The Calm
Just as Brandt predicted, the only thing the gossip magazines could talk about the next day was speculation on Harry's singing Valentine. Evidently, the magazines had received so many tips on the incident that they actually spent one more day than they normally would have trying to figure out if they could get the correct information on who had actually sent the song. In the end, they couldn't verify who had done it, so they each released everything they had to avoid being a day behind the others.
There were a few rumors that the reason for the anonymity was due to the girl being in an existing marriage contract and didn't want to risk shame on her family. Another speculated that the only way for someone to have composed such a beautiful ballad was due to their involvement in the Hogwarts Frog Choir. There were quite a few other theories, ranging from that Harry had sent it to himself to that Whispers had done it since learning how to speak. When Lavender showed him that article, Harry tried to control his laughter as he asked Whispers if he had done it, but Whispers didn't understand the question well enough to answer.
In charms class, they finally got started on the chilling charm, frigideiro. This was the precursor to the ice spell, glacius. The chilling charm could cool something down or freeze it depending on the intensity. The ice spell would conjure ice and freezing air that would achieve the same results as the chilling charm, but they needed to learn to conjure water first. The mindset for the chilling charm was the hardest part of learning the new spell. Focusing on cooling off the cups of water they started with by imagining the heat being drawn out of it was difficult and by the end of class, Harry had only managed to cool a hot cup to room temperature, while Lyra couldn't do anything other than boil the water even faster. She'd have to talk to Seamus about this spell as well.
Friday morning at breakfast, Professor Kettleburn approached Harry with a package, "Mr. Potter, you have a strange delivery," he told the boy. "This was portkeyed to a local post office, but all of the owls are refusing to carry it."
Harry took the package, it felt flexible, not like books, but then he saw Kadin's business card taped to the top, and knew what it was. "It's cured leather from the skin of a sigbin. I killed one over the break and the skin is for Lyra."
"That's some kind of vampiric kangaroo, right?"
"A little more complicated," Harry said, but didn't want to get into the details, "but basically correct. It has to be killed with pure light, which is something I can do with my staff. Newt Scamander can tell you more about it."
"I'll go talk to him now," the Professor told him, then walked back to the staff table.
Harry stood up and looked around until he saw Lyra sitting with Seamus and Dean at the Gryffindor table. He called out to get her attention and then held up the package, "The skin is here!" he called out, getting some disturbing glances from the other students in the hall.
Lyra took a second to make the connection, then sprinted over to Harry to open the package. However, as soon as she laid her hands on the outside of the package, dark shadows poured out of the paper, like a heavy fog, until she let go and it dissipated. All the students around them jumped back immediately and were looking at the wrapped package with concern.
"Maybe we should open it back in the room," Lyra told Harry, and the two of them headed back so they'd have enough time to open it before their first class.
Even without opening it, Lyra was having fun poking at the package and watching the dark fog come out before clearing up. After a few minutes of her playing with it, Harry just ripped open the package to find a few large pieces of leather, and a lot of little scraps; all of them were as black as the sigbin on one side, and a dark brown on the other. Harry tried touching it, but it made him feel a very uncomfortable and indescribable feeling that he could only determine to mean that the magic must not be compatible with his.
When Lyra touched the unwrapped skin, dark fog poured out of it like a river before vanishing once it was about five feet away from her. She took a few pieces of it and stuck them in her shoes which produced trails of shadows as she ran around the room. While she was having fun, Harry found a letter in the pieces of wrapping that he almost had torn up.
He sat down on the ground to read it,
To Mr. Potter and Miss Black,
I apologize that it took so long for the leather to be cured, my cousin had not worked with this material in over ten years, so some of the pieces were ruined and that's why there are so many small scraps. He was able to make sure the largest pieces remained intact, but the smaller ones from the feet and head weren't able to be done without cutting them smaller.
However, I have good news, two other sigbins have been caught recently, though both are smaller than the one I had. I informed these men that they should only be killed the way you did it or they will be cursed like Madam Balindong informed me. I could arrange an introduction with them and you could foreseeably get quite a bit more of the leather than what you have now.
I am very curious about what you will do with the leather, and with the fangs that you took as well. Please let me know if you would like to meet with the men that captured the other sigbins and when. In the meantime, I will tell them to fatten them up so they are bigger than they are now.
Sincerely,
Kadin Manalo
Harry showed Lyra the note, and she thought having more of the leather and teeth would be great. She also decided to keep the little scraps in her shoes for the whole day. It did look pretty cool, and Harry wanted to see if the effect would stop after continued use. He also told his sister to try to make it stop instead of just continuously flowing darkness from the leather.
Lyra got people asking her about the shadowy fog pouring out of her shoes during class. Professor Lockhart said it was incredibly fitting for a Black princess to be a mistress of the shadows. Just around lunchtime, the leather stopped producing the fog and when it was taken out of her shoes, it looked thinner and cracked in a few places. It looked like it had been dried out in the sun, nearly dehydrated, yet it still felt the same as before. Lyra put it back with the other pieces and tried to see if it needed to recharge or if it was permanently ruined.
Saturday morning, at breakfast, Harry received an owl from Brandt saying that because Gemma was still unavailable, Tonks would be visiting by herself to work with them and their friends on their dueling skills. Harry went to the Slytherin table and passed the message on to Tracey for them to come to the Scamander common room after breakfast.
Tonks was waiting for the seven of them (including Whispers) at the entrance while drinking coffee from a large metal thermos, "Morning kids!" she said cheerfully. "Hey Harry, any news about who sent your singing Valentine?"
"How do you know about that?" Lyra asked.
"The entire country knows," Daphne told him. "It was in at least three magazines that I know of on Wednesday. They don't know who sent it either, but that didn't stop them from thinking of the most ridiculous theories."
"Like what?" Lyra asked.
"One of them said that you sent it," Blase told Lyra with a smirk. Lyra fervently shook her head at the idea.
"I think my favorite was the idea that Whispers wrote the song," Tonks told them, and Harry looked at Whispers, who was busy examining his nails, then choked on his own laughter thinking again about his brother asking the dwarves to sing that.
"Well, let's head inside," Tonks told them. "I have a fun lesson in store for you all."
Once inside the dueling room, Tonks activated the wards without anyone inside them, then asked, "Did any of you figure out how Stevens cast a spell through the wards?"
Everyone except Blaise had forgotten about that, but the Italian boy responded, "The only spells I've seen activate the wards are low-power spells. I assume that if one were to cast an explosive curse on the obelisk, it would work, but might damage the mechanism. As far as things that can penetrate a standard shield, there's sound and light."
"Good thinking," Tonks smiled. "Just so you all know, I have no idea how he did it, so go ahead and cast some spells at the wards and see if any work."
The three Slytherins began to cast various light spells toward the wards, but they all impacted or splashed against them in one way or another. They could all probably be seen inside the wards, but none of them penetrated. Greg tried casting a cannon-blast spell, but that just made noise next to his wand and didn't have a specific target. Harry and Lyra just looked at each other but didn't know any spells that could work that hadn't been tried. Harry remembered one spell that might work and cast the ventriloquist jinx on the platform, but even that wouldn't get through, and his voice came from the warded wall for the next for moments.
"Good try everyone, try to think of more later for next week. Now, let's get to the lesson. Since we don't have someone to throw spells through the wards, everyone needs to sit outside while I tell you about the lesson," Tonks told them. She deactivated the wards then hopped into the ring herself and put them back up. "We're going to work with intent and willpower today. I'm sure McGonagall has told you a million times about how your intent and willpower will influence your transfigurations, but it's the same for all of your spells. Incantations, and wand movement help with shaping your intent in casting spells. Can any of you tell me what else might help with improving your intentions when casting?"
All six children were quiet before Greg tapped himself on the shoulder, then raised his hand, and asked, "Anger?"
"Yes, and all emotions too. Some of your emotions will make your spells more powerful, quicker, or even more accurate. Anything else you can think of?" Now there was just silence. "What about the volume of your voice? Or an unorthodox casting movement?" she asked. "Even if you're not using a specific emotion, just yelling a spell can give it more power. When you start learning point casting and non-verbal spells, you'll need to remember the incantations and wand movements regardless, but it will help you to start casting with modified wand movements, or changing the volume of your voice will help train your mind for when you don't use either."
The students listened intently while Whispers had just been eating some popcorn he had gotten from somewhere.
Tonks pulled a mannequin from the corner of the platform and animated it to stand up straight, then walked to the other side of the platform. She stood with her arm outstretched and point-cast a knockback spell at it. The dummy was lifted and knocked back into the wards, but then just got back up and stood in the same position as before.
"That was just a basic knockback spell, I can cast it without the incantation or the wand movement, but what if I added my own movement to it? It's supposed to knock back my target, so I'll throw a spell at it as if I wanted to knock it around."
Tonks wound up like she was going to throw a cricket pitch, which Harry recognized from Hannah's party, then she threw the knockback spell which seemed to be a bigger pulse of magic and went much faster too. When it hit the dummy it bounced up to the ceiling and off the wards before crumpling in a heap. After a few seconds, it stood back up and waited again.
"My intent to hurl a spell instead of just casting a spell empowered it to do more. You six will still need the wand movement and the incantation, so I suggest trying to incorporate a throw into the movement you know, like this," she said.
The wand movement for the spell was a down-up movement followed by a squiggly line - v~~
So tonks made the movement much bigger, starting over the top of her head, swiping downwards in front of her, then pulling up and stabbing forward while wiggling her wand in the direction of the target. With each part of the movement, she yelled out, "FLI-PEN-DO!"
The spell was just as powerful as before and knocked around the target a bit before it got back up again and returned to its spot.
"One more lesson before you all get started on your own," Tonks told them. "The spell knocks back the target from the spot it impacts. So, depending on where you aim at your target, you can get different effects."
Pointing her wand at the dummy again she cast a spell towards its right side which caused it to get launched to its left on the impact. When it had reset, she shot one at its feet, which caused it to pop up in the air.
"Now it's time for all of you to try. I'll need one of you to drop the wards for me first," she told them. All six of them threw various spells at the obelisk which made the wards flicker on and off until they stayed down.
Tonks meanwhile had brought out five more mannequins and animated them to stand in a line across one side of the platform. She hopped into the stands herself and had the six children enter the ring, then set up the wards again. For the next hour, she coached them on their form and incantation from outside the wards as they tried different ways of casting at the dummies. Towards the end of the hour, they started to knock the dummies into each other instead of just back into the wards. Tonks commented on the efficiency of doing this when fighting groups of people and having them deal with falling all over each other as a means of distraction. That and even the simplest spells, when used efficiently, can be incredibly effective in a real fight.
Just as they finished their training, an owl arrived for Lyra from Brandt. He was asking for contact information for her friend Lavender's parents. If they were agreeable, Brandt would take Lyra, Lavender, and Parvati on a girls' day out tomorrow. Not even bothering to change after the workout, she ran off to the seventh floor to find her friend and get the information.
Dinner time had all the teachers in attendance, which as usual, meant that there would be some kind of announcement. Conversations were a bit hushed as they knew whatever was going to happen could start at any moment. Before dessert appeared on the tables, Professor McGonagall approached the lectern. Harry always found it interesting that she was able to command immediate silence more efficiently than the headmaster.
"Good evening, students," she began. "Earlier today, all of the students who had finished their animagus course visited London to register their forms and complete their initial transformation training. There is still quite a lot they need to do to familiarize themselves with their inner animal, and you may see them around the school while transformed. Animagus transformations are an exception to the 'No magic in the hallways' rule. I would like to introduce them to you, along with their forms."
She was smiling with pride as she brought them out individually, "Blair Hoganis, has gained the form of a gray seal." The Hufflepuff seventh-year walked out onto the stage from behind the staff table and morphed down to the floor into a large gray seal. The seal flopped along the front of the stage and gave a few barking noises before changing back into the boy he was before. People laughed and cheered at his antics.
"Robin Primrose, has taken the form of a Scottish Wildcat," the professor smiled with pride as another Hufflepuff joined her on stage and changed into a large striped cat with a bit of a mean look on its face. The cat just glared at everyone and turned back into a student. There were more cheers.
The next was from Gryffindor, and two more from Ravenclaw; who became a Red Squirrel, an Iguana, and a Fennec Fox. Though the ones that Harry, Lyra, and their friends were waiting for came at the end, being the youngest of the group.
"From Ravenclaw, Penelope Clearwater, who has taken the form of a Gray Wolf," she marched on stage and shifted down into the canine form, then let loose a long howl, as everyone applauded. Then she looked out at all the students and growled deeply before turning back and assembling with the others who had already had their turn.
"And finally, our only Slytherin from this first year of the class, Gemma Farley, who can now become the most beautiful Mute Swan." Instead of walking out like the others, a large white swan with a black face and orange bill flew out over the great hall. It weaved in and out among the floating candles before turning back and flying towards the stage, and landed while turning back into the form of Gemma, and joining the other students, while everyone applauded the only student who could fly among them.
"Any students who are interested in taking the Animagus class in their O.W.L. year or above should speak with me during my office hours. You will need not just good grades in Transfiguration and Potions, but also exemplary disciplinary records and parental permission. I hope next year, we will have an even larger group of students participating. For now, I am awarding forty points to each student who completed the ritual and is here today."
There were a great number of cheers from all the students, particularly Ravenclaw who had three students in the group, and the ones on stage rejoined their classmates at their tables as dessert was served.
Sunday morning, Lyra had breakfast at the Gryffindor table. Both Lavender and Parvati would be joining her for a day out in London. Harry asked her to pick up the different things he needed for Hermes, a perch, a water dish, treats, and a thick glove. She didn't seem to pay much attention to his request as she chatted away with her friends. Harry went back to his table and wrote it all down to give to Brandt.
Looking around the breakfast table, he took some bacon and a waffle, but couldn't find any eggs anywhere. Back on the island, he had tried cooking snake eggs from time to time but never had good results with them, like when he had made eggs for the Dursleys. So when he came to Hogwarts, he loved being able to have chicken eggs again; scrambled, poached, over-easy, or hard-boiled. All of them were great. Nearly every morning there were eggs on the table, and definitely on weekends… but today, there were none.
After breakfast, Brandt met them outside the Scamander common room with Professor McGonagall. She didn't give a big speech to the girls as Professor Flitwick had; she just stared down at her students and said, "Don't disappoint me." They seemed sufficiently impressed by what her expectations were for them.
Harry gave Brandt the list of the things he'd need for Hermes and some gold, not knowing how much it would all cost. Then he watched as the four of them headed out of the castle, presumably towards The Three Broomsticks, leaving Harry by himself. He had left Lyra at the castle before when he went to his meeting with the minister, but watching her walk away now made him feel different.
Without anything else to do, he decided to go visit the Ravenclaw common room and do some homework up there. Despite having the Scamander study room, the study nooks of the most studious house made concentrating a lot easier. After gathering up his books and Whispers, the two of them headed off. When they arrived, just like before, the eagle knocker welcomed him and the door opened, allowing him entry without a riddle.
There was quite a bit more noise in the common room than usual, and a lot of students were gathered around the fireplace. Harry approached the group and saw that there was a large gray wolf and a small whitish fox laying on the rug in front of the fire. Harry smiled at Penny and the other Ravenclaw student just warming themselves in front of the fire. Not wanting to disturb the sleeping canines, Harry set up his studies in front of Hermione's bookcase while Whispers joined the sleeping animals by the fire, which started up even more muttering.
Whispers looked up at the surrounding students, put a finger to his lips, and said, "Shhhhh," then laid back down and closed his eyes.
Nearly an hour later, as Harry was finishing up a potions essay on additional uses for bezoars outside of antidotes, he felt the hair on his neck rise. Without looking up, he spied a reflection on a trophy high up on the bookcase and saw a wolf creeping up behind him. He smiled to himself and finished up the sentence he was working on.
When he was done, he laid down his pen, as he did all his homework with the muggle instrument, rather than a quill in accordance with Lockhart's advice, and said, "Hey Penny, did you have a nice nap?"
He saw the reflection of the wolf morph back into the taller girl, who said, "How did you know I was there?"
Harry turned around to her and said, "I've had a lot scarier things than wolves try to sneak up on me."
"When I was a wolf, my instincts were telling me you were a predator," she said with a bit of confusion. "Nearly all of the other students in here smelled like prey… but you… smelled like a threat even before I knew it was you."
"Can I try something else?" Harry asked. "Can you shift back into a wolf?"
Penny gave him a strange look, then fell forward, her hands turning into paws as she caught herself and finished her transformation. Harry looked the wolf in the eyes, and concentrated on his darker thoughts, going back to when he was planning on killing Vincent. It took him a bit longer to achieve because he had already enacted his revenge and felt satisfied even without the boy's death, but after about twenty seconds he was able to capture the emotion he needed to flex his magic, and the air around him began to vibrate.
The gray wolf instinctively backed up and looked afraid, then took a few steps towards him and sniffed, then tilted its head and sniffed again. Then the wolf shivered the whole length of its body, and stood back up, turning back into Penny.
"What was that?" Penny asked, clearly interested. "Every part of the wolf in me was telling me to run away, but I was able to focus on my human brain just reminding me that you were Hermione's friend and I was able to dismiss it."
A few other students were gathering around and watching, so Harry asked, "Do you have somewhere private we can go? We can also start working on the Knitter Critter project."
Penny looked around at all the other Ravenclaws not so subtly listening in on their conversation, and said, "Sure, we can go to my room." She looked back to the fire, "Does Whispers need to come?"
Harry shrugged, and said, "He'll be fine. He can find me when he gets up."
Penny led him up to the fifth floor of the common room and down a hallway to her room. Harry just walked in when she opened the door and looked at everything. The room had even more bookcases than Hermione's though it also had a crafting table of some kind and a table with several comfortable chairs. Harry didn't like the idea of having a private room though. After so many years of sleeping in a pile of his family of Hidden, sleeping by himself would be weird.
"Professor Flitwick told us that the gender wards weren't affecting you," Penny said, breaking him out of his thoughts, "but I wasn't sure it would work on a prefect's room too."
Harry just shrugged, then said, "He thought it might be because I helped Hermione to the infirmary, and earned some kind of reward from the castle."
"Sure, let's go with that for now. So how did you do that thing to scare my wolf form?"
"Do you remember when Vincent pulled off Hermione's cloak at the sorting? Then Dumbledore did something to keep everyone frozen while he took Vincent out of the hall?" Penny nodded with an angry face at the memory. "It's the same as that, but I'm still learning how."
"Did the headmaster teach you?" Penny asked.
Harry shook his head, "No, just kind of figured it out on my own. It requires a very specific emotional trigger and awareness of your magic. You know how to pour your magic into potions instead of counting stirs or how to make a broom hover without saying the 'up' command?"
"Sort of with the potions, and yes to the brooms," Penny responded.
"The emotion you kind of need to discover on your own, but for me, I've been using the feeling I got when I was told that Vincent was the one who attacked Hermione."
Penny's face darkened, "She told me that she was advised not to tell anyone who did it. Did you tell her not to?"
Harry shook his head, "No, it was Brandt. He told her it would be better to handle it another way."
"So, did he do that to Vincent?" Harry shook his head. "Did you?" she asked.
"I was asleep, and took a dreamless sleep potion," he repeated his lie. "It was in the auror report."
"Sure you did. Well, whatever happened, he got what he deserved. So the emotional trigger? I want to beat him within an inch of his life. Does that sound good enough?"
"It wasn't enough for me," Harry told her. It took her a moment and a shocking realization of what he meant.
"I don't know if I could want to kill anyone," she said, then walked across the room to sit down in a chair next to her crafting table.
"It might be different for other people," Harry said. "That's just what it is for me. Maybe you just need to have killed someone before to feel like you could do it again."
Penny looked a bit afraid at the boy in front of her that had just said out loud that he had killed someone, then shivered and whispered, "You-know-who…"
Harry sat down on the floor as Penny re-examined her desire to learn Harry's trick, and after a few minutes, she decided to forget about it for now, "Hey Harry? Let's just start working on the aurora wool project. Can you activate a piece so I can examine the magic?"
Harry dug through his pouch and found his box of samples from Madison and fished through it until he found a green piece of the wool and placed it on Penny's crafting table. He pulled out his wand and let his magic flow through it, illuminating the room and the wool, so it started projecting dancing waves of light across the room. Penny stared at the display for a few seconds before turning back to the fabric and casting the golden diagnostic dome around it, then scribbling down notes of all the runes that started floating inside.
Harry watched for a few minutes until the waves of light vanished, and then a few more minutes until the fabric stopped glowing. He reached over with his wand and started it up again, then went over to his box of materials and started looking through it. Penny continued to work on figuring out how Harry's magic was making the effect happen, but it was hard.
From her initial diagnostic spell, she explained to Harry that it looked like light was just being channeled into the fabric and projected, though when she tried to use her own light spells to duplicate it, nothing happened. Upon further examination, there was some kind of modifier to the basic light spell which she had no idea how to interpret. She pulled out multiple books on how to interpret the diagnostic runes she was seeing and got many different possible translations. She'd have to work on all of them to see which worked… this would not be an easy job. Just before she was going to ask Harry to activate the magic of the fabric again, there was a knock on her door.
When Penny opened it, Whispers came bounding into the room, followed by Hermione, who looked like she had just gotten out of bed.
"Hey Harry," she said with a yawn. "I figured you were here, I met Whispers on the way up."
"Did you just wake up?" Penny asked.
"I was up late studying," she said. "I can miss breakfast on the weekends. Are you working on the wool project?"
Penny nodded as Hermione walked over to look at her project notes. She touched the fabric to feel how soft it was, then Penny reached over and plucked a feather from Hermione's hair.
"You've got a few of these in your hair," she said and pulled out a few more.
"I thought I got them all," she said with a shrug, then ran her fingers through her bushy locks to get a few more. "I was working on the duplication charm last night." She held up one of the feathers, then pulled out her wand and cast, "Gemino!" The feather in her hand exploded into around a dozen copies and fell to the floor.
Penny waved her wand at all the feathers and they vanished, "Do you want to stay while I work on this?" she asked. Hermione nodded and Harry approached again to activate the dancing lights in the fabric.
Hermione watched Penny work and suggested a few translations for what she was looking at before sitting down with Harry and looking through his box of samples. Penny continued to work hard on figuring out exactly what was happening before she heard Hermione start to giggle and laugh. She turned around to see a ball of white fluff the size of her fist crawling up the side of Hermione's neck as she giggled and laughed. After a few seconds, the fluffy thing just fell off and didn't move.
"It's over? What was that thing?" Hermione asked.
Harry picked up the fluffy ball and examined it until he found a tag, then looked through Madison's sample book until he found the entry and read it aloud, "It is a Kesaran-pasaran, related to a Puffskein. It is native to the Northern coasts of the Mediterranean and grows tiny horns. It eats mostly household pests and is very affectionate towards wizards. It has been bred in white, chestnut, and hickory colors."
"I think you found how to make their fur affectionate, even when it's just fur!" Hermione smiled.
Harry nodded and looked up to Penny who was watching them, "I found another! And this one won't kill anyone…" He put on a dark face, and said in a deep voice, "Unless you can be cuddled to death."
Penny was thinking of the possibilities, as Hermione blurted out, "You could make a magic cuddling blanket!"
Penny didn't think that was the worst idea in the world, but it had some potential, "Harry, could you order a blanket made from that creature from the Knitter Critter? Then we can see if the idea has any potential." Harry nodded and made a mental note for him to send a letter later.
Whispers had meanwhile picked up the fluffy ball and held it out to Harry so he could have a turn with it.
Lyra and her friends got back just before dinner and she found Harry in his room, writing a letter to Madison at the Knitter Critter while Hermes was perched on his bed.
"We got so much stuff!" she said happily to Harry as Brandt followed her in, looking very tired and holding quite a few shopping bags.
"Looks great," Harry told her. "I started working on the wool project with Penny. I also found a new material I can work with, but it's not that useful."
Brandt put the bags down and passed one of them to Harry, "This has all the things you'll need for your owl."
Harry took the bag and pulled out several smaller boxes. One of them had some small pellets with a label that said, Eeylops Owl Treats on it. He opened the box and pulled out one, tossing it to Hermes who caught it out of the air. The next box had a thick leather glove for him to perch on, and another with a water bowl. The largest box just had a ring on the top that had "Tap with Wand" written inside of it. He looked to Brandt, who gave him a nod, so he tapped the circle, which caused the box to open and a large golden stand to grow out of the box.
The top of the perch had a long piece of wood for Hermes to stand on, and there was a golden ring that could hold the water bowl in front of it. The pole in the center had a small hook on it where he could hang the glove, and there was a large bowl on the bottom, wider than the perch for catching anything that fell from the top. Hermes flew up to it and started to scratch at the wood with his talons to get a good grip on the perch.
"Show him your ears," Brandt told Lyra.
"Look!" Lyra told her brother as she brushed away the hair over her right ear. She had gotten two piercings on that ear, which now held two earrings. Though what she had chosen to dangle was what drew Harry's interest. She had one of the orange and black owl feathers they used for silencing effects, and a tuff of The Giver's black fur, tied up in black thread as the other. "Now I don't need to carry them around anymore!"
To prove her point, she concentrated and a silencing field erupted around her, then popped it like a bubble. She then made a determined look of a different sort and her entire form blurred and then was suddenly at Harry's side, where she flicked him in the ear before he noticed her movement.
"That's incredible! You don't need to hold your staff for The Giver's effect anymore," Harry looked impressed.
"I got something for you too!" she pulled out a small box and passed it to Harry. It was the size of a glasses case and had soft brown velvet on the outside.
When he opened it, he saw it contained another of their silencing feathers on a gold chain. Harry immediately pulled it out and put it around his neck, then focused on the magic and established a silencing field of his own, then popped it after he saw that he could do it.
"That's a great idea! Thank you!" he gave his sister a big hug as he shared in her happiness about the shopping trip. Though now he started to think of other jewelry he could fit with various magic. Having the Lamassu tooth on a necklace or earring would be incredible, except he only had one in his staff and he didn't know how to remove it, even if he wanted to, which he didn't. Maybe he could write to Erayden and see if it was possible to get another tooth.
Shortly before dinner time, an elf popped into the first-year boys' dorm and informed Harry and William that there would be an announcement at dinner and that attendance was mandatory. The two boys exited the dormitory to see others coming out and reporting that an elf had also visited them to inform them of the situation. Nothing of note had happened recently, the last time there were important announcements was after Hermione and Vincent were attacked.
Nearly everyone showed up for dinner on time, and there was a bit of a crush as the entire student body filed into the Great Hall at the same time, whispering and speculating on what was going on. The entire staff was in attendance, and there was no food on the table. There was silence for a while and Dumbledore appeared to be whispering to someone, then a few minutes later, a few elves escorted a few more students into the hall. Satisfied that everyone was there, the headmaster approached the lectern with a serious look on his face.
"Before we eat, I have an announcement. We just recently had two attacks on two students of this institution, and I do not enjoy having to make these kinds of speeches to the school. Last night, someone conjured and let loose nearly a dozen venomous snakes into the school's chicken coops, killing all of them." Everyone in the room was deathly silent. Dumbledore continued, "The culprit, apparently not satisfied with these deaths, then raided the school kitchens and destroyed our entire egg storage. This was no mere act of vandalism, it was a calculated killing for some unknown purpose which managed to circumvent the security at our school and went unseen by everyone that we've checked so far."
Harry thought it was quite ridiculous to kill chickens, but there had to be some reason behind it other than depriving the Hogwarts population of having scrambled eggs in the morning.
Dumbledore waited for the whispering to settle down before continuing, "I will not be offering any reward for information that leads to finding the culprit of this attack, but know that Hogwarts will be a safer place if any of you can provide information that leads to the apprehension of the person or persons responsible. There is no reason to ask for this person to step forward as they have already taken measures to hide their involvement. As this was not an accident, nor was it just a dispute between students that can be resolved, the culprit will be turned over to the DMLE and expelled."
All whispering stopped immediately, as the silence itself made a noise.
"Enjoy your dinner," Dumbledore added as food appeared on the table and he returned to his seat.