The Hallows of Hogwarts

Chapter 10: The Invisibility Cloak

True to his word, the great grey owl flew down to Albus's shoulder only a couple days later and dropped a large box by his glass. Pluto affectionately nipped at his ear before taking flight over to his master's shoulder across the hall.

Albus pulled open the box, it was another case, similar to his wand care case from his parents, but this one was made of a much dark colored wood and had small silver lettering, that was almost translucent. He angled it in correlation to the bright morning sun above him and read it off.

"Invisibility Cloak Care". Surprised, he opened it and looked inside. There was demiguise hair already helpfully threaded to repair rips, an invisibility potion to pour on stains, a manual for caring for your cloak! complete with diagrams and instructions for applying each tool to prevent further damage. He closed the lid. Everything in here was worth a lot of money, but it wasn't the fact Scorpius had probably spent a lot of galleons on him for this, but the fact that this was something he would use a lot probably for one of his two most treasured possessions. That was what touched him and made him smile a bit brighter for the day.

Likewise, at the Gryffindor table, Elora was reading her letters from home.

Pumpkin,

I went to get the ingredients for our Halloween pumpkin pie yesterday. This will be the first year I've ever had to make it without you! But I'll send you a piece with the owl although it won't taste the same without you having helped bake it.

Angela's been writing infrequently home, but she sounds more than happy at Beauxbatons. She will be coming home for Christmas too, by the way. I've cleaned out your's and her room while the two of you have been gone just to air it out a bit.

Daddy says that you are doing well at Hogwarts though! Especially in Potions. I see that baking lessons have paid off!

Trevor wanted to let you know that he has yet to decide on anything to do with his life except work as a bartender with me. You know your brother as well I do: he's got more than the ability but lacks the ambition!

I miss you so much (especially when there are chores to be done!).

Love,

Mumsy

Autumn finally made an appearance as the now amber hued leaves on trees as fell. The air grew steadily colder and required most students to have gloves and their cloaks out when out on the grounds or hurrying to Herbology. But not many first years minded the lack of outdoors freedom as their lessons grew steadily more interesting. Now the first years put their quills and parchment away during classes and pulled out their wands, as professors relented to start teaching them the basic spells. Rose proved to be the best in their year at charms, when she was the first to get a result with "Wingardium Leviosa!" Only the result wasn't a floating feather, but rather a flying Elora from a mis-pointing of the wand. Professor Jones got her down quickly enough, but Elora and Rosie burst into unexpected laughter at random intervals for the rest of the day.

Rose and Scorpius had more potions explode and handed in perfect examples of today's potion every other day. During flying lessons, they had proceeded to actual flying now. Rose was easily the star of this class, literally flying loops around her classmates. Wood tended to ignore Albus for the most part, the rare times he did look at him, he looked choked up. Much to Professor Longbottom's astonishment though, his colleague Professor Isonia Jigger informed him happily, that Elora's best class was potions. Her creations even bested Rose and Scorpius's on their good days. Elora put it down to years of working at the Leaky, but she held delighted pride in her capabilities. But if only friendship-making was one of them, she mused. Although friendly with the other girls in her dorm, Paige and Harriet were best friends and Miranda was surprisingly solitary for such a pretty and popular girl. None of the upperclassmen, save Victoire Weasley took any interest in the small first year other than to help her climb into the common room and Elora was left to fend for herself when not with the other houses.

Slytherins and Ravenclaws shared transfiguration with each other and like with Rose's class, the boys found themselves offering to do any task for Professor Delacour. Even Al, who had grown up with part Veelas, was affected, but not as much. During this class, Albus and Scorpius would team up but work separately, always seeking to be the first of the two and usually the first in the class done. Albus always felt a shiver up his sleeve as something flowed past his arm into his wand to the match as it turned silver and pointy.

But for every class of wand-waving, there was the dull bits too. Professor Thomas's pretty face had been mangled and had ripped apart a façade of peace. Her lessons were like that too: seemingly boring classwork out of books was jarred by the vile and vivid accusations against the Dark Arts throughout history.

At least in Astronomy and History, their studies were boring and seemingly pointless. Only Scorpius could figure out the angle of the stars and Albus remember what Ragnuk the First was famous for so the girls made a point of copying off of them when it came down to it. Of course, both boys refused at first until the Ravenclaws and Slytherins had to learn their first charm and then relented and by the next class, they both had perfected it.

As the first years grew more and more accustomed to Hogwarts, things like when a staircase would move or who would let a missing homework slide became ingrained into them. But so did House loyalty and rivalry. Rose was agreeably acknowledged by her Weasley cousins, but Albus found a variety of expressions facing him. Victorie would smile and wave, she didn't care. Molly and Lucy would sigh and look at him with pity, Dominique was wary and seemed on the edge. Fred, Louis and James blatantly ignored him and had an ugly grimace on their faces whenever they saw a Slytherin, any Slytherin. Fred's sister, Roxanne, looked completely unsure of where her loyalties lay.

Albus tried to tell himself it didn't matter, but it hurt him anyways.

Albus took out his invisibility cloak that night alone in his room and held it out, his new case in his lap, ready to repair. Scorpius was right, if his dad used it at Hogwarts, it would be pretty old by now and invisibility cloaks were prone to wearing out.

Then he noticed something odd. There was no stains. No rips. Not a single thread missing. It was silvery all the way through, no bleaching or anything. Al reached out and ran his hand down it, feeling the watery textured cloth. It wasn't thinning either. As a matter of fact, it looked perfect. In absolute perfect, brand-new condition.

Albus confusedly put away his cloak first, lest another Slytherin see it and then the case. He got into bed and drew the covers up to his chin. A line floated through his head

...So he asked for something that would enable him to go forth from that place without being followed by Death. And Death, most unwillingly, handed over his own Cloak of Invisibility….The youngest brother finally took off the Cloak of Invisibility and gave it to his son...

Then Albus rolled over, the words of an old fairytale his Mum used to tell him out of his copy of Tales of Beedle the Bard running through his thoughts and fell asleep. When he woke in the morning, he'd forgotten completely.

As Halloween drew closer, so did Qudditch season. Starting unusually early this year, the first Qudditch match would be on October 27th, Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff. Sure enough, James looked much more like his old self when Albus observed him at dinnertime. Rose was all excited about it and was willingly wearing her Hufflepuff colors in support even though Hufflepuff was the worst team at Hogwarts and had been for years.

On the morning of October 27th, the Great Hall was a roar of excitement, and it only grew as James sauntered in, his hair already mussed, Louis and Fred by his side, grinning like the cat who got the canary. In contrast, the Hufflepuff team looked blank.

The four of them had agreed to meet and sit together in the stands to root Hufflepuff on. As breakfast ended and the students rose to make the walk down, Albus ran ahead to meet up with Rose and Scorpius, but Elora held back. In her bag was a library book due on Monday. 'I'll just hurry up there quick, hand it in now and get down to the stands before the game starts!' In her head, it was a good plan, but her theory proved false.

"GOAL! James Potter scores, Gryffindor is leading 280-60!" Victoire Weasley shouted into the microphone over the roar of the crowd. Amongst the crowd, near the mourning Hufflepuffs, was a dejected Rose Weasley.

"Aw, cheer up Rose. It's not that bad," Albus tried to console her.

"Yes it is!" Rose wailed. "Hufflepuff is terrible! They will never win a game and James is really good and now I'll never hear the end of it from him." Beside them, Scorpius was getting edgy.

"Where is Elora? She said she'd be here, and it's been over an hour at least." Albus shook his head.

"She said she was going to return a book and she'd meet us down here," Al repeated heavily. They had gone over this several times already but they were no closer to figuring out where Elora was.

Gryffindor continued to slaughter and torture poor Hufflepuff as James, Fred and Louis flew circles around the Keeper, scoring every few minutes until the Hufflepuff seeker reached out and caught the snitch. But the extra one hundred and fifty points didn't help Hufflepuff for Gryffindor had still beaten them with three hundred and eighty points. Defeated, Hufflepuff, Rose, Albus and Scorpius trudged back to the castle behind the victorious Gryffindors cheering loudly and shouting plans about a party in the Common Room.

"When I'm on the Hufflepuff team, James will be sorry he ever got on a broomstick," Rose suddenly decided firmly. That was the only comment she made about or since the snitch had been caught.

"Come back ickle firstie! Peevies just wants to plaaaayyyy," Peeves sang out nasally as he swooped after the first year girl running down the hall away from him. Elora dodged him and shrieked as a water balloon barely missed her head. She had seen and heard of the terror, but this was her first solo encounter with him. Holding her bag up awkwardly in an attempt to shield herself, she ran, turned the corner and ducked under a tapestry of trolls in tutus. The tapestry, was perhaps not the most effective hiding spot, but hopefully Peeves would go right by—

No such luck. She could detect a wickedly smiling floating figure off to her right, holding a dark blob, aiming it—

Elora jumped out from underneath the tapestry of Barnaby teaching ballet just at the balloon hit it. 'I just need a place to hide, anywhere, to get away from Peeves…'she thought desperately. The Gryffindor tried to make a run down the hall but Peeves flew over her, blocking the way as she ran back and then stopped dead.

There was a pair of handsome oak doors, tall and wide in the stone wall. 'That wasn't there before…' Elora thought puzzled. Then the thought was driven from her mind as a balloon made impact, drenching her hair and her shoulder. Spluttering, she dragged the door open and clanged it behind her.

The room was immense, the size of a cathedral, with the ceiling rising up so high. It was bare, the floor dark with ashes and the scent of smoke meet her nose. But she ignored all of this for that wasn't even the shocking part, the thing that made her start and captured her attention. It was awful to see and scared Elora horribly, but she didn't scream and run, she petrified beyond fear to flinch. She stood there wide-eyed, small and wet, water dripping onto the ashes from her hair.

Peeves flew after her, already preparing his next water balloon when—SPLAT! Peeves smacked into a solid stone wall and the water balloon burst all over him as he howled miserably.

I'm quite as cruel as Peeves, to leave you with a cliffhanger like that. But Peeves got what he deserves! What do I deserve though? Reviews?

So what will Elora find?