Chapter 3 – Speaking in Tongues
"Edrychwch! Dyma Harry a Mam!" said an excited sounding voice as soon as Harry stepped - well, stumbled – out of Gwen's Apparition vortex. He emerged onto a wide, sunlit boulevard bordered on its two sides by tall, ancient-looking, white-painted buildings. Wizards and other beings wandered the boulevard dressed in robes and clothes in a dazzling array of styles. Directly opposite the designated Apparition point stood Tracey, her father, a younger boy Harry assumed was her brother, and an elderly witch who must have been her grandmother. As soon as Harry righted himself Tracey rushed forward for a hug.
"Oh, it's so good to see you! I know it's only been a few weeks but when you see someone every day it's strange when you suddenly don't, isn't it?" she said after she let go. "Anyway, this is my nana, Nan, and my little brothers, Illtud and Ffrancis. You've met my dad before already so we can ignore him."
"Charming," said Tracey's dad.
"Er, hello," Harry said. "It's nice to meet you all. Thanks for having me!"
Harry had no idea how he would go about saying the elder of Tracey's brother's names, but at least the younger one - who looked to be about six or seven and hid behind his father's legs, almost out of view – had a much easier name.
"Oh, don't you worry about that!" said Tracey's grandmother. "Gwenllian Apparates all the time—doing a Side-Along with you is no problem!"
"Mam's right," echoed Gwen. "It's really no trouble at all, especially not for one of Tracey's friends! And what with your family being muggles, it's the least we could do to show you a bit of magical Barcelona! It's just a shame the Spaniards are strict on muggles visiting or they could have come with us."
Harry didn't think his aunt or his uncle would have wanted to come – they were still a bit funny about the idea of actually going to or doing magical things, and Harry hadn't wanted to press the issue – but perhaps Dudley would have found it interesting. Maybe not anything historical or cultural, but there was bound to be something fun and interesting that a muggle could experience, even if it was just looking at strange new creatures.
But then again, Dudley's idea of a good time was sitting inside in the dark watching films he could see at home, so perhaps not.
"My uncle thinks a holiday is for sitting about and relaxing," Harry said, "so he probably wouldn't have wanted to come. They're having fun back at the hotel, anyway; my cousin wanted to go to the cinema today." Harry paused, and then remembered what his aunt had said. "Oh, and my aunt wanted me to say thank you from her for coming to pick me up."
"It isn't any trouble," said Gwen. "I only had to pop over—none of that fussing about with cars! Honestly, it was no problem at all."
"Are we still going to go to the zoo?" asked the elder of Tracey's younger brothers, clearly completely uninterested in Harry's aunt's sense of decorum. "You said we could go to the zoo before we went home, and we've not got many days left."
"We can go to the zoo today, if Harry wants to come," said Tracey's dad. "But we have a few other things we wanted to show him as well."
"I don't mind visiting the zoo," said Harry. He thought the zoo could be fun, actually, although he did remember his last visit, which had ended in him accidentally releasing a snake from its enclosure by magic… after talking to it.
None of that today, Harry promised himself. He had control over his magic, now, anyway, so he didn't think they'd see a repeat of the Birthday Incident.
"We can go to the zoo after lunch, then," said Gwen. "But before that we wanted to go see the Vampire of Barcelona's alchemical laboratory, didn't we?"
Illtud mumbled something Harry didn't understand and then shrugged.
"Don't worry about the vampire, Harry," said Tracey, "She wasn't a real vampire. Well, we can see in a bit, can't we?"
"Right, Harry, we just need to go get you checked in with the tourist board—it's a little booth up here, then we'll get going!" said Gwen. She led Harry towards the little booth where a witch sat at her station with an odd device. She took Harry's offered wand, did something with her device, then gave it back without saying a word.
"Easy!" said Gwen. "It's just so the Spanish Ministry knows that a British wizard entered the area."
The itinerary sorted out, Tracey's grandmother set off along the boulevard to wherever this 'vampire's' laboratory was, leaving everyone else to follow along behind her.
Tracey's grandmother led everyone away from the main thoroughfare and into narrow, rickety backstreets where the buildings hadn't been painted quite so recently. She eventually stopped just outside a building that looked to Harry's eyes exactly like all the others. It had a flat roof which Harry assumed was some sort of sun terrace, and shuttered windows which were closed against the mid-day sun. It was a bit shorter than the building to its right, and aside from a plaque attached to its door, had little to suggest it was in any way special.
It looked just like an ordinary house.
"This is the one," declared Nan. "The Vampire of Barcelona's secret alchemical workshop! In we go, come along." She opened the door to the house and waved them in one by one. Harry followed Tracey inside, and when everyone was in, Nan shut the door.
The street-facing door led into a kind of reception, where a bored-looking wizard sat at a desk flicking through a book. Faded posters and glass cabinets filled with strange instruments and curios lined the walls, and an enchanted violin played music from a dusty corner.
"Tickets?" asked the desk wizard. "Or do you need to buy them…?"
Tracey's dad stepped forward and took some money out of his robe pocket.
"Seis… boletos… por favor," he said in what Harry assumed was terrible Spanish. "Many in today?"
The desk wizard just stared at him.
"There's never many in," he said eventually, and handed Tracey's dad their tickets and took his money, which Harry noticed didn't look at all like the Galleons, sickles, and knuts he was used to. "Enjoy the tour. Please remember no flash fotografía in the Cava." He waved them off and returned to his book.
"We'll go through the Blood Room first," declared Nan, and strode off towards the right. "I'm only going to say this again for Harry's benefit," she said, "because the rest of you were told once and you know I don't like to repeat myself. Enriqueta Martí wasn't a real vampire of course; she was a relatively normal witch who was born in the late 1860s. She came to Barcelona and started working as a nanny for muggles, not because she needed the money, but because she wanted to use them as test subjects for her research, didn't she?" Nan paused and looked at Harry.
"Er, right," Harry said.
"Now, what she wanted to do was find a way to give muggles and squibs magic. None of her theories went anywhere obviously; it's probably impossible. But her experiences led her to the study of alchemy! The muggles know her as a prostitute and a witch doctor, tell all sorts of tales, but—"
"What's prostitute mean?" asked Illtud. "I don't know that word yet."
"Mam!" said Gwen. "We talked about this!"
Nan sighed dramatically.
"The muggles knew her as a self-employed entrepreneurial woman and a witch doctor, but she was much more than that! She was actually one of Spain's most intriguing Dark witches. Her memory lives on amongst the muggles as someone who stalked the streets—in broad daylight mind you—stealing children to use their blood in Dark potions. They're not entirely wrong either, are they, because… well, have a look at the walls in here."
Harry turned to look at the walls, which had an array of different things hanging on them. He saw one painting of a muggle child strapped to some sort of table, with blood flowing from his arms into big glass jars. Another glass cabinet display showed the range of tools and instruments used by Enriqueta, while on another wall there was a poster explaining the purported uses of the blood Enriqueta extracted from her victims.
"So she used to kidnap muggle kids and drain their blood? What was it even for?" asked Tracey.
"One of her experiments—she used to do this one over and over again with little variations—was to drain the blood of a muggle child and replace it with magical blood—usually her own, but sometimes from volunteers. She thought that if she replaced the blood of a muggle with witch's blood, the muggle might become magical, see. It didn't work and she ended up with lots of dead children," said Nan. She moved everyone along through the room to stand in front of a grisly muggle photograph of bones arranged on a table. "But she didn't let that stop her, did she? Because she was a self-taught alchemist, she thought of lots of uses for bits and pieces of children. As a sort of side interest she used to try to see if she could make an alternative Elixir of Life without using a Philosopher's Stone. Now there isn't any proof that her techniques worked, but she did have quite a few wealthy clients who kept paying to get her out of trouble… And she did make some really interesting advances in some of the Darker fields of alchemy, like—"
"This is a bit gruesome for an afternoon walk," said Tracey's dad. "Are we really sure..."
"Oh, it doesn't get much worse than this," said Nan. "Don't worry yourself about it. Anyway, we're done with the Blood Room; it's the most boring room anyway. And since Gwenllian is being a bit precious we won't bother with the boudoir, although it does have an interesting photograph of Enriqueta with one of her more famous clients. But we shan't be seeing that, now. Let's be getting on!"
"You know how Mam gets," said Gwen. She sighed. "And, you know, it's really actually a bit better than the Neolithic caves in France, remember, so…" She shrugged.
Nan left the Blood Room through the door on the opposite wall to the one they'd entered using, leaving everyone else to follow her. Harry took one last look at the animated painting of a bloodletting grimaced before following after Tracey. He emerged into a short hallway with a staircase going downwards. A sign at the head of the stairs indicated it was the Cava the desk wizard had mentioned.
Nan directed everyone downwards into the cellar laboratory, which Harry had expected to resemble the dungeon potions laboratory back at Hogwarts, but which looked instead like someone's grandmother's tea-room – if grandmothers customarily kept alembics and other glassware instead of teacups and cake stands. It would have actually been quite cosy, if Harry hadn't known the sorts of things that had gone on there.
"This is the most interesting room in the house!" said Nan excitedly. "This is where all the real alchemical work was done, isn't it, and although most of Enriqueta's work was, well, dabbling and not even particularly effective dabbling at that, as I said earlier she did make some advances. Most of her work is kept from public view, because of its Dark nature, but I was able to read her notes on the process of homuncular gestation, and it was inspired! Even though it was wholly morally and ethically bankrupt." She turned and gestured towards Harry and Tracey. "The two of you'll be having alchemy lessons this year, yes? So listen up. Enriqueta used her second job as a night woman to work on the theory—and practice—of gestating an alchemical homunculus in her own womb! It took her nearly twenty years, but—"
"Right, no, Mam!" said Gwen. "We can do the rest of the tour but none of this!" She gestured vaguely at the air. "You've got no sense of what's appropriate!"
"Well, what's the point of coming somewhere new without learning about the most interesting bits of magic there? Honestly, Gwen, with the way you carry on it's like you don't want the kids learning about magic!" said Nan. She mumbled something in Welsh and shook her head. "Magic isn't just about Cheering Charms and Tickling Jinxes!"
"Mam, there's a big bit of space in between Cheering Charms and whatever it is we've been learning about here!" said Gwen. "We'll finish the tour—without any of your bits of trivia, thank you very much—and if any of us is even capable of eating afterwards we'll have lunch and go to the zoo. Why I thought it was a good idea letting you pick our activity for the afternoon I don't know…"
Nan led them through the rest of the tour offering only very toned-down bits of commentary and explanation regarding some of the tools they encountered and sometimes a little bit about the theory behind Enriqueta's actions. Harry learned a little more about alchemy, although he did think Nan's original commentary was much more engaging – even if it was disquieting on a number of different levels. The final room in the house-turned-museum was dedicated to the time after Enriqueta had allowed herself to be arrested by the muggle authorities.
"The muggles think Enriqueta was beaten to death in prison," said Nan, "but we know that she only pretended to be killed. She spent fifteen months in prison doing God only knows what to the muggles there, and then transfigured one of the newer inmates to look like her, and then encouraged the others to beat the poor woman to death before Enriqueta herself escaped. She went right back to living in her house in the magical part of the city after that, until, oh, I think it must have been the 1930s when she just vanished one day. Nobody knows exactly where she went—some people think she fled to a village in Mexico because about a year or so after her 'death', children started to go missing there, but I think she actually—"
"Mam," warned Gwen.
"Well, anyway, that was interesting, wasn't it?" said Nan. "You know, I actually met her once when I was very young—a bit older than the pair of you actually—and you wouldn't have known to talk to her that she was a Dark witch. Eccentric, maybe, but not the sort to—well, you know." Nan waved her hand as a reference to the Dark activities Enriqueta had perpetrated. "You wanted to go to lunch next, didn't you?" she asked. "Well, it's not going to happen with us all standing about here, is it?" said Nan. She strode out of the room and back into the reception area where the desk wizard sat, still reading his book. He didn't seem to notice them all leave.
It took Harry a few moments to readjust to the bright and hot Spanish sun after the dimly-lit museum house once out in the street. They had spent perhaps an hour in the house, so when they emerged it was the hottest part of the day.
Harry wished he'd brought a hat.
"My travel magazine says there's a lovely little café not that far from here that serves a traditional Catalan menu," said Tracey's dad, "so I thought we would go there for lunch. Everyone happy with that?"
"It's not going to be just fish is it?" asked Illtud. "I don't want to eat fish again."
"You like fish," said Tracey's dad. "Anyway, they should serve pork as well."
"But I don't want to eat it every day," said Illtud. "We had fish three times yesterday—even for breakfast."
"Harry, do you mind eating there?" asked Tracey. "We can go somewhere else if you want!"
Harry shrugged.
"No, that sounds nice," he said. "I don't think I've eaten traditional Catalan food before—maybe at our hotel but I'm not sure…"
"It's all settled then!" said Tracey's dad. "Let's go—it's just around the corner."
'Just around the corner' turned out to be at least six streets away and in a different part of the Barcelonan magical enclave. The café was a squat little building with a rooftop terrace sat on its own at the edge of a small plaza with a fountain in in the middle. It looked to be filled mainly by local wizards and witches, many of whom were smoking something that released clouds of purple smoke.
"It's very traditional," said Tracey's dad, "not the usual sort of tourist place. I read about it in my magazine—it's got all the best information on unusual places, Harry—and I heard more from Estel's neighbour, that Arnau fellow. He said it was the best place to eat in all Fila de Bruixes!"
"Well, we'll see, won't we," said Nan.
"I'm sure it's lovely," said Gwen. "Let's go have a look if they've got any seats for us."
Once inside the café they were directed to the rooftop terrace by a buxom middle-aged witch with flowers in her hair. Menus appeared at the table once they had sat down, but Harry couldn't read them – they were in Spanish, or maybe Catalan, but Harry didn't know how to tell the difference or even if there was one.
"Tad, I can't read the menus," said Tracey.
"My Catalan isn't very good," said Tracey's father, "but I memorised some of the popular dishes and I think I did well enough to be getting on with it here…"
"Worse than your Spanish?" murmured Gwen. "Well, go on then. I'm in the mood for some fresh fish, today."
"I can order my own, thank you very much," said Nan.
"Tracey, I think you'd like the tonyina en escabetx – it's like a fish soup," said Tracey's dad. "Illtud, you didn't want fish so you should have… well, they're like sausages?"
"Iawn, Tad. Diolch!" said Illtud. "What about drinks?"
"Drinks as well," said Tracey's dad. "Harry, what are you in the mood for?"
"I don't mind, really," said Harry. "Maybe not fish, though. I'm not a big fan of fish…" The Dursleys rarely ate fish, preferring instead beef and pork and the occasional chicken dish, and Harry had never acquired a taste for it.
"Escudella, then. It's a meat and vegetable stew—traditional, and very hearty. We had escudella with Estel a few nights ago, and it was delicious. Tastes like home, but with a nice Catalonian twist!"
"That sounds great, thank you," said Harry. Harry thought it was hard to go wrong with a meat and vegetable stew, and at least the flavours and even some of the vegetables themselves would be different from what he was used to back in England – or Scotland.
Eventually a waitress came to take orders, and the food didn't take too long to appear on the tables after that. Harry was pleased with his – well, Tracey's father's – choice. It didn't have anything weird in it, which he had been somewhat dreading, and it tasted really nice. Tracey's fish soup had an actual whole fish sitting in it, and Harry felt glad he hadn't chosen that one. He was all for trying new things, but that seemed a little too far for his first foray into Catalonian cuisine.
When everyone had finished their meals, Tracey's father ordered them all some desserts to share—something called pastissets, which turned out to be little pastries stuffed with a kind of jam Harry hadn't tasted before and covered with sugar; and xuixos, which Harry thought were some sort of Catalonian twist on doughnuts.
"We are still going to the zoo, aren't we?" asked Illtud when everyone was done and the conversation had died down. "Because I really wanted to see the dragons, and you did say we could go to the zoo after we did Nan's thing. And, I think Harry would want to see the zoo as well. Everyone likes dragons, don't they? You like dragons, don't you Harry?"
"Leave Harry alone, Illtud," said Tracey.
"I've never actually seen a proper dragon," admitted Harry. "You don't get many dragons in Little Whinging." He had seen the dragon that burned down the groundskeeper's house, but that had only been a baby dragon, and he didn't think it counted. Not really.
"You've never seen a dragon?" repeated Illtud. "Mam, Tad, we have to go to the zoo! Harry's never seen a dragon!"
"Yes, Illtud. We can go to the zoo," said Gwen.
"Tracey! We're going to the zoo! They've got a manticore there, did you know?" said Illtud. "And a whole nest of dragons!"
"Yes, Illtud, I knew. You've been telling me since last week!" Tracey said. "And they've got some karkadanns."
"And there's Nifflers we can go see, since Ffrancis is still a baby and we've got to do something for him, as well," continued Illtud.
"A manticore?" said Tracey's dad. "Is that safe?"
"It's probably fine, Colin," said Gwen. "The leaflet said they haven't had an incident since the fifties so it sounds safe enough. Maybe it's not the best thing to have in a zoo but they've got experience with it, so it can't be that bad…"
"Hmm," said Colin, although he didn't sound convinced.
"It's the only thing he's asked us to do all fortnight," Gwen added in an undertone. "We can't not do it."
After the meal and the dessert had settled, Colin went to pay for it while everyone else left the café and Gwen tried to figure out where the zoo was in relation to where they currently were.
"So, do we go down this road and then across to where we bought those bracelets? No, that doesn't look right…" Gwen said as she stared at a map. "I can't believe they'd put a zoo in the middle of all these muggles, but… Tracey, come and have a look at this, will you? I can't tell where we are…"
Tracey moved to help her mother while Illtud pulled a worn leaflet from his pocket.
"The zoo isn't in the city," he said quietly, "it's in the mountains. But, we can take a Portkey there from the main square place. I can't remember the word, but—look, it says on the leaflet."
Everyone—Gwen and Tracey, at least, since Nan had wandered off—ignored him. Instead, Tracey and her mother tried to work out where they were in relation to the map of the magical enclave included as part of their tourist package.
"I think we need to go back to the main street again, Mam," said Tracey. "I don't think where we are now is even on the map."
"But I can't even see a zoo marked on the map," said Gwen. "Can you? The big tourist attractions should have a little interactive marker, look, I can tap with my wand to get instructions…"
"The zoo is in the mountains," said Illtud again. "We have to go back to the main square and then there's a Portkey."
Nobody seemed to hear him. Illtud turned towards Harry and sighed.
"They never listen," he said. He walked over to where Tracey and her mother were still arguing over the map. "Mam, mae'r sŵ ar dan y mynydd!" he shouted. "Rhaid i ni fynd i'r sgwâr!"
"Peidiwch â gweiddi, Illtud!" said Gwen. "There's no need to shout at me!"
"Well, you weren't listening," said Illtud. "Look, the zoo leaflet has all the instructions. We go to the main square place on the big street and then we can get a Portkey to the zoo."
"Let's have a look at that leaflet, then," said Gwen. She took the leaflet from Illtud and scanned it. "Okay, you're right. We go back to the main boulevard from here, then we take a Portkey to the zoo. Where's your father gone? Is he still in there paying?"
"I'll go get him," said Illtud. He ran back inside the café.
"And where's Mam got to?" asked Gwen, looking around. "Can't stay still for a minute…"
"She's over there looking at the fountain," said Tracey.
Gwen walked off to grab her mother, Ffrancis holding her hand, leaving Harry and Tracey stood outside the café alone.
"Sorry about all this," said Tracey. "My family can be a bit… well, you've seen it."
Harry shrugged.
"It's nothing. You should see how Dudley carries on when he doesn't get his way. And, I had a nice lunch. The alchemical lab was interesting, too. Your gran knows a lot about that sort of stuff, doesn't she?"
"She knows loads about stuff like that!" said Tracey. "Sometimes her and Mam argue about it, since Nan thinks that more people should know about the nastier parts of magic. Not, you know, learning Dark magic, but—just knowing about the history and things like that."
"That makes sense," said Harry. Dark magic and the wizards who practiced it seemed to be everywhere, even in more subtle ways than Voldemort and his Death Eaters. "What was the thing with the—what did your mum say? The Neolithic—"
"Oh, yeah, the Neolithic caves in France," said Tracey. "Nan and Mam had a really big argument about that when we got home because, basically, the cavemen wizards used to sacrifice muggles to use their blood in protective spells against Dark creatures and that. Like what Quirrell was telling us about in class, remember? It wasn't really that bad—maybe a bit worse than what Quirrell said about—but I was only ten, and Illtud had nightmares about it… And Nan did go into a lot of detail. She even took us in to see the… oh, I forgot the word. Um…" Tracey shrugged, and then clicked her fingers. "The charnel pit! It was full of skulls."
"Grisly," said Harry. It didn't sound like a very happy outing to go on during a family holiday, but it was at least a bit more interesting than their history classes. He would probably take it over the sort of thing his aunt wanted to do, as well. Cavewizards and sacrificial magic were more interesting than watching muggles dance, even if those muggles were mostly pretty women. "I like your family, anyway. You should see mine—my aunt's neurotic and my uncle complains about everything. And with Dudley, you never know when he's going to be normal or a complete arse. But, that's families, isn't it?"
Despite their flaws Harry didn't dislike his aunt or his uncle and, although he would only admit it reluctantly, he didn't dislike Dudley either. They were his family and he loved them, although he wasn't about to get all gooey over it. Petunia and Vernon had done what they thought was best, bringing him up completely muggle and even at the very end of the charade, trying to keep him safe by keeping him out of Hogwarts. Harry even supposed that if they had told him about magic, he would have thought them both nuts and refused to believe it. They were also the only family he had ever known, and although if given the choice he would always choose to form a family with his actual parents, he knew there were worse situations to be in.
"Where's your mam gone with Ffrancis?" asked Colin suddenly. "And Nan. Ah, there she is! Come on Gwen—we've got to get going so we can catch the next Portkey!"
Gwen brought Ffrancis and Nan back to the group, and then Colin led them all back through the side streets and onto the main boulevard, where Illtud took over and guided everyone to the Portkey stop for the zoo. Harry was usually not too enthused by the concept of zoos since they were just collections of animals that should be living somewhere else, although it was nice sometimes to talk with the snakes, but the idea of a magical zoo was quite a bit more exciting.
By the time they made it to the Portkey stop for the zoo, there was already quite a large queue of tourists waiting. Colin went ahead to get tickets while everyone else took a spot in the queue.
"You've never taken a Portkey before, is that right, Harry?" asked Gwen while they were waiting.
Harry shook his head.
"Well, it's worse than Side-Along—you'll feel like you've been spat out of something awful. But all you have to do is take hold of the Portkey with everyone else and it works just like that. Easy enough."
"What is a Portkey?" Harry asked. "Is it, like, a specific thing? Or… what?" Everyone always talked about them, but no one had ever explained what they were.
"Secret Portkeys are usually bits of rubbish or things that muggles would find uninteresting or disgusting," explained Gwen. "The Ministry uses Portkeys like that for the Quidditch World Cup, so all the wizards in an area can meet up at a designated place without having to find discreet places without muggles, and if muggles do see one, they should ignore it. But since we're already in a secret magical location, this one could be anything, I suppose." She craned her head to see over the people in the queue, but as she was so short, it didn't do much. "I think this one might be a long stick. Like I said, they can be anything—it's just a restricted spell, that's all, so you can use it on literally anything you want, if you've got legal permission."
"Right," said Harry. "Thank you." He stood up on his toes to check if he could see the Portkey, but some of the witches and wizards in the queue were wearing ridiculous hats and he couldn't see past them. He supposed he would have to wait until it was time to take the Portkey to see what it was.
"We should go and see the dragons first," said Illtud, "and then after the dragons I thought Tracey would want to see the karkadanns, and then we can go and see the manticore after that. Did you know manticores can talk, Harry?" Illtud didn't pause for Harry to respond, and instead carried on talking at high speed. "And the leaflet says as well that they have jarveys and jabberknolls and even some mooncalves! I've never seen a mooncalf before! Have you seen one, Harry?"
"I don't know what a mooncalf is," admitted Harry. "I've not seen many magical creatures, really." He paused and considered it. "Although, I have seen an acromantula. It was dead, though."
"I hope I never see an acromantula," said Illtud. "I hate spiders!"
"They live in the Forest at Hogwarts," said Harry. "So, when you go, don't go in."
"I'm not going to Hogwarts," said Illtud. "I'm going to… um… well, in English I think it's just called Magic School, or something like that. It's where we live."
"I'm going to Hogwarts," declared Ffrancis.
"Ysgol Hudoliaeth a Dewiniaeth Cymru," offered Gwen. "It means—well, Illtud wasn't wrong, really. Something along the lines of 'The Welsh School of Enchantment and Witchcraft'. Translations aren't exact."
"Oh, right," said Harry. "I think Tracey mentioned that before."
"I want to go there instead of Hogwarts because I want to do my learning in Welsh," said Illtud. "It's important, isn't it, Nan?"
"Oh, yes, very," said Nan. "We should all have the option to go study in our preferred language! I wasn't allowed back when I was your age—all muggleborns back then had to go to Hogwarts, even if they had another school to go to. But it's different now, thanks to Gwen."
"Oh, Mam. It's not that big of a deal," said Gwen. She turned towards Harry. "I work at the Office of Welsh Affairs at the Ministry, and one of the things we managed to get done was that if new muggleborn students have an invitation to go somewhere other than Hogwarts, they're allowed."
"That's really good," said Harry. "I only speak English but it must be hard for people to have to go to school in a whole new language. It was bad enough learning Latin."
"It's important for other reasons too," said Gwen. "Like inclusion and diversity and—oh, look, the queue is moving! Hurry up, everyone! There's Tad with our tickets! Come on, we don't want to miss the Portkey!"
Gwen herded everyone towards the Portkey, and it was time to go when Colin got back. The Portkey turned out to be a very long wooden stick, and when he reached it, Harry copied everyone else and gripped it lightly.
"Uno… dos… tres!" counted the wizard at the Portkey stop. When the Portkey wizard finished counting, Harry was yanked into a spinning vortex. Then the world stopped spinning and, Harry found himself somewhere totally different – in the mountains north of Barcelona, where the air felt cooler even though the sun still felt hot against his skin.
Harry thought that he preferred to Apparate, but he supposed Portkeys were a convenient way for lots of wizards to travel at once even if it did make him feel sick at the other end.
The Portkey terminated at the top of a little hill overlooking the zoo compound. A low stone wall surrounded the zoo, which had been built in the mountain valley. A few dozen exhibits were sectioned off within the walled compound, most of which were visible from the high vantage point, and Harry could see dragons nesting in the largest of them.
"Must be hard hiding this from the muggles," said Nan. "It's a lot bigger than I was expecting. And with dragons, too."
"I'm a bit more concerned with the manticore," said Colin.
"Well, we're here now," said Gwen, "and the spells around the zoo feel solid."
"Come on!" said Illtud. "Let's go! What's the point with all this standing around? We're wasting time!" He set off down the hill.
"We'd better get going before he gets lost," declared Gwen. She followed along after Illtud, leaving everyone else to catch up to them. Gwen attempted to enforce some sort of logical sequence through the zoo, but Illtud had other ideas, and instead zoomed from one exhibit to another in search of the dragons.
The zoo wasn't quite filled to bursting, but a steady stream of witches and wizards thronged the paths and even the raised walkways connecting the exhibits. Harry heard more languages on his way to the dragons than he had ever heard at once before – and felt as if he couldn't recognise any of them.
The dragons, which were on the opposite end of the zoo to where they'd come in by Portkey, were his first proper stop, which meant everyone traipsed through the zoo catching glimpses of the other exhibits before coming to stop at the largest enclosure full of dragons.
"The sign says these are Catalonian Fireballs!" read Illtud excitedly. "They used to live wild in the mountains here but now they're only found in… in… cap… cat… Tracey, what does that word say?"
"Captivity," said Tracey after reading the information on the sign next to the dragon enclosure. "It means, only in zoos and places like that. Caethiwed, yn Gymraeg."
"Diolch!" said Illtud. "It says as well look that the zoo helps breed them—there's eggs in the habitat now! Look! Can you see?"
The enclosure had been dug into the bottom of the mountain valley in which the zoo had been built, and a thick-looking segmented glass dome spanned the length and width of it. The dragons inside seemed unconcerned that they were being watched, and Harry thought he could see at least four full-grown Catalonian Fireballs. The females – which Harry assumed were the ones sat on the eggs – were bigger than the solitary male, and there were three of them inside the enclosure. Their scales and hide were blackened as if scorched by fire, and a series of pointed, triangular spikes ran down each of their necks.
"Those look very impressive," said Colin. "I've never heard of a Catalonian Fireball before, though. They must be quite rare these days."
"The sign says they nearly went extinct in the sixteen hundreds," said Gwen, "but they were brought back by private breeders."
"A nice thing to do but you wouldn't catch me doing it, that's for certain," said Nan. "I'm all for conservation but maybe not in the back garden, isn't it?"
"That's so cool!" said Illtud. "Mam, what do you think I need to do to be a dragon breeder? Can you do it in Wales?"
"Well, you'd need good marks in Magizoology to start with," said Gwen. "I know they breed Welsh Greens at the reserve… so if you do well at school, maybe you can be a dragon keeper."
"I can do that," said Illtud. "Look—there's some baby dragons in there as well!"
They spent a few more minutes looking at the dragons in the enclosure until Gwen moved Illtud onwards gently. He raced off again in search of the manticore.
"We don't have to go around together," said Colin to Harry and Tracey. "You can go off and hang out if you want—just don't go too far."
"Okay, Tad—see you later!" said Tracey. She grabbed Harry by the arm. "Come on, let's go this way—Illtud will be ages at the manticore and I want to see the mooncalves!"
"There's karkadanns as well, you said? I wouldn't mind seeing those," said Harry as Tracey led him through the zoo towards the mooncalves.
The mooncalf enclosure was partially below ground, accessed by a submerged pathway lined with thick enchanted glass. The interior of the mooncalf exhibit had soft lighting designed to mimic the moonlight, according to the neat little sign at the entrance to the mooncalf habitat. Tracey headed right inside, and Harry followed. At first, Harry couldn't see any mooncalves, just their little den. Once his eyes adjusted to the dim interior he could make out perhaps six odd little creatures that looked like goats with ridiculously long necks. Each of the mooncalves had a pair of big, bulbous blue eyes and pale grey fur.
"Ooh, look how cute they are!" said Tracey. "Don't you just want to hug them?"
Harry wouldn't have gone quite that far, but the mooncalves did look cute in a strange sort of way. He thought it might have been the eyes, since they were big and a nice colour. They made a strange sound – something almost like a low moo, but with a strange ethereal quality to it – and huddled together like a strange group of subterranean giraffes.
"What do they… do?" asked Harry.
"They dance!" said Tracey. "They make patterns in fields under the moonlight. Look, it says on the sign there. And they live everywhere! Aren't they so cute?"
"They're not even endangered or anything," said Harry after reading the sign next to their exhibit. "So, they just live everywhere, and dance under the full moon? Mental." It seemed ridiculous that such an animal would exist, but they did, and in numbers so great they were considered pests in some jurisdictions.
"Ooh, look, there are babies!" said Tracey, pointing at a group of tiny mooncalves playing together. "I wish I could take them home! But they only come out under the full moon."
Harry and Tracey stayed with the mooncalves a while longer, until Tracey grew bored and left the exhibit through the opposite end. They emerged into a part of the zoo containing various kinds of magical reptile – including a large number of snakes, which Harry could hear chattering. Tracey went off to look at something called a snallygaster, leaving Harry stood by a massive terrarium filled with six foot long three-headed snakes called Runespoors.
Harry had always thought being able to talk to animals would be interesting – muggles wrote books and made films about it, even – and when he learned he could talk to snakes he was initially quite excited.
He quickly found out that snakes very rarely had anything interesting to say.
Most snakes were overly concerned with their next meal, or the best places to laze in the sun. All of his conversations with snakes – not that there had been many – had gone in much the same way. The snatches of conversation he caught from the Runespoors was rather more intriguing than any of that, however.
"We can't just sit here all afternoon day-dreaming," complained the right-most head of the Runespoor nearest to Harry.
"There's not much else for us to do," said the left head. "Could climb that branch again, I suppose. That sounds like something we could do."
"We're getting a new nest soon," said the middle head. "Lots of branches… More space… I saw it."
Harry looked around the terrarium for the sign explaining what Runespoors were. When he found it, he scanned it quickly.
The Runespoor – native to the African country of Burkina Faso, Runespoors are unique for their prophetic ability and are known for having three heads. Runespoors will sometimes bite off their own right head for being too critical. They are extremely venomous and can grow to lengths of more than seven feet.
Harry looked around to check whether he was alone, and saw there was no one around.
"You can see the future?" asked Harry. As soon as he spoke the Runespoor - two of its heads, anyway – looked right at him, and regarded him with interest.
"Our middle head sees, sometimes," said the right head. "And usually sits there uselessly, dreaming."
"All you do is complain," said the left head. "It's not like you have any bright ideas yourself, it's just pick, pick, pick with you."
Remembering what the sign had said, Harry attempted to defuse their argument.
"I'm sure you're all useful," he said. "No need to argue. I've never met a Runespoor before."
"We've never meet a speaker before," said the left head.
"I've seen one," mumbled the middle head.
"Imagined it, more like," said the right head. "Head full of nonsense, you've got." It looked at Harry with those inscrutable serpentine eyes. "Don't have much to say, do you? What's the point in a speaker who doesn't speak?"
Harry thought that was probably a fair assessment from the Runespoor's point of view. He just wasn't used to snakes having anything interesting to say.
"How long have you lived at the zoo?" he asked.
"Forever," said the left head. "We were hatched here."
"We'll always be here," said the middle head. "It's nice. Lots of food. People to see."
"How does it work, then, seeing the future?" Harry asked the middle head. "Do you have to do anything, or does it just…"
"I see." The middle head dipped in what Harry assumed was like a shrug, but for a snake. "I see you, and another," the middle head started to say, before another, larger Runespoor slithered over and interrupted it.
"What's this, then? A speaker?" asked the new Runespoor's leftmost head. "You can't keep this to yourself!"
"No one's keeping me," said Harry. "I can talk to you all. See? It's fine!"
Soon enough Harry was faced with three separate Runespoors – with nine semi-independent heads – all wanting to talk with him. He'd never been so popular.
"Blood and venom," hissed the middle head of the first Runespoor. "That's what I see…"
"Can you get us out?" asked the left head of the second Runespoor. "We want to be free…"
"You just want to eat the fat little children," admonished its right head.
"I see big snakes, hunters…" hissed the middle head of the third Runespoor. "Mmm."
"Why didn't you tell me you could talk to snakes?" asked Tracey, jerking Harry out of his conversation with the snakes. "That's amazing! It's so rare, there's only been Salazar Slytherin and You-Know-Who… oh. I didn't think about it like that, I'm sorry…" she said. "I suppose that's why you never said, isn't it?"
Harry shrugged.
"Yeah, something like that." He knew that some people considered it a Dark ability, and even if that hadn't been the case, it was another thing that linked him to Voldemort. It seemed like the sort of thing best kept to himself – and the snakes he talked to, he supposed.
It's not like they can tell anyone, anyway, he thought.
"Well, I won't say anything to anyone, I swear! But it is a really special ability to have… No wonder you're in Slytherin! What are they saying?" Tracey paused. "If you don't mind saying."
"Most snakes only want to talk about food or sunny places to sleep, but these ones are arguing about a fair bit. That middle Runespoor wants to escape the zoo, and the one on the left keeps having visions and arguing about them with its other heads… Runespoors are probably the most interesting snakes I've ever spoken to," said Harry. "They seem smarter… even if they're a bit distracted by all their heads."
"This one does not speak?" inquired one of the Runespoors' right heads.
"We shall bite it if you remove the glass," offered the left head of the first Runespoor.
"No, I don't want anyone bitten," said Harry, "and I can't get rid of the glass, sorry."
"Disappointing."
"What are they saying?"
"Erm, well, one of them has a head that wants to bite you," Harry said. "Because you can't speak to snakes." He shrugged. "Sorry."
"Well, it's not your fault," said Tracey. She moved a bit further away from the terrarium. "It's still cool that you can understand them, though. But I do get why you never said. You shouldn't be ashamed of it, though… I mean, not to say that you are, but you… well…"
Harry turned away from the snakes to face Tracey better. And he wasn't quite sure how to control the ability, so he didn't want to accidentally speak in Parseltongue.
"I'm not ashamed," he said eventually. "It's just not something I want everyone to know about, that's all. I didn't realise it was anything unusual until last year, and then I heard it was something only Voldemort could do, and it was just…" Harry shrugged. "But I don't mind you knowing about it. We should move away from these snakes here, though—they're getting a bit pushy."
"Stay and we will See for you all afternoon!" offered one of the Runespoors. It may even have been an intriguing opportunity, if only Harry hadn't already had his fill of bloody prophecies and Seeing.
"Er—yeah, okay," said Tracey. She started walking away from the terrarium, and Harry followed her. "Who do you think you got it from, though? It goes in families, everyone says that. The Potters were never known for… well, I suppose maybe they didn't want to say anything, but…"
"I never thought about that," said Harry. "It has to be from my dad, though, doesn't it? My mum was a muggleborn."
"Well, I know that some people say muggleborns can't have rare powers like that, but I don't think it's true," Tracey said. "So I think it could be your mam. Or maybe it started with you!"
"Maybe I'll ask my aunt about it," said Harry, but he wasn't sure he actually intended to. It was the sort of thing Petunia might know, but not want to talk about, and Harry didn't want to rock the boat on what had been a rather nice holiday so far.
"I want to go see the karkadanns next," said Tracey. "What do you think? Or we could go somewhere else, if you want—I don't mind."
"Er, nah—the karkadanns are good with me," Harry said, glad Tracey had changed the subject. He wanted to have a look at a real karkadann, anyway. He assumed the game piece he'd seen, and the pictures in the books, hadn't done them justice.
"Brilliant!" said Tracey. "It's this way!"
The karkadann paddock was on the opposite side of the zoo from the dragons, and not too far away from the reptile enclosures. When they arrived, Harry saw a fairly large herd of karkadanns with perhaps as many as thirty individuals grazing near the middle of the paddock.
The books and even the photographs Harry had seen were totally insufficient in capturing the raw power, the primal beauty, of the karkadann. 'Like a unicorn' was a poor description for the beasts, which were less like horses and almost like bulls. Powerful forelegs with thick, rippling muscles led to a strong, broad head, atop which a ludicrously large and pointed horn sat at the very centre of their heads above the eyes. The females stood about a head shorter than the lone male in the herd and had shorter – but no less dangerous-looking - horns. They had short, dappled coats with a pattern that looked almost like blood-spatter, blotches of a deep red against fine silver.
Where Harry had read that unicorns exuded an aura of beauty and grace, the karkadanns gave off an almost palpable sense of awe, a feeling that rose in his chest and spread to fill his body. Watching the male look over its herd and raise its head to the sky felt almost, to Harry, like a call to war. A shiver ran up his spine and he had to look away before he inexplicably did something silly, like shout or try to roar like a lion.
"Karkadanns are amazing," Harry said. "I've never seen anything like them!"
"They're brilliant," agreed Tracey. "You can see why African and Arabian wizards used to ride them in battles, can't you? It's meant to be really hard to get one to let you ride it. Of course, they kill their riders sometimes, if they don't respect them enough…"
Harry glanced back at the herd.
"I can believe that. They look like they won't take shit from anything."
"The info board says that in the wild, they can sometimes fight dragons and nundus," read Tracey. "It sounds like it would be frightening to see, but … the sort of thing you can't look away from, you know? This is one of the only herds in Europe. They go all the way back to when the Moorish conquered Spain, look, it says. I'm glad we came to see them. I thought they would be prettier because they're related to unicorns, you know, but they don't need to be, do they?"
"I'm happy we saw them, too," said Harry. Zoos weren't usually the kind of outing he would enjoy, but wizarding zoos were full of animals he'd never even considered might exist. Where else would he have seen dragons, Runespoors, and karkadanns over the same afternoon? Even their visit to the museum earlier in the afternoon had given him things to think about, a window into a world of magic that his school lessons only gave the briefest of mentions.
In a way, he felt as if he'd been introduced to a whole array of new known unknowns – bits and pieces of knowledge that he was missing that he'd never known he was missing, that now he had a name for, and a concept of. It felt almost as if he knew nothing at all, and that even the things he knew he didn't know would be dwarfed by the things he didn't know that he didn't know.
And he couldn't help but wonder what sort of things Voldemort knew that Harry hadn't known to think about. The gulf between the pair of them had never seemed quite so massive.
Harry and Tracey stood there watching the karkadann herd in silence for a little while longer, until the area outside the paddock filled up with other tourists wanting a look, too.
"Let's go back and find everyone," said Tracey eventually. "I don't think they'll still be at the manticore but with Illtud you never know…"
"Yeah, alright," said Harry. "What is a manticore, anyway?"
"It's this really creepy magical creature. They're as smart as people but they only really want to kill and fight, so basically nowhere treats them as Beings, only Beasts," said Tracey. "I don't think they should put them in zoos, honestly—but you can't just let them roam about either because they'll go after muggles…"
"That's rough," said Harry.
The pair weaved their way through the other witches and wizards on their way to find Tracey's family, and Harry felt glad nobody seemed to recognise him in Spain. It was good to be anonymous. When they reached the manticore, Tracey's family had already left and Harry didn't feel like sticking around to gawp at an imprisoned being that wanted to kill him, so they left immediately to find them. After searching several of the other exhibits – the jabberknolls, the jarveys, and the Nifflers –Harry and Tracey found the rest of Tracey's family at the edge of the hippocampus exhibit.
"Get on alright?" asked Colin when the pair of them returned.
"Yes!" said Tracey. "We went to see the mooncalves, and we saw Runespoors, and the karkadanns as well! The karkadanns were brilliant," she said. "What's here?" she asked. "Oh! Hippocampuses! Hippocampi? They're so pretty!"
Harry leaned over the railing to have a look in the water. Hippocampi were, apparently, aquatic horses with fish tails. A bunch of them – a herd? A school? Harry wasn't sure what the nomenclature was for something part horse and part fish – swam around in the water of their exhibit. A pathway led downwards to an underground to view the rest of the tank, but Tracey's family had gathered around the above-ground viewing area.
"There's some of these in the lake at Hogwarts, you know," said Gwen. "The merpeople keep them. They're not native, of course—they live around Greece and Italy mostly, according to the sign."
"Muggle fishing and tourism is driving them out of their usual habitats, so this zoo breeds them," said Nan. "That's the story for a lot of magical creatures, these days. Nowhere to go, see. I don't like zoos, I really don't—creatures should be out in the wild, doing what they do—but zoos like this one do good work. It's just a shame they have to."
"I want to be a con… conts… costser…" he wrinkled his face and changed his tactics. "A cadwraethwr when I grow up," said Illtud. "Not just for dragons, but everything. I've decided," he declared.
"Fancy yourself the next Newt Scamander, do you, Illtud?" said Colin. "Well, keep at it, and I'm sure you can do it."
"It's getting a bit late," said Nan. "We should be getting back for supper, and I'm sure Harry's family won't want him gone all day and night."
Colin pulled an antique watch from his robe pocket and looked at it before nodding.
"Your mum's right," he said to Gwen. "We should be getting back, and we still need to catch the Portkey back to Harry's hotel."
"Oh, I was going to Side-Along him back, now that I've seen it," said Gwen with a wave of her hand. "But Ffrancis is getting sleepy so we should be getting back. It's not good for him to stay up late, you know how he gets…"
Ffrancis mumbled something in Welsh, and Gwen reached down to squeeze his shoulder.
"Right then," said Colin, "off to the Portkey stop! Ewch!"
Tracey's family and Harry made their way back through the zoo towards the Portkey stop on the little hill that overlooked everything while Illtud chattered about the various animals he had seen, with other parts of the family offering little bits of commentary. Tracey and Harry walked slightly behind everyone else chatting about nothing in particular, which Harry found to be quite nice. It was nice being – or pretending to be, at least – an ordinary wizard with concerns to match.
They made it back to the Portkey stop just in time for the next one out, and once again Harry found himself back in the main boulevard of Witch's Row, the magical enclave in Barcelona. The street was a little less busy in the early evening, and although the air felt warmer than up in the mountains, it was cooler than it had been that afternoon.
The crowd around the Portkey back from the zoo dispersed once it had arrived back in Barcelona, Harry and the Davis family included. Gwen directed them all further down the main boulevard, and waved along Colin, Nan and the two younger boys.
"Give us a minute," she said to Colin, who moved Illtud and Ffrancis along. "Tracey, you'll have to say goodbye to Harry now; I'll Side-Along him right after and Apparate straight back to Nan's friend's." Gwen moved away to give them a bit more privacy, although she didn't go quite so far as Colin and the rest of the family.
Tracey reached over and drew Harry into a big hug.
"Ooh, it was lovely seeing you!" said Tracey. "I suppose the next time we see each other will be at the station, or on the train. Well, there's always letters but it's not really the same is it?" She let Harry go.
"Thanks for inviting me," said Harry. "I had a really nice time. It was fun, even the alchemy museum… mostly. And thanks for not being weird about the snake thing. I've never told anyone before…" He supposed that he hadn't really told Tracey, either, but that didn't seem to matter that much. She knew, and she didn't seem to think it was anything especially bad.
"It's just lucky we were here at the same time! And really it's so easy to just pop over and grab you the wizard way that it's no trouble at all! Well, it was never any bother for me since I didn't have to do anything, but Mam Apparates all the time so she doesn't mind doing Side-Alongs," said Tracey. "I know what some people say about it, but it's just magic, isn't it? I think it's really cool, and I won't say anything to anyone." She shrugged.
"Brilliant!" said Harry. "I'll see you at the train, then. Have a nice rest of your holiday—tell everyone I said goodbye!"
"I will!" said Tracey. "They all liked you, I could tell! I think Mam wants us to hurry up now anyway, so I'd better get going. Have fun and I'll send you a letter for your birthday definitely!" She joined the rest of her family and started waving at him.
Gwen came back over gestured to Harry's robes.
"Probably best to get out of those and put your wand away. I'll Apparate us to the Portkey stop, and you can see yourself back from there. Is that alright?"
"That's perfect, thank you," said Harry. He took off his robe and then rolled it up around his wand. "I'm ready to go."
"Grab my arm then, my lovely, and we'll get you back to your hotel." Gwen stuck out her arm, and almost as soon as Harry grabbed it, he was sucked into the Apparition vortex and spat out at the Portkey spot near to his hotel. "Everything still attached?" asked Gwen. She looked him over and then declared him fit to leave. "It was lovely to meet you, Harry. You're all set to get back?"
Harry nodded, and then remembered the pouch full of money he'd brought along to pay for things. He hadn't needed it, since Tracey's family had automatically paid for everything, but he would have felt rude to not settle up before he left.
"I've got some money here with me to pay for everything," he said, but Gwen cut him off before he could finish.
"No need for that, Harry! It's all sorted. We'd do the same for any of the kids' friends, so don't worry yourself about that. It's very nice of you to think about it, but you don't need to," said Gwen immediately.
"Er, thanks," said Harry awkwardly.
"Off you go then! Have a good time with your family," said Gwen with a little wave. She watched him walk away, and then disappeared with a loud crack. Harry made his way back to the hotel which wasn't very far away at all and headed right for their villa, since he knew given how late in the day it was that his aunt and uncle would be there preparing to go out for dinner.
He had to knock on the door since he didn't have his own room key, and after waiting a few moments a red-faced Dudley opened the door and grunted at him.
"Harry's back," he said before returning to sit on his bed.
Harry stepped inside the air-conditioned room and gently shut the door behind him. Vernon grunted to acknowledge Harry's return and went back to reading his newspaper. Petunia looked up from where she sat curling her hair and gave Harry a little smile.
"Did you have nice time with your friend?" she asked.
Harry nodded.
"Yes, it was really good—we went to a museum and then the zoo," he said. "And we had lunch at a café in, um, I forgot what the Spanish name is but in English it's called Witch's Row."
"Oh, how lovely," said Petunia. "I hope you were polite and minded your manners—you know what I always say about rudeness."
"Yes, Aunt Petunia," said Harry. "I remembered to say thank you and I was always polite. And Tracey's mum didn't mind picking me up, since it's really easy for wizards to get around. The zoo wasn't even in Barcelona—it was all the way out in the mountains!"
"Wonderful," said Petunia. She turned back to the mirror and started doing her hair again. "Hurry up and have a shower—I've laid out your clothes ready on your bed—and we can get going for dinner."
"I didn't think wizards would have zoos," said Dudley. "It's not normal animals and that, is it?"
"Nah," said Harry. "This one had dragons and karkadanns and three-headed snakes, stuff like that."
"Dragons?" said Vernon, peeking over the top of his newspaper. "Your lot keeps bloody dragons in zoos? Mad, completely mad."
"Well, we have to put them somewhere," said Harry. "There's a reserve in Scotland and one in Wales, so the dragons we've got back home aren't exactly out in the wild but they're not in zoos either. I think the Spanish wizards wanted to use theirs for tourism, though. You know, make some money."
Vernon snorted.
"Not so different from the regular Spaniards that way, then," he said, and chortled to himself.
"Er, yeah, I suppose," said Harry. He grabbed his clothes and then went for a shower. Although Dudley hadn't finished getting ready yet either, Harry didn't want to be the cause for any delays. By the time Harry had dried himself off and gotten dressed, Dudley was still lounging on his bed and Vernon had sat himself out on the patio to watch the people walk by.
It didn't matter to Harry, who was ready to go – except for his hair, which he hadn't intended to try combing anyway, since it never made any difference – so Harry sat on his bed to wait until his aunt kicked Dudley into gear. While he was waiting, he remembered something that Tracey had suggested, and thought his aunt looked to be in a good enough mood to risk asking a potentially sensitive question.
"Aunt Petunia?" he asked quietly. "Did my mum ever—I mean, did you ever notice her talking to snakes? I know there's not many about but when you were younger, maybe?"
Petunia stopped packing her handbag for the evening and turned to look at him. She had a strange look on her face, one that Harry didn't recognise, but within moments it was gone.
"I think… I'm not sure," she said eventually, "but I do think that I saw her speaking to snakes when we were very small. But Lily did so many unusual things that I... Why? Was that… unusual for—for people like the two of you?"
"Er, yeah," said Harry. "It's really unusual. I can do it, too, and there's never been any mention of Potters having the ability in any of the books or anything like that, so I just thought… I mean I wondered if maybe I got it from my mum, instead."
"Well, I can't be sure, Harry," said Petunia, "it was a long time ago, and Lily was very…" She trailed off and went silent for a few moments. "From what I understand your mother was very talented, but it was always so hard to know what she was good at. We weren't really supposed to know."
Harry nodded. It was as good an answer as he was going to get, he thought, and probably a much better answer than anyone else currently living could give. With the stigma attached to Parseltongue and those who spoke it, maybe his mother would have never mentioned it to another living soul even if she had been a Parselmouth.
"Thank you, Aunt Petunia. I appreciate you saying."
She smiled a tight, forced little smile.
"Go and see what's keeping your uncle on the patio, Harry," she said, "while I get Dudley up and about. It's past time for dinner."
Harry nodded and got up. He realised he was being sent on a pointless job to end the conversation, but he didn't mind. His aunt had always found it hard talking about his mother, and he supposed that talking about his mother and her magical talents was probably very difficult for her. When Harry and Vernon came back in from the patio area, Dudley was ready and they all left the hotel to go for dinner.
The rest of the holiday passed by almost in the blink of an eye – days spent swimming, go-karting and the odd day-trip organised by Petunia –until Harry's first foreign holiday was over, and it was time to get on the plane back to England.