Unspoken
by Teddylonglong
Please refer to chapter 1 for my disclaimer and warnings. Thank you.
Together with the boy, who had been one of his best friends ever since they had first met on the Hogwarts Express, Harry observed how Severus and Salazar each approached one of the patients, while Lily remained standing next to them.
'I hope it's going to work,' Harry thought, when Neville suddenly let go of Harry's arm and began to shout.
"Mum, Dad, wake up."
Just when Alice and Frank Longbottoms' minds returned to awareness for the first time in more than a decade, two healers bustled into the room, apparently alerted by Neville's shouting that something was not as it was supposed to be.
"All Unspeakables return home," Salazar ordered them, only audible for the group of them, and Harry quickly obeyed.
A moment later, they were all back at home, exchanging relieved looks.
"It worked," Lily informed the others. "Harry, as I can't show myself at St. Mungo's, please ask Neville to bring his parents here through the fireplace, if that's all right with you, Regina?"
"Of course. They're very welcome to come here and remain for a while. You know how big this house is."
Harry inwardly grinned. Ever since Rebecca and Artemis had magically connected Regina's house to Lestrange manor, they had an overflowing number of rooms.
'Neville, if your parents are released from the hospital, please bring them here to our house. We don't want your grandmother to have a heard failure if she sees them.'
HP
An hour later, Neville had still not arrived with his parents, and Harry decided to go and check on him. Throwing his Unspeakable robes over, he turned invisible and popped himself back into the room, to which he had taken his friend earlier. He smiled upon seeing Neville standing between his parents looking outright happy. However, his smile faltered quickly.
"Mr. Longbottom, you cannot simply tell us someone cured them. We have to know who and by which means."
"No, you do not have to know." Frank's voice was firm. "My wife and I thank you for all you have done for us and wish to leave now."
The healer let out a scoff. "You're simply going to go home and tell your mother that someone cured you and you're back?"
Harry chose to make himself visible at this point.
"Good evening. I am Unspeakable Paws, and it was three of my colleagues who cured the Longbottoms. If you need names, they are Unspeakables Dove, Chame and Scales." He decided to not use his official name of Mini Head Unspeakable Paws, so as to not give any hint about his age, considering that no one would be aware of it just by hearing his voice. 'If they knew that I'm only twelve, they wouldn't respect me,' he thought.
"Moreover, Neville will not take his parents to Longbottom Manor, but to my parents' home, where they can recover from their ordeal and from where we will call his grandmother first thing tomorrow morning."
"Mum, Dad, I know Unspeakable Paws very well, and I suggest that we do as he says. Should we use the fireplace?"
Harry shook his head. With a flick of his hand, he enlarged the pendant of his necklace like Rebecca had showed him a while ago and instructed Neville and his parents to hold on tightly, before he whispered, "Home" without as much as a last glance at the healer, who stood there, open-mouthed.
Arriving in his own room, he quickly pulled off his robes and introduced himself to his friend's parents.
"Harry!" Alice was the first to find words. "You're my godson. Do you know that?"
"Yes." Harry smiled. "Welcome back to life." He quickly told them about his own childhood and warned them that his whole extended family was gathered in the living room, before he asked, "Are you ready to meet them all?"
"Of course. I can't wait to thank them for curing us," Alice replied, smiling.
"Yes please, although everything is still strange. The last thing I remember is being attacked by Bellatrix Lestrange…"
"She is not a Lestrange anymore." Harry's voice was firm. "My adoptive mother is the head of House Lestrange and has kicked her two brothers out of the family along with her sister-in-law years ago."
He led the Longbottoms out into the living room, where Lily was the first to approach them. "Alice, Frank, I am so happy to have you back."
"Your Mum has been here earlier, and I didn't even notice her," Neville whispered to Harry in apparent surprise.
"You were pre-occupied with other things," Harry whispered back, grinning. "That's fine. You know that you mustn't talk about what I told you earlier to anyone."
Neville nodded. "Of course, I know."
Amelia suddenly rose from her chair. "Alice and Frank, we're all very happy to have you back, but I believe that we should leave now to give you some much needed peace and quiet. Sirius, come on, let's go." She went over to the playpen, where her daughter Julia was fast asleep between Niamh and Aidan, and picked up the girl only to press her into Sirius' arms. "Please take her. She's slowly getting heavy."
A few minutes later, everyone but Regina, Remus, Rebecca, James, Lily and Harry were gone, and Harry noticed that the Longbottoms slowly relaxed.
"Should I go home, too?" Neville glanced at his wrist watch. "Otherwise, Gran will be very upset."
"Neville, Alice, Frank, I can offer you rooms to stay for a while," Regina said in a soft voice. "We have much space. Neville can remain with you or return home. That is all up to you. We can call his grandmother over, whenever you wish to see her."
Apparently noticing that Frank and Alice seemed to be uncertain, Lily spoke up. "Since James and I are not officially alive at this time, we are not able to live in any of our own houses and have been intruding in Lestrange Manor for more than two years now. The place is really big, and we'd all be happy to have you here."
"Please, let's stay here." Neville cast his parents a pleading look.
Alice and Frank nodded. "We gratefully accept your offer. However, we should call my mother over for a moment and tell her everything if you don't mind."
"Neville, will you please call your grandmother through the fireplace?" Regina's voice was gentle as always, and Neville immediately complied.
HP
Twenty minutes later, Neville's grandmother elegantly stepped out of the fireplace, where Remus and Neville were waiting to greet her.
"Neville. Lord Lestrange. I am sorry for intruding at this time of the evening, but Neville insisted…"
"That's fine," Remus reassured her. "In fact, we have good news to share with you. Please join us and take a seat."
Harry observed in relief how Rebecca turned to the old lady without saying anything, knowing that she cast the charm at her that disabled her to give away any of the family secrets.
If he had feared that Neville's grandmother might suffer a heart failure upon hearing the news, he was surprised about her reaction.
"Frank!" she blurted out, as her face displayed surprise, followed by disbelief and finally obvious delight, before she stepped over to pull her son into a bear hug. At least it seemed that way, before she looked behind his ear and nodded in apparent amazement. "This is indeed Frank. I'm sorry for not believing you earlier, but you have to admit that your story sounded extremely unbelievable. Anyway, he has the birth mark at exactly the spot, where it always was, and that proves that it's really him. Frank and Alice, I am beyond happy that you're healed. Who managed to cure them and how?"
Everyone laughed at her announcement, and Regina quickly explained that Lily, Rebecca, her husband Artemis and Harry had been working on a cure for the Longbottoms for a long time. Only when Severus Snape and Salazar Slytherin had joined them from the Christmas holidays onwards, they had made fast progress based on one of Salazar's inventions of nine hundred years ago.
"Salazar Slytherin? He is alive?"
"Yes. Apparently, he is immortal," Harry replied, innocently.
"Is that even possible?" the old witch muttered, seemingly more to herself than to them, before she asked, "Why doesn't he take the Slytherin seat on the Wizengamot then?" The old lady looked from him to Remus in apparent surprise.
Harry chuckled. "Probably because no one ever thought about suggesting it to him. I will tell him that you recommended it though. Thank you, Madam Longbottom."
The old Madam Longbottom agreed that she was too old to help her son and daughter-in-law get used to normal life after their disablement for more than a decade. She only asked that she would be allowed to visit them at the Lestranges' every now and then, and, needless to say, Regina and Remus gently invited her to come over whenever she wished.
Neville was happy to live with his parents and to see Harry and Connie, whenever they were at home.
The two student assistants travelled to Hogwarts twice a week to fill up the stock for the hospital wing, even knowing that they were not officially assistants during the holidays. Other than that, they spent their time with the Unspeakables each engrossed in their own research.
The evenings, however, were spent at home for a change, mostly to keep Neville company and help the Longbottoms over the beginning, even if they were aware that the adults were well able to fulfil that task.
HP
One day, when Harry, Connie and Lucy invisibly walked from Severus' private lab in the dungeons to the hospital wing to take a few batches of potions to Madam Pomfrey, the Grey Lady cornered them.
"Don't fret, but as a ghost, I am able to see you, even if you might be invisible to living beings."
"Hello Helena," Harry replied, gently.
"I wish to ask you for a favour, considering that you belong to Ravenclaw house. I want you to improve the situation in the house."
Harry stared at the ghost in surprise. "Excuse me, what situation are you referring to?"
The ghost let out a scoff. "Have you ever spent time in the common room?"
"Not really," Harry replied, truthfully, somehow feeling uncomfortable at the turn the conversation was taking.
"Because of the older bitches in the house?"
"Yes," he had to admit. "They were not nice to Hermione and Connie, so that we decided to not spend our free time in the common room. I am sorry," he added, sheepishly.
Helena shook her head. "No, you don't have to be sorry about it. I fully understand, and I commend you for protecting your friends. I have realised that there was a first-year though, who did not have a nice friend to help her, and I'd like to ask you to keep an eye on her. The older girls harassed her throughout the school year. They kept hiding her things, and I had to ask the house-elves to find them every now and then."
Harry stared at the ghost in shock. "I am sorry, Helena. Hermione and I should have noticed that this was happening; however, we did not. What can we do to remedy the situation? Did you ever speak with Professor Flitwick about the matter?"
Helena shook her head. "I neither think that he cares much nor that he'd be able to prevent the girls from doing so."
"But what could I do? You know that I don't spend time in the common room."
"Speak with her. Invite her to spend the evenings with you and your friends. She is a nice girl, but she doesn't have any friends, as no one dares to oppose the older girls in my house, which is a situation that is intolerable. If they still harass her, you could take house points from the girls."
"Take house points from Ravenclaw? Excuse me, Helena, but I am not a prefect."
"Harry, as student assistants we're allowed to take points. Did you forget that?" Connie smiled.
Harry stared at this wife in utter surprise. "No, I didn't know that. All right then, thanks Helena for bringing this to our attention. We'll see what we can do to help the girl."
"Do you have a name for us?" Connie remembered to ask, much to Harry's relief, as he was too fixed on the question how to help the girl than to ask for the necessary information.
"Yes, it is Luna Lovegood. She seems a bit eccentric, but she is a nice and very intelligent girl. Perhaps, you could contact her and get to know her over the summer."
"We'll do that," Harry promised, before Helena vanished as sudden as she had appeared, and they continued walking towards the hospital wing quietly discussing the matter.
HP
"Frank and Alice Longbottom have been cured," Albus read from the Daily Prophet's front page in understandable surprise that turned to apparent annoyance, when he continued to read. "Again by Unspeakables. No wonder that we have difficulties finding good teachers, if they occupy all the brilliant people."
"Excuse me, sir?" Severus' eyes narrowed.
"Albus!" Minerva all but growled at the man. "That was really rude. Let me inform you that two of your professors were involved in curing the Longbottoms."
"What?" Albus looked around the table, where apart from him and Minerva only Poppy, Pomona and Severus were present. "Oh right, Severus and Salazar informed me a few months ago that they were going to work with the Unspeakables."
"Tonks was also sent here by the Unspeakables," Minerva reminded him.
"Minerva, will you guard the school tomorrow? There is that Wizengamot meeting…"
"No, Albus. I've already asked Pomona to help us out tomorrow, considering that Salazar is going to take his place on the Wizengamot and can't remain at Hogwarts for us."
Albus' eyes widened in obvious surprise. "He is going to take the Slytherin seat after all these years?" he asked in apparent disbelief. "Why now?"
Minerva chuckled. "Because the Dowager Longbottom suggested it to him," she explained, causing the headmaster to stare at her in apparent disbelief.
Minerva inwardly grinned. 'Wait until you see who else is going to take their seats tomorrow,' she thought in amusement, knowing that her old friend would not like it.
HP
Harry was sitting in the visitors' gallery together with Regina and Connie. He and Connie had decided to accompany Regina, who would soon be joined by Rebecca and Augusta Longbottom, to the meeting of the Wizengamot. The two twelve-year-olds were wearing their Unspeakable robes to remain incognito. Both looked up in surprise, when another Unspeakable took the seat next to them.
"It's Ra," he whispered in a barely audible voice.
"Hello Ra," Harry replied, knowing that it was Arcturus Black from team 5, a very old wizard, who was his great uncle and Sirius' grandfather. 'Oh right, he is the official Lord Black,' he recalled.
"Thank you, Harry, for convincing Remus to take the seat," Regina whispered in rare excitement. "He is much too insecure for his own good."
"I believe that the situation improved greatly ever he got Sirius and Jamie back, was cured from lycanthropy and married you." Connie grinned.
'Absolutely,' Harry silently agreed, before his thoughts wandered off. 'Four more years, before I can officially take the Potter seat. Oh well, at least Sirius is doing a great job on it, ever since he took it from Dumbledore. Too bad that Dad can't take it back anymore, but how would we explain that he and Lily are alive again? If we told the truth, I'd probably be forced to spend the rest of my life time sliding forward and backward to rescue thousands of people.'
He was brought back to reality, when Dumbledore opened the Wizengamot meeting. Before he could bring forward the first point from his agenda, Augusta Longbottom rose from her seat and was given the floor.
"I wish for my son, Frank Longbottom, to take the seat for House Longbottom, which I only took in his stead twelve years ago, when he was incapacitated."
Dumbledore nodded, and Frank entered the room under huge applause, mainly coming from the side, where the light families were gathered. While the old lady made her way to the visitors' gallery, where she joined Harry and his family, Frank approached the Longbottom seat. However, instead of sitting down, he remained standing.
"Thank you all for the kind reception. You may have heard that six Unspeakables were involved in curing Alice and me, and I wish to thank them profusely. I also wish to introduce one of them to this chamber, so that he may take his seat, which has remained vacant for a much too long time. Salazar Slytherin."
Harry could not see the headmaster's expression; however, while the man usually tried to get the upper hand in any conversation, he remained strangely quiet and only nodded, when Salazar stepped into the room.
The chamber remained absolutely silent, while the ancient wizard looked around and walked over to the seat of the Slytherin family. He then raised his wand. "I swear on my magic that I am Salazar Slytherin, born on 9 April, 975 and founder of Slytherin house at Hogwarts."
A golden glow surrounded the ancient wizard, and while everyone still stared at him, at least they had the decency to applaud. 'Thank Merlin he managed the transformation into his usual body. He wouldn't have been able to show himself in his Peeves form.'
'What has you so amused?' Connie asked, lightly kicking him in the side.
'Ah, I only imagined the reactions if he would have entered the chamber in his Peeves form.'
'Thank Merlin Felina taught him so well.'
When Salazar was seated and Dumbledore began to speak again, Rebecca rose from her chair interrupting the old wizard.
"I am sorry, Professor Dumbledore, but we have three more new members to introduce."
Bouts of laughter could be heard throughout the room; however, Dumbledore merely shook his head in obvious annoyance, as he sat down again.
"During the last few years, I have been holding the regency for the Lestrange seat, because my sister Regina, who is the Lady Lestrange, was too insecure to take it herself. However, she has been married to Lord Remus Lestrange-Lupin for almost a year, and we have managed to convince Lord Lestrange to take the seat himself."
Both sides of the Wizengamot applauded this time, while Rebecca headed to the visitors' gallery and Remus approached his seat. However, he did not sit down right away either.
"Thank you very much for the kind welcome. During the last months, the open seats here in the Wizengamot often became a topic among my former classmates and myself. During these discussions, we have managed to convince our friend Severus Snape to accept the lordship over the Prince family, which was his mother's family. Ever after Eileen Prince died, the seat remained empty; however, Severus has now agreed to take over the seat as the new Lord Prince-Snape."
This time, the applause was supposed to mainly come from the side, where the dark families were situated; however, Minerva, Remus, Frank and Sirius loudly clapped their hands.
"Is everyone finished now?" Dumbledore sounded impatient, causing Harry to chuckle.
'He must be absolutely annoyed, because he didn't know any of this beforehand,' he thought to Connie, who chuckled quietly.
"I am afraid not, sir." Severus' voice was soft and silky, however, had the effect that everyone quietened down instantly. "The Black seat is empty, as Lord Black does not wish to take his seat for his own, private reasons. However, he has named Sirius Black his regent."
"Sirius is already Harry's regent, my boy," Dumbledore spoke up using his grandfatherly voice, which Harry detested so much. "Moreover, how do we know that the real Lord Black, whoever he may be, really wishes to have Sirius as his regent?"
Ra mumbled something sounding like "Idiot," before he popped right into the chamber, standing behind the Black seat. "I could swear you an oath, but I won't. I'll show you my ring," he all but growled, before he made the Black ring visible on his left hand. "Now, Sirius Black, please take the Black seat as my regent."
Sirius nodded, as he surprisingly elegantly stepped over from the Potter seat to the Black seat and gave the Unspeakable a sharp nod.
"Thank you," he said over the upcoming applause coming from the entire chamber. While the dark families still associated him with the Black family, the light side knew him as Amelia Bones' husband, a former Auror and an upstanding member of society. "As to the Potter seat, Harry has informed me that he wishes Unspeakable Paws to take over as the regent for the ancient and noble House of Potter."
"That is impossible," Dumbledore spoke up, seemingly angered.
"No, Albus. It is Harry's and Sirius' right as the heir and the regent up to now to decide on a suitable successor. Unspeakable Paws please," Minerva's voice could be heard.
"What the…" Harry stared at the members of his family in the chamber in bewilderment.
"Just go," Connie instructed him, and Harry simply popped right behind the Potter seat in the chamber.
The applause was overwhelming, as Unspeakable Paws was at least as famous as Harry Potter.
"Welcome to the Wizengamot, Unspeakable Paws," Dumbledore addressed him. "I ask you now to take off your robes, as we cannot have witches or wizards in the chamber, of whom we do not know who they are."
"No sir," Paws replied in a firm voice. Turning to Sirius, he uttered, "You could at least have told me about this deal in advance."
Everyone sitting nearby began to laugh, as it became obvious that Unspeakable Paws had not known about Sirius Black's and officially Harry Potter's decision to make him Harry's regent. 'I wonder who planned that,' he thought. 'I guess that James, Sirius, Severus and Salazar were involved in this.'
"Mr. Paws, could you at least swear us an oath that you are Unspeakable Paws?"
Harry looked at the old wizard in pure annoyance, glad that the man could not see his face. He rose from his chair and swiftly swore his oath, followed by another bout of applause.
"Can we now please begin with the meeting?" Dumbledore all but pleaded and, when everyone remained quiet, swiftly turned to the first point on his agenda.