1 Chapter 7
THE OWLERY
Harry found himself drawing a little owl with the tip of his quill on the Potions desk when Snape called on him: " Harry Potter!"
" Yes, sir?" Harry looked up, his bloodshot eyes out of focus form a night of very little sleep and many worries.
" Today I want you to be the special volunteer." Snape said. "You've pulled out nicely with the Liquefier spell." Snape then motioned with his finger to the front of the class. "Come here, Harry."
Harry sighed and stood up, his eyes meeting with Hermione's as he walked towards Snape. She had a look of sympathy for him.
The classroom fell in a hush as Snape handed Harry a potion. "I'm sure you all remember that the Liquefier turns one into liquid form. This one is called Solidifier. What do you think this might do?"
" Nothing. Harry's already solid - his head's full of rocks, as a matter of fact." Goyle laughed. " Malfoy taught me that joke a month ago."
Malfoy kicked Goyle and hissed: " Harry's not supposed to know!"
" Oh." Goyle looked down at the desk stupidly.
" The potion, class, will turn him into stone." Snape hissed. "Now, the Whilltilly's bone marrow is also used in this potion, but along with it you need a few more things. . ." Snape continued on and on, Harry standing to his left hand side, dozing off on his feet.
" Harry!" Snape suddenly burst out.
" Mmm?" Harry's eyes opened to see the blazing-mad professor.
" Drink the potion." Snape handed Harry the potion. Snape was still in a bad mood, though maybe the better phrase would be 'back to his old self'. Perhaps the elated joy of being the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher wore off.
Harry took the test tube and then didn't think twice as he swallowed the contents. They rolled lazily into his stomach. Everyone watched, waited, but nothing happened to him. Harry stood there, same as always, his eyes searching the puzzled looks of his classmates for an answer to the failure of the spell.
" Interesting." Snape double-checked the list of ingredients. "I've put everything in. . ."
Hermione raised her hand. Snape avoided her and kept reading from the list of ingredients: " Whilltilly bone marrow. . . check. Vinegar. . . check." Snape's voice was droned out as Peeves the Poltergeist soared through the room, laughing happily. "Whee! I slipped some Potion-Immunity into your vinegar, Professor." Peeves was now hanging midair, one leg halfway through the wall. The students in the other classroom must by now be staring in puzzlement at a leg extending from their eastern wall.
" Peeves!" Professor Snape couldn't have possibly been angrier. "Get out of my sight!"
Peeves shook his head stubbornly. "See, Harry? Snape was planning for a while to have you be his guinea pig. Foiled his plans, I did." Peeves pulled his leg from the wall and then soared right through Snape. Snape's body froze at the strange feeling of ghost passing through him.
" Get out!" Snape shouted.
" Hold your horses, Snapey." Peeves then floated to Neville and hissed in his ear: " Neville, I saw Draco put peanut butter into your house slippers. Don't get too comfy when you go back to your common room. Hint, hint."
At that, Draco immediately began a protest.
" Peeves!" Snape was now speaking in a wavering voice, a vein throbbing in his forehead. " You. . . get. . . out. . . of. . . this. . . classroom. . . this. . . very. . . second."
" Fine." Peeves soared upwards through the ceiling, then put his head through, upside-down, and added: " There was the good ghost deed of the day. Now I can continue with my regular mischief."
" Like that wasn't mischief?" Harry murmured.
" You! Drink another potion!" Snape ordered. "This one!"
" Professor! I wouldn't advise drinking two potions so closely together! It could positively. . ." Hermione had shot to her feet and spoken without being called at. Snape didn't let her finish. He barked at Harry:
" Drink!"
Harry took the second test tube. This time, his body seemed to react. A thousand watts of electricity flew through his body and a feeling of numbness crossed him. But, the potions didn't mix together to do something horrible. Instead, the second canceled the first out and Harry succesfully became a little statue.
He had never felt so perfectly all right. All the pain he felt (his head had hurt before, but now being stone erased all previous pain) was gone.
" Now, to transform him back, class, does anyone know what to do?" Snape asked.
Hermione didn't even bother raising her hand this time. She simply closed her eyes and put her head down quietly on the table, her forehead flat on her Potions book.
Neville raised his hand.
" Neville?" Snape asked, surprised.
" You have to pour the Liquefier potion over the stone, sir, so that the stone will dissolve, but the Liquefier won't be powerful enough to. . ."
" Enough!" Snape was now angry again because Neville had been correct. His hand reached for the Liquefier potion and then gingerly poured it over Harry-the-statue. Harry's body loosened immediately, and he was back in his seat just as the class ended.
" I was so worried! I thought that consuming two potions so close together would have killed you. It happened before." Hermione caught up with Harry in the hall. Ron walked on his other side, though in a bit of a silence. Ron wasn't avoiding Harry anymore but he wasn't exactly back to Harry's best of friends either.
" I thought so, too." Harry agreed.
" Palm Reading's next, Harry." Ron reminded. " I'll die laughing if Professor Trelawney predicts more misfortune for you."
" I know." Harry grinned, then suddenly realized: " She did see misfortune, and you know what happened to Hedgwig. . ."
" Remember that it could have not been Hedgwig." Hermione reminded.
" Then why isn't she back yet?" Harry questioned.
" Maybe the answer will come some other time. It's not like all the mysteries will be solved at the snap of a finger." Hermione spoke wisely.
*¤*.¸¸.·´¨`»*«´¨`·. ¸¸.*¤*
Harry had gone up to his common room for lunch, a feeling deep inside him more or less telling him to. The room was cold, frightening. Harry stepped up to the fireplace, and then all of a sudden, the fireplace glowed an eerie green.
" Ah!" Harry took a step backwards.
" Harry?" The green mass in the fireplace suddenly let out the form of Sirius Black, his hair an untidy mess on his head. Sirius cleared his throat, looked down at the awful mess of soot at his feet, and said: " Oh, sorry about that. Floo powder, you know."
" Sirius!" Harry gasped. " Please tell me Hedgwig gave you the letter!"
" I'm sorry, Harry, but I didn't get any letter." Sirius smoothed out the wrinkled front of his clothing. " I did come here as fast as I could, though, since it seems that someone's been desperately trying to track me. In fact, my finest white owl was smashed to smithereens by one of my many trackers. I've sent you a letter, you know."
" So that wasn't Hedgwig that got. . . killed?" Harry felt relief flood him. " But then they could still trace the letter back to you by spell, right?"
" Maybe." Sirius bent over to tie his boot. " All I can say is, I'm confused."
" So am I. I sent you a letter with Hedgwig and she still didn't come back. You sent me a letter around the same time and your owl was killed, am I right? How did you find out?" Harry wanted to know.
" I put a tracking device on it. Those Muggles have some neat gadgets, you know." Sirius grinned, then grew serious: "I know this, though: I need to move someplace far. Perhaps we might have to cut back with correspondence for the year? I really don't know." He straightened up, his boots tied.
" I hope Hedgwig is alright, then. I wonder where she went, if it wasn't her that got killed." Harry said, softly. " Where are you going to go?"
" Perhaps I'll try South America. Brazil looks nice." Sirius sighed. " I thought I should say goodbye. For the while, at least. It seems a lot of people are going to extremes lately to find me, perhaps they think I'm helping You-Know-Who."
" He killed someone, did you hear about it?" Harry asked.
" I sure did. And I'm warning you, Harry, you had better try to stay away from anything suspicious, keep out of the spotlight, etc."
" I know. I heard it a million times already." Harry's voice trembled. " There's been so much going on. Hermione keeps getting strange threat letters and then Hedgwig is gone, you're getting tracked by people now more then ever since they think you have to do with the whole You-Know- Who uprising."
" Harry, just please take care of yourself." Sirius put his hand on the younger boy's shoulder. " Please."
" I will." Harry gave a weak nod.
" Good. Well, I'll be going, then. . ." Sirius turned to the fireplace. " You really ought to clean this place out. It's discouraging to travel through something like this."
Harry smiled. " Goodbye."
" See ya, Harry. I'll be back sooner or later." His godfather's eyes sparkled. " Oh, if you're wondering how I knew when to come - to catch you here alone - you should read this." He threw a little paper toward Harry.
Then, Sirius sprinkled some Floo Powder into the fireplace and was gone, as suddenly as he'd come. Harry felt his stomach tumble as he read the paper:
Harry, if you ever need to see
what I'm up to, if you're just
plain curious for whatever
reason, or if you might want to
check up on someone else other
then me, then simply think
hard of the person and say the
spell: "Visibilus Memorificus,
Humanis Appariticus." It sounds
strange, I know, but if you do then
you will immediately get the image
of the person you want to see. It
might come in use to be able to
know where others are without
being there yourself. Maybe you'll
figure out some more uses for
it other then just to check up on
people.
Sirius.
*¤*.¸¸.·´¨`»*«´¨`·. ¸¸.*¤*
Harry stopped. Something wasn't right. He had just been in the middle of dressing in the morning the next day, and yet, it felt as if he should be occupied with something else. He glanced out the window as a flock of owls rushed to deliver their letters and he wondered where Hedgwig could be.
His eyes closed in wonder at how warm it felt in the common room. Perhaps Dumbledore put a nice heating spell on the building? He hoped this was so, because he preferred the newfound warmth to anything else the school had to offer.
Neville had left his slippers out in the middle of the common room again and Harry found himself tripping on them as he hastily finished buttoning his white shirt. The collar was uneven, he noted that right off, and when he tried to fix it his fingers dipped into something.
He held his hand up before his face and saw the cause of the uneven collar: a green slimy goo was spread across his shirt. "Those Weasley twins!" He murmured, and then wiped the green goo from his fingers onto a white tissue he kept in his pants pocket for emergencies like this.
His forehead creased as he raised his eyebrows in thought. Maybe the twins would help him devise a nice little concoction that would help him find his owl?
Just then he got an idea. Maybe he could use the spell Sirius had given him and see where Hedgwig was! Yet, the more he thought about it, the less sense Sirius's spell made.
" I could try it." He finally said to himself, decisively, and took out the little note paper from his godfather and read the spell softly to himself, thinking of Hedgwig with all the intensity he could muster: "Visibilus Memorificus, Humanis Appariticus!"
He waited, his eyes closed, but nothing happened. He read the note again to see if he did something wrong, and noted that Sirius had said it was to get an image of a PERSON, not an animal. This was a disappointing blow to Harry.
" Harry, it's a Sunday. How long are you going to take dressing?" Ron's head peeked into the common room from the outside hallway.
" Sunday!" Harry didn't know this.
" You've been pretty dazed for the last few days, Harry. Shouldn't you go see Madame Pomfrey or something? She might give you some medicine." Ron suggested.
" I miss my owl." Harry said.
" Well, sure you do. But maybe she's alright. Why don't we go check the owlery?" Ron asked.
" Will she be there?" Harry wondered.
" Who knows. Hedgwig is just an animal, maybe she dropped the letter and is too ashamed to reveal herself again, so she's hidden in the owlery." Ron's suggestion made sense to Harry.
" Let's go see the owlery, then." Harry grinned.
*¤*.¸¸.·´¨`»*«´¨`·. ¸¸.*¤*
Harry and Ron's eyes took in the mighty inside of the owlery tower. It was dusty and musty inside and the floor was covered with owl waste. Hundreds of owls dozed off, some were hooting in low voices through their sleep.
Hermione's owl, Sunny, sat sleepily on a little wooden post, her round yellow eyes blinking open and shut. Harry petted the owl and then looked upwards to see if his own was anywhere near.
From high above came a screech as a few new owls flew into the room, after delivering letters. The owls began to move around, rearranging.
" There! Isn't that her?" Ron pointed with his finger at a white little creature, huddled between two tall black ones, both looking alert and poised.
Harry's eyes widened. " Hedgwig!"
The little white owl's eyes shot open and the yellow orbs fixed on its owner. Then, the owl flew down onto his outstretched hand.
" Oh! You're alright!" Harry rubbed the little creature's head, and added: " Where were you?"
The owl didn't reply, of course, but it lifted its wings. One of them was punctured. " My! Someone's thrown something at you!" Harry cried out, hugging the little creature, with one hand holding it's wing out, examining it.
Ron asked: " Maybe it's someone was trying to shoot it down, like how Sirius's owl was taken down."
Harry had told Ron everything about Sirius, from the smallest details of their conversation to his own opinions. " I think so, too. Someone must really want to find my godfather, if he's targeting owls to trace him."
" I'd say." Ron pushed his hands in his pockets. " But how would anyone know which owl is going to who?"
" I don't know that. Perhaps someone did that spell on Hedgwig, like I said, to track where the letter was going and then when Sirius replied they killed his owl to keep me from getting the reply, and to trace Sirius directly." Harry said this in a rush, then paused, puzzled. " But why on Earth would they do that is beyond me!"
" We should talk about this somewhere else. This owlery SMELLS." Ron grimaced. He was right, it did smell.
Just then, someone else stepped into the owlery. It was Draco, followed by Rebecca. " I do vonder vhat Harry's owl looks like." Rebecca was saying to Draco.
" Why do you wanna know that?" Draco replied.
Harry backed away into the dark corner of the owlery, where the brickwork was thicker and messier for no window was present to lighten it. His back was pressed to the wall, his teeth were digging into his tongue to keep his breath quiet, and his left arm was pinning Ron back with him.
" I hear it's vhite, and I vanted to know exactly so I don't mistaken someone else's for his." Rebecca said, her voice a murmur.
" I don't get it, though. So what if you mistaken someone else's owl for. . ." Draco was replying, when Rebecca shouted:
" I just do, okay?"
Draco frowned. " You're crazy, sometimes."
" I just vant to see his owl. Then ve can go." Rebecca crossed her arms and stood, waiting for Draco to point out Hedgwig. Of course, Harry was holding his owl, so Draco wouldn't find it.
" It's not here!" Draco said, after a while of searching. " I can see his best friend's owl, though."
" I don't care for his friend's owl! I vant to see Harry's owl." Rebecca yelled. A few owls stirred.
" Keep it down. We don't want someone to hear us." Draco told her.
" You keep it down!" She hissed in frustration.
" Why do I bother?" Draco rolled his eyes and said under his breath as he walked by Harry (Harry had by now sunk to his knees on the dirty floor so he wouldn't be eye-level with Draco). Harry had also pulled down Ron.
" It isn't here?" Rebecca asked.
" No." Draco said, in answer.
" Then I did get it!" Rebecca grinned. " Are you sure it vas a vhite owl?"
" Yes!" Draco said.
" Can I put you in on a secret, Draco?" Rebecca walked up to him, seductively. He moved away from her and asked, quietly:
" What?"
" I killed Harry's owl, then." She poked him in the chest. "Thanks to your pinpoints."
" Why would you do that?" Draco's eyes widened in horror.
'It wasn't my owl, it was Sirius's new white one', Harry thought to himself.
" To keep Harry frightened. Vhy, I'm the new captain for Hufflepuff, am I not? I vant to keep him scared, vorried that someone will attack him. In the meantime, I vill be helping my team vin! Gryffindor is vorthless vithout him." Rebecca explained. " And if you tell any other soul about this, I can make it look like you did it."
" I won't tell." Draco said, softly.
" Good." Rebecca turned from him, her black boots with golden buttons jangling on the floor as she did so. " You better keep your vord, or you vill be sorry. If I get in trouble for it, then I vill know you told. And I'll KILL you."
The words came out so shocking, so threatening, that even Draco shuddered. " You wouldn't." He said.
" Vould I?" She said, and then slammed the owlery door behind her as she walked out.
Draco remained standing there, shaking, then he looked around the see if Harry's owl really wasn't there. " Man. . . I can't believe I ever got involved with her." Draco finally said, to himself, and left the owlery as well.
Once they were alone, Harry drew his teeth from his tongue and let out a long, frightened breath.
" Man, Harry, Rebecca must really want Hufflepuff to win." Ron said, thoughtfully.
" And the thing is, we can't tell on her or she'll kill Draco." Harry sighed.
" So? We have to tell on her. You couldn't possibly feel safe having a loony like her running around the school!" Ron said this with a voice that showed he definitely didn't care about Draco's welfare.
" We'll have to deal with it on our own for now. All I know is that I have to keep being captain then. I'll be letting her win if I let her intimidate me." Harry pushed his fists into his pockets, which caused Hedgwig to fly up and sit on a wooden little rail.
" Let's take Hedgwig to Madame Pomfrey for now. And I gotta tell you, Harry, if I were you I'd be scared out of my mind by now." Ron told him. " Rebecca seems the kind of person that wouldn't just let something to easily."
THE OWLERY
Harry found himself drawing a little owl with the tip of his quill on the Potions desk when Snape called on him: " Harry Potter!"
" Yes, sir?" Harry looked up, his bloodshot eyes out of focus form a night of very little sleep and many worries.
" Today I want you to be the special volunteer." Snape said. "You've pulled out nicely with the Liquefier spell." Snape then motioned with his finger to the front of the class. "Come here, Harry."
Harry sighed and stood up, his eyes meeting with Hermione's as he walked towards Snape. She had a look of sympathy for him.
The classroom fell in a hush as Snape handed Harry a potion. "I'm sure you all remember that the Liquefier turns one into liquid form. This one is called Solidifier. What do you think this might do?"
" Nothing. Harry's already solid - his head's full of rocks, as a matter of fact." Goyle laughed. " Malfoy taught me that joke a month ago."
Malfoy kicked Goyle and hissed: " Harry's not supposed to know!"
" Oh." Goyle looked down at the desk stupidly.
" The potion, class, will turn him into stone." Snape hissed. "Now, the Whilltilly's bone marrow is also used in this potion, but along with it you need a few more things. . ." Snape continued on and on, Harry standing to his left hand side, dozing off on his feet.
" Harry!" Snape suddenly burst out.
" Mmm?" Harry's eyes opened to see the blazing-mad professor.
" Drink the potion." Snape handed Harry the potion. Snape was still in a bad mood, though maybe the better phrase would be 'back to his old self'. Perhaps the elated joy of being the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher wore off.
Harry took the test tube and then didn't think twice as he swallowed the contents. They rolled lazily into his stomach. Everyone watched, waited, but nothing happened to him. Harry stood there, same as always, his eyes searching the puzzled looks of his classmates for an answer to the failure of the spell.
" Interesting." Snape double-checked the list of ingredients. "I've put everything in. . ."
Hermione raised her hand. Snape avoided her and kept reading from the list of ingredients: " Whilltilly bone marrow. . . check. Vinegar. . . check." Snape's voice was droned out as Peeves the Poltergeist soared through the room, laughing happily. "Whee! I slipped some Potion-Immunity into your vinegar, Professor." Peeves was now hanging midair, one leg halfway through the wall. The students in the other classroom must by now be staring in puzzlement at a leg extending from their eastern wall.
" Peeves!" Professor Snape couldn't have possibly been angrier. "Get out of my sight!"
Peeves shook his head stubbornly. "See, Harry? Snape was planning for a while to have you be his guinea pig. Foiled his plans, I did." Peeves pulled his leg from the wall and then soared right through Snape. Snape's body froze at the strange feeling of ghost passing through him.
" Get out!" Snape shouted.
" Hold your horses, Snapey." Peeves then floated to Neville and hissed in his ear: " Neville, I saw Draco put peanut butter into your house slippers. Don't get too comfy when you go back to your common room. Hint, hint."
At that, Draco immediately began a protest.
" Peeves!" Snape was now speaking in a wavering voice, a vein throbbing in his forehead. " You. . . get. . . out. . . of. . . this. . . classroom. . . this. . . very. . . second."
" Fine." Peeves soared upwards through the ceiling, then put his head through, upside-down, and added: " There was the good ghost deed of the day. Now I can continue with my regular mischief."
" Like that wasn't mischief?" Harry murmured.
" You! Drink another potion!" Snape ordered. "This one!"
" Professor! I wouldn't advise drinking two potions so closely together! It could positively. . ." Hermione had shot to her feet and spoken without being called at. Snape didn't let her finish. He barked at Harry:
" Drink!"
Harry took the second test tube. This time, his body seemed to react. A thousand watts of electricity flew through his body and a feeling of numbness crossed him. But, the potions didn't mix together to do something horrible. Instead, the second canceled the first out and Harry succesfully became a little statue.
He had never felt so perfectly all right. All the pain he felt (his head had hurt before, but now being stone erased all previous pain) was gone.
" Now, to transform him back, class, does anyone know what to do?" Snape asked.
Hermione didn't even bother raising her hand this time. She simply closed her eyes and put her head down quietly on the table, her forehead flat on her Potions book.
Neville raised his hand.
" Neville?" Snape asked, surprised.
" You have to pour the Liquefier potion over the stone, sir, so that the stone will dissolve, but the Liquefier won't be powerful enough to. . ."
" Enough!" Snape was now angry again because Neville had been correct. His hand reached for the Liquefier potion and then gingerly poured it over Harry-the-statue. Harry's body loosened immediately, and he was back in his seat just as the class ended.
" I was so worried! I thought that consuming two potions so close together would have killed you. It happened before." Hermione caught up with Harry in the hall. Ron walked on his other side, though in a bit of a silence. Ron wasn't avoiding Harry anymore but he wasn't exactly back to Harry's best of friends either.
" I thought so, too." Harry agreed.
" Palm Reading's next, Harry." Ron reminded. " I'll die laughing if Professor Trelawney predicts more misfortune for you."
" I know." Harry grinned, then suddenly realized: " She did see misfortune, and you know what happened to Hedgwig. . ."
" Remember that it could have not been Hedgwig." Hermione reminded.
" Then why isn't she back yet?" Harry questioned.
" Maybe the answer will come some other time. It's not like all the mysteries will be solved at the snap of a finger." Hermione spoke wisely.
*¤*.¸¸.·´¨`»*«´¨`·. ¸¸.*¤*
Harry had gone up to his common room for lunch, a feeling deep inside him more or less telling him to. The room was cold, frightening. Harry stepped up to the fireplace, and then all of a sudden, the fireplace glowed an eerie green.
" Ah!" Harry took a step backwards.
" Harry?" The green mass in the fireplace suddenly let out the form of Sirius Black, his hair an untidy mess on his head. Sirius cleared his throat, looked down at the awful mess of soot at his feet, and said: " Oh, sorry about that. Floo powder, you know."
" Sirius!" Harry gasped. " Please tell me Hedgwig gave you the letter!"
" I'm sorry, Harry, but I didn't get any letter." Sirius smoothed out the wrinkled front of his clothing. " I did come here as fast as I could, though, since it seems that someone's been desperately trying to track me. In fact, my finest white owl was smashed to smithereens by one of my many trackers. I've sent you a letter, you know."
" So that wasn't Hedgwig that got. . . killed?" Harry felt relief flood him. " But then they could still trace the letter back to you by spell, right?"
" Maybe." Sirius bent over to tie his boot. " All I can say is, I'm confused."
" So am I. I sent you a letter with Hedgwig and she still didn't come back. You sent me a letter around the same time and your owl was killed, am I right? How did you find out?" Harry wanted to know.
" I put a tracking device on it. Those Muggles have some neat gadgets, you know." Sirius grinned, then grew serious: "I know this, though: I need to move someplace far. Perhaps we might have to cut back with correspondence for the year? I really don't know." He straightened up, his boots tied.
" I hope Hedgwig is alright, then. I wonder where she went, if it wasn't her that got killed." Harry said, softly. " Where are you going to go?"
" Perhaps I'll try South America. Brazil looks nice." Sirius sighed. " I thought I should say goodbye. For the while, at least. It seems a lot of people are going to extremes lately to find me, perhaps they think I'm helping You-Know-Who."
" He killed someone, did you hear about it?" Harry asked.
" I sure did. And I'm warning you, Harry, you had better try to stay away from anything suspicious, keep out of the spotlight, etc."
" I know. I heard it a million times already." Harry's voice trembled. " There's been so much going on. Hermione keeps getting strange threat letters and then Hedgwig is gone, you're getting tracked by people now more then ever since they think you have to do with the whole You-Know- Who uprising."
" Harry, just please take care of yourself." Sirius put his hand on the younger boy's shoulder. " Please."
" I will." Harry gave a weak nod.
" Good. Well, I'll be going, then. . ." Sirius turned to the fireplace. " You really ought to clean this place out. It's discouraging to travel through something like this."
Harry smiled. " Goodbye."
" See ya, Harry. I'll be back sooner or later." His godfather's eyes sparkled. " Oh, if you're wondering how I knew when to come - to catch you here alone - you should read this." He threw a little paper toward Harry.
Then, Sirius sprinkled some Floo Powder into the fireplace and was gone, as suddenly as he'd come. Harry felt his stomach tumble as he read the paper:
Harry, if you ever need to see
what I'm up to, if you're just
plain curious for whatever
reason, or if you might want to
check up on someone else other
then me, then simply think
hard of the person and say the
spell: "Visibilus Memorificus,
Humanis Appariticus." It sounds
strange, I know, but if you do then
you will immediately get the image
of the person you want to see. It
might come in use to be able to
know where others are without
being there yourself. Maybe you'll
figure out some more uses for
it other then just to check up on
people.
Sirius.
*¤*.¸¸.·´¨`»*«´¨`·. ¸¸.*¤*
Harry stopped. Something wasn't right. He had just been in the middle of dressing in the morning the next day, and yet, it felt as if he should be occupied with something else. He glanced out the window as a flock of owls rushed to deliver their letters and he wondered where Hedgwig could be.
His eyes closed in wonder at how warm it felt in the common room. Perhaps Dumbledore put a nice heating spell on the building? He hoped this was so, because he preferred the newfound warmth to anything else the school had to offer.
Neville had left his slippers out in the middle of the common room again and Harry found himself tripping on them as he hastily finished buttoning his white shirt. The collar was uneven, he noted that right off, and when he tried to fix it his fingers dipped into something.
He held his hand up before his face and saw the cause of the uneven collar: a green slimy goo was spread across his shirt. "Those Weasley twins!" He murmured, and then wiped the green goo from his fingers onto a white tissue he kept in his pants pocket for emergencies like this.
His forehead creased as he raised his eyebrows in thought. Maybe the twins would help him devise a nice little concoction that would help him find his owl?
Just then he got an idea. Maybe he could use the spell Sirius had given him and see where Hedgwig was! Yet, the more he thought about it, the less sense Sirius's spell made.
" I could try it." He finally said to himself, decisively, and took out the little note paper from his godfather and read the spell softly to himself, thinking of Hedgwig with all the intensity he could muster: "Visibilus Memorificus, Humanis Appariticus!"
He waited, his eyes closed, but nothing happened. He read the note again to see if he did something wrong, and noted that Sirius had said it was to get an image of a PERSON, not an animal. This was a disappointing blow to Harry.
" Harry, it's a Sunday. How long are you going to take dressing?" Ron's head peeked into the common room from the outside hallway.
" Sunday!" Harry didn't know this.
" You've been pretty dazed for the last few days, Harry. Shouldn't you go see Madame Pomfrey or something? She might give you some medicine." Ron suggested.
" I miss my owl." Harry said.
" Well, sure you do. But maybe she's alright. Why don't we go check the owlery?" Ron asked.
" Will she be there?" Harry wondered.
" Who knows. Hedgwig is just an animal, maybe she dropped the letter and is too ashamed to reveal herself again, so she's hidden in the owlery." Ron's suggestion made sense to Harry.
" Let's go see the owlery, then." Harry grinned.
*¤*.¸¸.·´¨`»*«´¨`·. ¸¸.*¤*
Harry and Ron's eyes took in the mighty inside of the owlery tower. It was dusty and musty inside and the floor was covered with owl waste. Hundreds of owls dozed off, some were hooting in low voices through their sleep.
Hermione's owl, Sunny, sat sleepily on a little wooden post, her round yellow eyes blinking open and shut. Harry petted the owl and then looked upwards to see if his own was anywhere near.
From high above came a screech as a few new owls flew into the room, after delivering letters. The owls began to move around, rearranging.
" There! Isn't that her?" Ron pointed with his finger at a white little creature, huddled between two tall black ones, both looking alert and poised.
Harry's eyes widened. " Hedgwig!"
The little white owl's eyes shot open and the yellow orbs fixed on its owner. Then, the owl flew down onto his outstretched hand.
" Oh! You're alright!" Harry rubbed the little creature's head, and added: " Where were you?"
The owl didn't reply, of course, but it lifted its wings. One of them was punctured. " My! Someone's thrown something at you!" Harry cried out, hugging the little creature, with one hand holding it's wing out, examining it.
Ron asked: " Maybe it's someone was trying to shoot it down, like how Sirius's owl was taken down."
Harry had told Ron everything about Sirius, from the smallest details of their conversation to his own opinions. " I think so, too. Someone must really want to find my godfather, if he's targeting owls to trace him."
" I'd say." Ron pushed his hands in his pockets. " But how would anyone know which owl is going to who?"
" I don't know that. Perhaps someone did that spell on Hedgwig, like I said, to track where the letter was going and then when Sirius replied they killed his owl to keep me from getting the reply, and to trace Sirius directly." Harry said this in a rush, then paused, puzzled. " But why on Earth would they do that is beyond me!"
" We should talk about this somewhere else. This owlery SMELLS." Ron grimaced. He was right, it did smell.
Just then, someone else stepped into the owlery. It was Draco, followed by Rebecca. " I do vonder vhat Harry's owl looks like." Rebecca was saying to Draco.
" Why do you wanna know that?" Draco replied.
Harry backed away into the dark corner of the owlery, where the brickwork was thicker and messier for no window was present to lighten it. His back was pressed to the wall, his teeth were digging into his tongue to keep his breath quiet, and his left arm was pinning Ron back with him.
" I hear it's vhite, and I vanted to know exactly so I don't mistaken someone else's for his." Rebecca said, her voice a murmur.
" I don't get it, though. So what if you mistaken someone else's owl for. . ." Draco was replying, when Rebecca shouted:
" I just do, okay?"
Draco frowned. " You're crazy, sometimes."
" I just vant to see his owl. Then ve can go." Rebecca crossed her arms and stood, waiting for Draco to point out Hedgwig. Of course, Harry was holding his owl, so Draco wouldn't find it.
" It's not here!" Draco said, after a while of searching. " I can see his best friend's owl, though."
" I don't care for his friend's owl! I vant to see Harry's owl." Rebecca yelled. A few owls stirred.
" Keep it down. We don't want someone to hear us." Draco told her.
" You keep it down!" She hissed in frustration.
" Why do I bother?" Draco rolled his eyes and said under his breath as he walked by Harry (Harry had by now sunk to his knees on the dirty floor so he wouldn't be eye-level with Draco). Harry had also pulled down Ron.
" It isn't here?" Rebecca asked.
" No." Draco said, in answer.
" Then I did get it!" Rebecca grinned. " Are you sure it vas a vhite owl?"
" Yes!" Draco said.
" Can I put you in on a secret, Draco?" Rebecca walked up to him, seductively. He moved away from her and asked, quietly:
" What?"
" I killed Harry's owl, then." She poked him in the chest. "Thanks to your pinpoints."
" Why would you do that?" Draco's eyes widened in horror.
'It wasn't my owl, it was Sirius's new white one', Harry thought to himself.
" To keep Harry frightened. Vhy, I'm the new captain for Hufflepuff, am I not? I vant to keep him scared, vorried that someone will attack him. In the meantime, I vill be helping my team vin! Gryffindor is vorthless vithout him." Rebecca explained. " And if you tell any other soul about this, I can make it look like you did it."
" I won't tell." Draco said, softly.
" Good." Rebecca turned from him, her black boots with golden buttons jangling on the floor as she did so. " You better keep your vord, or you vill be sorry. If I get in trouble for it, then I vill know you told. And I'll KILL you."
The words came out so shocking, so threatening, that even Draco shuddered. " You wouldn't." He said.
" Vould I?" She said, and then slammed the owlery door behind her as she walked out.
Draco remained standing there, shaking, then he looked around the see if Harry's owl really wasn't there. " Man. . . I can't believe I ever got involved with her." Draco finally said, to himself, and left the owlery as well.
Once they were alone, Harry drew his teeth from his tongue and let out a long, frightened breath.
" Man, Harry, Rebecca must really want Hufflepuff to win." Ron said, thoughtfully.
" And the thing is, we can't tell on her or she'll kill Draco." Harry sighed.
" So? We have to tell on her. You couldn't possibly feel safe having a loony like her running around the school!" Ron said this with a voice that showed he definitely didn't care about Draco's welfare.
" We'll have to deal with it on our own for now. All I know is that I have to keep being captain then. I'll be letting her win if I let her intimidate me." Harry pushed his fists into his pockets, which caused Hedgwig to fly up and sit on a wooden little rail.
" Let's take Hedgwig to Madame Pomfrey for now. And I gotta tell you, Harry, if I were you I'd be scared out of my mind by now." Ron told him. " Rebecca seems the kind of person that wouldn't just let something to easily."
