Unspoken
by Teddylonglong
Please refer to chapter 1 for my disclaimer and warnings. Thank you.
It was almost an hour later that Regina and Remus emerged from the dining room in apparent happiness.
Harry was the first to find words. "Congratulations, Mum and Remus."
"Congratulations, Regina and Remus. I couldn't wish for a nicer brother-in-law," Rebecca added and hugged her sister and Remus, before everyone else followed congratulating the happy couple.
HP
During the rest of the week, Harry, Lily, Rebecca and Artemis spent much time brewing as many doses of the wolvescure as they could, while Croaker made an arrangement with Healer O'Brian, the head healer of St. Mungo's and promised to deliver the potion to the hospital for one thousand Galleons per dose.
Naturally, it did not take long for the news to spread through the magical world, and in the morning of January 2, the day, on which the students were going to return to Hogwarts, the Daily Prophet announced it.
'The wolvescure – a remedy for lycanthropy by the Unspeakables'
'Unspeakables Dove, Felina, Whisker and Paws have developed a potion, which turned out to be a cure for lycanthropy. They have already delivered several doses of the cure to St. Mungo's, and two dozen werewolves have already been healed. The first werewolf to be cured is Remus Lupin, who has been a werewolf since the age of four and has been testing the Unspeakables' potions for a long time. Read his assessment of the cure on page five. All five wizards and witches have received the Order of Merlin first class, which was Minister Bagnold's last act as Minister of Magic. Read everything about the upcoming elections on page eight.'
Minerva, who had returned to Hogwarts late on New Year's Day after a week of celebrations and happiness with her family, observed in amusement how Albus stared at the headline in obvious amazement, while Severus looked outright annoyed.
"Lupin received the Order of Merlin first class just for testing potions?" Severus raised an eyebrow.
"Severus, you of all people should know how important it is to have someone trustworthy test your potion every time it needs to be tested." Minerva shook her head in annoyance.
"Who in the world are these Unspeakables? They must be former students of us." Albus looked around, questioningly.
"Why Albus, they could have been recruited from other schools, such as Beauxbatons or the German Academy of Magic. As far as we know, they could still be Hogwarts students."
Severus let out a scoff. "None of our students excels at Potions to a degree that would enable him or her to develop a cure for lycanthropy."
Minerva merely grinned.
"Minerva, please tell us what you know." Albus' voice sounded demanding, but Minerva shook her head.
"Why would I know anything, and even if I did, I'd probably be bound by an oath to not tell you anything."
Albus nodded in apparent understanding. "If I heard you correctly, there is at least one of our students involved."
Minerva showed no reaction, while Severus quirked an eyebrow in silent question.
"Perhaps," Albus continued, seemingly pensive, "we should invite one or two Unspeakables to join us on the Wizengamot. They seem to be quite brilliant."
Minerva scoffed. "How do you know that there aren't already members who are Unspeakables?"
"Do you know any?"
Minerva rolled her eyes. "Even if I knew, I wouldn't be able to tell."
"I am the head of the Wizengamot in case you haven't noticed."
"Frankly speaking, I am surprised that you still are, considering what you did to little Harry. Lord Black could have spoken up against you a long time ago."
"Ah, but Minerva, why would he do such a thing? Everyone knows that everything I ever did was for the Greater Good."
Minerva refrained from rolling her eyes at the old wizard let alone commenting.
HP
Harry was almost sad, when he had to return to Hogwarts. On the other hand, he was looking forward to meeting Draco, Neville and Hermione. While he would have liked to invite his three friends for New Year's Eve, there were too many secrets involved with his extended family to simply invite others. He could not even tell them that he was a proud recipient of the Order of Merlin first class.
'I think we should tell Mione, Draco and Neville about the Order of Merlin,' Connie thought to him, while he was sitting on the Hogwarts Express on his way to the school. 'They'll be happy for you, and they've always been keeping your secrets.'
'Riding the Hogwarts Express was a big waste of time,' Harry thought back.
'Who is sitting together with you?'
'Hermione, Draco, Neville, Ron and Ron's twin brothers, Fred and George. They're really funny and tell one joke after the next.'
'That sounds more like fun than like a waste of time. Perhaps, I can get to know them sometimes.'
'The next Quidditch match, Ravenclaw versus Slytherin, will take place in about six weeks' time. Will you come and watch?'
'Of course. I can't wait.'
Harry sighed. 'I'm not really happy to have to play against my own housemates, considering that I'm much closer to the Slytherins than to the Ravenclaws apart from Quidditch.'
He became distracted, when the twins pulled him into a conversation about prank potions.
"Ron here told us…"
"… that you were quite good at Potions…"
"… and so we thought…"
"… that you might be willing…"
"… to assist two handsome third-years…"
"… such as us…"
"… in the brewing of a prank potion."
"Sure." Harry smiled at the two boys, who seemed to be very funny. "Draco, do you know if we need Snape's permission to use the potions classroom?"
Draco nodded. "Definitely, and considering that it's you, he'll surely want to know what you're going to brew. He hates Harry with a passion," he added in the direction of the twins.
Harry remained pensive for a moment. "Can you keep a secret?"
Two red heads bobbed up and down, simultaneously.
Harry nodded, before he said, hesitantly. "I know where we could brew. Hermione, could you perhaps take them with you tomorrow after the last afternoon class?"
Hermione nodded in understanding. "Meet me in the small alcove closest to the Great Hall after the last afternoon class. We can use my Portkey together."
"Portkey?" Ronald stared at them, wide-eyed. "Where are you going?"
"To Harry's private potions lab," Hermione replied in a soothing voice. "Professor Snape will not easily allow Harry to use the Potions classroom."
"I wonder why he hates Harry, although he's so good at Potions."
Harry shrugged. "Apparently, it's because I look like my father, whom I don't even know, but they went to school together and kept fighting all the time. At least, that's what I was told. That's why I can't even play on the Slytherin team and have to play against my own house at the next Quidditch match."
"Which means that Slytherin is going to lose and it's Snape's fault." Draco sounded pleasant, causing everyone to shake their heads in apparent annoyance.
HP
"Our brother Charlie…"
"… sent us a book for Christmas."
The twins showed Harry a book. The cover was grey with white and black sparkles, and the title was kept in white letters, which were jumping up and down making it difficult to read.
'The Book of Pranks'
'Funny potions for the experienced prankster'
Harry chuckled. "Let's see. Did you have a specific potion in mind?"
Two red heads bobbed up and down. "Yes, potion number five…"
"… on page eleven."
'The colour reversal potion,' Harry read, glad that inside the book the letters remained unmoving.
"You're going to give this to everyone at the high table, so they're going to see everything in wrong colours for twenty-four hours?" Harry stared at the twins, wide-eyed. "I wouldn't want to be us if anyone finds out that it was us who brewed this."
"We can give it to the teachers…"
"… on Saturday morning…"
"… so that it won't affect their classes."
'That's only half the fun though,' Harry thought, when the twins voiced the same idea and finally decided to give it to the professors on Friday morning.
"Don't worry, Harry…"
"… They'll probably know that it was us…"
"… but no one is going to suspect a studious first-year such as you."
Harry scoffed, knowing that at least Minerva knew that he was good enough at Potions, as the Potions mastery exam had been a reoccurring topic at home during Christmas.
The three pranksters busied themselves brewing the potion from the book. Fred prepared the ingredients and Harry brewed the concoction, while George checked with the recipe that they were doing everything correctly. Three hours later, a light orange liquid was simmering in the cauldron and Harry quickly bottled the potion.
"I will call my adoptive mother's elf and ask her to bring dinner for us and to spell the potion into the teachers' breakfast on Friday morning. Let's head out into the study room."
Together, they joined Harry's friends and Connie, before Harry called Dolly.
"What does the potion do?" Hermione looked from the twins to Harry.
The twins grinned. "That's for us to know…"
"… and for you to possibly find out…"
"… on Friday," they finished together.
Connie reached out for the book lying next to Fred's plate. "May I see the book, please?"
"Connie is not a Hogwarts student but as good as potions as I am," Harry explained, smirking.
The twins nodded in apparent understanding, and Fred handed over the book, which Connie then studied in apparent amusement.
"These potions are funny, but I believe that it's good that there is the recipe for an antidote to each of them at the end of the book."
'My clever wife,' Harry thought to her. 'I hadn't even noticed.'
He should realise soon how important an antidote was going to be.
HP
Minerva inwardly sighed in relief, as she took her seat at the high table for lunch on Friday. Only very few of her colleagues joined her for lunch, and she could not even blame the others for staying away. Ever since breakfast earlier the same day, she had been feeling unwell seeing all colours inverted, and from a short conversation with Poppy after breakfast, she knew that the whole staff had been pranked by someone.
During her morning classes, she had skipped all lesson plans and made the students only perform transfigurations from objects in one colour to objects in exactly the same colour. To the sixth and seventh-years, she had merely explained how the Animagus transformation worked and made them try to change their left hands into an animal – with no results, as expected.
Suddenly, Poppy let herself sink into the seat next to her. "Minerva, do you think that it was your twins who brewed this?"
Minerva stared at her friend's greenish face in surprise. "They're only third-years."
"In any case, we need the antidote if they have any, because I need Severus to brew the potion for the Squid's flu for Hagrid and the preventive potion for everyone else."
Minerva smirked. "I know someone who will be able to brew it for you. I'll meet you in your office."
Poppy nodded and strode ahead, and feeling that she was not keen on eating anything anyway, Minerva followed swiftly. She strode by the Slytherin table. "Mr. Potter, please follow me." Seeing the boy's friends glare at her, she added, unnecessarily, "You're not in trouble. I merely need your help."
HP
On the way to the hospital wing, Minerva explained everything about the prank to him and how Madam Pomfrey needed someone who could brew the antidote and almost more importantly the Squid's flu potion.
"I can brew both," Harry offered, "if you have the recipe for the Squid's flu. The prank potion is easy, because it's in the Book of Pranks."
"The Book of Pranks?" Minerva's voice was laced with apparent disbelief. "Harry, do you know more about this potion?"
Harry let out a deep sigh. "Yes, I helped someone brew it, because they asked me for assistance. I am sorry."
"Might that someone be the Weasley twins?"
Harry inwardly groaned, as it had not been his intention to give the boys away to their strict head of house. "Please don't punish them. They seem to be quite good at brewing. If you wish to take house-points, please take them from me, as I did the actual brewing."
Completely ignoring his suggestion, Minerva asked, "Would you mind telling Madam Pomfrey the truth about having finished the Potions NEWT? She won't tell anyone, because she's bound by her Healer's oath in any case, but she'd feel more comfortable asking you for assistance."
Harry nodded. "Dolly," he called the elf who was close to a sibling to him. "Could you please get the book of pranks for me from the Weasley twins and my NEWT certificate from my room at home?"
Dolly nodded. "I will."
During the afternoon, Harry busied himself in the small potions lab behind the hospital wing brewing the potion for the Squid's flu, the preventive potion for all students and teachers and finally the antidote to the prank potion.
Pomfrey commended him greatly, before she awarded one hundred house points, which were added to Ravenclaw and Slytherin. "Now, let's head to the Great Hall, as I wouldn't want to miss the antidote, and we both should get the preventive potion."
HP
Glad that Draco and Neville had reserved a seat for him, Harry sat down and immediately gulped down his glass of pumpkin juice, knowing that it contained the preventive potion. He then turned his eyes towards the high table, wondering how the professors would react noticing that their prank potion had worn off.
"Ah, finally, I can properly see again," Dumbledore said, pleasantly, as he raised his glass of what appeared to be pumpkin juice to his colleagues. "Whatever prank it was, it must have worn off."
Minerva rolled her eyes at the old wizard, when Poppy spoke up. "Albus, just so you know, the antidote was added to our dinner, just like the preventive potion for the Squid's flu."
The headmaster's eyes widened in apparent realisation. "Ah, my dear, that's why you gave house points to Ravenclaw and Slytherin. That was a surprisingly good collaboration between the two houses."
While Filius happily bounced up and down, Severus sneered. "The only Slytherins who might work together with the Ravenclaws would be the first-years, and none of them is able to brew a preventive potion for the Squid's flu."
"Ah, Severus, but there, you're mistaken." Filius grinned in apparent happiness. "Recently, our Quidditch teams are getting along surprisingly well. Even the two captains have been working together in my class the other day. I believe that it's Mr. Potter's influence."
"Well done for overcoming the house rivalries." Albus sounded pleasant, before he leaned over to her. "Minerva, why don't you encourage your Gryffindors to participate in such inter-house endeavours?"
Minerva let out a small snort, as she refrained from pointing out who brewed the prank potion in the first place in an inter-house project. She let her eyes wander to her surrogate grandson, who was sitting between his friends at the end of the Slytherin table that was close to the high table grinning broadly.
'He's probably wondering how my colleagues can be so clueless,' she thought in amusement, knowing that only Filius had grasped the connections.
HP
On the third Saturday in February, the Quidditch match Slytherin versus Ravenclaw took place. Harry stood next to Hermione absentmindedly listening to Martin's pep talk, when his own name penetrated his ears.
The Slytherins were standing nearby, and Marcus was giving them their own talk. "This time, I don't want you to foul, especially not Harry. Remember that he's one of us, even if he has to play against us due to the professor's stupidity. It's Severus fault if we lose today. Nevertheless, do your best."
'Thanks, Marcus,' Harry thought to the older boy. 'I really feel bad playing against our own house.'
Together with the Ravenclaw team, he took into the air with Lucy sitting in front of him as usual. It was a pleasure to fly in the blazing sunshine, and after weeks of practice in the snow, Harry really enjoyed the agreeable weather, as he coursed above everyone else looking for the Snitch.
Very slowly, the pleasure of flying at least for one of his teams under the watchful eyes of Connie, Sirius, Remus, Regina, Jamie, Rose and Mr. Filch, pushed all thoughts about rather wanting to play for Slytherin from his mind.
All of a sudden, while he still had not seen a glimpse of the Snitch, his broom began to act strangely.
'Is someone cursing my broom?' he wondered, while Lucy let out a small yowl of apparent anxiousness.
"Lulu, hold on tightly. I don't know what happened. I think someone is cursing us."
'Harry, what's happening? It looks as if someone was jinxing your broom,' Whisker thought to him. 'Concentrate on the spell heading towards you and retaliate. Try to keep yourselves on the broom.'
Unbeknownst that the spectators were watching him in obvious horror, Harry held on to his broom half-heartedly, knowing that one of the safety features, which Nicholas had placed on the broom, was that the broom would never separate from him or Lucy if not by his own free will. Instead, he concentrated on the spell that was attacking his broom, while he recalled what Devil had taught him a few months ago after hearing that he was going to play on a house team. He returned the spell to its origin full force, not caring whom it was going to hit. 'Whoever it hits, the person is trying to kill us and deserves it,' he reassured himself.
A mere instant later, his broom returned to its usual calmness, and Harry slowly relaxed, noticing that Lucy did the same, and resumed his search for the Snitch, unaware and not even caring what was happening on the ground.
HP
"What is happening to Harry's broom?" Connie suddenly hissed in apparent horror."
"Someone must be jinxing his broom," Artemis as Mr. Filch whispered.
"It's Quirrell." Sirius observed the teachers' stands. "He's staring at Harry moving his lips."
"I'll kill him," Jamie growled, just when the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor's body exploded with bits and pieces being flung into the air.
To Artemis' relief, they only came down again over the Forbidden Forest. However, a small, black cloud remained for an instant, before it as well slowly made his way to the Black Forest.
"No!" Jamie suddenly hissed and flicked his wand in an attempt to capture the black cloud; however, it managed to escape into the forest.
"What was that?" Artemis asked in bewilderment.
"Apparently, Quirrell was possessed by Voldemort," Jamie explained. "Team 5 is just researching these foul objects. It sucks that it got away."
Just then, loud cheers coming from all houses but Slytherin alerted him to the fact that Harry had most likely caught the Snitch.
A mere instant later, Madam Hooch declared, "Mr. Potter caught the Snitch. Ravenclaw wins 220 – 110."
HP
Still feeling confused as to why anyone would attempt to kill him and Lucy, Harry descended to the grounds. "I'm really sorry, Marcus, sorry, Tim," he addressed the Slytherin Quidditch captain and their Seeker.
"That's all right, Harry. It's not your fault that you can't play for us." Marcus nodded, reassuringly.
"I just hope he'll allow you to play for us next year, as I really don't want to be on the team anymore. You're so much better than me."
Harry shook his head. "No. You're doing great, Tim."
"What happened with your broom, by the way?" Marcus enquired, giving him a concerned look. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine, but I've no idea what happened."
"Apparently, Professor Quirrell was possessed by Voldemort and attacked you." Connie approached him from behind. "An Unspeakable is just explaining everything to the teachers."
"Quirrell?" Harry stared at his wife in surprise.
Connie nodded, grimly. "He's dead."
"Oh no. I killed him then." Harry felt horrified.
"That was self-defence then," Hermione stated, as she stepped over to join Connie and him. "It's not your fault."
"Harry, Hermione, are you coming?" Martin, the Ravenclaw Quidditch captain, addressed them. "We're going to have a victory party in the common room."
"Sorry, Martin, but I just don't feel like celebrating right now." Harry looked from Connie to Hermione. "Let's join the adults."
HP
In the end, Harry spent the rest of the day with his family and friends in his suitcase, where they enjoyed the delicacies provided by Dolly.
"So, who is going to become the new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor?" Artemis looked at Minerva with apparent curiosity.
Minerva let out a deep sigh. "The problem is that the position is cursed, and whoever accepts the job, can only do it for a year. In fact, I've suggested to Albus to offer the position to Remus and Sirius many times, however, he always refused so far, even if I pointed out that Remus isn't a werewolf anymore."
The two Marauders exchanged a look.
"It's probably because of his obsession with Harry. He wouldn't want either of them to gain more influence of him." Lily shook her head in apparent annoyance.
"You must have clearly shocked him and Severus, when you suddenly appeared in Godric's frame and washed their heads. Godric told me about it and was highly amused."
"It helped though." Harry grinned. "Ever since then, Snape has fairly left me in peace."
Unfortunately, the peace and quiet between the two wizards was not going to last until the end of Harry's first Hogwarts year.