The first week back was hectic, but fun. All of the reading that had been assigned over the break had been the theory work for what would be introduced next in their classes.
For Charms, they were continuing with locking and unlocking charms but using more complicated locks. The set of locking doors they had in their study room now consisted of sliding gate, dial, combination, and tumbler locks. They also were given transparent versions of each so they could see how the mechanism worked. Most locks could be brute-forced with magic, but it would help for the learning process to understand how each worked so you wouldn't need to work so hard on such a simple spell.
They were also given homework to start studying the tickling charm. Lyra was incredibly dedicated to this task of mastering that spell because it would lead to Tonks teaching her how to style her hair with magic. The only thing that Harry could learn to help style his hair was to hold his breath underwater.
In Herbology, they began to study the sunlight spell, Lumos Solem. The spell would modify a Lumos charm to produce sunlight that would be capable of growing plants when used as an enchantment. When asked, Professor Sprout told them that they would only be learning enchantments starting in their third year, as part of the Charms curriculum. For now, the spell would just create an orb of light that could adhere to surfaces for extended periods.
The reason they needed to learn this spell was that they would be handling Devil's Snare soon. It was a very dangerous plant that would often grow in dense vines and reach out to constrict and suffocate living things that would get near it. However, it only grew in dark places so light and heat were deadly to it. Harry and Lyra were instantly afraid of it when they were shown the dark vine, flailing in a terrarium, but when the plant also seemed to be terrified of the two of them, it made them feel a bit better. The plant would slowly reach out towards all the other students before running into the glass wall, but when Harry and Lyra approached, every nearby tendril retreated quickly to be as small and bunched up near its roots.
Professor McGonagall jumped right in with a new spell as well, to turn various small objects into a matchbox. This was another transfiguration with an incantation, this one was "Flintifors." Every student was given a real box of matches before they started and was told to play around with it, and even light a few matches, before dropping them in a glass of water which was also on their desks. By playing with the matchbox, and its functionality, this would help them to better perform the transfiguration.
They each had a chunk of glass, three different rocks, a wedge of wood, a nail clipper, a teabag, a light switch, and an engagement ring box. Certain materials were generally harder to transfigure, but occasionally someone would be able to work with specific material with more ease due to an innate affinity for it. Like some of their previous exercises, Luna ended up showing the most progress by the end of class, with all of her objects becoming at least box-shaped, and all of the materials except volcanic rocks resembling some kind of wood. Harry on the other hand had the most success with the glass which stayed the same material but turned into a box that had a drawer in it for the matches. The others also stayed the same material, and started to become rectangular, but didn't get all the way. Lyra seemed a bit too enthusiastic for the exercise and blew up her tea bag, light switch, and wood. The nail clipper melted but the volcanic rock ended up turning into a wood block with a striking surface on the side. Harry missed having Greg around but was happy that his friend had passed his exam and was now back in with the other second years for Transfiguration and Potions.
For Defense Against the Dark Arts, Professor Lockhart began going into detail about his book, A Year with the Yetis, to Lyra's delight. Harry enjoyed it as well, though he wasn't sure what a yeti had to do with the Dark Arts. Their professor had begun discussing this book in particular because it didn't have any tales of him killing monsters and was just an anthropological discussion on the life of the yetis.
From what he wrote, the yeti were much like the demiguises in their daily lives (before meeting Harry and Lyra), and with the help of humans have become slightly more advanced, creating doors to cover the front of their caves, and even one of the largest tribes near Khumbu domesticating a herd of yaks and mountain goats for milk and meat. There are even attempts at teaching them to make cheeses from the yak milk. That project had been going on for nearly a decade and had varying degrees of success.
Their family structure was more akin to humans than to demiguises. They tended to mate for life instead of the polyamorous lifestyle of demiguise. Children were raised primarily by their parents, but also had almost no issues of going exploring by themselves from a young age. There was significantly more violence than with the Hidden tribe though. As their primary attribute was strength, that is how they settled disputes and hierarchy issues. The alpha was always the biggest and strongest of the group.
While discussing the leader of the tribe near Khumbu, Lockhart showed a picture of the two of them. The alpha, who was called Tavrohn by the locals, was enormous. While Newt had told them that Charlie was roughly the same size as a yeti, it certainly wasn't this one. This one was probably a couple of feet shorter than Hagrid, but that would still put it at around ten or eleven feet tall, with significantly more girth under all that hair.
However, as Lyra looked at the picture, she noticed something off. While they were standing in heavy snowfall and Tavrohn had an enormous hand on Lockhart's head, he was wearing just a regular heavy cloak; in red, yellow, and blue swirls; that was blowing in the wind along with bright blue earmuffs. She leaned over to Harry and whispered her observation. He also thought it was strange.
Harry made sure to stay after class, and waited for his professor to finish some paperwork before he looked up and saw he was still there.
"Harry! How was the winter break? Did you do anything interesting?" he asked.
Harry thought about it and responded, "I killed a dark creature and intimidated some government officials."
"Astounding!" Lockhart laughed. "No rest for the Boy-Who-Lived. Always another grand adventure! So, what can I help you with?"
"I wanted to thank you for your present. My tutor, Brandt, says he will schedule calligraphy lessons for me later in the new term."
"Excellent, strong writing skills will see you rubbing elbows with important people. Good handwriting will show others that you are more important than the standard riff-raff."
Harry nodded, "Lyra and I also had a question about your year with the yetis." He raised an eyebrow as Harry continued, "We wanted to know about your yeti suit."
"My yeti suit?" He asked, looking upwards if trying to remember something. "Oh yes! A yeti suit… I have a picture of myself in one somewhere…" he trailed off as he started digging through his desk, pulling out quite a few photos of him in the Himalayas and the snow but all of them were in the kind of warm clothes that Harry would wear out into the snow in Scotland. Eventually, Lockhart pulled out a photo of himself wearing a fluffy white bodysuit, in a clothing shop. Upon a closer look, he saw that it was the Knitter Critter, with Madison standing in the background at the desk.
The Lockhart in the photo had the hood off and he smiled at the camera over and over, making different poses and looks, occasionally taking a look back towards Madison who wasn't paying any attention to him. Harry could ask her about that later. He thanked his professor again and went to meet Lyra outside.
"He showed me a picture of him in a yeti suit, but it was taken at the Knitter Critter. Madison's the one who told me about them, we can talk to her about it this weekend."
"Whispers is really going to like his gloves," she smiled.
"We should get started on the potion for the twins," Harry told her. "We can start it now and check up on it Wednesday in the club."
That sounded like a good idea, so they headed to the meeting room. A few other students were working there on extracurricular potions, so they just exchanged nods with the older Slytherins that were present and started brewing a large batch of the disgusting truth serum.
At their first Potions class of the term, they walked in to find a steaming green beaker on the front desk of the classroom. No one sat there. After everyone had settled in, Professor Snape burst into the room in his usual fashion, robes billowing behind him, and walked straight over to the steaming potion and picked it up.
"Welcome to the second term of your first year. Now that you have accomplished the basics of potion-making, we will journey into more dangerous aspects of the craft… Poisons." He held up the beaker to everyone.
"This poison is a nasty, but generally mild poison known as the 'Dull Seed.' This potion will give you twenty-two days of hiccups… and then you die." There was a collective gasp from all the students at the mention of death.
With a sinister smile on his face, their professor looked out at all of them, and said, "All of you will be drinking some of this today."
That kicked off a bit of pandemonium in the room as some students ran towards the exit, only to find it locked. Snape waited patiently for the students to calm down and stop pounding on the door.
"For all the people who didn't immediately run for the door, I am taking away two points from each of you. What kind of dunderhead would stay in a room with someone who had outright declared they would try to poison them? Though just to be clear, I am going to poison all of you today."
Harry started to get up and inch towards the door, Lyra just shrugged and stayed seated.
"Too late Mr. Potter, and to the rest of you trying to leave. The points stay off, and you already know the door is locked. So who wants to be the first person to take a sip of this?" He held up the poison.
There was enough silence to hear a pin drop, but Lyra just raised her hand and said, "I'll try it."
Snape sighed, "I'm very surprised the Hat didn't force you into Gryffindor. Go ahead, have a sip."
Harry looked fearful but was pretty sure Severus wouldn't kill his sister. She hesitantly took the flask and took a small sip. After a few seconds, she let out a large hiccup.
"Congratulations, Miss Black, you now have less than twenty-two days to live. No, what do you need to do to survive?"
"Do you have an antidote?" she asked, then gave another loud hiccup.
"That would have been something I would have given you points for asking BEFORE you drank the poison. However, no, I do not have the antidote."
Lyra looked around and saw one of the boxes marked with a goat. She had several small hiccups as she walked over and pulled out an object that looked kind of like a walnut, except slightly smoother.
"Should I swallow this?" she asked and Snape gave her a nod. It was quite large, so it took her a little bit of time to swallow the large object and choked on it a bit as it went down, and even had a few hiccups which almost made her cough it out.
After it had gone all the way down, everyone stared at her for a few moments, as she had a few more hiccups, though a minute later, they all seemed to stop.
"Well done, Miss Black. Again, I'd give points, but I don't feel like it is an accomplishment to do something sensible, such as avoiding death." He waved his hand and many small glasses appeared on the empty desk and he poured the beaker into all of them. "All of you, go ahead and take a drink, then swallow a bezoar. You will not be allowed to move on to your lessons this term before you do it. You will lose twenty points for each day that you do not drink this."
By the time they were halfway through the class, everyone had drunk the poison and swallowed one of the large roundish stones from the boxes around the room.
"Congratulations," Snape drawled, with very little enthusiasm. "You have all now learned how to avoid your own deaths. Now, for the rest of the class, you will all help me procure more bezoars to replace the ones you used."
From behind his desk, two large trunks levitated out and settled in front of their desks. Their lids vanished to show dozens of fleshy objects inside each.
"These are all goat stomachs that have bezoars in them. Take your tools from the drawers and cut them open to retrieve the stones. Take a cup as well and place them inside when you've cleaned them off. For each one you retrieve, that will be two points for your house."
Many students were disgusted by the task, but a few managed to earn quite a lot of points by just slashing open each stomach and pulling out the stones, then repeating the process for the rest of the class period.
In the evening, they no longer had Flying class. The club took place on Sundays, but to take the place of the class, they now had double History. Even though both Harry and Lyra already felt adjusted to the U.K. time, they nearly fell asleep during the class. Though as they were about to pass out, the smell of meat wafting through the halls woke them right back up. Later when they arrived for dinner, there was an incredible number of dishes made from goat meat that had been cooked for the school.
Cedric looked at the first years and asked, "Was it a bezoar day in Potions?"
After dinner, Harry made their way up to the Ravenclaw common room. Harry and Lyra had been hearing whispers murmurings about Hermione's new arm but she hadn't shown it publicly yet. When they arrived at the eagle knocker, a few students were standing around and discussing the riddle.
Seeing reinforcements, Elisa from their year group, turned around and asked them, "We need fresh ears." She turned to the knocker and asked, "Can you repeat it again?"
The eagle turned to look at Harry and Lyra before it spoke up,
"Only one color, but not one size,
Stuck at the bottom, yet easily flies.
Present in sun, but not in rain,
Doing no harm, and feeling no pain.
What is it?"
Even though their recent experiences with the answer over the break conflicted with the line about 'doing no harm,' Lyra answered, "It's a shadow."
The eagle nodded and the door opened, to reveal Roger Davies standing behind the door. He looked to the first-year Ravenclaws standing there, and said, "Let this be a lesson, that you don't need to rely on your own knowledge to solve a problem. You will often need to seek out others to help you overcome an obstacle that you cannot defeat on your own." He let that sink in before telling them to run along.
He smiled at Harry, like he knew a secret, then asked, "Are the two of you here to see Hermione?"
"And to read," Lyra smiled.
"I also wanted to speak with Penelope," Harry nodded, which got a questioning look from Lyra.
Roger pulled two small notes out of his pocket and scribbled on them before casting, "Avifors!" at each one. The papers transfigured themselves into hummingbirds and zipped off to find their intended recipients.
"You can wait for them on the first floor, they should be down shortly," he turned and went back to his own business.
Harry and Lyra crossed the tall room and picked out a spot at the large window overlooking the grounds. The room was filled with other students, but quiet with everyone studying or just reading. After a few minutes, they heard the door to the R&D rooms open, and Fred and George ran out with a cry of "Eureka! It's done!" They ran back in as Penelope and Hermione came out and looked down into the main room to find Harry and Lyra at their couch.
As they came down the stairs, Roger intercepted Penny and could be heard asking, "Is it done? Is it really done?" Penny nodded. "Excellent, can I set up a meeting for this weekend? Does Saturday night work?" another nod. "Perfect, I'll inform the others," he said happily as he ran off.
Hermione was giddy with happiness as she approached Harry and Lyra. She immediately gave a big hug to Lyra, "Thank you! And Brandt, and Lord Black."
Lyra flinched, "That's too tight!"
Hermione jumped back, "I'm so sorry, the new arm is a bit more than I'm used to." She raised her arm, which was under a long-sleeved shirt, with a black glove on the end, but it was more than she had done before, just covering the entire arm with a cloak. Then turned to Harry and jumped on him to hug him as well, "And thank you for the Martin figure! I had him watch over me while I was getting the new arm put on. He's so lifelike! My parents told me he would even yawn now and then, but he refused to fall asleep until the procedure was done."
Harry smiled at his friend's enthusiasm, "I didn't get to see him before he was sent. I just told the lady the details of how to craft and paint him."
"You haven't seen him? Come to my room, I'll show both of you!" she started to run off, and grabbed Penny to pull her with. When they arrived, she turned to Penny and asked, "Can you allow Harry to enter my room?"
Penny nodded and took out her prefect's badge and placed it on Harry's shoulder and guided him through the door. Harry felt a tingle from the gender ward as he passed through.
The inside of the room was Hermione in every way possible. There were three bookcases, all filled with tomes of different sizes. The shelves all had different plates below them to identify the subject. One shelf had a gradient of colors below it from red to green, with the plate in the middle reading 'Library Books' and another small plate on the red side that said, 'Due Now.' Most of the books were in the red section.
Ravenclaws got single rooms, so there was only one bed, as well as a large L-shaped desk taking up an entire corner. The desk was covered with various parchments, quills, pens, pencils, highlighters, and books. Though, even with the amount of material on the desk, it was still very organized and sorted into sections. The dresser and nightstands all had pictures of various people, mostly her parents, and people that were assumed to be family.
Hermione ran over to her nightstand and pulled out the top drawer. Inside was a tiny bed that had a sleeping mouse in it, wearing a green tunic. As soon as the drawer was opened, the mouse jumped up and drew his sword, and picked up the shield lying next to him, squeaking at the intruders to the room.
"It's ok, Martin," Hermione soothed the mouse with a stroke of his ears. "This is Harry and Lyra, they gave you to me."
The mouse sheathed his tiny sword and gave them a sharp salute. Harry and Lyra giggled at the little guy.
Hermione was rummaging through a drawer and pulled out a pink tank top. "I'll go change real quick to show you the arm," she said and ran into the bathroom.
Penny turned to Harry and asked, "What did you want to speak to me about, Mr. Potter?"
"It's about that spell you did to break down what Lyra did with the post owl feathers in the library. Though let's wait until after we see Hermione's arm."
Penny nodded, and Harry went over to Hermione's drawer to pick up the figurine of Martin the Warrior. Pulling out his wand, he had a quick duel with the tiny mouse. Lyra, on the other hand, was looking through all of Hermione's books and had pulled out a book on magical creatures, leafing through it and looking at the pictures.
After another minute, Hermione came out to show off the new prosthetic. The new arm was as far from the older one as possible. It had been made of tarnished steel and wood, with dull white strands connecting the parts; being the first prosthetic any of them had seen up close, they had nothing to compare it with. Now that they did, it looked like trash when compared to this work of art.
The new arm was made of bronze or colored to look that way. It was assembled in panels where you could see the cracks between them which would occasionally glow like veins moving towards the fingertips. Each joint; the elbow, each side of the wrist, and every knuckle had a dark blue gem that would give a small pulse as she moved it or as the energy from the veins would reach it.
The arm stopped just above her elbow and then wrapped in a spiral, once around her bicep up the shoulder where another bronze plate wrapped around the shoulder joint. On top of the shoulder joint, was a larger blue gem, though this one stayed bright, and didn't pulse. As she turned around to show the full apparatus, one could see blue threads coming from the shoulder piece and running into three points on her upper spine, under her tank top.
"What do you think?" Hermione asked. It wasn't as fancy as some of the other arms she was shown in the shop, but she wasn't trying to stand out. It was functional, durable, and would last a very long time.
Harry and Lyra didn't know what to say, but Penny, having not seen it uncovered, in its entirety, had quite a few questions.
"That isn't actual bronze, is it? Bronze wouldn't last very long."
"It's alchemical bronze," Hermione replied. "Some of it was pre-made, others but many of the parts were made with a mixture that included my blood."
"Incredible," she said and reached out like she wanted to touch it, but then pulled her arm back. Hermione saw the interest on her mentor's face and held out her arm to be examined. Penny ran her fingers over the arm and put a fingernail between the panels on the forearm.
"The arm is made in panels aligned with your bones and muscles… Will it grow along with you?" Hermione smiled and nodded. "This panel on the top of your forearm doesn't align with the others, what is it?"
Hermione smiled and stepped back. Holding her arm across her chest, she clenched her fist and a large bronze buckler expanded from the panel Penny had pointed out to cover the entire front of her chest. She opened her fist and the shield retracted into her arm. Harry's eyes widened, now that was really cool. Next, Hermione reached over to the pinky and twisted it off. A bright blue thread still attached it to her hand, but the tip of the finger turned into a sharp point.
"Runic carving tools? With a magical tip?" Penny was practically drooling at the sight of it.
"That's amazing," Lyra was staring in wonder.
"It has a couple more features, but nothing as interesting as all of that," Hermione seemed very happy with the new arm.
"What else does it have?" Harry asked, wanting to see everything she could do with it.
"Well, the thumb can leave glowing marks on things. I figured it could completely take the place of bookmarks. The middle finger can give an electric shock, and there is a compartment on the underside of my forearm that can fit two or three normal-sized books inside," she demonstrated by opening the panel and pulling out a book, then putting it back.
"You should show it off more," Harry told her, with support.
Hermione's face got less excited, and a bit afraid, "What if people make fun of it?"
"You could crush them with a hug," Lyra suggested.
"Or shock them with a finger," Harry added.
"You could also tell me, and I'll have them eat their shoes by the end of the day," Penny said protectively.
Hermione blushed, "Maybe, though not just yet."
They were silent for a minute before Penny spoke up again, "So, Mr. Potter, what did you need me for?"
"Well, Brandt got me a deal with a shop in Diagon to import demiguise hair, and I found that I can draw out magic from types of animal parts, like the feathers. I need to find out how it can be done without my staff to make some money."
Penny looked a bit more serious, "If it's for making money, we would need to work out a contract. Has your tutor taught you about solicitors and contracts?"
"We met my family's solicitor," Lyra supplied.
"And we know not to sign a contract without a solicitor present."
"That's a good start," Penny told them. "I won't be able to assist you with anything for another week or two. Why don't you give me an idea of what you are trying to do, and then find yourself a solicitor to write us a contract, ok?"
Harry looked to his sister, "Do you have your coat?"
Lyra squinched her face in thought and reached into her pouch, up to her elbow, and fished around before pulling out her winter coat from the party and passing it to Harry, who had drawn his staff out of his pouch.
Harry informed the Ravenclaw girls, "This coat of Lyra's is made of Aurora wool and Yeti fur."
"Like Lockhart's yetis?" Hermione asked.
"Yes, and sheep that are born under the northern lights and grow wool coats of the same colors," Harry recounted what he had been told.
Both girls reached out to touch the fabric. Penny smiled at the feeling, and asked, "Can you somehow make it softer?"
Harry shook his head, and placed the antler on his staff inside, lighting it up and causing the blue light to snake around the room. Though now, they also got the benefit of the Lamassu tooth and got a boost of strength whenever one of the ribbons of light passed through them, which was evident when everyone took a large breath and stood up straighter. Everyone watched the light around the room with awe, and then the glowing of the fabric until it stopped.
"That was incredible," Hermione gushed.
"The strengthening wasn't supposed to be part of it," Harry commented. "That's just something my staff can do now after the winter break."
Penny just raised a questioning eyebrow, then said, "Find yourself a solicitor, and we can meet again the weekend after this one."
Harry nodded, he could ask Brandt about it later on the weekend.
Much of the week, outside of classes, Harry and Lyra tracked down the students who had given them presents to thank them. Hagrid got a big hug and a promise to come by for tea to look through the album. Many of their friends were also doing the same thing, especially with the amount of candy and sweets that everyone had purchased for each other that didn't warrant a personalized gift.
On Thursday evening, they took a break from dealing with so many people and went searching for secret chambers on the first sub-level. This level wasn't as dark as the second or third sub-level and had lighter colored stonework. In addition to looking for the hidden areas of the castle, Lyra wanted to find a window somewhere to see if they were below the lake on this level, like they had managed to be for the room above the Slytherin common room.
As they looped around back to the main staircase, they ran into their Slytherin friends. Blaise approached them quickly and pulled up the sleeves on his robes to show the cufflinks that Harry had given him on the shirt underneath.
"Thanks for the present!" he grinned a bit. "My mother thought they were a superb gift and enchanted them to hold liquids, so I might one day use them to hold small amounts of poisons," he gave a devious smile and then a chuckle.
Harry looked a bit shocked, but Lyra was staring at Daphne a bit, who had a strange look on her face. She didn't return Lyra's gaze but just looked to her side before quickly reaching out towards a suit of armor next to her which caused Whispers to reappear quickly and jump away.
"Almost got you, you little sneak!" she yelled at the demiguise.
Whispers ran around behind Lyra and peeked from behind her back, "Nessst time…" he growled, then vanished again.
Harry laughed, "You might think you've won, but you just took the game to another level."
Daphne groaned, but then asked Lyra, "You can see him, can't you? When he's invisible?"
Lyra looked like she had just been caught, but Harry answered for her, "Yes, she can. I can too, but not as well as her."
Tracey spoke up, "Thank both of you for your presents. We didn't get anything for Lyra, can she also use the mapping paper and book that Daphne got you?"
Harry nodded, "And thank you, Blaise, for the wand holder."
"Did I get it close to the real thing?" he asked,
Harry looked around, then asked quietly, "Do you want to see a picture?"
All three Slytherins looked very interested and took a few steps closer as Harry started to dig through his pouch for the album Colin had gotten him, that he had been adding pictures from the island. However, just as he was about to open it, two older boys came around the corner, took one look at them, and ran off.
Harry looked at Lyra and said, "Maybe a little privacy?"
She pulled out her staff and produced a plume of dark smoke that wound around them until they were completely covered. Harry drew his staff as well to light the inside of the smokey dome.
Tracey looked around, "Woah, is this what you did for the 'Draco slapping incident?'" Harry nodded.
Daphne was looking at their staves closely, "Both of your staves are different from before, what are the teeth on them?"
Harry was happy to explain, "Mine is from a Lamassu we met in Istanbul, and Lyra's is from a Sigbin I killed."
The Slytherins had looks of confusion and awe on their faces, Blaise told the girls, "A Lamassu is sentinel chimera, similar to a sphynx. I have no idea what Sigbin is."
Remembering what Newt and Aurora had told them, Lyra explained, "It is vampiric, it drinks your blood from your shadow."
All three Slytherins looked terrified at the thought.
"And you killed it?" Tracey asked with a high-pitched voice.
"It was in a cage," Harry supplied.
"You both lead strange lives," Daphne commented, still a bit scared at the idea of a shadow vampire.
Blaise gave a nod to the album in Harry's hand, and he started turning the pages inside. Whispers reappeared next to them and looked along with them.
One page was filled with photos of demiguises, and Whispers pointed to one of Chief and Teacher, saying, "Mutter, fatter."
Harry turned the page again to show just one photo of the head of the Usurper, resting on the top of the sand. There was no movement like the others, but the eyes of the snake were pointed towards the camera, with its red crest on full display and the splash of gold on the tip of its mouth shining in the sunlight.
"Cool snake," Blaise commented. "How big is it?"
"A little over fifty feet," Lyra informed them.
All three Slytherins jumped back at that information and bumped into the wall of their dome. Harry closed the album and they dismissed the bubble so the three of them could have a proper freakout and digest that information.
"Fifty feet?" Tracey said in her pitched voice.
"Closer to fifty-five," Harry supplied.
"Then that head," Daphne seemed to be running calculations in her head, "could probably swallow you whole!"
"Sounds about right," Lyra nodded. "Well me for sure, maybe two bites for Harry..."
"Definitely strange lives, the two of you lead," Blaise echoed Daphne's comment.
The three Slytherins mentioned they had been on their way to a meeting with some of the older students in their house when they bumped into Harry and Lyra and excused themselves to attend that. Harry and Lyra, along with an invisible Whispers, continued to explore the first sub-level. There didn't seem to be any one-way passages or dead ends but had more corridors for sure. Close to the main staircase, they were able to locate the Hufflepuff common room, and a hallway filled with still-life paintings of food. However, other than that, most of the rooms looked like old classrooms or empty storerooms, but they did find one that held a potential interest.
After magically unlocking a door, they found a room filled with crates. Pulling the top off one, they found a gargoyle. It didn't make any attempt to move after being discovered, so they put the lid back on and checked another to reveal another stone guardian. Towards the back of the room, they found another door, however, this one was just made of bars, like a jail cell. Behind the door was a small set of stairs that led down. No matter what spells they tried, the door wouldn't open. They just marked it on the map and went back to their dorms to take a nap before Astronomy later that night.
They were both looking forward to Friday as that was going to be the Hufflepuff party that Theo had invited them to. Their day went by quickly with the morning taken up by more stories of Lockhart's adventures with the yetis and reviewing locking and tickling charms in the afternoon. After dinner, Harry and Lyra changed into nicer outfits than their school robes and started to head down where they had discovered the Hufflepuff entrance the previous day. Whispers, of course, tagged along wearing his feathered hat.
The corridor that held the entrance was filled with barrels. Most were on their sides and lined the walls, but there were a few that were stacked one on top of each other in different places. Lyra told Harry she remembered there being a wine cellar like this in the house she grew up in. Unlike the previous evening, one of the larger barrels had no lid on it and there was a tunnel inside of it. Just like Theo had told them, they just left the door open for anyone to enter.
Upon exiting the tunnel, a second-year that they didn't recognize greeted them, "Welcome to the Hufflepuff common room. Please follow the passage to the main room." He stood at attention like a soldier who had been given an important task and waited for the next guest to arrive.
Lyra just shrugged and continued down the passage until it opened up into a large circular room. The room was well lit, both with sconces on the walls and unusually bright fireflies that floated around, their lights occasionally going off and reappearing somewhere else. Small windows surrounded the top of the room, with the night sky seen through them - that answered Lyra's question if they were below the lake or not. At opposite ends of the room were small sets of stairs that went down, probably to the dormitories.
The room had been set up for an extravagant party. There were platters of food, mostly snacks, and desserts, on all the tables, and there was light dancing music being played through a gramophone in the corner. Nearly fifty students were already milling around and talking to each other, only about half of them were 'Puffs.
Harry spotted Ryan from their year group and went over to talk to him, while Lyra took Whispers over to one of the food tables to sample everything. After a quick conversation with Ryan, Harry joined Lyra at the food table. Most of it was the same things as his first meeting with Lockhart, including the crystalized pineapples that he liked.
As they were experimenting with the different foods, Theo approached them with a big smile, "Harry, Lyra, you two made it. Thank you!"
Whispers held up a piece of salmon he had been eating and said, "Tank yoo, food."
Theo did his best to control the reaction to Whispers speaking directly to him and gave him a simple nod back.
"I have a letter for the two of you, from my father. It was delivered yesterday morning but I haven't had a chance to give it to you yet."
Their last interaction with the man was not pleasant and accepted the envelope with a bit of hesitation. Theo seemed to be very curious as to what it contained. Using one of Whispers's fingernails to cut the envelope, Lyra pulled out the parchment inside, and read:
Mr. Harry Potter and Miss Lyra Black,
I wish to apologize for my actions and words on the night of the solstice party. If my son is to pursue a friendship with either of you, it is not my place to stand in his way. I have sent another letter to Steward Brandt to apologize to him as well. I do hope you enjoy the party my son has invited you to.
Sincerely,
Lord Benedict Nott
The apology surprised the two of them, but even more so to Theo, who had been reading it upside down as they held it between them. The handwriting seemed to be a bit shaky and the signature did not look like it belonged to a Lord of the Wizengamot.
"My father sent you an apology?" Theo exclaimed. "I don't think he has ever apologized to anyone in his entire life!"
"Are you sure it was from him?" Harry asked, "The handwriting looks like Lyra's." She jabbed her brother in the shoulder with her wand.
"It came from our family's owl, with his seal."
"We can ask Brandt tomorrow," Lyra supplied. "It says he got an apology too."
"Let me know what he says, if there's some way to influence my father like that, I want to know about it." Lyra nodded, she was also very curious about the mean old man's change in attitude.
"Well have fun, meet some new people, and if you need anything, let me know!" Theo gave them a smirk and walked off to greet a group of older Gryffindors that were entering with caution.
Whispers was looking around the room and spotted Luna and Ginny in the corner and loped off towards them, with Lyra running after and Harry staying put at the table.
Whispers interrupted the conversation of the girls and reached up to put his hands on Luna's shoulders and challenge her to a staring contest. Lyra caught up and sided in next to Ginny who was a bit shocked at the humanoid creature's presence.
"What's he doing?" Ginny asked as her friend stared deeply into Whispes's eyes.
"It's a game," Lyra told her. "And sometimes a dominance contest. Luna is the only human we've ever seen him do it with for more than a second as with other Hidden, they are trying to outlast each other with sensing the future."
Ginny's eyes widened and looked at her friend, "Can Luna see the future? I didn't think there were any seers in her family."
Lyra just shrugged and waited for it to be over. Their staring contests tended to last close to a minute now before stopping. Sure enough, after a minute, Whispers's eyes stopped glowing and he took his hands down.
"Can she see the future?" Lyra asked her little brother.
Whispers just looked confused and Luna just smiled with a spacey expression in her eyes. Whispers started to open his mouth to say something but then stopped, then raised his hands to sign something but stopped. He looked back at Luna and shrugged.
"Are you a seer?" Ginny asked.
"I don't know, I guess I could be," she said with a smile. "Though, where would the fun be in knowing everything that is going to happen. I just like being myself." Looking down at Whispers, "I like our staring contests, we can do it again later."
Whispers nodded enthusiastically and then Luna skipped away towards a group of older Ravenclaws who were in the middle of a discussion of some kind.
"I like Luna," Lyra said. "I never know what's going to happen next with her."
"I've known her all my life," Ginny added. "Things are never boring around her."
There was a long silence before Lyra said, "Can you thank your mom for the presents she sent us?"
"What?" Ginny was surprised. "What did she send you?"
"Oh… well, she gave Harry a sweater and she gave me a chocolate frog. We fed the frog to the kingsbane. He didn't like it and ended up eating a shark to clean his mouth out."
Ginny looked a bit frightened, "What is a kingsbane?"
"Oh, it's a big magical snake that lives with us. Its skin is on Harry's staff."
Ginny's mind was processing all that before she looked back towards Harry talking with a Slytherin girl at the food table and said, "My mom made him a jumper?"
"Yeah, with a big H on it. It looked really warm. She also apologized for our last meeting where she thought I would betray Harry since I'm a Black."
Ginny looked even more confused, "What does that have to do with anything?"
Lyra realized she probably said something that was a secret and whispered to Ginny, "A lot of Blacks in the last war, including my cousin Sirius, served Voldemort."
Ginny let out a large squeak and glanced around furiously as Brandt did near the fear ward at the volcano.
"Don't say the name!" she whispered harshly to Lyra.
Lyra had been told about the significance of not saying the name of the Dark Lord by Brandt but thought it was ridiculous. So she just rolled her eyes and nodded.
Later, after Lyra went off to chase Whispers, Harry was busy enjoying all the little bits of food and snacks at the table when he was approached from behind.
"Harry?" a girl asked.
He turned around to see the girl he had met at the Scamander party standing there. Thinking back, he remembered her name, "Hey, it's Cho, right?"
"You remembered? That's nice."
"People tell me I have a good memory," Harry added. "How are you liking Slytherin?"
"It's… different…" she said with a touch of evasion. "There are a lot of things you need to know to be in that house. Plenty of rules and power structures."
"Well, I know Rule 3 and Rule 10," Harry told her with a smile, watching the shock on her face. "I'll try to find the others as I go."
Cho looked at him with a calculating glare, "I was right about you, you've got some Slytherin in you. Though I don't think you would fit in the house, you stand out too much. Most Slytherins try to keep at least a little anonymity."
Harry thought about that, and said, "Draco doesn't."
"Malfoy? Well, he's a different case, like you I guess." Harry scrunched up his face at that. "No offense," Cho quickly amended, "He doesn't have much anonymity because of his father, especially now. He must have unloaded a lot of money and blackmail to get released from Azkaban early. It makes him both stronger and weaker at the same time."
"What do you mean?" Harry tried to dig for more information. He didn't know when he would get to meet with the Minister but he would definitely want to also ask the man why he was intent on endangering his sister in addition to the information on Sirius Black.
Cho noticed the dig and smiled, then told him, "To be able to influence enough people to be released, he would need a lot of powerful people and a lot of favors owed to him. That amount of power to overturn the system shows how influential he can be. However, a lot of that probably involved using resources that can never be used again. So Draco's father showed how much influence he has to anyone paying attention, but probably couldn't pull the same trick twice."
Harry nodded in understanding, she seemed to know a lot about the way things worked. She would be a good person to get to know.
"Thank you," he said earnestly. "I have another question, but it might be personal."
"A personal question for me, Mr. Potter?" she asked with raised eyebrows.
"Umm.. yeah." Harry hesitated for a moment. "You introduced yourself to me as Cho, but I remember when you got re-sorted, Mr. Scamander said your name was Chau."
The girl's eyes widened slightly, "You remember that? I guess you do have quite a good memory." Smiling at him, she said, "My given name is Chau, but too many people mispronounced it, so I just started to go by Cho."
"Which should I call you?" Harry asked.
Just as she was about to respond, someone called her from across the room, "Hey Cho, come over here and take a look at this!"
She rolled her eyes, and turned back to Harry, "You can call me Chau," then smiled and walked over to the boy who had called her.
Harry watched her walk away, then turned around to look for Lyra, then walked over to where she was with Ginny and Luna.
"Hey Ginny, hey Luna," he greeted them as he approached.
"Hello Harry Potter," Luna greeted him back, while Ginny just smiled nervously.
"Your brother is going to let us visit his dragon reserve this summer," Harry remarked casually.
"You're going to see Charlie?" Ginny perked up. "What are you doing there?"
"I invented a potion that he wants to test out."
Before she could respond and if summoned out of thin air, Fred and George appeared next to them. "You're inventing potions now too?" said one.
"If you need anyone to test them on, I'm sure we could find you some victims," said the other.
Ginny addressed the second one, "Fred, what are you two doing down here?"
"I'm George!" Ginny just gave him a death glare before he shrugged, "You always know, I don't know why we even try anymore."
George responded to the question, "We're checking on an investment we made, have any of you seen Zach and Ernie?"
"Ernie is over there, Zach is somewhere else," Luna blindly pointed over her shoulder towards a small table where a couple of older Ravenclaws were sitting with a younger Hufflepuff.
George went off to speak with the boy, while Fred told them, "While he's doing that, I want to know more about your potion, Harold. What does it do?"
Harry looked a bit apprehensive at the inquisition, but having talked about it to others, he told Fred, "It's a hair growth potion, works on people that have had hair burned off from magical fires."
"And that's why Charlie is interested? To grow back hair lost from dragon fire?"
"Mind sharing the recipe?" Fred leaned in closer.
Remembering what he was told by Arcturus, "Sorry, Potter family secret."
"Well just be sure to patent it when you complete it, you never know who will steal it from you if you don't," Fred gave an evil grin.
"Lyra's patenting two of her own this weekend," he pointed over to his sister.
Rounding on the blushing girl, "A whole family of potioneers, and what have you brewed?"
"It's a sticking solution. I made it with our tutor, the main ingredient is lamprey teeth," she told him.
"Lamprey teeth?" Fred asked. "Would any of the other ingredients be fresh honey, butterfly wings, or crushed fireflies?" Lyra's eyes widened. Fred continued, "I thought so. George and I happened to find a jar of them last year, just laying around, and tried to make a sticking solution with them, but couldn't figure it out. We ended up using it for an already established skin dissolving potion."
"Skin dissolving?" Ginny shrieked quietly.
"Why not?" Luna asked. "Some animals have thick skins that need to be removed before they can be eaten or have potion ingredients collected properly."
"You were always a smart cookie," Fred ruffled her hair. Then looking back at Lyra, "We'll be sure to look up your potion when you have it filed. What's the other?..." Then, as if hearing an alarm in his head, he looked behind him to see Percy walk into the room. He looked back to the Lyra and said, "Next time Georgie and I are stumped on a potion, we'll be sure to talk to you and Harry. Let us know when the Pinocchio's Draught is done, I need to go bug my older brother."
He turned around and started to follow Percy as the older boy explored the room.
Harry and Lyra continued to walk around and visit with their friends. One thing that did start happening as the night went on was that Theo would occasionally come to them and introduce them to an older student. This occurrence only increased when Lyra got taken away by Lavender and was hanging out with a group of girls. Whispers decided to stay with Harry because he was closer to the food.
He was currently in a conversation with a boy Theo had introduced named Hayden Colton, in his sixth year, who was taking the advanced NEWT classes in Ancient Runes, Herbology, and Care of Magical Creatures.
"You really should bring Whispers to see Professor Kettleburn," he was saying. "I'm pretty sure you could earn quite a few points for your house by letting him use the furry guy in classes."
"I'm not sure he would go without me or Lyra," Harry was hesitant.
"Just talk to him, I bet he'd give you a pass to ditch whatever class you have to bring him by. Demiguises are very skittish by nature, so being able to approach one for studying would be quite a treat."
Harry glanced over to where Lyra was with her friends, then back to Hayden, "We are going to see the unicorns tomorrow night. I could talk to him then."
"Excellent!" Hayden smiled.
There was a bit of silence before Harry asked, "What are you planning on doing when you finish school?"
He put on a thoughtful face, "Ideally, I'd like to be a wand crafter. My classes are geared for that. However, I'll have to leave the country to do it, because the market is cornered by Ollivander and his family."
"Why do you need runic studies for making wands?" Harry asked
"Seriously?" the older boy looked surprised. "The incorporation of runes into wands is what allows them to channel magic so efficiently." He pulled out his wand, a polished pale green with lines like a spider web across the handle. "You can't see them, but the entire inside of a wand is covered in runes that allow a wizard to interact with magic in a controlled fashion with ease that isn't just bursts of power or elements relating to the core. If you ever find a broken wand, crack it open and see if you can find the tiny rune clusters inside."
Harry pulled his staff out of his pouch and looked at it along with Hayden.
"I didn't use any runes when I made my staff with my tutor. Is that why I can only cast a few spells with it?"
"You made it yourself? How?" he asked. Then apologized, "I'm sorry, I know most creation techniques are a secret. Would you be able to tell me the components, what it's made of?"
"I guess so," Harry ran his hands over the staff as he responded. "The antler is from a Lampong, the snake shed is from a Usurper, and the wood is from a Balete tree. There is a coating on the wood and the shed from a potion that I created that makes it strong, pretty much unbreakable as far as I've found."
"I don't know what any of those things are," the boy said. "What about the tooth?"
"That one is new, I just added it over the break. It is from a Lamassu. He bit my staff and I thought it would break, but it just popped out, and then he went to sleep"
"That's nuts," he just said in disbelief, "and I had no idea it was possible to modify a wand or staff after it had been made."
They continued to talk for a few minutes, with Hayden sounding very interested in the protective coating he had made for his staff. Wand breakage was a very common problem with young wizards and with older wands. If the coating would work for wands in the same way it did for his staff, it could be very beneficial for the industry.
Lyra was also enjoying the party. After she met up with the girls in Gryffindor, she was introduced to various people around the party by a Hufflepuff named Ernie. He seemed a bit nervous about doing so, and now and then after making an introduction would run over to Theodore Nott and take a small piece of paper from him and then come back and join whatever conversation she was in.
Most of the people she was speaking with were people who wanted to know information about her Uncle Arcturus. Not knowing much about him, she thought it would be best to only give out the scary details about him, as he seemed to like to appear that way. A lot of other people asked about her training with Stevens and anything she could tell them about Harry.
Eventually, she saw Seamus and ran over to chat with him. He seemed to pick up on her using him as a haven from talking to other people and when Ernie came back to bring her to another introduction, Seamus politely told the other boy to "Bugger off."
Looking a bit disoriented, Ernie went back over to where Theo was speaking with another Hufflepuff boy and had just given him a slip of paper, and exchanged words with him. The three of them looked briefly towards Lyra, and Theo took the paper from the first boy and passed it to Ernie, then looked around the room and scribbled another one and passed it to the other and the three of them split off in different directions.
"Huh, I don't think I would have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself," Seamus stated. "Nott is teaching the Hufflepuffs how to network." Seeing Lyra's questioning eyes, "Nott is teaching those two how to make inter-house introductions, and forge connections between people he thinks could benefit from an introduction. I'm betting this whole party is a way to get Hufflepuff to stop being so insular."
Lyra kind of understood, but changed the topic instead, "I wanted to thank you for your present, I haven't gotten to play with them yet."
Seamus smiled back, "For yours too, I've been using the dragon figurine to light stuff on fire. I got my da' to modify the animation charm on it, so I can control it with simple gestures. Now it breathes fire on things when I point to them."
Lyra smiled, "That's neat! I should get a hoohoo that does the same thing!"
"You should take runes for your third-year elective, you can learn to do it yourself. That's what I'm taking next year, though I already know a bit of enchanting from my parents. When I started igniting everything around me last year, they made sure I could enchant everything I own to be fireproof."
"I haven't burned down anything yet," Lyra said. Then thinking about the Creeping Death, and frowning, "not even something I want to burn down."
He looked surprised, "There's something you want to burn down that you can't?"
"It's… um…" she tried to find a way to tell him.
"If you don't want to tell me what it is, that's fine. It must be pretty big for your fire not to work… or resistant?"
Making up her mind to reveal a little bit, "It's a plant, and I can't get close to it. The little bit of fire that caught on to it, it just shook itself like a wet dog, and the fire went out."
Seamus scrunched his face up in thought, then looked towards one of the windows above the room they were in.
"Is it the Whomping Willow?"
Lyra's eyes widened at his deduction, "No… it's more dangerous…" she said evasively. "I wanted to put a fence around the Whomping Willow or markers to see how far it can reach, but Harry and I haven't made time for it yet."
He stared at Lyra and then looked around the room till his eyes landed on Dean and Ron. He put his fingers to his lips and gave a short whistle, which made Dean turn around, he grabbed the other boy and they made their way over.
"What's up Finny?" Dean asked while Ron was eyeing Lyra with wariness.
"You can conjure squirrels, right?" he asked.
"Sometimes they don't walk properly, but yeah. Why?"
"How's your levitation charm doing, Ron?" Seamus asked.
Ron blushed and seemed to mouth the incantation for the levitation charm with heavy enunciation.
"Good… and it's getting better," he said with a somber tone.
"We're going to help Lyra with something," Seamus told the other two. "I know you two got nothing to do on Sunday, so we're going to mark a barrier around the Whomping Willow."
"Why would we do that?" Ron asked.
"Well, other than you having nothing better to do, and helping someone else out with something, we could also earn points for our house, which we desperately need if we want to at least beat Slytherin this year in the cup rankings."
"We're never going to win this year, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff are too far ahead," Dean remarked sadly. Then his face tightened up, "But I at least want to beat the snakes, I'm in."
Ron just shrugged, "I guess I'm in too."
Turning back to Lyra, "So we can meet after lunch on Sunday and build a perimeter, sound good?"
Lyra nodded happily.
Towards the end of the night, Theo was getting a bit tired, and disappointed. While there had been a large number of people in attendance, only a couple of Slytherins had shown up, and they were nobody important or worth getting to know. So when he heard a silence come across the room, he smiled, knowing some of his old housemates had just arrived.
Turning around, he saw Marcus Flint leading the Slytherin quidditch team and the reserves into the room. Theo gave a quick nod to Zack and Ernie who had been given instructions on who to arrange meetings with to multiple Slytherins that might be in attendance and went to go greet the arriving students.
Using a prearranged phrase, he whispered to Minksy, the elf who had helped them arrange the party and food, and two buckets of ice-cold butterbeer appeared next to him, which he carried over to the new arrivals. He could have had Minksy bring the beverages directly to them, but he wanted to make a good impression as the host of the party and appear slightly subservient.
All of the Slytherins waited for Theo to approach and glared back at the other students who had frozen and ceased conversations at their arrival. Marcus shook hands with Theo and accepted a drink from the bucket, then gave a nod to the other players to grab drinks for themselves. The room let out a collective sigh as the group of Slytherins took their drinks and started to explore the common room individually. Marcus just gave Theo a small nod and walked over to talk with the Hufflepuff Quidditch Captain, Tasmin Applebee, and pass her a folded note.
In another corner of the room, Harry was talking about potions recipes with several older students. He didn't realize it, but to anyone looking in on the situation, it would look like he was holding court. He sat, with his back to the wall, holding his staff in one hand, with students sitting around the table all exchanging ideas with him. However, he was just having fun learning about all sorts of ingredients he didn't know about and giving his insight on how certain ones could interact differently in the recipes of the Hogwarts curriculum.
He was in the middle of a discussion about whether it would be possible to use agitated porcupine quills to deliver an antidote to a stone skin curse when Miles Bletchley approached the table and waited for Harry to recognize his presence.
One of the other students noticed him standing there first and when he looked towards the Slytherin quidditch keeper, Harry looked up to him as well.
"Mr. Bletchley," Harry nodded.
"Mr. Potter," he replied and looked around at the other students at the table. "May I have a word in private?"
Harry jumped up and walked with Miles to an empty table a little ways away. The older boy cast a privacy charm as Harry pulled out a silencing feather and activated it.
"Thanks," Harry started. "I was feeling a bit trapped there. I've been trying to get away for the last ten minutes, but they keep asking me more questions."
"Do you keep giving them answers?" Miles asked, and Harry nodded. "Then until you run out of answers or just run away, they'll probably keep at it, particularly the Ravenclaws."
"They could have at least brought me some more food then," Harry said with a frown.
"One more question?" Miles asked with a half-grin. "What is that?" he pointed to the feather.
"Owl feather, it creates a silencing field. I don't know how others can do it, but I'm looking into it. Lyra did something similar with the post owl feathers in the library."
"Neat. Well, I wanted to apologize to you for my role in what happened with Draco and Vincent on the train. I wanted to make sure there were no hard feelings. I'm also hoping that I'm not going to be the target of another Weasley prank. I'm sure that was retaliation with the sweaters after they left the room, they started to shrink until they had to be cut off by Professor Snape."
Harry had thought the sweaters and red hair were funny, but the shrinking moved a bit more into being a malicious prank, not that he didn't approve of it. It seemed like his lessons on intimidation with Severus were paying off if Miles was apologizing to him even after he didn't do anything. Though Harry couldn't let the boy completely off the hook if he wanted to grow his legend, to try and keep people from coming after him and Lyra.
"It's not a problem," he told Miles. "Draco and Vincent just needed a reminder to keep away from me and Lyra. The twins didn't do that prank either, you saw them take the truth potion. They said they didn't do it."
While he was saying that to Miles, Lyra approached behind him and was listening in.
"What did you do to them on the train?" Miles asked Harry.
Stepping out from behind him, Lyra answered, causing Miles to jump a bit, "Like my brother said, it was a reminder. If they come near us with the negative intent, they will feel the pain of the last time we had to remind them." She turned to Harry, "Can we go now? I'm getting tired."
Harry nodded to her, then looked back towards Miles, "If you can pass on a message, please tell Draco and Vincent that the next reminder will be worse."
With dread in his eyes, Miles watched the scariest first years stroll casually out of the Hufflepuff common room.