At Gringotts the next day all three of them had to withdraw money, Harry was a little disappointed when the other two made sure to get a different cart to him. He did make note that they shared a vault, and that the goblins knew then by name. Apparently the little creatures could be friendly when it was in their best interest.
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Kanda glared at the broom as Harry stared through the window at it in a short of daze.
'How can you not love it? It's the fasted broom on the market!' he said in the same hurt voice a person got when their crush was insulted. Kanda snorted.
'We have a … friend … that makes us customized brooms that are ten times faster than any other heap of junk out there.' Harry looked at him, highly offended, and wondering just what kind of connections the boys had.
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Harry watched as Allen bought several packets of Snake treats and offered one to the scaled head that was poking out from his robes.
'What's its name?' he asked out of curiosity.
'Maria, it's a girl,' Allen replied. The store owner was looking a little uncomfortable, more so when Harry hissed at the snake.
'Hey, Maria,' he said, 'I take it you enjoy being with Allen?'
Harry swore that the snake was looking at him like he was beneath her despite the lack of expressive features. His suspicions were confirmed with her words.
'Insolent one,' she hissed. Allen laughed at Harry's expression as Maria tucked her head back into his robes.
That had to be the strangest rejection from a girl he had ever received.
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Harry stared as Allen ran from the pub, grabbed his hand, and kept on running as several hexes followed. The boy just laughed and tucked a deck of cards into his robes.
Harry suddenly understood why the boy was in Gryffindor, not even the Weasley twins were brave enough to gamble on cards.
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Harry watched as Allen and Kanda bought various potion ingredients he knew from Fred and George where expensive components of several joke formulas. He raised an eyebrow when they were divided into two packs and sent off with a note saying it was from "secrete sponsors". Allen grinned at him.
'Fred, George, and Peeves are very annoying and to be avoided at all costs. That said, they are also an excellent source of entertainment.
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'Why do you not like Ron? I mean, you only talked to him twice that I know of,' Harry said in exasperation.
Allen looked at him with unreadable eyes, Kanda snorted (his apparent default response) and replied in a very annoyed voice.
'He stole my favourite quill after I lent it to a class mate. He also insulted us the first time we met and called us evil Snakes every time he passed us in the hall last year because Allen is a parselmouth and because Professor Snape didn't hate us.'
Harry couldn't really to response to that, it would be very hard to defend his friend based on that evidence.
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Hermione and Ron were eating ice-cream when they spotted Harry and went to call out to him, then they hesitated. It was the last day of the holidays and they had spent most of it trying to find their wayward friend, now they saw him with Allen and Kanda standing outside the Quality Quidditch Supplies. Considering all the reservations they had had about the two the year before, and the fact that a serial killer was on the loose, they were rather surprised at the three of them being together to say the least.
They had a silent discussion about what to do, and in the end they decided that talking to Harry was worth putting up with the duo. As it turned out they needn't have worried, as the two now second-year boys noticed them before they could call out, pointed Harry in the right direction, and wondered off with a cheery wave.
'What's with those two?' Ron was as blunt as ever.
'They decided it would be nice to let us catch up without an audience, apparently,' Harry said. 'Also, Kanda apparently has an issue with your family, Ron, after last year.' Harry explained the duo's hasty retreat, leaving out that it was less his family and more Ron himself the two didn't like. Last year the twins had asked if Kanda was a girl along with Ron's behaviour, so the excuse had merit any way. Ron went red at the reminder of his family's previous actions.
'Yes, but why were they with you in the first place?' Hermione clarified the, in her opinion, important question. 'I though we agreed they were really suspicious.'
'They decided to keep me company since all three of us are staying in the Leaky Cauldron. I thought it would be a good opportunity to try and figure them out.'
Hermione congratulate him on this plan, quoting the exact same cliche to him that he had used himself. From there they discussed holidays, the next school year, and Hermione's new pet.
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After Harry had had his little conversation with Mr Weasley, and had had to dash towards the train to avoid missing it, his mind was too busy with thoughts of a serial killer, and how to tell his friends, to think about the strange duo. After the conversation had finally finished they had been too preoccupied with the new teacher, Hogsmeade, and the unfortunate incident with the Dementor to be concerned with much else.
It was only as Ron was walking into the Great Hall and saw the two boys already sitting at the Gryffindor table that he realised that, even though they had searched the train for a free carriage they hadn't seen either of them.
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Harry was watching Allen and Kanda as Dumbledore explained about the Dementors, so he watched both boys cringe and get a little paler as he talked. Thinking about his own experience with the one on the train he thought he understood the sentiment.
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At breakfast the next morning they sat next the two boys after Malfoys ridiculous show. After George's statement Allen started talking a little louder than normal, loud enough to carry over to the Slytherins.
'You know what I can't stand? Hypocrites,' Kanda raised his eyebrow, 'hypocrites and people who make fun of others when they have no idea what they are talking about.'
'You mean like a person who is scared of a Dementor, and then makes fun of someone else just because they happen to be tougher than them?' Kanda still had his eyebrow raised.
The room was quieter now, so everyone heard Malfoy when he snorted and lifted one side of his mouth before talking. 'And how does a person who faints at the site of a floating clock classify as tough?' Suddenly Kanda's expression was mirroring the blond hair boy as he explained.
'The more extreme a reaction to a Dementor it means the more horrific your past is. If someone faints, to use your example, then it means they should be congratulated for still being sane. In contrast a person who nearly wets them self is nothing more than a pampered brat who knows nothing about real strength, and is probably nothing more than a mother's boy.'
Malfoy went bright red.
'How dare you insult me like that?' he nearly screamed.
'He never said anything about you; he was merely making an example.' Allen spoke up from next to his dark haired friend. 'If you can relate to what he said enough to mistakenly think he was referring to you … then I am afraid that is your concern and has nothing to do with us.' No one knew quite what to say to that, but no one mentioned Harry fainting ever again.
Slowly everyone went back to their schedules and breakfast.
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After their horrific first day they stayed up that night in the Gryffindor common room and decided to talk to Allen and Kanda, following Harry's plan of becoming friends in order to keep an eye on them. It was then that they met Kanda's new familiar.
'What the bloody hell is that!' Ron yelled as a very large dog came wondering into the room and just looked at them. Harry was staring at it with a rather strange look on his face.
'It's my familiar.' Kanda snorted.
'That thing looks like the ruddy Grimm! Can't either of you two have a normal familiar?' Kanda glared at the red head.
During the conversation the dog in question had wondered over to Harry and placed his head on his legs, much like Fang tended to, and looked up at him with large, dark, eyes opened wide. There was a lot of intelligence in those eyes.
'He likes you,' stated Allen. 'You can pat him you know, he doesn't bite.' Slowly Harry followed Allen's prompting and watched the dog close his eyes in bliss as he ruffled his ears.
'What's his name?' Hermione said, finally looking up from one of her many books.
'Padfoot,' Kanda said.
Suddenly there was an intense wriggling from Ron's pocket. The dog, Padfoot, looked at the lump as if it wanted to pounce, Kanda glared at him and he settled back down, but his eyes never moved from that lump.
'Have you ever been near Privet Drive in Little Whingeing, Surrey?' Harry asked after several minutes of silence, still patting Padfoot.
'Yes we have, once,' Allen said with a tilt of his head. 'We were there a few weeks before school started seeing a friend, why?'
'No reason.' Harry said as he looked away from the dog awards Ron.
They all went to bed soon after, leaving Padfoot to lie next to the fire with Maria to "keep him out of trouble."
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Harry, Hermione and Ron spent the rest of the week trying to keep an eye on Allen, Kanda and Padfoot, or Harry kept an eye on Padfoot as he had grown rather fond of the dog. The only interesting thing happened on Thursday towards the end of their first Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson.
The Boggart was just heading towards Harry when the class was disturbed by a knock on the door and the creaking of hinges. A small voice was heard saying something along the lines of "sorry to interrupt" before the Boggart gave a crack before flying towards the widening gap in the door. The gap had just gotten large enough that they could see the scared face and white hair of Allen Walker when the Boggart went flying through and hit the boy in the chest, causing him to step back a bit on impact.
Allen then looked around the room with the sort of resigned look a person got when they asked a question they already knew the answer to.
'That was a Boggart, wasn't it?' Lupin nodded with a look that clearly asked what the hell had just happened. Allen sighed, 'I'm sorry, I may have just ruined your lesson. I know from experience that when a Boggart lodges itself in my cloths it doesn't tend to come out without a lot coaxing. Please accept my humble apologies for appropriating your Boggart.' The boy gave a half bow before he continued.
'The reason I interrupted your class was because Madam Pomfrey had asked me to tell you, Professor Lupin, that she would like to see you as soon as possible. That was all, I apologies once again for interrupting, and for stealing your Boggart. Goodbye.' And with that the Allen left, leaving a rather stunned and confused third-year class and teacher in his wake.
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The next few weeks passed in much the same manner as the first when it came to the trio watching Kanda and Allen, with only one major difference.
They were now famous. During their first year it had come to light that Allen was a parselmouth, highlighting him as a possible heir of Slytherin, but that was nothing compared to this.
Rumours spread around the school concerning the incident with the Boggart, made worst when the white haired boy sent a tightly sealed box that rattled via Owl Post to his "family" and refused to state what was in it. Many people had made bets that it was the Boggart in question, though no-one knew how he would have gotten it into the box to begin with.
After several weeks the whispers died down, but now everyone knew who the two second-years were, and that they weren't quite normal.
Sometime after the boggart the trio had started making a list of all the unusual things that happened. One was that Padfoot seemed to be unusually friendly with Crookshanks, and both seemed to share a deep hatred for Scabbers; Harry didn't like adding Padfoot to the list because the dog was extremely fond of Harry and vice versa, but Ron insisted it was weird and Scabbers couldn't be to blame as he was old and well know so it must have been the other animals fault. Second was the wide eyed and opened mouth look that Professor Lupin had given Kanda when he was walking the dog on a leash, and Kanda's knowing smirk that he gave in response; it should be noted that the trio was no longer the only one keeping a close eye on the second-years and their dog. Third was that, while the boys were happy to hang around them when they were all in the common room, they seemed extremely well adapt to avoiding Harry and the others when it came to them trying to catch them unawares.
Other than those, rather minor in comparison to some things that went on around the school, variations the boys were model students.
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Remus Lupin looked at the letters and photos sitting on his desk. He had just seen Sirius Black, or Padfoot as he and his friends had known him and as the black haired child had introduced him, sitting in the school corridor pretending to be a familiar. He had just come from a very unsatisfactory meeting with the Headmaster where he tried to convince the man that a mass murder was masquerading as said familiar. The headmaster had smiled, nodded, said he would "take care of it" and evicted him from the office. When he arrived at his own office he had found an envelope addressed to him, the contents were probably the most shocking news he had ever heard.
One of the things it contained a clipping from the Daily Prophet with a one toed rat circled in red, a very familiar one toed rat that he thought had been dead for twelve years. Another was a letter detailing events that he had no idea about, and a plan that would help him get revenge for one friend and clear the name of another.
All he had to do was keep silent; and he could do that, couldn't he?
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They were walking from Transfiguration after the not so successful attempt to convince Professor McGonagall to let Harry to go to Hogsmead. Harry was not so subtly mopping when Hermione made a rather relevant comment in an attempt to cheer him up.
'Well think of it this way, Harry, Allen and Kanda are only second years so they won't be going either. This means you can try and figure then out while it's just the three of you.'
Harry wasn't so sure that was better than going to Hogsmead with his friends, but decided not to comment.
The week of the Hogsmead visit came and Harry dutifully tried to track down the Duo of Black and White (as he and his friends had taken to calling them when they weren't around) but failed rather spectacularly. Padfoot was sitting in front of the fire and came over for a pat, but the other two were nowhere to be seen.
Cursing to himself he sat down with Padfoot, at least he didn't abandon him to go have fun. Eventually he decided to walk around the school with the dog, which led to an interesting encounter with Professor Lupin.
Of course, that day was Halloween, and wouldn't be complete without something going wrong if you followed the pattern of the last two years. While many people could argue that missing Hogsmead and not being able to investigate would be bad enough, fate saw fit to prove them wrong as Harry was forced to miss the feast due to being the hospital wing with a broken leg after an unfortunate tripping hex caused him to fall down the stairs on his way to the hall.
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