Secrets Revealed
Sunday night at dinner had full attendance from all of the professors, so the students knew there would be some kind of announcement. Right before dessert was about to be served, Irma Pince approached the lectern.
A hush fell over the students, as it should when a librarian was present, "Good evening students. I would like to announce tonight the completion of the library catalog project."
Many students around the room cheered, including the entirety of the Ravenclaw students.
"Yes, it was an incredible project, and I would like to thank the Headmaster for allowing it to happen." That part sounded a bit sarcastic, but she continued, "During your history classes next week, you will be brought to the library to be given time to learn about the new system. For now, I would like to hand out points to all the students involved."
Madam Pince pulled a sheet of paper from her robes and placed it on the lectern.
"There are many students that I won't mention by name but your points will be reflected in the hourglasses outside and on your final grade sheets. To all those who were involved in the project, twenty points each to your houses." Many students stood and cheered but the librarian shushed them. "Hold your applause until the end, please. To Penelope Clearwater, sixty points for leading the R&D team. To Hermione Granger, forty points for your experimental rune system that was incorporated into the search magic and numerous book summaries to the catalog. To Lyra Black, thirty points for bringing us the solution to the search feature. To Fred and George Weasley, I am confused about whether to give you points as one group or as individual people, so I will give a total of fifty points for your ingenious potion that has been incorporated into the search magic and I will be happy to give you another ten points every time we need more."
The librarian stepped back from the podium and raised her hands to permit applause. Everyone cheered and clapped for the success of the project. The Weasley Twins even set off a few small fireworks into the ceiling which was ignored for the moment. Dessert was served and everyone finished dinner and went to sleep.
Tuesday rolled around, which promised to be a good day.
Everyone brought their books of Sleeping Beauty back to Potions class where nearly everyone was able to identify the potion that had been on the spindle as the Draught of Living Death. They wouldn't be brewing such a complicated potion in their first year at Hogwarts, but they would be brewing the antidote, the Wiggenweld potion, and studying it until the winter break. Following the break, they would start to work on other antidotes. Until they mastered the basics of antidote potions, they wouldn't be allowed to start working on actual poisons or potions with negative effects.
The Wiggenweld potion was particularly tricky because they needed to repeat processes over and over to create a perfect color before proceeding to the next step. If the perfect color was not done correctly, you would need to start over from the very beginning. Even though they would normally be brewing something during their two-hour class, they spent the entire day working on the theory behind the different colors in the potion's process and the meaning behind all the ingredients. By the end of class, nearly everyone had a few pages of notes from the explanations and they had more homework on the subject to do.
Their flying class had been getting boring, if that was possible. They had been doing the same exercises over and over. Laps around the stadium, mounting and dismounting, starting and stopping, hovering, and throwing around the quaffle. They weren't allowed to go over thirty feet in the air or go faster than the teacher when they were doing laps. It was because of this that Lyra lost ten points for their house when she disobeyed those rules in the last class. So she didn't have a happy face as they trudged into the stadium through the mud of the previous day's rain.
Lyra's mood was shared by most of the class due to the fun being sucked out of flying and the mud on their boots. They stood around the brooms that lay around the pitch and waited for class to begin. At least this class didn't have homework. After they had all assembled, Madam Hooch looked at the sullen faces around her and smiled.
"Flying is as dangerous as any magic you will do here at Hogwarts, doubly so if you decide to play quidditch," she began. "The basics of flying on a broom take a long time to complete but you have done so."
A few students' faces started to brighten.
"Starting today, I am raising the maximum flying height to the top of the quidditch stands. You will no longer need to follow me for your laps. You will have free play for whatever you want to do for the next forty-five minutes."
Everyone cheered, and started reaching for their brooms, "HOWEVER!" Madam Hooch raised her voice which stopped everyone in their tracks, "However, if any of you fall from your brooms, or cause another student to fall or be injured, you will be back down to a ten-foot ceiling for the remainder of the term and will not be allowed to join the flying club until after you have proven to me that you can fly properly." Her golden eyes made contact with every student before saying, "Off you go."
Lyra was the first to shoot into the sky, corkscrewing around as she ascended into the air. Harry shot off after her, but stayed lower than her, making sure she was safe. Lyra didn't even notice Harry shadowing her from below, she was having the time of her life. The wind was in her hair flowing behind her like a tail of pure sunlight on a gloomy day. She dipped and weaved, and zoomed around the towers with ease. A few times she was distracted by the small beeping of the altimeter on the front of the broom alerting her that she was getting close to the designated ceiling they weren't supposed to exceed.
When the dial got into the red, she leaned to the side and went into a freefall, feeling weightless as she plummeted to the ground. Moments before hitting the ground, she gracefully pulled up and coasted a few feet above the grass, letting her hands skim along the top of the grass.
Harry pulled up next to her, "DON'T DO THAT AGAIN!" he yelled.
"Do what?" Lyra asked, startled by her brother's outburst.
"Fall like that, I couldn't get to you in time, I thought you were going to hit the ground."
She could see the panic in his eyes, and felt guilty, "I'm sorry, I was just having fun."
Harry coasted alongside her and saw she was upset for making him panic, "Try to do less crazy things first, let me get used to it before you do something like that again."
She smiled and nodded, then took off again into the sky, a bit slower this time.
Harry tried to have a bit of fun himself but found that most of the time he just watched Lyra to make sure she didn't get hurt.
When they got back to the castle, Filch was waiting for everyone to try and catch someone with muddy boots entering the castle. All the first-year students could easily clean off the mud before entering, and the caretaker looked almost disappointed. It seemed that the cleaner castle from all the students mastering the scouring spell was making him cranky.
When they arrived at History, Madam Pince was waiting for the group. As she led the group away from the classroom, Harry could see Professor Binns start to give his lecture to the empty room.
When they reached the library, Madam Pince had them all gather around the tower of the search desk which had now been moved to the center of the main sitting area. All the study desks surrounded it with the rows of shelves to the sides of the room and the main desk was opposite the entrance as always.
"This is the crowning achievement of the catalog project we have been working on." She gestured to the tower which was much taller than it had been the other day; now it had drawers that went all the way up to the ceiling on all sides.
"To use the desk, simply write what you are looking for on the parchment at any of the stations on the desk with any pen, quill, or pencil. You may look up a specific subject, person, date, author, or the exact title of a book you are looking for."
She dipped a quill that was at one station and wrote down 'Dragons.' The writing faded away and dozens of drawers above opened up and hundreds of cards flew down.
"As you can see, sometimes it is useful to define your search better. If you look at the cards, you'll see in the top right corner a section number. In this case, books specifically about dragons can be found in Section AML-5S." She pushed a red jewel to the side of the parchment and all the cards flew back into their drawers in the tower.
"If you want to narrow your search, write what you are searching for followed by descriptors."
Now she wrote on the parchment, 'Dragons, eyes, potion ingredients, Africa.' Once the ink soaked in and vanished, only seven cards floated down in front of them. Three of them had a red mark on the corner.
"These cards with the red mark are in the restricted section behind the main desk. You will need permission from a teacher to check these out or even to look at them." She plucked one without the red mark from the air and the rest flew back into their drawers. "If you need to repeat a search, just press the green jewel on the desk." Pushing it brought down the six cards that were left from before. She pushed the red jewel and they all returned to their places. If you need a copy of the card, place it on the silver plate here, and tap it with your wand." She demonstrated the process, received a copy, and returned the original to its drawer.
"Next, to guide you to your book, place the card on the brass plate here." She put the card down, "Then, take a feather from the pouch and dip it in the color ink of your choice, then press it onto the card." When she had performed this action, the feather glowed orange and jumped up, shooting off briskly into the stacks and leaving an orange trail behind it. She gestured to them to follow. When they arrived at the end of the trail, the feather was stuck into the book from the card.
"When you retrieve your book, please take the feather out of the spine and place it in one of the bins at the ends of the shelves. Look around, there are many books here that have a small blue mark on the base of the spine." They all looked around and saw that there were very few without the marker. "The books without the blue mark haven't been added to the directory. If you find yourself reading one of these books, there are forms to fill out at the front desk to add them to the directory. Adding one of these books to the directory will give you a minimum of five points for your house. For longer or more important books, there will be a greater reward. Now, are there any questions?"
For Harry, he didn't have any questions, the librarian had explained every detail possible of the process. Looking around, he wasn't the only person to think so as no one spoke up.
"Good, you're all free to go, I know you have a report to do for Potions, so you might want to start on that." She stamped her feet three times and a trail of green footprints led them all back to the main desk.
Two days later, while they were eating dinner, an owl delivered a letter addressed to Harry and Lyra. They opened it quickly to see that it was from Nestor.
To Lyra and Harry,
I hope your classes are going well. I am writing because something strange is going on with the Hidden. Earlier today (yesterday for you) they all started to go a little bit nuts. Charlie had been spending a lot of time around the seeing staff and one of the magi-zoologists who keeps watch on the island called me in to check on it. He spent nearly the entire morning at the staff, completely focused with his eyes glowing blue.
When it was nearly midday, he jumped up and made a loud screech. That caused Chief and some of the others to join him and they all started having some sort of discussion or something? I couldn't tell. Charlie was pointing to his head a lot and playing with his hair. From there they started to all dance around. I followed them to Mango's new village where the message was passed on and the dancing started again.
As I was writing this letter, The Giver showed up and 'spoke' with Charlie and the others before approaching me and Kailee (the magi-zoologist). He pointed to his forehead a bunch, but I couldn't understand him. Kailee was a bit scared as she hadn't seen The Giver before, he primarily stays wherever he lives. We have never been able to find it.
I was hoping the two of you could tell me what's going on because it's a bit crazy compared to their regular activities.
Please ask Minerva to send a Patronus Messenger with your response.
Sincerely,
Nestor Balindong
Harry looked at Lyra and pointed to his scar, and she started playing with her hair. The two of them jumped up and ran to the faculty table with the letter, handing it to Professor McGonagall.
"They know we're coming home!" Lyra said cheerfully. Harry had a huge smile on his face too.
Snape had come over and taken the letter to read as well. "This is like when you predicted our arrival?" he asked.
"Yes, Charlie can't seem to see more than one lunar cycle ahead, so this fits perfectly," Lyra explained.
"After dinner, I'll send him a Patronus, I shouldn't do it in the middle of dinner," McGonagall told them. "Go ahead and finish your dinner."
From there, time seemed to speed up - Harry and Lyra were consumed with thoughts of returning home. They spoke to Newt about bringing an expanded chest filled with Flobberworms back to the island and started to make a list of all the various fruits and vegetables they would need to bring back as presents to their family.
The other members of their house had put together a list of all the things they wanted to plant before the break. They weren't sure where everything was going to go, but Neville solved that problem by just asking to turn one of the unused dormitories into a greenhouse connected to the common room. Neville put all of his free time into building the planter boxes and collecting samples to be grown there. They had started throwing seeds for dittany randomly around the common room and had a special section for it in the greenhouse. They had dozens of herbs and small fruit like strawberries sprouting. They didn't plant any sentient flora because they didn't know how the blessing would affect them.
The grove of trees had been expanded to cover nearly a quarter of the common room and they had saplings of lemons, limes, apples, pears, plums, and pomegranates. Harry had been given some pomegranate juice by Astray and the taste was intriguing to him, plus he could think of a few ideas for using the seeds as potion ingredients.
Outside of classes, Harry was spending more and more time participating in the Explorer's Club. Hannah and Tracey had become members as well and would take turns joining him on his adventures. When he was with Tracey in early December, they managed to find a new hidden room.
Tracey had been talking about how Gemma was doing in the new animagus class, "She mentioned that they were discussing how Lyra had mentioned using sticking charms for the mandrake leaves at the Scamander party. Professor McGonagall studied the idea and approved it for their trials."
"I figured that would work," Harry replied. "If anything it might help to infuse your magic directly into the mandrake leaves. I've been studying the process though and I'm still not sure if mandrake leaves are even needed. They don't grow everywhere in the world, so there must be a way of doing it in those other places."
The two of them continued to talk until they heard voices approaching them from around the corner. They both recognized the voice as Draco Malfoy. Not wanting to deal with another potentially bloody confrontation, Harry grabbed Tracey and pulled her back from the corner. Not ready for the sudden movement, she fell backward and knocked Harry into the wall behind him.
However, instead of hitting the wall, the two of them fell through it onto a stone floor. The room was completely dark except for one unlit candle floating in the middle of the square room, the wax was sparkling gold in color. The room was only about five feet wide, leaving enough space for one person to stand comfortably on either side of the floating candle. They did just that standing with their backs to the wall and the candle between them.
"What is this place?" Tracey asked.
There wasn't much to look at, so Harry just shrugged. He reached out to the floating candle to touch it. As he did, the wick lit at the top. The new light bathed the room in a yellow flickering light.
Tracey looked up at the ceiling and pointed. There, in the candlelight, was a message:
Tell Each Other A Secret
Something You Have Never Told Another Soul
Your Honesty Will Be Rewarded
Harry reached out to the wall they fell through, it was solid. "I guess we need to tell a secret to get out?" They stared at each other for a while not knowing who should start.
Harry took a deep breath but Tracey beat him to it, "I wish my mother had magic." Tracey's face reddened and she looked at the floor, ashamed.
Harry took a deep breath again and said, "I didn't want to come to Hogwarts." Tracey looked at him with shock evident on her face.
The candle flickered and fell to the floor. As it hit the ground, it split in half each piece rolling towards one of them. They picked up their pieces and the wall they entered turned transparent. Across the hall from them was a suit of armor that carried a war hammer. As they were looking at it, a group of Ravenclaws walked right by them in the hall but didn't seem to notice Harry and Tracey inside the small room. Once they had passed, Harry held Tracey's hand and walked back into the corridor. Looking back, they couldn't see the room anymore, nor could they enter it again when they tried.
Harry took out his Explorer's Club notebook and started to fill in an entry:
Location: First floor, halfway between the Great Hall and the Infirmary, across from a suit of armor carrying a war hammer.
Description: Blank wall, no markings or indications of a room.
Date of discovery: December 3rd, 1992
Time: 4:10-4:15 pm
Lunar Phase: Waxing Gibbous
Weather: Dark clouds in the sky, rain two days prior
Discovered by: Harry Potter and Tracey Davis
Method of discovery: Tripped and fell backward together through the wall while avoiding a confrontation with another student.
Description of Discovery: Small room, the size of a large broom closet. Empty except for a floating candle that lit when touched. Could not exit the room. A message on the ceiling told us to exchange a secret and be rewarded.
Tracey stopped him there, "Don't write it down." She looked scared that he was going to tell her secret.
Harry stood her up and hugged her, "Don't worry, those secrets stay with us." Tracey relaxed a bit and hugged him back. Then he completed the description of the room and the last section.
Attempt To Re-enter: Failed, room did not reveal itself again.
Harry walked Tracey down to the dungeons and let her off at Snape's classroom giving her a nod down the hall to signify that he knew where the common room was before heading back to his own. He stared at his half of the candle, wondering what he could do with it.
The next morning, Colin woke up everyone in the boys' dorm by yelling, "It snowed last night!"
William and Arthur jumped out of their beds and looked out their windows to see the grounds outside. Harry slowly got up and looked out as well. All of the grounds that he could see were covered in white. It looked very cold, so they all got on their warmest clothes to go out and investigate. Harry grabbed his red and gold hat and scarf that he retrieved from his vault for added warmth.
The rest of the house had the same idea and were all dressed in their warm clothes ready to go out when they got to the common room. Instead of heading to breakfast, they all approached the front gates to find many other students already outside, playing in the snow.
Lyra stopped at the doorway, "This is snow?" she asked.
Meli gave her a large smile, "You've never seen snow? It's amazing, come on!" and grabbed one of Lyra's arms to drag her out the door.
Daria grabbed the other arm and pulled her out into the courtyard, then pushed her into a snowdrift.
"Ahhh!" she screamed, "It's cold! Why is it so cold!"
Harry picked up bits of snow and put some in his mouth. He also wasn't liking the snow. He wanted to be back in the sun, with a beach, and hot springs. This was the exact opposite of the things he liked.
When Lyra finally got herself upright again, she pulled out her staff to cast a warming charm on herself. Then she raised her staff as high as she could and slammed it into the ground. Orange light spread out from the base of her staff creating a glowing light underneath the frozen courtyard. The other students who were happily playing and throwing snow at each other stopped and watched the light as it melted a quarter of the courtyard away, revealing the grass underneath.
"Why'd you do that?" Ron Weasley yelled from a spot that still had snow on it. He picked up a snowball and threw it at Lyra, hitting her in the shoulder.
Lyra staggered a bit at the hit, and someone threw another. For the second one, she managed to slam her staff into the ground again to create an orange bubble around her which melted the snowball as it hit and dripped down the side of it. A few other snowballs were thrown at her which had the same result. Harry was about to respond when thought to just let her deal with the situation herself and step in if he was needed.
"It's too cold!" she yelled back at Ron and the other Gryffindors that had thrown snowballs. "This isn't natural! I hate the cold!" Then she turned around and marched back into the castle.
Seamus walked up to the side of Harry and gave him a nod, "I hate the cold too but this is Scotland, Lyra needs to get used to this. She can just use a warming charm on herself, but everyone else loves the snow and she can't go around melting it."
"I'll try to talk to her, I don't like the snow either," Harry responded.
"Where did you get your scarf and hat?" Seamus asked him.
"I found them in my vault, I assume they belonged to my parents."
"They were Gryffindors?" Harry nodded. "You seem to be pretty brave and chivalrous yourself, I'm sure they'd be proud of you."
Harry smiled, "Thanks, I don't really know anything about them, so it feels weird to talk about them sometimes. Like how can I miss someone I never knew?"
"That's a bummer, I'm sure there are tons of people who could probably talk to you about them though."
Harry remembered back when they arrived, Hagrid had told him to visit sometime to talk about his parents.
"Yeah, you're right, thanks!" and he headed back inside to find Lyra.
He found her up in their favorite tree with Whispers. Both of them had the orange glow of a warming charm and were just laying there in the heat. Lyra was wearing just the t-shirt and shorts she liked to wear on the island.
"Hey there," Harry greeted her, "don't worry, we'll be back on the island in a few weeks. There will be all the heat that we want." He gave her a big hug and some of the water that was still on his coat turned to steam.
"Why does it have to be so cold? It's like we're on the other side of the world."
"We are on the other side of the world. You can use your warming charms as much as you want on yourself, but other students like the snow, so try not to melt too much of it," Lyra frowned but nodded. "Let's go for breakfast, I want to talk to Hagrid too. Seamus reminded me that the groundskeeper had invited us for tea to tell me stories about my parents when we first arrived."
That got a look of interest from his little sister and after she changed back into her school uniform, they headed for the Great Hall. When they got in, Harry could see quite a few people from the courtyard giving glares toward Lyra who didn't appear to notice. Harry decided to use one of the ideas that Snape had given him and pulled out his staff to spear an apple on the end of the table and pluck it off to eat. It worked, and everyone who had been glaring at Lyra turned back to mind their own business.
When Harry was done with breakfast, he waited until Hagrid got up to leave before approaching him with Lyra.
"Excuse me, Mr. Hagrid?" Harry asked.
The giant man looked down at them and smiled, "Hello there Harry, how can I help you?"
Harry played with the end of his scarf and then said, "I got my parents' hat and scarf out of my wardrobe today and remembered you had asked me to come by to tell me about them at the beginning of the year. I'm sorry I forgot until now."
The large man sniffled and smiled, "You look so much like your dad right now. I'm glad you remembered, come by my place after 4 p.m. It will be getting dark then, so watch where you step in the snow, I'll have tea and cakes ready by then." He wiped a tear from his eye and waved as he walked off.
Today was another long Defense Against the Dark Arts class. Lockhart had tried for a few weeks to teach more about non-beings; specifically boggarts, dementors, and poltergeists. Luna tried to bring up nargles quite a few times but their professor wouldn't listen, even when she presented a paper she had done on the subject.
He obviously couldn't bring in a real dementor to the class to provide an example, and he refused to bring in a boggart too. He said that exposure to such a creature would be too dangerous for the developing minds of Hogwarts students. After enough discussion, he tried bringing in Peeves which had predictably disastrous results. Colin started trying new tactics now that he was made aware that Peeves was just pretending to be affected by his light spells for some reason. He had switched to a strobe light and flashing colors which he seemed to feign injury from as well.
From what they had been told by students in other classes, they had similar experiences. Some of the older students had even claimed that previous DADA professors had brought in boggarts without issue, but Lockhart still refused to use one. So instead of that, they went back to household pests, which he was strangely knowledgeable about.
Today they were learning about Chizpurfles. They were a type of tiny magical insect that lived off of electricity or continuous flows of magic. While you wouldn't need to worry about spawning an ashwinder if your lights were made from bluebell flames, you would need to make sure you didn't develop a Chizpurfle infestation all the same from it and similar continuous magical effects in your home. They would also be attracted to electricity, but the Ministry of Magic employed many agents in muggle jobs for the electrical companies to make sure to keep power plants and electrical grids clear of them.
It wasn't taught in class, but this job was given primarily to muggleborn wizards as an undesirable position. However, it was an open secret among many muggleborns to request such an assignment because you would collect double pay from the muggle employer and the Ministry of Magic. As long as there weren't any problems, you didn't even need to show up to the ministry except when collecting the salary.
When Professor Lockhart brought in a glass jar of the tiny insects, William Summerford played around with them, placing his hands on the glass jar which seemed to attract them to where his fingers touched the glass. Tiny arcs of electricity seemed to branch from his fingertips to dance on the surface of the jar where the chizpurfles were located. No one knew quite what to make of it.
The method of dealing with these pests was with a patented potion that needed to be purchased. You were supposed to report all infestations to the Ministry to be dealt with, but bureaucracy and long queues made purchasing the potion a much more preferable option. The only other method to get rid of them was to deactivate all magical and electrical devices in your house and go on vacation for a month to starve them out. Professor Lockhart then sidetracked into an hour-long story about a vacation he took one time to Morocco while his house was decontaminated. Luckily the class ended before he could start a new story.
Afternoon Charms class had them working in pairs to seal door frames and then unlock them. Most of the students didn't have a lot of power to lock the doors, so unlocking them wasn't a difficult task for anyone. After they had all been able to both seal and unseal the doors with the locking and unlocking charm, they were told that the next week they would start working with actual locks.
When class was over, Harry and Lyra retreated to the common room to put on their heavier clothes to make the trek through the snow to get to Hagrid's hut. By the time they got out, the sun had already set and it had started snowing again.
Lyra cried out, "Why? I hate snow!" towards the heavens without stepping into the courtyard.
"I'll create light, can you put warming charms on us? Maybe a tiny bubble around us too to keep the snow off us, but not wider than the path." Harry pulled out his staff and tapped the ground to create a glow of light around them.
Lyra was still unhappy, but she tapped Harry and herself with her staff, causing them to glow with warmth, then tapped her staff to create an orange bubble that was just wider than where the two of them walked. The snow melted around them and turned to steam, which prevented them from slipping on the path as they started walking.
As they got out of the courtyard onto the grounds themselves, the snow got even deeper which slowed their pace a bit until Lyra put on an angry face and turned up the heat making the warming bubble a bit bigger but melting the snow faster as they walked. They could see the lights on in Hagrid's hut with smoke coming from the chimney that promised a warm atmosphere on their arrival.
They knocked on the door and heard barking from Hagrid's dog, Fang inside. Hagrid opened the door to say hello but Fang jumped out in front of him and growled at the children. Both Harry and Lyra showed their teeth and growled back at Fang who looked confused and took a few steps back before laying down.
"Well, I don't reckon I've seen anyone growl at Fang here before but I suppose it would make a coward like him back off to have some children stare him down. Come on in, come on in." The giant man beckoned.
The inside of the hut was quite small, for the groundskeeper, but quite large for anyone else. The couch was higher up than Harry's shoulders, so they had to climb up to get a seat in front of the fire. The ceiling was nearly twenty feet high with various tools and empty cages hanging from it that Hagrid needed to walk around at times to keep from hitting his head. Taking a kettle off the flame, he poured them both cups of tea which were bigger than soup bowls.
"I'm glad you finally came around, not many people come to visit me other than the students I get who are serving detentions or the visits to the thestrals and unicorns. But you two came here to ask about your parents. What would you like to know?"
Harry was momentarily distracted by the subject of the unicorns, but he was here to know more about his parents, so that could wait.
"I don't know, people seem to like to compare me to them, so I wanted to know what they were like?"
"Well, in terms of looks, you've got a bit of both of them. Your dad's hair looked just the same - like he slept on it funny and then was dangled upside down in a hurricane. Nothing was able to help with that mess on his head. Then you've also got your mother's eyes, that exact shade of green. I'll try to dig out a picture of them for you, I've probably got at least a few underneath all of this mess in here."
"I can come later for that, can you just tell me about them?" Harry asked.
"Well, let's see now, where to begin," Hagrid sat down in a recliner chair that was built for his immense size. "Your father was a bit of a nightmare for the staff, much like those Weasley twins are now. He and his friends spent quite a bit of time here fertilizing my fields and getting sent into the forest to gather potion ingredients. Very talented with magic though, I'm sure he got all his transfigurations right on the first go at it, and probably had perfect scores in Defense as well. I didn't spend a lot of time with him until he was out of school and the war got underway."
"What about my mom?"
"She was just the opposite of your father, she would volunteer to go into the forest to collect potion ingredients. She liked charms and potions, I remember she kept all of us fighting You-Know-Who in good supply of healing potions during the war, particularly after you were born and she stayed in to take care of you. I'm not sure what she would have done after the war, though she would have been brilliant at it."
Harry smiled a bit and Lyra leaned into him a bit as she listened to the story.
"What got my dad in detention all the time?"
"Your dad and his friends were always starting some kind of trouble. A lot of the time they were hexing Slytherins in the halls but the rest of the time it was more harmless stuff; sneaking into the other common rooms, breaking curfew for any number of reasons, taking out their brooms to have a picnic on the roof, they dyed the leaves of the whomping willow purple once, transfigured Ms. Norris into a tiny giraffe, let nifflers loose in the kitchen…" Hagrid let out a big smile and a sigh, "they called me in to deal with that one. I had to pull at least two elves out of the pocket of a nifflers who had tried getting back the stolen silverware and got caught themselves."
"When did they do any studying?" Lyra asked. Fang started to move his way up onto the couch and snuggle in next to Lyra, she let him place his giant head on her lap and started absentmindedly scratching his ears.
"Well, they did everything as a team, those four. Your dad was generally in the thick of things, doing the heavy lifting and taking a lot of the blame for his friends when stuff went out of control, then there was Sirius," Hagrid paused to look a bit angry, "when they were in school, he had your dad's back, was always cursing people who would try to attack him. Remus was the brains of the group, I'm sure he's why your dad was able to actually get his work done. If their pranks were something smart or creative, chances were that he was the one who planned them. Then there was Peter, poor Peter. He seemed to always know secrets he wasn't supposed to and followed after the rest of them all the time, I'm not sure he had other friends."
There was silence for a bit, Harry took a sip from his giant teacup, then Lyra asked, "Sirius, he was my cousin?"
Hagrid looked at the girl with a shocked look on his face, "Yeah, I guess he was, though that's not something I should be talking about with the two of you."
Harry knew he couldn't talk to Minister Fudge or Dumbledore for a while but there was no reason he couldn't talk to Hagrid.
"A woman named Molly Weasley told me that Sirius betrayed my dad. It sounds like they were good friends. Why would he do something like that?" Harry pushed a little bit and pleaded with his eyes wide like the younger Hidden would do when they wanted something.
"I couldn't tell you why 'cause I don't know myself. That whole family except for your uncle, Miss Black, swore their lives to that madman. I don't know why any of them did it except if they were looking for power. I saw him the night your parents died myself, he came for you after You-Know-Who had died. I took you from him to bring to Dumbledore, then he went after Peter to kill him. If I hadn't taken you then, you may not have survived the night."
"You were there?" Harry asked, astonished.
"I shouldn't have told you that much… and that's all I'm going to say on the matter. If you want to know more, I suggest asking the headmaster. Would you like some more tea?"
Harry and Lyra had barely gotten through half of their extra-large cups so far but accepted more just to try to get more information from him, though now he wouldn't budge on the matter. They eventually said goodnight and walked back to the castle, using Lyra's shield as a snow plow. Arriving back at the castle, they sequestered themselves in their favorite tree with Whispers.
"So much of this doesn't sound right," Lyra remarked while eating a piece of flobberworm jerky.
"We will talk to Brandt about it," Harry responded, "Why would he have been there after my parents were killed? Why did he just give me to Hagrid? Why was Hagrid there? Why did he take me to Dumbledore? I'll need to talk to the Minister soon."
Lyra nodded, "We need to keep working on exploring the castle for now, and talk to my uncle about when you can meet with him."
Harry and Lyra skipped dinner that night, opting to study and digest all the information they had received.