Chapter 20

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

November 25, 8:45 A.M.

"I can't believe I have school today!" Wally groaned as he slumped dramatically over the table at breakfast.

His cousins and friends looked at him with varying expressions of confusion and amusement. "What's so special about today?" asked Hermione.

"It's only my favorite holiday, and every other sane school gave students a week off," Wally said without lifting his head.

"Holiday? What holiday?" asked Ron, in confusion.

"It's Thanksgiving!" Wally said lifting his head and glaring at his cousin.

"Thanksgiving?"

"It's an American holiday," explained Hermione. "One that celebrates family, and thankfulness for the good things in your life."

"It should be an international holiday," Wally grumbled, letting his head fall back down with a thunk.

He continued to sulk about having school throughout the day. Hermione finally had enough of that and told him to snap out of it while the two of them were studying in the library later that day.

"I mean honestly, why are you so upset?" she asked. "We just have to finish this and then you can go home. What is so special about this holiday for you anyway?"

"We're celebrating it at my house this year," Wally explained. "And the entire Flash family is going to be there, my parents, Flash and his wife, the other Flash and his wife. Plus Flash, Robin and I managed to convince Batman that he and Robin should come (and trust me that was no easy feat), so they'll be there too."

Hermione began to look more understanding. "The other Flash?" she asked.

The Flash before the current Flash, he retired and let the current Flash take over the job," Wally explained. He then got a dreamy look over his face. "I can't wait till tonight. My Mom and the Flashs' wives have been cooking all week to have enough food to handle three speedsters, plus everyone else."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Is food all you think about?"

"I think about girls too," said Wally with a grin. "Also do you know how often Batman socializes? It's a sight to behold, once you get him out of the Batcave."

Hermione looked amused, but didn't comment. Batman had managed to scare her pretty bad when she had met him.

Wally put the finishing touches on his homework. "Done, now there's just one last thing to do before I head out."

Hermione glanced at his work. "But you've done all your homework, what else do you need to do?"

Wally glanced at Hermione and figured he might as well tell her. "I told Batman about Sirius Black and how he might come here after Harry. He ordered me to do some research on the guy to find out more about him."

Hermione smacked her forehead. "Why didn't I think of that, it might help Harry."

Hermione moved to put her homework away and help Wally, but he stopped her. "You keep doing your work, you're drowning in it as it is. I'll let you know what I find."

Hermione didn't look happy, but returned to her Muggle Studies essay.

It was times like this Wally wished wizards used computers. He didn't have many leads to follow. He started by skimming through old issues of the Daily Prophet dated twelve years ago or more. When that didn't get anywhere promising he realized Black had most likely gone to Hogwarts for his education, so he began looking through old school yearbooks. Eventually he hit the jackpot.

"Hermione look at this," he said, holding the yearbook open to her.

She looked over at the picture he was indicating. "Tell me, does that guy look freakishly like Harry or what?" He asked

He watched as her eyes widened at the sight of the picture. In it was four boys standing together, looking like friends. In the middle of the four was the two that drew their eye, one was Sirius Black, looking younger, healthier and almost nothing like the photos the Prophet had been posting. Next to Black with his arm wrapped around Black's shoulder was a boy who looked almost exactly like Harry, except a little older.

"Oh my…" said Hermione as she handed the book back to Wally. The two of them began franticly searching through other books of adjacent years and found more pictures of Black and the man Wally assumed was Harry's father together looking like friends. Sometimes they were with the other two boys, sometimes with a girl Hermione identified as Harry's mother, Lilly Evens Potter. They couldn't help but come to the conclusion that Harry's father and Black had been friends, maybe even best friends.

"What do we do?" asked Hermione, looking conflicted. "Should we tell Harry?"

"Tell him what? That the guy that might be out to kill him was friends with his father. Yeah, that'll go over well," Wally said as he leaned back, thinking hard.

"Might?"

He looked over at Hermione.

"You said 'might?'" she repeated.

Wally sighed, "Batman did his own research on Black when I first mentioned it to him. When he looked over the files he couldn't find sufficient evidence that Black really killed those people other than being at the scene of the crime. He's ordered me to try and find that evidence as well as find out for sure why he's trying to come here."

Hermione looked stunned, "But the Ministry wouldn't have arrested him if they weren't sure…"

Wally laughed. "One thing I've never liked about wizards is that they never really look at the facts. The evidence they had to put Black away was a joke. They might have just wanted to make an arrest and Black was the best scapegoat. Or he might actually have done it, but they did a lousy job of proving it. Either way it never went to court, so we'll never know."

Hermione looked scandalized. "So what now, we wont tell Harry?" she asked.

Wally thought a moment. "Not yet. Telling him will only confuse him, and we don't know if it's even relevant. We'll tell him later after we get more facts."

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Mount Justice

November 25, 13:54 EST

Wally checked out all the yearbooks with Sirius Black in them and stopped by Mount Justice to leave them in his room so he could show them to Batman later.

He then stopped by the kitchen where Miss Martian and Zatanna were preparing their own Thanksgiving dinner.

"Gobble, gobble," Wally said grinning as he helped himself to some cranberries. "I LOVE Thanksgiving!"

When he reached for some more M'gann telekinetically smacked his hand with a spoon.

"Those are for dinner Wally," she said with a giggle.

He watched as Zatanna used a spell to season the turkey. "There, seasoned to perfection and ready for the oven." She said dusting her hands off while M'gann floated the turkey into the oven.

"Wally, I thought you were eating with your family?" said M'gann.

"Oh, yeah, Dad'll kill me if I'm late," he said, stuffing more cranberries into his mouth, and running for the Zeta tubes.

"Wally!" M'gann yelled after him in irritation.

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Central City

November 25, 20:34 CST

Wally spent the rest of the afternoon at his house, helping his parents and Aunt Iris to finish setting up Thanksgiving dinner. The whole time he was watched like a hawk to ensure he didn't sneak any food before hand.

Jay and Jean arrived around Eight and Uncle Barry, Alfred, and Dick showed up not long after, dragging Bruce along with them.

Once dinner started everyone was in their own conversations. Uncle Barry was currently embarrassing Wally by telling Dick about some of his mishaps when he was learning to control his powers.

"… And those construction workers still have no idea why there were footprints all over the cement, or what happened to all of their lunches," said Uncle Barry in conclusion.

Wally groaned and hid his face in his hands as Dick burst out laughing. Wally turned to Bruce, "Could you please even out the score by telling me something embarrassing about Robin."

Dick looked like he was about to make a smart remark, but Bruce smirked and said, "If you tell me what you've researched on the Black case, I'll tell you about what happened when Dick first got his grappling gun."

Dick paled and Wally grinned. Uncle Barry however looked disapproving. "Come on Bats, you promised not to bring the work to the party."

Bruce gave him a Bat glare. Barry pouted but relented.

Wally grinned and said, "Well, me and Hermione-"

"Hermione and I," his mother corrected from across the table before returning to her conversation with Aunt Iris.

"Right, Hermione and I looked through some old school yearbooks at the library. We found out that Sirius Black used to be friends with James Potter, Harry's father. According to the yearbooks we found the two of them were the class clowns of their time. Their friendship seemed to last through out their time at school, so if anything happened to drive them apart it happened after that," Wally reported.

Bruce's eyes narrowed, "I'll want to see those books."

"I have them checked out and they're back at the Cave for you to look over tomorrow," said Wally. "Now about Dick's grappling gun."

"You wouldn't," Dick said pleadingly.

Bruce just gave a rare smile and said, "When he first got the grappling gun he was so excited he thought it would be a good idea to fire it in the front hall…"

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A/N Not much of a chapter this time, I didn't want to skip Thanksgiving entirely, but I couldn't really come up with much good stuff for it. I don't know if Hogwarts has a yearbook but for the sake of this story it does. I hope I didn't make Bruce ooc

On another note, it's getting near the end of the TV series, and If anyone has ideas of missions the team can go on after Auld Acquaintance, that would be helpful, the sooner the better.

I own nothing