Disclaimer: Harry belongs to JK. Rowling and Final Fantasy to Square Enix and I'm neither a great authoress and mother nor a multi-million company! Just a seventeen years old girl from Germany, that loves to write about them.
Direct speech will be like this: "Blah!", stressed words in direct speech like this: emphasised,
Harry's thoughts like this: "Blah!" and stressed words in thoughts like this:emphasised.
Harry Potter and the return of the summoners
Chapter two – Rymv-Dnidrc
Harry trembled, while he sat at breakfast, blushing a bright crimson. He had spent the rest of the day after the first task with Ron and Hermione in the library, half-heartedly searching for some answers, while actually only using Madam Pince's hate of conversation in the library to avoid the questions of the other students by sitting at the table nearest to her.
But after they skipped lunch and dinner, eating snacks in the kitchen instead and roaming the school like convicted; even going as far as sleeping in one of the secret rooms that they were sure only they and most likely the Weasley twins knew about, Hermione insisted that he'd have to face the school sooner or later.
He shifted, trying to relieve himself of some of the tension of being stared at by the entire hall. His own eyes were fixed on nothing in particular, while he tried to force some of his breakfast down his throat, because he knew once the owl post arrived, he would most likely lose the little appetite he had.
He was in the process of chewing on a small piece of toast, when a loud flattering and flapping drew his reluctant attention to the ceiling and he almost choked on the piece of toast. There were always many post owls, bringing sweets and letters to the students of Hogwarts, but there were about five times as many owls as usual...and most were circling above him.
Gulping he ducked under the table as hundreds of owls dropped letters on the chair and area he had been moments before, some exploding as obviously dangerous concoctions hidden within were jostled. He watched in horrified fascination as the substances mixed, melting a part of the chair and making most letters catch fire, which caused the formerly unnoticed now burning Howlers start to screech at him in an undiscernable mass of complains, insults and screams.
He caught bits and pieces of: "Demon!", "Thrown out of Hogwarts" and "Ministry!"
When the screaming finally stopped, Harry came out from under the table, his ears ringing. Keeping his distance from the piles of ash, charred wood and remaining partly burned letters, which used to be a stool, he looked up in fear of spotting any stragglers, but to his great relief all owls were long gone.
The hall was completely silent and Harry looked up and down the Gryffindor table, realizing worriedly that some might have been bombarded by a wayward letter, but he was suddenly grabbed by his arms and insistently dragged out of the Great Hall under the eyes of all students.
He struggled to free himself, but was surprised when his two best friends just continued to pull him down the hallways, until they finally found an empty classroom and sank to the floor.
The three of them stared at each other wide-eyed and surprisingly it was Ron that first found words to form their current thoughts, "Merlin! What was that about!" He turned concernedly to Harry, checking him over with a sweeping glance, than angrily snarled, "Who would send you something like that! I mean it could have seriously hurt you!"
Hermione snapped surprisingly forceful eyes up from where they had been staring at the ground contemplatingly, "Maybe that was the whole point..."
"What do you mean! Sure Harry does have some foes, but no Deatheater..."
"Ron, these letters were not sent by Deatheaters! If I'm not very mistaken we have to find the newest copy of the Dailey Prophet", she spat the word out as though it was a very foul curse.
Ginny, Fred and George, who had obviously followed them here, took this moment to make their entrance known by coughing politely, but the three friends still jumped in surprise at the unexpected noise. It seemed even the Weasley twins were shell-shocked at what happened, but with every second that passed more fury seeped into their eyes. It was very out of place in them.
The youngest Weasley stepped forward, holding something behind her back, as though she didn't want them to see it and murmured, "That might be the best idea. Here", she reluctantly showed them the slightly worn-looking magazine that she had been hiding,"I wanted to give this to you yesterday, Harry, but I couldn't find you anywhere. The Dailey Prophet turned Rita Skeeter's story into a Special, as they call it, so they could be the first to tell the masses about this." When Harry was about to grab it, Ginny retracted her arm slightly, looking at him with concern. "Are you sure, you want to read this Harry? It's not... I was thinking about not telling you about it during breakfast, because well... I thought maybe nobody would say anything, 'cause well... everybody, who knows you, should know that none of this is true..."
He grabbed it anyway and almost yanked it out of her hands. "Ginny", Harry said with barely controlled annoyance, "I need to read this, because obviously most people don't know me!"
Hermione and Ron nodded at each other and it was her that told him for both of them: "Don't forget though Harry, Ginny is right. Those close to you won't believe any lies, Rita might have come up with." The others nodded in agreement. "Are you so sure about that? What about her first article! Mrs.Weasley believed it!"
George obviously thinking he and Fred should say something too, offered with a hate nobody had ever heard in their voices before: "We could do something really nasty to Skeeter, Harry! Something really, really nasty!"
Fred, seeing this seemed to cheer him up a little, added, "Yeah and if you want us to we can prank the whole staff of the Dailey Prophet and those other newspapers, to-" He broke off clamping a hand over his mouth as he saw the last colour drain from the other boy's face at the mention of 'other newspapers'The other four gave him murderous looks.
Harry used this short diversion of their attention to eye the magazine again. On it's front-page was a picture of him petting the dragon and above this it proclaimed Dailey Prophet Special: Harry Potter a dragon-speaker! New fundemental findings about the night You-Know-Who died! Mildly aware that the others had come to huddle close to him - the twins and Ginny probably more to give him moral support - than to read the article, Harry opened it to the first page, which was a surprisingly accurate and detailed account of what did happen. "No comments, no evaluation, no nothing...yet."
After a moment his eyes found the second page with the headline The myth of people talking to beasts. He didn't know why, but Harry felt a great fury at the dragon being called something degrading like 'beast'.
It was horrible. Seven pages of speculation about what he could be.
He thought they were all downright ridiculous and he was soon found laughing with tears running down his face, but he dimly doubted it had anything to do with humour, since they were only humorous to those, who knew all the details about his life. The article must seem true to all those who didn't know him inside out. Everything was corroborated with quotations of experts. Everything was explained in lengthy detail and seemed completely reasonable.
One speculation was that Harry Potter did die, but a dragon-like demon took his body, creating a mark where he entered the dead infant's body and killing Voldemort with the magical backlash. Another was that he had never spent a day at Privet Drive and was instead raised by dragons. "She even has proof for that!" His laughing took on an almost insane tone, when he read the quotes taken from 'Mr. Vernon Dursley (37), Harry's kind and handsome uncle,' who made very clear that he had never heard of a boy called Harry Potter much less raised him, 'which his beautiful wife Petunia Dursley (38) and intelligent blond-haired son Dudley Dursley (15) confirmed'. And somewhere in China there have been rumours about a young boy riding a Chinese Fireball for years, starting almost thirteen years ago. 'They even found clothes of a child and a new set of Hogwarts robes in one of the nests.' Harry winced, realising where these clothes must really come from. "Poor kids..."
The last part was a conclusion of two pages that could be reduced to the sentence: Whyever he can talk to it, he must be dangerous if a dangerous animal likes him.
When he was finally finished, he was almost certain that every person, who had read this article believed that he was insane at best.
He noticed that Hermione was hugging him close with her head buried in his shoulder, trembling slightly, which he took as a sure sign that she was crying. The others didn't abandon their posts around him, showing that they were there for him.
"Hey," came a slightly croaking sound from Hermione and the others stared at her questioningly as she took a small step back and dried her eyes. "We have to go to our respective classes. We have missed our first period as it is." Harry couldn't help but laugh in amusement this time, not the hollow sound it was before. "Some things never change."
"Yep, a good idea", George affirmed earning stares from those
around him, "Well it's true. We can't stand here all day now,
can we? I have to uh...", his expression turned devious, "prepare
some things during our next period; History of Magic."
Ron suddenly groaned, as realisation hit him. He exclaimed wide-eyed: "Harry! Hermione! We were supposed to have Potions! Double Potions! How are we going to excuse skipping class to Snape!"
His friends paled, earning snickers from the scared red-head's siblings.
