Comments: I was gonna have this bit with Sirius and all them sooner, but I forgot...and then I remembered for the next chapter...about 6 months after I'd started writing a different chapter 16. More with Sirius and the gang next chapter. Translations at the end.
Chapter Fifteen: Hiernamaals and Howlers
When Harry woke up he was so preoccupied thinking about the mirror and the fights and everything he didn't notice anything peculiar. It wasn't till he went downstairs to the common room, after showering and changing, that he realized anything was up.
Dani, Amy, and Hermonie were sitting in chairs by the fire and they looked to the boy's staircase when they heard footsteps. They smiled when they saw Harry, but then Dani's eyes got wide and she slapped her hand over her mouth, Amy stared at him in horror and Hermonie just stared at him shocked.
"What?" Harry asked.
"DUDE," Dani and Amy said at the same time "What happened to your head?"
"Huh?"
So she reached up and started to pull it off when it hissed rather loudly and Dani gasped and yanked her hand back. She clutched it to her chest and gasped out "Harry...I think it might be poisonous," and fainted.
"What IS it?"
"Ummmm Harry...I think it's a hairutuff..." Dani said.
"A what?" he asked dumbly.
"Hair-u-tuff...its this...small animal about a foot tall, has jet black fur...likes to live on people's heads...preferably people with jet black hair so that they...blend in somewhat...but they really great pets..." Amy replied.
"How do I get rid of it?"
"Why don't you try and...pull it off?" Hermonie asked and raised her eyebrows.
"I don't wanna touch it!"
"FINE! You big baby...I'll do it!" Dani replied.
So she reached up and started to pull it off when it hissed rather loudly and Dani gasped and yanked her hand back. She clutched it to her chest and gasped out "Harry...I think it might be poisonous," and fainted.
The others gaped at her then Harry gave a strangled yell and ran for the portrait hole.
Amy and Hermonie gathered around Dani, who scared them both when she sat up laughing. She held out her hand and they looked at it but could find no marks then they shared a look and started laughing as well. They laughed so much that they woke Ron and Dan who came down to see what the racket was.
The girls just grinned and told them they'd have to find out at breakfast before running up the stairs to get they're bags for the day ahead then they hurried out through the portrait hole leaving three very curious friends behind.
x-x-x-x
Dani hooked arms with Amy as they walked down the hallways towards the Great Hall. Then Dani got a mischievous look in her eyes and started to hum. Amy laughed when she recognized the tune, and then echoed Dani when she started to sing.
"The cutest boy"
"I ever saw"
"Was sippin ci"
"Der through a straw"
Then they sung together "the cutest boy I ever saw was sippin cider through a straw."
"I asked him if"
"He'd show me how"
"To sip that ci"
"Der through a straw"
"I asked him if he'd show me how to sip that cider through a stra--" (A/N: Heh...sorry...just be glad it wasn't the WHOLE song...) they were cut off when they ran into someone who wore sky blue robes. Dani blinked a couple times and peered at the person in front of them. She had oval glasses, medium length blonde hair, hazel green eyes, fair skin, and medium build. It took a second for where she'd seen this person from before sunk in.
"Oh!" Dani exclaimed "Professor...Roseart!"
Amy looked at her oddly then glanced at the woman again and clamped her hands over her mouths.
She smiled at them then said, "Hello girls. I couldn't help but overhear your singing. You're quite good as a duo, I know that song too. We sung it at the camp thing I had over break."
"That's cool because we learned it at a camp thing too. But it was a friend of Dani's who was running it." Amy said.
Professor Roseart nodded then motioned for them to continue. They smiled at her and quickly hurried off to the Great Hall.
They were sitting down at the table starting their breakfasts when Hermonie and Ron walked in and sat down. Amy and Dani were beginning to tell them about Harry and the hairutuff when Harry walked, with his hair normal again, carrying something. He walked over to Amy and dropped it in her lap. Amy looked at him in confusion then looked down at the thing in her lap and gasped and started stroking its fuzzy, jet black fur.
"Dani! Hermonie! It's the hairutuff!" she squealed happily then put it on her head where it blinked its button black eyes and purred.
Everyone smiled at that then Harry frowned and looked at Dani. He opened his mouth to say something but he was cut off by the arrival of mail...and several Howlers.
The first came for Amy, carried by a large brown eagle owl that dropped it on her bacon before flying off for the Owlery. They all stared at it then Dani nudged her and she picked it up and opened it, her face already twisted in a worried, fearful expression.
YOU ARE IN SERIOUS TROUBLE YOUNG LADY! IF YOUR PARENTS HEARD ABOUT THIS, TWO FIGHTS IN ONE WEEK WITH A MALFOY AND A HANSON NO LESS, ENDANGERING YOUR FRIENDS, WHO KNOWS WHAT KIND OF HEXES THEY COULD HAVE THROWN YOUR WAY! I THOUGHT YOU KNEW BETTER THAN THIS, AFTER HOW I RAISEDYOU! Moody's voice rang through the hall silencing everyone as they turned to see who had received the howler. THIS SORT OF THNG NEVER HAPPENED TO ME WHEN I WAS AT SCHOOL! YOU'RE SUCH A DISAPPOINTMENT TO ME, AND MANY OTHERS! I THOUGHT YOU'D SET A BETTER EXAMPLE FOR EMILY, SHE LOOKS UP TO YOU IN SO MANY WAYS, WHEN I GOT THE OWL FROM DUMBLEDORE SAYING THAT YOU'D GOTTEN INTO ANOTHER FIGHT SOMEHOW SHE STUMMBLED ACROSS IT AND STARTED PICKING FIGHTS WITH THE KIDS AT HER SCHOOL! YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF! And with that the howler tore its self up and Amy sat there wide eyed and red faced when another owl dropped another red envelope onto someone's breakfast.
Ron stared at the howler on his plate and whimpered slightly "Oh no" he moaned "not another one..."
They each received one. Well everyone but Malfoy and Hanson. They didn't for whatever reason. They all seemed pretty much the same, mothers or guardians yelling about disappointment and such. Dani's had a little more from her mother though...
", AND PULLING THAT TRICK ON YOUR SISTER! WHEN YOU KNOW SHE'S TERRIFIED OF SPIDERS! AND MAKING THE PARCHMENT TURN INTO ONE ANYWAY! I AM SO ASHAMED OF YOU!" Dani had shrugged it off though. She'd expected a howler from her mother about and was just a bit upset at being humiliated in front of everyone. Harry didn't get one though...who'd send him one...?
x-x-x-x
James and Lily sat next to Sirius at the watch station. They peered down into the liquid inside the Pensea. The liquid churned around like a rough sea. Sirius prodded it with his wand and it settled again. They looked down and saw the scene in the great hall from above. Amy sat in her seat with her head buried in her hands and Harry sat looking somewhat...dejected. James frowned and glanced at the wall where the clock and a picture hung. They still had an hour of watch left.
"I feel so bad for him..." Lily muttered looking into the Pensea. James turned away from the wall and looked at his wife.
"Feel bad for who Lily?" he asked.
"Harry...I just know he feels so alone...he's got no one but my sister's family." She replied.
Sirius frowned and walked over to the wall and glared at the picture. It was of a smiling couple, the man had sandy brown hair and gray eyes while the woman had honey blonde hair and blue eyes. A plaque under the picture read: The Jenkins. Sirius thought back to the day that it happened. He'd only been there for a few days, having only just fallen through the veil about a week before and was getting settled into the routine of things that went on in this...afterlife of sorts. They didn't sleep, simply because they didn't need too. So they basically sat around and chatted when they weren't on watch. This was Hiernamaals, sort of a limbo between living and death, but not exactly. Technically they WERE dead...but they existed in Hiernamaals. Every tweleve hours (since they didn't have days and nights) they were to go to the torretta della vigilanza and spend two hours there. They were...guardian angels of sorts. The watch was called het dode horloge over het leven,or the dead watch over the living.
While on watch they used the Pensua to watch over those they loved, Lily, James, and Sirius usually watched over Harry, and Frank too seeing as he had no living loved ones. The Beboere (as they were called) were required to do four hours of watch every twenty-four hours and if they didn't...well the Jenkins were the perfect example of what would happen. Their picture hung in the torretta della vigilanza as a reminder to the other Beboere what would happen if they didn't report.
The Jenkins had been a happy couple who had come to Hiernamaals shortly after Frank. They missed three sets of watch in 72 hours, and then the Punito came. They took the Jenkins from there home in Hiernamaals to some unknown location and were never seen or heard from again...at least not in the regular way. The Punito were the punished, the Beboere who didn't do as they were suppose to. When a Beboere doesn't go to watch at the appointed times with out specified reason that had been cleared by the Head Punito they would receive a warning, the first one delivered by one of the other Beboere, the second by one of the lower Punito and the third time there was no warning...the Punito came...and took you away. How they changed you was unknown to any besides them, but from what they'd heard it wasn't fun.
Sirius jumped as a loud bell rung. He'd been so lost in his thoughts he hadn't realized that the end of their watch was almost over. He glanced at the Pensua one last time the grabbed his wand and followed Lily and James out the door and down the stairs.
Ok seeing as I'm ending the chapter I figured I out to explain what a lot of these new fancy words mean for those who don't speak about 5 different languages...I don't either I've been using a translator...BUT here they are:
Hiernamaals- Dutch for Afterlife
torretta della vigilanza- Italian for watchtower
het dode horloge over het leven- Dutch for the dead watch over the living
Beboere- Norwegian for residents
Pensua- it's not in any language but perhaps mine, it's like a pensive, but not...it shows what's really happening exactly at that moment only those in Hiernamaals have it.
Punito- Italian for Punished. It's suppose to be like...the punished...the ones who are being punished for all eternity because they screwed up.
