Ruthless Eyes
After Transfiguration the next day, Professor McGonagall introduced Lyra to a second-year boy named Seamus Finnegan. According to the professor, he also had the proclivity to make things explode while transfiguring, charming, stirring, and sometimes just being near something that wasn't stone or metal. He had gotten his own issue almost completely under control, and he was asked to help Lyra with her transfiguration. She was a bit unsure, but Harry told her he'd be there for their first meeting.
That day's potion class wasn't as eventful as the previous and the students just spent time going through common ingredients and talking about their different properties. Having studied a bit about the local arithmancy rules, Harry and Lyra were able to ask more questions about the potential uses of different ingredients. Harry inquired about some of the notes he had made the previous day on the boil curing potion, suggesting the possible substitution of fruit bat fangs in place of the snake fangs as they were designed to puncture juicy objects. Snape said he would add that experiment to the potions club when it started up next week.
History was boring, but Harry had overheard other students saying it is best to treat it like a study hall and just read class material outside of class on their own. He used it to write more of his essay for Potions which was due the next day.
Before dinner, he and Lyra went to go check on the classroom Hannah had found for his meeting with Draco. The entrance was located on the fourth floor, down a wing with no rooms being used for classes. The door was located between two suits of armor, but only one of them had a sword. To open the door, you needed to move the sword from the scabbard of one to the other. Behind the door, a set of stairs led down to a narrow room that was actually on the third floor and looked out over the courtyard near their common room. There was a small table next to the window with a few chairs around it. The room seemed to be designed to be perfect for private meetings. At dinner, Lyra passed a note to Greg to hand off to Draco.
The next few days were nice. Thursday night they had astronomy and got to sit out under the stars for an hour learning the names of all the constellations they had been looking at for years. The constellation they imagined was a demiguise turned out to be one called Orion. They learned about other planets and at the end of the night, they learned the spell to change their Lumos spell to a red light.
Friday was not fun, while they got to sleep in a little bit, they had a triple DADA course. Tina still hadn't been able to get a syllabus for the class, so they just read through Lockhart's books and focused mostly on the parts of him performing heroic actions. His exploits were strangely abundant and varied, and most had little explanation of how they were achieved. Like how he defeated a ghoul with a tea strainer.
Harry wasn't sure why it needed to be defeated or how a tea strainer helped. Ghouls were classified as XX by the Ministry which meant they were harmless and could even be domesticated in some situations. They were often annoying, but hardly the threat that Lockhart portrayed this one as. Even with a dramatic reenactment involving waving a tea strainer at Colin, he wasn't able to give them a proper explanation of why he did this.
Lee had managed to gather a lot more vinyl records for the party tomorrow evening. They had more than enough to play for the whole night, and it would be difficult to switch records constantly. There had to be a better way to do it.
Harry left dinner early to prepare for his meeting with Draco. When he arrived in the room, he positioned two chairs, one by the window and the other on the opposite side of the table. He took a black and orange feather and planted it under the table between the cracks in the floor. Not knowing what else to do to prepare, he took out his staff and made sure his wand was stuck to his right forearm for easy access and then sat down by the window and waited.
When Harry heard movement, he sat up straight and took hold of his staff. Draco came down the stairs with his wand lit and as he got closer he saw that it was Harry sitting in his chair.
"Potter, what are you doing here?"
"Lyra asked me to come to meet with you."
"I need to speak to my sister, not you. I'm leaving." Draco turned to leave.
"Your uncle has forbidden you to speak with her, without her consent. The only way to do that is to speak with me first."
Draco stopped before turning back, "Fine, what do you want so I can speak with my sister."
"First of all," Harry began, "she's not your sister, she's mine. You gave her up along with your father years ago."
"She's my blood! She's a Malfoy! You're just some half-blood!"
Harry slammed his staff into the ground, releasing a small magical pulse, and creating light in the room. "You abandoned her, you let your father hurt her. I bet you didn't spend a single moment thinking about her after she was thrown away by your father. You have no right to call her family."
Draco was a bit stunned by the magic performed by a first-year, but took a step forward, "How do you even know her? Did you meet her at the orphanage?"
Harry was taken aback, Draco really believed she had gone to the orphanage. He didn't know what had happened to Lyra and just believed his father's lies. "If you want to know our story, you will have to swear a blood oath to keep the secret. Your mother knows and she has sworn an oath of secrecy as well."
"A blood oath?" Draco asked incredulously. "That's archaic, if you want an oath, I will make a magical one."
"You would risk losing your magic instead of just taking away your ability to break the oath? Fine by me. You will swear not to reveal to anyone in any form, directly or indirectly, what happens or what is spoken of in this room, unless I allow you to do so in part or in full."
While they had been on the island, Alastor had taught them the basics of oaths, like the one he had the adults make, and warned them never to make a magical one, saying that there was no reason to risk your magic for anyone.
Draco hesitated for a moment and looked back at the stairs behind him. Then he drew his wand and made the oath.
"Sit down, and I'll tell you how I know my sister."
He sat down at the table and Harry tapped his staff to activate the feather under the table.
"What was that?" asked Draco. He looked around when he heard no echo.
"Privacy, no one else can hear us now."
"How? That's a third-year spell."
"Doesn't matter. Did you hear about what happened at your father's trial? What he was accused of and the evidence that was presented?"
"Of course, it was in the newspapers. Uncle Arcturus brought in a false witness and cheated in an honor duel."
"The witness wasn't a false witness. That man was my uncle." Harry watched as the wheels seemed to turn in Draco's head as he connected the pieces. When he saw that the blonde boy understood, he continued, "That's how I know my sister."
Draco wasn't ready to give up just yet, "Then the orphanage must have sold her to those people. My father wouldn't have done such a thing. Your uncle should be killed like the filthy muggle he is."
"I'm sure the Aurors are investigating the orphanage, we will find out if he was lying or not soon. He could have just taken veritaserum instead of instigating an honor duel."
"He was insulted, which requires a forceful response, but Uncle Arcturus brought out a proxy instead of backing up his own words."
"It's clear to me that you won't change your mind on this. Even outside of this issue, you're not the kind of person I think Lyra needs in her life."
"What do you mean? You don't even know me."
"Lyra told me about what you were like when you were younger. That your father would hurt both of you to try to make you do magic, that she would always try to stop him from hurting you, but you would do nothing when he would hurt her. How could you let anyone hurt your sister?"
Draco looked at him like he was crazy, "That's how you get children to perform magic, they need to be angry or afraid. They need to be fighting to survive. How did you perform your first magic? Were you happy and relaxing in the sun when it happened?" Seeing the reaction on Harry's face, he smugly responded, "I didn't think so. Lyra couldn't perform magic and she was tested as a squib, so she was sent to the orphanage where all the squibs from the old families go."
Harry wasn't sure what to say. Every bit of magic he performed when he was younger was done as a result of being chased, hurt, scared, and furious with others.
"I still don't think that this is the right way of doing things," Harry said with certainty. "Lyra was taken care of and protected before she performed any magic around me. Your father was obviously wrong in the way he did things because Lyra is capable of beautiful and amazing magic. She has performed incredible blessings of the land and formed bonds with amazing creatures."
"Then my father needs to apologize to her for his mistake, welcome her back into the family, and provide her with everything she missed these past years with penance on top of it."
Harry looked at the boy, like he was crazy, "How do you not understand that she doesn't want to go back? Even if being hurt was to draw out her magic, you still should have tried to help her. What kind of person sees a child being hurt and just accepts it? I saw you at the sorting when Hermione was knocked over, you just laughed as she cried on the floor."
Draco looked confused, "You mean the mudblood? Of course, it was funny, Vincent snatched off her cloak to show everyone her deformity! Mudbloods shouldn't be at Hogwarts, to begin with."
"Mudbloods?" Harry asked though he knew the word sounded like an insult.
"Muggleborns, spawn of muggles, like your uncle. How could people who come from filth like that be allowed to learn magic? That's why they are mudbloods."
"She has magic, just like you. She also gets better grades than you, top of the class."
"Anyone can study hard," Draco sneered.
"Do you know Brandt? Uncle Arcturus's steward?" Harry asked. Draco nodded, "He's a muggleborn, but he's part of the family."
"He's an awakened squib line," Draco responded, "and not just any line, he's a Black."
"How do you know Hermione isn't from a squib line? Does everyone use the orphanage that the Blacks do? Anyways, it doesn't matter, you see the pain of others and either look away or laugh. That isn't the kind of person I want around my sister."
"She's not your sister!" Draco yelled at him.
"We take care of each other. We have relied on each other to survive for years. We are family in every way that matters. I am her brother more than you are. If you want to be part of her life, try showing compassion for others, until then, stay away from her."
"You can't tell me what to do," Draco sneered and drew his wand. "I can keep your secrets after I teach you a lesson." He waved his wand in a squiggly motion and called out "Diffindo!"
Harry tapped his staff into the ground and a white bubble surrounded him. It was just in time for the pink spell to impact it, melting like ink in water before fading into nothingness.
Draco was shocked for a second before he waved his wand more and cried out, "Diffindo! Expelliarmus! Incendio!"
Pink and scarlet spells splashed into Harry's shield followed by a gout of fire that seemed to cause the shield to shrink as the inferno was held on him. Harry had moved his staff so the antler on top was pointed forward as he focused on his own spell. When the shield had almost collapsed and he could feel the heat from Draco's spell almost touching him, he released the magical pulse he was building up, just like he did to Auror Kirkland in the Leaky Cauldron.
The concentrated pulse hit Draco straight in the stomach knocking the wind out of him and launching him backward into the stairs leading to the entrance. He crashed into them and dropped his wand, groaning in pain. Harry marched over to him with a furious look on his face. When he was right on top of him, Harry kicked away the wand and put his foot on Draco's chest, and pressed the antler of his staff on the boy's throat.
"Just like a snake," Harry growled. "You think you're some kind of king, but you don't know your place. You will stay away from my sister, and you will stay away from me." With that, he took his staff away from the boy's neck and pushed the antler into Draco's shoulder, penetrating the skin down at least a couple of inches as he screamed in pain.
Draco was no stranger to pain, his father had made sure of it. He was taught that if he was hurt, to not shut down, regain control, and continue fighting. So after the initial sting changed to constant pain, he tried to get away but Harry's foot on his chest kept him from wiggling away. He looked up at Harry expecting to see shock at what he had just done. A twelve-year-old should be overcome with alarm after stabbing someone, he should be panicking about what he should do next, but his eyes showed none of these things and looked like he had done this before, more than just once.
Walden Macnair was one of his father's old friends and had been introduced to Draco when he was younger. The man worked for the ministry killing dangerous creatures. He had also been 'under the imperius curse' during the last wizarding war on the side of the Dark Lord. Harry had eyes like that man while he held the antler of the staff deep in Draco's shoulder.
"Remember, if you tell anyone about this, you'll lose your magic. Get to the infirmary now. I'll leave your wand in the Great Hall for someone to find." Harry yanked his staff out of Draco's shoulder making him cry out in pain again as blood started to pool in his robes. "Go, now."
Harry took his foot off Draco's chest and he scampered up the stairs and out the door. Harry pulled a towel out of his pouch and cleaned up the blood on the stairs up to the door. When he got outside, he checked in both directions before mopping up the remaining blood drops he found all the way to the main staircase. He backtracked again just to be sure he got everything, then folded the towel so there was no blood on the outside and made his way quickly back to the common room, tossing Draco's wand towards the great hall as he went by.
He quickly scaled his favorite tree to find Lyra sitting there with Whispers reading their herbology book. She saw the look on his face and demanded to know what happened. He went through the whole conversation and finished with their impromptu duel.
"You need to tell Uncle Arcturus about this, he will know what to do," Lyra told him.
"I'm also making you an amulet, the same as we did with that pig on the island," Harry responded.
Lyra pulled a bowl, two hoohoo feathers, a lump of clay, and some string from her pouch. Harry pulled out the bloody towel. Lyra started rolling the clay into a ball as she hummed "Black Dog" by Led Zeppelin. Harry took the feathers and pressed them inside the towel until they were soaked in blood. Placing the feathers on the clay ball, he used the tip of his staff to push them inside. A few edges of the feathers stuck out but that was fine. Lyra ran the string through the soft clay so it was enough to hang around her neck. With the last feather, Harry stuck it into the tree they were sitting on and Lyra tapped her staff to ignite it. Harry held the necklace over the fire until the clay hardened and then passed it back to Lyra who put it around her neck.
"Keep it on," he told her. "I'm going to write a note and head up to the owlery to send it. I'll take Cedric with me, just to be safe. Draco almost broke my shield with that fire spell. We need to learn how to defend ourselves if that's what a second-year student can do."
After writing a short note, he found Cedric in his dorm and asked if he would accompany him to the owlery.
As they were walking, the older boy looked at him funny and asked, "Is everything alright?"
Harry thought for a moment before remembering that his housemates were supposed to be like his family, "I may have just had a fight with another student, I nearly lost which would have been bad for many reasons other than just being hit with a fire spell. Lyra and I need to learn to fight with magic."
"What spells did you... hypothetically... use tonight?" Cedric was curious.
Harry pulled his staff from his pouch and showed it to Cedric. "My staff allows me to shield some spells and push people away. Lyra's staff allows her to do other things as well."
Cedric was impressed, "I did put on the suggestion list to add a dueling room as part of the common room. I know the Ravenclaws have one and it's rumored the Slytherins do as well. Strangely the Gryffindors don't, though I suspect they just settle problems throwing rocks at one another in their own rooms."
"I was hoping to have a place to make my own fertilizer. Professor Sprout told us that you can make good fertilizers with magical animal manure and organic waste with flobberworms mixing it all up. We've taught Whispers to use the toilet, but we could just as easily tell him to use a bin to make demiguise fertilizer."
The very notion caused Cedric to freeze on the spot before giving Harry an odd glance. "You're an interesting kid, Harry," he commented with a smirk.
They reached the owlery and Harry sent off his letter. On the way back down Cedric showed him a few tricks of the castle. Which portraits would tell him interesting gossip and which suits of armor sometimes had things hidden inside.
As they were getting close to the first floor again, Cedric asked, "Have you thought about playing quidditch at all? We are going to need a team next year, even if it's horrible. The Weasley twins say you'd be an incredible beater."
"The only time I've seen it was when I hit the bludger. I also don't think I'd like hurting people in a game. If I need to, I'll hurt someone in defense, but as a sport? I don't like that."
They arrived back at the common room, "Well, we've got plenty of time to think about it. You've still got a lot of time before Madam Hooch even lets you touch a quaffle during your flying class. And let me know if you have any more problems with whoever you may have fought with tonight. I looked after all the younger students in Hufflepuff even in my first year and I plan on doing the same in Scamander house too."
Harry thanked him and went to listen to some music and work on a transfiguration essay.
Draco wasn't at breakfast Saturday morning, Harry assumed he was still in the infirmary. Most of the teachers had serious looks on their faces, so he assumed they knew a student had been attacked. Draco's wand must have been recovered as he didn't see it where he threw it as he arrived to eat.
Toward the end of breakfast, Auror Jameson entered the great hall, out of uniform. Lyra jumped up and greeted him with Harry following behind. She started telling him everything that had happened so far as Harry led them back to the common room. When they arrived, Harry showed Jameson how to enter the common room through the maze and he remarked on the innovative puzzle. He also liked their common room but said he liked the Gryffindor one more. Harry thought to ask some of the other first-years what they liked about their common rooms and see if they could add more details here.
While Lyra was practicing her reading and writing, Harry decided to finish his transfiguration essay, so he climbed his favorite tree and started writing. After a few minutes, he saw Neville Longbottom walk by and look up at him through the branches.
"How'd you get up there?" the slightly chubby kid asked.
Harry stowed his essay and quill in his pouch and swung down to the ground. "I climbed up the knots in the tree." He repeated his climbing but slower and jumped back down.
Neville stared at Harry's climbing and frowned. "I don't know if I could do that, I think I'll just stay on the ground."
"I couldn't do it at first either, and Lyra has always been a better climber than me." Harry looked around them and then ran off around the other trees before coming back to Neville. "Come on over to this one." He dragged a reluctant Neville over to a smaller tree. The trunk had more of a curve to it. "Try this one," Harry told him.
"What if I fall?" Neville asked fearfully.
"Then you can get back up and try again," Harry said with encouragement. It didn't work and the fear in Neville's eyes grew, so Harry tried a different tactic. "Do you know the softening charm? You could use it to keep yourself from getting hurt."
Nodding, he took out his wand and cast the spell at his feet, a small area the size of a football glowed. Fixing his face in a grimace, he cast the spell nearly twenty times before a large area below the tree had been affected. Harry showed him the hand and footholds to use and he tried to pull himself up. When he got both feet off the ground, he turned to smile at Harry before losing his grip and falling. Even though it was just one foot, he still did not land on his feet. Luckily, the cushioned ground softened the fall.
As he groaned, Harry congratulated him. "That was a good first try. You just need to keep working on it. Do it again now."
He tried a few more times before he was able to get to the next set of hand and footholds. Though this time when he fell, he managed to keep his feet under him. He wobbled a bit on the cushioned ground but didn't fall. Remembering how Teacher and Digger had taught him to climb, he stopped Neville there.
"That was good, but you should stop for today. Keep trying each day and you'll get a little higher until you can sit in the trees with us." Neville smiled and walked off.
Wandering around some more, he came across Lily and Su who were hanging lights around the edges of the room. They said it was for the party, so he helped to hang them up. The lights were charmed to glow and twinkle randomly to give the appearance of fireflies or fairies. Harry hadn't seen a fairy before, so he added it to his list of magical things he wanted to experience. After checking in on Lyra and finding her reading with Jameson while Whispers tried using a quill to draw on a paper, he decided to do a bit of exploring.
Just exploring the common room entrance, he found that two portraits would speak back to him, the older-looking portraits seemed unable to speak but would mime to him. He could do this, he had created signs for the Hidden, and he could do it with a human portrait. It took an hour, but he was able to create signs to communicate with the portrait across from their entrance. Other than basic descriptors they were able to sign back and forth [Secret], [Look], [House], [Castle], [Harry]. The man pulled on his overly large ears to make a sign for himself and signed various colors by pointing around his portrait to the colors used in the paint.
The portrait explained that he had been in Hufflepuff. Harry thought he had explained back that he was in a fifth house but wasn't sure the portrait understood. When other students started coming out of the common room, the man retreated to a tree in the background of his portrait and sat down, leaning against the trunk. Jameson came out with Harry and told them he had to return home but would try to be back next weekend. They both thanked him and he headed out.
At lunch, Harry sat with a boy from his dorm named William Summerford. He was a muggleborn and had red hair that looked as if he had spent all day rubbing a balloon against it. It just seemed to stand on end all the time. He was very proud of the fact that he could give people small shocks from static electricity with every touch, though he was working on keeping it from happening when he didn't want it to. Harry made sure to look around and still didn't see Draco at his table. He was a little worried now, he hadn't stabbed a person before with his staff, but that pig on the island was still able to move around after its injury just fine.
After lunch, Harry introduced Lyra to the portrait he had been signing with and then the two of them explored the entrance hallway some more. Harry found a cupboard big enough for a few books by tapping his wand on a darker stone than the ones surrounding it. Lyra found a suit of armor that if you opened the breastplate there was an unfinished sculpture inside of a mouse drinking tea. He doubted that this was the first time any of these had been discovered, but just from the sheer amount of randomness to the castle, there must be a few things that he might come across for the first time in this generation at least.
From that thought, he entered the common room again and wrote down a request for a map room where they could record all the secrets of the castle they came across. He looked at the other requests on the list: a gym, a dueling room, Harry's fertilizer room, a separate study room, a potions lab, tire swings, hammocks, a swimming pool, and other minor things.
He spent the rest of the day relaxing and when dinner came around, elves started appearing in their room to set up for the party. They were just setting up, but they seemed to be having great difficulty resisting the urge to clean the dirt floor. Everyone left the common room to let them do their work. After everyone started dinner, Draco came in with a few other Slytherins. He was moving a bit slow in the center of the group, he was staring daggers at Harry hoping he could kill him with a thought.
He started to move towards the middle of the Slytherin table when he grabbed his shoulder and grimaced in pain. He took an experimental step in the direction he had been going only to wince again. A girl that he had been walking with whispered to him and kept him from leaning to the side with the pain. He walked back towards the end of the table closer to the door and sat down there with the other students he had come in with. They whispered among themselves but no one looked toward Harry or Lyra. When dessert was set out, Newt got up from the teacher's table and approached the lectern, most students quieted down.
Newt didn't bother to wait for the rest of the noise to die down before speaking, "The gathering in the new Scamander common room will open its doors at 7:45. It will last until 11:00 p.m. I will need all of the Scamander students in the house at 7:30, thank you."
Harry leaned over to Lyra, "The amulet is working, let's walk around the front of the room by the Gryffindor table to leave. We can say hi to Ginny on the way."
They got up and walked up around the front of the room by the house of the brave and found Ginny finishing up her meal.
"Will you be at the party, Ginny?" Lyra asked.
"My brothers will want to chaperone me, but yes, I will," Ginny responded with a touch of annoyance.
"Why would you need a chaperone?" asked Harry.
"You didn't hear? Someone attacked Malfoy. Professor McGonagall grilled everyone in Gryffindor because it had to be one of us. Now everyone thinks that the Slytherins are going to attack one of us as a reprisal, and poor little Ginny here could be an easy target for one of them."
"Well, we hope to see you there," Harry told her nervously then nearly ran off with Lyra. When they had gotten out of the great hall, he turned to Lyra, "We need to speak to Brandt about this tomorrow. If anyone else gets hurt, I'll just admit to attacking him, I don't want a war because of me."
Lyra just nodded and they returned to the common room. When they arrived, many tables had been set up along the walls of the room, a fire was blazing in the fire pit, and some of the enchanted lights were already twinkling and glowing in the trees as the sun was getting low in the sky along the wall. Harry could see doors for the two of the unused dorm rooms in the back of the room were visible and open with signs for 'Witches' or 'Wizards' over each one. While invisible, Whispers jumped out of a nearby tree and Lyra caught him as he reappeared.
"How do you do that?" Millicent asked. She had just walked in behind them, "He jumps on you all the time when he's invisible but you catch him like you can see him the whole time."
Lyra didn't want to reveal just yet that she could see him, but answered, "He's been doing this for years now. I expect it and look for the footprints or the movement in the trees, so he doesn't surprise me anymore."
"One thing that demiguises do a lot to scare others into turning invisible," Harry added, "it's a game and also a way to establish dominance between them. So he's playing with Lyra, but also trying to spook her at the same time."
"That's way smarter than a kneazle. I can't get over his talking though, that's the craziest thing ever, some birds can mimic speech but Whispers actually talks," the second-year girl mused.
Lyra spoke quietly into Whispers's ear and he turned to look at Millicent to say, "Whisssperr Ssmarrt."
She let out a nervous giggle and shook her head vigorously. By this time all of the Scamanders were waiting around the common room. Newt and Tina entered last.
Newt turned around and went back out while Tina addressed the group, "My husband is going to disable the maze right now. After 11 p.m., when the party's over, it will be reactivated. The two open dorms at the back of the common room will be for bathrooms. Your dorms will be locked except for the students that sleep there. There will be teachers coming in and out if you need them for any reason. I will be taking away the suggestion sheet and going over it with the headmaster. Also, I hope to have a syllabus for the defense class by tomorrow. Does anyone have any questions or would like to add something?"
Harry raised his hand, "Whispers is going to be in the trees, please keep an eye out for him, though he may just stay invisible. He has very good senses, but he will still be in a room full of wizards. Also, I'm guessing people will want to know details about our password to get in. I learned something fun from Auror Alastor Moody over the summer called a 'Class 1 Fish Tale.' If someone asks about the password or the entrance, tell them anything you want except the correct answer. Maybe say that you need to find a shovel and dig through the floor to reach the common room, that you need to perform ten push-ups, or sing the lyrics to 'Yesterday' by the Beatles. Anything except the truth, eventually people will just get tired of asking."
Tina nodded, "That's a fun idea, that sounds just like Alastor to make up something like that. So everyone needs to start thinking of the craziest ideas to tell people. We don't have to do that just for tonight but make it a tradition. I'll put a book in our common room library for you to write your funny ideas in. The top five at the end of the year win a prize. I'll also put a shovel just inside the entrance after the party just for fun to see if anyone ever tries to dig their way in."
Everyone started whispering their ideas to each other and moving about the room. Lyra scaled a tree to speak with Whispers while Harry and Lee moved to put on some music, starting with an album from Little Richard. Both boys smiled as the upbeat music came on and they turned up the volume. Lee closed the plastic lid over the spinning record and waved his wand in a rectangular motion while incanting, "Colloportus!"
Turning to Harry who looked a little confused, "It's a locking charm. It can be unlocked, of course, but it will keep random people from messing with it."
A couple of people had started to trickle in, they looked around in amazement at the dirt floor and trees growing in the center and corner of the room. One girl saw the setting sun and ran over to watch it, smacking straight into the wall. Some of her friends laughed but came over to join her and inspect the wall where the sun was setting. Harry saw one person saying hi to William and getting a nasty shock as he shook hands with the static-charged boy. Lyra was still up in the tree, so Harry started just to walk around and he'd check on her later.
As he walked by the fire, an Asian girl Harry recognized from the sorting came up to him, "It's Harry, right?" He nodded and she continued, "I'm Cho Chang, I was hoping you could tell me about your house, I was trying to get sorted here, but I guess the hat had other ideas."
"I'm not sure what to tell you," began Harry, "we sat and talked about all the house ideals and we wanted to make them different from the other houses but it was Lyra who decided on them. We went with survival, ingenuity, caring for living things, and fierce defense of those we care about. Why did you want to be in this house without knowing about it?"
"I wanted to be part of the next big thing!" she said with a perky tone. "A new Hogwarts house? Everyone who will be in it for the next few years is going to shape the generation, how amazing will that be?"
Harry smiled back at her, "That ambition is probably what got you into Slytherin."
She frowned but looked back to Harry who was smiling and tilted her head. "You mean that like a compliment, don't you?" Harry nodded. "Most people will say cunning and ambition are negative, they say 'Slytherin' with a sneer."
"Everyone needs ambition, it's what helps us achieve greatness. Any quality can be negative; look at Lyra, she nearly burned the sorting hat because of something that happened in my sorting." Cho started to ask, but Harry cut her off, "No, I won't tell you what it was."
"Gotta keep some secrets? Maybe there's some Slytherin cunning in you too." The girl winked at him and walked off.
Harry wandered around a bit and was introduced to many people he didn't know. He didn't see Lyra around, so he climbed up her favorite tree to find her invisible and stared down at the party with Whispers.
Sitting down next to her he said, "You need to come down, I'll be with you."
She faded back to being visible, "Promise? There's a lot of people down there."
He nodded and they climbed down with Whispers hanging on to Harry's back. He leaned down to Lyra, "If it makes you feel better, take out your staff, but don't light anyone on fire unless it's an emergency." Harry said that last part a little bit louder so a couple of people near them heard it.
Lyra smiled a bit and pulled the staff out of her pouch. It attracted a little bit of attention and a few people came over to ask her about it. She was incredibly nervous, but Harry made sure she felt safe by occasionally slipping her small candies. A lot of people asked her about the feathers in her hair, which she said were from hoohoos that she knew and that they were good for potion ingredients and setting things on fire. A couple of people asked for a demonstration and she was able to light small feathers by activating them with her staff. There were always oohs and ahhs at the display.
At around nine, the Weasleys arrived. Ginny came in first, followed by Beavis and Butthead, Ron, and Percy. Ron immediately went to the food, while the twins moved to the trees, Percy stared at the ceiling which you could see the stars on, and Ginny ran off like she was looking for someone.
Harry ended up wandering with Lyra towards a group of older students who were talking about the new animagi classes. They stopped when Harry and Lyra showed up.
"We're interested in it too, please continue," Harry prompted them.
"Aren't you a bit young?" a girl in Gryffindor asked.
"Yeah, we are," Lyra said with a pout. "The Giver says we can't do it until next summer."
At their looks of confusion, Harry amended, "Our tutor from before we came here. He was called The Giver. He said I could do it this summer, but I want to wait and do it with Lyra because she's a year younger."
Harry recognized the Ravenclaw girl as Penelope who said, "Yeah, we all heard you had some special training, Harry. I guess Lyra had it too? What kinds of stuff did you learn?"
Lyra was feeling a bit overwhelmed and started to stand behind Harry. As he felt her moving to hide, he stepped to the side a bit to keep her next to him.
"We each got different things. Mine was more potions and defensive magic, while Lyra's was…" Harry tried to think of the right word and remembered what Draco called the blood oath. "Hers was more archaic, but in a good way."
"Oh, like the feathers?" Penelope asked and Lyra nodded. She started to feel a bit energized at being part of the conversation. "I'm still trying to get the speed right. We've opened a new testing room for it and filled it with fake books so I don't destroy any more of them." The others looked confused, so she explained to them about Hermione's project and Lyra's feathers to find books. Everyone was suitably impressed.
A Slytherin boy in the group steered the conversation back to the original topic, "When you came up, we were talking about the first step in the ritual with the mandrake leaves. My father tried the ritual, but had to start over a few times and couldn't make himself do it a fourth time. They taste horrible and give you hallucinations for the first day. If that doesn't make you spit it out, keeping them in your mouth for a full month is ridiculously hard, especially when you have to eat and drink other things too."
"Why not use a sticking charm?" Lyra asked.
The older students looked at her like she grew a second head. Penelope responded, "I really don't know, but I'd guess it's because an additional spell could cause a problem with the ritual."
"Not if you did it yourself," Lyra responded, "The reason you have to keep it in your mouth is to absorb your magic into the leaf, so if you stick it with your own spell, it shouldn't be a problem."
The Gryffindor girl said, "Well, we'd need to ask Professor McGonagall about it, but that would help a lot. Is there anything you think we can do about the hallucinations?"
Harry groaned, but Lyra giggled and said, "That should be the fun part! Our tutor said that when we do it, he will make us walk through the jungle for a week and eat some mushrooms to have more dreams each day. You're supposed to open your mind to endless possibilities and eventually your inner animal will manifest itself through your dreams, then your animal magic will be absorbed into the leaves."
None of the older students knew what to say, so Harry picked up the conversation. "What do you think your animals will be?"
The Gryffindor was hoping for something that could swim, the Slytherin wanted something to see in the dark, and Penelope wanted something cuddly. They asked the same of Harry and Lyra.
Lyra jumped back in, "I want to fly, if the others hadn't gotten in trouble for racing ahead in the flying lesson, I probably would have done it. I've seen a hoohoo fly and I really want to be able to fly like that. It's total freedom."
"What about you Harry?" asked Penelope.
"Harry doesn't like talking about it," Lyra said with a grin. "He accidentally ate some mushrooms that gave him dreams a while back, and he dreamt he was a turtle, now he's dreading what will happen." The others kind of chuckled at that. Lyra wrapped her arms around Harry and said, "Whatever my brother will be, it will be something big, strong, and able to protect people - even if he ends up being a giant turtle."
Everyone chuckled and the girls made aww noises at Lyra's statement while hugging Harry.
They eventually moved on to other topics and turned to the door to see a large contingent of Slytherins come in. They were all a bit on edge and a lot of the Gryffindors became anxious as well. Harry saw a few Gryffindors gripping their wands in their sleeves.
Harry saw Daphne and Tracey in the group and went over to say hi. As he got closer, Whispers who had been sitting invisibly on his back the whole time turned visible and jumped at Daphne. She screamed, causing many to draw their wands and point them at the creature holding tight to her body.
She tried to calm everyone down, "Stop, it's just Lyra's demiguise, put your wands down!" Not many people did, as a lot of the wands were pointed back and forth between the Slytherins and Gryffindors and not even in the direction of Whispers.
Newt stepped in and raised his wand with a bright red light on the end, "WANDS DOWN NOW! Every wand I see out in five seconds loses ten points!" Everyone stashed their wands, though Harry bet some were just hidden in sleeves. "The next wand I see out will be sent back to their dorm and have detention."
Daphne had been covering Whispers with her arms. Lyra ran up and took him back while muttering her thanks for protecting him.
Harry on the other hand poked Whispers in the shoulder and motioned to all the people in the room, "Don't do that around many people, just with family." He signed it for the little guy just so he got the message.
"Sorry for that," Lyra said, "He was just trying to play."
Daphne nodded. Tracey ran off for a moment and came back with a boy with a dark olive skin tone. "Harry, Lyra, I want you to meet the most cunning and annoying of the Slytherins, Blaise Zabini."
Blaise stepped forward, "Thank you for that introduction, Tracey, I just wanted to meet the girl whose only brother is Harry Potter, and the Boy-Who-Lived himself."
Harry extended his hand shaking Blaise's, "Thanks, but you're wrong. Whispers is also our brother. He's as much family as the two of us are."
Whispers turned around in Lyra's arms and growled, "Fam-Lee."
The boy jumped back, but then just smiled, "Impressive, does he need any help learning to speak?" Harry shrugged, unsure if they wanted him to help. "I know I can't come to your common room, but my mother has a professional speech coach as a portrait. She always hated how most house-elves speak, so any she acquires has to spend a month or two learning to speak properly with the portrait. I could have her send it to help Whispers here."
Harry and Lyra turned to each other and had a quick signing debate.
[You, Think?] Harry signed.
[Don't know],[You, Trust?] Lyra responded.
[He, Snake],[Snake, Wants] Harry signed again
They turned to Blaise who seemed to almost be following their conversation, and he proved them right by responding, "All I want is to get to know some fellow students. Lyra seems to know some very interesting knowledge, and you seem like a formidable wizard even if half the legends are true. Both of you have a staff of power, and Harry's has a very particular shape to it." He reached up casually and scratched at his left shoulder, exactly where Draco had been stabbed.
Harry tensed up and went to reach for his pouch. Blaise just held up his hands while Tracey and Daphne looked on in confusion. Lyra suddenly realized what was going on and she actually did pull out her staff, drawing looks from some other students.
Blaise kept his hands raised saying very quietly, "Don't worry, I figured it out myself, you can do it again if you want, I don't mind. I'm just trying to say that I'd like to help you. People are starting to stare, so I'm going to put down my hands. Let me know if you'd like to take me up on my offer." He turned around and walked away.
"What was that?" Tracey asked.
Harry grimaced a little bit, "You were right, he is the most cunning and annoying of the Slytherins."
The four of them chatted some more, with Hannah joining them and getting to hold Whispers while feeding him an apple. The sky had gotten extra dark and the room lights were dimmed so everyone could see the stars. Their astronomy teacher, Professor Sinistra, cast a spell at the ceiling causing the stars to all glow brighter to the delight of everyone watching.
Colin suddenly called out, "We've got s'mores!" There were a few cheers that went off.
Lee ran up, "Where did you get marshmallows?"
"I saw the dying fire and I just expressed out loud, 'we could really use some s'mores,' and then Astray stepped out right next to me with a bag of the materials."
An older Gryffindor boy called out, "We could really use a Playwizard centerfold model!" There was silence as he looked around and then a ton of people laughed, while the girl next to him punched him hard in the chest. Harry and Lyra didn't understand what just happened. Colin looked confused for a second and then had a moment of realization and then looked incredibly embarrassed.
Lee told Colin, "I'm going to put on more music, set everyone up, Colin!" He ran off towards the gramophone.
Colin started passing out the graham crackers, chocolate bars, and marshmallows. An older Hufflepuff boy transfigured blades of grass into long sticks and passed them out to everyone. Meanwhile, a beautiful melody on the trumpet began to play.
Tina made a noise of contentment, almost like a purring noise made through her open mouth. "Whose album is this?" A Hufflepuff boy raised his hand. "Ten points to your house for your taste in music. For everyone who doesn't know, this is Miles Davis. I got to see him perform live twice." She conjured herself a beanbag chair and flopped into it to listen.
Everyone who wanted to, ate s'mores, with detailed instructions from Colin. Toward the end of the evening, Harry found himself talking with Luna about some creatures called nargles. Luna explained that they were something called non-beings that were manifested by confusion and perpetuated more around them. The best way to rid yourself of them was to either do something that cleared your mind of every thought or to be more confusing than what the nargles could create themselves. Luna said she always preferred the latter method. That did seem a lot like her.
Ginny and her brother Ron approached them. Ginny went straight to Luna and Ron to Harry. "So I see you found Looney," the ginger boy said.
Harry was confused for a moment before making the connection that Looney was Luna. He smiled at Ron, "And you were right too! Lyra and I really do get along well with Looney. Though, she hasn't asked me to call her that, so I'm going to stick with Luna."
Ron looked befuddled, so he switched to something he could talk about. "My brothers say you managed to dent a bludger. How'd you manage that?"
"A bludger was going to hurt Arthur, so I hit it with my staff. The antler on it is pretty much unbreakable, so I guess it dented the bludger," Harry explained.
"Wicked," remarked Ron. "Could I see it?"
Harry started to pull it out but pulled it back as Ron grabbed at it. "Please don't touch it, do you still want to see it?"
"Whatever, so are you going to play quidditch? You'd make a good beater."
"Cedric said that. I don't want to hurt anyone."
"The keepers wear pads, you won't hurt them."
"What about everyone else?"
"No, they need full visibility for the other positions."
"Then I wouldn't want to accidentally hurt someone."
"People get hurt all the time in quidditch, it's not a big deal."
"What if it was your sister?"
"Ginny can't play quidditch."
Overhearing her brother, she marched over. "I can't do what?"
"You can't play quidditch, you're too young and mom won't let you."
A shouting match began between the two of them as Harry and Luna backed away.
Around 10:30, they were getting exhausted, so Newt called in some elves to deal with the trash. Astray would deal with the rest in the morning. Lyra tapped her staff and the fire went out completely. In the ashes, she placed a cluster of three small red hoohoo feathers from her hair and activated them. The light glowed to the corners of the room, drawing in those who were standing near the edges. Like the first night, everyone who was left at the party stared into the fire, letting their worries fall away.
As 11 p.m. approached, Newt began to scout out everyone at the fire who wasn't a Scamander and tapped them on the shoulder to return to their common room. Each one took a deep breath and sighed as they left the room with small smiles on their faces. Finally, after they were all gone, Lyra tapped her staff twice causing the feathers to glow even brighter for another five minutes before they all went out simultaneously. The last song on the album ended at that precise moment as well. Tina took Newt by the hand and kissed him on the cheek as they watched the students go to their dorms. Newt reactivated the maze and took Tina back to their quarters.
Author's Note: It was just by chance that I was listening to some jazz while I was writing and Miles Davis came on. Mmm, that man could play. As Dumbledore says, "Ah, music, a magic beyond all we do here!"
In case anyone wants to look it up, the particular song was "Yesterdays"