Chapter Eleven
Sinister Things
After Transfiguration class, Harry had lunch, as Transfiguration was a double period, and was trying his best to keep up conversation with both Ginny and Ron. Ginny thought this was dreadfully funny, as he would sometimes answer Ginny by speaking out loud, while answering Ron in his mind.
After Harry had had lunch (Ginny was going to go down to get some food herself, in just a moment), he went down the stairways that would take him to the Potions classroom, which was held in the dungeons of the school, which were several degrees colder than the rest of the school, and also had a scent of enclosed moisture in the air.
It was Harry's bad luck that Draco Malfoy and the Slytherins were in Potions class during the same time as the Gryffindors.
Just ignore him for now, Harry. We'll get him later… Ginny said to him, consolingly, as Malfoy made rude comments about Harry and Ron's families and social statuses. You, Fred, and George should be able to get him back… How about you change his hair pink? Fred and George told me that they knew a spell to do it.
Harry grinned at that. "What are you so happy about, mate?" Ron asked Harry, looking at him oddly. "You heard what Fred and George said about Snape this morning… it's enough to make anyone miserable about having him, but here you are—all smiles…" Ron seemed disgruntled that Harry could possibly see an upside to the situation of being stuck in a dark room with a bunch of Slytherins, and if the stories the twins had told of Snape were any indication, they were going to be wishing for just the Slytherins before long.
Ginny felt Harry wave Ron off with a mumbled excuse while the two, sitting near the front of the class, awaited the entrance of Professor Snape.
They didn't have to wait long.
Striding into the room with a furious pace and billowing black robes, the sallow-skinned and greasy, dark-haired man entered the room, sneering at all the Gryffindors as he did.
He strode across the room to his desk, which sat in a dark corner of the class, and pulled off a slip of parchment from it. He proceeded to take roll, his voice but a whisper. He gave all of the Gryffindors glares as their names were said and the Slytherins all received much more pleasant name-readings, not a one got a comment about them. Well, nearly not a one.
"Ah yes," he said softly, having paused from his roll-taking, "Harry Potter. Our new—celebrity. Thank you for gracing us with your… presence," he said in a tone that dripped with venomous sarcasm. Draco Malfoy and his cronies, Goyle and Crabbe, sniggered darkly at this from their seats in the back of the room.
Er—Harry? I don't think he likes you much,, Ginny sent to him through the mental link the two possessed.
"In my classroom there shall be no foolish wand-waving, no mispronounced incantations, and no spells cast. You will learn the art of potion-making, one that is both ancient and underestimated.
"Amongst you are those who will not think this actual magic, for wands are not needed here. It is, however, magic. Of the most ancient and noble order, it is magic. I doubt that many of you," here he shot a glare at Harry, "will appreciate the power and mystique of a softly simmering cauldron and the gentle fumes they exude."
I take that back, Harry. He doesn't like you at all. He hates you, Ginny grimly decided.
"A select few of you, however," here he gazed upon Draco Malfoy, who wore a nauseatingly smug look, "may be knowledgeable enough to value what it is we do here.
Well! He certainly doesn't play favourites, Harry sarcastically said to Ginny in his head. He felt, as well as heard, he laugh lightly. The sound warmed Harry's heart, despite the dark-eyed man who was currently glaring at him.
"Those of you who think your name will carry you in this classroom," he glared at Harry once more, "should leave now. I am not fooled by titles or surnames, and not a one of you will be granted lenience in my classroom, should you commit an act worthy of castigation."
He's a bit, er—hostile, isn't he? Harry understated to Ginny mentally.
None of the Gryffindors seemed to doubt Snape's words at all, though the Slytherins still looked smug, as if not afraid at all of what Snape might do to them. Later that day, Harry would realise why they didn't seem worried. They weren't and had no reason to be.
"Potter!" Snape snapped suddenly, "What would I get if I were to add powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood!" It wasn't even spoken as a question. It was a demand.
Ginny? Harry asked piteously, hoping she could help him out of this particular situation.
I don't know Harry, let me ask Mum. She ran off through her door and down the stairs, but it was too late to help Harry out of that jam.
"Perhaps not, Potter? Pity. I suppose fame isn't everything," sneered the sinister Snape. "Once more, perhaps?
"If I were to ask you to find me a bezoar, where would you seek it?"
Hermione's hand, which had shot up at the first question, was now raised high enough that she was forced to resort to hovering above her seat, in a sort of half-crouch, trying to extend her hand in a vain attempt to catch Professor Snape's notice. As happens to all those who try too hard, she failed.
"Er—" Harry was trying to stall, to give Ginny time, "I think Hermione might have…er… some idea, sir." The Gryffindors in the class sniggered at this. Many of them would have laughed outright if it weren't for the daunting Potions professor before them.
"Silence, Potter! You will answer my questions without such asinine comments! Where might I find a bezoar, Potter? Not Granger!" he snapped at the bushy-haired girl. "Sit down you foolish girl!"
Ron, despite his verbally expressed dislike for the girl, who was now sniffling quietly and shrinking deeply into her seat amidst the sniggers of the Slytherins, opened his mouth to retort angrily, but Harry stamped on his foot to avoid costing the Gryffindors points and Ron a detention.
"I don't know, sir," Harry replied truthfully. Ginny was now trying to ask her mother the question, while trying to make it sound innocent.
"Very well, Potter. What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"
Harry was ready this time; Ginny had managed to convince her mother that she had simply remembered wondering the question while lying on her bed. Ginny? Harry asked, knowing from the giddy feeling he was feeling from her that she had already asked her mother the question and had been provided with an answer.
Nothing, Harry, they're the same plant! It's also called aconite by Muggles, Mum says, Ginny informed him.
Harry narrowed his eyes at the professor, "Nothing. They are the same plant. Muggles also call it aconite, sir."
The professor narrowed his eyes back at Harry in suspicion. Harry felt a prickle in the back of his head at the professor's stare and presumed that it had something to do with the soul-searching look in Snape's eyes.
After a moment, Snape's face turned a furious shade of white and his eyes widened. "Out! Now! All of you!" he shouted. Immediately there was a rummaging of bags and the putting away of quills and ink pots. "And ten points from Gryffindor, Potter!" he roared at their retreating backs.
He's really not a cheery sort at all, is he? asked Ginny, trying to lighten Harry's mood a little.
Harry and Ron fled from the Potions dungeon and tried to navigate their way to a place they were familiar with. Unfortunately, because Snape had let them out twenty minutes into their two hour class, there were no students or teachers around to ask directions from.
It also didn't help that they weren't, realistically, familiar with any portion of the castle. They walked through the corridors, following stray Gryffindors, and hoping that they weren't caught by the creeping Mr. Filch or his cat, Mrs. Norris, both of whom had been the subject of idle threats from the senior Gryffindor students, overheard by Harry and Ron during breakfast.
After a half hour of wandering corridors, Harry and Ron ran across Fred and George, who must have skived off of classes, because there were still ten minutes before the next classes for those who didn't have a double session.
Having caught sight of Harry and Ron, the twins shouted in unison, "Ickle Ronniekins! Harrykins! Fancy seeing you two skiving off classes on this fine afternoon!"
"I always said he wasn't going to turn out like Percy, didn't I Fred?" asked George of his twin.
"Why yes, my twin, you did! You had your concerns, though; concerns that, I might add, were not unfounded! I seem to recall Bill and Charlie betting against us that Ickle Ronniekins would become a prefect someday!" Both twins and Ron looked aghast.
"How could they think that of me? I know better!" exclaimed Ron, "I'll never be a prefect!" he roared in fierce indignation.
Fred and George began to wipe imaginary tears from their eyes. "Atta boy, Ronniekins!"
Why are Fred and George so dead-set against being prefects? Wouldn't they be able to wander the corridors later? That would make it easier to prank, wouldn't it? Harry asked Ginny.
Ginny was silent for a moment, Yes, it probably would, but they don't want to seem like Percy. Everyone's known he was going to be prefect since before he went to Hogwarts. He's always been one for rules and order, and the twins are the exact opposites. They live for chaos and disorder, mayhem is their forte. Anything that would associate them to Percy on that grand of a scale they would have to denounce.
It really would help with pranks, though, she agreed. We'll just have to become prefects when we get into our fifth years, she said happily to him. Harry smiled at that. He wondered how the Pranksters-in-Chief would feel about it, though.
He didn't even notice that someone was talking to him until Ron nudged him in the ribs. "You all right, mate? You seem to do that a lot—just spacing out. You never did it on the train, though," Ron said.
The twins, too, were looking at him oddly. "Er—sorry. Just thinking, I guess," Harry said nervously. He would have to stop doing that.
"Okay. I was just explaining to these two," Rom indicated the twins, "what happened in Potions this morning."
"Oh yeah. It was weird; he asked me a question, I answered it, and then he just kind of narrowed his eyes before he started yelling at us. It was really bizarre," Harry said, glad they were discussing something he could contribute to confidently.
"Weird," remarked one of the twins, "I mean, he snaps a lot, at us at least, but he doesn't shriek like a banshee from anything we do," the red-haired boy gave a long look to his twin, "and we do a lot."
"He doesn't seem to like you much, does he Harry?" Ron asked Harry.
"Yeah, at the feast last night he was glaring at me a lot… and in class he kept making comments about my being famous and about how my last name wouldn't 'get me any special treatment'.
"I think he's wrong, though. I do get special treatment. Especially from him," Ron looked at him as if he were mental, "I mean, come on Ron, did he glare at anyone else quite as much? And then exploding just because I answered a question correctly…"
He's a git, Ginny agreed.
"Anyway," Harry said, trying to steer the conversation away from himself and on to someone else, "What are you two doing out of class?"
The twins laughed. "We're hardly out of class!" exclaimed one, "It was just History of Magic! I think you're supposed to skive off of History of Magic."
"Most boring class there is," added the other twin as a sort of afterthought.
"We haven't got History of Magic until…" Ron had pulled out his schedule and was scanning the listings, "Tomorrow."
"What's so boring about History of Magic?" asked Harry. He thought that learning about wizarding history would be very exciting, and imagined it to be full of epic battles of wizard against wizard, battling for dominance.
"It's taught by the only ghost teacher at Hogwarts," explained one of the twins, "and he never seems to stop droning on about goblin rebellions."
"It has potential to be interesting," continued the other twin, "but the way he teaches it makes it nearly impossible to stay awake, let alone pay attention. He just drones on and on in a monotone, never changing pace or pitch, or anything!"
"We just show up for the first couple of minutes and then when he starts droning on and on, we just leave. He's not noticed yet, and we've been doing it everyday since the middle of first year," said a twin.
"Others have tried to do what we do, but they've all been caught by Filch," the twin said this with pride in his voice, indeed he perked up a bit when he said it.
"How come you two have never been caught? You get in trouble all the time; Mum's always going on about how she's gotten more owls about you than the rest of us combined! How do you always avoid Filch?" asked Ron.
"Ask us no questions," began the twins in unison.
"—and we'll tell you no lies," Harry muttered, finishing for them. They stared at him. "What? I read it in a book someplace."
"Oh dear! Ickle Harrykins reads! We might have another prefect on our hands, Gred," Forge exclaimed to his twin.
"Nay! It cannot be, my twin!" shouted Gred. "Perhaps he—"
He stopped when he heard the sound of heavy wheezing and running footsteps. "Filch!" the twins exclaimed to Harry and Ron in hushed tones. "C'mon, he'll give us detentions for a week, excuse or no, if he catches us here," one of them said, pointing to a corridor.
The twins began to sprint down the corridor they indicated, Harry and Ron on their heels. The sound of their footfalls drowned out any noise Filch might have been making, so they had no idea how close he was to them, so they continued to run and run for what felt, to Harry, like hours.
Finally, they came to a halt at the end of a long corridor that Harry was sure was on at least the fourth floor. "Bloody," exclaimed one of the twins, panting, "Filch! He's always—wandering around, trying to—get us in trouble."
"Yes, and threaten us—with having our thumbs—hanging—from the ceiling—in his office," breathed out the other twin.
Just then the bell that signaled the end of class rang throughout the school, and it was only a moment before the pounding of hundreds of feet could be heard as people headed to their common rooms.
"Er—how do we get back to Gryffindor Tower?" asked Harry of the twins. He hadn't had much of a chance to get well-acquainted with the castle's corridors yet and was fairly certain that if he went off to find the common room on his own that he would end up back in the dungeons.
"Just follow us, children," the twins said in sickeningly sweet voices. "We won't lead you astray!"
Don't trust them an inch, Harry. Whenever they are trying to act innocent is the time you need to be most on your guard. I'll bet they're going to prank you before you get to the tower, so be on your guard, Ginny advised him.
Ron, too, looked wary of the twins, but nodded to them in a way that plainly stated, "Lead the way!"
Harry followed slightly behind Ron as the twins led them, supposedly, back to Gryffindor Tower. Heeding Ginny's advice, Harry was on the look-out for any potential pranking situations. Because of his wariness, he also, much to Ginny's delight and Harry's chagrin that she was aware of it, jumped at small noises, immediately pulling out his wand, preparing to… well, wave it at whatever threatened him.
The twins led Harry and Ron through quite a lot of tapestries and down several long corridors as well as up and down what had to be a dozen staircases. Harry was convinced that a picture of a busty lady in a red dress had winked at him, and that Fred and George had led him by it several times on purpose.
If Ron noticed, he didn't say anything, but then, his mouth was agape and Harry was pretty sure his mind wasn't functioning quite right, if the goofy grin on his face was any indicator.
After passing passed the portrait three more times, the twins finally began to lead them down an unfamiliar corridor that didn't end up back at the red-dressed lady's portrait. They ambled along this corridor, which was quite a long one; Harry guessed it was at few hundred metres long.
The corridor was dark; no windows adorned the walls, though there were many torches lining up and down the walls. The carpet they trod upon was a deep, blood red in colouring and seemed as if it were not typically walked on. There were dozens of tapestries along the stone walls and each tapestry seemed to depict men and women being prodded with pokers or stabbed with swords.
"F-Fred? Where are we?" asked Ron, evidently a bit frightened by their sombre surroundings.
"Oh don't be a baby about it, Ron!" Fred laughed. "It's just a shortcut to get back to the tower! There aren't many spiders down here, Ron, if that's what you're worried about."
"Afraid of spiders, Ron?" asked Harry. He actually rather liked spiders; they had been constant companions in the cupboard.
Ron turned red. "I'm not afraid of spiders! I dunno what Fred's on about!" Ron exclaimed adamantly.
Don't listen to him, Harry. He's been terrified of spiders since he was five when Fred turned his teddy bear into a spider, Ginny informed him, giggling softly.
"It's all right, Ron," Harry said amusedly, "I'd be afraid of spiders too if Fred turned one of my teddy bears," here Harry had to suppress a snort at the extreme unlikelihood that he would have had a teddy bear that could have been abused by Fred, "into a spider when I was younger."
Ron turned white and started to sputter immediately, "D-don't know—what you're talking—about, Harry."
Fred and George began to laugh hysterically at Ron's discomfort. "Who told you that, Harry?" the twins asked between their laughs, gasping as they spoke.
Harry shrugged. "Percy might've mentioned it to me," Harry smoothly lied to them, saying nothing else and wearing a mysterious expression on his face.
The twins eyed him speculatively, but Ron seemed to have accepted his story without question, though he was now rather redder than was strictly usual.
It was then that Harry felt them. There was an odd feeling, vaguely like the feeling of when Snape had peered into his eyes. And there was a presence. The presence was overwhelming. It was not a bad feeling, like the one he had gotten the first time he met Draco Malfoy, but it was a feeling all the same. It was… Light, Harry thought he might describe it, but it wasn't as powerful as Ginny's had been. This was… this was something to be wary of. It was far more powerful than any other he had encountered, save of course Ginny.
He tensed up. "We need to go. Now." His tone left no room for argument and the twins, having seen him tense up, immediately set off in the direction of, what Harry hoped was, Gryffindor Tower.
He looked around for a moment, searching for the presence he had felt in the narrow corridor. The presence was behind him, he was sure of it. "Go, Ron!" he shouted to his red-headed friend. The boy, spooked by Harry's unusual behaviour, hurried after his brothers.
Looking over his shoulder, Harry thought he saw the air shimmer slightly, a vague outline of what appeared to be a body. He squinted slightly and the image became clearer. It was of a person, he was sure, that was very tall. The person seemed to be taking great pains to remain absolutely still, hoping that perhaps Harry would not see him. He had just opened his mouth to call out—
"Harry!" shouted Ron, "Come on! You wanted to go, now let's go!" Ron and the twins were already at the end of the long corridor, the three of them having sprinted across.
Harry was looking at the spot he had felt the presence in, but during Ron's shouting the presence had managed to disappear, and Harry was no longer able to feel it. All that remained was the feeling Ron and the twins gave off. Feelings of the Light, feelings of power, but nothing, even remotely, like either this last presence, nor of Ginny's.
Reluctantly, Harry turned and set off to the end of the corridor to the Weasley boys at a much slower pace than theirs. "It's all right now," he shouted to them. "We don't have to run, anymore!"
What, or who, was that Ginny? Harry asked her, hoping, despite the extreme unlikelihood of her being able to accomplish it, that she could explain everything, this presence included, to him.
I don't know, Harry… I've felt that before, though. It's familiar… but I can't put my finger on what it was…
"What alarmed you like that, Harry?" asked one of the twins.
"Nothing… I—I thought… it was nothing," he said lamely, unable to accurately describe to them what it was that had frightened him so without telling them more than he wanted to. He wasn't sure why he wanted this to be a secret, but he did. It was like discussing something very personal; something that he wasn't ashamed of, but something he never wanted others to know.
The twins led them up a long staircase and, almost without realising it, they were climbing up an old ladder and crawling out of a trapdoor that one of the twins, the first to go up, had muttered a word to open.
Once they were all out of the tunnel that they had walked through and had successfully climbed out of the trapdoor, Fred and George pulled out their wands and used a pulling motion to cover the trapdoor with a large rug that they must have moved before opening the trapdoor.
They made pulling motions with their wands, like the spell Harry had used on Ginny's toilet seat, and Harry noticed, with admiration, that they didn't seem to have uttered an incantation.
While one of the twins led them out a door on the opposite side of the room from the trapdoor, the other twin muttered in Harry's ear, "So far the magical movement spell is the only one we can do nonverbally. We've been practising."
After wandering through the corridors for a bit longer, they found themselves outside of the portrait of the Fat Lady—the keeper of Gryffindor Tower. She seemed to be familiar with Fred and George, because she nodded to them, "Glad to see you during the daylight hours, Misters Weasley."
Fred and George laughed, said the password ("Caput Draconis") in unison, and led Harry and Ron through the now exposed doorway and into the Gryffindor common room.
*~*
Albus Dumbledore was puzzled. An hour earlier, his Potions professor had come storming into his office, shouting about Harry Potter. It was mostly incoherent shrieking until he had managed to calm the infuriated man down.
"What troubles you, Severus?" he had asked, both amused and alarmed at the professor's antics.
"That—that Potter!" the professor had shrieked in fury.
"What is it about young Mr. Potter that has irritated you so?" he queried, steepling his hands on the desk in front of him.
"Have you tried to read him, Headmaster?" Snape asked, suddenly calm and serious.
"Severus, surely you—"
"Have you tried to read him, Headmaster?" he repeated, cutting off the headmaster mid-sentence.
"No, Severus, I have not. I have not yet had a viable opportunity," Albus Dumbledore admitted with a sigh.
"He—he is—I can't look into his mind, Professor!" the furious professor exclaimed. He seemed to take it as a personal insult that he could not read the mind of an eleven year old boy.
"Severus, surely you are mistaken?" the headmaster asked, a mildly hopeful tone in his voice.
"It's like—nothing I've ever seen, Headmaster. The boy has Occlumency blocks the like of which I have never encountered!" the professor informed him. "It… it has to be Dark magic, Professor. There's no other way! Are you certain that some part of the Dark Lord did not transfer into Potter? That, perhaps, the Dark Lord is hiding inside of him?"
"Severus!" the headmaster exclaimed, shocked. "I do not believe that Lord Voldemort resides in Harry Potter's body. I—"
"But his shields, Headmaster! The boy shouldn't even be able to have them!" Snape demanded. "Only the Dark Lord has—"
"Severus! The boy has lived with Muggles these past ten years! Do you think Lord Voldemort would ever go ten years living with Muggles again? He would have killed them by now!" Dumbledore exclaimed.
"But Headmaster… his shields! How can you explain them? No child should even be capable of Occlumency shields, let alone ones that could rebuff me!
"Your own prowess surpasses mine, Headmaster, I urge you to try. The boy is blocked by—something! I—I couldn't get anything Headmaster. It's unnatural! I say we give the boy Veritaserum and force him to tell us what he knows! He knows something, Headmaster! The Dark Lord resides in the body of that boy and Veritaserum will prove it!
"But what if the Dark Lord shields him from Veritaserum…" the professor went on, seemingly to himself and not to the headmaster before him. "Perhaps… Yes… No one can withstand it!" He looked up, "Headmaster! Perhaps I could perform the—"
"Severus!" the headmaster boomed. "No one shall have that curse cast upon them! I am confident that the boy's body is not tainted by the hosting of the Dark Lord! My sources have told me, in the last few months, where the Dark Lord currently resides! And I very much doubt that the Dark Lord has gone to Harry's family's home to possess the boy!
"I would know, Severus, if the Dark Lord tried to get to Harry! The wards that protect his home would inform me immediately! You know of this, Severus! You know that the wards at his home are the most powerful in the world! More powerful, in fact, than those that guard Hogwarts!
"Now please, return to your classroom and prepare for your next class. I will see to Mr. Potter's unusual talent at Occlumency, but I must tell you that I find it difficult to believe that his shields are as you say," the headmaster said.
"Now, good day, Severus."
The Potions professor, white in the face, nodded curtly, turned on his heel, and strode out the door, shutting it rather loudly as he exited the office.
Dumbledore sighed. He would have to find young Mr. Potter now and test his Occlumency shields.
Extracting his wand from the folds of his robes, Dumbledore pointed it at the top of his head. A look of intense concentration passed over his face as he muttered an incantation. "Occaecototus!" he said. And as he did, his body began to disappear slowly; it started at the top of his head and slowly, very slowly, it began to ooze down the rest of him until his entire body was completely invisible.
He strode merrily across the room and opened his door. He hummed to himself as the revolving staircase outside of his doorway led him down to the entrance of the room he was currently in.
He was almost to the stone gargoyles that would grant him entrance to the rest of the school when he stopped. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. He remained like that, absolutely still, with closed eyes, for almost a full minute before opening his eyes, grinning, and walking out passed the stone gargoyles.
He ambled through the halls and passages of Hogwarts; walking down staircases and back up only to go down once more; passing portraits that were performing any number of inane tasks, from one wizard who was discreetly picking at his nose to a witch who continuously scratched her, rather hefty, bum.
He continued to prowl the halls until he reached his target. Harry Potter was in a hidden, underground corridor with the Weasley twins and their younger brother Ron. Dumbledore chuckled soundlessly to himself at the company Harry kept.
He opened his mind, willing it to pick up on the thoughts of Harry Potter. He felt the shield that Severus had described. Severus Snape was quite right, Dumbledore discovered, Harry's shields were powerful. Dumbledore applied a bit more force, trying to peer into Harry's mind. Then the boy whipped around.
Harry peered about the corridor with suspicion in his eyes, he had evidently felt Dumbledore's mental prod. He froze as the boy's gaze moved right to him.
Dumbledore stayed that way, completely frozen, until the Harry's name was called out by the youngest Weasley boy. The moment Harry turned his back to him, Dumbledore moved through a passageway to his left, hidden by a tapestry, and entered a small room.
The boy's defences are incredible! Albus Dumbledore concluded. But how? Is it as Severus says? Could Voldemort be residing in Harry's mind? One cannot even learn Occlumency at Harry's age… the mind simply hasn't enough discipline at so early an age! Perhaps… Tom, what have you done?
*~*
Several hours later Harry and Ron were lying in the common room, their hands supporting their heads, as they played a game of chess. When Harry agreed to play, he had no idea what he was getting himself into.
Ron was trouncing him. Harry had managed to take three of Ron's pieces, while Ron had captured a dozen of Harry's. It was a slaughter. Harry's troops wouldn't listen to him at all (for in wizard's chess the pieces had minds of their own) and would frequently give him bad advice.
Ron's pieces were listening to him and following every instruction as if his commands were set in stone. They never once disobeyed and it was evident to the four people watching the game (three of whom were physically present) that Harry stood no chance against Ron's superior strategising was rendering Harry's forces' best efforts completely futile.
Harry thought that he wouldn't be doing quite so bad if Percy wasn't trying to give him advice at every turn. It was quite obvious to everyone, Harry included, that Percy hadn't the faintest hint what he was doing.
Ginny, too, was of no help. Her mother was having her help with dinner and she knew better than to try playing chess while cooking with oil, lest she experience her mother's wrath once more.
Ron had done as he had done the entire game; he took another of Harry's chessmen. "Did you have to take my queen, Ron?" Harry asked miserably.
Ron just grinned. "No mercy, mate."
Harry glared at him. Their eyes locking. Wish I knew what he was going to do… make this whole thing go a lot easier, Harry thought to Ginny, still glaring into Ron's eyes.
And then it was like a window had opened in Ron's mind. He saw what Ron was going to do next turn. Indeed, he saw what Ron was going to do in the next six turns and Harry saw, with dread, that it was going to end in Harry's being checkmated.
Harry smirked as he looked back on to the board, no longer seeing Ron's plans. He was quite shocked to find he could see Ron's moves… was he a mind reader? He immediately began to put pieces in motion that would impede Ron's plans. Harry thought that now that he knew what Ron was going to do, he could beat him.
You can read minds, Harry? Ginny asked him in awe. She had ceased her cooking and was now staring at an inconspicuous spot in the ceiling of the kitchen.
Er—I guess so… I don't know how I did it… it jut kind of… happened? Harry offered weakly, embarrassed that he could do something like this, even if he did think it was rather brilliant that he could see into Ron's mind.
Wicked, was Ginny's response before her mother began clucking about, asking why she wasn't preparing the food she was assigned to make.
Harry and Ron continued to play their game of chess for another hour before Harry finally was defeated. It was much closer than it had been before, however, so Harry was fairly pleased with himself.
"What are you smilies about, Harry? You lost!" Fred exclaimed when he caught sight of the look on Harry's face.
"Yeah, but I held him off, didn't I?" asked Harry, a glint of something like triumph in his eye.
"Yeah, mate, I thought I was going to have you a long time ago, but then you suddenly started playing like you knew what you were doing," Ron said. "I mean, you even blocked a few of the moves I was going to make!"
Harry just grinned at him in a way that suggested he knew more than he was letting on. Ron didn't interpret it, but Harry thought Percy and the twins might have.
"Quite a good game, Harry," Percy said, patting him on the back. "I knew you wouldn't go down easily!"
Behind Percy's back the twins were making a show of strangling each other.
Harry laughed at the twins' antics, but Percy must have misinterpreted it, because he suddenly got an angry look on his face and was about to retort when Ron pointed out the twins to him.
"You two! You can never take anything seriously!" Percy nearly shouted at the twins, who continued to kill one another with large grins on their faces, as if there was nothing in the world they'd rather be doing than commit murder most foul.
Suddenly the twins stopped, looks of grim seriousness on their faces. "Why would we want to do that? It'd take the fun out of life," the said in unanimity.
*~*
Dinner that night was a raucous affair. Harry, Ron, and the Twins went down to the Great Hall together and sat at one end of the Gryffindor table, across from them was a black boy that Harry recognised from the train, a black girl that Harry was unfamiliar with, and a blonde-haired girl that Harry also didn't know.
"Harry, this is Lee Jordan, our partner in crime," Fred informed him, motioning toward the black boy. "That's Angelina Johnson," he pointed to the black girl, who smiled at Harry in hello. "And that's Alicia Spinnet," he motioned to the last girl.
"Lee, Angelina, Alicia, this is Harry Potter," George said with a flourish of his arms.
"Hullo," he said, nodding to each of them good-naturedly.
"These two," Fred pointed at the two girls, "are on the Gryffindor Quidditch team with us. And Lee here," he pointed to Lee, "commentates."
"Play much Quidditch, Harry? Ron?" asked Angelina Johnson.
"Raised by Muggles," Harry responded as a way of decline.
"All the time," Ron said, puffing his chest out a little. Harry, trying to keep from bursting out laughing, turned to look at the twins with an odd look on his face. The twins looked repulsed at their brother.
"Okay little brother, why don't you feed yourself now?" said Fred.
Ron's ears went scarlet, but he did just that and began piling food on his plate.
The twins, seeing that Ron was thoroughly occupied with his kidney pie, leaned over and said quietly and in unison, "Harry here," they jabbed identical thumbs in his direction, "is our protégé."
Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet, and Lee Jordan all had expressions of surprise and shock on their faces.
"But—but you said you were going to take on Ginny! Didn't you say she was your natural successor? That she could surpass you two one day? And then you went and took on Harry Potter? Your mum is going to have dragons if she ever finds out about this!" Lee Jordan exclaimed in a loud whisper.
"Shh! Shut up!" whispered George, looking at Ron with caution. "Ron doesn't know! You know how he gets jealous about things! And yes! We took on Harry. But we're still going to take on Ginny, too. She and Harry met on the platform—"
"And got rather lovey-dovey with the hand-holding!" Fred added teasingly.
"Yes, yes, that too, but regardless. We're going to take them both on. Lee, do you remember that one time we went into the library last year?" asked George.
"Yeah! I was amazed that you too actually wanted to go to the library!" Lee said jokingly, though Harry suspected it wasn't a joke. He couldn't see the twins as being in a place like a library where mayhem and chaos was outlawed.
"It was the only time, too," Angelina muttered to Alicia, but Harry caught it and chuckled appreciatively.
"Well, we found this," he pulled out a piece of parchment from the breast pocket of his robes, while glancing at Ron to make sure he hadn't noticed, "in one of the old school record books."
Harry believing the slip of parchment to be the same one the twins had shown him on the train the day before asked them, "Do you guys carry that around with you everywhere you go?"
"You carry what with you?" asked Ron through a mouthful of treacle tart.
"Er—nothing, Ron!" the twins said in unison as Fred grabbed the slip of parchment from Lee's hands. "Is that treacle tart?" Fred asked, trying to move him back to the subject of food.
"Fred, what is on that bit of parchment?" he asked, his speech no longer impeded by food. He might have just let it go before, but now that they were denying him something and trying to make him look foolish to boot—well, he was going to get that parchment.
Fred discreetly handed Harry the listing and his meaning was clear: Get rid of it!
Harry carefully, so as not to attract Ron's suspicion, wedged the slip into one of his trouser pockets.
"What bit of parchment, dear brother?" asked Fred innocently. "I see no parchment. Do you, Harry?"
"No. No I definitely don't see any parchment, Ron."
Yes, but if you were to dig into your pocket… Ginny reminded him laughingly.
Ron's ears turned red and he turned on his heel and exited the hall as fast as he could without running.
Harry gave a forlorn sigh. "S'pose he'll forget about it by tomorrow?" he asked the twins.
"Yeah," provided George, "he never remembers stuff like this long enough to be mad about it. Besides, it's a stupid thing, really."
"Do you still have the parchment?" asked Fred.
"Yeah," Harry said as he pulled it from his pocket. "But why is it so important? I mean, we know what's on there."
"We want to use a copying spell on it," supplied George, "and then we can get rid of it. But we want to have a record of this—something to compare our own records to," the red-head explained to Harry.
Fred, when George had finished speaking, leant over and whispered in Harry's ear, "We want you to show us some more nonverbal magic and tonight's pretty ideal; we already got Ron out of the way."
Harry nodded and muttered back, "Okay, but you guys have to show me some spells afterwards."
Fred nodded in agreement to Harry's terms and began to shovel food onto his plate, as Ron had done earlier that evening.
Harry decided it would be a good idea to do likewise and began to pile chicken onto his plate.
*~*
Harry and the twins were now standing in the middle of an empty classroom on the seventh floor. "How do you guys find all these places? I can't find my way to classes—and I've got a map on the back of my class list!" Harry exclaimed. He had no idea how they could possibly find deserted classrooms when he struggled to find the loo from his dormitory.
The twins exchanged a glance. "Well, we certainly don't have a map, that's for sure," they said at the same time, slightly guilty looks on their faces.
Harry eyed them for a moment. They've got a map.
Yes, I think you're probably right. They don't usually look that suspicious—even when they're up to something they don't usually look like that. Though, there was that one time when they cast a hair-growth charm on Bill… Merlin was Mum mad about that. And then when Bill decided to keep it… Ginny said, an image of Bill and his long, red hair came to Harry's mind, They looked really guilty when they did that, but they did seem a bit pleased with themselves. Well, they did until Mum started laying into them…
Harry smiled. "Okay guys," he said, ignoring the fact that they were obviously hiding something from him, "what can you do?"
Fred and George instantly reached into their robes and pulled out their wands. Fred handed his wand to George, who immediately began to juggle them. Fred, meanwhile, was starting to do a handstand—
"No!" Harry said, laughing, "I meant what magic can you do nonverbally!"
Harry could feel Ginny laughing without restraint in his mind.
"Oh," George said, seemingly put out, "Well, we've only really gotten the Movement Charm down… You saw that in the Gryffindor Entrance to the Four Corners' Passageway… Other than that…" he shrugged.
"Is that what that place is called? The Four Corners' Passageway?" Harry asked, curious.
"Yeah," Fred responded, "It goes under nearly all of Hogwarts. We followed it to the harbor once; you remember than cave you had to go through to get to the castle? It goes there, but it's really extensive; we haven't explored all of it yet."
"We call it the Four Corners' Passageway because it leads to all of the common rooms," George said before Harry could ask.
We're exploring that when I get there, Ginny stated. Harry mentally nodded in agreement; he wanted to explore it, too.
"But enough of that," Fred said.
"—teach us some nonverbal magic!" finished George.
"Er—okay, well… let's see," Harry started to think of a spell that they could practise with; he wanted it to be a simple one, one from his first year spellbooks.
"Okay, try the Lighting Charm," Harry said. "I was just following the steps on how to make magic work when I first did it, so… I dunno; just do everything normally except think the incantation instead of saying it."
Harry watched as the twins' faces scrunched up in concentration, their wands held outward. The twins' eyes were closed and from the steady reddening of their faces, Harry didn't think they were breathing.
"Okay, try breathing first. I heard you have to have air in your lungs so your brain can function" Harry said, trying to keep the humour from showing in his voice.
"Okay stop," Harry said when, after a few minutes, the twins were unable to make their wands light up at all.
The twins, with sweat on their formerly furrowed brows, looked up at Harry helplessly. "Like I said, I don't really know how to do it the other way, so I can't tell you what to do very well. Maybe you should just ask one of the professors to help you do it?"
The twins looked aghast. "Extra lessons with professors? Are you mad?" asked Fred, incredulous.
"What do you think we are? Twin Percys?" George shivered in terror at the very thought.
"There are some things you just don't joke about, brother mine!" Fred said, scandalised.
"Alright, alright!" Harry said loudly, getting the point that they wouldn't be taking extra classes.
Any bright ideas, Ginny? Harry asked, hopeful.
He felt Ginny's head shake in the negative, Sorry Harry, nothing.
"Just… just try again with Lumos, okay?"
And the twins tried again. Each time they attempted the nonverbal magic, they failed. For two straight hours they practised and Harry was impressed by their will to keep going despite the discouragement of their failure.
"Okay, guys, I think that's it. Keep trying on your own and we'll work on it again next time, all right?" Harry offered. He didn't really understand why it was so much harder for the twins to grasp the nonverbal magic than it was for him, he thought that perhaps the twins were too used to using magic vocally.
The twins gave identical sighs of despondency. "All right, maybe you'll have better luck learning these spells than we have at nonverbal magic…" said George miserably.
"You'll get it eventually, but like you said: Percy isn't even able to do it, and he tries all the time," Harry encouraged.
"Now, on to your end of the deal." Harry was most anxious to learn some spells that Hermione Granger wouldn't know. A bit of one-upmanship never hurt anyone, did it?
"Okay, well… What type of spells do you want to learn? Shield spells? Jinxes, hexes, curses? Charms? Et cetera…" offered George.
"Er—how about a shield spell?" Harry asked, not quite sure where to start.
"Okay, well the most basic one we know—Oliver Wood, the captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, taught us this one—is called the Obtego shield. There's a few other, more advanced shields spells, but we don't get taught them in class until fourth year. Another that we do know is called the Defendo shield, Charlie told us about that one, but we're not as good with that one as the other, though it is more powerful than Obtego" George informed him.
"We'll start with the Obtego and if you can get it good enough we'll try the Defendo, all right, Harry?" Fred asked.
Harry was nervous about this, he thought it might mean that Fred and George were going to be shooting spells at him for him to block… but if he couldn't block the spell… "Yeah, sounds good. Are you going to have to…er—shoot spells at me? To test my shield, I mean," Harry added, making sure the twins didn't see it is an invitation to start hexing him wherever he went.
"Don't worry. We'll use weak spells," Fred turned to his twin for confirmation before continuing, "and it won't be anything that hurts."
Harry, a little reassured, nodded. "All right," he said. "So what do I do?"
"Okay, Harry, this is what you do," George explained, "Hold your wand in front of you and say—well, in your case think—the word Obtego. While your doing it, feel the magic that you normally use for thing like the Levitation Charm, but try and channel it into your shield. The stronger the shield is, the more brightly coloured it will be.
"Just try it now, without us shooting spells at you first, Harry."
Harry took a deep breath and began to concentrate. Every time he cast a spell he could feel the magic moving through his fingers and into his wand. It was very faint, but Professor McGonagall had explained that it would be until they became used to doing it. Harry furrowed his brow in concentration and thought, Obtego! while trying to push the magic through his arms and into his wand.
He had his eyes shut tight as he concentrated and he could feel his body shaking very slightly from the effort of forcing the spell's required magic. Slowly, very slowly, a faintly red—perhaps pinker than red—barrier seemed to come between him and the twins.
Harry felt the barrier, rather than saw it. Small beads of sweat began to form on his head as he tried to both strengthen and maintain the shield. After a moment, he was hunched over, momentarily fatigued from the effort.
Panting slightly, Harry looked up at the twins, "How—how'd I do?"
"That was good, Harry!" one of the twins, George perhaps, remarked. "I doubt it could have withstood more than one spell, but it was definitely a good first try! It took me and Fred a few tries before we could get it to work at all."
"Yeah, Harry," Fred this time, "Try it again."
Harry nodded to the twins before straightening himself fully. Trying to summon his magic to his wand again, Harry thought furiously, Obtego! It happened more readily this time; the flow of magic, still very slow, came quicker this time.
The red shield was deeper in colour and more solid-looking this time than before, though it was still pinker than it was red, which was what the shield should look like, ideally.
Harry concentrated on keeping the shield up for as long as he could, but after only half a minute he was on one knee, breathing heavily.
"Much better, Harry! I think that could have taken a few spells before it collapsed. Now granted, it doesn't work with more powerful spells, but the spells that most of your classmates might cast on you would be blocked pretty easily," George said.
"All right, Harry, this time I'm going to try and break through your shield with the Disarming Charm, okay? It won't hurt you or anything; it will just make your wand go soaring. I saw Oliver make someone fly across the room with it once, but Fred and I aren't powerful enough for that, yet."
"Okay," Harry said, "But if I go flying across the room, it's you who has to answer for it," Harry warned him.
"Okay, Harry, I'm going to count to three and then fire off the spell, okay?" Fred said, apparently not wanting to anger the boy who vanquished the Dark Lord when he was only a baby.
Harry nodded his acquiescence.
"1—"
"2—"
"3!"
Obtego! Harry thought quickly. He forced the magic to his wand faster than he had before and was surrounded in the front by the red glow, still pinker than anything else, more quickly than he had previously. Unfortunately, because he had rushed the shield, it was less potent than its immediate predecessor.
"Expelliarmus!" shouted Fred. A bolt of red light shot out of his wand and raced toward Harry's shield. When the two impacted, the shield seemed to fizzle slightly.
"Give it more power, Harry!" George shouted to him.
Harry's forehead crinkled and he forced even more of his magic into the shield spell, it seemed to buckle backwards before pushing Fred's spell back and canceling it out entirely.
The twins let out identical whoops as they ran toward Harry to slap him on the back. "Brilliant, Harry! I'll bet no one else in your year has done that!"
"You're teaching me some of the others tomorrow," Harry told them, leaving no room for argument, "because I'm dead tired right now."
*~*
Harry was lying in his bed an hour later, talking to Ginny. They talked of inconsequential subjects for most of the conversation, until Ginny asked a question that made the entire discussion gain a serious tone.
Harry? she asked him quietly, How is it that we can do this? Talk with our minds, I mean. I mean, I've heard of a lot of things from Bill and Charlie and from Mum and Dad, but I've never heard of two people touching each other's hands and suddenly being able to speak with their minds…
Harry sighed, I dunno, Ginny. I've been wondering that too… We're just lucky, I guess… There was no hint of sarcasm in his voice. He did consider himself lucky to be able to speak with Ginny the way that he could.
All I know is that we can… and I don't think I'd change it for anything. I mean, I came into the wizarding world afraid that I'd be horribly behind everyone else, because I'd lived with the Dursleys all my life, but now… Now I've got a witch in my head and… I'm just thankful, I guess. Harry explained. A moment later he could have kicked himself for mentioning the Dursleys to Ginny.
Harry? Ginny began tentatively once more, What did the Dursleys do to you? Really? I know that you don't like them… but I think there's more to it than them just not liking you…
Harry sighed once more. The Dursleys… They—they're not good people, Gin. They… I've never talked to anyone about this before… he sighed again, Until Hogwarts tried to get in touch with me, they made me live in a cupboard under their stairs.
If Uncle Vernon had a bad day at work, he would yell at me… if it was bad enough, he'd hit me sometimes… but I deserved it! he exclaimed when he felt her begin to express her outrage, I would say something or I'd get in his way… and he'd hit me. I—I couldn't fight back…
I just… I couldn't. He's so much bigger than me and… Harry sighed deeply yet again. I ducked, sometimes. I'd dodge him or do something that would make it impossible for him to hit me… But I could never stop him for long… What he wanted, he got.
And I was a freak—they used to remind me of that every day—and if I didn't do as they said, Uncle Vernon would hit me, lock me in the cupboard, and tell me I wouldn't get meals for a week. And… he was as bad as his word… I've had to go two weeks without food or water before… I don't even know how I lived through it… I just… I did.
When I was younger… I—, Harry's voice, even in his mind, broke, I used to dream that… that I would die. So I could see my Mum and Dad… And I didn't just dream… I tried to… more than once…
I remember one time: I'd just drank some of Aunt Petunia's bleach that she made me use to clean the kitchen with… it had said on the back of the bottle that it was… that it was fatal. I'd—I'd hoped that if I drank it—if I drank it, then I'd be with Mum and Dad… and the Dursleys wouldn't be there to tell me what to do or for Uncle Vernon to hit me or… or anything. Harry felt his own tears on his face and wiped them away ashamedly. It didn't matter that Ginny couldn't see his tears—he knew that she would be able to tell.
Dudley… one time when I was in the cupboard… I hadn't been let out in about a week, so I was really thirsty and hungry… well, Dudley doesn't like me much… he really doesn't like me much. Well, one time he let me out of my cupboard when Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia were out shopping for Christmas presents for Dudley…
I'd thought he had decided to be nice to me… but I was wrong. He said for me to get out of the cupboard, I was so excited… I was never let out of my cupboard early.
Dudley had some of his mates from school with him… and they grabbed me and dragged me up the stairs… They pulled me into the loo and… well, they did what I always saw happen to kids on television. They picked me up and stuck my head in the toilet… I'm sure Dudley thought it was a great gag, having me in his toilet… but they held me in for half a minute, and I was never good at holding my breath, and I swallowed some…
They held me under and the last thing I remembered was everything going dark. When Uncle Vernon came home, he found me in the bathroom passed out. He was enraged that I was out of my cupboard… Dudley told him that I had picked the lock on the door and had slipped on the floor of the loo.
Then Dudley made this really pathetic sound, like a wounded dog… and said he was scared. Scared that I'd died or something.
Uncle Vernon was angrier than I'd seen him in a long time… he—he yelled at me for scaring Dudley and for going out of my cupboard… he locked me in for a week after that… and I think he broke my arm when he threw me in…
I was—I was always good at healing… you know, if I broke my wrist or something… it's be better in a week or so… No one at school ever even bothered to check up on me if I was gone for a week. I found out later that Aunt Petunia had told the people at the school that I'd gone to a counselor.
I hate it there, Gin. It's… it's terrible. I don't want to leave Hogwarts… it doesn't matter if I don't know how to get around here… people—they stare at me here, but not because they dislike me, like the Dursleys did.
I never had a friend until I met Hagrid… never once. I think the magical world is the only place that is ever going to feel right to me…
It was then that Harry felt Ginny crying. He had never encountered a crying girl before, but he had seen on television what he was supposed to do. He gathered all of the good-feelings and comfort that he could and pushed it through their link to her side.
And the night continued that way for many more hours. Harry would answer Ginny's questions about life with the Dursleys and the two would comfort each other when things became too emotion for either.
Harry could just see the beginnings of dawn creeping over the horizon when he yawned deeply and said to her, Good night, Ginevra,, remembering what her mother had yelled at her.
Good night, Harry.
A/N:Well, that's eleven. "We hope you've enjoyed your stay / It's good to have you with us / Even if it's just for the day...." Any thoughts, feel free to leave them.