Those from the past with an older self. Everybody else.
Parselmouth
Sign language/telepathy
Sadly neither Harry Potter, nor any of his friends and companions belong to me. I really wish it were different, but it is not and likely never will be.
"I think I know who you used." Neville grinned in anticipation. Pomona groaned when she realized who they were talking about. Well, she did say 'in their right mind', didn't she? Besides, she didn't even count him as a teacher.
"Of course, who else?" Harry asked, snorting.
Molly sighed, looking up at the ceiling as if she could find the patience not to start yelling again up there. "I'm going to go start dinner." She announced after a moment, and got up.
"I'll help!" Harry offered immediately. It was strange for him not to be cooking all the meals, but it didn't feel so strange if he at least helped.
"Thank you, dear." She smiled, and followed him out the room, unable to resist the urge to turn and glare at her youngest son and his two best friends. Ron shrank down in his seat, gulping.
"You know, Ron." Sirius mused, getting up and stretching before clapping the red-head on the shoulder. "It's been nice knowing you." He said before dragging his godson and Remus out the door before anybody could say anything else.
"Sirius?" Harry asked, concerned by his godfather's behavior right now. It was a rather risky move they were currently planning in the books, after all.
Sirius didn't say anything, just looked at Remus, who sighed. "I probably don't have to tell you this, Harry, but Polyjuice is incredibly complicated to make, one wrong step and it's poison at best. Do you understand how dangerous that was?" He asked, trying to get Harry to understand this. He knew Harry got into all kinds of bad situations and had all sorts of adventures, but this... "And if an older Slytherin had caught you!" He exclaimed, watching Sirius shudder.
"I knew the risks! Ok, not the poison part, but Hermione said she could make it, so we trusted her." Harry admitted. "The adults weren't doing anything to find the culprit, or if they were, they weren't saying anything to reassure us, and people were scared. If Muggleborn really were the targets, that meant it was only a matter of time before Hermione was going to be attacked!" He tried to explain.
Sirius and Remus were quiet for another moment before Sirius sighed explosively and Remus muttered something in one of the many languages he knew.
"Harry, I realize that you have never had an adult handle the things the adults were supposed to handle, but are you even giving them a chance to? You can not just rush in and try to fix the problem." Remus reasoned, sitting down beside Harry and putting a hand on his shoulder. This was something he'd been thinking about since the first book started to get into his 'adventures'. The first time, the adult he went to refused to acknowledge that something was wrong, and Harry had to take care of it himself. This time, though, they didn't even give the adults a chance.
"Exactly. And this Polyjuice idea... That's so risky. So much could go wrong." Sirius backed Remus up.
Harry was silent. "I know you're worried, but that doesn't change the fact that we did it, or what happened afterward." He finally said. "No, I'm not used to asking for help, and the few times I have, I was turned away out of hand. I'm sorry for scaring you, but I'm not sorry that we did any of this." He hugged them before leaving, leaving two troubled men behind.
"You have to show his younger self, you have to make him see that he doesn't have to do things alone." Remus finally said, looking at Sirius. He would help, of course, for as long as they were all here, but when these books were over, Sirius was going to be on his own until they could get him back to Britain. If he remembered right, he spent most of Harry's first year traveling in the Andes Mountains.
"I will. My little boy will never have to go through anything alone." Sirius promised Remus, and they fell silent, thinking about how badly their older boy had been failed by the adults in his life. The more they read, the worse Sirius' suspicions became, but he wasn't going to say anything just yet. With that said, he went to find his younger godson in the kitchen.
"What did Sirius and Remus want?" Ron asked when Harry found him and Hermione in their room. Hermione looked up from her book curiously.
"Just to remind me that I don't need to do everything myself, that I should give the adults a chance to do something." Harry shrugged.
Ron snorted. "As if they actually will." He muttered, and went back to his magazine.
Hermione pursed her lips. "I hate to say it, but the teachers have been... lax, about solving their own problems." She admitted grudgingly. Harry just nodded.
"Hopefully these books wake them up." He sighed, and flopped down on his bed.
"Oh, if the books don't, I'm sure Sirius and Remus will." Ron laughed. They all settled in to read their respective choices and relax until Molly called them for dinner.
"I can't believe those three did that." Arthur muttered, still in shock as he sat beside Moody. "Polyjuice, of all things... if they had gotten even one ingredient or stir wrong..." He shuddered at the thought of getting a letter like that from the school about his son and his two friends. "What on earth possessed them to do such a thing?" He looked at Moody for answers.
"Fear." Moody said. "They weren't being told anything, to them it didn't appear as though the professor's were doing anything about it, so they were going to step in and do it themselves." He shrugged, putting himself in the kids' shoes easily. "And nothing did go wrong, they're all fine." He promised. They were all here, and he didn't see any glamours hiding any Polyjuice-related disfigurements. Neither man doubted that they actually went through with their plans.
"I know, I know that they're here, and alright. But until we read about it in the book that it all went well..." He trailed off and shrugged helplessly. Contrary to how he appeared in the room, he wasn't taking this as well as he seemed to be, he was just much better at hiding it. Molly wasn't taking the danger and such well at all, so he had to stay calm for her otherwise she really would be going off the rails. He'd checked in with all his children over the break, and was keeping an eye on them, and they all seemed to be handling it well enough.
"I understand that." Moody sighed, taking a sip from his ever-present flask, magical eye trained on the kitchen and occasionally turning to take in everything else that was going on in their rooms. He doubted he would be any different if he was in Arthur's position.
With that said, they settled in to talk some more about the Ministry and changes that had been made over the years, especially ones that Arthur didn't agree with but wasn't in a position to do anything about or even protest. Head of his office he may be, but the Muggle-relation workers were barely considered higher up the ladder then the maintenance and janitorial staff, even his office, attached to the DMLE it may be.
"Polyjuice." Severus muttered, looking around at his lab, where he had retreated to once Black and Lupin pulled Harry out of the room. He couldn't believe they actually did it. This did, though, explain Hermione's stay in the hospital wing after Yule, and the potion Poppy asked for to help reverse her partial transformation. She must have mistakenly used a cat hair or something, Polyjuice was not made for human-animal transformations. But how did they get the... ah. The firework in Goyle's cauldron... it was a perfect distraction while one of them slipped in and collected what they needed. He'd noticed afterward that they were missing, of course, and he'd known the Trio did it, but it had admittedly taken a bit for him to notice, as he was busy with his grading and Slytherins.
He narrowed his eyes at the wall. If they had thrown that firework even two seconds earlier, before Goyle added the needed ingredients, they could have killed everybody in that room...
He severely underestimated those three, to be able to brew Polyjuice as second years... although he was sure Hermione did most of the work. Harry was turning out to be rather good with Potions, though, now that he was getting proper instruction, which Severus was ashamed to say he had not received in previous years.
"Professor?" Bill poked his head into the lab. "Mom says dinner is ready." He said when he saw he had the man's attention.
Severus blinked at the door when he left, then glanced at the clock before wincing. He hadn't lost track of time so badly in years. It was a good thing he knew this was a safe place, this could have ended badly if he were in his lab at Hogwarts or Malfoy Manor.
"This looks amazing, Molly, Harry." Minerva complimented, smiling at the two who cooked.
"Thank you." Harry smiled shyly, not used to the compliments to his cooking that he had been receiving while here. Molly merely smiled back at the stern Professor. As before, the Dursley's and Albus were relegated to another table drinking water while the rest of the adults had wine with the teens and children having juice or butterbeer.
Albus looked between the tables and quietly seethed for a moment at still being over here before he forced himself to calm down, knowing that they would settle down and he would be back at the head table where he belonged, he just had to be patient. Unlike the last several meals, however, he didn't try to make conversation with his resentful tablemates.
He'd finally had enough of their glares and hisses when he merely tried to be friendly.
"That was delicious as always." Pomona smiled at the two of them once dinner had been eagerly demolished by the hungry readers.
Harry beamed and got up to fetch dessert, letting Molly clear the table so he had somewhere to put it. Molly made sure she was the one to take the Dursley's their dessert, not wanting to risk the four trying something with Harry in easy reaching distance. The boys didn't know it, but all of the adults had been ensuring the Dursley's didn't get close.
"Oh, this looks absolutely amazing." Poppy groaned at the sight of what the pair had come up with. There was a massive cream cake topped with strawberries, blueberries, and red raspberries. Beside it was ice-cream sitting in a bowl charmed to keep it fresh and frozen.
"How you seven can eat so much on a regular basis and all be rail thin is a miracle." Arabella commented to the Weasley boys and girl, who all laughed. Charlie and Bill's bulk all came from muscle from what she could see. At this rate, she was going to have to be rolled out of these rooms after the last book.
Molly smiled, taking it as a compliment towards her ability to feed her family.
"As amazing as always, Molly." Albus complimented as well, craning his neck slightly to see her from where he was sitting.
"Thank you, Albus. Harry actually made the cake." She informed the room as she motioned for Bill and Charlie to clear the table, which they cheerfully did. The room echoed with compliments while Harry turned a bright red and smiled shyly. The Dursley's, naturally, didn't say anything. They just got up and left. Molly watched them go with a scowl, but didn't let it bother her too much.
"Percy, you want to play chess?" Ron asked his brother hopefully, who raised an amused eyebrow and nodded. With that, the rest of the group scattered to do what they wanted for the evening, having agreed wordlessly that they were going to spend the evening relaxing before hitting the doubtlessly stressful parts of the book the next day.
Harry gathered up everything he'd received through the room so far and spent some time organizing it in his new trunk, especially the new books he'd gotten and the kitchen area. He also made the compartments more personal, they were a little too bare and impersonal for his liking. Hermione and her younger self disappeared into the Room's library. They were taking a copy of any books they found particularly interesting for themselves, and Hermione already had an extensive personal library of her own, but there were some books here that she'd never heard of.
The rest of the Weasley boys followed Ron and Percy to watch the rest of the chess game, it eventually devolved into a massive family chess tournament that only ended when Molly shooed her boys to bed at one a.m. while Ron and Bill were going at it for four hours straight. She shook her head fondly and put a stasis on the board so the chessmen didn't move around and ruin the game before they could return to it.
The next morning, they were up and enjoying a delicious breakfast from both Harry's.
"When did you leave the room this morning?" Sirius asked Harry, confused. He was a fairly light sleeper, especially after Azkaban, and he'd been up and down all night with nightmares, but he hadn't noticed the boy get up to leave that morning.
"You were in the bathroom." Harry said, knowing what his godfather was asking. Sirius frowned, he hadn't noticed that Harry wasn't in the room when he returned?
Remus touched his elbow and gave him a significant look. He frowned, but nodded and tried not to worry about his inattentiveness too much. Remus was right, he was still recovering and he'd been up and down all night. And these rooms were safe.
"You alright, Harry?" Ron asked quietly. He knew that Harry was only up so early because he'd had a nightmare, and he'd spotted trays of cookies and pies in a corner of their reading room. He hated it that Harry put silencing spells up around his sleeping area, but he understood that Harry didn't want to disturb them. He could probably guess what it was about, too. The most common ones were Cedric, Sirius, or any of the many visions Voldemort chose to send his best friend. The things Voldemort liked to do for fun were nightmare inducing on their own for any decent person, let alone a good one like Harry.
He just wished Harry would let them help more often.
"I will be." Harry said just as quietly, and ignored the inquiring look from Remus, who of course heard the entire exchange. Ron bit his lip, but accepted it after studying Harry's face for a moment. Hermione watched the entire exchange silently, frowning, while their younger selves watched them and marveled at their easy interactions.
"Thank you for breakfast, dears." Molly smiled at the two boys, shooing them into the reading room when they moved to clear the table once everybody was done eating. Everybody else echoed her thanks, making them both turn a little red as they retreated in the face of her brandished wooden spoon.
"We'll wait for her before we start reading again." Filius said, frowning at the chapter title. "The rogue Bludger...? Is this when...?" He trailed off, not wanting to spoil it, and looked at Harry in question.
He grimaced. "Probably." He muttered.
'That doesn't sound good." Sirius thought, looking at his godson suspiciously.
Chapter ten: The Rogue Bludger