Disclaimer: I alas do not own Harry Potter I wish I did but I don't. All I own is this computer I'm working on and a few other items in this room of mine.
A/N: Hi people sorry this is late but I had computer problems and it was to damn hot to type anything down here. Anyway here is the next chapter and I hope to have the next one to you all soon to make up for the long wait. Enjoy and do review I love to hear what you think of this.
Chapter 13: Potions.
/ Telepathic /
02 September 1996 13:33 PM A.D
Harry and Hermione had just arrived at the potion's class and sat down with Silvenestri right behind them when Tonks walked in and sat down next to Harry smiling at him.
"Hey lover, how has your day been?" Tonks said in a low voice that only Harry would hear as Silvenestri promptly crawled onto her lap and looked over everyone in the room.
Harry nodded and was about to answer when Professor Snape stalked into the room and greeted the 12 students in the class in his usual brusque fashion. "Welcome to N.E.W.T level potions. All of you have managed to get a O in your O.W.L's and now you have the right to learn, or try to learn, some of the most powerful potions known to man."
He looked around the room, noting the Slytherin's present, Draco at the head of the group. He then looked at the three Hufflepuff's whom Harry didn't know sitting on the far side of the Slytherin's and his gaze wandered next to the three Ravenclaw's who were sitting next to Harry and Hermione talking quietly to each other. Last was, of course, Harry and Hermione the only Gryffindor's that were willing to put up with Snape for another two years or who needed Potions to further their chosen careers.
"Ah, Mr Potter. I see you managed to get into this class. Let us see how long you can last." Snape paused then looked at the class as a whole. "Now to begin. Everyone is to make the most advance potion that you know and hand it in at the end of this class. We shall see how much you have read over the summer."
Snape took a seat at his desk as he watched everyone prepare the needed ingredients and start on their potions. All the while he was keeping a close eye on Harry, no doubt hoping that he could throw him out the first day.
Harry was careful to keep the knowing smirk from his face as he fetched some of the more basic ingredients of the potion he had decided on and started to mix them in his cauldron. He slipped in some of Silvenestri's scales that she had shed that morning being careful that Snape did not notice the addition.
"Harry what are you making?" Hermione queried while Tonks was talking softly to Silvenestri next to them.
Tonks was watching Harry and the ingredients he was mixing and he could see that she was becoming curious. She had shown him some potions over the summer but she was well aware that this was not one of them.
"Something Snape has never made before and would not even have heard of. Just keep working on yours." Harry whispered as he added the last of the palm size scales into the now silver liquid in his cauldron. The solution had the look and consistency of mercury.
Hermione just shrugged and got back to work on her potion while Tonks looked curiously at what Harry was doing after talking with Silvenestri who moved to sit at her feet and opened the book Professor Lupin had give her earlier.
Snape watched for a moment and then stirred, rising to his feet. "No coaching."
"Would not dream of it, Professor Snape." Tonks returned.
On the floor Silvenestri glanced up from her book and watched Harry and Tonks for a moment and then glanced over at the dark robed Professor who glared at her, almost daring her to misbehave in his class. The silver blue eyes blinked lazily and after a moment she smiled and wiggled her tiny fingers in a wave. Snape sat down rather abruptly, glaring at the child who continued to watch him, small hands now nestled in her lap and those odd coloured eyes never leaving him.
Harry peered into the depths of the cauldron and watched the mixture bubbling gently before sprinkling some fine powder into the mix and stirring slowly.
At his desk Professor Snape narrowed his eyes and looked hard at the little girl who matched him stare for stare.
"Love, what are you making?" Tonks said in a low voice.
Harry grinned and glanced quickly to see that Silvenestri was not in any trouble only to see her sitting quietly with the book in her lap and returned his attention to the potion. The laboratory was filled with the soft whispers of robes as the students moved around, the quiet bubbling of potions and the occasional tap of stirring spoons against the side of cauldrons.
"It's a surprise." He returned, equally sotto voiced.
Tonks sighed and watched, occasionally glancing up to make certain that Silvenestri was still at her feet but the dragon child was sitting quietly and seemed content enough. The odd quick look thrown at the Professor showed him still at his desk, head tilted slightly down so she assumed he was reading something.
Snape glared at the child, ignoring the class in general though fine tuned senses were automatically cataloguing the mixture of herbal aromas and in one or two cases the absolutely foul odours issuing from the cauldrons positioned about the room. While his senses did not detect anything they recognised as dangerous there were one or two additions to the odours that he did not immediately recognise. At the moment, however, he was determined to put this child in her place. He was the master of the 'look' and no five-year-old child was going to beat him.
"Are you alright, Silvenestri? Do you need anything?" Tonks queried as she watched Harry sort through some herbs and then strip the leaves from one and add it to the brew.
"Fine."
The child's eyes remained centred on the Professor who settled a little deeper in his chair and his fingers folded in his lap as he leaned forward slightly. Silvenestri herself leaned a little forward and the beginnings of a smile twitched her lips.
"We don't have a great deal of time left before the end of class." Hermione whispered, glancing at the concoction brewing in Harry's cauldron. "Are you going to be finished on time?"
"Oh yes. Almost done now." Harry murmured, watching the mixture and wafting a hand across the top of the cauldron to disperse the haze that had formed and with it a rather noxious odour.
Silvenestri refused to blink. The tall skinny man in the black robes that smelt of plants and other more dubious scents was good, very good, but she was determined to win. It was a matter of dragon honour, after all, that she not be out stared by a mere human. Even one as good at staring as this one was proving to be.
Tonks glanced up to make sure that Snape was still at his desk and wondered if the Professor had not mellowed since she was last his student. The class would soon be over and he had not once stalked across the room to accost some student and call them names for making stupid mistakes with valuable ingredients or berate them for placing themselves in danger by mixing the wrong ingredients in potentially harmful combinations.
"Snape must be in a good mood. I've never known him to be so quiet in class." She murmured.
"It's unusual for him to leave Harry alone for so long." Hermione agreed, glancing quickly at the Professor who looked to be studying some papers on his desk.
Silvenestri grinned, an outright grin of roguish delight and without blinking reached slowly and deliberately up to her face and thoroughly picked her nose.
Snapes eyes narrowed but he never blinked and continued to stare. Had any of the students been inclined to glance at the professor they had all come to fear to some degree, they might have noticed a small smirk curve his lips. Just for an instant the wily professor loosened enough to poke his tongue out at the child and offer her an encouraging smile. She would have to do better than pick her nose to throw him off.
Harry was suddenly busy at his cauldron, counting softly under his breath and on reaching sixty he whipped the cauldron from the heat and studied it intently, settling back to his seat with a satisfied nod. It only needed to cool enough for him to drink now.
"Harry? What does it do?" Hermione queried.
"You'll know soon." Harry said and glanced into Hermione's cauldron. "I think that is done."
While Hermione removed her cauldron from the heat Harry glanced around the room to discover most of the students removing their own pots from the small fires. The class was almost over but he had finished in good time and he was astounded that Snape had not once questioned his actions. The Professor was still seated at his desk absorbed in whatever those papers were. Soon enough though he would be asking for the potions of all of the students and Harry decided he had better make certain that his potion actually worked the way he presumed it would.
Silvenestri snorted softly, considering what action she might next perform to throw the human off his game. No human should be able to outlast a dragon, even a young dragon and she knew that something was going to have to break soon. The class was almost over and people were draining their potions into vials around her and cleaning up desks and cauldrons. The dark eyes of the human remained settled on her.
'This simply will not do. I will not be bested by a human who gives My Harry a hard time. I like a challenge. He's good.' The last was almost a draconic purr.
Harry cleaned up the table he had been using while he waited for the potion to cool and then taking a spoon full he poured it into a test tube and held it up to the light. The thick viscous liquid was the colour of mercury and oozed more than flowed around the tube of glass. He looked at it a moment longer and then nodded decisively. It looked about right and bringing it to his lips he drank it in down in one swallow, choking a little at the taste.
"Harry!" Hermione gasped, "I hope you know what you are doing!"
Her voice penetrated Snape's concentration as well as broke Silvenestri's as she detected draconic scent within the laboratory. As one their eyes flew to Harry and as Snape exploded out of the chair Silvenestri leapt to her feet with a hard glare at Harry.
/You could have warned me/ She growled the thought at Harry.
"Mr. Potter!" Snape bellowed.
"Harry!" Tonks gasped.
Tonks watched with wide eyes and trembling hands as Harry's eyes went from their usual green to a mercury colour, his skin also flushed in a colour change to a light gray as did his hair. Snape seeing this transformation strode over to Harry muttering all the while about young fools who did not know enough not to test potions on themselves. Just once he whished that the side effects of a potion gone wrong would be permitted to be permanent, just to teach people who thought they knew better a lesson they would not so easily forget.
"Mr Potter, what on earth have you done this time?" He said looking at the half-full cauldron and trying to recognise the contents. He would give the boy a half-minute to answer or be thrown out and sent to Madam Pomfrey.
"Just some thing I learned over the summer, Sir." Harry said with a smile that widened almost painfully as his teeth grew out into fangs and at the sudden pain in his hands he held up his hands to show that his nails were now claws. "Worked better than I thought it would." He commented, his voice and words somewhat distorted by the new tooth arrangement he sported. He slipped his glasses off with one hand to see his other better as the potion's effects now affected his sight.
Tonks and Hermione were looking at Harry with raised eyebrows and their classmates were staring in a mix of horror and fascination as he drove his hand through the seasoned oak table taking a large chunk out of it. He flexed his hand, reflecting that even that blow had caused no damage.
"Harry what is that potion and how long does it last?" Tonks queried.
Silvenestri glared at Harry but she was careful to hide the smile that desperately wanted to slip her control. She could forgive him for disturbing her staring contest but next time he really had to warn her he was going to make the transformation potion.
/You make an ugly dragon. / She reflected. / There is not enough of you to be impressive. /
Harry chose to ignore that comment and answered Tonks instead. "Oh, maybe a few minutes, maybe up to half an hour, give or take a bit, and this is a Dragon Form potion, very hard to get it just right. As you can see if it is right you gain a few of the dragon's abilities, like claws and fangs plus their breath weapon and some spell resistance. However if you get it wrong you can either kill yourself or put yourself in a coma for a few weeks."
Harry surveyed himself in the mirror that Hermione handed him and after a moment decided that he preferred his green eyes to the mercury they had become.
Snape hissed like a boiling kettle. "There is no such potion, Mr Potter and even if there is how would you know about it and what it does?" Snape said his hands resting next to Harry's cauldron. He was uncertain if he was more upset that the boy had made such a powerful potion and tested it on himself or that he had missed the chance to get Harry thrown out of his class. 'Always next week.' He thought, though if the potion did not wear off that 'next week' would more likely be today. There was still hope. He was going to have to report this to Dumbledore and get his hands on a copy of the potion so that it could properly be tested and determined to be safe or not.
Harry smiled and handed the mirror back to Hermione. "I found the recipe for the potion in a book I was given over the summer, Sir. If you like I can give it to you and as for how I know what it does, that too was thoroughly explained in the book. If you could move everyone behind me we can find out if I'm right about the last of the abilities it is said to give you."
Snape considered the request for a moment and in the end nodded and directed everyone to get behind Harry. The potion was made and drunk so he might as well gain what information he could for later reference.
Draco Malfoy glared at Harry as he grudgingly moved behind the professor. Once again Potter had grabbed the lime light with his behaviour and once again he was not likely to be punished. He sneered as Snape directed Harry to attempt the breath weapon and ensure he did not damage anything if at all possible, since he did not know which of the Dragon breeds Harry had crafted the potion to emulate.
Pulling his head back Harry concentrated on thinking breath weapon and flinging it clear of the people avidly watching him, then threw his head forward and opened his mouth. A cloud of silver mist erupted from his fanged maw and he recognised it as Silvenestri's paralysing spray.
"Well that certainly seemed to work. " He commented, noting Snape eyeing the field of effect and making quick notes on the table with a piece of charcoal. "Now for the other test. Tonks would you mind hitting me with a charm please?"
Harry walked out into the middle of the room and looked at Tonks and catching the glare from Malfoy, he knew that Draco would love to hit him with a charm. While he had asked Tonks to do the casting he fully expected Professor Snape to be the one to cast the spell.
Tonks nodded and pulled out her wand and managed to utter the first word of a holding charm but before she could complete the charm Snape stepped in front of her, wand raised. With hard, calculating eyes the Professor uttered the words of a charm that was one small step short of being a forbidden spell. Having recognised the spell Tonks had been about to use, he wanted something a little more powerful to truly test the supposed magic resistance the potion was supposed to imbue. The charm hit Harry and amid the gasps of shock from the students when nothing happened Professor Snape nodded, seemingly totally unsurprised. Harry was delighted as the charm directed at him died with out casing a bit of pain. He, like Snape, considered the test very effective indeed.
"Well, Mr Potter. It would appear that that is indeed a powerful potion and yes, I would like to have that recipe. As soon as you can get it to me, please. Everyone else, get back to work." Snape glared at the class who scattered and hurried to clean up their cauldrons. " Five points from Gryffindor for your cheek." Snape commented as he turned and strode away from Tonks.
Silvenestri had watched the entire incident with confidence that the potion would protect Harry and now she stared up at the tall Professor baring down on her, eager to return to her staring match. He paused beside her, bending low and met her eyes, narrowing his own as he considered where he had seen eyes like that just moments ago.
'Curious.' He mused. He flashed her a quick smile. "Later, little one. Class is almost over. We can have a return bout at a later time. You are very good, you know."
Silvenestri's eyes widened as he slipped a sweet into her hand and with a hard-eyed glare about the dungeon that he considered his home more than anywhere he stalked back to his desk. On the way he snarled at one of the Slytherin students to clean up the puddle of goo he had left on the floor.
Harry smiled a very toothy smile at Tonks and Hermione as he settled in his seat and poured half or the remaining potion into a flask like Moody's then secured it to his hip. He then placed the remaining liquid in a sample jar for Professor Snape to try and work out. No doubt the Professor would use every test there was on the potion to determine all of its properties.
"I can honestly say that I have seen you looking better, Harry." Hermione commented as she bottled her own potion. "It's the teeth, I think. Weird."
Tonks stifled a giggle and looked more closely at Harry, eyeing his hair for a long moment and noting the darker flush beginning to return. A quick glance at his skin and nails confirmed the change and she sighed, somewhat relieved that the duration of the potion seemed to short. Less than half an hour was good in her view. She much preferred the Harry she knew to the strange creature the potion had produced in him.
"Well, it seems that you're right about it not lasting long. Thank goodness." She paused and then leaned closer to stare into his eyes.
Glancing quickly at the Professor who was watching she grasped a piece of charcoal and wrote some quick notes under Snape's, noting that the change was noticeable first in Harry's hair, skin colour and then claws. She was almost surprised when Snape nodded faintly and then his dark eyes swept over the remainder of the class.
Taking the opportunity she leaned close to Harry's ear. "Doing anything tonight?"
Harry smiled showing that his teeth were well on their way back to being normal which she hastily wrote down. "Oh, not much. I was thinking I might just read a book. Why, did you have something else in mind?" He said playing the innocent even if he wasn't.
Tonks looked at Harry absently noting the changes that now were coming with greater speed as the potion's effects wore off and smiled. "Meet me tonight at 11 in your common room and I'll show you what I have planned for tonight." With that Tonks scratched some last notes on the desk, checked that Silvenestri was sitting quietly with her book and left the room giving Harry and every other male in the room she knew was watching her an extra swing of her hips.
Hermione looked at Harry and the looks on the faces of a number of the male students sighed at his look. 'Boys,' She thought before looking down at Silvenestri. "If you like, Harry, I'll look after Silvenestri tonight seeing that tomorrow is Saturday and you two can sleep in. I'll make up some story for anyone who asks." She looked at her potion, swirling it gently in the tube and nodded, satisfied that it looked exactly as it should and fitted the stopper before looking back to Harry. "Is there anything I will need to know for tomorrow morning? Anything I need to know about Silvenestri? Special needs?"
Harry looked at the silver haired girl siting quietly on the floor then at Hermione. "Well, she did just feed this morning so she will not need to do that again tomorrow. Just tell her to keep her form at night and you'll do fine with her… I think your potion is starting to set to your cauldron."
Hermione looked at her cauldron to see that the potion was indeed starting to set and hastily began to scrape down the sides, thanking Harry for the warning and immeasurably relieved to discover that she was not going to have to take the dragon to the forbidden forest to feed. She was uncertain she could take the sight of the silver creature again. She much preferred the little girl version.
"Thanks Harry. I really don't think I could cope with taking her into the forest if she says she is hungry while you are with Tonks."
"If she gets insistent about being hungry just take her to the kitchen and tell Dobby to give her some meat. Raw, preferably. That will hold her over until I have a talk with her in the morning." Harry said as Silvenestri crawled into his lap blinked at the watching Hermione and promptly fell a sleep with her head resting on his shoulder.
Hermione nodded and together they made their way to the desk where they handed their samples to Snape and with Harry carrying Silvenestri they left the room and headed to the Great Hall for dinner. Harry held Silvenestri lightly in his arms while thinking up what to say to the other Gryffindor's later that night. He was looking forward to meeting Tonks in private.
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Ron was waiting for them in the hall and keeping seats free for them. As they settled into place Harry noted that the Professor's were all gathering at the head table and that Professor Lupin was talking to Dumbledore and that the newly arrived Professor Snape was quick to join the pair.
/ Must have them keeping an eye on me. / Harry thought while stirring Silvenestri.
Silvenestri rubbed at her eyes and nodded as he told her to take a seat between Hermione and Harry as Ron started to talk to Hermione about his day while also keeping an eye on Harry and Silvenestri as Harry filled a plate for himself and another for the child. He wondered how it was possible for such a little girl to have such a very healthy appetite but then, he liked his food too.
Dinner passed in joking conversation and much appreciation of the feast and soon enough the hall started to empty of students and Professor's. Harry led Ron and Hermione out of the hall with Silvenestri beside him, the book Lupin had given her clutched tightly in her hands. Her cascade of silver hair bounced around as she skipped along next to him.
On the way to the Gryffindor common room Harry walked out on to the fourth floor and walked by a painting of a middle-aged witch with black hair and gold eyes. Her robes were a royal blue and a black raven with golden eyes was seated on her shoulder. The picture looked enough like a muggle painting that he paused. He had not expected to find muggle work but you never knew what you might find in Hogwarts.
He was surprised to see that next to this painting was a symbol just like the one over the fire mantle in his room in Privet Drive. The same Silver Dragon and cream background the dragons wings in that same half raised position and the noble head held high and above the creature a double bladed sword with the very same distinctive curve to each blade. This time, however, the symbol was not the product of magic but was very obviously a product of the muggle world. A muggle painting.
"Rowena Ravenclaw." Harry mused recognising the woman as being one he had met within the world of the Sorting Hat. "I did not expect to find your panting placed right next to the last Dragon Lords symbol." Harry mused aloud, looking at the panting and remembering what she had said about her essence being on this floor.
Ron, standing behind Harry looked at the panting and then at Harry with an arched brow. "Why the interest in Rowena, Harry?" He looked at the panting and then at the symbol. "What was it that you called this one?" He was honestly curious and it was not just that he was doing a little fishing for information since Professor Dumbledore had asked both he and Hermione to find out what it was that had made Harry so much stronger over one summer.
Harry smiled at Ron and shrugged. "Oh nothing, let's get back to the common room. I've got training tonight with Tonks and I would like to get a copy done of a potion recipe Snape wanted to see. Homework, I guess you could call it. If I don't get all the details right he'll skin me." He led the way down the hall with Ron and Hermione right behind him and Silvenestri holding tight to his hand.
Ron nodded, as did Hermione as they walked down the hall and none of them noticed the painting of Rowena Ravenclaw watching them. When they turned around a bend in the hall the finely painted lips of the woman in the painting turned up into a small, knowing smile.
It was nearly 11 by the time Harry had finished copying the details of the potion recipe from the book Dragon Lords, Myth or Fact. Harry stretched slowly in his seat in the common room where he had been talking with Hermione and Ron about their school work thus far. Silvenestri was curled sound asleep next to him, her hair flowing down the side of the oversized chair.
Tonks sashayed into the common room, her hair it's true colour for once but her eyes were a rich jade green and her face still bore that faux heart shape that she favoured when in the presence of others. Harry squashed the wish that she stops hiding herself but he knew that she would become her true self when they were in private.
"Harry, its time for your Occlumency lesson and then some more physical training I think." She said the last with a smile looking Harry up and down as he got to his feet. "Can't possibly have you getting lazy just because you are back at Hogwarts."
Hermione rolled her eyes at this but kept quiet instead choosing to smirk at the look on Ron's face and promptly clipped him up the ears to draw his attention away from Tonks. There was an echo of slaps and male voices exclaiming 'Hey!' about the room. Harry sniggered and exited the room, Tonks following him and just as she reached the fat ladies portrait she swayed her hips just a little more and sniggered at the chorus of slaps and 'Hey!' from the room.
After Harry and Tonks had left Ron absently rubbed his right ear, scowling at Hermione and noticed that Silvenestri was awake and at that moment looking at where Harry had gone with a smile on her face. With a small sigh the little girl reached to play with a pawn from the chess set beside the chair.
"Hey, there. Awake again? How about a game of chess while we wait for Harry to finish his lesson?" Ron asked when Silvenestri began moving the pieces of the chess set, lining up the battle pieces and then flicking them over with her fingers.
Nodding Silvenestri turned to face him with a beaming smile and immediately began setting up the board, each piece precisely in its correct place. With the board set up she settled herself on the white side, leaving Ron the black pieces. Hermione sat back and watched as the game started thinking that this should be quick if what she had read about the extinct Greater Dragons was true.
A sense of fair play prompted her to nudge Ron. "Harry said she was something of a child prodigy, Ron."
Hearing this some of the other late night Gryffindor's gathered around the two players to see how the game was going. Ron was by far the best chess player in the tower while Harry's daughter, as she was called, was an unknown.
The room was in a suspense filled hush a half-hour later as the entire common room now watched the match. Ron was missing half of his pieces and Silvenestri had more pieces, most of which held more power than Ron's but the last move by Ron had been a clever trap and had removed her Queen from the board. Silvenestri was pouting at the board, eyes devouring each piece as she considered the set back the loss of her Queen represented but suddenly a blinding smile lit her face and she glared triumphantly at Ron. She now knew how to trounce him!
Hermione looked up from her book and studied the board as Silvenestri moved one of her last remaining pawns and after a moment she saw the scowl on Ron's face deepen. He saw it too and Hermione smiled at the fact that Ron was going to lose. It was inevitable and she knew that he knew it.
"Ron, you might want to quit about now. She is going to win in the next… four moves anyway."
Ron looked from Hermione to the board and sighed. He knew exactly where he had made his mistake and he knew that it was a mistake he could not recover from. "Three, actually." He returned as he knocked his king over and stared as the king screamed at him for giving up so easily. "Good game, Silvenestri. Very good game." He sighed and stretched cramped muscles as the other students congratulated them both on the game and wandered back to their books. "I've been playing longer than you have been alive. You are going to be a dynamite player."
Silvenestri smiled and shrugged her shoulders. "Harry told me all of your moves when I played him and I just took it from there." She then looked at Hermione. "I'm hungry." She said it like it was the most common thing in the world to be hungry that late at night after tucking away the enormous meal she had eaten earlier.
"Harry told you…? Well, guess I have to work on my game style so you don't have that advantage over me." Ron grinned, feeling just a little better at knowing that Silvenestri had had a slight advantage of knowledge over him. Harry and he had played often.
Hermione smiled and held out her hand to Silvenestri. "Well, Harry said that if you got hungry tonight I was to take you to the kitchen, so lets go. Ron, I'll be back later, ok?"
He nodded and went up the stairs to the boy's dorms muttering about reading some more books on advanced chess while Hermione and Silvenestri slipped out of the portrait hole and made their way down to the kitchen.
"Silvenestri can you get by with what ever Dobby gives you or do we have to go out into the forest?" Hermione asked, hoping that she could make do with the food in the kitchen rather than venture out into the forbidden forest.
She nodded to Professor Snape as they passed him on his patrol of the hallway, not worrying as she was a Prefect and was allowed out of bed after hours. She did think it a little strange and decided it must have been a trick of the dim light that she thought she had seen Snape smile at Silvenestri. She looked twice but he was certainly scowling as he stalked off so she put it down to the shadows.
"I'll settle for what Dobby can give me but can you take me to the forest tomorrow if Harry is not up? I always get extra hungry when I grow." Silvenestri said as they descended the last of the staircases and reached the door to the kitchen.
Hermione swallowed at the very thought of taking the dragon out for a draconic feast but she nodded that she would and silently prayed that Harry would not be late.
Dobby was there within a heartbeat of them entering the kitchen and bouncing around Hermione in delight while saying in his high voice, "Miss Hermione came and visit Dobby! Dobby is pleased. What does Miss Hermione want?"
Hermione smiled and bent low, taking Dobby's head in her hands and planting a kiss on his forehead which only made him dance more with delight. "I just need some of that meat pie from dinner Dobby. Sort of a midnight snack, that's all."
Dobby was gone in a flash and was back just as fast with a plate larger than himself holding a huge meat pie that had not been cut at dinner. "Here you go Miss Hermione. Dobby find Miss Hermione a pie to enjoy." He handed the pie to Hermione then vanished into the cavernous depths of the kitchen again.
Hermione nodded her thanks though the House Elf was long gone and led the way over to a table and placed the food. Silvenestri clambered up onto a chair and started to peel the pastry from the meat and eat the filling with her fingers, her knife once again left sitting next to the plate untouched. Hermione sighed and shook her head slightly but made no comment about lack of table manners.
After placing a silence charm around the table to give them privacy while they talked Hermione sat down next to Silvenestri and watched her skilfully gut the pie without eating the pastry. "So then, can you tell me more about yourself back when Harry had just meet you?" she asked hoping to learn more about Harry's new powers and what else Silvenestri could do.
Silvenestri looked up from her food and then back to the pie while telling Hermione about Harry raising her from her hatching and something of the events that occurred over the years. She included the dragon hunter coming to kill her and even told Hermione about the spell that Harry had cast to modify Dumbledore's memory and why he had done so.
Hermione nodded, barely hiding her shock at some of the things Harry had down in the past but she said little and when Silvenestri had finished with her meal she led the way back to the common room. On the way she told Silvenestri about her life before meeting Harry and Ron in their first year at Hogwarts and finished on the retelling of the troll in the girl's bathroom.
They passed the painting that marked Tonks' door to see that the subject of the painting had run off to visit someone else while Harry and Tonks were doing his 'physical training'.
"At least they have the good sense to use a Silence Charm about their bed." Hermione said looking a little disgusted at the empty portrait.
Silvenestri just smiled and hummed softly to herself, well aware of what Harry was feeling at the present time. Through the bond they shared she felt Harry's emotions. At the moment he felt very happy indeed.
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Thanks to the following reviews:
gallandro-83, Silverscale, just wibble wobble wooble, Maxennce, Blade-Claven, daniel, athenakitty, Dimensional Analysis, Bobboky , Me, Lord Marskl, Killer-Kobloods, Dobbey, Eagle-Eyes, Ice-Pheonix-Tears, Newbie-sama, sethro72.