XXXIV
Kakashi followed Hermione all the way to the Library. Before the Library, he glanced around that he wasn't seen – not just by students but also by those portraits hanging everywhere that could rat him out just as much as a fellow student he feared – before he melted into the wall behind him to hide under its surface. The magic-induced walls of the castle didn't offer any resistance, but now essentially merging with the castle's own substance left Kakashi with the prickly feeling of magic dancing on his skin.
Hidden like that and impossible to see, he snuck as close to Hermione as possible. The girl was currently searching the rows of bookshelves. From his angle, Kakashi couldn't read the titles.
The Library was almost empty. Madam Pince the librarian sat at her counter, gawking at the few kids still working here like a vulture. The kids could be counted on one hand. Other than Hermione, who'd come rushing in with the determination of a woman on a mission, there was a seventh-year Slytherin and a Ravenclaw of undetermined age. Kakashi recognized his own clone's disguise. Now, that he was here, Kakashi mused, he might also hand the clone the reading list for his Charms classes, that Flitwick had given him earlier.
When Kakashi passed his clone, the clone looked up, sniffing the air, clearly recognizing Kakashi close by, who wasn't hiding his scent. What would be the point of trying to fool his own clone?
Hermione pulled out a thick red-leather-covered book. Then she hurried to one of the tables far in the back of the library, furthest away from the other two kids and Madam Pince. Kakashi followed her soundlessly.
At first, it was a boring observation. She flicked through the pages of the book as if she knew exactly what she wanted to find but was frustrated not to find it. Then she huffed in annoyance, left the book open, and practically ran through the library, to find a different book.
"Ms. Granger," Madam Pince snapped at the girl when she rushed past her. "This is a Library, not the Quidditch pitch! I would've expected better from you."
Kakashi watched mildly amused, as Hermione came to a sudden stop. "I'm sorry," she apologized in a wheeze and continued at a much more reasonable pace. Madam Pince apparently seemed inclined to forgive the offense, as she simply nodded, and then turned to watch the Slytherin boy closely.
Hermione quickly found what she was looking for. When she returned, she had a smaller brown leather-bound book under her arm. This time, she found the right page immediately. "Okay," she muttered to herself, "here goes…" She pulled out a sheet of parchment, then she put her wand against her temple and whispered a spell unheard to the other occupants of the Library. Fascinated, Kakashi watched, as she pulled a silvery string out of her head. When the string broke loose from her skin, it curled tightly, and then she put it down on the parchment where it formed words he couldn't read from his hiding place.
"Alright, now just…" She took a quill and ink and quickly scratched words on the bottom end of her piece of parchment. Pointing the wand at it, she mumbled another spell.
Meanwhile, Kakashi had shifted position, enough that he could watch over her shoulder, what she was doing. Some of the writing was still obscured by her frame, but he quickly understood the gist of it. Up top, in neat black ink, she had used her first spell to write down the words in Afrikaans he had said to her earlier. Down below, she had written the English translation, but now, as she spoke her second spell, the words changed and shifted until…
Nifty, Kakashi thought quite delighted, a translation spell. Harry wasn't exaggerating when he said she's smart.
Unperturbed, Kakashi stepped out of the wall right behind Hermione, making sure, that he wasn't seen by either the Slytherin boy or Madam Pince.
"Hermione!" he exclaimed. "I'm glad you're here."
With flying brown hair and eyes as big as saucers, Hermione whirled around. She almost fell off her chair from shock. "Merlin! Where did you come from?" she exclaimed, wand tightly held in her hand but not raised. She seemed a bit afraid of him, and she was shaking as she glanced back to Madam Pince and the two other kids sitting at the tables, making sure she wasn't alone.
Kakashi smiled kindly. "I hoped you could help me with Professor Flitwick's list," he said, pulling it from his satchel.
"I didn't see you come in." Her voice was trembling. "How did you come in?"
Kakashi looked taken aback. "Through the door," he said, pointing at the big double doors. "Before you arrived, I think."
"I didn't see you," Hermione insisted, but her eyes quickly roamed the many high bookshelves. Kakashi shrugged. He didn't have to explain himself in this case. It would be awfully easy to overlook anybody between the shelves. Hermione seemed to relent to that as well. She still looked uncertain though, as she glanced back at him. "What do you want?"
"Flitwick gave me this list," he started to explain again, waving the parchment in front of her eyes, "with books. But it's twenty titles. I don't know where to start. Maybe you—" As if by accident his eyes fell on her work. "What are you doing?" he asked leaning over to now read the whole page for the first time. "You checked my Afrikaans?"
She shrieked, as she quickly pulled her parchment away and slammed her books shut. "None of your business!" she exclaimed but she looked caught. Then she bit her lower lip. For a moment, Kakashi thought she'd soon apologize for backchecking him like that, but then a small defiant frown appeared on her face. Realizing that he had already seen her paper anyway, she slammed it back on the table.
"Yes, in fact," she exclaimed. "I did check your translation. And it's all wrong. She pointed at the last sentence he had translated. "The first part, sure, but that was easy. But the sentence Ron suggested…Yeah, it sounds like Afrikaans, but it's not. You just made that up, didn't you?"
Kakashi compared what he had said to the correct translation. He wasn't by off that much, he realized. He smiled sheepishly.
"Ah, yeah, besem." He smacked himself against the forehead. "How could I forget that?"
Hermione scowled. "Forget it?" she repeated doubtfully. "You didn't know it! You don't actually speak Afrikaans, do you?" She looked triumphantly as if she had proven him a liar already.
Kakashi shrugged. "I keep forgetting more and more about it," he explained. "Haven't spoken a word of it, in years. So, I start forgetting things."
Hermione frowned, disbelievingly.
"Do you speak a second language?" Kakashi asked in a tone as if he thought she might share the experience of forgetting her mother tongue.
"Not really," Hermione snapped. "And I'm sure I wouldn't forget the language I grow up with."
"Why is it even important to you?" Kakashi tried to turn the conversation around.
"Outrageous!" Madam Pince cried out from the counter. "No talking in the Library!" She put a finger against her lips, glaring at them.
It was the excuse Hermione was apparently waiting for. Minutely, her lips pressed together, and then, instead of answering his question she shoved her parchment, ink, and quill back into her satchel and stormed out of the Library without even putting her books back into the shelves.
"Hermione!" Kakashi called after her when he followed her out of the Library. She stopped, and half turned to him, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. "What about Muggle Studies?" The class would start in a few minutes and she was running in the wrong direction.
"Muggle Studies?" She looked confused at first. Then her eyes widened in understanding. "Oh, Merlin…I completely forgot. But I…" She looked around helplessly. "I'll be there. Just…I need to see Ron and Harry," she said more to herself than to Kakashi. Then she was off.
The Library doors opened again behind him.
"That was odd." The Ravenclaw of undetermined age now stood next to Kakashi.
"I'm curious," Kakashi replied, turning to his clone. He handed the list of books over. "You go to Muggle Studies today."
And then he followed Hermione silently, without being seen. There was something else, he was interested in. Apparently, Hermione took Divination and Muggle Studies at the same time. He wanted to see if she was really attending Divination and if so, if she was going to Muggle Studies at the same time. Hermione had already pretty much confessed it to him: Professor McGonagall gave her some device to enable her to visit multiple classes at the same time…He wanted to know what it was.
"Well?" Ron asked as soon as Hermione came running up the stairs to their Divination classroom. "Did you find anything?" Eagerly, he pulled Hermione next to Harry. Their friend was still breathing heavily from the climb.
"Let me—" she started. "Just a moment."
When the trapdoor to their classroom opened Hermione pulled them through the stinking cloud of burning herbs to one of the round tables in the far back of the room. Although none of them were particularly eager for Divination, they all pulled out their books and prepared their teacups.
"So?" Ron asked again, impatiently, while the tea leaves were soaking in the hot water.
"He was in the library." Hermione sounded both excited and out of breath as she answered. As if she had just run away from a dragon.
"Oh shit." Ron cursed. "Did he see you?"
Harry was nervous at the information. He already didn't like spying on a friend. It would be even worse if Charlie found out. How would they explain that?
"Yes, of course, he saw me." Hermione sounded exasperated, then she threw Harry an apologetic glance. "I'm sorry, Harry. I really thought I was alone."
Harry frowned. "It can't be helped now," he admitted. "What were you doing there anyway?"
As if she only now remembered, her eyes brightened immediately. She pulled a parchment from her bag. "Right. I compared what he said to the correct translations. And his Afrikaans was off. Ron's sentence – the one about the Firebroom – was wrong. Here look." She pointed at two lines in dark ink.
"Here he said 'brom' instead of 'besem' for example. And here he messed up the grammar. I don't even know what's that supposed to be… Maybe it's a preposition, but I have no idea what it's supposed to mean. And it's not Afrikaans."
Harry's brows furrowed. That was indeed odd. He had never really spoken with Charlie about his Afrikaans after the boy had indicated he didn't like talking about South Africa.
"So, he doesn't even speak Afrikaans," Ron grumbled. "But it sounded right to me."
"As if you know what it's supposed to sound like," Hermione huffed.
Harry had a different concern. "And he saw you do this? Comparing the languages?"
She blushed. "Well…" Avoiding their gaze she nodded. "I'm sorry. He was suddenly behind me to ask something about Charms."
"Why didn't you pay attention!" Ron cried out. "Come on Hermione, some basic caution!"
"I'm sorry!" But she looked more defiant than sorry.
Harry had no interest in listening to another fight about Crookshanks and Scabbers, so he leaned forward, hindering their view of each other. "Okay," he accepted, "he saw you. Anything else?"
"He said he forgot it," Hermione answered. "Because he doesn't speak it a lot, he forgets a few words."
Harry weighed the explanation in his mind. "Is that possible?" He had truly no clue. He didn't speak a second language.
"Pah!" Ron shook his head. "Come on, think about it. Would any of you forget English?"
Harry shook his head, but he still wasn't entirely certain.
"I guess we could ask somebody," Hermione suggested almost inaudibly. "You know, somebody who grew up bilingual."
Harry looked around their class. He had no idea, which of his classmates spoke a foreign language. Never mind speaking the language good enough, that it would be comparable to Charlie losing his first language. In many ways, Harry had to agree with Ron. It sounded odd: Forgetting his own language.
"Okay, so who do we know—" Ron started, when he was abruptly cut short.
"How about you, Mr. Weasley?" Like a giant insect, Professor Trelawney suddenly hovered between Harry and Hermione, staring intensely at Ron. Harry's best friend stared at the teacher as if she had just materialized out of thin air.
"Don't you want to give it a try?" She nudged Harry's teacup a bit. Quickly Harry drained the remaining liquid, to give Ron the cup with the wet leaves inside.
Still startled, Ron peaked into the cup. "Uhm," he mumbled. "I think I see a cross. Or maybe a big X?" Turning the cup around he frowned at the contents. Then he opened the book with the page of the different readings for the many symbols. "So that means," he glanced at Professor Trelawney. "You will either have great fortune…or, eh…find a great fortune. Or you will have a great burden to bear in the next few weeks." Again, he glanced at Trelawney, who seemed almost disappointed.
Ron turned the cup in his hands. "Or it's maybe two crossed swords?" he suggested with a weary sigh. "Which could mean, that you will have to fight a duel to the death."
"Show me!" Trelawney exclaimed, ripping the cup from Ron's hands before the Gryffindor could even begin to fend her off. Intently she stared into the cup. "Haah!" She cried out ominously from shock before she let the cup go, giving Harry a first glance at the vaguely shaped cross sign at the bottom. "Ah," she whined, "you poor boy. Poor boy!" Worried, she brushed Harry's shoulder, then she ran off to the next table.
From a table further at the front, Parvati and Lavender were staring at him with big and worried eyes.
"Oh," Hermione huffed. "Parvati!" She spoke in a whispery voice, but still loud enough that Harry wondered why she even bothered whispering.
Parvati glared at Hermione, then she glanced at Trelawney as if to check that they weren't interrupting the class. "What is it?" she replied impatiently.
"You speak a second language at home, right?" Hermione asked.
Parvati scoffed. "Why?"
Blushing a bit, Hermione shrugged. "Just wanted to know, if you sometimes forget a few words." She sounded nervous despite trying to act cool. Harry could appreciate, that Hermione would lean so far out of her comfort zone for their investigation. Yet, as soon as Parvati leaned toward them to answer, Harry wished Hermione hadn't asked at all.
"And why would I know?" she asked annoyed.
Hermione turned a dark shade of red. She stammered to answer, bit her lips, tried another attempt to say something. "I just thought…You know." She gestured widely, not caring that she now had the ears of the entire class on her. Michael Corner and Sue Li from Ravenclaw snickered meanly. "You said something like that," Hermione remembered. "About speaking to your mom in…?"
Parvati scoffed at her. "My mother speaks Marathi," she acknowledged. "I don't."
Disappointed, Hermione put down her head. She quickly opened her textbook and hid behind the cover. Harry felt bad for her.
"So, does your mother sometimes forget something?" He asked Parvati, annoyed why she would make such a fuzz about it.
Parvati scowled, but then she seemingly relented. "Yes," she nodded. "At least she says so. It sounds fine to me, but sometimes she says, she wouldn't even dare visit our uncles again, because she wouldn't understand a word." She scoffed at Hermione. "Is that what you wanted to know?"
"Yes," Hermione squeaked almost inaudibly. "Thank you."
Parvati nodded stiffly. Then she pulled Lavender's teacup closer. "You should try focusing on Divination, Hermione," she suggested in a not entirely unfriendly tone.
No doubt, Kakashi thought, as he turned from where he'd been watching the trapdoor for a while now. Hermione had vanished through the door in time for her Divination class. Kakashi couldn't say anything for sure yet, but in an hour, his clone would dissolve and Kakashi would receive clarity. The witch had talked to him before, about something she had received from McGonagall, which allowed her to take several classes at once. Kakashi was skeptical, but he would know soon enough.
Not wanting to be caught skipping class, Kakashi had put a genjutsu on himself, so he wasn't seen as he spied after Hermione.
Relying on his disguise, he climbed back down the stairs, when he was promptly called back.
"Halt! Halt, you fiend!" A boisterous voice boomed over the corridor, just as he reached the foot of the stairs. "What mischief are you hatching? Turn around, foul villain!"
When he turned around, Kakashi needed a moment to find the tiny little knight waving with his even tinier sword from the portrait just next to the stairs.
When he turned around, Kakashi needed a moment to find the tiny little knight waving with his even tinier sword from the portrait just next to the stairs.
"Yes, I'm speaking to you," his voice boomed too loud for such a small man.
Kakashi shook his head, baffled and a bit overwhelmed. How could this man see him? But he was clearly speaking to Kakashi, there was nobody else around. Had his genjutsu failed? Not knowing how to deal with the knight, he decided it would be best to just ignore him for now. A portrait seeing him wouldn't be that bad, and he could think about the how and why later.
"Coward! Turn to face me!" The clambering of metal plating followed the knight as he ran to the next portrait to follow Kakashi around. "I saw you. Watching your classmates, spying around!"
Annoyed Kakashi turned to use a genjutsu, to distract the knight, so he could get away with the knight none the wiser. He had no interest to have the loud metal-man run after him through the entire castle.
Glancing back, he used a genjutsu, that should make the knight sleepy and distracted. However, nothing happened. The knight still glared at him with the same vigorous energy. Kakashi was about to try again.
Unless…well shit. These portraits weren't alive, were they?
He turned fully towards the small knight. "You saw me sneak up?" he asked. His genjutsu hadn't failed him. It had never worked on these portraits.
Sword still raised, and a bit out of breath from both running and screaming, the knight leaned on the hilt of his little sword to rest. "I saw it all!" He exclaimed proudly. "Your sneaking and hiding."
Kakashi grunted in acknowledgment. He immediately dropped his genjutsu. This was unfortunate. Clearly, his genjutsu didn't work on the painting. It likely worked on none of them, and Kakashi was annoyed he hadn't even considered that before… These living paintings weren't really alive. They just existed due to magic… And they weren't susceptible to genjutsu. The paintings…the ghosts too, he assumed.
"Thank you," Kakashi answered. At least the knight clearly didn't know that Kakashi had tried and failed to put it under a genjutsu. "Can you please excuse me?"
The knight seemed taken aback and confused. His sword, that he had drawn to challenge Kakashi was now used as a crutch to keep him upright.
"No, halt!" the knight yelled again, but then he seemed too out of breath to mount a real fight. He didn't do anything to stop Kakashi, but when Kakashi reached the next set of staircases he called after him. "This corridor is under the protection of Sir Cadogan! Don't forget that, you fiend!"
Kakashi waved absentmindedly. He wasn't even really listening anymore. Instead, he worried about what he'd just learned. As he walked, he eyed the paintings surrounding him. For the most part, it seemed the occupants of the paintings didn't care much for the events in the school. Ever since he first started seeing the paintings, Kakashi had the impression, that they lived mostly in their own world. Every now and then, one would complain about the noise, or bright lights, or fighting in the corridors, but that aside, Kakashi barely saw them interact with any living student or teachers. It was similar – though less extreme with the ghosts. Would they send reports to the staff or headmaster, if they saw anything unusual?
Thankfully, Kakashi hadn't used a lot of genjutsu.
Lost in his thoughts, he didn't pay attention to where his feet were carrying him until he finally stood in front of the staffroom. Blinking, he stared at the door. Why would he…? But he knew exactly what had brought him here.
It was a stupid idea he knew. One he would likely regret. And still his desire was overwhelming his instincts, that told him to stay away from creatures he couldn't fight. He had almost convinced himself, that it would be better to leave, when the door opened right in front of him.
The first thing he saw, where smooth dark robes. Then a degrading snort, made him look up at Snape's face.
"Mr. Major, what are you doing here?" the Potions master asked, voice razor-sharp. Kakashi wasn't interested in the man. His eyes tried to look past his figure blocking the door. "Should you not be in class? Already skipping class in your second week? One might think you don't even want to pass the year."
That made Kakashi finally look at the teacher. "I was wondering, if it was still here?" he asked, not bothering to give an excuse for skipping class. If Snape verified with Professor Burbage, his Muggle Studies professor, he'd learn that Charlie Major was attending class as usual. Any lie that might prompt Snape to check it, would only increase that risk. So, Kakashi just ignored the whole issue, unable to find an answer in the spur of the moment.
Snape's lips curled in annoyance.
"The Boggart," Kakashi clarified, when the Potions master didn't catch on immediately.
Snape's expression morphed into even more disgust. He glared over his shoulder at the closet, then back at Kakashi, and he spat a bit as he answered. "It's gone," he declared in a tone, as if he'd gladly killed the creature himself. Then a gleeful smirk crossed his lips. "I heard you had your own incident with it. The only student who could not defeat their Boggart. Truly pathetic." He crossed his arms glaring down at Kakashi. "In your stead, I would seriously consider stepping down two grades. I have first years who could handle a Boggart better than you."
Kakashi wondered, if Lupin had spoken about his students' Boggarts but then decided that it was unlikely. Lupin didn't seem the type to gossip about their Boggarts behind their backs. So, it was likely one of the Slytherins to spread the story around.
"Did Malfoy tell you?" Kakashi asked curiously. Snape didn't answer, but the glimmer in his eyes told Kakashi he was right, or at least not too far off. "I see," Kakashi acknowledged. "Did he also tell you, that he was the only student not to face it head on?"
Snape's pallid face reddened in anger. "Ten points from Hufflepuff," he announced. "For wondering the corridor and skipping class." And with that, he banged the door shut in front of Kakashi.