Revolutions

Chapter 8: Raised by Animals

By Seadragon

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"Sirs and miss! You is needing to wake up now!" A high voice was practically screeching in my ear. I fought the urge to groan, and cracked my eyes open with difficulty. With my eyes only partly open a sat up, and glanced around my room.

Wait a second.

This isn't my room.


I sat up quickly, and blinked a couple times, trying to get rid of the head rush from sitting up too fast. Once I felt I could move without toppling over, I looked around. I was sitting on a couch… In a library.

The events of the previous day came rushing back to me, and if it wasn't for Alex, I might have slipped back into a catatonic state.

"What's going on?" Alex said groggily. He had apparently fallen asleep on the floor, using a heavy book for a pillow. He too sat up, and leaned against the couch I was still sitting on. Natalie was still asleep on the other side of the large couch.

I was about to wake her, but Alex stopped me. "Leave her. She was up almost all night."

"Sirs, is you wanting me to bring you anything?" The same squeaky voice asked, again, surprisingly close to my ear. Half turning, I noticed a small, er, creature, standing two feet away from me.

"Ah!" I jumped to my feet, and nearly stepped on Alex, who let his distaste be known.

"Bloody hell James! What are you doing?" He near shouted. And that was when Natalie woke up.

"Quiet down, will you? Oh, hey James, Alex." She closed her eyes again. We both a waited a second for the inevitable.  Her eyes shot open again. "What are you doing here?! This is the girls' dorm!"

"Not quite Nat." Alex said with a smile, before turning back to me. "Now, why did you feel it necessary to half squash me?"

Natalie snorted. "Right, like he could squash you. He's half your size!"

"Hey! I take offense to that." I added, a grin working its way onto my face. "But I nearly stepped on you, because that startled me!" I pointed at the creature, which was know seated on one of the couch arms.

"Pointing is rude. Didn't your mother teach you manners?" Natalie admonished.

My grin faded. "I don't have a mother."

It was quiet for a moment, the only noise was that of the creature, who was humming. I think it might have been God Save the Queen, which didn't make much sense, as we were in Scotland.

Alex coughed lightly and I turned to look at him. "That is Nobby. He's a house elf. His father came here in your father's fourth year. They were, er, friends." I noticed that they always referred to Dad, not Da, when ever they spoke about my parents.

The house elf nodded. "Yes. I is grateful that I is going to serve the son of the great Harry Potter." I would have edged away slowly, but Alex was still in the way. "Is you wanting anything Sirs and Miss?"

"No Nobby," Natalie said with a smile. "We just have to run up to the Tower and get changed. We do have time, right?"

Nobby nodded frantically, made sure that we absolutely didn't need anything, and then bustled away. Alex got to his feet and stretched his arms over his head. "Sleep well on your book Alex?" Natalie said dryly, also getting to her feet. She shook her head and ran her fingers through her long red hair.

"In fact I did. It's surprising how comfortable the floor and a brick like book can be when you're tired." Natalie and I rolled our eyes. Alex ignored us and returned the book to the table. "You know Madam Larret is going to absolutely slaughter us, right?"

Natalie nodded. "Oh well, it doesn't matter. The most she can do is give us a detention. And I doubt she will. She's all talk."

"Don't be so sure." Alex muttered. "You didn't have to dust every single nook and cranny in this place last year. She can be pretty ruthless when she wants to."

"Alex, you dumped a tub of water on a group of Slytherins, including their prefect, successfully destroying every single book they were reading. I think she had good reason for it."

I laughed, these two would go at it all day if you let them, but, if I did that, we would never get to class. And missing your first class never makes a good impression. And judging by what happened last night, I really needed to make a good first impression.

They were still bickering as we walked up to the Gryffindor Tower, and through the portrait hole. Thankfully, the place was quite empty, only one or two people here and there. We were later than we thought. We went our separate ways and changed as quickly as we could, I didn't bother brushing my hair, but Alex spent about five minutes in front of the mirror. Finally, I just grabbed the back of his robes and pulled him out the door.

We met up with Natalie again at the portrait hole. She was leaning against the wall, tapping her foot impatiently. "Sorry," I told her. "I had to pry Alex away from the mirror."

Alex scowled at me. "You did not! Besides, I can't go to breakfast looking like I slept on a book!"

"But Alex," Natalie said innocently. "You did sleep on a book." She ducked as he swatted at her, and stepped through the portrait hole giggling. I followed her, and Alex behind me muttering to himself.

As it turns out, we weren't that late. We had plenty of time to eat before we received our timetables and had to go to class. And Alex planned to use that time well. As like the night before, he piled his plate high with food, and got straight down to it, pausing only to pour himself a glass of juice, which he drained in one sip.

Shaking our heads, Natalie and I also began eating, in a much more civilized manner. "You would think he was raised by animals." Natalie said with a grin, before taking a bit of egg.

A strange noise overhead made me look up. I nearly fell off the bench when I saw what was causing it. Hundreds of owls were flying in, and landing on the tables. One landed in front of Alex and he didn't even notice, he was so involved with his food.

I wasn't expecting any letters, as we didn't own an owl to my knowledge, but, considering how little I really knew about my own life, anything was possible.

When a white owl landed in front of my plate, I just stared at it for a minute. Hopping forward, and dropping its letter in my plate, it nipped my fingers. Not really seeing it, I handed it a piece of bacon off my plate, and it swallowed it quickly, and took off again.

I picked up the letter nervously, and slit it open with my knife. By now, both Alex and Natalie had noticed the owl and the letter, and were watching me. Alex had even stopped eating. I pulled out a piece of folded parchment, unfolded it, and started to read.

Dear James,

If you are reading this, you are probably sitting at our house table, and feeling very confused, and probably more than a little angry. I don't blame you. That was how I felt on my first day at Hogwarts. People had been lying to me since I was a year old, and now I was in a brand new place, and I didn't know a thing about it.

I just want to apologize for everything. We should have told you. By now, you probably have realized why we didn't. There really isn't much I, or anyone else for that matter, can say to make you feel better, but I am going to try.

You have to try to understand why we did this. There just wasn't anything left for us there, so we ran. It was probably the wrong choice, because we hurt a lot of people in doing so.

There are a few people you might want to stay away from for a little while. Anyone named Weasley, Longbottom, and Snape for starters. I heard that your DADA teacher is Professor Weasley, watch out for her.

Please be careful James.

Love,

Dad.

If possible, I was even angrier than before. How dare he send me a letter if he wasn't even going to tell me anything in it? Except to watch out for some people that he and Da had pissed off. It wasn't fair, they had potentially ruined my chances at making any friends outside of Alex and Natalie.

Scowling, I ripped the letter up, and left the pieces on my plate. Wincing, Natalie turned back to her food, only to find a letter displayed in it. She picked it up and read through it. I just stared angrily at my plate.

Alex had returned to eating, still ignoring the letter on the table addressed to him.

Luckily, the tense silence was broken by the arrival of Professor McGonagall who was handing out the timetables. Looking through mine, I frowned. Potions was taught by Professor Snape, wasn't that one of the people Dad had told me to stay away from? I shrugged, I would find out soon enough.

Our first class was Defense Against the Dark Arts, which was taught by Natalie's mum, Professor Weasley. I had the feeling this was not going to be a fun lesson. Especially since if what Natalie had said was true, and we would be studying Dad.

I shuddered, this was only my first full day here, and already my parent's past had come back to haunt me.