I own nothing. J.K.R Owns everything :(
Chapter 31: Fourth Year (Part 19)
17, August. 1998. 3.00pm...
"Who want's to see a Neville sized canary?" Harry asked, everyone, except those who had been there, gave him odd looks.
"Show it." Hermione nodded as the others who knew nodded.
"I was going to anyway. Basically what's happening is I've just sent a letter to Sirius using Pig so this is us leaving from the owlery." Harry explained.
They watched Pigwidgeon disappear into the darkness, and then Ron said, "Well, we'd better get downstairs for your surprise party, Harry"
"Not much of a surprise anymore, now. Is it?" George muttered.
"- Fred and George should have nicked enough food from the kitchens by now."
Sure enough, when they entered the Gryffindor common room it exploded with cheers and yells again. There were mountains of cakes and flagons of pumpkin juice and butterbeer on every surface; Lee Jordan had let off some Filibuster's Fireworks,
"Those have nothing on our's." Fred smirked.
"We'll arrange to have Lee bring some from the shop and we'll give you a show soon." George added, also smirking.
so that the air was thick with stars and sparks; and Dean Thomas, who was very good at drawing, had put up some impressive new banners, most of which depicted Harry zooming around the Horntail's head on his Firebolt, though a couple showed Cedric with his head on fire.
Harry winced slightly but only Hermione, Ron and Ginny noticed and smiled sadly.
Harry helped himself to food; he had almost forgotten what it was like to feel properly hungry, and sat down with Ron and Hermione. He couldn't believe how happy he felt; he had Ron back on his side, he'd gotten through the first task, and he wouldn't have to face the second one for three months.
"Blimey, this is heavy," said Lee Jordan, picking up the golden egg, which Harry had left on a table, and weighing it in his hands. "Open it, Harry, go on! Let's just see what's inside it!"
"Shouldn't do that." the Golden Trio, Neville, Ginny and the twins mumbled at the same time.
"Why not?" Frank frowned.
"You'll see." Harry told him, grimacing.
"He's supposed to work out the clue on his own," Hermione said swiftly. "It's in the tournament rules..."
"I was supposed to work out how to get past the dragon on my own too," Harry muttered, so only Hermione could hear him, and she grinned rather guiltily.
"Yeah, go on, Harry, open it!" several people echoed.
Lee passed Harry the egg, and Harry dug his fingernails into the groove that ran all the way around it and prised it open.
"Everyone cover your ears." Harry suggested covering Teddy's. They all quickly did as he suggested.
It was hollow and completely empty - but the moment Harry opened it, the most horrible noise, a loud and screechy wailing, filled the room.
The nearest thing to it Harry had ever heard was the ghost orchestra at Nearly Headless Nick's deathday party, who had all been playing the musical saw.
"Shut it!" Fred bellowed, his hands over his ears.
"Ow." Harry muttered, rubbing his own ears when the noise stopped, being unable to cover his own rather sensitive ears they were now ringing with the loud noise, "Forgot how loud that was."
"How is that supposed to be a clue?" Lily asked.
"You have to do something to it to stop the screeching." Hermione answered evasively.
"What was that?" said Seamus Finnigan, staring at the egg as Harry slammed it shut again. "Sounded like a banshee... Maybe you've got to get past one of those next, Harry!"
"It was someone being tortured!" said Neville, who had gone very white and spilled sausage rolls all over the floor. "You're going to have to fight the Cruciatus Curse!"
"Neville? How much do you remember of the night we were attacked." Frank asked slowly.
"All of it." Neville winced, "Like Harry the Dementors brought the memory forward."
"And you were older than I was when we were attacked." Harry pointed out.
"Only by a month or two." Frank sighed. "There wasn't that much of an age difference."
"Due to you two being born within a day of each other." Alice nodded. "Harry you were actually supposed to come to us. We were arguing with Albus about it." she said, "But we can explain that later." she smiled.
"Don't be a prat, Neville, that's illegal," said George. "They wouldn't use the Cruciatus Curse on the champions. I thought it sounded a bit like Percy singing... maybe you've got to attack him while he's in the shower. Harry."
Percy glared at his younger brother, who smiled innocently.
"Want a jam tart, Hermione?" said Fred.
Hermione looked doubtfully at the plate he was offering her. Fred grinned.
"It's all right," he said. "I haven't done anything to them. It's the custard creams you've got to watch -"
"We wouldn't dare prank you Hermione. We know you'd hex us quite badly and it was not an occasion to risk being hexed." Fred explained.
George nodded, "You three never noticed we never once targeted you unless we couldn't help it?" he inquired.
"I'd noticed but I thought it was something else." Ron admitted, "You always targeted me when we were growing up. Well... When Ginny wasn't around anyway."
"That's because Gin-Gin would be mad and yell and she's scary when she's mad." Fred grimaced.
"And what am I now?" Ginny asked, her eyes narrowed dangerously.
"Our lovely little sister who know's we say stupid things most of the time and isn't going to hex us out of the goodness of her heart?" George guessed.
"I might still hex you." she growled.
"Not in the house Ginny dear." Molly sighed.
"Of course not Mum." she replied innocently, "You two beware of something wet and squishy in your bed's tonight." she growled at the twins in an undertone, they looked scared.
Neville, who had just bitten into a custard cream, choked and spat it out. Fred laughed.
"Just my little joke, Neville..."
Neville frowned, "I should learn not to trust you two." he muttered.
"I honestly forgot we did do the Custard Creams. Sorry Neville." Fred told the younger man, who shrugged off the apology.
Hermione took a jam tart. Then she said, "Did you get all this from the kitchens, Fred?"
"Yep," said Fred, grinning at her. He put on a high-pitched squeak and imitated a house-elf. "'Anything we can get you, sir, anything at all!' They're dead helpful... get me a roast ox if I said I was peckish."
"The House-Elves really do go overboard sometimes." Minerva chuckled.
"Your not annoyed we snuck into the kitchens regularly?" Fred frowned.
"It's not exactly against the rules." Minerva shrugged, "A few people in my year at school did it too. Even I did it once or twice." she admitted, "As long as your not caught there after curfew, nothing can be done about it. That applies for the majority of the rules actually." she mused, "Mostly its because students don't know where the kitchens are, and the location isnt about to be broadcasted, but if a student finds them its not against the rules for them to be in there."
"Cool." George grinned.
James chuckled, "We found that out in our 4th year." he gestured his fellow Marauders, "We were caught by Albus a few times at night and often stayed to have a hot chocolate and a chat with him." he grinned.
"Now that was amusing." Remus laughed, "We never once got in trouble for it despite it being a repeated offence, usually around the full moon when I couldn't sleep and -"
"Moony needed walkies." Sirius cut him off, smirking.
The man rolled his eyes, "Basically." he agreed anyway, "We'd go to the kitchens and have a snack and some hot chocolate and that usually calmed Moony down enough so I could sleep, and the others liked midnight snacks as well." he cast an amused look at his best friends.
"It was more the sneaking about after curfew under the cloak bit. It was amusing at times." James grinned, "Though occasionally Sirius would be Padfoot on the way down, his hearing was good enough to hear anyone coming and cats were usually scared of him for some reason."
"It's the smell of canines." Minerva informed them, "Plays havoc with cat senses, I'm used to it but most cats are wary because of the smell." she shrugged, "Mostly big or medium sized canines though, cats arent really afraid of canines that are closer to their size. I could expand on that later if you want me to." she offered. They all nodded, quite curious about it now she'd explained a little bit about a cats point of view.
"How do you get in there?" Hermione said in an innocently casual sort of voice.
"Tickle the pear." the Marauders, twins and Golden Trio said in usion.
"Easy," said Fred, "concealed door behind a painting of a bowl of fruit. Just tickle the pear, and it giggles and -" He stopped and looked suspiciously at her. "Why?"
"Nothing," said Hermione quickly.
"Going to try and lead the house-elves out on strike now, are you?" said George. "Going to give up all the leaflet stuff and try and stir them up into rebellion?"
Several people chortled. Hermione didn't answer.
"Don't you go upsetting them and telling them they've got to take clothes and salaries!" said Fred warningly. "You'll put them off their cooking!"
Just then, Neville caused a slight diversion by turning into a large canary.
"Oh - sorry, Neville!" Fred shouted over all the laughter. "I forgot - it was the custard creams we hexed -"
"I actually did forget." Fred blushed.
"And I thought it was the mint's." George shrugged.
Within a minute, however, Neville had molted, and once his feathers had fallen off, he reappeared looking entirely normal. He even joined in laughing.
Everyone at the Burrow was laughing as well.
"Canary Creams!" Fred shouted to the excitable crowd. "George and I invented them - seven Sickles each, a bargain!"
"It's quite clever. You need to be careful who and what you use them on though." James chuckled, "Remember it got Sirius stuck in his Animagus."
"We know." the twins frowned.
"No idea why it did that." George added.
"We're having the recipes, spells and formula re-checked at this very moment." Fred said, "Lee and Angelina are doing it."
"Or they should be." George snickered.
"What do you mean?" Amber asked.
"We know Lee likes Angelina a lot. He was planning to ask her out soon." Fred explained.
"Ouch." George hissed sticking a hand in his pocket and pulling out a little crystal that had a green glowing light inside it. "Activate." he told it. The crystal immediately flashed blue, pink, yellow, red and finally back to green. "Lee's done it. Angelina and him are now dating." he smirked.
"What -" Alice started.
"Is this?" Fred suggested, pointing at the crystal, she nodded.
"Colour changing crystals. You work out your own code with your friends and only you can understand the message." George explained, "They heat up quite a bit when you have a message waiting." he added, "I cant figure out how to get them to cool down a bit but still heat up."
"Hmm... I might be able to help you on that." James offered. He summoned a flame to his hand, "After all I'm used to using fire with my bare hands, I know a few spells that helped these two as well." he made the fire ball into an arrow that pointed at the other Marauders.
"Mainly heat controlling spell's to stop us getting burned if he lost control of the temperature." Remus nodded.
"And we had to fireproof our dorm, and ourselves, incase he had a nightmare and everything went up in flames." Sirius added.
"It's difficult to tell the temperature if I cant feel it, and the fire occasionally gets out during a nightmare if it involves fire." James shrugged, he then looked at Harry, "You'll be the same but we should wait to unlock yours." he told him. "It's hard to control when you feel negative emotions and..."
"There's going to be a lot of moments that I'll either be angry or upset." Harry nodded, "It's probably for the best to wait then. Let's continue before it get's too late for me to show the ones I want to cover tonight." he added, "There's a little left of that one."
It was nearly one in the morning when Harry finally went up to the dormitory with Ron, Neville, Seamus, and Dean. Before he pulled the curtains of his four-poster shut. Harry set his tiny model of the Hungarian Horntail on the table next to his bed, where it yawned, curled up, and closed its eyes.
"It seemed rather nice when it stopped attacking us." Ron smiled.
"Once it stopped trying to bite or burn us you mean." Harry smirked, "I've still got it actually. It's upstairs in a little fireproof box." he grinned.
"I still have mine too." Fleur admitted.
Bill nodded, "We keep it in the kitchen now, it was kept in our room before that. It's useful when we want something burned. It's surrounded by wards so it cant set fire to everything." he explained.
"Fire breathing figurines?" Dudley asked.
"Only those ones." Fleur said, "The ones you get for kids dont breath real fire, but our one's do." she chuckled.
Really, Harry thought, as he pulled the hangings on his four-poster closed, Hagrid had a point... they were all right, really, dragons...
"That's the end. Lets move on." Harry grinned, standing up before the incredulous looks he was getting turned into questions about his sanity.