-Chapter Sixteen-
Words of the Ancients
"You've got a letter, mate," Gregory said as Harry walked into the dormitory. He was holding his hand, eyes flicking towards Harry's desk.
"What's up with your hand?" Harry asked. Gregory looked even more shifty and his eyes continued to dart towards the desk.
"Nothing."
"Oh, erm, well that's good. Thanks for letting me know."
Gregory shuffled away, but hovered close. Harry approached his desk, reaching out for the envelope that had been left in the very centre. Just as his hand approached, he noticed a faint sheen of magic which seemed to dissipate once he breached it. When he grabbed the letter, he heard Gregory shuffling again, close behind him.
"Could I have some space to read this?" he asked. "I'll let you know if there's anything interesting." Gregory ducked his head and skittered to his own bed at the other end of the dormitory. Meanwhile, Harry rounded his desk to leave his back to the wall and sat to read.
Dear Mr Potter,
Thank you for your patience since your request. If you are similarly available, please come to my office on the seventh floor at 1PM tomorrow. When you arrive, please inform the gargoyle that you are fond of Pepper Imps.
Albus Dumbledore
#
"Thank you, Tolly, and to all your helpers," Harry had said to the empty air when he had first seen the desks in their dormitory. They were similar to those found in the Transfiguration and History of Magic classrooms, but designed for a single occupant rather than two. Each had an inkwell and the surface lifted to reveal a shallow storage area within. They and the chairs which accompanied them were sturdy and polished to a mirror sheen.
Harry decided to turn his desk around while levitating it, so that it faced into the room. Sitting with one's back toward the rest of the room seemed to be asking for trouble in Slytherin. As he moved the chair to the correct position behind the desk, he could smell the faint but distinctive whiff of varnish and polish. The elves had clearly gone all out and had only recently moved the desks into the room, one beside each bed. Admittedly, Harry would have been able to conclude that the desks were very new additions as he had only just come back from lunch in the kitchen, where he had made the request.
The other members of the first-year Allies dormitory had soon filtered in and seen Harry working at his desk. He smiled at each of them as they spotted their own desks and hustled over to them. They ran their hands over them, lifted the lids, and some even poked around in the inkwell. After a couple of minutes, Harry's roommates had come to the correct conclusion and called out their thanks to him.
Despite the addition of a shiny new desk, however, Harry spent much of his free time in the library. Some part of that was spent with his friends, working on homework. Sometimes he worked with Millicent, Tracey and Blaise, often somewhat deeper into the library than was convenient for the reference books they needed. Working with Neville more often took place in the surface areas of the library, occasionally diving into the depths of the shelves in the Herbology section when the two of them were quietly looking into their own areas of interest.
For Harry, this interest was most definitely Ancient Runes. He'd kept coming across links to the subject, from the symbols he'd spotted on the Remembrall all those months ago to the references in books he'd used for homework, most often Charms as Professor Flitwick's subject seemed to corner the market on common ground between other magical disciplines. Besides all these reasons to spend one's own time researching the subject, the fact was that the meanings of runes seemed to be very intuitive to Harry, despite the tone of the introduction to Spellman's Syllabary, which was an introductory guide to the meanings of the most common runes.
Ancient Runes are so called for good reason. They form magical languages, the origins of which are lost to time. The runes of which we know have all been discovered in long-abandoned structures belonging to extinct civilisations. However, power still flowed through the runic arrays in those ruined places, paying testament to the true power locked behind our comprehension of Ancient Runes. Generations of powerful witches and wizards are born and die, and the magics maintained by those runes will persist, perhaps even to eternity.
The runes did not come with a handy guide to explain their function or their meaning. Indeed, the meaning of each rune detailed within these pages is the product of countless experiments and years of investigation. A simple array to conjure and maintain fire may consist of dozens of individual runes, only one of which may directly mean 'fire'. Alternatively, a similar array may provide extreme heat which results in a flame, and this would not involve a 'fire' rune at all. Determination of which rune means 'fire' within these vast arrays and with no reference points was complex and lengthy. The unplumbed depth of Ancient Runes is truly vast in comparison to what we currently know and the breadth of knowledge lost, and potentially lost forever, is unfathomable.
Runes have been discovered in the ruins of multiple different civilisations and each of these has a completely distinct style and lexicon. Only in rare instances are there runes from different civilisations which have the same meaning, and it is this phenomenon which has been the subject of numerous studies, most remaining inconclusive. It is unknown why it is only the dialect of the Mayan Empire which contains runes distinguishing magic users from Muggles, though studies have posited that the civilisation was concerned with keeping magical secrets from Muggles in an ancient precursor to the International Statute of Secrecy. Similarly, there are few theories behind why the Norse dialect is highly focused on basic elemental effects.
There have been attempts to use runes from a mixture of different civilisations in the same arrays and these have had mixed success. These make up many of the most advanced areas of research in the subject and all new students of Ancient Runes should be warned against attempting mixing runic dialects without expert supervision. Other areas of research include attempts to simplify complex runic arrays into structures requiring fewer runes, and attempts to determine the meanings of untranslated runes. For interest, some untranslated runes have been included in the back of this guide from each of the main dialects.
"That's a bit advanced, don't you think?" an unfamiliar voice said, laced with condescension.
"I'm sorry?" Harry replied. It was an odd interruption to his reading, particularly in the relative quiet of the library.
"That book's about Ancient Runes. That's third year material." This was coming from a Ravenclaw girl who had approached him at his table. It took a couple of seconds, but he vaguely recognised her from their Herbology classes. Even so, it wasn't enough for him to know her by name and the insinuation was irksome enough that Harry snapped back at her.
"Pardon me if I'm mistaken, but this doesn't seem to be the greatest start to a conversation. I don't know who you are, nor what authority you may hold on this subject, and whether or not you know who I am, you're making some big assumptions. How about we try this again from the start?" The girl looked somewhat taken aback, Harry's response clearly unexpected. Perhaps it was his impressive vocabulary, or perhaps she had just not expected to be called out in such a way. She blinked a few times before sitting down and beginning again.
"I'm Hermione Granger," she said by way of introduction. "Pleased to meet you." She reached across the table to offer her hand.
"Harry Potter." He took her hand and gave it a quick shake.
"Of course. Everyone knows who you are."
"Indeed?" Harry said, raising an eyebrow. "I suppose I should ask the President of America that when I pop round for tea next week." The Ravenclaw girl furrowed her brow.
"Well you might have more chance of that than with advanced material like this," she said, gesturing towards the book.
"Perhaps, but you have no proof of either possibility. Tell me, Hermione, have you any experience of Ancient Runes yourself?"
"Well, no, but…" Hermione hesitated as Harry raised his hand.
"It just so happens that I find the meanings of runes to be quite intuitive, at least from what I've read so far. As you're more focused on the book than the person reading it, how about we have a little challenge. We both take a week to look at the meanings of runes in our spare time, then we test each other. If I do well enough in your opinion, you agree to learn to trust people with their studies and we get to know each other better. If not, I admit that I shouldn't be wasting my time on difficult topics and I take your advice on all things academic. What do you say?" Harry hoped that he had read the girl correctly and was pleased to see her eyes light up at the challenge.
"That sounds like a good idea - I'm already up to date on all my homework," Hermione said with a grin. "See you back here in a week then?"
"I'll be here," Harry confirmed. Hermione returned to whatever shelf she'd been lurking behind and Harry let out a sigh of relief. He was quietly confident in his abilities with runes as the ones he'd seen so far made a lot of sense. The rune for fire looked like a rune for fire. Water was obviously water. Besides, he'd met people like Hermione before. There was a chance that she was the sort of person for whom the phrase 'A little knowledge is a dangerous thing' was invented. Alternatively, she was the kind of person who had very fixed beliefs about certain things and needed concrete proof. Either way, he had guaranteed a friendly outcome and peace for a week.
#
It had taken a few weeks after requesting a meeting via the elves for Dumbledore to get back to Harry and arrange a meeting, so the letter had come as a surprise. He hadn't yet explored anywhere on the seventh floor and didn't even have any lessons that high in the castle - he'd heard from Hermione that Ancient Runes and Arithmancy classes were held around there. Their conversations had been amiable, though short. She seemed to enjoy coming up to talk to him, but always quickly noticed that she was wasting time that she could be spending looking up the meanings of more runes.
Thus it was that Harry decided to explore the upper reaches of the castle as soon as he had finished reading the letter. It had the added benefit of allowing him to escape from Gregory's curiosity with a promise to be back later and the silent hope that the other boy would forget about the letter by the time he returned. There was little over an hour to go until the students all had to be in their common rooms, so Harry took the steps of the Grand Staircase two at a time.
It was easy enough to find the Arithmancy and Ancient Runes classrooms on the seventh floor - those rooms in use for taught subjects tended to not be far off the beaten track. What was unexpected, however, was the increased concentration of Gryffindors, each of whom stopped in their tracks to silently watch Harry pass. It was somewhat unnerving, but as he saw a couple of red-robed students tumble out from behind a large portrait of a similarly proportioned woman, he understood the reason for it. He had purely by chance stumbled across the Gryffindor common room.
Though he was bemused by the fact that the Gryffindors took fewer precautions in hiding their sanctuary, Harry had the wherewithal to leave the area sharpish. He didn't want to be accused of spying, even though he felt he couldn't have been more successful in finding the place had he even tried. A couple of boys trailed him, clearly suspicious of his motives, but stopped in their tracks when they witnessed his discovery of the gargoyle. From the behaviour of the two Gryffindors, Harry was convinced this was the gargoyle mentioned in the headmaster's missive, but asked the beast of stone just to be sure.
"Excuse me," he enquired politely, feeling a little silly that he was talking to an inanimate object. "Are you the gargoyle who I should be telling that I'm fond of Pepper Imps tomorrow?"
Completely stationary until the mention of the magical sweets, the gargoyle suddenly leapt to the side to reveal a staircase, somehow moving upwards and going nowhere at the same time. He jumped back in surprise, having not expected to be immediately granted entry, and he apologised to the gargoyle. On his admission that he wasn't planning on entering, it flowed back to stand guard and block the entrance to the staircase, returning to the same position and looking as though it had never moved. Harry filed away the knowledge of the location of Professor Dumbledore's office and the fact that it required a password to enter, then proceeded to file himself away under D for Dungeons just before curfew.
It was less than twenty-four hours later that Harry returned to the gargoyle and simply said the words 'Pepper Imps'. As expected, the gargoyle granted him passage, though Harry could have sworn it was raising one of its eyebrows at him. Regardless, Harry walked through the archway and ascended the staircase, knocking on the great oak door at the top.
"Come in," called a voice from the other side. Harry pushed the door open and couldn't help but gape at the headmaster's office. It was much larger than expected, with one half of the room more open and surrounded by shelves of books and mysterious trinkets, and the other half mostly taken up by a vast desk and lined with cupboards and furniture more appropriate for an office. The office half was raised above the half where Harry entered, with two steps separating the areas, and the top half of the walls of each section was peppered with portraits of sleeping figures - mostly wizards, but with a few witches dotted about.
The strange trinkets were the first things to catch Harry's attention, due to the fact that some were bubbling or emitting puffs of smoke, others making peeping, whistling or humming sounds. Naturally, the eyes were drawn to movement and sound. Next on the eye agenda was a beautiful red and gold bird sitting on a gleaming perch near the steps. It chirped as he laid eyes on it, clearly having been observing him as he slowly entered. Finally, after being distracted by the bright sight, he spotted the ancient wizard behind the desk, carefully examining him from behind half-moon glasses. This was Professor Dumbledore.
"Sherbet lemon?" the man offered as Harry sat in the chair opposite him as bidden. A wizened hand was gesturing to a bowl of pale yellow sweets within arm's reach of both chairs. He contemplated the bowl for a second, shrugged, and reached out. The headmaster's eyes twinkled and two sweets shot from the bowl and into Harry's outstretched hand. Professor Dumbledore also reached out and took a sweet, popping it into his mouth. Harry thanked him and did the same. "So how are you finding your first year at Hogwarts so far?"
"Very good, thank you, sir," Harry said, somehow having no problems getting his words out around the refreshing lemony treat. "It's a wonderful castle and everything is so… magic." The professor beamed at him.
"I'm glad you think so. Magic is one of the most fascinating things I've come across in all my years and it brings me great joy to see someone equally as interested. What's your favourite area of magic that you've come across?" Harry thought for a moment, pondering the question.
"For a long while," he replied, "it was Charms. Professor Flitwick's lessons are a lot of fun and it's really interesting to figure out how magic works."
"Your mother had a similar love of Charms," Professor Dumbledore interjected. "She was one of those rare wonders who never stopped being intrigued by magic, much like yourself. Nevertheless, I don't want to prejudice your current area of interest with comments about your mother - what area of magic won out over Charms?"
"Well, I've been in the library a lot, reading about a bunch of things, and Ancient Runes seem really interesting. I know it's not usually taught until third year, sir, but I really like reading about them and they make a lot of sense to me."
"You're not inscribing or powering runes, are you?" Professor Dumbledore asked, leaning forwards.
"No, sir. Just reading about the runes and their meanings, and sometimes writing notes. Most of the books have warned about inscribing runes without supervision and how it's safe to write them in standard ink on parchment. I found out in one of them that that's the reason why we use parchment and that the ink we use is made to be - I think they called it magically inert - so that we don't accidentally doodle something that ends up blowing up or something. That'd be scary if that sort of thing happened."
"That's good. It sounds like you've done your homework there. Speaking of homework, you're making sure you keep up with all your classes, yes? Filius is always telling me about times when his Ravenclaws end up spending too much time on something unrelated to their classwork and falling behind."
Harry wasn't sure who Filius was, but concluded that they were the Head of Ravenclaw. Professor McGonagall had introduced herself as the Head of Gryffindor before the Sorting ceremony, he knew that Professor Snape was the head of his house, and he'd spent enough time in with the Hufflepuffs to know about Professor Sprout, but he was surprised to realise he wasn't sure about the identity of the Head of Ravenclaw. Nonetheless, he was about to respond to confirm that he was up to date with all his assignments when the headmaster straightened suddenly.
"I'm sorry, Mr Potter, but I have to go quickly. I'll be back soon, so feel free to stay here. Fawkes will keep an eye on you, so try not to touch anything dangerous." Without waiting for an answer, he hustled around his desk and very nearly jogged out of the door. Harry blinked at the suddenness of the man's departure.
#
"My apologies, Mr Potter," Professor Dumbledore said as he came back into the office, startling Harry from his inspection of the title upon the headmaster's shelves. Harry had spent much of the wait with the majestic bird, but had eventually become curious about the books and potential wealth of knowledge hidden inside. "I had to attend to an emergency."
"How did you know there was an emergency?" Harry asked, returning to the seat in front of the desk.
"The wards alerted me. It's one of the responsibilities of being the headmaster, receiving all sorts of information from around the castle. But I digress and have wasted enough of your time today. We were here to speak about House-elves, am I correct?"
"Yes, sir," Harry replied.
"Well, I spoke with some of the elves after Tolly delivered your request. I was surprised - and delighted - to hear that you had spoken with the elves and asked to know more about them. Many people hear of a being who will do their bidding and immediately want one to boss around, regardless of the feelings of that being. Nevertheless, I must ask you what you would do with a House-elf." Professor Dumbledore steepled his fingers and leant back, waiting for Harry's response.
"Like you said, sir, the usefulness of having a House-elf is obvious. I don't need to tell you all the things that an elf could do for me that either I couldn't or that I'd find hard. I'd rather reassure you on all the things I wouldn't do."
And so Harry made a passionate explanation of how he would care for any elf or other being in his responsibility, for it is a responsibility and not one to be taken lightly. He demonstrated the knowledge he had gained from the elves in the kitchen about their needs, including the power of true gratitude, and the bond formed between an elf and the magical creature they serve. He made sure to include that he had enough resources to support the physical needs of an elf. When he had finished, the headmaster was smiling at him.
"Mr Potter, I have no doubt in my mind that you would be one of the most responsible wizards to bond with an elf. However, I must point out some things which you have missed, and which I hope you will take into account when I relay my decision.
"Firstly, you spoke about true gratitude, which just goes to show how thoroughly you have researched the elves. While you intend to always be grateful for their assistance, and I have no doubt that you will always appreciate them, I'm not sure that you will have enough work for an elf to be able to provide the required gratitude. Secondly, and on a similar note, you did indeed also mention the magical bond formed. Unfortunately, you would not be able to sustain the magical bond without severely draining your own magical reserves. It would be irresponsible of me to allow a first year to bond with an elf." At this, he held up his hand, knowing that Harry was about to react.
"One second, Mr Potter. Let me finish and then I promise to listen to what you have to say. I do regret that I cannot allow you to bond with an elf, however I wish to propose an alternative course of action, through which I believe we can both achieve favourable outcomes. I will talk to the Hogwarts elves and will allow you the use of the invaluable services of one of their number. However, that elf will remain bonded with the castle. I would be willing to revisit the topic in your third year and, if safe and appropriate, I promise you my assistance in finding an elf with which to form your own bond."
#
Harry was descending the grand staircase, heading for the first floor, specifically the library. He wanted to look up what wards were before he could forget about Professor Dumbledore having mentioned them. There was the vague feeling that the term had been mentioned somewhere in a book about Ancient Runes.
Harry wondered whether house-elves would be of more use or harm in researching interesting magic. On one hand, two pairs of eyes would be better than one. On the other, Harry would only learn from what he directly read, and may miss more subtle pieces of information. Either way, he didn't yet have the assistance of one of the elves, and the headmaster had put a lot of caveats in place. He would be overseeing Harry's requests, in control of what sort of assistance could and could not be provided. If the needs of the school were significant, assistance may not be provided at all. It would be a fine line to walk between using the services of an elf too much and not enough.
The staircase itself seemed like a fine line to walk while he was distracted. Half his brain was focused on trying to remember which book had contained the mention and the other half was desperately attempting to navigate the steps in the usual, safe fashion. This meant he heard his name being called before noticing the sound of feet flapping against the flagstones of the castle.
"Harry!" He looked up to see who was calling his name and found Tracey and Blaise thundering up the stairs toward him. It was unusual to see any of his fellow Slytherins looking anything other than calm and collected when making their way through the castle.
"Hm?" Harry replied, eloquent as always.
"Did you hear?" Tracey asked. "Down on the grounds?"
"No, what happened?"
"Hagrid's hut burned down. Everyone's been outside to have a look but McGonagall sent us all back inside."
