasantness. …”
Riddle’s eyes had widened.
“Sir — if the person was caught — if it all stopped —”
“What do you mean?” said Dippet with a squeak in his voice, sitting up in his chair. “Riddle, do you mean you know something about these attacks?”
“No, sir,” said Riddle quickly.
Liar. He knows something. The fact that he isn't saying so means he either isn't sure of what he knows, or... well...
Dippet sank back, looking faintly disappointed.
“You may go, Tom. …”
Riddle slid off his chair and slouched out of the room. Harry followed him.
Down the moving spiral staircase they went, emerging next to the gargoyle in the darkening corridor. Riddle stopped, and so did Harry, watching him. Harry could tell that Riddle was doing some serious thinking. He was biting his lip, his forehead furrowed.
There's more than one possible explanation for that. He could be looking for a fall guy.
What makes you so sure he's guilty, Al? Anything beyond vibes?
There was no answer.
Then, as though he had suddenly reached a decision, Riddle hurried off, Harry gliding noiselessly behind him. They didn’t see another person until they reached the entrance hall, when a tall wizard with long, sweeping auburn hair and a beard called to Riddle from the marble staircase.
“What are you doing, wandering around this late, Tom?”
Harry gaped at the wizard. He was none other than a fifty-year-younger Dumbledore.
“I had to see the headmaster, sir,” said Riddle.
“Well, hurry off to bed,” said Dumbledore, giving Riddle exactly the kind of penetrating stare Harry knew so well. “Best not to roam the corridors these days. Not since …”
He sighed heavily, bade Riddle good night, and strode off. Riddle watched him walk out of sight and then, moving quickly, headed straight down the stone steps to the dungeons, with Harry in hot pursuit.
But there'd been more to that scene, that Al had noticed. Dumbledore was hard to read, even looking for tells, but it seemed to Al that Dumbledore didn't trust Riddle, like he was suspicious of the boy's motives, which seemed out of character for Dumbledore.
Then there was Riddle himself; though he tried to hide it, the small changes in his facial expression upon seeing Dumbledore said that the feeling was mutual. In fact, Riddle had a hard time disguising the fact that he hated Dumbledore. Al's wariness grew.
Riddle did not go down any secret passages, or anywhere particularly interesting. In fact, for what felt like the next hour, Riddle stood still as a stone pressed to the wall of the dungeon that led to Potions, waiting for something. The boy seemed almost to blend into the wall. Given what was supposed to be going on in the school, Al found it interesting that Riddle could hide for so long in the corridors without running into any of the teachers. Prefect or no, that was... interesting.
Finally, someone else appeared, skulking around the halls with equal caution but less skill. He followed Riddle as the prefect followed the other person, into a room with a creaking door.
“C’mon … gotta get yeh outta here. … C’mon now … in the box …”
There was something familiar about that voice. …
Riddle suddenly jumped around the corner. Harry stepped out behind him. He could see the dark outline of a huge boy who was crouching in front of an open door, a very large box next to it.
“ ’Evening, Rubeus,” said Riddle sharply.
The boy slammed the door shut and stood up. It was a much younger Hagrid. It was hard to tell without the beard, but it was Hagrid's same eyes, and nobody could mistake that hulking form; Hagrid was just as tall here as he was in Harry's time. Al had to resist laughing at the absurdity of this. Either Riddle was a total idiot, or he was spinning a tall tale for them. Al knew Hagrid was fond of monsters, but the thought he could be the Heir was just ludicrous.
“What yer doin’ down here, Tom?”
Riddle stepped closer.
“It’s all over,” he said. “I’m going to have to turn you in, Rubeus. They’re talking about closing Hogwarts if the attacks don’t stop.”
“What d’yeh —”
“I don’t think you meant to kill anyone. But monsters don’t make good pets. I suppose you just let it out for exercise and —”
“It never killed no one!” said the large boy, backing against the closed door. From behind him, Harry could hear a funny rustling and clicking.
“Come on, Rubeus,” said Riddle, moving yet closer. “The dead girl’s parents will be here tomorrow. The least Hogwarts can do is make sure that the thing that killed their daughter is slaughtered. …”
“It wasn’t him!” roared the boy, his voice echoing in the dark passage. “He wouldn’! He never!”
“Stand aside,” said Riddle, drawing out his wand.
His spell lit the corridor with a sudden flaming light. The door behind the large boy flew open with such force it knocked him into the wall opposite. And out of it came something that made Harry let out a long, piercing scream unheard by anyone —
A vast, low-slung, hairy body and a tangle of black legs; a gleam of many eyes and a pair of razor-sharp pincers — Riddle raised his wand again, but he was too late. The thing bowled him over as it scuttled away, tearing up the corridor and out of sight. Riddle scrambled to his feet, looking after it; he raised his wand, but the huge boy leapt on him, seized his wand, and threw him back down, yelling, “NOOOOOOO!”
The scene whirled, the darkness became complete; Harry felt himself falling and, with a crash, he landed spread-eagled on his four-poster in the Gryffindor dormitory, Riddle’s diary lying open on his stomach.
Before he had had time to regain his breath, the dormitory door opened and Ron came in.
“There you are,” he said.
Harry sat up. He was sweating and shaking.
“What’s up?” said Ron, looking at him with concern.
“That's... that's complicated,” Harry answered. “Let me tell you all about it.”
“The Many Faces of Adira Potter: Chapter 11”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Eleven: Return of the Return of the Heir
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there. A bit more of it here than normal; one scene, I couldn't really improve upon or change.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Harry, and Zoey, and now Iliana (bold, italic, and underlined). (Which is also sometimes used for emphasis in Al's speech, but whatever.)
After discussing it for a couple hours that night, and later with Hermione for several hours, they all came to the conclusion that it looked like Riddle's diary was somehow the cause of the Chamber opening. They came to this conclusion after what Al had told them about what he'd seen of the emotions of Dumbledore and Riddle. Since Dumbledore was famous for being the only person Voldemort ever feared, among other things, it seemed that handsome, prefect Riddle was Voldemort in his teen years. That, and the fact that Hagrid's monster had been a giant spider, not a snake.
But while they came to this conclusion, it was hard to believe, and even Al wasn't really sure. After all, what if Riddle had just been mistaken? Anyone who didn't know Hagrid well enough could logically conclude that he'd gone looking for the Chamber's monster. None of them thought Hagrid was the one who'd done it, but it was a logical conclusion, especially since the attacks had apparently stopped after that.
In the end, they decided to continue holding onto the diary. If it really was the cause of the problems, then the attacks should stop. Al even took extra measures to secure it, putting the diary in a locking box and that box inside his trunk, putting alarms and hexes on the box. Nothing major, since he didn't know many hexes, but it should cause anyone stealing it to break out in boils.
The second years were given something new to think about during their Easter holidays. The time had come to choose their subjects for the third year, a matter that Hermione, at least, took very seriously.
“It could affect our whole future,” she told Harry and Ron as they pored over lists of new subjects, marking them with checks.
“I just want to give up Potions,” said Harry.
“We can’t,” said Ron gloomily. “We keep all our old subjects, or I’d’ve ditched Defense Against the Dark Arts.”
“But that’s very important!” said Hermione, shocked.
“Not the way Lockhart teaches it,” said Ron. “I haven’t learned anything from him except not to set pixies loose.”
“I wouldn't worry too much,” Harry said. “I've heard rumors about that position; nobody ever lasts more than a year as DADA teacher in Hogwarts. We'll have someone new next year.”
Which classes to take next year was a subject that had the entire Potter collective in hot discussions for days. There were lots of considerations, but Divination sounded good; they could certainly use the ability to read the future, with Voldemort as an enemy. Care of Magical Creatures also sounded useful. Arithmancy, from what they read, was a form of divination using the magical properties of numbers and numerology, but it sounded difficult. There was a lot to think about, so no conclusions came to them.
Gryffindor’s next Quidditch match would be against Hufflepuff. Wood was insisting on team practices every night after dinner, so that Iliana was Out more often than Harry was, and only had time for Quidditch and schoolwork. But their practices were getting better and drier, so that made her happy.
But her cheerful mood didn’t last long. At the top of the stairs to the dormitory, she met Neville Longbottom, who was looking frantic.
“Iliana — I don’t know who did it — I just found —”
Watching Iliana fearfully, Neville pushed open the door.
The contents of their trunk had been thrown everywhere. Their cloak lay ripped on the floor. The bedclothes had been pulled off their four-poster and the drawer had been pulled out of their bedside cabinet, the contents strewn over the mattress.
Iliana walked over to the bed, open-mouthed, treading on a few loose pages of Travels with Trolls. As she and Neville pulled the blankets back onto his bed, Ron, Dean, and Seamus came in. Dean swore loudly.
“What happened?”
“No idea,” she said. But she noticed all the pockets of the robes were hanging out. “Someone was looking for something.”
“Is anything missing?”
It was hard to tell in all the mess. She set about repairing books and torn linens with her wand, and only when everything was put back right did she realize the box that had contained the diary was in pieces, like someone had blasted it with their wand. The diary itself was gone.
My guess is they blasted it open, the alarms went screeching, they grabbed the diary, and then blasted the box to stop it screeching.
Iliana nodded. She turned to Ron.
“Riddle's diary is gone.”
They went out into the common room to tell Hermione. As she pointed out, only a Griffindor could have gotten into their dorm. This was not pleasant news. But Hermione was saying what Iliana and the others had been thinking.
~
The next morning, the conditions for Quidditch were perfect; the weather was fair, the sun was shining, and the breeze was warm but refreshing. Oliver Wood was excited, as was Iliana, despite their worries about Riddle's diary. In fact, this thought was preoccupying them as they looked up and down the Griffindor table, wondering who the thief was. And telling a teacher about it wasn't likely to be helpful; Dumbledore wasn't being cooperative, and that didn't bode well for the other teachers being any better. And there was Hagrid to think about; if the diary was found, it would finger Hagrid for the culprit, and given that Al didn't trust Riddle... it was just a lot to think about, and it was coloring their excitement.
As she left the Great Hall to collect her Quidditch things, their theory about the diary seemed to be confirmed as they heard that heart-stopping voice again.
“Kill this time … let me rip … tear …”
She shouted aloud and Ron and Hermione both jumped away from her in alarm.
“That voice! I heard it again. And it's definitely Parseltongue! I recognize it now.”
“Iliana, I've just thought of something,” said Hermione suddenly. “I've got to go to the l--”
But Iliana grabbed Hermione like a shipwreck victim clutching a life raft, panic and tears in her eyes. “No you are not going anywhere with that thing on the loose, do you hear me? If I have to have Zoey turn you into a turtle and carry you in my pocket, I will not let you out of my sight until this whole Heir business is done, do you hear me?”
The rising pitch as panic gripped her voice made Hermione's eyes go wide.
“Alright, Iliana, I won't go any--”
“What could possibly be so important you have to leave our side now anyway?” Iliana demanded.
Hermione turned red and looked down at her shoes. “I, um... I was going to go to the library to ask Ms. Pince about magical snake creatures.”
“Well it can wait! I barely knew Colin and I cried so much when he got petrified. And a girl died last time the Chamber was opened! I don't want that to be you this time!”
Hermione's eyes were also filling with tears. “I promise I'll stay by your side whenever we're out of our bedrooms.”
“Not good enough. You're sleeping in my bed until this is over, understood? Don't give me that look, there's one girl in there already, two if you count Zoey, so what's another one?”
Nodding silently, Hermione followed Iliana and Ron up to their bedroom as Iliana got her Quidditch things, then followed them down to the Quidditch pitch.
“Can I go up to the bleachers with Ron,” she asked tremulously as they approached the pitch, “or did you want me to stay with you in the changing room?”
“Well, I suppose it's okay. The Heir isn't likely to attack with all these witnesses.”
“Good. Come on, Ron.”
Despite what she'd said, Iliana didn't relax until she spotted the two of them in the crowd as she got on her broom. But just then, Professor McGonagall came out came half marching, half running across the pitch, carrying an enormous purple megaphone. Iliana's heart dropped like a rock.
“This match has been canceled,” Professor McGonagall called through the megaphone, addressing the packed stadium. There were boos and shouts. Oliver Wood, looking devastated, landed and ran toward Professor McGonagall without getting off his broomstick.
“But, Professor!” he shouted. “We’ve got to play — the Cup — Gryffindor —”
Professor McGonagall ignored him and continued to shout through her megaphone:
“All students are to make their way back to the House common rooms, where their Heads of Houses will give them further information. As quickly as you can, please!”
Then she lowered the megaphone and beckoned Iliana over. Iliana glared at McGonagall.
“How can you think it's me this time? I've been with Ron and Hermione all morning, up until I went in to get changed for Quidditch, and one of the Weasley twins walked in on me nearly at the worst possible moment, so they can vouch for me.”
Ron and Hermione came over just then.
“Ms. Granger, Mr. Weasley, can you vouch for Potter's whereabout?”
The two basically repeated what Iliana had said. She then pulled the twins over and they, too, confirmed Iliana's alibi.
“Good. I really didn't think it was you, Potter, but given your tendency to be the first to discover attacks, I had to ask.”
“I understand, Professor. Um... by the way, who was attacked?”
“It was another double attack. We found a miss Penelope Clearwater of Ravenclaw, and Ravenclaw's ghost, the Grey Lady. It looked as though the Grey Lady had just been floating past on her way somewhere, she didn't even look perturbed.”
Hermione's eyes went wide at this, and she gave Iliana a Significant Look.
“Professor, would it be possible to stop by the library on the way back to our dorms?”
“No, Miss Granger, I'm afraid not. You can go to the library sometime later, perhaps, but not now.”
They nodded in understanding.
The whole walk back to their dorms, Iliana clutched Ron's and Hermione's hands like she didn't want to ever let go of them. And when they got back, she actually followed Hermione up to the girl's dorms as she went to get some things to spend the next foreseeable nights in Iliana's bed. This was not well met by the other boys, until Iliana started to cry and shout at them at the same time in worry over her friends, at which point they relented.
“All students will return to their House common rooms by six o’clock in the evening,” McGonagall had explained. “No student is to leave the dormitories after that time. You will be escorted to each lesson by a teacher. No student is to use the bathroom unaccompanied by a teacher. All further Quidditch training and matches are to be postponed. There will be no more evening activities.”
The common room was full of scared people talking. Lee Jordan pointed out that none of the victims had been Slytherins. Even upset as she was, Iliana thought it unfair for him to want to chuck all the Slytherins out; they couldn't all be bad, that was unrealistic.
Percy Weasley was sitting in a chair behind Lee, but for once he didn’t seem keen to make his views heard. He was looking pale and stunned.
“Percy’s in shock,” George told the trio quietly. “That Ravenclaw girl — Penelope Clearwater — she’s a prefect. I don’t think he thought the monster would dare attack a prefect.”
But using their heart-reading and their skills at reading body language, Iliana didn't think that was it. Percy was plainly worrying about the well-being of someone he was in love with. But she didn't think it wise to tell the twins this. Or anyone else, lest the secret find them.
This whole business proves our theory right, Al said, interrupting her thoughts. That diary is the source of all this madness. And if that's true, how did it get in here? And what do we do about it?
But, for once, nobody else in the collective had any ideas.
The only thing I think we can do, Al finally thought, is get Hermione to the library so she can find out what this monster is. And then somehow figure out where the Chamber is?
“We have to talk to Hagrid,” Iliana found herself saying. Though unexpected, the thought felt true.
“Why?”
“It's plain he didn't do this, but he was transporting that giant spider pet of his when he got 'caught.' It seemed agitated. I don't know why, but something about that tells me he might have a clue for us.”
“Giant spider?” Hermione asked. “How giant?”
“Looked to be about the size where a toddler could ride it,” Iliana said.
She turned to Ron, who was looking ill. “What's wrong with you?”
“I don't like spiders.”
“You use them in potions,” she pointed out.
“I don't mind them dead. The live ones, though... the way they move.”
“A common fear.”
Hermione nodded.
“Anyway, a spider that big suggests a baby acromantula.”
“Spider that huge, and you reckon it's a baby?”
“Yes. Acromantulas can speak, they're intelligent. Maybe his spider knew what the creature was? Maybe it told him what the thing was?”
“So we definitely need to talk with Hagrid, then.”
“But McGonagall said we’ve got to stay in our tower unless we’re in class —”
“I think,” said Iliana, more quietly still, “it’s time to get dad’s old cloak out again.”
The Potters had inherited just one thing from their father: a long and silvery Invisibility Cloak. It was their only chance of sneaking out of the school to visit Hagrid without anyone knowing about it. They went to bed at the usual time, waited until Neville, Dean, and Seamus had stopped discussing the Chamber of Secrets and finally fallen asleep, then got up, dressed again, and threw the cloak over the three of themselves.
It was a tense trip. Unlike other night-time wanderings, this time there were dozens of teachers, ghosts, and prefects patrolling the halls, looking for suspicious activity. They were risking a lot more than house points this time, and breaking the promise Al had made to Dumbledore in the bargain, but this was important. What if the Heir took a friend next time? And what if that friend died? No, the stakes were too high.
It was a clear, starry night. They hurried toward the lit windows of Hagrid’s house and pulled off the cloak only when they were right outside his front door.
Seconds after they had knocked, Hagrid flung it open. They found themselves face-to-face with him aiming a crossbow at them. Fang the boarhound barked loudly behind him.
“Oh,” he said, lowering the weapon and staring at them. “What’re you three doin’ here?”
“What's that for?”
“Nothin’ — nothin’ — “ Hagrid muttered. “I’ve bin expectin’ — doesn’ matter — Sit down — I’ll make tea —”
He hardly seemed to know what he was doing. He nearly extinguished the fire, spilling water from the kettle on it, and then smashed the teapot with a nervous jerk of his massive hand.
“Are you okay, Hagrid?” said Iliana. “Did you hear about Penelope Clearwater?”
“Oh, is tha' her name? Yeh, I heard bout that, alright,” he said with a slight break in his voice.
He kept glancing nervously at the windows. He poured them all large mugs of boiling water (he had forgotten to add tea bags) and was just putting a slab of fruitcake on a plate when there was a loud knock on the door.
Hagrid dropped the fruitcake. The three of them looked worriedly at each other, then hid under the cloak in a corner of the room. Once he was sure they were hidden, he got his crossbow out and answered the door.
“Good evening, Hagrid.”
It was Dumbledore. He entered, looking deadly serious, and was followed by a second, very odd-looking man.
The stranger had rumpled gray hair and an anxious expression, and was wearing a strange mixture of clothes: a pinstriped suit, a scarlet tie, a long black cloak, and pointed purple boots. Under his arm he carried a lime-green bowler.
“That’s Dad’s boss!” Ron breathed. “Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic!”
Iliana and Hermione elbowed Ron hard to make him shut up.
Hagrid had gone pale and sweaty. He dropped into one of his chairs and looked from Dumbledore to Cornelius Fudge.
“Bad business, Hagrid,” said Fudge in rather clipped tones. “Very bad business. Had to come. Three attacks on Muggle-borns, and two ghosts down to boot. Things’ve gone far enough. Ministry’s got to act.”
“I never,” said Hagrid, looking imploringly at Dumbledore. “You know I never, Professor Dumbledore, sir —”
“I want it understood, Cornelius, that Hagrid has my full confidence,” said Dumbledore, frowning at Fudge.
“Look, Albus,” said Fudge, uncomfortably. “Hagrid’s record’s against him. Ministry’s got to do something — the school governors have been in touch —”
“Yet again, Cornelius, I tell you that taking Hagrid away will not help in the slightest,” said Dumbledore. His blue eyes were full of a fire none of the Potters had ever seen before.
“Look at it from my point of view,” said Fudge, fidgeting with his bowler. “I’m under a lot of pressure. Got to be seen to be doing something. If it turns out it wasn’t Hagrid, he’ll be back and no more said. But I’ve got to take him. Got to. Wouldn’t be doing my duty —”
“Take me?” said Hagrid, who was trembling. “Take me where?”
“For a short stretch only,” said Fudge, not meeting Hagrid’s eyes. “Not a punishment, Hagrid, more a precaution. If someone else is caught, you’ll be let out with a full apology —”
“Not Azkaban?” croaked Hagrid.
Iliana struggled suddenly to prevent Tier growling. He did not like the idea of Hagrid going to that horrible place when he was innocent.
Before Fudge could answer, there was another loud rap on the door.
Dumbledore answered it, and this time Iliana got poked in the ribs, for she had recognized Lucius Malfoy. He was white-blond and would have been very handsome if not for the cold cruelty in his face. In that way, Draco took after his father.
“Already here, Fudge,” he said approvingly. “Good, good …”
“What’re you doin’ here?” said Hagrid furiously. “Get outta my house!”
“My dear man, please believe me, I have no pleasure at all in being inside your — er — d’you call this a house?” said Lucius Malfoy, sneering as he looked around the small cabin. “I simply called at the school and was told that the headmaster was here.”
“And what exactly did you want with me, Lucius?” said Dumbledore. He spoke politely, but the fire was still blazing in his blue eyes.
“Dreadful thing, Dumbledore,” said Malfoy lazily, taking out a long roll of parchment, “but the governors feel it’s time for you to step aside. This is an Order of Suspension — you’ll find all twelve signatures on it. I’m afraid we feel you’re losing your touch. How many attacks have there been now? Two more this afternoon, wasn’t it? At this rate, there’ll be no Muggle-borns left at Hogwarts, and we all know what an awful loss that would be to the school.”
“Oh, now, see here, Lucius,” said Fudge, looking alarmed, “Dumbledore suspended — no, no — last thing we want just now —”
“The appointment — or suspension — of the headmaster is a matter for the governors, Fudge,” said Mr. Malfoy smoothly. “And as Dumbledore has failed to stop these attacks —”
“See here, Malfoy, if Dumbledore can’t stop them,” said Fudge, whose upper lip was sweating now, “I mean to say, who can?”
“That remains to be seen,” said Mr. Malfoy with a nasty smile. “But as all twelve of us have voted —”
Hagrid leapt to his feet, his shaggy black head grazing the ceiling.
“An’ how many did yeh have ter threaten an’ blackmail before they agreed, Malfoy, eh?” he roared.
Amen, Al thought. I'm betting Lucius had something to do with this whole mess, he's one of Moldywart's followers, after all.
“Dear, dear, you know, that temper of yours will lead you into trouble one of these days, Hagrid,” said Mr. Malfoy. “I would advise you not to shout at the Azkaban guards like that. They won’t like it at all.”
“Yeh can’ take Dumbledore!” yelled Hagrid, making Fang the boarhound cower and whimper in his basket. “Take him away, an’ the Muggle-borns won’ stand a chance! There’ll be killin’ next!”
“Calm yourself, Hagrid,” said Dumbledore sharply. He looked at Lucius Malfoy.
“If the governors want my removal, Lucius, I shall of course step aside —”
“But —” stuttered Fudge.
“No!” growled Hagrid.
Dumbledore had not taken his bright blue eyes off Lucius Malfoy’s cold gray ones.
“However,” said Dumbledore, speaking very slowly and clearly so that none of them could miss a word, “you will find that I will only truly have left this school when none here are loyal to me. You will also find that help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.”
The man's eyes flicked in their direction. Did he know the three of them were there?
“Admirable sentiments,” said Malfoy, bowing. “We shall all miss your — er — highly individual way of running things, Albus, and only hope that your successor will manage to prevent any — ah — killins.”
He strode to the cabin door, opened it, and bowed Dumbledore out. Fudge, fiddling with his bowler, waited for Hagrid to go ahead of him, but Hagrid stood his ground, took a deep breath, and said carefully, “If anyone wanted ter find out some stuff, all they’d have ter do would be ter follow the spiders. That’d lead ’em right! That’s all I’m sayin’.”
Fudge stared at him in amazement.
“All right, I’m comin’,” said Hagrid, pulling on his moleskin overcoat. But as he was about to follow Fudge through the door, he stopped again and said loudly, “An’ someone’ll need ter feed Fang while I’m away.”
The door closed, and they removed the invisibility cloak.
“We’re in trouble now,” Ron said hoarsely. “No Dumbledore. They might as well close the school tonight. There’ll be an attack a day with him gone.”
Fang started howling, scratching at the closed door.
~
Hagrid's advice turned out to be really hard to follow, and getting into the library was proving just as hard. So days creeped by, until one day the three of them spotted some spiders in Herbology. The many-legged critters appeared to be heading for the Forbidden Forest, filling the Potters with dread and foreboding, even though it made perfect sense. If there really was an acromantula in that dark forest, then they might be going into a trap. But they had to find out. And given that nobody was likely to be patrolling the forest, it would be easier to get into than the library, these days.
It was Al they were transformed into during that class, and he was not pleased to run into Ernie MacMillan while holding a bunch of shrivelfigs in his arms.
“What do you want?” he asked, not bothering to try to sound polite.
Ernie, though, looked abashed. “It's just... I spoke with Penelope before she was attacked; I saw you, Ron, and Hermione leave the building for the Quidditch pitch as I did, and then she went off to the library. I was going to watch the game, so I saw Iliana go into the changing room. What I'm trying to say is, I was wrong about you. I apologize for the things I said about you.”
“Your apology is heard. As to whether it will be accepted... I'll get back to you on that.”
Ernie winced. “Fair enough.”
As the four of them worked on their shrivelfigs together, Ernie talked more.
“That Draco Malfoy character,” said Ernie, breaking off dead twigs, “he seems very pleased about all this, doesn’t he? D’you know, I think he might be Slytherin’s heir.”
“That’s clever of you,” said Ron.
“Do you think it’s Malfoy, Al?” Ernie asked.
“No,” said Al, so firmly that Ernie and Hannah stared.
“Whoever it is has shown a desire for secrecy; they haven't been caught yet. Malfoy is way too excited about this business, makes him way too obvious a candidate. And if it were him, he wouldn't be subtle about it. He'd be bragging, and he would have been caught early on.”
This seemed to convince them; they looked thoughtful, and nodded.
It was then that they saw the spiders, and surreptitiously had a conversation about them, deciding they would have to go into the forest.
At the end of the lesson Professor Sprout escorted the class to their Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson. Al, Ron, and Hermione lagged behind the others so they could talk out of earshot, and plan their trip. Ron was reluctant, but Al asking him “What if it had been Hermione?” made him decide to tag along.
But plans aside, they still had classes to go to, and the next was Lockhart's. The idiot was the only cheerful person in the castle, as he was absolutely convinced that Hagrid had been the culprit. Al tried to resist the urge to say something, but finally he snorted so loudly that Lockhart said, “Yes, Mr. Potter? You doubt the culprit's been caught?”
Al tried to think of a defense of Hagrid that he could possibly know were he a normal person with a normal life, rather than someone who kept getting caught up in the middle of things like this, and couldn't think of a single thing.
“I can't explain it, I just know Hagrid's innocent,” he finally said. Then unfocused his eyes as he tried to ignore the resulting tide of Pompous Blowhard streaming from Lockhart.
~
Not wanting to waste time, the trio decided to go to the Forest that very night.
The Gryffindor common room was always very crowded these days, because from six o’clock onward the Gryffindors had nowhere else to go. They also had plenty to talk about, with the result that the common room often didn’t empty until past midnight.
Al went to get the Invisibility Cloak out of their trunk right after dinner, and spent the evening sitting on it, waiting for the room to clear. Fred and George challenged Al and Ron to a game of Exploding Snap, but they declined; Hermione had given them a list of spells to practice for their plan, and they practiced these as quietly as possible on a bunch of old Butterbeer bottles they'd gotten from the twins, as Hermione sat reading about magical monsters and taking notes, and Ginny sat watching Ron and Al, very subdued for some reason. All told, it was well past midnight when Fred, George, and Ginny finally went to bed.
Once they were certain they were alone, the three of them put on the cloak. Though Al immediately took it off again, handed it to Hermione, and shrunk down with barely a glimmer of light to Harry, who was much shorter; Al had felt this would be easier.
“Right,” Hermione said. “You've memorized those spells I gave you? Good, let's go now.”
They put on the cloak at last, and left the common room together.
It was another difficult journey through the castle, dodging all the teachers and prefects. But at last they reached the entrance hall, slid back the lock on the oak front doors, squeezed between them, trying to stop any creaking, and stepped out into the moonlit grounds.
“ ’Course,” said Ron abruptly as they strode across the black grass, “we might get to the forest and find there’s nothing to follow. Those spiders might not’ve been going there at all. I know it looked like they were moving in that sort of general direction, but …”
His voice trailed away hopefully.
When the three of them got to Hagrid's house, they were greeted by Fang. To prevent his barks alerting the teachers, they cemented his jaw shut with some treacle toffee. They also left the cloak behind at Hagrid's, as they wouldn't need it in the forest. But they did take Fang, who might be useful.
Harry and Hermione lit their wands once they got into the forest. Ron would've done his, but they didn't need any explosions. In all the bother about the Chamber, Harry realized they'd quite forgotten about getting Ron a new wand. But now wasn't the time either.
Harry tapped Ron and Hermione on the shoulder, pointing at the grass. Two solitary spiders were hurrying away from the wandlight into the shade of the trees.
“Okay,” Ron sighed as though resigned to the worst, “I’m ready. Let’s go.”
“Me too,” said Hermione.
So the three humans (or 7, depending on your point of view) and one dog set out, Harry's and Hermione's wands lighting the way, Hermione getting as nervous as Ron.
“Oh, I don't know about this,” she said, the deeper in they got, until they could no longer see the stars. “Maybe we should have gone to the library instead.”
“And have Filch catch all three of us? No thanks,” Harry said.
“Yes, but acromantulas eat people, Harry.”
Ron gagged. “You're only telling us this NOW?”
“Oh, sorry,” she said worriedly. “It's just... the acromantula Hagrid had in that box would be near the end of its life, and I thought maybe we'd be safe from one slow, dying giant spider. But now we're in here in the dark, following these spiders, and I have to wonder if Hagrid didn't maybe... get him a mate.”
Ron turned so pale he could pass for a vampire. He opened his mouth to speak, but didn't seem able. Harry spoke instead.
“I really hope Hagrid isn't that naïve.”
Maybe Hagrid's pet acromantula was a pouf, Al thought hopefully.
I wouldn't bet on it, Harry replied.
It got more and more difficult to find the spiders the deeper in they went, as the darkness turned into almost a solid thing, making their 'lumos' spells seem feeble and wan. Time was becoming hard to judge, but they must have followed the trail for at least half an hour before they finally lost the trail.
“Okay, let's keep looking, they're bound to be around here somewhere.”
It was a few moments before Harry realized that only Hermione had responded, by looking with him. He looked over at Ron, who was looking up and behind Harry, with a look of mute horror on his face.
Harry didn’t even have time to turn around. There was a loud clicking noise and suddenly he felt something long and hairy seize him around the middle and lift him off the ground, so that he was hanging facedown. He heard Hermione scream. Struggling, terrified, he heard more clicking, and saw Ron’s legs leave the ground, too, heard Fang whimpering and howling — next moment, he was being swept away into the dark trees.
Head hanging, Harry saw that what had hold of him was marching on six immensely long, hairy legs, the front two clutching him tightly below a pair of shining black pincers. Behind him, he could hear another pair of the creatures, no doubt carrying Ron and Hermione. They were moving into the very heart of the forest. Harry could hear Fang fighting to free himself from a fourth monster, whining loudly, but Harry couldn’t have yelled even if he had wanted to; he seemed to have left his voice back in the clearing where they'd lost the trail.
He never knew how long he was in the creature’s clutches; he only knew that the darkness suddenly lifted enough for him to see that the leaf-strewn ground was now swarming with spiders. Craning his neck sideways, he realized that they had reached the ridge of a vast hollow, a hollow that had been cleared of trees, so that the stars shone brightly onto the worst scene he had ever laid eyes on.
Spiders. Not tiny spiders like those surging over the leaves below. Spiders the size of carthorses, eight-eyed, eight-legged, black, hairy, gigantic. The massive specimen that was carrying Harry made its way down the steep slope toward a misty, domed web in the very center of the hollow, while its fellows closed in all around it, clicking their pincers excitedly at the sight of its load.
Harry fell to the ground on all fours, and heard Ron and Hermione land, too. Ron's face was a rictus of terror, and Hermione's face was little better. Ron looked exactly like Harry felt. His mouth was stretched wide in a kind of silent scream and his eyes were popping.
Harry suddenly realized that the spider that had dropped him was saying something. It had been hard to tell, because he clicked his pincers with every word he spoke.
“Aragog!” it called. “Aragog!”
And from the middle of the misty, domed web, a spider the size of a small elephant emerged, very slowly. There was gray in the black of his body and legs, and each of the eyes on his ugly, pincered head was milky white. He was blind.
“What is it?” he said, clicking his pincers rapidly.
“Men,” clicked the spider who had caught Harry.
“Is it Hagrid?” said Aragog, moving closer, his eight milky eyes wandering vaguely.
“Strangers,” clicked the spider who had brought Ron.
“Kill them,” clicked Aragog fretfully. “I was sleeping. …”
“We’re friends of Hagrid’s,” Harry shouted. His heart seemed to have left his chest to pound in his throat.
Click, click, click went the pincers of the spiders all around the hollow.
Aragog paused.
“Hagrid has never sent men into our hollow before,” he said slowly.
“Hagrid’s in trouble,” said Harry, breathing very fast. “That’s why we’ve come.”
“In trouble?” said the aged spider, and Harry thought he heard concern beneath the clicking pincers. “But why has he sent you?”
Harry thought of getting to his feet but decided against it; he didn’t think his legs would support him. So he spoke from the ground, as calmly as he could.
“They think, up at the school, that Hagrid’s been setting a — a — something on students. They’ve taken him to Azkaban.”
Aragog clicked his pincers furiously, and all around the hollow the sound was echoed by the crowd of spiders; it was like applause, except applause didn’t usually make Harry feel sick with fear.
“But that was years ago,” said Aragog fretfully. “Years and years ago. I remember it well. That’s why they made him leave the school. They believed that I was the monster that dwells in what they call the Chamber of Secrets. They thought that Hagrid had opened the Chamber and set me free.”
“Yes, I know about that. I also don't think you were the creature from the Chamber.”
“Of course I wasn't!” said Aragog, clicking angrily. “I was not born in the castle. I come from a distant land. A traveler gave me to Hagrid when I was an egg. Hagrid was only a boy, but he cared for me, hidden in a cupboard in the castle, feeding me on scraps from the table. Hagrid is my good friend, and a good man. When I was discovered, and blamed for the death of a girl, he protected me. I have lived here in the forest ever since, where Hagrid still visits me. He even found me a wife, Mosag, and you see how our family has grown, all through Hagrid’s goodness. …”
Harry summoned what remained of his courage.
“So I'm right then, you never attacked anyone?”
“Never,” croaked the old spider. “It would have been my instinct, but out of respect for Hagrid, I never harmed a human. The body of the girl who was killed was discovered in a bathroom. I never saw any part of the castle but the cupboard in which I grew up. Our kind like the dark and the quiet. …”
“But then … Do you know what did kill that girl?” said Harry. “Because whatever it is, it’s back and attacking people again —”
His words were drowned by a loud outbreak of clicking and the rustling of many long legs shifting angrily; large black shapes shifted all around him.
“The thing that lives in the castle,” said Aragog, “is an ancient creature we spiders fear above all others. Well do I remember how I pleaded with Hagrid to let me go, when I sensed the beast moving about the school.”
“What is it?” said Harry urgently.
More loud clicking, more rustling; the spiders seemed to be closing in.
“We do not speak of it!” said Aragog fiercely. “We do not name it! I never even told Hagrid the name of that dread creature, though he asked me, many times.”
“It wouldn't happen to be a snake of some kind?” Harry asked.
More of that loud clicking and rustling.
“Yes, it is. A serpent of enormous size and power,” said Aragog. “And that is all I will say on the matter. Even that may be too much.”
Looking around at the creeping acromantulas, Harry silently gulped. “Well thank you for the information. We'll be going now, so we can help get Hagrid free.”
“Go? I think not. My sons and daughters do not harm Hagrid on my command. But I cannot deny them fresh meat when it wanders so willingly into our midst, even on the promise of helping Hagrid. Goodbye, friends of Hagrid.”
“Do we panic now?” Ron croaked out feebly.
“Harry,” Hermione said, her voice shrill with fear. “Acromantulas don't like light.”
“Yes, he said that. I don't... Oh.”
As the giant spiders closed in on them, Harry realized that Tier had been chomping at the bit to be let loose, and so he let down the barriers keeping him back. His friends closed their eyes just in time for the brightest flash of light their transformations had ever made, making the giant spiders hiss and click in pain as Tier made some truly interesting changes to their shared body. When the light stopped, Tier grabbed Hermione, Ron, and Fang and carried them on his back. The animal-like Tier had become a very large creature indeed, looking like a mutated, sloppily-created hybrid of a human, a wolf, and a dragon, though he was not even as big as the acromantulas. It looked mostly like a giant wolf, if it had mange, and a dragonish head and tail.
Tier blew flames at the spiders, lighting their dome-shaped web on fire and eliciting screams from them, then tore ass as fast as he could back toward Hogwarts on wolf-like legs, dodging most of the trees, but letting branches and some saplings and bushes get shoved aside or broken off by his force-field.
The spiders were following him at quite a clip. Hermione and Ron shot spells at them, and every now and then Tier turned his head back to shoot flames at them, setting some of them on flames, the giant spiders screaming inhumanly, something sure to haunt their nightmares. But mostly, he had to focus on where he was going, to avoid the larger trees that wouldn't yield to his magical shield.
After several close calls, they started into the less dense areas of the forest, and the acromantulas started shying away from the light. But Tier didn't slow down. Instead, he burst out of the forest altogether, and seemed to be heading right for the castle when something made him stop so suddenly that his passengers almost fell off, turning just as quickly and slamming himself through Hagrid's front door. Ron and Hermione and Fang tumbled off, and Tier huddled, shaking, under Hagrid's bed with Fang.
The other two didn't look much better. Ron puked in the same pail he'd been coughing slugs into, and Hermione looked about ready to blow, too.
However, the fear seemed to be so bad for Tier that he couldn't cope anymore. With a flash of light, Tier became Harry again.
“Follow the spiders,” said Ron weakly, wiping his mouth on his sleeve as Harry crawled out from under the bed. “I’ll never forgive Hagrid. We’re lucky to be alive.”
“I bet he thought Aragog wouldn’t hurt friends of his,” said Harry.
“That’s exactly Hagrid’s problem!” said Ron, thumping the wall of the cabin. “He always thinks monsters aren’t as bad as they’re made out, and look where it’s got him! A cell in Azkaban!” He was shivering uncontrollably now. “What was the point of sending us in there? What have we found out, I’d like to know?”
Harry turned to Hermione, who had her chin on her knees.
“Well,” Harry said. “We've confirmed it's a snake monster. And we found out where exactly the girl who died was discovered; a bathroom.”
Ron snorted. Plainly this wasn't good enough for him.
Once they were recovered enough, the three of them got back under the invisibility cloak and headed back to the castle and up to Harry and Ron's bedroom. To make things less awkward, Harry had Zoey bring Iliana Out, and as soon as Ron closed his bed's curtains, the two girls got changed into nightgowns, then crawled into bed together.
Neither of the girls could sleep. They were both too scared and recovering from the adrenaline, and the collective's shared mind was buzzing with what they'd learned.
It was only when she finally started to feel drowsy that she realized it. Turning to Hermione, finding the other girl awake still, she got her friend's attention.
“Hermione. That girl who died. Aragog said she was found in a bathroom. What if she never left?”
Hermione's eyes went wide. “Moaning Myrtle?”
“Exactly my thoughts.”
End note: No, I do not have any plans to ship Iliana and Hermione together. Iliana, like Harry does both here and in the canon material, thinks of Hermione as a sister. That, and Rowling's other reasons for not shipping Harry and Hermione, makes too much sense to me to change. I can also assure you that the reasons are not because of any heterosexuality on Iliana's part. (I'm already fairly certain she's bisexual, though we shall see; when I write, my characters tend to surprise me sometimes.)
Chapter Twelve: Into the Chamber of Secrets
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue. Usually.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Harry, and Zoey, and now Iliana (bold, italic, and underlined). (Which is also sometimes used for emphasis in Al's speech, but whatever.)
All those times we were in that bathroom, and she was just three toilets away,” said Ron bitterly at breakfast next day, “and we could’ve asked her, and now we can't.”
At that moment, Percy Weasley came up to Hermione.
“Ah, there you are, Hermione. Your dorm mates were worried about you last night, where were you?” he asked her grumpily.
“She was with me,” Iliana explained. “I've been so scared about this whole Heir business, I had her sleep with me in my bed.”
Percy's face contorted with discomfort and haughtiness, a very odd combination; she guessed he was disapproving for multiple reasons.
“I don't know, Iliana,” he said. “My mother is hardly comfortable with you and Zoey in a boy's dormitory, and now Hermione, too? It just doesn't seem right.”
“Oh come on, Percy. It's just until this Chamber business finishes, if it ever does. Did you know she almost ran off to the library on her own the day Penelope and the Grey Lady got attacked? It could've been her in there now, and I don't know if I could function if she got attacked. I feel better when she's where I can keep an eye on her, during all this bad business. Please, Percy?”
Percy looked shaken, and his eyes were watering as though he was about to cry. Which made sense if Penelope and him were dating.
“Y-yes. Yes, Iliana, I'll just tell McGonagall and the Griffindor girls what's going on. I... well, it might be difficult to convince McGonagall, but I'll try my hardest, okay?”
Iliana smiled at him.
“Thanks, Percy!”
~
It had been hard enough trying to look for spiders. Escaping their teachers long enough to sneak into a girls’ bathroom, the girls’ bathroom, moreover, right next to the scene of the first attack, was going to be almost impossible. Not even Hermione, Iliana, or Zoey could have managed it in the current climate.
Then McGonagall dropped a bombshell on them, by talking about exams. Everyone, except for Hermione, was flabbergasted at this; none of them had thought there would be any exams with this whole Chamber business.
“Can you picture me taking exams with this?” Ron asked, his wand now whistling loudly. Iliana wished there were a way to get her friend a new wand.
Before they could leave class, McGonagall held Iliana back to talk with her.
“Yes, Professor?” she asked.
“Young Percy Weasley spoke to me earlier about Miss Granger staying at your dorm during all this trouble. And while I agree that Miss Granger does need someone with horse sense to keep her safe during all this bother, I don't know if I'm comfortable with two girls – or, well, I suppose three girls, what with Zoey Potter – spending time in a boy's dormitory. Especially Miss Granger, whose form doesn't change like yours does.”
“I understand the concerns you and other adults have, but besides the fact that I trust the boys in my dorm, I also know a number of spells to keep them out of the bed while we're in it. You know, stuff like using duro on the curtains to make them solid, and intruder repelling charms.”
McGonagall looked pensive.
“Well yes, that sounds good, Miss Potter. But what about changing? Where do you and Miss Granger get changed?”
“In the bed, with the curtains closed and solidified. Or we lock the door when nobody else is in the room, and unlock it when we're done.”
“And, um... what about the, uh... the boys you share a body with.”
Iliana turned red.
“They hide and don't look. And it's not like Hermione and I are watching each other get dressed. We're usually doing something else when the other is changing.”
Still, the Professor looked like she was debating with herself as to whether or not to ask something else.
“I'm not how to put this next thing, Miss Potter, but... well... we give all the students their own beds for multiple reasons. I don't know how things are in the Muggle world, but here in our world, relationships of a... romantic sort, between individuals of the same sex... are accepted as a thing that happens sometimes. So we don't exactly encourage students to sleep in each other's beds even when they're the same sex.”
Iliana's face was almost as red as her hair now.
“Hermione's just like a sister to me. That's all, really. Besides, I like boys. Like Oliver Wood.”
McGonagall, for her part, looked almost as uncomfortable as Iliana did.
“Understood, Miss Potter. Well, I'll allow it because of these attacks, but you're both to go back to your normal accomidations after it's been taken care of, understood?”
Iliana nodded.
“Good. Oh, and prepare yourselves; you may need to defend yourselves against accusations of impropriety by other students. And they might not be as... gentle... as I've been.”
“Understood, Professor. We will.”
McGonagall dismissed her with a curt nod and a wave, and Iliana left, trying to keep her face from catching on fire.
~
More good news came three days before the exams, when McGonagall announced that the mandrakes were ready for cutting, and the restorative draught was thus almost ready. Surely the culprit would be found out as soon as Colin and the others woke up. Iliana's eyes watered in silent tears of joy at this news.
“It won’t matter that we never asked Myrtle, then!” Ron said to Iliana.
Just then, Ginny Weasley came over and sat down next to Ron. She looked tense and nervous, and Harry noticed that her hands were twisting in her lap.
“What’s up?” said Ron, helping himself to more porridge.
Ginny didn’t say anything, but glanced up and down the Gryffindor table with a scared look on her face that reminded Iliana of someone, though he couldn’t think who.
“Spit it out,” said Ron, watching her.
Iliana suddenly realized who Ginny looked like. She was rocking backward and forward slightly in her chair, exactly like Dobby did when he was teetering on the edge of revealing forbidden information.
“I’ve got to tell you something,” Ginny mumbled, carefully not looking at Iliana.
“What is it?” said Iliana.
Ginny looked as though she couldn’t find the right words.
“What?” said Ron.
Ginny opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Iliana leaned forward and spoke quietly, so that only Ginny and Ron could hear him.
“Is it something about the Chamber of Secrets? Have you seen something? Someone acting oddly?”
Ginny drew a deep breath and, at that precise moment, Percy Weasley appeared, looking tired and wan.
“If you’ve finished eating, I’ll take that seat, Ginny. I’m starving, I’ve only just come off patrol duty.”
Ginny jumped up as though her chair had just been electrified, gave Percy a fleeting, frightened look, and scampered away. Percy sat down and grabbed a mug from the center of the table.
“Percy!” said Ron angrily. “She was just about to tell us something important!”
Halfway through a gulp of tea, Percy choked.
“What sort of thing?” he said, coughing.
“I just asked her if she’d seen anything odd, and she started to say —”
“Oh — that — that’s nothing to do with the Chamber of Secrets,” said Percy at once.
“How do you know?” said Ron, his eyebrows raised.
“This wouldn't have anything to do with your girlfriend, would it?” Iliana asked, making Ron stare at her with just as much bewilderment as Percy, before Percy responded.
“I, what? Me, a girlfriend? No, seriously?”
“You just interrupted Ginny saying something possibly important because of something to do with your girlfriend?” Ron finally managed to splutter.
Percy's face turned very red, and he walked very fast away from them. Iliana frowned.
“Come on, let's go find your sister, see if we can convince her to talk.”
“Oh cummon, Iliana, what could she have seen? She probably just walked in on Percy and his girlfriend kissing. Who's his girlfriend, anyway?”
“I don't know, but I'm not going to just dismiss this as silliness without hearing her out first. It isn't the first time she's tried talking to us.”
It wasn't exactly easy to get a private word with Ginny anywhere, though, with all that had been going on, and she wasn't making it any easier. In fact, Iliana found it very odd that she had somehow managed to vanish from a crowded room when all the teachers and prefects were still on high alert. It was faintly worrisome, but after asking around a bit, she found out Ginny had gone with some other people back to the common room, which made her relax. Maybe Ron was right; maybe she had just seen Percy kissing Penelope.
Then, for no apparent reason they could figure out, they spontaneously transformed from Iliana to Harry. Harry was glad it hadn't happened sooner, or it might've scared Ginny off.
~
Harry knew the whole mystery might be solved tomorrow without their help, but the mystery nagged at him, and he knew Hermione was pulling on her hair some days with frustration at not knowing the answer. It seemed like they'd have to find out along with everyone else. Or it would have, if Hermione hadn't gotten so frustrated one afternoon with her studying that she begged McGonagall to let her, Ron, and Harry into the library.
“Well, yes Miss Granger, you raise a good point. Griffindors!” she announced to the common room. “If anyone else needs to use the library, line up over here.”
Within a few minutes, they were being led to the library at last. When they did, Hermione got a bunch of books for her classes, of course, but also asked the librarian for several books about magical creatures, too.
Harry and Ron helped Hermione read through the books about magical monsters. About half an hour later, Hermione poked them to get their attention. Then, right before their eyes, she did the most un-Hermione-ish thing ever, and tore a page out of the old book, making both boys gasp in shock.
Ignoring them, she pointed her wand at the page, saying, “Gemino.” A copy of the page appeared, looking identical in every way. She took the original page, put it back in the book, and said, “Reparo.” It was good as new.
She jotted a quick note on the copy. Then, as though she'd done nothing more unusual than shoo a fly away, Hermione pointed at the copied page.
“I found it!”
Harry looked at the page, and read:
Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken’s egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it.
And beneath this, Hermione had written a single word: Pipes.
The collective's mind immediately went into overdrive, everyone talking at once; but unlike in the outside world, this didn't result in chaos.
“Ron,” he breathed. “She's right. This is it. This is the answer. The monster in the Chamber’s a basilisk — a giant serpent! Of course, we already figured it was a snake creature, because of it speaking Parseltongue.”
He pictured Colin, petrified; Nick and Justin as well. Having not seen Penelope or the Grey Lady petrified, he couldn't picture them that way.
“The basilisk kills people by looking at them. But no one’s died — because no one looked it straight in the eye. Colin saw it through his camera. The basilisk burned up all the film inside it, but Colin just got Petrified. Justin … Justin must’ve seen the basilisk through Nearly Headless Nick! Nick got the full blast of it, but he couldn’t die again … and the same thing happened with Penelope and the Grey Lady!”
Ron’s jaw had dropped.
“And Mrs. Norris?” he whispered eagerly.
“Well that's obvious, isn't it?” Hermione said. “The water on the ground that night.”
“She saw its reflection! Myrtle flooded the bathroom, and Mrs. Norris caught the reflection!”
He scanned the page in his hand eagerly. The more he looked at it, the more it made sense.
“… The crowing of the rooster … is fatal to it!” he read aloud. “Hagrid’s roosters were killed! The Heir of Slytherin didn’t want one anywhere near the castle once the Chamber was opened! Spiders flee before it! It all fits!”
“But how’s the basilisk been getting around the place?” said Ron. “A giant snake … Someone would’ve seen …”
Hermione pointed at the word she'd scribbled at the foot of the page.
“Pipes,” she said. “Pipes … Ron, it’s been using the plumbing.”
“Yes!” Harry said, excited. “I’ve been hearing that voice inside the walls. …”
Ron suddenly grabbed Harry’s arm.
“The entrance to the Chamber of Secrets!” he said hoarsely. “What if it’s a bathroom? What if it’s in —”
“— Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom,” said Harry and Hermione in stereo.
They sat there, excitement coursing through them, hardly able to believe it.
“What’re we going to do?” said Ron, whose eyes were flashing. “Should we go straight to McGonagall?”
“Yeah. Is she still around here?”
“Let me find out,” Hermione said, and went over to Ms. Pince.
McGonagall, as it turned out, had left to go to the staffroom. Not wanting to be discovered hanging around in the corridor, they all went straight into the deserted staffroom. It was a large, paneled room full of dark, wooden chairs. Harry, Ron, and Hermione paced around it, too excited to sit down.
But the bell to signal break never came.
Instead, echoing through the corridors came Professor McGonagall’s voice, magically magnified.
“All students to return to their House dormitories at once. All teachers return to the staffroom. Immediately, please.”
Harry wheeled around to stare at his friends.
“Another attack? Now?”
“What’ll we do?” said Ron, aghast. “Go back to the dormitory?”
“No,” said Harry, glancing around. There was an ugly sort of wardrobe to his left, full of the teachers’ cloaks. “In here. Let’s hear what it’s all about. Then we can tell them what we’ve found out.”
“I don't know, Harry,” Hermione said, worried. “What if we're caught?”
“Oh come on,” said Ron, ushering Hermione in impatiently.
It was a tight squeeze, all three of them in one old wardrobe, but they managed it. Then they waited, listening to the mass of people moving around the school, until finally the mostly nervous teachers filtered in.
“It has happened,” she told the silent staffroom. “A student has been taken by the monster. Right into the Chamber itself.”
Professor Flitwick let out a squeal. Professor Sprout clapped her hands over her mouth. Snape gripped the back of a chair very hard and said, “How can you be sure?”
“The Heir of Slytherin,” said Professor McGonagall, who was very white, “left another message. Right underneath the first one. ‘Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever.’ ”
Professor Flitwick burst into tears.
“Who is it?” said Madam Hooch, who had sunk, weak-kneed, into a chair. “Which student?”
“Ginny Weasley,” said Professor McGonagall.
Harry felt Ron slide silently down onto the wardrobe floor beside him. Iliana's worry and fear threatened to force another transformation, but Harry fought it down. Hermione had her hands over her mouth, a silent tear rolling down her cheek.
The teachers began talking about closing the school tomorrow. But they were interrupted by Lockhart, who was utterly oblivious to the change of tone. The teachers swiftly disabused him of this, though; once they got over their shock at his entrance, Snape and the others told the coward his time had come at last to prove himself, that it was time for the famous Gilderoy Lockhart to once more save the day.
Lockhart did not take this well. His good looks evaporated as he became visibly terrified. He hemmed and hawed for a while, but finally told them, dejectedly, that he would be in his office getting ready.
“Right,” said Professor McGonagall, whose nostrils were flared, “that’s got him out from under our feet. The Heads of Houses should go and inform their students what has happened. Tell them the Hogwarts Express will take them home first thing tomorrow. Will the rest of you please make sure no students have been left outside their dormitories.”
The teachers rose and left, one by one.
~
Back at Griffindor tower later, Harry, Hermione, and the Weasleys all sat around, glum and horror-struck by the news of Ginny.
No afternoon ever lasted as long as that one, nor had Gryffindor Tower ever been so crowded, yet so quiet. Near sunset, Fred and George went up to bed, unable to sit there any longer.
“You were right, Harry; she knew something,” said Ron, speaking for the first time since they had entered the wardrobe in the staffroom. “That’s why she was taken. It wasn’t some stupid thing about Percy at all. She’d found out something about the Chamber of Secrets. That must be why she was —” Ron rubbed his eyes frantically. “I mean, she was a pureblood. There can’t be any other reason.”
“Do you think she's still...?” Hermione asked in a very small voice, not wanting to say the whole thing.
Harry and the rest of the collective doubted it very much, but didn't say so. Despite this, when Ron suggested they go find Lockhart, to tell him what they knew, they agreed. Nobody stopped them as they left.
Darkness was falling as they walked down to Lockhart’s office. There seemed to be a lot of activity going on inside it. They could hear scraping, thumps, and hurried footsteps.
Harry knocked and there was a sudden silence from inside. Then the door opened the tiniest crack and they saw one of Lockhart’s eyes peering through it.
“Oh, Mr. Potter – Mr. Weasley – Ms. Granger. I'm a little busy right now, can you come back later?”
“Sir, we know you're going to the Chamber. We have some information for you. We think it'll help.”
“Er — well — it’s not terribly —” The side of Lockhart’s face that they could see looked very uncomfortable. “I mean — well — all right —”
He opened the door and they entered.
It was immediately apparent that Lockhart had no intention of going to the Chamber, for the room was being stripped, and he was packing. Everyone in the collective getting angry at once, they turned their wand on Lockhart.
“Going somewhere, are you? You really are just a coward, aren't you?”
“Er, well, yes,” said Lockhart, ripping a life-size poster of himself from the back of the door as he spoke and starting to roll it up. “Urgent call — unavoidable — got to go —”
“What about my sister?” said Ron jerkily.
“Well, as to that — most unfortunate —” said Lockhart, avoiding their eyes as he wrenched open a drawer and started emptying the contents into a bag. “No one regrets more than I —”
“You’re the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher!” said Harry. “You can’t go now! Not with all the Dark stuff going on here!”
“Well — I must say — when I took the job —” Lockhart muttered, now piling socks on top of his robes. “nothing in the job description — didn’t expect —”
“You mean you’re running away? said Harry disbelievingly. “After all that stuff you did in your books —”
“Books can be misleading,” said Lockhart delicately.
“I believed your books,” Hermione said, tears running down her cheeks. “Now come to find you're just a fraud and a coward! And your books are all a pack of lies!”
“I didn't lie. Those things really happened. Just not... not to me.”
“What?”
“My dear girl,” said Lockhart, straightening up and frowning at Hermione. “Do use your common sense. My books wouldn’t have sold half as well if people didn’t think I’d done all those things. No one wants to read about some ugly old Armenian warlock, even if he did save a village from werewolves. He’d look dreadful on the front cover. No dress sense at all. And the witch who banished the Bandon Banshee had a hairy chin. I mean, come on —”
“So you’ve just been taking credit for what a load of other people have done?” said Harry incredulously.
“Harry, Harry,” said Lockhart, shaking his head impatiently, “it’s not nearly as simple as that. There was work involved. I had to track these people down. Ask them exactly how they managed to do what they did. Then I had to put a Memory Charm on them so they wouldn’t remember doing it. If there’s one thing I pride myself on, it’s my Memory Charms. No, it’s been a lot of work, Harry. It’s not all book signings and publicity photos, you know. You want fame, you have to be prepared for a long hard slog.”
He banged the lids of his trunks shut and locked them.
“Let’s see,” he said. “I think that’s everything. Yes. Only one thing left.”
He pulled out his wand and turned to them.
“Awfully sorry, kids, but I’ll have to put a Memory Charm on you now. Can’t have you blabbing my secrets all over the place. I’d never sell another book —”
Just in time, Harry and Hermione raised their wands. Lockhart had barely raised his, when they bellowed, “Expelliarmus!”
Lockhart was blasted backward, falling over his trunk; his wand flew high into the air; Ron caught it, and flung it out of the open window.
“I'm 12, and I'm officially a more qualified wizard than you are, Lockhart,” Harry said venomously.
“What's the point of all this? I don't know where the Chamber is, I never did! And even if I did, and had my wand, I'm useless.”
Harry grinned maliciously. “You'll make a good human shield, at least.”
Lockhart opened his mouth to counter that, but couldn't think of anything to say.
“Anyway, you're in luck. We think we know where it is and what the monster is. So let's get moving.”
With all three of them pointing their wands at Lockhart, they guided him to Myrtle's bathroom. They found her sitting on one of the toilet tanks.
“Oh, it's you again. What do you want now?”
“To ask you how you died,” Harry said.
Myrtle’s whole aspect changed at once. She looked as though she had never been asked such a flattering question.
“Ooooh, it was dreadful,” she said with relish. “It happened right in here. I died in this very stall. I remember it so well. I’d hidden because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses. The door was locked, and I was crying, and then I heard somebody come in. They said something funny. A different language, I think it must have been. Anyway, what really got me was that it was a boy speaking. So I unlocked the door, to tell him to go and use his own toilet, and then —” Myrtle swelled importantly, her face shining. “I died.”
“How?” said Harry.
“No idea,” said Myrtle in hushed tones. “I just remember seeing a pair of great, big, yellow eyes. My whole body sort of seized up, and then I was floating away. …” She looked dreamily at Harry. “And then I came back again. I was determined to haunt Olive Hornby, you see. Oh, she was sorry she’d ever laughed at my glasses.”
“Where exactly did you see the eyes?” said Harry.
“Somewhere there,” said Myrtle, pointing vaguely toward the sink in front of her toilet.
They hurried over to where she had indicated. It looked like a perfectly ordinary sink. But after several minutes of close inspection, Harry saw it: Scratched on the side of one of the copper taps was a tiny snake.
“That tap’s never worked,” said Myrtle brightly as he tried to turn it.
“Harry,” said Ron. “Say something. Something in Parseltongue.”
'Open,' he tried.
The sink began to move; the sink, in fact, sank, right out of sight, leaving a large pipe exposed, a pipe wide enough for a man to slide into.
“I'm going down there,” Harry said.
He couldn’t not go, not now they had found the entrance to the Chamber, not if there was even the faintest, slimmest, wildest chance that Ginny might be alive.
“Me too,” said Ron.
“And me,” said Hermione.
“Well, you hardly seem to need me,” said Lockhart, with a shadow of his old smile. “I’ll just —”
He put his hand on the door knob, but they stopped him.
“You're coming too,” Harry said, and pushed Lockhart over to the sink, then into the pipe.
Their emotions were so intense just then, that they were doing something they'd not done for a long time, different parts of their body changing color and shape, their hair changing texture, eye color changing, as they all vied subconsciously for control of the body.
Harry went down after Lockhart, then Ron came down, then Hermione. Hermione paused to use her wand to clean their robes; everyone except Lockhart, whom she ignored.
They lit their wands.
“Any sign of movement, close your eyes right away.”
There was no movement, though, and no sound, except the crunch of rat bones underneath. It was very dark, as well; they lit their wands and slunk carefully through the darkness. A few minutes in, they had to stop suddenly; Lockhart closed his eyes.
Harry took a closer look at the shape. “It's just a snakeskin. Not the snake.”
Wow, I wonder how much this is worth?
Is this really the time, Al?
There was a sudden movement behind them. Gilderoy Lockhart’s knees had given way.
“Get up,” said Ron sharply, pointing his wand at Lockhart.
Lockhart got to his feet — then he dived at Ron, knocking him to the ground, bowling over Harry and Hermione as well, making them drop their wands.
Harry and Hermione jumped forward to retrieve their wands, but too late — Lockhart was straightening up, panting, Ron’s wand in his hand and a gleaming smile back on his face.
“The adventure ends here, kids!” he said. “I shall take a bit of this skin back up to the school, tell them I was too late to save the girl, and that you three tragically lost your minds at the sight of her mangled body — say good-bye to your memories!”
He raised Ron’s old, decrepit wand high over his head and yelled, “Obliviate!”
It was like a bomb going off. There was rubble everywhere, screaming, and chaos. When it was all over, there was a wall of rubble between him and where Ron, Lockhart, and Hermione were.
“Ron! Hermione! Are you alright in there?”
Someone coughed, then Ron said, “We're okay, Harry. This git isn't, though; he got blasted by the wand. Serves him right, I say. Shite! My wand, it's in pieces! Guess it went out with a literal bang.”
“Well okay. You two clear a path through the rock – by hand! We don't need any more accidents. I'll go on and find Ginny, okay?”
“Okay, Harry,” Hermione said. “Be safe. We'll see you later.”
And he set off alone past the giant snake skin.
He wandered through the darkness until past the time when the sound of shifting rocks disappeared. At last, as he crept around yet another bend, he saw a solid wall ahead on which two entwined serpents were carved, their eyes set with great, glinting emeralds.
'Open.' He said at them.
The serpents parted as the wall cracked open, the halves slid smoothly out of sight, and Harry, shaking from head to foot, walked inside.
~
The chamber was beautiful in an eerie way, more snake statues looking at him with curiously alive-looking eyes. It was big, too, with a tall ceiling. And at the end of this was an enormous statue of an old man with monkeyish features.
Statue that huge, I think ol' Sally was compensating for something, Al remarked. Harry ignored him.
He looked down. Between the statue's feet, face-down, lay a small, black-robed figure with flaming-red hair.
“Ginny!” Harry muttered, sprinting to her and dropping to his knees. “Ginny — don’t be dead — please don’t be dead —” he stowed his wand, grabbed Ginny’s shoulders, and turned her over. Her face was white as marble, and as cold, yet her eyes were closed, so she wasn’t Petrified. But then she must be —
“Ginny, please wake up,” Harry muttered desperately, shaking her. Ginny’s head lolled hopelessly from side to side.
“She won’t wake,” said a soft voice.
Harry jumped and spun around on his knees, pointing his wand at the voice.
A tall, black-haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though Harry were looking at him through a misted window. But there was no mistaking him.
“YOU! You did this! Stop it now!”
“Ah, so you figured it out, then? But again, with five different people in your head, from what I hear, all of you would have to be utter morons to not figure it out. Especially with all the clues I left you.”
“Clues?”
“Why, yes. Haven't you figured out the other part of things yet?”
At these words, they knew what he meant.
“You were using Ginny. You're trapped in this book, so you needed Ginny. You got into her head somehow, controlled her.”
“Yes, indeed. My, you are quite astute. You would make an excellent Death Eater.”
“I already told the other you, the shriveled, ugly half-ghost you, that I would die before being one of your minions, Tom.”
Tom flinched. “You know who I am, so call me the Dark Lord!”
“You're not a lord, though. You're an orphan, with no land or property to his name. 'Lord Voldemort.' French, right? Means 'cold death'? How pretentious.”
The older boy glared at him. “If you would loan me your wand, Harry, I would be glad to show you how I came up with the name.”
“No thanks. Don't care.” He jabbed his wand at Tom Riddle. “Let her go now.”
Riddle chuckled. “There's nothing you can do to me with that. The weaker Ginny grows, the stronger I get. Pathetic child, she was all too willing to pour her heart out to a kind stranger she found in a strange book. It was soo easy to use her.”
Harry shot a spell at Tom; it went right through him.
“I told you it's no use, Harry. Anyway, I'm glad we could have this little chat. I've been wanting to know more about you ever since Ginny started telling me about you.”
“No doubt curious how I survived.”
“Yes. That does puzzle me, how an infant--”
“It was my mother, Tom. My common, Muggle-born mother; she died to protect me.”
“DON'T CALL ME TOM!”
“Why not? You don't like that name?”
“It is a common name, the name of my worthless Muggle father.”
“Got Daddy issues, eh, Tom? Po wittle bebe.”
Tom growled angrily. “FINE! Fine. I know what I wanted to know, now. That's all that matters. A freak accident, not fate at all. Good. Now I can kill you.”
Tom Riddle turned toward the giant statue of Slytherin, and spoke Parseltongue.
'Salazar Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four, speak to me!'
For reasons they couldn't have explained, even later, they were overtaken by a transformation. The glow of the transformation caught Tom's attention, and he witnessed them grow into Alastair.
“Ah, you must be Alastair Potter. Well you will be dying tonight too, along with the rest of you. It's a shame, really; you would be invaluable as Death Eaters. Unless... perhaps... does Harry speak for all of you?”
“Yes he does, Tommy boy.”
“DO NOT CALL ME TOM, TOMMY, OR TOMMY BOY! I AM LORD VOLDEMORT! YOU WILL CALL ME 'DARK LORD'!”
“Aw, is Tommy-Wommy having a wittle tantwum?”
'GET OUT HERE AND KILL HIM!'
Slytherin’s gigantic stone face was moving. Horrorstruck, Al saw his mouth opening, wider and wider, to make a huge black hole.
And something was stirring inside the statue’s mouth. Something was slithering up from its depths.
He backed away and closed his eyes. This was it; he had his wand against a giant snake, which right now felt like just a piece of wood in his hand. What was he to do? He didn't know any spells that would work against a basilisk.
When he felt the thud of something very heavy hit the ground, his desperate brain gave him the only idea he could think of: talk to it.
'Hey Mr. Basilisk, does this asshole feed you?'
The snake, which had been slithering towards him, froze. 'What?'
Tom looked panicked. Only he was supposed to speak to the basilisk, and be obeyed.
'IGNORE HIM!'
'I saw all those rat bones. That the only thing you've been eating all this time, rats? A creature as enormous and majestic as you, subsisting on vermin? Doesn't befit the king of serpents, to my view. And here's this guy, giving you orders and nothing else. He's not even competent enough to get you human prey; nobody's died yet. Why can't he at least sneak into the kitchens and get you a side of beef or a whole turkey or something like that? Fact is, he could; he doesn't want to. You're just a tool to him. King of serpents, reduced to a servant.'
With his eyes closed, he couldn't see what the giant snake was doing, but he could hear it wasn't moving.
'You are right, human. I have been so hungry, for so long.'
'Makes sense. It's a shame, really; I can't look at you right now, because I don't want to die, but I'm sure you're beautiful. I saw that skin you shed, recently. If that's even half as lustrous as your living skin, you must be gorgeous. You deserve to be treated like royalty.'
'HE IS SIMPLY SPINNING YOU A TALE! KILL HIM!'
'Join my side,' Al continued, 'and I promise on my magic I will bring you food worthy of a king.'
'Hmm...' the snake said.
'DO NOT LISTEN TO HIM, HE IS MERELY TRYING TO SAVE HIS OWN SKIN!'
'You know, Tom, I really don't think Salazar would approve of this blatant animal abuse. Letting this magnificent creature subsist on vermin? Really, what were you thinking?'
'Smaller human, you know how to bring me food worthy of a king?'
'Yes. I could go to the kitchens, get food from the house elves. Heck, if nothing else, I have millions of galleons in my Gringotts account, I could buy you entire cows and goats if you wanted them, live prey, and hardly make a dent in my savings.'
'And you swear on your magic?'
'I swear on my magic I will feed you feasts worthy of the king of serpents, if you join my side against Tom Riddle.'
The giant snake chuckled, an eerie sound. 'You have a deal, human.'
'NO! KILL HIM! KILL HIM!'
The basilisk rounded on Tom. 'YOU ARE NOT MY MASTER! I AM MY OWN MASTER! AND I HAVE A NEW ALLY!'
Al peeked very carefully out, and saw the snake staring Tom down.
'Why is it not working? What are you?' the basilisk demanded of Tom.
'He's a memory trapped in a book. Here,' Al said picking up the diary and tossing it at the snake's head. 'Bite down on this, it will kill him!'
'NOOOO!!!'
The basilisk turned its head, and Al closed his eyes just in time. He didn't know if the creature did as he asked until he heard Tom screaming in agony.
'Please close your eyes, so I can watch my enemy die.'
'Understood. They are closed now.'
Al opened his eyes cautiously, and saw the basilisk was telling the truth. He looked at Tom, who was clutching his head, screaming, and burning. Then he screamed one last time, exploded, and was gone.
When he calmed down enough to speak again, he said, 'I wish to retrieve the book for a trophy of our victory.'
'You may have it.'
He walked over to the basilisk's open mouth. It was very nerve-wracking pulling the diary off of the basilisk's fang, afraid the serpent would change its mind, but he got the diary off its fang and backed away.
'Thank you. Now, the girl will wake up any moment now, and I don't want to frighten her more than I have to. If you go back into hiding, I will be sure you get the biggest slab of meat I can find from the kitchen this very night.'
'I will hold you to that, human.'
'Understood.'
'I go now, human. See you later tonight.'
He heard the thing slide away. He waited, his eyes pressed together, until the sound, growing fainter and fainter, disappeared. Only then did he open his eyes and go over to Ginny, who was stirring. Al hurried toward her as she sat up. Her bemused eyes looked around in terror at the empty Chamber, then to the diary in his hand. She drew a great, shuddering gasp and tears began to pour down her face.
“Al! I tried to tell Harry at b-breakfast, but I c-couldn’t say it in front of P-Percy! It was me, Al--”
“Shh, I know. Riddle told me all about how he controlled you, got into your head with the magic of the diary. It's not your fault, Ginny; he used you like a tool. He was actually Voldemort.”
She squealed in terror at the name. “T-Tom... was You-Know-Who?”
“Yes. He uses people, he can be charming when he wants to be. He used evil magic to make you his meat puppet. It's not your fault he had his magical hand up your--”
AL!
“But that's probably inappropriate. The point is, Ginny; you're not remotely at fault. In fact, I have a pretty good idea who's to blame.”
“W-who?”
“I think Lucius Malfoy put this diary in your book, that day at Flourish and Blotts.”
She gasped. Then she shuddered and began to cry. He let her cry into his shoulder, and he picked her up.
“Come on, let's go.”
“B-but, the b-basilisk! What if it shows up?”
He decided to give her a comforting lie. “I mortally wounded it with a spell I read about in a book once. Lucky shot, it's a miracle I survived. It crawled back into its hidey-hole and died. Tom was quite distraught.”
“How did you kill him?”
“It flailed around in pain before going back to its hidey-hole, accidentally bit the diary as it did. See? Nice big sizzling hole in it.” He showed her the dead diary.
“So Tom's d-dead?”
“The diary was his body. So yeah, he's dead.”
She began to cry again.
“N-nobody's going to b-believe me! They'll t-think I did it!”
“Dumbledore will believe.”
“He's not h-here.”
“Before he left, he told me he would never really leave the school. And I'm sure McGonagall will believe you. I believe you. If anyone tries punishing you for this, I'll demand they give me the same punishment. That usually shuts them up.”
There was a beautiful sound, suddenly, like the most heavenly singing, but birdlike. Then with a whoosh of flames, a beautiful red and gold plumed bird appeared.
“Hey, it's Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes. Hey Fawkes, what're you doing here?”
It sang again, then perched on Al's shoulder.
“Too bad I don't speak Phoenix language. Well whatever, you can tag along.”
Ginny was still crying when they got to the hole in the wall that Hermione and Ron had cleared for them.
“Ron! Ginny's alive and well. Crying and exhausted, but alive and well.”
He heard Ron give a strangled cheer, and they turned the next bend to see his and Hermione's eager faces staring through the sizable gap they had managed to make in the rockfall.
“Ginny!” Ron thrust an arm through the gap in the rock to pull her through first. “You’re alive! I don’t believe it! What happened? How — what — where did that bird come from?”
Fawkes had swooped through the gap after Ginny.
“He’s Dumbledore’s,” said Al, squeezing through himself.
“What happened down there?”
“Short story: we were right, Tom Riddle was Voldemort. Key word there is 'was,'” he said, holding up the diary so Ron and Hermione could see the hole in it.
“Long story can wait for later.”
“But —”
“Later,” Al said shortly. He didn’t think it was a good idea to tell Ron yet who’d been opening the Chamber, not in front of Ginny, anyway. “Where’s Lockhart?”
“Back there,” said Ron, still looking puzzled but jerking his head up the tunnel toward the pipe. “He’s in a bad way. Come and see.”
The git had completely erased his memories. He could speak, and presumably was still toilet trained, but he was a dimmer bulb than normal, and couldn't remember anything for more than a few seconds. But rather than being disturbed by this, he was quite content.
Al looked up at the pipe. “Well this is lovely. How're we gonna get up there?”
Fawkes came off Al's shoulder and floated there, holding a tail feather. Al looked at him dubiously.
“He looks like he wants you to grab hold …” said Ron, looking perplexed. “But you’re much too heavy for a bird to pull up there —”
“Oh Ron, don't you read? This is a phoenix. They can carry immensely heavy loads,” Hermione said. “And their tears have healing powers. They're amazing birds, I can't believe Dumbledore keeps one as a pet.”
Al turned quickly to the others. “We’ve got to hold on to each other. Ginny, grab Ron’s hand. Hermione, you get Ginny's other hand. Professor Lockhart —”
“He means you,” said Ron sharply to Lockhart.
“You hold Hermione’s other hand —”
Al tucked the diary into his belt and added his hand to the end of the chain. Then, impossibly, they all floated up and out of the chamber.
“Amazing! This is just like magic!” Lockhart cried.
A few minutes of chill air whipping by, and they were landing on the wet floor of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, the Chamber closing behind them.
Myrtle goggled at them.
“You’re alive,” she said blankly to Al.
“Sharp as a tack, you are. You sound almost disappointed.”
“Oh, well … I’d just been thinking … if you had died, you’d have been welcome to share my toilet,” said Myrtle, blushing silver.
“If I were to die, and if I were to leave a ghost, I might join you; but I'd insist we haunt somewhere more impressive than a loo,” Al responded.
As they left the bathroom, Ron asked, “What do we do now?”
Al pointed. “McGonagall's office.”
Fawkes was leading the way, glowing gold along the corridor. They strode after him, and moments later, found themselves outside Professor McGonagall’s office.
Harry knocked and pushed the door open.
~
Silence reigned for a moment while they stood there, until Mrs. Weasley screamed Ginny's name, and clutched her daughter for dear life, both women crying.
Al, however, was looking past them. Professor Dumbledore was standing by the mantelpiece, beaming, next to Professor McGonagall, who was taking great, steadying gasps, clutching her chest. Fawkes went whooshing past Al’s ear and settled on Dumbledore’s shoulder, just as Al found himself and Ron being swept into Mrs. Weasley’s tight embrace.
“You saved her! You saved her! How did you do it?”
“I think we’d all like to know that,” said Professor McGonagall weakly.
He sat down, and began telling them everything. For 15 minutes he spoke to the rapt adults and kids, explaining about the eerie voice that turned out to be Parseltongue, the diary, their theory about Riddle being Voldemort, even the trip into the Forbidden Forest to see Aragog, and finally finding the answer – basilisk – in the library. And, of course, the Moaning Myrtle connection.
“Very well,” Professor McGonagall prompted him as he paused, “so you found out where the entrance was — breaking a hundred school rules into pieces along the way, I might add — but how on earth did you all get out of there alive, Potter?”
His voice growing hoarse, Al went with the lie he'd told Ginny, but adding parts of the truth to it.
“Found Ginny lying facedown on the ground, and Tom Riddle standing there. Knew at once who he was, pointed my wand at him. Hit him with a spell, but it went through him without hurting him. He told me nothing I could do with my wand would hurt him. Something about his tone made me think he was including the diary in that. The thing seems to be supernaturally impervious to harm. Or it did.
“Anyway, after he was done discussing me and how I survived as a baby, he summoned his basilisk, and I shot some spells I'd read about at the thing. One of them was a lucky shot, mortally wounding the thing. It thrashed around in pain, accidentally biting the diary. Well, okay, I may have influenced that luck a little. But anyway, it bit the diary, Riddle died, and then the basilisk crawled into its hidey-hole to die, and died.”
“And if this Riddle was just a spirit as you say, Potter, then how--”
“He used another. He tricked someone innocent into spilling their soul to him, and he reached up inside of that person and took control,” he said, looking at Dumbledore.
“Voldemort does have that effect on people,” the man said. “Odd, though, that he could be here when my sources tell me he's hiding in Albania.”
“I don't think this diary was a normal diary. It was... alive. I met Tom once before tonight, he took us into one of his memories. He was 16 when he wrote this diary,” he said, handing the thing to Dumbledore, who examined it carefully.
“Who did he trick, though, Potter?” McGonagall wanted to know. “Who was it he was controlling?”
“Ginny Weasley. And I think Lucius Malfoy slipped her the book that day at Flourish and Blotts.”
Mrs. Weasley started going into fits of worry at this, and Mr. Weasley glowered at thin air, his hands twitching.
“Brilliant,” Dumbledore said softly, examining the diary. “Of course, he was probably the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen.” He turned around to the Weasleys, who were looking utterly bewildered.
“Very few people know that Lord Voldemort was once called Tom Riddle. I taught him myself, fifty years ago, at Hogwarts. He disappeared after leaving the school … traveled far and wide … sank so deeply into the Dark Arts, consorted with the very worst of our kind, underwent so many dangerous, magical transformations, that when he resurfaced as Lord Voldemort, he was barely recognizable. Hardly anyone connected Lord Voldemort with the clever, handsome boy who was once Head Boy here.”
“But, Ginny,” said Mrs. Weasley. “I'm still so confused. What’s our Ginny got to do with — with — him?”
“His d-diary!” Ginny sobbed. “I’ve b-been writing in it, and he’s been w-writing back all year —”
“Ginny!” said Mr. Weasley, flabbergasted. “Haven’t I taught you anything? What have I always told you? Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain. Why didn’t you show the diary to me, or your mother? A suspicious object like that, it was clearly full of Dark Magic —”
“That's kind of an overly broad rule of thumb, Mr. Weasley,” Al said. “As it applies to all the portraits in the school, and some of the mirrors. But yeah, I guess there was a significant difference between them and this diary.”
“I d-didn’t know,” sobbed Ginny. “I found it inside one of the books Mum got me. I th-thought someone had just left it in there and forgotten about it —”
“Miss Weasley should go up to the hospital wing right away,” Dumbledore interrupted in a firm voice. “This has been a terrible ordeal for her. There will be no punishment. Older and wiser wizards than she have been hoodwinked by Lord Voldemort.” He strode over to the door and opened it. “Bed rest and perhaps a large, steaming mug of hot chocolate. I always find that cheers me up,” he added, twinkling kindly down at her. “You will find that Madam Pomfrey is still awake. She’s just giving out Mandrake juice — I daresay the basilisk’s victims will be waking up any moment.”
“So Colin will be okay?”
“There has been no lasting harm done, Ginny,” said Dumbledore.
Mrs. Weasley led Ginny out, and Mr. Weasley followed, still looking deeply shaken.
“You know, Minerva,” Professor Dumbledore said thoughtfully to Professor McGonagall, “I think all this merits a good feast. Might I ask you to go and alert the kitchens?”
“Right,” said Professor McGonagall crisply, also moving to the door. “I’ll leave you to deal with Potter, Granger, and Weasley, shall I?”
“Certainly,” said Dumbledore.
She left the three of them feeling very nervous.
“Alastair, I believe you promised me you wouldn't dig into this anymore, after our talk following Justin and Nicolas's attack. You promised me you would keep yourself safe.”
“What?” Ron and Hermione said in stereo, shocked.
“And you didn't tell your friends about that promise, either, I see.”
Al shrugged. “I fibbed a little.”
“You lied to me. But I will forgive it this time, given the circumstances.”
He paused a moment before speaking again.
“You three will receive special awards for services to the school. And, let me see, 150 points apiece for Griffindor.
“But one of us seems to be keeping mightily quiet about his part in this dangerous adventure,” Dumbledore added. “Why so modest, Gilderoy?”
Al jumped, startled. He'd forgotten about Gitteroy Blockhead. He turned and saw that Lockhart was standing in a corner of the room, still wearing his vague smile. When Dumbledore addressed him, Lockhart looked over his shoulder to see who he was talking to.
“Er, Professor,” Hermione started.
“It was my wand,” Ron said. “He took my wand, tried to obliviate the three of us, and it blew up in his face. He's lost his whole memory.”
“Ah, Gilderoy, hoisted on your own petard.”
“Petard?” Gilderoy said, confused. “What's a petard?”
“Would you two mind taking Professor Lockhart up to the infirmary, too?” Dumbledore said to Ron and Hermione. “I wish to speak with Alastair some more.”
They nodded, and led the man out the room.
Al sat down expectantly, tempted to put his feet up on the desk, but resisting the urge. Dumbledore sat down behind his desk.
“First of all, Alastair, I want to thank you,” said Dumbledore, eyes twinkling again. “You must have shown me real loyalty down in the Chamber. Nothing but that could have called Fawkes to you.”
“I dunno about that. I don't know why he showed up. Though it might've been more help if it had happened earlier, but I don't think we could've gotten out again without him.”
“Oh, there are other ways. A featherlight charm and wingardium leviosa on yourself in combination would get you up the pipe you described.”
Al nodded.
“I got the sense you lied to us today in your story. The story contained elements of the truth, but there's a lie in there somewhere, am I correct?”
“Yeah. I didn't kill the basilisk. I wouldn't have known how.”
“So it is still alive?”
“Yup. In desperation, knowing my wand was largely useless, I fell back on my other skill: Parseltongue.”
Dumbledore's eyes twinkled at him. “You charmed the snake, did you?”
“Yeah. Promised it I would feed it meals fit for the king of serpents. I saw it had been eating nothing but rats for 1000 years, so I figured it could use some variety. And unlike the promise I made to you, I meant this one. I promised on my magic.”
“Ah. Well then, I think we can work out an arrangement for it, then. I shall speak with the house elves about it later.”
“I also promised to bring it something tonight.”
“Well, that can be arranged.”
Dumbledore stroked his phoenix before continuing.
“And so you met Tom Riddle. I'm sure he was quite interested in meeting you.”
“Yes, he was. Wanted to know how I survived as a baby. I told him my mother died to protect me. But that isn't the whole story, is it? If it was that simple, I wouldn't be the first survivor, I'd be like, the four millionth.”
“You are correct, there is probably more to the story than that.”
“And I think you know more than you're telling me, don't you? It has something to do with how we can speak Parseltongue, like he can.”
“You and your collective can speak Parseltongue, Alastair,” said Dumbledore calmly, “because Lord Voldemort — who is the last remaining descendant of Salazar Slytherin — can speak Parseltongue. Unless I’m much mistaken, he transferred some of his own powers to you the night he gave you that scar. Not something he intended to do, I’m sure.”
“That diary seemed awfully alive for just a memory, sir. Tell me, is it possible he put a bit of himself in the diary, too?”
Dumbledore was looking uncomfortable. It was hard to see, most people would miss it, but they saw it.
“If you know something, you should tell me. I figure we're pretty much fated to fight him. Been here two years, been attacked by him twice, I figure that's significant. Then there's the fact that Firenze called us 'The Chorus that Sings a Song Against Evil.' Said it was written in the stars.”
“Alastair, I am truly sorry, but once more, I cannot answer that. You are--”
“Don't give me that crap, please. We may only be 12, but we've seen things and done things that nobody else has, and I'm pretty certain it's nowhere near over yet. Knowledge is power, and—”
“I am sorry, but I must insist.”
Al opened his mouth to argue again, but someone burst unannounced into the room. It was Lucius Malfoy. Al frowned.
How rude.
The man was plainly furious. And trembling between his legs, wrapped in many bandages, was...
“Dobby! He's your master? Why am I not more surprised?”
For a moment, Dobby looked at Al in confusion. Then he saw Al's scar, the same scar all of the Potter collective had, no matter what body they were in, and he gasped.
“Good evening, Lucius,” said Dumbledore pleasantly.
Mr. Malfoy nearly knocked Al out of his seat in his haste to get to Dumbledore. It made Al's hand reach for his wand, in case something happened. Dobby went scurrying in after his master, crouching at the hem of his cloak, a look of abject terror on his face.
The elf was carrying a stained rag with which he was attempting to finish cleaning Mr. Malfoy’s shoes. Apparently Mr. Malfoy had set out in a great hurry, for not only were his shoes half-polished, but his usually sleek hair was disheveled. Ignoring the elf bobbing apologetically around his ankles, he fixed his cold eyes upon Dumbledore.
“So!” he said “You’ve come back. The governors suspended you, but you still saw fit to return to Hogwarts.”
“Well, you see, Lucius,” said Dumbledore, smiling serenely, “the other eleven governors contacted me today. It was something like being caught in a hailstorm of owls, to tell the truth. They’d heard that Arthur Weasley’s daughter had been killed and wanted me back here at once. They seemed to think I was the best man for the job after all. Very strange tales they told me, too. … Several of them seemed to think that you had threatened to curse their families if they didn’t agree to suspend me in the first place.”
Mr. Malfoy went even paler than usual, but his eyes were still slits of fury.
“So — have you stopped the attacks yet?” he sneered. “Have you caught the culprit?”
“We have,” said Dumbledore, with a smile.
“Well?” said Mr. Malfoy sharply. “Who is it?”
“The same person as last time, Lucius,” said Dumbledore. “But this time, Lord Voldemort was acting through somebody else. By means of this diary.”
He held up the small black book with the large hole through the center, watching Mr. Malfoy closely.
At this, Dobby began making motions, trying to communicate to Al. Al nodded at him and mouthed, I know already. This made the elf relax in evident relief.
“I see …” said Mr. Malfoy slowly to Dumbledore.
“A clever plan,” said Dumbledore in a level voice, still staring Mr. Malfoy straight in the eye. “Because if Alastair here” — Mr. Malfoy shot Al a swift, sharp look — “and his friends Ron and Hermione hadn’t discovered this book, why — Ginny Weasley might have taken all the blame. No one would ever have been able to prove she hadn’t acted of her own free will.”
Mr. Malfoy said nothing. His face was suddenly mask-like.
“And imagine,” Dumbledore went on, “what might have happened then. … The Weasleys are one of our most prominent pure-blood families. Imagine the effect on Arthur Weasley and his Muggle Protection Act, if his own daughter was discovered attacking and killing Muggle-borns. … Very fortunate the diary was discovered, and Riddle’s memories wiped from it. Who knows what the consequences might have been otherwise. …”
Mr. Malfoy forced himself to speak.
“Very fortunate,” he said stiffly.
“Yes,” Al said, standing up and crossing his arms. “As if you didn't know.”
“I beg your pardon?” Mr. Malfoy said, each word enunciated as though they were slurs.
“You're the one who put the diary in Ginny's cauldron that day you started a fight with Mr. Weasley in the bookstore. You stuck it in her transfiguration book then slipped it back in her cauldron. I'm pretty sure that counts as terrorism.”
He saw Mr. Malfoy’s white hands clench and unclench.
“Why don't you prove it,” he hissed.
“Oh, no one will be able to do that,” said Dumbledore, smiling at Al. “Not now that Riddle has vanished from the book. On the other hand, I would advise you, Lucius, not to go giving out any more of Lord Voldemort’s old school things. If any more of them find their way into innocent hands, I think Arthur Weasley, for one, will make sure they are traced back to you.”
“Yeah, and if you'd seen Mr. Weasley's face earlier... let's just say, if you thought he hated you before, that was nothing to now.”
Lucius Malfoy stood for a moment, and Al distinctly saw his right hand twitch as though he was longing to reach for his wand. Instead, he turned to his house-elf.
“We’re going, Dobby!”
He wrenched open the door and as the elf came hurrying up to him, he kicked him right through it. They could hear Dobby squealing with pain all the way along the corridor. Al stood for a moment, thinking hard. Then it came to him; well, to Harry, who relayed the message to him.
“Professor Dumbledore,” he said hurriedly. “Can I give that diary back to Mr. Malfoy, please?”
“Of course. But hurry. The feast, remember...”
Al grabbed the book and ran out the room. He paused a moment to prepare the package, then ran along until he caught up with the man.
“Mr. Malfoy,” he gasped, skidding to a halt, “I’ve got something for you —”
With a disgusted look, Mr. Malfoy ripped off the filthy sock Al had stretched over the diary, and tossed it aside, looking at the destroyed diary with a mix of fury and fear.
“You’ll meet the same sticky end as your parents one of these days, Potter,” he said softly. “They were meddlesome fools, too.”
He turned to go.
“Come, Dobby. I said, come.”
But Dobby didn’t move. He was holding up Al's disgusting, slimy sock, and looking at it as though it were a priceless treasure.
“Master has give Dobby a sock.”
“What?”
“Master has given a sock,” said the elf in wonderment. “Master gave it to Dobby.”
“What’s that?” spat Mr. Malfoy. “What did you say?”
“Got a sock,” said Dobby in disbelief. “Master threw it, and Dobby caught it, and Dobby — Dobby is free.”
Lucius Malfoy stood frozen, staring at the elf. Then he lunged at Al.
“You’ve lost me my servant, boy!”
But Dobby shouted, “You shall not harm Alastair Potter!”
There was a loud bang, and Mr. Malfoy was thrown backward. He crashed down the stairs, three at a time, landing in a crumpled heap on the landing below. He got up, his face livid, and pulled out his wand, but Dobby raised a long, threatening finger.
“You shall go now,” he said fiercely, pointing down at Mr. Malfoy. “You shall not touch the Potters. You shall go now.”
Lucius Malfoy had no choice. With a last, incensed stare at the pair of them, he swung his cloak around him and hurried out of sight.
“Alastair Potter freed Dobby!” said the elf shrilly, gazing up at Al, moonlight from the nearest window reflected in his orb-like eyes. “Alastair Potter set Dobby free!”
“It was Harry's idea. But I liked it. Nobody deserves to be treated like he treated you. Well, maybe he does. Just promise not to try to save our life again?”
The elf’s ugly brown face split suddenly into a wide, toothy smile, but didn't promise.
Al took a moment to explain to Dobby how they'd worked out his clue. Dobby grinned.
“Dobby is most happy to be of service to the Potters.”
“Well, I’d better go. There’s a feast on. Would you like to come?”
“Dobby eat at a table with wizards and witches?” The elf said in wonderment.
“Yes. I doubt he fed you adequately. And we couldn't have saved the day without your help.”
“Dobby would be honored,” the elf said. “But...” he looked down at his filthy clothes.
With a flash of light, Zoey stood there. Dobby blinked at her, having never met her either. Then she pointed a finger at him, his clothing glowed, and suddenly he was wearing a clean little suit. He was still barefoot, but he was clean and dressed. The lone sock of Al's was clean, so the elf put it on.
“Thank you, Miss... Miss...”
“Zoey Potter,” she said, hugging Dobby. “Come, let's stuff our faces!”
~
This feast was a feast like none before it, for Zoey and company. Everyone was in their Pjs, everyone except Zoey – who was wearing school robes – and Dobby in his suit. Everyone looked in bewilderment at Dobby at first, even after she explained he was her guest and friend.
Zoey didn’t know whether the best bit was Justin hurrying over from the Hufflepuff table to wring her hand and apologize endlessly for suspecting them, or Hagrid turning up at half past three, cuffing Zoey and Ron so hard on the shoulders that they were knocked into their plates of trifle, Dobby's expressions of ecstasy every time he tried something new, or their four hundred fifty points for Gryffindor securing the House Cup for the second year running, or Professor McGonagall standing up to tell them all that the exams had been canceled as a school treat (“Oh, no!” said Hermione), or Dumbledore announcing that, unfortunately, Professor Lockhart would be unable to return next year, owing to the fact that he needed to go away and get his memory back. Quite a few of the teachers joined in the cheering that greeted this news.
“Shame,” said Ron, helping himself to a jam doughnut. “He was starting to grow on me.”
“Like a fungus!” Zoey said, giggling.
The rest of term passed quickly and brightly, in more ways than one. DADA classes were cancelled, leaving those spaces open to do whatever, and Lucius Malfoy had been sacked as a school governor. Draco looked severely put out by this, for some reason.
All too soon, for the second year in a row, they watched their friends and classmates take the thestral-drawn carriages down to the Hogwarts Express, staying behind for a week while they waited for Nicolas Flamel again. But Zoey was Out, and her response to boredom generally entailed a lot of mischief, so the week wouldn't be too bad. In fact, she already had some ideas brewing in her head. ...
End note: Future chapters may take a bit longer than usual, because I've been getting really annoyed with myself following the books so closely, but it was kinda necessary, seeing as there's not actually a lot going on in the first two books. I'm going to try to focus more on character development. I don't know how far afield I'll go; I don't want to go *too* far afield, as that makes things exponentially harder to write, but anyway, that's the gist of it.
End note 2: Thanks, everyone, for all the feedback! It makes writing these things worth it. Especially since funny stuff is always funnier when other people laugh at it, too. :-)
Chapter Thirteen: Egypt
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue. Usually.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Harry, and Zoey, and now Iliana (bold, italic, and underlined). (Which is also sometimes used for emphasis in Al's speech, but whatever.)
That one week they stayed in Hogwarts over the summer was much like the last one, largely boring while they waited for Nicolas Flamel to need Zoey to retrieve the Philosopher's Stone. The only really new things were feeding the basilisk, and Tier occasionally deciding to take over and run through the forbidden forest whenever he could sneak away during the day, or else running around the grounds. It was a little unsettling for some of the teachers, in fact, as he was getting better at changing the body to be more animal-like. He never managed to get it looking like a real animal, it always looked like some animal-human hybrid, but that probably just made it worse.
What kind of animal Tier attempted to change into depended on his mood, but usually a wolf, a dog, or occasionally a bear; or rather, part-human hybrids of those animals as he grew into his powers.
And then there were the times Tier just lengthened the arms and gave them wolf-like teeth, but otherwise kept the body human. That was perhaps the most unnerving of all Tier's transformations. But the teachers tolerated it because he wasn't hurting anyone, and because the others explained that Tier was just as intelligent as the rest of them, even though he didn't like to speak.
As to feeding the basilisk, they sent down piles of whole chickens or whole beef roasts every week, as that was pretty much all the basilisk wanted. They always enlisted the help of one or more of the house elves, warning the elves that they'd be speaking Parseltongue, and telling them not to go down there just in case. The first time they did this, the house elves – figuring out at once what the place was – had to be reassured several times that the basilisk wouldn't be coming up without their say-so, and they wouldn't say so unless it was a dire emergency. They only really calmed down when Al, getting annoyed, told them that Dumbledore knew about this arrangement and that they could confirm this with him if it helped.
He was reasonably certain they did, in fact, check with Dumbledore. Which was fine by him; whatever eased their anxiety. But still, most of the time they would only take the food up to the door of the bathroom before leaving quick as a shot. This made things slightly more difficult, especially with Filch. Snape, on the other hand, seemed to give the place a wide berth. He suspected Dumbledore had told Snape what was going on, though he couldn't figure out why the abusive git needed to know.
Tier might have been another strain on the kitchens, if not for the fact that he was perfectly capable of hunting his own food. The others checked out whenever he did this, not wanting to watch as he broke the necks of rabbits or whatever he did when he caught them. Which was a shame, Tier thought, as he was just catching and releasing the animals without hurting them. (He needed to know he could catch food if he needed to, but as Hogwarts gave them plenty of food, actually killing the animals would just be wasteful.)
Since they would be going to stay with the Weasleys for the rest of the summer, as they had before, they had to do a lot of diplomacy the last few days to convince the house elves to apparate food into the Chamber. It wasn't easy, despite the fact they knew the elves could do so without entering the Chamber itself. It was a combination of Zoey's youth and Iliana's compassion that finally convinced them to do it.
As to the cost of this arrangement, they'd tried offering Dumbledore money to pay for the extra food, but he refused them. They tried a couple more times just in case, but he refused all offers, insisting that the arrangement would be useful later.
At last, though, the week was over and they were heading down to Hogsmeade in a carriage, and were met at the station by Mr. Weasley.
“Ah, Harry, good to see you,” he said, since Harry was the one fully Out at the moment. “How are you?”
“Doing well. How about you?”
“Oh, no complaints, no complaints. Anyway, Harry, we're going to go to the Burrow by side-along apparition. Have you ever done that before?”
“Yeah. Dumbledore took us to the Leaky Cauldron that way after Al let those snakes loose in the zoo.”
“Good then, I don't have to explain it,” Mr. Weasley said, holding out his arm.
“Just don't be surprised if we get sick from it,” Harry warned.
“Thanks for the heads-up, Harry.”
Harry took Mr. Weasley's arm, and when everyone was ready, Mr. Weasley apparated, taking him along for the ride.
Sure enough, when they got there, Harry bent over in the grass and was sick, while Mr. Weasley stepped aside to get away from the smell and the mess. When Harry was feeling better again, he followed Mr. Weasley on the surprisingly long walk to the front door.
“Ah yes, Dumbledore got some people he knows to put some extra protections on the Burrow while you're here, since trouble has a way of finding you. Dumbledore was very shaken up by that whole Chamber business. So was I, of course, but I've never seen Dumbledore shaken before.”
Harry nodded, repressing a grin. He knew that Dumbledore's 'very shaken' was hard to spot. His estimation of Mr. Weasley raised some, knowing the man could read at least that much in Dumbledore's mannerisms. Of course, the man did have a tendency to get pensive when he was worried. …
“Anyway, Harry, I must ask you and the others to stay in the house or yard while you're here, okay?”
“We will, Mr. Weasley.”
“Harry!” Ron shouted, running to meet his friend.
“Ron!”
They hugged briefly, Harry noticing Ginny nearby, giving him a look that was hard to read, as it was filled with such mixed and muddled emotions. He nodded understandingly at her, once. She smiled nervously, then left the room unhurriedly.
Ron and Harry ran off to hang out and talk together, Harry telling Ron about his week at Hogwarts alone, leaving out the parts about the basilisk because he hadn't told Ron or Hermione yet, and was still trying to decide if it was wise to do so. But Ron was plenty entertained by the tales of Tier's exploits.
“...mind you, there's no proof he's hurting any animals, as we don't see or feel any blood, feathers, or fur when we snap out of it again, but just the fact that he's hunting them is kind of weird,” Harry said.
“Wow, I bet.”
They felt annoyance from Tier then, and an image of him catching and releasing the animals.
“Oh. Okay, according to Tier, he just catches and releases them without hurting them. Well that's a relief.”
“Did he talk to you, then?”
“No. Not in words, anyway. Even inside our head, he doesn't use words unless there's no other way.”
“But he's just as intelligent as the rest of you?”
“Yeah. It's a little odd, but hey, whatever. We're odd in many ways already, what's one more thing?”
~
The weeks at the Burrow went by as usual, with the kind of happy speed that came from living with people that liked you, people that loved each other, people that fed you well and treated you well. The kind of home they would have loved to have had for the first 12 years of their life. Mostly it was Harry, but Iliana and Zoey made occasional appearances. And once Al startled Mrs. Weasley so bad she almost dropped what she was carrying, though he hadn't been doing anything but sitting there. But then, adults were always weird around him for some reason, more so than any of the others except maybe Tier. But feeling weird about Tier was understandable, whereas Al couldn't figure out why his appearance always made most of the adults he knew uncomfortable. Nor why the looks would increase in intensity when he laughed.
The only really significant change was that Ginny, who was more nervous around Harry than ever before, was opening up to Iliana on the days that she was Out. It was tentative at first, which was understandable given what happened the last time she trusted someone, but progress was being made; the two girls were becoming friends.
“You know, Ginny, I think maybe you should see a Mind Healer, too,” Iliana told her one of those times. “I don't know if Healer Young could do it or not, but he could probably find someone who can if not.”
Ginny crossed her arms uncomfortably. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Okay. Do you want me to ask him, or do you want to do it?”
“Can... can we do it together?” she asked in a small voice.
“We can do that, yes.”
So, when Healer Young came to visit her the next time, Iliana held Ginny's hand in the private room they met him in. But as soon as Healer Young came into the room, Ginny took a deep breath and blurted out her needs.
“I need a Mind Healer.”
Healer Young paused, then sat down, and nodded. “I heard from Dumbledore about You-Know-Who using you to get into the Chamber. I have time, after Iliana's session, to have a session with you, if you're ready for that.”
Ginny looked pleased by this, but then her face fell as she thought of something.
“Ohmygoodness... um, I just remembered my parents can't pay you.”
He waved her concern away. “It's alright, Miss Weasley. Given my work with Iliana, and given what happened over the last school year, Dumbledore has hired me on as a school Mind Healer. The school will pay for our sessions. I'm already seeing some other students because of this Chamber business.”
Ginny relaxed. “Oh. Good. Well, thank you.”
“You're welcome, dear,” he said with a kind smile.
Ginny got up and left the room for Iliana to have her session.
~
On Thursday the 22nd of July, everything changed for the better in a wildly unexpected way. The day after Percy got a letter telling him that he'd made Head Boy at Hogwarts, Mr. Weasley came running into the house hollering and whooping and waving a parchment around in people's faces. It took a few minutes for him to calm down enough to tell them what he was so excited about.
“We won! We won!”
“What did we win, Arthur?”
“The annual Daily Prophet Grand Prize Galleon Draw! Seven hundred galleons!”
At this, everyone in the family was excited, dancing around. Fred and George did a little jig with one another, and even Harry laughed with joy; if anyone deserved 700 galleons, it was the Weasleys.
Let's see, Iliana thought at him, that's... a little over £2100.
“Oh Ronnie,” Mrs. Weasley said, hugging Ron, “we can afford a new wand for you, now.”
Ron whooped at this news. Harry privately thought they would've had to buy him a new wand anyway, seeing as his old one was in two separate pieces now, after it exploded in the Chamber of Secrets.
“This calls for a trip to visit Bill,” Mr. Weasley said.
“Yes, that's perfect, dear. Oh, so much planning to do!” she bustled off to start.
Harry tried to keep his smile on, but was struggling. Where would he go while this happened? Back to Hogwarts?
“Harry!” Mr. Weasley said, spotting him. “I'll have to ask Dumbledore, of course, but if we can, we'll take you with us.”
Harry's eyes went wide. “Take me with you? To Egypt? Wow! Thanks, Mr. Weasley.”
“Well don't thank me yet, I still have to ask Dumbledore.”
Mr. Weasley rushed off, whistling happily to himself, to write a letter to send to Dumbledore.
Harry, too, rushed off to write a letter, to inform Hermione of what they were going to do, though he wasn't going to send it until they heard back for sure about being able to go. He also wrote one to send to Hagrid, so Hagrid would know where to send a birthday gift.
~
In the end, they got permission from Dumbledore to go, though he sent them some sunblock along with the permission letter.
As was usual for the Weasleys, packing ahead of time didn't really help much. They all still ran around like mad on the day of the portkey to Egypt, going back several times for things before finally getting to drive to the nearest local portkey office, and were just barely on time when they finally got there.
The portkey was a piece of sandstone, so it would blend in when it was discarded in Egypt, without littering the place with garbage; they would have to take a different portkey back home. Under Mrs. Weasley's direction, Harry grabbed part of the sandstone, as did all the Weasleys, and waited. Then they counted down, and at one, there was a jerk behind his navel, a swirl of colors and wind, and then they fell over.
As he struggled to stand back up, he said, “Why does magical transportation always suck?”
“Ten past four from Ottery St. Catchpole, UK,” a very careful, well-enunciated voice said. Harry looked up; a tall, bronze skinned man with eyes like polished petrified wood and with shiny black hair was standing there, welcoming them all to Egypt. Harry and Iliana both felt the same thing for this man, the same kind of feeling Iliana had once felt for Oliver Wood. Harry blinked, and blushed. Then he tried very hard to look away inconspicuously and to try to put these feelings out of his mind.
They got put up in a hotel with its name in both English and Arabic. The English version said 'The Pink Sphinx,' and had a very time-worn wood carving of a pink sphinx under the sign. Another sign said 'Proudly serving the magical community since 1746 A.D.'
Like the Leaky Cauldron, it was also a pub. Unlike the Leaky Cauldron, it was brighter, more colorful, and had matching customers. They didn't know what stone was used to make it, but it was sand colored, so maybe sandstone? And there was, also, sand everywhere; it was blowing in from the outside.
Al frowned internally at the sight.
Why is it the wizarding world is always so behind the Muggle world? This place is like a bad stereotype of Victorian-era Egypt. I very much doubt Muggle Egypt looks like this.
They got set up in their rooms, and came back down for dinner. It was, as usual for a Weasley dinner, a noisy affair, with lots of talking, when people weren't stuffing their faces. The inn's fare wasn't as good as Mrs. Weasley's cooking of course, but it was good. Harry had something called Ful Medames, which was a kind of spicy bean dish served with vegetables and sliced hard-boiled eggs. There were also plates of a pita bread called Eish Masri, and tureens of hummus. It was all very delicious.
This is amazing, Harry said to his headmates. The Dursleys would never have let us do this.
Yeah, Al said. Those idiots would never eat anything they perceived as 'foreign.'
And even if they did, they never would have let us go with them.
~
The month was largely a flurry of activity, so fun it went by very fast. They saw the sights, of course; they saw the pyramids and the great stone sphinx that was famous even in the Muggle world. They saw the tombs of wizarding kings and other important wizarding folk, with mutated skeletons of unfortunate people who had tried breaking in.
They met Bill, too, of course. That was an interesting experience. They'd been anticipating someone like Percy, but Bill was... cool. He was tall, with long hair that he had tied back in a ponytail. He was wearing an earring with what looked like a fang dangling from it. Bill’s clothes would not have looked out of place at a rock concert, except that Harry recognized his boots to be made, not of leather, but of dragon hide.
I guess that fits his job of curse-breaker, anyway, Al thought.
On seeing Bill, though, Iliana and Harry once more felt that feeling that Harry didn't want to think about, that Iliana had felt once for Oliver Wood. But the worst part of it was, he knew what it felt like to feel the emotions of a headmate, emotions he didn't share, and this wasn't that. He was feeling the same thing she was, all on his own.
As if that wasn't bad enough, while Harry was determined to stay away from Bill, Iliana was equally determined to find more reason to get closer to the eldest Weasley brother. This made Harry so uncomfortable that he switched places with her, showing Bill their transformation ability for the first time ever.
Harry did attempt to stay Out as much as possible, though, and the others honored his wishes. So he saw all of the really cool stuff with his own eyes, and in full control of his own body. Which is how he was when he found something he thought he'd never see again.
They were in the wizarding district of Cairo when it happened, shopping for souvenirs. They turned down the wrong way, and found a less-than-savory shop down a dark alley, that reminded them strongly of Borgin and Burke's. And there, in the window, was...
Is that the Mirror of Erised? How did that get here?
Reading the text above the mirror, it was confirmed as the Mirror of Erised. Harry took a closer look, stepping forward. Suddenly, he saw his mom and dad, and scores of other relatives standing behind him. Only this time, he wasn't Iliana, nor any of the others. He wasn't even entirely himself, either. The reflection of himself in the mirror was older, taller, and... he blinked in bewilderment.
You're a girl! It's showing you as a girl. But it's you for sure. Same face, same eyes, same color hair, just longer and tamer. And, well, then there's your chest.
Al was right; Harry's reflection in the Mirror of Erised was a girl version of himself, age 16 or 17, and had breasts. They were neither too large nor too small, but they were unmistakable.
His emotions ground to a halt, like there was sticky tar in their gears. He felt numb at first, then numb and excited at the same time. Then things that had confused him in the past suddenly made sense. All of a sudden, his emotions re-engaged, going into overdrive, and he couldn't tolerate the chaotic mix of emotions swirling through him like a hurricane; he ran full tilt away from the Mirror, trying to run from his feelings. He crashed right into Ron, and both of them fell over.
“Oy, watch it! Harry? What's the matter?”
Harry refused to cry in front of his friend. But there was nowhere to run to, either. Well... there was one place. He retreated within himself, and in his place appeared Iliana.
“What happened to Harry?” Ron asked her.
“Oh... um... I don't know,” she lied.
~
Harry didn't come back out for the rest of the trip, something that everyone noticed but few seemed to want to comment on. He didn't even come out to see the news clipping of the photo he was in with the rest of the Weasleys, from the Daily Prophet, a clipping that Ron sent a copy of to Hermione, who was vacationing with her parents in the south of France. Nor did he come out to receive a gift from Ron, a Pocket Sneakoscope he'd bought in wizarding Cairo; Iliana had to put it away in their trunk for him.
Even when they got back to the UK, and went to Diagon Alley, Harry was still hiding within. Iliana watched Ron get a brand-new wand at Olivander's, and later met Hermione.
The three of them shopped around for school supplies and other things. Iliana got some Sleakeazy's hair potion for Harry at one store, then followed the other two into a magical pet store, because Ron's rat Scabbers was ill.
As she listened to the conversation between Ron and the woman behind the counter, her eyes went wide at finding out Scabbers was 12 years old. It was very interesting to her that magical pets lived longer than non-magical pets, but made sense. Still, if Scabbers was magical, he'd never shown any sign of having any powers. He just ate and slept all the time. Or he had, until recently. Now he looked very anxious. The anxiety, in fact, radiated from him so strongly that it was almost like he was human; they'd certainly never had any ability to read animal emotions before then.
She debated whether or not to tell Ron about this. They'd not mentioned it yet, but Al's heart-reading power and their effort to learn human body language had combined and mutated over the summer, and was giving them the ability to feel the emotions of other people without trying. It was very useful, but it was also sometimes annoying, because it was getting harder and harder to shut off, and sometimes made it hard to be around other people. She really hoped that being able to read Scabbers the same way was an aberration; she didn't think she could handle it if their new empathic power expanded to include all animals everywhere, even if it just stayed restricted to mammals and/or birds.
Making things worse for her, Hermione had used her pocket money to buy herself a pet cat that attacked Scabbers the first time it saw him, making things between Ron and Hermione tense and angry, which were emotions that hurt more to be around than others. Added to that, they could also sense the cat's emotions, though the cat's emotions were far weaker than Scabbers's emotions.
Still, Iliana's eye managed to get caught by something in Quality Quidditch Supplies on their way back. It was a shining, perfect, gorgeous broomstick called the Firebolt. It was truly magnificent, a work of art, but as soon as she saw the sign saying 'price on request,' she started walking away. Normal broomsticks were expensive enough – she should know, as she had bought new brooms for three of the Hogwarts Houses last year. She didn't want to think how much the Firebolt cost. Especially since she had her own broomstick already.
After they got back from Diagon Alley and put their things away, Iliana noticed her Hogwarts letter again, in particular a permission slip for going to Hogsmeade, to be signed by a parent or guardian. Since she was no longer with the Dursleys, she wondered who she'd have to ask to get permission now.
Shrugging, she put it aside for later and went downstairs to meet up with the others again. Then, spotting something, she went over to Mr. Weasley, who was reading The Daily Prophet, which had a picture of a sunken-eyed, long-haired escaped prisoner named Sirius Black on the front page. The man looked like a vampire. A very depressed and underfed vampire.
“Did that man always look that way, or is that what Azkaban does to people?” she asked Mr. Weasley.
Mr. Weasley looked at the picture, and she felt waves of apprehension and discomfort come from the man. She hadn't been looking at him when she felt it; she looked up at him to see if the new empathic power was accurate, and the body language confirmed this.
“Er, well...” Mr. Weasley said uncomfortably, “in fact, Sirius Black did, well... did look much more, well... better, before Azkaban,” Mr. Weasley said. “He used to be considered quite, well... handsome. But yes, Azkaban tends to have long-term effects on appearance. Dementors – you know, the Azkaban guards? - they're the reason for that.”
“Dementors,” she said. “I wonder if they're listed in that book Hagrid sent us for our birthday?”
Ron snorted. “Doubt we'll ever find out. Those monster books bite you if you try to even pick them up.”
“Oh well, good thing I picked up some extra books, including 'Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them' by Newt Scamander.
“By the way, Mr. Weasley,” she continued. “What's Sirius Black's picture doing on there, anyway?”
“Well, he... he escaped.”
Ron goggled at his father. “What? Escaped? From Azkaban? You're having us on!”
“No. I'm being quite serious. Er, about Sirius. Nobody knows how he did it, either. Being around dementors too long is supposed to drain a wizard of their powers, and he was in there for 12 years.”
Iliana's eyes narrowed a little.
“What was he in prison for?”
“He was a Death Eater. One of--”
“Moldywart's lot, yeah, we know. Do you think he's going to rejoin his master?”
“Er... well, yes, I think so. Eventually.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Well, you know, he has to... to get out of the country first. And no matter how he got out of Azkaban, he won't manage to do that so easily.”
He's lying, Al told her, unnecessarily; she already knew.
She waited until Ron wandered off to do something before she spoke to Mr. Weasley again.
“Sirius Black is out to kill us, isn't he?”
He hadn't been drinking or eating anything, and yet somehow Mr. Weasley still managed to choke at these words, coughing for several minutes. She waited for him to recover.
“How did you know?” he finally asked her.
She sighed, and began explaining all about Al's heart-reading, its limitations, and how their attempts to bypass those limitations resulted in an empathic sense, and the ability to tell when someone was lying.
“...then we picked up on your emotions – discomfort, unease, protectiveness, fear, and a dash of confusion, all focused around us. From there, it wasn't difficult to guess.”
“You are... quite perceptive.”
He pulled her aside to a quiet alcove.
“Molly doesn't want me telling you this, but since you already figured it out, I should probably fill you in more. In the days before his escape, Black was heard to mutter in his sleep, always the same words: 'He's at Hogwarts.' Harry was recently in the paper, and the Minister of Magic recalled having given Black a copy of that paper at Black's request, so it wasn't difficult to make the connection.”
“You're still holding something back. Something big. I can tell. If it's as big as I think it is, you'd better tell us now. The longer you wait, the worse it will be when we find out later. I don't know how well you know Al, but he has a temper problem. Whatever it is, it's better if you tell us now.”
“I... well, I... there's nothing really to tell.”
She sighed.
“Listen, lying to us is pointless. We can tell. And we can get the basic shape of the truth from your emotions. I understand you don't want to tell us, because it's something huge. But I'm telling you, from experience, that it'll be far safer if you--”
“Arthur!” Mrs. Weasley interrupted. “What are you doing back there with Iliana? You're not breaking your promise, are you?”
“N-no, dear, honest! Sh--”
“I figured it out on my own, Mrs. Weasley,” she said, rubbing her forehead in pain at the intensity of the Weasley matriarch's anger. “I was just trying to wheedle some more information out of him.”
“Well you come out here at once,” the older woman said, grabbing her and pulling her out by her arm. “There's no point in knowing things that will just upset--”
“Damn it, woman!” Iliana shouted, pulling out of her grip and transforming into Alastair.
“I know you mean well,” Al continued, “but we're tired of being treated like toddlers. We're not fragile little crybabies. We've faced Voldemort twice already and came out victorious, and Black can't be any worse than him, can he?
“What's more, we put up with all kinds of emotional abuse and neglect for most our lifetime. But what we always hated more than the abuse and the neglect was the lying! We are so SICK of being lied to! You were going to lie by omission about Black trying to kill us, which would have left us vulnerable to attack, and now there's something else you're holding back about him, something big, and you'd better tell us what it is NOW, or so help me, I don't know what I'll do, but it won't be pretty. Well?”
“No. I'm sorry, Alastair, but school is tomorrow, and you need your sleep. You're just going to have to cool down and accept that we have your best interests at heart.”
Al could sense, even without the new empathic gift, that she was not going to budge on this. She hadn't heard a word he'd said, or else had given it no mind. It was just so... so adult of her. That's what adults did, apparently: keep secrets, lie, and treat children like house elves.
“Fine,” he said, with deadly calm. “Fine. I'm going to go find out how to write howlers, so that when I do find out what you're hiding, I can send you a few dozen.”
Then he stormed out of the room with as much dignity as he could muster.
When Ron returned to their room later, Tier had come out in Al's place. Ron opened the door, and was met with the sight of a slightly changed version of Al's body as Tier was chewing vigorously on some rawhide. Ron paused, goggling at this sight, then sighed, rolled his eyes, and left the room again.
~
Iliana was back the next morning as they rushed around to get their stuff together, though by her behavior she was no more happy with Mr. and Mrs. Weasley than Al had been, glaring frequently at them, for their empathic sense had told her that the two adults weren't going to tell her any more. She didn't know who to be more angry with, Mrs. Weasley for being so difficult, or Mr. Weasley for being such a pushover. Granted, Mrs. Weasley could probably stare down a chimera and make the chimera meekly stand down, so maybe Mr. Weasley just knew better than to waste time trying to out-stubborn his wife.
She was unsurprised when the Ministry provided them cars to go to King's Cross station, given what Black had escaped for. Not wanting to upset Ginny, she didn't tell anyone that she knew why they were there. She could tell Ron and Hermione later. Though she did let Ron know that she needed to tell them something, later.
As usual, they were late, and got on the train at the last possible moment. So, naturally, all the compartments were full, save for one, which had two people in it. One of them was an adult, who was shabby and asleep, his battered briefcase held together with a lot of knotted string. This took them by surprise; the only adult they'd ever seen on the train before was the woman who sold snacks on the trolley.
The other person was at least equally strange, a blond girl with straggly, waist-length hair, and very protruberant eyes, like she was constantly surprised. She had her wand behind her ear, and was reading a magazine.
“Let's find somewhere else, mate,” Ron said.
“There isn't anywhere else, Ron.” Hermione said. “Iliana and I have already checked.”
“Um, hi,” Iliana said to the blonde girl. “Is it okay if we sit here?”
Silently, the girl looked at her, considering. Then she nodded.
“Thanks,” Iliana said, sitting across from the girl, on the man's left side.
Hermione sat down next to the girl, and Ron sat on Iliana's left.
There was a tense silence at first, Iliana not sure how to proceed. Then Ron whispered to her.
“Who d'ya suppose the bloke is?”
Somehow, Hermione heard him. “He's Professor R. J. Lupin.”
“How is it you know that?”
“It's written on his case, Ronald.”
Sure enough, in peeling gold letters, was the exact name Hermione had said.
“You're Iliana Potter,” the blonde girl said without preamble, in a dreamy voice.
“Uh... yeah, I am. Sorry I didn't introduce myself. Who're you?”
“Oh, I'm Luna Lovegood.”
Ron blinked. “Lovegood? Wait, do you live in Ottery St. Catchpole?”
Luna nodded.
“I've heard Dad mention the Lovegoods before. I'm Ron Weasley.”
“And I'm Hermione Granger.”
Iliana cocked her head curiously at Luna. Most people she'd run into since developing the empathic gift were a riot of emotions as various thoughts drove through their brain like Muggle traffic, but Luna was the most soothing person to be around thus far, with emotions like a sunlit cloud, or sunlit mist; bright but calming, languid. Like she was floating gently on a raft down a river, and everything around her was the shore as she passed it.
“Oy, Iliana,” Ron said, shaking her.
“What! What?” Iliana looked around. “What's going on?”
“You were just staring at Luna, your eyes half closed, looking like you were about to fall asleep.”
“Wha... Oh?”
“Yeah. What's that about?”
“She's an empath,” Luna said, brightening.
Everyone stared at her.
“A what?”
“An empath. She can feel people's emotions.”
“What? No she isn't. Are you?”
“Um... yes, I am.”
“Since when?”
Iliana sighed. Then she calmly went about explaining about Al's heart-reading sense and how it had evolved into the ability to feel the emotions of others.
“Most people's emotions are... noisy. But Luna's... Luna's emotions are like drifting serenely down a river. I guess I was getting lulled by them.”
Ron turned to Luna. “How did you know she's an empath?”
“I've met empaths before. They always love my energy; it soothes them. I recognized the symptoms of someone getting pulled into my emotions.”
Iliana turned to look at the still-sleeping Professor Lupin.
“Yeah, and then he's here adding to it. The poor man is exhausted, even in his sleep. Between his exhaustion and Luna's serenity, I...” she trailed off, yawning, but shook herself awake.
“So, Luna,” Hermione said. “I haven't seen you before, I don't think. Are you new?”
“Oh, no. I'm a second year. And in Ravenclaw. 'Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure,'” she quoted in a singsong voice.
Then she lifted her magazine up and continued reading. Iliana sensed she was just... not shy, exactly, just... introverted; had to take socialization in little bits.
With Luna quiet again, the others looked around for more conversation.
“I wonder what this Lupin bloke teaches,” Ron said.
“Defense Against the Dark Arts is the only opening, as far as I know,” Iliana said.
“Oh yeah, that makes sense. I hope he's up to it. Looks like one good hex would finish him off. Anyway,” he turned to Iliana, “you said earlier you needed to tell us something. Is it something you can tell us now, or should we wait?”
Iliana considered Luna for a moment, then turned back to Ron.
“I can tell you here, I think.”
She proceeded to tell them about how she'd figured out Sirius Black escaped to kill them, and how they'd gotten confirmation from Mr. Weasley. Ron looked dumbfounded, and Hermione looked scared, with her hands over her mouth. Finally, though, she lowered them to speak.
“Sirius Black escaped Azkaban to come after you, Iliana? Oh, you'll have to be really, really careful. Don't go looking for trouble.”
“We don't usually go looking for trouble. Trouble usually finds us just fine on its own.”
They talked about Sirius Black for a few more minutes before Ron interrupted.
“What's that noise?”
A faint, tinny sort of whistle was coming from somewhere. They looked all around the compartment. They finally tracked it down to Iliana's trunk. Ron stood up and retrieved the noisemaker from the trunk, which turned out to be the Pocket Sneakoscope Ron had gifted them. It was spinning very fast in the palm of Ron’s hand and glowing brilliantly.
“Is that a Sneakoscope?” said Hermione interestedly, standing up for a better look.
“Yeah … mind you, it’s a very cheap one,” Ron said. “It went off that night at dinner. Of course, that could be because Fred and George were putting beetles in Percy's soup.”
“Put it away again, we don't want to wake him. Plus it hurts my ears,” Iliana said.
Ron nodded, wadding it into a set of robes and returning it to the trunk. The noise was gone at last.
Ron mentioned getting it fixed in Hogsmeade, which set him and Hermione to discussing the all-wizarding village and all the cool things in it. Reminded of the permission slip, Iliana eventually cut in.
“Sounds great. But, well... I don't know who's supposed to sign mine, now we're not with the Dursleys anymore. And with Sirius Black on the loose and gunning for me, I doubt whoever it is will say yes.”
“What? Blimey, I hadn't considered that. Well you're a ward of Hogwarts now, right? So that means Dumbledore, probably.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“But Professor McGonagall is our head of House, Ron,” Hermione said. “What if they have to get it signed by her?”
Iliana gave a hollow laugh. “I hope not. Because in the current climate, the odds of McGonagall signing it are basically zero.”
“— or we can ask Fred and George, they know every secret passage out of the castle —”
“Ron!” said Hermione sharply. “They shouldn't be sneaking out with Black on the loose.”
“Which is probably what McGonagall will say.”
“Don't worry, Iliana,” Luna said in her usual dreamy voice. “If you can't go to Hogsmeade, you can spend time with me instead.”
Ron snorted a little, but Iliana smiled thankfully.
“Thanks, Luna. Good to know I won't be bored to tears in that case. Oh, and do you know Ginny Weasley?”
Luna nodded. “She's nice to me sometimes. Though she was often very worried last year.”
“Ah, yes. Well, she should be better this year. Anyway, I suppose she could always join us.”
“Yeah, if you're you, or Al, or Zoey. If you're Harry, though, she'll turn beet red and run off. She still likes him, you know?”
Iliana ignored him, and stood up to retrieve a book. She could feel everyone on the train with her empathic gift, and the pressure of everyone's emotions was getting harder to ignore. In fact, it was giving her a headache.
For half an hour, she struggled to try to read her Newt Scamander book, but between the empathic noise and Ron and Hermione having a spat after Hermione let Crookshanks out of his cage, and he attacked Scabbers, she had to put the book aside to massage her head.
“Iliana?” Luna said. “Would you like to get lost in my energy?”
“Yes please,” she said, looking up at Luna, and into the blonde's eyes.
Immediately, the empathic noise softened. After a few minutes, the noise stopped altogether. She could hear nothing at all, and felt so serene. Her headache began to wane; it was still there, it just felt distant, detached from her. Some part of her mind lazily made a note to get a headache cure from the Hospital Wing later. She felt Ron poke her, several times, at some point, and ignored him.
Then, abruptly, she snapped out of her daze. It took her a moment to figure out why; Malfoy and his cronies had appeared, and Ron had shaken her awake. But whatever Malfoy had come to be a bother about, it was over soon, as he spotted Professor Lupin, and immediately took off.
She looked down at her hand, and found she was holding a stack of Cauldron Cakes.
“What the heck?”
“Oh, that,” Ron said. “I poked you earlier, to ask if you wanted anything. You just pulled some gold out of your pocket and handed it to me without speaking, so I got you some Cauldron Cakes, a few Chocolate Frogs, and some Bertie Botts. Er... you're not upset about that, are you?”
“No, that's fine. I am hungry, now you mention it.”
She ate all of the cakes, and two of the three Chocolate Frogs, then went back to getting lost in Luna's energy, pausing just long enough before she did to notice that the weather outside the train was horrible, dark with lots of rain.
Some time later, Ron shook her back to reality again.
“Are we there yet?”
“We don't know. The train stopped. But Hermione says we can't be there yet, and I trust her judgment.”
Iliana sighed, and got up to poke her head out the compartment door. She saw she was one of many people with the same idea.
Without warning, all the lamps went out and they were plunged into total darkness.
“What’s going on?” said Ron’s voice from behind Iliana.
“Ouch!” gasped Hermione. “Ron, that was my foot!”
Iliana groped in the dark back to her seat.
“D’you think we’ve broken down?”
“Dunno …”
There was a squeaking sound, and Iliana saw the dim black outline of Ron, wiping a patch clean on the window and peering out.
“There’s something moving out there,” Ron said. “I think people are coming aboard.”
The compartment door suddenly opened and someone fell painfully over Iliana’s legs.
“Sorry — d’you know what’s going on? — Ouch — sorry —”
“Hullo, Neville,” said Iliana, feeling around in the dark and pulling Neville up by his cloak.
“Iliana? Is that you? What’s happening?”
“No idea — sit down —”
There was a loud hissing and a yelp of pain; Neville had tried to sit on Crookshanks.
“I’m going to go and ask the driver what’s going on,” came Hermione’s voice. Iliana felt the girl pass her, heard the door slide open again, and then a thud and two loud squeals of pain.
“Who’s that?”
“Who’s that?”
“Ginny?”
“Hermione?”
“What are you doing?”
“I was looking for Ron —”
“Come in and sit down —”
“Not here!” said Iliana hurriedly. “I’m here!”
“Ouch!” said Neville.
“Quiet!” said a hoarse voice suddenly.
Professor Lupin appeared to have woken up at last. Iliana could hear movements in his corner. None of them spoke.
With a crackling noise and a flare of light, Professor Lupin conjured a magical fire-like light into his hand, which filled the compartment with shivering orange light. The light showed his face, gray and weary, but also alert and wary.
Iliana felt sick all of a sudden, as a wave of cold terror washed through the people on the train. “Professor Lupin... everyone's terrified! But not of the dark... something in the dark...”
“I don't doubt that. Stay where you are,” he said in the same hoarse voice, and he got slowly to his feet with his handful of fire held out in front of him.
But the door slid slowly open before Lupin could reach it.
Standing in the doorway, illuminated by the shivering flames in Lupin’s hand, was a cloaked figure that towered to the ceiling. Its face was completely hidden beneath its hood. But worse yet, it felt... Wrong. Unnatural. It felt like the empathic equivalent of a dark hole full of rotten, maggot-riddled meat. She knew instinctively she had to get away from it at once, but it was blocking the doorway.
Then she saw its hand, like the corpse of a drowning victim, glistening, grayish, slimy and scabbed. This was only visible for a moment, for it withdrew the hand back into its cloak, as though her eyes on its flesh burned it.
And then the thing beneath the hood, whatever it was, drew a long, slow, rattling breath, as though it were trying to suck something more than air from its surroundings.
An intense cold swept over them all. Iliana felt her own breath catch in her chest. The cold went deeper than her skin. It was inside her chest, it was inside her very heart.
Her eyes rolled up into her head. She couldn’t see. She was drowning in cold. There was a rushing in her ears as though of water. She was being dragged downward, the roaring growing louder …
And then, from far away, she heard screaming; terrible, terrified, pleading screams. She wanted to help whoever it was, she tried to move her arms, but couldn’t … a thick white fog was swirling around her, inside her —
“Iliana! Iliana! Are you alright?”
Someone was slapping her face. She was on the ground, face parallel with the ground, and she smelled vomit. She tasted vomit.
“W — what?”
Iliana opened her eyes. The lights were back on, and the train was moving again. She had apparently slid out of her seat and puked on the ground, but Professor Lupin had Vanished the sick.
She turned up toward the ceiling. Hermione and Ron were kneeling in concern over her. So were Neville, Luna, and Professor Lupin.
Professor Lupin helped her sit up, then gave her a cup of water and an empty cup to spit into, to wash out the taste of the sick. She felt weak, shaky, and was drenched in cold sweat.
“Are you okay?” Ron asked nervously.
“I... I don't know. What was that hooded thing? It was like... if nightmares had nightmares, that thing would be made of those. And who was screaming?”
“No one screamed,” said Ron, more nervously still.
Iliana looked around at the others. Ginny and Neville looked back at her, both very pale. Luna – calm, serene, unflappable Luna – looked as though she'd been crying, her eyes puffy and red. She was also very pale.
“But I heard screaming —”
A loud snap made them all jump. Professor Lupin was breaking an enormous slab of chocolate into pieces.
“Here,” he said to Iliana, handing her a particularly large piece. “Eat it. It’ll help.”
She looked at the chocolate. Things started to click into place for her.
“Was that a dementor?” she asked.
“Yes, it was. One of the dementors of Azkaban.”
She turned even more pale.
“No wonder Hagrid was so scared of that place,” she said.
Professor Lupin crumpled up the empty chocolate wrapper and put it in his pocket.
“Eat,” he repeated. “It’ll help. I need to speak to the driver, excuse me.”
He strolled past her out into the corridor, and disappeared.
Remembering something she'd read in the Fantastic Beasts book about dementors, she bit into the chocolate. She felt much better at this. Perhaps sensing this, the others followed suit.
“So what happened?”
In fits and starts, Iliana got the story from the others in the compartment. The dementor had come in, looked around. Iliana had gone rigid in her seat, twitching, and retching. Lupin had told the dementor to go away, but it didn't do so until he shot something silvery at it. Then they described how the dementor made them feel; cold, hopeless, doomed to misery, unable to have a single happy thought. But nobody else had fallen off their seats, or had a fit, or lost their lunch. Nobody had heard screaming. Just her.
Only, it wasn't just her. The Collective was a mess, inside; Zoey was still crying, Al was doing the emotional equivalent of putting his knees under his chin and rocking back and forth, Tier had apparently retreated as far into the depths of their subconscious as he could, and Harry was holding onto Zoey, as much for his own comfort as hers.
Professor Lupin came back.
“Ah, you're eating the chocolate. Good. Do you feel better, Iliana?”
“Yes. Still shaken, though. Everyone else in the collective is pretty shaken up, too.”
“I don't doubt it. What about Harry?”
“Comforting Zoey. Or, well, holding onto her for his own comfort, too.”
They didn’t talk much during the remainder of the journey. At long last, the train stopped at Hogsmeade station, and there was a great scramble to get outside; owls hooted, cats meowed, and Neville’s pet toad croaked loudly from under his hat. It was freezing on the tiny platform; rain was driving down in icy sheets.
They heard Hagrid's familiar cry for the first years to follow him. Luna and Neville and Ginny came with them, and the six of them got a carriage together, Iliana carrying Aqua in one cage, and Hedwig in another.
When Luna first saw the carriages, she squeaked in alarm. Iliana looked at her in concern.
“What's wrong?”
She pointed at a thestral. “What are those?” Strangely, she sounded more curious than afraid.
"It's a thestral. They're harmless. I can see them too, Luna."
"Really?"
“Really truly. The carriages are drawn by thestrals. Hagrid told me about them. They're scary looking if you can see them, but they're harmless and gentle.”
“How come you and I can see them, and the others can't?” Luna asked.
“I can,” said Neville.
“The only people who can see them are people who have seen...” Iliana's voice caught in her throat. “Who have seen someone die.”
“Oh,” said Luna simply. “That explains it.”
Luna nodded, then got in the carriage as though absolutely nothing was the matter. Ron was a little harder to convince. But before long, they were all in the carriage and on their way up to the castle.
As the carriage passed through the entryway of the school, which was flanked by a pair of dementors, Iliana felt more of that cold sickness threaten to overtake them. But Tier came back, then, and without making any transformations, bolstered her resolve and hissed softly aloud in defiance.
When they finally disembarked the carriage, she heard a familiar drawling voice again.
“I heard you fainted on the train, Potter, is that true?”
Tier still being in control of her body, Malfoy was treated to her hissing at him like an angry cat, which just made him laugh.
Let me try, Al said, taking the reins.
'I AM THE WALRUS, COO COO CACHOO!' Al hissed in Parseltongue. Malfoy and his goons took off running in terror.
But Iliana sensed more than just Malfoy's fear. She looked around. Ginny was feeling uncomfortable, as was Neville. Professor Lupin, too, had frozen in his tracks, staring at her.
“Um... sorry about that.”
Ginny shuddered, then sighed. “No, I know you're alright. Just... it reminds me of last year.”
“I'll talk with Al about it, as he was the one who took control to do it. Sorry, again.”
Ginny simply nodded. Neville looked a little more relaxed than he had.
Hermione prodded Ron in the back to make him hurry, and the four of them joined the crowd swarming up the steps, through the giant oak front doors, into the cavernous entrance hall, which was lit with flaming torches, and housed a magnificent marble staircase that led to the upper floors.
The door into the Great Hall stood open at the right; Iliana followed the crowd toward it, but had barely glimpsed the enchanted ceiling, which was black and cloudy tonight, when a voice called, “Potter! Granger! I want to see you both!”
Iliana and Hermione turned around, surprised. Professor McGonagall, Transfiguration teacher and head of Gryffindor House, was calling over the heads of the crowd. She was a stern-looking witch who wore her hair in a tight bun; her sharp eyes were framed with square spectacles. Iliana fought her way over to the woman with a feeling of foreboding: Professor McGonagall had a way of making her feel she must have done something wrong.
“There’s no need to look so worried — I just want a word in my office,” she told them. “Move along there, Weasley.”
They followed her to her office as Ron and Luna went on without them.
Once they were in her office, a small room with a large, welcoming fire, Professor McGonagall motioned Iliana and Hermione to sit down. She settled herself behind her desk and said abruptly, “Professor Lupin sent an owl ahead to say that you were taken ill on the train, Potter.”
Before Iliana could reply, there was a soft knock on the door and Madam Pomfrey, the nurse, came bustling in.
“Oh, it’s you, is it?” said Madam Pomfrey, ignoring this and bending down to stare closely at her. “I suppose you’ve been doing something dangerous again?”
“It was a dementor, Poppy,” said Professor McGonagall.
They exchanged a dark look, and Madam Pomfrey clucked disapprovingly.
“Setting dementors around a school,” she muttered, pushing back Iliana's red hair and feeling her forehead. “She won’t be the last one who collapses. Yes, she’s all clammy. Terrible things, they are, and the effect they have on people who are already delicate —”
“Excuse me? I am not delicate.”
“Of course you’re not,” said Madam Pomfrey absentmindedly, now taking her pulse.
“I don't need anything,” Iliana said. “Professor Lupin already gave us all chocolate on the train. And that's the counter for dementors, isn't it?”
“Well, glad to see we finally have a Defense teacher who knows his remedies, at least,” the matron said approvingly.
“Are you sure you're alright, Potter?” McGonagall asked again.
“I could use a headache cure, actually, come to think of it. I got a headache on the train, and I know it'll get worse when I go to the Great Hall.”
Madam Pomfrey nodded, and fetched her a potion to cure her headache; as soon as Iliana swallowed it, the headache faded away and disappeared.
“Ah, much better.”
“Anything else?” McGonagall asked.
“No, I'm good now, thanks.”
“Well alright then, Ms. Potter. Off you go. Ms. Granger, stay behind please, I need a private word with you.”
Despite her words, Iliana waited for Hermione to be done, and they went to the feast together. They had missed the Sorting, but Iliana didn't mind too much. She was very glad for her headache cure, and hoped she wouldn't need another.
As she and Hermione walked to their places at the Griffindor table, people were pointing at her; the tale of her fainting on the train must have spread. She shrugged internally, as she didn't really care.
Once they and McGonagall took their respective places, Dumbledore stood up and made some announcements.
Dumbledore cleared his throat and said, “As you will all be aware after their search of the Hogwarts Express, our school is presently playing host to some of the dementors of Azkaban, who are here on Ministry of Magic business.”
Tier hissed at this, aloud as it turned out, and Iliana put her hand to her mouth in embarrassment at her headmate's outburst, but nobody else appeared to have heard or noticed.
Despite this, and despite all the people in the room, Iliana still managed to feel Dumbledore's distaste for the dementors. She looked up to confirm this, and sure enough, he looked displeased.
“They are stationed at every entrance to the grounds,” Dumbledore continued, “and while they are with us, I must make it plain that nobody is to leave school without permission. Dementors are not to be fooled by tricks or disguises — or even Invisibility Cloaks,” he added blandly, and Iliana and Ron glanced at each other. “It is not in the nature of a dementor to understand pleading or excuses. I therefore warn each and every one of you to give them no reason to harm you. I look to the prefects, and our new Head Boy and Girl, to make sure that no student runs afoul of the dementors,” he said.
She glanced over at Percy, who looked and felt more pleased with himself than usual.
Dumbledore paused again; he looked very seriously around the hall, and nobody moved or made a sound.
“On a happier note,” he continued, “I am pleased to welcome two new teachers to our ranks this year.
“First, Professor Lupin, who has kindly consented to fill the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.”
There wasn't much applause at this, mostly only from the few people who had seen him fend off the dementor on the train. She supposed most people, having never heard of him before, were just being polite. Well, except for Malfoy, of course, who would probably still be judging him for being poor and shabby-looking.
“Look at Snape!” Ron hissed in her ear.
She looked at the grumpy professor, and was surprised. Snape was giving Lupin the kind of withering look of loathing usually reserved for Harry or Alastair.
“As to our second new appointment,” Dumbledore continued as the lukewarm applause for Professor Lupin died away. “Well, I am sorry to tell you that Professor Kettleburn, our Care of Magical Creatures teacher, retired at the end of last year in order to enjoy more time with his remaining limbs. However, I am delighted to say that his place will be filled by none other than Rubeus Hagrid, who has agreed to take on this teaching job in addition to his gamekeeping duties.”
There was much more cheering and applause at this, for far more people knew and loved Hagrid. The large man's face – what they could see of it through the beard – was bright red, and he was looking at his hands.
“Well that explains the biting book,” Iliana said.
With everything of importance covered, Dumbledore signaled for the feast to begin, and it did, the containers and plates magically filling with food, and they dug in. But as delicious as it was, they were excited to finish so they could congratulate Hagrid, as this was only possible because they'd cleared Hagrid's name last year.
Their food eaten at last, the three of them ran up to Hagrid at the staff table and congratulated him. He was so thrilled that Dumbledore had offered him this job at the end of the last year, and he was eager to start classes.
“Just don't bring in anything dangerous, Hagrid,” warned Iliana. “The last thing we need is for your first classes to be marred by chaos. You should start small and work your way up to the more impressive creatures.”
“Oh, wha I got planned, they en't dangerous. Mind, they can look after themselves, but you treat 'em well, and they won't bother yeh none.”
Iliana gave Hagrid a half-sincere smile in acknowledgement, but didn't speak her mind; she rather doubted Hagrid had anything approaching a normal estimate of where the line between interesting and monstrous was; between his vast size and his kindly nature, he tended to err on the side of compassion.
After dinner, they all went to their common rooms. Neville moaned at the new password (Fortuna Major) which he was certain he would forget.
“Just try to remember it sounds almost like Fortune Major,” she told him. “Or imagine there's a talking tuna fish named Major, and you're bringing something to him; you've got something 'for Tuna Major.' ”
Neville chuckled. “Thanks, Iliana. I'll try to keep it in mind.”
“You're welcome. Oh, it also helps to repeat it to yourself often. Or it helps me, anyway.”
As Iliana reached the stairs to the boy's dormitory, she stopped and frowned. It had made sense to just stick with the boy's dorm until now, but suddenly, being 13, she was having doubts. She didn't feel comfortable going up there now. But she had to go to bed, and she didn't know what else to do, and even if she did, now was not the time to make new arrangements. Sure, she could just talk with McGonagall, but that would have to wait. So with a sigh, she withdrew, and out came Harry instead, this time with no glow to their transformation at all.
But even Harry was hesitating. This was a bad idea for him; he hadn't been Out since the incident in Egypt with the Mirror of Erised. He was even less comfortable about going upstairs than Iliana was, and stood there shaking, trying to ignore Ron asking him what was wrong.
With another sigh, Al took over instead, their height shooting up as the older-looking boy took Harry's place.
“That was the first I've seen of Harry for ages,” Ron said. “But it didn't last long. What's wrong with him?”
“That's for him to tell you, if he chooses to.”
“Fair enough.”
Al got changed into Pjs, and crawled into bed. As tired as they were, though, he couldn't sleep for almost an hour, laying there thinking about the ever more complicated situation they were in, wondering what to do about it. He also thought about Harry's problem. He didn't envy his host's position; it was one thing to turn into other people, two of whom were girls, but to figure out that you were actually a girl yourself, too, when you'd thought all your life that you were a boy? It had to be tough.
There were so many questions, so many challenges. Would Harry accept this fact about himself? Would he change his pronouns? His name? His dorm? Could Harry change his appearance? Al knew from doing some reading that there were sex-change potions, but he wasn't sure if they would work on Harry, given their frequent transformations. It might be that the only way Harry could transition – if he even wanted to – that he'd have to figure out a way to use their own personal magic to do it, as potions might not have a permanent effect on Harry. Or maybe they would, but they'd mess up everyone else in the collective, too?
Finally, though, Al drifted into a fitful sleep.
End note 1: I can't find where the Weasley's trip to Egypt started exactly, but I did find that it ended on the 25th of August, and the Daily Prophet said they'd be spending a month in Egypt, so I decided to go with them leaving July 25th.
End note 2: 700 galleons is $3367, according to http://www.beyondhogwarts.com/cgi-bin/gringotts.cgi
End note 3: I am, again, using our own life as reference. We, too, have an empathic gift, and something very similar to Al's heart-reading power. In our youth, it was so powerful it was basically telepathy or legilimency. Since then, it became downgraded to being a divining rod against untrustworthy people, and a lie detector. And Iliana's headaches from empathic noise are something I still get. In fact, I had a headache myself when I wrote her first headache into the story.
End note 4: There's been a lot of speculation about why Harry saw Iliana in the Mirror of Erised in his first year. Here is what I was thinking when I wrote that scene: Harry subconsciously knows he likes how the body feels when they're Iliana. Harry, who is new to this whole thing, misinterprets this in his subconscious as a desire to be replaced by Iliana. The Mirror, which I figure can get confused if the person doesn't know what they want, even subconsciously, reflects his own confusion. Harry doesn't like this interpretation of things when he comes face to face with it. And thus, in this chapter, when he sees the Mirror again, his subconscious has finally worked out what it wanted all along, which is to be a girl without being replaced. IE, Harry is a trans girl and has only in this chapter come to consciously realize it.
I also want to remind everyone that the Potter collective are NOT a trauma based collective. Mainly because we in my own collective do not believe that trauma in and of itself causes multiplicity; if it did, I think most people would be multiples by now, because it seems to me that most people have trauma in their childhoods, and given how much war and starvation there is in the world, and how much child abuse, we genuinely do not believe childhood trauma causes multiplicity. Many collectives are riddled with other trauma-created mental illnesses that may impair their collective's functioning, but this is A) True of singlets as well, and B)Such a far cry from trauma causing multiplicity. You may agree or disagree, that is your right. But we're using our own collective as a model for the Potter collective, and we do not consider ourselves trauma-created, because the signs of us being a Collective have been there all our lives, we had a great life up until kindergarten, and even then the only “trauma” was bullying at school, which wasn't even that bad, as we mostly just ignored it. Yes, we developed depression and anxiety, but lots of singlets have that, too. Since any mind can become ill, it's reasonable to assume that the different minds in a Collective can have different mental illnesses or personality disorders, and that these things can be comorbid with their multiplicity. (For instance, imagine someone bipolar – or with PTSD – sharing a body with someone with Borderline Personality Disorder.)
Final endnote: Edited a continuity error. Ron already knew about thestrals, so that was a mistake here.
Chapter Fourteen: Cutting Remarks
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Harry, and Zoey, and now #Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and now between hashtags/pound signs because some people's computers don't do the B.I.U.).#
His sleep having been fitful, Alastair was even grumpier in the morning than usual, at least until he got some food into him. Malfoy pretending to faint in terror to tease them didn't help his mood any, and he snapped back at the git.
“I may pass out from dementor attacks, Malfoy, but at least I've never snogged my mother, unlike you!”
It was fortunate that the teachers stepped in to prevent violence. Al ignored them all and sat down to eat. He was very hungry, too, eating fully twice what they usually ate at meals, and was still chowing down when McGonagall came around with the class schedules.
“You'd better watch out, Al,” Ron said. “Malfoy looks ready to kill.”
“He tries anything, I'll transfigure his mouth and his eyes permanently shut.”
“You could do that?”
“Probably. Or Zoey could, anyway.”
Ron made a faintly scared sound, then shook himself.
“Anyway... what'd you guys take, Al?” asked Ron. “I forget.”
“Ancient Runes, Divination, and Care of Magical Creatures. Ancient Runes sounded interesting. Divination... well, given what the centaurs called us our first year, that only made sense. And Care of Magical Creatures sounded useful. Should be interesting, with Hagrid teaching it.”
He turned to Hermione, looking at her schedule. He saw just enough before she snatched it away to raise his eyebrows. Ron had seen, too.
“Hermione, they've mucked up your schedule,” Ron said. “Half these classes are at the same time, there's no way you can get to them all!”
“Never mind, Ron. I fixed it all with McGonagall, it's fine.”
Ron and Hermione went back and forth some more on this, Ron increasingly bewildered, until Al finally spoke.
“Well isn't it obvious? She got given a time machine last night when she was talking with McGonagall.”
He felt a sharp spike of panic from Hermione, though the fact she'd knocked over her pumpkin juice would've been telling enough. He raised an eyebrow at her; he'd been speaking sarcastically, but might he be onto something?
Time travel, real? Nah, that's preposterous.
“Don't be silly, Al, there's no such thing,” Hermione said.
While he privately agreed, he found it amusing to be contrary, so he said, “Funny, my uncle used to say the same thing about magic. Frequently. More like he was trying to convince himself than me, to be honest.”
More panic. Al resisted the urge to smile. Whatever the truth was, he was making her uncomfortable.
“Either that or a cloning machine,” he said, to go in a more realistic direction. “Is there something like Gemino for people?”
“Cloning machine?” Ron asked.
“Fictional device that can make exact copies of humans or other animals. Not quite the same as actual cloning would be, of course. If they ever pull off actual cloning, it'd be more like making an identical twin you'd never grown up with, and it'd be an infant, and have to grow like a normal person. But, hmm... I wonder... Gemino!”
He had pointed his wand at Ron when he said this, but all that happened was a copy of Ron's robes appeared in the air beside him.
“Oy, don't use me to experiment on, mate! I don't want to get accidentally transfigured into a moose or something.”
“Duly noted,” Al said.
Hagrid passed them then, stopping to gush about how they were going to be in his first class later today, and how he'd gotten everything set up. Ron wondered, with some worry in his voice, what Hagrid had prepared.
“Well it's unlikely to be a dragon, so that's good news,” Al said.
“Yeah, but there's a lot of other dangerous creatures it could be. Hope it isn't manticores or a chimera or something worse.”
But they had to cut off their discussion then, because they had Divination, which was all the way in North Tower. It took them every shortcut they knew to get there in time, and even then they had to get help from the painting of a very annoying and inept knight named Sir Cadogan.
“You know,” Al said as they approached the rest of the class, who were waiting in the corridor, “I wonder if Hogwarts teaches how to make portraits like that. I'd love to get one made of myself, and live forever.”
“You'd be trapped in a painting, though,” Ron pointed out.
The class was assembled at a tiny landing, but there was no sign of the door. At least, not until they happened to look up and see a door in the ceiling.
“'Sybil Trelawney,'” he said, reading the plaque on the door. “If I'd known this was going to happen, I would've brought my broom.”
As soon as he said this, the circular door opened and a silvery ladder came down.
“Glad I'm not wheelchair bound,” Al said, climbing up the ladder. “Or afraid of heights,” he finished, getting to the top and looking down.
#I'm sure someone in a wheelchair could float up,# Iliana said internally.
Good point.
He emerged into the strangest-looking classroom he had ever seen. In fact, it didn’t look like a classroom at all, more like a cross between someone’s attic and an old-fashioned tea shop. At least twenty small, circular tables were crammed inside it, all surrounded by chintz armchairs and fat little poufs. Everything was lit with a dim, crimson light; the curtains at the windows were all closed, and the many lamps were draped with dark red scarves. It was stiflingly warm, and the fire that was burning under the crowded mantelpiece was giving off a heavy, sickly sort of perfume as it heated a large copper kettle. The shelves running around the circular walls were crammed with dusty-looking feathers, stubs of candles, many packs of tattered playing cards, countless silvery crystal balls, and a huge array of teacups.
“Where is she?”
A voice came suddenly out of the shadows, a soft, misty sort of voice.
“Welcome,” it said. “How nice to see you in the physical world at last.”
Al snorted with barely-suppressed laughter. He saw through this woman at once; she was a fraud with no real talent.
“I can already tell you this class is going to be a waste of time,” he told Ron.
“How d'ya reckon?”
“My heart-reading ability, of course. She's a total fraud.”
Her appearance didn't help matters, either; looking like a large insect, glittering with bangles and draped in shawls, she looked like a bad stereotype of a “gypsy” fortuneteller, except that she was white.
“Sit, my children, sit,” she said, and they all climbed awkwardly into armchairs or sank onto poufs. Al crossed his arms and resisted the urge to put his feet up on the table, but only just. Which was for the better, as Hermione would've berated him for it.
“Welcome to Divination,” said Professor Trelawney, who had seated herself in a winged armchair in front of the fire. “My name is Professor Trelawney. You may not have seen me before. I find that descending too often into the hustle and bustle of the main school clouds my Inner Eye.”
Nobody said anything to this, though Al barked once with laughter.
Looking annoyed but not calling him out on his behavior, Professor Trelawney delicately rearranged her shawl and continued, “So you have chosen to study Divination, the most difficult of all magical arts. I must warn you at the outset that if you do not have the Sight, there is very little I will be able to teach you. Books can take you only so far in this field.”
Al and Ron looked at each other, then at an astonished Hermione, then back again, and grinned. Hermione was so used to being able to read her way through any class, this was going to be interesting, watching how she'd take a class where that wasn't very helpful.
“Many witches and wizards, talented though they are in the area of loud bangs and smells and sudden disappearings, are yet unable to penetrate the veiled mysteries of the future,” Professor Trelawney went on, her enormous, gleaming eyes moving from face to nervous face. “It is a Gift granted to few. You, boy,” she said suddenly to Neville, who almost toppled off his pouf. “Is your grandmother well?”
“I think so,” said Neville tremulously.
“I wouldn’t be so sure if I were you, dear,” said Professor Trelawney, the firelight glinting on her long emerald earrings. Neville gulped.
Al sat up straighter and interrupted. “Hey, that's not on. What gives you the right to scare him like that with your vague prediction and then not offer any further explanation?”
Professor Trelawney stared at him incredulously, as though she wasn't used to people interrupting her and didn't know what to make of it. Then she crossed her arms and looked imperiously down at him.
“Pardon me, young man, but I am the teacher here, and you the pupil. You will withhold any comments until I am done.”
“I don't think so. Neville gets scared enough by that overgrown bat, Snape, he doesn't need you making this class difficult for him, too. By all means continue making predictions at us to try to impress us, but leave poor Neville out of it.”
She seemed to focus as he said this, regarding him more carefully. She lifted up a set of papers to look at it.
“Your name, brash young man?”
“Alastair Potter.”
“Ah,” she said, as though delighted to find some succulent prey, “the Potter collective. I have seen much about you in my crystal ball, of late.”
“Sure you have. And I'm all five of the Three Stooges,” he said. Only a couple people laughed; the rest looked confused.
Trelawney didn't seem to know how to respond to this, and stood there for several moments looking torn, before setting the papers down and pulling her shawls around her again, looking determined.
“Moving on,” she said placidly, “We will be covering the basic methods of Divination this year. The first term will be devoted to reading the tea leaves. Next term we shall progress to palmistry. By the way, my dear,” she shot suddenly at Parvati Patil, “beware a red-haired man.”
Parvati gave a startled look at Ron, who was right behind her, and edged her chair away from him. Al rolled his eyes, threw his head back, and sighed very loudly. Trelawney glared at him, but ignored him.
“In the second term,” Professor Trelawney went on, “we shall progress to the crystal ball — if we have finished with fire omens, that is. Unfortunately, classes will be disrupted in February by a nasty bout of flu. I myself will lose my voice--”
Al turned to Ron and stage whispered. “Flu, in a school full of kids. Good prediction, that one. All she has to do to make it come true is lick every doorknob she finds.”
There was a ripple of laughter at this. Hermione, he noticed, looked torn between annoyance at Al's disrespect toward a teacher, and the urge to laugh at his comments.
Trelawney, who was plainly used to her mystic attitude doing all the work of keeping classes orderly for her, shook a little, then in a louder, more authoritarian voice, she said, “And around Easter, one of our number will leave us forever.”
Even Al didn't have anything to say to that one.
Her disruptive student struck speechless, Trelawney continued with a smug look on her face.
“I wonder, dear,” she said to Lavender Brown, who was nearest and shrank back in her chair, “if you could pass me the largest silver teapot?”
Lavender, looking relieved, stood up, took an enormous teapot from the shelf, and put it down on the table in front of Professor Trelawney.
“Thank you, my dear. Incidentally, that thing you are dreading — it will happen on Friday the sixteenth of October.”
“Could you vague that up for her?” Al said, a little lamely.
Lavender, however, trembled.
“Now, I want you all to divide into pairs. Collect a teacup from the shelf, come to me, and I will fill it. Then sit down and drink, drink until only the dregs remain. Swill these around the cup three times with the left hand, then turn the cup upside down on its saucer, wait for the last of the tea to drain away, then give your cup to your partner to read. You will interpret the patterns using pages five and six of Unfogging the Future. I shall move among you, helping and instructing.” At this point she turned to Neville as if to speak, then – glancing at Al – thought better of it.
They went about getting cups and saucers, and making tea. Al looked at his with disgust.
“Ewww. It's got bits of leaf floating in it,” he told Ron. “I mean, I suppose it wouldn't work otherwise, but usually if there's tea leaves in the tea, I throw it out and try again.”
“You've never had loose leaf tea before?”
“Oh, sure I have. Aunt Petunia would never be caught dead buying anything as gauche and low class as teabags. But her tea sets all had these metal inserts to keep the tea leaves from getting into the tea itself, like a metal teabag. She hated it when tea leaves would get in the tea. I guess I got that from her,” he said, looking very annoyed about it.
Glaring at the tea, he slurped it down as fast as he could, gagging on the tea leaves and spitting them out like he'd gotten sand in his mouth.
“That would've been quite good if it hadn't been for the tea leaves floating in it,” Al said.
“Wish she'd given us milk,” Ron said. “At least there's sugar.”
“Ew,” Al commented. “I like my tea like I like my clothing; black and bitter as Hell.”
Ron stared at him. He shrugged.
“Okay, so that sounded funnier in my head. Anyway, let's trade cups, read each other's fortunes.”
They did, opening their books as well, looking for symbols to look for.
“Whadda ya see in mine?” Ron asked.
“Load of soggy brown stuff,” Al said. He suddenly became aware of how hot it was in the room, something he knew from experience wasn't good for them. Even he, who had some immunity to the soporific effects of heat, felt groggy.
“Broaden your minds, my dears, and allow your eyes to see past the mundane!” Professor Trelawney cried through the gloom.
For all his sass at the teacher, Al wanted to actually be able to do this stuff, so he tried to focus.
“Right, you’ve got a crooked sort of cross …” He consulted Unfogging the Future. “That means you’re going to have ‘trials and suffering’ — sorry about that — but there’s a thing that could be the sun … hang on … that means ‘great happiness’ … so you’re going to suffer but be very happy. You're not a masochist, are you?”
“You need your Inner Eye tested, if you ask me,” said Ron, and they both had to stifle their laughs as Professor Trelawney gazed in their direction.
“My turn …” Ron peered into Al's teacup, his forehead wrinkled with effort. “There’s a blob a bit like a bowler hat,” he said. “Maybe you’re going to work for the Ministry of Magic. …”
He turned the teacup the other way up.
“But this way it looks more like an acorn. … What’s that?” He scanned his copy of Unfogging the Future. “ ‘A windfall, unexpected gold.’ Excellent, you can lend me some … and there’s a thing here,” he turned the cup again, “that looks like an animal … yeah, if that was its head … it looks like a hippo … no, a sheep …”
Professor Trelawney whirled around as Al let out a bark of laughter.
“Let me see that, my dear,” she said reprovingly to Ron, sweeping over and snatching Al's cup from him. Everyone went quiet to watch.
Professor Trelawney was staring into the teacup, rotating it counterclockwise.
“The falcon … my dear, you have a deadly enemy.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” Al said, half the class aghast at his cheek. “Ever since I was born, that's been true, and every witch and wizard in the world knows it, too. Moldy Voldy, dumb and oldy, should be six feet under, coldy.”
“The club … an attack. Dear, dear, this is not a happy cup. …”
“I thought that was a bowler hat,” said Ron sheepishly.
“Convenient how a hat morphs into a club,” Al commented. “Almost like you're making it up as you go along. Oh wait!” he said, mimicking an iconic scene from Home Alone.
“The skull … danger in your path, my dear. …”
“Given that a deranged lunatic escaped from prison to kill me, that's not exactly a prophecy.”
Everyone was staring, transfixed, at Professor Trelawney, who gave the cup a final turn, gasped, and then screamed. Al jumped, clutching his heart.
“Ye gods, woman!”
“My dear boy … my poor, dear boy … no … it is kinder not to say … no … don’t ask me.”
“Oh don't tell me!” Al said, putting two fingers from each hand on each temple, and closing his eyes. “Eeny meeny, chili beeny, I predict you've found... a death omen!”
He opened his eyes to see her looking at him like he'd stolen her thunder.
“Aha! I was right, wasn't I?”
Her lips got very thin, and she looked like she was debating whether or not to speak.
“Yes,” she said, finally.
“YES! I'm good at this already! So go on, don't spare the rod, let me hear how bad it is! Don't pull any punches, I can take it,” he said melodramatically, lifting the back of one hand daintily to his forehead.
“I see... the Grim.”
Everyone who was raised in the wizarding world gasped. Al opened his eyes, his hand still on his forehead.
“Well that was anti-climactic,” he said. “What is the Grim?”
“The Grim... it is a giant spectral dog that haunts churchyards. It is the most dire omen of death.”
“Well we all die eventually,” Al said.
“Yes, we do,” Trelawney said, annoyed. “But an omen means imminent death.”
“So it's just a dog that you see? Hey, maybe your inner eye is myopic; maybe it just means I'm going to be friends with a large black dog.”
Hermione huffily took the teacup from Trelawney and looked inside.
“I don’t think it looks like a Grim,” she said flatly.
Trelawney glared at Hermione, obviously annoyed and thinking Al's bad attitude was spreading.
“You’ll forgive me for saying so, my dear, but I perceive very little aura around you. Very little receptivity to the resonances of the future. Both of you.”
“Nah, I'm just allergic to fruh... fruh... FRUH... ACHOO! Allergic to frauds.”
Trelawney's gaze turned to Al, and it was plain she was growing to really dislike him. She stood there, her arms crossed, as though thinking about whether to slap him or not.
“Detention, Mr. Potter, for your disrespect!”
“OooooOoooo...” the class intoned.
Al fist pumped. “Woohoo! Detention on the first day! A personal record!”
“And ten points from Griffindor,” she added, before skulking away in disgust. “See me after class for instructions on your detention.”
“Righty-o,” Al said, saluting.
~
“You really oughtn't have done that, you know,” Hermione said as they went to Transfiguration.
Al shrugged. “Yeah, but I went into that class expecting a talented person teaching us, someone actually able to tell the future. If I wanted a scam artist, I could go to the Muggle world for that.”
“What'd she give you for detention, anyway?” Ron asked.
Al giggled. “Polishing her crystal balls. While under a Silencing Charm.”
Ron chuckled. “Not terribly creative. Except for the Silencing Charm part.”
“Yeah, she's no doubt going to regale me with dire predictions of my death and/or dismemberment the whole time, probably turning that fire on so high that I fall asleep.”
When they got to Transfiguration, most of the class wasn't paying attention to McGonagall's lesson, but Al was so enthralled by the idea of Animagi that he, Hermione, and Ron were the only ones to applaud when she changed into a cat and back again.
“Thank you, you three,” she said graciously. “But really, what has gotten into the rest of you? Not that I mind, but that's the first time my transformation's not got applause from the entire class.”
Everyone turned to look at Al, who was leaning back in his chair so it was standing only on two legs. But it was Hermione who broke the silence at last.
“Please, Professor, we’ve just had our first Divination class, and we were reading the tea leaves, and —”
“Ah, of course,” said Professor McGonagall, suddenly frowning. “There is no need to say any more, Miss Granger. Tell me, which of you will be dying this year?”
Everyone stared at her.
“Who else could it be but me?” Al said easily, a toothpick hanging from the corner of his mouth, his hands behind his head.
“I see,” McGonagall said. “In that case, Mr. Potter, you should know that Sibyll Trelawney has predicted the death of one student a year since she arrived at this school. None of them has died yet. Seeing death omens is her favorite way of greeting a new class. If it were not for the fact that I never speak ill of my colleagues...”
Professor McGonagall broke off, and they saw that her nostrils had gone white. She went on, more calmly, “Divination is one of the most imprecise branches of magic. I shall not conceal from you that I have very little patience with it. True Seers are very rare, and Professor Trelawney...”
“...is an old fraud,” Al finished for her.
She did not reply at first, which was telling enough as is. When she did speak, it was in a matter-of-fact tone.
“You look in excellent health to me, Mr. Potter, so you will excuse me if I don’t let you off homework today. I assure you that if you die, you need not hand it in.”
Hermione and Ron laughed.
“Not even if I leave a ghost behind?”
“As ghosts cannot do magic, no; not even then.”
On their way out of Transfiguration, they discussed the Grim and Trelawney again.
“You know, my uncle Bilius saw a Grim once, and died 24 hours later. So she's not wrong about it being a death omen, but since you say you haven't seen one, I'm not worried.”
“Coincidence,” said Hermione airily, pouring herself some pumpkin juice.
“Excuse me?”
“It's just a coincidence, what happened to your uncle.”
Ron glared at her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about! Grims scare the living daylights out of most wizards!”
“There you are, then,” said Hermione in a superior tone. “They see the Grim and die of fright. The Grim’s not an omen, it’s the cause of death!”
Ron looked about to speak, but Hermione interrupted.
“Divination seems very wooly to me. Not very interesting, either, unlike my Arithmancy class.”
“What're you talking about? You can't've been to Arithmancy yet, you've been with us all morning.”
Hermione sniffed and stalked off.
“Time machine, Ron. Bet you anything she's got a time machine.”
~
Their Care of Magical Creatures class was after lunch, under a pleasant, sunlit sky, the grass still springy from the rain the day before. Al was still chewing on a toothpick, walking along with his hands in his robe pockets, his two best friends at his sides. They weren't talking to one another, but it was better than bickering.
When Al approached Malfoy (they were having this lesson with the Slytherins), he waved as though to a friend and said in Parseltongue, 'Beautiful day, isn't it?'
Malfoy, who had been regarding Al with hatred a moment before, jumped back, terrified.
'What, I can't greet a fellow student amicably?'
The Slytherins, and even some of the Griffindors, backed away from Al.
“Al, stop doing that,” Hermione scolded him.
Al shrugged. “Sorry. I see a snake, I speak Parseltongue. It's a reflex.”
Hagrid was waiting for his class at the door of his hut. He stood in his moleskin overcoat, with Fang the boarhound at his heels, looking impatient to start.
“C’mon, now, get a move on!” he called as the class approached. “Got a real treat for yeh today! Great lesson comin’ up! Everyone here? Right, follow me!”
For a moment, Al thought they were going to be led to the Forbidden Forest, but instead, they went to a paddock around the edges of the trees.
“Everyone gather ’round the fence here!” he called. “That’s it — make sure yeh can see — now, firs’ thing yeh’ll want ter do is open yer books —”
“How?” said the cold, drawling voice of Draco Malfoy.
“Eh?” said Hagrid.
“How do we open our books?” Malfoy repeated. He took out his copy of The Monster Book of Monsters, which he had bound shut with a length of rope. Other people took theirs out too; some, like Al, had belted their book shut; others had crammed them inside tight bags or clamped them together with binder clips.
“Hasn’ — hasn’ anyone bin able ter open their books?” said Hagrid, looking crestfallen.
The class all shook their heads.
“Yeh’ve got ter stroke ’em,” said Hagrid, as though this was the most obvious thing in the world. “Look —”
He took Hermione’s copy and ripped off the Spellotape that bound it. The book tried to bite, but Hagrid ran a giant forefinger down its spine, and the book shivered, and then fell open and lay quiet in his hand.
“Oh, how silly we’ve all been!” Malfoy sneered. “We should have stroked them! Why didn’t we guess!”
Al frowned at him. “Yeah, Malfoy, why didn't you think of that? You're an expert in stroking, after all.”
The whole class burst into laughter at this, except for most of the Slytherins of course. But Hagrid, who had been looking crestfallen a moment ago, was chuckling as well, which had been Al's intent. That, and shutting up Malfoy.
“Well,” Hagrid said after a few moments. “open yer books, as I said. Got em? Good. Now, turn ter page 123, the entry on Hippogriffs, and follow me.”
They opened their books and followed Hagrid.
“God, this place is going to the dogs,” said Malfoy loudly. “That oaf teaching classes, my father’ll have a fit when I tell him.”
“That's about all he can do about it, now he's no longer a school governor,” Al loudly commented back. “Which is what happens when you put Moldywart's old school things into innocent hands in order to open secret chambers to let horrible monsters loose onto the school. Good thing there wasn't any proof, or he'd be feeding the dementors up in Azkaban, and we all know what a huge loss that would be.”
“Watch out, Potter, there's a dementor behind you!” Malfoy said venomously.
Al barked with laughter. “That comeback was lamer than a legless unicorn in broken crutches.”
Malfoy turned red, and shut up. Al grinned.
Then they were there, and Al looked in amazement at the most bizarre creatures he'd ever laid eyes on. They had head and forelegs like oversized eagles, and the back half of a horse. Each of the creatures had a thick leather collar around its neck, being led by a long chain.
“Gee up, there!” Hagrid roared, shaking the chains and urging the creatures toward the fence where the class stood. Everyone drew back slightly as Hagrid reached them and tethered the creatures to the fence.
“Hippogriffs!” Hagrid roared happily, waving a hand at them. “Beau’iful, aren’ they?”
“Those. Are. AMAZING!” Al exclaimed, making Hagrid beam. “How old d'ya have to be to buy one?”
“At leas' 17, an' yeh need a special license an' all, too. Yeh see those beaks and claws? They can take a chunk outta yeh if you bait 'em.
“So,” said Hagrid, rubbing his hands together and beaming around, “if yeh wan’ ter come a bit nearer —”
No one seemed to want to. Al, Ron, and Hermione, however, approached the fence cautiously.
“Now, firs’ thing yeh gotta know abou’ hippogriffs is, they’re proud,” said Hagrid. “Easily offended, hippogriffs are. Don’t never insult one, ’cause it might be the last thing yeh do.”
Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle weren’t listening; they were talking in an undertone and Al had a nasty feeling they were plotting how best to disrupt the lesson.
“Hey Malfoy!” he yelled, getting the Slytherin's attention. “Pay attention, if you don't want your hand snipped off or something. If you eff this up for Hagrid, I will transfigure a pair of bollocks onto your chin!”
“Don't tell me what to do, Potty.”
Al smiled creepily at Malfoy and said, in an equally creepy tone of voice, “Your funeral.”
“Yeh always wait fer the hippogriff ter make the firs’ move,” Hagrid continued. “It’s polite, see? Yeh walk toward him, and yeh bow, an’ yeh wait. If he bows back, yeh’re allowed ter touch him. If he doesn’ bow, then get away from him sharpish, ’cause those talons hurt.
“Right — who wants ter go first?”
Al looked around; nobody, not even Ron or Hermione, wanted to do it. So he shrugged and stepped forward.
“I'll do it,” he said.
There was an intake of breath from behind him, and both Lavender and Parvati whispered, “Oooh, no, Al, remember your tea leaves!”
Al rolled his eyes at them, and climbed over the paddock fence.
“Good man, Al!” roared Hagrid. “Right then — let’s see how yeh get on with Buckbeak.”
He untied one of the chains, pulled the gray hippogriff away from its fellows, and slipped off its leather collar. The class on the other side of the paddock seemed to be holding its breath. Malfoy’s eyes were narrowed maliciously.
“Do I have to bow?” Al asked. “I mean, can't I curtsy instead?”
The whole class laughed.
“You're a boy, Al,” said Lavender Brown.
Al glared at her. “Yeah, so? Boys can curtsy too. Boys and girls can do anything they want. Girls can be boys. Boys can be girls.”
Everyone laughed, again.
“I'm not joking for once. Girls can be boys, and boys can be girls. And I'll support anyone and everyone who made a realization like that about themselves, even if it was Malfoy!”
“I'm not a bloody girl, Potter!” Malfoy shouted, his face hot.
Al waved his hand dismissively. “Of course you aren't.”
“I'm NOT a bloody girl!”
“Didn't say you were, Maco Dralfoy. In fact, you're far too weak and pathetic to ever be something as awesome as a girl!”
Malfoy snorted derisively. “You sound like you want to be one yourself.”
“I don't, but I'll support anyone who did. And to anyone who made fun of 'em for it, I'd punch 'em in the face!”
“Al, none o' that now, okay? I'm tryin ter teach yeh how ter handle Beaky.”
“Oh. Sorry, Hagrid.”
“ 's'all righ,' Al. Anyway, step on up. Easy, now. Good lad. Now, make eye contact. Good, good. Now that yeh’ve got eye contact, jes try not ter blink. Hippogriffs don’ trust yeh if yeh blink too much.”
Al's eyes immediately began to water, but he didn’t shut them. Buckbeak had turned his great, sharp head and was staring at Al with one fierce orange eye.
“Why? Do they have something against me keeping dust out of my eyes?”
“Mind yer smart tongue 'round hippogriffs, Al.”
“Duly noted.”
“Tha’s it,” said Hagrid. “Tha’s it, Al … now, bow …”
Al didn’t feel much like exposing the back of his neck to Buckbeak, but he did as he was told. He gave a short bow, said, “Milord Buckbeak,” and then looked up.
The hippogriff was still staring haughtily at him. It didn’t move.
“Ah,” said Hagrid, sounding worried. “Right — back away, now, Al, easy does it.”
But then, to Al’s enormous surprise, the hippogriff suddenly bent its scaly front knees and sank into what was an unmistakable bow.
“Well done, Al!” said Hagrid, ecstatic. “Right — yeh can touch him! Pat his beak, go on!”
“Okay,” Al said warily, and patted the large animal on the beak.
The class broke into applause, all except for Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, who were looking deeply disappointed.
“Righ' then, Al, I reckon he'll let yeh ride 'im now. Yup, right there behind the wing joint. Don't pull out any of 'is feathers, 'e won't like that none.”
Once Al was secure, Hagrid slapped the animal on the backside, and it took off running, then leapt into the sky, flying around.
Holy shit! Al said to Harry and the others. How the bloody hell does this thing fly? It must weigh a ton!
#Probably with magic,# answered Iliana.
Good point.
The hippogriff flew Al around the paddock a few times, then landed with a thump that made Al wince.
“Good work, Al! Now who else wants a go?”
Al watched the others, emboldened by his success, try it on different hippogriffs. Neville kept backing away from his. Al watched Draco warily, for the Slytherin had gotten Buckbeak.
“Hey Malfoy! Remember, don't insult it. I know it's difficult for you, treating someone other than yourself as an equal, but it's that or death!” Al shouted. Malfoy, of course, ignored him.
“This is very easy,” Malfoy drawled, loud enough for Al to hear him. “I knew it must have been, if Potter could do it. … I bet you’re not dangerous at all, are you?” he said to the hippogriff. “Are you, you great ugly brute?”
In a flash, Buckbeak reared and started to slash at Malfoy. But Al, who had been expecting trouble, magically shoved the blond boy out of the way.
“That bloody chicken tried to murder me!” Malfoy shouted, shaking like a leaf in wind. “I could've died!”
“Maybe if you'd actually listened to Hagrid and me about not insulting him, that wouldn't have happened! Honestly, could you maybe pull your head out of your arse every once in a while?”
But Malfoy kept going on about it, threatening to sic his father on Hagrid and Buckbeak, making Hagrid very flustered.
“Oh sure, run squealing to Daddy like a pathetic baby every time your actions have consequences, Draco, because that's just so mature!”
Still, the git wouldn't shut up, and he started storming off, still ranting about his father hearing about this. But Al grabbed the back of his robes and yanked him back around, then grabbed the front of his robes. Crabbe and Goyle surged forward, but a force-field knocked them down as he glared at Malfoy.
“Did I not warn you,” he said in a dangerously quiet voice, “to not fuck this up for Hagrid? Did I not tell you I would transfigure bollocks to your chin if you disobeyed?”
Malfoy whimpered as Al held his free hand over his face. Then, in a flash of movement, Al grabbed Malfoy's chin and caused a familiar glow to wash over the boy's face. When it stopped, Malfoy had a pair of very hairy testicles hanging from his chin.
“You have a problem with me or any of the rest of my collective, you take it up with me. Try taking it out on my friends again, Malfoy, and next time I will make you cut your own, actual testicles off and EAT them. Understood?”
The blond boy nodded meekly.
“Good. Now run along,” Al said, letting go at last, and giggled evilly as Malfoy scampered off to the hospital wing to get his face put back right.
Al whistled a jaunty tune the whole way back to the castle, utterly at ease, Ron on one side of him, struggling to stop laughing long enough to breathe, Hermione on his other side, torn between giggles and recriminating looks.
His eyes were closed as they approached the door, but he suddenly opened them and grinned.
“I can feel McGonagall coming. And boy oh boy, she is pissed off at me!”
Fully 20 seconds later, the oak front doors slammed open, and Professor McGonagall, her face contorted in fury. Ron and Hermione both looked at him in amazement. Or at least, Al thought that's what Ron was doing; it was hard to tell, since the redhead was still laughing so hard he could barely breathe.
McGonagall finally caught up to them, and all four of them stopped.
“So, Professor, how many detentions, and how many points off?” Al asked.
McGonagall opened her mouth to speak, but seemed unable. She pointed at him furiously, apoplectic not only with what he'd done, but his wry smirk as well.
“Seventy-five points from Griffindor, Mr. Potter,” she finally said. “And a week's worth of detentions. With Professor Snape. And it will be you, understood? None of the others are to take your place.”
Al's smile faltered, momentarily.
“Totally worth it,” he said. “And agreed. Anything else, Professor?”
Her face, if anything, grew more angry.
“Now see here, Mr. Bl--- I mean, Mr. Potter... you... my office. Now.”
Al sighed, his smile finally leaving his face. “Okay, okay. I'm coming.”
“And you, Mr. Weasley, to the hospital wing for a Calming Draught, before you pass out from hypoxia.”
~
“So,” Ron said later at dinner. “What did McGonagall say to you in her office?”
“Oh, it was a very long rant. The gist of it was, she gave me an extra week of detentions, and insisted I write an apology that at least sounded sincere, and insisted I write it there, so she could read it to make sure it was acceptable. She also watched me give it to Malfoy. This is a copy of the letter, here.”
Ron read the letter. The farther down he got in it, the more confused he looked, and the more Al grinned. Hermione regarded him warily. By the time Ron finished, Al was stifling giggles.
“Something's weird about this letter, but I can't put my finger on it.”
“Oh here, give me that,” Hermione said, snatching it out of Ron's hand. She read it, too.
It read:
Dear Draco Malfoy,
I am deeply sorry for disfiguring your face. When I got angry at you, I should have just used words, instead of causing you physical harm. I can only hope you will accept my heartfelt apology for my heated behavior. Ladies and gentlemen do not behave in such a manner, and in my position of fame, I should strive to be a better example to others. Lonnie Williams, a famous Muggle philosopher, once said that to err is human, to forgive is divine. Forgive me, please, for this slight on your person. Under no circumstances will I ever do such a thing again, I assure you. Can I do anything to repay you for the embarrassment I have caused? Kin we are, I believe, given the old age of my family, and so my kin, I shall pay reparations if you insist. Yes, even if you wish me to apologize to you in front of the whole school! Only tell me your wish, and I shall do it, within reason. (Understand, I will not break any laws or hurt anyone else, those are my limits.)
Until we meet again;
Potter, Alastair.
“Oh Al, you didn't!”
Al was trying very hard not to laugh, and not having much success.
“Didn't what? What did you see that I didn't?”
“Here. Take the first letter of every sentence and put them in order next to each other,” she said, handing the letter to Ron. “Honestly, I can't believe Professor McGonagall didn't notice that.”
Ron's eyes went over the letter again for several moments. Halfway through, he was grinning. When he finished, he burst out laughing.
“Brilliant!” he exclaimed. “Bloody brilliant!”
“Oh Ronald, it is not brilliant. He's lucky he didn't get into even more trouble.”
“How did you spot that so quickly, anyway, 'mione?”
“Well, I was already suspicious before I read it, and would've been anyway after a few sentences. But there is no famous Muggle anyone named Lonnie Williams, as far as I know of, and that's not who said that quote anyway. He clearly made up the name because he couldn't think of any other way to put the second 'L' in 'will.'”
Al lost control, then, and barked with laughter so loud that it made several people jump in surprise. Then he spent the next few minutes laughing more normally, banging his fist on the table, tears coming from his eyes.
“You lot're havin' a lotta fun over here, I see,” said Hagrid's voice behind them. “Wha's so funny, Al?”
“Oh, nothing, Hagrid,” Al said, crumpling up the letter and pocketing it. “Just remembering what I did to a certain blond git.”
“Well, don't do it again, funny as it was,” Hagrid said quietly. “Still not sure what young Mr. Malfoy's gonna do. But I do reckon I started out a little too big fer me first class. Reckon I shoulda gone with unicorns or summat.”
“Yeah, hippogriffs are maybe more of a fifth year creature,” Al agreed.
“Anyway, thanks fer getting' Malfoy outta the way o' Beaky. No tellin' what woulda happened if yeh hadn't.”
“Cheers, Hagrid,” Al said, holding up his pumpkin juice.
~
There was no additional fallout from the incident, other than Malfoy regarding Al with a mixture of hatred and fear every time they passed each other. The detentions with Snape were horrible, of course; Snape had Al cutting up pickled toads and sorting the organs into individual containers the whole week long, staying to watch and offer pointed comments with a gleeful sneer. Why Snape needed so many pickled toads was beyond him; maybe it was a delicacy for the bat-like teacher?
Either despite these detentions, or because of them, Potions classes were far easier for the duration. At least, until one of Thursday's classes.
They were making a Shrinking Solution. Al found that he was a moderately good potioneer when Snape wasn't glaring at him in hatred and grinding his teeth audibly in his general direction, so all in all, the class was going reasonably well. That is, until Neville – whom Snape was still harassing – messed up his potion so badly it turned orange; it was supposed to be acid green.
“Orange, Longbottom,” said Snape, ladling some up and allowing it to splash back into the cauldron, so that everyone could see. “Orange. Tell me, boy, does anything penetrate that thick skull of yours? Didn’t you hear me say, quite clearly, that only one rat spleen was needed? Didn’t I state plainly that a dash of leech juice would suffice? What do I have to do to make you understand, Longbottom?”
Neville was pink and trembling. He looked as though he was on the verge of tears.
“Please, sir,” said Hermione, “please, I could help Neville put it right —”
“I don’t remember asking you to show off, Miss Granger,” said Snape coldly, and Hermione went as pink as Neville. “Longbottom, at the end of this lesson we will feed a few drops of this potion to your toad and see what happens. Perhaps that will encourage you to do it properly.”
Al stood up, glaring at Snape. Everybody turned to look at him.
“You know, maybe you'd be a better teacher if you didn't engage in blatant emotional abuse, you overgrown bat.”
The whole room went dead quiet. Snape turned, regarding Al with a look like ice.
“Twenty points from Griffindor, Potter. Sit down before I add another few nights to your detentions.”
“No. Neville is nervous enough with this subject as is, and then you deliberately target him, emotionally abusing him just because you seem to derive pleasure from bullying students. Why are you even a teacher if you hate kids so much?”
“Why I do the things I do is no concern of yours, Potter. But for your information, I derive no pleasure at all from anything at all to do with teaching, except perhaps for having the entire summer away from all you sniveling brats. Every year I get stuck with a bigger and bigger batch of buffoons than last time, all of you so utterly cocksure that you need taking down a peg or two.
“But perhaps you're right; perhaps I should ignore Longbottom, and let him melt yet another cauldron, letting dangerous half-finished potion splatter everywhere, and have to sort out the damages from that? Perhaps I should focus more on you, Mr. Potter, and micromanage your every movement?”
“Sure, go ahead. Just leave Neville alone.”
Snape looked like he was (sarcastically) considering Al's words.
“No, I think I'll do both. I'll continue to keep my eye on Longbottom for as long as I have the idiot in my class, and then I shall do the same for you, Potter. Yes, that's what I'll do.”
Al frowned. “Oh I get it now. Like the old saying goes, 'Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.'”
Snape surged forward like a striking cobra, making Al back up into his cauldron.
“I will have you know, Potter, that I have not one, but several Masteries in Potioneering, which is the highest qualification one can possibly have, and takes years of intensive labor to achieve, so my title of Potions Master is no mere formality. I can brew potions in my sleep that are so complex it normally takes a team of wizards working together to make them, potions you've never even heard of. If things in my life had gone just a little differently, I could have become a professional potioneer, inventing potions that would echo through the annals of history, and be able to retire with a fortune to rival that of the Malfoys. But instead, I am stuck here in this blasted school, surrounded by utter buffoons and shrieking pre- and post- pubescent little monsters all day, attempting to fill your brains with something more substantial than cobwebs, whilst simultaneously trying to stop idiots like Longbottom from destroying the school because they can't be arsed to pay attention and follow simple instructions! Then I spend every day keeping track of the Headache Cure potions I've taken during the day so I don't accidentally poison myself from overuse. So don't you stand there thinking you know what I'm about, Potter, because you don't have a clue, and you had better pray that you never come to understand what my life is like, because let me tell you, it is utter Hell.”
Al just stood there gaping at him like a fish out of water.
Snape spun on his heel and stalked off to the front of the classroom, leaning on his desk with a glare.
“And if you don't want more detentions, Potter, I suggest you sit down and get to work before your potion becomes even worse than Longbottom's.”
Al nodded, sitting down.
~
“I've seen Snape pretty angry before, mate, but that was bloody terrifying that was,” Ron later said as they left the classroom.
“Yeah, I know. But now I kinda feel sorry for the git. Sounds like he'd rather be doing literally anything but teaching.”
“Uh huh. Upside, though, is he never did go back to Neville. At least, not til his cauldron melted, anyway. Even then, he just seemed more tired than anything else.”
Al nodded absently.
At lunch, Seamus Finnigan leaned over toward Al and said, “By the way, forgot to tell you in all the hubbub earlier, but the Daily Prophet this morning reckons Sirius Black was spotted.”
“Where?” Ron and Al asked. Over at the Slytherin table, Malfoy looked up with interest.
“Not too far from here,” said Seamus, who looked excited. “It was a Muggle who saw him. ’Course, she didn’t really understand. The Muggles think he’s just an ordinary criminal, don’t they? So she phoned the telephone hot line. By the time the Ministry of Magic got there, he was gone.”
“Not too far from here … ,” Ron repeated, looking significantly at Al. Then he looked behind Al and glared. “What do you want, Malfoy?”
Malfoy was regarding Al malevolently.
“Thinking of taking him on yourself, Potty?”
Al raised an eyebrow. “What?”
Malfoy’s thin mouth was curving in a mean smile.
“Of course, if it was me,” he said quietly, “I’d have done something before now. I wouldn’t be staying in school like a good boy, I’d be out there looking for him.”
“What are you talking about, Malfoy?” said Ron roughly.
“Don’t you know, Potter?” breathed Malfoy, his pale eyes narrowed.
“Know what?”
Malfoy let out a low, sneering laugh.
“Maybe you’d rather not risk your neck,” he said. “Want to leave it to the dementors, do you? But if it was me, I’d want revenge. I’d hunt him down myself.”
“Revenge? On who? Why? What the bloody Hell are you on about?”
“Trouble, boys?” McGonagall's voice interrupted.
“No, Professor,” Malfoy said smugly. “Just telling Potter here I accepted his... rather interesting apology. Just spelling out for him what I thought about it, you know.”
“Well good. Now back to your own table, Mr. Malfoy.”
“Yes, Professor.”
Al watched McGonagall go back up to the staff table.
“Now that McGonagall is McGonagone,” Al said, eliciting titters of laughter, “anyone have any clue what Malfoy was babbling about? Something about Sirius Black?”
But nobody did. And there wasn't anything else to say about Sirius Black, either. Seamus went back to his food, and Al noticed Hermione looking significantly at him.
“You realize he was telling you he--”
“--figured out my coded message? Yeah, I did pick up on that, funnily enough.”
Their next lesson was their first Defense Against the Dark Arts. Everyone arrived on time, but Lupin wasn't there when they got there, so they all sat down and got their books, quills, and parchment out. The class were talking, except for Al who was too busy leaning back in his chair with his feet on the desk. It wasn't until then that Hermione noticed that even though Al had been roughly 14 in their first year, he hadn't gotten any older, and looked almost the same age as everyone else in the room.
Professor Lupin came in at last, smiling vaguely and placed his tatty old briefcase on the teacher's desk. Though shabby still, he looked healthier than before. That is, until he spotted Al and nearly had a fit, clutching his heart and jumping back in fear, alarm, and a mix of other emotions Al couldn't sort out. Then he relaxed a little, but continued to grimace weirdly. But unlike the grimace of loathing Snape always gave him, this one was a grimace of pain, self-disgust, confusion, and a different kind of fear. Al raised an eyebrow curiously, taking his feet off the desk to regard Lupin curiously.
“Um... uh...” Lupin said absently as he dropped his briefcase and struggled to pick his things up without his wand, “er... Good, good afternoon class.” Lupin pointedly looked away from Al, calming down some more.
“Would you please, uh... please put all your books and papers back in your bags. Today's will be a practical lesson.”
A few curious looks were exchanged as the class put away their books. They had never had a practical Defense Against the Dark Arts before, unless you counted the memorable class last year when their old teacher had brought a cageful of pixies to class and set them loose.
“R-right, then,” Professor Lupin said, when everyone was ready. “Follow me, please.”
They were all puzzled and interested, Alastair even more so than the others. As they followed him out the classroom, Al tried to get closer to the man, who was clearly avoiding him.
They rounded a corner and found Peeves the Poltergiest, who was stuffing chewing gum into keyholes. Peeves looked up when Lupin was a couple feet away, wiggled his curly-toed feet and broke into song.
“Loony, loopy Lupin,” Peeves sang “Loony, loopy Lupin, loony, loopy Lupin!”
This was surprising, as Peeves usually showed a modicum of respect to teachers, even if nobody else. But Lupin didn't seem perturbed by this. In fact, he was smiling.
“I’d take that gum out of the keyhole if I were you, Peeves,” he said pleasantly. “Mr. Filch won’t be able to get in to his brooms.”
Peeves paid no attention to Professor Lupin’s words, except to blow a loud wet raspberry.
With a sigh, Lupin took out his wand, pointed it at shoulder height, said, “Waddiwasi,” then pointed it at Peeves. The gum flew out of the keyhole and right down Peeve's left nostril; the poltergeist took off, cursing loudly.
“Sweet,” Al said.
Lupin's grin faltered a little, but came back up.
“Thank you, Alastair. Shall we proceed?”
When they finally stopped again, they were in the staffroom where he, Ron, and Hermione had heard of Ginny being taken down to the Chamber at the end of last year. Unfortunately, Snape was there, sitting in an armchair, watching them file in. Lupin made to close the door, but Snape got up.
“Leave it open, Lupin. I’d rather not witness this.”
Before leaving, Snape paused and turned back to face them.
“Possibly no one’s warned you, Lupin, but this class contains Neville Longbottom. I would advise you not to entrust him with anything difficult.”
Neville's face went red, and Al glared at Snape. Al opened his mouth to speak, but Lupin beat him to it, which was just as well; Al didn't need any more detentions.
“I was hoping that Neville would assist me with the first stage of the operation,” he said, “and I am sure he will perform it admirably.”
Neville’s face went, if possible, even redder. Snape’s lip curled, but he left, shutting the door with a snap.
With that done, Lupin went back to teaching. He had them stand in front of an old wardrobe that was shaking around like something inside was struggling to get out.
“Nothing to worry about,” said Professor Lupin calmly because a few people had jumped backward in alarm. “There’s a boggart in there.”
Most people seemed to feel that this was something to worry about. Neville gave Professor Lupin a look of pure terror, and Seamus Finnigan eyed the now rattling doorknob apprehensively.
“Boggarts like dark, enclosed spaces,” said Professor Lupin. “Wardrobes, the gap beneath beds, the cupboards under sinks — I’ve even met one that had lodged itself in a grandfather clock. This one moved in yesterday afternoon, and I asked the headmaster if the staff would leave it to give my third years some practice.
“So, the first question we must ask ourselves is, what is a boggart?”
To nobody's surprise, Hermione raised her hand.
“It’s a shape-shifter,” she said. “It can take the shape of whatever it thinks will frighten us most.”
Lupin kept talking, more about the boggart. Al had Iliana listen in his place as he thought about this. What did he fear the most? If they were covering this in class, and it was a practical lesson, it made sense that there'd be a chance of coming against this thing, so he thought it prudent to be prepared. So what scared him? And how would it respond to them, anyway? There were five different people in one body, and Lupin said groups of people confused boggarts, so would they confuse the boggart all on their own? Or was there enough bleed-through between them to render that moot?
Neville was the first to be given a chance to face the boggart. Curious about Neville's greatest fear, Al lost the thread of his thoughts and watched, and listened. According to Neville, Snape was his greatest fear, which made Al, Iliana, and the others feel a surge of anger on Neville's behalf.
Lupin was talking about putting Boggart-Snape into Neville's grandmother's dress, handbag, and hat. Al felt a little sick at this, and couldn't quite pin down why at first. But then it occurred to him that Lupin was going to use Snape to make a joke out of men in dresses. Now he felt a surge of anger on Harry's behalf, because surely lots of people would, if they knew what the Mirror had showed Harry, think that Harry was a boy in a dress, if he ever felt comfortable to do that. This was not something that would be good for Harry, he knew.
But by the time he'd figured all this out, it was too late; Neville had said “Ridikkulus!” and boggart-Snape went from menacing to dressed in women's clothing and looking confused. Al just crossed his arms and glared; he was the only person not laughing.
It was only then that Al realized that the rest of them were immediately taking turns, too, and he had missed a chance to figure out what scared him most. So he got to work. Was it Voldemort? That face in the back of Quirrell's head had been terrifying. But no, that wasn't it. Was it Iliana's fear of being a murderer? No, not that either. He got an image from Harry, that he knew applied to him too: a glistening, rotten, scabbed hand coming out of a cloak; a sucking cold sensation. He – nay, they feared dementors.
Holy shit! How do you make a dementor less scary?
There was no response from anyone else. If there was an answer, it would not come easily.
The boggart changed into one thing after another as each person in class took a turn, being scary and then comical. And the closer they got to Al's turn, the more his brain froze, unable to think of any way to make a dementor comical.
Al saw Ron's turn into a giant spider, then saw it lose its legs. Al's thoughts shook out of their funk just long enough to note he didn't think it being legless made it any less scary, really.
Still, he stepped forward for his turn, but then Lupin jumped in front of him, and instead of becoming a dementor, the boggart became a... some kind of floating white orb. Al looked at it, stunned, and saw a gray pattern on the orb that looked very familiar...
CRACK! The orb became a cockroach. Then Lupin had Neville take another turn to finish it off. He said the spell again, and the thing exploded into a thousand tiny wisps of smoke, and was gone.
“Excellent!” cried Professor Lupin as the class broke into applause. “Excellent, Neville. Well done, everyone. … Let me see … five points to Gryffindor for every person to tackle the boggart — ten for Neville because he did it twice … and five to Hermione,” Lupin said.
Then he gave them schoolwork, and they all were dismissed.
Al was still lost in his thoughts, this time lost in the realization that Lupin had deliberately stopped him having a turn. He didn't know why, but he was glad for it. He didn't think the class would have reacted well to a dementor suddenly appearing in class, especially when there were real dementors outside the school at this very moment.
He massaged his head. Despite being mentally off somewhere else most of the class, their empathic sense had been running the whole time, and now that he was out of the room, the headache was beginning to make itself be known. He took a vial of Headache Cure out and drank it before the headache could become a full migraine.
“I wonder why Professor Lupin’s frightened of crystal balls?” said Lavender thoughtfully as she passed.
This snapped him out of his funk enough to glance at Hermione, who looked like she had recognized the strange orb as well. But like him, she said nothing.
“That was the best Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson we’ve ever had, wasn’t it?” said Ron excitedly as they made their way back to the classroom to get their bags.
“He seems like a very good teacher,” said Hermione approvingly. “But I wish I could have had a turn with the boggart —”
“What would it have been for you?” said Ron, sniggering. “A piece of homework that only got nine out of ten?”
Al opened his mouth to speak, but he stopped, knowing the thing he wanted to say wasn't his to say, not here. Not yet.
Harry?
Yes?
May I tell Lupin off for that boggart-Snape, if I very carefully don't mention you in any way?
There was a pause of almost a minute. Then, quietly, Harry replied: Yes.
End note: No end notes this time. (This space intentionally left blank.)
Chapter Fifteen: Halloween
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Harry, and Zoey, and now #Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and now between hashtags/pound signs because some people's computers don't do the B.I.U.).
It came as no surprise to anyone in Lupin's classes – except maybe Malfoy's lot – that Lupin was becoming very popular. He was clearly an excellent teacher. To say he was the best DADA teacher they'd had wouldn't have been difficult, what with the others lowering the bar so much. He was such a good teacher, though, that nobody minded his patched and frayed appearance. Well, none but Malfoy's lot, of course. Al didn't even mind that – if his hypothesis was correct – the man was a werewolf. But he knew werewolves weren't thought of well in this world; heck, they were listed as magical creatures in his books, not as beings or people. So he kept Lupin's secret. He did not even discuss it with Hermione, whom he thought had also figured it out.
The DADA classes kept getting better, covering all manner of dark and dangerous beastie. And though it was a bit like a second Care of Magical Creatures class now, very few people seemed to mind this.
Of course, Snape had heard about the boggart, and was not happy at all about it. Al very pointedly did not speak during Potions if he could help it, because he agreed with Snape on that, for different reasons. And despite Harry's permission, he had not yet spoken with Lupin about it.
Even though he wasn't speaking in Potions, neither did he let Snape bully Neville. Whenever Al felt that very faint stream of emotion from Snape – who seemed to have some ability to mask his emotions – turn to Neville-related content, Al would have Zoey cause a distraction of some sort with her wandless magic to divert Snape's attention. Nothing major, even though there wasn't a way to prove it was coming from them, but he knew that wouldn't matter. But mostly, they were successful in keeping Snape away from Neville.
What was perhaps most difficult was that even when Al gave the body back to Iliana, whenever they had to go to Divinations, she would be so overwhelmed by the heat that she'd be like an immobile lump, and Trelawney never failed to say or do something that would bring Al out with scathing remarks or worse. He did manage to restrain himself just enough to avoid goading her into giving him more detentions, which was good; if he was in a detention when Iliana was supposed to be training for Quidditch, well, Wood would not be pleased, and Quidditch season was nearly upon them.
Harry still wasn't coming out. He barely responded, either. Al was getting impatient with him, or her, or whatever; Al was convinced Harry wasn't even using this time to think things through, and was getting very close to telling Zoey to force Harry Out the way she'd done with Iliana before.
Care of Magical Creatures was okay. Hagrid didn't seem too pleased to be showing them unicorns, kneazles, and other less impressive creatures, but after the near miss his first class, he had finally gotten some sense for now. How long it would last before he was back to monsters, though, was anyone's guess.
On their first practice in early October, Iliana got her things together and went to the pitch, getting dressed. She walked onto the pitch to witness Oliver Wood waiting for everyone to approach so he could speak with them. She blushed just a little, as she still fancied him some, and hadn't seen him since last year. But that was the extent of her reaction to him. At 17 years old, he was nearly graduated, and if anyone had forgotten this, Wood sure made sure to remind them when he kept dejectedly bemoaning the fact that this was his last year to win the Quidditch Cup. As such, his pre-practice pep talk seemed more for him than for them.
Full of determination, the team started training sessions, three evenings a week. The weather was getting colder and wetter, the nights darker, but no amount of mud, wind, or rain could tarnish Iliana’s wonderful vision of finally winning the huge, silver Quidditch Cup.
After one of these practices, the Griffindor common room was abuzz.
“What's up?” she asked Ron.
“First Hogsmeade weekend,” Ron explained, pointing at the notice. “On Halloween.”
“Great,” she said without enthusiasm, sitting down with a fwump.
Seeming to read her mind, Hermione said, “I’m sure you’ll be able to go next time. They’re bound to catch Black soon. He’s been sighted once already.”
“Black’s not fool enough to try anything in Hogsmeade,” said Ron. “Ask McGonagall if you can go this time, Iliana. The next one might not be for ages.”
Iliana laughed without humor. “Right. He killed 13 people with a single curse, broke out of Azkaban to kill me, and you think a few students and villagers are going to scare him off? I have about as much chance of going as Malfoy has of not being a git. At least until they catch him again.”
Ron kept trying to get her to ask McGonagall, but she ignored him; she was certain there was no chance, until Black was back in captivity. She just sat there, watching Crookshanks be praised by Hermione for catching a spider, and Ron's disgust.
Crookshanks was still staring unblinkingly at Ron, flicking the end of his bushy tail. Then, without warning, he pounced.
“OY!” Ron roared, seizing his bag as Crookshanks sank four sets of claws deep inside it and began tearing ferociously. “GET OFF, YOU STUPID ANIMAL!”
Ron tried to pull the bag away from Crookshanks, but Crookshanks clung on, spitting and slashing.
“Ron, don’t hurt him!” squealed Hermione; the whole common room was watching; Ron whirled the bag around, Crookshanks still clinging to it, and Scabbers came flying out of the top —
“CATCH THAT CAT!” Ron yelled as Crookshanks freed himself from the remnants of the bag, sprang over the table, and chased after the terrified Scabbers.
“Accio rat,” Iliana said, her wand in her hand. But it didn't work. She frowned in confusion. She'd mastered that one weeks ago, after reading about it; it should be working.
“Accio Scabbers,” she said, and this time the rat flew from his hiding place into her hands. With another wave of her wand, she Impeded Crookshanks from getting any closer.
Ron came over to claim Scabbers, and Hermione to claim Crookshanks. The two friends fought some more about how Crookshanks kept targeting Scabbers. Iliana said nothing, but privately thought Ron was right; there was something odd about the cat. She could sense his emotions, which she could only do with Crookshanks and Scabbers, and no other animals. Not even Hedwig, clever as she was, emitted anything they could pick up on with their empathic power.
When Ron and Hermione left, Crookshanks was still there. Iliana stared at the cat. The cat stared back.
“I reckon Ron is right about you,” she said. “I can't put my finger on it, but there's something weird about you. I can feel your emotions, for one.”
The cat turned its head. Though Iliana could sense his emotions, she couldn't really make much of them. They weren't as strong as Scabbers' emotions, and it was like the cat's emotions were more... more pensive, almost. Which she supposed made sense; cats are smarter than rats, after all.
~
Ron and Hermione were still at odds the next day, barely talking. Iliana was having a hard time focusing on that or their work in Herbology, though, because Al and Zoey and Harry were having an argument; a heated one. It was very disruptive to her thinking, having them shouting at one another inside her head.
The argument was so distracting that later, at Transfiguration, she barely noticed the conversation with Lavender, who had been crying, but she got the gist. Hermione was sounding almost like Al with her cold, cruel logic against Trelawney having somehow predicted the death of Lavender's pet rabbit.
Nor did she hear much of McGonagall's stuff about Hogsmeade forms. In fact, as Ron made to get her attention, she was massaging her head, but the headache on the horizon was from the fight, not the empath thing.
The fight finally stopped, but nothing was resolved. Iliana took a Headache Cure and followed Ron to the Common Room.
~
On Halloween morning, Iliana woke up and had breakfast, feeling sad she couldn't go to Hogsmeade, but acted normally enough. Then she saw her friends off before they left.
“Staying here, Potter?” shouted Malfoy, who was standing in line with Crabbe and Goyle. “Scared of passing the dementors?”
She ignored the git, and Al's internal comment about Malfoy not needing to fear them because he didn't have a soul to suck out.
Not knowing what to do with herself, she decided to go call on Lupin. She went to his office, thinking it was best that she talk to the man instead of Al, since they still hadn't done so.
“Iliana?” came Lupin's voice as she approached the open door. “What are you doing here?” he asked kindly. “Where are Ron and Hermione?”
“At Hogsmeade,” she said.
“Ah. Why don't you come in, Iliana. I've just taken delivery of a grindylow for our next lesson.”
“A what?”
She went in, and saw a large tank of water in one corner, and the sickly green creature with sharp horns inside.
“Water demon,” said Lupin. “We shouldn’t have much difficulty with him, not after the kappas. The trick is to
break his grip. You notice the abnormally long fingers? Strong, but very brittle.”
The grindylow bared its green teeth and then buried itself in a tangle of weeds in a corner.
“Cup of tea?” Lupin said, looking around for his kettle. “I was just thinking of making one.”
“All right,” she said.
“Sit down,” said Lupin, taking the lid off a dusty tin. “I’ve only got teabags, I’m afraid — but I daresay you’ve had enough of tea leaves?”
Iliana looked at him. Lupin’s eyes were twinkling.
“So you heard about that?”
“Yes. And Al's rather interesting commentary, and subsequent detentions.” He chuckled, looking pensive. “You're not worried, are you?”
“Not even a little. Al's right, she's a fraud. I doubt we'll learn anything there.”
Lupin chuckled.
“I did come to talk with you, though. That boggart of Neville's. You oughtn't've done that.”
“Ah, yes. I did hear about Professor Snape's reactions to that. It was childish of me, I know, but after that dig on Neville, I'm afraid I couldn't resist a little dig of my own, for nostalgia's sake.”
“Wait, you went to school with Snape?”
“Yes. And we did not get along very well, I'm afraid.”
“Interesting. But not why I wanted to berate you for that boggart.”
“Oh?”
“You made 'man in a dress' into a joke, without stopping to think that there might be people in the room who
might be hurt by that.”
“Do you mean transgender students?” he asked.
“Yeah, that's the term. You can't tell by looking, you know. Especially if they're closeted.”
“True. Well I'm sorry about that, I wasn't thinking about that possibility. I'll try to be better in future.”
She smiled. “I'm glad you're not asking why I have that concern.”
“Yes, well, it's really none of my business, I know.”
They sipped their tea for a few minutes before speaking again.
“So,” Lupin said. “I've met you, and Alastair. I haven't met Zoey or Tier yet. But I was really hoping to see Harry.”
Something in his emotions clued her in to something.
“You knew our parents, didn't you?”
He blinked. “How on earth did you know that?”
She sighed, and explained about Al's heart-reading, and the empathic sense it had mutated into over the summer.
“Fascinating. So you deduced that from my emotions?”
“Yes. Sadness, but an old sadness, bittersweet. And a longing, to see an old friend again.”
“Yes, your father and I were good friends. Your mother and I knew each other as well, but less so. And you do
indeed look like your mother, Iliana; but your father's eyes. And I've heard the reverse is true for Harry.”
Iliana smiled and nodded. She opened her mouth to speak again, but a sudden wrenching in her gut made her drop her cup and double over in pain. Lupin stood up with a shot, but before he could say anything himself, suddenly she was no longer there; Harry was in her place. There hadn't even been any glow at all.
#What just happened?# Iliana demanded of the others. #A little warning would've been nice, Zoey!#
It wasn't MEeeeeEeEEee! Zoey shot back, crying.
Don't look at me, either! Al complained.
She poked a bit more, but neither Harry nor Tier had done it, either.
“Harry? Is Iliana alright? She looked like she was in pain before...”
“P-professor Lupin,” Harry said in bewilderment, looking around. He'd been as far down in their shared mind as he could go, a moment ago.
“The last thing I remember was fighting with Al and Zoey, then hiding from them. But,” he said, accessing their collective memory, “that was yesterday.”
After he recovered more of his wits, Harry said, “I don't know what happened. None of us do. We usually only switch places with strong emotions, but I was... asleep, I guess you could say, until just now. And the only other way to switch, that we know of, is for Zoey to force things, but she's just as confused as the rest of us.”
“Well however it happened,” Lupin said, sitting down again at last, “I'm glad to meet you at last. I don't think I've seen you at all before now.”
“Um, yeah. I... I've been hiding.”
“Why is that?”
“I... I'd rather not talk about it. Just... thinking about stuff.”
Harry pointed his wand at Iliana's broken teacup and repaired it. Lupin put another teabag in and poured him some more water. Harry sipped the tea, getting used to being out again.
At long last, in search of something normal to say or do, Harry spoke.
“Why did you stop us fighting the boggart?”
Lupin raised his eyebrows.
“I would have thought that was obvious, Harry,” he said, sounding surprised.
“What? Why?”
“Well,” said Lupin, frowning slightly, “I assumed that if the boggart faced you, it would assume the shape of Lord Voldemort.”
Harry stared. Not only was this the last answer he’d expected, but Lupin had said Voldemort’s name. The only person Harry had ever heard say the name aloud (apart from him and the others) was Professor Dumbledore.
“Clearly, I was wrong,” said Lupin, still frowning at Harry. “But I didn’t think it a good idea for Lord Voldemort to materialize in the staffroom. I imagined that people would panic.”
“That makes sense,” Harry said, remembering Al's thoughts on it from before. “And just as well, I suppose, because all we could think of was the dementors.”
“I see,” said Lupin thoughtfully. “Well, well … I’m impressed.” He smiled slightly at the look of surprise on Harry’s face. “That suggests that what you fear most of all is — fear. Very wise, Harry.”
Wise, nothing; they're like walking corpses in black robes, the nasty-ass things.
Harry chuckled. At Lupin's confused look, he explained, “Al said it wasn't wisdom, it's because they're ugly and nasty, like walking corpses.”
“Ah. So you’ve been thinking that I didn’t believe you capable of fighting the boggart?” said Lupin shrewdly.
“I guess so. I mean, they made Iliana faint. And we're so interconnected, I doubt any of the rest of us would have a different reaction. You know, Professor Lupin, about the dementors--”
He was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Come in,” called Lupin.
The door opened, and in came Snape. He was carrying a goblet, which was smoking faintly, and stopped at the sight of Harry, his black eyes narrowing.
“Ah, Severus,” said Lupin, smiling. “Thanks very much. Could you leave it here on the desk for me?”
“I heard a noise earlier, like a girl in pain,” Snape said, regarding Lupin with suspicion.
“That was Iliana,” Harry explained. “She was talking with Lupin, and all of a sudden there was a sudden pain in her gut, and she disappeared, and I took her place.”
“I see,” said Snape. “Well seeing as she is a thirteen-year-old girl, Potter, I expect she should get used to abdominal cramps. Have her talk with Madam Pomfrey the next time she make an appearance; there are potions that can make the monthly cycle,” he gave Lupin a pointed look, “much easier to bear.”
Harry's face turned bright red. Snape was talking about, if their reading was right, Iliana having her menses. Could the explanation really be that simple? Had her mind panicked at the sudden pain and forced a switch to someone who didn't have to deal with that problem?
“Yes, Professor, I will.”
“Good,” Snape said, in a tone of voice that suggested he didn't care if Harry followed his advice or not.
“As to you, Lupin,” he said, finally putting down the smoking goblet on Lupin's desk, “you should drink that directly. I made an entire cauldronful of it if you need more.”
“I should probably take some again tomorrow. Thanks very much, Severus.”
“Not at all,” said Snape, but there was a look in his eye Harry didn’t like. He backed out of the room, unsmiling and watchful.
Harry looked curiously at the goblet. Lupin smiled.
“Professor Snape has very kindly concocted a potion for me,” he said. “I have never been much of a potion-brewer and this one is particularly complex.” He picked up the goblet and sniffed it. “Pity sugar makes it useless,” he added, taking a sip and shuddering.
“You've just admitted you two were less than friendly in school, and you've recently re-initiated hostilities, yet
you're just going to drink something he's given you?”
“I’ve been feeling a bit off-color,” he said. “This potion is the only thing that helps. I am very lucky to be working alongside Professor Snape; there aren’t many wizards who are up to making it. Dumbledore trusts Professor Snape to make it to specs, and I trust Dumbledore.”
He drank the rest, and shuddered.
“Disgusting,” he said again.
Harry shut the door with his wand, and cast some privacy spells.
“Professor Lupin?”
“Yes, Harry?”
“Does this potion, by chance, have anything to do with you being a werewolf?”
Lupin nearly dropped the goblet.
“How did you--?”
“Moon,” Harry said. “Your boggart is the full moon; Al recognized it. And we've been checking. We've only been
here a couple months, but your condition deteriorates as the full moon approaches.”
“Well, you're not running away, or looking nervous. Am I to take it you don't mind my being a werewolf?”
“I figure Dumbledore must know, and have some plan in place to keep you safe. And I trust Dumbledore, too. Also, Al's heart-reading power tells us you're trustworthy.”
A surge of mixed emotions came from Lupin. But on the outside, Lupin smiled.
“Just like your mother and father,” he said. “They, too, knew what I was, and didn't mind. Your father knew during school, and became my friend anyway. Still, please don't tell anyone else. The staff know already, including Professor Snape, but I'd prefer the news not make it back to any parents.”
“You have my word to keep your secret. I should warn you, though, I think Hermione figured it out, too. She doesn't seem to mind either, but I don't know for sure. We didn't discuss it with her.”
“Thank you for telling me this, Harry,” Lupin said with a smile. “Now, fun as this has been, I'm afraid I have work to finish before the full moon. I'll see you at the feast later.”
The empty goblet was still smoking.
~
When they got back from Hogsmeade, Ron and Hermione dumped a load of sweets from Honeydukes at his lap, to make up for him not being able to go.
“Harry!” Ron had said. “Glad to see you again, mate. Finally come out of hiding?”
“Not by choice, exactly. No, it's not like that, I just...” he paused, then explained what had happened in Lupin's office. He left out the part about the goblet of potion, and about Lupin being a werewolf, but he did mention that Snape stopped by to drop something off for Lupin, and that the hook-nosed teacher had commented on hearing Iliana's shout, and his thoughts on the cause.
“Oh,” Ron said, getting oddly quiet all of a sudden, his ears reddening. Then he launched into an explanation all about everything they'd seen and done in Hogsmeade. Harry wasn't fooled by the sudden change of subject, and neither – apparently – was Hermione, who gave him a Significant Look, but said nothing except to add to Ron's topic.
Hermione checked her watch.
“We’d better go down, you know, the feast’ll be starting in five minutes. …” They hurried through the portrait hole and into the crowd, and Hermione let Ron get ahead of her and Harry, whispering at Harry.
“Snape might be right, Harry; you should definitely have her go see Madam Pomfrey. I, uh... I started getting mine last month. The potions she has really do wonders. Doesn't stop the bleeding, but takes away all the pain.”
Harry shrugged, but didn't say anything. They were both quiet the rest of the way to the Great Hall, until they saw all the decorations and food.
The food was delicious of course. Harry let Aqua out of his robes to eat a sausage. Everyone who could see it laughed at the small snake swallowing the enormous sausage.
Along with food, there was entertainment provided by the school ghosts, like formation gliding, and Sir Nicolas telling them all about his botched beheading. It all left Harry in such a good mood that even Malfoy shouting to him about the dementors didn't bother him. Al made an internal comment of “Get new material, Malfoy,” but Harry didn't let Al speak it aloud.
Harry and his two best friends followed the rest of the Griffindors back to Griffindor Tower, but they were stopped at the portrait hole.
“Why's nobody going in?” Ron asked.
Ron's brother Percy, who was Head Boy and a Prefect, came pompously through them all to the front, complaining about everyone forgetting the password, but when he got up there, he immediately called for Dumbledore in an anxious voice.
As it turned out, the Fat Lady – the painting who guarded the entrance to the common room – was missing, her portrait torn to ribbons. Everyone was just about to search other portraits for her, at Dumbledore's command, when Peeves the Poltergeist laughingly informed the headmaster that she had run off. The headmaster questioned the poltergeist further, and finally Peeves said something truly useful.
“Ashamed, Your Headship, sir. Doesn’t want to be seen. She’s a horrible mess. Saw her running through the landscape up on the fourth floor, sir, dodging between the trees. Crying something dreadful,” he said happily. “Poor thing,” he added unconvincingly.
“Did she say who did it?” said Dumbledore quietly.
“Oh yes, Professorhead,” said Peeves, with the air of one cradling a large bombshell in his arms. “He got very angry when she wouldn’t let him in, you see.” Peeves flipped over and grinned at Dumbledore from between his own legs. “Nasty temper he’s got, that Sirius Black.”
~
Later, when everyone in the school was locked into the Great Hall to spend the night in sleeping bags while the teachers scoured the castle for Sirius Black, Harry, Ron, and Hermione discussed how he could have gotten into the school. Like Hermione, Harry thought it odd that the escaped convict had gone into the Tower at a time when nobody would be there. If the man was clever enough to disguise himself while on the run – without a wand, most likely, then he should be clever enough to find a calendar somewhere and keep track of the days. But maybe Azkaban had addled his mind?
However he got in, Hermione reminded them all that he couldn't have Apparated in, because “it's not possible to Apparate on the school grounds.” Though Harry privately knew that wasn't quite true; House Elves did it all the time. He just doubted a House Elf would help an escaped prisoner. Especially one that was wanted for murder.
The next day, the Fat Lady's damaged portrait was replaced, until she could be restored, by the horrible little knight, Sir Cadogan and his fat pony. This was less than ideal, since the knight changed the password several times a day, challenged people to fights, and generally made an ass of himself, but he was apparently the only portrait that would do the job after what happened to the Fat Lady.
Sir Cadogan, however, was the least of Harry’s worries. He was now being closely watched. Teachers found excuses to walk along corridors with him, and Percy Weasley (acting, Harry suspected, on his mother’s orders) was tailing him everywhere like an extremely pompous guard dog. To cap it all, Professor McGonagall summoned Harry into her office, with such a somber expression on her face Harry thought someone must have died.
“There’s no point hiding it from you any longer, Potter,” she said in a very serious voice. “I know this will come as a shock to you, but Sirius Black —”
“I know he’s after me,” said Harry wearily. “We worked that out the day before term started.”
“What? How?” McGonagall asked.
“Between Al's heart-reading, our empathic sense, Ron's dad wearing his heart on his sleeve and being bad at lying, and there being five of us, it wasn't difficult.”
Professor McGonagall seemed very taken aback. She stared at Harry for a moment or two, then said, “I see! Well, in that case, Potter, you’ll understand why I don’t think it’s a good idea for Iliana to be practicing Quidditch in the evenings. Out on the field with only your team members, it’s very exposed, Potter —”
“We’ve got our first match on Saturday!” said Iliana in Harry's voice, outraged. “I’ve got to train, Professor!” She got so emotional at this, that they transformed again, into Iliana.
Thankfully, Professor McGonagall relented, on the condition that Madam Hooch oversee their practices.
As McGonagall left, Iliana decided that while she was out, she may as well go to the Hospital Wing and talk with Madam Pomfrey.
“Ah, Miss Potter. What is it now? Broken arm? Concussion?” the matron asked when she entered.
“Um, no. It's... a bit more personal.”
The matron gave her a searching look, then pulled some curtains around them and cast some privacy spells on the curtains. When this was done, she finally spoke again.
“So, Miss Potter, is it that time of the month then? Is this your first time?”
“Well, about that. I don't actually know what happened. I was having tea with Professor Lupin on Halloween afternoon, when suddenly there was a sharp pain in my gut, and we suddenly transformed. So I don't know if there was any, um... bleeding.”
“And where was this pain located?”
Iliana put her hand where it had been. The matron frowned thoughtfully.
“Well, Miss Potter, that's much too high to be your uterus. More likely a stomachache. Did you have anything to eat with tea?”
“No, just that.”
Madam Pomfrey cast a bunch of diagnostic spells on her, and took some other tests. In the end, she sighed
resignedly.
“Well, I don't know what it could have been, aside from stomachache, but there's no sign of anything wrong. There's also no sign you've started your menses yet. But with your unique situation, it might be that anything wrong with you was reversed when you transformed.
“However,” she said, getting some things out of a cupboard and handing them to Iliana, “if you should find your time of the month has come at last, here are some pads and potions to help you through it. And if you need more, there's a red cupboard in the next room full of relevant supplies. It's accessible at all times, so girls can come and go without needing to go through the embarrassment of asking someone for them.”
Iliana nodded, putting the things in her bag.
“If you have any other problems, come to me right away. It's entirely possible your unique condition may give you health complaints the likes of which nobody can predict.”
“Thank you, Madam Pomfrey.”
~
As their first Quidditch match approached, the weather got horrible, with horrid thunderstorms. They kept on practicing, though. But then on their final training session before the match, Wood dropped a bombshell.
“We’re not playing Slytherin!” he told them, looking very angry. “Flint’s just been to see me. We’re playing Hufflepuff instead.”
“WHAT? Why?” chorused the rest of the team.
“Supposedly, Malfoy came down with the flu, and can't play.”
“He's just faking it! Doesn't want to play in this weather.”
“Well that's his loss, then, Oliver,” Iliana said. “He's trying to wrong-foot us, but it isn't going to help him. We'll trounce Hufflepuff the way we always do.”
“No! We can't get overconfident. We've spent all this time practicing for Slytherin, and their playing style is much different than Hufflepuff's! And these weather conditions are completely different, too.”
Iliana couldn't take Wood's increasing hysteria, and redirected her thoughts to picture the images she'd seen when lost in Luna's energy. But the wave of anxiety coming off Wood was just getting worse, she felt it buffeting her aura. Before it could do any damage, she took Oliver Wood's hand in hers; just like that, the anxiety stopped growing, and began to shrink.
Everyone was staring at her. So she decided to break the tension.
“Oliver, don't worry. We'll show Malfoy he can't wrong-foot us. We'll win.”
She let go of his hand.
~
It was all well and good to tell Oliver that they would win, but as they got closer to the match, she began to have doubts. She had this new gift, and it made their days difficult at times, all those emotions in the castle, especially in large groups. And everyone would be turning up to see the match. How was she supposed to play Quidditch when the press of all those minds, with their heightened emotions, would likely overwhelm her?
Towards that end, she began brewing up simple headache cures for herself to take during the match if she needed to, as well as looking up and brewing the Calming Draught, on the idea that if her own emotions were calmed by the potion, that the emotions of the other people would just sort of wash over her without causing any harm. It was also fortuitous that she'd stumbled on summoning the memory of Luna's energy as a sort of shield, too. Of course, the main problem with all these solutions was that calm, languid energy wasn't exactly useful during a Quidditch game. So she would have to save these solutions for after the game, or only use it in case of emergency.
A solution she'd been working on for another problem, if the weather got no better, was trying to see if Tier could activate his magical force-field while still letting her be in charge of the body. She had only a modicum of success with this, in the limited time she had to practice, but it was enough that almost half the wind and rain coming at them was stopped in a bubble around them. Worried that this might disqualify them, she talked with Madam Hooch first, and was told that as long as she didn't use it on purpose to bump into other players, then it was permissible.
Wood kept stopping her in the halls that day at school to give her hints on how to play against Hufflepuff, something that annoyed her, but she tolerated it. Still, it made her late for DADA class. She'd been running through the corridors to get there on time, risking Filch's wrath, and skidded to a halt before popping into the classroom.
“Sorry I'm late, Professor Lupin, I--” she stopped, as Lupin wasn't there at his desk. Snape was.
“Oh, Professor Snape. Sorry I was late--”
“I don't care, silly girl! You are ten minutes late for class. Let's make it ten points from Griffindor, then. Now sit
down.”
She nodded and sat down. She knew why Lupin wasn't here, but of course she couldn't say. She did look at Hermione, though; the other girl didn't seem surprised, either. But of course, that could be because Hermione was never late for anything.
“As I was saying before Potter interrupted,” Snape said, “Professor Lupin has not left any record of the topics you have covered so far —”
“Please, sir, we’ve done boggarts, Red Caps, kappas, and grindylows,” said Hermione quickly, “and we’re just about to start —”
“Be quiet,” said Snape coldly. “I did not ask for information. I was merely commenting on Professor Lupin’s lack of organization.”
Iliana stared agog at Hermione. It was unlike her to speak out of turn. She hadn't even raised her hand. Granted, Snape never called on her if he could help it, so that might've explained it. Still, it was odd.
“He’s the best Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher we’ve ever had,” said Dean Thomas boldly, and there was a murmur of agreement from the rest of the class. Snape looked more menacing than ever.
“You are easily satisfied. Lupin is hardly overtaxing you — I would expect first years to be able to deal with Red Caps and grindylows. Today we shall discuss —”
Iliana watched his actions as he appeared to flip casually through the book to the back, to werewolves. When he got there, she knew he'd planned to go there all along. He was trying to out Lupin!
“But, sir,” said Hermione, seemingly unable to restrain herself, “we’re not supposed to do werewolves yet, we’re due to start hinkypunks —”
“Miss Granger,” said Snape in a voice of deadly calm, “I was under the impression that I am teaching this lesson, not you. And I am telling you all to turn to page 394.” He glanced around again. “All of you! Now!”
I wonder if I'm being a bad influence on Hermione, with all my back-talking at that old fraud?
#Probably. Now be quiet.#
Naturally, Snape ignored Hermione's attempts to raise her hand to answer the question, forcing her to speak out of turn again. The others were also being argumentative. Iliana wondered if she should join in to deflect suspicion, or just remain quiet. After thinking on it briefly, she realized she didn't want to risk getting a detention this close to the game, so she remained quiet.
Which is a decision that flew right out the window when Snape called Hermione an insufferable know-it-all. Hermione's eyes barely began to water with embarrassed tears before she and a dozen other people were standing up, berating Snape for bullying a student. Ron spoke the loudest, and got a detention for his trouble. This made everyone shut up for the rest of the class, though Iliana kept glaring at the sallow git whenever she could, wondering if they could get away with Zoey turning him into a maggot.
Snape, for his part, handed back their homework and loudly criticized it as he did. Then he assigned a long essay on werewolves, which didn't surprise Iliana at all.
As they left the class, Iliana growled in rage at Snape. “Honestly, why is he even a teacher? He's the most horrible person I've met, not counting the Dursleys. Great bullying git, I'm going to complain to Dumbledore about him. Not that it'll probably help much. Dumbledore has to know what Snape is like by now; he's been teaching for like, 12 years or so. And honestly, I can't figure out why Snape hates Lupin so much.”
This was true; sure, Snape knew he was a werewolf, but there had to be more to it than that. This wasn't fear, or simple distrust, it was loathing. It was personal.
“Me neither,” said Hermione. “But I hope Lupin gets better soon.”
“Oh, I think he will,” Iliana said absently.
“What do you mean?” Hermione said, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
But before Iliana could answer, Ron stormed up to them.
“Do you know what that wanker is making me do? I’ve got to scrub out the bedpans in the hospital wing. Without magic!” He was breathing deeply, his fists clenched. “Why couldn’t Black have hidden in Snape’s office, eh? He could have finished him off for us!”
Yup, he's trying to out Lupin. Lupin won't be in the hospital wing. Dunno where he'd be while transformed, maybe locked in a dungeon?
What about that potion? Harry asked.
We don't know what that potion does; Lupin never got around to answering us about what it does.
That's a good point.
~
On the day of the match, Iliana woke up early to Peeves blowing air on her face. After shooting a bunch of hexes at him that wouldn't hurt him, she decided to stay up. She grabbed her Nimbus and left the dormitory. As she did, she felt something furry trying to get in, and managed to stop Crookshanks getting into the dorm.
“What is with you? You can't be a normal cat; your behavior is too strange for a normal cat. What are you up to? Why are you trying to get Scabbers?”
He looked at her. She couldn't see anything in his face, as she didn't speak Cat, but she felt the faint stirring of distrust from him, which seemed to be directed at Scabbers. She frowned at that, not being able to figure out why a cat wouldn't trust a rat, and tossed him out, closing the door behind her.
“Leave Scabbers alone,” she said as she pushed him away.
After breakfast, she and everyone else in the team went down to the pitch. Iliana cast the Impervious Charm on her clothes to make them waterproof, a nice little spell she'd discovered in her reading. She taught the charm to the rest of her teammates, so they would all be warm and dry. Then, feeling bad about that, she whispered about it to Cedric Diggory (the Hufflepuff Seeker and team captain) when they began to gather in the middle. Wood gave her a disapproving glare, but she didn't think them being warm and dry while the other team was soaked and cold would do her conscience any good. Of course, the Hufflepuffs were already all wet, but this stopped it getting worse.
She focused on Tier while they waited for Madam Hooch to start the match, and by the time the whistle started, his force-field popped up and kept a lot of the wind and rain off of them, and thus out of their eyes.
She rose fast on her broom, going above the crowd to seek the snitch. Even with all the little tricks she'd employed to help in the weather, she hadn't thought of anything that could help visibility. Even Tier's eyes wouldn't have been able to see in all the rain and lightning. Which, she suddenly thought, ought to have been grounds to postpone the match. But they were there, there was nothing for it but to play. But no sign of gold appeared.
The storm drowned out Lee Jordan's commentary, too, so Oliver Wood had to call a time-out to update everyone on the status of the game. Despite the harsh conditions, the Griffindors were ahead on points. Wood made sure to emphasize to her to find the snitch fast, or else they'd be playing in the rain all night.
“Don't worry, Oliver. Even with Tier's shield and the Impervious Charm, I'm still soaking wet. A lot of this rain is getting into my clothes anyway, even if the clothes themselves are dry. So I don't fancy being here any longer than I have to be.”
They went back to playing. She went up in the air again, calling on everyone in the collective to help keep an eye out for the snitch. She took a bludger straight to their shield, and the ball bounced off, but the shield shattered and the wind buffeted them harder, the rain worming its way into their shoes. It was impossible to re-initiate the shield and fly around looking for the snitch at the same time, not without risking falling off their broom, anyway.
Lightning flared, thunder clapped; both way too close for comfort. In the light of the lightning, the stands were illuminated, and they saw a giant black dog standing there in the topmost empty bleachers, looking right at them.
Her hand slipped off her broom, and she almost fell off, the broom dropping several feet. When she got control again and looked back to the same spot, the giant dog was gone.
Iliana's hands were extremely wet, and cold, and numb. She hadn't thought to try the Impervious Spell on her skin, and wasn't sure it could be done, or if it was a wise idea to try.
“Iliana!” Wood cried out in anguish. “Iliana! Behind you!”
She turned around. Diggory was diving for the ground, right at the snitch. Without a moment's more hesitation, she bolted after him. He had a better broom, of course, but she was a better flyer, so she hoped she could beat him to it.
But then the roar of the wind died down, though the wind itself was still going strong. The cold inside her increased. Tier, panicking, came Out, and large bat-like wings sprouted from their back; wings that were immediately jerked backwards by the wind, and one was significantly smaller than the other anyway, so would have been of limited help anyway. He also petrified their hands into a permanent grip on the broom, but as the cold overtook them, and the screaming woman's scream got closer, they fell off the broom anyway, their weight and the wind pulling in opposite directions, snapping the broom in half.
They saw a brief glimpse of dozens of cloaked dementors before falling sideways through the wind like a maple seed caught in a high wind.
“Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!”
“Stand aside, you silly girl … stand aside, now. …”
“Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead —”
The inside of their head was utter bedlam, with numb thoughts going in many different directions and emotions running wild at first, only to slip into the silence of numbness. As a cold, cruel voice laughed mirthlessly, they passed out.
~
Iliana could hear voices whispering something, but couldn't make out the words. She was aware of being warm and dry on something soft.
“That was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” someone said. Ron, by the sound of it.
This brought back memories of the screaming and laughing from earlier, and her eyes snapped open. Then she was aware of pain, and tried to scream; instead, what came out was an inhuman shriek, like something an eagle might make.
Her thoughts felt simpler; they were mostly images, with few words. There were emotions, though; emotions of an intensity she wasn't used to. She felt pinned down by the covers, and fought, roaring and yowling like a wounded animal. But then someone said a spell, and she was forced to hold still, with her mouth open. Someone using an eyedropper put potion down her throat, and she relaxed.
She focused on the words they were saying, determined to know what was going on.
“How are they, Poppy?”
“They should be fine. These wings they manifested were poorly grown when they broke, which complicated things. The bones were the simplest part; it's the muscles and skin that I struggled the most with. Some of the tendons tore as well, and there were multiple dislocations. But for all the damage to the wings, the rest of the body was largely fine. The only other difference I can tell is they have teeth more like those of a wolf than a human. Oh, and there were claws on the fingers, which I trimmed for safety's sake.”
“Tier must have panicked when the dementors came, and tried to fly away, only for the wind to yank his wings backwards.”
“Well yes, given their behavior when they woke, I would say that's accurate. Tier appears to still be in control. How far away from the pitch were they found, Headmaster?”
“That wind blew them almost all the way to the Whomping Willow. They've very lucky to have not hit that, or their condition might have been much, much worse.”
“Agreed.”
“Ooooom?” Tier-liana moaned, working their jaw in frustration. “Boooom?”
“Is that language? I didn't know Tier could speak.”
“Yeah, he can,” Ron said from the doorway. “It's not easy for him, though.”
“Thank you, young Mr. Weasley,” Dumbledore said. “Tier, can you hear me?”
“Ehth,” they answered. “Air esh boom?”
“Are you asking where your Nimbus 2000 is?”
“Ehth.”
“I don't know, Tier, I wish I--”
“Headmaster?” Ron asked. “Can we come in?”
“Yes, I think so. But not for long, I'm afraid; Madam Pomfrey still has work to do. Anyway, Tier was just wondering where the Nimbus went.”
“It broke in half when you fell, mate,” Ron explained. “You missed the Whomping Willow, but the rest of your broom didn't. It's in pieces.”
“Oh,” they said simply. Then, “Tyair-Laanaa. Dsh... dshuk. Dshdugk, oo'geffer.”
“Wait, you're stuck? Is that what you said?”
“Ehth,” they said, nodding.
Dumbledore looked fascinated and concerned at the same time.
“How stuck are you? Do you think it's permanent?”
They shook their head. “No. Tempree. Eee ohp. Ooo... ooee... w... we hobp.”
Dumbledore stroked his beard, saying to himself, “Fascinating. Even with Iliana fused to him, Tier still struggles to enunciate simple words.”
Tier growled in irritation.
“Here,” the matron said, with another eye-dropper (this one the size of a turkey baster) in her hand, “have some chocolate. Recovering from the dementor effects might help you get your powers back enough to come unstuck.”
She dribbled lukewarm chocolate milk into their mouth, and they began to feel better.
“I find myself wondering how the others are doing,” Dumbledore said, still stroking his chin.
“Kay-ahsh,” they answered. “Tears. Payn.”
Ron looked at them oddly.
“Your voice is so deep, I never noticed before, since you only spoke once before. It's weird, hearing such a deep voice coming from a body that's still mostly Iliana's.”
Tier huffed air out of his nose as his only comment.
Despite their condition, their magic seemed to be speeding their healing process enough that Madam Pomfrey let the rest of the Griffindor team in, once Dumbledore left. After all, they were calmer now, alert and awake. Not to mention when she suggested they needed rest, Tier practically roared at her, his hiss was so growly.
“How're you lot doing?” one of the twins asked.
Tier huffed air out his nose again, only this time it sounded more positive.
“Good, good,” whichever twin it was said, nodding.
“That was scary, that was,” the other twin said. “First those dementors showing up, then your transformation, then you being blown away.”
The conversation had turned largely one-sided; Tier had run out of patience for words, and was communicating solely in looks and animal sounds again.
When the inside of their head started going back to normal, Tier found himself in the position of having to relay messages from the others to the people outside. He decided to focus on the most annoying inner voices first. When he started screwing up his face with the effort of getting ready to speak, Ron stopped the others with a raised hand, and they all waited.
“Mm... mm.... mmmaaadch? Ooeen or lose?”
“The match? Lost. Diggory caught the snitch before you fell. He tried to call for a rematch, but he won fair and square.”
“W... Wood?”
“Still in the showers. We reckon he's trying to drown himself. Oh, not really. He's just really upset.”
Tier snorted, as if to say “He's upset?”
“Yeah, well, you know Wood.”
Then they started discussing the team's chances to win the cup, even having lost one of the matches, and Tier let them do it. Before long, Madam Pomfrey ushered them out, carefully; but when Tier didn't react, she sighed with relief.
Ron stayed behind, though. And Hermione showed up.
“Dumbledore was really angry,” Hermione said in a quavering voice. “He tried to catch you as you fell, of course, but the wind blew you away. Hagrid ran after you instead. Dumbledore shot something silvery at the dementors, and they left at once. Then he went after you, but by then Hagrid had found you, and was carrying you to Dumbledore. Dumbledore made sure the rest of us were okay while that happened.”
“Then he magicked you onto a stretcher,” said Ron. “And walked up to school with you floating on it. Everyone thought you were, well...”
Tier made a noise like dying, which alarmed the two friends, until they realized he was finishing Ron's sentence.
“How're you feeling, mate? Are you and Iliana still stuck together?”
“They're stuck together?” Hermione said in alarm. “Is it permanent?”
Tier shook his head. He began trying to speak again. Iliana was slipping into the background, they were no longer
stuck together, which ironically made it harder for him to speak.
“Uhn shtugk,” he finally managed to say, every word a Herculean effort. “Ihnside. Steel stugk een dis form.”
Then Tier felt something clunk into place in how they felt, and stretched his powers out. They glowed faintly, and the wings he'd manifested healed completely, growing to the right proportions. He sat up and stretched all their limbs out as far as they would go, almost knocking over Ron in the process.
“Mr. Potter, or Tier, or however you wish to be called,” the matron said in annoyance, “please fold up your wings or transform back to normal, just don't do that; you might knock over something valuable.”
Tier nodded, and focused on his power again. The wings glowed faintly, then shrunk and disappeared. They now looked like a normal Iliana, except for their teeth, which Tier didn't show except on accident. He tossed off the covers and got up out of bed. Madam Pomfrey tried to stop him, but he hissed at her and walked out. He preferred his own bed to one in the hospital.
~
That weekend was difficult, for despite getting enough of his power back to get rid of the wings, they were stuck as Tier all weekend long. He could still make modifications to the body, so he put their teeth back to normal, but by the end of Saturday, he had changed the body's appearance to a male form with brown hair and amber skin. This made things a little easier, once people started getting the message that this individual couldn't speak much, but it caused more problems as well, namely trying to explain who he was without speaking.
And so, on Sunday evening when Iliana returned, Tier was greatly relieved. They transformed right in front of Ron and Hermione, who had been talking with one another while Tier had silently watched.
“Iliana! You're back!” Ron said.
“Yeah, I guess I am.”
She stayed there for a few minutes, joining the conversation here and there but largely lost in thought, until finally
she got up.
“Gonna go talk with McGonagall,” she said. “Be back soon.”
Leaving the annoying Sir Cadogan behind, she went looking for McGonagall. She eventually found the woman coming out of the staff room.
“Ah, Ms. Potter, glad to see you're back at last. I don't think anyone was keen on trying to teach a student who is largely mute. Did you need something?”
“Can we talk in your office, Professor?”
“Now? Alright, then. This way.”
When they got to McGonagall's office, they both sat down. The professor regarded her expectantly for a few moments before Iliana began to speak at last.
“This weekend gave us a lot of time to think. And, well... it wasn't an easy consensus to come to, but about our dorm arrangements. We need new arrangements; I don't know what we need, exactly, but we do. We're getting older, puberty is upon us. And what's more... Harry's struggling with it, but he's agreed to let me talk about it with you... um... Harry is transgender. He figured it out over the summer, and he's still struggling with what to do about it, but he no longer feels comfortable in the boy's dormitory. I don't know where he would feel comfortable, though.”
“I see,” said McGonagall kindly. “Well, we do have a number of options for transgender students. What I think might suit you most is that we do have a room or two in each section of the dorms set aside for students who do not feel comfortable lodging with other students for whatever reason. And your situation is complicated enough you might benefit from that. And given the nature of your situation, one of the single-occupancy rooms in the boy's dormitory section may be best.”
“Ah. And, uh... what about showers?”
“Those rooms have their own bathrooms, complete with shower.”
Something they'd not thought of before came up in their mind then, making Iliana's face twist with emotion.
“Um... that sounds great. There's just one problem. I don't want people to think we're, like, snobs or anti-social or something. And it's gonna be kinda hard to explain a move like that without outing Harry, and he isn't sure about coming out as transgender. I mean, I think he will eventually, but he isn't sure when, or how. He's scared what people will think.”
“That is understandable. But keep in mind, the arrangement I've offered will still let you visit your friends.”
“I know, but I just don't know if that's enough. I'd need a solid explanation that's plausible and protects Harry.”
McGonagall smiled. “Well, if I were in your position, I think I'd tell my friends that as a girl in puberty, I no longer felt comfortable sleeping and changing and showering with boys, but since there are boys in your collective, you don't feel comfortable in the girl's dormitories either. Does that sound like a good excuse to you? After all, unless I'm mistaken, it's true enough in essentials.”
Iliana smiled. “Yes, that sounds good. I like that. We'll take your offer.”
“When do you want to switch dorms, Ms. Potter?”
“I dunno. Not immediately, though. I think I need to give Ron at least time to get used to the idea. Maybe by Wednesday?”
“If that's what you want. In the meantime, should we go look at this new room to be sure you want it?”
“Alright.”
When Iliana came back, Ron looked up and opened his mouth to speak, but stopped when he saw McGonagall. Hermione and others in the room stared as well. They'd only ever seen the professor in the common room during dire emergencies before.
“There's no need to look so scared, Mr. Weasley,” she told Ron. “Everyone may rest assured there is nothing serious going on. I am simply showing Ms. Potter something upstairs. Go back to whatever you were doing before I came in.”
The two of them went up the stairs of the boy's dormitories, and out of sight. Iliana felt everyone’s confusion increase at this, along with a few other emotions, and felt her face grow hot at some of these. But she said nothing, and followed McGonagall to the very back of the dorms, to a door she'd never noticed before. The professor did something to the door with her wand, and suddenly the door felt more welcoming. Then the teacher opened the door and led Iliana in.
She looked around at a room that was smaller than her current dorm room, but big enough it could have held two beds in it, though there was only one there at present. Like the others, it was stone with carpets on the floors and tapestries on the walls. (Even with magic, castles tended to be cold.) It had a fireplace as well, a large wardrobe, and there was a door to a small but adequate bathroom with a sink, a toilet, and a clawed bathtub with a shower attachment and shower curtains that were actual cloth curtains with an Impervious Charm cast on them to keep them dry.
When she looked at the wardrobe again, it began to shake, startling her.
“A boggart,” Professor McGonagall said. “Well, that will need to be taken care of before you move in. But otherwise, how do you feel about this room?”
Iliana looked at the bed. Even though it was the only bed in the room, it too had curtains. In all respects, it looked identical to their current bed. Then, spotting the window, she went over and looked out. The view was largely the same, just from a different angle.
“Looks great, Professor.”
“So shall I put your move-in date as this Wednesday?”
“Yes, Professor. Barring unforeseen circumstances.”
“Good. I shall inform the headmaster and the house elves, and I shall also arrange to have the boggart dealt with.”
That done, they went back downstairs, Iliana rejoining Ron and Hermione as McGonagall left to go back to her
office or wherever else it was she was going. Her two friends looked at her expectantly.
“What was that all about?” Ron asked.
“Oh. Well... it's just... you know, I'm 13 now, and my body's changing, and I haven't really been feeling comfortable changing and sleeping and showering with a bunch of boys. But there are boys in our collective, too, so I wouldn't feel comfortable in the girl's dormitories, either, so... it turned out there was a third option.”
“Really? What's that?”
“Um... well, they have single-occupancy rooms for when there's a need, and--”
“You're getting your own room?” Ron said, agog at the news.
“Um... yeah. And it, uh... has its own bathroom. Complete with shower. And since it's in the boy's dormitories, it's no problem to visit you in your room, or for you to visit mine.”
Ron was looking dumbfounded, but Hermione nodded approvingly.
“Good for you. I've never really thought you should be in there with all those boys; last year when you made me stay in your dorm, it was extremely uncomfortable having to change in the bed, I don't blame you at all wanting somewhere more private. I am a little disappointed you're not going to switch to a girl's dorm, but I suppose that could be even worse. What if Alastair or Harry activated the stairs? No, this is the best option.”
“Activated the stairs?” Ron asked her in confusion.
“Oh, well, there's a spell on the stairs to the girl's dormitories that detects boys; when it does, an alarm goes off and the stairs turn into a slide. It was put there by the founders, who thought boys were untrustworthy.”
“Good to know,” Ron said. Then he sighed, and looked at Iliana. “Well, I can't say I'm happy about it. Gonna miss you, mate, but I get it. I've caught myself, er... looking... at some of the older girls. If you were still there when you started sprouting... well, you know... that might be awkward.”
Ron's face and ears turned bright red, and he pretended to be reading.
“When are you changing rooms, by the way?” asked Hermione.
“Not til Wednesday. There's still a boggart in the wardrobe.”
~
Though Ron had taken the news surprisingly well, Neville and Seamus took it a bit harder. Neville was sad to see them go, and Seamus came off as mildly offended, but that turned out to be disguising some hurt feelings.
Potions class was difficult, of course. Malfoy was gleeful at Griffindor's defeat, and kept imitating Iliana falling off her broom, and calling her “batty.”
Luckily, though, Professor Lupin was back at work, looking worn out but cheerful anyway. The students raised a great ruckus about Snape's treatment of the class, and the essay. With Iliana joining in, Lupin announced that the essay wouldn't be required, but anyone who had already done it could hand it in for extra points; Hermione and Iliana were two of the only people to hand theirs in.
After class, Professor Lupin held Iliana back to talk with her, commiserating with her about the destroyed broomstick, and explaining that the Whomping Willow had been planted the year he'd started Hogwarts. Since their conversation was private, Iliana had to ask...
“Does that tree have something to do with your, um... furry complaint?”
Lupin laughed. “Yes. The Wolfsbane Potion – that potion Snape gave me the other day – hadn't been invented yet, so I had to go somewhere I couldn't hurt anyone or escape during the full moon. There's a secret passageway under that tree that leads to the Shrieking Shack, which is where I went to transform.”
“The Shrieking Shack? But isn't it haunted?”
“No. The sounds that used to come there were from me. Separated from humans so I could not bite or scratch them, I bit and scratched myself instead.”
Iliana winced. “Sounds horrible.”
“It is indeed. The transformation itself is torture, too. The Wolfsbane Potion lets me keep my mind and be a harmless wolf during the full moon, but the agony is almost unbearable. Losing my mind to the beast within is almost a relief by comparison.”
Iliana didn't know what to say. After a few moments, she spoke again.
“So did you hear about the dementors, too?”
“Yes, I did. I don’t think any of us have seen Professor Dumbledore that angry. They have been growing restless for some time … furious at his refusal to let them inside the grounds. … I suppose they were the reason you fell?”
“Yes,” Iliana said. “Why do they affect us so strongly? Is it weakness?”
“No, it's not weakness. Dementors take us to our worst memories, and your worst memories are just more powerful than most people's, since you've been through so much.”
“Yeah. The Dursleys alone would be enough for that, I think. Then there's killing Quirrell. But what I see and hear instead... I wasn't even aware it was possible to remember something from one's infancy.”
Lupin went stock still.
“What do you mean?”
“When they get near us, we hear... we hear our mum being murdered, by Voldemort,” she said, her voice cracking and eyes watering. But instead of crying, she gritted her teeth and looked at Lupin.
“Why did they come to the match?”
“They’re getting hungry,” said Lupin coolly, shutting his briefcase with a snap. “Dumbledore won’t let them into the school, so their supply of human prey has dried up. … I don’t think they could resist the large crowd around the Quidditch field. All that excitement … emotions running high … it was their idea of a feast.”
“Azkaban must be terrible,” Iliana said. “No wonder Dumbledore hates the dementors.”
“The fortress is set on a tiny island, way out to sea, but they don’t need walls and water to keep the prisoners in, not when they’re all trapped inside their own heads, incapable of a single cheerful thought. Most of them go mad within weeks.”
“Except for Sirius Black,” she said quietly.
Lupin’s briefcase slipped from the desk; he had to stoop quickly to catch it. But even if that hadn't happened, his
emotions were loud enough to her that she looked at him again. He was hiding something, just as Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had. But given that adults tended to lie, she decided it was pointless to ask him to tell the truth.
“Yes,” he said, straightening up, “Black must have found a way to fight them. I wouldn’t have believed it possible. … Dementors are supposed to drain a wizard of his powers if he is left with them too long.”
“You made that one on the train back off. And Dumbledore did the same thing, from what I heard later.”
“There are — certain defenses one can use,” said Lupin. “But there was only one dementor on the train. The more there are, the more difficult it becomes to resist.”
“Defenses? Like what? Can you teach us?”
“I'm no expert in fighting dementors, Iliana. Quite the contrary, in fact.”
“But they're dangerous, dementors. And if they come to another match, I need to be able to get to the ground before I pass out, or avoid passing out completely if I can.”
Lupin looked into Iliana's determined face, hesitated, then said, “Well … all right. I’ll try and help. But it’ll have to wait until next term, I’m afraid. I have a lot to do before the holidays. The full moon came at an inconvenient time for me.”
~ ~
“The Many Faces of Adira Potter: Chapter 16”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Sixteen: Freedom
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there. It's been frustrating me, too, but some things are just too perfect already to change. Which, fair warning, includes most of the conversation Fudge, Hagrid, Flitwick, and McGonagall have in The Three Broomsticks.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Harry, and Zoey, and now #Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and now between hashtags/pound signs because some people's computers don't do the B.I.U.).#
Tuesday night, Iliana spent a lot of time organizing their things in preparation for moving to the new room. This included opening the trunk and packing and repacking it several times, never satisfied with the results. At one point, she accidentally uncovered the Sneakoscope and it began spinning and whistling, even though the room was empty but for her and Scabbers. Figuring it was indeed on the fritz, she packed it away again, more securely.
It was difficult to sleep that night, knowing the next day after dinner, she'd be moving into the new room. Her mind kept going over what she could do with her own room, the decorations she could put up, the hobbies she could pursue without bothering other people, and the long soaks she could take in her very own bathtub.
Harry was excited as well, and kept adding to this night-time thinking with ideas of his (her) own, like getting a full-length mirror (though one very different in appearance from the Mirror of Erised; they didn't need reminding of that thing), and a magical music player or wizarding wireless box, to explore the wizarding world's music.
In fact, the mirror idea excited Harry so much that they didn't get to sleep until after they'd gotten up to write themselves a note about finding out where to order one from.
Goodbyes the next day were a lot easier than expected in some ways. Partly because Ron was helping Iliana move her trunk, and partly because their former dorm-mates were invited to get a good look at the place, which was her way of showing them that they could come over to visit as long as they bore in mind the door would be locked sometimes.
She was glad to find the wardrobe was boggart-free, and enlisted her friends' help to put robes and Muggle clothes for Alastair in one part of the wardrobe, while she focused on the panties and clothes she had for herself, and a few things of Zoey's, as well.
It took a lot of diplomacy and patience to get rid of her guests enough ahead of time that she could enjoy a bath and some reading before going to sleep, but she managed it. With the door firmly locked with her wand, using a spell she'd read about that couldn't be unlocked with a simple alohamora, she undressed right there in the empty room (first closing the blinds on the windows out of paranoia) and left the bathroom door open as she drew her bath, only closing it when it was plain the draft made the room too cold.
When she came out in her towel, she shivered and grabbed her wand, using it to put a fire in the grate, and casting Warming Charms on every inch of the room before putting the towel away and getting dressed in her PJ's.
But before sitting down to read, she sat at her desk and wrote out an order for the mirror she wanted, using the information she'd gotten from McGonagall earlier in the day. Then she used a simple owl-summoning spell to summon Hedwig, and sent the letter off with her, before sitting down on the bed to read.
Her first night in her new bed was a mixed experience. She was so used to hearing the breathing and occasional snores from four other people that the lack of these sounds made it rather difficult to get to sleep. But she got there eventually, and the warmth from the fire and the Warming Charms helped tremendously with that.
~
Between her new room and the promise of anti-dementor lessons from Lupin, the Potter collective were feeling pretty good about life. Then Ravenclaw flattened Hufflepuff in Quidditch, which was good for Griffindor's prospects. They couldn't afford to lose any more games, though, so Wood had them practicing hard in the chilly rain that persisted into December. Luckily, though, the dementors stayed away.
Their good mood was somewhat ruined, though, when Professor McGonagall informed them that they were to stay in the castle for Christmas holidays. They'd been looking forward to spending Christmas with the Weasleys, but because of Sirius Black, the Burrow was deemed not safe enough. Even arguing that Black had already gotten into the castle once before didn't help, nor did pointing out that the Burrow was a long way from Hogwarts. The order had apparently come straight from Dumbledore, who was taking no chances with them, now that they weren't with the Dursleys anymore.
Luckily, though, Ron and Hermione stayed behind as well, making excuses that sounded plausible, when the real reason was to keep her and the others company during the holidays.
They also had their new mirror to help them, too. Harry kept coming Out in order to try different things with his/her appearance, like changing hair texture and length, eye color, face shape, body shape, and so on. But since Tier was the only one who could change his appearance at will while Out, this required a lot of transformations and even more willpower, because Harry had to go In then Out again to make even the smallest changes. But Harry was getting quite good at it, and by the time of the last Hogsmeade visit of the term – a day before most people left the school – Harry looked 100% female even when nude, though still not very developed. As to whether this included changes to the internal organs, though, they didn't know.
Because they'd bought so many broomsticks for the school the year before, they were practicing on one of the spares, a black Nimbus 2001. While faster than their previous broom, it felt weird putting it back in the shed instead of taking it to their room. So every now and then, they'd flip through Which Broomstick, thinking about getting a new one, but there was no urgency in it.
The move and the mirror and so on was helping Harry a lot, and so for the first time all term he came Out during classes, his hair slightly longer and much tamer than before. He'd decided to grow his hair long to sort of ease into coming out as transgender. He was concerned how most people would react, especially his friends, and hadn't even told Hermione. In fact, McGonagall was the only person who knew about it. Malfoy and the other Slytherins would no doubt be horrible, but if he could get most people's support, that would help. Also, he was still trying to work out a name.
On the day of the Hogsmeade trip, Harry said goodbye to Ron and Hermione, then went back inside to look for Luna. But halfway along the third-floor corridor, someone was calling quietly to him.
“Psst, Harry!”
It was Fred and George, hiding behind a statue of a humpbacked, one-eyed witch. Harry put his hands on his hips.
“What are you two up to?” he asked. “You'll miss the trip to Hogsmeade.”
“The only thing we're up to is giving you a bit of festive cheer before we go. In here,” said George, leading Harry into an empty classroom and closing the door.
“Early Christmas present for you lot,” George continued.
Fred pulled something from inside his cloak with a flourish and laid it on one of the desks. It was a large, square, very worn piece of parchment with nothing written on it. Harry, suspecting one of Fred and George’s jokes, crossed his arms and raised his eyebrow.
“It's a piece of parchment,” he said to them.
“No no, it's so much more than that. It's the secret to our success, in fact.”
“It's a wrench, giving it to you lot, but we reckon it'll be more useful for you.”
“Anyway, we know it by heart. We don't need it anymore.”
“Okay, so what's so special about an old piece of parchment?”
“Old piece of parchment!” said Fred, closing his eyes with a grimace as though Harry had mortally offended him. “Explain, George.”
Harry listened as the twins described a time during their first year when they'd been in Filch's office for mischief, he'd stepped out, and they stole the parchment from a filing cabinet labeled 'Confiscated and highly dangerous.'
“We don't reckon Filch ever figured out how to use it. But he seemed to suspect what it was.”
“And you know how to work it?”
“Oh yes,” said Fred, smirking. “This little beauty’s taught us more than all the teachers in this school.”
“You’re winding me up,” said Harry, looking at the ragged old bit of parchment.
“Oh, are we?” said George.
He took out his wand, touched the parchment lightly, and said, “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”
And at once, thin ink lines began to spread like a spider’s web from the point that George’s wand had touched. They joined each other, they crisscrossed, they fanned into every corner of the parchment; then words began to blossom across the top, great, curly green words, that proclaimed:
Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs
Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers
are proud to present
THE MARAUDER’S MAP
It was a map showing every detail of the Hogwarts castle and grounds. But the truly remarkable thing were the tiny ink dots moving around it, each labeled with a name in minuscule writing. Astounded, Harry bent over it. A labeled dot in the top left corner showed that Professor Dumbledore was pacing his study; the caretaker’s cat, Mrs. Norris, was prowling the second floor; Luna was in the library; and Peeves the Poltergeist was currently bouncing around the trophy room.
As Harry’s eyes traveled up and down the familiar corridors, he noticed something else: a series of hidden passages that led out the castle. According to the twins, several Filch already knew about, one was caved in, another was the one that Harry knew went to the Shrieking Shack but which the twins reckoned was useless, leaving one available that only the three of them knew about, which you got into by opening a secret door built into the statue of the one-eyed old witch.
When the twins had left, Harry stared at the map. Al and Iliana were telling him to report this map, as Black could be getting in through one of these passages, and this map could be like Riddle's diary; but Harry sensed nothing unusual from the map, whereas he had sensed something alive in the diary, and anyway, he was getting cabin fever being cooped up inside all the time, and needed a break. What was more, he could go in disguise.
Careful to make sure nobody would run into him on his way into the passage first, he went out to the statue, touched it with his wand, said, “Dissendium” as the map informed him to do, and climbed in. The opening sealed behind him. He cast a fire-like light onto the floor, and set down the map well away from it. Then he focused on going In. They transformed, becoming Iliana briefly before he came Out again. Only this time, when Harry came Out, he looked completely unrecognizable. He had long, flowing hair that was brown now instead of black, his eyes were blue instead of green, his face was different, his glasses were a different color, and his clothes were different as well. In fact, he now looked like a girl, a girl that bore little resemblance to Harry's usual appearance.
She pulled a compact mirror out of her pocket and looked at herself in it. It was hard to tell in the shivering light of the magical fire, but she thought she looked pretty good, and very different. So she picked up the Map, put out the fire, put away the mirror, and lit her wand, following the path on the map with her eyes as she went along to Honeyduke's.
It was hard to judge how long it took her to get to Honeyduke's, and the thing felt like a long and twisty rabbit burrow, but finally she got to a rise in the passage, then to some stone steps. She paused a moment to rest, as she'd been running part of the way, then climbed the stone steps until her head bumped into a trap door.
Harry stood there, listening, but heard nobody, so she opened it up and peeked out at a cellar full of wooden boxes and crates. She came out the rest of the way, closing the trapdoor and memorizing where it was before going cautiously up the stairs, into the main room of Honeyduke's sweet shop.
It was an amazing sight, with candies of colors and shapes and sizes of all kinds, including many magical candies like Fizzing Whizbees, Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum, Ice Mice, and exploding bonbons. She knew that even the magic wouldn't have stopped Dudley from buying whatever he could here; it was truly a wonder to behold.
She spotted the twins and went up to them. They didn't notice her at first, of course, and when they did, they looked at her with the kind of interest that made Harry blush.
“Hey there pretty girl, my name's Fred Weasley. What's yours?”
She suddenly realized these two were the last people she wanted to out herself to, so she came up with a name on the spot, one she'd read in one of her books.
“Um... Adira. I'm Adira Molina,” she said, affecting a higher-pitched voice. “Anyway, nice to meet you, but I'm late for a date with my boyfriend,” she said, scurrying away, leaving the twins looking disappointed.
She didn't leave the store, though, trusting to its extreme state of crowding to hide her. Instead, she looked for Ron and Hermione. She found them over by shelves marked “Unusual tastes.” Ron and Hermione were standing underneath it, examining a tray of blood-flavored lollipops. “Adira” sneaked up behind them.
“Ugh, no, Harry won’t want one of those, they’re for vampires, I expect,” Hermione was saying.
“How about these?” said Ron, shoving a jar of Cockroach Clusters under Hermione’s nose.
“Definitely not,” said Adira/Harry in her usual voice.
Ron and Hermione jumped, then stared at 'Adira.'
“Harry?” Ron asked, in complete bewilderment. “You're a girl!”
“Call me Adira, Ron. I'm in disguise.”
“I'll say.”
“Ha—Adira,” Hermione said disapprovingly, “how did you get here? And why are you here?”
“Wow, you've learned to Apparate!” Ron said.
“Don't be silly, Ron, you can't Apparate into or out of the school grounds.”
“Hermione's right,” 'Adira' said, brushing some hair out of her face with her hand. She began to explain about the twins and the Marauder's Map they'd given her.
“How come Fred and George never gave it to me!” said Ron, outraged. “I’m their brother!”
“But Ha—Adira isn’t going to keep it!” said Hermione, as though the idea were ludicrous. “He... she’s going to hand it in to Professor McGonagall, aren’t you, 'Adira'?”
“Of course not,” Adira said, her face turned upward, deciding not to tell Hermione that Al and Iliana had already raised similar objections.
“Are you mad?” said Ron, goggling at Hermione. “Hand in something that good?”
“If I hand it in, I’ll have to say where I got it. Filch would know Fred and George had nicked it,” Adira said calmly.
“But what about Sirius Black?” Hermione hissed. “He could be using one of the passages on that map to get into the castle! The teachers have got to know!”
“Filch knows about four of the passages. Another's caved in, another comes out under the Whomping Willow, and the one I just came through... well, the entrance down in the Honeyduke's cellar so seamlessly blends in with the rest of the floor that you'd have to know it was there already.”
This did make Adira pause to think, though. What if Black did know the passage was there? Ron, however, cleared his throat significantly, and pointed to a notice pasted on the inside of the sweetshop door.
— BY ORDER OF —
THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC
Customers are reminded that until further notice, dementors will be patrolling the streets of Hogsmeade every night after sundown. This measure has been put in place for the safety of Hogsmeade residents and will be lifted upon the recapture of Sirius Black. It is therefore advisable that you complete your shopping well before nightfall.
Merry Christmas!
“See?” said Ron quietly. “I’d like to see Black try and break into Honeydukes with dementors swarming all over the village. Anyway, Hermione, the Honeydukes owners would hear a break-in, wouldn’t they? They live over the shop!”
“Yes, but — but —” Hermoine seemed to be struggling to find another problem. “Look, Har—er, Adira still shouldn’t be coming into Hogsmeade. She hasn’t got a signed form! If anyone finds out, she’ll be in so much trouble! And it’s not nightfall yet — what if Sirius Black turns up today? Now?”
“I'm in disguise. Fred and George didn't recognize me when I ran into them, which is what prompted me to come up with the name 'Adira Molina.' Granted, I was affecting a different voice at the time. Still, would you have recognized me if I hadn't used my real voice?”
The two of them looked at her more closely. Ron chuckled and agreed that it was a brilliant disguise, her hair hiding the scar on top of everything else. Hermione pouted, which meant she didn't want to admit it was a great disguise.
“And anyway, with all these students and all the snow falling outside, Black would have a hard time spotting my normal form in all this. And I can always become Tier, he could fight.”
Hermione still looked worried.
“Are you going to report me?” Adira asked.
“No, of course not, Adira, but honestly--”
Ron immediately pulled Adira over to show her the different sweets available. Adira hadn't thought to bring money, so she couldn't buy anything, but she'd already done her Christmas shopping via owl-order anyway, so she didn't feel too bad about it.
They debated where to go next; there were so many options available, after all. But Adira hadn't brought a cloak, either, and was so cold that they ended up going to The Three Broomsticks instead for something warm to drink. Adira was more than willing; she was so cold that she was afraid Tier was going to make her grow fur if she didn't get into the warm soon. In a few minutes, they were in the small inn, the warmth like a salve.
It was extremely crowded, noisy, warm, and smoky. A curvy sort of woman with a pretty face was serving a bunch of rowdy warlocks up at the bar.
“That’s Madam Rosmerta,” said Ron. “I’ll get the drinks, shall I?” he added, going slightly red.
Adira nodded, understanding. She felt that familiar feeling when she looked at Madam Rosmerta, which she now recognized as meaning she fancied someone. Luckily, her ears and face were already red from the cold. For once, though, Iliana didn't share her feelings for the older woman. However, Iliana did notice a pretty Asian girl at another table, a girl she recognized as being a Ravenclaw, which made Adira feel the same way. Adira looked away pointedly, following Hermione to a small, vacant table between the window and a handsome Christmas tree, which stood next to the fireplace, which was lucky for her. Ron came back five minutes later, carrying three foaming tankards of hot butterbeer.
“Merry Christmas!” he said happily, raising his tankard.
Adira drank deeply. It was the most delicious thing she’d ever tasted and seemed to heat every bit of her from the inside.
A sudden breeze ruffled her hair. The door of the Three Broomsticks had opened again. Adira looked over the rim of her tankard and choked before she remembered she was in disguise.
Professors McGonagall and Flitwick had just entered the pub with a flurry of snowflakes, shortly followed by Hagrid, who was deep in conversation with a portly man in a lime-green bowler hat and a pinstriped cloak — Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic.
The adults were coming their way, and Hermione – who seemed to think a teacher might recognize when someone wasn't a student they knew – whispered, “Mobiliarbus!”
The Christmas tree beside their table rose a few inches off the ground, drifted sideways, and landed with a soft thump right in front of their table, hiding them from view. Staring through the dense lower branches, Adira saw the four adults sit down at the table, and Madam Rosmerta came up with their drinks.
“A small gillywater —”
“Mine,” said Professor McGonagall’s voice.
“Four pints of mulled mead —”
“Ta, Rosmerta,” said Hagrid.
“A cherry syrup and soda with ice and umbrella —”
“Mmm!” said Professor Flitwick, smacking his lips.
“So you’ll be the red currant rum, Minister.”
“Thank you, Rosmerta, m’dear,” said Fudge’s voice. “Lovely to see you again, I must say. Have one yourself, won’t you? Come and join us. …”
“Well, thank you very much, Minister.”
Rosmerta took her drinks tray back to the bar before coming back to sit with the other adults. Adira sipped her butterbeer, trying to ignore the adults, since she didn't want to be an eavesdropper. But their conversation was impossible to ignore, them being so close.
“So, what brings you to this neck of the woods, Minister?” came Madam Rosmerta’s voice.
Adira saw the lower part of Fudge’s thick body twist in his chair as though he were checking for eavesdroppers. Then he said in a quiet voice, “What else, m’dear, but Sirius Black? I daresay you heard what happened up at the school at Halloween?”
“I did hear a rumor,” admitted Madam Rosmerta.
“Did you tell the whole pub, Hagrid?” said Professor McGonagall exasperatedly.
Adira tried to block out the conversation, but as it went on, it got more and more difficult. The conversation flowed around, still centered on Black. She listened as she found out – via Rosmerta's continued disbelief at Black being a murderer – that Sirius Black and James Potter had been best of friends in school, along with someone named Peter Pettigrew.
That was bad enough, but then it came out that during the war, what had led up to his killing 13 people with a single curse had been even worse. That Black had been a spy for Voldemort, then had been made 'secret keeper' for something called a Fideleus Charm, which was supposed to keep the Potters safe. But Black had given the secret to Voldemort, resulting in the deaths of Adira's parents.
Still getting worse, Azkaban didn't affect Black like it did other people, and he'd remained sane. He had even asked Fudge for the bloody crossword puzzle, like he was just bored! And to cap it all off, the man was still – despite all this – somehow Harry's godfather.
“But what do you think he’s broken out to do?” said Madam Rosmerta. “Good gracious, Minister, he isn’t trying to rejoin You-Know-Who, is he?”
“I daresay that is his — er — eventual plan,” said Fudge evasively. “But we hope to catch Black long before that. I must say, You-Know-Who alone and friendless is one thing … but give him back his most devoted servant, and I shudder to think how quickly he’ll rise again. …”
There was a small chink of glass on wood. Someone had set down their glass.
“Cornelius,” Professor McGonagall said, “there's something else I've been meaning to tell you. You know about Potter being several people in one body, yes?”
“Oh yes, I have read a lot of intelligence about them, Minerva. Was there something specific about it you wished to ask?”
“Yes. It's about Alastair Potter. I wanted to know if the dementors are aware that Alastair looks exactly like Sirius Black used to when he was 14. The resemblance is more than uncanny, in fact; it's downright unnerving. I still haven't quite gotten used to it myself. Whenever I have him in my class, I can't decide whether to look away or to stare.”
“Oh yes, Minerva, they've been informed. Not that it matters much, though; dementors are blind, you know. They can tell humans apart by sensing their emotions, you know. I'm not sure how that works, not being an expert, but they've assured me they know what someone who's been in Azkaban for 12 years feels like. I doubt there will be any problem there.”
“Good,” Professor McGonagall replied. “Well you know, Cornelius, if you’re dining with the headmaster, we’d better head back up to the castle.”
One by one, the adults got up and left the table. Adira sat there, staring at the spot they'd been, her numb appearance belying the growing chaos within.
“Har-- Adira?”
Ron and Hermione were staring at her, completely lost for words.
~
Adira had no clear idea how she'd managed to get back down to the trapdoor in Honeyduke's, along the passage, and into the castle, without accidentally giving away some sign of who she was, and without being stopped by anyone who didn't recognize her. All she knew is time became meaningless as she did so, too absorbed in replaying that conversation in her head, and repressing the growing chaos inside as the others reacted in their own unique ways to the news. It was lucky for all of them that Alastair was the most in shock, or he might have exploded like a nuclear bomb. She had also somehow changed back to a variation on her normal appearance as Harry somewhere along the way.
Ron and Hermione watched Harry nervously all through dinner, not daring to talk about what they’d overheard, because Percy was sitting close by them. When they went upstairs to the crowded common room, ignoring the twins shooting off dungbombs, Harry sneaked back to his dorm room, locked the door, then got into his trunk and dug out the photo album Hagrid had given him at the end of his first year, looking through it feverishly until he finally found it.
He stopped on a picture of his parents’ wedding day. There was his father waving up at him, beaming, the untidy black hair Harry had inherited standing up in all directions. There was his mother, alight with happiness, arm in arm with his dad. And there … that must be him. Their best man … Harry had never given him a thought before. It was hard to tell, since Alastair rarely used a mirror when he was Out, and mirrors don't really show you what other people see anyway, but the man did look like an older Alastair.
Mr. Weasley had been right; Azkaban changes people. Even looking for similarities, it was hard to believe that this handsome, happy man so full of laughter was the same man as the prisoner with a sunken, waxy face like he was an unhealthy vampire.
They wondered if he was already working for Voldemort when this picture was taken. Was he already planning the deaths of the two people next to him? Did he realize he was facing twelve years in Azkaban, twelve years that would make him unrecognizable?
But the dementors don’t affect him, Harry thought, staring into the handsome, laughing face. He doesn’t have to hear my mum screaming if they get too close —
#Clearly they have some sort of effect on him,# Iliana told him. #He may still have his sanity, but you saw his face.#
Why? Why do I LOOK like him? Al demanded.
Harry stood up. Things were shifting inside. Al was agitated. This upset Iliana and Zoey in turn. Their shared body shifted at random, the way it did sometimes, hair and eye color changing, hair texture and length changing at random, and so on.
“WHY!?” Al screamed at the room, his surge of rage transforming the body to his appearance, and he saw that face in the mirror, that traitor's face looking back at him.
“WHY!?!” he screamed again, his rage causing the mirror to crack.
He began storming around the room, but paused when he heard a knock.
“Harry? Al? Someone?” Ron said through the door. “Can I come in?”
“GO AWAY!” Al roared, continuing to storm around the room.
“No I will not, Al! I'm your friend, and I'm worried about you.”
Al stormed over to the door and jerked it open.
“Fine! Come in if you dare.”
Ron came in, and Al slammed the door behind him, then went back to storming around the room.
“Um... your mirror's broken.”
“OH REALLY? I HADN'T FUCKING NOTICED!”
Ron said nothing to this.
As he stormed around the room some more, Al spoke.
“This explains SOO much! Snape's loathing of me, all the adults acting so weird around me. But it raises so damn many other questions. Like WHY? Why do I look like him? Why do I look like the traitor that got my parents killed? It makes no SENSE!” he screamed, making the mirror crack again with his out-of-control magic.
He grabbed fistfuls of his hair and roared incoherently into the room, which made the furniture shake like it was in an earthquake. On his desk, an ink bottle exploded.
“Mate, calm down before you bring the whole castle down!”
“CALM! CALM??? I just found out my dad's best friend betrayed him to Voldemort, and I look just like him, but I'm supposed to be CALM? Would YOU be calm in my place?”
The mirror shattered completely and glass rained to the ground, the wooden frame cracking at the same time.
“Al, seriously, calm down please!”
Someone hammered on the door.
“Mr. Potter,” McGonagall said from the other side of the door, “there are reports of objects in people's dorms breaking, and there are tremors in the nearby corridors. Whatever you are upset about, please calm down at once or you will get detention!”
The door slammed open magically, McGonagall jumping back in shock.
“YOU!” Al roared, pointing at her. “YOU KNEW! You knew and you didn't tell us!”
“Knew what, Mr. Potter?”
“I found out what you lying, traitorous adults have been hiding from me all along! I found out that--”
He was cut off mid-sentence, clutching his abdomen in pain and shouting at the agony, doubled over. Before Ron or McGonagall could respond, Alastair glowed bright white and was replaced by a sobbing Zoey. She lifted her head in shock at being there, then ran off into the bathroom and slammed the door locked behind her. When they put their ears to the door, they could hear the young girl crying.
“Well that seems to have sorted itself out for now,” McGonagall said.
She went around the room using her wand to repair the things that had broken from Al's rage, then left to do the same elsewhere. Ron hung around for a while, trying to comfort Zoey through the bathroom door, but got no response. Finally, he left.
~
Zoey woke up the next day in the bathtub, in pain from sleeping in it so uncomfortably, and hobbled out of it and into her room, where she saw the mirror good as new, and an empty ink bottle sitting on the desk. She undressed, used the loo, bathed, and got re-dressed without much enthusiasm, and headed downstairs to an empty common room.
She felt horrible, but was also hungry, so she shambled on to the Great Hall for breakfast, rather surprised that the place was empty but for Ron, Hermione, and a couple teachers.
“Zoey? You look horrible.”
“Nnnnnnggh...” was all the sound she could make as she sat down to have some toast and eggs. The toast was like carpet, and the eggs were like rubber.
Ron and Hermione gave each other concerned looks at this.
Zoey perked up a little after getting some food in her, but she still looked horrible.
“Did you fall asleep in the bathroom last night?” Ron asked her.
She nodded. Then she croaked out, “All night. Woke up in the tub. Came straight here.”
“What happened to Al?”
Zoey shrugged.
“No idea. He got a pain in his tummy, then vanished. No idea why. But it felt like he was dragged away, almost.”
Hermione looked curiously at her.
“That's happened before, hasn't it?”
“Yeah.”
“And you don't know who did it?”
“No idea.”
“Could there be someone else in there you don't know about?”
“Possible, I guess. Dunno how to find out.”
Still in a gloomy mood, Zoey went back to her food, but she was mostly just playing with it now.
“Come on, Zoey, cheer up. Hey you know what? We haven't visited Hagrid in ages, we should go do that.”
“But they're not to leave the castle, Ron!”
“They're allowed on the grounds during the daytime,” Ron shot back. “What d'ya think, mate?”
Zoey frowned at this, her hair shortening before their eyes, her own eyes changing color back and forth, until suddenly she shot up in height, becoming Alastair.
“Great,” he said in a low growl. “We can ask him why he didn't tell us about Sirius Black, and why I look...” he paused, rubbing his temples, his face scrunched up in concentration. “like... this... traitor.”
“You okay, mate?”
Al was having a hard time getting up. It looked like he was in a lot of pain.
“No... trouble... at all.”
He jerked up out of his seat suddenly, startling both Ron and Hermione. Then, his fists clenched, he started staggering out of the room, looking as though he was fighting against someone pulling him backwards. That's when they noticed his hair shifting color and length at random again. But he kept fighting to go to Hagrid's. In fact, the resistance seemed to be making him angrier and more determined. Ron and Hermione followed him a few feet behind.
Ron turned to Hermione with concern in his face.
“D'ya reckon he's fighting some of the others?”
“Looks like it. I guess they're afraid he'll blow up at Hagrid.”
“Probably literally, from what I saw last night. He was breaking things with uncontrolled magic, and shaking the floors.”
“Should we try to stop him?”
“And have him accidentally turn us into cats if we're lucky, and blown to kingdom come if we're not? No thank you. I'm staying back here.”
Al fought tooth and nail all the way to Hagrid's, even struggling to knock on the door. He was fighting so hard he hadn't noticed he was wearing only his robes, no cloak. The cold wasn't bothering him, but it was bothering Ron and Hermione.
It took some time, and a couple more tries, to get Hagrid to answer the door. And when he did, he was crying. Al was so shocked by this that he lost his anger completely.
“Yeh heard!” Hagrid said, flinging himself onto Al.
“ACK! Don't, man; you're too heavy!”
With Ron and Hermione's help, they all got inside, and got Hagrid sitting down. Once Al was free of his encumbrance, he patted himself down, quite oblivious to the fact that their transformation was stuck as half-Al and half-Harry, pretty much right down the middle.
“Heard what, Hagrid?” said two voices simultaneously, making Al start. He and Harry had spoken at the same time. Hagrid didn't seem to notice.
“Beaky got hurt! Some sort o' hex, don't know what. Madam Pomfrey's been helpin' me, bless 'er, but she's no animal expert. Had ter call fer a magical creatures specialist.”
“Malfoy,” Al-Harry said. “I'd bet anything it was Malfoy.”
“Yeah, that makes sense. He didn't dare tell his daddy on Hagrid, after your threat to him, but he's getting revenge anyway.”
They shifted fully back to Harry. Then he said, “Little blond git doesn't listen well, does he? We told him to leave our friends alone. That means our friends' friends, too.”
“Is Buckbeak going to be okay, Hagrid?”
Hagrid bawled again. They let him carry on a bit. After a few moments, through the sobs, he said, “Dunno. Like I said, Madam Pomfrey's got ter get in an expert ter help. She doesn't reckon he's gonna die any time soon, but she doesn't know fer sure.”
It was then that a whistling sort of coughing noise got their attention. In Hagrid's bed, the huge hippogriff Buckbeak was curled up, shaking, covered in a chaotic mix of pox marks and other hex marks, and coughing wheezily every now and then. Malfoy had apparently hit the hippogriff with several hexes, maybe even a dozen or more.
“Oh Hagrid,” Hermione said, hugging the large man.
“Anything you need, Hagrid,” Harry said, hugging the man as well, “we'll help with.”
“Yeah, me too,” said Ron.
“And me,” said Hermione.
“Thanks, all of yeh, but I don't really think there's much that yeh can do.”
“We can support you.”
“And get revenge on Malfoy for you.”
“No, don't do that. Yeh'll just upset him more, and he might do summat worse.”
“Hmm... you have a good point there. Okay, we won't.”
Not in any way where the little git will suspect us of it, anyway, thought Al.
“Who's the expert she's bringing in? Do you know yet?”
Hagrid sniffled. “Dunno. Bunch of em. Dunno which ones.”
“Oh. Well hopefully she brings in someone really good.”
Hagrid stood up shakily. “I'll... I'll make yeh some tea. Can't let meself be a bad host.”
“There's no need, Hagrid...”
“Course there is, I gotta...” but he'd looked at Buckbeak again – who had passed out with exhaustion – and burst into fresh wailing.
“I'll make the tea, Hagrid,” Ron said, getting up as Al and Hermione helped their large friend sit down again.
“Ent been meself lately,” Hagrid said, stroking Fang the boarhound. “Was worried Malfoy'd sic his father on me over Buckbeak. And gotta walk past them ruddy dementors every time I want a drink at the Three Broomsticks. ’S like bein’ back in Azkaban.”
He fell silent, gulping his tea. Harry, Ron, and Hermione watched him breathlessly. They had never heard Hagrid talk about his brief spell in Azkaban before. After a pause, Hermione said timidly, “Is it awful in there, Hagrid?”
“Yeh’ve no idea,” said Hagrid quietly. “Never bin anywhere like it. Thought I was goin’ mad. Kep’ goin’ over horrible stuff in me mind … the day I got expelled from Hogwarts … day me dad died … day I had ter let Norbert go. …”
His eyes filled with tears. Norbert was the baby dragon Hagrid had once won in a game of cards.
“Yeh can’ really remember who yeh are after a while. An’ yeh can’ see the point o’ livin’ at all. I used ter hope I’d jus’ die in me sleep. … When they let me out, it was like bein’ born again, ev’rythin’ came floodin’ back, it was the bes’ feelin’ in the world. Mind, the dementors weren’t keen on lettin’ me go.”
“But you were innocent!” said Hermione.
Hagrid snorted.
“Think that matters to them? They don’ care. Long as they’ve got a couple o’ hundred humans stuck there with ’em, so they can leech all the happiness out of ’em, they don’ give a damn who’s guilty an’ who’s not.”
It's no wonder Dumbledore hates the dementors so much. They're dangerous monsters. The Ministry has no business allying themselves with such horrors.
Even though the trip to Hagrid's hadn't been fun, it nonetheless had done its intended job of making Al forget about his anger for a while, and with Malfoy targeting Buckbeak, gave him something different to be angry at. But the human mind is a weird thing, capable of multiple emotions for multiple reasons at the same time, and Al was not really over looking like the man who had betrayed his parents.
Back in his room later, Al sat at the desk, several red envelopes in front of him. He was trying to decide if he wanted to go through with sending Howlers to the Weasleys after all. There were lots of pros and cons to each decision, send them or not.
“Send the Howlers,” he said aloud, writing on a list at the same time. “Pros: It'll feel good to get my anger out. They need to know how angry I am. They need to know it's not right to lie to me, even if they think it's for my own good.
“Cons: They could just decide my reaction proves their position right. They might think I'll go looking for him, seeking revenge, because adults always think young people are stupid and impulsive. Which I guess is often true, but still offensive. More cons? Mrs. Weasley will probably just get angry back and send her own Howler at me. I don't know Mr. Weasley well enough to know how he'd react to a Howler.”
He sat there, re-reading the lists, tapping the quill on the desk as he thought. Then, suddenly, he swept the red envelopes off the desk and pulled up normal envelopes and papers.
“God dammit,” he said, starting a rough draft of a much calmer letter, telling the Weasleys that he'd found out what they'd been hiding.
The first few drafts he ended up crumpling up and throwing away. But finally he wrote one he liked:
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Weasley,
While I do appreciate all you do for us in terms of food, shelter, and affection, I do not appreciate being lied to. The Dursleys had a long history of lying to me, including lying about how my parents died, claiming they'd died in a car crash. They didn't tell me about Voldemort, that he might still be alive, or that his followers might still be after me. Also, they didn't tell me about magic being real, in fact they denied it constantly. I could have died oblivious to the danger at any point, and the same might have been true recently if we hadn't figured it out. So you can see that I have understandable issues with people lying to me. I know that as adults, you think lying to children for their own good isn't wrong, but it very much IS wrong. I am a person, and it's been my observation that adults tend to forget that children and teenagers are humans with their own thoughts and feelings.
Would you have lied to me about Sirius Black being out to kill me if I were an adult? I very much doubt it. Would you have lied to me about Sirius Black betraying my parents, and the fact that I look just like the man who betrayed my parents, if I had been an adult? I doubt it. So why do you think it's alright to lie to me, just because I'm not an adult yet?
I also understand you think I'll be out for revenge against Sirius Black. Do you really think me that stupid and reckless? My parents died to save my life, my mother's sacrifice kept me alive again down in the bowels of the castle in my fight against Quirrell and Voldemort, why would I risk their sacrifices to get revenge on Sirius Black? Quite aside from the fact I'm not that stupid or reckless, I also know I've never killed anyone on purpose before, and I know from books I've read over the years that killing someone isn't easy. Heck, Iliana accidentally killed Quirrell in self-defense, and she still gets upset if she thinks about it for too long. Knowing this, I wouldn't even try, because if I succeeded, we'd be in therapy for decades, and if we failed, we'd be six feet under.
Yes, I was indeed very angry when I found out. My anger was so great that my magic got out of control and broke things around the room, and shook the floors and walls. I was very tempted to send you Howlers as promised. But I decided instead to take the high road, hoping you will recognize that in so doing, I am not the impetuous, reckless child you think I am.
So in future, please be honest with me. Being honest with children is, in fact, the surest way to ensure that children are honest with you as well. This is true of adults, as well, because both adults and children are human beings. (Though truth be told, children tend to be more honest than adults, if only because they aren't as well practiced in the art of lying.) The only real difference between adults and children is experience. That and the unfortunate tendency of adults to think themselves better than children and teens because of that experience, but that is hardly universal.
I apologize for letting some of my anger show in that last paragraph, but it's true, and so I'm not going to rewrite this letter to remove it. Anyway, please consider my words. Please decide to be honest with me in the future. Maybe your own experience with children and teenagers is different, but speaking for myself, I've been through a lot in my life, and as such I am a consummate survivor. Please trust that the survival instincts I've honed over the 10 years I lived with the abusive Dursleys, and the two years since then dodging Voldemort twice, will continue to serve me well. Please trust that these instincts will keep me safe, and that because of them I am actually far less likely to do reckless things than others my age might be.
Sincerely,
Alastair Potter and the rest of the Potter collective
He read it over, and then nodded, satisfied.
#You, not as reckless?# Iliana thought. #What a laugh and a half that is, you and Harry running off to Hogsmeade without permission the other day. And don't you think they're going to wonder how you found this out?#
I was against that, if you'll recall! And anyway, if they ask, I'll just say someone at Hogwarts told me.
#Uh huh. Okay.#
Hush, you.
#No I will not, Alastair Potter! You are such a hypocrite, telling the Weasleys one thing and being something completely different. Just like how you and Zoey lied to Dumbledore last year when you promised to stop investigating the Heir business.#
Funny, I don't recall hearing you objecting when we did.
Would you both stop it? Harry said to them. You're both insufferable.
#No I will not. He's going to send that letter, telling them off for lying while conveniently forgetting he's lying to them. You want to send the letter, Al, then you tell them you and Harry went to Hogsmeade without permission through that secret tunnel. And while you're at it, tell the teachers about that passageway, because Sirius Black could be getting in that way!#
I don't know who would be a worse headmate, you or Hermione!
#Wow, if that was meant to offend me, you failed. Hermione has more sense than you do, Alastair Potter!#
PICKLES! DANCING PICKLES IN TUTUS! Zoey chimed in randomly.
Seriously, it's very aggravating when you lot argue in my head like this!
YOUR head? Excuse me, but who proclaimed you the Original, if such a title can even be claimed by any of us? Just because you go by the body's name doesn't make you--
BABY BELUGA IN THE DEEP BLUE SEA, SWIM SO WILD AND SWIM SO FREE! THE HEAVENS ABOVE AND THE SEA BELOW, SEE THE LITTLE WHITE WHALE ON THE GO!
ZOEY! SHUT UP!!!
OH BABY BELUGA, OH BABY BELUGA, IS THE WATER WARM? IS YOUR MAMA HOME WITH YOU SO HAPPY?
Al put his hands over his ears futilely, trying to drown out the noise of Zoey singing. He ended up having to just ignore it. Anyway, it had served its purpose; Zoey's singing stopped the arguments, as everyone was reacting to the racket of Zoey's singing, which gave Al the chance to send the letter off with Hedwig. The owl looked a little concerned at his expression, since he was trying to block out the singing and tie the letter on at the same time.
“It's okay, Hedwig. It's just noisy in here,” he said, tapping his head. “Anyway, to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, please.”
She hooted at him with understanding, and flew off.
~
End note 1: Yes, Harry's pronouns are a little confusing right now. But he's in a transitional period. He'll be using she/her/hers exclusively in time. Also, Adira is pronounced Uh-DEER-uh. It means “strong, noble, powerful.”
End note 2: I've actually veered off my own collective's design a little with the Potters. That whole “pain in the abdomen, then person in Front is jerked back In” thing doesn't happen to us. Just to the Potter collective. Also, another difference is that Zoey is kind of a Gatekeeper, and our system doesn't have a Gatekeeper.
End note 3: The Baby Beluga song Zoey sings in this chapter is by Raffi Cavoukian (copyright 1980). It's among the songs our Molly sings sometime. We were initially going to go with “It's a Small World,” but Disney has a bad habit of getting ridiculously pissy about such things, so we went with “Baby Beluga” instead. Also, the scene that song appears in is a fairly accurate representation of some of the arguments our own collective has.
~
“The Many Faces of Adira Potter: Chapter 17”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Seventeen: The Broom, the Secret, and the Traitor
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for any bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there. It's been frustrating me, too, but some things are just too perfect already to change.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Harry, and Zoey, and now #Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and now between hashtags/pound signs because some people's computers don't do the B.I.U.).#
Note 4: Okay, so I have some MAJOR canon divergences planned. The farther out we go from here, the more different things will be. Far enough out, and even I don't know what will happen yet!
~
The inside of their head was surprisingly quiet the next morning, with nobody in the collective talking to one another much. Harry could have used talkativeness, though, because he woke up having found himself in full Adira mode. He didn't remember coming Out, much less like this, and was very glad they had their own room now. Harry switched with Zoey so he could come out again differently. Only, instead of going full boy mode, he came out in a modified version of the form, with hair that was easier to manage and longer, of course, but also... certain changes down below. Luckily, in their robes, there would be no telltale lack of bulge to give him away.
He went to the bathroom and felt giddy at the sensation of peeing with the modified form. Of course, he knew what it felt like from Iliana's and Zoey's transformations, but this was much different. There was a noticeable difference in how things felt when he was Out than when he was watching from the back of his own brain while someone else drove, even if he could see, hear, and feel everything the others did, like whoever was driving the body was a filter, and the sensations the others got were less intense for it.
After that was done, Harry went down to breakfast. Nobody else was there yet, so he opened a book of defensive magic in front of him and read from it as he ate kippers and eggs with his free hand. Then he paused, and thought, realizing he was still thinking of himself with he/him/his pronouns. Harry frowned at this thought, but ignored it for now. He was still presenting as male, so he'd worry about pronouns later, if he ever got the nerve to come out as trans.
A school owl flew in and landed next to him. At first, his stomach dropped like a stone, worried it was a response from Mr. and Mrs. Weasley already, but it turned out to be from Healer Young, about their session today. The last one had been postponed because the Healer had a slight emergency at home with a grandchild, and Harry had completely forgotten that he'd agreed to reschedule it for today. Harry quickly wrote back a reply, and sent it with the owl.
Harry was still reading and eating when Ron and Hermione came down to join him.
“Nose in a book during the holidays? You're almost as bad as Hermione.”
“Hey!” Hermione said, hurt.
“No offense, Herm, but holidays are for relaxing.”
“But we do have homework.”
“Yeah, but that can wait. We have weeks left til term starts again.”
“A week and six days,” she corrected.
“Which is just a day short of a fortnight,” Ron pointed out.
“Ron,” Harry said, “there is such a thing as reading for pleasure, you know.”
“Reading a defense magic book for pleasure?”
“I was raised by Muggles, remember? A part of me will always be thinking 'I'm living in a fantasy universe, this is so cool!'”
Ron shrugged.
“Whatever, mate. Ah, kippers!”
Harry went back to reading.
After Ron had been stuffing his face for a while, he sat back, belly full, and sighed.
“So Harry, whatcha wanna do after this? We could go outside and have a snowball fight. Or visit Hagrid.”
“I have an appointment with Healer Young at 10am, but after lunch we could do that.”
“You just gonna read til then, I suppose?” Ron said, sounding a little put out.
“Yeah.”
“You look a lot better than Zoey did yesterday, Harry,” Hermione said.
“Yeah, well, we got better sleep.”
Ron sighed. “Sure you don't want to play some wizard chess instead?”
“That wouldn't last long. Didn't you beat me in 10 minutes the last time we played?”
“Oh, right.”
Ron stood up.
“I'm gonna go... I dunno. To the common room? Better bored in there than bored here.”
“Sorry, Ron,” Harry apologized.
“Nah, it's okay. Maybe I can find Nick and play chess with him.”
“Oooh,” Hermione said, “if you do, tell us how it goes. I imagine playing chess with someone who's over 500 years old would be fascinating.”
Ron shrugged. “Okay, if you say so.”
They watched him leave the room, then went back to reading.
Only, Harry couldn't concentrate on his reading. He was thinking. Thinking, and looking at Hermione across from him. His thoughts were complicated, and mostly revolving around his secret, his real gender, and how his two best friends didn't know yet. He didn't know if he would ever come out as Adira to the whole school, but he knew if he was going to do that, he wanted Ron and Hermione to know first. If for no other reason than to see if he'd still have friends after.
Sure, they'd seen him as Adira, but that had been a disguise. He liked the name for himself (herself? Ugh, whatever), but Adira Lily Jamie Potter would look as much like him as possible, unlike Adira Molina. She wanted to be herself, after all.
Harry was still lost in thought when Hermione spoke to him.
“Harry?”
“Huh? Oh... what?”
“It's almost time for your appointment, according to my watch.”
“What? Oh, thanks Hermione.”
He got up and tucked his book under his left arm.
“See you later.”
“You too,” she said, barely looking up from her own book.
~
He found Healer Young by the front entrance, just closing the door against the cold; he had just now gotten there, then.
“Oh hello there,” Healer Young said through a thick scarf. “Iliana not here today?”
“No, sir. I'm the one who needs it. Iliana isn't happy about Quirrell dying, there's a scar there and so she doesn't like to think about it, but she's over it. When she does think about it, she just feels a little sad, but no longer worried about being a murderer.”
“Alright then. But if she ever needs to talk again, I'll still be here. Though I still do work with St. Mungo's, I am the school Mind Healer now.”
Harry nodded.
“So why don't you sit down and tell me what's on your mind?”
Harry noticed, then, that he was still standing, his arms crossed. Healer Young had his winter cloak, scarf, and hat off and was sitting down already. Harry hastily uncrossed his arms and sat down. But he felt uncomfortable, and didn't speak.
Perhaps sensing this, Healer Young used his wand to make a teapot and teacups appear, and made some tea, offering some to Harry, who accepted. The cold was still radiating from the Healer's clothes, chilling the room. He thought as he sipped his tea.
“Okay,” said Healer Young, “perhaps an icebreaker? I know a fair amount about Iliana, but so far I haven't really met you, Harry. How was your summer vacation? I hear you went to Egypt with the Weasleys. How was that?”
Harry shrugged, spilling some of his tea.
“It... was pretty cool. I've never been out of the country before. The Dursleys don't travel much, and when they do, they never took me anywhere, except to the zoo that one time, and that was only because they couldn't find someone to mind me, and didn't trust me to stay home alone.”
“Did you see any sights?”
“Oh yeah. Saw the pyramids, saw the sphinx. Saw a bunch of wizarding tombs with mutated skeletons in them. It was fun, and cool.”
“I understand you were very adamant about being out to see it with your own eyes for about the first half of the trip, then suddenly you withdrew and weren't seen again until school. And even then, not very frequently. Did you see something that frightened you?”
Harry put his cup down and stood up again, pacing around the room with his arms crossed. Healer Young patiently waited.
“Yes and no. Kinda. I saw something I thought I'd seen the last of. Did I ever tell you about the Mirror of Erised?”
“The mirror that Dumbledore hid the Philosopher's Stone in?”
“Yeah, that one. Did I tell you that I saw the Mirror around Christmas that year? It was in an unused classroom.”
“No, you didn't. So you saw something in the Mirror then?”
“Yeah. Something I didn't know what to make of. I was me, but I saw Iliana in the Mirror. And I didn't like that, so I started coming out more, thinking it meant I wanted Iliana to replace me.”
Harry paced around some more, silent.
“And that wasn't what it meant?”
“No.”
“How did you figure that out?”
“I... I saw it again. The Mirror, over the summer. Dumbledore must've sold it or something, and it somehow ended up in Egypt. I saw it in a shop.”
“And you saw something in it? Something... different?”
“Yes. I saw... I saw me. Only, I was different. I was... I was a girl. But not Iliana. I was a girl version of me. And older, too. More... well... more developed, if you catch my meaning.”
“And that made you hide away?”
“Yeah, well... between that image and Al's comments about it, I finally worked out what the original thing I saw in the Mirror meant. It meant... well, I like being Out, but I also like Iliana's version of the body. The softness, the long flowing hair, the feeling of... certain parts of the body... when we're her or Zoey. I didn't want to be replaced by Iliana, I wanted to be... a girl, like her.”
Harry's face turned bright red at this, and he was pointedly looking away from Healer Young.
There was a silence of what felt like many minutes before the Healer spoke again, a thoughtful silence.
“Harry... do you know what the word 'transgender' means?”
Harry nodded.
“Yeah, I do. It means you start out thinking you're a boy, and you realize you're a girl, in your brain or your soul or whatever. Or the other way around, too, I guess. But in my case, I'm... I'm a girl.”
And there it was, a sensation like relief, but mixed with excitement and nerves.
“I'm a girl,” Harry repeated. “I'm... I'm Adira Lily Jamie Potter. Not Harry James Potter. My parents... they gave me that name thinking I was a boy. But I'm a girl.”
More thoughtful silence. Harry could sense, with their empathic sense, that Healer Young was thinking, planning out what to say. But Harry suddenly turned and interrupted.
“How can I be a girl! Is there something wrong with me? What would my parents think of it, if they were alive? What will my friends think? What will my enemies think? What will everyone else think? I'm famous as Harry Potter, are they always going to be calling me that even if I keep insisting I'm Adira Potter? Are there sex change potions? Would they even work on me? Do I even need them? And why this? Why me? I'm already enough of a freak as is, with surviving a killing curse and then this whole... multiplicity thing. And now this. Why?”
He stopped talking. Healer Young waited before speaking.
“Those are all very good questions. We can address them all if you want, but first, I'm curious what you meant by the question 'do I even need them?'”
“Well, I've found I can transform, into a girl version of this form. The... the down below parts even look right. But I have no idea if the inside bits are changing too. Not that it really matters, I guess, since I'm a girl no matter what my body is like, but it would be nice to know how complete the transformation is. Knowing that, I could then move onto whether or not there are sex change potions, and whether or not they'd even work for me, given my unique qualities.”
“I see. Well if those are pressing issues for you, we could arrange for Madam Pomfrey to give you a thorough examination in your girl form. I understand that she found Iliana to be fully functional internally. I know she would be very discreet, and lock the door to keep others out during the examination.”
“I... yeah, that would be good.”
“As to the others... well your friends, Ron and Hermione at least, have certainly stuck with you through all sorts of unusual business, with your multiplicity and with the adventures you keep finding yourselves getting into. I suspect they'll adjust to this, too. The hardest part will be the waiting. Once it's done, you'll know one way or another, and I suspect you'll probably look back at this fear and laugh at yourself for it, even though it is an understandable fear.”
“I hope you're right. I think you are; about Hermione, at least. I'm not sure about Ron, but he'll probably be fine, too. Oh, and Luna; Luna will be completely nonplussed, I'm sure.”
Healer Young nodded absently.
“As to the others,” Healer Young said, “well, there's nothing that says you have to come out to everyone, or right away. You can take as much or as little time as you like with that. With all of it, for that matter.”
“No, I can't... I can't keep living this lie. Now that I know the truth, the thought of staying like this, the thought of continuing life as Harry Potter, makes me ill. Ron and Hermione and Luna have to know, at least.”
“Well if that's the case, having them know will likely make it easier to come out to others.”
“Professor Lupin would probably be cool with it, too,” Harry said absently to himself.
The Healer didn't react to this, even though he heard it loud and clear.
“Oh GOD,” Harry said, hands in his hair, “I don't know if I can change in front of Madam Pomfrey!”
“Would it help to try it for me, first?”
“I... I'll try, I guess.”
Harry took a large breath in, and concentrated. Without any glow at all, their body changed to Iliana's. She blinked, confused for a moment, then disappeared again.
Standing there before Healer Young was a girl Harry's height, hair color, eye color, everything. But her hair was longer, and while it still looked a bit of a mess, it looked a lot better than Harry's usual hair. Harry was Adira now, looking basically the same. Aside from the hair, a pair of slight bulges in the chest region, and a softer quality to the face, she looked the same as she always did.
“Well, this is me,” she said.
Her voice sounded slightly more feminine, but was still essentially the same. Of course, being only 13 and a bit of a late bloomer, her voice hadn't had time to deepen yet, so the difference was minimal.
“Aside from your hair and your chest, you look the same as always. And the chest is currently barely noticeable; I only noticed it myself because I was looking for differences.”
“Yeah, well...” Adira said, grabbing Healer Young's hat and putting it on her own head, shoving her hair under it. “I don't want to change back right now. Can we go now? To Madam Pomfrey?”
“Okay. Shall I go ahead of you, and explain things to her first?”
“Um... sure.”
“If you're not there in 10 minutes, should I come find you?”
“I guess. Yeah.”
~
Ten minutes later, Adira knocked on the door of the Hospital Wing. The door opened, and the matron stood there. When she saw who it was, she let Adira in, and guided Adira over into her office. She closed that door behind them, and cast privacy spells on it before turning to Adira.
“You can take that hat off now, Ms. Potter,” the matron said kindly.
Adira did as directed, and handed the hat back to Healer Young. Her hair spilled onto her shoulders. Madam Pomfrey handed her a brush.
“Here, Ms. Potter, you can brush your hair while I run my tests, it'll give you something to take your mind off things.”
Adira took the brush with a nod, and brushed her hair. She found, to her surprise, that it did indeed have a meditative effect on her mind, emptying it of thought as the matron did her tests. It also did weird things to time, so she had no idea how long she'd been doing it when the matron got her attention.
“Yes, Madam Pomfrey?”
“I think you'll be pleased to know, Ms. Potter, that the magic you used to transform yourself to match your new perception of yourself has given you everything that you'd have if you'd been born with them to begin with. You've essentially performed sex change magic on yourself, which I suppose makes sense, given what I know of Iliana and Zoey.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. I don't joke about medical matters, Ms. Potter.”
“Wow, cool!”
“By the way, Ms. Potter, my tests also revealed that your body's hormones are changing, and I rather suspect you will need some of these soon,” she said, handing Adira some pads and pain relieving potions.
“No need to look so embarrassed, girl; it's a fact of life, now that you're one of us. I rather suspect Iliana would've needed them anyway. The pads are magic, by the way. You should only need one a day, no matter how heavy your flow; they'll soak up the blood and other bits magically all day long, without any odor. If you know how to Vanish things, you can Vanish them when they're full, or you can chuck them in the garbage; the bins in Hogwarts automatically Vanish whatever's in them every hour on the hour. Well, except for animals or other living creatures.”
“Thanks,” Adira muttered, handing the pads back but keeping the potions. “It's just, we have some already from Iliana, remember?”
“Well, you can never have too many of them.”
Standing up, Adira switched to Iliana, then back to her Harry form. It made her feel sick to her stomach, going back to being Harry, like the 'Harry Potter' disguise had died and putting it back on was like putting her hand inside a corpse and making it move like it was a puppet. And it was that sick feeling that made her realize where she had to go next, after putting the pads and potions away.
But before going back, 'Harry' asked the matron one last question.
“Are there any potions for preventing periods? I remember from some commercials on the telly that Muggles have things like that.”
“Yes, we do, but you are a young and developing girl, and it is my professional opinion that you should wait a few years at least before using those. Even with your unique condition, taking those potions might do strange things to your body during puberty. Not to mention the fact that neither magic nor Muggle pregnancy prevention medicines are safe or effective for everyone. You should research the options, including potential side effects, before using any of those, and you will get them through me or another Healer if you get them at all. But preferably through me, while you are still in school. Those sorts of things can have some very odd side effects on people under normal circumstances. And given your unique situation, I'm not sure I would recommend them even after puberty is done with you. Especially if Zoey remains a child for the rest of your life.”
“Um... okay,” Adira said, uncertain and uncomfortable with all this sudden puberty and sex talk.
“Well, that should be all, unless you had any other questions?”
“Er, no.”
“If you think of any more, Ms. Potter, you're always welcome to come ask me. And if it would make things easier, you could have Iliana ask for you.”
“Got it. Thanks, Madam Pomfrey.”
As she walked back to the common room, her stomach churned in knots, thinking about telling Ron and Hermione. Who should she tell first? Or should she tell them both at the same time? How did you bring up something like this? She tried imagining going up to them and saying, 'Hi, wanna go outside and throw snowballs? By the way, I'm actually a girl and you should call me Adira now. I'm gonna go grab my cloak.' Somehow, that didn't seem to be a good idea. Hermione would probably blink in confusion, needing it repeated as she would've probably been engrossed in a book, and Ron would either goggle and splutter at her, or think it was a joke.
She imagined just walking in as Adira. They would immediately know who it was, still, since the only really noticeable difference so far was long hair that was somewhat tamed for her. It might not be enough, though, for them to notice the gender change. They might just ask why her hair was longer. Would she have to put something colorful in her hair, and paint her nails? Transfigure her robes into a dress?
This line of thinking annoyed her, because she shouldn't need to change anything at all. Though she was 13, her long history of being underfed had made puberty come later than normal, if it had even began to come at all, and she still had the androgynous appearance of most pre-pubescent children. She supposed she wouldn't know until/unless she got a period, which she wasn't even sure would happen, despite what Madam Pomfrey said. Maybe her body was just mimicking the right parts, and wouldn't work right?
Not that they needed to, of course; there were plenty of girls who never got periods, or got them but were sterile. And anyway, what defined a girl, anyway? There were girls that looked and acted like boys. And back to presentation, everyone in Hogwarts wore the same uniform of black robes and hat. Everyone dressed identically, except for those who chose to wear a pin or a scarf or other decoration to show which House they were in, and some of the girls wore things in their hair or, indeed, painted their nails.
And even if it did work, there was still the worry about her friends' reactions. Granted, on some level she wasn't really worried, since they'd all been in life and death situations before, and they adjusted quite well to Adira's multiplicity well enough. She was being silly, but she couldn't help it.
She paused at Sir Cadogan's portrait, staring at the knight, who was napping. She was considering asking him, quietly, for his opinion on the matter. His pony looked at her, then nudged Sir Cadogan awake. He awoke with a start and tried to stand, putting up his fists, but his visor fell over his eyes and he tripped and fell to his metal knees.
“Fight! Stand and fight, you yellow-bellied coward, sneaking up on me and blinding me in a vulnerable moment! I shall have you drawn and quartered, then bury you in four different cemeteries for this insult!”
“Your visor just fell down is all,” Harry/Adira said.
The knight stopped moving for a moment, then lifted his visor and looked at them.
“I see. In more ways than one. So, young scallywag, what pray tell is the password? Tell me or I shall skewer you upon my sword!”
“'Scurvy cur,'” Adira said, all desire to talk with the knight having evaporated.
“Well played, lad, well played. You have bested me for now, but one day we shall tussle forsooth,” Cadogan said, swinging open for her. She glared at him as she went inside.
She soon found Ron and Hermione, and before long they were bundled up and heading outside to play in the snow. But the whole time, she was distracted by thoughts of telling them her secret, and trying to work out how they would react. She got hit a lot more than anyone else, as a result, and was thoroughly soaked by the time they went back inside.
At dinner, she remained distant and thoughtful. Hermione kept glancing up at her, but said nothing. Ron was oblivious, rambling on about the Chudley Cannons whenever he wasn't eating (and even when he was eating, which grossed out both 'Harry' and Hermione).
When they headed back after dinner, Hermione hung back with Harry and walked silently alongside, looking frequently like she was thinking of asking questions.
“Well, I'm exhausted,” 'Harry' said. “I'm going to go turn in early.”
Ron's face fell a little, but then he said, “Yeah, we did have a long day of play. I guess I'll turn in, too, maybe read a Quidditch book.”
“See you tomorrow, Ron.”
“You too, Harry.”
Harry/Adira closed the door behind her and transformed into her fully girl form in the usual way. Then she took out one of Iliana's Muggle dresses and changed into it, admiring herself in the mirror.
There was a knock at the door. In a panic, she shouted “In a moment! I'm not decent!”
In too much of a hurry to transform, she threw a pair of robes over the dress and shoved her hair under her hat, before opening the door. Standing there was Hermione.
“May I come in?”
“Um... okay. I don't think you've seen my new room yet, have you?”
Hermione came in and Harry closed the door behind her.
“Why are you still wearing your hat? The robes I can understand, but the hat?”
“Oh, uh... I... well... it's polite?” Harry/Adira answered lamely.
Hermione looked like she didn't believe it. She looked thoughtful for a moment, then lunged forward and yanked the hat off Adira's head, making the long hair spill out.
“Experimenting with your hair?” Hermione asked.
Adira opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out except for random sounds.
“Sorry if I wrong-footed you,” Hermione said. “I just was wondering what's wrong with you today?”
Adira felt embarrassed and angry and a lot of other emotions all at once. Embarrassed at her hair being exposed, embarrassed that it wasn't enough for logical, puzzle-solving Hermione to figure it out, apparently, and angry both that it was done and that it didn't work. She was such a mess of emotions, she didn't know what to say or do. She couldn't even tell her own emotions apart from Hermione's, at that moment.
Opening her mouth to speak, Adira found she couldn't. First, she didn't know what to say. Second, who knew what she'd say if she was somehow capable of speech; for all she knew, random words or something barely resembling language might come out. Or she might scream and shout at her friend, which she didn't want to do.
And then, like something in her mind had set the Wheel of Emotions to spinning and it had finally landed on something, she broke down crying instead. This startled Hermione, who locked the door, because she didn't think it would help anything if Ron came barging in.
That done, Hermione sat next to her friend on the floor and held them in her arms. She said nothing, just made sure her friend knew she was there for comfort if needed. Adira took advantage of this, crying into Hermione's robes, which was uncomfortable for both of them because of her glasses.
And as this happened, Hermione – logical, puzzle-solving Hermione – began to put the pieces together. She began to notice small things first, like how 'Harry' was sitting, the feel of something under the robes that felt like a dress and a bra strap, and then the feminine touches about the room, many of which were difficult to describe. Sure, those could be attributed to Iliana or Zoey, but she knew both of those girls well enough to tell by now that many of these weren't their style, exactly.
Add that to the long hair, the weird distracted silence all day long, the fact that Harry had vanished for so long, what Ron had told her about Harry disappearing that once before daring to go to the boy's dorm, Al's weird speech that one time in Care of Magical Creatures, and little odd things she'd noticed over the past year or so, and she put together a possible answer. Still, she didn't want to presume.
When 'Harry' stopped crying, Hermione decided to speak at last.
“You... you don't have to answer if you don't want, but... are you... I think the term is 'transgender'? Harry, have you discovered... are you really a girl?”
Unable to speak, and looking dejected, Adira nodded.
“I see. And I barged up here like an idiot, you panicked, didn't have time to change back in your panic, and then I stupidly uncovered your hair. Sorry about that.”
Adira sniffed. “It's okay. I was thinking about how to tell you and Ron, actually. Wondering how to do it, who to tell first, or if I should tell you both at the same time. I guess the kneazle's out of the bag now, at least with you.”
“Um... do you... do you have a new name for yourself yet?”
Adira smiled wanly. “If you think back, I think you can guess.”
“If I think back?” Hermione said, pondering. “Oh! You mean 'Adira'?”
“Yeah. Except this time, it's Adira Lily Jamie Potter.”
“It's a lovely name, Ha—Adira.”
Adira sat up, wiping her face.
“Now I just have to work out how and when to tell Ron.”
“Oh god, yes. Ron... bit of a wild card, Ron. Adira, no matter how he reacts at first, remember, he's your best friend. He adjusted to this multiplicity thing, he'll adjust to this new thing.”
“I hope so. I mean, it's a bit different, isn't it? The multiplicity thing came out in, what, the first week of school ever? And it's been about two and a half years since then. It's one thing finding out you're friends with like, half a dozen people in the same body. It's something completely different to find out that one of those people who you thought was a boy, was actually a girl.”
“Still, Ron's friends with me and Iliana and Zoey,” Hermione pointed out.
“Yeah, but now the only boys in the collective are Al and Tier.”
“I do see your point. But Ron won't mind. He may get weird about it, who knows, but he'll get over it. He always does. Put it this way, if people thinking you were the Heir of Slytherin didn't push him away, I doubt this will.”
Adira snorted. “There are some people who feel weird about us already. I don't know what to make of the feelings I get from them, but some of their behavior tells me enough. But with the exception of the Slytherins, most people seem to not want to say anything about it. But I know they think I'm a freak.”
“I doubt--”
“Trust me, I'm right. They do. And they're probably not wrong. I've tried not thinking about it, tried just letting all the weirdness roll over me like water off a duck's back, but then the Dursleys' words come back to me, and I wonder if they're right, but for the wrong reasons.”
“Adira, you should bring that up with Healer Young. It's not healthy to keep those feelings bottled up.”
She stood up suddenly, and started pacing around the room.
“I hate this waiting, this simmering in worry,” Adira said, changing the subject. “I was so scared and worried about telling you, and now it's done, I feel much better. I think... I think I should tell Ron now, get it over with. Whatever happens, I'll feel better not having to worry any longer.”
“Do you want me to go bring Ron here?”
“Yes, please, before I change my mind.”
Hermione smiled reassuringly.
“Okay, be back soon.”
Adira sat down on the floor, her knees in her hands, rocking back and forth as Hermione left. She felt like crying again, the worry hurt so much. It was like an acid eating away at her insides, the worry.
“Harry? Hermione said you wanted me to...” Ron trailed off, entering the room. Hermione came in behind him and closed the door, locking it again just in case.
“Oh, you can change your hair? Neat. Trying to make it look like Al's, are you? If so, it needs a bit of work, mate. Looks more like Hermione's hair, only black.”
Something in Adira's body language got through Ron's obliviousness then, making him look concerned.
“What's the matter, Harry? You're not still thinking about that Sirius Black bloke, are you?”
“That's... that's not it, Ron.”
Ron sat down on the floor next to Adira.
“So what is it, then?”
Adira could only grimace horribly, tears in her eyes.
“Do you want me to tell him for you?”
Adira shook her head.
“Tell me what? Are you ill? You look ill. Maybe you should see Madam Pomfrey.”
Well, this is like trying to convince a rock to float, Adira thought at the others in her head.
Ron's not stupid, Al said to him. Just a little slower than Hermione. But then, Hermione is usually faster than most people. Spell it out for him. Piece by bloody piece if you have to.
Bloody Hell, but you're right.
“You... you know over the summer, when I disappeared Inside for a long time?”
“Can't imagine I'll soon forget that, mate. I was worried about you. We all were, in fact; Mum and Dad and everyone.”
“And you know back in first year, I ran into the Mirror of Erised?”
“Yeah...?” Ron said, clearly at a loss to the relevance of it.
“And how I saw Iliana instead of me?”
“Oh yeah, that was weird. Did you finally figure that out, then?”
“Yeah. But only because I ran into the Mirror again over the summer.”
Ron's eyes went wide.
“You did? You didn't say anything, mate. Bloody Hell, where was it?”
“It was in Egypt, somehow. In one of the shops.”
“So what'd it show you that time?”
“It showed me myself... but different. Older. And... well...”
Adira stood up suddenly, and tore off her robes, standing there before the both of them in a muggle girl's dress, a tasteful blue dress with plain black lining.
Ron goggled at her, clearly still confused. Then something clunked into place.
“Oh.”
“'Oh'? That's all you can say?” Adira said hysterically, her hands in her hair.
“Blimey, gimme a moment, alright? I...” Ron's face went blank in a thoughtful sort of way. It was like watching all the gears and cogs in his head turning, like his skull was transparent.
“Oh,” Ron said again. “OH. Blimey, is this what Al was on about that day in Hagrid's class? You're... you're a girl?”
Adira sighed a sigh of mixed exasperation and relief.
“Yes, it is.”
“Oh.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Well excuse me if my brain isn't quite up to snuff, alright?”
“It's okay, I'm just... I thought the worry would go away when I told you, but your responses are ambiguous enough to keep the worry alive.”
“Wait, are you worried I'd stop being your friend because of this?”
“Er... yeah. Kinda. I mean, wouldn't you worry in my place?”
Ron blinked, as though he'd never considered that possibility before, but then recovered. “I dunno how to answer that, mate, so I'll answer the one before: you're my friend, no matter who else is in there with you, no matter whether you're a boy or girl, no matter what your name is. By the way, 'Harry' isn't exactly a girl's name, mate. Maybe you should change it.”
Adira laughed, tears of happiness in her eyes, and hugged Ron.
“What'd I say?”
“She's happy, Ron. You know, tears of joy.”
“Oh, right. That.”
Adira tried gesturing to Hermione to tell Ron her new name for her. It took a few tries, but Hermione got the idea.
“She's already picked out a new name, Ron. Adira Lily Jamie Potter.”
Ron nodded approvingly.
“Nice name, got a good ring to it.”
The next hour or so they spent talking about this and that. Ron was having problems remembering to use the new name and pronouns, but he was trying. Adira was very happy about this, especially when the topic of coming out to other students came up.
“I'm with Al. Anyone who makes fun of you for this is gonna get hexed. Except Malfoy; I'd rather punch him in the nose.”
“What about the twins?”
“Oh, them? They've always liked you, and now I think of it, they've said some things to me before that make me think they might already suspect. Knowing them, even if it's a total surprise to them, they'll be your biggest supporters.”
“Sounds like what I was thinking, too,” Adira said.
She sighed, and leaned back against the bed, relaxed like she hadn't been in months.
“Oh boy, if you'd told me this morning I'd be coming out about this to both of you by bedtime, I'd have thought you were mad. Especially after Madam Pomfrey kept going on about puberty and periods and stuff.”
Ron's face took on a distant expression, like he was ignoring the period talk, but he said nothing.
“If you need any, um, supplies, Adira,” Hermione said, “I've got some.”
“Yours started already?”
“Er, yes,” she whispered to Adira, blushing. “Mine started early in second year.”
Ron's distant expression took on a different look, then, for a few minutes before he spoke suddenly, startling them.
“I wonder if Professor Lupin was born a girl?” Ron said. The two girls stared at him in shock.
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, he's ill once a month for several days, but he wasn't in the hospital wing when I was cleaning the bedpans for that detention with Snape. I know Mum gets really awful cramps from her monthlies, sometimes so bad she has to spend all day in bed, trying to use her wand to cook from the living room. If Lupin's got something similar... I mean, I know he looks like a bloke, but he could be like Adira, only in reverse, and maybe he's allergic to the sex-change potions?”
Adira and Hermione gave one another a look. Then Adira made an executive decision.
“Um, that's very clever, Ron, and well thought out. But, er... it's also wrong.”
“Oh? What else could it be?”
“He's... well... actually, now I think about it, maybe I shouldn't say.”
“What else could possibly be making him sick once a month every...” his eyes grew big. “Every month. At the full moon?”
Hermione and Adira nodded.
“He's a werewolf?”
“Um... yeah. I asked him about it, he confirmed it.”
“Oh, he did?” asked Hermione, interestedly.
“Yeah, when he showed me the grindylows.”
“Wait, how'd you two work it out?”
“Well, between Snape's lesson on werewolves that one time, and recognizing that Lupin's boggart was the moon...” Adira said, trailing off.
“Oh, so you spotted that, too?” Hermione said, pride in her voice.
“Well, Al did.”
“A werewolf? Blimey. I wonder if the teachers know?”
“Snape clearly knew. What's more, Lupin told me he's been a werewolf since he was a kid, so clearly Dumbledore knew back then, too.”
“Oh!” Hermione said, thinking. “That night Sirius Black attacked the Fat Lady, Dumbledore and Snape were talking, and it sounded like Snape didn't trust someone on staff, and Dumbledore said they'd already discussed that and he trusted everyone on staff. What if they were talking about Lupin?”
“Makes sense,” Adira said.
“Well, if Dumbledore trusts him, then I do too.”
“Al trusts him, too,” Adira said. “Which I think is more reliable than Dumbledore's trust. Dumbledore is a trusting man.”
Ron yawned just then.
“Oh my,” Hermione said, looking at the time. “It's late. We should be getting to bed.”
“Sounds good,” Ron said, hugging Adira. “Glad you told me, mate. If you have any problems, let me know.”
“I will.”
Her two friends left the room, and she locked the door behind them, undressed, and took a nice long soak in the tub before going to bed.
~
The next few days until Christmas were relatively uneventful; very few people had stayed behind at Hogwart's over Xmas; in Griffindor, it was just Adira, Ron, and Hermione. Ron was playing chess against Adira while Hermione watched. Adira wasn't winning, but she wasn't losing, either. Of course, she was getting help from the others in her brain with her.
“This isn't fair, I should've beat you by now! I'm playing about half a dozen people at once, of course; I'd call that cheating, but you're only just barely holding your own. I guess that's kinda flattering, if annoying,” Ron moaned.
Adira smiled. With nobody else in the Griffindor common room but her and her friends, she was in her full girl form, and wearing a dress.
For all Ron's nonchalance, though, Adira had noticed over the past few days that Ron was acting strangely around her, and feeling a strange mix of emotions that confused her, meaning she was having to try to guess from his actions what they meant. So far, she'd noted that he kept getting confused about her name and pronouns, still. He didn't sit as close anymore, and would scoot away when she sat too close to him. Not by a lot, but it didn't have to be. He was uncomfortable with the trans thing, had to be; he'd never acted like that before, with any of them.
Hermione got up then to use the loo. Ron's eyes followed her, and when he saw her disappear, he looked at Adira with an odd look on his face, then looked away.
“So, er... I just wondered... erm... I dunno... I...”
Something about the feelings coming from him made something click in her mind.
“You want to talk about the trans thing, right?”
“The what now?”
“Just... ask what you want, I'll answer. Don't worry about being rude, mate.”
“Ah, okay... well, er... so... do you still have, you know...? Or not?”
She sighed slightly.
“No. I worked out how to change fully. I'm 100% a girl, biologically, according to Madam Pomfrey.”
“Oh, okay,” he said, his face and ears turning red. “And, er... do you fancy guys now?”
“Actually, I fancy guys and girls. Have for quite some time, too. It's called being bisexual.”
“Oh.”
“But not you. Not that... just... you're my best friend. I think of you like the brother I never had. And like Hermione as the sister I never had.”
“Ah,” he said, visibly relieved. “Not that I'd mind if you did fancy me, no matter the... well, just, it would've been awkward, I guess, cuz I think of you pretty much the same way. Not like a brother, because I've got too many of those as it is, but kinda like that. Or, well, a sister, I guess.”
Ron's face screwed up in thought just then.
“Something else on your mind?”
“Yeah. You're... are you gonna tell everyone else? And when? And do I use your old name and pronouns around people who don't know yet?”
“Excellent question. I was thinking of telling the twins, then Luna, then maybe Ginny. Then from there, I don't know. I do want to come out to the whole school eventually, and sooner rather than later. But it's daunting to think about it.”
“Hmm... Ginny, eh? Mate, I don't think she's gonna take this news very well. She fancies you, you know.”
“So I've heard.”
“But--”
“Yeah, I know, your other question. Yeah, still use my old name and pronouns around everyone who doesn't know. I know that's kinda confusing, but it's important.”
Ron nodded.
“Thought so. Good to have it confirmed.”
~
Christmas arrived, and Adira woke to find a pile of presents at the foot of her bed. No sooner had she woken up, but there was a knock on the door.
“Har—Adira? It's me, Ron.”
“Just a few moments, I only just now woke up.”
She got up, pulled off her nightgown, transformed into her Harry form, and put on school robes.
“Come in.”
Ron came in bearing his own gifts.
“Wanted to open mine with you. It's, I dunno, like opening them around family.”
Adira smiled.
“Oh, you're... are you?” Ron asked, squinting.
“Yeah, I'm 'Harry' today. Mainly because of the Christmas dinner. Didn't want to transform later, thought I'd get it over with.”
“Makes sense.”
The two of them opened their presents. Adira/Harry had gotten the usual Weasley jumper, food, and a letter:
Dear Alastair and company,
I do understand your anger, dearie, but not knowing any of you as well as you or your friends do, going only on what I've heard of you from my children and other sources, hopefully you'll understand I got the impression that you can be rather impulsive and possibly reckless. Perhaps that's only when there are lives at risk, I don't know, but even then, knowing what Black has done, you might consider dealing with him to be in the best interest of saving lives. I'm sorry if these assumptions were wrong. I do hope you'll understand I was only looking to keep you safe. Especially since, as I understand it, living with those horrible Muggles gave you some sort of magical protection that is gone now.
I am glad to hear you're taking the sensible path and staying safe. So is Arthur. But enough of this serious business for now. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas. Hopefully that madman will be brought to justice soon, so you can come 'round for Easter holidays.
Merry Christmas!
With love from Molly Weasley
A tension they hadn't been aware of holding in released then, and Adira smiled. Then she remembered that she'd have to tell Mrs. Weasley about being transgender, too. But she put that out of her mind for then. She'd write Mrs. Weasley a letter soon. Until then, she was determined to enjoy Christmas.
She turned back to opening her presents, which were mostly the usual sort of stuff. But then she found a long package that got even Ron's attention. She was fairly sure she had some idea what it was, and thought at first that it was from McGonagall, since they'd gotten their first broom from her in first year. But there was no note on it at all. And when she unrolled it, the broom that came out of it was...
“A FIREBOLT! Holy COW!” Ron shouted.
“Don't touch it!” Adira said, leaping back from it.
“Why not?”
“There's no name on it. And I don't know anyone who would or could spend this much on me.”
“So?”
“So, there's a mad lunatic after my blood. Well, another mad lunatic after my blood, and this one has a body.”
“You mean Black? But he's an escaped fugitive! He can't just walk into either Gringotts or Quality Quidditch Supplies when he's on the lam! And anyway, he hasn't got a wand!”
“There are ways. He could use Polyjuice Potion. It might be difficult to get ahold of the ingredients, but he could pick a few pockets to get enough cash to buy what he needs for that. Knockturn Alley merchants probably won't ask questions. Then it would be a cinch going into Gringott's and anywhere else he needs to get a wand, or this.”
“Yeah, but the moment he tried to use his vault key, they'd know who it was! And far as I know, there aren't any free members of house Black who he could impersonate to get it.”
“I dunno. I never got the impression the goblins cared much about human affairs.”
“But if they saw him, and recognized him, but didn't tell anyone, they'd be in trouble with the law! And they'd want to avoid that. They wouldn't like Azkaban any better than wizards would.”
“Maybe. But magic can do a whole lot. If nothing else, he could steal a wand and use it to force someone to give him this broom, and then he could hex it.”
Ron looked thoughtful at this. “Huh. Hadn't thought of that. Well, you want me to go get McGonagall for you, then?”
“I think you should.”
Ron stood up, abandoning his own presents for now, and walked to the door.
Adira waited, regarding the fancy broom with suspicion. She hadn't wanted to ask the price of the thing when she'd seen it in the store, but she figured it probably cost more than all the brooms she'd got for the school combined, as it was a high-end racing broom.
Hermione came in just then.
“H—Adira, where's Ron going? He wouldn't say more than that he was in a hurry. Wait, what's that?” She pointed at the broom.
“That is the reason Ron's gone to fetch McGonagall. There was no note. It could've come from Sirius Black. It's probably hexed.”
Hermione nodded with approval at Adira's sensibility.
“Good idea. Can't be too careful.”
A few minutes later, McGonagall came in and examined the offending broom, then confiscated it to have it checked for hexes.
“If it is indeed from Black, Potter, then the joke will be on him. Between myself, Professor Flitwick, and Professor Dumbledore, we can remove any hex that may be on it without damaging the flying charm and the other charms that came with the broom.”
Adira smiled at this. It would indeed be funny if that happened, but she didn't really need a new broom, since there were extra 2001's belonging to the school that Iliana could use. However, it would be nice to have her own broom again. But if worst came to worst, she could always buy herself a new one.
Later in the day was Christmas dinner. There were only a few other students there, two nervous first-years and a Slytherin fifth year. Lupin wasn't there, which didn't surprise the Trio, it being that time of the month for the werewolf.
Nothing very interesting happened at the meal, aside from Trelawney making more dire predictions about the Potters dying. Al didn't even bother to comment this time, especially since McGonagall did it for him. But aside from that, and Snape getting a stuffed vulture hat from one of his wizard crackers – something that did not amuse them any more than it did Snape – nothing else really happened.
Which is pretty much how the rest of the holidays went, the Trio hanging around together and enjoying a nice Christmas. The only oddity happened while Adira was struggling to get to sleep one night; she had the Marauder's Map out, and saw the name Peter Pettigrew on it, in Ron's room. Carefully, she tiptoed into Ron's dorm room and looked around. But if Pettigrew had come back as a ghost, he wasn't in the room. Adira made a mental note to ask the Twins about it when they came back.
~
“Ah yes, Peter Pettigrew,” Fred said when Harry mentioned it to them in a spare classroom the day of their return. “The invisible man who sleeps with our brothers.”
“Pardon?” Harry asked. (He hadn't yet come out to them as Adira.)
“Oh yeah,” said George. “We noticed it our first night with the Map, that Peter Pettigrew, because he was sleeping in the same bed as Percy. But we looked, and he was alone.”
“I felt around the bed, but nobody invisible was there either.”
“Then some years later, he started sleeping with Ron. Weird that, but again, no sign of anyone else in the bed. Probably just a glitch in the map.”
But the collective didn't think so. Harry sat there, thinking.
“I don't know, something about that feels familiar somehow. Like it should mean something. Tell me, does everyone stay in the same dorm room for their whole Hogwarts career?”
“Mostly, yeah. There's the occasional exception, as you know, though.”
“So this Peter fellow on the map switched rooms?”
“Yeah, come to that, he did. And now you mention it, we've seen him other places on the Map, too.”
“Where? Is there any pattern to it?”
“Hmm... now you mention it, he followed Percy around a lot for a while. Wasn't always with Percy, sometimes stayed in his room or wandered off.”
“Then when it switched to Ron, it did the same thing, mostly. You know, hanging around Ron a lot.”
They looked at the Map. Ron and Peter Pettigrew were labeled as being in the Great Hall. There was a tiny ink Ron if you looked hard enough, but just a name for Pettigrew.
“Isn't Peter Pettigrew the wizard bloke who snuffed it when Black blew up that street?” Fred asked.
“Yeah. That's why I found his name being there to be odd.”
“Well like I say, could be a ghost.”
“But if it was a ghost, even an invisible one, wouldn't people – like Percy and Ron – feel a cold spot? They'd know if there was a ghost in their bed, they'd be able to feel it.”
Fred and George looked at one another, dismayed and impressed; apparently, the thought had never occurred to them before.
“Blimey, you're right.”
“Still, it doesn't matter. Just a glitch, we reckon.”
Just then, something clicked in Harry's mind.
“Wait a minute... how long ago did Percy get Scabbers?”
“Oh, what was it, 12 years ago, Fred?”
“Right.”
“Where did your parents buy him?”
“Didn't. He just turned up in our garden one day. Percy took a fancy to him and kept him, then outgrew him and gave him to Ron.”
“A random, literal garden-variety rat just turned up on your property and your mum let Percy keep him?”
They looked at one another again, a sudden darkness clouding their mood.
“You know, that does sound weird when you put it that way,” said Fred.
“Yeah. But he must be magical, or he wouldn't still be alive after all this time.”
“Has he ever showed any sign of powers?”
“Not to my knowledge. Doesn't do tricks or anything. Just eats and sleeps all day. Always has.”
“Right. And, er... isn't Scabbers missing a toe on one of his forepaws?”
“So?”
“All they found of Pettigrew was a finger,” Harry said.
Harry could feel their mood turn to a cold iron lump in their abdomens.
“Blimey, you don't think he's alive? That this bloke,” Fred said.
“--faked his own death? That he's,” George said.
“An animagus?” the twins said in stereo.
“That's what I'm starting to think. I mean yeah, I can see where you'd think it was a glitch, but the timing is just too weird. He just shows up out of the blue 12 years ago, then... hmm... when did the name move from Percy to Ron?”
“Bloody hell! It was around the time Scabbers went from Percy to Ron. It happened over the summer, of course. But end of one year, Pettigrew was hanging around Percy. Beginning of the next school year, it had switched to Ron.”
“That settles it. Pettigrew is alive. Faked his own death, too, by the look of it. And he's an animagus.”
“Well, he must be unregistered, then, because the whole thing was weird enough. All they found was a finger, and they didn't go looking for more? Granted, the rest might've gone down the sewer during the explosion, but still odd. If he was registered as an animagus, they would've known something was fishy. At least I hope the Ministry would have enough sense to find that fishy.”
“Why would he fake his own death?”
“Well, if Black was raring for his blood, why not?”
“But there's no way he could've timed things perfectly to coincide with Black's curse, he'd have to have superhuman reflexes or something.”
“Wait, do you reckon that means he was the one that killed all those Muggles?”
“Absurd! Black was laughing maniacally after that! He was still laughing when they caught him.”
“Maybe the laughter was hysterical, rather than maniacal? If I'd been trying to kill someone, and they beat me to it, or seemed to, then I might go a little unhinged myself,” said Harry.
“Why would Black be going after Pettigrew anyway? I mean, even a Death Eater has to have some kind of reason for something like that.” George said. “And that was one part of the story that never made sense to me.”
“The Minister said, when I accidentally overheard him talking about it at Hogsmeade, he said Pettigrew had said he was going to tell on Black about betraying my parents. But it sounded like Black was already there when he said that? So that doesn't make a lot of sense. Unless Black predicted that.”
Harry then spent some time filling the twins in on what he'd overheard.
“So why hide out all this time as a rat?” Fred asked when Harry was done. “Black was in Azkaban! Even if he hadn't killed Pettigrew, he still killed a bunch of Muggles, too. And seriously breached the Statute of Secrecy to boot. So why not come forward? Especially after the witnesses told the Ministry that Black had been the secret-keeper. It doesn't make any sense! He'd be lauded as a hero for exposing the truth!”
“I still can't believe he timed his transformation so perfectly. And how'd he lose the finger? He had to have been the one who blasted the street apart, not Black. And cut his finger off so there'd be something for them to find. Still odd that they stopped looking for the rest of him.”
“That answers one question and raises more. Like, why? Why do that? Especially if Black was gonna do it himself anyway?”
“What do we know about the Fideleus Charm?”
“Us? We know what you know, mate.” George said.
“But,” said Fred, “and this is just a wild stab in the dark, but, well... it sounds like a very advanced charm. Probably not many who could perform it, or everyone would've been using it back then. And you have to really trust the secret-keeper. Which might not be the same person who cast the charm. I don't know how it works, of course, but I know if I were designing something like that, I'd want to be able to set the secret-keeper without anyone but me knowing who it is.”
“Yeah,” said George. “So the most anyone else would know is who they'd been planning to use, not who they actually went with. I mean, the only ones who knew would be the secret-keeper and the people being hidden, ideally. Anyone else would only know whatever the others told them.”
“I imagine the Ministry would've used veritaserum – truth potion – on Black when they brought him in.”
“Yeah, but back then things were a right mess. Dad said a lot of people never even got trials.”
“Wait,” said Harry. “Some people never even got a trial?”
“According to Dad, yeah. And he would know; he works at the Ministry. And he was working there when all this went down.”
“If they can overlook a trial, why couldn't they also overlook using veritaserum? Big spectacle like that, Black's laughter, and looks like they assumed Pettigrew's body was obliterated... seems pretty open and shut, especially if you're still besieged by the tail end of a war. What if Black wasn't given a trial or truth potion? What if they just chucked him in prison and forgot about him?”
“Could happen,” Fred said. “It was war. And You-Know-Who disappearing didn't help much at first. Most people didn't trust he was dead, since there was no body. Death Eaters – his followers – were running around still causing chaos before things finally started to settle down. It's possible.”
“Right travesty of justice if so, but possible,” agreed George.
There was silence for several minutes. Then...
“He wasn't the secret-keeper,” Harry said.
“What's that?”
“You said it yourself, the only people who would know for sure who the secret-keeper was would be the casters – like my parents – and the secret-keeper. But someone who was being considered for the position might be able to guess. What if Pettigrew was the real secret-keeper, and Black was a decoy? It would explain Black's actions, why Pettigrew faked his death, why he's been in hiding. After all, someone might finally realize they never questioned Black, and find out the truth from him.”
“Right. And you said the teachers, in that conversation you overheard, said Black and your dad were very talented, and that Peter wasn't. So a decoy would make sense.” George began.
“Yeah,” said Fred. “They knew there was a spy. What if they wanted You-Know-Who to think Black was the secret-keeper, but really it was this weak, talentless Pettigrew?”
“That would mean Pettigrew was the secret-keeper,” Harry said. “Which means Black didn't betray my parents, he did!”
“And he might've been the spy, too, we reckon.”
He stared at the name on the Map, with anger in his eyes. But this was a cold, calculating anger.
“We have to catch him. And, I dunno, force him back to human shape somehow. We need proof. After all, even I'm not sure we're not just stabbing wildly in the dark.”
“We agree, Harry, but... how?”
“Hmm... well, Lupin knew my parents too. And Black, and Pettigrew. He told me so himself.”
“But he'll think this all mad! He won't believe a word of it!”
“We could show him the Map?”
“Oh yeah, suspect magical artifact like this, a perfect map of Hogwarts at a time when a crazed lunatic is supposed to be out for Harry's blood, that'll go over swell,” Fred said sarcastically.
Something on the map caught Harry's eye. He ran his fingers over the word.
“Wormtail,” he whispered.
Could it be? Harry asked the others in his head with him.
No, can't be. Ridiculous. A stretch and a half.
But he's a rat. Rat tails look like worms.
#And 'Moony.' What better nickname for a werewolf? Makes sense if you know, isn't suspicious if you're ignorant.#
Four friends, four Marauders? What about Padfoot and Prongs?
Oh don't be absurd. This is a huge reach.
What better way to find out all this stuff about Hogwarts than to be an animal? Pettigrew could've explored the whole school as a rat, with nobody the wiser.
There was a pregnant pause from Al.
If Pettigrew was so talentless, how'd he become an animagus? And in school, no less?
He would've had to have help. Black, our father, both described as 'very talented.' They helped him.
Al reeled in shock, getting the idea.
Shit. And why help someone else become an animagus and not become one yourself? And those nicknames... Prongs... some kind of antlered animal? Padfoot... Maybe a mountain lion?
“The Marauders,” Harry said aloud to the twins. “Wormtail is Pettigrew. Moony is Lupin. Padfoot and Prongs are probably either Black or my dad.”
“What? How'd you come to that conclusion, Harry?”
“Yeah, seems a bit mad to me.”
But this lit a fire under Harry. He looked for Lupin. The man was in his office.
“Only one way to find out,” Harry said, picking up the Map, blanking it, and beginning to leave.
“Woah, wait a moment, Harry! Where you going?”
“Yeah, this is lunacy!”
But he ignored them, and walked as fast as he could without running outright; he didn't want to risk Filch's ire, not now.
Harry knocked on Lupin's door, and waited. When the door opened, Lupin looked drawn and haggard.
“Harry. I'm sorry, but I'm still recovering. Can you come back later?”
Harry pushed past him, knocking him back a little. The twins barged in behind him.
“Sorry, Professor,” he said, shutting the door and casting privacy spells. “But this is important.”
“No, Harry, I'm sorry but--”
“Moony,” Harry said, shutting the man up at once. It wasn't easy for him to go any paler, but he did.
“W-what? What did you call me?”
“I called you Moony. You are Moony, right. And Wormtail was Peter Pettigrew.”
“H-how do you know those names?”
“You, Pettigrew, Black, and my dad were the Marauders. Right?”
“How do you know that?”
The twins looked from Lupin to each other with a mixture of surprise and delight on their faces.
“Mssrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs?” they exclaimed with glee.
Lupin's own face turned solemn.
“So you found the Marauder's Map, then? But how did you know I'm Moony?”
Harry, with occasional help from the twins, explained what they'd been discussing, and showed Lupin where Pettigrew was on the map. When he saw the name there, he looked like he'd seen a-- well, a ghost.
“You're right. The Map never lies, it can't. It always knows who is who. Even if they're disguised, or hidden. This is no glitch. So Peter faked his own death, did he? And Sirius was innocent all along? Hmm... but how to prove it?”
“Good luck on that! Ickle Ronniekins never lets go of that rat if he can help it. Especially these days, keeping him away from that mad cat.”
“Mad cat?” asked Lupin.
“Crookshanks. Hermione got him from the Magical Menagerie.”
“So he's a magical cat?”
“I guess so,” Harry said.
“Which means he must be part kneazle. Ordinary cats are just, well, ordinary. But kneazles are magical. They're like living sneakoscopes, among other things, but they're very dangerous, which is why they're mixed with cats; makes them more friendly and easier to manage. If this Crookshanks is part kneazle, which he must be to be sold as a magical cat, then he's been hunting Scabbers because he knows the rat isn't really a rat.”
“So that's what I kept sensing from him! I couldn't make heads or tails of it,” Harry said, slapping himself on the forehead. “It also explains why I could sense Scabbers' emotions, since he's not really a rat. And... oh my god! The sneakoscope kept going off around Scabbers!”
“This is fascinating and all, but how're we going to capture Ronnie's pet and prove Harry's godfather is innocent?”
OOH! OOH! ME! PICK ME! I WANNA DO IT! Zoey shouted in his brain, sending him an image of her jumping up and down in excitement.
“Zoey just volunteered. But I don't know if she has a plan or not, yet.”
Lupin looked at them, interested; he hadn't met Zoey yet.
Never fear!
With no warning or glow, Harry was replaced by Zoey, who appeared with a very sturdy looking cage in her hand.
“Ron's not in the Great Hall anymore,” said George, consulting the Map. “He's almost all the way to the Common Room.”
“I'll be right back,” the little raven-haired girl with heterochromatic eyes said just before skipping off out the door. But she popped in again quickly first, on a second thought.
“What's the password to Dumbledore's office?”
“I believe it's Custard Cremes. Why?”
“Meet me there, okay?”
“Okay, we will.”
“Good,” she said sweetly, then skipped off again.
Once Zoey got in the Common Room, she looked around cautiously. Ron was at a table, getting out an Exploding Snap deck. She looked very carefully, and saw a slightly wriggling bulge in one of his pockets. Stifling a giggle, she took out her wand and Disillusioned herself, and put her shoes in the cage before padding silently past Ron, around the room, looking for Crookshanks. But he wasn't down there, so she checked the boys dorms first, in case he was lurking there. Then she went up to the girl's dorms. In one of the rooms she found him. He immediately turned to face her and began to growl a little, before stopping to turn his head in confusion.
“Hi there, Crookshanks. Don't think we've met yet, I'm Zoey Potter. You're trying to catch and expose a fake rat, right?”
They sensed a faint feeling of relief that they interpreted as a 'yes.'
“So am I. He's a bad wizard. I have a cage to keep him in, but I need your help.”
If cats could smile, Crookshanks would have, then.
~
A few minutes later, Crookshanks casually walked down the steps into the Common Room as though just out for a jaunt. Then he went over towards the fire, but approached it in such a way that he could reasonably be expected to have seen the rat bulging in Ron's pocket without raising any suspicion. Then his attention switched to the rat, and he started to approach Ron.
Ron looked up warily at Crookshanks, and stood up. He wasn't going to wait around for that stupid cat to attack him, and went upstairs to the dorms to try to hide Scabbers, keeping an eye on the cat the whole time, until he couldn't see it. Which meant he didn't see Crookshanks smugly sit down and lick his forearms in triumph.
Instead of going to his own dorm, though, he went to Harry's, which meant Zoey had to follow him out, glaring invisibly at him all the way for not doing as she'd expected him to. When he knocked on the door and got no response, he tried the handle; it was unlocked, so he went in. He felt guilty about this, but he figured his friend wouldn't mind, given the circumstances.
This, of course, gave Zoey the chance to put her shoes on the table by the bed, then undo the Disillusionment Charm and pretend to just be getting in. The cage, however, was still Disillusioned.
“Ronnie!” she exclaimed.
He jumped, then turned like a bolt.
“Oh, it's just you. Hi Zoey.”
“Whatcha doin in our room without permission?”
“Er, sorry about that, but that mad cat is after Scabbers again, and I need to keep him safe.”
“Oh. Hmm... I think I can help with that.”
“You can?”
“Sure!”
And with a fake glow, she used her magic to make the cage visible again.
“Well that might help some,” he admitted, “but it's also a little dangerous. What if it falls down?”
“Oh I thought of that. Once it's put down, Crookshanks won't be able to knock it over or budge it at all. And he can't get in. Also, if Crookshanks touches the bars, they'll zap him. Harmless, but painful. Won't zap Scabbers, though.”
Ron grinned. “Great. Open the door.”
She did, and he put Scabbers in; the rat was, for once, not struggling. Then she closed the door, locked it very carefully with her wand, smiled at Ron, and Stupefied him. He fell to the floor with a thud, and she left a note in his hand saying, “Come to Dumbledore's office, I'll be there. Password is 'Custard Cremes.' Love from Zoey. XOXOXO”
Then she grabbed the cage, and made her way to Dumbledore's office.
~
“Custard Cremes,” Lupin said to the gargoyle once Zoey appeared at their side with Scabbers.
As they went up the moving stairs, Lupin looked very carefully at the rat.
“Yes, that's him for sure. I just can't figure out how Padfoot knew, though.”
“If you mean who I think you mean, Professor,” Zoey said, “He got given the Daily Prophet that had a picture of Scabbers on Ron's shoulder, from the announcement of the Weasleys' trip to Egypt. I think that's how he knew.”
“Ah, that explains it. But raises other questions that I shall have to take up with Padfoot.”
“Come in,” Dumbledore said when they knocked.
He looked curiously at his newest teacher, the Weasley twins, and young Zoey Potter carrying a cage with a rat in it. He also perceived a very nervous air from Professor Lupin.
“What is going on, Remus?”
“Ah, yes. Well, that's all rather complicated, and it will be so much easier to show you, Sir. At least, to get the ball rolling, as it were.”
As he lifted his wand, Zoey stopped him. “We're still waiting for Ron. He needs to see this, too.”
The words were barely out of her mouth when there was another knock at the door.
“Come in, Mr. Weasley.”
Sure enough, Ron came in, looking angry and confused. Then he turned to Zoey and pointed at her.
“Professor Dumbledore, sir! That little cretin stole Scabbers and Stupefied me!”
“Did she? Well I think we should hear what she has to say for herself, then, don't you?”
“Yeah, exactly. Sir,” he added at the last moment.
“Just a moment,” she said, using her wand to enlarge the cage. She'd made sure to do it so a rat still couldn't escape.
“Impressive transfiguration, Miss Potter. Though unusual, for such a small animal.”
“Thank you. Now, Professor Lupin, your turn.”
“Gladly.”
Lupin pointed his wand at Scabbers. Before Ron could protest, a flash of blue-white light hit the rat. Then they watched as the rat floated up and warped and twisted weirdly until he became an adult man.
Everyone, even those who'd known what to expect, stared in disbelief at this rat-faced man who looked like a fat man who had lost a lot of weight very quickly. Even as a human, his behavior was still rat-like.
“The bloody HELL! You turned my rat into a man! Change him back!”
“Mr. Weasley,” Dumbledore said, “I am afraid I must inform you that your pet is not, in fact a rat. He is an animagus, and has been all along. An animagus named Peter Pettigrew.”
“Peter...? But he's dead!”
“I taught Peter in school, Mr. Weasley, and knew him after school. I assure you, Peter Pettigrew is quite alive and kneeling in a cage in front of us.”
Dumbledore stepped away for a moment to the fireplace, and Floo-called someone. When he was done, Professor Snape stepped out of the fireplace and blinked in astonishment at Pettigrew.
“Pettigrew? Alive? But how?”
“You have the veritaserum, Severus?”
“Yes, headmaster. Shall I administer it?”
“Please do.”
Pettigrew tried to avoid Snape, but there wasn't much room in the cage, and Snape used his wand to force the man to open his mouth and take two drops of the potion. Then he relaxed in the cage, looking a little dreamy, and Dumbledore began to question him.
When he was done, he used the Floo to summon Fudge. The Minister, too, was shocked. Naturally, there was more questioning.
“Quite distressing, Dumbledore, quite distressing indeed,” said Fudge when it was over, and Aurors were taking Pettigrew away to Azkaban to await trial.
“I think it seems clear, now, that Sirius Black is innocent, and thus the dementors shall have to be recalled to Azkaban?” Dumbledore said calmly.
“Oh yes, quite right. And I shall have to grant Black a full pardon, once all the necessary work has been done, of course. But in a week or two he should be pardoned, and I shall be recalling the dementors this very night, and calling off the search for Black.”
“Good. I am sure all of my students will appreciate the change in atmosphere when the dementors are gone.”
When the people from the ministry were gone at last, Dumbledore turned to Zoey and the others. Ron was sitting on the ground, still looking stunned.
“Don't worry, Ronniekins,” said George. “We'll get you another pet, once we scrounge up some money.”
“Yeah, it's partly our fault he's gone, after all; Harry and us were talking, and one thing led to another, you know...”
“...and that's how we ended up like this, little bro. Sorry.”
Ron made a non-committal noise.
“If everyone but Miss Potter would please exit the room for now...?” Dumbledore said. They nodded, and left.
When everyone was gone, Dumbledore said, “Well, Miss Potter, it seems your godfather will be pardoned. He will likely need to spend the rest of the school year in St. Mungo's to recover physically from his ordeal in Azkaban and being on the run, but I daresay you might very well have a proper guardian this summer, if all goes well.”
“Cool!” Zoey exclaimed. “That's brilliant!”
“Quite. And now, little Miss, off to your room again. It is almost curfew.”
End note: So there we are, what a game changer! I'm finally getting away from my bad habit of following the canon! WOOT! More to come in a week or two!
“The Many Faces of Adira Potter: Chapter 18”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Eighteen: Pardons, Patronuses, and Coming Out
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for any bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there. It's been frustrating me, too, but some things are just too perfect already to change.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Harry, and Zoey, and now #Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and now between hashtags/pound signs because some people's computers don't do the B.I.U.).#
Note 4: I can't respond to guest reviews (on FanFiction.net), so if you're going to review, please do it logged in so I can reply. Anyway, I'm going to try to respond to a guest question here. The question was “does your entire collective enjoy writing, or does just one of your collective do the fanfic, mostly?” My answer:
In our collective, it's a bit hard to answer that question. We all co-front, and it's not always clear who is doing or thinking what. But it seems to be a group effort, at least among the members who have inspired members of the Potter collective (Alex, Molly, and Pi), also Tempest and Fayanora Ahnabahn.
Note 5: Sorry this took so long. Among other things, I wrote the same scene twice and had to untangle that mess.
~X~
“SIRIUS BLACK PARDONED; TRUE CULPRIT IN AZKABAN FOR LIFE,” read the headline, when it came. All the details were out, now. Peter Pettigrew was in prison for life, the Potters' godfather was pardoned, and now the whole world would know how and why. Or at least, all of the UK would know.
The day after the newspaper reported this, Sirius Black showed up at the front door of Hogwarts looking very much the worse for wear, and was immediately taken to the Hospital Wing. Harry was pulled out of class to come meet him before his transfer to St. Mungo's.
“There you are, Potter,” Madam Pomfrey said when he came in. “He's right this way. He's in a private ward so people wouldn't gawp at him. I'll let you two get acquainted; I'll be in my office if you need me.”
“Thank you, Madam Pomfrey.”
When the matron left, Sirius beamed at Harry.
“Harry. We meet again.”
“Yeah, we do. Only I don't remember the first time.”
“Makes sense. Most infant memories don't last.”
“Except really traumatic ones?”
“I guess so. Not sure. Why? You don't... remember it, do you?”
“Sorry to be such a bummer. But yeah. And when I thought it was you, well... I didn't take it so well.”
“But you figured it out. You kept an open mind, and figured it out.”
“I saw Pettigrew's name on the Map.”
“Oh yeah, Moony told me you found that old thing. Or rather, the Weasley Twins found it and gave it to you. Excellent, that. It was a wrench, losing it to Filch all those years ago.”
Harry walked up to hold Sirius's hand, since Alastair had already done his soul-reading thing and confirmed what they'd already suspected to be true. Sirius teared up as he looked at Harry's hand in his.
“Well, you've had quite a life, from what I hear,” Sirius said. “You're a whole bunch of different people, from the sound of it. What's that like?”
“Noisy, at times. But I'm rarely ever lonely. And it's really useful with classes, a whole team of people on my side to help me learn things, each with their own specialties.”
Sirius gave a loud bark of laughter, and hugged Harry's head.
“Good to see you have a sense of humor, still, after what I hear those Dursleys did to you. I wish I could've been there to save you from that, Harry.”
Harry shrugged. “Yeah, well, you were in prison. You couldn't have done anything.”
“Yeah. Doesn't mean it doesn't still bother me, though. But anyway, once I get mended up, I can get into my Gringott's account and get us a flat somewhere, probably London, for convenience. I have a house I inherited from my parents, but I detest the place, and it'll be full of all kinds of dark creatures and worse, since the property was mis-managed after my parents died. So how do you feel about that, living with me?”
“Yes! I want that very much. Hogwarts is very boring when nobody else is around.”
Sirius barked again with laughter.
“Too true, that. That is, if you don't know how to make your own fun.”
“By the way, how'd you escape prison? I wasn't around to hear that part.”
“Ah, well, I'm an animagus. Still unregistered, I'll have to register at some point now. My animagus form is a large black dog. I knew I was innocent, which wasn't a happy thought, so the dementors couldn't take it from me; that kept me sane enough that I could change into a dog sometimes. One night, the minister stopped by and let me have his copy of the Prophet. It was the one with you and the Weasleys in Egypt. When I saw Peter was at Hogwarts, sitting on Ron's shoulder, I turned into a dog to escape. The dementors were confused by that.”
“Cool. Zoey figured that's how you knew about Pettigrew. Hey, maybe you can teach me how to be an animagus.”
“Sure thing, Harry. Given your transformation ability, you should have a knack for it. Not sure how having other people in your head with you will affect the process; for all I know they might each have their own form. But we'll have to do it through proper channels, with Ministry help. Us three doing it on our own was stupidly dangerous, we shouldn't have done it. So many things could have gone horribly wrong.”
“Okay, safety first. I agree. Of course, I don't even know if I could do it.”
“What with your constant friends?”
Harry laughed.
“Odd way of phrasing it, but yeah.”
“Well I'll be here for you either way.”
“Thanks.”
“Oh, by the way, before I forget, I have something to tell you. I hear you got a Firebolt for Christmas.”
“Yeah, I did. Of course, it's being checked over for...” he paused, looking up at Sirius. “You didn't!”
Sirius barked with laughter several times before speaking.
“Yes, yes, that was me. Thirteen years of birthday presents in one go I had to make up for.”
“Well, I can tell McGonagall to stop checking it for jinxes, now.”
“That's right, Harry. You sure can.”
“Though how you did it when you were on the run...”
“First, the goblins don't give a tinker's cuss about wizard laws; I could've walked right in and they wouldn't have minded. But the other witches and wizards, well... let's just say I went in as a dog with a note and the key to the vault, and they didn't ask any questions. I did the same thing to buy the Firebolt. The shop owner looked like he wanted to say something, but all that gold shut him up right quick.”
Harry grinned. Then there was a silence that drew out as he got thoughtful.
“Um... Sirius?”
“What is it, kiddo?”
“There's something else as well. I... I figured something out about myself recently. I've only told a few people – Ron, Hermione, Healer Young, Madam Pomfrey, and Professor McGonagall – but it's important, and eventually everyone will need to know, but I'm gonna tell you now, if I can get it out...”
“What is it?” Sirius asked, seriously.
“Well, I... I don't want to be called Harry anymore. I have a new name for myself.”
“Oh?”
“Nothing against the name, it just doesn't really feel right for me. Never did, come to that. But it's more than just the name. It's what the name represents. And I don't mean the unwanted fame or the baleful destiny stuff, either. I mean... well... I'd rather be called Adira. Adira Lily Jamie Potter.”
“Wait, I thought Harry was the one who looked like James. I didn't realize--”
“That's right. Harry is the name of the one who looks like James. With Lily's eyes.”
Sirius was looking very confused for a moment. Then it clicked.
“Oh. OH.”
Adira sighed. “You're the second person to respond that way.”
“Sorry, just... so, er... in your heart of hearts, you're a girl?”
“Yes. And despite my appearance, I, well... I made some modifications down below, if you get my drift.”
“Ah, I see.”
Harry wrung his hands.
“You still like me, don't you?”
“Yes, Har—er... do I call you Adira? You're only out to a few people so far, you said.”
“I prefer Adira. But yeah, in public it's still Harry. For now.”
“Right you are. Adira, then. Anyway, Adira, of course I still love you. You're my—well, my god-daughter. And I'm still your loveable old dogfather!”
Adira/Harry laughed at the joke.
“I'm not going to judge you badly for something like that, Adira. I would've accepted you even if you'd been a Slytherin! Besides, I dated a trans woman for a few weeks after I graduated Hogwarts. Lovely Muggle woman. But she was looking for someone a little more serious than me, if you'll pardon the pun.”
Adira laughed again.
“So, what are you being treated for, anyway? I mean, you look like crap warmed over, but what specifically?”
“Oh, nutrient potions, some things to help my muscle tone, Dreamless Sleep for the nightmares, chocolate, because of all the dementors here at the school as well as Azkaban.”
“That must be nice, your first taste of chocolate in 12 years.”
Sirius's face grew rapturous. “Amen to that! It was heavenly! I'll have to stop by Honeydukes sometime when I'm better, get some more. Anyway, no comment on my offhanded mention of nightmares?”
Adira shrugged. “I'm all too familiar with nightmares myself. After what you've been through, it would have surprised me if you hadn't been getting nightmares. Are they gonna get you a mind healer at St. Mungo's?”
“Yeah, probably a whole team of them. The Ministry is very contrite about the whole thing. Still, I'd be very surprised if there wasn't an inquiry about the fact I never got a trial.”
He sounded understandably angry when he said this.
Adira opened her mouth to speak again, but Madam Pomfrey came in then.
“That's quite enough, Potter. Let your godfather rest, he needs it after what he's been through.”
“Oh now, Poppy, have a heart! I've only met one of the Potters so far. Haven't even met the others yet! And I really want to meet Alastair. Heard he's a handsome devil.”
“Yes, well, there will be plenty of time for that later. I daresay they will be able to visit you in St. Mungo's over the easter holidays. For now, you need more rest.”
Sirius sighed heavily. “Fine, fine. You win, Poppy. Anyway, Adira, you lot be good. Don't let my infirmity keep you from doing well in school!”
She laughed again. “I won't, Sirius. I'll do well in school. But I'll write you letters!”
“Ah, something to look forward to. More than flirting with the female Healers, anyway.”
But Madam Pomfrey shooed Adira out the door, a bottle of Dreamless Sleep in one hand, and a measuring cup in the other. So Adira left, reluctantly.
She didn't go any further, though. Instead, she traded places with Al, who was still glowing when he burst back into the ward.
“Mister Potter,” the matron said exasperatedly, “Do please not---”
“Well look at that pathetic old mutt just laying there like a wounded puppy!” Al said over the matron's words, breaking past her to hug Sirius.
When they pulled apart, the two just stared at each other, agog.
“Fine, fine. A few more minutes, then. But no more than that.”
“Hell's bells,” Sirius exclaimed. “I didn't believe it, but ye gods! You look exactly like I did at your age! Just how Adira looks like James.”
“Yeah. I hear Iliana's resemblance to Lily is equally uncanny. Those two I understand, but I'm still at a loss as to why I look like you. Unless... wizards don't have a way of making sure there's two fathers, do they?”
At this, Sirius turned bright red with embarrassment, and the matron actually burst out laughing; the first time they'd ever heard her do more than a quick chuckle of amusement. When she regained her wits, she shook her head.
“No, Mr. Potter, that hasn't happened yet, to my knowledge. Just the one father, I'm afraid. One father, one mother.”
“Well damn. Still a mystery, then. Unless there's something you want to tell us, Sirius?”
Sirius started coughing, having choked on his own spittle in his chagrin.
“Out, Mr. Potter, this time for good,” Madam Pomfrey said, still chuckling herself as she shooed him out of the ward. “Before you make him die from laughter!”
Well, there are worse ways to go, Al thought.
“Honestly,” he heard her say as he left, “one of them is bad enough, but two? You two will be the death of us all, I swear...”
~
The next day, when Adira was back, she sought out the twins during some free time, and once more dragged them into a spare classroom, with privacy spells put up behind them.
“Harry, mate, something else happening? What else could possibly be going on?”
“Yeah, what's up?”
“In all the excitement over Sirius, there's something important I forgot. Two things, actually. First, thanks for all your help with that stuff. I really appreciate it.”
“It was nothing, Harry, honestly!”
“Anything for a friend, right Fred?”
“Aye, George. I'd risk life and limb for Harry here, any day of the week.”
“Me too!”
“It's nothing like that, guys, really!”
Sensing their friend's serious mood, they sat down and waited.
“Right. So... this is getting difficult, this is the fifth time I've done this, and it doesn't really get any easier...”
She stood up and started pacing. They watched her, glancing occasionally at each other as they did, in silent communication.
“I... I don't like the name Harry. Never have, really. But more than that, well...” she breathed in, like preparing to rip off a bandage. “Like Sirius put it when I told him, in my heart of hearts I'm actually... actually a girl.”
The twins sighed, relieved.
“We thought you were gonna tell us something bad, like you were taken deathly ill, or murdered someone,” George said. Fred nodded.
“Wait, what? That's... I wasn't expecting a reaction like that.”
“Yeah, well, we've been talking about it lately, and we'd noticed some things about you that didn't seem easily explainable even with the others in your head with you.”
“We reckoned either there was someone new, or you were transgender.”
“How is it that so many people know that word? I only know it because I read it in a Muggle library book once.”
“I can't speak for the others, but Fred and I spend time in Muggle places when we can. Bookstores, magic trick shops, places to buy tools for lock-picking, so on. What with the Trace, it's useful to know how to do things the Muggle way. Wizards never check for that stuff.”
“Yeah, and we may have run into a book like the one you did, mate.”
“Well that's a relief. But something tells me my luck is doomed to run out soon.”
“Who're you planning to tell next, mate? Or have you decided yet?”
“Oh yeah, and do you have a new name for yourself yet?”
“Um... last question first: Adira Lily Jamie Potter. Other question: Well, probably Ginny.”
The twins both winced, hissing as if in pain.
“What? You don't think I should?”
“No, that's not it. You should definitely tell her before you tell anyone else, though. If she hears it from someone else, or you tell many more people before her, and... well... it won't be pretty no matter what, but the more people know before she does, the worse it'll be.”
“So yeah, Ginny next for sure, but be prepared for tears and recriminations.”
“And wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
“And bat-bogey hexes.”
“Or worse.”
Adira winced. “That bad, eh?”
“She has a serious crush on you, mate. With you being a girl... well... no telling how she'll take that, exactly, but seeing as she's only fancied boys so far, well... you see the problem.”
“Yeah, I do. I don't want to, but I do. Well, thanks for the warning.”
“No problem.”
Morosely, Adira left the room, lost in thought about Ginny.
~
On Thursday, Adira still hadn't plucked up the courage to tell Ginny. She was thinking about this off and on throughout the day, and was lost in thought when she quite literally ran into Professor Lupin.
“Oh, sorry sir! I was lost in thought.”
“I noticed. It's quite alright. Worrying about Sirius?”
“No, he's on the mend. I was thinking of... something else.”
“Well it's a good thing I found you. I know the Dementors have been recalled, but if you're still interested in lessons on how to fight them off, I'm still willing and able.”
“Really? Yeah, that sounds great. After all, who knows; I might run into them again someday.”
“Indeed. Tonight at 7?”
“Sounds good to me, Professor.”
“Well, I shall see you in my office at 7, then.”
She nodded, and they parted ways.
~
After that night's lesson, Adira was exhausted. Lupin had found a boggart, and of course when it saw her, it turned into a Dementor, with all the same effects. She'd also heard her parents again, both of them, which disturbed her. But she was determined to learn the charm.
Despite her exhaustion, when she saw Ginny reading in the common room, she went over and sat next to her. Ginny looked up and turned beet red.
“Hi Ginny. Listen, there's something I want to talk with you about, but I don't want other people overhearing. I have my own room, we can talk there.”
Ginny stammered and stuttered, but finally managed to say, “You're... inviting me up to your room?”
Now it was Adira's turn to turn red.
“Not like that, of course. Just... we won't be overheard there.”
Looking perplexed, Ginny closed her book. “Now?”
“If you're not busy.”
“Oh this? I'm almost done with it. I can put the rest off for now. I could use a break, anyway.”
Putting the book in her bag, Ginny dropped her things off in her dorm first, then followed Adira up to her room.
Adira closed the door behind them, cast privacy spells, then turned to the redhead, who was turning even redder in the head at being in her crush's bedroom.
“I've told several other people this – Hermione, Ron, Sirius, McGonagall, and the twins – and, well, it never gets any easier.” She breathed in deeply to fortify herself.
“What is it, Harry?”
“I... well... I've figured something out about myself lately, that was some time in the making. And though we don't know each other well, you have this crush on me, so I figured I should tell you before the whole school finds out...”
“Oh my... are you gay?”
“What? No, not gay. Bisexual, actually.” She paused a moment. “Which makes you only the second person I've told that to. But no, it's something else.”
“Okay,” Ginny said, looking like she couldn't think what else it could be.
“Well, it, uh... it turns out that Iliana and Zoey are not the only girls in the collective. I – the one you know as Harry, in case it wasn't obvious, I've figured out I'm actually a girl, too. I just... didn't realize it til recently.”
She looked up at Ginny, and could see understanding and denial in those eyes. The redhead crossed her arms as though hugging herself.
“I don't... what do you mean?”
“I mean that I'm a girl. And I don't want to be called Harry anymore. I want to be called Adira. My new full name is Adira Lily Jamie Potter.”
Ginny was going red again, but it wasn't embarrassment. It was anger. Adira focused on the emotions coming off the girl, and found the anger was going off in random direction, aimless, not focused on any one person. Some of it was even focused inward, back on Ginny.
“Are you... you're not joking, are you?”
“No. I wouldn't joke about something like this.”
The confusion in her emotions increased, though this was of a different flavor than her previous confusion.
“Um... Ginny?” Adira said, after almost an entire minute had passed in silence. “Ginny? Are you, well... are you okay?”
“Sorry, Harry. I mean, what was that name again?”
“Adira.”
“Um... yeah, Adira, sorry. I just... I don't know what to think about this. I don't know what to feel about it. I mean, I want to be supportive, I do, but... I have a crush on you. And now you're a girl? Does that make me gay? Do I even still have a crush on you now? Should I? I just...”
Her eyes watered, tears running down her cheeks.
“I feel...”
Her feelings switched to anger again.
“Wait, you told the twins before telling me?”
“Sorry. But yeah, I know them a lot better than I know you.”
She could sense Ginny's emotions shifting again. Ginny opened her mouth to speak, but closed it, then ran out of the room suddenly. Adira could sense her crying, even though she couldn't hear it.
Sitting down on her bed, she sighed.
“That could have gone better,” she told herself aloud.
“Yeah,” said Ron from the doorway, “but it could've gone worse, too.”
“Hi Ron. Been there long?”
“I was just coming down to check if you were here when Ginny ran past me. I made a clever guess about why she was upset. You told her?”
“Yeah, I told her.”
“Mind if I sit down?”
“Go ahead.”
They didn't speak for several minutes. But when the silence was finally broken, it was Adira who spoke.
“I can't do this for everyone in the castle. I'll do it for Luna and maybe Neville, but then, I don't know. I need everyone to know, but I don't want to make a spectacle of it.”
“Yeah... hmm... have you thought about just, you know, doing it? I mean, just not making a big deal of it? Hold on, I'm not saying this right.”
Ron thought a few moments before speaking again.
“Okay, I think I got it now. I mean like, just being Adira, making it obvious without overdoing it. When people ask, then you can just be like 'I am the person formerly known as Harry. Call me Adira,' and then let the grapevine do the rest.”
“Maybe. But the problem with the Hogwarts grapevine is it has a tendency to garble things. But I'll think about it. It's an option, anyway. Thanks, Ron.”
“You're welcome, mate. And I'll be here for you, come Hell or high water or Slytherin taunting.”
Adira laughed. “Thanks.”
~
The next day, after classes were over, Adira went over to the Ravenclaw table during dinner and spoke with Luna. This wasn't unusual, as they had been spending time at least twice a week all year hanging out with Luna, either at the Ravenclaw table or in the library after.
“Hello, Harry. How are you?”
“I'm good. And you?”
“Oh, mostly good. I just wish whoever stole my book on crumple-horned snorcacks would return it.”
Adira glared up the Ravenclaw table at the others, some of whom were turning away very suspiciously at her gaze.
“Yes, I hope so too. I'd hate to have to send a load of snakes into the Ravenclaw dorms. Puts the poor creatures at such risk of harm, you know.”
Luna smiled serenely. “That is very true,” she said, nodding sagely.
No doubt about it, some of the people there were getting very nervous. That book would be returned by bedtime, she knew.
“You let me know if anything else goes missing, okay Luna? After all, snakes tend to hibernate this time of the year, and they get very grumpy if disturbed.”
“Of course, Harry.”
Several Ravenclaws in Luna's year suddenly left the table, looking panic-stricken.
“Anyway, Luna, I got off track,” Adira said very quietly near Luna's ear. “Meet me in the entrance hall after dinner, I have something to tell you, and I'd prefer privacy.”
“Yes, I think I can do that,” she replied happily, before taking a bite of pudding.
Adira went back to her own seat at the Griffindor table and ate quickly, skipping pudding herself so as to be in the entrance hall quicker. She needn't have bothered, though; Luna didn't come out until shortly after Adira did, as she'd been watching for Adira.
“Where do we go, then?”
“I know of a spare classroom we can use,” Adira answered. “This way.”
She led Luna along the corridors and into a spare classroom not far from the library. It was, in fact, the same one the Mirror of Erised had once been in. Adira cast privacy spells on the door and the walls, including one she'd read about recently, a sort of poltergeist repelling charm. The last thing she needed, after all, was Peeves overhearing and spreading things about the school ahead of schedule. Peeves, after all, would not be kind.
“There, that should do it.”
“What did you want to tell me, Harry?”
Perhaps it was Luna's serene energy affecting Adira, or perhaps Luna's straightforward nature was rubbing off on her, but Adira felt none of the usual nerves.
“My name is Adira, now. Adira Lily Jamie Potter.”
“That's a lovely name, Adira. It's elegant.”
“Thank you.”
“Does this mean you're a girl now?”
“Yes, it does. I'm not out to everyone yet, though, so I'm still Harry in public for now. Or just Potter.”
Luna nodded. “You know, my father is the editor of a magazine called The Quibbler. He could put in a very tasteful coming out announcement for you, if you'd like.”
“Um... well, I don't know if I want to go that far. It's not like I've even changed my name legally, yet. Come to think of it, that's something I need to look into.”
“It's fine. It was just a suggestion. That is, if you want to come out to everyone.”
“That is the eventual goal. I just... I mean, once the whole school knows, it will eventually leak to the press, but in the meantime, I'd rather not bring any more attention to myself than I have to.”
“You could just cast aside the old you and embrace the new you like it's no big deal. I know people talk about you behind your back, but they're mostly polite to your face. It may be the same way with this. But even if not, I'll be here for you.”
“Um... Thanks, Luna. That's... not the most comforting thing you could say, but I can't fault your honesty. And I'm glad to have a friend like you.”
“And I'm very glad to be your friend. Having friends is still something of a new experience for me.”
She nodded. “I know how that goes. I didn't have any friends until Hogwarts. Dudley scared off anyone who might've tried.”
“Are you telling anyone else in person?”
“Neville's the last one I have planned. I like him. I want to be friends with him, not just acquaintences.”
“Neville seems nice. He doesn't feel comfortable around me, but he hides it better than most people. He's very polite that way.”
“Yeah. You may be unusual, but he's one of those people who knows what it's like to be bullied, so it makes sense he's polite to you.”
She nodded.
“You know, Adira, you could speak with your head of House about coming out.”
“Yeah. I did once, a little, but I wasn't ready then.”
“And you are now?”
“Probably. Being Harry feels like a lie, at best. I need to be me.”
“Being yourself is always the best person to be, I've found. A lot easier to keep track of, for one.”
“No argument there.”
~
Ginny avoided them in the morning, which was fine by them. If she needed space and time to process things, then she could have it, and it was a Saturday anyway. They went about their day, and after Quidditch practice, they switched from Iliana to Adira so Adira could stop by Professor McGonagall's office.
“Yes, Potter? What is it?”
“May I come in?”
“Yes, come in, come in.”
She went in, the Professor closing the door behind her.
“Do sit down, Potter.”
She did as instructed, and the teacher sat down as well.
“Is this about your Firebolt, by any chance?”
“Um, no. But now that you mention it, Sirius told me he sent it to me to make up for all those missed birthdays. And since he's innocent, you don't need to check it for jinxes anymore.”
“Ah yes, I had wondered, but it kept slipping my mind. I shall fetch it for you after we're done here. I take it you came for another reason, then?”
“Yes. Well, I've been coming out to my friends. So far Sirius, Ron, Hermione, the Weasley Twins, Ginny Weasley, Healer Young, Madam Pomfrey, and you know about it. I still want to tell Neville in person. And now that I think about it, Professor Lupin as well. But after that, well... I don't really know. I need the rest of the school to know, so I can be myself in public, but I hate drawing attention to myself.”
“Hmm... yes, I see your point.” She began to go through the files in her file folder. “Well what we usually do when someone needs to change their status partway through their school career is to post notices to the different Houses about it. Prefects make sure everyone sees them. The notices note that... well, here's an old example,” she said, pulling out a file.
“This one is very old, and the person it is about died in the last war, so I don't think he will mind.”
She handed it to them. They took it and read.
December 12th, 1976
This note is to inform all to whom it may concern that the student you have gotten to know as Aileen Morgenstern is now Luca Morgenstern. His sex has changed to that of male, and he will be treated as such, and his new proper name used, or there will be detentions with our caretaker, Apollyon Pringle. If you do not think you can use Mr. Morgenstern's first name, you may refer to him by his surname. But you will refer to him with “he,” “his,” and “him” pronouns all the same.
The note wasn't signed by McGonagall, but by the deputy headmaster of the day.
“This looks good. It kinda does bring attention to me, but I guess that can't be helped. Okay, I'm good with this.”
“It will naturally be adapted to you. What is your new name, Miss Potter?”
“Adira Lily Jamie Potter.”
McGonagall's eyes watered, and she smiled. “Lovely choice.”
She waved her wand and a piece of blank parchment appeared. With another wave of her wand, she filled it out. Then she handed the parchment to Adira.
January 9, 1994
This note is to inform all to whom it may concern that the student you have gotten to know as Harry James Potter is now Adira Lily Jamie Potter. Her sex has changed to that of female, and she will be treated as such, and her new proper name used, or there will be detentions with our caretaker, Argus Filch. If you do not think you can use Miss Potter's new first name, you may refer to her by her surname. But you will refer to her with “she” and “her” pronouns all the same.
Sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall,
Deputy Headmistress,
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
“It's dated tomorrow, Professor.”
“Yes, well, it's getting late today, but we will begin distribution tomorrow morning if that's what you want. We can do it another time if you'd like, though.”
“No, Professor, tomorrow is fine. People can get their gossiping about me done during the remainder of the weekend. And it gives me time to tell Neville and Professor Lupin.”
McGonagall chuckled. “Quite. Was there anything else, Miss Potter?”
“Well yes, Professor, just one other thing: what spell did you use to fill out the page?”
“The incantation is scribo, but the spell itself is very difficult to learn and to use, as it takes a great deal of concentration. I wouldn't recommend using it for your homework, Miss Potter. I rarely use it myself, but this was a rare circumstance when it made sense to do so.”
“I'll keep that in mind, Professor.”
“Good. Now you should run along, if you wish to have time to tell Professor Lupin before dinner.”
Adira nodded and left to find Lupin.
~
Adira knocked on Professor Lupin's office door, hoping he was still in there.
“Come in,” she heard him say. She turned the knob and entered.
“Harry,” Lupin said in surprise, putting down his quill. (He'd been grading papers.) “What brings you to my office on a Saturday?”
She closed the door and sat down in front of his desk.
“I have something I need to tell you. Everyone will know tomorrow morning, but I wanted to tell you first. I've already told my friends and Sirius, and it's just you and Neville left before everyone finds out tomorrow.”
Lupin sat up a little straighter, being more attentive.
“What is it, Harry?”
“I've been struggling with something for some time. I think I always knew, in some way, but over the summer, the truth hit me hard, and I've gotten to the point where I can't live a lie anymore. I have to be myself.”
Lupin nodded. “Go on.”
“Well it's about my gender. I always thought I was a boy, because everyone said I was. In fact, until kindergarten, I thought 'boy' was my name, because the Dursleys never called me anything else. But I'm not a boy, I'm a girl. And my... our ability gave me the ability to completely change my sex. Which I've done, though it isn't obvious right now. But tomorrow or Monday, I'm going to look the part more.”
She stopped abruptly, looking to Lupin for a response. He smiled.
“Sex change, eh? Glad to hear you're able to be true to yourself. I've known a few transexual—or, I suppose the term now is transgender—people over the years. Have you chosen a new name for yourself?”
“Adira Lily Jamie Potter.”
Lupin smiled in the same way McGonagall had earlier. “It's a lovely name, Adira.”
“Thanks,” she said, smiling back.
Silence fell, in which Adira started thinking, concerned. Her mood must've shown on her face, because Lupin asked her, “What's the matter?”
“I was just thinking about how the Dursleys would react to this if they knew. And it made me wonder how my parents... how they'd feel about it.”
“Adira, your mother and father loved you very much. They were friends with someone they knew to be a werewolf. They were open minded and open hearted souls, especially with those they loved and cared for.”
“Yeah, but you didn't choose to be a werewolf, you just got bitten.”
“True. But you didn't choose to be transgender, either. You chose to acknowledge the truth of your soul, that much is a choice, but being transgender isn't a choice, from what I understand. Given how people – wizards and Muggles alike, in our country and others – are about these kinds of things, if being transgender was a choice, nobody would choose it. In some other cultures, maybe; I understand there are cultures where transgender people are recognized as a third gender, just as valid as the other two. Some cultures even have many more than 2 or 3 genders.”
“Wow!”
“Yes. And non-human cultures have interesting gender ideas as well. Tell me, have you ever seen a female goblin?”
“Er... I don't think so.”
“Well you have, and you haven't. Goblins don't care for the concept of gender; they don't identify as male or female, just as goblins. So likely you have seen goblins capable of getting pregnant, and never knew it.”
“Yeah, and the centaurs treat gender the way we treat clothes; something fun to play with, but ultimately unimportant. According to Firenze, anyway. But that doesn't explain how you know about these things.”
“Oh, I love studying other cultures. It came about from my love of history. See, I so enjoyed learning history in school that I wanted to learn Muggle history, too. Which led me to the history of other countries, and other cultures. I enjoy reading so much, I try to get work at bookstores when I can, and I use the Muggle public libraries when I can, too.”
“You like history?”
“Yes. History, especially History of Magic, is a lot more interesting than Professor Binns makes it sound. Professor Binns could make Quidditch sound dull, trust me on this.”
“Yeah, we really need a better History of Magic teacher. If you're such a history buff, you could do it,
if you weren't already teaching Defense. But two classes at once? I imagine that would be very hard to do.”
Lupin chuckled. “Yes, indeed. In fact, it's funny you should mention me teaching History. Dumbledore remembered my History of Magic scores very well. I was the only person in the whole school during my O.W.L. year to get an O on History of Magic. O means 'Outstanding,' it's the best grade you can get on O.W.L.'s. Anyway, I was also the only person to even take History of Magic to N.E.W.T. level. Got an O there, as well.”
“Wow. That's impressive.”
“Yes. Dumbledore seems to think so, too. In fact, he came to me the day before our first anti-Dementor lesson, and asked me if, at the end of the year, I would switch from DADA to History of Magic, replacing Binns.”
“But you're the best Defense teacher we've ever had! Why would he want you to switch?”
“Well, I wondered the same, and debated it with him. As it turns out, H—Adira, the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts is indeed cursed, by Voldemort.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Why?”
“Well, as to that... is it correct that you met Voldemort as a 16 year old down in the Chamber of Secrets?”
“Yes. He looked a lot different. I mean, I've never seen him in his original body from before his fall, but I saw him sticking out of the back of Quirrell's head, and he was hideous. But as 16 year old Tom Riddle, he was handsome. If he hadn't been an evil git, I...” she blushed. “But yeah, he was different.”
“Indeed. And he tried to secure the DADA position, right out of school. He was told he was too young, then. Dumbledore says he came back years later, looking very distorted from dark magics, no longer handsome as he was, but not yet fully Voldemort. He asked Dippet for the job first, but the second time, Dumbledore was Headmaster.”
“Voldemort tried to teach DADA?”
“Yes. This was before the war, you understand. Dumbledore thinks he wanted to use his position as teacher to recruit new Death Eaters while they were still young. For that reason, Dumbledore refused him. And we haven't been able to keep a DADA teacher for a whole school year ever since. Quirrell had been a quite ordinary Muggle Studies teacher before getting the DADA position, and only over the summer, while studying for his new position, did he run into Voldemort and get seduced to the dark side.”
“So does that mean you're worried that if you don't take Dumbledore's offer to be History teacher, that you might... might die like Quirrell did?”
“Something like that. Of the two other teachers you've had in this subject so far, one died, and one is still in a coma in St. Mungo's. Others, I'm told, retired from teaching from stress related health concerns, lost close family members mysteriously, had horrible disfiguring accidents, or ended up in the mental ward of St. Mungo's, having gone mad. One chap was independently wealthy, only did teaching as a diversion. Before the year was over, his many stock investments had crashed horribly, and businesses he'd invested in did so poorly he lost most of his wealth. What was left was taken after he was investigated for tax evasion, except for his house. Then his house burned down. No idea where he's at, now.”
Adira's eyes went wide at these words.
“Yeah, definitely take the History job in that case, Professor.”
He chuckled. “Okay, Adira, I think I will, at that. If I do, maybe the curse will let me finish out the year. I may just give up on DADA a week or two in advance just to be on the safe side, though.”
“What about Binns, though? What will he do?”
“Probably just keep on teaching History of Magic, completely oblivious to the fact he no longer has any students. I understand he was pretty oblivious even when he was alive. But Dumbledore has been getting complaints about Binns for years. I suppose, what with recent developments, he decided it was time to cave to those pressures.”
“Well Defense won't be the same without you, but I look forward to having History with you.”
“Indeed? Well now I've decided I must take Dumbledore's offer. Anyway, it's almost dinner, you should get going.”
They both stood up and left, then; Adira for dinner, Lupin to speak with Dumbledore.
~
After dinner, she went back to the common room and found Neville.
“Hey Neville, come with me up to my room, will you?”
“M-me? Why?”
“It's the best place to have a private conversation. Besides, you haven't seen it yet. Are you coming?”
“Well, okay, H-Harry. D-don't know what you could possibly want to talk to m-me about, but I'll come.”
Neville followed her upstairs to her new room. They went in, she closed the door, and put up privacy spells.
“What's this about, Harry?”
“Yeah, it's about something that will be common knowledge starting tomorrow, but I wanted you to know first. There are some others I've told as well, too.”
“Yes?”
“I know we're not much more than acquaintances, Neville, but I've been thinking I want to be friends with you. Between my unwanted fame, people trying to kill me, and being called a freak behind my back for being... the way we are... I can use every friend I can get, and you've always been nice to me, both in front of and behind me, from what I understand. Even stood up to some of the people calling me a freak, I've heard.”
Neville blushed. “It w-was nothing, Harry.”
“It wasn't nothing. You were very brave to do it, you didn't have to.”
“B-brave? N-no, I was terrified doing it! But it had to be d-done.”
“Bravery isn't the lack of fear, it's facing your fear, not letting your fear control you. You have proven many times you're brave. Heck, just continuing to go to Snape's classes when he plainly terrifies you more than most things do is extremely brave.”
“B-but I have to go to P-Potions. Gran would kill me if I failed.”
“Oh please. The way he torments you in class, you'd be better off skiving and studying the subject on your own. But you go to his classes.”
“Maybe you're right,” he said quietly. “I'm p-practically failing anyway.”
“Iliana is really good at Potions, she could tutor you.”
“T-that would be cool. Hermione helps me sometimes, but tutoring? She hasn't done that.”
“Good. We can discuss the time later. We've gotten off track. What I wanted to talk to you about is different.”
With a deep breath for calm, Adira told him, in much the same way as she'd been doing with others, about her being a girl, and her new name.
“W-wow!” Neville said when she was done, his eyes wide with awe. “I c-can't even imagine being brave enough to have to d-do something like that! You have m-my support, Adira. However much th-that's worth, I mean.”
“It means a lot, Neville. You're a good person. The Sorting Hat chose well.”
Instead of responding to that, Neville changed the subject.
“S-so, c-can you help me with my Potions homework tonight?”
She beamed at him. “Sure thing, Neville.”
That done, Neville got his stuff for potions and Adira helped him with it for an hour before Neville left. Adira locked the door behind him and started experimenting more with her appearance. She paused at times to spend minutes at a time drawing or writing ideas, since it was faster than switching back and forth all the time. By the time she was ready to go to bed, she'd chosen her changes to her form.
First was her hair, which was longer and a lot tamer now, and which she was choosing to wear in a long single braid in the back, with green scrunchies, and a Griffindor hair barrette Hermione had gotten for her somehow. She'd also transfigured her glasses to look much nicer, their color now the same green as the hair scrunchies (thus matching her eyes).
And though it was making her nerves jangle even more with the sheer daring of it, she had also painted her fingernails green. Looking at herself in the mirror, she was reminded of how close they'd gotten to being Sorted into Slytherin. If not for the Griffindor barrette, you'd think she was a Slytherin, for all the green. But it was a nice color, and suited her.
She had a hard time getting to sleep that night, her nerves were in such a high state of dudgeon. She did finally get to sleep, around 3 AM, but her sleep was disrupted by nightmares about being called a freak, a pouf, and worse. In one dream, she was being made to tell the whole class in detail about her treatment at the Dursley's place while people booed at her and called her a liar and an attention-seeking prat. Halfway through, everyone started to laugh and point as she was suddenly naked, and a bunch of people pointed out she had a willy, and said this was proof that she was a liar. She looked down to confirm this, but saw instead a venomous snake growing from there, and it was hissing threateningly at her.
'GO AWAY!' she hissed at it in Parseltongue. 'LEAVE ME ALONE!'
'NEVER!' it answered, and bit her, the pain startling her awake. In a panic, she checked down below; the offending thing wasn't there. Everything looked right to her.
The rest of the night wasn't much better.
~
Waking up in the morning, her nerves were even worse than before. She couldn't even get out of bed at first; she just lay under the covers, moaning, trying not to cry.
There was a knock at the door. She tried reaching out with her empathic ability to figure out who it was by the general shape of their emotions, but her own nerves made it rather like trying to hear a whisper from across a room when someone was screaming in your ear.
Still, thinking it might be one of her friends, she got out of bed and shakily opened the door a crack, to seen Ron and Hermione standing there.
“We got these today, mate, and Hermione figured you could use some support,” Ron said, holding up a copy of the notice she'd had McGonagall pass around. “She's good with this touchy-feely stuff.”
“Come in,” Adira said weakly, feeling like to say any more would make her puke.
They did, and she closed the door behind them.
“You don't look so well, mate,” Ron said.
“Didn't sleep very well. Nerves about today. Nightmares, too.”
“Well people are talking about it, sure enough, but in whispers. They don't want to risk detention with Filch.”
“Gee thanks, that's so... no, I can't even be sarcastic. That is the opposite of helpful, Ron.”
“Sorry. I could make you some tea. Or get you something for breakfast from the Great Hall.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I feel like I might lose my breakfast before I even have it.”
The two friends kept her company for another few minutes until she finally decided to buck up her courage and get ready to face the day. For which she had to get Ron out of the room so she could change, after her shower. Hermione stayed behind to give her opinion of Adira's dress, an understated dress of indigo with white trim.
“Looks good. A little plain, but good.”
“I want plain. I want it to be obvious I'm wearing a dress without being flashy about it. Might make some people be a little less quick to call me attention-seeking.”
“You should wear what you want on the weekends, other people be darned. But I also understand why you want this dress. It makes sense. You want to kinda... ease into this change, I think?”
“As opposed to getting dragged into changes before I even know what's going on? Yeah, that's a nice change, even if it is nerve-wracking.”
~
It wasn't easy, leaving her room and going down to the common room, but she managed it, running into Dean and Seamus.
“Hey, H—er, I mean Adira. Did I pronounce it right?”
“Yeah, Dean, that's it exactly.”
“Oh good. The note didn't leave a pronunciation guide, and I had to guess. Glad I got it in one.”
“Wow. If I'd known you were gonna be this supportive, Dean, I'd have told you personally, sooner.”
“Oh, well. Yeah, it's new territory for me, but so was magic, and so was you being a load of other people. This is nothing compared to either of those.”
“Thanks.”
“Does this mean ya like blokes now?” Seamus blurted out. “You a pouf?”
“If I did just like blokes, well, I'm fully a girl now. And even if I still had a... a thing... being a girl means I would be straight. Not a pouf.”
“But you were a bloke, now you're not. Doesn't that make you a pouf?”
She glared at him. “It makes me girl, Seamus. Like any other girl. Would you call Hermione a pouf if she wanted to snog you?”
He blushed. “Er, no, I guess not.”
“Then the same applies to me.”
Not telling him you're bi? Al asked her.
None of his business, yet. I've only told Ginny and Ron that, and that was more or less an accident. I don't know if I want to come out as bi, yet. In fact, if Seamus's comment is any indication, best to pretend I'm straight for now.
I dunno. Being bi would kinda throw a monkey wrench into their thinking. He's probably not the only one who thinks being trans is the same as being a pouf.
Be that as it may, Al, I'm keeping that mostly to myself for now. I want to know more about how such things are viewed in the wizarding world first. Might tell Ron and Hermione soon, but I'm kind of tired of these coming out conversations, so I'm gonna put that on the back burner for now.
“Oh,” Seamus said, responding to the last thing she'd said to him after a few seconds pause, snapping her attention back to reality. “Yeah, that makes sense. Sorry if I was being rude.”
“You're forgiven. I'd actually rather hear questions like that from someone friendly than from, say, Malfoy.”
“Well, I may not really understan', Potter, but I'll kick Malfoy in his teeth if he's rude to ya.”
“Thanks for that, but don't bother. I think I want him to say something. I'd love to see McGonagall give him a detention with Filch.”
Everyone present laughed at that.
Feeling much better now, Adira actually thought she could eat some breakfast and keep it down, so they all went down to the Great Hall together, ignoring the renewed staring and muttering.
“Check out Malfoy,” Ron finally said.
She turned to look up at the Slytherin table. Malfoy was glaring in Adira's general direction.
“Must be sore he can't tease me for this,” she told Ron, returning to her breakfast.
“Yeah. He certainly never misses an opportunity to call you names or pretend to be fighting himself like he's two people split down the middle. Pity he's apparently too smart to open his mouth about your gender.”
“Also a pity I can't goad him into saying something. Pretty sure McGonagall would consider that to be manipulative and put me in detention right next to Malfoy.”
“Wonder if he'll try to catch you alone somewhere to bully you then. Or in Potions.”
“Oh god, Snape. What's he gonna be like?”
“Probably ignore you. He ignores Iliana,” Hermione pointed out.
“Yeah, but she looks like my mum, and he fancied her. He still picks on me, and he loathes Al.”
“He might ease up on Al, now he knows Sirius is innocent.”
Adira snorted. “I doubt it. They hated each other in school. Sirius being innocent and free, he'll probably hate Al more than ever.”
~
As it turned out, they didn't have to wait for Potions to be bullied by Malfoy and his cronies. Monday after lunch was Care of Magical Creatures with the Slytherins. As the Griffindors approached the area of Hagrid's cabin, they spotted the snakes already there, waiting to ambush Adira.
“Hey look, everyone,” Malfoy said, “it's the Potter pouf. I'm surprised you aren't wearing a pink frilly dress to class today.”
“Why, do you have one for me to borrow, Malfoy?” she asked casually.
Even some of the Slytherins were having a hard time suppressing their laughter at this, except for Malfoy, who looked furious.
“Anyway, Malfoy, for your information, I'm a girl. Not a pouf. I don't have a willy anymore. I reckon you're disappointed by this, are you? Hoping you could get some practice in, were you?” she asked, miming a blowjob.
Even Crabbe and Goyle were chuckling now. The other Slytherins were howling with laughter. Malfoy was not taking this well. His face was redder than Ron's hair, and he looked like he was going to kill something. Or someone.
It was perhaps a good thing that Malfoy was so angry he was rendered speechless, because Professor Hagrid came walking up then, ready to start class. Upon seeing Hagrid, Adira could've kicked herself; she'd forgotten to tell Hagrid!
“Right, everyone, right, cummon, I got a good lesson fer ya all, no dawdlin'.”
The lesson turned out to be on unicorns, which was something of a departure for Hagrid. But then, the animals he'd been showing them since Buckbeak got hexed had been reflective of Hagrid's dour mood. Adira didn't know what to make of him showing them unicorns.
She did, however, have no trouble at all noticing that he was avoiding her. The emotions coming off of him made it plain to her that he was hurt to have to find out her new name and her change in gender from McGonagall. She tried all lesson to get him to talk to her, but it was hard when most of it was spent around the unicorn foal, since unicorns don't like boys for some reason. It accepted her with no problem, which was a relief to her. Even given her change, she half worried that the creature would pick up on Al's presence inside her, but it didn't.
After the bell rang, she hung back. Hagrid tried avoiding her again, but she stood right in front of his cabin's door, making that rather difficult.
“Whatta yeh want, Potter?”
Now it was her turn to feel hurt, but she supposed she deserved it.
“Sorry, Professor,” she said pointedly. “But I wanted to talk with you.”
Her use of his title successfully took him aback.
“I dunno if I want yeh ter talk with me an all,” he said, crossing his arms.
“Please, Hagrid?”
He wilted at her pleading tone.
“Oh alrigh', go on in, we'll talk.”
She nodded, and went on in, fending off the excited Fang in order to sit down at his table. She noticed Buckbeak was missing.
“So what're yeh here for, then, anyway?”
“I wanted to apologize. I really am sorry, Hagrid. It felt so bad, continuing to pretend I was a boy now that I knew the truth, and I got so caught up in wanting to get it all out there so I wouldn't have to wear that horrible mask of lies anymore, that I completely forgot to tell you ahead of time about it. You should've been the first to know after Ron and Hermione, but it completely slipped my mind until I saw you today. I'm horribly sorry. Can you forgive me my dunderheadedness?”
Hagrid softened. “Yeah, o' course I can, Adira. I know bein' a teen can be a distractin' sort o' time, an' then yeh got all this other stuff on yer mind, too, I don't blame yeh. I was just hurt I had ter hear it from McGonagall, in a piece o' parchment no less.”
“I'm sorry, Hagrid,” she said, hugging him. “I really am. Sirius may be my godfather, but I've known you since you got me from the Dursleys, and you're like the father I never had. I should've told you after telling Ron and Hermione.”
“Yeh... yeh think o' me like a father?” Hagrid asked, awe in his voice.
“Yeah, I do. You care for me, you get angry on my behalf when I've been mistreated, you listen to me, you know when to give good advice and when to just be there for me, you went to the trouble to get me a whole book of photos of my parents, and you give me gifts on holidays and birthdays. You're the first real family I've known in my life, really. Mom and Dad... all I remember of them is from the night they died, in dementor visions.”
Hagrid burst out crying. She could've felt they were tears of joy even if she hadn't been empathic. She was doing the same thing, in fact, but quieter. Telling Hagrid he was like the father she'd never had was one of those things she hadn't realized was true until she'd said it, and then when she did, it made too much sense to question. Sirius was an unknown quantity, still, but if it worked out as well with Sirius as it had with Hagrid, she was sure she'd feel like she had two dads.
As Hagrid's wails of joy turned into sniffles, he wiped his eyes and said, “Yeh've no idea how much it means ter me yeh've said that, Adira, yeh really can't. I've long thought yeh were like me own blood kin, too. And since I never knew me mum, and me dad died before I was expelled, well... I've been lonely a long time. Then you came round, and it all changed.”
“I know, Hagrid. It took me until... well, until today to realize what you were to me. I'd never had anything like it, before. Didn't have anything to compare it to. But then once I said it, it all clicked into place and I knew it was true.”
Hagrid beamed at her. She beamed back.
~
She'd spent as much time with Hagrid as she'd dared. It wasn't until he offered her lunch that she made an excuse to leave. “To be honest, Hagrid,” she'd said, “as much as I love you, your cooking leaves much to be desired.” He'd chuckled at her and agreed, and she went up to the school to get some lunch.
The next few weeks were fairly uneventful. Classes continued, they continued their anti-dementor lessons (in which slow progress was being made), people slowly got used to Adira's new name and pronouns, Malfoy kept trying to be horrible and the collective kept making clever comebacks that shut him up. Slytherin also narrowly defeated Ravenclaw at Quidditch, which was good for Griffindor's prospects. Quidditch practices were a lot more cheerful than they'd been, between the dementors being gone and the presence of a Firebolt on the team, Iliana going through the air so fast she could've sworn she was reaching point B before leaving point A. Wood was certain they were going to make up for the disaster that was their match with Hufflepuff.
Ginny was still avoiding them, but seemed a lot less vigilant about it than she'd been, so maybe she was sorting out her feelings, or getting over her crush on 'Harry.' Buckbeak was still recovering from Malfoy's hexes, though apparently he was getting a lot better. Zoey still hadn't worked out what revenge to hit Malfoy with.
~
Not much else happened of note until February 5th, when Griffindor and Ravenclaw had a Quidditch match with each other. Wood was getting more intense with practices than normal for him, because they needed to win this match and win it well to have a good chance of winning the Cup.
On the morning of the match, Iliana brought out the Firebolt for the Great Hall to see. This was significant because Wood had insisted they keep the Firebolt a secret for as long as possible, which they had. Various people admired it, and Malfoy looked like he was going to be ill, when he saw it. In fact, he came over and made an attempt at his usual bullying.
“Got plenty of special features, hasn’t it?” said Malfoy, eyes glittering maliciously. “Shame it doesn’t come with a parachute — in case you have another fainting fit.”
Crabbe and Goyle sniggered.
“Pity you can’t attach an extra arm to yours, Malfoy,” said Iliana. “Then it could catch the Snitch for you.”
The Gryffindor team laughed loudly. Malfoy’s pale eyes narrowed, and he stalked away. They watched him rejoin the rest of the Slytherin team, who put their heads together, no doubt asking Malfoy whether Potter's broom really was a Firebolt.
Finally, it was time to go to the pitch. She grabbed their Firebolt and made her way down to the changing rooms, though she'd already changed into her uniform, so she only passed through. When she went out onto the pitch to inspect the area before play, she noted someone climbing up the steps to the stands – Sirius. She got on her Firebolt and flew up to talk to him. When she got there, Hagrid came up the stairs as well and gave Sirius a thoughtful look before sitting next to him. He looked a lot better, his hair trimmed neatly. He'd gained weight, and his face looked better, but it still hadn't lost most of the haunted look Azkaban had given him. His hair was shorter and clean, and the rest of him was clean as well, and he had gained weight, no longer looking skeletally thin. He was a little less pale, too, but not by a lot.
“Sirius! You're out of St. Mungo's?”
“What?” Sirius said, having not seen them. He looked at her and gasped. “Lily!”
“Iliana,” she said. “Sorry, I guess I forgot we hadn't met yet.”
“Right, I should've known. I was at the Quidditch match where you lost your other broom, so I should've recognized you. But to be honest, 12 years in Azkaban tends to damage the memory permanently. Or rather, the short term memory and the parts of the brain that remember happy thoughts. The Healers say I may never fully recover. There's going to be a lawsuit for wrongful imprisonment against the Ministry, and they're collecting evidence.”
“Aye,” said Hagrid. “'orrible place, Sirius. I was there only a few months at most, an' that was 'orrible enough. Can't even imagine what being there 12 years would be like.”
“I'm glad we got you out of there. Both of you.”
“Me too. By the way, Hagrid, do you still have my motorbike?”
“Yeah, I got it right enough. It's in storage, should be good as new still. Dumbledore set up the charms fer me. He reckoned it might come in useful down the way.”
“So were you released from St. Mungo's?” she asked Sirius.
“No, not yet. I'm on a supervised day trip to see the match,” he said, pointing a thumb up the stands at a St. Mungo's healer in green robes. The woman was watching Sirius like a hawk.
“Those St. Mungo's healers are worse than Madam Pomfrey,” Sirius said with annoyance. “They won't let me go until they're sure I'm as healed up as I can be. But seeing as I don't have my own flat yet, and I'd rather swallow 20 pounds of doxy eggs than go back to my parents' house – which is an utter pigsty, by the way, I don't really have anywhere else to go yet.”
“Miss Potter!” came Madam Hooch's voice. “We're about to start the game! Come down from there now, please!”
“Gotta go, Sirius, Hagrid. Stick around after the game a bit, will you?”
“Sure. I think I'm authorized to stay the whole day, as long as I get food from the Hogwarts kitchens.”
“Cool,” she said, getting on her Firebolt and flying back down to the pitch.
“It's uncanny, Hagrid, isn't it?”
“Aye, that it is. She could almos' be Lily's identical twin.”
“And that Alastair, looks exactly like me when I was his age.”
“Yeh, that he does. It was a mite unnerving, fer a long time there. Still gives me pause. Twelve years o' thinkin yeh were, well... old habits die hard, yeh know.”
“That they do. But you're sitting next to me, so it looks like you're making progress.”
“Aye. I know what 'slike, bein' falsely accused o' summat. An' I also know what Azkaban's like.” He shuddered. Sirius shuddered, too.
“Still got nightmares, Hagrid? Were you there long enough for that?”
“Not so much now, but yeah, fer a few months I did, sure enough. You?”
“Of course. Probably for the rest of my life. The Healers reckon I have shell shock. Then there's this one Healer, a chap who's into Muggle medicine as well as wizard Healing, he called it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There isn't even a magical cure for it, yet. Well, if I understand the condition well enough, at least Adira and I have something in common, now.” He barked once with bitter laughter.
But they had to stop talking then, because the players were in the air, and the game was starting. They wouldn't have been able to hear one another over the cheers anyway.
Lee Jordan commentated as usual, but he was so focused on the Firebolt and talking about it that it was hard to keep up with what was going on in the match. But McGonagall managed to finally get him to focus on the game.
For all Wood's talk about Cho Chang, Iliana hadn't known who he was referring to (there being a number of Asian students whose names she didn't know) until she saw the Ravenclaw Seeker on the pitch, at which point her stomach did its own pitching, and she felt very light-headed and giddy. She recognized the pretty girl from The Three Broomsticks, that day she'd learned of Sirius being their godfather. The events of that day had driven the girl from her mind, but she was back in full force now.
It wasn't very helpful for the game, though, these feelings. Every time she went for the snitch, Cho – who was tailing her because of the vast difference in speed of their brooms – kept showing up to block her. And the girl was so pretty that she was finding it hard to do anything but stop hard to avoid crashing into the girl.
“What are you doing, Iliana?” Wood yelled at her. “Show her your acceleration! Fly at her and make her chicken out!”
Trying to force herself to focus on the game and ignore how pretty Cho was, she did some difficult turns around the hoops to shake the girl off her tail, while keeping an eagle eye out for the snitch at the same time.
When she next saw the snitch, she dived after it, dives being something of a specialty of theirs; while the others didn't really like broom flying, Al was stoic enough of a person, except when it came to anger, that having his help to ground her thoughts made dives less terrifying than normal. But a bludger came flying at them from one of the Ravenclaw beaters, and the snitch got away as she avoided it.
Of course those supporting Griffindor gave a great 'ooooh' as this happened, and the Slytherins and Ravenclaws cheered. Iliana ignored that and listened to the score briefly – 80 to zero Griffindor – before going back to hunting for the snitch.
The Ravenclaws scored a few goals, starting to catch up on points a bit. Getting the snitch became more important as a result. Shortly after, the snitch caught her eye again, and she dived again. Once more, Cho blocked her, and she barely avoided crashing into the other girl.
“ILIANA! THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR GOOD MANNERS!” Wood yelled at her. “KNOCK HER OFF HER BROOM IF YOU HAVE TO!”
Cho gave Iliana a smug grin at having kept the snitch from her, but instead of annoyance, Iliana felt her insides, already soft, turn to mush. There was also an odd tingling between her legs that was utterly alien to her. She wondered suddenly if Cho had cast some kind of weakness curse on her, something that caused tingling in the skin as well. Her skin felt hot, and her breathing was too fast even taking the game into account.
Very concerned about what was happening to her body, Iliana doubled down on her efforts to focus on the game. Some quick thinking gave her a new tactic; if Cho was going to stalk her around the pitch, then she'd take advantage of that. When she next spotted the snitch, she pretended she didn't see it and dived in a different direction to make Cho try to block her before feinting and heading to the real location of the snitch. This worked for a while, but then Cho started diving for the real snitch.
She accelerated; so, many feet below, did Cho. Iliana was winning, gaining on the Snitch with every second. Then--
“Oh!” screamed Cho, pointing.
Despite herself, Iliana looked down and saw three hooded dementors. Her brain was already not working right, so she didn't think how unlikely it was, nor that she wasn't feeling any of the normal symptoms of dementors; she just pulled her wand out and shouted “EXPECTO PATRONUM!” and kept flying toward the snitch.
Something silvery-white and enormous came out, which she barely noticed. Her head still clear – feelings for Cho aside – she grabbed the snitch out of the air, ending the game.
The whistle blew, and the crowd went wild at the win. People were coming left and right to congratulate her as she landed.
“That was a hell of a Patronus,” Sirius said.
“Quite right, Padfoot old friend,” Lupin said from beside the Animagus.
“I can't believe those dementors didn't affect me! And where'd they come from, anyway? I thought Dumbledore had them all recalled to Azkaban?”
Sirius began laughing too hard to talk, or even breathe. Lupin grinned at Iliana.
“That would be because they weren't dementors. Take a look.”
She did. In a plan that was stupid even by Malfoy's standards, he, Crabbe, and Goyle had pretended to be dementors, to try to sabotage her. McGonagall was furious at them, yelling and taking points and giving detentions, but they weren't listening because they were still trapped in their robes. The Patronus had terrified them utterly. She even thought she smelled the odor of urine coming from them. She laughed merrily at their misfortune.
“You gave Misters Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle quite the fright,” Lupin said, in case she'd missed who they were.
Ron arrived soon and joined her laughter at Malfoy and his cronies.
~
There was to be a party in the Griffindor common room. Iliana wanted to invite Sirius and Remus, but Sirius deferred, on account of the fact that The Fat Lady would “do her nut” in his words, if she saw him again after what he'd done to her earlier in the year while trying to get Pettigrew. When she reminded him that she still wasn't repaired and rehung yet; Sirius said he didn't think he wanted to meet the mad knight temporarily guarding Griffindor, and he also wanted to give people time to get used to him not being a murderer before he popped in on a bunch of kids who'd been taught their whole lives about how evil he supposedly was. Lupin, too, deferred, though just because he'd had enough excitement for one day.
“Don't worry about us, though, Iliana. It'll give Padfoot and I some time to catch up on old times.”
The party was just as loud and raucous as she'd anticipated. She walked around the room, taking congratulations from people. On her third round of the room, she spotted Hermione trying to do homework – reading a book about Muggles – in the midst of all the noise.
“Do my eyes deceive me? Is Hermione Granger so behind on her homework that she's trying to work in this noise?” she asked her bushy-haired friend.
“Yes, a bit. I'm taking more classes than you are, and it's taking a bit longer than I'd thought, but I'm managing it.”
“Did you even go to the match?”
“Yes, Iliana, I did. I'm thrilled we won, but I have over 400 pages to read before Monday,” she said, her voice high-pitched and frantic.
“You're not going to be able to concentrate here in the common room, surely? Maybe you should try the library, or your dorm?”
“You're right, but if I went to the library, I'd have to come back. And I'm rooming with Lavender and Padma, and they can get very silly, they keep trying to drag me into their silly girlish things, and I don't have time for that. So this is the best I can do, and you talking to me isn't helping, sorry if that's rude.”
“I can feel how frazzled you are, even in all this emotional chaos, Hermione. Maybe you should drop Muggle Studies. You don't actually need it, after all, since your parents are Muggles.”
“But it's fascinating learning it from a Wizard perspective!”
“So read the books in your spare time, as a hobby. Lupin reads History and Anthropology books in his spare time.”
“I can't! What if I decide to go into the Ministry as a Muggle Liason? I need O.W.L.'s and N.E.W.T.'s in Muggle Studies to do that!”
“In all honesty, Hermione, Mr. Weasley works with Muggles all the time, and he once asked me what the function of a rubber duck is, so the bar can't be very high. You were raised by Muggles, you could ace the tests without studying! Hell, you could write the tests! I could write the tests! And they'd probably be a lot better than the current tests. Also, I read somewhere that you can take tests for subjects you haven't been taking classes for.”
Hermione sighed heavily and leaned back in her chair, looking very much like she wanted to scream at Iliana. But then she grabbed the book and slammed it shut, and began to cry. Iliana just sat there with her, not saying or doing anything but waiting and being there for her friend.
When Hermione finally began to compose herself, Iliana spoke at last.
“If you're really determined to keep taking Muggle Studies, you can study in my room. I'm the only body there, so it should be quiet.”
“Thanks for the offer, Iliana, but you're right. I bit off more than I can chew this year. I've known it for months, but I have such a terror of academic failure that I kept it up.” She sighed again. “I'm going to drop Muggle Studies. And Divination, too, I think. A more useless subject I've never seen, at least the way she teaches it. If I drop those two, I know for sure I can manage the rest. And I can...” she trailed off, clutching her hand to her chest, as though grabbing something under her robes.
“Yes, that's what I'm going to do, Iliana. Thanks for helping me realize I need to do this.”
“You're welcome.”
“Well, if I'm doing that, I can move on to my Potions homework. Is that offer of studying in your room still valid?”
“Of course it is. Come on, let me help you take your things up.”
“I'll take the Muggle Studies and Divination stuff back up to my room first.”
Iliana waited for her friend to come back from her room before grabbing the girl's remaining things and going up to the room with her. She left Hermione there for a few minutes to go get them both some snacks and drinks from the party, so they could refuel while they worked. Iliana worked on DADA homework while Hermione worked on her Potions.
“You don't have to leave the party on my account, Iliana.”
“I may go back later. But I could use a little quiet.”
When they were done with their homework, they lay back and pondered what punishment to get Malfoy with for Buckbeak. They were still pondering when Hermione left to go to bed. Before going to bed themselves, Zoey came up with the perfect plan, and grinned maliciously. But they couldn't do it yet. No, they would have to wait.
~
It took a few days to find an opportunity to strike on their plan, but coming back from the owlery on Wednesday, where they'd been sending a letter to Sirius before Lupin's anti-dementor lessons, they found one. Malfoy was coming up the other way, they could hear him talking to either Crabbe or Goyle, telling them to go on back to dinner if they were still hungry, he hadn't asked them to tag along.
Shifting into Zoey's form, she listened and heard the brute leaving, and Malfoy coming back upstairs. She ducked into a secret alcove they'd once found by accident, which apparently was activated by pounding the wall with a fist three times in succession. Doing this did not make the wall move or anything, it instead made the wall permeable, a bit like Platform 9 and 3/4ths. What was better, anyone inside could see out, but nobody could see in. So she waited there for Malfoy to come up the steps, a letter in his hands.
As he passed, she stunned him with their wand and dragged him into the alcove, keeping the door permeable by keeping one foot inside it while she grabbed him. Once they were both inside, she tied him up with ropes from their wand, gave him the Full Body Bind for good measure, and then stuck him to the ceiling with a Sticking Charm, resisting the temptation to attempt a Permanent Sticking Charm, just barely.
Instead, she set a few more charms on him, which would have very specific results, and when she was satisfied, she left the alcove and headed off to their lessons, which they were still going to because – one incident aside – they still couldn't reliably do the charm. She quite surprised Lupin by being the one to show up, and to stay showed up, but he accepted it without much fuss. She turned out to be able to produce white mist on the first try, and every subsequent try.
It was hard, later, to resist snickering to herself every time she thought of what she'd done. She only wished she could witness the results when the Sticking Charm wore off around midnight, the ropes cushioning Malfoy's fall before dissolving to free him. He would think he simply had to sneak back down to the dungeons without getting caught, but then as soon as he left the alcove, the Wailing Charm would activate, filling the nearby bits of the school with a piercing shrieking noise that was bound to attract Filch and/or any teachers or Prefects that might be in the area. Not knowing how to activate the alcove – she hoped – he would panic and run. But whether he went upstairs to the owlery, or down to where he needed to go to escape, he was sure to be caught. She'd be very astonished if he managed to get back without getting caught, when he would be shrieking like a banshee the whole way.
Sure enough, at breakfast the next morning, it was the talk of the school that Slytherin had lost 50 points overnight, and that Malfoy was to blame. Filch had caught him out of bounds at one in the morning, and taken him to Professor McGonagall, who had docked him points and taken him to Snape to be given a detention. The word on the Hogwarts grapevine was that Snape would be having him scrub something particularly stubborn and nasty off the walls of the potions lab that had exploded in an N.E.W.T. level class, something experimental that was dissolving the stone, and he'd be cleaning it without magic, since magic had already failed to clean up the strange mess.
The only downside was that Snape, as he passed them in the hall, clearly suspected them of having been responsible for Malfoy's predicament. Zoey made sure to fill their brain with some especially annoying songs whenever Snape was nearby, so that if he was reading their mind, he'd only hear stuff like 'infinity bottles of beer on the wall.'
~
The universe must've had a sense of humor, though. Because on the morning of their February Hogsmeade Saturday, Iliana woke up feeling like shit. And when she pulled the covers aside, she screamed. There was blood everywhere. And it was emanating from...
She immediately felt like an idiot for screaming, especially since there was a pounding on the door, and Ron asking if she needed help. Her period, of course. She had been warned by both Snape and Madam Pomfrey to expect this, and it seemed to have come at last.
“I'm fine, Ron. It's... it's just that time of the month, apparently.”
“Oh,” Ron said through the door, sounding uncomfortable.
“Do you, er... need me to help you with anything?” he asked, sounding like he was desperately hoping the answer would be 'no.'
“No, I have what I need here. I was warned this would happen. It just came as a shock, all this blood, for the first time.”
“Too much information, Iliana. Should I fetch Hermione?”
She blinked. That was a good idea; Hermione had experience with this sort of thing already.
“Yeah, sure. If you can find her. Boys can't go up the stairs to the girls' dormitory.”
“Right, I'll try my best,” Ron said. She heard him leave down the hall.
She got out of bed and tried to clean the sheets with magic. But she didn't know how to get blood out of them, so she gave up and concentrated on cleaning herself up. By the time Hermione came in, she was out of the shower, but still in her towel. When her friend came in, she locked the door.
“Ah, so it's happened finally,” Hermione said, looking at the sheets.
“Yes. And I still feel horrible. Also, I think I might need to clean up again.”
“Here, let me help you. See, you take this bit and this, and...”
Iliana listened attentively to Hermione's lesson in the realities of being the owner of a working uterus. Which potions to take, what they did, how often; which pads to use, and how to use them. Even a spell for completely removing blood from her panties, which was something Muggle women didn't have.
“You could probably use it on the sheets, too, but you can just chuck the sheets down the laundry chutes. Someone must come around and put new sheets on when we're out; I've never seen them at it, but it gets done. Still, no sense keeping bloody sheets on the bed. You have noticed, I hope, that we never have to clean our dorms? Sure, they don't touch personal posessions, but... well never mind. Here, wrap them like this and put them with a dirty robe to hide the evidence if that helps. Though with Ron's behavior and your scream earlier, well... never mind that, too. Girls won't make any issue of it, and boys would rather have their eyeballs hexed inside out than talk about it, so never mind.”
So, with her friend's help, Iliana got rid of the evidence and got herself fully presentable and ready for the day, thankful for the magical pads that could be kept on all day long, catching everything, and leaving no odor behind. She was also thankful for the potions. Her abdomen had felt like it was being tortured, but now it was much better. Nevertheless, she still felt ill, and at breakfast she found it hard to eat much.
“What's the plan today, Iliana?” Ron asked her, as though nothing unusual had happened. Only his plainly forced smile gave his feelings away.
“Sirius was allowed another day trip by the Healers, so I'm going to meet with him today. Do you two want to come, too?”
She looked especially at Hermione, silently communicating that she wanted her around just in case.
“Yeah, sure. Sounds cool. Sirius is awesome.”
“Good.”
“Hey, check out Malfoy,” Ron said, changing the subject.
Iliana looked at Malfoy. He looked almost as miserable as she felt. When he looked up, he glared at her. Clearly Malfoy suspected them of causing his detention and points the other day. Iliana just stared blankly at him, too out of sorts herself to do anything else.
She heard Seamus laugh. “Yeah, I heard Malfoy was scrubbing that stuff off the walls until well after midnight. So that's two nights in a row he hasn't slept well.”
As she continued to stare blankly back at Malfoy, his stare turned into one that promised revenge, and soon. She'd have to be on the lookout. If he did do something to her, she wondered if Zoey could turn him into a girl, so he'd have to go through the Hell she was currently experiencing; a Hell that, while muted, still felt wretched.
“Oh hey,” Iliana said, feeling the need to change the subject, “I forgot to ask before, did you tell McGonagall you're quitting Muggle Studies and Divination?”
“What?” Exclaimed Ron. “Hermione is quitting two classes? Hermione?”
“Yes, Ron,” Hermione answered testily. “Iliana finally convinced me that I had bitten off more than I could chew. I was running myself ragged on that schedule, but I should be able to manage fine now. And yes, Iliana, I told her last Sunday.”
“Are you gonna tell us how you were getting to your classes before?”
She paused to think for a moment. Coming to a decision, she nodded.
“Yes. I suspect I only had to keep it a secret so others wouldn't steal it and abuse it. But since I've given it up now, I can tell you. No more danger of it being misused, now.”
“Abuse what?” Ron asked.
“I was given a time-turner.”
“A what, now?”
“A device kept at the ministry that let me go back and redo hours. Back... in time.”
Iliana choked on her eggs and fell over, turning into Alastair on the way down. When he climbed back up, able to breathe, he goggled at her.
“I was just kidding when I suggested a time machine!”
“Keep your voice down, Al,” she said unnecessarily, since his voice had been hoarse and quiet from choking. “I'm not entirely sure it was a good idea to tell you.”
“You had a bloody time machine and you gave it up? With Moldy Voldy still out there? He could come back, and we could use the time machine to go back and prevent it!”
“That is exactly the kind of attitude that makes me think I shouldn't have told you. Meddling with time is very dangerous. McGonagall--”
“If time travel is so dangerous, why'd they let you do it to attend classes? Gods, that has got to be the geekiest thing ever. 'I'm Hermione Granger, I got given a time machine and I used it to take more classes because I want my picture to be in the dictionary next to the word “swot”.'”
Hermione glared at him. “For your information, Alastair Potter, Professor McGonagall had to write all sorts of letters to the ministry swearing I was a model student and wouldn't use it for anything but going to classes.”
“God, knowing you, you probably did. Man, if I had a time machine, I'd go back an hour and give myself a--”
“Please do not finish that sentence,” Hermione begged of him.
He smirked at her. “You know me too well, 'mione.”
“Yes, I do,” she said sourly, focusing on her breakfast.
“So, er, Al... how, uh... how do you feel? You know, with...”
“Oh me? I feel great. Guess since I don't have a uterus, I'm not affected. Maybe I'll just hang around whenever the girls get their monthlies so they don't have to suffer.”
Ron chuckled. “From what I've heard, today's gonna be great. Al and Sirius in the same room together is a hoot, I've heard tell.”
“A regular hootnanny, no less,” Al replied before digging heartily into his bangers.
“Hogsmeade won't know what hit it.”
“Too right. Me and Sirius might even give Fred and George a run for their money.”
“Oh really?” said one of the twins, having overheard him talking. “Whadda ya think, George? Go down with this lot to meet the infamous Sirius Black?”
“I wouldn't miss it for the world, Fred. I just wonder what kind of protective gear we should take, to prevent injury and loss of limb. You know, from the epic shenanigans that are bound to ensue.”
“Should we sell ringside tickets, d'ya reckon?”
“On such short notice? Nah, maybe later. Got to preview the show, vet it for suitability with audiences.”
“Of course, of course. Silly me, why didn't I think of that?”
“Because I'm the clever one, of course.”
“Too true, too true. Whereas I got the devilishly good looks.”
The twins laughed and went back to their food. Hermione rolled her eyes at them, while Al barked with laughter before going back to his own food.
On their way down to the village later, Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle caught the three of them 'alone.'
“Oh look, it's the Weasel, the Mudblood, and the freakshow.”
“Behave yourself, Malfoy,” Al warned, “or Zoey will hide you somewhere nobody will ever find you.”
“So you did attack me that night, and stick me to the ceiling! I knew it!”
“Go ahead and think what you will. But I warn you to behave, or I'll have Zoey transfigure your cock up your own arse. You know, right next to your head.”
Crabbe and Goyle cracked their knuckles menacingly.
“You two babboons don't scare me. I've faced Voldemort, twice, and survived. I could transfigure your faces to each other's arses before you could even get a shot off. So run along and forget about your revenge. Because if we did have something to do with your predicament the other day, Malfoy, it would've been because of what you did to Hagrid's hippogriff, Buckbeak. Not just some random prank, like I'm sure you think. Hypothetically speaking, of course.”
“Of course. And hypothetically speaking, Potter, if I did have plans to get you back, it bloody well wouldn't be here in broad daylight where anyone could come along and see. I'd just think it would be fun, to put you on your guard, make you squirm before it happened.”
Al put his hands on his knees and bent down like he was talking condescendingly to a small child. “And if I was the weest bit fwightened of big scawy Swythewins, Malfoy, I might be worried. But Crabbe and Goyle are practically squibs, relying on their muscles and bulk to intimidate people, and they have the collective intelligence of half a flobberworm. Whereas you're just a small, blond, sniveling git hiding behind big words, your goons, and your father. You think the world is your oyster, and the first person to be unimpressed by your entitled attitude is who you've chosen to be your enemy, because you can't stand it when you're not the center of the universe. Without your money, Malfoy, you're nothing. If your daddy's fortune somehow vanished, like if he gambled it away or spent it all on whores and booze, your name would mean nothing. You pick on Ron and his family because I'm betting that your boggart would be you and your parents dressed in rags, begging on the streets to survive.”
Malfoy exploded in rage, and Al just barely dodged the hex, sending his own back. Crabbe and Goyle surged forward to engage Ron and Hermione, but Al tripped them with a trip jinx and sent three stunners, hitting all three Slytherins. When the dust settled, figuratively speaking, he rolled them to the side of the path, tied them up with ropes from his wand, Disillusioned them, and put a Full Body Bind on them.
Hermione wrung her hands all the time, but didn't stop him. She continued wringing her hands on the way down to the village, too.
“Listen, Hermione, don't worry about it. The spells will wear off before dinner. They'll miss their whole Hogsmeade day, but that'll serve them right for attacking us.
“You do realize they're just going to be even more angry now, right?”
“Let them be. I don't care. They're bullies, and I can't stand bullies.”
“You're being a bit of a bully yourself, you know.”
“Nonsense. I never attack them first. They always bring it about themselves.”
“You goaded them into attacking, Al. How is that not bullying?”
Al looked a bit uncomfortable. “Yeah, well, they goaded me into goading them. If they just knew how to stop while they're behind, I'd leave them be. But they've always got to have the last word.”
“Something you have in common with them, Al.”
More might've been said, but they'd gotten to The Three Broomsticks, and it was time to meet Sirius.
End note: Yes, I know the Harry Potter Lexicon says lessons with Lupin were at 8 pm, but in this one they're at 7. It gives them an extra hour.
Also, I don't care for the movies past the second one, but I couldn't think of a good book reference for Mr. Weasley's incompetence with Muggle stuff, so please forgive me that one movie reference.
End note 2: Ending the chapter here because it's already almost 30 pages long, and that's without the spaces between paragraphs.
Chapter Nineteen: Home
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for any bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there. It's been frustrating me, too, but some things are just too perfect already to change.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Harry, and Zoey, and now #Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and now between hashtags/pound signs because some people's computers don't do the B.I.U.).#
***FAYANORA***
Quite apart from anything else that day, even the pleasure of putting Malfoy and his cronies in their place, was the look of resigned horror on Madam Rosmerta's face when she saw both Al and Sirius together in her bar, like she'd been afraid this would eventually happen, and had been hoping it would be a few more years before that day came.
“Alastair Potter and S-Sirius Black, in the same room together. Blimey, Sirius, I've only started getting used to the idea of you having been innocent this whole time, and you drop this on me?”
Sirius and Al both barked with laughter, slightly out of synch with one another.
“Sorry, Rosmerta, but I didn't plan this.”
“Nor did I,” Al said. “We were gonna have Iliana come today, but she, er... wasn't feeling well.”
Sirius looked at Al shrewdly. So did Rosmerta. But neither commented.
“What would you two troublemakers like to drink?”
“I'd k—er, I'd like a firewhiskey,” Sirius said.
“Same for me,” Al said, putting his feet on the table. The two adults glowered at him. “What?”
“You're too young, pup,” Sirius said.
Al sighed. “Fine. I'll have a butterbeer.”
“Good. And you two?” she asked Ron and Hermione.
“Two butterbeers,” Hermione said.
“Be back soon with your drinks,” Rosmerta said. “Do try to not demolish the bar before then.”
“You wound me, Madam,” Al answered melodramatically. “You wound me to my very core.”
She snorted, and left to get their drinks. Al eyed her backside appreciatively. Then he nudged Sirius, who was also leaning back with one foot on the table, and said, “You and her ever, you know...?”
Sirius nearly fell over, he laughed so hard. “Don't I wish. But she was always immune to my charms. Don't think I've ever seen her take to anyone, to be honest. But then, I've been a bit out of touch for a while, so who knows?”
The door opened, and McGonagall and Hagrid walked in. McGonagall looked stricken when she spotted Al and Sirius, as though she'd had nightmares about this.
“Minerva, are you feeling well?” Sirius asked her.
“To be honest, Sirius, I'm not. Ever since Madam Pomfrey told me about the first time you two met, I've been dreading it happening again.”
“Seems to be a theme,” Al commented. “I can't for the life of me think why, though,” he said, grinning.
“Blimey, I knew yeh looked like 'im, Al, but seein the two o' yeh together like this... blimey.”
“Yeah, it's one of life's little mysteries. I'm still not entirely convinced Sirius isn't somehow a literal second father.”
Sirius really did fall off his chair that time, cursing like a sailor as he scrambled to get back up while everyone laughed at him. Red in the face and ears, he righted his chair and sat normally on it before speaking.
“There'll be none of that talk, Alastair. Lily was cool, but she wasn't that cool, and even if she was, it's quite impossible. You heard Madam Pomfrey.”
Al shrugged.
Rosmerta came over then with their drinks, and got the two new orders at the same time, going back to the bar. When she'd left, McGonagall turned to Al and looked sternly down her nose at him.
“By the way, Mr. Potter. I found something rather unusual on my way down here today. Or rather, Hagrid did. His foot hit something invisible. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?”
Al shrugged. “No, Professor McGonagall. Could it have been a demiguise?”
“No, Mr. Potter, I think not, since demiguises are native to the far east. Besides which, it was three Slytherins, trussed up and Disillusioned and left at the side of the path. Misters Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle to be specific.”
Sirius nearly choked on his firewhiskey, laughing. Their letters to him had told him all about the three Slytherins.
“Sounds like they got themselves into quite a predicament. Good thing you found them, Professor. I wouldn't want them to get hurt.”
“In point of fact, Mr. Potter, that was a rhetorical question. I know full well you're responsible. I just wanted to know if there were any extenuating circumstances before I meted out punishment. Which I will be doing regardless of your answer, but I may be predisposed toward leniency if the situation calls for it.”
“Well, we were just walking along when the three of them ambushed us to have a little chat with us. Malfoy seemed to think I'd done something to him, and I couldn't convince him otherwise. Our argument may have gotten a little heated. But he and his goons attacked first.”
“I see. Well, I shall be punishing them for attacking first, but you will attend detention tomorrow night at 7 o'clock; come to my office then. Also, I will be taking 15 points from Griffindor for what you did to them.”
Al arranged his face into a passable semblance of remorse. “Of course, Professor. I'll be there.”
“Yes. You will indeed be there. Not Zoey, not Adira, not Iliana, nor Tier. You.”
“Ten-four, Professor.”
She blinked at him, confused.
Hermione sighed. “That's something Muggle lorry drivers and walkie-talkie users say to mean that they've heard you and understand.”
“Oh. Good. Now I'm going to go over there and enjoy my drink. See you later, Mr. Potter. And do try to avoid further trouble.”
“Ten-four, Professor,” he said again, saluting.
As she and Hagrid left their table, they heard snickering from the table behind them. They turned to look, and saw the Weasley twins.
“That was brilliant, mate!”
“Lovely! And you only lost 15 points!”
“Yeah, she must've thought they deserved what you did, for waylaying you.”
“What was it you did to him, pup?” Sirius asked him.
Al grinned, and started to tell them all, in detail, what Zoey had done to Malfoy, careful to couch it in rhetorical terms, in case any of the teachers could hear him. When he finished, he leaned back and smirked while everyone but Hermione laughed themselves silly. Hermione just rolled her eyes and sighed.
“Honestly, you are just impossible,” she told him.
“Not impossible. Just highly improbable.”
When their drinks were finished, Al and Sirius got up and left the main group to go off and do their own thing together. They went to Honeydukes, where Sirius got a generous amount of chocolate for Al and company, as well as some for himself. Then they spent a lot of time in Zonko's, getting various joke supplies and laughing it up.
It wasn't until a running student accidentally splashed mud all over Sirius's robes that they noticed he had a wand, when he took it out to clean himself off.
“You got a new wand?”
“What? Oh, no. It's my original wand. Got it back after I got pardoned. Fudge himself came to St. Mungo's to give it to me.”
“Your original wand? But when Hagrid got expelled, they broke his.”
“Well yes, he was expelled. Can't have unqualified wizards using magic. But prisoners just have their wands confiscated.”
“Oh, okay. Hey, I just thought something. Since Hagrid's name got cleared, is he going to be trained up and given a new wand?”
“Hmm... I don't know. Sounds like something to take up with Hagrid. Or Dumbledore. Or both.”
“Well if so, he'll have to get a new one. He's been using his old wand, which is an umbrella now, and it's a miracle it works at all. After Ron's wand broke down in the Chamber of Secrets, he had to get a new one. Of course, his had been among the walking dead for some time before that, so maybe it's different with Hagrid's.”
“Possibly. Dumbledore or Ollivander would know for sure.”
They went back to the Three Broomsticks and sat down together to talk.
“So, how are you, you mangy mutt?” Al teased.
“Oh, on the mend. Healers keep saying I should be well enough to be released by Easter. I hope so. Getting stir crazy in that hospital. At least they keep bringing me plenty to read, and I get the occasional day trips. This one, you may have noticed, is unsupervised. But they have a tracking spell on me so they can fetch me up when they want to.
“Anyway, let's see, what else? Ah yes, I've been allowed to talk with the goblins, and I've got access to the Black family vault again; I haven't actually been in there, yet, but I've been getting money again. I've been trying to see if I can get a flat for us by the time I'm released from St. Mungo's. The Healers haven't been thrilled about it, but they've been letting me carry on anyway. I've got a few places to look at, which means more day trips. Been trying to arrange things so I can check multiple places out on the same days, because until they let me go, the number of day trips they let me have is limited. But I should have a place squared away soon. Which reminds me, I'll have to talk with Dumbledore about letting you come with me to look at places.”
“What? Why?”
“If we're both going to be living there, we should both like the place we pick, right?”
“Oh, yeah. Good point. Well, as long as it isn't 4 Privet Drive in Surry, and as long as I have my own room, I don't care about anything else.”
“Yeah, but don't settle for shit when you can get gold, okay? I only wish we could go to my old flat, the one my uncle helped me pay for, before Azkaban, but my possessions were seized when I was thrown in there, and the old flat has different people in it now. I know, I checked.”
“Well it sounds like fun. I've never lived in a flat before. Never even been in one. The Dursleys own their own house, and so do the Weasleys.”
“If you're getting your ideas about flats from television, pup, don't. Wizard flats are different. They look like normal Muggle ones on the outside, but inside they're as huge as one can afford. The one my uncle got me was only a little smaller than my parents' house, on the inside.
“Anyway, after we pick a place, I'll have to have goblins and some trusted friends in to set up the wards. I want to keep you as safe as possible, like I should have been able to do before.”
He paused, scowling.
“Sirius?”
“Gods, I was such an idiot. I should have gone straight to Dumbledore and explained the truth. He can always tell when someone's telling the truth or not. Should've gone to Dumbledore, rather than trying to murder the traitorous rat myself. Seeing the house blown up like that, two of my best friends dead, and a third was a traitor... I must've lost my mind. Temporary insanity.”
“Eh, don't dwell on the past. What's done is done.”
“Good advice, pup.”
Sirius tousled Al's hair playfully. Then he looked at Al in a strange sort of wistful way.
“Knut for your thoughts?”
“Oh. It's just... I suppose Adira's in there, right? Is she awake? Is she listening?”
“Hanging onto your every word. Offering occasional comments, suggestions for things to say.”
“Good, good. I just... this whole thing is very odd. I know I've been hiding my confusion well, but, well... yeah. Still trying to make sense of this whole thing.”
“You and us both. But at least you don't avoid talking to us, and then talk about us behind our back, like most of the students and some of the teachers do. At least, I hope you don't.”
Sirius hugged him. “Nah. It's unusual, for sure, but I love you, all of you. Though I don't think I've met everyone yet. Let's see, I met Adira, Iliana, and you. Who does that leave?”
“Zoey and Tier.”
“Ah yes, the little mischievous pixie and the strong, silent one.”
Al chuckled. “Yeah, pretty much. Do you want to meet Zoey now?”
“Only if it's okay with you lot.”
Al nodded. “See you later, Padfoot!”
Before Sirius's eyes, Al shrunk down to Zoey.
“Striking eyes,” Sirius said. “Looks like one is Lily's, the other is... blue?”
Zoey nodded. “Just like Al's.”
“Blue, green, and hazel, all in one body, eh?”
She shrugged. “I guess.”
“So I hear you're a dab hand at transfiguration.”
“I'm a natural. Tier is a natural at transfiguring the body, I'm a natural at transfiguring other stuff. I don't even need a wand!”
“Really? Can I see? That's a heck of a thing to claim, I'm gonna need proof.”
“Sure,” she said, grabbing her used butterbeer bottle and concentrating on it, both her empty hands on the table, in plain view. And before his eyes, the bottle morphed into a small bird, which hopped around the table and twittered.
“Amazing!”
“Yeah, I guess so,” she said shyly. “I don't do so well with a wand, though. On transfiguration, I mean. I'm just as good as the others with most spells, but the wand kinda holds me back when doing transfiguration.”
Sirius let the little bird hop onto his finger, admiring the realism. It was indistinguishable from a real bird.
“My mood seems to affect it, too. In a bad mood, trying that, it would look like a lump of melted glass, and not a bird. Oh, and by the way, don't touch it too hard, it might break.”
“Break?”
“Like glass. I may be a prodigy at transfiguration, but I've still got a lot of learning left to do. And I couldn't do that at all with a wand.”
Sure enough, when the bird hopped down off his hand, its legs broke under it like colored glass, and it started to panic, twittering like mad. Zoey, looking sadly at it, concentrated on it, and turned it back into a bottle.
“Oh, by the way,” she said, changing the subject, “I should show you Aqua!”
“Aqua?”
'Come on out, Aqua,' she hissed in Parseltongue.
From out of the sleeve of her robes came a very annoyed looking garden snake.
'You know, it is very hard to sleep when you keep changing back and forth.'
'Sorry, Aqua.'
'You are forgiven, human. Now, what did you call me for?'
“Bloody Hell,” Sirius said in wonder. “So Dumbledore wasn't lying, you really are a Parselmouth.”
“Yup. I was speaking it when Dumbledore overheard, and told me the significance. We tried to keep it a secret, but that didn't work out so well.”
'Well, human? Are you going to answer me?'
'Sorry. This is my godfather, Sirius Black.'
The snake turned to Sirius and flicked its tongue out at him.
'He does not look black to me. More of a whitish color to me. Except for his fur; that is black.'
She giggled. Sirius raised an eyebrow.
'It's not his color, it's his name.'
'His name is Serious Black?'
'No, not Serious. Sirius, the dog star. The north star.'
'He smells like both a human and a dog.'
'He's an animagus. He can turn into a dog.'
'Fitting name for him, then.'
She giggled again.
“What's it saying?”
“She's saying... well, I told her your name, and she thought I was describing you as serious and colored black. Then I told her you're named after the dog star, and told her about your animagus form. She said it was a fitting name for you.”
“Yeah. I've long wondered about that. I suspect the universe has a sense of humor. After all, Moony's given name and surname both mean 'wolf.'”
“Wolf Wolf?”
“Yeah.”
She giggled again.
There was a silence for a bit, while Zoey looked thoughtfully at Sirius. He looked back at her curiously.
“Sirius?”
“Yes, Zoey?”
“Would you give me a piggy back ride?”
Sirius chuckled at this. “Sure thing, moppet. Where should we go?”
“You could take me down to the Shrieking Shack.”
“Alright, then.”
The two of them went outside then, and once outside, Sirius lifted Zoey up and set her down on his shoulders. She held onto his head and giggled as he started down to the Shrieking Shack.
“Lucky thing I've been getting stronger, with the physical therapy St. Mungo's has been putting me through. I doubt I'd have been able to do this around Christmas time.”
“So high!”
Sirius laughed again, thoroughly enjoying this as much as Zoey was.
“This is amazing, Sirius! I've never had a piggy back ride before!”
“Oh, you have. You just don't remember. Or, Adira has, rather. Back before... well... your mum and dad gave you piggy back rides. I may have done so, too.”
“Yeah, but I don't remember those.”
~
On Monday morning, something else they'd forgotten to do came to mind, and – hoping it wasn't too late – Adira wrote a letter to Mrs. Weasley in which she came out as trans.
Dear Mrs. Weasley,
I meant to do this sooner, and then got distracted and forgot. I can only hope that you get this before you hear it from other sources. I don't know how much opportunity you will have to use this information, for I will be spending the summers with my godfather, Sirius Black, from now on. That is, once he gets a flat chosen, and gets out of St. Mungo's.
Anyway, I've veered off course. I have come to a realization about myself over the last year, something that was hinted at to me around Christmas of my first year in Hogwarts, that I need to tell you. And it never gets easier, each person I tell, but here goes: I am actually a girl, in mind and spirit. I mean “Harry,” not Iliana or Zoey. I thought I was a boy, since that's what I was always told, but I'm actually a girl. I will be looking into changing my name legally over the summer, to my new name: Adira Lily Jamie Potter. Please do not use my old name or pronouns, okay? But if you make mistakes, I won't bite your head off, so no worries there.
Well even with staying with Sirius, I hope to visit you all at the Burrow at least once, maybe on my birthday.
I also thank you for being understanding about Al's previous anger, moot as it may be now. I was very worried he'd damaged our relationship with his letter. So again, thank you.
Sincerely,
Adira Potter
Satisfied with the letter, she put it in the envelope and went out the portrait hole to go to the owlery. When she closed the portrait, she noticed the Fat Lady was back.
“Oh good, you're back!”
“Yes. No thanks to your godfather,” she said testily.
“Er, yeah. He was a bit mad, obsessed with getting at Pettigrew. He wasn't really thinking clearly.”
“You tell him I expect a formal apology from him, and he's to call ahead first. I want some extra security around when he comes to apologize, because I still don't trust him.”
“I'll let him know, ma'am.”
“Good.”
Adira nodded and left. Wary of running into Malfoy, she made sure to keep her eyes peeled, and even checked carefully inside the alcove Zoey had stowed Malfoy in, in case he'd worked its secret out. But there was nobody in there, so she continued on up to the owlery, still alert.
Luckily, nobody else was there, so she tied her letter to Hedwig and sent the snowy owl off to the Weasleys, after giving her some owl treats. Then she warily headed back downstairs, and on to breakfast.
On her way to Potions later in the day, she was glad to have been free of Malfoy's revenge so far, but she half hoped he'd strike soon to get it over with. Hermione and Ron looked at her curiously, but she didn't explain her worries.
When the three of them arrived at Potions class, they were early. They were also faced with the Slytherins. Malfoy and his cronies were looking especially horrible today, wearing malicious expressions as they talked quietly.
“Speak of the devil,” Malfoy said when they approached. “Here's the it now. I wonder what it thinks it's doing here, polluting our air with its freakish disease.”
The Slytherins laughed. Adira tried to ignore him.
“Bad enough it's an attention-seeking nutter pretending to be a whole load of different people, but now it thinks its a girl. Mark my words, the one that looks like Black will probably be asking us to call it Miss Pouf by Easter.”
Ron balled his fists and looked to Adira questioningly. Adira, despite being furious herself, ever so slightly shook her head 'no.'
Al? Are you in there? I could use some clever comebacks.
Al was in there, alright. She felt an answering fury from him. But he was too incensed to speak. The way Malfoy was using the word 'it' was seriously pissing him off.
“Don't be rude, Draco,” said an unfamiliar voice from among the Slytherins. Everyone who had been laughing stared in shock at the source, a black boy Adira recognized as Blaise Zabini. Blaise was presently staring down his nose at Malfoy.
Recovering his wits, Malfoy turned red with anger. “What are you doing, Zabini?”
“What I'm doing, Malfoy,” Blaise said, “is choosing to disregard the usual Slytherin unity to call you out for behaving in a disgusting manner.”
This shocked everyone in the vicinity, especially Adira. Malfoy was gaping at him like a fish. Crabbe and Goyle recovered first, and cracked their knuckles threateningly. Blaise, however, ignored them and stepped toward Adira.
“Potter,” he said, inclining his head.
“Zabini.”
“Let me just make one thing clear: I don't like you, Potter, and I don't agree with you on a lot of things. I also don't know what to make of this whole... being other people business. Seems very weird to me, at least. That said, I just wanted you to know not all Slytherins are going to be horrible about your gender, like Malfoy. I support you in that much. And everyone else should, as well,” he finished, giving Malfoy a haughty look, before turning back to Adira.
Zabini held out a hand for Adira. Stunned, she took it and they shook hands.
“Thank you, Zabini.”
“You are welcome, Potter.”
They stopped shaking hands, and Blaise went back to his previous place, though about a third of the other Slytherins moved away from him.
Malfoy looked like he was going to say something, but then Snape appeared, by opening the door.
“Mr. Malfoy,” Snape said coldly. “I have just heard your entire conversation through the door. And as amusing as it normally is when you taunt Miss Potter, your behavior in this case may be hurtful to other students who are also transgender, but are not open about it, which may or may not include members of your own House, a consideration that plainly did not cross your mind. So you will serve a detention with me later, Mr. Malfoy. You will stay after class to find out when and where it is. And if I ever hear you belittle someone's gender again, it will be a week's worth of detentions, am I understood? Good. Now I suggest you go take your seat. ALL of you!”
Everyone jumped, and rushed to get through the door as soon as possible.
“Now, the potion we will be doing today...” she heard Snape say before she found it too hard to focus.
That was... odd. Zabini and Snape both being so...
I know, Al answered. Too weird for words. I wonder if Zabini is trans? Or knows someone who is?
Doesn't need to, necessarily, to be a good ally.
“Miss Potter!”
“What? Sorry, Sir.”
“Please pay attention, Miss Potter. This potion is very tricky, and despite the fact that you – or one of you, anyway – have proven to be better than average in this subject, you will need to pay very close attention to avoid a cauldron explosion today. I will not tolerate repeating myself today, so I will be handing out detentions to any student who needs to be told a second time to pay attention and concentrate only on their work. Understood?”
Adira nodded vigorously. So did everyone else, when Snape's gaze panned in their directions.
“Good. Now, moving on...”
~
“That was weird! First Zabini, then Snape!” Ron exclaimed on their way out of class.
“Yeah. And I think he actually complimented me on my Potions skills, in his own way. Or rather, Iliana's skills.”
“Did he?”
“Yeah, he mentioned we're 'better than average' at Potions. Which, coming from Snape, is high praise indeed.”
“Blimey.”
“You know... it's only been a month since the whole school got told about me being Adira, but I've already noticed Snape has seemed to hate me a little less since then. The first time I showed up as Adira in his class, I could swear he almost smirked at me. That was the day he started being more lenient with me than before. I mean, he's still a hard-ass, but he doesn't seem to be hunting for excuses to pick on me in class anymore.”
“Weird. I wonder what that's about?”
“Yeah, me too. I mean, his attitude toward Iliana I get, because he fancied my mom and she's a painful reminder of Lily's death to him. I understood that something similar was going on with me as Harry, because I have Lily's eyes and look like my dad, even as a girl. And he hates Alastair because he hates Sirius. But now, I don't know.”
“Didn't he hate your dad, too?”
“Yeah, he does.”
“Hmm... maybe the fact that James's son is now a girl amuses him?”
Adira thought about that. “Yeah, that sounds possible. A little bigoted of him, but that's Snape for you.”
~
After that, the days went by in a fairly regular fashion. They went to classes, they practiced Quidditch, they did homework, and they continued working on the Patronus Charm. Ginny slowly warmed back up to them, talking with Iliana and Al, though still unable to speak with Adira. Adira reached out more to Luna and Neville.
She got a letter back from Mrs. Weasley. It wasn't very long, and didn't address her previous letter's contents directly, just asking after her well being and mood, as well as sharing some news of the family. The only sign that Mrs. Weasley had gotten the previous letter was that the letter was addressed to Adira by her new name. This made Adira smile.
As she read the letter for a second time, Percy Weasley came downstairs, looking furious.
“Ah, Adira. Have you seen either of the twins lately?”
“Uh, no. Why?”
“Because those two put a load of grass snakes in my trunk. I want them to take the dratted things out, and I also want to drag the two of them to McGonagall. If they're going to keep targeting me for their pranks, then they're going to pay the price.”
“They do seem to pick on you an awful lot. I think it means they like you, ironically.”
“I find that unlikely. They like you a lot, but have you ever been pranked?”
“Um... not much. Maybe they're afraid of Al hexing their legs backwards?”
Percy snorted in disbelief. Adira prodded his feelings with her empathic sense, and got rather a lot more information than she'd expected.
“You know, it occurs to me now that everything you achieve, they tease you about. I know for a fact that they like you, but, well... that doesn't excuse their behavior.”
Percy looked relieved. “I'm glad someone else sees it. And it's not just the twins, either. I never hear a positive word from Ron, either.”
“I dunno about the twins, but Ron gets really jealous. He wants to outshine Charlie and Bill, too. He's probably sore that yet another older brother is doing so well for himself. He already feels like he's got too much to live up to, and then you keep raising the bar. It doesn't excuse his being a berk, but it does explain it.”
Percy sat down next to her and sighed heavily. “Thank you, Adira. It is exhausting, being excited about things, and the only people in my family who've ever had a positive word to say about it being mum and dad. I just want the others to be proud of me. I work hard for everything I get. I'm taking every class in the syllabus, too. Unlike Hermione, I've actually been managing it well enough.”
“Oh, so do you have a time turner too?”
“Er... told you about that, did she? I rather thought she was more sensible than that.”
“Only after she'd turned it in. I think she didn't consider you might have one too.”
“Yes, well... I guess the kneazle is out of the bag, now.”
“I won't tell anyone. Not even Ron or Hermione.”
“Thank you, Adira. I keep it on me at all times, but still... I worry what the twins would do with it if they found out.”
She nodded. “Well I'm happy for you, even if I didn't say it before. Head Boy is quite an achievement, on top of Prefect. I hope to do as well as you someday. Of course, I'm not doing every subject like you, but still...”
“Thank you, Adira. I appreciate it.”
“Would you like me or Iliana to speak with the twins and the others about their behavior? We can do it without making it seem like you asked us. Which you didn't.”
“I suppose you can try. I think Iliana is the only person aside from Mum that the twins really listen to. I think she intimidates them.”
“Yeah, she has that effect. Anyway, I don't know where they are, but I could get those snakes out of your trunk for you. I don't imagine they like being in there.”
“Thank you again. I'll show you the way. Follow me.”
She nodded, and got up. A few minutes later, she was gently coaxing the grass snakes out of the trunk in Parseltongue and telling them to follow her and she'd guide them back outside. Shortly thereafter, she was seen by many people, being followed by at least a dozen snakes as she guided them down to the entrance hall and out the door.
“That was cool, Adira!” George said as she came back in. “Were those the snakes we put in Percy's trunk?”
She glowered at them, crossing her arms. Despite being much taller than her, the two twins cowered at her glare.
“Yes, those were the snakes you bullied your brother with.”
“Bullied? I wouldn't say we--”
“Well I would. I grew up with a bully, I know what bullying is like. Pranks should be funny for everyone involved. Snakes in Percy's trunk is not a funny prank. Nor is, let's see,” she thought, counting on her fingers, “stealing his Head Boy badge and changing it to say 'Bighead Boy,' mocking the way he speaks when he's proud and trying to bring it up to people, putting beetles in his soup, pushing him into a pyramid, teasing him about having a girlfriend, and who knows what else over the years?”
“But that was all in good fun,” Fred said as though he didn't really believe his own words.
“Look at it from Percy's perspective: constantly teased, never a positive word said to him, and whenever he's justifiably proud about something he's worked hard for, he gets mocked by you and Ron, and occasionally Ginny, too. You may be intending these things in good fun, but well intentioned actions can still hurt. Percy doesn't let on much, but it does make him rather grumpy, maybe you've noticed that much.”
“He's always been grumpy, though,” said George. “We were trying to make him loosen up.”
“Perhaps. But he's not you, the things that would loosen you two up don't work on him. Percy responds more to respect. He wants people to be as excited about his achievements as he is. Would you mock Hermione's way of speaking after she excitedly started going on about getting a great score on a test? Or after she had managed to perfect the use of difficult magic?”
The twins looked shame-facedly at one another before responding. “Of course not!” Fred said. “That would be mean! She'd be hurt!”
“And yet that's the sort of thing you do to Percy all the time.”
They stared, first at her, then at each other, as though they'd never thought about it before. Which they likely hadn't.
“Blimey, George, she's right! We've been a pair of jerks for years now!”
“How do we apologize? He'll be expecting it's another prank.”
“I could go with you,” Adira said.
“Thanks, but still, what do we say?”
“You'll think of something. Come on, no time like the present.”
She prodded them forward and they made their way up to Griffindor tower, the twins talking all the way, trying to figure out how to make it up to Percy.
When they got there, Percy looked surprised to see them. He looked even more surprised to see their plainly abashed body language. He sat there and listened quietly as they stumbled through an apology, one that ended up being long and rambling, the twins talking about what Adira had told them, and how they'd not intended, consciously at least, to be mean to him.
“...and yeah, we know we tease you about everything when you're proud about stuff, because you have a tendency to sound stuffy and boring, but that doesn't make it right. The fact that we're not interested in the same things as you are doesn't mean we aren't proud of you. You do work hard, we should let you know once in a while that we're happy for you, if a bit put out by the repetitiveness of it.”
“Yeah, Perce, what he said. Also, I'm sorry if our pranks have been mean spirited.”
“We both are.”
“We'll be better, we swear. We won't play any pranks on you until we can figure out what'd be actually in good fun for you.”
“Or otherwise work out a way to balance things out.”
Percy regarded them curiously. When they stopped speaking, he turned to Adira.
“Are they telling the truth?”
“Yes. I can usually tell when people are lying; Snape and Dumbledore being exceptions. They're being honest.”
“Good. I accept your apologies, Fred, George. But I'll keep an eye on you, and call you out if you slip up.”
The twins grinned sheepishly. “Fine by us.”
Percy held out his hand, and they took turns shaking it.
“I'll get Ron later, Percy,” Adira told him.
“Good, good. Thank you for your help, Adira.”
“No problem.”
~
Adira told Ron off for his behavior towards Percy the next day. Ron was angry and defensive at first, but then the more Adira spoke, the more abashed he looked. He ended up apologizing to his brother by the end of the day, which pleased both Percy and Adira. Percy, surprising even Adira, actually hugged his brother by way of accepting the apology, which made Ron protest feebly, trying to hide his grin.
After that, the rest of the month passed fairly straightforwardly. Classes progressed, including her anti-dementor lessons with Lupin. Iliana continued having Quidditch practice. Birthdays were celebrated. The only problem was, as they discovered, related to Iliana's and Adira's monthlies. While switching to Al or Zoey could suppress the menstruation for a while, it just came back with a vengeance when they switched back, and so it ended up being easier and shorter to just suffer for a few days than to drag it out for a week or two by transforming.
Even though it was a whole month before Easter that Hermione had left Divination, Trelawney still insisted she'd predicted Hermione leaving. Of course, Al was quick to point out that it was hardly a mystical prediction if you kept harassing someone until they left to get away from you. This, of course, got him more detentions with her.
~
When Easter holidays came, Sirius was finally released from St. Mungo's. He came to Hogwarts to fetch Adira and take her to the flat he was thinking of getting, in a building in London that was owned by a witch and wizard couple, a building full of dozens of magical flats.
It looked like quite an ordinary building on the outside, of course. A rather run-down and ratty sort of place, in fact. In fact, it looked from the outside like the sort of place that the Dursleys would have called a 'hole in the wall' sort of place. Adira imagined a single small room with a bed-bug riddled twin mattress, a toilet and sink in the same room as the bed, and a single battered set of dresser drawers. She also imagined Uncle Dursley saying “Even the roaches would be moving down in the world, moving in there.” Except that such a sentence would require more imagination than her uncle posessed.
The inside corridors didn't look any better. The wallpaper was torn and peeling off the walls. The stairs were rickety, creaking and groaning with every step. In the few places where there was wood, that wood looked like it had been through several centuries of hard wear. It rather reminded her of the inside of the Shrieking Shack, in fact; except the Shack was swankier.
Finally, they were led to the battered door to flat number 23B. The hinges were rusty. But when she opened the door, which meant she had to disengage some wards first, the door opened to something unexpected.
Inside the flat was a whole other story from the building's appearances. Inside 23B was the inside of a mansion. Bigger on the inside, it had over a dozen rooms, each one large and spacious and already stocked with furniture. There were at least 6 bedrooms, a drawing room, a large dining room, a dozen or more bathrooms, a spiral staircase up to other levels, and a dueling practice room. What's more, the place was clean and well maintained.
“How does this place stay clean?” Adira asked the landlady witch.
“Oh, we have a staff of house elves that clean the rooms. Don't worry, they're bound to keep the secrets and silence of all residents and former residents, same as in Hogwarts.”
“How many house elves do you have?”
“We have plenty of them. I don't remember the exact number offhand. Might be 15. Yes, that sounds right.”
“Only 15?”
The middle-aged witch smiled at her. “Well, not all the flats are quite so spacious inside as this one. If you're worried about the poor dears being overworked, they'd tell us if they were overworked, trust me on that. Our elves are very vocal about their needs. Polite, and still obedient, but vocal. The head elf gave us quite the earful the one time we gave them too much to do. And another time when we didn't give them enough to do.”
“Oh okay.”
“Want to look around inside, dearie?”
“Sure.”
She let them in, and Adira stared in wonder at the huge place, wandering around the place and looking at everything, from the huge kitchen to the bedrooms to the dueling practice room.
“It's huge!” Adira commented at last. “And gorgeous.”
“Yeah, it's a little more ostentatious than my usual style,” Sirius said, “but when I saw the dueling room, I knew I had to get it. Given how often Volde--”
“EEK!” squealed the landlady.
“--mort and others try to attack you, I figured you might want somewhere to practice getting better at fighting for your life. Especially with your mother's blood protection broken. Plus, the building itself has lots of high-end wards on it, and I plan to get a bunch more put on our flat in particular. I'm even going to be using goblin-made wards as well as wizard-made wards.”
“It's perfect! I mean, if you really want to spend this much on me.”
“Of course I do. My best friend and his wife died, I want to keep their daughter safe,” he said, ruffling her hair.
The witch stared suddenly at Adira's forehead.
“Wait, are you... are you Harry Potter?”
“Not anymore I'm not. I'm Adira Potter now.”
“Hold on, that's not official yet. You'll have to register your name change at the Ministry.”
“Can we do that over the holidays?”
“Not yet. But in the summer we can, for sure.”
“Oh, er,” said the witch. “So you are the famous Potter? But your name is different now? And you're a girl?”
“Yes.”
The witch looked a little uncomfortable about this, but said nothing. Then she plastered on a smile.
“So are you satisfied with the flat?”
“I dunno. Adira?”
“I love it.”
“We'll take it.”
Adira explored the flat some more while the adults took care of the boring details of the lease and payment and so on. Sirius came and found her when they were done.
“We can move in today, Adira. Pick out a bedroom for yourself, and I'll do the same.”
“I already know which one I want!”
She ran upstairs, and Sirius followed. Adira picked out the bedroom nearest the dueling room, a bedroom which had its own bathroom and wasn't too far from the staircase. Sirius took one down the hall. That left four unused bedrooms which could be used for guest bedrooms.
“Galloping gargoyles!” Sirius exclaimed.
“What is it?”
“It has windows! My parents' house doesn't have windows. Of course, there was only the front and back that could have had windows, but even those were windowless. They didn't want to be able to see the Muggle households nearby. Admittedly, the view isn't all that great from here, either, but at least the air is fresh.”
“My bedroom has windows, too!” Adira called from her room. “I didn't notice them at first behind the curtains.”
“Well this makes sending owls easier. Whenever we wanted to send an owl at my parents' house, we had to go out back. Anyway, speaking of owls, I need to send one to Gringott's, let them know we're ready for the new wards to be put in place.”
“I left Hedwig at home.”
“That's alright. I came prepared,” Sirius said, pulling a cage out of his robes.
In the cage was a very small owl, which was twittering around madly like it wanted to be set loose. It looked like a tiny, feathery tennis ball.
“Scops owl, local deliveries only. I was checking out the owl post office in Hogsmeade and this little guy caught my attention. I was going to give him to Ron to replace his rat, but I've grown fond of the little fellow, I think he's funny. Plus, from what you've told me of Ron, he'd probably hate the poor thing. I haven't named him yet, though. Can't decide on a name. I call him Owl for now.”
Sirius let the tiny owl out of its cage, and it flew around the room like a feathery snitch.
“Calm down! Calm down you little feathery goofball! I have a letter for you!” Sirius said with a laugh, catching it in one hand and struggling to tie a letter to the small owl's leg.
“Take this to Griphook at Gringott's, understand?”
The small owl hooted at him in acknowledgement.
“Good,” Sirius said, tossing the small bird out the window. Adira gasped and rushed to the window to watch the bird plummet ten feet before gaining altitude again as it flew off toward Diagon Alley.
“Wouldn't it have been faster to Floo over there?”
“Yeah, but we're close enough to Gringott's that I wouldn't mind getting a good look around the place before they get here. Plus, why take the risk going out if we don't have to?”
“You just don't want to put up with the looks, right?”
Sirius looked uncomfortable, and didn't respond.
“It's okay, Sirius, I get it. I get looks all the time. Granted, they're not the same looks that you get, but I get it. I guess it'd be like my second year of Hogwart's, but all the time.”
“Yeah, it's taking some getting used to. But I suppose people won't get over it as fast if I don't go out more and make them get used to seeing me.”
Adira nodded.
“Well, I'm famished. Let's go get some Chinese, what do you think?”
“Sounds cool. I've never had Chinese before. Never had anything that the Dursleys would consider foreign. Not even spaghetti or pizza.”
“Really? Well we'll have to fix that this summer. I'm a horrible cook anyway, so we might as well order out as much as we can. I'll introduce you to Chinese food, Thai food, Indian curries, spaghetti, pizza, all sorts of things! Got to expand that palette of yours.”
“Will your owl be able to find you if we go out, though?”
“Yeah, it'll be fine. If not, he'll be here when we get back.”
Without further ado, they left the flat and locked the wards. Adira tried ignoring the dilapidated appearance of the building as they headed down to the street. Once there, they walked a couple blocks to a Chinese restaurant and sat down at one of the tables.
Not knowing what to get, Adira finally settled on a variety platter with five different things on it. There was kung pao shrimp, General Tso's chicken, orange chicken, Chinese style pork slices, and crab rangoons. It was all delicious. Sirius laughed til he cried when Adira tried the kung pao shrimp and started coughing and grabbing for the water, but after the surprise of it was over, she enjoyed the spiciness of the dish, and ate the whole thing.
Their bellies full, and their hearts full from the excited babbles and thanks from the waitress when Sirius gave her a 20 pound tip, they went home. As soon as they opened the door to the flat, they saw the small owl fluttering around like mad with a reply tied to its leg. Sirius grabbed it and removed the letter, reading it as the tiny owl flew around Adira's head.
“The goblins will fire-call us soon, and Floo over when I respond. I'd better get over to the drawing room, then. That's the only fireplace connected to the Floo.”
Curious, Adira followed along. They arrived just in time to see a face in the green flames, looking something like the Wizard from The Wizard of Oz, except it was a goblin.
“About time,” the goblin said impatiently. “I was about to pull out and try again in half an hour. Is it safe to come through?”
“According to the landlady, it is.”
“Good. Here we come.”
The face vanished from the fire, and soon the goblin was stepping out of the fireplace, brushing ash off his clothes. Soon after him came a wizard in green robes.
“My name is Fangslaughter,” said the goblin. “This is Benedict Snaggletooth, our resident ward expert. He'll be helping me.”
Adira was fascinated by the pair of them and their work, but it didn't take long to become boring, and so she took a deck of Exploding Snap cards out of her robes and began to play while she waited for them to finish.
After over an hour, they got her attention again and explained how to open the door through the wards without setting them off. They also explained that there were anti-Apparition wards on the flat. One could get through the Floo still, but coming in, the farthest you could come in without activating the wards was the stone in front of the fireplace. Coming in via Floo would make your arms and legs snap to your sides and you'd stand there frozen in place, only your mouth able to move in order to give the password, which could only be given by Sirius or one of the Potters, and was tied to their blood, meaning nobody else could give the password and have it work. Giving the password would unfreeze your body so you could use your wand to unlock the second set of wards holding you in place, so you could enter the drawing room properly. Guests could be pulled in through the wards by Sirius or Adira and company after the password was given, no matter who the password was given by.
“Of course,” said the goblin, “if you try to do anything else with your wand after giving the password, such as trying to hex the people beyond the wards, the hex will rebound onto you, and then you'll be completely locked in place and stunned, which will alert the Ministry, and they will send aurors to investigate.”
“Cool,” remarked Adira.
“Thank you, Miss Potter.”
Sirius handed the goblin, Fangslaughter, a sack of money. “For your troubles, sir.”
Fangslaughter looked confused. “You already paid us, Mr. Black. It's part of the contract, payment in advance.”
“It's a gratuity. To show you how much I appreciate your hard work. Here's one for you as well, Mr. Snaggletooth,” he said, handing another bag of money to the wizard.
The goblin looked in his. “There must be 20 galleons in here!”
“Yes. Adira and I are very appreciative.”
“Yes, thank you very much, Mister Fangslaughter,” Adira said, bowing to the goblin.
Fangslaughter's eyes went wide with surprise. Then his face resolved into a thoughtful look.
“It's just Fangslaughter, Miss Potter. And thank you for your surprising show of respect. It is unusual of wizards. Both of you are very unusual in that regard.”
“Thank you,” they both answered in unison.
Still bewildered, and also looking very forward to counting his gold, Fangslaughter went back through the Floo to Gringott's. Mr. Snaggletooth soon followed him.
~
For the rest of the day, Sirius told Adira lots of stories about her parents, especially Marauder stories, even over dinner of Indian food from another nearby shop. When Sirius finally had to stop because his throat – still not used to speaking after Azkaban – got all scratchy and sore, Adira went upstairs to work on her homework, which they had a lot of over Easter holidays.
She was halfway through Potions homework when she yawned very loudly. Setting her things aside on the desk, she got up and showered, changed, then went to bed. It was very easy to get to sleep; the bed was very soft and comfortable, and had warming charms built in.
How long she slept, she didn't know, but too quickly she startled awake, sitting bolt upright, trying to figure out what had woken her. Then she heard the screaming again, from Sirius's room, and bolted out of the room into his.
Sirius was tossing around so much that he looked tied into his bed, and he was screaming in his sleep. She approached him warily, not knowing what to do. Not everyone with problems like this could be dealt with the same way; some people preferred to be prodded awake, while others would go into full self-defence mode if touched at all in their sleep. Not knowing which to do, she opted for speech.
“Sirius? Sirius, you're just dreaming. It's me, Adira. James's kid. You're safe here, Sirius. Sirius?”
She tried again, louder. Then once more, even louder. Sirius finally jerked awake, sitting bolt upright in bed, looking around the room. When he saw her, he relaxed visibly.
“Adira. Sorry if I woke you.”
“No problem, Padfoot. You went through 12 years of Hell. And now you're in a new place, an unfamiliar place. I know what it's like, having nightmares.”
“Ah yes, I remember you mentioning that.”
“Do you...” she trailed off, thinking, and walked over to hold his hand. “Can I help you at all?”
“Oh Adira. It's me who should be helping you. I'm the dogfather, I mean godfather.”
They both chuckled at his joke.
Adira sat down on the bed next to him, still holding his hand.
“I'm serious, Sirius; I want to help you.”
“That's sweet, Adira. But I don't know what you could do.”
“Have you tried sleeping as a dog?”
“Yeah. Doesn't help much.”
“What if I invited Padfoot to sleep at the end of my bed?”
Sirius scowled in thought. He looked like the idea left a sour note in his mouth. She cocked her head curiously at him.
“Oh, sorry about the weird look. It's just... I'm an adult, I shouldn't be sleeping in your bed, even as a dog. It reminds me of Peter.”
“What about at the foot of the bed, on the floor? Maybe a little doggy bed?”
“You're insistent, aren't you? Well, alright. I'll try it once. I can conjure a doggy bed. But I'll need a large one, not a little one.”
She shrugged. “Figure of speech.”
He followed her to her room, and conjured a doggy bed at the foot of her own.
“Just... just try to not forget I'm here. I don't want to see anything I shouldn't. Alright?”
“Understood. By the way, if you have a nightmare in your doggy sleep, is it okay to pet you? Or should I do something else?”
“Try waking me up with words first. Then petting my side might be okay. I can smell your scent in my dog form, which helps. Don't touch me when I'm sleeping as a human, though. I don't respond well to that.”
“Okay, understood. Sleep well, Sirius.”
“You too,” he said, transforming into his dog form.
She looked curiously at it; the last time she'd seen his animagus form, the giant black dog had been skeletally thin, with fleas, and a little mangy in patches. But he had a lot more meat on his bones now, with well-groomed fur, and looked very healthy and happy.
Padfoot whuffed lightly at her, then spun around on the doggy bed a few times before settling down. Adira smiled, and got back into her own bed.
She didn't fall asleep right away. By the sound of it, Sirius as Padfoot fell asleep before she did, as his breathing evened out and slowed. Adira fell asleep to the sound of the dog's slow breathing.
~
When she woke up the next morning, the dog bed was empty. Since the door was closed, she presumed Sirius had turned himself back into a man in order to turn the knob. She opened the door and stepped out, curious. She heard faint sounds from the kitchen, including cussing. She smiled at that; Sirius was trying to make breakfast, it seemed.
Returning to her room, she got undressed and bathed, then changed into a green Muggle full-length dress, slipping her slippers onto her feet before going downstairs.
Sirius was still struggling in the kitchen, and by the smell of it, he was burning his attempt at breakfast. He was angrily tossing the burnt remains of what looked like bacon into a bin – a magical, fire-proof bin – when she entered the room.
Looking up at her, he half-grinned, the other half of his expression still annoyed.
“Hey there, Adira. Third attempt lost so far, sadly. After the first one burned, I tried cooking less bacon. Did the smoke wake you?”
“No. I didn't smell it till I came down. Anyway, let me do that. I know how to cook, and I'm pretty good at it.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I'm supposed to be providing for you, not the other way 'round.”
“That's okay. I don't mind cooking to help friends and family. Real family, I mean; not the Dursleys. I hated cooking for them.”
“But--”
“No buts,” she said, taking the frying pan from him with a grin. “You're providing the materials, I'm providing the skills. Real families share chores. You can buy the things we need, I can cook them.”
“Fine, I suppose,” he said, grumbling. “But I don't like it. Soon as I can, I'm gonna learn how to do it myself.”
“I should hope so, or you'll eat nothing but pizza and Chinese food whenever I'm at school.”
“Hey! I don't just eat pizza or Chinese food!”
“Oh?”
“No. I eat Indian and Japanese food, too.”
Adira laughed. Sirius laughed too. Adira was still chuckling while she started the eggs and bacon.
“And Thai food! Don't forget Thai food.”
“Yes, but you still go out to eat a lot, and going out to eat should be a treat, not an everyday thing.”
“I've been in Azkaban for 12 years and St. Mungo's ever since. Eating out everyday is a treat for me.”
“Yes, but for how long? And besides, bacon!”
“You raise an excellent point, pup. Bacon is the food of the gods.”
When the eggs and bacon were done, Sirius ate some of the bacon and closed his eyes, moaning.
“What're you doing over there,” she felt Alastair say with her voice, “it sounds obscene.”
“Just enjoying my first bacon for 12 years.”
“They didn't give you bacon in St. Mungo's?” Adira asked.
“Of course not. They're healers, and bacon is heart attack on a plate.”
“Ah, yeah, that makes sense,” she said, making herself a bacon and egg sandwich with ketchup and cheddar cheese.
“Speaking of heart attack on a plate, pup...” Sirius said, eyeing her sandwich.
She shrugged. “It's got lettuce in it, too.”
“Ah, then that means it has no calories, cleans your pores, and makes you look 5 years younger!”
“I'm 13, but I look like I'm 11. I don't need to look any younger, thanks.”
After breakfast, Sirius took Adira with him into Diagon Alley to get casual robes for her, and also Muggle London to buy her some Muggle clothes that were flattering and stylish.
During their outing, Sirius took her to a sushi shop he liked, and so she had her first ever taste of sushi. It was a kind of food she'd never felt like trying, but she tried once for Sirius, and found to her surprise that she loved it. She especially loved the salmon rolls, the California rolls, the ones with avocado in them, and even found the edamame to be delicious. The sushi was a dollar per plate, and though she went in expecting to get maybe three dollars worth, in the end there were almost 15 plates just on Adira's side of the table alone. Between the two of them, their bill was over $30 before the tip.
“I had no idea, when I went in and saw those tiny little sushi rolls, that I'd manage to get full, let alone so full I feel like I need to be rolled home,” she said as they left.
Sirius burped richly. “I know what you mean. I felt the same way the first time I went to a sushi place. James and I ended up sitting in the corner of the room digesting for an hour before we left, we were both useless lumps. By the way, it took me weeks to convince James to try sushi. With you, I only had to cajole you for about an hour. You're far more open to new experiences than James was. He was adventurous about a lot of things, but food wasn't one of those. Every new thing I had him try was like pulling teeth. Then he'd act like he'd liked it all along.”
“Yeah, well, anything the Dursleys hate must be worth at least trying. And the Dursleys would sooner let you in your dog form enter the house and muddy the carpets before even thinking about getting anywhere near a sushi place.
“Anyway, I hope we get home soon. Now I know what the sitting room is for. It's for sitting and digesting a large meal before you can do anything else.”
“Amen to that, pup.”
“I don't think I even have room for dessert, even if we had anything to have for dessert.”
“So going out for ice cream is a no go?”
“Not until I've sat around digesting my meal for an hour or two, at least.”
They didn't end up going out for ice cream. Not as such, anyway. Instead, Sirius went to a nearby Tesco and bought a box of ice cream sandwiches for them to share.
“Over the summer, we'll definitely have to go out for ice cream. Maybe Florean Fortescue's; his stuff is always amazing.”
***
On the final day of the Easter holidays, Sirius said his farewells at the train, but intimated that he would be going to Hogwarts ahead of her to fetch his motorbike from Hagrid. And since he didn't know what kind of shape it would be in, he didn't know how long it would take to be done there. That would depend on how much work he needed to put into the charms and the physical structure of the motorbike.
The next morning, Iliana woke up to find they'd switched during the night for unknown reasons. After a long hard day of classes, she checked with Sirius on her two-way mirror, and found he'd been there most of the day reinforcing the charms on the bike before taking it home and parking it in the apartment building's garage, which apparently was accessed from an alley in the back.
Later in the week, the day before the Griffindor/Slytherin Quidditch match, they received an owl package from Sirius. There was a glowing note on the packaging, which she read, and good thing. The note said to not open the package until she was alone or just with Ron and Hermione, since Sirius wasn't sure it was, strictly speaking, allowed by the rules for her to have the particular book he'd sent. Her curiosity was piqued all day long, it was hard for her to concentrate, she kept thinking about it. Ron was excited, too, and kept speculating about its contents. Even Hermione found it difficult to hide her interest, though they had to put up with her wondering if Sirius had sent something that would get them into trouble.
And so, the three friends went into Iliana's room after dinner and watched Iliana open it.
“'Animagi: A History and How-To Guide,' by Állat Hayop.” she read aloud the title.
“Cool! You can learn how to be an animagus! Then the next time You-Know-Who tries to get you, you can escape as an animal.”
“But it's illegal for her to learn without being monitored by the Ministry,” Hermione said. “And then she'll have to register, and that would sort of defeat the purpose. Also, changing right in front of You-Know-Who or his Death Eaters would expose her form to them.”
“He'll be back someday, Hermione. So I should learn, and keep it a secret from the Ministry. At least until after he's properly dead and his followers are all captured.”
“Yes, but---”
“But what? We brewed an illegal Polyjuice Potion in second year to try to figure out who the Heir of Slytherin was. Being an animagus could be a huge weapon in the coming war. Plus, if I figure it out, I can help you and Ron figure it out, too. Which will protect the two of you, as well. War is coming, Hermione. He's going to come back someday, and we need all the secret weapons we can get.”
“Oh, well,” Hermione said, “I suppose that makes sense. Well alright, I won't tell anyone.”
“Besides which, it's gonna take me ages to learn, I'm sure, even with Sirius's help. But once I know it, I'll help you two. You can register after Moldywart is dead.”
“Cool,” said Ron. “I wonder what my form will be.”
“I'm not too particular,” Iliana said, “Just as long as I'm not a rat. Or a mouse.”
“Ugh, yeah. I don't ever want to be reminded of... well... you know,” Ron said.
“Hmm,” Hermione said, thinking. “I guess a secret weapon is a good idea in case he ever comes back.” She got thoughtful. “I wonder what my animal would be?”
“My guess is bookworm,” Ron said.
“Eww, no,” Iliana said. “Silverfish eat books. They destroy them.”
“Silverfish?” Ron asked.
“The proper name for the insect commonly known as a bookworm,” Hermione said.
“Yuck,” Ron exclaimed. “Not an insect, that would be disgusting. Who would want to be a bug? Bugs are gross.”
“Well, not a silverfish, but you could be a literal fly on the wall. That would be useful, I could spy on the Death Eaters and report back to the Ministry or Dumbledore.”
“Makes sense. But it might be better to become something that can get away fast. I wonder if you can become magical animals? You could become a demiguise.”
“I have an invisibility cloak already, Ron, I don't need to become a demiguise.”
“Or a dragon! Hell, Tier was breathing fire that one time, he almost looked like a dragon.”
“It'd have to be a small dragon. I'll need to be able to change in my bedroom to practice. And anyway, I don't want to be a dragon. Dragons aren't nice, and who knows how much of the animal's personality crosses over when you change?”
They discussed it some more, the conversation eventually going on to other things, until it grew quite late, and Ron and Hermione left to go to bed. Iliana stayed up reading the Animagi book for an hour before she, too, had to go to sleep. By habit, she moved to take glasses off, but then remembered they were in Iliana's body now, and she didn't need glasses. But before she could think too much on it, her mind grew fuzzy and warm, and soon sleep had found her.
***END CHAPTER***
End note 1: Actually, I think Fred and George wouldn't mess with Percy's time turner. The punishments for messing with time are harsh enough they wouldn't put Percy in that situation. Or if they did, they'd take full blame.
Chapter Twenty: The Strange Prophecy
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there. It's been frustrating me, too, but some things are just too perfect already to change. Which, fair warning, includes most of the conversation Fudge, Hagrid, Flitwick, and McGonagall have in The Three Broomsticks.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Adira, and Zoey, and now #Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and now between hashtags/pound signs because some people's computers don't do the B.I.U.).#
***FAYANORA***
The first two weeks back from Easter holidays weren't terribly exciting. The collective mostly did homework, studied, and practiced Quidditch in preparation for the coming game with Slytherin. They also got quite a workout avoiding being tripped or hexed by Slytherins as the big match approached, as tensions were running high. They were doing well enough that, as Wood kept reminding them, Iliana would have to wait until the Griffindor team was more than 50 points up before catching the snitch, and as much as she was fond of the older boy, she found his constant nagging irritating.
“We KNOW, Oliver! If you don't stop nagging us about that, you're liable to trigger Al to appear, and that will lose us the game for sure,” she even threatened, which finally shut him up. It was no idle threat, either; Al's irritation had been growing for days.
They didn't sleep well the night of the match, either, and Iliana was very nervous as she went down to breakfast with their Firebolt, hardly eating anything from nerves. The applause helped a little, but not much. And when Cho Chang wished her luck, she blushed so hard she was afraid she'd accidentally retreat at the worst possible time, and had to sit there concentrating on staying in the front for a few minutes before heading down to the pitch.
It was so tense in the locker rooms that nobody spoke until it was time to go, and that was just a brief command from Wood, saying it was time. They went out onto the pitch to tumultuous applause and, of course, boos from the Slytherins.
They got into position, the balls were released, and--
“They're off!”
She flew in the air fast as she could. She was wearing goggles over her eyes, because the Firebolt was so fast that the wind dried her eyes out otherwise, and she was glad to have that protection now, judging by the fact that her hair was causing her actual pain as it whipped her skin. Malfoy, she could see, was trying to keep up, but a Nimbus 2001 had nothing on a Firebolt, and knowing the Slytherins had a tendency to cheat, she didn't want to give Malfoy the opportunity to do something. So she sped around, looking here and there and everywhere for the snitch as she did so. Also keeping an eye on Malfoy, just in case.
She listened to the commentary as well. It was very important that she wait until they were more than 50 points up before she caught the snitch.
Sure enough, the Slytherins were cheating. After Griffindor got their first goal, Marcus Flint deliberately ran into the chaser responsible, Angelina Johnson.
Iliana was finding that their being a multiple was helpful in this case. Unable to concentrate on all the things she needed to do at once, Iliana began delegating tasks to the others. Al kept a wary eye on the Slytherins, and Adira was listening to the commentary and nothing else, which freed Iliana up to look for the snitch. Iliana herself tuned out the commentary and waited for updates from Adira.
Thirty zero Griffindor, Adira informed her.
She didn't respond. She didn't need to.
After a few minutes, she spotted the snitch. Al informed her without words of Malfoy's whereabouts. Getting a sudden idea, she dived in the opposite direction as though she'd spotted the snitch. Sure enough, Malfoy followed her.
WHOOSH.
One of the Slytherins had hit a bludger so it went past her ear.
WHOOSH.
Another one went past her elbow. The two Slytherin chasers were flying right at her. At the last second, she pulled up and zoomed off, and the two idiots crashed into each other with a sickening crunch.
Iliana went back to her business. She was glad to find the snitch was gone again, and Malfoy was still attempting to tail her.
Holy hippogriffs this game is dirty, Adira commented after a few minutes. Even the Griffindors are playing dirty. Forty-ten Griffindor, by the way.
She kept flying, kept looking for the snitch, Al silently updating her on Malfoy's position every now and then.
And Angelina scored. Sixty-ten, came Adira's update. Moments later, Fred Weasley pelted a Bludger at Warrington, knocking the Quaffle out of his hands; Alicia seized it and put it through the Slytherin goal.
Seventy-ten. Now's the time. By the way...
Iliana felt Adira turn their head to get a better look at something. Sure enough, Adira had spotted the snitch, high above them.
Shooting into the air fast as she could, the wind whipped through her hair. But they slowed down briefly despite this. Without her head turning to look, she felt Al grab the body, slide it down the broom, and kick something squishy with one foot, letting them sped up again. She could hear Al laughing in their head as she shot toward the snitch.
But then a bludger hit them, knocking them sideways, and in their panic something weird happened; Iliana's body got smaller, her robes staying the same size. But judging by her voice when she shrieked at the Slytherin beaters in a fury, she wasn't Zoey. The hair whipping around her was still red, and it was a younger version of her voice that she spoke with.
The Slytherins had got their way, though; the snitch was gone. Iliana took a moment to call on Zoey to switch them back, but they were stuck. So Zoey shrank their robes down to fit the smaller body instead.
Flying on the broom was a much more difficult experience this much smaller. She had gotten so used to pushing or pulling in certain spots, pitching her weight around in certain ways to turn it, that the difference in size, weight, and mass was disconcerting to say the least. But on straight-line paths, it was a boon, since weighing less got them able to go faster. But the goggles falling down from her eyes because they were too big for her head now sucked. Specifically, it sucked the moisture out of her eyes and made it harder to see.
Griffindor got a penalty for Malfoy's cheat, but Alicia was so angry that she missed it.
Iliana tried to concentrate on finding the snitch. They went back to their teamwork pattern, Adira listening to the commentary and Al watching the Slytherins. And now, Zoey was working one-handed to try to adjust the strap on the goggles while Iliana looked for the snitch.
Once the goggles were back on, Iliana decided to get Malfoy back by marking him, like he'd done to her earlier. She followed him around everywhere, getting right next to him, so close they kept knocking knees.
“Get out of it, Potter!” Malfoy yelled in frustration as he tried to turn and found Iliana blocking him.
Something is happening, Adira told her a bit later, pointing her head to see.
The whole Slytherin team, sans Malfoy, was flying to block Angelina scoring. Iliana moved away and zoomed straight at them. Even smaller now, they wouldn't want to get hit by someone going as fast as she was, so they scattered, and Angelina was able to score.
Skidding to a halt, she spotted Malfoy diving for the snitch, and hurried to catch up. Being smaller wasn't helping now, as Malfoy's weight was pulling him toward the ground, but he couldn’t be allowed to grab it, so she scooted forward, pulled one foot against the front of the broom, and leaped into the air, grabbing Malfoy around the neck.
“ACK! WHAT THE HELL?” he shouted, trying to fight her off. Adira noted Madam Hooch calling about a penalty to Slytherin, but the snitch had vanished again. Adira also noted that Wood saved it. They were still more than 50 points up.
“Turnabout is fair play, Malfoy,” she said, using his back to jump back to her own broom and take off again. But it was a close call – her broom-tail brushed the ground as she took off. Malfoy was not so lucky, and landed face-first into the grass.
With Madam Hooch running onto the pitch to check Malfoy's vitals, Iliana spotted the snitch again, off by the Griffindor goal posts, and shot after it fast as lightning, snatching it out of the air.
“YES!” She screamed, holding the struggling snitch in her hands as she whooped out a victory cheer. The spectator box exploded with noise when they realized what she'd done.
Iliana flew down to the ground, her teammates flying after her. Wood picked her up and swung her around, sobbing with joy into her shoulder. She felt two large thumps as Fred and George hit them; then Angelina’s, Alicia’s, and Katie’s voices, “We’ve won the Cup! We’ve won the Cup!” Tangled together in a many-armed hug, the Gryffindor team sank, yelling hoarsely, back to earth.
Waves of crimson-clad Griffindor supporters washed over them and carried them to victory. Iliana could even hear Sirius's barks of laughter and shouts of glee over the crowd; he seemed to be near.
She pulled off the goggles again. “We won, Sirius! We won!”
“That you did,” he said, looking at her eyes curiously. She wanted to ask him about it, but she got carried off with the rest of the team, to Griffindor tower.
~
The resulting party lasted a very long time, and was filled with songs, butterbeers the twins had snuck off to Hogsmeade to get, and people talking about the game.
“That was so awesome how you kicked Malfoy in the face when he was grabbing your broom!” Dean Thomas exclaimed.
“Yeah, it was weird,” Ron said. “You were moving down the broom before he'd even grabbed the broom, and you only slowed down for a split second before kicking him.”
“Oh yeah, that was Al. We were working as a team. Adira was listening to the commentary, and Al was keeping track of the Slytherins, especially Malfoy.”
“And the way you tackled Malfoy, then jumped onto your broom from his back in the nick of time, it was bloody brilliant!”
“Thanks, Seamus. I think I almost died, but it was worth it. How's Malfoy, by the way?”
“He'll live,” Ron said, sounding disappointed. “He only got plowed. I've seen much worse happen to quidditch players than that, and they were fine. He might be loopy for a few days, but he'll be fine after that.”
“Iliana,” Hermione said before Iliana could reply, “did you know you have one green eye and one blue eye, like Zoey?”
“Oh, do I? Well that explains what happened; our forms must have accidentally fused. You know, I almost lost my robes when that happened, I would've been up there naked on my broom if we hadn't been able to shrink the robes. As it was, I think our... oh shit! Our underwear is still out there! I...” she paused, feeling inside her robes. “Wait, no. Whew! It's still in there. Just barely. Thank goodness for that.”
Everyone laughed at this. Even Iliana managed to laugh about it.
“Not that you'd have anything worth seeing, with your body like that,” Dean said.
Suddenly the laughter stopped, and people looked uncomfortably at the black boy. But it felt to Iliana like there was something else there, something weirder. Like... oh. That. People were being reminded of her condition, which reminded many of them of what they normally thought of the Potters. How many of them thought she was a freak? There were so many emotions flying around now that it was all washing together for her.
Just then, the twins made confetti from their wands with a bang, and the party resumed as though nothing had happened. Even Iliana managed to forget, and get back into the swing of things.
The last dregs of the party were still going later, by the sound of it, when Iliana finally went to bed, past midnight, and drifted off despite the occasional noise. She would be back to normal when she woke up in the morning.
***
The next few weeks were fairly routine, a mix of schoolwork, studying, revision for the exams, interspersed with occasional talk of the last Quidditch game. On the weekends, Sirius came to visit, and so he, Adira, and Hagrid had tea together in Hagrid's hut. At one of these, they found out that Buckbeak was back to full health, despite Malfoy's hexing, and was well protected in a hidden paddock.
Then, in the second week of June, came the exams. The teachers didn't seem to care which of the Potters took which exam, so long as they took the exam and took it seriously. McGonagall seemed surprised that Zoey hadn't shown up to the transfiguration exam, but of course Zoey's abilities were – for some reason – hindered by their wand. So Adira took it instead. She also took the Ancient Runes exam after lunch, and the Charms exam after that. She overdid the cheering charm out of nerves, and Ron had to be taken away to calm down before his turn.
The next day, they did Care of Magical Creatures. Hagrid tested them on unicorn care and feeding, mostly, but there was also a bit in there about bowtruckles, little tree guardians that looked like twigs, that they'd had in a couple of his classes.
In the afternoon, Iliana showed up to the Potions exam. As often happened, Snape avoided looking at her, and – left to her own devices – she did pretty well. When she handed her finished potion to Snape, he looked at it with a sour look and gave a non-commital grunt, which for him was high praise. She did equally well in Astronomy when she took that exam at midnight.
Binns was still teaching History of Magic the next day, but they'd long since figured out that Tier had the ability to resist the soporific effect of the ghost teacher's droning, so he was very good for taking notes. Despite finding spoken language difficult even inside their shared mind, Tier was surprisingly eloquent when writing. So they showed up in Iliana's form, but Tier was controlling the body as they took the test.
None of them had any particular affinity for herbology, though, so Iliana just took back her body from Tier for that exam in the afternoon.
The day after that came their second-to-last exam, the exam everyone was most excited to have: Defense Against the Dark Arts with Professor Lupin. Professor Lupin had compiled the most unusual exam any of them had ever taken; a sort of obstacle course outside in the sun, where they had to wade across a deep paddling pool containing a grindylow, cross a series of potholes full of Red Caps, squish their way across a patch of marsh while ignoring misleading directions from a hinkypunk, then climb into an old trunk and battle with a new boggart.
“Excellent, Alastair,” Lupin said as they climbed out of the trunk, for they'd woken up that day as Al. “Full marks.”
Flushed with his success, Al hung around to watch Ron and Hermione. Ron did very well until he reached the hinkypunk, which successfully confused him into sinking waist-high into the quagmire. Hermione did everything perfectly until she reached the trunk with the boggart in it. After about a minute inside it, she burst out again, screaming.
“Hermione!” said Lupin, startled. “What’s the matter?”
“P — P — Professor McGonagall!” Hermione gasped, pointing into the trunk. “Sh — she said I’d failed everything!”
It took a little while to calm Hermione down. When at last she had regained a grip on herself, she, Al, and Ron went back to the castle. Ron was still slightly inclined to laugh at Hermione’s boggart, but Al slapped him on the back of the head and glared in a way reminiscent of Mrs. Weasley's best glares, which shut Ron right up.
Al's and Ron's final exam was Divination. Hermione had no more exams, so she went with them up to the seventh floor for moral support, where many of their class were sitting on the spiral staircase to Professor Trelawney’s classroom, trying to cram in a bit of last-minute studying.
“She’s seeing us all separately,” Neville informed them as they went to sit down next to him. He had his copy of Unfogging the Future open on his lap at the pages devoted to crystal gazing. “Have either of you ever seen anything in a crystal ball?” he asked them unhappily.
“No,” said Al. “This class is utterly useless. Trelawney is a fraud; I'd rather learn from someone who is actually a seer. So I'm considering dropping it, like Hermione did.”
The line of people outside the classroom shortened very slowly. As each person climbed back down the silver ladder, the rest of the class hissed, “What did she ask? Was it okay?”
But they all refused to say.
“She says the crystal ball’s told her that if I tell you, I’ll have a horrible accident!” squeaked Neville as he clambered back down the ladder toward Harry and Ron, who had now reached the landing.
“Suspiciously convenient,” Ron said. Al nodded.
The three of them talked, largely ignoring the other students as they finished up. Occasionally Al complained he was bored, and said he was considering turning Trelawney's hair blue.
Then it was Ron's turn. Al waited and waited. When Ron finally came back, he snorted with disgust.
“Rubbish,” said Ron. “Couldn’t see a thing, so I made some stuff up. Don’t think she was convinced, though. …”
“Meet you in the common room,” Harry muttered as Professor Trelawney’s voice called, “Potter!”
“Clearly she couldn't predict which of us it was,” Al said as he climbed up the ladder to the classroom.
The tower room was hotter than ever before; the curtains were closed, the fire was alight, and the usual sickly scent made Al cough as he stumbled through the clutter of chairs and tables to where Professor Trelawney sat waiting for him before a large crystal ball.
“Oh, it's you, is it, dear?” Trelawney said, looking very put out.
“Yeah, it's me. Try to calm down, I won't be giving autographs today,” Al said in a deadpan way.
“Very funny. Sit down now, my dear. Do try to take this seriously. I know you do not think much of me, but you might get something out of this class if you try, despite what you think of me as a teacher.”
“Sure, right,” Al said in a bored voice.
Still, she had a point, so he did sit there, bored, staring into the crystal ball. He felt his gaze unfocus in his boredom as he stared, and then felt his mind unfocus as well. He was just zoned out, staring at the swirling shapes in this crystal ball, his brain disengaged entirely.
Then he began to speak, but it sounded far-off, and his mind was still off in la-la land, so he barely noticed.
“Chalice of wood, flame within,” he said, as though under hypnosis. “A toad will cow you with a grin. Sherry bottles litter the floor, hidden in a secret store. At Christmas time, a formal dance; beware despair, constant vigilance...”
He trailed off, and fell out of his chair, snapping him out of the trance.
“My boy, that wasn't very impressive,” Trelawney said, clicking her tongue. “Nothing you said made any sense, and it was all very dull. A hearth, something about a toad, a dance, and a warning not to trip on a stair? Very disappointing.”
Fully awake now, he glowered at her.
“I suppose you'd be more impressed if I'd said something clearer, like 'On the night of the blue moon, a dragon will eat the headmaster and set the school on fire,' or some rubbish like that? Anyway, whatever. I don't care what I get on this exam, you're useless as a teacher.”
He turned to go, but then a loud, harsh voice behind him spoke.
“It will happen tonight.”
Al wheeled around. Professor Trelawney had gone rigid in her armchair; her eyes were unfocused and her mouth sagging.
“What?”
But Professor Trelawney didn’t seem to hear him. Her eyes started to roll. Al stood there in a panic. She looked as though she was about to have some sort of seizure. He hesitated, thinking of running to the hospital wing — and then Professor Trelawney spoke again, in the same harsh voice, quite unlike her own:
“The Dark Lord lies alone and friendless, abandoned by his followers. His servant has been chained these twelve years. Tonight, before midnight … the servant will break free and set out to rejoin his master. The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant’s aid, greater and more terrible than ever he was. Tonight … before midnight … the servant … will set out … to rejoin … his master.”
Professor Trelawney’s head fell forward onto her chest. She made a grunting sort of noise. Al stood there, staring at her. Then, quite suddenly, Professor Trelawney’s head snapped up again.
“I’m so sorry, dear boy,” she said dreamily, “the heat of the day, you know … I drifted off for a moment.”
Al still stood there, staring at her.
“Is there anything wrong, my dear?”
“You — you just told me that the — the Dark Lord’s going to rise again … that his servant’s going to go back to him.”
Professor Trelawney looked thoroughly startled.
“The Dark Lord? He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named? My dear boy, that’s hardly something to joke about. … Rise again, indeed —”
“But you just said it! You said the Dark Lord —”
“I think you must have dozed off too, dear!” said Professor Trelawney. “I would certainly not presume to predict anything quite as far-fetched as that!”
“But--” Al said.
“Enough of this joking, Mr. Potter,” she said, herding him toward the trapdoor. “First you mock my gifts and my teaching all year long, then you feign a vision mocking my—I mean, mocking me, and then you claim I predicted the Dark Lord's return. Honestly, I don't know what game you're playing, but you must go now.”
“It's not a game! Listen, I'm sorry for all of the mocking, really, but I think you had a real---”
“GO!” Trelawney shouted at him.
Al gave up on it, and scurried down the ladder fast as he could. Had that been a real prediction? He knew his had been real; he still remembered the images a little, but they were fading, like waking from a dream. But had hers been faked to impress him?
No, he decided. Trelawney's had to be real, too. She had been genuinely put out with him when he told her about it. Al struggled to remember both predictions. His was easier, as it rhymed.
He was so distracted, he walked right past Ron and Hermione, who were trying to catch up to him, still trying to get his attention. But he waved them off. They followed him all the way to the Griffindor dorms, and up to the one he slept in, not talking to him since he'd waved them off, but clearly wanting to. He wrote down his own prediction first, then Trelawney's.
“'Chalice of wood, flame within,” Ron read out. “A toad will cow you with a grin. Sherry bottles litter the floor, hidden in a secret store. At Christmas time, a formal dance; beware despair, constant vigilance.' What's this?”
“And this bit here,” Hermione said, “about You-Know-Who rising again?”
“I had a real prediction in the test. I think Trelawney did, too. Hers is the Voldemort one.”
“You had a vision, mate?” Ron asked, looking amazed. “Tell us!”
“Well, it was the test. I was just staring into the crystal ball, too hot to think, and my brain unfocused, and I started speaking and seeing images. This is pretty much all I remember now, the words. Only I don't know what any of it means. A chalice of wood, flames inside of it? Anything like that would catch fire and burn up.”
“Not if it was one of Hermione's waterproof bluebell flames,” Ron reminded him. “She actually scooped those up in her hand once and it didn't hurt her. And Lupin has held magical fire in his hand, too.”
“Ah. Good point. I'd forgotten that. But what would be the point of a flaming cup?”
Ron shrugged. “Dunno. It'd make a more impressive light than a candle, though. Probably safer, too.”
“But what about the other prediction?” Hermione snapped, sounding nervous.
“Oh yeah, after I had my prediction, Trelawney thought it wasn't very impressive. I went off on her a bit, then was about to storm out, when she went all rigid and spoke in this hoarse voice.”
“Of all the people to get swept up by her spooky manner,” Ron began.
“I know she's usually a fraud, Ron, I spotted it at once. But this time was very different. And she was genuinely annoyed with me later, genuinely thinking I was lying. So I think it was a real prediction!”
Ron looked thoughtful for a moment. “Okay, assuming you're right, do you think this means... Pettigrew?”
“Shit. It probably does. Who else could it possibly mean? We have to get to Dumbledore.”
He grabbed the paper, and then paused, and grabbed the two-way mirror as well, but didn't use it right away. He took off downstairs fast as he could, then out the portrait hole and fast-walked in the direction of Dumbledore's office. He'd have run, but he didn't want to be held up by Filch.
The other two huffed and puffed, trying to keep up with Al's larger stride, and when they got to the gargoyle guarding Dumbledore's office, Ron leaned against the wall to catch his breath.
“Listen,” he said to the gargoyle, “I don't know what he's changed his password to, but I figure you have some way of getting messages to Dumbledore, so could you please tell Dumbledore that Alastair Potter and friends urgently need to see him?”
The gargoyle nodded, and looked distant for a few moments, before stepping aside to let them onto the magical spiral escalator. Al was so impatient he took the stairs two at a time, getting to the door and opening it before the others were even halfway up.
“Trelawney just had a real prediction,” Al said, slamming the parchment down on Dumbledore's desk. “The bottom one, about Voldemort.”
Dumbledore didn't question, just read the prediction.
“And you think it was about Peter Pettigrew?”
“Yes. I... wait, you're just accepting my word for this?”
“Sybill may normally be a fraud, but I happen to know she has given at least one other true prophecy before. She would not have gotten the job otherwise. I shall make the necessary calls to find out Pettigrew's status. Please sit down. Ah, you two may sit down as well,” Dumbledore said, summoning chairs for Ron and Hermione as they fell into the room, panting.
They gratefully took the seats, but Al was too wired to sit, so he paced around as Dumbledore vanished into the green Floo flames.
A note of uplifting song came from Fawkes the phoenix, from his perch.
“Hi, Fawkes. Thanks for the song, it helps. But I'm still worried. I don't want Pettigrew escaping.”
Fawkes' next bit of song sounded like the song equivalent of 'Sure, dude, I understand.'
Al kept pacing. Hermione began to fidget in her seat. Ron was getting antsy, as well. Finally, though, after what felt like an hour, the hearth erupted in green flames. Only, Dumbledore's head was the only thing that appeared in the fire, startling Al and Hermione but not Ron.
“I am going to Azkaban with the minister now, I shall come straight here when I am done. Be well, and try to be patient.”
“Okay, okay,” Al said, impatient for Dumbledore to find out about Pettigrew. The headmaster nodded, his head disappearing, and the flames going down to nothing.
To take his mind off his worry somewhat, Al got out the two-way mirror and called Sirius on it. Sirius answered, and Al told Sirius all about it.
“Shit,” Sirius said. “I hope that little rat is still in his cage.”
“Do you think he got out as a rat?”
“Doubt it. I got out because the Ministry didn't know I was an animagus. But they know Pettigrew is one. He's on the registry now, along with me. They have ways of containing animagi. Along with the dementors, Azkaban has other security. Anti-apparition wards. Then too, you can't Floo right to the prison, you have to take a ferry boat. The ferryman is a dementor. And the island has human guards as well.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. They're mostly there to keep an eye on the dementors, make sure they don't Kiss anyone without permission. They have short shifts, though; only 4 hours at a time, the place is so bad. And of course, they can't have very many patronuses around without upsetting the dementors and rendering them useless anyway. I think there's a breakroom they go to, to bolster themselves. Anyway, I escaped during one of the many changing of the guards. Then I swam to shore as a dog. But they'll have a spell on Pettigrew to keep him from transforming.
'And then he'll be in a cage a rat can't escape from anyway. No windows in his cell, his food slot too high up to climb as a rat, and designed to only open when food is pushed through. Even if he could get up there, he'd have to squeeze through an opening filled with a food tray, while a dementor was on the other side watching to make sure he didn't get through there.”
“Good,” Al said, a little relieved but still worried.
“Anyway, as much as I despise the little traitor, I checked up on him a week ago. He hasn't been eating, according to the guards. And given he was losing weight while waiting for me to show up to kill him, I don't think he's going to last the summer.”
“You think he's dying?” Al said.
“Yes. It hasn't gotten to the point where the dementors are getting excited, yet. But I don't think it'll be long. I'll be surprised if he makes it to July.”
“Dementors get excited when someone's dying?”
“Yeah. Foul dark creatures they are. I'm with Dumbledore, we don't need them guarding our prison. But let's talk of something else, there's no use dwelling on it while we wait for Dumbledore. How about this prediction of yours, eh? You're a seer?”
“I guess,” Al said. “It's not a very clear vision, and I don't remember the images anymore, like forgetting a dream.”
“Read me the prediction.”
Al did so, reading from the paper.
“A wooden chalice with fire in it? For some reason, that sounds familiar. But I can't place it. Leave it for later. A toad will cow you? Does that mean you, Al? Or Trelawney.”
“I vaguely remember I was addressing Trelawney at the time. That bit and the sherry bottles was aimed at her. Then it switched back to me. It was addressing me for the wooden chalice part, as well.”
“So she's going to be afraid of a toad? I wonder what significance that could possibly have?”
“You got me. Neville brings Trevor in there all the time, and she's never shown any fear of it.”
“Hmm... Well, the sherry bottles is plain, at least. Sounds like she's an alcoholic, or will become one.”
“Mr. Black?” Hermione said.
“Please, call me Sirius. Mr. Black was my father.”
“Sirius, then. Do you think those two things are connected? That being scared of that toad will drive her to drink?”
“Possibly. Still, seems an odd thing to go to drink for. Especially if she's not afraid of Neville’s toad.”
There was silence, then, as they all thought about it for a bit.
“Anyway,” Sirius finally said, breaking the silence, “let's move on. A formal dance at Christmas? I wonder why that would be?”
“Maybe we should buy some formal robes, just in case?”
“Wouldn't hurt to have some around. But formal dances at Christmas time, that's a pureblood tradition. One of the least onerous parts of being a pureblood, in my opinion. Still, I can't imagine going to one. And I can't see why you would be going to one.”
“Yeah, and that bit was connected to the next bit,” Al said. “'Beware despair, constant vigilance.'”
“Well that second part's fairly obvious, if odd.”
“It is?”
“To me, anyway. Those last two words are familiar. I was training to be an auror before your parents died. My mentor was Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody. Old Mad-Eye is infamous for shouting 'Constant vigilance!' all the time. I wonder what that has to do with despair, though? Why warn you to beware despair anyway?”
“I dunno. The whole thing is a mess of mixed up visions. Not sure what a dance has to do with any of it, either. And yeah, the despair thing is weird. And why connect that to Moody? And is that connected to the dance, or is that different?”
“Dunno, pup. But it does sound like advice Moody might give, in the right context.” Sirius said.
“Hmm... So we've got some parts that make no sense because we can't work out what they're referring to, or why they're important,” Al said, frowning. “I think I need to get tutoring from someone who actually knows a thing or two about divination. I just wish I knew how to find someone like that.”
“You could always put an ad in the paper.”
“If I did, I wouldn't give my name in the ad, though. Any of the Potters connected to that ad, it'd be bad for me. At the very least, we'd be inundated by more frauds. But how would I get owls, without my name being given?”
“You can have owls sent to a fake name. There are spells for that sort of thing. After all, how do you think owls find people to begin with? They can't know everybody. I don't know the details, but the Gringotts goblins will.”
“So I just have to think of a realistic sounding fake name, then.”
“Yes. When I left my parents' house, I had to have mail to my name blocked, because mother kept sending howlers, just so I would know how displeased with me she was. I had people start sending me mail by addressing it to Daniel Finnes instead. It's not working anymore, of course, as it's been years, but---”
The hearth roared with green flames, cutting off Sirius's voice from the mirror, and Dumbledore stepped out.
“Yes?” Al asked him anxiously.
“Most curious. Pettigrew is still in his cell. He doesn't appear to be eating at all, and was non-responsive when I spoke to him. He just lay there in the corner, breathing, and occasionally rocking back and forth while holding his knees. He's skin and bones, now. And the dementors...” Dumbledore paused, looking grim and angry.
“...yes?” Al prompted.
“The dementors are getting excited,” Dumbledore said with disgust.
“That means he's dying, then,” came Sirius's voice.
“Sirius? Is that you, my boy?”
“Yes, it's me.”
“Good. To answer your question, yes. Pettigrew is not long for this world.”
There was a sort of shuddering sound from the mirror. Al looked down at it, and Sirius's face looked odd.
“As much as I hate the little rat for betraying us, I'm still losing another friend. I lost him years ago, in one sense. But now I'm losing him in a much more final sense.”
“I thought you wanted him dead?” Al asked.
“When I was the only one who knew he was a danger to you, yes, I wanted to kill him to end the threat. I was also a bit deranged from Azkaban, on the run, getting most of my energy from the obsession of stopping him. But you found him out, he's in prison now, and I'm free. I've had time to recover physically, and emotionally a bit as well. And it's not like I can really control my emotions. Emotions are weird, pup.”
“I think I understand, Sirius,” Al said. “But this is confusing. I still have this gut feeling that the prophecy Trelawney gave is a real one, but it seems like Pettigrew is dying. He can't rejoin his master if he's dead, so I don't understand. Who else could it possibly refer to?”
“A good question, my boy. I wondered the same thing, when I saw Pettigrew's condition. So I had Fudge increase security on the whole prison, in case it meant someone else was escaping. There are many still-loyal followers of Voldemort within those walls.”
“Good. I mean, about the increased security. Well, the other thing, too. Let's hope they stay there.”
“If it will ease your mind, Alastair, I should like you to do something for me.” Dumbledore went over to a cabinet and opened it. Whatever was inside was glowing. He pulled out a... basin. And set it on the desk in front of Al.
Al looked at it. The stone basin was shallow, and covered in runes. Inside the basin was something like gas made into liquid, or liquid that was almost a gas.
“What is that?”
“It is a pensieve. It allows one to put their memories into the basin and watch them from an outside perspective, as well as bringing others into your memories.”
Al frowned. “Like Riddle's diary?”
“Yes, something like that. But the pensieve is not alive, like the diary was.”
“This could be useful for other things, too. You could give testimony with something like this, show the memories to the wizengamot. They'd have to do it one or two at a time, though.”
“Indeed that is true. But for now, I would like you to share your memory of the Divination exam with me.”
“How?”
“Take out your wand, put it to your temple like so, concentrate on the memory, and the incantation is 'memoro.'”
Al did as instructed. It took several tries to get it right, but finally a slender thread of gossamer thought clung to his wand like glowing spider silk, and he deposited it in the pensieve.
“Good, Alastair. Now, if you would come into the pensieve with me, please?”
Al nodded. Soon, they were both leaning their faces into the pensieve. Al felt the substance in the basin touch his nose before he pitched forward through darkness, floating into Trelawney's boiling hot classroom. Together, they watched the whole thing, from Al climbing into the room, to the two prophecies, to him scurrying out again. When the memory-Al left the room, Dumbledore pulled him out, and they were in the headmaster's office again.
“Don't worry, we're back.”
“You never left. You both just stood there with your noses touching the stuff in the basin.”
“Well our minds went into my memory. And I have to say, I don't feel like I know any more than I already did.”
“Perhaps not, my boy, but I can now confirm that Trelawney's prophecy was genuine. And yours, too, sounded genuine, but I cannot be sure. Every seer is different, and not all prophecies come true anyway. In fact, most do not.”
“They don't?”
“Yes. A prophecy being genuine does not mean it will come true. Divination shows us possible futures. But since we cannot know which possible futures will come true, the number of prophecies that do not come to pass is great. The Ministry has a department that collects prophecies, among other things, and the number of prophecies that have not come to pass – or never did and now never will – is very high.”
Al felt something from Hermione, who was oddly quiet for some reason. But at his look, she spoke.
“There are real prophecies? And the Ministry collects them?”
“Yes, Miss Granger, there are indeed real prophecies.”
Hermione goggled. “I never believed in divination, especially after Professor McGonagall said it was an imprecise branch of magic.”
“And she was correct, my dear. It is indeed imprecise. But so many things in life are, are they not?”
“I guess so.”
Al turned to Dumbledore. “You said Trelawney gave one other true prophecy. What was that one? May I see it, for comparison?”
Dumbledore's twinkling eyes dimmed a little at this.
“I... I would rather not, at this time. There may come a time, in the future, when I may. But not now.”
“Ah,” Al said, putting some things together in his head. “I see. So it's about us, then? Let me guess, something about 'the chorus that sings a song against evil'?”
Dumbledore looked uneasy. He seemed to be weighing things in his mind. This went on for fully two whole minutes before Dumbledore sighed.
“I did not wish to tell you this so soon. You are so young, it is such a burden. But you've already know the gist of it, and you keep bringing it up. Plainly, you are ready.”
“Go on,” Al prompted.
“Not just yet, my boy. Mr. Weasley, Ms. Granger, I wish to tell him in private.”
“I'm just going to tell them later, though.”
“Yes, but what I have to say is very grave, and I do not wish to try to explain things with three different people arguing and asking questions. One will be difficult enough. Besides which, you may wish to tell them in your own way.”
“Oh, fine then.”
Ron and Hermione looked disappointed, but left.
“And I shall know if you are listening at the door, so please go all the way out, maybe into the Great Hall?”
They muttered their understanding and left.
After a couple minutes, Dumbledore smiled in a slightly forced way. “Alright, then. Where to begin? Ah, yes. You asked, before, why Voldemort tried to kill you as a baby, which is relevant now. He tried to kill you, you see, because of a prophecy given before your birth, by Sybill Trelawney.”
The headmaster sat down behind his desk to rest. “She was there to interview for the position of Divination teacher, of course. I was rather disinclined to continue the subject, to be honest, given the rarity of true seers, but as she was related to the great seer Cassandra Trelawney, I figured it common courtesy. We met in a pub in Hogsmeade called the Hog's Head – not an ideal place for such meetings, being as it is rather shady, but it was where she was staying at the time. Initially she did not appear to have the gift. I was about to dismiss her when her manner changed, in the same way she did today, and gave a prophecy.”
Dumbledore pulled a memory away from his head with his wand, dropped it in the pensieve, and prodded the contents. The contents surged upward and formed the image of the divination teacher looking like she was having a fit. And when Sibyll Trelawney spoke, it was not in her usual ethereal, mystic voice, but in the harsh, hoarse tones Alastair had heard her use once before.
“The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches. … Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies … and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not … and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives. … The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies.”
There was complete silence, as he sat there, agog at this revelation. Then his face changed to one of concentration and thought.
“One?” Al said. “Not a 'chorus singing a song against evil'?”
“Yes, curious that. I was rather surprised when you mentioned Firenze telling you that. I had never heard its like before. But then, the centaurs are constantly working at divining the future, so they must have gotten more information since this prophecy was made, getting an update as it were. Or perhaps whatever force causes such prophecies to be made thought plural language would be confusing to Voldemort.”
“Okay,” Al said.
What did that mean, though? The prophecy?
“What does that one bit mean? The bit about 'neither can live while the other survives'?”
“It meant,” said Dumbledore, “that the person who has the only chance of conquering Lord Voldemort for good was born at the end of July, nearly fourteen years ago. This boy would be born to parents who had already defied Voldemort three times.”
Al nodded. “Okay, this prophecy is interesting and all, but it still doesn't explain why Voldemort tried to kill us.”
“Ah, but it does. You see, one of Voldemort’s Death Eaters overheard part of the prophecy. He was interrupted and thrown out of the pub before he could hear all of it, though. He relayed what he heard to his master, who acted upon the incomplete information. No doubt he thought it was complete. Acting on an incomplete prophecy, Voldemort did not know that to try to kill you would mean marking you as his equal, thus fulfilling the terms of the prophecy.”
“What does that mean, 'mark him as his equal'?”
“As to that, Alastair, it is complicated. It meant that at the time of the prophecy, there were two boys it could have meant – either you or Neville Longbottom – and---”
“So it isn't us?” Al interrupted.
“I'm afraid it is. You see, the final identifying part of the prophecy is that Voldemort would mark him as his equal. Whichever infant he chose would be the one he viewed as a threat, and to Voldemort's mind, only an equal could possibly be a threat.
“He could have chosen Neville, who is a pureblood and therefore more worthy in the ideology that Voldemort professes to follow, but instead he chose the half-blood, like himself. The fact you had black hair possibly helped his decision, too. But either way, he saw himself in you, and so he tried to kill you, which gave you the scar, and also sealed the prophecy to mean you.”
There was silence again, as the collective digested this.
“Well,” Al finally said, “this explains why I've run into him twice now in three years. We're in the same prophecy together. Still... I don't know if I like this whole prophecy thing. I like to think I have free will, I don't want to be Destiny's hand puppet.”
“The existence of prophecies does not mean there is no free will. There are a great many real prophecies made that have never come to pass, many of them will never come to pass now. In fact, if Voldemort had not taken the prophecy seriously, it would not have happened. Because he believed it, however, he made it true.”
“So it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, then?”
“Correct. So do not blame fate, or Sybill, or the prophecy. Blame Voldemort. For even without the prophecy, if he had killed your parents anyway – seeing as they were frequent thorns in his side – you would still have wanted revenge, correct?”
“Well, as long as the possibility of his coming back to full life and power remains open, then yes, we want to stop him. So many people died in the last war. If he came back, many more would die. Right now he's powerless. If we can find out how he's still alive, and reverse it somehow, we could kill him before he has a chance to kill anyone else. I think even Iliana would be fine with that, since he's such an evil monster.”
“Indeed. So we see, Alastair, that the prophecy may have merely given you the tools to defeat him. Beyond the burning need for revenge, you also have the scar to warn you when he is near. And you have parseltongue, which has never been seen in a Potter before, to my knowledge. This is because, as I mentioned in your first year, Voldemort accidentally transferred some of his powers to you when he failed to kill you.”
“So, Dumbledore,” said an unexpected voice from Dumbledore's desk, startling them both. Al recognized it as Sirius's voice. “do you have any shrewd ideas about what's keeping Voldemort from dying all the way?”
Al picked up the two-way mirror and looked into it.
“Damn, I forgot you were still there. You startled us.”
“As to your inquiry, Sirius, I do have some theories. I had something of an inkling years ago, but it was confirmed when Alastair and company found and destroyed Riddle's diary.”
“Oh? That has something to do with it?” Al asked.
“Yes. But before I say more, I want your word, Sirius, and the word of the Potter collective, to keep this information to yourselves. You may tell Ron and Hermione if you wish, but nobody else should know.”
“Not even Moony?” asked Sirius.
“I will consider allowing him as well. But for now, we shall keep him out of it.”
“Understood,” said Sirius. “You have my word, I will not tell anyone else.”
Dumbledore looked into the mirror as Sirius said this, and must have sensed truthfulness, as he nodded.
“And you, Alastair? Will you and the others keep this information from anyone other than Ron and Hermione?”
“We promise. We swear on our magic to tell nobody but Ron and Hermione, unless you give us permission.”
“Good. Now, going on...” Dumbledore cleared his throat, and continued gravely. “You were right about the diary draining Ginny's life force in order to give itself new life. I believe the diary was a magical construct named a horcrux.”
“Horcrux? What's that?”
“It is a very powerful and very evil bit of dark magic, wherein one encases a piece of their soul in order to remain earthbound when their body is destroyed. It is something like immortality.”
“Encase a piece of your soul? How is that dark magic?”
“Because in order to tear your soul, you must commit premeditated murder. Murder tears the soul apart. A horcrux takes advantage of this damage. There is more to the horcrux process, parts of it that make even premeditated murder pale in comparison.” Dumbledore actually shuddered at this.
“And he made one of those?”
“At least one. But I have recent information that indicates Voldemort is still haunting Romania, so apparently he had at least two. Though given how much his appearance had changed when I met him again before the start of the last war, I would wager he made more than two. More, even, than three of them. How many he made, I do not yet know.”
“So he murdered at least three people for immortality alone, and murdered or was the ultimate cause of many more people dying?” Al frowned. “He does indeed need being put out of our misery.”
“It seems to me, then, Dumbledore,” Sirius said from the mirror, “that we need to work out precisely how many of those horrible things he has, and then find them and destroy them.”
“Indeed. It will not be easy, though. He has always been very secretive. But I know him well, or at least, much better than most, seeing as I have known him since he was 11, and was his teacher for 7 years. He loves glory, and has a fondness for history. And he is very arrogant. Also, he considers Hogwarts to be his home. He will, I think, be attracted to items connected to the four founders of the school. There have been rumors. And I have been collecting information about Voldemort for many years already. I will start looking over the summer.”
“Right,” Al said. “In the meantime, let's make sure Pettigrew never escapes. That prophecy has me worried. Can you go check on him again?”
Dumbledore smiled. “I think you meant to ask me if I would watch him tonight, keep guard over him? Which is what I will do. As much as I dislike the dementors, I will gladly endure them for a night to see that this prophecy does not come true.”
“Good. Thank you. That helps, knowing that. But I don't know if I'll be able to sleep tonight.”
“Well at least all of your exams are done, my boy.”
“Yes, that helps too.”
*
Al didn't tell his friends what Dumbledore had told him, not yet. He wanted to take some time to go through it with the others first before he did, and this is exactly what they did. They indeed could not sleep, so instead they had an internal discussion about it for hours.
They didn't remember going to bed or falling asleep, but found themselves in bed the next morning anyway, still fully clothed. It was lucky they were still in Al's form, and not Adira's, or they might've lost or broken her glasses.
It was a Saturday, and after a groggy breakfast, during which they switched to Adira without meaning to, Ron and Hermione joined them in going down to Hagrid's hut for some tea. Adira briefly contemplated telling them all what Dumbledore had said, or an abridged version, but had a sudden image of a crying Hagrid throwing himself onto her shoulders, and decided against it.
Instead, they discussed Al's prophecy, the one he'd made during the exam.
“Oh, so yer a seer, Al? Never thought anyone would ever get anythin' outta her classes, but I guess yeh proved me wrong on that, eh?”
“Yes,” Adira said, smiling. “Nobody was more surprised about it than Al was.”
“Hey now, let's see if yeh can do it, too, shall we? I don't got a crystal ball, but this candle flame might do er?” Hagrid said, putting a lit candle down in front of Adira.
“Oh, alright, I'll try it,” she said.
She stared at the flame, trying to unfocus her eyes and her brain the way Al had done the other day, but found it difficult, with Zoey singing country-western songs in the back of her mind. Even when she managed to get Zoey to be quiet, however, it just wouldn't happen.
“Maybe it's not warm enough in here?” she thought aloud. “Trelawney's room was boiling hot, with the windows closed and the fire going.”
A few minutes later, and Hagrid's hut was warm enough you'd think he'd found another dragon egg. But try as she might, she just couldn't get her brain to unfocus as it had before. Instead, she ended up stepping out of the hut for some cooler air.
“Ah well,” Hagrid said, shrugging, when she came back in. “Yeh'll figger it out, I've no doubt about it. Might take yeh a while, but yeh'll do it again.”
Adira sighed. “Maybe only Al can do it. Or maybe it's like Trelawney's gift, and has a mind of its own.”
“Well at least you've got Al's first one to try to work out the meaning of,” Hermione said.
“Yeah, there is that.”
“Oh, Adira, did you check with Dumbledore about Pettigrew?” Hermione asked her.
“Yeah, this morning. He was up all night. Pettigrew is still there. Maybe we averted that one?”
“Here's hoping,” Ron said, crossing his fingers.
*
They tried it again every few hours for the rest of the weekend, as well as in spare moments after classes the next week. But try as they might, nothing happened.
It might've been that they were still thinking about what Dumbledore had said. They'd been finding it hard not to think about that, though unlike their normal internal conversations, these thoughts were wordless and passed between one another much faster than usual, so they could have entire wordless conversations in a third of the time as usual. The only downside to this form of communication was that it didn't appear to accomplish anything. It seemed only words could leverage useful changes out of the conversation. Which meant that Tier couldn't really participate. Sure, he could speak, but it was difficult for him.
Perhaps picking up on the frustration this caused, Tier started practicing speaking internally. These words came haltingly, and sounded rough and gravelly even in their head. Whatever it was about Tier that made language difficult for him, it wasn't just the body limiting him, it was something in his mind. Still, by the time exam grades got back to them, it was getting noticeably easier for Tier to speak, inside their mind anyway.
Since it was the last day of term, Adira brought Ron and Hermione into her room and told them, at last, what Dumbledore had said, about the prophecy, about the horcruxes, about Sirius having overheard it, all of it. Their reactions were about what she expected, which made her glad Dumbledore had insisted they not be included in the conversation. There were so many outbursts and questions, she had to insist they take turns speaking, raising their hands like they were in class. But finally, she got the whole thing out, and wearily half-listened as the two of them discussed it for hours and hours.
But finally, it was time to leave for the feast. They went down with the rest of the Griffindors to the Great Hall, and on their way there they spotted Sirius.
“Sirius!” Adira shouted, running to hug him. “What're you doing here?”
“I came to help Moony move his things to his new office, since he quit the Defense position last Friday and is going to be the new History teacher.”
“Yeah, he'll be great. I'm glad Dumbledore offered that to him, I like Lupin.”
Ron snorted. “Of course he'll be great at it. But a potted plant could be better than Binns, so even if he's horrible at it, he'll still be an improvement.”
“I hear Snape wasn't too thrilled about it,” Sirius said.
“That's putting it lightly,” Adira said.
Ron sighed. “I just wish he could be Defense teacher, though. But I guess the position is cursed, so better safe than sorry. Wonder what they'll give us next year?”
“That's a good question,” Sirius said. “Wish I knew. Not a lot of people available for the position.”
“Hey Sirius, you should apply for the job!” Adira suggested.
“Me? Defense teacher? Adira, are you trying to get me killed?” Sirius said in mock outrage.
“Er... good point. Better not. Forget I said anything.”
Sirius elbowed her playfully. “Nah, no worries. I'd rather not, and I can't imagine what the parents would say if I got the job, even though they ought to know I'm innocent, but I'll apply if Dumbledore can't find anyone else. I used to be in the Order of the Phoenix – Dumbledore's anti-Voldemort group from the first war – so I know a thing or two about Defense. Also, I was one of the top people in my class in Defense. I think only James and Snape got higher grades than me.”
At Adira's worried face, he said, “Don't worry. If I take the job, I'll do like Moony did and quit early, just in case.”
“Well, okay,” she said, somewhat placated.
“Oh, by the way,” Sirius said, pulling Ron gently along to a nearby alcove, “I got you something, since it's sort of my fault you don't have a rat anymore. I had another one I was going to give you, but I grew too attached to the feathery little tennis ball, so I got you this one instead.”
Sirius pulled from an alcove a cage with an owl in it.
“Long-eared owl, as you can tell by the feathery tufts,” Sirius said.
“WOW!” Ron said, taking the cage and staring in amazement at the owl. “Thanks, Sirius!”
As Ron got to know his new owl, Adira asked Sirius if he'd named the little scops owl yet.
“Nah. Nothing's come to me yet. A few names I've tried on him, he didn't take to. But I'll think of something.”
*
After the feast, they boarded the train and took off to London. Adira, Ron, and Hermione got a compartment with Neville and Luna again, where she told them about Al's prophecy. They spent a very enjoyable afternoon discussing what it could mean.
It was difficult, leaving his friends at the train station, but made easier by meeting Sirius there. She could've gone with him on his motorbike straight from Hogwarts, but she'd wanted more time with her friends before saying goodbye, and Sirius understood. He greeted her with a wide grin and handed her a helmet.
“Safety first,” Sirius said. “Plus, it's cool looking. I got you one with flames, too, since I'm not sure what else you'd have liked.”
She looked at the helmet. It was black with red and orange flames on each side. Then she looked down at the Muggle dress she was wearing.
“Um, not exactly motorbike riding clothes I have on.”
“No problem,” Sirius said, handing her a bundle of something. “I got you some bike leathers. I still had your measurements from our previous shopping trip, so they should fit. And if not, we have magic. Over here, there's a public loo over on this part of the platform, not many know about it. You can pop into the women's one and get changed there.”
Handing the helmet back to Sirius, she went in and got changed. The bike leathers did indeed need a slight adjustment, which Sirius took care of with his wand. When they were done, they left the platform with Adira's stuff, heading for one of the nearby car parks, and when they got there, Sirius put the trunk and Hedwig and her cage into the sidecar.
“Alright, then,” Adira said, putting on the helmet.
Sirius put on his helmet and got on; she got on behind him, holding his middle tight.
“Good, you figured that out on your own. Don't worry too much, though. There are charms on the bike keeping us on it. As well as charms to keep it upright, charms to keep us from being hit by cars, and many more.”
The visor on Adira's helmet was already down, so she just nodded. Sirius nodded, flipped his own visor down, started the bike with a loud growl that attracted the attention of a few nearby Muggles, and soon they went roaring down the road, Adira laughing with excitement all the way to the pizza parlor.
**END CHAPTER**
End note: Yes, in canon, Trelawney's second prediction was about Peter, but it's not about Peter in this one. You'll probably have guessed some of it, but hopefully I can surprise you a little. :)
“The Many Faces of Adira Potter: Chapter 21”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Twenty-one: Sirius Business
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Adira, and Zoey, and now #Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and now between hashtags/pound signs because some people's computers don't do the B.I.U.).# and {Tier}.
***FAYANORA***
Adira Potter was happy. It was less than two weeks since school got out for the summer, and already the summer was proving to be the best of her life. Sirius – wanting to make up for lost time on both their parts – had been taking her different places. Sure, they ate out a lot when she wasn't teaching Sirius how to cook without burning everything, but more than that. Some days they went to museums of various kinds, other days they would go someplace like the circus or the beach. And every couple days they would go to a public swimming pool of the wizarding sort, in a small building on Diagon Alley, a building which was much, much bigger on the inside than on the outside. They went there specifically to get Adira swimming lessons, since she'd never learned, and it might save her life someday. They even went to a rock concert, Adira's first ever.
Of course, they couldn't be out all the time. When they were home, since wizards didn't have televisions (something Adira made a mental note to work out how to invent, since wizards had their own version of radio), Sirius would tell her Marauder stories, or teach her Animagus stuff. They didn't need to worry about homework; Adira had done all her summer homework on the first weekend at home, so she wouldn't have to worry about it.
Today was really special, though. It was July 1st, and she woke with excitement at what would be happening that day. She was so excited that she woke before Sirius did. He was sleeping as a dog at the end of her bed again, having had more nightmares. She was very quiet so as to not wake him, and changed her clothes in the bathroom before heading down to the kitchen to start breakfast.
Humming happily, the happiest she'd ever been while cooking, she was almost done when she heard Sirius as Padfoot come into the room, sniffing eagerly at the bacon and eggs she was making.
“No animal forms at the table, Sirius,” she scolded.
Padfoot whined, but then Sirius changed back to his human form. He was already dressed.
“So you got up, became human, and got dressed before coming down as a dog again?” she asked.
Sirius started taking some bacon off the plate. “Yes. I can smell pretty well as a human, too, but your cooking smells so much better in my dog form. I mean, it smells great either way. Just... it's a richer, stronger smell as a dog.”
“That makes sense.” Adira sat down and started making herself an egg and bacon sandwich with tomatoes and lettuce.
“A BLTE, then?” Sirius asked, referring to her sandwich.
“Sure, I guess. Al prefers to call it a BELT, though.”
“Probably because if you eat enough of them, your belt stretches. Or it would if I ate them, anyway.”
Adira nodded absently, digging into her food.
“So today's the big day. You excited?”
Her mouth full of food, Adira gave him the thumbs up.
“Good. It took me enough work to convince them to do it. They don't normally let minors do it, you know. But between the evidence, and Dumbledore and I both pressuring them, they gave in. Sure, they've made exceptions before, but it's still something to be excited about. Well, for you it would be.”
“Mm-hmm,” she agreed.
“ Also, you already did the normally hard work, this would just be recognition of that.”
“Quite.”
“So I was wondering if you'd given any more thought to letting me pay for it. I am your guardian after all. You should save the money in your trust vault for school, since you can't access the other vault until you turn 17, and that's still over three years away, pup.”
She swallowed, took a drink of her pumpkin juice before answering. “Well, yes. And... you make a good point. So, okay; you can pay for it, then.”
“Good. I mean, I know it isn't much – only 40 galleons – but still, my vault can handle that better than yours can, for now. Plus, now I'm getting reparations from the Ministry for false imprisonment.”
“Oh really? How much is it?”
“It's over 1000 galleons per month for at least the next 10 years. And I heard Crouch is losing his job over it. No idea where he's going to get work now that the Ministry won't employ him. Not that I really care, mind, except out of malicious curiosity.”
“What about Dumbledore? I mean, he's the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, he could've at least tried to get you a trial. I mean, he knew you fairly well.”
“Ah, yes. That. Well, you're not wrong. Apparently he got Snape off, and Snape was actually a Death Eater before turning traitor on them for some reason. So I did ask him about it, naturally.”
“Between the shouting, I'm sure.”
“Exactly. The point was made, though.”
“What was his excuse?”
“His excuse was that he knew there was a traitor close to Lily and James. Given that I was supposed to be the Secret Keeper, I was the obvious choice for who the traitor was.”
“But all they found of Pettigrew was a finger. They find a finger, assume he's blown up, and don't look any farther?”
“As to that, it was a mess. The sewer had been blasted open, there was... well... stuff everywhere. Muggles were in a panic. They had to clean it up fast, or risk the magical world being exposed. So that much makes sense. They assumed most of his body ended up in the sewer or had been Vanished during the cleaning process, and the details got lost in all the chaos.
“Still,” he went on, “that doesn't excuse not even questioning me. Granted, veritaserum was not very reliable until after I was already in prison, when someone perfected the recipe. I guess I might still have been disbelieved by most. But Dumbledore would have believed me. As I said, though, they didn't question me. Dumbledore says he was told that I was questioned, though. That seemed to be enough for him.” Sirius glowered at his plate.
“Sirius?”
Her godfather sighed. “I'm not happy about it, but he did apologize, and I believe his apology was genuine. Still, I refused to accept his apology. My exact words were 'Your apology is heard.' Mind you, I'm not going to let this stop me from working with the man. But a lot of the trust that was there before is gone now.”
“I know how you feel. He was much the same way about the Dursleys.”
“Gods, the Dursleys. I don't know about you, but I can't forgive him for that, either. Lily and James wouldn't have wanted you to go to them even if every other witch and wizard in the whole world died first. When Dumbledore finally dies, he's going to have a pair of very angry people waiting to kick his arse over that.”
“I hope so,” Adira said.
“Oh, by the way, have you gotten the news yet? Pettigrew died in prison a couple days ago.”
“Yeah, I read about that. I'm amazed he hung on for as long as he did. He stopped eating almost two whole weeks before he finally died.”
“Yes, that was quite amazing. As soon as I heard Dumbledore say the dementors were getting excited, I thought for sure it'd be just two or three days before he died.”
Adira stood up then, done with her meal. She set the dishes to washing themselves with her wand, something she knew she could do since Sirius had informed her that the rule against using magic couldn't be enforced in households with magical adults living there. She was glad for this, because she wanted to practice dueling at some point.
“Well I'm done too, pup,” Sirius said, setting his own dishes to washing themselves, too.
“Shall we go now?”
“Not quite yet, Adira.”
A few minutes later, they both had everything they needed for the trip. They were going by Floo, rather than by motorbike, mainly because there wasn't anywhere to really park by the Ministry. The Ministry had its own vehicles, and thus its own garage, but only certain Ministry workers had access to that. So Floo it was.
“Ministry of Magic,” Sirius said, going ahead of her into the green flames.
When the flames went back to normal, Adira took a pinch of Floo Powder and tossed it in. “Ministry of Magic,” she said, once she got into the flames.
She spun around, whooshing through a dark tunnel past myriad hearths, until she tumbled out in a heap onto a floor of shiny dark stone. Taking her wand out, she stood up at attention, looking for danger. All she saw instead was Sirius smiling, and many many witches and wizards coming out of other fires. She stowed her wand.
“Moody would be proud, pup.”
“He would?” she asked. “What's he like, anyway?”
“Oh Moody? He's pretty intense. But he's a good man. Kind in his own way, even though he's abrupt, and practically the living incarnation of paranoia.”
Adira nodded, looking absently around her. They were standing at one end of a very long and splendid hall with a highly polished, dark wood floor. The peacock-blue ceiling was inlaid with gleaming golden symbols that were continually moving and changing like some enormous heavenly notice board. The walls on each side were paneled in shiny dark wood and had many gilded fireplaces set into them. Every few seconds a witch or wizard would emerge from one of the left-hand fireplaces with a soft whoosh; on the right-hand side, short queues of wizards and witches were forming before each fireplace, waiting to depart.
Halfway down the hall was a fountain. A group of golden statues, larger than life-size, stood in the middle of a circular pool. Tallest of them all was a noble-looking wizard with his wand pointing straight up in the air. Grouped around him were a beautiful witch, a centaur, a goblin, and a house-elf. The last three were all looking adoringly up at the witch and wizard, which was only believable in the case of the house elf. Glittering jets of water were flying from the ends of the two wands, the point of the centaur’s arrow, the tip of the goblin’s hat, and each of the house-elf’s ears, so that the tinkling hiss of falling water was added to the pops and cracks of Apparators and the clatter of footsteps as hundreds of witches and wizards, most of whom were wearing glum, early-morning looks, strode toward a set of golden gates at the far end of the hall.
“This way, Adira.”
They joined the throng, wending their way between the Ministry workers, some of whom were carrying tottering piles of parchment, others battered briefcases, still others reading the Daily Prophet as they walked. As they passed the fountain, Adira saw silver Sickles and bronze Knuts glinting up at her from the bottom of the pool. A small, smudged sign beside it read:
All proceeds from the Fountain of Magical Brethren will be given to
St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries
She dug through her coin purse quickly and tossed a galleon into it, glad to share her wealth with people in need. Which got her thinking, and realizing she'd never seen a homeless witch or wizard, that she knew of.
“Where do homeless witches and wizards go to beg for money?”
“Homeless witches or wizards?” Sirius responded. “I don't know. I'm not sure they exist.”
“If poor people like the Weasleys exist, surely those who are worse off also exist. I mean, the Weasleys may be poor, but at least they own property, and they never go hungry. I mean, it would be great to find out that nobody in the wizarding world goes without food or shelter or clothing, but I highly doubt such is the case.”
“I honestly don't know. I guess it's a sign of how I grew up that it never occurred to me to look into it, but you have a point. Something for you to look into, then. But first, we need to go over here to the security wizard kiosk.”
They stepped out of the stream of Ministry employees heading for the golden gates, toward a desk on the left, over which hung a sign saying SECURITY. A badly shaven wizard in peacock-blue robes looked up as they approached and put down his Daily Prophet.
“Hi there, Eric. I’m escorting a visitor,” Sirius said.
“Why didn't you come through the visitor's entrance, then?”
“Oh. I forgot about that. Sorry. Should we leave and come back that way?”
“No,” the wizard said in a bored voice. “Just try to remember it next time.”
“That I will.”
“Good. Now step over here, please.”
Adira walked closer to him and the wizard held up a long golden rod, thin and flexible as a car aerial, and passed it up and down her front and back.
“Wand,” grunted the security wizard at Adira, putting down the golden instrument and holding out his hand.
Adira produced her wand. The wizard dropped it onto a strange brass instrument, which looked something like a set of scales with only one dish. It began to vibrate. A narrow strip of parchment came speeding out of a slit in the base. The wizard tore this off and read the writing upon it.
“Eleven inches, phoenix-feather core, been in use almost four years. That correct?”
“Yes,” said Adira.
“I keep this,” said the wizard, impaling the slip of parchment on a small brass spike. “You get this back,” he added, thrusting the wand at Adira.
“Thank you.”
“Hang on. …” said the wizard slowly. He was staring at her scar, and her appearance, and putting things together.
“Thanks a bunch, Eric,” Sirius said, steering her away from the security wizard.
When they were away, Adira sighed. “Thanks for that, Sirius.”
“No problem, Addy,” he said, ignoring her half-hearted glare.
Sirius lead them over to a golden, grilled lift. Its door rattled open, and they walked in. Adira looked up curiously at many differently-colored paper airplanes that floated into the lift with them.
“Inter-departmental memos, according to Arthur Weasley,” Sirius said. “He was with me on one of my first trips back here. They used to use owls, I think. The mess got to be too much, so they switched to those, instead.”
“Ick,” she said.
The lift was slow and tedious, especially since they were many levels above the one they needed to go to. A cool female voice spoke at each floor, saying what each level was.
“Does that voice always speak the floors? I imagine if I worked here, that would drive me mad before long.”
“I don't know, pup.”
After what seemed an age, they finally made it to level two, which was dedicated to magical law enforcement.
“There are other offices down here the voice didn't cover,” Sirius explained. “Such as the Marriage Certification Office and, of course, the one we need, the Office For Changes To Legal Statuses.”
They found an information kiosk down there, Sirius stopping there.
“Hello,” said the witch at the desk. “How may I help you?”
“Sirius Black escorting Adira Potter to get an official name change.”
“Sirius Black!” The woman said, alarmed. But then she seemed to remember he was innocent, for she said, “Oh yes, I recall now. Sorry. Anyway... Adira Potter? Who is that?” she asked, looking in confusion at Adira, until she saw Adira's scar. “Oh. You mean Harry--”
“That is her current legal name, yes. She's here for a name change and to change her gender marker on the Ministry's official forms,” Sirius said in a growl.
“Y-yes. Right. Name change. Yes. Well, you'll need Identity Paperwork Services. Down this hall, last door at the end.”
“Thank you,” Sirius said with a frown.
Adira followed Sirius down the corridor, finally starting to feel nervous.
“Sirius, what is this going to entail?”
“Probably a lot of paperwork, forms to fill out. After that, I don't know.”
“You don't know? Why didn't you find out before we came here?”
“To be honest, I did. But, er... I forgot most of it. My memory hasn't been quite the same since Azkaban, sorry.”
“You don't need to apologize to me, it's not your fault.”
“That may be so, but I guess I should try harder to compensate for it. Carry a notepad around, write everything down, or something like that.”
When they finally got there, they faced a short, fat, bald man with very thick glasses sitting on a tall chair behind a desk. He looked up from his work at them, squinting over his glasses.
“Sirius Black--” Sirius started, interrupted by the wizard's squeak of terror. Sirius massaged his forehead as though praying for patience.
“Falsely imprisoned and finally pardoned Sirius Black,” Sirius started over, “here escorting my god-daughter, who needs to change her legal name and gender on the Ministry's official forms.”
“R-right,” said the fat wizard. “Current legal name?”
“Harry James Potter,” Adira said.
“The Harry Potter?”
Adira sighed. “Yes. The Harry Potter who survived the killing curse, thanks to the sacrifice of my mother. Now can we get on with this, please?”
“Of course, of course. Sorry, just never met anyone famous before. Except some of the people who work here, of course. Okay, let me just pull up your file.”
With a wave of his wand, the short wizard summoned “Harry's” file. A metal filing cabinet in the back opened up, the drawer inside sticking out impossibly long, their file poking up from among the others, which the wizard took. Adira looked at the man's nametag as he did this. The tag said 'Mortimer Theophilus Cavendish, Undersecretary of Records.'
The man took out their file and looked through it.
“So you'd like to change your name and gender marker, then?”
“Yes,” Adira said. “What all will this entail?”
“Well, you fill out some forms, then submit them. Submission fee for the name change is 100 galleons; for the gender marker change, another 50 galleons. The fees cover the cost of the forms, and the cost of the labor involved. For the gender marker, you'll have to submit to a scan by our resident medi-witch.
“Then, somewhere between one to three weeks, you'll have to return to have a meeting with a member of the wizengamot, who will determine whether or not to grant the requested changes. If granted, there are a series of rituals and blood seals required to make the changes to the forms and all the official magics connected to your legal name. Some others, like the Book at Hogwarts that records the names of magical children, will automatically update themselves at that point. But you'll have to go to Gringott's with a copy of the magical seal from the Ministry, because the goblins have their own ways of doing things, their own rituals and blood seals.”
“Hold on a moment,” Sirius said, summoning parchment from nowhere. “Do you have a quill and ink I can borrow, to write all this down and fill the forms out with?”
“Yes,” the short wizard said, pointing at a bedraggled quill in an inkpot at the end of the desk. “It's magically bound to this room, so it can't be removed. But you can move it anywhere within this room. There are desks over there you can use to fill out the forms.”
“Thank you. Now, I just have to write this all down. I forgot to last time,” Sirius said, rapidly scratching out notes, his tongue sticking out of his mouth in concentration.
“What do the rituals entail?”
“Nothing onerous. Some runes painted onto the skin, standing in a circle of runes. The blood seals are just magical parchments requiring a small blood sacrifice – just a pinprick's worth apiece – to activate. Also, you have to promise on your magic that you want the changes, and that you aren't being coerced.”
“Why do I need to be scanned by a medi-witch?”
“That's for the gender marker change. It verifies that you've either undergone the proper sex change spells and potions, or that there was a mistake in the paperwork from the start.”
“I, uh... I managed to change my sex with my own unique magic, without potions or spells. It was a complete transformation. Will that change the results?”
“If it is a complete transformation, then no matter how unique the cause, it should be fine. I can't think of any way for it to not be.”
“Er... as to that... I'm actually a bunch of different people in the same body. Two of them are male. Is that...? I mean...”
“It's the anatomy of the body at the time of the scan that counts. The scan does check for use of Polyjuice Potion, but if you're not using that, then there shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Oh,” she said, not completely satisfied, but not wanting to admit to having used Polyjuice before, to ease her mind by asking if it could detect past usage of the potion.
This Mortimer Cavendish fellow must be pretty astute, though, because he gave her a knowing look and said, “It only detects if Polyjuice Potion is being used at the time of the scan, mind; it doesn't detect past use of the potion. I don't think there's anything, spell or potion, that can detect something like that.”
“Oh, er... that would be good to know, if I'd ever used it in the past. Which I haven't.”
“Mmm... well if you had, it wouldn't be part of my job to find out, or to care one way or the other, Ms. Potter.”
“Sorry, can you repeat some of that earlier stuff, from before Adira started asking you questions? I think half of it slipped my mind, and I want to make sure I get it all. Twelve years falsely imprisoned, my memory isn't quite what it used to be, you know.”
Looking sympathetic, Mortimer Cavendish repeated the information for Sirius, making sure he stopped writing before assuming he was done.
“All done? Good. Any other questions before I fetch the paperwork?”
They looked at each other and shrugged.
“Good, good.”
With another wave of his wand, several enormous piles of parchments flew over to them. He began explaining them all one by one to an increasingly bewildered Sirius. Adira and other others tried keeping up with it all, but soon felt the man's words gum up the works of their shared mind like treacle in the gears.
Adira helped Sirius lug the piles of parchments over to a pair of desks, where they spent the next several hours poring through them, arguing over the meanings of the things asked in them and what to write down, arguing with Mortimer about these things many times. Adira was getting a massive stress headache; this seemed to be common, for Mortimer had vials of headache cure potions in a small cupboard behind his desk, and handed one to each of them.
By the time they finished, and Mortimer read through the forms to make sure everything was in order, they signed their current legal names to each, in about a dozen different places. Some of these, they had to suffer while Mortimer read out several pages of information he was required by law to read to them first. More headache cure potions were downed. Adira had to resist the urge to vanish Inside.
“Good,” Mortimer finally said, with an air of finality. “Now all that's left is payment, and then the scan by the medi-witch. Her first available appointment time today is at six PM.”
“What time is it now?” Sirius asked, too exhausted to check for himself. He was pulling gold out of his coin purse, staring at galleons as if he'd forgotten how to count.
The bureaucrat checked a pocket watch. “It is half past noon.”
“Of what day?” Adira felt Al ask with her voice. “Feels like we've been here at least a week.”
Mortimer chuckled. “Same day, I'm afraid. You've been here for only four hours, believe it or not.”
“You sure this room isn't hooked up to a Time Turner?” Adira asked.
The man chuckled again. “Quite sure, my dear, quite sure. Shall I put you down for six PM, then?”
Adira and Sirius looked at each other.
“Yes,” Adira finally answered.
“Good, good. Do try to not be late, Madam Codsworth doesn't like it when people are late.”
“We'll be here early,” she said. “Come, Sirius, let's get lunch somewhere.”
“I vote for the Leaky Cauldron. There's a room there where you can rent a couch to take a nap for an hour or two. My brain feels like it's been run through about ten years worth of marathons, then through a meat grinder.”
“I know the feeling,” Adira agreed.
“Ahem!” Mortimer said. They turned back to him.
“You forgot to pay. It's 150 galleons total.”
Sirius stared again at the money. Then he put it back, and dug around in his robes for something. Finally, he pulled out an oddly shaped piece of parchment.
“You take promissory notes?”
“Sure thing.”
They stood there for several long minutes more as Sirius struggled to bully his brain into filling out the Gringott's Money Order. But finally, all that remained was pricking his finger and wiping a smear of his blood on the middle of a rune circle on the parchment, which instantly transported the note back to Gringott's. A few moments later, another paper came back, a different one, which confirmed that the required amount of gold had been transferred to the Ministry's coffers from Sirius's account.
“Well that's all in order, then. Enjoy your lunch, and see you again at six!” Mortimer Cavendish said brightly.
“Uh huh,” they said with exhaustion, slowly dragging their bodies along to leave the Ministry.
When they got to the Leaky Cauldron, the barman, Tom, watched them try to figure out money. He waved them off.
“Never mind, Sirius, I'll put it on your tab. Will you be taking your nap before or after your meal?”
“Before, I think. I doubt either of us can figure out silverware in this state,” Adira said.
“Right, then. This way.”
~
A couple hours later, they woke up feeling much better. Less than a minute after waking up on their separate couches, Tom walked in with two large bowls of steaming hot stew. A teenage witch followed Tom with a couple bottles of butterbeer for them floating in the air at the behest of her wand.
“Thank you, Tom, Esmeralda,” Sirius said to them.
Still groggy from their nap, and very hungry, they ate in silence and were quickly done. Once they'd cleaned up and gotten ready, Sirius took Adira's arm and took her by the underground to the visitor's entrance of the Ministry, which was a magical phone booth that took them down to the Ministry once they punched the right number and identified themselves. Once they got through, they went through security, then down into Mortimer's office.
“Ah, there you are. Madam Codsworth will be with you soon.”
They sat there, waiting. Ten minutes later, a stern-looking grey-haired medi-witch with a beak-like nose bustled out.
“Adira Potter?” she called.
“Here,” Adira said.
“This way.”
Adira came into a very small room and sat down at the hospital bed. Sirius came in for moral support, and sat on one of only two chairs.
“So, you are changing your name and sex status, are you?”
“Yes.”
“Sit down,” the woman said unnecessarily, as Adira was already seated.
The medi-witch used her wand to scan Adira, like Madam Pomfrey had years ago after their first transformation into Iliana. She did all this silently, with a manner that suggested that no talking would be permitted until the scans were done.
“Very unusual,” Madam Codsworth finally said.
“Yes?” Adira asked.
“It's just, there are some things here I can't make any sense of, in your magic.”
Adira sighed. She had a suspicion what she was going to have to do.
“What have you heard about me before, Madam?”
“You? Absolutely nothing. Why?”
“My birth name is Harry Potter, Madam.”
The woman blinked. “The Bo—er... the er, the Child Who Lived?”
“Yes. But what else have you heard?”
“Nothing at all, as I said. Why?”
“Well, this may explain something. Zoey?”
With no glow at all this time, Adira shrunk down into the younger form of Zoey. The older woman jumped back in shock.
“What the name of Merlin...?”
“Hiya, Lady! I'm Zoey Potter. I'm one of at least five different people--” she held up five fingers as though showing her age “--that live in this body. Adira is the one who used to be known as Harry. She thought she was a boy. Now she's a girl.”
The medi-witch was silent, shocked still. But it was plain the gears were beginning to whirr in her mind.
“You are not a metamorphmagus, I know that much. Tell me, did Adira use... whatever magic this is... to change her body as you others do?”
“Right on the nosey, Lady!”
Madam Codsworth began to compose herself at last, brushing imaginary dust off her skirt.
“Right. Well that's that question answered. Am I correct in assuming you have been scanned like this before?”
“Yes. How'd ya know?”
“People usually ask a lot more questions during this process. Adira barely spoke. And I would assume, if you transfigured yourself like this at school, the school would wish to know what is going on.”
“You're right, of course. Hold on, Adira wants to come back.”
Again with no glow, Zoey shot back up to Adira's form.
“Sorry for that shock. But it was faster than trying to explain first. You might not have believed me.”
“Quite right, Ms. Potter. Good call.”
“Shall we go on?”
“No no, I have everything I need. You have undergone a more complete transformation than our best potions and spells can do for most transgender persons. We can get them to be able to, er... to be fertile in their new forms. But it takes monthly supplemental potions to maintain, and for the trans women, pregnancy can be quite difficult. Many only manage it once, safely. You, however... you could probably have as many children as the Weasleys, if you wanted.”
Adira blushed. “It's much too early for me to be thinking about that,” she said.
“Not really. You could get pregnant now if you wished. Not that you should. In fact, I bring this up because many witches and wizards your age become sexually active. If you should do so, you should learn about safe sex. I believe Hogwarts provides prophylactics for both boys and girls. Admittedly, I am unsure how most of them would work on you. You may wish to speak with someone at St. Mungo's about that. For now, here are some pamphlets on the subject.”
As she took the pamphlets, red with embarrassment, she noticed Sirius was looking just the same. He noticed her looking, but said nothing.
“Thank you, Madam.”
“You're welcome. And Miss?”
“Yes?”
Madam Codsworth actually smiled slightly. “Good luck. Though personally, I doubt you will need it, with my testimony.”
“Thank you.”
She escorted them out of the room and saw them off with a sharp nod. They waved goodbye to her and Mortimer, taking the dull journey back up to the main room of the ministry before returning home by Floo.
~
To take her mind off the upcoming interview with the wizengamot representative about approving her name and gender change, she did a lot of reading about the animagus process. It involved a lot of meditation and a lot of advanced learning about transfiguration theory, and was all very confusing and frustrating. Meditation was hard because it was hard to coordinate the different minds to all be quiet at once. When she expressed this frustration to Sirius, he chuckled and explained that you don't have to cease thinking in meditation, you just have to try to stop purposefully thinking.
“Think of it like this,” he'd said, “you're always gonna get random thoughts popping up, even us singletons have that issue. Just silently acknowledge the fact that they exist and then ignore them. Try not to engage those thoughts. Let them wash over you like bits of stuff in the surf, let them move on past you. You are not your thoughts, you are not even the thinker; you are the observer.”
Adira was glad for this advice, which made meditation a little easier. But her mind was still too distracted, given the thing she was concerned about on the horizon of her future. Then, too, Zoey got bored a lot more easily than she did, and would start singing random songs in their mind, which was too difficult to ignore for long, and often ended with Al sending Zoey images of him tying her to a chair and gagging her with a sock, at which point Zoey would pick the most annoying song she could think of and sing it even louder within their shared mental space, until Al started to “chase” her around, then all hope of meditating would be lost.
Then, the advanced transfiguration work felt like being at school again. Many of the books had practical exercises that were heavily recommended to do before reading on, exercises which were especially difficult. Sirius would occasionally quiz her on what she'd read so far, and assign her work if she got too many of the questions wrong. Adira had taken to calling him “Professor Black” when she got into tetchy moods after these quizes.
There was also a potion involved, that would reveal one's animagus form. It was highly complex; even Iliana was having a hard time understanding enough of how it worked to even begin risking brewing the preliminary parts, and half the time she melted her cauldron. It was very good for her that she'd worked out a way of repairing melted cauldrons, assuming they weren't completely melted. Plus, the cauldron was pewter, so occasionally she had to collect the melted metal, purify the potions ingredients from the melted metal, and re-cast a new cauldron.
They got an unexpected visit a fortnight after their visit to the Ministry. It started with Errol – the Weasley family's old and battered owl – hitting the window of Adira's bedroom and slumping onto the sill, having been knocked out. Adira opened the window and gingerly set the elderly owl down on her bed, taking the letter from him. He was still out cold, so she would wait to try to feed or water him.
She looked at the letter. It was from Ron.
Dear Adira or whichever of you gets this,
I'm writing because Ginny has been kinda weird lately, sorta down and thoughtful. I asked her about it, and she wants to know if she can come over to your house today. I figured I'd come too, if you let us, because I'm curious what the place is like. I think she wanted to talk to Adira specifically about whatever's bothering her. What d'ya say? Send me an answer back with Hedwig, I don't think Errol is up to more than one trip today, and I kinda need a response ASAP.
See you soon, I hope;
--Ron
Adira set her books aside and got up to run to Sirius, who was writing a letter to somebody. He looked up when she came into the room.
“Ron wants to know if he and Ginny can come over today. Can they? It sounded like Ginny really needed to talk about something with me.”
“Sure thing, Addy,” Sirius said with a smirk. Adira rolled her eyes.
“You know I hate that nickname.”
He shrugged. “Lots of kids get nicknames they don't like from their parents. Think of it as part of the godparent/godchild experience.”
“Whatever. So I can write him back?”
“Nah, owls take forever. Here, let me show you something,” he said, leading her to the living room with the hearth.
“What...?”
“Watch.”
He took a pinch of Floo powder, threw it in the fire. The fire turned green, and he got down on all fours and put his head in the fire.
“The Burrow!” he shouted.
Suddenly, his head disappeared, and Adira nearly screamed, but his body hadn't collapsed, so she thought he probably wasn't dead. She still worried, though, until he pulled his head back out of the fire and stepped away from the hearth.
“That's called a Fire Call. I didn't scare you, did I?”
“A little. It was shocking seeing your head fly off your body. Did that hurt?”
“Nope. A little uncomfortable kneeling by the fire, but... oh, this must be them.”
The fire, which had gone back to normal, had turned green again. Two redheads – Ron and Ginny – tumbled out of the fire and hit the wards, which shimmered briefly from the impact. Sirius did the things necessary to let them through the wards, and they stepped through gratefully, brushing ash off their clothes.
“Oh good, Adira's here already,” Ron said.
Ginny was looking around at the huge room. It suddenly dawned on Adira that Ginny might not have ever seen any place quite so swanky as this. She felt uncomfortable; while the house was Sirius's, not hers, she had never liked feeling like she was flaunting her wealth, and this was flaunting by proxy.
Whatever Ginny wanted to talk about, she didn't want to say right away. Adira even offered to find them a private room, but she wasn't fully psyched up to whatever it was yet, so Adira took the two Weasleys on a tour of the place instead. It was a little awkward of course, but Ron was suitably impressed, which helped ease tensions a little.
The tour over, they went to the drawing room and all sat down. Adira kept looking at Ginny, who was looking more uncomfortable. Ron looked at the two girls in turn, and after a few minutes, he coughed politely.
“Well, I need some water,” he said lamely. “I'll just go get some in the kitchen, okay.”
“If you're hungry, feel free to make a sandwich,” Adira told Ron. He nodded and left the room.
After another awkward space of time, Adira decided to ask.
“Ginny, what--”
“I'm sorry, Adira.”
Adira blinked.
“Sorry? About what?”
“When you came out as trans to me. I'm sorry I didn't take it well. I... I was a selfish, stupid little girl with a crush, and never really tried to get to know you as a person. I was attracted to what you were – that being the Boy Who Lived – and not who you were, and that was wrong. I'm sorry.”
Adira relaxed, and smiled. “Apology heard and accepted, Ginny. That had to have been a shock to you.”
“Yes, it was. Which also annoys me. The twins weren't even surprised, from what I hear. I mean, they didn't know, not really. But they knew something was different.”
“In fairness to you, the twins and I talk a lot more than you and I do.”
“Yeah, I know. Because I kept getting nervous around you, due to my crush on you. But, well... I want to get to know you for who you are, maybe be a friend. If you're okay with that.”
“I love having friends. The more the merrier. Especially with all the people at school who think I'm an attention-seeking nutter.”
“Cool. I mean, cool about us trying to be friends. I don't think you're any kind of a nutter,” she said, blushing. “So, er... how's your summer been so far?”
Adira smiled. She had been wanting someone else to talk about things with. Sirius was all well and good, but there were some things you didn't tell a parent or godfather. The fact she kinda had two dads – Sirius and Hagrid – didn't really change that. Sometimes you just need a girl friend. And Hermione... she wasn't all that girly. Ginny had her boyish aspects, but she did seem like a better fit for this kind of friend.
“Oh, it's been interesting,” Adira said, to buy time while she thought about how much she wanted to tell Ginny, and what, this soon in their friendship. “The best summer yet, I'd say. Hanging out at the burrow was fun and all, and I still want to visit sometime, but having a home that's my own, through Sirius, feels good. We eat out a lot, because Sirius never learned to cook for himself before his false imprisonment. I've been trying to teach him, but there's only so many fires you can put out in a week before it gets tiresome.”
Ginny laughed. “Maybe I can convince Mum to come over sometime and help out trying to teach him. I can just imagine what Mum would say if she found out that you two only ever ate homecooked meals when you were making it. She'd say it's not right, the child doing the cooking for the adult.”
“Yeah, that's pretty much Sirius's concern, too. It's part of why I'm teaching him. He is getting better, though. The other day he managed to boil some eggs without starting a fire.”
They talked of this and that for a while, until finally Adira felt she could bring the conversation over to something she had really wanted to talk about. She told Ginny all about the story of going to fill out the forms and get the scan for changing her name and gender marker.
“Hmm...” Ginny said, her expression reminding Adira of Mrs. Weasley.
“What?”
“Oh, it's just... why do they need to scan you to get your gender changed in their records? If there's one thing this has taught me, is that your gender is in your head, not between your legs. They should just take your word for it.”
Adira looked thoughtful. “Wow. Yeah. I hadn't thought of that, but what if I hadn't taken any of the potions or spells for a sex change? What if my worries had been founded, and they hadn't worked on me, and I hadn't been able to do it myself? I'd still have the, er, stuff down there. If that didn't match what they were looking for, would they even make an exception for me?”
“Exactly. And from what you said, making the transition puts most people in the position of becoming dependent on potions for the rest of their life. What if someone didn't want that? Or couldn't afford the potions? Why couldn't they just be whatever gender without actually having to do something about it?”
“Yeah...” Adira said, sitting there thinking. “Good points...”
Just then, the tiny feathery tennis ball that was Sirius's owl came into the room hooting and flying around like an excited, oversized bumblebee. Adira swatted half-heartedly at it, but Ginny giggled at its antics.
“What an adorable owl! What's her name?”
“His name. I think. I'm not actually sure how owl sexes work, but Sirius calls him a he. And he doesn't have a name yet.”
“Can I give him a name?”
“I guess so. You'd have to ask Sirius.”
“Ask me what?” said Sirius from the doorway. “Don't worry, I wasn't listening. I was looking for the owl.”
“Can I name him, Sirius?”
“Sure, why not? I haven't thought of a name for him.”
“Hmm... how about Pigwidgeon?”
The owl twittered around happily, now it had a name. Sirius sighed and rolled his eyes.
“Pigwidgeon it is, then. Come on, you feathery git, I have a letter for you.”
They watched Sirius grab the tiny owl out of the air and head out the room with him. Ginny turned back to Adira.
“I'm glad we had this chat. I like talking with you. I can't believe how ridiculous I've been about you in the past.”
Adira shrugged. “Yeah, well... I get it. I mean, if I had to try talking to some of the people I've taken a fancy to...” she stopped, turning red.
Ginny sat up more and looked very interested all of a sudden. “Ooooh, you fancy someone? Who?”
Adira shook her head.
“Come on, I can keep a secret.”
“I... you'll laugh. Or something.”
“I won't.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
She hesitated.
“Oh, fine then. I... do you know who Cho Chang is?”
“The Ravenclaw seeker?” Ginny said, looking momentarily jealous, before shaking it off and looking thoughtful. “Yes, I can see that. She's not bad looking, and she's nice. You could certainly do much worse. But your words kind of implied there was more than one person. Who else?”
“Um... none of these are anything major, you know. Just a little crush...”
“You're holding out on me, Addy.”
“You too with this 'Addy' thing?”
“Don't change the subject.”
Adira sighed. “Fine. I... I think your brother Bill is quite good looking.”
“Ah, yes. He does get a lot of attention. Any others?”
“Nobody I know the name of.”
“So you don't share Iliana's interest in Wood?”
“Nope.”
“Does Iliana like Cho Chang as well?”
“I don't know if I can say.”
#You can tell her, Addy.#
Not you too!
It's your official nickname now, the rest of us have all agreed on it.
Carefully trying to hide her reaction to this, Adira nodded at Ginny.
“Okay, Iliana says I can tell you. Yes, she fancies Cho Chang as well.”
“So you all can feel each other's feelings and still tell whose are whose?”
“For the most part, yes. Occasionally it can be difficult. Wait... you knew I was listening in whenever you and Iliana were talking?”
Ginny shrugged. “Yeah. I knew in the... I guess you could say 'intellectual' sense. But it was pretty much a case of 'out of sight, out of mind.' My odd behavior was pretty much a reaction to your face.”
“And you've since gotten over that?”
“You've grown your hair out, changed it. And you put pretty things in your hair now, and paint your nails, and stuff. Once you started doing that, the feelings that made me so nervous around you began to fade. Which led to the soul-searching that got me to approach you today.” She shrugged again, looking at the floor.
“Well, that's all water under the bridge now. Come on, I'm getting peckish, let's get a snack.”
Ginny smiled and followed her new friend into the kitchen.
~
The animagus stuff was still not going well three weeks later. Meditation had gotten a little easier, but it was still difficult and wasn't yielding anything. She knew they shouldn't get too discouraged, since Sirius had said it took him, her father, and Peter several years to work out how to do it. But this time, she had the help of someone who had done it. She had books about it, too, that would have been very difficult to get at Hogwarts. What was more, they had a natural affinity for transformations.
Occasionally Lupin would come over and continue to teach her the Patronus Charm, even though the dementors were long since gone from Hogwarts. She still hadn't made a corporeal Patronus, though. She wondered if she ever would.
Her nerves as the date of meeting the wizengamot representative approached increased. But finally, it came. Adira barely paid attention to anything as they got ready to go, and so time seemed to fly by, leaving her finding herself next to Sirius outside the door she'd be meeting whoever it was. She began to panic at this loss of time, though a quick check of their memory showed they just hadn't been paying attention.
She panicked more when the door opened and a young woman stepped out to call her name.
“Adira Potter? The representative will see you now.”
“Come on, I'll be right there with you,” Sirius said, guiding her into the room.
There was a chair facing away from her behind a desk. As she came in, the chair turned, and none other than Albus Dumbledore was there.
“Dumbledore! Sir. I... I wasn't expecting you to be the one I'd have to talk with.”
“Normally I am not. The task usually goes to the most junior member of the wizengamot, but I pulled some strings. Given the contents of the scan you went through here, the others agreed it was acceptable. I really am sorry I put you through so much worry, Adira. But now you can rest assured that my verdict is that you shall be granted the name and gender change you requested. I will start the process of getting all of that taken care of today. You will still need to stop by Gringott's, for they have their own ways of doing things, but this paper here will help you with them,” he said, handing a stunned Adira an official-looking document detailing the changes made to the records, with Dumbledore's own signature on the bottom.
“Thank you, sir!”
“Not a problem, my dear. Not that I had any doubt you'd be able to get it with another, I just thought a friendly face would help your nerves.”
“It did, thank you.”
Dumbledore nodded.
“Dumbledore,” Sirius said, “is it safe to talk about... the thing we discussed at the end of the school year?”
“Here? No, it isn't. But if you wish, I can come visit you at your home to speak of it.”
“Is that okay, Adira?”
She nodded. “Sure.”
“Good. When are you coming over, headmaster?”
“Oh, I have nothing pressing, if you wish me to come with you now.”
Sirius turned to Adira.
“That sounds good.”
“Then let us go now,” Dumbledore said.
They left the room together, and made their way up to the lobby of the Ministry of Magic, and took the Floo back home. The wards shimmered briefly when they got in, before Sirius gave the password that let them into the building.
“Impressive warding,” Dumbledore commented. “Wizard and goblin warding both, I see. Marvelous.”
“This way, headmaster,” Sirius said, escorting them to the sitting room. When they got there, an owl with ear-like tufts of feathers sat proudly on one of the chairs, a letter in its beak. Adira looked at the owl warily for a moment before she recognized the owl Sirius had given to Ron to replace Scabbers. She took the letter from its beak and gave it some owl treats.
“Hold on a moment, I want to read this letter first,” Adira said to Sirius and Dumbledore.
Adira or whoever,
Hi, it's Ron. I was just going to send Arnan here to tell you his new name, but then I remembered you've got that thing today at the Ministry. So how'd that go? Do you know yet? Tell me all about it. Ginny wants to know, too.
All for now.
Ron
“Cool. Arnan, you can stay here for a few hours 'til I write a reply, okay?”
The owl just regarded her haughtily.
She laughed. “Oh my. I'd be very surprised if you and Hermes didn't get into a haughtiness contest, Arnan.”
“Put Arnan in with Hedwig, will you, Adira? I know owls can't speak, but I don't feel comfortable talking around him about... what we're going to talk about.”
“Sure thing, Sirius,” she said, letting the owl sit on her arm before taking him into her bedroom with Hedwig.
“Hey Hedwig, this is Ron's new owl, Arnan. Keep each other company for a while, will you? I don't know how long this will take.”
The two owls nodded amicably at one another and then settled down to sleep. Adira paused momentarily to wonder at the weirdness of wizards using nocturnal birds to send each other letters, before heading back down to the sitting room.
When she sat down next to Sirius, Dumbledore began.
“So what exactly did you wish to discuss, Sirius?”
“About these horcruxes, headmaster. How do we destroy them? How do we even find them? How many does he have? And what will he have used to make them?”
“I have some theories about the three latter questions, but I need to gather more information before I can be sure. As to the first question, horcruxes are very difficult to destroy. The only things that I am sure will destroy the things are basilisk venom and fiendfyre. Fiendfyre is a spell that is difficult to cast and nearly impossible to control when cast. And basilisk venom, as you know, is rare, but we, er... have a supply on hand.”
“We do?” Sirius asked in amazement. “What do you mean?”
“Er...” said Adira. “Well, in our second year... down in the Chamber of Secrets, we met a basilisk. We didn't know how to kill as basilisk, and we were faced with the possibility of being killed by one. So Al just... he just started talking to it. In parseltongue. Convinced it to switch sides. It turned on Riddle, biting the diary, killing it. We've got an arrangement with the basilisk, feeding it with food from the Hogwarts kitchens. In return, it stays down there and doesn't threaten anyone.”
Sirius's eyes went wide. “You have a pet basilisk? In the school?”
“Yeah, that's right in essentials.”
Running his hands through his hair in astonished silence, Sirius looked like he was feeling ill.
“A basilisk! A bloody great basilisk! In a school!”
“Yes, a basilisk. A basilisk which, incidentally, is much more easily controlled than the giant cerberus named Fluffy that was in the castle in our first year.”
“A bloody basilisk and a giant three-headed dog?”
“Not to mention the talking spiders the size of automobiles living in the Forbidden Forest, imported by Hagrid, that we met in our second year,” Adira felt Zoey saying with her voice in a casual sort of way, as though deadly monsters were a hum-drum thing to have at a school. “They very nearly ate us.”
“Now now, let's try not give your godfather a stress-induced heart attack, please. I have many skills, but healing magic is not one I am especially good at,” Dumbledore said in a very droll way.
Adira looked over at Sirius, who was clutching his hair like it was a lifeline and breathing very heavily, and heard Zoey giggle. It took her a moment to realize that the giggle had been aloud.
“Anyway,” Adira said, trying not to smile, “we were talking about horcruxes. I agree with Sirius, and I would like to add that we need more information about them. In fact, I mentioned this to Sirius once, weeks ago.”
Calmer now with the distraction, Sirius nodded. “I know I could get books about them at Knockturn Alley if I looked hard enough, but well... between not wanting to be spotted there by Light wizards and being sure the Dark ones wouldn't trust me, I've decided not to.”
“Yes, I should think so. Such books are not precisely illegal, but having one does make the Ministry scrutinize you very closely if they find out you own one. Unless, of course, the book belongs to a school.”
“You're not telling me the library has books about horcruxes, are you?” Adira asked, incredulous.
“The library does not have books about horcruxes anymore, not even in the restricted section. It did, back when Tom Riddle was in school, but when I became headmaster, I removed them. The one I kept is now hidden in one of my rooms at the school. In case such information might be necessary one day, as it indeed was.”
“Is there any chance we can, er... borrow the book? Or look at it in your office?”
“I shall consider it, Miss Potter,” Dumbledore said carefully. “In the meantime, what you must know about horcruxes is what I have already told you; they are pieces of the wizard's soul, earth-bound in protective casings. Such casings are so thoroughly protected magically, with spells to protect them from destruction, and often riddled with hexes, that as I said, only fiendfyre and basilisk venom can destroy them.” He paused a moment, thinking, then added, “I can also say that horcruxes are the opposite of a person. Where a person can die without damaging their soul, when a horcrux is destroyed, that part of the soul is destroyed forever.”
“But what about Voldemort's horcruxes, specifically? How do we hunt those down?”
“I will be gathering more information about Voldemort. I assure both of you that when I have what I need, I will begin teaching Adira all that I know and suspect about Voldemort and his horcruxes. I am not at that point yet, though. Please do not badger me about it.”
His tone was light, but it was nonetheless clear that he would brook no more discussion of it for now.
“Okay, so... if basilisk venom is so destructive, is there any way we can collect it for when we need it? In case Adira can't get down to the Chamber for some reason, I mean.”
“As to that: yes, there are vials I can acquire that have charms that allow them to hold basilisk venom. They wouldn't work on horcruxes, though, these spells. And even if they did, they are temporary; long-term storage of basilisk venom is fraught with difficulty, the venom must be re-flasked every so often before it burns through the flask. I believe each vial lasts around 6 months before it begins to develop leaks.”
Dumbledore sighed. “Alas, if only we knew where the Sword of Griffindor was. It has properties that would be helpful to us. It is goblin-made to have the power to imbibe only that which strengthens it. Meaning that we could pour basilisk venom on it, and it would imbibe the venom, giving us another weapon against horcruxes.”
“That would indeed be useful, sir.”
“Yes, it would. Ah well, no sense worrying over things that we can do nothing about. We have a ready source of basilisk venom at hand, and that is enough. What we really need now, as I have intimated, is information. Information I have already begun to seek. With luck, we can find all the horcruxes and destroy them before Voldemort has the chance to regain a body.”
There were a few noises of agreement, but nobody really spoke. There was silence for a few beats until Dumbledore broke it.
“Are there any other questions I have not already answered?”
Adira and Sirius looked at one another, unable to think of anything to add.
Dumbledore stood up then.
“Well, if that is all, I shall leave the two of you in peace. Good day to you, Sirius, and Adira.”
Twinkling his eyes at them first, he then went to the hearth and took the Floo back to wherever it was he went during the summer. With him gone, the two of them went back to sit down again.
“Well, Adira, how's your animagus studies going?”
“Not so well. Meditation is difficult. Even when I manage it, nothing comes of it. And honestly, I don't think the normal way of doing things is going to work with us. We already change so often and so quickly that the mandrake leaf isn't necessary, I think. The only real problem, in our opinion, is that when we try to transform into an animal, it's always some weird hybrid creature, and human-sized. No idea what that's about.”
“I thought Tier was the one that did that sort of thing?”
“He is. For whatever reason, when we need to transform into something other than our usual form, we have to tap into his abilities. But no matter what animal we picture in our mind, it doesn't come out right. There's some block there, that once we figure out will, I think, let us become our animal or animals.”
“Well, the transformation isn't supposed to work for any random animal shape. Animagi only have one animal form for the same sort of reason the Patronus only has one form. It's a reflection of your soul and your mind.”
“Ah, that could explain it. There's like, five of us, with a common memory, and overlapping thoughts at times. I'm betting the reflection is complicated by that.”
“Sounds like you need to disentangle from one another, or all concentrate on one animal.”
“We've already tried that. It isn't working. Watch, we'll try to concentrate on the form of a black cat.”
She stood up and closed her eyes, concentrating. After a few moments, she began to glow and shrink. It seemed to be going well until she got to Zoey's height, and then the form went wobbly and unstable. After fighting it for almost an entire minute, their form settled on a Zoey-sized catgirl with one hand a paw and the other just furry, half a tail, and one leg shorter than the other. The face was also very distorted, halfway between the shape of a cat's head and a human's head.
The catgirl monstrosity opened its mouth to speak, and a creepy sound that was nothing like either a human voice nor a cat's voice came forth, startling them both.
A brief glow later, and Adira was back to normal.
“See what I mean? That was the closest we've gotten to a cat form yet.”
“I do see what you mean. But don't worry too much. The animagus transformation is very difficult. One of the reasons it's usually overseen by the Ministry is the bizarre and freakish ways the transformation can go wrong. You're just experiencing something similar, I expect. The only difference is, you can put yourselves right again with a thought, and most wizards would need a trip to St. Mungo's. Keep on practicing. You seem to be making a lot of progress, even without the mandrake leaf.”
“Do you think I should use the mandrake leaf?”
“Hmm... I don't know. We'll leave that decision for later, since you seem to be doing okay without it for now.”
“You call that okay?”
“Well, look at what you lot have become in the past. From what you've told me, one of your previous bestial transformations was something like a cross between a human, a wolf, and a dragon. At least now you're recognizable as being a cross between only two species. Like I say, it's progress.”
Adira laughed. “Oh, I guess you're right, Sirius. It's just frustrating. Been working on this, and the Patronus charm, and neither of them are getting very far. I still can only make a bit of mist, with the Patronus charm.”
“Well remember, Adira, your name is officially changed now. As is your gender. Maybe concentrating on that will give you a good strong happy memory.”
“Oh yeah, that's right!”
Adira got out her wand, and concentrated on her new happy memory, on the joy of being recognized for who and what she was at last.
“Expecto patronum!”
The wand flared with bright white light, and there was a vague shape, but it turned into formless vapor almost at once.
“WOW! Did you see that?”
“I did, Adira. That was very nearly corporeal. Good progress, keep it up.”
“Did you see what it was?”
“Nope. Could've been anything. All I saw with any clarity was an eye, which didn't give me any clues, it was still so blurry.”
“Oh, well, at least it's getting better.”
She concentrated again.
“Expecto patronum!”
This time, the form was a little more solid, for slightly longer.
“Looked like some kind of canine, I think,” Sirus said. “Maybe a wolf, or a dog? Not sure.”
She tried a few more times, but each time it was even less distinct than the first time.
“Ah well, don't worry. You're still making progress. Keep practicing, you'll get it. And what you've got now is still enough to buy some time to get away. And you're only 14, so even an indistinct patronus is a huge achievement.”
She sighed. She really didn't like how frustrating it was trying to do these things. She wanted to skip the waiting, but there wasn't any way to do that, so she just resigned herself to more practice.
Note: I would like to credit the fanfics I got a lot of the ideas for the animagus process from, but I've read so many at this point that I don't remember which ones I got these ideas from.
Note two: Lame ending to the chapter, I know, but... *shrugs*
"The Many Faces of Adira Potter: Chapter 22"
By = Fayanora
Chapter Twenty-two: The Quidditch Cup
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Adira, and Zoey, and now #Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and now between hashtags/pound signs because some people's computers don't do the B.I.U.).# and {Tier} if I ever get around to it.
Note 4: This is a long chapter. But I made it less long by cutting out the World Cup match itself, just doing some important bits before and after.
***FAYANORA***
On July 31st, Sirius and Adira went by Floo to the Burrow for Adira's birthday party. The first thing she saw when she got there was Ron and Ginny. The second thing she saw was a brief vision of bushy brown hair before another girl was hugging her excitedly.
"Hello Hermione. Your parents let you come to my party, too?"
"Yes. They're almost as fascinated by magic as Mr. Weasley is fascinated with Muggles. They're just politer about it."
"How'd you get here?"
"Oh, Mr. Weasley picked me up with his car."
"Cool. If I'd thought about it, I could have had Sirius pick you up on his motorbike."
Hermione blanched at that. "Um... I don't think they would approve of that."
"It's perfectly safe," Sirius said. "I've got charms on it that keep it from getting hit by cars and stuff, charms that keep the bike upright, and a charm to keep you from falling off. You could probably balance on one foot the whole way and be fine. Not that I'd recommend trying it, of course."
"I still don't think they'd approve. And, well... I don't think I'd be very interested. Sounds scary. Like flying, but closer to the ground."
"Ah well, if you're afraid of it, then I'll remember to never offer. I quite understand, it's a heady experience even for me."
"Hello there, dearie," said Mrs. Weasley, bustling into the room. "We're setting up outside, since there's more room out there."
"Cool. I hope there are charms to keep the bugs away, though."
"Oh yes, I'm quite handy at insect-repelling charms, don't worry about that."
Adira and the others headed outside and around the side, where Mr. Weasley was setting up tables and chairs with his wand. Despite this, Adira grabbed a chair and began helping.
"Oh I've got it, Adira. You're the birthday girl, there's no need to help."
"I like helping, when it's people I like," she said. "Just like I like cooking for people I like."
"Speaking of cooking," one of the twins said with a grin, "has Mum taught Sirius anything about cooking yet?"
"I've been getting lessons," Sirius admitted. "But sadly the progress is slow. The other day I managed make toast without burning it."
"Yeah, I heard, which is why I brought it up. Mum is starting to worry. Ten lessons in, and that's all he can manage. Well, that and boiling eggs. I overheard Mum the other day muttering to herself about having to send meals to him and Adira via Floo."
"Oh there's no need for that," Adira said. "I can cook. I used to do it for the Dursleys all the time. I hated doing it for them, but I like doing it for myself or for family and friends."
"Well, Adira, I think that's the last of the chairs. Oh, and here comes Molly, just in time."
Mrs. Weasley was floating a line of pots and pans and dishes of food over to the tables with her wand. She set them down and went back for more. Adira followed and helped carry things out to the table. Before long, they had a meal ready for 10 people – all the Weasleys except Bill and Charlie, plus Adira and Hermione.
The cooking was, as ever, magnificent.
"Mrs. Weasley," Adira said between bites, "your cooking really is amazing. In fact, if you wanted or needed to, I'm sure you could get a job as a cook at a restaurant or pub. I'm sure people would pay loads for cooking this good."
"Why thank you, dear. That's kind of you to say," the Weasley matriarch said, grinning.
Adira went back to her meal, pleased.
A few minutes later, she noticed Mr. Weasley kept staring at her with a thoughtful expression on his face.
"What is it, Mr. Weasley? Do I have something on my face?"
"No, nothing like that. It's nothing."
"Oh come on, then."
"Well... okay. If you insist. It's just... I'm curious, Adira; are you the only one of you lot who age?" Mr. Weasley asked.
Adira put her fork down. "Um, no. Iliana is aging along with me."
"Right, yes, sorry. I should have remembered seeing her age, too. But er... is Alastair getting any older?"
"Ah, Al. As to him, no idea. He was pretty much 14 when we were 11. If he is aging, he's not showing it. Doesn't look a day older than he did back then. I really hope he's not going to be stuck at 14 forever. I'm pretty much resigned to Zoey being six forever, but I don't think I could stand one of us being a teenager for the rest of our life."
"Yeah, Al's always been older," said one of the twins. "It'd be weird to see him younger than you two."
After dinner and cake, it was time to open presents. From Sirius she got a wrist holster for her wand.
"The bloke at the shop said it's charmed. You put your wand in it, then when you want your wand in your hand, out it pops right into your hand. You don't have to worry about dropping it, either, when it pops out, because it makes the wand stick to your hand even if it's open palm, until you actually grasp hold of it, then the charm lifts until next time."
"Cool! Thanks, Sirius!"
"You're welcome. I liked it so much, I got one for myself as well," he said, demonstrating it for her. Sure enough, his wand popped right into his hand.
"Goes back with a thought, too," he said, letting it get sucked back into the holster.
"Merlin's beard!" Adira practically shouted in her excitement, immediately strapping the holster to her arm, and putting her wand in it to practice making it come out and go back in.
Sirius's gift was the most impressive, but she loved every gift she got. Ginny got her a bottle of color-changing nail polish. From Ron she received a three-galleon gift certificate to Honeyduke's. Ron's parents gave her homemade fudge. Hermione gave her a charm bracelet with an actual charm on it.
"It's a shield charm on the bracelet," she explained. "I don't know how strong it is, or how long it'll last, but it should ward off at least one or two mild to moderate hexes."
She also got cards, which she loved. She still had all her birthday cards from previous years in her trunk. Which, after three years at Hogwarts, was beginning to get very full, even after she'd gotten rid of the Lockhart books. She made a mental note to get a new trunk at Diagon Alley.
The twins even gave her a gift, but not until after everything was put away. They'd come up to Ron's room to talk privately with her.
"We got you something, too. Didn't want to give it to you in front of Mum."
"A bit of something we've been developing. Ton-Tongue Toffees. Don't eat any unless you want your tongue to grow to the size of a baby seal," Fred warned.
"You're free to use up to three of them on deserving victims," George said, after handing her a whole box full of them. "But the rest we're just giving you for safe-keeping. Mum's been destroying all our hard work. But she wouldn't dare destroy something of yours."
"Trick candies, huh?"
"Yeah. We want to start a joke shop. Been our heart's desire for years. But Mum wants us to get respectable jobs. Normal jobs. Boring jobs."
Adira laughed. "Yeah, I can't imagine you two doing anything normal. Hold on."
With no more warning than that, she shrunk down, without glowing, into Zoey.
"Let me just hold that for you," she said, grabbing the box. Then she pulled it into herself as they transformed again into Adira.
"Wow, she can do real objects now?"
"Um, yeah. Yeah, I feel them in there, still. Wherever it is stuff goes when she does that. She just can't do anything alive, we've found."
"Ah, so she couldn't hide, say, one of us in there?"
"Nope. I'm not sure it would be a good idea even if she could. It might be deadly to anything alive, that isn't one of us."
"Well now that you've got them in there, we might call upon Zoey to return a few of them at some point in the future, on short notice."
"Fine by me. I wish you two luck. You'll be brilliant at a joke shop."
"Thank you for your good wishes, dearest Addy-Rah. But we still have a few more years left at school before we go off out into the world to find our fortune."
That night, in bed, she reflected that each birthday kept getting better and better. She was very glad to be away from the Dursleys, even if it meant that the spell Dumbledore had cast to extend the protection of her mother's sacrifice had broken.
In August, Ron wrote to them to tell them his father had tickets to the Quidditch World Cup via a friend at work, and asked if Adira and Sirius wanted to come as well.
"Can we, Sirius? Can we? Please?"
Sirius hemmed and hawed. "Well, you can, sure. But me, I dunno. I... well that is to say... well..."
"You're worried about weird looks? Scared looks?"
"Yes. But I don't think I can exactly go in disguise, either."
"You look a lot better than your old wanted posters, these days. Barely recognizable."
Sirius raised an eyebrow at her.
"Thanks, Adira, but I know that's not true. Plenty of people recognize me."
"Oh come on, there'll be people from all over the world there, and I doubt your face is known much outside of Britain."
"I wouldn't be so sure, kiddo."
Adira cocked her head ever so slightly, a sure sign she was listening to someone on the inside.
"Al says you should go and wear a t-shirt that says 'Hello, my name is Sirius Black, ask me how.'"
Sirius just looked at her like a dog might look at something confusing to it.
"Never mind, it's a Muggle cultural reference. Anyway, Sirius, don't worry. It'll be a huge place from what I hear, so you'll blend into the crowd. It shouldn't be any more difficult than going to Diagon Alley."
He sighed. "I hope you're right. But yeah, I'll go with you. I can put up with some minor frustrations to make sure you're safe."
She hugged him round the middle in celebration, and he hugged her back.
The Quidditch World Cup wouldn't be until August 24th. Until then, with most of her homework done, Sirius insisted she not remain in the house all the time. He took her out different places at least once a week, going places like parks, museums, the beach. He signed her up for swimming lessons at a wizarding pool in case she had any transformations, which were twice a week. He even occasionally took her out for rides on his motorbike just for the heck of it. It was quickly shaping up to being her best summer ever.
A few weeks before the Cup, Adira and company began having nightly dreams of a slightly odd nature. The dream was always the same; Adira would be sitting in class, between Al and Iliana, and they'd be paying attention to an unfamiliar teacher who was black with her hair in elaborate braids that were tied back together in a protruding bun like a small beehive 'do made of braids. They could read the words on the board perfectly, but could never quite remember what they said when they woke up.
After what felt like a few minutes of this, a boy behind them would say something to get their attention. They would turn to look at him, and he was always the same boy. He looked to be from India, or at least had ancestors from there, but he spoke with an American accent. His skin was dark brown, making him almost as black as the teacher.
"You said something?" Al prompted.
The boy regarded them with eyes that were so brown they were almost black, but unlike Snape's black eyes, this boy's eyes were warm, calm, and thoughtful. He regarded them calmly, thinking.
"Oh," the boy said lazily, his eyes on his notes. "Just saying you should take notes. There's going to be a quiz later."
"Quiz? What are you on about?" Al demanded.
"Oh you know," said the boy as he wrote down some notes from the blackboard, "the quiz. Several quizzes, actually. Little ones at first. Then the big one."
"The O.W.L.'s? Those aren't til fifth year."
The boy sighed. "No, that's not it," the boy said, now doodling on a piece of parchment.
Al looked around. "This is a dream. We're asleep."
"Yes, you are," the Indian boy agreed, not looking up from his drawing.
"Why aren't you taking notes, if it's so important?" Al demanded of the boy.
"I've been getting private lessons. Mother insisted. That's why I've been away for so long."
"Away? From school?"
"No. Just away."
Al's eyes narrowed.
"What House are you in?"
The boy said nothing, just shrugged. He hadn't looked at them once since getting their attention.
"What's your name?" Adira asked.
The boy stopped drawing, and looked up at her, smirking. He said nothing, just put an index finger to his mouth and winked before going back to his drawing.
"Cryptic bastard. But I guess that's dreams for ya," Al said.
The boy shushed them again, this time unsmilingly, and pointed up at the teacher. They turned to look. The board now had what looked like strategic drawings for Quidditch on it, lots of X's and O's and arrows.
"Mother will be very cross if you fail the big test. But not half as cross as you will be."
They had turned to face the boy again. But he vanished, so they turned back to the front.
"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" screamed a voice as someone jumped out at them.
Adira screamed, and fell out of bed in a tangle of sheets. Sirius came bursting into the room as she did, calling her name. After a lot of struggle and confusion, Sirius got her out of the sheets and began calming her down.
"I had it again! Same weird dream seven nights in a row! The exact same!"
"Including the jump scare at the end?"
"Yes! What does it mean?"
"I wish I knew, Adira, I really do."
She made no sign she'd heard him, as she was still recovering from the scary end of the dream. It took many minutes, but finally her breathing was slowing down, she was getting calmer.
"Have you told Dumbledore yet?"
"Yes. But he doesn't think it's a vision, if that's what you mean."
"Yeah, I don't think so either. I think it's just a general warning. Which I think is coming from our subconscious mind. I think its main message is that 'constant vigilance' at the end of the dream."
"What else do you remember?"
She concentrated. "Something about taking notes. That there was going to be a quiz, or quizzes, and a big test. But not the O.W.L.s. A different kind of test, I think. And the boy in the dream said he'd been getting private lessons. He said that mother insisted."
"Hmm... well, dreams can be weird."
"Yeah, but this was weird in a very... a very clear way. Most dreams are utter nonsense. This one felt like it had a lot more sense to it than dreams usually do." She paused. "Anyway, I'll think more about it later. I'm still tired."
"Do you want me to sleep in the doggy bed?"
She chuckled. "No, I think I'll be fine."
"Okay, then. Sweet dreams."
Sirius tucked her in and kissed her on the forehead before leaving. She sighed, and tried to get back to sleep. It took a very long time.
That seventh night was the last of the dreams they had of the boy and the teacher. Their sleep was normal, then, until the Saturday before the Quidditch match.
The new dream followed an old man whose name they couldn't remember on waking. He was a caretaker at an old mansion, and thinking some kids had lit a room on fire, he'd instead discovered two wizards having a discussion.
With a fire in the grate, Voldemort sat facing the fire. He was sitting in a chair so tall that his head was not visible, and was talking with the other man, whose face was in shadow and whose voice was unfamiliar.
"Does my lord wish any more of the potion?" said the unfamiliar male voice, full of worshipful adulation. "Some small amount remains, my lord."
"Later," said a second voice. This too belonged to a man — but it was strangely high-pitched, and cold as a sudden blast of icy wind. "Move me closer to the fire."
"Of course, my lord," the worshipful voice said, the man hurrying to obey. He was wearing a hooded cloak, his face hidden in its shadows as he scooted the chair closer to the hearth.
"Where is Nagini?" asked the cold voice.
"I believe, my lord, that she went out to explore the house. Not being blessed as you are with the Speech, I cannot be sure."
"Good. You will milk her again before we retire," the cold voice commanded. "I will need feeding in the night; the journey has been very tiring, even with your help."
"Of course, my lord." A pause, then the servant's voice continued. "Does this mean we will be staying here? And if so, for how long?"
"A week. Perhaps longer. This place is moderately comfortable, and the plan cannot proceed yet. It would be foolish to act before the Quidditch World Cup is over."
"Ah yes," the servant said. "Understandable, with all the Ministry of Magic fools everywhere, keeping things from the bloody stupid Muggles. You are wise and cunning as always, my lord. I wish I could have half as much wisdom and cunning as you have."
The cold voice chuckled. "Yes, you are exactly as I remember. Alas, if only you had been able to get to me sooner."
"Speaking of sooner, my lord, but why, pray tell, are we trying to get hands on Harry Potter? He is so well protected, after all. I simply seek to understand the magnificence of your plan, if my weak mind is able to grasp it, my lord. Unless my understanding is not needed, of course, in which case I beg your forgiveness for my impertinence."
"Of course, of course. You are correct, your understanding is not required. But I suppose, given the nature of your future duties, I shall tell you anyway. I could use any witch or wizard who opposed me, but this one is particularly meaningful. The Potter creature has incredible powers of transformation, powers I hope to gain by using its blood to rebuild my body. And I shall wish to murder it myself to prove that it is a fluke. Ah, but I forget myself... you shall need to refer to it as her. At least part of the time."
"Yes, my lord. I have been doing my research. My contacts in the ministry have provided me with much information on the Potter... thing. I know the names and personas it has well. You shall have her, to do with her as you please."
"Excellent. This pleases me greatly."
"Thank you, my lord, thank you."
"Yes yes, that is enough fawning for now."
"Of course, my lord." Another pause, then, "However, I remain confused on one other point, my lord."
"And what is it that confuses you?"
"If I am to leave here as part of my duty to you, who is to care for you?"
"Why, that nosy woman of course."
"Er... Bertha Jorkins, you mean? My lord?"
"Yes, I mean Bertha Jorkins. She knows too much, even if her memory has been modified. I could break through those enchantments if I had need to. Instead, she will be my servant for a time. Then when she is no longer useful, I shall dispose of her."
"You are still so weak though, begging your pardon my lord. I simply fear for your safety if the Imperious curse should weaken or fail."
"Do you think that likely?"
"If I did not, I would not have brought it up, my lord."
The cold voice made a sound of pondering.
"You have a good point. But do not worry about it overmuch. I will keep her sleeping when not using her."
There was an uncertain silence from the servant.
"What's this? You still worry? Oh how touching. I have Nagini, though; if all else fails, Nagini will kill her, and I will send you an owl. We will figure something out. You could send someone else in her place. I think you know who I mean. Unless... you haven't disposed of him yet, have you?"
"As tempting as it is, he is still useful to us. So no, he goes about his duties still. In a manner of speaking, as he no longer works for the ministry."
"Good. So are you feeling better now?"
"Yes, my lord, I am."
"Anyway, if something were to happen to me, it would merely be inconvenient. We have a whole school year until that joyous day, if anything should happen."
"Of course, my lord. I am greatly relieved."
"Good. Anyway, Jorkins will be temporary. You will need to stay at the school, meaning that there is another... ingredient... needed that you, in your duties, will not be able to provide me without causing that old goat to become very suspicious. We shall have to make alternate arrangements. That should not be too difficult, however; it worked once, so it should work again."
The servant nodded. "I understand. I will begin making preparations immediately."
"Good. Make sure it happens as soon as possible. She will need time to recover before the ritual."
"Yes, my lord."
"Hush! I think I hear Nagini."
The cold-voiced man's voice changed; he was hissing and spitting without drawing breath, and in response to this, a monstrous snake big enough to crush a man to death slithered into the room and settled on the hearth rug. There was a similar sound from the snake itself, before the man switched back to English.
"Nagini has interesting news," he said.
"What is it, my lord?"
"According to Nagini, there is an old Muggle man standing right outside this room, eavesdropping on our every word."
Frank didn't have a chance to hide himself. There were footsteps, and then the door of the room was flung wide open.
The man's hooded face was still in shadow; all that Frank could tell about the man was that he was a white man, and was skinny, his robes a bit too big for him. And his voice was very hoarse, as though he hadn't used it much before today.
"Invite him in, why don't you?" the cold voice said.
Jerking his head in something like a nod, the man grabbed Frank's arm with an iron grip and dragged him into the room, right behind the tall chair.
The fire was the only source of light in the room; it cast long, spidery shadows upon the walls. Frank stared at the back of the armchair; the man inside it seemed to be even smaller than his servant, for Frank couldn't even see the back of his head.
"You heard everything, Muggle?" said the cold voice.
"What's that you're calling me?" said Frank defiantly.
"I am calling you a Muggle," said the voice coolly. "It means that you are not a wizard."
"I don't know what you mean by wizard," said Frank, his voice growing steadier. "All I know is I've heard enough to interest the police tonight, I have. You've done murder and you're planning more! And I'll tell you this too," he added, on a sudden inspiration, "my wife knows I'm up here, and if I don't come back —"
"You have no wife," said the cold voice, very quietly. "Nobody knows you are here. You told nobody that you were coming. Do not lie to Lord Voldemort, Muggle, for he knows … he always knows."
"Is that right?" said Frank roughly. "Lord, is it? Well, I don't think much of your manners, My Lord. Turn 'round and face me like a man, why don't you?"
"But I am not a man, Muggle," said the cold voice, barely audible now over the crackling of the flames. "I am much, much more than a man. However … why not? I will face you. Turn my chair around, my most faithful," he commanded.
The hooded servant chuckled darkly. "With pleasure, my lord."
With two arms, he lifted up the chair and turned it around to face Frank. The snake hissed in warning as one leg got too close to its triangular head.
And then the chair was facing Frank, and he saw what was sitting in it. His walking stick fell to the floor with a clatter. He opened his mouth and let out a scream. He was screaming so loudly that he never heard the words the thing in the chair spoke as it raised a wand. There was a flash of green light, a rushing sound, and Frank Bryce crumpled. He was dead before he hit the floor.
Many, many miles away, Adira Potter woke with a scream.
"Adira! Are you alright?" Sirius asked after barging into her room.
Adira nodded, but remained in bed, sitting up, holding her legs with one arm, rubbing her scar with her free hand.
"Was it the dream from before?"
"No. This one was different. And my scar hurts. The only other time that happened, he was nearby."
Sirius goggled at her, then looked around.
"Well, none of the wards have gone off. Should I check the hearth?"
"No, I don't think he's here. The dream... it was a long ways away. Another city somewhere."
"Tell me about it."
She began to recall as much of the dream and the overheard conversation as she could, but it was already fading.
"So," Sirius said at last, "sounds like Voldemort alright. And he killed a man? With the killing curse? But last I heard, he didn't have a body. You need a body to hold a wand, and use it. And he was plotting something to do with you?"
"Of course he was. He's obsessed with me."
"And you have no idea who the other man with him was?"
"None at all. I didn't recognize his voice, and I couldn't even see his face, it was in shadow."
"Hmm... could be a vision. Al's had one before."
"Could be. But I don't think it was a vision of the future. I think... it felt like a vision of the present."
"So you were there in real time?"
"I believe so, yes."
"Hmm... this is worrying. I'll have to tell Dumbledore, is that alright with you?"
"Yeah, I guess you'd better. If Voldemort is getting stronger... I don't know how he could, but..." her eyes got bigger with sudden realization. "The prophecy! Trelawney's prophecy! She predicted this! We thought it was about Wormtail, but he's dead. Someone else must have found Voldemort, and helped him, like Quirrell did!"
"The prophecy? Doesn't that mean whoever it is was once a servant of his? The prophecy said 'the servant has been chained these twelve years.' I don't know how that could be, though; I haven't heard of any breakouts from Azkaban. My own was the only one there's ever been, as far as I know of. So they must've been chained in some other way. Someone who avoided Azkaban? But who wasn't free to pursue Voldemort? That doesn't make any sense. Who would chain a death eater for 12 years unless it was the Ministry?"
"Bloody mysteries," Adira said, her head in her hands. "I just want a normal year at Hogwarts, is that so much to ask for? Well, as normal as I can get, being the weirdo I am."
They went to the Burrow again the night before the Quidditch Cup, once more using the Floo. And this time, there were even more people than had been at Adira's birthday party, because along with Hermione, Bill and Charlie were there as well.
Within minutes of getting there, Percy stuck his head out his door as they were going up to Ron's room.
"Why hello there, Adira," Percy said, holding his hand out.
She took it with a grin. "Hi Percy. What's up?"
Percy puffed himself up proudly. "I've got a job. Personal secretary for Mr. Alfonse Alder, who took over from Mr. Crouch as the new Head of International Magical Co-operation after Crouch got fired."
"Wow. What sort of stuff do they do?"
"Well, most recently, we've arranged the Quidditch World Cup. I'm also working on a report for Mr. Alder about standardizing cauldron thickness. Some of these foreign imports are far too shallow, causing melting cauldrons."
"You know, before I found out we were expected to use pewter cauldrons, I would have guessed cauldrons to be made of iron or steel. Pewter seems a strange choice for a cauldron, being made of lead and other metals. Especially for a school, given that lead poisoning is very bad for children."
"Ah, that brings me to another point; inferior pewter standards. Not all pewter is made the same, Adira. Some pewter has hardly any lead in it at all, and anyway, if you make the cauldrons properly, the lead doesn't leach out into the potion at all. Which is why we need to standardize cauldron quality in general; too many of these foreign imports have shallow bottoms and are made of inferior pewters that melt far too easily."
"Hmm... that could explain why Neville Longbottom's cauldron always melts; maybe he keeps getting inferior cauldrons."
"Could be, Adira, could be."
Seeming satisfied that he'd bragged sufficiently to an interested party, Percy went back into his room with a nod of the head and a grin. Adira grinned the rest of the way back to Ron's room.
Later, as she passed through the kitchen, she saw Mrs. Weasley cooking in a very grumpy way. Still wary of angry people after all these years away from the Dursleys, she made her stealthy way outside and found Ron.
"What's up with your mum?"
"What? Oh yeah, she got one of Fred and George's fake wands again. It turned into a chicken. She didn't find it very funny. And she's still sore at them anyway. She found a bunch of order forms for this joke shop they're trying to start, Weasley's Wizard Wheezes."
"Ah, that. They did say she was after their stuff."
"You knew already?"
"Yeah, from my birthday. Zoey is, er... holding some merchandise for them. Some of those ton-tongue toffees."
"Really? They told you but not me?" He looked hurt by this.
"If you had a secret business that your mother didn't approve of, would you tell them about it?"
"Oh. Guess I wouldn't; I'd tell you. Well alright, then," he said brightly.
Bill walked by then, making Adira blush. Ron seemed oblivious, still talking about something that they weren't listening to.
By seven o'clock, the two tables were groaning under dishes and dishes of Mrs. Weasley's excellent cooking, and the nine Weasleys, Adira, and Hermione were settling themselves down to eat beneath a clear, deep-blue sky. Adira listened rather than talked as she helped herself to chicken and ham pie, boiled potatoes, and salad.
At the far end of the table, Percy was telling his father all about his report on cauldron bottoms.
"I've told Mr. Alder that I'll have it ready by Tuesday," Percy was saying pompously. "That's a bit sooner than he expected it, but I like to keep on top of things. I think he'll be grateful I've done it in good time, I mean, it's extremely busy in our department just now, what with all the arrangements for the World Cup. We're just not getting the support we need from the Department of Magical Games and Sports. Ludo Bagman —"
"I like Ludo," said Mr. Weasley mildly. "He was the one who got us such good tickets for the Cup. I did him a bit of a favor: His brother, Otto, got into a spot of trouble — a lawnmower with unnatural powers — I smoothed the whole thing over."
"Oh Bagman's likeable enough, but when I compare him to Mr. Alder... Mr. Alder isn't as good as I've heard Mr. Crouch was, pity he got fired, but at least Mr. Alder wouldn't lose a member of his department. Did you know Bertha Jorkins has been missing for over a month now? Went on holiday to Albania and never came back?"
"Yes, I was asking Ludo about that," said Mr. Weasley, frowning. "He says Bertha's gotten lost plenty of times before now — though I must say, if it was someone in my department, I'd be worried. …"
"Oh Bertha's hopeless, all right," said Percy. "I hear she's been shunted from department to department for years, much more trouble than she's worth … but all the same, Bagman ought to be trying to find her. I hear Crouch keeps coming back to the Ministry even though he's been fired; seems to have taken a personal interest in finding Bertha. She used to work in our department at one time, I think he grew fond of her. But Bagman just keeps laughing and saying she probably misread the map and ended up in Australia instead of Albania. However" — Percy heaved an impressive sigh and took a deep swig of elderflower wine — "we've got quite enough on our plates at the Department of International Magical Cooperation without trying to find members of other departments too. As you know, we've got another big event to organize right after the World Cup."
Percy cleared his throat significantly and looked down toward the end of the table where Adira, Ron, and Hermione were sitting. "You know the one I'm talking about, Father." He raised his voice slightly. "The top-secret one."
Ron rolled his eyes and muttered at Adira and Hermione. "He's been trying to trying to get us to ask him about that all summer long. Probably an exhibition of thick-bottomed cauldrons."
"So," Adira said to Percy, "what's this top-secret thing you keep hinting at?"
"Well, Adira," Percy said matter-of-factly, "that's top-secret, of course."
"Don't worry, Addy," Sirius said between bites, "I'll look into it for you."
"Thanks, Sirius!"
There were a lot of conversations going on, and Adira sampled them a bit at a time. There was talk of the Quidditch Cup, in which she heard about Bulgaria's seeker Viktor Krum, and Ireland having the best team of the two. Adira felt Iliana perk up at the Quidditch talk. They both liked watching Quidditch, but of the two of them, Iliana was more into it because she was a player as well as a spectator.
"Look at the time," Mrs. Weasley said suddenly, checking her wristwatch. "You really should be in bed, the whole lot of you — you'll be up at the crack of dawn to get to the Cup. Adira, if you leave your school list out, I'll get your things for you tomorrow in Diagon Alley. I'm getting everyone else's. There might not be time after the World Cup, the match went on for five days last time."
"Cool!" Iliana said with Adira's voice. "Hope it does this time!"
"Well, I certainly don't," said Percy sanctimoniously. "We're quite busy enough without a five day long backlog. My intray would be be so full my desk would break in half!"
"Could you borrow a time turner in case that happens?"
"I doubt it, Adira. People from the ministry would notice if I was in two places at once, since some of them are working security at the match. Oh, if only I could, though."
"Anyway, Mrs. Weasley, Sirius and I need to go to Diagon Alley to get me a new trunk. My old one is getting way too small for my needs."
"Ah okay. You and he can go with me, then."
When they woke up in the morning, it felt like they'd barely slept at all when they got shaken awake by Mrs. Weasley. And when her hair fell over her eyes, she noticed Adira was gone; they'd gone to bed as Adira and woken up as Iliana again. Not that it mattered much who was 'driving'; Adira would still get to see the game, as would all the others.
"Time to go, Iliana dear," Mrs. Weasley whispered, moving on to wake Ron.
Groggily, Iliana looked to the window. It was still dark out. Then she spotted the twins sitting at the foot of her bed.
"The sun's not even awake yet, why are we?" she complained. But she got up anyway, having gotten used to being woken up early for Quidditch practices.
"What she said," Fred muttered groggily, stifling a yawn.
Not wanting to change in front of the boys, Iliana got a dress and panties out of the suitcase she'd brought along for the night, and went to go find somewhere private to change.
"In here, Iliana," Ginny said as Iliana approached her room. "Hermione's already in here with me. Why are you lot still sleeping in Ron's room anyway?"
She shrugged. "Habit? Anyway, I trust Ron."
"Well get in here, silly. Oh, sorry Hermione. It's just Iliana."
Ginny had opened the door wide at just the wrong time, and Iliana briefly saw the other girl in her panties. Not that she cared, though; Iliana may be bi, but she got no thrill out of seeing someone she thought of as a sister in that state. Now, if it had been Cho, maybe things would be different. But then again, maybe not.
"Ooh, that's a pretty dress," Ginny said when Iliana started changing into it.
"Thanks. Sirius took Addy shopping the other day, we got a bunch of stuff. Speaking of, we're gonna have to get a bigger trunk; we're running out of room in our current one."
"Addy? I thought Adira didn't like being called anything but Adira?"
"Yeah, Sirius started calling her Addy, and the rest of us adopted the nickname. Addy hates it, but tolerates it. Hey, that rhymed!"
"So does that mean I can start calling you Illy?"
"Only if you want to be transfigured into a snail," Iliana said with an evil grin. "Remember, you can call me Lee if you must shorten my name."
"Yeah, but that doesn't really make much sense."
"Neither does 'Bill' for 'William,' but people use it anyway."
"True. But you don't really like Lee either."
"How are you two so talkative?" Hermione asked. "I'm barely awake."
Iliana shrugged. "Dunno. If we were Addy, we'd be like you now, but I have this ability to wake up more fully in a faster time than she does. Not sure why."
They continued dressing in silence. Then the four of them headed downstairs into the kitchen, accompanied by Hermione's yawns.
Mrs. Weasley was stirring the contents of a large pot on the stove, while Mr. Weasley was sitting at the table, checking a sheaf of large parchment tickets. He looked up as the girls entered and spread his arms so that they could see his clothes more clearly. He was wearing what appeared to be a golfing sweater and a very old pair of jeans, slightly too big for him and held up with a thick leather belt.
"What d'you think?" he asked anxiously. "We're supposed to go incognito — do I look like a Muggle, Ad... er... Iliana?"
"That's actually not bad," she said, smiling. "I've truly seen Muggles wear worse things than that. Congratulations. It might not be the height of fashion, but it's good."
"Where're Bill and Charlie and Per-Per-Percy?" said George, failing to stifle a huge yawn.
"Well, they're Apparating, aren't they?" said Mrs. Weasley, heaving the large pot over to the table and starting to ladle porridge into bowls. "So they can have a bit of a lie-in."
"So they're still in bed?" said Fred grumpily, pulling his bowl of porridge toward him. "Why can't we Apparate too?"
"Because you're not of age and you haven't passed your test," snapped Mrs. Weasley.
"Don't worry, Fred," Iliana said, "you can get your beauty sleep later."
Fred glared at her. "Like Mum or Dad might say, you're not too old to take over my knee, young missy."
Iliana giggled. "Might take you up on that later," she said suggestively, which flew right over Fred's sleepy head. And, apparently, over the head of Mr. Weasley. Mrs. Weasley, however, gave her a nasty side-eye which just made her giggle more.
Sirius came down the stairs then, dressed in a Grateful Dead t-shirt and torn jeans. He was yawning and stretching.
"What's for breakfast? I could eat a hippogriff."
"Just porridge," Iliana said.
Sirius blinked blearily at her. "Ah, Iliana I see. What happened to Addy?"
"She's in there. We just woke up as me for some reason. Dunno why."
"Alright, then," Sirius said, grabbing a bowl and some honey to mix into his porridge.
"Why did we have to get up so late, dad?" Fred asked.
"Well, we've got a bit of a walk."
"What, we're walking there?"
"No, that's miles away. We're taking a portkey, which is at the top of a hill outside the village. With so many witches and wizards in the country for the Cup, we have to be more careful than ever about how we travel, so it's a portkey for us."
"Have I used a portkey before? I don't remember."
"Yes. We took one to Egypt, remember?"
"Oh yeah. Jerk behind the navel, lots of wind, fall over when you get there?"
"That's the one."
"Lovely."
"You've been to Egypt?" Sirius asked her.
"Yeah. Last year, when you were still, er... in Azkaban."
"You'll have to tell me about it sometime. But not now, I'm barely awake now."
As soon as they were done with breakfast, Mrs. Weasley saw them all off with a smile and a hug, since she was staying behind. And so Iliana, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Mr. Weasley, Fred, George, and Sirius trudged off toward the village. Sirius had put on a black leather jacket over his t-shirt, and Iliana noticed that his boots were dragon hide.
It was chilly and the moon was still out. Only a dull, greenish tinge along the horizon to their right showed that daybreak was drawing closer. Iliana, having been thinking about thousands of wizards speeding toward the Quidditch World Cup, sped up to walk with Mr. Weasley.
"So how does everyone get there without all the Muggles noticing?" she asked.
"It's been a massive organizational problem," sighed Mr. Weasley. "The trouble is, about a hundred thousand wizards turn up at the World Cup, and of course, we just haven't got a magical site big enough to accommodate them all. There are places Muggles can't penetrate, but imagine trying to pack a hundred thousand wizards into Diagon Alley or platform nine and three-quarters. So we had to find a nice deserted moor, and set up as many anti-Muggle precautions as possible. The whole Ministry's been working on it for months.
"First, of course, we have to stagger the arrivals. People with cheaper tickets have to arrive two weeks beforehand. A limited number use Muggle transport, but we can't have too many clogging up their buses and trains — remember, wizards are coming from all over the world. Some Apparate, of course, but we have to set up safe points for them to appear, well away from Muggles. I believe there's a handy wood they're using as the Apparition point. For those who don't want to Apparate, or can't, we use Portkeys. You can do large groups at a time if you need to. There have been two hundred Portkeys placed at strategic points around Britain, and the nearest one to us is up at the top of Stoatshead Hill, so that's where we're headed."
Mr. Weasley pointed ahead of them, where a large black mass rose beyond the village of Ottery St. Catchpole.
They trudged down the dark, dank lane toward the village, the silence broken only by their footsteps. The sky lightened very slowly as they made their way through the village, its inky blackness diluting to deepest blue. Iliana's hands and feet were freezing. Mr. Weasley kept checking his watch.
They didn't have breath to spare for talking as they began to climb Stoatshead Hill, stumbling occasionally in hidden rabbit holes, slipping on thick black tuffets of grass. Each breath Iliana took was sharp in her chest and her legs were starting to seize up when, at last, her feet found level ground.
"Whew," panted Mr. Weasley, taking off his glasses and wiping them on his sweater. "Well, we've made good time — we've got ten minutes. …"
Hermione came over the crest of the hill last, clutching a stitch in her side.
"Now we just need the Portkey," said Mr. Weasley, replacing his glasses and squinting around at the ground. "It won't be big. … Come on …"
Spreading out, they began to search the hill. They'd only been searching a few minutes, though, when a voice called out at them.
"Over here, Arthur! Over here, son, we've got it!"
Two tall figures were silhouetted against the starry sky on the other side of the hilltop.
"Amos!" said Mr. Weasley, smiling as he strode over to the man who had shouted. The rest of them followed.
Mr. Weasley was shaking hands with a ruddy-faced wizard with a scrubby brown beard, who was holding a moldy-looking old boot in his other hand.
"This is Amos Diggory, everyone," said Mr. Weasley. "He works for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. And I think you know his son, Cedric?"
Cedric Diggory was an extremely handsome boy of around seventeen. He was Captain and Seeker of the Hufflepuff House Quidditch team at Hogwarts. Iliana blushed, feeling her whole face burning.
"Hi," said Cedric, looking around at them all.
Everybody said hi back except Fred and George, who merely nodded. They had never quite forgiven Cedric for beating their team, Gryffindor, in the first Quidditch match of the previous year.
Amos noticed Sirius then, and jerked back a moment before his brain caught up with his instinct.
"Sirius Black, I presume?" He had not put his hand out.
Sirius sighed, putting his own hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. "Yes, that's me. I'm Iliana's godfather."
"Ah, that explains it." Amos then turned to Mr. Weasley again. "Long walk, Arthur?"
"Not too bad," said Mr. Weasley. "We live just on the other side of the village there. You?"
"Had to get up at two, didn't we, Ced? I tell you, I'll be glad when he's got his Apparition test. Still … not complaining … Quidditch World Cup, wouldn't miss it for a sackful of Galleons — and the tickets cost about that. Mind you, looks like I got off easy. …" Amos Diggory peered good-naturedly around at the three Weasley boys, Iliana, Hermione, and Ginny. "All these yours, Arthur?"
"Oh no. Just the- er... all but two of them."
Iliana and Hermione raised their hands.
"Ah yes, that one's hair is a different shade of red than the others. Much darker. Who are you two, then?"
"This is Hermione, a friend of Ron's," Mr. Weasley said. "Then Iliana, another friend of Ron's."
"Iliana, that name again. Name sounds familiar. Iliana Potter?" Amos asked.
"Yes, sir."
As used to people looking at their scar as they were, it still bothered them. Amos's eyes went to the scar, the only part of their appearance that never changed unless they hid it with long bangs. Nor did she really like the other part of the look the adult man gave her; the look that said 'Freak; abomination.'
"Ced's talked about you, of course," said Amos Diggory. "Told us all about playing against you last year. … I said to him, I said — Ced, that'll be something to tell your grandchildren, that will. … You beat Harry Potter!"
Iliana glared at the man, her face hot with anger. Sirius put a gentle hand on her shoulder, which she ignored.
"But he didn't beat Harry Potter," she said in a dangerously calm voice. "He didn't even play against Harry Potter. He played against me, Iliana Potter. And anyway, there is no more Harry Potter. The individual formerly known as Harry James Potter is now Adira Lily Potter."
Fred, George, and Sirius scowled along with her. Cedric, for his part, looked embarrassed.
"Iliana fell off her broom, Dad," Cedric said. "I told you, it was an accident."
"Yes, but you didn't fall off, did you?" roared Amos genially, slapping his son on his back. "Always modest, our Ced, always the gentleman … but the best, er... person won, I'm sure that, uh, Iliana would say the same, wouldn't you, eh? One falls off her broom, one stays on, you don't need to be a genius to tell which one's the better flier!"
"Must be nearly time," said Mr. Weasley quickly, pulling out his watch again. This was fortunate, as it distracted Amos from the fact that the ground around them was heating up rapidly from the force of Iliana's anger, and also distracted him from Sirius growling at him.
"Do you know whether we're waiting for any more, Amos?"
"No, the Lovegoods have been there for a week already and the Fawcetts couldn't get tickets," said Mr. Diggory. "There aren't any more of us in this area, are there?"
"Not that I know of," said Mr. Weasley. "Yes, it's a minute off. … We'd better get ready."
Iliana's anger evaporated on the spot. "Luna's already there? She didn't say!"
Now that she thought of it, she and Luna hadn't exchanged any letters all summer. She'd been so busy she'd completely forgotten to write Luna. She hoped Luna wouldn't be hurt by this.
"Come on now, everyone, touch part of the portkey, a finger is all you need. There we are."
Sirius and Amos glowered at one another as they got into position. They had just enough time before it left for Iliana to notice how weird it would be if a Muggle spotted them all touching this manky old boot. Which is probably why they put it at the top of such a steep hill, to discourage anyone being around to see it.
Then there was that familiar jerk behind the navel, and the wild swirling of wind and color that nearly made her sick, before they fell in a heap on the ground at their destination.
"Seven past five from Stoatshead Hill," said a voice.
Iliana struggled to disentangle herself from Ron and the others. When she did, she saw they were on a large, deserted stretch of misty moor. In front of them was a pair of tired and grumpy-looking wizards, one of whom was holding a large gold watch, the other a thick roll of parchment and a quill. Both were dressed as Muggles, though very inexpertly: The man with the watch wore a tweed suit with thigh-length galoshes; his colleague, a kilt and a poncho.
How can wizards and witches be this ignorant of Muggle fashions?
I dunno, Adira responded to Al. I don't think the adults get out in Muggle areas much.
Adira ignored Mr. Weasley shooting the breeze with one of the strangely-dressed wizards about work, eager to figure out where Luna was.
"Where would the Lovegoods be?" she asked when there was a gap in the conversation.
The wizard named Basil blinked at her. "Lovegoods? Why d'ya wanna know?"
"My friend Luna is a Lovegood, is why. I want to find her."
"Ah. Lovegoods, Lovegoods, let's see... they're in field fourteen. That's a few miles northwest of here."
"A few miles? Well, I guess I'll just have to remember to send her a letter later instead."
"Hey don't be sad, kiddo," Sirius said. "Maybe you'll run into her?"
"I doubt it, if she's so far away."
They followed Mr. Weasley to the field they were staying in, Hermione trying to comfort Iliana and not quite managing it because she was still so tired.
The field was being managed by the only real Muggle for miles, a Mr. Roberts. Iliana wasn't paying much attention until Mr. Weasley asked her help figuring out the Muggle money.
"This one's a ten? Ah yes, I see the number now. And this one's a five?"
"It's a twenty. They all have numbers on them, Mr. Weasley. It's a lot easier than the wiz—er, than our system, being a decimal system."
"Ah yes, so it is. … I don't know, these little bits of paper …"
"You foreign?" said Mr. Roberts as Mr. Weasley returned with the correct notes.
"Foreign?" repeated Mr. Weasley, puzzled.
"You're not the first one who's had trouble with money," said Mr. Roberts, scrutinizing Mr. Weasley closely. "I had two try and pay me with great gold coins the size of hubcaps ten minutes ago."
"Yes, he's foreign," Iliana told the man. "He just moved here from, er... Tajikistan."
"Your English is very good, in that case," said Mr. Roberts to Mr. Weasley.
"Yes, he had a very good English tutor before coming here. My uncle, in fact, taught him," Iliana added, privately amused at the thought of Vernon's face if he found out she'd spoken about him thus.
"Ah, so your family is housing him during his stay here?"
"Exactly."
"So can you tell me what's going on around here? There's loads more people here than I've ever seen, and a lot of 'em foreign. Weirdos, in fact."
"It's a religious and cultural event," she lied easily. "One that's only for members of a certain faith, one that's pretty popular in Tajikistan. Closed to outsiders, but it draws people from all over; other members of the faith."
"Ah, that would explain it, then. You lot have fun, then!" Mr. Roberts gave them a map of the campsite and their change, then waved them off, and they left to find their plot of land.
As soon as they were out of sight and earshot, a wizard in plus-fours Apparated in front of them, startling them all.
"Sorry about startling you," he said. "I just wanted to express my gratitude. Which one of you talked Mr. Roberts into thinking this was a cultural event for a certain religion?"
"That would be me," Iliana said. "Why?"
"Been having a lot of trouble with that one. He's needed a memory charm ten times a day to keep him happy. He might still need some later, with all the magic that's been going on, but hopefully with that explanation, he might not need as many. I must congratulate you on that clever lie, Miss. What's your name?"
"Iliana Potter."
"Potter?" he said in confusion. Then, "Oh, Potter! As in the Child-Who-Lived?"
"Yes, that's us."
"Well, Miss Potter, if you ever want a job, I can put in a good word for you at the Muggle Liason Office in the Ministry of Magic. We can always use knowledgeable young witches and wizards who are quick on their feet. My name's Abrams, by the way."
"Thank you, Mr. Abrams," Iliana said, shaking the wizard's hand.
"Not a problem, my dear. I'm just glad for the help. That man has needed memory charms ten times a day to keep him happy, and it's tiring. Between people using magic in plain view and Bagman in his Quidditch robes talking about bludgers, it's little wonder we're having to work so hard. Anyway, I must be going, now. Bye!"
With a wave and a pop, he Disapparated.
"I thought Bagman was head of Magical Games and Sports? Shouldn't he know better than to talk about Quidditch where Muggles can hear?"
"He should, yes," said Mr. Weasley. "but Ludo's always been a bit … well … lax about security. You couldn't wish for a more enthusiastic head of the sports department though. He played Quidditch for England himself, you know. And he was the best Beater the Wimbourne Wasps ever had."
She stared at all the tents on their way there. It was no wonder the Muggles were getting suspicious, because while some tents were fairly normal but had slight mistakes like chimneys, others were quite plainly magical. A giant tent with peacocks tethered to it made her think of the Malfoys for some reason.
"Always the same," said Mr. Weasley, smiling. "We can't resist showing off when we get together. Ah, here we are, look, this is us."
They had reached the very edge of the wood at the top of the field, and here was an empty space, with a small sign hammered into the ground that read WEEZLY.
Mr. Weasley wanted to put the tent up the Muggle way. He tried roping Iliana into helping, but she had no idea.
"Here, Arthur, I'll help. I went camping once," Sirius said, going over to help.
It took several minutes, but finally they got it up. Iliana looked at the two small tents, confused how they would all fit in it.
"We'll be a bit cramped," he called, "but I think we'll all squeeze in. Come and have a look."
Iliana bent down, ducked under the tent flap, and felt her jaw drop. She had walked into what looked like an old-fashioned, three-room flat, complete with bathroom and kitchen. Oddly enough, it was furnished in exactly the same sort of style as Mrs. Figg's house: There were crocheted covers on the mismatched chairs and a strong smell of cats.
"I love magic," she said.
"Well, it's not for long," said Mr. Weasley, mopping his bald patch with a handkerchief and peering in at the four bunk beds that stood in the bedroom. "I borrowed this from Perkins at the office. Doesn't camp much anymore, poor fellow, he's got lumbago."
He picked up the dusty kettle and peered inside it. "We'll need water. …"
"There's a tap marked on this map the Muggle gave us," said Ron, who had followed Iliana inside the tent and seemed completely unimpressed by its extraordinary inner proportions. "It's on the other side of the field."
Before going out, Iliana asked questions of Mr. Weasley. As it turned out, they had two tents for a reason; boys and men in one tent, girls in the other.
"What about us?" Iliana said.
"Oh you'll be with us," said Ginny. "If Alastair comes out in the night, let us know, okay?"
"If you're okay with it, then fine."
After a quick tour of the girls' tent, which lacked the smell of cats, Ron, Iliana, and Hermione went out to get water, leaving the two adult men to try to
figure out how to light a campfire without wands.
The view as they walked was fascinating. All the tents, for one, but also she was seeing small witches and wizards for the first time in examples like little kids riding toy broomsticks. There were also wizards and witches from all over the world, from African wizards cooking over a purple fire, to Americans, and beyond.
"Er — is it my eyes, or has everything gone green?" said Ron.
It wasn't just Ron's eyes. They had walked into a patch of tents that were all covered with a thick growth of shamrocks, so that it looked as though small, oddly shaped hillocks had sprouted out of the earth. Grinning faces could be seen under those that had their flaps open. Then, from behind them, they heard their names.
"Iliana! Ron! Hermione!"
They looked in the voice's direction, and saw Seamus Finnegan.
He was sitting in front of his own shamrock-covered tent, with a sandy-haired woman who had to be his mother, and his best friend, Dean Thomas, also of Gryffindor.
"Like the decorations?" said Seamus, grinning. "The Ministry's not too happy."
"Ah, why shouldn't we show our colors?" said Mrs. Finnigan. "You should see what the Bulgarians have got dangling all over their tents. You'll be supporting Ireland, of course?" she added, eyeing Iliana, Ron, and Hermione beadily. When they had assured her that they were indeed supporting Ireland, they set off again, though, as Ron said, "Like we'd say anything else surrounded by that lot."
What the Bulgarians had on their tents turned out to be posters of Viktor Krum, the Bulgarian seeker. Like most wizarding photos, it moved, though just barely.
There was already a small queue for the tap in the corner of the field. Iliana, Ron, and Hermione joined it, right behind a pair of men who were having a heated argument. One of them was a very old wizard who was wearing a long flowery nightgown. The other was clearly a Ministry wizard; he was holding out a pair of pinstriped trousers and almost crying with exasperation.
"Just put them on, Archie, there's a good chap. You can't walk around like that, the Muggle at the gate's already getting suspicious —"
"I bought this in a Muggle shop," said the old wizard stubbornly. "Muggles wear them."
"Muggle women wear them, Archie, not the men, they wear these," said the Ministry wizard, and he brandished the pinstriped trousers.
"I'm not putting them on," said old Archie in indignation. "I like a healthy breeze 'round my privates, thanks."
"He can wear that if he wants. I've seen Muggles wearing far stranger things than that, and I was raised by Muggles," Iliana said. "That, and he stands out far less than that man in a kilt and a poncho earlier."
The ministry wizard looked at her, exasperated, but threw up his hands and left Archie to his own business. Iliana was ignoring Hermione, who was giggling like mad.
They saw a lot of other people they knew on the way back, carrying water with them slowly and carefully. Iliana almost dropped her bucket when she saw Cho Chang all of a sudden. She blushed all the way back to the tent.
Mr. Weasley and Sirius had gotten the fire going, or rather Sirius had, once he'd gotten fed up with Mr. Weasley having too much fun with the matches. Though it was at least another hour before it was hot enough to cook anything. There was plenty to watch while they waited, however. Their tent seemed to be pitched right alongside a kind of thoroughfare to the field, and Ministry members kept hurrying up and down it, greeting Mr. Weasley cordially as they passed. Mr. Weasley kept up a running commentary, mainly for Iliana's, Sirius's, and Hermione's benefit; his own children knew too much about the Ministry to be greatly interested.
"That was Cuthbert Mockridge, Head of the Goblin Liaison Office. … Here comes Gilbert Wimple; he's with the Committee on Experimental Charms; he's had those horns for a while now. … Hello, Arnie … Arnold Peasegood, he's an Obliviator — member of the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad, you know. … and that's Bode and Croaker … they're Unspeakables. …"
"They're what?"
"From the Department of Mysteries, top secret, no idea what they get up to. …"
At last, the fire was ready, and they had just started cooking eggs and sausages when Bill, Charlie, and Percy came strolling out of the woods toward them. They soon sat down to a meal together, but halfway through, Mr. Weasley was up on his feet greeting Ludo Bagman.
Iliana stared at the man, who was wearing canary yellow robes. That might get past Mr. Roberts, with the excuse she'd given him, but others would certainly not know what to make of the man, who was as exuberant in his personality as in his wardrobe.
Ludo chewed the fat with Mr. Weasley for a minute or two before Mr. Weasley introduced Bagman to Sirius and the kids. Ludo surprised her by not reacting to Sirius's name, but when they got to Iliana's name, he did the familiar flick of the eyes up to the scar.
One of the twins nudged Iliana for her attention.
"What?"
Fred said, "Would you tell Zoey to give us our Ton-Tongue Toffees now?"
She raised an eyebrow at them. "We're not supposed to use magic out here. You should've asked before we got here."
"Oh come on now, everyone else is using magic. The Obliviators are hard at work. What's the harm?"
"I don't see any reason to break the rules right now."
"Pleeeease," cajoled George. "Pretty please?"
"What do you need them for?"
"Bagman's got connections, he'd be great to show the toffees to."
"You want me to break the rules for that?"
"Well yes. It's our property, most of them."
"Transforming into Zoey and back is major magic, couldn't easily be explained away like these other things."
"That's what the Obliviators are for."
"Leave it, George, he's almost leaving."
"Ugh, fine," George said, rejoining his twin. Iliana watched them bet 37 galleons, 15 sickles, 3 knuts, and a fake wand on Ireland winning the Cup but Krum getting the snitch.
"We would've bet the toffees, too," Fred said, irritated at Iliana's non-cooperation.
"Sorry. But at least this way, if you lose, you get to keep the toffees."
"But it's a sure thing! We've been studying these teams for months!"
"Years!"
"Yes, years. Krum is a great player, but Ireland has 7 great players."
"Yeah, Iliana. I'll bet you the toffees that we're right about the outcome."
She sighed. "Okay, sure. If you're right, I'll give you the toffees which are yours anyway. And if you're wrong, I keep them. Satisfied?"
"Not really, but I accept it."
"Boys, you shouldn't be betting," Mr. Weasley said. "That's all your savings."
"It's their money, Arthur," said Sirius. "I don't think there's any laws against them gambling."
"You're right, of course. But I don't like it."
Ludo Bagman beamed as he took their money, and wrote them down in his records.
"Arthur, could you do me a favor? Do you know anyone who speaks Bulgarian? I would've asked Barty Crouch, but he got fired. My Bulgarian opposite number's making difficulties, and I can't understand a word he's saying."
"Sorry, I don't know. Dumbledore could, I think, but he's not here."
"Ah well, I'll keep asking around," Bagman said.
"Any news of Bertha Jorkins yet, Ludo?" Mr. Weasley asked as Bagman settled himself down on the grass beside them all.
"Not a dicky bird," said Bagman comfortably. "But she'll turn up. Poor old Bertha … memory like a leaky cauldron and no sense of direction. Lost, you take my word for it. She'll wander back into the office sometime in October, thinking it's still July."
"You don't think it might be time to send someone to look for her?" Mr. Weasley suggested tentatively as Percy handed Bagman his tea.
"Barty Crouch keeps saying that," said Bagman, his round eyes widening innocently, "he keeps coming over to the Ministry despite being fired, you know. But we really can't spare anyone at the moment."
Something about that name felt familiar to Iliana, but she couldn't figure out why.
A wizard Apparated in front of them, startling her. He was tall and extremely muscular, but not in a body-builder way – he was, instead, barrel-chested and had arms and legs like saplings. He wasn't nearly as tall as Hagrid, though.
"Ah, Alfonse, welcome," Mr. Weasley said. "Everyone, this is Alfonse Alder, new head of International Magical Cooperation."
"Hi there, Arthur," the large man said with a voice that was soothing and not nearly as deep as Iliana had been expecting. "I'm glad I found you. Ali Bashir is having kittens, figuratively. He wants a word with you about your ban on flying carpets."
Mr. Weasley heaved a deep sigh.
"I sent him an owl about that just last week. If I've told him once I've told him a hundred times: Carpets are defined as a Muggle Artifact by the Registry of Proscribed Charmable Objects, but will he listen?"
"I doubt it. He really wants to export here."
"Well, they'll never replace brooms in Britain, will they?" said Bagman.
"Ali thinks there's a niche in the market for a family vehicle," said Alder. "And I must say, he's got a point."
"Why can't we have flying carpets?" Iliana asked. "Just as many Muggles have brooms as carpets, after all. Maybe more."
"Yes, well, wizarding broomsticks look different from the Muggle kind. And it's not very likely for them to be on top of brooms like they would be on carpets."
"Unless they're pretending to be witches. A lot of our secrets are still banging about their culture."
"Yes, well... that's just how it is. If we had magic carpets in Britain, I'm certain we'd soon have accidents with unfortunate Muggles stepping on magic carpets and getting thrown off when it goes flying. Or worse, taking them for a ride and dropping them later."
"Ah yes, that does make sense."
"Ho there, who is this young lovely?" asked Mr. Alder, referring to Iliana.
"Er... I'm Iliana Potter."
"Potter?" he said in confusion. "Oh, like the famous Potter?"
"Yes."
Alder looked her up and down in a way that made her extremely uncomfortable. Especially since the feelings she was picking up from him, overwhelming the background crowd's emotions, were... inappropriate. She glared at the man, and pulled herself closer to Sirius, and heard Tier hiss aloud at him, making him stand back in surprise.
"Er, well... okay, Arthur. I, uh... I've told you about Ali Bashir, so, er... I'll be going now."
The man Disapparated with a crack, different from his previous pop.
Mr. Weasley looked very confused, looking back and forth between Iliana and the place Mr. Alder had been. Sirius squeezed her comfortingly, giving her a knowing look.
"I didn't like the things he was feeling about me, or the way he was looking at me," she explained to Mr. Weasley.
"What? Oh," he said, getting it at last. "Er..."
But no other words were forthcoming from Mr. Weasley, who didn't appear to know what to say.
"Don't worry, Iliana," Sirius said. "We'll have wards on the tents."
Ludo Bagman, on the other hand, seemed to still be confused. But he pushed his confusion aside when Mr. Weasley finally spoke again.
"Er, so, Ludo... I expect you'll be glad when all this is over, right? So much to do, after all."
"What? Oh no, not at all. Don't know when I've had more fun. Still, not like we don't have something else to organize afterwards, Arthur, right? And you, Peter?"
"Percy," Percy corrected. "I'm Percy."
"Sorry about that, Percy. All these new people, and me getting old. But yes, so much more to do after this, right Arthur?"
"Now now, Ludo, that's supposed to be a surprise."
"Oh come now, we can tell people. Especially this lot. It'll be happening at Hogwarts, after all."
"Ludo, don't you need to go find someone to talk with the Bulgarians for you?"
"Bah, that can wait."
"Come to think of it, Ludo, Alfonse might be able to help you with the Bulgarians."
"What? Oh, he can? Well alright, I guess so. Now where did he run off to?" Ludo asked, looking around momentarily. "Okay, I'll go find him. Just one last thing real quick: I'll be seeing you all later. You'll be in the top box with me, I'm commentating!"
With a pop, he Disapparated.
"What's happening at Hogwarts, Dad?" said Fred at once. "What were they talking about?"
"You'll find out soon enough," said , smiling.
"It's classified information, until such time as the Ministry decides to release it," said Percy stiffly. "Father was quite right not to disclose it."
"Oh shut up, Peter," said Fred.
Then, the feelings from the crowd began to change. Excitement of a subtly different sort moved in waves through the crowd, and people stopped being so careful about magic use. Salesmen started Apparating every few feet, selling souvenirs. The Ministry even started ignoring blatant magic use.
"I think we're not long now from the match," Iliana said.
"Yeah, I can feel it too," said Sirius.
"Been saving my pocket money all summer for this," Ron told Iliana as they and Hermione strolled through the salesmen, buying souvenirs. Though Ron purchased a dancing shamrock hat and a large green rosette, he also bought a small figure of Viktor Krum, the Bulgarian Seeker. The miniature Krum walked backward and forward over Ron's hand, scowling up at the green rosette above him.
"Wow, look at these!" said Iliana, hurrying over to a cart piled high with what looked like brass binoculars, except that they were covered with all sorts of weird knobs and dials.
"Omnioculars," said the saleswizard eagerly. "You can replay action … slow everything down … and they flash up a play-by-play breakdown if you need it. Bargain — ten Galleons each."
"Wish I hadn't bought this now," said Ron, gesturing at his dancing shamrock hat and gazing longingly at the Omnioculars.
"Three pairs," said Iliana firmly to the wizard.
"No — don't bother," said Ron, going red. He was always touchy about the fact that Iliana, who had inherited a small fortune from her parents, had much more money than he did.
"A pair for me, too," Sirius said behind them.
"Don't worry about it, Ron. What's the point of having money if I can't treat my friends."
"No, really-"
"If you want, this can be an early Christmas present."
Ron looked uncertain.
"And birthday present, too."
"Oh, alright then," Ron said, taking the omnioculars.
"Thanks, Iliana," Hermione said after Iliana gave her one as well. "I'll get us some programs."
"Here, pup, let me pay for yours," Sirius said.
"Oh, okay," she said, taking money from him. "I'll get a shamrock hat, too."
Everyone bedecked in rosettes and other things, some horns blew, signaling to go to the Quidditch stadium. Sirius took Iliana's arm in his, his other arm holding onto his wand.
"It's time!" said Mr. Weasley, looking as excited as any of them. "Come on, let's go!"
The match had been the most exciting thing ever for Iliana and the others. So much so that she thought they could make a corporeal Patronus, but didn't try because they weren't somewhere safe to do magic as an underage witch, like at home.
Everyone else was at least as excited as they were, especially the twins, who had won their bet with Bagman and had a lot more gold with them because of it.
"Don't tell your mother you've been gambling," Mr. Weasley implored Fred and George as they all made their way slowly down the purple-carpeted stairs.
"Don't worry, Dad," said Fred gleefully, "we've got big plans for this money. We don't want it confiscated."
Mr. Weasley looked for a moment as though he was going to ask what these big plans were, but seemed to decide, upon reflection, that he didn't want to know.
They were soon caught up in the crowds now flooding out of the stadium and back to their campsites. Raucous singing was borne toward them on the night air as they retraced their steps along the lantern-lit path, and leprechauns kept shooting over their heads, cackling and waving their lanterns. When they finally reached the tents, nobody felt like sleeping at all, and given the level of noise around them, Mr. Weasley agreed that they could all have one last cup of cocoa together before turning in.
"Oh, and those veela," Fred said at one point in the conversation. "So cool!"
Hermione scoffed. "You boys, honestly. Every one of you was about to jump to your deaths if we hadn't stopped you. They shouldn't be allowed at events like that."
"Yeah," said Iliana. "I had to stomp on Sirius's foot, remember? Of course, I wasn't fully immune myself. If Al had been up front, he'd have been right there with the rest of them, I felt him being pulled forward, too."
"Wish Malfoy had jumped off," Ron said peevishly. "Security wouldn't let him die, even if his magic failed to save him, and it would be so funny to wipe that smirk right off his face."
It was only when Ginny fell asleep right at the tiny table and spilled hot chocolate all over the floor that Mr. Weasley called a halt to the verbal replays and insisted that everyone go to bed. Iliana, Ginny, and Hermione went over to their tent. Hermione hesitated, but Iliana pulled her dress over her head and slipped into her nightgown, at which point Hermione seemed to remember they had slept in the same bed once and she came to her senses and changed like nothing was wrong.
Iliana got into a bunk above Hermione, while Ginny had a bunk at a different bed. It wasn't easy getting to sleep when there were still distant noises of celebration and her mind was still full of the many different moves the players had been doing, but eventually Iliana drifted off into dreamland.
Then she saw that Indian boy from her earlier dreams again. His normal calm demeanor was gone; he looked panic-stricken, and he screamed at her to wake up.
She bolted upright, grabbing her wand holster and strapping it to her arm; she could feel panic in the air, and was certain that was what had woken her. She wondered what was going on. She slipped out of bed and was just getting her shoes on when Sirius came into the tent.
"Iliana! Hermione! Ginnny! Get your shoes on, grab your wands! Up now, it's urgent!"
"Got mine already," Iliana said as the others got their groggy way out of bed. "What's going on? A dream woke me, but I think it was my empathic sense that really woke me."
The sounds from the campsite were definitely not right. The singing had stopped. She could hear screams, and the sound of people running. She slipped down from the bunk and reached for her clothes, but Sirius – who was wearing the same t-shirt but had on sweatpants instead of his jeans – stopped her.
"No time, Addy! Grab jackets and come along!"
The three girls did as they were told, all of it. Iliana decided not to point out he'd used the wrong name; Addy was easier to say than Iliana.
"Where's your wand, pup?"
She showed him the holster on her wrist. "Right in here."
"Good. You girls got yours? Come on, then. Follow me."
They scurried along, hot on Sirius's heels. He kept looking back at the three of them, as if checking they were still there. Ron and the twins soon joined along beside Iliana, looking and feeling as confused and scared as she felt.
The campsite was a shambles. A few fires still burned, enough to illuminate the scenes of chaos. Off in the distance were signs of magic, mixed with loud jeering, roars of laughter, and drunken yelling. People were running away from the source of the disturbance.
Whatever group of wizards and/or witches was responsible for this was close enough to see in the distance, now. They had wands pointing up into the sky, and were wearing hooded robes and masks. High above them, floating along in midair, four struggling figures were being contorted into grotesque shapes. It was as though the masked wizards on the ground were puppeteers, and the people above them were marionettes operated by invisible strings that rose from the wands into the air. Two of the figures were very small.
More masked people joined the group, laughing along with them and blasting tents aside, catching some on fire. Sirius pulled her in the opposite direction by her left arm without saying anything, and she let him. These wizards were dangerous, she could tell. Especially when she finally saw that they were lifting Mr. Roberts, his wife, and presumably his children in the air.
"That's sick," Ron muttered, watching the smallest Muggle child, who had begun to spin like a top, sixty feet above the ground, his head flopping limply from side to side. "That is really sick."
Bill, Charlie, Mr. Weasley, and Percy emerged from the boys' tent, fully dressed, with their sleeves rolled up and their wands out.
"We're going to help the Ministry!" Mr. Weasley shouted over all the noise, rolling up his own sleeves.
"Good. I'm taking this lot to the woods, away from the danger," Sirius said.
Mr. Weasley just nodded and lead his eldest sons away, as their own group went toward the woods.
Finally getting some of her wits about her, Iliana flicked her wand out of its wrist holster and into her hand. If that lot came after them, she knew she'd be allowed to do magic to defend herself and others, even though she was still underage.
The colored lanterns that had lit the path to the stadium had been extinguished. Dark figures were blundering through the trees; children were crying; anxious shouts and panicked voices were reverberating around them in the cold night air. Iliana felt herself being pushed hither and thither by people whose faces she could not see, but Sirius still had hold of her left arm. Then she heard Ron yell with pain.
"What happened?" said Hermione anxiously, stopping so abruptly that Iliana walked into her. "Ron, where are you? Oh this is stupid — lumos!"
She illuminated her wand and directed its narrow beam across the path. Ron was lying sprawled on the ground.
"Tripped over a tree root," he said angrily, getting to his feet again.
Iliana and Sirius lit their own wands, Sirius nodding approvingly at her.
"Well, with feet that size, hard not to," said a drawling voice from behind them.
Everyone turned. It was, of course, Draco Malfoy.
"You'd be the Malfoy brat, right?" Sirius growled.
Malfoy glared daggers at Sirius, but nodded.
"Good. You come with us, away from the danger."
Malfoy didn't move. He was torn, she could tell. He looked back and forth between them and the people in masks.
"Oh, let me guess," she said, "your parents are some of those masked lot?"
Malfoy's face reddened, but he didn't dare say something around Sirius. Instead, he grudgingly came with them, his arms folded petulantly, grumbling the whole way. He did his best to stay as far away from everyone else as he could, while still appearing to be with them.
"Wait, where'd Ginny and the twins go?" Iliana said.
"Damn!" Sirius cursed, looking around with his wand light. "You, Malfoy boy, did you see them?"
After pausing a moment to decide whether or not to answer, Malfoy said, "No. They weren't with you when I saw you. They must have gotten separated when Weasle-king tripped."
"Damn," Sirius growled again. "Well there's nothing else for it, we'll never find them in this crowd. Let's hope the twins can look after Ginny."
"Honestly," Ron said, "I think Ginny will be fine. She's wicked with a wand."
"Good," Sirius said, absently.
A huddle of teenagers in pajamas was arguing vociferously a little way along the path. When they saw Iliana, Ron, Draco, and Hermione, a girl with thick curly hair turned and said quickly, "Où est Madame Maxime? Nous l'avons perdue —"
"Er — what?" said Ron.
At that point, Malfoy put his arms down and bowed to the girls, speaking at them rapidly in French. About the only part of it Iliana caught was "'Ogwarts."
The conversation didn't last long. When it did, the girls left.
Everyone stared at Malfoy. He glared back at them.
"What? My family have a vacation house in France, and we used to live there full time. Of course I speak French," he said derisively. "All purebloods in Britain speak French, as well as Latin, Spanish, and Italian."
"You speak all those languages?" Iliana said in awe.
"Of course," Malfoy said with a sneer.
"Enough bickering, you two. Come on," Sirius directed.
"Beauxbatons," muttered Hermione, as they went along.
"Sorry?" said Iliana.
"They must go to Beauxbatons," said Hermione. "You know … Beauxbatons Academy of Magic … I read about it in An Appraisal of Magical Education in Europe."
"Oh … yeah … right," said Iliana.
"Fred and George can't have gone that far," said Ron, pulling out his wand, lighting it like Hermione's, and squinting up the path.
"Reckon they'd hear us shouting their names over all this noise?" Sirius asked.
"Doubt it," Iliana said. "Hey wait a minute, aren't you registered as an animagus with the Ministry now? You could sniff them out."
Sirius slapped his hand in disbelief. "Of course! Why didn't I think of that?"
"Because your power was a secret for so long."
"Right. You lot stay here, it'll make it easier for me to find you later."
They nodded. And with that, Sirius became the massive black dog, and started sniffing around the ground, following their scent back along where they'd come from.
Iliana noticed Malfoy staring at Padfoot. He noticed her staring, and glowered at her.
"What? I've never actually seen an animagus before, apart from McGonagall. It's fascinating. Figures a relative of yours would become one illegally, though."
"He's registered now."
"Yeah," Malfoy sneered, "but before that, he wasn't. Bet that's how he got out of Azkaban."
"What's it to you if... what is it, Hermione?" She stared; Hermione had been tugging on her nightgown and pointing.
Iliana looked where she was pointing. Some of the masked wizards were coming this way. It wasn't the first group they'd seen, unless the Ministry had gotten the Roberts family down.
"Damn, those morons are coming this way?"
"Iliana," Hermione said, annoyed, "those are Death Eaters. You-Know-Who's followers."
"Shit. Shit! Come on, let's go."
No longer under Sirius's eye, Malfoy smirked at them.
"Yes, Potter. Wouldn't want her spotted, would you? After all, they're going after Muggles."
"Hermione is a witch, you little shitstain," she said, pointing her wand at his face. "And if you don't want me to swap the functions of all the holes in your face, you'll sod off."
He turned paler than usual, looking cross-eyed at her wand, and took off running.
"Shouldn't we stay here, though?" Hermione said. "Sirius said-"
"Sirius can find us later, the way he's finding the others. Come on, I don't feel like dueling Death Eaters, not even when they're drunk."
She grabbed Hermione by the arm and pulled her away, the others following along behind them. But the Death Eaters were already too close for comfort, and were shooting spells at them. They ducked among the trees, spells occasionally hitting a trunk with a sound like an explosion. Iliana got behind a big tree and started shooting spells back at them.
"Expelliarmus!" she shouted. Hermione and Ron joined her, behind their own trees.
It wasn't easy, dueling the Death Eaters, especially since the three of them didn't know enough dueling spells. But Alastair hadn't done all that extra DADA reading for nothing, and she was able to shoot off Stunning Spells and Impediment Jinxes alongside childish spells like the Tickling Hex.
How long they dueled, she didn't know. But at some point she felt someone trying to sneak up behind her. She turned around, but not fast enough-he hit her with something that knocked the wind out of her, and she dropped her wand in the forest debris. Luckily, Hermione shot him with a stunner before he could get her again.
Iliana forced herself to look through the forest debris for her wand, even though she could hardly breathe. It was taking forever, though, and she was getting more desperate and more terrified. Finally, though, she found it, just as another Death Eater came around behind them, shooting spells at Hermione, and she shot off the first spell she thought of.
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" she roared.
Out came not a puff of white, but an enormous, white, glowing Chinese dragon, like the kind she'd seen in Chinese restaurants. Twice the size of an anaconda, it swam through the air and blew glowing white 'fire' at the Death Eater, who literally wet himself and ran off in the other direction.
The dragon Patronus was still chasing Death Eaters when the enormous black Padfoot bounded in and transformed back into Sirius mid-jump, shooting spells at the remaining Death Eaters. Iliana finally got over her shock and started directing the Patronus with points and shouts. Off in her peripheral vision, she saw Ginny shooting spells at them, too.
And then twenty or more adult witches and wizards in pajamas popped into the wood in a circle around the Death Eaters, joining the fray. The Ministry people were here! She recognized Mr. Weasley, Charlie, Bill, and Percy.
Recognizing they were outmatched, the Death Eaters Disapparated, so quickly that the sudden quiet was unsettling.
"They've escaped. Quick, everyone, let's secure this area," someone said.
"Secure... secure the area?" Iliana asked, breathless. "How?"
Mr. Weasley came over. "Everyone alright? Good, good. To answer your question, Iliana, they're going to make it so nobody can Apparate in. People will still be able to Apparate out, though; might as well. Looks like they all got away."
"There was one over there that I stunned, Mr. Weasley," Hermione said, pointing. He went where she looked.
"Damn. Someone must have grabbed him. He's not there anymore."
Hermione went over to check, too, seeing as she knew where he'd fallen. Even stomping around for Disillusioned people yielded nothing.
"Damn. Damn, damn, damn. I really hoped we'd catch the lot of them!" Mr. Weasley was angrier than she'd ever seen him. "Bit of a laugh for them, reminding us they wriggled out of going to Azkaban. Damn and blast!"
"I know how you feel, Arthur," Sirius said, coming over to hold Iliana's shoulders as though to make sure she was real. "Scumbags. But one or more of them saw us trying to cast anti-Disapparition charms on them, and ran away over here to continue their fun. Cowardly scumbags!"
"Is it safe to stay here?"
Mr. Weasley was going to answer, but Sirius beat him to it. "No. You and I are leaving now. I can take you side-along. Rules be damned. I'm not leaving any of you kids here after all that. Besides, Molly will be worried sick when this hits the morning Prophet."
The mention of Mrs. Weasley's mood seemed to decide Mr. Weasley into agreeing.
"Yes, quite. Let's go find the tents and retrieve them, and-"
"You do that, Arthur. You three, grab a minor and come with me back to the Burrow," Sirius said to Bill, Charlie, and Percy. He took Iliana's right arm in his left.
Nodding somberly, they agreed. Bill took Hermione, Percy took Ginny, Charlie took Ron, and Sirius took Iliana. That left Percy to take both of the twins.
"I don't think I can do more than one," he complained. "I've never done side-along Apparition before.
"I'll take one of them, then, Percy."
"Perce, I'll accompany you," Fred said.
"Right, and I'll go with Sirius," said George, taking Sirius's other arm.
"Got your wands?" Sirius asked them.
"Yes," she said, showing him the wand still in her hand. "Luckily. Almost lost it."
"Aye aye," George agreed.
"Good. Prepare yourselves," he said.
They turned around, and once again she felt like she was being squeezed through a dark rubber tube. But when they appeared at the Burrow, she managed to keep from puking. George wasn't so lucky.
Sirius looked around as if looking for enemies, but nobody else was there yet. Then with some more cracks, the others arrived at various spots behind them. Sirius lead the way back toward the house.
Whether the noise of Apparition had alerted her, or her unique clock had, Mrs. Weasley bounded out to meet them when they were halfway back. Judging by her sleepy confusion, it had been the sounds of Apparition that had woken her.
"You're back? But I thought you lot were sleeping there overnight? Wait, where's Arthur?"
"He's seeing to the tents, mother," Percy said. "There was a spot of bother at the match."
Sirius barked with sarcastic laughter. "A spot of bother my arse. It was Death Eaters, Molly. Nobody got hurt, so far as I know. At least, none of our lot did. Drunken fools were playing Float The Muggle for a bit of sick fun. Then they ran off and started attacking the kids while I was off trying to find Ginny and the twins. They held the buggers off quite admirably, especially for their age."
"I cast a Patronus!" Iliana exclaimed. "A full bodied one! I had dropped my wand, and when I found it, I defended myself and Hermione with the first spell I thought of, and it worked!"
"Death Eaters? At the match?" Molly said, clearly still a few steps behind.
"Yes, Molly. Everyone's alright. Come on, into the kitchen for some herbal tea, I think."
They all went into the kitchen, where Sirius set about making tea for everyone, and Iliana continued the tale.
"Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, the Patronus. It's a dragon!"
"A dragon?" Charlie asked. "Really?"
"Yes, really."
"Fascinating," he continued. "It's not very common for wizards to have a magical creature for a Patronus. Let's see it, then; maybe I can identify it."
"Expecto Patronum!" she shouted, and the giant Chinese dragon swam into the room, startling almost everyone.
As it faded, Charlie looked stunned. "I've never seen any dragon that looked like that," he said.
"It's a Chinese dragon," she explained.
"Chinese Fireballs don't look like that."
"It's what Chinese Muggles think dragons look like," Sirius explained.
"Really? Well that's even more unusual, then. Your Patronus isn't even a real creature? Unusual indeed."
"Yeah, and what's more, I think Addy's is something else entirely. It looked a bit like a canine, nothing at all like Iliana's."
"Well, with them all being different people, I guess that makes sense. They could all have different Patronuses."
"Did you catch the Death Eaters?" Molly interrupted.
"No, Molly. They Disapparated shortly after the Ministry wizards found them again. Seemed to decide they wanted out before we overpowered them. Hermione had knocked one out already, but one of them must have grabbed him before they left. The Ministry wizards are working to secure the site to keep them from returning."
"Well that's something at least," Mrs. Weasley said, looking at her clock. Mr. Weasley's hand was pointing at 'work' now. But as they looked at it, his hand moved to 'traveling,' then 'home.'
"Oh goodness, he's back!" Mrs. Weasley bustled out to meet her husband and escort him back inside.
Mr. Weasley's only new news was that there had been no returning Death Eaters, and the Ministry was almost done securing the main portions of the site.
"Shit," Iliana said, suddenly thinking of something. "Sorry, Mrs. Weasley, Mr. Weasley, but is Luna Lovegood alright?"
"I assume the Lovegoods are fine. Nobody appears to have gotten hurt, from what the others said. Anyway, I just came back to drop off the tents. I'm going to head back over to help."
"Will you be able to get back, Arthur?"
"Yes, they've left open a small area for incoming Apparition, it's surrounded by Ministry wizards, and is only big enough for two people at a time. I'll be back by morning, Molly dear."
"Be safe, Arthur," she said, waving him off again.
She came back inside and looked around at everyone. "Right. Off to bed, the lot of you. You've been up since before dawn, it's a wonder any of you are still vertical. Come, off with you now. Shoo!"
Everyone let themselves be herded off to their different rooms, Iliana going upstairs to Ginny's room with her and Hermione.
She wanted to discuss events with the others, but as soon as she lay down in the soft bed, she felt drowsiness begin to creep in. Still, sleep didn't come; she was too awake to sleep, her mind buzzing, but too tired to talk.
Three days ago, she'd dreamed of Lord Voldemort. And now, his followers had made a scene. The two things weren't likely to be connected, but she'd had too many coincidences in her life to trust them. And then there was those dreams about that Indian boy, one of which had woken her up tonight. If their life so far was anything to go by, these things meant something. They were Significant, even if she didn't know how or why. Could it be that the Death Eaters could sense their master getting stronger? But no, that couldn't be it; they'd surely run to his side, being secretive, not making mayhem at a Quidditch match.
She was still without answers when she finally became too exhausted to stay awake any longer.
Chapter Twenty-three: Paranoia and New Friends
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Adira, and Zoey, and now #Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and now between hashtags/pound signs because some people's computers don't do the B.I.U.).# and {Tier} if I ever get around to it.
Note 4: This is a long chapter. But I made it less long by cutting out the World Cup match itself, just doing some important bits before and after.
***FAYANORA***
Percy Weasley headed out to work the next morning after breakfast, even though it was his day off, explaining that things had gone crazy at the Ministry because of the mayhem at the match, and he felt the need to help out his boss in this hectic time. Al hoped the older boy wasn't going to overwork himself, as he ate his eggs and sausage.
It had been very awkward for him that morning, finding himself in Ginny's room with her and Hermione, even though they all had separate beds. He had poked his head out to see if anyone else was up, but the two girls were still fast asleep. Then he'd looked down at his own clothes, wondering what state they were in. To his relief, he'd found them looking like normal pajamas. So he'd very carefully slipped out, pulled some clothes out of their suitcase, and gone to the loo to change before heading downstairs.
After breakfast, he'd gone back to their suitcase, Ginny and Hermione back at the table by then. He dug some parchment and ink out of their suitcase and took it back to the table and began to doodle on the parchment while he waited for Sirius to wake up. He found to his annoyance that ink and parchment weren't great for doing art on, and decided to try to get Sirius to buy him some art supplies. They hadn't been big on art in primary school because of Dudley's tendency to rip his art to pieces, but now that was no longer a worry, he wanted to go back to it.
He'd been drawing for almost an hour when Sirius finally woke up.
“Wow, that's pretty good,” Sirius commented on Al's drawing. “Who's that?”
“This is the Indian boy in that dream. Did I tell you he woke us up last night?”
“Did you? Oh wait, I remember, Iliana said a dream woke her, but we didn't have time to go into details about it.”
“Yeah. He's normally really calm, almost too calm. But he was panic-stricken last night, woke us up.”
“Well maybe you were dreaming about him already when the noises started, and your brain incorporated that into the dream?”
“Could be.”
“You wrote something there, what's it say?”
“It says 'Chandra Rahasyamay.'”
“What's that mean?”
“No idea. Anyway, I think it's his name.”
“This boy from a dream has a name?”
“Apparently. Don't know why. Don't know how, either; he never said in the dreams what his name was.”
“Oh. Well anyway, I need to eat something, I'm starving.”
Al continued to draw as Sirius ate breakfast and talked with Mrs. Weasley. He wasn't listening to their conversation, but he did pick up on Sirius inviting the Weasleys over for dinner at their place sometime. This made him look up.
“Dinner at our place? Wouldn't that just mean we order Chinese take-away?”
“Er, maybe. At least until I get better at cooking. You ever have Chinese take-away, Molly?”
“I'm not sure. I doubt it. Those kinds of places are mostly in Muggle districts. Food from another culture, though... I think that would be worth trying. Heaven knows cooking every day and night gets a little tiresome at times. We might take you up on that sometime.”
After Sirius finished his breakfast, Al got his things together and they went home.
~
Once they got their things home, they headed out again, meeting Mrs. Weasley at The Leaky Cauldron.
“After losing track of my wand yesterday, I was wondering if we could go to Ollivander's so I can get myself a spare wand and holster.”
“Good idea. Moody would be proud of you, I'm sure he's got at least one spare wand on him. Knowing him, he probably has several.”
“Do we go to Gringott's first?”
“No, Al. I have bank notes, remember? I can get your stuff that way.”
“Oh yeah, right.”
“If that's the case, dears,” Mrs. Weasley said, “then I'll catch up with you two later. I do have to go to the bank.”
Once they got into Diagon Alley, they walked together to Ollivander's, then parted ways with Mrs. Weasley, waving goodbye to her for now.
The inside of the shop was just as creepy as they remembered. But this time, Ollivander was busy with a customer, so he couldn't dramatically pop out from behind a shelf somewhere to scare them. They sat and waited until the first-year student had their first wand, applauding when she made it spark. When the wand was purchased and the girl and her mom were leaving, Ollivander turned to them.
“Ah, young Sirius Black. Dogwood, 12 inches, containing a single unicorn tail hair, correct?”
“Er, yes.”
“Good, good. And who are you, my fine young man? I don't remember... wait a moment...” his eyes flicked to their scar. “Oh, I know you. Holly and phoenix feather, 11 inches. You must be one of the, er... other Potters.”
“Alastair Potter. We temporarily lost our wand last night at the Quidditch match while some Death Eaters were coming right toward me, and so I felt it a good idea to get a spare wand and holster. Do you sell holsters here?”
“Yes, but nothing quite as fancy as the one you're using, Alastair.”
“What? How do you know---?”
“Part of my craft is being able to see magic, Mr. Potter. I could see enough of the magic around your wrist to tell that you have a very fine wrist holster there indeed. Those are very handy, of course, but they are visible to people such as myself. I suggest you go to the same shop for your spare holster, but ask for one in the Stealth-master series. They're hidden from people such as myself. Very important, in your case, as a certain You-Know-Who most likely has the same ability to see magic.”
“He does?”
“Given what I have heard of his talents, I would be very surprised if he did not. By the way, for a fee, that same shop can – I understand – cast stealth spells of the same type on your current wrist holster.”
“Good to know. Thanks.”
“You are welcome. Now... hmm... should I skip the wands that the other Mr. Potter already tried, or do you want to try them?”
“Er... that's a good question. Skip them for now, I think.”
“Good, good. Of course, I remember every one I tried you on, so I'll just go get a few for you to try.”
Testing the wands didn't take nearly as long as it had the first time. Within 10 minutes, he'd found one that gave purple sparks when he waved it. It was oak and dragon heartstring, 10 inches.
“Excellent, excellent! I hope you and your new wand have a very good adventure together, Mr. Potter. Make sure to practice with it every week at least, okay? Practice makes perfect, and not all wands work the same way, so getting a feel for the new wand will be essential to using it in case of emergencies. Yes, that will be seven galleons. Ah, thank you. You two have a good day, Mr. Potter, Mr. Black.”
“You too, Mr. Ollivander,” Al said before they left.
After Ollivander's, they went to the wand holster shop and got the new wand a forearm holster that kept the wand above his left forearm, so he now had a wand up each sleeve. The new holster had an invisibility charm on it as well as stealth charms so that nobody would know it was there unless they felt it. The best part of this holster, though, was that the thing could open from the top to release the wand in case he couldn't slide it all the way out for some reason, which the shop owner had suggested after Al explained to him that he often got into trouble with dangerous wizards trying to hurt him.
“This way,” the man had explained, “if your hands are tied behind your back and you've got limited room to move, you can get your wand without having to slide it out all the way.”
Sirius had thought this just a touch too paranoid, but it amused him, and it was better safe than sorry, so he didn't object to getting it for them.
After some brief stops at the apothecary and the quill shop (where Al got a fountain pen with a rounded tip), they went to Flourish and Blotts. Al spent a lot of time in here looking for advanced Defense books, among others. And he wasn't the only one; he had to hand control of his body over to others in the collective while they looked at books, too. Most embarassing had been Iliana and Adira trying to get in to look at the romance books, but those were age restricted.
I shouldn't worry too much about it, Al told them. If you're looking for anything other than heterosexual bullshit romance, you're probably not going to find it.
How did you know that's what we were looking for?
Well let's see, you're both bisexual. It wasn't a great leap of logic from there. Plus, you know, I can read your minds.
Still, they did manage to find some interesting fiction books, too. They had quite a collection by the time they were finished. He moved on to the Ancient Runes section, since they were taking that class.
While in that section, he felt eyes on him, and he turned, ready to snap at whoever it was for staring, but what he saw stopped him in his tracks and made him stare, his jaw hanging open. It was a very pretty boy about age 13. Not handsome, but pretty. Okay, sure, handsome as well, but in a pretty way. The boy was Latino, with brown hair that was short in the back and stuck up elegantly on the top in gently curving spikes tipped in a brownish blond. His eyes were a gorgeous doe-brown, and he could see intelligence in those eyes. Eyes that had lovely long lashes.
The boy was clutching some books shyly in his arms while staring at Al; his hands, Al noticed, were slender and had immaculately clean nails. Suddenly realizing that they were both staring at one another in mutual attraction, and suddenly remembering that he was quite handsome himself, Al ran one hand semi-casually through his hair.
“Uh... hi,” he said, since the other boy still seemed dumbstruck.
“Oh. Hi,” the boy said in a small, quiet voice. He had a gentle Spanish accent.
“Are... are you taking Ancient Runes, too?” Al asked.
“Yes,” the boy said, sounding relieved to have something to talk about. “Ancient Runes is an essential class for becoming an Artificer, and that's what I want to be when I grow up.”
“Artificer? What's that?”
“They make magical objects, like pensieves, Sneak-o-scopes, secrecy sensors, omnioculars, wizarding wireless sets, and so on. Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, and Transfiguration are important for an Artificer.”
“Wow, that sounds cool. I haven't given much thought yet to what I'm gonna do for a career.”
“What classes are you taking?”
“Ancient Runes, Divination, and Care of Magical Creatures.”
“Divination?”
“Yeah. I thought the whole subject was rubbish after the first class, but then during the test I found out I'm a bloody seer, of all the crazy things!”
“You had a vision?”
“Yeah. It, er... hasn't been a hugely useful vision yet, but I think it was real.”
“That's cool!”
“Er, thanks. Um... hey, what's your name? I'm Alastair. Er... Alastair Potter.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot. I'm Javier Joaquin Mendoza.”(*)
They shook hands. Al noted that Javier had very soft hands. They held the handshake about twice as long as usual before letting go.
“So, er... what House are you in, Javier?”
Javier turned red. Al felt his fear and worry.
“Is that really necessary?” Javier asked. “I mean, well...”
“Ah. You must be a Slytherin, then, to be that squirrelly about Houses. Don't worry, I won't hold it against you. I, er... was almost Slytherin myself, the Hat said. Luck of the draw.”
Javier breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you. I was so worried it would chase you off. Yeah, I'm Slytherin. But I'm half-blood, and I don't hold with all that blood purity rubbish. Neither do my parents. My dad's a Muggleborn.”
“Well that's good. I mean, even if you were a blood purist, I... I think I wouldn't mind trying to change your mind.”
Javier grinned.
Sirius came over then, and spotted Al's wagonload of books.
“Buying out the whole store, are you Al?”
“Not quite. Especially since there are areas of the store we, er... we couldn't get into.”
Sirius laughed and slapped his back. “Ah, I remember trying to do the same sort of thing when I was your age. Oh hello, who's this? A friend of yours?”
“I'd sure like him to be,” Al said. “Sirius, this is Javier Mendoza.”
“Sirius?” Javier asked. “Sirius Black?”
Sirius frowned slightly. “Yes.”
“Wow! Really? That's so cool!”
“Er, pardon?” Sirius asked, confused.
Javier took Sirius's hand and pumped it excitedly.
“I'm thrilled to meet you, sir! Only person ever to escape Azkaban! And you were innocent the whole time! How'd you escape?”
“Oh, er... well... I was an illegal Animagus. I can turn into a dog. And, er...” he trailed off, looking discomfited.
“Sirius doesn't much like talking about it.”
“Do you know how he did it? Because dementors are supposed to sap a wizard's powers with extended exposure.”
“Sirius told me that because he knew he was innocent, which wasn't a happy thought, he was able to keep his powers.”
“So then he turned into a dog, slipped out between the bars, and swam to shore?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“Cool! That must have been really difficult.”
“Yes,” said Sirius, sounding more at ease. “But I had to protect Al here from a dangerous wizard who was also an illegal Animagus.”
“Peter Pettigrew, right? I heard about him. What did he turn into?”
“A rat.”
Javier nodded sagely.
They continued talking as they went up to the front to pay.
“By the way, I need a new trunk. Old one's getting too full.”
“Yes, I remember you mentioning that. Javier, where are your parents?”
Javier looked around.
“Oh, here comes Mom. Hi mom, this is Sirius Black and Alastair Potter.”
A short, stout woman with curly black hair and the same color eyes as Javier smiled at them, shaking their hands.
“Nice to meet you at last, Mr. Black. My son talks about you and your escape all the time. He talks about a lot of things all the time. But you're one of his latest obsessions.”
Al noticed her glance at him when she said this, smiling.
“Would you two like to join us to the luggage shop? I need a new trunk.”
“Can we, Mom?” Javier asked pleadingly.
“Of course, dear. After that fiasco at the Quidditch World Cup, it's best to travel in groups.”
The four of them walked along to the shop, Al and Javier talked the whole time. Or rather, Javier asked loads of questions about Sirius's escape, and Al answered best he could. When they got into the luggage store, though, Javier's focus changed and he began talking about all the different trunks as though he were a trunk salesman, except that he was plainly excited about it.
“How do you know all these things about trunks?” Al asked him.
“Oh, you remember I told you I want to be an Artificer? Well magical trunks aren't Artificer territory exactly, but they can be.”
The conversation continued on, making the salesman look at them exasperatedly. But in the end, Al went with the one that Javier recommended to him, a model that had four locks. Each lock opened a different space in the trunk, so he had to close the lid and unlock a different lock to get into another section.
He turned the key in the first lock. The trunk opened up into a decent sized room full of racks to hang robes and other clothes from. There were also several dresser drawers inside for their underwear. Using their wand, he put his name on one of them, Adira's name on another, Iliana's on the third. They could work out further details later.
The second lock was an organizer room for his school supplies like parchment, quills, ink, and so on.
Turning the third lock's key revealed a general storage area, perfect for Christmas and birthday gift storage. There was also a broom rack on the wall for their Firebolt, a hook for Hedwig's cage to hang from, and a habitat for Aqua, the grass snake that was Zoey's pet, which was at home right now.
The fourth lock opened into a library full of empty shelves, with a ladder that gave him access to the room. The library looked big enough to carry about 500 or 600 large books.
“This is the best part of the whole thing,” Al said, eying the library shelves with awe. “I'll take it!”
First thing he did after buying the trunk was to put all the new stuff they'd gotten into their respective chambers. He had a lot of fun shelving the books; Javier helped him.
After putting things in the trunk, they all went back to The Leaky Cauldron for lunch. Al introduced Mrs. Weasley to Javier and his mother (whose name was Martina), once again leaving out Javier's school House. During lunch, he and Javier kept talking about this and that.
When the adults were occupied on the other end of the table, Al turned to Javier and said quietly, “Hey, so... I noticed that you didn't react to my name when I told you. I take it that means you knew already?”
“Er, yeah,” Javier admitted. “I've seen you in school before. I didn't know who you were for a while, I'd just see you in the corridors sometimes. I... well, I think it's safe to say I fancied you before I even knew who you were. Er... you do know I fancy you, right?”
“Yes. Wasn't it obvious the feeling is mutual?”
Javier blushed. “Oh. Er, not to me. I'm glad to hear it.”
“Good. And I'm glad to hear you fancy me, because I didn't much want to be the one to make the first move. Though I would if I had to, of course.”
“Cool, cool. Er... is it too early to say we're dating?”
“Uh... I think so. Only because we haven't actually gone on a date yet, and we barely know each other.”
“Would we be able to? My parents would let me, I think. They like it when I socialize. I don't really have many friends.”
“I don't have any of my own friends either, really. I mean... well... how much do you know about me?”
“Are you referring to the whole, you know, thing? The thing where you've got other people in there with you? Cause I don't mind. People call me weird. I don't mind weird.”
“Oh good. I was worried for a moment.” He grinned.
“So you don't consider the redhead and the bushy-haired girl your friends?”
“I do. It's just... they were Adira's and Iliana's friends first. We share them. I like having someone who's friends with me before the others. It's a nice change.”
“By the way... is Sirius Black your father? You two look a lot alike.”
“No. It's weird, I know. He's not related to me by blood. None of us have any idea why I look like him. Except that we knew him when we were an infant, so maybe that's the reason, somehow?” He shrugged.
“Well boys, if you're all done eating, Javier and I have to go home now.”
“Whereabouts do you live?” Al asked. “I want to make sure Hedwig gets the right Javier.”
“We live in Devon. And you?”
“Here in London. I'm pretty sure it's findable by owl, but if I don't hear from you in a week or two, I can always send Hedwig your way. If nothing else, maybe owls can communicate with one another about addresses.”
“I don't think there'll be a problem,” Sirius said. “Especially since I can just shoot a letter off to Gringott's about it just in case.”
“Excellent!”
Al and Javier hugged each other goodbye. Soon, Javier and his mother disappeared into the Floo.
“Sirius? Can we stop at an art store before we go home?”
“Sure thing. I'll just send the trunk home with my wand. Anyway, we still have to get your robes for the year.”
“Oh yeah, forgot.”
*
When Al and Sirius got home, Al spent an hour moving all their things from their old trunk to the new one, including all of their books. It was a wonder everything had fit in the old trunk with all the books they had. As it was, he had to un-shrink about 20 books that they'd shrunk to fit them into the old trunk, returning them to normal size before he could shelve them in his new trunk.
That done, he sat down and tried to write a letter to Javier, but he couldn't think of anything, so he started to draw instead with his new art supplies. What he ended up drawing was Javier, with little hearts in the air around him. It was a very cartoony drawing, about the same quality as his drawing of the boy from their dreams.
After a couple hours of drawing, a grey owl appeared at his window. He let it in despite it being unfamiliar, suspecting who it was from. Sure enough, Javier had sent it. The other boy must have spent a couple hours writing it, because it was a very long letter, being about 15 feet long in all, and both sides were written on. It was a lot like Javier's speaking style, a lot of info-dumps about various subjects, but there was some other stuff in there as well. He ignored, for now, the long list of fascinated questions about their multiplicity and his hopes he'd get to meet the others in the collective, and focused instead on the bits where Javier was discussing possible places to go on a date. He decided to write two different letters, the first one going back to Javier via the grey owl, whose name was Gandalf. That amused Al; someone in their household was a Lord of the Rings fan.
Dear Javier,
I got your letter. Gandalf the grey owl, eh? Someone over there's into Lord of the Rings? Is it you? I like that book too. Though I almost didn't get past that horrible Tom Bombadil part. That passage was just so damned annoying and pointless.
I'm going to skip replying to most of your letter for now, so I can dedicate plenty of time to it later. I want to give it all the attention and time it deserves, which is a lot. For now I'll just say that I'm going to ask Sirius about the whole dating thing. He'll probably want to chaperone, since we barely know each other. Don't know if your parents will want to chaperone too or not.
Wait, what kind of a doofus am I? I'll just go ask him now. Be back in a moment.
Okay, moment over. I asked Sirius, which included some ideas of my own. He says he'd be okay with it, depending on what your folks say. What do you say to going out for Chinese food? My godfather and I eat out a lot, and Chinese is my favorite. Anyway, I was thinking you could come to London, since I don't know Devon, and I want us to go somewhere I know is good. Plus, my godfather is understandably a little paranoid about my safety, given our frequent run-ins with You-Know-Who and his cronies. I am, too, for that matter. So ask your folks, okay?
Anyway, I'll try to have a longer response in a day or two. For now, thanks for your address; I can use that to fire-call you and your folks, to work out when we can have our date.By the way, our own address is 23B Square Way, London.
Sincerely,
Alastair Potter
He re-read the letter to be sure it was good enough, and then gave it back to Gandalf to return to Javier. Hedwig looked annoyed by this.
“Hedwig, you'll be taking him the much longer letter, once I've finally written it.”
This seemed to mollify her, for which he was glad.
Al really hoped that his date with Javier was going to be soon. There was, after all, less than a week until the first day of school. He hoped Javier would write or fire-call soon. While he waited, he went back to packing his things. He included the book about the Animagus transformation, too. But he used spells on it to disguise it as a very dull-sounding “Advances in Magical Theory Since the 1930's,” and made it so that anyone who tried to read it that wasn't them would just see a bunch of nonsense. Then he stuck it in his trunk's bookshelf.
He pondered on how the date would go. He hadn't actually told Sirius it would be a date, just that he wanted to hang out with his new friend before school, because he didn't really know if he wanted to come out yet, as he wasn't entirely sure of his own orientation yet, and he was a little worried. It was silly, yes; they hadn't minded Adira being trans, why should this be any different? He also hadn't told either Sirius or Mrs. Weasley that his new friend was a Slytherin.
Al took one of his new books from his shelf and went to the drawing room by the hearth to read and wait for a fire-call. It was very hard to concentrate on reading as a result, especially since Sirius kept giving him odd looks. Al tried reading Sirius's emotions, but didn't know what to make of what he was sensing.
It wasn't until after dinner that the fire-call finally came. Javier's head popped into existence in the green Floo flames, and Al ran over to kneel in front of the fire. The two of them talked for several minutes, with Sirius occasionally putting in his two knuts, until they decided on going to Chinese on Saturday. Then, because he was getting uncomfortable kneeling on the hard floor, Javier ended the fire-call.
Al stood up and sat back down with his book, but didn't even try to read again. He was too keyed up, so he didn't even notice Sirius watching him this time, a thoughtful look on his face.
After an hour, Al stood up.
“I'm going to my bedroom. I need to think.”
“Okay,” Sirius said.
But when he got to his bedroom, Al wasn't thinking about things; he was once more going through the stuff they were taking to school. He was trying to decide whether or not to fold his underwear again when there was a knock on the door.
“What is it?” he asked.
“May I come in?”
“Yeah, okay Sirius.”
The door opened up, and Sirius came in.
“So... I just wanted to tell you that, well, if there's anything you want to tell me, you can do so. I won't judge.”
Al felt his cheeks warm. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, like... okay, you know what? I'm not good at this kinda thing. You like Javier, right? I don't mean as a friend. You barely know the boy, and you're way too excited about him too soon for it to be just a friend thing. Especially for you, Al. I may not know you as well as I know Adira, but she's told me some things about you, and, well... you don't trust easily. Well, you kinda do, with that heart-reading thing of yours, but you still hold back from people, you still take time to warm up to them. I can read the signs, Alastair. I think I have an idea what's going on.”
“Oh?” Al said, folding his underwear in a would-be casual way. “What do you think is going on?”
“You know, wizarding society doesn't really care what people do with their sex lives as long as they get into a marriage that can produce children. Population is a problem for us, after all, so it's viewed as a societal duty among wizards to have children if they can. Beyond that, it's nobody else's business.”
“It is? Well, that's nice. But, er... what does that have to do with me?”
“If you fancy this Javier boy, that's not a problem for society, and it's not a problem with me. Hell, I don't even care if you have kids or not. Do what you like. Plenty of others are having kids. If you're, well... homosexual, then you can tell me. And I'll be cool with it. In fact, I'm not exactly straight myself. I'm bisexual, in fact.”
“You are?”
“Yes,” Sirius said simply.
Al sighed with relief. “I am, too, Sirius. At least, I think I am.”
“Ah. Well... I normally wouldn't have bothered saying anything, but I know Muggles in Britain can be weird about that sort of thing, and you were raised by some truly awful Muggles, so I figured I should say something, you know what I mean?”
“Yes, I do.”
“And, er... tell the others the same thing from me, okay? They can talk to me if they're not heterosexual. Or even if they are. Um... well, that's all I had to say.”
“You don't mind me going on a date with Javier, then?”
“Ah... yes--I mean no, I don't mind. Just... I thought he seemed a bit keen, too. So it's officially a date, then?”
“Yeah. Kind of more a 'get to know each other better' date, than a date date. You know?”
“Yes, I get it. So there's probably not going to be any snogging, then?”
“Probably not. Too soon. Maybe some hand holding. Maybe a hug or two. I mean... I don't know what his parents think.”
“Given the look his mum was giving me earlier, I'd say she knows and is fine with it, too. But yeah, we don't know for sure.”
“Well, you know, you and her don't have to hang around real close to us. You could talk with her at a different table while I'm with Javier.”
“Might just do that. No need to cramp your style.”
“Yeah,” Al said, smiling.
“So... tell me more about this boy. I know you don't know everything, but you two talked enough I hope you know some things. Is he in Hogwarts? You ever see him in class?”
“Yes, he's in Hogwarts. A year below me, though. So not in any classes.”
“Ah, okay. Do you know what House he's in?”
Al's face turned red. “What does that matter?”
“Ah, so he's a Slytherin?” Sirius smiled.
“Er, yeah.”
“Figured as much. It's the only House that would get that kind of reaction to a simple question. I don't mind, you know. I trust your judgment of people. And there are plenty of good Slytherins. Merlin was a Slytherin. Old Horace Slughorn, my Potions teacher in school, was a Slytherin. And unlike Snape, Slughorn was a jovial fellow. Your mother was his favorite student, and he knew she was Muggleborn. Slughorn likes talent, he doesn't care about accidents of birth. Well, okay, he does tend to pay more attention to kids related to famous people, but what I mean is he never showed any signs of being a blood bigot.”
“Glad to hear you think that way. We almost ended up in Slytherin. In the end, though, the hat picked Griffindor.”
Sirius barked with laughter.
“I'll bet the Hat had a bugger of a time with you lot! I wouldn't be surprised if you could've all ended up in different Houses, if you'd had your own bodies. I can see you as a Slytherin, Al. Not sure about Adira. Iliana seems like a Ravenclaw to me. No idea on Zoey or Tier, either.”
“Heh, yeah. I think Zoey would be Griffindor for sheer nerve. Adira would be a Griffindor too, I think. But yeah, Tier is a hard one to classify.”
There was a lull in the conversation.
“Well,” Sirius said at last, “I'll let you finish packing, or whatever. I'm glad we had this talk.”
“Likewise,” Al said, putting the underwear down at last. “Actually, I need to start on this letter to Javier.”
“Well I'll see you, or whoever else, in the morning. Good night.”
“Night, Sirius.”
Sirius closed the door, and Al went over to his desk, got out Javier's letter, and started work on his response. It would be midnight before he stopped to go to bed.
~
That night, they dreamed of the Indian boy again. Only this time, it was Al and Tier. Al didn't know who it was beside him at first, because Tier had never manifested his own body before, not really. But when a golden-eyed humanoid dragon-like creature stared placidly at Al without baring its teeth, it didn't remain a mystery for long.
“Tier?”
The creature nodded.
Al turned around in his seat, but the Indian boy wasn't back there. He was, instead, on Tier's other side. As soon as Tier turned to face the boy, he passed Tier a parchment with the alphabet on it, and started teaching Tier the alphabet. Tier looked offended by this, as if to say he already knew how to write. The boy nodded at this, took the parchment away, and put a blank one in its place. He handed Tier a fountain pen and ink pot. Tier took the pen uncertainly, but began to write.
What is your name? Tier's writing said.
“You already know it,” the boy said.
“From my drawing?” Al asked. “You're Chandra Rahasyamay?”
“Yes.”
What is the teacher's name? Tier wrote.
Chandra looked thoughtfully at Tier. Then raised his hand. The teacher came over, smelling to Al of damp earth, fragrant leaves, and the smell after a first rain, a smell called petrachor. Her skin was very, very dark brown. Her hair was big and poofy, like an Afro, but it sunk a little under its weight, so Al didn't know if that still qualified as an Afro or not. But her eyes... they started out bright violet, then green, then pink, red, blue, and yellow. They didn't stay the same color for more than about five seconds at a time.
“Yes, Chandra?”
“Tier wishes to know your name.”
“I have no name yet. There's never been need for one before. Tier, you and the others should think of a name.”
Chandra looked annoyed. “Why can't I think of a name?”
“Because you're still in school. You haven't gone out there yet. They have. They've earned it.”
“But I've known you all this time.”
“And for you, words and names still have little meaning. To them, though, words are very important. Names, more so.”
“How are they to call on you without a name?”
“When they need me, they will name me. And in the naming, I will come.” She ruffled Chandra's hair, grinning.
“And me?”
“When they need you, you will be there. You will know.”
And with that, the teacher went back up to the front of the classroom.
“You're not going to jump-scare me again at the end of this, are you?”
Chandra smiled. “No. There's no longer a need for that.”
“Good,” Al said.
With that, Chandra smiled again, and the dream faded and Al woke up. He lay awake for a few minutes, pondering the dream, before drifting off again.
~
The morning of the date, Sirius was reading the Daily Prophet at the table. Al noticed the headline, which read “Death at Azkaban: Bellatrix LeStrange, Death Eater.”
“Was she an especially infamous Death Eater, then? Or are deaths that infrequent at Azkaban?”
“A little of both. A lot of people do die from being around dementors too long, but it happens infrequently enough to be newsworthy. Peter's death was in the papers, too.” Sirius sighed heavily.
“Something wrong?”
“Nothing. It's just... well, Bellatrix was a cousin of mine. I hated her, but she was a fellow Black. I wonder if this means I inherit her vault at Gringott's, or if it goes to Rudolphus.”
“Who's Rudolphus?”
“Bellatrix's husband, Rudolphus LeStrange. Yeah, probably goes to him, even though he's in Azkaban, too. Well, something to look into, anyway.” He set the paper down. “Sit down, I'll make you breakfast.”
“Er...”
“Not to worry, Al. I've been practicing, I can make scrambled eggs and toast and sausages without burning anything now! Isn't that cool?”
“Yeah, it is. Okay, then.”
Al sat down and took over reading the paper from Sirius, as Sirius got out eggs and sausage patties. He cooked the sausage first, because they make their own grease, which is useful for cooking the eggs in.
“You want any veggies in your scrambled eggs? I can chop onions and other veggies. I have onions, fresh spinach, mushrooms, bell peppers, and jalapeño peppers.”
“Jalapeños? Cool. I'll have the lot of it, minus the bell peppers.”
“Great,” Sirius said, and used his wand to get the veggies out of the fridge and set the knife to chopping things up while he kept an eye on the sausages.
Al read the paper. “Is it weird that two people in Azkaban died in the same summer?”
“Yeah, a little. Especially weird that Bellatrix died. She was so proud to go to prison for trying to find Voldemort, I'd have thought it would keep her alive. You know, the hope of seeing her master again. But then, it has been 13 years. Maybe she gave up hope.”
Al sniffed the air. “The sausages are burning.”
“They are? Damn. Oh well, so they're slightly decorated on that side. Ah... there we are now, got 'em flipped over.”
“Oh god, Sirius, did you have to cut the onions so soon?” Al said, his eyes burning with the smell.
“Sorry about that, Al. Fresh onions, you know.”
“When did you go to the store?”
“You were here yesterday when I said I was going to the local Tesco, remember?”
“What? Oh yeah, I recall now.”
“Anyway, I was thinking about starting a garden after you go to school. It'll give me something to do while you're away.”
“I know you don't need the money, Sirius, but maybe you should get a job, too, to keep you busy.”
“Dunno what I'd do. I was studying to be an auror during the last war, but I don't trust the Ministry anymore. And I don't know what else I could do.”
“Motorcycle repair? You'd be pretty good at that.”
Sirius barked with laughter. “Good idea, pup. I'd be faster than most at it, too. There are some things I could use magic on without there being any sign of magic on the bike after the Muggle got it back. Also, I could advertise in the Prophet, in case there are any other wizarding motorcycle enthusiasts in Britain. So yeah, I think I'll look into that.”
“You're not going to stop practicing cooking while I'm gone, are you?”
“Nope. Quite apart from wanting to become an expert by the next holidays, I'm getting kinda tired of takeout myself. Anyway, I got myself some cookbooks recently. Next thing I'm gonna try out is stir-fry.”
“That's Chinese, right?”
“It sure is. Ah, the sausage is done. Now for the eggs. Lemme just put the veggies in first...”
A few minutes later, Al was chomping at the bit with hunger, from the delicious smells from the scrambled eggs with veggies. Sirius floated the large frying pan over to the table, and tipped some eggs onto Al's plate. He tipped the rest onto his own plate, put the frying pan in the sink, and floated over the plate of sausages.
“Plate's got a warming charm on it, so don't worry about cold patties.”
Al took a big bite of sausage, and started to cough. He swallowed, though, and grabbed for his orange juice, taking big gulps.
“You alright? Oh, sorry, forgot to mention the sausage is hot. I know you like hot stuff. I, er... I have mild, too, if you'd rather--”
“No, it's okay,” Al said with a sore throat. “I just would've appreciated some warning.”
“Sorry about that.”
Al waved his concern off. “It's fine. Don't worry about it.”
Now properly warned, Al was able to focus on eating. Before he did, though, he got up and got himself a glass of chocolate milk, and took some toast off the plate, since these were both good things to use with burn from spicy foods.
The rest of the morning was an agony of waiting. His “date” with Javier wasn't until 1 pm, when he'd be coming over to Al's home before they went on to the Chinese place. Al tried to read, but couldn't focus. He tried drawing, but again couldn't focus. He ended up going to the dueling room and shooting spells at the dummies, improving his speed and accuracy. But even here, his mind wandered. He wondered how good a duelist Javier was, what it would be like dueling him. Al wondered, too, if he could restart the dueling club, under a competent teacher this time. With what he knew about the prophecy and Voldemort, it would pay off to be as good a duelist as possible.
Finally, though, one o'clock rolled around, and Javier and his mother came through the Floo into the little warded area. Al ran over and opened the wards to let them through.
“Javier! Hi! And hello, Mrs. Mendoza.”
“Hello to you too, Alastair,” she said, smiling.
Javier smiled shyly. Al could feel the anxiety radiating from him without looking. Looking, it was even more obvious.
“You nervous?”
“Yeah,” Javier admitted. “Never eaten anything foreign before.”
“My Javier is a rather picky eater. He likes eating the same things a lot. Grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup for lunch, eggs over medium with toast and mild sausage links for breakfast, and he prefers dinners with lots of veggies in them.”
“Well you ought to love Chinese food,” Al said. “It's not dinnertime, sure, but Chinese food has lots of fresh vegetables in it. I like vegetables, too. What kinds do you like?”
“Lots of kinds. I especially love broccoli.”
“Ah, then you'll probably want the beef and broccoli, that's a good one.”
Before long, the four of them were heading out the building and walking to the restaurant. Al and Javier talked all the way. At first, Javier didn't say much, but when Al ran out of things to say and brought up the topic of Artificers, Javier's face lit up and he started going on at length about his passion. And Al was honestly impressed at how much the boy, only 13, knew about the craft he was going into. Javier had, apparently, even gone as far as to make some simple devices, which was N.E.W.T. level work.
“And then,” Javier continued, “mama showed it to someone she knew, who showed it to someone else, a man who's a master Artificer himself, and he said if I keep up the good work, that I can become his apprentice after I graduate Hogwarts! It's so exciting! I can hardly wait!”
“Wow. That's really amazing. Sounds like you've got your future planned out already.” He couldn't help feeling a little weird about that, though, when thoughts of Voldemort came into his head. If the prophecy Dumbledore had told them about was true, then he'd have to kill Voldemort, or else be killed. And that suggested to Al that he would be coming back to full power. A suggestion enhanced by that dream they'd had.
Javier was completely oblivious to Al's brief change of mood, though. He just kept talking on. But then he had to stop, because they were there, and sitting down. Al went through the options on the menu with Javier, but the younger boy had latched onto the idea of beef and broccoli so hard that he couldn't be dissuaded from that path. So, smiling, Al finally gave up and focused on trying to decide what he wanted. He ended up deciding on Kung Pao Shrimp.
Despite Javier's insistence on beef and broccoli, Al did manage to get him to try a bite of Kung Pao Shrimp, warning him first that it was hot. He laughed, in the exact same manner Sirius did, when Javier found out with a shock that Al hadn't been kidding when he'd said it was very spicy, and handed Javier some milk to wash out the heat with.
Al had been worried that Javier was only capable of talking about his passions, but he did manage to get him talking about himself, by sharing some personal info of his own. Which wasn't easy to do, with all the questions Javier had about the collective. (Al still hadn't finished his longer letter. At this rate, he'd have to hand it to Javier in the hall at school.)
Among other things, he found that Javier had a cat; it was half Siamese, and half kneazle, and was named Legolas. Javier was also, according to him, hopeless at dueling. Al pounced on this as an opportunity to spend more time with his new friend, offering to help him out with dueling. He also found out that Javier was ambidextrous; he proved it to Al by writing on the back of a paper place-mat first with one hand, then with the other, then both at once. It took a lot of concentration, that last, and the going was slow, but he did it nonetheless.
There was something else, as well. Alastair was picking up on something... unusual... about his friend. Javier didn't make eye contact very much. Usually he would look off at something else, like his hands, or off into space. And whenever their eyes did meet, Javier's would look away within a couple seconds, or would look somewhere near Al's eyes, but never quite all the way for long. What was more, the tone of his voice was often slightly off. Sometimes he'd speak a little too loudly, other times so quietly he could barely be heard. And Javier didn't quite speak in a monotone most of the time, but it very close to a monotone. It reminded Al of the times Hermione would read passages she'd memorized from books.
Al was starting to see why this boy had a hard time making friends. None of these things bothered Al, though. They intrigued him. He'd never met anyone quite like Javier, to his knowledge. He reminded Al most strongly of Hermione, but even she spoke more naturally than Javier, and nobody could put as much exasperation, frustration, or amused annoyance in their voice as Hermione could. Nobody Al had met, anyway. Still, the similarities were striking. Hermione had a tendency to info-dump the way Javier did, though she was better at knowing when to stop. But if you made it clear you were listening to her, she could go on at length about her passions, just like Javier.
“Oh, did you hear that Professor Binns isn't going to be the History of Magic teacher anymore?” Javier asked him.
“Yeah, I did. Professor Lupin is taking over the position.”
“Oh. So we're getting another new Defense teacher?”
“Yeah. There's a curse on the position. If Lupin hadn't quit that position and gone to History, who knows what could have happened to him. One of them, Professor Quirrell, actually died.”
“I heard about that from some of the other students. They weren't telling me, I just happened to overhear it, but yeah. Anyway, who do you reckon the new Defense teacher will be?”
“Hope it's Snape. Then he might be gone by the end of the year.”
“Or he might just switch back to Potions at the end of the year.”
“There is that possibility, I suppose. Anyway, I don't know anyone else. Though... Sirius keeps mentioning his old mentor, Mad-Eye Moody. And... oh, that reminds me; I told you I found out I was a seer, remember?”
“Yeah. What about it?”
“Well that vision had in it the words 'constant vigilance,' which is apparently something Moody says a lot. And since the vision was about this coming school year, I wonder if Moody might be the new Defense teacher.”
“Mad-Eye Moody? What's he like?”
“I don't know, really. You'd have to ask Sirius. All I know is he's a retired auror, and he's a little paranoid.”
“So what did the vision say? Or did it have words?”
“Chalice of wood, flame within,” he began reciting from memory, “A toad will cow you with a grin. Sherry bottles litter the floor, hidden in a secret store. At Christmas time, a formal dance; beware despair, constant vigilance...”
A thoughtful look came over Javier's face for a few minutes. Then he snapped out of it. “Cryptic,” he said. “Wonder what it all means?”
“Me too. But apparently there is going to be a formal dance at Christmas time for some reason, so Sirius got me some formal robes for that. Plus, they were on our Hogwarts list.”
“Oh yeah, I saw that too. Mum got me some. They're forest green with silver lining.”
“Slytherin colors, eh? Mrs. Weasley helped pick out mine. She wasn't sure what to get us, since we each look different, but in the end she went with satiny black robes for me. She said if one of the girls goes instead of me, we can buy something at Hogsmeade, or have Zoey transform something for us.”
“Cool. Any chance I could meet the others soon?”
“Sure. Not today, though. If I can, I'd like to finish that letter and let you read it before I introduce you to to the others. But the way we sometimes change randomly, you might run into them. Do you know what they look like?”
Javier nodded. “Yeah, I've seen them about. Which one is the redhead with hazel eyes?”
“That's Iliana. Iliana Evanna Potter.”
“And the one who used to be called Harry, that's Adira?”
“Yes. Adira Lily Potter.”
“Cool. Who else is there?”
“Zoey Potter is the only other one with her own appearance. She's six years old and looks it. Has one green eye and one hazel eye, and her hair is black. You might meet Tier, too. He doesn't have his own appearance; he makes modifications to whatever form the body was in before he switched. Most of the modifications aren't visible, usually.”
“Nifty.”
Al jumped with a start, because he'd felt his hand start to move of its own accord. Or rather, Tier's accord. It was writing something on the back of his own place-mat. Javier watched along with Al, but with fascination to contrast Al's shocked and annoyed expression.
“'Hello, friend of Alastair. My name is Tier,'” Javier read out. “Wow, so they can all hear what we're saying when we talk?”
“Er, yeah. And see what I'm seeing, and feel whatever my skin feels. We're all plugged into all the senses all the time. But I can say from experience it feels different being in the background. Like things are a little muted, kinda, since they're being filtered through someone else's consciousness first.”
“Amazing. Hello there, Tier,” he said, addressing the paper instead of Al's face.
Tier wrote Hello again, friend of Alastair. Are you experiencing enjoyment with your outing?
“Yes, I am, Tier. Wow, this is nifty.”
“It's bloody weird, is what it is. I've never heard Tier say so much as a single word inside our head. I mean, I knew he could talk. When he's got control of the body, he sometimes manages to force out some words, but it's like getting blood out of a stone. He's more eloquent than I thought he was.”
I have a great many surprises in store for you, doubtless, Tier wrote. I am unsure as to why my words in the shared internal space never appear, nor why I struggle to speak in my version of the body. But I assure you, I am not unintelligent. Just because I am bestial does not mean I am a beast.
“Huh,” Al said. “I guess Chandra really was teaching Tier to write in that dream.”
“Chandra? Who's that?”
“It's a boy who only appears in these dreams we keep having. He's got Indian heritage, I think. India Indian, not Amerindian, though he does have an American accent. I'm starting to think he's a new member of the collective. Well, new to us anyway. To hear him tell it, he's been around the whole time, quietly watching without being detected by any of the rest of us.”
“Wow, a new person to meet. Being friends with you is like a six-in-one deal! Which isn't why I wanted to be friends, but it's a plus.”
{...hello?} Al heard in his head.
Who's that?
{...me...me... Hello? Are you...ing...e?}
Whoever you are, you're cutting out, like a radio with bad reception.
{...ier... BLAST! ...ing th... Scheiße! …} Al then heard banging noises, like someone hitting a radio. {Can you hear me now?}
Er, yes. Who are you?
{I am Tier, of course. It would appear I have somehow managed to fix the communication problem.}
Tier? Wow. Three years of silence from you in here, and then Chandra teaches you to write in a dream, and suddenly you're talking in here?
{Silly person. He did not teach me to write. I already knew how. It was symbolic; it represented him transferring something else into my person, a general ability to communicate where it was not there before. It will not be easy. I do not think I will be able to speak aloud yet, but at least now I can be heard at long last!} Al could hear Tier laughing with relief, internally.
Was that you banging on something?
{That banging sound? That was not me.}
Ugh. Let me guess, Chandra?
{I believe so.}
“Huh,” Al said. “Well, it would appear something Chandra did during that last dream is affecting repairs to Tier's communication ability. He's finally able to speak in our head, to us.”
“So does that mean you're right? Chandra is a member of your collective?”
“Apparently so.”
“But he hasn't come out yet?”
“Nope, not yet. Dunno if he will or not.”
“Neat. I just hope he doesn't pop up now, I don't want our time together curtailed.”
“Me neither.”
Javier grinned bashfully and put his hand on Al's. Al felt his heart racing at this simple gesture. He put his other hand on Javier's. The two boys looked each other in the eye. Javier held Al's gaze for a surprisingly long time before looking away, his face turning red.
Al saw an image in his mind's eye, sent to him by Tier, of a calm ocean suddenly erupting into a large wave and crashing against a rock. Not knowing quite what to make of this image, he ignored it.
Sirius watched Al and his new friend surreptitiously from across the room as he made idle chit-chat with Martina. It was interesting to him how someone like Al could take to someone else so quickly and so powerfully, but he was glad for his... godson? He supposed that was the right term for Al.
“They look like they're having a good time,” Martina said to him.
“That they do.” He sighed. “Something as simple as holding hands, and they're that happy.”
Something in his voice clued her in on his mood. “You're a handsome man, Sirius, you will find someone to be with.”
“Yeah. But it's not going to be easy, having spent 12 years in prison for a crime I didn't commit. Everyone knows I'm innocent now, but still...”
“Just don't give up hope.”
“I won't. If anything, those two give me hope.”
“Amen to that. I am so glad Javier is making a friend that I don't even mind that he's already dating at 13. I'm just happy that he's happy.”
Sirius nodded absentmindedly.
*
They all went back to the flat after dinner, and instead of Javier going home right away, he and Al spent time talking in the drawing room for several hours. Then they went to the Dueling Room and tried dueling. Javier, intelligent as he was, was horrible at dueling. Truly terrible. He couldn't do a shield charm at all, and half the time he froze, not able to think of a jinx to cast. When he did think of one to cast, he didn't duck or dodge and got hit before he could finish casting his own jinx. But he kept wanting to try, kept getting back up. The one time he managed to hit Al with a jinx, it was a complete accident; he'd tripped on a loose nail and fell out of the way of Al's jinx mid-cast, finished casting on the way down, and even then, the spell barely touched Al's left arm.
“Well,” Al said, “that wasn't the worst I've ever seen. The worst I've ever seen was Lockhart, who tried casting a shield charm and dropped his wand. But you win second worst place, Javier.”
“Sorry. I just... I can't think under pressure.”
“You're just not used to this kind of magic. We'll have to get you used to it. Listen, I'm gonna ask Dumbledore if we can restart the Dueling Club with a competent teacher. If he says yes, you should join up. You could sure use the practice.”
“Okay, I think I will, if only to spend more time with you this year.”
“Heh, yeah. Between us being in different years, and me being several people in one body, that's gonna put a real crimp in our relationship. But we'll manage.”
“Javier?” his mother said from the doorway. “It's getting late, sweetheart. We need to go home.”
“Okay, mum.” He turned to Al and sighed. “Well, I guess I'll see you on Monday, on the school train.”
“I'll see if we can meet up before the train, maybe go to the station together, so we can be sure to get a compartment together. Then I can introduce you to Ron and Hermione.”
“Cool! I usually end up shoved into the corner ignored by everyone else. Maybe this time will be different.”
“It will be different, because I'm not going to ignore you. And no matter who I wake up as tomorrow or Monday, if I have to strong-arm Zoey into switching me back to the front for the train, I will.”
Javier smiled. “Cool! Thank you.”
“Javier,” his mother said in a reminding tone.
The two boys hugged briefly, then Al guided Javier back to the Floo.
“Sirius? Mrs. Mendoza?” Al said. “Can we meet up together here on Monday and go to the train together?”
“Fine by me,” Sirius said. “Martina?”
“I'll ask my husband, and send you an owl with his response.”
The boys smiled. This out of the way, they said their final goodbyes, and Al watched them leave through the green flames of the Floo. He stood there staring for a few moments, then went back to his room to try to distract himself with more school preparations.
*
As mixed luck would have it, Mr. Mendoza did not agree to meeting up at Sirius's flat, but Al was still Out, and they met before the train left. Javier stuck his head out a window of the train to wave at Al. Al waved back, and took his stuff down the train corridor to the compartment Javier had found for them.
They sat together waiting for the train to board, Al keeping most people out of the compartment.
“Hermione, over here!”
“Al?”
“Yep, it's me.”
“Oh good, you found us a compart--- oh hello, who's this?”
“Hermione Granger, meet my new friend and possible boyfriend, Javier Mendoza.”
Javier held out his hand. Hermione took it and smiled. “Nice to meet you, Javier. I'm sure I'll want to hear all about you two, but first I have to put my stuff away.” Then she put her trunk away and sat down on Javier's other side.
As the train began to move, and heavy rain began to hit the window panes, they heard a small ruckus at the door. Ron was struggling to get his trunk and owl cage and his owl Arnan into the compartment. The cage was covered with an ugly maroon piece of cloth, with moldy lace on it.
“Hey Ron,” Al said. “What's that?”
“Oh, Arnan was getting upset, so I covered his cage with my... with the dress robes mum got me. Hideous things, I hate them.”
“Well maybe Zoey can do something about them later.”
“Really? That'd be a huge help.”
Ron finally looked up and spotted Javier.
“Who're you?”
“Ron, this is my new friend and possible boyfriend, Javier.”
“Boyfriend? You, er... you're...?”
“Bisexual. I think. Not entirely sure yet.”
“Ah, okay. Wait... when you say 'your' boyfriend...?”
“Mine. Al's. Nobody else's.”
“Right. Gotcha. Hi, Javier.”
Javier waved shyly. “Hi Ron.”
Hermione beamed. “So tell me about yourself, Javier. What House are you in? How did you two meet? And did you say boyfriend, Al?”
“Yes. Well, we're still getting to know one another, but we're both smitten with each other, so yeah, by the end of the week I'll probably be calling him my boyfriend for sure.”
Hermione nodded, waiting for him to continue.
“We met less than a week ago, but he'd had his eye on me for a long time before we met. When I first saw him, I was gaga over him.”
Hermione giggled. “Love at first sight?”
Al blushed. “Maybe. Certainly fancying at first sight, at least. Anyway, we met in Diagon Alley. At Flourish and Blott's, specifically.”
Ron snorted. “Figures you'd meet someone in a book shop, Al. Anyway, what House're you in, Javier?”
Javier blushed, looking down at his feet.
“He's Slytherin. And he's half-blood, not a blood bigot. If you don't like it, Ron, tough luck.”
“Oy, I never said anything!”
“Yeah, but you hate Slytherins on principle. But a whole House full of kids can't all be bad, or even most of them.”
“Alright, alright, keep your hair on. Anyway, if you trust him, I do too. I know you're an excellent judge of character.” Ron held a hand out to Javier. “Ron Weasley.”
Javier took Ron's hand with a smile. “Javier Mendoza.”
When Ron took his hand back and settled down, he turned to Al. “Hey Al, you won't believe what happened this morning! Dad had to go out to work early because Mad-Eye Moody got into some legal trouble. Something about dustbins rocketing around spewing garbage. Mad-Eye says an intruder set them off. Dad's gonna try getting him off on a lesser charge. Had to, apparently; Mad-Eye is starting some new job soon.”
“Weird. I hear he's kinda paranoid,” Al said.
Ron snorted. “That's putting it lightly. Anyway, Al, you should've heard my family talking a little bit ago. There's gonna be something going on at Hogwart's this year. No idea what it is, though.”
“Oh, do you mean the Triwizard Tournament?” Javier asked.
Ron blinked at him. “Er... do I? I dunno. What is it?”
“Oooh,” said Hermione. “The Triwizard Tournament? I read about that in 'Hogwarts: A History.' It's when the three major magic schools of Europe – Hogwarts, Beauxbaton, and Durmstrang – used to come together every few years to compete against each other. They stopped doing it a long time ago, because of all the deaths.”
“Yeah, that's the one,” Javier said. “My mum found out they're doing it again for the first time in ages this year. They've changed some of the rules, though, to make it safer. Dunno how, exactly. Guess we'll find out later.”
“Shhh,” Hermione warned gesturing toward the compartment next to theirs. Everyone present began to listen, and heard a familiar voice drawling in through the still-open door.
“… Father actually considered sending me to Durmstrang rather than Hogwarts, you know. He knows the headmaster, you see. Well, you know his opinion of Dumbledore — the man’s such a Mudblood-lover — and Durmstrang doesn’t admit that sort of riffraff. But Mother didn’t like the idea of me going to school so far away. Father says Durmstrang takes a far more sensible line than Hogwarts about the Dark Arts. Durmstrang students actually learn them, not just the defense rubbish we do. …”
Hermione got up, tiptoed to the compartment door, and slid it shut, blocking out Malfoy’s voice.
“So he thinks Durmstrang would have suited him, does he?” she said angrily. “I wish he had gone, then we wouldn’t have to put up with him.”
“So where is this Durmstrang?” Al asked, absentmindedly popping his wand in and out of its wrist holster.
“Nobody knows, do they?” said Hermione, raising her eyebrows.
“Er — why not?” asked Al.
“There’s traditionally been a lot of rivalry between all the magic schools. Durmstrang and Beauxbatons like to conceal their whereabouts so nobody can steal their secrets,” said Hermione matter-of-factly.
“Come off it,” said Ron, starting to laugh. “Durmstrang’s got to be about the same size as Hogwarts — how are you going to hide a great big castle?”
“But Hogwarts is hidden,” said Hermione, in surprise. “Everyone knows that … well, everyone who’s read Hogwarts, A History, anyway.”
“Just you, then,” said Ron. “So go on — how d’you hide a place like Hogwarts?”
“It’s bewitched,” said Hermione. “If a Muggle looks at it, all they see is a moldering old ruin with a sign over the entrance saying DANGER, DO NOT ENTER, UNSAFE.”
“So Durmstrang’ll just look like a ruin to an outsider too?”
“Maybe,” said Hermione, shrugging, “or it might have Muggle-repelling charms on it, like the World Cup stadium. And to keep foreign wizards from finding it, they’ll have made it Unplottable —”
“Come again?”
“Well, you can enchant a building so it’s impossible to plot on a map, can’t you?”
Al snorted. “Are you forgetting the Marauder's Map? Kinda disproves your theory.”
“Not at all. The Map doesn't show where Hogwarts is, just what the inside looks like. I don't think it even shows how far it is from Hogsmeade.”
“Oh. Damn, you're right. Hadn't thought of that.”
“But I think Durmstrang must be somewhere in the far north,” said Hermione thoughtfully. “Somewhere very cold, because they’ve got fur capes as part of their uniforms.”
“Ah, think of the possibilities,” said Ron dreamily. “It would’ve been so easy to push Malfoy off a glacier and make it look like an accident. … Shame his mother likes him.”
“Yeah, I don't like him either,” Javier said. “By the way, don't share my blood status too widely, I don't want Malfoy finding out if I can help it.”
“My lips are sealed,” Ron said.
As the rain got heavier, Luna came around to their compartment.
“Hi Luna.”
“Hello, Al.” She turned her protruberant eyes toward Javier. “Hello, stranger.”
“Luna Lovegood, meet Javier Mendoza.”
“He's Al's boyfriend,” Ron said teasingly, making smoochy noises after. Al glared at him but started cracking up with laughter.
Several of their friends looked in on them as the afternoon progressed, including Seamus Finnigan, Dean Thomas, and Neville Longbottom, a round-faced, extremely forgetful boy who had been brought up by his formidable witch of a grandmother. Seamus was still wearing his Ireland rosette. Some of its magic seemed to be wearing off now; it was still squeaking “Troy — Mullet — Moran!” but in a very feeble and exhausted sort of way. After half an hour or so, Hermione, growing tired of the endless Quidditch talk, got into a discussion with Javier that led to him going on about Artificing.
Neville listened jealously to the others’ conversation as they relived the Cup match.
“Gran didn’t want to go,” he said miserably. “Wouldn’t buy tickets. It sounded amazing though.”
“It was,” said Ron. “Look at this, Neville. …”
He rummaged in his trunk up in the luggage rack and pulled out the miniature figure of Viktor Krum.
“Oh wow,” said Neville enviously as Ron tipped Krum onto his pudgy hand.
“We saw him right up close, as well,” said Ron. “We were in the Top Box —”
“For the first and last time in your life, Weasley.”
Draco Malfoy had appeared in the doorway. Behind him stood Crabbe and Goyle, his enormous, thuggish cronies, both of whom appeared to have grown at least a foot during the summer. Evidently they had overheard the conversation through the compartment door, which Dean and Seamus had left ajar.
Al glared at Draco. He was not in the mood for this.
“Weasley … what is that?” said Malfoy, pointing at Arnan’s cage. A sleeve of Ron’s dress robes was dangling from it, swaying with the motion of the train, the moldy lace cuff very obvious.
Ron made to stuff the robes out of sight, but Malfoy was too quick for him; he seized the sleeve and pulled.
“Look at this!” said Malfoy in ecstasy, holding up Ron’s robes and showing Crabbe and Goyle, “Weasley, you weren’t thinking of wearing these, were you? I mean — they were very fashionable in about eighteen ninety.”
“Eat dung, Malfoy!” said Ron, the same color as the dress robes as he snatched them back out of Malfoy’s grip. Malfoy howled with derisive laughter; Crabbe and Goyle guffawed stupidly.
“Those are just the base material, Malfoy. Zoey is going to transform them for him. Now why don't you leave before I have her turn your face into your arse? Or, hmm... no, I guess it's too late for that.”
Malfoy glared at Al. Then, looking around the compartment, his eyes landed on Javier.
“You! You're a Slytherin! What are you doing here with all these bloody Griffindors?”
Javier froze, unable to speak.
Malfoy sneered. “Oh yes, I remember you. You're that quiet weirdo, never looks anyone in the eyes.”
“Javier is my boyfriend, Draco, and if you don't leave now, I am going to hex your mouth and eyelids shut. Permanently.”
As he said that, he stood up, moved his hand up towards Malfoy's face, and popped his wand out of its holster so it stopped an inch from Malfoy's face, making the blond boy jerk back in shock.
“Or maybe I'll hit you with a Hair-Loss Hex?” Al said.
“F-fine, P-Potter, okay, we'll leave, we'll leave. Come on, you two,” he said, tugging on Crabbe's and Goyle's robes.
When the three of them were gone, Al sat back down.
“Cool holster, Al!” Dean said.
“Thanks. My godfather got it for me.”
“Sirius Black, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Cool!”
Dean, Seamus, and Neville left not long after. Luna got out an issue of The Quibbler and read it. Hermione had gotten out a book to read. Ron was still upset about Malfoy's slight on his dress robes and was sulking. Al leaned up against Javier and closed his eyes.
“Boyfriend now already? Or were you just saying that to get at Malfoy?”
“A little of both. I know you well enough now to call you my boyfriend.”
“You know the whole school will know now, right?”
“I don't mind at all.”
“The famous Potter, scion of Griffindor, dating a Slytherin snake?”
“Well, I am a Parselmouth. It won't be too big a surprise at this point. And anyway, anyone who doesn't like it can kiss my arse.”
After a few moments of silence, Javier whispered into his ear, “The only one kissing your arse will be me.”
He tried to restrain his laughter, and failed. He let out a huge snort, then barked with laughter, then rolled up into a hearty belly-laugh. And then, because he didn't want to explain what Javier had said, he went back to controlling his laughter.
Hours later, Al woke up still leaning against Javier. As it turned out, Hermione had woken them up so everyone could change into their school robes; the train was nearing Hogsmeade. Groggily, he pulled his robes on over his other clothes and began heading off of the train, knowing the house elves would bring their stuff up to the room for them. He did notice Hermione grab her cat Crookshanks, though.
“Heya, Hagrid,” Al yelled at the man's silhouette so he'd be heard over the downpour of rain.
“All righ’, Al?” Hagrid bellowed back, waving. “See yeh at the feast if we don’ drown!”
First years traditionally reached Hogwarts Castle by sailing across the lake with Hagrid.
“Yeah, I'm glad I'm not doing that this year.”
They all piled into carriages fast as they could to get out of the rain. Javier and Al ended up squished up against Hermione and Ron.
“Didn't you say you have a cat?” Al asked Javier.
“Yes. Legolas. But he doesn't like traveling, so he's home.”
“Sounds like Bilbo would have been a better name,” Al said, laughing.
Javier laughed, too. So did Hermione. Ron and Neville just looked clueless.
“Legolas and Bilbo are characters in a novel called Lord of the Rings,” Al explained. “I have a copy, I'll have to loan it to you.”
“You have room in your trunk for novels?” Hermione said, amazed.
“Er, yeah. I have a new trunk. The old one was getting stuffed. The new one holds every book I own, all my school stuff, and all our assorted clothes with room to spare. It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, and has four compartments.”
“Wow, Al, that must be really expensive.”
“Er, yeah. But better than having to leave most of my stuff behind. Mind you, I kept the old one in case anyone needs one.”
“You think I could use it, then, Al?” Ron said, clearly saying this against his pride. “Later, I mean. Mine is very old and not in great shape. Mum keeps repairing it with her wand, but the material itself is falling apart, so there's only so much she can do with it.”
“Sure, I can give it to you over the Christmas holidays.”
“Okay, sounds good.”
The carriage rolled to a halt, and they all got out and headed for the entrance, rushing inside. Even so, Al was wary of Malfoy getting revenge for earlier, so he got his main wand out and went in cautiously. This caution helped him, because he got to avoid a water-bomb Peeves threw at him and others. With his wand, he caught one of the water bombs in midair and sent it back to Peeves, who twirled out of the way, clutching his feet and laughing. He shot a spell he'd read about at Peeves, one designed to fight poltergeists, and Peeves flew away through a wall.
He and Javier hugged in the entrance hall before going into the Great Hall, since they were going to different tables. Even when he sat down, Al kept looking over his shoulder at his boyfriend.
The Great Hall looked its usual splendid self, decorated for the start-of-term feast. Golden plates and goblets gleamed by the light of hundreds and hundreds of candles, floating over the tables in midair. The four long House tables were packed with chattering students; at the top of the Hall, the staff sat along one side of a fifth table, facing their pupils. It was much warmer in here.
The three of them had sat down next to Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost. Pearly white and semitransparent, Nick was dressed tonight in his usual doublet, but with a particularly large ruff, which served the dual purpose of looking extra-festive, and insuring that his head didn’t wobble too much on his partially severed neck.
“Good evening,” he said, beaming at them.
“Says who?” said Ron, taking off his sneakers and emptying them of water. “Hope they hurry up with the Sorting. I’m starving.”
Just then, a highly excited, breathless voice called down the table.
“Hiya, Al!”
It was Colin Creevey, a third year to whom they were something of a hero.
“Hi, Colin,” said Al warily.
“Al, guess what? Guess what, Al? My brother’s starting! My brother Dennis!”
“Er — good,” said Al.
“He’s really excited!” said Colin, practically bouncing up and down in his seat. “I just hope he’s in Gryffindor! Keep your fingers crossed, eh, Al?”
“Er — yeah, all right,” said Al. He turned back to Hermione, Ron, and Nearly Headless Nick. “Brothers and sisters usually go in the same Houses, don’t they?” he said. He was judging by the Weasleys, all seven of whom had been put into Gryffindor.
“Oh no, not necessarily,” said Hermione. “Parvati Patil’s twin’s in Ravenclaw, and they’re identical. You’d think they’d be together, wouldn’t you?”
Al looked up at the high table, and smiled to see Lupin again, looking disheveled as always. There were empty spaces for Hagrid and the DADA teacher. McGonagall's seat was also empty.
“Where's the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?” asked Hermione, looking anxious. “Do you think they couldn't get one this year?”
“I reckon it's Mad-Eye Moody,” Al said nonchalantly.
Hermione, Ron, and the Weasley twins all stared at him.
“What makes you think that?” George asked.
“Between Ron saying Mad-Eye had a new job, and my vision at the end of last year, well... it makes sense.”
“Wow, I hope you're right. Moody sounds cool.”
Still groggy from his nap on the train, Al propped his head up on one elbow and stared in the direction of the Slytherin table. His mind vaguely noticed Malfoy spreading the news about him and Javier. He barely even noticed Javier, truthfully; he just wanted to eat and go to bed.
Bed. Private room. Invisibility cloak, he thought. He felt a delicious smile creep across his face at the thought. Not tonight, obviously, but... eventually.
Do I want to know?
Don't get your knickers in a twist, Addy, I'd only be snogging him. Nothing sexual.
Well, alright then, Adira answered back.
Al gave a start; someone had poked him in the side.
“What is it, Hermione?”
“You missed the Hat's song. Wake up or you'll miss the Sorting.”
“Meh,” he said. “Smart, Brave, Evil, or Miscellaneous. It's a stupid system.”
“Have it your way, then.”
“He's only saying that because he's tired,” Al felt Adira say with his mouth.
“Who was that?” Ron asked.
“Addy,” he said, his head sinking lower. “Gods, at this rate I'm gonna have to just hoover it all up and nap til everyone else finishes.”
“What does 'hoover it up' mean?” Ron asked.
Al put his head down into his folded arms and groaned.
“I'll explain it later,” Hermione told Ron.
Al must've nodded off during the Sorting, because soon Hermione was poking him awake again. His head shot up and he said, “I'm awake!”
Once the Sorting was over, the food appeared. It was all Al could do to keep himself awake enough to get food onto his plate and then into his mouth. He didn't pay any attention to the conversation, though he did jump and stare at Hermione after she spilled her drink. He'd get the recap on that later.
He continued to drift through Dumbledore's speech. The man was just about to explain why there was no Quidditch this year when there was a deafening roar of thunder and the door of the Great Hall banged open. This got his immediate attention; he was awake and alert and his wand was in his hand, pointing at the intruder.
A man stood in the doorway, leaning upon a long staff, shrouded in a black traveling cloak. Every head in the Great Hall swiveled toward the stranger, suddenly brightly illuminated by a fork of lightning that flashed across the ceiling. He lowered his hood, shook out a long mane of grizzled, dark gray hair, then began to walk up toward the teachers’ table.
A dull clunk echoed through the Hall on his every other step. He reached the end of the top table, turned right, and limped heavily toward Dumbledore. Another flash of lightning crossed the ceiling. Hermione gasped.
The lightning had thrown the man’s face into sharp relief, and it was a face unlike any Al had ever seen. It looked as though it had been carved out of weathered wood by someone who had only the vaguest idea of what human faces are supposed to look like, and was none too skilled with a chisel. Every inch of skin seemed to be scarred. The mouth looked like a diagonal gash, and a large chunk of the nose was missing. But it was the man’s eyes that made him frightening.
One of them was small, dark, and beady. The other was large, round as a coin, and a vivid, electric blue. The blue eye was moving ceaselessly, without blinking, and was rolling up, down, and from side to side, quite independently of the normal eye — and then it rolled right over, pointing into the back of the man’s head, so that all they could see was whiteness.
The stranger reached Dumbledore. He stretched out a hand that was as badly scarred as his face, and Dumbledore shook it, muttering words Al couldn’t hear. He seemed to be making some inquiry of the stranger, who shook his head unsmilingly and replied in an undertone. Dumbledore nodded and gestured the man to the empty seat on his right-hand side.
The stranger sat down, shook his mane of dark gray hair out of his face, pulled a plate of sausages toward him, raised it to what was left of his nose, and sniffed it. He then took a small knife out of his pocket, speared a sausage on the end of it, and began to eat. His normal eye was fixed upon the sausages, but the blue eye was still darting restlessly around in its socket, taking in the Hall and the students.
“May I introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?” said Dumbledore brightly into the silence. “Professor Moody.”
It was usual for new staff members to be greeted with applause, but none of the staff or students clapped except Dumbledore and Hagrid, who both put their hands together and applauded, but the sound echoed dismally into the silence, and they stopped fairly quickly. Everyone else seemed too transfixed by Moody’s bizarre appearance to do more than stare at him.
“Ha! Al, you were right!”
Al had put his wand back, but stared at Moody. It was difficult from this distance, to get a heart-read on the man. He'd have to try again later.
“What happened to him?” Hermione whispered. “What happened to his face?”
“Dunno,” Ron whispered back, watching Moody with fascination.
Moody seemed totally indifferent to his less-than-warm welcome. Ignoring the jug of pumpkin juice in front of him, he reached again into his traveling cloak, pulled out a hip flask, and took a long draught from it. As he lifted his arm to drink, his cloak was pulled a few inches from the ground, and Al saw, below the table, several inches of carved wooden leg, ending in a clawed foot.
Dumbledore cleared his throat, and began to tell about the Triwizard Tournament. Of those near Al, only the Weasley twins were surprised by this announcement, thanks to Javier earlier.
“You gonna try out for the Tournament?” Ron asked.
“I'd rather have burning slivers of metal shoved under my fingernails while Malfoy sharpens a knife on my leg bones. There's enough danger in my life without adding more on purpose.”
“But they're making it safer! And there's glory and gold!”
“I have more than enough gold. I don't give a tinker's cuss about the glory. I'll tell you what, if you want to put your name in, I'll help you. But I would rather join Voldemort's side as a Death Eater than be in that bloody tournament.”
At every House table, Al could see people either gazing raptly at Dumbledore, or else whispering fervently to their neighbors. But then Dumbledore spoke again, and the Hall quieted once more.
“Eager though I know all of you will be to bring the Triwizard Cup to Hogwarts,” he said, “the heads of the participating schools, along with the Ministry of Magic, have agreed to impose an age restriction on contenders this year. Only students who are of age — that is to say, seventeen years or older — will be allowed to put forward their names for consideration. This” — Dumbledore raised his voice slightly, for several people had made noises of outrage at these words, and the Weasley twins were suddenly looking furious — “is a measure we feel is necessary, given that the tournament tasks will still be difficult and dangerous, whatever precautions we take, and it is highly unlikely that students below sixth and seventh year will be able to cope with them. I will personally be ensuring that no underage student hoodwinks our impartial judge into making them Hogwarts champion.” His light blue eyes twinkled as they flickered over Fred’s and George’s mutinous faces. “I therefore beg you not to waste your time submitting yourself if you are under seventeen.
“The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving in October and remaining with us for the greater part of this year. I know that you will all extend every courtesy to our foreign guests while they are with us, and will give your whole-hearted support to the Hogwarts champion when he or she is selected. And now, it is late, and I know how important it is to you all to be alert and rested as you enter your lessons tomorrow morning. Bedtime! Chop chop!”
“Ugh, October. I loathe October,” he said to Hermione as they stood up to leave. “Our parents died on Halloween, a troll was loose in the dungeons on Halloween our first year here, the Chamber of Secrets nonsense started on Halloween, and last year on Halloween, Sirius attacked the Fat Lady. So amend that: I hate Halloween. Maybe they'll get here early in October, and Halloween will be good this year. And maybe we'll all split off into our very own bodies and be somewhat normal for the rest of our days.” He sounded far less than optimistic about these things.
“Anyway, Ron, Dumbledore's right. I'm only 14. Sure, I'm a bit ahead of the curve, but I couldn't compete against 16 or 17 year olds.”
“Oh sure you could, you've done difficult and dangerous things before.”
“Not by choice. And like I said, I would rather become a Death Eater than be in that damned tournament. That isn't hyperbole, either. If fate finds some way to force me into that stupid thing, I'm gonna march right out the damn door, find Moldywart, and swear my allegiance to him.”
“You won't be able to get in without entering, Al.”
“With our luck, I wouldn't bet on that. You mark my words, I'm gonna end up getting roped into that shit-show against my will somehow. Maybe I should leave school now and get a private tutor instead.”
Ron laughed, clearly not convinced that Al was doomed to be forced into the Tournament.
“Who’s this impartial judge who’s going to decide who the champions are?” said George.
“Dunno,” said Fred, “but it’s them we’ll have to fool. I reckon a couple of drops of Aging Potion might do it, George. …”
“Dumbledore knows you’re not of age, though,” said Ron.
“Yeah, but he’s not the one who decides who the champion is, is he?” said Fred shrewdly. “Sounds to me like once this judge knows who wants to enter, he’ll choose the best from each school and never mind how old they are. Dumbledore’s trying to stop us giving our names.”
“People have died, though!” said Hermione in a worried voice as they walked through a door concealed behind a tapestry and started up another, narrower staircase.
“Yeah,” said Fred airily, “but that was years ago, wasn’t it? Anyway, where’s the fun without a bit of risk? Hey, Ron, what if we find out how to get ’round Dumbledore? Fancy entering?”
“Sure. Be cool to enter, wouldn’t it? But I s’pose they might want someone older. … Dunno if we’ve learned enough. …”
“I definitely haven’t,” came Neville’s gloomy voice from behind Fred and George.
“I expect my gran’d want me to try, though. She’s always going on about how I should be upholding the family honor. I’ll just have to — oops. …”
Neville’s foot had sunk right through a step halfway up the staircase. There were many of these trick stairs at Hogwarts; it was second nature to most of the older students to jump this particular step, but Neville’s memory was notoriously poor. Al and Ron seized him under the armpits and pulled him out, while a suit of armor at the top of the stairs creaked and clanked, laughing wheezily.
“If you ask me, Neville,” Al said, “your gran ought to be proud of the grandson she has, not the one she wants.”
“Oh. Er... thanks.”
“That reminds me, didn't you say you use your dad's wand?”
“Y-yeah. Why?”
“Because the wand chooses the wizard, Ollivander said. That thing is probably holding you back. You should get a new wand at Ollivander's. You can come with me and Sirius sometime, if your gran won't come with you. I must've tried every wand in the shop before I found the one for me, so I really doubt that wand is suited to you. Why are you using it anyway? It looks brand new. Shouldn't your dad be using it, still?”
“He can't anymore,” Neville said quietly.
“Oh. Sorry about that, I didn't know. But I mean it, you need your own wand.”
Neville shrugged. “Yeah, maybe. I guess it's worth a try.”
They made their way up to the entrance to Gryffindor Tower, which was concealed behind a large portrait of a fat lady in a pink silk dress.
“Password?” she said as they approached.
“Balderdash,” said George, “a prefect downstairs told me.”
The portrait swung forward to reveal a hole in the wall through which they all climbed. A crackling fire warmed the circular common room, which was full of squashy armchairs and tables. Hermione cast the merrily dancing flames a dark look, and Al distinctly heard her mutter “Slave labor,” before bidding them good night and disappearing through the doorway to the girls’ dormitory. He was really gonna have to ask what that was all about, later.
Before long, he was in his bedroom. He tore his clothes off, opened his trunk, pulled on his pajamas, and fell into bed. He was asleep before he was all the way down.
Note: “Javier” is pronounced Hahv-ee-air, “Joaquin” is pronounced Wah-keen. (Joaquin is also Spanish for Phoenix.) Pronunciation of “Mendoza” is pretty easy to figure out. Anyway yeah, my tendency to make Good Slytherin OC's has bled over from the Aspie Potter/Trouble With Neurotypicals fic over to this one. I always hated how Rowling treated the Slytherins in the books.
Note two: Dunno if there's a street called Square Way in London or not, but then again, I doubt there's a Grimmauld Place there or a Little Whinging in Surrey, either.
Note three: Yes, I made up Sirius's wand. The wikia says his wand details are unknown. I went with the existing theme. :-)
“The Many Faces of Adira Potter: Chapter 24”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Twenty-four: School Daze
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Adira, and Zoey, and now #Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and now between hashtags/pound signs because some people's computers don't do the B.I.U.).# and {Tier} if I ever get around to it.
Note four: This chapter contains descriptions of two boys snogging (“making out”). Nothing terribly graphic, just sweet and romantic. Just thought I'd give you a heads up.
Note five: I want to point out that Javier has Asperger's syndrome. I think that's important to know. I don't know if he knows yet or not, probably not. But I hope to bring a diagnosis into the story at some point. I've done this because our own collective has Asperger's as well, but I didn't really want to go out of my way to give the Potters that in this one, too, especially since my other HP series – Harry Potter and the Trouble With Neurotypicals – centers around an aspie Harry. Of course, I probably accidentally give all my characters autism, because I'm autistic, just as characters by allistics tend to be allistic by default. I can never be sure how well I'm doing at trying to write an allistic character, especially when autistic people come in many varieties, too. (Not all aspies are super-smart nerds, and not all aspies are introverts, as a couple examples. I live with a very extroverted aspie. I haven't met any stupid aspies yet, to my recollection, but I know they exist.)
I bring this all up because at least one commenter had some feelings about Javier that were likely caused by Javier being an aspie. In our culture, allistic (non-autistic) people tend to view things like 'not making eye contact' to mean the person is lying or untrustworthy, when the opposite is true for most aspies. Being an aspie doesn't automatically make you a good person, but we do tend to be honest to a fault, and bad at lying.
Also, aspies and auties tend to give allistic people an 'uncanny valley' type sensation. Being aware of this possibility helps. Oh, and something I want to point out before I get off my soapbox, something very few people take into consideration: allistic people give us aspies and auties the 'uncanny valley' sensation as well.
Or maybe it was just anti-Slytherin sentiment. I dunno. But I like covering all possibilities.
Note six: Last note, I promise. Anyway, I was planning on the Triwizard Tournament starting here, but it got a bit long, so I split this chapter into two.
*FAYANORA*
The dramatic weather was back to its normal calm the next morning as Al got out of bed, glad to see he was still himself. He went down to the Great Hall for breakfast and found Ron and Hermione looking over their new course schedules. As he sat down, McGonagall handed him his schedule.
“Today’s not bad … outside all morning,” said Ron, who was running his finger down the Monday column of his schedule. “Herbology with the Hufflepuffs and Care of Magical Creatures … damn it, we’re still with the Slytherins. Er... not that all Slytherins, I mean...”
Al waved his concern off airily. “Javier is in the year below us. I don't know what the Slytherins in our year are like, but they can't be too great if they don't tell Malfoy off.”
“Ah, okay.”
“Ugh. Double Divination this afternoon,” Al groaned, looking down. Despite having found out he was a seer – or maybe because of it – he still hated that class and found it largely useless, as the teacher had all the talent of a teaspoon, except for two real prophecies in her entire lifetime, one of which they were still trying to puzzle out.
“Useless, the way that woman teaches it,” Al said before Hermione could say anything about it. “I need to find an actual seer – one who knows what they're doing – to learn from.”
“You’re eating again, I notice,” said Ron, watching Hermione adding liberal amounts of jam to her toast too.
“I’ve decided there are better ways of making a stand about elf rights,” said Hermione haughtily.
“Yeah … and you were hungry,” said Ron, grinning.
“What's all this, now?”
“Oh yeah, you were snoozing last night. Well, at the feast last night, Sir Nicholas mentioned house elves in the castle, and Hermione here nearly had a fit, since they're slaves, apparently. She didn't eat all night, like she thought eating their food would reverse the fact they worked hard at it anyway. Which she's plainly given up on, now.”
“Ah, that explains it.” He thought for a moment on that. There was some thought there struggling to get out, but he couldn't work it out, so he gave up.
Their first class was Herbology with the Hufflepuffs. They arrived in greenhouse three, and soon Professor Sprout was showing the class the ugliest plants Al had ever seen. Indeed, they looked less like plants than thick, black, giant slugs, protruding vertically out of the soil. Each was squirming slightly and had a number of large, shiny swellings upon it, which appeared to be full of liquid.
As it turned out, this liquid was pus, that smelled highly of petrol. They were expected to collect this weird pus so it could be used to treat acne, even though it seemed to cause the skin to erupt in boils when undiluted.
The pus was disgusting, of course. But it gave him an idea. He surreptitiously conjured a vial and cork, and squirreled away a sample for later. Sure, she'd said it was valuable, but he had plenty of money, so that's not why he wanted it. He had an idea that it might be useful against Malfoy.
When Herbology was done, they went to Hagrid's for Care of Magical Creatures. Al was dreading this class. He loved Hagrid, he did, but the man had a penchant for the monstrous. It had been mostly okay last year, when Hagrid had been worried about the health of one of his hippogriffs that Malfoy had attacked, and thus had switched to animals that Hagrid thought were boring, but who knew what fresh horrors they'd have to face this year?
Hagrid was standing outside his hut, one hand on the collar of his enormous black boarhound, Fang. There were several open wooden crates on the ground at his feet, and Fang was whimpering and straining at his collar, apparently keen to investigate the contents more closely. As they drew nearer, an odd rattling noise reached their ears, punctuated by what sounded like minor explosions.
“Mornin’!” Hagrid said, grinning at Al, Ron, and Hermione. “Be’er wait fer the Slytherins, they won’ want ter miss this — Blast-Ended Skrewts!”
“Come again?” said Ron.
Hagrid pointed down into the crates.
“Eurgh!” squealed Lavender Brown, jumping backward.
Al looked at the skrewts. He could see what Lavender meant, they were hideous. Like deformed, shell-less lobsters, pale and slimy-looking. Their legs were weird, too, and they didn't appear to have heads. But then, earthworms didn't appear to have heads, either.
There were about a hundred of them in each crate, each about six inches long, crawling over one another, bumping blindly into the sides of the boxes. They were giving off a very powerful smell of rotting fish. Every now and then, sparks would fly out of the end of a skrewt, and with a small phut, it would be propelled forward several inches.
“On’y jus’ hatched,” said Hagrid proudly, “so yeh’ll be able ter raise ’em yerselves! Thought we’d make a bit of a project of it!”
“And why would we want to raise them?” said a cold voice.
The Slytherins had arrived. The speaker was Draco Malfoy. Crabbe and Goyle were chuckling appreciatively at his words.
Hagrid looked stumped at the question.
“I mean, what do they do?” asked Malfoy. “What is the point of them?”
Al had some possible answers for that question, but as that might tip Malfoy off, he said nothing.
Hagrid opened his mouth, apparently thinking hard; there was a few seconds’ pause, then he said roughly, “Tha’s next lesson, Malfoy. Yer jus’ feedin’ ’em today. Now, yeh’ll wan’ ter try ’em on a few diff’rent things — I’ve never had ’em before, not sure what they’ll go fer — I got ant eggs an’ frog livers an’ a bit o’ grass snake — just try ’em out with a bit of each.”
Al hesitated. He didn't know if he loved Hagrid enough to stick his hand in gross things to try feeding the skrewts. He wasn't even sure if they could eat, as they didn't appear to have any mouths. There was a suspicion deep inside him that the things just ate magic. Magic could add mass or volume to things that were transfigured, after all; maybe the skrewts added mass and/or volume to themselves magically. But he tried to feed them anyway, just in case they did have some unidentified means of eating.
It soon became apparent that their names were well earned; every now and then, their ends exploded, which could get you a nasty burn if you weren't careful. Luckily, they'd just come from herbology, and Al was able to put his dragon-hide gloves on, protecting him from burns.
“Eurgh!” said Lavender Brown again. “Eurgh, Hagrid, what’s that pointy thing on it?”
“Ah, some of ’em have got stings,” said Hagrid enthusiastically (Lavender quickly withdrew her hand from the box). “I reckon they’re the males. … The females’ve got sorta sucker things on their bellies. … I think they might be ter suck blood.”
Al thought about that. He didn't know what made Hagrid think that, but Al thought it might be backwards. What if the suckered ones were the males, using the sucker to stick to a female? The stinger could be to protect the young, which would naturally go to the mother. Or maybe they didn't have a clear gender binary, or were just all weird mutants.
“Well, I can certainly see why we’re trying to keep them alive,” said Malfoy sarcastically. “Who wouldn’t want pets that can burn, sting, and bite all at once?”
“Just because they’re not very pretty, it doesn’t mean they’re not useful,” Hermione snapped. “Dragon blood’s amazingly magical, but you wouldn’t want a dragon for a pet, would you?”
Of course, Al and Ron knew Hagrid did want a pet dragon; he'd had one once. But this shut Malfoy up.
“Well, at least the skrewts are small,” said Ron as they made their way back up to the castle for lunch an hour later.
“They are now,” said Hermione in an exasperated voice, “but once Hagrid’s found out what they eat, I expect they’ll be six feet long.”
“Well, that won’t matter if they turn out to cure seasickness or something, will it?” said Ron, grinning slyly at her.
“You know perfectly well I only said that to shut Malfoy up,” said Hermione. “As a matter of fact I think he’s right. The best thing to do would be to stamp on the lot of them before they start attacking us all.”
“Or better yet, smuggle some into Malfoy's bedroom and dump them on him,” said Al.
At lunch, Hermione hoovered her food up with remarkable speed, to give herself time to go to the library for some side project of her own. Al didn't ask; he wasn't sure he wanted to know, and he had a suspicion this had something to do with her sudden obsession with house elf rights.
When the bell rang to signal the start of afternoon lessons, Al and Ron set off for North Tower where, at the top of a tightly spiraling staircase, a silver stepladder led to a circular trapdoor in the ceiling, and the room where Professor Trelawney lived.
The familiar sweet perfume spreading from the fire met their nostrils as they emerged at the top of the stepladder. As ever, the curtains were all closed; the circular room was bathed in a dim reddish light cast by the many lamps, which were all draped with scarves and shawls. Al and Ron walked through the mass of occupied chintz chairs and poufs that cluttered the room, and sat down at the same small circular table.
I'm gonna smell like a French whorehouse after this class, with all this perfume, Al thought.
Don't be crass, Adira answered him.
“Good day,” said the misty voice of Professor Trelawney right behind Al, making him jump.
A very thin woman with enormous glasses that made her eyes appear far too large for her face, Professor Trelawney was peering down at Al with the tragic expression she always wore whenever she saw him. The usual large amount of beads, chains, and bangles glittered upon her person in the firelight.
“You are preoccupied, my dear,” she said mournfully to Al. “My inner eye sees past your brave face to the troubled soul within. And I regret to say that your worries are not baseless. I see difficult times ahead for you, alas … most difficult … I fear the thing you dread will indeed come to pass … and perhaps sooner than you think. …”
He was going to snort with laughter, but then he thought about his worries about getting caught up in the Triwizard Tournament somehow, and that stopped him. She was just guessing, of course, but just because she wasn't a seer didn't mean she couldn't also be clever. It wouldn't take much to fake a good guess like that; talk to some of the portraits about things they'd overheard, then take a bet that your dire predictions might turn out to be true in the end. So no, he decided to pay her no heed unless she started talking in that weird voice that signaled a real prophecy. He didn't need any more detentions with her, so he just glared at her.
Professor Trelawney swept past them and seated herself in a large winged armchair before the fire, facing the class. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, who deeply admired Professor Trelawney, were sitting on poufs very close to her.
“My dears, it is time for us to consider the stars,” she said. “The movements of the planets and the mysterious portents they reveal only to those who understand the steps of the celestial dance. Human destiny may be deciphered by the planetary rays, which intermingle …”
Al let his mind wander as he tuned her out. But as it turned out, his mind was feeling too lazy to wander, and just sat down and stared off into space along with him. Between the bubotubers and the skrewts, he was kind of tired, and the hot perfumed air wasn't helping. To give himself something to stare at, he was staring at the fire in the grate, watching the colors as it flickered. His brain unfocused, and images started to dance at the edge of his thoughts---
“Al!” Ron said, jerking Al out of his trance.
“What?”
Al looked around; the whole class was staring at him. He sat up straight; he had been almost dozing off, lost in the heat and his thoughts.
“I was saying, my dear, that you were clearly born under the baleful influence of Saturn,” said Professor Trelawney, a faint note of resentment in her voice at the fact that he had obviously not been hanging on her words.
“Born under — what, sorry?” said Al.
“Saturn, dear, the planet Saturn!” said Professor Trelawney, sounding definitely irritated that he wasn’t riveted by this news. “I was saying that Saturn was surely in a position of power in the heavens at the moment of your birth. … Your dark hair … your mean stature … tragic losses so young in life … I think I am right in saying, my dear, that you were born in midwinter?”
“No,” said Al, “I was born in July.”
Ron hastily turned his laugh into a hacking cough.
“Yes, perhaps your body was born in July, my dear,” she said, recovering quickly, “but who's to say when you were born? You and the others, I mean. You could all have different star signs, you know, depending on what time of year you came into existence.”
“You might have a point there,” he said, leaving out the thought of 'And if you part your hair just right...' before continuing. “But first of all, there's not really any way of knowing when each of us came into being. Secondly, your prediction sounded like it applied to the whole lot of us in general. So pardon me if I take it with a whole salt lick of salt.”
This didn't seem to affect her, for she still smirked at him, which was annoying. But that wasn't his only reason for being annoyed. As they got their assignments – a complicated star chart – he was angrily thinking about why he was annoyed. He'd nearly had another vision, he knew it. He'd somehow stumbled back into the mentality needed for a vision, again. It was something he'd been trying to re-create for months, and he'd found it again, only to be woken up. And now he was sure it wouldn't happen again, since part of him would be trying for it, and it seemed to be one of those things like an image in the peripheral vision that disappeared when you tried looking right at it.
What was even more annoying, was the thought of 'Maybe there's something to the mystic atmosphere in this room after all?'
The star chart was dull work, requiring much consultation of timetables and calculation of angles.
“I’ve got two Neptunes here,” said Al after a while, frowning down at his piece of parchment, “that can’t be right, can it?”
“Aaaaah,” said Ron, imitating Professor Trelawney’s mystical whisper, “when two Neptunes appear in the sky, it is a sure sign that a midget in glasses is being born, Al.”
Seamus and Dean, who were working nearby, sniggered loudly, though not loudly enough to mask the excited squeals from Lavender Brown — “Oh Professor, look! I think I’ve got an unaspected planet! Oooh, which one’s that, Professor?”
“It is Uranus, my dear,” said Professor Trelawney, peering down at the chart.
“Can I have a look at Uranus too, Lavender?” said Ron.
Most unfortunately, Professor Trelawney heard him, and it was this, perhaps, that made her give them so much homework at the end of the class.
“A detailed analysis of the way the planetary movements in the coming month will affect you, with reference to your personal chart,” she snapped, sounding much more like Professor McGonagall than her usual airy-fairy self. “I want it ready to hand in next Monday, and no excuses!”
Ron was complaining about Trelawney, and Al was ignoring him. The near-vision was still heavy on his mind. Hermione was talking, too, but he didn't hear her, either.
They reached the entrance hall, which was packed with people queuing for dinner. They had just joined the end of the line, when a loud voice rang out behind them.
“Weasley! Hey, Weasley!”
Al, Ron, and Hermione turned. Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle were standing there, each looking thoroughly pleased about something.
“What?” said Ron shortly.
“Your dad’s in the paper, Weasley!” said Malfoy, brandishing a copy of the Daily Prophet and speaking very loudly, so that everyone in the packed entrance hall could hear. “Listen to this!
FURTHER MISTAKES AT THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC
It seems as though the Ministry of Magic’s troubles are not yet at an end, writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent. Recently under fire for its poor crowd control at the Quidditch World Cup, and still unable to account for the disappearance of one of its witches, the Ministry was plunged into fresh embarrassment yesterday by the antics of Arnold Weasley, of the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office.”
Malfoy looked up.
“Imagine them not even getting his name right, Weasley. It’s almost as though he’s a complete nonentity, isn’t it?” he crowed.
Everyone in the entrance hall was listening now. Malfoy straightened the paper with a flourish and read on:
Arnold Weasley was yesterday involved in a tussle with several Muggle law-keepers (“policemen”) over a number of highly aggressive dustbins. Mr. Weasley appears to have rushed to the aid of “Mad-Eye” Moody, the aged ex-Auror who retired from the Ministry when no longer able to tell the difference between a handshake and attempted murder. Unsurprisingly, Mr. Weasley found, upon arrival at Mr. Moody’s heavily guarded house, that Mr. Moody had once again raised a false alarm. Mr. Weasley was forced to modify several memories before he could escape from the policemen, but refused to answer Daily Prophet questions about why he had involved the Ministry in such an undignified and potentially embarrassing scene.
“And there’s a picture, Weasley!” said Malfoy, flipping the paper over and holding it up. “A picture of your parents outside their house — if you can call it a house! Your mother could do with losing a bit of weight, couldn’t she?”
Ron was shaking with fury. Everyone was staring at him.
Al felt his wand hand itching to wield his wand.
“Malfoy, if you're going to be an insufferable little shit, I think I'll transfigure your hair into horse shit.”
“Oh yeah, Potter, you've stayed at his house before, haven't you? Tell me, is she really that porky, or is it just the picture?”
“You know your mother, Malfoy?” said Al — both he and Hermione had grabbed the back of Ron’s robes to stop him from launching himself at Malfoy — “that expression she’s got, like she’s got dung under her nose? Has she always looked like that, or was it just because you were with her?”
Malfoy’s pale face went slightly pink.
“Don’t you dare insult my mother, Potter.”
“Oh, so you're free to make fun of other people's mothers, but yours is off limits? I don't think so. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If you go low, I'm going to go low too, maybe even lower. So you ought to keep your big fat mouth shut, you little worm.” Al said, then turned around dismissively.
BANG!
Several people screamed — Al felt something white-hot graze the side of his face — he had his wand out so fast it was in his hand before he consciously recognized this fact. But already there was a second loud BANG, and a roar that echoed through the entrance hall.
“OH NO YOU DON’T, LADDIE!”
Al spun around. Professor Moody was limping down the marble staircase. His wand was out and it was pointing right at a pure white ferret, which was shivering on the stone-flagged floor, exactly where Malfoy had been standing.
There was a terrified silence in the entrance hall. Nobody but Moody was moving a muscle. Moody turned to look at Al — at least, his normal eye was looking at Al; the other one was pointing into the back of his head.
“Did he get you?” Moody growled. His voice was low and gravelly.
“No,” said Al, “missed.”
“LEAVE IT!” Moody shouted.
“Leave — what?” Al said, bewildered.
“Not you — him!” Moody growled, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at Crabbe, who had just frozen, about to pick up the white ferret. It seemed that Moody’s rolling eye was magical and could see out of the back of his head.
Moody started to limp toward Crabbe, Goyle, and the ferret, which gave a terrified squeak and took off, streaking toward the dungeons.
“I don’t think so!” roared Moody, pointing his wand at the ferret again — it flew ten feet into the air, fell with a smack to the floor, and then bounced upward once more.
“I don’t like people who attack when their opponent’s back’s turned,” growled Moody as the ferret bounced higher and higher, squealing in pain. “Stinking, cowardly, scummy thing to do. …”
The ferret flew through the air, its legs and tail flailing helplessly.
“Never — do — that — again —” said Moody, speaking each word as the ferret hit the stone floor and bounced upward again.
“Professor Moody!” said a shocked voice.
Professor McGonagall was coming down the marble staircase with her arms full of books.
“Hello, Professor McGonagall,” said Moody calmly, bouncing the ferret still higher.
“What — what are you doing?” said Professor McGonagall, her eyes following the bouncing ferret’s progress through the air.
“Teaching,” said Moody.
“Teach — Moody, is that a student?” shrieked Professor McGonagall, the books spilling out of her arms.
“Yep,” said Moody.
“No!” cried Professor McGonagall, running down the stairs and pulling out her wand; a moment later, with a loud snapping noise, Draco Malfoy had reappeared, lying in a heap on the floor with his sleek blond hair all over his now brilliantly pink face. He got to his feet, wincing.
“Moody, we never use Transfiguration as a punishment!” said Professor McGonagall weakly. “Surely Professor Dumbledore told you that?”
“He might’ve mentioned it, yeah,” said Moody, scratching his chin unconcernedly, “but I thought a good sharp shock —”
“We give detentions, Moody! Or speak to the offender’s Head of House!”
“I’ll do that, then,” said Moody, staring at Malfoy with great dislike.
Malfoy, whose pale eyes were still watering with pain and humiliation, looked malevolently up at Moody and muttered something in which the words “my father” were distinguishable.
“Oh yeah?” said Moody quietly, limping forward a few steps, the dull clunk of his wooden leg echoing around the hall. “Well, I know your father of old, boy. … You tell him Moody’s keeping a close eye on his son … you tell him that from me. … Now, your Head of House’ll be Snape, will it?”
“Yes,” said Malfoy resentfully.
“Another old friend,” growled Moody. “I’ve been looking forward to a chat with old Snape. … Come on, you. …”
And he seized Malfoy’s upper arm and marched him off toward the dungeons.
Professor McGonagall stared anxiously after them for a few moments, then waved her wand at her fallen books, causing them to soar up into the air and back into her arms.
“Don’t talk to me,” Ron said quietly to Al and Hermione as they sat down at the Gryffindor table a few minutes later, surrounded by excited talk on all sides about what had just happened.
“Why not?” said Hermione in surprise.
“Because I want to fix that in my memory forever,” said Ron, his eyes closed and an uplifted expression on his face. “Draco Malfoy, the amazing bouncing ferret.”
“Yeah, something new to threaten him with,” Al said. “And here was me thinking about using bubotuber pus on him.”
Al could hear Zoey laughing fit to burst in the back of their shared mind. It made him smirk.
“He could have really hurt Malfoy, though,” she said. “It was good, really, that Professor McGonagall stopped it —”
“Hermione!” said Ron furiously, his eyes snapping open again, “you’re ruining the best moment of my life!”
Hermione made an impatient noise and began to eat at top speed again. It seemed she was going to the library again.
Curious, Al shoveled down his own food and took off to follow her, leaving Ron behind. It took him some work to find her in the library, but soon enough he did, and he sneakily got to where he could read over her shoulder with some difficulty, without being spotted. What he saw made him decide to reveal himself. He stepped forward and gave a slight cough. She jumped, and spun around.
“Al! What are you-- are you spying on me?”
He shrugged. “I was curious. S.P.E.W., eh? You do know that sounds like 'Spew,' right?”
“I--”
“Perhaps you should change it to...” he pondered a moment, before continuing. “I dunno... H.E.L.F.? - House Elf Liberation Front. A group that sounds like vomit isn't going to be very popular, whereas H.E.L.F. is one letter away from 'help.'”
“Oh. Yes, that does sound better. Good thing I haven't finished the badges yet. I think I can fix them easily enough.”
There was that nagging thought that was struggling to find words for itself again. It was rather annoying. But he was missing some vital piece of the puzzle, some key that would unlock the struggling thought, so he ignored it again.
“So, house elf rights, eh?”
She nodded. “Yes. They cook our food, clean our laundry, do a load of other cleaning and stuff, and they aren't paid! They're slaves! It isn't right!”
“True. But, well... they are rather small creatures. And domesticated creatures tend to get bigger than their wild counterparts unless specifically bred for small size. Anyway, I've found from reading about history that enslaved peoples usually find a way to fight for their freedom. I suppose magic probably complicates that, but... well, I have to wonder if elves started working for humans to get protection from the dangers out in the wilderness.”
“Al! Are you defending their enslavement? After Dobby?”
“I don't know. But you've never even met Dobby. And I only know one house elf.” AHA! There was that thought, finally! “We should probably speak with the elves before presuming to speak on their behalf. Find out what they want. After all, they're not humans, and while they can think as well as humans, they might not think the same way we do, or value the same things. Not even all humans think the same way as most other humans. The centaurs are obsessed with star-gazing and don't much make sense to humans. I think I read somewhere that Goblins consider art or craft work to be owned by the artist, even when humans think they've bought it, kinda like copyright, but extending to more things.
“Then the, er... the basilisk doesn't think like humans, either,” he continued. “I just think it's a bit... misguided... to presume to speak for a species neither of us knows very well. We don't know how house elves think, or what they value. The ones in the fairy tales I remember liked working for people, as long as they were treated well.”
“Yes, Al, but the ones in the fairy tales were paid.”
“Right. With cream, was it? That's what you give elves and fairies in the folklore, anyway. Also they made clothes for the elves in the stories. But here, giving clothes to a house elf frees them. A sock was all it took to free Dobby. I think they can handle clothing as long as it isn't handed directly to them, or left as a gift. A lot of magic is about intentions. Anyway... didn't the elves in the stories get upset if they were insulted or mistreated, and leave?”
“I think so. But that's stories, not the real thing.”
“Yes, but a lot of Muggle stories of magic are pretty close to the truth. Anyway, maybe we should find some, and figure out what insults them, get to know them. As well intentioned as you are, speaking for someone you've never spoken with before is a good way to accidentally insult them. Also, it's always best to give the oppressed an opportunity to speak for themselves.”
“That all makes sense, Al. But how do we speak with them? They're very good at remaining unseen.”
“Well I'd start by finding out where the kitchens are. There's a lot of them working down there, right? Ron filled me in earlier.”
Hermione smiled. He guessed she was glad to have someone on her side of this business.
“So does this mean you'll join S-- er, H.E.L.F.?”
“Sure, why not? I like house elves. I want to get to know more about them.”
“Oooh, thank you Al! I'll get you a badge once I've fixed them.”
“About that, I've had another thought. Maybe S.P.C.H.E. would be a better name. You know, Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to House Elves?”
She considered that, the feather end of a quill being worried along her lips as she thought.
“Hmm... I'll consider both names before I make a decision. They're both very good names.”
“Cool,” he said. Then he sensed something and turned to look at the source of the sensation. “Ah. Well I'll leave you to that, Hermione. Javier has found me.”
“Mmm hmm,” she said absently as he sauntered over to his boyfriend.
'Howdy,' Al hissed in Parseltongue at Javier, who stared blankly back at him.
“You know I don't understand that language, Al,” Javier said. “I wish I could, but I can't.”
“I was just saying hi,” Al said. “Let's take a walk.”
The walk they went on took them to an unused classroom, where they sat down on the teacher's desk together and held hands, talking.
“So I have an idea. It involves you borrowing my invisibility cloak and either sneaking into my dorm later, where I have a private room, or sneaking back to your own dorm later. Or both.”
“Oh my,” Javier said, turning red. “Inviting me to your room already?”
“Yes. Just for snogging, of course. For now, that is. If you want to.”
“I very much want to. I just don't know if I should. What if we get caught?”
“That is a valid concern. Maybe you should just spend the night at my place. If you don't want to sleep in my bed, I could make you a sleeping bag. And if I snore, you could sleep in my trunk to escape the noise. I wouldn't lock it, and anyway there's a handle for getting out if you accidentally get locked in.”
“You're very forward,” Javier said.
“Am I going too fast? We could just, you know... well, my main concern was not getting caught by Peeves, a teacher, or a prefect.”
“I didn't say I minded you being forward. Sure, I don't know what I want to do, but I don't mind you asking. And, well... there's the possibility of getting caught by other Griffindors. A snake amongst the lions and all. Also, you know, even if we were both Griffindors, me going into your private room for the night could be misinterpreted.”
“You raise an excellent point. And as to sleeping, you know, in the same bed... apart from the other concerns, with my luck I'd wake up having turned into Addy or Iliana during the night. Which would be awkward for everyone involved. Or worse, wake up as Zoey.
“Still,” he continued, “better a snake among the lions than a lion in the snake pit. Especially with Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle down there.”
“True.” Javier sighed, thinking. Then he turned to look Al right in the eyes, a first for him.
“I want to take the risk,” he said.
“What excuse are you going to give your dorm-mates?”
“None. I doubt they'll notice me. If they do, it'll be a surprise.”
Al nodded. “Okay, stay here, I'll go get my cloak.”
Javier nodded, and Al took off, walking as fast as he dared, almost a run, to the Griffindor common room, up to his room, and back down with the cloak in his pocket. A short time later, he was back in the spare classroom, and putting the cloak over Javier.
“Follow me, okay?”
“Okay.”
They walked, more sedately this time, back to the portrait of the Fat Lady.
“You again so soon? In or out, boy, make up your mind.”
“Balderdash,” he said, and she opened with a sigh.
He held the door open without making it obvious that he was doing so, so Javier could get in behind him and still allow him to close the painting, in case anyone inside was watching. He could still sense Javier behind him, invisible. It occurred to him, then, that this empathic power was more useful than he'd realized, if it gave him the ability to sense invisible people.
Carefully they made their way up the stairs together and up into his room. Once they were both in, he closed the door, and sound-proofed it with a spell.
He turned around. Javier had taken the cloak off and draped it over a chair. The younger boy was suddenly looking nervous and unsure.
“Er... I guess we sit on the bed together?”
“We don't have to. This chair here will hold us both if you sit on my lap.”
“Oh it will? Good.”
Al sat down on the reclining chair in the corner and patted his lap. Javier turned red and giggled, sitting carefully down on Al's lap, his feet hanging over the side of the chair. He leaned up against Al's chest, his head missing hitting Al's chin by a centimeter.
The two boys sat there like that, chuckling at the situation for a few minutes before settling down some. Al ran his fingers through Javier's hair, occasionally stopping to gently caress his ear. As the minutes passed, his boyfriend's ear became more and more interesting, until he gently lifted Javier up to look at his other ear, Javier's face full of amused confusion. The fact that Al was caressing his other ear didn't help clarify anything for him.
However, the kiss on the earlobe certainly did. His face turned bright red at the gentle act of affection, and grew even redder as Al made more kisses to the ear, slowly working his way up and down the ear. But it was a pleasant feeling, and his eyes began to close as he focused on enjoying it.
It was a very pleasant surprise when Al took the bottom of his earlobe in his mouth, sucking on it. He was certain you could cook an egg on his face at this point. He hadn't been sure what to expect with this whole 'snogging' thing, but he hadn't expected this. It was better than he'd imagined it.
While sucking on Javier's ear, Al was holding hands with him, Al's thumb stroking the soft skin under it. Javier responded by clenching his hand briefly and making a small moan of pleasure.
To his slight annoyance, Al left his ear and began kissing his jawline. But it was plain Al was going in the direction of his mouth, so he didn't complain. This would be his first kiss, and he was looking forward to it, even if his face looked like it had been badly sunburned.
But, as though to spite him, he suddenly remembered the others in Al's collective, and realized they were probably feeling the same things Al was. It shook him out of his reverie and made him jerk his head back.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No. I just... I had an upsetting thought.”
“Nobody's going to get in. I have the door warded.”
“That's not what I mean. Er... are we... I don't know how to word this...”
Al waited.
“Um... are we alone?”
“Well, yeah.”
“No, I mean... are the others, um...”
“Ah. Would it bother you if they were... well... 'eavesdropping,' for lack of a better word?”
“A little, yeah.”
“Well there's a place they can go to get away. They'll get a memory update later, but it won't be the same as being there live, trust me on that. I can make them clear off if they haven't already.”
“Er... you don't know?”
“It can be hard to know without looking closer.”
“Well, okay.”
Okay you lot, anyone here spying on us? Hello?
Al poked around inside for the others. It was a bit like fumbling in a dark room for people hiding in the darkness, but different. Still, if they were there, he'd soon know. He felt around in every corner of their shared space. All he found was a message left behind. 'We cleared off as soon as you decided to have him sit on your lap,' the message said. So they were down in the Basement, then; good.
“They've been gone since before we sat down. Hiding out in the Basement until it's safe to come out. You'll be my first kiss, and mine alone. The others will have to get theirs later.”
“The Basement?” Javier asked, curious.
“That's what we call it. One or more of us goes down there, and they basically disappear. It's like we shut off for a time, or something. Anyway, that's where they are. They'll turn up later.”
“How will they know when they can come back?”
Al shrugged. “No idea. They just know, somehow.”
“Ah, okay. Well, er... continue, I guess.”
“Goody,” Al said, and started kissing Javier's jaw again.
To his mixed feelings, Al went back to his ear, kissing and sucking on it again. He had to admit, it worked well to get him into the mood. He supposed just mashing lips without preamble might be boring. Not that he'd know from experience. But enough of those thoughts; he pushed them aside and focused on the bliss at hand.
After a time, the kisses went back along his jaw and meandered toward his mouth. Al was doing a good job of building up tension; delicious, delicious tension. He was excited for it to happen at last. The tension kept building. Al kissed the corners of his mouth, and around the outside of his lips. Javier was practically about to weep from the tension. He suppressed the urge to shout 'Kiss me already, damn you!' But it wasn't easy.
Then, finally, blissfully, their lips properly locked together. He felt Al's tongue on his lips, prompting him to open them. He did, and Al's tongue slid in, and he tasted the other boy.
At this point, Javier's entire body was as hot as his face had been earlier, and he was shaking a little. He was more excited than he'd ever been before. He knew he would remember this for years to come.
~
Javier had slept in a sleeping bag on the floor that night. He wasn't ready to share a bed with Al, even if they were both doing nothing more than sleeping. Not that much would have happened; the kiss alone had made Javier so warm all over that he thought anything more than kissing would make him spontaneously combust. In fact, it had been Al's hand moving a little too close to his hip that had ended their kissing, by getting Javier so excited that he'd passed out. Al had needed to wake him up with a spell. They'd spent the rest of the night before bed just cuddling in the chair.
It turned out that getting back to the Slytherin common room was easier if you left Griffindor around dawn. He'd woken Al to tell him he was going; Al had sleepily acknowledged him, and told him he could return the cloak later, before rolling over and going back to sleep. But Javier had left the cloak in Al's room. His Disillusionment Charm wasn't anything to write home about, but it got him out of Griffindor and away from the sleeping Fat Lady. He was perfectly within his rights to be up and wandering around at dawn, after all.
He'd been very tempted to write someone about the experience, but he didn't want his parents to know he'd spent the night with his boyfriend in the boy's private bedroom, and he didn't have any other friends to tell, yet. So he just wandered around, eventually going out onto the grounds for a walk. He didn't have his cloak, but it was just warm enough that his robes were sufficient.
It had been a surprise to him when he found someone else out there. It had been more of a surprise that he'd recognized her. She was standing at the lakeside, tossing bits of bread in the water for the ducks. Her blond-ish hair was messy, like she hadn't bothered to comb it when she woke up.
“Luna Lovegood?” he said, unsure he had the name right.
“Yes, that's me,” Luna said dreamily, turning her protuberant eyes on him. “You're Al's boyfriend.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Er, yeah. My name's Javier Mendoza.”
“Ah yes, I remember now.”
He stood there. It occurred to him that this girl was weird enough in her own right that she probably wouldn't mind his own weirdness. He could have another friend, someone other than Al.
“Er...” He struggled to speak. But you couldn't just ask someone to be friends, could you?
Almost as though she'd read his mind, she said, “Don't worry. If you want to say something, say it. Plainly. You don't have to avoid saying the first thing you think, even if most people do. I won't be offended.”
“Okay. Um... wanna be friends?”
“Oooh, yes! I love having friends. I don't have many. Iliana is a friend of mine. Some of the others in her collective, too. I don't think I've met everyone.”
“What about Ron and Hermione?” he asked, though he thought he knew what she'd say.
“They're nice enough. But I don't know them well enough to know whether or not we're friends. I'd like us to be, but I don't know.”
“You could ask them.”
“Yes, I suppose I could. Maybe I will. Want to help me feed the ducks?”
“Oh yes, I would.”
She handed him a few slices of bread.
“Where'd you get this? Breakfast hasn't started yet.”
“I asked the house elves for some. They're happy to give it to me when I ask.”
“Did you know that ducks really shouldn't eat bread? It's junk food for them. Their version of deep fat fried food, maybe worse.”
“Oh. In that case, I'll have to look up what they eat and see if I can find some.”
That took Javier by surprise. The usual reaction to him correcting people was annoyance, or worse. He smiled; if this was what Luna was like, he thought he'd really enjoy her company.
They stood there in silence for a time, just feeding the ducks. Finally, she spoke again.
“What does the Griffindor common room look like? I've never been there before.”
“Wh-what? How did you know?”
“Oh, it wasn't hard. I saw you coming down from Griffindor tower earlier. And that was when I remembered Al and the others have a room all to themselves.”
“We didn't... we just snogged. And I slept on the floor, in a sleeping bag.”
She shrugged. “That's none of my business.”
“Oh. I just thought... well...”
“I'm not concerned with what others do, as long as they're not hurting anyone.”
“Good to know. Likewise.”
“So what does the Griffindor common room look like?”
He thought for a few moments, then started to describe it as best he could from his quick journeys through it on his way in and then out. He didn't think it was a great description, but she smiled and seemed satisfied anyway.
“Well,” she said, clapping crumbs off her hands. “I'm going to go to the library before breakfast. What about you?”
“Is it open?”
“Yes.”
“In that case, I'll come with you.”
“Is Al coming, too?”
He shook his head. “He's asleep still.”
She nodded, and they made their way to the library.
~
The next two days passed without incident. Neville almost melted the cauldron he and Al were using, as he was partnering Neville to help him out, but he avoided catastrophe and set Neville to preparing ingredients and listening to him when he gave pointers and so on, relayed from Iliana. Snape looked like he was angry enough to spit nails, and kept giving the two of them enraged glances, but as they weren't doing anything wrong, that was all he could do. Even if he was still angry about missing out on the DADA job again.
Al – who was frankly astonished to have remained himself for so long – had noticed, though, that Snape was scared of Moody for some reason, and was avoiding the ex-auror. He somewhat understood this, though; Moody was one of only three people now who Al couldn't read with his empathic powers. He'd figured out Snape by direct observation, though; it was damn near impossible to hide the little body-language tells that people gave away without meaning to. Al made a note to do the same to Moody, if he could.
When the class finally came up, they were all so excited that only Hermione was almost late, having been doing her house elf stuff in the library again.
They hurried into three chairs right in front of the teacher’s desk, took out their copies of The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection, and waited, unusually quiet. Soon they heard Moody’s distinctive clunking footsteps coming down the corridor, and he entered the room, looking as strange and frightening as ever. They could just see his clawed, wooden foot protruding from underneath his robes.
“You can put those away,” he growled, stumping over to his desk and sitting down, “those books. You won’t need them.”
Excited, they hastily obeyed.
Moody gave a speech of sorts. He mentioned Lupin's notes on their progress with Dark creatures, saying they were very behind in curses, and made a lot of excellent points about that; that fighting for your life wasn't like a duel. In a real life or death fight, the only rule was 'survive.' You had to do anything you could think of to survive.
Where it began to get worrying, though, was when he started talking about the Unforgivable Curses, curses that were highly illegal.
“So … do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by wizarding law?”
Several hands rose tentatively into the air, including Ron’s and Hermione’s. Moody pointed at Ron, though his magical eye was fixed elsewhere.
“Er,” said Ron tentatively, “my dad told me about one. … Is it called the Imperius Curse, or something?”
“Ah, yes,” said Moody appreciatively. “Your father would know that one. Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius Curse.”
Moody got heavily to his mismatched feet, opened his desk drawer, and took out a glass jar. Three large black spiders were scuttling around inside it. Al felt Ron recoil slightly next to him — Ron hated spiders.
Surely he's not going to... demonstrate them? Adira said in his head.
#Yeah, that would be madness! Performing an illegal curse in front of kids, even if it is on a spider.#
I dunno, Iliana, he's said to be mad.
Moody reached into the jar, caught one of the spiders, and held it in the palm of his hand so that they could all see it. He then pointed his wand at it and muttered, “Imperio!”
As the spider danced and more for the delight of the class, Al just stared, dumbstruck. Moody was mad!
Everyone was laughing, except for him and Moody.
“Think it’s funny, do you?” he growled. “You’d like it, would you, if I did it to you?”
The laughter died away almost instantly.
“Total control,” said Moody quietly as the spider balled itself up and began to roll over and over. “I could make it jump out of the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats …”
Ron gave an involuntary shudder.
“Years back, there were a lot of witches and wizards being controlled by the Imperius Curse,” said Moody, and Al knew he was talking about the days in which Voldemort had been all-powerful. “Some job for the Ministry, trying to sort out who was being forced to act, and who was acting of their own free will.
“The Imperius Curse can be fought, and I’ll be teaching you how, but it takes real strength of character, and not everyone’s got it. Better avoid being hit with it if you can. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!” he barked, and everyone jumped.
#Teaching us to resist the Imperius curse? I wonder what that involves?#
They went through the same thing again, with the Cruciatus Curse. Moody turned his wand on the spider, said the incantation, and it curled up in agony. If it could have screamed, Al was sure it would be.
“Stop it!” Hermione said shrilly.
Al looked around at her. She was looking, not at the spider, but at Neville, and Al, following her gaze, saw that Neville’s hands were clenched upon the desk in front of him, his knuckles white, his eyes wide and horrified.
What the...? Adira wondered.
Al felt fury rise up in him on Neville's behalf. He didn't know why Neville reacted so strongly to this curse, but clearly it was triggering the poor boy.
Moody stopped, shrunk the spider back to normal size, then asked for another Curse. Hermione was the one who supplied the name: Avada Kedavra, the killing curse.
Moody put his hand into the glass jar, and almost as though it knew what was coming, the third spider scuttled frantically around the bottom of the jar, trying to evade Moody’s fingers, but he trapped it, and placed it upon the desktop. It started to scuttle frantically across the wooden surface.
Moody raised his wand, and Al felt a sudden thrill of foreboding.
“Avada Kedavra!” Moody roared.
There was a flash of blinding green light and a rushing sound, as though a vast, invisible something was soaring through the air — instantaneously the spider rolled over onto its back, unmarked, but unmistakably dead. Several of the students stifled cries; Ron had thrown himself backward and almost toppled off his seat as the spider skidded toward him.
Moody swept the dead spider off the desk onto the floor.
“Not nice,” he said calmly. “Not pleasant. And there’s no countercurse. There’s no blocking it. Only one known person has ever survived it, and he’s sitting right in front of me.”
Us, obviously.
Al and the others stared at the dead spider, their thoughts focused on wondering if that was how their parents had died. Until, from what felt like a long way away, Moody spoke again.
“Avada Kedavra’s a curse that needs a powerful bit of magic behind it — you could all get your wands out now and point them at me and say the words, and I doubt I’d get so much as a nosebleed. But that doesn’t matter. I’m not here to teach you how to do it.
“Now, if there’s no countercurse, why am I showing you? Because you’ve got to know. You’ve got to appreciate what the worst is. You don’t want to find yourself in a situation where you’re facing it. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!” he roared, and the whole class jumped again.
“Now … those three curses — Avada Kedavra, Imperius, and Cruciatus — are known as the Unforgivable Curses. The use of any one of them on a fellow human being is enough to earn a life sentence in Azkaban. That’s what you’re up against. That’s what I’ve got to teach you to fight. You need preparing. You need arming. But most of all, you need to practice constant, never-ceasing vigilance. Get out your quills … copy this down.”
They did. They spent the rest of the class dutifully taking notes as Moody lectured. No one spoke until the bell rang — but when Moody had dismissed them and they had left the classroom, a torrent of talk burst forth. Most people were discussing the curses in awed voices — “Did you see it twitch?” “— and when he killed it — just like that!”
They were talking about the lesson, Al and Adira thought, as though it had been some sort of spectacular show, but they hadn’t found it very entertaining — and nor, it seemed, had Hermione.
“Hurry up,” she said tensely to Al and Ron.
“Not the ruddy library again?” said Ron.
“No,” said Hermione curtly, pointing up a side passage. “Neville.”
Neville was standing alone, halfway up the passage, staring at the stone wall opposite him with the same horrified, wide-eyed look he had worn when Moody had demonstrated the Cruciatus Curse.
Al watched curiously as Hermione tried to comfort Neville, who was clearly in an emotional shock; he didn't need his empathic sense to know that. The demonstration had left Neville in quite a state.
An odd clunking noise sounded behind them, and they turned to see Professor Moody limping toward them. All four of them fell silent, watching him apprehensively, but when he spoke, it was in a much lower and gentler growl than they had yet heard.
“It’s all right, sonny,” he said to Neville. “Why don’t you come up to my office? Come on … we can have a cup of tea. …”
Neville looked even more frightened at the prospect of tea with Moody. He neither moved nor spoke. Moody turned his magical eye upon Al.
“You all right, are you, Potter?”
Al glared at him. “Yes,” he said calmly, with a touch of ice in his voice.
Moody’s blue eye quivered slightly in its socket as it surveyed Al. Then he said, “You’ve got to know. It seems harsh, maybe, but you’ve got to know. No point pretending … well … come on, Longbottom, I’ve got some books that might interest you.”
Neville looked pleadingly at Al, Ron, and Hermione, but they didn’t say anything, so Neville had no choice but to allow himself to be steered away, one of Moody’s gnarled hands on his shoulder.
“What was that about?” said Ron, watching Neville and Moody turn the corner.
“I don’t know,” said Hermione, looking pensive.
“Some lesson though, huh Al?” Ron said. But the look Al gave him made Ron go pale and turn away in a hurry.
After dinner, Al followed Ron to the dorm Ron shared with Neville and the others, his mind too preoccupied to notice he was in the wrong place.
He looked up to see Neville there alone, sitting on his bed, reading. He looked a good deal calmer than at the end of Moody’s lesson, though still not entirely normal. His eyes were rather red.
“You all right, Neville?” Al asked him.
“Oh yes,” said Neville, “I’m fine, thanks. Just reading this book Professor Moody lent me. …”
He held up the book: Magical Water Plants of the Mediterranean.
“Apparently, Professor Sprout told Professor Moody I’m really good at Herbology,” Neville said. There was a faint note of pride in his voice that Al had rarely heard there before. “He thought I’d like this.”
Telling Neville what Professor Sprout had said, Al thought, had been a very tactful way of cheering Neville up, for Neville very rarely heard that he was good at anything. It was the sort of thing Professor Lupin would have done.
The book also sounded interesting. He made a mental note to borrow it from Neville, later, when he was feeling better. Wait at least a week before asking him, he decided.
He sat down with Ron to do their Divination homework together, but Al couldn't focus. He was too lost in thought. Too late, he realized that such unfocused thinking, trying to split his attention, might--
Sure enough, they transformed, and Iliana took Al's place. Al shrugged mentally, and went back to getting lost in thought, while Iliana and Ron thought up made-up predictions, since they couldn't figure out how to do it for real.
After a time, his attention changed focus. Iliana was still focused on homework with Ron, but Al was free to peek through the peripheral vision at Fred and George, who were being secretive about some kind of document. It was unlike them, within the castle, since Lee Jordan wasn't with them. The twins, working on something secret together without Lee? It was weird.
As Al watched, George shook his head at Fred, scratched out something with his quill, and said, in a very quiet voice that nevertheless carried across the almost deserted room, “No — that sounds like we’re accusing him. Got to be careful …”
By this point, Iliana had noticed, too, and was looking at them. They cut off. She smiled at them, not wanting them to think she was spying, but they got up and left anyway.
Fred and George had been gone ten minutes or so when the portrait hole opened and Hermione climbed into the common room carrying a sheaf of parchment in one hand and a box whose contents rattled as she walked in the other. Crookshanks arched his back, purring.
“Hi there, Iliana,” she said, “I’ve just finished!”
Al waited as Iliana, Ron, and Hermione had a talk about the fake predictions. The way she'd come in, and said she was finished, made him think she had come in with a specific purpose in mind. He thought he knew what that purpose was, and waited.
Sure enough, when Hermione finally found an opening in the conversation, she revealed to them that she'd finished the H.E.L.F. badges. Al was annoyed to find out that Iliana was less than enthusiastic about the group. But she played along for Al's sake, taking a badge.
He was glad, though, that Hermione was taking his earlier words to heart. One of the first things on her to-do list was to find a way into the kitchens to talk with the elves. The other was to try to find a way to get more members.
Al was also dismayed at Ron's perspective on the issue. Iliana was going to let it slide, but when Al began threatening to take a page out of Zoey's book and start singing the Hogwarts school song until they all went mad, she relented and told Ron off.
“Ron, your family doesn't have any house elves,” Iliana said. “How would you know if they like it or not? The only house elf you've ever met is Dobby.”
There, that got through to him. Ron went silent, a little pouty, but clearly he knew they had a point. The rest of the conversation went a lot more smoothly after that. Al checked out of the conversation entirely, his wandering thoughts sinking him down, down, down into the Basement.
~
One of their favorite classes now was History of Magic. Taught by Professor Lupin, the class was much more interesting. Nobody fell asleep in class now. Just as with DADA, Professor Lupin mixed lecture with practical aspects of the class. Their first class, Lupin had brought a goblin to class. The small being told them about the goblin rebellions from the goblin point of view, and captured everyone's attention with reenactments of some of the battle moves and war cries of the goblins. But he also told them what the goblins had rebelled for, and that they were still not happy with how things had turned out. They wanted wand magic, as well as their usual magic, to expand their powers. But it was illegal for anyone but a human (or someone who was at least part human) to have a wand. It made Al think, made him wonder if he could go into wand-making.
Their next class was more sedate by comparison. To test them on how well they'd done the assigned reading, as well as to teach, Lupin mixed lecture with asking questions of random students, or having them finish his sentences. He ignored raised hands (like Hermione's or Iliana's) unless three people in a row had missed the question.
A few classes later he changed things again for one period, going for a class debate style instead, about goblin rights and whether or not they should be expanded. When it got a bit too heated, Lupin calmed the class down by having them all rest quietly for ten minutes before giving them their new assignments for next time.
And so it went for two weeks, their two very interesting classes making up for the badness of some of the other classes. Iliana was annoyed that Quidditch was canceled for the year, but it did give them more time to do homework.
To their surprise, Professor Moody had announced that he would be putting the Imperius Curse on each of them in turn, to demonstrate its power and to see whether they could resist its effects.
“But — but you said it’s illegal, Professor,” said Hermione uncertainly as Moody cleared away the desks with a sweep of his wand, leaving a large clear space in the middle of the room. “You said — to use it against another human was —”
“Dumbledore wants you taught what it feels like,” said Moody, his magical eye swiveling onto Hermione and fixing her with an eerie, unblinking stare. “If you’d rather learn the hard way — when someone’s putting it on you so they can control you completely — fine by me. You’re excused. Off you go.”
Nobody in the Potter collective knew what to think of that. On the one hand, it was illegal. On the other hand, Dumbledore trusted Moody. Was it always illegal? After all, some potions were illegal for anyone but the ministry to use, but there were times when Snape still taught how to make those potions – mostly in N.E.W.T. level. So they decided to roll with it for now.
Whether these thoughts occurred to Hermione or not, she nonetheless stood down, and Moody began to line them up one at a time to see if they could resist the Imperius curse. Iliana and the others watched as, one by one, their classmates did the most extraordinary things under its influence. Dean Thomas hopped three times around the room, singing the national anthem. Lavender Brown imitated a squirrel. Neville performed a series of quite astonishing gymnastics he would certainly not have been capable of in his normal state. Not one of them seemed to be able to fight off the curse, and each of them recovered only when Moody had removed it.
“Potter,” Moody growled, “you next.”
Iliana moved forward into the middle of the classroom, into the space that Moody had cleared of desks. Moody raised his wand, pointed it at Iliana, and said, “Imperio!”
For a brief moment there was a wonderful feeling of floating, as their worries were wiped away, before the feeling broke and they blinked at the world around them.
“Hmm... interesting. Maybe it's those extra minds inside of you, girl, but for whatever reason, that spell wasn't strong enough. I'm gonna try it again. Imperio!”
The floating feeling persisted for longer, long enough that they heard a new voice in their head that said 'Jump onto the desk.'
She bent her legs to obey, but then she collapsed on the ground in pain, clutching her head. She was glowing, and shrinking. They were Zoey now.
“Fascinating,” Moody growled. “You're a hard lot to reign in, I see. This is good news. One more time, shall we? Imperio!”
'Jump onto the desk. Jump onto the desk.'
I don't bloody think so!
When they woke up, they were Al again.
Moody tried a few more times. They shifted to Iliana again once more, but then stopped changing. But Moody had no better luck controlling them with the spell.
“Well, seems you're naturally resistant to the Imperius Curse. Excellent! They'll have a hard time controlling you! Still, not very instructive for the others.”
~
The fourth years were beginning to note a huge uptick in the amount of assigned work they had to do, in every class. Even Lupin was giving them a lot more work than he had as DADA teacher.
“This is an important year,” Lupin explained. “Your O.W.L.s are coming next year, and you are very behind in this class, thanks to Professor Binns. I have a lot to teach you before then. Just be glad you're not fifth years, yet; they're doing three times what you're doing in this class. Why, we spent twice as long on the Goblin rebellions in this class than they did, and they had more homework on it than you've had from me this year and the prior year combined.”
Professor Trelawney was, of course, thrilled with the fake predictions Iliana and Ron had made together, but nobody was much thrilled when they were asked to do it again. Al was annoyed because here he was, a legitimate seer, being taught by a fraud who only had visions when the Powers That Be saw fit to give her one, and she didn't even know it!
Professor Snape was forcing them to research antidotes. They took this one seriously, as he had hinted that he might be poisoning one of them before Christmas to see if their antidote worked. Professor Flitwick had asked them to read three extra books in preparation for their lesson on Summoning Charms.
~
Alastair knocked on Professor McGonagall's office door.
“Come in,” she said.
He did, and closed the door behind her. She looked up at him, surprised.
“Did you need something, Mr. Potter?”
“Yes. I was... well, for all that he was a horrible teacher, Lockhart had one good idea.”
She raised an eyebrow. “He did?”
“Yes. The dueling club. Run by a competent teacher, it would be a great idea. God knows we could use something to compensate for our spotty Defense training, with a new teacher every year. I know Moody is great, but he's not teaching dueling so far, and as far as I know he doesn't have any plans. I'd suggest he teach the dueling club, but between the curse on the position and him saying he was only staying a year anyway... well, it would be best to learn dueling from someone we know is going to be around next year.”
“And who did you have in mind for that, Mr. Potter?”
“There's you, or Flitwick, or even Dumbledore. Or you could all take it in turns.”
“Me? Oh I don't know about that. I'm not as young as I was...”
“Perhaps, but you and Dumbledore both radiate this aura of well-controlled power. And Flitwick is rumored to be a dueling champion.”
“I don't know. What about Professor Snape?”
“How about no,” he said as a statement. “That didn't go so well the first time, and not many people like him. But we all do like you and Flitwick, and I think most people like Dumbledore. I know I do.”
“Well you are very good at flattery, Mr. Potter. I shall run the idea past Dumbledore, with my recommendation that we proceed with it.”
Al blinked.
“You look surprised. All that careful flattery, and you didn't think you would succeed?”
“Uh, I did have my doubts. Since, you know, it didn't go so well last time. But I know there's a lot of students who are woeful at Defense spells, and with Moldywart--”
Professor McGonagall choked with frightened shock, but then actually chuckled.
“--er... yeah, with Moldywart still something like alive, it would be a good idea for everyone to be able to defend themselves, so I thought 'why not ask?'”
McGonagall smiled at him, looking barely able to control her mirth.
“Yes yes, you already made your point. Now, if you would please leave before I -” (snerk) “lose my composure.”
“Yes, Professor,” he said, grinning. He left the room.
After closing the door, he walked away loudly but then crept back, just in time to hear her laugh in quite an undignified manner.
~
On September 19th, Zoey came Out and ran off during dinner. As dinner was finishing, she showed up at Hermione's side.
“You done eatin'?”
“Yes. But I wanted to go to--”
“Good, you can come with me now. To Griffindor tower!”
“Why?”
“You'll see. But I think you know why.”
“Oh, yes, it's my birthday. You got me something?”
“Yes indeedy. Come on!”
They went as fast as they dared back to Griffindor tower, and into the common room. As soon as they came in, they saw Ron, Ginny, Dean Thomas, Neville, and the Weasley Twins standing around a table with a birthday cake on it.
“Happy birthday!” they all said.
Hermione blushed. “Thank you, everyone, thank you. Oh Zoey, where'd you get the cake?”
“With some help from Fred and George,” she replied. “Don't worry, it's carrot cake. Sugar free, with sugar-free icing.”
Hermione gave the small girl a big hug. Then they all sat down and went about the normal birthday party things like the birthday song, blowing out the candles, and Hermione opening her presents, as well as a lot of pumpkin juice and a wide variety of snacks. And presents, of course.
~
The next day, there was an announcement hung on the notice boards, which announced that the Dueling Club was being reinstated starting tonight, and would be overseen by Professors Flitwick and McGonagall, with occasional visits by Dumbledore and Moody.
“Well let's hope it goes better this time around,” Ron said.
“Yes, quite,” agreed Hermione.
“I wonder why they've brought it back,” Ron said.
“Er,” said Adira. “I know why. Alastair asked for it.”
Ron gaped at her. “He did? Why?”
“Because he's kinda getting paranoid, plus some students are pants at dueling.”
Ron snorted, grinning. “Like Javier?”
“Among others,” she said coolly.
“Why're you getting defensive? He's not your boyfriend.”
“Er... yeah. Sorry. Emotional spillover from Al.”
“Forgiven. Hey, I wonder what Dueling Club is gonna be like, now. You joining up, Hermione?”
“Yes, I think so. It sounds fun, as long as I don't get stuck with Millicent Bulstrode again.”
“I'll take her if I have to, Hermione,” said Adira.
“Thanks, Addy.”
Adira's left eye twitched. “Not a problem, Hermy.”
“No,” Hermione said, in a voice like arctic seawater. “Don't call me Hermy again.”
“Er... alright then,” Adira said, backing up carefully.
“Good. Glad we've settled that.”
Adira was surprised by how many people turned up for the reinstated Dueling Club, given how poorly it had gone last time. Everything was set up similarly, only the stage was plain wood, not golden. She noticed Flitwick and McGonagall up there, waiting for the top of the hour to arrive.
While they waited, Adira looked around at the other people. It was a good mix of people from all the Houses, which made sense, since there was no Quidditch this year.
She was just wondering how they'd get partnered, when Javier came up to her. He looked carefully at her face, then held out his hand.
“Adira Potter, I presume?”
“Yes, that's me,” she said, shaking his hand.
“Javier Mendoza,” he said.
“Yes, I know. Glad to, er... glad to meet you,” she said, suddenly remembering him and Al kissing. She hadn't been there at the time, but still... the memory was vivid.
“Sorry about that,” she said, “I was just taken off-guard a little.”
“Understandable,” he said. “Is... er... is Al, um, present?”
“Hmm... no, not at the moment. Should I call for him?”
“No no, that's okay. In fact, I'm glad it worked out this way. I don't know if I could focus as well with him around. But, er... you and he know the same kinds of magic, right?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I mean, I know you're not the one teaching, but if you could give me some hints, that would help me a lot.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but McGonagall was calling for attention, so she closed it.
“Welcome, everyone, to the reinstated Dueling Club. Since someone pointed out it was Gilderoy Lockhart's only good idea, if run by a competent teacher, we decided to bring it back. Professor Flitwick and I expect you to behave yourselves in this club. There are to be no spells we do not approve ahead of time. No dark spells, no summoning snakes, no casting any spell we have not given express permission to use. Violate these rules, and you will be dismissed from the club immediately. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”
“Yes, Professor McGonagall!” everyone said in unison.
“Now the first spell we shall work on is the disarming charm, expeliarmus. You will get to see competent teachers cast this spell first. Professor Flitwick, if you would show them the charm?”
The two teachers got into position on the stage, bowed to one another, and got into a proper dueling stance. Then they counted down from three, and began. Professor Flitwick shouted, “Expeliarmus!” and McGonagall's wand flew out of her hand. She hadn't even attempted to defend herself.
They switched places, and this time she disarmed the smaller professor.
“Now that you have seen it demonstrated, we shall pair you up and have you take turns practicing it on each other. And I repeat again, anyone using any spell other than expeliarmus will be banned from attending this club for the rest of the school year.”
Adira stood awkwardly by Javier, since he wanted to partner her for this activity. It was weird looking at him, because seeing him brought to mind pale memories of Al's feelings for the boy, but Adira had no interest in him herself. It was a strange feeling. She readjusted her glasses to give her hands something to do while she waited.
To his credit, he barely looked at her, and their empathic sense told her that he had no feelings about her beyond what might be expected of two people who'd basically just met for the first time. But there were other emotions floating around the room that concerned her more; clearly their attitudes toward one another were confusing some other people, who – she guessed – still hadn't quite become convinced of her and Al being different people entirely.
As she pulled her just-past-the-shoulderblade length hair into a ponytail with a pink and green scrunchy, she felt someone's gaze on her, and turned to look. It was Millicent Bulstrode. She glared at Millicent.
“What are you looking at?” she asked the bigger girl.
Millicent smirked, opening her mouth to answer.
“Never mind, I can feel the answer well enough,” she said. Another one of those people. This was going to be very annoying.
Professor Flitwick came around then.
“Ah yes, Potter and Mendoza, that will be acceptable. Ah, Miss Bulstrode, without a partner, I see? Well here, Mr. Finnigan doesn't have one either, you can partner him.”
Adira smirked back at Millicent, then focused on Javier.
“Okay, do you want to go first, or should I?”
“Um... you first. I want to see it done again.”
“Fine by me.”
They got into position, bowed, and Adira shot the spell at him. “Expeliarmus!”
His wand soared through the air at her, and she caught it. She tossed it back at him, and he fumbled it and dropped it.
“Sorry about that, Javier. I won't do it again. I'll just hand it back next time.”
“It's my fault,” he said, picking it back up. “Don't worry about it.”
When he tried the spell on her, she didn't feel anything.
“You should try it again, I felt nothing.”
He nodded, and tried again. This time, she felt a tug, but not enough to pull her wand from her.
“Er, Professor Flitwick?” she asked, since he was nearby.
“Yes, Miss Potter?”
“What's he doing wrong? I barely felt anything, and I don't really know how to correct him, even though I managed the spell fine.”
Professor Flitwick walked over to Javier and did his best – being short – to correct Javier's stance and wand movements, and gave him advice about how to put more power into the spell. Then he stood back to watch Javier try again.
When Javier tried again, her wand flew through the air, and its tip hit him square on the nose, leaving a red boil behind. Flitwick healed the boil quickly, and returned Adira's wand to her.
“Maybe practice a few more times, see if you can catch it this time,” he suggested. “Call on Professor McGonagall or myself if you get hit with the wand again, okay?”
They nodded, and he walked off to help others.
When Javier next tried the spell, Adira's wand flew so far away that they had to enlist several peoples' help to locate it before they could continue. He tried again, and ended up fumbling her wand and dropping it and his own wand. She put her face in one hand and groaned.
“S-sorry, Adira, I've just never been any good at catching stuff.”
“That's alright. At least you're doing the spell. Er... maybe we should try it with us both moving, since rarely are you going to be facing a stationary opponent,” she suggested.
“Er, alright then.”
They moved around this time now, like a real duel. He tried the spell several times, and she ducked each time. He finally got her the fourth time around, but was so surprised that he was too slow looking up to track her wand, and it poked him in the eye.
Oh wow, Al said to her, back from wherever he'd been, as Professor McGonagall helped a tearful Javier to the hospital wing. He's worse than Neville at this.
She picked up her wand and turned to where she'd spotted Neville. He and Ernie McMillan were busy looking for Neville's wand.
Yeah, you're right. He's gonna need a lot of help.
“The Many Faces of Adira Potter: Chapter 25”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Twenty-five: The Triwizard Tournament
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Adira, and Zoey, and now #Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and now between hashtags/pound signs because some people's computers don't do the B.I.U.).# and {Tier} if I ever get around to it.
Note 4: I just ran across something that boggles my freaking mind, in a bad way. There was this guy on a YouTube video, not a bad guy, but the most ignorant cis white person I have ever bloody seen in my life. While trying to say he thought such-and-such character might be genderqueer or transgender, he instead said they were “bisexual,” conflating sexuality and gender in the most ridiculous way possible. It was so cringe-worthy I had to stop watching the video two minutes in to try to educate him on the proper terminology. He also seemed to think gay men were transgender, and I had to educate him on that. It's 2017, and this man is like, at least in his early 30's and I actually had to explain to him that sexuality and gender identity are not even remotely close to being the same thing, and that he wasn't using any of the terms correctly.
So yeah, please everyone, tell me you're not that bloody ignorant. Please tell me that you know that “bisexual” means “attracted to two or more genders sexually and/or romantically,” and that you know it has nothing to do with a person's gender identity. Because honestly, running into just one of these people is making me want to bang my head against a brick wall repeatedly, or scream, or cry or something. I mean, I've heard stories about people that ignorant, but I always assumed it was an urban legend. Like, Google exists for a reason and literally takes 30 seconds at the most to use.
Note 5: A guest pointed out an error on chapter 9, saying the collective already knew where Dumbledore's office was. Being too lazy to fix such an old mistake, I'm just gonna handwave it away with the following: “Momentary forgetfulness on Al's part.” Same with the mistake about the glasses in chapter 20.
Yes, occasionally there are mistakes. When you've read as much HP fanfic as I have, and have a less than great memory, and disorganized notes, that will happen. In fact, it's only my great memory for my own stories that saves me from having made more mistakes than I have, little details here and there notwithstanding. But don't let this discourage you from pointing out mistakes, by all means. It is helpful when the mistakes are big enough to foul things up. And I'll have a better idea, as the author of this fanfic, which mistakes are that bad.
All hail J.K. Rowling, owner of most of these characters!
*FAYANORA*
When they arrived in the entrance hall the Monday before Halloween, they found themselves unable to proceed owing to the large crowd of students congregated there, all milling around a large sign that had been erected at the foot of the marble staircase. Ron, the tallest of the three, stood on tiptoe to see over the heads in front of them and read the sign aloud to the other two:
TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT
The delegations from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving at 6 o’clock on Friday the 30th of October. Lessons will end half an hour early —
“Good,” Adira said, remembering that Snape was doing antidotes with them. “Snape won't have time to poison all of us!”
Students will return their bags and books to their dormitories and assemble in front of the castle to greet our guests before the Welcoming Feast.
“Only a week away!” said Ernie Macmillan of Hufflepuff, emerging from the crowd, his eyes gleaming. “I wonder if Cedric knows? Think I’ll go and tell him. …”
“Cedric?” said Ron blankly as Ernie hurried off.
“Diggory,” said Adira. “He must be entering the tournament.”
“That idiot, Hogwarts champion?” said Ron as they pushed their way through the chattering crowd toward the staircase.
Adira was blushing. She and Hermione said in stereo, “He's not an idiot!”
“Yeah,” Adira said.
“You just don't like him because he beat Griffindor at Quidditch!” Hermione said. “I’ve heard he’s a really good student — and he’s a prefect.”
She spoke as though this settled the matter.
“And you two only like him because he's handsome.” Ron said scathingly.
Adira blushed even more.
“Excuse me, I don’t like people just because they’re handsome!” said Hermione indignantly.
Ron gave a loud false cough, which sounded oddly like “Lockhart!”
“And what about me, eh?” Adira said, something in her tone dangerous.
“Er...”
“If you'll remember, I didn't like Lockhart at all.”
“But... well, Hermione did. I mean...”
“Wait... are you jealous?” Adira asked him in a whisper. “But,” she said, trying to read him better with her empathic sense, “not for my sake...”
Ron looked panicked, as Adira looked between him and Hermione.
Oh ye gods, Al said in the privacy of their shared mind, Ron and Hermione? Eww. Like Hermione would ever stoop so low. I like Ron as a friend, but thinking about Hermione and Ron snogging is like thinking of my sister and a gorilla snogging. Pardon me while I go away to try to rid my mind of that image.
“Never mind,” Adira said aloud. “Don't know what I was thinking.”
~
Ever since the sign was put up, things had been going crazy. Rumors flew, which they mostly ignored, since Al wasn't the only one in the collective who wanted nothing to do with this tournament. The castle was getting cleaned to within an inch of its life, and teachers like McGonagall were getting snippy about the presentation of the school and its students. This was, after all, a huge competition among three of the major European schools of magic.
After Neville accidentally switched his ears onto a cactus, and got chewed out about it by McGonagall, Adira started tutoring him on the spell when she could. Neville wasn't the only one to suffer McGonagall's ire, either. Javier had done so poorly with the shield spell in Dueling Club that he'd actually somehow managed to knock Adira and Ernie hard enough into each other that they'd had to go to the hospital wing to make sure they hadn't been concussed. She heard later from Ron and Hermione that she'd given him quite the chewing-out.
Ron kept trying to bring up getting into the Tournament. Adira repeated Al's line about not wanting anything to do with it. They just wanted to watch and let others do the cool and dangerous stuff for once. But Adira wasn't as convincing as Al was, because a part of her kind of did want to enter, and finally be famous for something she'd earned for once. But not if it meant breaking the rules laid down by Dumbledore.
At breakfast on the thirtieth of October, she, Ron, and Hermione went into the Great Hall, where Fred and George were working on something. Adira paid little attention to the resulting conversation between them and Ron. She was about to start eating when Javier came over to their table.
“Adira?” he said.
“Er, yeah. Hi Javier.”
SHIT! I haven't written him or spoken with him or anything in over a week!
“Did you want to talk with Al?” she asked. “He, er... he just realized you two haven't communicated in over a week.”
“Ah, good. Yes. I mean, I know you've got it hard, so many people sharing one body, but yeah... even when he was communicating, it wasn't much. Busy with schoolwork, I know how it goes.”
“Just a moment. Zoey?”
Zoey nodded their head, and soon enough switched their body over to Al's.
“Javier!” Al said, standing up and hugging his boyfriend.
“Ah, is this Al's boyfriend, which we've heard so many rumors about?” George asked Ron.
“Yeah, that's him.”
Fred shook his head. “A lion dating a snake. But you lot are weird anyway, so we'll forgive it.”
“Sit down, Javier,” Al said. “Spare me the banal banter of these buffoons.”
George threw a sausage at Al. Al caught it mid-air, astonishing even himself, and ate it.
“You two got any ideas on the Triwizard Tournament yet?” Ron asked. “Thought any more about trying to enter?”
“I asked McGonagall how the champions are chosen but she wasn’t telling,” said George bitterly. “She just told me to shut up and get on with transfiguring my raccoon.”
“Wonder what the tasks are going to be?” said Ron thoughtfully. “You know, I bet we could do them, Al. We’ve done dangerous stuff before. …”
“Not in front of a panel of judges, you haven’t,” said Fred. “McGonagall says the champions get awarded points according to how well they’ve done the tasks.”
“Who are the judges?” Ron asked.
“Well, the Heads of the participating schools are always on the panel,” said Hermione, and everyone looked around at her, rather surprised, “because all three of them were injured during the Tournament of 1792, when a cockatrice the champions were supposed to be catching went on the rampage.”
She noticed them all looking at her and said, with her usual air of impatience that nobody else had read all the books she had, “It’s all in Hogwarts, A History.”
Al turned to Ron. “How many times do I have to tell you? I would rather eat live skrewts than be a part of that stupid tournament. I want to be a spectator for once.”
Ron shrugged. “If you say so.”
Al gave Javier a long-suffering look. Javier smiled sympathetically. They began focusing on their food.
“You want to stand by me later when the people from these other schools arrive? I hear we're going to be outside waiting for them.”
“Sure, sounds fun.”
There was a pleasant feeling of anticipation in the air that day. Nobody was very attentive in lessons, being much more interested in the arrival that evening of the people from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang; even Potions was more bearable than usual, as it was half an hour shorter. When the bell rang early, Al, Ron, and Hermione hurried up to Gryffindor Tower, deposited their bags and books as they had been instructed, pulled on their cloaks, and rushed back downstairs into the entrance hall.
The Heads of Houses were ordering their students into lines.
“Weasley, straighten your hat,” Professor McGonagall snapped at Ron. “Miss Patil, take that ridiculous thing out of your hair.”
Parvati scowled and removed a large ornamental butterfly from the end of her plait.
“Follow me, please,” said Professor McGonagall. “First years in front … no pushing. …”
They filed down the steps and lined up in front of the castle. It was a cold, clear evening; dusk was falling and a pale, transparent-looking moon was already shining over the Forbidden Forest. Al, standing between Ron and Hermione in the fourth row from the front, saw Dennis Creevey positively shivering with anticipation among the other first years.
He looked around for Javier, and soon the younger boy was sidling up next to him, taking his hand. They stood there like that, waiting.
“Nearly six,” said Ron, checking his watch and then staring down the drive that led to the front gates. “How d’you reckon they’re coming? The train?”
“I doubt it,” said Hermione.
“Why not?” asked Al. “Sounds like a good way to get here. They could take a Portkey to London, take the train here.”
“Or,” Javier said, “they could just Portkey to Hogsmeade.”
“Fair point.”
“Or,” suggested Ron, “they could Apparate — maybe you’re allowed to do it under seventeen wherever they come from?”
“You can’t Apparate inside the Hogwarts grounds, how often do I have to tell you?” said Hermione impatiently.
“And anyway, Ron,” Al said, “they're probably not going to bring their entire school here. If the rules say only 17 and older, than they're only going to bring those along.”
“What? The others aren't going to watch?” Javier asked.
“Hmm... that is a good point. Well I don't know, now. But this school isn't big enough for that many students, even if you open up all the spare classrooms, so shortlisting sounds... oh yeah, and I think one of the Ministry people mentioned they were shortlisting their contenders.”
They scanned the darkening grounds excitedly, but nothing was moving; everything was still, silent, and quite as usual. Al was starting to feel cold; he snuggled up to Javier best he could. He wished they’d hurry up. … Maybe the foreign students were preparing a dramatic entrance. … He remembered what Mr. Weasley had said back at the campsite before the Quidditch World Cup: “always the same — we can’t resist showing off when we get together. …”
And then Dumbledore called out from the back row where he stood with the other teachers —
“Aha! Unless I am very much mistaken, the delegation from Beauxbatons approaches!”
“Where?” said many students eagerly, all looking in different directions.
“There!” yelled a sixth year, pointing over the forest.
Something large, much larger than a broomstick — or, indeed, a hundred broomsticks — was hurtling across the deep blue sky toward the castle, growing larger all the time. Al listened to the younger kids making guesses about it. Javier was staring intently at it.
Right after Dennis Creevy guessed it was a flying house, Javier said with conviction in his voice, “It's a giant carriage carried by Abraxan horses.”
Al looked where he was looking. “Interesting guess.”
“Not guessing. I can see it from here, quite clearly.”
“Oh? I can't see it that well.”
Javier shrugged. “What can I say? I have good eyes. I could tell you exactly how many horses there are, if you'd like.”
“What is an Abraxan Horse?”
“Flying horses. Like Pegasus, from mythology.”
“So why not call them pegasuses, or pegasi?”
“Because Pegasus was the name of an individual flying horse, not a species name.”
“Ah, okay.”
Sure enough, very soon landed a giant carriage the size of a house pulled by a dozen winged palominos, each the size of an elephant. Everyone stood up a little straighter, including Al, who was wondering why the thing was so huge.
As it turned out, the size of the carriage was explained when out of the carriage stepped a woman so tall and huge that her shiny black shoes were the size of a child's sled. She had to be at least as big as Hagrid, but since he was used to Hagrid, she seemed larger. As she stepped into the light flooding from the entrance hall, she was revealed to have a handsome, olive-skinned face; large, black, liquid-looking eyes; and a rather beaky nose. Her hair was drawn back in a shining knob at the base of her neck. She was dressed from head to foot in black satin, and many magnificent opals gleamed at her throat and on her thick fingers.
“Relative of Hagrid's, you reckon?” Al asked Javier once the hubbub had died down and she and her rather cold-looking students were being seen into the castle.
“Possibly.”
Now they just had to wait for Durmstrang to show up. Al was barely listening to the conversation. But he did perk up when Ron heard a sound. Lee soon pointed out the source of the noise was the lake. There were loads of bubbles coming up from somewhere beneath the lake, making it look like it was boiling. Then a gigantic mast came out of the water, the rest of a giant wooden sailing ship reminiscent of a ghost ship came out of a whirlpool. Al had to admit that was pretty impressive.
The ship anchored, then a gangplank hit the ground and a whole bunch of people in heavy furs were disembarking. One of them had furs that were silver, quite a different color from the others. This turned out to be the headmaster, Professor Karkaroff.
Karkaroff had a fruity, unctuous voice; when he stepped into the light pouring from the front doors of the castle they saw that he was tall and thin like Dumbledore, but his white hair was short, and his goatee (finishing in a small curl) did not entirely hide his rather weak chin. When he reached Dumbledore, he shook hands with both of his own.
“Dear old Hogwarts,” he said, looking up at the castle and smiling; his teeth were rather yellow, and Al noticed that his smile did not extend to his eyes, which remained cold and shrewd. “How good it is to be here, how good. … Viktor, come along, into the warmth … you don’t mind, Dumbledore? Viktor has a slight head cold. …”
Karkaroff beckoned forward one of his students. As the boy passed, Al caught a glimpse of a prominent curved nose and thick black eyebrows. He didn’t need the punch on the arm Ron gave him, or the hiss in his ear, to recognize that profile.
“Al — it’s Krum!”
“Yes, thank you Ron, ever since I lost both my eyes in that tragic marshmallow accident, I've needed you to be my seeing-eye elf. Keep up the good work, you're doing brilliantly.”
He gave Ron two thumbs up. Ron gave two of... another finger... to Al, but the two boys laughed to show no hard feelings.
~
Al was sad when they got into the Great Hall, because Javier had to go back to the Slytherin table, which is where the Durmstrang students ended up sitting. The Beaxbatons students sat at the Ravenclaw table.
At the teachers' table, Filch had added four extra chairs. Plainly two were for the newly arrived headmasters, but he didn't know who the other two were for. Whoever it was had not arrived yet, though.
Al ate, idly listening to the goings-on around him. Ron wanted Krum's autograph but couldn't because there was nothing to write on. Ron also went gaga over a girl that Al hadn't even noticed, one of the Beauxbatons lot, and was claiming she was a veela. Al thought that sounded unlikely; only humans went to magic school as far as he knew. Though he had some questions about Hagrid, Flitwick, and Madam Hooch. Lupin didn't count; as far as Al was concerned, Lupin was a human with a furry problem. Oh, and then there was Snape, who was quite possibly a vampire.
It was some time before the two extra seats got filled. One was Ludo Bagman, and the other one, he realized with a hiss of dislike, was Mr. Alder, the man who had been creepy to Iliana at the Quidditch Cup.
“What the bloody hell is he doing here?” Al asked with disgust.
“Who?”
“Up there, Mr. Alder. Remember him? He was making Iliana very uncomfortable just before the match over the summer.”
“Oh Al, he and Bagman organized the match,” Hermione said. “Of course they're here to oversee things.”
“Well he'd better keep away from us is all I'm gonna say about it.”
They had puddings left to eat still. Once they got through them, and the plates went clean again, Dumbledore got up and addressed them all. Al, whose enthusiasm for this tournament was already in the negative numbers, had been put on alert by Alder's presence. He was carefully keeping his eyes on the man, as well as looking around the room occasionally just in case. But he wasn't paying much attention to anything being said, not even Dumbledore's speech. Though some of the others in the collective were listening for him.
Al's attention came back into focus on the proceedings with the mention of the impartial judge that would be deciding who played, and the revelation that it was the “Goblet of Fire.” At those words, he thought he knew what was coming, with a sick feeling in his stomach. And sure enough, the box opened up to reveal a roughly carved wooden cup full of blue-white flames.
“Oh hell no!” Al muttered, groaning.
“What?” Ron asked.
“Chalice of wood, flame within,” Al said.
“What?” Ron said, looking confused. Then it clunked in place. “Oh.”
“Al,” Hermione said with concern in her face. “You saw that in your vision?”
“Yes. I recognize it now. I'm more sure than ever I'm gonna get roped into this stupid tournament somehow. Maybe if I run away tonight, I can escape it.”
Dumbledore closed the casket and placed the goblet carefully on top of it, where it would be clearly visible to everyone in the Hall.
“Anybody wishing to submit themselves as champion must write their name and school clearly upon a slip of parchment and drop it into the goblet,” said Dumbledore. “Aspiring champions have twenty-four hours in which to put their names forward. Tomorrow night, Halloween, the goblet will return the names of the three it has judged most worthy to represent their schools. The goblet will be placed in the entrance hall tonight, where it will be freely accessible to all those wishing to compete.
“To ensure that no underage student yields to temptation,” said Dumbledore, “I will be drawing an Age Line around the Goblet of Fire once it has been placed in the entrance hall. Nobody under the age of seventeen will be able to cross this line.”
That's it? Al thought at the others. A bloody age line? Wow, that is perhaps the most insanely insecure form of security they could possibly have thought of. I can already think of several ways past that. Older student puts a younger student's name in. Or wad the parchment up and shoot it into the goblet. Or use an owl, or a familiar, or a freaking paper airplane! Age line, sheesh. Might as well just kill me now, spare me the torture.
“Finally, I wish to impress upon any of you wishing to compete that this tournament is not to be entered into lightly. Once a champion has been selected by the Goblet of Fire, he or she is obliged to see the tournament through to the end, by a geas, that is to say, a binding magical contract. The placing of your name in the goblet thus means you must compete if chosen, or else you will suffer greatly and, I believe, even die. There can be no change of heart once you have become a champion. Please be very sure, therefore, that you are wholeheartedly prepared to play before you drop your name into the goblet. Now, I think it is time for bed. Good night to you all.”
“I'm willing to bet you don't have to put your own name in,” Al said. “I'm betting that's the loophole some horrible person is going to use to rope me into this crap. I'm going to escape tonight. Maybe if I'm not here when they put my name in, the binding magical contract won't take effect. Damn! Unless me being here now is enough.”
“Oh Al, don't be silly, you can't run away,” Hermione said. “You still need your education. And besides, Dumbledore has put an age line up, nobody can get past that if they're not 17 or older.”
“Yeah, but there's nothing to stop someone 17 or older from putting in a name that isn't theirs. And anyway, I won't run away for long. Just long enough to get away from being roped into this nonsense. Honestly, why I didn't run away last night, I don't know.”
When they got to their dorms, Ron followed Al to his.
“What are you doing?”
“You're not really running away, are you?”
“Tomorrow is Halloween. Something bad has happened every Halloween since I started coming to this mad school, and my parents were killed on a Halloween as well. So yes, I'm running away. Don't worry, I'll just go to Hogsmeade and then Floo home from there. Sirius will understand.”
Ron stood there, looking concerned.
“You're not going to try to stop me, are you?”
“Er... no. No, in fact, if you're so keen on going, I reckon someone should go with you. And I reckon that someone should be me.”
“Not all the way, surely?”
“Naw, just to Hogsmeade. Just til you Floo out.”
“Who's going to see you safely back to the castle, though?”
Ron shrugged. “I'll use your cloak. If you let me.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Al said. “Since I'm not gonna be gone long, I'll just leave my trunk here. It's too heavy to carry anyway.”
Al went through his things; before long, he had some Muggle clothes (just in case) and his invisibility cloak. He used a silencing spell on their feet and the two of them slipped under the cloak and headed down carefully.
When they got to the portrait hole, Hermione was standing in the doorway looking resolute.
“Move out of the way, Hermione,” Al whispered.
“No. You're not running away because of something that might happen. You're being paranoid.”
“Doesn't mean I'm wrong. Anyway, Ron is here with me, and I'm only going home to Sirius, via Floo from Hogsmeade. I'll come back once the Champions have been chosen. Unless I'm one of them, then I'll run farther away.”
“If you do that, you'll die, I expect. 'Binding magical contract' and all that.”
“Fine, whatever. I'll come back if it picks me, since I don't want to die. Just move, please.”
“No. But I'll go with you. Someone has to watch Ron's back on his way back from Hogsmeade.”
Al smiled, then remembered she couldn't see him.
“Come on under, then,” he said, holding the cloak open for her to join them.
It was a tight fit, all three of them under the cloak, but they fit. They crept through the castle carefully. He tried not to think of getting caught, or what they'd do if they gate was locked.
They made it out the front doors without any problems, and down through the grounds toward the gates. Al reflected that if he was an animagus, he could fly or slither or run or something down there by himself and be perfectly safe. But their progress on the Animagus stuff was not any better. Then, despite his worry about the Triwizard Tournament, he suddenly realized they didn't know the anatomy of any of the animals they'd tried to become. They should study animal anatomy, it might help.
Then they got to the gates. Which were closed. The bars were too close together to squeeze through at their present mass. Which gave him another idea.
A thought, some concentration, and then the body had shrunk down to Zoey's form. Before her friends could react, she was out from under the cloak and sliding through the bars of the gate.
“Sorry guys, I'll be fine from here,” she said as, with another thought, they grew in size again and became somewhat doglike. It wasn't a very good form, but it was faster than being human. They ignored Hermione's and Ron's cries, and ran down toward Hogsmeade. Freedom! They'd done it! Free--
“YIP!” they cried, as someone grabbed them by the scruff of their neck and lifted them up.
“What're you lot doin' outta bounds a' this time o' night, eh?” said a familiar voice. They whined, but if they were going to be caught by anybody, best it was Hagrid.
“An' lookin like tha', no less! D'yeh realize not evryone knows yeh can do tha'? Yeh coulda been anything, summun could kill yeh with a spell an' not know they was doin murder!”
They whined again.
“Get back to yer normal form, then.”
He set them down and soon Al was standing there, fully human.
“So where d'ya think yer goin', eh?”
“I'm scared someone will put my name in that bloody goblet of fire. I was hoping that running back to Sirius, back to London, would make me immune.”
“Oh, yeh think distance matters in magic, do yeh?”
“Yes. It has to. Otherwise someone could put, I dunno, Minister Fudge's name in the goblet and he'd have to compete.”
“I dunno about that, seein as he's not in school anymore.”
“I don't know how smart or stupid that Goblet is.”
“Hmm... good point. But cummon, let's git you back up ter the---”
CRACK! went the night. Al had popped his wand into his hand and Disapparated without a license, so strong was his desire to get away.
Hagrid looked down at the ground where Al had been. What he saw made his face turn white.
“Galopin gargoyles!” Hagrid said.
~
That had not, as it turned out, been a good idea. Al arrived inside the only part of their home that he could without opening the wards, which he hadn't known how to do from so far away. But that wasn't the problem; his problem was he was missing a foot, and bleeding onto the hearth.
“AHH!” he screamed, going down in agony. “SIRIUS!”
He heard someone leap down the stairs and come running into the room. He looked up; Sirius had his wand out and was looking wildly around. He spotted Al, and his face went from panic to confusion to panic and confusion in a very short space of time.
“What the...?”
“Splinched... myself...”
Sirius opened the wards and stopped the bleeding with his wand. The pain was still there, but it was more bearable now.
“Come on, gotta get you to St. Mungo's,” Sirius said, taking Al over his shoulder and tossing Floo powder in.
“St. Mungo's Hospital,” Sirius barked once they were inside the green flames.
They spun around through the warm darkness, Al in too much pain to get sick, and out into the bright light of what would have been a perfectly normal reception room if not for witches and wizards that Al barely noticed, all in clear distress of different magical varieties.
“Wait there,” said the witch at the desk before Sirius had even said anything, pressing a button as she did. “Healers are on their way right now. Where is the missing appendage?”
“Probably at Hogwarts,” Sirius said. “Is that right, Al?”
Al nodded. “Outside the gate,” he said weakly. “Hagrid is there.”
By a lucky coincidence, a Floo fire came up in a nearby grate. Dumbledore stepped through, Al's foot in his hand.
“I believe this is the missing appendage,” Dumbledore said mildly, handing it to one of the Healers who were swarming around Al.
Within minutes, Al felt the foot be reattached with a puff of purple smoke. The pain didn't go away entirely, but it felt a lot better, aside from the pins and needles feeling that was spreading through his foot. The Healers gave him some potions, and one of them was putting a soothing salve on the place where the foot had been reattached.
The emergency over with now, the Healers told Sirius and Dumbledore as much. Almost immediately, Sirius rounded on Al.
“What were you thinking? Why did you leave the school? What happened, anyway? Were you attacked?”
“Not yet,” Al said weakly.
“Not yet? What do you mean?”
“Chalice of wood, flame within,” Al intoned. He heard Dumbledore say 'Ah' in sudden understanding.
“What?” Sirius said. “What's he on about, Dumbledore? I mean, I know that's from his vision, but is there something I'm missing?”
“The Triwizard Tournament began tonight. The Goblet of Fire, which is used to pick the contestants, is made of wood, but is filled with fire.” He turned to Al. “So you saw the Goblet and thought it was the one in your vision? But why did that prompt you to run, Alastair?”
“It was the thing I saw in my vision. And I don't want to be part of that damn tournament. Had a feeling... someone's gonna put my name in it. Sh—tuff happens to me every bloody Halloween. People trying to kill me every year. And your 'security' would be laughable if the situation wasn't so serious. An age line, really? I can think of half a dozen ways past that off the top o' my head.”
Sirius nodded. “Normally I'd say you were listening too well to Moody, but given that it's you, pup, I guess a little paranoia is understandable. But you should've gone to Dumbledore.”
“Couldn't risk him thinking I was overreacting. He might've said no. Adults aren't exactly reliable, in my experience. Except possibly for you, Sirius. And anyway, this wouldn't have happened if Hagrid hadn't caught me. I couldn't get through the bars. Had to leave the Cloak behind. Zoey slipped between the bars. Tier got us halfway down to Hogsmeade before Hagrid caught us.”
“Why Hogsmeade?”
“Was gonna Floo over here.”
“And you left your father's cloak behind?”
“Not to worry, Sirius,” Dumbledore said. “Mister Ronald Weasley and Miss Hermione Granger had it. No, Al, they will not get into trouble this time. Nor will you. I believe splinching yourself would be punishment enough anyway, but given that you were genuinely afraid for your life, I will not punish you, nor your friends for helping you. But I should mention, also, that from what I know of the Goblet of Fire, it would not matter how far you were from it if someone puts your name in, except that there are grave consequences if you run away while under its geas. So you might as well return to school.”
“That is completely daft, sir. What if someone put Cornelius Fudge's name in?”
“The Goblet of Fire is intelligent enough to know whether someone is still in school or not. Only those who are students may be selected by the Goblet of Fire. Which I know is no comfort to you, but--”
“Expel me, then. Just for a day or two, or whatever.”
Dumbledore sighed, but with a slight twinkle in his eye. “I would love to help you feel more secure, Alastair, I really would. But while I could easily expel you, the process of being reinstated takes rather a long time. Also, such attempts have rarely been successful. It is not a feasible solution, Alastair.”
“You sure I couldn't run to the US? Or Australia?”
“I do not know the exact range of the Goblet, Alastair, but it is an extremely old and extremely powerful artifact. I believe it best not to try your luck.”
Al sighed.
“The wizarding world is bloody insane, you know that, right?”
“The Muggle world is full of its own insanities. Of course, you must also bear in mind that the Goblet of Fire is hundreds, possibly thousands, of years old. Much has changed in that time. If the Goblet of Fire had been made this past year, those under 17 would not even be able to be considered by it. As it is, I had to put the age line up. But you have pointed out that there are greater securities that have to be put in place.”
“How about inspecting every name someone wants to put in before they do it?”
“I'm afraid that such an action would discourage many people from putting in their names. And there is likely some way around that anyway. Also, the Goblet has been unattended for several hours already. Doing such a thing would be no guarantee.”
Al sighed. He was glad Dumbledore was taking his fear seriously, even if he wasn't being much of a help otherwise.
Dumbledore sighed as well. “I very much hope your fears turn out to be groundless, Alastair. If you do end up having to participate, the other two school heads will be very angry with me for letting it happen, even though there's little to be done. But we shall cross that bridge if we get to it.”
“Couldn't you put, I dunno, a spy spell on the room it's in? I know it might be futile, but it might help, too.”
“Yes, I believe I shall indeed do that. If only to ease your mind and mine. In the meantime... am I correct in assuming that the only time you have been unobserved by others since the Goblet was lit was the time between escaping the grounds and getting caught by Hagrid?”
“Yeah. And the minute or two between me Disapparating and Sirius finding me. Why?”
“If we continue to have you under observation, and someone has indeed put your name in the Goblet, we shall be able to provide memories to prove that you could not have done it yourself.”
“Er... I'm not going to get spied on in the bathroom, am I?”
“No. Apparating within the grounds can only be done by House Elves. We shall have to conveniently forget to mention that you have a House Elf who is a friend of yours. I do not feel such information would be relevant, after all. And most wizards would not even think of it.”
“So does that mean Ron is going to be sleeping in my room? Wait... sleeping? For your plan to work, sir, someone will have to watch me sleep. Which is creepy.”
“I can do it, Dumbledore,” Sirius said. “I can accompany him as a dog and watch him all night long, so he and Ron can both get some sleep.”
“You will be able to do that, Sirius?”
“After tonight's excitement, I don't think I could sleep anyway.”
“Then it shall be so. You're registered, but I doubt if many know you're an Animagus. Though you are an awfully large dog, Sirius.”
“I'm a loveable dog, though. I doubt I'll scare anyone. And if I do, we can make it up to them somehow.”
“Good. Now that's settled, I shall speak with the Healers. It occurs to me now that you may not need to return to the castle, Sirius. The Healers may wish to keep Alastair overnight.”
Dumbledore left, and Al turned to look at Sirius. He finally noticed that Sirius was wearing his favorite Grateful Dead t-shirt, purple sweat-pants, and fuzzy green slippers.
“Fashionable,” Al said.
Sirius laughed. “I sure am. But don't try to distract me with irrelevancies, Al. I understand your fear, but instead of running away, you should have asked McGonagall if you could fire-call me. If you had, I'd have come to get you right away, and you wouldn't have splinched yourself.”
“Oh. Oops. Well, I'll keep that in mind for next time, assuming I live that long.”
Sirius leaned over and hugged Al in a tight embrace.
“Please don't scare me like that again, any of you.”
Al nodded. “We'll try not to.”
“Good.”
An awkward silence rose up. Casting around for something to say, Al said, “Green slippers, huh? They run out of pink? I think pink would look good on you.”
Sirius laughed. “I'll keep that in mind. I do actually like pink. It's not my favorite, but it's okay. Back in my grandfather's day, pink was the color they dressed little boys in, and blue was for girls. Then at some point, the meanings of the two colors switched. I heard rumors the switch originated in the Muggle world, and spread to us by osmosis.”
“Osmosis, eh? I didn't know wizards knew that word.”
“I don't think most do. Anyway, you should rest now, I expect. It's late anyway, and you're recovering.”
“Okay, Sirius.”
~
As Dumbledore predicted, the Healers did indeed want to keep Al overnight. Sirius stayed in the room as a human, watching Al as he fell asleep. He was still in place hours later, when Al woke up. Al went to the bathroom, and then Sirius saw him down to the reception room of the hospital, where he used the Floo back to Dumbledore's office. Professor McGonagall met Al there and escorted him down to the Great Hall for breakfast.
He had barely sat down when Ron and Hermione came rushing in and sat down beside him.
“What happened, Al? We saw Hagrid running up to the castle with your foot in his hand! He said you'd splinched yourself!”
“You just answered your own question, there,” Al said. “Hagrid caught us halfway to Hogsmeade, literally caught us in his hand. When he let me go, probably on the presumption I'd go willingly with him, I Disapparated. I guess I was just that desperate. But it was a bad idea, as you saw part of. Damn, I bled all over Sirius's floor last night before he stopped the bleeding. I ended up going to Saint Mungo's. They put me back together again, and I stayed overnight for observation.”
He he continued on with the rest of the tale, what he and Sirius and Dumbledore had talked about, and the plan to keep him under scrutiny so it could be shown he hadn't put his own name in, if it happened.
The tale finished, he went back to his food. But he'd only been eating a few minutes when Fred and George came in looking like the cats who ate the canaries.
“Done it,” Fred said in a triumphant whisper to Al, Ron, and Hermione. “Just taken it.”
“What?” said Ron.
“The Aging Potion, dung brains,” said Fred.
“One drop each,” said George, rubbing his hands together with glee. “We only need to be a few months older.”
“We’re going to split the thousand Galleons between the three of us if one of us wins,” said Lee, grinning broadly.
“I’m not sure this is going to work, you know,” said Hermione warningly “I’m sure Dumbledore will have thought of this.”
Fred, George, and Lee ignored her.
“Ready?” Fred said to the other two, quivering with excitement. “C’mon, then — I’ll go first —”
Al watched as they got out the parchments with their names on them, and stepped forward to put their names in. But they didn't get nearly close enough when they were shoved out by a magical force, and grew long white beards, like miniature Dumbledores.
The entrance hall rang with laughter. Even Fred and George joined in, once they had gotten to their feet and taken a good look at each other’s beards.
“I did warn you,” said a deep, amused voice, and everyone turned to see Professor Dumbledore coming out of the Great Hall. He surveyed Fred and George, his eyes twinkling. “I suggest you both go up to Madam Pomfrey. She is already tending to Miss Fawcett, of Ravenclaw, and Mr. Summers, of Hufflepuff, both of whom decided to age themselves up a little too. Though I must say, neither of their beards is anything like as fine as yours.”
“Hey guys,” Al whispered, catching them before they left for the hospital wing. “Have someone old enough put your names in. Or use an owl, or a paper airplane. The more people like you who apply, the lesser the chance some berk can get me chosen against my will.”
“Gotcha, Al, that's a great idea,” Fred said.
“Yeah, I can't believe we didn't think of it ourselves,” said George.
Al went back to the table feeling only slightly less anxious. He really hoped Fred or George would get chosen, so he wouldn't. If anyone could do it, they could; they were very clever, and they deserved the money.
Looking around at all the decorations, reflecting that he'd probably actually like Halloween if crazy stuff didn't always happen on it every year, Al led the way over to Dean and Seamus, who were discussing those Hogwarts students of seventeen or over who might be entering.
“There’s a rumor going around that Warrington got up early and put his name in,” Dean told Al. “That big bloke from Slytherin who looks like a sloth.”
Iliana, who had played Quidditch against Warrington, shook Al's head in disgust.
“He'll probably be disqualified on the grounds of being a chimpanzee,” Al said.
“Yeah,” said Ron. “We can't have a Slytherin Champion!”
“I disagree. It would depend on the Slytherin. Much as I hate the little berk, Malfoy is clever enough to win; he's always right behind Hermione in grades. Anyway, I'd nominate Javier if he wasn't abysmal at dueling.”
“And all the Hufflepuffs are talking about Diggory,” said Seamus contemptuously. “But I wouldn’t have thought he’d have wanted to risk his good looks.”
“Lay off Diggory, okay? Honestly, to hate someone just because they won some stupid game,” Al said.
“Stupid game--” Seamus started indignantly.
“Listen!” said Hermione suddenly, cutting Seamus off.
People were cheering out in the entrance hall. They all swiveled around in their seats and saw Angelina Johnson coming into the Hall, grinning in an embarrassed sort of way. A tall black girl who played Chaser on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, Angelina came over to them, sat down, and said, “Well, I’ve done it! Just put my name in!”
“You’re kidding!” said Ron, looking impressed.
“Are you seventeen, then?” asked Al.
“ ’Course she is, can’t see a beard, can you?” said Ron.
“I had my birthday last week,” said Angelina.
“Well, I’m glad someone from Gryffindor’s entering,” said Hermione. “I really hope you get it, Angelina!”
“Thanks, Hermione,” said Angelina, smiling at her.
“Yeah, better you than Pretty-Boy Diggory,” said Seamus, causing several Hufflepuffs passing their table to scowl heavily at him.
“Don't be a berk,” Al loudly said to Seamus, so the Hufflepuffs would hear him. “Diggory has brains as well as good looks, and Hufflepuff deserves some glory.” He surreptitiously glanced at the Hufflepuffs; they looked pleased by his words.
“Why are you defending him, Al?” Seamus asked hotly. “And calling Quidditch stupid. You play Quidditch!”
“No I don't. Iliana does. I can barely stay on a broom at all, and even if I could, the game is utterly ruined by the snitch. And anyway, it wasn't his fault he won that one time, it was Iliana's for falling off the broom. And the dementors, for making it happen. Cedric tried to call for a rematch, or did you forget?”
Seamus looked abashed. “Oh yeah, I forgot. Still, I don't get why you're defending him. Unless you fancy him?”
Al felt his face going hot, but it was with anger.
“What do you mean by that?” he said in a deceptively calm, quiet voice, filled with ice.
“I just mean, I've seen you hangin' around with that Slytherin weirdo. Hear he's your boyfriend, too. But then you defend Diggory, so I dunno, maybe you're only with the weirdo snake because you can't have Cedric, since you're a weirdo yourself. I guess birds of a feather flock together.”
He glared at Seamus, feeling his blood boil. Maybe it was his fears making him edgy, or something else, but Al wanted to lash out at someone.
“I will not listen to you insult my boyfriend. I challenge you to a duel!” Al shouted.
Seamus blinked, but recovered quickly. “That so? Right, then, Potter. Dean's my second, right Dean?”
“Uh... I guess. Yes.”
“Right, that's settled. Who's your second?”
“I am,” Ron said.
“Name your time and place, Potter.”
“Five minutes from now, out on the grounds by the lake.”
“You're on.”
They glared at each other, and Seamus stormed off. Al followed him a few paces behind.
“Al, what are you doing?” Hermione asked, worried, as she struggled to keep up with him.
“He angered me. And he called Javier and I weirdos. That's our term, Hermione. He doesn't get to call us that.”
A few minutes later, they were in place. Seamus was in front of him. Hermione was refereeing, since she couldn't stop it from happening, try as she might.
“Nothing below the belt,” she said resignedly. “Nothing dangerous, right? Just disarm or knock the other person down, or both. Agreed?”
The two boys nodded curtly, glaring at each other.
“Bow to each other. Good. Okay, on the count of three then. One, two, THREE!”
She jumped back. The crowd that had formed around them kept its distance as they circled each other, wands pointing at one another.
“EXPELIARMUS!” Seamus shouted. Al blocked it with a shield charm.
Seamus shot another spell at him, and again he blocked it.
Al just let Seamus do all the offensive magic for over a minute, Seamus using a variety of different jinxes like the tickling jinx, jelly-legs, and Locomotor mortis, Al ducking or blocking easily, his eyes locked on Seamus's eyes the whole time. In fact, Hermione noticed something rather interesting... Al was already moving out of the way or moving into position to shield before Seamus had even begun to form a spell with his mouth, and he was doing it consistently. Almost like he knew what Seamus was going to do before he did it.
After playing with his opponent for nearly five whole minutes, Al struck. Seamus started to mouth a spell, and in the same instant, Al shot a non-verbal spell at Seamus; red spell-light hit Seamus and knocked him to the ground, his wand flying from his hand. Al grinned smugly, bowed to the throng, put his wand away, and walked away through the silent, staring crowd.
He found himself going down toward Hagrid's. Hermione and Ron soon caught up.
“That was wicked! You didn't even say anything! And the way you kept dodging his spells! It was bloody brilliant!”
“Yes,” Hermione said, sounding suspicious. “I'm very curious how you managed that. You seemed to be reading his mind.”
“Not quite. But the answer is simple enough, if you think about it.”
“Oh?” Ron said, confused.
“He's talking about his heart-reading power. He was reading Seamus's mind, or soul, or whatever. It takes an entire second for a command to go from the brain to a limb, and most of our decisions are made by the subconscious mind before we 'decide' consciously to do it. Al would've had plenty of time to react to what he was seeing in Seamus's mind before Seamus could do what he'd planned. Al, that's... I don't know if it's cheating or not, but it feels like it.”
Al shrugged. “Dunno. Don't care. I have an advantage. I'm not going to refrain from using it just to be fair. I'm not a Hufflepuff. I'm a Griffindor on the cusp of Slytherin. Anyway, we haven't visited Hagrid in ages, let's go.”
Hermione folded her arms and shivered. “I've just noticed it's freezing out here, and I don't have a cloak.”
He froze, then turned back toward the school. “Yeah, now that you mention it, I'm a bit chilly too.”
~
“Well that was an education,” Al said on their way back from Hagrid's. “So Hagrid fancies Madame Maxime. Interesting.”
Ron balked. “If they end up having children, they’ll be setting a world record — bet any baby of theirs would weigh about a ton.”
Al just nodded absent-mindedly. He was too preoccupied by his fears to comment on this. He was anxious for this day to be over so he could escape these fears. Fears that were eating him up inside. While others were eating sparingly out of excitement and the fact this was the second feast in two nights, he wasn't eating because he felt like his stomach was made of something very horrible and uncomfortable. He had barely eaten at all when the food vanished and Dumbledore was ready to start finding out who was going to be Champion for their respective school.
He didn't chew his nails, but he felt tempted to as the Goblet spat out its first name – Fleur DeLacour, the girl Ron thought was a veela. The other boys and girls of Beauxbaton looked very disappointed. Some of them were even crying. Al almost felt like joining them. He watched as Fleur left for a room behind the teacher's table.
Out came another name: Viktor Krum, for Durmstrang. This bloody goblet was going to drag his agony out as long as possible, obviously. Krum joined Fleur shortly in the room behind the front table.
One last name to come. The Goblet seemed to wait ages and eons to spit this name out, but finally it did; like the other two times, the flames changed color, and out came a scorched bit of parchment.
“Cedric Diggory!” Dumbledore called out, winking at Al.
Al relaxed. He almost laughed with relief. He'd escaped it. His fears had been---
Something was happening. Dumbledore had been mid-speech, clearly also convinced the danger was over, when the Goblet's fire changed color again, and spat out another name.
Al didn't hear the name that came out. He didn't need to anyway, but he couldn't have heard the name being said, because he was too busy being passed out on the floor.
“The Many Faces of Adira Potter: Chapter 26”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Twenty-six: Chandra Rahasyamay
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Adira, and Zoey, and now #Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and now between hashtags/pound signs because some people's computers don't do the B.I.U.).# and {Tier}.
Note four: This chapter will be from multiple points of view. Chandra isn't good with words yet, and his thought processes are rather odd. So a lot of his characterization is best seen from outside perspectives.
Note five: Chandra Rahasyamay is not based on anyone in our own collective, so far as we know. Which makes him unique so far in this story, as everyone else in the Potter collective is based on someone in the Fayanora collective. (Even the mysterious “Mother.”)
*FAYANORA*
There were no words, only feelings and images. Words were still so new to him, and Mother had been there to guide him before. But now, he was alone. Alone, and suddenly dealing with sensory inputs that had been little more than abstract concepts until now. The pressure of gravity pulling on the body, the smooth hardness of the stone beneath him, the dark pinkness as light pierced his eyelids, these on their own might overwhelm him. It was like living one's life in the water, and suddenly coming ashore; he was in pain, and weak, and... yes, he was certain now: overwhelmed. And so he dared not open his eyes.
People were saying words to him. They were just noises at the moment, no more comprehensible than birdsong. But a sense that was new to him was assailing his mind; he felt their concern, their worry. Others were curious, still more were angry. He did not like the anger, it was like being whipped with a red-hot metal flail, and made him whimper. Not that the concern felt much better; that was like the sensation after your foot has fallen asleep, but all over his body.
He also thought, somehow, that they were talking to one another as well. But it was still noise to him. The sounds were like a vise tightening around his head, and they contained no information for him.
Just then, he felt a soothing presence, like a fresh breeze blowing from over a freshwater lake on a warm summer day, mixed with the pleasant warmth of sunshine in spring. With this, the sensory inputs became easier to process, the pain leaving like the ocean tide going out. What was more, the words were making sense now.
He smiled; Mother had come to his rescue again. With Her help, he could do this.
~
Albus Dumbledore hurried over to Alastair as soon as the boy had passed out, only to find someone new on the floor. He blinked. From what Sirius had told him, he suspected he knew who the new Potter was, but he couldn't be sure. Nor did he know why the Indian boy had chosen this moment to make his first appearance.
As he watched, the boy went from the calm of unconsciousness to tensing up in a fetal position, whimpering, his eyes watering. The boy looked to be in quite a lot of pain, the physical kind, which hurt Albus's heart.
He told someone to fetch Madam Pomfrey, quickly. As they ran off, he knelt at the boy's side and felt his skin. The boy flinched at the touch, so Albus pulled back. But he'd felt a lot, and was seeing a lot now. The boy was suffering cold sweats, his coppery skin getting paler before Dumbledore's eyes.
“What happened?” Madam Pomfrey said, bustling in as fast as she could. “Dumbledore?”
“It would appear there is a new Potter. I do not know what is wrong with him, but he is in a lot of pain.”
Madam Pomfrey knelt, Dumbledore standing up and back to give her room. She waved her wand over the boy, making small noises of concern as she did.
“Alastair Potter passed out,” Dumbledore explained to her, “and then this boy appeared, unconscious.”
“His symptoms remind me of dementor attacks,” she said.
“None here, as far as I am aware.” Then he looked thoughtful before continuing. “He flinched when I touched him.”
She nodded, and shone a light from her wand into the boy's closed eyes. He flinched and turned away, yowling like a wounded animal.
“Sensitivity to light.”
She stowed her wand and clapped her hands once, loudly. He flinched again and yowled. But the yowl died away.
“And sensitivity to sound, as well. Unfortunately, that doesn't really narrow it down. Could be a migraine. Or else---”
She'd stopped talking because the boy was relaxing all of a sudden. Still twitching at times, but no longer in pain. She checked for a pulse; he didn't flinch very much when she did.
“Well he's still alive. Seems to have gotten better. Since I didn't do anything, I'd guess he'd been suffering from psychological distress.”
His eyes opened a crack. Dumbledore only noticed this because he'd been looking at the time.
“Ah, Poppy, he has opened his eyes.”
She ran some more tests with her wand while he lay there. Dumbledore used his legilimency to see what was going on in the boy's mind, and was surprised when he didn't see anything. He wasn't being blocked, just... nothing. He looked again, and saw a bubbling brook through a forest. 'Most peculiar,' Dumbledore thought. It was the only image he was getting.
“Hello?” Dumbledore said cautiously.
The boy's eyes turned to Dumbledore. Now Dumbledore saw in his mind's eye an image of himself, from the outside. Then an image of what looked like the Sahara. But between the two... had he imagined it? Had he really seen a dark-skinned woman with unnaturally-colored eyes, for just a split second?
“Are you Chandra Rahasyamay?” Dumbledore asked.
Chandra nodded.
“Ah, good. Can you speak?”
Chandra looked thoughtful for a moment. Then, with a determined look on his face, he opened his mouth. He paused again, looking confused. Then he opened his mouth again.
“Silver Grandfather, with the fire-bird,” Chandra said, in an American accent. “The red and the gold. The silver and the blue. Starlight in the day.”
“Ah, well that's... an answer, of sorts.” Dumbledore said. “Can you sit up?”
Not speaking, Chandra struggled to move his limbs. He winced with every movement, apparently still in pain. He also shook with weakness, his skin going pale and sweaty again.
“The mountain,” he said weakly through gritted teeth. “Bare stone, smooth, unlined.”
“Don't strain yourself, or Madam Pomfrey will give me such a tongue-lashing.”
Chandra relaxed. He lay there, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Madam Pomfrey left to fetch something. A few minutes later, she had returned with pain-relief potion and a Pepper-Up Potion. He drank each potion readily, and soon was able to sit up.
A few minutes more passed before Dumbledore asked, “Do you think you can stand now? It's just that you are required elsewhere. I have them waiting, of course. I do not know how much of this you understand, but someone had written every single name from your collective on that parchment but yours. It does not match the handwriting of anyone in your collective, to my knowledge. And I do not believe that makes a difference, I'm sorry to say.”
“Chalice of fire, flame within,” Chandra said. “Struggle and conflict, thrice, or else all is silence.”
“Yes, exactly. Are you able to stand?”
“The wind has receded,” Chandra said, standing up with some difficulty.
“I... see,” Dumbledore said, which was a lie. He was not sure if there was any sense to Chandra's words or not. If there was, he wasn't able to decipher it yet. Parts of it made sense, and other parts eluded meaning.
Helping Chandra walk by letting the boy lean on him, Dumbledore led him slowly back to the room where the other champions and the judges still waited, if Minerva had anything to say about it on his behalf.
“Dumblydorr, at last! What 'as been so important zat you 'ave kept us waiting so long?” asked Madam Maxime imperiously.
“We've had rather an unusual complication. A fourth piece of parchment came out of the Goblet of Fire, and a fourth, rather unexpected, champion.”
“What is ze meaning of zis, Dumbly-dorr?” she said imperiously.
“I’d rather like to know that myself, Dumbledore,” said Professor Karkaroff. He was wearing a steely smile, and his blue eyes were like chips of ice. “Two Hogwarts champions? I don’t remember anyone telling me the host school is allowed two champions — or have I not read the rules carefully enough?”
He gave a short and nasty laugh.
“And 'oo iz zis second champion? Is it zis boy? 'oo are you?”
“That's part of the complication, Olympe. Have you heard of the child-who-lived?”
“You mean 'arry Potter?”
“Her name is Adira Potter now, Olympe. And, er...”
He spent a few minutes trying to explain the Potters' situation to everyone in the room.
“So you expect us to believe, Dumbledore,” said Karkaroff, “that this boy is... is... some sort of freak of nature?”
“Please do not use that term, Igor.”
Karkaroff drew himself up indignantly. “I shall use whatever terms I wish, Dumbledore! You are not the boss of me. I do not buy your ridiculous--”
“Dumbledore isn't lying, Karakaroff,” said the harsh voice of Moody, who had just stumped into the room.
Karkaroff looked at Moody with the pale face of fear. Then he grew defiant again.
“Is that so?”
“It is, Karkaroff. The Potters are an odd case. Possibly unique. Five—no, six—minds in one body, unless there's more banging about in there. And they each change the body's appearance when they switch.”
“'e is a metamorphmagus. I 'ave never heard such ridiculous lies before! I 'ave--”
“Maybe I wasn't clear,” said Moody. “Potter having a load of other people sharing her body with her isn't what makes her unique. Plenty of that sort of thing going on in other people, the Muggles call it Multiple Personality Disorder, I think. What makes Potter here unique is the transformations when they switch. Most people with their condition don't do that. Most of 'em are so good at pretending to be a single person, out of necessity, that they go through their whole lives keeping the secret without anyone suspecting. Potter here just had the bad luck to not have a choice in whether to keep the secret or not.”
“Be that as it may, Moody,” Karkaroff growled, “that's hardly the point. Whatever madness Potter has is no excuse for him to sneak into the tournament!”
“Igor, be reasonable,” Dumbledore said. “The Goblet of Fire only recognizes three schools, and only assigns one champion per each. Five out of six of the Potters' names were written on this piece of parchment under a fourth school. The only reason the sixth name isn't on here is because this is Chandra's first appearance, today. And as far as I can tell, the handwriting does not match any of the Potters.”
“Yeah, Karakaroff,” Moody said. “and the Goblet is ancient and powerful. It would take an extremely powerful, well educated, and skilled witch or wizard to bamboozle such a powerful object into assigning two champions to a school.”
“But surely 'e will not be allowed to compete!” shouted Fleur. “'e is too young! Zis little boy, compete wis us? I sink not!”
“Yes, we were under the impression that your Age Line would keep out younger contestants, Dumbledore,” said Karkaroff, his steely smile still in place, though his eyes were colder than ever. “Otherwise, we would, of course, have brought along a wider selection of candidates from our own schools.”
“It’s no one’s fault but Potter’s, Karkaroff,” said Snape softly. His black eyes were alight with malice. “Don’t go blaming Dumbledore for Potter’s determination to break rules. She---he---they have been crossing lines ever since they arrived here —”
“Thank you, Severus,” said Dumbledore firmly, and Snape went quiet, though his eyes still glinted malevolently through his curtain of greasy black hair.
“The age line works,” Dumbledore said calmly and confidently, “but that point is moot. One does not have to put one's own name in the Goblet. An older student, or even an adult, may have put it in.
“Therefore, I do not believe any of the Potters put their own name in. But there is more. One of them, Alastair, is a seer. His prophecy did not make sense to him until he saw the Goblet of Fire. He saw it, and became terrified of it, wanting nothing to do with the tournament. He even went so far as to splinch himself while trying to run away. He begged me to expel him so he wouldn't have to compete. And the Potters have been in the eye of one person or another since the Goblet was taken out of the casket. I can collect memories for my pensieve if you need convincing.”
Karkaroff waved this off almost casually. “Yes, yes, Dumbledore, but that is moot. He cannot compete, that is that. There are only three Champions!”
“Ludo?” Dumbledore said to Bagman.
“I think he has to compete, but I'm not sure. Mister Alder?”
The tall, barrel-chested man stepped forward. “Well, I've been over the rule book front to back, several times. I wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing, after Crouch was fired. But Ludo's right. It's a binding magical contract. Tampering or not, he has to compete, or else he dies.”
The argument continued for several more minutes despite this, but finally the angry headmasters of the other schools grudgingly agreed and left in a huff. Dumbledore was finally able to pull away. He turned to Chandra, and found the boy with a Muggle sketch pad and pen in hand, halfway through a drawing made of dots of red or blue ink. The pen was the kind you could click to switch between colors. He noticed the boy was left handed, the only southpaw in the collective that he knew of.
“Chandra?” Dumbledore said. “How are you?”
Chandra's response was to sing a song, but using 'la la la' instead of lyrics. The song was not familiar to Dumbledore. He made a note to remember to hum the tune to Sirius later, in case he knew it. Sirius had been very much into Muggle music when he was younger. Any information that might help him understand this new person would be welcome.
“Will you come with me to my office, Chandra?”
Chandra didn't answer in words. Instead, he clicked his pen closed and stood up.
“This way, please.”
It was a short walk from there, but Dumbledore still kept an eye on the boy, who had conjured a sort of portable desk for himself that was strapped to his body, and was drawing and walking at the same time, somehow without running into anything.
“Pumpkin pasty,” Dumbledore said to the gargoyle. It moved aside, and he led Chandra up to his office.
Chandra was still drawing when they were both seated at the headmaster's desk. Dumbledore watched him in silence for many minutes, going over the puzzle of this new person in his mind as he did.
It wasn't until Chandra paused his drawing and looked up that Dumbledore decided to speak.
“I wonder, Chandra, if you could summon one of the others to speak with your mouth.”
Chandra went back to his drawing, but said, “Smooth mountain. Underground river. No,” he corrected himself, “serpent-king cavern, but my tongue is not presently forked.”
“Hmm... are you saying they are... elsewhere? That you can't speak with them?”
“Yes. The ghost with rivers from her eyes is within the void. Until she exists again, my tongue remains round.”
'The ghost with rivers from her eyes? Does he mean Myrtle Warren?'
“Do you mean the ghost known as Moaning Myrtle?”
“Yes. She is in the void. The Many Faces rest in the serpent-king chamber within. I cannot Speak until she exists.”
'He's speaking in metaphors, images,' Dumbledore thought. 'But why? Is that how he thinks?'
“So the others are hiding somewhere, and you can't speak with them because you're missing the knowledge of how to get to where they are?”
“It is dust in the wind,” Chandra said. “The candle is out. I fumble for a match. But the prickling on my skin can cease; they have their own light down there.” He paused, looking up as though trying to remember something, before going back to his drawing and saying, “They have the key.”
“So they can come back whenever they choose?”
“Yes. The children cower under the bed. But their fear's candle will melt away.”
“Ah, I see. They all became overwhelmed with terror, but they'll return in time.”
“Yes. Mother will soothe their fears.”
Dumbledore made his hands into a steeple, regarding Chandra as he drew. It was inconvenient that the boy kept his eyes on his artwork. But then, the images he'd gotten from his legilimency earlier hadn't been very useful.
“Is this 'Mother' a metaphor or someone real?”
“Are any of us more than a metaphor? A lightning storm in a bottle made of meat. Each of us a society, the tempest a government, trillions of citizens made of water and chemicals, G.A.C.T., G.A.C.U. My own meat hosts a world of nations.”
“Is 'Mother' one of these nations?”
Chandra struggled with this one for several minutes.
“Mother, a nation? No. A sack of pebbles cannot pluck a flower. Blow out that candle, light another. Mother is... Mother.” Another lengthy pause. “Hmm... no other candles emerge. Well, if we are nations, Mother is the earth, the air, and the water. Mother is us. Mother is the tempest. Mother is all of it. Yes, She makes a tempest to speak for Her. But that tempest is a mask. The face is too big to comprehend.”
“Do you mean that Mother is a goddess?”
“I fumble for a match again. Mother is...” his wand popped out of its holster, and he stared at it. “Mother is this, but not this. Mother is the this behind the this.”
“Mother is... magic itself?”
“You approach it. Magic is... Magic is to Mother as Mother's mask is to Her face. Or as your hand is to you. Yes, that is the brightest light.”
Chandra put the wand away and went back to his drawing.
Dumbledore was still confused. Did he mean Mother was Life? He was going to ask, but Chandra spoke first.
“The sun sets. The pup needs to return to its den or the black father will bark at the silver grandfather.”
“Silver grandfather?”
“Yes. Silver Grandfather, with the fire-bird. With the star twinkling in the daylight of his eyes. You, is the candle I'm trying to light.”
“Ah. And the black father is Sirius Black, I take it?”
“Yes. The black dog will bark at you if the pup is kept awake too long.”
“Indeed. As well he should. I do apologize for taking up so much of your time, but your manner of speaking is challenging to understand.”
“Mountain with few cracks?” he asked.
“Yes, I believe that is a good metaphor. It is doable, but makes me sweat a lot, so to speak.”
“The mountain will come to a path in time. Then you will walk, not climb.”
“Good to know. Thank you. But yes, you should run along to your den, little pup.”
“Thank you, silver grandfather.”
Chandra had completed his drawing. It was a picture of Dumbledore behind the Goblet of Fire. He put it away and looked around himself as he left Dumbledore's office.
~
Dumbledore sighed, and tossed a handful of Floo powder into the fire. He then knelt down and stuck his head in the green flames.
“Twenty-three B, Square Way, London,” he said, bracing himself for the spinning sensation that followed.
When the spinning subsided, he saw into the house Sirius and the Potters now called home.
“Sirius Black?” he called out.
A few minutes of calling for someone later, and Sirius walked into the room with a confused look on his face. When he saw Dumbledore, he looked worried and scared.
“Dumbledore! What's going on?”
“Not to worry too much, dear boy. Nothing immediately life threatening.”
“So one of their names came out of the Goblet, then?”
“More like all of their names. Er... save for one.”
“One? Why would---oh, there's someone new?”
“Yes. If you wouldn't mind coming to Hogwarts, that would be most helpful. I'm rather too old to be making fire-calls for long.”
“I'll be there as soon as the fire is available.”
“Good,” Dumbledore said, pulling his head out of the fire and sending it whirling back to his body in Hogwarts.
Dumbledore stood up, dusted himself off, and walked over to his desk. He was just sitting down when Sirius came out of the fireplace.
“Have a seat, my dear man,” Dumbledore offered the usual spot in front of his desk.
“I don't see anyone but you and me, Dumbledore.”
“Yes. I sent the new Potter back to his room. If you come back tomorrow, I can show him to you, assuming he's still here. But he was tired, and I wanted to tell you of my experience of him first.”
Sirius sat down at last. “Alright, I'm listening.”
Dumbledore nodded, and proceeded to explain the entirety of everything from his first meeting with Chandra Rahasyamay to the moment the boy left the room.
“Ah yes, and there was one moment when he answered a question with this tune,” Dumbledore said, humming the tune.
Sirius listened to it, then said, “That's 'Give Peace A Chance' by John Lennon.”
“Indeed? Then it was an answer, and not just a random tune. Interesting.”
“So this boy, you said he speaks in riddles?”
“Metaphors. But since they are metaphors that come from his own unusual mind, I suppose 'riddles' would be just as accurate.”
“And he said the others are all in hiding?”
“Yes.”
Sirius rubbed his chin.
“Is he going to be able to get into Griffindor tower, speaking only in riddles?”
Dumbledore's expression faltered. “I hadn't considered that. I don't know.”
~
Chandra was lost. He was not bothered by this, though he did wish to sleep. He knew he should have foreseen this; he had been living with Mother so long that he had not had opportunity to pay much attention to the outside world. If he had been capable of thinking of this problem ahead of time, he would have asked for help from the silver grandfather.
There was the sound of a meow behind him, and he turned to see a cat. He was no expert, but it appeared to him that the cat was glaring accusingly at him. It meowed louder, turning its head as though expecting someone specific to arrive. Chandra said nothing; cats were animals, he knew they did not understand English, no matter how clever this one seemed to be. Unless it was an animagus? But he did not think so.
He heard some wheezing, and a rather unpleasant-looking man holding a lantern shuffled into view. Chandra regarded him with passive curiosity.
“Aha! A student out of bed! It's past curfew, what are you up to? No matter, you're in deep trouble now, boy. What's your name, boy? I don't recognize you.”
He flinched at the sting of the man's emotions.
“Chandra Rahasyamay,” Chandra answered as pleasantly as he could. “And you?”
“Oh, a smart Alec, I see. We'll see where your cheek is when I've got you hanging by your thumbs in the dungeon! Which House are you in, boy?”
Chandra looked puzzled for a moment, then remembered. “The land of the lions, the red and the gold.”
“Griffindor? Ha! Doesn't surprise me in the least. Well when Professor McGonagall's done with you, I daresay none of your little friends will be happy with you, and you'll wonder why you thought to break the rules! Now come with me, boy.”
“The silver grandfather was speaking with me, then I got tired. Now I am adrift at sea with no stars in the sky. Will you be my north star?”
Filch stared at Chandra, confused until he worked it out. “Oh, claiming to be lost, are you? Like I haven't heard that one a million times, no sirree. I'll help, alright; help you find your way to a whipping if you don't hurry up and follow me, you cheeky little sod.”
Chandra grimaced, walking up beside Filch. He tried to take the man's hand in his, causing Filch to gape at him, then hiss like an angry cat.
“What's wrong with you, boy?! Don't touch me! Insubordinate little devil, I'll beat you black and blue if you try that again!”
He nodded, and looked around the corridor, taking in all the sights. He was silent all the way to McGonagall's office, though Filch was muttering the whole way. When they reached the door, Filch knocked on it and waited. Before long, McGonagall opened the door.
“Yes, Filch? What is--- what are you doing with mister... sorry, I don't know how to pronounce his name.”
“Rahasyamay,” said Chandra.
“Yes, what are you doing with Mr. Raha... Rahasyamay? Last I knew, he was in Dumbledore's office. I presume he was sent back to his dorm room in Griffindor.”
“He was wandering around, far from anywhere that might be explained by going from Dumbledore's to Griffindor. Claimed to be lost. Up to no good, I reckon. And how come I ain't ever heard of him? I know all the little worms in this god-forsaken school.”
“That would be because he's one of the Potter collective, and brand new.”
“Figures. Probably trying to find more trouble to get into and not get punished for.”
“Never you mind, Filch. Mr. Rahasyamay, why weren't you on the route to bed?”
“I am adrift at sea with no stars in the sky. The angry light-carrier was not the north star I sought.”
McGonagall sighed. She wasn't paid enough to deal with one of her students becoming someone who spoke only in riddles.
“Yes, yes. Filch, leave him to me, I'll escort him back to his dorm. I don't know why, but I believe he truly is lost.”
“But Professor!”
“No, Filch. Leave it to me. Go back to your patrol, now.”
Filch growled and grumbled and muttered to himself, but he left all the same.
“Good. Now he's gone, I'll escort you to Griffindor tower. I'd ask you how you managed to get lost, but I doubt I would understand the answer.”
“I am alone. The others sleep underground, too scared to return for now. So I fumble in the dark for a candle.”
She blinked at him. “I think I actually understood that.”
Chandra smiled at her, and took her hand. She was surprised by this, but allowed it. They held hands all the way back.
'He's left handed,' she thought to herself. 'Odd. The rest of the Potters are right-handed.'
When they got to the portrait of the Fat Lady, the large woman in pink looked surprised to see them.
“Password?”
“Monkshood,” said Professor McGonagall, and the portrait opened.
“Do you remember where your room is?” she asked him.
“No.”
The common room was full, and full of noise. But everyone stopped when McGonagall and Chandra walked in. Chandra flinched from all the emotions of everyone in the room.
“Professor McGonagall?” someone said, sounding panicked. She rarely ever came into the Griffindor common room.
“No need to sound so worried, I was just escorting Mr. Rahasyamay here. Oh, Ronald Weasley, please come here. Thank you. Mr. Weasley, you know where the Potters sleep, correct?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“It appears the others left Mr. Rahasyamay all alone in there, for the time being. I gather that they are just hiding. But while they're hiding, he cannot navigate the castle. I doubt he knows where any of his classes are, either.”
“Er, okay. I'll take him to his room.”
“Thank you, Mr. Weasley. Mr. Weasley, this is Chandra Rahasyamay. Mr. Rahasyamay, this is Mr. Ronald Weasley, he is a friend of your collective.”
“Yes, I recognize the red knight,” Chandra said with a smile.
Ron looked confused. “Red knight?”
“He speaks in riddles, or metaphors. I do not know for sure, but I imagine he calls you that because of your hair, and the fact you played a knight on my giant chess set your first year. Is that correct, Mr. Rahasyamay?”
“Yes.”
Ron looked thoughtful. “I like it. Well, this way, Chandra.”
Chandra nodded, and followed Ron upstairs to the Potter room.
“Ah, I feel them here,” he told Ron. “I feel them in their objects.”
“Er, yeah, that's their stuff in there alright.”
Chandra nodded, and pulled his robes off. He undid the two wand holsters; he unlocked the compartment of the trunk that had all their clothes in it and put the spare wand in one of the drawers. When he came out again, dressed in nothing but pajama bottoms, he looked quizzically at Ron.
“Thank you, red knight. I need slumber.”
“Oh, right. Yes. Sorry. I'll see you in the morning?”
“Most likely,” Chandra said.
Ron left, and Chandra lay down in bed, staring at the ceiling for awhile before getting under the covers and going to sleep.
~
He found himself in the classroom again, and thought for a moment he was back with Mother while someone else was Out. But he soon discovered he was sleeping, dreaming. And the classroom was not as it had been. He was sitting in the front of the classroom, and everyone else was in the back. But they were behind glass, for some reason.
Standing up, Chandra took a closer look at the glass. It was, in fact, a scrying mirror looking into a room with many beds, and the others were all sleeping inside the glass room.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, and knew who it was.
“Mother, why do they sleep?”
“Because they are exhausted after the stress they've been through. And you, too, are sleeping.”
“They will wake up, though, right?”
“Yes. When they are ready.”
He nodded. “What is wrong with me? When I am out there on my own, I mean. I speak strangely. People have a hard time understanding me.”
“You've been down here for a long time. Language doesn't come easily to you. It's easier in here, with the others. In this dream, you have their knowledge. Out there, you think differently than most. This will always be true, but when the others return, your communication with other beings will be easier. Just remember that you may have to run your thoughts by the others so they can translate difficult ideas for you.”
“How am I to do schoolwork tomorrow without their knowledge?”
“You will adapt.”
“But---”
“You will adapt, my child. Trust me on this. Remember your studies. Remember the plan.”
He sighed. “Yes, Mother.”
“Remember, you have gifts the others do not. If you find something too difficult to do the way the teachers tell you to do it, try it your own way. Blaze your own path. For you know things that no other witch or wizard has known before you. Use that knowledge.”
“Yes, Mother.”
She lifted Her hand from his shoulder, and the dream dissolved into another, more normal dream.
~
Breakfast:
Professor McGonagall had decided to keep an eye on the new Potter. If he couldn't even remember how to navigate the school, she didn't think he'd remember any of his classes, and that could be a problem, the Potters being in the fourth year of their magical education.
Rather than alarm more students with her presence, though, she sent Dobby the House Elf – whom the headmaster had hired to the school – to go check on the boy, make sure he could get to classes. She hoped this would turn out to have been a good idea. The small elf had certainly been enthusiastic enough when it was explained to him. She just hoped he wasn't too enthusiastic.
Earlier:
Chandra had woken up because he'd sensed a presence in the room. Specifically, on his bed. He opened his eyes and sat up, and saw before him a small humanoid creature with large, tennis-ball-shaped eyes, a pencil-shaped nose, and giant bat-like ears. It wore an odd assortment of clothes: on its head was a tea cozy, with bright badges pinned to it; a tie patterned with horseshoes over a bare chest, a pair of what looked like children’s soccer shorts, and odd socks.
He blinked at the creature. Not knowing what to say, he remained silent.
The creature bowed to Chandra. “Are you Mr. Chandra Rahasyamay Potter, sir? I is Dobby the House Elf, sent by Professor McGonagall to help you at school today.”
Chandra continued to stare silently at Dobby. Dobby started to look uncomfortable.
After a minute, Chandra spoke. “Welcome, Small Oddly-Dressed Being.”
“Thank you, sir. You can be calling me Dobby, sir, for short.”
“Dobby? Dobby. Yes, Dobby. Good. So you are my north star?”
“Um... Dobby is not knowing what you is meaning, sir.”
“Sailors upon the ocean navigate by the north star.”
“Oh? Yes yes, I is to be sir's guide, helping you around the castle, sir.”
“Thank you, kind Dobby,” Chandra said. Dobby's eyes watered; this Potter was just as kind as the others he knew.
Chandra got up and went into the bathroom with a towel and new underwear for the day in his hands, and went about his morning routine. When he was all clean and ready to go, he came out and bade Dobby lead him to breakfast.
~
Breakfast:
Minerva McGonagall's worries were baseless, though, as she found out when Dobby and Chandra came down into the Great Hall for breakfast. Dobby did attract a lot of attention between being a House Elf and his strange clothing, but this was probably for the best, given he was drawing attention away from Chandra.
Well, mostly. As she observed from the teachers' table, she noticed a growing number of girls and a few of the boys staring at the boy in a hungry sort of way. She would have to talk to them later about being discreet, even though Chandra appeared to be oblivious. But she had to admit, he was quite handsome, for a 14 year old boy. He was going to be a heart-breaker when he grew up, with those big brown eyes of his, that strong jawline, and his warm, golden-brown skin.
She watched him carefully look over the breakfast options, ask Dobby some questions, and then pick out several things that he scooped onto his plate with his left hand. She still found that interesting, that he was the only southpaw in the lot of them so far. But more interesting was his diet: fruits, grains, and nuts were all he took from the options available, skipping over anything with meat or other animal products in it. So did this mean he was a vegetarian as well? That was interesting; the other Potters tended to have a great fondness for sausages and other meats.
She heard Dobby speak, but couldn't make out the words. Chandra nodded, and Dobby vanished with a crack of disapparition. She frowned, slightly, wondering what that was about, but a few minutes later, the House Elf was back and telling Chandra something else. She wondered if she ought to pry into that, or leave it alone. After all, in context, it-- ah, yes. That was it; he must have asked Dobby to alert the kitchens that he was a vegetarian.
~
Breakfast:
Chandra followed the little elf through the corridors of Hogwarts, looking every which way as he did, attempting to memorize the route. Dobby tried speaking to him, but he just told the elf “I attempt to fill the emptiness. Please be as a placid lake,” and the elf, after looking confused for a moment, had nodded and kept quiet.
When he sat down at the Griffindor table in the Great Hall, he stood in shock at the sight before him. But what his eyes saw wasn't the problem; he had discovered that he could feel imprints of the emotions of the animals much of the food had been. It was subtle, and residual; the others would not have noticed it if they could even detect it. But it was enough to put him off his appetite. But he needed food, and since the plants did not give him the same problem, he went with fruits, grains, and nuts. Milk was not a problem, nor butter, probably because the animal did not die or even get hurt to harvest it. This was a relief, as it expanded his options.
Dobby had noticed this, and had asked him if Dobby should alert the kitchens that he was a vegetarian, to which he had agreed. Anything that would make things easier for him was welcome. This day was starting out not great and getting worse. First he could feel the pain of the food, and now he could feel a large number of minds crowding him, their emotions often focused on him. Some of the sensations were... a bit too pleasant, causing an embarrassing tightness in his pants. Still other emotions burned or whipped him. It was all beginning to give him a headache, so he ate quickly.
On his way out of the Great Hall, Sirius intercepted him.
“Er, uh... are you Chandra Rahasyamay?” Sirius asked him.
Chandra looked at him and smiled, recognizing him. “Black Father!” he hugged the man.
“Oh, so you recognize me? Even with the others hiding?”
“Yes, Black Father.”
“Er... I'm not actually black, except in my Animagus form. It's just my surname.”
“Ah. You wish another calling? Perhaps Brave Father?”
“Brave Father?”
“Yes. Brave father, of the house of lions. Brave Father, his candle defiant in the darkness of the Evil Place with the soul eaters.”
“Ah, yes. Yes, you're right. Brave Father is a good nickname. Shall I call you...” he paused, thinking. “I don't know, I'm not any good at this.”
“My calling has meaning. Chandra means Moon, Rahasyamay means Mysterious. You could call me Mysterious Moon.”
“I've already got a friend with a moon-based nickname. And it doesn't quite roll off the tongue, either.”
Chandra nodded, thinking.
“Anyway,” Sirius said, “we can figure it out later. You have classes. Talk with you after dinner?”
“Sunshine in the sky,” he said with a smile.
“I... I suppose I'll take that as a 'yes.'”
Stepping out into fresh air was like the lifting of a burden he'd not known he'd been carrying. His feet itched in their socks and shoes, something he'd put on this morning without thinking. But now he wanted to take them off. And Dobby was here, so he did. When they were outside the greenhouses, he took his socks and shoes off and handed them to Dobby.
“Place these by the cloth nest I dream in, please.”
The elf looked confused. “But sir is needing his socks and shoes, is he not?”
“As the caged bird cries for freedom, so do my feet.”
Dobby nodded with a look of grave understanding on his face. “I understands. I will put them away safely for sir. Just calls for Dobby if you needs anything, sir!”
With that, the elf was gone. Chandra turned around and went into the greenhouses.
Professor Sprout looked at his bare feet and then at his face in confusion before recognizing him from McGonagall's description. She looked at a loss for words.
“Er, Mr. Rahasyamay?” she asked, “are you aware that you're not wearing shoes?”
“Yes.”
“And why are you not wearing shoes?”
“They sang to me their desire for freedom.”
She opened her mouth to speak, closed it, paused, then said, “Well be careful not to step on anything dangerous.”
“Understood, Green Thumb.”
The class went reasonably well. Professor Sprout's instructions for the Bouncing Bulbs did not require any previous knowledge to follow. Chandra did worry that his lack of memories would still impair him, but surprisingly, it didn't much... yet. He had to pause now and then and get help from Ron or Hermione, but otherwise did pretty well.
Things were slightly tense from the Hufflepuffs. The Potters' names had, after all, come out of the Goblet, but between Al's earlier defense of Cedric Diggory and the oddness of Chandra, they were too off balance to really be angry with him. Ron and Hermione, of course, supported him; they'd seen the lengths Al had taken to try to avoid this tournament, after all.
Care of Magical Creatures was different, of course. Draco Malfoy had been shocked and enraged to see his family's old House Elf, Dobby, guiding Chandra around.
“Dobby?” shouted Malfoy.
Dobby held up his nose at Malfoy. “Yes, I is Dobby. And you is not my master anymore.” He turned back to Chandra. “Later, sir,” he said with a bow, and disappeared.
“You stole our old house elf from us! It's bad enough you freed him, now he's yours?!”
“The small elf serves no master. Money is his reward from the silver grandfather, with the fire-bird.”
Malfoy looked confused for a moment. “Wait, Dumbledore is paying him to work here?” Malfoy said, in the tone one might use to confirm that someone had really said he was having sex with his own mother.
“Yes.”
Their conversation was soon cut short as Hagrid informed them that they were taking the blast-ended skrewts for walks, because they'd started to kill each other. Malfoy, of course, was quite vocal against this idea. But Chandra was looking at his own skrewt with a horrified expression on his face, backing away slowly.
“Wha's the matter? Er... sorry, don't know yer name.”
“His name is Chandra,” Hermione said, once it was clear Chandra wasn't going to answer.
“Wha's wrong, Chandra?”
Chandra pointed at the skrewt, in horror.
“W-what did you do? What did you do?”
Hagrid looked very nervous. “Dunno whatcha mean. Evryone back ter leashin up yer skrewts, there's good kids. Go on, they need their exercise.”
Chandra began to cry silently, tears streaming down his face as he continued to stare at the hideous monsters. His whole body shook.
“If yer scared of em, yeh can take the day off, I won't mind,” Hagrid said.
“ABOMINATION!” Chandra screamed, pointing at the skrewt. “PAIN! CONFUSION! RAGE! WHAT DID YOU DO? HOW DID YOU DO IT? WHY did you do it???”
“Calm down there, alrigh? No need ter shout about it. Sorry, evryone, he's just in a bit of a state. Better get 'im a calming draught.”
Chandra's brain was going at high speed, trying to find the right image, the right words, to express his feelings, to express the truth of the skrewts. He couldn't, at first, find anything that fit, that was even close to what he needed to say.
“They howl in mental agony! They rage in confusion against themselves! Blind creatures; two beings, afraid and angry in the darkness! Two creatures trapped in one body, fighting in the darkness! Cornered animals, all their lives, with no escape! Every moment they live is Hell! It's... IT SHOULD NOT BE!”
Several people had tied their skrewts to a tree, to come closer, the better to see Chandra's freak-out; even Ron and Hermione did this.
“What's the matter?” Hermione asked.
“Fire-crab fights manticore, manticore fights fire-crab! They fight each other, it fights ITSELF! That thing SHOULD NOT EXIST!”
As Chandra screamed those words at the top of his voice, pointing at the skrewt, there was a flash of golden light from Chandra's finger, a whooshing sound, and the skrewt fell to the ground, dead. But this did not change Chandra's mood. He whirled around, looking at the other skrewts, and got out his wand.
“What did yeh do? It's dead! You k-killed it!” Hagrid looked like he was about to cry.
“Its fighting ceases. Its Hell is ended. Its two beings have woken from their nightmare. Better the peace of death than the endless nighmarish Hell you forced them into! Their creation, your crime, heinous despite your ignorance. But for that ignorance, Mother would smite you, were She not so merciful.”
He started shooting golden light at another skrewt, and Hagrid bounded forward to stop him.
“NO! DON'T HURT EM!”
“THEY HURT JUST BY BEING! I am ending their agony!”
She didn't know if it was a trick of the light or what, but for a moment Hermione thought Chandra's eyes had changed color to blue, then to green, then to purple, before going back to their normal brown. And as it happened, a freak wind came out of the calm sky and blew Hagrid over onto his back, then started rolling him along the ground.
Chandra looked surprised, but took advantage of this odd occurrence to shoot golden light – which Hermione realized now was being cast non-verbally – at the other skrewts, until they were all dead. At least, she hoped Hagrid didn't have any more of the foul things hidden away somewhere.
Ron and Hermione spent the rest of the class consoling Hagrid on his loss, even though they privately agreed with Chandra for killing the foul creatures. Everyone else had left, certain that Hagrid wouldn't be able to continue for the rest of the day, if not longer.
Chandra came over to the large man, keeping his distance in case Hagrid attacked him.
“I am sorry, Tall Father. I know you loved them. If you had seen and felt what I did, your love for them would have had you at my side in this action. They were in great pain. They should never have existed. Fire crabs and manticores were not meant to mix. Do not do it again, I beg you. I would not want to hurt you a second time. But what I did today, I would do again, for it was Right.” He paused, then continued, “Please do not treat the others differently for what I have done; they are not here, they are hiding. They will not know what I've done until they return.”
Just then, Professor McGonagall and Professor Dumbledore came running into the area, looking very anxious.
“What's going on?” McGonagall demanded. “The wards said there was someone using Killing Curses out here!”
“Tall Father created abominations. They were in agony, fighting themselves in endless internal battle. I could not bear their pain, so I unmade them. They should never have been made to begin with, so I unmade them.”
“You were casting those Killing Curses?” she said, bewildered.
“But that couldn't have been a Killing Curse!” complained Hermione. “I mean yes, it did kill them, and there was that whooshing sound from the time Professor Moody showed us the Killing Curse, but the Killing Curse is green, and the light coming from Chandra's wand was golden!”
“Can you corroborate that, Mr. Weasley?”
“Yeah, it was golden. Like, bright gold. But otherwise it acted the same and sounded the same as the... as the Killing Curse.”
Chandra stared at his wand, examining it as though he'd never seen one before. “Yes, I did as they speak. And I am unsure how. I do not know the words to the spell. All I know is they were in such pain and terror that they needed release, so I fed that need into the wand, and it released them.”
“Most astonishing,” Dumbledore said. He then nudged one of the skrewts with his toe. “Are these the creatures you killed?”
“Yes, Silver Grandfather.”
“I see. Hagrid, I know you're very upset right now, but Mr. Rahasyamay has a point. You really should not have engaged in illegal breeding experiments. Please do not do it again.”
“R-r-right, Professor,” Hagrid choked out between sobs.
“Again, Tall Father, I am sorry to hurt you. But I had to.”
Chandra then turned to Dumbledore. “If I am to be punished, then so be it.”
“I shall leave Professor McGonagall to comforting Hagrid, then. Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger, please go back up to the castle. Mr. Rahasyamay will join you later.”
They nodded and left. Professor Dumbledore said, “Come,” to Chandra, and led him to his office, where they'd just been last night. They didn't speak until after they were both sitting down.
“Mr. Rahasyamay, before we get to the matter of your punishment, would you please tell me what you were feeling when you cast that curse?”
He pondered a moment, then said, “Sadness, mostly. Horror, yes, but sadness. Those poor creatures were in such agony. Their being was a crime against Life, and against them. They were begging for release from their agony and their terror.”
“I see. Tell me, would it be accurate to say you felt love for these creatures? In the sense that their pain hurt you because the pain and suffering of life-forms in general hurts you because you love Life?”
“Yes, that does sound true.”
“A Killing Curse powered by love rather than hate? Fascinating. Still, no matter its power source, it was registered as a Killing Curse by the wards. You used a curse that could have killed a student or teacher and landed you in Azkaban for life if you had miscalculated your aim. I don't know what punishment fits that crime, to be honest. I think I'll start with a week's worth of detentions, though, and 50 points from Griffindor.”
Chandra nodded. “Understood.”
“And if you ever use an Unforgivable again, no matter what you're aiming at, I'm afraid I shall have to expel you. Our leniency only goes so far. I won't expel you this time because you were clearly emotionally distraught by those creatures, and you are... new. So some allowances must be made. But as I said, the points I took from Griffindor, and a week's detentions. You'll come to my office at 6 o'clock sharp tonight, understood?”
“Er... But Brave Father, who is also a black dog, wished to speak with me after dinner today.”
There was a pause as Dumbledore worked out his meaning, before he said, “Your godfather will just have to speak with you another time. Detentions come first. He will understand, he had plenty of them in his days at Hogwarts.”
“I understand. Six of the clock, here.”
“Good. Then you may go now.”
~
After a lunch consisting mostly of steamed vegetables and some cheese, Chandra went on to Divination, still with bare feet. On his way up, though, he got stopped by Filch.
“What's this now? Why don't you have any shoes on, you little worm?”
“They needed to be free. So I let them be free.”
“Where's your shoes at, then?”
“Dobby took them to my room for me.”
“Dobby? Who's Dobby?”
“Dobby is a house elf.”
“Oh yes, the new house elf. The weird one. Well call him back and tell him to bring you your shoes! And god help you if you tracked any mud into my clean castle on your filthy soles!”
Chandra checked the bottoms of his feet. “They appear clean.”
“I doubt that they started out that way; you've probably tracked in mud somewhere, and now I have to go hunting for it. But I've had enough of you for now. Don't let me catch you going barefoot again!”
Chandra nodded. Filch stayed behind to make sure Chandra called Dobby and got his socks and shoes back on. Then he left.
Far from being angry with the man, Chandra was relieved. He hadn't thought to call Dobby again, after all the commotion earlier. But he would have gotten lost if he had forgotten.
“Be my north star again, Dobby? I need to find the seer's classroom.”
“Right away, sir! Follow Dobby, sir!”
To his surprise, Chandra remembered Professor Trelawney. Apparently she'd left such a powerful impression on the others that the memory persisted even with them all hiding. So when he first saw her, and remembered what she was like, he took out his drawing materials and went to work. But where he'd used two pens and a lot of dots to make his art before, this time he was just using a pencil and drawing like normal.
The professor didn't care for this, of course. She kept looking his way, clearly annoyed to be disrespected by yet another Potter.
“Hello there, young man. What is your name?”
Without looking up from his drawing, he said, “If a man tells you he is blind, check to make sure he is not simply closing his eyes.”
This drew laughter from some of the other students, which she shushed with an angry glare. Then she turned back to Chandra.
“The Sight is not always clear on little details such as names, you should know. So with that in mind, young man, what is your name?”
“Chandra Rahasyamay.”
“Good, good. Now if--”
Dropping his pencil, he grabbed her arm and stared up at her with a sorrowful expression, almost pitying. She stared back at him, speechless, and his look of sorrow intensified as he shook his head, making sad clucking noises with his tongue, then sighed heavily, and let one tear roll down his cheek.
“Do not let the toad cow you, in the school year to come. She will make your life miserable in a way Alastair never could. You must be strong.” He stood up and whispered in her ear, “Sherry is not a strength potion, it is a weakness potion. Resist its siren song. Dumbledore will protect you, if you but remain strong.”
And in the next instant, he sat back down and went back to his drawing as though nothing interesting had happened.
She was stunned speechless, and stared at him for almost a full minute before wandering off like a tired toddler over to her usual seat, holding onto it for support. After a few minutes, she finally got back, with difficulty, to the business of teaching class. She did not speak to Chandra Rahasyamay again that day.
~
After dinner, Chandra went to the headmaster's office as instructed. Or rather, he went to where the gargoyle was. He pulled his drawing from the night before out of the storage container embedded in the portable desk strapped to his chest that he had manifested the night before, and looked at it, then put it back. Once it was secure, he gave the gargoyle the password and went up to Dumbledore's office.
When he knocked on the door, Dumbledore told him to come in.
“Mr. Rahasyamay, I was not expecting you to remember the password. I was about to meet you down there.”
“Lead or follow, Silver Grandfather?”
“I shall follow you down, then lead you to where your detention is to be served.”
Chandra nodded, and they made their way down and out from behind the gargoyles. Then Dumbledore led him to Professor Snape's office.
“I do hate to do this to you, but you did quite a serious thing, so you will be taking your detentions with Professor Snape.”
“Understood. But I do not understand why you are sorry for it.”
“Do you not remember Professor Snape?”
He shook his head.
“Maybe you will when you see him.”
Dumbledore knocked on Snape's office door, and it opened at once, Snape glaring out. His face relaxed a little when he saw Dumbledore, then he grimaced and glared down at Chandra.
“So this is the new Potter you spoke of?”
“Yes, Severus. His name is Chandra Rahasyamay. He, er... is a little hard to understand at times, his manner of speaking is somewhat unusual.”
“So I have heard. No matter, he will not be speaking much. I will have him scrubbing out cauldrons without magic.”
“Good. Just do not torment the boy unduly.”
“I want as little to do with him as possible, I assure you, headmaster.”
“Good. I shall see you later, then.”
Dumbledore turned away and left. Snape gestured for Chandra to follow him, and he led the boy to another room full of filthy, stinking cauldrons.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Get in here now.”
“Yes, sir.” Angry Vulture Man, he thought but did not say aloud. The man still glared at him as though he had heard anyway.
“These cauldrons have been brewing particularly nasty failed potions in them. You will scrub out these cauldrons until they are all spotless, without using magic. When they are clean, I will inspect them, and give you something else to do, if time has not already expired. You will not speak except to tell me you are done with the task I have assigned you. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Here are some dragon-hide gloves, some scrubbers, and cleaning solution. Now get to work.”
Snape sat down at his desk, grading papers, and Chandra set to work.
It did not take Chandra long to realize that the job was actually pretty easy, insofar as he could do it on automatic and let his mind wander as he did. This was not so bad a price to pay for doing the right thing, in his view. Snape could have been really evil and assigned him to kill some poor creature for potions ingredients, which would have been quite impossible for him to do. Perhaps Snape had already heard enough about him to guess this, and didn't want the stress of fighting with him to try to get him to violate his principles.
But thinking became tedious after a while, so he just went into a meditative state as he worked, humming a little tune. If Snape could hear the tune, he gave no sign.
This went quite well for several minutes before it went a little wrong. He was partway into the third cauldron, humming along, when the air suddenly began to smell of lavender, and the cauldron cleaned itself completely, all on its own. Chandra stopped and blinked at this. He knew he had done accidental magic, and he knew Snape would not be happy.
Alerted by the sudden silence, Snape looked up at him.
“What is it? Why have you stopped?”
“Um... sir? I...”
“What did you do?” Snape snapped at him, standing up to come see what was going on.
Snape stared into the cauldron. “I thought I told you no magic!”
“It was accidental! I was humming, my mind blank, and it just... happened.”
Snape sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I see.” He paused to collect himself before speaking again. “Well, Mr. Rahasyamay, no more humming in that case. And, while I understand it will be difficult for you to do this, please try to not let your mind go blank. If it happens again, I shall find something more difficult for you to do.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Now get back to work,” Snape demanded, sitting back down again.
Without humming, and with trying to force his mind to think about something other than going blank, Chandra went back to work. And between the lack of distractions and having to focus on keeping his mind occupied, the task became much more difficult. Much more like punishment. But at least he didn't provoke Snape's ire again that night.
~
Tired from his cleaning, Chandra returned to his room at 11 PM and found that Hedwig had a letter for him from Sirius.
Dear Chandra,
If you don't mind waking up an hour earlier, we can meet before breakfast tomorrow, since you've got detentions for a week, according to Dumbledore. You can tell me what happened if you want.
Looking forward to seeing you.
Love,
Sirius
Chandra smiled, and wrote a quick letter back to him agreeing to the meeting. It would mean less sleep than he usually got, but he could manage it at least once. So with that to look forward to, he sent Hedwig back with the reply, stripped out of all his clothes save his underwear, and curled into bed.
End note one: Some of Chandra's difficulties in classes during this chapter are inspired a little bit by an experience our own collective had some years ago. We used to work at an inbound customer service call center, and Alex was the only one of us any good at it. One day something upset him so badly that he vanished for a week, and we spent the whole week trying to make up for him being gone. It took all the rest of us working in concert to do a fourth as good a job as he did, calls took 3 or 4 times longer to complete, and it took so much parallel processing power for the brain to do that every night after work we spent hours recovering from the exhaustion, where Alex had never been more than mildly tired after work. We were very grateful when Alex came back. Alex didn't remember anything that happened to him down there, or if there was anything to remember. It was like waking up and not remembering whether or not you dreamed.
Also, yes, I skipped Chandra and Sirius talking before breakfast. They didn't talk about much of any importance.
End note two: I've been planning Chandra Rahasyamay for a long time. He was inspired by an idea a reader sent me, I forget who. I've had a lot of ideas about him, but I have to say that the way I write my characters, they basically write themselves. I come up with ideas about them, and something in my mind points out what to keep and what to throw out, and then sometimes comes up with its own stuff that it doesn't tell me about until I'm actually writing the scenes. Chandra was one such character; when I started writing this chapter, what came out surprised me as much as it probably surprised you. It made sense, and it still does. If it hadn't, I would have scrapped it and tried again.
Something else I have to say about Chandra: I have no bloody clue why he is the way he is. I know the in-story reasons why he is, but I don't know where he came from in my mind. I don't think I've ever read about or written of a character remotely like him before. Getting into his headspace to write him is surreal. And getting back out of his headspace after putting the story away, or stepping away, is difficult. It's not a new sensation, this headspace inertia, but thinking like Chandra is definitely a unique and bizarre experience for me.
Honestly, I don't really want anyone else in my head with me, but I wouldn't mind someone like Chandra moving in.
Also, I hadn't planned the scene with the skrewts. It just came to me when I got to that part.
One last thing re: the skrewts = “Big bwuhthuh?” *evil grin*
“The Many Faces of Adira Potter: Chapter 27”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Twenty-seven: Reluctant Returns
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Adira, and Zoey, and now #Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and now between hashtags/pound signs because some people's computers don't do the B.I.U.).# and {Tier}.
*FAYANORA*
Classes were a bit of a mixed bag for Chandra. In History of Magic, he got out his two colored pens and went back to drawing with dots, all during class. Professor Lupin was mildly annoyed by this, but when he called on Chandra in class, Chandra was always able to repeat anything Lupin had said verbatim without looking up from his drawing, but always paused his work during these times, going back to it the moment Lupin or someone else started to talk again. But, as Lupin soon found out, Chandra had no memory of anything they'd discussed when any of the others in his collective had been present instead of him. So clearly the problem wasn't with his memory, except that the others had apparently taken their memories with them when they hid.
Potions was much worse. Snape insisted Chandra put his art away. For some reason, despite appearing to pay attention, Chandra could no longer remember what Snape was saying, but did not appear to be doing it on purpose. In fact, it made him very upset. He kept apologizing, voice cracking with emotion, and kept looking back at his art closed up in its case. Snape finally got too upset with him to continue, and decided to ignore Chandra for the rest of class.
When making potions that were in their books, Chandra did adequately well, but not spectacularly. At least he didn't blow anything up or ruin the potions. But clearly he was frustrated by this.
“Stupid Angry Vulture Man,” he complained after Potions. “Too fond of looming and being angry to see.”
“See what, Chandra?” asked Hermione.
“He stopped my memory. He did not see. I need my memory.”
“Er... what?” Ron asked.
Chandra took his drawing paper out and showed them the piece he'd begun in Potions. “Memory. I need my memory. The meat remembers, but the memory remembers so much better.”
“What are you on about?”
Hermione gasped in sudden realization. “Wait, Chandra... are you saying you're taking notes? That this pointilism art of yours is some kind of code?”
“It is the memory. The red-red-blue is the dot-dot-dash.”
“Hermione, what is he talking about?”
“These pictures of his, he's writing in Morse Code.”
“What's Morse Code?”
“One of the earliest electronic communication methods the Muggles came up with was the telegraph, and it could only transmit dots and dashes, so Samuel Morse came up with a code of these dots and dashes to represent different letters and numbers, so messages could be sent. The most famous of these is SOS. Anyway, Chandra's adapted Morse Code to take notes with. Red dots represent the Morse dots, and the blue dots represent dashes.”
“He's drawing with words, you mean?”
“Yes. It's ingenious, actually. Look like you're just drawing, and actually you're taking notes.”
“The memory, yes. Dot-dot-dash for every word spoken. But Angry Vulture Man wouldn't let me do it. I need the memory to do well in class.”
“Well just explain to him that you're taking notes, he should understand. He may not like it, but he can't stop you taking notes in class.”
“What he can, he will, if it serves his anger. But I shall explain tonight.”
Explaining himself to Snape after dinner, about 'the memory,' might have taken hours if he hadn't had Hermione's words written down to explain. Snape finally understood, and snappishly said he could take his 'bloody notes' in class using his 'ridiculously complicated Muggle code' if he wanted, using a tone of voice that suggested he just wanted to stop having to tolerate the conversation, and told Chandra to leave his sight.
~
Charms was something different again for Chandra. He could, thanks to his art, repeat verbatim anything Professor Flitwick said, but he couldn't perform any of the charms. Having heard that Chandra didn't have many memories from before Sunday, Flitwick had him try a simple first-year charm instead, explaining some preliminary things to him first. And Hermione, who had thought ahead, shared her notes from first-year with him. But even with all that help, Chandra couldn't do even the simplest of charms.
He was utterly hopeless at Transfiguration, too, as it turned out. Since he couldn't remember anything about the class, he again got put on remedial lessons, and couldn't do the simplest transfiguration. It was indeed like he'd been reset to his first week of Hogwarts, even though he was 14. This was a fact that Draco Malfoy soon picked up on through the grapevine, and made every attempt to tease Chandra about it. Chandra mostly ignored Malfoy, even when he was saying that Chandra was going to die in the first Task because he was a dunce. Chandra found it very difficult to not cry or punch Malfoy in the nose, or both.
But the worst yet, in some ways, was Defense Against the Dark Arts. Moody decided to try Chandra on the Imperius Curse again, because he was new, and without the others he was as vulnerable as anyone. It was quite embarrassing.
It didn't help that most of the school was shunning him. The Hufflepuffs were of two minds about him still, and the Griffindors were glad to have a Griffindor champion, but the Ravenclaws and Slytherins were all convinced that they'd put their own names in, despite Chandra appearing when the others vanished. For one, most of them thought he was a metamorphmagus who was pretending to be multiple people for attention, and they also hadn't seen the lengths Al had gone to in his attempts to avoid being put into the Tournament. And of course, they thought he was faking his troubles in class for more attention. Only Ron and Hermione and Luna believed him, out of all the students.
And of course, Hagrid wasn't talking to him, not even in class. Hagrid hadn't gone back to flobberworms, thank goodness, and had instead gone with regular magical creatures like knarls and crups, because his heart wasn't up to more monsters. Still, in classes Hagrid always regarded Chandra warily, like he expected even these ordinary magical creatures to be struck down by Chandra's magic.
A magic that Chandra didn't even know how to recreate, in point of fact. Aside from once scouring out a dirty cauldron with accidental magic, he hadn't done any magic since killing the skrewts, and he couldn't figure out why not. If he'd not been able to do any magic at all since appearing, it wouldn't have bothered him much, given his missing memories. But he'd done a kind of magic nobody had done before, a Killing Curse fueled by love rather than hate, without even knowing the words to the curse. His frustration grew every day that he couldn't get a single spell to work. He even began praying, at night, to Mother, hoping She could hear him. Except that he knew for a fact She could hear him; what he really wanted was for Her to answer him back. He remembered the dream he'd had, of course, but nothing She'd said had made any sense to him.
Then on his second Friday, he started seeing people wearing strange buttons that he couldn't read at first, they were too far distant. It was little more than a curiosity, though, until the corridor before Potions. When he first saw them a little closer on the Slytherins, he thought they were pins for the House-Elf Liberation Front that Hermione had made, but then he got close enough to read them. They all bore the same message, in luminous red letters that burnt brightly in the dimly lit underground passage:
Support CEDRIC DIGGORY —
The REAL Hogwarts Champion
“Like them, Potter?” said Malfoy loudly as Chandra approached. “And this isn’t all they do — look!”
He pressed his badge into his chest, and the message upon it vanished, to be replaced by another one, which glowed green:
POTTER STINKS
The Slytherins howled with laughter. Each of them pressed their badges too, until the message POTTER STINKS was shining brightly all around Chandra. He felt the heat rise in his face and neck.
“My name is Chandra Rahasyamay.”
Draco parroted these words back at him in a mocking tone.
“Oh very funny,” Hermione said sarcastically to Pansy Parkinson and her gang of Slytherin girls, who were laughing harder than anyone, “really witty.”
“Want one, Granger?” said Malfoy, holding out a badge to Hermione. “I’ve got loads. But don’t touch my hand, now. I’ve just washed it, you see; don’t want a Mudblood sliming it up.”
Chandra's anger from the past week and a half bubbled over, and he turned calmly to Malfoy, pointing his wand at the blond boy, and said, “It fights itself in agony.”
Malfoy went even paler than usual, and ducked away.
“You threatened me! You threatened to kill me! He was going to kill me, like he did to those skrewts! You all saw it!”
Chandra sheathed his wand and grinned.
“Like anybody's going to take that seriously, Malfoy,” Hermione said. “Chandra doesn't even know how he did it to begin with, and he hasn't done any magic since then. It was an empty threat.”
“And that spell was fueled by love. Recreating it would require I love you, Silver Ferret, which I do not. Nor do I hate you. You inspire naught but indifference.”
The class was divided. The Slytherins all took Malfoy's side of course, but most of the Griffindors thought Malfoy was being an idiot, that Hermione was right. Even the ones who thought he was faking being a multiple believed that he didn't know how to make gold Killing Curses, that it had been something he'd done accidentally while upset.
Draco pulled out his own wand and brandished it at Chandra. Reacting on instinct, Chandra took his wand back out and backed up, wary of what Malfoy would do, and a little panicky, seeing as he couldn't think of a single spell he knew how to do. He weighed that against what Malfoy could do, or tried to. But without any memory of Malfoy's capabilities, he didn't know what the safest thing to do was.
Why that little turd, said a voice in his head, startling him. But then he felt the presence that came with it, and it felt like it was waking up from a very long nap.
~Alastair?~ he thought.
The very same. I think it's just you and me at the moment.
But since Chandra could now feel the memories flooding back, he didn't mind that at all. Al took control of the right arm and took the wand from Chandra's left. Nobody else seemed to notice this.
“Densaugeo!” screamed Malfoy.
“Protego!” Al yelled with Chandra's voice.
The spell hit his shield and dissipated.
“Ha!” Al laughed in Chandra's voice. “Whadda ya think of that, you little wankstain?”
“He used his right hand! And that voice! Al's back!” Hermione shouted, clapping. Ron cheered.
“What is all this shouting about?” asked the cold, deadly-sounding voice of Snape.
“This little coward just tried hexing Chandra, who was essentially helpless, but I arrived right in the nick of time to save him,” Al explained, still in Chandra's voice and body.
Snape stared at Chandra as though the boy had mutated into a horklump before his eyes. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Snape sighed.
“I don't get paid enough to put up with nonsense like this,” he muttered, audibly. “Fine then, Mr. Rahasyamay or whoever you are, 20 points apiece from Griffindor and Slytherin for doing magic in the corridors. Now I suggest everyone come in to class before I make it thirty!”
Snape whirled around and stalked into his classroom ahead of everyone else, ignoring the confused chatter of the students at Snape's uncharacteristic taking of points from his own house. Al let Chandra have the body back, and they went into class with everyone else.
Snape must be off his game if he didn't give any detentions, Al said.
~Silver Grandfather bade The Angry Vulture Man punish me for releasing the Conflicted Ones. Many nights this past week he has had to watch me fight the stains of his students' mistakes.~
Uh... what now?
A series of feelings and images flashed to Al from Chandra. Al was still puzzled, so he checked to see if the common memory had updates from Chandra. It did.
Ah, I see. I think.
~My point was that he sees me more than he likes as is.~
Ah yes, that makes sense.
The rest of the class, Snape lectured about antidotes, and Chandra dutifully took notes. Since only Ron, Hermione, and Snape knew this was what he was doing, others kept looking back and forth between him and Snape, as though wondering why Snape wasn't blowing up at Chandra.
While Chandra took notes, Al reviewed the memories from when Chandra had been alone, and chuckled, growled, or groaned on occasion so only Chandra could hear him.
Then a knock at the door interrupted their thoughts.
It was Colin Creevey, who edged into the room and looked around until he spotted Chandra. He half-grinned; he and Chandra hadn't really met, so he didn't know Chandra except by sight. Colin walked up to Snape's desk at the front of the room.
“Yes?” said Snape curtly.
“Please, sir, I’m supposed to take, er... 'Chandra Rasamy or whichever of the Potters is available' upstairs, sir.”
“It is pronounced 'Rahasyamay,' I believe. And we are in the middle of class, Mr. Creevey. Surely it can wait?”
Colin went pink.
“Sir — sir, Mr. Bagman wants him,” he said nervously. “All the champions have got to go, I think they want to take photographs.”
Lovely, Al said sarcastically. Just bloody great. Well, if it gets us out of class early...
“Very well, very well,” Snape snapped. “Potter, leave your things here, I want you back down here later to test your antidote.”
“Please, sir — he’s got to take his things with him,” squeaked Colin. “All the champions —”
“Very well!” said Snape. “Potter — take your bag and get out of my sight!”
Chandra stood up, putting on his bookbag and transferring his artwork to his portable desk thing, ignoring the 'Potter Stinks' badges flashing as he went by. Al imagined giving them all a pair of very rude hand gestures.
Following beind Colin, Al took his wand out of its holster and started twirling it like a baton. Chandra, meanwhile, was drawing with the left hand.
“Er, hello, my name is Colin Creevey,” Colin said when they were out in the corridor. “Are you Chandra Rasmay?”
“Chandra Rahasyamay,” said Chandra.
“Er, that. Are you?”
“Yes.”
“It's amazing, isn't it? You being the Champion, I mean.”
“A diamond of accuracy lies rough in the stone of that statement,” Chandra said.
“Um, okay.”
“What do they want photos for, Colin?” Al asked with Chandra's voice.
“The Daily Prophet, I think!”
“Lovely, just what we need, more publicity.”
Colin frowned thoughtfully at him. “Your voice sounds different. I mean, it's the same voice, but the tone is different.”
Al held out Chandra's hand, to Chandra's annoyance. “Hi. Alastair Potter riding shotgun in the body at the moment. The others are all in hiding.”
“Even Har—er, I mean Adira?”
“Yes, even Adira.”
“You can talk and move the body even when you're not transformed?”
“Yes. It's harder. Usually, I mean. Chandra doesn't resist as much as the others do.”
“Cool. Well good luck!”
They had reached the right room. Al nodded at Colin and knocked, before giving Chandra back control of the body, right hand excepted, as he was twirling his wand again.
I rather suspect this will be more fun watching you do all the talking.
~As it pleases you, Angry Defender.~
Angry Defender? Why do I get a name similar to both Snape's and Filch's?
~Do you find the calling inaccurate?~
That's not the bloody point!
~As you wish, Sarcastic Defender.~
Better. Thanks.
Chandra entered a fairly small classroom; most of the desks had been pushed away to the back of the room, leaving a large space in the middle; three of them, however, had been placed end-to-end in front of the blackboard and covered with a long length of velvet. Five chairs had been set behind the velvet-covered desks, and Ludo Bagman was sitting in one of them, talking to a witch neither he nor Al recognized, who was wearing magenta robes.
Viktor Krum was standing moodily in a corner as usual and not talking to anybody. Cedric and Fleur – a girl Al only knew the name of because Chandra did – were in conversation. Fleur looked a good deal happier than Chandra had seen her so far; she kept throwing back her head so that her long silvery hair caught the light. A paunchy man, holding a large black camera that was smoking slightly, was watching Fleur out of the corner of his eye.
Creepy man, Al thought. Chandra did not reply.
Bagman finally noticed Chandra, and blinked for a moment in confusion before recognizing him from the night of Halloween.
“Harry Potter!” Bagman said jubilantly.
Chandra looked up at the man in annoyance.
“My calling is Chandra Rahasyamay. There is no longer a 'Harry Potter' in existence anymore. The one whose calling was once that is now Adira Potter.”
“Er, yes, sorry about that. Not as young as I used to be, after all.”
“That is ever true of all of us, all the time. Your excuse is hollow, and will not be permitted again.”
“Er, sorry again. Meant no offense.”
“Stab a man in the foot by mistake, and you have still wounded him.”
“I don't know what to do beyond apologize. So again, I'm sorry.”
“It is heard. Just remember, do not re-offend.”
“Ah, yes. Agreed. Well anyway, nothing to worry about, it’s just the wand weighing ceremony, the rest of the judges will be here in a moment.”
“Wand weighing ceremony?” Al asked for Chandra.
“We have to check that your wands are fully functional, no problems, you know, as they’re your most important tools in the tasks ahead,” said Bagman. “The expert’s upstairs now with Dumbledore. And then there’s going to be a little photo shoot. This is Rita Skeeter,” he added, gesturing toward the witch in magenta robes. “She’s doing a small piece on the tournament for the Daily Prophet.”
“Maybe not that small, Ludo,” said Rita Skeeter, her eyes on Chandra.
Her hair was set in elaborate and curiously rigid curls that contrasted oddly with her heavy-jawed face. She wore jeweled spectacles. The thick fingers clutching her crocodile-skin handbag ended in two-inch nails, painted crimson.
“I wonder if I could have a little word with Harry before we start?” she said to Bagman, but still gazing fixedly at Chandra. “The youngest champion, you know … to add a bit of color?”
“He assures me his name is Chandra Rahasyamay. You do know, don't you, that Potter is, well, many people in one body? At least that's what I've heard.”
“The large yellow man is correct. There is no Harry Potter. The one once named Harry is now Adira, and she is still hiding. It is just myself and Alastair Potter at the moment.”
“Lovely,” she said, grabbing Chandra's robes and trying to drag him toward another door.
Al took control of the body at that moment and growled at the woman.
“Hands off, you horrible woman! Leave us alone.”
“Oh, is this the rumored Alixer I've heard so much about?”
“Alastair. My name is Alastair. For crying out loud, woman, it's basically the same first name as Moody's!”
“Yes yes, so you say.” She unsnapped a crocodile-skin handbag and from it took a roll of parchment and an acid-green quill out, sucking on the end before setting it down on the parchment.
“And do you mind if I give a quick interview, Allstar?”
“Since you can't even get any of our names right, that is emphatically NO.”
“Oh come now, Aster, surely it wouldn't hurt--”
Al flipped his wand out of its holster at a command and used his wand to set her parchment and quill on fire. She shrieked at this and leapt back. From behind him, Al heard Viktor Krum chuckling.
“YOU FOUL LITTLE MUTANT!” she screamed at him. “I WILL TAKE YOU TO SMALL CLAIMS COURT AND YOU WILL PAY FOR A REPLACEMENT QUILL--”
“Silencio,” Al said, and her voice disappeared.
Really angry now, she leapt at him.
“Impedimenta,” he said, and she was pushed against the wall, pinned there to shriek noiselessly and futilely.
Krum's chuckle was a full-throated guffaw now. Fleur was making some comment to show her disapproval. Cedric looked torn between laughing and chiding.
“Mr. Bagman, will you please escort this small and annoying insect out of the room?”
Oddly, Rita Skeeter stopped moving and trying to shriek, and turned pale. He raised one of Chandra's eyebrows at her quizzically.
“Yes, of course, Mr. Rassmay,” Bagman said, flubbing the name. “Bozo can stay, of course, but you're being quite disruptive, Ms. Skeeter.”
The fight gone out of her, she left willingly, looking back at Al/Chandra with deep worry and suspicion.
Dumbledore and Mr. Ollivander came in after that, and Ollivander examined all of their wands in turn, made them do some simple magic, then returned them to their owners, satisfied they were working properly. He did not mention the origin of the holly wand, though Al was briefly worried he would. Nor did he test their spare wand, though Al knew he knew it was there.
When the ceremony was done, the photographer took pictures. Skeeter – who had come back – tried to make Chandra out to be more important than the others, but Al glared at her with Chandra's face, making her back off. But other than small things like that, Al let Chandra keep running the body. It was entertaining, a bit like having Luna Lovegood in the collective, but different. This thought made him imagine Chandra and Luna meeting one another, and that amused him even more.
Getting the pictures taken, when Madame Maxime was so large, was not easy. But they eventually got it done, and Dumbledore dismissed them off to dinner. But they hadn't even gotten to the door when Krum, of all people, came up to Chandra.
“I vas vatching you speak with that Skeeter woman. It vas most entertaining. But I do not know how vise that vas, antagonizing somevun like her.”
“Yes, but Alastair recognized her name. She rarely has a kind word for anyone. Perhaps Alastair should not have antagonized the Buzzing Insect, but her nibbles are nearly as painful as her stings, so it is of no moment.”
“Vy do you call her Buzzing Insect?”
“The surname Skeeter is too apt, she is like a buzzing insect which draws blood. While I doubt the veracity of astrology, I must wonder why nomancy is not more popular in this wizarding world.”
“Vat??”
“Nomancy, divination by names. Names do appear to have an odd power in the wizarding world. Sirius Black, for one. Like his name, he is a black dog star. Remus Lupin is a werewolf, and his name means Wolf Wolf. Professor Septima Vector teaches wizarding maths, and her name is a maths pun. The Malfoys have faith in a bad ideology, and their name means 'bad faith.' Perhaps Tom Riddle noticed this trend as well? It would explain why his chosen calling is a bad French pun.”
“Who is Tom Riddle?” Krum asked.
“He is the one more commonly called Voldemort.”
“Ah yes, I see vat you mean.”
“Indeed.” Then he snorted. “And of course the Riddle was a riddle, and still is.”
“Vell, I must say I like you, Chandra. May I sit next to you at dinner to continue our conversation?”
“Yes. Just be aware my friend Ron will be star-struck by you.”
“I am somevat used to this. I vill manage.”
Ron was indeed star-struck as Chandra and Krum sat down and continued talking about this and that, which made Ron a lot quieter than normal. Harder to deal with were the other students who kept trying to crowd them. It was something that might normally have bothered Al, but he was drifting off into a quiet state of mind that bore a strong resemblance to hiding away, while still being present. But as calm as Chandra tended to be, he still felt annoyed by the interruptions, and after a great many of these, he finally snapped a little.
When another student came to ask Krum for an autograph, Chandra's head whipped around, his mind filling with the image of someone pulling the other student away from behind. To his great surprise, the student jerked backwards with a startled shout and moved away several feet before being let go by the accidental magic. Chandra blinked at this.
“Woah, did you do that?” Ron asked.
“I think I did.”
“Guess that means you can still do magic. Or was that Al?”
“He is quiet. I believe that was me, and just me.”
“Didn't you tell us you'd cleaned a cauldron with magic the other day?” Hermione asked.
“Yes, I did.”
“In that case, you can do magic. Have you tried using wand magic on your own?”
Chandra thought about that a moment, then got out their wand and tried the make his cup levitate.
“Wingardium Leviosa,” he said, but nothing happened.
Hermione's face lit up with understanding. “You're left-handed, Chandra. The wand movements for lefties are different. They make entire books just for left-handed students.”
Chandra looked at the wand in his hand, switched it to his right, and tried the spell again that way. It again did not work.
“It feels wrong using the right hand.”
“Well yes, most people feel weird trying to use their non-dominant hand for certain things like writing or casting spells. You really do need to get those books for lefties.”
He sighed. “So I remain in the same predicament, essentially, of having to learn things all over again.”
“Not entirely. The incantations remain the same. All you need to learn is the wand movements.”
“If not for the return of Sarcastic Defender, I would not know the incantations, either. But never mind that. I suppose I shall have to write Black Father for left-handed books, years one through four.”
I kinda want to write Sirius anyway. Let him know I'm back.
~Agreed, Sarcastic Defender.~
After dinner, Chandra went to their room and started a letter to Sirius. He and Al took turns writing it.
Dearest Black Father,
Alastair has returned from hiding. The others remain hidden. Why, I do not know. But there is a complication. Alastair can do magic when he takes control of the body, but I am still unable to do wand magic, though I have done some accidental magic. Hermione has pointed out that because I am left-handed, I will need to learn how to cast left-handed. She says there are books for left-handed students. I will need copies of these for all our courses years one through four, if you could please get me those. In the meantime, I will check the library for their copies of such. Now I hand the reins over to Alastair.
Heya, Sirius. I'm back again. I feel better. I don't remember what happened, if anything, while I was gone. I mean down there, in the Basement or subconscious or whatever. When I got back, I got an update from the collective memory about what Chandra got up to while I was gone.
We had a wand-weighing ceremony today as part of the Tournament, and that Rita Skeeter woman tried to interview us. She couldn't get any of our names right, so I refused to let her interview us. I ended up having to light her quill and parchment on fire. That was entertaining. It made her shout and call me names, until I silenced her with my wand. She didn't calm down until I made the obvious joke about her being a small annoying insect. This made her freeze and turn pale for some reason. Honestly, she's got to be at least 35, and she's never had anyone make fun of her name before?
The way I came back was interesting. Chandra and Malfoy were about to duel in the hallway outside of Potions, because Chandra couldn't resist mouthing off to Malfoy in his own unique way, which was kinda silly because Chandra can't do any wand magic yet, but I woke up just in time to rescue him.
Ah yes, and the Tournament. I didn't put any of our names in, obviously, given the lengths I went to avoid that. And I'm certain I would have known if one of the others had done so. I'm equally certain that not even Zoey would do that to me.
I have to admit, I'm a little curious about the implications of all of us just vanishing like that, sans Chandra. I wonder what would have happened if Chandra hadn't appeared? Would we just vanish? Or return to our original form? Something else? And why did the others go with me, anyway? I know why I was down there, but the others... that's a mystery. Maybe they got just as worked up as I did?
Not looking forward to finding out what I'll have to do for the First Task. I may end up getting scared enough to vanish again. I hope not; I don't think Chandra would be able to do it alone, whatever it is.
Well, don't forget Chandra's left-handed books. Love ya! Ciao!
Woof;
--Al
Namaste -- Chandra
The next morning, Al awoke to find himself still in Chandra's version of the body. What was odder, for them, was that Chandra was still asleep. He couldn't remember something quite like that happening before. Usually whoever was responsible for the body's appearance was awake even if others were, too. In fact, what usually happened if the driver in that situation fell asleep without the others doing so as well for bedtime, was that they switched forms. He wasn't sure what to make of this new situation.
Pulling off the covers, he frowned at what he saw. Apparently, Chandra slept in the buff sometimes. He hoped very much that there would never be a fire or other emergency when the body was Chandra's; he really didn't want everyone in the school seeing Chandra's dangly bits.
Getting out of bed, he took a shower then got dressed and went down to breakfast. He looked down at his plate, seeing nothing of animal origin except dairy products like cheese. Al sighed and ate it anyway, hoping very much that the house elves weren't going to feed them nothing but Chandra's diet all year long.
Just out of curiosity, he grabbed a piece of bacon. He was pleased to find that, despite the body's appearance, Chandra's questionable gift of picking up on the emotional imprints of dead animals only worked for Chandra. He quickly ate some bacon, worried Chandra would wake up in the middle of it.
The owls came, then, with the mail. Hedwig dropped a letter and a copy of the Daily Prophet down in front of Al/Chandra. He gave Hedwig some bacon and opened the letter from Sirius.
Dear Chandra and Al,
Glad to hear you're back, Al! I hope the others return soon, I miss them. Chandra, I'll head to Diagon Alley today and get you those books.
Rita Skeeter is covering the Tournament? Of course she is. Arthur doesn't like her, I remember. You're right, she never says anything nice about anyone, except herself. I'm glad you gave her some comeuppance, but I hope you didn't get in trouble for it. And I hope she doesn't savage you even harder with her quill for what you did.
I obviously don't know the others as well as you do, but I believe you that none of you put those names in the goblet. Remember how none of the writing matched any of you? And now I've seen Chandra's writing, I can say it doesn't match his either.
You need books for left-handed casters? I'll get on that as soon as I can. But, well, have you tried your spare wand? The wand chooses the wizard, it's possible the holly wand might not work for you.
By the way, Dumbledore has been getting really worried lately. It's been going on for a while now, apparently. He was really concerned about that dream you had over the summer regarding Voldemort, and it's been getting worse for him. He's hard to read, but those of us who know him well enough can see him worrying. He's been gone more often lately, too, have you noticed? Minerva told me that. Between you and me, I think he's looking for more information regarding that thing he told us about at the end of last year.
Well, I'll go see if I can get to Flourish and Blotts before they close. Catch you later, pup!
Ruff! Ruff-ruff!
---Sirius
Al put the letter away, thinking. He hadn't noticed Dumbledore being gone much, but then he had never seen much of Dumbledore anyway. Shrugging, he folded his hands and closed his eyes to focus on something he needed to do now.
CHANDRA! He yelled in their shared mindspace. WAKEY WAKEY SOY AND FAKEY!!!
Chandra flinched and woke up, looking around in fear for the source of the noise. When he figured it out, he growled.
~I should find myself quite pleased if you never did that again, Sarcastic Defender.~ Chandra said internally in a quite cross tone of voice. ~Eww, and you have imbibed the flesh of the hog in my absence. My tongue screams with the memory of it.~
Yeah, well, I had to see your own meat flopping in the breeze this morning, so my poor assaulted eyes have gotten their retribution.
~If Zoey were here, I would ask her to sing something annoying to bother you.~
Yeah, whatever. Anyway, Chandra, have you ever tried casting with the oak and dragon heartstring wand?
~Oh, yes, I shall willingly put into my hand the wand that screams a dirge of its time as living flesh, because I enjoy suffering.~
Now who's being sarcastic? Anyway, you never know until you try it. And you don't complain about the holly wand causing you pain.
~The wand of holly has a core given freely by a being that yet lives and remains free, which did not cause it harm. Tis not the same at all as the Screaming Dragon Wand.~
Well we're not getting a third wand any time soon, so try it anyway. Ollivander says the wand chooses the wizard. It's a bloody stroke of luck every single one of us doesn't need our own wand. That could get annoying fast. What would we be up to, then? Six different wands?
~Yes, yes, I shall try the Screaming Dragon Wand if such will silence your folly.~
Chandra awkwardly used his right hand to get the oak wand out of its sheath on his dominant hand and switched it into his left-handed grip.
~The wand movements remain occluded. I fear this shall fail. Also, it feels... disgusting.~
Try it anyway.
~You do not fathom. Imagine a telltale heart beating in your hand, whilst simultaneously screaming in tortured agony. That is how this wand feels.~
TRY. IT. ANYWAY.
Chandra glared, but tried the simplest spell he knew. “Lumos!”
Some white sparks came out, but no light. He tried again, concentrating on the image of light coming out of it. “Lumos!”
More sparks.
~This one likes me, despite its agony, and is trying to work for me, but something still remains blocked.~
I'll say, if you can't even cast Lumos.
He closed his eyes and tried to imagine the feeling of being in darkness, then seeing light suddenly. “Lumos!”
The wand tip lit up, brighter than the spell usually did, though it was sparking a little, too. The wand also emitted a high-pitched scream that had everyone in the Great Hall clapping their hands over their ears. Chandra canceled the spell at once.
~Its calling is perhaps too accurate.~
Yes, but you made it work. What was different about that time?
~I... WOW! I was channeling the emotion of joy at seeing a light in a dark place!~
Must be your powers are emotion-based. Try the same technique with the holly wand.
Chandra gratefully put the oak wand back, and got out the holly wand.
~Like the warm embrace of a lover,~ Chandra commented.
Again, he filled his mind with the emotions of seeing a light in a dark place. “Lumos!”
The wand tip lit up, normally.
“YES! The blockage is dislodged! Emotions are the key!”
Hey, I have an idea. Think of a happy thought, and cast the Patronus Charm. My memory will tell you how.
Chandra nodded, and concentrated on joy, love, and happiness. “Expecto patronum!”
A large silver shape flowed out of the wand and turned back to look at them.
“What... what is it?”
“Wow,” said the voice of Hermione from behind them, as she came into the room. “It's an Amazon river dolphin!”
“Mr. Rahasyamay,” said Professor McGonagall from their other side, “as pretty as your patronus is, I ask you to please not do magic in the Great Hall.”
“Understood, Professor,” Chandra said, putting the wand away. His patronus winked out when he did.
“Thank you, Mr. Rahasyamay,” she said, heading back to her seat.
“So Chandra,” Hermione started. “You figured out how to do magic now?”
“Yes. The key is emotions.”
“Did you get your left-handed books, then, too?”
“No. I did the mirror of the right-handed wand movement.”
“Oh. Well that isn't going to work every time. And what do you mean 'the key is emotions'?”
“To make the light of Lumos, I need to to imagine I am in darkness and I see light. That joy fuels the spell.”
“Really? You have to use emotions for all spells?”
“Presumably.”
“Well that's going to complicate things. And possibly slow you down. Might even make some spells impossible under certain circumstances.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. How do you cast something that requires joy when all you're feeling is unhappiness? That might block the patronus if you're faced with a dementor.”
“I do not know. But I wonder if this is the special magic I have, that Mother told me of.”
“Mother? Who's Mother?”
“You have not met Her yet. It is possible you may never meet Her. I believe She likes to remain Inside.”
Ron came in, then, and sat down. He started to eat, clearly unaware anything momentus had happened. Remembering McGonagall's warning, Chandra went back to his meal, though he very much wanted to show off for Ron. He got more and more impatient as time went on, but finally he made it out of breakfast, and grabbed Ron's arm, dragging him into an empty classroom.
“What? Why're we in here?”
“One moment, please.”
Chandra imagined feeling light, like he could fly away, and the feeling of freedom that came with it. Then he cast “Wingardium leviosa” on a quill on the desk.
Only... this time, he found himself floating in the air instead. He blinked, unsure how this was possible.
“Well, that was not my intent,” he said from the ceiling. “Um... please fetch a teacher, Red Knight?”
When Ron was done laughing, he nodded and went off to find a teacher. A few minutes later, McGonagall came in.
“Mr. Rahasyamay, how on earth did you manage to get up there?”
“I was attempting to make a quill float. I am perplexed how it could have gone awry.”
In seconds, McGonagall had him down with her wand, and once more he was subject to gravity. He explained what he had figured out that morning. She nodded here and there. When he finished, she looked confused.
“I've never heard of anyone needing to use emotions to cast magic, except for some spells like the Patronus Charm. But you say you can't cast without it?”
“Indeed. Observe.”
He tried casting Lumos again, the way most people did it. Nothing at all happened. Then he did it again, with the emotional component, and it worked.
“I see. Very unusual.”
Al took the wand from Chandra and said, “Hi, Professor McGonagall. It's me, Al. I am still able to cast magic normally, even though Chandra can't. Lumos!”
The wand tip lit up. He then demonstrated several other spells.
“Well it seems that life just keeps throwing you surprises, Mr. Potter, Mr. Rahasyamay. I shall discuss this problem with Dumbledore, see if he has any ideas. But my immediate thought is, when casting the levitation charm on the quill, try to imagine it from the quill's perspective?” she said, sounding uncertain.
“Hmm... I shall try that now,” Chandra said, taking back the wand. “By the way, this wand still resists me, somewhat. A third wand may indeed be necessary.”
I can always use the oak wand. Go ahead and do the thing.
Chandra once more focused on the emotions of flight, trying to picture it from the quill's point of view. In his mind's eye, he could see himself, from the outside.
“Wingardium leviosa!”
The quill flew up, up, up to the ceiling. Then he brought it back down again.
“It would seem magic works very differently for you than for others, Mr. Rahasyamay. I cannot even begin to understand why that might be. Please be cautious when trying new spells, perhaps only do new spells around a teacher from now on?”
“Yes, Professor.”
She shook her head slightly and left the room, clearly confused.
What, no nickname for McGonagall?
~The Tartan Grandmother would chide me for calling her such, I think.~
Al snorted with laughter. That she would, that she would.
*
Later that day, they got from Hermione a copy of the Daily Prophet, which she had brought to show them because Rita Skeeter had done a very scathing article about the Triwizard Tournament, which was mostly about them. Fleur and Krum, their names misspelled, were crammed into the end, and Cedric wasn't even mentioned.
“She has done the thing backwards,” Chandra said when he was done reading it. “The important parts are to be the head, but she has them in the rear. The tail and the body, pointing up, are all malevolent garbage words. There is more gold in a gallon of seawater than there is truth in this travesty.”
This was apparently so hilarious to Ron and Hermione that they were both leaning against the wall in paroxysms of mirth. Even Al, inside Chandra's head, was laughing.
Oh my goodness, Al said to him at last, I need to introduce you to Luna. It'll be hilarious!
~Luna? I am going to meet the moon?~
Luna Lovegood. She's a Ravenclaw. Come on, I think I know where she'll be.
Chandra sighed, and let Al drag him away. Ron and Hermione came after him, trying to ask him where he was going through the laughter.
“The Sarcastic Defender wishes to take me to the moon,” he said. “The moon that speaks of oddities.”
“Moon that speaks...” Ron said softly, confused. “Wait, do you mean Luna?”
“Yes, the moon that loves well.”
“Do you do that just to be annoying?” Ron asked.
“Of course not, Red Knight. I speak as I think. I speak the images in my mind.”
They found Luna in a corridor, after a lot of looking around for over an hour. She was walking around humming to herself, her feet bare.
“Why hello there,” she said as she saw him. “You're Chandra Rahasyamay.”
“Yes. You are Luna Lovegood, I presume?”
“That's correct. You were looking for me?”
“Alastair wanted me to meet you. I am unsure why.”
“Yes, I can see the wrackspurts flying around. They make people's brains go fuzzy.”
Chandra blinked, and was speechless for a time. “Um... why are you barefoot?” he finally asked.
“Oh, my things occasionally go missing. They always turn up eventually. I must admit, it is a little inconvenient. The castle is starting to get colder. I use warming charms on my feet, of course, but it would be easier with shoes and socks.”
“Others are taking your things?”
“That is one possibility. I don't know for sure. I've never seen any of my things vanish. Perhaps there are some invisible sprites that find it amusing to take my things.”
“Being barefoot is something one should only be by choice,” Chandra said. “I like being barefoot outside, as long as it's warm.”
“Me too. I like to pet the thestrals in the Forbidden Forest.”
“I admit I have not done that yet. We should get together sometime and do that.”
Luna smiled. “I would like that very much.”
They stood there looking at one another for what felt like a long time, before Luna spoke again.
“So why did Al bring you here?”
“He thought it would be amusing, for some reason. I cannot fathom his thought patterns sometimes.”
Luna nodded sagely.
Well this isn't nearly as interesting as I'd thought it would be, Al said, sounding bored.
~You compared me to her, and you are surprised we are on the same wavelength?~
Now that you mention it, that does make sense. I guess that makes me pretty foolish.
“Is it just you and Al in there at the moment?”
“Yes. The others are still hiding. They will return in time.”
She nodded. “Good.”
“Does not the Angry Light-carrier pester you when he discovers you barefoot around the castle?”
“Angry Light-carrier?”
“Argus Filch.”
“Ah, yes. Yes, he does sometimes. Not so much anymore. He tends to sigh and hold the bridge of his nose when he sees me barefoot these days.”
“Indeed? Well, if you take me to your dorm, I can help you look for your shoes.”
She thought about it a moment, then nodded.
“Er, we're gonna go, Chandra,” Ron said, motioning at himself and Hermione.
“As you wish, Red Knight,” Chandra said, following Luna through the halls.
When they found Ravenclaw's door, with a bronze door-knocker of an eagle. They knocked the knocker, and it asked a riddle: “How is a raven like a writing desk?”
“Hmm...” Chandra said, thinking. “Both are carbon-based. The raven is an animal, and the desk is made of wood from a tree, a plant. But both were alive at some point in their existence. And, ultimately, both are made of material born in the heart of a dying star.”
“Er...” the door-knocker said, looking puzzled. “If you say so,” it said, the door opening up.
When Chandra and Luna came in, there was some upset among the other Ravenclaws about Chandra being there. Luna explained he was helping her find her shoes, and suddenly everyone went quiet and minded their own business, looking and feeling guilty.
With that out of the way, Chandra bent down and touched Luna's feet, as though feeling for something invisible.
“What are you doing?”
“I can feel objects by their energy. I'm trying to find the... psychic scent, for lack of a better term, of your shoes.”
“Ah. Carry on, then.”
She stood there, humming to herself as he continued feeling for the 'scent' of her missing shoes. After a couple minutes, he stood up and asked her to take him to her room.
“The stairs will probably turn into a slide if you do that. You're a boy, after all.”
“Oh. Hmm... that is a problem.”
He stood there, his eyes closed, deep in thought. Then he came up with a plan, but continued to close his eyes in thought. This time, he was concentrating on his solution. He brought to his memory, somehow, the feeling of Iliana's and Adira's bodies, every feeling and emotion they associated with being a girl, and then felt a warm feeling move through his body. Luna, watching, did not see anything unusual.
Opening the body's eyes, Chandra took Luna's hand. “It'll be fine now.”
“Hmm? Well, if you say so. You seem so certain.”
They went up the stairs, everyone in the room looking tense and expectant. But nothing happened.
“Well that was interesting. What happened?”
“I am currently thinking of myself as a girl,” Chandra said as though it was nothing unusual.
“And that's enough to fool the stairs?”
“My magic is based on emotions.”
“You didn't change, um... on the outside at all? I mean, physically?”
Chandra reached down to feel between his legs. “No, everything is the same as always.”
“Well, that is rather remarkable.”
Yeah, seriously, how did you do that? Al asked.
After a moment of thought, Chandra said, “I think of gender as more of a suggestion, or a mood. And I'm in a girl mood at the moment. Anyway, let's find your shoes.”
Chandra's method of finding her shoes involved touching places all over her room, and following some invisible trail to other dorms, a variety of hiding places, some of which were the insides of other peoples' trunks. When Chandra confronted the owners, they fought, but eventually gave in and returned Luna's things. And they ended up finding not only her shoes, socks, and – oddly – underwear, but other belongings of hers.
The whole time this was going on, Luna was observing Chandra. Sure enough, there was something distinctly feminine in... at the moment, her movements, even though she otherwise looked like... well, if Luna was entirely honest with herself, Chandra looked, now, like a short-haired girl, even though nothing outward had changed. It was something much deeper than accidents of biology.
Then a thought occurred to her, and she had to ask Chandra a question because of it.
“If gender is just a suggestion to you, which set of pronouns should I use for you? Do I use the ones for the gender you're feeling like at the moment? Or they/their? Or something else?”
“Hmm... I don't know. I hadn't thought of it before. I've been a boy since I first showed up. I'd never been a girl before today, but it feels right for the moment. I don't even know how long I'll be a girl, now. Pronouns... well, just use the she/her set for now. But honestly... I don't think I really care. Yes, any pronoun set will work for me.”
“Ah. Well that simplifies matters. Thank you for letting me know. And thank you for finding my things.”
“No problem. If you need help again, let me know.”
Luna nodded. “Oh, I think it's almost dinnertime.”
“Shall we go down together?”
“Yes, that sounds lovely.”
The two of them got even more stares as they came down the stairs without setting them off. Then Chandra also detected some confusion at her own expense, and mixed feelings. Figuring it was a response to her gender shift, she ignored it.
There were more stares at the Griffindor table at dinner. Several of their friends asked if Adira or Iliana was back.
“No, I just feel like a girl at the moment.”
Apparently used to weird things from them, everyone just ignored them and went back to their dinner.
Chandra was curious, later in their dorm, at the fact that she still felt like a girl. She stripped nude and examined herself in the mirror. It all looked the same as usual, but different. Where all these body parts had belonged to Chandra the Boy earlier, now they belonged to Chandra the Girl.
She was in the middle of a hot shower when the mood changed and he felt like a boy again. Another look in the mirror showed nothing was physically different; it was all in his head. He shrugged, and dried his hair with his wand before going to bed.
*
As though some kind of blockage had been dislodged by his stint as a girl the day before, Chandra woke up feeling... mixed. A little bit a boy, a little bit a girl. It wasn't anything concrete, it's not like he had a girl's left arm and a boy's right arm, just... mixed. Like how it might feel if you mixed blue water with yellow water, and you were the water. He shrugged, and went on with his day.
*
It was a bit odd for them, now that it was just Chandra and Al for the next week or so, and the body apparently stuck on Chandra's form for some reason. Chandra was pretty chill, but it was getting harder and harder for him to ignore Al's growing panic, as the unknown First Task was approaching. No longer content with letters, Al would fire-call Sirius every couple days in a panic, saying things like “What if it's dementors! What if I have to fight dementors!” or “I read about this creature called a Nundu, like a leopard or something the size of an elephant; what if I have to get past one of those?” and other such scenarios. He even started writing letters to Javier along the same lines, leading Chandra to have to calm down both him and Al.
~AL! Do not overexcite yourself. If you vanish again, I will be at more of a disadvantage than usual. Do not do that to me.~
Sorry, Chandra. Just... I don't know what we're going to do. I doubt we have time to think of anything even if everyone else shows up tonight. And how do I fight what I don't know?
~The adults will do their utmost to keep us safe.~
HA! Like I trust them. Gah... I can't even cuddle my boyfriend without it getting awkward.
~My apologies, Sarcastic Defender. I have been trying to make the switch, but I rather suspect I'm the one who is to face the danger.~
YOU? You're still trying to work out how to do simple spells without ending up inside a wall or hanging from a windowsill, or turning into a canary.
~I cannot explain it yet. But perhaps it has something to do with the emotional nature of my magic?~
Al didn't have an answer to that.
Having to catch up on left-handed casting, which was indeed a part of his problem, Chandra ended up in the library reading the books Sirius sent him, with Hermione and Ron nearby. Ron was having a hard time concentrating. Chandra wasn't doing very well, either, with Al running through a cavalcade of terrible situations as though it was a mantra against any of those things happening, but also doomed to ensure something worse would happen instead.
Viktor Krum was in the library a lot, too. He and Chandra did like to talk with each other on occasion, but Chandra was getting to be less and less good at conversation as Al's constant stream of doomsaying made it harder to think straight. Even with all that going on, Chandra still picked up on Krum's interest in Hermione, who had about as much interest in Krum's fame as she'd had in the skrewts.
It is a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow down time, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up. The days until the first task seemed to slip by as though someone had fixed the clocks to work at double speed. Al's feeling of barely controlled panic was with him wherever he went, as ever-present as the snide comments about the Daily Prophet article.
On the Saturday before the first task, all students in the third year and above were permitted to visit the village of Hogsmeade. Hermione and Ron told Chandra and Al that it would do them good to get away from the castle for a bit, and neither boy needed much persuasion. But between the usual treatment they got for being a multiple, the extra-horrible treatment lately for daring to steal Cedric's glory, and the snide comments about Rita Skeeter's article, neither wanted to be seen there, so Chandra ended up going to Hogsmeade under the invisibility cloak.
Al felt wonderfully free under the cloak; he watched other students walking past them as they entered the village, most of them sporting Support Cedric Diggory! badges, but no horrible remarks came their way for a change, and nobody was quoting that stupid article.
“This is weird,” Ron said. “I mean, it could be weirder; at least Hermione is here. But I don't like talking to air.”
“Yeah well I don't really give a flying shit,” Al's harsh tones came through Chandra's voice more acutely than usual.
“Come on, please just take off your cloak for a bit, no one’s going to bother you here.”
“Oh yeah?” said Al. “Look behind you.”
Rita Skeeter and her photographer friend had just emerged from the Three Broomsticks pub. Talking in low voices, they passed right by Hermione and Ron without looking at them. Al backed into the wall of Honeydukes to stop Rita Skeeter from hitting him with her crocodile-skin handbag. When they were gone, Al said, “She’s staying in the village. I bet she’s coming to watch the first task.”
As he said it, his stomach flooded with a wave of molten panic. He didn’t mention this; he'd stopped spouting doomsday scenarios at them days ago, because Hermione looked close to tears when he did, and Ron would look sick as a pig.
“She’s gone,” said Hermione, looking right through Al toward the end of the street. “Why don’t we go and have a butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks, it’s a bit cold, isn’t it?”
“Sounds good. Let's do that.”
The place was utterly packed, making it hard to move around under the invisibility cloak, but he managed it. Soon they found a table, and Ron went to get the drinks.
As he sipped butterbeer under his cloak, he watched the crowd. What wouldn’t he have given to be one of these people, sitting around laughing and talking, with nothing to worry about but homework? He imagined how it would have felt to be here if their names hadn’t come out of the Goblet of Fire. He wouldn’t be wearing the Invisibility Cloak, for one thing. Ron, Hermione, and himself would probably be happily, openly imagining what deadly dangerous task the school champions would be facing on Tuesday. He’d have been really looking forward to it, watching them do whatever it was, cheering on Cedric with everyone else, safe in a seat at the back of the stands.
He wondered how the other champions were feeling. Every time he had seen Cedric lately, he had been surrounded by admirers and looking nervous but excited. Al glimpsed Fleur Delacour from time to time in the corridors; she looked exactly as she always did, haughty and unruffled. And Krum just sat in the library, poring over books.
“Look, it’s Hagrid!” said Hermione.
The back of Hagrid’s enormous shaggy head emerged over the crowd. Al wondered why he hadn’t spotted him at once, as Hagrid was so large, but standing up carefully, he saw that Hagrid had been leaning low, talking to Professor Moody. Hagrid had his usual enormous tankard in front of him, but Moody was drinking from his hip flask. Madam Rosmerta, the pretty landlady, didn’t seem to think much of this; she was looking askance at Moody as she collected glasses from tables around them. Perhaps she thought it was an insult to her mulled mead, but Al knew better. Moody had told them all during their last Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson that he preferred to prepare his own food and drink at all times, as it was so easy for Dark wizards to poison an unattended cup. It had sounded like a good idea to Al, who was determined to look more into that if he lived through the First Task.
As Al watched, he saw Hagrid and Moody get up to leave. He waved, then remembered that Hagrid couldn’t see him. Moody, however, paused, his magical eye on the corner where Chandra was standing. He tapped Hagrid in the small of the back (being unable to reach his shoulder), muttered something to him, and then the pair of them made their way back across the pub toward the table the three of them were sitting at.
He can see through invisibility cloaks? Creepy.
“All right, Hermione?” said Hagrid loudly.
“Hello,” said Hermione, smiling back.
Moody limped around the table and bent down, on the pretext of reading from a book he hadn't noticed Hermione had out. Then he muttered, “Nice cloak, Potter.”
Ignoring the use of the wrong name given it was Chandra's body at the moment, Al sighed. “So you can see through invisibility cloaks, then?”
“Yeah, it can see through Invisibility Cloaks,” Moody said quietly. “And it’s come in useful at times, I can tell you.”
Hagrid was beaming down at Al too. Al knew Hagrid couldn’t see him, but Moody had obviously told Hagrid he was there. Hagrid now bent down on the pretext of reading from Hermione's book as well, and said in a whisper so low that only Al could hear it, “Al, meet me tonight at midnight at me cabin. Wear that cloak.”
Straightening up, Hagrid said loudly, “Nice ter see yeh, Hermione, Ron,” winked, and departed. Moody followed him.
“Why does Hagrid want me to meet him at midnight?” Al said, very surprised.
“Does he?” said Ron, looking startled.
Hermione frowned. “I wonder what he’s up to? I don’t know whether you should go, Al, it'll be past curfew, and it could be dangerous. We don't know who put your name in that goblet, after all.”
It was odd indeed. But if Hagrid thought it worth the risk, so did Al and Chandra. So they went to their bedroom early and waited for the night to come. At half past eleven, they got under the cloak, escaped the common room with Hermione's help, and wound their way through the school and out onto the grounds to Hagrid's cabin.
The large man wasn't alone when they got there; he was with Madame Maxime. Whatever Hagrid was showing him, he was showing her, too, on the pretense of a date. Al would have suspected her of using Hagrid for information, but a glimpse into her eyes told him she was honestly interested in Hagrid.
It was a very long walk to wherever they were going, but then — when they had walked so far around the perimeter of the forest that the castle and the lake were out of sight — Al heard something. Men were shouting up ahead … then came a deafening, earsplitting roar.
Hagrid led Madame Maxime around a clump of trees and came to a halt. Al hurried up alongside them — for a split second, he thought he was seeing bonfires, and men darting around them — and then his mouth fell open.
Dragons.
Four fully grown, enormous, vicious-looking dragons were rearing onto their hind legs inside an enclosure fenced with thick planks of wood, roaring and snorting — torrents of fire were shooting into the dark sky from their open, fanged mouths, fifty feet above the ground on their outstretched necks. There was a silvery-blue one with long, pointed horns, snapping and snarling at the wizards on the ground; a smooth-scaled green one, which was writhing and stamping with all its might; a red one with an odd fringe of fine gold spikes around its face, which was shooting mushroom-shaped fire clouds into the air; and a gigantic black one, more lizard-like than the others, which was nearest to them.
What was worse, it took dozens of wizards to control them. Magic seemed to mostly just bounce off their hides. And Charlie was there, among the men controlling the dragons. He came over to talk with Hagrid, and from the conversation, Al found that they were nesting mothers, and the Champions would have to get past the dragons for the First Task.
While Al just sat there gibbering, Chandra frowned and hoped that neither the dragons nor their eggs would be hurt by this.
Al, meanwhile, felt something die inside him, and fought the urge to retreat into the Basement again with the others. No, if he went down there this time, he would claw them back up to the surface if it killed him.
They rushed back to the castle, into Griffindor common room, and grabbed some Floo powder out of their trunk, then went down to the fire in the grate and tossed some in to fire-call Sirius at home.
“Sirius! SIRIUS!”
Sirius came running again, like he had the night Al splinched himself, his wand out.
“What is it? What's wrong?”
“The First Task is DRAGONS!”
“What? Oh. Oh. Dragons? How do you know?”
“Hagrid showed me. So what am I going to DO?”
Sirius looked at him, eyes full of concern, eyes that had not yet lost the look that Azkaban had given them — that deadened, haunted look. “Dragons we can deal with, Al, Chandra, but we’ll get to that in a minute. There are things I need to warn you about, that were too sensitive for a letter.”
“What?” said Al, feeling his spirits slip a further few notches. … Surely there could be nothing worse than dragons coming?
“Karkaroff,” said Sirius. “Al, he was a Death Eater. You know what Death Eaters are, don’t you?”
“Moldywart's lot, yes I know. He was? How do you know?”
“He was caught, he was in Azkaban with me, but he got released. I’d bet everything that’s why Dumbledore wanted an Auror at Hogwarts this year — to keep an eye on him. Moody caught Karkaroff. Put him into Azkaban in the first place.”
“They let him go? A captured Death Eater got free and now he runs a school? How did this happen?”
“He did a deal with the Ministry of Magic,” said Sirius bitterly. “He said he’d seen the error of his ways, and then he named names … he put a load of other people into Azkaban in his place. … He’s not very popular in there, I can tell you. And since he got out, from what I can tell, he’s been teaching the Dark Arts to every student who passes through that school of his. So watch out for the Durmstrang champion as well.”
“Krum is a good guy. I can tell, remember? It doesn't work on Dumbledore, Snape, or Moody for some reason, though.”
“I think I know why that is, Al – something Dumbledore said recently is relevant – but that's for later. You really do need to be wary of Karkaroff. He may have turned traitor on the Death Eaters, but he's still a dark wizard.”
“Yes, okay, but are you saying Karkaroff put my name in the goblet? Because if he did, he’s a really good actor. He seemed furious about it. He wanted to stop me from competing.”
“We know he’s a good actor,” said Sirius, “because he convinced the Ministry of Magic to set him free, didn’t he? Now, I’ve been keeping an eye on the Daily Prophet, Al —”
“— you and the rest of the world,” said Al bitterly.
“— and reading between the lines of that Skeeter woman’s article last month, Moody was attacked the night before he started at Hogwarts. Yes, I know she says it was another false alarm,” Sirius said hastily, seeing Al about to speak, “but I don’t think so, somehow. I think someone tried to stop him from getting to Hogwarts. I think someone knew their job would be a lot more difficult with him around. And no one’s going to look into it too closely; Mad-Eye’s heard intruders a bit too often. But that doesn’t mean he can’t still spot the real thing. Moody was the best Auror the Ministry ever had.”
“Okay, I'll stay wary. I haven't had a chance to use my heart-reading sense on Karkaroff, but I'll try to do that ASAP.”
“Good. Don't go to any great risks to do it, though.”
“I won't. But if he's turned traitor on the Death Eaters, why do you think he wants me dead?”
Sirius hesitated.
“I’ve been hearing some very strange things,” he said slowly. “The Death Eaters seem to be a bit more active than usual lately. They showed themselves at the Quidditch World Cup, didn’t they? We fought them, after all. Then did you hear about that ministry witch who went missing?”
“No. Who is it?”
“A witch named Bertha Jorkins--”
“Bertha Jorkins?” Al interrupted “I recognize that name. She was mentioned in the dream I had about Voldemort. Molywart mentioned her himself. She was imperiused to help care for him, nurse him back to health. Which is odd, since he's supposed to be a spirit. Maybe he found or made a temporary body for himself? Yes, yes he had to have, he was holding a wand.”
“Oh really? I don't remember you saying anything like that when you told me about it.”
“It was fading rapidly, the way dreams do. But you mentioning her name brought some details back.”
“So he definitely has her, then? I should relay this to Dumbledore in the morning, assuming he's in. He's been out and about a lot more lately, did you notice?”
“No, I didn't. We've been kind of distracted, and we rarely see him much anyway. But back to Bertha Jorkins, how did she get taken?”
“I'm not sure, pup, but she was last seen in Albania, which is where Voldemort was last spotted. And I knew her in school, she wasn't very bright, and she was nosier than Rita Skeeter. She'd have been easy to lure into a trap. I just wish I knew who was helping him. I know lots of his Death Eaters slithered out of Azkaban, but then why did it take this person 13 years to find his master? Also there's Trelawney's prophecy, the second one, to consider. She said whoever it was was chained for all those years. I haven't heard of any more Azkaban breakouts. Only news out of Azkaban recently was the deaths of Peter and Bellatrix.”
“Speaking of which, did you ever find out about her vault? She was close to Voldemort. And Tom never had a vault in Gringotts, but I'm sure he'd want one. If he couldn't get one, I think he'd want one of his horcruxes in there. And he trusted Bellatrix, didn't he? I've been doing some research on her,” he explained.
“Hmm... I hadn't thought of that before. But to answer your question, Bellatrix's vault is a complicated issue. Rudolphus can't inherit her vault because he's in Azkaban. Her parents are dead, and I'm only a cousin. So it goes to her closest living relative, who I hate to say is Narcissa Malfoy née Black, her sister. If there's a horcrux in that vault, it's still under Death Eater control.”
“Damn. Well anyway, going back a bit more, if Moldywart has this Ministry witch Jorkins, he must have known ahead of time about the Tournament. Do you think he's gotten back in contact with Karkaroff? And ordered the man to kill me?”
“I don’t know,” said Sirius slowly, “I just don’t know … Karkaroff doesn’t strike me as the type who’d go back to Voldemort unless he knew Voldemort was powerful enough to protect him. But whoever put your name in that goblet did it for a reason, and I can’t help thinking the tournament would be a very good way to attack you and make it look like an accident.”
“Looks like a really good plan from where I’m standing,” said Al grinning bleakly. “They’ll just have to stand back and let the dragons do their stuff.”
“Right — these dragons,” said Sirius, speaking very quickly now. “There’s a way, Al. Don’t be tempted to try a Stunning Spell — dragons are strong and too powerfully magical to be knocked out by a single Stunner, you need about half a dozen wizards at a time to overcome a dragon —”
“Yeah, I know, I just saw,” said Al.
“But you can do it alone,” said Sirius. “There is a way, and a simple spell’s all you need. It's called the Conjunctivitis Curse. A dragon's eyes are its weakest point, and the spell irritates the eyes like the disease conjunctivitis, AKA 'pink eye.' The---”
“Will this hexing pain the creature?” asked Chandra, who up until now had been content to let Al use his body as his own.
“Well, yes, it is painful. Not terribly so, but one needs to put a lot of power into it for a dragon, so that might make it hurt worse.”
“I will not be party to the harming of another living being, then.”
“Wait, is that Chand--”
“Are you MAD?” Al addressed the other boy aloud, mainly so Sirius would know they were having this conversation. “That thing is going to be trying to kill us, I don't think we should worry about irritating its---”
“It is a nesting mother, chosen no doubt for its ferocity protecting its young. They are using real eggs, which is monstrous. It is an endangered species and they risk its young for sport. If we hurt it and it hurts its young due to this agony, I will take retribution for it by hexing the fools who dreamed up this folly!”
“So what, you want to just politely ask the dragon to let us pass safely, is that it? Maybe I'll shout parseltongue at it really, really loudly and hope something with legs still counts as a snake, shall I?”
“I doubt such is possible. But we nonetheless need to find another way.”
“Well pardon me if I don't fancy dying just because you're too much of a bleeding-heart---”
“BOYS!” Sirius shouted. “This is getting us nowhere. The Conjunctivitis Curse is all I can think of offhand. Now we do have another 24 hours or so before the First Task. I'll try to come up with something better, if Chandra doesn't want to do it. Just for your information, though, the incantation is Conjunctivitis, easy enough to remember. The wand movement you'll have to look up in the library. Ask Madam Pince about it, if it's for the Tournament she shouldn't have a problem showing you the right book. In the meantime, you two try to calm down, put your heads together, and think outside of the box for an alternate solution, okay?”
“But all we're allowed is our wand, Sirius! And that feels like a normal twig compared to a bloody great dragon!”
“Well shoot a Patronus at it, then. Have the Patronus corral the dragon away from you, maybe that'll work?”
Al blinked, then stared at Sirius.
“I... well, that's worth trying, I guess. But it's not a dementor. And if the dragon figures out it's not a solid object, then that's the end of that ruse. So we should think of some more things.”
“Yes. And ask anyone else you can think of. Like your boyfriend, Al. You said he wants to be an Artificer, right? Well he might not be there yet, but he might know something that can help.”
“I'm only allowed a wand Sirius!”
“Hmm... well as I recall, you should be learning the Summoning Charm in your fourth year. I remember from my own school days, plus I was looking through those left-handed books before I sent them to you. Have you learned that one yet?”
“We've been able to do the Summoning Charm since first term last year. We read and practice ahead a lot.”
“Excellent. Glad to know you're doing so well.”
“Anyway, so... what? You reckon I can just Summon something useful? You think that'll be allowed?”
“I don't see why not. You step into the game with only your wand, that satisfies the rules; what you do with it after that is just wriggling through the loopholes.”
“Figures an old trouble-maker like you would be skilled at finding loopholes.”
Sirius chuckled.
“Well that's something to ponder, at least. Now I just have to figure out what to summon, and what to do with it when I do.”
“Good. Well it's late, we should both be getting to bed now.”
“True. Good night, Sirius! See you later!”
Al pulled their head out of the fire and went upstairs to bed. It took him a long time to get to sleep, though, as he kept trying to figure out what he could possibly summon to deal with a dragon.
End note: I wasn't intending on Chandra being genderfluid when I started this chapter, but it felt so right when it came up; another example of the character writing itself. And again, I base the Potter collective on my own collective, and four of our number are genderfluid, while another is completely without gender.
End note two: Al's sarcastic suggestion about “shouting parseltongue” at the dragon comes from another fanfic I read. It's called “My Brother” by Oracle2Phoenix on FanFiction.net. It is a great fic, though sadly it remains uncompleted and was last updated in July of 2016; the author's computer died horribly and I guess they still haven't recovered from the fallout of that. But it's well worth reading nonetheless.
End note three:
Bigots: “Stop with all this transgender stuff!” Me: Dials the transgender stuff up to “12.”
Bigots: “We don't like all this queer stuff!” Me: “If you're holding out for universal popularity, I'm afraid you will be in this cabin for a very long time. ” - Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
End note four: I was going to have Krum explain the French pun that Voldemort's name is, but I've seen like 5 different possible meanings for his name, and not knowing French, I have no idea which one is correct.
“The Many Faces of Adira Potter: Chapter 28”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Twenty-eight: The First Task
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Adira, and Zoey, and now #Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and now between hashtags/pound signs because some people's computers don't do the B.I.U.).# and {Tier}.
*FAYANORA*
Against Chandra's wishes, Al still managed to force control of the body in order to get to the library the next day and look up the wand movements for the Conjunctivitis Curse. He was allowed to take the book with him to practice.
For crying out loud, Chandra, it's not like it's really gonna hurt the damn thing. It's just pink eye, that's not all that bad. Might be a little jarring getting it from a spell, but so what?
~I have told you already, it might in its agony blindly thrash around, and if its eggs got hurt, I would be extremely sorrowful and angry.~
Fine, whatever, I'll try not to hurt it. But I make no promises. I want to survive this Tournament, after all.
~As do I.~
It was impossible to practice the Conjunctivitis Curse without a target. But they were going to have to practice it that way anyway, because the only counter to the Conjunctivitis Curse was something called the Oculus Potion, which contained stewed mandrake, ground unicorn horn, and something called 'crystalized water,' whatever that was. He didn't want to take a chance that Snape would deny him a potion that was plainly expensive to brew just so he could practice a curse on another person or animal, even if it was necessary to save his life, though it might be a useful spell for Malfoy later. He made do, then, with casting the curse at inanimate objects, but only after putting protective goggles on and locking the door with a colloportus to prevent others from getting hit with the hex. When he was consistently sending pink light to crash against objects, knocking them over, he considered he was doing it well enough and stopped, to go look for ideas for a plan Chandra would be happy with.
“An object to summon with your wand that can work against a dragon?” Javier said thoughtfully when Al had asked him for input. “Well, the first thing that comes to mind is a broomstick.”
“A broomstick? Why?”
“Well obviously you could fly past the dragon, I suppose.”
“Yeah I guess I could, but brooms are kinda, well... flammable.”
“So are you, if you get hit by dragon fire.”
“I guess. I dunno, I was kinda hoping you'd tell me there was some kind of magic pan pipes that would put a dragon to sleep like the Pied Piper did to the rats of Hamlin, or something like that.”
“Not that I've ever heard of. Nothing real, anyway. A few myths, like that one.”
“Damn.”
“Well I'll do some research for you, but there's not a lot of time left. Even if I found something else, there's probably not time to actually get one before the task.”
“Yeah you're probably right. But a broomstick, okay, yeah, maybe I can fly past it. Fly past a giant flying lizard that blows fire out its mouth, should be easy peasy.”
That had been sarcasm, though; he was rapidly becoming convinced that nothing was going to work. What if he flew on a broomstick and got charred to barbeque? What if he used the Conjunctivitis Curse and the dragon stomped on him? Even if he used both those things, he'd likely get the Horntail, and then it might blindly take his head off with its tail while thrashing around in agony. About the only safe thing he could think of was burrowing under the ground, but the only digging spell he knew wasn't very fast or efficient, and how would he see where he was going? Also, what if the dragon's stomping feet caved in the tunnel and suffocated him? He was starting to take the idea of shouting parseltongue at the dragon seriously. What if a dragon did count as a serpent? Could he convince it to let him past?
Or – a sudden thought struck him – could he call the basilisk from there? Unlikely; the dragon enclosure was way too far away. Even amplifying his voice with the spell he'd witnessed Bagman using over the summer wouldn't carry all the way to the school, let alone into the Chamber of Secrets. Besides, that would be far too dangerous. Even assuming the basilisk heard his commands well enough to close its eyes, there was still the risk that it might hurt someone else, either by accident or by changing its mind about taking orders from him. And using a basilisk against a dragon, well... if Chandra didn't like the Conjunctivitis Curse, he sure as heck wasn't going to approve of siccing a bloody great basilisk on the dragon.
Besides which, that would kind of expose the lie about the basilisk being dead, not to mention reopening the whole 'Potter is the Heir of Slytherin' nonsense again, and possibly getting the school closed. Best case scenario, he would tip his hand to Moldywart for no really good reason. No, the basilisk was an ace up his sleeve, and he was nowhere near desperate enough to use that tool yet.
So, risky as it was, it would have to be the broom.
“Oh SHIT!” he said aloud, woken out of his thoughts by a realization.
“Oh yeah, you've got Herbology, don't you?” Javier asked.
“Yeah but that's not it. Cedric doesn't know! Maxime was there, Karkaroff was there... Cedric is the only one who doesn't know about the dragons! I gotta go!”
He found Cedric when he ran into a corridor and spotted the older boy down the hall with some of his friends, by the bottom of the marble staircases. Al didn't want to talk in front of them, they were some of the ones who were quoting Rita Skeeter's scathing article at him the most, every time he went near them. He followed Cedric at a distance and saw that he was heading toward the Charms corridor. This gave him an idea. Pausing at a distance from them, he pulled out his wand, and took careful aim.
“Diffindo!”
Cedric’s bag split. Parchment, quills, and books spilled out of it onto the floor. Several bottles of ink smashed.
“Don’t bother,” said Cedric in an exasperated voice as his friends bent down to help him. “Tell Flitwick I’m coming, go on.”
This was exactly what Al had been hoping for. He slipped his wand back into his robes, waited until Cedric’s friends had disappeared into their classroom, and hurried up the corridor, which was now empty of everyone but himself and Cedric.
“Hi,” said Cedric, picking up a copy of A Guide to Advanced Transfiguration that was now splattered with ink. “My bag just split … brand-new and all …”
“Cedric,” said Al. “The First Task. It's dragons.”
“What?” said Cedric, looking up.
“Dragons,” said Al, speaking quickly, in case Professor Flitwick came out to see where Cedric had got to. “They’ve got four, one for each of us, and we’ve got to get past them.”
Cedric stared at him. Al saw some of the panic he’d been feeling since Saturday night flickering in Cedric’s gray eyes.
“Are you sure?” Cedric said in a hushed voice.
“As sure as I am that you're standing in front of me right now,” said Al. “I’ve seen them.”
“But how did you find out? We’re not supposed to know.”
“That's not important. But I’m not the only one who knows. Fleur and Krum will know by now — Maxime and Karkaroff both saw the dragons too.”
Cedric straightened up, his arms full of inky quills, parchment, and books, his ripped bag dangling off one shoulder. He stared at Al, and there was a puzzled, almost suspicious look in his eyes.
“Why are you telling me?” he asked.
Al stared at him like he'd grown a second head. “Because this whole damn thing is daft! Fighting dragons, or getting past them or whatever. DRAGONS! I'm ahead of my year in a lot of ways, known the Summoning Charm since the first half of last year, but I've seen those damned things myself, and it took like a dozen wizards to subdue just one of them! I don't want you to die for some stupid tournament. I mean yes, you chose this and I didn't, but honestly, the whole wizarding world is insane. And anyway, it's fair. Now everyone's on equal footing.”
Cedric was still looking at him in a slightly suspicious way when Al heard a familiar clunking noise behind him. He turned around and saw Mad-Eye Moody emerging from a nearby classroom.
“Come with me, Potter,” he growled. “Diggory, off you go.”
“Um, I have to be in Herbology, Professor Moody.”
“Never mind that, Potter. In my office, please.”
Damn it, how screwed am I now, he thought. Is he going to turn me into a newt? It would be easier to get past a dragon as a newt, but he'd have a devil of a time if he had to grab something bigger than himself.
He followed Moody into his office. Moody closed the door behind them and turned to look at Al, his magical eye fixed upon him as well as the normal one.
“That was a very decent thing you just did, Potter,” Moody said quietly.
Al didn't know what to say. Neither did Chandra.
“Sit down,” said Moody, and Al sat, looking around.
The office was very different from the two times he'd been there before, under Lockhart and Lupin. Now it was full of a number of exceptionally odd objects that Al supposed Moody had used in the days when he had been an Auror.
On his desk stood what looked like a large, cracked, glass spinning top; Al recognized it at once as a Sneakoscope, because he owned one himself, though it was much smaller than Moody’s. In the corner on a small table stood an object that looked something like an extra-squiggly, golden television aerial. It was humming slightly. What appeared to be a mirror hung opposite Al on the wall, but it was not reflecting the room. Shadowy figures were moving around inside it, none of them clearly in focus.
“Like my Dark Detectors, do you?” said Moody, who was watching Al closely.
“Yeah. What’s that?” Al asked, pointing at the squiggly golden aerial.
“Secrecy Sensor. Vibrates when it detects concealment and lies … no use here, of course, too much interference — students in every direction lying about why they haven’t done their homework. Been humming ever since I got here. I had to disable my Sneakoscope because it wouldn’t stop whistling. It’s extra-sensitive, picks up stuff about a mile around. Of course, it could be picking up more than kid stuff,” he added in a growl.
“And what’s the mirror for?”
“Oh that’s my Foe-Glass. See them out there, skulking around? I’m not really in trouble until I see the whites of their eyes. That’s when I open my trunk.”
He let out a short, harsh laugh, and pointed to the large trunk under the window. It had seven keyholes in a row. Al wondered what was in there, until Moody’s next question brought him sharply back to earth.
“So … found out about the dragons, have you?”
“Yes. But I'm not telling you how.”
“Good on you. I don't want to know. But cheating’s a traditional part of the Tri-wizard Tournament and always has been.”
“Yes, well, I wouldn't normally, but given that this wasn't my choice, and it's life or death, I'll do whatever I can to survive.”
Moody chuckled. “Bit of an odd thing to hear from a Griffindor. More something a Slytherin would say.”
“More something that someone sane who values living would say,” Al countered. “Bravery is all well and good, but bravery without a plan – without a willingness to do whatever you can to stay alive and (if necessary) keep others alive, too – is just recklessness.”
“Well spoken, lad. Well spoken. Anyway, I wasn’t judging you, laddie. I’ve been telling Dumbledore from the start, he can be as high-minded as he likes, but you can bet old Karkaroff and Maxime won’t be. They’ll have told their champions everything they can. They want to win. They want to beat Dumbledore. They’d like to prove he’s only human.”
Moody gave another harsh laugh, and his magical eye swiveled around so fast it made Al feel queasy to watch it.
“So … got any ideas how you’re going to get past your dragon yet?” said Moody.
“A few. Sirius told me about the Conjunctivitis Curse, but Chandra refuses to have anything to do with it. Says it might hurt the dragon, or its eggs.”
“Hmm... well he's not wrong. That curse does hurt a fair bit, and dragons aren't especially accustomed to getting sick. The only disease I know for sure they can get is dragon pox, which wizards and witches can also get. In fact, we got it from the dragons. Prob'ly why it kills so many people; dragons are tougher than us. Takes more to hurt them.
“But yeah, the dragon might stomp around in pain. I don't know or care about the eggs, but yeah, it could stomp on you while it's in pain. What're some of your other ideas, laddie?”
“Sirius suggesting casting a Patronus after it. Then he mentioned Summoning something once I get in there. And Javier suggested I summon my broomstick and fly around the thing.”
“That sounds like a good plan to me. From what I'm privy to about the Tournament, I don't see any reason it shouldn't work. Granted, you should always try to prepare for unexpected turns of events.”
“'Expect the unexpected,' eh?”
Moody chuckled. “Exactly.”
Al smiled at Moody. Moody gave the best approximation of a smile his ruined face could manage. It was a rather unsettling thing to see.
“Well, now that I'm assured you have a plan, I'll let you be on your way, then. Off to class, sonny jim. Here's a note for Sprout, and Filch if necessary,” he said, handing Al a note explaining why he was late.
Al nodded, took the note, and left.
*
To give himself something to do while he waited, Al practiced a bunch of other spells out of the book of curses he'd gotten from Madam Pince when he'd been looking for the Conjunctivitis Curse. Some of them were too difficult for him at his level, but others were doable. He practiced constantly, using unused classrooms to do so. He preferred casting against the walls, which were resistant to spells, at least to the ones he could cast.
Chandra, for his own part, focused on trying to calm Al. And either he was succeeding, or Al was just distracted, but either way the blind panic was subdued for a time. It returned in full measure, however, on the following morning. The atmosphere in the school was one of great tension and excitement. Lessons were to stop at midday, giving all the students time to get down to the dragons’ enclosure — though of course, they didn’t yet know what they would find there.
Al felt oddly separate from everyone around him, whether they were wishing him good luck or hissing “We’ll have a box of tissues ready, Potter” as he passed. It was a state of nervousness so advanced that he wondered whether he mightn’t just lose his head when they tried to lead him out to his dragon, and start trying to curse everyone in sight. Time was behaving in a more peculiar fashion than ever, rushing past in great dollops, so that one moment he seemed to be sitting down in his first lesson, History of Magic, and the next, walking into lunch … and then (where had the morning gone? the last of the dragon-free hours?), Professor McGonagall was hurrying over to him in the Great Hall. Lots of people were watching. He looked down at himself, not sure he'd even dressed, and found that he was dressed in comfortable Muggle slacks and a loose shirt. He supposed Chandra had dressed them, it didn't seem like anything he would choose.
“Mr. Rahasyamay, the champions have to come down onto the grounds now. You have to get ready for your first task.”
Al's heart suddenly felt like it was being squeezed, at these words. He began to hyperventilate, wheezing. He was going to die, he knew it. He suddenly remembered that without Iliana, he was pants at flying. Either he did the task and got killed by a dragon, probably by falling right into its mouth while trying to fly, or he ran away and was killed by the Goblet's geas. As panic gripped him, he felt his eyes watering with tears, and the urge to vanish away where the others were still hiding.
He stood up, intent on physically running away, when he felt a soft, warm feeling flood his being. He still felt scared, and wanted to run, but he would face his doom now.
Al tried to move, and found he couldn't.
~I cannot risk you flying away,~ Chandra said in their shared mind-space, ~so I have locked you in a gilded cage for now. I will face the Scaly Mother for you, Sarcastic Defender. Try to be at peace.~
PEACE? PEACE??? ARE YOU MAD???
But he felt the volume of his voice in their head diminish, and his mind flashed with the image of Chandra turning a volume knob down. He was being muted!
“Mr. Rahasyamay?” Professor McGonagall asked in concern. “We need to go, now.”
“Yes, Tartan Grandmother. I have calmed the Sarcastic Defender. I shall face the Scaly Mother now. Lead the way.”
“Good luck, Chandra, Al,” Hermione whispered. “You’ll be fine!”
“Yeah, you'll be fine, mate,” said Ron.
“I shall endeavor to prove you correct, both of you.”
He left the Great Hall with Professor McGonagall. She didn’t seem herself either; in fact, she looked nearly as anxious as Hermione and Ron. As she walked him down the stone steps and out into the cold November afternoon, she put her hand on his shoulder.
“Now, don’t panic,” she said, “just keep a cool head. We’ve got wizards standing by to control the situation if it gets out of hand. The main thing is just to do your best, and nobody will think any the worse of you. Are you all right?”
“I am well. I have faith in myself and in my destiny. And I have Mother on my side.”
She was leading him toward the place where the dragons were, around the edge of the forest, but when they approached the clump of trees behind which the enclosure would be clearly visible, Chandra and Al saw that a tent had been erected, its entrance facing them, screening the dragons from view.
“You’re to go in here with the other champions,” said Professor McGonagall, in a rather shaky sort of voice, “and wait for your turn. Mr. Bagman is in there, he’ll be telling you the — the procedure. Good luck.”
“Blessings,” Chandra responded.
Fleur Delacour was sitting in a corner on a low wooden stool. She didn’t look nearly as composed as usual, but rather pale and clammy. Viktor Krum looked even surlier than usual, which Chandra supposed was his way of showing nerves. Cedric was pacing up and down. When Chandra entered, Cedric gave him a small smile, which Chandra returned.
“Mr. Rahasyamay! Good-o!” said Bagman happily, looking around at him. “Come in, come in, make yourself at home!”
Bagman looked somehow like a slightly overblown cartoon figure, standing amid all the pale-faced champions. He was wearing his old Wasp robes again.
“Well, now we’re all here — time to fill you in!” said Bagman brightly. “When the audience has assembled, I’m going to be offering each of you this bag” — he held up a small sack of purple silk and shook it at them — “from which you will each select a small model of the thing you are about to face! There are different — er — varieties, you see. And I have to tell you something else too… ah, yes, your task is to collect the golden egg!”
Chandra and the others all nodded their understanding. Chandra was feeling pained by their scared and nervous energy, and concentrated on projecting his personal calm outward. It did not appear to be working, though.
Soon, Bagman was offering the sack of choices to Fleur Delacour.
She put a shaking hand inside the bag and drew out a tiny, perfect model of a dragon — a Welsh Green. It had the number three around its neck. Al – watching – knew, by the fact that Fleur showed no sign of surprise, but rather a determined resignation, that he had been right: Madame Maxime had told her what was coming.
Krum took a turn. He pulled out the blueish-gray Swedish Short-Snout, the number two tied around its neck. Chandra watched him look at it, determination in his eyes.
Next was Cedric. He pulled out the Hungarian Horntail, with a number one around its neck.
~Our luck is looking up, Sarcastic Defender.~
Chandra ignored Al's incoherent mumbling, and reached in, pulling out the Chinese Fireball, a number 4 around its neck.
“Well, there you are!” said Bagman. “You have each pulled out the dragon you will face, and the numbers refer to the order in which you are to take on the dragons, do you see? Now, I’m going to have to leave you in a moment, because I’m commentating. Mr. Diggory, you’re first, just go out into the enclosure when you hear a whistle, all right? Now Mr. Rahasyamay, could I have a quick word? Outside?”
“I suppose so,” Chandra said, following him out.
“Feeling all right, Mr. Rahasyamay? Anything I can get you?”
“No. However,” he said, taking his shoes off, and handing them to Bagman, “if you could hold these for me until after, I shall not be needing them.”
“What? No no, I can't do that. You can't go in there barefoot!” Bagman protested, pushing the shoes back at him.
“Never mind, then,” Chandra said, putting the shoes down on the ground.
“Anyway, what I meant is, got a plan?” said Bagman, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “Because I don’t mind sharing a few pointers, if you’d like them, you know. I mean,” Bagman continued, lowering his voice still further, “you’re the underdog here, of course. Anything I can do to help?”
“You can hold my shoes for me, ensure they do not get stolen.”
“Alright fine, I'll do it then,” he said, taking the shoes. “But I mean, do you need any help with the Task?”
“I have a plan.”
“Nobody would know, Mr. Rahasyamay,” said Bagman, winking at him.
“Unless you are suggesting that you and myself are nobody, then we would know. The Sarcastic Defender is not above cheating to save our life, but we have multiple plans already. Thank you graciously for your offer, Mr. Bagman, but I doubt it will be necessary.”
A whistle had blown somewhere.
“Good lord, I’ve got to run!” said Bagman in alarm, and he hurried off.
“What a strange, large, yellow man,” Chandra commented aloud.
Chandra found a soft spot of grass, took a seated lotus position on it, and closed his eyes in meditation. Al tried to listen to what he could of the commentary for the other Champions, but Chandra was doing so well at meditating that Al couldn't hear anything but a dull sort of mumbling sound, and didn't snap out of his meditation until he heard Bagman call for 'Potter,' probably on the presumption that it was the name most people knew them by.
Standing up fluidly, Chandra walked barefoot through some trees, past an odd sort of rectangular metal doorway, and out into the arena. Across the way, he saw the Chinese Fireball. With two legs and two wings, it was scarlet and smooth scaled with a fringe of golden spikes around its snub-snouted face and had extremely protuberant eyes. It was shooting mushroom-shaped fireballs out of its nostrils as he watched.
Then he happened to look up, above the dragon, and noticed that the dragon enclosure and the stands for the crowd were all covered up under a very large, clear dome of enchanted glass.
Oh. Holy. Mother. Of. Crap, Al thought in their head. We're doomed!
~Ah. The metal doorway was the entrance. Well, this is rather unfortunate,~ Chandra thought. Al just spluttered at him, unable to form words in his upset.
Chandra shrugged, and filled his mind with a feeling of immense happiness, using what memories he could access from himself and Alastair, pointed his wand at the dragon, and cast his Patronus.
“Expecto patronum!”
The glowing silver Amazon river dolphin swam out of his wand and moved to one side of the dragon, the side farthest away from Chandra. As they did that, he got the oak wand out with his right hand and relinquished control of that arm to Al. As he did, he caught Bagman saying something about the Patronus.
~Cast your own Patronus, Al!~
How? I'm facing down a dragon!
~You faced down dementors before. The worst that can happen here is we die. With dementors, we are destroyed utterly. Find your bravery!~
Al grumbled but gritted his proverbial teeth and concentrated on a happy thought. He tried three or four times to cast the spell before it finally took.
“Expecto patronum!”
From the oak wand came a great long snake with three heads that slithered through the air to join Chandra's dolphin Patronus.
What the bloody Hell is that thing?
~No idea. Not important. Help me keep the dragon away from us!~
“Two Patronuses, everybody!” Bagman announced to the audience. “Potter cast two Patronuses! And they're both different! One is a dolphin of some sort, and the other is a runespoor, of all things!”
Chandra tried walking toward the golden egg, but as distracting as the Patronuses were, the Fireball kept looking at Chandra, who had to back off.
What's going on? Asked a long-missed voice in their head. Holy shit, is that a dragon???
About time you showed up, Adira. Quick, cast your Patronus!
What? Okay, I'll try.
Soon...
“Three patronuses, ladies and gentleman! And this third one is... is that a wolf? Or just a very large dog?”
One by one, the others woke up and, as Chandra was still having a hard time getting to the egg, added their own patronuses. Joining the dolphin, the runespoor, and the dog were Iliana's Muggle Chinese dragon, a raven from Zoey, and Tier's was a jaguar.
“My word, SIX patronuses???” Bagman shouted, as the crowd roared with delight.
Finally, under the combined distraction of six different patronuses, Chandra was able to run past the dragon and grab the golden egg, his river dolphin patronus winking out as he sheathed his wand to grab the egg and run. His timing was impeccable, for the dragon had finally figured out that the patronuses were harmless to it, and was turning around blowing fire at him, which he ducked just in time to escape through another door he'd only just spotted.
“Look at that!” Bagman was yelling. “Will you look at that! Our youngest champion is quickest to get his egg! Well, this is going to shorten the odds on Mr. Potter!”
From their new position safely away from the dragon, they witnessed the dragon keepers rushing forward to subdue the Chinese Fireball. Chandra was glad they hadn't needed to use the Conjunctivitis Curse, Al was so relieved he was giddy, and the others were all kind of dazed and confused. They had, from their perspective, gone to sleep in the Great Hall and woken up facing a dragon.
“That was excellent, Potter!” cried Professor McGonagall as he came into the sidelines — which from McGonagall was extravagant praise. Chandra noticed her hands were shaking, and took them in his own hands.
“Be calm, now, Professor. It is over. Deep breaths, now. Slow breaths, in, hold, and out.”
It really said something of her mood that she went along with Chandra's directions without comment or even a glare.
“Yeh did it, you lot!” said Hagrid hoarsely. “Yeh did it! An' six patronuses, what a show o' power they'll not be wise to scoff at!”
Professor Moody came into view, his face very pale and damp with sweat. “That was... quite a display of power and skill, Potter. I don't think anyone's ever seen anything like that before.”
“Quite,” agreed Professor Lupin, former-DADA-teacher-cum-history-teacher. He also looked shaken. “Six patronuses, I believe that's one for the record books.”
“Yes, well, there are six of us. Seven, if this 'Mother' that Chandra keeps talking about is what we think she is.”
“So the others are back, now?”
“Yes. And I don't know about you, Chandra, but I could use a nap.”
~Sounds good to me.~
“Good. Zoey?”
With a very faint glow, they transformed into Zoey's form, Al and Chandra going to sleep for a nap. Zoey was dressed unusually, thanks to the addition of heart-shaped sunglasses and a very large pink feather boa around her neck. She walked around with her nose in the air, giving off a haughty demeanor, which was somewhat ruined by the fact she kept tripping because, as it turned out, she was trying to walk on the grass in high-heeled shoes that were much too big for her.
“Hullo, dahlinks,” she said in a feigned hoity-toity accent. “Pray do tell me what the other peasants did to get past their dragons?”
“Sure thing. You were the best, you know, no competition. Cedric did this weird thing where he Transfigured a rock on the ground, turned it into a dog. He was trying to make the dragon go for the dog instead of him. Well, it was a pretty cool bit of Transfiguration, and it sort of worked, because he did get the egg, but he got burned as well — the dragon changed its mind halfway through and decided it would rather have him than the Labrador; he only just got away. And that Fleur girl tried this sort of charm, I think she was trying to put it into a trance — well, that kind of worked too, it went all sleepy, but then it snored, and this great jet of flame shot out, and her skirt caught fire — she put it out with a bit of water out of her wand. And Krum hit it with some sort of spell right in the eye.”
“Conjunctivitis curse,” Zoey supplied.
“Ah, okay. Anyway, it went trampling around in agony and squashed half the real eggs — they took marks off for that, he wasn’t supposed to do any damage to them.”
Zoey winced. Lapsing into her usual voice, she said, “Chandra isn't gonna like that.”
“Yeah, probably. Anyway, they're about to call out the scores.”
She sighed heavily, and turned to face the judges' box.
“It’s marks out of ten from each one,” Ron said, and Zoey, peering over her sunglasses up the field, saw the first judge — Madame Maxime — raise her wand in the air. What looked like a long silver ribbon shot out of it, which twisted itself into a large number 9.
“Nine? You were fastest to get the egg, and with no injuries or broken eggs! Why a 9?”
Mr. Alder was next. He shot a 10 into the air.
“Looking good,” Ron said.
Dumbledore also put up a ten. The crowd was cheering harder than ever.
Ludo Bagman did a ten as well.
And now Karkaroff raised his wand. He paused for a moment, and then a number shot out of his wand too — a four.
“What?” Ron bellowed furiously. “Four? You lousy, biased scumbag, you gave Krum ten!”
“I guess we were just too much for him, and his brain collapsed in on itself from the strain,” Zoey said casually.
“Er, are you one of the Potters?” asked Charlie Weasley.
Zoey held out a hand as though expecting him to kiss a ring, and said, “Yes, I am the esteemed Zoey Potter, esquire the first, at your disposable.” This got her a number of giggles from the people around her.
“Er, okay. Well it looks like you lot got the highest score. Krum is in second.”
“Indeed,” said Zoey.
“Listen, I’ve got to run, I’ve got to go and send Mum an owl, I swore I’d tell her what happened — but that was unbelievable! Oh yeah — and they told me to tell you you’ve got to hang around for a few more minutes. … Bagman wants a word, back in the champions’ tent.”
She sighed again. “The burden of being me is great. I shall deign to speak to him again, the poor fame-addicted soul.”
Ron and Hermione waited for her, too, as she went into the tent again (or for the first time, really, from her point of view).
Fleur, Cedric, and Krum all came in together. One side of Cedric’s face was covered in a thick orange paste, which was presumably mending his burn. He grinned at Zoey when he saw her, then looked confused.
“Er, which one are you, again?”
“Zoey Potter,” she said, holding her hand out as she had for Charlie. He shook it, and she sighed. Then giggled, but hastily pulled herself back into her faux condescending manner.
“Well, good one there. I heard about it while Madam Pomfrey was tending to my burns. Did you really cast six patronuses, and all of them different?”
Dropping her feigned attitude, she jumped up and down excitedly. “Yes we did! Each of us has our own patronus! Well the one called Mother might have one, too, but we're not even really sure she exists yet. Chandra keeps talking about her, though, as though she's real.”
“Well done, all of you!” said Ludo Bagman, bouncing into the tent and looking as pleased as though he personally had just got past a dragon. “By the way, here are Mr. Rahasyamay's shoes. Yes... Now, just a quick few words. You’ve got a nice long break before the second task, which will take place at half past nine on the morning of February the twenty-fourth — but we’re giving you something to think about in the meantime! If you look down at those golden eggs you’re all holding, you will see that they open … see the hinges there? You need to solve the clue inside the egg — because it will tell you what the second task is, and enable you to prepare for it! All clear? Sure? Well, off you go, then!”
Wasting no time, Zoey turned the latch and opened the egg, which started to wail and screech. She shut it hastily.
“What the bloody heckadoodle was that?” she exclaimed.
“You'll have to figure that out to discover what the next Task is,” Bagman said, and left.
Zoey sighed, and turned Chandra's shoes into bracelets and put them on before grabbing the golden egg in both arms and leaving toward the school.
Looking as dignified as she could while hugging a great big golden egg to carry it and occasionally tripping on her shoes, she came out of the tent, rejoined Ron and Hermione, and they started to walk back around the edge of the forest, talking hard; Zoey wanted to hear what the other champions had done in more detail. Then, as they rounded the clump of trees behind which they had first heard the dragons roar, a witch leapt out from behind them.
It was Rita Skeeter. She was wearing acid-green robes today; the Quick-Quotes Quill in her hand blended perfectly against them.
“Congratulations, Potter!” she said, beaming at Zoey. “I wonder if you could give me a quick word? How you felt facing that dragon? How you feel now, about the fairness of the scoring?”
Zoey paused, staring at the woman for a moment, then handed Ron the golden egg and turned back to face Rita. She put her fake hoity-toity demeanor back on and tossed her slipping feather boa back over her shoulder.
“I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone,” she said. “At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty’s Government-every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation. The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their str--”
“What is that rubbish?” Rita Skeeter interrupted.
“Don't like it? What about this? 'Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.'”
“Is this some sort of weird Muggle nonsense?” Skeeter asked.
“Tut tut. You're British! Witch or not, you should have recognized Churchill at least. I don't blame you not knowing the Gettysberg Address, which is what that 'four score and seven years' bit was. But honestly, you should be ashamed of yourself, not knowing Churchill!”
“Churchill? What was he, some Muggle entertainer?”
“He was Prime Minister of the country during World War II!”
Skeeter stared at her blankly, confused.
“World War II? You don't know about that? It was this huge war the Muggles were having about the same time as Grindelwald was banging about in Europe. You don't know about that? And you call yourself a journalist? Well good day to you!” she said, going back toward the school in a huff.
“Oh come on, stop with this nonsense. Can't you please just give me a word about the First Task?”
“Sure you can have a word: Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!” Zoey shouted back at Skeeter.
After the fifth time she tripped on her high-heeled shoes, she took them off and carried them in her hands as she went barefoot back up to the school.
“Hey Hermione,” she said when they were far enough away from Skeeter, “do you recognize this sound?” Zoey reached over, popped open the egg and released its screechy wailing. Both her friends clapped their hands over their ears, Ron dropping the egg.
Soon Zoey had it closed again and the egg back in Ron's arms. Ron did not look pleased by that.
“Good lord, that was awful!” Hermione said.
“Yes yes, but do you know what it is?”
“Hmm... well it could be a code. It reminded me a little of my parents' modem when it dials the Internet. But wizards don't have computers, so I don't know how one would go about decoding it. Of course, it could be an actual language instead.”
“I'm gonna ask Lupin about it. He knows lots of creatures and stuff.”
“Yes, Zoey, but he's a teacher.”
“He's also Sirius’s friend. Which makes him like an uncle. I can butter him up, convince him to tell me. Or I could ask Moody; he was gonna give help for the dragons.”
“He shouldn't be doing that, he's a teacher!”
“Yeah and we didn't choose this, we're in it to survive. We'll take any help we can get to survive this.”
Hermione couldn't find an argument against that, apparently.
Taking this attitude to heart, it seemed, Zoey would grab the egg and open it for everyone she came across, asking if they recognized it. This ended in Zoey running to escape Filch's ire at making so much noise in the corridors. Zoey, Ron, and Hermione soon made it into the Griffindor common room.
When they entered the Gryffindor common room it exploded with cheers and yells again. There were mountains of cakes and flagons of pumpkin juice and butterbeer on every surface; Lee Jordan had let off some Filibuster’s Fireworks, so that the air was thick with stars and sparks; and Dean Thomas, who was very good at drawing, had put up some impressive new banners, most of which depicted Chandra shooting six patronuses at a Chinese Fireball dragon, though a couple showed Cedric with his head on fire.
Zoey grabbed a tablecloth off a table and used it as a knapsack to carry the egg in, where she kept irritating people by making the egg screech and wail after asking them if they recognized the sound. She got different answers, including 'banshee' and 'Percy Weasley singing in the shower,' but she didn't think those were likely. It also sounded a little like a musical saw, like at Nick's deathday party.
The worst part of this was when she started just staring into the emptiness of the egg, seemingly oblivious to the screechy wailing. She was feeling inside it, trying to work out clues. At that point, Ron took the egg away from her and told her she could have it back later. She spent the next hour turning snack food into spiders – goofy little spiders with smiley faces and not terribly realistic – and putting them on Ron's clothes, which cracked up the twins and Lee Jordan whenever Ron would yowl and flail around in terror, but this eventually drove Ron up to his room. After this, she enlisted Fred to retrieve the golden egg and she opened it again.
“SHUT IT!” Seamus roared, chucking a bottle of butterbeer at her.
He ended up knocking a punch bowl over right into the open egg. The sound was immediately muted, but something else was coming from the egg. She couldn't hear it very well, but it sounded somewhat like a comprehensible language. Curious, Zoey carried the egg up the stairs with a Wingardium Leviosa spell, dumped the punch into the sink, then set the closed egg aside as she filled the bathtub.
Once it was full, she opened the egg and pushed it into the water, filling it. She heard what sounded like faint singing. Stripping out of her clothes, she jumped into the tub and put her head under the water.
“Come seek us where our voices sound,
We cannot sing above the ground,
And while you’re searching ponder this:
We’ve taken what you’ll sorely miss,
Two hours long you’ll have to look,
And to recover what we took,
Around obstacles, past creature guards,
Whirlpools and magic wards,
But past two hours — the prospect’s black,
Too late, it’s gone, it won’t come back.”
She came up for air, summoned a parchment and quill and ink, and wrote down the riddle. She had to go back under the water several times to get it all, but finally she did.
A few minutes later, a soaking-wet Zoey, her robe on backwards and wet, came down looking for Hermione. When she found her friend, Zoey dragged her up to their room and showed her the parchment she'd written the riddle on.
“Sounds like someone's going to take something you have to get back. And if the egg can only be understood underwater...” Hermione checked her watch. “I'll be right back, gotta run to the library to confirm my suspicion.”
“Okie dokie,” Zoey said.
While she waited for her bookish friend to return, Zoey used her magic to dry herself off, though she left the water in the tub in case Hermione wanted to hear the song, too.
Less than half an hour passed when Hermione returned, a book in her hands.
“Mermish!” she said.
“Mermaids?”
“Mermish. It's the language of the mer-people. Let's see... yes, there are mer-people in Scotland. Specifically, the selkies. I wonder if you have to go into the lake?”
Zoey's face wrinkled up in disbelief. “In February? For a Triwizard task? How's anyone supposed to see us when we're down there? The Black Lake is called that for a reason.”
“Unless you think they're going to go to Ireland or Greece to find merrow or sirens, the Black Lake would make the most sense. I don't know how that would make a spectator sport either, but what else could it be?”
“And they're gonna steal something precious and we have to get it back?”
“That's what the song said, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then it must be.”
“But what's so precious I would go into the lake after it? I mean, I suppose they could take Iliana's Firebolt, but putting that in the water might ruin it.”
“Hmm... I don't know, either. But for now, we should focus on how you're going to go down there.”
Zoey shrugged. “I'll just have Tier change us to something that can breathe underwater and still use a wand. It'll be easy for him. It'll probably look really freakish, but whatever works.”
“What will you do when you find whatever it is you have to rescue?”
“That's a good question. Does that book teach mermish? How do you say 'Hand it over, you soggy goons' in mermish?”
“No, this book does not teach mermish, and I don't think it would be a good idea to insult the mer-people, Zoey.”
“Well maybe I can learn 'Please give me the thing you took, kind persons' in mermish. Now I know what to look for, I can raid the library later. Anyway, going back to the party now.”
Zoey took off running, padding barefoot down into the party again.
Ron was sulking in his bed when Zoey came into his room carrying a tray full of food.
“Sorry about the spiders. I was put off with you, but I shouldn't'a did that. It was mean, and I'm sorry. I brought you some food from the party.”
Ron sighed, smiling wanly. “Thank you. Apology accepted. Oooh, custard cream.”
He bit into a custard cream and swallowed. Then suddenly he was covered in yellow feathers. Zoey fell down laughing, thankfully having put the tray down beforehand.
“Har har. One of Fred and George's trick sweets, am I right?”
“Yeah. I really am sorry about the spiders, though. Should I prank the twins to get back at em for laughing at you?”
“If you want to try, you can,” Ron said as his feathers began to molt.
“Goody. I'll let you know when I have something.” Then she got a thoughtful look in her eye, and began giggling.
“You've thought of something, haven't you?”
“Possibly. I don't know if it's possible, yet. I'll have to practice upstairs later. For now, let's eat.”
She took a canary cream and swallowed it whole, then ran downstairs again, leaping down half the stairs effortlessly. Ron rushed to follow, and spotted her turn into a canary in front of the twins and Lee Jordan, to great laughter.
*
The next morning, Ron was at breakfast with the twins and Hermione. Zoey was nowhere to be seen. So he chatted with the twins about the First Task and how well the Potters did against the dragon.
Halfway through the twins telling a joke, everyone's attention turned to the entrance of the Great Hall.
“Fred and George Weasley!” came Mrs. Weasley's voice, loud and angry.
The twins turned, horrified. Their mother was standing in the doorway, looking cross.
“Mum? What are you doing here?”
Mrs. Weasley put her fists on her hips and glared at them. Hermione, though, thought something was off about her. She wasn't moving from her place by the door, and she looked a little shaky.
“Don't you fake innocence, boys! You know full well what you did!”
“But... but... we didn't to anything this bad?”
“This bad? You mean bad enough for me to come here in perf... person, and... hold on...”
She shifted herself around, like something was out of place, then went back to glaring at the twins. But then, her head turned into an acorn squash and fell off, rolling away. Her arms turned into a broken-off tree branch and a mop. Then the rest of the facade fell over in a clatter of buckets and brushes, rope and sofa cushions, all wrapped up in an excellent copy of Mrs. Weasley's usual clothing.
Everyone froze. Then the room exploded in laughter and applause at the brilliant joke. Zoey came out from the other side of the entrance and bowed theatrically.
“Thank you, thank you. You're too kind.”
Even the twins were laughing by now.
“Brilliant joke, Zoey! You sure had us for a while. That's some impressive transfiguration, by the way. You actually made a pile of stuff look and act like Mum! We'll have to write home about it; Mum will get a kick out of us getting pranked like that!”
“Ms. Potter,” said a stern voice. She looked up at Professor McGonagall.
“Yes?” Zoey asked, smiling sweetly and innocently up at the professor.
“Ten points from Griffindor for disrupting breakfast with your shenannigans,” she said. “And you will clear up this mess or it will be twenty, am I understood?”
“Yes ma'am right away professor,” Zoey said, scooping the things into her arms and calling Dobby. When he appeared, she shoved the things into his arms.
“Thanks for your help, Dobby. Here, take this stuff back, I'll get the rest of it myself.”
Professor McGonagall hadn't left, yet. She stood in the doorway as Zoey tried to leave with her own large pile of things, which was so tall she couldn't really see where she was going.
“Was there something else, Professor?”
“Yes. Fifteen points to Griffindor, Ms. Potter, for pulling one over on the Weasley twins.”
Zoey laughed and thanked the professor, who let her go about clearing up. The twins came over and helped her, so she wouldn't run into things and get into more trouble.
“Again, that was impressive. We loved it!”
“Thanks, Fred. I could've made it last longer, but I forgot that moving it makes it harder to maintain. I should've left it still once I got it inside the room. When I made it move its arm, it was one thing too many and it all fell apart.”
“You did that whole thing with your wandless magic?” George asked.
“Yes. I had to get Dobby's help to find enough stuff to transfigure. He also helped me move it. Cast some kinda spell on me so it would move when I did. But as you saw, the transfigurations were unstable.”
“Well yeah. It's well past fourth year magic, that. And it must have been a drain on your magic keeping it going.”
“Yeah, I could do with a little more food, come to that. But breakfast will be done by the time I get done putting this stuff back. Good thing I had some sandwiches beforehand. Being friends with house elves has its uses.”
“How'd you mimic her voice?”
“Oh that's not hard when you've got Tier. He changed my voice box for me.”
“Wow. So you could talk like her anytime?”
“Yes. But it's not easy. Took ten whole minutes to get it done right. Luckily, going back to normal is a matter of seconds.”
*
After her prank of the twins, Zoey switched over to Iliana's version of the body, because Iliana had been getting strangely insistent about having facetime. One of the first things she did when she was Out was find Luna, and talk with the odd blond girl. She found Luna in a corridor on her way somewhere from her common room.
“Luna! Hi, I've missed you lately.”
“You missed me? Really?”
“Yes. You're a friend. And I've been gone since Halloween.”
“Ah yes. Chandra took your place. He... or she? Chandra is nice.”
“What? Oh yeah, I remember now. Thank goodness for the Common Memory.”
“How is Chandra?” Luna asked.
“He's quiet. I think he got very tired out by being Out all the time by himself, then with Al.”
“Ah, I see. Well tell him thank you for me, for helping me find my things.”
“Have, er... have your things been staying put?”
“Oh, for now they are. But I think they might start vanishing again soon.”
“Yeah, Chandra isn't very intimidating. You'll tell me at once if your things start going missing again, won't you?”
“I don't want to trouble you, Iliana.”
“It's not a bother, or a burden, or a trouble. I like helping you. And bullies who get away with stuff tend to escalate, to see how much they can get away with. I want to shut that sort of thing down as fast as possible. Not only for your sake, but for others as well.”
Something in Luna's eyes looked briefly worried, which her empathic sense confirmed. “No, it's fine. It'll be fine.”
“You're worried about retribution?”
Luna said nothing.
“You are. I can feel it. Empath, remember?”
Luna sighed. “Yes.”
“And you were lying about them not bothering you?” Iliana guessed.
Again, Luna said nothing.
“Hmm... well, I think I have an idea that will help you with your things and hopefully won't cause you any more trouble. You have a trunk, right?”
Luna nodded.
“Well I can ask Professor Lupin and Sirius about getting your trunk warded so only you can get into it. Then as long as you keep your things in your trunk, they'll stay there.”
“Do you think they can make wards good enough to keep out even seventh-year Ravenclaws taking Arithmancy and Ancient Runes?”
“Godfather Sirius and two of his friends figured out how to become Animagi in their fifth year at Hogwarts, and made a functional map of the castle that shows everyone's location, also while in school.”
Luna stared, wide-eyed, at Iliana. “They did that? Really? Can I see it?”
“Er, yeah. I brought it with me so I could avoid Snape, and to make sure we wouldn't be bothered in here.”
She pulled the Marauders Map out of a pocket, opened it up, and activated it. Luna giggled at the pass-phrase. But then she gasped in wonder at the Map's ink lines spreading out and showing where everyone was.
“That is amazing, Iliana.”
“I know. I love looking at it. Anyway, let's get out of the corridor. Here, this unused classroom is available.”
She took Luna's hand, feeling an odd feeling in her chest as she did, and the two ducked into the room. Iliana sealed the door and warded it to keep out ghosts and poltergeists, as well as putting up a silencing ward.
“Oh, now these desks won't do. Zoey?”
She set the Map down on a desk and Zoey came Out long enough to turn a different desk into a loveseat. She was sweating when she was done, but didn't comment before switching back to Iliana.
“Wow, she's talented. She made a loveseat without a wand.”
“Yeah, she's good at that kinda thing. Oh, and Zoey tells me she couldn't make it any bigger. It's only going to last an hour as it is.”
“Oh. Well, that's fine.” Luna sat down. “Are you sitting down, too?”
Iliana nodded, smiling, and sat down next to Luna. She reached over for the Map and the two girls examined it.
“Snape is in his office,” Iliana pointed out. “And---what's this? Why is Mr. Crouch in Moody's office?”
“Who's Mr. Crouch?”
“He's the former head of the international magical cooperation thingy at the ministry, before Mr. Alder took over.”
“You don't seem to like either of them very much.”
“Yeah, well, Crouch was the one who put Sirius in prison without a trial. He got fired for it, once Sirius’s name was cleared. But I still don't like him. And Mr. Alder is a creeper. He was eyeing me like forbidden candy when we met at the World Cup over the summer.”
“Oh. Yes, you're right to be wary of him, then. He might be a member of the Rotfang Conspiracy.”
“What's that?”
“Oh, they're a conspiracy infiltrating the Ministry. They want to take over the world through a mix of espionage and tooth decay. Mr. Alder probably wants to feed you candy so your teeth rot.”
Iliana snorted with suppressed laughter. “I'm sure he wants to give me candy, alright, but not to rot my teeth.”
“What do you mean?”
“Never mind. I'm probably being paranoid.”
“Paranoia can be a survival trait. Look at Moody.”
Iliana's nose wrinkled. “I'll look at him as little as possible, thanks. I know he can't help looking like that, but neither can I help not wanting to look at his disfigured face too much. Not that I'd ever tell anyone else that, least of all him. But Al thinks his face is interesting to look at. Al has a strange sense of aesthetics.”
“You know, if you're worried Mr. Alder might... hurt you, or whatever... I'll help you. You're such a good friend, I want to be a good friend for you, too.”
“Oh, I don't really think he's going to do anything. He just gives me the creeps. Anyway, let's change the subject, okay?”
“Sure, Iliana. So, this map... I wonder how it's made.”
They spent the rest of the hour sitting there, Luna trying to work out how it was made. It turned out she was in Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, but being it was her first year, she didn't know enough magic to analyze the Map. So she mostly speculated instead. It turned out that Luna had been studying Ancient Runes for a good many years with her father, but it was the Arithmancy that provided tools for analyzing and reverse-engineering spells and runes. If either girl had known how to reveal the runes of the map, Luna would probably have the thing half figured out before dinnertime. But they didn't.
*
Iliana liked talking with Luna so much, and had felt so bad about neglecting her younger friend for so long, that she insisted on being Out on Saturdays at least. But Al and Adira also wanted to be Out, so to avoid fights, they began to alternate. Al got Sundays and Mondays, Adira got Tuesdays and Wednesdays, while Iliana got Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, though of the three, she was flexible about Thursday and Friday, but wouldn't budge on Saturdays, which she spent with Luna. Al, for his part, used his Sundays to spend time with Javier, and Adira just wanted to spend time with Ron and Hermione.
It had gotten to be such a regular thing that Luna and Iliana started meeting in the same unused classroom every Saturday. Outside was too cold, after all, neither of their common rooms was an option, and the library was not a good place for talking. Zoey was always willing to turn a couple desks into a loveseat for them to sit in, and after a few tries, managed to get it to last for a few hours before it reverted back into desks.
Javier and Al, on the other hand, spent time in the Great Hall, generally at the Griffindor table. There weren't many places to hang out with friends or lovers in the school, and they didn't want to appropriate Luna's and Iliana's space with their romantic shenannigans. Besides which, Al had come on too strong before, and both he and Javier were stepping back, getting to know each other better.
Iliana did indeed talk to Remus and Sirius about warding for Luna's trunk, and during the second week of December, the two men waited in Remus's classroom for Dobby to bring Luna's trunk to them to ward, as Iliana and Luna watched. When they were done, Luna's trunk would refuse access to anyone but herself, and there were clever and painful but otherwise harmless hexes that would punish anyone trying to break in. The more clever the intrusions, the more painful the punishments would get, so that nobody but Remus or Sirius would be able to undo the wards. Well, them or Dumbledore or someone else of that power and skill level. But seventh-year Arithmancy and Ancient Runes students, even Ravenclaws, would be in the hospital wing getting extensive spell damage fixed before they broke into Luna's trunk.
Iliana had never seen Luna as happy as she was when she cooed over her improved trunk, and showered the three of them with thanks. And Luna's happiness made Iliana beam with glee at how much good she'd done for her friend.
End note: I had so many ideas for the First Task I honestly didn't know which one was going to be used, and then this idea came out of left field. I like it. It establishes something I've long known was possible for them, without going overboard like some of my ideas would have done.
Endnote two: Zoey's use of the word "disposable" instead of "disposal" was deliberate, not a mistake.
“The Many Faces of Adira Potter: Chapter 29”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Twenty-nine: House-Elves, Occlumency, and Weird Magic
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Adira, and Zoey, and now #Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and now between hashtags/pound signs because some people's computers don't do the B.I.U.).# and {Tier}.
*FAYANORA*
In early December, the weather started to become windy with lots of sleet, and that's what it was doing during one Care of Magical Creatures class. Luckily, with all the skrewts dead, Hagrid was teaching them about porlocks now, short little bipedal horse-like creatures covered in shaggy fur.
“They guard horses, see. An they're pretty mistrustful of humans. They can bite, just like horses, so be careful,” Hagrid instructed.
Al was squatting in front of one, which was looking up at him with narrowed eyes.
“Magic is bloody weird,” Al said. “Some of these magical creatures don't make any sense at all.”
“Whadda ya mean?” Ron asked.
“Well like this thing. It's only, what, two feet tall at best? How exactly does it act as a guardian to horses? Horses are taller than humans, usually, and with those hooves, they can look after themselves pretty well. What do they need porlocks for? What's this tiny little thing supposed to be able to do? I mean, it has hands, but why? What good are you, little porlock?”
As though in answer, the porlock glared at him and whinnied loudly, then started running at Al. Al started to laugh, but then the porlock grabbed him by the robes and threw him a good ten feet away, where Al fell in a heap with lots of cussing. The Slytherins burst out laughing at him.
He managed to get standing again, brushing grass out of his hair and clothes. Seeing he was alright, the Griffindors added to the laughter.
“I suppose I deserved that,” Al said.
“Well, well, well … this does look like fun.”
Al groaned, and looked over at none other than Rita Skeeter. Ron and Hermione glared at her.
“Who’re you?” Hagrid asked her.
“Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet reporter,” Rita replied, beaming at him. Her gold teeth glinted.
“Thought Dumbledore said you weren’ allowed inside the school anymore,” said Hagrid, frowning slightly.
Rita acted as though she hadn’t heard what Hagrid had said.
“Ah, porlocks. How well I remember them. Oh, and Harry,” she said, spotting Al's scar. “So you like Care of Magical Creatures, do you? One of your favorite lessons?”
“My name is Alistair, you wretched woman,” he said.
At this, her face fell a little into worry, but then she recovered herself.
“Yes, Alistair, I remember you now. I just didn't recognize you. You look just like your godfather. Or is he your father?”
“No, he isn't my father. He's quite adamant about that. And remember that Adira looked like James back when she thought she was a boy. It's not possible to have two genetic fathers, so I don't know why I look like Sirius. Glad to see you remember my name now, though.”
“Yes, yes, but you didn't answer my first questions. Is Care of Magican Creatures one of your favorite lessons?”
“Yes,” he said stoutly. Hagrid beamed at him.
“Lovely,” said Rita. “Really lovely. Been teaching long?” she added to Hagrid.
“This is o’ny me second year,” said Hagrid.
“Lovely… I don’t suppose you’d like to give an interview, would you? Share some of your experience of magical creatures? I've heard some interesting rumors about this class. For instance, about a creature called, er... what were they now? Bang ended scoots?”
“Blast-ended skrewts,” Hagrid said. “They're all dead now, though.”
He glanced at Al, no doubt thinking of Chandra, but Hagrid had done as Chandra asked and wasn't treating any of them different for Chandra's actions.
“What a pity,” she said. “But you could describe them to me, could you not? The Prophet does a zoological column every Wednesday, as I’m sure you know. We could feature those bang-ended scoots as a sort of memorial for them? And then you can tell me all about them, like where they come from. I'm sure I've never heard of them before.”
Al noticed a dull red flush rising up out of Hagrid’s wild black beard, and his heart sank. Where had Hagrid got the skrewts from? He knew from Chandra that they were a hybrid of fire crabs and manticores, but surely Hagrid wouldn't be fool enough to illegally create an experimental breed?
“Not much point to it now,” Al said. “They're all dead, and Hagrid doesn't need any reminders of that painful memory.”
“Ah yes, so true, so true. But it's still up to Hagrid, of course.”
“Yes, I suppose it is.”
“And you, Alistair, weren't you the one who killed poor Hagrid's scoots?”
“That was Chandra.”
Her face lit up. “Oh really? The, er... I mean, one of the voices in your head?”
“Are you trying to dig dirt on me for an article about how I'm crazy? I know what you think of us, Rita. You called me a 'foul little mutant' at the wand-weighing ceremony. No thanks, I have enough of people thinking I'm crazy.”
“I wouldn't do that, Alistair. I just want to get to know you, and understand you. Yes, I said something mean in anger that day, but I didn't really mean it. Just like I'm sure you didn't mean to call me a small and insignificant insect.”
“Of course I did, Rita Skeeter. Honestly, you're still upset over that? You must have gotten teased about your name loads of times in school, how could that have been new to you?”
She blinked, confused, then looked thoughtful. After a few moments, she cracked a wide grin, like a Cheshire cat with gold teeth.
“I see now, Alistair. Bugging me with insect puns because of my name. How sophomoric of you.”
“What, are you stupid, that that wasn't immediately what came to mind? Though there's another meaning for it that fits; you really are something small and annoying to me, Rita, just like an insect.”
“Oh now, Mr. Potter, we need not be enemies. I could be your best friend, make you look great to the world. It hurts that you don't like me. Just give me an interview, please? Then you'll see that I'm worth a second chance.”
“Tempting, really, but I know your reputation, and that 'mutant' comment still bugs me. You don't know how to tell the truth, and you always have something nasty to say about everyone. Even your compliments are back-handed.”
“Ah. Well aren't you the tough nut to crack? Anyway,” she said, turning back to Hagrid, “what about that interview about the scoots?”
“Blast-Ended Skrewts,” Hagrid said eagerly. “Er — yeah, why not?”
“Lovely. Well goodbye, Alistair!” Rita Skeeter called merrily to him as he set off with Ron and Hermione. “Until Friday night, then, Hagrid!”
“She'll twist everything he says,” Al said. “She always does.”
“Just as long as he didn’t import those skrewts illegally or anything,” said Hermione desperately. They looked at one another — it was exactly the sort of thing Hagrid might do.
“Hagrid’s been in loads of trouble before, and Dumbledore’s never sacked him,” said Ron consolingly. “And anyway, Dumbledore already knows the truth about what the skrewts were.”
“Yes, but I don't want the whole world to know, in case it gets Hagrid in trouble.” He frowned.
Later, in double Divination that afternoon, Al was confused but glad that Trelawney seemed to be avoiding him for whatever reason, rather than making more dire pronouncements of his death.
“I'm glad we didn't get homework,” Ron said. “I hope Hermione got loads off Professor Vector, I love not working when she is.”
But Hermione wasn’t at dinner, nor was she in the library when they went to look for her afterward. The only person in there was Viktor Krum. Ron hovered behind the bookshelves for a while, watching Krum, debating in whispers with Al whether he should ask for an autograph — but then Ron realized that six or seven girls were lurking in the next row of books, debating exactly the same thing, and he lost his enthusiasm for the idea.
“Just bloody ask him already! He gets asked all the time, I'm sure he's used to it by now.”
“But he's famous!”
“And so am I. What's your point?”
“Well that's different. He's older, and he's famous for, you know---”
“Actually doing something worth being famous over,” Al interrupted, “as opposed to being famous for something his mother did?”
“Er, yeah. I guess.”
They didn't find out where Hermione was until she caught them just before getting to the Fat Lady's portrait.
“Al!” she panted, skidding to a halt beside him. “Glad I caught you. I found my way into the kitchens!”
Ron perked up at this. “You found the kitchens? You can get in?”
“Yeah, wanna join me down there?”
Al, grinning inwardly with his suspicion about what this was about, said, “Yeah, Ron, let's go down. We can get extra pudding.”
“Excellent! Hermione, lead the way.”
'Thank you,' mouthed Hermione at Al. Al mouthed back 'You're welcome.'
They made their way down the marble staircase into the entrance hall, following Hermione. She turned left at the bottom of the staircase and hurried toward the door through which Cedric Diggory had gone the night after the Goblet of Fire had regurgitated their names. Al had never been through here before. He and Ron followed Hermione down a flight of stone steps, but instead of ending up in a gloomy underground passage like the one that led to Snape’s dungeon, they found themselves in a broad stone corridor, brightly lit with torches, and decorated with cheerful paintings that were mainly of food.
Finally, they ended up at a picture of a still life of a bowl of fruit. Hermione stretched out her forefinger, and tickled the huge green pear. It began to squirm, chuckling, and suddenly turned into a large green door handle. She seized it, pulled the door open, and they followed her inside.
Inside was an enormous, high-ceilinged room, large as the Great Hall above it, with mounds of glittering brass pots and pans heaped around the stone walls, and a great brick fireplace at the other end.
“Alastair Potter sir!” a voice from somewhere around his navel said, and he looked down.
“Dobby?” he said in amazement.
“Um, yes sir. Is sir not remembering Dobby is here?”
“What? You work here now?”
~It is the small green North Star,~ Chandra said in his head. ~The North Star who guided me in my lonesome time.~
Hermione opened her mouth to speak, but Al talked first. “Oh yeah, Chandra recognizes you. But he didn't remember you when he was here by himself earlier, so he didn't count you as really any more significant than the other house elves. And since he'd never seen a house elf before, he didn't know your clothing was strange for house elves.”
Dobby's clothes were indeed weird. He had done an even worse job of dressing himself than the wizards at the World Cup. He was wearing a tea cozy for a hat, on which he had pinned a number of bright badges; a tie patterned with horseshoes over a bare chest, a pair of what looked like children’s soccer shorts, and odd socks, one of which was the black one Al and the gang had used to trick the abusive Malfoy into freeing Dobby. The other was covered in pink and orange stripes.
“How are you, Dobby?”
“Dobby is well, sir. Dobby is come to Hogwarts looking for work, and Professor Dumbledore is paying Dobby, sir!”
The house-elves all around the kitchen, who had been listening and watching with interest, all looked away at these words, as though Dobby had said something rude and embarrassing.
“Sounds like something Dumbledore would do. Is he paying the other house elves, too?”
No doubt about it, the other house elves were looking very offended.
“No, Mr. Potter sir, he is not. Most house elves does not get paid, sir. They considers it a great offense to even suggest it. House elves likes work, even Dobby is liking work sir. But Dobby is... unusual for a house elf, sir. Dobby is preferring to be paid, sir, so Dobby can quit whenever he needs to, sir. Dobby is not wanting to be trapped with bad, mean, evil masters again.”
Something came over Dobby, and Al grabbed him before he could punish himself.
“You don't have to do that anymore, Dobby. They're not your masters anymore.”
“Thank you, sir. It is taking Dobby a long time to get over that habit, sir. Dobby is being the Malfoy's elf for decades, sir. All Dobby's life he is serving the Malfoys, but no more.”
“How old are you, Dobby?” Ron asked.
“Dobby is 60 years old, sir.”
“You're 60?”
“Yes, Mr. Ronald Weasley, sir. House elves is living a very long time. House elves is getting as old as 150, sir, just like wizards! Only we is not showing our age, sirs and miss, until we is in our 120's.”
“That's amazing, Dobby! I would have guessed you were no older than your teens.”
Dobby chuckled. “Yes, house elves is often thought of as very young, sir. We is small and we is very different from humans, sir.”
“So, Dobby,” Hermione started. “You say house elves don't want payment. What do they want?”
“Most house elves is just wanting work, respect, kindness, and compliments on their work, miss. Most of us is not minding being servants to wizards, miss. We is getting housing, food, work, uniforms,” he said, referring to the spotlessly clean tea towels the other house elves were all wearing, which bore the Hogwarts crest, “and we is getting safety from the many creatures that eat elves, miss.”
“Eat you? But you have magic!”
“Yes, miss, eat us. We has magic, yes, but... well... Dobby's teacher elf is saying years ago when Dobby is young, that we house elves was bred from wild elves. Wild elves did not have so much magic as us, and they was not as smart as us. Wizards is making us from them, making us more magical, making us smart, and binding us to them, but we is not minding. They made us, and they is supposed to protect us. Most wizards is doing that, in fact.
“There is being more,” he continued. “Even with our magic, living in the wild is hard. Dobby is living out in the wild for 2 years before he is finding work here, sirs and miss, and Dobby is not having fun with that. It is being a long and hard time, very difficult. Dobby is almost getting eaten many times, sirs and miss. Most elves is not wanting to do it. But Dobby is being through worse in his life, sirs and miss. Dobby is doing it all over again if he has to, sirs and miss.”
Hermione nodded. “Thank you, Dobby. I'm going to talk with the other elves. I believe you, but it's always good to speak with others, in case they tell me something you forgot, or have something to add that you wouldn't have been aware of from your experiences. See you!” she waved and took off to talk with another house elf.
Dobby, Al, and Ron sat around, talking, with Dobby occasionally bringing them snacks or drinks. Al decided he wouldn't come here too often, to avoid ending up like Dudley from all the delicious food the house elves lavished on any witch or wizard clever enough to find the kitchens. The things Dobby told him about house elves were amazing, and he knew that he'd have to compare notes with Hermione in case the others didn't tell her the same things.
One of these things he told them in response to seeing the Marauder's Map. Al had been curious as to why elves didn't show up on the map, and Dobby had been fascinated by the map. According to Dobby, there was a huge part of the castle that was missing from the map, which according to him was the house-elf quarters, where all the elves and their children slept. And there were no child elves in the kitchens because elves didn't have to start working until they were 10, which was their equivalent of 17 or 18.
And after Al mentioned that the Chamber of Secrets wasn't on the map, Dobby changed the subject and showed him another room that wasn't on the map.
“Right here, on the seventh floor, sir, across from the tapestry of the dancing trolls. We is calling it the come-and-go room, or else the Room of Requirement. It is becoming anything you is needing, and you is just needing to walk back and forth three times thinking what you is needing the whole time.”
“That's brilliant, Dobby!” Al said, already pondering the possibilities for himself and Javier. They were still taking it easy, getting to know each other after their rather impassioned beginning, but it would make a nice place to have a private chat when necessary. He even felt Iliana's interest in the room perk up.
“Yeah, that's amazing!” Ron agreed.
“What's amazing?” Hermione asked, having returned from talking with the other elves.
They told her, in turns, about what Dobby had said. Hermione didn't seem so sure, thinking it was some mad idea of Dobby's, but when she talked to the other elves again, they confirmed the room's existence and purpose.
“Wow, that would be really useful. The things you could do there,” she said, thinking. “Dueling practice, summon a swimming pool to practice for the second task, maybe conjure a library full of cool books, especially Defense books... the possibilities are potentially endless!”
“Be a bit more roomy than a broom closet, too,” Ron said, sniggering.
“Oh like you'd know, Ronald!”
“Hey, just cuz I haven't doesn't mean I couldn't!”
“I really don't want to know. Really really do not want to know. Changing the subject now, you really should practice swimming, Al. With what you've told me of the Dursleys, I doubt they ever gave you swimming lessons.”
“Too true. They would have wanted me to drown. I just wonder how I'd get lessons?”
“Well I know how to swim,” Hermione said. “I don't like to, because it makes my hair poof into a giant ball of fuzz when it dries, but I could.”
“If you'd rather not, maybe I could find someone else.”
“I know how to swim, mate.”
“Yeah, but I doubt you'd make a good teacher, Ron.”
Ron looked thoughtful, then shrugged. “That's fair.”
~
The next day being Tuesday, they woke up as Adira. The day was normal for her, until dinnertime, when she got a message from Dumbledore to meet him in his office after dinner.
So, standing before the gargoyle, she said, “Malted milk balls,” which was the password. She briefly imagined Snape saying passwords like that, and giggled at the mental image.
She barely had her hand to the door when Dumbledore said, “Come on in, Adira.”
Shrugging, she opened the door, closed it behind her, and went over to sit in front of Dumbledore's desk.
“You asked to see me, Professor?”
“Indeed I did, Adira. What I have to say is fairly serious, too. No, you aren't in any trouble. It's about the horcruxes, and Voldemort.”
“What about them?”
“I have been growing concerned for some time, I admit. The signs are not looking good. I fear Trelawney's prediction last year may be coming true soon. I fear Voldemort may be working on a plan to rise again.”
“Oh? What makes you think that?”
“Your dream, for one. The disappearance of a ministry witch named Bertha Jorkins. Your confirmation recently that you recognized her name from the dream, as well. And other whispers. My sources in Albania also tell me that they can find no sign of Voldemort; he has left the country, it seems. Between that and everything else, I fear he may be in Britain again, working on getting his body back.”
Bring back, bring back, oh bring back my body to me, to me, Al sang in their head.
Shut up! It's not funny!
Sorry, dark humor.
She had let out a small giggle though, to which Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. “Al made a bad joke,” she explained.
“Ah.”
“Anyway, that is very concerning indeed, sir. I hope you're wrong. But yeah, with all that, I think you're right.”
“Yes, and the worst part is, I was hoping to find and destroy his horcruxes before he had that chance. But it has not been an easy task. I've been scouring the country for information about his life which might lead me to more horcruxes, but it is slow going. People don't like to talk about him, after all. And you know, I don't even know how many of the foul things he has. But what is concerning me more is what will happen if he returns. For the fact that you can feel his presence when he is near, and see what he is up to in dreams, strikes me as rather ominous, given that your scar hurts every time it happens. If not for that, I would just assume it is Alastair's Seer ability.”
“But you think it's something else?”
“Yes. And I fear it's a connection that might go two ways, once he regains his body. I've been trying to find him to stop him, too, but that has borne no more fruit than the horcrux quest.”
“Well what does he need to resurrect himself? If you know that, you can use it to find him, maybe?”
“That is an avenue I have been exploring as well. But the information about those rituals is hard to come by as well, especially for someone as famous for being a Light wizard as I.”
He sighed, then continued. “Alas, one of the pressing concerns now is teaching you occlumency, an art designed to protect the mind from intrusion by legilimency, so that if I am correct, you can close your mind to Voldemort once he returns to power. For I fear he may eventually work out the two-way nature of the connection, and send you false visions to manipulate you. And if I am wrong, then occlumency will keep him from being able to pull secrets from you in person, the way legilimency usually works, so it is a good idea anyway. And best to teach you now, while he is still too weak to be a threat.”
Ask him why he's so concerned about this. What makes him think this connection exists?
“What makes you think this two-way connection exists? How do you know it isn't just Al having visions?”
“I do not know that, of course. But I am concerned. Tell me, did your scar hurt when you had the vision about the Goblet of Fire?”
“No, it didn't.”
“And that is why I am concerned. Your vision of Voldemort, as well as your sense when he was near in the first year, both made your scar hurt, but your other vision did not. I suspect something else is at work here. Something happened when Voldemort tried to kill you. The same thing that transferred his parseltongue skill to you may be responsible for your visions of him, and your sense of when he is near.”
“What do you think it is, though?”
“I have only suspicions, and one strong suspicion in particular. I would like to tell you what it is, and I will, but I wish you to learn occlumency from me first, so I can be sure that the information will be safe in your head.”
“Okay, that sounds good to me.”
“Excellent. Now, I do believe your Chandra Rahasyamay already has a natural knack for occlumency, but if I am correct, it only works when he is Out. Or when he is awake, perhaps. May we start now, as a test?”
“I suppose so. What's this going to be like? What is legilimency, anyway? And have you discussed it with Sirius?”
“Yes to your last question. Here is a permission slip he has signed,” Dumbledore said, showing her a letter.
It said, simply, 'Professor Albus Dumbledore has my permission, as Adira Potter's guardian, to teach her and the other Potters occlumency,' with his signature at the end.
“Alright. But what about my other questions?”
“Legilimency is a magical practice that allows the legilimens to peruse the surface of another's mind, in search of information. A skilled enough legilimens can even manipulate you into thinking of certain kinds of memories in his search for information. It is not mind reading, though, not exactly. The human mind is complex, many layered, and ever jumping around from one thought to the next nonstop. So it is rather like trying to piece together a Muggle movie by taking photos of the film as it is rolling, except there are multiple films running at once, even in the mind of the average person. With luck and skill, the legilimens can use the images and feelings glimpsed in your mind to interpret them accurately. Even, I fear, in a mind as unusual as yours.”
“Okay. So how does it feel?”
“I am not really sure how to describe the experience. Any description I give will be a metaphor at best. But it should call up memories and images to your conscious mind.”
“Alright. So, er... should I sit or stand?”
“I think stand, it is the best way to learn. Standing makes you more alert than if you were sitting down, which is why it is a good learning aid.”
Adira stood up, adjusting her glasses, and Dumbledore stood up as well, brandishing his wand.
“Should I have my own wand out?”
“Yes. Though this is a test, I will want you to try to resist me however you can. Try to use your mind first, though.”
“Okay,” she said, getting out her holly wand. “Go ahead.”
“Legilimens.”
The office swam in front of her eyes and vanished, image after image was racing through her mind like a flickering film so vivid it blinded her to her surroundings.
She was Iliana, flying in a Quidditch game. She was Zoey, sneaking into the Slytherin common room to put a spell on Malfoy. She was 11, releasing the snakes from the zoo and Al was calling 'Fly, my pretties!' with her old voice, since that was before they'd started transforming. Then she was Al in second year, fearfully using his only weapon, his voice, to talk the basilisk into--
NO! That's dangerous and PRIVATE! Al yelled in their head.
The room returned in time for her to see Dumbledore reeling backwards.
“Most impressive for a first time,” he said. “Er, I take it that was Alastair yelling?”
“Yes, sir. Um... how much of that did you see?”
“Just bits and pieces here and there. I recognized the incident that led to us meeting for the first time. That was, I have to say, fairly amusing, how Alastair referenced the Wizard of Oz.”
“Yeah, that was pretty funny alright. Did you see anything else?”
“I saw the basilisk. And I saw young Zoey up to something, but I could not discern what.”
Adira grinned.
“Anyway now... if you please, could you wake up Chandra? I do not need you to transform, I just wish him to be awake and co-conscious with you, for another test.”
“Um, okay.”
Chandra? Chandra? Are you there?
There was no response.
CHANDRA! WAKEY WAKEY!!!
There was an internal groan.
~What is it you desire, Sarcastic Defender?~
Just stay awake and co-conscious for now, okay?
~As you wish.~
“He's awake and co-conscious, as you asked.”
“Good. Ready? Legilimens.”
The room swam again, but this time she saw a different series of images. A mountain stream through a small wooded area, the water gently burbling. The ocean, its waves pounding against the rocks. A sunlit summer day in a field of wheat, a farmhouse in the distance. A thunderstorm, the sky dark and ominous, occasionally forked with lightning. Then the mountain stream again.
Her vision came back. Dumbledore had lifted his wand.
“Now there, that is perfect occlumency! Chandra, it seems, is a natural at it. He resists without resisting, keeps intruders out of your mind with simple images of nature, which is one of the many ways occlumency can work. As Alastair demonstrated, an act of willpower can force someone out, too. And yet another method would be to show the intruder a modified version of one's mind, so they do not even suspect that what they are seeing is false. But that one is very advanced.”
Adira didn't know what to say to this. Finally, she decided to say, “Cool.”
“Yes. Of course the best would be that last one, but any of the other methods would be adequate. I wish the rest of you to learn one or more of the occlumency methods, for those times when Chandra is not available. But unless you have any questions, I think that will be enough for tonight. I will let you know when the next lesson is. Do you have any questions?”
“Um... not right now. But if I think of any, I'll write them down for later.”
“Excellent. You may go now, Adira.”
“So Dumbledore is teaching you guys occlumency?” Ron asked to confirm, after she'd told him.
“Yes. He reckons there's some kind of connection between Voldemort and me,” she said, ignoring his flinch at the name. “The same thing that lets me speak with snakes, in fact. Whatever that is.”
“And Chandra is naturally good at it?”
“Yes. Now can we stop with the questions? I've got homework to do.”
~
Wednesday after dinner was another Dueling Club meeting, and again Adira got paired with Javier. He had improved slightly over the weeks they'd been doing this, and wasn't such an embarrassment anymore, but he still had a hard time ducking or dodging, his reflexes were still slow, and he still had a hard time thinking of spells to cast while under pressure.
Moody was there, too, adding his expertise to the club by teaching them about using spells to incapacitate the opponent, or otherwise prevent them from casting. One such spell was a horn-tongue hex, that made the tongue grow a tough shell of keratin which made speaking pretty much impossible until it was reversed.
“Lasts longer than Silencio, you see. A lot longer, if they don't know the counter-hex. Doesn't stop them from casting non-verbally, of course, but still useful to learn. If you want to stop them casting non-verbally, too, a Confundus will do the trick pretty well.”
While Adira was dueling, Chandra was thinking. He'd been doing that a lot since being woken up the day before. He'd especially been thinking about his magic. He was so deep in thought, now, that he didn't notice a nearby duel go off the rails, with Ron and Malfoy tossing other spells around than the one they were supposed to be learning. But he sure noticed when a Stunner hit Adira in the face.
Instead of falling over, though, Chandra grabbed control of Adira's body and righted it just in time.
“Interesting, Potter,” Moody said, making his slow way over to her. “You took a Stunner right to the face, Potter, how are you still standing?”
“The stunner did fly, taking out my sister dear. I, Chandra, was near.”
“First strange riddles, now bad haikus? I'm starting to wonder if you just enjoy being annoying, Rahasyamay,” Moody said. “At least I'm assuming that's you. But anyway, that's fascinating. Adira got stunned, but you didn't? Stunners aren't supposed to work that way. Must've been a weak one. You got lucky.”
As Moody left to get back to teaching, Chandra stood there in Adira's body. Switching the holly wand to his left hand, he said, “Well perhaps we shall now be on even terrain, young artificer?”
“Er... I suppose so. I don't know if I feel comfortable dueling you, Chandra,” Javier said.
“My magic is open to me. I need only feel the feelings to unlock the spells.”
“I guess.”
“If it helps,” Adira's voice said, now taking on a familiar harsh tone as the dragon heartstring wand ended up in their right hand, “you can duel two at once.”
“You can do that?”
“His words ring true. I hold the left side, he holds the right.”
“Well, okay.”
“As interesting as that would be,” Moody said, returning again, “for a two on one like that, I think I'd rather see you go against young Mr. Malfoy.”
“Yes, because that worked out so well the first time,” Al said, still with Adira's voice.
“Well that secret is out already, so I wouldn't worry about it,” Moody said.
And so Al and Chandra, controlling Adira's body, fought Malfoy in a duel that was 'anything legal and not too harmful goes.'
“And no snakes this time, Malfoy, or I'll turn you into a mouse and have Mrs. Norris chase you. Ready? One, two, THREE!”
The fight was intense, and mostly involved Al versus Malfoy. But Chandra was thinking, because with Al doing most of the work, he could take his time and be clever about what he did to help. After almost a minute, during which it looked like Malfoy was winning, Chandra made his move.
Only, without meaning to, he forgot to say the incantation. And in point of fact, he'd let his mind wander a bit too much and felt the wrong sort of feelings for what he wanted. But something happened to Malfoy, anyway.
“AHHHH!” Malfoy shouted, falling to the floor as though he suddenly weighed 500 pounds, his wand rolling away from him.
Al and Chandra blinked in surprise and looked down at Malfoy. He looked like he'd been glued to the ground so firmly that he couldn't move. He could speak, and was cussing a blue streak, but he couldn't move at all.
“Interesting effect,” Chandra said aloud. “Not what I was going for, but in retrospect perhaps this is better.”
“Why, boy? What were you trying for?” Moody asked.
“I was trying to make him fly in the air.”
“I didn't hear you say any incantation. Did you cast it silently?”
“Er... yes,” he said, deciding not to tell the man any more than that, in case his suspicions were wrong.
“Well clearly you said it wrong in your head somehow. Here, Malfoy, I'll undo it for you.”
Moody cast a spell at Malfoy, and they saw the light of a spell, but Malfoy remained stuck to the floor. Confused and intrigued, Moody cast some diagnostic spells on Malfoy instead.
“Wow,” Moody said. “This is weird. I've never seen a spell like this in my life, and that's really saying something. Also, mis-cast spells usually have some relationship with the intended spell. This... I don't know what this even is. The arithmancy on it is highly peculiar. Doesn't even look like Western magic. It reminds me a little of African magic, but also of Chinese spellwork. And yet it's neither of those things.”
“Stop bloody commenting on it and GET ME OFF THE FLOOR! Please. Sir.” Malfoy said, irritably.
Everyone else in the room, who had long since stopped to watch, were laughing at his predicament.
“Hold your hippogriffs, boy, I'm working with magic I've never seen the like of in over 80 years of being an Auror. You're going to have to be patient and quiet while I work out the arithmancy necessary to figure out the counter-curse. Unless Mr. Rahasyamay wants to take a crack at reversing it?”
“I shall ponder the question, too,” he agreed, and started thinking.
Chandra rubbed the tip of his wand against his chin as he thought. Moody was too preoccupied with doing complicated maths with conjured parchment and quill to tell him off for this. But after a few minutes, Chandra pointed his wand at Malfoy and concentrated on feelings of lightness.
Without the warning of any incantation or spell-light, Malfoy lifted off the ground and into the air, shouting.
“AHH! GET ME DOWN! GET ME DOWN!”
“Oops,” Chandra said, to general laughter and applause. “A genuine error on my part, White Ferret. Hold on, I'll get you down.”
But Malfoy had managed to grab his wand before he'd flown into the air.
“Accio floor!” he shouted in desperation.
He immediately went flying right at the floor, hitting it with a loud smack.
“That was most unwise, White Ferret.”
Just then, Adira woke up and retook control of her body.
“What's going on? Wait... oh. Oh!” she started giggling, then turned to Malfoy, intending to nudge him with a toe, but he was up in the air again.
“Foolish boy. But at least I know how to counter a Wingardium Leviosa,” Moody said. And sure enough, in several seconds he had Malfoy on the ground again.
“Rennervate,” he then cast, once Malfoy was down. The pale boy woke up and looked around, turning pink with embarrassment.
“You should get to the hospital wing, Malfoy. You hit the ground pretty hard with that stupid summoning charm, and now your nose is bleeding. Rest of your face doesn't look great, either. Honestly, summoning the floor, what were you thinking? I know you're smarter than that! Now GET!”
Malfoy ran out of the room, everyone laughing.
“And you lot,” Moody said, turning to Adira. “I'm guessing you're Adira again, am I right? Don't answer that, it's not important. Just tell Mr. Rahasyamay he needs more practice before he starts trying to use his magic in combat. I don't know how he managed to mis-cast that badly. Sure, it was useful this time around, but it's best to know what you're doing so you don't kill someone by accident.”
Adira nodded. “Understood, sir.”
“Good. In retrospect, it would've been safer for me to figure out the arithmancy on that spell. Anyway, that's enough excitement for one night. Dueling Club adjourned.”
~
After the strange events of the Dueling Club, Adira was in her room, with Chandra wielding the holly wand in his left hand, experimenting with the new form of magic he'd discovered. Or rather, it wasn't new; in retrospect, the golden killing curse and the other accidental magic he'd done had been the same thing. Similar to the usual sort of accidental magic, but more controllable.
At least, more controllable in theory. Chandra was having mixed results with his experiments. The first time he accidentally set something on fire, Adira insisted he cast on rubbish only. Now there was rubbish on the ceiling, the wall, floating in the air, and once he'd managed to accidentally Vanish an old parchment. In another experiment, two pieces of rubbish had suddenly become very attracted to one another, and were now stuck so firmly neither she nor Chandra could get them separated.
“This is fascinating, is it not?” Chandra asked her aloud.
“Yeah, I guess. It'll be useful if you figure out how to do it properly. You haven't been using any incantations. I'm not sure how you're activating the magic without an incantation.”
“When it happened earlier, I felt a tingle. Both times, the tingle. It is the tingle that does it. I have figured out how to replicate the tingle.”
“Well that's useful. Ugh, here we are talking aloud to each other.”
Chandra pointed his wand at another piece of rubbish and Adira felt the tingle he'd mentioned. The crumpled-up sweets wrapper got squished to the floor like Malfoy had, but worse.
If only you could do it consistently, Al thought.
~I am new to this, Sarcastic Defender. Patience.~
Do you even need the wand? I seem to recall you casting those gold killing curses wandlessly.
~I do not know. Let me check.~
Chandra put the wand back and tried several times to cast wandlessly. On the third time, he got water to come out of his finger like the aquamenti charm did with a wand. Stopping it from doing that took a bit more work, but once he got it to stop, he attempted to clean up the mess wandlessly, too. That took a dozen tries before he glared at the puddle in frustration.
I also seem to recall you doing magic with songs, as well.
Nodding, Chandra thought of which song to try. When he settled on one, he started making a scrubbing motion with his hand and sang, “I've been through the desert on a horse with no name, it felt good to be out of the rain...”
He had to sing a few more verses, finally losing himself in the song, before it kicked in and the water evaporated.
First, Al thought to him, using a song with lyrics that include 'in the desert, you can't remember your name,' is probably a bad idea. We got lucky this time, but next time we might not.
~Ah yes, that is an excellent point, Sarcastic Defender.~
That said, have you tried looking for books on wandless magic? I've heard many African wizards don't use wands because of the witch hunts still going on there.
~Sounds like a good idea.~
They stopped what they were doing then to write a letter to Sirius saying 'If you haven't already gotten us a gift, Chandra would like some books about wandless magic from around the world. It appears he's got a knack for it and would like to learn more.' They sent it off with Hedwig and then went about trying to get rid of the garbage that was all over everywhere from Chandra's experiments.
Endnotes: Bit of a shorter chapter, but the next place I wanted to go didn't really fit in this chapter.
I have no idea what porlocks actually do, as it doesn't really say on the wikia aside from “horse guardians”; their response in this fic is completely my own invention.
Adira's first legilimency experience goes the way it does here because she's already calm, since Snape isn't the one teaching her, Dumbledore is. Also, I favor the theory that in canon, Voldemort was watching the lessons through Harry's eyes and so Snape had to teach him poorly to maintain his cover. Helped, of course, by the fact that Snape is already a piss poor teacher. Though how much of that is also an act, I don't claim to know.
Point: “The name 'Adira' being so different from 'Harry' is confusing.”
Counter-point: Several people who originally knew me by my deadname - which started with a T, had two syllables, and sounds nothing like 'Fay' - had no apparent problem calling me 'Fay' when I told them that was my new name. If they could adapt, so can you.
“The Many Faces of Adira Potter: Chapter 30”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Thirty: The Unexpected Task
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Adira, and Zoey, and now #Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and now between hashtags/pound signs because some people's computers don't do the B.I.U.).# and {Tier}.
Note 4: Harry Potter and his world are brought to you by the letters J and K, and by the Rowling Association of Britain. And, of course, by viewers like you. The rest of this fan fiction is brought to you by Fayanora. Which, if you were curious, is pronounced fay-uh-nor-uh.
If you weren't curious, my apologies.
*FAYANORA*
On Thursday, Iliana was Out for Transfiguration, where they were doing cross-species switches. She was dutifully taking notes, even though Transfiguration wasn't her best class. Oddly, for all that Zoey was great at wandless transfiguration, none of them was particularly good at the wanded version. They weren't the worst, either, but it was a struggle.
Toward the end of class, McGonagall made sure to get everyone's attention for a special announcement.
“I have something to say to you all. The Yule Ball is approaching — a traditional part of the Tri-wizard Tournament and an opportunity for us to socialize with our foreign guests. Now, just like the Hogsmeade visits, the ball will be open only to third years and above — although you may invite a younger student if you wish —”
Lavender Brown let out a shrill giggle. Parvati Patil nudged her hard in the ribs, her face working furiously as she too fought not to giggle. Professor McGonagall ignored them and continued.
“Dress robes will be worn,” Professor McGonagall continued, “and the ball will start at eight o’clock on the 23rd so that students may go home for Christmas, and it will finish at midnight. The Yule Ball will be held in the Great Hall. Now then —”
Professor McGonagall stared deliberately around the class.
“The Yule Ball is of course a chance for us all to — er — let our hair down,” she said, in a disapproving voice.
Lavender giggled harder than ever, with her hand pressed hard against her mouth to stifle the sound. Iliana could see what was funny this time: Professor McGonagall, with her hair in a tight bun, looked as though she had never let her hair down in any sense.
“But that does NOT mean,” Professor McGonagall went on, “that we will be relaxing the standards of behavior we expect from Hogwarts students. I will be most seriously displeased if a Gryffindor student embarrasses the school in any way.”
The bell rang, and there was the usual scuffle of activity as everyone packed their bags and swung them onto their shoulders.
Professor McGonagall called above the noise, “Miss Potter — a word, if you please.”
Wondering what this could be about, she grabbed her things and went up to McGonagall's desk.
Professor McGonagall waited until the rest of the class had gone, and then said, “Potter, the champions and their partners —”
Turning red slightly, Iliana asked, “Partners for what?”
Professor McGonagall looked suspiciously at her, as though she thought she was trying to be funny.
“For the Yule Ball, of course. Your dance partners.”
“Oh. That. Of course. Um... about that, I was wondering--”
“Yes, same-sex partners are allowed, Miss Potter.”
“That's good. But, er... there was another thing I wanted to know. Hypothetically, of course. But well, you know, with there being more than one of us in this body—”
“You wish to know if multiple partners is acceptable?”
She nodded.
“Well everyone present is welcome to bring a partner, Miss Potter, so if more than one of you will be present, you may bring more than one partner. Just do try not to make too big a spectacle of it, I think six partners would be a bit ridiculous, don't you think?”
“That won't be a problem. Zoey is six, Tier doesn't care, Chandra doesn't care, Adira is undecided, and really the only one of who wants to go with someone else for sure is Al. I just wanted information for, well, just in case, you know?”
“I understand. Do try to limit it to three partners, though. Anyone else you wish to go with will likely be there anyway, unless you wish to invite someone younger.”
Iliana raised an eyebrow. Even though she was 14, the thought of dating anyone younger than 13 felt more than a little weird to her. But she supposed that rule was for the 13 year olds dating those who were 12. If you could call it 'dating' at that age.
“Anyway, I was trying to say, Miss Potter, that you will need at least one partner for the Yule Ball, since you are a Champion. The Champions traditionally open the ball.”
“What, with an opening dance?”
“Exactly.”
“Um... what if we don't know how to dance?”
“I don't doubt someone can teach you. In fact, I have some dance lessons planned for students who wish to learn.”
Iliana tried to imagine McGonagall dancing, and found she couldn't. She tried to keep the shock off her face, but it didn't feel like she was very successful.
“You dance?”
“Yes, Miss Potter, I dance. Teachers are human beings with lives of our own, even though most of us have either never married or are... no longer married, or are... widows. Or widowers. After all, many of us are quite aged, I'm sure you've noticed.”
It was hard for her to miss the surge of emotion at the word 'widows.'
“My condolences on your loss, Professor.”
McGonagall blinked at her in surprise, then looked down, clearly upset. “Thank you for that, Miss Potter. But it was many years ago. Nearly a decade, in fact.”
Iliana didn't know what to say to this. Her parents had died 13 years ago, and Sirius, Remus, and herself still weren't over it. She said nothing, then.
“Well you should probably find out if Mr. Mendoza can dance, too, if Alastair is going to take him to the Ball.”
“Yes. Thank you, Professor,” she said.
“You may go now, Miss Potter.”
With the announcement of the Yule Ball, Iliana found she had to fend off more suitors than she would have imagined possible. It seemed that despite half or more of the school thinking they were an attention-seeking metamorphmagus and a liar, or else severely insane, it didn't stop people from wanting to go to the ball with a Triwizard Champion. Aside from being asked by several people – both boys and girls – whom she'd never even seen before, some of whom were as old as 17 or 18, they also got asked out by an annoying boy named Cormac McClaggen and once, by a second-year student. Most of them she could fend off by saying they had a date with Javier already – for she'd asked on Al's behalf and he'd enthusiastically agreed – but some of them, like McClaggen, didn't take no for an answer so easily. What was worse, McClaggen seemed to be convinced they had always been a girl, and the boys in the collective were just a disguise. How he could think that when their original name had been Harry Potter, she didn't know.
It got so bad after a few days that she had to hex a couple people to slow them down while she ran away into the library, which was blessedly quiet. In fact, she noticed that one of the few people there was Luna.
Sitting down across from Luna, she sighed. “Hi, Luna.”
“Hello, Iliana. You look out of breath. Are you trying to escape nargles?”
“No, trying to escape Cormac McClaggen. That berk can't take no for an answer. I had to hex him in the face to get rid of him.”
“What did you hex him with?”
“Engorgio skullus.”
Luna giggled.
Iliana grinned. “Well he already had a swollen head, I just made it obvious.”
Luna put her hands over her mouth and was overcome with such a fit of giggles that Iliana was afraid she was going to pass out, and Iliana was having to try to apply what little occlumency she knew to block out the overpowering wash of amusement coming from Luna. Luna did things like that, sometimes; usually, she was placid almost to the point of stoicism, but every now and then her emotions would bubble over and she'd do things like going into minutes-long giggle fits. And Iliana being an empath, even with occlumency the laughter was contagious. Her resistance broke, and suddenly she was laughing – quietly – with such fervor that after a couple minutes, she had a stitch in her side and her vision was going weird from being unable to breathe.
When she started coughing, Ms. Pince tried shushing her, but then she fell out of her chair. Her own amusement of the situation ended, but the floodgates of her empathic sense were still open to a deluge of laughter from Luna, who was unaware of her plight.
OUT! shouted Al in their head, and suddenly there was an iron wall of willpower blocking their empathic sense. Iliana rolled onto her back and moaned. When she heard the sound of someone clearing their throat, she opened her eyes. It was Ms. Pince.
“Sorry,” she said weakly. “Empath, you know. Couldn’t stop.”
Ms. Pince glared then at Luna.
“Ms. Lovegood,” the old woman said.
Luna, still fighting to keep her giggles smothered, opened her eyes and looked at the severe form of Ms. Pince. This only served to give her a second wind.
“Ms. Potter, maybe you should take your friend to the hospital wing and get her a Calming Draught.”
“Yes, Ms. Pince,” she said.
Iliana struggled to stand. Being too weak to carry Luna herself, she pointed her wand at the giggling Ravenclaw and said, “Mobilicorpus.”
As soon as Iliana got Luna out the door into the corridor, Luna stopped trying to muffle her laughter and was cackling, chortling, and occasionally snorting with laughter. It was quite a sight to see Iliana using her wand to float the madly-laughing Luna along in the air. Iliana was growing more and more astonished by the minute at Luna's stamina. How she could still be breathing with as much as she was laughing was a mystery to Iliana.
“You made... his head... swollen...” Luna managed to say before doubling over with another fit of laughter.
Even more oddly, when Iliana finally got Luna into the Hospital Wing, Madam Pomfrey took one look at her and sighed with exasperation.
“Again, Miss Lovegood? That's the third time this month!”
Madam Pomfrey moved Luna onto a bed with her own wand and got a small bottle from a cabinet, from which she used an eyedropper to get small amounts of the potion into Luna's mouth. Luna relaxed a little bit and went silent for a few moments, then started laughing all over again.
“She does this often, then?”
“Yes.”
Iliana had a sense like there was more the matron wanted to say, but wasn't. Probably because it was confidential medical information.
“I know she's prone to emotional outbursts, often inappropriate in strength or type, and not just laughter, but this is the longest I've seen one of her outbursts last.”
Madam Pomfrey dropped some more potion into Luna's mouth, and Luna relaxed for the most part, chuckling a little again here and there.
“Laughter can be a stress reliever,” Madam Pomfrey said. “It can be a safety valve, too. I suspect Miss Lovegood just needed a good laugh, and went a little overboard.”
“She'll be okay, though, right?”
“Yes, Miss Potter, she'll recover.”
Luna was back from the hospital wing in time for supper. When Iliana saw her, she went over to the Ravenclaw table and sat next to her.
“You feeling better, then?”
“Yes. I got a little carried away, but I'm better now. Oooh, black pudding.”
“Good to hear.”
Iliana stayed sitting next to her friend, and they chatted about this and that as she watched Luna eat.
“McGonagall said we need a date for the Yule Ball, because we're Champions. And of course Al and Javier are going.”
“Are you going, too?” Luna asked.
“Maybe. It'd be pretty easy to make an appearance. Adira is thinking about it, too. What about you, Luna? You going?”
“I don't know. It might be fun. But there could be a lot of nargles there, too.”
“You should go. It's more likely than not to be fun. And whether you have a date or not, you can still dance with people there.”
“I'm not sure...”
“Oh come on, it'll be great! I want to see you all dolled up, I bet you'll look amazing.”
“Well, Daddy did get me some new dress robes this year. It would be a shame to let them sit around doing nothing. Still, I'm not sure.”
“You know what, I will be there after all. I don't know about Adira, but I'll be there. I want to see you there. You can sit with us and the other Champions at the dinner, make sure the conversation is worth listening to.”
Luna smiled. “Well, if you're going to be there, then I guess I'll come. Yes, I'll even join you at the Champions' table for the dinner. That could be fun.”
“Good. And if you need any help doing your hair or makeup, come to Griffindor and Zoey can do something for you.”
“I think I will. Thank you, Iliana.”
“Good. I know it'll be Al at first, so you'll have to put up with him for a while, but I'll make an appearance if I have to shove Al head-first into the Basement myself.”
Luna giggled, snorting a little as she did, but didn't go into another giggle fit, thankfully.
~
The weekend came and went with no sign of Rita Skeeter writing about Hagrid or anyone else as far as they could tell, which relieved Al to no end. They talked with him about it in Care of Magical Creatures, while preparing food for thestrals. (They hadn't been introduced properly to thestrals yet, as that would be later, but it was something Hagrid wanted help with all the same.)
“She didn’ seem very int’rested in magical creatures, ter tell yeh the truth,” Hagrid said, when Al, Ron, and Hermione asked him how his interview with Rita Skeeter had gone during the last Care of Magical Creatures lesson of the term.
“She jus’ wanted me ter talk about you, Al,” Hagrid continued in a low voice. “Well, I told her we’d been friends since yer first year. ‘Never had to tell him off in four years?’ she said. ‘Never played you up in lessons, has he?’ I told her no, an’ she didn’ seem happy at all. Yeh’d think she wanted me to say yeh were horrible, Al.”
“You told her no? But I've done things in class that I shouldn't have.”
“Yeh, but on the whole, yer alright. Course, then she asked about Chandra and the others. Asked when each of yeh came around first. I told her yeh first changed in Snape's class, but not much else. Weren't really her business, I figure, but that much'd be common knowledge by now.”
“I just know she's looking to paint us as insane or attention-seeking. At least half the school already thinks that, she should ask them instead.”
“Rubbish,” Hagrid said. “Yer not mad! Yer just... diff'rent. Anyway, she's not allowed on the grounds. I told Dumbledore she was breakin that rule an' he took steps to keep her away. So she can't ask nobody else, least of all students.”
“Ah, but don't we have another Hogsmeade visit on Saturday?”
“Yes,” Hermione said. “So people can get things for the Yule Ball that they don't already have. Corsages, makeup, accessories, that sort of thing.”
“What abou' it, Al?”
“Well she could ask people questions then.”
“An' bother all them students doin their shoppin?”
“It's the kind of thing she'd do.”
Al shrugged.
“You coming to this ball thing on Christmas Day, Hagrid?” said Ron, to fill the silence.
“Though’ I might look in on it, yeah,” said Hagrid gruffly. “Should be a good do, I reckon. You’ll be openin’ the dancin’, won’ yeh, Al? Who’re you takin’?”
“Javier, of course.”
“Ah, shoulda known. Any o' the rest of yeh goin?”
“Iliana is going to make an appearance. She's already been experimenting with her outfit in front of the mirror in our room. Adira hasn't decided yet.”
“Well she better get a move on an' decide afore she ent got time left.”
“Yeah.”
“Any o' the rest of yeh takin anyone else other 'an Javier?”
“Not that anyone's told me yet. We asked McGonagall about it just in case, though. We can take up to three people if we want. Thank goodness, too. I mean, once the others start dating, things will get complicated, but I'm glad they're holding off for now. Adira thought about asking Cho Chang, but then we saw her and Cedric together, and that was the end of that, apparently. But Addy might still make an appearance.”
“Oh Hagrid, I just remembered something funny,” Ron said. “McGonagall had some dance lessons last weekend for those who don't know how to dance.”
“Wha's funny bout that?”
“McGonagall dancing. It was weird. I'd never have believed it if I hadn't seen it.”
“I wonder if the Slytherins got similar lessons. I mean, I know they're mostly purebloods, but some might have needed it.”
“Oy, now I'm imagining Snape dancing. I think my brain might just break from that mental image.”
“You got a date for the ball yet, Ron?” Al asked.
“Er... um, no. Not as such.”
“Well you better get on it.”
Ron nodded. Then he looked at Hermione thoughtfully, but nervously. “Oy, Hermione?”
“Yes, Ron?” she asked.
“Er...” his face turned red. “Um... dyawannagototheballwifme?”
“Pardon?”
Al grinned knowingly at Ron. “Yes, Ronald, you need to enunciate.”
His face turning even redder, Ron said, “D'you... d'you wanna go to the ball? With me, I mean?”
Hermione's face turned red, too, but Al didn't need to be an empath to see that she was going to have to let him down.
“Ohmygod, I'm so sorry, Ron, but someone's already asked me, and... and I said yes. I mean, I didn't think anyone was going to ask me at all, and then I just got so surprised to be asked, and I said yes right away. Sorry.”
“What? Someone already asked you? Who?”
Hermione's face went bright red. “I... oh, I'd tell you, but I hardly believed it myself, you'd never believe me if I told you.”
“Does that apply to me, too?”Al asked. “Because I'd believe it if Neville asked you. Actually, there's a fair number of boys I could see asking you out. Unless it was a girl who asked you?”
She shook her head. “No. I'm not into girls that way. It was a boy.”
That was all she would say about it, though, no matter how much they continued to pester her about it.
“Well, Ron, you could always take Luna. She's not attached.”
“Luna? No thank you, Al.”
“Oh come on, she's sweet and brilliant and understanding. And she could use a boost from someone asking her to go. I mean, I know she's going anyway, but she'd be thrilled to be asked.”
Ron shook his head. “Naw, mate. She's not my type.”
“And what exactly is your type, Ronald?” Hermione asked waspishly.
“Yeah really, I thought his type was 'female and breathing.'”
“Oy!” Ron shouted, throwing a piece of bloody tendon at Al, who ducked.
“But seriously, why not Luna?”
“I'd be a laughingstock!”
“Why?”
“Cuz she's so weird!”
“You're best mates with a bunch of different people who share a single body, whom most people think is an attention-seeking metamorphmagus or insane, and you don't want to go with Luna because she's weird?”
“Well that's different. Apart from being a load of different people, and trouble being attracted to you, you're pretty normal.”
“Fine, whatever Ron. Luna deserves better than you, anyway. Someone mature and considerate of others, I mean.”
Ron chucked an entire kidney at Al that time.
“Oy, don' waste the meat you lot!” Hagrid snapped.
“I should get a move on, you know … ask someone,” Ron said. “Al's right. I don’t want to end up with a troll.”
Hermione let out a sputter of indignation.
“A … what, excuse me?”
“Well — you know,” said Ron, shrugging. “I’d rather go alone than with — with Eloise Midgen, say.”
“Her acne’s loads better lately — and she’s really nice!”
“Her nose is off-center,” said Ron.
“Oh I see,” Hermione said, bristling. “So basically, you’re going to take the best-looking girl who’ll have you, even if she’s completely horrible?”
“Er — yeah, that sounds about right,” said Ron.
“Ask Pansy Parkinson, then,” Al suggested venomously.
“What? Eww, no. She's a--- really horrible person. And she's too fond of Malfoy, anyway.”
“Honestly, Ron, Luna's very pretty, and she's nice. Even if you are an immature dunce, she'd be thrilled to be asked out by a boy, even one as emotionally stunted as you.”
“I told you, Al, she's not my type.”
“Fine. I'll see if Moaning Myrtle will have you, then.”
Ron glowered at Al.
~
On the last day of term, a Friday, the castle was looking amazing with Christmas decorations that put other years to shame. The ball was less than a week away, and yet Ron still hadn't found a date for the ball.
Not, though, for lack of trying. Sort of. Chandra had decided to make an appearance that day, and he and Ron were in the entrance hall going to dinner when they saw Fleur Delacour talking to Cedric Diggory. She tossed her hair, which sparkled with supernatural glamor, and Ron's face went slack. Then, without warning, Ron burst out speaking.
“WILL YOU GO TO THE BALL WITH ME?” he shouted at Fleur.
Fleur looked back at Ron like he was a sea slug. Chandra chuckled at Ron's outburst.
“Red Knight, what has come over you?”
Ron's face returned to normal, then, as he realized what he'd done, he looked horrified, and took off running.
“Odd,” Chandra quipped.
Fleur finally noticed him. “You again, from zat first night of ze tournament.”
“Yes, that is me,” Chandra confirmed.
“But 'ow... 'ow are you not a drooling eedeeot like your friend? I 'ad my Veela charm on, 'ow do you say... oh yes, 'full blast.'”
Chandra shrugged. “I do not know. But I should go see if he's alright.”
With Fleur staring incredulously at him, Chandra jogged after Ron.
When Chandra got back to the common room, he saw Ron sitting ashen-faced in a distant corner. Ginny was sitting with him, talking to him in what seemed to be a low, soothing voice.
“Are you alright, Red Knight?”
Ron looked up at Chandra, a sort of blind horror in his face.
“Why did I do it?” he said wildly. “I don’t know what made me do it!”
“She is part Veela. She was using her powers of charm on Cedric Diggory, and you got hit with it. I know, I was there with him,” he explained to Ginny.
“What did her charm make you do, Chandra?” Ginny asked.
“It had no effect on me. I felt it, yes, but it did nothing to me.”
“Really? But you're a boy. Right?”
“Yes, all day long.”
“Then it should have affected you.”
Chandra shrugged. “I have no explanation.”
“Did it affect any of the others?”
“They have been resting today.”
Ginny looked thoughtful, while still idly patting Ron on the shoulder in a comforting sort of way. “Have you ever felt, er, attraction to anyone before?”
“I am aware of how the sensation feels, from memories. But I do not recall ever experiencing it personally, yet.”
“But you're 14, right?”
“Yes.”
“Huh. Odd.”
“Anyway, the silver flower is wasting her time with the badger seeker, for he is dating the eagle seeker.”
“God,” Ron said. “At this rate I'm gonna be the only person in school without a date. Well, except Neville.”
“Neville's got someone, Ron,” Ginny said.
“He does? Who?”
“Me. He asked me, and since nobody else had asked me yet, I said yes.”
Ron sunk down in the chair he was sitting in. “Damn. Even Neville has a date.”
Just then Hermione climbed in through the portrait hole.
“Why weren’t you two at dinner?” she said, coming over to join them.
“Because the Red Knight got whammied by the silver flower's Veela charm, and asked her out. She had been aiming at Cedric Diggory. But he is spoken for.”
“Yes,” Ginny said, “and Chandra got hit by it too, only it didn't affect him!”
“Really? But he's a boy. Right?”
“Yes, I am a boy today.”
“Hmm... I wonder if your gender flexibility has anything to do with it.”
“He says he's never felt attracted to anyone before.”
“Really? At 14? Hmm... I wonder if you're asexual, Chandra?”
“Pardon?”
“Asexual. It means you're not attracted sexually to other people. Possibly aromantic, too, since the two can be connected.”
“From context, I assume that means 'not feeling romantic attraction'?” Chandra asked.
“Yes. I read about it over the summer, at the public library.”
“He could just be a late bloomer, too.”
“Yes, that's a possibility.”
Ron groaned. “I'm going to be the only person without a date to the ball.”
“You should follow Sarcastic Defender's advice, and take the moon that loves well.”
Ron just threw his head back and gave a frustrated grunt.
“Or if you don't wish that...” he trailed off, for he had spotted Parvati and Lavender coming in through the portrait hole. He considered Parvati at first, decided from the collective memory that she was too pretty to not have a date already, and even though Lavender probably had a date as well, he decided to try anyway, and went over to Lavender.
“Hello, Lavender.”
“Oh, er... hi. Chandra, is it?”
“Yes. My friend, Ronald Weasley, is having difficulties finding someone to go to the Yule Ball with him. He is quite distraught at the moment, so I decided to ask for him. What do you say?”
Parvati and Lavender giggled. Then Parvati spoke. “Are you looking for someone, too?”
“No. I have no interest in the ball, and Alastair is going with Javier.”
“Oh. Lav?” she asked her friend.
Lavender looked back at Ron, and giggled. “Well, he wouldn't be the first to ask me, but I haven't said yes to anyone yet. I wanted to know what my options were. Hmm... he's for sure better than McClaggen. He's friends with you, that's a plus. He's not bad looking, either... Yes, I'll go with Ron to the ball.”
The two girls started giggling again.
Chandra bowed. “Thank you. I shall inform him.”
He went over to Ron, and poked him in the shoulder.
“What?”
“Lavender Brown will go to the Yule Ball with you, Red Knight.”
Ron perked up at once. “She will?”
Lavender nodded, then giggled again.
“Brilliant! Thanks, mate!”
“You are most welcome.”
~
A couple days before the ball, the Potters woke up in Zoey's body and decided to go with it. Zoey spent an inordinate amount of time getting ready, mainly because she was transfiguring her existing clothing to look different, and ended up walking into the Great Hall wearing a dress that was eye-wateringly neon yellow with silver reflective trim, and a neon-orange witch's hat with silver reflective trim. She also had on heart-shaped sunglasses with one lens black and the other lens green, and also her great pink feather boa, but was wearing normal shoes. Several people choked on their food when they saw her outlandish outfit.
“Oy, Zoey, you dress worse than Dumbledore sometimes,” Ron said.
“Thahnk you, dahling,” she said with the 'snooty rich person' accent she occasionally used.
“It is too ’eavy, all zis ’Ogwarts food,” they heard Fleur saying grumpily from behind them. “I will not fit into my dress robes!”
“Oooh there’s a tragedy,” Hermione snapped as Fleur went out into the entrance hall. “She really thinks a lot of herself, that one, doesn’t she?”
“Hermione — who are you going to the ball with?” said Ron.
He kept springing this question on her, hoping to startle her into a response by asking it when she least expected it. However, Hermione merely frowned and said, “I’m not telling you, you’ll just make fun of me.”
“You’re joking, Weasley!” said Malfoy, behind them. “You’re not telling me someone’s asked that to the ball? Not the long-molared Mudblood?”
Zoey turned and pointed at him, and suddenly he was a white ferret again. Naturally, the room erupted into a riot of laughter from most tables, and righteous indignation from the Slytherins.
“Woah, Zoey!” Ron said when he stopped laughing. “I didn't know you could do that!”
“Normally I couldn't, but Malfoy's body still remembers being a ferret, so I just reminded it. That's a lot easier than trying to turn him into something different.”
“Miss Zoey Potter,” McGonagall's sharp voice sounded from behind her.
Zoey grabbed the table and leaned back to look at her upside-down. The hat, remarkably, stayed on her head.
“Yes, Professor?” she asked in a would-be-innocent voice. She glanced at the Slytherin table, and saw Malfoy was human again and storming out of the Great Hall.
“You know full well what I mean, young lady. Twenty points from Griffindor and a detention with me tonight. And if I catch you turning anyone into anything else against their will, I will make it fifty points. Do you understand me?”
Still looking at McGonagall upside-down, she let go with one hand to give a thumbs-up.
“Okie dokie, Professor. I promise I'll be good.”
McGonagall snorted. “That'll be the day,” she said. “Your detention will be at 7 o'clock tonight, Miss Potter.”
“I'll be there,” Zoey said.
“See that you are,” the professor said before walking back to the staff table.
Zoey righted herself and started making herself a sandwich from the foods available. She took some toast and buttered it, dousing the butter in sugar and cinnamon. Then she put bacon, eggs, tomatoes, kippers, cheese slices, and sausage patties on that piece of toast. Next she took a piece of French toast, slathered it in blueberry jam, sprinkled pepper on the jam, squirted some ketchup on the jam, and made that the top piece of her sandwich. Ignoring the gagging noises of everyone around her, she bit into it with gusto.
“Yummy!” she said when she'd swallowed.
Several people moved further down the table as she continued eating the bizarre sandwich. The Weasley twins, however, watched in horrified fascination as she ate the entire thing, and washed it down with a mixture of orange juice and milk.
“Ah, orange juice milk, the nectar of the gods,” she said.
She looked up. “Ron? Hermione? Drat, I scared them away.”
“You grossed them out!” one of the Weasley twins said.
“Yeah, they ran away halfway through that sandwich,” said the other.
“Brilliant prank, by the way.”
“Prank? I was just having a delicious sammich.”
The twins rolled their eyes at her. She rolled her eyes back at them.
~
With time til the Yule Ball growing short, Zoey spent a lot of time designing dress robes for Professor Lupin, who hadn't gotten any for himself with his teaching salary, and figuring out what she was going to do for Ron's robes. Complicating things slightly was the fact that her transfigurations normally didn't last more than a few hours, except when the collective was transfiguring their clothes during transformations; for those, skin contact kept them in their transfigured state indefinitely, and they wouldn't start to change back until after 36 hours without skin contact from Zoey or one of the others. Which just meant she had to leave her projects out in the room and touch them for a minute or two every once in a while to keep the transfigurations recharged.
They were also working on what to do for Al, Iliana, and now Adira, which involved a lot of switching back and forth among them, and some drawings by Zoey. But once they got the things done, Zoey could pull the completed transfigured objects in with her, and they could come back out with whichever person they went with.
She was really pleased with her work so far. They were all so beautiful she even thought about making one for herself and surprising everyone with an appearance. She was only six, but they couldn't get rid of her, since the shared body was old enough to be there. She grinned at that idea; she hadn't seriously thought about it before, but it would be a great prank to pull on everyone. So she got to work again, humming happily to herself the whole time.
~
On the 22nd, Zoey was taking a break in the common room. She was nearly done with the outfits she was working on, so she was resting for a bit by sitting with Ron and Hermione. Ron was making a house of cards out of Exploding Snap cards, a dangerous idea since they could explode at any moment and bring the whole thing down.
Zoey, for her part, was reading 'A Wrinkle In Time' by Madeline L'engle. Hermione was studying Potions.
Ron placed the last two cards on top of the castle and the whole lot blew up, singeing his eyebrows.
“Nice look, Ron … go well with your dress robes, that will.”
It was Fred and George. They sat down at the table with Zoey, Ron, and Hermione as Ron felt how much damage had been done.
“I'm transfiguring his dress robes to look nice,” Zoey said.
“Really? Can you do ours, too?” George asked. “We tease ickle Ronniekins about his, but ours aren't much better.”
“Sure, I can do that.”
“Thanks, Zoey.”
“No problem.”
George turned to Ron. “Ron, can we borrow Arnan?”
“Sure, he's in my room” said Ron. “Why?”
“Because George wants to invite him to the ball,” said Fred sarcastically.
“Because we want to send a letter, you stupid great prat,” said George.
“Who d’you two keep writing to, eh?” said Ron.
“Nose out, Ron, or I’ll burn that for you too,” said Fred, waving his wand threateningly. “So … you lot got dates for the ball yet?”
“Yes,” Ron said.
Fred regarded Zoey. “Oh yeah, Al's probably going with his handsome little snake. But you, Ron? You managed to get a date?”
“Always the tone of surprise,” Ron said, annoyed. “Yes. Lavender Brown and I are going together. What about you? Who're you going with?”
“Angelina,” said Fred promptly, without a trace of embarrassment.
“What?” said Ron, taken aback. “You’ve already asked her?”
“Good point,” said Fred. He turned his head and called across the common room, “Oi! Angelina!”
Angelina, who had been chatting with Alicia Spinnet near the fire, looked over at him.
“What?” she called back.
“Want to come to the ball with me?”
Angelina gave Fred an appraising sort of look.
“All right, then,” she said, and she turned back to Alicia and carried on chatting with a bit of a grin on her face.
“There you go,” said Fred to Zoey and Ron, “piece of cake.”
He got to his feet, yawning, and said, “Well let's go get Arnan, George, come on.”
They left. Zoey, getting a feeling that they were up to something, put her book aside, took her wand out, and Disillusioned herself, silencing her feet and robes to sneak after the twins.
She found them in Ron's dorm, attaching a letter to Arnan's leg, then letting him fly out the window before leaving. Without thinking about it, Zoey bounded up to the open window and looked out, to see Arnan flying off. She didn't have much time.
“Accio owl,” she said, the Long-Eared Owl being pulled, struggling, into her hands.
Ignoring his indignant hoots, she took the letter off him and examined it. It was addressed to Ludo Bagman, of all people. More curious than ever, she used her wand to open it up and read it. From what she read, she gathered that Bagman had paid them their winnings in leprechaun gold, apparently deliberately. They'd given up trying to get their winnings from him, and were now just asking him for their original bet money back.
“Ah,” she said at last. “So that's what they're up to. Well yeah, I'd be pretty peeved too, in their place.”
She added a note on the other side of the letter:
Dear Mr. Bagman,
I'm Zoey Potter. Fred and George are my friends. Please return their original bet money to them as soon as possible, or I will turn you into something horrible. I assure you I can do it. If you don't believe me, ask around about my skills with wandless transfiguration.
Sincerely,
Zoey Potter
Then she reattached the letter to Arnan's leg. He wasn't happy about her treatment of him, but she apologized by giving him some owl treats from Ron's bedside table, and he seemed to be somewhat appeased with this by the time he started to fly away again.
Well, time to plan some backup plans in case Bagman doesn't listen to me, she thought with an evil giggle.
Endnotes: Both myself and a friend of mine, Lily, are prone to giggle fits like the kind Luna has here. Mine don't usually last more than five minutes, but some of hers have been known to last for hours. Some things are so funny they just keep sparking a new fit of laughter, and we get into feedback loops. Like Iliana with Luna, I don't know how she does it; I usually stop when I can't breathe anymore. (The key word being 'usually.')
I don't know if this is relevant to Luna or not, but inappropriate laughter can be a symptom of depression. And Luna strikes me as the type who suppresses her emotions, which causes them to eventually boil over from the pressure. Especially since she's been shown to have fits of inappropriate laughter in canon, though not nearly as bad as here. :)
None of us share food tastes with Zoey, either. Not even Molly, the one Zoey is somewhat based on.
“The Many Faces of Adira Potter: Chapter 31”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Thirty-one: The Yule Ball
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Adira, and Zoey, and now #Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and now between hashtags/pound signs because some people's computers don't do the B.I.U.).# , {Tier}, ~Chandra,~ and %Mother% if I get around to it in this chapter.
Note 4: People assume that Harry Potter is a strict progression of cause to effect, but *actually* from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... Rowling-wohling... stuff.
Note 5: I am afraid I suck at writing French accents.
*FAYANORA*
It was the 23rd, the day of the Yule Ball. Zoey was in the tub taking a full-on bath to try to relax a little before going into the busy day they had ahead for themselves. To try to take her mind off things, she had Tier give her gills so she could practice breathing underwater. He did so, closing up her lungs as he did, and she quickly ducked underwater to take in a mouthful of water. It passed over her new gills and felt just as good as breathing normally after holding one's breath. She stayed under for several minutes, rather enjoying the experience of floating in the warm water. She wondered how they would be able to keep warm in cold water since the task was in February. It must be possible, or else they wouldn't be stupid enough to ask the Champions to do it. Would a warming charm be good enough? But that was for dry clothes, out in the air, right?
She finally got out of the bathtub and got dressed into her outfit for the ball. She looked at herself with her one green eye and one blue eye, her hair (still black and unstyled, though she would be changing that later today), and at her light brown skin. It'd been a while since she'd properly looked at herself in a mirror, and seeing herself like this made her decide she would need to insist on a series of pictures with Sirius and Remus and Hagrid if they could fit him into the picture, where each one of them would turn up, so there were photos of what the others used to look like. Zoey, for her part, hadn't changed a bit since first showing up years ago.
Nodding, she changed back into her school robes, ready for the day. She used her wand to float the outfits she'd made for the Weasley twins and marched into their dorm with them.
“Here you go, boys. I hope you like them.”
“Wow!” George said.
“Cool,” agreed Fred. “Very snazzy. I like the color scheme. Very fitting.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you too, Zoey!”
“You're welcome. By the way, I expect you to be at the top of the grand staircase for my little fashion show at 7:30 pm, at the top of the stairs, okay?”
“Sure thing, Zoey. It'll be a small price to pay for these.”
“Cool. See ya later! I have to get Remus his outfit, too.”
She went back to her room and was soon hiding Remus's outfit in a black clothing bag because she wanted it to be a surprise to everyone later. She went about floating it down to his office.
When she got there, she knocked on the door.
“Come on in.”
Zoey opened the door and brought in his outfit.
“Here's the outfit I made you. Now mind you, it'll turn back into a pumpkin in 36 hours unless I recharge the transfiguration or pull it into the place where I store stuff when I pull it in.”
“A pumpkin?”
“Muggle reference. Just look at it, will ya?”
Lupin unzipped the black bag and revealed the robes inside. When he saw them, his eyes went wide as saucers.
“Zoey... these are beautiful. You could do this professionally, for a living!”
“If you think those are nice, wait til you see what I have for Adira and Iliana.”
“I look forward to it. Thank you, Zoey.”
She gave Lupin a hug. “You're welcome, Professor. By the way, I insist you come to the top of the grand staircase by 7:30 pm for a fashion show I'm putting on.”
“A fashion show? I don't know about that, Zoey...”
“You'll be there or I'll turn your hair into seaweed in front of everyone at the ball. I've done the spell before, I know how to do it.”
He sighed. “Fine, fine. I'll be there.”
“Goody. See you later! I gotta get Ron's one now, I forgot.”
When Ron saw his own robes, how Zoey had transformed them, he was rendered speechless with delight. Zoey giggled at his expression and that snapped him back to his senses.
“Merlin's pants, Zoey, these are amazing! They look like they cost hundreds of galleons!”
“It's pretty cool what you can do with a little transfiguration. Of course, I had to do it by designing it in my head, putting your ugly old robes on, transforming into one of the others, and coming back out with it like this, rinse and repeat until it looks right, but they'll last over a day that way before they turn back.”
“Thank you, Zoey! You have no idea how much this means to me. I hated these robes before, but now... wow. They're bloody brilliant!”
“Glad you like them. Oh, also you have to be at the top of the grand staircase at 7:30 pm, dressed in these robes, because I have a fashion show planned.”
Ron rolled his eyes. “Okay, sure. I don't mind showing these off. That's only a half an hour before the Ball anyway.”
“Cool. Seeya!”
She ran off, determined to tell everyone she met about the fashion show.
~
When 7:30 rolled around, a crowd had formed around the grand staircase, comprised of most of the school. They were all already dressed for the ball, since that was just a half an hour away. Everyone was interested to see this 'fashion show.' Even Malfoy and his friends were waiting, so they could mock people at their leisure.
“Welcome everyone,” said Zoey Potter's voice, as she appeared at the top of the stairs dressed for the Yule Ball. “This is the start of my fashion show! We start with me, because why not? Also this outfit is poo compared to what's coming up next.”
She walked down the stairs, and everyone got to see her outfit better. It certainly matched her usual style, only taken to an extreme. It was, as they could see, a dress covered with metallic pink sequins. Her opera gloves were also pink and sequined, as were her shoes. In one hand, she carried a clutch purse that looked like a pink teddy bear. Her hair, normally black, was bubblegum pink and shaped in a style that all the Muggleborns recognized at once as Princess Leia buns. Then, as if for contrast, she had around her neck a necklace of snowflake obsidian beads.
“Like I said, pure rubbish compared to what's coming up. Next on our lineup is Fred and George Weasley. Boys!”
The two Weasley twins came into view and started down the stairs, making a big show of strutting their stuff. The fabric of their robes was shiny in a metallic sort of way. Both boys' robes went to their ankles, and over the main robes were fancy tailcoats. Fred's main robes were 'red carpet' red, and his tailcoat was blood red with gold buttons. He wore a gold cape that barely showed in the front, but went down to his mid-back. He had around his neck a gold silk ruffled cravat.
George's were identical in style, but his main robes were a dandelion colored silk, his tailcoat was gold with red buttons, and his cape and ruffled cravat were blood red.
“Would you believe, ladies and gentlemen, that these robes are transfigured? Yes, that is fake gold and fake silk, but it's real enough to fool someone until they cast a Finite Incantatem at it. Which, I assure you, would take Professor McGonagall's level of power to do, so don't bother trying it.”
When the twins were done strutting their stuff, they went over to their dates, Angelina and Alicia, to watch the rest of the show together.
“Next on the list is Ronald Weasley!”
Ron nervously came into view and walked down the stairs. Thankfully, his hair was nicely styled; she had insisted on it when she saw him at lunch earlier.
Zoey had transfigured Ron's ugly maroon robes into cobalt blue silk robes with grey trim. He, too, had a silk tailcoat over his robes, which were a very different style and were navy in color with shiny silver buttons shaped like little pentagrams. Pinned to his lapel was a brilliant fire opal that looked like a sunset through clouds, in a silver setting, and he wore matching cuff-links. The style was still a little old-fashioned, but in a cool steampunk way. It certainly looked a lot better than Malfoy's outfit; he looked like he was a vicar.
“Bloody hell!” someone from the crowd shouted. “Are those fire opals?”
“Yes, they are.”
“You made that with transfiguration?”
“Yes. I made them from ordinary rocks I found outside.”
“That's amazing transfiguration! But how long can it last?”
“Since I had to use our transformation power rather than my transfiguration, it'll last 36 hours without a recharge. With timely recharges, it could last indefinitely.”
There were a lot of murmurs of interest at this. Even Professor McGonagall came over to admire the transfiguration work. Ron was beaming at the attention, even though most of it was directed at his clothes rather than at him. He'd never worn something so nice before, and it felt very good.
After almost five minutes of admiring Ron's dress robes, Zoey got everyone's attention again.
“Thank you all. Now we have one more men's fashion to reveal before moving onto the girls. Professor Lupin, if you would?”
Lupin came into view, also looking nervous. There were audible gasps from many of the girls and some of the guys at his appearance. He was clean-shaven and his hair done nice, with some kind of hair potion used on it. But it was his robes that were getting most of the gasps. As he came down the stairs, people got a better look.
Professor Lupin's under-robe was visible only as a strip down the front of pure white silk with a pattern of crescent moons embroidered in thread that was barely visible next to the white silk. He, too, had a fancy coat on over his robes, but his went all the way down to the floor, and the coat's color was a very pale, whitish mother-of-pearl. The buttons on the coat were little silvery crescent moons, and his cuff-links were made of moonstone.
When he got down to the bottom of the stairs, he gave Zoey a look that promised they would talk later. She pretended to look innocent.
They let everyone fawn over Lupin's robes for a little bit. This gave Zoey time to get back upstairs and change into Adira. It was harder to get everyone's attention without Zoey there to do it, but she managed, and soon began to walk down the stairs.
Adira wore a bottle-green backless silk dress with no trim. She wore a choker of black lace with an emerald gemstone. Her shoes looked like gold wire, but were mostly a clear plastic that had been magically reinforced. She bore a clutch purse that matched her dress. And her hair was tied up in a knot at the back of her head, simple but elegant. She had to endure a lot of wolf whistling and other catcalls, but she did so with quiet dignity.
It was a little tiresome climbing back up the stairs, but Zoey was being insistent in their mind. For there wasn't much time left, and they wanted to get Iliana showed off and end with Al, so he could meet Javier before the doors opened.
With Professor McGonagall's help, they got everyone's attention for Iliana. Iliana wore an emerald green backless dress with whitish rainbow-opal trim that glittered like real rainbow opals. The dress was a full gown, just barely showing her shoes. She had on 'opera gloves' made of transfigured silver chain mail in flower-shaped patterns that had transfigured emeralds at their center; if it had been real, the piece would have cost a medium-sized fortune. Iliana's hair was a crown shape at the back of her head, which was made of braids with transfigured fully-colored rainbow opals in it. Her shoes were made of transfigured silver, with a daisy pattern in front – the center of the flower was onyx, the petals were rose quartz. She, too, had a clutch purse matching her dress.
And last down the stairs was Al. He, too, had the same jacket-over-robes thing going on as the others. His under-robe was blue silk, while his jacket – long like Lupin's – was royal purple silk with buttons that were stylized gold suns. His cuff-links were larger stylized suns with large yellow zircon stones taking up the bulk of the sun design's mass. The stones were even faceted to look like stylized suns with rays coming off them.
“My feet already hurt, and the ball hasn't even started yet,” Al complained as he reached the bottom.
“Well with all the times you went up and down those stairs, I'm not surprised,” Javier said.
Al took a good look at his date for the ball. They, too, were silk – real silk – in Slytherin green with Slytherin's silver trim. He had ruby cuff-links on, though.
“You look nice, Javier,” Al said.
“Likewise, Alastair.”
“You lot finished just in time,” Professor McGonagall said. “We've only got five minutes before the ball starts.”
Two more came down the stairs then, and the murmurs drew Al's eyes over to them. The first was a girl he didn't recognize at first. Grinning, she went over to Viktor Krum. His jaw dropped.
It was Hermione.
But she didn’t look like Hermione at all. She had done something with her hair; it was no longer bushy but sleek and shiny, and twisted up into an elegant knot at the back of her head. She was wearing robes made of a floaty, periwinkle-blue material, and she was holding herself differently, somehow — or maybe it was merely the absence of the twenty or so books she usually had slung over her back. She was also smiling — rather nervously, it was true — and she had gotten her oversized teeth shrunk; Al couldn’t understand how he hadn’t spotted it before.
“Holy crap!” he said.
But he didn't have long to ruminate on Hermione's appearance, for Luna came down the stairs then. She was wearing a remarkably normal looking sunshine-yellow dress with grass-green trim, with a matching purse on a long cord. Her normally straggly hair was styled into a beautiful French braid. She had on silver and ruby earrings and a matching necklace. Luna noticed him and waved with a smile on her face. He waved back, and felt something faint from one of the others, but what it was and who it was coming from, he didn't know.
Then Professor McGonagall’s voice called, “Champions over here, please!”
Al took Javier's arm in his and the two boys went over to her. The chattering crowd parting to let them through. Professor McGonagall, who was wearing dress robes of red tartan and had arranged a rather ugly wreath of thistles around the brim of her hat, told them to wait on one side of the doors while everyone else went inside; they were to enter the Great Hall in procession when the rest of the students had sat down. Fleur Delacour and Roger Davies stationed themselves nearest the doors; Davies looked so stunned by his good fortune in having Fleur for a partner that he could hardly take his eyes off her. Cedric and Cho were close to Al too.
Hermione and Viktor Krum came over, then.
“Hi Al!” she said. “Hi Javier!”
Javier beamed at her. “Hi, Hermione. You look nice.”
“Thank you,” she said, grinning.
Al noticed that several of Krum's 'fan club' of girls were staring at Hermione in unflattering disbelief and deepest loathing. Pansy Parkinson gaped at her as she walked by with Malfoy, and even he didn’t seem to be able to find an insult to throw at her. Even Ron gaped open-mouthed at her, once Lavender brought her to his attention.
“Hermione?” Ron said at last.
“Yes, Ron, it's me. You look very nice tonight.”
“You too. You look amazing!”
“Thank you, Ron.”
Once everyone else was settled in the Hall, Professor McGonagall told the champions and their partners to get in line in pairs and to follow her. They did so, and everyone in the Great Hall applauded as they entered and started walking up toward a large round table at the top of the Hall, where the judges were sitting.
The walls of the Hall had all been covered in sparkling silver frost, with hundreds of garlands of mistletoe and ivy crossing the starry black ceiling. The House tables had vanished; instead, there were about a hundred smaller, lantern-lit ones, each seating about a dozen people.
“Looks like we're going over here,” Al said.
Dumbledore smiled happily as the champions approached the top table, but Karkaroff wore a very sour expression as he watched Krum and Hermione draw nearer. Not that he had a much better look for him and Javier. Ludo Bagman, tonight in robes of bright purple with large yellow stars, was clapping as enthusiastically as any of the students; and Madame Maxime, who had changed her usual uniform of black satin for a flowing gown of lavender silk, was applauding them politely. And of course, in the last seat was Mr. Alder. He was very glad that Iliana or Adira weren't the ones who had to sit next to him; that man made Al feel very protective of the girls in their collective. And all the other girls, too, come to that. He made a point of positioning himself and Javier between Alder and Hermione.
Mr. Alder turned and looked at him curiously.
“Who are you?”
Al pointed at the curse scar that never left them.
“Alastair Potter,” he said.
“Ah, I see,” Alder said, but Al could feel his disbelief. Alder plainly thought what so many others did, that they were faking for attention or something.
“Well, Mr. Potter, you did very well on the First Task. I hope you'll impress us during the second.”
“Yes, so do I. In fact, since I have you here, Mr. Alder, I might as well ask some pertinent questions. Like, how do you expect us to not freeze to death in the Black Lake in February?”
“Ah, figured your egg out already, I see. Well I can't tell you that, Mr. Potter, you have to figure that out on your own.”
“Well can you at least tell me how something that's underwater is going to be a spectator sport?”
“Ah yes, as to that, we have a spell that we'll cast on the Champions before you all go in. Once you're underwater, the spell will broadcast an enlarged image of you and your surroundings onto the surface of the lake for the spectators.”
“Oh. Well that's good. I don't suppose we'll be able to see it in the lake?”
Alder chuckled. “No, of course not. The lake will look as it always looks from underwater.”
“Good,” Al said, turning away from Mr. Alder to focus on dinner.
There was no food as yet on the glittering golden plates, but small menus were lying in front of each of them. Al picked his up uncertainly and looked around — there were no waiters. Dumbledore, however, looked carefully down at his own menu, then said very clearly to his plate, “Pork chops!”
And pork chops appeared. Getting the idea, the rest of the table placed their orders with their plates too. Al considered his options and soon had a steak dinner with rice pilaf on his plate.
The conversation with the meal was a mixture. Al listened to Krum talking about Durmstrang while one of the others – he didn't know who – was listening to Dumbledore and Karkaroff. From that conversation, they picked up that there might be a hidden room on the seventh-floor corridor across from that tapestry of the dancing trolls. He made a mental note to ask Dobby about it sometime.
Much more dull was Fleur talking to Roger Davies about how Beauxbatons was better than Hogwarts in the aesthetics department. This annoyed him greatly.
“Beauxbatons may be a very nice place, I don't know,” he said to her. “But I'd rather have the safety of the castle.” He paused, blinking, then said, “Wait, what am I saying? My life has been in danger every year I've been here so far.”
“Vat do you mean, Alastair?”
“Oh let's see... first year, Dumbledore kept a giant cerberus in the school to guard the philosopher's stone, and that was the year I almost got eaten by a troll at Halloween and nearly died after the undead lich of a dark wizard tried to murder me. Second year a cursed diary controlled a bloody great basilisk in the school, compelling it to attack Muggle-borns, before I finally killed the monster, but not before I nearly got eaten again by giant talking spiders in the Forbidden Forest. Third year I found out my best friend's pet rat was actually a disguised Death Eater, and there were soul-sucking monsters around a bloody school, supposedly to protect me from a violent murderer who turned out to be my innocent godfather. And now this year, there's this whole Triwizard BS. I nearly got killed by a dragon, and who knows what I'm gonna have to do as an encore. The wizarding world is insane. If I survive long enough to see Moldyshorts pop his clogs for good, I'm going to work on making it a little less insane.”
Karkaroff and Maxime turned to look at Dumbledore, as if his story was too ridiculous to believe unless it was confirmed.
“Sadly, I do believe Mr. Potter has made an accurate summation of the events of the past three and a half years.”
“Giant talking spiders?” Karkaroff said, incredulous. “There are acromantulas in your Forbidden Forest?”
“Yes. That is one of the reasons the forest is forbidden, in fact.”
“Dumblydorr, you kept a cerberus in a school?” Maxime asked, bewildered. “Are you mad?”
Karkaroff laughed harshly at Dumbledore's expense.
“To be fair to him, he was trying to keep an undead Moldywart from getting a new body. But he could have put a proper locking charm on the door at least. Hermione opened the door several times with a simple bloody alohamora.”
Karkaroff's laughter intensified, and he started pointing at Dumbledore and slapping the table. But then something seemed to finally connect in the man's brain, and he froze.
“When you say... that name... you do not mean the Dark Lord, surely?”
“Yeah. Met him twice; once as an adult, and another time I met Tom Riddle, his 16 year old self. Can't say I liked him much, either way. But I have to admit, as a teenager he was, at least, kinda handsome. Sometime between age 16 and now he apparently fell out of the sky onto the Ugly Tree, hit every branch on the way down, and then the tree fell on him. Then the Ugly Meteor struck the site and leveled the forest.”
Dumbledore chuckled at this, as did Krum. Fleur looked shocked. Everyone else had gone pale. Alastair pretended not to notice as he ate some more rice pilaf.
“You dare speak of... of him that way?” Karkaroff whispered hoarsely.
Al shrugged. “Tommy boy wants me dead either way. I figure if I taunt him, he'll kill me faster so I don't have to suffer.”
The awkward silence grew palpable. He looked up with a forkful of rice halfway to his mouth.
“A little too blasé, was it?” he asked.
“Yes, Alastair, I believe it was,” Dumbledore said.
“Hey, humor is how I cope with the crippling terror.”
When all the food had been consumed, Dumbledore stood up and asked the students to do the same. Then, with a wave of his wand, all the tables zoomed back along the walls leaving the floor clear, and then he conjured a raised platform into existence along the right wall. A set of drums, several guitars, a lute, a cello, and some bagpipes were set upon it.
The Weird Sisters now trooped up onto the stage to wildly enthusiastic applause; they were all extremely hairy and dressed in black robes that had been artfully ripped and torn. They picked up their instruments, and Al, who had been so interested in watching them that he had almost forgotten what was coming, suddenly realized that the lanterns on all the other tables had gone out, and that the other champions and their partners were standing up.
The Weird Sisters struck up a slow, mournful tune; Al walked onto the brightly lit dance floor arm-in-arm with Javier.
“May I have this dance?” he asked Javier, whose cheeks were already reddening.
“Y-yes, thank you,” Javier said.
“Lead or follow?”
“You can lead.”
“Okay,” Al said.
Al placed a hand at Javier's waist and took one of Javier's hands in his other. A minute into the song, everyone else joined in too, so the Champions were no longer the center of attention. Al kept his attention on Javier, but he could feel Iliana's attention wandering wherever Al's control of their eyes would let her look. And so it was that she noticed Sirius had come to the ball, probably getting in because he was their guardian. He had on red dress robes with gold trim. His cuff-links were lion's-head shaped and made of gold with orange zircons in the mane, and ruby eyes. Unlike the outfits Zoey had made, this one was most likely real, gemstones and all.
A few minutes in, she noticed Luna dancing around by herself, swaying and moving to the music like she hadn't a care in the world. Which, knowing Luna, was probably true. And while it was hard to pick one mind out of the mass of people in close quarters like this, Iliana thought she'd pinpointed Luna well enough to sense that Luna was indeed having fun.
Finally caving to Iliana's insistence, he started peering over the heads of the watching people. Neville and Ginny were dancing nearby — he could see Ginny wincing frequently as Neville trod on her feet — and Dumbledore was waltzing with Madame Maxime. He was so dwarfed by her that the top of his pointed hat barely tickled her chin; however, she moved very gracefully for a woman so large. Dean and Seamus were dancing together as well, but he couldn't tell if it was on a lark or on a date. And Mad-Eye Moody was doing an extremely ungainly two-step with Professor Sinistra, who was nervously avoiding his wooden leg.
After a while, the song ended and the Weird Sisters struck up a faster song. He moved to the beat as best he could, not really knowing any other dances, as did Javier.
A few moments later, Ron and Lavender drew near. They both looked like they were having fun, for which he was glad. Also nearby were Fred and Angelina, dancing so exuberantly that people were backing away in fear of getting hurt.
Al and Javier later danced another slow dance before taking a break to drink some butterbeer. They sat there in happy silence for awhile. When they finished their butterbeers, Javier said, “Iliana's turn?”
With a sigh, Al nodded. “See you in a few more turns,” he said, then switched to Iliana in her emerald-green dress and her fancy silver mail evening gloves, her red hair in a crown shape again.
“I don't suppose you want to dance with me,” she asked Javier, sounding like she hoped he'd say no.
“Maybe later, just for fun. But not now.”
“Right. Ciao.”
She walked back onto the dance floor, at the tail end of a song. She was looking around for someone to cut in on, but someone beat her to it.
“I know you're not with anyone, but can I cut in, Miss Potter?” asked the gruff voice of Moody.
“Um... well...”
“Yeah I know I'm not much to look at these days, Missy, and I'm old enough to be your grandfather, but I'm not looking for a date or anything else creepy like that, so don't worry about that. I just wanted an excuse to talk with you.”
“Well, okay I suppose.”
He took her arm and waist as was the custom, and they started to dance in just as ungainly a two-step as he'd done with Sinistra earlier. The moment he took her hand in his, she felt a strange sensation in her head that she couldn't identify, but it soon passed. But that was followed by the perception of a knot forming in her abdomen, but she didn't know what that was about, either.
“So I hear you figured out your egg.”
“Er... yes. Why?”
“Because I'm trying to get you through this tournament with your skin intact, Missy, that's why. I thought your Alastair didn't mind cheating to save your neck?”
“Yeah, I guess that's true,” she agreed.
“Good. So you know what the Second Task is, I take it?”
“Going into the Black Lake to retrieve something. In the middle of February. There will be obstacles and creatures, I take it, as well. And I'll have two hours.”
“Aye, that's the gist of it. As to what you'll be retrieving, it's hostages.”
Her eyes widened. “Hostages? Like, people?”
“Don't get your knickers in a twist, Missy. They'll be in an enchanted sleep, cast by Dumbledore himself. They won't need to breathe to stay alive.”
“But the song said--”
“That was just poetic license, for the sake of drama.”
“Oh, okay. But is that even legal? The hostages thing, I mean.”
“Of course it is. They have to agree to it, you see. And so do their guardians, come to that. Honestly, girl, the school makes your guardians sign a permission slip just to pop outside the gates to go shopping or snogging every so often, do you really think they wouldn't have permission slips for something this serious? After all, enchanted sleep or not, it's still mildly risky.”
“Okay, that makes me feel better.”
“Good. Now, do you know what you're going to do?”
“Oh that's simple. Tier can give us gills. We've already tested it. This morning, in fact. And he could easily give us flippers or something, too.”
“Good. I thought it might be something like that, but I had some other ideas just in case. But yeah, there's gonna be obstacles and creatures indeed. If you need any books about underwater defensive spells, I can get you a list of them so you know what to ask the librarian for. And as to it being in the middle of February, well... I don't know how good your Tier is at shape-shifting, but if he can, I know animals like seals and dolphins have a layer of blubber that keeps them warm in cold weather. It's probably easier than trying to master Warming Charms that are up to the task of underwater use.”
“Er... okay. I'll keep that in mind.”
“Good.”
They still had some time left in the song, so she asked, “How's the investigation going? You know, to find out who put our names in the goblet?”
“Not well. The problem is, someone could have been Imperioused or a dark wizard could have used Polyjuice Potion to pretend to be someone else, so it's hard to get any leads.”
“I'd say to look into Alder, but honestly, he was giving me bad vibes even over the summer.”
“Alder, you say? Well, could be. But I doubt it. He's a good man, so far as I know. But I'm glad to see you're remaining ever vigilant. You should always trust your gut. It might steer you wrong sometimes, but it's best to trust it anyway. And if you see any suspicious activity, let me or Dumbledore know at once, okay?”
Speaking of which, Al thought, there was that sighting of Crouch on the Map.
#Right,# she thought back at him.
Iliana started to open her mouth to tell Moody this, but something held her back.
“I'll do that, Professor,” she finally said.
Thankfully, the song ended then, and she left Moody to go look for someone else to spend time with. She soon ran into Luna – literally ran into her.
“Ouch! Oh sorry, Luna.”
“I'm fine, Iliana. Are you okay?”
“I'm good. I didn't actually get hurt, even though I said 'ow.' Force of habit.”
“Good to hear you're alright. I-- Oooh, I like this song,” Luna said, and started doing a dance that was distinctly odd, revolving on the spot, her arms in the air and eyes closed, swaying to the music.
Iliana chuckled at her friend's antics and decided to do something similar. Doing a dance that had her turning as she moved forward and backward, she moved her arms in front of her and at her sides as though trying to move air with magic, her hands doing gestures she later learned from Chandra were similar to something called mudras.
She noticed, then, that Luna was barefoot again, but saw that her shoes were hanging from the cord of her purse. Getting into the spirit of things, she took her own shoes off and told Chandra to do something about them while she danced alongside Luna. (He ended up making them float along behind her.)
As she really began to get into this new dance style, she found herself dancing a lot on tiptoes, sort of, and occasionally crossing one leg past another, then switching them. There wasn't a point to it, since her legs were hidden by her dress, but it would have looked interesting if her legs were visible.
The song ended, and the two girls stopped. By some unspoken signal, they both set out to get refreshments. When she got to one of the refreshment tables, Viktor and Hermione were there as well.
“That vas a very interesting dance just now, Miss Potter and Miss...”
“Lovegood. Viktor Krum, meet Luna Lovegood. Luna, meet Viktor Krum.”
“Hello, Mr. Krum,” she said, shaking the boy's hand. “Daddy and I were at the Quidditch World Cup this summer. You are an incredible flyer.”
“I know. But I do like hearing it all the same, Miss Lovegood. It is pleasant to meet you.”
“Yes, I think you'd like Luna. She treats famous people like regular everyday people, for the most part.”
“Ah yes, that is alvays a good thing in a friend, no?”
“Quite,” she agreed.
“I'm glad you convinced me to come tonight, Iliana,” Luna said. “I'm having a lot of fun. What about you?”
“Oh yes. Aside from Moody pulling me into a dance, it's been fun. And the dance with Moody was... enlightening,” she said, giving Hermione a significant glance. Hermione blinked, then nodded.
“Oh, a slow dance,” Luna said as the music changed.
On a whim, Iliana held out her hand. “May I have this dance, Miss Lovegood?”
Luna giggled, and took the proffered hand. “Yes, that would be lovely, Miss Potter.”
And so, pausing only to put their shoes back on, they spun slowly onto the dance floor together, Iliana leading. She pulled Luna closer, their foreheads touching, both girls giggling as they swayed back and forth, moving gracefully to the slow music.
When the song's pace picked up a bit, they chanced some twirls and the occasional spin, all in giggly excitement.
And then she caught Luna in a perfect dip. She stared down at Luna's face, feeling her cheeks grow very hot, as well as a strange but familiar sensation in her abdomen. Several people catcalled or wolf-whistled, and she felt her entire head and neck grow hot, so she put Luna back up on her feet at once.
“Oh, uh... well that was fun,” Iliana said nervously, “but uh, it's Adira's turn now. See you later!”
“Later, Iliana!” Luna said, smiling and waving.
A moment later, Iliana was gone and Adira had taken her place. Adira smiled, said Hi to Luna, and wandered off onto the dance floor.
~
The ball lasted until past midnight. Al, Adira, and Iliana all got at least two turns there, and even Zoey made an appearance, spending half an hour standing on Sirius's shoes and dancing with him. Everyone there had fun, many couples sneaking off outside to have fun elsewhere, at least until Snape caught most of them and scared the others away.
At the end of the night, Adira went back to her room, barefoot because her feet hurt so much, and the cold stone of the castle soothed them. She was lying on bed to rest a few minutes before changing into her Pjs when there was a faint knock at her door.
“Who 's it?” she slurred, exhausted.
“It's me, Ron. Is it safe to come in?”
“Yeah, you can come in. Whadda ya want?”
He opened the door and came in. “I heard something you should probably know. Lavender and I, er... we went outside around the rosebushes--”
“I don't want to know.”
“Oy! This isn't about that. It's something else.”
“Fine, what is it?”
“Well, a couple things, really. We overheard Snape having a conversation with Karkaroff. Karkaroff was scared about something, said 'It's been getting clearer all the time' in reference to something on his left arm. And then Snape said, 'Then flee. I shall make your excuses for you.' But it didn't sound like Karkaroff was ready to flee yet.”
“Something on his arm? I wonder what that could be about.”
“No idea. But there's another thing. We got stuck between a really amorous couple and Snape, and were forced to overhear Hagrid's date with Madam Maxime.”
“Awkward. Don't know why I should--”
“Because Hagrid said he's half giant! And he assumed Maxime was too, which she must be, she's as big as he is!”
“Okay. And...?”
Ron spluttered. “AND? Whadda ya mean, AND? He's half giant!”
“Well duh. I knew the first time I saw him he was at least half giant. I didn't know for sure until now that giants were real, but given that the tallest full-blooded human ever was only nine feet tall, and Hagrid's almost 12 feet tall, it was kind of obvious. I knew he couldn't be full-blooded giant, because he's a wizard, but I knew he had to either have giant blood or he got on the wrong end of an engorgement charm or something as a kid.”
Ron sighed. “I keep forgetting how little you know about the wizarding world. Adira, giants are... well, they're like trolls, but worse. Smarter, but violent to the point where they're nearly extinct and yet they still keep attacking and killing each other.”
“They can't all be bad. Hagrid's dad had a kid with one. Which, now I'm thinking about it, is something I don't want to think about anymore. I do not want to know how they managed that.”
“Yeah well, Hagrid said she abandoned him as a kid, cuz he was too small for her liking.”
“God,” Adira said, as though Ron hadn't spoken, “I hope Maxime's mom is a giant, too. I don't want to think about it being the other way around, for so many reasons.”
“Can you concentrate?”
“Why? Hagrid's alright. It wasn't fun that time he tried to put all his considerable tonnage of weight on me last year when he was distraught, but he's alright.”
“Well yeah, we know that, but if word ever gets out...”
“How could it? Maxime isn't going to tell. Unless... do you think Lavender will tell?”
“Maybe, I dunno. She was pretty freaked out. I had to remind her that aside from a few eccentricities, Hagrid's a nice bloke. She seemed calmer, then. I asked her not to tell anyone. She said she didn't want to scare anyone, when he's so nice, as I pointed out.”
“Hmm... well what about Maxime?”
“Nah, she's definitely not gonna tell anyone. She about had a fit when he assumed she's half giant. Obviously she is, but clearly she's trying to cover it up, which I get. Anyway, I don't know who else was out there, and he was loud enough I don't know who heard. I just have a bad feeling about this.”
“Okay,” Adira said, sounding very tired.
She rolled over a couple times until she fell out of bed in a controlled sort of way, then rolled onto her back.
“Help me up, please?”
Ron grabbed her hands and pulled her up.
“Thanks. I'm gonna get ready for bed, now. See you later, Ron.”
“Right. Bye, Addy.”
“Ugh,” she said at the hated nickname, turning away when he closed the door.
~
Because of the Yule Ball the night before, the Hogwarts Express wouldn't leave for the holidays until after lunch, giving people plenty of time to sleep in and still get ready for the trip home. Adira, Ron, and Hermione traded gifts on the train. Adira even gave Luna a couple gifts, one from the collective and one specifically from Iliana. She had also given Dobby the house elf a gift of elf-sized wizard robes, which he had been delighted to receive.
She was in for a surprise when she met Sirius on the platform. She knew he'd be there, because he Apparated home after the ball the night before, but it was how he was dressed that surprised her. In fact, she almost didn't recognize him until he spoke, for he was dressed like a thin, hard rocking Father Christmas in red leather pants with white fur trim, a red and white leather jacket, and a red helmet. He even had the beard, more like a ZZ Top beard than a Santa beard.
“Merry Christmas, Adira!” Sirius shouted, hugging her.
“M-merry Christmas, Sirius. Er... nice outfit.”
“Thanks. I had some trouble with the beard. Took a bit too much beard-growth potion, had to trim it down once it finally stopped.”
“How long did it get?”
“Let's just say it put Dumbledore's beard to shame. I was the Rapunzel of beards for about an hour.”
She giggled at that mental image.
“Anyway, pup, you got your bike leathers on?”
“Yeah, under my robes. Which I forgot to take off.”
Shrugging, she pulled her robes off right there, and sure enough, she had her bike leathers on underneath. She folded her robes and put them in her knapsack with her other holiday stuff. As she did, though, she heard a muffled voice complaining.
'Human, free me from this place!'
'Oh, sorry Aqua,' she said in Parseltongue to their pet snake. She was usually curled around her warm rock in their room, but she had to come with them so she could be looked after.
Adira freed Aqua's head from the robes.
'So cold!'
'Worry not, I will warm you.'
She cast a warming charm into a pocket on her vest, and moved the grass snake into the warm pocket.
'Thank you, human.'
'You are welcome.'
“That your pet snake?” Sirius asked, ignoring the Parseltongue.
“Yes, that's Aqua.”
“You ready?”
“Yeah, I am now,” she said, slinging the knapsack over her back.
“Good.”
They left Platform 9 and three quarters, drawing a lot of attention to them with Sirius' outfit. As they left, she wondered how Muggles never noticed groups of kids with trunks and sometimes owls in cages disappearing through the barrier between two platforms, and decided there must be some kind of magic on it that forced Muggles to not notice this oddity, just like they didn't notice The Leaky Cauldron.
Soon enough, they were at Sirius's motorbike.
“Where should we go for dinner?” Sirius asked. “That train ride is long, I know, and sweets don't do much to help hunger.”
“Let's get some curry,” Adira said.
“Our usual place?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent.”
They put on their helmets, Sirius got on the bike, and Adira got on behind him and held him round his middle. He revved the engine, and then they were off.
After a meal of curry, they stopped by the house to drop off her knapsack and her pet snake, and then they went for a motorbike ride around the city just for the heck of it for an hour, before heading back because it was dark.
When they got back, they changed into everyday wear then talked for hours, catching up on all the things you couldn't get in a letter. Eventually, the topic came around to the ball.
“So I saw Iliana and Miss Luna Lovegood dancing together several times. Including a slow dance.”
“Yeah, it was a lark though. A sudden whim she had. Luna's a good friend for Iliana, she really comes alive around Luna. Did she tell you about the time Luna went into a giggle fit so long she had to go to the hospital wing to get a calming draght?”
“Really? She laughed that long?”
“Yes. And it was... let's see if I remember this right... the third time that month it had happened up to that point.”
“Wow. I've seen Luna, she doesn't seem the type for that.”
“Yes, she is rather calm, usually. But occasionally her emotions boil over.”
There was a knock at the door.
“Hold on, pup.”
He got up to check the door, his wand out, and she followed behind him, her own wand out.
“Who's there?”
“It's me, Sirius,” said Remus.
“Moony? Come on in,” he said, opening the door. Sure enough, it was indeed Remus.
“I tried coming around earlier, but you were out, so I went for a walk to wait for you. I may have gone a bit far afield. How long ago did you get back?”
Sirius closed the door. “About an hour and a half ago, Moony.”
“Ah. So I wasn't out quite as long as I feared.”
“Sit down, Moony old boy,” Sirius said, pulling a chair out for him at the table.
“Thank you, Padfoot old pal.”
“We were just talking about the ball.”
“Yeah. I can't wait til Colin gets his photos developed. He got loads.”
“I'm sure they'll be quite lovely,” Remus said.
“Oh hey, by the way...” Adira said, and told them everything Ron had told her the night before about Hagrid and the conversation Snape and Karkaroff had with each other.
“Karkaroff showed Snape something on his arm? Moony, do you know what that's about?”
“No idea, sorry Padfoot.”
“That's alright. Hmm... another mystery. Or part of the bigger mystery.”
“Adira,” Lupin said. “We never got to talk more about what you did for the First Task. Distracting that dragon with six Patronuses, quite impressive.”
“Yeah, how'd you hold onto all of them at once? That had to have taken a lot of power out of your shared body.”
She shrugged. “I think it's because we transform so frequently. Our body has gotten used to frequent high outputs of magic. I guess that plus the adrenaline worked together to allow for six Patronuses at once.”
“I wonder what you're gonna be doing for the Second Task,” Sirius mused.
“Oh that, we solved the egg clue. Ah, that reminds me,” she said, and explained what she and Moody had talked about during the Yule Ball.
“Ah, I wondered why Iliana and he were dancing. She didn't look too happy about it.”
“Yeah, well, she doesn't really like looking at him. Don't tell him we said that, though.”
Lupin chuckled. “Your secret is safe with me. But I do confess to being a little disappointed in her for her attitude toward someone so scarred.”
“Yeah, well, you have to admit, he's like a walking, talking scar. Compared to him, Moony, you have a couple cute scratches. Don't get me wrong, they make you look distinguished.”
“Thank you for that, Adira. Seriously. No Padfoot, don't say it! It got old years ago.”
“Eh, you're no fun,” Sirius said, putting his feet up on the table.
Endnote: I designed, in my mind, the dresses/dress robes for Al, Javier, Sirius, Remus, Iliana, Luna, Zoey, and Adira. I'm sure they'd look awesome if I could draw them. Maybe I'll do that, sometime. I am an artist as well as a writer. I can't draw clothes as well as I draw people, though, so I had to look online for things that were similar to what I was imagining.
Also, my attempt to describe Iliana's version of Luna's dance is not great. It's actually a kind of dance I do myself sometimes, which should have helped me describe it, but didn't.
“The Many Faces of Adira Potter: Chapter 32”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Thirty-two: Christmas and New Year's
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Adira, and Zoey, and now #Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and now between hashtags/pound signs because some people's computers don't do the B.I.U.).# , {Tier}, ~Chandra,~ and %Mother% if I get around to it in this chapter.
Note 4: I could wish J. K. Rowling would put the rights to Harry Potter in my Yule stocking this year, but the chances of that are so slim, we'd probably see Tronald Dump turn into a decent human being long before that ever happened.
*FAYANORA*
“The Many Faces of Har—er, Adira Potter: Chapter 32”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Thirty-two: Christmas and New Year's
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there. But some canon scenes are just too good to change much.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Adira, and Zoey, and now #Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and now between hashtags/pound signs because some people's computers don't do the B.I.U.).# , {Tier}, ~Chandra,~ and %Mother% if I get around to it in this chapter.
Note 4: I could wish J. K. Rowling would put the rights to Harry Potter in my Yule stocking this year, but the chances of that are so slim, we'd probably see Tronald Dump turn into a decent human being long before that ever happened.
*FAYANORA*
Adira hadn't noticed it the night before, since she'd mostly been in the kitchen with Sirius and Remus, but the next day she noticed that the whole house was decorated to the nines in tinsel and baubles. A massive tree sat in one corner of the drawing room, bedecked with so many ornaments and other decorations that she wasn't sure what color the tree itself was.
Hanging from the fireplace was three massive stockings, all stuffed to overflowing with gifts. They were labeled 'Moony,' 'Padfoot,' and 'Pup.'
Seeing all the presents under the tree, as well, she felt such an explosion of joy from Zoey that she shrunk and wavered like a bad hologram. She felt Al and Iliana as well, and the wavering intensified. And then--
Sirius awoke with a start to the sound of a very loud BOOM and leaped out of bed and ran downstairs, Remus hot on his heels. The two men skidded to a halt in the drawing room, taking in the sight before them.
It looked like there had been an explosion at a tinsel factory, with tinsel of many different colors strewn every which way. Confetti fell from the ceiling, and they also noticed that all the transfigured clothes Zoey had made for the ball, sans Ron's and Remus's and that of the twins, had been strewn about as well. In the middle of the festive devastation lay Zoey, who wasn't moving.
Sirius bent over to check if Zoey was still alive, Remus anxiously awaiting the answer.
“She's alive. Out cold.”
“Oh thank Heavens.”
Remus looked around the room as Sirius went to retrieve his wand to wake up Zoey with it. He saw dozens of books had been part of the explosion as well, and worse, there were several fountain pens embedded in the walls.
Finally, Sirius was there to wake her up.“Rennervate.”
Zoey blinked awake, very confused, and looked up at Sirius.
“What happened?”
“We were hoping you could tell us,” he said, indicating the mess.
She looked around at the mess with wide eyes.
“Er... that's my fault. Too much stuff being held Inside at once, I think. And then when we all got overexcited for Christmas, it must've been the straw that broke the camel's back.”
“I should think so. You're not a human trunk, Zoey.”
“By the way, if everything Inside you has come out, where's the Philosopher's Stone?” Sirius asked.
Zoey's expression went distant as she checked. When she came back, she said, “It's still in there. It's not like this other stuff. All of this other stuff is at least partly real. The Philosopher's Stone is entirely made of magic. It can only come out by me choosing to give it up. Huh... kinda like a Fidelius Charm secret, that way.”
“Ah, well that's a relief.”
“Er... I'll clean the mess, shall I?” Zoey said, after looking around a bit.
“On Christmas? Naw, I can do it,” Sirius said, using his wand to clean up the mess and organize the books into piles.
“You surprise me all the time, Padfoot,” Remus said. “I didn't know you even knew that spell, much less how to do it so well.”
“I've had lots of time living by myself to practice,” he said.
“Still haven't got a job?” she asked. “I know you don't need one for the money, but you need something to do with yourself. Maybe private security or something, if not an auror.”
“You should be an auror, Padfoot. Mad-Eye would be disappointed to know all that training is going to waste.”
“Well... maybe. I'll help get Addy through this Tournament first, then maybe look into it.”
“Good. It's not good for you to be cooped up in here by yourself all the time.”
“You think I stay in here all the time, Moony? HA! What a laugh. No, I still go out to eat at least once a week, and sometimes I go for a ride on my motorbike. And I go to Muggle London sometimes and people-watch or have a chat with people, or to a Muggle pub. Hey, did you know the Muggles have been building a tunnel under the English Channel? They're saying it's going to open next year. Then we could take a train from Britain to France, maybe go on a trip around the mainland.”
“A tunnel under the water? Did you really think we'd fall for that one, Padfoot?”
“No I'm not joking, they really are building a tunnel under the channel. They're already calling it the Chunnel. I've seen it on the Muggle news, they've got these great big machines with enormous drills on the end, boring through the rock.”
“He could be joking, I guess,” said Zoey, “But it does sound like somethin' the Muggles could and would do. I mean, I'm pretty sure that Britain was connected to the mainland back during the Ice Age, then the glaciers melted and made the channel. So it could be shallow enough to make a tunnel underneath it.”
“If you don't believe me, Moony, you can go to one of these Muggle pubs and look on the telly. In fact, I wonder if we could get a telly in here?”
“I doubt it, Padfoot, with all the wards you have on this place. Too much magic. Not nearly as bad as Hogwarts, since Hogwarts is on a ley line or two, but bad enough to interfere with the reception. But I'll take you up on going to a Muggle pub sometime, ask around about this Chunnel. Dumbledore's convinced Voldemort is gearing up for a comeback, so having a non-magical way out of the country is always useful information if you're telling the truth.”
Sirius sighed. “The curse of being an incorrigible prankster is people don't believe me when I tell them something incredible but true.”
“The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” Zoey said.
They all laughed at that.
“Anyway, we should have breakfast before presents. You can get into your stocking, pup, if you really can't wait.”
“Goody!”
She ran to the stocking and grabbed it, dumping the contents out on the floor and digging excitedly through them. There were fruits, and magical candies from Honeyduke's, and a chocolate orange, as well as some striped socks for Zoey, some Zonko's products, and wizarding crackers. She pulled on one, making it go off with a bang. It left behind some living toy soldiers in a box. Other crackers produced an American style 10-gallon hat, some live white mice (one of which got snatched up and swallowed by Aqua the grass snake), pink cowboy boots, a tiny little miniature piano that produced the same loud, rich sound as a Grand Piano, and rounded sunglasses with daisy-petal shaped petals around them that had flashing lights in multiple colors.
Zoey sat in front of the tiny piano with her knees up by her chin while wearing the hat, the sunglasses, and the boots, and said, “Look at me! I'm Beethoven from the Peanuts cartoon!”
Remus, who had a little more experience with Muggles, chuckled at this as he watched her bang out a discordant tune on the piano, the music filling the whole house. Sirius just looked confused.
She spent the time until breakfast trying to play 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' on the piano. Then she rushed over at the smell of cooking bacon. Before long, she was eating scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast.
“Nothing's burnt!” she pointed out excitedly. “And nothing's raw, either! It's all delicious!”
“Yes, like I said, I've had a lot of time to myself. Gotta keep busy.”
“He can be taught!” Remus said with a grin, between bites.
“Hush, you, or I'll fill your bed with dead fish.”
“Do that, Padfoot, and I'll have you fixed.”
“As the Americans say, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it.'”
“Good thing I'm not broke anymore,” Remus said. “Of course, I'm not exactly wealthy, either. Teachers don't earn much money to begin with, and I've been saving most of what I've been earning in a savings account at Gringott's.”
“Whyzat?” asked Zoey.
“I don't want to trouble you,” he said, suddenly embarrassed.
“Out with it, Moony,” Sirius said, suddenly living up to his name.
Remus sighed. “Well if you must know, it's a sort of insurance. I've been doing it since I first got the Defense position.”
“Insurance? What do you mean, insurance?”
“The Ministry knows what I am, and there's some anti-werewolf legislation being debated in the Wizengamot, which was introduced by some horrible woman named Umbridge. If it passes, I won't be able to work at Hogwarts anymore.”
“Oh no! That's horrible!” Zoey said.
Sirius, for his part, had choked on his food, and spent a couple minutes recovering. Finally, though, he managed to speak.
“Damn! I'll have to take my family's seat on the Wizengamot, then. I was hoping I wouldn't have to, because I hate politics. Also, I'll have to face Narcissa and her husband to get it back from them.”
“Your seat on the Wizengamot is held by a Death Eater family and you didn't claim it sooner?” Zoey asked, horrified.
“I really hate politics. Also, to be honest, I forgot about it until now.”
“Al wants to know if we have a seat on the Wizengamot.”
“Hmm... I don't know if the Potter family had a Wizengamot seat or not. I'll have to ask. I think so, but I'm not sure.”
“They do, Padfoot. James certainly talked about it enough. He wasn't much for politics either, but he was proud that his family had such high connections. But I don't know its current status.”
“Something else to do, then,” Zoey said. “Let me know ASAP, okay Sirius?”
“Sure thing. I'll start asking after the holidays.”
“Cool. Thanks!”
After breakfast, they opened presents. It was a mixed lot. Zoey and company got some books, more clothes, the usual package of sweets and sweaters from the Weasleys, some sweets from Remus and Sirius, a set of Gobstones, and a small pouch that fit on a necklace but was magically bigger on the inside with a stretchable lip that could fit some really ridiculously large things in it. Zoey immediately went over to the pile of books that had exploded out of her earlier and put them into the pouch, giggling every time the pouch stretched to swallow it. No matter how much was added to it, its weight remained the same. They also got a gift from Dobby, who had sent them by school owl along with a note he'd clearly dictated to someone else, explaining that they were socks he'd knitted himself. The left sock was bright red and had a pattern of broomsticks upon it; the right sock was green with a pattern of Snitches. They added Dobby to the thank-you note list, and later that day quickly sent Dobby a return gift of a mismatched pair of socks they were fairly sure wouldn't disappear in a few weeks, at least not by any failing transformations, anyway.
But by far the best gift was a magical two-way mirror from Sirius, that he and James used to use at Hogwarts to communicate during separate detentions.
“I hope you lot appreciate this, and keep it safe. I went back to my parents' old house with a few old friends from the auror guard and some of their friends and fought off all kinds of nasty things to find it. Also, they're a little hard to come by. I could afford a new set, but they're expensive, and since I already had a set - and it had sentimental value - I figured it was worth the effort to retrieve them.”
“Cool,” Zoey said in awe, taking it in her hand. “Thanks!”
“You're welcome. Now for how it works. I've got the other one. Just say my name around yours, preferably in the same room, and I'll hear you and be able to respond if I can. And see where I've got mine?”
He pulled on a chain around his neck, to which his mirror was attached.
“Cool!”
“Don't worry too hard about breaking yours, they're charmed unbreakable. It would take a mighty powerful spell to break one, like an Unforgivable, or basilisk venom. I think the only other way to break one would be if the other one was already broken or dead for some reason. They're paired, including the runes, so if for some reason the runes on one of them fail, the runes on the other will fail as well. But the runes are pretty potent, and strengthen each other, so I don't think it very likely yours will ever break. The high quality is why they're so hard to find, and why they're so expensive.”
“It's a little heavy for a necklace, though, isn't it?”
“Featherlight charm on mine. It's one of the charms I'm good at. I've got it just heavy enough to notice if I were to lose it, and light enough it isn't uncomfortable.”
“Thanks again!”
“You're welcome. And you should put it in your pouch, at least for now.”
“Will do,” she said, shoving it into the deceptively small-looking pouch.
After that, she spent the rest of the day sans meals trying to teach herself the Peanuts theme song on her tiny piano.
~
Remus normally slept at Hogwarts, but since he'd been invited to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas night at the house Sirius shared with the Potter collective, he was sleeping in one of the guest bedrooms. Or more accurately, he'd been trying to sleep, and not having a lot of luck. He'd been asleep only an hour or two when a noise from Sirius's bedroom had woken him and sent him running to see what the matter was. He looked into the partly-open door of his friend's bedroom and seen Sirius in the midst of a post-Azkaban nightmare, rolling around moaning, and kicking at his covers while looking like he was trying to ward off something looming over him. Not knowing what to do, Remus froze in place and tried to think. After a minute or two of frantic thought, he realized Adira and the others might have experience with this, since they'd spent more time living here than he had.
But if he did that, he realized, he'd be waking both of them up, and he didn't want to do that unless he had to. So instead, he racked his brain for anything they might've told him in any of their talks with him that might indicate what to do.
Finally, though, he decided to just try talking Sirius awake.
“Sirius. Sirius! You're having a nightmare! It's not real! Wake up!”
It took a couple more tries of this before it worked, Sirius bolting upright out of his nightmare.
“Moony? What's wrong?”
“You were having a nightmare, Padfoot old friend.”
“Oh. Yeah. Thanks, Moony.”
“I'm glad to be able to help. Did I do it right?”
“Yes. I dunno if Addy ever told you or not, but just so you know, touching me awake is a bad idea. Your instincts are still good, Moony, when you don't over-think things.”
“Thanks, Padfoot. Do you need anything?”
“No thanks, I'll be fine. I'll just curl up as a dog in the doggie bed at the foot of Addy's bed. I do that even when she's not here. Go back to bed, Moony.”
“That I will. Sweet dreams, Padfoot.”
“Thanks, I can use all the help I can get.”
Sirius turned into a dog, then, and padded his way to Addy's room and got comfortable in the dog bed, falling asleep quickly.
Before long, Lupin was peering in on the two of them from the open doorway. He couldn't see Zoey for all the blankets she had on over her, but he could see her form moving regularly up and down with her slow breathing. He watched for several minutes before quietly leaving.
As much as Lupin wanted to go back to sleep, though, finding Sirius in the midst of a nightmare had unsettled him, so he went to the kitchen to make himself a cup of herbal tea, some chamomile to ease his nerves. It took him almost an entire hour to feel well enough to go back up to his room and try for sleep again.
On his way back, he heard a sound from Addy's room: several bumps, a small squeak, and other small noises he couldn't identify, so he went back to investigate. He looked inside but saw nothing amiss; Sirius was still asleep in his dog form in the dog bed on the floor, and Zoey was still asleep. The only difference now was that he could see the back of her head, and the covers looked a little askew. Deciding she'd just knocked into the headboard in her sleep, he went back to bed and was soon asleep again.
~
When they woke up the morning after Christmas, it was as Adira. It was a bit off-putting to wake up with her glasses on her face already, but it was getting to be a semi-regular occurrence for her whenever they would switch to her in the night. Sighing, she got up and crossed the room to use the bathroom. As she did, she noticed Sirius was still sleeping as a dog in his doggy bed. She didn't want to wake him, so she took some clothes with her into the bathroom to change there.
At breakfast, Lupin told her about Sirius's nightmare the night before, and how he'd managed to stumble onto the right thing to do on his own, which made her smile.
Halfway through the meal, she yawned loudly. Lupin looked at her, concerned.
“That's at least the tenth time this morning you've yawned, possibly much more, since I don't know how many you did before I started to notice. Are you feeling alright?”
“Yeah, just a little tired is all. It's not a big deal, it happens sometimes.”
“How late were you up last night?” Sirius asked from the doorway, where he'd just come in.
She sighed. “Zoey conked out around 11 last night.”
“And when did you wake up?”
She sighed even louder. “At eight AM. Honestly, Sirius, I'm fine. Some nights we just don't sleep as well as others. Probably nightmares. From things other people said before I got my own dorm room, I gather I sometimes have nightmares without remembering I've had them in the morning. We do, I mean,” she said. “Ugh, tenses and pronouns and stuff like that are weird when you're not the only one in your head.”
“Ah, okay. Yes, that makes sense,” Sirius said. “I know I've been a little tired myself this morning, after the night I had last night. Thanks again for helping out, Moony.”
“No problem, Padfoot my friend.”
Addy finished up the last of her breakfast.
“Want third helpings?” Sirius offered.
“No thanks, I'm stuffed. Your cooking is getting pretty good, though, so it was tempting. Anyway, I'm gonna read,” she said, getting up and starting toward the door.
“Put your dishes in the sink before you go.”
“Yeah, yeah, I will,” she said lazily as she turned around to comply.
Adira spent most of the morning writing thank-you notes for people who had given her gifts, and sent one for Hermione off with Hedwig, and used Sirius's owl Pigwidgeon to send Ron his. Then she spent the rest of the day reading a novel in the drawing room, pausing only for meals and to send other thank-you notes off when one of the owls returned from previous trips. She was still reading after dinner when Sirius came in.
“Hey, Addy, how are you?”
“I'm good. And you?”
“I'm good, too. 'Lord of the Rings,' eh? I've heard of that before, but I don't think I've ever read it.”
“Yeah, it's pretty good. I almost didn't get past this one part in the first book, though. Tom Bombadill,” she said with a disgusted sigh. “Most pointless character in a book I've ever come across. Most annoying, too. And the poems in the book are annoying, too. Luckily there aren't too many of those, and mostly in the first half of the first book.”
“You don't like poetry?”
“I like some poetry. Short poems. Tolkein's poems are long, though. And difficult to read.”
“Ah. But otherwise a good book?”
“Excellent book, yes, aside from those small details.”
“Good to know. By the way, since we're talking about books, I can't find one of the books from our library. It was one of the books I rescued from my parents' place, and one of the few things worth keeping around.”
“Which book is missing?”
“One of Newt Scamander's more obscure books. Along with 'Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them,' he also wrote a whole series of books going into a lot of detail about various topics. I rescued the entire series from that old house, except for a pair that got eaten by doxies. Twelve books in all, out of a set of 14. The missing book was the size of a large dictionary and was all about the magical ecosystems on and around the grounds of Hogwarts.”
“Really? Sounds useful. If you find it, let me know; I want to read it.”
“Okay, as long as you let me know if you find it, too.”
“Of course,” she said.
“Good. I'll leave you to your reading, then.”
~
The rest of the holiday was spent doing mostly various activities together, the three of them. Sirius had convinced Lupin to stay for the rest of the holiday, and they spent the days either helping Adira with her dueling, going out for curries or pizza, trying to help Adira with the Animagus transformation (which was still giving her/them trouble), or visiting the malls in Muggle London. A few times they even went on motorbike rides together, with Adira in the sidecar as Lupin rode behind Sirius the first time. But Lupin didn't like that position, and ended up switching with Adira during the other trips. He barely fit, so it was pretty hilarious.
“You know, it's weird,” she said one of these times after they were parked, “but Hagrid says he rode this motorbike while carrying me on the night my parents died, but it's pretty much a normal sized bike, and he's enormous. Nearly twelve feet tall, and riding a bike made for someone half his size.”
Sirius barked several times with laughter, and Lupin began to chuckle a little before both men tried to hold their laughter in until they could get into the flat.
“Are you picturing an enormous Hagrid hunched over this comparatively tiny bike, too?” she asked with a wide grin.
“Yes, I am,” Sirius said, snorting with suppressed laughter. “I hadn't thought of it when I loaned it to him that night, because I was distraught and already planning to try to murder Peter in revenge, and I didn't see him get on it, but yeah, he's so large... and the bike is so... {snerk} tiny, compared to... {snort} compared to him...”
He couldn't contain his laughter again, and started to laugh so hard that he fell to the ground, clutching a stitch in his side. Remus and Adira were soon down on the ground, too, laughing til their faces turned red as tomatoes, and breathing became difficult.
When they finally got control of themselves, Adira spoke again.
“Oh my goodness, I don't know whether to tell Luna that or not. On the one hand, we like the sound of her laughter. On the other hand, she'd probably be in the hospital wing for a week-long laugh attack if we did.”
“Ah... ah yes. Well, now I'm thinking more clearly, he probably put an engorgement charm on it with that umbrella of his. By the way, that reminds me... from what you told me about your second year, that reminds me I need to look into getting Hagrid trained up so he can be a fully-qualified wizard. Voldemort ruined his life, but maybe we can recover some of that for him.”
“Oh yeah, that's a great idea! I'll remind you about it later. In fact,” she said, pulling out a small notebook from the pouch around her neck, “I'm gonna write myself a note about that so I don't forget.”
“Write one for me, too, if you don't mind tearing a page out of it. Ah, thanks,” he said, taking a page from her and putting it in a pocket of the Muggle-style jacket he was wearing.
They went the rest of the way to their 'flat' – which, being so obviously magical and big on the inside, always felt like a house to her – in the kind of silence that often followed an especially powerful bout of laughter. Sirius put his key in the lock, opened the door, and was just stepping inside when Adira spoke again.
“Hey, Sirius? Remus?”
“What, pup?” Sirius said, both men turning to look at her.
She mimed hunching over and grabbing a tiny handlebar with her arms, her elbows jutting out comically, and said, “Meep, meep! Vroom, vroom! Putt-putt-putt!”
The sound of their raucous laughter filled the corridors for nearly a quarter of an hour.
~
They'd thought, once, that their best Christmas ever had been their first one at Hogwarts, but naturally their first one with Sirius and Remus that year replaced it. They didn't even spend all their time at home, visiting the Weasleys several days out of the holidays via the Floo. They got to find out in person how the Weasleys had liked the gifts they'd gotten for them. Both Percy and Mr. Weasley had been especially impressed and fascinated by the matching locking briefcases they'd gotten for the two Ministry employees from a Muggle shop in London. They'd tried to refuse, of course, but Adira pointed out that she had more money than she needed, and it was Christmas, so they finally accepted the gifts. She'd had a similar problem with one of her gifts for Lupin, another briefcase, and she'd finally had to tell him it had only cost her the equivalent of 7 galleons before he'd accepted it. By comparison, the two Weasley men were a piece of cake to convince.
But of course, the holidays couldn't last forever. New Year's came and went, with the three of them making so much noise in the house that Aqua complained later to her that it had woken her out of a nap. Sirius even found that book he'd been looking for a couple days before the train, giving her the chance to make a copy for herself. And all too soon, Adira was packing up to head back to Hogwarts.
The train ride had been pretty quiet, all things considered. They were even blessed to not have to put up with Malfoy or his goons at all, aside from a near miss on the way to their compartment. They continued to be able to avoid him and his ilk as they took the carriages back up to the school and had dinner. Nothing unusual happened at all, unless you counted the fact she'd noticed a couple books she didn't recognize that had been in her pouch, which she discovered while transferring them to her trunk, but she brushed it off as having not paid enough attention to them before.
~
Hermione was no more surprised or bothered than Adira had been when Ron told her the next day about Hagrid being a half-giant, since he'd forgotten to mention it on the train with all the talk about the Yule Ball. He still looked a bit put out by their casual lack of concern about Hagrid being part giant, but otherwise didn't say anything else about it.
Even though they'd solved the egg clue, on this side of January first, Al and the others were feeling nervous. February was coming, and none of them fancied trying to figure out how to deal with the cold. Sure, there was the Warming Charm, but it didn't work as well in the water. They'd done tests in the tub during the holidays, and while breathing in the water was solved by Tier, the cold was still an issue. They'd have to re-cast the Warming Charm every few minutes, and since they couldn't afford the distraction that would be, they'd have to find some other way of keeping warm. A wet-suit would have been nice, if they'd remembered to buy one when in London. But they weren't sure Sirius would be up to finding one, especially since they wouldn't be there to get the right kind of sizing done. Their fluctuating size depending on who was Out meant they'd have to pick ahead of time which one of them would do it, most likely. And since those plans sometimes went right out the window, that wasn't something they could rely on.
Snow was still thick upon the grounds, and the greenhouse windows were covered in condensation so thick that they couldn’t see out of them in Herbology. Nobody was looking forward to Care of Magical Creatures much in this weather, especially Al.
When they arrived at Hagrid’s cabin, however, they found an elderly witch with closely cropped gray hair and a very prominent chin standing before his front door.
“Hurry up, now, the bell rang five minutes ago,” she barked at them as they struggled toward her through the snow.
“Who’re you?” said Ron, staring at her. “Where’s Hagrid?”
“My name is Professor Grubbly-Plank,” she said briskly. “I am your temporary Care of Magical Creatures teacher.”
“Where’s Hagrid?” Al repeated loudly.
“He is indisposed,” said Professor Grubbly-Plank shortly.
Soft and unpleasant laughter reached Al's ears. He turned; Draco Malfoy and the rest of the Slytherins were joining the class. All of them looked gleeful, and none of them looked surprised to see Professor Grubbly-Plank.
Al asked her what was wrong with Hagrid, and she brushed him off. So he focused on Hagrid's hut with his empathic sense. It was difficult, with all the interference from the rest of the class, but he thought he felt despondency and sorrow coming from the hut.
“Something's happened to Hagrid,” Al whispered at his friends. “I don't know what, but he feels sad about something.”
“Oh my goodness, I hope he's alright.”
“Yeah, me too,” Ron said, glancing over at the Slytherins.
“Worried about your big oaf of a friend, Potter?” Malfoy said.
Al whipped his head around toward Malfoy at these words and pulled a face at him that made the blond boy pause in fear a moment before regaining his nerve and continuing with false bravado.
Malfoy put his hand inside the pocket of his robes and pulled out a folded page of newsprint.
“There you go,” he said. “Hate to break it to you, Potter.”
He jumped back but still smirked as Al snatched the page, unfolded it, and read it, with Ron, Seamus, Dean, and Neville looking over his shoulder. It was an article topped with a picture of Hagrid looking extremely shifty.
It was standard Skeeter fare. She made Hagrid out to be a horrible monster who loved tormenting kids with dangerous beasts in his class. It told about the skrewts and that they were indeed an illegal hybrid, but failed to mention that they were dead now. It also failed to mention that Hagrid's classes were pretty much a normal person's idea of normal now, ever since the skrewts. Admittedly, who knew if that would last past Hagrid's mourning period, but still, it should have been mentioned.
And, of course, the article not only outed Hagrid as half giant (“how did she find out?”), but also figured out and revealed the name of his mother, a giantess named Fridwulfa, who at least had not been one of the giants working with Voldemort during the war, choosing instead to remain neutral. Skeeter also used the wrong name for them, calling them “Harry,” but that was barely worth noticing.
Al was so angry as he read, and as the Slytherins laughed, that he didn't notice his left arm coming up and pointing with three fingers at Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle. His head jerked around once he heard the screams, though.
“Whazahuh?” Al said, confused, as he took in the scene. Then, when he figured out what Chandra had done, he burst out laughing.
Chandra, in an uncharacteristic fit of pique, had used one of his experimental spells on them, causing Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle to become 'magnetically' attracted to each other, and Malfoy – the smallest of the three – was stuck between the other two, being squeezed til his whole head and neck were going red.
Of course, the whole class had gone mad at this, with half the students either laughing their arses off or looking torn between amusement and concern, and the other half in various states of outrage. Pansy Parkinson and Millicent Bulstrode were attempting to pull the three boys apart, but they couldn't get a good enough grip on them to really try, as even the boys' robes were affected by the spell. And of course Grubbly-Plank was trying to restore order and help, but the cage of fairies she'd been carrying over had fallen, and angry escaped fairies were buzzing loudly and flying at people's faces.
With another gesture from Al's left hand, the three stuck boys then started to fly straight into the air like someone had let go of a balloon underwater. They didn't go far, though, and stopped just out of reach of even the tallest person in class, having bobbed a little higher first.
Al didn't catch much of what happened after that, because he was too busy having fallen down onto the ground from laughing so hard. It wasn't until a very firm hand grabbed him by the arm and jerked him up that he stopped, immediately going into defense mode, his wand out.
“Don't you wield your wand at me, Mr. Potter!” snapped Professor McGonagall, who was looking furious.
“Er, sorry, Professor. I thought I was being attacked.” He immediately put his wand away.
“Explain yourself,” she snapped again, gesturing at the three boys still floating in the air out of reach.
Suppressing his laughter with difficulty, he explained that they'd been saying nasty things about Hagrid, and Chandra had acted without informing the rest of them.
“So, er... he's the only one who can undo it. Probably. I mean, Moody might be able to work it out, though, given enough time.”
“Mr. Rahasyamay, will you please undo these spells right now.” It was not a question, but a command.
Al felt his consciousness being pulled aside gently but firmly as Chandra took over without transforming.
“If the White Ferret and his twin dancing trolls all promise to apologize in front of the Great Hall for their unkind words, then I shall release them from these spells.”
Her line a thin mouth, McGonagall nonetheless looked up at the floating Slytherins, then back at Chandra and Al.
“They do not appear to be in any condition to speak right now, being too distressed. Please undo the spells now. Carefully,” she emphasized.
“While I would not be averse to complying for your sake, Tartan Grandmother, I do not, as such, have a counter to either of these spells. Truth be told, I have not even used that particular floating spell before, and I am unsure how I have done it.”
“You mean you've never used that spell before? Are you saying it's accidental magic? Are we going to have to call in the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad?”
“The first spell, of attraction, is not accidental. Wandless, yes, but not accidental. The second... I am unsure. I did do it on purpose, also without a wand, but since I am not sure what I did, I suppose it qualifies as accidental magic by certain definitions.”
“If that is the case, Mr. Rahasyamay, why did you say you would free them if they apologized?”
“Hmm... I do not know.”
McGonagall blinked at him. He placidly stared back. Then the professor pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. She was also muttering to herself, part of which sounded to them like “...why I even took this job to begin with...” and then “...even James and Sirius weren't this much...”
“Dumbledore!” someone shouted.
Everyone who wasn't distracted catching fairies or trying to get Malfoy and his goons down turned to look. Sure enough, Dumbledore was walking across the grounds to investigate the trouble.
“Again, Mr. Rahasyamay? And in the same class, no less.”
“Yes. Sorry, Silver Grandfather.”
Dumbledore waved away their concern and looked closely at the three floating Slytherins. He used his wand to try to sort out what spell was used. He soon had them back on the ground, but they were still stuck to each other like rare-earth magnets.
“Fascinating variant of the levitation charm,” he said when he was done. “You and I should work out how to recreate it, as it could win you some spellcrafting awards, Mr. Rahasyamay. Sadly, though, I have no idea what to do about the other spell, just yet. That shall take a bit longer to work out.”
“How long, Professor?” asked a tearful Pansy Parkinson, her worry over Malfoy supplanting her dislike of Dumbledore.
“Several days, I believe. Twenty-four hours if I push myself, I think.”
“Perhaps I should try instead?” Chandra offered.
“You might as well. It is likely the fastest way.”
Chandra considered the three Slytherins thoughtfully. After a few moments, he stepped forward and touched them, feeling around as though looking for something.
“Aha,” he said at last, pulling on a suddenly-appearing sheet of shimmering orange light. He separated several other colors of sparkling light, pinning them down in various positions to keep them from snapping back in place. Then he pulled a yellow layer out and off the three boys like removing a piece of translucent cloth from them; it vanished once he let go of it. He did this again for a blue layer, then for a violet layer. Once the violet layer fell away, the orange layer popped like a soap bubble, and the three boys fell to the ground, freed.
“Mr. Rahasyamay,” Dumbledore said in a voice of forced calm, “I am very impressed by that. That was very advanced practical arithmancy you just performed, and you did it wandlessly. It is even more impressive that the spell did not explode when you did that.”
“EXPLODE?!” Pansy shrieked in horror. “YOU ALMOST KILLED THEM?!”
“I was not aware of the danger, Sniveling Sycophant,” he said, addressing Pansy with a glower. “I was not even aware I could do that. None of us are taking Arithmancy, so far as I am aware.”
“You're quite right, Mr. Rahasyamay, we do not have any of you down for Arithmancy classes,” Dumbledore said.
Al turned to look at Professor McGonagall, having felt a mix of emotions from her that he was having trouble classifying, or even feeling clearly with all the empathic noise in the area at the moment. She was looking at them with a very thoughtful expression on her face, like they'd said something so fascinating that it made her get lost in thought. But he couldn't think why that would be, so he ignored it for now.
Dumbledore had Pansy and a couple other Slytherins take Malfoy and his two trained baboons down to the Hospital Wing to be checked over, then turned to Al.
“For your punishment, Mr. Rahasyamay, I will be giving you a detention this Wednesday at 7 o'clock, in my office. Do not be late.”
“Understood, Silver Grandfather.”
Nodding at them, Dumbledore turned and headed back up toward the castle. Professor McGonagall did a double-take in surprise and then followed the headmaster.
With Dumbledore and McGonagall gone, Al walked over to Lavender, Ron and Hermione trailing behind. She looked at him curiously at first, then with fear as she noticed his expression. She jumped back, holding her hands in front of herself placatingly.
“It wasn't me! I swear I didn't tell anyone! Not even my diary! I just wanted to forget about it, honestly!”
Al blinked, sensing her sincerity.
“I believe you,” he said.
“No really, I--- wait, you do?”
“Empath here. Unless you've somehow learned Mastery-level occlumency over the holidays, you're telling the truth, I can feel it.”
“What's occlumency?” she asked, confused.
“Never mind.”
The rest of the class was uneventful, after that. At lunch, they argued about how Skeeter had found out, wondering things like if she had an invisibility cloak.
“I'd say she's bugging the place,” Al said, “but she can't be; electronics go mad around here. Unless there are magical ways to do it? I could ask Sirius tonight on the mirror, I suppose.”
“Good thinking, Al,” said Hermione.
“Thanks. Also, we should go visit Hagrid after Divination. Tell him we want him back.”
“I agree,” Hermione said. “Especially as he's been a lot better since the skrewt incident.”
When the three of them got up later to go back to classes, they ran into Moody in the corridor. Luckily it was only figuratively running into him, as he probably would have hexed them into oblivion otherwise.
“Glad I found you, Potter,” Moody said. “If you'll come with me, Potter, we need to discuss those hexes of Chandra's earlier, and a stern talking-to about not using spells you don't know what they do wouldn't go amiss, either.”
“Er, now, Professor? I need to go to class.”
“I'll write your teacher a note for you. Come on, let's not take all day.”
Al sighed, and followed Moody.
“See you later, Al!” his friends called back.
Moody didn't take Al to his office, but pulled him into an unused classroom. Once he was sure the room was secure, Moody turned to Al to speak.
“This isn't really about those hexes, Potter. I reckon Dumbledore will set you straight on that later. What I really wanted was an excuse to hand you this,” he said, holding out a roll of parchment.
“What is it?” Al asked, not yet taking it.
“Just a piece of parchment with a list on it, Potter, but I'm glad to see you're remaining vigilant. Take it, it's for you.”
Al took it, unrolled it, and read it. It was a list of books to get from the library. There was also a signed permission slip from Moody on it.
“Some of these books are in the Restricted Section, hence the note. I transfigured my writing on the list itself to look more like yours, enough to pass a cursory inspection anyway. Did that so we could claim you already knew what to look for, instead of cheating by asking advice from a teacher. All you asked me for was the permission to get these books for the Tournament, understood? If anyone asks you how you knew what to get, tell them your godfather found the titles for you.”
“Er, okay. Thanks,” he said, reading the list to himself.
“Books about the science of otter fur? Dolphin anatomy?”
“Yes. Remember the talk I had with Iliana during the ball?”
“Yeah, I do. Ooh, books on mermaids, that makes sense. '101 Easy Underwater Defense Spells,' cool. 'Curses of the Water-Tribes of Malaysia'? What's that one about? I mean, water tribes of Malaysia, that's the part I don't get.”
“There's some tribes in Malaysia that spend most of their time underwater, diving up to 20 meters for food and other things, without the use of spells or equipment, called 'free-diving.' They can hold their breath for three minutes at a time. Their free-diving techniques would be too involved for you to learn yet, but luckily you don't need to. Anyway, some of those tribes have wizards and witches among them, and there's even a few all-wizarding tribes there, that's the people these curses come from.”
“Neat!”
“Now, these tribes don't consider the spells in this book to be dark, but European wizarding culture does, which is why the book is restricted. But it's useful magic to learn, even if a lot of it is pretty advanced. Though with your familiarity with wandless magic, I think you'll be able to manage more of these than most would. Bring the book to me when you get it, and I can point out the ones you should be able to learn before the Second Task.”
“Thank you, Professor.”
“Don't mention it. No really, literally don't mention it. Cheating may be a traditional part of the Tournament, but that doesn't protect you if you get caught.”
Al nodded. Then Moody told him to get to his next class soon, so he did, excited to get these books out. And there were even more than the ones he'd already read back to Moody.
~
That evening after dinner, Al, Ron, and Hermione left the castle once more and went down through the frozen grounds to Hagrid’s cabin. They knocked, and Fang’s booming barks answered.
“Hagrid, it’s us!” Al shouted, pounding on the door. “Open up!
Hagrid didn’t answer. They could hear Fang scratching at the door, whining, but it didn’t open. They hammered on it for ten more minutes; Ron even went and banged on one of the windows, but there was no response.
“What’s he avoiding us for?” Hermione said when they had finally given up and were walking back to the school. “He surely doesn’t think we’d care about him being half-giant?”
But it seemed that Hagrid did care. They didn’t see a sign of him all week. He didn’t appear at the staff table at mealtimes, they didn’t see him going about his gamekeeper duties on the grounds, and Professor Grubbly-Plank continued to take the Care of Magical Creatures classes.
Malfoy looked like he wanted to gloat whenever he saw them, but perhaps feared that Al or Chandra would take over and glue him to the ceiling by his underpants, so he said nothing.
Sirius hadn't had any ideas about how Skeeter could be getting into the school to dig up dirt on people, but he promised to look into it and get back to them if he found anything promising.
Dumbledore's detention turned out to be private instruction in wandless magic, which involved the headmaster handing them a large stack of books to read. They put some of the volumes back, having read them already or being in the middle of them. Some of the others weren't familiar, but gave them a strange sense of deja vu that intensified with every sentence they read, which was so distracting that they gave up and chose other volumes to read instead. They also took copious notes, since none of the books were to leave Dumbledore's office. At the end of the detention, Dumbledore told them to return next Wednesday at 7, but specified that only this first one was counting as a detention on their record.
Later on in the week, of course, was more Occlumency lessons with Dumbledore. They'd gotten worse over the holidays, having forgotten to practice, and saw flashes of several things; Zoey looking around at the results of her explosion over the holidays, fighting Quirrell, flying during Quidditch, an image of sneaking around the library at night in the invisibility cloak, and scenes from the Yule Ball, among others. Dumbledore set them extra homework on Occlumency and reminded them to practice as much as possible.
Dueling Club kept going, too, and Moody began teaching them about how to take advantage of your personal talents, which among other things included him saying that people who expected to be attacked a lot could carry magical artifacts to distract enemies with. He looked at them when he said this, but also glanced at a thoughtful-looking Javier.
Halfway through January, there was a Hogsmeade visit, and the three of them went as usual. After reading some of the books Moody suggested, they had started experimenting with various forms to try to manage in the cold water, but Tier's shape-shifting wasn't great at the kind of anatomy they needed. He couldn't get the blubber right on porpoise forms, his attempts at otter fur were a failure, and the closest he could get to an actual dolphin form bore more of a resemblance to prehistoric proto-whales than to modern cetaceans. These failures were making them nervous.
Iliana, Ron, and Hermione left the castle together on Saturday and set off through the cold, wet grounds toward the gates. As they passed the Durmstrang ship moored in the lake, they saw Viktor Krum emerge onto the deck, dressed in nothing but swimming trunks. He was very skinny indeed, but apparently a lot tougher than he looked, because he climbed up onto the side of the ship, stretched out his arms, and dived, right into the lake.
Iliana stared at this, mouth agape. Krum must have some way of keeping warm in the cold water, but even though she and Krum were somewhat friendly with each other, she wasn't sure Krum would want to share that information with them. If they got a chance, though, they decided it wouldn't hurt to ask.
Keeping her eyes peeled for Hagrid on their way to town, she was disappointed to not see the large man in any of the shops. So she suggested going to The Three Broomsticks.
The pub was as crowded as ever, but one quick look around at all the tables told Iliana that Hagrid wasn’t there. Heart sinking, she went up to the bar with Ron and Hermione, and ordered three butter-beers from Madam Rosmerta.
“Doesn’t he ever go into the office?” Hermione whispered suddenly. “Look!”
She pointed into the mirror behind the bar, and Iliana saw Ludo Bagman reflected there, sitting in a shadowy corner with a bunch of goblins. Bagman was talking very fast in a low voice to the goblins, all of whom had their arms crossed and were looking rather menacing.
Iliana giggled, a memory coming to them.
“What is it?” Ron asked.
“Do you know something?”
“Yes. Zoey intercepted one of Fred and George’s letters to Bagman, and--”
“Fred and George are writing Bagman? Why?”
“I was about to tell you when you interrupted,” she said icily.
“Sorry. Go on.”
“Anyway, it turns out Bagman paid them in leprechaun gold, which vanishes. They thought it was an innocent mistake at first, in their first, very polite letter, but he's been stonewalling them. I'd be willing to bet he's having a similar issue with the goblins.”
“Oh yeah, I think I heard something from Dad about people having a hard time getting money from Bagman. He's got a gambling problem, I guess.”
“Also,” Iliana continued, “Zoey wrote on the back of their letter, adding her voice to their plea for their money back.”
“He wouldn't even give them their original money back?”
“Exactly. From the letter she read, it wasn't the first time they'd asked for their original bet back.”
“Wow,” Ron said, shaking his head.
She watched Bagman in the mirror. He was looking strained again, quite as strained as he had that night in the forest before the Dark Mark had appeared. But just then Bagman glanced over at the bar, saw Iliana, and stood up.
“In a moment, in a moment!” Iliana heard him say brusquely to the goblins, and Bagman hurried through the pub toward her, his boyish grin back in place.
He paused a moment in front of them, thinking, before saying, a little uncertainly, “Iliana, is it?”
She nodded.
“Good, good. How are you? Been hoping to run into you! Everything going all right?”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Fine, thanks.”
“Wonder if I could have a quick, private word, Iliana?” said Bagman eagerly. “You couldn’t give us a moment, you two, could you?”
“Er — okay,” said Ron, and he and Hermione went off to find a table.
Bagman led her along the bar to the end furthest from Madam Rosmerta.
“Well, I just thought I’d congratulate you again on your splendid performance against that dragon, Iliana. Quite superb.”
“Are you going to give Fred and George their money back?”
“Er, what?” he said, looking completely thrown off balance. “Oh, that. Well, bit of a cash flow issue at the moment, assets tied up in non-liquid form, you see. But I'm working on it, I'm working on it, no need to worry. It'll be taken care of soon enough. By the way, I wanted to talk to you, ask you how you're doing on that egg.”
“We have to go under the Black Lake in February.” Feeling an insistent feeling from Al, she added, “you're betting on us to win, aren't you?”
“What? I... well... that is--”
“It's okay. I don't think you should be doing that, as you seem to have no knack at all for figuring out the odds, so it's liable to blow up in your face, but since we really want to survive this thing...” she felt around the room with their empathic sense, to feel if anyone was eavesdropping, before continuing, “you wouldn't happen to know some way of keeping warm in cold water in February, would you? Aside from a Warming Charm, I mean. I'd have to reapply it every five minutes, at my skill level.”
Bagman scratched his chin, looking thoughtful. “Hmm... that hadn't occurred to me. We weren't expecting someone so young to be entered, after all. I don't have anything for you right now, I'm afraid, but I'll make some discreet inquiries for you, not to worry.” He winked at her.
Good, thought Al. Since cheating is a traditional part of the Tournament and all, why not? Thanks for that.
#No problem,# she thought-spoke to him.
Just then, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a familiar face looking at her with concern. It was Lupin.
“Oh crud,” she muttered, turning back to Bagman.
“Cool,” she said, louder, to Bagman. “Oh, by the way, since I have you here, Mr. Bagman, have you made any progress in finding Bertha Jorkins?”
“No,” said Bagman, looking strained again. “I’ve got people looking, of course …” (About time, thought Iliana) “and it’s all very strange. She definitely arrived in Albania, because she met her second cousin there. And then she left the cousin’s house to go south and see an aunt … and she seems to have vanished without trace en route. Blowed if I can see where she’s got to … she doesn’t seem the type to elope, for instance … but still, I don't know...”
“Were you aware that Vol—er, You-Know-Who was last spotted in Albania. He was a ghostly wraith, but he could possess people and animals, and I had a vision of him over the summer, in which he was solid enough to use a wand.”
Bagman turned pale. “Oh now, Iliana, such an imagination on you,” he said with false confidence. “He's dead! People under the Imperius or other spells came out of it, and that only happens when someone dies.”
“It also happens when someone loses their body but remains earthbound. And I'm not talking about a ghost; we have reason to believe he's going to make a new body for himself. He's probably using Bertha to do precisely that, in fact.”
“I...” Bagman nervously steepled his fingers. “Er... well... um... that's, that's useful information, I shall look into it, Iliana. Now if you'll excuse me, I really must be going.”
Bagman turned around, and ran right into Fred and George.
“Hello, Mr. Bagman,” said Fred brightly. “Can we buy you a drink?”
“Er … no,” said Bagman, with a last scared glance at Iliana, “no, thank you, boys …”
Fred and George looked quite as disappointed with Bagman.
“Well, I must dash,” he said. “Nice seeing you all. Good luck, Iliana.”
He hurried out of the pub. The goblins all slid off their chairs and exited after him.
“It's no good,” Iliana told the twins, “he's not good for it. He's betting on me winning the Tournament to cover his gambling debts.”
They gawked at her. “You know? How do you know?”
Iliana sighed, and quickly told them about how Zoey had intercepted their owl, and what she'd added to the letter.
“I am both offended and impressed that you're guilty of mail tampering, Miss Zoey Potter,” Fred said in a faux-stern voice.
“Too bad it didn't at least pan out,” said George. “Oh well. I guess we'll just have to wait and see if you win the Tournament.”
“Speaking of that, you two wouldn't happen to know some way of keeping warm while under a freezing cold lake in the middle of February, would you?”
“Hmm... whadda ya reckon, George?”
“I dunno, it's nothing like anything we've been using. Off the top of my head, I can't think of anything. A potion might work, if you can find a warming potion, since they last a lot longer than charms or other wand-magic.”
“Oooh,” said Iliana, “that's a good thought. I'll have to look into that.”
“Great!” said Fred. “Glad we could help. Now please excuse us, Mistress Potter, but we must needs depart for Zonko's Joke Shop, anon.” They bowed to her with a flowery flourish, then left as she chuckled at their antics.
Once they left, Lupin stood up to meet her. She pretended she hadn't seen him, and sat down with Ron and Hermione. From the corner of her eye, she saw Lupin freeze, then change direction to the bathroom.
“What'd he want?” Ron asked her.
She inhaled quickly and began to tell them the whole thing, acutely aware of Hermione's disapproving glare.
“He shouldn't have done that! He's one of the judges! And you, letting him!”
“I want to survive this thing, Hermione! I'm with Al on this; we're at a disadvantage due to our age and skill level, Bagman even admitted they hadn't considered someone as young as me when they came up with the second task. Then there's the fact we didn't choose this. So we need every edge we can get!”
“Yeah, leave her alone, Hermione, she's just trying to survive.”
“But you've figured out the egg ages ago!”
“Yes, but we don't know how we're going to stay warm in that cold water. Warming charms only do so much, and it'd be distracting to recast one every few minutes.”
Hermione softened. “Why didn't you tell me that was the problem? There's nothing in the rules against Ron and me helping you.”
“I...” she paused, thinking. “I hadn't thought of that. I guess I got so caught up in everything I didn't think of that.”
“You're forgiven. Anyway, I hope Bagman's helping Cedric as much.”
“He's not. It's me he's betting on, remember.”
“Uh-oh,” said Ron, staring at the door.
Rita Skeeter had just entered. She was wearing banana-yellow robes today; her long nails were painted shocking pink, and she was accompanied by her paunchy photographer. She looked like a slutty banana. She bought drinks, and she and the photographer made their way through the crowds to a table nearby, Iliana, Ron, and Hermione glaring at her as she approached. She was talking fast and looking very satisfied about something.
“… didn’t seem very keen to talk to us, did he, Bozo? Now, why would that be, do you think? And what’s he doing with a pack of goblins in tow anyway? Showing them the sights … what nonsense … he was always a bad liar. Reckon something’s up? Think we should do a bit of digging? ‘Disgraced Ex-Head of Magical Games and Sports, Ludo Bagman …’ Snappy start to a sentence, Bozo — we just need to find a story to fit it —”
“Ah, Rita, showing all the journalistic integrity of the Daily Mail, I see,” Iliana quipped loudly.
A few people looked around. Rita Skeeter’s eyes widened behind her jeweled spectacles as she saw who had spoken.
“The Daily what now?”
“The Daily Mail, it's a Muggle 'newspaper,' and I use the term very lightly. It's usually called a tabloid, but I don't know if wizards know that word or not. The 'reporters' for the Daily Mail make up fake stories all the time, and twist real stories around to be mostly lies. It's widely considered to be a rag not worth wiping your arse on. I've read it before, Rita, and you'd fit right in there.”
Rita's face was turning red. If looks could kill, Rita's expression would at least be giving Iliana a moderate flu.
“What are you implying, Missy?”
“I'm not implying anything. I'm outright saying that your brand of journalism is to make up things and then pick and choose what 'facts' fit your lies. And if The Daily Prophet – a name coincidentally similar to The Daily Mail – is willing to publish rubbish like that, then it's a rubbish paper. I'm saying you're a rubbish reporter who wouldn't know journalistic integrity or truth if it came up and tapdanced on your face. All you care about is what sells, no matter how much bologna is in it. You'll even ruin lives to get people reading your sordid garbage. First Hagrid, now Bagman, is it?”
Rita Skeeter raised her heavily penciled eyebrows.
“Our readers have a right to the truth, Potter. I am merely doing my —”
“Who cares if he’s half-giant?” Iliana shouted. “There’s nothing wrong with him! He's a dear, sweet man! He's a 12 foot tall teddy bear!”
The whole pub had gone very quiet. Madam Rosmerta was staring over from behind the bar, apparently oblivious to the fact that the flagon she was filling with mead was overflowing.
Rita Skeeter’s smile flickered very slightly, but she hitched it back almost at once; she snapped open her crocodile-skin handbag, pulled out her Quick-Quotes Quill, and said, “How about giving me an interview about the Hagrid you know, Harry? The man behind the muscles? Your unlikely friendship and the reasons behind it. Would you call him a father substitute?”
“My name is Iliana. There is nobody in our collective named Harry, and hasn't been since this summer.”
Hermione stood up very abruptly, her butterbeer clutched in her hand as though it were a grenade.
“You horrible woman,” she said, through gritted teeth, “you don’t care, do you, anything for a story, and anyone will do, won’t they? Even Ludo Bagman —”
“Sit down, you silly little girl, and don’t talk about things you don’t understand,” said Rita Skeeter coldly, her eyes hardening as they fell on Hermione. “I know things about Ludo Bagman that would make your hair curl … not that it needs it —” she added, eyeing Hermione’s bushy hair.
Iliana glared at Rita with such malice that it became palpable. Rita's face actually fell into fear when she saw it. Then Iliana's left hand shot up, pointed at Rita Skeeter, and the woman fell into the air and became glued to the ceiling. She seemed stuck there by powerful gravity, being squeezed into place, hardly able to breathe.
“Do not worry, Insignificant Maggot,” Chandra said with Iliana's voice, “this spell I have been practicing. It will wear off in twenty minutes. Have fun.”
Turning to Hermione, Iliana said, “Let's go, shall we?”
They nodded, and left with her.
“Well,” Ron said in a worried voice as they walked back up the street, “now Rita Skeeter will be after both of you. You may as well have declared war on her.”
“If it's war she wants, it's war she'll get,” Hermione said hotly.
“Amen to that,” agreed Iliana. “Mess with me, fine; I can handle it. Mess with my friends, and she'd better watch out, or being stuck to a ceiling will be the least of her worries.”
“You don’t want to go upsetting Rita Skeeter,” said Ron nervously. “I’m serious, Hermione, Iliana, she’ll dig up something on you —”
“My parents don’t read the Daily Prophet. She can’t scare me into hiding!” said Hermione, now striding along so fast that it was all Iliana and Ron could do to keep up with her.
“Yeah well Iliana doesn't even have parents, and look how much Skeeter's affected her life.”
Ignoring Ron, Hermione broke into a run, leading them all the way back up the road, through the gates flanked by winged boars, and up through the grounds to Hagrid’s cabin.
“He's still got his curtains drawn,” Iliana noted.
“Hagrid!” Hermione shouted, pounding on his front door. “Hagrid, that’s enough! We know you’re in there! Nobody cares if your mum was a giantess, Hagrid! You can’t let that foul Skeeter woman do this to you! Hagrid, get out here, you’re just being —”
The door opened. Hermione said, “About t — !” and then stopped, very suddenly, because she had found herself face-to-face, not with Hagrid, but with Albus Dumbledore.
“Good afternoon,” he said pleasantly, smiling down at them.
“We — er — we wanted to see Hagrid,” said Hermione in a rather small voice.
“Yes, I surmised as much,” said Dumbledore, his eyes twinkling. “Why don’t you come in?”
“Oh … um … okay,” said Hermione.
They went into Hagrid's hut. Fang launched himself at Iliana the moment they did, and she jumped right into the air in startled fright, finding herself laying down in a corner of the ceiling as though gravity had reversed. She carefully crawled back down to the ground and set her personal gravity back to normal, then looked around.
Hagrid was sitting at his table, where there were two large mugs of tea. He looked a real mess. His face was blotchy, his eyes swollen, and he had gone to the other extreme where his hair was concerned; far from trying to make it behave, it now looked like a wig of tangled wire.
“Hi, Hagrid,” Iliana said, hugging him. His mouth twitched at this, but he couldn't quite manage a smile.
“ ’Lo,” he said in a very hoarse voice.
Dumbledore got them some more tea with a twiddle of his wand before speaking.
“Did you by any chance hear what Miss Granger was shouting, Hagrid?”
Hermione went slightly pink, but Dumbledore smiled at her and continued, “Hermione, Iliana, and Ron still seem to want to know you, judging by the way they were attempting to break down the door.”
“Of course we still want to know you!” Iliana said, staring at Hagrid. “All of us do! You don’t think anything that Skeeter cow — sorry, Professor,” she added quickly, looking at Dumbledore.
But Dumbledore had fallen conveniently deaf, allowing her to go on.
“I just meant — Hagrid, how could you think we’d care what that — woman — wrote about you? We know you, we care about you, we love you, you big silly! Nothing she could say would change that.”
Two fat tears leaked out of Hagrid’s beetle-black eyes and fell slowly into his tangled beard.
“Living proof of what I’ve been telling you, Hagrid,” said Dumbledore. “I have shown you the letters from the countless parents who remember you from their own days here, telling me in no uncertain terms that if I sacked you, they would have something to say about it —”
“Not all of ’em,” said Hagrid hoarsely. “Not all of ’em wan’ me ter stay.”
“Really, Hagrid, if you are holding out for universal popularity, I’m afraid you will be in this cabin for a very long time,” said Dumbledore, now peering sternly over his half-moon spectacles. “Not a week has passed since I became headmaster of this school when I haven’t had at least one owl complaining about the way I run it. But what should I do? Barricade myself in my study and refuse to talk to anybody?”
“Yeh — yeh’re not half-giant!” said Hagrid croakily.
“Hagrid, look what my aunt and uncle are like! Look at the Dursleys! Worst anti-wizard racists in the country, I lived with them for a whole decade! And I turned out alright. I turned out weird, but alright. Heck, you could be the secret lovechild of a giantess and Voldemort himself and I wouldn't care!”
Hagrid jerked in surprise at the name so violently that he broke one of the legs of his chair. He stood up, and Dumbledore repaired it with his wand.
“D-don't say that name!”
“Iliana has an excellent point,” said Professor Dumbledore. “My own brother, Aberforth, was prosecuted for practicing inappropriate charms on a goat. It was all over the papers, but did Aberforth hide? No, he did not! He held his head high and went about his business as usual! Of course, I’m not entirely sure he can read, so that may not have been bravery.”
Iliana gave Dumbledore a sidelong look, as though about to ask a question, then seemed to think better of it.
“Come back and teach, Hagrid,” said Hermione quietly, “please come back, we really miss you.”
“Chandra just pinned Rita Skeeter to the ceiling with a Reverse Gravity Charm of his own design, Hagrid, in your defense. Well, and Hermione's defense, too,” Iliana said. “But we did it because she's the reason you're in here sulking, and we want you back.”
Hagrid gulped. More tears leaked out down his cheeks and into his tangled beard.
Dumbledore stood up. “I refuse to accept your resignation, Hagrid, and I expect you back at work on Monday,” he said. “You will join me for breakfast at eight-thirty in the Great Hall. No excuses. Good afternoon to you all.”
Dumbledore left, pausing to scratch Fang, and the three of them spent the next hour or two comforting Hagrid, getting him back to something close to his old self again. It seemed to work, as he showed them a picture of his long-dead dad, who looked tiny compared to an 11 year old Hagrid, who was already about 7 or 8 feet tall by then. He then went on to explain how Dumbledore stuck up for him after his dad died, back in his second year. How Dumbledore got him his job and his hut. And then he went on in annoyance about Madame Maxime, not that he acted like he knew they knew who he was talking about.
Finally, Hagrid asked, “How you doin' with yer egg, Iliana?”
“Well, Zoey accidentally figured out out at a party when a bunch of punch spilled into it. So we know we have to go into the Black Lake this February. We know how to breathe and we learned how to swim over the summer, but we don't know how we're going to keep warm down there. Hagrid, do you know any ways to keep warm under water in winter?”
Hagrid frowned. “Yeh know I can' tell yeh that, I'm a teacher! 'Gainst the rules, innit?”
“But we're not trying to win, Hagrid, we just want to survive. If we go into that water without some way of keeping warm, we'll either die or have to give up, which could end with the Cup killing us anyway. And Tier's shape-shifting is inadequate to the task.”
Hagrid looked at her sadly. “When yeh put it that way, I would. But I dunno. I never go in there. No need; the merpeople take care of it pretty well themselves.”
“Damn. Oh well. We'll think of something.”
In fact, thought Al, I did tell Cedric about the dragons. Maybe he'd be willing to return the favor.
#It's worth a try,# Iliana thought back.
Endnotes: If someone were to draw a picture of Hagrid dressed as a Shriner and riding a comically tiny motorcycle, and send it to me, I think I might have a Luna-style laugh attack or three. :D Also, if “Meep, meep! Vroom, vroom! Putt-putt-putt!” becomes a meme, that would make my year. :D (A girl can dream.)
If you've ever seen Steven Universe, and the scene where Yellow Diamond pulls this horrible face at being called “clod” by Peridot, that's the kind of face I was imagining Al making at Malfoy in this chapter.
You can thank White Squirrel's “The Arithmancer” and its sequel, “Lady Archimedes,” for the idea of the spell-layer peeling arithmancy that Chandra did in this chapter.
Also, the free-divers of Malaysia are real. They're called the Bajau people. Makes sense that in the Potterverse, there would be wizards among them.
The Lupin stuff in The Three Broomsticks was a set-up for a bad Latin joke that I decided not to go with. I was going to have Lupin corner them on a balcony in the castle and for Al to think "A fronte praecipitum, a tego Lupin." It's hilarious if you know what the meaning of the Latin phrase it's a pun of, but it'd just go over most people's heads.
“The Many Faces of Adira Potter: Chapter 33”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Thirty-three: The Second Task
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there. But some canon scenes are just too good to change much.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Adira, and Zoey, and now #Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and now between hashtags/pound signs because some people's computers don't do the B.I.U.).# , {Tier}, ~Chandra,~ and %Mother% if I get around to it in this chapter.
Note 4: She's creepy and she's kooky, mysterious and ooky, she's altogether spooky, she's J. K. Rowling.
*FAYANORA*
After dinner that evening, Iliana switched to Al early, and Al went off in search of Cedric. He soon found the Hufflepuff boy in the corridor and walked along beside him.
“Yes, Al? Did you want something?”
“Can we talk privately?”
“Er... well, I suppose so. Here, there's a good empty classroom this way.”
Al followed Cedric into the spare classroom dusty from disuse – except for a few obvious places where two or more people had disturbed the dust with their bodies, no doubt snogging or something like it.
“So what did you want to discuss?”
“I figured out my egg. Have you?”
“Yes.”
“So you know we have to go into the Black Lake.”
“Yes.”
“Well for us, breathing won't be an issue. But Tier isn't having any luck with the kind of anatomy needed to keep warm in cold water, and our warming charm isn't very good. We'd be recasting it every few minutes. Now I'm just trying to survive this thing, which won't happen if I freeze to death of hypothermia in this stupid Task, and I warned you about the dragons. I only did it to be fair, not expecting to cash it in later, but, well, it's getting very close to the Second Task, and we still haven't figured out how to solve the warmth issue. So I'm looking for a little quid pro quo.”
Al could feel, before Cedric even said anything, that the older boy couldn't help, even though he wanted to. “If your warming charms aren't up to it, I don't know what to tell you. Except... well, you could cast Impervius on yourself.”
“Already thought of that. It wouldn't work. The water wouldn't soak into me, but it would still be pressing against me, sucking the heat out of my body.”
“Well... there's nothing in the rules for this Task that says you can't bring other stuff with you. If you could find some artifact or potion to stay warm underwater, that would be allowed.”
“Yeah, someone else mentioned that. I haven't found anything yet, though.”
“Hey, I know how to use the library pretty well at this point. There are tricks to it, you see. Come, let's go now, maybe I can find you something.”
Al shrugged. “Okay,” he said, following Cedric out the door.
When they got to the library, Cedric went to the end of one of the bookshelves, and touched his wand to it.
“Show me underwater magic,” he said.
A bookshelf across the room lit up, and they followed it.
“How come nobody's ever shown us this before?”
“No idea. Anyway, here we are.”
The bookshelf in question went out when Cedric touched it, but several shelves of books slid forward, making themselves stand out from the crowd.
Holding his wand to the shelf again, Cedric said, “Show me means of self-warming that work underwater.”
All but 10 of the books slid back into place.
“That a fourth year student could learn in a month or less.”
Whittled down to 4 books, now. Cedric removed his wand and the two of them looked at the books that were there. Two of the books were phantom books, which Cedric explained meant that they were currently checked out. Al recognized one of those as one he had checked out.
“Damn, this would've been so helpful first and second year. We could've solved both mysteries in like, five minutes with this. Ruddy substandard education!”
Taking the other book off the shelf, Cedric set it down on a table, touched his wand to a part of the book that wouldn't move if the book opened, and repeated his request. The book flew open, pages moving as though in a fast breeze, and landed on a section labeled 'Ye Viking's Arctic Vigour Potion, for keeping warme in cold climes, e'en in frigid water.'
“Well this potion looks easy enough to me. What about you, Al?”
“Yes. Let's see... sunflower petals, ashwinder eggs, salamander blood, a cube of ice for each of those ingredients, with a base of dandelion root, marshmallow root, honey, and water.”
Al put a bookmark in the book and took it over to check out.
“Thanks for your help, Cedric. Did you want to use this potion too? I could copy it down for you.”
“That's fine. I've been practicing my Warming Charm in the tub, I'll only need to cast it once or twice.”
“Okay. If you change your mind, let me know.”
Cedric waved goodbye, leaving Al to start the process of making the potion. He only had one place to go for that, though, and he didn't like it. But he decided to risk it. After all, though the man didn't like them, he did try to keep them alive in first year. They shifted back to Iliana first, for an added edge.
A few minutes later, Professor Snape heard a knock at his office door. Annoyed but curious who was bothering him this late on a Saturday, when he'd been trying to grade papers, he went to the door and opened it, nearly having a heart attack from the shock of the girl before him. Once he recovered, he got very angry at her nerve. To look like that in the first place, then to hit him with it unexpectedly.
“What do you want, Potter?”
Iliana cowered a little, thinking maybe this was a bad idea, but pressed on anyway.
“I, er... well, about the Second Task, I---”
“I am not helping you cheat, girl. Begone!”
“That's not what I'm asking for! I just need somewhere to brew a potion.”
His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What kind of potion?”
“It's called Ye Viking's Arctic Vigour Potion. It's to keep me warm under the Black Lake during the Second Task.”
Professor Snape was impressed despite himself that the Potters had thought of a potion for that task.
“It is pronounced The Viking's Arctic Vigour Potion,” he corrected automatically. “Back in those days, the TH sound was made with a rune called 'thorn,' but since printing presses did not have the letter thorn, the Y was used because of their similarity in shape. Let me see that book.”
Reluctantly, she handed it over. He read the page in question.
“Yes, this potion is simple enough even a first-year could manage it, I think. But it has a very short shelf-life, only three days before it becomes useless sludge. I commend your willingness to be prepared, Potter, but you would have to wait until, preferably, the day before the Task to brew this. And frankly, I do not wish to see you waste valuable potions ingredients practicing this potion beforehand. However...” he looked thoughtful for a moment before continuing, “I see no reason you shouldn't try the day before the Task. Come to my office after dinner on the 23rd of February and I will supervise your attempt.”
“You will? Sir?”
“Yes. In fact, this recipe is severely out of date, and the side effects of this version would be painful indeed. I can think of half a dozen ways to improve on it just off the top of my head, minimizing the side effects and increasing the stability of the potion. When you come in on February 23rd, I will provide you with an improved version of the potion for you to brew.”
“I... er, doesn't that violate the rules of the Tournament, sir?”
He considered her in that slow and deliberate manner of his.
“No, I don't think it does. You came to me with this potion. It is unsafe as written here, so it is my duty to my students to see to their safety. Besides which, remember which House I am in, Potter.”
“'Those cunning Slytherins will use any means to achieve their ends,'” she quoted.
“Quite,” he agreed. “Now, I will need this book so I can write down its version of the potion before I improve it. I will hand it back to you after our next class, Miss Potter.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You are welcome. You are now also dismissed,” he said, closing the door before she could respond.
~
With the dilemma of keeping warm underwater in February solved, as long as Snape didn't change his mind before then, the next several weeks went by pretty smoothly. They focused on schoolwork and on designing a tasteful bathing suit for the Second Task, or bathing suits plural, really, since they couldn't be sure something wouldn't go wrong and end up having to do the Task as Zoey or something or someone even more peculiar, like that time two of them had tried to come Out at the same time and instead became a weird deformed mix of the two of them.
They also practiced as many of the underwater defensive spells as they could, from the books Moody had suggested. Further, now that they knew Cedric's trick to finding books faster in the library, they could find useful books a lot faster, and being so prepared was having a calming effect on them.
What was more, their sleep had improved. Before finding the warming potion, half their nights had given them less than adequate sleep, but now with that problem solved, they only had one night like that a week.
Dumbledore's occlumency lessons went better, too. Before, they'd had more intrusions, seeing flashes of scenes from their past, and even one odd vision of Sirius's library, but dark like it was night, which was confusing until visions of Aunt Marge's dog chasing them up a tree drove it out of their mind.
But at last, the weeks went by and it was the 23rd of February. Deciding to go as Iliana again because he seemed to treat her better than the others, they went to his office that night and knocked on the door.
Expecting them, and emotionally prepared for anything, Professor Snape was actually somewhat relieved it was Iliana. Adira would have been acceptable, too. He was just glad it hadn't been the one that looked like Black, or the hyperactive child. Teaching 11 year olds was difficult enough without having to tolerate six year olds, too.
“Come in, Miss Potter,” he said curtly.
She did, and he closed the door with his wand.
“The improved version of the Arctic Vigour Potion is on this piece of parchment. Do you have the book with the original version, to compare and contrast the two versions?”
“Er, no. I didn't know that was necessary.”
“Yes, I knew you did not. In fact, you returned the book, which is why I checked it out again. Here it is. The potion is on page 324. Compare and contrast the two versions, since you might as well learn something while you are here. When you have done that, close the book and use the updated version of the potion on the parchment. And after the Second Task is done, I will expect 15 inches of parchment or more on an essay about the improvements to the potion. It will be extra credit.”
Iliana blinked. Extra credit? Snape never gave extra credit.
As though reading her mind, Snape said, “Your performance in my class is moderately better than the performance of other students in your year. And I have been observing you and your... companions... long enough to realize that you, Miss Iliana Potter, are better at Potions than the other... companions. I may be strict, and I may be less than social, but I do like to encourage talent. I do not know how it is you have more talent than your companions, but perhaps if I encourage you, I will learn the answer to that.”
She blinked again. This was the second time she could think of that Snape had complimented her, in his own peculiar way. And here, in the absence of other witnesses, it seemed he felt relaxed enough to be kinder and gentler, in the same way that a tornado is kinder and gentler than a category 5 hurricane.
“Er... yes sir. Thank you, sir.”
“Your ingredients are lined up here on this shelf,” he said, pointing at a mostly-empty shelf with the ingredients for the warming potion laid out.
“Now get to work. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask. I doubt you will, as the complexity of the modified potion is still within your skill level, but I would rather be annoyed by a question than have to put out a fire.”
“Understood, sir.”
He sat down, as did she, they both got to work.
Looking over the two versions, there were indeed several differences between the old version and the new version of the potion, written down in Snape's distinctive scrawl. He had added lavender, peppermint, and concentrated lemon juice to the potion, as well as a milligram of powdered hematite. Some of the instructions for stirring, the order of ingredients, or the times to let the mixture simmer – among other things – had been altered as well. The hematite, for one, had to be dissolved in a drop of diluted bundimun secretion before being added to the potion. Snape had provided a small container enspelled to hold the hematite and bundimun solution in suspension so none of it would be wasted by sticking to a surface.
She was about to put the book away and start on the new version of the potion when she thought of something.
“Sir?”
“What is it, Miss Potter?”
“Why peppermint? Isn't it a pain reliever?”
Snape set his quill down and turned to look at her properly.
“Yes, it is. What are its other properties?”
“Um... an antiseptic.”
“Yes.”
“And... doesn't it help with intestinal gas, too?”
“Yes, peppermint has an effect on gas, from a purely Muggle herbal standpoint. But it has magical properties as well, which tend to be similar in nature to its Muggle properties. How might it interact with the other ingredients in the potion?”
“Well... the salamander blood is a powerful elemental agent, and magical catalyst.”
“Indeed it is.”
“So... interacting with peppermint... it might have magical effects on other gases, too.”
“What would be the benefit of such a thing, Miss Potter?”
“Um... well I don't know if it applies to someone using gills to breathe, and I don't know if the lake is deep enough to need it, but if you gave this to someone diving deep in the ocean, I suppose it could have a magical effect on the nitrogen in the blood, preventing nitrogen narcosis, AKA the bends.”
“Exactly my thought as well. You see, I had more than tomorrow's adventure in mind when I improved this potion. It is quite an interesting potion, by the way, and I'm contemplating adding it to my curriculum.”
“Sounds like a good addition to me, sir.”
“Thank you for your input, Miss Potter. Now, please do brew the spell before curfew. I do not wish to have to write you a note for Mr. Filch, if I do not have to.”
“Just one more thing, sir, if it's okay?”
“What is it, Miss Potter?”
“Well you mentioned its short shelf-life, so I was wondering if the addition of peppermint, honey, and lemon juice might be intended to increase its shelf-life, sir? Because the first two are antiseptic, and lemon juice is a natural food preservative.”
“Excellent deduction, Miss Potter,” he said with a small grin. “Five points to Griffindor. Now please do get back to work.”
She blinked again, stunned at the points given rather than taken, but then nodded and got to work on the potion.
~
When she got back to the Griffindor common room with several vials of the warming potion, which looked like liquid fire but more yellow than red, she found Ron waiting for her.
“Oy, where were you?”
“Getting something I need for tomorrow,” she said.
“Ah, okay.”
“Where's Hermione?”
“Dunno. Fred came down here earlier to tell her McGongall wanted to see her for something.”
“Ah, I think I know what that's about. She must be my hostage.”
“Hostage? Whadda ya mean, 'hostage'?”
“Oh yeah, Moody told me the thing the merpeople are going to take, that we Champions have to get back, is hostages. But Dumbledore is personally ensuring their safety.”
“Really? Well okay, if Dumbledore says they're alright, then I won't worry.”
“Me neither. Anyway, I'm tired. Snape didn't want me to just make his improved version of the warming potion, he had me comparing the two. And he says that after the Second Task, I have to write an extra-credit essay for him about the improvements.”
“Oy, he gave you extra work? And he's actually going to give you extra credit for it? Someone's used Polyjuice Potion to replace Snape!”
She laughed. “I doubt that. He's still difficult to tolerate, snappish, and grumpy. Just less so, when it's just him and me. Don't tell anyone I said that, he'll probably go mental if he finds out.”
Iliana yawned. “Anyway, like I said, bedtime. I have to put these potions vials in that little bag of mine, so I know where they are.”
Ron yawned too. “Sleep sounds good to me, too. See you in the morning!”
“Assuming I haven't become someone else, of course.”
Ron laughed.
~
In the morning, they woke up as Adira, which – as complications went – was pretty mild. She and Iliana were about the same size, after all, and they'd planned for this possibility, so as she got dressed, she put her one-piece bathing suit on underneath her robes, and strapped the little vials of potion to her arms in case of emergency. With that done, she tried calling Sirius on the two-way mirror, but he didn't pick up. Since it was 7 in the morning, she assumed he was still sleeping, or else was too busy on his motorbike to answer, since the Second Task was at 9:30 that morning.
After breakfast, she walked down to the Black Lake with some of the other people, to check out the place. There were stands for the audience, the lowest of these about 10 feet off the ground, to get a good look at the water where the images of the Champions would be projected.
Over her shoulder, so to speak, Iliana was looking for Luna. The longer it took her Ravenclaw friend to show up, the more worried she became. At last, though, Luna showed up, holding aloft a sign saying “Potter for the win!” with an animated drawing of several people from their collective diving into the lake and coming out triumphantly with boxes of treasure.
She ran into Lupin on his way into the stands.
“Remus! Er, I mean Professor Lupin, sir!”
Lupin turned to Adira. “Yes, Adira?”
“Have you seen Sirius?”
“Hmm...” he said, looking around. “Come to think of it, I haven't. Which is odd; he told me he would be here. 'Right in the thick of things,' he said.”
“When did he say that?”
“Just last night. He came over to Hogsmeade to stay in the inn for the night, and sent me an owl to meet him there, which I did. I haven't seen him since. Silly Padfoot, though, he's probably overslept.”
“Oh. Well is there any way you can wake him up before it's too late? I don't want him to miss this.”
“I wouldn't worry, pup. Padfoot won't be late. Go on, it looks like Bagman is gathering the Champions.”
She nodded and walked over to Bagman. Adira took her shoes and robes off, and set them on a nearby bench provided for that purpose. The other Champions disrobed as well. They all stood there in the chilly February air in their swimsuits. Adira shivered. Her primary dose of warming potion lasted two hours, and she had several emergency doses. She was cold enough already that she took a small sip of one of the smaller potions.
The effect was immediate, feeling like drinking hot cocoa after playing in the snow all day, but it moved through her torso and into her arms and legs. It was pleasant at first, but then it kept going, until she was sweating.
Of course, she thought in annoyance, it's designed to be used in cold water. Of course I'm overheating in the air.
“Oh good, you're here. Did you all, er, work out what you're doing today?”
The four of them nodded, but Fleur looked distracted. She kept looking all around for something or someone, especially up in the stands, which she could barely see from this angle.
“So you all worked out, then, that you must go into the Black Lake to fetch what has been taken from you?”
They nodded again.
“Good. But let us review the song anyway. Here is a translation:
“Come seek us where our voices sound,
We cannot sing above the ground,
And while you’re searching ponder this:
We’ve taken what you’ll sorely miss,
“Two hours long you’ll have to look,
And to recover what we took,
“Around obstacles, past creature guards,
Whirlpools and magic wards,
“But past two hours — the prospect’s black,
Too late, it’s gone, it won’t come back.”
They all nodded again. Adira had to wipe sweat from her head and neck with her robes.
“Excellent, so you have two hours. If you go over two hours, you get penalized on points. There are obstacles down there, which were not easy to set up, I'll tell you that. Be on alert. Nothing down there should kill you, but it's still risky. Especially depending on what you plan to do to breathe down there.”
“We understand, Mr. Bagman,” Krum said.
“Good. Well you have a few more minutes til we begin, and I need to commentate. Oh I almost forgot, I have to cast a spell on you so the spectators can see what you're doing down there.”
He pointed his wand at them, and on each of them he cast "Video per aquam."
“There, now I really must be going.”
“Meester Bagman, please; where is Gabrielle? She was to be here, but I 'ave not seen her.”
“Oh that reminds me, the thing you're each to retrieve: the merpeople are holding one human hostage per each of you, you must rescue your hostages within two---”
“'OSTAGES? Gabrielle! Gabrielle!”
“Woah, Fleur,” Adira said, grabbing her by the shoulders. “Calm down. They're in no danger. Dumbledore is personally assuring their safety.”
“Dumbledore eez keeping them safe? Eez this true, Meester Bagman?”
“Yes, it is, Miss Delacour. Now really, I do need to be going.”
“I'll calm her down, Mr. Bagman. You go.”
Fleur was breathing hard, and while Fleur was calmer than she'd been a moment ago, Adira could feel she was on the edge of a panic attack. Bagman was already gone, and so Adira did as she promised and tried to help Fleur calm down, while fighting the heat of the potion.
“It's just a game, Fleur. Gabrielle will be fine. She's safe. Remember that. Now take a deep breath in, hold it, then let it go. Again, breathe in, hold it, let go.”
Fleur did as instructed, and it was working. Finally, Fleur sighed and nodded. “I will remember that. Thank you... er...”
“Adira Potter.”
“Thank you very much, Adira,” she said.
Fleur calmed down just in time for Bagman's magically magnified voice to ring out over the cheering crowd and down to the Champions.
“Well, all our champions are ready for the second task, which will start on my whistle. They have precisely two hours to recover what has been taken from them. On the count of three, then. One … two … three!”
The whistle echoed shrilly in the cold, still air; the stands erupted with cheers and applause. Adira waded into the water up to her waist, checking her wand in the holster attached to the hip of her swimsuit. The small sip of potion she'd swallowed was already starting to wear off. But before she took the main dose, she paused, concentrating, calling on Tier. In a few short moments, she felt him shake their head and transform their body. Her lungs collapsed, sealing up. From her neck sprouted gills. And then she collapsed into the water, for he had turned her legs into a dolphin-like fluke, while a dorsal fin sprouted from her back and her arms changed into partial fins, leaving her hands human so she could use her wand.
She couldn't breathe in the air now, so she leaped into the water, taking in a great mouthful of water, which felt like the breath of life. She swam around a little bit to get the feel of the modifications. It was only then that she noticed he'd pulled her glasses Inside, and given her underwater vision, complete with a nictitating membrane like a second, transparent eyelid so she could see where she was going without getting silt in her eyes.
But of course, with that sip of potion wearing off, the water was getting cold. So she surfaced long enough to take the primary dose of the potion, Vanishing the bottle when it was empty. Again the warmth spread through her whole body, but this time she felt neither too cold nor too warm. With that out of the way, she dived down into the water's depths.
Silence pressed upon her ears as she soared over a strange, dark, foggy landscape. She could only see ten feet around her, even with the improved eyesight, so that as she sped through the water new scenes seemed to loom suddenly out of the oncoming darkness: forests of rippling, tangled black weed, wide plains of mud littered with dull, glimmering stones. She swam deeper and deeper, out toward the middle of the lake, her eyes wide, staring through the eerily gray-lit water around her to the shadows beyond, where the water became opaque.
Small fish flickered past her like silver darts. Once or twice she thought she saw something larger moving ahead of her, but when she got nearer, she discovered it to be nothing but a large, blackened log, or a dense clump of weed. There was no sign of any of the other champions, merpeople, Hermione — nor, thankfully, the giant squid.
Adira swam above some green weeds, remembering the song, wary. Despite this, she was taken by surprise when something grabbed one side of her fluke. She jerked in surprise, turning to see what it was, and spotted grindylows. They were trying to drag her down, but couldn't find much purchase, since she'd left her robes behind, and the swimsuit was closer to her arms than her fluke was.
She shouted, casting one of the spells she'd learned for underwater defense. All that came out of her mouth was an air bubble, but a moray eel came out of her wand and bit the grindylow that had her ankle. She cast the spell a couple more times, more eels attacking the grindylows until they vanished back into the weeds. Their task complete, the eels vanished into nothing.
Adira slowed down to look around, take stock of her surroundings. She was deep under the lake now, though how deep she didn't know.
“Harry?”
Panic gripped Adira's heart like a heart attack as she whipped around, pointing her wand at the sudden voice.
Moaning Myrtle floating hazily in front of her, gazing at her curiously through her thick, pearly glasses.
“Myrtle?” she tried to shout, but again just made an air bubble. Moaning Myrtle actually giggled.
“You look different, Harry. I haven't seen you in my bathroom for ages. Wait a moment... are you a girl, now?”
Adira nodded. She mouthed 'Tell you about it later. Can't really talk here.'
“Oh yes, I understand. I do hope you do, it's been lonely lately. Everyone avoids my bathroom.”
'Sorry about that,' Adira mouthed.
“Anyway, Harry... or, I suppose you have a different name, being that you're a girl now. Well whatever. You'll want to go that way, it's where the merpeople village is. But they don't like me, so I can't go with you. Also, it's protected by things, now. Must be part of this Triwizard Tournament. I must say, I never thought I'd live to see it played again. In a manner of speaking, I mean.”
'Thank you, Myrtle,' she mouthed, giving her a thumbs-up too, just in case.
“Good luck!” Myrtle said back, before leaving.
Adira swam for what felt like at least 20 minutes, over vast swaths of mostly barren mud, til finally she heard a bit of haunting mersong.
“Two hours long you'll have to look,
And to recover what we took.”
Adira swam faster and soon saw a large rock emerge out of the muddy water ahead. It had paintings of merpeople on it; they were carrying spears and chasing what looked like the giant squid. She swam past the rock, only to jerk back and grab it, trying not to get sucked in by a whirlpool that had come out of nowhere.
Her fingers clutched at the slippery stone, trying to pull away from the whirlpool, but it wasn't working very well. Then she remembered her body's current configuration, and beat the water with her powerful flukes as hard as she could, breaking free of the swirling waters back into the calm abyss.
There were other stones in the area, she found as she swam around looking for another way into the village. One stone that looked promising she approached with caution, and good thing too, because rushing out from behind the stone was... a horse.
Or rather, it looked like a horse, but its mane was made of bullrushes, so Adira knew it had to be a kelpie.
The kelpie wasn't making any threatening moves. In fact, it was getting down on its haunches, lowering itself in invitation to ride. But she'd read about kelpies, they couldn't be trusted. Ride one, and it would eat you. And since she didn't know the Placement Charm, there was no way to render it docile. Since she also didn't know if it would attack her if she tried to get past it, she swam away instead. Luckily, it did not follow her.
Adira didn't have much luck at the other stones she found, either. One set of stones would push her away with a strong outward current if she tried to go through them or over them. Another set looked okay, but something felt wrong to her. She didn't know how to test it, so she kept going. She was barely gone when she felt panic from someone else back where she'd been. She swam back to see what was wrong.
Cedric was trapped in some invisible spell that had been woven between the two stones. He had a bubble on his head, distorting his appearance, but she was certain it was him. She thought a moment about what to do. He didn't appear to be in any danger; it would just be inconvenient for him, and he would likely not free his hostage. Still, she wasn't sure.
The question, however, was soon answered, for Cedric relaxed, apparently giving up, and the spell let him go. Moving quickly, Adira swam away as fast as her fluke would take her.
After a few more attempts with stones that had traps built into them, she found one that looked like a large door, with three concentric rings on it, like a dart board, but with lines through the rings like an eight-armed star. Inside the sections created in the rings by these lines were diamonds. On the ground before the door were 24 diamond-shaped stones with numbers on them, the same amount of stones as spaces in the rings. She considered that a moment, then swam up to try to go over the stone. It looked clear, but there was a solid, invisible barrier in the way. She swamp up even more. The barrier just kept going, possibly all the way to the surface, so she went back down to consider the puzzle.
On each diamond-shaped stone was a number. She examined the door more closely, and saw that there was writing beneath the rings, which said in English, 'Write, Champion, and enter.' She wondered if Dumbledore had come up with this one, as it sounded like the riddle in The Lord of the Rings, to enter Moria. But there weren't any letters, just numbers.
Someone swam next to her. Adira turned and saw Cedric. Cedric examined the puzzle, too, and she began to ignore his presence.
Okay guys, I need your help, she thought at the others.
Maybe it's an alphanumeric code? Suggested Al.
She picked up some of the pieces and looked at them, then back at the puzzle.
~Write, Champion, and enter.~ Chandra thought. He found the appropriate numbers to spell out Champion: 3, 8, 1, 13, 16, 9, 15, and 14.
But how? Adira thought. There's 24 tiles and 24 spaces, and the spaces are in three rings. 'Champion' is only eight letters.
Maybe we spell the letters out in the innermost ring?
She tried that, putting the tiles for that sequence of numbers in the available spaces, starting with the '3' at the top of the innermost ring. Nothing happened.
Cedric, however, seemed to have figured out what she was thinking, and picked up the other tiles to look at them, and tried finding tiles to add up to the different numbers. This was impeded by the limited number of tiles and by the different size of the tiles in the different rings, which limited the outer ring to digits zero through seven, the middle ring to digits 1, 2, 2, 5, 8, 10, 11, and 12, and of course the innermost ring they were pretty sure they knew already.
After trying a few combos, it became plain there was only one solution, and before long they had it worked out. One plus two made three, three plus five made eight, zero plus one was one, two and eleven made thirteen, and so on. When they got the last piece in place, adding six and eight to make fourteen, the door slid back and rolled to the left side behind one of the boulders.
The two of them swam in through what was now the only entrance, unless you wanted to brave a kelpie or swim against a current, and the door rolled and slid back into place behind them, probably dropping all its tiles, too. Krum and Fleur would just have to do the puzzle themselves.
A cluster of crude stone dwellings stained with algae loomed suddenly out of the gloom on all sides. Here and there at the dark windows, Adira saw faces. Strange faces.
The merpeople had grayish skin and long, wild, dark green hair. Their eyes were yellow, as were their broken teeth, and they wore thick ropes of pebbles around their necks. They leered at Adira and Cedric as they swam past; one or two of them emerged from their caves to watch them better, their powerful, silver fish tails beating the water, spears clutched in their hands.
She swam on, the houses getting more numerous; there were gardens of weed around some of them, and she even saw a pet grindylow tied to a stake outside one door. Merpeople were emerging on all sides now, watching them eagerly, pointing at Adira's fin-like arms, her gills, and her fluke, talking behind their hands to one another. Adira sped around a corner and a very strange sight met her eyes.
A whole crowd of merpeople was floating in front of the houses that lined what looked like a mer-version of a village square. A choir of merpeople was singing in the middle, calling the champions toward them, and behind them rose a crude sort of statue; a gigantic merperson hewn from a boulder. Three people were bound tightly to the tail of the stone merperson, and Hermione was not among them, though there looked to be a gap where someone else had been.
Cho was also there, and Cedric swam toward her. There was also a little girl about age 8 with a cloud of silvery hair just like Fleur's, who Adira presumed was Gabrielle. And then there was Sirius, tied between Cho Chang and the gap between him and Gabrielle.
Adira froze, her heart seeming to stop at the sight of her godfather tied up, head lolling in the water. Almost like he was dead. She felt panic rise, and tried to tell herself it was just a game. She swam forward, checking Sirius for a pulse. It was barely there.
Probably the effect of the enchantment. He doesn't need to breathe if his heartbeat and metabolism are almost nonexistent.
They, you mean. All of them are like that, Adira thought as she watched Cedric struggling to cut Cho's bindings with a knife. Adira smacked her head, feeling foolish for not bringing a knife.
The 'ropes' were actually some sort of weed, thick and slimy. She got out her wand and thought hard about what to do. Cedric got Cho free and began to swim upward with her. There was no time left, so she carefully used 'diffindo' on the ropes, freeing Sirius. Adira cast a Featherlight charm on him and tied him to her waist with some of the weed ropes.
Instead of going, though, she looked back at Gabrielle. It was just a stupid game, she reminded herself, but adults had a history of letting her down. Except for Sirius, so far. Could she trust that Dumbledore would keep this little girl safe?
“Get moving,” one of the mer-people said to her.
'What about her?' she tried to say, gesturing at Gabrielle.
“You take your own hostage,” one of them said to her. “Leave the others.”
She looked back toward the puzzle door, wondering where Fleur was. She didn't know how Krum had gotten in here, unless he'd found and solved the puzzle door long before she got there, but Fleur was missing, and Adira didn't really trust adults enough to bet a little girl's life that it was safe.
“Your task is to retrieve your own friend … leave the others.”
She couldn't read these mer-people for some reason; their emotions were hidden from her.
Using her wand, she started carving words into the lake bottom.
“We cannot read your writing.”
She stopped, at a loss for how to communicate. Then, she took a chance they could read lips and mouthed, 'Her champion missing. I'm rescuing her.'
“Take your own hostage and GO!” shouted the mer-person.
'I don't trust you and I don't trust Dumbledore this much,' she mouthed. 'I'm taking her.'
The mer-people charged forward with their spears, and Adira slashed through the water with her wand, casting another underwater defense spell that created a large and powerful current that tossed the mer-people backwards in a heap of screeching bodies. Wasting no time, she cut Gabrielle's ropes with her wand and cast a Featherlight Charm on her, too. She tied Gabrielle to her waist next to Sirius and swam upward, going slower than she could in case the ropes snapped from too much sudden force, and working her way up to top speed, casting the same spell behind her every now and then, or occasionally summoning more eels, including some electric eels.
She ended up swimming so fast that she splashed into the air. Luckily, the ropes holding Sirius and Gabrielle to her were slack enough they didn't go flying, too. It would've been horrible if she'd gone to all that trouble just to Gwen Stacy them like an underwater Spider-Man at the end.
Tier switched them over to lungs again, and Adira breathed in the cold February air gratefully. She gulped it down, feeling as though she had never breathed properly before, and, panting, pulled Sirius and the little girl up with her. All around her, wild, green-haired heads were emerging out of the water, but they were smiling at her.
The crowd in the stands was making a great deal of noise; shouting and screaming, they all seemed to be on their feet; Adira had the impression they thought that Sirius and the little girl might be dead, but they were wrong … both of them had opened their eyes; the girl looked scared and confused, but Sirius blinked, looked around, and said, "I can't believe that in all the years I spent exploring Hogwarts, this is the first time I've been in the Black Lake. How're you doing, pup?"
“Better. And you?”
“Good. Say, what'd you bring the girl for? Didn't you know we were safe the whole time?”
“Adults have been letting me down most of my life, present company excluded, and Fleur was nowhere to be seen. I couldn't take the risk it was safe. Even if it's true that Dumbledore was ensuring your safety.”
Sirius looked at her in concern. “I wouldn't have agreed to this if I thought there was a chance of getting hurt, Addy.”
“Yeah, well... I didn't know that. And I probably still would have rescued her, too. Also, you weren't awake. It was creepy down there, especially with all those spear-wielding mer-people.”
“Mer-people aren't bad, Addy. They were just doing what they'd agreed to, playing a role. They wouldn't have hurt anyone.”
Adira sighed. “I'm too tired to argue the point now. Help me with her, will you? I don't think she can swim very well.”
She looked more carefully at Gabrielle, and figured out what the problem was: she was freezing cold. Even Sirius was starting to shiver.
“Here, drink this,” she gave a vial of potion to Gabrielle. “It's a warming potion. Just a sip, now, you only need it for a few minutes.”
Gabrielle sipped it, and handed it back, her shivering stopping immediately. Adira gave the vial to Sirius, who took his own sip.
As the three of them swam back to shore, Sirius asked, “Just out of curiosity, why only a sip if it's just a warming potion?”
“It's formulated for arctic waters. Drinking it when you're not in freezing water will make you sweat like mad. I nearly passed out from the heat of it, but it was better than freezing in the February air.”
Adira could see Madam Pomfrey fussing over Hermione, Krum, Cedric, and Cho, all of whom were wrapped in thick blankets. Dumbledore and Ludo Bagman stood beaming at Adira and Sirius from the bank as they swam nearer. Even Ron came down to meet them. Meanwhile Madame Maxime was trying to restrain Fleur Delacour, who was quite hysterical, fighting tooth and nail to return to the water.
“Gabrielle! Gabrielle! Is she alive? Is she ’urt?”
“She’s fine!” Adira tried to tell her, but she was so exhausted she could hardly talk, let alone shout.
“Padfoot!” shouted Lupin, looking worried.
Sirius crawled out of the water and shook himself off like a dog, but less effectively.
“Not to worry, Moony old pal, I'm fine.”
The two friends hugged, and when they pulled apart, Lupin began chiding Sirius for going along with this nonsense and worrying him needlessly.
Dumbledore and Bagman were pulling Adira upright, a task made much easier once she was back to normal human form; Fleur had broken free of Madame Maxime and was hugging her sister.
“It was ze grindylows … zey attacked me … oh Gabrielle, I thought … I thought …”
“Come here, you,” said Madam Pomfrey. She tried to give Adira some pepperup potion, but Adira pulled back.
"I took a warming potion, Madam Pomfrey. I'm fine, honestly."
"It does more than warm you, now come here," she said, and Adira finally let her take the hot potion. Steam gushed out her ears.
“Adira!”
Adira turned her head, still squeezing water out of her hair with her hands, and saw Luna coming toward her.
“Hey Luna,” she said with a smile.
“That was very interesting. I don't think I've seen a real mer-person before, except in books.”
“Yeah, I hadn't even seen them in books before, I had no idea what to expect.”
“What was that potion you used?”
“It was a warming potion made to be used in freezing-cold water. Found it in a book, and Professor Snape improved on it when we came to him to ask if we could use the potions lab to make it, because he said that the original version was unsafe. In fact, he made Iliana study that potion enough that she thinks she knows why he had to improve it. His improvements increased the range of water temperatures the potion is useful in, and cuts down on the side effects. Which, if her analysis is correct, means the original side effects would have had me boiling alive in the relatively warm water of the Black Lake.”
“Professor Snape likes it when people have talent in his class. It took him some time to get used to me, and he wasn't very nice to me for the first year and a half, but after that he got a lot better.”
“Really? So it's not just us? I thought it was because Iliana looks like my mom.”
“Not just that, probably. Like I said, he's been nicer to me. Lets me experiment with potions as long as I make them according to his method at least once, and also I have to hand in a written analysis of my results when I'm done, which includes theories before the experiments about what I think will happen.”
“You experiment with potions?”
“Oh yes. I've known about the magical properties of hundreds of plants and animals since before I came to Hogwarts. Most of the potions he had us making even in second year were ones I had already been making for Daddy for years.”
“Wow. Maybe you and Iliana should work together on Potions, help each other out.”
“I would like that. I like spending time with Iliana, she's a lot of fun. So are all of you, of course, but her especially.”
“She's quite fond of spending time with you, too, Luna. Oh, by the way, there's something in your hair.”
Adira flicked a fat beetle out of Luna's hair and watched it fly away.
Hermione came over with Krum then.
“You did pretty good on that puzzle, I hear, Adira.”
“Yeah, Cedric helped though.”
“Still, you figured out the objective before he did.”
“Six heads are better than one,” she said. “So to speak.”
“You were well outside the time limit, though. More so than Cedric. You and Cedric came through the puzzle door at the same time, so that's confusing.”
“I was concerned for Gabrielle, Fleur's sister. I don't entirely trust adults, even Dumbledore, after the life I've had. Plus, seeing Sirius like that...”
“Oh. Well I understand. But Dumbledore wouldn't have let us drown.”
“Yes, yes.”
Dumbledore, for his part, was conversing in Mermish with the mer-people. After that, he got into a huddle with the other judges to convey his findings. They were still talking when Fleur joined Adira and Luna. Fleur had many cuts on her face and arms and her robes were torn, but she didn’t seem to care, nor had she allowed Madam Pomfrey to clean them.
“Look after Gabrielle,” she told her, and then she turned to Adira. “You saved ’er,” she said breathlessly. “Even though she was not your ’ostage.”
“Yes. I had a difficult childhood, that led me to not entirely trust adults. Not even Dumbledore,” she repeated for the umpteenth time.
Fleur bent down, kissed Adira twice on each cheek (she felt her face burn and wouldn’t have been surprised if steam was coming out of her ears again, even though she knew it was the custom in some countries to greet friends and family like that).
Just then, Ludo Bagman’s magically magnified voice boomed out beside them, making them all jump, and causing the crowd in the stands to go very quiet.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our decision. Merchieftainess Murcus has told us exactly what happened at the bottom of the lake, and we have therefore decided to award marks out of fifty for each of the champions, as follows...”
What followed then was a list of the points. Fleur got 25 points for using the bubble-head charm and giving it her best, even though she got waylaid by grindylows. Krum got back first, well within the time limit, thanks to his use of human transfiguration (he had turned his head into a shark head) and the Placement Charm to subdue the kelpie with a bridle, so he got 50 points. Cedric was five minutes shy of being out of the 2-hour time limit, and got 47 points for his trouble.
Then there was Adira. She was commended for putting her natural transformation powers to good use, as well as using the warming potion to keep from freezing. She had been outside of the time limit, but it was interpreted as misplaced bravery, and she was awarded 45 points for 'exceptional moral fibre.' So third place out of four, but she didn't care; all she cared about was surviving. She had completed the Task, that was good enough. Though the points bonus was a plus.
“Where does that leave us, in all?”
“I believe that puts you in second place, tied with Cedric. Viktor is at first place so far, mostly thanks to today,” said Hermione. “Then Fleur at third place.”
“Well, tied with Cedric at least makes sense. And there's a justice to it.”
“The third and final task will take place at dusk on the twenty-fourth of June,” continued Bagman. “The champions will be notified of what is coming precisely one month beforehand. Thank you all for your support of the champions.”
“Well that's a relief,” Adira said. “I can take a little break, more or less, until then. By the way, Fleur, if it ever comes up again, grindylows have a very weak grip and brittle hand bones, so target their hands.”
“Thank you, Adira. I will remember zat.”
Notes: Being a neopagan, I had some ideas about what to put in a warming potion, and did some research as well on DuckDuckGo, my preferred search engine. Some of the ingredients, like salamander blood, ashwinder eggs, ice, and sunflower petals, were obvious to me and required no research. My research was mainly for preservatives and balancing agents, except the hematite, as I already knew it was a good stone for grounding. And it's just an iron oxide, so it's not toxic. The lavender was included for its calming properties, since I figured keeping calm under that much black water might be an issue.
Yes, I went back and edited the song in the previous chapters, because I always intended it to be two hours due to the obstacles, but mistakenly left “an hour long” on one line.
According to Google Translate, Video per aquam means “I see through water.” If it's mangled, I can't tell, because I only speak English.
It was difficult, and took me over an hour, but yes, I designed that ring puzzle. I tried to come up with something where the middle and outer rings had a logical and fixed set of digits, which can be seen in the 0-7 of the outermost ring, but my math skills and patience weren't up to something that clever.
“The Many Faces of Adira Potter: Chapter 34”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Thirty-four: Turmoil
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there. But some canon scenes are just too good to change much.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Adira, and Zoey, and now #Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and now between hashtags/pound signs because some people's computers don't do the B.I.U.).# , {Tier}, ~Chandra,~ and %Mother% if I get around to it in this chapter.
Note 4: She's creepy and she's kooky, mysterious and ooky, she's altogether spooky, she's J. K. Rowling.
Note 5: Sorry this took so long. Real life annoyances filled a lot of my time, I lost track of time, and also I thought I had already posted this chapter.
*FAYANORA*
“The Many Faces of Har—er, Adira Potter: Chapter 34”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Thirty-four: Turmoil
*FAYANORA*
A couple days later, Iliana entered the Great Hall and felt a great many eyes on her, more than usual, and they weren't thinking good thoughts, exactly. It was hard to pin down what she was feeling from them in words, especially as the feelings were jumbled. When she saw Ron and Hermione, she knew whatever it was had to be bad.
“So, what's happened that you two are going to hide from me until I insist?”
They looked up guiltily at her, then at each other.
“You might as well tell me.”
“Um... well... here.” Ron said, handing her a copy of The Daily Prophet.
She looked at the headline and felt bile rise up in her throat.
Harry Potter: Attention-Seeking and Manipulative
The boy who defeated He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is attention-seeking and manipulative, writes Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent.
Potter, the Daily Prophet can exclusively reveal, claims to be several different people in one body, transforming his body physically into different form to match the claimed personalities. Rita Skeeter, your Daily Prophet reporter, has personally witnessed several of these other faces of Harry Potter, including one resembling a younger version of his dead mother Lily Potter, one that resembles a young Sirius Black, a six-year old child form with one eye a different color than the other, and another who looks to have Indian heritage but speaks with an American accent.
None of the top experts at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries have never heard of a condition like Potter’s before, and have concluded that Potter simply is a metamorphmagus with a pathological need to be in the limelight.
“He's likely addicted to fame and attention, there's really no other explanation,” said one specialist. “A human brain can only hold one personality, and a human body cannot have more than one soul. If Potter is claiming otherwise, he is lying.”
What is more, the Daily Prophet has revealed another possible symptom of his attention-seeking: a manipulative nature. Your trusty reporter can report that Potter took a Slytherin boy, one Haveer Mandoser, to the Yule Ball in December as his date. Potter, in the form of a young Sirius Black, has been spotted on several occasions spending time with this boy, and has claimed on several occasions that Haveer is his boyfriend.
And yet, at that same Yule Ball, Potter switched appearances to his other 'faces' several times, spending most of the night away from his supposed boyfriend. In one of these instances, he was witnessed dancing with one Luna Lovegood, daughter of Xenophilius Lovegood. Miss Lovegood is a third-year student well-known in Hogwarts as an eccentric, just like her father. More scandalous still, his form during this dance was a female one, one that looks startlingly like his mother at the same age, and the dancing was not entirely chaste, by all accounts. Even he seems to have realized this, running off and changing form again after a superb dip with the Lovegood girl.
But perhaps this shouldn't be entirely a surprise. After all, young Harry apparently, over the summer, got his legal name changed to Adira Potter, and his famous black-hair-green-eyes birth appearance has been altered to a female version of the same, with longer hair and a feminine physique. But by switching back and forth between these female forms and a pair of male forms, he mocks those long-suffering witches and wizards who have not been able to make such transitions so seamlessly.
Also unsurprisingly, despite being brazen enough to enter himself illegally into the Triwizard Tournament as a fourth Champion, he isn't even qualified to do the tasks, requiring help from Professor Severus Snape to create a potion to keep himself warm in the Black Lake during the Second Task.
What is more, Harry appears to have a temper problem. During a nice, civil chat with him at The Three Broomsticks, he flew into a towering rage for no apparent reason and used an unknown spell to glue myself and my photographer to the ceiling, forcing us to be rescued by the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad.
Aside from preening for his adoring fans, and gaining more notoriety, what could Harry Potter be up to? He's never seen out of the company of one exceptionally pretty Hermione Granger, so is he trying to cheat on his boyfriend with both Miss Granger and Miss Lovegood? I do hope I'm mistaken, neither of those girls deserves to be played the fool by someone so callous and manipulative.
When she finished, she put the paper down with forced calm, then without a word walked in a would-be casual sort of way out of the Great Hall, ignoring her friends' calls to come back. Ron and Hermione tried to follow her, and met resistance from a temporary force field that lasted just long enough for her to slip away.
Once nobody could see her, thanks to a quickly cast Disillusionment Charm, she ran for it, ending up in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom and locking herself in the stall they'd once made Polyjuice Potion in and bursting into wailing tears.
After half an hour, she was still crying, but it had died down in its intensity. After a few more minutes, she felt a warmth starting at her solar plexus and rising up across her shoulders like an invisible hug. She gave a start, wondering if Moaning Myrtle--- but that was silly, ghosts are cold to the touch.
% What so distresses you, My child? % came a soft voice in her mind, a new one. But... a familiar one. The voice had an interesting quality to it, like it smelled of lavender and was made of Spring sunshine.
“Who...?” she said aloud, forgetting herself for a moment.
% You have not yet given Me a name, % said the voice. % And so I have none. At least, not in this incarnation, anyway. I have been called a great many things over the centuries. %
# Are you the one Chandra calls 'Mother'? #
% Yes. That is more of a title than a name, though, really. %
# How come you've never spoken to us before? #
% I can only come when called, little one. And your pain apparently called Me. Now, what is wrong? %
# Don't you already know? #
% Yes, but it is therapeutic to talk about it. Plus, we do not always know what troubles us until we attempt to speak of it. %
# Well I know why I'm miserable. Rita Skeeter. #
% She writes lies. You knew this already. %
# She writes half-truths, which are worse. #
% Indeed. And which truthful half of one of her Blackest Of Lies so upset you? %
Iliana thought-spoke nothing. She just sat there, her arms around her knees, silently for several minutes.
# I... I... #
% Take your time, My child. %
“Luna,” she said aloud, but so quietly that one would have to have their ear right next to her mouth to hear it. Then she burst into fresh tears. After a few moments, she felt that hug-like warmth in her body again, holding her like she had imagined a mother would, which only encouraged the tears.
When the tears died down again, Mother spoke again.
% Luna is a lovely, sweet girl. So why do I sense fear from you? %
# Mother! What if... what if... I mean... how can I... how do I dare risk our--our friendship? #
% What is it that you think would risk your friendship with her? %
# Do I have to say it? #
% No. It is your choice. It is always your choice. But you might feel better to say it. %
# I... I like her. A lot. You know... in the way that's... that's more. Other. Different. #
% Understandable, if I take your meaning correctly. She is a lovely, sweet girl. But you're being a little vague. Could you be more specific? %
# Ugh. Okay, I like her... romantically. I want to hold her hands, and cuddle with her, and maybe even... even kiss her. I want to spend every moment I can with her, just be around her. I want to tell her how I feel, but I'm... # (her internal voice wavered with suppressed tears, then) # Mother, I'm scared! I'm terrified! What if I tell her, and she never wants anything to do with me ever again? What if I disgust her? What if she hates me? #
% You know her very well. Do you really think that likely? #
This took her aback. # Um... well, no. She's open minded about most things. #
% Does she know about Al's boyfriend? %
# She knows about Javier being Al's boyfriend, yes. #
% What does she think of Al? %
# She said she likes spending time with all of us. #
% And she knows about Adira not being 'straight'? %
# Yes. #
% So what is the realistic worst-case scenario, knowing what you know of her? %
# I... well... she might... might say she doesn't... feel the same way, about me. #
% And then...? %
# She might say I'm in a relationship already and she doesn't go for groups. #
% So you think she'll agree with Rita Skeeter? %
# Well it's possible. #
% So too is it possible the sun might explode tomorrow. But how likely is Luna to believe that you're faking this? %
Iliana chuckled. # About the same odds as the sun exploding tomorrow. #
% I agree. Now aside from that, what else might Luna do that you're afraid of? %
# Um... that's it. I mean, I'm pretty sure she'd just let me down easy and then go on being my friend. #
% So all you really have to fear is the uncertainty. Because until you tell her, you won't know for sure, it's still possible for anything to happen, even if many of the possibilities are not very probable in this reality. So all you need to do is find that Griffindor courage, and steel it. %
# But I'm still scared! Terrified, even. How can I be brave when I'm terrified? #
% Courage is only courage when you're afraid, and you do what you need to do anyway. 'Courage' without fear is merely foolhardy recklessness. Look at Neville Longbottom; his greatest fear is Professor Snape, and yet he never skips classes, and he does his best under the circumstances. He is, perhaps, the bravest Griffindor in all the school, at present. Of course, you already knew all of that, having told him so yourselves. And anyway, Luna's the type who's never going to figure it out unless someone tells her, so you might as well be direct, and TELL HER THE TRUTH! %
“AHH!” she screamed in surprise at Mother's sudden shouting in her head. A shrill scream came from the other stall in response.
“Oh my goodness, you scared me to death!” came a morose voice from the other stall. A spectral head popped up over the divider and frowned at her. “Or it would've, but well, you know...”
“Sorry, Myrtle. It's just... someone else in here shouted at me suddenly.” She tapped her head to clarify her meaning.
“Oh, alright. I forgive you. Even though you came here because you were crying, you did keep your promise to visit me. And I'm flattered. Even though this is usually the quietest bathroom in the school, nobody's ever come in here to cry except for you, in the last decade or more.”
# Quietest stall in the school? With Myrtle always in here crying? # she thought to herself.
“They probably want to be alone with their grief, and you're almost always in here.”
“Does that mean you didn't want to be alone? Or that you did, and you don't consider me a person?”
“You're a person, Myrtle. Don't put words in my mouth, it's not polite. I meant the only person in here to bother them would be you. But now I think about it, I guess that makes sense why they'd stay away. So why'd I come here today? Hmm... well, you and I did meet recently under the lake. Yeah, I think I came here because of that. And, well... if anyone would understand, it's you.”
“Oh,” Myrtle said, looking unsure what to say. “Yes. Yes, I was on your mind, from the other day, and you came here because of that. It makes sense. Is it anything I can help with? After all, you killed Riddle for me, avenged my death.”
“It's just... well, a lot of things. But mostly relationship things. Have you ever fallen for someone and you didn't know if they'd like you back or not?”
“Can't say I have. I've liked people, of course, but I knew they wouldn't like me. Nobody ever does.”
“It's a shame you didn't get to live longer, Myrtle. A lot of people are... well, awkward, when they're young. If you'd have lived, you'd have grown out of your awkwardness, and you'd have found love. I'm certain of it. And hey, some people like awkwardness. You might still find someone, if you put yourself out there.”
“What's the point? I'm dead. Anybody that fancied me would likely be dead, too. If not, well... I can't see what kind of relationship a ghost and a living person could have with each other.”
“You might have a point. By the way, Myrtle, you seem more cheerful than you used to be.”
The ghost girl shrugged. “Being avenged helped.”
“How'd you find out about that, anyway? I never said 'I shall avenge you!'”
Myrtle rolled her eyes. “I'm not stupid, you know. You went into the Chamber of Secrets after the Heir. You came back alive and carrying that diary thing I heard about. That alone tells me you avenged me, but then later I heard from one of the other ghosts that the heir had been Tom Riddle! Is that true?”
“Yes, it was.”
“He came back after all that time?”
“He's not known as Tom Riddle anymore. His new name is Voldemort,” she said, simply.
Myrtle's eyes grew wide with horror, but then a thought appeared to cross her mind, causing her to relax and start to giggle. Her giggles then became full peals of delighted laughter. She was soon doubled over with ringing laughter that echoed off the walls.
“What the---?”
“I was killed by the Dark Lord himself! Me! Miserable moping Moaning Myrtle, killed by someone famous! And probably one of the first people he ever killed, if not the first! Oooh, the other ghosts are going to be so jealous!” Myrtle said, practically singing, and flew off with a skip in her step.
Some people are amused by the strangest things, Al commented.
Iliana jumped. She had, for a time, forgotten she wasn't alone in her body. Aside from Mother, that is. But she recovered quickly, and decided that if Myrtle of all people could find happiness even in death, then she could at least try to not be miserable herself.
She checked the time. She'd missed History of Magic entirely, but there was still 20 minutes until Charms started, so she had time to make herself look normal again before going back out there.
Though she didn't want to talk about it, and didn't cooperate with Ron and Hermione, they talked about the article anyway in Charms.
“Clearly she didn't bother asking Healer Young, from what Iliana's said about him. He's a top expert at St. Mungo's, after all,” Hermione said, looking at Ron.
“Nah,” said Ron. “She interviewed him, I know it. She probably didn't consider him a 'top expert' because what he said didn't match her angle.”
“I told you guys I don't want to talk about it.”
“Well that's good, then,” snapped Hermione, “because this conversation is between Ron and me, and you weren't invited.” Her tone was softened with a smile at the end.
“You're talking about me!”
“We're talking about an article in the Prophet,” Ron said, catching on. “The fact you happen to be the subject of the article isn't important. And anyway, we're not the only ones talking about it. At least we're on your side.”
Iliana sighed, and ignored them.
~
Potions class had, for weeks after Iliana had gone to Snape about the potion, been unusual. Snape wasn't exactly ignoring her, but he wasn't being his usual snappish self toward her either, and he wasn't exactly being... well, truth be told, he was treating them like they were just another Griffindor, nobody to be singled out for any reason. It was refreshing. Of course, this behavior didn't extend to Al or Zoey, just Adira and Iliana, that they saw.
But there was more. Whenever Snape was sitting at his desk, Iliana kept catching him looking at her and, for some reason, Hermione. But especially Hermione. She didn't know what that was about. The one time he caught her looking at her, the expression on his face was... well... thoughtful. But not like he was thinking about her, exactly. Like he was considering something related to her in some way. But how could that be, when the other person he kept looking at was Hermione? But then, once she thought of it, she realized that had been his expression the entire time he was considering both of them.
The weirdest thing, of course, had been that Snape hadn't reacted to Rita Skeeter's article at all, at least not that she had seen or heard of. It basically accused him of cheating to help the child of the man he still hated, and there'd been nothing, no reaction to it at all. Even the Slytherins had noticed, she'd heard some of them whispering about it.
Then, on the Friday following the Second Task, the day after Iliana had cried in the bathroom, Snape seemed to come to some decision. In his older, more familiar tone of snappishness that had always been reserved for Hermione or one of the Potters, he'd commanded Hermione to stay behind after class that day.
“What're you picking on her for again? Sir.” Ron said waspishly.
“How I choose to discipline students, and the reasons for it, is up to me and me alone, Mr. Weasley. Now I suggest you get back to work before I give you a detention for your impudence.”
That shut Ron up, just barely. There were a lot of angry mutterings from the Griffindors, and the Slytherins seemed pleased. But Iliana suspected something unusual was going on here, something that wasn't punishment for some perceived crime.
At the end of class, Snape glared at Iliana and snapped at her to get out so he could speak with Hermione alone. Reluctantly, she did. But she put her ear up to the door to try to hear in. Ron peeked through the keyhole.
Hermione nervously went up to Snape's desk, clutching her books to her chest, and said, “You wanted to speak with me, sir?”
“Yes, Miss Granger, I did.” He looked at the door, but made no attempt to ward it from eavesdropping, as Iliana knew he could.
Turning back to Hermione, he conjured a chair and bade her sit. She did, looking very confused by this, but no less anxious.
“Miss Granger. In second year, several ingredients went missing from my private stores. Very interesting ingredients, too. Boomslang skin and horn of a bicorn, both rather rare and expensive.”
“Sir, I--”
“Silence! I did not give you permission to speak. Now, strange as it may sound to you, I am not here to enact delayed punishment for your theft. I merely wished to point something out to you, which will lead to my eventual point soon enough.”
He sat there, thinking, he fingers steepled. Hermione was too curious and scared to speak as she waited for him to finish thinking.
“Miss Granger, do you have any thoughts on why I have been so hard on you these last three and a half years?”
She blinked. “What? I... well, um... because I'm Adira's friend, and you hate her?”
“I can see why you would think that. But that is not the reason. Miss Granger, do you know what legilimency is?”
“Legilimency is an arcane magical art that allows a witch or wizard to look inside someone's minds, and use what they see to verify someone is telling the truth.”
“Correct. Now, I am trusting you with an important secret here, Miss Granger. Do I have your word to keep it quiet?”
“I... well, yes, you have my word.”
“Good. The secret is that I am a legilimens, and I use it at times on my students.”
“But that's illegal! It's illegal to use legilimency on a minor!”
“You swore to keep the secret. Do you wish to go back on your word?”
“Well... no. No, I'll keep it secret.”
“Good. Now, I tell you this only because you need to understand that I can see more than mere truthfulness in someone's eyes when I use legilimency on them. I see only what comes to their mind at the time. But that can often be more illuminating than one would think. In your first class with me, I saw within you a potential to be great at potion-making. But I was very annoyed at your tendency to regurgitate the contents of the textbook at me.”
Hermione looked very confused. Iliana and Ron looked at one another, also confused.
“I don't understand, sir, what's the problem with that?”
“I am going to ask you something, and I wish you to look into my eyes when you do. Yes, like that. Did you brew the Polyjuice Potion in your second year at this school, before Christmas?”
“Yes sir, I did, but---”
Snape sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Miss Granger, I have already explained that you are not in any trouble. I merely wished to confirm something I already suspected.”
“But why, sir?”
“Because, Miss Granger, the Polyjuice Potion is an incredibly advanced potion. There are few witches or wizards who could have brewed it even in their seventh year at Hogwarts. There are few people who brew potions for a living who wouldn't have trouble with it. And I am quite certain that neither myself nor my mother, talented at potions as we both have been, could have made perfect Polyjuice Potion in our second year. Not even Lily Potter could have done it, and I have never met a more talented potioneer than her, myself included. And from what I understand, Miss Granger, the only mistake you made with that potion was that you almost used a hair that--given whose robes it was from--was almost certainly a cat hair.”
Hermione swallowed a lump in her throat, her eyes wide. She hadn't been certain it had been a cat hair at the time. Only Al's words had kept her from using it.
Snape stood up and began pacing back and forth, his hands behind his back.
“I am the first to admit I am not the greatest teacher. I never wanted this job, I was never much good at tutoring, much less teaching. But I had no choice in the matter, so I muddle through. Still... there have been fewer Aurors and Healers since my students started getting old enough to graduate, so I am aware that my teaching is substandard, and my attitude is lousy. Despite this, I kept on without changing anything about my teaching style.
“There are limits, too, to how much I can improve. I cannot go into details about why, since you do not know occlumency, so you will simply have to take my word for it. That said... on a whim, I took a chance on Iliana Potter, when she came to me about that warming potion. She is... above average as a potion maker. She has potential to one day become a Healer or an Auror, or even a passable teacher of the subject once I leave this job.
“You, Miss Granger, are another matter altogether. You have an incredible mind. You brewed Polyjuice Potion in your second year here. You got past my riddle protecting the Philosopher's Stone the year before that. I hear you helped figure out that the monster in the Chamber of Secrets is a basilisk, too. You could be a Potions prodigy, girl, but all I ever see of that talent from you is memorized lines from the textbook, and potions in class that are exactly the quality of the instructions I put on the blackboard. No improvements, no experiments, no small, sub-conscious alterations, just exactly what is expected of you, and nothing more.
“Then there's your essays. They are long, and detailed, and remind me of myself at your age except that my passion was actually Defense Against the Dark Arts, but there's still something lacking in your work. You never put things down in your own words, you never explore beyond the parameters of the assignment, you never question what is written in the books, even after figuring out from Gilderoy Lockhart that books and their authors are fallible! You could be a virtuoso of Potions, eclipsing my own talent by the time you were in your sixth year, and going on to invent new potions the likes of which I can't even imagine, if you didn't keep limiting yourself all the time! And that, Miss Granger, is why I have been so cross with you all these years!”
He had punctuated this last by slamming his hands down on the desk and staring her down. While she gaped at him, he stood up straight again, and went over to the blackboard, tapping it with his wand. It displayed a potion's instruction on the board.
“If I told you to brew this potion for me right now, what would you say to that?”
Snapping out of her shock, she looked at the instructions and nodded. “I c-can do that now, sir, if you w-want.”
“Just like that, would you? I say jump, and you don't even wait to ask how high before jumping? You barely even looked at the instructions, Miss Granger, and you're going to make the potion, just like that, on demand? Without even reading it through carefully first? Sorry, correction: I'm sure you will indeed read it carefully, first, memorizing it to make sure you don't make any deviations from the instructions.”
Hermione started to cry, quiet tears rolling down her cheek. She was also shaking her head, looking extremely confused.
“Do I have to spell it out for you? Give you a riddle to solve in a dungeon chamber or dangle a known mystery in front of you, and your mind attacks it like a pit bull attacking a juicy steak. Where is that wickedly beautiful, devilishly clever mind of yours in class?”
She continued to cry and look confused.
Snape put his wand down and massaged the bridge of his nose again. Then he slipped out of sight of Ron and Iliana, was gone for less than a minute before coming back.
“Here, Miss Granger, drink this. It is a Calming Draught.”
Silently, she obeyed, swallowing the vial's contents.
Once she had calmed down enough, Snape sat down at his desk.
Much more calmly, he said, “I have given you a puzzle to solve, Miss Granger. It is there, on the blackboard. Solve the puzzle, please.”
She looked up at the instructions again.
“It's... it's not a puzzle, sir, it's just instructions.”
“It is both instructions and a puzzle.”
With this knowledge, Hermione's mind seemed to switch gears. Iliana and Ron recognized it, as they took turns at the keyhole; it was her Solving A Puzzle face.
After several minutes, her eyes went wide and she turned deathly pale, dropping her books and shaking like a leaf.
“So you have solved the puzzle, then?” Snape asked.
Mutely, she nodded, her expression horrified.
“What is the answer to the puzzle?”
She didn't answer right away.
“I cannot give you another Calming Draft so soon after the previous one. The previous one should, in fact, still be working. It must be, as a matter of fact, for you have not run screaming from the room yet.”
“Th-th-the ins-ins- th-they're wr-wrong. S-sir.”
“They are? How so?”
“If I were t-to have m-made that potion, as wr-written... I... the whole room...”
Snape sneered. “Most likely this whole section of the building, in fact. At this time of the day, given our location, I'd say... a hundred dead, many more wounded. And you never questioned it.”
Hermione suddenly turned a ghastly shade of green. Snape casually conjured a bucket, and she was very loudly sick into it. For nearly ten minutes.
“Of course, the odds of this catastrophic of a screw-up are very slim indeed. Most who would be foolish enough to make such a mistake would have blown themselves up years before graduating Hogwarts, much less becoming a teacher, and the kind of knowledge it takes to know how to mess up on that grand a scale is thankfully very uncommon. But I hope I have made my point, Miss Granger.”
She nodded, still looking rather ill.
“And that point would be...?”
“Instructions... could be wrong?”
“Yes. Even experts can make mistakes. People are fallible. People write books. Therefore, books are fallible.”
She nodded once again, mutely.
“You will have extra instruction from me, which will be a Gifted Class. You will tell nobody, except for Weasley and Potter, the true nature of these classes. If anyone asks, tell them that these are detentions. Do not look at me like that, Miss Granger; nobody would believe for a moment that you needed remedial lessons, and there is no other excuse that would make enough sense to go unquestioned. That said, if anyone does question why Hermione Granger is having so many detentions, tell them Dumbledore can confirm it, for he will be able to by then. But to avoid that unpleasantness, use Potter's invisibility cloak to get to and from these classes, if she lets you.”
“Why? Why can't you just admit what they are?”
“Learn occlumency with Potter first, if you wish to know the answer to that. Now, your first lesson will be next Friday at 7 pm. Do not be late. You are dismissed.”
~
After thinking over the weekend about what Snape had said to Hermione, on Monday Al called Sirius and asked him to buy some books from Muggle stores about how to teach chemistry, if he could find them.
“Why d'you want books about that, pup?”
He thought about it for a few moments, then said, “I want to sneak them onto Snape's desk. Either he'll read them and become a better teacher or he'll burst a blood vessel in his head. Either way, it's a win.”
Sirius barked with laughter. “An excellent prank, pup, if a bit unorthodox. Yes, I'll scour Muggle London and find the perfect book for you, okay?”
“Thanks, Sirius.”
~
On March First, Ronald Weasley woke up in the morning to the sight of Zoey Potter standing next to his bed, staring at him intently.
“GYAH!” Ron shouted, jumping backward in the bed.
Zoey giggled at him. “Hippo Birdy, Ron!” She blew on a kazoo to punctuate her sentence.
“What're you doing in here? Why were you standing there staring at me in my sleep? And wait, what was that about a hippo?”
“Hippo Birdy! You know, like Happy Birthday, only funner!”
“What's all that noise over there?” asked Seamus.
“It's Ron's birthday,” she said, again blowing on the kazoo.
“Oh,” said the drowsy Irish boy. “Well happy birthday, Ron. Many happy returns.”
“Er, thanks, Seamus.”
Dean and Neville soon woke up, too, complaining about being awoken by Zoey's kazoo. Ron only just now noticed that Zoey was dressed like one of the Three Musketeers, for some reason.
“Miss Zoey Potter, Dobby has brought you the cake you requested for your Weezy,” said a familiar high-pitched voice from the door of the room. A tall cake appeared there, Dobby balancing it magically on his head. It was several layers thick, and looked like it weighed as much as Dobby did.
“Thanks a bunch, Dobby. Set it right there, we'll have cake for breakfast!”
“Cake for breakfast?” Ron said.
“It's your birthday, having cake for breakfast is your right and privilege! Wait, hold on a sec first,” she said, sticking a bunch of candles on the cake and lighting them with her wand.
The twins, Fred and George, came into the room then, pulling a confused Hermione along with them. “Zoey told us you were having a birthday party in bed--”
“--and of course we had to join in!”
“You practice the song I got from Sirius?”
“You can bet your tiny hiney we did!” George said.
“What?” Hermione asked, confused.
“Okay, boys, hit it!”
Fred pulled a pair of drums out from behind himself, handing one to George. They began to beat out a tune that sounded strangely depressing, more like a gloomy war song than a birthday song.
“What're you--?” started Ron, also confused.
The twins and Zoey started singing in unison, the drumbeat still going.
“Happy Birth-day, UH! Happy Birth-day, UH!,” the song started, the twins pounding the drums especially hard on the 'UH.'
“It's your birth-day, UH! It's your birth-day, UH!
Birthdays come but once a year, Marking time as Death draws near! Happy Birth-day, UH! Happy Birth-day, UH!
Though you're just fourteen years old, you're not too young for battle woad! Happy Birth-day, UH! Happy Birth-day, UH!
Just some centuries past I vow, you'd have been married off by now! Happy Birth-day, UH! Happy Birth-day, UH!
First one lesson you must learn: first you pillage, then you burn! Happy Birth-day, UH! Happy Birth-day, UH!
May the cities in your wake, burn like candles on your cake! Happy Birth-day, UH! Happy Birth-day, UH!
Death, destruction and despair, people dying everywhere! Happy Birth-day, UH! Happy Birth-day, UH!
Burn the castle, storm the keep, kill them all but spare the sheep! Happy Birth-day, UH! Happy Birth-day, UH!
May your deeds with sword and axe, Equal those with sheep and yaks! Happy Birth-day, UH! Happy Birth-day, UH!
Just be glad the friends you've got, Haven't found out you-know-what! Happy Birth-day, UH! Happy Birth-day, UH!
I'm a leper, can't you see? Have a birthday kiss from me! Happy Birth-day, UH! Happy Birth-day, UH!
Happy Birth-day, UH! Happy Birth-day, UH! Happy Birth-day, UH! Happy Birth-day, UH! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, UH!”
The song ended then, the room echoing with laughter, hooting, and hollering. Even Ron, confused as he'd been by the strange song, joined in laughing.
“Blow out the candles and make a wish!” Zoey said.
As soon as Ron stopped laughing, he blew out his candles, and everyone in the room cheered. The cake was cut, Ron getting the first piece of course, and Zoey doled out the rest.
“That was a really weird song, Zoey. Where'd Sirius find it?”
“Oh, apparently the summer after Sirius graduated, he wandered into a Muggle event called a Renaissance Faire, where people dress up like they're in the Renaissance era or the middle ages or dark ages, having feasts, jousts, bard circles, and a bunch of other things besides. One of the bard circles was singing several versions of that song. I came up with a version of it just for you, though, Ron.”
“Well it's weird, but brilliant. Just like you. Thanks, Zoey!”
Zoey bowed with a flourish. “Thank you for thy praise, kind sir. Tis a shame we put rat droppings in thy cake.”
Everyone paused, trying to decide if she was kidding or not. Zoey broke out into high-pitched squeals of laughter so hard she fell over onto her back and clutched her stomach, tears of mirth streaming down her face. Since this didn't clarify anything, people started to look warily at their pieces of cake.
“I---” she tried, still laughing. “I was--- I was just joking. But you should've seen your faces!”
Dobby folded his arms and frowned. “She is making things up! We is never letting anything gross into the food, no sir! Dobby is offended you would even suggest it, little Miss!”
Zoey stopped laughing, and hugged Dobby, her big floppy Musketeer hat getting in his face. “Sorry, Dobby. Just a bad joke. I should've known better.”
“Yes you is ought to be knowing better. But Dobby is forgiving Miss her slight.”
The rest of the party went well, Dobby and a couple other elves bringing in breakfast food from the Great Hall so the party could continue as long as possible. Zoey had found a magical antique phonograph record player somewhere and had apparently gotten a bunch of rock 'n' roll albums from Sirius to play on it, including ACDC, Led Zepplin, The Beatles, and The Alan Parsons Project. She put on The Beatles as the most likely one to be universally liked, and they got through almost the whole album before they had to head to class. Zoey wanted to help Dobby clean up, but he insisted he liked working, so she left for class.
Later that day, they started the party up again after dinner, during which time Ron got his birthday presents from everyone.
~
Ever since her first talk with the one called Mother, Iliana had made it a mission of hers to find Her a name. Using their new knowledge of how to work the library, she'd directed whoever was Out to scour the library for books of names.
On the Wednesday following Snape's odd after-class lecture at Hermione, Adira was spending one of her study periods reading books of names for Iliana. Or rather, Iliana was controlling Adira's body at the time without them transforming. Which was fine by Adira, she had been tired all morning. Again. It was happening a lot more often, and she was getting suspicious about the reason, seeing as they hadn't had any nightmares as far as they knew of. Of course, it had been happening every week or so for years now, but it appeared to be happening more and more often these days.
Iliana had, ever since her first talk with Mother, had more talks with Her to figure out what names would be fitting. During one of these conversations, Iliana had asked about something Chandra had once said, that seemed to suggest Mother was a goddess of life or magic or something of that nature. Mother had confirmed this, saying, % Magic does not really have a personality in the way humans would think of such things, but it can spin off avatars of itself into the brains of certain individual humans, avatars that are as limited and different from Magic Itself as an ant's brain would be to a human brain. I'm one of those manifestations. There have been others over the centuries. %
And so it was with that information that Iliana finally found a name for Mother, that day.
“Mother, I hereby name you Avani Maznah.”
% Lovely name. What does it mean? %
# Avani means 'Earth' and Maznah means 'Glorious.' #
% It is very fitting. Thank you for giving me a name. Avani Maznah. I like it. %
“You're welcome,” she said aloud, but very quietly.
“Hello Adira,” a familiar, dreamy voice said from behind her. Iliana – who was still 'driving' – whirled around.
“Luna!” she squeaked. “How... how are you?”
Luna sat down next to them, and glanced at the book of names.
“I'm quite well, thank you. I was wondering, though... I haven't seen Iliana around much lately. Ever since the Yule Ball, that is. I like spending time with her.”
“I like spending time with you, too, Luna.”
“Oh, is that you, Iliana? You're... 'deriving,' I think it's called.”
“Er, close. Driving. Um, deriving would be an arithmancy thing.”
“Ah, yes. Driving. Like a driving wind. I see.”
“More like driving a carriage. Or a car.”
Luna nodded. There was a lull in the conversation for several long moments before she spoke again.
“I hope that Rita Skeeter article isn't the reason you're not spending as much time with me, Iliana.”
That, of course, had come out of nowhere, making the gears of Iliana's mind screech as they tried to shift mid-thought. She tried to say something, but all that came out was an odd mix of mixed-up syllables.
Their body began to glow and wobble, an unplanned transformation in the works, but the feel of it was scarily familiar...
“Iliana, what's wrong?” Luna called after her as she ran out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
Immediately, there was an earth-shaking BOOM that rattled the library bookshelves, and Luna ran from the room, afraid for her friend. Ms. Pince followed her, and soon people were pouring out of other classrooms to see what was the matter.
They found... well, the Potters had become another strange hybrid. Part of their hair was long and red, another part long and black, or short and black, or in a few streaks it was as white as paper but was an odd texture. Their skin was patchy, varying from the pale white of Iliana to a brown so dark that it was practically black. Worse, they had two and a half arms (with the half arm growing from the other arm), absurdly short legs, and one of their hands had eight fingers, while another had three.
Unlike the last time this had happened, unbeknownst to most of the people there, they hadn't been carrying anything Inside except for the Philosopher's Stone, which had remained Inside them.
“Oh my goodness,” Professor McGonagall said when she saw them passed out and strange-looking. “What happened?”
“I don't know, Professor,” Luna said. “We were talking in the library, when she started to glow and wobble. She ran from the room, and then there was that explosion.”
McGonagall bent over them and checked for a pulse.
“They're alive. Miss Lovegood, please go to Professor Dumbledore and tell him what's happened. I'll take Potter to the Hospital Wing.”
Luna nodded, and walked off to go do as instructed. McGonagall floated Potter along with her wand to the Hospital Wing, shooing the gawking student away first.
~
When Dumbledore came into the Hospital Wing, Sirius was with him.
“What happened?” Sirius asked Luna.
Luna recounted what happened again, looking very worried. Sirius nodded.
“Well it's similar to something that happened over the Christmas holidays,” he said. “Given what Zoey said about it later, I think it's caused by powerful emotions, possibly also mixed emotions. But they didn't hybridize like this last time, just became Zoey.”
Their body glowed again, and settled into Iliana's form, right in front of the three witnesses. Madam Pomfrey came over to check on them.
“Still passed out, I'm afraid.”
“I woke them up with a spell last time.”
The matron nodded and cast 'rennervate' on them. Iliana blinked at the light, sitting up.
“What happened? Where---why am I in the Hospital Wing?”
“You exploded again, pup. Only this time you hybridized again.”
Panicked, Iliana looked down at herself.
“I seem fine now.”
“Yes, you shifted while you were passed out.”
“Any idea why you exploded this time, pup?”
Iliana felt her face grow hot. “I... it's private.”
“Oh, I see,” Sirius said in a tone of voice that told her she'd said too much. Of course Luna had told them they were talking beforehand. She felt stupid, then.
“Do you think it likely you will be doing it again soon?” asked Dumbledore in concern.
“I don't think so. I was... taken by surprise, before.” She looked significantly at Luna, who smiled. “And, well... if it was just strong emotions, it would've happened a lot more frequently. It would've happened the day I read that horrible Skeeter woman's last article about me. In fact...” she thought about what had made it happen the last time. “Odd. I assumed it happened the first time because we had too much stuff being held Inside, but we didn't have anything except, well, a certain stone. That didn't come out, did it?”
“By all reports,” Dumbledore said, “there was no debris this time. Just a very loud explosion. Whatever is causing it, I do hope you can get it under control.”
She felt her face turn red again. “I hope so, too.”
“Well, Sirius, I think we should discuss a few things in my office, don't you?”
“What? Oh... yes, you're totally right, of course, Dumbledore.” Sirius said, winking at Iliana. Far from encouraging her, it made her feel ill.
“Madam Pomfrey, can I go? I feel fine.”
“Pardon me, young lady, but when students go around exploding, I will tell them when I feel they can go. So stay right there. I will make sure you and your friend are not eavesdropped on, if that's what you're worried about.”
“Right. Thanks, I guess,” she said as the matron left the room.
Luna came closer to Iliana and took her hand in her own, looking up with half a smile.
“Will we be able to talk without you exploding again?”
“I... I think so. But, well, if not... just run. I don't want you getting hurt.”
Luna nodded. “I had fun dancing with you during the ball.”
Iliana tried to smile, and grimaced instead. “Sorry, lost control of my face there.”
“That can happen sometimes. Really bad nargle infestations can do that, on occasion.”
“Ah, okay. I'll look into fixing that. Anyway... I had fun dancing with you at the ball, too.”
“I thought you did. You seemed to. I did wonder why you ran off, though.”
Illiana's mind froze, then. Her hands shook. She was so scared. She'd seen so many horrible TV shows thanks to Dudley where telling a friend that you fancied them messed up the friendship, and read similar things in books. She looked away from Luna, trying not to cry, but a tear rebelliously rolling down her cheek anyway.
It was mad, she knew; she couldn't go on like this, not knowing. She couldn't forget her feelings, either. There was only one way to solve the problem, but she was so scared of the answer, of the potential fallout, that she was still mute.
Luna sat down on the bed next to her, still holding her hand.
“Iliana... I... I've never had a friend before you. Ginny and I were acquainted before that, but we weren't really friends until later. So I'm not very experienced with this whole 'friends' thing. I don't know what's going on, but I've worked out it has something to do with that Rita Skeeter article. I know I was mentioned, and she said some odd things about you and Hermione that I didn't understand either. I'm not sure how I was meant to fit into her story. I can only wonder, from my previous experience, if your behavior means... if it means you don't want to be friends with me anymore? I'll understand if you don't, but---”
Iliana burst into tears and grabbed onto Luna like a mother desperately trying to save her drowning child. She wailed into Luna's robes, and Luna – her eyes even wider than usual – just sat there, stiff, still confused.
Between sobs, Iliana tried talking. Haltingly, her voice distorted with emotion, she told Luna things like “No,” “Not it at all,” “You're my friend,” and even a garbled “I love you.” It was all very jumbled, but Luna got at least part of the gist.
“Okay, so you don't want to stop being friends with me, that's good. I'm relieved. But I'm still confused about why you're so upset.”
“I... at the dance, I... that dip... I felt something. Something I hadn't... something I didn't recognize. Something that scares me. But it's something I have to be brave about. I... I... Luna, I fancy you.” That last was said so quietly that Luna almost didn't catch it, but catch it she did.
“You... fancy me?” now Luna's face was turning red, while looking baffled. “Me? I... nobody's ever fancied me before. Why me?”
Iliana sat up and stared incredulously at Luna. “What? Whadda ya mean 'why me'? Luna, you're funny, intelligent, open-minded, honest, kind, compassionate, creative, easy to be around, and it doesn't hurt that you're easy on the eyes.”
# Oh god did I really just say that? # she thought, her face turning hot. # I mean, it's true, but jeez... #
Luna blinked in confused bewilderment. “You think I'm pretty? Really? You're not just winding me up?”
“Yes, Luna, I do think you're pretty! It wouldn't matter to me if you weren't, because of your inner beauty, but I do think you're pretty. No, correction: I know you are. You're beautiful.”
Luna shook her head, looking down. “No, no. I'm plain. My hair's a mess, I know it. I never cared, it never seemed important to me. I wash it now and then, and I comb it enough to keep it getting tangled up, but beyond that I don't care. And... and my eyes are weird, everyone says so.”
“Your eyes are beautiful, Luna. Stuff anyone who says otherwise.”
“And I dress weird, I know. You don't know how weird; I tone it down at school, because I don't want my best things stolen like other stuff gets stolen. Anything I really want to keep I have to leave at home.”
“Weird? Weird? You wanna talk weird? I'm weirder than you, Luna, I know weird. I don't mind weird one bit. I love weird!”
“Oh Iliana, aside from being many people in one body, you're basically normal.”
Iliana huffed. “Well now I'm offended! Normal indeed. We survived a killing curse as an infant, got raised by bigoted evil gits who tried to keep us from our birthright, we can speak to snakes and detect when the dark lord is nearby thanks to a curse scar, we turned out to be a whole mess of people sharing a single body, and then remember you're including Zoey and Chandra and Tier in there when you go calling us normal. None of us are normal! We befriended a weeping ghost and a freed house elf, Javier has some kind of something going on with him that affects his behavior, Hermione has instant recall of anything she's ever read and can brew potions that would challenge seventh years but worries constantly about failing her classes, Ron is a poor kid who's a chess whiz but also a slacker who still manages to pass all his classes, my godfather sleeps in a doggie bed sometimes, and me and all my close friends are the Hogwarts social outcasts and misfits. If this were a Muggle high school, I'd be counted among the freaks and geeks, and so would all my friends. And my godfather, too; he and my father were the Weasley Twins of their day. 'Normal' my left nostril!”
Luna laughed at this. “Very well reasoned. Okay, I'm sorry for calling you normal, Iliana. But still... you really fancy me?”
“Yes! I want to hug you, cuddle you, hold your hand, and maybe even kiss you!”
Iliana's face went red. Luna looked down at her hands.
“I'm not, like, freaking you out or grossing you out, am I?” Iliana asked, biting her lip in worry.
Luna looked up again, smiling, a tear rolling down her cheek.
“No, you're not doing either of those things, Iliana. I'm just touched by your words.”
“Um... cool. But, er... I'm kinda curious, you know... about, well, how you feel. About me. But well, I can see where you might need some time to consider it.”
Luna looked thoughtful for a moment. “That dance took me by surprise as well. I'm still not sure what I feel. I've never felt... it sounds cliché, but I've never felt this way about anyone before. I don't know what it means. I don't know what it is, if it's even the same thing you're feeling at all. I'm not ready to put any greater significance on it yet.”
“Wh-what does that mean?”
“It means I don't know if this is a sign of something deeper about myself, or if it's just how I feel about you. And, well... even if I did know, Daddy and I have never liked labels. Even if I do find a label for it someday, I need more information. But the kind of information I need isn't the kind I want.”
“What kind of information do you need?”
“Hmm... I'm not sure. But I think part of it would involve dating boys.”
“Oh. And, er... what kind of information do you want?”
Luna turned to look Iliana in the eye, thinking a moment before speaking. “The kind that starts with me asking if you want to go to Hogsmeade with me this Saturday.”
“Uh... yeah? Wait, I'm confused... are you saying you want that, but you're not doing that because you need to date boys first, or what?”
Luna smiled at Iliana. “I don't really care what I need, in this instance. I'm not likely to get it anyway, not anytime soon. So yes, I'm asking you if you want to go to Hogsmeade with me this Saturday.”
Iliana's grin was suddenly so wide it was painful. She toned it down then said, “Yes. Yes! I would like that very much, Luna. Very much indeed.”
Luna smiled, too. “So... meet you at the castle entrance after breakfast that morning?”
“Yes! I'll be there even if I have to have Zoey force a transformation!”
“Good,” Luna said. Then a sudden thought occurred to her, judging by her face. “Um... Al and Javier...?”
“What? Oh, you mean... er... well, strangely enough, they didn't make plans for Hogsmeade this time. Their relationship is in this odd place where they're getting to know each other better, still. They kinda went into their relationship full steam ahead and then realized they didn't know each other very well. They're going to become close friends first, if they can, and then see where it goes from there.”
“Oh. Well I wish them luck, whatever they decide. But I'm glad it frees the weekend for us.”
“Me too.”
A pause. Then, “I know that article in the Daily Prophet upset you. I talk to Myrtle sometimes, and she let slip you'd been crying. I hope... well... are you going to be able to weather similar storms that come your way? Without exploding, I mean.”
“I'll be fine, Luna. I was crying that day because I was upset that something so private, something I hadn't decided what to do about, was aired publicly. That woman is going down. But I can handle her vitriol. Especially now.”
Luna smiled again, but still looked concerned. “It's just... well, you did just feel so much that you literally exploded.”
“Um, yeah. But I was able to recognize it and ran out of the room into the corridor. I think next time, I'll be able to calm myself down. Or have Mother or Zoey pull me Inside.”
Luna smiled, more genuinely this time. But then she looked thoughtful again.
“Oh, wait a moment... was Rita Skeeter implying that you, Al, Javier, Hermione, and me are all in some kind of... love pentagon?”
Iliana laughed. “Well from her perspective it would be a love square, I think, but essentially yes, that was the implication.”
“Well now I see the fullness of why you were so upset. I don't know how to put it into words yet, though.”
“That's fine. Don't worry about it, I'm better now you and I are going to Hogsmeade.”
“I'm glad you're feeling better.”
“By the way, Luna, I should tell you something that I thought of over Christmas break, about Hagrid riding Sirius's motorcycle, since we're both already in the Hospital Wing.”
~
Aside from Hogsmeade, Iliana and Luna also made plans to study Potions together on Wednesday nights, since Iliana, for all she was above average, could still use help getting better. Thursday nights were occlumency lessons with Dumbledore, and Friday nights were the extra Potions lessons with Snape, which Iliana had with Hermione.
Though she and Hermione were in the same extra class with him, they were doing different things. Snape, who had taken her essay about the Viking's Arctic Vigour Potion last Friday, handed it back today. She had a relatively high mark, considering it was still Snape. He had circled a few things in red and made clarifications and comments on them.
“Your essay, Miss Potter, was refreshingly intelligent, despite a few mistakes which I circled. I will expect your work in my other classes to meet or exceed that standard, understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. It's a pity the both of you weren't in Slytherin, I could have gotten you well past your current benchmark if you had.”
“Would you have, though?” Iliana asked. “You seem to hate Adira and Al. And you didn't seem terribly fond of me, either, until recently.”
“You have a point there. But I think if you had been in Slytherin, it would have shocked me out of my loathing for your father's memory and Alastair's resemblance to Black. It would have been so astonishing to me as to make me open my mind, I think.”
Hermione, who had blanched before Iliana had responded to Snape, finally spoke. “Wait, m-me? In Slytherin? A Muggleborn in Slytherin?”
“Yes, Miss Granger. It would not have been easy for you, as there are some pretty hard-line blood purists in my House, but enough of the Slytherins are neutral or better that I think you'd have done well in Slytherin. But I suppose we shall never know, now.”
“Well maybe, but... but the Hat wouldn't have done that, surely? I mean, Salazar Slytherin only let in purebloods.”
Snape gave her a weird look, somewhat peevish. “Yes, Miss Granger, but that was a thousand years ago. There were a great deal many more wizards and witches back then, as well as a war on between magicals and Muggles. Things have changed rather a lot since then. I myself, a half-blood, would likely not have been able to get into Slytherin back in those days. The Hat has had a very long time to adjust to the changes.”
“Oh,” said Hermione.
“'Oh' indeed. At any rate, Miss Granger, we should discuss why the two of you are in these extra lessons together.”
“Er, yes, I had wondered about that myself, sir, given your, er, speech to her,” Iliana said.
“Yes, I knew you and Weasley were eavesdropping. I did not mind, obviously. Some of what I said to Miss Granger applies to you as well. You showed remarkable knowledge of potions ingredients, and their interactions. You, too, have been under-performing in my class, Miss Potter. Thus, the two of you are here so I may attempt to help you unlearn that behavior. And it will work best with you in the room at the same time.”
It might have something to do with the fact you were being such a git to us in class, Al thought. Snape had not been looking at them at the time, though, so he couldn't have overheard it.
“Now,” Snape continued, “since Miss Granger was not here for your lesson on the Viking's Arctic Vigour Potion, I will be covering that potion with her. You, Miss Potter, should think more about the potion as well, but please do not attempt to answer any questions about it yet. I want to see what Miss Granger makes of it. I will start by putting the original potion on the board.”
He tapped the blackboard, and the original, outdated potion from the book appeared on it. Hermione read it, already tackling the problem as a riddle to be solved, and spent a few minutes thinking about it before speaking.
“That potion isn't formulated for the Black Lake,” she said. “I can tell, because I'm fairly sure someone would cook like a lobster if they tried it, even in February.”
“Indeed. So how might you counteract that?”
Hermione thought some more, and finally came up with some of the same ideas as Snape had. He prodded her on, giving hints here and there in his usual obscure fashion, and over the course of half an hour, she worked out the rest.
“See that! That was the brilliance I saw in you, that you kept hidden! That's the kind of thinking I wish you to bring to every Potions lesson, Miss Granger. You too, Miss Potter.”
The three of them discussed the potion a little more, and Hermione ended up coming up with another modification to the potion.
“If you use a third less bundimun solution when you dissolve the hematite, that should adequately dissolve it, while further strengthening the potion's stability. At least, it seems that way to me, sir.”
The corner of Snape's mouth twitched upward, as he did the arithmancy to confirm or deny her claim. It felt to Iliana like he already knew the answer, and was double-checking. Sure enough, when he put his quill down, he nodded at Hermione with satisfaction and approval.
“Quite right, Miss Granger. The modification you proposed would indeed have that effect, increasing its shelf life by another few days. Of course, only the most expert potioneers should ever try that. Use even one nanogram less than that exact amount, and the hematite does not dissolve enough, which results in a potion that is very unstable and turns into a very tall column of fire. Regardless, a clever addition.”
Hermione beamed at the rare praise.
“Now, on a slightly different note, Miss Granger, I am going to try you on some advanced potions in these extra lessons, a bit of a head-start on your N.E.W.T. levels. But be warned, I may sometimes slip in a mistake or two here or there, so keep on your toes. I will not be giving you anything terribly difficult, despite your prowess with Polyjuice Potion, not at first, anyway. It is my hope to gauge your capabilities before moving on to truly difficult potions. But they will still be N.E.W.T.-level potions, understand?”
Hermione nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Good. But that will be next time, as we are running out of time tonight. In the meantime, Miss Granger, I shall be interested in your own essay about the composition of the Arctic Vigour Potion, and please do remember to think before writing, instead of just regurgitating the textbook. Treat every bit of Potions work from now on as a puzzle to be solved. Understood?”
“A puzzle. I understand, Professor. But, um... how long shall I make my essay, sir?”
Snape smirked. “However long as you are able to make it, in a week. As long as it is still sufficiently interesting to hold my attention. I would rather you turn in a short yet thoughtful essay than a long, boring, and thoughtless essay.”
“Okay, sir, I'll do that.”
Iliana raised her hand.
“Yes, Miss Potter, I have not forgotten you. You will be evaluated as well. You do well enough in your current level, I shall try you on a fifth-year potion next time. Your assignment will be to check a fifth-year Potions book out from the library and read as much of it as you are able to before next Friday. Understood?”
Iliana nodded.
“Good. Now, before it gets too late, you should both head back to your dorms.”
They nodded, gathered their things up, and headed back to their common room.
“If someone had told me last semester that Snape would be praising me and you regularly, even if not in public, I would've thought they were mad,” Iliana said.
“Me too.”
They continued walking in silence for a while before Hermione, who had been side-eyeing Iliana for some time, finally spoke.
“So, I hear you and Luna are going to Hogsmeade tomorrow.”
Iliana's face was red again, but it faded quickly. “Yes, we are.”
“As a date, I hear.”
“You heard correctly.”
“I have to admit, I didn't really expect that, though maybe I should have. You two seemed to hit it off right away, when you met on the train.”
“Yeah, I didn't see it coming either. I had no idea I had feelings for her until that dip at the ball.”
Hermione giggled. “I don't know if you noticed or not, but there were rather a lot of catcalls about that dip at the time. A lot of people noticed it.”
“Oh yay,” Iliana said, without any enthusiasm.
“Fred and George in particular were taking bets on how long it was til you two started to date, in fact. I think Seamus Finnigan won that bet, come to think of it.”
“Is there a hole around here that I can crawl into?”
“Sorry to make you uncomfortable. I think it's sweet. Romilda Vane isn't happy about it, though.”
“Who?”
“Romilda Vane. She's a second-year. She's another one of those who fancies you for stopping You-Know-Who.”
“Er... me?”
“Well, the lot of you. When I pointed out to her earlier this year that there's only three boys in your collective, and that one of them can't talk without difficulty and doesn't really have his own human form, she didn't seem to mind. I don't think she's, well, into girls, generally, but she's into famous people.”
Hermione gave the Fat Lady the password and they walked in. Iliana made sure nobody was eavesdropping before they continued.
“Sounds like someone to be wary of, this Romilda Vane. Which one is she?”
Hermione looked around the room. “She must be upstairs or something. But she's hard to miss. She has curly hair, a prominent chin, large dark eyes, and she's rather loud, with a dramatic voice. She's also pushy, conceited, and overly self-confident.”
“I'll try to avoid her, then. She sounds like the female version of McClaggen, and I've had problems with him, too.”
“Yes. I wouldn't normally have bothered telling you about her, though, because when Al and Javier started dating, she backed down a bit. But then you and Luna got together, and she seems to have decided you're back on the menu. Probably hoping to snag Chandra, is my bet.”
“I think our limit is two people at once. It's hard enough managing that much, I don't even want to think about a third. Besides, I think Romilda Vane and McClaggen should probably consider going with each other.”
“McClaggen isn't famous, though. You are.”
“Well I'll burn that bridge when I get to it,” Iliana said.
Endnotes: Iliana's conversation with Mother/Avani is in the same style as some of the conversations I have with my own version of Mother/Avani, Djao'Kain.
The birthday dirge is a real song, with a great many different versions, and it's been around at least since 1975.
Admittedly, the first explosion at Christmas was largely a whim, that I did because the image of Zoey in the midst of a tinsel explosion made me laugh so much I had to include it. This second explosion was a similar whim, because it was a nice dramatic way to express the chaos in Iliana's mind. I don't plan to make a habit of these explosions, though.
“The Many Faces of Adira Potter: Chapter 35”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Thirty-five: The Date and The Sleepwalker
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there. But some canon scenes are just too good to change much.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Adira, Zoey, #Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and now between hashtags/pound signs because some people's computers don't do the B.I.U.).# , {Tier}, ~Chandra,~ and %Mother%.
Note 4: All hail Our Lady Of Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling!
Note 5: A guest commented “You got rid of the main character, so to me this is no longer a Harry Potter fanfic.” My comment: “SIGH. Harry is transgender in this fic. Harry is a trans girl in this fic. Her new name is Adira. This is not the same thing as getting rid of Harry as a character, it's just a change to the character. I really wish people would stop making ignorant comments like this.”
And frankly, even if I had gotten rid of Harry and replaced him, it would still be a relevant plot point. In our own collective, we're not actually sure whether or not our “host” (the “original” person in this body) is even still alive, because we're not sure Tempest is actually the host or not. It's complicated why that is, too much so to get into here, but still... we aren't sure. And we personally know at least one other collective where their host isn't exactly dead, but is so shriveled and weak for Reasons that she might as well be dead. It's kind of sad, actually, because her parents think she's the same person as before but no, the host left someone else in her place to pretend to be her.
That said, I'm not going to do that with this fic. More likely I'll save it for one of my original stories.
*FAYANORA*
“The Many Faces of Har—er, Adira Potter: Chapter 34”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Thirty-four: Turmoil
*FAYANORA*
On the morning of the Friday before the Hogsmeade weekend, Iliana got an owl from Healer Young at breakfast. She was confused, as she hadn't been expecting a letter from him. She opened it and read it.
Dear Adira,
I want to express my anger on your behalf over that horrible Skeeter woman's article about you. She truly is a disgusting human being, and I'm sorry you have to put up with her lies.
I was also wondering if it would be alright if I could send the Prophet a letter to the editor correcting some of her ridiculous lies and half truths on your behalf. I won't include any information from our sessions, obviously. Just what I know of you from times we've met outside of sessions. Is that fine by you? If not, I'm sorry I brought it up.
If you agree to this, let me know which parts of the article I should and shouldn't address.
Yours in fellowship,
Healer Yonas Young
It was difficult to know what to have him address or not, especially now that Iliana and Luna had planned a date for the next day, but with some help from Iliana and the others, working off and on through the day, they got a list together for him and sent it off with Hedwig.
~
During their next occlumency class with Dumbledore later that day, they had a vision of Sirius's library at night, which they recognized from a previous session. A few minutes later, they saw a scene from the Hogwarts library at night, in a part of the library they'd certainly never been to at night, as far as they knew. This added to Adira's existing suspicions about the cause of their increasing number of tired days. Iliana wasn't convinced, though, and Al scoffed at the very idea.
Are you trying to say you think there's someone in our head that only comes out at night? Who manages to drive the body while it's asleep and sneak into the school library at night without getting caught? How can you be sure one of us isn't just sleepwalking?
I can't, yet, but now that I'm suspicious, I'm remembering some other things. That book that was missing from Sirius's library for a while before mysteriously showing up again, the books we had to stop reading because of massive amounts of deja vu, and books in our collection we didn't recognize, for starters.
Sounds like circumstantial evidence at best, to me. Maybe we're just forgetful. There's a whole bunch of us, and some of us were missing for a while.
Yes, well... it's enough to justify further investigation.
I guess that's a fair point. How do you plan to investigate?
I don't know. But I'll work something out.
# I might as well help out, # Iliana said.
~
Before going to bed the night before her date, Iliana put a sign on the doorknob just in case they were right about someone new sneaking around at night. The sign said “Whoever you are, we know you exist. It's safe to talk to us. You don't have to hide.”
When she woke up the next morning, the sign was undisturbed. This didn't prove or disprove anything, unfortunately.
She got up and looked around the room for any signs of the hidden Other having been here. It took her almost half an hour, but finally she found a possible clue: there was some bunching in the rug that indicated the trunk had been shoved out of position and whoever had done it hadn't bothered to put it back right. But as clues went, it was pretty much useless; one of them might have done it without realizing. So she looked for more clues, but nothing else was apparent.
Now that I think about it, if this person is hiding, it stands to reason they're not going to respond to us, as that would kind of give them away. Assuming there's actually anyone there.
Fair point, that.
Iliana got ready for her day, dressing for her date with Luna, and went down for breakfast. On the way, she ran right into Professor McGonagall.
“Sorry, Professor.”
“It's alright, Miss Potter, I'm not hurt. Are you?”
“No. You going to breakfast too?”
“No, I've already eaten. I was, in fact, coming back from the Great Hall. It's a bit late in the morning for breakfast, isn't it?”
“It's still going, isn't it?”
“Well, yes. But you're usually such an early riser, aren't you?”
“No Quidditch this year. I've been sleeping in.”
“I see. Well--”
“Speaking of that,” Iliana interrupted, “we think there's another new person in our collective. Well, relatively new. They've been sneaking into the library at night all school year long, we think. But the evidence is pathetic; just some images in our head sometimes. We tried getting confirmation last night, but it didn't pan out.”
“Oh? What did you try?”
“We left a sign on the doorknob inviting them to stop hiding, but when we woke up this morning, it was still there. The only other thing was a rug bunched up a little. Lame, I know.”
McGonagall looked thoughtful, though.
“Wait, do you know something?”
“I'm not sure, Miss Potter, but there have been odd things going on around the school since you started here. Filch has been complaining about Mrs. Norris taking longer than usual in the library for the last few years, like she can smell something but not well enough to catch anyone. During the same span, Ms. Pince has been complaining about finding books slightly out of alignment, like someone was putting them away in the dark. Percy Weasley once mentioned having bumped into someone invisible by the library, weeks after the fact when something reminded him of it. He'd been distracted at the time by Peeves, who threw ink in his face.
“Then,” she continued after clearing her throat, “speaking of Peeves, last year he claimed someone was sneaking around down by the Slytherin dorm entrance. Made a huge racket about an intruder at the height of the Sirius Black panic, brought a dozen teachers and prefects running. When Professor Snape questioned him, he indicated in his usual infuriating manner that someone invisible had been sneaking around, and tried to hex him. At the time, we attributed it to his usual mischief-making, but there have been other little things here and there to indicate the mysterious night-time library visitor was visiting the Slytherin corridor as well.”
“Really? That's odd.”
“Well, it's possible they were on their way to the kitchens and got stopped by Peeves that one night.”
“Huh. Well the plot thickens, as they say.”
“Of course, it's entirely possible these are all unconnected incidents, but as you say, you suspect someone in your group of sneaking around at night. So it's a logical possibility.”
“Yeah. Years, though? That's odd. I only became aware of the possibility this year.”
“Yes, a great many little things that make sense together, Miss Potter. Even Mr. Rahasyamay's astounding demonstration of practical arithmancy, when he unstuck Misters Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle from one another.”
“Really?” she asked, intrigued. “Why do you think that's relevant?”
“Well, unless someone in there is teaching themselves Arithmancy at a high level and passing it on to Mr. Rahasyamay at least, I don't see how else he could have peeled apart that spell without it exploding. Come to that, I don't see how he'd even know it was possible without knowing at least some arithmancy.”
“Makes sense I suppose. Were there any other reports?”
“Oh let's see... only other thing I can think of offhand is the occasional misplaced book in the library that Ms. Pince was certain were in their right places when she closed up the night before (most of which have been arithmancy books lately).”
“Huh. Well I can only remember one of us going to the library at night, and it was just one time. Adira – Harry at the time – went into the Restricted Section to try to find out about Nicolas Flamel, and had the misfortune to open a screaming book.”
“Ah yes, I remember hearing about that from Filch. It wouldn't have mattered which book you'd chosen, either; in that section, they're all spelled to scream if someone opens them without authorization, especially at night.”
“Good to know. By the way, if you had all these reports like that, how come nobody ever accused us of doing it? We're the only body in this school known to own an invisibility cloak.”
“Well Professor Snape suspected you, of course, but there was never any proof, and the Disillusionment Charm exists, so we never accused you. Also, Professor Dumbledore indicated at least once that if you were skilled enough to leave no more trace than that and not get caught, then that was an impressive accomplishment in his opinion.”
“Uh, okay,” Iliana said, her stomach growling. “Anyway, I gotta go if I'm gonna get breakfast, Professor.”
“Enjoy your meal, Miss Potter,” McGonagall said with a small smile before walking off.
Iliana nodded, and went on to breakfast.
Sitting down across from Hermione, she immediately began piling food onto her plate as fast as possible and held her plate away from the table in case the house elves whooshed it away before she could eat it. Hermione watched this, looking up from her newspaper every now and then. When Iliana finally put her plate down on the table again, her eating slower now, Hermione slid the newspaper over to her.
“Here, read this,” Hermione said.
“UGH! What now?” she said, voice weary with resignation.
“It's good news. Read the 'letters to the editor' section.”
Iliana opened the paper and scanned it until she saw what Hermione was likely talking about. It was a letter from Healer Young.
Subject: Inaccuracies in a recent article.
Dear Editor of the Daily Prophet,
I am writing to address inaccuracies in a recent article by one Rita Skeeter. Specifically, I am responding to her article about 'Harry Potter' being attention-seeking and manipulative. First, I wish to point out that Skeeter is using the wrong name. The child formerly known as Harry Potter is legally now named Adira Potter, and should always be referred to as such, for her previous name is no longer relevant as it is no longer her name. I find it very hypocritical of Ms. Skeeter to claim to be defending transgender people while using the wrong name and pronouns for a now openly transgender individual.
I can also say with great confidence, having met the Potter collective on several occasions, that every personality living in that body are kind and gentle souls who despise their fame, hate the attention it brings them, and want nothing more than to be as normal as possible. None of them would play around with someone else's emotions; it wouldn't even occur to them to do so. They are all honest and up-front with their friends, and naturally defensive around people like Ms. Skeeter who consistently tell falsehoods about them.
On that note, I can attest that Ms. Skeeter's claim that “none of the top experts at St. Mungo's” have heard of Potter's condition is a lie, because I am a Mind Healer at St. Mungo's and am as much of an expert in the condition as it is possible to be, without having the condition oneself. The condition may be relatively unknown in the wizarding community, but the Muggles are much more aware of it. Awareness of the condition, called Multiple Personality Disorder – or Multiple Consciousness Complex as I prefer to call it – has even permeated their popular culture, even if these popular depictions are highly inaccurate in an often malicious way.
Yes, there are many in the Muggle sciences of psychology and psychiatry who disbelieve in the condition, but those communities also have a great many people held in high esteem who believe in the condition. There is even more evidence of the condition from the Potter collective. During the First Task, they cast multiple corporeal patronuses at once, and each member of the Potter collective has a different patronus. From previous experience with the same charm, all their patronuses are consistently tied to a particular individual. As the majority of experts on the Patronus Charm will agree, the patronus is a reflection of a person's soul. There is no known way, even by the likes of Dumbledore, to purposefully change your patronus. Nor has anyone on record ever cast multiple patronuses at once. The fact that they can all make different Patronuses – and many patronuses at the same time – tells us that there are multiple souls in that one body, however this came to be.
But on a less esoteric level, Ms. Skeeter's claim that the Potters lost their temper during a civil conversation is patently false. I spoke with several witnesses of the incident in question, and the conversation was far from civil. Along with Ms. Skeeter using the wrong name and pronouns for the individual whose face was presented at the time, the conversation started with Iliana Potter overhearing Ms. Skeeter talking about falsifying an article about Ludo Bagman and calling her out on her lies, as well as berating Ms. Skeeter for violating the privacy of one of her friends, Mr. Hagrid, whose kindly character was falsely assassinated by Ms. Skeeter in this paper. Ms. Skeeter's response to this was to again use the wrong name and try to leverage Ms. Potter into an interview by offering to give a truer account of Mr. Hagrid, which Ms. Potter naturally declined, seeing as Ms. Skeeter seems incapable of telling the truth. What finally precipitated the argument turning to hexes was when Ms. Skeeter insulted another friend of Ms. Potter's, right to this very friend's face. The hex in question was a harmless one, sticking Ms. Skeeter to the ceiling, which was surely more annoying than anything else.
Furthermore, I spoke with everyone I could find at the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad, and none of them have any recollection of being called to Hogsmeade that day, or any other day within that week. The spell that Ms. Skeeter insists required such imaginary assistance wore off in 20 minutes, as she knew it would, Ms. Potter having told her so. And from eyewitness reports, it seems the spell even made her drift slowly to the ground, so no harm was done. Ms. Skeeter's only wound from the incident was, by all accounts, to her pride. What's more, the spell only affected Ms. Skeeter, which makes sense; Ms. Potter had no quarrel with Ms. Skeeter's photographer.
As to the relationships held by the members of the Potter collective, they are of no concern to anyone but the people these relationships involve, and such speculation is best left to the pages of gossip magazines, not to serious newspapers. Perhaps the editors of the Daily Prophet should put a tighter reign on what their reporters write, to avoid low-quality writing getting into their paper.
I would like to end with a reminder to Ms. Skeeter that Ms. Adira Potter and her godfather Sirius Black are both very wealthy individuals, and that – understanding I do not speak for anyone but myself – if I were to have their riches, I would be very tempted to sue both Ms. Skeeter and the Daily Prophet for libel, if Ms. Skeeter were writing such lies about me.
Sincerely,
Healer Yonas Young
Iliana burst out laughing at this, Ron grabbing the paper from her as she fell off her seat onto the floor, laughing fit to burst.
“Miss Potter!” an annoyed voice said, bringing her to attention. It was Snape.
She immediately stopped laughing and got up off the floor.
“Miss Potter,” he said more quietly now that she was sitting up. “If you do not wish to miss your Hogsmeade trip today, I suggest you keep the noise down in the Great Hall.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”
“Good. Ten points from Griffindor, Potter.”
She nodded, but he was already swooping away like a human bat. She sat back on her chair and went back to her food.
Halfway through her hurried meal, Luna came over and stood next to her, looking a little nervous, but excited.
“Sorry to come bother you during your meal, Iliana. You can focus on your food. I just wanted to sit over here until you were ready, if you don't mind.”
Swallowing, Iliana said, “Sure thing, Luna. I don't mind at all. In fact, I welcome it.”
“Oh, good. Thank you, Iliana.” Luna sat down primly next to Iliana.
Iliana noticed that Luna was dressed nicer than usual. She hadn't done anything new with her hair, but she was wearing a dress that was a riot of sunflowers. Luna's shoes were also shiny and black and flat-soled. Everything else was the same for Luna, necklace of butterbeer corks and radish earrings included. Iliana felt better now about her own simple blue dress, black shoes, and silver earrings. She also wondered what Luna's 'nicer things' that she left home looked like, if this was the nicest of her normal clothing she brought to school.
“Excited?” Iliana asked, as something to say.
“Yes. I've never been on a date before. I never thought I would, either. Even if I had, I never would have expected it would be with another girl. But I like you a lot, Iliana, so it feels good.”
“Ditto to all that. What should we do?”
“I don't know. What do people usually do on dates?”
“No idea. Only thing any of us have been on that might have been considered a date was when Al went out to eat once with Javier. So I don't really have much experience.”
“We could eat somewhere in Hogsmeade later, if you want. That sounds lovely.”
“I agree. So that's one thing added to our plan for the day. Er... we could also go to the shops. Like Honeyduke's, Zonko's, and some of the others. I know there's a place to buy wizarding equipment and supplies, as well.”
“I've been to Honeyduke's before, that's always fun. I haven't been inside Zonko's before, though. A little too noisy for me, but if you want to go, I can tolerate it for you.”
“Oh? Well, I don't really get anything there usually. It's more Zoey's thing.”
They kept talking about possibilities as Iliana finished and they went outside and started going down to Hogsmeade. They walked a bit awkwardly at first, but as they got into the flow of conversation, that eased up somewhat. Luckily, their tardiness in getting started meant that there was no sign of Malfoy or his goons.
“So I like your dress, Luna. It's very colorful, and nice.”
“Thank you, Iliana. Yours is nice as well.”
“Not nearly as nice as yours, just a plain blue dress. By the way, how are those modifications to your trunk going for you?”
“My things have stayed put since then. The trunk keeps most of the nargles away from my things. Though sometimes I forget to put things back, and they go missing again.”
“What are you missing now?”
“I'm currently missing my beetle earrings, some stripey socks, and a book called 'Easy Spells to Fool Muggles.'”
“Okay, I'll help you find them later. For now, though, we're almost to the village.”
When they got into the village, the first place they went was Honeyduke's, which was packed with people. Luna stood close to Iliana the whole time, looking uncomfortable with the noise, or perhaps just the closeness of it all. Iliana noted privately that if Honeyduke's was enough to bother her, it was no wonder she didn't like Zonko's. Aside from being more packed than Honeyduke's most Hogsmeade trips, it was also louder to begin with, with the bangs and pops and other loud noises from the prank items.
While they were at Honeyduke's, Iliana bought Luna a blooming chocolate rose made of actual chocolate, which doubtless utilized a spell similar to the one that animated the chocolate frogs. Even better, it smelled like a real rose. Luckily, rose petals are edible anyway.
After Honeyduke's, they checked out Dervish and Banges, the wizarding equipment shop, admiring the various items on display. Luna told her about a store at Diagon Alley that was also a wizarding equipment shop, but catering to people like Luna and her father. Iliana smiled at this, curious what such a place would look like.
Next, they wandered to Tomes and Scrolls, a bookstore. Unsurprisingly, Hermione was there, browsing their selection. She tried pretending she couldn't see them, to respect their privacy, but it was plain she was curious how their date was going. They didn't stop to talk, though.
They'd each bought books there, and Luna didn't have anywhere to put her own books, so Iliana put them in her little bigger-on-the-inside bag around her neck, which Luna was so fascinated by that they went back to Dervish and Banges to get one for herself. It was a bit too expensive for her to get herself, so Iliana offered to get it for her.
“You already got me that chocolate rose, though.”
“A trifle,” Iliana said. “I don't mind buying this for you. Whether we're girlfriends yet or not, we're still friends. Let me get this for you.”
“Oh, well... if you want to, I suppose so.”
“Good. I don't like to tell people this, in case they think I'm bragging, but my parents left me a fortune, so this is no issue for me. Heck, we're the source of all those Nimbus 2001's the school got back in second year. Er, I guess that would've been your first year.”
Luna's eyes went wider than usual. “Wow, Iliana, that must have cost a lot.”
“Most expensive thing we've ever bought. Was very nearly physically painful, spending so much, even though we knew we could. Even what I spent on that chocolate rose is more money than we used to have in our whole life, with the Dursleys.”
“Well thank you very much, Iliana. I hope, whatever happens, we'll always be friends.”
“Me too.”
They'd started so late that by then, it was lunchtime. So they went over to The Three Broomsticks to order some lunch and butterbeers. Iliana looked carefully around the room, but didn't see a certain annoying reporter or her sidekick. So they sat down and ordered, talking idly while they waited for their food, then between bites as they ate.
They talked about this and that; Luna talked of how her father's magazine, The Quibbler, was doing, and some of the content of it. Iliana was having so much fun she didn't notice most of the people looking at the two of them; either these others were remembering the Prophet article, or word had gotten around about their date. She found she didn't really care, either way.
One person in particular she failed to notice was someone she would have liked to have known was there, a certain someone who spotted them leaving the Three Broomsticks hand in hand and walking down the main street again, talking and exploring. A someone who grinned to herself and began to follow them, to see what she could dig up.
“So what should we do now?” Iliana asked. “We've been to Honeydukes, been to the book store and the wizarding equipment shop, and we just ate. What else is there to do around here?”
“I don't know. The Owl Post Office, a greengrocer's, I think there's an herbology store, a hat shop, a potions shop, and I think there's a sports equipment shop as well. Oh, and Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop, but I don't like that place. Too small and cramped, and it's much too popular with couples.”
“Yeah, and Gladrags, Ollivanders, the hair salon... not many useful options. Well, I'm out of ideas, Luna. For now. I'm sure I can think of something later. I think my nerves are freezing my brain a little.”
Luna paused, standing still and thinking for a few moments. Then she took Iliana's hand again.
“Come on, I want to show you a nice little place I know about.”
“Er, okay. Lead on.”
Luna led her down the main road of Hogsmeade and down past the stile at the end of it. They hung a left after a few minutes and walked along a dirt path that looked carved once by simple wear and tear of people's feet, but was now returning to nature. The path climbed up a hill covered in dry grass that had patches of snow on it, winding around the hill in a vague spiral. The climb was rather steep, the path getting narrower and narrower, rocks and even small boulders becoming more common as they got higher up. Iliana strongly suspected this path was a deer path, as both she and Luna were sweating and panting with the effort of the climb, and the going was slow because the path was so narrow.
After nearly a quarter hour's difficult climb, they came out at the relatively flat top, where a huge oak stood tall, its barren branches only just starting to turn green with buds.
The view from under the tree showed them the whole village, and the castle in the distance. It didn't look quite as nice as it probably did at other times in the year, this being only the beginning of March, but it was still a very nice view. Beautiful, in a transitional sort of way.
“I like to come up here on Hogsmeade weekends,” Luna said. “It's nice and secluded. Strangely, nobody else seems to have found it. At least, I've never seen anyone else up here. But then, it is a bit of a climb.”
“That's an understatement, Luna. I'd call that a hike.”
There was a raised spot by one side of the tree that turned out to be the perfect spot for the two of them to sit and just watch the idyllic scene together while leaning back against the trunk of the tree.
“We're not out of bounds up here, are we?”
Luna shrugged. “Is it important? As long as we get back to the school before dinner, nobody's likely to look for us up here.”
Iliana's face felt hot to her, then. She wasn't sure why Luna had brought her up here. As much as she liked Luna, she didn't want to rush into anything. Especially since she wasn't entirely sure she could avoid exploding again, and an explosion up here could send Luna or them both falling to their deaths.
Luna leaned her head against Iliana, watching the village below. Perhaps hearing Iliana's heart beating fast, she said, “Just relax, Iliana, and enjoy the view. You said before that my energy is placid and calming to you, when you let yourself get lost in it. Well this scene is like that for me. You should try to feel the same way. I promise that's the only reason I brought you here. For today, at least. Remember, I'm new to all this, too.”
“Oh. Well that's a relief,” Iliana said, and felt herself relax. She made a mental note to not relax too much; they didn't need to fall asleep up here and get in trouble.
After a minute, Luna added, “Well, there's also the fact that I know you don't like attention from people who aren't friends, and there's not much more private a place to spend time in Hogsmeade than up here.”
“It's lovely, Luna. Thank you for showing me this place. I can see the little buildings in the distance, like those collectible model houses you often see around Christmas time, except it's mostly spring now. Still cute and pretty, though.”
“Yes. And all the little people walking around down there, too.”
“And the grass and trees, the light and shadows. And it's just the two of us, nobody to bother us.”
“Yes, we'd see them coming before they could surprise us. But I don't think anyone will; I don't think anyone else knows about this place.”
Iliana nodded, sighing contentedly. Glancing down, she saw a fat beetle crawling on her left hand and flicked it away hard with her right, irrationally irritated by the insect's intrusion. The beetle hit a small boulder and fell to the ground by Luna's leg, on its back and looking very dazed by the impact, but eventually it managed to get back up on its feet, though it still looked very concussed, wobbling around drunkenly on its feet.
'What is this? Do I smell lunch?' came a quiet voice from inside Iliana's jacket. Aqua, their pet grass snake, slid out of her master's jacket and toward the concussed beetle, flicking her tongue at it hungrily. Oddly, Iliana thought she felt a spike of panic from the beetle before it hurriedly flew away, Aqua just missing it and bit air instead. Iliana frowned at this oddity, but was too drowsy and relaxed to think about it.
A strong breeze wafted through, making both girls shiver. Iliana cast warming charms on them both, and silently chided herself for not dressing more warmly. But then, she hadn't known they would be climbing to the top of a tall hill today. The chill woke her up some, so they were able to snuggle and talk again for a while.
“Any chance I could meet your dad over the summer, Luna?”
“Maybe. I haven't told him about us going on a date yet. He wouldn't mind, it's just that it didn't really feel real until now. But I think when I get back to my dorm, I'll write him a letter about it all.”
“Including my explosions?”
“Yes. He'll find it fascinating.”
“Have you written him about us before?”
“Oh yes. I told him about Chandra, and Al, and you, and Adira. I told him how you helped me keep track of my possessions by having people you trusted put strong wards on my trunk. Daddy is quite pleased that I have such good friends.”
“What did he think of the Yule Ball?”
“He was glad I had fun, even if I didn't have a date for it. Oh that reminds me, he wanted me to tell you 'thank you' for convincing me to go to the ball, because he hadn't seen me so happy in a long time.”
“I think I know how he feels. I like seeing you happy.”
Luna smiled more, which looked funny to Iliana because her view of Luna was upside-down. But Luna didn't have anything else to say just then, so she just snuggled closer to Iliana.
The wind through the tree's branches and the dry grass was soothing, like a lullabye. With the warming charm making them nice and toasty, nothing to talk about at the moment, and to sounds of nature soothing them, the two girls' eyelids got very heavy. Soon Iliana had Luna's regular breathing to add to the soporific sounds lulling her into an unplanned nap.
Iliana dreamed of flying through the air, without a broom, holding hands with Luna as the two of them swooped through the sky. In the way of dreams, they were trying to find somewhere specific, and kept getting turned around or distracted by things. Sometimes the dream had them underwater instead, but in a brighter-lit and more colorful place than the Black Lake.
Then they were flying again, until they began floating on a cottony cloud, but warm, Luna cradled in her arms as the warm, uniform light illuminated some passing geese flying in a V formation. One of the geese broke formation and flew right at her, but instead of honking, it shouted at her.
“MISS POTTER! WHERE THE DEVIL ARE YOU?”
She and Luna jolted awake, Iliana's wand out and pointing at the sound, which had emanated from a silvery cat, a patronus.
“Professor McGonagall?”
“IT'S ALMOST DINNERTIME AND NOBODY'S SEEN HIDE NOR HAIR OF YOU SINCE LUNCH! ARE YOU SAFE? ARE YOU STILL WITH MISS LOVEGOOD?”
The patronus winked out, then.
“How the heck does she expect me to reply? I don't know the talking patronus trick.”
“Well, try just talking to your regular patronus.”
“They usually go charging off before we can talk to them.”
“You usually expect it to do so. Try expecting it to wait.”
Nodding, Iliana concentrated on her patronus waiting for a message. “Expecto patronum!”
Her first few tries yielded nothing, as it was difficult thinking of a happy thought and expecting the patronus to wait at the same time, but on the fifth try, she got it.
Her shining silver Muggle-style Chinese dragon patronus burst out of her wand and then turned its head toward her, waiting.
“Um, tell Professor McGonagall that Luna and I are safe, and we'll be there soon as we can. We, er... we lost track of time.”
It cocked its head curiously at her, still not moving, otherwise.
“Well, go on, go tell her.”
It nodded, then flew off on a direct path to the village. As it did, she and Luna stood up, stretching to get the creakiness of sleeping against a tree out of their bodies. Luna was still stretching when Iliana looked at the treacherous path they had to climb down with apprehension. She was about to say something about it to Luna when McGonagall's cat patronus returned.
“Your rather clumsy talking patronus attempt aside, it's good to hear you're safe. I won't punish you this time for your tardiness, but try not to make a habit of it. Just come back safe. I'll be waiting at The Three Broomsticks for you.” Then it winked out again.
“Luna, how are we going to get down? I don't fancy the climb down now that I'm looking at it.”
“Oh, we don't need to climb down, silly,” Luna said, pulling her wand out from behind her ear.
“Why not?”
“Because I'll just cast Featherlight Charms on us, and we'll jump down.”
“Er, is that safe?”
“Sure it is. We'll float down to the ground like feathers. It'll take us no more than five minutes.”
“Well okay, I trust you. Hold on a moment first, though.”
'Aqua? Where are you?'
'I am back in your warmth, human,' Aqua said from inside Iliana's clothes. Now that she'd heard this, she felt the snake wrapped around her arm up against her skin.
“Okay, my pet snake it still with me. We can go.”
Luna first cast the charm on Iliana, then on herself. Iliana stood at the edge and looked down, too anxious to move. She'd never defied gravity without a broomstick or other visible means of support, before, except obviously in dreams.
“Do you need a push?” Luna asked.
“That would help, yes.”
Bracing herself against the ground first, Luna pushed Iliana off. There was a spike of panic, but luckily it didn't trigger any transformations before she realized she was floating, and felt the fear disappear.
By the time Luna jumped off, the top of the hill was already passing the top of Iliana's head. Luna used her wand to pull herself down a little faster so she could get close enough to Iliana to take her hand so they could float down the rest of the way together.
“By the way, Luna,” Iliana said as they floated down toward the ground, “I forgot to ask when your birthday is. We know Ron's, and Hermione's, so it's a huge oversight we forgot to ask you when yours is.”
“My birthday? It's the day before Valentine's Day.”
“Oh, sorry about that. I'll get you a belated birthday gift by owl order.”
“There's no need for that. You got me this nice pouch necklace. The fact you didn't know it was a birthday gift at the time makes no difference.”
“Er... well, maybe that's true for you. But I feel it's the intention as much as the gift itself. I want to get you something specifically for your birthday.”
“If you want to. But you don't have to. It's not your fault you didn't know. You've had a busy year.”
“Yeah, but we met last year, remember? So that's two birthdays I missed.”
Luna smiled. “You're such a generous, kind soul. One more thing to love about you.”
A sudden gust blew them off course, Iliana clutching Luna in a panic. Luna, though, calmly used her wand to pull them back on course.
“Well, er... happy belated birthday, Luna. You're 14 now, right?”
“Yes, I'm 14. The same age as you, until July 31st.”
“Oh crud, so I didn't know your birthday but you knew mine?”
“Hermione mentioned it in passing, once.”
“Wow, I feel like a bad friend.”
“Don't say that, Iliana. I don't like it when anyone bullies my friends, even when it's themselves they're doing it to, okay? You've got at least five different lives to juggle, it's only natural you'd forget or overlook a few things.”
Iliana blushed. “Er, sorry, Luna.”
Luna gently pinched Iliana's cheeks with a smile on her face. “You're forgiven, silly.”
Their feet touched ground, then. Before they could get blown away again, Luna canceled the charms and they were back to their normal weight.
When they got to The Three Broomsticks, a rather worried looking McGonagall spotted them and suddenly became more cross than worried.
“Took you long enough. Where were you two?”
Iliana looked at Luna, who smiled and nodded at her.
“We were on top of this tall hill with an oak tree on it, on the outskirts of the village.”
McGonagall blushed deep red, which made the two girls giggle. “You were on Makeout Point? Doing what, dare I ask?”
“Oh it has a name?” Luna said, interested. “I just knew it was a nice place to look at the village.”
“Yeah, that's all we were doing, was looking at the scenery,” said an embarrassed Iliana.
“Yes, it's called Makeout Point. I'm just rather surprised you were up there. Nobody's been there in decades, to my knowledge. A few too many people got hurt climbing up or back down again, it was banned for a decade, and strictly enforced enough that it's long since been forgotten.”
“We were just leaning against the tree, taking in the sights. We didn't do anything else. Er, except fall asleep, that is.”
“I believe you, Miss Potter. By the way, if you were all the way up there, how'd you get back so quickly? I was up there once in my youth, so I know it takes at least 20 minutes to climb down.”
“We floated down. A couple featherlight charms from Luna, we jumped, and floated down.”
“Really? Impressive spell-work, Miss Lovegood. Ten points to Ravenclaw. Well, come along before we miss dinner.”
“We weren't out of bounds up there, were we?”
McGonagall paused, thinking. “No. The ban was never actually made official, so it's not in any rule books anywhere. Just be careful, try not to get hurt, and don't stay up there so late next time.”
“Understood, Professor.”
As they walked back up to the castle, they explained how Luna had kept them from being blown away by the wind, to which McGonagall merely nodded. Then Iliana and Luna talked with each other while McGonagall pretended she couldn't hear them.
“Sorry we ended up spending most of the day asleep, Luna.”
“I had a lovely time, and that's what counts. What about you?”
“I had a wonderful time as well, Luna.”
They were passing through the gates of the school when Iliana leaned close to Luna's ear to whisper something to her. “If you go over to the Fat Lady's portrait after dinner, I think I can whip you up a belated birthday party. Then you can stay past curfew, and I'll sneak you back to Ravenclaw under my invisibility cloak. Between that and the Marauder's Map, we probably won't get caught. How does that sound?”
“Oooh,” Luna whispered back. “A birthday party? Well I suppose since it's not really my birthday anymore, it would be an un-birthday party. Sounds fun!”
“So you've read Lewis Carroll, I take it?” Iliana said aloud.
“Oh yes. I'm most fond of his Jabberwocky poem.”
Iliana laughed. “Doesn't surprise me at all, Luna.”
# Zoey, I believe we have a theme for our party, now. #
Excellent, because we're all mad here! NO ROOM! NO ROOM!
After dinner, sure enough, Zoey had enlisted the house elves to move away the furniture in the Griffindor common room and replace it with several tables in a row, with a great many chairs along them. The tables had tablecloths on them in lurid designs of purple Mad Hatter hats and Cheshire Cat grins, and the un-birthday feast was a grand tea-party complete with cakes, biscuits, pies, and fairy bread (that thankfully was NOT made of real fairies). Zoey was dressed as the Mad Hatter, of course, and costumed Luna as the March Hare (by her request), Hermione as Alice, Ron as the Mock Turtle, Fred and George as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, Dean was the Dormouse, and the rest just came as they were.
For the first 10 or 15 minutes or so, Zoey, Dean, Luna, Hermione, Fred and George, and a couple others who knew the book acted out part of the Mad Tea-Party scene, which confused most of the others but amused many of them anyway. Then with that out of the way, it was time for Luna's un-birthday cake. It was a double-layer chocolate cake with chocolate frosting with the words 'Happy Un-Birthday, Luna!' written on it. Zoey had transformed fourteen candles into 'Alice in Wonderland' character candles and put them on the cake, lighting them with her wand. Then Zoey and Hermione and Dean started singing 'The Un-Birthday Song,' the others joining in as they got the feel for the song, at the end of which Luna blew out the candles, or tried to. Zoey had made them into trick candles.
“If birthday candles blow out, un-birthday candles don't, of course!” Zoey said in a reasonable sort of tone.
Luna took her wand to the candles, and somehow their fires seemed to be sucked away through a pinhole from within.
“If you blow birthday candles out,” Luna explained calmly at their incredulous looks, “then it seems reasonable for un-birthday candles to be blown in.”
Zoey burst out laughing at this display of Ravenclaw wit, starting off a chain reaction. When everyone settled down somewhat, the cake started to get doled out.
They spent the rest of the time eating and drinking and celebrating, Zoey occasionally shouting “No room! No room!” at which point they would rotate places around the table like a game of musical chairs. And adding her own weird bit of flair to the proceedings, Zoey brewed up tea in a very large teacup, ladling it into very small teapots, from which everyone had to drink their tea unless they could convince her to change theirs into a cup, but of course Zoey was using Mad Hatter logic, so such discussions were frustrating yet amusing. However, she always ended up changing their teapots into cups in the end anyway, while stubbornly drinking her own tea from her own tiny teapot.
It was nearly midnight before the un-birthday party wound down, the house elves cleaning up and putting things back how they were before. So Zoey switched back to Iliana so the redhead could escort Luna back to Ravenclaw tower.
The entrance to the Ravenclaw dorm rooms was, of course, an eagle-head door knocker that asked riddles. The riddle it asked them this time was “My thunder comes before the lightning; my lightning comes before the clouds. My rain dries everything it touches. What am I?”
Iliana stared at the Eagle-head in confusion, then at Luna. Luna was looking thoughtful.
“Hmm... that's a tough one. Hold on...” she stood there for over a minute, Iliana getting more nervous by the second, shifting around anxiously and looking back at the Marauder's Map every few seconds, since they'd had to expose their heads to activate the knocker. Luna kept trying to work out the riddle, but Iliana heard a noise down the hall and lost patience.
“A thunderstorm in a time reversal!” she blurted out in panic.
“Well reasoned,” the knocker said, the door opening.
“Aha!” Luna said as she went in. “A volcano!”
“Correct,” said the knocker.
“G'night, Luna, see you tomorrow.”
“You too, Iliana. Thanks for the lovely time today.”
“You're welcome. You too. 'night!”
Iliana put the invisibility cloak on again hurriedly as Luna closed the door into the Ravenclaw dorms behind her, then headed back to her room, not relaxing until she got back inside. How their secret hiding sleepwalker could sneak out so frequently without massive anxiety strong enough to wake up the whole collective baffled her. But soon enough, she was back in bed and drifting off to sleep.
~
The next morning, they felt weird before they'd even started to wake. Their eyes opened, and they started groggily trying to figure out why they felt so weird. The first thing they realized was that Tier was the one driving. He opened his mouth to talk, and found he was having his usual difficulty talking.
He reached up to grab the body's hair, expecting Adira's or Iliana's hair, and finding short hair instead. Much too short to be from anyone but maybe Chandra. Curious, he got up and went over to the mirror.
Tier blinked at his reflection. It was a blast from the past: it was the form he'd changed to that one time they'd gotten stuck as a hybrid between himself and Iliana, once the hybridization had faded and they'd been left as Tier. He tried going back In, and found he couldn't. Zoey tried as well, to no avail. They were stuck. Tier sighed with resignation and went down to breakfast.
When he sat down at the Griffindor table, Hermione and Ron didn't immediately recognize him.
“Hey, who said you could--- wait, who are you? You look familiar,” Ron said.
“Tyair,” Tier said, mangling his own name.
“Woah, I recognize you now. Man, that was a long time ago. Wasn't that form from back in second year?”
Tier nodded.
“Oh wow, and Iliana was gonna hang out with Luna again.”
Tier nodded, more slowly, his eyes wider. It gave a distinct feeling of being sarcastic.
“What about Zoey?” Hermione asked.
He grunted.
“Oh, right. Of course you already tried that. Well, Luna will probably be thrilled to meet you.”
“Is it everyone who struggles to talk when you're Out?” Ron asked.
Tier nodded again, and started to eat.
“Hmm... I wonder why this happened to you.”
Grabbing his wand, he conjured a parchment, then with a tap of his wand put words on it.
“'I have a suspicion, but nothing more,'” Ron read out. The rest of the parchment's text explained about the sleepwalker they thought existed.
“But why would this sleepwalker get you lot stuck like that? You said they left the note on the door the other day. Wouldn't doing this to you be a bit of a dead giveaway?”
Tier shrugged.
Luna came over then.
“Hello Ron, Hermione. Have either of you seen Iliana?”
Ron pointed at Tier, who paused his eating. “They woke up as an old form of Tier for some reason.”
“Oh,” she said, turning to Tier. “Hi there, Tier. It's very nice to meet you. I'm Luna Lovegood.”
Tier bowed his head at her. He tapped the parchment with his wand again, getting her attention.
“'I am pleased to meet you as well, Luna. My condolences on Iliana being unavailable today.'”
“Oh that's alright, you can't help it. You and I can spend time together if you'd like. I understand you have difficulty talking, so I can help you with that.”
Tier raised an eyebrow.
“My mother would sometimes go mute from stress, for minutes to days at a time. So she taught Daddy and I Wizarding English Sign Language of the UK, or WESLUK for short. I could teach it to you. My mother died years ago, but Daddy and I still use it in her memory.”
Tier blinked wide-eyed at her, then bowed his head and torso at her. She smiled.
“We can start after breakfast, then, if you feel up to it.”
“Essaylawnt,” he said.
“Good,” she said. “Hermione, would you please pass the bacon?”
~
Tier was stuck in that form for two weeks, right through nifflers with Hagrid and curse deflection in DADA. The others were still there, of course, and could help, but it was difficult having to function during school days without being able to talk properly. He managed by tying a blackboard to his chest, using his wand to change the words on it.
Luna was either a really good teacher or Tier was a fast learner or both, because by the end of the two weeks he was stuck like that, the two of them were able to have complete conversations in the wizarding sign language she was teaching him. In fact, on the day before the stuck period ended, Professor Flitwick pulled a box out of a filing cabinet and from it, the tiny man gave Tier a magical artifact that strapped to his hand and translated his sign language into speech.
'Thank you, Professor, this good gift. This of good use. Why it speak strange though? Something wrong with its speak.'
“Well, Mr. Potter, wizarding sign language doesn't have the same rules as English, since it is its own language. For one thing, it takes a lot of shortcuts. You don't sign out a lot of the smaller words like 'is,' 'be,' 'the,' and so on, because the language is difficult enough without adding unnecessary words to it. As long as your meaning is clear, that's what matters in sign languages. And because you are speaking a different language, after all, and the device is only capable of literal translations, the translation is going to sound peculiar as a result. Lastly, your vocabulary is still improving. The translation will improve as your vocabulary in your new language improves.”
'I understand. Thank you Professor. A question though. It have off-thing? Don't know sign word. Thing turn it off? Want speak Moon L without all hear me. And how do names?'
“The off switch is also the on switch, right there. Then next to it is a volume knob. Some models can do multiple languages, but since most people here speak only English, those models weren't necessary. And you can program new words and names into it with your wand. Stay after class today and I'll show you how to do that.”
Tier nodded. 'Will do, Professor.'
Once he could program new words and names into the device, Tier started coming up with signs for everyone he knew. Luna's sign he knew already, the sign for 'moon' followed by the letter L. For his own name, he decided on the sign for 'animal' followed by the sign for 'smart' and the letter T.
After dinner on that last night of being stuck, Tier, Ron, and Hermione went down to Hagrid's and he showed them the signs he'd programmed into it. For Ron, he took inspiration from Chandra and so Ron's name was basically 'knight' signed with his hand in the form for the letter R. Hermione's was 'brain' with his hand signing the letter H. Hagrid's sign used both hands doing the letter H to outline a beard. Dumbledore was just the sign for 'headmaster' using the letter D. And so on from there it went.
“Do you have names for the Others?” Hermione asked.
'Some I have. Others still not made. Al is just A plus L. Then this for Chandra,' he said. The sign he made for Chandra's name was 'moon' plus a C, signed with the left hand.
“Intrestin', Tier. But it's gettin' late, yeh lot. Yeh should git back up ter the castle.”
~
At the end of two weeks, Adira woke up in her bed and her version of the body, Tier back inside where he likes it. But his sign language translator was still on her wrist; apparently he'd forgotten to take it off.
'Hello Adira. Good morning. Please leave device on. I want speak sometimes. You and others speak, please let me speak.'
“Fine, fine. But can we not have conversations aloud?”
{This is acceptable to me.} Tier said in their head.
She got up and got ready for her day.
~
They spent a relatively normal, for them, amount of time until the Easter holidays, the weirdest part of which was Zoey's birthday party for the Weasley Twins, which had gone until midnight and gotten McGonagall involved because of the noise. Contributing to the chaos, Zoey had managed somehow to smuggle some fire whiskey into the castle for the twins and others to drink, though none of the Potters had any of it themselves.
For Easter they took the Floo to Sirius's house, having Ron and Hermione over as well. The weekend was fun but ordinary for them, with the exception of waking up at noon on Sunday tired like they'd been partying all night, and some odd-looking dirt in the soles of their shoes.
“Sirius, do the wards keep a record of our comings and goings?” Adira asked as she walked into the kitchen where Sirius was cooking.
“At night they do, at least. Why?”
Adira told him briefly about their suspicions concerning 'the sleepwalker,' and about the dirt in their shoes.
Concerned, Sirius got up and went to the hearth in the drawing room, which was the location of the main controls for the wards. After a couple minutes checking them, he went still for a moment, then turned to Adira.
“Someone used your authorization, pup, to leave at midnight and come back at two am. See, there's a picture of them,” he said, pointing.
Adira moved into position to see. The image was... her. A moving image, too. Only, it didn't move like her. Whoever was driving her body at the time moved with a grace and precision she'd certainly never possessed.
“What's more, pup, I have these wards set to alert me to anyone coming or going between the hours of 11 pm and 5 am, even with authorization. But the alarms never went off. Your sleepwalker has to be very skilled in both runes and arithmancy to get past the alarms. And here's another image, of them coming back.”
This time, the person driving her body was carrying half a dozen old books tied together in a bundle with string, holding the bundle with one hand while deftly using their wand with the other to manipulate the wards again.
“Well I'd say we have a hole in our security that needs fixing, pup. That shouldn't be possible. In fact... I'm gonna fire-call Gringott's.”
Sirius did just that, and half an hour later Fangslaughter and Benedict Snaggletooth were back, reviewing the logs.
“Merlin's bollocks!” Snaggletooth exclaimed, watching the footage. “How the ruddy hell did you do that, Ms. Potter?”
“Blast if I know. None of us were in control at the time. It was the one we call the sleepwalker. Why? What's so weird about it?”
“These are the best wards money can buy, Ms. Potter. It would take a team of goblins working together to crack them so expertly, if they didn't already know their own wards. A powerful enough wizard could blast through them with enough time and effort, but it would set off an unholy racket in the process, and damage the house, giving you time to escape. I've never heard of a human being able to get past these alarms like that. It ought to be impossible.”
“Why do you think it's impossible?” Sirius asked.
“Because the arithmancy needed to do this is beyond the capabilities of anyone I've ever heard of. Not saying it's merely difficult, I mean I don't see how any human could possibly do the maths fast enough to not make a mistake. Unless... do you see any Muggle computers or calculators in the footage, Snaggletooth?”
“No. She appears to be doing it all in her head. You can see her cocking her head, thinking.”
“That's assuming,” Adira said, “that the sleepwalker is even a girl. Or even has a gender at all. They may just take on the form of whoever was last using the body. With all of us asleep, it would be child's play to do so.”
“Will you look at that precision of movement?” Snaggletooth said. “Whoever that is has got a remarkable degree of control over their own movements. I wouldn't be surprised if they could walk a tightrope over a 30-foot drop and make it look easy.”
Well now that the cat's out of the bag, Al said, they're not going to be happy that they slipped up. The sleepwalker has been very carefully hiding from us for years, and now we have proof they exist.
“What books are those they're carring?” asked Sirius.
Fangslaughter zoomed in on the picture and gasped.
“Dark Arts books!” Snaggletooth said.
Adira looked, too. “They look like books about ritual magic to me.”
“It's the same thing, girl. Ritual magic is a subset of the dark arts.”
“All of it?”
“Pretty much. There are some things the goblins and the Ministry do that are pretty benign and can't be done any other way, but yeah, most ritual magic is classified as dark arts.”
“Your sleepwalker must have gone to Knockturn Alley.”
“Then we just have to ask around to find out who's seen me there recently.”
Fangslaughter and Mr. Snaggletooth both laughed.
“What's funny?”
“First of all,” Snaggletooth said, “nobody from Knockturn Alley is going to admit they saw anyone anywhere, nor admit they were there themselves. And secondly, given who you are, if your sleepwalker managed to go there and not be spotted, they must have changed their appearance. Had to have, or you'd probably be in a hag's belly now, or in a worse spot of bother even than that.”
Fangslaughter was staring very hard at something on the footage.
“What is it?”
“The last book on their pile... they're not going to get much use out of it. I know that volume; the goblins of Gringott's have several copies. It's in an unbreakable cipher, lost to the ages. Must've cost them a fortune, though. Wasting your money, they are. Gringott's has had teams of arithmancers on the job of cracking that cipher for over 100 years and we've never gotten anywhere on it.”
“What's in it?”
“Not sure. But it's rumored to be a lost volume of ritual magic. Said to involve human sacrifices. Dark stuff, that. Not sure I want to know why your sleepwalker is interested in that sort of thing.”
Sirius looked very disapprovingly at Adira.
“What? I didn't do it. I don't know anything more about this sleepwalker than any of you do!”
“We need to find these books they brought home, and right---”
“Don't bother,” Fangslaughter said.
“Why not?”
“Another bit here in the logs, shows an owl carrying a package was sent away from one of the bedroom windows a couple hours after your sleepwalker got back into the house. Clever, that. No idea where they sent the books to, or why. But they used your owl, Ms. Potter.”
“Hedwig?”
“Yes. Your owl must have thought they were you.”
“Moving like that?” Snaggletooth said. “No magical owl is stupid enough to miss that kind of difference.”
“Yes, but the owl trusted them enough to take the package, didn't it?”
“There's some evidence,” Adira said, “that the sleepwalker has been around since my first year in Hogwarts. So maybe they earned Hedwig's trust.”
“I suppose. I just hope it's not misplaced.”
There wasn't much more that could be done at that point. The two Gringott's employees would need to go back and try to figure out how the sleepwalker got past the alarms twice before they could plug up the hole. In the meantime, Sirius was very worried, and kept talking about keeping an eye on them at all times.
“Well that'll be great, Sirius, up until it's time to go to school again. We have our own room, which is necessary. And even if we didn't, it seems this sleepwalker wasn't deterred by living in a dorm full of several other boys, and can sneak around Hogwarts without leaving much trace behind, and without getting caught.”
“Damn, but you're right. In that case, I'm going to go tell Dumbledore about this. Until we know what that sleepwalker is up to, he should know as much as we do.”
She nodded, standing there confused, thinking about this development. It made her feel... weird. Almost dirty. Someone was living in her head, a person who she knew little about, who was into the dark arts, doing Merlin knows what at night with her body. She didn't mind Al and the others, she knew them as well as she knew herself. But this sleepwalker... what were they up to? They weren't working for Voldemort, were they?
Aqua poked her head out of Adira's sleeve and looked at her.
'What bothers you, human?'
Adira blinked at Aqua, and had a sudden inspiration. Aqua slept around their arms so much at night that if anyone knew something about the sleepwalker, it would be Aqua.
'We have found proof of another controlling our body at night, for years. We call them the sleepwalker. Have you met them?'
Aqua looked very nervous at these words. 'I... well...'
'What do you know? Tell me, Aqua! I demand to know, as your Mistress.'
The snake drooped its head. 'The violent one told me not to tell. She told me to keep her secret.'
'Violent one?' Adira asked. That didn't sound good. 'What did she threaten to do if you told? Come on, you kept your end of the bargain, we found out about her on our own, you won't be breaking your vow. And anyway, you already let slip it's a girl.'
'Curses! The violent one will be angry now. She threatened to gut me and feed me to your owl, if I told.'
'If she does that, I'll know she's not to be trusted. But don't worry about it, Hedwig knows not to hurt you. What does she do at night, this Violent One?'
'She will gut me! She---'
'Surely she knows it's not your fault. You weren't the one who gave her away. Now that we know, you need to tell us what she does!'
'I cannot! I fear her. Much more than I fear you. Sorry. I am ending this conversation now,' Aqua said, slithering back into Adira's dress.
“Don't worry,” Adira felt Chandra saying aloud to her. “There is another who can tell you more.”
Who?
~Me, of course.~
In that moment, Sirius came back into the drawing room, with Dumbledore behind him.
“Sirius told me everything you know. It is most distressing to find out one of your Others is into the dark arts, we must---”
“Fear not, Silver Grandfather,” Chandra said. “She is not evil. She merely does not agree that entire branches of learning should be kept secret and judged when there is use in them. And I trust her.”
“You trust her?” Sirius said. “You trust this sleepwalker? Why? How? I thought none of you knew about her.”
“Mother and I have been keeping her secrets and our silence. But now keeping these secrets would do more harm than good. I can feel her agreeing with me, angry as she is that she has slipped up.”
“Hey, how come you can feel her and we can't?” Adira asked aloud.
“Because that is how she wishes it to be. Come, let us all sit down. I will tell the story from the beginning.”
Endnotes: Aha! Finally the sleepwalker is revealed! Finally we will learn her story! And of course, Iliana's and Luna's first date.
I find myself wondering what would happen to all of Rita Skeeter's mass if someone squashed her when she was in bug form. Not going to kill her off in this fic, just curious.
I don't know much sign language, just a few things in ASL (American Sign Language). But I've been around people using it enough to know how they come up with names, and to know some things about the structure of the language, as outlined in this chapter.
I want to note that if I ever forget, like Rowling did, about one of the birthdays of the Trio or Luna or other important friends again, just assume Zoey never forgets birthdays and always has something cool for all her friends' birthdays, including the Weasley Twins' birthday and the birthdays for Sirius and Remus. Heck, I can even see Zoey sending Percy something for his birthday, too!
Also, I have become convinced, by powerful arguments ( https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-of-your-Harry-Potter-the... ), that Luna was meant to be autistic in canon. And it's a strong possibility that canon Hermione is autistic as well. I'll have to ask Rowling if I ever meet her in person. If anyone else reading this meets her in person, can you remember to ask her for me?
And last but not least: According to the word count of this story on FanFiction.net and an online calculator that converts word count into pages, this story is just about 937 pages long at this point. Probably longer, given the spaces between paragraphs.
The reason I pointed this out is that I want some opinions on whether I should make this story “complete” on FF.net an AO3, and have subsequent chapters be in a new story or whatever they're called. After all, 1000 pages is a good long book, and most of the fanfic authors who write novel-length stories end up splitting their stories into at least two parts. I don't know what I would title the continuation yet if I do it. And if I did split it up, I'd obviously do it at the end of their fourth year rather than cutting it off mid-year. I don't know how many more chapters this fourth year will take, but I've already got 36 and 37 pretty much done, so probably at least three or four chapters past that, possibly more; after all, we still have Mr. Crouch's madness, the third task, the graveyard scene, and the immediate aftermath of that left to get to. So it'll end up being over 1000 pages long in the end.
Anyway, let me know your thoughts!
“The Many Faces of Adira Potter: Chapter 36”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Thirty-six: The Sleepwalker's Arc
Notes: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there. But some canon scenes are just too good to change much.
I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Adira, Zoey, # Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and between hashtags/pound signs. # , {Tier}, ~Chandra,~ % Mother AKA Avani Maznah, % and (The Sleepwalker.)
All hail Our Lady Of Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling!
*FAYANORA*
Part 1
Or “Inside, In the Down-Below, Where Thought is Seeing and Seeing is The Out.”
As told by Chandra Rahasyamay.
It began in first year, after Christmas. Well truthfully, it began many years before that, when she would sneak out of Harry's cupboard at night while he and the Dursleys were sleeping to raid the kitchen because she was better at getting more food with fewer signs that the Dursleys might pick up on, but she didn't really know who she was, and they hadn't begun transforming yet, so really, it doesn't begin until first year after Christmas.
The gift of the invisibility cloak is what had triggered it. Of course she couldn't do anything about it while Harry was visiting the Mirror of Erised every night, nor when the nightmares it gave him started popping up, but once that was over, she took control of the sleeping body and got up. With her years of superior stealth skills, she retrieved the invisibility cloak and – quieter than a mouse – she sneaked out of the dorm room in her stocking feet, taking the form of whichever Potter had gone to bed that night.
That first night, when she opened the door to Griffindor Tower, the Fat Lady sleepily complained “Someone sneaking out again, happens every year, wish they'd let me sleep...” The hidden, unknown Potter girl – the sleepwalker as you call her – thought about this as she left, making a mental note to see if maybe she could figure out the schedule of the prefects, use that to her advantage. But that first time out, she went straight to the library.
It was nerve-wracking at first. Sneaking out at the Dursley household had been one thing; the Dursleys slept like logs, not waking up until morning. (Harry only thought they were more shallow sleepers because he wasn't much good at sneaking around. Not like her.) But sneaking around when there were teachers, Mr. Filch, and his clever cat hanging around, that was another thing entirely. She started at once to compile a list of possibilities for ways to improve her skills, assuming she didn't get caught this time. The cat could be bypassed by somehow getting the scent of one of her schoolmates' cats all over her. No, she corrected herself – then Mrs. Norris would think there was an invisible cat wandering the halls, so that was no good.
She didn't have a name yet. She hadn't found one yet that suited her, and she wanted to do this right. She wasn't going to rush into it; after all, she'd been nameless for years. She could afford to be patient. Not like the others. The others were all so fast and passionate. She envied them that. She also envied their visibility. But already there were murmurs that they weren't well thought of, words like “freak” going around. She didn't want to be a part of that if she could help it, even if it meant a life spent in shadows.
Since she was padding around in stocking feet, it was a lot easier to sneak around. Remaining calm and breathing as quietly as possible were also helping. And when a prefect came around the corner, far from panicking and bustling away, she fell into step a few feet behind him, so she wouldn't run into him if he stopped suddenly.
Percy Weasley, she soon realized; the prefect she'd been following was Percy Weasley. Good, this would be easier than she'd hoped; he was so full of himself that it made him loud. Years of being around the twins had likely helped make him loud even when he was trying to be quiet, just so he could find himself in the noise. Right now, for instance, she could've been wearing tap shoes and not been heard over the din his own shoes were making on the stone floor.
She didn't know his route, but followed anyway, keeping an eye out to try to figure out where she was. It was dark, though, so this was difficult. But Percy turned out to have a very well organized patrol route, very systematic, taking him through nearly every part of the castle in a very efficient manner. She would get to the library eventually, she knew.
When he passed teachers, he would stop and talk to report. Nobody showed any sign of suspicion that he had an invisible shadow, not even Professor Snape. But this didn't surprise her; Harry and the others wore their hearts on their sleeves. She had no proof that Snape was a telepath, but if he was, her thoughts were so quiet he couldn't detect them. That was no surprise to her; if she could hide her very existence from the other people in her brain with her, going under Snape's radar was child's play by comparison.
True invisibility wasn't just nobody being able to see you, it was being invisible to their other senses as well. Invisibility is a mindset, too. One can be visible to the eye and still be invisible if your mindset is right. With an invisible mindset, people would even walk around you to avoid running into you and not consciously realize they had done so or why.
Not content to just patrol the halls, Percy opened doors on occasion, too. Classroom doors and broom cupboard doors, mostly. It soon became clear why; half an hour into her shadowing him, he'd already caught two different couples snogging. One couple, a boy and a girl. Another couple, two boys.
She was hoping he would do the same at the library, and she was not disappointed. She sneaked in while it was open, so stealthily that he plainly didn't suspect a thing.
Looking around the room carefully, looking for a certain cat, she took stock of the darkened library as well. When she found no sign of Mrs. Norris, she looked for and soon found a small window. It was dirty, which is why Percy had opened the door, but it was so dark in the library compared to the hallway that she could see shadows when a teacher or prefect passed that window.
She did some maths in her head, starting from the time it had been when she'd set out, taking into account the time that had elapsed since then, the distance covered, the speed of Percy's pace, the average time it took him to converse with teachers, what she knew of the dimensions of the castle, her guess on what route he would take, average time it took him to deal with people he caught and hand them over to a teacher, an educated guess at how many times he'd have to do that, and of course the known habits of the castle's staircases and other changeable aspects, calculating a span of about an hour during which it was most likely Percy would pass the library again.
She was fairly confident in this figure. Harry had never been particularly good at maths, he'd always been astonished that he managed to pass maths classes, even if he always had to do worse than Dudley. But she knew them well; she had done his homework for him many nights, in his own hand, making enough believable mistakes to do just poorer than Dudley. How he'd never noticed this was beyond her, though.
Carefully she worked out where she was in the library, where the different sections were. This wasn't easy; she relied heavily on the others' knowledge of the library, which wasn't great, and this wasn't like a Muggle library. It had some order to it, but that order was different from a Muggle library. The librarians here had never even heard of Dewey, much less his decimal system. But most things seemed to be arranged by subject, more or less. Ms. Pince seemed to try to arrange these subject categories in alphabetical order, in more ways than one; alchemy came before arithmancy, at least. Then, too, the subjects were arranged in alphabetical order by author.
Even having figured out the system, that wasn't enough. The library was huge, a lot of the sections weren't well defined because books are seldom about just one subject, a lot of the authors were forgotten over the centuries, and more than half of the books weren't even written in any sort of modern English, or were written in hard-to-read archaic forms of English including Middle English and Old English, so it made sense. In fact, most of the books that were readable to a modern English reader were plainly from around Shakespeare's time or earlier.
Well first thing's first, then; she looked for the section with books about languages. Though many of these fascinated her, like books on Mermish and Gobbledygook, she passed those by in favor of books about Shakespearean-era English and Middle English. Marking where they'd been on the shelf so she could re-shelve them later, she tried a spell she'd heard about before, whispering the incantation in Harry's voice.
“Gemino.”
Nothing happened. Either she needed more practice with the spell, or the book had a spell on it to prevent copying. Given this was a school, the second seemed likely. She made a mental note to plant a suggestion into the collective to make them ask Ms. Pince or Professor McGonagall about it later. In the meantime, she quietly accessed Zoey's powers and summoned a very long parchment and a self-inking dicta-quill into existence, one that wrote whatever she read, and carefully “read” the first book by just letting her eyes fly over the words without actually reading them. When she checked to see that this was working, she was pleased, but modified the quill to write in the smallest, most cramped writing she could get it to do, writing that was barely readable. She could always decompress the text later. She silenced the quill with another spell she'd read before, so the scratching wouldn't alert Mrs. Norris if the cat came wandering by, or any of the teachers.
Copying the text was so easy, just passing her eyes over it, that she thought while she did. She kept track of the time with Harry's watch (which he'd gotten at Diagon Alley last summer), kept updating the equation in her head about Percy's likely position in the castle (assuming nothing happened to disrupt that), set up a new equation to try to predict the coming of the shadows of various people passing the library, and also thought idly about ways to buy books from Flourish and Blotts while hiding these books from the others, or perhaps implanting suggestions to buy books into their shared memory.
She also noticed that none of the teachers were checking the library, except for Professor Snape. She saw plenty of shadows pass the dirty window out of the corner of her eye, but only he had opened the door to look in, obviously sensing nothing unusual. She wondered if it was just him and Percy who checked inside the library at first, but then Mr. Filch opened the door and actually came in all the way. She didn't react except to stop moving her eyes across the page and go into an even more invisible state of mind.
Filch wasn't content to just look around the dark room, possibly because the lantern he carried was messing with his night vision. He wandered around the room. Even keeping her mind silent like this, she was still tracking his movement and trying to discern a pattern to his wandering, which she did manage after he'd gotten about halfway through the room. He was meticulous, more so than Percy, and was going through every square inch of the room, his cat ahead of him, sniffing around. She calculated how long it would take him to get to her. She wasn't disappointed. She also didn't let him stress her; feeling stress was a surefire way to be sensed, and she was the pure avatar of invisibility right now.
Mrs. Norris looked faintly confused at the space she was occupying, but she didn't stand out. Likely because Ms. Pince never bothered to move any of the chairs, so her chair looked the same as all the others. Only the cat, who could smell her, was able to sense her. But she wasn't afraid; she had no reason to be. The worst anyone could do if they caught her was dock points and give them a detention. And given that she could easily fake being Harry, and could plant the memory into their collective memory in such a way that Harry wouldn't question why he'd been wandering the corridors at night, she wouldn't even be found out. So she just sat there, still as stone, her whole being casually mastering the art of being empty space.
The cat grew disinterested quickly, and kept on sniffing. This must have been usual behavior for her, because Mr. Filch didn't even ask her any questions, like he was known to do at times.
Within 15 minutes more, Filch and his cat were done. They left the library. She remained still for five more minutes just in case before continuing to copy the text.
Some time later, Percy opened the door and looked in, her prediction having gotten his appearance time more or less correct. She checked the time and plugged this new data into the equation as he left, and solved for a new estimate of Percy's next time around. Then she worked out how much sleep to let the others get, added it to her figures about Percy's route, and calculated when to head back. She had two options: either wait for his second reappearance after now, or else follow him along his first reappearance and use the time to study the school at night, and gain more information for her equations.
After a few minutes of thought, she decided on the latter, as more information was always good. She could use more information, especially, on the other prefects. So she sped up the rate of her book copying, going as fast through the pages as she could without forcing the dicta-quill to tear the parchment or set itself on fire. She wondered if there were any braille books in here; if there were, she could learn braille and try to copy two books at once. After all, their brain could handle multiple parallel processes, or they wouldn't be a collective of co-conscious entities. And since the others were asleep, all those parallel processing spaces were currently unoccupied.
In fact... if their brain was capable of generating multiple parallel conscious minds, that sort of implied that it was capable of generating useful but non-sentient constructs, a bit like computer programs. Especially since she already knew she had the capability to run modified temporary copies of the other Faces and write the memories of the copies to the originals. Programming a non-sentient construct to do even complex tasks would be child's play compared to that.
She experimented with this by making a construct that was as good at maths as she was, and copying her equations onto it. She checked its math every few minutes, finding it to be accurate. After half an hour, she shut down her own equations and let the construct – which she had decided to call 'Alpha' – take over those functions, freeing up more space in her own mind, which she used to think more about her plans and goals.
Her calculations were correct, and she finished copying the first book with enough time to put the books back and get into place to take advantage of Percy opening the door for her. Luckily, the book had been short. She would have to find a way to make the process faster; maybe she could design a dicta-quill that could automatically copy things from books. That way she could either copy multiple books at once, or pull out multiple copies and set each quill to a different section of the book.
Her equations turned out to be more accurate the second time Percy showed up, narrowing the window from an hour to just 20 minutes. Part of her had considered the possibility that another teacher, or Mr. Filch, could beat Percy to the door, but her equations said that wasn't very likely, at least given available data. A number of unusual things would have to happen to disrupt the patterns that much. And while that was always a risk in the wizarding world, she knew there wasn't anything to be gained by thinking too much about unlikely possibilities except to adapt. Everything that happened, after all, would be a useful data point.
Percy showed up within the projected window, and she casually ducked around him with such grace that he remained unperturbed by her passage. She stood at a spot that seemed likely to get her behind him at the right juncture, and waited. As predicted, she was able to fall into step behind him and begin shadowing him on his patrol route.
She learned a great deal of interesting things on this route. Some things she knew, like the location of Slytherin's dorms, but she also found the Hufflepuff dorm entrance and the entrance to the kitchens, as well as how to get into the kitchens, which Percy did because he was checking to make sure no students were creeping in there, even though that would be silly at night, since the house elves weren't there at night. They were, in fact, doing their cleaning. She made a note to herself to try to catch them at it. House elf numbers and nightly routines would be useful to know, as they could pop around the school from place to place with their own form of apparition, which could potentially be a point of chaos that might mess up her equations in the future.
There were also advantages to knowing where all the storage cupboards were in the school, as Percy made a point to open and inspect every single one of them, letting her see their contents. She didn't know what use the information was yet, but any information could prove useful in the future.
A flaw developed in her plan, though, as she followed Percy around the school. She realized she didn't know how long he had to patrol, and didn't know when he'd open Griffindor's portrait. But this was only a small flaw. She would detach from Percy's route in the area of the portrait, watch silently for a while to add more information to her equations, then she would sneak in when knew nobody would be around to see.
But then, another flaw showed up in the form of Peeves.
“Weeee,” Peeves said, bouncing around a corridor. He was covered in ink, and was staining the walls with every bounce.
“Peeves!” Percy commanded in a quiet yet firm voice, “stop that this instant! Professor Dumbledore won't be too pleased you've made all this mess!”
“Oooh, prickly perfect prefect Percy pouncing perilously on poltergeist Peevesy, what fun! Weee!!!”
Peeves flew straight at Percy, who leaped back. His invisible shadow ducked to one side to avoid him, but Percy felt something and turned to look in her direction, which gave Peeves the opening he needed to splat Percy with a face-full of ink-drenched poltergeist. This, naturally, made him forget all about what he'd felt, as he shoved Peeves away and tried to get the ink off with his wand.
“There once was a prefect named Percy,
Who Peevesy had right at his mercy.
Got splattered in ink,
And couldn't well think,
Perhaps he should go to the nursie?”
And with that, Peeves continued bouncing around the hall, cackling madly the whole time, which meant Percy went off his normal route to find the nearest member of staff to report Peeves. This left her in something of a predicament; follow him on a new and chaotic route that might get her caught, or continue on her own. She thought just long enough to watch Percy leave the corridor, then decided to continue on by herself, since she was very close to the common room by now.
She managed to get to Griffindor tower without incident, and into the common room and back to bed, but it became clear she would have to ponder what to do in cases of chaos caused by Peeves; he was an X factor that could get her into a lot of trouble; trouble she wouldn't be able to predict, most likely.
~
While the others awoke, and for most of the day, she hid in the Basement out of reach of the others, with one lone tendril poking up to surreptitiously plug into the collective memory so she could keep track of what was going on and make useful observations, even in her sleep with the help of her constructs. She'd been doing this the whole time already of course, but it was especially useful now, for her equations. She was especially watchful for Peeves, as she needed tactics to counter the rambunctious poltergeist. And, of course, she was also making a plan of attack for how best to tackle the library.
During her next few nights, she didn't wander at all, but rather read the scroll containing the book she'd copied, and began the process of decompressing the script into something easier on the eyes. Knowing that conjured parchment lasted for years, she was using the dicta-quill to transcribe it onto pages of parchment that she clumsily bound together with holes and conjured twine. On the top of her list of things to get at the library was books about using magic to do your own book-binding, which she got on her next couple of trips to the library. As to hiding these books, that was easy; put it under the bed, in a parchment folder stuck to the bed-frame with a sticking charm, and implant a suggestion into the memory of the others that there wasn't any room to put stuff under the bed, so they wouldn't go looking down there.
During her next few nights wandering after that, she didn't even go to the library at all. Instead, she followed around different members of staff, and different prefects, to gather more information about their routes, their routines and habits, about Peeves, and of course about the school. On nights she didn't go out, she had begun to draft a very rough map of the school, based on the data she'd collected. Here, having the power to control the shared brain like a computer programmer who could jack right into the computer she was working on, she was able to have perfect recall memory by making her own memory core construct dedicated just to her, which she could hide in the Basement when she wasn't using it at night.
One of the things she'd noticed about Peeves during her nightly wanderings was that he seemed especially fond of targeting Percy, making a point to do so at least twice a week. She could understand why, too; Percy was such a stick in the mud, even to her observations, and so vocal about it, that he made an all too tempting target for the spirit of chaos haunting the school.
To her irritation, she found that library books were indeed spelled against copying, unless you ripped a page from it, in which case you could copy the page and put the original back with a reparo. But that was something she couldn't bring herself to do to a book.
Things went on like this for a while. She limited her nights out to a few nights a week, mostly on Friday and Saturday nights, so the others could get enough sleep. On her nights in, she only stayed up a few more hours doing work, again so the others could get enough sleep. These plans were occasionally sidelined when one of the others would stay up later than normal for one reason or another, but mostly she got into a comfortable pattern.
Her book-binding project was going nicely, once she learned how to conjure glue with her wand. The results were still sloppy, but she knew she'd get better over time. She did indeed find a book about braille, too, and an entire wing of the library full of braille books. She didn't even need to know how to read braille to copy it, she found, but she learned it anyway so she could read them later, at least well enough to transcribe them into regular writing later. The only issue there was that she had to conjure a simple machine to copy out the braille, until she learned to read it and was able to transcribe it to normal writing as she read it. She had to design a construct to assist her with this, though, since transcribing braille into regular writing took more processing power than her regular copying did. Still, her goal of copying two books at once was achieved.
She left finding Nicolas Flamel to the others. It would take her too long to learn to read the books in the alchemy section that weren't regular English, and the few regular English books in that section she'd checked had barely even mentioned Flamel, so she'd given up. It didn't really matter to her if the mystery got solved. After all, what was the point? It wasn't like they would ever be in a position to act on that information. She had been quite annoyed, later, to find out she was wrong. Bloody hyperactive daywalkers were going to get them killed if they weren't more careful! She decided she couldn't count on them not doing stupid stuff like that again, and vowed to help them if she could.
Spending most of the summer with the Weasleys had been an annoyance to her. The Weasleys were too shallow of sleepers for even her to risk coming out at night, especially since they had a ghoul in the attic that would be set off by the slightest things. Plus, there was no library there. Some books, mostly by someone named Gilderoy Lockhart (who sounded like a dim bulb to her), but no proper library. What kind of a house didn't have even a small library? Well, aside from the Dursleys, but it was a wonder any of them even knew how to read.
She couldn't even check if there was a library in the village of Ottery St. Catchpole, because they were expected to stay within the wards of the Burrow. And truth be told, even if there'd been otherwise ideal conditions for nighttime excursions, Iliana's nightmares made it risky to go anywhere at night. Sure, she could probably shove Iliana down into the Basement to sleep dreamlessly, but doing that at all might alert the others to her presence, and since there was no point to it, she decided against it. She would just have to be bored, it seemed.
All in all, she was very glad when the summer was over. She was able to plant some book suggestions to the others, making them think the idea was one of theirs, so she'd have a lot more things to read. She had been tempted to force the others to sleep and take over the body to copy books at the store, but between the high numbers of people there, the high likelihood that a bookstore would employ every kind of anti-copying spell available, and the risk of taking over control in the middle of the day, she decided against it. But at least they learned about owl-ordering, and had some checks with which to do so.
She was glad to see they were at least sensible enough to not steal Mr. Weasley's invisible flying car, even if she didn't like the Knight Bus one bit.
Their first night back at Hogwarts, she let them sleep. She didn't take over at night until that first Friday night, something she regretted later when Wood woke them up at dawn for quidditch practice. Thankfully, all she'd done that night was put her copied books back into place under the bed, which hadn't taken even an hour.
On her third night out, she was just grabbing the invisibility cloak when she heard a voice from inside her shirt.
'What is going on,human? I thought you were sleeping.'
She froze, grinding Harry's teeth with fear and upset at this turn of events. She looked around at the other boys in their beds, who wouldn't hear her because she'd long since mastered the silencing charm, but still put her arm out toward Aqua's heated rock.
'I'm going out for something. Don't bring it it up at all later. Forget you were even disturbed.'
'Fine, but you know I prefer sleeping next to you, you are so warm.'
'Yeah well, it'll be hard to sleep when you're hanging around with me, right?'
'An excellent point. Until tomorrow, then, human.'
Relieved, she went about the rest of her night in peace.
For a couple weeks after that, she spent at least an hour every single night reading some of the books she'd covertly suggested to the others. It was during one of these nights that she first sensed another presence lurking down in the Basement, and cautiously and curiously peeked in to investigate.
Whoever was down there was even more skilled at hiding than she was. It took her a week of nearly constant searching during both night and day, and even then she had to poke and prod every available piece of the shared mental space, going over it all with a fine-toothed comb, to find any signs of the hidden other. But by the end of the week, she'd found not one, but two other people hiding down here with her.
'Hello?' she asked when she finally cornered one of them. 'Who's there?'
What responded didn't do so with words, but with feelings and images. Neither of which made much sense to her. She tried again, and got similar results. But she knew from the shape of the other one that it was a Face, not a construct, and thus fully sentient, even if its thinking was... odd.
She did some more careful exploring, and discovered that this first of the two presences was at least as old as she was, but had spent all its time down here. It had never been up into the conscious mind at all, which explained why it didn't have words.
The other one, which soon moved in front of the first as though protecting it, was old as well, but this one had words.
% Hello there, Nameless One. I see you've found Me at last. %
(Why are you capitalizing your pronouns?)
% Because I am an avatar of Magic Itself. Which, if you think about it, makes me pretty much a Goddess. %
(If you say so. Who's the other one behind you?)
% He has no name, either. Neither do I, come to that. But I at least have words. %
(You're protecting it? Is that right?)
% Yes, I am protecting zeer. %
(Zeer? What does that mean?)
% It means zee hasn't decided on a gender yet. And since around here, 'their' is a collective pronoun, I used a genderless singular pronoun. %
(Oh, okay. Are you zeer mother?)
% I am an avatar of Magic Itself, and there is magic in all things, even Muggles, so I suppose that I am indeed zeer mother. %
(Good. Can I call you Mother, then?)
% I don't see why not. I'm technically your mother as well. %
(Okay then, Mother.)
% You have been awake, and using words, for years. And wandering the halls at night. Yet you don't have a name, or any other kind of calling. %
(I don't want to rush into it just yet.)
% I respect that. Anyway, I decided to let you find us because I wanted to ask you a favor. %
(We just met, and you're already asking favors?)
% Yes. Perhaps it's rude of me, but... well... the Potter collective is fated to have to fight the one known as Voldemort, and kill him. And this child, here, will have a role to play in that. I need zeer to have words, which will take at least a few trips up into the higher mind, before I can start training zeer. I would prefer to do this at night, to put off the time when zee will have to face the others. I want to minimize the risk of the others sensing zeer until zee is ready. Of course, the night is your time, not Mine. I can only go up there if called. And this child I protect is my path up there, the only way I can help them. So I am asking your permission to use a few of your nights, and to enlist your help as a guide, to show zeer around up there. What say thee? %
(So they are going to be doing more stupid things involving undead dark lords and dangerous adventures, then?)
% Yes. %
(Well in that case, fine. I will help. On the condition that you and your child are to keep my existence secret from the others, unless they discover my existence on their own.)
% We have an accord. I swear on Myself that my child and I will keep your secret. %
(Sounds good to me.)
% May we start tonight? Or would you rather start another night? %
(Might as well start tonight.)
The one called Mother sent some feelings and images to the other one, and zee sent messages back. This went on for a few minutes until finally, the smaller one moved next to the sleepwalker and held onto her like a small child. Then the two of them surfaced, and suddenly they were cohabiting the body. Which, that night, happened to be Harry's. This was especially useful, as Harry now had glasses that could see out the back of his head.
The first night was pretty dull, aside from the fact she had to try to interpret wordless thoughts and feelings into some sort of sense, but by the end of the night the little genderless child had started to say a few words, though those words didn't make a lot of sense, and so zee was probably just babbling.
The process ended up taking a lot longer than Mother had anticipated. It took a whole two weeks for the little one to start speaking in sentences that made any sense at all, even with her plugging zeer into the collective memory. Zee didn't seem to absorb much of it beyond some of the language skills. And so she was faced with having to start puzzling out what zee was trying to say.
They were sneaking around at night when the small one said zeer first somewhat intelligible words, while they were walking behind Percy.
~Long square cavern of Inside, but in the Out, yet hard and covered in lines. Tall red-and-black warmth clicks loudly, and we glide in its wake, yet we do not click. We do not make click-like things of any calling.~
(Er, what was that?)
The little one thought a moment, then tried again.
~There is the Inside, but it is out in the Out. Not like the Not Inside that is usually Out. The Not Inside which burns our Seeing when it appears from its hiding suddenly. But it cannot be Inside, for it is Out. I have tried going out into the Inside Out, but the road is unmade.~
(If I understand your meaning correctly, we call that darkness. That Inside Out, as you put it, is called darkness. When there's a lot of it, we say it's dark out. The Not Inside which burns is called light. And we see with eyes, so it's our eyes that get hurt by the light.)
~Indeed? So we are in a dark square cavern, hard and full of lines?~
(That square cavern with the lines is called a corridor, or a hall.)
The little one laughed internally. She was thankful she had made an executive decision earlier to prevent zeer from being able to speak or control the body at all.
~We are in a dark corridor, following in the wake of the tall red-and-black warmth that clicks. Is there a calling for click-like things? The click-like things we are not making. Which to my hearing sometimes are stranger things, like thoughts, but sent through the Out.~
(Er... if by 'tall red and black warmth that clicks' you mean Percy Weasley there and his noisy feet tapping on the stone, then I guess the click-like things in general are called sound, while the sounds like thoughts sent through the Out are called voices. And the voices are made of smaller bits called “words.” Do you understand?)
~We follow Percy Weasley with his noisy feet tapping on stone, but we do it while making no sounds of our own, all through a dark corridor. Are these callings correct?~
(Yes. The stone, specifically, is what the floor beneath our feet and the walls of the corridor are made of.)
~Walls? Floor?~
(Walls are the sides of the corridor. Floor is the bottom. And the top is called the ceiling.)
~Floor, walls, ceiling. Four hard things, pieces of the corridor, and the corridor is a piece of the Out?~
(Yes. The world is very large. You're only seeing part of the castle, which is a tiny part of the world. “World” is what we call the Out.)
~World. Walls and floor and ceiling are part of corridor, corridor is part of castle, castle is part of world, and world is the Out.~
(Exactly.)
A teacher passed by them, then.
~Percy Weasley we follow, and Percy Weasley we passed. How many Percy Weasley are there in world?~
(Er, sorry. Percy Weasley is the name of the specific person in front of us. The person who passed us was Professor McGonagall. The plural for person is people.)
~Ah. So people, like corridor, are part of world. Percy Weasley is one person, the loud red-and-black one. Professor McGonagall is the green person covered with wavy lines and has circles around zeer eyes.~
She explained to him the concept of wrinkles as a segue to the concept of old age, and then the concept of glasses, and clothes, and that under their clothes, Percy and McGonagall were probably pink, like their faces. Which, of course, 'faces' was a whole other long explanation. Finally, though, she had covered most of the basics.
~Percy Weasley and Professor McGonagall are pink people, we see in their faces, but they cover their pink in other colors. McGonagall's circles are glasses, like our own, and like Percy's, to see the world.~ He paused, then continued. ~If they are people, each with their own pink, what are we? We have only one pink.~
This, of course, led her to have to explain 'bodies,' and that they were an unusual sort of people who lived several to one body, and of course she had to explain that not everyone was pink, and explain the other colors people could be.
~People can be colors other than pink?? Wow! I wish I could be another color! I would be purple with green stripes and bright yellow hair. And my eyes would be every color in the rainbow!~
(Well, if you end up like the others in the collective, the ones we've seen active during the day, you'll probably have your own version of the body. It changes, you see, depending on who is Out. But gonna have to disappoint you on one thing, kid: people don't come in colors like that. Skin comes in shades of pink or brown, or off-white, sometimes even black, and that's it. Eyes have a wider range of colors, as does hair, but stripes and spots and other designs are right out.)
She felt disappointment and sadness from the little one, and tried to comfort zeer.
(Sorry, little one. That's just how it is. Of course, given that we're already breaking numerous rules just by existing, you could probably have stripes and rainbow eyes, but you'd stand out so badly that people would laugh and hurt your feelings.)
Zee made a sensation like nodding, but was silent for a time. They passed several more people over the course of half an hour before zee spoke again.
~Some people have long hair and growths on the forward part of their body between their arms. Others have short hair and no growths. Is this like hair and skin color?~
(A bit more complex than that. The ones with the growths, which are called breasts, are almost always going to be girls. The other ones are almost always going to be boys. There are other attributes they tend to have, hidden under their clothes. The collective memory can tell you more. And I said “almost always” because some people decide they were labeled wrong and try to make their body fit their own boy/girl identity.)
She felt zeer plug into the collective memory and peruse it before returning to her.
~Both sound very interesting. Wait, our body is a boy?~
(For the time being.)
~I like it. But I wish to try it the other way. You may think of me as a boy for now.~ Another pause from him, then, ~Which are you?~
(I identify as a girl.)
~What does your version of the body look like?~
(I don't have one yet.)
~So you are like me that way. Do you have a calling? A name?~
(Not yet. I never needed one before.)
~May I give you a name? Or would you rather Mother give you one?~
(I'd rather pick one myself, but... well, it would be easier if we gave one another something to call each other by, if not a name. Maybe some sort of label, like Mother has Mother.)
~'Mother' is not her name?~
(No, just her 'calling,' as you put it.)
~Okay. Well if you would like a calling but not a name, I can pick one. You pick one for me first.~
(Is 'little one' not enough?)
~There may be many Little Ones in world. I want my own calling.~
(Fine, I hereby call you...) she happened to glance out a window at the moon then, (how about 'Mysterious Moonlight,' or Moonlight for short?)
~It is pleasing to the ear. And I shall call you... hmm... Highest Strength.~
(Highest Strength? Well okay, that sounds good.)
~Mother will be pleased that we both have callings now.~
(That she will, I'm sure.)
~ ~
In the end, it took Moonlight several months to complete his preliminary training with Highest Strength, and by then he'd chosen an appearance and name for himself, going with an Indian look for his appearance, after having become transfixed by the Patil twins one day. And during one of their trips to the library, he had insisted on reading several books of names, finally finding one that meant the same thing as the calling she had given him: Chandra Rahasyamay. He'd grown on her over the months, and so she was touched that he'd liked the quick, random calling she'd given him so much as to go to that much trouble in naming himself after it.
Of course, he was still a sometimes-annoying little kid, and this showed true when he started calling her “Megan,” a name that meant, among other things, “strong and capable.” She didn't really like the sound of it, but it stuck, and she tolerated it for his sake.
When it was time for him to go back down to Mother and complete his training, she was sadder than she thought she'd be. They both cried, silently Inside, saying tearful farewells before Chandra went back into the Basement with Mother. And Megan, who had spent years alone and been fine with it all that time, suddenly knew what it meant to be lonely.
Part 2
Or “May She Live Up To Her Calling and to Her Name, for The Lonely Time Has Come Upon Her.”
As told by Chandra Rahasyamay.
% I am sorry, Megan, but we are very busy. It is nearly the Christmas holidays of their second year. I have the rest of this year and just the year after, with maybe a few more months into their fourth year, to prepare him. I should have begun his training as soon as we first heard the name Voldemort, but I had been hoping to keep him innocent a bit longer, which was a mistake. Every spare moment is important. I do feel your pain, literally, and I would love very much to send him back up to you – he does so miss his Auntie Megan – but I simply cannot. I'm sorry. You will need to be strong until he is ready. When he is ready, you and he can communicate all you wish. Until then, you need to leave us to our business. I hope you understand. %
She had cried for hours after those words, even though she understood. He had a mission, and she didn't fit into that mission anymore. She had served her purpose in that already. But that didn't stop the tears, and it didn't stop her wallowing in sadness and loneliness for the next few months. Her projects on hold, her night-time wanderings stopped. And as time progressed, it became harder and harder to get out of the dorms anyway, because there were even more people roaming the halls than ever before, and their patterns were new and chaotic still.
Megan even tried to design a construct that could keep her company, but even though it was very convincing at first, it lacked a certain spark, and just felt like talking to a robot. Which, in a way, is exactly what it was. But she kept it anyway, and talked to it anyway, whenever the pressure of her loneliness was too great to bear.
She could have just gone and introduced herself to the others, of course, but she'd become so attuned to the confusion, distrust, and freaked-outness of most of the people in the school in regard to the collective that she knew more strongly than ever that she didn't want to be associated with them if she could help it.
But being the logical person she was, she didn't wallow forever, either. Even in the midst of her despair, she began to plan. Along with her other projects, which she went back to in order to distract herself, she tried to work out a way she could go out into the Out, as Chandra had called it, at night-time and yet still find a friend somehow.
Part of this project involved designing a physical form for herself. Being that Chandra called her Auntie Megan now, according to Mother anyway, she decided to go with a similar skin color to Mother, who had been a black woman the last time Megan had seen her. She put her hair into dreadlocks, like Mother, but colored them white instead of black because it was unusual but in a harmless way, and one that reminded her of Chandra's early desire to be interesting colors. For similar reasons, she went with bright amber eyes. Then, because she liked glasses, she made a copy of Harry's glasses by tapping into Zoey's abilities, and changed their color to silver, altering the shape into squarish frames with rounded edges.
Megan was satisfied with her work. But the name Chandra had given her... it felt too special to her to let it be marred by being spoken by outsiders, so she changed her name to Hypatia Ishanvi Megan Williams, except that she would never tell others about the 'Megan' part. It would be her secret name, known only to her, Mother, and Chandra.
But she wasn't done yet, no. Her regular personality was so hyper-logical, so careful, so silent that if she was going to make friends, it would get in the way of that. Luckily, she had a plan to deal with that. The constructed 'robot' personality she'd made to talk to when lonely, it had a bubbly personality, friendly. She could modify it to be able to mesh with her regular personality, and she would then appear to be a hybrid of the two personalities, able to take the construct – which she decided to call a Mask since it lacked the spark of the Faces – off and put it on at will. The fact that the Mask lacked its own spark was irrelevant; when she put it on, it would have her spark.
She connected the Mask to her physical form as a final touch, and stood back to admire her work. The plan was nearing the end of phase one. Now all that was needed before she could do that was to decide which House to pick for phase two.
~ ~
Hypatia's work was going well all summer long, despite many bouts of depression where she would mope all day long for a day or two and then be fine for days or a week or more before going into a slump again. But progress was progress. Which made what happened on the school train even worse.
Listening in on the others with one tendril while doing her work, she knew what was coming before they did. She tried bracing herself, she even disconnected the tendril and pulled out of all but her core memory, yet still, while the others inexplicably replayed a memory none of them should possibly be able to remember, of the night their parents died, Hypatia instead replayed the day Chandra left her to go to his training, and the day Mother had to refuse to let her visit him, opening those wounds all over again.
~ ~
In a few weeks, though, she had recovered and was ready to move on with her plan.
After picking Ravenclaw, Hypatia went out one night to start phase two. It all began, this time, by pulling on her new physical form and bonding it to her mind, before taking over the body. By now, they were in their own room, it being third year. She'd been so wrapped up in her projects, including this one, that the last half of second year and the whole summer had flown by for her, and now they were several months into the third year, Halloween having already gone by. Her constructs had, of course, been doing a fair bit of the work of keeping track of things for her, and her own dedicated memory unit could tell her anything at all that had happened during that time, she just hadn't been paying much attention to any of it for a long time.
But now with a good reason to get back into focus, she reviewed the memories, then took over the sleeping body and forced her first ever change into her new form.
The difference was immediately apparent. Before, she'd always felt like some clever child hot-wiring a car that wasn't hers and taking it for a joyride, only this feeling didn't become known to her until she was, to extend the metaphor, sporting her own ride. She felt properly real now, rather than feeling like a bodiless computer program that had hijacked a human body.
Hypatia spent several minutes admiring herself in the mirror, taking her glasses off to make sure she really did need them (which she did) and putting them back on. Then she spent a few more minutes running her fingers along her skin just to revel in the sensation of it.
She looked 13, which was good, as that was how old they were. And, just as planned, her bangs – also in dreadlocks, but smaller – covered that distinctive scar. Just to be sure, she used a sticking charm on her bangs to keep them in place. Now nobody would know her true origins. She'd even picked a false surname, Williams. Hypatia Ishanvi Williams, she would be known as. 'Hypatia' because she loved the library, and Hypatia had been a famous female librarian long ago. 'Ishanvi' – an Indian name, like Chandra's, meaning 'goddess of knowledge.' And Williams had just been a random choice of surname.
'You are sneaking out at night again, human? Shall I assume--- wait, who are you?'
“That stupid snake again,” she mumbled angrily at herself. 'You're already aware we're a load of different people, right?'
'Yes, I am aware of that. Are you someone new?'
'More or less. I'm the one who usually goes out at night. You'll keep the secret of my existence and my activities safe, right?'
'I don't know. What's in it for me?'
She growled softly, grinding her teeth. 'I won't gut you and feed the pieces to our owl.'
'So violent. But you have my word, human. I know nothing of what goes on at night.'
Satisfied, Hypatia put the invisibility cloak on and sneaked out of their bedroom and out of the dorms into the corridor. Sure, there was supposedly a killer on the loose, but he was after the others and wouldn't know who she was. What was more, she'd gotten used to sneaking around in a busier set of corridors, so that wasn't an issue. She left the Mask aside for now, though; its personality wasn't exactly conducive to stealth.
She had been intending to go to Ravenclaw to try to blend into their large numbers as a third year student, but it occurred to her on the way there that she stood out just a little too much for that to be believed. But she didn't want to change her appearance, either, so she changed tactics and decided to go to Hufflepuff instead, pretending to be a lost Ravenclaw. She could work out the details later.
Though her version of Harry's glasses were different, they were still Harry's glasses, so she was able to press a button to see out the back of her head, which was useful.
She made it down to the dungeons fine, but then Peeves came along, writing rude messages in yellow paint on the walls. One said 'The Chamberpot of Secrets has been emptied out the seventh floor window, beware of enemas in the air!' Which was very much out of date, as humor went, as that Chamber of Secrets stuff ended several months ago. Still, she felt something emanate from the Mask. She may not have been wearing it, but it was still connected to her, and it was thus still thinking and feeling using her spark.
What confused her, though, was that while she would've expected a laugh, a chuckle, or even a giggle, it had started to cry instead. This confused her, especially as it cried even more after reading the other, very rude, messages on the wall. But none of them looked like anything that should elicit tears. Of course, she could better understand what was going on if she put the Mask on. But that was a bad idea just now. So she merely watched it, and was shocked to find its expression was jovial despite the tears.
Peeves froze in mid-sentence and turned in her general direction.
“Oooh, Peevesy can sense someone invisible lurking about! Be you ghoulie or ghostie or wee student beastie?”
(Shit,) she thought, (my stealth is compromised. Why? Is it the Mask? Blast it yes, it's the Mask. I'll have to add an off switch. It shouldn't be on, but it is.)
Peeves turned around in midair so he was floating upside down, and grinned. “Oh well, maybe Filch can get something out of you,” he said, puffing himself up to shout. Suddenly, she remembered a spell, and tried to shoot it at him silently, but it didn't work. His tongue moved just enough to alert him, however.
“Oooh, dirty trick that, dirty trick. No more Mister Nice Peevesy, then,” he said, bouncing around the corridor. “STUDENT OUT OF BED! STUDENT OUT OF BED DOWN THE SLYTHERIN CORRIDOR! STUDENT OUT OF BED!!! OR PERHAPS IT'S SOMEONE BLACKER, A MORE SERIOUS INTRUDER?”
Sounds behind her told her someone was coming; that way was blocked off. So she did the first thing she could think of, checking her memory unit to see if Zoey knew the latest Slytherin password. It seemed the little troublemaker made it a point to be up to date on that one if she could, so Hypatia said the password, “Deathless,” and jumped inside just in time.
But of course, she couldn't rest. Peeves might have seen the door open. Whether he'd cooperate with the teachers or not was another matter, but she couldn't take the risk, and shoved herself into the empty fireplace.
After many long minutes, however, nobody had come in, at least that she could hear; she couldn't see well from inside the fireplace. She'd faintly heard some talk outside, and Peeves laughing, but then there was nothing. She checked her watch, which said more than 10 minutes had passed. So she came out of the fireplace, only to find someone standing by the exit, looking very smug as ash fell from the invisibility cloak.
“So I was right, there was someone invisible there,” a drawling voice said, issuing from the white-blond boy who was smirking at her, his wand pointing in her direction. “Come out of the cloak, nice and slow now. No sudden movements. If I even suspect you'll hex me, I'll hex you first.”
“There's no need for that,” she said.
His wand faltered a little. “A girl? So you're not Sirius Black, then?”
“No. I am a black girl, though,” she said, pulling the cloak off from her face.
“I see. And what House are you in? I know everyone in Slytherin already.”
“Ravenclaw,” she said. She took the cloak off the rest of the way. “I'm not here to spy on you or anything. I got caught in the hall by Peeves, and I just happened to know the password. Overheard it earlier.”
“Yes, I heard. I was coming down the stairs to do a little reading before going back up to bed. I couldn't sleep. But why are you roaming the halls of the castle?”
She shrugged. “Exploring. It's fascinating. Mostly I go to the library, but I wanted to check out the kitchens tonight.”
“There's a mad killer on the loose. He's already broken in once.”
“Yes, but he's after Potter, not me. I'm not even a Griffindor.”
“I see. But he might use you somehow.”
“He'd have to see me first,” she said, moving the cloak in her hand.
The blond boy finally stowed his wand. “A real invisibility cloak, then? You must be very rich; even my father would balk at giving me one of those, and we're the Malfoys.”
(Oh yes,) she thought, (Draco Malfoy.)
“Family heirloom,” she explained. It was even the truth.
She still hadn't put the Mask on yet. Without it, she felt... flat. She was responding to the conversation very logically, but there was very little feeling in it, even she could tell. And if she was reading the signs properly, he was noticing. She tapped into their shared empathic gift for a moment, nearly wincing at the sudden input, but was able to confirm that hunch before turning off the empathic gift again.
So it came down to this: try to muddle through without social skills she'd never needed to develop, or put on the Mask – that imperfectly designed construct – and behave at least somewhat like a normal human being. At Draco's increasingly suspicious face, she made a snap decision and put it on.
If becoming a real person with her own body had been a head rush and a paradigm shift, putting on the Mask was even more so. She felt giddy, and then she felt herself relax into the new personality.
“So you gonna tell on me or not?” she asked, feeling a mix of impatience and worry.
Something about her change in body language seemed to put him at ease. She analyzed the difference with the logical part of her mind; before, her body language had been stiff, almost robotic, her body doing only what she told it to and nothing more. Now, however, it was loose, free, and energetic. There were little subconscious tics here and there that hadn't been there before. And once she fully relaxed, she'd have a bubbly personality, friendly.
“I haven't decided yet. But in the long tradition of Slytherin House, I think it might be best to not tell on you, so that way you owe me. Yes, yes I think I'll do that.”
“Uh-oh, owing a Slytherin? How much trouble am I in for that?”
He smirked at her. “You'll just have to wait and see.”
“Alright. Hey, while I'm here, can I hang out for awhile? I wanna give the teachers and prefects some time to settle back to their usual routine before I head out again.” (And of course, she couldn't calculate the best path or predict the patterns worth a cuss in all that chaos Peeves had caused, either.)
“I suppose so. Take a seat.”
“What if someone else comes in, like you did?”
“If they do, I'll protect you. It's too good an opportunity to let slip by, a Ravenclaw owing me a favor. Besides, if they're truly worthy of Slytherin, they'll know to make you owe them, too.”
“Well okay, if you say so,” she said, sitting down.
She was nervous, very much so. She watched as Draco sat down on the chair beside hers.
“Whatcha reading?” she asked, still nervous. For some reason, she felt she needed something to chew, but none of the current options felt right. Gum. She needed gum, but had none.
“A book of hexes Father gave me for my birthday. They're very good. Here, take a look at them,” he said, handing her the book.
“I thought you were reading it. Besides, isn't information power?”
He laughed easily. “True. But I'm trying to cultivate a potentially fruitful relationship here. The more I give you, the more you owe me. And you can pay for my information with information of your own, you see? Ravenclaws are full of knowledge, right? Always seeking to know more?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Okay, sure thing.”
She took the book from him and started to read it.
“Got any gum?” she asked.
“Sorry, I don't.”
“Oh well.” She turned to read again, but stopped because Draco spoke again.
“Oh hold on, I quite forgot in the heat of the moment to introduce myself properly,” he said. “I'm Draco Malfoy.”
He held out his hand, and she took it, shaking it.
“Nice to meetcha, Draco. I'm Hypatia. Hypatia Williams.”
“Nice to meet you as well, Hypatia.”
She smiled feebly and, not knowing what else to do, went back to reading the book.
“Er... do you think I could copy this? This is amazing.”
“Hmm... I don't know. Do you have anything to give in trade?”
“Er, not on me. But if I brought you something, we could trade?”
“Depends on what you have.”
“Well I've mostly been trying to figure out the library's system since I got here. Been learning Shakespeare's English and some Middle English, to expand the titles I can read. When I'm done with that, I hope to go on to Old English.”
“Really? What about Latin? French? I know some of the books in the library are in those languages.”
“I don't know either of those, no. I'd like to, though.”
“Well... if you help me learn Middle English and Old English, neither of which I've learned yet, I can teach you Latin and French, and then we can start trading copies of books. The only problem being that library books can't be copied.”
“Oh, but they can.”
“They can? How?”
“If you use a dicta-quill set to write what your eyes see as you move across the page, you can copy a medium-length book in a few hours.”
Draco's eyes went wide. “That works?”
“Yeah. I uh, kinda have a unique source for my dicta-quills, so I don't know if it works with regular ones or not, but with mine it works.”
“Really? Well, I'm impressed. I thought I'd tried everything already. Of course, I can always have Father buy me any books I'm interested in, but it's so much more satisfying trying to beat the system.”
“You're right. Here, let me show you how it works, I have one of them on me,” she said, pulling a quill out of her robes, and summoning parchment.
He watched in fascination as she copied several pages of his book of hexes onto the roll of parchment, the quill going so fast he could scarcely believe it.
“Give me one of those dicta-quills of yours and teach me how to use it, and you can keep a copy of the book.”
She grinned, and gave him the dicta-quill already in use. Draco used 'gemino' on the book, handing her the copy. She compared the two. Satisfied, she grinned again.
After that, the conversation meandered around, including some 'getting to know you' questions. Finally, they came around to a question she'd been dreading.
“So, what about the other Ravenclaws? Got any useful connections there?”
“Do you mean friends?”
“Yes, that too.”
She sighed. “I don't think any of the other Ravenclaws even know I exist.”
“What a shame. Well, that's their loss and my gain. Do you have any friends at home?”
“Um, no. I... are we already friends? If so, you're my only friend.” She burst out laughing, even though she was miserable at this knowledge. Draco's eyes went wide again, looking confused.
Perhaps sensing something off about her laughter, or maybe reading the misery in her face, he said, “Are you alright?”
“No, sorry,” she said before laughing again for a moment. “I've been lonely for so long, it hurts so much.”
“Why are you laughing, then?”
(Because,) she thought, (I must have wired this blasted thing backwards somehow. But I can scarcely tell you that, now can I?)
“I don't know,” she said aloud. “I just laugh when I'm miserable.”
“Well that's odd, but fascinating. I don't think I've heard of such a thing before.”
“Me neither,” she said, still laughing.
“Well you've got me now, Hypatia. I know we've only just met, but I find you to be more stimulating company than anyone here in Slytherin, so far, and this is my third year here. So I foresee a strong friendship between the two of us. At least, I hope so.”
He put his hand on her arm gently, his body language saying he was ready to withdraw it if she wasn't alright with it. She felt a surge of joy, and began to weep.
“Ah, let me guess,” he said, smiling, “you cry when you're happy, on top of laughing when you're sad?”
“Yes,” she said, still crying.
“Well crying when you're happy makes a little more sense than laughing when you're sad, at least. I have actually heard of that, at least.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“We should find out if there's a name for this condition of yours. If there's a name, it would mean you weren't the only one with it.”
She nodded. “I'd like that,” she said, crying again.
So the two new friends went to work coming up with a plan to figure out how to tackle such an unusual problem, among other things, before both getting so tired that they agreed Hypatia had to go back to her own House.
And Mother, who was hiding behind Hypatia's eyes, watched all of this with a smile on Her face, glad that her plans were coming along nicely.
~Auntie Megan looks happy, Mother. I'm glad that you sent me to her to learn, even if it wasn't strictly necessary.~
% Oh, it was necessary, Chandra. For both of you. %”
~
She was having a problem; Draco was getting suspicious. They'd been working together on the nights they could manage to get together on for a week now, and he'd been asking others about her. His progress was hindered by the fact that he couldn't ask Griffindors, but not by much. Aside from incidents of Slytherins bullying people or where it came to Quidditch, Slytherins mostly got along reasonably well with most Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. It was Griffindor and Slytherin that were the big enemies, mainly because there was a perception that the two Houses were on opposite sides of the last war and its aftermath.
So yeah, he was asking around about her, and she'd stupidly chosen a distinctive enough appearance to raise some flags if nobody could tell him anything about her. The first time he questioned her on this, she shrugged non-nonchalantly and said that it was a big school. Inside, however, she was worried. Was her first friendship ever going to fall apart so soon?
Luckily, she came up with a simple plan, when next it came up. Tapping into Tier's shape-shifting, and making sure to not glow, she “revealed” that she was a metamorphmagus by morphing her hair to black and then back to white. There were enough black girls with black dreadlocks in the school she could reasonably blend in if she normally had black hair, after all.
“Hmm, I'd heard there was a metamorphmagus in school during my first year, but she was in Hufflepuff and graduated that year.”
She shrugged again. “There's a new one, now.”
“How come I haven't heard of another metamorphmagus in school?”
“Because you're the only one who knows.”
He goggled at her. “Why's that? You could be really popular!”
She snorted derisively. “And have people be a fake friend just to make me do tricks for them? I think not. I'd rather have no friends than fake friends. I don't use my ability if I don't have to, and I sure as hell don't do tricks. Which is why I didn't tell you before. I wanted to see if you'd like me for me, rather than as an entertaining freak show.” This was so close to the real truth that she pulled it off very convincingly.
Draco smirked, nodding. “Very clever. Damn, you should've been in Slytherin.”
She sighed, turning the pages of her book. “I know. The Hat offered me Slytherin, but I didn't take it up on that. I wish now that I had.”
“Yes, Slytherin is where you'll meet your true friends. Even, it seems, if you're not in our House.”
The two of them smiled. And with that, the friendship was saved. For now, anyway.
~ ~
Ever since the others had gotten that magical planner with the note-saving page in the back, Hypatia had been playing around with it every few nights or so, trying to figure out all it could do. A month into the third year, she made a breakthrough with this, finding that the thing could store up to three different users with different passwords on it. So she started taking the planner with her and copying books into it, which really saved on parchment. Of course, magical items like this can always fail, so she would later transcribe it into proper books. She was getting better and better at binding books all the time, especially after finding several books about book-binding, one of which had animated illustrations in it.
On one of her visits to Slytherin to meet Draco, she nearly ran into Peeves again as she was about to turn a corner, but she pulled back, waited, and eventually Peeves wandered off somewhere else. She made a mental note to look into poltergeist repelling spells, or others that might be useful against him.
“Deathless,” Hypatia said, entering Slytherin and looking around. Draco was already there, and turned to look at the opening door with a grin. She soon had the invisibility cloak off and---
'What is going on?' She froze, scared and angry that she'd forgotten to put that stupid grass snake back on its rock. How had she been so stupid? And she couldn't answer it, not without revealing she was a Parselmouth, which would be one incredible thing too many for Draco to accept.
Instead, she pretended to cough and pounded her chest near where the thing was coiled.
'Oh it's the violent night-comer, is it? Fine, I will be quiet and still. You won't even know I'm here.'
“You alright, Hypatia?”
“Fine, just swallowed my own spit wrong.”
“Oh, alright. Hey, can we go to the library tonight?”
Hypatia considered this. She could keep herself hidden, she knew, if she took the Mask off. But adding another human being to the equation was introducing a level of chaos that made predicting patterns and hiding difficult. Especially as she hadn't gone through the castle behind Percy in order to update her data; some of the prefects had graduated, and there were new ones to learn about. Then she wondered if there was an alternative.
“I dunno,” she said to Draco. “I mean, I know how to get myself in and around there without being caught, and even then I've had a number of close calls. Adding someone else...”
“How do you do it, anyway? Even with the invisibility cloak, I don't see how you manage it. I mean, you almost got caught the first night we met, and I actually managed the Disillusionment Charm once and still nearly got caught so badly I didn't dare try again.”
“There's an art to it. I suppose I could teach you. You know Percy Weasley?”
Draco sneered. “Yes, I know Weasel-bee. What about him?”
“Well he's like a human clock, very precise. His patterns are very predictable. In fact, what time is it? Ah. Come here,” she said, Disillusioning him. “Also, I might seem a little odd tonight, but I have two different modes, and the mode I'm going into, which might seem odd, is Stealth Mode. Got it?”
“Got it.”
She took her Mask off, knowing it would impede her, and invited Draco under the cloak.
“This is so cool,” he said.
“First rule of sneaking around the castle, don't make noise. Don't talk. Breathe as quietly as you can. And take your shoes off before we go. Did you never notice I always come here in my stocking feet? Shoes make noise. Yes, good. Second, you're not wearing any cologne or a deodorant that has a smell, are you?”
“No. I showered before coming down tonight.”
“Good. Now follow me. He'll be coming by in three minutes.”
Draco followed her out the door, at her side. She led him to the opposite wall and used her hands on his abdomen to indicate they should flatten against the wall.
Three and a half minutes after leaving Slytherin, Percy Weasley turned into the corridor. Draco gasped ever so slightly in an impressed sort of way.
They waited another 30 seconds as Percy opened a door, looked around a bit, then closed it and walked past them. Hypatia pulled gently on Draco's arm and they fell into step behind Percy, silently following along behind the Head Boy in a rhythm Hypatia had long since mastered, and which Draco fell into easily enough. He was a fast learner, which was good.
It took them about half an hour to get to the library. Not as fast as going there directly, maybe, but a lot safer. They had a bit of a tricky time getting by Percy when he opened the library door, but managed it thanks to Hypatia's perfect timing and silent hand signals on Draco's arm. These were really simple, now, but she made a mental note to figure out a more complex system later.
Even when they were in the library, Hypatia put her finger to her lips to indicate he should remain silent. She led him along the stacks looking for any sign of Mrs. Norris or Filch. She didn't worry about Peeves; there must be a charm on the library to keep him out, which made sense, since he was so destructive.
On that note, she looked around for the section on magical creatures and looked for something about poltergeists.
“Can we talk at all yet?” Draco whispered silent as he could.
“As little as possible, preferably. We should learn some sort of silent communication for later. For now, look around at your leisure. But in... 34 minutes, you need to get into a corner or a chair and remain as still as a statue. Stay Disillusioned the whole time we're here.”
“What? Why the corner?”
“Because that's when Filch and Mrs. Norris come in.”
“Right,” he said, nodding and wandering off to another section.
When she was sure he was out of earshot, she whispered in Parseltongue at Aqua, 'No hissing or any other noises, okay?'
'I will try to sleep and be silent, Oh Violent One.'
'Good.'
She found some good books about poltergeists and copied as many important pages into her magical note-saving planner as she could under her own account. That done, she found Draco and poked her arm out of the invisibility cloak long enough to indicate it was time to be still. The two of them found different corners and stood stock still.
When Filch and Mrs. Norris came through, the cat spent a lot of extra time on Draco's corner, and she was trying to decide whether she should save him or leave him to his fate, when the cat gave up and moved on. Filch and his cat left the library, Hypatia waited another minute, then started moving again, brushing Draco to tell him he could relax and go back to his browsing.
“If the patterns remain the same, Professor Snape will be around in 40 minutes, but just avoid any place you can be seen from the doors, especially the entrance we came in, and be still and silent when the doors open.”
“We're invisible, Hypatia.”
“I'm reasonably certain Professor Snape can read minds. But I think it requires line-of-sight. Better safe than sorry.”
“Okay. What about Weasel-bee?”
“It'll take him about 90 minutes to get back this way, and anyway you'll be able to hear him coming, he makes so much noise when he walks.”
Using one of Hypatia's dicta-quills, Draco was copying things out of books of interest to himself, too. They worked in silence, the quills and the parchment she manifested both having been improved to have built-in silencing charms.
Draco got used to Hypatia's occasional directions, and was getting even better at remaining still. She was impressed by this. Especially since the second time Filch came through, Mrs. Norris pondered the corner he was in for a lot less time than the first time, and it was a different corner.
When Percy came by the library, Draco was tired enough that they packed up and followed him back to Slytherin. This was a little disappointing to her, because she'd wanted to stay at the library longer, but she needed to make sure Draco got back safe. She left him at the door to Slytherin and continued on behind Percy to head back to Griffindor (not that Draco knew that). They'd said their farewells before leaving the library, so it was fine.
~
Draco and Hypatia worked on a lot of things during October, November, and December. He was teaching her French and Latin, which of the two, Latin was more useful to her because of its uses in spell incantations. Hypatia taught Draco Middle English, preferring to focus on teaching just one language at a time. But along with all that, she was also reading up on runes and so on. She'd meant this information to be used to design a form of her dicta-quills that didn't rely on Zoey's powers to be made and stay around, but an even better use for the info came along around Christmas.
Hypatia didn't like the Weasley Twins, those agents of chaos, but they went up a little in her estimation when they gave Harry the Marauder's Map. It was a very useful Map indeed, especially for Hypatia. With the Map, she could watch people at night from the safety of their bedroom and figure out the patterns of their movements around the school.
The Map had one worrying quality, though – it told everyone's legal names. No matter which one of them was Out, even Hypatia, the Map registered them as 'Harry Potter.' She supposed that made sense, but it was worrying. She really hoped this was the only map of its kind in existence, but also worried where the Map was getting its information. She suspected the information of coming from the school's wards. At least it meant she could see Sirius Black if he got into the school again, assuming she was looking at the Map at the time.
She had been very irritated when Al had his little blow-up about Sirius Black being a traitor and their godfather. He'd been shaking the room and breaking things with his uncontrolled magic. When one of these waves of uncontrolled power tripped a ward on some of the books she had under the bed, which meant the Sticking Charm had failed, she had enough. Taking inspiration from something she'd seen Mother do a couple times, she switched Al into 'unconscious' mode and dragged him down to the Basement, pushing Zoey Out in his stead.
Hypatia didn't bother changing out of Zoey's form as she put the books back where they belonged. She sighed, considering them. She'd have to find a better hiding place for them all, there were so many she was running out of room to stick them to the bed.
Not being happy about it, but not having any choice really, Hypatia went back to the bathtub and went to sleep so Zoey wouldn't wonder when and how she'd left the bathroom.
~
The next night, she considered the books again, and an idea struck her. She smacked her head in annoyance that she hadn't thought of it sooner. Checking to make sure that grass snake was on its rock first, she got her things together to go out. But she switched to Al's version of the body first because it was more useful for what she was planning.
She had been worried Myrtle would be a problem, but the ghost was in the actual bowl of her toilet when Hypatia got there. This was fortuitous; Hypatia merely used her wand to flush the toilet. Myrtle screamed, but apparently had no choice but to go out into the Black Lake. Not wasting any time, Hypatia opened the Chamber of Secrets. Casting a Featherlight Charm on herself first, she jumped, first cleaning the tunnel with her wand and closing the door behind her. She realized then she had no plan for avoiding Myrtle a second time, but she'd cross that bridge if she got to it.
Closing her eyes in case the basilisk was just hanging around, she realized she couldn't move without bumping into walls or tripping over gross bones. She used her wand to clean as much of it as she could, clearing a path through the bones when her wand wasn't up to the task of Vanishing them all.
To avoid bumping into walls at least, she started making regular clicks, attempting echolocation. There was a learning curve on this, it seemed, and she sometimes got barely any warning before running into something, but she thought she could learn it in time.
'Someone is down here with me,' the creepy voice of the basilisk said.
Thinking fast, she tapped into Al's personality and made a Mask version of it to wear. It was a rush job and wouldn't be great, but it should be adequate.
'Oh great King of Serpents, it is I, your humble ally. Just checking up on you.'
'Ah yes, you again. I haven't seen you in some time.'
'Yeah, been busy. School and all, you know.'
'Yes, a student. Heir of the man who created me. Now that the other one is gone, anyway.'
'Speaking of that, he's not completely gone. That was a copy of his memories or something. He's still banging about out there somewhere. Not in human form, though.'
'Indeed? So he is in pieces, so as to remain mortal? But shouldn't that mean he died when I killed his anchor to this earth?'
'Apparently not. As I said, he's still alive out there, last I heard. For some value of alive.'
'He must have more than one anchor. Clever abomination, that one.'
'Yeah, yeah, cool. But not what I'm here for. I was wondering something. The human who made this chamber, did he happen to leave a library behind down here?'
'Yes, he did. The other one looted its treasures when he was in school. But since he was the Heir at the time, even though he bade me attack students, I did not make an issue of it.'
'You sound like you didn't want to attack students. Is that right?'
'Exactly. I was left here to guard the students from outside harm, not to be the harm. But I was made to obey, so I obeyed. I did resist, but I was soooo very hungry, and he did not feed me. Which is why I switched to your side, human.'
'Yeah, I remember. Kinda hard to forget, that day. Lots going on. Anyway, you like the food I've been having sent down for you?'
'Yes. I am quite well sated, now. Thank you, human. Keep it up, and this shall be a very fruitful relationship indeed. If your enemy who kills students is indeed still out there, then when he builds himself a new body, this school may need my assistance against him.'
'Cool. Hmm... would it be possible for you to give me a tour?'
The basilisk paused, thinking. 'Yes, I suppose I can do that. Mind, there are parts of the chambers within that I cannot get into anymore, due to my great age and size. But I shall do my best.'
'Cool. Show me to the library first. It may be empty, but I could use somewhere private to put my growing collection of books.'
The snake nodded, and they began their tour. Hypatia was fascinated; there was a library about a fourth the size of the main Hogwarts library. She was amazed that Voldemort had managed to bring this many books out of the Chamber. But she supposed there were bags that were huge on the inside, that he could have smuggled them out with.
There was also a study with desk, chairs, and tables, among other things. And another room turned out to be a control room, with views of the rest of the chamber, and views of the school corridors and classrooms. There were even views of the common rooms, but not the dorms. Some views even showed the grounds of the castle, including one view out the front gates.
What was more, it was designed so that a parselmouth could direct the basilisk through the corridors and grounds of the castle without going along with it, creating a magical link with the great snake that was as good as sitting on its head. Best of all, the basilisk's eyes were magically blurred out on the view-screen to prevent its deadly gaze from hurting its master through whatever spells made this all possible.
It took her days to clean out the Chamber of Secrets to her satisfaction. But finally she began moving some of her less-frequently used books down there and put them on the shelves in the library.
~
One night while she was studying the Map in detail, including as much of the runework as she could uncover, Hypatia happened to be looking at the part of the Marauder's Map that had Ron Weasley in it, and she noticed something strange. There was someone else in Ron's bed, someone named Peter Pettigrew. She recognized that name. How could it be? It couldn't be a ghost, Ron would know if there was a ghost in his room. And it couldn't be a mistake, either; the Map was so well-made, an impressive feat of runic engineering, that she knew it couldn't lie.
Curious, she investigated while under the invisibility cloak, not yet changed from Harry---wait, no; Adira was the name to use now---in case any of the boys woke up. She padded in quiet as a statue and took a closer look at Ron, noticing his pet rat Scabbers was in bed with him. She curled her nose; she didn't like rats. This one was even worse, looking sickly and neglecting his grooming, like a plague rat.
She looked between Scabbers and the name Peter Pettigrew on the Map. Yes, the placement was perfect. Illegal animagus? She contorted her face in disgust even more. If this was the same Peter Pettigrew that had supposedly been killed by Sirius Black, and even if it wasn't, whoever this was pretending to be a rat was one creepy individual.
Holding her gorge back, Hypatia sneaked back out the boys' dorm and over to her own room. She put away her stuff where the others had left it and set the body back to sleeping in its bed while she started working on planting a series of compulsions to watch Ron on the Map, with subtle notes added for when they finally spotted it.
~
The plan worked. The illegal animagus was unmasked, and Sirius Black's name was cleared. In time, he recovered some and took them into a flat he rented, which was like a house on the inside. Hypatia was pleased by this development; she'd always hated staying at the Weasley house. In Sirius's house, it was a mite tricky to wander at night, given his frequent nightmares and trips to his doggy bed at the foot of Adira's own bed. Still, the patterns soon became clear, and she was happy roaming through his library at night.
And then came the dreams, foretelling Chandra's return. Hypatia was excited, but Chandra was still doing some final studying and wouldn't officially be Out until at least Christmas, by Mother's estimate. Still, she was excited that she'd get to talk with him again within some months.
Of course, the vision of Voldemort soon after those dreams rather ruined this happiness. Eavesdropping on the vision/dream thing, Hypatia knew what was going on. Voldemort was getting his strength back, and would get his body back before the end of the school year. Maybe even by Christmas. It worried her. For her own sake, and for Chandra's, and Mother's. And the others, even though she still wanted nothing to do with them.
She and Draco kept up their correspondence over the summer. Before the year had ended, she'd told him she didn't have an owl, so they used his own to write letters back and forth. Since owls couldn't speak, his couldn't tell Draco where she lived. And even if it could, she always took the owl in a different room from their usual one, and always fully Out when she did, to minimize the chances of him finding out she'd lied to him for so long.
During the chaos after the Quidditch World Cup, her heart skipped a beat seeing Draco. She wished she could come Out and say hi, but that would be a bad idea. She watched him and listened, instead. She'd learned enough French by now she knew what he was saying to the Beauxbatons students. She made a mental note to have him teach her Italian and Spanish as well.
Hypatia was angry on Draco's behalf at the suggestion his parents were Death Eaters. She knew his father had been, but she also remembered one of their conversations about it. Draco played up his father being a former Death Eater for the power and prestige it afforded them both, but from the things he'd been saying over the past year, she suspected that both his parents were very much against Voldemort now, that they were as terrified as anyone about him coming back. They hadn't had a son for most of his reign of terror, and their attempts to make a spare were failing. They worried what would happen to their son if Voldemort ever returned. She suspected they were even making plans, though what those were she had no idea.
She was pleased to see Iliana master the Patronus Charm finally, even if it was a weird choice of spells to use against a human. A couple night after that, Hypatia tried the charm herself, and found that her own Patronus was a cuttlefish. That made a lot of sense to her.
When Al met Javier, she recognized him; other Slytherins occasionally came down to the common room when she and Draco were working there, and he was one of them. Draco hadn't liked him, as she recalled. But she didn't let Draco's thoughts on the boy drive her own. As she watched the boy and listened to him, she thought he reminded her a lot of her original personality, the one she was when the Mask came off. Only he was clearly passionate about several things. She supposed she was, too, but it never showed as much in her voice when she was Maskless.
Hypatia was very suspicious of the two deaths of Peter Pettigrew and Bellatrix LeStrange, both in one summer, especially since she could recall the vision of Voldemort perfectly. But all she had were suspicions.
Once they returned to the school, she set aside her suspicions and looked forward to more night-time outings. Something else in her favor was the fancy new trunk that was bigger on the inside and had several compartments, something she'd have to study in detail to see if she could hide her own stuff in there.
Hypatia made gagging noises in the safety of the Basement while Al got lovey with his boyfriend, and had to pull her tendril back because the whole thing grossed her out so much. Not that she cared about two boys being intimate one way or another, but one of those boys was basically her brother, from her point of view, and she didn't really see the appeal of snogging anyway. But more annoying than that, though, was the fact that she couldn't go out that night without risking waking Javier.
She'd been prepared to like Moody, but when he turned Draco into a ferret, she took an immediate dislike to the man. The fact he later did the three Unforgivable Curses in front of the students didn't help endear him to her at all. She even began to dislike Dumbledore for hiring the man in the first place.
When he cast the Imperius Curse on them – which she couldn't understand how he was getting away with, since the wards should be setting off alarm bells at all these Unforgivables – she had to resist going apoplectic with rage. Luckily for them, though, their unique condition made them immune to the spell. Still, when he later gave Neville a book that sounded very useful, about magical water plants of the Mediterranean, she later sneaked into Neville's room and copied it.
Worried about Moody's magical eye, she spent the first two months back refraining from shifting to her own form in case he spotted it somehow, since he could see through solid objects. It was a problem she needed to solve, and would require more information. Unfortunately, whenever she saw him on the Marauder's Map, he was always in his office; he seemed to sleep there, because he never moved. She was going to have to go out for more information. Luckily, this gave her a ready excuse for why she couldn't visit Draco, if she could ever find a way to get a message to him without that being spotted, too.
So, her second week back, she was roaming the halls behind members of staff, still in the body of whoever had been Out when they went to bed that night, in case Moody saw them. But for several weeks of wandering around like this, she never saw him even once.
Then, of course, came the day when she finally did see him. He was stumping around the corridor, so loudly she realized he probably didn't patrol because of it. Plus, he was so paranoid that it probably wasn't safe to let him patrol.
As soon as she saw him, he froze and turned to look right at her. The prefect she was tailing thought he was trying to talk to her instead, but Hypatia knew better. His magical blue eye could see through invisibility cloaks! That ruined her plans immediately. She wouldn't be able to meet with Draco until she had a plan to deal with Moody's eye. Luckily for her, he was leaving at the end of the year.
Thankfully, he didn't tell on her. But he did grin, a little, as though amused by how well she was hiding and sneaking around at night. He left without incident, but she was paranoid the whole way back to the Griffindor common room.
She tried for weeks to come up with a solution to the problem. She thought of Disillusionment Charms, but that probably wouldn't work for the same reasons the Invisibility Cloak didn't. Become an animagus? But he might notice that, or notice her attempts, and trace her back to the others. Of course, there was always the possibility he'd keep her secret, but information was power, and she didn't want to give that kind of power to someone she didn't like.
And then of course was the Triwizard Tournament. Al's flight from the school and subsequent splinching, which had infuriated her. And next, surprising even her, Chandra's sudden appearance. And he was all alone, the others in hiding.
“Are you Chandra Rahasyamay?” Dumbledore had said, and Hypatia had felt Chandra's confusion.
(You can do this,) she thought. But she didn't send it to Chandra. She had tried, of course, but Mother had told her it wasn't time yet. So she just watched, and listened to his thought processes, smiling at their familiarity. The images, jumbled up. The weird way of looking at the world. Something was not right, here. Where were his words?
But then he found them, straining himself the whole time. She felt the process of it, moving from images to rough sentences like ~Tall brightly-colored silver-haired circle-faced being with the living fire thing that makes soul-clicks,~ to ~Silver-haired tall man with glasses over starry eyes and the friendship of the flaming song-bird,~ to his eventual first words, “Silver Grandfather, with the fire-bird. The red and the gold. The silver and the blue. Starlight in the day.”
She cried a little at this (her Mask's weird emotional affect now affecting her permanently). It was going to be hilarious watching everyone try to figure out Chandra's weird speech patterns. She leaned back to enjoy the show, crying especially at Filch's response to the innocence of Chandra. It was like watching a very strange small child trying to adapt to being in a 14 year old body. She both laughed and cried, internally.
~ ~
Hypatia didn't get to talk with Chandra at all until the first night after Al's return. Al went to sleep, but Chandra stayed awake, in such a way that it wouldn't interfere with Hypatia.
~Auntie Megan? Are you there, Auntie Megan?~
(Yes, I'm here Chandra. It's good to see you again.)
~Likewise, Auntie Megan. Ah, but I see you have a new calling. Shall I---~
(No. Megan is fine, for you and me and Mother. I just... it's our special name. I don't want others using it.)
~Understood. Oh, and you have chosen a form at last. And you made a friend. Excellent. I am much pleased by this. Why are you crying?~
(I'm happy. It's the weirdest thing, this Mask I made, it must be wired wrong, and I haven't been able to fix it.)
~You are unique. There is nothing Wrong about that.~
(If you say so.)
~Hmm... I see you are having issues. The one with the blue Eye of Sauron, his all-seeingness disturbs you. You have not been seeing your friend.~
(No, I haven't. I wish I knew what to do.)
~I can sing a song to hide you. Down here in the Down-Below with you, more of my training comes to me, more readily. It is like the difference between the moon in daylight and the moon at night.~
(His eye sees through invisibility cloaks and Disillusionment Charms, Chandra.)
~Yes, but I think he will not see through this. We can attempt it in my body, as proof of concept. I am certain I can walk right by him and he won't see us.~
(Well, if you're sure, I guess it couldn't hurt.)
They surfaced, Chandra getting up and putting the invisibility cloak on.
~Shall we check the Marauder's Map, Aunt Megan?~
(No, there's no point. I think he's got it fooled somehow, it always shows him in his office. But I don't know for sure, I don't trust myself to take the Map with me.)
~Understood.~
Together they sneaked out of the room and down into the corridors of the school. As they began walking down to the common room, he began to sing a wordless song in their head. She smelled lavender for a moment, then it faded.
Getting into a routine, they followed behind Professor McGonagall on her patrol.
~Ah, this brings me back to when I thought she was another Percy Weasley. She of the green and the black, and the iron in her back.~
(Me too, kiddo. Me too.)
It took them awhile to find Moody. In the meantime, they passed right by Mrs. Norris, who didn't appear to smell them at all.
Moody turned out to be coming out of Snape's office for some reason. He grunted at an annoyed McGonagall and moved on. They saw his eye whiz past them, but it didn't slow down, and he gave no sign of seeing them.
Chandra waved under the cloak, but though he should have been able to see them, he didn't react as though he could.
(How are you doing that?)
~It is a different sort of magic. It is ritual magic. It demands a cost, a sacrifice to work, but its powers are greater than wand magic.~
(What did you sacrifice?)
~I sacrificed our ability to transform, for two days' time. But other sacrifices could be made.~
(Like what? I don't want to not be able to transform. I need to see Draco!)
~Well... I have an idea. It would satisfy the terms of the ritual yet not inconvenience you to sacrifice, for instance, your ability to cast a Patronus for a time.~
(And it only takes two days' worth of this to get past that eye of Moody's?)
~I believe so. Your own experiences may differ, I do not know. But you could try.~
(Are you going to be this much more knowledgeable and stuff every night?)
~We are of the darkness, you and Mother and I. We come alive during it. I have a day mode and a night mode, both very different. But yes, I can accompany you at night, much more useful than I would be in the day.~
(That sounds a bit like being a multiple within a multiple.)
~There is a diamond of truth in the rough of those words, Aunt Megan. My night memories are very different from my day memories. I will likely not even remember this conversation, in the morning. But I will again when the night returns.~
(Well in that case, we might as well go to the library, since we can't transform for another two days.)
~Just like old times, Aunt Megan.~
(Yes, just like old times, Chandra.)
Endnotes: This was originally just some back-story I wrote for the sleepwalker, without intending it to be a chapter, but it was so good I had to make it a chapter.
Part 3 of The Sleepwalker's Arc will continue in the next chapter. This one was already very long.
Hypatia/Megan is another one with no resemblance to anyone in my own collective. In fact, the inspiration for Hypatia (“how about someone who sneaks out at night to visit the library?”) goes to my friend Andrea.
“The Many Faces of Adira Potter: Chapter 37”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Thirty-seven: The Sleepwalker's Arc Continued
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there. But some canon scenes are just too good to change much.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Adira, Zoey, # Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and between hashtags/pound signs. # , {Tier}, ~Chandra,~ % Mother AKA Avani Maznah, % and (Hypatia/Megan.)
Note 4: All hail Our Lady Of Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling!
Note 5: Yes, Chandra is speaking of himself in the third person in these chapters. The Sleepwalker's Arc chapters were written in third person. It was easier to keep it that way than to try changing them to first person or whatever.
*FAYANORA*
Part 3
Or “Searching In The Darkness For Ways To Help The Light.”
As told by Chandra Rahasyamay.
Once Chandra had taught Hypatia how to activate the simple ritual to get past Moody, and once she could transform again, she went right to Slytherin's common room one night. He wasn't in there, probably because she'd been gone so long, but she sneaked around the boys' dorms and found his dorm, finding him reading in bed.
Naturally, he looked at the door opening on its own. Getting his wand out, he hissed, “Identify yourself!”
“It's me!”
“Hypatia? Where have you been all this time? The First Task of the Triwizard Tournament is just a week away!”
“Sorry. But Moody's got this eye that can see through solid objects, even invisibility cloaks, and I didn't want to get caught by him. Come on, let's talk downstairs.”
“Fine, alright. But I'm still cross with you, you never even sent me any letters, once we got back to school.”
“Yeah, well, I've been having trouble with my dorm mates. They hide my stuff, it's infuriating. By the time I find it again, I've quite forgotten anything but my anger.”
They went downstairs into the common room before Draco spoke again.
“Yes, and naturally you couldn't just walk up to me in the Great Hall.”
“I'm sorry! I really, truly am. It's hurt so much. You're still my only friend, Draco. I've been lonely this whole time, if I could've gotten hold of you, I would have.” She started to laugh, as she always did when she was miserable.
“Okay okay, stop laughing, I'm sorry I was so cross with you. It's just... why can't you just talk to me in the halls like a normal person?”
She hung her head. “It's just... no, I'm sorry, I don't have an explanation. I just can't. It's nothing personal against you.” She took his hand in hers and squeezed it. “If I could come up to you in the hall during the day, I would. If I could meet you over the weekend during the day, I would. In a heartbeat I would, if I could. But I can't.”
Something strange went across his face briefly, but it passed as he grew thoughtful.
“I'll respect your privacy, then, Hypatia. But if there's anything I can do to help you, let me know, okay?”
“I will. Thank you for understanding.”
“Well, I don't understand, really, but I'm a Slytherin. We all have our secrets. I'm still your friend, though, just so you know.”
She smiled, and they went back to work as though no time had passed since last year.
Toward the end of their time together that night, though, Draco asked, “Oh yeah, I almost forgot. How did you get past Moody's eye, finally?”
“I got desperate, and swore that Magic Itself could have some of my magic for two days if I could just get past Moody's eye. I felt a tingle, lost my ability to cast Disillusionment Charms, and suddenly I knew I could do it. I went out, walked right by him and he didn't see, even when I waved at him under the cloak. Which was a neat trick because I almost got caught by him once before. I know he can see through the cloak normally. But once I did that, he just couldn't see me anymore.”
“That sounds like ritual magic.” He smirked at her. “That's technically dark magic, that is. You really should have been in Slytherin.”
“You mean there's more kinds of magic than accidental magic and wand magic?”
“Oh yes. There's wandless magic, which is right on the edge between light and dark magic due to being much harder to control, and only really accepted because it was hard to make a case against it. Then of course ritual magic, which always has a cost. You have to give something up to gain something of equal or lesser value, in ritual magic. It's a form of magic that can be highly unpredictable, very persnickety. The smallest mistakes can be dangerous, which is why it's mostly considered dark magic. You got lucky, for your first time, only losing Disillusionment Charms. You could've ended up being unable to do magic at all for a day or two instead.”
“Wow. You sound like you know something about them.”
“I might have some resources that could benefit you, in that regard. With your arithmancy skills, I'll bet you could improve on many of the rituals I know about. Tricky though ritual magic may be, it still follows rules and can be defined arithmantically.”
“Sounds like a project for next time.”
“Yes. Speaking of, when can you meet again?”
“I'm not sure. It depends on when my dorm mates go to bed, and how deep they sleep. I'll be back as soon as I can, though.”
“I'll go back to waiting for you in the common room, then.”
“Thanks,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek quickly before pulling on the cloak and heading out into the corridors.
~
They did indeed make a project of studying ritual magic. Draco got some books from his father via their owl, and the two friends studied these books every night they were able to, in addition to the other projects they had with one another.
“This book here is especially interesting, I think. Its payments are a little more troubling than sacrificing bits of your magic, but the payouts are greater.”
“What kind of payments?”
“Mostly pain. You invoke one of these rituals, and you might have to deal with a migraine for a day, or a throbbing pain in your leg, all the way up to the heavier rituals that can give you arthritis for the rest of your life.”
“Arthritis? I don't know what could possibly be worth that sort of payment, Draco.”
“Well I haven't read the book yet, so neither do I. But let's take an example. Hmm... not that one, not that one... ah! Here's one. This ritual here costs a bad hand cramp in your non-dominant hand for a day, and with it you can increase your reaction speed in duels for the same duration.”
“Hardly necessary in my case, but it's a worthy example.”
“Here's another example, a ritual curse. Block someone's magic completely for a day, the cost is pain in your arms for the day.”
“Sounds like a poor choice of payment. You cripple yourself for a day just to do the same to someone else? Let me see that one. I want to study that one. There might be a way to improve on it.”
“In ritual magic, Hypatia, you have to sacrifice something to get something of equal or lesser value. The cost and the reward are often directly related. Whatever you want to happen to another, you have to do to yourself, or do something similar instead. Or, in some of the darker rituals, you have to do it to someone else, but that has effects on your mind.”
“Yeah, I figured that out already. It's kind of obvious. I give up the Disillusionment Charm to gain being hidden from Moody's magical eye. You hurt your enemy's hands by hurting your own. But I think there's more to it than that. You mentioned one possible cost I could've had to pay for the same protection from Moody was losing my magic for a day or more. That suggests it's not always related. That it's just a balancing act; give yourself some sort of strength by willingly taking on a weakness in its place. But no... the maths aren't adding up.”
“What do you mean?” Draco asked.
“I mean that sacrificing your magic for a day is too high a cost, arithmantically, for that small a reward. Giving up all your ability to defend yourself for a whole day or more just to hide from a magical eye? That's like paying a galleon for something worth a sickle, and getting no change back.”
“Yes, it is. But that sort of thing only happens if you screw up the ritual. It's a punishment for making a mistake.”
“You make it sound like some god is to blame. But it's just maths and physics. Magic is a part of how the universe works, and since it can be described arithmantically, that means it has rules, as you said. The rules don't just change because you mess up. That extra energy when a ritual is messed up goes somewhere. I just don't know where yet.”
“Wherever it goes probably depends on how you've messed up.”
Hypatia picked a small ritual out of another book and started working out the maths on it, in her head. Within a few minutes, she had it analyzed enough to theorize some ways it might go wrong. But she needed more data.
“I'm going to purposefully mess this one up to see what happens.”
“What? Why? You shouldn't do that, it's dangerous!”
Tapping a parchment with her wand, she filled it with her analysis of the ritual. “As you can see here, I have it analyzed enough I think I can guess how it can go wrong. To come up with a hypothesis about where the energy of a botched ritual goes, I need more data. I need to botch one on purpose and see what happens. This one is already analyzed, with predictions. It's safe.”
“Wait, did you do all those maths in your head?”
“Yes. It was a trivial analysis.”
“Trivial? I don't even know what half of these symbols mean!”
“I've always been good at maths. The sort of maths they teach in Muggle schools far outstrip the reach of what's taught in the wizarding world.”
“Wait, you were in a Muggle school? When? Are you a Mud—er, a Muggle-born?”
“I'm a half-blood. I was raised in the Muggle world. My parents wanted me to get a good education. You had tutors for writing and maths and stuff, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well in the Muggle world, at least in Britain and other Western nations, education is free for all children. Well, the government pays for it with taxes.”
“Free education? For everyone? Why?”
“Why not?”
“What, so wealthy, high-class people in Muggle culture are taught alongside commoners?”
She sighed. “No. There are schools just for rich kids, that their parents pay for. The standard of education is generally higher than the free schools.”
“I should think so, if it's for the upper crust. If you're going to pay for education yourself, it better be a damn sight better than what the common rabble get.”
She rolled her eyes at his classism and went back to her work. As she sat there working on some theoretical models of potential failure modes for the ritual, Draco stared thoughtfully at her.
“What?” she asked him, when she noticed.
“It's just... I never knew Muggles were so good at maths. How far did you get in your classes?”
“Oh. Well, I was still in primary school, so we never officially got past stuff like long division, some algebra, fractions, and so on. But there was a public library I would go to at times, and they had books about maths, from higher grades. I think I was just starting pre-calculus when I got my Hogwarts letter.”
“I don't know what that means.”
“Well, from what I've seen of arithmancy books, I'd say it's fifth or sixth year arithmancy.”
“You were doing the equivalent of fifth or sixth year arithmancy when you were 11?” Draco asked, incredulous.
“I think so. I can't be sure, exactly. But I've kept going over the years. I've been devouring university-level maths textbooks ever since, and some of those make pre-calculus and even calculus look simple by comparison.”
Draco whistled in an impressed way. “Wow. Okay, we have to teach you Ancient Runes. You could do all sorts--”
“I'm in Ancient Runes already. It's one of my classes. I've been reading ahead there as well.”
“What level are you at?”
“I've been working with the sixth-year textbook lately, when I can.”
“Not surprising. You know, if you keep going on Ancient Runes, between that and the maths you can do in your head, you could become a master ward-cracker, even get a job as a curse-breaker for Gringotts.”
“I suppose so. Anyway, I'm ready to botch this ritual.” She got out her dicta-quill and spoke to it. “Objective: botch a magical ritual to glean more data for analysis of where the extra energy goes during such botched rituals. Test ritual: gaining enhanced hearing for ten minutes by sacrificing the ability to speak for ten minutes. First round will be a control.”
“Control? What's a control?”
“Meaning I'm going to do it properly the first time, so I know I can do it right. The second attempt will be the first deliberate botch.”
Draco watched, silent, as Hypatia did the control ritual, which worked perfectly. When she was able to speak again, she told him of how she'd heard mice in the walls, the snoring of all the students in Slytherin, and even a dripping faucet in one of the bathrooms.
Then, of course, it was time to botch the ritual. She did the ritual, and this time she couldn't speak for twenty minutes. For some reason, she took her glasses off within a minute of the ritual starting, only putting them back on when she could speak again. When she was done, she spoke to her dicta-quill.
“Result of botched spell: inability to speak for 20 minutes, only had enhanced hearing for five minutes. But I noticed my visual acuity went up noticeably for the entire duration. Interesting result.”
She did several more experiments with purposefully botching the ritual, messing it up a different way each time, writing down the results. Sometimes there were clear results, other times there was no noticeable result, even when she probed her body's abilities and the brain's contents. One of the botched rituals even hit Draco, rendering them both mute for a time.
“Well,” she said when she was done. “That's a lot of interesting data. Analysis isn't going to be easy. After all, some of those times, the energy could have gone shooting off at random and doing random things around the school for all I know. I'll have to keep my ears open for tales of anomalies.”
~ ~
They'd been working together again several times since the First Task had ended. The Yule Ball was fast approaching. As it did, Hypatia noticed Draco acting strange around her. One of these times, she looked up from her work.
“Why are you acting so weird lately, Draco? It's like you're not concentrating on our work.”
“Oh, well... it's just... well, I mean I know you never meet me outside of these night-time meetings of ours, but I have to ask you something.”
“What is it?”
“Um... the Yule Ball is coming up soon. I was wondering if you would be my date for the evening?”
That took the wind right out of her sails. She felt like laughing, though she also felt like crying. She suppressed both urges. Given her strange affect, either reaction would be confusing to him.
“I can't, Draco. I'm sorry, I just can't. I... I would if I could. But I can't.”
“Ah. I thought so. Well, I had to ask anyway.”
“I'm truly sorry, Draco.”
He half-grinned. “I know.”
They tried to go back to work, but neither could focus anymore. Finally, they switched from a 'working on stuff together' mode into 'just hanging out' mode.
~ ~
Things went mostly the same for her for months after that. Largely ignoring the plight of the others because she found their complaints about the warming charm to be annoyingly ridiculous, seeing as the obvious solution was to overpower the charm or use runes, she was focusing on her projects with Draco, which were ramping up. The puzzle in the Second Task she had figured out in less than a minute, and found everyone else's struggles with the childishly simple puzzle to be very amusing.
She was getting really good at ritual magic, with Draco's help. She was even working on ways to use her knowledge of ritual magic to help the others if something actually life-threatening came up again, as it was bound to. Her research into ritual magic so far that year had yielded some interesting results, and she was starting to improve on many of the rituals she knew about already, because she found flaws in their arithmancy, or places where a greater understanding of arithmancy – paired with the power of the multiple constructs she had for doing maths – could yield impressive results.
“As you can see here,” she said at one of these meetings with Draco, a week before the Easter holidays, “the sacrifices don't need to be related symbolically with their rewards, but can instead be broken down into simple units of power. There's still some limits, both hard and soft limits, but I've figured out how to distribute multiple smaller sacrifices to equal the sacrificial energy requirements of whatever ritual you want to use. My theory is that the symbolic connections most wizards think are inherent in ritual magic are only there to make it easier to remember and concentrate on, a bit like how people used to remember things by making them into poems or songs before reading became so common.
“Also, I can now plug ritual sacrifice energy into wand spells to super-chage them. What's more, I can bundle the energy from smaller sacrifices into a ritual. So for instance, instead of getting a migraine for an hour to have the power to lift a boulder by yourself with a super-charged levitation ritual, you can instead do a bundle of smaller sacrifices, such as the following bundle: get some slight back pain, give up the ability to speak for ten minutes, give up the ability to use a Summoning Charm for ten minutes, get a hand cramp for ten minutes, and some muscle weakness for 15 or 20 minutes.
“That's just one potential bundle, of course. The point is, arithmantically speaking, the multiple smaller sacrifices equal the cost of the larger sacrifice the ritual normally calls for. Of course it's trickier doing it that way, and more can go wrong if you mess it up, but given that some rituals demand rather a lot of you for their cost, it might be worth the risk in some cases to split the load rather than, for instance, cripple yourself for life.”
Draco looked impressed. “This is... amazing. I don't think I could possibly do one of these without a lot of planning ahead of time, though. But I think I just saw you adapt a ritual you'd never heard of before tonight in ten minutes, in your head. Am I right?”
She shrugged. “I guess so.”
Draco burst out laughing. Hypatia raised her eyebrow, and waited for the blond boy to calm down enough to explain.
“Oh my,” he said, wiping his eyes where they'd been watering with mirth. “Potter thinks he's so great, with that Granger on his side. Jokes on him, though; you're ten times the witch she is.”
She shrugged, uncomfortable. “I dunno. Hermione Granger is good at nearly everything she does. Aside from dropping out of Divination, her academic record is better-than-perfect scores in every subject. Well, then there's Potions, but that's more because Snape doesn't like her. Anyway, she's a Jill of all trades. Me, though? I'm good at Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, ritual magic, sneaking around, and learning languages. I'm average at everything else, though.”
Draco made a dismissive gesture and sound. “So what? Even if you're rubbish at everything else, you're so good at the things you're good at that it puts everything Granger does to shame. With your skills, you could probably even take on the dark lord himself and survive.”
“Er... that's high praise. Don't know if I'd go that far, myself. Anyway, I hope I never have to find out if you're right.”
Draco shuddered. “Me neither.”
She went back to her work, but he sat there watching her, silent for a long time before speaking at last.
“Hypatia?” Draco finally said, breaking the silence.
“Yes? What is it?”
“You know... I think I have it figured out, why you can't meet me in person in the daytime.”
She froze, her insides dropping, but said only, “Oh?”
“Yes. And well... I know I've said some things to Potter that might have made you think I wouldn't accept you for it, but I was only saying those things to Potter to get under their skin. Well, and I really did think those things then. But Professor Snape pointed out to me that I might be hurting people other than Potter, even some within Slytherin, with my words. And well... lately, some of the things you've said have made me wonder...”
“Wonder what?” she asked tremulously.
“Just, well... I don't want to presume, but... if you're... well, if you're transgender, I don't care about that. If you're in the closet about it, I understand. And I'm sorry I said those things to Potter. I never dreamed I might be hurting you with those words, too. But it makes sense, and it's the only explanation that does. I mean, you're a metamorphmagus, and since you're not out about it... well that would explain why I never see you during the day. I keep looking for a girl, and you're probably in disguise as a boy during the day. You might look nothing like this, even. Er... if I'm guessing right, that is.”
(Holy shit I dodged a bullet there,) she thought, finally releasing the breath she hadn't realized she was holding.
“Oh, uh... okay. Right,” she said. “Yeah, I didn't want to tell you, but you guessed it. Hypatia Williams, thought a boy since birth, was always secretly a girl, using her metamorphmagus powers to be her true self at night. I'm glad to know you feel that way. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you before. I was scared to be myself in the daytime. And Potter's fame, and that Skeeter woman didn't help any.”
“You know, my father knows Rita Skeeter. I could get him to lean on her to find something else about Potter to focus on than her gender status.”
She blinked at him. “You could do that? Without making your father suspicious?”
“Well, I can just tell him the truth, or part of it; I can tell him I have a transgender friend, and Skeeter's articles focusing on Potter's gender are making my friend more scared and uncomfortable than before.”
“Right. Well just as long as you don't out me to anyone.”
“I won't. And I don't expect you to visit with me in the daytime. I suppose you don't want to be seen by me while you're looking like a boy. And I've known you solely as a girl for so long, I might slip up and use the pronouns for your secret self. I don't want to do that to you, Hypatia.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that. If I ever get to come out in the daytime, to be myself at last, I'll look you up.”
Draco smiled. “Excellent. I hope you find the strength to do that. But I can wait. And if it never happens, I'll still be your friend.”
“Thank you.”
She sat there, her eyes on her work, but her mind elsewhere. The silence stretched on, until she finally broke it again.
“Draco?”
“Yes?”
“Knowing what you know now. Well... you once asked me to the Yule Ball. If I were to come out during the day... and there was another ball... would you still want to go with me?”
Draco smiled. “And have at my arm the cleverest, most intelligent girl I've ever met?” he said, taking her arm in a genteel manner and kissing her hand. “In a heartbeat.”
Far from comfort her, this threw her thoughts and feelings into greater turmoil. Because he still didn't know. He thought he did, but he didn't. She wanted to laugh, to scream maybe. He could never know the full truth. She had no idea how he would react to knowing she was one of the Potters, but she didn't think it would be good. Her friendship with him was built on a foundation of lies. That Draco thought he'd penetrated the lies and found the truth only made the treachery of it worse. Knowing the full truth, even if she got a chance to explain that she kept the others ignorant of her existence, that all her memories from the night were hers alone... it would still likely be the end of her only friendship.
And just like that, the feelings passed. Where they went, she didn't know. But they were replaced with a sort of apathetic resignation. The lies would continue. She had no other viable option, at this point, none that she could see.
“You know,” Draco said, pulling her out of her thoughts, “your talk of splitting up the sacrificial energy into smaller sacrifices has me thinking about a book Father told me about once. It's said to be in an un-crackable cipher. But I think I recall you mentioning that Muggles have worked out how to crack so-called un-crackable ciphers before, using maths. With your skills in arithmancy, there's a book you might be the first to benefit from in hundreds of years. It was lost for some centuries, then the goblins found it and they've been trying to crack it for a century at least, with no luck.”
“Aside from the challenge of trying to crack it, what might I get out of it?”
“There you go, thinking like a Slytherin again, you clever goddess. What you could get out of it, of course, is that it's said to be filled with some extremely powerful spells that involve human sacrifice, mostly of the willing variety. The person who wrote it was also trying to unlock the ability to sacrifice other people's magic in addition to or instead of one's own magic. Well technically that was already possible at the time, but it's rumored he was trying to do it without killing the people sacrificed. He never managed it, but he's said to have gotten quite a ways on it. Quite apart from anything else, if it could be made to work it would make group rituals a lot simpler.”
“How's that?”
“Well currently, if a bunch of people get together to do a ritual casting, they have to have equal levels of power and skill. That's not easy to measure in the first place, and even harder to find. Also, they have to sacrifice equal amounts of whatever they're sacrificing of themselves. Basically they're all doing separate rituals and trying to plug them all together. All those things together make group rituals about twenty times trickier than the trickiest single-person ritual. But with your advanced arithmancy skills and that ability to do complex maths in your head, if you could figure out how to adapt your 'smaller sacrifices bundle' finding to group rituals... you could rule the world with that kind of power!” His face briefly lit up with megalomaniacal glee.
“Rule the world?”
He quickly got his face back under control, in a somewhat catlike way. “As an example. I don't know the specifics of how much power that would be, or what you could do with it. But for an example, Mother told me tales in my youth of Merlin and Salazar Slytherin, two men of equal power, working together in battle to use a two-man ritual to defeat armies of hundreds of Muggle soldiers. They didn't do it more than a couple times, because it was extremely risky and difficult, but according to Mother, they got desperate enough to try it at least twice. There's even a rumor they botched a third attempt, and that their botched third attempt was what killed them both.”
“I don't want to kill anyone, Draco.”
“Well neither do I. I just don't have any better examples. You're the one who can think of clever things to do with magical power, what would you do with that kind of power?”
“I don't know. I also doubt two people, even at Merlin's level, could dredge up that much power between them. Not unless they were super-charging the Killing Curse or something like that.”
“What else might you be able to do with that kind of power, I wonder?”
“It's hard to say without the right information. I'd need to study this book you mentioned, crack the code and read the author's equations. But if I had to guess... estimating the kind of energy needed to kill 500 or more Muggles in one blow, with an enhanced Killing Curse... hmm... well I've always wondered if dementors can be killed? I mean, they're not technically alive. But they can breed after a fashion, like dry rot or fungi. And they don't like bright sunlight. But they can manipulate the local weather, in large groups; creating storms, making the temperature drop. Our third year there were at least 100 of them haunting the grounds, and the weather was more horrible than usual, with far more storms and the like. Given these facts, if they couldn't ever die in some way, they'd have overrun the planet a long time ago. There'd be nothing left but dementors if they couldn't die. But nobody's yet figured out how to kill one, to my knowledge.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“Well, if you could plug that kind of energy into a Patronus Charm, you could probably make a super-charged Patronus strong enough to kill dementors.”
“Yes, but you'd have to be able to cast a Patronus first.”
“Oh, I can.”
“You can? Really? I'd be interested to learn that one, if you're telling the truth.”
“Okay. Expecto Patronum!”
Her shining, shimmering cuttlefish Patronus appeared before them.
“WOW!” Draco nearly shouted. “That's incredible! What kind of creature is that, though?”
“It's called a cuttlefish. They're not technically fish, though. More closely related to squids and octopi. They're famous, at least among Muggles, for being able to change color and shape. They're incredible mimics. They can even pretend to be hermit crabs! They use it to hunt.”
Draco chuckled. “The perfect Patronus for a metamorphmagus, then.”
“Yeah, except it might out that particular ability to others.”
“Ah yes, there is that. But most wizards don't know cuttlefish, I think. At least, I doubt any of the purebloods would know of them.”
“Heh. I guess.”
“So you reckon you could super-charge a Patronus to kill dementors, not just scare them away?”
“Well I'd like to at least run the numbers to see if it's possible. And then, of course, attempt the spell and ritual to see if it would actually do that.”
“In that case, you'll need the book. I know of a bookstore in Knockturn Alley that would have it, and a few other hard-to-find books of a similar nature, that would benefit your research. And given how much they likely cost, I'd have to pay for them, or have Father do it.”
“What? No no, having him send you books from your private library is quite an imposition as is, I couldn't ask you to spend so much on me.”
“You're not asking, though; I am. I'm investing in you, Hypatia. It pays to invest in talent of your caliber. I don't know what you'll do with your life, Hypatia, but the possibilities are magnificent. I simply have to do everything I can to help you.”
She blinked, his words stopping her completely. “I... well, I suppose I can't refuse an investment like that.”
“Well you could, but you'd be mad to.”
She smiled. “Yes, I would. Alright then, order the books.”
“I'll start on the letter to Father right now.”
No sooner had he sat down to write the letter, though, than he was yawning.
“It's late. We both need to get some sleep,” Hypatia said.
“This won't take long.”
“Well if you want to stay up to write the letter, go ahead. But it really is late, and I really do need to get going.”
“Can't you just stay here for the night? I can set up a camp bed for you or something.”
“Right, a Ravenclaw who's a closeted trans girl spending the night in the Slytherin dorms, sleeping. That'd go over so well. Flitwick would be thrilled, of course. And Snape--”
“Yeah okay, I get it. Big trouble. A thousand points from Ravenclaw, probably five hundred from Slytherin for my letting you do it. I'll see you in a couple days, okay?”
“Sure thing,” she said, slipping the invisibility cloak back on. “Bye, Draco!”
“Bye, Hypatia!”
~ ~
The note they'd left her had been annoying. She didn't know how they'd figured it out, but she thought the best response was no response at all, and ignored the note, doing her utmost to leave no trace of her presence behind for them to find. But it hadn't worked; they were still suspicious, and told McGonagall about their suspicions. Nosy brats.
So, to get back at them in a passive-aggressive sort of way, she switched to Tier's old form of the body before going to bed, and turned off his and Zoey's powers. It was stupid, she knew they'd suspect her even more, but she was angry and trying to send them a message: don't bother me.
Naturally, it didn't work. Worse, Tier told Ron his suspicions. Hermione didn't see the rest of the note, though, so that annoyingly clever meddler probably didn't know, which was a good thing. In a snit, Hypatia left them that way for two weeks before returning them back to normal.
~ ~
Her plan with Draco ended up not being quite so simple as they'd hoped. Mr. Malfoy had been under a lot more scrutiny from certain Ministry employees since the Chamber of Secrets business, and could not be seen going to Knockturn Alley without sufficiently good reason to risk it; fueling the curiosity of one of Draco's friends about a book that was likely impossible to decipher wasn't his idea of a worthy enough reason to risk his reputation.
Still, between the two of them, they came up with a clever alternative. Hypatia would be going to London for Easter, and Knockturn Alley was in London. Mr. Malfoy had ways of paying people that didn't trace back to him, even with the incredibly high price of this rare book, so he finally agreed to finance the scheme if this friend of Draco's was willing to risk themselves for this research project of theirs. He didn't exactly approve of a 14 year old witch going to Knockturn Alley, but when Draco assured him that she could disguise herself very cleverly (hinting at her being a metamorphmagus but never saying it outright), he finally gave in and sent them the money order to use. She had asked Draco how his father knew how much to make the order out for, and Draco shrugged, replying “Maybe his contacts got him the price.” Then he gave her his own bag of gold to cover any difference there might be.
And so, armed with a list, a location, and her knowledge of wandless magic (which would register as accidental magic and thus fool the Trace), she got up the first night of Easter at Sirius's house, thought about using the invisibility cloak, decided it would attract the attention of thieves, and Disillusioned herself instead.
The wards were a challenge even for her, and it took her an hour of hard work, utilizing five different constructs to run different sets of equations, but eventually she worked out how to get past the wards without setting off the alarms. She would of course later discover, to her anger, that she'd overlooked an important detail in her analysis of the wards: the surveillance wards could see through Disillusionment Charms. But for then she slipped out, unaware she'd made a mistake.
When out of sight of the building the flat was in, she hid in a dark alley and transformed to her own form of the body, then Disillusioned herself again because the transformation had broken her earlier Disillusionment. Disillusioned again, she set off for Knockturn Alley.
Hypatia ducked into another alley just before getting to The Leaky Cauldron. She couldn't apparate yet, and the staff and/or patrons would notice a 14 year old girl out this late at night. She couldn't afford to stand out at all, so she tapped into Tier's abilities and made herself look older, in her mid 30's, and less distinctive by giving herself plainer glasses and black hair instead of her usual white hair. Thus disguised, she went into The Leaky Cauldron...
...only to find it empty. She shrugged; the disguise was still a good idea, so she kept it on. She went back to the back of the building where the wall into Diagon Alley was, and used her wand to activate the brick.
Diagon Alley at night was... a little creepy, but the night-time lights in the shop windows lent it a cozy kind of creepiness, if that makes any sense. It was, at least, a lot cozier than Knockturn Alley. Though Knockturn was largely dead in the daytime, it exploded with life at night. The lights, such as they were, were often blood red or dark purple, casting more shadows than they banished. But the place was packed with witches and wizards skulking around, their wands lit or carrying weird light sources like a lantern made from a human skull. Hypatia herself used no lights, not trusting she could make one without setting off the Trace. Instead, she used Tier's powers again and gave herself keen night vision. She was sure her eyes would glow with sufficient light, but that wasn't a huge concern yet. Getting to the right shop and getting home again safe, that was what mattered.
Despite her lack of lighting, or perhaps because of it, people kept glancing at her. Some even leered at her, which made her so uncomfortable that she quickly put together and cast a bit of ritual magic (which should also fool the Trace), sacrificing a dozen insignificant things to give her what she decided to call a 'Don't Notice Me' spell. She wasn't invisible or Disillusioned, which would be a huge hassle with the crush of bodies in this place, but instead, people saw her but weren't interested. She was like a bit of the background, seen but not noticed. They even moved out of her way as she walked, and they were clearly unaware that they'd even done so. She knew that if anyone asked them why they'd done it, they'd be baffled.
The shop she went to was tiny, and the few books on display were all locked up tight in wooden cabinets with unbreakable glass fronts. Given some of the prices on them, she wasn't surprised.
Her 'Don't Notice Me' wasn't strong enough to keep working if she did something to deliberately get someone's attention; it was ephemeral, and would burst like a bubble when she did.
“Hey, anyone here in this dump?” she said aloud. She noticed a little bell, and rang it a couple times.
“Eh shet it, lashie, Ah heerd ya tha firsht time ya shpoke. Hold onna yar breeches, I ent ash young ash Ah used ta beh.”
From around a corner in the back came (very, very slowly) a person, gender indecipherable, of such great age and decrepitude that they made Dumbledore look like a young Olympic athlete by comparison. The person, who was probably the shop keeper, looked like they were made entirely of beef jerky that had shriveled even further by some sort of dark magic until their nose was nearly touching the ground. If they'd introduced themselves as being an Incan mummy animated by magic, Hypatia would have had no problem at all believing it.
The shop keeper was stumping along on a pair of crutches made of wood more gnarled and hideous than they were, moving along so slowly that a slug could probably lap them twice in a race. Luckily, the shop keeper didn't have far to go. In no more than five agonizingly slow minutes, they were standing in front of Hypatia. Then, so suddenly it made her jump, the floor jumped up under the shriveled old store owner, bringing their eyes up level with Hypatia's own.
“'Not as young as you used to be'?” she said. “That's the understatement of the century. If you were any older, you'd be able to tell me stories about your grandson Merlin.”
She quickly covered her own mouth, unsure why she was being so flippant. But the old shop-keep just chuckled in a wheezy way, exactly like she imagined a mummy would sound as it tried to get the dust out of its leathery lungs.
“Ah likesh ya, lashie. Not afeered a makin a jerk at ern old man'sh ekshpensh, en laffer'sh all Ah gotsh left that worksh enemar. What kern Ah do yeh fer?”
“I have a list of books to get. My contacts tell me you have them.”
She passed him the list and he got out an enormous magnifying glass to examine it, even though it was written in large letters and he was wearing glasses with lenses as thick as her fist.
“Hoo boy datsh a heck erv a lisht yeh got thar. Gerna corsht yeh a perty shickle. Lemme she har, how mushud dat be? Ah heer we arr, twenty-nine thoushand galleonsh fer the lot.”
“WHAT? Twenty-nine... thousand... galleons!?”
“Yeh. Shuper rare, dat wun berk. Da uddersh ent cheap nyder.”
She realized then that she hadn't looked at Mr. Malfoy's money order. She did now, and found she was 1000 galleons short. She looked in Draco's gold bag and found only 94 galleons in it.
“Counter-offer: Twenty-eight thousand galleons.”
“Heh, right. Ah'd be takin a losh at that prysh. Caint do et, lashie.”
“I thought we were haggling here.”
“Ah don't haggle.”
“Listen, all I have on me is twenty-eight thousand and 94 galleons.”
The shop-keep stroked his chin, apparently thinking. “Well... thash a bit clohsher. Shtill nearly a thoushand galleonsh short.”
She silently berated herself then for not bringing her own cheques. Not that she wanted to link the others to this purchase for a couple of huge reasons, but still...
“Could I make up the difference with a bit of knowledge?”
“Knowledge? Hmm... Ah'm curioush what yeh think'd be werf nearly a thoushand galleonsh, lashie.”
“How about a formula for replacing big sacrifices in ritual magic with an array of smaller sacrifices?”
His eyes weren't very visible behind his thick glasses, but she still saw his eyebrows go up.
“Well now if yeh can delifer on that, lashie, Ah'd take that deal. Yeh got et on yeh?”
She pulled a parchment out of her robes and – hoping that being in the thick of Knockturn Alley would fool the Trace – she tapped it with her wand. The parchment instantly filled up with a very long and complicated equation that filled both sides. She tapped another parchment to include explanations of some of the more esoteric parts of the formula.
The shop keeper looked over both parchments and whistled appreciatively.
“Carn't shay Ah unnershtand mosht erv thish here, but Ah grashp enough erv it where I'll take yer deal. Where'sh the uver twenty-eight thoushand and 94 galleonsh?”
Hypatia handed over the money order and the contents of Draco's coin purse. The old man nodded. Then he snapped his fingers and a very young looking house elf appeared.
“Bitsy is here, Master. How can Bitsy be of service?”
“Get theesh booksh, Bitshee. Yeh know where they are?”
“Of course, Master. Bitsy will be right back in a jiffy.”
With a crack, the elf disappeared, and the old man got out a lock box and started dropping the money through a slot in the top. By the time he finished, Bitsy was back with a pile of books. She handed Hypatia the books and the list.
“Here you is, Miss. You is paid him, right?”
“Yesh, Bitshee, the lashie paid me. Ah just put et all en da boksh. Enjoy yer perchash, lashie. Been shwell doin bishnesh wif yeh.”
“Just a moment, I had a question for Bitsy.”
“What is you wanting to ask me?”
“Can you read, then?”
“Bitsy can read, yes. Well enough to read the titles, anyway. It is being an uncommon thing, house elves knowing how to read.”
“That's what I thought. Well thank you, both of you.”
“Bye, lashie!”
She wrapped her purchase up in twine and re-cast her 'Don't Notice Me' before leaving. Getting back home and into her bedroom was a lot easier. Having already cracked the wards, slipping in again took half the time and a fourth the effort. Once in her bedroom, she wrote a letter to add to the bundle of books for Draco, who was better able to keep them until school. Also, his father wanted to keep the originals and give her copies, which made more sense now than ever before.
Dear Draco,
Twenty-nine THOUSAND galleons! I've never spent so much money in my life! I don't think my parents have had as much money in their whole lives! Oh yeah, your dad underestimated the price by 1000 galleons, and your coin purse only had 94 galleons in it. I had to give the old man my formula for bundled sacrifices to make up the difference. Though the fact he thought it was worth 1000 galleons is flattering.
Man, I've never seen someone so old. He could make Egyptian mummies look young and spry by comparison!
Anyway, here's the books. I've put Imperturbable Charms on them. If they get lost or stolen or damaged en route, please don't take it out of my hide; I don't think I could ever repay a debt that huge. That said, let me know when you get them safe so I can stop worrying.
All for now. I gotta get these sent off before it's too late. See you after the holidays!
Sincerely,
Hypatia Williams
The letter done, she went to another room so owls wouldn't come to the bedroom while the others were Out, sent it and the package off to Draco, switched back to Adira's form of the body, and went back to sleep.
~
“And there ends the story so far,” Chandra finished, looking calmly at Dumbledore and Sirius.
The two men were staring, stunned by the story. Dumbledore was the first to recover his wits.
“Could we please meet Hypatia in person, Chandra?”
“I shall try, Silver Grandfather. She is rather upset at the moment. Years she went unsuspected, and suddenly in one night she makes a mistake and is exposed. But I will try.”
He closed his eyes, his expression calm except for occasional twitches of Adira's face. Then, with no glow at all, Adira's face and body changed to that of a black girl with glasses and white dreadlocks. She looked miserable, and the moment she appeared, she hugged her legs tight to her body.
“Welcome, Ms. Williams,” Dumbledore said.
She did not respond.
Snapping out of his own stunned silence at last, Sirius suddenly shouted, “You sold that formula to a store in Knockturn Alley that deals in books about dark magic? Are you MAD? What if Voldemort gets hold of that?”
Jerking back in fright, Hypatia began laughing into her arms, the miserable laughter Chandra had described. It was very different from normal laughter indeed; it sounded superficially the same, but there was something off about it that did not have a happy sound to it.
“Sirius, please do not yell. This needs to be handled delicately.”
He sighed. “Sorry, Dumbledore. Sorry, Hypatia.”
It took Hypatia several minutes to stop her sorrowful laughter and look up. The next words came from her mouth but weren't hers.
“If he's going to get them, it would be through the Malfoys, surely? This is Al, by the way.”
Dumbledore and Sirius looked at each other. But before they could say anything, Hypatia spoke in her own words this time.
“Don't be stupid. I haven't given Draco any copies of the formula. Even if I did, he wouldn't understand half of it. There's a lot of Muggle maths in it, well past his level of skill.”
“Do not worry, Sirius,” Dumbledore said. “I will take care of it. I know the shop in question, and the owner owes me some favors from decades ago. And he will want to pore over it first, and make copies, before he sells it.”
“Well that's something, I guess. But ritual magic? I knew that Malfoy boy was a bad egg.”
“He's not, though,” Hypatia said defensively. “The face he shows most people is different from his true face. He's got a lot of expectations to live up to, with who he is. His parents have their expectations, the Slytherins have theirs, the rest of the school has various expectations. He was upset when Harry rejected his friendship on the train, and he's got himself convinced he doesn't care about that. But I think all he ever wanted was to be Harry's friend. Now, though, years of playing the role he dug himself into in his upset keeps getting reinforced by Al's and Chandra's behavior, among others. He's resentful. It's something he and I have in common, that resentment, even though the causes are different.”
“But he's got you into the dark arts!” Sirius said.
“Don't be dense! Weren't you paying attention to the story Chandra told you? It was Chandra who introduced me to ritual magic, not Draco. So what do you think of that?” She glared at them both defiantly, her arms crossed.
She didn't let them answer, though, interrupting with, “There's nothing inherently bad about most ritual magic anyway, just because it's tricky and dangerous. Wand magic is tricky and dangerous too. And I would've gone researching ritual magic anyway, even without Draco or any other person you've decided to be prejudiced against, both of you!”
“Be that as it may, Ms. Williams,” Dumbledore said, “you really shouldn't be dabbling in dangerous magics. Some of the rituals you've gotten into are indeed dark, and illegal.”
“Willingly sacrificing something of your own to get something in exchange is dark now, is it? This is exactly why I never wanted to be out in the open, because adults have these ridiculous arbitrary rules against things because they're too scared or too incompetent to do them correctly, and so therefore they just ban it. Anything that gives them the slightest bit of difficulty, anything that takes slightly more effort or thought than they're willing to put into something, and into the ban bin it goes! Adults are so infuriating! And the word 'adult' is so fitting, too, either way you pronounce it. Pronounce it one way, it sounds like 'a dolt.' Another way, and it sounds like 'addled.' I hope I never become one. Zoey has the right idea, refusing to grow any older. Sounds like something I should copy.”
Sirius opened his mouth to speak, but Dumbledore stopped him, shaking his head.
“Pardon us a moment, Hypatia.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
The two adults went into another room, where Hypatia couldn't see or hear them.
“What is it, Dumbledore?”
“What she said just now reminded me of some details in Chandra's telling of her story. I do not believe it wise to antagonize Hypatia.”
“What? Why not?”
“If you will recall from Chandra's story about her, she has a remarkable amount of control over the internal workings of the Potter collective. Writing and re-writing memories, being able to make modified copies of the others and pretending to be them, modifying her own personality as she pleases, even pulling Alastair back inside when he was having a fit... these details and others speak to a dangerous amount of power. Who knows what she could do if provoked? She could make all the others vanish and take over the body entirely if she wanted.”
“Really? I mean, yes, she does seem to have a lot of power, but that much? I'm not so sure, Dumbledore. I remember the story, too, and Chandra mentioned that Mother can pull individuals back or push them forward. There were other details that make me think it's possible Hypatia and Mother have equal amounts of power, or possibly Hypatia's power is second to Mother's.”
“I do not know, Sirius. Perhaps you're right. But...” he paused, turning to look around.
“What is it, Dumbledore?”
“I do not know. Perhaps I'm being paranoid, given what we just heard, but I think it likely Hypatia may be spying on us.”
At these words, Hypatia walked forward, revealing herself. She was glaring at them, her arms folded across her chest.
“You think I'm some kind of monster, don't you? You think I'd delete the others like bad computer programs just because I got caught, don't you? Well you can relax on that front, both of you, because I don't have that kind of power. Pulling someone Inside, shutting off parts of their powers, slipping some false memories in to cover my tracks, or slipping in minor compulsions is the limit of my powers. I can create and destroy constructs, but I can't create or destroy any of the Faces. Anything with a Spark is largely autonomous.
“Honestly, if I had the kind of power you're worried I have, we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with, because I would have deleted any suspicions from their minds if I could. And I sure as Hell wouldn't delete any of the others, no matter how much I dislike them, because that would be murder, which is Wrong.
“And anyway, I'm reasonably certain Mother has the power to overrule me anyway. After all, She created Chandra, who has a Spark. I can't do that, only She can. If I could do that, I would still be safely hidden away creating my own friends in the dark parts of this brain.”
“Thank you for that, Hypatia, I do feel better now. But you are still doing illegal dark magic.”
“Yes, and there's nothing you can do to stop me without it also affecting the others. Which you won't do, because you're trying to forge us into a weapon against Voldemort.”
Dumbledore blinked. “Pardon?”
“Oh please, don't lie. It's obvious. In first year, those supposed obstacles you had guarding the Philosopher's Stone were ridiculously easy. So easy that several first year children – 11 and 12 year olds – got by them without too much difficulty, using information that conveniently came up during lessons that year. And really, it's strange that Voldemort didn't just blast through everything like a wrecking ball. Even weak, he was riding around in Quirrell, who should've been able to manage it pretty well. That suggests a trap set for Voldemort. But since no trap went off, and he got away, clearly you wanted us to face him in something of a controlled environment. Only it backfired on you, and we nearly died. Hell, the damned door to Fluffy's room wasn't even properly locked!”
Sirius looked ill and livid. He rounded on Dumbledore. “Is that all true, Dumbledore?”
Dumbledore looked like he didn't know what to say or do, like he was thinking very quickly. Then he sighed, and looked down at the ground.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time. I did not anticipate you being able to get the stone out of the Mirror of Erised. Very few people would be capable of that.”
Sirius's face was growing red-hot with anger at this. “ARE YOU MAD, DUMBLEDORE? Why the bloody hell would you risk their lives that way?”
“At the time, they had the protection of their mother's sacrifice to protect them. So I felt it was safe.”
“Yes, and that doesn't make any sense either. If it was that simple to save someone from the Killing Curse, I wouldn't be the first to survive it, I'd be the millionth or billionth person to survive it. Honestly, I suspect Lily probably used some kind of ritual magic; she knew she'd have to die to protect us, and she did some kind of ritual to trade her life for mine. Ours. You know what I mean.”
“As to that, Hypatia, I do not know. Though Lily did have an attitude very similar to yours, in that she thought many of the types of magic illegal in this country should be legal. It was something we disagreed on.”
Just then, an eagle owl screeched and flew into the room. It landed on a chair back and glared at Dumbledore and Sirius.
“It is for you, Hypatia.”
Hypatia took the letter and opened it. She read it silently, and then aloud.
Dear Hypatia Williams,
We received your package, and will find a way to get it to you in Hogwarts, since you are unable to keep it with yourself. Do not worry about the cost; if what Draco says about you is true, it is a worthy investment, which I have no doubt will pay tremendous dividends back in the future. If you are able to crack the code of the book, that alone will more than make up the cost, and be of tremendous profit if you should choose to share it with my son.
As to being short, you should have insisted on haggling. The old man... I know him, and so I can assure you he ripped you off by deliberately raising the price. He was doubtless hoping you would have something to trade that would make up the difference. That formula is worth the entire price of those books, and he knew that from the start. I shall be paying him a visit to retrieve your property and erase the knowledge of it from his stupid little mind.
If you are worried I will copy the formula myself, you need not do so. I know too many people in whose hands I do not wish to see such power fall, and so I will be employing occlumency to keep what little I know of the formula away from them.
I have no doubt, Hypatia Williams, that you will one day become a great sorceress whose powers will someday rival, perhaps even exceed, those of the Dark Lord himself. I suggest that, like many great witches and wizards from history, you keep the bulk of your work secret, sharing it only with those you trust the most. There are not many in the world with the skills or the raw power to utilize your arrayed sacrifice method, but many of the ones who do posses those talents are very dangerous people, people I do not trust with such power, and neither should you. There is one in particular that I am concerned about, more so than ever these days. Be very careful not to catch his eye, Ms. Williams.
Expect another owl by nightfall, Ms. Williams, with the parchment you gave him and all copies he has made. I swear on my magic that I will return this formula to you and keep it away from anyone other than yourself and my son, should you choose to share the details of it with him.
Yours in fellowship,
Lord Lucius Malfoy
Dumbledore had his wand out and was hitting the bird with a spell the moment she was finished, before it could fly off. The bird looked very confused.
“Just a confusion charm,” Dumbledore said. “I will send this bird home with its memory modified, Hypatia. Owls cannot speak, but they are still clever enough it might find a way to tell its master you were with us.”
Dumbledore left the room as he said, with the bird. Hypatia folded up the letter and put it in her pocket. The next few minutes were silent and awkward, neither she nor Sirius talking.
“You don't really trust him not to keep a copy of that for himself, do you?” Sirius finally asked her.
“What letter were you listening to? He plainly wants to forget he ever heard of the formula. He's terrified of Voldemort returning, or was that not obvious?”
“That could be a ruse.”
“Draco's mum never supported Voldemort. Never defied him either. From what I gather from my talks with Draco, though, his father started having second thoughts about being a Death Eater once Draco was born. And in the 13 years Voldemort has been gone, Lucius apparently decided 'good riddance.' But it's odd... my impression was that Lucius thought Voldemort dead. Now he seems convinced the berk is coming back. He must know something we don't. Which would fit with that vision we had in August.”
“The owl is attended to,” Dumbledore said as he came back.
“Good. Now we can get back to our chat about how you're trying to forge us into a weapon against Voldemort.”
“Yes, Dumbledore, let us indeed talk of that again,” Sirius said, crossing his arms.
“I admit that in the first year I let you face Voldemort. I did not anticipate you being able to get the stone out of the mirror, which would likely have meant they were simply frustrated long enough for me to waltz in and trap them both. If you recall, I came in right after you killed Quirrell, just before you passed out. If you had been unable to get the stone out of the mirror, like I had planned, the two of you would not have fought; you would have still been tied up and Quirrell would still have been scratching his head at the Mirror.
“Of course, it did not work out that way. And then you did not go back to the Dursleys, so you no longer had the protection of your mother's sacrifice, however it was that happened. Thus, I can say I did indeed suspect a basilisk, but since I had no idea where the Chamber's entrance was, I couldn't send any aurors there to deal with it. Thus, your second meeting with Voldemort was entirely unplanned on my part, and unwanted. Alastair broke his promise to me.”
“You didn't think it just a little obvious that the bathroom Moaning Myrtle was killed in was the entrance?”
“No, I did not. Myrtle Warren's ghost did not answer any questions about her death, she was too upset about it. She soon took to haunting one of girls who had made fun of her before she'd died. It was years before the girl was able to get a restraining order against Myrtle, and by then it no longer seemed important.”
“And you didn't think to ask her when it happened again?”
“Fifty years had passed; I admit I forgot about it for most of the year. When I did think about it, I decided there was no point; she was still known to cry at the drop of a hat. I was astonished to find she'd told you about it. Of course, when I thought about it, I suspected as you did, that the entrance was in her bathroom, but I did not seek to confirm it. What would I have done if I had found it? I was afraid to ask any of you to open the Chamber in case the basilisk came popping out of the thing to kill us both, and the only other Parselmouths I had any inkling about were all in India. It would have meant getting the Ministry involved, and if they'd known there was a basilisk in the school, they would have shut down the school for sure. In fact, they still don't know about the basilisk. I never told them. Mainly because it's still alive, and has been there for 1000 years with only two incidents, and only one death.”
“What if that thing had come into the Great Hall during dinner?”
“That was unlikely. Voldemort would not want to kill purebloods or even half-bloods, unless they were also blood traitors. And as Chandra pointed out from the story of your memories, Hypatia, the basilisk did not want to attack students at all. Now it is on our side, so it's even less likely to be a problem.
“Anyway, enough about my failings. We were originally discussing what to do about you.”
“Yes. And I was telling you that you can't punish me without punishing the others.”
“I could always take the books away from you when I find them.”
“I doubt you could do it fast enough to beat me to the information. Which would render your confiscation of the books moot. And you can't stop me experimenting with forbidden magic without getting your weapon against Voldemort, you little Chosen One, expelled or thrown into Azkaban. And anyway, isn't any possible edge against Voldemort a good thing?”
Dumbledore stared at Hypatia. She felt a tingle that said he was using legilimency on her. She kept staring at him.
He blinked first, and sighed. “I hate to say it, but you do have an excellent point. And we are not in school right now, so points cannot be taken. Any other punishment I could do would hurt the others, who were ignorant of your doings. So I will punish you the only way I have left. Swear to me on your magic that you will do all you can to protect yourself and the other Potters, even if it means talking and cooperating with them to save them.”
She sighed. “Fine. I swear by my magic that I will do all I can to protect myself and the other Potters in the collective, even if that means I have to talk with them and cooperate with them to save them from danger. Happy now?”
“Yes,” Dumbledore said. “And now I think I shall return to Hogwarts.”
“Fine by me. But before you go, I should tell you that the whole 'exploding' thing was really annoying me, so I worked out what was causing it and fixed it. No more explosions.”
“Excellent,” Dumbledore said, smiling and twinkling at her, but she was immune to his grandfatherly charm, and just continued to glare at him.
Sirius looked confused. “I want to know how this Draco boy is able to send owls to you when your body's name isn't really Hypatia Williams.”
Instead of answering, she huffed and vanished, being replaced with Adira.
Adira stood there, looking dazed. “I... I'm gonna go lay down for a while, Sirius. I need to think.”
“You do that, pup. I could do with some of that myself.”
~
At the kitchen table in the round kitchen of her home, Luna Lovegood sat thinking while she waited for her father to finish making his gurdyroot tea. When he approached the table and poured her a cup, she was still lost in thought.
“Infestation of wrackspurts, my moonbeam?”
“What? Oh sorry, Daddy. I was just thinking.”
“Lost in thought instead? Good. Wrackspurts can be very vexing.”
Xeno waited, sipping his gurdyroot tea. He waited because he knew his daughter would talk about what she was thinking about if and when she was ready. And he thought she was nearly there.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, Luna my love?”
“What are your thoughts on people who are romantically interested in members of their own gender?”
Xeno sipped his tea again, thinking what to say. “Well, my moonbeam, I think it's like someone's taste in food or drink. For instance, you and I love gurdyroot tea, but a lot of other witches and wizards think it tastes horrendous. There's nothing wrong with not liking gurdyroot tea, of course. To each their own, you know.”
He paused, thinking some more before adding, “And as much as I'm glad we can share this tea, if your tastes changed and you no longer liked it, I would understand. Then too, people can like gurdyroot tea and still like other teas as well. And it just occurred to me this metaphor leaves much to be desired.”
Luna smiled. “I understand your meaning. I'm glad to hear that, Daddy.”
Xeno waited some more, still sipping his tea. She stared at her cup for several minutes before looking up at him.
“Do you remember me writing you about Iliana Potter?”
“Ah yes, the Potters. Fascinating group of people, I really must meet them sometime. Iliana is the one who helped ward your possessions against theft, correct?” She nodded. “Good. She sounds a lovely girl, a wonderful friend. As I recall, you also danced with her at the Yule Ball?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Excellent. So what about Miss Potter? What was on your mind, moonbeam?”
She sipped some of her tea to give herself time to think. “Do you remember I told you she exploded?”
“Yes, quite the odd phenomenon, that. I do hope she can get that under control.”
“Yes, me too. Anyway, it seems to happen if she gets overwhelmed by conflicting emotions. The first time it happened, they were all so excited for Christmas that they fought for control of their body and resulted in an explosion. The second time... I didn't tell you in my letter, but the second time was because she has feelings for me, of the romantic sort, and was scared to tell me. She didn't want to risk my not wanting to be her friend anymore, but she also couldn't keep her feelings to herself. The conflict made her explode.”
“I see. That explains your first question. But there's more, isn't there?”
“Yes. Because I realized I had some sort of feelings for her, too. I think it's the same ones she has for me. I didn't even realize they were there until she told me hers. I'm still not sure what I'm feeling.”
Xeno nodded. “Feelings are sometimes like that, my moonbeam.”
“I know I had fun at the dance. I was glad she asked me to come to the ball, even if it was wasn't as a date. She didn't know her feelings at the time, she told me. She just knew she wanted to see me have some fun. And I did. Especially when we danced – really danced – together. The spinning and twirling, holding each other close, and then by accident we did a perfect dip, and were looking into each other's eyes. I felt something then, but I don't know what it was. Before I could even start to try to identify it, she got very awkward and nervous, and she ran off to switch to one of the others. Which left me a little sad and disappointed, to be honest.”
She sipped her tea again, then continued, “She had a difficult time telling me her feelings, in the hospital wing when I was visiting her. So hard a time that I thought she didn't want to be friends anymore. But when I told her I would understand if she didn't want to be friends anymore, even though it would make me sad, she burst into tears, hugged me tight, and confessed her feelings.”
“That poor dear girl, putting herself through all that worry.”
“Yes, quite. Well you can imagine, I'm sure, how relieved I was to hear that. But I couldn't quite believe it, either. I mean, I don't much comb my hair, and I know I look odd even before you count my unusual beliefs and behaviors. And for years I never had any friends at all. Then suddenly my one real friend tells me she has feelings for me. Romantic feelings. I never thought anyone would ever have feelings like that for me. And I never thought it would be another girl, nor that I'd feel things for another girl myself.
“And of course, I'm just not sure what I'm feeling, even now. I had fun at the ball with her, and we had a lovely date at Hogsmeade, holding hands and sitting together against the tree on the hill. It was nice. I think it might be the seed of love, if not love itself yet. Well obviously I love her as a friend, but I mean it might be the seed of a different kind of love. I just don't know.”
Xeno put his cup down and set his hand on hers. “Don't worry if you don't know what you're feeling, my moonbeam. Just take your time and let the feelings wash over you. Enjoy your time with her, whatever it means. You don't need to label it. Or rather, if you do, there's no rush. The label, if you need one, will come in its own time.” A thought occurred to him then, and he frowned a little, adding, “she isn't pressuring you into anything, is she?”
“Oh no, Daddy. Quite the opposite. When I took her up to the top of the hill, she got all flustered and asked me why I brought her there. I'm pretty sure she just wants to take it slow as well. I think she's still sorting out her feelings, too.”
“Well as long as she isn't expecting you to jump right into snogging, or something more serious. Oh my, I'm going to have to give you The Talk, aren't I? Oh, and this complicates that. I feel silly, now, for not taking this possibility into consideration before.”
“You can take some time to think about it, Daddy. We won't be doing anything like that anytime soon. I don't even think kissing will happen for another month or so, if not longer. I mean, I could be wrong, but I very much doubt either of us will be ready for more than that.” Her brow burrowed in thought a moment, and she added, “I wonder what two girls can do together beyond kissing and groping?”
Xeno chuckled. “Well maybe we should pop over to London this afternoon. I know the Muggles have some lovely big libraries in London. There's a library in the village of course, but I doubt it's big enough to have the information we seek, given what I know of what this nation's Muggles think of same-gender relationships. But the London libraries ought to be big enough.”
“Ooh, and could we visit Iliana when we do, Daddy?”
“Splendid idea, my darling daughter. I wanted to meet them anyway, but now I can play the concerned father and ask her what her intentions with my daughter are.”
“Can we go this afternoon?”
“Ah, well, as to that, both my owls are on deliveries at the moment. Do you know where they live? We could fire-call them if you do. Otherwise we'd have to wait until either Huginn or Muginn get back.”
Luna pulled a small bit of parchment out of her pocket. “Iliana wrote down her address for me just before I headed down to the train station. It's right here.”
“Well, let's fire-call them, shall we?”
~
The others didn't know what to do about this Hypatia or her story. Al and Adira were angry with Chandra for not telling them, and spent a lot of time internally yelling at him. He stood calmly before this onslaught and waited for a chance to speak.
When it came, he said, ~What would have me say, Sarcastic Defender and First Among Us? I would never go back on an oath, and what is more, I was unable to do so even if I had wanted to.~
What do you mean?
~Do you remember the part of the story where I mentioned the day/night nature of my memories and abilities?~
Yes. What about it?
~My memories of Aunt Megan were of the night, of the time when we were all asleep normally. I did not remember her at all during Moon At Day, so I was unable to tell you even if I had wanted to. But once her existence came to light, those memories shifted to Moon At Day. There is much that remains hidden in Moon At Night even now, I know that much.~
I don't really get that whole business. What's the point of some of your memories being hidden away like that? And now we know about Hypatia, can't she retrieve those for you?
~It is not her place to do so. Mother guards those. She has her reasons for the wall of memory. I do not know all of them, but one reason is Voldemort, and that is sufficient reason, at least until we can guard our mind.~
What about him? He's still a wraith.
~Yes, but he will not remain so forever. He can read minds. And the connection between us and him means that when he has full power again, he will be able to read our own minds from great distances. This is why Silver Grandfather teaches us to occlude our mind.~
WHAT?! Moldyshorts could do that?!
~Yes.~
How do you know?
~I know because you are not the only Seer among us. Though your visions are of the future, and thus hard to summon, while my own – once unlocked fully – will be the ability to divine some things about the present and possibly the past. Which in some ways will be easier, and in other ways will be much more difficult.~
Visions of the present? Like that dream about Moldyshorts? Was that your doing?
~No. That was the Bridge-Bewixt-Foes that resides in our scar; such visions will be more plentiful when he returns, unless we can occlude our minds first. I mean things like tarot cards, casting bones, reading runes, reading tea leaves, star gazing, even other more esoteric means. Things which do not always speak clearly.~
Oh that rubbish of Trelawney's?
~The Bangled Bug is full of egotism that clouds her inner eye. Most divination tools will work well enough for her if she makes room in her mind by pouring some of that ego away. It is not rubbish because one individual is poor at a thing. If it were, Potions would be rubbish for Angry Vulture Man's flaws and foibles. Besides which, you already know you are a Seer.~
Yeah, one just as good as Trelawney, it seems. I had one vision, one! I haven't been able to recreate the experience.
~Because you too are full of ego. And you need a true teacher.~
Yeah I know. I keep meaning to look for one, but I keep getting distracted.
~When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.~
I'm ready NOW!
~I beg to differ.~
This is infuriating! YOU are infuriating! You are the GOD of being infuriating!
~Namaste.~ Chandra said, giggling as though he'd told Al a funny joke.
This argument continued for quite a long time, meandering around but finally getting back to the crux of the matter, to the whole business with Hypatia. Which, in the end they decided to just leave her be unless she was needed for something. It was tiresome, but what else could they do?
“Addy!” Sirius called up to them. “You have a fire-call!”
She got up, glad for the distraction from the argument. Checking her watch, she saw they'd been arguing amongst themselves for an entire hour. She went down the stairs and into the drawing room.
“Who is it? Oh, Luna!” she said, suddenly switching forms to Iliana when the redhead jumped into the proverbial driver's seat.
“Hello Iliana! Daddy and I were going to come to London this afternoon to visit the local Muggle library. Would you like to come along? Daddy would like to meet you.”
She looked around as if to see if they were alone. Iliana checked out the door, nobody was nearby. “Coast is clear.”
“Good. I told Daddy about our date, and our feelings for each other. We're going to the library to get some information on same-gender love for The Talk. Especially where girls are concerned.”
Iliana blushed. “Oh, yeah. Cool. Uh, Sirius will be fine with that. I've told him about us as well, and he knew Al wasn't straight. I mean, I'll have to ask Sirius if I can join you, and he'll probably insist on coming with. Though, uh...” She paused. Was Sirius still thinking about the Hypatia issue? How could she express this to Luna?
# Hey Hypatia? Can I tell Luna about you? She can keep a secret. #
At a very high rate of speed, Hypatia shot back, (Oh yeah sure, why not? Great idea, that. Better yet, call up Rita Skeeter and give her an exclusive interview all about my secrets for The Daily Prophet, sounds like a wonderful idea, I'm sure Draco will understand completely and all will be roses and skipping through a sunlit meadow. It'll be lovely, Voldemort will play us a song on the violin while wearing a great big fake mustache and dressed like one of those guys on the boats in Venice. No wait, FUCK YOU!) *sound of a door slamming shut*
# Jeez louise, what a tetchy git. #
To Luna, she said, “Iiiiii'll just go ask Sirius about it, okay?”
“Of course. I'll wait here.”
As Iliana left, she heard Luna start to hum to herself.
Sirius was in the kitchen, nursing a butterbeer. When she came in, he looked up at her.
“If Luna wants to come over, pup, that's fine by me. You can let her in.”
“Luna and her father want to come to London to go to one of the Muggle libraries, and were wondering if I wanted to come with them. What do you say?”
“A Muggle library? What for?”
“Um... stuff about same-gender relationships. You know, for, er... The Talk.”
He blushed. “Ah. Wait, so does that mean The Talk will involve me giving you books to read?”
“Yeah.”
“Sure, sounds good. I'll come with you. We'll have to take public transit, though; not enough room on the motorbike, and we've only got the one.”
“I thought as much. Were you still thinking about Hypatia's story?”
“Yes. I could use a break, though, if my brain will let me. I suspect you feel the same way. It's a hell of a thing, hearing all that.”
“Tell me about it. One day a vague suspicion, the next day years worth of activity laid out like that.”
“You gonna tell any of your friends about her?”
“No. I asked Hypatia about it and her response was... unpleasant.”
“I don't doubt it. Well, let's not keep them waiting. Those floors are hard on the knees, even if you kneel on the hearth rug.”
Sirius drained the rest of his butterbeer and left the bottle on the table, getting up to lead Iliana back to the drawing room.
When Luna and her father came in through the Floo, Iliana and Sirius got to see what they were planning to wear into Muggle London. They were dressed like a pair of hippies. Luna had on a very colorful tie-die dress with the colors in a spiral pattern, and was wearing a flower crown on her head, and a pair of flower bracelets on her wrists. For shoes, she had on moccasins. Her father had on white bell-bottom pants, a white v-neck shirt with a pattern stitched into the collar, a fringed vest of brown leather, purple granny glasses, and something similar to a sweat band or a hair band on his head. Instead of moccasins, he had on go-go boots. At least, Iliana thought he was wearing go-go boots; it was hard to tell, as they were mostly covered by his bell-bottoms.
“Groovy, man,” Sirius said, grinning.
Xeno chuckled. “Yes, a bit out of date, but I believe the Muggles call it 'retro.'”
“At least it's stylistically consistent,” Iliana said. “Most wizards and witches seem to forget in their older age how to dress like Muggles, and wear weird mixes like a kilt with a poncho.”
“Yes, I believe it to be the fault of the yobnogs, you know,” Xeno said. “Yobnogs hate stylistically consistent clothing in wizards because they like us to stand out, and so they cause people to forget how to blend in. But not us, we're protected. In this case, by the simple expedient of standing out as much as possible on our own without 'help' from the yobnogs.”
Iliana grinned and turned to Luna. “Love your dress. It's very colorful. Very you.”
Luna curtsied. “Thank you, Iliana. You look good as well.”
Iliana looked down at her clothes, and was alarmed to find she had on a dress with a pattern of fish on it. Not colorful, living fish, but dead gray ones, very ugly indeed. She immediately knew who to blame.
“Um, I think someone is angry at me. I'll just go change now, be right back.”
She ran upstairs, internally yelling impotently at the annoyingly quiet Hypatia as she went into the room, pulled off the ugly fish dress, and pulled on another with pink hearts on a sky-blue background, then ran back downstairs.
“Aww,” Luna said. “I liked the dead fish dress. It made quite the statement.”
“Yeah, well I didn't like it.”
“So, I take it you're Iliana?” Xeno asked, holding out his hand for her to shake.
She took it. “Yes, that's me.”
“Wonderful to finally meet you. Luna has told me so much about you all. Let's see, there's also Adira – formerly, well, I won't say the dead name, even if it's famous. Then Alastair, correct? Good. Um... Chandra? Excellent. Then she recently met Tier. Am I missing anyone?”
“Zoey and Avani Maznah, who is also known as Mother.”
“Ah yes, I remember Zoey now. Six year old, black hair, hetero-chromatic eyes? Good. I don't remember Mother, though.”
“Ah, well She never comes Out. So far She has been some kind of teacher for Chandra, and seems to be able to control who's Out when She chooses to exercise that ability. Oh yeah, and She acts like an on-site psychiatrist.”
“Psychiatrist? That's the Muggle Mind Healing, isn't it?”
“One of two branches, yes. Psychiatrists deal more with ailments caused by medical problems in the brain, like chemical imbalances, brain damage, that sort of thing. Psychologists are basically professional counselors or therapists. I might be oversimplifying things, but I don't really understand the difference that well myself. Except I don't think psychologists can prescribe medicines.”
“Ah. Well anyway, as much fun as it would be to chat here, we should all get going. It's been a while since I've been in Muggle London, Mr. Black; can you tell me what we do?”
“Please call me Sirius. I have issues with my father, and he was Mr. Black.”
“My apologies, my dear man, 'Sirius' it is, then. And when we're out in Muggle London, you can call me Phil. Not many Muggles named Xenophilius, after all.”
“True,” Sirius said. “Good thinking.”
'Phil' pulled a hat from a pocket that must have been magically expanded; the hat was shaped almost like the hat Indiana Jones wore, but it didn't have the creases or divots, and was very crudely stitched from suede. A suede cord trailed from the back of it when he put it on, which had colorful glass beads strung on it. He reached in his pocket again and pulled out a large brown suede jacket as well. He pulled it on and smiled.
Reaching into a pocket on her dress, Luna pulled out a rainbow-colored knitted slouchy beanie hat and put it on. Then she pulled out a rainbow-patterned jacket that looked like it was made by sewing strips of fabric together the way you might do for a quilt, and put it on.
“It's chilly out there, you know,” Xeno said.
“Oh yeah, good point,” Iliana said.
She went to the coat rack and put her normal store-bought Muggle jacket on, a nice dark blue color. Sirius pulled on a black leather duster instead of his shorter leather jacket, since they weren't going to be on the motorbike.
“We're going to make an interesting group on the underground,” Iliana said, taking in their four very different styles.
“Well good,” Xeno said. “Everyone could use a nudge to get their minds open a little bit.”
They did indeed get lots of strange looks on the underground. Iliana didn't mind at all, it was good to get stared at for something other than being famous or being thought insane for once. The four of them went to the nearest library and perused the books. When they had a number of useful titles about the realities of same-sex romance decided on, they wrote them down to find in Muggle bookstores later, since none of them had library cards.
After lunch, where they had great fun introducing the Lovegoods to pizza for the first time in their lives, they hunted around several bookstores for the titles they wanted and the adults used their wands to send their purchases home. Then, just for fun, they went to a cinema to take in a movie. Mr. Lovegood was awed and fascinated by the experience, as was Luna, and both he and Luna had some interesting reactions to it. Even though it was just a Disney movie, there were several parts where Luna jumped and shrieked in alarm – including when something came toward the audience, making her think it was going to leap out of the screen – or other parts where Luna cried during parts that weren't even sad, or sometimes did both. Iliana felt bad for her, but held her close to comfort her.
Luna wasn't the only one reacting oddly to the movie. Mr. Lovegood jumped in the same places she did, though he didn't usually shout or shriek. A couple times he let out an accidental expletive that had other parents glaring at him in disgust. But by far the funniest moment, for Iliana, was when Mr. Lovegood jumped so hard that his entire bucket of popcorn went flying halfway across the theater and he had to go buy another one to replace it.
Sirius, on the other hand, had apparently been to movies before at some point in the past, and could've been a Muggle, as his reactions were much more normal. Still, he wasn't without his flaws; a great many people were alarmed by his sudden loud barks of laughter, he occasionally cried quietly at touching scenes, and several times he shouted stuff at the screen during tense moments.
“That was an experience,” Luna said when they got out of the theater. “A largely good one, I think, despite all the frights and crying.”
“Yeah, now that I think about it,” Iliana replied, “I think I read somewhere that the first Muggles to see a movie in a theater panicked and ran screaming from the theater when a train came toward the audience on the screen; they thought it was real. So it makes sense you two reacted the way you did.”
“Oh, I'm glad to know it wasn't just us,” Luna said.
“I'm just glad we had the foresight to pick a tame Disney movie, instead of an action film or horror.”
“Yeah, we wouldn't want Luna or Phil to die of fright or disapparate in front of a bunch of Muggles.”
“Yes, I don't think I want to ever see a horror movie,” Luna said. “I don't think I could handle it.”
She was having so much fun that day, she later thought she should've expected it would go slightly sour. On the way back to Sirius's flat, they'd stopped at an ice-cream shop for a pick-me-up after the drama of the movies, and in a far corner she spotted a horribly familiar face. Large jowls, walrus mustache: it was Uncle Vernon. And sitting next to him, their backs turned but unmistakable, were the other two Dursleys, Petunia and Dudley. Something dropped in the pit of her stomach, and she started to have a panic attack. She felt weak and shaky, her fingers going numb, and she was sweating and felt lost.
“Iliana, what's wrong?” Luna asked, looking worried for Iliana.
Iliana couldn't move or speak. Luna, Sirius, and Mr. Lovegood all turned to face the direction she was looking. Mr. Lovegood didn't understand, but Sirius and Luna did.
“Iliana, they won't recognize you. You're you, not Adira. And they might not even recognize Adira, either,” Luna said in a whisper.
“Yes,” Sirius whispered back, “but she looks like Lily. If Petunia sees her, it'll be worse than seeing Adira.”
“What do we do? If we get up and try to get her somewhere else, they might spot us.”
“They might look over here at any time and spot us then.”
“I have an idea,” Luna said, and slipped off her chair in a crouch.
Sirius and Mr. Lovegood watched her until she got lost in the crowd of the chairs and tables. After waiting for a minute or two for something to happen, they heard a crash in the opposite direction. All eyes went there, even the eyes of the Dursleys.
“Quick, come with me, pup. Phil, you pay for us.”
Sirius quickly led Iliana out the door, though it was more accurate to say he was dragging along someone who could barely breathe or move. As they passed the till, Sirius said, “My friend Phil will pay for us. It's an emergency.”
Iliana was still not improved when Sirius pulled her into an alley and – after checking for cameras with a handy spell he'd learned once – Disillusioned Iliana. Then he carefully pulled her a bit deeper into the narrow alley, checked they weren't being seen, and disapparated with her to the Leaky Cauldron.
“Tom, please get my god-daughter somewhere she can lay down for a bit, she's having a bit of a panic attack.”
“Of courth, Thiriuth,” the toothless old landlord said. “Thith way, pleath.”
“Thank you, Tom,” Sirius said when he got her onto a sofa. “And is there any way you could fetch me a Calming Draft?”
“I've got one here, Thiriuth, I picked it up from behind the bar as thoon ath you thaid what you needed.”
He handed Sirius the potion, and he carefully tipped it down Iliana's throat. She shuddered and relaxed, then burst into tears.
“Wow, mutht need thumthing thtronger. I'll be right back.”
Iliana was still crying when Luna and Xeno showed up.
“Thought you might come here, Sirius,” Xeno said. “It's where I'd go, if I was with others and had to get away for my Luna. Which has happened before, actually.”
Luna went over to Iliana and held her close. Iliana cried into Luna's shoulder. Luna ran her fingers through Iliana's hair and started to hum what sounded like a lullabye.
“I brought her thum withkey. Watered down of courth, but ought to help all the thame.”
“Thank you, Tom. Not sure she'll be using it, but thanks all the same.”
“You're welcome, Thiriuth.”
After crying for a few more minutes, Iliana ran out of tears and moved on to sniffles and hiccups, then finally just went very quiet, looking miserable.
“I'd... forgotten.”
“Forgotten what, pup?”
“That they live near London. That they come here sometimes. Why did they have to ruin our day out?”
If we see them again, I hope we can change to Adira's old form and give them a good scare, run at them with our wand out, screaming nonsense words!
Iliana giggled.
“What's funny?” Sirius asked.
“Al said next time we should become Adira's old form and run at them with our wand out, screaming nonsense words.”
Sirius barked with laughter. Luna burst into one of her giggle fits. Xeno watched her for a while, but it didn't stop; in fact, since they weren't at school and were in a private room, Luna let loose laughing hard as she could. Of course, this set Iliana off laughing til she fell over and started to wheeze.
“Oh my,” Xeno said, heading for the door a few minutes into her giggle fit. “I'd better go get a Calming Draft from Tom.”
When Iliana stopped laughing and Xeno got Luna to stop doing more than sporadic short bursts of giggles by getting the Calming Draft down her throat, Iliana turned to Luna.
“What was that song you were humming?”
“An old lullabye my mum used to sing to me. It's called 'Hippogriffs At Midnight.' I don't remember the words, or I'd have sung it.”
“Thank you, Luna. And you, Sirius. All of you, really. I don't know what I'd have done if I'd had to be accosted by Petunia for wearing her dead sister's face. It's bad enough Adira used to look like James. Still kinda does, in fact.”
“Yes, pup, I rather suspect the Ministry would have had to get involved in that case, probably by sending an Obliviator squad. Petunia would go completely mental otherwise.”
Iliana shuddered at the thought.
~
The rest of the Easter holidays went by much more normally. There were a lot of visits to the flat by Luna, and a couple times Iliana visited Luna at her chess-rook shaped house, where she got to see a lot of Luna's very excellent art, Xeno's magical printing press, and their dirigible plums. But whenever Luna wasn't around, they switched back to Adira, so she could spend time with her godfather before going back to school.
They didn't hear anything from Hypatia, though on the day before the trip back to school, they found she'd done all their homework for them, which they thought was very nice of her until Hedwig arrived with a Howler from her, telling them in words that filled the entire flat that she hadn't done it to be nice and she hated the lot of them. Their ears were still ringing hours later.
Endnotes: Ah, a little bit of mutual hurt/comfort there between Iliana and Luna. Kinda sweet. :)
Hypatia's story, out in full!
I don't think I'll be shipping Draco and Hypatia. Even if he asked her out, she would likely refuse. And he's not likely to ask while he thinks she's a closeted trans girl; he'd want to wait until she came out. Anyway, they're just friends. Also, he's going to find out the truth about her eventually. Even if they remain friends after that, any hope of them being more than friends that might have been there would be obliterated at that point.
Also, we're getting way out of the zone of similarity between the Potter collective and mine. None of us have the kind of powers either Hypatia or Avani / Mother show in this chapter, or the one before it. Like Chandra, Hypatia is completely unlike anything in our own collective.
I'm waiting to see if anyone “gets” the “namaste” joke that Chandra made in this chapter. :)
I only noticed after finishing up proofreading this chapter that Hypatia's “Sleepwalker Arc” started with an Iliana/Luna date, and ended with another Iliana/Luna date. I swear I did not do that on purpose. :)
One last thing, as a “just in case” and because Google is being a pain: Can anyone tell me what was the motorcycle license age in the UK in 1995? What about motor scooter age, if different?
“The Many Faces of Adira Potter: Chapter 38”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Thirty-eight: I Solemnly Swear I Am Up To No Good
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there. But some canon scenes are just too good to change much.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Adira, Zoey, # Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and between hashtags/pound signs.# , {Tier}, ~Chandra,~
% Mother AKA Avani Maznah, % and “Hypatia/Megan.”
Note 4: All hail Our Lady Of Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling!
Note 5: Because of the heaviness of the last couple chapters, here's a fun one I've been wanting to do for a long time now: a chapter centered pretty much entirely around Zoey Potter, and her hi-jinks! It doesn't start out with her, but it will get there soon enough and most of it will be centered around her.
*FAYANORA*
On the way back to school after the holidays, Alastair managed to have a conversation with Hypatia that didn't end in howlers or someone storming off. It started when he directed a thought at her about the rituals mentioned in Chandra's telling of her story.
See what I don't get is, well, take that one where you get pain in your arms to take someone's magic away for a time. Why don't we just do that to Moldyshorts and kill him while he's powerless?
There was a great, big, long-suffering sigh that came out of their shared mouth.
(Okay, I'll try to use small words so you understand. First of all, even minor rituals have risks. It's not always a case of having the arithmancy right. Sometimes things just happen to screw rituals up. Let's take a small example: let's say you do a ritual for slightly enhanced senses. Right, so even little rituals require some kind of words at the very least. Some you can do in your head, others you have to say aloud. Let's imagine you say the word slightly wrong or sneeze at the wrong time and suddenly either you go blind or you're overwhelmed by ridiculously powerful senses and feel like you're dying.
(Then you get into the higher level rituals, and those often require stuff like symbols written on the floor, or carved into your arm, or they require other ingredients like the eyeball of a virgin goat or something. Or tears of a mermaid, occamy blood, or whatnot. Some of those things are not easy to get, and a lot of those rituals that call for those things take some time to do, enough time that your enemy can either hex you while you're setting things up or you have to do them far away from the target. And other rituals can only be done on certain days, like during a total solar eclipse, for an example.
(Then too, there's a connection component. Some small rituals just require eye contact with the victim, but larger ones usually require stuff like body parts of the victim. The 'pain in your arms to take away someone's magic' one requires fresh blood of the victim. Hair won't work, hair is dead. Magic is life, so you need a symbol of their life like their blood. It would be kinda hard to get Voldemort's blood.
(Of course, there are area-effect rituals, but those are dangerous in their own ways. Like, for instance, the fact they don't discriminate and you can't really just pick and choose who in the area is affected. Plus they're extremely unstable and the consequences tend to be deadly if they go wrong. This kind of thing is why ritual magic is considered a Dark Art.
(And then of course, for someone sufficiently powerful, they can just block the ritual if they know it's coming. Most people couldn't, but someone like Dumbledore or a full-powered Voldemort could probably do it. And that ritual you mentioned is definitely one of those 'they will see it coming' ones. Among other things, in the last minute or two of the ritual, they'll be able to feel it no matter where in the country they are. Even if they couldn't, if you were, say, in a duel with them and managed to find cover to do the ritual, if they saw you or heard the chanting or had a sneaking suspicion, that wouldn't be good for you. Of course, some rituals can be started ahead of time to make them more battle-ready, but that has its issues too.
(More importantly, the kind of pain we're talking about in that spell is along the lines of the cruciatus curse. Kinda hard to kill someone when you can't use your wand or your arms. And just like the cruciatus curse, it tends to have lingering side effects like nerve damage.)
Yes, but we could do the ritual and have an Auror kill Voldemort while he's powerless.
(Even assuming you caught him without his Death Eaters around to help him, even assuming you could get the blood or whatever and had cover to do the ritual, even assuming all appears to go well and you get the ritual out somehow and he doesn't block it, there's still a better than 50% chance of the ritual going horribly wrong and maybe killing someone or something like that. So this is all largely academic for me so far. Sure, some of these little rituals have proven useful, but even with my skills at maths, the heavier-duty rituals are extremely dangerous. Like, I don't know what rituals Voldemort used to make his horcruxes, but my guess is that if he ever comes back, he's gonna look like the offspring of Uncle Fester and a snake (that then died for an hour and was brought back), and given he's working with fragments of his soul, which he's done who knows how many times, I wouldn't be surprised if there's enough accumulated ritual backlash where he's going to be a lot more emotionally unstable than he was prior to his horcruxes, and the emotions he has are likely going to be incredibly intense. Also it's likely his ability to reason will be affected as well.
(The danger of ritual backlash is, incidentally, the bulk of the reason I've been working on my sacrifice array. Sure, the array lends it a bit more instability in the sense that a failure is more likely, but it cuts out much more risk than it adds so that the failure mode isn't as bad, and has the added benefit – to us – of being something the majority of people can't do without the help of a computer.
(One last point: Please note the fact that Voldemort, a power-mad serial killer who thinks he's the greatest wizard since Merlin, rarely ever seemed to use ritual magic when he was strong. Sure, he had to use them for the horcruxes, but mostly he uses his wand. Because he knows, on some level, that it's risky and he only wants to risk it for really special things.)
If it's so risky, why do you use it as much as you have?
(Because those are tiny little things, with very little risk, and anyway I only use ritual magic for stuff that I can't use a wand for. With the exception of experiments, of course.)
Ah. Okay. I think I understand now.
(Good. Now buzz off.)
~
Their first week back at school after Easter went much like normal, alternating forms among the days and doing schoolwork. Of course, in the quiet moments, they thought about Hypatia. They'd told Ron and Hermione they'd been mistaken about the sleepwalker, that they'd just been imagining things. Neither of them seemed very convinced, but they at least got the message that they didn't want to talk about it, and honored that desire.
On Friday at dinner, Luna came over and stood beside Iliana, wringing her hands and looking conflicted about something.
“What is it, Luna?” Iliana asked.
Luna opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. So she signed instead. Luckily, she'd taught Tier the wizarding sign language.
{'More of my things have gone missing. I didn't want to bother you about it but one of the things that went missing is my butterbeer cork necklace,'} Tier translated. {'I need that necklace. It keeps the nargles away.'}
The amount of anxiety coming off Luna in waves when she related this problem was so high that Iliana was getting a headache from it.
“We find your necklace, Luna,” Tier signed with the sign language interpreter device switched on. “We feel it important to you. We find it now. Where you last see necklace?”
She signed frantically, her anxiety increasing, and Tier translated. {'Took it off before shower. Forgot to put it in trunk. I keep forgetting to put things in trunk, so they keep going missing. I need the necklace. I need it.'}
“We find it, Luna,” Tier replied.
“Come here, Luna. Sit down,” Iliana said. She didn't know why the necklace was that important to Luna, but she didn't need to know; it was, and that's what mattered. She was so upset she wasn't able to talk, even. Which is something she recognized; it happened to Javier at times.
Luna sat down next to Iliana and leaned into her, her eyes watering. Luna started touching the wood of the table, stroking it, but stopped soon, as it seemed to make her worse.
“Okay, now I have to ask; what's so important about this necklace? Why can't you make another one?”
Luna started signing while shaking so badly that Iliana had to stroke Luna's cheek to get her to calm down enough to be understood when she signed.
{'Loud. So loud. People loud. So many. So many feelings. So much noise. Nargles make noise worse. Necklace drives nargles away, makes noise less.'}
Iliana had a hypothesis and decided to take the risk of testing it.
“Dobby!”
The little elf appeared behind Iliana, the sudden loud CRACK making Luna start to really lose control. She was putting in a visibly strong effort to keep herself under control, but Iliana could feel the control slipping.
“Please bring us a couple used butterbeer corks, just the corks. As soon as possible.”
“Yes, Iliana!” Dobby said, disapparating again. Luna's control slipped further, and she was digging her face into Iliana's shoulder to hide the tears. While she did that, Iliana used her wand to cast a silencing charm on Luna's ears to keep some of the noise out.
“NO! STOP!” Luna shouted, and Iliana took down the spell.
“What's the matter?”
“Not that noise. Not that noise. Not that noise.”
I suspect the calm energy we normally associate with Luna is a coping mechanism of some sort. Some of the things she's saying... I think she's an empath, too. It would explain why she knew about empaths already when we met her, Al said in their head.
“It's okay. What do you need?”
“Not that noise. Not that noise. Not that noise.”
“Ron, would you go ask McGonagall if you can use her fire to fire-call Luna's father for help? Hermione, go see if Flitwick knows about anything that can help.”
Her two friends nodded and hustled out of the room fast as they could. She looked over to the Slytherin table, ignoring Malfoy and his cronies making fun of Luna, and found Javier. He was looking at Draco with a glare on his face. To get his attention, she used wandless magic to pull on his robes. It wasn't easy without use of her hands, but she managed it enough that he turned around and spotted her. She gestured at Luna and then him with her head. Nodding, he got up and came over.
“What's the matter?” Javier asked.
“I don't know. She came over, tried speaking, had to sign instead. Told us her butterbeer cork necklace was missing, then she started freaking out. She's repeating the same three words over and over again now: 'not that noise.'”
“What else did she say?”
Iliana related Luna's message to Javier. When she was done, he nodded. “The necklace must be a stim. Probably helps her cope. You were right to--”
CRACK!
Luna burst into loud tears and Dobby looked concerned. Javier was on the ground, his hat over his eyes and tangled in his own robes.
“Corks please, Dobby!”
“Oh! Yes! Here you is, Miss.”
She took the corks from Dobby and pressed them into Luna's hands. “They're not your necklace, but maybe they'll help until we can find it?”
They did. She stopped crying, just as Dumbledore came over. Iliana looked up in surprise at him.
“Perhaps you should take Miss Lovegood somewhere quiet, away from people? That will probably help more than the corks,” he said.
“Um. Yeah, great idea. Except I don't know how to get her to move.”
He smiled and his eyes twinkled at her. “Don't you? I seem to recall Professor McGonagall told me of a charm you two used recently that might help. I will tell Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger where you've gone.”
“But where do I take her?”
“I suggest a certain room on the 7th floor, across from a certain tapestry.”
“You know about that, then?”
“Yes. Now hurry, before she gets worse.”
“Right.”
Iliana cast a Featherlight Charm on Luna, and picked her up like she weighed nothing, leaving the Great Hall as fast as she dared. She took every shortcut she knew through the school to get them to the Room of Requirement quickly as she could.
# I need a place where a possibly autistic empath can calm down, # she thought three times as she walked past the place where the Room was.
On the third time past, she looked, and a door had appeared. She approached the door and it opened on its own, swinging inward, then closing once they were inside. Inside the room were loads of huge squishy pillow-like poufs, low and soft lighting, and piles of what looked like unusual little hand-held toys in boxes. Iliana set Luna down on the nearest pouf and canceled the Featherlight Charm.
As soon as she lay Luna down, a magical phonograph player appeared beside her and started playing odd music. It was light and airy and sounded like magic, and a woman started singing about fairies, but it sounded more like the Muggle idea of fairies than the wizarding idea of them.
After several minutes, Luna sat up slowly and pulled a box of the odd toys toward her. She started picking through them but didn't seem to care for any of them. When she pushed the box aside, a lap harp appeared, as well as a set of ten little bits of metal that looked like they'd fit on the ends of someone's fingers. Smiling, Luna put the harp in her lap, put the bits of metal on the ends of her fingers, and started to play it. It turned out the metal bits were finger picks for the harp's strings. The harp music fit in so well with the music the phonograph was playing that it couldn't have been a coincidence.
Iliana sat there, enraptured by the music, for how long she didn't know, but Ron and Hermione came in at last and handed Iliana a list that Xenophilius had given them, of things that would help Luna. But Luna looked to be recovering with the help of the Room of Requirement.
When she stopped playing the harp and set it down, turning off the phonograph player, she smiled.
“Thank you for your help, Iliana. I feel much better now. And thank you for the butterbeer corks. They'll help me until you can find my necklace.” She sighed. “I don't know what I was thinking, taking it off. The corks are waterproof. A wrackspurt must have flown into my ear.”
“You're welcome, Luna. You helped me when I had my breakdown, and even if you hadn't, I'd still do this for you.”
“Wait, you had a breakdown?” Ron asked. “When was this?”
Looking to Luna for permission first in case it might set Luna off, when Luna smiled and nodded, she turned back to the two of them and told them about spotting the Dursleys over the Easter holidays. They reacted pretty much as she'd expected them to: Ron cursing and offering lame condolences before getting awkward, Hermione very shocked and teary, touching Iliana's shoulder in solidarity.
The four of them talked, and they found out from Luna that her father had known for some time that she was very strange, moreso even than Xeno could cope with without help, and had taken her to St. Mungo's to find out what it could be. They had been flummoxed, but one young man, a Healer Young, had referred them to a Muggle psychiatrist, where she'd gotten a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome. So had her father, in fact.
“So two of the people in your body are dating people with this Asperger's thing? Odd sort of coincidence, that.”
“Maybe not so much. Being a collective, we're not exactly a standard-issue brain type ourselves. Perhaps we're just drawn to other unusual minds.”
“Yes, that makes sense,” Luna said. “Of course, I have also been wondering about Chandra. I think he might be like me. He might have Asperger's Syndrome. Others have pointed out similarities between the two of us. He talks strangely, he thinks strangely, he behaves strangely. You'd know better than I, of course. But it's something to ponder.”
“That's a fair point. He and Hy--- er, yeah, he might have that, it makes sense.”
Hermione was looking at her with a very suspicious look on her face. The slip-up had not gone unnoticed. Iliana heard cursing in the back of her mind.
After hanging out for another hour, they went back to their own common rooms for the night.
~
Zoey was the one Out the next day, and after last night – and seeing Luna over at the Ravenclaw table looking more stressed than usual – she decided she needed to find Luna's missing stuff. So after breakfast, she ran off and headed for Ravenclaw tower.
On the way, though, she nearly ran into Peeves, and had to duck out of the way. She ended up slightly not where she was supposed to be, near the Room of Requirement. It was only then that she realized she wasn't really sure yet what to do. Taking advantage of her location, she thought about the problem as she walked past the Room three times.
When the door appeared, she opened it up, expecting to find all of Luna's missing things right there in a neat pile, only...
“WOAH!”
The room she'd entered was enormous. It was bigger than the Great Hall, probably twice as big if not bigger. And it was littered, over the entire floor except for some paths cleared in the mess, with all sorts of junk. Along with old and mostly broken furniture, there were piles of old books, teetering towers of contraband like dead or dying Fanged Frisbees and so on, as well as cauldrons full of the remains of ruined potions, and all sorts of other junk.
“COOL! This place is full of neat stuff!”
She ran ahead, determined to dig through everything, but several of the others froze her in mid-step, warning her that it was potentially dangerous in here. There was no knowing what kinds of dark and/or dangerous items were in here. They tried to get her to leave, but she refused.
Knowing She couldn't get Zoey to budge, Avani – Mother – instead took control of her wand arm, got out the holly wand, and carefully cast a spell.
“Expecto patronum!”
A bright silver fox burst out of the wand, only it wasn't a normal fox: it was twice the size of a normal fox, and it had three tails. Avani gave it a message to bring Professor McGonagall, and it sped off.
A few minutes later, a confused McGonagall came in and stared in awe at the room.
“Where... where are we, Miss Potter?”
“Room of Requirement. It becomes whatever someone needs if they think about what they need while walking three times past the blank wall that the entrance appears in. But this is a... a specific sub-room of the Room of Requirement. Hmm... I think I'm gonna call it The Room of Lost Things.”
“Whoever sent the patronus was right to send for me, this room is full of dangerous items. You should not be here. We need to bring in some aurors.”
“Do you really think that's wise with Tom The Riddler trying to come back? Who knows what kinda stuff he could use from here.”
“I doubt they'd be selling anything dangerous, Miss Potter. How did you find this place, anyway?”
She explained how she'd gotten in as succinctly as possible.
“Well, if it's gone undiscovered all this time, I don't see how it could hurt to leave it. We'll keep a discreet eye on the place, Miss Potter. But we should probably leave now. And you are not to go back into the Room of Lost Things, understood?”
“Yes, Professor.”
She pulled Zoey along, and the young girl looked very disappointed at not being able to explore such a fascinating place, but didn't fight it. She waved sadly at the door when it turned back into a wall.
“Whose patronus was that, anyway? I don't recall ever seeing it before.”
“It was Mother's patronus. That was the first any of us have seen of it.”
“Well it's fascinating. There are now two of you– well, I suppose three, actually – with magical creatures for patronuses, in that case.”
“Three?”
“Yes. One of you had a three-headed snake for a patronus, that's a magical creature called a Runespoor.”
“That's Al's!”
“I see. Then there's that peculiar dragon of Iliana's. And now this Mother has a kitsune for a patronus.”
Zoey looked confused. “What's a kit-soon-eh?”
“A kitsune is a Japanese magical creature. Well, it's a bit confusing, really, whether they're creatures or beings, because most of them are very intelligent three-tailed foxes, but then some of them become so powerful that they become humanoid. The more tails a kitsune has, the more powerful they are. The most that's been confirmed to be seen is a seven-tailed kitsune, who by that point looked like a beautiful human woman except for her tails and fox ears, and she was a powerful Lady in control of an entire... province? Prefecture? I'm not sure what the term was back then, but she was Lady of a castle, several large towns, and many villages before the European invaders started coming in. Regrettably, several wizards were among them, and killed her, after several months of waging war on her. The final battle was six powerful wizards versus the one seven-tailed kitsune, and it took them five hours to bring her down.
“Anyway... there have also been rumors for centuries of kitsune with nine tails. I shudder to think how much of a fight one of those would give people. I sincerely hope I never have to find out. But you need to run along now, Miss Potter. Don't go back to that room.”
“I won't. I actually had other plans before getting sidetracked. But now I'm back on track.”
McGonagall looked like she was trying to decide if she wanted to know what Zoey's plans were or not. She finally decided she didn't want to know, and shooed the girl away.
Zoey took some time to wander around trying to throw McGonagall or anyone else who might be watching off the scent, but not too obviously, for she really didn't plan to go back there. As strong as the temptation to dig through all that stuff had been, it was mostly gone now that she wasn't looking right at the thing.
No, she had other plans, and as a result ended up outside the Ravenclaw dorm entrance.
The door knocker said, “I have no substance and yet I can kill, I am nowhere but everywhere; swim in my expanse unprotected and you'll freeze to death while your body burns. Take refuge in a container you can live in, and your might cook to death from your own body heat. What am I?”
“Outer space. Or the void, whatever wizards call it.”
“Correct,” the knocker responded, and opened the door.
Zoey Disillusioned herself, walking invisible into the room. Being a weekend, most students were outside or in the library, and the common room had only two Ravenclaws in it, on opposite sides of the room. Zoey sneaked by them both and went up to the girl's dormitories into Luna's room. Using her wand, she used Accio to summon Luna's things from a list she'd written down. One by one, most of them came to her and she set them down on Luna's bed, except for the butterbeer cork necklace, which she put around her neck after Disillusioning it first. A couple things she summoned were locked and couldn't get out, so she hunted them down and liberated them from the trunks of the bullies, leaving behind a surprise: dungbombs bewitched to go off when the bullies opened their trunks again.
Then she took advantage of the fact she was one of the only people who could get into Luna's trunk, and opened it, taking everything out. She then cast anti-theft charms on all of Luna's stuff (which would make it so anyone but Luna or the Potters touching those things would shock the would-be thief bad enough to knock them over but not seriously injure them), putting everything back in the trunk and making sure it was locked. She could tell Luna about this later when she found her to return the butterbeer cork necklace.
Then she used another nifty spell she'd read recently to find who had stolen the objects on the list of things she'd summoned, and left the same bewitched dungbombs in their trunks as well; except she didn't do that to the bullies in Luna's dorm, in case the stink upset Luna. She'd thought about doing something else instead to them, but in the end decided not to. Instead, she went into some other dorms – boys' as well as girls' – and put more dungbombs in, to make it look more like a random dungbomb attack, a prank with no real pattern to it. She didn't want anyone to think Luna had done it. But if she found they were thinking that anyway, she'd confess she had done it.
She spent the next few hours searching the castle and then the grounds for Luna. She wasn't in the Great Hall, or at Hagrid's, or in the greenhouses, or the library, or anywhere else she could think of to look. Finally, she got the Marauder's Map out and searched it, but in the confusing mass she couldn't find her there either.
Annoyed, she put her wand on the Map and said, “Show me Luna Lovegood.”
Three concentric circles moved from part of the Map like ripples on a pond, moving out and then back in again, pointing out Luna. She was in the Forbidden Forest. Javier was with her for some reason.
“Figgers,” Zoey said, clearing the Map and putting it in her pocket. “Note to self: get one of those sets of mirror thingies for Luna and us.”
Disillusioning herself again, she sneaked out of the castle and into the Forbidden Forest. It didn't take her long to find Luna and Javier, they were in a small clearing in the forest feeding chunks of meat to thestrals. Javier looked a bit freaked out, but Luna looked serene.
Undoing the Disillusionment Charm, Zoey said, “Boo!”
Javier jumped, dropping the meat he'd been feeding the thestral fawn. It reached its head down and began eating the dropped meat, and Javier pulled away, washing his hand with his wand.
“You startled me, er... who are you?”
“Zoey Potter.”
“Oh yes, right. Well you startled me, and you shouldn't startle people who are feeding invisible creatures that eat meat.”
“So you can't see 'em?”
“No. You can?”
“Iliana killed Professor Quirrell in our first year. He up and died right in front of us. So yeah, we can see 'em. Can I help feed the bony horsies?”
“Sure, you can have what's left of the meat Luna gave me. She's... off in her own world right now.”
“I can still hear you, though,” Luna said. “Welcome, Zoey. I see you found the necklace that went missing.”
“Yeah, I found the rest of your stuff, too. It's all back in your trunk, with anti-theft charms on it all in case you forget to put anything back again.”
“Thank you. That should deter most of the thieves.”
“Only 'most' of them?” Zoey said, picking up some of the meat and feeding another fawn.
“Well yes, some of the more determined thieves might be thwarted once by that ploy, but they'll not be caught by the same trick twice. They'll remove the charm the second time.”
“If they do that, I'll find them and turn them into turtles.”
“I'd rather you didn't do that. Just bringing me my lost things will suffice.”
Zoey didn't know what to say, so she made an indistinct noise instead.
“Do you ever fly them, Luna? The thestrals, I mean,” Zoey said.
“Oh no, I haven't yet. Hagrid only lets me feed them.”
“Where is Hagrid? If he's letting you feed the thestrals, shouldn't he be here with you?”
“He went to talk with the centaurs about something,” Javier said.
Zoey nodded. “And why're you here, Javier?”
He shrugged. “Luna and I are friends. Have been for a while now. Now I have two friends, instead of just one.”
“But we're a collective, loads of different people.”
“Yes, I know that. But I'm only really friends with Alastair and Luna. Adira and I have something of an awkward acquaintance with each other at best, I don't know Iliana worth a darn, I've only just met you, and I don't really know any of the others. From the sound of things, I think Chandra and I would get along with each other, but I haven't really met him yet.”
“I'll make sure to have him introduce himself, then.”
Javier smiled. “I'd like that.”
When all the meat was gone, they continued to pet the thestrals, but most of them started wandering off before long, leaving the three humans alone just in time for Hagrid to return.
“Ah, yeh lot all done then? Oh, hi there Zoey.”
“Hello Hagrid!” Zoey said, waving. She suppressed the urge to run at him and hug him, since he was carrying his crossbow.
“Well, if the thestrals are scarperin', best get on outta the forest now.”
The three of them followed him as he left the forest and into his hut. He un-loaded his crossbow and put it back in place.
“Care fer a cuppa?”
“Sounds lovely, Hagrid,” Luna said.
“Do you have any herbal tea, Hagrid?” Javier asked. “I'm feeling a little jittery. Need something to soothe my nerves.”
“Ya, I got some chamomille and lavender herbal tea. It's in teabags, though.”
“That's fine. I prefer teabags anyway. I can't stand the little bits floating around.”
“You and Al both,” Zoey said. “Oh, here's your necklace, Luna.”
She handed Luna the butterbeer cork necklace. Luna held it in one hand a few minutes and closed her eyes, holding the other hand above it, palm down, while Hagrid made the tea. The necklace started to glow orange.
“Whatcha doin'?” Zoey asked curiously.
“I reckon she's cleansing its energy. No telling where it's been before you had it.”
“Huh? What's that mean?”
“Oh, it might have some bad energy on it from the person who took it. She can't let that energy stay there. It's an empath thing, I think.”
“That's something you can do? Neat. I don't think we've ever tried that. I wonder if we could learn. Might help Chandra with his eating problem.”
“Eatin' problem?” Hagrid asked, settling into his seat. “Whadda yeh mean?”
“He can't eat meat, because he can feel the animal's suffering.”
“Oh.”
Luna finally opened her eyes, putting on the necklace (which had stopped glowing) and stroking the corks with her fingers. “That won't work, probably,” Luna said. “It sounds like Chandra has psychometry or something like it as well as being an empath, and that's not going to be affected by a cleansing. Even though he's sensing the feelings of the animal, if the cutting up and cooking didn't get rid of what he's sensing, then a cleansing isn't going to do anything.”
“Why's that?”
Luna grabbed one of the corks and put it against her lips as she thought for a few moments.
“Well...” she said at last, “think of it like this: if you had a piece of wood, all smoothed and lacquered, and spilled some cream sauce on it, you could clean the wood with a spell or by wiping it clean. But if you tried the same cleaning spell to try to get rid of a worm that was living in the wood, it wouldn't work. For one thing, the spell wouldn't work on a living creature that was on the surface of the wood unless it was too small to see with the naked eye. Not even sure it works then, or just disperses such creatures into the air. But a worm wouldn't be affected by the cleaning spell, except maybe to make the worm itself a little cleaner. And it sure wouldn't work on any filth under the surface of the wood.”
“Oh. So cleansing doesn't go deep enough?”
“That's part of it. It's also an imperfect metaphor, because I think what Chandra's sensing is the meat's memory from when it was alive, which is part of the meat's essence, the same way your memories are part of what makes you who you are. I don't know of anything that can get rid of those memories without Vanishing the object as a side-effect.”
“Ah, I see.”
The conversation about cleansing was over with now, though.
“How's yer herbal tea, Javier?” Hagrid asked.
“It's excellent. Could use a little honey, though.”
“BLECK!” Zoey said, pulling a face. “Honey with lavender? BARF! Gag me with a spoon!”
“This coming from the girl who, if rumor is true, once ate – and enjoyed – a truly disgusting sandwich made of French toast, cinnamon toast, eggs, sausage, kippers, ketchup, and jam.”
“So what? That doesn't mean I can't still find something yucky. Honey and lavender tea is icky, as is any kind of tea after eating peppermint, but especially black tea. Or peppermint flavored black tea.”
Javier defiantly put a spoon of honey in his tea while staring at Zoey's forehead, stirred, and sipped it with delight while Zoey pulled funny faces and mimed puking over the side of the table, complete with very realistic upchuck noises that made Luna and Hagrid both look a little green, but which merely made Javier's eye twitch.
Since that tactic wasn't working, she tried another one. “Honey's made of bee vomit, you know. They drink nectar and puke it up and it becomes honey.”
“That's nice,” Javier said, largely ignoring her.
“And... and... and Muggles love vanilla so much they made real vanilla very expensive and now they have artificial vanilla flavor, but really it's made from a beaver's anal gland!”
Luna set her tea down. “Hagrid, do you have any food-grade peppermint oil?”
“Ya. Yeh want some?”
“Yes please. In the meantime, I have a naughty little girl to punish.”
She leaped out of her seat and grabbed Zoey, who struggled. Luna wrestled her to the ground and tickled her mercilessly, her shrieks of laughter filling the small hut and then becoming wheezes as she couldn't breathe, which is when Luna stopped.
“Adequate punishment, I think. What do you think, Javier?”
Javier nodded. “I agree.”
~
That afternoon, bored, Zoey wrote a letter:
Dear Sirius,
Hi! It's me! ZOEY! Meep meep, vroom vroom vroom!
So I had an intrestin day, I did I did I did. So some meanie nasty poopy doody heads stole some of Luna's things when she forgot ta put em back, and she was very upset at dinner cuz one of em was her butterbeer cork necklace, which she needs to touch when she's stressed, and she gets stressed a lot cuz she's an empath too and not just a calm place for empaths to get lost in. We think that's a side effect of her coping mechanismisms.
Sooooo natch I had ta find her things and take steps to stop more thefty-wefties. I was on my way to do that when I realized I didn't have a good plan and so I had the silly notion to use the Room of Requirement but it showed me this huge room fulla centuries of junk we're gonna havta go through later with aurors and whatnot but we're leavin it be for now, McGonagall said. (Speaking of McGonagall, does she ever patrol as a kitty? I kinda wanna find her as a kitty, grab her in a hug while shouting “KITTY!” Of course she might scratch me I guess so maybe I won't do that after all. But it's fun ta think about, right?)
Anyway so then I went to the Ravenclaw dorms and found all her missing things, put Anti-Theft Charms on them all (and the resta the stuff in her trunk) and put it all back except I took her the necklace she needed. Took me a hecka long time ta find her, too. Had ta ask the Map, and found a function I hadn't knowed about: the ripply circly thingies, I hope you know what I mean. So I found her that way and she was feeding thestrals in the Forbidden Forest with Javier, only don't report them because Hagrid was in the area and knew they were there, so they had permission.
I helped feed they bony horsies too, including a wee little bebe fawny-wawny SOOOOOO 'dordable! You should see 'em! I dunno, can you see thestrals? Actually I hope you can't cuz that would be sad and bad and I'd have to cry and hug you but you're not here to hug so then I'd have to jump through the Floo to you, and McGonagall would have kittens only not literally unless... can animagi have kittens or other babies with animals? Wait never mind that's icky I hope nobody's ever tried that but I wouldn't be surprised if they did. Though I 'spose they could make babies with other animagi in their animagi form but then that's kinda icky too in a way but not as much, but can you imagine two goat animagi having kids together and OH MY GOODNESS ME McGonagall was married once, did she ever have kids? Not goat ones obviously but yanno. I hope she had grand-babies too.
Oh wait I got off topic. What was I talkin bout? Oh yeah I got Luna's stuff back and then I put a bunch of dungbombs in the trunks of the bullies and a few other people to make it look like a random prank. I hope they don't blame Luna for it, that would be bad.
Almost forgot to mention I'm using a dicta-quill for this, otherwise my hand would get all crampy from all this writing. You probly guessed that though with all the ramblyness and wandering about everywhere. Took some doing to get it to write in my style rather than spelling everythin the right way, how boring is that?
OH MY GOODNESS does McGonagall ever get hairballs? HA! Now I'm imagining her hacking up a hairball in her classroom. I wonder if she ever has nightmares about doing that in front of a class? Oh and are animagi naked when they're animals? I mean I never looked in certain places, that would be very rude, but it's kinda weird if you're naked even though animals are naked but I guess it'd be a bit of a giveaway if your animagus form had a doggie sweater and OH MY GOODNESS now I know what I'm getting you for your birthday! When is your birthday anyway? I need to know! My birfday parties for people are getting famous! Or infamous. Depends on your point of view I 'spose.
PLEASE TELL ME YOU DON'T HUMP THE FURNITURE! Wait never mind, don't tell me. I don't wanna think about it.
Animagus thing ain't been goin good for us. You'd think it'd be easy but something is blocking us and we can't figger it out. Maybe with a certain librarian goddess's help we can figure it out? Of course she's been a meanie nasty poopy face who yells a lot so maybe I'd have more luck squeezing coal into diamonds, though she did explain some thingies to Al about ritual magic so maybe her head's slipping outta her bum. Luna says diamonds are bad cuz they amplify empathic energy like a LOT. Both the good and the bad. Also they're kinda boring, just looks like cut glass to us. I'd rather have colorful things like jade or emeralds or peacock ore or opals!
We haven't flown the thestrals yet, Hagrid ain't let us yet. :(
Like my sad smiley face? I had ta draw that myself cuz the quill was just like “Huh? Wha?” and maybe I should find a way to do smileys with it but that's a lot of work and I'm all about fun for the rest of the day. But if I do figger it out I can send like a million different smileys!
Know any good spells to use on Peeves? I think it'd be fun to drive him bonkers, watch the chaos that results. It'd be entertaining. Bet you're picturing me steepling my fingers with an evil grin on my face going “MWAH HA HA HA HA! My evil plan has come to fruition!” Speaking of fruit, I like raspberries. You should get me a raspberry plant so I can put it in my window and have raspberries ALL THE TIME!!! (HA! Al just said, “Like you need the sugar, demon child!”)
Iliana had a dream last night about riding around on your motorbike like a badass. Black leather jacket with fringe, a red bandanna on her head, sunglasses, and spiky boots. She looked like she was in a biker gang. Only the motorbike in the dream didn't have a sidecar.
Oh and if you could tell me how to lock Snape out of his office in a way so the password is somethin like “I, Severus Snape, love to cuddle my pink teddy bear when I has a sad” or something like that, let me know. I'd do it myself but I don't know how and a certain mathy librarian nearly broke my eardrums screaming at me when I asked her how to do it.
Well I'm outta stuff to talk about now. Gonna go see if I can find somethin else to do fun around here, like maybe I can replace all Dumbledore's shampoo with hair-removal potion or turn Flitwick's funny white hair and beard into something ugly like a Hitler 'stache. Naw, that's too mean; I'll turn it pink instead. Should be easy, if I can find where he sleeps. If you have any ideas for pranks, let me know!
Hope you find a girlfriend or boyfriend! Or both! Or some non-gendered romantic partner! (Hey, is Remus into guys? You two seem to hang out together a lot, even for friends. Hmm... doggie and wolfie, howling at the moon, may-be lat-er They. Can. Spoon! First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Siri with the puppy carriage!)
XOXO
---Zoey Potter
PS = Give Remus my love. :)
PPS = I'm starstruck, simply over the moon, about the thought of you and Remus shacking up. :D (Not that I'm thinkin bout it too hard, cuz ICKY SEX THINGS! EWWW NO! PUUUKE! Just that it would be cute to see you two being kissy and huggy with each other.)
PPPS = No seriously, you two should date if you're both into it. You'd be so cute together!
PPPPS = Luna-wuna helped me make the art move!
It was decorated in little smiley-face suns and flowers, a few cute drawings of snakes or butterflies, and on the blank side of the parchment was a richly detailed drawing Zoey had done; there were trees and flowers she'd made to sway in the breeze despite being very cartoony in appearance. There was a picture of a lake with simple childishly drawn mer-people, some of which were swimming while another was half out of the water and waving and smiling at anyone who saw the drawing. A dragon flew over the lake, chasing what looked like Draco Malfoy on a broom. The little Draco was silently screaming, his broomstick tail on fire.
There was more. Snakes slithered in the grass, butterflies flapped their wings flying around. Every now and then a pair of dragonflies zipped through the image. A snail was sitting on a mushroom-shaped stool eating cake from a table that looked like a flat-topped mushroom. The snail even had a bib on and was using a fork, and was smiling. A yellow smiling sun sat in the sky bouncing up and down like it was dancing to some unheard music, while puffy white clouds drifted by, and birds flew around through the clouds and the trees.
She rolled up the parchment and sent it to Sirius with Hedwig.
~
After sending the letter, Zoey was still bored. To entertain herself, she started crawling around behind the various cats in the Griffindor common room, trying in vain to sneak up on them like a prowling cat on the hunt. She could almost swear Crookshanks had rolled his eyes at her when she tried it on him, but unlike the others he didn't run away. Just sat there, looking annoyed as she rolled over on her back and batted at him like she was a cat herself. It even included Zoey lifting her legs partway up in the air like a cat asking for belly scritches. (Luckily she had on shorts under her skirt.) She even purred and meowed realistically enough that one of the other cats came to see where the crying kitten was. It was very annoyed when it saw the sounds were just coming from a human.
It was when she was in the middle of playing with a large ball of yarn she'd conjured for this purpose, getting very much into the “kitten” role, that it happened. The ball of yarn quadrupled in size, frightening her. She ran off, and ran right into Crookshanks... who was also huge. Or was he?
She looked at her hands, but they were paws. She'd become a cat! She bounded up the stairs as best she could with her little kitten body (which occasionally had her hanging from the tops of steps by her forelegs in a funny way) and into her bedroom, where she climbed on the bed with her claws to look at herself in the mirror.
The mirror showed her a tan kitten with black fur on its head that went down its back in a sort of pigtail shape. The scar was there, too, as a jagged white line of fur on her head. And of course, her eyes were the same; one blue, and one hazel.
“Mrow?” she said in surprise. It was, of course, a genuine meow.
Excited that she'd done it at last, she climbed off the bed and ran around in circles celebrating. She then left the room again and went to Ron's room to find him, but he wasn't there. She tried thinking how to find him, but she couldn't use the Marauder's Map without a wand and her voice, and she didn't want to change back yet. So she curled up on Ron's bed and waited.
When she woke up a few hours later, she was still a kitten. She'd woken up because Ron was coming in.
“Oy, little kitten, who do you belong to? Wait... why do you look familiar?”
She turned around and waved her cat butt at him, then turned back to face him and stuck her tongue out at him.
“Zoey? Did you lot finally figure out... the thing?”
The other boys came in then, and Ron picked her up.
“Someone's lost a kitten,” he said. “I'm gonna find out who it belongs to.”
“Okay, Ron.”
But of course, he didn't do that. He went, instead, to the Potter room and set Zoey down on the bed.
“So you gonna turn back now?”
Zoey rolled over on her back and exposed her belly to him.
Ron sighed. “Okay, I'll scratch your belly, if you're so keen on it. Then you need to turn back.”
He scratched her belly, and it was heavenly. She understood why cats liked this so much. When it was over, she got up and presented her head for him to scratch. Obligingly, he scratched her behind the ears. Then she got him to stroke her along her spine. The feeling when he got to her tail was so intense she got weak-kneed and fell over, meowing.
“Enough joking around, Zoey, if that really is you. God, if I find out you're just some random cat I'm talking to and not Zoey or one of the others, I'm gonna be so peeved.”
He picked her up and she took the opportunity to climb his robes and perch on his shoulder. Though it wasn't any taller than Al was when they were him, the fact she was so much smaller now made it seem like she was atop a skyscraper almost. She yowled in fright and nearly fell off, digging her claws into Ron and making him yowl too. But then she got back into position on his shoulder and licked his ear to apologize.
“Come on,” he said, sounding angry, “I'll take you to McGonagall. She can tell me for sure whether you're really a cat or not.”
McGonagall was just coming out of her office when Ron got there, as it was almost dinner time. (Ron, like the others, had gone in to get cleaned up for dinner after having been outside all day long.)
“Yes, Mr. Weasley, what do you want?” she asked.
“I, uh... look, can we talk in your office?”
She sighed. “I suppose so. Come on in. Let's make it quick, though.”
They went in, and she closed the door behind her.
“We won't be overheard, will we?”
“No, Mr. Weasley. I have spells on every inch of my office to keep out eavesdroppers. What is the problem?”
“Well, I just want you to tell me if this is really a cat or if it's an animagus. I couldn't find Crookshanks; I think he's in Hermione's room.”
“An animagus? Why do you---oh, never mind. I see why you're wondering.” She was looking at Zoey's lightning-shaped fur pattern, her eyes, and the weird pigtail-shaped coloration.
She turned into her cat animagus form, and Ron put Zoey down on the floor next to her. Zoey casually started cleaning herself with her tongue while McGonagall sniffed her.
Zoey felt something from McGonagall, a questioning sort of feeling. She sent one back. The two animagi then started a conversation in Cat.
'Smallest cat in multi-cat-one-cat?' McGonagall asked.
'Yes. Stiff tall teach-cat? Old-cat?'
'Yes. Punish-cat, too, if small tan-and-black cat remembers.'
Zoey rolled over on her back with her four legs in the air and said, 'Cute kitten. Punish-cat not hurt cute kitten?'
Ignoring that, McGonagall continued. 'I want you be bigger cat when I be that first; two-legged cat, so we can speak two-legged to two-legged.'
'No. I like being kitten. Two-leggeds scratch my belly and head. Two-leggeds stroke my spine. I like spine stroking. I fell over, it was so good.'
'Please be bigger small-cat now, or punish-cat will punish you and other cats in family.'
Zoey huffed. 'Stiff tall teach-cat is mean cat. No-fun cat. Not as mean as two-legged tall flying-mouse with smelly metal food-things with not-food in them, but mean-cat all the same.'
'Do the thing, kitten. Be bigger and two-legged. Now.'
'Yes, yes. I be big now.'
She got back up on her feet. There was a pause as she concentrated. Then she looked embarrassed. 'Kitten not know how be two-legged again. Teach-cat help?'
'Remember being two-legged. Remember tall. Remember grabby paws-not-paws. Remember fur-not-fur.'
Zoey blinked slowly at McGonagall, since this functioned like a nod in Cat, at least in this context, and tried again. In the process, she tried standing on her hind legs, and ended up 'talking' in Cat as she did.
'I tall not-as-fun two-legged. I say boring things in weird meows and eat medicine for food. I eat plants for food. No hunt. Silly big-eyed short two-leggeds feed me, and I make noises and light with a bit of tree. Boring boring boring talk talk talk. Not--'
With a POP, Zoey became human again and fell over.
“Yikes! Aww... now I'm sad.” She turned her head to look up at Ron. “Scritch my earsies? Stroke my spine?”
“No,” said Ron. “I'm going to dinner. Thank you, Professor.”
McGonagall returned to her human form as well. “You're welcome, Mr. Weasley. You're dismissed.”
Ron left the room and closed the door. Zoey was on her hands and knees rubbing her head against McGonagall's robes.
“Miss Potter, please stand up before you turn into a cat again.”
“Darn. You're no fun,” she said, getting up by grabbing the desk, briefly a bit wobbly, like she was trying to remember how to stand on two legs again.
“Miss Potter, unless you somehow managed to keep a mandrake leaf in your mouth for a month without talking, through meals, through the night as you slept, and through your transformations, I assume you did not become an animagus the normal way?”
“Right-a-rootie, Professor. I-- Wait, a whole month? They can't take it out at all?”
“That's correct.”
“What if they swallow it?”
“Then they have to start over again.”
“No wonder there's so few animagi. Wait, my dad and Sirius and the rat managed to do that? Wasn't it suspicious?”
“I have never asked how they managed it, but given that they were never silent for so much as a day, to my knowledge, I presume they either managed to do it without going mute, or else they did it during the summer. Now can you please tell me how you came to be an animagus?”
“Well, we've been trying for months and months, all year really and part of the summer, too. We have a book about it that Sirius gave us. We've become part-cat part-human hybrids before, but never gone full cat before. I was pretending to be a cat, playing, when it happened.”
“I see. Well, try it again, just to see if you can.”
Zoey once more got down on her hands and knees.
“Miss Potter, you will eventually have to learn how to do it from a standing position. Some of the benefits of being an animagus are quite lost on you if you have to go to that much work to change.”
Zoey stuck her tongue out. “Big tall cat no fun. Kitten---”
POP! She was a kitten again, looking just the same. She put her forepaws up on the desk, standing on two legs, and with another POP she turned human again.
“Well you're getting faster already. Just try to shake the cat mentality as much as possible so you don't change in front of the whole school.”
“Speaking of that, do I have to register?”
McGonagall thought about it a moment. “Normally I would say yes, but Dumbledore seems to think You-Know-Who is making a bid to come back to power, so I will do the uncharacteristic thing and tell you to keep this a secret. Obviously you can tell any friends who will help keep the secret, of course.”
“Good to know, tea-- er, Professor.”
“Good. Now go down to dinner before it's over. You are dismissed.”
Nodding, she skipped off down the hall whistling the tune of “Ev'rybody Wants To Be A Cat” from The Aristocats, all the way to the Great Hall. Once there, she sat down across from Ron and grinned toothily at him while she heaped food onto her plate.
Ron did a double-take on seeing her. When she raised her eyebrow quizzically, he spoke.
“Zoey, you lost a tooth!”
“Someone finally noticed! YAY!” She grinned again. “I didn't lose it. I left it out on purpose last time I became me. I think I look cuter with one missing tooth, don't you?”
Hermione turned to look at Zoey's new smile.
“Hmm... missing left-side lower lateral incisor, I'd say.” Hermione said. “And it looks like one of your upper central incisors on the same side is half as grown as the other.”
Ron goggled at her. “Ladderal what now? And how would you know what it's called anyway?”
Hermione sighed. “Lateral incisor. It's between the central incisor and the cuspid or canine tooth. And I know because my parents are dentists. They fix teeth for a living, Ronald. Remember?”
“Oh,” said Neville, who was nearby. “So that's what a dentist does?”
Sighing, Hermione squeezed the bridge of her nose, then went back to eating.
“Which one is the incisor?” Ron asked.
Swallowing, Hermione said, “The ones in front that cut your food.”
“Ah, okay. Well Zoey's right, I suppose; she does kinda look cuter that way. Which must mean she's up to something.”
“She's always up to something,” Hermione said. “She's Zoey.”
“Hey! I resemble that remark!” Zoey said, grinning.
~
That night, Zoey resisted the temptation to become a cat again, and instead spent time with Aqua out of her enclosure, laying on her belly pretending to be a snake while Aqua looked at her, expressing confusion.
'I smell mice,' Zoey said. 'I can feel their heat. I slither towards them.'
'Where? I smell no mice.'
'I'm playing pretend! Anyway, yes. I am a scaly hunter, sniffing mice as I slither on my belly. I flick my tongue and see their heat-picture in my mind--'
With a POP, she shrunk again. Confused, she tried looking at her paws, but there were none. She had no arms or legs.
'What's going on! Why can't I feel my limbs?'
When Aqua finished laughing in her snakey way, she said, 'Because you have become a snake. Same kind as I am.'
'How can I be a snake? I was a cat! My animal form is a kitten!'
'Well I assure you, you are a snake now. I would not lie about this.'
Zoey tried to get to the bed so she could see herself in the mirror, but she could hardly figure out how to move in this body. She felt constricted, like she was in a full body-bind, except she could kinda move, so more like a straight jacket? She strained harder against the constricted feeling.
POP! She'd wriggled so hard, struggled so hard against the snake form that she'd become human again. She had hands and hair and everything.
“Woah... I'm a multi-animal animagus!”
But as she thought about it, something didn't make sense. “I thought patronuses were also animagi forms? But none of us has a cat patronus, though Tier's is a jaguar. Nor a grass snake patronus either; closest there is Al's Runespoor patronus.”
She tried an experiment, this time pretending to be a raven, like her own patronus. She certainly had the personality for it, as ravens are clever tricksters just like Zoey. But try as she might, for almost an hour, she couldn't become a raven.
Trying another bird, she worked her way into the mentality of an owl. Within a minute, she became a snowy owl, like Hedwig.
“This is confusing,” she said when she was human again. “I can become a cat, a grass snake, and an owl, none of which are patronus forms for us, but not a raven, which is. Hmm...”
Next she tried a fox, but that was another dud. So was cuttlefish, and again jaguar was a dud. But when she tried a dog, she became a boarhound like Fang, rather than whatever kind of dog Sirius was. She tried other breeds of dog, and the only one she managed was bulldog, like Aunt Marge's dog Ripper. Thinking of breeds, she tried cat breeds, but could only become the one form of cat she'd already done.
Then she tried, just for kicks, to become a spider, and it worked. She had no idea what kind of spider she was, as she couldn't see herself, and Aqua wasn't able to identify it in any way that was useful to her.
“Why a spider? Why a dog and a cat? Why an owl, but not a raven?”
She tried becoming other sorts of owls, and managed several different species of owls, including the tiny scops owl like the one Sirius owned, and a long-eared owl like Ron's. She thought she recognized Javier's owl in one of the owl forms she managed, too.
“Well at least I can fly if I need to.”
She tried a bunch of other forms, including eagle, pigeon, rat, bat, mouse, and the boa constrictor she once spoke with in the zoo, but none of those worked either, though for some reason she managed to become a parakeet. The only species of snake she could become, out of those she knew enough to try, was grass snake.
Given the example of spider, she tried other creepy crawlies. House fly worked, as did mosquito, ladybug, grasshopper, butterfly, moth, walking stick, and ant. But centipede didn't work, nor did millipede. She couldn't become most of the specific types of spiders she knew about either, like Black Widow, Huntsman, or tarantula, but when she got to a mirror she thought it looked like she could become a Daddy Long-legs, which wasn't even technically a spider.
'I shall have to remember to only eat when I can see you in human form,' Aqua said to her. 'Or else I fear I'd probably eat you by mistake.'
She tried fish next, in the tub. Goldfish worked, but it was the only one that did. Octopus was a dud, too. Out of the water, other invertebrates that she could become (other than insects or spiders) included earthworm and snail, but nothing else she could think of.
Oh my goodness this is so frustrating, she thought at the others. Why some things and not others? Why a bloody snail or earthworm, but not a raven or a jaguar? Or even some kind of snake other than grass snake?
After a bit more experimenting, she found she could become a chicken, a cow, and a pig as well. Also a turkey, for some reason.
~I have something of an unusual idea,~ Chandra said to her.
What's that?
~First, can you be a toad?~
Zoey concentrated on being a toad, but nothing happened.
Now what?
~Now find Neville and ask him if you can hold Trevor.~
Shrugging, she left her room. She soon found Neville doing his homework in the common room and she saw Trevor sitting there on the table next to him.
“Heya Neville,” she said.
“Hi Zoey,” Neville said, distracted.
“Hey Neville?”
“What?”
“Could I hold Trevor for a moment? Chandra asked me to.”
Neville hesitated.
“I wouldn't hurt him. What kind of a monster do you think I am?”
“Well, okay,” he said, picking the toad up and putting it in her open hands.
“How do you know he's a boy toad?”
“Er... um... I guess I don't.”
She wasn't sure what was supposed to be happening. After about a minute, she got bored and handed Neville his toad again.
“What was that for, anyway?”
“No idea. Chandra will tell me when I get back upstairs. He's weird sometimes.”
Neville gave her A Look.
“Well I guess we're all weird but anyway, I'm off to find out what that was for.”
She ran back upstairs and closed the door behind her when she got to their room.
~Good. Now try to become a toad again.~
Sighing, she tried it again. Only, this time it worked. She shrunk down to a toad, hopped around a bit, and then became a human again.
“What the heckadoodly-doo?”
~It's animals we've touched, or felt the energy of. That was proof.~
But we've touched a rat before, and that one didn't work!
~Actually, we've touched a rat-form animagus, not an actual rat.~
So to turn into something, we have to have touched it before?
~I believe so. Make a list of the animals we cannot yet become, and we shall touch some examples of them later.~
I don't remember ever touching a cow or a pig or a turkey.
~I believe it may include animals we've eaten, or nearly eaten, since I joined the group.~
Oh. Well that's a bit awkward. What about a parakeet?
~Didn't our third-grade class have a pet parakeet?~
Oh right.
She then changed into an owl and started flying around the grounds for a few hours before coming back to go to bed, which was a lot of fun, though not as fun as flying on a broom. While she tried to get to sleep, she decided she would have to keep this ability a secret.
~
Dear Zoey and company,
Oh my, you really are a silly one. I laughed til I had to stop in order to breathe again, because of your letter!
Once more, I'm glad you're helping your friend. I don't know whether McGonagall patrols as a cat, but James and I sent her an enormous ball of yarn for Christmas one year, the look on her face was hilarious! Totally worth the detention! Just keep that in mind if you try to hug her when she's a cat.
I wouldn't report your friends for feeding thestrals, Zoey. But in the future you might want to keep information like that out of the letters, you never know who might intercept the owls.
Oh my. I don't know about animagi having babies in their animal forms, and I'm not sure I want to know. I also don't think you should ask McGonagall about her husband, she still mourns him.
I was born November 3rd, and no I do not hump the furniture, you dirty-minded little imp. Not that it's any of your business.
A doggie sweater would be a hilarious gift for me, no occasion required. The look on Remus's face when he saw me in it would be worth laughs for weeks. Get me one with little doggie bone patterns, maybe the name “Snuffles” embroidered on it. As to animagi and clothes, I honestly don't know. They come back when we turn human again, so I imagine they probably go somewhere, but then the question of where that mass goes when you transfigure stuff is something you'd have to ask McGonagall about. I understood just enough of the theory of transfiguration to become an animagus, and then Azkaban made me forget it because the dementors ate holes in my brain. I was always more adept at the practical side of transfiguration anyway.
I don't recommend messing with Peeves. He's all fun and games until you anger him sufficiently. I read that they once tried expelling him from the school centuries ago, and they had to evacuate the school, he caused so much bedlam as a result. So yeah, please don't do that. I mean I can always send you to Beaxbatons if you get expelled, but getting used to everyone speaking French could be difficult for you.
Not sure if your dream means Iliana wants to own her own motorbike or not, but she'd have to be 16 to get her license with the Muggle government. We can discuss it more if she's interested. Or leave it at that if it was just a silly dream. But she sounded pretty groovy-looking from your description.
No I will not tell you how to lock Snape out of his office, as hilarious as that would be. I'm hoping to keep you alive this year, remember? HA! :) Thanks for the information about smiley-faces! :)
If you do replace all of Dumbledore's shampoo with hair-removal potion, send me a picture of him bald, it would make my month. :) But yeah, don't be mean to Flitwick, he's cool.
You just mind your own business and don't try to hook either of us up with anyone, okay you little imp? I'm getting out of the house. Mostly into Muggle areas, but hey, if I married a Muggle my mother would catch fire from spinning so fast in her grave! HA! And yes I am ignoring your comments about Remus and I. I'm not entirely sure Remus has ever dated anyone or shown any interest at all. Not sure at all, given my memory issues.
By the way, I don't know how she'll take this, but Fangslaughter wants to talk to Hypatia about how she got past the wards. We haven't told him anything about her, not even her name or gender. She can refuse if she wants, but Fangslaughter says he'll pay her if she explains it to him. His initial offer is a thousand galleons, but he's willing to haggle. I'm not sure whether the knowledge is even worth that much, as I get the impression Hypatia is one of the few people in the world who can do that without a computer, and he says the Gringott's wards already ward against computers. Messes them up or something, I don't remember and honestly I wasn't paying a lot of attention when he started rambling on about the specifics.
I ran into someone at the Ministry the other day, a relative of both of us. Her name is Auror Tonks. She and her mother Andromeda Tonks nee Black are cousins to the both of us, you know how pureblood families are. She married a Muggleborn, Ted Tonks, and got disowned by the family. But after meeting Tonks (as Auror Nymphadora Tonks prefers to be called), I looked into it and apparently my mother only Exiled me, rather than officially disowning me, which expired with the mad old bat. I guess she was holding out hope her first born son would see the error of his ways. Makes sense, especially after my idiot brother got killed trying to leave the Death Eaters.
Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that I'm officially the last Black left in the family, officially a Lord and all. Annoying, but I'm gonna use it to make my mum spin in her grave by officially reinstating Andromeda and her family into the Black family. I was in the middle of the parchment-work when I got your owl. Wish I could've introduced you to them over the Easter holidays, but well, over the summer will have to do.
I'm actually a little leery of introducing Zoey to Dora, to be honest. They're so much alike it'd be a bit scary seeing them interact. But Zoey would get a kick out of Dora, not the least of which reasons is Dora is a metamorphmagus, means she can alter her appearance at will. It's a rare gift, something she's born with. But now I'm remembering you mentioned something about that in your first year, Madam Pomfrey thought you weren't one for some reason. I don't want to call her wrong, she knows more about Healing than I do, but honestly I think you lot must be some sort of metamorph. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out the odd aspects of your transformation ability was your whole multiplicity situation in your brain warping the metamorph powers in strange ways. After all, Tier can shapeshift, which is essentially the same thing as being a metamorph, and some of the others have shown the ability to alter their forms with some effort. It wouldn't necessarily explain your ability to pull things Inside, but sounds like a good hypothesis to me.
Oh yeah, I was in the Ministry because I was picking up a few things there related to my inheritance, like the keys and ward-codes to mum's old house. I don't give a fig about the house, might just pay to have it cleaned out and then sell it to be honest, I haven't really decided yet. I went to Gringott's after that for the rest of it, vault keys and the like, which is where I ran into Fangslaughter, if you were wondering.
I got off track there. The reason I mentioned I went to the Ministry was because among the things I got there from my inheritance was, well... I'm apparently a Lord now, with a Wizengamot seat. It's not really my thing, politics, but with Malfoy and others of his ilk helping make laws, I figured it was my duty to oppose those bastards.
Another thing: I found out you have a Wizengamot seat as well. Dumbledore had Dedalus Diggle as your proxy, voting under your name for Dumbledore. I've been reading into their voting record and I'm not sure I like most of it, and I think you'll feel the same. Dumbledore may be the bastion of the Light, but some of his political stances don't make sense, and he's a bit of a wimp, politically, to be honest. Reading the minutes of some of the more important sessions, he does a lot of mediating, which I guess he has to as Chief Warlock, but he does it a bit too much.
Like I said, his voting record is aggravating too. For one example, some horrible woman named Umbridge is working with Amos Diggory to spearhead some legislation that will make it nearly impossible for werewolves to get jobs. Honestly, it's like this woman wants the werewolves to feel so desperate they'll become violent just so she has an excuse to swoop in and exterminate the lot of them. I did some asking around, and she has a long history of being a very humanocentric evil bitch, which is really hypocritical of her, as she appears to look like a fat, bipedal toad. But she's Fudge's Undersecretary, which is something like the vice-minister I think, so she's gonna be a hard one to fight. But dammit, I owe it to Remus at least to stop that shite from passing if I can.
Sorry, got off track again. As your godfather, I'm able to change who the proxy for the Potter seat is, if you want me to. I'm not sure who to put there. I barely know Andromeda, but she seems nice. Pureblood Slytherin, but she married a Muggle-born, and she's a Healer. Or, well this was just a passing funny thought, but Xeno being the proxy would be funny as hell!
Well, there IS another option; it's a little unusual, but given you're the only remaining Potter, and you're 14, you could take the seat yourself when you turn 15. It would take you out of school a few days a month at least, something to keep in mind for that option.
Anyway, regardless of which option you go with, you should be informed on the issues with transcripts of the minutes, and other resources and information either way. After all, even with a proxy, they should be there to vote the way you'd want them to vote, since you're old enough to have informed opinions on these things. Like, it occurred to me when I remembered you telling me about Dobby, that maybe we could try to get something passed to protect house elves from being abused. Well more accurately, to punish people who get caught abusing their house elves. Currently they're considered property, their masters can legally do anything they want to them, even kill them, without legal repercussions.
I know this is a lot of stuff to dump on you, especially as we draw nearer to finding out what the Third Task is going to be, but take your time, discuss it among yourselves. Don't slack in your homework and keep on staying vigilant, we still don't know who put your names in that blasted cup.
PS = Gave Remus your love. He says to send you his love, too. So here it is: (Remus's love)
PPS = I love your art, Zoey, it's adorable! I'm putting it up on the wall across from the Floo, people will see it when they come into the house.
~
Dear Sirius,
Yeah, that's a lot alright. Gonna ignore most of it for now and get back to it later. For now, I'm just gonna say: “...a toad will cow you with a grin.” You know, from my cryptic prophecy? Seriously, a woman who looks like a toad, and is a huge bigot high up in the Ministry ranks? Maybe it's a leap, but I've got an intuition I'm right. I'm not sure why she'd be relevant to the prophecy I made, but 'to cow someone' means to frighten them into submission, and given who I was giving the prophecy to, apparently she and Trelawney will meet? Which makes no sense to me. Trelawney rarely leaves her room, and I can't think of a single reason why the person second only to the Minister of Magic himself would be having anything to do with that old fraud of a teacher. Could Umbridge be a Death Eater? Maybe Wraithy McMoldyPants wants, um... the you-know-what? Not sure how he'd manage that when I'm pretty sure she doesn't have the thing as far as I know, and he literally doesn't have a leg to stand on nor anyone on his side to bring back bring back his body to him to him, but well, McMoldyPants was never as smart as he seemed to think he was.
Anyway, it's late and I'm tired. Write you more later, Sirius!
All our love,
Alastair Potter and company
Endnotes: Okay, so I didn't make the conscious decision that Luna would be autistic until a couple days before starting this chapter, but clearly I've been subconsciously making her that way for a while now. There are signs all the way back to the chapter where we found out she has laugh attacks/giggle fits sometimes, a trait I borrowed from a fellow autistic friend of mine. Then there was her reaction to Honeyduke's and her dislike of Zonko's. So it's another case of my subconscious mind getting way ahead of my conscious mind. Anyway, I've already talked in the notes about thinking canon Luna is autistic, the case for this being overwhelming in my opinion, so I consider this to be an extension of that.
I regret not making the Potter collective autistic as well, because there are some interesting ways that autism and multiplicity interact strangely with one another that would've been neat to add to the story, but at this point the only members of the Potter collective who might be autistic are Chandra and Hypatia, and those were not done that way on purpose, I just tend to make my characters autistic by default the way non-autistic people make their characters not autistic by default. Write what you know, you know?
Despite Zoey's enthusiasm for Wolfstar (Sirius/Remus for the uninitiated), I haven't actually decided if that's where it's going or not. It's just, well... Molly Elizabeth, our inner 7 year old, was writing that letter in her writing style and it was her who was suddenly enthused about Wolfstar. :)
Got a bit behind on this because I've been working on an original work of mine that I'm really excited about, inspired by this fic among other things.
For some reason, in canon Harry's 4th year they didn't get out of school until July 2nd, giving them only a less than two month summer break, which is absurd seeing as they were out by June 19th the two years before, the next two years are unclear but looks about the same, if not earlier. So I'm having the Third Task be on June 10th so the end of term will be June 19th. So looks like the stuff with Crouch Senior will be on May 10th.
The music Luna is listening to in the Room of Requirement is fictional given the year, but based off Gary Stadler's stuff (especially the ones with Wendy Rule singing). It's not actually them because they didn't make music until 1996, but that's my inspiration (especially "Fairy Nightsongs"). And I'm sure they weren't the first people to make music like that, though that's just a guess really.
Chapter Thirty-nine: Hypatia's Gambit
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there. But some canon scenes are just too good to change much. There's a lot of those in this one, but don't skim through or you'll miss things.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Adira, Zoey, # Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and between hashtags/pound signs.# , {Tier}, ~Chandra,~
% Mother AKA Avani Maznah, % and “Hypatia/Megan.”
Note 4: All hail Our Lady Of Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling!
*FAYANORA*
The following Friday, the morning owls came in, and as soon as Hermione saw the Daily Prophet's headline, she gasped. Iliana looked up, waited for Hermione to finish the paper, and then took it from her, since they both knew she'd see it eventually. Unsurprisingly, it was a Rita Skeeter article.
Potter's Secret Pain, and Someone to Share It With.
By = Rita Skeeter
A child like no other, perhaps, yet a child suffering from a great deal of emotional pain, and a deeply troubled past. Deprived of love at an early age by the death of Lily and James Potter, Adira Potter (formerly known as “Harry Potter,”) the Child-Who-Lived is in a relationship with one Luna Lovegood, daughter of eccentric “Quibbler” editor Xenophilius Lovegood. The two girls have been seen together a lot lately, in places such as the old (and largely abandoned) Lookout Point in Hogsmeade village, Muggle shops and a Muggle “movie theater.”
However, it is perhaps their appearance at a Muggle ice cream shop in London that most confused this reporter, as over the Easter holidays this reporter witnessed Ms. Potter, who claims to be multiple people in a single body, have a panic attack and then a breakdown at the sight of her former guardians, the Dursley family of Little Whinging, Surrey. Ms. Potter had to be secretly taken away from the shop under cover of a noisy disturbance in order to not be spotted in turn by the Dursleys, still in a panic attack. She was then taken to a private room at The Leaky Cauldron, where she had a tearful breakdown and had to be comforted by Ms. Lovegood.
At the time of the incident, Ms. Potter was in the form of the person-in-her-head she calls Iliana, who bears an uncanny resemblance to her dead mother Lily Potter, but with James's eyes. Ms. Potter was scared that Mrs. Dursley – Lily Potter's sister – would see “Iliana” wearing her dead sister's face and pitch such a fit that Obliviators would need to contain the situation.
The sheer amount of terror Ms. Potter had at the sight of the Dursleys was alarming and confusing, so this reporter went about trying to find out why. What I found was nothing short of scandalous. According to the last will and testament of Lily and James Potter, young Adira (then “Harry”) Potter was, in the event of their death, to go to Sirius Black if available (which he was not, being held without trial in Azkaban), or with Alice Longbottom if possible (tragically she was not) or Andromeda Tonks and her husband Ted Tonks if neither of them were available.
However, none of these things happened. Instead of doing as their will requested, eccentric Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore abused his power as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot and took it upon himself to put Adira Potter up with her aunt, Mrs. Dursley, and her husband Mr. Dursley. From interviews this reporter has done with several people for this article, that move was extremely controversial among those who knew about it. The consensus was that Mrs. Dursley and her husband hated magic and anyone who used it, to a degree similar to anti-witchcraft hate groups like the New Salem Philanthropic Society back in the states during the 1920's.
Digging deeper, this reporter discovered that when he was still known as Harry, very few members of Little Whinging knew of the boy's existence until he started going to school, and he was only permitted to wear hand-me-downs from his enormously fat cousin Dudley Dursley despite Mr. Dursley being a director at a Muggle company called Grunnings, which makes drills, and thus the family being wealthy enough they could easily have spoiled both children, not just their own son. They owned a nice house in a nice neighborhood, had a nice car, and their son Dudley wanted for nothing. Meanwhile, Adira/Harry was wearing clothes several sizes too big for him, cheap glasses that had to be held together with cellotape, and was made to live in a cupboard under the stairs. It is not known if he was beaten, but it appears he was neglected, fed just enough to keep him alive and not looking too abused, made to do nearly all the household chores while Dudley did none, and was bullied frequently by Dudley and his friends while the Dursleys looked the other way.
What is worse, there's no indication at all that Dumbledore or anyone else in the wizarding world checked up on Potter for all those years. The first magical person Potter ever truly encountered in all those years was Dumbledore himself, which only happened in the summer before Potter's first year at Hogwarts, when Dumbledore responded to Potter understandably using accidental magic to sic venomous snakes on his evil relatives, and then run away from them.
This all begs the question: why did Dumbledore put the savior of wizarding Britain in a home with people who clearly hated him, against the clear wishes of Lily and James? There were a great many wizarding families who would gladly have taken him in. Even Hogwarts could have taken Potter in as a ward; in fact, this is exactly what happened at the end of Potter's first year at Hogwarts, until Sirius Black was declared innocent and was able to take Potter in as the Potters' will demanded. So we must all ask Dumbledore why he felt it necessary to endanger Potter this way, putting her with people who could easily have turned Potter into the first obscurial in the world since the 1920's.
What's more, we must find out why former Minister Millicent Bagnode allowed Dumbledore to do this, and find out who else knew yet remained silent. For it is clear that those years in the “care” of the Dursleys did a great deal of mental damage to Potter, if she's claiming to be multiple people in one body, especially if the claim is true; after all, Muggle sykyatrists who believe in the condition known as Multiple Personality Disorder believe that the condition is caused by extreme childhood trauma.
Thankfully, for all this scandal and pain, at least Potter has someone to help her through it. May Ms. Potter and Ms. Lovegood continue to be good for each other for years to come.
Iliana and the others didn't know what to think about this, but she felt the heat in her face from the shame of having the truth about the Dursleys revealed. But they did wonder, already, how the bloody hell Skeeter had found out? Skeeter stood out like a sore thumb; how had she spied on them at the Muggle ice cream shop and then again at the Leaky Cauldron, in a private room no less?
Finally, she said, “Well, at least now people might be a little less stupid about the Boy-Who-Lived crap. Apparently most people think I was living in a mansion and being trained in defense magic the whole time. Which might explain part of why Snape hated Addy so much when she was Harry, if he believed all that rubbish.”
They looked up at Snape then. He was reading the paper with a look of growing (if suppressed) fury on his face. He kept glaring at Dumbledore as though to say 'We are going to talk about this later,' but Dumbledore wasn't paying attention. He, too, was reading the article. He looked annoyed that Skeeter had dug up the truth, but also a lot more... resigned. As though he'd been waiting for this day to happen, and it finally had. And now that it had, he also looked tired.
The whole school ended up talking about it, and Iliana and the others were quickly getting tired of it. A great many of the Slytherins were using it as proof that Muggles were evil and so were Muggleborns while simultaneously pretending to have sympathy for Iliana etc as an excuse to remind them of things the article had said. But worst was the genuine sympathy from students in other Houses, most of whom had rarely if ever spoken to them, people who Iliana and the others had heard calling them a freak or an attention seeking liar before.
About the strangest thing to happen though was that afternoon's Potions class. Snape was avoiding looking at them for some reason, and seemed a lot more angry than usual, at one point tapping the blackboard with his wand so forcefully that the slate cracked from the force of the spell, and he'd had to repair it. Yet that still wasn't the weirdest thing he did that day.
Malfoy had been flashing his old “Potter stinks” badge at them, sitting right behind Iliana and saying things that were making her blood begin to boil. But before she could turn around to hex him or tell him off, Malfoy's laughter was interrupted by a hand on his shoulder. He stopped at once and looked up at the angry face of Professor Snape.
“Mr. Malfoy,” Snape said coldly. “This potion is rather sensitive, and prone to exploding at the slightest mistake. You are dangerously close to causing two such explosions, with your antics. If you cannot sit behind Ms. Potter and Mr. Longbottom without distracting them, then maybe you and Mr. Goyle should trade places with Ms. Granger and Mr. Weasley?”
Malfoy's face registered confusion and hurt. Iliana remembered hearing somewhere that Snape was Malfoy's godfather, hence why he favored Malfoy so much. It also explained Malfoy's expression.
“I'll behave, Professor.”
“I'm not so sure of that, Mr. Malfoy. When I said to trade with Granger and Weasley, that was not actually a suggestion.”
“Yes, Professor,” he said meekly, he and Goyle packing up their stuff to trade places. Luckily, everyone was still in the 'preparing ingredients' stage, which made moving easier.
Neville and Iliana looked at each other, shocked, but didn't speak in case Snape decided he had to be consistent for once.
“And Mr. Malfoy, ten points from Slytherin for endangering everyone in the room,” Snape added before sitting down.
The room filled with low mutters at this, which Snape ignored for several minutes before looking up and silencing everyone without saying a word. Nobody could remember Snape ever taking points from a Slytherin before, except for that one time when Malfoy and Al had been trading hexes in the corridor before class.
Iliana glanced at Malfoy briefly. He looked stunned and betrayed, and was quietly cutting up his potions ingredients with a far-off look in his face.
Three-quarters of the way through the class, Karkaroff came into the room and was trying to talk to Snape.
“Later,” they heard Snape hiss. “After class.”
~
“W-what was that all about?” Neville asked her at dinner. “You know, with Snape and Malfoy? And then Snape and Karkaroff?”
“Yeah, Iliana, tell us,” Ron said. Iliana had hung back after class pretending to have spilled something.
“I suspect the thing with Malfoy is because, well, Snape looked pissed at the Skeeter article this morning. I think he didn't realize I'd been neglected and stuff. And as for Karkaroff, he tried showing Snape something on his arm again. Said it was getting clearer, whatever that means.”
Nobody looked like they had a clue.
I need to get some divination materials, maybe a tarot deck or something. See if there's a decent book at the bookstores in Hogsmeade to teach myself this stuff, because Trelawney is no help, Al said in her head. Then maybe I can get some more information on stuff like this.
~
Dumbledore sat in his office, leaning his head on his hands, too tired and upset to work, even though he had much to do. So it didn't help his mood when his wards told him Professor Snape was coming up the stairs. He sighed heavily and sat up, ready for the knock.
When it came, he said, “Come in, Severus.”
He'd been halfway through that sentence when the door started opening, slamming against the wall as he finished, making him wince despite himself. Severus came in and slammed the door shut with magic.
Coming over to Dumbledore's desk, he slammed the morning's paper on the desk, Skeeter's article visible.
“Is this true, Dumbledore? Did you really ignore Lily's wishes and put her child with her magic-hating sister Petunia and that horrible evil sack of lard she married?”
Dumbledore sighed wearily. “I'm afraid so, Severus.”
Snape's fury climbed so high he had to speak through clenched teeth. “Why... of all the foolish things... would you do that?”
“Lily sacrificed her life to save Adira's life. I do not know how she managed it. I've heard of it happening before with lesser curses, of course, but never with the Killing Curse.”
“And why is that relevant?”
“Because of her sacrifice, it enabled me to cast my own spell. A form of ritual magic, but one of the more Light-leaning ones. This ritual cast powerful magic to keep that sacrifice going. So long as Adira called the place where her mother's blood lived 'home,' she would be protected from Voldemort and his followers. And as to the insinuation of more physical forms of abuse, the ritual would have prevented that as well. Yes, they neglected Adira, and mistreated her, putting her through emotional abuse and the abuse of neglect. But they did not physically hurt her. Well, I suspect Dudley was able to hurt her, but I do not think the spell takes childhood bullying into account. Or 'took,' rather. When she became a ward of Hogwarts, she would no longer be calling her aunt's house home, and thus the spell would be broken. She is vulnerable to him and his people now. And as you keep insisting he is getting stronger, well...”
“I see,” Severus said. “So it's true. You were a fool. And you didn't even check up on her?”
“Arabella Figg lived in the neighborhood. She still does, I believe, despite the fact the Potters do not anymore. I had Mrs. Figg keeping an eye on her. Apparently it was not good enough.”
Speaking through his teeth again, Snape said, “Of course it was not good enough, Dumbledore! Abusers can pretend to be perfectly decent people. They can hide the fact they are abusers from outsiders. Did it not worry you that she was dressing in extremely oversized clothes? Plainly they did that to hide how thin she had to have been, you realize?”
“The thought had occurred to me since I discovered the truth.”
“They need to be prosecuted, Dumbledore! And you know the public is going to demand it! Fudge will jump on this chance to look better than you, especially with Lucius pushing him toward it. Which means the Dursleys will be brought in and prosecuted, probably under our laws. Tell me, do you think they will end up in Azkaban?”
“I do not know, Severus. Possibly. The dementors do affect Muggles as well, even though Muggles cannot see them.”
“They'd deserve it. But you do realize they might come after you next? And claiming ignorance will not help your situation; you should have known better in the first place, and you should have checked up on the child better! Made visits into the house! It might still have happened, but it would have been a little easier on her, as they would have had to give her better accommodations than a cupboard under the stairs!”
“I know, Severus!” Dumbledore said, sorrow making his voice crack. The twinkle in his blue eyes was gone now, replaced with the wet of tears. They did not fall, because he wiped them away with a handkerchief, but still they had been there.
“I know it was a mistake, Severus. I know I got so caught up in my own clever plan to protect Adira from Voldemort and his Death Eaters that I did not do a good enough job making sure she was alright. I know that I should have made her a ward of Hogwarts, or let her go to Andromeda Tonks, and just put them under every ward available. Hell, I could even have taken her in myself, to one of the properties my parents left me, and lived there with her, letting her be minded by someone trustworthy. I made grave miscalculations, Severus, I am aware of that. Every time I remember what happened to her, every time I recall what I have seen in their eyes over the years, it hurts my heart all over again. If I could go back in time and undo the mistake, I would. But I cannot. Time turners do not even go back that far; they cannot be made to go back that far.”
Dumbledore put his head on one of his hands, looking at Severus with a drawn and weary expression. Some of Snape's anger melted at the sight, but not most of it.
“I am starting to think that the people who say I am an old man losing my grip may have a point. I am doing too much, Severus. Headmaster of Hogwarts, teacher of alchemy classes, Supreme Mugwump of the ICW, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, occlumency lessons with the Potters, and recently I have begun doing research on Voldemort's past in hopes of putting a permanent end to him. I think perhaps I should start considering one or two of these things to retire from. Perhaps find someone else to be Chief Warlock or Supreme Mugwump. I have a few good candidates in mind for Supreme Mugwump, at the very least.”
“If you feel that way, I could take over Potter's occlumency lessons for you. We have been getting along a little better lately.”
“You have? How has this transpired, Severus?”
After a hesitation, Snape said, “I was impressed by their solution to the problem of keeping warm in the Black Lake, and even more impressed that they asked me permission to use the Potions lab and school ingredients they didn't have for the potion instead of just stealing things and brewing it secretly in a bathroom. When I picked Iliana's brain about my improvements to the potion, I was astounded at her intelligence and knowledge of potions ingredients. I realized I had been misjudging them, so I started to give her extra lessons. I later invited Miss Granger to join the classes too, since she was capable of brewing Polyjuice Potion in her second year.”
Dumbledore's eyes twinkled a little again. “Really, Severus? I thought you hated teaching.”
“I hate teaching imbeciles, which describes the majority of the students I have to teach. Even Draco Malfoy is only slightly above the average in my class, despite the lessons I gave him before he came to Hogwarts.”
“I see. And how would you describe the progress Miss Potter and Miss Granger are making?”
Snape paused a moment before speaking. “Miss Granger, for all her exceptional ability to follow directions and somehow manage to brew potions far beyond her years, is not terribly creative. I have at least managed to teach her to think about the directions and fix mistakes she spots, even make occasional improvements, though. She lacks creativity, though, as I said. She will some day be able to brew complex potions like the Wolfsbane Potion, but I doubt she'll be able to invent her own potions, not using her own ideas anyway.
“As to Iliana Potter, she's something else altogether. She's not as intellectual as Granger, has a harder time grasping some of the more complex concepts in potion-making that I've introduced her to, and is several years behind Granger, with her progress catching up being a bit slower than I had hoped. But she has the creativity that Miss Granger lacks. If I can get her up to Miss Granger's aptitude or higher, I would not be surprised if Iliana Potter invented an entirely new potion for her N.E.W.T. project, and went on to invent even more new potions, or making improvements to existing ones.”
“So you predict she will get the high pass grade you expect from your N.E.W.T. students, in her O.W.L.s next year?”
“She has made enough progress since February that she could probably get an A+ if she took the O.W.L. in Potions today. Give me another year with her, and she'll easily achieve an E or even an O in the subject.”
“High praise coming from you, Severus.”
“Yes. But we have gotten off topic. What are you going to do about this?” he was pointing at the paper again.
Dumbledore sighed. “I will admit my mistake publicly. I will see if the Potters will say something sympathetic about my blunder for the press, though I will be speaking with someone other than Skeeter of course. But the point is I will admit my mistake. I will admit that I did not realize how bad Petunia and her husband were. I will admit that I presumed the fact she took Adira in meant she had forgiven her sister. I--”
“You didn't exactly give her much of a choice, from what Minerva told me. She said you just left the child on the stoop, and Minerva had to watch the child in her cat form, even though she'd already been there all day long. You left her on the stoop, in a basket, in November!”
“She had a warming charm and a blanket in the basket. And I put other spells on it, such as a don't-notice-me that was set to break when the door opened, as well as temporary protection wards using a bit of runic casting. She was safe, Severus.”
“I see. Well the fact still remains, Petunia didn't really have a choice in the matter, did she?”
“The thing is, Severus, the way the spell works, Petunia would have had to feel at least a little love for Adira when she took her in, or the spell would not have locked into place. Which is part of why I was so shocked at the neglect in that household. I have a theory about why that was, of course. And of course Hogwarts would have protected the other students around her from the same thing happening, given the accidental nature of the thing,” he said vaguely.
“What are you talking about, Dumbledore?”
Dumbledore looked up from his navel-gazing and turned to consider Severus instead, thinking for several more moments.
“I am sorry, Severus,” he said at last, “but I cannot be more explicit yet. Voldemort is getting stronger. According to Adira, he is in a functional, if hideous, homunculus body, capable of wielding a wand and he is waiting to rise again. What he is waiting for, I do not know. Given the rituals I know that are options for him, and given his last known location, I am rather surprised he hasn't already come back to life. Granted, some of the ingredients are hard to come by and even harder to brew properly, but he was in a homunculus body as early as August, and it is now the end of April. He has had eight whole months to rise again, yet he has not. It concerns me greatly.
“But getting back on track, I believe you offered to take over Adira's occlumency? I appreciate the offer, Severus, and I may take you up on it, but not yet. I want to have a couple more lessons with her before I pass her on to you.”
“If you say so.”
The two men sat staring at one another for a while longer.
“Was there something else, Severus?”
“What becomes of me if your plan of 'admitting your mistake' doesn't work? What if you are once more forced to step down as Headmaster?”
“Oh, that is not the only part of my plan. I believe I will step down as Supreme Mugwump of the ICW. Give me another day to think, and I believe I will have an acceptable replacement. Hopefully the two things together will mollify enough people.”
“Do you not think it more possible people will assume that stepping down as Supreme Mugwump says you are not fit for your other positions too?”
“Perhaps. I may even retire from Chief Warlock if I can find an acceptable replacement there as well. But even if I must give up being Chief Warlock as well, I am too fond of Hogwarts to want to leave. Yes, actually that is the more important thing to step down from, as I abused that position to override the Potter will. I shall miss it, but at the same time I think it will be a relief. I had not been admitting it to myself, but it is rather a lot of work I've been doing lately, and I must reconsider my priorities given the Voldemort situation.”
“The Dark Lord may be coming back, and your answer is to give yourself less power?”
Dumbledore's expression changed to something odd, like a mix of humor and something like regret. “I have a very complicated relationship with power, Severus. More than I've ever told you. I will find replacements for those two positions, making sure that the replacements will be ones who stand with me against Voldemort when the time comes. And mollifying the people by stepping down from two such positions of power may make people more likely to believe me when Voldemort finally returns.
“Oh by the way, I believe Minerva does too much as well. Deputy Headmistress is a full time job on its own without being also Head of House and a teacher. From what I have heard, she doesn't give her students enough attention. You and the other two Heads of House gave career counseling back at the end of second year, did you not?”
“Yes. It is important in picking which extra courses to take.”
“Indeed. And Minerva did not do such a thing. She hasn't for many years, not since becoming Deputy Headmistress. If you would send her up when you leave so she and I may discuss it, I would appreciate that.”
“Are you going to demote her?” Snape looked torn between amusement and pity for the woman.
“No. Just going to try to convince her to give herself a little less work to do, as I plan to do.”
“That is fraught with difficulty, Dumbledore. Say she steps down as Head of House Griffindor; who replaces her in that role? Do we even have any other Griffindor Professors, aside from her and you?”
“An excellent point, Severus. Let's see... there is Hagrid, of course. But I do not believe he's quite suited to Head of House.”
“Quite. He's even worse of a teacher than I am. And I doubt anyone else is qualified either. So she can't step down from Head of House, which means she'd either have to stop teaching, which would leave us a teacher short, or else step down as Deputy Headmistress. Of course, I could always take over as Deputy Headmaster.”
“Or Filius could. But I suppose then he would have the same problem. As would you. Hmm... never mind, do not send Minerva up after all. I may talk to her at a later date, but for now, I will not. It requires a great deal more thought.”
“I'll say.”
“If there's nothing else, Severus, you may go now. I have work to do.”
Snape nodded curtly and left the office. Dumbledore started to write a letter to his first choice to replace him as Supreme Mugwump.
~
The next day, Iliana spent most of the day with Luna and Javier, feeding the thestrals again. After dinner, though, she had an occlumency lesson with Dumbledore, which is why she found herself knocking on the door and being let in.
As soon as she had the door all the way open, she felt the assault of legilimency hit her, but that wasn't the surprising part.
Dumbledore had planned on testing her ability to resist legilimency when she wasn't expecting it, but was startled himself when he felt someone pin him down inside her mind and then ride the magical lines of force from his legilimency to invade his mind instead. Dumbledore found himself helpless, unable to see anything in the Potter mind, while being bombarded by images from his own mind. He tried employing occlumency, which normally would have been an instant lockout, but he had been taken completely by surprise, and it wasn't exactly easy to occlude a mind that was using legilimency on someone else's mind.
Finally, though, Dumbledore managed to force his wand arm up and hit Iliana with a stinging hex, which broke the contact and sent them both reeling against the wall to keep from falling over.
“What was that?” Iliana asked, looking shaken.
“You mean you do not know? I thought you had laid a trap for me. I must say, it was impressive.”
“I wouldn't know how to do something like that. LiiiiiYIKES!”
During the space of the blink of Dumbledore's eyes, Iliana changed into Hypatia. The white-haired black girl was regarding him coolly over her glasses.
“Fascinating. You were in love with Gellert Grindlewald, which is why it took you so long to finally bring him down. Your brother is the barman at The Hog's Head. Your sister, Ariana, was an obscurial who died trying to break up a fight between you and your brother. Ariana also killed your mother by accident. Unfortunately, that was all I could pull out of your mind before you hexed me.”
“That was your doing?”
“Yes. I've been doing some reading about legilimency, thanks to a book I borrowed from Draco. All I can do with it so far is ride someone else's legilimency attempts, but give me time and I'll be a legitimate legilimens.
“On another note,” she continued, “I've been making some modifications on the inside of the shared brainspace, and I think you'll find that even when we're all asleep – myself included – nothing is going to break through our mind. I've even located the source of the connection with Voldemort. I don't know anything about its nature, but it's based in this hideous scar, and it has tendrils going into our mind. I plan on studying it, to see if I can remove it, and copy the Parseltongue ability from it before I remove it. After all, I don't really see sudden debilitating migraines being a very effective early-warning system, seeing as pain can temporarily cripple people, in a manner of speaking.”
“May I test your defenses without you reaching into my own mind again?”
“Sure. I doubt the same trick would work twice.”
Still wary, Dumbledore lifted his wand. “Legilimens.”
At first, it looked like she'd not put up any defenses at all. Images came into his mind, images that fit what he knew of Hypatia, and even images that fit some of the others. But she remained standing there looking placidly at him as he invaded her mind, which made him suspicious. He kept digging around for a few more minutes, trying to pull up memories of the Dursleys or other powerfully emotional events. This is when he saw the first real sign of something odd, for the memories of the Dursleys were clearly faked. They were good fakes, but seeing as they depicted an ordinary life with Dursleys who were maybe a bit stand-offish but otherwise took good care of Adira when she was Harry, that was sort of a dead giveaway that it was a lie.
He tried probing for the talk of horcruxes he knew he'd had with Alastair last year, but couldn't find any reference to it, nor the word anywhere in her memory. In fact, the only instance of them coming up to his office that he could find at all was the two times they'd been up here in second year.
Trying a different tack, he probed for memories of Luna Lovegood. What he saw in her mind suggested they were friends, maybe a little more innocently physical than with other friends (such as hugs and hand-holding), but nothing to suggest a romantic relationship.
The last thing Dumbledore found before giving up was that there was no sign of Mother at all, either. And Hypatia's own memories did not contain any mention of Draco Malfoy, the incident that had caused her to be discovered, or any mention of ritual magic or anything else that wasn't approved. So he finally broke the connection.
“You used your unique ability to reprogram your own brain, I see, becoming a perfect occlumens in the space of several weeks.”
“Yes. It wasn't difficult. I didn't bother when I was hiding because it would be very suspicious and might have given me away, but now the kneazle is out of the bag, it was a simple matter to construct a false memory and hide our actual thoughts and memories behind it. Of course, the version that is usually there contains no suggestion of my own existence.”
“I do not doubt it. Well, that gives me one less thing to do.”
“Likewise,” she said. “But now I expect you to be completely honest with me. And if I have to become the most powerful legilimens in the world to pry the truth out of you, I will be rather annoyed. And you know what I am capable of when roused.”
“You are still a child, though. Especially when compared to me. Do not forget that no matter what you are capable of, I am capable of far more. So let us dispense with the threats.”
“Are you going to be honest with us?”
“I have always been honest with you.”
She frowned. “Not telling any blatant lies, but still hiding things from people, that is not the same as being honest.”
“I have told you about the horcruxes. I have told you of the prophecy before your birth, about you and Voldemort. What more do you think I'm hiding from you?”
“You know what this is,” she said, pointing at the scar. It wasn't a question.
“I have some theories, yes.”
“Tell me your theories, then.”
“I am sorry, Hypatia, but I cannot do that. I'm far from certain, and you are yet too young.”
“You told us of horcruxes, and the prophecy.”
“Yes, but that's different. This... I do not even like thinking about it myself. To tell it to you would be too great a burden on your young mind. I cannot--”
Symbols suddenly appeared all over Hypatia's body, causing him to stop in his tracks.
“One word. One word is all it would take to activate a purposefully-botched ritual magic spell that would kill me instantly. It doesn't even have to be spoken. And there's also a dead-man switch in my head I've set up. Stun me and it goes off. Confund me or Obliviate me and it goes off. You. Will. Tell. Me. Your. Theories, Dumbledore. NOW.”
Dumbledore froze. She had to be bluffing, right? She wouldn't do that to herself, to the others, would she? Far from mere suicide, it would be murder! But he supposed she could if she wanted to. He tried deciphering the symbols--
“Five.”
“Five?” he asked, confused.
“Four, three, two--”
“You are a horcrux!” he blurted out, terrified.
She froze, regarding him with cold, amber eyes. Then she smiled. “Better. Now explain.”
He relaxed a little, shaking, composing himself for a moment before speaking.
“I believe,” he said at last, “that Voldemort made at least three horcruxes. The more horcruxes one makes, the more one destabilizes one's soul. I do not know what Lily did to save your life. I suspect some sort of ritual magic, as there are some rituals that can use the power of a willing sacrifice to save others from lesser curses, and your parents did die on Halloween, the night when the veil between our world and the world of the dead is thinnest, but none of the rituals I know of have ever worked against the Killing Curse.
“Whatever your mother did to save you, it worked. Because he had horcruxes, Voldemort did not die, but became a wraith instead. In the explosion of his curse backfiring on him, I suspect part of his soul broke off by accident and attached itself to the only living thing it could find: you. He was probably preparing to use your death to make his next horcrux, but then his curse backfired on him. Since it is not a proper horcrux, it is not nearly as full of dark magic as they usually are. But it may have been influencing the Dursleys to be more horrible than usual, since they already did not like you. And before you ask, the protections Hogwarts has would likely have protected your friends and loved ones from its influence, if indeed it is influencing people who love you at all. Or perhaps your mind has somehow built mental scar tissue over the thing, I do not know.
“Now please, I have told you all I know, except for my research into Voldemort, which isn't complete and would take days or weeks to relate to you in any case, and I was already planning to tell you that research as soon as you could occlude your mind. So will you please remove those symbols?”
Hypatia was grinning, her eyes watering as she wiped the symbols from her body. “You actually believed me. I bluffed you, and you bought it!” She burst into the tears that were her form of laughter, grinning and leaning against the wall as she did.
It was Dumbledore's turn to grow cold with fury. “What do you mean?”
When she calmed down and finished wiping her eyes, she said, “Like Mother would have let me do any of that! I'm reasonably sure She can read my mind at all times whether I want Her to or not. If I planned to kill myself for real, or to threaten it and mean it, She would have stopped me, shut me down, and shoved me so far down into the Basement that even She would have a hard time finding me. And I would never hurt Chandra, or put myself willingly into a situation where he might get hurt. Also, I'm not a monster. So wow, I honestly did not expect that to work! And here I thought you were intelligent enough to not be fooled by that!”
“It would appear Mr. Malfoy was right,” Dumbledore said, his voice colder than the breeze coming off an Antarctic glacier, “you are indeed a Slytherin. A week's worth of detentions for threatening the life of a student.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Fine by me.”
“You say that now, but just you wait. You will be here, every night. You, not any of the others. And you will not be enjoying the experience either. I will think of something sufficient by tomorrow. In fact, I already have some ideas. Come to my office tomorrow after dinner. You are excused now.”
Hypatia shrugged, and switched back to Iliana with no glow at all. Dumbledore, despite his frayed nerves, noticed they'd been doing that almost every time now. Iliana looked back at Dumbledore as though apologizing to him for Hypatia with her expression, but he just gestured her away impatiently, so she opened the door and left.
“Well I say,” said the snide voice of the portrait of former headmaster Phineas Nigellus, “I've never seen a student more full of herself and carried away with her own cleverness before. You need to find a way to reign her in, Dumbledore.”
“Not now, Phineas. I am weary.”
“Fine. Later, then.”
Dumbledore sighed, deciding to retire early for the night. He needed to relax for a while after that whole fiasco.
~
Hypatia came back the next night after dinner for her first night of her detentions. She was trying not to look too cocky, but it was difficult; Dumbledore was a big softy, she doubted any detention with him would be more than mildly annoying.
Dumbledore had her sit at the chair in front of his desk, where she found she was stuck with a sticking charm. He then had her give him her wands, which he set on the desk out of her reach, and cast Silencio on her. She rolled her eyes at him.
“You will sit there watching me read restricted books about horcruxes, ritual magic, runic casting, and other dark arts, unable to ask questions, knowing I will not be letting you look at or copy the books, all while sitting in uncomfortable silence.”
Her eyes going wide told Dumbledore his punishment was on the nose. Smiling, he sat down and started pretending to read “Secrets of the Darkest Art,” the book about horcruxes. Every now and then, he would say things like “Hmm,” or “Interesting,” or even pull faces at the more gruesome details he could recall from memory, or illustrations he had forgotten about. All the time, he paid enough attention to Hypatia to know she was in a great deal of suffering, her own curiosity and frustration being the worst punishment possible for her. Several times he caught her raking her fingers across her face or pulling her own hair in frustration. She even broke down laughing, though no sound came out of her of course.
Thus, after four hours, by which time she was just staring forlornly at the book he was 'reading,' he finally let her go. Four hours, but to her it had felt like twelve. It didn't get any easier the other six nights of her detention, either. By the end of the fifth night, she was crying and laughing, trying desperately and futilely to get out of the chair or move it, her face ending up a complete mess from the tears. On the sixth night, Dumbledore had to glare warningly at her when she attempted to transform to someone else, which she failed at because nobody was there to transform to. (The others had vanished to the Basement for each of these detentions after the first 15 minutes of the first one.) When Dumbledore let her go that last night, she ran out of the room without even transforming first, only switching with Al just before passing the gargoyle.
Al thought the whole thing was extremely amusing. Though trying to explain to Ron and Hermione where they were every night had been bothersome. He wasn't sure Hermione bought their explanation that their occlumency lessons were every night this week.
~
The start of the summer term would normally have meant that Iliana was training hard for the last Quidditch match of the season. This year, however, it was the third and final task in the Triwizard Tournament for which they needed to prepare, but they still didn’t know what they would have to do. Finally, on May 10th, Professor McGonagall came up to Al at breakfast.
“You are to go down to the Quidditch field tonight at nine o’clock, Potter,” she told him. “Mr. Bagman will be there to tell the champions about the third task.”
So at half past eight that night, Al left Ron and Hermione in Gryffindor Tower and went downstairs. As he crossed the entrance hall, Cedric came up from the Hufflepuff common room.
“What d’you reckon it’s going to be?” he asked Al as they went together down the stone steps, out into the cloudy night. “Fleur keeps going on about a spaceship; reckons we'll have to retrieve the Triwizard Cup from the moon.”
They walked down the dark lawn to the Quidditch stadium, turned through a gap in the stands, and walked out onto the field.
“What’ve they done to it?” Cedric said indignantly, stopping dead.
There was something huge, like a small skyscraper, being built in the middle of the Quidditch pitch. Wizards and witches were floating pieces up into place from the ground while wizards on brooms attached the pieces or cast spells on them. It looked like it was hollow, though, as there weren't any floors but the one holding the whole thing up.
“Bugger if I know,” Al said.
“Hello there!” called a cheery voice.
Ludo Bagman was standing outside the field, well outside of the hard-hat zone with Krum and Fleur. Al and Cedric made their way toward them, climbing over the hedges. Fleur beamed at Al as he came nearer. Her attitude toward them had changed completely since they'd saved her sister from the lake.
“Well, what d'you think?” Bagman asked.
“I have no bloody idea,” Al said.
“Nor I,” said Krum. Fleur and Cedric shrugged.
“Well perhaps it isn't plain yet, but well, we're going to do a maze! The inside will be bigger than the outside, and the outside walls will let the viewers see each of the champions and the section of the maze you're in, while none of you will be able to see out.
“Once inside, you navigate the maze to find the top, where the Triwizard Cup will be waiting for your. First person to touch it gets transported down to the front of the building where the celebration will begin!”
“That's it? Just navigate a maze?” Cedric asked. Al rolled his eyes.
“There will be obstacles,” said Bagman happily, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Hagrid is providing a number of creatures … then there will be spells that must be broken … all that sort of thing, you know. Now, the champion who is leading on points will get a head start into the maze.” Bagman grinned at Krum. “Then Mr. Diggory will enter, then Mr. Potter, then Miss Delacour. But you’ll all be in with a fighting chance, depending how well you get past the obstacles. Should be fun, eh?”
Al, who knew only too well the kind of creatures that Hagrid was likely to provide for an event like this, said, “Oh yeah! As fun as a barrel of blast-ended skrewts.” Cedric snickered.
Looking confused for a moment first, Bagman asked, “Any questions? No? Very well … if you haven’t got any questions, we’ll go back up to the castle, shall we, it’s a bit chilly.”
Bagman hurried alongside Al as they began to walk away from the maze-building in progress. Al had the feeling that Bagman was going to start offering to help him again, but just then, Krum tapped Al on the shoulder.
“Could I haff a vord?”
“Out here in the dark when some evil jerk put our names in the stupid wooden Shotglass of Flaming Shite? No thank you. We can talk when we get inside the castle.”
“Fine. Vill you let me valk vith you?”
“It's no skin off my nose. That means yes,” Al clarified, and the two boys started walking again. “What's up?”
“Vell, I was just vondering if there is anything between Herm-oh-ninny and Ron Veasley.”
Al pulled a face. “I sure hope not. I like Ron, I do, but Hermione is so far out of his league it's not even funny. And even though they're friends, he still treats her a bit shitty at times. Anyway, I haven't noticed anything lately. I mean, I think he might fancy her, but honestly, she's pretty fanciable. None of us have any interest in her that way, we think of her like a sister, but we can see where someone would fancy her. She's intelligent, clever, witty, and she's starting to really win the puberty lottery lately.
“About the only sticking point I can think of between the two of you is that she's like, three years younger than you, and still a minor. But I guess as long as you don't do anything beyond talk or hug or hold hands before she's of age, that's not much of an issue. But if I find you've taken advantage of her, I'll transfigure your mouth to your anus, you hear me?”
Krum, looking scared, nodded. “I understand. I vill not take advantage of her. You have my vord.”
“Good. Now if you're looking for advice--”
Al heard something to the side, and noticed that they'd wandered too close to the Forbidden Forest. Something moved behind Krum in the trees, and Al, who had some experience of the sort of thing that lurked in the forest, instinctively grabbed Krum’s arm and pulled him around, whipping his wand out and directing it at the trees.
“Vot is it?”
Al shook his head, staring at the place where he’d seen movement.
Suddenly a man staggered out from behind a tall oak. Al had never seen the man before, whoever he was. He looked as though he had been traveling for days. The knees of his robes were ripped and bloody, his face scratched; he was unshaven and gray with exhaustion. His hair and mustache were both in need of a wash and a trim. His strange appearance, however, was nothing to the way he was behaving. Muttering and gesticulating, the man appeared to be talking to someone that he alone could see. He reminded Al vividly of an old tramp he had seen once when out shopping with the Dursleys. That man too had been conversing wildly with thin air; Aunt Petunia had seized Dudley’s hand and pulled him across the road to avoid him; Uncle Vernon had then treated the family to a long rant about what he would like to do with beggars and vagrants.
“Who is he?” Krum asked, backing up, his own wand out.
“No idea. Never seen him before. But he doesn't have his wand out.”
“Yet,” Krum added.
“Yes, that's a good point. What should we do?”
Al paused and shushed Krum, because he could hear the man talking to a tree.
“...and when you’ve done that, Jacobs, send an owl to Dumbledore confirming the number of Durmstrang students who will be attending the tournament, Karkaroff has just sent word there will be twelve.”
“Wait a minute,” Al said, things locking into place in his head. “Mr. Crouch?”
“Who is Mr. Crouch?”
“If it's him, Mr. Crouch is the former head of our Department of International Magical Cooperation.”
“… and then send another owl to Madame Maxime, because she might want to up the number of students she’s bringing, now Karkaroff’s made it a round dozen … do that, Jacobs, will you? Will you? Will …”
Mr. Crouch’s eyes were bulging. He stood staring at the tree, muttering soundlessly at it. Then he staggered sideways and fell to his knees.
“Mr. Crouch?” Al said loudly. “Are you all right?”
Crouch’s eyes were rolling in his head. Al looked around at Krum, who had followed him to the edge of the trees, and was looking down at Crouch in alarm.
“Vot is wrong with him?”
“No idea,” Al muttered. “But I'm gonna try to get Dumbledore down here. Expecto Patronum!”
The three-headed Runespoor snake patronus formed, waiting for instructions.
“Go tell Dumbledore to come to the Forbidden Forest,” he told it. “Tell him Mr. Crouch is here, and he's gone crazy, his movements jerky and talking to trees like they're people he knows. Go!”
The Runespoor patronus flew off toward the castle.
“In the meantime, Expelliarmus!”
The spell did nothing to Mr. Crouch except thwart his attempt to right himself by pushing him back against the ground.
“Dumbledore!” gasped Mr. Crouch. He got up again and reached out to try to grab Al's robes, but Al leaped back even further. “I need … see … Dumbledore.”
“Yeah, I just sent him a message, he should-- hey, speak of the devil.”
It was not the devil, nor Dumbledore, but a phoenix patronus.
“Wait there,” it said in Dumbledore's voice. “Do not move. Have your wand out. Be vigilant, and I will be there soon.”
As it faded, he turned his attention back to Mr. Crouch.
“I’ve done … stupid … thing …” Mr. Crouch breathed. He looked utterly mad. His eyes were rolling and bulging, and a trickle of spittle was sliding down his chin. Every word he spoke seemed to cost him a terrible effort. “Must … tell … Dumbledore …”
“Yeah yeah, he'll be here in a few minutes. Don't worry.”
“Who … you?” he whispered.
“I’m a student at the school,” Al said.
“You’re not … his?” whispered Crouch, his mouth sagging.
“Who's?”
“Dumbledore’s?”
“Well I've summoned Dumbledore, if that's what you mean. And he's my headmaster, so yes, I suppose I am his.”
Crouch crawled closer to Al and Krum. Krum stepped back, but Al didn't, this time.
“Warn … Dumbledore …”
“Warn him of what?”
“Thank you, Jacobs, and when you have done that, I would like a cup of tea. My wife and son will be arriving shortly, we are attending a concert tonight with Mr. and Mrs. Fudge.”
Crouch was now talking fluently to a tree again, and seemed completely unaware that Al was there.
“Yes, my son has recently gained twelve O.W.L.s, most satisfactory, yes, thank you, yes, very proud indeed. Now, if you could bring me that memo from the Andorran Minister of Magic, I think I will have time to draft a response.”
“Nuttier than a collision between a fruitcake schooner and a nut barge,” Al said, shaking his head.
“He is quite mad, yes,” Krum said, sounding scared. “I hope he does not attack us.”
Al started to walk back a few steps from Crouch, but the man came at him so fast he had Al's robes in his hands before Al could react.
“Don’t … leave … me!” he whispered, his eyes bulging again. “I … escaped … must warn … must tell … see Dumbledore … my fault … all my fault … Bertha … dead … all my fault … my son … my fault … tell Dumbledore … Harry Potter … the Dark Lord … stronger … Harry Potter …”
“Get. OFF. Me!” Al said, hitting the man's hands with a Stinging Hex. The man yowled and let go.
There was a sudden loud sound behind them, and they both turned around to look, but nothing was there. Then red light hit them from behind and they blacked out.
~
When Al's eyes opened up, he saw Dumbledore looking down at him with concern.
“Are you alright, Alastair?”
“Peachy,” Al said, rubbing his head and looking around. “How's Krum?”
“I am avake,” the slavic boy answered.
“Alastair, Viktor, do either of you know where Mr. Crouch is?”
Al looked around in a panic. “He's gone!? Dammit! Whoever hexed us from behind when that noise distracted us must've got him and dragged him off somewhere. How long did it take you to get down here?”
“Though I came as quickly as I could, I was in the bathtub when I got your message. So it has been about ten minutes.”
“Damn.”
“What did Mr. Crouch say, Al?”
“He wasn't acting normally. He didn't seem to know where he was. He kept talking like someone named Jacobs was there. Possibly a secretary or assistant? Then his whole aspect would change and he'd seem like he was saner, but struggling to get a message out.”
“Did anyone besides the two of you see him?”
“Well presumably the berk who stunned us saw him, unless that was Crouch, but other than that, no idea. I don't think so.”
“What happened? How did this begin?”
“Krum and I were talking, Mr. Bagman had just finished telling us about the third task, we stayed behind, and then we saw Mr. Crouch coming out of the forest. I summoned you with my patronus, then someone sneaked behind us and stunned us with a non-verbal spell.”
“Where was he standing?”
“He vas over there,” Krum said, pointing. “Then he fell down. Alastair tried to disarm him in case he vas armed, but it just pushed him into the ground.”
The sound of thunderous footfalls reached them, and Hagrid came panting into sight with Fang at his heels. Dumbledore must have summoned Hagrid while they were out. Hagrid was carrying his crossbow.
“Professor Dumbledore!” he said, his eyes widening. “Al! What the--”
“Hagrid, I need you to fetch Professor Karkaroff,” said Dumbledore. “His student has been attacked. When you’ve done that, kindly alert Professor Moody —”
“No need, Dumbledore,” said a wheezy growl. “I’m here.”
Moody was limping toward them, leaning on his staff, his wand lit.
“Damn leg,” he said furiously. “Would’ve been here quicker. Happened to be walking in front of a window and saw the two boys out cold in the grass with my eye.”
“Did you see the culprit? Or Mr. Crouch?”
“Crouch was here? Anyway no, I didn't see anyone else. I started heading downstairs at once, but I guess you beat me here.”
“Crouch?” said Hagrid blankly.
“Karkaroff, please, Hagrid!” said Dumbledore sharply.
“Oh yeah … right y’are, Professor …” said Hagrid, and he turned and disappeared into the dark trees, Fang trotting after him.
“I don’t know where Barty Crouch is,” Dumbledore told Moody, “but it is essential that we find him.”
“I’m onto it,” growled Moody, and he pulled out his wand and limped off into the forest.
Neither Dumbledore nor Al spoke again until they heard the unmistakable sounds of Hagrid and Fang returning. Karkaroff was hurrying along behind them. He was wearing his sleek silver furs, and he looked pale and agitated.
“What is this?” he cried when he saw Krum on the ground and Dumbledore and Al beside him. “What’s going on?”
“I vos attacked!” said Krum, sitting up now and rubbing his head. “Mr. Crouch or votever his name —”
“Crouch attacked you? Crouch attacked you? The former director of the Department of International Magical Cooperation?”
“Igor,” Dumbledore began, but Karkaroff had drawn himself up, clutching his furs around him, looking livid.
“Treachery!” he bellowed, pointing at Dumbledore. “It is a plot! You and your Ministry of Magic have lured me here under false pretenses, Dumbledore! This is not an equal competition! First you sneak Potter into the tournament, though he is underage! Now one of your Ministry friends attempts to put my champion out of action! I smell double-dealing and corruption in this whole affair, and you, Dumbledore, you, with your talk of closer international wizarding links, of rebuilding old ties, of forgetting old differences — here’s what I think of you!”
Karkaroff spat onto the ground at Dumbledore’s feet. In one swift movement, Hagrid seized the front of Karkaroff’s furs, lifted him into the air, and slammed him against a nearby tree.
“Apologize!” Hagrid snarled as Karkaroff gasped for breath, Hagrid’s massive fist at his throat, his feet dangling in midair.
“Hagrid, no!” Dumbledore shouted, his eyes flashing.
Hagrid removed the hand pinning Karkaroff to the tree, and Karkaroff slid all the way down the trunk and slumped in a huddle at its roots; a few twigs and leaves showered down upon his head.
“We don't know it was Crouch. We were distracted by another noise and got stunned non-verbally. When we woke up, Crouch was gone and Dumbledore was here.”
“Kindly escort Alastair back up to the castle, Hagrid,” said Dumbledore sharply.
Breathing heavily, Hagrid gave Karkaroff a glowering look.
“Maybe I’d better stay here, Headmaster. …”
“You will take Alastair back to school, Hagrid,” Dumbledore repeated firmly. “Take him right up to Gryffindor Tower. And Alastair — I want you to stay there. You may speak with Sirius on your two-way mirror, but do not leave the Griffindor dorms unless it is an emergency. Do you understand?”
“You don't have to tell me twice, sir.”
“I’ll leave Fang with yeh, Headmaster,” Hagrid said, staring menacingly at Karkaroff, who was still sprawled at the foot of the tree, tangled in furs and tree roots. “Stay, Fang. C’mon, Al.”
They marched in silence past the Beauxbatons carriage and up toward the castle.
“How dare he,” Hagrid growled as they strode past the lake. “How dare he accuse Dumbledore. Like Dumbledore’d do anythin’ like that. Like Dumbledore wanted you in the tournament in the firs’ place. Worried! I dunno when I seen Dumbledore more worried than he’s bin lately. An’ you!” Hagrid suddenly said angrily to Al, who looked up at him, taken aback. “What were yeh doin’, wanderin’ off with ruddy Krum? He’s from Durmstrang, Al! Coulda jinxed yeh right there, couldn’ he? Hasn’ Moody taught yeh nothin’? ’Magine lettin’ him lure yeh off on yer own —”
“He's a good person! I can tell, in most cases, and he's an open book to me. He wasn't trying to hurt us, he was asking about Ron and Hermione.”
“I’ll be havin’ a few words with her, an’ all,” said Hagrid grimly, stomping up the stairs. “The less you lot ’ave ter do with these foreigners, the happier yeh’ll be. Yeh can’ trust any of ’em.”
“You're just sore Maxime broke up with you after you outed her heritage. Honestly, Hagrid, anyone could have heard you, and they did! Ron apparently overheard you as well, not just that horrible Skeeter person. Did you honestly expect Madame Maxime would be okay with you shouting about it like that?”
“Don’ you talk ter me abou’ her!” said Hagrid, and he looked quite frightening for a moment. “She only wanted me help findin' out what the tasks were! Now she's tryin’ ter get back in me good books, tryin’ ter get me ter tell her what’s comin’ in the third task. Ha! You can’ trust any of ’em!”
Al noticed Hagrid had ignored his comment. Al said nothing; Hagrid was in a fouler temper than he'd ever seen before, and he was quite glad to be out of his company when they got to the Fat Lady's portrait. He clambered through the portrait hole into the common room and hurried straight upstairs to get his two-way mirror, then straight for the corner where Ron and Hermione were sitting, to tell them what had happened.
~
Al, Ron, Hermione, and Sirius had been up all night talking about Crouch. Even with seeking input from the other members of the Potter collective, nobody knew a thing because none of them had noticed anything Al hadn't already. Sirius had a fair bit of information for them from months of looking into old newspapers and reading books about the end of the last war, but in the end it didn't help them much. The only really possibly useful tidbit was that Sirius had known Bertha Jorkins at school, and he said she'd had a great memory for gossip, contradicting other people's assessment of her as being forgetful.
They didn't know what Crouch had been trying to warn Dumbledore about other than Voldemort getting stronger, which Dumbledore already knew, and they couldn't figure out who had stunned him and Krum, nor why the mysterious person would stun them and scarper with Crouch. What was worse, they didn't know how he'd escaped. And by the time they thought to check the Marauder's Map, there was nobody left in the Forbidden Forest or surrounding area. Not even Moody had had any better luck, when they asked him about it in the morning, and by the look of his face, he'd been up all night looking for Crouch.
“What I don't get,” Al said as they left Moody behind, “is why Krum and I only got stunned. Whoever scarpered with Crouch could've killed us and still done a runner, he caught us by surprise after all. Even if he killed us after stunning us!”
“Obviously whoever it is, Al, is the person who put your name in the Goblet of Fire, so they wanted it to look like an accident,” Hermione said, “And they can hardly make it look like an accident if they murder you in the Forbidden Forest!”
“But why? If they're willing to make off with Crouch, presumably killing him, why not me as well?”
“Maybe he was afraid Moody would see him?” Ron suggested.
“In that case, why risk attacking Crouch at all? No, something is rotten in the school of Hogwarts. I'm missing something important. Damn! I really need to get a tarot deck!”
Hermione rolled her eyes.
“Hermione, I am a legitimate Seer, even if I've only managed one vision, and Chandra says I should try other divination methods. Tarot sounds the easiest to me, from the books the library has on the subject. But I still need a tarot deck.”
“Al, I don’t understand it either,” said Hermione desperately. “I just know there are a lot of odd things going on, and I don’t like it, but I doubt casting bones or reading tea leaves is going to help. … Moody’s right — Sirius is right — you’ve got to get in training for the third task, straight away. And you make sure you write back to Sirius and promise him you’re not going to go sneaking off alone again.”
“I can do both,” Al said in a snit.
~
The Hogwarts grounds never looked more inviting than when Adira and the others had to stay indoors. For the next few days they spent all of their free time either in the library with Hermione and Ron looking up hexes, or else in the Room of Requirement, which they were using for spell practice.
It had now been a week since Crouch's strange appearance and disappearance on the grounds, and they were just finishing off practicing useful spells before Adira had Divination.
“See you at dinner!” said Hermione after the bell rang, and she set off for Arithmancy, while Adira and Ron headed toward North Tower, and Divination. Broad strips of dazzling gold sunlight fell across the corridor from the high windows. The sky outside was so brightly blue it looked as though it had been enameled.
“It’s going to be boiling in Trelawney’s room, she never puts out that fire,” said Ron as they started up the staircase toward the silver ladder and the trapdoor.
He was quite right. The dimly lit room was swelteringly hot. The fumes from the perfumed fire were heavier than ever. Adira's head swam as she made her way over to one of the curtained windows. While Professor Trelawney was looking the other way, disentangling her shawl from a lamp, Adira opened the window an inch or so and settled back in his chintz armchair, so that a soft breeze played across her face. It was extremely comfortable.
The teacher was droning on about something, Addy wasn't paying attention anymore since the woman was pants at teaching anything useful. She dimmed the lights for some reason, and Adira let the heavily perfumed fumes washed over her, and the breeze from the window played across her face. She could hear an insect humming gently somewhere behind the curtain. Her eyelids began to droop.
She was riding on the back of an eagle owl, soaring through the clear blue sky toward an old, ivy-covered house set high on a hillside. Lower and lower they flew, the wind blowing pleasantly in her face, until they reached a dark and broken window in the upper story of the house and entered. Now they were flying along a gloomy passageway, to a room at the very end … through the door they went, into a dark room whose windows were boarded up.
Addy had left the owl’s back … she was watching, now, as it fluttered across the room, into a chair with its back to him. … There were two dark shapes on the floor beside the chair … both of them were stirring. …
One was a huge snake … the other was a woman … Addy couldn't see the woman well enough to recognize her or not … she was down on the hearth rug, her breathing heavy, her attitude like she'd just had an orgasm even though she was still clothed.
“You are in luck, my dear,” said a cold, high-pitched voice from the depths of the chair in which the owl had landed. “You are very fortunate indeed. Your blunder has not ruined everything. He is dead.”
“My Lord!” purred the woman on the floor. It sounded erotic, nearly obscene. “My Lord, I am … I am so pleased … and so sorry to have displeased you.”
“Nagini,” said the cold voice, “you are out of luck. I will not be feeding anyone to you, after all … but never mind, never mind … there is still the Potter freak.”
The snake hissed. Adira could see its tongue fluttering.
“Now, my dear,” said the cold voice, “that is enough for one day, I think.”
“My Lord … no … I beg you … Please, do it again! I need to be punished!”
The cold voice sighed, then chuckled. “Well you are quite the odd one, aren't you? But then I knew that when I recruited you. Fine, then, but just the one last time. I do not want to cause you any permanent damage.”
The tip of a wand emerged from around the back of the chair. It was pointing at the woman.
“Crucio!” said the cold voice.
The woman screamed, screamed as though every nerve in her body were on fire, the screaming filled Adira's ears as the scar on her forehead seared with pain; Addy was yelling too. … Voldemort would hear her, would know she was there.
“Adira! Addy, wake up!”
She opened her eyes. She was lying on the floor of Professor Trelawney’s room with her hands over her face. Her scar was still burning so badly that her eyes were watering. The pain had been real. The whole class was standing around him, and Ron was kneeling next to him, looking terrified.
“You all right?” he said.
“Of course she isn’t!” said Professor Trelawney, looking thoroughly excited. Her great eyes loomed over Adira, gazing at her. “What was it, Potter? A premonition? An apparition? What did you see?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Just a nightmare. I fell asleep in class. I have nightmares quite often.”
“You were clutching your scar!” said Professor Trelawney. “You were rolling on the floor, clutching your scar! Come now, Potter, I have experience in these matters!”
Adira felt Al's anger surge. “You have about as much experience with fortune telling as I have with performing brain surgery! I had a headache and a nightmare at the same time; it's a coincidence, nothing more. I just need to get a headache cure from the hospital wing.”
“My dear, you were undoubtedly stimulated by the extraordinary clairvoyant vibrations of my room!” said Professor Trelawney “If you leave now, you may lose the opportunity to see further than you have ever--”
But their patience with her had evaporated, and Addy rushed out of the room at top speed without another word until she got to the hospital wing. But when she got to the bottom of the ladder, she didn't go to the hospital wing. Aside from the fact the headache was already fading, she knew what she had to do when her scar was hurting. Checking first to make sure she had her two-way mirror in the pouch around her neck, she went instead to Dumbledore's office, trying to remember the details of the dream as she did.
She had walked right past the stone gargoyle guarding the entrance to Dumbledore’s office without noticing. She blinked, looked around, realized what she had done, and retraced her steps, stopping in front of it. Then she remembered that she didn’t know the password.
“Tell Dumbledore I'm here, will you? It's urgent.”
The gargoyle wasn't feeling cooperative today, and raised an eyebrow at her.
“You're gonna be that way, then, are you? Fine. Sherbet lemon?” she tried tentatively.
The gargoyle did not move.
“Okay,” said Addy, staring at it, “Pear Drop. Er — Licorice Wand. Fizzing Whizbee. Drooble’s Best Blowing Gum. Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans … oh no, he doesn’t like them, does he? … oh just open, can’t you?” she said angrily. “I really need to see him, it’s urgent!”
The gargoyle remained immovable.
She kicked it, achieving nothing but an excruciating pain in her big toe.
“Chocolate Frog!” she yelled angrily, standing on one leg. “Sugar Quill! Cockroach Cluster!”
The gargoyle sprang to life and jumped aside. Addy blinked in surprise.
“What the--? Gods, whatever.” She sighed, and went in. Just before she got on the stairs, though, she turned to face the gargoyle's back and said, “you know, to be honest, it's kind of stupid that I can just guess passwords at random until I get the right one. Do you know, some Muggle computers will cheerfully ignore even the correct password if someone has to guess more than a few times?”
There was no response, so she huffed and got on the spiral stone staircase, which moved slowly upward until she got to the polished oak door with a brass door knocker.
She could hear voices from inside the office. She stepped off the moving staircase and hesitated, listening.
“Dumbledore, I’m afraid I don’t see the connection, don’t see it at all!” It was the voice of the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge. “Ludo says Bertha’s perfectly capable of getting herself lost. I agree we would have expected to have found her by now, but all the same, we’ve no evidence of foul play, Dumbledore, none at all. As for her disappearance being linked with Barty Crouch’s!”
“And what do you thinks happened to Barty Crouch, Minister?” said Moody’s growling voice.
“I see two possibilities, Alastor,” said Fudge. “Either Crouch has finally cracked — more than likely, I’m sure you’ll agree, given his personal history — lost his mind, and gone wandering off somewhere —”
“He wandered extremely quickly, if that is the case, Cornelius,” said Dumbledore calmly.
“Or else — well …” Fudge sounded embarrassed. “Well, I’ll reserve judgment until after I’ve seen the place where he was found, but you say it was just past the Beauxbatons carriage? Dumbledore, you know what that woman is?”
“I consider her to be a very able headmistress — and an excellent dancer,” said Dumbledore quietly.
“Dumbledore, come!” said Fudge angrily. “Don’t you think you might be prejudiced in her favor because of Hagrid? They don’t all turn out harmless — if, indeed, you can call Hagrid harmless, with that monster fixation he’s got —”
“I no more suspect Madame Maxime than Hagrid,” said Dumbledore, just as calmly. “I think it possible that it is you who are prejudiced, Cornelius.”
“Can we wrap up this discussion?” growled Moody.
“Yes, yes, let’s go down to the grounds, then,” said Fudge impatiently.
“No, it’s not that,” said Moody, “it’s just that Potter wants a word with you, Dumbledore. She’s just outside the door.”
Endnotes: Both Hypatia's fake threat and Skeeter telling the world about the neglect by the Dursleys was a bit of a surprise to me, and I had to think about whether or not I wanted to keep it, hence the wait. Obviously I decided to keep it.
Bah, I just noticed I had a scene in a previous chapter that referenced the Dark Mark going up in the sky, but that didn't happen in this fic. Instead, there was a fight with the Death Eaters. I'll fix it later.
And yes, Dumbledore's comment about time turners not going back that far is correct in this 'verse. It's also my headcanon to the original story, because I hate “Cursed Child.” It was a horrible story that made no sense at all and should not be considered canon.
From a comment I sent someone, that I thought others would get a kick out of: I actually had to rewrite [chapter 38] because I let Molly loose on it and her original version involved Zoey using Hypatia's knowledge to do the following:
1. Put wards on Luna's stuff that turned into a communicable magical illness that infected the entire school and forced the school into quarantine, which was the original excuse for her finding the Room of Lost Things. (Specifically, the magical illness was tied to an anchor stone, she couldn't figure out how to destroy it, and she didn't want to get caught and expelled, so she hid the anchor stone in the Room of Lost Things.)
2. Used a ritual to pin Peeves in place, which led him to finally go apeshit on the school when he got out.
3. Password locked Snape's office and the Slytherin dorm entrance, and ended up somehow managing to get Draco blamed for it.
Quite aside from that being Way Too Much, the way Zoey got Hypatia's powers was via Mother, which was WAY out of character for Mother to do. So that's the kind of thing you get when a seven year old who can write like an adult goes wild on a chapter, luckily I reigned her in.
Chapter Forty: Guilt and Innocence
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there. But some canon scenes are just too good to change much. There's a lot of those in this one, but don't skim through or you'll miss things.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Adira, Zoey, # Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and between hashtags/pound signs.# , {Tier}, ~Chandra,~
% Mother AKA Avani Maznah, % and “Hypatia/Megan.”
Note 4: All hail Our Lady Of Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling!
Note 5: Sorry this took so long. Between my normal issues and working on some original fiction of my own, I've gotten behind on this one. Also I got stuck on some of the tarot stuff.
*FAYANORA*
The door of the office opened.
“Hello, Potter,” said Moody. “Come in, then.”
Adira walked inside. She had been inside Dumbledore’s office before; it was a very beautiful, circular room, lined with pictures of previous headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts, all of whom were fast asleep, their chests rising and falling gently.
Cornelius Fudge was standing beside Dumbledore’s desk, wearing his usual pinstriped cloak and holding his lime-green bowler hat.
“Harry!” said Fudge jovially, moving forward. “How are you?”
“My name is Adira,” she corrected.
“Right, sorry about that Adira, I remember reading about that now. Anyway, so how are you?”
“Fine,” she lied.
“We were just talking about the night when Mr. Crouch turned up on the grounds,” said Fudge. “It was you who found him, was it not?”
“Yes,” said Adira. “Well technically it was Al, but I was there too.” Then, feeling it was pointless to pretend that she hadn’t overheard what they had been saying, she added, “I didn’t see Madame Maxime anywhere, though, and she’d have a job hiding, wouldn’t she?”
Dumbledore smiled at Adira behind Fudge’s back, his eyes twinkling.
“Yes, well,” said Fudge, looking embarrassed, “we’re about to go for a short walk on the grounds, Adira, if you’ll excuse us … perhaps if you just go back to your class —”
“I need to talk with Dumbledore. It's important.”
“Wait here for me, Adira,” he said. “Our examination of the grounds will not take long.”
“Alright,” she said, sitting down.
They trooped out in silence past her and closed the door. After a minute or so, Adira heard the clunks of Moody’s wooden leg growing fainter in the corridor below. She looked around at all the interesting things in the room: Dumbledore's phoenix familiar, Fawkes (a silly name for a bird, now she thought of it); the gadgets the puffed and whirred and who knew what else; the portraits of the former headmasters pretending to sleep; the Sorting Hat...
And then she noticed a light coming from inside an improperly-closed cabinet. She hesitated, glanced at Fawkes, then got up, walked across the office, and pulled open the cabinet door.
A shallow stone basin lay there, with odd carvings around the edge: runes and symbols that she did not recognize, though she felt the stirrings of interest and recognition from Hypatia. The silvery light was coming from the basin’s contents, which were like nothing they'd ever seen before. She could not tell whether the substance was liquid or gas. It was a bright, whitish silver, and it was moving ceaselessly; the surface of it became ruffled like water beneath wind, and then, like clouds, separated and swirled smoothly. It looked like light made liquid — or like wind made solid — Adira couldn’t make up her mind.
She wanted to touch it, to find out what it felt like, but nearly four years’ experience of the magical world told her that sticking her hand into a bowl full of some unknown substance was a very stupid thing to do. She therefore pulled her wand out of the inside of her robes, cast a nervous look around the office, looked back at the contents of the basin, and prodded them.
The surface of the silvery stuff inside the basin began to swirl very fast.
She bent closer, her head right inside the cabinet. The silvery substance had become transparent; it looked like glass. She looked down into it, expecting to see the stone bottom of the basin — and saw instead an enormous room below the surface of the mysterious substance, a room into which she seemed to be looking through a circular window in the ceiling.
(Well now this is fortuitous,) Hypatia said in their shared headspace.
I thought you weren't talking to us?
(Eh. I'm over it. I'd still prefer to publicly have nothing to do with the lot of you, but I knew the secret would come out eventually. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that's a pensieve. Which, before you ask, is a very expensive magical artifact that lets you hold memories to replay them as though you're there, watching from a third party perspective. It'd be too much work to explain all these runes, but basically there's runes dealing with time magic as well as mind magic. Creates some kind of quantum-temporal link between your memories and the actual events from the past. Nothing that could be used for time travel probably, but useful. You get to see what actually happened, even if you don't really know.)
That's... kind of disturbing, actually. It would make a great espionage tool. You could use it to look at things, I dunno, a minute or two in the past, it'd be just as good as being right there!
(No, it's more complicated than that. You can only view specific moments from the past, and you have to have been there, or have the memory from someone who was there. Even if you went out of visual range of the subject of the memory, you'd be pulled right out the moment the memory ended. Doesn't leave many options for espionage, really. Not the way you were thinking. Anyway, I'm curious what the old goat's hiding in here.)
With no more warning than that, Hypatia took control of her arm and touched the surface of the memories with a single finger.
Dumbledore’s office gave an almighty lurch — Adira was thrown forward and pitched headfirst into the substance inside the basin —
But her head did not hit the stone bottom. She was falling through something icy-cold and black; it was like being sucked into a dark whirlpool —
And suddenly, Adira found herself sitting on a bench at the end of the room inside the basin, a bench raised high above the others. She looked up at the high stone ceiling, expecting to see the circular window through which she had just been staring, but there was nothing there but dark, solid stone.
The room was dimly lit; she thought it might even be underground, for there were no windows, merely torches in brackets such as the ones that illuminated the walls of Hogwarts. Adira saw that rows and rows of witches and wizards were seated around every wall on what seemed to be benches rising in levels. An empty chair stood in the very center of the room. There was something about the chair that gave her an ominous feeling. Chains encircled the arms of it, as though its occupants were usually tied to it.
Where was this place? It surely wasn’t Hogwarts; she had never seen a room like that here in the castle. Moreover, the crowd in the mysterious room at the bottom of the basin was comprised of adults, and Adira knew there were not nearly that many teachers at Hogwarts. They seemed, she thought, to be waiting for something; even though she could only see the tops of their hats, all of their faces seemed to be pointing in one direction, and none of them were talking to one another.
Not one of the witches and wizards in the room (and there were at least two hundred of them) was looking at her. Not one of them seemed to have noticed that a fourteen-year-old girl had just dropped from the ceiling into their midst, but then Hypatia had said this was someone's memory. Adira turned to the wizard next to her on the bench and uttered a gasp of surprise that reverberated around the silent room.
She was sitting right next to Albus Dumbledore.
(I was right. We're in the mad, gay old goat's memories,) Hypatia said in her head. (Don't bother trying to interact, they can't see or hear or feel you, they're just memories.)
Like in Riddle's diary?
(What? Oh yeah, that's right. Huh. I'm impressed. But then again, that was a horcrux, and since there's supposedly pieces of his soul in those things, that might be different from this. But the similarity is suspicious, I'll grant you.)
What do you mean 'supposedly'?
(Well all this talk of a soul, really, it's absurd. The way people talk about it, it sounds more like the person's mind to me. It can't possibly be the soul, souls are supposed to be indestructible and immortal. Huh. I guess Riddle didn't believe in the soul either. If he did, he'd have no need to fear death, and no need to make horcruxes. Unless it was actually punishment for the things he did in his lifetime that he's afraid of.)
She nodded absently, thinking to herself. So she was inside a memory, and this was not the present-day Dumbledore? Yet it couldn’t be that long ago … the Dumbledore sitting next to her now was silver-haired, just like the present-day Dumbledore. But what was this place? What were all these wizards waiting for?
Adira looked around more carefully. The room, as she had suspected when observing it from above, was almost certainly underground — more of a dungeon than a room, she thought. There was a bleak and forbidding air about the place; there were no pictures on the walls, no decorations at all; just these serried rows of benches, rising in levels all around the room, all positioned so that they had a clear view of that chair with the chains on its arms.
Before she could reach any conclusions about the place in which they were, she heard footsteps. The door in the corner of the dungeon opened and three people entered — or at least one man, flanked by two dementors.
Her insides went cold, but none of the rest of her did. These dementors were just memories, and couldn't affect her. Excellent! Still, she remembered their power only too well. The watching crowd recoiled slightly as the dementors placed the man in the chained chair and glided back out of the room. The door swung shut behind them.
Adira looked down at the man now sitting in the chair and saw that it was Karkaroff.
Unlike Dumbledore, Karkaroff looked much younger; his hair and goatee were black. He was not dressed in sleek furs, but in thin and ragged robes. He was shaking. Even as Adira watched, the chains on the arms of the chair glowed suddenly gold and snaked their way up Karkaroff’s arms, binding him there.
She watched as Mister Crouch accused him of being a Death Eater, and watched as he named names, so he could be released, which Moody wasn't at all happy about. None of the names sounded familiar to her until Severus Snape, which was not a surprise to her at this point. The only one that wasn't already dead, captured, or exonerated was one named Rookwood, who had worked for the Department of Mysteries, in the Ministry of Magic. An Unspeakable, then.
Adira was angry. Karkaroff had been a Death Eater, and they'd released him because he'd named a single other Death Eater they hadn't already been aware of? She sided with Moody on this one: hear his testimony and throw him back to the dementors.
After Crouch said he would review Karkaroff's case, the memory faded. The dungeon was dissolving as though it were made of smoke; everything was fading; she could see only her own body — all else was swirling darkness.
Then, suddenly, she was back in the dungeon. She was sitting in a different seat, still on the highest bench, but now to the left side of Mr. Crouch. The atmosphere seemed quite different: relaxed, even cheerful. The witches and wizards all around the walls were talking to one another, almost as though they were at some sort of sporting event. Adira saw a younger Rita Skeeter nearby. Dumbledore was wearing something different; a different day, a different memory. The memory of the trial of---
“BAGMAN!?” she exclaimed.
Sure enough, a younger, fitter, even more cheerful Ludo Bagman was on trial, though there were no dementors, and not even any chains, as there had been in Karkaroff's trial. Bagman's trial was a farce, in his favor. Mr. Crouch seemed to agree. Or rather... oh, she had it now; this was his sentencing, not his trial. There was no evidence or testimony given, the scene just showed the farce that was his sentencing, where he got declared innocent, his fans appearing to have secured his release. More reason to distrust the man.
As Adira watched the memory Moody on Dumbledore's other side, as well as a few other people she recognized, Hypatia said something in her mind.
(Huh. This pensieve thing would be very useful in learning enough stuff about someone to pretend to be them under Polyjuice Potion. Rip enough memories out of their head, spend a few days, weeks, or months viewing the memories, and it's all you'd need to fool their own mother.)
Before she could respond, the memory changed again. The mood could not have been more different. Same room, but everyone in it was looking grim. Crouch looked so grim it was scary. There was total silence, broken only by the dry sobs of a frail, wispy-looking witch in the seat next to Mr. Crouch. She was clutching a handkerchief to her mouth with trembling hands.
“Bring them in,” Crouch said, and his voice echoed through the silent dungeon.
The door in the corner opened yet again. Six dementors entered this time, flanking a group of four people. Adira saw the people in the crowd turn to look up at Mr. Crouch. A few of them whispered to one another.
The dementors placed each of the four people in the four chairs with chained arms that now stood on the dungeon floor. There was a thickset man who stared blankly up at Crouch; a thinner and more nervous-looking man, whose eyes were darting around the crowd; a woman with thick, shining dark hair and heavily hooded eyes, who was sitting in the chained chair as though it were a throne; and a boy in his late teens, who looked nothing short of petrified. He was shivering, his straw-colored hair all over his face, his freckled skin milk-white. The wispy little witch beside Crouch began to rock backward and forward in her seat, whimpering into her handkerchief.
Crouch stood up. He looked down upon the four in front of him, and there was pure hatred in his face.
What happened next was just... she didn't even know how to describe it. Crouch, voice and eyes colder than the far side of Pluto, sentenced the four people, including his own son (despite vehement, tearful protests of his innocence, begging his father to believe he hadn't done it), to Azkaban for torturing Mr. and Mrs. Longbottom.
The dementors were gliding back into the room. The boys’ three companions rose quietly from their seats; the woman with the heavy-lidded eyes looked up at Crouch and called, “The Dark Lord will rise again, Crouch! Throw us into Azkaban; we will wait! He will rise again and will come for us, he will reward us beyond any of his other supporters! We alone were faithful! We alone tried to find him!”
But the boy was trying to fight off the dementors, even though Adira could see their cold, draining power starting to affect him. The crowd was jeering, some of them on their feet, as the woman swept out of the dungeon, and the boy continued to struggle.
“I’m your son!” Crouch's son screamed up at his father. “I’m your son!”
“You are no son of mine!” bellowed Mr. Crouch, his eyes bulging suddenly. “I have no son!”
The wispy witch beside him gave a great gasp and slumped in her seat. She had fainted. Crouch appeared not to have noticed.
“Take them away!” Crouch roared at the dementors, spit flying from his mouth. “Take them away, and may they rot there!”
“Father! Father, I wasn’t involved! No! No! Father, please!”
“I think, Adira, it is time to return to my office,” said a quiet voice in Adira's ear.
Adira started. She looked around. Then she looked on his other side.
There was an Albus Dumbledore sitting on her right, watching Crouch’s son being dragged away by the dementors — and there was an Albus Dumbledore on her left, looking right at her.
“Come,” said the Dumbledore on her left, and he put his hand under Adira's elbow. Adira felt herself rising into the air; the dungeon dissolved around her; for a moment, all was blackness, and then she felt as though she had done a slow-motion somersault, suddenly landing flat on her feet, in what seemed like the dazzling light of Dumbledore’s sunlit office. The stone basin was shimmering in the cabinet in front of her, and Albus Dumbledore was standing beside her.
“I'm sorry, Professor,” she said hurriedly. “We were looking at it, and Hypatia was explaining what it was, and then suddenly she touched it and there we were in your memories. I didn't know how to get out, and I doubt she would have told me if I'd asked.”
“I quite understand,” said Dumbledore. He lifted the basin, carried it over to his desk, placed it upon the polished top, and sat down in the chair behind it. He motioned for Adira to sit down opposite him.
Adira did so, staring at the stone basin. The contents had returned to their original, silvery-white state, swirling and rippling beneath her gaze.
“I should have known someone as well-read and gifted as Hypatia would recognize a pensieve when she saw it.”
“Well, she actually read the runes, the ones she could see at least, and recognized it from those.”
“Ah. Well I shall save the greater explanations for her, if she feels so inclined to explain it to you. How is her relationship with the rest of you, anyway?”
“Better. She says she's over the... well, I guess the anger at being found out. Says she knew it would happen eventually.”
“Yes, no doubt she did. Of course, her anger being how it was suggests she was trying to convince herself otherwise.”
They sat there in silence a few moments, Dumbledore staring into the pensieve, before Adira spoke again.
“How... how do you put memories in there, anyway?”
“Let me show you.”
Dumbledore drew his wand out of the inside of his robes and placed the tip into his own silvery hair, near his temple. When he took the wand away, hair seemed to be clinging to it — but then Addy saw that it was in fact a glistening strand of the same strange silvery-white substance that filled the Pensieve. Dumbledore added this fresh thought to the basin, and Addy, astonished, saw her own face swimming around the surface of the bowl. Dumbledore placed his long hands on either side of the Pensieve and swirled it, rather as a gold prospector would pan for fragments of gold … and Addy saw her own face change smoothly into Snape’s, who opened his mouth and spoke to the ceiling, his voice echoing slightly.
“It’s coming back … Karkaroff’s too … stronger and clearer than ever …”
“A connection I could have made without assistance,” Dumbledore sighed, “but never mind.” He peered over the top of his half-moon spectacles at Addy, who was gaping at Snape’s face, which was continuing to swirl around the bowl. “I was using the Pensieve when Mr. Fudge arrived for our meeting and put it away rather hastily. Undoubtedly I did not fasten the cabinet door properly. Naturally, it would have attracted your attention.”
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled.
Dumbledore shook his head. “Curiosity is not a sin,” he said. “But we should exercise caution with our curiosity … yes, indeed … even with your esteemed Hypatia knowing what it was, you never know what horrible, scarring memories might be stored in one.”
Yeah, like Dumbledore in the tub, Al said. Addy winced.
Dumbledore looked curiously at her. “You don't want to know,” she explained.
Nodding and frowning slightly, Dumbledore prodded the thoughts within the basin with the tip of his wand. Instantly, a figure rose out of it, a plump, scowling girl of about sixteen, who began to revolve slowly, with her feet still in the basin. She took no notice whatsoever of Adira or Professor Dumbledore. When she spoke, her voice echoed as Snape’s had done, as though it were coming from the depths of the stone basin. “He put a hex on me, Professor Dumbledore, and I was only teasing him, sir. I only said I’d seen him kissing Florence behind the greenhouses last Thursday.”
“But why, Bertha,” said Dumbledore sadly, looking up at the now silently revolving girl, “why did you have to follow him in the first place?”
“Bertha?” Addy whispered, looking up at her. “Is that — was that Bertha Jorkins?”
“Yes,” said Dumbledore, prodding the thoughts in the basin again; Bertha sank back into them, and they became silvery and opaque once more. “That was Bertha as I remember her at school.”
The silvery light from the Pensieve illuminated Dumbledore’s face, and it struck Addy suddenly how very old he was looking. She knew, of course, that Dumbledore was getting on in years, but somehow she never really thought of Dumbledore as an old man.
“So, Adira,” said Dumbledore quietly. “Before you got lost in my thoughts, you wanted to tell me something.”
“Oh, right. Well we were in Divination class, and of course the room was boiling hot. And, well, I fell asleep.”
She hesitated here, wondering if a reprimand was coming, but Dumbledore merely said, “Quite understandable. Continue.”
“Well, I had a dream,” she said. “About Voldemort. He was torturing some woman with the cruciatus curse, but, well... she was enjoying it.”
“Indeed?” Dumbledore said, looking concerned. “Please continue.”
“Voldemort got a letter from an owl. He said something like, the woman's blunder had been repaired. He said someone was dead. Then he said, she wouldn’t be fed to the snake — there was a snake beside his chair. He said — he implied he’d be feeding me to it, instead. Then he did the Cruciatus Curse on the woman, and my scar hurt,” Addy said. “It woke me up, it hurt so badly.”
Dumbledore merely looked at her.
“Er — that’s all,” she said.
“I see,” said Dumbledore quietly. “I see. Now, has your scar hurt at any other time this year, excepting the time it woke you up over the summer?”
Realizing that Sirius had said he was going to tell Dumbledore about it, she answered, “No, just that time and this one.”
“I see.”
“So, um... given what Hypatia now knows about us being a horcrux...” she paused to swallow. It had only just now really hit her that if Hypatia couldn't solve the problem of removing the horcrux magic from something without destroying it, that she was going to die, along with everyone else in the collective.
“Yes?” he asked.
“Does this mean the vision is real? That I saw something through Voldemort's eyes because I'm one of his horcruxes, even if an accidental one?”
“You saw through his eyes? You did not see him from the outside?”
“No, I mean yes, I mean--” she sighed. “I mean I saw through his eyes. As though I were him.”
Dumbledore nodded gravely. “Then I'm afraid you are correct, Adira. You are seeing through his eyes when he is feeling powerful emotions, due to you being a horcrux of his as well as his increased strength.”
“So he is getting stronger?”
“Yes. He has been for months. I am not sure why he has not risen again already. It worries me.
“Still, I am far from certain. But the years of Voldemort’s ascent to power were marked with disappearances. Bertha Jorkins has vanished without a trace in the place where Voldemort was certainly known to be last. Mr. Crouch too has disappeared, within these very grounds. And there was a third disappearance, one which the Ministry, I regret to say, do not consider of any importance, for it concerns a Muggle. His name was Frank Bryce, he lived in the village where Voldemort’s father grew up, and he has not been seen since last August. You see, I read the Muggle newspapers, unlike most of my Ministry friends.”
Dumbledore looked very seriously at Adira.
“These disappearances seem to me to be linked. The Ministry disagrees — as you may have heard, while waiting outside my office.”
She nodded. Silence fell between them again, Dumbledore extracting thoughts every now and then. Adira felt as though she ought to go, but her curiosity held her in her chair.
“Professor?” she said again.
“Yes, Adira?” said Dumbledore.
“Er … could I ask you about … that court thing I was in … in the Pensieve?”
“You could,” said Dumbledore heavily. “I attended it many times, but some trials come back to me more clearly than others … particularly now.”
“You know — you know the trial you found me in? The one with Crouch’s son? Well … were they talking about Neville’s parents?”
Dumbledore gave Adira a very sharp look. “Has Neville never told you why he has been brought up by his grandmother?” he asked.
“No.”
“Yes, they were talking about Neville’s parents,” said Dumbledore. “His father, Frank, was an Auror just like Professor Moody. He and his wife were tortured for information about Voldemort’s whereabouts after he lost his powers, as you heard.”
“So they’re dead?” said Adira quietly.
“No,” said Dumbledore, his voice full of a bitterness Adira had never heard there before. “They are insane. They are both in St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. I believe Neville visits them, with his grandmother, during the holidays. They do not recognize him.”
Adira sat there, horror-struck, eyes filling with tears. She had never known … never, in four years, bothered to find out.
“The Longbottoms were very popular,” said Dumbledore. “The attacks on them came after Voldemort’s fall from power, just when everyone thought they were safe. Those attacks caused a wave of fury such as I have never known. The Ministry was under great pressure to catch those who had done it. Unfortunately, the Longbottoms’ evidence was — given their condition — none too reliable.”
“Then Mr. Crouch’s son might not have been involved?” said Adira slowly.
Dumbledore shook his head.
“As to that, I have no idea.”
“Er,” she said, “Mr. Bagman …”
“… has never been accused of any Dark activity since,” said Dumbledore calmly.
“Right,” she said hastily, staring at the contents of the Pensieve again, which were swirling more slowly now that Dumbledore had stopped adding thoughts. “And … er …”
But the Pensieve seemed to be asking her question for her. Snape’s face was swimming on the surface again. Dumbledore glanced down into it, and then up at Adira.
“No more has Professor Snape,” he said.
“Because he was in love with my mum, and now he wants revenge against Voldemort on her behalf?”
“Indeed. But now I must ask you to leave. First, though, promise me you not speak about Neville’s parents to anybody else. He has the right to let people know, when he is ready.”
“I promise, sir. I wouldn't do that to him. I won't even tell him I know.”
“Thank you,” Dumbledore said, smiling.
She smiled back, and turned to go.
“And —”
Adira looked back. Dumbledore was standing over the Pensieve, his face lit from beneath by its silvery spots of light, looking older than ever. He stared at Adira for a moment, and then said, “Good luck with the third task.”
Addy quickly went back to Griffindor tower. She, Ron, Hermione, and Sirius via the two-way mirror all ended up talking about what Addy had seen in the Pensieve, minus the stuff about Neville's parents. She also didn't tell Neville she knew about that. She'd had to put up with some of Sirius's warnings not to do dangerous stuff like wander off with Krum again, like she didn't already know his position on that. So mostly she ignored his well-intentioned hovering.
~
The following Monday morning, Al got an owl tapping at his window as he was getting ready. He opened the window and took the owl's message. The owl left right away.
Looking at the letter, he saw it was from Dumbledore.
Dear Alastair,
I have written for a couple of reasons. First, this weekend at the Wizengamot I began proceedings to have the Dursleys charged with child neglect and possibly child abuse as well. If I can manage to do this properly, they will not be put in Azkaban. It is, after all, a prison for wizards. The standard excuse our nation gives for using dementors is that they rob a wizard of their powers, even though many other prisons around the world have just as good a track record of keeping prisoners within their walls without resorting to the cruel use of dark creatures such as they.
But I digress. The point is, a non-magical prison will suffice, and we do have such places for small offenses too minor for Azkaban. Technically, the prison they would go to if convicted is a magical holding cell but it would look and feel like an ordinary prison to Muggles. I did debate whether or not to just let the Muggle law system deal with them, even though their victim (you) is a magical human. But there is evidence we will be able to get trying them here in our world that would violate the Statute of Secrecy if we tried it in the Muggle world, that will be necessary given how many years it has been since you have been in their custody. Also there is your transformations to consider; given that they can be triggered by strong emotion, it would not do to have you transform in the middle of a Muggle court whilst testifying.
Speaking of testifying, you will be able to testify either with extracted memories (a harmless memory-copying spell), verbally under oath and/or veritaserum, or even both. Thus, you will not need to see the Dursleys in court unless you wish to. Let me know which you prefer as soon as you can.
But more on that later. Now on to the second thing. Ward-masters Fangslaughter and Benedict Snaggletooth from Gringotts wish to speak with a certain member of your collective (I think you know who I am referring to). They do not presently know anything about her beyond her being the sleepwalker. They would like to interview her about what she did to get past the wards on Sirius's flat, if she is amenable to it. If it helps, they did offer to pay you 1000 galleons in exchange for the information. Also, she is free to remain hiding as the sleepwalker by speaking with Adira's form, if she desires to help them. Please let me know her thoughts on the matter when you can.
Yours sincerely,
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore
Using his wand to erase the paragraphs about Hypatia, then moving Dumbledore's signature up the page to disguise the fact it had been changed, he then put the letter in his trunk and went about his day.
Sure took them long enough, Al thought at the others. Did you notice this didn't happen until the news came out? Dumbledore is probably trying to save face.
Yes, well we did get rather distracted by everything going on. Voldemort, Riddle, Peter, Sirius, and now this Tournament BS, Addy responded.
(I'll do it), Hypatia said to them. (I'll talk with Fangslaughter and Benedict Snaggletooth. Pretty sure the information isn't worth 1000 galleons, not really, so it's easy money. I know we don't need it, but hey, why not?)
They ended up sending Dumbledore a note giving Hypatia's answer and saying they were still thinking about the other thing. He soon sent back a note saying the meeting would be next Wednesday in his office after dinner.
In the meantime, they had classes to go to, and practicing combat-useful spells for the Maze with Ron and Hermione.
They were halfway through when Ron got their attention to something.
“Come and look at this,” said Ron, who was standing by the window. He was staring down onto the grounds. “What’s Malfoy doing?”
Al and Hermione went to see. Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle were standing in the shadow of a tree below. Crabbe and Goyle seemed to be keeping a lookout; both were smirking. Malfoy was holding his hand up to his mouth and speaking into it.
“He looks like he’s using a walkie-talkie,” said Al curiously.
“He can’t be,” said Hermione, “I’ve told you, those sorts of things don’t work around Hogwarts.”
“So maybe it's some magical equivalent.”
“I doubt that, Al,” she said. “Hogwarts is warded against most forms of surveilance.”
“Well maybe he has a two-way mirror?” Al suggested.
“Hmm... could be,” she said.
“I don't see anything like reflections,” Ron said, still looking out the window. “Then again, I guess I wouldn't if he's using it to talk to someone. But also, whatever he's talking to is very small. Too small to be a two-way mirror, I think.”
“Come on, Al,” Hermione added briskly, turning away from the window and moving back into the middle of the room, “let’s try that Shield Charm again.”
~
The IDIOTS! The complete and total idiots! They'd been up all night talking with Bushy-hair and Matchstick about what had happened to Mr. Crouch and not a one of them thought to check the Marauder's Map for him! Not that Hypatia had any room to complain, really; she hadn't thought of it either. And anyway, even if she had, it was likely that the culprit had already been gone from the grounds by the time they got back up to the Griffindor dorms.
Ah well, just a slight bump in the road. It's not like she really cared. It was very unlikely that whoever had entered them into the Triwizard Tournament was the same person who had abducted Mr. Crouch, if that's even what happened. Crouch might have snapped out of whatever was wrong with him, stunned them, and took off running. Hypatia barely even cared about the Triwizard Tournament either, anymore. The First Task had been scary, yes, but the Second Task had been boring to watch even from behind the eyes of one of the contestants, and the weird 3D maze building they were erecting on the Quidditch pitch was unlikely to be much more interesting than the Second Task. She was no longer convinced that whoever had put their names in the Goblet of Fire had been intending them any harm at all. Which didn't answer why they'd done it, but the unlikeliness of it being malevolent shot the mystery down to lowest priority in her mind. After all, not everything could be life or death.
She was much more interested in her work with Draco. And that had been a little odd lately too. They'd hardly been back in school after the Easter holidays for a week when Professor Snape had come into the Slytherin common room while she and Draco were there, looking completely unsurprised to see either of them there.
“Please, Miss Williams, do not panic,” he had said. “Nor you, Mr. Malfoy. I know what you two are doing here, and I am not here to stop you. I am, in fact, here to help.”
“Why, sir?” Draco asked.
“Because while I do not officially, publicly condone learning the Dark Arts, I do understand the appeal of it. I have Masteries in many Dark Arts as well as in Potions. I do not know you well, Miss Williams, but if Mr. Malfoy trusts you, I shall as well. Anyway, if you are going to learn Dark Arts, you might as well do it with me, so you do not do something unsafe and potentially deadly. Ritual magic can do some nasty things when done improperly, after all.”
“How did you find out about what we're doing, sir?” Draco asked.
“I have my ways.”
Hypatia wasn't sure, but she thought he glanced at her briefly as he spoke. Either way, she now knew that he knew because Dumbledore had told him. Most likely Dumbledore wanted Snape to try to convince her not to go down this road. After all, Snape had, and had ended up a Death Eater.
Draco seemed to realize he wasn't going to get anything more out of Snape, for he asked, “So you're going to help us?”
“Yes. By giving you both an unofficial apprenticeship in the Dark Arts.”
Still suspicious, Draco said, “You're not expelling us for trying to learn Dark Arts? This stuff is against the rules. And Dumbledore wouldn't approve.”
“You are right, he would not. But what the Headmaster does not know will not hurt him.”
That had been over two weeks ago. Snape's unofficial apprenticeship so far entailed some lecturing and note-taking, some assigned reading, and some training in proper safety techniques when working with ritual magic. She was most pleased when one of the assigned books was about runic casting, even if she was annoyed that Snape was restricting them to only a couple hours a night, since he still needed to sleep and didn't want them doing work together without him.
Runic casting, as it turned out, was dangerous too. Normal runic magic involved drawing or carving runes and pushing magic into them with intent. In runic casting, you had to cast intent and magic into the runes as you drew them in the air with your wand, which was a bit like building high-voltage electrical equipment that was powered up while you were building it, and therefore much more dangerous than ritual magic in some ways. Or at least, more immediately dangerous. Because of this, they would not actually be doing it any time soon, probably not until next school year. For now, Snape just wanted to make sure they knew how to be safe, and part of that was impressing upon them how potentially dangerous many Dark Arts were.
They were also learning a bit more about why some of these things were illegal. Apart from the danger of it, runic casting was illegal also because you could put a whole bunch of different effects together in one casting, and since it was runic magic and not a standard wand spell, no two people would ever be likely to cast the same runic-casting spell the same way. Often the same spell couldn't be cast the same way twice by the same person! Those differences from standard wand spells could make runic-casting spells a real challenge for Healers to counteract, because the arithmancy was often unique to every casting. The same wizard could hit three people with the same runic-casting spell and the arithmancy could be different for each instance. What was more, a lot of the time runic-casting spells could take so long for a Healer to work out a countermeasure for that the person could die before the countermeasure could be administered.
Wandless magic was legal, of course, but some of it had similar problems for Healers that runic-casting spells did. If someone could sense magic and thus feel out the shape of wand spells and shape their wandless magic into similar shapes, it wasn't so bad. But if someone was doing something like Chandra was doing, and experimenting with different shapes of magic, essentially creating entirely unique spells, that made the arithmancy hard to figure out. Not nearly as difficult to work out as runic-casting spells, but difficult.
Snape also reluctantly added, in all this information, that there really was no reason why any spell had to be used with any particular incantation. After all, a lot of people around the world had wands but were incapable of pronouncing Latin. Thus, wand magic was largely an association game where you associated a particular word with a particular spell or effect. The incantation used could alter the arithmancy of the spell slightly, but not enough to really make much of a difference.
From this information, Hypatia was able to extrapolate something useful enough to pass on to Chandra: that if he liked one of his wandless experimental spells enough, he could use runic-magic spell catchers to analyze the arithmancy of these spells, associate those spells with a sound, and make them into wand spells.
The only problem in that, of course, was Chandra's peculiar problem where he had to use emotions to cast wand spells. It was a vexing problem, one she'd been giving some thought to for a while, without being able to figure it out. So one night as Snape was escorting her back to Griffindor while she was under the invisibility cloak, she asked him about it.
When she was done explaining the problem and related thoughts, Snape nodded.
“Miss Williams,” he whispered, “I have no idea why your friend is having that problem, but I shall give it some thought. I will let you know if I think of anything. In the mean time, we are passing your destination. Good night.”
The Saturday after Mr. Crouch's appearance on the grounds, Hypatia was helping Chandra analyze some of his favorite experimental wandless spells so she could turn them into wand spells, when another project she'd been working on made a breakthrough.
One of the first nights back, Hypatia had read and memorized every page of the book written with the supposedly indecipherable code, had set up several constructs to working on the project, and then had let them get on with it while focusing herself on other things. And that Saturday while working with Chandra, the constructs announced to her that they were done. She was surprised it had taken so long, actually. She excused herself and withdrew Inside to look at the results.
Sure enough, they weren't lying or mistaken: they had arithmantically cracked the code, and now there were hundreds of pages of detailed notes and entries about the man's research trying to sacrifice other people's magic without hurting or killing them. Just skimming the results like that, she thought she spotted some of the flaws in his maths. But she'd look at it a bit more later; for now, she set twenty dicta-quills to copying out the decrypted results, each one copying out a specific one-twentieth of the book. This meant each quill only had to copy out fifty pages. At about ten pages an hour, it would only take them five hours to copy it all out.
Hypatia grinned at this. This coming Wednesday, she'd have something worth far more than 1000 galleons to sell to Gringott's. But then she paused, actually thinking about that, looking through the information now and then as she thought.
(No), she finally decided. This information was too dangerous in the wrong hands. Like the hands of a former Death Eater, or the kind of people Gringott's might sell it to. She decided to hide the book away when she had it transcribed – she'd have to, it was taking up too much memory in her head – and give Draco back the original, claiming she couldn't crack it. She'd say she didn't have access to a computer powerful enough to do it, which wasn't technically a lie. He didn't know she could do stuff like this in her head; he had no inkling just how good she was at maths.
Yes, she'd keep this to herself. And if anyone else cracked it, she'd have the information too, maybe she could come up with a counter just in case.
~
Adira went up to Dumbledore's office on Wednesday completely ignorant of any of this, and soon she was sitting at a familiar table and room, the very ones she'd met with the man from Quality Quidditch Supplies at during her second year. She waited a few minutes, bored, for Fangslaughter and his partner to arrive.
The door opened. “Your guests are here now,” Dumbledore said.
She turned her head to the side at his voice and all three of them came in and sat down. Hypatia took over control of the body but didn't change it, and glared at Dumbledore.
“I believe this does not involve you, Headmaster,” she said.
He looked into her eyes. She let him see the same thing she'd shown him when he was testing her occlumency.
“I apologize. I was just interested, too.”
“She's got a point,” Fangslaughter said. “This is between her and us. It's a business transaction. You need to leave.”
Dumbledore sighed, but got up and left the room.
She turned to Fangslaughter, who looked at her with suspicion.
“Did you get the owl I sent Sunday night?”
“Yes, we did. Did you not get ours, which said we agree that you could put it in book form?”
“I did. I just wanted to make sure someone else wasn't pretending to be you.”
“Excellent precaution.”
“So do you have the money for the full purchase?”
The goblin chuckled at her. “Straight to the point, I like your style. To answer your question, I have access to the money, which I will transfer to your account when I see the merchandise.”
From the pouch around her neck she pulled out a hand-bound book, quite small, and slid it over.
“This is my complete, detailed report on how I got past the wards in Sirius Black's flat, including the stupid mistakes I made to get caught.”
As the goblin and his human partner skimmed through the book, Fangslaughter looked annoyed.
“Parts of this book are blacked out.”
“That's a spell of my own design. I made sure to keep enough visible to get your interest, but I can't have you memorizing anything before the money is in my account. Once it is, I'll lift the spell.”
“You are a shrewd human indeed. Alright, 1000 galleons for the book, as promised. It seems more the adequately detailed, after all.”
“Agreed.”
“One thousand galleons it is,” he said, drawing up a contract and then starting a magical check made out to Adira Potter.
Taking the contract from him, she read it. It was simple enough. If she signed it, she'd be agreeing that the book was what they said it was, as well as agreeing to lift the censorship spell from it upon completion of the sale, and if there was a problem with it, that she could be fined.
“Looks good,” she said, and signed the contract.
Fangslaughter took it back and signed on behalf of Gringott's. The contract glowed, sealing the deal.
“Do you want any in cash?”
“I'll take a couple hundred in galleons, the rest can go straight to my account.”
He nodded, soon passing her a sack full of galleons. She counted it as he wrote out the rest of the check he'd started and handed it to her. It was made out correctly, as far as she could tell, and for the right amount. He had given her the right amount of galleons, too.
“Sign the back of the check, Miss Potter, and the money will transfer to your account.”
She moved aside to let Adira sign for her just in case the magic could tell the difference between her and Addy. As soon as the back of the check was signed, the check disappeared. A few minutes later, a scroll magically appeared in the same spot. She opened it and read it; it was basically a receipt saying the money had been transferred to her account, signed by a Gringott's employee and stamped with the official Gringott's seal.
Hypatia got out her wand and lifted the censorship spells from the book. They looked through the book again to verify it was done, and smiled. Hypatia smiled back, privately hoping they wouldn't be too angry when they'd read enough of the book to reveal that she'd only managed to do it because her brain was basically a human computer, and that even the likes of Dumbledore would probably be unable to do what she'd done without using a Muggle computer.
“It's been a pleasure doing business with you, Fangslaughter.” She got up, bowed while holding her hands out to her sides to show they had no weapons in them, and to everyone's surprise, she said something in the harsh, guttural language of Gobbledygook.
Once Fangslaughter recovered from the shock, he did the same bow back at her, saying something slightly different in Gobbledygook. Then the two of them left.
You know Gobbledygook? Alastair said incredulously.
(Only a little bit. The Goblin Nation's official greetings, goodbyes, a few similar things, and their responses.)
What happens when he finds out you're probably the only one who could do what you did to the wards?
(Oh, probably send me a Howler, if Goblins even do that. But if he tries to fine me, we can fight it easily and cheaply, if we want to; I never at any point said anything to indicate the information was worth a thousand galleons; he was the one who made that offer.)
Clever, that.
As it turned out the next day, Goblins do indeed send Howlers sometimes. He did at least have the decency to restrict the content of it to, “MISS POTTER! I HAVE ONLY THIS TO SAY: AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
Using Iliana's face, Hypatia grinned at his upset.
~
Their nerves mounted as June the tenth drew closer, but they were not as bad as those they'd felt before the first and second tasks. For one thing, they were confident that, this time, they'd done everything in their power to prepare for the task. For another, this was the final hurdle, and however well or badly they did, the tournament would at last be over, which would be an enormous relief.
Still, despite these growing nerves, Iliana managed to remember to do a few things she needed to do. She gave the Weasley twins 50 galleons, telling them a nice lie about having gotten the money from Bagman under threat of being hexed, which they accepted. Also, she cornered Neville and convinced him to come with her and Luna on the Hogsmeade visit June 5th to get him a new wand at the Hogsmeade branch of Ollivander's. He had put up a fuss, but she'd insisted rather vehemently, as well as made him realize that since it would technically be his first bought wand, it would be covered by the Ministry subsidy and thus only cost her seven galleons. She said he could pay her back if he wanted, too, which had sealed the deal.
So on Saturday the fifth, Iliana, Luna, and Neville rode down to Hogsmeade together. The man who worked at the Hogsmeade branch of Ollivander's looked like he was related to Mr. Ollivander, but was much easier to be around than Garrick Ollivander himself.
After Neville got his wand – thirteen inches, cherry wood with unicorn horn, Iliana and Luna went to a divination store so Al could buy some books on the subject as well as a tarot deck.
The rest of the visit that day was nice. Iliana and Luna ended up walking all around the village looking at all the different shops, Iliana got Luna a nice flower for her hair, they had lunch at a little cafe called Brews and Stews, then they found out the village had a little theater company where they showed plays when the Hogwarts students got to visit, so they took in a show there. The play was a version of some wizarding fairy tale Iliana wasn't familiar with. When it was over, they went to the bookstore and Iliana got a copy of Beedle the Bard's collection of wizarding fairy tales. They capped off the day with a trip to The Three Broomsticks.
That evening, they switched to Al and he read a book he'd gotten about tarot card divination. This reading included information about a three-card spread where one card represented the past, another the present, and the third represented the future. On a lark, he 'transferred his energy' to the deck as instructed, then shuffled his deck several times with a simple charm that the book said was great at randomizing things. Then he drew three cards, face down, and set the deck down before uncovering the cards, with the question he wanted answered in his mind: 'What is the situation with Voldemort?'
He turned over the first card, concerning the past. It was upside down, but it was the Empress. He looked up the reversed Empress in the book; it said, 'Empress reversed indicates neglect and a lack of attention where there should be nurturing. She can represent a mother who gives little affection and hardly any protection to her child. The child can also symbolize a project, a relationship, an enterprise, the home and a business that need attention but are instead being left unattended.'
Al blinked at this, confused by it. Something to think about later. For now, he turned over the next card – the one for the present, keeping the question in his mind. It was Death, but upside down again. That meant that something that should have come to a blessed end was still persisting. Well that was a pretty accurate description of Voldemort's current situation alright.
So he turned over the third card, the one for the future. It was the Tower. Given the possible meaning for that, and the context of the question, he figured it meant either disaster and/or 'sudden change that is caused by disruption and revelations that rock the foundation of the person, household, organization or even country, depending on the nature of the question.'
“Yeah, tell me the obvious why don't you,” he sniped at the cards. The card, he figured, was basically saying Voldemort would come back some day, which would indeed be a disaster.
After some thought, he decided to do some one-card draws to try to explain the first answer. Reshuffling the deck, he thought of the question, 'Who failed to nurture Voldemort in his past, which led to this situation?'
He got the Empress, upright this time. So Voldemort's mom was the one who didn't nurture him? Well the guy was an orphan. Or was he? If she was the one who failed him, maybe the card was saying she gave him up? He wondered if he could get an answer to that. The book said that yes/no questions were generally a bad idea leading only to confusion, but you could get around that by rewording the question. So he asked his deck 'How do you feel about the conclusion that Voldemort's mother abandoned him?'
The card he drew was the King of Swords. With its association with having clarity of thought, Al took this as a 'yes' answer.
He tried again, asking 'Did anyone else fail Voldemort in his past?' This time, he got the Hierophant reversed. Its meaning confused him at first, given the context: 'Hierophant reversed denotes prudence, silliness and hypocrisy. There are rules but no knowledge of why these rules are of importance. The ego is without guidance. There is an inflexibility in the system and in the people of the system. It can be an institution who control information and the leaders make themselves rich while the poor remain poor.'
“What, so he was failed by the system? Which system, though: the Muggle one or the magical one?”
Asking that question of the deck now, he got the Magician, which in context didn't require any more information as far as Al was concerned. Obviously it meant the magical system had failed him.
Al felt a strange urge to ask another question, 'Did anyone at Hogwarts fail Voldemort in his past?' To that one, he got the Emperor. A question about Hogwarts, and he'd gotten the card concerning the leader of an organization? That had to be Dumbledore. Dumbledore had failed young Tom Riddle somehow.
But while all that was interesting if true, it wasn't really important. What was more important was getting more information about the present and future. The problem was, he didn't think the Tarot would be very efficient at helping him find horcruxes. And really, he knew how to end Voldemort's hold on this earth already. So he'd have to ask something else. He'd ask clarification on the future. The three-card draw had said, basically, that there was a disaster in the future, involving Voldemort.
He decided on a slightly different kind of three-card draw, as outlined in the book. This time, he would be asking questions where the three cards would represent 'what will help you/what will hinder you/what is your unrealized potential.' He reshuffled and did the new draw, asking for advice on the quest to end Voldemort.
The first card he uncovered, for 'what will help you,' was...
“The Tower? What the hell? Not even reversed? A disaster or upheaval is going to help me? Weird.”
Al sighed and moved on to the next card, for 'what will hinder you.'
“Hmm... the Hermit, reversed. The book says... 'Hermit reversed indicates isolation and paranoia. There is no insight, rather there is a twisted and vicious side to the person. This also denotes someone who is very lonely and is ‘loosing’ their grip on reality due to the amount of time they spend by themselves.' So I shouldn't isolate myself or fall into paranoia, and make sure I'm spending enough time with others? Okay, so noted. Now on to 'what is my unrealized potential.'”
He turned over the card to reveal it was the King of Wands. The meaning of this card was long and involved, but basically meant his unrealized potential was leadership, problem solving, helping others get past their fear, doing what you think is right, and taking on challenges. There was also some warning against becoming arrogant or aggressive in the pursuit of your goals, against getting distracted by bigger and better things, and against ignoring other people. He wrote down everything he'd come up with so far, Hypatia's better memory helping him with a resigned sigh in its tone when he forgot stuff.
Of course, there was the slight issue of whether the deck was answering questions just for him, or for the whole collective, and whether or not the difference mattered, because either way, the last two cards were good advice. He was pretty sure the cards were answering for him, though, given the details of the King of Wands.
It was that Tower that confused him still. How was a disaster supposed to help him? And what questions could he ask to get clarification? He'd have to think on that for a few days and come back to it later.
Time for one final draw, on another subject. With the question 'What do I do concerning the Third Task' in his mind, he drew his cards.
For 'what will help you,' he got another strange card, the ten of swords. That card is about betrayal and loss, and accepting change. He sighed in annoyance, and went on. The second card, for 'what will hinder you,' he got the reversed three of pentacles, indicating a lack of teamwork could be a problem. Kind of obvious, so he went on. For 'what is my unrealized potential,' this time he got the nine of wands. In context, he supposed that meant he had an unrealized potential for persisting in the face of challenges and fighting against the odds. Possibly even of winning no matter how bad things got before the end.
After writing that all down, Alastair put the cards away, tired. He wasn't sure how good he was at this, how accurate his readings were, or if it was working at all. Some of the answers made sense, but he had no way to verify them, that he knew of. Still, some of the cards had given good advice, so he decided to try to verify his findings somehow. But for now, rest.
Endnote: Stopping short because it's been too long since the last chapter.
Chapter Forty-one: Into The Breech
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there. But some canon scenes are just too good to change much. There's a lot of those in this one, but don't skim through or you'll miss things.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of Alastair, Adira, Zoey, # Iliana (bold, italic, underlined, and between hashtags/pound signs.# , {Tier}, ~Chandra,~
% Mother AKA Avani Maznah, % and “Hypatia/Megan.”
Note 4: All hail Our Lady Of Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling!
Note 5: Sorry this took so long. Between my normal issues and working on some original fiction of my own, I've gotten behind on this one.
Note 6:
*FAYANORA*
In the days leading up to the third task, Alastair kept his tarot deck with them at all times, using it now and then to test its accuracy by asking questions that could be verified. He found he was getting accurate answers every time, something that surprised him. Finally, a form of divination that worked, that was worth something!
Another useful new thing was Chandra and Hypatia had turned some of Chandra's wandless experiments into wanded spells with incantations. Well, incantations after a fashion; Chandra had chosen to associate the spells with musical notes, something he had apparently done with some previously existing spells as well. What was more, apparently the wand movements weren't actually necessary either, so he didn't need to bother with those. The difference these things made for him for the speed of his casting was incredible. In a matter of weeks, he'd gone from the slowest caster of all of them to the fastest, able to toss a dozen spells off in seconds just by aiming his wand and singing a few bars of song.
On the morning of the third task, however, something bad happened; Rita Skeeter, not happy with exposing their history with the Dursleys to the public, had written another article about them, which suggested they were more insane than being a multiple would even account for. The article was about how “disturbed and dangerous” they were, how they were now hallucinating in classes, claiming their scar hurt, and revealing also their Parseltongue status.
Adira sighed. “Well, that happened,” she said. “Whatever. People will think what they'll think. I'm officially done giving a crap.”
“How did she know your scar hurt in Divination?” Ron asked. “There’s no way she was there, there’s no way she could’ve heard —”
“The window was open,” said Addy. “I opened it to breathe.”
“You were at the top of North Tower!” Hermione said. “Your voice couldn’t have carried all the way down to the grounds!”
“Well, you’re the one who’s supposed to be researching magical methods of bugging!” said Addy. “You tell me how she did it!”
“I’ve been trying!” said Hermione. “But I … but …”
An odd, dreamy expression suddenly came over Hermione’s face. She slowly raised a hand and ran her fingers through her hair.
“Are you all right?” said Ron, frowning at her.
“Yes,” said Hermione breathlessly. She ran her fingers through her hair again, and then held her hand up to her mouth, as though speaking into an invisible walkie-talkie. Addy and Ron stared at each other.
“I’ve had an idea,” Hermione said, gazing into space. “I think I know … because then no one would be able to see … even Moody … and she’d have been able to get onto the window ledge … but she’s not allowed … she’s definitely not allowed … I think we’ve got her! Just give me two seconds in the library — just to make sure!”
With that, Hermione seized her school bag and dashed out of the Great Hall.
“Oi!” Ron called after her. “We’ve got our History of Magic exam in ten minutes! Blimey,” he said, turning back to Addy, “she must really hate that Skeeter woman to risk missing the start of an exam. What’re you going to do in Lupin's class — read again?”
Exempt from the end-of-term tests as a Triwizard champion, Addy had been sitting in the back of every exam class so far, even Lupin's history class, looking up fresh hexes for the third task.
“Yes, I guess I---”
(HOLY SHIT!) came a shout in their head.
Jeez Louise, Hypatia, could you shout any louder? What's up?
(I think I know what Hermione figured out! Skeeter is an animagus! She becomes a beetle!)
Really?
(Yes, remember there was a beetle in Luna's hair after the Second Task? And that beetle that nearly got eaten by your snake during your first date with Luna?)
Yes! And it would explain why we didn't see her at the ice cream shop! She could tail us by hitching a ride on our clothes!
(And Draco was talking to her in his hand! He wouldn't mind she was doing it illegally.)
Adira was about to share all this with Ron when Professor McGonagall came walking alongside the Gryffindor table toward her.
“Potter, the champions are congregating in the chamber off the Hall after breakfast,” she said.
“But the task’s not till tonight!” said Addy, accidentally spilling scrambled eggs down her front, afraid she had mistaken the time.
“I’m aware of that, Potter,” she said. “The champions’ families are invited to watch the final task, you know. This is simply a chance for you to greet them.”
“Wait, when you say our families...”
“I mean just Sirius Black, Miss Potter, not to worry.”
“Oh good.”
“Adira, I’d better hurry,” Ron said. “I’m going to be late for Lupin's class. See you later.”
“You too, Ron!”
Addy quickly finished her breakfast and followed Fleur Delacour and Cedric Diggory as they crossed to the side chamber and entered with them, Krum close behind.
Cedric and his parents were just inside the door. Viktor Krum was over in a corner, conversing with his dark-haired mother and father in rapid Bulgarian. He had inherited his father’s hooked nose. On the other side of the room, Fleur was jabbering away in French to her mother. Fleur’s little sister, Gabrielle, was holding her mother’s hand. She waved at Adira, who waved back, grinning. Then she saw Sirius, and ran over to them to hug him.
“How are you, pup?” Sirius asked.
“A little nervous, but fine.”
“I read your most recent letter to me,” Sirius said. “So Al has mastered the tarot deck, then?”
“Well he hasn't tried any of the more complex spreads yet, just one card and three-card spreads, but so far so good.”
“Excellent! And Chandra's casting with music?” Sirius asked.
“Yeah, it's pretty cool,” Adira said. “Want me to see if I can get him to show you?”
“We'd better go onto the grounds for that,” Sirius said.
“Yeah, okay,” said Addy, and they made their way back toward the door into the Great Hall. As they passed Amos Diggory, he looked around at them.
“There you are, are you?” he said, looking Addy up and down. “Bet you’re not feeling quite as full of yourself now Cedric’s caught you up on points, are you?”
“What?” said Addy.
“Ignore him,” said Cedric in a low voice to her, frowning after his father. “He’s been angry ever since Rita Skeeter’s article about the Triwizard Tournament — you know, when she made out you were the only Hogwarts champion.”
“Didn’t bother to correct her, though, did she?” said Amos Diggory, loudly enough for Addy to hear as she started to walk out of the door with Mrs. Weasley and Bill. “Still … you’ll show her, Ced. Beaten her once before, haven’t you?”
“Rita Skeeter goes out of her way to cause trouble, Amos!” Sirius said angrily. “I would have thought you’d know that, working at the Ministry!”
Mr. Diggory looked as though he was going to say something angry, but his wife laid a hand on his arm, and he merely shrugged and turned away.
“Anyway, Mr. Diggory,” Adira said, “I tried multiple times telling her off. Al even lit her parchment on fire. It didn't do any good, except that over the past few months we've made our displeasure with her even more obvious, or hadn't you read her later article where she said I attacked her? That much was at least mostly true; she insulted a friend of mine, and Chandra magically pinned her to the ceiling in retribution.”
He turned back around, looking a little mollified, and a little embarrassed.
“Rita Skeeter is vile garbage and we can't stand her. I can't believe you'd take any of her tripe seriously! You've been putting up with her lies far longer than I have, you should have figured out by now she's a lying waste of space who puts just enough truth in her lies to make them believable.”
Mr. Diggory looked sheepish all of a sudden.
“Sorry, Adira,” he said, more sheepish than ever before.
She paused a few seconds before saying, “Apology accepted.” They shook hands, and Addy turned around toward Sirius. “Come on, I want to show off Chandra's new technique.”
Adira had a very enjoyable morning walking over the sunny grounds with Sirius, showing him the Beauxbatons carriage and the Durmstrang ship, and showing off Chandra's technique. They did that by having an actual dual with Sirius, who had been practicing to get back on form, and they soundly beat Sirius by bombarding him with more spells than he could duck or shield against, though it had taken several minutes; several minutes where Adira looked like she was a dancing and singing orchestra conductor, tossing out an impressive number of spells along the way. Afterward, it took the two of them 10 minutes with their wands to clean up the mess and restore the grounds they'd damaged during the duel.
After lunch in the Great Hall, the two of them whiled away the afternoon with a long walk around the castle, and then returned again to the Great Hall for the evening feast. Ludo Bagman and Cornelius Fudge had joined the staff table now. Bagman looked quite cheerful, but Cornelius Fudge, who was sitting next to Madame Maxime, looked stern and was not talking. Madame Maxime was concentrating on her plate, and Adira thought her eyes looked red. Hagrid kept glancing along the table at her.
There were more courses than usual, but Adira, who was starting to feel really nervous now, didn’t eat much. Instead, she was letting Al do some more tarot spreads of their situation. Some of the results they were getting were bizarre, and starting to add up to a direction that was getting disturbing. They didn't want to believe it, but when they pieced it together, they put the cards away and got up.
"Sirius, Remus, I have to check something, I'll be right back," she said, running off.
"Where are you going? The Third Task starts in 20 minutes!"
"I'll be there, going to my dorm really quick!" she called back.
Please don't let it be true, please don't let it be true, she kept thinking as she ran to her room and pulled out the Marauder's Map. Scanning it quickly, she saw Alastor Moody on the Map, where he always appeared to be on it, in his office. Most everyone else was in the Great Hall. She looked over by the library and saw... but he was dead! Wasn't he? But no, he could have run away and come back later. Why else would the name Barty Crouch be on the Map?
There was only one way to find out for sure. She put the Map away and hurried off under her invisibility cloak to check Moody's office. When she got there, she couldn't unlock the door. But Hypatia, sensing the importance of this, gave her some other spells to try, and finally she got into the office and began looking around for the thing she'd figured out would be important if she was right.
Soon enough, she found it. Getting it open was a little harder because it had seven locks, but with Hypatia's help, they soon had the trunk open to the right lock and looked down into it at Alastor Moody – the real Alastor Moody. His hair had plainly been cut quite a lot, without any concern for aesthetics. Which suggested the Polyjuice Potion.
She suddenly felt a wand at her back.
“So you figured it out, did you?” said the familiar voice of the fake Moody.
“Y-yes.”
“I worried you might, ever since I started seeing you with those tarot cards. Especially when I noticed your readings were incredibly accurate. Knew it was a matter of time. I was hoping you'd go down to the Third Task before you figured it out, though.”
“So you're going to kill us now? Now that we've found you out?”
He chuckled. “Oh no, Miss Potter. You're going to go to the Third Task. You will tell nobody what you've found out. You will offer no hint or clue that anything is amiss, that you're anything more than nervous for the Third Task for entirely normal reasons. You will not make eye contact with Snape or Dumbledore, either, or let them make eye contact with you. You will win the Tournament, touch the Triwizard Cup, which I have made into a Portkey. In so doing, you will go join my master to become an ingredient he needs for his return to power.”
“Why the Hell should I do any of that?”
“Because despite hoping I was wrong, I nonetheless anticipated your discovery of the truth. I don't know how you got past the locking spells I had on the door, but I prepared for this possibility all the same, given your track record. I think you'll find your little blond girlfriend, the Lovegood freak, will be missing from the crowd tonight. From what I know of her, I doubt anyone will notice her absence.”
“What have you done with Luna?!”
“She is alive and well. I stunned her from behind, and she's sleeping safely somewhere else. She'll be released safely when you touch the Triwizard Cup. There's no reason to keep her longer than that; she is no threat to my master, and you will not live to see the next sunrise, so by then she will no longer be useful as leverage. I give you my word of her safety, even though I doubt you'll believe me. But that's only if you cooperate. If you don't, even your tarot cards won't help you find her before she dies.”
They thought very fast, about whether they could find Luna before this unknown man could hurt her. But they had no idea where she was, what kind of danger she was in, or how this man was planning to hurt her if they didn't cooperate.
(This man is an idiot. Why doesn't he just modify our memory?)
Maybe he can't think of a cover story for why we rushed off. Shit, we should think of one, so Luna doesn't get hurt!
How about 'invisibility cloak'? It could be useful in the Third Task, and at no time was it forbidden. Also, we do have the cloak.
The wand at her back poked her.
“Fine, okay, I agree,” she said. “But if you hurt Luna, I will make you beg for the mercy of death.”
“That confident you'll survive, Potter? Sorry, but even with that dancing light show you put on earlier, my master will still kill you without a problem. Your spells are impressive looking, but they are weak and pathetic.”
“Are you going to keep yammering and make me late to the Task, or what?”
The wand lifted from her.
“Go then, Potter. But remember, one sign of trying to warn anyone, and I will kill her.”
“I swear on my magic I will go touch the Triwizard Cup and face Voldemort. Happy now?”
“Yes, quite. Then if you do something stupid, you lose both your little lover and your magic. Go now, hurry.”
She turned around. The fake Moody had a wand aimed at her still, but he had moved out of her way. She took off running, no longer caring about Filch catching her.
~
“There you are!” Sirius said as Adira ran up to the Quidditch pitch. “You're very nearly late. Where were you?”
“Had to get my invisibility cloak. Might be useful.”
“Well hurry along before they get too impatient. Be safe, pup.”
“Yes, Sirius,” she said. It wasn't even a lie; the fake Moody had only bound her to facing Voldemort, the terms of the binding said nothing about immediately fleeing the moment she saw him or surviving somehow. At least, that's how she hoped it worked.
“Feeling all right, uh... Adira?” Bagman asked as they went down the stone steps onto the grounds. “Confident?”
“Yes yes, let's just get on with this, okay?”
Bagman looked sympathetic, and turned away from her.
They walked onto the Quidditch field, which was now completely unrecognizable. A very large cube-shaped building was in the center, the inside of the structure visible, and a number of other screens up repeating the visuals for the sides of the cube the people in the stands couldn't otherwise see from where they were. There seemed to be four floors on the thing. The stands were full; the air was full of excited voices and the rumbling of feet as the hundreds of students filed into their seats. Adira scanned the stands for Luna, and saw no sign of her, which confirmed her fears.
The sky was a deep, clear blue now, and the first stars were starting to appear. Hagrid, Professor Moody, Professor McGonagall, and Professor Flitwick came walking into the stadium and approached Bagman and the champions. They were wearing large, red, luminous stars on their hats, all except Hagrid, who had his on the back of his moleskin vest.
“We are going to be patrolling the outside of the maze,” said Professor McGonagall to the champions. “If you get into difficulty, and wish to be rescued, send red sparks into the air, and one of us will come and get you, do you understand?”
The champions nodded, but Adira wondered how that would work. Did the teachers have a map of the maze, or some kind of shortcuts? Oh well, there wasn't time to ask, and she didn't trust herself not to spill the beans if she tried.
Bagman explained a bit more, about how the center of the maze was on the second floor, but there were places where they'd have to go to the third or even fourth floor to work their way there. When he was done, he asked if they understood. They all nodded.
“Off you go, then!” said Bagman brightly to the four patrollers.
“Good luck, Addy,” Hagrid whispered, and the four of them walked away in different directions, to station themselves around the maze. Bagman now pointed his wand at his throat, muttered, “Sonorus,” and his magically magnified voice echoed into the stands.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the third and final task of the Triwizard Tournament is about to begin! Let me remind you how the points currently stand! In first place, Viktor Krum of Durmstrang Institute with 90 points! Tied in second place with 78 points each are Adira Potter and Cedric Diggory, both of Hogwarts School! And in last place, Fleur Delacour of Beauxbatons Academy!”
Adira turned and saw the fake Moody. Employing her occlumency, she hid her feelings about him well. As she turned back, she saw Sirius and Remus cheering for her. She turned away, her stomach feeling horrible, and she was suddenly very sad, thinking she might be dead before tomorrow, that this might be the last time they saw her, the last time she saw them.
“So on my whistle, Mr. Krum!” said Bagman. “Three, two, one--”
He gave a short blast on his whistle, and Krum went forward into the weird maze building. After a minute or two's head start – she wasn't sure, time was being weird again – she heard the second whistle, and she and Cedric hurried forward into the maze.
The inside of the building looked like a normal corridor, except that there weren't any doors, just other corridors intersecting with each other. Very little sound from outside made its way inside, which made sense. She felt almost as though she were underwater again. She pulled out her wand, muttered, “Lumos,” and heard Cedric do the same just behind her.
After about fifty yards, they reached a fork. They looked at each other.
“See you,” she said, taking the left one. Cedric took the right.
Adira didn't go far, though. With some help from Hypatia, she cast a few spells on the corridor to impede Fleur's progress. She couldn't yet stop Krum from winning instead of her, nor Cedric, but if she could save Fleur, then she'd have done something good. She just hoped Fleur wouldn't be able to break through before Adira could touch the accursed Triwizard Cup.
With that done, Adira hurried down the left fork again. Her chosen path seemed completely deserted. She turned right, and hurried on, holding her wand high over her head, trying to see as far ahead as possible. Still, there was nothing in sight.
Bagman’s whistle blew in the distance for the third time. All of the champions were now inside. Addy hoped Fleur would later figure out that Addy had saved her life. And that it would work.
She kept looking behind herself. The old feeling that she was being watched was upon her, which probably meant the fake Moody was watching her. The maze was growing darker with every passing minute as the sky overhead deepened to navy. She reached a second fork.
“Point Me,” she whispered to her wand, holding it flat in her palm.
The wand spun around once and pointed toward her right, into solid wall. That way was north, and she knew that she needed to go northwest and up a couple floors or more for the center of the maze. The best she could do was to take the left fork and go right again as soon as possible.
The path ahead was empty too, and when Addy reached a right turn and took it, she again found her way unblocked. Down that corridor she found a staircase, and she climbed it, finding another unimpeded path. The lack of obstacles would have unnerved her even if she hadn't known their reason; knowing, or suspecting, that the fake Moody was responsible for it made it worse.
Then she heard movement right behind her. She held out her wand, ready to attack, but its beam fell only upon Cedric, who had just hurried out of a path on the right-hand side. Cedric looked severely shaken.
“A chimera!” he hissed. “A bloody, full-sized chimera! I barely got away with my life!”
He shook his head and dived out of sight before she could react, along another path. Keen to put plenty of distance between herself and a chimera, Addy hurried off again. Then, as she turned a corner, she saw a dementor gliding toward her. Twelve feet tall, its face hidden by its hood, its rotting, scabbed hands outstretched, it advanced, sensing its way blindly toward him. Addy could hear its rattling breath; she felt clammy coldness stealing over her, but knew what she had to do.
She pointed her wand and several of them tried to say the spell at the same time. Out of the wand came several patronuses, and the dementor tripped. They realized it was a boggart, and cast Riddikulus instead; the dementor was suddenly wearing robes that looked like they were made for a clown, or else made from a circus tent.
Addy used the Riddikulus spell again, and it vanished in a puff of smoke. The patronuses vanished as well, their focus having shifted away. She moved on, quickly and quietly as possible, listening hard, her wand held high once more.
Left … right … left again … She couldn't find a staircase up to the third level, or a door to the center, so she went downstairs instead and later went back upstairs. She did the Four-Point Spell and turned a few times on its information. Twice she found herself facing dead ends. She did the Four-Point Spell yet again and found that she was going too far east. She turned back, took a right turn, and saw an odd golden mist floating ahead of her.
(Allow me), Hypatia said in their head, taking over control of the body. She began analyzing the spell with her wand, to figure out how to get past it. It only took her a minute to work out the solution. She backed up and took the mist at a run, leaping right through it to the other side.
Flush with success, Hypatia laid a few trap spells on her side of the obstacle to slow down the others if they came this way, then continued on.
A moment later, a scream shattered the silence. They knew instantly that the scream had come from Fleur, and hoped the fake Moody hadn't hurt her too badly. She paused at a junction of two paths to wonder how the fake Moody was getting past whatever spells on the walls were showing all the Champions on the outside walls, before taking the right fork with a feeling of increasing unease, then a staircase up to the third floor.
She met nothing for ten minutes, but kept running into dead ends. Twice she took the same wrong turning. Finally, she found a new route and started to jog along it, her wandlight waving, making her shadow flicker and distort on the walls. Then she rounded another corner and found herself facing a chimera.
“Nope,” she said quietly, going back the other way before it noticed her. She paused just long enough to carve a quick rune into the floor and empowered it to repel anything that tried getting through. It was quick and dirty and wouldn't last long, but hopefully it would last long enough.
She took a left path and hit a dead end, a right, and hit another; forcing herself to stop, heart hammering, she performed the Four-Point Spell again, backtracked, and chose a path that would take her northwest.
Then the floor suddenly fell out from under her. She Summoned the ceiling so powerfully that she kept from falling down the trap door, and because she'd been running, her momentum carried her across to the other side. She paused to clutch her heart and catch her breath. Then she used her wand to carve a rune into the ceiling to make it resistant to summoning charms in case someone else came this way, before hurrying off again.
Addy had been hurrying along the new path for a few minutes, when she heard something in the path running parallel to her own that made her stop dead.
“What are you doing?” yelled Cedric’s voice. “What the hell d’you think you’re doing?”
And then Addy heard Krum’s voice.
“Crucio!”
The air was suddenly full of Cedric’s yells. The Potters were horrified. What the Hell was the fake Moody doing? How the Hell was he getting away with this? She tried a Reductor curse on the wall, and it barely made a dent. There was no way through the wall, then, so she focused on getting away. It would be more efficient for the fake Moody to merely disable or stun the other Champions, rather than killing them, and it would take too long to torture them into insanity. Cedric wouldn't be tortured too badly, she hoped. She kept moving, ignoring the others arguing with her.
After a couple wrong turns, she ended up right behind Krum, who was still torturing Cedric. Well that was fortuitous; she took the opportunity to Stun him in the back. He stopped dead in his tracks, fell forward, and lay motionless, face-down on the ground. Addy dashed over to Cedric, who had stopped twitching and was lying there panting, his hands over his face.
“Are you all right?” Addy said roughly, grabbing Cedric’s arm.
“Not really,” panted Cedric. “In pain. But I'll live. I don’t believe it! He crept up behind me. I heard him, I turned around, and he had his wand on me.”
“He was Imperiused,” she said. “Doubtless he took care of Fleur, too. I heard her scream earlier.”
“You sound certain he was Imperiused.”
She winced internally at her stupid slip-up. “Yes,” she said, thinking fast. “He was Imperiused by whoever entered me in this stupid Tournament. I am to die.”
Dammit, that was over-dramatic.
Cedric stood up, still shaking. “Yeah, that makes sense. I know you and Krum were friends. If you trust him, so do I. If you think he was Imperiused, then he was. Good thing he didn't see you there, or you'd be dead.”
“Probably,” she lied.
“Should we leave him here?” Cedric muttered.
“No,” Addy said. “Send up red sparks. It wasn't his fault. We don't want him eaten by that chimera.”
“Um, about that. There's a ceiling.”
She shrugged. “I dunno. Try it anyway. I mean, they've got some kind of live image of us on the screens, they should see it.”
“Then they saw him torturing me, if that's true. And what if whoever Imperiused him knocked out the picture somehow?”
“You raise an excellent point. Well, I know some runes to protect him from monsters, anyway. Mark the spot anyway, just in case.”
“Well okay,” Cedric said. He raised his wand and shot a shower of red sparks into the air, which hovered at the ceiling above Krum, marking the spot where he lay. Adira, at the same time, carved runes into the floor with her wand and put power in them.
“There. That should protect him from the chimera and similar monsters. It's the best I can do without more information.”
“Good,” Cedric said.
Adira and Cedric stood there in the darkness (lit only by the faint glow of the red sparks) for a moment, looking around them. Then Cedric said, “Well … I s’pose we’d better go on.”
“Yes,” she said.
The two of them proceeded up the dark path without speaking, Cedric turning right. Adira waited until he had his back turned and raised her wand to send a Stunner at his back. But something, some sixth sense, must have warned him, because he ducked.
“What are you doing? Are you Imperiused, too?” He had his wand pointed at her. She lowered her own wand, to try to defuse the tension.
“No. I was trying to save your life!”
“What, by hexing me in the back?”
“It was just a Stunner!”
“Right, stun me in the back so I can't win the Tournament. You know, I'm starting to wonder if Rita Skeeter was right about you. For all I know, you Imperiused Krum!”
“If I'd been dumb enough to use illegal dark magic on another Champion just to win some stupid contest that I would literally rather be tortured than be in, when there are spells showing us on giant screens just outside, I would've just let him carry on torturing you! But no, I stopped him.”
“To make yourself look like the hero?”
“Right before Stunning you in the back? What would that accomplish?”
Cedric paused, his wand wavering. “I... I honestly don't know.”
“If I could tell you more, I would. But I can't. I don't know what's going on, besides someone wanting me dead,” she said, though it wasn't entirely honest. Honestly, she was worried she'd said and done too much already, didn't know if the fake Moody or anyone else could see this, but she was trying nonetheless to adhere as much as possible to the terms of her (admittedly forced) oath to the fake Moody, so she had to assume she had an audience, despite evidence to the contrary. Stunning another Champion in the back when they'd thought they'd had a truce was a shitty thing to do, wouldn't look good if it was being displayed on the screens, but it wasn't like she really had much to lose on that front, given she'd likely be dead by the end of the night.
“I'm not going to let you stun me, Adira. Even if you're telling the truth—and I'm not convinced you are, because why attack me and Fleur if whoever it is just wants you dead? Um... where was I? Right; even if you're telling the truth, I'm not going to let you stun me. Even if whoever wants you dead was also the one attacking me and Fleur, which makes no sense. Because I'm going to win. Hufflepuff needs some glory, we've been the butt of jokes for too long.”
“If the stakes weren't life or death, Cedric, I would put the minimum amount of effort into this Task and let you win.”
“I'd like to believe that. Either way, I'm going, and you're not going to stop me.”
“Fine. Go then, if you're so sure you're safe. I'll even let you watch me walk away.”
Chandra, can you do wandless magic without pointing?
~I do not know, Gracious Host. What do you want me to attempt?~
Stop Cedric, for his own safety. Take him out of the game. I don't care how, as long as it breaks no laws or school rules.
~I shall attempt it.~
(No, I have a better idea), Hypatia said. (I can't guarantee it will work, since I've never attempted this before, but it's worth a shot.)
Do it then.
“Okay,” Cedric said, only a few seconds having passed. “So go already. I'll wait.”
Adira heard, inside her head, Hypatia very loudly 'shout' the incantation 'Legilimens,' at the same time she lifted the wand and pointed it at Cedric. A flood of images from Cedric's life entered her brain – Cedric with Cho at the Yule Ball, some scenes with him and his parents, Cedric watching the Quidditch Cup, Cedric running from the Death Eaters at the Cup. She didn't know what Hypatia was attempting, until she started feeling Hypatia doing something to the stream. It almost felt like she was trying to switch the direction of the spell to send Cedric images from her own mind, but she was struggling mightily with it.
Before Hypatia could make any real progress on that front, the connection was abruptly shattered by a stinging hex from Cedric. Then, despite the fact his head had to be hurting like Hell, Cedric started firing a bunch of other hexes at her. Chandra started singing the spell in their head for the ablative shield spell as Hypatia used his 'singing wand spells' technique to fire her own spells at Cedric.
Whether because of his doubtlessly aching head or being afraid by her dueling capabilities, Cedric stopped holding back, sending spells after her that included transfigurations and conjurations, but was backing up as he did. She soon figured out what was going on, and quickly bolted in the other direction before he could do the same first. She'd just have to hope they didn't run into one another again.
She used the Four-Point Spell to verify she was going the right way. Every dead end or staircase infuriated her and filled her with more panic. What if Cedric touched the Cup first? Could Voldemort use him instead? Would Luna be safe? Would the fake Moody accept that she'd tried her best? Would the oath she swore feel the same way?
Then, as she strode down a long, straight path, she saw movement once again, and her beam of wandlight hit an extraordinary creature, one which she had only seen in picture form, in her Monster Book of Monsters.
It was a sphinx. It had the body of an over-large lion: great clawed paws and a long yellowish tail ending in a brown tuft. Its head, however, was that of a woman. She turned her long, almond-shaped eyes upon Adira as she approached. She raised her wand, hesitating. She was not crouching as if to spring, but pacing from side to side of the path, blocking their progress. Then she spoke, in a deep, hoarse voice.
“You are very near your goal. The quickest way is past me. I will ask a riddle. Answer on your first guess — I let you pass. Answer wrongly — I attack. Remain silent — I will let you walk away from me unscathed.”
“Ask me your riddle then,” Hypatia said with Adira's voice. “I'm in a hurry.”
“First think of the person who lives in disguise,
Who deals in secrets and tells naught but lies.
Next, tell me what’s always the last thing to mend,
The middle of middle and end of the end?
And finally give me the sound often heard
During the search for a hard-to-find word.
Now string them together, and answer me this,
Which creature would you be unwilling to kiss?”
Hypatia glared at the sphinx. She could doubtless solve the riddle with enough time, but it wasn't her kind of riddle, unlike the math riddle in the Second Task, and she didn't know how far Cedric had gotten, and she couldn't afford to waste time. Still, she didn't know if she could fight a sphinx. She looked around, calculating trajectories and probabilities with one set of constructs while setting another to the riddle.
“A spider!” Zoey said with Adira's voice, less than a second after Hypatia had set a construct to the riddle.
Their stomach clenched in fretful anxiety, afraid she'd doomed them to fighting or running for their lives. But then the sphinx smiled broadly. She got up, stretched her front legs, and then moved aside for them to pass.
“Thanks,” Adira said as she ran through the gap.
She had to be close now, she had to be. … her wand was telling her she was bang on course; as long as she didn’t meet anything too horrible, she might have a chance.
Addy broke into a run. She had a choice of paths up ahead. “Point Me!” she whispered again to her wand, and it spun around and pointed her to the right-hand one. She dashed up this one and saw light ahead.
The Triwizard Cup was gleaming on a plinth a hundred yards away. Suddenly a dark figure hurtled out onto the path in front of her.
Cedric was going to get there first. Cedric was sprinting as fast as he could toward the cup, and Addy knew she would never catch up, Cedric was much taller, had much longer legs —
Then Addy saw something immense over a wall to Cedric's left, moving quickly along a path that intersected with his own; it was moving so fast Cedric was about to run into it, and Cedric, his eyes on the cup, had not seen it —
“Cedric!” Addy bellowed. “On your left!”
Despite their earlier fight, Cedric looked around just in time to hurl himself past the thing and avoid colliding with it, but in his haste, he tripped. She saw his wand fly out of his hand as a gigantic spider stepped into the path and began to bear down upon Cedric.
“ACCIO CEDRIC!” she shouted, and the boy flew through the air toward her.
The acromantula changed directions towards Addy, who immediately went into their new battle mode and sent a dozen stunners at the thing. Most of the stunners bounced off, but she kept it up, and finally some hit the soft underside of the beast, knocking it out. It came to a crashing halt inches from the two of them.
“Addy! Are you alright?”
“Yes. And you?”
“I hit the ground pretty hard when you Summoned me, but I don't think it's bleeding, just bruised. I don't think I broke anything.”
“Accio Cedric's wand,” she said, and his wand flew through the air. She was planning to catch it and Stun Cedric, but Cedric leaped into the air and caught it first.
“Cedric, please believe me when I say you don't want to touch that Cup,” she hissed just loud enough for him to hear, hoping the spells showing the Champions wouldn't be able to pick it up. “It's certain death for whoever touches it.”
“Still trying to win, despite your brief moment of weakness saving my life?”
“For FUCK'S SAKE,” she hissed. “It's a Hogwart's victory either way, and I'm already loaded; my parents left me millions of galleons, so I need the money like I need dragon pox. And I'm already world famous even though I detest it, so I need the fame like I need a hole in the head. We tried running away to avoid getting out of this stupid contest, when a vision warned us this would happen. Even SPLINCHED myself doing it! If it wasn't life or death, I'd have half-assed my way through this whole maze and let literally anyone else beat me to it! If it didn't know that touching that Cup would be certain death, I'd have just sat here and let you take the fucking thing already!”
Cedric looked uncertain again, looking between her and the Cup several times.
Fuck this, Al thought. “Accio Triwizard Cup!”
The Cup didn't move. But Cedric rounded on her.
“Nice try!”
“I only wanted to get this over with. I'm on a deadline, and you were wasting time dithering.”
Alastair saw Cedric's intentions in his eyes almost too late. He sent a Stunner at them, and Al made the body duck and hit the ground just in time to make it look like they'd been hit. He felt Cedric's emotions change as he turned to take the Cup, and Summoned Cedric again, the boy flying through the air as Al jumped up and bolted for the Cup, the body transforming to his form as he did. But the Summoning Charm was much weaker this time, and Cedric got up and followed them, the both of them grabbing the Cup at the same time.
Instantly, Al felt a jerk somewhere behind his navel. His feet had left the ground. He could not unclench the hand holding the Triwizard Cup; it was pulling him onward in a howl of wind and swirling color, Cedric at his side.
~
Al felt his feet slam into the ground. He immediately forced Zoey into control of the body and told her what to do. She grabbed Cedric's arm; he glowed, shrinking, and became a mouse. She let him go, and he sat there shaking.
“I told you this was life or death,” Al hissed at him. “Voldemort is on his way. Run!”
Cedric didn't need telling twice; with a squeak of surprise, he ran off into the tall grass of the unkempt cemetery. For now that he was able to look around, Chandra's shield up and their wand out for a fight, he saw they were in a cemetery. He thought about running himself, but he had vowed to face Voldemort, so he had to wait until he saw the evil git before he could run. He hoped that merely facing Voldemort's direction when the git appeared would count as 'facing' him, to the oath.
They had obviously traveled miles — perhaps hundreds of miles — for even the mountains surrounding the castle were gone. The black outline of a small church was visible beyond a large yew tree to their right. A hill rose above them to their left. Al could just make out the outline of a fine old house on the hillside. Al was still tense, ready for a battle, waiting for a direction to fire in.
Finally, he saw a figure in the distance. It was fuzzy and indistinct in the slight mist. They watched the figure drawing nearer, walking steadily toward them between the graves, waiting for it to get in range of their wand. They couldn’t make out a face, but from the way it was walking and holding its arms, he could tell that it was carrying something. Whoever it was, they were tall, and wearing a hooded cloak pulled up over their head to obscure their face. And — several paces nearer, the gap between them closing all the time — Al saw that the thing in the person’s arms looked like a baby … or was it merely a bundle of robes? He kept watching warily, unsure if this was a threat or not, though the odds were good it was a threat.
The figure stopped beside a towering marble headstone, only six feet from them. For a second, Al and the figure looked at one another.
And then, without warning, their scar exploded with pain. It was agony such as they had never felt in all their life; despite their best effort, their wand slipped from his fingers as he put his hands over his face; his knees buckled; he was on the ground and he could see nothing at all; his head was about to split open.
“Ooh, is wittle bitty baby Potter having a booboo head?” came a woman's voice, speaking in baby talk. Even in his pain, Al recognized it as the voice of the woman who had been enjoying being tortured... as well as the voice of one Bellatrix LeStrange, from one of those pensieve memories.
“Po wittle baby Potter an his wittle booboo head. But don't worry, bitty baby Potter, the pain will go away soon, because you'll be dead.” She laughed at him, and it reminded him of the Muggle stereotype of a witch's cackle.
Still holding her bundle, she used her wand to drag Al along toward the marble headstone. Al saw the name upon it flickering in the wandlight before he was forced around and slammed against it.
TOM RIDDLE
The cloaked woman was now conjuring tight cords around Al, tying him from neck to ankles to the headstone.
“You should feel honored, baby Potter,” she said as she worked. “You're going to help my master rise again, before he kills you. Baby Potter can die knowing his mommy sacrificed herself for nothing, now won't that be fun?”
“I'd tell you to burn in Hell,” Al said, “but from what I saw the other day, you'd probably just enjoy it. Tell me, do you orgasm when Moldyshorts tortures you?”
She backhanded him so hard he felt blood.
“How DARE you mock him? How dare you mangle the name of the greatest wizard to ever live?”
“I didn't say anything about Merlin, though.”
“IMPUDENT--”
“Bellatrix,” a high, cold voice said from the bundle in her arms, “he is stalling. Ignore him. His words are nothing but the mewling of a helpless child.”
“Of course, Master. Thank you for bringing me to my senses.”
“Yes. And Bella, remember, they have the Philosopher's Stone inside their worthless body somehow. You've been itching to torture someone, I suggest you try it on Potter.”
“You'll never get it,” Al said, as calmly as he could. “It has to be taken out willingly, by one of us – Zoey to be accurate. She's the only one who can do it, and we won't let you have it. There's too many of us. No matter how hard you try to torture us, we won't let you have it. We're legion, and willful. You'll end up torturing us into insanity like Frank and Alice Longbottom before we'll crack. And if that happens, not even Nicolas Flamel will be able to get it. Not even Dumbledore.”
Voldemort sighed.
“I can feel the truth in his words, Bella. Oh well, you shall have to wait. It was a long shot, I knew that, which is why we have the ritual ready to go instead. Let us do it now!”
Bellatrix rushed to obey. Once sure that she'd bound him so tightly to the headstone that he couldn’t move an inch, she drew a length of some black material from the inside of her cloak and stuffed it roughly into his mouth; then, without a word, she turned from Al and hurried away. Al couldn’t make a sound, nor could he see where Bellatrix had gone; he couldn’t turn his head to see beyond the headstone; he could see only what was right in front of him.
Al felt a furry little body brush his fingers, and knew somehow that it was Cedric. He used his limited finger mobility to push Cedric-the-mouse away, trying to communicate that the older boy should run and hide. Cedric tried chewing the ropes, and Al pushed him away again. A couple more times he had to do this before Cedric got the point and scampered off.
Some twenty feet away, Al saw their wand. He also realized she hadn't checked him for a spare wand. Not that this knowledge helped him; the spare was up his left sleeve, and he was tied very tight to the headstone. But he could do wandless magic, too.
With that thought, Chandra began singing inside their shared headspace. The ropes came away, and Al broke out. He grabbed his spare wand and ran at Bellatrix, who easily disarmed him with a spell. He kept running and grabbed her arm, not knowing what he was doing, he was so angry. She laughed at him, but suddenly the laughter turned to screams as her skin burned and blistered where he was grabbing her. He was so astonished himself he almost let go, but instead held on tighter, pouring more energy into the effort, even though he had no idea how this was possible.
“How is this possible?” Voldemort screeched. “You left your Muggle relatives years ago! HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?”
Bellatrix managed to get hold of a knife, and stabbed Al in the right arm so hard he yelped and let go of her. But by then, the damage was done; her right arm was burning up so badly that it wouldn't be there much longer. She made to cut it off, but Voldemort stopped her.
“NO! The ritual! Do the ritual first! You can sacrifice the ruined limb, the fire hasn't spread that far yet!”
She did stop in time, setting the knife aside and using her wand to tie Al back down, shoved the wad of cloth back into his mouth, hitting him with a Full Body Bind and a Confundus for good measure, though it was a weak one in her haste and it faded fast. She collected some of his blood in a glass vial and set it aside as well.
Struggling to work through the pain of her still-burning arm, she moved an enormous stone cauldron to the foot of the grave with her body instead of her wand. It was full of what seemed to be water — even in pain from his arm, Al could hear it slopping around — and it was larger than any cauldron Al had ever used; a great stone belly large enough for a full-grown man to sit in.
The thing inside the bundle of robes on the ground was stirring more persistently, as though it was trying to free itself. Now Bellatrix was busying herself at the bottom of the cauldron with a wand. Suddenly there were crackling flames beneath it. A large snake Al hadn't noticed before suddenly slithered away into the darkness.
The liquid in the cauldron seemed to heat very fast. The surface began not only to bubble, but to send out fiery sparks, as though it were on fire. Steam was thickening, blurring the outline of Bellatrix tending the fire. The movements beneath the robes became more agitated. And Al heard the high, cold voice again.
“Hurry!”
The whole surface of the water was alight with sparks now. It might have been encrusted with diamonds.
“It is ready, Master,” she said in a pained voice.
“Now …” said the cold voice.
Bellatrix pulled open the robes on the ground, revealing what was inside them, and Al let out a yell that was strangled in the wad of material blocking his mouth.
It was as though she had flipped over a stone and revealed something ugly, slimy, and blind — but worse, a hundred times worse. The thing Bellatrix had been carrying had the shape of a crouched human child, except that Al had never seen anything less like a child. It was hairless and scaly-looking, a dark, raw, reddish black. Its arms and legs were thin and feeble, and its face — no child alive ever had a face like that — flat and snakelike, with gleaming red eyes.
The thing seemed almost helpless; it raised its thin arms, put them around Bellatrix's neck, and she lifted it. As she did so, her hood fell down, and Al saw her face contorted in agony as she struggled to carry the creature to the rim of the cauldron. For one moment, Al saw the evil, flat face illuminated in the sparks dancing on the surface of the potion. And then Bellatrix lowered the creature into the cauldron; there was a hiss, and it vanished below the surface; Al heard its frail body hit the bottom with a soft thud.
Hope it drowns, he thought vehemently. His arm and head both hurt so badly he could no longer think well enough to try escape again.
Bellatrix was speaking. Her voice shook with pain as she did. She raised her wand, closed her eyes, and spoke into the night.
“Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!”
The surface of the grave at Al's feet cracked. Horrified, Al watched as a fine trickle of dust rose into the air at Bellatrix's command and fell softly into the cauldron. The diamond surface of the water broke and hissed; it sent sparks in all directions and turned a vivid, poisonous-looking blue.
Bellatrix pulled a long, thin, shining silver dagger from inside her robes. Despite being in pain, she smiled a little here.
“Flesh of the servant, willingly given, you will revive your master!”
She stretched her blackened right arm in front of her, gripped the dagger tight, and swung it up. He realized what she was about to do a second before it happened — he closed his eyes as tightly as he could, but he could not block the scream that pierced the night, that went through him as though he had been stabbed with the dagger too. Then there was a splash as her arm fell into the water. Al couldn’t stand to look … but the potion had turned a burning red; the light of it shone through his closed eyelids.
Bellatrix was hissing and gasping with agony.
“Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe!”
Al opened his eyes to see her use the blood she'd collected from him in the potion. The liquid within turned, instantly, a blinding white. Her job done, Bellatrix pulled a glass jar from her robes, taking something out of it to smear over her left hand, then smeared the stuff over her bleeding stump. Skin immediately grew over the exposed muscle and bone.
The cauldron was simmering, sending its diamond sparks in all directions, so blindingly bright that it turned all else to velvety blackness. Nothing happened.
Let it have drowned, Al thought, let it have gone wrong.
And then, suddenly, the sparks emanating from the cauldron were extinguished. A surge of white steam billowed thickly from the cauldron instead, obliterating everything in front of Al, so that he couldn’t see anything but vapor hanging in the air. It’s gone wrong, Adira thought … it’s drowned … please … please let it be dead.
But then, through the mist in front of him, he saw, with an icy surge of terror, the dark outline of a man, tall and skeletally thin, rising slowly from inside the cauldron.
“Robe me,” said the high, cold voice from behind the steam, and Bellatrix, no longer in pain, hurried forward to robe him with a delighted look of awe and wonder on her face, pulling them on one-handed over her master's head.
The thin man stepped out of the cauldron, staring at Al … and Al stared back into the face that had haunted their nightmares for three years. Whiter than a skull, with wide, livid scarlet eyes and a nose that was flat as a snake’s with slits for nostrils …
Lord Voldemort had risen again.
~
Voldemort looked away from Al and began examining his own body. His hands were like large, pale spiders; his long white fingers caressed his own chest, his arms, his face; the red eyes, whose pupils were slits, like a cat’s, gleamed still more brightly through the darkness. He held up his hands and flexed the fingers, his expression rapt and exultant. Al wanted to tell him to get a room with himself, but he didn't have the energy for sass yet.
Voldemort slipped one of those unnaturally long-fingered hands into a deep pocket and drew out a wand. He caressed it gently too.
“Thank you, Bella dear, for your hard work, dedication, and loyalty,” Voldemort said. “And, of course, for your sacrifice. You will be greatly rewarded.”
“The honor is all mine, my lord,” she said, bowing so low she could probably kiss his feet if she'd chosen to.
“I will reward you in a bit, Bella dear, but first, hold out your remaining arm for me, please.”
“Yes, Master,” she said, stepping forward to hold out her left arm.
Old snake-face rolled up the sleeve of her arm to reveal a vivid red mark on her arm, a miniature red version of the Dark Mark that had appeared in the sky last summer. Even in his poor state, Al made note of this fact.
“It is back,” he said softly, “they will all have noticed it … and now, we shall see … now we shall know…”
He pressed his long white forefinger to the brand on Bellatrix's arm.
The scar on Al's forehead seared with a sharp pain again, and Bellatrix's eyes rolled back in her head while her face looked ecstatic; Voldemort removed his fingers from her mark, and Al saw that it had turned jet black.
A look of cruel satisfaction on his face, Voldemort straightened up, threw back his head, and stared around at the dark graveyard.
“How many will be brave enough to return when they feel it?” he whispered, his gleaming red eyes fixed upon the stars. “And how many will be foolish enough to stay away?”
Oh for the love of Merlin, just kill me already and have done with it, Al thought. He really did not feel like listening to this man's evil monologue.
Voldemort began to pace up and down before Al and Bellatrix, his eyes sweeping the graveyard all the while. After a minute or so, he looked down at Al again, a cruel smile twisting his snakelike face.
“You stand, Harry Potter, upon the remains of my late father,” he hissed softly. “A Muggle and a fool … very like your dear mother. But they both had their uses, did they not? Your mother died to defend you as a child … and I killed my father, and see how useful he has proved himself, in death.”
Voldemort laughed again. Up and down he paced, looking all around him as he walked, and the snake continued to circle in the grass.
Al groaned. Was it really so hard to remember Adira's new name? Kill them, sure, but even mortal enemies deserved to have their gender respected. Al would honor Voldemort's gender if he decided to suddenly become a Dark Lady, why couldn't Snake-Face do him the same courtesy? Oh right, he was the wizard version of a Nazi; fascists hate anyone different from themselves. Al focused some of his Will and made the wad of material pop out of his mouth. It also broke the Body Bind, which was weak to begin with.
“My mother was a witch, you worthless sack of crap,” Al said.
“Crucio!” Voldemort cried, and Al felt every nerve in his body light up in agony briefly.
“That is but a small taste of what I will do to you later. Speak out of turn again and I will skip to the true torture earlier than planned!”
I'd rather be Crucioed than listen to you yammer on, Al thought but didn't say aloud.
Bellatrix got up and shoved the wad of cloth back into his mouth, before sitting down to listen to her master again.
“Anyway, where was I?” Voldemort asked. “Oh yes. You see that house upon the hillside, Potter? My father lived there. My mother, a witch who lived here in this village, fell in love with him. But he abandoned her when she told him what she was. … He didn’t like magic, my father.
Blah blah blah I have daddy issues, listen to me bitch and moan, Potter, about how bad I had it. A literal captive audience, Al thought.
Voldemort was still talking. Al rolled his eyes. “Yes, Potter, he left her and returned to his Muggle parents before I was even born, and she died giving birth to me, leaving me to be raised in a Muggle orphanage … but I vowed to find him … I revenged myself upon him, that fool who gave me his name … Tom Riddle.”
So I take it this means Bellatrix already knows, he thought. He glanced at Bellatrix. She was listening raptly, but looked unsurprised and unconcerned by the knowledge.
Still he paced, his red eyes darting from grave to grave.
“Listen to me, reliving family history,” he said quietly, “why, I am growing quite sentimental. … But look, Harry! My true family returns.”
The air was suddenly full of the swishing of cloaks, distracting him. Between graves, behind the yew tree, in every shadowy space, wizards were Apparating. All of them were hooded and masked. And one by one they moved forward … slowly, cautiously, as though they could hardly believe their eyes. Voldemort stood in silence, waiting for them. Then one of the Death Eaters fell to his knees, crawled toward Voldemort, and kissed the hem of his black robes.
“Master … Master …” he murmured. Al sighed heavily.
The Death Eaters behind him did the same; each of them approaching Voldemort on his knees and kissing his robes, before backing away and standing up, forming a silent circle, which enclosed Tom Riddle’s grave, Al, Voldemort, and Bellatrix.
Yet they left gaps in the circle, as though waiting for more people. Voldemort, however, did not seem to expect more. He looked around at the hooded faces, and though there was no wind, a rustling seemed to run around the circle, as though it had shivered.
“Welcome, Death Eaters,” said Voldemort quietly. “Thirteen years … thirteen years since last we met. Yet you answer my call as though it were yesterday. … We are still united under the Dark Mark, then! Or are we?”
He put back his terrible face and sniffed, his slit-like nostrils widening.
“I smell guilt,” he said. “There is a stench of guilt upon the air.”
Al suddenly noticed he wasn't bleeding anymore. As Voldemort kept yammering on, Hypatia setting a construct to listen to it all and remember in case any of it proved useful for escaping alive, they focused instead on what to do to get out of this situation alive.
Are there any rituals we could do, Hypatia?
(With as much as we've been through in the last hour or so? Bleeding and adrenaline crashes and stuff? Without any hope of getting a hair off that idiot's bald body? I can't think of a gods-damned thing. I mean sure, apparently we still somehow have that Mother's Protection business going on, no idea how that happened, but I'll bet that won't work now he's used our blood.)
How about sacrificing some of our own magic for something? Would that work?
(Possibly. Sacrificing all of one's magic for a certain amount of time is very powerful. It could be useful.)
What kind of thing might help us out here?
(Well the most efficient use of the ritual would be getting away. But we don't really know how to Apparate yet; we got splinched the one time we tried, and he might have wards up to prevent anyone Apparating away.)
I'd take that risk, to get away from here alive.
(Yes, but last time you only lost a foot. What if it's more serious next time? It could kill us before we could be put back together.)
Maybe a Patronus? We could get a message to Dumbledore and Sirius.
(That's a very conspicuous spell, the Patronus. And all it would take to knock out the Patronus would be to knock us out.)
What if we supercharge it with a ritual? I mean, if it's powered by a ritual, doesn't that mean it would keep going even if we got knocked out or died? Then at least people would know he was back.
There was a pause then, as she thought about it.
(Yes, the arithmancy checks out. Wand spells powered by ritual sacrifices have the kind of staying power you talked about. We'd have to sacrifice at least a month's worth of magic, though, to make it that far. I don't know how far away from Hogwarts we are, after all.)
Yeah, let's do that. Do the maths on it, Hypatia.
(Right. You lot think of other things too, while I sort that out. We'll need a distraction of some sort, keep these berks busy while I do the chanting and runes and other stuff necessary. Also, if you can come up with a getaway plan that doesn't require us to use any magic, that would be great. I'd prefer to live, if at all possible.)
% About that, Hypatia, % came the voice of Avani Maznah, AKA Mother, % I have some ideas about Patronuses you can use. Give the thing enough power, and it could be a useful weapon against humans. It's not common knowledge around here, but Patronuses can be empowered to destroy dementors. There's two ways of doing it, and of those two, one of them also works against mortal foes. %
(How the heck does that work?)
% Dementors are partially solid. Break through the solid robe and skin, and the light of a Patronus can kill a dementor. The power needed to break through that robe and skin gives it power against mortal foes, too. %
(Well holy crap. If the rest of you can make a long enough and good enough diversion, we might be in for a chance at surviving this.)
How long do you need?
(Two minutes at the very least. Three if you can swing it.)
Right then. Time to get to work.
Something was happening on the outside. Voldemort's speech had turned to them.
“Yes,” said Voldemort, a grin curling his lipless mouth as the eyes of the circle flashed in Al’s direction. “Harry Potter has kindly joined us for my rebirthing party. One might go so far as to call him my guest of honor.”
There was a silence. Then the Death Eater to the right of Bellatrix stepped forward, and Lucius Malfoy’s voice spoke from under the mask.
“Master, we crave to know … we beg you to tell us … how you have achieved this … this miracle … how you managed to return to us.”
“Ah, what a story it is, Lucius,” said Voldemort. “And it begins — and ends — with my young friend here.”
He walked lazily over to stand next to Al, so that the eyes of the whole circle were upon the two of them. The snake continued to circle.
“You know, of course, that they have called this boy my downfall?” Voldemort said softly, his red eyes upon Al, whose scar began to burn so fiercely that he almost screamed in agony. “You all know that on the night I lost my powers and my body, I tried to kill him. His mother died in the attempt to save him — and unwittingly provided him with a protection I admit I had not foreseen. I could not touch the boy.”
Voldemort raised one of his long white fingers and put it very close to Al's cheek.
“His mother left upon him the traces of her sacrifice. This is old magic, I should have remembered it, I was foolish to overlook it; but no matter. I can touch him now.”
Al felt the cold tip of the long white finger touch him, and thought his head would burst with the pain. Voldemort laughed softly in his ear, then took the finger away and continued addressing the Death Eaters.
“I miscalculated, my friends, I admit it. My curse was deflected by the woman’s foolish sacrifice, and it rebounded upon myself. Aaah … pain beyond pain, my friends; nothing could have prepared me for it. I was ripped from my body, I was less than spirit, less than the meanest ghost … but still, I was alive. What I was, even I do not know … I, who have gone further than anybody along the path that leads to immortality. You know my goal — to conquer death. And now, I was tested, and it appeared that one or more of my experiments had worked … for I had not been killed, though the curse should have done it. Nevertheless, I was as powerless as the weakest creature alive, and without the means to help myself … for I had no body, and every spell that might have helped me required the use of a wand.”
“Blah blah blah! Gods, you sure love the sound of your own voice,” Al said. He'd gotten the cloth out of his mouth again.
Voldemort laughed at him. “Willful little pestilence, I'll grant you that. Such cheek in the face of death. But hush, I was talking!”
Al felt a silencing charm being cast on his person. Since he was mostly still focused on thinking of a diversion, he didn't fight it.
“Now where was I? Oh yes, the years I spent bodiless and abandoned by my supposedly faithful followers. Yes, I remember only forcing myself, sleeplessly, endlessly, second by second, to exist. … I settled in a faraway place, in a forest, and I waited. … Surely, one of my faithful Death Eaters would try and find me … one of them would come and perform the magic I could not, to restore me to a body … but I waited in vain. …”
The shiver ran once more around the circle of listening Death Eaters. Voldemort let the silence spiral horribly before continuing. Al started to tune it out again, as it was plain this was going to take a long bloody time. What was it with megalomaniacs and loving the sound of their own voice so much?
Anyway, they had the beginnings of an idea forming for their diversion. It had been inspired by something in a list Hypatia had given them of the things she could do so far. Al thought it would be funny as Hell if they used something to make themselves look like a more powerful Dark Lord on the rise, something that would have an even greater impact on the assembled Death Eaters if the rest of their plan worked.
And getting away, well that was interesting. Hypatia had sensed some magic remaining in the Triwizard Cup, and Mother had identified it as a return trip on the portkey. Al didn't know why that was, but Hypatia casually mentioned one way to have gotten them here was to redirect an already-made Portkey to make a detour on the way to its original destination. Another option was that Voldemort wanted to surprise everyone at the Tournament by slaughtering as many of the spectators as possible, which with even the small numbers the assembled Death Eaters had would surely get lots of people killed before Dumbledore stepped in. But that was very risky to Voldemort's side, since he had to rebuild and there was no way to Apparate out of Hogwarts.
Also, you needed Ministry approval to cast the Portkey spell, and the Triwizard Cup would be so carefully guarded that the only way to cast the Portkey spell on it was to do so with Ministry approval. Likely that meant the Cup was intended to take the winner to the front of the maze building so everyone could see right away who'd won and celebrate the victory rather than waiting for the Champion to find their way back out of the maze. So Hypatia decided the more likely scenario was a hacked Portkey. Which meant that all they had to do was grab it, and it would take them to wherever the Portkey had been originally intended to go, which was most likely right to Dumbledore's feet, or nearly so.
So all they had to figure out was the exact details of the diversion, and a way to get the Portkey without being able to use magic.
Suddenly remembering Cedric, they wondered if they could get him to come back, and transform him back into a human. That would take care of both the diversion and getting the Portkey, if it worked and he didn't die in the process. But how to get his attention? With an exertion of Willpower that left them sweating and exhausted, they broke the Silencing Charm.
“Psst, Cedric?” Al stage-whispered out of the corner of his mouth as Voldemort kept rambling on, oblivious. “Cedric, can you hear me?”
He tried it a few more times before he felt a furry face against his finger.
“Good. I'll need a diversion later. And I'll need you to Summon the Triwizard Cup in such a way we can both grab it. It should take us home, don't ask how I know. Squeak twice if you understand me, three times if you don't.”
There came, just barely audible, the sound of two squeaks. Excellent.
“Free me now if you can, then attack Voldemort as soon as you're human,” Al whispered. “Understand?”
A pause, then two squeaks. Good. This might just work, if he could turn Cedric human before he was murdered. He felt Cedric chewing on the ropes. Al could have freed himself, but that could have drawn attention to them, and Voldemort and his stupid minions were still distracted by Voldemort's big Supervillain Monologue.
“...And here he is, the boy you all believed had been my downfall.”
Voldemort moved slowly forward and turned to face Al. He raised his wand.
“Crucio!”
It wasn't like the last time he'd hit them with that curse; that one was a love-tap by comparison. This time, it was pain beyond anything they'd ever experienced; their very bones were on fire; his head was surely splitting along his scar; his eyes were rolling madly in his head; he wanted it to end … to black out … to die …
And then it was gone. He was hanging limply in the ropes binding him to the headstone of Voldemort’s father, looking up into those bright red eyes through a kind of mist. The night was ringing with the sound of the Death Eaters’ laughter.
“You see, I think, how foolish it was to suppose that this boy could ever have been stronger than me,” said Voldemort. “But I want there to be no mistake in anybody’s mind. Harry Potter escaped me by a lucky chance. And I am now going to prove my power by killing him, here and now, in front of you all, when there is no Dumbledore to help him, and no mother to die for him. I will give him his chance. He will be allowed to fight, and you will be left in no doubt which of us is the stronger. Just a little longer, Nagini,” he whispered, and the snake glided away through the grass to where the Death Eaters stood watching.
“Now untie him, Bellatrix, and give him back his wand.”
“Which one, My Lord? He had two.”
“The first wand, I think. It seems to be his primary wand. We don't want any doubt of my superiority, Bella.”
She nodded and fetched the holly wand.
Well now that was foolish of him, Al thought. Why not just kill us while we're helpless? It's what I'd have done, if I were an evil, murderous narcissist with delusions of adequacy. He thanked his lucky stars Voldemort was apparently an overconfident moron. The fact that Voldemort was likely correct in his assessment didn't help Al's mood.
Bellatrix approached him warily, since the protection of his mother's blood would still work on her. She cut his ropes from a distance with her wand, and stepped back, then tossed the holly wand at him.
Now was the time for action. He wouldn't give Moldyshorts a single moment to react. He caught the wand midair, touched Cedric and poured a dispelling charm into the tiny mouse body, and said, “NOW!”
Cedric ran behind the gravestone in mid-transformation, Al joining him shortly. Cedric started shooting off a barrage of spells at Voldemort as Hypatia cut Al's arm afresh with a spell, using the blood to write runes all over her skin.
“Give us two minutes, preferably three if you can,” she told Cedric with Al's voice.
Cedric nodded, still casting spells at Voldemort, even though he looked terrified.
As she started drawing the runes on their skin, Voldemort screamed, “NO! Leave them to me! They're just children, they will die by my hand alone!”
Voldemort started shooting his own spells at the gravestone. The first spells hit is so hard the stone cracked in half and rained dust on the two of them. Chandra started singing inside their mind, causing the ablative shield to go around both of them and the gravestone. This weakened the shield spell, but it bought Hypatia more time, and spells could still be sent out from it, so Cedric kept firing whatever he could think of at Voldemort.
The Death Eaters weren't happy; they were worried for their master, and pacing; they wanted to help crush the impertinent whelps, but they had their orders. They watched in amazement as Voldemort's powerful spells broke layer after layer of the ablative shield, but even though Chandra and the others were feeling the strain, Chandra kept new layers of the shield coming as fast as Voldemort could break them. It helped that the few times he wasn't fast enough, Cedric's own shield or the remains of the gravestone blocked the incoming spells. As it was, Cedric had to take precious moments to repair the gravestone as well as he could so it didn't come crashing on top of their heads, but it wasn't very well done in his haste. If it broke again, he was prepared to shove it forward with a Banishing Charm, grab Al, and run like hell.
Hypatia finished the runes and began chanting, tuning out the noise of spells flying through the air in both directions, and the occasional sound of the gravestone getting blasted again. After a minute of chanting, the power around Al as Hypatia worked got high enough in intensity that it was beginning to make the hairs on the back of everyone's necks rise up.
“They're doing some kind of ritual! Stop them!” Voldemort shouted. “But don't kill them, that's for me to do!”
The Death Eaters now in the game, the spells flying at them intensified. Cedric started conjuring things to take as many of the hits as possible so Chandra's shield wouldn't be fully penetrated yet. He also kept an eye out for Death Eaters circling around behind them, as much as he could, but it was getting more difficult; a war on multiple fronts is never easy.
Trying to help Cedric, Chandra summoned his own wand to his hand and peppered his shield-song with bits of casting song, sending debris flying everywhere whenever dozens of his Reductors and other related spells would hit the ground, other gravestones, or the occasional unlucky Death Eater. Luckily, this did not seem to slow down Hypatia's chanting, the runes on their skin glowing brighter. Still, it was challenging with all of them trying to have the body doing three things at once, when those things were so energy-intensive. They were sweating so bad their eyes burned, since they couldn't spare even a second to wipe the sweat from their brow.
Finally, the myriad spells flying at them broke through Chandra's shield, and the gravestone exploded in Cedric's face, nearly stunning Chandra and the others from the force of the stone shrapnel cutting into their head. Al was almost certain they'd lost an ear, and they could no longer hear what Hypatia was chanting because their ears were ringing. Which meant she couldn't hear, either. But somehow she'd managed to keep chanting while barely pausing from having a bloody gravestone explode in her face. She bolted for another gravestone, still chanting as she did.
When they were in position again, Al looked back and saw Cedric was moving slowly, like he was barely conscious. Al Summoned Cedric again, the older boy's body dragging across the ground in a painful looking way, but finally Cedric was behind cover, too.
Fuck it, close enough, Al thought, Hypatia then saying the final word of the chant, the activating word. If Al understood this as well as he thought he did, they'd only have a second or two to do the next part. But they were all tired from fighting, and they thought they were getting like, adrenaline burnout or something, if that was possible.
Al felt Mother shove him aside as She took control.
“Expecto Patronum!” She shouted.
It felt like suddenly finding out he had been a water tower all his life, discovering this fact only by the feeling of suddenly being completely emptied, as literally all of their magic poured out of them, through the wand, and into the Patronus. The light from the Patronus was blinding; so blinding that all other spells stopped flying, because everyone was covering their eyes.
When the light dimmed a little, Al looked up and saw a remarkable sight. Mother's usual Patronus was a three-tailed fox, technically a kitsune. Her supercharged Patronus, however, was as big as Hagrid, humanoid, and was a nine-tailed kitsune. It looked human, aside from the nine tails and the fox ears, and it was completely nude, except for a quiver of arrows slung over its shoulder. It was also quite plainly a female, her breasts and... other bits... fully exposed.
As everyone gaped at it, the Patronus drew several arrows from her quiver and nocked one of them, the other two held in the same hand as she aimed for one of the Death Eaters. Al heard Voldemort and several other Death Eaters laugh, and he knew why; even he would have thought it absurd to summon a Patronus against mortal foes, before today. Even now, he wasn't sure this would work.
The Patronus loosed her arrow, and the laughing, masked Death Eater exploded into a cloud of red mist when the arrow hit him. There was a horrified silence for a moment as she nocked another arrow and took aim, which took only a second. Then there was screaming, as the Death Eaters ran as fast as they could, or tried to Apparate away, one of the latter ducking away just in time to keep his life but lose an arm. Even Voldemort was running away, leaving Bellatrix to save herself, but she was running in such a panic that she hadn't even noticed.
Another arrow missed its target entirely, and the stone angel it hit instead exploded, throwing small boulders and smaller rubble in every direction. Al and Cedric were only spared because one of the boulders bounced off the Patronus's knee. The Patronus barely noticed this, as she nocked another arrow.
But it was over, now; all the Death Eaters and Voldemort had vanished. The Patronus noticed this, too. She kept an arrow nocked for a little bit while she wandered around looking behind gravestones for stragglers. When she was certain they were all gone, she put the arrows back in her quiver and walked over to Al and Cedric, pausing on the way to pick up the Triwizard Cup and hold it over them, waiting for Al's signal.
“Cedric, you awake?” He said too loudly; he could barely hear himself speak even then, the ringing in his ears was so bad.
Cedric giggled with a faint note of hysteria. “Yes, Al, I'm awake. Don't think I didn't notice the glowing, 12-foot tall naked woman going around exploding Death Eaters with her arrows. Especially since I think I accidentally got a mouthful of that first bloke's brain.”
The Patronus was dimming rapidly, Al noticed, and wavering.
“Shut up and get ready to grab the Cup. No wait, grab me around the middle with one arm first, just in case. She's about to collapse, and I don't want to get knocked out before we go.”
“Alright, Al,” Cedric said, still sounding a little hysterical. “I'm ready.”
Al checked, and nodded. The Patronus dropped the Cup, then she vanished completely. Al caught the Cup, and instantly he and Cedric were yanked away from the carnage and flying off to safety.
Endnotes: MWAH HA HA HA! I've been planning that surprise about their mother's sacrifice still being in effect since before I finished their first year! It's been so HARD keeping that a secret all this time, but now it's out!!! *Evil laughter* *Dances an excited jig around a bonfire while playing a pan pipe*
Okay, now that I've celebrated, let me just say that the protection of their mother's blood still works because of their multiplicity; Adira (and the others, by extension) is protected (or was, before Voldy used their blood) because the Potters all have the same blood, and they each have their own soul, so even though it's all the same body, the fact they have multiple souls means that anywhere they call home is the “home where (their) mother's blood dwells.” I thought of this halfway through finishing their first year, and it was just so good an idea I kept it under my hat all this time! *More evil laughter*
(Despite having different souls, their having the same body and intertwined minds via the common memory means they're also tightly magically bound to one another. It might be possible for them to get their own bodies, but it would be very difficult. Would probably take a decade and tons of research into alchemy and so on, if it's even possible at all.)
I've also been planning the supercharged Patronus for a while now, too. I'd guess about six months? My friend Andrea helped me think of it. :) As weird as the idea may sound, I do believe it's much more believable than the deus ex machina that was the Priori Incantatem effect in canon. By the way, just to stem the tide of questions a little until the next chapter is out, the supercharged Patronus comes with a price: they sacrificed two months of magic to fuel it. They'll be out of commission, magic-wise, for most of the summer.
And yes, “nocked” and “nocking” are the correct spellings, in that context; I know, I checked.
The Mega-Patronus's technique of holding several arrows in the same hand as it nocked another arrow was a real technique back in the Middle Ages, that I first heard about on a YouTube video, by a man who had recreated the technique and related techniques and was demonstrating them. It's a pretty bad-ass video.
I've been worrying about this chapter so long, making so many changes in my notes, but finally it's done!
By the way, that stuff about sacrificing other people's magic was supposed to be a setup for this chapter, but I changed my mind. I might see if I can use it later. Not sure when, if ever. But I did realize some of the ritual magic was overpowered, and I've been working to fetter it since then.
Lastly, I fully admit to lifting Chandra's new “associating wand spells with music notes” technique from “The Long Game” by inwardtransience. But he'd already been doing some spells with music long before I read that story, and the idea fit so well I couldn't resist. In “The Long Game,” it's Luna who was using that technique. I may have them teach Luna the technique in this story. :)
That's all for now.
Chapter Forty-two: Victory and Defeat
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there. But some canon scenes are just too good to change much. There's a lot of those in this one, but don't skim through or you'll miss things.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of each of the people in the Potter collective, but the note was probably the cause of the messed up formatting somehow, so if you need a reminder of what formats mean who, you can go back to a previous chapter for the note.
Note 4: All hail Our Lady Of Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling!
Note 5: Sorry this took so long. Between my normal issues and working on some original fiction of my own, I've gotten behind on this one.
Note 6:
*FAYANORA*
Al felt Cedric and himself slam into the ground; his face was pressed into grass; the smell of it filled his nostrils. He had closed his eyes while the Portkey transported him, and he kept them closed now. He did not move. All the breath seemed to have been knocked out of him; his head was swimming so badly he felt as though the ground beneath him were swaying like the deck of a ship, his ears were still ringing, and he had a head injury for sure. To hold himself steady, he tightened his hold on the two things he was still clutching: the smooth, cold handle of the Tri-wizard Cup and Cedric's hand. He felt as though he would slide away into the blackness gathering at the edges of his brain if he let go of either of them. Shock and exhaustion kept him on the ground, breathing in the smell of the grass, waiting … waiting for someone to do something … something to happen … and all the while, his scar burned dully on his forehead.
Cedric forced his hand out of Al's hand, but Al just stayed where he was. A torrent of sound deafened and confused him; there were voices everywhere, footsteps, shouting. … He remained where he was, his face screwed up against the noise, as though it were a nightmare that would pass.
Then a pair of hands seized him roughly and turned him over.
“Alastair! Alastair!”
He opened his eyes.
He was looking up at the starry sky, and Albus Dumbledore was crouched over him. Cedric was next to Dumbledore, being helped up by Sirius. The dark shadows of a crowd of people pressed in around them, pushing nearer; Al felt the ground beneath his head reverberating with their footsteps.
They had come back to the edge of the maze. He could see the stands rising above him, the shapes of people moving in them, the stars above.
“He’s back,” Al whispered. “He’s back. Voldemort is back.”
“I know, Alastair; Cedric told me.”
“What’s going on? What’s happened?”
The face of Cornelius Fudge appeared upside down over Al; it looked nervous.
“Voldemort has returned, Cornelius. Alastair and Cedric both witnessed his return.”
“He's back? What's this rubbish? How could they have seen...? They were in the maze, Dumbledore!”
“The Triwizard Cup was a Portkey, Minister,” Cedric said. “Al tried warning me before we grabbed it, tried stopping me so I'd be safe. But I didn't listen. If Al hadn't turned me into a mouse the second we arrived in that graveyard, I'd probably be dead!”
Cornelius spluttered, confused.
“Dumbledore,” Al said before the minister could say anything, “where's Moody? He's an impostor, and he has Luna somewhere! He said she'd be safe if I went to the graveyard to face Voldemort, but I don't trust him. Where's Luna? Iliana is freaking out right now, she needs to know where Luna is!”
(Wait a minute, didn't we have the Map on us? He never took it away; I don't think he knew about it.)
At Hypatia's words, Al fumbled around in his robes and found the Marauder's Map, and he tried activating it right in front of Dumbledore and the Minister of Magic, but nothing happened. Of course nothing happened; he'd sacrificed two months of his magic!
Sirius, seeing what he was doing, put his wand to the Map, activated it, and said, “Find Luna Lovegood.”
Concentric circles surrounded her spot on the Map.
“Great,” Sirius said, “that means she's alive. And she's in that secret passage behind the mirror on the fourth floor.”
“I thought that caved in?” Al said, hysteria creeping into his voice.
“A skilled enough wizard could clear enough of the rubble to put a prisoner there,” Sirius said. “Wouldn't even take much skill, really. A student could do it.”
Before Al could say anything, Sirius next asked the Map to find Alastor Moody.
“He'll be in his office, I expect,” Al said. “Moody was an impostor. Look for Barty Crouch instead.”
“Barty-- Crouch, you say?” exclaimed the minister. “Bartemius Crouch? You dare accuse him of being a Death Eater, when he's proven over years--”
“Minister,” Dumbledore said, “Mr. Crouch had a son, did he not? With the same name, even?”
“What? Well, yes, but he died in Azkaban, years ago!”
“I rather suspect that if you dig up that grave, whoever is in there will not be Barty Crouch Junior.”
Fudge spluttered some more, looking lost for words.
Sirius, on the other hand, looked for Barty Crouch on the Map. The Map showed the man moving away from their location and toward the gates of the school.
“Sirius!” Dumbledore exclaimed.
“On it!” Sirius answered, turning into Padfoot and running off after the impostor.
Fudge gaped at Barty Crouch's spot on the Map. “What is this thing? How are you able to have a map of an Unplottable school?”
“I don't know how it works,” Al said.
“I could explain it, Minister,” Remus said. “It's a long explanation, but suffice it to say for now that the Map is tied into the school's wards, using their information to populate its display. So it's never wrong. But we never did figure out how to get Junior, Senior, or other such things to display on the Map.”
Fudge goggled at Remus. “You realize I'll have to have more evidence of that statement than the word of a werewolf, Mr. Lupin?”
Lupin smiled. “Sirius will be able to confirm what I've said. He's the only living person left besides myself who could tell you how it works.”
Fudge still looked skeptical. After all, exonerated or not, Sirius had once escaped from Azkaban.
Al looked over at Cedric to see how he was doing, and saw that his parents were hugging him, looking relieved to see he was alive.
Dumbledore – finally noticing Al was still on the ground – bent down, and with extraordinary strength for a man so old and thin, raised him from the ground and set him on his feet. Al swayed. His head was pounding, his ears were still ringing, and one side of his head was caked in drying blood.
Noticing Al's wounds himself, Fudge said, “He looks like he should go to the Hospital Wing, Dumbledore; he's injured. Diggory, too.”
“Not just yet, Minister. Their wounds are not serious, I think, and I'd prefer to ease Mr. Potter's mind in regard to Miss Lovegood first. Remus, you should go find her.”
“Right away, sir,” Remus said, running off.
“While we wait for Sirius and Remus, Al, I think we should go to my office so you can tell me more of what happened. Cedric, if you could come as well, you're the only other witness we have.”
“Yes, yes,” Fudge said. “That sounds a good idea, let's hear their story. I'd like to know what they think happened before they have a chance to get their stories straight with each other. If they haven't already, that is.”
Ignoring Fudge, Dumbledore escorted Al, Cedric, and the Diggory parents toward his office. A load of other people tried crowding them as they left, though, and Mr. Diggory volunteered to keep them at bay. Dumbledore thanked him and guided them on toward the school.
They were almost to the door of the castle when Sirius came running back up to Dumbledore, looking the worse for wear, Hagrid coming up behind him. Sirius's robes were smoking like he'd been on fire, his face was battered, and his hair was also singed. One arm had a bleeding cut on it.
“What happened, Sirius? Did you catch him?”
“No, more's the pity. That bugger can duel better than anyone I've seen besides the real Moody and yourself. Hagrid here saw most of it on his way to help me, but the bugger got away before he was in range to do anything to help.”
“Aye, Dumbledore,” Hagrid said. “I reckon it'll take an hour or so to fix the damage. Twere a short fight, but an awful nasty one fer all tha'.”
“I don't know how he got so good,” Sirius complained. “I know I'm rusty, but ye gods, I have been getting enough practice to where I should've done better than that.”
“And what did he look like? Did he look like Alastor Moody?” Dumbledore asked.
“Nope. Polyjuice must've worn off. He probably let it wear off in case he needed to make a quick escape; Moody isn't exactly very quick on his feet anymore. Anyway, the man I saw looks different, older, but it was Crouch Junior alright. I remember what he looked like from my time in Azkaban.”
Fudge tapped Sirius on the shoulder and the two of them fell back to talk, trailing behind the rest of them. Al heard enough snatches of conversation to know Sirius was explaining the Marauder's Map in detail to Fudge.
Professor Snape turned up as they were entering the school.
“Headmaster, I have something urgent I need to tell you,” Snape said. “Something private.”
“I believe I know what you are going to say, Severus. It can wait. For now, Voldemort is back in a new body, alive and dangerous as ever. Young Mr. Potter and young Mr. Diggory here are witnesses.”
Snape nodded, scowling at Al. “May I join you, Headmaster? I wish to know how Mr. Potter managed to get in trouble this time, when he was supposed to be in that maze. I have a bet with Minerva about it, and I wish to know if I've won.”
“You may come, Severus, if you can keep your snide comments to yourself for now.”
Snape nodded again, and fell in behind them, Sirius glaring at him now and then all the way to the gargoyle outside Dumbledore's office.
“You're not going to interrogate Al, are you, Dumbledore?” Sirius asked. “He's just been through a huge ordeal.”
“We must know the full story as soon as possible. The faster we know, the faster we can act.”
Sirius sighed, and nodded.
When they reached the stone gargoyle and finished speaking, Dumbledore gave the password, and it sprang aside.
“If you don't mind, Dumbledore,” Fudge said, “I'm going to interrogate Diggory separately, to see if their stories match up. I'll expect you to fill me in, of course, on Potter's version.”
“Of course, Minister. Severus, if you could join the Minister to ensure everything is right and proper, I will fill you in later as well.”
Snape scowled, but nodded, and the two of them went somewhere else. Hagrid stayed behind as well, not wanting to crowd the office. The rest of them – Sirius, Dumbledore, and Al – went up the moving spiral staircase to the door of Dumbledore's office.
They entered Dumbledore's office. Dumbledore made sure they all had enough chairs. Al sat down on the nearest one, a kind of numbness and a sense of complete unreality were upon him, but he did not care; he was even glad of it. He didn’t want to have to think about anything that had happened since he had first touched the Triwizard Cup. He didn’t want to have to examine the memories, fresh and sharp as photographs, which kept flashing across his mind. Mad-Eye Moody, inside the trunk. The fake Moody pointing a wand at him. Bellatrix cutting off her hand and the rest of her arm. Voldemort, rising from the steaming cauldron.
When Al sat down, Fawkes the phoenix fluttered over to him and landed at his side.
“ ’Lo, Fawkes,” said Al quietly. He stroked the phoenix’s beautiful scarlet-and-gold plumage. Fawkes blinked peacefully up at him. There was something comforting about his warm weight.
Dumbledore stopped talking. He sat down opposite Al, behind his desk. He was looking at Al, who avoided his eyes. Dumbledore was going to question him. He was going to make Al relive everything.
They were interrupted before they could even begin when Remus and Luna came in. Luna looked scared and confused, but unharmed. Al ran over to her, hugging her.
“Hello to you too, Al,” she said, her fear turning to amusement. “Or is that Iliana?”
“It's all of us. Iliana is your girlfriend, but the rest of us are your friends; we all worried about you.”
“I'd like to say I worried about you as well, but by the time Mr. Lupin woke me up, it was all over. But now I see you're wounded, so I suppose that means I can worry. Is your ear missing?”
“I think so. I hope Madam Pomfrey can fix it.”
She blinked at him. “Won't it fix itself when you transform again?”
Al sighed. “I suppose it will, in two months when I get my magic back.”
There were a number of shocked noises and voices about this pronouncement.
“What do you mean by that, Al?” Sirius asked. “Why would your magic be gone?”
“Yes, what happened? It sounds serious,” Remus said.
“It's a long story, everyone. Please try to be patient with me.”
Al sighed deeply. They might as well get it over with. He began, then, to tell them everything, as he spoke, visions of everything that had passed that night seemed to rise before his eyes; he saw the sparkling surface of the potion that had revived Voldemort; he saw the Death Eaters Apparating between the graves around them; he saw the furious, pitched battle as Hypatia prepared her ritual; he saw Mother's supercharged Patronus killing that Death Eater and maiming another.
Once or twice, Sirius made a noise as though about to say something, his hand still tight on Al's shoulder, but Dumbledore raised his hand to stop him, and Al was glad of this, because it was easier to keep going now he had started. It was even a relief; he felt almost as though something poisonous were being extracted from him. It was costing him every bit of determination he had to keep talking, yet he sensed that once he had finished, he would feel better. He also had help from the others in his head with him, who would take over when he stopped for whatever reason.
Luna, Sirius and the others gasped when he revealed Bellatrix LeStrange was alive, and had helped Voldemort tonight. Several people gaped in astonishment that the power of his mother's protection hadn't broken like they'd all thought it had when he'd stopped staying with the Dursleys. Al himself was surprised at a detail he'd barely noticed before, but which Hypatia had recorded, about Voldemort giving Bellatrix a super-strong silver arm to replace the one she'd lost. And when he told of her stabbing him in the arm and later using the blood in the ritual to revive Voldemort, Sirius let out a vehement exclamation, Luna squeaked loudly in alarm, and Dumbledore stood up so quickly that Al started. Dumbledore walked around the desk and told Al to stretch out his arm. Al showed them all the place where his robes were torn and the cut beneath them.
“He said my blood would make him stronger than if he’d used someone else’s,” Al said. “Not sure why he thought that, since he hadn't known Mum's protection was still going, but maybe it was something symbolic for him. But once he knew, he said the protection my — my mother left in me — he’d have it too. And he was right — he could touch me without hurting himself, he touched my face. Even though I'd burned Bellatrix's arm nearly all the way off just minutes before.”
For a fleeting instant, Al and the others thought they saw a gleam of something like triumph in Dumbledore’s eyes. But next second, they were sure they had imagined it, for when Dumbledore had returned to his seat behind the desk, he looked as old and weary as they had ever seen him. Hypatia wondered to the others if it had something to do with the horcruxes.
“Very well,” Dumbledore said, sitting down again. “Voldemort has overcome that particular barrier. Please continue, Alastair.”
Al went on; he explained how Voldemort had emerged from the cauldron, and told them all Hypatia's recording could remember of Voldemort’s speech to the Death Eaters, pausing a moment as he looked at Luna before deciding he could trust her and continuing, explaining the part where they'd been largely spacing out the man's incessant nattering while a non-sentient construct of Hypatia's had been dutifully recording everything. He paused briefly to explain Hypatia to Luna, and swear her to secrecy about the subject, before going on. Then he told how Voldemort had untied him, returned his wand to him, intending for them to duel. He explained about the diversion Cedric supplied, the pitched battle they'd barely survived as Hypatia prepared the ritual, and all about the supercharged Patronus and the mayhem it caused, scattering the surviving Death Eaters to the wind. And then, of course, how the Patronus had dropped the Portkey into Al's arms so they could escape.
“That's a Hell of a night you had, pup,” Sirius said when he was finished.
Al suddenly became aware that Fawkes was moving. It was resting its beautiful head against Al's arm and thick, pearly tears were falling from its eyes onto the wound. The pain vanished. The skin mended.
Dumbledore looked at Al with approval. “Alastair, you and the others in your collective have shown bravery beyond anything I could have expected of you tonight. You have shown bravery equal to those who died fighting Voldemort at the height of his powers. You have shouldered a grown wizard’s burden and found yourself equal to it — and you have now given us all that we have a right to expect. You will come with me to the hospital wing. I do not want you returning to the dormitory tonight. A Sleeping Potion, and some peace … Sirius, would you like to stay with him? And you, Remus? Miss Lovegood?”
Sirius nodded and stood up. Remus joined him, as did Luna. The five of them went downstairs and on to the hospital wing.
When Dumbledore pushed open the door, Al saw Mrs. Weasley, Bill, Ron, and Hermione grouped around a harassed-looking Madam Pomfrey. They had apparently come to watch the Third Task too, and now appeared to be demanding to know where Al was and what had happened to him. All of them whipped around as Al, Dumbledore, Sirius, Remus, and Luna entered, and Mrs. Weasley let out a kind of muffled scream at the sight of Al's head.
“Adira! Er, Alastair! You look horrible!” she said, clearly worried.
She started to hurry toward him, but Dumbledore moved between them.
“Molly,” he said, holding up a hand, “please listen to me for a moment. Alastair has been through a terrible ordeal tonight. He has just had to relive it for me. What he needs now is sleep, and peace, and quiet. If he would like you all to stay with him,” he added, looking around at Ron, Hermione, Luna, Sirius, Remus, and Bill too, “you may do so. But I do not want you questioning him until he is ready to answer, and certainly not this evening.”
Mrs. Weasley nodded. She was very white. She rounded on Ron, Hermione, and Bill as though they were being noisy, and hissed, “Did you hear? He needs quiet!”
“Headmaster,” said Madam Pomfrey, “this is far too many people to be visiting a patient at one time. I already have Mr. and Mrs. Diggory here with their son. Some of these people will have to leave.”
“I'll go,” Remus said. “Are any other volunteers?”
“I'll go too,” Bill said.
“At least one more will have to go, I must insist on it, Headmaster.”
Mrs. Weasley looked at the others, then sighed. “I'll go too, much as I don't want to. Alastair will have his godfather, and I can't say no to poor dear Luna. Ron, you and Hermione should come as well.”
There was an instant outcry about this from the two of them, and Mrs. Weasley argued for a bit and then threw up her hands, leaving Madam Pomfrey to sort it out, exiting the room muttering.
Al felt an inexpressible sense of gratitude to Dumbledore for asking the others not to question him. It wasn’t as though he didn’t want them there; but the thought of explaining it all over again, the idea of reliving it one more time, was more than he could stand.
“I can save some space, Poppy, by turning into Padfoot. My dog form,” he explained at her confused expression.
“I suppose so,” she said.
Sirius nodded and shrunk a little into the very large dog that was Padfoot. He jumped up on Al's bed and curled up at Al's feet.
“I will be back to see you as soon as I have met with Fudge, Alastair,” said Dumbledore. “I would like you to remain here tomorrow until I have spoken to the school.” He left.
As Madam Pomfrey led Al to a nearby bed, he caught sight of the real Moody lying motionless in a bed at the far end of the room.
“Is he okay?” Al asked.
“He’ll be fine,” said Madam Pomfrey. “It's you I'm worried about. This is a nasty cut on your head, and there's possible head trauma I'll have to fix before you can go to sleep. As well as that missing ear to regrow, if possible.”
“And Cedric?”
“She's keeping me overnight for observation, just in case,” Cedric said. “That was a nasty fight we were in. It's a miracle we survived.”
“Right,” Al said, waiting as she tended to him.
“Hmm,” she said after a bit. “This is odd.”
“What's--- oh wait, I think I know what's odd, Madam Pomfrey. I, uh... it's a long story, but suffice it to say I won't be able to do a lick of magic for the next two months.”
“I... see,” she said, her eyes narrowed at him. “Well that does explain these readings, I suppose. I'll heal you up, then. Good to know, though; some potions use a person's magic to fully work, but we shouldn't need any of those.”
She finished healing his wounds, including the head trauma and regrowing the missing ear since it hadn't been removed by dark magic, and soon he was getting into some pajamas and taking a potion for dreamless sleep. Al took the goblet and drank a few mouthfuls. He felt himself becoming drowsy at once. Everything around him became hazy; the lamps around the hospital wing seemed to be winking at him in a friendly way through the screen around his bed; his body felt as though it was sinking deeper into the warmth of the feather mattress. Before he could finish the potion, before he could say another word, his exhaustion had carried him off to sleep.
~
Al woke up, so warm, so very sleepy, that he didn’t open his eyes, wanting to drop off again. The room was still dimly lit; he was sure it was still nighttime and had a feeling that he couldn’t have been asleep very long. He felt Sirius still curled up at his feet. He also felt Luna laying in the bed beside him, but she was above the covers and he was under them.
Then he heard whispering around him.
“They’ll wake him if they don’t shut up!”
“What are they shouting about? Nothing else can have happened, can it?”
Al opened his eyes blearily. He could see Mr. and Mrs. Diggory close by, Cedric's bed being next to his own. Mr. Diggory was on his feet. The real Moody was still asleep in a bed on one side of him.
“That’s Fudge’s voice,” he whispered. “And that’s Minerva McGonagall’s, isn’t it? But what are they arguing about?”
Now Al and the others could hear them too: people shouting and running toward the hospital wing.
“Absolutely not!” yelled an irate Fudge. “I will not waste valuable Ministry time and resources on a wild diricawl hunt! You have no evidence!”
“We have two eyewitnesses to his return, Minister! And two eyewitnesses to Crouch Junior being alive still!”
“HA!” Fudge shouted derisively. “The word of a fourteen-year-old lunatic and the victim of a Confundus Charm! That is as good as no evidence! And as to Black and Hagrid, that's just as bad! Hagrid is a continual trouble-maker who shouldn't even be a teacher because of his monster fancy and his halfbreed status, and Black was an illegal animagus who escaped from prison! The fact he was innocent of being a Death Eater and killing those Muggles means nothing! He's still in Dumbledore's pocket! Without Dumbledore, Black would have been Kissed!”
Al heard the hospital doors burst open. Unnoticed by any of the people around his bed, all of whom were staring at the door as Fudge barged in, Al sat up and glared in Fudge's general direction. Sirius was awake too; he leaped off the bed and transformed back into his human form. He saw Al was awake and pulled the screens back so Al could see. Luna was awake as well, sitting on the side of his bed, watching everything placidly, as thought it were a television drama.
Fudge came striding up the ward. Professors McGonagall and Snape were at his heels.
“Where’s Dumbledore?” Fudge demanded of Sirius.
“He’s not here,” said Sirius angrily. “This is a hospital wing, Minister, don’t you think you’d do better to —”
But the door opened, and Dumbledore came sweeping up the ward.
“What has happened?” said Dumbledore sharply, looking from Fudge to Professor McGonagall. “Why are you disturbing these people?”
“The Minister refuses to deploy resources to deal with the You-Know-Who crisis, nor to look for Crouch Junior,” McGonagall said. “He seems to think the whole thing is some kind of mad conspiracy against him, says we have no real evidence, and you're vying for the position of Minister.”
Dumbledore regarded Fudge coolly. “Minister, I have never wanted your position. If I had, I could easily have obtained it after Minister Bagnold retired. We have no reason to lie about these things. Voldemort is back, and we have two eyewitnesses to his return, in Mr. Potter and young Mr. Diggory.”
“You believe their mad tale, do you?”
“It is not a mad tale, Minister. It makes sense. It explains most if not all of the unusual occurrences of the last year, including the problem with the Tournament. And anyway, did you not interrogate Mr. Diggory yourself, to make sure the stories matched up?”
Fudge snorted derisively. “All that proves is Potter planted the mad story in Diggory's head before their sudden appearance from the Maze. And this tosh about the TriWizard cup being a Portkey, there's no evidence of that! And by Diggory's own admission, he and Potter fought on several occasions within the Maze. You'd have me believe one of the voices in Potter's head has been practicing illegal ritual magic with your knowledge and that it saved them in a fight against You-Know-Who? And that it was done with a giant humanoid Patronus that can kill people? Tosh and nonsense! I've never heard such a ridiculous yarn in my life! If it was a novel in a library I'd throw it across the room for being too absurd even for fiction!
“So no, Dumbledore, I don't believe it for a minute. It's a much more believable story that Potter, who is clearly insane, planted the tale in Diggory's brain for some reason and you're either feeble-minded enough in your old age to believe it, or you're pretending to believe it in a bid to remove me from power!”
By now, Al noticed Cedric had woken up too, and was glaring at the Minister as well. His parents hadn't noticed yet. Mr. Diggory was glowering at Fudge.
“Are you calling my son a liar?”
Fudge was about to respond, but Dumbledore spoke first, interrupting him.
“Minister,” Dumbledore said. “We do have evidence. The eyewitnesses – including the two who saw Barty Crouch Junior – can give Pensieve memories as evidence.”
“Memories can be altered, Dumbledore!”
“Yes, but it takes a ridiculously talented Occlumens to alter such memories without leaving traces of the changes.”
“Indeed. And I've been interrogating a lot of people today, Dumbledore, so I happen to know one of the voices in Potter's head has precisely the talent needed to do that. And that it may be a Legilimens as well, by now. So you'll excuse me if I don't trust all these testimonies.”
“What of Hagrid and Black, Minister?” Snape interjected, glaring, getting a matching glare from Sirius. “Much as I hate to admit it, they saw Crouch Junior. I have viewed their memories of the fight with Crouch, and I believe them to be genuine.”
Fudge scoffed again. “You could have planted those yourself, Snape.”
“Like I'd let that bastard fiddle around inside my head!” Sirius barked.
Snape raised an eyebrow. “You were with me, Minister, when Black and Hagrid returned from their fight. You heard them speak of it. Please, tell me how I could be in two places at once?”
Fudge faltered at this a little. “Well, well... I may not have all the details worked out yet, Snape, but trust me when I say I will work it out in the end!”
“Cornelius, when Alastair Potter and Cedric Diggory touched the Triwizard Cup tonight, they were transported straight to Voldemort,” said Dumbledore steadily. “They witnessed Lord Voldemort’s rebirth. You heard Cedric's testimony. But I will explain it all to you again if you will step up to my office.”
Dumbledore glanced around at Al and saw that he was awake, but shook his head and said, “I am afraid I cannot permit you to question Al tonight.”
“Mighty convenient, Dumbledore. But unnecessary. Nothing he says would convince me anyway, he's a lunatic.”
That was the final straw for Al, and he decided to speak up at last, speaking over Sirius.
“I admit my situation is peculiar, Minister, but Rita Skeeter's lies aside, I assure you I'm quite sane.”
Fudge snorted again and rolled his eyes. “'Lies.' Right. I've seen you transform. I've seen your different behaviors in these different masks. I don't need Rita Skeeter to convince me you're insane.”
“Then answer me this: why would I act against you? I neither know you well enough to have any reason to be against you, nor do I care. I don't really trust Dumbledore either, to be honest; he's lied to me on more than one occasion, even if he did eventually come clean. If I gave a single god-damn who was Minister, I certainly wouldn't support Dumbledore over you. Dunno who I'd support, honestly, that's how little I care.” He then turned to Sirius, thinking for a second before adding, “Possibly Sirius. But not Dumbledore.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, pup, but I wouldn't want the position either. Too stressful.”
Fudge shrugged. “Who knows what motivates a lunatic? And the fact you speak with snakes doesn't help your case either.”
Al closed his eyes and took a bracing breath. “You want evidence my story is true? Ask Madam Pomfrey. She'll be able to confirm that my magic is currently not functioning. For the next two months, Minister, I am as powerless as a Muggle or a squib.”
“I don't have an explanation for that either, Potter, but it's still absurd to believe a fourteen-year-old wizard managed to advance that far into ritual magic on their own.”
“Hermione Granger has been top in our year, possibly the entire school, since our first year. She's maybe half as intelligent as Hypatia, and if she'd had access to the same books Hypatia did, she could have possibly done the same thing.”
Hermione blinked. “Who's Hypatia?”
“I'll tell you later, Hermione. It's uh... a bit of a secret, actually. For now.”
“I won't tell anyone,” Cedric said. “If she's the one who saved our asses in that graveyard, I'll keep the secret of her existence for you. Assuming it doesn't get out anyway,” he added, glaring at Fudge with distrust.
“What of you two?” Al asked the Diggories.
They nodded. “We have no idea what you're even talking about,” Mr. Diggory said, “but yes, we'll keep quiet.”
“Loathe as I am to agree with Mr. Potter on anything, Minister, he isn't wrong about this 'Hypatia' being that intelligent. I've gotten to know her over many weeks, and if her talents were not so focused on runic magic, arithmancy, and ritual magic to the exclusion of all else, she could have grown to become the next Dumbledore. Perhaps even better than that. The girl can, after all, do ridiculously complicated arithmancy in her head. Just ask Fangslaughter and his partner down at Gringott's.”
“This is absurd!” Fudge shouted. “The boy's brains are clearly addled, anyone can see that! On top of which, he's a Parselmouth and having funny turns around the place!”
“I assume that you are referring to the pains the Potters have been experiencing in their scar?” said Dumbledore coolly.
“You admit that he has been having these pains, then?” said Fudge quickly. “Headaches? Nightmares? Possibly — hallucinations?”
“Listen to me, Cornelius,” said Dumbledore, taking a step toward Fudge, and once again, he seemed to radiate an indefinable sense of power. “The Potters are as sane as you or I, just different. That scar upon their forehead has not addled their brains. I believe it hurts them when Lord Voldemort is close by, or feeling particularly murderous.”
Fudge had taken half a step back from Dumbledore, but he looked no less stubborn.
“You’ll forgive me, Dumbledore, but I’ve never heard of a curse scar acting as an alarm bell before.”
“Look, we saw Voldemort come back!” Al shouted. He tried to get out of bed again, but Sirius forced him back. “I saw the Death Eaters! I can give you their names! Lucius Malfoy —”
Snape made a sudden movement, but as Al looked at him, Snape’s eyes flew back to Fudge.
“Malfoy was cleared!” said Fudge, visibly affronted. “A very old family — donations to excellent causes —”
“Macnair!” Al continued.
“Also cleared! Now working for the Ministry!”
“Avery — Nott — Crabbe — Goyle —”
“You are merely repeating the names of those who were acquitted of being Death Eaters thirteen years ago!” said Fudge angrily. “You could have found those names in old reports of the trials! For heaven’s sake, Dumbledore, the boy can talk to snakes, and you still think he’s trustworthy?”
“What about me, Minister?” Cedric asked.
“Confunded!”
“NO! I was there! I was a mouse for most of it, but I was there! I could see and hear just fine. How could a Confundus make me think I was a mouse? How would Al even know what it felt like to be a mouse?”
“I don't know, but I know enough to see through this pathetic attempt to fool me! It seems to me that you are all determined to start a panic that will destabilize everything we have worked for these last thirteen years!”
Al couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He had always thought of Fudge as a kindly figure, a little blustering, a little pompous, but essentially good-natured. But now a short, angry wizard stood before him, refusing, point-blank, to accept the prospect of disruption in his comfortable and ordered world — to believe that Voldemort could have risen.
“Again I ask, are you calling my son a liar?” Mr. Diggory demanded.
“No, Diggory. Like I said, he was clearly Confunded.”
“He says he wasn't, though!” Mr. Diggory said, but he looked uncertain.
“Why don't we have Madam Pomfrey verify that, then?” Sirius responded.
“As if she's not in his pocket, too.”
“A Saint Mungo's Healer, then?” Mr. Diggory asked.
Fudge snorted, and turned away from Mr. Diggory.
“Voldemort has returned,” Dumbledore repeated. “If you accept that fact straightaway, Fudge, and take the necessary measures, we may still be able to save the situation. The first and most essential step is to remove Azkaban from the control of the dementors —”
“Preposterous!” shouted Fudge again. “Remove the dementors? I’d be kicked out of office for suggesting it! Half of us only feel safe in our beds at night because we know the dementors are standing guard at Azkaban!”
“The rest of us sleep less soundly in our beds, Cornelius, knowing that you have put Lord Voldemort’s most dangerous supporters in the care of creatures who will join him the instant he asks them!” said Dumbledore. “They will not remain loyal to you, Fudge! Voldemort can offer them much more scope for their powers and their pleasures than you can! With the dementors behind him, and his old supporters returned to him, you will be hard-pressed to stop him regaining the sort of power he had thirteen years ago!”
Al sighed and glared at Fudge as Dumbledore told Fudge to send envoys to the giants, berated Fudge for being too too fond of his power to pull his head out of his arse and see the reality of the situation, warning Fudge he'd be remembered poorly by history if he didn't act on Dumbledore's advice. But it was all falling on deaf ears. Fudge had made up his mind, and couldn't stand to be confused by the facts. Finally, even Dumbledore had enough of arguing with the pompous windbag.
“If your determination to shut your eyes will carry you as far as this, Cornelius,” said Dumbledore, “we have reached a parting of the ways. You must act as you see fit. And I — I shall act as I see fit.”
Dumbledore’s voice carried no hint of a threat; it sounded like a mere statement, but Fudge bristled as though Dumbledore were advancing upon him with a wand.
“Now, see here, Dumbledore,” he said, waving a threatening finger. “I’ve given you free rein, always. I’ve had a lot of respect for you. I might not have agreed with some of your decisions, but I’ve kept quiet. There aren’t many who’d have let you hire werewolves, or keep Hagrid, or decide what to teach your students without reference to the Ministry. But if you’re going to work against me —”
“The only one against whom I intend to work,” said Dumbledore, “is Lord Voldemort. If you are against him, then we remain, Cornelius, on the same side.”
It seemed Fudge could think of no answer to this. Instead, he glared at Dumbledore. “You're trying to convince me to believe an impossibility, Dumbledore. You should quit while you're behind.”
Snape strode forward, past Dumbledore, pulling up the left sleeve of his robes as he went. He stuck out his forearm and showed it to Fudge, who recoiled.
“There,” said Snape harshly. “There. The Dark Mark. It is not as clear as it was an hour or so ago, when it burned black, but you can still see it. Every Death Eater had the sign burned into him by the Dark Lord. It was a means of distinguishing one another, and his means of summoning us to him. When he touched the Mark of any Death Eater, we were to Disapparate, and Apparate, instantly, at his side. This Mark has been growing clearer all year. Karkaroff’s too. Why do you think Karkaroff fled tonight? We both felt the Mark burn. We both knew he had returned. Karkaroff fears the Dark Lord’s vengeance. He betrayed too many of his fellow Death Eaters to be sure of a welcome back into the fold.”
Fudge stepped back from Snape too. He was shaking his head. He did not seem to have taken in a word Snape had said. He stared, apparently repelled by the ugly mark on Snape’s arm, then looked up at Dumbledore and whispered, “I don’t know what you and your staff are playing at, Dumbledore, but I have heard enough. I have no more to add. I will be in touch with you tomorrow, Dumbledore, to discuss the running of this school. I must return to the Ministry.”
He had almost reached the door when he paused. He turned around, strode back down the dormitory, and stopped at Al's bed.
“Your winnings,” he said shortly, taking a large bag of gold out of his pocket and dropping it onto Al's bedside table. “Five hundred Galleons. And here's your half, Diggory,” he said, throwing another bag on Cedric's bed. “Same amount. There should have been a presentation ceremony, but under the circumstances...”
He crammed his bowler hat onto his head and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him. The moment he had disappeared, Dumbledore turned to look at the group around Al's bed. Al placed the bag of gold on his bedside cabinet.
“There is work to be done,” he said. “Amos, do I have your support?”
Mr. Diggory nodded. “Yes. Fudge called my son a liar, and he's using my son as part of some mad conspiracy theory about a cabal acting against him, when he should be preparing to fight You-Know-Who! Of course you have my support!”
“Excellent. Then please go to Molly Weasley, and ask her if I can count on her family's support. If she says yes, go to Arthur Weasley and tell him what has happened, leaving out the secret of Hypatia's existence. Arthur will need to be discreet, however. If Fudge thinks I am interfering at the Ministry...”
“Right, Dumbledore,” Mr. Diggory said. “Once more, no idea what you're talking about, in regard to this 'Hypatia.' Don't think I want to know, either. Should I go now, then?”
“Yes, please.”
Mr. Diggory nodded, hugged his wife and his son, then left to find Mrs. Weasley.
“Sirius, do I have your support as well?”
“Of course, Dumbledore. As long as Al and the others are on your side, so am I.”
“And Alastair? You are on my side still?”
“Our objectives still align, yes,” Al said.
“Excellent. So, Sirius, if you could go find Remus and send him to my office, I would be much obliged. I have a summer assignment for him. And after that, please go inform Arabella Figg and Mundungus Fletcher, and the rest of the old crowd.”
“Right,” Sirius said. He turned to Al. “I'll be back soon as I can, pup. You get better.”
“Alright, Sirius. Go do what you need to do. We'll be fine. Madam Pomfrey is here.”
Sirius took off then, Al watching him going.
“Oh yes,” Dumbledore said. “And that reminds me, Alastair, you shall need a bodyguard until you are safely at home with Sirius. And one for the interim, until Sirius returns.”
“I pick Professor Snape, if that's an option,” Al said. “He's got plenty of reason to want me alive.”
Snape glared angrily at Al. But Dumbledore shook his head. “Professor Snape has a greater mission, Alastair. Professor McGonagall shall stay behind to guard you.”
She nodded, putting her hand on her wand but didn't take it out.
Dumbledore nodded and sent a Patronus message off. “Just informing Hagrid to come to my office,” he said. “Hopefully he will be able to bring Madame Maxime with him as instructed.”
He then turned to Snape. “You know what you must do, Severus. If you are ready... if you are prepared...”
Snape nodded. “I am.”
He looked slightly paler than usual, and his cold, black eyes glittered strangely.
“Then good luck,” said Dumbledore, and he watched, with a trace of apprehension on his face, as Snape swept wordlessly after Sirius, his robes billowing behind him.
“He's our spy, right?” Al asked.
“Indeed he is.”
Al nodded. He knew Snape was getting revenge for Lily dying. That was solid enough motive for Al.
It was several minutes before Dumbledore spoke again.
“I must go to my office,” Dumbledore said. “Take the rest of your potion, Alastair. I will see all of you later.”
Al slumped back against his pillows as Dumbledore disappeared. Hermione, Ron, and Luna were all looking at him. None of them spoke for a very long time.
“You should take the rest of your potion, Al,” Luna said at last. Her hand nudged the sack of gold on his bedside cabinet as she reached for the bottle and the goblet. “You have a good long sleep. Try and think about something else for a while. Think about what you’re going to buy with your winnings.”
“I don't want that gold. I never did. You want it, Cedric?”
Cedric shook his head. “No, we both won. Regardless of what happened next, we both touched the cup at the same time, it was a tie. That money is yours.”
Al shrugged. “Fine, whatever,” he said.
He was starting to feel the weight of the night's experiences weighing down on them. They tried pushing the thoughts away, but they kept resurfacing. It was finally happening. They hadn't found any of the horcruxes yet, hadn't figured out a way to remove the horcrux from their own flesh, and who knew how long it would take Moldyshorts to get his army back up to snuff? They were running out of time.
Al felt a warm hand on his, and saw it was Luna's hand, holding his tight. He then felt himself sink below the surface of their mind, Iliana taking over.
“Luna,” she said with Al's voice. “God, that's weird. I took this whole transformation thing for granted, but it sure is weird when we're stuck in one form, the way Muggle Multiples are.”
“Iliana?” Luna asked.
“Yes, it's me. Man, I can't wait until we get our magic back.”
“Oh, you'll manage,” Luna said.
“What about you, though?”
“I'll be fine. I know you're in there. Even if I can't see you or feel you, I know you're there. That's enough for me, until you get better.”
“What if I never get better, though? What if this is permanent? I mean, even if we get our magic back, what if we lose our transformation power?”
“You shouldn't worry about things you can't do anything about. Just wait and see. If you do, well, I'll stay with you anyway.”
“Thanks.” She said. She was silent for a moment, then she said, “Ugh, stuck as a boy for two months. What a nightmare.”
“Hey!” Ron said, indignant.
“Like you wouldn't complain if you were stuck as a girl for two months.”
Ron looked thoughtful. “Well, it would depend on how pretty a girl I was. And how big my boobs were.”
“RON!” Iliana shouted.
There was a loud slamming noise, and Luna and Al/Iliana broke apart. Hermione was standing by the window. She was holding something tight in her hand.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
“Your potion, Iliana,” Luna said softly. “You need your sleep.”
They drank it in one gulp. The effect was instantaneous. Heavy, irresistible waves of dreamless sleep broke over them; they fell back onto their pillows and thought no more.
Endnotes: None this time. Just that this isn't quite the end of this half of the story. Oh, and once I figure out a good title for it, I am for sure going to split the rest of the story off into its own half, as this one is getting quite long.
Chapter Forty-three: Going Home
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there. But some canon scenes are just too good to change much. There's a lot of those in this one, but don't skim through or you'll miss things.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of each of the people in the Potter collective, but the note was causing formatting issues on other sites somehow, so if you need a reminder of what formats mean who, you can go back to a previous chapter for the note.
Note 4: All hail Our Lady Of Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling!
*FAYANORA*
Alastair was deeply annoyed, aggravated, irritated. He wasn't used to being Out so long. He preferred to let Adira, Iliana, Chandra, or literally any of the others be in control. He preferred, most of the time, to hang out in the background, watching and commenting on things to try to amuse the others. He was the grumpy and sarcastic comedy relief, and he liked that role. Being Out all the time now was hard; it was strangely difficult to let someone take over like this, more of a struggle than just being in the driver's seat, so he was basically forced to either feel like he was a buoy being held underwater, or just to float there on the surface against his desires.
Instead of sitting around and moping, though, he had Hermione bring him some pen and paper so he could plan out what he wanted to do about the Voldemort thing, or to let Hypatia plan things. She still had the power to push the others aside or put them into a sleep, even though such things no longer triggered transformations. Both were, of course, powerless to do any actual magic except maybe potions. Which led Iliana to take turns writing plans, trying to think of how to use potions against the Death Eaters.
From updates he was getting from Sirius, the Ministry was getting worse about pushing the anti-werewolf legislation. Sirius and Andromeda Tonks were fighting it in the Wizengamot, but irritatingly, they were having a hard time getting Dumbledore to join them, for all his claims to be on the side of the light, werewolves were considered dark creatures, and while Dumbledore was all for letting a werewolf be a student and then a teacher, in order to gain the man's loyalty in later years, he didn't seem to be willing to help out others with Remus's condition. Al decided that he was going to take over Dumbledore's spot on the Wizengamot some day to put things right.
Bored in the hospital wing, he read books that he had Hermione get for him, books about the history of anti-werewolf legislation, and wizarding law in general. One of these instances, he'd gone into a screaming fit of anger after reading that Newton Scamander, the author of the definitive book on magical creatures in the wizarding world, had been the one to push for the werewolf registry. He had thrown the book across the room, too, startling Hermione and Javier both. Hermione had needed to repair the book with her wand, and Javier had needed to try to calm Al down.
Al also was thinking about trying to get the assistance of some reporter who would be willing to tell the truth about the Potters and to tell their side of things. But he only knew one reporter. Rita Skeeter had been strangely silent after the debacle at the Triwizard Tournament's final task, and it was making him anxious. It wasn't until he confessed this worry to Hermione that she revealed to him, putting up privacy wards first, that Skeeter was an unregistered animagus, her animagus form that of a fat beetle. Al had laughed for a solid fifteen minutes when she told him she'd captured Rita and had her trapped in an unbreakable glass jar.
~ ~
Al finally returned to Griffindor tower after being in the hospital wing for over a whole 24 hours, in the evening. He found out from Ron, Hermione, and Luna that Dumbledore had told the school to not pester Al and Cedric with questions right now, and that Cedric had stood up and said that people could pester him – Cedric – for questions, he didn't mind. And so it seemed the story was spreading via Cedric, which was good; Cedric had credibility that Al himself didn't have, and the Ministry couldn't shut them up while they were at school.
He'd been expecting a lot of furtive looks and more people calling him crazy after Skeeter's last article, but thanks to Cedric, there wasn't as much of that sort of thing as he'd feared. Some people were still convinced that they were crazy, and probably always would, but Cedric was verifying their latest crazy tale about Voldemort, at least. Al suspected the Ministry was going to have a lot harder time than they thought at keeping this under wraps.
That evening, a familiar owl tapped its beak on their window. Hypatia had gotten a letter from Draco Malfoy. She immediately pushed Al to the back and took over control of the body, reading it. But the parchment appeared to be empty at first. She stared at the empty parchment at first, then left their room, found Ron in his, and told him to put his wand on it and try several password possibilities for her. It finally worked upon Ron saying “Hypatia Williams,” the ink of a letter suddenly appearing on the parchment. Hypatia was actually rather surprised that had worked.
Dear Hypatia,
Hi, it's me, Draco. Haven't heard from you in a while, and I was worried. I mean, I get it, you have to hide who you really are, but according to Diggory, the dark lord is back. I wrote Father about it, and while nobody reading his letter without knowing the family code would be able to tell, he confirmed the rumor for me. You're a half-blood, right? Well, I'm pretty sure you're against the dark lord, so I'm recommending you keep quiet about being against him, so he doesn't have reason to target you. He won't come out into the open yet, not with the Ministry trying to keep it under wraps, but Father doesn't know how long that's going to last. I have to agree; the whole school knows, so all their parents and family are soon going to know as well, if they don't already from all the owls that have been flying around lately. Fudge may be powerful, but this isn't going to stay quiet for long, no matter how hard he tries.
Something else you should know about; father doesn't know where Rita Skeeter is. It seems strange that she disappeared as the dark lord rose, but reading between the lines of father's letter, he doesn't think the two things are directly connected. He's reasonably sure the dark lord would tell him if he'd had Skeeter eliminated, and there wasn't any reason for him to go after her. So it's a mystery.
Father is more upset than he wants to admit, I can tell by the way he wrote his letter. When he's upset, he lets little things slip into his writing. I don't think he knows I can read so much into his writing, so I believe he's genuinely upset. From the clues I gleaned from his letter, the dark lord is angry that Potter and Cedric survived, and also at the fact that one of the Death Eaters was killed in the fight, as Cedric said. I'm not sure, but I think the man who was killed in the fight was Vincent Crabbe's father. Crabbe isn't going to be happy his father died, once he gets over the shock. Potter will have a hard time from Crabbe next year because of it, I think. Crabbe was taken away at breakfast and nobody's seen him return, which is why I think it was his father who died. Goyle isn't saying anything, but I think Goyle knows Crabbe went home.
Al thought as Hypatia read the letter. He felt mildly bad for Crabbe losing his father, but the man had made the choice to join Moldyshorts, and to then return when his Dark Mark burned.
Anyway, I'm guessing the dark lord isn't in a very good mood, with people knowing he's back and one of his few free remaining followers dead at Potter's hand. Which I have to say, I'm rather impressed with despite myself. Given Father's tone of shock, whatever Potter did was impressive enough that Father is still upset about it. Makes me kind of curious, actually. Not like Potter is ever going to tell me, though.
Well, if you can let me know somehow that you're alright... I have no reason to think you're not, but I just need the reassurance anyway, with Skeeter gone under mysterious circumstances, and the dark lord back. So please, let me know you're alright? Even if I don't get to see you, just hearing back from you in your handwriting would make me feel better.
Yours sincerely,
Draco
PS = Blank the page again by saying my full name with your wand touching the parchment.
At the end of the letter, Draco had drawn a sad-faced dragon.
“Huh. He really fancies Hypatia, doesn't he?” Ron asked.
“Yes, he does seem to fancy me,” Hypatia said. Ron looked confused a moment, since they were still stuck as Al, then shook his head.
“Right, should've known it'd be you reading the letter, Hypatia.”
She nodded, still looking at the letter. “His full name is Draco Lucius Malfoy,” she said.
“Right,” Ron said, blanking the letter for her with his wand and the name.
She rolled up the letter and put it in her pocket. “I've got somewhere to go later tonight, around midnight. Don't try to follow me.”
“Where are you going? Or, er...”
“It's fine. The less you know, the better. I just need to retrieve something I want to take home with me over the summer.”
“Right. Gotcha. Are you gonna be able to get there without your magic?”
“The invisibility cloak still works. And I already changed the password weeks ago, once I knew I could.”
“Password? To what?”
She sighed. “Fine. I've been hiding some of my stuff in the Chamber of Secrets. And I changed the password. It's no longer 'open' in Parseltongue. It's now the Parseltongue equivalent of... something much longer. An entire sentence, one Voldemort won't be able to guess.”
“Don't say the name!” Ron snapped. When he calmed down a little, he added, “Are you gonna be able to say a Parseltongue password without your magic?”
“I don't know.”
She concentrated. Then she said a bunch of hissing and spitting, a long string of it. Aqua poked her head up out of her enclosure. Hypatia guessed she was saying something in Parseltongue, but she couldn't understand it. She said something else to the snake. The snake tilted her head as though confused, but then slunk back down to curl around her warm rock.
“What did you say to Aqua?”
“Well, I was trying to say 'I can Speak but not Understand right now.' But I have no idea if I managed it. I've never actually said that before. I had to piece it together from other memories. I can hear the differences between different Parseltongue words in my memory, and I can remember what they meant, but I'm not sure I managed to say that right. Anyway, I'm going to go to my own room now.”
“See you later,” Ron said.
When she got back to her room, she took out a new piece of parchment and wrote Draco a letter.
Dear Draco,
I'm fine. Hiding again, as you guessed. Sorry, I don't think I'll be able to meet you in person before school gets out, nor over the summer. I wish I could. I miss you. I miss working with you. I look forward to doing that again next year, if we're both still coming here.
Thanks for the information. Not sure what to do with it, but thank you anyway. You aren't going to go after Potter, are you? He was just trying to survive, it's not his fault that Crabbe's father got killed in the process. That man made his choice to work with the dark lord, it's his own fault if he got caught in the crossfire. Sorry, I don't mean to sound unsympathetic, it is pretty sad that Vincent lost his father. I just hope you don't blame Potter for defending themselves. Can you really say you wouldn't do the same if you were in their position?
Also, if you could avoid goading Potter in general, that would be nice. I don't want to think what I'd do if they hurt you in retaliation for something you said to them. If they try to goad you, you should try to be the bigger man. It'll make you look more impressive in the end, and make Potter look petty. Your brash tendency to mouth off to them is far more Griffindor than Slytherin, I suggest you work on that. What can they really do to you anyway, in the long run? All they have are sharp words. You're far cleverer than they are, except when you let your temper control you.
Anyway, I hope you have a safe summer. I'll try to keep writing as much as possible. I'll come up with a more secure communication method than this, one I can actually afford and feel comfortable with. Don't you get any ideas on that front, I have to hide my true self at home, too. Don't send me anything else until I send you what I've come up with, okay?
Yours sincerely,
Hypatia
Later that night was... difficult. She got to the Chamber fine under the cloak, but it took 10 tries to get the password right, and she'd had to argue with Moaning Myrtle between attempts 4 and 5, slowing her down. But she finally got it. She hadn't told Ron the password because she didn't want him knowing she had a sense of humor, but the new password was the Parseltongue equivalent of “Lord Voldemort eats his mother's short shorts and sorts sports equipment in forts for money of sorts, of course.” It was not only memorable and something he'd never guess in a million years, it was also a bit of a tongue twister in both languages, even worse in Parseltongue than English. The thought of Voldemort saying it made her giggle as she slid down the cleaned slide into the Chamber. She giggled, as well, at the thought of the look on his face when he found the password had been changed. Clearly he hadn't thought to do it himself, the thought of other Parselmouths in the school apparently never occurred to him.
The rest of the night went well. She got her things, the Basilisk stayed asleep (she'd told it to hibernate the last time she'd been there, and it had), and she made it back to Griffindor tower without getting caught. As she made her way back, she wondered if Moody had gotten his eye and pegleg back, or if Crouch Junior had taken them. If he'd taken them, that would be a problem, not just for Moody. She made a note to have one of the others---no, she changed her mind. She'd ask him herself. It's not like he'd know who she was.
Moody was still in the hospital wing the day before the Leaving Feast. It was difficult talking to him, because he was more paranoid than ever, and only let her ask him questions after Madam Pomfrey confirmed she was powerless for two months. He glared knowingly at her, but she didn't know if he'd been told or he'd guessed as to why she was mundane for now.
As it transpired, Crouch had indeed stolen the eye and the leg. That was going to be a problem. Crouch was an expert at pretending to be Moody. She and the real Moody, therefore, established a password for the next time they met. Moody looked proud of them for that, but also a bit mixed up inside, since the fake Moody had been the one to teach her that kind of paranoia.
Another change was that Moody had used his wand to shave his own head, burn the hair, and attach a wig to his head in its place. It wouldn't stop Crouch Junior if he still had Polyjuice with Moody's hair in it, or if he'd taken more of Moody's hairs with him before escaping, but it would prevent future hair stealing. Moody had even burned his own eyebrows off, was trying to work out if he could manage without eyelashes, and recommended to Al that he do the same. Moody was also wearing an eye patch over the empty socket his magical eye had been in, to protect others from losing their lunches.
At the leaving feast, Al saw Madame Maxime and Hagrid had made up. Well, he'd known that after visiting Hagrid recently, but this was proof.
Al looked around the room more. This year's inter-House championship had been very close, but in the end Hufflepuff had won. Al liked this turn of events. One of theirs had tied with Al for the Triwizard Tournament, had faced Voldemort and lived to tell about it, and now they'd won the inter-House championship. It was a good year for Hufflepuff.
Dumbledore stood up. “The end of another year,” he said. “Congratulations to Hufflepuff for winning the inter-House championship for the first time in many years. It is well deserved, and long overdue.
“By now, you have no doubt thoroughly interrogated Cedric Diggory about what he and Alastair Potter experienced in the graveyard they were transported to during the Triwizard Tournament. But for those who haven't yet heard, these two brave boys faced Lord Voldemort---” he paused for the gasps and shouts to subside, “they faced the dark lord and managed to survive by working together and thinking quickly on their feet. There is other evidence of this as well. One of the Death Eaters was killed in the fight, and by now most of you have probably heard that Mr. Vincent Crabbe's father has been reported dead. I wish this were a coincidence, but it is not. Please try to remember, next year, not to bother Mr. Crabbe about his loss. Or sooner, if you happen to see him over the summer. Vincent is not his father, he does not deserve to be punished for the mistakes of his father.
“The Ministry of Magic does not wish me to tell you any of this. It is possible that some of your parents will be horrified that I have done so — either because they will not believe that Lord Voldemort has returned, or because they think I should not tell you so, young as you are. It is my belief, however, that the truth is generally preferable to lies.”
Stunned and frightened, every face in the Hall was turned toward Dumbledore now. Even Draco looked worried. Al didn't think he was any less of a blood bigot than he'd been before, but the former Death Eaters had been doing pretty well for themselves, infiltrating the government and influencing its policies in relative safety after Voldemort fell from power. Al thought they had as much to fear from his return, if not more. But they would follow him anyway, because they were scared. Whether for themselves or the children they now had, but still scared. Fear was a powerful motivator, sadly.
“Going back a little,” Dumbledore said, cutting through the continued mutters, “as I said, Cedric and Alastair survived by working together and thinking on their feet. I commend this attitude. We will all need to bind together in teamwork and fellowship to get through the coming war and defeat Voldemort once and for all.
“The Triwizard Tournament’s aim was to further and promote magical understanding. In the light of what has happened — of Lord Voldemort’s return — such ties are more important than ever before.”
Dumbledore looked from Madame Maxime and Hagrid, to Fleur Delacour and her fellow Beauxbatons students, to Viktor Krum and the Durmstrangs at the Slytherin table. Krum, Al saw, looked wary, almost frightened, as though he expected Dumbledore to say something harsh.
“Every guest in this Hall,” said Dumbledore, and his eyes lingered upon the Durmstrang students, “will be welcomed back here at any time, should they wish to come. I say to you all, once again — in the light of Lord Voldemort’s return, we are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided. Lord Voldemort’s gift for spreading discord and enmity is very great. We can fight it only by showing an equally strong bond of friendship and trust. Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open.
“It is my belief — and never have I so hoped that I am mistaken — that we are all facing dark and difficult times. Some of you in this Hall have already suffered directly at the hands of Lord Voldemort. Many of your families have been torn asunder. Already we have lost two Ministry officials at Voldemort's hand, Bertha Jorkins and Bartemius Crouch Senior. We almost lost Alastair Potter and Cedric Diggory to him as well. I pray we do not lose anyone else to Voldemort. And the most certain way to help bring that wish to fruition is to tell your parents and other family members that Voldemort has returned, warn them to be wary of strangers and to take measures to guard against Death Eaters disguised as loved ones with Polyjuice Potion. As my good friend Alastor Moody says, 'Constant vigilance!'
“So go forth and spread the word. Show the Ministry that the truth will out. For the faster we can admit the truth and begin to fight Lord Voldemort, the faster we can end this war, and the more lives we can save. For he will not yet be ready to make his move. He will need time to regroup, to gather his forces, and that job will be made much more difficult for him if everyone is on their guard, if everyone is informed and vigilant.
“Keep those words in mind this summer, whatever the newspapers may say. And with that, I wish you all a safe summer, until next school year.”
Al's things were packed, Hedwig in her cage and Aqua in her enclosure. He, Ron, and Hermione were waiting in the crowded entrance hall with the rest of the fourth years for the carriages that would take them back to Hogsmeade station. It was another beautiful summer’s day. He was going back to Sirius's house for the summer, not staying at Hogwarts at all – unable to transform, the Philosopher's Stone was stuck inside of them, so there was no point to staying behind. And anyway, Sirius had a Fidelius Charm on the flat. But according to his godfather's latest mirror-call message, they weren't going to stay there long. There was another Fidelius over a house Sirius had inherited from his family, and as soon as it was cleaned out, they were going to move there.
“Alastair!” came a French-accented voice from behind him.
He looked around. Fleur Delacour was hurrying up the stone steps into the castle. Beyond her, far across the grounds, Al could see Hagrid helping Madame Maxime to back two of the giant horses into their harness. The Beauxbatons carriage was about to take off.
“We will see each uzzer again, I ’ope,” said Fleur as she reached him, holding out her hand. “I am ’oping to get a job ’ere, to improve my Eenglish.”
“It’s very good already,” said Ron in a strangled sort of voice. Fleur smiled at him; Hermione scowled.
“Eez eet true?” Fleur asked. “You are stuck een your current form?”
Al scowled. “What are they saying about that?”
“Just zat you 'ave not transformed seence ze Third Task. Zere are many, ah, possible reasons said for why. Each more ridiculous zan zee last.”
“Oh,” he said, his face relaxing. “Okay. Well, write me a letter about it, telling me what they're saying, will you?”
“Yes, Alastair, I weel do zat.”
“Oh and uh... your owl might not be able to find me now. I'll send Hedwig, she'll be able to find me. I'll wait a week or two before sending her, to give you plenty of time.”
She nodded. “Sounds good to me.”
“Good. Bye, Fleur.”
“Au revoir, Alastair,” said Fleur, turning to go. “It ’az been a pleasure meeting you!”
“You too,” he said, meaning it.
They met Krum, finding out from him that Karkaroff had nothing to do with steering or running the ship, so the fact he ran away wouldn't stop them getting home. He then took Hermione aside for a private word.
When Krum returned, he got Al's attention.
“I have spoken vith Diggory. He does not blame me for vhat happened in the maze. He has alvays been good to me that vay, even though I was with Durmstrang. Vith Karkaroff.”
“Got a new headmaster yet?” Al asked.
Krum shrugged. He held out his hand as Fleur had done, shook Al's hand, and then Ron’s. Ron looked as though he was suffering some sort of painful internal struggle. Krum had already started walking away when Ron burst out, “Can I have your autograph?”
Hermione turned away, smiling at the horseless carriages that were now trundling toward them up the drive, as Krum, looking surprised but gratified, signed a fragment of parchment for Ron.
Sirius and Remus appeared then, before they could get on the thestral-pulled carriages. Al looked at them curiously. They had their wands drawn but their hands down at their sides. Al resisted the sudden urge to run; he was getting as bad as Moody. When they were close enough, he stopped them.
“Stop. Password?”
Sirius looked both sad and proud all at once. “'Avani Maznah,'” Sirius said. “Not that it would've mattered if we were Death Eaters. You're powerless right now, and we have wands.”
Al nodded, turning to Remus. “Password?”
Remus sighed. “'Tall red and black warmth that clicks,'” he said.
“Good. So you two are my bodyguards?”
“Yes. You're vulnerable on the way home, especially now. We'll be with you the whole way. Sorry, pup.”
“It's okay, Sirius. I'm glad for it, actually. Um... should we bring Cedric as well?”
“He can defend himself. He's of age.”
“Yeah, but we're talking about Moldyshorts here.”
“True. But he'd be mad to attack the train. Even attacking the station would be mad. Fudge is trying to suppress the truth. It won't last long, but should last long enough that Voldemort would be mad to attack the station.”
Al shrugged. “Whatever.”
Sirius and Remus went with them not just to the train, but on it as well, saying it would be easier than Apparating to Platform 9 and 3/4ths and waiting. More secure, too, since they wouldn't have to do the 'password' thing all over again.
When they got on the train, Sirius and Remus joined Al, Ron, Hermione, and Luna in a compartment, but Sirius said he and Moony could go wander the corridors.
“It's fine,” Al said. “Fine by me, anyway. Anyone else object?”
Nobody objected, so Al shrugged, leaning back. He looked out the window, annoyed by the bright, sunny day. It was so much unlike an omen of doom that it was almost an omen anyway, like the calm before the storm.
Cedric opened the door, looking apologetic.
“Mind if I join the honor guard?” he asked.
“Password?”
“'Mighty Mouse.'”
Al smiled. “Come on in, Cedric.”
Cedric came in, closing the door behind him.
“Sirius, if you could ward the door? I'd like anything we say here to remain private.”
Sirius nodded, and did as asked.
Once the compartment was warded, Cedric spoke. “So I figured, with your magic being out for the next couple of months, that I'd help protect you. Since we helped each other in the uh, um... the graveyard.”
“Excellent. Still in school and already I have a minion. Don't worry, I am a benevolent leader.”
Cedric chuckled at that, as did several other people. Luna smiled serenely.
“Hmm... you know, I think we're going to need a better system than this password business. Maybe some kind of potion or spell or something that detects Polyjuice Potion use.”
“The Goblins have something The Thief's Downfall,” Moony said. “I know of it, but I don't know how it works. It's one of those closely-guarded Goblin secrets.”
“What does it do?”
“Washes away enchantments, undoes Polyjuice Potion's effects.”
Al blinked. Then he frowned. “So why the bloody hell doesn't the Ministry hire the Goblins to install a Thief's Downfall at every entrance to the Ministry?”
Sirius snorted. “Because it's bloody inconvenient. Soaks you to the bone, that's what you said, Moony? Right. Great idea in times of war, if you can get the Goblins to cooperate, but it's not happening until Fudge gets booted out or pulls his head out of his arse, whichever comes first.”
“Fudge's head is implanted so firmly up his arse that he can probably see what he had for lunch.”
When the laughter died down, Al continued. “I'm not letting the fact I can't use my magic stop me from working to fight Voldemort. I'm going to have to stay indoors all summer anyway, so I'm going to use every spare minute I have working on stuff to fight him. Iliana has her potions, Hypatia has her arithmancy and rituals, and Zoey's no slouch, either. She's working on her own list of things to work on. Then we've got the Weasley twins. They're dead clever, I bet they could turn their minds toward the war effort.”
He had a sudden brilliant idea. He dug through his trunk until he found what he was looking for. When he found it, he said, “I'll be right back, gotta find the twins.”
Bolting through the door through the slight pressure of the spells on the door, Al went looking for Fred and George. As he did, he passed Malfoy in the corridor. The blond boy sneered at him, but said nothing. Al sneered back, saying nothing as well, even though he'd just come up with a really good insult to throw at Malfoy. Instead, he continued on.
Al found the twins with Lee Jordan, of course.
“Fred, George. Can I talk to you two in private?”
“Sure thing, Al. Lee, we'll be back soon.”
“Sure thing,” Lee said, still smiling.
Al led the twins into an unoccupied compartment.
“You guys know privacy wards?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Cast every one of them you know.”
One of the twins nodded. As he did so, the other one looked curiously at Al. In that moment, Al suddenly missed his heart-reading and their empathic gift, which wasn't working because those took magic. He'd been missing it ever since the graveyard, but it was especially noticeable now, because Iliana had figured out how to tell the twins apart by their empathic fingerprints. Now, he didn't know which was which.
“What's with all the privacy, mate?” said one twin.
“Yeah Al. And why didn't you do the wards yourself? I know you can,” said the other.
Al narrowed his eyes. “What gift did you send me in first year, after Quirrell?”
The twins looked at each other, confused, but then smiled. “A toilet seat I think it was, Gred.”
“Quite right, Forge. A fine toilet seat it was, too. Classic. Dignified. A throne worthy of a king.”
“Good. Not many know that, and even fewer would remember it. So okay, first of all, it's complicated and I don't want to go into details, but my magic is kaput for a couple months.”
The twins looked shocked. “You can't do magic?”
“For two whole months?”
“Like, even if your life was in danger?”
Al shook his head. “Don't spread it around. I don't think Moldyshorts even knows.”
“Who else knows? Dumbledore, I'm betting.”
“Yes. Remus and Luna and Sirius were there when I told the story too. Cedric knows. And then Ron and Hermione know, of course. Now you. Nobody else.”
“Fair enough. But I get the feeling you didn't call us in here to tell us that.”
“You're right, I didn't. Here,” he said, handing them the bag of gold. “I'm investing in your company, on the condition you use some of your resources and brains to help think of weapons to use against Moldyshorts.”
“There must be 500 galleons in here! We can't accept this much money!”
“It's an investment. I have a feeling we're going to need some humor in the future. And anyway, like I said, I want your help thinking of weapons even someone whose magic is gone for two months can use against Death Eaters and against Moldyshorts.”
“You're sure about this?”
“I'm a bloody millionaire, guys. And so is Sirius. Between the two of us, we're probably richer than the Malfoys. Five hundred galleons is nothing to us, and everything to you. I want Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes to thrive. So if you run out, I can get more.”
The twins looked at each other, then at Al. “Well if you're sure, then we accept your terms. Will you be visiting us, or will we be visiting you? Or something else?”
“Not sure. I'll have to ask Sirius. So we have a deal?”
“Yes, we have a deal.”
“Thanks, you two. I look forward to seeing what you two cook up over the summer.”
With that sorted, Fred and George soon took their money and left. Al went back to the compartment with the others, flatly refusing to talk about what he'd been up to. He got out a pen and paper and started writing out more ideas of their own. Luna sat next to him and leaned her head against his shoulder. He sighed faintly, knowing she wanted to be close to Iliana, not himself. He let her stay there.
After another hour, during which everyone but Al and Luna were talking about this and that, Luna finally moved her head from his shoulder and blew gently on his cheek to get his attention.
“Yes?” he asked, looking at her.
“I hope you don't mind me reading what you were writing, but given what I read there, I thought I should remind you that daddy owns a magazine, called The Quibbler.”
“Yes, I know that. What about it?”
“Oh, it's just that Fudge can put a lot of pressure on the Daily Prophet, especially now that Rita Skeeter has vanished. If he can, he'll try to use it to tell lies about you. Daddy would be honored to publish an article about what happened to you and Cedric, to get it out there.”
Hermione snorted. They turned to look at her.
“Sorry, it's just... nobody's going to believe the story if it's in The Quibbler, Luna.”
“Some might not believe. Others will, though,” Luna said.
“Not nearly enough, I'm afraid. He should try Witch Weekly before The Quibbler. More people read it, and more people will believe what it says.”
Luna shrugged. “Well, it's an option at least.”
“Yes, we can reach out to Witch Weekly. Hell, let's see if we can get the Prophet before Fudge does.”
“Oh Al, he's had days and days to lean on them. They'll be on his side by now, I'm sure,” Luna said. “Besides, 'Witch Weekly' is owned by the same people as The Daily Prophet.”
“Wouldn't hurt to try. Thanks for your offer, Luna, I'll take it under advisement. If we can't find somewhere else to print it, we'll try the Quibbler.”
“The circulation of the Quibbler is still an issue,” Hermione said. “The only real way to make that work is to spread the word. Besides which, you don't need to do that at all. The whole school already knows the story, they'll be telling their parents.”
“The game of telephone,” Al said.
Hermione blinked. “Oh. Yes, that's a problem too, I guess. Well we could minimize the degradation of the story by printing it, I guess. But who would write it?”
“I can write it,” Luna said. “Daddy says I write very well. Not as good as my paintings, but well enough for a newspaper or magazine.”
“Yeah, I don't doubt you're a better writer than Skeeter,” Al said.
Hermione looked like she wanted to say something else, but she didn't.
Al was suddenly very tired of being Out. He asked Hypatia to push him down and replace him with Iliana. She sighed, but did as asked.
“Oh god, I'm putting this stuff back,” she said. She shoved it into a pocket and turned to Luna.
“Iliana?” Luna asked.
“Yeah, Al got tired.”
“Oh good, I'm glad you're back. Even if I can't see your usual form.”
Luna leaned her head against their shoulder again, and Iliana took Luna's hand in theirs. Ron looked strangely at the two of them, muttering that it looked weird to see Al's form getting cozy with a girl.
“God, I can't believe how much I've taken this transformation stuff for granted,” Iliana said. “This, this is what it's like for most people with our condition. One form, all the time. And I'll bet they have a hard time finding people who believe them about being multiples. And an even harder time dating.”
“You're welcome,” Luna said.
“What?”
“Oh, I just took that as you saying 'thank you, Luna, for being my friend and girlfriend, and for not finding it too weird to cuddle you when you're in a boy's body.'”
“Ah,” Iliana said. “Yes, thank you for that.”
“You're welcome, Iliana.”
They spent the rest of the train ride leaning against one another, holding hands. They even fell asleep that way. Iliana's sleep was restless, but not as much as it would have been without Luna. Their sleep had been plagued by more nightmares ever since the graveyard incident; part of her mind was awake enough to appreciate Luna's presence.
It was the giggling that woke them up. Lots of giggling, and some of Hermione’s chiding as well. When Iliana opened her eyes, she saw Hermione glaring at Sirius. Remus was rolling his eyes, and Ron was struggling to not laugh so he didn't wake them up. Cedric looked amused as well.
“What's going on?” Iliana asked, thrown for a moment by hearing Al's voice instead. She still hadn't gotten used to that.
“Oh honestly,” Hermione said. “Sirius, undo it.”
A little more awake now, Iliana glared at Sirius. He lost control and barked with laughter, many great guffaws, laughing so hard his face was turning red.
“What did he do?”
“Oh, here,” Hermione said, handing her a mirror.
Iliana looked in the mirror, once again thrown by seeing Al's face there. Then she immediately noticed the large handlebar mustache and neck beard Sirius had given them. She sighed, glaring at Sirius. Luna woke up then, and Iliana saw she had a great curly mustache as well, with a curly goatee. Ron lost control along with Sirius at this point, and Iliana showed Luna herself in the mirror. Even Hermione was laughing now.
Luna laughed. And laughed. And laughed. She fell over in her seat, having a full-blown laugh attack, as red in the face as Sirius. She didn't stop, either, so much as pause now and then when she ran out of air, starting back up again when she caught her breath.
Iliana was laughing along with her, too, Luna's laughter having set her off. She was on the floor of the compartment, wheezing, her side in pain as the muscles there cramped up. She had to stop, completely winded, but Luna just kept on going. By now, even Sirius stopped, looking concerned.
“Iliana? Luna? Are you two okay?” he asked.
Luna, who had been pausing to catch her breath, started back up again and laughed so hard she passed out in the middle of a laugh that was more like a wheezing exhalation. She lolled there on the ground, and Remus moved forward to check her vitals.
“She's alive. She just passed out from lack of oxygen,” Remus said. “She should be fine.”
Luna passing out had put an end to the laughter, but knowing she was fine didn't chase the smiles away.
“Okay, Sirius, you'd better undo it. If she wakes up and sees either of us with mustaches, she might go off again, and her dad'll have to carry her home. Or to Saint Mungo's.”
Nodding, though still half-grinning, Sirius used his wand to remove the unwanted facial hair he'd given them. When he was done, Remus woke Luna up with his wand.
When she sat up and saw Iliana, with Al's face now free of the mustache and beard, she burst into laughter all over again.
“So much for that idea,” Iliana said.
“Why's she laughing now?” Ron asked.
Iliana sighed. “Probably got reminded of the facial hair by its absence.”
Luna did, thankfully, recover from her laugh attack in time to change into street clothes before the train stopped. It was a good thing that she only had to pull off her robes to do it, though, because she was still giggling now and then, and it was messing with her coordination.
Since Sirius and Remus wanted to Apparate directly to the flat from the station, they all said their goodbyes on the train. Iliana promised her friends she'd write often, especially Luna.
“Ready, pup?” Sirius asked when her friends were leaving the train.
“Yes, we're ready now.”
Sirius took her hand, they walked off the train together, he led her to the Apparition point, and with a spin and a crack, they Apparated onto the stoop of their flat. An unfamiliar witch walked by, prompting Sirius to raise a wand at her, but the woman took no notice of him at all.
“Good, that means the Fidelius Charm is well and truly working,” Sirius said. “No way she wouldn't have screamed if she'd been able to hear that.”
Sirius opened the door and poked his head in.
“Seems okay. Come in, pup. Remus should be on his way soon.”
No sooner had she stepped forward than Remus appeared with a crack on the stoop. Al took over long enough to demand the new password, which Remus gave. Remus then cast a charm, hominem revelio. A moment later, he nodded.
“Nobody here but us. We're home now.”
“Good,” Iliana said. “It's good to be home again.
~
Severus Snape felt a burning on his left arm. Since there was no more school, he set his work down and went out the castle and down to the grounds. He'd been finishing up some work before going home to Spinner's End, but that could wait. The dark lord wanted him for something, and when he called, you ignored it at your peril.
A few minutes later, with a slight pop of displaced air, Severus was standing at the gates of Crouch Manor. Slightly smaller than Malfoy Manor, but cozier, this was the dark lord's new headquarters. The dark lord had been amused by the idea of the house of an old light-side family being used to service the dark. Barty had been pleased. Lucius had not.
Severus couldn't tell Dumbledore where it was, of course; the thing was under a Fidelius Charm. But coming here, that he could do. The dark lord had told him the secret of its location himself.
Severus rang the doorbell and waited. Soon, Goyle Senior came lumbering out to let Severus in. He was glaring at Severus as he did, complaining the whole time. Snape let the commentary wash over him. He had known they would question his loyalty. The dark lord had accepted his explanation, so he didn't really care what the others thought.
When he was let off outside the dark lord's room, Severus tapped lightly enough on the door that it wouldn't bother the dark lord if he was in the middle of something.
“Come on in, Severus,” he heard the cold voice say.
He opened the door and went inside, closing it behind him as he did. The dark lord casually warded the door without getting up off his seat. Severus, curious, watched the man very carefully. He thought he saw a slight tremor in one hand, but it could easily have been his imagination.
“Ah, Severus, my old friend. Glad you could join me today.”
“I am pleased to be here as well, My Lord.”
“Excellent. Have you any news on what the Potter freak did to Crabbe?”
“My Lord, I have been using every spare moment of my days toward the task. I can, at this point, safely say that whatever Potter did, it was... highly unusual. Some sort of ritual, of course. But of what kind, I have not yet determined.”
The dark lord glared at him, growling. Severus stood there impassively.
“How could this be?” the cold voice demanded. “How could a child, a fourteen year old freak child no less, have done a ritual powerful enough to kill Crabbe with a patronus?”
“I do not know, My Lord. I have been skipping meals and working well into the wee hours of the morning trying to discover what Potter did. I have combed through dozens of books of rituals, read all the lore about patronuses I could locate, and done extensive arithmancy. I believe I will find the answer, it is just taking a frustrating amount of work to discover it.”
The dark lord took a deep, calming breath. “I trust you, Severus. If you say you are doing your best, then I believe you. But tonight I wish you to get at least six hours of sleep. Perhaps a rested mind will aid your quest.”
Severus bowed at the waist. “As My Lord commands.”
The dark lord coughed several times into his fist, then, looking irritated with himself for the weakness of it. Severus wisely made no comment. But the man was clearly shaking a little, he could see. Something wasn't right with him. Had something gone wrong with the resurrection ritual?
“Unless you have anything else to report, that is all. You are dismissed.”
“Thank you, My Lord.” Severus turned to go.
“Wait,” the cold voice said. Severus turned back to face the man.
“Yes, My Lord?”
The snake-like face looked pensive, hesitant, for almost an entire minute. “Never mind. I spoke hastily. You may go, Severus.”
Snape bowed again and left the room, wondering all the way back to Hogwarts what was going on. He immediately went to the headmaster's office to report what he'd seen. Dumbledore would be very interested in this, he was sure.
Endnotes: I found out from a Tumblr post about Newt Scamander's role in the werewolf register, looked it up in the wiki, sure enough there it was. ( http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Werewolf_Register ) If I'd had a book to throw across the room in that moment, I would have.
“He got out a pen and paper and started writing out more ideas of their own,” is not a typo. It's a switch from singular pronouns to plural pronouns. He's writing down all the ideas of the collective, not just his own.
Also, I've decided there's going to be a lot more divergence from this point on. I hadn't really thought through the ramifications of Cedric being alive, but in retrospect I'm gonna run with it. It might end up speeding things up, but whatever. Let's see where this wild ride takes us.
Oh and yes, I've decided what to call the second half of this story, when I split it up. The second half will be titled, “The Many Faces Go To War.” Keep an eye out for that. Not sure that'll work on BigCloset, but I'll ask around.
I have a slight problem going into year 5. Until now, I've been using Word document files of the different canon books to remind myself what happened in canon and copy/paste some of the bits that can't really be left out. But I only saved books 2 through 4 on my Dropbox before my computer accidentally got Windows reset to factory settings about a year ago, and I don't know where books 5 through 7 are. I have the dead tree formats, of course, but I don't feel like typing from a book I have to hold open with bricks. (They're all paperbacks.) Probably a good thing we're going to diverge, then.
Alternate version of chapter 38 of “The Many Faces of Har—er, Adira Potter”: “I Solemnly Swear I Am Up To No Good”
Note: I mentioned this before, giving a brief overview of this original version of chapter 38. Some people thought it sounded like a lot of fun, so when I found it again I decided to post it as an alternate chapter, sort of an alternate alternate universe. This was, of course, cut because A. “Mother” acts out of character in it, and B. It's bloody wild. Molly Elizabeth, our collective's resident little, went nuts on this, and I took one look at it when she was done for the day and said, “Funny, but it's Way Too Much. It's Off The Rails.” C. There are things about some of the characters that I haven't decided whether or not to include in the main story, as well as there being a lot of out of character stuff, and therefore you should not consider this story remotely canon to the Many Faces story.
This chapter is the same as the existing chapter 38 up until Zoey's part. If you need a refresher, go read that chapter first. :)
One last note: I didn't bother finishing it or proofing it or anything like that. This will be just as Molly wrote it, mistakes, in-text notes, plot holes, and all, before I stopped her.
Anyway, enjoy!
*MOLLY ELIZABETH!*
The next morning, Zoey woke up in their bed, and sensed that everyone else but Mother was asleep. She immediately got up and started her day. She had plans, and wanted to get them started as soon as possible. She practically inhaled her breakfast before running back up to her room to work on a new project.
Oh Moooother? Mother, where are You? I have a question for you!
% What is it, little one? %
You know, I was thinking about Chandra's story about Hypatia, and also I was reviewing the memories of what happened after the story, and I found some holes in it. I think it was a false memory. I think You're more powerful than even Hypatia.
% I see. What is your point, little one? %
Well I was just curious if you could link me into Hypatia's powers the way she sometimes links into mine.
% And why would I do that, when you are plainly up to no good? %
What makes you think I'm up to mischief?
% Because I know you, dear. You're almost always up to mischief. %
Who, little old me, mischief? You wound me, madam! I just wanted to help out a friend.
% You mean helping Luna? Surely you can sneak into Ravenclaw and find her things on your own? %
Yes, but I had another plan as well. Come on, I can't do it without Your help, oh motherly Mother you. Pleeeease?
% Hmm... well... mischief you may be up to, but it could be entertaining. I will even keep the others asleep for you. You want to be linked to Hypatia's arithmancy skills? %
Yes, please!
% Fine, just a moment. %
Zoey sat there waiting a few moments. Then, suddenly, several things happened at once: she knew where Hypatia's hidden books all were and how to access them, she felt a lot smarter, and there was a brief visual glitch that passed as soon as it appeared.
“Thanks!” she said aloud, and started fetching what she needed.
As soon as she opened up one of Hypatia's books, she saw something in it that was confusing. Hypatia had apparently written out all her equations with the numbers all in different colors. It must have taken a lot of extra work to do. Shrugging, she continued looking through books and reading for a couple hours before really getting to work.
The next confusing thing to happen was when she started writing her own equations down on parchment. The numbers were again in different colors, but she hadn't done it on purpose. She stared quizzically at the quill.
“Is this color-changing ink?”
% Not that I'm aware of. Why? %
The numbers are all in different colors.
% They all look like black ink to me. Let me see what you're seeing. Oh! Well that's weird. %
Is this how Hypatia sees the world?
% No. This is new. I wonder if it's because of the cross wiring? Weird things can happen when we cross wire things in here. Like Hypatia's Mask making her laugh when she's sad and cry when she's happy. Odd. %
Shrugging, Zoey went back to work. She was designing a new spell, and had a good idea what she wanted it to do, but after a while she came to a standstill on it. No matter what books she read, or what memories of Hypatia's she tapped into, she couldn't work it out. That is, until she read a note in one of the books about ritual magic. That led her, via different paths of research, to the answer. She put her research aside and went outside to grab a fist-sized stone and take it back upstairs.
The ritual, as it turned out, needed an anchor to work, so the stone would be the anchor. She did the ritual, sacrificing her ability to change form for four days because she didn't trust herself to try Hypatia's sacrifice array for smaller sacrifices. That done, she slipped the stone in her pocket, grabbed the invisibility cloak, and went to go sneak into Ravenclaw tower.
“[Riddle]”
“[Clever answer.]”
“Well reasoned,” the knocker said, and let her in.
She pulled the Cloak out and put it on, walking invisible into the room. Being a weekend, most students were outside or in the library, and the common room had only two Ravenclaws in it, on opposite sides of the room. Zoey sneaked by them both and went up to the girl's dormitories into Luna's room. Using her wand, she used Accio to summon Luna's things from a list she'd written down. One by one, most of them came to her and she set them down on Luna's bed. A couple things were locked and couldn't get out, so she hunted them down and liberated them from the bullies' trunks.
Then she took advantage of the fact she was one of the only people who could get into Luna's trunk, and opened it, taking everything out. She then cast her new spell on each and every thing Luna owned, and put everything back but the things she'd recovered, so Luna could see that they were there. She put them under Luna's covers just in case her bullies got into the room first.
After that, she sneaked back to the Griffindor common room, put the anchor stone in her trunk, and went about her day satisfied she'd done good work. Now all she needed to do was wait.
While she waited for the new spell to start doing its thing, she used a different ritual to sacrifice her ability to cast the Featherlight Charm for a few hours in exchange for sealing Peeves inside of a broom cupboard for the same amount of time. He was going to be furious when he got out, and since he didn't know who had done it, it would be very entertaining watching him try to get his revenge on an unknown assailant.
She hid outside Snape's office door waiting for him to exit, which he did for lunch. When he was gone, she used Hypatia's knowledge of runes and arithmancy to make the door password-protected, setting the password to “I, Severus Snape, like to cuddle my pink teddy bear while sucking on my pacifier.” This had Mother laughing fit to burst in the internal space of their shared mind, which only made Zoey grin harder.
Zoey happened to have been walking from dinner to Griffindor tower when she heard Snape's screams of rage. If she understood Hypatia's knowledge well enough, that password on his door was going to be tricky as hell to get rid of. This was confirmed when the screams of rage doubled in volume. Laughing, she ran the rest of the way to Griffindor and did her best to hide until the screaming subsided. But then there were loud crashes and bangs and high-pitched yelling echoing through the halls; Peeves had been released and was in a fit of temper. She rushed out with everyone else to see what was going on. He was tossing inkpots and pieces of armor from the suits of armor while howling in rage, Filch ducking to avoid getting hit, Snape and McGonagall trying to subdue the poltergeist or calm him down. Unable to contain her laughter anymore, she ran off once more to find somewhere safe to let it all out.
Lastly, she sneaked out after curfew under the Cloak, going to the door of the Slytherin common room, and used another ritual to seal the entrance for the next 16 hours, sacrificing her entire ability to do magic for only an hour in the bargain. This very nearly blew up in her face, as a still-angry Snape stormed past her in the hall on her way back, probably to enlist Dumbledore's help removing the password. The other teachers and prefects were also in quite the state, still recovering from Peeves's tantrum earlier. But she managed to get back safe anyway.
~
George Weasley woke up on Sunday morning after a strange dream about a House-Elf staring at him, only to find Zoey Potter staring at him instead, a creepy grin on her face. He leaped back and shouted, getting himself tangled up in his sheets. His brother Fred jumped at the noise and fell out of bed in his own tangle of sheets. Lee Jordan and their other dorm-mate woke up at the noise as well, which now had a little girl's laughter added to it as Zoey laughed so hard she was literally curled up on the floor guffawing.
“Oh it's you is it, Miss Potter?” George said when he got untangled. “Fine then, you asked for it.”
He cast a tickling hex on her, and her laughter doubled in volume and she wriggled around on the floor trying to get away, her face turning red. She started to wheeze though, unable to breathe, so he lifted the hex and picked her up to set her on his bed to recover. Lee and the other boy left for breakfast while Fred and George stayed behind.
“Sorry about that,” she finally said. “Even though it was very funny. I just wanted to help you two out with your joke shop. I had some ideas. And, well, I made enough mischief yesterday I'd be taking my life into my hands if I tried more today.”
“Ah, so you were the cause of Peeves going mental yesterday, then?” George said.
“And I heard Snape couldn't get into his office,” said Fred.
“Yes to both of those. I also sealed the Slytherin entrance. You won't tell on me?”
Both boys put their hands on their hearts solemnly. “Trickster's honor. We never rat out someone unless a prank goes too far and gets someone hurt or bullies someone undeserving.”
“Oh, you're really gonna love what I cast on Luna's possessions, then.”
“Tell us all about it, and you can help us.”
She did, and when they were done laughing, they let her help them after breakfast. She spent most of the day in their room helping invent things with Hypatia's knowledge, which she was still plugged into. The others were all still being kept asleep, apparently.
~
Snape was prowling around the school, looking for any excuse to bust people who were hanging around in the corridors today, after Saturday's debacles. He had a good idea who had done it; Dumbledore had told him about Hypatia's skills with ritual magic, runes, and arithmancy. But when Snape had carefully questioned Draco Malfoy about her, he saw she was very unlikely to be the culprit. Suspecting that the 6 year old imp was somehow tapping into Hypatia's knowledge, the only thing keeping him from hunting her down and spanking her until she couldn't sit for a week was the knowledge that the one named Hypatia would be more furious at the little imp than even he was. She already hated being a part of the Potter collective, was already angry at them for her secret coming out. Yes, it would be satisfying.
Sunday had been quiet, after the chaos of Saturday; too quiet, in Snape's opinion. The imp was up to something, he knew it. But Monday classes came and went with no sign of more chaos. It wasn't until after curfew, when he was patrolling the halls, that it happened.
Because he was being extra vigilant, it was he who first saw the next bit of chaos erupt. He was passing the Ravenclaw entrance when he heard screaming from inside. He immediately turned around and snapped at the eagle-head door knocker to let him in because he was a teacher and it was an emergency. He was only halfway through this sentence, though, when the door slammed open and screaming Ravenclaws came pouring out. Half of them looked normal, if terrified, but the other half had turned purple and had snakes coming out of their ears.
More screaming erupted from another part of the castle; Griffindor tower, he thought. And then a patronus came to find him, McGonagall's.
“Severus, something is happening! Students from all of the Houses are panicking and screaming and out in the halls after curfew!”
He tried to respond, but got shoved against a wall by the screaming horde of panic-stricken children and fell over, using his hands to shield himself because he'd dropped his wand in the fracas.
“QUIET!” Severus yelled as loud as he could, but it made no difference.
“QUIET,” said the headmaster's voice, magically amplified. Everyone stopped in their tracks.
The amplified voice continued, quieter this time. “Everyone please go into the Great Hall while we sort out what is going on and deal with it. You are not to leave the castle. We have been stricken by what appears to be some sort of new magical disease and we must quarantine it until we can keep it from spreading outside the bounds of Hogwarts. Anyone caught leaving the castle before the quarantine has lifted will be expelled and detained until the crisis is over. Now please, walk calmly to the Great Hall. Anyone running in the halls now will be given detentions for a month.”
Everyone eventually got herded into the Great Hall, even Zoey, who was worried. This wasn't going to plan. There were far more people with the 'sickness' than she'd anticipated. About 75% or more of the school body were affected. Did that many people really call Luna “Loony”? They couldn't all be stealing her things, so that was the only other thing that she could think of that accounted for the spread of the thing.
She reached inside her pocket and felt the anchor stone. The spell could be lifted without destroying the stone, but if the ritual worked the way she thought it did, the stone could be traced. And if she destroyed the anchor stone, everyone would get better again, and all would be well. Ish. So she hid behind some seventh-years and surreptitiously tried to disenchant the anchor stone. When that failed, she tried Vanishing the thing. But it wouldn't Vanish, either. And she couldn't try any more destructive spells on it, not here, not now. She wondered if there was a ritual that could remove the spell's anchor, but for all the knowledge she had access to now, she didn't actually understand most of it.
“WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO?” came a voice shouting at her inside her skull. It was Hypatia. “AND HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN ASLEEP?”
I convinced Mother to tap me into your powers and I was trying to help Luna by punishing the bullies but I messed up and now there's an outbreak of a magical disease that could be cured if I could get rid of the anchor stone, but I don't know how to! Also it's been a few days. It's Monday evening right now.
“WHAT!?!? ARRRRGGGHHHH!!! Wait, MOTHER let you tap into my powers!?”
Yes. She said it sounded entertaining.
% Yes but it got very much out of hand. %
“You are so lucky that Chandra likes you. BOTH of you! You interrupt my projects, you abuse knowledge you barely understand, and now LOOK at the result!”
% Think of it this way: it's data. It's a failure mode. %
Hypatia sent them a very long string of nasty words and names that made Zoey blush all the way down to her toes.
“Oh lovely,” Hypatia said after a few more minutes. “Whatever you did caused the anchor stone to be traceable even when the spell has been lifted from it. Even if you destroy it, enough magical residue will remain that someone like Dumbledore could find it. We're going to have to hide it somewhere.”
Hypatia did something to the anchor stone, lifting the spell from it. Everyone who was purple and had snakes coming out of their ears spontaneously got better.
After the nurse checked out a dozen or so people, she declared it had been some kind of prank and not a disease. The quarantine was lifted, but they were still detained as the teachers tried to find the culprit or culprits. Hypatia did a quick ritual to make them unnoticed like she'd done in Knockturn Alley, and they sneaked out. Hypatia had a hypothesis to test.
Endnotes: Yeah, that's all she wrote before I was like “Yeah, no, that's ridiculous and out of character in so many ways.”
But I have to admit, Hypatia having synesthesia would be totally cool. If I can find a way to incorporate it in the main story, I may well do that.
Chapter One: Always On My Mind
Note 1: Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Note 2: Once more, I apologize for the bits and pieces of canon dialogue/narration here and there. But some canon scenes are just too good to change much. There's a lot of those in this one, but don't skim through or you'll miss things.
Note 3: I have different styles for the internal speech of each of the people in the Potter collective, but the note was causing formatting issues on other sites somehow, so if you need a reminder of what formats mean who, you can go back to a previous chapter for the note.
Note 4: All hail Our Lady Of Harry Potter, J. K. Rowling!
Note for BigCloset: Okay so I can't figure out how the outline tab works, not going to risk changing the title yet until I do. Anyway, this is The Many Faces Go To War, the sequel to "The Many Faces of Har--er, Adira Potter," which on BigCloset is currently titled "The Many Faces of Harry Potter" because like I said I can't figure out the outline tab.
*FAYANORA*
Iliana was riding a motorcycle, dressed like a bad-ass biker chick with no helmet, which Sirius would hate, but her hair was flying in the breeze, so she didn't care. As she rode along, the motorcycle gently lifted off the ground and flew into the air, the cars and houses below becoming like toys as she flew through the sunshine. She felt amazing as she flew higher and higher into the sky, laughing with glee.
Luna was behind her on the bike, holding on tight, and she at least was wearing a helmet, but one that showed her face, which was alive with joy and laughter, and was older. Luna looked about 19 or 20, in fact. Iliana looked at herself in a mirror and saw she was around the same age, even though the sunglasses she wore were making it difficult to tell.
That wasn't right, though. The daylight was bright enough that she couldn't possibly be wearing sunglasses. But she didn't question it; she was having too much fun.
Suddenly, though, the day grew darker. The puffy white clouds became dark, flashing with lightning. It started to rain, a terribly cold rain that soaked them to the bone in less than a minute.
“We should land!” Iliana shouted.
“We can't!” Luna shouted back, gesturing down with her head.
Iliana looked down and saw they were flying over a turbulent sea.
“Shit! We should go back!”
“We can't! They'll catch us!”
“Who?”
“You know who!”
Iliana looked into one of her rear-view mirrors. Sure enough, a familiar hideous, snake-like human face was leering at her as he flew behind her on the back of a Norwegian Ridgeback dragon.
“AVADA KEDAVRA!”
With a flash of green light, Luna's life left her eyes just before she slumped over and fell into the ocean. Iliana woke up screaming.
She kept screaming, but something wasn't right. It didn't sound like her own voice, it was pitched too deep to be hers. But still, she screamed. A black form on the floor beside her bed lifted its shaggy head and whined at her with concern. Someone came running, the door opening, and a familiar scarred face came in, looking around for the danger, his wand drawn.
The black dog jumped onto the bed and nuzzled her. She stopped screaming, and started to cry instead, her head in her arms. The black dog got closer and snuggled against her, his warm, fuzzy body comforting her.
“Are you okay, pup?” Remus asked. “What's the matter?”
She couldn't answer, she just kept crying. Padfoot, the dog, looked up at his old friend and whined. Somehow, Remus understood what he meant.
“Ah, another nightmare?” Remus asked. Padfoot nodded, then put his head back down on his fore-paws.
They'd been having a lot of nightmares lately, more than usual. They ranged from vaguely unsettling dreams about a body that didn't fit right, to nightmares like tonight's, or even worse. As horrifying as it had been to watch Luna die just now, at least it wasn't a graveyard dream. Some of those had been especially horrible. Cedric died in some of them, while others ended with an Avada Kedavra flying right at their own face. Luna had been in some of those, as well.
A month and a half. A month and a half of nightmares, of Adira and Iliana crying in frustration at being trapped in Alastair's body, of even Zoey going slightly mad and throwing things around the room in a fit. A month and a half of fear, and anger, and emotions not so easily categorized. And as if that wasn't bad enough, their scar was burning more often than not. It happened so much now that Remus and Sirius no longer freaked out about it, only looked quietly concerned and sympathetic.
They had explained that the scar likely burned because Voldemort, back to full power, was feeling strong emotions. Since they were an accidental horcrux, it would likely keep happening until the link was severed or they died, whichever came first.
So much frustration. No magic, no leaving the house, and even their non-magical plans were falling through. Fudge was keeping a tight grip on both The Daily Prophet and Witch Weekly, and they were writing articles about them and Dumbledore and Cedric every day all summer, trying to discredit the people responsible for releasing the truth about Voldemort to the masses.
Annoyingly, Fudge's plan was working, but according to things they'd overheard or been told, it was taking him a lot of work. It was, after all, very hard to suppress the truth when there were two eyewitnesses, one of whom was legally an adult. Even with Death Eaters on his side, Fudge was losing ground. It was a testament to his tenacity that he'd held on this long, honestly.
Oh yes, and how could they forget, even for a moment, that the horrible anti-werewolf legislation making it nearly impossible for werewolves to get jobs had passed, despite Andromeda Tonks and Sirius fighting it? Made all the more enraging because Dumbledore had done essentially nothing to help. He hadn't actively hindered, but his mysterious refusal to help had been just as bad. Despite that, though, Remus still thought highly of Dumbledore, for having let him be a student and a teacher at Hogwarts. Al had given up on convincing Remus of Dumbledore being a self-serving dingbat at that point. Sirius was on his side, though.
About the only good thing about the summer was that they were in Sirius's family's old house with the Weasleys and Hermione, cleaning it out slowly and in secret, because it was the new headquarters for Dumbledore's vigilante group, “The Order of the Phoenix,” and the place had been sitting to rot for who knew how many years. It wasn't a very cheerful place to live, but it was plenty big enough, and was a lot more secure than the flat had been, even with the Fidelius, since it had all kinds of protections on it like it being unplottable, as well as other things only dark wizards would know about.
This of course had meant they'd had their birthday with most of their friends. Javier wasn't there, and neither was Luna, for they hadn't been trusted with the secret, despite Iliana's and Al's pleading. And then, in the middle of the happiness of their birthday, Mrs. Weasley had tried taking on a boggart by herself, and it had imitated the dead bodies of everyone she loved, one at a time. Only the timely intervention of Moody, who had a new magical eye (purple, this time) had gotten her the comfort she needed from the worry and terror.
“Are you okay now, pup?” Remus asked. Iliana frowned slightly. Remus only used that nickname when he wasn't sure which of them was in control of the body.
“I'm better.”
“Want to talk about it?”
She hugged her legs. “Luna was in it. We were happy. Then he came, and she died.”
Remus sat down next to her. “Care for a hug, Iliana?”
“Please.”
Remus hugged her. Her eyes watered, but she didn't cry again.
After several minutes, she gently shrugged him off. “I won't be able to sleep again tonight. I'm going to do some work.”
The concern in Remus's face altered at this. She knew why; they'd been working on their project to invent weapons they could use against Voldemort every spare moment all summer. It had become an obsession, and they'd had some successes. Iliana had a very promising potion she was still working on. She couldn't brew potions in the house, as there was no potions lab and nobody to watch her as she worked, but she had done all the abstract work. She was going to run it past Professor Snape at some point, see what he thought of it.
An unopened letter from Draco Malfoy lay on the desk as she sat down. She tossed it aside. Hypatia had started ignoring Draco in favor of working on their project. She hadn't at first. In fact, she'd brought him in on the project somewhat. But she was getting frustrated with his lack of results and his constant questions of why she was asking him for help when she was so much better at it than he was. It was especially irritating because Hypatia knew Draco was a lot of help, when they were working in person. But it just wasn't the same, trading letters back and forth.
Iliana worked so long that she ignored the call to breakfast. Having done all she could on her most promising potion, she'd been working on something else instead. It wasn't directly related to Voldemort, and was way over her head, but sometimes it helped her to think about it anyway. After all, if she could improve the Wolfsbane Potion, or invent a replacement, that would be a huge win for werewolves and the people who loved them. But it was busywork; well past N.E.W.T. standard, and she knew she wasn't really understanding much of any of it. Even Hermione had balked at it the one time she'd read through the books and Iliana's notes.
With all the old dark magic books in the Black family library that Hypatia had insisted on saving from the bin, you'd think she'd have been in ritual magic heaven, but working on ritual magic when their magic was still not working was possibly the most frustrating thing yet. Sure, a lot could be done with maths, but a lot of it needed experimentation and practice. She'd given up when, in a fit of irritated rage, she'd hit the book with her fist so hard it broke the spine.
Luckily, though, there was only two weeks left until they got their magic back, assuming they hadn't lost it forever by mistake.
Their mind now occupied – again – by that worry, they gave up on their work and noticed a plate of food on a tray next to the desk. Suddenly ravenous, they pushed their things aside and began to chow down.
They were nearly done when there was a knock at the door.
“Who is it?”
“It's me, pup,” Sirius said.
“Come in.”
Sirius came in, closing the door behind him. His expression was hard to read, and lately they'd come to realize how much they'd been relying on their empathic sense, which made it harder than usual now it was gone.
“How are you doing, pup?”
“Not great. We can't get over what happened in the graveyard. Cedric and I—no, Cedric and us? We and Cedric? Anyway, we nearly died! Voldemort was there, as were a bunch of other Death Eaters. I saw someone else die, turned into pulp by that mega-patronus. I've been having nightmares, I feel helpless without my magic, these projects aren't really helping me, and even after nearly two months it still feels weird being in Al's body all the time.”
Sirius came over to the desk and gave them a hug. “Which one of you just said that?”
“Iliana,” Iliana said. “But Adira was thinking a lot of it herself. She's more frustrated than I am by this whole thing.”
Sirius sighed gently. “I wish I knew how to help you, beyond making sure you're safe here.”
“I could use a distraction of some kind. Something other than this lot,” she said, gesturing to their projects.
“Well I can help you there, at least. You missed the announcement earlier at breakfast, but Dumbledore offered me the Defense Against the Dark Arts position.”
She looked up. “And what did you say?”
“It was a hard sell. He said the Ministry was angling to choose someone for the position if he couldn't fill it, one of their people. So I took the position, on the stipulation – like Moody did – that it would only be for a year. He accepted. I'm the new Defense teacher for this year.”
“I don't know how to feel about that. It'll be good seeing you every week, maybe even every day, but the position is cursed. I'm worried.”
He shrugged. “I'll take that risk. It helps Dumbledore, yes, but it also puts me in a position to protect you if something comes up.”
“What did the Ministry think of your appointment?”
“Dunno. I doubt they'll be happy about it, though.”
“Probably not. So what are you going to teach us?”
“What I'm good at; I'm gonna teach you dueling. I've been practicing since I got released from St. Mungo's back in your third year, when I can. A lot more this summer, between Chandra soundly whipping me and Voldemort being back.”
“Ah, that explains the sounds from the dueling room,” she said, smiling.
“Yeah. And now I have even more reason to practice.”
“If—when we get our magic back, I want to practice with you. There's no telling what shape our magic will be in when it returns.”
“Sure thing, pup. Let me know when it comes back and we'll do that.”
“Oh you'll know when it comes back, because the first thing we're going to do when it does is let Addy out.”
He smiled. “I'll keep a lookout for Addy, then.”
“Thanks, Sirius.”
“No problem. Can I help distract you today?”
“I dunno. Can you? If you can, I'd welcome that.”
“Alright, then, how about I chase you around the dueling room in dog form?”
She thought about that. “Sure, why not?”
“Alright, let's go do that, then.”
~
At dinner later that night, everyone was eating and talking about Sirius's position and wondering who was going to be the new History teacher, since that horrible Umbridge woman had passed her anti-werewolf legislation and gotten him fired. Everyone was agreed that as long as it wasn't Binns again, it couldn't get any worse.
The doorbell rang, setting off the screaming portrait of Sirius's mother again. Sirius ran out to open the door for whoever it was, and to shut up the portrait. That portrait was another frustration; without their magic, Hypatia couldn't gain enough information about the thing from diagnostic spells to work out how to get rid of it. She had some ideas of what it might be, though, and possible solutions. So once they knew for sure, she could probably get rid of it fairly easily.
Soon, the source of the commotion came running into the kitchen where everyone was eating. It was a pink-haired Nymphadora Tonks, or just 'Tonks' if you valued your face being whole. She stopped, barely winded at all she was in such great shape, and spoke.
“Cedric Diggory got attacked by a dementor! He's okay, he managed to hold it back with patronus mist long enough to run and Apparate away, but he was in a Muggle area at the time, so he's being charged with using magic in front of Muggles. I don't think anyone saw anything, but the Obliviators are scouring the area anyway.”
“Voldemort!” Iliana shouted. “He must've sent the dementor!”
“Could be,” Tonks said. “He has reason to want Cedric to stop talking about him. But I dunno, Fudge is having a devil of a time keeping the truth from spreading, he's got just as much reason to want Cedric dead or worse.”
Iliana growled. “Damn those dementors! Once this whole war is over, we're going to eliminate them. Find some way to bind them in place and then do the mega-patronus again to kill them all, the horrible things.”
“Where's Cedric now?” Sirius asked.
“At the Ministry. He's been arrested. Arthur and Amos are trying to talk them out of it, but Fudge is seriously desperate, he's not going to let this one go without a fight.”
“Dammit. Has anyone told Dumbledore?”
“I sent him a Patronus message as soon as I heard,” Tonks said. “I was in the Ministry at the time. I asked Amos and Arthur if they needed help, they just told me to spread the word through the Order.”
There was another ring of the doorbell, setting off the portrait all over again. Sirius went back out again. While he was still struggling with the curtains around his mother's portrait, Snape came in.
“Severus, do you have more news of Cedric?” Remus asked.
Snape frowned. “Something happened to young Mr. Diggory?”
“Attacked by Dementors, got away with a weak patronus, then got arrested for doing magic in a Muggle area.”
“How unfortunate,” he said dryly. “But not what I'm here for. I would like to speak with Potter alone for a moment. Something has transpired, something I need to ask her about.”
Sirius came into the room then. “You're not taking them anywhere alone, Snape. Not if I have anything to say about it, and I do.”
Snape sneered at Sirius. “I do not have time for your games, Black. So if you wish to join us, you may. But what I have to say to Potter is not for any other student ears.”
Sirius looked surprised that Snape hadn't fought him, but nodded. The three of them went into the drawing room. Snape cast every privacy ward he knew on the room. Sirius looked concerned by all the security.
That done, Snape turned to Iliana. “Potter, something happened in that graveyard you haven't told anyone. I need to know what you are hiding.”
She frowned at him, and felt Al frowning as well. “We told Dumbledore everything that happened. Hypatia has a photographic memory, she's incapable of forgetting anything. Maybe you're the one forgetting something.”
Snape gritted his teeth but remained calm. “Fine. Then I would like you to review the events, in minute chronological detail since you insist you're capable of it. Something happened there, something I cannot recall hearing about, and I must know what it is.”
Iliana sighed. Hypatia took over control and began doing exactly as Snape asked, describing absolutely every detail in chronological order, but she didn't get far when he stopped her.
“Stop. Please repeat that last line, Miss Williams.”
“'Yes. And Bella, remember, they have the Philosopher's Stone inside their worthless body somehow. You've been itching to torture someone, I suggest you try it on Potter.'”
Snape didn't respond at first, he was too busy mulling over what she'd said. Then he groaned and pressed the bridge of his nose in irritation.
“What is it?”
The sallow man looked up again, asking his next question like he was dreading the answer she'd give. “What did he mean when he said you have the Philosopher's Stone in your body?”
“Zoey keeps the Philosopher's Stone inside our body, she pulls it in when she transforms away to someone else, can pull it back out when we become her again. We don't know how it works, but he used our blood once he realized he couldn't get the Philosopher's Stone out of Zoey, since it only comes out when she gives it up willingly.”
Snape was massaging the bridge of his nose again. “Damn you Dumbledore, for not telling me important things like this! Ugh. Thank you, Miss Williams. I now have a diagnosis. Not that it helps me figure out what to do about it.”
“Why is this relevant? Do we get to know that?” She paused. “Wait... did the ritual activate the Stone?”
He sighed. “Dumbledore told me I should tell you, since you are apparently privy to more information than I am, and he thinks you might be able to help, Miss Williams. So I can tell you that the dark lord is... not well.”
“Well we knew that already.”
“Not in the head! He is physically ill. I have not been able to diagnose his condition until now. He is weak, he coughs frequently, his bones break with the slightest pressure, and he is severely anemic. I have had him taking up to three blood replenishing potions daily, and I have been repairing his bones with my wand. The one time I tried giving him Skele-Gro... well, it did not work as it should have, and I am lucky to be alive right now because of it. Something went wrong during the resurrection ritual.”
Hypatia smiled. “So you think the Stone got activated when he took our blood? If so, you should check his blood for microscopic pieces of Philosopher's Stone.”
“Yes, that's what I was thinking too, once you told me about that damnable Stone being in your body. Now I just have to figure out what to do about it.”
“You could let it kill him. Or kill him prematurely. It would be the humane thing to do.”
“Excuse me,” Sirius said. “Someone want to clue me in on what's going on?”
Hypatia turned the body's head to Sirius. “Professor Snape and I suspect Voldemort using our blood to rebuild his body was a seriously bad idea for him. We suspect that pieces of Philosopher's Stone too small to see with the naked eye are in his blood, activated by the resurrection ritual. If we're right, those pieces are transmuting all the metals in his body into gold. The gold won't likely kill him, but anemia and bone loss probably will, in time. Unless the pieces are also making elixir of life. In which case, leaving him alone will likely make him turn into a writhing ball of utter agony that can never die unless killed by an outside force.”
Sirius's jaw dropped. “Wait, what? I mean... I get the blood thing, there's iron in blood, but bones? Why are his bones being affected?”
“The main ingredient keeping bones strong is calcium, which is a metal. Gold is a metal as well, but it's a soft and heavy metal, no good for making bones.”
Once he finally got it, Sirius started laughing harder than she'd heard from him all summer. He was laughing harder than he'd laughed at the mustache prank on the train home, and had fallen to the ground. Very soon, Iliana was joining him in the laughter, while Snape watched them with exasperation but yes, also a little amusement. The dark lord had himself in quite a pickle indeed.
When they stopped laughing, Snape said, “You two do realize, I hope, that you are not allowed to tell anyone else what you know about the dark lord's condition. Not even your friends Miss Granger and Mr. Weasley. I likely would have had to get your help even if you hadn't mastered occlumency, but the fact you have done so made the decision easier. I've been told you know occlumency too, Black?”
“Yeah. Standard Black family education, occlumency is.”
“I see. Well as I say, neither of you are to tell anyone about the dark lord's condition, do you understand? If it gets back to the dark lord and his followers that you know, it would destroy my usefulness as a spy, if not get me killed. And as much as I know you would love to see me die, Black, I can assure you many more will die without me to spy on the dark lord for Dumbledore.”
“Fine, Snivellus, the secret is safe with me.”
“I have filed the information away safely so only I can access it,” Hypatia said. “But I still need to know what you intend to do, and if you require any more help from me.”
“I have to tell the dark lord I know what his condition is, now. I will have to tell him what the options are; death and a new resurrection ritual, or an eternal lifetime of torment to make the Cruciatus Curse feel like a warm bath by comparison. If I do not, he will grow irritated with my inability to diagnose him, and kill me.
“As to help from you, Miss Williams, I doubt I'll need it. Curing a problem like this any other way would take too long for the dark lord's patience. He won't be happy to have to be killed again, but since he knows that he has loyal followers now who can and will help him again, he will do it.”
“How much pain is he in right now?”
“Enough that I have to limit his intake of pain relief potions, lest he overdose.”
Hypatia smiled. “It will be a struggle not telling anyone, but the secret is safe with us.”
“See that it is,” Snape said.
With that, he tore down the wards he'd cast and left the room, then the building. Sirius and Iliana returned to the kitchen.
“What was that all about?” Ron asked.
“Can't tell you. Sworn to secrecy. Only reason he told us at all is he needed our help with a problem he couldn't solve himself. That and we figured out what was going on from context.”
Ron frowned at them. They shrugged.
“Sorry, mate. I can't tell you. And a certain someone in here has made certain I couldn't tell you even if I wanted.”
Ron and Hermione looked at each other, then back at Iliana. He mouthed, 'Hypatia?' She nodded, and he relaxed into a stance of understanding and reluctant acceptance. She knew they would understand now.
They hadn't been done eating supper, so they went back to the table to finish.
“Sirius?” Iliana asked between bites.
“Yes, pup?”
“I don't think I can get through the rest of this summer without Luna here. Can we invite her for the summer?”
Sirius smiled. “Well okay, as long as you promise not to go doing anything risky with her, if you catch my drift.”
“Ugh. Like I'd do that in this version of the body. No, if we ever get around to that point, it'll be in my own version of the body, thank you very much.”
Ron looked confused. “What do two girls do with each other for that sort of thing, anyway?”
“RONALD WEASLEY!” Mrs. Weasley shouted. “That is a terribly rude thing to ask! Am I going to have to wash your mouth out with a scouring charm?”
Ron's face turned red. “No, Mum. I'm sorry.”
“Anyway,” Sirius said with a grin, “you can invite her tonight if you can catch her on the two-way mirror. Then if her father says yes, I'll Apparate over there to escort her here.”
“Thanks, Sirius.”
The rest of dinner was spent talking more about Cedric's arrest and the potential fallout from that. What the Ministry would do about it, how Fudge might use it to his advantage, and so on. Iliana finished eating as fast as she could without being disgusting about it, intent on talking with Luna.
When Iliana was upstairs again, she grabbed the two-way mirror with Luna's name on it.
“Luna Lovegood.”
A few moments later, Luna appeared in the mirror. “Iliana?” she asked uncertainly, sounding hopeful.
“Yes, it's me.”
“Oh good. I didn't think the others would have any reason to talk to me, but I wasn't sure. How are you?”
“Not great. Frustrated all the time, as you already know. I've been angry a lot because of it as well. I've been trying to distract myself with projects to finish later, but honestly I've done all I can now. I can't brew potions here, and everything else needs magic.”
“How are the twins doing on their end?”
“Mostly focused on using the money for joke stuff, since that's what's going to sell best. They've run a few war ideas past us, but they're adamant that focusing on the joke part of the joke shop will pay off later, they have to save up for when they leave school.”
“Ah, well, that is a good point.”
“Al told them we'll give them more money if they need it. They haven't asked for more yet.”
“They're proud that way, Iliana.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“You look worried.”
“I am. Very much so. I had another nightmare last night. You were there. We were happy, until...”
“Was it the motorcycle one again?”
Iliana nodded, her eyes watering.
“Anyway, Luna, I called you because I need you here. Can you come over tomorrow? To stay the rest of the summer, I mean. Between being powerless and being cooped up in this dark and gross house, I don't think I can get through the rest of the month without you.”
“Well, I can ask Daddy.”
“Okay. When you do, tell him Sirius will come to escort you himself.”
“I'll tell him that. Hold on, I'll be back in a few minutes.”
She set the mirror down without shutting it off, and left the room. Iliana waited, looking at a spot on the wall of Luna's room through the mirror as she waited. A few minutes later, Luna appeared again, smiling.
“Daddy says he'll miss me very much, but if you need me, and I want to go, then he's happy to see me help you out.”
“Oh good. So I'll see you tomorrow?”
“Yes. Hmm... I don't really want to hang up already, but if I'm going to be leaving home early, I'll need to pack. I may keep my things in my trunk at school, but at home they tend to wander around the house. They like to travel. Which is part of why I didn't always mind so much when they'd go wandering the school. But, hmm...”
“Hey, don't worry about it. Knowing you'll be here tomorrow more than makes up for it. You go pack.”
Luna smiled again. “See you tomorrow, Iliana.”
“Bye!”
Luna signed 'I love you,' and Iliana signed it back to her. Then Luna shut the mirror off, and Iliana sighed, not knowing what to do with herself now.
~
Dumbledore was sitting in his office, thinking about the latest news from Severus Snape concerning Voldemort's deteriorating health. He was both amused and annoyed by the news. Amused for obvious reasons, annoyed because it meant the reinforced connection between Voldemort and the Potters would be breaking as soon as he died again to re-do the ritual, whenever that would be. They would still be bound by the unintentional horcrux in the Potters' body, though, he reminded himself.
It suddenly occurred to Dumbledore how elegant and symbolic it was that Voldemort, who split his soul many times and became less emotionally stable with each split, was facing an opponent who had extra souls inside their body, and could quite possibly one day use alchemy and rituals to give themselves their own bodies. Dumbledore had no idea how to go about that, it was well out of his area of expertise as it would probably require some rituals that were technically dark, but still, he knew enough to believe it possible. If they survived long enough to try it, that is.
He sighed; he hadn't been having a good summer. The Ministry was being ridiculous thanks to Fudge, leaving Dumbledore and his Order of the Phoenix to fight Voldemort alone. And worse than that, Fudge was trying to deflect attention away from Dumbledore's stance on Voldemort by bringing up his mistake of putting the Potter collective with the Dursleys. Dumbledore had decided, at last, to retire from the ICW. A woman he knew and trusted was now leading that esteemed group. He had also stepped down as Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot. It had actually been something of a blessing in disguise; with fewer responsibilities, he could focus more on the fight against Voldemort, and he was getting slightly more sleep now, too.
Still, Dumbledore refused to give up his position as Headmaster of Hogwarts. He loved Hogwarts too much to leave it willingly, and the Ministry was trying to mess around with it, so he had to defend the school from two enemies, now.
The one bit of good news was that the Dursleys had been prosecuted at last, without the Potters needing to come in at all. They were not going to enjoy being locked in a prison run by wizards, but at least it was one of the smaller, usually temporary jails and not Azkaban. Petunia, at least, was glad for that. Dudley Dursley had been a bit trickier to deal with; in the end, the Ministry had faked his parents' death (in a car crash, fittingly enough), changed his memory to match, and put him up with his Aunt Marge. The boy would be traumatized, but that couldn't be helped. Dumbledore just hoped he could convince the Ministry to move the Dursleys to a prison in France or elsewhere for their own protection, before Voldemort could harm them. Especially as he wasn't sure if the Potter collective would want to rescue them or not, and he wasn't sure which choice they made would be worse.
An owl tapped on his window, snapping him out of his thoughts. He got up and collected the letter from it, letting it inside to wait for a response before examining the letter. He did not recognize the handwriting. He cast some spells on it to check for magic, but it was ordinary parchment and ink, sealed with mundane wax.
Dear Albus P. W. B. Dumbledore,
You do not know me, I'm sure, though you may recognize my name. It is Mahala Kalisha Kadu. I am the author of several world-famous books about wandless magic, as well as some moderately popular books about ritual magic, and books about the history of metamorphmagi.
I write today because I have been hearing some extraordinary things out of Britain. Some of it did not concern or interest me, such as your Voldemort, but others... other things caught my attention. Specifically, tales about the famous Harry Potter having multiple souls in his – or I suppose I should say her, with her recent name and gender change – body. Fascinating tales such as multiple patronuses used in the Triwizard Tournament, and bodily transformations that baffled the best European Healers.
All this was enough on its own to make me consider coming to Britain despite magical Britain's third-world status and recent history of violence. But then I heard the one thing that settled the matter for me, namely that the Potters managed to survive your Lord Voldemort shortly after his return from un-death, with an apparently ritual-fueled enormous Patronus of incredible power.
No doubt you are wondering how I heard about that particular story. Well, I admit I am not as fussy about dark magic as many people are, though I never saw the appeal of going fully dark, either. So I have contacts in many places both high and low. One of Voldemort's Death Eaters made the idiotic mistake of going to a Knockturn Alley bar and talking, in shock, about the giant glowing naked woman who killed one of his comrades with an exploding arrow. Luckily for him, I do not think his master found out about his slip-up, and the only person he told was one of my contacts, a man well known for his discretion.
Naturally, being an expert in many areas of magic, I recognized the description as a ritual-fueled Patronus. One of the cruder ways to kill a dementor – and yes, dementors can be killed, no matter what Europeans think – but the only one that is also effective against mortal opponents.
I understand you will be very protective of the Potters this summer, so I will not come to Britain yet. I have some things to take care of in Indonesia first anyway, and I would like to stop by my home in Nairobi as well. I will likely be in transit from Indonesia to Nairobi by the time this letter reaches you. I predict I will be there another two weeks before taking a Portkey to Britain from there. I believe this should be enough time to ease your concern about Potter enough to at least speak with me about the possibility of meeting them. I have a hypothesis I would like to test. Namely, I think they are in fact a form of Metamorphmagus; I believe their plural nature made it manifest oddly.
Other reasons to meet them: I could train them in wandless magic, especially its use in combat. I've become adept enough at this that I don't need a wand, though I do carry one just in case. I also have knowledge of ritual magic that I doubt anyone you would normally employ would have, and I know how to use it safely. I believe they would be better off with someone to apprentice with in regard to that sort of thing, unless you have forbidden them to continue and you believe they actually complied. Otherwise, despite your reputation for not liking ritual magic, would it not be better for them to learn from someone who knows what they are doing, than to experiment on their own? Ritual magic can go disastrously wrong, it is notoriously finicky.
Well, send me an owl telling me your decision about whether or not to talk with me. I suggest you do; I also have some ideas about Voldemort that might interest you, especially about how he managed to survive a backfiring Killing Curse. Whether you know the answer to that or not, I might be able to help on that front as well. I doubt I have any more experience with that particular ritual than you do, but still, wouldn't hurt to try, right?
I will await your owl.
Sincerely,
Mahala Kalisha Kadu
Dumbledore put the letter down thoughtfully. Yes, he had heard of her before. Some of the books about wandless magic that Chandra was using were written by her. She was an African witch of considerable and formidable talent, often called 'the Dumbledore of Africa.' From what he'd heard about her, he thought the comparison was downplaying her abilities. If the rumors were true, she could probably defeat him in battle. It would be a battle to make his duel with Grindelwald look tame by comparison, but still, he doubted he could beat her. Having her help would be invaluable, even if she had no interest in taking on Voldemort directly.
Decided, he got out parchment and ink and began to pen a response, inviting her to come to Hogwarts to talk with him. When he was done with that, and sent it, he sat down to write a letter to the Potters, updating them on the Dursley situation, a letter he intended to send with Dobby. After all, aside from the fact they needed to know anyway, they might have some ideas for what to do for the Dursleys. If they were so inclined.
~
Percy Weasley looked around at his new apartment and sighed. He'd finally moved everything in, it was done; he was committed to this, now. It filled him with a little dread, but also excitement. Dread because he was breaking rules and pretending to be at odds with his family, but excitement because he was working against Voldemort for the Order of the Phoenix. Okay, that gave him some dread, too, even though his role was merely, thus far, spying on the Ministry for the Order. Specifically, Fudge and Umbridge.
It was odd how he'd gotten here. There'd once been a time when he'd resented his treatment by the rest of his family that this could have been a genuine split, even if the whole thing was mad. Not long ago, he'd been working in the Department of International Magical Cooperation under Alfonse Alder. Now he was, thanks to an awkward situation and an even more awkward imaginary situation, personal undersecretary to Minister Fudge. He was glad to be away from Alder, to be honest; the man was kind of creepy, especially around women. After witnessing some incidents and hearing some rumors and trading letters with Iliana Potter over the summer, he'd been very tempted to report what he was seeing to Rita Skeeter, but the woman had apparently dropped off the face of the Earth, and he didn't trust the Ministry's new shills that had replaced her.
Then, somehow, Alder had gotten wind of his activity. Percy had feared his career was over, but the man made him an offer. He'd been planning to refuse, but needing guidance he talked with Dumbledore about it, and Dumbledore had told him it was an excellent opportunity. After a meeting that had made Percy's head spin, he'd found himself in the Order of the Phoenix, and then taking Alder up on his offer, all because Voldemort was a more serious threat than Alder, whose harm was entirely psychological thus far. Percy had managed to get Dumbledore to promise to do something about Alder as well, thankfully, or he would have refused.
Dumbledore's plan was simple: stage a very loud, very public fight in the Ministry with his father over Dumbledore's “lies,” in which Percy defended Fudge and the Ministry and rules, which fit with his personality as most knew it. After all, very few people knew how much Iliana and Adira had helped Percy's home life by intervening with the twins, Ron, and Ginny on his behalf.
It had worked, of course. Now everyone thought there was animosity between Percy and his family. And sadly, there was, in a way... not trusting their ability to pretend to be angry with him, his brothers and sisters hadn't been told the split was fake. He just hoped they would believe him later when the truth came out, and forgive him for making them think he'd turned on them.
Right now, he wasn't feeling like it was much of a trade, Alder in exchange for Fudge and Umbridge. Umbridge was a horrible human being, he couldn't think of a single redeeming quality to her. Even her loyalty was dark and twisted. He hated being around her. Only years of practice at controlling his expressions and concentrating on doing what it took to dig his way out of his impoverished origins was keeping him from quitting in disgust. Well, that and the thought that if he pulled this off well enough, nobody in the Ministry would ever be the wiser, and he could maintain a high position indefinitely.
His unpacking done, it was time to go to work again. He needed the distraction. Grabbing the things he needed for that, he was soon Apparating to work, making his way to his tiny office.
Right now, Percy was looking through the documents for the most recent agenda. As he did, he read something he knew Dumbledore would want to know. There wasn't much time, but luckily that had been taken care of; Dumbledore had given him an invisible ring with which he could tap out a message to Dumbledore, or whoever it was Dumbledore had given the other ring to. The point was, he could contact the Order with it. Glancing up and making it look like he was just resting his eyes, Percy checked for anyone watching. He had already checked the room for surveillance spells before setting to work. Seeing nobody, he turned the ring to make it visible, then tapped out a message on it with his wand.
There. Now maybe Dumbledore would be able to put a stop to this ridiculous new Educational Decree #22, which would, if passed, give the Ministry the right to assign someone to replace a Hogwarts teacher that had been let go due to illegal activity, the language of which meant they had an excuse to replace Lupin as History of Magic teacher, on the grounds that it was illegal now for a werewolf to work as a teacher. Hopefully Dumbledore could get a replacement before that happened, but given how long it was taking, it didn't seem likely. Binns had been such a horrible teacher that Dumbledore was having to cast the net out to the continent to look for a replacement History of Magic teacher. It had been weeks, and nobody had answered yet. Of course, Percy knew why that was. The Delacours had been there to hear that Voldemort had returned, as had Krum and his family, and so word would have spread across the continent by now. Nobody would want to come to Britain until Voldemort was gone for good.
The door opened; Percy hastily made the ring invisible again and pretended to look up from his work with mere curiosity.
In a sickly-sweet and ridiculously girlish voice, the old toad-faced toady in her horrible pink cardigan came into the room.
“Mister Weasley, are you ready? The Minister will be here shortly.”
“Everything is ready, Madam Umbridge,” he said, standing up in a great imitation of his usual excited enthusiasm. “I was just reviewing everything one last time to make sure I hadn't missed any important details.”
She smiled at him. “Excellent. It's good to see such enthusiasm and attention to detail in one so young. You'll go far, young Mr. Weasley, mark my words. Just stick with me and I shall make sure that you go far in the decades to come. Now, quickly, before Cornelius—I mean, before the Minister arrives.”
Giggling at her fake little slip of the tongue, she bustled out of the room, Percy hot on her heels, fully immersed in his role for the day.
Endnotes: Once more, I can safely say that I've been waiting literal YEARS to reveal the whole “Philosopher's Stone transmuting Voldy's blood and bones to gold” thing. And YAY! Finally it's here! :D
Secondly, I've decided that while having electronic copies of books 5 – 7 would be nice, canon compliance is going to be going out the window at this point anyway, so I'm not bothered. (I have e-copies of those books now, I just don't think I'm going to use them much.)
Also, yes, Umbridge is a Hufflepuff. I hate it how the villains are almost always Slytherins. As horrible a person as she is, Umbridge showed herself to be fiercely loyal to Fudge for some reason. And who says political climbers have to be Slytherin? After all, Percy is canonically a Griffindor, and he was a social and political climber. So yeah, she's a Hufflepuff here. Besides, a Hufflepuff villain is a fascinating idea to me.
Lastly yes, I did decide to run with Iliana's distaste for Alfonse Alder and go the Harvey Weinstein route with him. He'll get his comeuppance.
“The Many Faces Go To War: Chapter 2”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Two: The Return of Magic
Notes: This is the second chapter of the sequel to “The Many Faces of Har---er, Adira Potter.” If you haven't read that series yet, this one isn't going to make much sense.
Also, a reminder for anyone who forgot: the person formerly known as Harry still exists, she's just transgender in this one, her new name is Adira.
Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Things taken directly from canon will be scarce now, as the plot is massively diverging now.
I have different styles for the internal speech of the various Potters, but I don't like risking the usual note messing with the formatting, so if you need a refresher, it's back in chapter one of this fic.
J. K. Rowling owns this sandbox, I'm only playing in it.
*FAYANORA*
Severus Snape swept up to the gargoyle at the headmaster's office and gave the password, 'Jelly babies.' Then he climbed up the turning staircase and knocked on the door. It opened, and Severus stepped inside, immediately freezing up in surprise, briefly; there was someone unexpected in the office with Dumbledore. There were two women there. One he knew, it was Minerva McGonagall. The other he didn't know.
The woman he didn't know was short, only about 5' 5'', with skin so dark brown that it probably qualified as truly black. She was so dark that only the light reflecting off the oils in her skin gave her face and bare arms any topography at all; without it, she would have looked almost as though someone had cut a hole in the world; the whites of her irises and her unnaturally yellow eyes would have looked like they were floating in midair. As it was, she looked like she was carved from ebony with glass eyes put in place, except that there was life in those eyes. Her black hair was styled in little knob-like knots Severus thought were called Bantu knots, and her hair actually looked slightly lighter than her skin tone. That may have been a trick of the light, though.
“Ah Severus, so glad you could join us.”
Severus looked at the two women. “I did not know you were entertaining guests, headmaster. I can come back later when it is more convenient.”
“No, that's quite alright. This is Mahala Kalisha Kadu, perhaps you've heard of her?”
Severus blinked. “The expert in wandless magic you mentioned?”
“That is I,” the woman said. “Though mostly because the art of wandless magic is lost on most of the wizarding world. You must be Severus Snape, the potioneer.”
Her voice had a kind of edge to it that Severus liked; it reminded him a little of his own manner of speaking, though the accent was different of course.
“Yes, I am.”
“I have read your published work,” she said with that same crisp edge to her voice. “You should write more. You're wasting your time being a teacher.”
“Tell me something I don't know,” he answered.
“Ms. Kadu is here because she is interested in training the Potters,” Minerva said.
Severus frowned. Then he mentally chided himself for letting the expression slip through. The Kadu woman caught it, too, which annoyed him even more.
“You have something to say about them? Then I wish to hear it. I wish to know all I can about them before I decide whether and how to train them.”
He looked to Dumbledore, who nodded, then gave Minerva a quelling look. So Severus answered.
“How much do you know about the Potters so far?”
“I know all their names. Including Hypatia. Dumbledore was filling me in.”
“Alastair Potter and Zoey Potter are bullies,” he said.
He paused, but nobody was interrupting him. Dumbledore and McGonagall both looked away from him.
“I do not think they mean to be bullies, given the things I have seen in their head, but they have a lot of power that has gotten to their heads. I believe Alastair's reasons for the bullying is he thinks of himself as the group's defender. Zoey, on the other hand, is a prankster whose pranks sometimes go too far, though she may be picking up on Alastair's emotions. Even the one known as Chandra – normally a very calm and gentle soul – has been infected by their poor temper and on occasion has some of their same impulsiveness that he unleashes on others. Their main targets thus far have been young Mr. Malfoy and his cronies Crabbe and Goyle, for no other reason than the boys verbally goad them, or occasionally attempt to hex them. Their behavior towards young Mr. Malfoy is especially ironic, since the one known as Hypatia is friends with him. He has no idea who she really is, of course.”
“Who else have they attacked?”
“I have heard of some other incidents. They caused a reporter named Rita Skeeter to be stuck to the ceiling of a pub, after she insulted one of their friends. I have also heard of an incident wherein Zoey Potter covered Ronald Weasley with transfigured toy spiders. He is quite afraid of spiders. Her apology involved giving him a trick sweet that covered him with feathers. I do not know why they are still friends.”
“Can you tell me about any specific incidents of bullying against the Malfoy boy?”
“Yes, I can. The most recent one was, I believe, the time the one known as Chandra Rahasyamay used wandless magic to make Mr. Crabbe and Mr. Goyle be magnetically attracted to Mr. Malfoy. From what I heard, it looked painful. But before that was dealt with, he then caused them to float in the air, and he did not know how to undo either of these things. The headmaster had to undo it. And their punishment for this was to read books about wandless magic.” Severus glared at Dumbledore as he said this. Dumbledore looked away uncomfortably. Minerva was fidgeting with her hat in her lap and looked even more uncomfortable than the headmaster.
“That was only the most recent example?”
“Yes. There was also the time Alastair Potter put the three boys in a full body bind, Disillusioned them, and left them on the side of the road. The way they were discovered... Hagrid, our gamekeeper, stumbled upon them. Literally. They could have been killed. He is half giant. Shall I go on?”
“Please do.”
“Good. Let me see... there was a time when Zoey Potter did something to Mr. Malfoy's hair, and took an embarrassing picture of him. Something else I believe she did, but I could never prove, is that once, Mr. Malfoy was found out past curfew; he had apparently been stuck to the ceiling of a hidden alcove. He woke up with no idea where he was, and he got in trouble trying to find his way back.”
“Is that all?”
“That is all the specific incidents I am aware of, yes. The rest is just trading verbal barbs with the Malfoy boy.”
“I see. And what punishment did they get for these offenses?”
Severus snorted with derisive laughter. “Punishment? For the glorious famed Potters? Of course not. Not nearly enough, anyway. Dumbledore took over their punishment for the incident where they stuck the three boys together, but Minerva McGonagall was there as well, it should have been her jurisdiction. I find myself puzzled by her under-reaction, to be honest.”
“He was new, Severus! Like a child!”
“Not at the time of that incident he wasn't! And Alastair was with him for that one. And yet you didn't punish them because Chandra was new? He wasn't so new, I found out later. According to Hypatia, he had existed since their first year here, he merely was hidden for years. And anyway, would you not still punish a toddler for doing something wrong?”
She had nothing to say to this.
“It is a concerning pattern of behavior,” he said. “Very concerning. Part of the reason I started taking Iliana under my wing was that she seems to be one of the most ethical of them, and one of the more level headed of them. Ironic, given she looks like Lily, who was a hothead. The point is, I was hoping to mold her into being a good influence on the others. But after the Skeeter incident, I may have been taking things too slowly, been too subtle.”
“You're absolutely right,” Mahala Kadu said. “Too many people have let them get away with too much, and it seems to be eroding their character. Targeting someone their age who verbally bullies them I could almost understand, but then they moved on to bullying adults, and that is indeed cause for concern. Whether they mean to be bullying or not, they need to be taught to stop it, to let their reason overrule their emotions.
“With that in mind, I am going to train them, but I'm not giving them any more weapons until I can be sure they're not going to use those weapons for ill.”
“I should probably tell you also,” Severus said, “that they know occlumency now. So I cannot look into their minds for you anymore and be sure of what I see.”
She glared at him. “You've been looking into their minds without their consent? Isn't that illegal?”
“Not exactly.”
“Oh. Right. Because this is wizarding Britain, the backwater third-world nation of the wizarding world.”
“If I might interject,” Dumbledore said. “I believe Hypatia to be honest about their internal goings-on, at least with people she trusts. And she seems to trust me.”
“I hope you're right. This may be a lot more difficult if you're wrong.”
There was a lull in the conversation. Then Severus finally decided to fill it.
“This has been diverting, headmaster, and as pleasant as it has been to meet you, Ms. Kadu, I came here to speak privately with the headmaster about an important matter.”
“Is this about your Voldemort?”
“It might be.”
“I've heard he's not doing too well. Something about little bits of Philosopher's Stone turning all the metals in his body into gold. Tell me, has he been experiencing paralysis, seizures, low blood pressure, fainting spells, confusion, or memory loss, on top of his other symptoms?”
He looked to Dumbledore. He nodded.
“Yes, you are correct Ms. Kadu. How did you know?”
“Well... potassium and sodium are also metals, so it was a logical deduction.”
“Should Minerva really be here for this, Dumbledore?”
“She knows that much. But yes, I believe the rest should be discussed without her.”
McGonagall nodded and stood up, her hat still in her hands as she left the room. Dumbledore waited another 30 seconds, then nodded.
“Continue, Severus.”
“Thank you, headmaster. Yes, the dark lord is doing very poorly. I have had to start using Bellatrix and Crouch Junior to help me keep him alive while I go out for more potions supplies. I have been brewing nonstop for months. And as Ms. Kadu pointed out, he's missing potassium and sodium, so I have needed to give him large doses of those as well. I used some saline solution in an IV, though I had to add potassium and double the salinity to keep up with the effects. Bellatrix and Barty were not pleased at that 'Muggle rubbish,' but it is far faster than the potions at getting such things into the body.
“The dark lord is no longer fit of mind enough to make decisions about his own medical care. I have been fighting with Bella and Barty for weeks about whether or not to kill him so he can be revived again. Bellatrix seems to think that doing so will harm the dark lord's soul. I must admit, the concern was alarming. I believe Bellatrix knows that the dark lord has at least one horcrux.”
Dumbledore's eyes went briefly wide. “And where did you learn of this, Severus? I do not believe I ever revealed that to you.”
Severus snorted. “Give me some credit, headmaster. I may be a master potioneer, but my true passion has always been the dark arts. I learned from the dark lord for several years before defecting, and I have had years to study on my own time. He did not tell me of horcruxes himself, but he taught me enough that I soon found out about them myself. I'm sure Bellatrix knows in a similar way, though obviously she was in Azkaban for many years.”
“I see. So you said you were having a hard time convincing Bellatrix to kill him again, in order to revive him again?”
“Yes. As I said, she thinks it might harm his soul.”
This time the Kadu woman answered. “Not an unreasonable assumption. In fact, she may be right. Given what I've heard of his appearance, I'd say he has at least four horcruxes. One is bad enough, but you get up to four and your soul becomes unstable enough to break apart far more easily, and pieces go flying every which way. And if I'm right, he doesn't have much soul left to spare. I'm honestly surprised he's not a vegetable, to be honest.”
“What do you mean by 'he doesn't have much soul left to spare'?” Severus asked.
“Well I've studied horcruxes. Vile things, for so many reasons. But when the instructions say 'split your soul,' they mean it literally. Each horcrux splits the body's part of the soul in half. First horcrux, if that gets destroyed, kills half the soul, and the soul pieces aren't connected in any way after that, so getting one horcrux is like losing half your soul even when it's intact. Make a second one, and you're down to one quarter of a soul. Make a third, you've only got twelve and a half percent of your soul. Four would reduce your body down to 6.25% of a soul. At that point, you'd have to have been someone really bloody clever to even be able to form words. So I'm thinking he has two, maybe three horcruxes at most.”
“I believe him to have made six intentional horcruxes,” Dumbledore said. “I believe he was fascinated enough by the number 7 to want a seven part soul.”
“SIX!” Severus had actually shouted that, clutching his heart. “SIX horcruxes?”
Ms. Kadu had gone several shades paler, her eyes huge. Then she seemed to calm down, and frowned at Dumbledore.
“That's impossible. Six horcruxes would have him down to 1.56 percent of a soul. Even if he'd been three times smarter than the smartest human in recorded history when his soul was 100%, at 1.56% of a soul he'd have the IQ of a cactus! He might be able to track movement with his eyes, but he'd be a drooling moron otherwise. After all, dementors suck out souls in their entirety, and the only thing those poor bastards can do is breathe on their own.”
“His physical appearance matches someone with at least four horcruxes, you said that yourself. How else would you explain that?”
“Well yes, the dark magic involved in making horcruxes warps the body, and every time you split your soul that way it warps it further. Snape, do you think his appearance matches someone with that many horcruxes?”
“How should I know? To my knowledge, nobody in history has ever had more than two of the cursed things.”
“Can't you extrapolate based on known physical descriptions of the damage two horcruxes does?”
Severus sat silently, thinking. After several minutes, he nodded.
“I suppose... yes. I cannot be sure of course, but the projected damage does seem to fit with more than four horcruxes.”
“But how? How can he have six horcruxes and--- wait, you said 'intentional' horcruxes! What do you mean by that?”
Dumbledore sighed. “I believe the Potters to be an accidental horcrux. I believe a piece of his soul broke off when the curse failed, and attached itself to the only other living body in the area at the time.”
Severus stood up from his chair, so angry he was actually growling. “And WHEN were you going to tell me this? You realize this means the Potters will have to die for him to die for good?”
The old man suddenly looked every single one of his 100+ years, and sad enough for three lifetimes.
“Yes, I am aware of that. I have been trying to find an alternative solution, but... I don't know if there is one.”
“It might be possible,” Mahala said. “But very difficult, if so. Differentiating one soul from another in the same body? I don't know how that would work.”
“Especially as there are likely another seven souls in there along with the one we need to remove,” Severus said, sitting back down again.
“Seven--- oh, because of the patronuses. I heard about that. It was in your country's only newspaper. I also heard about the mega-patronus they defended themselves with.”
Dumbledore nodded. “Yes, it does sound very daunting. Do you have any insights that might help us find a way to destroy the unintentional horcrux without destroying its container?”
Mahala snorted at this. “I doubt even Herpo the Foul himself would have a clue how to do that. Horcruxes may or may not be the only application of soul magic, but even if they aren't, they still got the study banned. Even if someone somewhere knew how to do it, the secret would be so well hidden that I doubt we'd find the answer in our lifetimes, even if we lived to be 200.
“But enough of that for now,” she continued. “I want to backtrack a little. I still want to know how Voldemort can have six horcruxes – or seven, I suppose – and still be able to walk and talk. His shade should have been rendered so simple that it would have just been sitting there in the rubble, completely unable to think, barely existing at all.”
“Ms. Kadu,” Severus asked, a faraway look on his face. “Might it be possible to take a split part of soul and further break it up? A part of the soul not in the body, I mean. If it were, he could still have 50% of his soul in his body, the horcruxes made of percentages of the other half he initially broke off?”
She spluttered. “I have no idea. I doubt it. The soul piece has to have an organic body, capable of ma--- wait a moment...”
They waited as she thought. Finally, she said, “I wonder...”
“Don't keep us in suspense,” Snape quipped.
“It's just... well... I mean the most obvious way would be to use the Philosopher's Stone, but... do either of you know how Voldemort made that horrible homunculus body he stayed in until his resurrection?”
The two men looked at each other, then back at her, since it had sounded like a rhetorical question.
“Right,” she continued. “I do. No offense, Mr. Snape, but I've been studying the dark arts for nearly sixty years--”
“You don't look a day over 40,” Dumbledore said.
“Flattering, but don't interrupt me again. Anyway, I've been studying the dark arts for almost sixty years, and I do know how he made that horrible homunculus. The first step is to find a newborn human infant. The second step is to remove its soul with dark magic, which mutates its body in the process unless you have access to a dementor. Then the shade has an empty vessel to reside in, but the dark magic renders its lifespan very short. Such a body couldn't last more than a year and a half before it died, and it would never grow in that time.
“So my thought is, what if Voldemort split his soul, then turned such a homunculus into a horcrux, solely so it could split itself up into more horcruxes?”
“I doubt that Voldemort would do that,” Dumbledore said. “He would not trust his alternate that much. The two would plot against each other. It wouldn't cooperate with its original.”
“I disagree, headmaster,” Severus said. “The dark lord is nothing if not pragmatic. If nothing else, he could possibly find some way to control the homunculus, suppressing the free will of the parasitic other half of his soul. He could have studied the effects on its mind as it was further split up.”
“Yes, and if he had to be in close proximity to the thing to get it to behave, the dark magic from its horcrux rituals would wash over him and affect his appearance. The only problem would be he'd have to split his own soul at least twice as well, to get seven out of the deal. Though I suppose he could have repeated the homunculus experiment.
“So he starts out with half of his soul after his first horcrux,” she continued, “and the other half is forced to split itself in half, meaning he then has two horcruxes with 25% soul. If he didn't care about their intelligence at all, he could then easily have both of them split themselves for four horcruxes at 12.5% soul apiece. Then he could make a fifth horcrux from his own soul shard if he liked the results of the second split enough, and have that one split itself to make the sixth one.”
“You are forgetting something important, Ms. Kadu. You are forgetting that Voldemort had not made his sixth horcrux yet when he tried to kill the baby then known as Harry.”
“Yes, but he'd be at 25% soul after the fifth one if I'm right, destabilizing his soul enough to split it by accident, so that fact isn't really relevant.”
As the room went into a thoughtful silence, Severus was massaging his head. He did this for several minutes before standing up.
“We could go on debating this for years, I suspect. But I need to hurry up and get back to the dark lord's side before Bella and Barty get too annoyed with my tardiness. It was a pleasure meeting you, Ms. Kadu. Farewell to both of you for now.”
Without waiting for a dismissal, he swept out of the room.
~
As frustrating as the previous months without magic had been, the last few weeks were easier. With Luna around to distract Iliana, the others retreated into the subconscious to give them privacy, even though it was just cuddles and hand holding. They were still trapped in Al's body, after all, which was the worst part of it for Adira and Iliana. But despite some occasional angst about this, Luna was mostly a positive distraction.
Cedric ended up getting a full trial in front of the Wizengamot for using magic in a Muggle area, but since there weren't actually any Muggle witnesses, with Dumbledore's help Cedric got released with a warning not to do it again. There was a lot of celebration about that when the news reached Grimmauld Place.
Book lists came a couple weeks before school started, and so Sirius and Remus and Mrs. Weasley took Luna, Iliana, Hermione, and the Weasley kids to Diagon Alley to get their school stuff. Iliana was worried what would happen if getting their school things would jinx them so their magic wouldn't return. Luna tried her best to ease their minds about that.
Along with the book lists came some other news. Hermione got a Prefect badge, she was excited about it. Ron was confused why Adira or one of them didn't get a badge, too, but Al pointed out he was one of the few boys in the collective; giving Al a Prefect badge would have been at least as bad an idea as giving one to a young Sirius would have been, and Zoey was a prankster. Tier hardly came out anymore, and giving Chandra a Prefect badge would be right up there with giving one to Luna. So they weren't terribly surprised or disappointed to not get it.
Besides which, they got a consolation prize, as Iliana was made Quidditch captain. She freaked out about this somewhat, because she hadn't practiced all summer long. Also, they were all still worried that their magic would never return.
Hypatia and Iliana had gotten as far on their projects as they could without magic. Iliana still hadn't been able to speak with Professor Snape, so they just had to keep waiting, as they'd done all summer long.
Then came the 16th of August, and the waiting was over.
“AAAAAAAAAA!!!!” came the shrill scream from the Potter bedroom. Sirius, Remus, and Mrs. Weasley came running into the room as the scream suddenly stopped.
The sight before them was Adira, covered in a heavy sheen of sweat, passed out on the floor and pale as death. Remus ran forward and checked her pulse.
“Still alive. Strong pulse. Heart seems to be beating a bit too fast for someone who's passed out.”
“She changed,” Sirius noted. “That means they got their magic back, right?”
“I would presume so,” Remus said as he checked her with diagnostic charms.
“Should she go to St. Mungo's?” Mrs. Weasley asked anxiously.
“I don't know yet. Wait...”
“Yes?” came the question from both Mrs. Weasley and Sirius.
“She's not passed out after all. She's conscious. Just not responsive.”
“That sounds familiar,” Sirius said. “Like the night their names came out of the goblet.”
“That might be it, Padfoot. If so, I think what happened is they got their powers back all in one go, and it overwhelmed them. Empathic power as potent as theirs returning suddenly after months of being gone? I think that would do it. It would explain the scream, as well.”
Luna stepped forward. The adults hadn't noticed her coming in, but she was nodding as though she'd heard enough to know what had happened. She knelt down by Adira's prone form and took her by the hand.
“Adira? Iliana? Are you in there?”
Adira whimpered, jerking her hand out of Luna's and covering her eyes with it to block out the lights from the candles Mrs. Weasley had lit. Seeing this, Sirius put out all but one of the candles; the one he left on was behind her, so the light wasn't shining in her face.
Adira was curled up in the fetal position now, freeing her hands by pulling a blanket off the bed and over her head. She was shaking uncontrollably, and started muttering something that was further muffled by the blanket.
By now, the other kids had joined the audience, and one of the twins took out an Extendable Ear while his mother's back was turned and maneuvered it over to listen in on what Adira was muttering.
“Green bolt, alien presence, its claws dug in,” she was saying, over and over again. Fred tapped Sirius on the shoulder and handed him the listening end of the Extendable Ear. Sirius listened to it with a frown on his face.
“I really think we should take her to St. Mungo's,” said Remus. “From what Dumbledore and Sirius told me, when Chandra was experiencing this sort of thing, he got better a few minutes afterward. It's been over ten minutes, and she's showing no sign of improvement.”
Sirius hadn't been paying attention to Remus; he was still listening to Adira's muttering. He looked up now and told the room, “She was muttering 'Green bolt, alien presence, its claws dug in.' But now she's just saying a bunch of things that don't make any sense.”
Fred took the Extendable Ear back and listened. George rolled out another one so Sirius could continue to listen, too. It sounded like disconnected sentences, each different in tone enough to indicate that they were clearly not meant to be connected.
“The yellow-eyed one will show the way, her skin as black--- What I've made is a weaponized potion, I call it the--- I'm sorry! I wasn't thinking! He just made me so angry! The amphibian wanes in influence, but her wrath will--- The only good Death Eater is a d-d-d-daaaaauuuhhh...”
Adira went limp and stopped shaking as she trailed off. Remus checked her vitals again, but she'd just passed out.
“I'm not sure,” Sirius said, “but I think she was giving partial prophecies. One was something about a yellow-eyed person with black skin 'will show the way.' And the other was something about the amphibian's influence waning, but then that part said something about 'her wrath will.'”
“Will what?”
“No idea. It cut off there and became something else, something about 'the only good Death Eater is a' something starting with D. But that part sounded like someone just talking, not like a prophecy.”
Sirius used his wand to summon parchment, quill, and ink so he could start writing down what he'd heard.
Remus and Mrs. Weasley were still dithering on the question of St. Mungo's a couple minutes later when Adira woke up, uncovering her head and looking around herself. She looked up at Luna blearily. Nobody but Luna had noticed her waking up until she spoke.
“What happened? Where am I? Why is everything blurry?”
Luna smiled at her. “Hello, Adira. We're not sure what happened, but Mr. Lupin thinks your magic came back, and the empathic noise overwhelmed you. You're in your bedroom. Everything is blurry because you don't have your glasses on.”
Remus handed Luna Adira's glasses, and Luna put them on Adira's face for her.
“Better?”
“Yes,” she said, looking up at Remus this time.
“Adira, your eyes!”
“What's wrong?” Mrs. Weasley asked.
“They're hazel.”
Adira cocked her head. Then she said, “That's nice. What's the relevance?”
“Well, normally they're green,” Sirius said in concern.
She turned to look at him. “I see. Well that is unusual. Any chance they're colored contact lenses?”
Now everyone was looking uncomfortable.
“Adira,” Hermione said cautiously, “what do you remember?”
Adira frowned in thought. Then the frown deepened. “Is my name really Adira? I thought it was... um...”
She looked down at her hands and jerked in surprise. “Why am I white?”
Remus and Sirius looked at one another, a silent question in their eyes.
Adira reached up to push her glasses further up her nose, and suddenly the metal lenses turned to gold.
“What the?”
Sirius looked like he was close to panicking. “Adira, whatever you do, don't touch anything else!”
“Who's Adira?” Adira asked. “I'm Megan. Megan Chandra Potter. Wait, no... that doesn't sound right.”
“I'm going to go tell the headmaster what's happening,” Remus said, rushing from the room.
“Aha!” Adira said. “I'm Alastair Lily Potter. Yes, that's who I am.”
Suddenly, her eyes turned blue, then green, then one blue and one green, one blue and one hazel, then she passed out again.
“What's going on?” Hermione asked. She was wringing her hands.
The other kids looked scared and confused as well. Well, everyone in the room was looking like that. Even Luna's normally calm demeanor was faltering.
Adira shifted then to Zoey's form, then to Al's, Chandra's, Iliana's, and Hypatia's form before switching one last time to Adira's form. She sat bolt upright, her body rigid, her eyes a bright amber.
“Rebooting,” said a voice that was only familiar to Sirius; it was Hypatia's voice. Luna knew of Hypatia, of course, but hadn't met her yet, and neither had Remus.
She sat that way for a whole minute, everyone talking in a panic about what was going on. After the minute was over, she said “Memories intact and uncorrupted,” then her eyes went back to green, and her rigid posture relaxed.
“Well that was a trip,” Adira said. “I don't remember much about it, but enough to know it was weird. Anyway, it's me, Adira Lily Potter. Hy-- er...”
[Don't you dare tell all these people about me! The brainiac and the brash idiot you call your close friends, maybe. But I don't really trust the twins.]
“What was that all about, mate?” Ron asked nervously.
“Um... It seems that getting our powers back threw the whole system into chaos, blending personalities and memories in weird ways. But er, Mother repaired the damage. We're fine now.”
It wasn't quite true; Al and Zoey weren't responsive, but that was because they had apparently had some kind of traumatic experience during the memory overlap. Even Chandra was quiet and thoughtful in a different way than normal for him. But she didn't want to worry anyone.
Since it was morning now, Adira stood up. “I won't be able to sleep now. I'm hungry. That experience took a lot out of me.”
“Oh yes, of course dear. I'll go whip you up something,” Mrs. Weasley said, bustling down to the kitchen.
Adira followed her down, as did everyone else. Adira gave Hermione and Ron significant looks; she was going to tell them about Hypatia so they wouldn't worry.
Luna slipped her hand into Adira's hand and asked her how Iliana was.
“A little freaked out, but glad to be a girl again. Still, I was here first, so she's letting me have the body for a while. Don't worry, I'll let you two spend some time together later.”
“Okay, Adira,” she said, smiling.
Just then, the doorbell rang, and Sirius's mum started her screaming. As Sirius ran off to answer the door, Adira's eyes changed to amber and she whipped her wand out, casting spells at the portrait to Hermione's dismay, but Adira knew how the Trace worked and knew she could use magic in this house without it being a problem. Anyway, it was Hypatia who was in control at the moment.
The first thing she cast was a spell over her own ears to make herself temporarily deaf. Then after five minutes of diagnostic spells and another five of spells to crack part of the picture's security, she cast a gag into the portrait's horrible mouth, and tied it up so it couldn't move.
“Thanks, Addy,” Sirius said when he and Tonks came down the hall to find that Mrs. Black was bound and gagged. Sirius paused to glare backwards toward the door.
“Uh huh,” came their reply, as they were still deeply involved in figuring out how to get rid of the portrait.
Sirius and Tonks went on ahead into the kitchen, leaving her there to her work. A moment later, Professor Snape walked past her.
She paused her work. “Professor Snape?”
He paused to look at her.
“Your eyes are amber,” he noted emotionlessly.
She looked around a moment before answering. “It's me, Hypatia. Thanks for letting me know about the eyes.” Her eyes turned green again. “I just wanted to tell you that Iliana wants to talk with you later, once we're done with this portrait. Sir.”
“I see. I hope it will be short. I am rather busy, as I'm sure you know.”
“Has No-Nose died yet? Sir.”
Snape stiffened. “Take care what you say and where you say it,” he replied in a hissed whisper.
“I don't think anyone is going to figure out anything from that, sir. Besides which, one of the spells I cast before starting this project was a privacy bubble. You're currently at the farthest range of being able to hear anything inside it. And before you ask, yes I know how to keep away those Extendable Ears of the twins, that's been included. Just remember Iliana wants to ask you something before you go. Should take five minutes at the most.”
With that, she went back to her work without waiting for a response. Snape sniffed at her and swept toward the kitchen.
A half an hour later, the people in the kitchen heard a heavy thump from the entrance hall. A moment later Adira finally walked in carrying the horrible portrait of Sirius's mum and showed it to them before giving it to Sirius for him to stow in the attic. With that done, she sat down and started to eat.
“So where's Professor Snape at?” Adira asked between bites.
Hermione answered her. “He and Tonks went into the drawing room. We've seen some other people filtering through, as well.”
“Good,” she said before switching to a whisper. “Anyway, I have something to tell you two later, about what happened earlier. I'll tell you once Iliana gets to ask Snape something.”
Her friends nodded, and Adira went back to eating.
“So you got rid of Sirius's mum, I noticed,” Fred said. Now that they had their powers back, Adira could tell Fred and George apart again by their empathic signature.
Adira rolled her eyes. “I should hope so, since I brought her in here to show you all.”
“We were just wondering how you did it,” George said.
“Well, we've had two months of no magic and plenty of boredom and frustration within which to figure out things like that. Some arithmancy, some research of spells, and boom, there we are.”
“Those diagnostic spells, though... pretty advanced stuff. When did you practice those spells?”
“Didn't. That was the first time we'd done most of those spells. That's part of why it took so long, we weren't always doing it right.”
Fred mouthed the words 'so long?' with an incredulous look. George, his eyes wide, said, “'So long?' We've had dozens of adult witches and wizards come through here during the summer, and not one of them made any progress in shutting her up, and in less than an hour you not only shut her up, you got her off the wall!”
“Yeah, and you had her shut up in like, 20 minutes or less,” Fred said.
“Like I said, we've had months to work out what to do. But of course, we didn't know everything. We could've gotten her off the wall faster if we'd known there were blood runes on the back of her canvas. It's a bit difficult to deactivate blood runes to begin with, much less ones that are on the back of a painting and protected by loads of Dark spells. But yeah, I guess now you mention it, being able to crack that in half an hour was pretty incredible.”
“What's a blood rune?” Ron asked.
“Don't you dare tell him,” Mrs. Weasley said. “I don't even know how you know what they are, Adira. Children shouldn't know about those things.”
“Our attitude is that when you've got an insane dark wizard coming after your blood, it's a good thing to know as much magic as possible, even Dark magic. Don't worry, Mrs. Weasley, we're not going to go around killing people or enslaving people or anything like that, but it's a 'know your enemy' kind of situation. Dumbledore does the same thing, more or less. Also, I'm 15. Just two years away from being an adult in the wizarding world.”
“Still a child.”
“Teenagers are neither children nor adults,” Adira replied. “Teenagers are teenagers. Adolescents.”
At that moment, Adira paused and looked thoughtful. “Sorry, Mrs. Weasley, still feeling a little weird and mixed up, after what happened this morning.”
“Apology accepted, dear. But I still don't want you telling any of your friends about any Dark Arts.”
Hypatia grabbed Adira's body and sighed. “Blood runes are one of those things that shouldn't really be considered Dark, they're just regular runes done in the individual's blood instead of ink, done to strengthen the rune with the magic of the mage's blood. But of course the Ministry is like 'Ew, blood, how icky! Everything icky is Dark!'”
Mrs. Weasley glared at Adira, who was now back in control of her body. She stared down at her plate, embarrassed and frustrated that she couldn't explain. Not right now, anyway.
When breakfast was over, Adira convinced Mrs. Weasley to join her in one of the other rooms to talk. After casting some privacy charms, she told Mrs. Weasley about Hypatia, and about how Dumbledore and Snape knew her interest in Dark Arts and were helping her, and why.
“I see. So this Hypatia gets to get away with learning illegal Dark Magic because Dumbledore doesn't want to punish the rest of you for being unable to control her?”
“Well, there's more to it than that. Um... there's some Dark Magic that Moldywart um, kind of used on us, that we need to undo. Nothing life threatening, and nothing we haven't already worked out how to live with, but we could save a lot of energy and vigilance by working out how to get rid of it.”
“I don't suppose you can tell me what it is?”
“No. Sorry. Dumbledore didn't even want to tell us, and he didn't, not really. We figured it out ourselves, and he confirmed it. It's something that's not widely known about, it could be bad if Moldywart knew we knew. Anyway, we've got supervision from Professor Snape. And we're only learning it to fight Moldywart.”
“I wish you wouldn't call him that, dear.”
“He wants us dead. As far as we can tell, taunting him with that name isn't going to make things any worse for us. It's not like we're calling him on the telephone to call him names.”
“I still don't like it. Any of it. I don't understand how Albus can be letting you do Dark Magic.”
“Not all rituals are Dark. In fact, we used a small Light ritual to help deal with the blood rune. And some rituals are neutral, neither Light nor Dark.”
“But you're still learning Dark Magic.”
“Know thy enemy,” she repeated. “Even Dumbledore has been studying Dark Magic for the last few years, maybe longer, to try to fight him.”
“Yes, dear, but that's Dumbledore, an adult. He knows what he's doing.”
“Hypatia knows her limits. She's cautious. And Snape is helping.”
“But you're so young.”
Her eyes turned amber and Hypatia glared at Mrs. Weasley. “'Young and innocent,' you mean?”
“Well, yes. Um... Hypatia?”
“Yes.”
“Ah, okay.”
“Anyway, the Dursleys stole our innocence. We don't know what it is, we don't remember having it. Even Zoey isn't really innocent. We're going to do what it takes to survive. Don't worry about me, Mrs. Weasley. I'm cautious, and I'm a moral person. Probably more so than Al and Zoey, even. Wait, no 'probably' about it. Zoey thinks she's cute and funny even when she's being mean, and Al goes too far in the name of defending us. I know why they do it. Having lived with the Dursleys, they don't have a clear idea where the boundaries are. But this morning's incident may change that. The two of them saw some things in our combined memories that upset them, and might change their ways.”
“Oh,” Mrs. Weasley said. She didn't seem to know quite what else to say.
“We also had a vision of a conversation among several adults, including one person we didn't recognize. It was eye-opening.”
Mrs. Weasley sighed. “Well I don't like it, but I guess if Dumbledore trusts you enough to let you do it at all... I guess I'll try to trust you, too. Just... promise me you won't teach any Dark Arts to your friends?”
“I won't. Hermione wouldn't want to know any, and I don't trust Ron near as much as Adira does, especially not with this kind of thing. He also doesn't like Dark Magic. And I trust Ron a lot more than I trust the twins.
“Anyway, Mrs. Weasley, Iliana needs to find Professor Snape before he leaves.”
Mrs. Weasley let her go with a concerned look on her face, and Hypatia let Iliana take control of the body, which turned their eyes hazel. Hypatia didn't know where this new thing of their eyes changing color came from, but as long as she remembered to suppress it when she needed to, she thought it was a useful new thing to start happening. It cut down on the guessing and the confusion in people's faces.
Iliana soon found Professor Snape coming out of the drawing room. She also caught the twins looking disappointed, Extendable Ears being put away.
“Professor Snape?”
He looked down his hooked nose at her in annoyance.
“What do you want, Miss Potter?”
“It's Iliana. Um, I had a potion I've been working on designing over the summer, and I'd like to know if I can brew it somewhere. Like a potions lab? Also, I wanted you to look over the recipe first to make sure I didn't mess up anything.”
Snape took her arm and pulled her gently into the drawing room, which was now empty. He closed the door and put up privacy wards.
“I am rather busy, Miss Potter. I finally managed to get Bellatrix LeStrange and Crouch Junior to agree to euthanize the Dark Lord and start over again. I'm supposedly out getting ingredients for the potion to make a new... homunculus body for him.”
“You're bringing him back again?”
“Yes. It buys us time. Only a month or two before he'll be strong enough to make another new body, I'm afraid, but he's been getting more of his old Death Eaters active again, so there's really no way to leave him as a wraith and cover the whole thing up again. So a new body he will have to have. And without your blood, he will have to kill you with objects, conjured or otherwise; he will not be able to use the Killing Curse against you without it rebounding again.”
“Oh. Well that's good.”
“Not as much as you might think. There are potions that can mimic the effects of the Cruciatus Curse. He wants to use some of them on you. He figures if you are tortured to insanity, you will no longer be a threat.”
“Oh.”
Snape nodded once.
“Anyway, Miss Potter, since you are already taking up my time, I suppose I might as well take a look at this recipe of yours.”
“Right. It's in my room.”
He took down the privacy spells and she went up to get the recipe and return. He jerked the parchment out of her hand and read it thoroughly. His eyebrows went up slightly as he did.
Handing it back to her, he said, “Excellent work, Miss Potter. Only one suggestion: reduce the amount of syrup of Arnica by exactly half. The amount you have written here would be lethal for most people.”
“Oh, right. Thanks,” she said, writing that down.
“You are welcome. As to brewing it... wait until you are in school again, then ask me again. I believe the potions lab in this house is still in dire need of cleaning out.”
“This house has a potions lab?”
He sneered at her. “Of course it does, silly girl. All the houses of wealthy pureblood families have at least one potions lab. Sometimes more than one, depending on the size of the house. Anyway, it is not just a matter of available space, but also one of supervision. As remarkable and talented as two of your number may be, there are at least two others I do not trust. Also, you are still a minor.”
“Right. We'll wait until we can have your supervision,” she said.
“See that you do,” he said, and swept off in dramatic fashion as usual.
I swear he took lessons on how to move dramatically from a vampire, Alastair thought-spoke to her.
“Oh hush, you,” she whispered. “You're part of the reason we couldn't brew this potion here!”
One reason out of four or five reasons, he rebutted. She ignored him.
Endnote: Sorry this is so long coming. Between having two fanfic series to work on, being too poor to go out to a cafe to write so I can concentrate better, depression related issues, and writing an original fiction series that I'm absolutely loving and hope to get published when it's finished (a series tentatively called the Ravenstone series), writing in these fanfics is a bit slow. But since this fic and my Autistic Potter fic inspired my Ravenstone stuff, and the three keep cross-pollinating each other, I'm still attempting to keep writing them.
Chapter Three: Willow Pond
Notes: Okay, so I forgot the collective already knew History had a new teacher, and I forgot Binns was gone already, from Remus having been the teacher for that one the year before. I really need a beta to keep my poor memory in check. Anyway, I have now edited this chapter. If you read it before, you may want to reread it. Or not. Your decision.
I have decided to slightly change the styles for the internal speech of the various Potters, because the previous note about the styles was messing with the formatting. From now on, 'Single quotes with no italics' will be Adira/Addy, ~Text in tildes~ will be Chandra, [Brackets will be Hypatia], # Pound signs for Mother/Avani #, and as to the rest, probably either single quotes or something like that.
Sorry for the long wait. I was ill for two or three weeks with a head cold that refused to give up without a protracted fight.
This is the second chapter of the sequel to “The Many Faces of Har---er, Adira Potter.” If you haven't read that series yet, this one isn't going to make much sense.
Also, a reminder for anyone who forgot: the person formerly known as Harry still exists, she's just transgender in this one, her new name is Adira, nicknamed “Addy.”
Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
Things taken directly from canon will be scarce now, as the plot is massively diverging now.
J. K. Rowling owns this sandbox, I'm only playing in it.
*FAYANORA*
When she was done speaking with Snape, Addy invited Ron and Hermione up to her room to tell them about Hypatia.
Ron and Hermione sat on her bed as she paced back and forth, working up the nerve.
“What's wrong?” Hermione asked.
Addy paused and turned to them. “I've got something to tell you two, that I've only just now gotten permission to tell you.”
“We're listening.”
“I've... sort of been lying to you two since not long after Iliana's first date with Luna. Ron, Hermione, do you remember us talking with you about our suspicions about a secret, sleepwalking member of our collective?”
They both nodded, but remained silent.
“Well... I told you around Easter we'd been mistaken. But uh... the truth is, there was another person in our collective, sneaking around at night.”
“What?!” said Ron. “Why didn't you tell us?”
“Because she didn't want anyone to know about her. It's... her reasons are complicated but sound.”
“So it's another girl?” Ron said. “That makes... let's see... Zoey, Iliana, you, Mother, and now this new one, so five? Five girls out of... eight people?”
“Yes.”
“So what's her name, this new one, and why is she a secret?”
“Well... for one, she isn't new. She's been with us the whole time, but the rest of us only became aware of her recently. Avani – Mother, that is – knew, of course, but couldn't say anything. Anyway... her name is Hypatia.”
Addy told them both the whole story, pausing in a couple places to drink some warm, honey-sweetened tea to soothe her throat.
“Wow,” Ron said, when she was finally done. “That's... wow.”
[This one's a real brain trust,] Hypatia snarked in Addy's head.
'Hush, you,' Addy thought back at her.
“So she's still to remain a secret, then? Because of Malfoy?” Hermione asked.
Ron frowned. “I can't believe one of you is friends with that git.”
“Yeah, Al's not happy about it either. But there's not much he can do about it.”
“What about you? What do you think about it?”
She shrugged. “I'd rather it wasn't happening. But at the same time... she might get him on our side. Or at least stop him from being really horrible. But, uh... we're going to have to leave him alone from now on. I mean, don't attack him without provocation, and don't escalate. It's hard to recognize bullying when you're the one doing it, sometimes. Apparently.”
“Bullying?”
Hugging herself, Addy said, “Yeah. We saw some things in a vision...” A thought struck her, and she asked, “Ron? When Zoey was frightening you with those fake spiders, why didn't you... I mean, I'd have thought you'd have been angrier than that. Especially with her half-arsed apology.”
“What? Oh, that. Um... dunno. I mean, she's a kid, right? And anyway, I've put up with worse from Fred and George.”
“She's childlike, and takes the form of a little kid, but she's not actually a child,” Addy said. “Couldn't be, could she, with our collective memory? She knows everything the rest of us know. Well, mostly.”
“Oh. I guess I hadn't thought of that. So are you saying I should be angry with her?”
“I dunno. I mean, it's not like she was trying to be mean on purpose. She doesn't always seem to know where the line is, so she crosses it unintentionally sometimes. Or doesn't think ahead about how others might react, or both. Al's the same way with Malfoy and his bookends.”
Addy's eyes turned one blue and one hazel, and tears welled up in them. “I'm sorry I did that with the spiders and then the canary cream thingy,” Zoey said with Addy's voice. “That was wrong of me. I won't do it again. I'll try to think before I act more. You could've decided to hate me for doing that, and that makes me sad. I don't want to risk you hating me!”
She burst into tears and hugged Ron, who looked startled and then awkward, patting her shoulder awkwardly. Mid-pat, she shifted, without glowing, to her own form.
“There there,” he said. “It's fine, I forgive you.”
“What did you and Al see in your vision that's made you like this?” Hermione asked.
When she'd stopped crying and wiped her eyes, she said, “Some adults talking. Snape, Dumbledore, McGonagall, and some black woman we didn't recognize. Snape was telling them all about times we've done stuff that was bullying, and he was right. It was eye opening. We don't wanna be like that anymore. We need to apologize to Malfoy, his bodyguards, and Rita Skeeter, too.”
The two of them spoke at the same time. “Rita Skeeter?” - “Malfoy?”
“Yes. Rita, because we pinned her to the ceiling. She could have pressed charges for assault, and didn't for some reason. Malfoy because we went too far with him, so many times. Then that stuff I did in first year with his hair and the photos I took of it. I need to track those photos down and give them to him to destroy. Oh, and that time I got him in trouble for being out after curfew. I hid him somewhere he didn't know where he was, that musta been really scary, and I didn't even consider that. I don't want Malfoy to end up like Snape, bitter and mean cuz he was bullied.”
Ron snorted. “I'd say it's a bit late for that. Dunno about 'bitter,' but he's been mean since long before he even met you lot.”
She shrugged. “Still gotta try. I don't wanna be like Dudley.” She shuddered at the thought.
[Good. Go through with it, all of you, and show you can all keep from doing it again, and I'll reconsider wanting to be associated with you lot,] Hypatia told her.
She nodded in response, her gaze and her thoughts far away.
Finally, she stood up and said, “I'm gonna take a nap I think.”
~
The rest of their time at Order headquarters before school was uneventful, mostly Iliana and Luna spending time cuddling and/or talking with each other, since she couldn't practice Quidditch.
~
While getting ready on the morning they would be going to school, Addy helped the twins with the trunks, putting a Featherlight charm on them before the twins made them fly down the stairs. It was a good thing she was helping, too, because one of the trunks hit Ginny. Feather-light as they were, this didn't do more than slightly annoy Ginny, but Mrs. Weasley was shouting at the twins about it.
“COULD HAVE DONE HER A SERIOUS INJURY, YOU IDIOTS!”
Hermione came hurrying into the room looking flustered, just as Adira was putting on her shoes. Hedwig was swaying on her shoulder, and she was carrying a squirming Crookshanks in her arms. The owl fluttered obligingly over and perched on top of her cage.
“Are you ready yet?”
“Nearly,” Addy said. “We just have to wait for Mrs. Weasley to calm down.”
“Not just that,” Hermione said. “Now Mad-Eye's complaining that we can't leave unless Sturgis Podmore's here, otherwise the guard will be one short.”
“Well that's easily dealt with,” Addy said.
“How?”
“Since we got our powers back, something we saw in that vision made us realize something important. We've been practising because of it, and now... watch.”
Addy dropped in height by over a head, turned blond with blue eyes, and her entire face changed shape, becoming rounder and more youthful. She was completely unrecognisable, and looked like a first-year girl. A moment of concentration, and her robes shrunk to fit her.
“Pretty cool, huh?” Addy said, even her voice sounding like that of an 11 year old girl.
“How are you doing that?”
“Well as it turns out, our magic isn't unique at all. This body is a metamorphmagus with a bit of natural transfiguration ability thrown in for good measure.”
The twins came into the room then and, seeing Addy, leaped back with their wands out.
“Intruder! Who are you?”
“It's me, Adira,” she said in her own voice this time.
“Woah... is this someone new to the collective?” asked one of the twins.
“No, Fred. I just figured out I can metamorph, is all. Like Tonks, you know. Seems that's what lets us transform, it just manifested weirdly because of being a multiple. So weirdly the so-called experts were flummoxed.”
“Someone say my name?” Tonks said, coming into the room.
Hermione and Addy explained once again about Addy being a metamorph. In response, Tonks said, “Cool!” and changed herself to match Addy in all but hair color and face shape, being a brunette instead.
“Now we're just two firsties, two little friends! What's your alias? I'm gonna be Hyacinth Jones.”
“Cool! I'll be Willow Pond, then. We can say we both grew up in a suburb of London together. You're a wizard-raised halfblood, and I'm a Muggleborn. We've been friends since kindergarten.”
'Hyacinth' grinned at her, and they saw she was missing a tooth. “You're good at this, Willow!”
“Hold on a moment,” Addy said. A beat or two later, she had a mole on one side of her neck and one ear was slightly larger than the other.
Then they had to explain what they were doing all over again to Mrs. Weasley and Mad-Eye Moody.
“Ha!” Moody barked, grinning. “Excellent. I almost want something to happen now, just so I can see the look on some Death Eater's face when two first-years start hexing him into a lump. I'm going to have to write this one down in the Auror handbook. Nobody ever pays enough attention to children; they'd never expect an Auror to be disguised as a child. Good on you, lasses.”
Before leaving, Moody cast glamours on Mrs. Weasley to make her look like she was related to 'Hyacinth.' He also changed the sound of her voice. The new plan, which he made up on the spot, was to send the others ahead and for some of this advance guard to break off like they weren't really with the group at all, to casually hide around the crowds to watch for trouble while Mrs. Weasley, Tonks, and Addy would come in from the Floo like they were just regular people. To do this, Mrs. Weasley would side-along Apparate with them into the Leaky Cauldron and use the public Floo there. But first, the others would Floo in from the Burrow. Moody provided them with several Portkeys to do this, which he could only do because they were under a Fidelius. Using a Portkey wasn't easily detectable, but making one would normally set off a great many Ministry alarms.
Completing the plan, they decided that if anyone asked how Addy was getting to school, they were to say that Addy had already Flooed ahead to Dumbledore's office by special permission.
“Why couldn't she just do that?” Hermione asked.
“Dumbledore doesn't want us using the Floo between here and anywhere else except by emergency, since the Ministry will be watching the Floo network, and Riddle will have some of his lickspittles in the Ministry,” Moody said. “By the way, kids, if you ever find you need to Floo over here, the Floo address is 'The Doghouse,' so you don't go giving away the location by accident. But again, only Floo here in an emergency. Also, don't bring anyone along who isn't already in on the secret, the wards are set to body-bind and Incarcerous anyone whose name isn't in the ward book.”
“It also makes an almighty racket,” Sirius said. “Good thing the noisy portraits are all dealt with. Anyway, this is Order headquarters, Dumbledore would prefer you not come here unauthorized.”
“It's fine,” Addy said. “Sirius will be at school. This house will largely be empty, from what I understand.”
“We need to hurry or we'll be late!” Mrs. Weasley said.
“Right,” Moody said. He sent messenger Patronuses ahead to the others because it was faster for him than his slow stumping about.
While they waited for the others to finish getting their new orders, Sirius said, “Nippy!”
A young-looking house elf appeared before them and bowed. “Yes, master Sirius sir? What can Nippy be helping with?”
“Take all these trunks ahead to the Hogwarts Express, will you please?”
“Of course, master Sirius sir,” Nippy said. She and the trunks immediately disappeared with a pop.
“You have a house elf now?” Addy asked.
“Yes. The house actually came with one, his name is Kreacher, but he and I hate each other very much. So as soon as Dumbledore wanted this place for the Order, I ordered Kreacher to another property and got Nippy to replace him. Good riddance, too; Kreacher was worse than useless. This place was so horribly filthy because of him that calling it a pigsty would have been the understatement of the century. Horrible old monstrosity never did a lick of work around here, just pined over my mother's old portrait. I had to ward against him, too, or he'd just come back anyway, orders or no orders.”
“Wouldn't the Fidelius keep him away?”
“Yeah, it does. But it's always better to be safe than sorry. Not sure how well the Fidelius works against house elves after all, and this did used to be his home.”
“Why didn't you free him?” Hermione asked.
“Because the shock would probably kill him. And anyway, better to have him under my control, since he hates me as much as Dobby hates the Malfoys, though for different reasons. He can't stab me in the back if I've ordered him not to.”
“You hope,” Addy added.
Anything else that might have been said was cut off then, for the advance guard was in place and it was time for Hermione, Ron, the twins, Luna, and Ginny to be escorted through by Sirius and Moody. A few more minutes after that, and Mrs. Weasley had Tonks and Addy side-along Apparated to the Leaky Cauldron. Adira was pleased that nobody recognized her (her hair was covering the scar that never went away, and a sticking charm kept it there) as they walked from the Apparition point to the Floo.
To keep up appearances, Addy and Tonks chatted about Hogwarts as though they were excited firsties, as their disguises said they were. It was made easier by letting Zoey take the reins without changing their form.
Mrs. Weasley was in a glamour disguise that made her appear ten years younger, 20 pounds lighter, and gave her the same shade of brown hair that Tonks was currently sporting. Her voice was different as well, thanks to a Voice Altering Charm.
Grabbing a pinch of Floo powder, she tossed it in and had Tonks go through first. “King's Cross Station!” Tonks said, disappearing into the flames.
Addy was next, and she ended up running right into Tonks, knocking them both over.
“Oops,” Tonks said. “Guess my clumsiness is rubbing off on you.”
“The Floo hates me. Magical transportation in general hates me,” Addy said.
They moved out of the way just in time for Mrs. Weasley to pop in from the Floo. She wasted no time getting them within sight of Sirius and Moody, who were acting oddly in a way Addy couldn't figure out at first. She watched them for several minutes as the crowd milled around; the train hadn't even started boarding yet, most students were talking on the platform. This made Tonks and Addy two of the few people getting onto the train.
She kept watching Sirius and Moody out the window until she finally figured out what they were doing. They were somehow making it seem like Addy was under the invisibility cloak and trying to get through the crowd without bumping into anyone. Clever, that.
When Hermione, Ron, and Luna arrived in their compartment, Hermione used her wand to tint the windows black so Adira could change back to her usual self. Tonks changed to look Addy's age, but a boy, and stayed in the compartment.
“Who are you now?” Addy asked.
In a flawless American accent Tonks said, “American student visiting Hogwarts, in case I want to switch to a Hogwarts education. Call me Jacob Jackson.”
“And how are you explaining your presence in our compartment?”
“You and me are distant cousins, of course. It's not even a lie, so that's the brilliance of it!”
Addy shrugged. “Okay.”
“Anyway, Addy,” Hermione said, “as I'm a prefect, I have to go into the prefect carriage to start my duties.”
“Okay, drop in on us later if you have time,” she said.
“Will do,” she said as she left.
Luna sat next to Adira, who looked at her and then switched over to Iliana. Luna leaned her head on Iliana's shoulder. Ron sat across from the two of them and got out a book about the Chudley Cannons to read.
Before long, Neville popped into the compartment to say hi.
“Hi guys! I'm a prefect now! Gran is really proud of me!”
“Congratulations, Neville!”
“Thanks. But I really don't know how it happened, to be honest.”
“Well... Of the boys in our year in Griffindor, you're the most well behaved, Neville.”
“Yeah, but I don't... I mean... I don't think people listen to me. And my grades aren't great.”
“You work hard and do your best, I think Dumbledore and McGonagall must know that. As to the other part, Neville... you stood up to Malfoy in our first year. Don't think about your perceived flaws, just think about doing what's right. You've got power now, Neville, you should use it.”
He nodded absently. “I'll keep that in mind. Thanks, Iliana. I gotta go now.”
“See you later, Neville!”
A few minutes later, Ginny came by and sat next to Ron. She looked at Iliana and Luna, who were having a conversation in wizarding sign language now. She ignored them and began to chat with the disguised Tonks.
After who knew how long, Hermione and Neville finally showed up again. Neville's stomach grumbled loudly, and Iliana gave him a sandwich she'd packed – the trolley only ever had sweets on it, which was stupid because the trip was so long they should at least have afternoon tea with decent food at some point, especially since the train always loaded around lunch time.
“Thanks, Iliana, I'm starving,” Neville said.
“You're welcome. So, how'd it go?”
“Well, there are two fifth-year prefects from each House,” said Hermione, looking thoroughly disgruntled as she took her seat. “Boy and girl from each.”
“And guess who’s a Slytherin prefect?” asked Neville after swallowing first.
“Not Malfoy?” Ron said, aghast.
Neville nodded. “Yeah, it's Malfoy.”
“How?” Iliana asked. “He can't be the best behaved Slytherin in his year. Surely even Blaise Zabini would be preferable.”
“Politics, I think,” Neville said. “Zabini's mom and Dumbledore don't get on well. Of course, neither does Malfoy senior, but apparently Malfoy junior has the best grades of the Slytherin boys in his year, and so Dumbledore probably couldn't find a reason to not give it to him. But you're right, even Zabini would be preferable to Malfoy.”
[He gets good grades as well, the best in his year in Slytherin. If it wasn't for Hermione, he'd be the best in our year period, grades-wise,] Hypatia thought at Iliana.
Iliana didn't know how to pass this on, so she ignored it.
“Yeah. I don't know a lot about Zabini,” Iliana said, “but he seems a lot more fair and decent than Malfoy, from what I've heard.”
[He can be a bit Griffindorish when upset, yes, but he's still sore over you rejecting his friendship,] Hypatia thought-spoke.
'Can you stop that please, it's distracting?'
Hypatia sent Iliana a mental image of a little girl sticking her tongue out at her.
'Real mature, Hypatia.'
Neville nodded at her assessment of Zabini. As he did, he finally noticed the boy that Tonks appeared to be. “Hello. I'm Neville Longbottom. Who are you?”
“That's Auror Tonks,” Iliana said. “She's my bodyguard until we get to Hogwarts.”
“'She'?”
“I'm a metamorphmagus,” Tonks explained. “But for now, my alias is Jacob Jackson, and I'm Iliana's cousin from America.”
“Okay. But why do you need a bodyguard?” Neville said, going back to his sandwich.
“Because Voldemort is back, remember?” Iliana said.
Neville flinched slightly, then nodded, still eating.
“Who's the Slytherin prefect among the girls?” Iliana asked Hermione.
“That complete cow Pansy Parkinson,” said Hermione viciously. “How she got to be a prefect when she’s thicker than a concussed troll...”
“Who’s Hufflepuff?” Ginny asked.
“Ernie Macmillan and Hannah Abbott,” said Neville. “I like Hannah. Not sure about Ernie.”
“And Anthony Goldstein and Padma Patil for Ravenclaw,” said Hermione.
“I like Anthony,” Luna said, pulling a copy of the Quibbler out of her robes. “He once told off someone for stealing my shoes.”
“Anyway, we’re supposed to patrol the corridors every so often,” Neville told Iliana and Ron, “and we can give out punishments if people are misbehaving.” Neville looked like the idea of doing that terrified him.
“Man, I wish I could be a prefect,” Ron said. “It'd be brilliant to get Goyle or Crabbe for something.”
“We’re not supposed to abuse our position, Ron!” said Hermione sharply.
“Yeah, right, because Malfoy won’t abuse it at all,” said Ron sarcastically.
“So you’d descend to his level?”
“No, I’d just make sure I got his mates before he got mine.”
“For heaven’s sake, Ron —”
“I’d make Goyle do lines, it’d kill him, he hates writing,” said Ron happily. He lowered his voice to Goyle’s low grunt and, screwing up his face in a look of pained concentration, mimed writing in midair. “I … must … not … look … like … a … baboon’s … backside. …”
Everyone laughed, but nobody laughed harder than Luna. She let out a scream of mirth that caused Hedwig to wake up and flap her wings indignantly and Crookshanks to leap up into the luggage rack, hissing. Even Aqua the grass snake poked out of Iliana's robes to glower at Luna. She laughed so hard that her magazine slipped out of her grasp, slid down her legs, and onto the floor.
“That was funny!”
Her prominent eyes swam with tears as she gasped for breath, staring at Ron. He sighed, recognizing one of her laughter fits.
Neville, on the other hand, was utterly nonplussed; he looked around at the others, who were now laughing at the expression on his face and at the ludicrously prolonged laughter of Luna, who was rocking backward and forward, clutching her sides. Tonks was looking perplexed as well.
“I guess neither of you have seen one of Luna's laugh attacks,” Iliana said. “The first one I ever saw her have, she ended up in the hospital wing for a calming draught.”
Tonks's eyes widened at this.
“Baboon’s … backside!” Luna choked, holding her ribs, her eyes streaming with amused tears.
Iliana leaned over to pick up Luna's magazine, and while her girlfriend was still laughing up a storm, Iliana started to read it. She had noticed something that made her dive for it. Upside down it had been hard to tell what the picture on the front was, but Iliana now realized it was a fairly bad cartoon of Cornelius Fudge; she only recognized him because of the lime-green bowler hat. One of Fudge’s hands was clenched around a bag of gold; the other hand was throttling a goblin. The cartoon was captioned: How Far Will Fudge Go to Gain Gringotts?
She turned to the indicated page, where it was a fairly ludicrous article about how Fudge was a horrible anti-goblin bigot who'd had loads of goblins assassinated, including baking them in pies. She laughed at this absurdity; the Quibbler was always fun to read.
Reading through it, she found another article that caught her eye: 'Sirius Black Continues Denials He Is Actually Stubby Boardman.' The article explained that Sirius Black was actually Stubby Boardman, retired lead singer of The Hobgoblins. The fan who wrote it had apparently tried to convince Sirius to come out of retirement and get the band back together, but Sirius had denied the allegation that he was Stubby Boardman. The article continued to say that the author had known he was innocent all along because she and Stubby had been having a romantic candle-lit dinner the night he supposedly was tracking down Pettigrew. Iliana made a mental note to give Sirius a copy of this issue of the Quibbler for him to read. She gave this copy back to Luna by setting it next to her on the seat. This was because Luna had slumped out of her chair and was recovering from her giggle fit on the floor, mostly quiet but occasionally tittering into her hands.
“Guess what I got for my birthday?” said Neville.
“Another Remembrall?” Addy asked with Iliana's voice, remembering the marblelike device Neville’s grandmother had sent him in an effort to improve his abysmal memory.
“No,” said Neville, “I could do with one, though, I lost the old one ages ago. No, look at this.”
He dug the hand that was not keeping a firm grip on Trevor into his schoolbag and after a little bit of rummaging pulled out what appeared to be a small gray cactus in a pot, except that it was covered with what looked like boils rather than spines.
“Mimbulus mimbletonia,” he said proudly.
Iliana and company stared at the thing. It was pulsating slightly, giving it the rather sinister look of some diseased internal organ. Magical plants really did tend to be very weird.
“It’s really, really rare,” said Neville, beaming. “I don’t know if there’s one in the greenhouse at Hogwarts, even. I can’t wait to show it to Professor Sprout. My great-uncle Algie got it for me in Assyria. I’m going to see if I can breed from it.”
“Er, cool,” Iliana said. She knew Herbology was Neville's best subject. “Does it do anything?”
“Loads of stuff!” said Neville proudly. “It’s got an amazing defensive mechanism — hold Trevor for me. …”
He dumped the toad into Iliana’s lap and took a quill from his schoolbag. Luna looked up from the floor, watching what Neville was doing. Neville held the Mimbulus mimbletonia up to his eyes, his tongue between his teeth, chose his spot, and gave the plant a sharp prod with the tip of his quill.
Liquid squirted from every boil on the plant, thick, stinking, dark-green jets of it; they hit the ceiling, the windows, and spattered Luna’s magazine. Ginny, who had flung her arms up in front of her face just in time, merely looked as though she was wearing a slimy green hat, but Iliana, whose hands had been busy preventing the escape of Trevor, received a face full. It smelled like rancid manure.
Neville, whose face and torso were also drenched, shook his head to get the worst out of his eyes.
“S-sorry,” he gasped. “I haven’t tried that before. … Didn’t realize it would be quite so … Don’t worry, though, Stinksap’s not poisonous,” he added nervously, as Iliana spat a mouthful onto the floor.
“Wotcher, Iliana,” said the disguised Tonks. “I'll clean it up.”
“No, I'd better do it,” Ginny said.
“Oh, right. I'm not great with householdey spells.”
Ginny pulled out her wand and said, “Scourgify!” All the sap disappeared, though the odor lingered. Tonks got her own wand out and freshened the air with it.
Just in time, too. The compartment door opened again, and there stood Draco Malfoy and his two troll bookends.
“What do you want, Malfoy?” Iliana asked, doing her best impression of Malfoy's mother looking down her nose at scum.
“I just wanted to drop by to tell you that you can't get away with attacking me anymore, Potter, because I can give detentions now.”
“More proof the prefect system is broken and needs replacing,” she said, annoyed. Al had been intending to apologize to the little snot, but he just HAD to go and make that more difficult.
“Well I'd say it's working pretty well,” Malfoy drawled. “After all, you didn't get made a prefect. Although... they do apparently give badges to beavers and cowardly squibs, so you might have a point, Potter.”
Neville stood up, his wand drawn. Malfoy whipped out his own wand in response, but didn't look too worried.
“I have a new wand now, Malfoy. Turns out, my old wand – my dad's wand – was holding me back.”
Malfoy sneered at Neville. “Whatever you say, squib.”
“You're very lucky we're not at school yet, Malfoy,” Hermione said. “Or I'd give you a detention for your language.”
“I'm a prefect too, Granger. You can't give detentions to other prefects.”
“More's the pity,” she said, looking sour.
“Hey Potter, how's it feel to be second best to Longbottom?”
“Malfoy,” Neville said, “I'm not taking your crap anymore. I'm not a squib, and unlike before, now I know that for sure. Watch this.”
He pointed his wand at a Chocolate Frog on the seat nearby and with a swish and a flick, whispered “Wingardium leviosa.”
The Chocolate Frog flew at the ceiling so fast it flattened against the ceiling. Everyone in the compartment – Malfoy and his goons included – stared wide-eyed at this display of power. Tonks's jaw had dropped comically at the sight.
Iliana turned to Malfoy and said with a smirk, “It feels pretty good to see Neville succeed, actually.”
Without another word, Malfoy and his bookends left the compartment, closing the door behind them.
“That was brilliant, Neville! Malfoy looked like he was going to be ill!”
“Thanks, Iliana,” he said, sitting down again. He looked embarrassed. “I uh... apparently I have a problem with putting too much power into my spells now.”
“Well yeah, you've been pushing your magic through a wand that didn't match you for years, now you have one that matches, you'll have to learn how to stop compensating for a mismatched wand.”
“Yeah, I'll have to practice that.”
“Defense Against the Dark Arts is gonna be cool this year, Iliana,” Ron said. “Sirius isn't going to let Malfoy get away with any shite this year.”
Neville blinked. “Sirius? Your godfather is teaching Defense this year?”
“Yes. Dumbledore asked him, and he agreed on the condition it would only be a year, because of the curse.”
Neville grinned. “Yeah, that's going to be interesting. People are still getting used to the idea of Sirius being innocent. It's only been less than two years since he was released.”
“Yes, and Sirius being a teacher is going to be hard on the other teachers,” Hermione said. “McGonagall will remember when he was in school. And he doesn't seem to have grown up much.”
“Snape's gonna be livid,” said Ron with a smirk.
“I'm curious how he's going to dress,” Iliana said. “For some reason, I have a hard time picturing him wearing wizard robes.”
“Ha! If he dresses in his usual Muggle getup, the Slytherins are going to hate him. Except for Javier, I guess. That'll be hilarious.”
“I just hope he's a better teacher than Professor Hagrid,” Luna said. “I haven't heard many good things about him.”
“Are you taking Care of Magical Creatures this year, Luna?”
“Yes, even despite Hagrid. Kettleburn wasn't much better, from what I've heard. Lots of accidents in his class. At least Hagrid has a better record in that regard.”
“Yeah, Malfoy getting mauled for not paying attention in class, and then burns and stuff from the skrewts. But the skrewts are dead, of course.”
“Please, Malfoy did that on purpose; he was baiting Buckbeak.”
“No Ron, I don't think he's that suicidal. He's just rude to anyone he considers beneath him.”
“Wasn't Sirius at King's Cross?”
“Yeah, but he could easily Apparate to Hogsmeade,” Hermione said.
“True,” said Iliana, “But I'm betting he goes there on his motorbike.”
“Just as long as he doesn't fly it there in the middle of the day.”
Iliana leaned back, letting Luna lean against her shoulder again. It was still a long way to school, and she was tired.
~
At last the train began to slow down and they heard the usual racket up and down it as everybody scrambled to get their luggage and pets assembled, ready for departure. Neville and Hermione were supposed to supervise all this; they disappeared from the carriage again, leaving Iliana and the others to look after Crookshanks, Hedwig, and Arnan – Ron's long-eared owl.
“I'll carry Hedwig for you, Iliana, if you want?” Luna said.
“No need. Hedwig and Arnan can fly up to Hogwarts from here. But thanks for the offer.”
They opened the cages of the owls, and with a pair of looks from the two owls, they flew off toward the castle.
They shuffled out of the compartment feeling the first sting of the night air on their faces as they joined the crowd in the corridor. Slowly they moved toward the doors. Iliana could smell the pine trees that lined the path down to the lake. She stepped down onto the platform and looked around, listening for the familiar call of “Firs’ years over here … firs’ years …”
But it did not come. Instead a quite different voice, a brisk female one, was calling, “First years line up over here, please! All first years to me!”
A lantern came swinging toward Iliana and by its light he saw the prominent chin and severe haircut of Professor Grubbly-Plank, the witch who had taken over Hagrid’s Care of Magical Creatures lessons for a while the previous year.
“Where's Hagrid?” she asked aloud.
“I don’t know,” said Ginny, “but we’d better get out of the way, we’re blocking the door.”
“Oh yeah …”
Iliana kept looking for Hagrid. He couldn't have left, they would have heard something about it, she was sure.
She turned to Tonks, who was still disguised. “Do you know where Hagrid is?”
“Sorry, Iliana, I promised Dumbledore I wouldn't say. Anyway, I reckon you'll be fine once you get in the carriages. Wotcher!” she said, vanishing into the crowd, much to Iliana's annoyance.
As she approached the thestral-drawn stagecoaches, she took some roast beef leftovers from last night she'd had in her pocket and fed the nearest thestral some meat. They preferred raw meat, but they apparently wouldn't say no to cooked meat. As she fed them, several people stared in fear at the pieces of meat disappearing into thin air, from their point of view. Only people who had seen someone die could see thestrals, and if Iliana hadn't already met that criteria after killing Professor Quirrell in her first year, she would after witnessing Mother's super-powered patronus using arrows to make Death Eaters explode into tiny chunks last June.
“The stagecoaches are drawn by thestrals,” she explained to some terrified second-year students watching the meat vanish from her hand. “There's gentle creatures, thestrals. But only people who've seen people die can see thestrals.”
This did not seem to reassure anyone listening, so she stopped trying. When the meat was gone, she got in the coach next to Luna.
A short distance away, Draco Malfoy, followed by a small gang of cronies including Crabbe, Goyle, and Pansy Parkinson, was pushing some timid-looking second years out of the way so that they could get a coach to themselves. Seconds later Hermione emerged panting from the crowd, Neville following behind her.
“Malfoy was being absolutely foul to a first year back there, I swear I’m going to report him, he’s only had his badge three minutes and he’s using it to bully people worse than ever. Where’s Crookshanks?”
“Ginny’s got him,” said Iliana. “There she is.”
Ginny had just emerged from the crowd, clutching a squirming Crookshanks.
“Thanks,” said Hermione, relieving Ginny of the cat and climbing aboard the carriage. Soon, they were underway.
“So I wonder where Hagrid is?” Ginny asked. “You all saw Grubbly-Plank was here instead, right?”
“Yes, we saw her. It's odd. You'd think we'd have heard something. If he's not at the feast, I'll ask Sirius.”
Speaking of Sirius, they heard the roar of a motorbike engine in the distance. The sound got nearer and nearer, and then a whooping Sirius was roaring past the carriages on his motorbike, waving at everyone as he did. Iliana noticed he was wearing black leather pants, a black leather jacket, and some kind of colorful t-shirt under the jacket.
“He's riding it up to the castle?” Iliana said, bewildered.
Ron and Ginny were laughing. Luna and Neville smiled. Hermione was frowning.
“He's a teacher now! He's supposed to be setting a good example to the students!” she said indignantly.
“I wonder where he's going to park it?” Ginny wondered aloud.
“Probably wherever Hagrid had it when he was holding onto it for Sirius,” Iliana said.
As they passed Hagrid's hut, Iliana saw there were no lights on in it. Which, at this time of day, most likely meant he wasn't home.
Once they got up to the castle and inside it to the Great Hall, Luna drifted off to the Ravenclaw table. The teachers didn't give them a hard time about eating at other tables most of the time, but this was the Welcoming Feast, so they didn't want to push their luck. Ginny wandered off to meet friends. Iliana, Ron, Hermione, and Neville found seats together about halfway down the table between Nearly Headless Nick (the Gryffindor House ghost) and Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown, the last two of whom gave Iliana airy, overly friendly greetings that made her quite sure they had stopped talking about her a split second before. She had more important things to worry about, however: She was looking over the students’ heads to the staff table that ran along the top wall of the Hall.
“He’s not there.”
Ron and Hermione scanned the staff table too, though there was no real need; Hagrid’s size made him instantly obvious in any lineup.
“He can’t have left,” said Ron, sounding slightly anxious.
“Of course he hasn’t,” said Iliana firmly.
“You don’t think he’s … hurt, or anything, do you?” said Hermione uneasily.
“No,” said Iliana at once.
“But where is he, then?”
There was a pause, then Iliana said very quietly, so that Neville, Parvati, and Lavender could not hear, “Maybe he’s not back yet. You know — from his mission — the thing he was doing over the summer for Dumbledore.”
“Yeah … yeah, that’ll be it,” said Ron, sounding reassured, but Hermione bit her lip, looking up and down the staff table as though hoping for some conclusive explanation of Hagrid’s absence.
“Who's that?” she said sharply, pointing toward the middle of the staff table.
Iliana’s eyes followed hers. They lit first upon Professor Dumbledore, sitting in his high-backed golden chair at the center of the long staff table, wearing deep-purple robes scattered with silvery stars and a matching hat. Dumbledore’s head was inclined toward the woman sitting next to him, who was talking into his ear. She looked, Iliana thought, like somebody’s maiden aunt: squat, with short, curly, mouse-brown hair in which she had placed a horrible pink Alice band that matched the fluffy pink cardigan she wore over her robes. Then she turned her face slightly to take a sip from her goblet and Iliana saw, with a shock of recognition, a pallid, toadlike face and a pair of prominent, pouchy eyes.
“We saw her in one of Al's visions!” Iliana said.
“You did? Which one?”
“The one about being cowed by a toad. Now I see why; she looks like the ugliest toad in the world. Anyway, then she showed up again in a second vision right after getting our magic back, the one that was so chaotic and jumbled I'm still trying to sort it all out. I don't know who she is, but I recognize her from those.”
The staff door opened then, and they saw Sirius come in, waving at Iliana and company; they waved back. He was still wearing his bike leathers from before. Iliana could see the t-shirt under the jacket now, it was a Blue Oyster Cult t-shirt. The woman in the cardigan looked at him as though a dead skunk left rotting for a day in the hot summer sun had suddenly sat next to her.
“What's that toad woman doing here, I wonder? Is she the new History teacher, after that Umbridge woman got Remus fired?”
“No idea,” Ron said. “Nice cardigan, though.” He was smirking.
The squat woman was talking to Sirius. They couldn't hear what she was saying, but judging by the look on Sirius's face, it wasn't anything good. He was frowning at her, and when he spoke they could just make out something that sounded like “...business is it of yours...” Then McGonagall went pale and snapped something off at Sirius, waving him over with a small gesture behind the toad-like woman's back. Sirius, looking like a chastised teenager again, sat down on a seat next to McGonagall; a seat that hadn't been there a moment ago. She was talking very quietly to him, and the toad-like woman was smirking worse than Draco Malfoy when he'd scored some perceived victory over a rival. It didn't bode well.
When they were done talking, Sirius stood and turned to the toad-like woman as though he'd been made to swallow stinksap, and said something back to her, bowing with an over-the-top flourish that was surely sarcastic. She didn't seem to catch the sarcasm, though, judging by her continued smirk.
“Whoever she is, she worries McGonagall enough to turn pale before presumably telling Sirius off about his rudeness.”
“Dumbledore and Snape don't look too well, either,” Ron pointed out.
“I wonder who she could be? Who could be that respected by the teachers?”
“I don't think it's respect, Hermione,” Iliana said. “I think it's fear. Snape's micro-expressions – the stuff even occlumens can't hide – tells me he's as wary of her as though she were a dangerous beast. Maybe even more so.”
“Do you think she works for the ministry?” Ron said. “You told us Sirius told you the Ministry was angling to get one of their people in as a teacher at Hogwarts. Maybe they succeeded?”
“How, though? She's not DADA, and she's not CoMC, what else is left?”
Ron shrugged. “No idea. But I wish they'd hurry up, I'm starving.”
McGonagall got up a moment later and left, presumably to get the first-years for the Sorting. As she did, Grubbly-Plank came in and sat in Hagrid's usual spot, which confirmed that the Sorting was about to begin.
“You know, I've been thinking lately... this Sorting is kind of stupid,” Iliana said. “Who thought of 'let's quarter the students every year into four groups that compete with each other and even antagonize one another'? And who thought that was a good idea?”
She didn't get an answer to her rhetorical question. Before anyone had the chance to answer, McGonagall came out with the new first-years.
The buzz of talk in the Great Hall faded away. The first years lined up in front of the staff table facing the rest of the students, and Professor McGonagall placed the stool carefully in front of them, then stood back.
The first years’ faces glowed palely in the candlelight. A small boy right in the middle of the row looked as though he was trembling. Iliana recalled, fleetingly, how terrified she had felt when she had stood there, waiting for the unknown test that would determine to which House he belonged.
The whole school waited with bated breath. Then the rip near the hat’s brim opened wide like a mouth and the Sorting Hat burst into song:
In times of old when I was new
And Hogwarts barely started
The founders of our noble school
Thought never to be parted:
United by a common goal,
They had the selfsame yearning,
To make the world’s best magic school
And pass along their learning.
“Together we will build and teach!”
The four good friends decided
And never did they dream that they
Might someday be divided,
For were there such friends anywhere
As Slytherin and Gryffndor?
Unless it was the second pair
Of Huffepuff and Ravenclaw?
So how could it have gone so wrong?
How could such friendships fail?
Why, I was there and so can tell
The whole sad, sorry tale.
Said Slytherin, “We’ll teach just those
Whose ancestry is purest.”
Said Ravenclaw, “We’ll teach those whose
Intelligence is surest.”
Said Gryffindor, “We’ll teach all those
With brave deeds to their name,”
Said Hufflepuff, “I’ll teach the lot,
And treat them just the same.”
These differences caused little strife
When first they came to light,
For each of the four founders had
A House in which they might
Take only those they wanted, so,
For instance, Slytherin
Took only pure-blood wizards
Of great cunning, just like him,
And only those of sharpest mind
Were taught by Ravenclaw
While the bravest and the boldest
Went to daring Gryffindor.
Good Hufflepuff she took the rest,
And taught them all she knew,
Thus the Houses and their founders
Retained friendships firm and true.
So Hogwarts worked in harmony
For several happy years,
But then discord crept among us
Feeding on our faults and fears.
The Houses that, like pillars four,
Had once held up our school,
Now turned upon each other and,
Divided, sought to rule.
And for a while it seemed the school
Must meet an early end,
What with dueling and with fighting
And the clash of friend on friend
And at last there came a morning
When old Slytherin departed
And though the fighting then died out
He left us quite downhearted.
And never since the founders four
Were whittled down to three
Have the Houses been united
As they once were meant to be.
And now the Sorting Hat is here
And you all know the score:
I sort you into Houses
Because that is what I’m for,
But this year I’ll go further,
Listen closely to my song:
Though condemned I am to split you
Still I worry that it’s wrong,
Though I must fulfill my duty
And must quarter every year
Still I wonder whether sorting
May not bring the end I fear.
Oh, know the perils, read the signs,
The warning history shows,
For our Hogwarts is in danger
From external, deadly foes
And we must unite inside her
Or we’ll crumble from within.
I have told you, I have warned you. …
Let the Sorting now begin.
The hat became motionless once more; applause broke out, though it was punctured, for the first time in Iliana's memory, with muttering and whispers. All across the Great Hall students were exchanging remarks with their neighbors and Iliana, clapping along with everyone else, knew exactly what they were talking about.
“Branched out a bit this year, hasn’t it?” said Ron, his eyebrows raised.
“Quite,” Iliana said.
'A bit long, that song,' said Addy's voice in her head. She nodded in response.
There were a lot of students this year. Iliana's own year had been one of the smallest classes on record, she knew. The number had gone up a bit for Luna's year, but this year the number was staggering. She counted 97 students waiting to be Sorted, and was very glad she'd had sandwiches on the train. Poor Ron next to her was so hungry his stomach was audible. She wondered just then if there was something wrong with Ron, some kind of magical parasite, given he always seemed hungry even at Hogwarts. And poor as the Weasleys were, they ate well, she knew.
But the Sorting, yes. Ninety-seven new students. If it was an even split, each House would be getting about 25 new students this year. And judging by the emotions she was picking up from them, there was a much higher percentage of Muggleborns among them. Wizard-raised students were generally awed and nervous, but knew more or less what to expect. The Muggleborns tended to be more confused, and to feel like fishes out of water. She figured, at an estimate, that roughly 35 or 40% of the new students were Muggleborns.
The split wasn't as equal as she'd thought it would be. There were more Hufflepuffs this year than any other House got. Of those remaining, the split was more equal but skewed toward Ravenclaw. Between Slytherin and Griffindor, Slytherin just barely had more new students. Which meant Griffindor was in fourth place in terms of new students this year, but Slytherin only beat them by a single student.
With a grin, she witnessed Dumbledore stand up to speak.
“To our newcomers,” said Dumbledore in a ringing voice, his arms stretched wide and a beaming smile on his lips, “welcome! To our old hands — welcome back! There is a time for speech making, but this is not it. Tuck in!”
There was an appreciative laugh and an outbreak of applause as Dumbledore sat down neatly and threw his long beard over his shoulder so as to keep it out of the way of his plate — for food had appeared out of nowhere, so that the five long tables were groaning under joints and pies and dishes of vegetables, bread, sauces, and flagons of pumpkin juice.
“Excellent,” said Ron, with a kind of groan of longing, and he seized the nearest plate of chops and began piling them onto his plate, watched wistfully by Nearly Headless Nick.
Hermione began to talk with Nick about the Sorting Hat, for he told them sometimes it gave warnings when it felt the need, and they all knew why this time. Iliana hadn't heard anything after Snape said he'd convinced the Death Eaters to kill Voldemort again to redo the resurrection. She hoped it would go wrong, buying them some more time. But she'd been reading the Daily Prophet, infuriating as that was. According to it, nothing unusual was happening aside from the Potter 'boy' being a mad, lying delinquent. (The paper didn't even mention Cedric directly, just warned people against Dumbledore's pawns trying to wreak havoc on the Ministry with lies.) That was frustrating. Weakened by the failed ritual or not, Voldemort was now known by his followers to be alive in some fashion, so it was only a matter of time before they acted.
Not really paying attention to Nick's conversation, she was kind of glad when he left in a huff at something Ron said. She looked up at Sirius, who was eating in a manner she recognized as meaning he was trying to get done so he could leave. McGonagall chastised him quietly, and he glowered at her but slowed down with a sigh. If she had to guess, Iliana would guess McGonagall had told him he wasn't allowed to leave until Dumbledore dismissed everyone.
When all the students had finished eating and the noise level in the hall was starting to creep upward again, Dumbledore got to his feet once more. Talking ceased immediately as all turned to face the headmaster. Iliana was feeling pleasantly drowsy now. Her four-poster bed was waiting somewhere above, wonderfully warm and soft.
“Well, now that we are all digesting another magnificent feast, I beg a few moments of your attention for the usual start-of-term notices,” said Dumbledore. “First years ought to know that the forest in the grounds is out of bounds to students — and a few of our older students ought to know by now too.” (Iliana, Ron, and Hermione exchanged smirks.)
“Mr. Filch, the caretaker, has asked me, for what he tells me is the four hundred and sixty-second time, to remind you all that magic is not permitted in corridors between classes, nor are a number of other things, all of which can be checked on the extensive list now fastened to Mr. Filch’s office door.
“We have had three changes in staffing this year. We are very pleased to welcome back Professor Grubbly-Plank, who will be taking Care of Magical Creatures lessons. I'm also glad to announce that Defense Against the Dark Arts will be taught by Professor Sirius Black, who of course was exonerated roughly a year and a half ago.”
There was some small applause for Grubbly-Plank. Sirius had been met initially with silence, but at the reminder he was innocent, there was a small smattering of applause. Iliana, Ron, Hermione, Luna, and the Weasleys applauded the loudest.
“Yes. Professor Black, who was being trained as an Auror at the end of the war, has spent the year and a half since his release getting back to fighting form and I was most pleased when he accepted the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher for this year. However, he will only be staying the one year.”
When the applause died down, Dumbledore said, “It is also my sad duty to inform you that Professor Remus Lupin has been removed from his post for,” he hesitated only momentarily, “recent changes to the laws that prevent him working at Hogwarts anymore.”
There was an eruption of angry noise at this from most of the tables; Lupin was a much beloved teacher, people had started getting interested in History after he replaced Binns. Dumbledore waited patiently for a few moments for the noise to die down before finally getting their attention again with a magically magnified coughing sound.
“Yes, sad news indeed,” Dumbledore said, his face morose. “But I cannot explain further without doing more harm to the poor man's reputation. Just know that he is the victim of an unfair change in the law.”
He paused, then continued to speak. “Which reminds me, I am also delighted to introduce Professor Umbridge, our new History of Magic teacher.”
There was a round of polite but fairly unenthusiastic applause during which Iliana, Ron, and Hermione gasped at recognizing the name; so that's what that horrible woman looked like? They hadn't heard enough about her appearance to guess.
The three of them were also somewhat panicked; Dumbledore had not said for how long Grubbly-Plank would be teaching.
Dumbledore continued, “Tryouts for the House Quidditch teams will take place on the —”
He broke off, looking inquiringly at Professor Umbridge. As she was not much taller standing than sitting, there was a moment when nobody understood why Dumbledore had stopped talking, but then Professor Umbridge said, “Hem, hem,” and it became clear that she had got to her feet and was intending to make a speech.
Dumbledore only looked taken aback for a moment, then he sat back down smartly and looked alertly at Professor Umbridge as though he desired nothing better than to listen to her talk. Other members of staff were not as adept at hiding their surprise. Professor Sprout’s eyebrows had disappeared into her flyaway hair, Siri—er, Professor Black's face curled into a sneer of disgust, and Professor McGonagall’s mouth was as thin as Iliana had ever seen it. No new teacher had ever interrupted Dumbledore before. Many of the students were smirking; this woman obviously did not know how things were done at Hogwarts.
“Thank you, Headmaster,” Professor Umbridge simpered, “for those kind words of welcome.”
Her voice was high-pitched, breathy, and little-girlish and Iliana and company felt a powerful rush of dislike that they could not explain to themselves; all they knew was that they loathed everything about her, from her stupid voice to her fluffy pink cardigan. Tier, who had been mostly quiet for months, rose inside them like an angry wolf with his hackles raised, and a small growl escaped her lips before she could stop it.
Umbridge gave another little throat-clearing cough (“Hem, hem”) and continued: “Well, it is lovely to be back at Hogwarts, I must say!” She smiled, revealing very pointed teeth. “And to see such happy little faces looking back at me!”
Iliana glanced around. None of the faces he could see looked happy; on the contrary, they all looked rather taken aback at being addressed as though they were five years old.
“I am very much looking forward to getting to know you all, and I’m sure we’ll be very good friends!”
Students exchanged looks at this; some of them were barely concealing grins.
“I’ll be her friend as long as I don’t have to borrow that cardigan,” Parvati whispered to Lavender, and both of them lapsed into silent giggles.
Professor Umbridge cleared her throat again (“Hem, hem”), but when she continued, some of the breathiness had vanished from her voice. She sounded much more businesslike and now her words had a dull learned-by-heart sound to them.
“The Ministry of Magic has always considered the education of young witches and wizards to be of vital importance. The rare gifts with which you were born may come to nothing if not nurtured and honed by careful instruction. The ancient skills unique to the Wizarding community must be passed down through the generations lest we lose them forever. The treasure trove of magical knowledge amassed by our ancestors must be guarded, replenished, and polished by those who have been called to the noble profession of teaching.”
Professor Umbridge paused here and made a little bow to her fellow staff members, none of whom bowed back. Sirius glared at her. Professor McGonagall’s dark eyebrows had contracted so that she looked positively hawklike, and Iliana distinctly saw her exchange a significant glance with Professor Sprout as Umbridge gave another little “Hem, hem” and went on with her speech.
“Every headmaster and headmistress of Hogwarts has brought something new to the weighty task of governing this historic school, and that is as it should be, for without progress there will be stagnation and decay. There again, progress for progress’s sake must be discouraged, for our tried and tested traditions often require no tinkering. A balance, then, between old and new, between permanence and change, between tradition and innovation …”
It was a strange sensation, just then, for Iliana and Adira's attention was waning faster than a History class with Binns, but they could feel Hypatia listening attentively, and they spotted Hermione doing the same. Also like Hermione, she didn't enjoy what she was hearing, not one little bit. Tier seemed to be listening, too, for every word she said made him more and more on edge, to the point she was really hoping her eyes wouldn't glow red like they had the first time Tier had ever fronted. She also hoped Tier wouldn't turn them into some kind of beast and attack this new teacher; even if they managed not to go to Azkaban for it, they'd never live it down as long as they lived.
Sensing her worry, Tier reigned himself in. He pulled a bone from their pocket that she hadn't noticed him keeping earlier, and was gnawing on it as Umbridge spoke.
Professor Umbridge, for her part, was apparently unaware of the restlessness of her audience.
“… because some changes will be for the better, while others will come, in the fullness of time, to be recognized as errors of judgment. Meanwhile, some old habits will be retained, and rightly so, whereas others, outmoded and outworn, must be abandoned. Let us move forward, then, into a new era of openness, effectiveness, and accountability, intent on preserving what ought to be preserved, perfecting what needs to be perfected, and pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited.”
She sat down. Dumbledore clapped. The staff followed his lead, except for Sirius, who had his arms crossed defiantly. Tier bit down so hard the bone in their mouth snapped. Iliana noticed that several of the other teachers brought their hands together only once or twice before stopping. A few students joined in, but most had been taken unawares by the end of the speech, not having listened to more than a few words of it, and before they could start applauding properly, Dumbledore had stood up again.
“Thank you very much, Professor Umbridge, that was most illuminating,” he said, bowing to her. “Now — as I was saying, Quidditch tryouts will be held …”
“Yes, it certainly was illuminating,” said Hermione in a low voice.
“You’re not telling me you enjoyed it?” Ron said quietly, turning a glazed face upon Hermione. “That was about the dullest speech I’ve ever heard, and I grew up with Percy.”
“I said illuminating, not enjoyable,” said Hermione. “It explained a lot.”
“It sure did.” It was Iliana's voice, but Hypatia was using it. Judging by the lack of any change to the faces of her friends, their eyes hadn't changed color this time.
“Did it?” asked Ron. “Sounded like a load of waffle to me.”
“There was some important stuff hidden in the waffle,” said Hermione grimly.
“Was there?” said Ron blankly.
“How about ‘progress for progress’s sake must be discouraged’? How about ‘pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited’?”
“Well, what does that mean?” said Ron impatiently.
“I’ll tell you what it means,” said Hermione ominously. “It means the Ministry’s interfering at Hogwarts.”
Ron looked worried at this knowledge. He wasn't the only one.
“Hey, you lot,” said a voice behind them. They jumped in fright, but it was just Sirius. He was looking displeased. And only then did they notice everyone was getting up to leave.
“Sirius!” Iliana said.
“Hey, Iliana,” he said. “Anyway, I came over here to tell you that the toad-looking woman--”
“Works at the ministry. Yeah, we recognized her name when Dumbledore said it.”
“And Iliana recognized her face from one of Al's visions!” Ron said.
“Really? You'll have to tell me about that later. I didn't know who they'd gotten for History of Magic until McGonagall told me who she was. Stupid Fudge. Anyway, you lot better get going, so you don't miss the password.”
“Don't you know it?”
“Er... about that, one of the caveats of my working here this year is I'm to avoid the Griffindor common room if I can. Seems the Fat Lady still hasn't forgiven me for attacking her, even though I've apologized and explained that I was half-mad from dementor exposure. But I got better.” He said that last sentence with a familiar accent, and a grin.
“'She turned me into a newt'!” Iliana quoted back at him.
“Ha!” Sirius barked with laughter. Hermione giggled, recognizing the line. Ron just looked confused.
“Muggle cultural reference,” Iliana explained. “So you've watched Monty Python?”
“Yes I have. Lily introduced me to it, back during the war. I used to binge-watch it whenever we had to wait at her place or James's house. James's was the one that blew up when... well... anyway, you'd better run along now.”
“Right, Professor Black,” Iliana said, winking at him as they got up, just before running to catch up with everyone else.
“Oh wait,” Hermione said, “I'm a prefect. I have to catch up to Neville.”
She ran along ahead, catching up with Neville. The two of them were guiding the first-years with the other Prefects. It took nearly the entire flock of Prefects to watch the large group of new students this year, there were so many compared to before.
Iliana's eyes met the eyes of one of the first-years, one that Hypatia informed them was named Euan Abercrombie. She grinned at him, but he looked petrified with terror and ran off. Another boy next to him had a similar terrified expression and stole a horrified look at Iliana, who felt the grin slide off her face like Stinksap.
She'd been stupid to not expect this. They got a lot of weird looks anyway, mostly from Muggle-borns who'd been taught by Muggle culture that multiples were dangerous monsters, which was more often than not completely false. While their collective wasn't trauma-based, or at least they didn't think they were, and even if they were they still didn't match the stereotypical pattern of MPD, a lot of collectives did in fact have a trauma factor in their formation. She didn't think it could be 'just' trauma; if it was, there'd be millions, maybe even billions, of such collectives in the world. But yeah, whatever other factors were involved, some collectives did have a trauma basis, and so they generally tended to be victims rather than villains. Even the few collectives with violent members usually had that violence aimed either inward or out at their abusers. It was absurd to think multiples would be any more likely than singlets to be violent towards innocent people.
Anyway, she should have known the weird looks would increase. The Daily Prophet had been spouting lies about them all summer long, and Rita Skeeter had been doing it long before that.
“Quite a wrackspurt infestation in here, Iliana,” said Luna from beside her.
“Wrackspurts?”
“They fly into your head through your ears and make your brain go fuzzy. I thought I saw some buzzing around your head just now.”
“Just thinking about the people who think I'm mad.”
Luna nodded sagely. “If you want to get rid of wrackspurts, Iliana, you have to think positive thoughts. They feed on negative thoughts, you see. Daddy thinks they're distantly related to dementors and lethifolds.”
Iliana chuckled. “Sounds like good advice, Luna. Thanks.”
“You're welcome. See you later, Iliana.”
The two girls hugged each other briefly before returning to their own dormitories.
Despite Luna's advice, her thoughts went negative again. Soon, she reached the end of the corridor to the Gryffindor common room and had come to a halt in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady before he realized that she did not know the new password.
“Er …” she said glumly, staring up at the Fat Lady, who smoothed the folds of her pink satin dress and looked sternly back at her.
“No password, no entrance,” she said loftily.
“Iliana, I know it!” someone panted from behind him, and she turned to see Neville jogging toward her, a couple first-years trailing behind him. At her curious look, he explained, “These two got lost back there, I went back for them while Hermione went on ahead. Anyway, I know the password. Guess what it is?”
“If I could guess, I would have.”
“Right. Anyway, I’m actually going to be able to remember it for once —” He waved a stunted little cactus he had shown them on the train. “Mimbulus mimbletonia!”
“Correct,” said the Fat Lady, and her portrait swung open toward them like a door, revealing a circular hole in the wall behind, through which Iliana and Neville now climbed, letting the first-year students in ahead of them.
Passing by everyone in the common room, she was half glad she had her own room, and half wishing she had company. She passed a curious-looking Seamus Finnegan along the way, with his friend Dean Thomas. She waved hi, but was too tired to talk. She wanted to go right to bed as soon as possible.
But it was not to be. They followed her, Dean looking like he'd rather not be doing so. When she noticed, just outside her door, she turned to look curiously at them.
“Hey Iliana,” Dean said. The feelings coming off him were pretty close to Seamus’s. She remembered, then, that Dean was Muggle-born and Seamus's father was a Muggle.
“Hi Dean, Seamus.”
“You have a good holiday?”
Deciding a true account of her holiday would be too long to explain even if most of it weren't top secret, she settled on, “Frustrating. You?”
“Yeah, it was okay. Better than Seamus's, anyway.”
Neville appeared behind them and said, “Why, what happened, Seamus?”
Seamus didn't answer right away, pretending to be examining Neville's plant. Then he said, not looking at Iliana, “Me mam and Da didn’t want me to come back.”
“What?” said Iliana, confused.
“They didn’t want me to come back to Hogwarts.”
“Why not?”
Seamus again paused, considering the ugly plant, before saying in a measured tone, “I suppose... because of you.”
“What d’you mean?” said Iliana quickly. Her heart was beating rather fast. She felt vaguely as though something was closing in on her.
“Well,” said Seamus again, still avoiding her eyes, “they … er … well, it’s not just you, it’s Dumbledore too …”
“She believes the Daily Prophet?” said Iliana with forced calm. “She thinks I’m a liar and Dumbledore’s an old fool?”
Seamus looked up at him. “Yeah, something like that.”
“Did you tell them what Cedric said?”
“Aye. But, well... they think you're mad, and dangerous. More me Da than me Mam, at first. Then Da explained what Muggles think of... well...”
“So they believe those lies that popular Muggle culture tells about multiples?”
He nodded glumly. “An' what's more, they think you Confunded Cedric.”
“And what about you?”
“I... well... you're mostly okay, but well... Al did shake the castle that one time when 'e was riled, an' some of you've attacked Malfoy an' Rita Skeeter...”
“Different people react differently to the same things sometimes,” she said, her voice like ice. “That has nothing to do with whether I'm a multiple or not. We never hurt anyone permanently, and we're not proud of what we did. And have we ever attacked anyone other than Dra-- er, Malfoy or Rita Skeeter, to your knowledge?”
Seamus looked thoughtful. “Er... Crabbe and Goyle, but those two berks are Malfoy's bodyguards, so...”
“Al does have an issue with escalating conflicts, an issue we're going to work on, especially as it sometimes bleeds over to Chandra; but aside from that, we haven't attacked anyone who hadn't already attacked us at least once before. And Zoey's pranks do go overboard at times; we're going to make her work on that, too. But my point is, we've been known to be a Multiple for nearly four years now, and in all that time we've only ever attacked four people, three of whom truly deserved it, and we didn't do anything more than make them uncomfortable or scared. And trust me, we intend to apologize to Rita Skeeter if we can manage to contact her. Malfoy, too, if he'll listen.”
“The papers made it seem like you lot lash out at anyone who annoys you,” Seamus said.
Iliana snorted with laughter. “If that were true, we'd have attacked over half the school several times over by now. Remember our second year, when everyone thought we were the Heir of Slytherin? Or last year, with the 'Support Cedric Diggory' badges?”
“Er, right.”
Seamus was still thinking about everything she'd said. A minute or two later, he shrugged and smiled a little, holding his hand out. “Er... sorry. You've got a point. Sorry I doubted you.”
“Does this mean you believe me about Voldemort?”
He sighed, but nodded. “Yes. You and Cedric and Dumbledore are all saying it. I believe you. I'll try to explain it to Mam and Da.”
She took his hand and shook it.
When they let go, he said, “I won't pretend it isn't a bit weird, though, always has been. Y'know, this...” he gestured at her.
“You're preaching to the choir on that one, Seamus,” she said with a smirk. “And what about you, Dean?”
“My parents don't know anything about you. I've mentioned some of your names before, but they think you're all... that you all have your own bodies.”
“That's good. But what about YOU?”
“I'm with Seamus. It's a bit weird. Still haven't really gotten used to it. I uh... I thought the Prophet had a point, until you said your piece.”
He held out his hand, too, and she shook it.
“Oh,” Seamus said, “I need ta warn ya, but we're in the minority, I think. We've overheard loads of bad things about you lot over the years, and this year there's been a lot more of it already.”
She groaned. “Thanks for the warning, Seamus.”
“I reckon part of it is you've never really been very friendly. Bit stand-offish,” Dean said. “You know, you've got Ron and Hermione and Neville and Luna, then that's mostly it. Oh, and Ginny and the Weasley twins. And Javier, I guess. You barely talk to anyone else. I think you only talked to Seamus and I as much as you did because we used to share a dorm.”
“Well I never had friends growing up; my cousin bullied anyone who tried to be my friend. So I'm still not entirely sure how to be social with people. Then there was that whole Heir of Slytherin business, where most of the school turned on me. That didn't make things any easier. But yeah, we could try harder.”
“And then you were worried about Sirius Black the year after that,” Neville guessed.
“Yes, I was. Then when he was found innocent, distracted by getting to know him better.”
“An' that Triwizard Tournament,” Seamus said.
“Yes. Hard to make friends with people who think you're an attention-seeking prat. Oh yeah, and being famous for not dying, that doesn't help. It irritates me that people think I did something to Moldyshorts to made him vanish. It wasn't me at all, it was Mum's sacrifice. If anyone should be famous for bringing down Voldemort, it should be Lily Potter, not me.”
Seamus and Dean looked surprised by this information. But then they thought about it, and the pieces fell into place.
“That makes a lot more sense than a baby defeating him,” Dean said.
“Aye,” Seamus added.
“Right, I'll try to spread that fact around, Iliana. Dunno how much it'll help, but I'll still try.”
“Me too,” Seamus said.
Very soon after that, their group dispersed, everyone getting ready for bed in their own dormitories. Iliana fell asleep glad to know she had two more people on her side, even if they did think the Potters weird.
'We ARE weird, though,' was Al's last thought before sleep took them for the night.
Endnotes: Yes, there's eight members of the Potter collective. That's all I'm willing to do, even though our own collective has nine, mainly because of those nine, there's three of them that have been silent so long they may well have died for all we know. I blame depression. They were all active once, but years of depression and stress have made three of them go dark. Even Pi, the basis for Tier, sleeps more often than not.
Anyway, eight is a lot to keep track of, even with Mother and Tier being mostly quiet. So eight is the max. I am, however, thinking about adding another collective – one that doesn't transform – to the story. If I do, they will only have a smaller number, maybe 4 at the most. Just a thought for now.
This thing of Al and Zoey recognizing their behavior as wrong comes from a reader pointing out how wrong these behaviors were. Like Al and Zoey, we got so caught up in these moments that we didn't realize they would be wrong. Even though the person who pointed these things out was a bit of a jerk themselves in the end, I decided it was a good idea anyway to take their advice to heart. After all, we never got to see James and Sirius and their redemption arc from bullies in canon. This isn't quite the same thing; most of Al's problem is escalating during confrontations, Chandra's issue is letting Al's emotions bleed into his own too much and also escalating, and Zoey's problem is mostly just not thinking of consequences ahead of time, so none of them are being truly malicious.
And to explain why the staff have been weirdly lax with their actions... well, there's a lot of stuff that happens in canon that really shouldn't, that's fucked up and nobody seems to think there's anything wrong with it. Putting a bunch of minors – including an eight year old girl who isn't even fully human and thus might not react the same as humans – under a freezing cold lake in February in Scotland, likely without even consulting their guardians, comes to mind. So I consider it an extension of whatever it is in the wizarding world that does that nonsense.
As to the aliases 'Willow Pond' and 'Hyacinth Jones,' I didn't notice they were both surnames of Doctor Who companions until after the fact. *grin*
Lastly, when I think of Zoey, I think this girl looks pretty close to looking like her: http://78.media.tumblr.com/def59696b37c7085a266c7b34ae93432/... All she's missing is the mischievous grin and the heterochromia.
“The Many Faces Go To War: Chapter 4”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Four: Dolores Umbridge
Notes: This is the second chapter of the sequel to “The Many Faces of Har---er, Adira Potter.” If you haven't read that series yet, this one isn't going to make much sense. Also, a reminder for anyone who forgot: the person formerly known as Harry still exists, she's just transgender in this one, her new name is Adira, nicknamed “Addy.”
NOTE: THIS HAS BEEN CHANGED AGAIN, because Reasons. Hopefully for the last time = From now on, 'Single quotes with no italics' will be Adira/Addy, ~Text in tildes~ will be Chandra, (Parentheses for Al,) [Brackets will be Hypatia], % Percentage symbols for Iliana %, # Pound signs for Mother/Avani, # * Asterisks for Zoey, * and {curly brackets for Tier.} Apologies for any confusion this may cause, I know some of it contradicts earlier formatting, but I tried to minimize that.
Text in 'Italics and British quotes' is Parseltongue.
J. K. Rowling owns this sandbox, I'm only playing in it.
Sorry for the long wait. Life happens.
*FAYANORA*
[[One last note: Please re-read above notes, changes to formatting have been made.]]
Iliana was astonished the next morning to find she was still herself. She got up and got ready, then went down with Ron, Hermione, and Neville to breakfast. They paused briefly as Hermione read and then took down a sign by the Weasley twins offering gold for testers of their products.
“They are the limit,” said Hermione grimly, taking down the sign, which Fred and George had pinned up over a poster giving the date of the first Hogsmeade weekend in October. “We’ll have to talk to them, Neville.”
Neville looked nervous. “Do we have to?”
“Neville,” said Iliana, “the twins aren't going to hurt you. Just talk to them, make them understand they can't test their products on humans. They need to test them on animals first.”
“Iliana!” shouted Hermione.
“What? That's how science works. You test on animals first, and if it works on them without the side effects being too bad, then you move on to human trials.”
“Well I don't like it.”
“Bet you like it better than testing directly on human volunteers, though.”
Hermione sighed. “Yes, fine. You're right.”
“I still don't fancy talking to them,” Neville said. “I don't really know why I was made a prefect.”
“What happened to the confident Neville from the train who faced down Malfoy like it was no problem?”
“That was Malfoy. The twins are much older and better at magic. Their grades aren't wonderful, but they're a lot better at magic than they let on.”
“So? They're not going to hurt you. And if they won't listen to you, threaten to tell their mother. Or threaten to sic me or Al on them.”
Neville laughed at that.
“Oh all right,” he finally said. “I'll talk to them when I see them.”
“Don't forget, Neville, I'll be there too,” Hermione said.
Neville nodded, smiling.
As they walked down the corridor full of talking portraits, Iliana turned to Hermione.
“What's wrong, Hermione? You've felt upset since before we found that sign.”
“Nothing's wrong, Iliana,” she said too quickly and too glibly.
“Don't lie to an empath, Hermione, it's like lying to a legilimens.”
She sighed. “Fine, okay. Lavender Brown believes the Daily Prophet. About you. She buys that rubbish about you and Cedric being in on the whole thing together, even thinks Cedric helped you get your name in the goblet, and that you're dangerous. I told her to shut her fat mouth, but it's still upsetting.”
Iliana shrugged. “It's Lavender Brown. She believes everything that old fraud Trelawney says. We know she's gullible.”
“Yes, but it's a symptom of a bigger problem. I'm honestly confused why you're not upset about it yourself.”
“I've been through worse. Plus, I had a talk with Dean and Seamus last night about it. His mum and dad believe the Prophet, too. They think we're dangerous because we're a multiple. But I set Seamus straight on the issue, and he's going to write to his parents to tell them he believes me.”
“Oh. Well, that's progress. Good. Maybe you can talk to Lavender, too. If she'll let you near her, the fraidy cat.”
“I'll try. Dean and Seamus did point out we're a bit unfriendly. I explained it was because of not having friends growing up, and then the whole school turning on us at least twice. But I've done some thinking, and I think there'd be a lot less of that if people knew the truth about us.”
“Whadda ya mean?” Ron asked.
“I mean, I think I need to expose my past. Sure the Dursleys were arrested for child abuse, but that didn't stick around long in the news. I'm sure people have forgotten by now. And it's not like the contents of the trial were made public. I'm sure most people still think I was raised in a castle like a spoiled brat and the Dursleys were occasional visitors that abused me when they were there. I need to tell them the truth.”
“How're you gonna do that?”
“I'm going to ask Healer Young for some help finding a trustworthy news outlet and reporter to tell my story to. I need to talk with him again anyway, after Voldemort rising. We've been having nightmares again. And we killed some of those Death Eaters. I'm not as bothered by it as I was with Quirrell, since I'm older and Healer Young helped me realize that I was defending my own life. But still, nightmares you know. So I'll owl him later.”
“Are you also gonna talk to the reporter about You-Know-Who?” Ron asked.
“I... I don't know. Maybe I should. And if I do, I can see if I can get Cedric’s input as well. There's probably still going to be people convinced we're colluding together, but it's worth a try.”
Iliana stopped, realizing they were at the Griffindor table just in time to avoid running into it with her shins. She looked up at the staff table. Professor Grubbly-Plank was chatting to Professor Sinistra, the Astronomy teacher, and Hagrid was once again conspicuous only by his absence. The enchanted ceiling above them echoed her mood; it was a miserable rain-cloud gray.
“Dumbledore didn’t even mention how long that Grubbly-Plank woman’s staying,” she said.
“Maybe …” said Hermione thoughtfully.
“What?” said both Iliana and Ron together.
“Well … maybe he didn’t want to draw attention to Hagrid not being here.”
“What d’you mean, draw attention to it?” said Ron, half laughing. “How could we not notice?”
Before Hermione could answer, a tall black girl with long, braided hair had marched up to Iliana.
“Hi, Angelina.”
“Hi,” she said, “good summer?”
“Not particularly,” Iliana said. “And you?”
“Er... fine I guess. Anyway, I hear you're the new Quidditch Captain.”
“Oh, right. Yes, I am. Thanks for reminding me. I guess if Wood is gone, we need a new Keeper, right?”
“Yeah. So when are tryouts?”
“Dunno yet. But I'll talk with McGonagall, see if I can schedule them for this coming weekend.”
Angelina grinned, but also looked nervous. “Great. I'll check back with you later, okay?”
“You could, but I think I'll just make signs to post on the bulletin board when I have the date and time set. Maybe I can get Luna to help, she's an artist.”
“Er, okay. See you later, Iliana!”
“You too, Angelina.”
As they sat down and started putting food on their plate, Iliana said, “You know, Wood's major flaw was we never had alternates in our lineup. Whenever I got in the Hospital Wing before a match, we couldn't play. Well that's silly. So I'm going to include alternates in the tryouts. I think I'll ask Ginny to try out. She'd make a pretty good Chaser, I think.”
“Good thinking, Iliana,” Ron said.
“Yes. Other teams do that, I think,” Hermione said.
“Exactly. So we should, too.”
“I’d forgotten Wood had left,” said Hermione vaguely, buttering some toast. “I suppose that will make quite a difference to the team?”
“I s’pose,” said Iliana, taking the bench opposite. “He was a good Keeper.”
“Still, it won’t hurt to have some new blood, will it?” said Ron.
Iliana sensed excitement and nerves from Ron and glanced at him before taking a bite of eggs. Did he want to try out? She didn't know what she thought about that. It could be good for Ron, but he had confidence issues. She hoped he was good at it, if he tried out.
With a whoosh and a clatter, hundreds of owls came soaring in through the upper windows. They descended all over the Hall, bringing letters and packages to their owners and showering the breakfasters with droplets of water; it was clearly raining hard outside. Hedwig was nowhere to be seen, but Iliana was hardly surprised; her only correspondent was Remus, now that he was fired, and she doubted Remus would have anything new to tell her after only twenty-four hours apart. Hermione, however, had to move her orange juice aside quickly to make way for a large damp barn owl bearing a sodden Daily Prophet in its beak.
“Still giving money to the enemy, I see,” she commented.
Hermione glowered at her. “We need to see what the enemy are saying about us. If that means giving them some money, then that's what we do,” said Hermione darkly, and she unfurled the newspaper and disappeared behind it, not emerging until Iliana and Ron had finished eating.
“Nothing,” she said simply, rolling up the newspaper and laying it down by her plate. “Nothing about you or Dumbledore or Cedric or anything.”
Iliana shrugged.
Neville sat down next to them and started putting food on his plate.
“Hi, Neville.”
“Hi, Iliana, Hermione.”
They were all almost done with their meals when McGonagall came along to hand out the class schedules.
“Look at today!” groaned Ron. “History of Magic, double Potions, and Divination. Snape, Trelawney, and that Umbridge woman all in one day! Oh well, it could be worse. At least we've got the afternoon free.”
“My schedule is different from yours, Ron. I've been taking Ancient Runes. I don't have a free afternoon, I have double Ancient Runes instead.”
“Glad I didn't take that,” Ron said. “Damn, we don't have Defense Against the Dark Arts until Thursday morning!”
“I wonder what Sirius will be like as a teacher?” Iliana said.
“Yeah, it's gonna be murder waiting that long to find out. I wish Fred and George’d hurry up and get those Skiving Snackboxes sorted.”
“Why hello there, little brother,” said one of the twins, as both began sitting down next to Ron.
“Hi, Fred,” Iliana said, looking right at him.
Fred stared at her. “How'd you know it was me?”
“Empath,” she said, pointing at her head. “And lots of experience with it. I can tell the two of you apart now. You have slightly different empathic auras.”
“Damn. That's inconvenient, isn't it George?”
“Right it is,” George said. “Anyway, Ron, what's this about you wanting to skip lessons?
“Look what we’ve got today,” said Ron grumpily, shoving his schedule under Fred’s nose. “That’s the worst Monday I’ve ever seen. Even the free afternoon doesn't really make up for it.”
“Fair point, little bro,” said Fred, scanning the column. “You can have a bit of Nosebleed Nougat cheap if you like.”
“Why’s it cheap?” said Ron suspiciously.
“Because you’ll keep bleeding till you shrivel up, we haven’t got an antidote yet,” said George, helping himself to a kipper.
“Cheers,” said Ron moodily, pocketing his schedule, “but I think I’ll take the lessons.”
Hermione nudged Neville. He sighed.
“Fred, G-George,” he said nervously. “You c-can't test your products on students, even if you're paying them. And you can't advertise for testers on the Griffindor notice board.”
“Says who?” said George, looking astonished.
“S-says me, and Hermione,” Neville said, pointing to his Prefect badge.
“Oh really?” said George. “And what are you gonna back that badge up with, Sir Longbottom?”
Neville grinned, and with his wand he did a swish and flick at a kipper, whispering “Wingardium Leviosa.” The entire bowl of kippers flew so hard into the air that it hit the enchanted ceiling and broke, showering them with kippers, kipper juice, and broken shards of ceramic bowl.
Neville hastily stood up to clean the mess with his wand, but George stopped him.
“Neville, I'll get it. I don't want your wand thinking I'm dirt and making me vanish or get the flesh cleaned off my skeleton.”
Iliana heard laughter from the Slytherin table as Malfoy had seen what happened. George soon had the mess cleaned up and the broken shards gathered up.
“Reparo,” he said at the pile of shards, repairing the bowl with magic.
“Thanks, George,” Neville muttered.
Fred and George stood up and bowed respectfully to Neville.
“Prefect Longbottom, we will take the signs down by the end of the day,” they said in twin stereo. “You have our word.”
“Anyway,” George said as they sat down again. “You lot will be wanting Skiving Snack-boxes soon enough. It's your fifth year.”
“And why would starting fifth year mean I want a Skiving Snackbox?” asked Hermione.
“Fifth year’s O.W.L. year,” said George.
“So?”
“So you’ve got your exams coming up, haven’t you? They’ll be keeping your noses so hard to that grindstone they’ll be rubbed raw,” said Fred with satisfaction.
“Half our year had minor breakdowns coming up to O.W.L.s,” said George happily. “Tears and tantrums … Patricia Stimpson kept coming over faint. …”
“Kenneth Towler came out in boils, d’you remember?” said Fred reminiscently.
“That’s ’cause you put Bulbadox Powder in his pajamas,” said George.
“Oh yeah,” said Fred, grinning. “I’d forgotten. … Hard to keep track sometimes, isn’t it?”
“Anyway, it’s a nightmare of a year, the fifth,” said George. “If you care about exam results anyway. Fred and I managed to keep our spirits up somehow.”
“Yeah … you got, what was it, three O.W.L.s each?” said Ron.
“Yep,” said Fred unconcernedly. “But we feel our futures lie outside the world of academic achievement.”
“We seriously debated whether we were going to bother coming back for our seventh year,” said George brightly, “now that we’ve got —”
They froze as Iliana glared at them. They'd been about to mention Al gave them money from their half of the Triwizard winnings.
“— now that we’ve got our O.W.L.s,” George said hastily. “I mean, do we really need N.E.W.T.s? But we didn’t think Mum could take us leaving school early, not on top of Percy turning out to be the world’s biggest prat.”
“We’re not going to waste our last year here, though,” said Fred, looking affectionately around at the Great Hall. “We’re going to use it to do a bit of market research, find out exactly what the average Hogwarts student requires from his joke shop, carefully evaluate the results of our research, and then produce the products to fit the demand.”
“But where are you going to get the gold to start a joke shop?” asked Hermione skeptically. “You’re going to need all the ingredients and materials — and premises too, I suppose.”
Iliana did not look at the twins. Her face felt hot; she deliberately dropped her fork and dived down to retrieve it. She heard Fred say overhead, “Ask us no questions and we’ll tell you no lies, Hermione. C’mon, George, if we get there early we might be able to sell a few Extendable Ears before Herbology.”
“What did that mean?” said Hermione, looking from Iliana to Ron. “ ‘Ask us no questions …’ Does that mean they’ve already got some gold to start a joke shop?”
Ron shrugged. “I dunno. But I suppose if they're selling their products at school, they might be getting gold that way.”
“Yes, but enough to fund premises?”
Iliana decided it was time to steer the conversation out of these dangerous waters.
“D’you reckon it’s true this year’s going to be really tough? Because of the exams?”
“Oh yeah,” said Ron. “Bound to be, isn’t it? O.W.L.s are really important, affect the jobs you can apply for and everything. We get career advice too, later this year, Bill told me. So you can choose what N.E.W.T.s you want to do next year.”
“D’you know what you want to do after Hogwarts?” Iliana asked the other three, as they left the Great Hall shortly afterward and set off toward their History of Magic classroom.
“Not really,” said Ron slowly. “Except … well …”
He looked slightly sheepish.
“What?” Iliana urged him.
“Well, it’d be cool to be an Auror,” said Ron in an offhand voice.
“My mum and dad were Aurors,” said Neville. “Gran would probably want me to be one, too.”
“No offense to your Gran, Neville, but she needs to stop trying to recreate her son in you and just let you do what you want. What do YOU want to do after Hogwarts?”
“Er... well... I'd like to raise magical plants professionally, start my own supply company. I've also been experimenting with different fertilizer mixes, trying to create the perfect blend. That'd be big business if I can manage it.”
“I think you'll do brilliantly at that, Neville,” Iliana said.
“What about you, Iliana? What do you and the others want to do for a career?”
“I dunno. Maybe play Quidditch professionally for a while. But we'd need a fall-back career. Um...”
She had almost said that Hypatia would want to be a ward master, ward-cracker, or even a curse-breaker.
“Um... I think it'd be cool to be a curse-breaker.”
“Well you're taking Ancient Runes,” Hermione said, “so that's good. And you're good at Defense Against the Dark Arts, despite the curse on the position.”
“You'd need to take Arithmancy, though,” Neville said. “I know because I was reading about Aurors, and curse-breaker is a related career. But you aren't taking Arithmancy.”
“Er... that's because I've been taking it as a self-study,” she said.
“You have? Are you going to take your Arithmancy O.W.L. then?”
[Yes, I am,] Hypatia informed her.
“Yes, I am,” Iliana said aloud.
“Well you need an N.E.W.T. in it, too. Which you can only take if you get at least an Acceptable on your O.W.L.,” Hermione said.
After a moment of thought, Iliana said, “I also wouldn't mind being a professional Potioneer.”
“P-potions?” Neville said, sounding terrified. “Really?”
She shrugged. “Yeah, Snape's been okay around me lately. Still doesn't like Al or Zoey, but he's fine around me.”
She stopped there, not wanting to reveal she was taking private lessons with him.
“Huh. Well okay,” Neville said, sounding like he thought she was a bit mad for that.
~
When they entered the History of Magic classroom they found Professor Umbridge already seated at the teacher’s desk, wearing the fluffy pink cardigan of the night before and the black velvet bow on top of her head. Iliana was again reminded forcibly of a large fly perched unwisely on top of an even larger toad.
The class was quiet as it entered the room; Professor Umbridge was, as yet, an unknown quantity and nobody knew yet how strict a disciplinarian she was likely to be.
“Well, good afternoon!” she said when finally the whole class had sat down.
A few people mumbled “Good afternoon,” in reply.
“Tut, tut,” said Professor Umbridge. “That won’t do, now, will it? I should like you, please, to reply ‘Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge.’ One more time, please. Good afternoon, class!”
“Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge,” they chanted back at her.
“There, now,” said Professor Umbridge sweetly. “That wasn’t too difficult, was it? Wands away and quills out, please.”
Many of the class exchanged gloomy looks; the order “wands away” had never yet been followed by a lesson they had found interesting. Iliana shoved her wand back inside her bag and pulled out quill, ink, and parchment. Professor Umbridge opened her handbag, extracted her own wand, which was an unusually short one, and tapped the blackboard sharply with it; words appeared on the board at once:
History of Magic: An Unbiased Look
'Well this doesn't bode well,' Adira thought at the others.
[No it doesn't,] Hypatia thought, [since there's no such thing as an unbiased history.]
“Well now, your teaching in this subject has been rather disrupted and fragmented, hasn’t it?” stated Professor Umbridge, turning to face the class with her hands clasped neatly in front of her. “Years of sub-standard teaching by a very boring ghost first, and then you were taught by a werewolf.”
“What?” Dean said, alarmed. “No we weren't! We were taught by Professor Lupin!”
“I did not see your hand, Mr. Thomas. We raise our hand when we wish to speak in this class.”
Dean and several other people raised their hands. She called on Seamus.
“Whadda ya mean 'taught by a werewolf'? Professor Umbridge,” he hastened to add.
Umbridge grinned maliciously. “Well you see, Mr. Finnigan, the Ministry recently passed a law protecting children from being taught by dangerous beasts like Professor Lupin, who is on the werewolf reg--”
“Professor Lupin isn't dangerous!” Iliana said.
Professor Umbridge turned to Iliana. “Mr. Potter, I did not see your hand.”
“Who are you talking to?” Iliana said. “I'm not a Mister. I'm a Ms.”
Ignoring Iliana, Umbridge said, “As I was saying, our country has a registry of all known werewolves, and Mr. Lupin is on that registry. Therefore, when the new legislation passed, he was fired from his position as History Professor, where he can no longer warp the minds and threaten the bodies of innocent young souls such as yourselves.”
There was a lot of muttering about this, but since nobody was talking very loudly, she turned back to the board and ignored the mutters.
“As I was saying before these interruptions, your previous teachers were a boring ghost who turned this lesson into a joke among the students, and then he was replaced by a dangerous criminal who--”
“Lupin was not a criminal!” Iliana had stood up to say this, but she wasn't in control. Before Umbridge's eyes, she became Adira instead.
“Mister Lupin was a werewolf, Mr. Potter, and as such--”
“Being a werewolf doesn't make him a criminal. It makes him ill. He was perfectly nice and safe 28 days out of the month, and the school board knew as well as Dumbledore that he was a werewolf, they had him hidden safely away from students during the full moon!”
“Ten points from Griffindor, Mister Potter, and if you do not sit down and be quiet, I shall have to put you in detention for disrupting the class!”
“Stop calling me 'Mister'! I am not a boy! If Al or Chandra or Tier were here now, then you'd be right. But Iliana, Zoey, and I are girls!”
“Oh indeed? So then the history books are wrong, are they, when they call you the boy who lived?”
“Yes, actually, they are in fact wrong on that point.”
“So you are questioning facts, are you?”
“I don't dispute what they call me in the history books. But when they call me a boy, they're wrong. I've never been a boy.”
“God does not make mistakes, Mister Potter.”
“I don't believe in God, and even if I did, it's not God who made the mistake, it was the Healers who labeled me by the wrong gender.”
“Mister Potter, according to Ministry records, you are a boy named Mr. Harry James Potter. Presumably this means you were born with... certain attributes... that caused you to be properly labeled as a baby boy.”
“Your information is wrong. I got a name and gender change summer before last. Those 'certain attributes' are no longer true for me. But we were talking about Professor Lupin.”
“Yes. And you have been disrupting class, Mr. Potter. I did warn you not to do that. So I shall see you in detention. Tomorrow evening at five o'clock. My office.”
“Maybe there wouldn't be any disruptions if you didn't say things that are blatantly false!”
Professor Umbridge grew very cold all of a sudden. “Mr. Potter, it is not I who has a problem telling taradiddles. That is your issue, telling people that a certain deceased dark lord has returned from the grave--”
“Voldemort never properly died. His powers just broke, and he was only recently able to repair them. I saw him, and so did Cedric Diggory! We fought him! But you and Fudge have your heads so far up your own arses that you can see your own tonsils!”
At Voldemort's name, Ron had gasped; Lavender Brown uttered a little scream; Neville slipped sideways off his stool. Professor Umbridge, however, did not flinch. She was staring at Adira with a grimly satisfied expression on her face.
“MISTER POTTER! Please come to the front of the class.”
Angrily, Adira stormed to the front of the class.
Professor Umbridge pulled a small roll of pink parchment out of her handbag, stretched it out on the desk, dipped her quill into a bottle of ink, and started scribbling, hunched over so that Adira could not see what she was writing. Nobody spoke. After a minute or so she rolled up the parchment and tapped it with her wand; it sealed itself seamlessly so that she could not open it.
“Take this to Professor McGonagall, dear,” said Professor Umbridge, holding out the note to him.
She took it from the evil woman without saying a word, grabbed her bag, and left the room, not even looking back at Ron and Hermione, and slamming the classroom door shut behind her. She walked very fast along the corridor, the note to McGonagall clutched tight in her hand, and turning a corner walked slap into Peeves the Poltergeist, a wide-faced little man floating on his back in midair, juggling several inkwells.
“Why, it’s Potty Wee Potter!” cackled Peeves, allowing two of the inkwells to fall to the ground where they smashed and spattered the walls with ink; Adira jumped backward out of the way with a snarl.
“Get out of it, Peeves.”
“Oooh, Crackpot’s feeling cranky,” said Peeves, pursuing Adira along the corridor, leering as he zoomed along above her. “What is it this time, my fine Potty friend? Hearing voices? Seeing visions? Speaking in” — Peeves blew a gigantic raspberry — “tongues?”
“I said, leave me ALONE!” Adira shouted, running down the nearest flight of stairs, but Peeves merely slid down the banister on his back beside her.
“Oh, most think they're barking, the Potty pipsqueak,
But some are more kindly and think they're unique,
But Peevesy knows better and says that they're a freak —”
“LANGLOCK!” she shouted the incantation, pointing a finger and only then realizing she still had her wand in her bag. But the spell worked anyway, Peeves's tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth. He took off flying away from Adira. She felt satisfaction at this; nobody called her the f-word and got away with it. The rage she'd felt at that, Peeves was lucky she didn't know any spells to destroy poltergeists.
A door to her left flew open and Professor McGonagall emerged from her office looking grim and slightly harassed.
“What on earth are you shouting about, Potter?” she snapped, as Peeves angrily zoomed out of sight. “Why aren’t you in class?”
“I’ve been sent to see you,” said Adira stiffly.
“Sent? What do you mean, sent?”
She held out the note from Professor Umbridge. Professor McGonagall took it from her, frowning, slit it open with a tap of her wand, stretched it out, and began to read. Her eyes zoomed from side to side behind their square spectacles as she read what Umbridge had written, and with each line they became narrower.
“Come in here, Potter.”
She followed McGonagall inside her study. The door closed automatically behind her.
“Well?” said Professor McGonagall, rounding on him. “Is this true?”
“No idea. Between Professor Umbridge being a liar and the fact it's sealed, I don't know what it says. She didn't let me see what she'd written.”
“Is it true that you told Professor Umbridge that she and Fudge had their heads up their arses?”
“Yes, Professor.”
“Is it true you disrupted class?”
“Dean started it. She was outing Professor Lupin and calling him a dangerous beast, implying he'd been here to hurt kids and outright saying he was warping our minds. Then she kept mis-gendering me, so I corrected her on that. But yes, I suppose I was being disruptive.”
“Did you call her a liar?”
“Not in so many words, but yes, I said she was saying false things.”
“You told her He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is back?”
“Yes.”
Professor McGonagall sat down behind her desk, frowning at Adira. Then she said, “Have a biscuit, Potter.”
“Have — what?”
“Have a biscuit,” she repeated impatiently, indicating a tartan tin of cookies lying on top of one of the piles of papers on her desk. “And sit down.”
Confused, she sat down and took a Ginger Newt.
Professor McGonagall set down Professor Umbridge’s note and looked very seriously at Adira.
“Potter, you need to be careful.”
Adira swallowed her mouthful of Ginger Newt and stared at her. Her tone of voice was not at all what Adira was used to; it was not brisk, crisp, and stern; it was low and anxious and somehow much more human than usual.
“Misbehavior in Dolores Umbridge’s class could cost you much more than House points and a detention.”
“What do you — ?”
“Potter, use your common sense,” snapped Professor McGonagall, with an abrupt return to her usual manner. “You know where she comes from, you must know to whom she is reporting.”
The bell rang for the end of the lesson. Overhead and all around came the elephantine sounds of hundreds of students on the move.
“It says here she’s given you detention every evening this week, starting tomorrow,” Professor McGonagall said, looking down at Umbridge’s note again.
“Every evening this week! But I need to schedule tryouts! I was hoping to ask you about scheduling them this coming Saturday. Can't you do anything to overrule her?”
“No I cannot. Listen, Potter; Fudge's support is fading. He's fighting a losing battle between you and Cedric and Dumbledore all saying the same thing. But he can still make life difficult for you before he's ousted. More importantly, Professor Umbridge can make your life very difficult. And for now, she has the might of the Ministry behind her. So do be careful. Keep your head down in her classes and your mouth shut.”
“I---”
“I mean it, Potter. Channel your inner Slytherin if you must – yes, I know you almost got picked for that, and no the Hat didn't tattle; the headmaster told me. But I mean it; keep quiet, keep a low profile until Fudge and Umbridge are gone. I doubt they'll last to the end of the year at this rate. Can you do that?”
“But--”
“She is your teacher and has every right to give you detention. You will go to her room at five o’clock tomorrow for the first one. Just remember: Tread carefully around Dolores Umbridge.”
“So I just let her smear Lupin and tell lies about Voldemort?”
“Yes, Potter, you do. She's in power for now. Fighting her directly is pointless. And I expect you to be ready to have Quidditch tryouts the Saturday after next. I will be scheduling them for that time, and if you don't find some way to be there, to avoid being in detention next week, then I will strip you – Iliana, I mean – of the Captaincy and give it to someone else. Someone not in your lot. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”
Adira deflated. “Yes, Professor McGonagall.”
“Good. Now have another biscuit and go on to your next class. Here is a note, in case you are late.”
“It's a double period,” Adira reminded her.
“Then go back to History of Magic and keep your head down and your mouth shut in her class for the foreseeable future.”
“Yes, I'll do that,” she said, taking another Ginger Newt.
[And I'll help you, I suppose,] Hypatia told her in her head. [Can't have these detentions messing with my own free time.]
'Thanks.'
~
Dinner that night wasn't pleasant for Adira. Everyone was talking about Professor Lupin and how he was a werewolf, or else talking about how Adira had called Umbridge a liar and said You-Know-Who was back, and/or about how they were mad. The funny thing was that none of the whisperers seemed to mind her overhearing what they were saying about her — on the contrary, it was as though they were hoping she would get angry and start correcting people again, so that they could hear the story firsthand.
“Potter reckons she and Diggory dueled You-Know-Who!”
“Yeah, she reckons he never properly died, was just weak and hiding all these years!”
“So where is he now, then? If he was back, there'd be no doubt! He'd be killing people! It'd be war!”
“Come off it.”
“Who does she think she’s kidding?”
“Puh-lease!”
She just ignored the whispers, trying to practice keeping her mouth shut. She'd managed the second half of History of Magic by grinding her teeth whenever Umbitch said something that was a nasty lie, which was frequently. It was plain Umbridge was trying to goad her so she could punish them even more for being liars.
Hypatia had helped, too. Whenever Umbridge had asked her questions directly, Hypatia had answered for them. Umbridge had looked disappointed that they weren't taking the bait. That disappointment had been mildly satisfying.
Not satisfying enough to make up for the rest of the class, though. Umbridge had laid out her course aims, and it looked like the whole course was going to be her talking about how non-human sentient beings were all dangerous beasts, giving all sorts of historical justification for why goblins and centaurs and so on had subhuman intellects and were all violent monsters. She'd already implied that the only reason Goblins didn't murder every human in the world was they were outnumbered by good pure-blooded wizards and witches working to keep the darkness at bay.
“Fudge must be better at being a politician than we thought,” she commented, “if he's still got people convinced we're lying. Of course, I suppose having full control over the country's only newspaper helps.”
“I want to know how Dumbledore let this happen,” Hermione said. “How is that woman a teacher? Surely there are other, better teachers for History of Magic.”
“Not in this country,” Adira said. “Binns was teaching here for so long even Sirius remembers him, so there's at least two generations of magicals in this country taught to hate history. Almost makes me wonder if Voldemort cursed that position, too.”
“Whadda ya mean?” Ron asked.
“'Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it,'” she quoted. “And Voldemort is like Grindlewald all over again, isn't he?”
“Oh. Yeah, I can see that.”
Silently, she wondered what Voldemort's status was. Had he been killed and resurrected again yet? Snape had said Bellatrix was convinced of the necessity of starting over, and that they had a couple months at best before he was back to full power.
In the common room later, they saw the twins looking annoyed at Neville from where they sat. But the signs were down, and it didn't look like the twins were doing anything more than talking with each other at one of the tables.
“Wow. I guess I'm better at this Prefect stuff than I thought I'd be.”
“Yes. But what's the reckoning the twins will just get better at hiding their rule breaking?”
“I dunno, Adira, but I'm going to keep trying to get them in line.”
'We've created a monster,' Adira thought of Neville with amusement.
~
In Charms the next day, Professor Flitwick helped Neville learn how to restrict the amount of magic he put into his spells, since he no longer needed to be overcompensating for a wand that didn't suit him. By the end of the lesson, Neville was making good progress on that front.
The teachers were starting to lecture on the importance of the O.W.L.s. After helping Neville, Flitwick had started in on that, mentioning their future careers. Then they'd revised a lot. McGonagall gave a similar lecture about O.W.L.s and careers, then had them start on Vanishing spells. By the end of the double period, only Hermione and Neville had managed to Vanish their snails, which had most everyone in the class even more impressed with him than they'd been earlier in Charms when he'd sent every book in the room flying at him, being saved from death by bludgeoning or paper-cuts by Hermione's quick thinking with a Banishing Charm at the last second. For the first time that anyone could remember, Neville had no homework in Transfiguration, due to his success with the snail.
At lunch, Adira and Ron joined Hermione in the library, the former two slightly panicky about the amount of homework they had to do. By the time they reached Care of Magical Creatures, Adira had a headache.
The day had become cool and breezy, and, as they walked down the sloping lawn toward Hagrid’s cabin on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, they felt the occasional drop of rain on their faces. Professor Grubbly-Plank stood waiting for the class some ten yards from Hagrid’s front door, a long trestle table in front of her laden with many twigs. As the trio reached her, from behind they heard Draco Malfoy and his two troll-like bodyguards laughing about something. Adira sighed. She just was so tired of all the drama between the two of them. She tried her best to ignore him and his bookends.
On the table, the twigs turned out to be pixie-ish creatures called Bowtruckles, which looked like humanoid stick bugs and ate wood lice or fairy eggs if they could get them. They would have to feed them wood lice and make drawings of them with body parts labeled.
The class surged forward around the trestle table. Addy deliberately circled around the back so that she ended up right next to Professor Grubbly-Plank.
“Where’s Hagrid?” she asked the teacher, while everyone else was choosing bowtruckles.
“Never you mind,” said Professor Grubbly-Plank repressively, which had been her attitude last time Hagrid had failed to turn up for a class too. Smirking all over his pointed face, Draco Malfoy leaned across Addy and seized the largest bowtruckle.
Addy probed the professor with her empathic sense, but didn't get anything really useful from that, so she just grabbed a bowtruckle.
“Maybe,” said Malfoy in an undertone, so that only Addy could hear him, “the stupid great oaf’s got himself badly injured.”
Addy sighed. “Why do you keep trying to pick fights with us, Malfoy? When has that ever gone well for you?”
Malfoy glared at her briefly, then smirked at her. “Maybe the oaf's been messing with stuff that’s too big for him, if you get my drift.”
“Malfoy, I genuinely am tired of the drama between us. Can you maybe just mind your own business for once in your life rather than try to goad me all the time?”
(Maybe he fancies you,) Al thought at her. (He's always seemed a bit too keen on getting your attention. Maybe he's of the opinion that any attention is better than none.)
'I hope you're wrong about that, Al,' she thought back.
“Why shouldn't I?” Malfoy said. “Every time you attack me is more ammunition for the day I finally decide to strike and press charges.”
“Listen, I've been thinking about that over the summer, and I'm sorry. We're all sorry, for the things we've done to you over the years. We got carried away and escalated things in our anger. We're trying to be better now. It would be a lot easier to do that if you would stop trying to goad us. Truce?”
He smirked at her. “You're only saying that because I'm blackmailing you.”
She sighed. “That's not what blackmailing is. Too many other people know about all that for it to be blackmailing. And anyway, your threat doesn't worry me. No, I am 100% serious about this Malfoy: we genuinely are sorry for going overboard, and scaring you, getting you in trouble, embarrassing you, and hurting you over the years. Would you believe I really want a truce if I swore on my magic to that effect?”
Malfoy looked suspicious and disbelieving, but the offer of a magical oath had given him pause.
“A magical oath, you say? You'd really do something as... as risky as swearing on your magic to not attack me?”
“We'd have to word the oath to avoid you taking advantage of it. I'd swear to not attack first, and that if you attack me, I only attack with equal or lesser force than you attacked me with. You know, no longer escalating. But I'd want something from you, too. A promise you'll stop goading me.”
He sneered. “You want me to swear on my magic to that? You're mad if you think I'd do that.”
“Nothing so extreme as that. There are lesser oaths, right? Oaths that cause you pain to break them but don't risk your magic and don't cause any permanent harm, right? It'd be a motivation to encourage you to be less of an arse, but it wouldn't be anything too onerous to break.”
“Hmm... it's a decent offer. But I do kind of like goading you, even at the risk of being attacked.”
“Are you some kind of masochist?”
“No. It's just fun getting you angry. And I keep hoping you'll get in trouble. But since that doesn't seem to be happening, I---”
“Mr. Malfoy, Ms. Potter, what are you two doing? This is no time for talking, you need to be drawing your bowtruckles,” chided Grubbly-Plank.
“We'll talk later, Potter,” Malfoy promised.
“Indeed. Temporary truce for now?”
“Twenty-four hours sound good?”
“Mr. Malfoy, Ms. Potter, I'm warning you both!”
“One moment, Professor.” He turned back to Addy. “Acceptable?”
“Yes. Agreed.”
They shook on it, then went back to their work.
[A step in the right direction,] Hypatia thought at them. [I approve.]
When returning to Ron and Hermione, Addy told them that she'd offered a truce, and Malfoy had accepted a temporary one until they could hash out a longer term one. Ron, predictably, didn't trust Malfoy. She assured him she'd remain wary, which seemed to help.
Then, to change the subject, she mentioned what Malfoy had said before her truce offer, about Hagrid. They were all agreed it meant Malfoy knew about Hagrid's mission to the giants, but they couldn't decide if he knew where Hagrid was now or not.
As they left Care of Magical Creatures, they caught Ginny and Luna coming out of one of the greenhouses. Luna had a smudge of earth on her nose and her hair tied in a knot on the top of her head. She immediately made a beeline for Addy.
“Hi Ginny, hi Luna!”
“Hey Addy,” Ginny said brightly.
“Hello, Addy,” Luna said, sounding faintly disappointed. “Say hello to Iliana for me, please?”
“Okay. She says 'hi, Luna, and...'” Addy trailed off, her cheeks turning red. “I'm not saying that, Iliana.”
“Saying what?” Luna asked.
Addy's cheeks turned redder at having spoken that last bit aloud. “Er... okay fine, she wants me to say 'kisses and hugs' from her.”
Luna brightened. “Kisses and hugs back to you as well, Iliana.” Then she blew a kiss in Addy's direction. Addy felt her left arm reach out to 'catch' the blown kiss.
“Right. She heard it. You er, do know she can hear you pretty much any time any of the rest of us are driving, right?”
“I know. It was just an expression.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Anyway, I really wanted to say before all these witnesses that I believe you and Cedric Diggory about You-Know-Who being back.”
“Thanks, Luna.”
“Ha!” scoffed someone Addy didn't recognize. “Like the belief of a madwoman counts for anything! Especially since she's your girlfriend.”
Ernie Macmillan stepped forward in front of the stranger and said, “I want you to know, Potter,” he said in a loud, carrying voice, “that it’s not only wei-- er... people with unconventional beliefs who support you. I personally believe you one hundred percent. My family have always stood firm behind Dumbledore, and so do I.”
“Er — thanks very much, Ernie,” said Addy, taken aback but pleased. Ernie might be pompous on occasions like these, but Addy was in a mood to deeply appreciate a vote of confidence from somebody who was a lot more respected in the school than Luna was. Iliana loved Luna, and Addy liked Luna as a friend, but her public support really wasn't worth much, they had to admit. Though if even Luna didn't believe them, that would have gone a long way against them, come to that.
Ernie’s words had certainly wiped the smile from Lavender Brown’s face, which was good.
“Aye,” said Seamus, who was there too. “And you've got my support as well.”
“Me too,” said Dean. “Honestly, the Ministry is losing ground quickly. Two witnesses, I don't know why they're bothering to deny it.”
This got a lot of people talking, and by the sound of it, they'd forgotten about Cedric. Apparently a summer's worth of propaganda could make people forget important details like that.
To nobody’s surprise, Professor Sprout started their lesson by lecturing them about the importance of O.W.L.s. Addy wished all the teachers would stop doing this; she was starting to get an anxious, twisted feeling in her stomach every time she remembered how much homework she had to do, a feeling that worsened dramatically when Professor Sprout gave them yet another essay at the end of class. Tired and smelling strongly of dragon dung, Professor Sprout’s preferred brand of fertilizer, the Griffindors trooped back up to the castle an hour and a half later, none of them talking very much; it had been another long day.
As Addy was starving, and she had her first detention with Umbridge at five o’clock, she headed straight for dinner without dropping off her bag in Gryffindor Tower so that she could bolt something down before facing whatever Umbridge had in store for her. She had barely reached the entrance of the Great Hall, however, when a loud and angry voice said, “Oy, Potter!”
“What now?” she muttered wearily, turning to face Angelina Johnson, who looked as though she was in a towering temper.
“I’ll tell you what now,” she said, marching straight up to her and poking her hard in the shoulder with her finger. “How come you’ve landed yourself in detention for five o’clock on Friday?”
“Oh, the tryouts. I'm sorry, I didn't do it on purpose. McGonagall's already yelled at us about it, we'll be good in her class from now on.”
“I hope so! I don't want us to lose because you couldn't keep your temper in her class!”
“Why do you care so much?”
“Because I like Quidditch, and I was looking forward to tryouts this weekend! Also, it's my final year!”
“Right. Anyway, I'm hoping to have them Saturday after next. McGonagall scheduled them for then, and told us that if we're in detention that weekend, someone else will be Captain.”
“Good. And while you're at it, if you could stop attacking people who annoy you, that would be nice. We don't need you getting detentions from anyone, not just her.”
Addy sighed. “Yeah, okay, I already know we've been kind of horrible but we've never attacked anyone just because they annoyed us. If we did, we'd have attacked most of the students in the school.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh I dunno, the year that everyone thought I was the Heir of Slytherin for no other reason than I'm a Parselmouth comes to mind. So does 'Support the real Hogwarts Champion' last year. No, the only people we've attacked were Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, and Skeeter. We shouldn't have done it, it was escalation, but saying that we attack anyone who annoys us is patently false!”
“Alright, alright, don't get your knickers in a twist.”
“I'll try to calm down,” Addy said. “In that vein, when we do get the chance to do tryouts, I'm trying out people for alternates as well. And if anyone proves to be better than the main players, well... let's just say everyone's positions on the team aren't so assured anymore.”
Angelina looked shocked, then a little worried and sad.
“Is this some kind of punishment? Look, I'm sorry I--”
“It's not punishment. It's just something Wood should have done. The alternates, at the very least. Someone knocks out one of our players and we have to either play on without them or we lose or forfeit, and that's no good at all. As to checking for better players, well that's just a good idea. I don't think we're going to find anyone better than you and the other chasers, and I find it unlikely anyone could even equal the Weasley twins at Beating, but,” she shrugged. “Gotta try, cuz you never know.”
Angelina seemed happier at this. “Good to hear. I'll let the others from last year's team know.”
“Right. And I'll try to work out a time to get Luna's help on those signs. For now, I need to eat before my detention.”
“Okay. See you later, Addy.”
Adira waved back vaguely as she started to wolf down food with an undignified haste that would have made Ron embarrassed. In fact, Ron did indeed look embarrassed at her.
“You know, you should ask Umbridge to let you off on Friday, so you can get tryouts done sooner.”
“Oh yes, and give her more ammunition. She's already very Snape-like in her loathing of me, I'm not giving her something else to lord over me. You saw her face, she was positively delighted to punish me. Anything that makes me unhappy gives her glee. I know the type all too well. So no, I won't be asking her that.”
Ron shrugged. “Whatever.”
Addy swallowed a mouthful of potato and added, “I hope she doesn’t keep me too long this evening. You realize we’ve got to write three essays, practice Vanishing Spells for McGonagall, work out a countercharm for Flitwick, finish the bowtruckle drawing, and start that stupid dream diary for Trelawney? I've also got Ancient Runes homework.”
Ron moaned and for some reason glanced up at the ceiling.
“And it looks like it’s going to rain.”
“What’s that got to do with our homework?” said Hermione, her eyebrows raised.
“Nothing,” said Ron at once, his ears reddening.
Addy got up from the table and left for her detention, thinking about who would be best to have in the driver's seat for the detention. Al was too hot-headed, she hoped he'd be shoved down into the Basement during this. She didn't trust herself, Zoey, Iliana, or Tier to do it either. Hypatia was still a secret, and Mother had never come Out. That left the hilarious option of Chandra.
Shaking her head and grinning, she switched places with Chandra, the body transforming to conform to Chandra's self-image.
Chandra calmly made the trek down to Umbridge's office and knocked on it. When he knocked on the door she said, “Come in,” in a sugary voice. He entered cautiously, looking around.
The surfaces had all been draped in lacy covers and cloths. There were several vases full of dried flowers, each residing on its own doily, and on one of the walls was a collection of ornamental plates, each decorated with a large technicolor kitten wearing a different bow around its neck. These were so foul that Chandra stared at them, transfixed, until Professor Umbridge spoke again.
'It is as though the God of Cuteness was violently ill from both ends,' Chandra thought to himself.
When he came into view, Umbridge's sadistic happiness that tainted the air soured into confusion.
“Who are you?”
He looked around, and didn't see the source of the voice.
“I wonder the same thing of you, disembodied voice.”
She stood up, which he only noticed because he spotted the movement out of the corner of his eye; she really was absurdly short. He had not noticed her at first because she was wearing a luridly flowered set of robes that blended only too well with the tablecloth on the desk behind her.
“I am Chandra Rahasyamay, of the Collective of Potter. Are you Dolores Umbridge?”
She glared at him. Then the glare became a girlish grin. “Well, I am glad to see you are back to your proper gender presentation at least, Mr. Potter.”
'She presumes much,' he thought.
What he said, instead, was, “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate.”
Umbridge looked very confused at this, then angry. In her sweetest, little-girliest voice, she said, “Please speak English, Mr. Potter.”
He waved her concern away. “It is ashes in a hurricane.”
Apparently not knowing what to say to this, she opted to ignore it instead.
“Well, sit down,” she said, pointing toward a small table draped in lace beside which she had drawn up a straight-backed chair. A piece of blank parchment lay on the table, apparently waiting for him.
Chandra sat down and looked at her. “I await thy instruction, milady.”
Looking conflicted about his use of archaic language for a moment, probably trying to decide if he was being sarcastic or not, she ignored that.
“You are going to be doing some lines for me, Mr. Potter. No, not with YOUR quill,” she added, as Chandra bent down to open his bag. “You’re going to be using a rather special one of mine. Here you are.”
She handed him a long, thin black quill with an unusually sharp point. He took it in his right hand, which for him was his off hand. She didn't notice a momentary blank look in his eyes upon touching the black quill. Nor would she have known the significance of this if she had. He set it down on the table in front of himself.
“I want you to write ‘I must not tell lies,’ ” she told him softly.
“I am incapable of falsehoods. Silence I can do, but to tell a falsehood is anathema to my nature. I can only tell a falsehood if I believe the information to be true.”
“There you go telling lies again, Mr. Potter. Everyone can lie, lying is not against anyone's nature, so--”
“Including yours?” he asked.
“Pardon?”
“If your position is that lying is in everyone's nature, it logically follows that lying is in your nature as well. And the Minister's, as well.”
Her face turned red as she glared at him. But instead of shouting at him, she calmed down and smiled in that falsely sweet way of hers.
“What I meant to say is that all children and teenagers can and do lie. But that is beside the point, I--”
“'Beside the point'? Something said here is parallel to your point? I have never understood that aphorism. If something is beside the point, it is parallel to the point. And another aphorism is 'drawing parallels' between things, meaning finding similarities between them. If something either you or I said is 'beside the point,' then logically it must be parallel to the point, and thus relevant to the point.”
Umbridge closed her eyes as though summoning patience, then opened them, her grin distinctly forced now. “I meant that this is... not the point. The point is that you are here to be punished for telling lies, and so--”
“You think I am lying? Well I can understand that. You do work with politicians all day long. But I am willing to testify under Veritaserum to the truth of Voldemort being back in power. Surely this will ease your worries about my veracity?”
She stared at him, utterly at a loss for words.
“I am also willing to provide Pensieve memories of the event, so you may witness it yourself.”
Umbridge turned around and made quite a big deal of looking for something. If his read of her emotions was accurate, what she was looking for was an excuse to think of a way out of the corner she'd painted herself into, with his help.
Chandra was no idiot; he knew full well she didn't really want the truth. What she wanted was for him to comply with Fudge's version of the truth, for whatever reason. And unless she thought of something really clever to get herself out of this dilemma, she would now have to admit that to him. At the same time, she had to know she and Fudge were losing ground. The winds would shift eventually, were already shifting, and she had to choose whether or not to go along with Fudge's denial or instead find a way to make Fudge come out of this whole debacle smelling like a rose.
Finally, she turned back to him, smiling in a way that he knew meant bad news.
“Mr. Potter, you are here to be punished for calling me a liar, and for using a foul word when you told me that I and the Minister had our heads up our... well... bottoms.”
“That was Adira Potter, not me. But I can bring her forward to apologize to you. What she said was in the heat of anger, and we have been trying to be better about controlling our anger.”
“Mr. Potter, while your offer of an apology is appreciated, you are still here to be punished. And punished you shall be.”
“Why?”
“'Why?' What do you mean, 'why'?”
Chandra paused a moment, considering the sarcastic response, but instead said, “Is not the point of punishment to correct misbehavior? And is not the first step in that correction getting the individual to understand that what they did was wrong? I have admitted we were wrong, and apologized on behalf of the others. Does this not negate the need for punishment?”
“MR. POTTER! I am not here to have philosophical discussions with you. I am here to punish you for your misbehavior in class. Even if you are repentant, which I doubt, it would not hurt to let the point sink in a bit more. So enough back sass! You will take this quill I have given you, and you will write, 'I must not tell lies,' until the message has sunken in.”
“Should I take this to mean you do not wish to know the truth? I have, after all, offered to tell the truth under Veritaserum, and offered Pensieve memories.”
Umbridge was rubbing her face with two balled fists, her eyes closed. Waves of frustration radiated from her like a burning heat.
Finally she stopped and said, “In that case, you will write, instead, 'I must maintain the status quo.'”
Chandra's head turned to the side like a curious bird or dog. “Why?”
“BECAUSE I TOLD YOU TO! Now DO IT!”
Chandra tried to think of what to say or do next. He could comply, and calm her down, or he could continue to irritate her in the hopes she would kick him out of the office. He preferred the latter option, but there was a risk of her giving him even more detention. However, if he made her so irritated with him that she never wanted to see him again if she could help it, she might not do that.
“I'm not sure I understand the point of this exercise. Again, punishment is supposed to correct misbehavior, but you have failed to provide a logical destination for your correction of my behavior. What precisely do you mean by 'status quo'? The status quo these last few months has been Dumbledore, myself, and Cedric Diggory telling everyone about Voldemort being back and the Ministry trying to suppress that knowledge. By that logic, I should continue to tell my side of the story, in order to maintain the status quo.”
Umbridge was gripping her desk so hard her hands were white. He could hear her grinding her teeth. His own face remained, as it had through this whole encounter, impassive.
“Alright then,” she said through gritted teeth. “Then write 'I will not contradict my teachers.'”
“Why that phrase?”
“Because contradicting teachers is disrespecting them. And for someone as detail-oriented as yourself, Mr. Potter, is is far less likely you'll be able to twist my meaning to your own ends.”
“Ah yes, that does make much more sense. Thank you for the clarification, Professor Umbridge.”
He picked up the thin black quill with his left hand, of course. She noticed this at once.
“Correct me if I am wrong,” she said, feeling like she was lying about that desire, “but I thought you were right-handed, Mr. Potter?”
“Oh, the others are all dexter. I am not. I assure you, it is the only thing sinister about me.” The corner of his mouth twitched as he said this.
She sighed. Then, looking at the quill again, she smiled evilly. “You may proceed, then, Mr. Potter.”
He pulled the parchment underneath the quill, arranging it for writing with his left hand. Then he paused.
“You haven't provided me any ink, Professor.”
Her grin grew even more malevolent. “You won't need ink with this pen, Mr. Potter.”
“Ah, a self-inking pen. How considerate of you, Professor Umbridge.”
Once more he prepared to write the lines she'd assigned. Then he paused again. “How many times shall I write it?”
“Until I tell you to stop, Mr. Potter.”
“I see. Well please do not keep me too long, I have homework and studying to complete.”
“Just write until I tell you to stop. And no more procrastination!”
He put the quill to the parchment, but again paused.
“What if something a teacher says or writes on the board is a mistake? Am I to allow the mistake to sit there, staring at me? What if a teacher demands to know why I allowed a mistake to remain unremarked upon?”
She smiled sweetly. “If you do not start writing what I told you to write, Mr. Potter, I shall have to give you a month's worth of detentions.”
“A thousand apologies, Professor Umbridge.”
He once more set the quill to the parchment. He paused, mainly because he knew it would drive her batty, and when he felt the spike of irritation from her, he finally started to write 'I must not contradict my teachers.' She watched him eagerly, waiting for a reaction.
As he knew it would from the moment he touched it – thus feeling every enchantment that lay upon it – the quill cut into the skin on his right hand with magic, and wrote the line out in blood. Having been prepared for this with occlumency, he gave no reaction at all to this. For all that could be judged by his face or other body language, it might as well have been a perfectly normal self-inking quill. Only someone as skilled at reading body language as Alastair would have been able to spot the minuscule subconscious 'tells.'
Umbridge continued watching him, and every moment that passed without a reaction from him deepened her confusion and disappointment, he could feel her emotions as thick on the air as fresh-cooked bacon smelled to a dog. The quill hurt, of course; but much harder to control than his reaction to the pain of the blood quill was his amused reaction to her frustration, anger, and confusion at his lack of reaction. He couldn't tell a falsehood, that much was true, but body language didn't count.
“Mr. Potter,” she interrupted him after ten minutes.
He looked up. “Yes, Professor?”
“Do you not notice anything... unusual... about the quill? Or the ink it uses?”
His face showed a confusion he didn't feel, and he looked perplexedly at the quill and ink as though trying to work out what she was going on about. After a few moments, he spoke again, confusion in his voice.
“Well now that you mention it, Professor Umbridge, it is a bit dark red. Is it perhaps the quill you use to correct homework and tests?”
Her confusion and anger were mounting, but he still did not let on what he was sensing from her, nor his own feelings.
“No, Mr. Potter, it is not the quill I use to correct coursework. It is too dark a red for that.”
“I see. Then I am at a loss as to what is unusual about the quill.”
She searched his face and eyes for any sign that he was lying. She didn't find any, he could feel that as well as see it in her own face. And she was not at all happy about this. Her disappointment was as palpable as would be that of a small child told that Christmas had been canceled.
“Proceed then, Mr. Potter.”
Giving her a look like he was utterly baffled about why she'd interrupted him with such nonsense, he shrugged and went back to writing 'I must not contradict my teachers' with the blood quill. As he did, he mused that he was, in a way, giving her exactly what she wanted. That is, he wasn't contradicting her, or sassing her. Not as far as she could tell, anyway. He was just 'genuinely' confused by what she'd said. As he thought through all the different possible ways the rest of this encounter could go, the series of possibilities stemming from seeming to obey the words he was carving into his skin became amusing enough he decided to stick with it for now.
After an hour of feeling her increasingly jumbled mess of conflicted emotions, heavily flavored with confusion and dissatisfaction, she finally spoke again.
“Mr. Potter, surely you don't expect me to believe you haven't noticed that's blood you're writing in? Or that the quill is cutting into your skin to do it?”
He blinked at her, the very image of innocent perplexity. “Blood? Cuts?” He looked at the page, then at his hand. “Huh. I guess you're right. I wonder how I failed to notice that.”
“Yes, Potter. And what do you feel about that, now that you've noticed it?”
He shrugged again, looking her right in the eyes. “A clever solution to the lack of ink, if a bit unorthodox. Shall I continue?”
Chandra imagined how the others would have guffawed at her expression, were they active now. But Mother had made them sleep for now.
Even funnier than her expression was her emotions. Confusion, disappointment, annoyance, sheer bewilderment, frustration... there were so many feelings coming from her, it was hard to sort them all out. Nay, it was nearly impossible. She was so lost right now. How was she to enjoy being cruel to someone who didn't seem to even notice it?
Suddenly her emotions took on a cold, logical feeling. She must have had some kind of idea, and judging by the emotions surrounding it, it wasn't one he would like at all. But she was predominantly thoughtful, planning something out in her head, and for now she just waved vaguely at him.
“No no, Mr. Potter,” she said vaguely. “You may stop for now. But be in my office tomorrow at 5 pm for your next detention.”
He shrugged again, putting down the quill, and grabbed his things.
Chandra nodded in her direction before leaving, and said, “Thank you, Professor Umbridge. May the rest of your week be as pleasant as you are.”
Then he left, amused by her continued confusion. As he walked down the corridor, he felt her surreptitiously watching him for some sign of a delayed reaction. He had to admit she was good at this; if he hadn't been an empath, he wouldn't have known she was there at all.
Chandra paused outside of the Fat Lady's portrait and glanced at his hand out of the corner of his eye. It had healed, the quill healing the cuts every time, but the area was slightly red. With a moment's thought, he made the red vanish from his skin.
Hermione and Neville looked up from their homework. Ron was nowhere to be seen.
“Chandra? You're back from detention already?”
Chandra grinned at them. “Yes. I successfully irritated and frustrated her into releasing me early.”
He then proceeded to tell them in detail about the whole thing. He was doing fine until he got to the part about the quill. At that point, he felt something redirect what he had intended to say, so that he was relating the rest of it as though the quill had been entirely normal. This didn't surprise him, though it was irritating.
Hypatia, angry, said in their mind, [There's a compulsion charm on that quill. We won't be able to tell anyone she was torturing a student with a blood quill until I can find the right spell to counteract it.]
'Not even Sirius?' asked Adira.
[No, not even him. The compulsion charm won't let us. In fact, I think it's the reason Al isn't very angry about what happened. If he got as angry as he liked, he'd have to tell someone why. I think the spell is preventing him from even getting into that situation to begin with.]
~ The compulsion took effect the moment we touched the quill, ~ Chandra informed them.
'Damn that woman!'
“Well that's brilliant,” Neville said, laughing. Chandra was momentarily confused until he remembered his friends couldn't hear the internal conversation they'd just had.
“It's kind of odd, though,” Hermione said. “I mean yes, I can see how your feigned ignorance and faked emotions could have worn her down some, but to completely let you off the hook after only less than two hours... there's something very odd about that.”
Chandra shrugged. “Who knows what precisely went through Sorrow And Enmity's mind? I am an empath, not a legilimens.”
Neville started to laugh at this. “'Sorrow And Enmity'? Merlin's pants, that's hilarious!”
“It is a direct translation of her name. 'Dolores' means 'Sorrow,' and 'Umbridge' sounds like 'umbrage,' which is similar to 'enmity.'”
Hermione shook her head. “I can't believe she didn't recognize that line from Dante's Inferno.”
“Huh?” Neville said. “What's that?”
“The Italian phrase that Chandra quoted at her, it was from an epic poem by Dante, called 'The Divine Comedy.' It's about a man who gets a tour of Hell and Heaven. The line was Italian for 'Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.' It was written over the gates of Hell.”
“And that's Muggle literature?”
“Really old Muggle literature, as it was written in the 14th century, but yes. I'm surprised you haven't heard about it, it's famous and dates from well before the Statute of Secrecy.”
“So,” Neville said, thinking, “Chandra looked at her office and said, in Italian, 'Abandon hope, all ye who enter here?'”
“Yes.”
Neville snorted at this. Hermione said, “That's hilarious, Chandra!”
“Thank you, Fuzzy Reading Girl.”
Neville looked interested at this. “Do you have a nickname for everyone?”
“No. I have many such nicknames for people, though.”
Hermione glowered at him while the two boys laughed. “I don't really like that nickname,” she said.
“Hagrid is 'Big Fuzzy Father.' Or sometimes 'Tall Father.' I can come up with another one for you,” he said to Hermione. “How about... Library Lion Girl?”
“That one's pretty accurate too, Hermione,” Neville said.
“It's acceptable,” Hermione said, going back to her homework.
“Can I get one, Chandra?” Neville asked.
Chandra considered Neville for several minutes. Then he took Neville's hand, looking like he was feeling for something in Neville.
“'Mustard Seed,'” Chandra finally said. Neville just looked confused.
“The Bible, Matthew 17:20. 'Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.'”
“Um... I don't know if I like that one, Chandra. I like the sentiment behind it, but not the nickname itself. I don't think anyone will realize it's me you're talking about with that nickname.”
“Okay. I will try to think of a better one later,” Chandra said. “For now, I believe I shall tell Brave Father of the Black House what transpired today.”
He went up to his room, then, to do precisely that.
In his head, he heard Iliana say, 'We've all voted, and every class with Umbridge is going to be attended by Chandra from now on.'
~ I am amenable to that, ~ Chandra responded.
Endnote: Anyone with ideas for what Chandra's nickname for Neville should be, let me know. I'm drawing a blank.
“The Many Faces Go To War: Chapter 5”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Five: Truces and Trenches
Notes: This is the second chapter of the sequel to “The Many Faces of Har---er, Adira Potter.” If you haven't read that series yet, this one isn't going to make much sense. Also, a reminder for anyone who forgot: the person formerly known as Harry still exists, she's just transgender in this one, her new name is Adira, nicknamed “Addy.”
FORMATTING FOR INTERNAL VOICES = Because the previous note about the styles was messing with the formatting, the following will be formatting for internal voices: 'Single quotes with no italics' will be Adira/Addy unless someone is quoting something, ~Text in tildes~ will be Chandra, (Parentheses for Al,) [Brackets will be Hypatia], % Percentage symbols for Iliana %, # Pound signs for Mother/Avani, # * Asterisks for Zoey, * and {curly brackets for Tier.} Apologies for any confusion this may cause.
Text in 'Italics and single quotes' is Parseltongue.
J. K. Rowling owns this sandbox, I'm only playing in it.
*FAYANORA*
After talking with Sirius – who had found the Compulsion-Charm censored version of their detention hilarious – and getting their homework done, they needed to decompress after a long and difficult day. Switching to Zoey, she decided that what she'd do was turn into an eagle owl and fly outside around the grounds. It was an amazing experience, and as she exhilarated in the cool night air, she wondered if Tonks or any other metamorphmagus had thought to try the same thing. Though she suspected that they'd keep it a secret like she was doing, if so. If for no other reason than the knowledge that the Ministry would throw a fit trying to register an animagus who could become any kind of animal they'd had physical contact with over the years.
Flying over the Forbidden Forest was especially thrilling, though she only did it briefly before flying over the Black Lake and the non-forbidden copses of trees here and there.
Then, as a test, she flew past the wards, over the gate to the school. She felt a tingle of magic, and Chandra informed her that it meant the wards had registered her as being an actual owl. Well, that was convenient. If she needed to, she could escape. But for now, she flew back inside the Hogwarts wards, again feeling that tingle. Better safe than sorry, after all.
As she kept flying, she thought she knew what the Marauders had felt like, exploring the school grounds at night. She also thought they'd all be jealous of her being able to fly, crawl, slither, or swim anywhere she wanted to. That is, if she could still breathe underwater – she knew Tier could, but would that power transfer over? - or find an animal that could manage it without needing to know the detailed anatomy of gills.
Ha! She realized suddenly she could deliver her own letters to Hagrid like this. Wouldn't that be a hoot. Ha! A hoot! She laughed to herself, but stopped when she felt her owl form begin to falter. She didn't want to fall out of the sky, after all. It would suck if Voldemort won because she died for such a stupid reason, and if she survived, it would require a lot of explanation.
Owl night vision was amazing, by the way. The night looked like... well, it looked like a cloudy day, with enough light to see by but no obvious source of light. And she could see details on the ground from high up that were just incredible. It was a little irritating having to turn her head to see in different directions, but she felt why it was necessary; her eyes were no longer round, they were tubes. Owls had to turn their whole heads because their tube-shaped eyes were fixed in place in their heads, which she thought was just really weird, but whatever. This form would be excellent for night-time reconnaissance.
She landed in one of the open windows and turned from an owl to a cat, where she leaped to the floor and began sniffing around the castle. She hoped she didn't run into Crookshanks, or that if she did, hoped he wouldn't recognize her.
When she finally had enough of exploring the castle as a cat, she found by scent the window she'd come in from, leaped onto the windowsill, turned back into an owl, and flew to her own window, which was a lot harder to find, requiring her to peek in different windows until she found hers. When she got inside, she changed back to a cat, and decided to try sleeping as a cat.
~
The next morning, Zoey woke up and realized she'd turned human again in the night. She wondered if that was just because she couldn't maintain that form while asleep, or if Hypatia had done it.
[The latter,] Hypatia informed her. [Draco and I met up again, and we discussed the truce Adira offered.]
Nodding, she got up and looked in the mirror.
* And what did you and he decide? *
[I convinced him to take the offer seriously, but couched it in cautious language. Slytherin language. I think he's going to accept it, if you can agree on the terms.]
'Well we'll meet up with him sometime soon to do that,' Adira said.
[Yes. I suggest meeting him at the library, he'll be there at the break after Divination. If you use privacy spells, Ms. Pince won't mind.]
'Plus, less likely to erupt into violence,' Adira pointed out. 'Which should ease his mind just as much as ours.'
Zoey nodded, and they switched to Alastair.
At Divination class, Al was reading a book he'd gotten from the Divination section of the library, instead of doing the dream diary stuff. He had been annoyed, the year before, when it had taken a great deal of time and effort to get answers out of the tarot cards that were properly useful to him. They hadn't warned him about Luna being captured, and they'd been kind of vague on how dangerous the fake Moody had been, so he hadn't been as prepared as he should have been. Granted, he shouldn't have gone running headlong into danger, but it was the principle of the thing.
So, wanting a divination method that could give him adequately complex answers to questions ill suited to tarot decks, he'd gone on the hunt for a better replacement. And he thought he'd found one, something called “reading the bones.” It wasn't at all an easy method to learn, though. He figured it would probably take at least six months of study and practice to even begin to get anything useful out of it, but it had the potential to make that effort worth it.
He was still casually reading the divination book when Trelawney knocked on his chair's leg with one foot to get his attention. Only then did he realize she'd been talking to him.
Glancing up briefly, he asked, “Yes, Professor?” He didn't wait for an answer before going back to his reading.
“Young man, we are interpreting the dreams of our partners in class today, using our dream journals as references.”
“That's nice.”
He could feel her anger with him, but he ignored it.
“Alastair Potter! I expect you to do as I have instructed!”
“Well you must be very disappointed, in that case.”
She slammed her hands down on the table, startling him into looking at her.
“Better. Now, put down the book.”
“Hey, at least it's in the same subject,” he said, showing her the title.
She examined the title for a moment, then scoffed.
“That is far too advanced for you, Mr. Potter. You show very little skill in basic divination methods such as the crystal ball, palmistry, and reading tea leaves. Reading the bones is something you likely won't have any luck with before N.E.W.T. level.”
“Yeah, I know full well it won't be easy. But trying to get complex, useful answers out of a tarot deck is an exercise in frustration, so I'm willing to try. And anyway, I did have an actual vision during my exam with the crystal ball in my third year, so I figure that makes me more skilled at crystal gazing than you are, Professor.”
She pursed her lips at him and ignored both this and the smattering of laughter from the other students, opting instead to change the subject.
“Tell me about the dreams you had last night, Mr. Potter, so I may attempt to interpret them.”
“Well, I did have this one dream,” he began thoughtfully, stroking his chin. “It was pretty incredible.”
“Yes?” she asked eagerly.
“Well you see, I dreamed that this subject was being taught by a competent teacher. What do you suppose that means, Professor?”
There was a lot more laughter at this, and Trelawney stood there glaring daggers at Al, whose face was the very picture of innocence.
When the laughter died down, she spoke again.
“Alright, Mr. Potter. If you are so skilled at Divination, then pray make a prediction for me.”
He considered her a moment, then shrugged. “Sure, why not? Only, the tarot is frustrating. You were talking about the crystal ball, so if you'd be so kind as to bring me one, I'll see if I can replicate my having a vision. Though you didn't believe the one I had in third year, so this may be pointless. But sure, bring it on.”
Looking a little unsure of herself now, Trelawney walked over to one of her cabinets and soon was bringing a crystal ball over and setting it in front of him. He leaned back, trying to replicate the same mixture of boredom and mental silence he'd had during that one exam. It helped him that the room was warm, and also that he'd had a recent vision over the summer.
The room was mostly silent as everyone waited for something to happen. Probably they were expecting some more back sass, but Al was genuinely trying this time.
He found it was easier, now, to focus on the flaws in the crystal and just let the sight of these flaws fill his mind and leave no room for conscious thought. Before five minutes had elapsed, Al felt his mind unfocus itself in a familiar way.
And then he began to speak in a deeper voice than usual, using a voice so full of power and wisdom that all ears were listening intently.
“Bundle of sticks up to its old tricks; a hate so great it worries Fate. Faces of white in the night become a blight; a pox upon the land is this band, against it we all must stand! Take care: despair rattles air, and magic beans are not the means to stop these scenes. Only fools stand divided 'gainst the warning provided! Do not stall to heed the call or ALL. SHALL. FALL!!!”
There were shrieks and screams all around the room. Alastair had banged the table so hard on the last word that the crystal ball jumped up and then rolled off the table with a very loud THUD. A significant wind had also blown from the direction of Alastair, turning pages of books and ruffling people's hair.
Al snapped out of it and looked around at the deathly-silent room full of windswept people.
“Ouch,” he said, rubbing his hand. “That bloody well hurt. Anyone got a paracetamol?”
Everyone just continued to stare at him.
“Guess that's a no.”
~
Adira walked across the library during the break after Divination, to the annoyance of Ron, who had wanted to discuss Al's vision. Adira did not bring Ron with her.
Malfoy sat there at one of the chairs in the back, waiting. He looked up from a book when he saw her.
“Potter,” he said.
“Malfoy.”
“I'm surprised you showed up. A friend of mine suggested this was a good time to meet you. I'm not sure how she knew you would have the same idea, but then she's surprised me before. Please sit.” He indicated the seat across from his own.
Adira cast all the privacy spells she knew on the corner before she sat down in the seat. Malfoy moved a small table from next to his chair with his wand and placed it between them. It had some parchment and a quill on it. Adira raised an eyebrow curiously at him.
“This is for working out the wording of the oath. You can use your own parchment if it makes you feel more comfortable.”
“Okay. Um... before we get started, I thought of something else.”
“What's that?”
“I want, somehow, some clause that includes my friends and Iliana's girlfriend, Luna Lovegood, in this. What I mean is, I want to be able to continue to protect them from you and other people who might do them harm.”
“Hmm... so you are dating the Lovegood oddity? I'd heard rumors, but I wasn't certain.”
“Okay first of all, Iliana is dating her, I'm not. We're all different people, Draco, even though we---”
“I did not give you permission to be so casual with me,” Malfoy said with a sneer.
This genuinely confused her. “Pardon?”
“You called me by my given name, Potter, when you should have used my surname. It's impolite. Presumptuous.”
“Oh. Oops. Sorry about that. I don't know what got into me, Malfoy.”
“Riiight. Anyway, you were babbling on about something?” Malfoy examined his nails casually.
She scowled at him. “I was saying we're all different people, Malfoy, even though we're sharing one body for now. So please keep that in mind when talking about one of us.”
Malfoy sighed and rolled his eyes. “Whatever, Potter.”
“So back to what I was saying before: I want to be able to continue to protect my friends - especially Luna – from you. So I want them all included in whatever oaths we agree to.”
Malfoy looked at her thoughtfully a few moments, then sighed. “Fine, whatever. We can do that. In return, I want Crabbe and Goyle included as well.”
“What's to stop them from attacking one of my friends?”
Malfoy rolled his eyes again. “What part of 'I want Crabbe and Goyle included as well' got past your understanding, Potter? I meant that both ways. Meaning I'll swear I won't sic them on you.”
“Again, what stops them from attacking my friends? They could act on their own whims, or because they think you want them to attack but you didn't actually say so. And what's to stop you sending some other Slytherin after me or my friends?”
“And here I thought you were intelligent, Potter.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that if we do these oaths correctly, they will be intent based. You have a good point on Crabbe and Goyle being able to attack on their own whim, or on what they think I want but I didn't tell them outright. But if we do this right, I could no more send someone else after you deliberately than I could go after you myself. Not without suffering the same consequences.”
[He has a point there, you know,] Hypatia told her.
“Okay. So what about the Crabbe and Goyle thing?”
“Well obviously, the wording of your oath would include them, so you couldn't attack them without provocation, and you'd still be able to fight back if they attacked you first. They need not take their own oaths. But you understand I'd want the same to apply to your friends as well.”
“You expect me to swear on my magic that none of my friends will attack you on their own whims?”
The blond boy sneered again. “Of course not, Potter. That would be stupid, especially as one of your friends is Ronald Weasley, who's nearly as hot headed as you---sorry,” he said derisively, “as 'Alastair' is.”
“Right.” Adira started writing some ideas down on a piece of parchment. “So we both swear to not instigate any fights against each other or our defined friends, and I swear not to escalate any fights any of us do have with you or your two bookends? Which would mean our friends can still act against each other or each other's friends of their own volition, but not if we direct them at each other or each other's friends... good gourd, this is getting complicated.”
“You're overthinking it, Potter. You'd simply be doing a ritual oath to the effect of something like 'I swear on such and such to not attack Draco Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe, or Gregory Goyle without provocation, and I swear on such and such to not escalate any conflict with' and then those names again. Then I do something similar, but including your friends.”
“Okay... but how exactly do we define 'provocation'?”
Malfoy closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose in a very familiar way, before opening his eyes again to answer.
“That's irrelevant, Potter. The oaths would be intent based. If you or I think there's sufficient provocation to justify an attack, then the oaths would let us attack. Yours would restrict you to using only whatever force was already used. So if I jinxed your little curly-haired mudblood friend with a Jelly-Legs Jinx, you could attack me back with something of equal or lesser power. Same would apply to me, if you jinxed Crabbe or Goyle.
“This would also mean that you'd be prevented from doing anything worse to me than I'd done to you or your friends, if I broke the oath first.”
“I think I should insist you swear not to escalate, either, so I get the same benefit. And don't use that M word again.”
“Fine, fine. If that will put your mind at ease enough to let us continue this, then I agree. To both those things, just to clarify.”
It took a bit more back and forth after that, but finally the two of them settled on oaths to give. Malfoy, despite having been brought in by Adira saying she would swear by her magic, insisted that nobody did that kind of thing so lightly; in fact, Unbreakable Vows – which killed those who broke them – were far more preferable, as a pureblood would rather die than live without magic, but no, he wasn't insisting on that either. They finally agreed to both take the same level of oath, one that pressured the oath-taker into obeying their oath, but could be broken without more than getting ill. Specifically, a flu-like illness that would take an hour to take effect and would last 24 hours before it passed.
Holding her wand, Addy said, “I, Adira Lily Potter, on behalf of myself and all the inhabitants of my body, do swear on pain of the Warlock's Flu, that I shall not attack without provocation Draco Lucius Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe, or Gregory Goyle, nor direct others to attack them, until released from this oath by Draco Lucius Malfoy's word or the breaking of his own oath. I also swear, on behalf of myself and all the inhabitants of my body, and again on pain of the Warlock's Flu, to not escalate any conflict I have with Draco Lucius Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe, or Gregory Goyle, swearing to use only whatever amount of force against them as is first used against me by them, until released from this oath by Draco Lucius Malfoy's word or the breaking of his own oath. As I speak it, so mote it be!”
A ribbon of silver light came out of her wand and surrounded her in a figure eight before dissipating.
In a voice of annoyed, grudging acceptance, Malfoy said with his wand in his hand, “And I, Draco Lucius Malfoy, do swear on pain of the Warlock's Flu, that I shall not attack without provocation Adira Lily Potter and all the inhabitants of her body, Hermione Jean Granger, Ronald Billius Weasley, Javier Joaquin Mendoza, Neville Longbottom, or Luna Lovegood, nor direct others to attack them, until released from this oath by the word of Adira Lily Potter and all the inhabitants of her body, or their breaking of their oath. I also swear, again on pain of the Warlock's Flu, to not escalate any conflict I have with Adira Lily Potter and all the inhabitants of her body, Hermione Jean Granger, Ronald Billius Weasley, Javier Joaquin Mendoza, Neville Longbottom, or Luna Lovegood, swearing to use only whatever amount of force against them as is first used against me by them, until released from this oath by the word of Adira Lily Potter and all the inhabitants of her body, or their breaking of their oath. As I speak it, so mote it be!”
As it had with Adira's wand, the oath produced a glowing silver ribbon that formed a figure eight around him before dissipating.
“Good, that's done just in time for my next class, Potter. Good day to you, Potter.”
“Good day to you as well, Malfoy.”
They tore down the privacy spells, letting Malfoy leave. When he was gone, they switched back to Alastair for the rest of the day.
~
He thought about the upcoming detention for a time during transfiguration, but that didn't continue long before he had to concentrate on his work. But the others in his head kept thinking quietly. By the time class ended, Iliana had had a brainstorm. He went up to Professor McGonagall after class and got her attention.
“Yes, Mr. Potter, what is it?”
“Professor, Iliana had a thought just now. I know we can't do Quidditch tryouts on Saturday because of our detention, but couldn't we do them Sunday?”
She blinked a moment, then smiled. “An excellent idea, Potter. I'll reschedule them for Sunday after lunch. Please don't get any more detentions before then.”
“I'll try my best.”
“See that you do.”
~
Naturally, Ron and Al discussed his latest prophecy and what it meant during Herbology, since they didn't have a chance in Transfiguration.
“I have to say, as prophecies go, that one was pretty straight-forward,” Al said.
“It was?” asked Ron.
“Yeah. Not sure what it meant by 'bundle of sticks up to its old tricks,' but the 'faces of white in the night' are clearly Death Eaters. I think 'despair rattles air' means dementors. And the thing about magic beans is an obvious nod to the Muggle fairy tale of Jack and the Beanstalk, so it's talking about the giants, there. Only unknown is the 'bundle of sticks' part. Kind of a useless prophecy, actually; didn't tell me much I didn't already know.”
Hermione, who had been listening, said thoughtfully, “'Bundle of sticks' sounds familiar for some reason... I think I read something about it, but I can't remember what it was.”
Al shrugged. “Only 'bundle of sticks' I know about is the word 'faggot,' which is a slur against gay men but also means 'a bundle of sticks' for some strange reason. I kinda doubt that's what the prophecy was referring to, though.
“Anyhoo, if I have time today, I'll tell Sirius about it. In fact, I'll just give him a written copy at dinner, he's usually there for meals.”
Ron chuckled at this. “It always amuses me seeing the rest of the original teachers' looks of anxiety whenever you and Sirius are in the same place together.”
“Me too, Ron, me too.”
~
Chandra went in at five pm that afternoon for the next detention, after Al gave Sirius a written copy of his most recent prophecy. As he walked to 'Sorrow and Enmity's' office, Chandra ran possible scenarios through his mind in an attempt to prepare the best responses.
He knocked on the door and was told to come in. He opened the door and walked in.
“Silencio!” he heard her cry, and registered a split second later that she had her wand pointed at him. He tried to talk, and nothing came out.
~ Well *that* was not in any of my scenarios, ~ Chandra thought.
“Excellent, Mr. Potter. Now I won't have to listen to any clever back sass from you tonight. You will write 'I must not tell lies' until I tell you to stop. I will not be answering questions. If you speak, I will silence you again. Do you understand me?”
Chandra nodded.
Pleased with this, Umbridge lifted the silencing charm from him. He sat down at the provided chair and started writing with the quill that cut into his hand.
Again he did not give any sign of distress, and this time the feelings coming from Umbridge were mostly, at first, an annoyed resignation with an undertone of something more sinister that he couldn't identify right away. He examined the emotion a bit more carefully, and he thought it was an evil-flavored version of having finally accepted that some decision she'd been pondering was in fact the right one. Which was then followed by a twisted version of burgeoning hope, and eager anticipation. This worried him, but on further analysis, he decided that it was tinged with the emotional equivalent of her telling herself to be patient. So whatever it was wouldn't be happening right away.
The night was long and full of pain, silence, and an increasing difficulty ignoring the pain from the blood quill's function being abused. These quills were meant to be used only for certain magical contracts that, for whatever reason, required being signed in blood. Since there wasn't much call for that, she must have spent a small fortune procuring this one. He idly wondered what would happen if he 'accidentally' caught the quill on fire. But given she already seemed to be planning something, he decided to think about it a while first.
The skin on the back of Chandra's hand became irritated more quickly now and was soon red and inflamed. He thought it unlikely that it would keep healing as effectively for long. Soon the cut would remain etched into his hand and Umbridge would, perhaps, be satisfied. He let no gasp of pain escape him, however, and from the moment of entering the room to the moment of his dismissal, this time not til past midnight, he said nothing but 'goodnight'.
This of course left his homework situation a bit difficult, but nothing too horrible yet. He just hoped she wasn't going to be making a habit of keeping him this long, or they might fall behind in classes. But he needn't worry about that tonight. Not wanting to waste any more time, Chandra went to bed and was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.
~
The next morning – a Thursday, the Potters woke up as Adira. Having been kept up past midnight, they were a bit groggy this morning, not talking much because of it.
That afternoon was Defense Against the Dark Arts with Professor Sirius Black, who had been training to be an Auror before his unlawful imprisonment without a trial. This was the class anyone who knew Sirius was either looking forward to or dreading, depending on the exact contrast between how you wanted it to go and how it actually went.
Everyone was sitting in the classroom talking quietly, waiting for Sirius to arrive to start the class. Just a couple minutes passed before the door burst open with a bang and Sirius – wearing a black long-sleeved shirt and black trousers – leaped into the room with his wand out, shouted “EN GARDE!” and began casting Stinging Hexes wildly at the seated students.
Utter. Bedlam. Nothing like it had been seen since the incident where Lockhart had released a load of Cornish Pixies into the room. Students screamed, desks were overturned, ink bottles smashed, and books and parchment went flying as everyone reacted to this madman who was shooting hexes at innocent students.
Sirius barked with delighted laughter at their reactions, and said, without slowing down his barrage, “Tut, tut, this won't do! Fight back! Don't just react, act!”
A few people who had been coherent enough in the face of this onslaught to hear and process what he'd said did, in fact, manage to fight back, casting their own hexes at Sirius. Adira was especially vicious, letting Chandra use his special rapid-fire hex technique to put Sirius on the defensive, even making her godfather duck behind the teacher's desk to take potshots at them from around its corners.
Within minutes, there were so many voices shouting incantations in the room that it was impossible to pick any single voice out of the din. The scene strongly reminded Addy of movies about World War One, the scenes involving trench warfare and No Man's Land. But despite the fact that most of the students in the room were casting hexes toward the teacher, and despite the fact Addy was keeping Sirius on the defensive, it was pretty much doomed to be a stalemate unless she started to get creative.
With that in mind, the troops of the Potter collective rallied. Hypatia shot off an over-powered aguamenti that made it start to rain right above where Sirius was hiding – she heard him shouting about it as he scrambled to protect himself from the water. Then with their left hand, Zoey turned the whole floor on his side of the room into ice. Sirius shouted some more and scrambled for purchase, trying to get his wand in position to cast the counter-charm, but failing because he kept slipping on the ice.
Taking advantage of this, Adira stood up and slid across the ice, Stunning a shocked Sirius before he could lift his wand to defend himself.
“I got him!” she shouted. The other students began to cheer, some of them cautiously moving forward to make sure she was telling the truth.
Adira took stock of the aftermath, the room wrecked beyond belief, people's hair mussed; Hermione's already-difficult hair was looking wilder than Addy had ever seen it.
“He's a madman!” Seamus said, gesticulating wildly. “Attacking us like that, even Moody didn't do that! Take his wand away! Tie him up!”
Taking great delight in this, several students helped Adira disarm and tie up Professor Sirius Black and suspend him from the wall with a Sticking Charm, like a wrapped-up fly stuck on a spider's web. Only then did Adira wake him up with her wand.
His head jerked up and he made sleepy noises as he regained consciousness, looking around in confusion until he remembered what had happened. When he did, he grinned.
“You got me! Good job! But you lot had an unfair advantage with Adira here on your side.”
“What was the big idea, attacking us?” Dean demanded.
“Thought I'd make your first class memorable,” he said with a roguish grin. Or it may have been an impish grin.
“Well you certainly succeeded!” Dean responded. Everyone else nodded or muttered their agreement.
Sirius twitched; Adira thought he'd tried to shrug.
“Eh, what can I say? I'd heard for years about Moody's 'constant vigilance,' and thought I'd do something similar. Besides which, it kind of illustrates that most of you are pants at defending yourselves. I can tell by the number of Stinging Hexes that appear to have hit their mark. You lot, with the sting marks, you'd all be dead if I'd been a dark wizard trying to kill you. So in my class this year, you're going to learn how to defend yourself; whether one-on-one in a duel, or in a group dogfight like today.
“Now release me so I can clean this mess up and get to the actual lesson.”
Adira raised an eyebrow at him. “Hmm... I dunno, Professor Black, it might not be safe.”
Sirius raised his own eyebrow at Adira in response. “You know I can still take points away from you in this position, right?”
“Yes, you could. If we let you remain conscious.”
“I have to wake up eventually, Addy. And when I do, I can take points, give detentions, and other fun things.”
“Let me just ask you a question, Professor.”
“What is it?”
“If you'd been in my position during your school days, would you have let you go?”
When the laughter died down, Sirius said in a dignified manner, “I answer your question with another question: would you enjoy eating nothing but Brussels sprouts and gruel for the next month? I could easily arrange it.”
Adira laughed. “You win, then, Professor Black. Hermione, Ron, help me out here.”
Reluctantly, her friends helped her untie Sirius. When he was loose and he had his wand again, he used it to clean up the mess the dogfight had caused.
“Now, everyone in your seats. I'm going to spend the rest of the course outlining what we'll be doing this year, and I expect you to take very good notes as I do.”
~
Adira would've liked to have discussed Sirius's class with Ron, Hermione, and Neville, but she had a detention again tonight at 5 pm. So once more she didn't bother taking her book bag upstairs before going to dinner to bolt down some food.
This time, as she left the Great Hall for the detention, she felt Zoey shove both her and Chandra back, and take over the body, changing it to match her younger-looking form.
'What are you doing, Zoey?' Adira asked her inside their head.
* Protecting Chandra of course. Surely she won't hurt a little kid. *
'She's literally torturing a 15 year old teenager. And who knows who else she's doing this to?'
* Yeah but I'm only six. That's a lot different from hurting a teen. *
'Zoey, she doesn't think of us as our own people. She thinks we're a singlet who's pretending.'
* Well I don't see any of you lot comin up wif a better idea to deal wif her! *
'Chandra's tactic may not be getting to her anymore, but at least we're getting through these detentions.'
* But--- *
'No buts. She sees us like this, she'll probably grin evilly and say something like “Now Mr. Potter, pretending to be an innocent child won't work. I know you're not innocent, nor a small child.” Then she'll just do the blood quill anyway.'
(I could burn the quill,) Al said.
'She might have more. But... if not, that might work. She can't report us for destroying it, after all, as she'd have to explain how we knew she had it.'
% Yes, % said Iliana in an exasperated tone, % but she could just give us more detentions. Zoey, give Chandra the reigns before we get there. %
* No! I'm gonna try this. Gonna try my charming adorableness on her! If it don't work, then I'll give control back to Chandra. Alright? *
'Ugh, fine!' Adira said. The others all agreed.
So it was that Zoey – her hair in adorable braided pigtails and wearing a pink and sparkly Muggle dress – who opened the door into Umbridge's office and gave the woman a gap-toothed grin. Umbridge, sitting at her desk, looked at Zoey in a moment of confusion before apparently recognizing her somehow. She indeed smiled wickedly.
“Mr. Potter, I have heard all about your other disguises, including the infamous child prankster disguise. If you think I'm going to let you off easily tonight because of this, you are sorely mistaken.”
Zoey's face fell.
* What a poopy, doody-headed fart brain, * Zoey thought at the others.
As Umbridge continued to smirk at her, Zoey closed the door and let Chandra rise up again.
“Ah yes, the Indian persona. Tell me, Mr. Potter, have either of the Patil twins or any other Indian witches or wizards expressed upset at your offensive brown-face?”
Chandra glared at her. ~This one has no room to speak of being offensive,~ he thought.
(I'm honestly surprised she'd pay enough attention to that kind of thing to be able to ask that,) Al responded.
“I have spoken with the Patils,” Chandra said aloud. “On many occasions. They have never expressed any such sentiment, nor did their behavior indicate they were keeping such feelings hidden.”
“Hmm... well perhaps you should ask them sometime? But for now, come here, Mr. Potter.”
“Of course, Ms. Braithwaite.”
Umbridge blinked. Then she quickly recovered. “Mr. Potter, my name is Ms. Umbridge. Not Ms. Braithwaite.”
“And my name is Mr. Rahasyamay, not Mr. Potter. I will honor your name if you honor mine.”
She smiled wickedly again. “Mr. Potter, if you call me any name other than 'Ms. Umbridge,' I will give you an extra two weeks of detentions.”
“I find it peculiar that you have no problem referring to a certain dark wizard as 'Lord Voldemort' or 'You-Know-Who' when the man's birth name is Tom Marvolo Riddle, and yet you consistently call me by the wrong surname.”
Umbridge, now angry, opened her mouth to speak, but Chandra interrupted her. “I also assume, since you worked in the Ministry, that you have met Auror Tonks on at least one occasion. She is a metamorphmagus, as we have recently discovered we are as well. Since she was proclaimed a girl upon her birth, and has never – to my knowledge – said anything to contradict this, I presume you refer to her as such. However, being that she is a metamorphmagus, for all we know she may have had a penis before being born, and at some point before her birth may well have changed the arrangement of that area to reflect a female form. Or, in Muggle parlance, she may well be XY for all we know, and we only think of her as an XX female because she has changed her body to match what she wanted us to think.
“And yes, that is a fair bit of thought to attribute to an infant, but gender may well be instinctual or something like it. Not the point. The point is that when Adira or Iliana or Zoey are Out, the body we share changes to match them, and they are no more a 'Mister' than *you* are. And yet, you are consistently rude and offensive by referring to them as the wrong gender and names.
“Now for myself, being called Mr. Potter is only mildly annoying, for I am indeed of the Potter collective. But I have been trying to get you to realize how rude you are being. By all means, continue to be cruel in your punishments. You will doubtless reap what you have sown in time, so I am not concerned about that. But teacher or no, power of the Ministry behind you or no, it is expected to be polite in this society, and you are being terribly rude every time you refer to one of the girls by the wrong gender. How would you like it, Madam Umbridge, if I were to do that to you?”
“Why, Mr. Potter, I would give you more detentions if you were to do that.”
“Right. But I ask you this: what if your Minister Fudge were to one day decide that he had been known by the wrong gender this whole time, and became Madam Minister Fudge? Would you continue to be rude by mis-gendering him – or rather her – in that case? I very much doubt it. Because if nothing else, I doubt she would tolerate your insolence and would tell you in no uncertain terms to use the proper gender for her or else be fired.
“My point is that if it is rude to do that to your superior, it is equally rude to do it to underlings or others who answer to you.”
There was silence for almost a minute or two while she seemed to weigh whether or not she could justifiably give him more detention for pointing out how rude she was being. Finally, though, she did answer.
“Silencio!” she said, her wand up and casting the spell before Chandra could react. He tried to talk, and nothing came out.
~ Here we go again, ~ Chandra thought.
(I'm surprised she let you prattle on that long before doing that,) Al said. (Maybe she was hoping you'd give her another excuse to give us more detentions?)
“Good, now there's that noise dealt with,” Umbridge said. “Mr. Potter, you will write 'I must not tell lies' until I tell you to stop. I will not be answering questions. I will not be un-silencing you. Do you understand me?”
Chandra nodded.
Umbridge smiled and went over to her own desk to sit down. Chandra sat down at the provided chair and started writing with the accursed black quill. Again, it cut into him and again, their blood was on the parchment.
Again he did not give any sign of distress, and again he was feeling concerning feelings from Umbridge. Whatever she was up to, he would very much not like. Worried about what she was planning, Chandra began slowly to let small signs and sounds of distress turn up, on the idea that if he appeased her desire for cruelty now, he might avoid something worse later. And it seemed to be working. She noticed the little signs of distress that he let leak through, and grinned maliciously at him.
Chandra did a good enough job that an hour before midnight, Umbridge checked his hand and in a pleased voice said he could go home early tonight, but would still need to return for Friday night and Saturday.
As he went back to Gryffindor, they thought to each other.
[I don't like the fact that she has our blood. There's no telling what she could do with it,] Hypatia said. The others agreed, but what could they do about it?
[There are ways. Granted, most of the blood she's got on the parchments is useless because it's dry, but who knows if she's siphoning it off or not while it's being extracted? That compulsion charm is a modification, who knows what other modifications she's made? Some magics don't easily show up to Chandra's psychometry, and we'd have to know what to look for anyway.]
It was clear something would have to be done. But what?
~
At midnight that night, Adira had fallen asleep. An hour later, Hypatia woke up for one of her nightly walks. It wasn't nice to the others, but she had a greater purpose for this trek. She didn't like the fact that their blood was being taken without their consent. Again. She was going to find out what she could do against that.
Obviously, Percy wasn't there anymore to hide behind, but there were other prefects, and anyway, she'd come up with a new tactic ever since figuring out they were a metamorphmagus. She knew the schedules of all the prefects. She was still working on memorizing their habits – they weren't as predictable as Percy had been. There was always Filch, but she doubted Mrs. Norris would be fooled by that. So instead she decided to go the Zoey route and became a cat.
Unlike Zoey, Hypatia's cat form was a gray cat that was just the right shade to blend into the darkness of the castle's shadows, but an adult cat. Big enough to give Mrs. Norris a run for her money if need be. Hypatia had suspicions that Mrs. Norris was a half-Kneazle mix like Crookshanks.
She popped out the portrait hole and shut it behind her. Then she sneaked through the shadows, sniffing around to make sure she didn't run into the scents of either Mrs. Norris or Professor McGonagall. To her surprise, she met nobody on her way to the library, unless you counted Sir Nicolas drifting through the corridor the way only a ghost could – coming out one wall and sliding into the opposite wall. But the ghost hadn't shown any sign of noticing her, so she continued on.
Getting inside the library without hands was a little bit more difficult. She had to use wandless magic to do it, and that took a few minutes to get done right. By comparison, closing the door was far easier, happening in seconds.
Once inside, she went back to human form, but Disillusioned herself since she hadn't been able to bring the invisibility cloak with her. She set to work, then, looking through the library with the techniques they'd learned from Cedric last year. Using that, she quickly found what she was looking for, and once she'd confirmed it had the information she needed, she used her wand to copy the pages she needed, folding them up and putting them in a pocket. She kept looking for some more things, but she'd apparently already got the best answer. Even checking the Restricted Section – sneaking in easily as a cat, she didn't find anything else better.
When she got back to their dorm, she copied the information into a notebook in case the conjured pages were to fade. She then set the notebook on top of their trunk where it would be obvious, before going back to sleep in Adira's form of their body.
Endnotes: LOL, I loved writing Sirius's class! I didn't know how Sirius's class would be until I got to that point in the story, and OMG that was fun!
Heh, and that bit where Adira slipped up and called Malfoy “Draco” was a total mistake on my part, but instead of correcting it, I just kept it because Hypatia keeps thinking of him as Draco, and with her being more social with the others now, it makes sense they'd slip up now and then. :)
Short chapter I know, but I had to write three versions of this before I was satisfied with it. First version was really dark and painted me into a corner. Second version had Umbridge out of the school in less than a week of school starting, and there was more I wanted to do with the Umbitch that I wouldn't be able to do with that version.
“The Many Faces Go To War: Chapter 6”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Six: So Many Questions!
Notes: This is the sequel to “The Many Faces of Har---er, Adira Potter.” If you haven't read that series yet, this one isn't going to make much sense. Also, a reminder for anyone who forgot: the person formerly known as Harry still exists, she's just transgender in this one, her new name is Adira, nicknamed “Addy.”
FORMATTING FOR INTERNAL VOICES = Because the previous note about the styles was messing with the formatting, the following will be formatting for internal voices: 'Single quotes with no italics' will be Adira/Addy unless someone is quoting something, ~Text in tildes~ will be Chandra, (Parentheses for Al,) [Brackets will be Hypatia], % Percentage symbols for Iliana %, # Pound signs for Mother/Avani, # * Asterisks for Zoey, * and {curly brackets for Tier.} Apologies for any confusion this may cause.
Text in 'Italics and single quotes' is Parseltongue.
J. K. Rowling owns this sandbox, I'm only playing in it.
This chapter contains some quotations from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
*FAYANORA*
When Adira woke up the next morning, she found a notebook on her trunk that turned out to be from Hypatia. It was full of information about how to keep people from getting your blood without your consent. After looking through it and spotting some highlighted areas, she found there was also another bit about how to make your blood useless for magical purposes if you couldn't avoid your blood being taken from you. They decided to focus on that for now. First, it was a simple potion one took up to an hour before the event. Second, they didn't like to think what Umbridge would do if the blood stopped flowing from the blood quill. And third, they weren't sure if the spell to stop blood being taken would stop the blood quill working at all, and the idea of being cut into without bleeding was fraught with questions about how that might affect them.
At breakfast, their thoughts were interrupted by Hermione pointing out something in the Daily Prophet. It seemed Sturgis Podmore, the man who Moody had been annoyed about for missing the guard duty to escort them to the train, had broken into the Ministry of Magic.
TRESPASS AT MINISTRY
Sturgis Podmore, 38, of number two, Laburnum Gardens, Clapham, has appeared in front of the
Wizengamot charged with trespass and attempted robbery at the Ministry of Magic on 31"
August. Podmore was arrested by Ministry of Magic watchwizard Eric Munch, who found him
attempting to force his way through a top-security door at one o'clock in the morning. Podmore,
who refused to speak, in his own defense, was convicted on both charges and sentenced to six
months in Azkaban.
“Six months in Azkaban for trying to get through a door?” Adira said, dumbfounded. “I mean yeah, it's a Ministry door, but still...”
“Yes, and at one o'clock in the morning, no less,” Hermione said. “What on Earth was he doing there?”
“Hmm... I suspect he was being Imperiused,” Adira said.
“What? Why?”
“Moldyshorts wanted something behind that door, he may have been wanting it since he first returned. Even though he's not exactly himself at the moment, his little minions are probably still trying to get it for him.”
Ron rolled his eyes. “I mean, why do you suspect You-Know-Who?”
“Because if Sturgis was there on Dumbledore's orders, well... he's an Auror, isn't he? He'd be able to go about the Ministry with ease. Unless he was sent after something nobody wanted the Ministry knowing he was after. I can't think of any reason Dumbledore would send someone after something in a top-security Ministry room, but Moldyshorts definitely would do something like that.”
“Or it could just be a frame-up by the Ministry,” Ron said. “You know, to discredit Dumbledore's side? No — listen!” he went on, dropping his voice dramatically at the threatening look on Hermione's face. “The Ministry suspects he's one of Dumbledore's lot so — I dunno — they lured him to the Ministry, and he wasn't trying to get through a door at all! Maybe they've just made something up to get him!”
“Do you know, I wouldn't be at all surprised if that were true. But both theories make sense, so it could be either one.”
Adira shrugged, and continued to eat. She didn't like Tom's chances of getting into the Ministry secretly, especially if he's still not back to full power after having to be killed again. And if he went into the Ministry openly, everyone would know he was back, which would get rid of Umbridge.
~
Having taken a copy of the recipe with them, they spent their morning break letting Iliana work out if there were any improvements she could make to potion. There were, but nothing she cared to try without running it past Snape first. And they couldn't do that; Snape would get suspicious and the compulsion charm didn't like that one whit. So they just decided to make the regular version to be safe.
But there was one component, a single drop of mackled malaclaw venom, that they couldn't easily get a hold of. And they didn't think Snape would agree to give it to them without a good reason. They thought maybe they could talk about wanting their blood protected after Voldemort, but when they ran through the conversation in their head, Snape got suspicious and suspected Umbridge. They could buy some, but as their next detention with Umbridge was tonight, that wouldn't do. So they would have to steal some... today.
Checking the Marauders Map for Snape, they saw he was in class. His office, they knew, was connected to the classroom. They didn't have his class today, so they wouldn't be able to sneak in there anytime soon. However... they did have a friend they could get help from.
Ducking into an unused classroom and putting up privacy spells, Adira called, “Dobby!”
With a CRACK, Dobby appeared. He was wearing an odd assortment of clothes, including mis-matched socks, kid's football shorts, a tie over a white A-shirt, and three baseball caps on his head.
“Miss Adira Potter is wanting Dobby for something? How can Dobby be helping Miss?”
“Hi, Dobby. First, a question: as a free elf being paid by Dumbledore, are you able to help with something that might be technically breaking the rules?”
“It is depending on what you is needing of Dobby, Miss. I can be doing that, but Dobby will only be helping break a rule if it is being very important, Miss.”
“I figured as much. Listen, can you keep a secret?”
Dobby saluted her. “Dobby is glad to keeps Miss Potter's secrets and his silence, Miss! As long as those secrets is not hurting nobody, Miss.”
“Good. Now, I can't tell you everything, because this situation is... well, think back to when we first met, Dobby. You wanted to tell me something, but you couldn't.”
Dobby's eyes went wide with worry. “Is Miss being controlled? Is you not able to speak of something like Dobby was?”
Adira remained silent. The compulsion charm wouldn't let her answer, but not answering was an answer itself for Dobby.
“I sees, Miss. And is Dobby right to thinks you cannot let me tell any teachers of your predicament?”
Again, her silence spoke volumes for him.
“Dobby understands, Miss. What is Miss needing of Dobby?”
“I have a potion recipe that can help my situation, but I can't get one of the ingredients. I hate to ask you to break rules, but the only way I can get what I need is to steal it, and time is of the essence. I need to brew the potion today, and it takes an hour to brew.”
“What ingredient is Miss needing?”
“A single drop of mackled malaclaw venom.”
“Ooh Miss, that is being a very unlucky substance.”
“Yes, I know. But the way the potion is set up, that venom will be transferring the unluckiness to someone else. But only if they try to hurt me a certain way.”
“And Miss is not able to say what way, in case it is forbidden?”
She couldn't answer again, but again it wasn't necessary.
“Miss can count on Dobby. Dobby can be getting what you needs!”
“Thanks, Dobby. Snape is teaching class right now. Can you get into his office without making your usual apparition crack?”
“It is being tricksier, Miss, but Dobby can be making a quiet pop if he is ordered to.”
Getting the picture, she said, “Then I order you to be quiet when you visit Professor Snape's office today.”
Dobby saluted again, concentrated a moment, then popped away with hardly any sound at all. Addy checked the Marauders Map, and it looked like Snape was still in the classroom. She wished she could see Dobby on the Map. She'd have to ask Sirius about how to add elves to the Map.
A couple minutes later, Dobby popped silently into the space he'd been in before, leaning against a desk for support. He looked winded, the poor soul.
“Wow, was being quiet when you apparate that difficult for you, Dobby?”
“That is being part of it, Miss,” he said when he got his breathing back under control. “The other part of it is being trying to find what Miss was looking for, and a bottle for it. Also, Professor Snapey almost came into the office. Dobby is lucky he is not being caught, Miss.”
Dobby handed her a very small bottle with a bit more than a single drop of malaclaw venom in it, but then it would be difficult to get out of the bottle if there was less than that. Luckily, the bottle also had an eye dropper installed in it.
“Thank you very much, Dobby. How can I repay you?”
“There is no need, Miss. Miss is already freeing Dobby, and that is being enough. Be safe, Miss. And if Dobby can be helping you any other way, do not be hesitating to ask.”
“Thanks again, Dobby. You're a great friend and a great elf.”
Dobby blushed scarlet and disappeared with a CRACK.
Going to the Room of Requirement, Iliana soon was walking into a full potions lab. There weren't any ingredients there, but she had that already in her bag. All she needed was the cauldron, the fire, and the water.
Iliana started up the potion, carefully following the instructions. She wondered, as she brewed, how and when the extra lessons with Snape would happen, with Umbridge looming about in the school now. Would he even want to, after what he'd said about them in their vision of Dumbledore's office?
She checked her watch, and was alarmed to find she'd be late for her next class if she didn't leave soon. The potion was basically done, it just needed to simmer for another half an hour. She turned the heat down, set an alarm, and called Dobby again.
“Miss is wanting Dobby again?”
“Sorry, Dobby, but I have to get to class. This potion needs to simmer for 30 minutes. When the alarm goes off, turn off the fire under it and let it sit for five minutes before putting it in this bottle.”
She set a large bottle down next to the cauldron, about a foot away.
“Then, when that's done, meet me in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom right before lunch, okay? Can you do that?”
Dobby nodded. “That is being simple, Miss. Much like cooking, but easier because Dobby is not doing any brewing.”
“Good. Now, you'll have to stay here while it simmers, because I don't know what will happen to it when the room reverts to normal. Can you do that, too?”
“Dobby can do that, Miss. Dobby is finishing his chores for the next two hours early today, so he can be doing that.”
“Thank you again, Dobby,” she said, hugging him and rushing out the door with her book bag.
Dobby got up on a stool the Room provided, and looked into the cauldron. He took a whiff, trying to get a clue about what they were brewing. He couldn't tell by scent what was in it, though. He was more familiar with cooking than potion brewing, after all. But then he looked to the side and noticed Miss Potter had left the recipe behind in her haste to get to class. He gasped at the title of the potion: 'A Potion to render stolen blood useless to dark wizards.'
He sighed sadly, wishing he could tell someone what he'd found. But even with being free, he was still bound to keep the secrets of his masters, and now as a Hogwarts elf, he had to keep her secrets, too, if she told him to. Also, he'd promised her to keep the secret. So, sad at this fact, he read the instructions to make sure there weren't any steps she'd forgotten to tell him about, then sent her notebook back up to her room with a wave of his hand, and kept an eye on the potion.
~
With the potion in her possession, Addy ducked into an unused classroom on her way to dinner to take a measure of it. But she couldn't remember if she was allowed to eat after the potion, and Dobby had told her she'd left the notebook behind and it was now in her room. So she skipped dinner, just to be on the safe side. She could always get something to eat from Dobby. In fact... just in case she might wake him up later, she called Dobby one last time before leaving the classroom she'd ducked into and asked him to leave something for her to eat that wouldn't spoil between now and midnight. That done, she let Chandra take over and they went on to their second-to-last detention with Umbridge.
This detention was much like the last, and lasted until midnight again. They were getting backed up on their schoolwork, and between another detention tomorrow after lunch and tryouts on Sunday, they didn't have a lot of time to do it all.
[Don't worry about that,] Hypatia told them. [I'll do it for you. I have ways of speeding up the process.]
'Thanks, Hypatia.'
[Yes well, I'd like you to get some more sleep.]
This detention did have one difference: after two hours the words 'I must not tell lies' did not fade from the back of their left hand (Chandra being left-handed was such a boon in this case) didn't go away this time when they were done, and the sudden silence of the blood quill no longer scratching the parchment made Umbridge look up.
“Ah,” she said softly, moving around her desk to examine his hand herself. :Good. That ought to serve as a reminder to you, oughtn't it? You may leave for tonight.”
“Do I still have to come back tomorrow?” asked Chandra hopefully, picking up his schoolbag with his right hand rather than his smarting left one.
“Oh yes,' said Professor Umbridge, smiling as widely as before. “Yes, I think we can etch the message a little deeper with another evenings work.”
Chandra and the others had never before considered the possibility that there might be someone they hated more than Voldemort, but as he walked back towards Gryffindor Tower he had to admit they had found a strong contender. ~She's evil,~ he thought, as he climbed a staircase to the seventh floor, ~she's an evil, twisted, mad old-~
“Red Knight?” Chandra asked, dumbfounded.
He had reached the top of the stairs, turned right and almost walked into Ron, who was lurking behind a statue of Lachlan the Lanky, clutching his broomstick. He gave a great leap of surprise when he saw Chandra and attempted to hide his new Cleansweep Eleven behind his back.
“Red Knight, what quest brings you here at this late hour?” Chandra asked him.
“Er — nothing. What are you doing?”
“I am returning from the Herculean trial of Sorrow and Enmity's detention. But you are attempting to divert me, like Hercules of old did to that river. What is it that has you hiding here?”
“I'm hiding from Fred and George, if you must know,” said Ron. “They just went past with a bunch of first-years, I bet they're testing stuff on them again, I mean, they can't do it in the common room now, can they, not with Hermione and Neville there.”
He was talking in a very fast, feverish way. Chandra didn't know what to say. So Adira took over and they changed before Ron's eyes to her.
“But what have you got your broom for, you haven't been flying, have you?” she asked him.
“I — well — well, OK, I'll tell you, but don't laugh, all right?' Ron said defensively, turning redder with every second. 'I — I thought I'd try out for Gryffindor Keeper now I've got a decent broom. There. Go on. Laugh.”
“I'm not laughing,” said Addy. Ron blinked. “It's a brilliant idea! It'd be really cool if you got on the team! I've never seen you play Keeper, are you good?”
“I'm not bad,' said Ron, who looked immensely relieved at Addy's reaction. “Charlie, Fred and George always made me keep for them when they were training during the holidays.”
“So you've been practicing tonight?”
“Every evening since Tuesday . . . just on my own, though. I've been trying to bewitch Quaffles to fly at me, but it hasn't been easy and I don't know how much use it'll be.” Ron looked nervous and anxious. “Fred and George are going to laugh themselves stupid when I turn up for the tryouts. They haven't stopped taking the mickey out of me since I got made a prefect.”
“If they do, Iliana or I will have some stern words for them. And if that doesn't work, we'll hex them seven ways from Sunday.”
“Thanks, Addy. Hey, what's that on the back of your hand?”
Addy, who had just scratched her nose with her free left hand, tried to hide it, but had as much success as Ron with his Cleansweep.
“It's just a cut — it's nothing — it's-”
But Ron had grabbed her forearm and pulled the back of her hand up level with his eyes. There was a pause, during which he stared at the words carved into the skin, then, looking sick, he released her.
“I thought you said she was just giving you lines?”
Harry hesitated, but after all, Ron had been honest with him, and he now knew the truth anyway; what was more, she'd felt the compulsion charm extend to Ron when he'd touched her arm. So she told Ron the truth about the hours Chandra had been spending in Umbridge's office.
“The old hag!” Ron said in a revolted whisper as they came to a halt in front of the Fat Lady, who was dozing peacefully with her head against her frame. “She's sick! Go to McGonagall, say something!”
“Can't,” she said with disgust. “Chandra figured out when he first touched the black quill that there's a compulsion charm on it to keep me from telling anyone. Only reason I can talk about it now is you figured it out. And you can't go to anyone either; the compulsion charm extended to you when you grabbed my arm.”
“Damn it!” Ron stage-whisper 'shouted.' “And the charm prevented you from warning me, I'll bet.”
“Yes.”
“Damn it. And wait, did you say a black quill? And it does that to your hand?”
“Yes.”
“So, a blood quill?”
She nodded.
“Bloody hell! Have you tried asking teachers about ways to prevent it being done to you?”
“Can't ask the teachers anything that would tip them off. Even thinking about it made the charm activate. Which isn't pleasant, I can tell you. But Hypatia left us some options. Iliana made a potion to render any blood taken that way useless for any kind of magical purposes. That wasn't easy to do, either. I had to rope Dobby into stealing an ingredient for me. Luckily, the potion isn't too difficult if you have all the ingredients, and I have enough left over for tomorrow. Possibly more days, but I really hope I won't need that much. But given what happened with Moldyshorts, I might want to get in the habit of taking this potion.”
“Well okay, I suppose. Is there a way to break compulsion charms, though?”
“I don't know.” Addy took a moment to think about it, and felt the pain of the charm activating, so she stopped. “Damn, she did a good job on that charm! I'd need outside help to break the charm, but we can't tell anyone, and if they touch either of us, the charm could affect them too. I'm sure the charm has limits, but still...”
“Yeah, it's a riddle,” Ron said.
“A conundrum indeed. Anyway, we should head back to the common room. Hold on a moment.”
She Disillusioned herself and Ron with her wand. They finished their trip back to the common room without being caught, though the Fat Lady looked suspicious at her voice coming out of nowhere, though she recognized her voice and let them in anyway.
~
Their final detention of the week the next day – a Saturday – went much as before. They took the potion to make their blood useless before going, and the words refused to go away even with their metamorph powers. About the only interesting thing to happen all day was waking up to find all their schoolwork for the week done, the auto-quills still in position and awaiting further commands. Hypatia must have set them all up and then gone straight to bed once she'd set them all in motion. They wondered how long that had taken, but got no response from her about it.
With their schoolwork done, Iliana spent the morning with Luna, walking along the grounds and talking, holding hands on occasion. It was a welcome experience after everything that had happened during the week.
Luna and Iliana continued spending time together after Iliana's detention, for Umbridge had let them go about 4 pm because the pain was bad enough Chandra couldn't have hidden his agony from her even if he'd been trying to. It had pained them more to see the evil woman so gleeful, but it gave Luna and Iliana more time to spend together, during dinner at the Gryffindor table together, and afterwards until just before curfew. She'd had to disguise the cuts in her hand with a bandage that was enchanted to look like her normal skin, and avoid letting Luna touch their left hand, but it worked.
Sunday was different, it being the tryouts. They'd set the tryouts to start after noon. Luna came to watch, as did Hermione and Javier. There were a lot of people there, in fact; far more than Iliana had anticipated. A number of them weren't even in their House. She dismissed those people right away, and they joined the others in the stands. But once that was dealt with, Iliana sent the rest through rigorous tests of speed, skill, and teamwork, each designed for different positions.
Ron, as it turned out, was pretty good at Keeping unless something undermined his confidence. Knowing how the Slytherins operated, she'd have to find some way to deal with that. Maybe have someone shouting insults at him during practice, to help him learn how to ignore such taunts? Well, something else to work on, because he was the best Keeper of those who had tried out.
By dinnertime, she had picked out the main team and the reserve team members. Katie Bell, Angelina Johnson, and Alicia Spinnet returned as Chasers, the Weasley twins returned as Beaters, and Iliana was Seeker. Ginny Weasley made the team as a reserve Chaser and a reserve Seeker, but given their history of injuries, Iliana chose an extra reserve Chaser in case Ginny was already acting as a reserve Seeker. Maybe she was being overly cautious, but she didn't care. For all Wood had been fanatical about training, he'd overlooked having reserves, which had never made any sense to her.
Anyway, along with Ginny, the other reserve Chasers were a new find named Demelza Robins, and Dean Thomas. Demelza was particularly good at dodging Bludgers, which was the deciding factor for her. Also as a reserve Chaser was Fay Dunbar, despite the fact she'd been trying out for the Beater position. She was disappointed not to get her preferred position, but seemed glad to be on the team at all, even if it was as a reserve Chaser.
For reserve Beaters, Iliana had a hard time picking two from the choices of Andrew Kirke, Jack Sloper, Jimmy Peakes, and Ritchie Coote. Peakes and Coote were younger than Kirke and Sloper, but were already the equal of the older boys in skill. Not being sure who to pick, she got Al's help; together, though that wasn't apparent to others, they looked into the eyes of each boy, letting Al get a good read of them.
% Thoughts? % she asked Al when they were done.
(They've all got equal talent for sure,) Al said, (but I get the sense that Kirke and Sloper worked at least three times as hard to get as good as the other two. So I'd recommend Peakes and Coote for reserve Beaters, since it should take less effort for them to improve.)
% Right. Thanks. %
Aloud, she said, “Peakes, Coote, congratulations on making the reserve team.”
The two boys fist-pumped, Kirke and Sloper looking disappointed. She took the two boys aside before they left and told them she'd consider them for reserve reserves if something happened to take out two sets of Beaters. They looked at her funny when she said this, but then she reminded them of all the crazy stuff that had happened over the years, and they seemed to understand. They went away a little less disappointed, anyway.
For reserve Keeper, Cormac McClaggen was the second best after Ron, but in the short time he'd been around them for tryouts, Iliana could already tell she wouldn't be able to stand the berk. Al agreed, as did the others. But the problem was, she couldn't omit McClaggen from the reserve team without a solid reason, and nobody else but Ron had done as good as he had. So, sighing, she put McClaggen on the team as reserve Keeper anyway.
It occurred to her then to realize that if she included the reserve team, the team was evenly split between genders, with 7 girls and 7 boys on the team as a whole. If the positions were equally split by gender, they could have played girls versus boys, but all four Beaters and both Keepers were boys, with only one Chaser being a boy. Fay Dunbar was decent enough at playing Beater that Iliana could use her in a real emergency, but making her officially a reserve of a reserve was too paranoid, so it just remained an idle possibility.
“Alright, now that we're done, I want everyone on both the main team and the reserve team to stay behind, and everyone else to go away. Team, follow me,” Iliana said, leading them into the room that Wood had always used to talk with the team in private.
When they were all there, Iliana said, “Look, this is going to be difficult for everyone, because Wood was honestly a bit daft for not having any reserves, so even the veterans are going to have a hard time adjusting to training fourteen players all more or less at once.”
“We can manage, Iliana,” George said.
“Yeah, it'll be fine,” said Fred.
Iliana looked to the others. Everyone else seemed to agree.
“Yes, well, mainly this might be difficult on me in particular, having never done this before and going into it whole hog. By the way, I had an idea for setting someone up as a Deputy Captain just in case. Preferably somebody who can both manage the stress and who will be here next year, but if there's an absence of the latter, I'll be content with the former.
“The reason for this new Deputy Captain role is primarily to take some of the load off of me in my O.W.L. year, but an abundance of caution is another reason. Lots of crazy things have happened at Hogwarts the last few years, I'd rather have a system in place if the worst happens than let someone else scramble to pick up the pieces later.”
“Who are you going to pick for Deputy Captain?” Angelina asked.
“Dunno yet. But so far, Angelina, I'm inclined toward picking one of the veteran Chasers. So either Alicia, Angelina, or Katie. I'll think on it some more and come to a decision by next Saturday.”
“When's our first practice?” Ginny asked.
“Next Saturday. We're going to be doing practice every Saturday and Sunday; all day long on Saturdays, minus meals of course, and just mornings on Sundays. That's the new training schedule until further notice. I thought about having some on weekdays, but there's so many reasons not to that I'll only add to that if it isn't sufficient.
“Anyway, I expect you all here at 7 am next Saturday morning. And I do mean all of you. Understood?”
“Yes, Captain Potter!” came the reply.
“Good. Dismissed. Except for you two,” she said, pointing at the Weasley twins.
“Uh-oh George, first day of Quidditch and already we're in trouble,” Fred said.
Ignoring the twins at first, she waited for everyone to leave before putting up privacy spells in case someone – especially Ron – was trying to listen in.
“Oh boy,” George said when she put up the spells. “How deep in it are we, Iliana?”
“Not at all, yet. I only held you back because Ron is worried you two are going to make this difficult for him. I know he's not spectacular, but he's the best Keeper we have, and he'll be better without you two making fun of him. I expect both of you to treat all your teammates with equal respect, even the ones related to you. I want everyone to be comfortable with everyone else so we can work well as a team. And I know a thing or two about teamwork.”
The twins chuckled at her joke. She waited for them to stop, then continued on. “Anyway, so do try to be kind to all your teammates. But don't go overboard on it, we don't want anyone being suspicious of your motives if we can help it. I'll be keeping an eye on you two, and if I'm not satisfied with your level of respect, I won't hesitate to bench you. Understood?”
Swallowing audibly, the twins nodded. “Yes, Iliana. We'll be good, we promise,” George said.
“Is that only during practice, or all the time?” asked Fred.
“Well, since I can't police you all the time, just during practice. For now.”
“Understood, Captain Potter,” the twins said in stereo.
“Good. Now let's go have dinner while we still can.”
~
After dinner, Iliana went back to the dorms. When she opened the portrait of the Fat Lady, a wall of sound hit her. It was a party for all the people who had made Griffindor's Quidditch team, organized by the Weasley Twins. Ron came running over to her.
“Thanks for putting me on the team, Iliana!”
“You earned it, Ron,” she said, patting him on the back.
“Thanks. Have a Butterbeer.' Ron pressed a bottle on him. “I can't believe it —” where's Hermione gone?”
“She's there,” said Fred, who was also swigging Butterbeer, and pointed to an armchair by the fire. Hermione was dozing in it, her drink tipping precariously in her hand.
“Well, she said she was pleased when I told her,” said Ron, looking slightly put out.
“Let her sleep,” said George hastily. It was a few moments before Iliana noticed that several of the first-years gathered around them bore unmistakeable signs of recent nosebleeds. Iliana looked around covertly and found Neville, pointing this out to him.
“Come here, Ron, and see if Oliver's old robes fit you,” called Katie Bell, 'we can take off his name and put yours on instead.”
As Ron moved away, Angelina came striding up to Iliana. “Captain Potter?”
“Yes, Deputy Captain Johnson?”
“Speaking as your deputy captain, well... I know you and Ron are good friends, but he's... not great. Better than the others, of course, but not great.”
“Yeah, confidence issues. He's had a lot to live up to over the years. We'll iron the kinks out in training. Anyway, part of the problem is the twins, but I already spoke to them about easing up on Ron and treating the rest of their teammates with respect as well. It's not a bad lesson to drive home to everyone else, either, now I think on it.”
“Right,” Angelina said. “Well, glad to know you've got things covered.”
She nodded, and Angelina strolled back to Alicia Spinnet. Iliana moved over to sit next to Hermione, who awoke with a jerk as she sat next to Hermione.
“Oh, Iliana, it's you . . . good about Ron, isn't it?” she said blearily. “I'm just so — so — so tired,” she yawned. “I was up til midnight writing a letter to Viktor.”
“Must've been a long letter,” Iliana quipped.
“Yes, it was.”
Iliana sighed. “Well I'm kinda tired too. I know they probably all expect me to join in the festivities, but today was difficult if fun, and tomorrow is Monday. So I'm off to bed. Tell Ron and Neville for me, would you?”
“Oh no,” said Hermione, looking relieved, “if you're going that means I can go too, without being rude. I'm absolutely exhausted.”
“Well good night, Hermione.”
“Good night, Iliana.”
With that, the two went off to their respective dorms for the night.
~
They woke up the next morning bright and early, dreading the day ahead. Given what class they had first, they let Chandra have the reins. He was soon down at breakfast, but called Dobby to let him know he wanted vegetarian meals today. While he ate, Hedwig dropped off a note for him from Sirius.
Dear pup,
If you haven't gotten more detentions by then, meet me in my teacher's quarters for a private dinner, just the two of us, so we can discuss your first week some more, if you want. Go to the west wing of the fifth-floor corridor and look for portraits of famous witches and wizards in the fields that Hogwarts teaches. Mine is behind the portrait of Godric Griffindor! The password is “Snivelus.”
Love you, pup!
---Sirius
Chandra wrote a quick note on a conjured piece of parchment saying “I would be thrilled to come visit you, Sirius. But please change the password to something else, it is not nice to make fun of Professor Snape. - Chandra.” He then sent it back with Hedwig, and went about having breakfast.
After breakfast, Chandra walked with Ron and Hermione to History of Magic. Ron was looking at Chandra and smirking while trying to keep from laughing, while Hermione was looking concerned. Given their emotions, he figured they assumed Chandra wouldn't be able to handle getting through this class without more detentions. ~Oh ye of little faith,~ he thought.
They got to class, and once more Umbridge was already waiting at her desk for them to join her. Again she looked like a large toad. Chandra wondered if, like Voldemort, she had done some kind of dark ritual that had mutated her appearance.
“Well, good afternoon!” she said when finally the whole class had sat down.
Knowing from the last time what was expected, they all echoed back, “Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge.”
“Excellent. Glad to see such fast learners in my class. Wands away and quills out, please.”
Nobody had bothered to get out their wands, but there was a bit of activity as people got out quills and parchment. Umbridge got up and used her wand to put words on the board. She was continuing her very biased history lesson, which made it sound like werewolves were horrible people. Chandra decided to consider it a look into the psychology of a racist instead of as facts, a point of view that made it a lot easier to detach himself from the content and write without feeling the need to respond.
When she was done with that, she told them to get their new history textbooks out and read chapter two. (They'd read chapter one last time after she returned from McGonagall's office.)
“There will be no need to talk,” Umbridge reminded them all.
Still smiling her wide, self-satisfied smile, she sat down at her desk. The class gave an audible sigh as it turned, as one, to page nineteen. Chandra wondered dully whether there were enough chapters in the book to keep them reading through all this years lessons and was on the point of checking the contents page when he noticed that Hermione had her hand in the air again.
Professor Umbridge had noticed, too, and what was more, she seemed to have worked out a strategy for just such an eventuality. Instead of trying to pretend she had not noticed Hermione she got to her feet and walked around the front row of desks until they were face to face, then she bent down and whispered, so that the rest of the class could not hear, “What is it this time, Miss Granger?”
“I've already read Chapter Two,” said Hermione.
“Well then, proceed to Chapter Three.”
“I've read that too. I've read the whole book.”
Professor Umbridge blinked but recovered her poise almost instantly.
“Well then, you should be able to tell me what Ms. Troozerfyr says about about Grindelwald's war in chapter 16.”
“She says that Grindelwald was a terrorist whose ideas were based not in good ideas about blood purity, but that he was instead very anti-establishment and targeted the pureblood elite of the continent. She goes on to say that without the pureblood elites to rule the continent, the countries there have become steeped in decadence and flooded by 'ridiculous Muggle ideas' like modernizing magic with magical versions of Muggle devices like light bulbs, labor rights, laws against house elf abuse, books written with indexes and tables of contents as well as fact-checking books before publishing, finding ways to magic-proof Muggle appliances like televisions, and legalizing same-sex marriage.”
Professor Umbridge raised her eyebrows and Chandra knew she was impressed, against her will.
“But I disagree,” Hermione continued.
Professor Umbridge's eyebrows rose a little higher and her gaze became distinctly colder.
“You disagree?” she repeated.
“Yes, I do,” said Hermione, who, unlike Umbridge, was not whispering, but speaking in a clear, carrying voice that had by now attracted the attention of the rest of the class. “Ms. Troozerfyr sounds like one of the Death Eaters, opposed to Muggles and Muggle-borns on principle. All those 'Muggle ideas' she looks down on all sound to me like great ideas.”
“Oh, you do, do you?” said Professor Umbridge, forgetting to whisper and straightening up. “Well, I'm afraid it is Ms. Troozerfyr's opinion, and not yours, that matters within this classroom, Miss Granger.”
“But —” Hermione began.
“That is enough,” said Professor Umbridge. She walked back to the front of the class and stood before them, all the jauntiness she had shown at the beginning of the lesson gone. “Miss Granger, I am going to take five points from Gryffindor house.”
There was an outbreak of muttering at this.
“What for?” Ron asked angrily.
“For disrupting my class with pointless interruptions,” said Professor Umbridge smoothly. “I am here to teach you using a Ministry-approved method that does not include inviting students to give their opinions on matters about which they understand very little. Your previous teachers in this subject may have allowed you more licence, but as neither of them — with the possible exception of Professor Binns, who did at least appear to have restricted himself to age-appropriate subjects — would have passed a Ministry inspection.”
Hermione glanced over at Chandra, who said nothing. Even Umbridge looked at him, like she was disappointed he hadn't had an outburst in Lupin's defense. But he just sat there, looking politely attentive.
Emboldened by his lack of response, or perhaps just trying to goad him, Umbridge spoke again.
“History is about facts, not opinions. As such, there is no need at all for students to be speaking in my class, unless I have called on them after they have raised their hand, of course.”
Dean raised his hand at once. So did several other people.
“Mr. Finnegan?” she said, calling on Seamus after ignoring Dean.
“Well ma'am, I'm no expert, but even I know history isn't about facts. It's about points of view. Like the history between Muggle Britain and Muggle Ireland, which affected us Irish witches too. For a long time, the history there was written by the Brits, and painted the Irish as barbarians who were uplifted to civilization by the Brits for our own good. But we Irish say the Brits came in and robbed us blind, nearly wiped out our whole culture, and killed thousands of people either outright or by ignoring us when we were stricken by famines. So history is, well, stories. There's multiple points of view on the same issues, but sounds to me like this book--” he held up their history book “--is one-sided, told by someone on You-Know-Who's side, like Hermione said.”
Looking condescendingly at Seamus, she said, “You are mistaken, Mr. Finnegan. Ms. Troozerfyr was not on the side of the Death Eaters. The Death Eaters were an extremist group. No matter how many good ideas they may have had, they went way too far with wanton violence, seeking to overthrow the rightful government. They may have had a point that the government of the time was leaning towards adopting the ridiculous Muggle ideas mentioned in the textbook, but that does not excuse their law-breaking, murdering, and cruelty. A great many respectable members of pure-blooded society died tragically in that conflict, or worse.” Here, she glanced at Neville. “But now that group's leader has been dead for over a decade, and all its members have been rounded up and put in Azkaban. The Death Eaters no longer exist.”
Chandra felt a great surge of rage building inside him, coming from Alastair. He closed his eyes and silently appealed to Hypatia and Mother to prevent Al from doing anything. But the rage built, until things around the room began to rattle. Umbridge looked from the rattling items to Chandra. He still had his eyes closed, but he could feel this all the same. He also felt her approaching him from her position up front.
“Mr. Potter, we are having class right now. You may have felt like you could sleep through Professor Binns's classes, but I will not tolerate it in mine.”
He opened his eyes, struggling to talk without letting Al's rage shine through.
“I was not sleeping. I was...” he trailed off.
“Yes? Do go on.”
“I was meditating, in order to keep from being disruptive, Professor Umbridge.”
She grinned maliciously at him. “I see. Is that why things were shaking around the room? You are trying to contain your temper?”
“It would be more accurate to say I am attempting to contain Alastair's temper, Professor Umbridge.”
“Five points from Gryffindor, Mr. Potter, for talking about imaginary people.”
(I'll show you imaginary, you walking sack of cat vomit and crushed horse testicles,) Al thought so loudly in their head that Chandra had to clench the desk with white knuckles to keep it from escaping his lips.
When he didn't respond, she looked disappointed again. She was talking again, but Chandra couldn't follow what she was saying, he was too busy trying to repress images from Al of Umbridge turned inside out with magic, or eaten alive by a pack of wild dogs, or both at once. At these thoughts, Chandra noticed the temperature in the room drop low enough to make some other people in the room shiver. He looked at his hands, and saw frost forming around them.
Umbridge watched him, seeming to weigh whether or not his accidental magic was enough to warrant giving him a detention again. Then she smiled and went back to talking. She might have called on someone else, but everyone was glancing nervously at Chandra and not speaking.
“Of course, I understand why everyone is still afraid after all this time. The Death Eaters were a very dangerous group, and there are a great many lies spread by anti-establishment dissidents seeking to defame upstanding members of society by making unfounded accusations against them. So it is because of these lies that fear continues to fester, for no good reason. But what can we expect from mindless beasts like the dangerous former Professor Lupin?”
The rage inside them had spiked – coming from Adira this time – at the “upstanding citizens/unfounded accusations” sentence, forcing Chandra to try harder to contain it.
“Professor Lupin was the best teacher we've ever had in this class!” Dean Thomas shouted.
“I did not see your hand, Mr. Thomas!”
Ron raised his hand, and she called on him. Ron then repeated what Dean had said.
“Mr. Lupin should never have been allowed into this building for even a minute, neither as a teacher nor as a student. I do not find it to be a coincidence that one of his best friends became a Death Eater, and another of his friends tried to murder that man and went to Azkaban until he was found to be innocent, and the truth of Mr. Pettigrew came out. But as I say, it is not likely a coincidence. People with animals inside of them are dangerous beasts who need to be put down for society's own good.”
At this, Tier joined Al's anger, and now Chandra had to suppress the urge to growl and make his eyes glow red. Even putting all his effort into controlling himself, Chandra felt parts of the skin of his arm turn scaly.
Thinking fast, Chandra appealed to Hypatia, and they suddenly fell deaf and mute. Umbridge kept talking, but since they had no idea what she was saying now, it wasn't adding any fuel to the fire. Chandra filled their inner space with the prophecy about Umbridge's influence waning on endless repeat, and Iliana added images of Luna to the mix. Slowly, the rage that had been boiling over simmered down, the pressure going down bit by bit.
They didn't know how long it was before Umbridge noticed that they weren't responding at all, but eventually she noticed they were calming down, which was disappointing her. She walked over to them and spoke, but as they were still deaf and mute, they had no idea what was being said. Chandra settled for looking curiously at her and miming that he'd gone deaf and mute.
She was getting angry now, so Hypatia turned their hearing back on. But they were still mute.
“---to pay attention in class, Mr. Potter!”
'Sorry,' he signed in British wizarding sign language, 'I have gone mute.'
“Stop this meaningless gesticulation at once and answer me!”
“Professor,” Hermione said, “one of them is mute and speaks in sign language. I don't know it myself, but he has a device that translates it into speech. Or he did. Tier, do you still have that device?”
Chandra nodded.
“Miss Granger, I know for a fact Mr. Potter can speak. He is choosing not to. He is playing imaginary games and disrupting class!”
“Professor,” Hermione responded, “there are legitimate mental conditions that cause people with the condition to go temporarily mute. Setting aside for now the legitimacy of Multiple Personality Disorder, it's entirely possible he has one of those conditions and legitimately can't speak right now. This can be resolved if you let him use the translator device.”
Umbridge looked at Hermione angrily. If Chandra had to guess, she was angry that Hermione had undercut any excuse she might have had to give him more detentions.
“Fine, if it is on your person, you may get it.”
He got into their bag and hunted for the device, which they kept around in case of emergency. Soon they had it pulled out and set up.
'I said Sorry, I have gone mute, Professor,' he signed. The device translated it into speech for him.
“Yes, we've figured that out by now. But you weren't paying attention, either, Mr. Potter.”
'Sorry,' he signed again. 'I was trying to calm myself, and wasn't paying attention. It won't happen again.'
It wasn't even a lie; Hypatia had gotten Mother's help putting the others into an artificial sleep. Chandra's emotions were solely his own at the moment.
“Be that as it may, ten points from Gryffindor for not paying attention, Mr. Potter.”
The rest of the class went fairly smoothly, as Chandra had no more problems with his temper after that, no matter how incendiary she tried to be. Guessing that Al and Tier might blow the roof off the room when they awoke to review the collective memory again, he decided to keep those two from waking up for the rest of the day.
As such, the rest of the day went pretty well, despite having Potions after History. Iliana stayed behind after Potions to ask Professor Snape about the lessons they'd been having together. Once finding out she had managed to avoid more detentions (barely), he told her that their next one would be Friday after dinner, and if anyone asked, it was a detention.
After double Ancient Runes, Iliana went to the west wing of the fifth-floor corridor and looked for portraits of famous witches and wizards. She saw a bunch if names she was only partly familiar with, more she didn't recognize at all, but finally she found Godric Gryffindor. He was tall and had red hair and beard.
The portrait spoke to her, and she didn't even recognize the language.
“Sorry, what?”
It repeated itself.
“Sorry, I don't know that language. But uh, the password is 'Snivellus.'”
Godric said something else in that unknown language, but opened up. She went inside into a short corridor, closed the portrait behind her, and walked down the short corridor to a second door. She knocked on that.
“Who is it?” Sirius asked through the closed door.
“Iliana,” she said.
“It's unlocked!”
She turned the knob and opened the door, stepping in. The room – some sort of living room – was spacious and yet not too much so, and of course was largely decorated in Gryffindor colors of red and gold. Sirius was sitting in a very comfortable looking black leather chair that didn't match the rest of the décor. He had himself and the chair facing the door, and he was grinning at her. She closed the door behind her.
“So you didn't get any more detentions, pup?”
“From Umbridge? No. But it was a close one. Al and Tier both nearly lost their tempers.”
“How bad?”
She told the whole story to him, including parts Chandra hadn't been aware of himself while Hypatia had been the only one listening, because she hated not knowing things she was there for. Hypatia had even kept the parts they'd missed while they were deaf, because of course she hadn't been deaf herself, but had kept what she'd heard from Chandra until now.
Not surprising her at all, Sirius was angry about what Umbridge was saying about both them and Remus, and to a lesser degree about the Death Eaters. Still, his anger was nowhere near Al's or Tier's.
“So how come they didn't destroy the school or kill Umbitch?” Sirius asked.
“Hypatia and Mother made them sleep. They're still asleep. I thought I'd keep them that way at least until our private dinner was over. Anyway, if it's all the same to you, I'll let Addy come forward instead of me.”
Not waiting for a response from him, they switched places, and Adira stood there where Iliana had been.
“Hi there, Addy. Not that I'm complaining, but why did Iliana scarper?”
“Oh, that. She uh... well she considers me the 'original.' They all do, I think. Yeah, even Hypatia, I can feel that. Anyway, what it means to most of them is that I'm the one who gets priority access to the body, since I was here first. I'm not complaining, but honestly... I can't remember being without Iliana or Al. The others are newer to me, but I'm pretty sure Iliana and Alastair have always been there with me. My earliest memory includes thoughts that, in retrospect, were from those two.”
“So what's your earliest memory, pup? You can tell me while we go to the dining room together.”
“Okay,” she said, following Sirius into a nearby room with a dining table built for probably 10 people, and sitting down across from Sirius.
Dobby appeared, dressed in his previous absurd mix of mis-matched clothes. He was carrying a covered tray into the room and set it down in front of them.
“Hi Dobby, what's for dinner?”
“Hello Miss Adira Potter! Dobby has got several things for Sir and Miss to choose from. This is being pizza,” he said, lifting the cover off the tray and exposing a delicious looking pepperoni pizza. “And soon Dobby will be bringing in some chicken tandoori. Dobby is learning all sorts of new recipes thanks to Mr. Sirius Black, Miss!”
“That sounds amazing, Dobby, thank you.”
Dobby giggled at the praise, and skipped off to fetch the chicken tandoori.
“So you were saying about your earliest memory? Unless you'd rather not. I know those relatives of yours weren't very nice.”
“It's not too bad. Mostly they didn't feed me enough, and were emotionally abusive and neglectful. It could've been a whole lot worse.”
“Sorry to hear that. Wish I could've been there for you.”
“The past is the past. Anyway, my earliest conscious memory – not counting memories dredged up from my subconscious by Dementor exposure – was of Vernon yelling at me about something again. I was six. I don't remember what he was yelling about specifically, but I remember the voice I now know of as Iliana having a silent argument with the proto-Alastair about what to do about the situation. Iliana just wanted to weather the storm patiently and apologize for whatever I'd supposedly done, but Al was adamant we run away from home and tell the authorities. Iliana won that argument, though; there wasn't enough evidence at that point to trust that the authorities would be able to help me. And later, when there was enough evidence, we...”
“Yes?”
“Well, by then we'd learned that adults either didn't want to know these things, or couldn't help even though they tried, or else didn't believe that such 'fine, upstanding citizens' as the Dursleys could be capable of such things.”
She clutched the table, and things around the room began to rattle. Sirius looked up in alarm at this, and Dobby – who had just come in from the kitchen – was looking nervous as well. Adira forced herself to calm down with her occlumency.
“Sorry about that, Dobby, Sirius. But 'defaming upstanding citizens with unfounded accusations' is something someone told me when I was eight, nearly word for word, after I had tried for the umpteenth time to report the Dursleys for child neglect and emotional abuse. It's a bit of a sore spot for me.”
Dobby set the container of chicken tandoori down and took the lid off. Since Sirius didn't look capable of speaking yet, Dobby spoke instead.
“You is not needing to apologize to Dobby, Miss. Dobby understands. Dobby is wishing he could have helped you, Miss, but he is not knowing back then where you is being kept, nor what is going on.”
“Well said, Dobby,” Sirius said. The elf blushed at the praise.
“Thank you for cooking, Dobby. It looks amazing.”
Dobby giggled again at the praise and bowed, leaving the room. Addy scooped some of the tandoori onto her dish, took a slice of pizza and set it on another plate, and started to eat the tandoori.
“Pizza and Indian food in one meal; kind of an odd mix, but I like it,” Addy said.
“Yeah, and if you save your crusts, you can use them to mop up the extra sauce from the tandoori. I've been eating a lot of both since my release,” Sirius said. “Finding someone to teach Dobby how to make them has saved me a lot of trips into London.”
After they'd been eating for several minutes, Adira thinking quietly most of that time, Sirius asked her, “Knut for your thoughts?”
She set her pizza down. “It's just that I'm a little afraid to wake up Tier and Al now. When they review our memories and find out all of what Umbitch said, they're going to... I don't know what, but last time Al was this angry, McGonagall confronted him for shaking the whole building, and he had to be put to sleep for a while.”
“Well, you can't keep them locked up forever. And you shouldn't keep them too long, or they'll just be even angrier for being locked up so long.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Er... if you don't mind saying, what was Al angry enough about to shake the whole building?”
Adira's face flushed. “Oh, uh... I'd rather not say.”
“Addy,” he said in a slightly stern but also understanding tone.
She sighed. “Fine. It was after we overheard the popular misconception about how and why you'd ended up in Azkaban. Al was angry enough he'd probably have killed you if you'd suddenly appeared at that point.”
“Oh. Well, I'm glad it all turned out for the best. Maybe this Umbridge situation will, too.”
They continued to talk about the first week back while eating, and Adira told him about the tryouts and who Iliana had chosen for the team. By the time dinner was done and Dobby was starting to clean up, Al and Tier had surfaced again. They were annoyed and angry at Umbridge, but much calmer about it, only shaking the room once before she left for Gryffindor tower.
“By the way,” she said before leaving, “do you know what language Godric Gryffindor's portrait speaks? I don't recognize the language.”
Sirius shrugged. “I think it might be some Anglo or Saxon language. Not sure. I don't really know, that's just a guess.”
“Right. Makes sense.”
~
Later that night, as Adira, Hermione, Ron, and Neville were working on their homework more or less together, a familiar owl landed in the window. It turned out to be from Percy, and was for Adira.
“What's perfect Percy writing to you for?” Ron asked derisively.
“No idea,” she said, opening the letter and reading it.
Adira Potter,
I have heard that you are still hanging out with my brother Ronald. A most alarming thing to hear about, I assure you. My brother has made a mistake siding with you and Dumbledore on this, it will be the end of his career before it's even begun. On no account are you to continue being friends with him, do you understand me? Now I know we've got on well in the past, you've taken my side on things, but I cannot abide trouble-makers. You are one such trouble maker, so I am officially cutting ties with you. Our friendship is over, for you are a disruptive influence. Under no condition are you to continue to associate with my brother or sister. Ronald especially, but also Ginny; the twins are trouble-makers enough as is, so I won't try to stop you being friends with them. Still, keep away from the rest of my siblings. I have worked too hard to have you ruin this for me now. Don't bother responding, I won't be answering. Even if you beg, I still will not answer.
With that said, please turn this letter over to Ron, so I can speak to him. Oh Ronald, Ronald, Ronald. Ronald, what do I say? Knowing you as I do, I doubt I can convince you to keep away from Potter, but for the sake of your career, I beg you to stay away from them. I know they can be very scary and violent when riled, so I understand if you're feeling too scared to abandon them, but you really must. Now that I'm with the Ministry, I can help you get away if you need help with that. Goodness forbid if you were hurt by associating with them, Ron. With the things about to happen at Hogwarts, even moreso. I think you'll find it easier to leave Potter's side safely in the coming weeks, if all goes as planned. The Minister and Professor Umbridge have a plan that is now coming to fruition, read the Daily Prophet tomorrow at breakfast to see what I mean. Hard work of months has gone into making this possible, and it will be glorious. Heh, I almost wish I was there to see it myself, but of course I have my duties at the Ministry that are very important. Ever since last June, I have been working at Junior Undersecretary to the Minister, which has become a much more important role since Professor Umbridge has stepped down from her Undersecretary position to become a professor at Hogwarts. At Hogwarts, with her imminent new position there, she will be able to tell the Minister exactly what is going on at Hogwarts. Dumbledore will not be able to keep secrets from the Ministry. Mark my words, Ronald, times are about to change, and for your own good you should change with them and spill any secrets about Potter to Professor Umbridge that you are aware of. All will become clear tomorrow. So think very carefully about which side of history you want to be on. Tomorrow, it begins. Everything changes then, for the better in my humble opinion. Ron, keep that in mind, and remember that I love you, even if our parents are on the wrong side of this battle.
Doubtless you may be tempted to tell me to mind my own business. Only time will tell whether you tell me to shove it or pick the winning side, the side of the Ministry. Nice people like Professor Umbridge are in place to make choosing the Ministry even easier. Tell her if you need any help with Potter. Tell her anything you know about them; weaknesses, their nefarious plans, if you see them going anywhere unusual. Et cetra. Like I would, in your place. Like any patriotic citizen should. Make the right choice, Ron, and pick the Ministry. You could, alternately, keep your head down and not make matters any worse. Fred and George may choose to side with Potter and Dumbledore too, so if you see them up to any funny business, you should tell on them at onec. At once, you understand? Mother would want you to anyway, you know how those two are. I have no doubt they'd make trouble just for trouble's sake just as easily. Likely you know that already. You don't know where their loyalties are, though.
Now that I've said my piece, I can soon end this letter. Obey the Ministry, Ron. Trust Professor Umbridge. You'll be glad you did, in the end. Eventually, you'll see I'm right. Trust me on this.
With love;
Percy
Adira handed the letter to Ron and watched him read it. His face got redder and redder the more he read of it. Finally, he slammed the letter down on the table.
“If you want to end your association with me, Ron,” Adira said, trying to sound like the letter was a joke, “I swear I won't get violent.”
“He is — ” Ron said jerkily, tearing Percy's letter in half “the world's — ” he tore it into quarters “biggest — ” he tore it into eighths “git.” He threw the pieces into the fire.
“Come on, we've got to get this finished,” he said briskly to Adira, pulling his Potions homework back toward himself.
Hermione was looking at Ron with an odd expression on her face. But she soon shrugged and went back to work herself. Neville, for his part, hadn't read the letter at all and was very confused.
Adira tried working on her homework too, but Percy's letter on top of everything else made that difficult. Al's anger had cooked down to a sort of concentrated loathing for Umbridge, and Tier was feeling much the same. But something about the letter was niggling at her. She was familiar with how Percy wrote, and something felt off about that one. Off in a familiar way, no less. But she couldn't put her finger on it.
Finally, she gave up and went upstairs to her room on the excuse she was going to bed. Once there, she used Hypatia's perfect recall to re-write the entire letter, spending an hour and a half staring at it, trying to figure out what was weird about it.
[The cadence is wrong. It sounds believable as something someone would write, except for a few oddities here and there,] came Hypatia's analysis.
'Oh?' she thought.
[Yes. Like here, he capitalized Et cetra and made it its own sentence. Who does that?]
'Yeah, especially if they're sticklers for rules like Percy. He'd be a stickler for grammar rules, too.'
[Exactly. Hmm... but no, that's absurd,] Hypatia thought-spoke to them in response to some private thought of hers. [Simply absurd it could work. Could it really be that simple?]
Hypatia grabbed control of their right arm and started circling the first letters in each sentence. Then she wrote each letter down at the bottom of the parchment. Soon, they had a message: I AM ON YOUR SIDE. WORKING WITH HEADMASTER. DON'T TELL MY FAMILY. NOT YET.
“Wow,” Adira said aloud.
She had no idea what to say or do in response to this. All she knew for sure was she wanted more information, because she had so very many questions. Foremost on the list was 'Why keep this a secret from his family?' Then she pictured how the Weasleys would react if they knew Percy was faking being a gigantic git, and answered her own question. So next up was 'Why tell me he's on my side?' Then 'Surely this message didn't get past the Ministry? Surely nobody at the Ministry is THAT stupid?' Then she realized it had taken her over an hour to see the pattern herself, and wouldn't have even gotten the message at all after Ron hadn't torn it apart, if it hadn't been for Hypatia's perfect memory. Possibly Percy thought Ron wouldn't tear up a letter addressed to her. Which, come to think of it, she'd have to chastise him about that later.
But what to do with this information? She saw the value in not telling the Weasleys. Why had he told her, though? Sure, it wouldn't really change how she acted, but how was Percy to know that? Also, had there been more secret messages there? She scanned the rest of the letter for another hour, but didn't find anything. Still, that didn't rule out a message only she could activate, which would be gone now to the flames. If he'd had anything else to say at all, of course; she had no reason to think he had, aside from the fact that he hadn't been very forthcoming with information.
She considered writing back, but the letter had been adamant she not do that. Of course, it had said a lot of things she was certain were false, like the constant repeated calls to Ron to sell her out or stop associating with her. So she couldn't assume the part about writing back was serious. Maybe she should write an angry letter back? Yes, that seemed the sort of thing the Ministry would expect her to do, if they'd read the letter but somehow missed the secret message.
So what to say in her response? Did she need to say anything at all? Well, she certainly wanted to tell him he was a bit of an idiot for assuming Ron wouldn't destroy the letter. Shouldn't have told her to hand Ron the letter to read, the berk. Percy seriously needed some lessons in secrets and lies.
Hypatia led her to their trunk, where she dug out a book about ways to send secret messages to people using magic. She skimmed through it, looking for useful things that the Ministry might not check for. Then when that ran dry, she had Hypatia think of something. Putting her unusually bright mind to the task, Hypatia soon had a brand new way of sending a message to Percy, something she knew would get past the Ministry's secrecy sensors. She chuckled at how clever it was. First burning the copy of Percy's letter she didn't need, she and Hypatia set to work.
~
Percy Weasley had just gotten to sleep for the night when he heard a tapping on his window, waking him up. He sat up and looked at the window, seeing the snowy white Hedwig perched on his windowsill, waiting for him with a letter around her leg. He got up and opened the window for her, removing her letter and giving her some owl treats before reading the letter. Percy also tried to coax Hedwig out of the window, but she refused with a squawk, so he let her stay for now.
The letter was, on first glance, a scathing and rage-filled admonition that certainly lived up to the “Potter is crazy and violent” image, but which Percy saw through at once. He circled the letters of the first sentences, which at first didn't seem to spell anything. But then he noticed it was backwards, so he reversed the order of the letters and soon had the message: WHEN ALONE, CAST PWRFUL FINITE ON LETTER.
It was... a strange request. But he did as it said.
“Finite!”
Nothing happened, so Percy ramped up the power, and tried again. Still nothing. Trying one last time, something finally happened. The ink of the angry letter vanished, apparently having been conjured. The parchment also turned into Muggle notebook paper; apparently, it had been transfigured. And now he had another message written in pencil on it, plain as day: “You are an idiot.” Beneath that was a slew of maths. These maths were upside down and at an angle in relation to the rest of the message. Most people would assume she'd torn a page out of an old maths homework notebook to write the message for him. In fact... the maths were far more advanced than even seventh-year Arithmancy would have in it.
But it was more clever than that, even. The maths were far more complex than they appeared to be. Hard enough to be difficult for most wizards or witches to solve them, but simple enough to be dismissed as some odd sort of Muggle maths. Suspecting this was the true message, he worked out the equation over the next 30 minutes.
The answer he got from solving the equation was confusing at first. It was a spell analysis. To most people good enough at maths to solve the equation, that's where they'd stop, convinced that it was just a page torn from Arithmancy work for school or self-study. He was confused and impressed; he hadn't known that the Potters were even in Arithmancy, nor that they were this good at it. But then, he didn't know much about their classes.
He might have given up too, if it hadn't been for the fact that they'd cast such a powerful transfiguration on this paper that, knowing them, they wouldn't waste that kind of effort just to tell him he was an idiot. So he studied the spell analysis in more detail, working out from the information present what spell it was. He soon discovered it was an entirely new spell, which he knew because this spell had some specifics to it that were basically a signature. Adira had somehow managed to create a wand spell with a silent incantation that only he, Percy, would be able to cast. Further, he could only cast it on Hedwig.
Percy sat there, stunned. Then he checked his work, comparing it to his Arithmancy books. Then he checked a third time, just to be sure. There was no doubt; for the purposes of sending him a message, Adira (or someone else in her collective) had invented an entirely new branch of wand spells, one that used knowledge of someone's wand core, wand wood, and magical signature to make it so only he, with his wand, could cast this spell. And, because the spell factored in Hedwig's own magical signature, the spell could only be cast on Hedwig.
Which was simply flabbergasting! There was no way someone could have previously invented a type of spells that only one specific person would be able to cast, much less which could only be cast on one specific other being, without it having been huge news, and a major part of the N.E.W.T. curriculum for Arithmancy. If Adira published this, she could be world-famous for something much more important than surviving a Killing Curse. If this worked the way he thought it would, it was an even more secure form of communication than using messenger Patronuses. Of course, the downside was that she'd have to come up with an entirely different one to send a different message, and he wouldn't be able to send a message back the same way, because he didn't have the Arithmancy skills to do that. He doubted he ever would.
Curious to see if it actually worked, he practiced the wand movement for a few minutes before turning to Hedwig.
“I'm not sure if this will work, but I expect she told you something about it, Hedwig.”
Hedwig nodded, a strangely human gesture for a bird.
“Alright then.”
He held up his wand, did the wand movements, and cast the silent spell on Hedwig. It was a good thing it was a silent spell; the incantation for it would have been a tongue-twister if he'd had to say it aloud.
Immediately, Hedwig began to glow with an aura of blue light. The light created a magical shield around the two of them, which cut off all sounds from the London traffic outside his window. Their privacy secured, Adira's voice issued from Hedwig's body as the owl stared impassively at him.
“Percy, you idiot! The Ministry might have seen that message! Though I'll admit I almost didn't see it myself. Ron destroyed it before I saw the message. It was just your luck I made a copy, and figured it out later. Anyway, I have so many questions, but that will have to wait. This method of---”
The message cut off mid-sentence, and shortly after that, the glow vanished and the spell was broken.
Percy tried the spell again in case something had gone wrong on his end, but no, it appeared the message had cut off on her end. Well, of course a spell that amazing had to have some kind of drawback, aside from the fact that the spell was well beyond N.E.W.T. level, a fact that restricted its use. He thought Dumbledore or You-Know-Who could probably create spells like it if they knew how. But his own Arithmancy skills, he thought, were likely not up to that task.
“Wow, Adira. You're going to ace the O.W.L.'s and N.E.W.T.'s in Arithmancy for sure!”
He wrote out a quick note back to her, one which used her own backwards-ordered message trick from the initial letter to spell out “I HAVE QUESTIONS FOR YOU TOO.” It was short and to the point, indicating they needed to talk sometime, while also telling her he'd got the real message without giving away the secret.
It took Percy another hour to get to sleep that night, his mind was racing so much. Just... so many questions!
Endnotes: Just to clarify, it's my head-canon that in canon as well as this fic, that Umbridge put a compulsion charm on the blood quill. It was weird enough that it got used on Harry without Harry mentioning it to any adults, his friends only finding out by seeing the cuts on his hand. To think Dean Thomas (among possible others) also went through that as well without telling McGonagall or another trusted adult just beggars the imagination. So magic has to be the reason for it.
Despite Fay Dunbar having the same first name as me, I chose her for a reserve Chaser not because of that, but because there weren't many other canonical options, and she has the interest according to her wiki page.
The idea for where the teachers' quarters are (the portraits, not the exact location) I give full credit to The White Squirrel at FanFiction dot net for thinking of, in their fanfic story “The Arithmancer” and the sequel, “Lady Archimedes.” It's a great series, centers around Hermione in an AU where she's a maths prodigy, it's amazing!
It wasn't said before, but I've decided that the new history of magic textbook was written by a woman named Lyre Troozerfyr.
One last one: Updates might be fewer and farther between than usual. Summer means heat, and heat makes me useless, makes my brain go all slow and melty.
“The Many Faces Go To War: Chapter 7”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Seven: Mahala Kalisha Kadu
Notes: Started putting dates on these chapters where possible, it helps me keep track of where I am in the story. (Something I figured out when writing my original fiction.) Dates are provided by HP Lexicon's Order of the Phoenix calendar.
FORMATTING FOR INTERNAL VOICES = Because the previous note about the styles was messing with the formatting, the following will be formatting for internal voices: 'Single quotes with no italics' will be Adira/Addy unless someone is quoting something, ~Text in tildes~ will be Chandra, (Parentheses for Al,) [Brackets will be Hypatia], % Percentage symbols for Iliana %, # Pound signs for Mother/Avani, # * Asterisks for Zoey, * and {curly brackets for Tier.} Apologies for any confusion this may cause.
Text in 'Italics and single quotes' is Parseltongue.
J. K. Rowling owns this sandbox, I'm only playing in it.
This chapter may contain some quotations from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and definitely has some quotes from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
This chapter ends on a bit of a down note, but the next chapter gets much better and funnier.
One last note: Don't skip the Prophet article in this chapter, it's not quite the same as canon. * Smirk *
*FAYANORA*
September 10th, 1995
The next day went much more smoothly with no Umbridge classes and no detentions this week, so far. Adira spent most of the day Out, though Iliana spent a few hours after curfew drawing up a Quidditch practice schedule. For the first hour, she went around the common room and even into the dorms to find all the players and reserve players to get as much information as she could about their weekly schedules. When she sat down to make the schedule, the bulk of their practice time would be on weekends, but there were a couple weekday practices as well.
She was still in the middle of this task when Dobby appeared with a CRACK, and she jumped enough that the quill went wildly over the parchment, ink making a mess of it. Several other people jumped and shouted in alarm as well.
“Dobby, don't DO that! If you're going to appear when I haven't called you, please pop quietly and several feet away so it doesn't startle me.”
“Sorry, Miss Iliana Potter, Miss. But Dobby is having a message and instructions from Dumbledore, Miss.”
“You're forgiven, as long as you're quiet in the future, okay Dobby?” He nodded, so she continued, “What does Dumbledore want, Dobby?”
Dobby handed her a note in Dumbledore's handwriting that said she was wanted in his office for an introduction to be made. And since it was after curfew, and he wanted to keep this meeting secret from Umbridge, Dobby was here to ferry her to his office.
She held up a finger to tell him to wait. He waited as she used her wand to fix the mistake his sudden appearance had caused, and finish drying it and putting it away. Then she grabbed her things and motioned him to follow her with a nod of her head. He followed her up into her room and watched her put her things away. Then she closed the door with her wand.
“Okay, Dobby, we can go now. But please try to do it quietly. Dumbledore wants this meeting to be a secret.”
There was a knock on the door.
“Who is it?”
“It's me,” Ron said. “Can I come in?”
“Sure.”
Ron came in, closing the door behind him. He stared a moment at Dobby, then looked at her questioningly. She handed him the note, which he read.
“Oh. Well that saves me asking what that was all about. I'll tell Hermione if I can do it quietly enough.”
“Thanks, Ron.”
Iliana took Dobby's hand and a couple seconds later felt like she was being squeezed through a very tight rubber tube, until she popped out with a relieved breath. She wobbled on her feet and pitched forward, looking like she was about to puke, but she managed to keep herself from doing so with concentration. She really hated puking; they all did.
“Ah, Miss Potter, glad to see you didn't have to make use of the bucket after all,” Dumbledore said. Only when he said this did she notice the bucket in front of her.
Standing up shakily, she nodded. “Thanks for thinking of it, though, headmaster.”
“You are quite welcome, my dear. Are you feeling better?”
Iliana sat down on a chair in front of his desk. “Yes, I'm doing okay.”
Dobby sighed and popped away quietly.
“Good,” Dumbledore said. “Because I wanted you to meet someone today. Please come in, Miss Kadu.”
The door opened. Iliana turned to look at the door, and saw a woman as black as a moonless night come into the room. She was instantly familiar to them.
“You! We saw you in a vision we had over the summer!”
The woman paused, regarding her with shrewd eyes. Then she closed the door behind her.
“How much did you see in this vision?”
“An entire conversation between you, the headmaster, and Professors McGonagall and Snape. Um... because of that vision, we made a contract-bound truce with Draco Malfoy.”
“Ah, good. So I won't have to repeat myself. You already know your sins.”
“Yes. It was... it made us feel sick, to realize you were right.”
The woman, Miss Kadu, sat down next to her on the other chair.
“Good. That means you are still decent people, despite your flaws.”
Iliana opened her mouth to speak, but froze in place, their form suddenly switching to Al's form. The instant he appeared, his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he began speaking in the harsh tones of his Prophecy voice.
“In the dark midden, the halfling's horde, beats the hairy heart of the dark lord. Bound in an artifact made of gold, one of many hands to life he does hold. Ancient as the serpent king down in the deep, the promise the halfling could not keep. Keep the promise, kill the heart, and down the cross road you will start.”
When he snapped out of it, his eyes returning to normal, he blinked in surprise. The two adults blinked back at him, astonished.
“Did anyone catch that? I don't remember anything at all about it.”
Dumbledore got out a quill and wrote down the prophecy at once, handing it to Al to read.
“Not ringing any bells. I didn't get any images with that one.”
“Fear not, Alastair. It is not necessary. For a prophecy, that was remarkably straight-forward.”
“Really? Because it sounds like gibberish to me. The only 'halfling' I know of is hobbits, and I've not yet heard of those being real. And 'hairy heart'? What's that? Those are the key points, I think.”
“The 'hairy heart' is a reference to one of the tales of Beedle the Bard, old wizarding fables. The hairy heart story is thought by scholars in the know to be a reference to horcruxes. The mention of 'many hands to life he does hold' and 'down the cross road you will go' confirms this. As to 'halfling,' that is a house elf, I think. I suppose it could mean a goblin, but I don't see how that could be.”
“Really? What makes you think that?”
“Because Sirius told me that Kreacher the house elf is quite unwell in his mind, and is living in a nest like a midden heap, full of things he managed to rescue from the house before they could be thrown away.”
“And you think this horcrux is there, in Kreacher's nest?”
“It is worth a look. One moment, please.”
Dumbledore took a mirror out of his desk and called Sirius on it, telling him to come to the office and bring Kreacher. Sirius agreed, though in a confused way, and signed off. They waited.
“So uh, what's your full name? I can't recall.” Al asked the woman.
“Mahala Kalisha Kadu,” she said, holding out her hand.
“Alastair Potter,” he said, shaking her hand.
* Oh wow, she's gorgeous! * Zoey said.
“Zoey thinks you're gorgeous,” Al said. Then he cocked his head. “The rest of us agree.”
“Thank you, Alastair Potter,” she said.
A green fire appeared in the grate, and Sirius stepped through.
“Kreacher!” he called.
With a CRACK, Kreacher appeared.
“Master has brought Kreacher to the office of the Mudblood-loving old fool who runs the school. Kreacher is wondering why. And there is the freak that brought down the dark lord. Why is it here, Kreacher wonders?”
“Shut up, Kreacher,” Sirius commanded. Kreacher opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He glared at Sirius.
“Anyway, Dumbledore, why are we here? Why did you want both me and Kreacher?”
“Because as I was introducing Alastair to Miss Kadu here, Alastair had another prophecy.” Dumbledore handed Sirius the parchment for Sirius to read.
Sirius's eyes went wide. When he finished reading it, he looked at Mahala Kadu and then back at Dumbledore.
“He had this prophecy in front of the both of you?”
“Miss Kadu is in the know, about the horcruxes. When she was here over the summer, she figured it out on her own, so I had no choice but to confirm it. She is not helping directly with the horcrux hunt, but was interested in meeting the Potters and possibly training them.”
“Okay... so what does this have to do with me and Kreacher?”
“I believe the prophecy Alastair gave is saying that Kreacher has one of the horcruxes in his possession. Sirius, will you please order him to answer the questions that I ask him?”
“Yes, I can do that. Kreacher, you will answer any question Headmaster Dumbledore asks you, and you will answer it truthfully and fully, leaving nothing out. Do you understand? Answer my question.”
“Kreacher will do as Master wishes. Ungrateful Master that he is, breaking his mother's heart with his wicked ways.”
“Go ahead, Dumbledore.”
“Kreacher, do you have in your possession something that belonged to Lord Voldemort? Perhaps an object made of gold?”
Kreacher looked up at Dumbledore uncertainly. “Kreacher does not have anything from the dark lord. Not that Kreacher is aware of.”
“Kreacher, did you ever meet Lord Voldemort?”
This time, Kreacher looked scared. He twisted his hands like Dobby once did, and he was shaking.
“Answer him, Kreacher.”
“K-Kreacher... Kreacher is meeting the d-dark lord once. Years ago.”
“Did he want you to come with him for some reason, Kreacher? Did he ask Regulus Black for your services?” Sirius's head jerked up at these words.
Kreacher was shaking worse than ever, and there were tears in his eyes. “Th-the d-dark lord is... is asking M-Master R-Regulus... to be coming w-with him, for a task.”
“What was that task, Kreacher?”
“C-Can't... w-won't... M-Master Regulus trusted Kreacher... and Kreacher failed!”
“What was the task Regulus commanded of you for the dark lord, Kreacher?”
Kreacher was sitting on the floor now, crying into his hands. Sirius blinked at this in confusion, then sighed and squatted down next to him.
“Kreacher, what happened? Tell me what Voldemort wanted from Regulus that concerned you.”
The elf sat up, curled into a ball, placed his wet face between his knees, and began to rock backward and forward. When he spoke, his voice was muffled but quite distinct in the silent room.
“Master Sirius ran away, good riddance, for he was a bad boy and broke my Mistress’s heart with his lawless ways. But Master Regulus had proper order; he knew what was due to the name of Black and the dignity of his pure blood. For years he talked of the Dark Lord, who was going to bring the wizards out of hiding to rule the Muggles and the Muggle–borns… and when he was sixteen years old, Master Regulus joined the Dark Lord. So proud, so proud, so happy to serve...
“And one day, a year after he joined, Master Regulus came down to the kitchen to see Kreacher. Master Regulus always liked Kreacher. And Master Regulus said... he said...”
The old elf rocked faster than ever.
“… he said that the Dark Lord required an elf.”
“Voldemort needed an elf?” Dumbledore repeated, looking at the others. Everyone was puzzled why that would be.
“Oh yes,” moaned Kreacher. “And Master Regulus had volunteered Kreacher. It was an honor, said Master Regulus, an honor for him and for Kreacher, who must be sure to do whatever the Dark Lord ordered him to do… and then to c–come home.”
Kreacher rocked still faster, his breath coming in sobs.
“So Kreacher went to the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord did not tell Kreacher what they were to do, but took Kreacher with him to a cave beside the sea. And beyond the cave was a cavern, and in the cavern was a great black lake…”
The hairs on the back of Al's neck stood up. Kreacher’s croaking voice seemed to come to him from across the dark water. He saw what had happened as clearly as though he had been present.
“… There was a boat… There was a b–basin full of potion on the island. The D–Dark Lord made Kreacher drink it…”
The elf quaked from head to foot. Sirius's eyes were wider than Al had ever seen them.
“Kreacher drank, and as he drank he saw terrible thing… Kreacher’s insides burned… Kreacher cried for Master Regulus to save him, he cried for his Mistress Black, but the Dark Lord only laughed… He made Kreacher drink all the potion… He dropped a locket into the empty basin… He filled it with more potion.”
“And then the Dark Lord sailed away, leaving Kreacher on the island…”
Al could see it happening. He watched Voldemort’s white, snakelike face vanishing into darkness, those red eyes fixed pitilessly on the thrashing elf whose death would occur within minutes, whenever he succumbed to the desperate thirst that the burning poison caused its victim… But here, their imagination could go no further, for they could not see how Kreacher had escaped.
“Kreacher needed water, he crawled to the island’s edge and he drank from the black lake… and hands, dead hands, came out of the water and dragged Kreacher under the surface…”
“How did you get away?” Al asked, and he was not surprised to hear himself whispering.
Kreacher raised his ugly head and looked Harry with his great, bloodshot eyes.
“Master Regulus told Kreacher to come back,” he said.
“I know—but how did you escape the dead bodies?”
Kreacher did not seem to understand. But Sirius and Dumbledore did, judging by their faces.
“Al,” Sirius said, “a house elf's prime directive is their master's orders. Regulus told him to come home, so he did. He Disapparated home.”
“But how? Surely Voldemort wouldn't be stupid enough to let people just Apparate in and out of there. It sounds like he expected Kreacher to die in there.”
“Alastair,” Dumbledore said, “Voldemort is very arrogant, and House Elf Apparition is not the same as that of wizards and witches. House Elves can Apparate in Hogwarts, where wizards and witches cannot. Voldemort, in his arrogance, did not bother to learn enough about House Elves to know that Kreacher would be able to escape if ordered to. If he had not been so arrogant, he would have blocked House Elf Apparition as well. Though, if he were not so arrogant, he would not be Voldemort.”
“Oh. Well it's good you came back, Kreacher, but what happened after that? What did Regulus say when you told him what happened?”
“Answer him, Kreacher,” Sirius said in a much kinder tone than usual.
“Master Regulus was very worried, very worried,” croaked Kreacher. “Master Regulus told Kreacher to stay hidden and not to leave the house. And then… it was a little while later… Master Regulus came to find Kreacher in his cupboard one night, and Master Regulus was strange, not as he usually was, disturbed in his mind, Kreacher could tell… and he asked Kreacher to take him to the cave, the cave where Kreacher had gone with the Dark Lord…”
And so they had set off. Al could visualize them quite clearly, the frightened old elf and the thin, dark Seeker who had so resembled Sirius… Kreacher knew how to open the concealed entrance to the underground cavern, knew how to raise the tiny boat: this time it was his beloved Regulus who sailed with him to the island with its basin of poison…
“And he made you drink the poison?” said Al, disgusted.
But Kreacher shook his head and wept. Sirius's hands leapt to his mouth: He seemed to have understood something.
“M–Master Regulus took from his pocket a locket like the one the Dark Lord had,” said Kreacher, tears pouring down either side of his snoutlike nose. “And he told Kreacher to take it and, when the basin was empty, to switch the lockets…”
Kreacher’s sobs came in great rasps now; Al had to concentrate hard to understand him.
“And he ordered—Kreacher to leave—without him. And he told Kreacher—to go home—and never to tell my Mistress—what he had done—but to destroy—the first locket. And he drank—all the potion—and Kreacher swapped the lockets—and watched… as Master Regulus… was dragged beneath the water… and…”
“And he was killed by the Inferi,” Sirius said quietly.
The elf broke into fresh sobs, nodding in response to Sirius's words.
Sirius sat back and looked at Al. “I think I understand now why Hermione isn't fond of the fact House Elves have to obey everything. I suppose Regulus thought he was doing Kreacher a kindness by taking the potion himself, but if he could see Kreacher now...” Sirius sighed.
“Kreacher, I have more questions,” Dumbledore. “Please try to calm down so you can answer. You may weep more later. For now, we need to know how we can help you fulfill Regulus's orders.”
To Al's surprise, Kreacher obeyed, even though it hadn't been an order and Sirius hadn't been the one to say it. He wiped his eyes and waited quietly for the questions.
“Where is the locket now?”
“Kreacher has it in his room,” Kreacher said. “The Mudbloods and blood traitors was going to throw it away, as they was doing with all of the things from Masters' and Mistress's house. But Kreacher is saving many things from the rubbish bins, including Master Regulus's locket.”
“Kreacher, you did not fail your orders. Regulus clearly did not know this when he gave his orders, but you stood absolutely no chance of destroying that locket yourself. Few things could destroy something as evil as that, Kreacher. Fiendfyre and basilisk venom are the only two things I can think of that could do it. Fiendfyre is a wizard's spell, and basilisks are quite rare.
“So, Kreacher, if you will go retrieve the locket for us, I believe we have something in the castle which can destroy it. Isn't that correct, Alastair?”
The elf looked up in astonishment at Dumbledore, then at Sirius. Al, for his part, nodded.
“Kreacher,” Sirius said, “go get the locket and bring it here.”
Standing up and saluting Sirius, Kreacher popped away.
“Dobby?” Al said.
Dobby popped into view, looking around the room. “Yes, Alastair Potter Sir?”
“Do you know where Moaning Myrtle's bathroom is?”
“Yes, I is knowing it.”
“I need you to take me there. But first... Dumbledore? Is there anything that can contain basilisk venom?”
“I believe so. One moment.”
Dumbledore stood up and looked in one of his cabinets for a couple minutes. As he did, Kreacher reappeared, startling Dobby.
“Dobby, don't say anything,” Al said. “Kreacher is here with something important for us. Leave him be, please.”
“Of course, sir.” He confined himself to side-eyeing Kreacher warily.
“Aha! Here we are,” Dumbledore said.
He came back to the desk with a large pair of glass flasks that were glowing with hundreds of tiny runes. Al judged you could probably get half a gallon of liquid into all the pair of flasks combined.
“These flasks are enchanted to cause any liquid in them to float inside without touching the walls of the flasks. They should be more than sufficient to contain basilisk venom. Ah, Kreacher, let us see it, then.”
He looked to Sirius, who nodded. “Put it on the desk, Kreacher.” Kreacher nodded and set on the desk a heavy gold locket.
“Before you go, Alastair, Dobby, let me check to make sure this is what I think it is.”
For nearly ten whole minutes, Dumbledore ran various tests on the locket with his wand. But the dead giveaway was when it began to rattle like there was something alive inside of it.
“Yes, I fear this is exactly what I thought it was. Dobby, you may take Alastair to the entrance of the Chamber of Secrets, in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.”
Dobby was shaking. “Is... is Dobby going to be needing to... to go in the Chamber, sirs?”
“No,” Al said. “I'll go in myself. The basilisk knows me. Recently, too, thanks to Hypatia pretending to be me.”
Putting the flasks in his robes, Al took Dobby by the hand. With a CRACK of Apparition, they appeared in Myrtle's bathroom, and she screamed in surprise.
“Oh, it's you again,” she said when she saw him. “You scared me to-- well, you scared me a lot.”
“Sorry about that, Myrtle. But I had to get here fast, and in a way Umbridge wouldn't find out. I'm on a mission from Dumbledore.”
“Going down into the Chamber again?” she asked, shivering.
“Yes, I am.”
“Well good luck.”
Al went over to the sinks, found the right one, and hissed 'Open' in Parseltongue at the snake carved into the tap. Nothing happened, which confused him until he remembered Hypatia had changed the password. So he tried again, with her help: 'And the Earth becomes my throne, I adapt to the unknown, under wandering stars I've grown, by myself but not alone.'
It opened then, and as it did, he thought that the entrance had to have been remodeled by one of the Heirs at some point, because he was pretty sure when the castle was made, the height of toiletry was chamberpots, and people thought washing their hands would make them ill.
The sink sunk into the ground and slid aside, revealing the hole down to the Chamber.
[Ahem. Before you go down there, allow me to point something out I recently discovered.]
Taking control of his voice, Hypatia spoke more Parseltongue. 'Show the platform,' she said.
Part of the shaft opened up and slid aside, and out slid a stone platform with stone handrails. It slid up into place for a person to step inside it. Al walked into the platform and held onto the handrails. A moment later, the platform sank down the shaft. Very near the bottom, Al heard the sound of stone scraping against stone, and then the platform sank into an opening in the shaft that he could see because of faint light that glowed from the platform.
When the platform stopped moving, there was another door, human sized, with realistic looking snakes on its surface.
'Open,' he hissed. When it didn't respond, he tried the earlier password, the lyrics of some song from his time living with Sirius, and that worked.
The door opened like an ordinary door, but of its own accord at the sound of the password. On the other side, torches lit the way ahead. Curious, Al followed it to another door.
With Hypatia's guidance, he said, 'I am the Heir of Slytherin, come to defend the school.' The door opened, and he went inside.
Inside was a room he'd never seen before. It was large, with scores of mirrors arranged like the monitors of security rooms in TV shows, above a large control panel with hundreds of buttons, knobs, and switches. There was space for three seats, but only one chair, which floated there in midair like it was sitting on something invisible. Al waved his hand under it, but contacted nothing. It was levitating.
“What IS this place?”
[The Chamber of Secrets was intended as a panic room in case the castle was attacked. In the case of an attack during the school year, students take the slide down into the Chamber, the Heir comes down here, and they can see all over the castle and grounds with the magic mirrors, directing the basilisk to destroy the invading armies with its deadly gaze and its venom.]
He sat in the chair, and all the mirrors instantly lit up with different views of the castle, mostly corridors but also the Great Hall, the kitchens, and different points on the grounds.
“Holy crap,” he said, looking all around. He could see teachers and prefects patrolling the halls, Hagrid's hut barely visible as it was still dark inside, the Forbidden Forest, and the Black Lake.
Curious, Al read the writing on the buttons, which were in English somehow.
[Translation runes,] Hypatia explained. [Automatically translates the labels into the Heir's language.]
“Cool,” he said.
One button said 'Griffindor Common Room.' He pressed that, and one row of the mirrors changed view to show different views of the Griffindor common room. He saw Fred and George selling their trick sweets, Hermione trying to concentrate on her homework but being distracted by the twins, and Neville next to her doing the same. There wasn't any sound, though.
Next he tried the Slytherin common room. Where the Griffindor common room had looked loud and boisterous, everyone in Slytherin was quietly working or discussing things with other people. He saw Javier off on his own in one corner, working on what he thought was Transfiguration homework.
He pressed a button saying 'Forbidden Forest,' and the mirrors showed him multiple views of the inside of the forest. In one, there were centaurs gazing up at the stars. In another, a unicorn ran by. But in the central pair of mirrors on the bottom row was an artificially brightened view of something he recognized as the acromantula colony. This mirror differed from the others currently in that it now had text written large and bold and blood red across the bottom, saying 'THREAT DETECTED: ACROMANTULA COLONY.'
[It's got a good point,] Hypatia thought at him. [That colony is a threat waiting for an excuse to break out. What happens if Aragog dies? The colony would no longer have a reason to obey Hagrid.]
“Yeah, we should do something about that.”
[It's on my list as of now.]
“Huh. Well, as fascinating as this is, I need to talk to the basilisk.”
Al stood up, but the mirrors kept showing different views. He shrugged, not really caring how to turn it off, and looked around the room a moment. He saw another door out of there, labeled 'Basilisk chamber: proceed with caution.'
Taking a moment first to check the mirror view of that chamber and seeing it empty, Al went through the door and into the basilisk chamber. Closing his eyes, Al said, 'Oh mighty basilisk, can I have a word with you?'
The mouth of the statue of Salazar Slytherin opened up. Al closed his eyes just in case. He heard a bass THUMP as the basilisk hit the ground.
'Yes, Heir? What is it you want? I was napping.'
'Sorry about that. But you remember that other Heir, the one who was mistreating you?'
'Yes. You destroyed him.'
'I destroyed a piece of him. The rest of him is still out there, and he's recently come back to full power.'
'I see. What do you need from me?'
'I was going to ask you nicely if you would please give me some of your venom, in these flasks, so I can use them to destroy most of the other pieces of him so I can some day finally kill the last bit of him that's in his new body now. What do you say?'
'Well, Heir, I say I would be most glad to help you work towards vanquishing our mutual foe. Approach, Heir. You may open your eyes, I have mine closed.'
Al peeked through his eyes and saw the basilisk was telling the truth. It opened its mouth, exposing its fangs. Repressing a shudder, Al screwed up his Griffindor courage and walked up to the basilisk. He and Chandra used their wands to put the flasks in place, not risking their hands or lives to the chance of spilled venom.
'Go ahead,' he said.
~
Sirius was pacing across Dumbledore's office floor, growing more and more impatient the longer it took. Kreacher was staring at the locket with anticipation, flinching every now and then as it rattled like it was alive. Dumbledore was carving runes into a piece of wood on the desk.
“What's taking him so long? He should be back by now. What if he got bitten by that accursed snake? Or eaten. Or petrified! He could get stuck down there, and we'd never be able to help him!”
“Sirius, do calm down. Fawkes knows how to get down there, now that he knows where it is. He could rescue them if need be.”
“What if it's already too late? That venom works pretty fast.”
Dumbledore sighed. “Fine, if it will ease your---”
CRACK! Everyone jumped. Even Dumbledore flinched a little at the unexpected noise.
“Ta da!” Al said, holding up one of the flasks of basilisk venom in the hand that wasn't holding Dobby's hand.
Woozily, Al walked over to the desk and set down the flask, and pulled the other one out and set it down next to the other one. Then he flopped onto the seat.
“What took you so long? I was worried sick!”
“Got distracted by this really cool new room Hypatia showed me. It's a command center for a siege situation, it's awesome.”
“Excellent,” Dumbledore said, referring to the flasks. He tapped the wooden board he'd been carving runes into, and the runes lit up. He set one of the flasks upon it and pulled the glass stopper out of the top.
“It will be best, I think, if we don't risk touching it.”
Dumbledore approached the locket with a metal hook, but the locket started to jump away in little hops. It was no good, though; Dumbledore grabbed the thing by the chain with the hook. It jumped around in a panic as it hung from its chain. Dumbledore held it over the flask and dipped it toward the black venom. Its jumping around in a panic reminded Al faintly of the Dip scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but considering it was a piece of Voldemort's soul, he felt no pity for it.
The chain wrapped itself around the top of the flask, preventing the horcrux from getting any closer to the basilisk venom. With a second metal hook, Dumbledore poked the horcrux down into the venom, where it screamed loud enough the others all covered their ears, thick black smoke billowing from the flask. But some ward in the board the flask sat on contained the smoke until it dissipated.
Dumbledore lifted the limp chain out of the venom and showed them where the locket itself had melted in half. As they watched, the other half fell off the chain and into the venom, which bubbled briefly before returning to normal.
“That makes two down,” he said. “I wish I knew for sure how many were left.”
“Damn him,” Al said. “Priceless historical artifact, and he went and shoved his filthy soul into it. Now it's gone forever.”
“Yes. I believe part of the reason why he chose such an artifact was to make people less likely to want to destroy the horcrux. But the locket was dead the moment he defiled it.”
“What an idiot he is,” Al said. “Why not just put your soul in an ordinary pebble and toss it into the Marianas trench? Then nobody could ever destroy it. You'd only need one of the damned things then.”
“I believe a part of Voldemort must have known that he might change his mind, even if it took a few centuries before he grew tired of life. He wanted a way to back out if he needed to. At least, I hope he did not do as you suggested. I do not think he did, as he is very arrogant.”
“Kreacher, you may return home now if you'd like,” Sirius said.
Kreacher nodded, bowed to Dumbledore, inclined his head at Sirius, and then Disapparated.
Mahala Kadu stared at the flask as Dumbledore put the stopped back in and returned both flasks to a secure cupboard, the same cupboard he'd gotten the flasks from in the first place. When he sat back down, she spoke, gravely.
“I will help you with your Voldemort problem. Directly.”
“You will?” Dumbledore asked, taken by surprise.
“Yes. I did not really believe he made even one horcrux, even though I knew he must have. Today, I saw proof. To think he's made multiple horcruxes... I shudder to think of it. An evil of that magnitude needs to be stopped.”
“Will you now join the Order of the Phoenix, Mahala?”
“Yes, I will.”
“Excellent. We can do that officially in the morning. We shall have to reschedule this meeting, too, so you can get to know the Potters better. Alastair, you may go back to Griffindor now.”
She nodded.
“Well, it's been nice meeting you,” Al said, shaking her hand.
“Likewise, Mr. Potter.”
“Dobby!” Al called.
“I is right here, sir. Dobby is not gone nowhere yet.”
“Oh. Sorry, I forgot.”
He took Dobby's hand, and once more was squeezed through a tube, landing in their bedroom.
“Well, I'm pooped,” Al said, and returned control to Iliana.
Iliana went back to scheduling Quidditch practices, at her desk in their room. She was just finishing up half an hour later when an unfamiliar owl tapped on her window. She got up and let it inside. It sat on the edge of her desk, and she untied the letter from its leg.
The envelope was blank. She warily checked the letter with several spells before opening it and seeing who it was from. It looked like arithmancy notes, with a short line in unfamiliar handwriting at the top saying “Here's the new equation, what do you think?” She couldn't make heads or tails of the maths on it. Hypatia, however, solved it pretty quickly in her head. It was a code for a password. She held her wand to the page and spoke the password, revealing a different letter.
Iliana or Adira or whoever,
Percy here. I'm writing to let you know that Umbridge and Fudge have pushed through a new educational decree, it finally passed today. Umbridge has been given the position of 'High Inquisitor of Hogwarts,' with the power to inspect other teachers and give them the sack if they're found wanting. That debacle with Cedric and the patronus seems to have worked better than we thought at discrediting Cedric, since the paper reported he was charged with using magic in front of Muggles and got off on a technicality. They've also been putting pressure on the Quidditch teams, blocking him from getting on any of the teams, which is what he wanted to be doing with himself for a few years at least. You should write him, convince him to join the Order instead. I know a lot of the Order were recruited right out of school, and he drew with you for the Tournament. I wouldn't be surprised if Dumbledore already approached him and didn't tell me.
Keep your head down while she has power. We'll get through this. You-Know-Who will come out of hiding eventually, and when he does, the Ministry will wise up. Until then, she is a nasty piece of work and no matter how bad you think she can be, you're not even close. For your safety, and the safety of the people you love, keep your head down and your mouth shut in her class. I don't know how far she'll go, but I fear it's worse than you can imagine.
Also, don't trust owls from here on out. Once she's High Inquisitor, she'll be able to tamper with the mail. She can be very subtle when she wants to be, so don't trust anything said in owl letters after tonight.
Sorry that I don't know how you'll be able to warn the others without telling my family, but you'll think of something, you're ridiculously smart, if that spell you sent last time is anything to go by. You'll have to tell me how you did that. Just, not in the mail. For now, I think we should do as the Muggles call 'maintaining radio silence.' So do not respond to this letter. Not by owl, anyway. Nor the Muggle post, either.
Remain wary. Don't trust Umbridge. Don't trust the school elves, either; they'll have to obey her. And a reminder: don't tell my family I'm working with Dumbledore. Not yet.
Sincerely,
-Percy
PS = Burn this letter when you're done reading it.
Iliana read it a couple more times to be sure she remembered everything in it, then she Vanished it with her wand, as it was neater than burning it.
She went to bed that night worried about the days ahead.
~
September 11th, 1995
Adira had expected to have to comb Hermione's Daily Prophet carefully next morning to find the article Percy had mentioned in his letter. However, the departing delivery owl had barely cleared the top of the milk jug when Hermione let out a huge gasp and flattened the newspaper to reveal a large photograph of Dolores Umbridge, smiling widely and blinking slowly at them from beneath the headline.
MINISTRY SEEKS EDUCATIONAL REFORM
DOLORES UMBRIDGE APPOINTED
FIRST EVER HIGH INQUISITOR
"Umbridge — 'High Inquisitor'?" said Adira darkly, her half-eaten piece of toast slipping from her fingers. "What does that mean?"
Hermione read aloud:
" 'In a surprise move last night the Ministry of Magic passed new legislation giving itself an unprecedented level of control at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
" 'The Minister has been growing unsettled about goings-on at Hogwarts for some time,' said Junior Assistant to the Minister, Percy Weasley. 'He tells me he is now responding to concerns from anxious parents who feel the school may be moving in a direction they do not approve of.' "
"This is not the first time in recent weeks that the Minister, Cornelius Fudge, has used new laws to effect improvements at the wizarding school. As recently as 30th August, Educational Decree Number Twenty-two was passed, to ensure that, in the event of the current Headmaster being unable to provide a candidate for a teaching post, the Ministry should select an appropriate person.
" 'That's how Dolores Umbridge came to be appointed to the teaching staff at Hogwarts,' said Weasley last night. 'After Professor Remus Lupin was forced to resign due to recent changes in the laws, and Professor Binns said he was too happy with his retirement to return, Dumbledore couldn't find anyone to replace him, so the Minister put in Umbridge to properly re-educate students on a Ministry-approved version of History of Magic, and providing the Minister with on-the-ground intelligence about what's happening at Hogwarts.'
"It is this last function that the Ministry has now formalised with the passing of Educational Decree Number Twenty-three, which creates the new position of Hogwarts High Inquisitor.
" 'This is a new phase in the Minister's plan to get to grips with what some are calling the falling standards at Hogwarts,' said Weasley. 'The Inquisitor will have powers to inspect her fellow educators and make sure that they are meeting the Ministry's new standards. Professor Umbridge has been offered this position in addition to her own teaching post and we are happy to say that she has accepted.'
"The Ministry's new moves have received enthusiastic support from parents of students at Hogwarts.
" "I feel much easier in my mind now that I know Dumbledore is being subjected to fair and objective evaluation,' said Mr Lucius Malfoy, 41, speaking from his Wiltshire mansion last night. 'Many of us with our children's best interests at heart have been concerned about some of Dumbledore's eccentric decisions in the last few years and are glad to know that the Ministry is keeping an eye on the situation.'
"Among those eccentric decisions are undoubtedly the controversial staff appointments previously described in this newspaper, which have included the employment of werewolf Remus Lupin, half-giant Rubeus Hagrid and delusional ex-Auror, "Mad-Eye" Moody.
"Rumours abound, of course, that Albus Dumbledore, once Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, is no longer up to the task of managing the prestigious school of Hogwarts.
" 'I think the appointment of the Inquisitor is a first step towards ensuring that Hogwarts has a headmaster in whom we can all repose our confidence,' said a Ministry insider last night.
"Wizengamot elders Griselda Marchbanks and Tiberius Ogden have resigned in protest at the introduction of the post of Inquisitor to Hogwarts.
" 'Hogwarts is a school, not an outpost of Cornelius Fudge's office,' said Madam Marchbanks. 'This is a further, disgusting attempt to discredit Albus Dumbledore.'
"(For a full account of Madam Marchbanks's alleged links to subversive goblin groups, turn to page seventeen.)"
Hermione finished reading and looked across the table at the other two.
"So now we know how we ended up with Umbridge! Fudge passed this "Educational Decree" and forced her on us! And now he's given her the power to inspect the other teachers!" Hermione was breathing fast and her eyes were very bright. "I can't believe this. It's outrageous!"
“Yeah it is,” said Ron angrily.
Adira said nothing. She had not even mentioned Percy's secret messages to Hermione, for fear she would tell Ron. But Adira knew, and she had noticed some interesting wording in Percy's quotes. 'He tells me he is now responding to concerns from anxious parents,' 'the minister has been growing unsettled,' 're-educate students on a Ministry-approved version of History of Magic,' and even 'inspect her fellow educators and make sure that they are meeting the Ministry's new standards,' were all subtle ways of sounding like he was still on the Minster's side, while sowing a seed of doubt in people's minds with his choice of words. If he'd really been on their side, she figured he'd say the Minister was 'uneasy' or 'concerned' rather than 'unsettled,' and she was surprised the Ministry let 're-educated' slip through the editing process, not to mention the part where it sounded almost like Percy was saying 'Ministry-approved version of history.' It was very clever, and very subtle. Muggle-borns might catch on, if they'd at least heard about George Orwell, but she doubted the wizarding-born people would notice, if it got into the papers that way.
(Good gods, why wasn't Percy a Slytherin?) Al thought.
She gave a barely perceptible nod in response. Percy was definitely someone who would have done well in Slytherin.
Adira glanced at Hermione, and noticed she was looking at the article with that look on her face that said something wasn't adding up for her. She mouthed the words 're-educate' and 'Ministry-approved version of History of Magic.' Adira repressed a smile; Hermione was clever, too.
Hermione turned to her. “What's the matter, Adira? You didn't respond. I'd have thought you would, if anybody would.” Her eyes darted to Adira's left hand with its scar from their detentions.
She shook her head slightly as if coming out of a daze and said, “Sorry, lost in thought. But yeah, as if the old toad needs any more power.”
It was a poor performance. Ron bought it, but Hermione was narrowing her eyes at Addy, who went back to her breakfast, trying to ignore her friend.
A grin was unfurling on Ron's face.
“What?” said Addy and Hermione together, staring at him.
“Oh, I can't wait to see McGonagall inspected,” said Ron happily. “Umbridge won't know what's hit her.”
The two girls laughed at this. Then the three of them got up and went to class.
On their way to their first class, Charms, Hermione said, “So you didn't tell me yesterday what you got on your moonstone essay for Professor Snape.”
“I didn't? Wow, I must have been preoccupied. He gave me an A. Not as good as I'd hoped for, but uh,” she checked to make sure nobody else was listening, “Hypatia isn't as good at Potions as Iliana is. If Iliana had done it, I bet we'd have gotten an O.”
“She did your homework for you?”
“Yeah, because of the detentions. It gave me Saturday morning free to spend with Luna.”
“Well, I guess that's okay. But you shouldn't make a habit of letting her do your--”
“What does it matter, Hermione? She's better at maths than the rest of us, and rituals, but she's the same or worse at other subjects. And anyway, she only did it this once, as much for herself as for us.”
Hermione seemed to accept this. Adira repressed a sigh. Really, what did it matter? They had a collective memory, so it wasn't exactly cheating.
Umbridge wasn't inspecting Charms yet, which they were relieved about. But she was there in Transfiguration with a little clipboard in her hand.
"Excellent," whispered Ron, as they sat down in their usual seats. "Let's see Umbridge get what she deserves."
Professor McGonagall marched into the room without giving the slightest indication that she knew Professor Umbridge was there.
That will do," she said and silence fell immediately. "Mr Finnigan, kindly come here and hand back the homework — Miss Brown, please take this box of mice — don't be silly, girl, they won't hurt you — and hand one to each student — "
"Hem, hem," said Professor Umbridge, employing the same silly little cough she had used to interrupt Dumbledore on the first night of term. Professor McGonagall ignored her. Seamus handed back Adira's essay; Adira took it without looking at him and saw, to her relief, that she had managed an 'E'.
"Right then, everyone, listen closely — Dean Thomas, if you do that to the mouse again I shall put you in detention — most of you have now successfully Vanished your conjured snails and even those who were left with a certain amount of shell have got the gist of the spell. Today, we shall be — "
"Hem, hem," said Professor Umbridge.
"Yes?" said Professor McGonagall, turning round, her eyebrows so close together they seemed to form one long, severe line.
"I was just wondering, Professor, whether you received my note telling you of the date and time of your inspec — "
"Obviously I received it, or I would have asked you what you are doing in my classroom," said Professor McGonagall, turning her back firmly on Professor Umbridge. Many of the students exchanged looks of glee. "As I was saying: today, we shall be practising the altogether more difficult Vanishment of conjured mice. Now, the Vanishing Spell — "
"Hem, hem."
"I wonder," said Professor McGonagall in cold fury, turning on Professor Umbridge, "how you expect to gain an idea of my usual teaching methods if you continue to interrupt me? You see, I do not generally permit people to talk when I am talking."
Professor Umbridge looked as though she had just been slapped in the face. She did not speak, but straightened the parchment on her clipboard and began scribbling furiously.
Looking supremely unconcerned, Professor McGonagall addressed the class once more.
"As I was saying: the Vanishing Spell becomes more difficult with the complexity of the animal to be Vanished, which is true whether the animal is real or, as in this instance, conjured. Conjured animals are generally easier to Vanish than real animals though, which is why we've been using conjured animals.
“Now the snail, as an invertebrate, does not present much of a challenge; the mouse, as a mammal, offers a much greater one. This is not, therefore, magic you can accomplish with your mind on your dinner. So — you know the incantation, let me see what you can do . . ."
"How she can lecture me about not losing my temper with Umbridge!" Adira muttered to Ron under her breath, but she was grinning.
Umbridge stayed seated in her little corner the whole time, taking notes. Everyone largely ignored her. When Professor McGonagall finally told them all to pack away, she rose with a grim expression on her face.
“Well, it's a start,” said Ron, holding up a long wriggling mouse-tail and dropping it back into the box Lavender was passing around.
Adira, for her part, had managed to Vanish the entire mouse, and had nothing to turn in. Losing their magic for months and getting it back seemed to have reset their Transfiguration abilities somewhat; it used to be that Zoey was great at wandless Transfiguration but none of them were much good at the wanded variety. But since the reset, they were now equally good at both, for some reason.
As they filed out of the classroom, Adira saw Professor Umbridge approach the teachers desk; she nudged Ron, who nudged Hermione in turn, and the three of them deliberately fell back to eavesdrop.
"How long have you been teaching at Hogwarts?" Professor Umbridge asked.
"Thirty-nine years this December," said Professor McGonagall brusquely, snapping her bag shut.
Professor Umbridge made a note.
"Very well," she said, "you will receive the results of your inspection in ten days' time."
"I can hardly wait," said Professor McGonagall, in a coldly indifferent voice, and she strode off towards the door. "Hurry up, you three," she added, sweeping Adira, Ron and Hermione before her.
Adira could not help giving her a faint smile and could have sworn he received one in return.
She had thought - hoped, really - that the next time she would see Umbridge would be in her next History of Magic class, but she was wrong. When they walked down the lawns towards the Forest for Care of Magical Creatures, they found her and her clipboard waiting for them beside Professor Grubbly-Plank.
This inspection went mostly well. Umbridge asked Grubbly-Plank about where Hagrid was, but the woman said she had no idea, she'd just been asked to sub for him, and accepted. Adira was glad when Grubbly-Plank said Dumbledore was very good, and she was quite happy with how Hogwarts was run.
After questioning Grubbly-Plank about the creatures they'd be covering if Hagrid failed to show up, she nodded.
"Well, *you* seem to know what you're doing, at any rate," said Professor Umbridge, making a very obvious tick on her clipboard. Addy did not like the emphasis she put on 'you' and liked it even less when she put her next question to Goyle. "Now, I hear there have been injuries in this class?"
Malfoy looked over at Adira, then whispered something into Theo Knott's ear. Theo Knott snickered, then said, "Yes, Hagrid brought some strange creature called a bang-ended scoot to class, and there were lots of burns and a few stings from the foul creatures."
"True, but Chandra killed the lot of them in revulsion before any of the injuries got serious," Adira said.
Umbridge glared at her, clearly trying to work out a way to twist that into a detention-worthy offense, but failed, since Adira had kept her tone calm and polite. "Five points from Gryffindor for speaking out of turn, Mr. Potter," she said.
For a moment, it looked like Grubbly-Plank was going to say something against this, but she seemed to decide not to.
Umbridge turned back to Grubbly-Plank. "Well, thank you very much, Professor Grubbly-Plank, I think that's all I need here. You will be receiving the results of your inspection within ten days."
"Jolly good," said Professor Grubbly-Plank, and Professor Umbridge set off back across the lawn to the castle.
"Sorry about not correcting her, Ms. Potter," Grubbly-Plank said when Umbridge was out of range, "but she could take away my substitute teacher's license if she wanted to."
“It's okay, Professor, I understand.”
~
The next day they had Divination. Al loved messing with Trelawney, so he came Out for this class, but he soon found this was a mistake. He was pulling out his dream diary in a seat at the very back of the shadowy Divination room when Ron elbowed him in the ribs and, looking round, he saw Professor Umbridge emerging through the trapdoor in the floor. The class, which had been talking cheerily, fell silent at once. The abrupt fall in the noise level made Professor Trelawney, who had been wafting about handing out copies of The Dream Oracle, look round.
“Good afternoon, Professor Trelawney,” said Professor Umbridge with her wide smile. “You received my note, I trust? Giving the time and date of your inspection?”
Professor Trelawney nodded curtly and, looking very disgruntled, turned her back on Professor Umbridge and continued to give out books. Still smiling, Professor Umbridge grasped the back of the nearest armchair and pulled it to the front of the class so that it was a few inches behind Professor Trelawney's seat. She then sat down, took her clipboard from her flowery bag and looked up expectantly, waiting for the class to begin.
Professor Trelawney pulled her shawls tight about her with slightly trembling hands and surveyed the class through her hugely magnifying lenses. She passed by Al, who gave her a thumbs-up and a bracing smile that Umbridge couldn't see. Trelawney looked confused a moment, then smiled briefly at Al.
“We shall be continuing our study of prophetic dreams today,” she said in a brave attempt at her usual mystic tones, though her voice shook slightly. “Divide into pairs, please, and interpret each others latest night-time visions with the aid of the Oracle.”
She made as though to sweep back to her seat, saw Professor Umbridge sitting right beside it, and immediately veered left towards Parvati and Lavender, who were already deep in discussion about Parvati's most recent dream.
Al opened his copy of 'The Dream Oracle,' watching Umbridge covertly. She was already making notes on her clipboard. After a few minutes she got to her feet and began to pace the room in Trelawney's wake, listening to her conversations with students and posing questions here and there. Al bent his head hurriedly over his book.
“Think of a dream, quick,” he told Ron, “in case the old toad comes our way.”
“I did it last time,” Ron protested, “it's your turn, you tell me one.”
“Fine, fine. Let's see... okay, so let's say I dreamed Umbridge was being carried off into the Forbidden Forest by a herd of centaurs.”
“That'll get you in detention for sure,” Ron said.
“Alright, then I dreamed that Peeves just stopped restraining himself one day and went on a rampage through the school.”
Ron chortled as he opened his 'Dream Oracle.'
“OK, we've got to add your age to the date you had the dream, the number of letters in the subject . . . would that be 'poltergeist,' 'destruction,' or 'chaos'?”
“Doesn't matter, just pick one.”
Al said, chancing a glance behind him. Professor Umbridge was now standing at Professor Trelawney's shoulder making notes while the Divination teacher questioned Neville about his dream diary.
“What night did you dream this again?” Ron said, immersed in calculations.
“I dunno, last night, whenever you like,” Al told him, trying to listen to what Umbridge was saying to Professor Trelawney. They were only a table away from him and Ron now. Professor Umbridge was making another note on her clipboard and Professor Trelawney was looking extremely put out.
“Now,” said Umbridge, looking up at Trelawney, “you've been in this post how long, exactly?”
Professor Trelawney scowled at her, arms crossed and shoulders hunched as though wishing to protect herself as much as possible from the indignity of the inspection. After a slight pause in which she seemed to decide that the question was not so offensive that she could reasonably ignore it, she said in a deeply resentful tone, “Nearly sixteen years.”
“Quite a period,” said Professor Umbridge, making a note on her clipboard. “So it was Professor Dumbledore who appointed you?”
“That's right,” said Professor Trelawney shortly.
Professor Umbridge made another note.
“And you are a great-great-granddaughter of the celebrated Seer Cassandra Trelawney?”
“Yes,” said Professor Trelawney, holding her head a little higher.
Another note on the clipboard. Al raised his eyebrows.
(Cassandra? Could it be...? But no, it couldn't be. Unless Trelawney had ancient Greek in her lineage. Which, given her appearance, isn't entirely out of the question. Diluted over time, for sure, since she's white, but...)
'What are you on about?' Adira asked Al.
(She could be related to the Cassandra from ancient Greek myths, the one that nobody ever believed.)
Adira didn't know what to say to this, but didn't have a chance to say anything anyway. The toad was croaking again.
"But I think — correct me if I am mistaken — that you are the first in your family since Cassandra to be possessed of Second Sight?"
"These things often skip — er — three generations," said Professor Trelawney.
Professor Umbridge's toadlike smile widened.
"Of course," she said sweetly, making yet another note. “Well, if you could just predict something for me, then?” And she looked up enquiringly, still smiling.
Professor Trelawney stiffened as though unable to believe her ears. "I don't understand you," she said, clutching convulsively at the shawl around her scrawny neck.
"I'd like you to make a prediction for me," said Professor Umbridge very clearly.
Al and Ron were not the only people now watching and listening sneakily from behind their books. Most of the class were staring transfixed at Professor Trelawney as she drew herself up to her lull height, her beads and bangles clinking.
Thinking quickly, Al raised his hand. Obviously relieved by the distraction, Trelawney called on him, bustling over to stand next to him, Umbridge following her. "Yes, Mr. Potter?"
“I was just curious about something you said in a previous class, about my wishing to learn how to read the bones. I was wondering if you could give me a demonstration of the technique so I can see it in action?”
“Oh yes, of course my dear boy,” Trelawney said, smiling. Umbridge behind her was frowning as Trelawney went over to a cupboard and pulled out a pouch and leather cloth and brought them over to Al.
Trelawney pulled up a chair next to Al and unrolled the leather cloth before her. She took a bunch of bits and bobs, buttons and bones and even a raven claw out of the pouch and set them on the cloth.
“Please pick an object you feel represents you, Mr. Potter, and set it aside.”
Al looked over the objects carefully, his hand hovering over what he thought was a mouse skull, then over a silver button, but finally he chose the raven talon, setting it to the side. Trelawney nodded, gathered up the other pieces, and shook them in her hand for ten seconds before tossing them back on the leather cloth. She examined the pieces and the pattern they'd made carefully.
“Hem hem,” Umbridge said.
“Please, Professor, she's concentrating. Reading the bones is a difficult branch of Divination, and requires concentration.”
Umbridge glared at him again, but said nothing.
A full minute later, Trelawney sat up and looked at Al.
“These patterns are very fascinating. There was some confusion at first if they applied to all of you, or just to yourself, Alastair, but I have decided on the latter, for you are indeed clever, intelligent like the raven, but also a trickster, also fitting to the raven. Anyway, as you can see by the way this piece here is aligned compared to this one over here...”
Al repressed a grin. He'd taken some of Umbridge's power away by making Trelawney forget about the old toad for a few minutes.
“So in conclusion, Mr. Potter, I believe it is safe to say that you have hard times ahead. But the difficulties shall be rewarding in the end. Specifically, you shall risk your life many times, to save the lives of others. I believe the bones also indicate you will invent new spells that will save lives, and new potions of great power. Perhaps you will become a Healer?”
“I disagree, Professor Trelawney,” Umbrdige said sweetly. “He is a deranged trouble-maker and will likely end up in Azkaban long before he could qualify as a Healer.”
Ignoring Umbridge, Al said, “I think you're picking up on the whole collective, Professor Trelawney. I'm no good at the maths necessary for spell-crafting, and Iliana is the one who's good with Potions. But risking my life to save others, I can see myself doing that.”
“Well of course you can, Mr. Potter!” Umbridge snapped. “You are in Gryffindor! House of the Brave, but also House of the sanctimonious and delusional, given you ended up there.”
He looked up at her with a false smile. “Oh wow Professor Umbridge, I had no idea you were a Gryffindor too! Tell me, was Minister Fudge also a Gryffindor?”
She ground her teeth at him, her eyes bulging and her face going red. The few chuckles people had dared emit stopped abruptly at the sight. Trelawney was shaking and hugging herself again.
Umbridge bent down to face him, which wasn't far given her stature. “I will have you know I was a Hufflepuff, Mr. Potter! And a detention tonight for your cheek! Be in my office before dinner begins!”
Al put on a false appearance of hurt shock. “Professor! I'm terribly sorry if you thought that was cheek, I meant no offense.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I know cheek when I see it, Mr. Potter,” she said sweetly. “I guess I shall have to try extra hard to teach you manners.”
With that ominous statement, she stood up straight. The one good thing to come of the whole encounter, though, was she seemed to have forgotten all about the inspection she was doing, and walked out of the classroom early in a huff.
~
“Relax, guys; how much worse could it be for just one night?” Al asked after class.
“That's just it, I don't know. But I'm scared. She's already torturing you,” Hermione said.
“Oh. Yeah,” Al said, looking worried.
He sent his book-bag back to his room that night with Dobby. The elf looked worried and scared for him, but did as he asked without comment. He asked Dobby to leave him some sandwiches for after his detention, and Dobby nodded, popping away.
Al switched places with Chandra before going into Umbridge's office. He knocked on the door. “Come in,” she said sweetly.
He went inside, closing the door, but what he saw as he looked up made him freeze in his tracks with horror.
“NO!” he said, switching to Adira, then Al, then Iliana. “What is she doing here? What did she do to deserve this?”
Umbridge grinned. Luna looked at Iliana with confused concern. “Hello, Iliana,” Luna said. “You got a detention, too?”
Iliana had her wand out. She hadn't realized she'd done it, but there it was. Umbridge's grin just got wider.
“Oh dear, are you going to attack me, Mr. Potter?”
Luna turned to Umbridge. “Your eyesight must be clouded by shargalumfs, Professor Umbridge. Iliana is clearly a girl. But don't worry, spreading avocado butter on your face will scare away shargalumfs, and clear up your sight.”
“And that, right there, is your answer, Mr. Potter. I suppose it's fitting, two nutters dating one another. Bird of a feather flock together.”
“So she says somewhat mad-sounding things sometimes, so what? Until I was eleven, I thought unicorns and giant three-headed dogs were imaginary creatures. Who's to say Luna isn't just more perceptive than us? Anyway, even if it's imaginary, that's no reason to do... this.”
“Well I daresay you have a point, Mr. Potter. Her imaginary creatures weren't what got her in detention. And before you ask, she's not here just because of you. She's been making a nuisance of herself in class as well, questioning facts and spreading the same lies as you and Dumbledore.”
“So Cedric Diggory is a liar, too?”
“Oh yes, thank you for reminding me of that.” She sent a cat Patronus flying past Iliana and out the door. Iliana stared at the door, amazed such an evil woman was capable of casting such a Light spell as a Patronus.
A few moments later, Filch came in, with Cedric Diggory in tow. Iliana's eyes went wide.
“Cedric? What are you doing here? I thought you graduated!”
“What? No, I was in sixth year last year. This is my final year.” He looked at Umbridge. “Though I'm starting to think I might've been better off dropping out early.”
Iliana turned to Umbridge with angry tears rolling down her face. “You can't do it to all of us, there isn't enough room in here!”
“Oh, don't worry about that, Mr. Potter. Mr. Diggory has been having detentions with me every night since we began school. He's even worse about keeping his temper and his tongue than you are. And like you, the usual punishment has not been working quite as effectively as it could. Expelliarmus! Incarcerous!”
Taken by surprise, both Cedric and Iliana were disamed and tied up.
“You two are going to watch as Miss Lovegood here takes her punishment, since punishing you directly does not seem to be working.”
“NO!”
“What's wrong, Iliana? You sound much too upset for a simple detention,” Luna said.
Iliana shifted to Zoey's form, wriggling out of the ropes and reaching for Chandra's wand. But Umbridge beat them to it. “Incarcerous! Funem stricta!”
Zoey was tied up with more ropes, and the second spell tightened them. She tried shifting even smaller, but the ropes tightened to match, so she couldn't escape. She also didn't want to reveal her Animagus ability to this woman, and doubted it would work anyway. As much as they hated this woman, they made a note to remember that rope-tightening spell.
Umbridge cast the rope-tightening spell on Cedric's ropes as well, then used Sticking Charms to keep them from falling over and missing any of the punishment.
Iliana cried and Cedric shouted imprecations at Umbridge as the old toad handed the black quill to Luna, who hesitated, looking between it and Iliana's crying face. Umbridge silenced the both of them with her wand.
“Miss Lovegood, it is just lines. Your red-headed slattern is just being her usual over-dramatic self. You may ignore her.”
Luna was still hesitating. “Professor, I have never known Iliana to lie to me, and she always gives me the benefit of the doubt. I don't think I should touch that quill.”
“You will use the quill, Miss Lovegood, because I have the Minister's ear, and I can have him send Aurors into your house in search of illegal goods. Given your father's interest in imaginary animals and his gullibility, it should not be difficult to find something to arrest him for.”
This got Luna's attention, and made her eyes wide with fear. “Don't hurt my Daddy!” she said.
“Your father will be left alone for now, if you pick up the quill and write 'I will not tell lies' until I tell you to stop.”
Luna nodded, and picked up the quill. She began writing, and yelped with pain and surprise.
“It cut me! Professor, I need to--- wait, never mind. It's healing.”
“Yes, Miss Lovegood. It is a blood quill. It writes things in your own blood.”
“I'm fairly certain this is an illegal use of this object, Professor,” Luna said.
“Oh, I assure you it's fully legal. I picked up a fun little concept from Muggle law makers, called a 'rider.' Wording my anti-werewolf legislation just right, and I snuck through a law to make this use of the blood quill legal on minors. And you'll find, if you read the school charter, that there is no rule against corporal punishment. Dumbledore never changed the rules, he simply changed their enforcement. Now write, Miss Lovegood.”
It was much more difficult for Luna to write with the blood quill. She kept stopping each time for several minutes before realizing that it would hurt less to just write with the thrice-damned thing. So she did, with a look of defiant determination on her face that made Iliana proud, even if the effect was ruined by the tears running down Luna's cheeks.
As time dragged on, Iliana felt her fear and sorrow about this turn to anger. Al was angry too, but Iliana's own anger felt different. She also felt Adira's anger. Zoey – for all they were stuck in her form at the moment – had vanished, unable to stomach the situation. Chandra, too, was missing. They'd be back.
At some point in the night, Iliana noticed that their hair had turned red. When the old bitch finally let the three of them go at 1 in the morning, Luna looking even spacier than usual but in a worn-down, defeated sort of way, they found out from Cedric that they'd spent the last six hours as a six-year-old version of Iliana's form. She shifted to her regular size when they left Umbridge's office, hugging Luna protectively and crying again.
“We should move along,” Cedric said. “Thanks to Umbridge, I'm no longer a Prefect. It was the first thing she did as High Inquisitor, I think.”
“Yeah,” Iliana said, “Bye, Cedric.”
“Later, Iliana,” he said, leaving for the Hufflepuff dorms.
Iliana began walking along with Luna, holding her girlfriend's writing hand carefully in hers. She wanted to kiss it to try to make it better, but didn't want to risk it hurting more. It had healed anyway, though it was red and inflamed.
“We need to tell Flitwick about this,” Luna said. “Bullying is one thing, but this...”
“I would've done so already if I could,” Iliana said. “But there's a compulsion charm on it. It may be technically legal, but it would look bad for the Ministry if it got out. I'm researching how to lift compulsion charms. She didn't think to add a compulsion against that. I just can't ask for any help from someone who isn't already aware of the issue.”
“Well I'll help with the research, Iliana. And maybe Cedric can help, too. You should ask him about it later.”
“I will. But... I sensed something from you a moment ago. Are... is the bullying happening again?”
Luna nodded. “If I put stuff in my trunk, they can't steal it, the wards on it still work. But they've started putting disgusting things in my bed. Frog spawn, pig bladders... and worse.”
“Worse? Worse how?”
Luna just shuddered. “They also cast a spell on my shampoo the other day in the shower when my back was turned. It made my hair fall out. I had to have Madam Pomfrey help me regrow it.”
“I wish I could bring you to my dorm and keep you safe in there. But I'll have to settle for siccing Fred and George on them. Do you know who's doing it?”
“I can't be sure of all of them. My dorm-mates for sure; Maria Markov, Sally Jacobson, and Cerridwen Cartwright. Maria also has her friend Circe Lancaster bullying me, too.”
“You need to tell the Prefects.”
Luna shook her head. “I have. Only one of them did anything about it, and that just made the problem worse.”
“Then you need to tell Flitwick. If the Prefects aren't doing their job, he needs to know.”
“No. It'll just make things worse.”
“It might get the Prefects fired and replaced.”
“I'm sorry, Iliana, but that wouldn't help either. Everyone in Ravenclaw either bullies me or looks the other way. I'm the House outcast, too weird for any of them. I don't think the Prefects that did nothing were even being mean, I think they just didn't believe me. They think the creatures I talk about are imaginary, and so they think I'm a liar. It doesn't help that I can never look anyone in the eyes, it's too intense for me. In most people, failure to make eye contact is a sign of dishonesty. But I'm not like most people. And I don't lie. Lying is unnatural to me, it hurts. I believe everything I say.”
“I believe you, Luna.”
“Even about the creatures nobody else can see but me and Daddy?”
“I keep an open mind about those. I--”
“What are you two doing lurking about at one in the morning? Up to no good, are you?”
It was Filch, glaring at them by the light of his lamp. Mrs. Norris beside him meowed in an accusing tone.
“Mr. Filch, we had a detention with Professor Umbridge. We were just on our way back to our dorms.”
“Detention? Ha! Tell me another one. A detention going past curfew, what load of hippogriff dung. No, you're up to no good! Come with me to my office for your punishment.”
Iliana didn't have the patience for this. She took her wand out. “Petrificus totalus!” she said, overpowering the spell to catch both Filch and his cat at the same time.
“Obliviate,” she cast on Filch. She felt the memories of his last couple minutes flow through her brain. She erased them, with Hypatia's help, and replaced them with the idea that Mrs. Norris had found Peeves painting nipples on the suits of armor on the ground floor. She did the same to Mrs. Norris, and she and Luna took off before the two of them could snap out of it, casting a dispel on the petrifying spell as she rounded the corner.
“Dobby!”
Dobby appeared with a faint pop a couple feet in front of her. “Miss called--”
Iliana shoved Luna's hand into Dobby's and said, “Take her back to her dorm now before a teacher catches us, Dobby, please and thank you. Now!” Obliviating a squib like Filch was one thing, but if they ran into a teacher, they'd be up shite creek without a paddle.
Dobby nodded, and he and Luna disappeared with a pop. Iliana focused on their animagus power, and shifted into the form of a ginger cat, immediately running off to Griffindor.
It wasn't until she got there that she realized she'd have to shift back to human, wake up the Fat Lady, and give the password. Or so she thought.
[Let me,] Hypatia said. Iliana gave control of the body over to her.
A little ways down the corridor from the Fat Lady was, apparently, a secret passage into Griffindor that was only big enough for cats to get through. The impression of a cat's paw was embedded in the stone of the wall, barely visible even at this height; it would be invisible at human height. Hypatia touched their paw to the mark, and then ran right at the wall, phasing through it just like at platform nine and three-quarters. They came out through a hole to one side of the fireplace, behind the metal cylinder that held the fire poker in it, so you'd have to be standing right by the poker and looking down at the wall to see a cat coming through it. It all seemed a bit involved for normal cats to use, so she wondered if an animagus had put it there. Or maybe someone who owned a kneazle had put it there?
When they got back to their dorm room, Hypatia used a paw a crudely-carved cat's paw carved into the door. It glowed, and the door opened. They went inside, the door closed on its own, and they became human again.
Dobby popped quietly several feet in front of Iliana.
“Miss Luna Lovegood will be glad to see you is made it back safe, Miss. But she is asking Dobby to ask you why you is sending her with Dobby and not asking him to be coming back.”
“If you can do it without waking anyone up or letting anyone else overhear, Dobby, you can tell her that I can become a cat at will.”
“You is a cat animagus, Miss?”
“Something like that, yes. Thank you for your help, Dobby. Now go answer Luna's question, please. And let her know I'm back in my dorm.”
He nodded and popped away again.
She wished she had a two-way mirror set to call Luna on, but she didn't. Or something along similar lines. Then she could communicate securely with Luna, maybe even any time of the day. She really wanted to continue the conversation they'd been having when Filch had found them. She was still thinking about it half an hour later, just before falling asleep.
Endnotes: Okay so, intense chapter. Next chapter is a fun one, though, to make up for it. I mean, it's gonna start out a bit intense, but halfway through it gets fun. (Yes, I'm already almost done with the next chapter!)
Yes, I'm making Umbridge more horrible. Her downfall will be all the sweeter for it. Sorry for the seriousness lately, but fighting fascism is serious business. (And what Fudge and Umbridge were doing was indeed fascism, even if it was Fascism Lite.) For anyone wanting more humor in this story, I have some ideas for such in later chapters, to make it up to you.
Also yes, I headcanon Umbridge as a Hufflepuff. She's very loyal to Fudge, and I've always hated how almost all the villains were Slytherins in the books. (The three exceptions being two Ravenclaws and a Gryffindor.) I've also always loved the idea of a Hufflepuff villain. And given what I've read of her back story from Rowling, it's easy to see her as a Hufflepuff that went bad like rotten meat.
funem stricta = Google Translate Latin for “tight rope.”
I was going to have Umbridge go after Luna a chapter or so back, but it went off the rails when I did, so I rewrote that chapter and redid the idea differently here.
As to Cedric, reading another fanfic made me realize he would have been in school still, since he survived in this fic. I can't believe I forgot that. Anyway, given that they don't hang out in the same circles, it's believable the Potters could have missed the fact he was there for the ten days of school they've had thus far.
And finally yes: the Chamber of Secrets password is now in fact Metallica lyrics. The album is from 1992, and Sirius has been keeping up with Muggle music, so it's possible for Hypatia to have heard that song. I thought that stanza was fitting. :)
“The Many Faces Go To War: Chapter 8”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Eight: Defiance
Notes: Started putting dates on these chapters where possible, it helps me keep track of where I am in the story. (Something I figured out when writing my original fiction.) Dates are provided by HP Lexicon's Order of the Phoenix calendar.
FORMATTING FOR INTERNAL VOICES = Because the previous note about the styles was messing with the formatting, the following will be formatting for internal voices: 'Single quotes with no italics' will be Adira/Addy unless someone is quoting something, ~Text in tildes~ will be Chandra, (Parentheses for Al,) [Brackets will be Hypatia], % Percentage symbols for Iliana %, # Pound signs for Mother/Avani, # * Asterisks for Zoey, * and {curly brackets for Tier.} Apologies for any confusion this may cause.
Text in 'Italics and single quotes' is Parseltongue.
J. K. Rowling owns this sandbox, I'm only playing in it.
This chapter may contain some quotations from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
*FAYANORA*
(Okay, this one's a bit of a roller coaster, starts off with Umbridge being really horrible, but gets better and fun about halfway through, I promise.)
September 12th, 1995
After Adira woke up, she let Iliana write a note for Luna and slipped it into Luna's hand at the Ravenclaw table on the pretense of coming over for a good-morning hug. She would've tried a kiss, but Umbridge was already glaring at them for daring to hug each other in public, so she pulled away before Umbridge could get up to tell them off.
The note she'd given Luna looked like a simple love note to anyone who looked at it, but she'd found out from Fred and George that password protecting a note was an easy spell, and they'd even found her one that didn't look any different if someone tried reading it over someone else's shoulder. So Iliana had put her real message – a more detailed explanation of how she got away last night without being caught a second time – behind a password, the default message slyly hinting at the password, which was 'Xenophilius.'
Having delivered Iliana's note, Adira went back to the Griffindor table for breakfast.
If she'd been hoping for an Umbridge-free day, that hope was dashed when she saw Umbridge sitting in the corner during Defense Against the Dark Arts. When Sirius was the last person to show up, she wrote a note down on her clipboard. Sirius looked at her like she was a fresh dog turd on the sidewalk that he'd almost stepped on, but then turned away, determined to ignore her.
“Right. So today we'll be working on the Stunning Spell, as that's another useful spell. Even better than Expelliarmus, because even if you take their wand away, they might have a dagger or sword or something else to use against you. Some wizards or witches can even do wandless magic,” he added, looking proudly at Adira. “So making sure your enemy is unable to cast, due to being knocked--”
“Hem hem,” Umbridge said.
Ignoring her, Sirius said through clenched teeth, “--out.” He unclenched his teeth and said, “If your enemy is knocked out, they can't hurt you unless one of their buddies uses the counter-charm to wake them up, or the spell wears off. When I was fighting the first war against Vol—er, You-Know-Who, I liked to use the spell combo of Expelliarmus, Incarcerous, Stupefy. 'Stupefy' is, of course, the incantation for the Stunning Spell. That combo disarms your opponent, ties them up, and knocks them out so they can't apparate away or activate their animagus form if they have one.”
“Hem hem,” Umbridge repeated.
Without speaking, Sirius tossed something at her. She caught it. It was a bag of Muggle cough drops. She tossed it aside and said again, “HEM HEM!”
“Miss Patil, if you could close the window please, I think it's letting some foul-smelling hot air into the room,” Sirius said.
There was some scattered laughter at this, but not a lot, because Umbridge could still mete out punishments.
“Professor Black, did you receive my note about the time and date of your inspection?”
Finally he turned to face her. “It was kind of hard to miss. Any pinker and it would be ultraviolet.”
He laughed at his own joke with his bark-like laugh. Hermione and Adira also laughed, but nobody else got the joke.
Umbridge wrote on her clipboard, reading aloud what she was writing as she did. “Doesn't give clear answers to questions posed of him.”
“I was quite clear,” he said through gritted teeth, his hands balled into fists. “If I knew it was pink, I clearly read it, or can't you read between the lines of what people are saying?”
Writing again, she said, “Exhibits hostility... when given constructive criticism.”
The anger in Adira began bubbling again. Torturing students, telling lies as facts, and now trying to get her godfather fired? Al's anger rose highest of them all, and she gripped the desk tightly as she tried to control herself.
The windows began to rattle, and Sirius looked around for the source. Upon seeing the look of fury she was giving Umbridge, he mouthed 'Settle down' at Adira. She tried focusing on her breathing, to calm down. She imagined Umbridge hanging from her feet and being used as a piñata as Adira hit her repeatedly with a metal baseball bat, and felt herself calm down.
Turning to Umbridge, Sirius said in a manner Adira had only seen from some purebloods in Slytherin and Ravenclaw, “Please excuse my rudeness, Professor Umbridge, I think perhaps I had something to eat that has given me heartburn, and therefore I am a little grumpy. My sincerest apologies, Professor.”
Umbridge considered him with a sour look on her face. But she didn't seem to be able to find any sign of sarcasm in his tone, so she nodded.
“Apology accepted, Professor Black.”
“Thank you for your generosity of spirit, Professor Umbridge,” Sirius responded.
“Before you continue, Professor Black, just one teensy suggestion, if I may?”
His face twitched with irritation, but he was still 'pureblood polite' when he answered her. “But of course, Professor Umbridge.”
“I just wonder why you are teaching your students to fear attack, when they are safely tucked away in school, where nothing can harm them?”
Sirius's eyes widened, like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Adira also sensed he was unsure how to answer. Well, unsure how to answer in a way that wouldn't make matters worse for himself.
“Whadda ya mean we're safe in school?” Seamus Finnegan blurted out. “Do yeh not remember the troll in the dungeon in our first year? Or how 'bout the Heir of Slytherin attacking Muggle-borns in our second year? Then we all thought there was a mad murderer loose in our third year, and there were dragons and stuff in our fourth year, yeh can't tell me that was safe, no matter how many precautions were taken!”
“Your hand is not up, Mr. Finnegan! Ten points from Griffindor.”
“Hey--- I mean... pardon me, Professor Umbridge, but I'm the teacher here now, I give out or take away points!”
“I am the Hogwarts High Inquisitor, Professor Black. I outrank you. The point deduction stands.”
“He's right, though,” Parvati Patil said. “We've been in danger every year in this school since we got here! And even if we weren't, there's still dark wizards out in the world!”
“Your hand was not up, Miss Patil. Another ten points from Griffindor. But to address your point, since we cannot have such ridiculous nonsense go un-addressed, there are no dark wizards out in the world to harm you, children. You are safe here in these walls. I know in the past there may have been mistakes, but the Ministry is now here to correct those mistakes. We have already dealt with one such danger, by removing the dangerous half-breed Remus Lupin from--”
“Moony is human, you horrible woman,” Sirius snapped. “Lupin, I mean. He's got a sickness, but he's only dangerous once a month and he was taking Wolfsbane Potion and locking himself in a cage during the full moon! There was no chance in Hell of him being a danger to anyone!”
Writing on her clipboard, Umbridge said, “Insults his coworkers... when riled. Uses foul language... in front of children. Argues in favor... of letting dangerous beasts... roam the school unchecked.”
“OUT! Get out of my classroom NOW!”
“Has a violent temper,” she said, writing again. “Cannot have... a polite discussion... if there is a disagreement, and screams... in lieu of arguing his case.”
CRACK! Everyone jumped as the windows all broke down the middle. The room was shaking again, and Adira was gripping the desk so hard it was splintering in her hands. Sirius, panic in his face, said, “Adira, maybe you should go cool off.” He aimed his wand at the first broken window and said, “Reparo.”
“Is aware... of his godson's dangerous temper... and does nothing... to protect the other students... from his wrath.”
The windows Sirius hadn't gotten around to repairing shattered. Sirius stopped them from raining glass on people with a wave of his wand.
“ADDY, GO NOW!”
“Does not... punish... his godson's... misbehavior.”
“Get a grip on yourself, Addy,” Hermione said, getting her own grip on Adira's arm.
“Reparo,” Sirius said, repairing all the windows at once by overpowering the spell. “Duro.”
“Oh Mr. Potter? Before you go to 'cool off,' you have another detention with me tonight before dinner. And let's see, for damaging school property, let's make it another week's detention. And for the Saturday detention, I will expect you in my office at 8 am sharp. You may go now.”
She was grinning maliciously at Adira, and was chuckling as Adira stormed out.
As she stormed through the hallways, intending to go to the Room of Requirement and blast some effigies of Umbridge into dust, the walls shook and the windows rattled. Then Peeves appeared.
“What's shaking, Potty wee Potter? Oooh, it's you!”
“Get off it, Peeves!”
“Oooh, crackpot's feeling cranky!”
She shot a 'langlock' at him, but he ducked.
“Oh Potty wee Potter, she rattles the walls,
The doors and the windows, and the floors in the halls!
The glass it cracks and falls to the floor,
Who knows when ol' Hoggywarts can't take no more?
“Will she swallow it up through a crack in the ground?
Will there be something left but a small earthen mound?
Will we have time to scream, and run for our lives?
Will Dolly Umbitch be attacked by bee hives?”
Adira reached out with her wandless magic and grabbed Peeves with it, shoving him roughly into a keyhole with it precisely as Professor McGonagall came out of her office.
“Please stop rattling the castle, Miss Potter!”
Forcing herself to calm down until the rattling subsided, she said, “Sorry, Professor McGonagall. We lost control again. She's trying to get Sirius sacked!”
McGonagall looked around, then cast privacy spells around the two of them.
“I see. And did she give you more detentions?”
“I... yes, Professor.”
“I seem to recall telling you I would take away the team captaincy from you if that happened again.”
She sighed. “Yes, we remember that too.”
“Well I suppose I should be more careful what I say in the future, Miss Potter.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“I mean none of the other players with the experience to be team captain are really temperamentally suited to the job, nor prepared. And I was suitably impressed by the fact you have reserve players for all positions, including a Deputy Captain, and I was further impressed by that practice schedule you drew up. Also, it would irritate Professor Umbridge to not punish you further, so I will not be demoting you today. But I warn you lot: get a hold of your tempers, because next time I will not be so generous. I will be ensuring that your deputy Captain is properly trained and prepared to take over for you the next time you lose your temper with Professor Umbridge. Do you understand?”
“Yes, we understand. We'll try to be good.”
“See that you do. Oh, and 50 points from Griffindor for letting your temper get away from you.”
Adira wanted to protest, but that was fair. They'd nearly gotten someone seriously injured, after all. She didn't know if McGonagall knew that, but she wasn't about to tell her in case she didn't.
“Now, Miss Potter, since it is unsafe for you to be around Professor Umbridge at this time, go to Madam Pomfrey for a Calming Draught.”
“Yes, Professor McGonagall, that sounds like a good idea.”
McGonagall dismissed her, and she turned to go to the hospital wing.
~
September 12th and 13th, 1995
That night, Adira dreamed of a long dark hallway with a locked door at the end of it. When she woke up, she found herself reaching out to grasp a doorknob that wasn't there.
“I wonder what that was about?” she asked herself aloud. There was no answer, so she got up out of bed.
Before breakfast, she went to Sirius's room behind Godric Griffindor's portrait and told Godric the password. She hoped her godfather wasn't undressed in there, and was relieved to find he wasn't walking around the place in the buff. Adira had to look for him in several different rooms before finding him in his bedroom, having just finished dressing.
“HOLY-- Adira? I didn't hear you come in. You do know there's a doorbell right next to the portrait, right?”
“Er, sorry. I guess I do now.”
“Right. Well what's wrong, pup? You look upset.”
She wanted to tell him that she and Cedric had another detention with Umbridge the night before, where they'd watched as Umbridge tortured Luna with the blood quill. But of course, she couldn't do that.
“I had a dream about walking down a long, dark corridor ending in a locked room. I was frustrated by the locked door in the dream.”
“Um... okay. And?”
“And it seemed weird. Like I wasn't me. Which, now I say that aloud, makes it more suspicious. I think my Occlumency failed last night. It would make sense, given I had another detention last night.”
“Yes, that makes sense. Do you think it's Voldemort? That you were seeing through his eyes?”
“If we're a horcrux of his, and that's the reason for the mental connection, then... wait a minute... do horcruxes normally have mental connections to one another?”
“I dunno, pup. A bit out of my league, that one. I'll ask Dumbledore about it. You reckon I should tell him about the dream?”
“Yeah, I think so.” She paused a moment, then asked, “Do you think it was the Department of Mysteries? I've never been there, but if he's obsessed with the prophecy, it would make sense he was thinking about the place. Or reading the mind of someone who'd been there.”
“I don't know either, but that makes too much sense to ignore. I'll tell Dumbledore about it. Do you know how to take a memory out of your head for a Pensieve?”
“Hypatia does,” she said. She lifted her wand to her temple. Hypatia did the incantation nonverbally, and they pulled the memory of the dream out as a gossamer fine thread of glowing mist, putting it into the phial Sirius handed her, and giving it to him.
“Thanks. If it's the place, Dumbledore will recognize it. I think it's on the way to one of the old courtrooms they used to use for trials during the war. Naturally, I never saw the place because I never got a trial. Not even after the fact! Peter got one, but Fudge just pardoned me without my own trial. Not that I'm complaining about being pardoned, mind you.”
“Right. Well... I don't really feel like seeing the old toad again this morning, Sirius. Can we get the elves to bring us breakfast here today?”
“Sure thing, pup. I feel the same way. Dobby!”
Dobby popped into place in front of them. “Yes, Professor Black Sir?”
“Adira and I are having breakfast in here, if you'd consent to serve us here.”
Dobby nodded excitedly. “Of course, Sir and Miss, Dobby will be getting you breakfast. Is you wanting anything special?”
“Just some of whatever everyone else is having, Dobby,” Adira said.
“And a plate of waffles for me, Dobby,” Sirius said. “Er, in addition to what Adira said, not a substitution.”
“Of course, Sir and Miss! Dobby will be back soon!”
Adira and Sirius went into the dining room and sat down, where they began to talk about this and that while they waited for Dobby. A few minutes later, he and another two elves appeared with small pops. Dobby set down a plate with half a dozen waffles to one side while the other two elves placed large plates in front of Addy and Sirius, each plate full with eggs, sausage, bacon, toast, a plate of butter, and several jams. Dobby then snapped his fingers, and a large jug of orange juice appeared. Another snap, and a pot of real maple syrup appeared.
“Thank you, Dobby. And thank you two as well,” Adira said to the other two elves. “Um... what are your names?”
“I is Bipsy,” said a female elf. “And he is being Tipsy.”
“Well then, lay off the butterbeer in that case,” Sirius said, laughing at his own joke.
The elf rolled his eyes. “Tipsy is never hearing that joke before, Sir, no, not even once... today.”
The elves all bowed and Disapparated.
“A sarcastic elf. Who knew?” Sirius said, shrugging, before digging into his food.
~
September 13th, 1995
Later that day, Adira found herself blacking out for the first time ever. She found herself outside of the Fat Lady's portrait, but the last she'd remembered, she'd been in the library. She checked her watch and found her break was almost over.
'Anyone know why we blacked out?'
[Yes,] Hypatia said. [I borrowed the body for a bit, but didn't want you knowing what I was doing. It's a surprise. I would've done it last night when you were asleep, but these detentions make that impossible. Hence, blackout.]
'Well it's disconcerting. Can you not do that?'
[Are you saying you'd rather be given false memories?]
'I... um... yes, actually.'
[Duly noted,] she said. [Now you should hurry before you're late to class.]
~
September 13th , 14th, and 15th, 1995
Detention with Umbridge on Friday and Saturday was grueling. They weren't allowed dinner on Friday night or breakfast on Saturday. Adira sent Luna some sandwiches at 1 in the morning on Friday via Dobby. Thankfully, they were allowed lunch, because they were all suitably downtrodden by then, and they ate without even knowing what any of it was, which was probably for the best, since it all tasted like cardboard to them after getting maybe five hours of sleep between two hours-long torture sessions in Umbridge's office. Adira and the others sharing her body had thought the black quill was torture enough, but watching Luna go through that was far worse for them. Cedric probably would have agreed if she'd had the energy to ask him.
After lunch, Umbridge put them through another three hours of her detentions before finally letting them go after Luna's hand ceased healing. Adira didn't know where Cedric went after that, but Iliana spent the rest of the afternoon letting Luna cry into her shoulder, feeling too beaten down to cry herself. If the Dursleys had been half as good at abusing children as Umbridge was, Adira thought they'd probably have become one of the stereotypical multiples with regular blackouts and being unaware of one another. Not that she believed multiplicity was caused by childhood trauma – if it was, there'd have been probably a billion people with the condition living in the world right now – but she did believe childhood trauma could make multiplicity worse. Mainly because if this kept up much longer, she'd probably tell Hypatia to put a construct in her place so they wouldn't have to watch Luna being tortured anymore.
On Sunday, Adira woke up to find the room was far brighter than it should be. She quickly put her glasses on and checked her watch, and discovered it was almost noon. She was late for her detention!
[Calm down, you're not. You're in your detention right now. So are Luna and Cedric. After a fashion.]
'What do you mean, Hypatia?'
[This is that surprise I mentioned. Well, okay, this is actually a different surprise than the one I mentioned, but I'm giving you this one first because it was strangely easier than the other one. Still haven't worked the kinks out of that one, but---]
'HYPATIA!'
[Alright, alright. So look over there.]
Adira looked at her desk, which had books about Transfiguration on it, as well as a book called “Runic Magic for Use With Transfiguration” by Kavi Rishi. There were also copious notes in Hypatia's handwriting, and an annotated drawing of a human-looking figure looking like a modern interpretation of the vitruvian man. Her attention then turned to the chair by the desk, which had wood carving tools and scraps of wood on it.
“What is all this?” Adira asked, too confused to realize she'd spoken aloud.
[Do you remember that giant chess set McGonagall made in our first year?]
“Yes.”
[And that time Zoey made a thing that kind of looked like Molly Weasley, but fell apart very quickly and had to be controlled the entire time?]
“Yes! What about it?”
[Well it's possible to make even more realistic moving figures like that. Same concept as when McGonagall turned her desk into a pig, just a lot more complicated because humans are the result of evolution getting drunk as a skunk and then getting high on weed. By all rights, the fact we can walk upright the way we do is just plain weird. Point is, transfigured things that look like humans are very difficult to make. It takes a lot of power and control. Dumbledore could do it, Voldemort probably could too. Us, not so much. So I had to cheat a little. Well, no, I had to cheat a LOT.]
“Are you going to approach a point anytime soon?”
[My point is that with some runes, a couple small rituals – one of which involved sacrificing a small bit of basilisk venom, and a little wishful thinking, I made three very lifelike figures to replace you, Luna, and Cedric for the duration of your detentions. They even bleed! The blood wouldn't stand up to close scrutiny, and might even dissolve the parchment after a few days if she doesn't just Vanish them when we're done with them, and I had to put in runes so I could control the figures remotely because otherwise they'd be so stupid they wouldn't fool anybody, but... yeah. No more detentions for the week.]
Adira felt like she had to pick her jaw off the floor, at that.
“What the... that's incredible! How'd you even think of that?”
[Just thought, back during the first set of detentions, 'Too bad I can't do like Zoey did that one time and trick Umbridge into thinking we're there when we're not. Or can I?' I thought of it the third day of the first set of detentions, and it took me that long to figure out how to do it, but I did it. Oh, and if you open the library compartment of the trunk, don't scream. I made another figure that looks like me, so I could stop making excuses to Draco for why I'm never around anymore. I stored it in the trunk.]
“Holy crap! Fred and George would probably pay us back all the gold Al gave them in exchange for the knowledge of how to do that!”
[If you even mention these figures to them, I will modify Iliana's figure to look like you and make it run naked through the Great Hall.]
“Alright, alright! I won't tell them. But what if they see one of the figures and figure out it doesn't show up on the Map?”
[I'll burn that bridge when we get to it. After all, they had that Map for how many years without realizing Scabbers wasn't a real rat? For now, I should tell you about the catch.]
“A catch? Oh, right. Of course there's a catch. What's the catch?”
[The catch is you three have to remain out of sight when those figures are out. Oh and by the way, I sort of kidnapped Cedric and Luna and put them in the Room of Requirement. They're still out cold. Used a new spell I invented over the summer on them. Don't worry, I tested it out on animals and the Weasley twins once we got our magic back, so I know the spell is safe.]
'What spell is that?' Adira finally said in her head instead of aloud.
[It's a type of stunning spell that doesn't wear off on its own. It has to be undone either with the specific counter-charm it's paired with, or cracked by a curse-breaker. I call it the Sleeping Beauty Spell. The incantation is 'Altum somnum.' The counter-charm is 'Princeps venustus.'] She sent Adira the wand movement for the spell, which looked like tracing out a stylized apple. The counter-charm's wand movement resembled stylized human lips.
'So we need to go into the Room of Requirement, explain all this to Cedric and Luna without them hexing us, and wait in there until the figures find us in the Room of Requirement? Then you, what, shrink them down and put them in your pocket?'
[Yes, that's it exactly.]
'Right. Well okay, here goes.'
Adira packed the books and information away in her trunk in case anyone came in when she wasn't here, put the Marauder's Map in her pocket, then she called Dobby and had him transport her to the Room of Requirement, where she found two beds. Cedric was sleeping on one, Luna on the other.
“Princeps venustus,” she cast on Luna first. But it didn't do anything.
[Oh, sorry. Both spells are nonverbal only.]
Sighing, Adira tried again, casting nonverbally. This time, it worked.
Luna opened her eyes, yawned, then seemed to notice her surroundings. She bolted upright, her wand out and trained on Adira. Addy put her own hands up defensively, an effect slightly ruined by the fact she still had her wand in one hand.
“What did the Potters say to me the first time they met me?” she asked.
“Um... you said 'You're Iliana Potter,' and Iliana said 'Uh... yeah I am. Sorry I didn't introduce myself. Who're you?'”
“Good memory,” Luna said, lowering her wand. “But the correct answer was 'Um, hi. Is it okay if we sit here?'”
“Oh. Er, right. Sorry. You still think it's really us?”
“Well... just to be sure, Chandra should say something.”
“Okay.” She paused a moment, listening to him in her head, then said, “Um... he says 'The moon is far brighter than most give her credit for, but she will find herself outshone ere the afternoon has expired.'”
“Interesting. Yes, that sounds like Chandra. But what does he mean?”
Suddenly, Adira was replaced by Iliana, who hugged Luna.
“Oh hello, Iliana.”
“Hi, Luna. Um... to answer your question, well... this is a little complicated.”
Luna sat attentively on the bed, listening to Iliana's explanation of what Hypatia had done, Iliana pacing back and forth during the explanation. When Iliana stopped talking, Luna cocked her head.
“Impressive. But how will we eat?”
“Simple. Dobby!”
Dobby returned, having brought breakfast for three people with him, anticipating their needs. Two of the trays were balanced precariously on the first tray, but he managed it. The Room provided a dining table, and he set the trays down on it.
“Thank you, Dobby. Um... you should probably stay for a few moments. Cedric might be grumpy when he wakes up.”
That was an understatement. Upon finding himself somewhere unfamiliar, he bolted upright and sent a hex at Iliana that she barely managed to avoid in time. Dobby snapped his fingers, and Cedric's wand flew into Iliana's hand. He snapped them again, and Cedric was restrained by an invisible force.
“Cedric. Al told you about the dragons before the First Task because it was fair. And I think the first time any of us said anything to you was when I told you about the Impervious Charm that time it was raining so much I thought we'd have to build an ark.”
At these words, Cedric stopped resisting the restraints.
“Alright, so it's really you. What about Luna?”
“You really should let Daddy check you for franzles, Cedric. They make it difficult for people to know who to trust. If you have an infestation of them, Daddy makes a lovely gurdyroot tea that will clear them right up.”
“Er, hi Luna,” Cedric said. “Someone want to tell me what's going on?”
Iliana thought about letting Luna explain it, but then realized Cedric might not understand any of Luna's explanations, so she did it instead. When she was done, Cedric's jaw had dropped.
“You made a realistic human figure that can pass as human, operates semi-independently, and it even bleeds realistically? Do you have any idea what you could do with that? It'd be basically a human-shaped decoy! Send it out in a battle situation, and it would take any curses for you!”
“Er, yeah. That'd be Hypatia's doing.”
“Who? Oh wait, do you mean the person you mentioned who made that giant Patronus possible?”
“Yes, that was her.”
“Oh. Cool. So she made those figures?”
“Yes. She's making some new spells, too. Um... like the spell I knocked you out with. It doesn't respond to 'Rennervate.' It has its own counter-charm. And, uh, it's nonverbal only. So is the counter-charm.”
“Wow! You know, that would solve a major problem in wizard battles. Use a regular stunner, and anyone can wake them back up again, including their allies. Hit someone with that, though, and only people who know the counter-charm can undo it! How long does it last?”
“According to Hypatia, it lasts indefinitely if used on a witch or wizard. It feeds off the person's own magic to power itself, so that means it's got a drawback that it doesn't work that way on Muggles. On Muggles, it wears off in the same amount of time as a normal Stunner. But it still can't be lifted before that without the specific counter-charm.”
“Well can we see it in action?”
“Oh. Sure. Why not?”
The Room provided her an effigy of Umbridge that was far too realistic for her taste. She pointed her wand at it.
'Altum somnum!' she cast nonverbally. A red light shot from her wand and struck the effigy.
“Wow. You even got it to look and behave like a regular Stunner. Ha! The enemy wouldn't even know their comrade had been hit by anything but a normal Stunner, until they tried to use 'Rennervate' on them! Brilliant!”
“Yeah. And both the incantation for the spell and for the counter-charm are nonverbal only, so the enemy wouldn't know how to counter it even if they saw someone using the counter right in front of them.”
“Amazing,” Luna said. “But I'm ready to eat now.”
“Right, I'm starving too. But I should shower first,” Cedric said.
The Room, of course, provided. Before too long, they had all showered, changed in private stalls, and then were together at the table eating breakfast—well, brunch really. Then once they'd eaten, Iliana taught the new spell to Cedric and Luna both, and they spent some time practicing it.
“Wow. I don't suppose you have anything else you'd be willing to share?”
'What do you say, Hypatia?'
[Oh... let me think... hmm... I suppose it couldn't hurt to teach you and your friends the Exploding Head Curse. No, it doesn't actually make their head explode. Perhaps I should rename it. What it does is it makes a person hallucinate a very loud noise that fades in about ten minutes unless you lift it sooner.] She sent Iliana the details.
“Um... I don't have a good name for this one yet, but I have one that makes the victim hallucinate a loud noise.”
“Okay,” Cedric said. “You can try it on me.”
Iliana decided to practice on the effigy first. When nothing seemed to happen to it, then she tried it on Cedric.
“Allucinatus tumultum!”
Cedric went down at once, clutching his ears to try to protect them from a sound that was entirely in his head. The only sound the two girls heard, though, was his screams.
“Tumultum quietus!”
Cedric collapsed with relief. “Oh crap, I'd say that one's pretty damned effective in battle.”
Iliana cocked her head again, listening to Hypatia. When she was done, she said, “We have another one that's kinder but also effective. Stops a person from being able to cast a spell. I call it the Singing Spell.” She aimed at Luna and said, “Cantabo 'Greensleeves'!”
Luna's eyes widened as she found herself starting to sing at the spell's compulsion:
“'Alas my love you do me wrong
To cast me off discourteously;
And I have loved you oh so long
Delighting in your company.
“Greensleeves was my delight,
Greensleeves my heart of gold
Greensleeves was my heart of joy
And who but my Lady Greensleeves.
“I have been ready at your hand
To grant whatever thou would'st crave;
I have waged both life and land
Your love and goodwill for to have.
“Greensleeves was my delight,
Greensleeves my heart of gold
Greensleeves was my heart of joy
And who but my Lady Greensleeves.'”
“Normalis loquela.”
“You stopped me before I finished,” Luna said, disappointed.
“Yes, well, I had to make sure the counter-charm worked. But I let you carry on past the second stanza because your singing voice is lovely, Luna.”
“I agree,” Cedric said. “I wanted to hear more.”
“Hmm... Iliana, how does that spell work? I mean... does it only work if the person knows the song, or do you have to provide the lyrics for them when you cast it?”
“That's... I don't know. Let's find out. Cantabo 'Monster Mash'!” she cast at Cedric. Nothing happened. So she cast it again, keeping the lyrics in her mind as she did, which made it harder to cast. He glared at her as he sang:
"'I was working in the lab late one night
When my eyes beheld an eerie sight
For my monster from his slab began to rise
And suddenly to my surprise
“'He did the mash! He did the monster mash
He did the mash! It was a graveyard smash
He did the mash! It caught on in a flash
He did the mash! He did the monster mash!'"
Luna and Iliana were both laughing so hard at this that Iliana couldn't get the counter-charm out, and Cedric didn't stop singing until the song was over. Glaring at Iliana, he cast “Cantabo '99 Bottles of Butterbeer on the Wall'!”
“Ninety-nine Bottles of Butterbeer on the Wall,
Ninety-nine Bottles of Butterbeer!
Take one down, pass it around,
Ninety-eight Bottles of Butterbeer on the Wall!”
Cedric crossed his arms and let her sing down to “89 bottles of butterbeer on the wall” before lifting the spell. By this point, Luna was laughing so hard she was on the floor in a ball, wheezing while still laughing. Since they couldn't take her to the hospital wing, Iliana Stunned her with the regular Stunning Spell instead, 'rennervating' her a minute later. But a few seconds later, she went back to laughing fit to burst.
[I have another one for you.] Hypatia sent her the details.
“Et cessabit,” Iliana cast at Luna.
Luna glowed blue a moment, then slowly began to stop laughing. Finally, she calmed down enough to sit up and wipe the tears of mirth from her eyes.
“A calming charm? Wow, Iliana! You should show Flitwick that one.”
“Really?”
“Yes really!”
“Oh. Well okay then, I think I will. Later, though. During class, I think. Are you feeling better, Luna?”
“Oh yes, quite well thank you.”
(OH MY GODS!) Al thought loudly. (I just had a brilliant idea for later! Cast that Singing Spell on Snape!)
% Ha! But no, I think I'll let Fred and George do that. They'd love it. %
(Just make sure to tell them to do it somewhere Sirius can see it happen.)
“What's so funny now, Iliana?”
“Al just suggested casting the Singing Spell on Snape!”
“Ooh, better give that one to the Weasley twins. They're better at avoiding getting into trouble. And they're clever enough to have come up with it themselves.”
“Agreed.”
“By the way,” Cedric said, “I gather the caster of the Singing Spell has to know the lyrics? Because I've certainly never heard that 'Monster Mash' song before.”
“Actually, it can work either by the caster providing the lyrics, or the victim knowing them already. But if the caster has to provide the lyrics, it's a lot harder to cast. When I hit Luna with it, she already knew the lyrics.”
Luna nodded at this. “It's one of my favorite songs. I also like 'Scarborough Fair.'”
“Oh Luna, will you sing it for us? I really do love your singing voice, it's beautiful.”
Luna blushed. “Well okay then.”
Cedric and Iliana sat down in seats provided by the Room. Luna stood by one of the beds, cleared her throat, then began to sing:
“Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;
Remember me to one who lives there,
For she was once a true love of mine.
“Tell her to make me a cambric shirt,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;
Without any seam or needlework,
Then she shall be a true love of mine...”
She kept going, finishing the whole song. When she was done, her audience of two applauded. Then, with their encouragement, she sang some Irish songs, like “Arthur McBride,” “Foggy Dew,” “I'm a Rover Seldom Sober,” and “Danny Boy.” That last one moved the two of them to tears, so Luna finished off with “The Little Beggarman.”
Luna was trying to decide if she wanted to do another song when the door opened up and... Luna, Cedric, and Iliana all walked in. Cedric jumped up and lifted his wand at them as the door closed behind them.
“Iliana, are these our doubles?”
“Yes. And uh, they weren't followed. Thank goodness for that.”
The three figures, which looked identical to the three humans except that they were disheveled, Luna's figure was bleeding from its right hand, and all three of the figures looked like they'd been ugly crying for hours. These constructs all sat down on the floor and leaned against the wall like marionettes with their strings cut. Iliana went over to them, shrunk them to the size of action figures, and put them in her pockets.
Cedric eyed her pockets warily. “That was unnerving,” he said. “They look just like us. It was like somebody with Polyjuice Potion was standing there. Maybe you shouldn't tell anybody how to make those things. They'd be really easy to abuse.”
“Yeah, I agree,” Iliana said at the same time as Luna. The two girls laughed at their sudden stereo speech.
“Anyway, yeah, I'm locking any information about these things away somewhere safe, and putting every kind of concealment and secrecy spell on the information that I can find.”
“Hey, Iliana? Would I be able to meet Hypatia? She saved our lives, but I've never seen her before.”
“I would also like to meet her,” Luna said.
“Okay... but she's still a secret. The reason why is that she's friends with Draco Malfoy, and she's scared he'll reject her if he finds out who she really is.”
“Malfoy? Really? But you and he hate each--- oh. Yeah, I can see why that would be a fear she'd have. So can we meet her?”
Iliana nodded. “Just one thing first, though. She uh... she has a weird affect. She laughs when she's sad and cries when she's happy.”
“Oh. Okay,” Cedric said.
“Fascinating,” said Luna. “I've heard stories about the Fair Folk having issues like that.”
Iliana closed her eyes, letting her and Hypatia switch places. Before their eyes, Iliana's skin turned brown, her hair white and formed into dreadlocks, and she had squarish spectacles on her face. When she opened her eyes, they were amber.
“Hello, Hypatia,” Cedric said. “Thanks for saving my life last June.”
“You're welcome,” she said. Then she turned to Luna, examining her like she was looking at a specimen under a microscope.
“Hello, Hypatia. I'm Luna Lovegood.”
Luna held out her hand. Hypatia looked at it, suddenly feeling nervous as she felt the full impact of this form kick in. She took Luna's hand and shook it.
“Hello, Luna. It's... good to meet you.”
“Yes, I imagine it is, since you only have the one friend,” she said.
Hypatia tensed up, glaring at Luna. Luna ignored this and sighed wistfully. “I remember what it felt like to have no friends. I'm glad I have some now. Iliana and the other Potters, Ginny, and Hermione. Not Ron yet, but he's an acquaintance. I'm much too weird to him for us to be friends yet. Funny, really, since he's friends with your group. You all are weirder than I am. Anyway, would you like to be friends with me?”
At Luna's words, Hypatia relaxed, and smiled. “I'd like to try for that, at least. You're right that Draco is my only friend.”
“And I could be a friend, too, Hypatia,” Cedric said.
“It's a possibility. But we'd have to get to know each other better, all three of us, before that happened. Knowing the other Potters isn't the same as knowing me.”
The two of them nodded.
Hypatia looked at the time, and then pulled the Marauder's Map out of her pocket and looked at it for several moments.
“It's almost dinner. Cedric, Umbitch is in her quarters. It should be safe for you to leave now.”
“Cool, thanks. By the way, before I go, I have to say I had a lot of fun today, with Iliana and Luna. And it was nice meeting you, Hypatia.”
“Iliana also had fun,” Hypatia said.
“It was lovely,” Luna agreed.
“Yes. I'm going to go now,” Hypatia said.
“Bye! I hope I see you later,” Luna said.
“Me too,” agreed Cedric.
Hypatia nodded, and switched places with Iliana, their form becoming the redhead again.
Iliana looked at her watch and said, “I think we should all wait another fifteen minutes, then go down to dinner. That'll give us time to 'clean up' after we were all supposedly crying earlier. Just remember to try to look despondent. Umbridge never takes her meals in her quarters.”
“Right. Well, guess I'll see you two tomorrow. Um... unless she wants us back after dinner?”
“No, she doesn't. I would have mentioned it if she did.”
“Good. Well, tomorrow. Um... how should we get here so we're not seen?”
“Dobby and I will take care of it again. Just try to be up by 7:30 in the morning.”
“Ugh. Okay. Thanks again, Iliana, Hypatia.”
They waited, then Iliana sent Cedric ahead so they weren't all traveling together at once. Once he was a ways down the corridor, she and Luna started off towards the Great Hall too.
“I think I want to sit next to you at the Griffindor table, Iliana. I think it's what I'd want if I'd been going through a lot of stress like that. I'd want to be close to you, after being apart from you for so many hours.”
“Okay. But be careful, Umbridge hates public displays of affection.”
“Yes. But then after dinner, we should go back to the Room and cuddle. Spending time with you and Cedric was fun, but I would have preferred to cuddle you instead.”
“I like the way you think, Luna. Yes, Room of Requirement again it is.”
~
The next week went by much faster, though all the forced time with Cedric annoyed Iliana because he was unintentionally in the way of potential alone time with her girlfriend. Still, she refused to let any of the others spend that time with Luna. Anyway, after the first couple days, Cedric was usually over in one corner reading the books the room provided, doing homework, or doing something else by himself. But the detentions were lengthy enough that the three of them still spent a lot of time together that week. To shake things up, every now and then Hypatia would show up, but she didn't really know how to socialize, and spent most of her time Out around them talking about things that went over both their heads. She never spent more than an hour at a time Out around Cedric and Luna, either, usually feeling very awkward by the end of the hour and retreating Inside.
On the second to last day of the detentions, the room split itself into two separate rooms, finally giving Luna and Iliana some privacy to snuggle on the sofa together. By the end of the last night's detention, they'd progressed to kissing.
Knowing they were secretly defying Umbridge made her classes easier to get through, for all of them. Luna found Umbridge's vexed expressions at her unflappable calm to be amusing. Cedric had to stifle laughter for similar reasons, and not even Al could be angry at her when he was thinking about how they were lazing around in the Room of Requirement while transfigured constructs were taking their detentions for them without her being any the wiser. They all made it through the week without adding to the detention time, despite the fact that Trelawney and Sirius were both getting regular inspections from Umbridge.
Sometimes, though, the three of them got bored of doing their own thing, and started practicing defensive spells together. The idea had been Luna's, after a discussion wherein they all agreed that Sirius was probably going to be the first teacher sacked. But the relief from the umbrage caused by Umbridge gave the Potters a fresh perspective on that: if Sirius was sacked, so what? It was fun while it lasted, but it's not like he needed the money. Either one of their vaults would have been more than enough to support both of them. For Sirius, this was a diversion, something to do with his time.
Yet as Luna pointed out, Sirius would probably get replaced by some ineffectual nobody they'd learn nothing useful from, and then Defense Against the Dark Arts would be crap again. Her thinking behind this was that Fudge was paranoid about Dumbledore. "And if I were in his position," she'd said, "I'd worry he was raising an army. The things Umbridge had said during her inspections of Defense class suggested that level of paranoia to me. Of course, Fudge is raising his own private army of heliopaths for the Rotfang Conspiracy, so naturally he must think Dumbledore is into his little scheme and intends to stop him. From his perspective, Dumbledore already took down two dark lords, so why not a third?"
"Oh Luna, never change."
"Now, I can't promise that, Iliana. Everyone and everything is changing, all the time. Change is the only constant in the universe."
"Well, that and the speed of light," Iliana said with a grin.
"Ah yes, that too, I suppose."
"Anyway, Luna, even if some useless lump replaces Sirius, what does it matter? I mean, it's not like we could do anything about it."
"Sure we could. We could start a secret Defense club, and you could teach it. Or Adira could."
"What? I... no, that's absurd, Luna!"
"More absurd than blibbering humdingers?"
Iliana laughed. "No, I suppose not. But I'm not a teacher!"
"You taught Hypatia's new spells to me and Cedric. And practicing spells with you and Cedric has improved my own skills."
"That's probably just Sirius's teaching. Nothing to do with me."
Luna pulled Iliana closer to her in the sofa they were lying on. "Perhaps. But you do teach at least as well as Sirius does. Trust me on this, I know what I'm talking about."
"Well, I want to believe you, but I just don't know. Addy doesn't know about it either."
"Have a little faith in yourself, Iliana. Think about it, at least. If Umbridge is still in power long enough to replace Sirius, think about teaching a secret Defense club. Will you do that for me?" Luna kissed her on the lips briefly, making Iliana giggle.
"Okay, fine, I'll think it over. Now get over here so I can nibble on your ears!"
Luna shrieked with delighted laughter as Iliana tried nibbling on her ear, eventually retaliating by tickling her mercilessly until she couldn't breathe. When Iliana recovered, she started chasing Luna around the room with a pillow. Soon there were feathers everywhere, all worries about torture detentions and evil teachers forgotten.
~
September 21st, 1995
Iliana was glad to be rid of Umbridge's detentions again. She woke up early that morning ready for their first real Quidditch practice of the year. She was surprised soon after waking, though, by a pair of wizard-style notebooks on the desk that hadn't been there before. They were bound in black leather. Both were embossed in gold, one reading “Luna,” the other reading “Iliana.” There was a note left on top of them, which Iliana read.
Iliana,
This is that second surprise I mentioned before. Took me a while to sort it out, it was strangely difficult because it involved a complicated charm. Charms aren't really my strong suit, hence this taking so long. Anyway, the specific charm is the Protean Charm. You should be made aware that I used the body during the day a few times to get help with it from Hermione. She knows it was me and none of you, though. Anyway, what it does is that if you write in one book, the writing shows up in the other book when you're done with your sentence or paragraph. And it does it in different ink colors so you can tell which of you wrote in it. Black for Iliana, blue for Luna. It also has a lot more pages in it than appearance would suggest, and can basically be used for a decade of daily use before it starts to run out.
There are protections on them, too. They are password protected to look like Charms notes without the password. Hermione helped me on that bit, too. (The Charms notes, not the password protection spell.) Even if someone is reading over your shoulder while you're writing to Luna in it, it will look to them like Charms notes, including anything new being written, without looking suspicious. If anyone but Luna or one of us tries writing in it, the ink won't stick to the page. The book is also waterproof, can't be easily torn, burned, or Vanished, and has a homing beacon that responds to a verbal command by its owner or the owner of the person it's paired with. Oh, and if someone tries copying it with Gemino, the copy becomes utterly useless, a blank notebook with no magic on it.
Also, when you get a new message from Luna, your copy will sing a song only you can hear, audible from anywhere within a two mile radius. Same goes the other way around. Well, you have to program them to your magical signatures, but that's as easy as bleeding on the cover. Once they're locked in to a user, they can't easily be unlocked without causing them to lock up completely.
With all that in mind, if you think there's any chance of Ginny Weasley seeing you or Luna writing in them, you should tell her in detail about the things ahead of time so she doesn't do her nut over their similarities to Riddle's diary, even though they don't think for themselves. Or at all, really. In fact, that's why I went with wizarding-style journals over Muggle-style.
Oh yeah, and also I programmed it so that my own writing would be a different color on Luna's book, since I want to try this “friend” thing with her and Cedric. It's odd, but I think I might have ended up with whatever kind of mental condition Luna's got. I see a lot of myself in her.
This project was an interesting challenge, too. And from things I've picked up over the summer, I gather a certain organization uses talking Patronuses for pretty much their sole method of secret communication, which is really stupid. I'm going to use the knowledge I got from this project to come up with something better for them. Patronuses are really conspicuous, difficult to cast at the best of times, and while supposedly they can't be faked, it took me about a day to sort out how to fake a Patronus message, once I put my mind to it. I haven't tested the idea, but I might, to show how it's a weakness.
Oh by the way, I heard about a magical weapons seller at Hogsmeade from Draco, I want to go there on the first Hogsmeade weekend and pick up some magical throwing knives. Stow those about one's person in secure holders that resist disarming charms, and even if we lose both wands, we have backup weapons.
That's all for now.
Sincerely,
Hypatia
Iliana password-protected the letter and hid it away in their trunk in case they needed it later. The twinned journals she left on her desk for now. She grabbed her Quidditch robes and left for breakfast, which didn't have many people there because most people were sleeping in. It was just her, Angelina Johnson, and Ron at the Griffindor table.
When they got to Quidditch practice after breakfast, Iliana began by checking the pitch for other people. Draco Malfoy was out there with some of his Slytherins. She glared at him with her arms folded. He glared back, so she got out her wand and tapped it on her other hand. Annoyed, Malfoy stood up with a sneer and lead his fellow Slytherins away. She watched them leave.
That out of the way, she went into the changing rooms and started getting information about other team practices from her deputy captain Angelina Johnson and Ron, who had been sent under a Disillusionment Charm and the Invisibility Cloak respectively to spy on the other teams. From there, the three of them – who had gotten there ahead of the others – started to work out tactics to use against the other teams, focusing primarily on Slytherin, since that was the first team they'd be playing and they had only six weeks until that match. Part of this involved looking in books at long lists of different ways to cheat in Quidditch and talking about way of predicting which of these the Slytherins would use, and how to counter them.
Another part of it involved being honest with Ron and telling him that the Slytherins wouldn't hesitate to use psychological warfare against them, and telling Ron he was going to have to ignore what they were saying and try to remember that anything coming out of a Slytherin's mouth concerning a Quidditch game was going to be a lie.
“I've seen you play, Ron, and you're an amazing keeper as long as your confidence is up. If you do make a mistake, don't worry; everyone does. Just try to shrug it off and keep going, and continue ignoring the Slytherins. Got it?”
Looking a bit sick, Ron said, “I'll try, mate.”
“Good. Towards that end, try to focus on the players in the air, and on what they're doing. Especially pay attention to where the Quaffle is. Think of Quidditch like a game of chess, where every move can be potentially predicted and countered, alright? Play to your strengths.”
“Yeah,” Angelina said. “You tune out everything else when you're playing chess, try to do the same for Quidditch.”
Ron nodded, still looking ill, but determined. “Think of it like chess,” he said to himself. “Think of it like chess...”
When the rest of the team, including the reserves showed up, the three of them went over their thoughts about how to deal with Slytherin. Fred and George looked at one another with a look that made Iliana certain they were comparing her to Wood, but she ignored it.
Once they were done with the tactics, they finally took their brooms out onto the pitch. Iliana cast a spell to detect the presence of people, and the spell alerted her only to three people in the stands: Luna, Neville, and Hermione. Nobody else was around, as far as she could tell. She knew Wood would've been suspicious of Luna, but she knew Luna wouldn't betray the team to the rest of Ravenclaw. Not that any of the other Ravenclaws would have been likely to believe her if she did, though. And anyway, the first match was with Slytherin, not Ravenclaw.
To be sure they were free of the Slytherins, she called Dobby and asked him to patrol the pitch, the stands, and the area around the pitch to keep any Slytherins out, with the exception of Javier if he decided to come. Dobby nodded, and popped away to do just that.
Ron seemed wary of the twins, but they weren't smirking at him or teasing him about being on the team, though this seemed to unnerve him even more than if they had. So Iliana made a snap decision.
“Everyone, I want to remind you all we're all on this team together, even the reserve players, and I expect everyone to treat fellow team members with respect. There is to be no bullying or teasing of team mates while we're practicing or playing, and I'd prefer if you didn't tease teammates when off the pitch, either. We'll have enough to deal with between the Slytherins and Umbridge, so we need our minds on the game as much as possible, understand?”
Everyone on the team muttered their understanding.
“Pardon, what was that?” she asked.
“We understand, Captain Potter!”
“Good. Now let's get out there and train.”
Iliana started out by having the chasers and beaters doing a mock game to help train both themselves and Ron train, using a mix of one primary Chaser and a reserve Chaser on each side of the mock game, the same for the Beaters. It was weird seeing the twins not working together, but this would be good for everyone; it would train the reserves, and give the primaries experience with the reserves if that ever needed to happen in an actual game.
She herself went higher up in the air at one end of the pitch to train Ginny for her position as reserve Seeker. They were all on spare school brooms from the batch the Potters had donated to the school years back, so they were all on equal footing broom-wise.
Ron Weasley took his place as Keeper on one side, the reserve Keeper Cormac McClaggen on the other end. McClaggen was already proving to be a pain in the arse. He kept acting like he knew better than others, tried giving the others tips on playing like he was the captain, and generally being a nuisance. Five minutes into the first practice, and she was already regretting having let him onto the team.
As the game progressed, Ron looked focused and determined, ignoring Luna, Neville, and Hermione cheering, and just focusing on the game. His face did turn a little red at the encouragement, but he was smiling. 'Think of it like chess,' he thought. 'Think of it like chess. Really fast, up-in-the-air chess, but chess. Think of it like chess.'
Iliana soon realized she'd made a mistake, about ten minutes into the game when the reserve Chasers kept missing the Quaffle or throwing it too far for one of the main Chasers to catch it. After fifteen minutes of this, she blew on her whistle and called for a huddle.
“Okay, so this mock game thing clearly isn't working. I think I skipped a step. We're all going to practice throwing and catching the Quaffle instead.”
At her direction, they all got into a wide circle around the pitch, and started to toss the Quaffle around at random people in the circle. Iliana raised the Quaffle with one hand and threw it hard to Fred, who passed to George, who passed to McClaggen, who passed it to Fay Dunbar, who passed it to Ron, who almost dropped it, but managed to save it with the tips of his fingers before passing it on to Dean Thomas.
Then it went to Demelza Robins, to Ginny, to Iliana, to Peakes, to Coote, to Ron again, who didn't so much catch it as bat it through the air at McClaggen, who had to duck to avoid getting hit in the face, but he leaned backwards and caught it upside-down before righting himself and tossing it at Ginny.
“Weasley,” McClaggen said, “you have to catch it and then throw it, not hit it.”
“McClaggen, I am the Captain, thank you very much. Ron's move worked well, it's a good instinct for a Keeper to hit things if they don't think they can catch it in time, and anyway, you caught it.”
“Just barely,” McClaggen said.
“Be that as it may, stop trying to play the Captain, McClaggen; I'm the captain. You're not even the deputy Captain. Now let's get back to what we were doing. Ginny?”
Ginny tossed the ball to Ron, who caught it easily. He was so surprised he threw it a bit wide at Angelina, who had to surge upward to get it, but caught it and passed it on to Alicia Spinnet.
When Iliana next got it, she tossed it to Ron again. She was glad to see that as long a McClaggen kept his mouth shut, Ron was focusing on following the ball with his eyes. The longer they played the game of catch, the less often Ron messed up.
Once they got to a point where they could all catch the ball and throw it again without messing up very often, Iliana said, “Just a little faster now,” and the game sped up, people taking less time to decide who to toss it to. Ron dropped it once, but flew down and caught it before it landed, his face red, and tossed it to Coote. Coote tossed it to Ginny, who tossed it to George, who tossed it to Ron again, who batted it at Iliana this time. She caught it one-handed and chucked it at McClaggen, who threw it to George again.
George passed to Angelina; she reverse-passed to Iliana, who had not been expecting it, but caught it in the very tips of her fingers and passed it quickly to Ron. He fumbled it with his hands and it went behind him, but in an impressive move, he dipped forward, hitting the Quaffle with the straw-end of his broom, where it hit Ginny on the head. She shouted “OUCH!” but caught it as it bounced off her head into the air and chucked it back at Ron, who kicked it right into Fred's hands.
They sped up again, and Ron wasn't the only one to fumble or mess up this time around. There were a lot of near misses, a lot more people hitting the ball instead of catching it, and McClaggen missed the ball by inches once and went soaring after it. Ron snorted with repressed laughter at this. Iliana gave him a warning glare; the rule about not bullying teammates applied to him as well. He had the good grace to look abashed.
McClaggen threw it at Dean, and they continued going at a fast clip. After a few more near misses, Coote kicked the Quaffle hard, which hit Demelza Robins in the nose, making it bleed.
“Here, take this,' Fred told her, handing her something small and purple from out of his pocket, “it'll clear it up in no time.”
“Hold it! Don't take that, Demelza. Fred, what did you give her?”
“The antidote for Nosebleed Nougat.”
“Are you sure? I've seen your Skiving Snackboxes, they all look the same to me.”
Rolling his eyes, Fred took the sweet from Demelza and looked at it. Then he turned pale.
“So what is it actually?” Iliana asked.
“Er... Blood Blisterpod.”
“Right. That's it, Fred, George: I'm banning your Skiving Snackboxes while we're on the pitch. Leave them in your dorm in the future. And I want to run those sweets of yours past Professor Snape at some point to see how safe they are.”
Fred paled at her mention of Snape, and opened his mouth to object. She glared at him and mouthed 'Investor,' while pointing at herself. He looked slightly ill, but nodded. That settled, Iliana soared over to Demelza and pointed her wand at Demelza's nose. “Episkey,” she said, fixing the nosebleed at once.
“Thanks, Iliana.”
“You're welcome. And in the future, don't even think about take anything from someone else for something medical unless they're a trained Healer. And avoid taking anything from the twins at any time, just on general principle.”
They kept going with the game of catch for twenty more minutes before Iliana was satisfied. They'd start with this again next time, keep people in practice. But for now, they went back to her previous idea of a mock game while she trained Ginny in the Seeker position.
The rest of the training session was a mixed bag. Iliana had to yell at McClaggen half a dozen different times in one hour for one unsufferable thing or another. Ron only missed three goals in the mock game, and some of his saves were absolutely amazing.
When they came out of the locker rooms after morning practice, Luna was waiting for Iliana. Luna asked her about hanging out after lunch, but Iliana had a second practice session scheduled after lunch because of the detentions slowing things down. That one would only last until 4 pm, though, which appeased Luna.
Luna ended up eating lunch with Iliana. Then after the second practice, Iliana got changed into a dress and the two girls went to the Room of Requirement with help from the Marauder's Map, deciding to call Dobby for dinner in the room so they could avoid Umbridge's injunction against public displays of affection and not have to walk around so much.
They spent a couple hours just cuddling and talking together before ordering dinner from Dobby. Though they tried to avoid the subject of Umbridge, it eventually came up anyway.
“So that horrid woman has started inspecting every single one of Sirius's classes, I heard,” Luna said.
“Yes, he told me that himself. She's doing the same with Trelawney, as well.”
“I wonder how she does that and teaches her own classes at the same time?”
Iliana shrugged. “No idea.”
“I heard Al tried to help Trelawney out the first time she got inspected. Which is odd. I thought Al didn't like Trelawney?”
“He doesn't like her as a teacher, but he prefers her to Umbridge. And when Trelawney and Alastair lock horns, she's the one with all the power. Not the case with Umbridge. Even Grubbly-Plank doesn't want to mess with her.”
“Ah, I understand. 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.' Though that's not really accurate. It should be 'The enemy of my enemy is my ally.'”
Iliana nodded.
“In the last Defense class I had, Umbridge started talking to him about her own syllabus,” Luna added. “Said he should use it instead, since he was putting the students at risk. But I'm even more sure I'm right that Fudge thinks Dumbledore is trying to train up his own army.”
“That's silly. Training students to be soldiers. That's more like something Voldemort would do.”
“Iliana, didn't you say your parents were in that Order of the Phoenix thing?”
“Er, yeah. Why?”
“Well... I looked them up, and given the year they were in school together, and the year you were born, and they year they died, they were both 21 when they died. If they spent all seven years in school, they were likely 18 when they joined the Order.”
Iliana stared at Luna, aghast. Then she calmed down. “Okay, that's a good point. But there was a war on, and they were Griffindors. Very talented Griffindors as well. That doesn't mean Dumbledore was deliberately training soldiers!”
“I didn't say he was. Just pointing out that anyone who knew about that kind of thing might decide to use that fact to justify thinking Dumbledore was training his own army.”
Iliana tried to push this idea out of her mind, but it kept nagging her for the rest of their time together, making it hard to focus on Luna. Luna was patient with her, though. Even so, a couple hours before curfew, they decided to retire early.
“Oh before I forget, Luna, I have something for you. Dobby!”
Dobby appeared. “Miss is calling Dobby?”
“Yes, Dobby. Could you please retrieve the two notebooks on the desk in my room and bring them here, please. They're black leather, and have our names on them.”
He nodded and popped away. Less than a minute later, he had returned, handing her the books.
“Thank you, Dobby. That's all for now.”
He nodded again and disappeared.
“Ooh, those are lovely.”
“Yes, they are. But better than that. Much better. Let me tell you all about them.”
Luna listened with growing excitement and awe as Iliana explained what they were.
“That's so amazing, Iliana. Hmm... did Hypatia come up with those?”
“Yes. Her own writing will be a different color in them as well. She said she wants to put more effort into this 'friend' thing with you and Cedric. I wonder if that means she'll be making one for Cedric?”
[Damn, that's a good idea. I think I can tie it into the existing pair with a little work... hmm...]
“I guess she hadn't thought of that, but she's working on the details now.”
“I'm glad. She needs more friends. And more practice with friends.”
“That she does.”
Luna took her half of the pair of notebooks and pricked her finger, letting a drop of blood fall to the cover. It glowed white for a moment, devouring the droplet. Iliana did the same for her own, next.
“Now they're locked into our magical signatures,” Iliana said. “Let's test it.”
Iliana got hers out and wrote “Testing, testing, one two.” A moment later, Luna's head perked up at a sound only she could hear, and the words appeared in her notebook, in black ink. She wrote something down in response. It was in black ink too, but the book changed it blue.
There was a tinkling musical tone in Iliana's head as the words appeared in her notebook. Luna had written, “What does that mean?”
Aloud, Iliana said, “It's something Muggles say to make sure microphones work. Er, a microphone is a device to pick up sound and either record it, amplify it, or both.”
“Oh, so like a Howler?”
“Well, more like the Sonorous charm, but if recorded, it's like... like a Howler, but usually at the same volume as was recorded. Or like the sound coming from a two-way mirror.”
“I don't know what those are, either.”
“They're a kind of magic mirror, allows for two-way communication between two people. I have one, and Sirius has the other one that's paired to it. I wanted a set to use with you, but apparently it's something Sirius invented, and thanks to Azkaban, he hasn't been able to remember how he did it. Although... Hypatia could probably analyze it and recreate it.”
[Probably some variation on the Protean Charm, I'm guessing,] Hypatia said. [Actually now I think about it, that might have been easier than the Protean journals. But oh well, the journals record the words and store them for later reading, which the mirrors don't do. Although... hmm... I wonder if I could modify the charm to pick up audio and transmit it, while also turning speech to text? Though that might require a whole other set of runic equations to--- oh duh! The Map! The Marauder's Map can understand spoken language if you put your wand on it when you speak! And then the visual aspect... maybe a mirror built into the inside of one of the covers. Yes, yes... I like that...]
And with that, Hypatia was off into the back of their shared mind to work on a new project. Iliana giggled, then had to explain why to Luna. When she did, Luna giggled as well.
“Well if Hypatia needs to borrow my notebook to improve it later, let me know, and I'll gladly let her,” Luna said.
Iliana grinned. “That I will, Luna.”
Endnotes: Please note, all these new spells were made with the 'help' of Google Translate.
Altum somnum = Latin for “deep sleep.”
Princeps venustus = Latin for “prince charming.” (The counter-charm for Altum Somnum)
Allucinatus tumultum = Allucinatus is the origin of the word “hallucinate” and in Latin it means “to have illusions.” (Thank etymonline for that knowledge!) “Tumultum” is Latin for “noise.” So together, “To have illusions (of) noise.”
Tumultum quietus = Rowlingized Latin for “Quiet (the) noise.”
Cantabo '(song)' = Singing Spell. “Cantabo” is Latin for “sing.”
Normalis loquela = Latin for “Normal speech.” This spell is effective for countering several spells that affect human speech.
Et cessabit = Latin for “be calm.”
If anyone has ideas for spells for any of the Potters or other characters like Hermione to create, let me know in a private message or comment. Oh, and what song should Snape be made to sing? Bear in mind it has to be a song Fred and George – wizard-raised wizards – could reasonably be expected to know already.
“The Many Faces Go To War: Chapter 9”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Nine: Unofficial Self-Defense Club
Notes: Whoops! Forgot to post this last time! So you'll be getting two in a row!
Started putting dates on these chapters where possible, it helps me keep track of where I am in the story. (Something I figured out when writing my original fiction.) Dates are provided by HP Lexicon's Order of the Phoenix calendar.
FORMATTING FOR INTERNAL VOICES = 'Single quotes with no italics' will be Adira/Addy unless someone is quoting something, ~Text in tildes~ will be Chandra, (Parentheses for Al,) [Brackets will be Hypatia], % Percentage symbols for Iliana %, # Pound signs for Mother/Avani, # * Asterisks for Zoey, * and {curly brackets for Tier.} Apologies for any confusion this may cause.
Text in 'Italics and single quotes' is Parseltongue.
J. K. Rowling owns this sandbox, I'm only playing in it.
This chapter may contain some quotations from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
*FAYANORA*
September 22nd – 28th, 1995
Making up for lost time, there was another Quidditch practice the next day, a Sunday. But Iliana only made them practice during the morning, giving the team the rest of the afternoon off.
Adira was glad to hear from Cedric and Luna later that they hadn't gotten any more detentions from Umbridge. “Honestly,” Cedric had said, “that time in the Room for all those hours got really old pretty fast for me. It may have been a more effective deterrent than the quill.”
Luna, for her part, didn't want to risk the figures somehow failing or being found out somehow. Especially after Iliana told her that Hypatia had said the figures can't cast magic of their own, even with a real wand in their hand. So all it would take to expose them is for Umbridge to tell the figure to heal itself with its wand, to expose it wasn't real. That would be bad, if it happened before they could get past the compulsion charm she'd put on the thing. So she didn't want to risk any more detentions, to which Adira and the others all agreed, including Cedric.
Of course, part of preventing this was that they all had to appear suitably defeated to Umbridge. If they looked defiant, or too happy, she might work extra hard to goad them into doing something detention-worthy, and they couldn't have that. Luckily, she seemed to be satisfied with their performances in class. Hermione noticed their attitudes and asked them about it later. Adira only said the detentions were “truly horrible” and she didn't want to risk any more of them. Voldemort would come out in the open eventually, there wasn't anything to be gained by openly defying Umbridge.
“Interesting wording, that use of 'openly,'” Hermione said when she and Adira were taking a break from homework one night. She cast some privacy spells and continued, “Do you have something to tell me? Have you found a way to secretly defy her?”
“Um... well, kinda. Cedric and Luna and I have managed to find some time to meet up together, and I've been teaching them some spells Hypatia invented.”
“Hypatia invented some new spells?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn't teach them to me?”
“Er... no. But we didn't leave you out deliberately. I don't know when Cedric can meet with us next, but I can ask him. Hmm... Cho's been giving me and Iliana looks like she's jealous Cedric might be interested in me instead of her, so I'll have Al ask him instead.”
“Where have you been meeting?”
“The Room of Requirement.”
“Oh, right. That makes sense. So it's just you, Cedric, and Luna so far?”
“Yes.”
She thought about this a moment. “Hmm... yes, I can see where that would be defying her. She's been giving Sirius a hard time lately. The last class we had with him, she was trying to get him to teach from a book by some guy named Wilbert Slinkhard.”
“Yeah, Luna reckons Sirius will be the first teacher to get the sack from Umbridge. And that his replacement will be some duffer who's in her pocket.”
Hermione nodded. “I agree. I see now why Luna is in Ravenclaw. A lot of the things she says sound daft, but she's clever, I'll give her that.”
“Yeah. So, I'll ask Cedric about meeting some time, okay?”
“Thank you, Adira.”
“You're welcome.”
“By the way... if Sirius really does either cave to her pressure or get the sack, and we're still doing those meetings by then, we should go recruiting other people. Because if that happens, Defense is going to become a joke, and nobody will pass it. I got a copy of that Slinkhard book from the library out of curiosity, and the thing is a bad joke. Mr. Slinkhard's entire defense strategy is to run and hide, there's nothing in the book about fighting back if that isn't an option, and he's very dismissive of any kind of offensive magic, even simple jinxes. With that book on the syllabus, the class would be worse than useless.”
“Well let's hope Sirius can hold out until Umbridge gets booted.”
“I wouldn't hold my breath. Fudge's smear campaign against you, Cedric, and Dumbledore was a lot more effective than I would have thought possible. Though I guess Cedric is still a student, which means he can't be out there telling the truth. And Skeeter had you pegged as a mad delinquent last year, and it took Fudge less than an hour to decide you'd Confunded Cedric. So I guess I shouldn't be as surprised as I am.”
“Yes, the astonishing and terrifying power of paranoia.”
She nodded. “Yes. She's even got Percy Weasley convinced, and I thought for sure he'd be on your side, with all you've done to help him with his family.”
“Ah, yes. That's uh, that's gratitude for you.”
Hermione nodded absently. “But you know, it's weird. Some of his wording felt strange, in those quotes in the paper. One quote even had me half convinced he'd read George Orwell and was trying to send a subtle message.”
“That's an interesting interpretation. If true, it would suggest he's undercover for some reason.”
“Really? I was thinking maybe he was having second thoughts.”
“Er... well I guess we won't know unless he tells us. But uh... either way, second thoughts or undercover, what would you do if it was true? I'm not sure what I'd do.”
Hermione paused to think a moment before responding. “Well, I suppose either way, I'd watch the situation for more data and work on the problem more later. It's not like he'd tell us if he was undercover.”
“You wouldn't tell the Weasleys? They're furious with him right now, and Molly is really sad about it. Wouldn't telling them, in that situation, be best? You know, to ease their minds?”
She shook her head. “No. His father works at the Ministry. If he were undercover, and Mr. Weasley knew for sure... well okay, I guess Mr. Weasley could pretend, he's in the Order after all. And Mrs. Weasley almost never leaves the house. But Umbridge might get suspicious if the Weasley kids acted unusually for knowing that. I mean, he's Fudge's personal assistant. What if Fudge and Percy came here to the school for some reason, and the Weasleys saw him? Fudge and Umbridge would expect them to be angry or sad with him still. Or both.”
“Wouldn't that be true if we knew he was undercover and ran into him, too?”
“Hmm... I doubt it. As far as she knows, we didn't know him as well. Older brother, known for being a stickler for rules, Prefect and head boy, was only here with us for three years before leaving. I don't know about Fudge, but Umbridge would think if we knew Percy, either we'd be good little Ministry-loving toadies like him, or else he'd have been obviously corrupted by our lawless influence, and never would have gotten that job.”
“So if you knew Percy was secretly under cover for the Order to keep an eye on Fudge, maybe protect him from being Imperiused by Death Eaters, you wouldn't tell anybody about it?”
“No. Maybe you, Addy, but... but not...” Hermione turned to look narrow-eyed at Adira, who pretended she hadn't noticed this. “You know something, don't you?”
“What? Me? No, don't be silly. It's all hypothetical.”
Hermione narrowed her eyes at Adira even more. Adira was pretending to do homework, but was staring at her open Potions book, on the edge of her seat, figuratively speaking.
“Adira Lily Potter, are you keeping secrets from me?”
“Of course not!”
“You are! You... this wasn't hypothetical, was it? Percy really is a spy for the Order, isn't he?”
Adira sighed. “Yeah, you're right. Which is why I'm glad you wouldn't tell the Weasleys. Percy is--”
“DON'T TELL ME! Oh my god, oh my god, that was just hypothetical! I didn't think... no, oh damn, now I know that, and that's such a burden of pressure. I'll never be able to act normally around Mrs. Weasley again! Oh why did you tell me that? Why??”
“I'm sorry! But it's been eating me since I found out. I hate not being able to tell the Weasleys. I didn't want to tell you, either, because I thought you might tell them. But you started getting suspicious of his quotes, and you brought it up, and I thought... sound her out, see if she's safe to tell. Which it sounds like you are. Or you were, until you started freaking out.”
Hermione was flapping her hands anxiously. “Oh no, oh no oh no oh no...”
“Hermione, relax. If you really think you can't handle keeping the secret from the Weasleys, I could Obliviate the memory of it for you. I know how to do it.”
“You do? How could you know unless--” she gasped. “You've done it before?”
“Not to you. Never to you. I've only done it once to anyone, and that was Filch. I only did it after he caught Luna and me – er, Iliana did it after he caught Luna and Iliana – past curfew on the night of one of Umbridge's detentions, and of course she never gives us a note excusing us, nor escorts us herself. Which, now that I think of it, is really strange, seems a bit out of character for her...” As Adira spoke, her hair color kept shifting back and forth between black and red.
“You modified someone's memory, though!”
“Yes, I did. Well, Iliana did, but I agreed with her. If we hadn't, Iliana and Luna would have gotten into more trouble, and I'm sure Umbridge would have found out and given us more detention, and I couldn't let that happen to Luna, I just couldn't. So yeah, I Stunned him and his cat, and modified both their memories. Which I guess means I've done it twice, technically.” Her hair was fully red now, her eyes hazel, but still otherwise looking like Adira.
“Well don't you dare do that to me, Adira! Not ever! Promise me!”
“I... well of course I – we – wouldn't do that, Hermione! Not without your consent, anyway.”
She crossed her arms, looking very dangerous. “Oh, but Filch is alright, is he?”
Adira paled, fully herself again. “Oh shit. This is one of those times where we thoughtlessly did something messed up, like we were doing to Draco and his bookends, isn't it?”
Hermione blinked at her. “'Draco'? Since when have--- you know what, never mind, I forgot about Hypatia for a moment. But yes, you're right, you messed up. Nobody should ever mess with someone's memories.” Hermione shuddered as she said it.
“Muggles get Obliviated all the time. I admit they went way overboard on Mr. Roberts last year at the campsite, but otherwise I doubt anyone gets it done often enough to be harmful.”
“That's not the point! My mind is important to me! I had nightmares for months after Lockhart nearly made us 'tragically lose our minds'!”
Adira took Hermione's hand in both of hers. “I'm sorry, Hermione. I didn't know. I promise I'll never Obliviate someone ever again. With the exception of Death Eaters, if it becomes necessary at some point.”
Hermione raised an eyebrow, but sighed and nodded. “Okay, that's an acceptable exception. Of course now I'll probably have more nightmares that you won't keep your promise, or that you've promised before and broken it and I never knew, or something.”
“I wouldn't Obliviate you without your consent. I don't even know what could possibly motivate me to Obliviate you without your consent. Filch was a heat-of-the-moment, snap decision. But yeah, maybe I could have talked him down, or asked him to take us to McGonagall so I could explain.”
“Right. Well think of that the next time something like that happens.”
“I will. It hurts seeing you not trust me.”
“Good.” Hermione sat back down again with a sigh.
“You'll tell me if you have those nightmares, right? And more importantly, if you don't have them, right?”
“I... yes, I will.”
“Good. Now maybe you should see a Mind Healer. Now that I think of it, you and Ron and I should all have seen Healer Young after the Chamber of Secrets debacle.”
“I did see one. A different one than you did. I had to. I was having nightmares of being petrified for most of the year anyway, even before the whole Chamber business. And then there was the troll incident the year before that, and the dementors and Sirius in our third year.”
“But?”
“But I'll owl my parents about seeing her again, if I have more nightmares. Though between Umbridge and Voldemort, maybe I should see her again anyway.”
“Maybe hold off on that until it becomes really necessary. Umbridge might find out and use it against you.”
“Oh god, she's just the sort that would do that, too. Right. Only if I have more nightmares, then.”
“Good. And again, I'm sorry.”
“Please don't mention it again. No really, truly don't mention it again.”
“Mention what?” she asked with a grin. Hermione rolled her eyes.
~
October 1st, 1995
Sirius wasn't at all cooperating with Umbridge, even after she put him on probation on the 27th of September. He knew he didn't really need the job, and he had known he'd be out of it before the year was over anyway one way or another, so while he did try hard to keep the Potters from going nuclear in his class, he wasn't cooperating at all, otherwise. He was teaching dueling magic, essentially, and getting into a lot of arguments about it with Umbridge. Hypatia was working overtime trying to keep them calm in his classes now, as the old toad kept writing down more and more nasty things on her clipboard about him, and Adira only got through each one without more detentions by concentrating on the unofficial self-defense club she was in with Cedric and Luna.
Thus, they felt very lucky that they got through three weeks like that without any more detentions. When they weren't training for Quidditch, they were meeting with Cedric and Luna. Luna talked about adding more members, and Iliana agreed, so a week before their first Hogsmeade trip, Iliana brought Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Neville into the group. Neville was especially keen to learn defense, and his new wand was making him by far the best caster of the lot of them. It took him longer to memorize the wand movements and incantations, but once he got those down he was able to cast some pretty powerful magic. In one meeting, he cast a Sleeping Beauty Stunner so strong that Iliana had to overpower the counter-charm by double to lift it from Hermione.
On Tuesday, October 1st, Adira woke up to find both of the Protean journals on their desk. How Hypatia had gotten Luna's copy, she didn't know. But she looked inside and found a mirror on the inside cover of the book. There was a note stuffed into the journal as well, which read simply “You're welcome. - H.” Clearly, Hypatia had added a two-way mirror to the Protean journals. And judging by the sloppiness of Hypatia's writing, she'd likely been exhausted when she'd written the note.
“Thank you, Hypatia,” she said, tucking Luna's copy into her pocket for later.
It took Adira a while to figure out how to get the notebook back to Luna. She couldn't just give it to her at breakfast or lunch without rousing Umbridge's suspicions. So she went to Padma Patil in the corridor and asked her for Luna's schedule for the day.
“I dunno, Adira, I'm a Prefect, not a teacher. Ask Ginny, she has several classes with the Ravenclaws.”
“Oh. Thanks, Padma.”
At lunch, then, Adira sat next to Ginny.
“Do you have any classes with Luna this afternoon?”
“One, yeah. Why, Addy?”
“I have to return something to her. Er... it's a Protean journal.”
Ginny narrowed her eyes. “You want me to give Luna a journal?”
“It's not a dark artifact, it's just got Protean charms on it among other things. Write in one, the writing shows up in the other. I added a two-way mirror to it as well.”
“You made a two-way mirror? So you reverse engineered the one Sirius gave you?”
[Yes,] Hypatia said.
“Yes,” Adira relayed.
“Alright, well if you made it, Addy, I trust you.”
“Great, thanks.” Addy said, handing the notebook to Ginny. She carefully looked at it when it was between her and Adira, and thus out of Umbridge's sight.
“It uses parchment instead of Muggle paper, like... like the other one did. Are you sure it won't talk back to me?”
“The only way anything will appear in there is if Luna or I write in it.”
“Right. Okay, I'll give it to her this afternoon,” she said, slipping it into her pocket. “But you'll owe me for this. I haven't used any kind of notebooks or journals since... since after my first year.”
“Sorry about---”
“Don't apologize. There's no need.” Ginny smiled at her.
“Right. Thanks again.”
Ginny nodded. “So, you and Luna going to Hogsmeade this weekend? Er, Iliana and Luna, I mean.”
“Yes, they are.”
“You want any suggestions what to do?”
Adira looked up at Ginny with confusion. Ginny shrugged. “I've been dating Michael Corner. I met him at the Yule Ball.”
“Ah. They were just gonna wander around town, see what it has.”
“Well, they could always go to Madam Puddifoot's. It's the most popular spot for couples in town. Michael and I are going there on Saturday.”
Iliana shrugged, their form shifting to hers. “Oh, well that'll be better than talking in third person all the time. Anyway, Luna doesn't like Madam Puddifoot's, she told me that on our first ever date. She said it's too cramped, too many other couples.”
“I guess that's a good point. But on the other hand, it could be good to remind people you two are together. After the Yule Ball, and then again after it became common knowledge you two were an item, most people bullied Luna less. And with the Prophet telling everyone you're a mad criminal, well... it might help. It's hard to tell, she doesn't talk about it, but I think the bullying incidents are increasing again. They can't get into her trunk now, so I think they've been doing... other stuff.”
“Thanks, Ginny. I'll ask her about it. She usually tells me these things when I ask.”
“I'm glad for that. I wish I could do more for her myself. But she has you, and you make her happy.”
“I do?”
“Yes. Luna's been more happy since starting to date you than she ever had been before. Those detentions with Umbridge notwithstanding.”
Iliana nodded, and went back to her lunch with a smile and a blush.
~
October 5th, 1995
After several days of being almost exclusively Adira, Iliana woke up on Saturday morning early and excited for the first Hogsmeade trip of the year. A chance to get away from Umbridge and spend some time with Luna outside the castle? Why yes, please, she wanted that very much. So much so she rushed her shower – not bothering to wash her hair this time – threw on a one-piece dress and a hoodie because of the cool weather, and was done eating before Luna even arrived for breakfast, and so Iliana sat next to Luna and talked with her while she ate. Umbridge didn't look pleased about it, but it was a weekend and they weren't disturbing anyone or engaging in public displays of affection, so all they got from Umbridge was a lot of glares and suspicious looks.
Iliana tried not to look guilty as they approached Filch later, and mostly succeeded. Filch didn't notice anything weird, at least. Neither did Luna, or if she did she hadn't said anything about it.
Casting Muffliato and other privacy spells first, including a spell Iliana had learned for detecting animagi just in case, the two girls talked all the way down to town.
“So, Iliana, I was thinking about our little unofficial club, again.”
“Oh? What about it?”
“Well, after you told me Thursday night about Sirius's latest fight with Umbridge, I wouldn't be surprised if he's sacked by Monday. And then we'll have someone teaching from that horrid Slinkhard book.”
“Ah, yes. I agree. I spoke with Sirius the next day, and he also reckons he's about to be sacked. He's already begun packing his things. I tried to convince him not to, but he wants to be ready when it happens.”
“Yes, I'm not surprised. Which is why I think we should recruit more people to the club at some point soon. Everyone is going to be affected if Sirius is replaced by someone in Umbridge's pocket.”
“Yeah, but most people think I'm crazy. If they didn't before Rita Skeeter, they sure do now.”
“True. But you're a metamorphmagus. They don't have to know you're there.”
Iliana cocked her head in the way that meant she was listening to one of the others sharing headspace with her. Luna looked at her, waiting.
“Hypatia says that if Umbridge finds out what we're doing, and finds out we're expanding, that she'll shut it down and everyone involved will be expelled. So we should keep it a secret. She's going to think some more about it for now.”
“Well yes, that's obvious,” Luna said, confused.
“What I think she means is that she's thinking of ways to minimize the damage if the secret gets out. Maybe even prevent people from talking about it.”
“Oh. Alright, then. That makes sense.”
The two girls dropped the privacy spells and began talking about other things as they got closer to the village. Mostly discussing what they were going to do all day long. One of the first things they agreed on was to avoid the big hill they'd gone to during their first date, so Umbridge wouldn't have any chance of finding out and declaring the place off limits. And because the last time they'd gone there, they'd fallen asleep.
By the time they entered the village, they had plans. They started out by wandering around the high street to window shop, going into the book store for a while, then looking around the inside of the wizarding equipment shop, Dervish and Banges. They also ducked into McHavelock's Wizarding Headgear and had a fun hour trying on the various hats and wigs. Iliana quite liked the look of Luna in a rainbow-colored wig that glowed in the dark, and they laughed as Iliana sported a lime green bowler hat and did an unflattering impression of Minister Fudge talking about cooking goblins in pies.
After that, they stopped by an art supply store for Luna to get a few things. The Room of Requierment would make a great art studio for Luna, and she could hide her art in her trunk now. Or, well, there probably wasn't a lot of room there, but she could have Iliana hold it in their trunk instead.
When they were finished there, they stopped by Scrivenshaft's for some quills, then Honeyduke's before going to The Three Broomsticks for lunch.
As always, The Three Broomsticks was crowded and noisy. When Luna and Iliana came in, they spotted Hermione, Ron, and Neville at a table together, and decided to join their friends.
“I thought for sure you two would be going somewhere more private,” Hermione said. “Like Madam Puddifoot's or Brews and Stews Cafe.”
“Luna doesn't like Puddifoot's. I've never been there, so I wouldn't know myself, but from what she's said, I doubt I'd like it either.”
“But why sit with us?”
“It's not like there's anywhere else for us to go, Hermione. This table was the best option.”
“Oh. Well, let me get your orders for you, anyway.”
“Sure,” Iliana said. “A butterbeer for me.”
“Gilly water for me,” Luna said.
“Grab a menu, too, Hermione? We're hungry.”
Hermione nodded and went up to the front to wait for Madam Rosmerta or one of her employees to have time to help her. As she did that, the others talked.
“So, what'd you lot do on your date so far?” Ron asked in a gently teasing tone.
“Nothing much. Popped into a few stores, got a few things.”
“Iliana made a couple very obvious attempts to get me distracted so she could get me something for Christmas, and I very politely let her think she'd been subtle about it.”
Ignoring Ron's reaction to that, Iliana said, “And what about you lot? Neville?”
Neville shrugged. “This and that. Nothing too interesting.”
“Neville's been leading me along while he followed Hannah Abbott around the village. Not all the time, and she hasn't caught on yet, but he's got the hots for her, don't you, Nev?”
Neville just blushed and looked down at his bottle of butterbeer.
“Well she's quite pretty,” Luna said. “And quite nice. I've never once heard her call me Loony, and she's always been kind to me when we've met. She helped me find my shoes, once.”
“Hear that, Nev? Even Luna thinks you've got good taste,” Ron said.
Hermione came back, then, with a menu in one hand. One of the other employees of the pub, a plain man Iliana didn't recognize, followed behind Hermione and set a butterbeer and gilly water down in front of them. “I'll be back in ten minutes to take your order,” he said, and left.
“They're really busy today, aren't they?” Iliana said.
“It's that toad, Umbridge,” Ron said. “Everyone wants to get away from her, so even the students that normally would stay behind because the novelty's worn off have taken their chance to get out from under her pouchy stare.”
“Well at least with it this busy, we can talk about whatever and not be overheard.”
“Yeah, except then we'd have to shout.”
Iliana got her wand out, pointed it straight up in the air, and made a conical spiraling motion with it, saying, “Kónos siopís.”
Immediately, the noise of all the competing voices around them fell to a sort of diffuse background noise.
“Wow, Iliana,” Neville said, “is that another new spell?”
“Yes. I call it the Cone of Silence. And it's a two-way spell, works just as well for muffling our own conversation into gibberish as it does muffling everyone else's conversations around us. So there's no chance of being overheard, now. But wait, one more thing. Labia abscondam.”
Hermione blushed and giggled at that spell's incantation. Iliana rolled her eyes at Hermione.
“It's just a spell to disguise our lips so nobody can lip-read what we're saying. I found it in a book of privacy spells.”
“What's so funny about 'labia abscondam'?” Ron asked, confused. Neville looked confused as well.
“Labia is also a word meaning... something that only girls have.”
“Only girls have lips?” Ron said, disbelieving. “Bollocks!”
“No, but you're in the right neighborhood,” Iliana said. Hermione and Luna burst out laughing at her comment.
Ron silently mouthed 'in the right neighborhood' a moment. Then he got it, and turned red. Neville got it as well, for he too turned red. Iliana burst out laughing too, now.
“Sorry I asked,” Ron said.
With Luna and Iliana busy looking at the menu, and the two boys too embarrassed to speak, Hermione sipped her butterbeer and waited. A few minutes later, the waiter returned. Judging by his expression when he did, the Cone of Silence was an area effect spell, and he'd just stepped into its range.
“Er, are you ready to order, yet?”
“Well I am,” Iliana said. “I'll have the lamb stew and another butterbeer.”
“Okay, lamb stew and another butterbeer. And you, Miss?”
“Hmm... what would you recommend?”
“Well, the lamb stew is pretty good, and fairly popular.”
“No, I don't want to eat lamb,” Luna said.
“In that case, I'd suggest the beefy onion stew, it's on special today. Comes with a side of garlic toast.”
“Yes, I'll have that, thank you. And you can refresh my gilly water when you get a chance.”
“Beefy onion stew and another gilly water. Any of you three want anything?”
The three of them all ordered the beefy onion stew as well, and everyone but Ron ordered more drinks (Ron asked for some water, looking embarrassed). Guessing he was either out of money or was being careful with what he spent money on, Iliana offered to get him another butterbeer. Reluctantly, he agreed, likely because it was relatively cheap.
“Okay, I'll be out in a jiffy with your orders.”
He wasn't kidding, either. It took him less than five minutes to return with their meals, Madam Rosmerta herself and another waitress carrying the drinks and the other stews.
“This stew is delicious,” Ron said between bites.
“Yes, it is quite lovely,” Luna said.
“Mine's pretty good, too,” Iliana said.
After that, they ate mostly in silence, except of course for the dull roar of the muffled crowd, the Cone of Silence spell still in effect. When they were done, though, they all felt quite full, and sat back, relaxed, and talked.
“Oh. Hy-- er, I have an idea for our unofficial defense club, if Umbridge replaces Sirius.”
“Yes?” Luna prompted.
“Well the idea is, we organize into smaller groups when we recruit people. That way, if we get to be really big as a whole group, if someone forces us to give up who's in the group, we can only rat out a few people. We won't know everyone in the group, and we can't blab about things we don't know. Each of you would be the leader of your own cell, as would Cedric and Ginny. You each bring in, say, five or six other people into your cell, but no more than that.”
“That sounds like resistance fighter tactics,” Hermione said. “Resistance fighters and some terrorist groups do similar things. It's an effective tactic.”
“I'm not good enough at this to be a group leader, Iliana,” Neville said. “And even if I was, does that mean we in the main group wouldn't meet each other anymore?”
“Um... I don't know. I guess we could still meet.”
“But doesn't that mean we could rat out the other cell leaders?” Hermione asked. “If Umbridge got one of us, she'd get the whole group.”
“Okay, so maybe it doesn't have to be one of us, necessarily. Or... hey wait, I have a better idea. What if I recruit new people, pretending to be one of you lot, and we all meet up still, but whenever one of the other cells meets, it's me in disguise leading the cell? No, hear me out. I... okay, Neville, I'm trusting you with this secret, but there's another one of my collective who remains secret because she's friends with... a Slytherin student, and she's afraid he'll find out she's with us. Her name is Hypatia, and she can hide certain memories from the rest of us. So if I pretended to be one of you when I recruited someone new, you wouldn't know who was in that cell. Only I would, and if I get given Veritaserum, Hypatia can hide that information somewhere it can't be retrieved, so I'm the safest person to keep the secret of who all the members are.”
They all sat there thinking that over a few minutes. Finally, Hermione spoke.
“But you'd be stretched pretty thin, wouldn't you? Or each group would have to meet on a different day and time, increasing the odds of getting caught.”
“Okay, then what if I pretend to be one of you when recruiting, and then I give control of the cell over to one of the recruits? They'd do their own thing, we wouldn't even know about it.”
“That doesn't address the issue of too many meetings, though.”
“Hey,” Ron said, “if these 'cells' are small, like 7 people apiece, then why not just have them divided by House? The Griffindor cell could meet in the common room or something, and so on for each other House.”
“Then everyone in the House would know what we were up to,” Neville pointed out.
“Well there are two possible meeting places we have at our disposal. The Room of Requirement, and the Chamber of Secrets. There's some other rooms down there that are clean, spacious, and inaccessible to anyone or anything but wizards and witches. I and the other girls could go down there, and---”
“Ha! Like Ginny would ever go down there willingly,” Ron said.
“Hey, it might be good for her to face the place and realize it's not this big scary thing anymore.”
“How does the Room of Requirement work, exactly?” Neville asked. “Would it be possible to have multiple meetings in there without any of the cells running into each other?”
“Oh that's really clever, Neville. We should find out. That'd be wonderful if we could!”
“Thanks, Hermione.”
“So have we agreed on anything yet?” Iliana asked.
“The 'cells' idea sounds good, if we can manage it without increasing the odds of getting caught. It's not against the rules, what we're planning. Not yet, anyway. But as soon as Umbridge finds out, well that's it,” Hermione said.
“Griffindor cell could meet in Iliana's room,” Ron suggested.
“Pardon me?”
“What? You let me in there a lot. And you could lock everything away. You could, I dunno, invent a new locking spell that keeps everyone out of your wardrobe and whatnot.”
“But it's not big enough for that, anyway.”
“What about your trunk?”
“None of the rooms in the trunk are big enough, either.”
“So? Hypatia's brilliant. Have her expand a box or something so it's big enough.”
Iliana cocked her head a moment, listening to Hypatia. Then she said, “Hypatia says she hasn't gotten that far in her studies, she hasn't the foggiest idea how that would be done, yet. And it would take her weeks if not months to work out how to do it.”
“Dobby,” Luna said.
“Well, love, that would settle the transportation issue, but--”
“I mean, Dobby might know somewhere else to go. Assuming the Room can't provide us several rooms at once, like Neville suggested.”
“I guess.”
“There's also the Shrieking Shack, mate!” Ron said.
“Yes, and the entrance to that is under the whomping willow,” she pointed out.
“We know how to get by it, though.”
“I think her point, Ron, was that Umbridge would see anyone using it. The willow is visible from many rooms of the castle, after all.”
“Oh. Right.”
“I think we should test Neville's suggestion before we waste any more time arguing,” Luna said.
“Well said,” Iliana agreed.
“Yeah, and who knows? Maybe Sirius won't get sacked after all.”
“Sure. And tomorrow the sun will rise in the west.”
With nothing left to say for now, and their meals done, the five friends soon got up, lifted the privacy spells, and went about the rest of their day. They split up, Luna and Iliana walking arm in arm along the High Street.
“Where to now, Luna?”
“I'm in the mood for something quiet. I've been to all the shops I want to go to... maybe we can go back to the castle? Not inside, but maybe on a walk around the Black Lake?”
“You sure? Umbridge is probably still at the castle.”
“Hmm... good point. But I don't want to go to Lookout Point, she might have spies following us.”
“The lake, though... she might hassle us if we walk around the lake.”
Luna blinked slowly, as though thinking of something. She looked at Iliana and smiled. “I may have an idea.”
~
Luna's idea turned out to be a long walk up the road back toward the castle, and then a left turn Iliana had barely noticed in the past, and an even longer walk up a different road until they got to Hogsmeade Station. It took them over an hour to get there, though they hadn't been walking terribly fast.
Iliana wondered what Luna had brought them here for, until they got close to a set of piers on the lake. There were several boats on the pier, some of them recognizable as the boats the first-years travel across the lake on, while others were slightly larger than those.
She was about to ask Luna what was going on when a middle-aged woman stepped out of a shack by one of the piers.
“Hello there. We don't get many visitors over here after the first of September. Students?”
“Yes, we're students,” Luna said. “Daddy told me you rent boats to people. Is that correct?”
“Er, yes. Mostly in the summer time, though. Hogwarts gets a bit protective about not letting anyone inside its wards unless they're a student.”
“But as students, we could take a boat out on the lake?”
“Yes, you could. The wards would let you in no problem.”
“Isn't that a bit of a security risk?” Iliana asked.
“No, not at all. The wards only let students and staff cross the ward line by boat. Everyone else has to use the front entrance. I understand the last fellow who tried sneaking onto Hogwarts by boat got eaten by the giant squid. Oh, not fatally. Just stored for safe keeping until the headmaster could investigate. That was way back in Headmaster Dippet's day.”
Iliana looked at Luna and shrugged.
“How much to rent a boat for the afternoon?”
“Just a single galleon,” the woman answered. Iliana shrugged again and handed the woman a galleon from her coin purse.
“Good. Now, what kind of voyage were you wanting?”
“Er, a romantic one. Preferably something serene.”
“Ah, young love. Right. Follow me, I have just the thing.”
It was a walk of less than five minutes to get down one of the piers to a cozy little self-paddling dinghy. It had a reclining seat built into it, taking up almost all the space inside the boat, and there was just enough room in said seat for the two girls to lay side-by-side in it.
“Now before you go, you should cast warming spells on yourselves, and feather-light charms in case you fall out. The boat is charmed to keep you in, but no charm is perfect, and it fails if the boat capsizes. So a feather-light charm will keep you floating easily on the water if you fall in. Then the giant squid will usually put you back in the boat if it can.”
“Thanks, uh... I didn't catch your name?”
“Miss Hanson. And I didn't catch your names, either, dearies.”
“I'm Iliana, and my date is Luna.”
“Nice to meet you, Iliana and Luna.”
Iliana got onto the boat first, checking its soundness, and then she helped Luna onto it.
Ms. Hanson told them how to control the boat with their wands, and when they had it down, they thanked her and began making it drift away from the pier.
“Well, Iliana and Luna, enjoy your trip on the lake,” Miss Hanson said with a wink at them as the boat left the pier.
“We will, Miss Hanson. Thank you.”
Iliana tapped the boat on the spot Ms. Hanson had shown them to make the boat surge ahead to get them out of range. She maneuvered the boat to the middle of the lake in a matter of minutes, then made it stop and stay there, peacefully floating on the water. They reclined the seat and Luna snuggled up against Iliana.
“You didn't tell her our surnames.”
“No, I did not. She hadn't noticed my scar, didn't know who I was. I wasn't about to attract her attention to that fact. And it would be weird if I gave her your surname but not mine.”
“I thought it might be something like that,” Luna said with a smile.
“This is nice, but do you mind if I put up some shade?” Iliana asked.
“It's October.”
“Yes, but sunburn is still possible on October, especially surrounded by all this water.”
“Ah. Alright, then.”
“Circulus umbra,” Iliana cast, and a circle of shade magically appeared over their boat. It was enough shade to prevent sunburn, but still let the day feel beautiful and nice.
“Another new spell?”
“Found it in a book.”
“Nice.”
“If you like that one, you'll love this one. Ab aliis abscondam,” she cast, while waving her wand in a wide circle around them.
“Don't tell me, I want to figure that one out,” Luna said. “Hmm... 'ab aliis abscondam.' That's a notice-me-not spell, correct?”
“Indeed it is. Now we're not going to attract any attention. Well, not any attention we haven't already attracted, if anyone saw the boat coming out here to the middle of the lake. It's another one I read in a book.”
“Does that mean nobody can see us?”
“It means if they look this way, they won't notice anything. Their eyes will pass right on by. And if, for some reason, they manage to look right at us, they won't see anything but a blur.”
“And what about the others? Inside you, I mean.” Luna's finger tapped her twice on the forehead for emphasis.
“They're all hiding down in the subconscious. They're not watching. And uh, I've been working on how to hide memories of mine from them. They'll know something happened, that I was Out, but they won't know what happened. Unless I tell them, which I won't if you don't want me to.”
Luna – grinning – shifted position so she was lying right on top of Iliana. “Good. Now that means we can practice a different sort of magic.”
Iliana blushed over her entire face and neck, turning as red as her hair (if not redder), and nodded, eager.
~
Hermione, Ron, and Neville were just getting to the carriages when Neville got their attention. The other two looked where he was looking, and they saw Iliana and Luna coming up towards the carriages themselves. The two girls were happier than anyone could remember seeing either of them, laughing and chasing each other like young children at play, casting spells at each other that seemed to consist of spells like Accio or the tickling jinx, though Hermione also caught the incantation of an unfamiliar spell, “Calidum femur,” cast by Luna that made Iliana shriek with delight even as she buckled over, crossing her legs and casting it back at Luna. Hermione blushed at this and looked away.
“No fair! You can't dodge if I couldn't!” Iliana shouted, running after Luna, who was shrieking with laughter and running toward the carriages.
“Accio Luna Lovegood!”
Luna stopped making forward progress, but didn't move back any. She gave up trying, and instead spun on her heel and cast something back at Iliana, who batted it aside with an easy flick of her wand, cast something else on Luna, then surged forward and grabbed her, lifting her off her feet and carrying her in a bridal carry – kicking and shouting in half-hearted protest – the rest of the way to the carriage.
“I see you two had fun,” Hermione said with a grin as they approached.
“Yes, quite a bit of fun, didn't we, Luna?”
Luna giggled. “You might say that. I couldn't possibly comment.”
“How much fun did you have?” Ron asked, grinning.
“None of your business, Ronald,” Iliana said.
“Well, it's good to see you enjoying yourselves so much for once.”
“More like 'enjoying each other,' right Luna?”
Luna blushed but nodded, smiling. Neville and Ron also blushed. Hermione just rolled her eyes.
“Anyway, might as well have fun now,” Iliana said, “before Umbridge makes it against the rules to have fun.”
“'Having fun is a frivolous waste of otherwise productive time that could be spent learning how to be boring, and will not be tolerated,'” Luna said, mimicking Umbridge's voice almost too well.
“'The beatings will continue until morale improves,'” Iliana replied.
“More like 'The beatings will improve as long as morale continues,'” Luna said. Then she paused. “Oh, I think I made myself sad.”
“Well, better give you a Cheering Charm. Vos laetificet,” she cast, and Luna started on one of her signature laugh attacks.
Iliana set Luna down on the step of the carriage. “Crud. Too powerful. Et cessabit.”
Like the last time she'd used this spell on Luna, Luna glowed blue and stopped laughing within about 20 seconds. Hermione, who hadn't seen this spell before, went wide-eyed at the sight of this.
“Where'd you find that spell?”
“What, the calming spell?” Hermione nodded. “We invented it,” Iliana explained. “You know, a certain library-dweller, I mean.”
“Amazing,” Hermione said.
“Can we all get into the carriages before we're late?” Ron asked. “I'm getting hungry.”
“You're always hungry, Ron,” Iliana said, but she climbed into the carriage anyway.
Luna had gotten up and was petting the thestral's head. When she saw Iliana was getting into the carriage, she gave the thestral one more scratch behind what was probably its ear, and got into the carriage with the others. Soon, they were all heading back up to the castle.
When they got back into the Great Hall, Luna looked like she very much wanted to eat at the Griffindor table with Iliana, but glanced up at Umbridge, and sadly went over to the Ravenclaw table. At this, Iliana heard a whisper in her head from Hypatia, and she smiled. Very carefully pointing her wand at Luna in a way Umbridge wouldn't be able to see it, Iliana whispered, “Eímai dípla sas.”
She heard a faint gasp of surprise from Luna, and knew from both it and what Hypatia had said, that the spell was making Luna feel like Iliana was sitting next to her, their sides pressed together. She held it for a few moments before putting her wand back, breaking the spell. But she'd given Luna something to keep her spirits up.
After dinner, she and Luna went to the Room of Requirement and she taught the spell to Luna. It would become a habit of the both of them, as long as Umbridge was there, to cast that spell at each other whenever they were both in the Great Hall together.
~
October 7h, 1995
Such was Iliana's happiness from the weekend that she got through Umbridge's History of Magic class without getting a detention or attracting any attention to herself at all. She had to suppress her happiness and pretend to be downtrodden, but she still remembered how to do that from her years with the Dursleys. It helped that Hermione had apparently given up on butting heads with the woman, probably for Adira's sake. Whatever the reason, the class was the calmest Umbridge class they'd had all year.
After History of Magic was double Potions, which wasn't too bad anymore, ever since Snape stopped picking on them so much. He still didn't like Adira's father, but Adira didn't look so much like him anymore, and Snape got on alright with Iliana.
Adira, Ron, Hermione, and Neville took their usual seats in the back of class, Neville partnering Adira because Iliana could help keep Neville from exploding their cauldron. Ron was partnering Hermione, naturally, for somewhat similar reasons.
Snape came in with his usual dramatic flair – door slamming closed with an echoing bang, Snape's robes billowing as if in a special-effects breeze. Alastair imagined the man's hair billowing in a breeze as well and started singing internally 'Maybe he's born with it. Maybe it's Maybeline.' This made it rather difficult to concentrate on her work without laughing.
“You will notice,” said Snape, in his low, sneering voice, “that we have a guest with us today.”
He gestured towards the dim corner of the dungeon and Addy saw Professor Umbridge sitting there, clipboard on her knee. She glanced sideways at Neville, Ron, and Hermione. Snape versus Umbridge, this was going to be good. She silently cheered on Snape, in her head.
“We are continuing with our Strengthening Solution today. You will find your mixtures as you left them last lesson; it correctly made they should have matured well over the weekend — instructions —” he waved his wand again “— on the board. Carry on.”
Professor Umbridge spent the first half hour of the lesson making notes in her corner. Addy was very interested in hearing her question Snape; she let Hypatia listen and inform her of the results later as she was busy listening to Iliana telling her what to do for the potion, and relaying relevant advice to Neville, who she'd set to preparing the few ingredients he couldn't mess up with his clumsiness. She was glad to note he'd been getting better since she'd started partnering him. Occasional surreptitious uses of the Calming Spell Hypatia had invented helped, too, keeping Neville calm around his greatest fear.
“A little less salamander blood, Neville. Salamanders are fire elementals, after all.”
“How much less?”
“Hmm... maybe a milliliter less.”
Neville used a clean eye-dropper and took out some of the salamander blood from the flask.
“Is that enough?”
“Yeah, that should do it.” She put a stopper on the flask until she was ready to use it and checked his powdered griffin claw while he put the rest of the salamander blood away. “And this griffin claw should be ground a little finer. But it's the right weight. Just try not to lose any when re-grinding it.”
Addy's attention shifted for a moment; Umbridge had just got to her feet. “Ha,” she said softly, as Umbridge strode between two lines of desks towards Snape, who was bending over Dean Thomas's cauldron.
“Well, the class seem fairly advanced for their level,” she said briskly to Snape's back. 'Though I would question whether it is advisable to teach them a potion like the Strengthening Solution. I think the Ministry would prefer it if that was removed from the syllabus.”
Snape straightened up slowly and turned to look at her.
“Now . . . how long have you been teaching at Hogwarts?” she asked, her quill poised over her clipboard.
“Fourteen years,” Snape replied. His expression was unfathomable. Addy, watching him closely as she could without splitting her focus too much, added the salamander blood to the potion and stirred gently. Neville, beside her, was re-grinding the griffin claw with his mortar and pestle.
“You applied first for the Defence Against the Dark Arts post, I believe?” Professor Umbridge asked Snape.
“Yes,” said Snape quietly.
“But you were unsuccessful?”
Snape's lip curled. “Obviously.”
Professor Umbridge scribbled on her clipboard.
“And you have applied regularly for the Defence Against the Dark Arts post since you first joined the school, I believe?”
“Yes,” said Snape quietly, barely moving his lips. He looked very angry.
“Do you have any idea why Dumbledore has consistently refused to appoint you?' asked Umbridge.
“I suggest you ask him,” said Snape jerkily.
“Oh, I shall,” said Professor Umbridge, with a sweet smile.
“I suppose this is relevant?” Snape asked, his black eyes narrowed.
“Oh yes,” said Professor Umbridge, “yes, the Ministry wants a thorough understanding of teachers' — er — backgrounds.”
She turned away, walked over to Pansy Parkinson and began questioning her about the lessons. Snape looked round at Addy and their eyes met for a moment. She smiled at him. His lip twitched ever so slightly. Snape came over to examine their potion.
“Potter seems to be a good choice of partners for you, Longbottom,” he said. “Excellent color and texture. The smell is ideal as well. I see you used slightly less salamander blood than called for in the recipe. It seems to be a good choice. If it pans out, I shall be adding that change to the recipe I put on the board, in future. Carry on.”
She nodded, smiling faintly as he stalked off. Neville looked at her in awe.
“Wow, Addy. He complimented you! He actually complimented you!”
“Iliana is really good at Potions, it seems.”
“Yes, but... wow. Wait, Addy? Why are you grinding up gorilla toenail clippings? It's not on the recipe.”
“I know that,” Addy said, feeling Iliana speaking instead of her. “But I made you grind less griffin claw than in the recipe, too. Griffin claw and salamander blood are magical enough that the amount in the recipe would make the potion decay too fast to be useful for long. Adding the gorilla toenail clippings has the same strengthening effect as griffin claw but counteracts some of the magic, making the potion shelf stable for as much as another six months.”
“But it's not on either the book or the board,” Neville complained. “I know Snape's recipe on the board often contradicts the book, but you're contradicting both.”
“You just heard him say I did something similar with the salamander blood, Neville. Trust me on this. I know-- I mean, Iliana knows what she's doing.”
Sure enough, when they took their finished potion up to Snape at the end of class, he looked at the phial carefully, opened it to sniff it, then re-sealed the phial, nodding at her in that way she recognized meant 'I'd say 'good work,' but I can't be too friendly with you in view of all these people.' She gave him an understanding nod and joined the throng leaving the classroom.
~
After lunch that same day was Divination. Al made sure to be in front, he always loved to be the one to do so, and he was a genuine Seer, to boot. It didn't take him long to rethink the wisdom of that, though, for Trelawney was slamming copies of The Dream Oracle onto the tables in a fury. She threw a copy of the Oracle at Seamus and Dean, narrowly avoiding Seamus's head, and thrust the final one into Neville's chest with such force that he slipped off his pouffe.
“Well, carry on!” said Professor Trelawney loudly, her voice high-pitched and somewhat hysterical, “you know what to do! Or am I such a sub-standard teacher that you have never learned how to open a book?”
The class stared perplexedly at her, then at each other. But Al and company had a shrewd idea what was going on. As Professor Trelawney flounced back to the high-backed teachers chair, her magnified eyes full of angry tears, he leaned his head closer to Ron's and muttered, “I think she's got the results of her inspection back.”
“Professor?” said Parvati Patil in a hushed voice (she and Lavender had always rather admired Professor Trelawney). “Professor, is there anything — er — wrong?”
“Wrong!” cried Professor Trelawney in a voice throbbing with emotion. “Certainly not! I have been insulted, certainly . . . insinuations have been made against me . . . unfounded accusations leveled . . . but no, there is nothing wrong, certainly not!”
She took a great shuddering breath and looked away from Parvati, angry tears spilling from under her glasses.
“I say nothing,” she choked, “of sixteen years of devoted service . . . it has passed, apparently, unnoticed . . . but I shall not be insulted, no, I shall not!”
“But, Professor, who's insulting you?” asked Parvati timidly.
“The Establishment!” said Professor Trelawney, in a deep, dramatic, wavering voice. “Yes, those with eyes too clouded by the mundane to See as I See, to Know as I Know . . . of course, we Seers have always been feared, always persecuted . . . it is — alas — our fate.”
“Preach it, sista! Down with The Establishment!” Al shouted, fist in the air. Everyone stared at him in astonishment, Trelawney included. Al shrugged and ignored them, all except for Trelawney.
Trelawney half-smiled at him, but gulped, dabbed at her wet cheeks with the end of her shawl, then she pulled a small embroidered handkerchief from her sleeve, and blew her nose very hard with a sound like Peeves blowing a raspberry.
“Professor,” said Parvati, “do you mean . . . is it something Professor Umbridge — ?”
“Do not speak to me about that woman!” cried Professor Trelawney leaping to her feet, her beads rattling and her spectacles flashing. “Kindly continue with your work!”
“Yes,” Al said just loud enough for the others at his table to hear, “let us not speak of She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.”
Trelawney spent the rest of the lesson striding among them, tears still leaking from behind her glasses, muttering what sounded like threats under her breath.
“. . . may well choose to leave . . . the indignity of it . . . on probation . . . we shall see . . . how she dares . . .”
After class, Ron came up to Al and said, “You're on her side? But she's a horrible old fraud!”
“So? Umbridge's existence is an affront to all that is good and right in the world. If a Dementor Kissed her, it either wouldn't find anything there to suck out, or it would choke to death on her pathetic excuse for a soul. Trelawney is my best friend by comparison to Umbitch.”
As Ron and Neville laughed at this, Al said, “Anyway, on to Ancient Runes for me. See ya!”
~
October 10th, 1995
It came as a shock to nobody at all when Sirius was sacked that week, given his complete lack of cooperation with his probation. What was slightly surprising was that there was already a new teacher for Defense Against the Dark Arts by that very Thursday. As Luna and Hermione both thought, the new teacher was worthless. In fact, he had written the new textbook, “Defensive Magical Theory” by Wilbert Slinkhard.
Professor Slinkhard looked like a drowned rat even when dry. Shorter even than Umbridge, he had a limp, pale gray mustache and thin, pale gray hair. His watery eyes – which were a pale shade of blue that reminded Adira of the color Dudley's old jeans had gotten when she'd worn them so ragged they were barely there anymore – darted around the room as though always on the lookout for an escape route, and his robes hung off him like a circus tent. His skin – which was wrinkled and sagging with age – looked so pale she thought he might get a sunburn from the candles in the room.
What was more, Professor Slinkhard's wand, which was a pale yellow the same color as teeth stained by tobacco smoke, somehow seemed to be limp and drooping in a way that was making all the boys snicker at it with suppressed mirth. He clutched the handle of it so tightly that Adira was astonished it didn't break under his grip, and his body was so tense she didn't need to be an empath to know that he was regarding his own students the way a young rabbit might regard a hungry tiger.
Even his voice reflected his timid nature, as it was so quiet that he struggled to be heard or understood at his usual volume. By the middle of Adira's first class with the man, he was using a 'sonorous' charm on his throat, and even then the people in the back had to cup their ears to hear him. The man was so pathetic that even Peter Pettigrew looked like a great brave warrior by comparison to Professor Slinkhard.
His classes were a bad joke, as predicted. He seemed too scared to do more than introduce himself and outline a few class aims, and then assigning them to read chapters from the book silently. When Hermione raised her hand to ask him a question about when they were going to do practical work in the class so as to learn the spells, he stared at her like a mouse staring at an owl and proceeded to completely ignore her for the rest of the class. After the first few other people followed Hermione's lead, he managed to get upset enough to tell them that if anyone raised their hand for anything but needing to use the loo or go to the hospital wing, he'd give them detentions... with Umbridge. That shut up the few of them who knew what that meant, though it took awhile for the others in class to give up trying to ask him anything.
“Luna was right,” Hermione said later in the Griffindor common room. “This new Defense teacher is worse even than Quirrel, even before we knew he was evil. We need to speed up our plans. Have you had any more ideas?”
“Neville and I tried the Room last night. It can make extra doors and can divide the room up like we thought. He experimented with it for hours, and found it can also make doors go to other parts of the castle! That will help loads.”
“You mean we could move the entrance around at random?” Hermione asked.
“Yes.”
“Wow! That's amazing! Neville figured that out?”
“That he did. He's got a knack for knowing what to ask it, apparently.”
Before they could get any farther on that question, though, Addy noticed Fred and George coming her way.
“Can we talk with you, Addy?”
“More accurately, can we ask Iliana a question?”
“I can relay information between you and her, yes. What do you want?”
“Well you see, we've got a new Skiving Snackbox.”
“The Puking Pastille?” Addy asked, remembering with disgust several nights ago when they'd been demonstrating their new product and selling it.
“No, different one. Fever Fudge. Anyway, we heard from Neville that Iliana is a whiz at Potions, and since--- well, since that's the case, we wondered if you'd look over our recipe for Fever Fudge.”
“Why?”
“Well, they give us these massive, pus-filled boils.”
“I don't see any boils,” Ron said.
“No, well, you wouldn't,” said Fred darkly, “they're not in a place we generally display to the public.”
“But they make sitting on a broom a right pain in the — ”
“Right, right. Let me see.”
They looked at Hermione and Ron in a way that spoke volumes.
“Fine, we'll go. Hermione, there's another table over there.”
Fred and George watched them leave. When they were out of range, they turned back to Adira and handed her a parchment with the recipe on it. It was very hard to read, which they'd probably done on purpose.
“Oh, well that's simple enough,” she felt Iliana saying with her voice. “Add essence of myrtlap at this stage. Here, I'll write down the dosage for you.”
When she was done scribbling down the right dosage, Fred said, “Thanks, Iliana. Any other thoughts about the recipe?”
She considered the page thoughtfully. “Hmm... no, this looks good as is. Just add the myrtlap essence like I suggested, and you'll be golden.”
“Thanks, Iliana! You're a peach.”
“Yeah yeah, you're welcome. Send Hermione and company back this way when you pass them, okay?”
The left, and soon Ron, Neville, and Hermione were back.
“I know you're apparently really good with potions, Iliana,” Ron said, even though their form was still Adira's, “but why are they trusting you with the recipes for their potions?”
“I guess they just trust us,” Adira said, getting back to work on her Transfiguration homework. “We're trustworthy people.”
“Hmm...” Hermione said, looking at Adira. Adira tensed up a little, but after a minute, Hermione seemed to decide she didn't want to know any more about that.
“What's Sirius doing now he's been sacked?” Ron asked.
“He's moved back into... the place he was living before. He's annoyed Umbridge sacked him, but he's glad to be away from her at last. Can't say I blame him.”
Adira was still working on her homework when Hermione moved her wand in a familiar upward spiral with the incantation Kónos siopís.
“Figured that one out on your own, I see,” Addy commented, as she heard other conversations around them blur into an indistinct noise.
“Yes, it's quite clever and useful. And I was going to ask you when we're going to meet for that unofficial defense group, now that Neville's got the Room figured out.”
“Well Iliana and Ron have Quidditch practice tomorrow, but I think after dinner tomorrow we could do it.”
“Okay. Who all is going to come?”
“You three, of course. Then Luna, too. I'll invite Cedric over as well.”
“Anyone else?”
“I might see what Dean and Seamus have to say about the idea.”
“They'll probably go for it, after the class we had with Slinkhard.”
“Reckon a lot of people would, but we have to keep it low profile,” Hermione reminded them. “And to that effect, I had an idea. I haven't worked out how to do it yet, but I was thinking a magical contract. It'd be simple enough; it'd set Adira up as the only person who could recruit new people. Anyone else who blabs about it would get cursed.”
“A cursed contract?” Neville said in horror.
“Nothing major,” Hermione said. “Just something that would make it quite obvious who had blabbed.”
“What specifically?” Addy asked.
“Oh, I found this fascinating curse in the library that lets you write a word on someone's forehead in pock-marks. I've been working on the arithmancy to change the word it writes to 'Sneak.' The word the curse currently spells out is rather rude.”
Neville paled, but Addy and Ron laughed. “That'd discourage people alright,” Addy said. “But I think a tongue-tying curse would be better. Prevent anyone from saying anything in the first place.”
“Yeah, but couldn't they write it down still?” Ron asked.
“Good point. Well, I guess we could do both. By the way, do you have the book for the curse you mentioned, Hermione?”
“Sure, let me go get it.”
She got up and hurried upstairs. Addy went back to her homework while they waited, as did the boys. A few minutes later she returned, opening the book to the right page in front of Adira and handed her a parchment with lots of maths on it.
“There's the curse, and my attempt to work out the arithmancy of changing it.”
Hypatia, without changing out of Addy's form, looked over the curse, Hermione's arithmantic breakdown of the curse, and her attempt to work out how to change it. While she was at it, Hermione also handed her the notes for the arithmancy on a magical contract like the one she'd mentioned.
“Pretty good. Another day or two and you'd have a pretty good contract and curse here. Just make some changes here,” she said, doing some maths on the parchment, “and here. Yes, there we go. That's the curse sorted out. But the problem is that all the names would be visible on the paper. Let's see, if I'm going to be the only one who can recruit, then I should be the only one with access to this list. Or... no, Hermione will need access, too, since she's the one making the contract.”
She did a bit more maths on another parchment, Neville watching in impressed fascination as she did. When she was done, she handed it to Hermione. “There you are, Hermione. Now you'll be able to make a version of the contract that only you and I will be able to activate. In anyone else's hands, unless they're signing it after activation, it will look like an arithmantic breakdown of the tickling hex. Well, you have to write out the arithmantic breakdown of that hex first of course.”
“Thank you Hy-- Addy.”
“No problem. Anything else?”
“Well,” Hermione said, “I had also started on a project to put a Protean charm on a fake galleon, because if the group gets big enough, we might need a way to communicate with the others to tell them when the meeting is, and where the entrance of the Room of Requirement is going to be.”
“A fake galleon? No no, too much chance of that getting lost or spent. You should make it a ring instead. Rings can be charmed to be invisible until the user wants to be able to see it, and they're harder to lose if you don't take them off.”
“But galleons have writing on them already. The serial numbers could be changed to reflect the time and date.”
“And location?” Hermione's face soured. “Thought not,” Addy said. “Anyway, if I choose the right font, I could make the font of the text be hard to tell apart from the ring's usual pattern. So even if someone was looking over a ring-bearer's shoulder when it was being looked at, they wouldn't be able to tell what it said from a distance. If I find the right font.”
“Right,” Hermione said, thinking. “You know, now that I have those ideas to work with, I could make the rings myself.”
“We could share the load. We don't know how many we'll need, after all. Anyway, you can make a proof of concept ring and we'll figure the rest out later if we need to. I have other projects I'm working on already anyway, so yeah, you can do most of the work if you want. But if you need help, just ask me.”
~
(Later that night)
The Hogwarts' grounds were still and dark and quiet, it being midnight. The only movement, aside from the wind and a few nocturnal animals, was something scuttling on many legs toward the Forbidden Forest. Carved with runes to make its transfiguration permanent, it was a tiny moving stone spider with a modified set of omnioculars attached to it, and it wasn't alone. With it were three others of identical build, all of them having been dropped out a window earlier in the day, hiding, until sent to head toward the forest by a remote command. Not that anyone on the grounds would see any of this, of course; they were all Disillusioned as well, with such a powerful Disillusionment Charm that they were invisible. The only sign of their passing was where they disturbed the grass and then the underbrush.
They existed because for as impressive as the magical monitors in the Chamber of Secrets' Command Room were, the monitors had their limitations. The area covered by the monitors was impressive, but the spells that made it possible acted as though there were fixed cameras in a grid pattern around the school and grounds. There were 'cameras' that looked both directions on this grid, but Hypatia's “omniocular spy-ders” – each of the four spy-ders showing a different view on four mirrors Hypatia had removed from Myrtle's bathroom – were mobile, which had numerous advantages.
Tonight was the first night these spy-ders would be spying on the acromantula nest. Hypatia was gathering intel about the acromantulas. She wasn't sure yet what she wanted to do about them. They were dangerous, of course, and given how adamant Dumbledore had been about Voldemort wanting to ally himself with werewolves, giants, and dementors, it seemed logical that he'd try to ally himself with the acromantulas, if he ever found out about them. Which, honestly, they were something of an open secret. He had to know about them by now, or he likely soon would. One of his closest followers had been on the school board for a time, after all. Even if he hadn't known of them before, he might now; Hypatia had accidentally mentioned them to Draco once. She still felt stupid for doing that.
Oh well. What's done is done. So maybe she could get them on her side instead, before Moldyshorts could. After all, Death Eaters were made of meat. They would have no problem killing other people, so why shouldn't she?
The only problem with that, of course, was that the acromantulas would still be there, and still hungry. Also, feeding them might encourage them to make more of themselves. Then there was that pesky fact that the government might view directing man-eating monsters to eat her enemies as murder and put her in prison for it, even though it's what the Death Eaters would do.
Hypatia sighed. “Looks like extermination is the route to go, then. 'Operation Aragog' now officially renamed to 'Operation Arachnophobia.'”
Endnotes: All new spells are made using Google Translate, so any errors are its fault.
Kónos siopís [ko-no-s so-piece] = Greek for “cone of silence.” (Yes, that's a “Get Smart” reference. I watched a lot of Nick at Night when I was a kid.)
Labia abscondam = Latin for “hide lips.”
Circulus umbra = Latin for “shadow circle.”
I also want to note that nothing of a sexual nature happened on the boat between Luna and Iliana. Probably. They were, after all, out in public. Even with magic, it's still possible someone could have seen them, especially with teachers like Snape and Dumbledore working there. They were just 'making out,' or 'snogging,' as the Brits say.
Calidum femur = Latin for “hot thigh.” Creates a pleasant warmth in the thigh region. (Wink wink nudge nudge say no more say no more.)
Vos laetificet = My guess at the incantation for the Cheering Charm. Means “cheer you up.” “Me laetificet” means “cheer me up,” and I tried “tu laetificet” at first, but “vos” seems to work better, at least in terms of getting Google Translate to say 'vos laetificet' means 'cheer you up.' Anyone who knows Latin, let me know if I'm wrong.
Eímai dípla sas [ee-may deep-la saas] = Greek for “I'm next to you.” Latin didn't work so well.
“The Many Faces Go To War: Chapter 10”
By = Fayanora
Chapter Ten: What A Pain
Notes: Sorry for the late update. Lots of things have been colluding against me. Summer heat, dangerous smoke in the air from the forest fires, pitiful amount of inspiration for this story, and the fact I've been working on some original fiction I hope to get published someday. But here we are!
Started putting dates on these chapters where possible, it helps me keep track of where I am in the story. (Something I figured out when writing my original fiction.) Dates are provided by HP Lexicon's Order of the Phoenix calendar.
FORMATTING FOR INTERNAL VOICES = 'Single quotes with no italics' will be Adira/Addy unless someone is quoting something, ~Text in tildes~ will be Chandra, (Parentheses for Al,) [Brackets will be Hypatia], % Percentage symbols for Iliana %, # Pound signs for Mother/Avani, # * Asterisks for Zoey, * and {curly brackets for Tier.} Apologies for any confusion this may cause.
Text in 'Italics and single quotes' is Parseltongue.
J. K. Rowling owns this sandbox, I'm only playing in it.
This chapter may contain some quotations from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
*FAYANORA*
The following Saturday was the first meeting of their unofficial self-defense club. It had been tricky getting recruits to sign the contracts – there had been three different contracts because of the cell structure – and even trickier to figure out how the cells would be arranged. What they'd finally settled on was that each cell would need a leader, someone who was good enough at Defense to help everyone else get better. Cells were split by House, so there were three of them. Addy had wanted four, but Hypatia said she had plans of her own for Slytherin, that the inclusion of Slytherin House was rife with potential conflict, and so she was going to be doing her own thing with them. This was a fact Addy kept from everyone else but Hermione, Ron, Luna, and Cedric. Though considering the cells didn't know about each other anyway, it was a moot point.
Working out where to meet and when was also tricky. As the largest cell, Gryffindor cell – 16 Gryffindors and Luna, because Luna didn't get along well with the other Ravenclaws – took the Room of Requirement. The Hufflepuff cell also used the Room of Requirement, but that would be stretching the limit of what was safe, even with Adira and Cedric coordinating their use of it. For Ravenclaw cell (led by Hermione) Hypatia had found an old dueling chamber that had been locked up tight with various wards that were decades out of date, broke the wards on it, and put her own wards on it that could only be unlocked with a literal ward key that was further secured by being tied to Hermione's and Cedric's magical signatures, as well as her own.
While she was at it, Hypatia had also put a portable ward stone densely covered in tiny glowing runes into the part of the Room of Requirement full of centuries worth of junk hidden in it, which further secured the Room from discovery by hostile forces. It could be turned off or on by Hermione or any of the Potters.
As to the group's name, they discussed that during the first meeting, and Ginny suggested Dumbledore's Army, or DA for short. The other cells agreed this was a good name when Addy brought it up, and so it became official.
A couple weeks after the first meeting, the last real contact between the cells occurred, when Hermione introduced the message rings that would keep people updated about the time and date of the next meeting. This had taken a bit more work than she and Hypatia had anticipated, as each group of rings had to be tied only to their own cell, but Hypatia wanted the Potter ring to be able to call everyone else's rings in an emergency, and also they had to make the rings so that cell leaders could send messages to the Potter ring. Given all these things, they made the ring messages programmable enough to send short alphanumeric messages and heat up when the ring received a message. And of course, the rings were invisible until the invisibility spell was manually deactivated by the ring's owner, by tapping it with their wand.
Wanting to be kept in the loop, the other Potters insisted Hypatia keep them informed about her plans with the Slytherin version of the group. According to her, it took two weeks longer to convince Draco and some of the other Slytherins to go in for the idea, between the Slytherins not wanting to get into trouble with Umbridge, but Slinkhard's classes were such a bad joke that the Slytherin version of the group – which still didn't have a name – finally managed to get eight people in the group. Draco, Hypatia, Daphne Greengrass, Tracey Davis, Blaise Zabini, Crabbe, Goyle, and Javier were in the group. Javier had been a hard sell, because of his association with Al, but Hypatia finally managed it by explaining the contract in detail. Javier, of course, had no idea who she was.
Javier was, in fact, getting on better with Al than even before. They'd been spending an hour here and there on weekends getting together to talk, and they were good enough friends by the end of October that they were thinking about dating again.
Quidditch practice had been going well. The team was getting pretty good, with some hiccups regarding McClaggen and Ron, but McClaggen was Reserve Keeper, so they wouldn't have to put up with him during games.
~
October 30th, 1995
Adira was doing homework in her room before bed when Dobby appeared with a POP at her side, startling her. As she cleaned up the running ink mess she'd made because of it, she said, “Hi, Dobby. What can I do for you?”
“Begging your pardon, Miss, but it is what Dobby is here to do for you. Professor Dumbledore is wanting Dobby to take you to his office again, Miss.”
“Why? Wait, is this another meeting with that Kadu woman?”
Dobby nodded vigorously. “Yes, Miss, that is what he is wanting you for.”
“Alright Dobby, give me a moment,” she said, finishing up cleaning the homework, drying the ink, and putting it away before taking Dobby's hand.
With a POP, they were in Dumbledore's office again. Sure enough, the woman whose skin was so dark brown she was almost like a living shadow was there again. Dumbledore was sitting at his desk, and the woman was sitting in front of it.
“Ah, and this must be Adira Potter,” Ms. Kadu said.
“Yes, that's me.”
“Good. I have been keeping track of your progress, and I am so far satisfied that you are taking appropriate steps to be a better person. With that in mind, I have decided to teach you some things about wandless magic, to help you control it.”
“Okay. That's good to hear. We've uh... kinda been neglecting that aspect of things lately.”
“That is actually good to hear. You should not be experimenting with wandless magic on your own, without an expert at your side to help reverse things. For wandless magic is, in fact, a controlled form of what is mistakenly called 'accidental magic.' A more accurate term would be 'emotional magic.'”
“Okay,” Adira said, sitting down at last.
“Despite the name, though, it can be controlled, harnessed, tempered by the rational mind. It is far trickier than mastering wand magic, because magical creatures are usually able to control their powers consciously, and that automatic control of their magic combines with your own when using a wand. Some would say wands are a sort of crutch, but I would say instead that wands are like the crystal on a Muggle laser, focusing what is unfocused. The main difference is that having used a wand can increase your overall magical focus and control, which can translate over to wandless magic. Tell me, how often did you use wandless magic before getting your wand?”
“Er... not often. Average, like most kids.”
“A few scattered incidents when you were especially emotional, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And since getting a wand?”
Adira didn't know how to answer that, so she shrugged.
“Would you say it is a lot more frequent than the years before getting your wand?”
She thought of the incidences. Zoey's use of wandless transfiguration and sticking charms, among others. Chandra's and Al's unintentional magic, and their later experiments to try to control wandless magic. And so on.
“Yes, I would.”
“I thought as much,” Mahala said. “Before either wands or staffs were invented, wizards and witches had emotional magic. They began to learn how to control it a couple years earlier than we do now, and it took well into adulthood to fully master. But with the use of a wand, you've got farther in your control of your magic than children of old would have at your age. The issue is that most people grow dependent on their wand. And why not? It makes magic so much easier. But then what happens if you lose your wand? Most wizards and witches these days would be completely helpless without their wands.
“That is actually why African mages prefer to focus on wandless magic. Christianity's poison on that continent is far more recent than here; African mages in many parts of the continent have been going through in modern days the kind of witch hunts that Europe once suffered from. So, not wishing to be dependent on a tool that can be taken from us, most of us hone our natural wandless talents. We still use wands, of course, but we are not helpless without them. And step one of mastering wandless magic is using a finger as a sort of substitute wand.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that part of how a wand focuses magic is by giving your mind a tool to focus on. If you just work yourself into a rage at someone without your wand, that magic could explode in any direction, doing virtually anything to anyone or anything in the vicinity. From what I've heard, you've already taken well to step one, by pointing at where you wish your power to go. Of course, I think you still have yet to master the second part of that first step: focusing your mind on the power moving through your finger as though your finger was a wand. From what I have heard of the incidents so far, you point at your target but focus your power through your vision.
“Now, it is entirely possible to use wandless magic by sight alone. But that is a very advanced technique. But you have to master the basics before you can master the advanced skills. This is why your results have been scattershot, why you keep finding yourself doing things you don't know how to reverse: because you don't have enough control yet for casting your power through vision to be much better than accidental magic.”
“Oh. So... so I have to learn to channel my magic through my finger, like my finger is a wand?”
“Yes. And to start you on the path of doing that, you will cast a light charm from your finger. Like this. Lumos!” a light appeared at the end of the woman's index finger, exactly like the wand spell.
“I don't normally cast in Latin, of course, but that was for your benefit. But before you try it for yourself, you should put your wands aside. You do not want them going off accidentally.”
Adira took out both of their wands and set them on Dumbledore's desk. Then she looked at her finger, tried thinking of it as a wand, and then tried to make a light spell from it.
“Lumos!”
Nothing happened.
“Feel your magic. You feel your magic whenever you cast with a wand, but with wands you cast first and then feel it. With wandless magic, you need to feel your magic first, then cast. It's a little tricky. It helps some people to think of strong emotions associated with light.”
Adira nodded, and thought about it. She didn't need to think hard to do that; she had spent so much time in her frequently-dark cupboard at the Dursley house that light was a huge relief. She hadn't been scared of the dark for a very long time, but she still preferred light over darkness. Light meant freedom. Light meant hope. Light meant, if not joy, at least a lot of relief.
“Lumos!” she cast, and her finger lit up.
“I did it!” she said. No sooner had she spoken than the light went out.
“That's another downside to wandless magic,” Mahala said. “Even with wands, you have to keep at least a trickle of magic flowing to keep a spell going, but it takes more magic and concentration to keep up a wandless spell the same way. This is because wands, being semi-conscious, can boost the power with their own magic. In wandless magic, though, your magic is entirely your own.”
Adira cast the spell again. First time, it didn't work. Second time, it did. She held it in place for almost a minute before getting tired and having to stop.
“See how much effort it takes to create and maintain a simple light spell? Your homework, until next time, is to practice that wandless light spell until you can hold it in place for five whole minutes.”
(Oh lovely, extra homework,) Al thought.
“So endeth the lesson,” Mahala said.
“One question first,” Adira asked. “Um... so do all wandless spells require an emotional component?”
“Yes and no. 'Yes,' because when you're starting out, the conscious application of the emotional component is necessary to give your magic a kick in the pants towards what you're trying to do with it. And 'no,' because once you've practiced a wandless spell often enough, the emotional component gets replaced by the familiar sensations of casting the spell. Basically, the way any magical training works – with or without wands – is by conditioning your mind to associate certain feelings and expectations with a certain effect; thus, with enough practice, a spell becomes something akin to muscle memory, something you do automatically once you've learned how, like flying a broomstick.
“Or... you're Muggle raised, right? So with cars, do you know the difference between an automatic and a stick shift? Yes? Good. Well, wand magic like you learn at Hogwarts is similar to learning how to drive an automatic. But wandless magic, though essentially the same thing, is like learning to drive a stick shift. In other words, it's difficult because you're learning a whole new system.
“Although, since each spell you learn is its own thing you have to learn independently, it's kind of more like trying to learn how to tango when all you know is waltzes. The steps are different, the style is different, and while learning one waltz can help you learn other waltzes faster, learning to waltz doesn't really help much in learning to tango.”
“Er... right. I think I get it,” Adira said.
“Good. Now is there anything else before I dismiss you? Other questions, more prophecies about the whereabouts of horcruxes?”
Addy smiled. “No, I don't think so.”
“Right. Well, I dismiss you.”
Addy looked to Dumbledore, who nodded in an affirmative way. So she called Dobby again, and he took her back to her room.
~
November 2nd, 1995
[Oh by the way, don't let that 'Ron' friend of yours see what the Slytherins are doing tomorrow. I tried talking Draco out of it, but I didn't have much luck.]
That had been the cryptic message they'd received from Hypatia the night before the Gryffindor/Slytherin match. They'd written it down in case it was important.
Iliana wondered, as she got ready and went down to breakfast, what the Slytherins were doing this time. They'd already been engaging in psychological warfare against her team for the whole week leading up to the match, what more could they be up to? And something to do with Ron? What could that be? She didn't like it. Ron wasn't accustomed to the taunts of opposing teams like she was, and he had always been hot headed.
Ron wasn't at breakfast, not at first. Iliana had been eating already for five minutes before Dean and Seamus came into the Great Hall, pulling Ron along between them as surreptitiously as possible. Ron looked sweaty, pale, and sick.
“He hasn't caught some bug, has he?” Iliana asked, wondering if this was what Hypatia had been referring to.
“Nah, mate, he's just a wee bit nervous,” Seamus said.
“It'll be alright, Ron,” Dean said, adjusting his Quidditch uniform – Iliana had insisted the reserves attend in uniform in case they were needed. “You just need to eat something.”
Ron shook his head like they'd suggested he face a firing squad.
Ron received a rousing welcome at the Gryffindor table, where everyone was wearing red and gold, but far from raising Ron's spirits the cheers seemed to sap the last of his morale; he collapsed on to the nearest bench looking as though he were facing his final meal.
“I must've been mental to do this,” he said in a croaky whisper. “Mental.”
“No worries, Ron,” Iliana said. “It's just pre-game nerves. I had a bad case of them the first time, too. You'll be fine.”
“I'm rubbish,” croaked Ron. “I'm lousy. I can't play to save my life. What was I thinking?”
“You're a great Keeper as long as you ignore the Slytherins and the crowd as a whole. Just pretend they aren't there. Pretend we're playing scrimmage.”
“Right, like we'd be playing a friendly game with the Slytherins,” Ron said.
Hermione and Ginny sat down opposite them wearing red and gold scarves, gloves and rosettes.
"How're you feeling?" Ginny asked Ron, who was now staring into the dregs of milk at the bottom of his empty cereal bowl as though seriously considering attempting to drown himself in them.
"He's just nervous," said Iliana.
"Well, that's a good sign, I never feel you perform as well in exams if you're not a bit nervous," said Hermione heartily.
"Hello," said a vague and dreamy voice from behind them. Iliana looked up with a grin: Luna Lovegood had drifted over from the Ravenclaw table. Many people were staring at her and a few were openly laughing and pointing; she had managed to procure a hat shaped like a life-size lion's head, which was perched precariously on her head.
"Good morning, Iliana. I'm supporting Gryffindor," said Luna, pointing unnecessarily at her hat. "Look what it does . . ."
She reached up and tapped the hat with her wand. It opened its mouth wide and gave an extremely realistic roar that made everyone in the vicinity jump.
"It's good, isn't it?" said Luna happily. "I wanted to have it chewing up a serpent to represent Slytherin, you know, but there wasn't time. Anyway . . . good luck, Ronald!"
She set her hand on Iliana's shoulder gently, in a way Umbridge couldn't see, then drifted away. They had not quite recovered from the shock of Luna's hat before Angelina came hurrying towards them, accompanied by Katie and Alicia.
“We're ready when you are, Captain Potter,” Angelina said.
“Good. But Ron needs to eat something. You go on ahead without us, we'll catch up.”
It became clear after ten minutes, however, that Ron was not capable of eating anything more and Iliana thought it best to get him down to the changing rooms. As they rose from the table, Hermione got up, too, and taking Iliana's arm she drew him to one side.
"Don't let Ron see what's on those Slytherins' badges," she whispered urgently.
Iliana looked questioningly at her, but she shook her head warningly; Ron had just ambled over to them, looking lost and desperate.
"Good luck, Ron," said Hermione, standing on tiptoe and kissing him on the cheek. "And you, Iliana — "
Ron seemed to come to himself slightly as they walked back across the Great Hall. He touched the spot on his face where Hermione had kissed him, looking puzzled, as though he was not quite sure what had just happened. He seemed too distracted to notice much around him, but Iliana cast a curious glance at the crown-shaped badges as they passed the Slytherin table, and this time she made out the words etched on to them:
Weasley is our King
With an unpleasant feeling that this could mean nothing good, she hurried Ron across the Entrance Hall, down the stone steps and out into the icy air.
The frosty grass crunched under their feet as they hurried down the sloping lawns towards the stadium. There was no wind at all and the sky was a uniform pearly white, which meant that visibility would be good without the drawback of direct sunlight in the eyes. Iliana pointed out these encouraging factors to Ron as they walked, but she was not sure that Ron was listening.
When everyone was assembled in the Gryffindor locker room, Iliana began her speech.
“Right. So, my first game as Captain. This is the first game for some of you, too. Reserves, you're here in case the Slytherins put one of us into the Hospital Wing. I don't expect to need you, but better safe than sorry.
“I've only just got the final line-up for Slytherin,” she continued, consulting a piece of parchment. “Last year's Beaters, Derrick and Bole, have left, but Montague has replaced them with our two least favorite thugs, Crabbe and Goyle. Anyone who's unfamiliar with them, they're like a pair of dwarf trolls, with just as much going on in the brains department.” She paused for the smattering of nervous laughter her joke had elicited.
“Anyway, I want everyone to remember that no matter how well or poorly we do, this is still just a game. I don't want to lose, but if we do, life goes on. Don't stress out about this. Don't let the Slytherins get to you. You're all here because you're all great at Quidditch, you wouldn't be here if I didn't believe you could win this.
“McClaggen, I shouldn't have to say this because you're just a reserve, so I'm going to tell you just once today and if I have to tell you again, I'll be very angry: you do not know better than the rest of us. Even if you did, you are not the captain, I am. So don't offer any opinions or advice unless I ask for it. Understand?”
Glowering at her, McClaggen nodded.
“Good. I'll hold you to that. The rest of you, just remember your training, ignore the crowd, and play as well as you can. But don't stress out. Some nerves are good, but there comes a point you just have to buckle down and say 'Sod off!' to your anxieties. Understand?”
Everyone nodded. It was pretty clear to all of them she was talking mainly to Ron, but everyone was too polite to say anything.
“Good. One last thing: Umbridge is out there, watching us. Don't give her any excuse, no matter how feeble, to muck this up for us, if you can help it. Don't lose your cool, don't cheat, don't foul. Play a good, clean, friendly game. Don't retaliate against the Slytherins. It's unfair, I know, but she'll be looking for any excuse at all, that's the kind of woman she is, and she has the power to back up that nastiness because she's Minister Fudge's right hand woman. So we have to be above reproach. You can always get revenge on them later, if it comes to that. Understand?”
They all nodded. Even Ron, though just barely, as though afraid he was going to puke.
“Excellent. Now let's get out there and crush some snakes!”
The team rose, shouldered their brooms and marched in single file out of the changing room and into the dazzling sunlight, A roar of sound greeted them in which Iliana could still hear singing, though it was muffled by the cheers and whistles.
The Slytherin team was standing waiting for them. They, too, were wearing those silver crown-shaped badges. The new Captain, Montague, was built along the same lines as Dudley Dursley with massive forearms like hairy hams. Behind him lurked Crabbe and Goyle, almost as large, blinking stupidly in the sunlight, swinging their new Beaters' bats. Malfoy stood to one side, the sunlight gleaming on his white-blond head. He caught Iliana's eye and smirked, tapping the crown-shaped badge on his chest.
% When he finds out who Hypatia is, the look on his face is going to be priceless, % she thought, a grin on her face that made Malfoy look suddenly worried.
“Captains, shake hands,” Madam Hooch said, and Iliana offered Montague her left hand, braced for him to crush it into a thousand pieces. He did not disappoint. She tried not to let the pain reach her face, nor the relief when he finally let go. She hoped he hadn't actually broken anything in her hand, and was glad she'd thought to offer her off hand to him.
"Mount your brooms . . ."
Madam Hooch placed her whistle in her mouth and blew.
The balls were released and the fourteen players shot upwards. Out of the corner of her eye Iliana saw Ron streak off towards the goal hoops. Iliana zoomed higher, dodging a Bludger, and set off on a wide lap of the pitch, gazing around for a glint of gold; on the other side of the stadium, Draco Malfoy was doing exactly the same.
"And it's Johnson — Johnson with the Quaffle, what a player that girl is, I've been saying it for years but she still won't go out with me — "
"JORDAN!" yelled Professor McGonagall.
" — just a fun fact, Professor, adds a bit of interest — and she's ducked Warrington, she's passed Montague, she's — ouch — been hit from behind by a Bludger from Crabbe . . . Montague catches the Quaffle, Montague heading back up the pitch and — nice Bludger there from George Weasley, that's a Bludger to the head for Montague, he drops the Quaffle, caught by Katie Bell, Katie Bell of Gryffindor reverse-passes to Alicia Spinnet and Spinnet's away — "
Lee Jordan's commentary rang through the stadium and Iliana listened as hard as she could through the wind whistling in her ears and the din of the crowd, all yelling and booing and singing.
" — dodges Warrington, avoids a Bludger — close call, Alicia — and the crowd are loving this, just listen to them, what's that they're singing?"
And as Lee paused to listen, the song rose loud and clear from the sea of green and silver in the Slytherin section of the stands:
"Weasley cannot save a thing,
He cannot block a single ring,
That's why Slytherins all sing:
Weasley is our King!
"Weasley was born in a bin
He always lets the Quaffle in
Weasley will make sure we win
Weasley is our King!"
" — and Alicia passes back to Angelina!" Lee shouted, and as Iliana swerved, her insides boiling at what she had just heard; she knew Lee was trying to drown out the words of the song. "Come on now, Angelina — looks like she's got just the Keeper to beat! — SHE SHOOTS — SHE — aaaah . . ."
Bletchley, the Slytherin Keeper, had saved the goal; he threw the Quaffle to Warrington who sped off with it, zig-zagging in between Alicia and Katie; the singing from below grew louder and louder as he drew nearer and nearer Ron.
"Weasley is our King,
Weasley is our King,
He always lets the Quaffle in
Weasley is our King."
Iliana could not help herself: abandoning her search for the Snitch, she wheeled around to watch Ron, a lone figure at the far end of the pitch, hovering before the three goalhoops while the massive Warrington pelted towards him.
"— and it's Warrington with the Quaffle, Warrington heading for goal, he's out of Bludger range with just the Keeper ahead — "
A great swell of song rose from the Slytherin stands below:
"Weasley cannot save a thing,
He cannot block a single ring . . ."
" — so it's the first test for new Gryffindor Keeper Weasley, brother of Beaters Fred and George, and a promising new talent on the team — come on, Ron!"
But the scream of delight came from the Slytherins' end: Ron had dived wildly, his arms wide, and the Quaffle had soared between them straight through Ron's central hoop.
"Slytherin score!" came Lee's voice amid the cheering and booing from the crowds below, "so that's ten-nil to Slytherin — bad luck, Ron."
The Slytherins sang even louder, but Iliana had stopped listening. She'd gotten the gist. Instead, she looked harder for the snitch.
% You could have tried harder, Hypatia, % she thought.
[No, I really couldn't have. Not without being really suspicious. Anyway, if he can't take the heat, he should stay out of the kitchen. He wanted attention, now he's got it. A classic case of 'be careful what you wish for.']
(Come on, Ron, ignore the little inbred bastards!)
Al took control of the body then, and flew Iliana over near Ron, where he used her voice to shout, “Those little punk-ass shit-for-brains don't have anything to say worth listening to! They don't know you! You're worth 30 of them! TO HELL WITH 'EM! PROVE 'EM WRONG! GIVE 'EM THE PROVERBIAL TWO FINGERED SALUTE!”
Ron stared in shock at Iliana, especially since her form had momentarily blurred together with Al's, but then he gulped and nodded. He still looked anxious, but he also looked a little defiant and determined. Good. That's what Al had been going for.
“— and Pucey's dodged Alicia again and he's heading straight for goal, stop it, Ron!”
It was a near thing, Ron almost missed it, but he just barely squeaked by, blocking the shot so the Quaffle bounced off his hand and then off the goal hoop. A great cheer came from the crowd and from Iliana, who went back to hunting for the snitch. She passed a sour-faced Draco Malfoy, and stuck her tongue out at him as she zipped by.
Ron didn't stop all the goals. It wasn't an instant transition like you'd see in inspirational sports stories. But every time Ron missed one, Al came zooming back and gave him a profanity-laden pep talk. So despite a few Slytherin goals, Gryffindor was up in points, and Ron was looking determined and nervous in equal measure.
Iliana saw the snitch, that little bit of gold, down by one of the goal posts. She glanced at Draco, who hadn't seen it. Wanting to see if the score could creep up a little first, she zoomed off in the opposite direction. Draco took the bait and went after her. She reached forward like she was grabbing the snitch, zooming closer and closer to the ground...
“AHH!” she screamed, clutching her head in agony. Her scar was on fire, and she was still on a collision course with the ground. But she fought through the pain and pulled up so much at the last second that her broom's tail carved a furrow in the pitch, and she went spinning out of control.
It took everything she had to keep hold of her broom as she sped off in gods-knew which direction. She didn't know what way was up or down, north or south, east or west. She had no idea where the goal posts were, where the stands were. She could have been about to hit the stands for all she knew, and her scar was still burning like hot iron pressed to her forehead.
WHAM! She'd hit something, all forward momentum abruptly terminated, her Firebolt continuing on for a couple feet before stopping abruptly in mid-air. Somehow she was still conscious, and found herself sliding down a pole. She must have hit a goal post. Desperate to stop falling, she grabbed for the pole. Her hand wrapped around metal, but she kept falling. Finally, though, she managed to hook the goal post with one of her legs, and got enough of a grip on it that she stopped falling. Now she was hanging upside-down from the middle of the goal post.
“And it looks like Captain Potter hit a goal post, after that nasty plough she took. I hope she's – wait, is that the snitch? IT IS! SHE CAUGHT THE SNITCH! GRYFFINDOR WINS! TWO-HUNDRED TEN TO SIXTY!!!”
“Ugh... great,” she said weakly. “Can somebody get me down, now?”
“Sure thing, Potty,” said Bletchley with a sour, angry expression.
“Great. Of course I had to hit the Slytherin goal post. Never mind, Bletchley, I can get myself down.”
“Suit yourself, Potty.”
Pulling herself up by her legs, she then grabbed onto the goal post and got out her wand, casting a feather-light on herself. This enabled her to hold on long enough to Summon her Firebolt and climb back onto it. Its back end was messy with mud, and it looked like it might need some cosmetic repair, but it still flew just fine. Exhausted and beat-up, she flew down to the ground where the rest of the team was celebrating.
No sooner had she landed than Luna came running, Hermione and Neville hot on her tail, and grabbed Iliana in a passionate and worried embrace. Iliana got a faceful of roaring lion hat before Luna pulled it off of her head.
“I was so worried! I thought you were going to get hurt or worse!” Iliana noted, in something like grogginess, that Luna was crying.
“Yeah, I was pretty worried there myself, Luna. But I'm okay. A little sore and dazed, and—OW! And I think I broke a rib or three... but other than that, I'm fine.”
“Practising for your career as a pole-dancer, Potty?” Malfoy asked.
“Only in your wildest wet dreams,” she shot back. She was glad to see his face turn tomato red. A bunch of people around her laughed.
“Miss Potter, you should get to the Hospital Wing as soon as possible, if you think you've broken something,” McGonagall said. “And even if you haven't, it's better safe than sorry.”
Iliana looked lazily at McGonagall. “Oh, yeah. I know. I will, Professor.”
“What happened out there, Miss Potter?” McGonagall asked with concern.
Iliana paused to think. She'd spotted Umbridge coming this way. “Goggles came loose, something got in my eye,” she said. The plausibility of this lie was aided by the fact that her goggles were hanging off of one ear. When she realized this, she grabbed them and pocketed them.
“I see. Well you'd better have that eye looked at as well, Miss Potter.”
“I'll do that. I'll be back later, everyone. Gotta go to the Wospital Hing. I mean the Hospital Wing.”
The moment she started to walk again, though, she wobbled so badly she collapsed into Luna. “OW!” she said, her broken ribs reminding her they were there.
“Alright, somebody take me there, I can't do it myself after all.”
~
She'd been right. Madam Pomfrey confirmed that she'd broken three ribs and added that she'd cracked a vertebrae. She also had a cut on her head and had a mild concussion. She hadn't noticed the cut because the blood hadn't left her hair.
Luna, Ron, and Hermione came in to visit her once she was patched up.
“Kónos siopís,” Hermione cast, her wand making an upward spiral.
“Mastered that one, I see,” Iliana said. “Good.”
“So what really happened, Iliana?” Ron asked. “One minute you're diving for the snitch, and the next minute you screamed and hit the ground and ran into a goal post!”
“Yes, don't tell us this rubbish about something in your eye,” Hermione said.
“Yeah, that was a lie for Umbridge's benefit. My scar hurt. That's why I screamed and almost became part of the earth again.”
“Your scar hurt? But why?”
Iliana looked around the room. There wasn't anyone else there, but she decided not to take any chances. Getting out her wand, she cast Hominem Revelio. She detected only her friends, and Madam Pomfrey in her office. So she then cast Labia Abscondam, a spell with the incantation 'orationem abscondam,' and 'Ego occultatum.'
“What's with all the high security?” Ron asked.
“When Vol—Moldywart rose last June, he used my blood to make his new body. Nobody suspected that with the Philosopher's Stone hidden inside by Zoey, that this was a monumentally bad idea for him. The ritual activated parts of the Stone that were in my blood, or linked to my blood somehow. Anyway, point is, all summer long instead of waging war, Moldyshorts was busy having to deal with the Stone transmuting every metal in his body into gold – which included calcium, sodium, potassium, and a bunch of other obscure metals.
“So his bones were breaking, he was having seizures, experiencing memory problems, and generally having a bloody awful summer. Meanwhile, the only reason he didn't die again is because the Stone was also turning the water in his blood into Elixir of Life.”
Hermione gasped, as though the thought of even someone as evil as Voldemort suffering that fate was too horrible to imagine. Ron blinked in astonishment and said “Really?” When Iliana confirmed she was serious, he started to snort with repressed laughter, then laughed so hard the only thing keeping Madam Pomfrey from running into the room was the spells Iliana had cast. Iliana looked at Luna. Like Hermione, she looked sad, but in a 'shaking her head sadly' sort of way.
When quiet had returned, Iliana said, “Over the summer, they... killed him again. So they could redo the resurrection ritual. But it takes a couple months to get him back up to enough health to try again. When my scar hurt earlier... I was a bit preoccupied with not dying, but thinking back on it... he's back. Again.”
“So we had a reprieve we didn't know about, but now it's gone?” Hermione asked.
“Yeah.”
“Wait, does this mean you were technically lying to Umbridge when you said he's back?” Ron asked.
“Not really. I did see him come back. I only have... Dumbledore's word that he'd been ill, and that he'd been killed again later. I knew about it because he had to consult me to try to figure out what was going on with Moldyshorts. Anyway, the scar hurting means I know for sure he's still alive. Or alive again, rather. And he was... happy. Happy to be back.”
Luna hugged her, for what Iliana sensed was more Luna's benefit than hers.
“Don't worry. Now we know he's back, we're putting up our occlumency barriers again.”
~
Madam Pomfrey insisted Iliana stay overnight at the hospital wing for observation, as she usually did for accidents like this. And so, Iliana wasn't with Ron, Hermione, and Neville when they went to go meet Hagrid, who had returned from his trip to the land of the Giants. It had been an amazing tale that Adira and the others wished they could have heard first-hand, even if Umbridge did almost catch them out of bounds past curfew.
Only one member of the Potter crew hadn't been bound by their imprisonment in the Hospital Wing: Hypatia. She had a constant connection going with the transfigured construct that looked like her, and as soon as curfew hit, this construct had climbed out of the trunk with the Marauder's Map and gone to visit Draco and mock him – just a little – for the failure of his Weasley Is Our King song.
She also spent some time on her other projects. While she was working on Project Arachnophobia, her omniocular spy-ders noticed a disturbance in the Forbidden Forest, and saw that Hagrid had brought a Giant back with him. Hypatia sighed and rubbed her construct's eyes wearily, but ultimately decided to just keep an eye on this new situation. Hopefully it wouldn't interfere with any of her plans.
[Well no wonder it took him forever to get back,] she thought.
~
Hermione had visited Hagrid on Sunday to plead with him to teach something boring in class, and tried to drive home the point by pointing out that Sirius had been sacked already. But Hagrid was insistent on doing his own thing, Umbridge be damned.
Hermione returned from Hagrid's just before lunch, shivering slightly, her robes damp to the knees.
"So?" said Ron, looking up when she entered. "Got all his lessons planned for him?"
"Well, I tried," she said dully, sinking into a chair beside Adira. She pulled out her wand and gave it a complicated little wave so that hot air streamed out of the tip; she then pointed this at her robes, which began to steam as they dried out. "He wasn't even there when I arrived, I was knocking for at least half an hour. And then he came stumping out of the Forest — "
"What's he keeping in there? Did he say?" Ron asked.
"Kónos siopís,” Adira found herself casting, stopping Hermione from speaking. She was confused until she felt Hypatia speak.
“Hagrid brought a Giant back with him.”
“He WHAT?” Hermione shouted. Luckily, nobody outside of their small group could hear her.
“A Giant. He brought one back with him. It looked a little on the runty side for a Giant, when I saw it. Must be a juvenile. If it is, I'm disappointed in Hagrid, kidnapping a child.”
“A Giant child!” Ron said.
“If it's a juvenile,” Hermione said. “It might just be abnormally short for a Giant. How big was it?”
“It looked to be about 15 or 16 feet tall,” Hypatia said.
“How do you know any of this when you were in the Hospital Wing all night long?” Hermione asked.
“Because Hypatia can be in two places at once,” Adira said. “She's who was talking just a bit ago.”
“Oh don't speak rubbish,” Hermione said.
“No, it's really true. Here, I'll let her explain it.”
Without changing their form, Hypatia explained the process in enough detail to get the gist without giving away too much. Ron looked flabbergasted, and Hermione was speechless for some time.
“Holy CRICKET!” she finally said. “That's really impressive magic!”
“Yes, well I had to cheat a lot to get it done.”
“Even more impressive for doing it in a non-standard way. Hypatia... you're not going to publish any of this, are you?”
“Nope. Much too dangerous in the wrong hands. It's far worse than Polyjuice Potion could ever be. Though I'm not certain how many witches or wizards could actually manage to control one. Only downside to it is that the construct can't cast magic. So I still have to go out for real on occasion. Oh and Ron? If you ever tell the Twins about this, I will personally ensure you can only speak in limericks for the rest of your life.”
“There's no need to threaten me,” Ron complained.
“Good,” Hypatia said.
After a moment, Ron said, “Wait, does that mean Hypatia was in the Forbidden Forest? What if one of these constructs of hers gets caught?”
“I wasn't in the forest. I can see into the forest from the Chamber of Secrets.”
“You WHAT?” Ron said.
“How?” Hermione asked.
“There's a room down there, you can see the entire school and grounds down there through a sort of magical security system. Well, the corridors, classrooms, and common rooms, anyway. Personal spaces and toilets are inaccessible.” She decided not to mention the fact her spy-ders could compensate for that. “Well, I mean, there is one toilet I can see into. Apparently the entrance Riddle was using – the one in Myrtle's bathroom – was just a storage closet back in the day, and got converted into a toilet later. The main entrance to the Chamber is in Slytherin's quarters.”
“Slytherin's quarters? And where's that at?” asked Hermione.
“In the dungeons, of course,” Ron said.
“You'd think so, but apparently not. It seems Slytherin was indeed pretty clever and cunning. When Helga Hufflepuff made the Room of Requirement, Slytherin sneaked in and made a couple modifications to the Room. Main one being that the main entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is inside the Room of Requirement.”
“WHAT?”
“Yes. It's not at all easy to get in that way, though. I think it was easier once upon a time, but someone else along the way made it more difficult. So I still use the 'back door' in Myrtle's bathroom.”
“How do you do that without getting messy?”
“I have my ways.”
“You mentioned two modifications to the Room,” Hermione said. “What's the second one?”
“A secret passageway out of the castle that nobody else likely knows about. I think it leads into the Hog's Head in Hogsmeade, but I haven't actually gone down it yet to verify that.”
“Wow!” said Ron. “And it's not on the Marauder's Map?”
“A lot of stuff isn't on the Map. The Marauders could only map what they knew about. The House Elf quarters aren't on the map, the Room of Requirement isn't on it, and neither is the Chamber of Secrets or either of its two main entrances.”
“House elf quarters?” Ron asked.
“Well yes, they have to live somewhere. They do need sleep, just like humans. They work in shifts.”
“Where are their quarters?”
“I haven't bothered to look. We could ask Dobby, but I don't really care. I don't feel like it'd be polite to bother them in their own space.”
Hermione nodded. “Well I don't know about you lot, Addy, but I know Ron still has homework to finish for tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I'd better get on that,” Ron said with a sigh.
Adira tore down the privacy spells, and spent the rest of the night reading. Adira liked to get her homework done as soon as possible, so she didn't have to worry about it and hurry at the last minute like Ron did.
~
Monday passed by with relative ease. Umbridge seemed mildly excited about something – Addy thought she knew what – and was distracted during class. Snape was more reserved than usual, not being nearly as snippy as he usually was. She thought he was trying to give the impression of muted happiness, but the little tells in his body language that she'd learned to read gave away the fact he was feeling disturbed but resolute, so she thought she knew what that was about as well. Though she wished he'd stop glancing at her when he thought she wasn't looking; she wasn't sure what that particular look was about, but it was related somehow to why he felt disturbed.
(Maybe Moldyshorts is trying to get Snape to kidnap us for him?) Al suggested. Addy didn't respond; she didn't know how to respond to that.
So Monday passed quickly for a Monday and became Tuesday. Charms and Transfiguration went well, but after lunch was Care of Magical Creatures, and none of them were keen to find out what Hagrid had in mind for his first lesson, especially since he looked like he'd been fighting mountain trolls and losing.
Lunch finished, they went to Hagrid's hut for their first class of the year with Hagrid. As she worried what he would bring to class, she thought a much better gift to Hagrid than letting him teach would have been letting him train as a wizard so he could own a legal wand, seeing as he'd had nothing to do with the Chamber of Secrets thing he'd been framed for. Surely Dumbledore could manage that? Well, not at the moment maybe, but once the Ministry came back to its senses?
They were surprised to find that Umbridge wasn't there yet. They didn't dare hope she'd be absent for Hagrid's class, not with Adira there to try to rile up.
Hagrid was taking them into the Forbidden Forest today, something most of them were not at all keen to do, especially Draco. He clearly still hadn't forgotten his first/last foray into the forest. Adira thought it odd that the Forbidden Forest was apparently only forbidden without a teacher along for the trip. Bit of a misnomer, that.
Getting more excited as they got farther in, Hagrid's enthusiasm wasn't helping matters, especially since he was still beat up and very bruised. He wouldn't explain what had done it to him, but Addy thought she knew: the Giant in the Forest.
For Adira, finally seeing what Hagrid had come to show them was anticlimactic and a relief, as it was just thestrals. Everyone else in class was afraid of them, even Neville to a degree, which was odd because apparently he'd been able to see them for years as well.
Holding her tongue for most of the early part of the lesson, Addy finally got annoyed when everyone gasped as Hermione explained that only people who'd seen death could see thestrals.
“Honestly,” Addy said, “what's all this fuss about? They pull the school carriages! They always have! I've been able to see them since the end of first year! Heck, Luna sometimes comes out and feeds them! If they weren't safe to be around, they wouldn't be trusted with the carriages!”
“Loony sneaks into the Forbidden Forest to feed invisible freaky monsters?” Draco asked, sneering.
“Um... I don't think Luna actually goes in. She knows how to call them, like Hagrid does,” Addy lied. While Luna probably did know how to call them, Addy knew for a fact that Luna went into the Forbidden Forest to feed them.
It was a good thing she lied, though, because there was a horribly familiar sound just then.
"Hem, hem."
Professor Umbridge had arrived. She was standing a few feet away from Addy, wearing her green hat and cloak again, her clipboard at the ready. Hagrid, who had never heard Umbridge's fake cough before, was gazing in some concern at the closest Thestral, evidently under the impression that it had made the sound.
"Hem, hem."
"Oh, hello!" Hagrid said, smiling, having located the source of the noise.
"You received the note I sent to your cabin this morning?" said Umbridge, in a loud, slow voice, as though she were addressing somebody both foreign and very slow. "Telling you that I would be inspecting your lesson?"
As the conversation between her and Hagrid unfolded, Addy and the others focused on their occlumency, trying to stay calm. It wasn't easy. Umbridge kept talking to Hagrid like he was mentally handicapped, pretended she couldn't understand his accent (honestly, it wasn't nearly as bad as some of the accents she'd heard other students using), and flustering Hagrid more and more the longer things went for. She also slowly and loudly said aloud what she was writing on her clipboard as she wrote it, making Draco and the other Slytherins laugh. Hypatia frowned at him, not that he'd think anything of that, though, since he couldn't see her. But she was going to remind him of his truce, and remind him that Hagrid was one of “Potter's” friends.
Worse than that, though, was her walking around among the class asking questions of the Slytherins, questions that were extremely racist and rude against Hagrid. Addy wondered how Umbridge expected to get an accurate idea of Hagrid's teaching style when she kept disrupting his lesson. But she didn't dare say this to the bitch aloud, in case it was considered “back sass” enough to get Addy in detention again.
But there were outward signs of the internal struggle, for anyone who happened to glance over at the right time. Her features were blurring and shifting, like it was taking a massive effort to maintain her present appearance. What sounded like a stiff wind gushed through the treetops, knocking off small branches and sending them flying sideways. The thestrals all backed away from her, looking agitated. This caught the attention of people like Neville, who could see them. Several pairs of eyes looked her way, including Hagrid's. He looked worried.
Now Umbridge was looking at her, too.
“Oh my, is something amiss, Mr. Potter?”
Hagrid stared at Umbridge incredulously at these words before looking back at Adira. “Addy? Wha's t'matter?”
“What?” Addy asked, in a perfectly calm voice. “Nothing wrong here that I know of.”
Her face blurred again, her hair shortening on one side of her head, her eye color changing on that side. Al was trying to hold himself back as well, but wasn't succeeding well. One leg got taller, and she almost fell over.
“Mr. Potter, you are disrupting this class. As High Inquisitor, I shall have to insist you stop,” she said, but it was clear by her tone and expression that she wanted them to do the opposite.
Addy tried her best to look confused. “I'm not disrupting this class, Madam Umbridge.” She stopped herself before she could say the implied 'You are.'
Umbridge stalked forward like a tiger—no, more like a very fat weasel with short legs—on the prowl. She was smirking at Addy.
“Who would you say is disrupting this class, then?” Umbridge asked her quietly.
“Well,” she said equally quietly, carefully weighing her words, “since you asked... I just find it... interesting that you're asking students questions about the class and its teacher while Professor Hagrid is trying to teach class, Professor Umbridge. You didn't do that in any of the other classes you inspected. It appears to be making Professor Hagrid's job very difficult. I'm sure you didn't do it on purpose. I'm sure you just had a brilliant new idea for your job and got so excited you had a momentary lapse of etiquette. After all, you yourself told me that we must respect teachers.”
She moved even closer to Addy and said quietly but sharply, “Are you criticizing my methods, Mr. Potter?”
“Oh I would never dream of doing that, Professor!” Addy said, looking shocked. “I was simply curious about the change in technique is all. I only ask because Professor Hagrid seems to be finding it difficult to teach with you talking over him. I just thought maybe you hadn't noticed this little faux pas of yours in your enthusiasm for your job. I was trying to point it out gently and quietly to you so you could correct it without embarrassment. After all, you taught me we have to respect all teachers, Professor Umbridge. Or did I misunderstand that lesson?”
Ah, talking like this to her was calming them down. Their body was returning to normal, the thestrals were calming, and the apparent wind had died out. Umbridge, however, was looking sour.
“I am not quite sure what you mean, Mr. Potter. Which lesson would that be?”
“Well, the one where you said – and I quote – 'contradicting teachers is disrespecting them.' Which is why I didn't try to correct your faux pas until you asked me who I thought was being disruptive, Professor. I had hoped I was being subtle enough for you to catch it and realize your mistake on your own. I apologize that I'm not better at subtlety, Professor.”
“And you think my words apply to 'Professor' Hagrid, do you?”
“I assumed so, yes. After all, everyone has their own ideas about what makes a good teacher or a bad teacher. Professor Binns was universally considered a bad teacher, and Professor Snape is considered by many to be a bad teacher. But we must respect all teachers, even if we think they're bad teachers. I presumed that's why I was made to write 'I must not contradict my teachers.' It seemed obvious that the lesson was that we have to respect teachers, no matter what, because we are just lowly students. Was I wrong, Professor?”
Addy could almost hear the gears turning in Umbridge's head as she tried to find some way to twist this into an excuse to give Addy a detention. But Addy was being calm, polite, careful with her words, her expression looking politely curious, and she was quoting Umbridge's own words back at her.
“I see,” Umbridge finally said. There was a pause, Addy waiting patiently, before she added, “Hmph,” and walked off.
Umbridge spent the rest of the class writing in her clipboard silently. The Slytherins tried taking up the slack, but with a very sour expression, Umbridge said through gritted teeth, “You must respect teachers, Mr. Malfoy, even sub-standard ones. It is not a student's place to disrespect a teacher.” She broke a pencil then, and repaired it with her wand. “We have rules in polite society, those rules must be followed.”
She did not speak again until after class was dismissed, but her attempts to talk to the other students were thwarted by people being keen to get to their next class on time.
Ron, Hermione, and Neville caught up to her on their way to the greenhouses.
“Did you get another detention?” Hermione asked.
“Nope. Instead, I discovered that I too have a talent for using words to outmaneuver people. I threw her own words back at her. That's her secret, I think: no matter how awful she is, she never does anything against the rules. She always has to find some way to work within the rules, even if that entails changing the rules. So I used her own love of the rules against her. Set it up so that anything she did to Hagrid in his class would be seen as being a poor role model for the students. She wants us all to be well-behaved little robots, so when I made her realize she was undermining her own desire for order, she found herself painted into a corner. She even had to defend Hagrid against Malfoy, if she didn't want to encourage the spread of chaos and disrespect of teachers.”
Her three friends all laughed at this, Neville looking awed as he laughed with them.
“I think I have a new hobby now,” Addy said.
To their surprise, they found Umbridge at Herbology, as well. She glared at Addy but was mostly quiet as she wrote things on her clipboard. It wasn't until toward the end of the lesson when something happened.
“OW! It bit me!” Umbridge shouted. “GET IT OFF!”
She was being bitten by a Chinese Chomping Cabbage. Professor Sprout cast a spell at it that made it let go and hop away.
“I think these plants are far too dangerous to be covered by this class! What if some hooligan lets these beasts free and they hurt other innocent people? Or students?”
Professor Sprout looked too scared to speak. To everyone's surprise, the next words were from Neville.
“You were poking it with your pencil, Professor, and hurting it. Of course it bit you! Professor.”
Umbridge glared at Neville now, but he didn't back down. “Chinese Chomping Cabbages don't normally bite people. It's a defense mechanism. It thought you were going to hurt it or kill it, so it got scared and bit you.”
“Fifteen points from Gryffindor, Mr. Longbottom,” Umbridge said, in a flustered voice. There was a smattering of outcry against this, but Addy just rolled her eyes and went back to working with her own cabbage.
“He's right, you know,” Professor Sprout said. “I did mention that at the beginning of class, in fact, Professor Umbridge.”
“Well you should put some kind of wire cage around them if they're that dangerous,” Umbridge said, and went back to silently writing on her clipboard.
When Umbridge left, Neville was still helping put things away. Professor Sprout peeked out to make sure she was actually going, then said, “Twenty points to Gryffindor for correctly identifying the problem, Mr. Longbottom.”
Neville smiled. “Thank you, Professor Sprout.”
Endnotes: Ego occultatum = “I have hidden.” Intended as a notice-me-not spell. One of the spells the Potters found in a book.
Orationem abscondam = “Speech hide” Iliana's being a mite paranoid with this one in addition to the cone of silence spell. Also a “found in a book” spell.
Thanks to Deviant Art user Hogwarts-Castle for floor plans to the castle.