Unspoken Chapter 5: Christmas holidays to remember, a harry potter fanfic

Unspoken
by Teddylonglong

Please refer to chapter 1 for my disclaimer and warnings. Thank you.

Connie was over the moon with joy, when Harry informed her later the same day that she was allowed to accompany him to the Unspeakables' office during the Christmas holidays.

"Ah, I can't wait. Thank you, Harry." She quickly hugged him in apparent delight.

Harry did not overly like hugs, but Regina and Rebecca had seen to it that he had quickly got used to hugs and kisses. "Yeah, it's cool," he agreed, grinning happily.

'I just summoned my magic and strongly wished to bond with you,' Lucy informed him. 'Are you going to bond with Connie, too?'

'I want to try,' Harry replied, feeling uncertain but excited at the same time, resolving to try it out on Christmas. 'She will be happy, too,' he thought in a bout of rare confidence.

Christmas Day was spent at Regina's home. She had invited the Coxs as well as Rebecca and Artemis, stating that with Dolly at her side, it would be easy to accommodate them all from breakfast to dinner on Christmas Day.

To Harry's relief, the Coxs had no problem accepting Dolly in spite of the fact that she was an elf, something that was unheard of in the muggle world. In fact, Dolly was the only elf whom Harry had ever met so far; however, he had heard that wizards and witches used to occupy so-called house-elves for house keeping tasks. Personally, he was very fond of Dolly. She was as kind to him as Regina and seemed to possess strong magic, just like Rebecca and Artemis.

While they were still eating breakfast on this Christmas morning, Lucy made her way over to the Christmas tree and tried to crawl under the tree, where Harry could see small piles of colourfully wrapped presents.

"Lucy, what are you doing? Come here," he called her back in light irritation, considering that Regina had already told Connie and him that they had to eat breakfast, before they were allowed to look for their presents.

'Something under the tree smells good,' the canine informed him, when she obediently returned to his side.

Shortly later, Lucy was then allowed to retrieve a big bone from under the tree, which she began to devour with obvious eagerness. At the same time, Harry and Connie opened their presents in absolute delight. They were especially excited about Harry's trainset of the Hogwarts Express in combination with a set of small animals, which Connie received, and spent the rest of the morning making the animals travel from London to Hogsmeade and back.

"Can we sometime go to Hogsmeade?" Connie looked questioning at Rebecca, and Harry looked up from the trainset in expectation.

"We can do that," Rebecca promised, smiling. "Perhaps sometime during a weekend. Why don't you continue open your gifts, by the way? I can still see presents under the tree."

The two children exchanged a surprised look. "Oh right, the trainset is so cool that we completely forgot," Connie explained, grinning.

However, when they each received a book, 'The Tales of Beedle the Bard' and 'The five Magical Friends – Book 1', they were over the moon with joy.

"Regina, will you help us read them?" Harry asked in excitement.

"Of course, dear, although I believe that the two of you are almost proficient enough to read them by yourselves."

"The five magical friends is a series of about twenty-five books, and we absolutely loved them, when we were children," Rebecca informed them, causing Regina to nod, smiling.

Before the children could spend the whole afternoon engrossing themselves in their new books, the adults ushered them out into the garden to build a snowman.

Harry and Connie did their best to make three large snowballs to put the snowman together. "I suppose you could do that much better using magic," Connie gasped, when they had finally managed to put the third ball on top of the other two without having the two top balls collapse.

Harry shrugged. "I don't know how."

"Okay, we still need a hat, a broom and a carrot for the nose," Connie decided, just when Artemis joined them outside.

"Artemis, can you make a hat and a carrot for the snowman please?" Harry asked, before he summoned his broom from its usual place under the roof near the kitchen door.

The older wizard obeyed and transfigured a small snowball into a carrot, before he gently lifted Connie up, so that she could stick it into the snowman's face.

"Thank you."

Just when Harry had equipped the snowman with his broomstick, Artemis lifted Connie up once more, so that she could put the hat on the snowman's head.

"What? Where's the carrot?" Connie alerted them to the fact that something was missing.

The three of them stared at the empty face of the snowman in surprise, before Harry noticed Lucy sit on a spot under the roof, which was snow-free, eagerly munching a carrot.

"Lucy!" he lightly scolded her. "That was for the snowman."

=It's good. I love these.=

"When did she take it? I didn't even notice her." Connie stared at the canine in apparent disbelief, before she turned to Artemis, smiling.

Chuckling as well, Artemis made another carrot for the snowman, before he ushered them into the house. "You can admire your work from inside, before she decides that she needs another carrot, because you never feed her," he decided, jokingly.

During dinner, Artemis told them stories about Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. "As you might know, I am the caretaker there using my other persona, Argus Filch, who is an old Squib." He quickly confirmed that everyone knew what a Squib was, before he continued.

"This morning at breakfast, Professor McGonagall, our deputy headmistress, asked the headmaster if he had heard anything about Harry and if he was sure that Harry was really all right with his relatives. Unbeknownst to the headmaster, she is aware that we took Harry from his relatives and have Regina raising him here. We told her, because she was always worried about Harry and thinks of him as of a grandson. Sorry, Harry, we meant to introduce her to you much sooner, but I promise you now that we will do that shortly. Anyway, it was quite funny. Professor Dumbledore assured her that Harry was safe, only to receive a collective verbal attack from all of his female colleagues."

"I'm sorry, but why does the headmaster of a school decide where a boy should be raised?" John asked in apparent disbelief.

Rebecca let out a deep sigh. "Professor Dumbledore holds several important positions in the magical world and believes to be entitled to do as he wishes, and as we saw in Harry's case, he was able to do so. He is about one hundred and fifty years old and has many friends. He claims that everything he does is for as the calls it the greater good. We don't know why he is as obsessed with Harry as he seems to be, but we will try to keep him in the dark about Harry's whereabouts as well as his studies."

When the children were sitting on the sofa after dinner with Lucy lightly snoring between them, Harry thought, 'I'll do it now.' Glancing at Connie, who was skimming her new book, he tried to summon his magic like Devil had taught him and, putting as much magic as he could into his wish, thought, 'I want to bond with Connie.'

Unaware that Lucy nudged him in an attempt to make him stop what he was doing, he suddenly noticed a bright, golden glow, before everything turned black.

By the time Harry's mind returned to awareness, he found himself lying on the sofa with Lucy cuddled against his back. When he looked up, he noticed an Unspeakable standing at his side with their wand pointed at him. However, he could not help feeling very happy.

"You have depleted your magic to a great extent, you foolish boy. No magic whatsoever before I'll tell you otherwise, which will be in a fortnight at the earliest. Come to see me in a few days' time."

"Yes sir," Harry promised, knowing that it had to be one of the Unspeakables' healers, and he knew where to find them.

"Harry, are you all right?" Connie pressed herself between the Unspeakable and himself. "I don't know what you did, but I feel very happy."

"Me too." Harry smiled, happily, as he hurriedly brought himself into a sitting position.

"Harry." He heard Rebecca's voice. "We believe that you cast some kind of bonding spell at Connie. Is that what you did?"

Harry nodded. "I wanted to bond with her like Lucy bonded with me."

"Excuse me, but is it normal in the magical world that five-year-olds bond to each other?" Giselle's voice was laced with bewilderment.

"Not at all." Rebecca's voice was friendly but stern. "We believe that these two are soulmates though, which per se is extremely rare in the magical world."

"I am sorry, Giselle and John," Regina apologized.

John chuckled. "Looking at my daughter, I believe that it was the best that could have happened to her. While she generally is a bright child, I've never seen her that happy before."

"I am very happy!" Connie grinned broadly.

"What exactly is the effect of this bonding?" Giselle did not seem convinced yet.

"That we don't know yet." Rebecca let out a deep sigh. "I suppose that only time will tell."

"I can feel that Harry is happy, too." Connie said, seemingly thoughtful.

'Can you hear me?' Harry thought to her, just like he used to think to Lucy.

She stared at him, wide-eyed. "Yes, how did you do that?"

Harry chuckled. 'Just think what you want to tell me and direct your thought to me. Don't say it aloud.'

'Like this?'

Rebecca groaned. "Apparently, they're able to communicate by telepathy."

Connie nodded in obvious eagerness. "It's totally cool. Thanks, Harry, for bonding with me."

"Five-year-olds," Artemis uttered, shaking his head at the children, before he rose from his seat. "I'm afraid that I'll have to return to Hogwarts. As to what I said earlier, Regina or Rebecca, why don't you invite Professor McGonagall for New Year's Eve? She might be able to have the headmaster excuse her from dinner for once."

"Thanks, Artemis. We'll do so. Perhaps, it would be the easiest if Mrs. Figg could invite her?"

Rebecca nodded. "I'll floo call her tomorrow."

"Cool. I can't wait to get to know the professor," Connie stated in obvious pleasure.

"Me too," Harry agreed, happily.

On Monday morning, Harry gently pressed Lucy's paw and Connie's hand against the pendant. "This might feel a little uncomfortable," he warned Connie, before he touched the canine pendant himself and uttered, "Team 13."

"Good morning, Connie, welcome to the Unspeakables. Good morning, Harry. This is our colleague, Nicholas." Rebecca introduced Archie, who greeted the girl as friendly as he used to speak with Harry. "Now, I am going to take Connie to Croaker. Harry, will you please accompany us."

Somehow, Harry felt insecure. As happy as he had felt and still was due to the bonding with Connie, he had realised that the adults were not exactly happy about what he had done, stating more than once that they were much too young for such a thing. 'They should have noticed by now that I'm a freak. Perhaps, the Dursleys were right,' he could not help thinking. However, during the last couple of days, except for a stern word from Regina and Rebecca stating that he should ask them before doing any other stunt, nothing had happened.

Nevertheless, the Unspeakables could be a different matter, but to his relief, Croaker behaved as if nothing had happened, even if Harry was almost certain that the head Unspeakable was aware of the matter, considering that Rebecca and Artemis had called the healer to help him.

"I wonder why someone who cannot do magic is interested enough in magic to want to study with the Unspeakables." Croaker smiled at the girl, who was sitting there displaying clear eagerness.

"I love what Harry can do, and even if I can't do magic myself, I want to learn all about it, even though I'm a muggle. Apart from that, Harry told me he will try to invent something to give his mother and me magic, and I just know that he will succeed. He's amazing."

"Yes, he is a very talented wizard indeed," Croaker agreed and mumbled something about priorities, which Harry could not comprehend. "Now, several of our colleagues have agreed to teach the two of you during these two weeks, and I have order to remind you, Harry, to not do magic whatsoever for at least two weeks. Is that clear?"

"Yes sir." Harry nodded in promise.

"Very well. Now, Lorenzo will be the first to teach you this morning."

"Thank you, Croaker. Eh, does Connie need Unspeakable robes?"

"Yes, of course." Turning to Connie, he added, "After these two weeks, I shall ask you if you wish to become a Mini Unspeakable like Harry. Please thoroughly consider the matter, as it might not be as interesting for you as for him. Nevertheless, I can imagine several things, which you would be able to do to support our teams without magic. Now, let's get you some proper robes. Before you return home tonight, I wish to see the two of you again. Please think about an Unspeakable name for Connie until then."

"I see you finally brought your friend." Lorenzo greeted them in apparent delight.

'What is he?' Connie thought to him, causing Harry to inwardly grin, as he remembered the time when he had seen Lorenzo for the first time.

'He's a centaur, but he's really nice,' he quickly thought back.

"Thank you for accepting me, sir," Connie replied, looking at the centaur with apparent interest.

"As I am sure Paws here has already informed you, you are his soulmate. We centaurs are experts at studying the future displayed by the relations of the planets to each other. First of all, I am going to teach you the basics, which you need to know to efficiently study the constellations. For us centaurs, they help predict the future. For you, however, there might be an additional merit. It will be extremely difficult to achieve and will take years for you to get to this point, but as his soulmate, you might be able to tap into his magic and use it, however, only when several speres are in special positions to each other, which might only happen once in a few years. More research would be required for this if you were interested. The research per se won't afford magic." He looked at Connie in expectation.

"Of course, sir. I want it." Connie stared at the centaur, wide-eyed.

"Yes sir. Please teach us," Harry added.

However, Lorenzo shook his head. "Paws, you're going to have other matters to study."

During the week before the end of the year, Lorenzo taught the two five-year-olds Maths as well as basic knowledge about planets and their constellations. In the afternoons, they had lessons with Archie, who informed them about the different kinds of materials and their use in the magical world.

Both, Lorenzo and Archie, were fantastic teachers, and Harry and Connie enjoyed themselves greatly.

When Croaker called Connie and Harry into his office on Friday afternoon and asked if she liked studying with the Unspeakables so far, she returned a positive reply laced with obvious delight.

"As to your Unspeakable name, what do you think of Turtle? A turtle has stamina, which is what you need here to achieve your goals. According to Lorenzo, who suggested the name for you, there are more reasons for this choice, which you will, however, only realise in due time."

Connie grinned broadly. "Still, it is absolutely fitting. Thank you very much, Croaker."

Croaker nodded. "Remember that apart from Lorenzo only your teammates may know about your real identity. On multiple requests coming from Team 13, I will add you to that specific team, to which Paws belongs as well."

"Thank you very much." This time, Harry for once bet Connie to a response.

"During the next week, you will only have two hours with each of your teachers, and in addition, Ninja will teach you about the ways of goblin financing and crafting."

"Cool," Harry replied in surprise. So far, Buckbean had only taught him about the basics of goblin fighting.

Connie nodded. "Everything seems to be interesting here. I love it. No wonder that Harry seems always bored in our primary school."

Croaker merely chuckled, knowingly.

The following evening was New Year's Eve, and while the children were disappointed to not have lessons with the Unspeakables, they became excited, when Regina informed them that Professor McGonagall from Hogwarts would be coming to spend the evening with them.

"May I be here, too?" Connie asked, wide-eyed.

"Of course, dear. Your parents will join us, too, as will Rebecca and Artemis. Remember that Professor McGonagall must not know that Artemis is working at Hogwarts in his Argus Filch form. She must believe that Rebecca and Artemis have nothing to do with the school."

"Yes, we know that. The Unspeakables remind us every day that their names and identity must remain unspoken outside the office."

Harry nodded, looking at Connie in amusement. She was like a sponge and soaked up everything that people once said to her. Whenever someone repeated something, she became agitated. It was not as if she was impolite and said something; he only knew about it, because he could sense her feelings.

"Regina?" Connie suddenly looked excited. "May we wear our robes tonight?"

Regina remained pensive for a moment, before she decided, "We'll ask Rebecca later on. Considering that we're at home, I don't think that it's necessary, but if you wish, you can of course wear them and take them off at any time."

When Professor McGonagall arrived, both children were waiting at a short distance to the fireplace to give her the required space with Lucy sitting between them.

"Good evening, Professor McGonagall," they chorused, almost as if they had practised how to greet the professor.

"Professor McGonagall, thank you for joining us tonight." Regina greeted the old witch, shaking her head at them in apparent amusement.

"Harry." The old witch seemed delighted to see him for some reason that Harry could not understand.

"This is Connie, my best friend," he quickly introduced the girl.

"Hello Connie." McGonagall returned Connie's smile, just when Rebecca and Artemis arrived together with Giselle and John, and Rebecca introduced the Coxs as Regina's neighbours.

"Dinner is served." Dolly motioned everyone into the dining room; however, she did not take her usual seat at the table.

"Professor McGonagall," Regina addressed the old witch, "Dolly has been my elf since I was eleven and cast out of the family. Before Harry came to me, she and Rebecca were my only family. Therefore, she always takes the meals together with us. Would it offend you if she did so?"

"Of course not, and please just call me Minerva."

"Thank you, Minerva. Dolly, please sit down and let's eat."

Harry and the Coxs listened eagerly, when the professor told them many things about Hogwarts. To Harry's amusement, Connie asked many questions, as she always used to do, and the professor patiently answered each of them.

When they had finished their dinner, she pulled a rectangular package out of her robe pocket. "Harry, this is a belated Christmas present for you. It was my favourite book, when I was a little older than you and able to read by myself."

"We are able to read." Connie sounded indignant and at the same excited, when Harry profusely thanked the professor and carefully took off the wrapping paper.

"We love books," he added and deciphered, 'Hogwarts: A History.'

"Oh, that's brilliant. We will read it together. Thank you so much, Professor." When Harry handed her the book, realising that she was impatient to get her hands onto it, Connie curiously opened it, causing the professor to chuckle.

"Do I see a future Ravenclaw here?"

Connie's expression sobered instantly. "No, Professor, I will never be able to attend Hogwarts, unfortunately."

McGonagall looked from her to Harry. "And why might that be?"

"I am a muggle."

Seeing that the professor's eyes narrowed in apparent shock, Harry added, "But she is my soulmate and a Mini Unspeakable just like me. She knows as much about magic as I do."