The second Mystery comes to the forefront, I'm so glad I decided to keep this in the story.
And Yes! Founders' Era! Not much is known about the period but why...
Department of Mysteries.
23rd December 987.
11:58 PM.
Dear Helga,
I hope you are well when this reaches you and that your mother has recovered from her spattergroit, I hope the elixir I brewed helped her with her health. My family are all still well and pestering me to find a husband, my father told me that my job won't care for me in my formidable years; I thought better than to mention that the health plan they offer extends into my formidable years. I absolutely hate that when the day should come where I find myself in search of a husband, I will be in the same dating pool as men twenty years my seniors. Why is it that it's acceptable for them to sow their wild oats well into their old age?
I know you asked me to keep you updated on the matter of the great evil and how the ministry intends on dealing with the aftermath; I risk my job by doing so but we both know that were it not for your mother's illness, you would be sitting in the desk beside mine- it's still empty, come back. After extensive study, testing and contemplation, it has been agreed that records up to a point will be destroyed aside from a select few that will be left to the most enlightened. We will be recreating history, the great evil that has plagued us for so long is now gone and all that it once possessed will be destroyed, all but the creatures; they will remain as a secret reminder of the consequences of extreme evil.
In order to prevent stories from being passed from one generation to the next, we have decided to regulate education; by eliminating the current system of tutors, governesses and parents teaching children magic, we hope to prevent any future rising of an evil this great. I have been tasked with the job of gathering the greatest wizard in Britain and building a school; I have no wish to do such a thing but the Minister for Magic has selected me personally and dubbed me the wisest witch of the age. If I have been given this task because of my wisdom, then why does it feel like a punishment? Why does it feel like I am being damned to an eternity of obscurity?
If this is such an honour then why not bestow the honour upon Haim Black? He's better experienced and he's older, more importantly is that I'd be glad to be rid of him. The man is greying and yet he is persistent in his pursuit of me, taking every opportunity to attempt to court me. You and I both know that my work has been much too important to me for me to give it up to be Mrs Black, I did save the world a couple of months ago after all.
I'm in a precarious position, if I had never offered a solution to the problem of the evil then I would never have been burdened with this task. I would never have rose above my station and stepped on the men's toes if I'd just kept my mouth shut and stayed silent, my meteoric rise in the ranks of the ministry is the only reason I'm being presented with this opportunity. But if I'd stayed silent then people would still be dying, the army would still be growing and the evil would still be very much with us. None of these men were even close to solving the problem, I had to step up.
There's no longer a place for me at the ministry, my own plan has come back and strangled me.
I shan't create the school the ministry wants of me, I shall create one of my own liking.
But I shall not teach of the horror, it has no place in the future.
If I'm going to do this then, dear sweet Helga, I'm going to need your assistance. I can be intense and driven in my pursuit of my goals, I'm going to need your help because I'm not sure that my stoic nature will fare well with children; I need you to offset my nature with your more pleasant nature. This request is qualified by your brilliance; I know not another witch who knows her way around a charm as you do- myself aside.
Please do consider my request and send my regards to Charles.
Yours Always,
Rowena Ravenclaw.
~0~
Harry looked at the young man swinging beside him, boy would be an inaccurate term for him; if Harry refused to go by the boy who lived then this was definitely a young man. Like clockwork, every day of summer so far they had met at this swing set just after one. Harry hadn't planned on it but when he found the young man here on the first day of summer, there was nothing to do but return the following day and hope he'd be here. Harry didn't understand why he did it but he felt like the fifty-five minutes they spent swinging side-by-side was important to him. Even though the young man never spoke, Harry felt so much less alone when they were together.
Harry watched the young man watching him, "are you going to speak to me today?" The young man bowed his head in shame and shook his head, "you know I understand."
"No, that's a lie," Harry shook his head before the young man could make him feel small with his silence, "I can try to understand." The young man shook his head and Harry reclined himself to the truth, "I know."
Harry shook his head indignantly, "I won't stop asking, I won't stop trying to be there for you." The look he got in response was sad and broken, "I'm the closest anyone will ever come to understanding what you're going through. I might not have been there but, Kurt, I experienced it through your eyes; when they cut you, when he tortured you, when you saw my parents, when Cedric died. I have all the feelings, I remember it like you do and I can't close my eyes without going through it again."
Kurt leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, Harry knew what he would have said if he had spoken, 'oh honey, I have to feel guilty about what you're going through as well.' He might have been more poetic about it but that was the gist, not being alone in this mess made him feel awful. Harry watched as Kurt got to his feet, with a small smile, the boy reached into his pocket and vanished as he had every day of that summer.
Harry sat on his own swing, the one beside him continued to move in the dry, still summer day; the loneliness set in once more. Harry just wanted Kurt to speak to him, he wanted to know what the other boy was up to and how he was coping with what had happened to them. Had it happened to them? Or had it just happened to Kurt? If Kurt had wanted to keep him in the dark, have him believe that it was him in the graveyard, he could have easily done it by cutting more finely around the memory but he had done it to liberate Harry and Harry needed to know he'd been liberated.
Had Harry failed the other boy by choosing to be a hero? Had he disappointed Kurt by choosing to follow the path predestined to him? Harry wished Kurt would speak to him so that he wouldn't have to grasp at straws, so that he wouldn't have to beat himself up over that choice. Mostly, he wanted Kurt to speak to him so that he could ask if he was having nightmares as well. Harry was back at square one, he was alone, a recurring trait of summer; whether it was a house elf intercepting his mail, all his friends being out of the country, or just that biting longing for human companionship. Harry hadn't received any letters from any of his friends, nobody came to visit, Finn would call on days when Kurt was having a particularly moody day but he and Finn weren't close enough for him to tell Finn his problems.
Harry knew now that those phone calls from Kurt that came at the end of summer when he returned from whatever faraway land he'd been visiting, just to ask how crazy Aunt Petunia had gotten and if it was still a comfortable crazy, meant more than he had ever thought of them. Harry would always tell him that she was being as nice to him as you can be with somebody you neither liked nor trusted; he'd explain that they now refrained from talking ill of his parents because of his shiny new psychotic godfather, they were still letting him keep the smaller of Dudley's two bedrooms, and there was now a give and take on his chores. Harry never told Kurt that part of Aunt Petunia's change of heart, her conversion experience aside, was meeting Kurt's family; their charmed and distinctly muggle lifestyle had, incorrectly, given Aunt Petunia the impression that wizards could strive for normal lives. You see, Aunt Petunia had incorrectly believed that because both Finn and Kurt were wizards, then they were an all wizarding family. One that she found much more palatable than the Weasleys; Harry suspected that it was because Kurt's father drove a fancy SUV.
Seeing Kurt helped some, the only other thing that helped was his new found fondness of reading; Kurt had gotten him a collection of history books that covered Voldemort's first rise to power. They didn't go into some of the details he knew and they were short on details of actual events but they painted a picture of what the times were like, what they would be like soon enough. One of the books had a list of all the people who disappeared, on the list were Fabian and Gideon Prewett- Ron's uncles and Mrs Weasley's younger brothers. Harry had been reading them in the order they were stacked because he knew that the fact that they weren't organised by author, title, or size was a sign. At the bottom of the pile was a burgundy Moleskine journal, the first page had the title written in beautifully elaborate script; The Increasingly Incomplete Account of the Second Wizarding War. Harry did a double-take when he noticed the author's name; Harry Potter.
~0~
Harry wished that he could write as beautifully as the handwriting on the first page but he just didn't have it in him, he did his best though. Since discovering the last book, Harry had changed his and Kurt's ritual slightly; he'd write all afternoon and as late into the night as he could manage, then he'd try to find some time between his chores to edit the story in the morning- he used the money he earned to buy black liquorice, because it was Kurt's favourite- and add anything he might have missed. When he went to the park to meet Kurt he'd bring the journal with him and share the stories with Kurt, who would silently sit and nod or shake his head depending on where Harry misremembered their history. Harry had been contextualising their story by explaining that while this might be Voldemort's first return, it wasn't his first attempt; people needed to know that the return of Voldemort was inevitable but the way it happened and how they let it affect them was theirs to control.
That day's story was an explanation of Sirius Black's misfortune and misrepresentation, it culminated in Kurt setting fire to the night and Harry, with the help of Neville, defeating the dementors; after the end of the story there was an essay about how they understood that they'd broken the law but that they had done it in service to a greater cause- that in the service of the Lord, one must step away from God. Harry had never thought in such a way but it felt right, it had surprised Kurt that he'd had such a gift with prose hidden away. That day, Harry had presented Kurt with the first full diary and received a new one that was Navy to replace it.
After receiving his journal and Kurt's departure, Harry had opened the book and begun to explain how he hadn't known Cedric very well; how Cedric had been kind to him always and how that boy would eventually die willingly because he thought it might protect him. Harry was shoved out of his swing by large meaty hands, "Who's Cedric?" Dudley taunted him, "is he your boyfriend?"
Harry didn't answer, Dudley was no longer as wide as he was tall; the diet last summer had helped him lose what Aunt Petunia called his 'baby fat'. He was now a large hulking bully of a boy, not that he wasn't still fat but it was in a different way; his new frame had made him into an even more effective bully, he'd even managed to translate it into extracurricular activities by going out for rugby, wrestling and boxing. Harry wasn't going to fight the lout, not with his two side-kicks with him. He wished Kurt was still here, Kurt was better at conflict than he was and would probably either talk his way out of this or punch one and dare the rest to try him.
"You guys should hear him moaning in his sleep," Dudley continue as he stepped closer to Harry, "Don't kill Cedric!" when Dudley spoke, Harry got a flash of Cedric's lifeless body, "Help me mum, he's trying to kill me." A flash of Voldemort trying to touch Cedric's body, Kurt losing his mind and threatening to mutilate everybody in the graveyard.
"Shut up," the low growl escaped without Harry's permission.
"Where's your mum Harry?" Dudley continued to taunt him, "is she dead?"
"Shut up," Harry slowly rose from where he had been thrown, his teeth were gritted and his fists were balled by his side. He was tempted to pull out his wand but the only person that would scare was Dudley, his friends wouldn't understand that there was something to be afraid of- all they'd see is a crazy boy with a stick. Harry's body was disobeying him as his wand was in his hand, he'd be expelled if he did this but Dudley had hit a new low, he deserved whatever Harry's none compliant body had in store for him.
"You can't do magic outside of school," Dudley tried to keep face but Harry could hear the whimper under his words.
The wind picked up, "you see anybody around?" Harry grinned even though he knew that wasn't how it worked, but Dudley didn't know about the trace. The wind continued to pick up and Dudley's friends seized their heckling, "I didn't think so."
"What are you doing?"
"What do you mean?" the wind was now at gale force and a large, very angry rain drop hit him on the back of the head. Harry looked around to see that what had been a very sunny day had turned into a chilly, overcast day and it looked like it was about to rain, "I'm not doing this." Harry shook his head, "I'm fourteen, I can't change the weather."
Dudley's friends had disappeared when the weather had started turning, the pair took off at a run and, for the first time since being told, Harry realised that he was a better than fair runner. Kurt had been quite impressed with how well his 'little baby legs' worked and Harry had yet to get the opportunity to test them out, he didn't think running in the rain was a fine measure of how well they worked but he was impressed none the less. By the time he and Dudley were safely away from the rain in an underpass, they were soaked to the bone and their chests were heaving.
"Droughts over," Dudley grinned.
"It's a flash flood," Harry corrected, sounding too much like Kurt in his own ears, "it won't be enough to end the drought, it'll be over in less than an hour and tomorrow will be just as dry and hot as today."
"You learn that at your freak school?" Dudley mocked him.
Harry didn't answer, he was brought back to reality before he could formulate a comeback by the uncomfortable feeling of water freezing against one's skin. Dudley leaned against the wall and slipped on the black ice that covered the walls and floors of the underpass, he slid across the underpass. Harry felt nervous but he couldn't quite put his finger on what he had to be nervous about, it was just a weather anomaly. Suddenly and unexpectedly his mind began to work, it was the familiarity of the sudden change in weather; it reminded him of the train ride at the beginning of his third year.
"Dudley," Harry turned to his cousin who was trying to get his footing, "run." Almost as soon as the words had left his lips, his worst fear reared its ugly face into the underpass; dementors. There were two of the tall, thin, cloaked figures coming from each end of the underpass; one for each of them it seemed. Harry could feel the sadness that the dementors permeated begin to wash over him, he knew that he had to act quickly; with a deep breath, he thought back to that afternoon and the way Kurt had laughed when Harry had told the story of how Kurt had strangled Professor Lupin in the shrieking shack. Harry concentrated on how it had felt to watch Kurt laughing after watching him so sad for so long, "Expecto Patronum!"
The large stag emerged from the tip of his wand with a flash of bright, white light that surrounded the beast like an aura of purity, the dementor turned to feed on the spectral creature. As if prompted by this, the stag charged for the dementor, scaring it off. Harry's attention immediately shifted to the other end of the underpass where Dudley lay motionless, the dementor hovering over him was moving closer to his still body and as it did this the rattle emitted by its chest got louder. Harry pointed the wand in the dementor's direction and the stag charged it, drawing its attention away from Dudley.
When the underpass was clear, the lights dimmed as the Patronus dissipated. Harry crossed the space between him and Dudley in less time than he thought possible, he fell to his knees beside Dudley's still unmoving body. Harry tried to feel for a pulse without knowing what he was actually doing, there was a faint beating in the side of his cousin's neck. Now all he had to figure out is how to get Dudley home; the boy was much larger than Harry, he had long sprawling limbs and a torso that Harry could curl up into. Dudley was too tall, too heavy, too large for Harry's knobby knees to support; he was failing Dudley just as he'd failed Cedric.
If only he'd had the foresight to bring chocolate, if he had Kurt's insight then he too would have a big handbag with everything he'd ever need. The worst part was that he had chocolate fromHoneydukes under the loose floor board in his bedroom, knowing exactly where the one thing that could help Dudley was but having no way of accessing it; it was too far for the summoning charm to work effectively. And is if by instinct, his mind kicked into high gear; 'The summoning charm is archaic, just use Venir.' Harry raised his wand, took a deep breath and he concentrated on the exact location of the bar of chocolate, "Venir." The bar appeared and a grateful Harry fed a few pieces to Dudley, who blinked more rapidly; Harry suspected the sugar was giving him energy and the chocolate part of chocolate was restoring some of his happiness.
"Harry," a small voice called from behind him, he turned to find Mrs Figg standing behind him. Harry hid his wand, she shook her head and handed him her handkerchief, "don't put away your wand, they only just left and they might be back. Wipe you're face, we'll take care of moving your cousin together."
"Mrs Figg," Harry hadn't moved, he stared at the handkerchief that she had extended in his direction, "I don't understand."
"the dementors are gone for now," the old lady gave him a small smile, "you don't have to cry, I'll help you through this."
Harry touched his face, he realised for the first time that he'd been crying, he was crying and shaking. He couldn't steady his hands enough to accept the handkerchief; Harry crumbled under the memories of Cedric's lifeless body, the idea that Dudley had almost suffered a fate worse than death and Kurt who was forced to live with that memory of the boy he loved lying dead on the grave of some faceless stranger. Harry was cemented to the spot by his pain, fear and guilt.
~0~
Kurt sat on the steps of number thirteen Grimmauld Place, his bag was beside him as he smoked his evening cigarette; he blew lazy circles and waited for the latest possible moment he could come home. He knew they were waiting for him on the other side of the door, waiting to treat him like an egg but Kurt didn't want that. Of course, he never told any of them that. He hadn't said anything since he'd gotten home, since Cedric's memorial speech. Kurt didn't use gestures, he didn't write notes and he didn't speak, just nodding and shaking his head- laughing when he was with Harry.
Finn had since taken it upon himself to facilitate Kurt's obstinate nature, he had called and written all of Kurt's friends and told each that Kurt was not communicating with anyone indefinitely; that was eight weeks ago, their summer vacation was almost over and everyday there was a letter, card, book or gift from Hermione. Mr Weasley had sent him a howler, a kind one but a howler none the less, telling him that he was being selfish by shutting out the people who wanted to be there for him; she explained that she had a house full of moody teenagers who were bummed that Kurt wasn't speaking to them about his problems. Kurt knew that, to some degree, she was correct but he didn't owe it to anyone to include them in his grieving process.
Kurt drew a deep drag, letting the smoke lazily escape into the warm evening. Kurt's breath caught when he saw, emerging from the park a few houses over, a line of people led by Mad-Eye Moody; behind the large man was Harry Potter, looking worse for wear than he'd looked that afternoon. Kurt incinerated the remainder of his half-finished cigarette and shot to his feet as the group came to a stop in the middle of the road across from where Kurt assumed Number twelve was, he knew it was there but he couldn't see it.
Kurt closed the space between him and Harry, patting the boy down as if to check if he was all still there. Harry didn't react, it was a witch behind him with a pink pixie haircut who spoke, "who's this now? Do you have a girlfriend?"
"This is Kurt Elizabeth Hummel," Harry's voice was flat, "and he's just my friend."
"Oh, sorry bud," the girls voice had a treble to it that fascinated Kurt, she'd never sing but it was lovely when she spoke. She shook his hand, "Tonks."
Kurt pulled his hand away as if he'd been burnt, he gave her a small apologetic smile. Harry turned to the group, "can Kurt and I have a moment?" Harry tapped his foot nervously, "I can see the house and nothing will happen to me while I'm with Kurt."
"Five minutes," Mad-Eye said, leading the rest of their party into the house Kurt couldn't see.
"Kurt," Harry hugged him tightly, "I need you to talk to me so that I don't lose my mind." Kurt took a deep breath but he couldn't bring himself to say anything, Harry carried on with his tirade of begging, "I'm not making this about you anymore, I'm making this about my sanity; I'm having nightmares, I see it whenever I close my eyes, and I feel like a failure."
"It's about fucking time," Kurt's own voice sounded foreign to his ears, he sounded like he needed a throat lozenge like Voldemort had that night in the graveyard.
"What?" Harry looked at him and took a deep breath, "Have I truly lost my mind? Am I now imagining you speaking?"
"No," Kurt shook his head, "I finally spoke to you and I said it was about fucking time you realised that it wasn't about me being there so you could help me move on, it's about me being there to help you come to terms with what happened to us."
Harry's lip quivered, "us?"
"You were there," Kurt gave a weak smile, "I had you in my heart and on my mind, I was channelling you through the entire experience. You might not have been present but I experienced it for you and put it in your mind in such a way as to make it our experience."
"Kurt, I…"
Kurt pressed his finger to Harry's lips, "everyone's waiting for you."
Kurt turned toward his own home, "Aren't you coming with me?"
Kurt shook his head, "I don't think I'd be welcome, or that I'd be comfortable."
"Don't be ridiculous," Harry scoffed, "how could you not be welcome?"
"I hurt a lot of people when I closed myself off," Kurt shook his head, "People who will expect me to explain and apologise, something I'm not willing to do."
"Dumbledore would want you to be here," Harry pleaded.
Kurt chuckled, "He'd want me there least."
"What?" Harry was confused, "you were like his confidant, his protégé in a sense."
"The thing about that kind of relationship, is that the mentor expects their protégé to see the world as they see it," Kurt smiled, "Professor Dumbledore and I agree on where we're going but we don't agree on how to get there."
"I don't understand," Harry shook his head.
Kurt laughed, "Professor Dumbledore's idea that dark magic makes a dark wizard has been a point of conflict for us for years, I've coming to a breaking point and I told him as much."
"Now I really don't understand," Harry shook his head.
"You can't go to a gun fight with a feather," Kurt gave a weak smile, "You should go, I'm sure everyone's waiting to see you. Tell Tonks that I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be rude."
Before Harry could speak, Kurt was off and up the stairs to the front door; disappearing into his home. They were all standing in the entrance hall waiting for him, he always came home to find them waiting like this for him; Finn sitting on the stairs playing with a jovial Harley, his father standing next to the window where he'd been watching Kurt, and Carole feeding Velma in the formal lounge. They all looked to Kurt expectantly and he usually stared back blankly, running off to his bedroom. Today he stood there watching them, none of them spoke, none of them did anything other than watch him.
"What?" Kurt snapped, "What do you want from me? You're all always waiting for me and looking at me like you have something to say, what is it?"
It was his father who spoke first, his voice was small and broken, "Kurt, I love you so much. Watching you hurt the way you've been hurting was hard, watching the world chew up and spit out the boy I raised just as he was becoming a man." The old man took a deep breath, "I want you to tell me how to be there for you? How to support you?"
"You're dealing with so much," Finn piped up, "you're not doing magic for the first time since you started, you-know-who's back, Cedric dying, and that thing with your parents."
Kurt face palmed, "idiot."
"The thing with your parents?" Burt quirked a brow in a manner that was frighteningly similar to Kurt; the brow was raised so high it might have kissed his hair line, if he'd still had one, "what about them?"
"I found out who they are," Kurt sighed.
"That's lovely," Carole smiled and hugged him, "I know it was a source of great confusion for you."
"Do you have plans to meet them?" his father swallowed a lump.
"No," Kurt snapped, their faces fell, "they're in prison for being wizard Nazis, the worst of the worst actually."
The room was silent, Harley broke the silence, "Yay Kurtie."
Kurt looked at Harley, at those big brown eyes just like Finn's; he snapped, "Not yay Harley."
Kurt took off at a run, up the stairs, he reached the first landing and bolted straight for his bedroom; throwing himself on the bed, trying to shut out the sound of Harley's crying as it was chorused by Velma's crying. Kurt's father knocked angrily on the door, he didn't wait for Kurt to invite him in but waited the customary time for Kurt to hide anything that needed to be hidden.
"Kurt Elizabeth Hummel," the man shouted angrily, "I don't know what you're going through but I raised you better than to scream at a toddler. You are better than that, your parents could have personally nailed Jesus to the cross but that wouldn't change a thing about you."
"Do you think I give a fuck that they're Death Eaters?" Kurt scoffed, "I wasn't silent for eight weeks because of something I learnt last year in September, it's not just about Cedric either." Kurt took a deep breath, "I'm going to tell you a secret and you can never tell anyone else, ever."
"Pinky swear," his father held out his pinky and crossed his heart.
Kurt hooked his own finger in his father's larger one, "I was in the graveyard in Harry's place the night Cedric died; he stopped me when I tried to protect him, I tried to step in front of him and he stepped forward."
"Oh, Kurt."
"He told me that love meant letting go," Kurt sobbed, "I've let him go but it's the people who are still alive who are making me like this. Mom."
"What happened to your mother was the fault of the hospital, not yours."
"Mom wasn't a match," Kurt shook his head, "then at about the time that my magical core developed and I was entered into the Hogwarts registry, she suddenly became a match and died of an allergic reaction to an anaesthetic she'd used when she was having her appendectomy."
"That's not on you," his father shouted.
"Maybe I altered the chemistry of her body so I could survive," Kurt shrugged, "the accidental magic from before you're eleven is unpredictable and happens in powerful blasts. The point is that the people I love seem perfectly content with dying in my place."
"Twice is a coincidence," His father had him by the shoulders.
Kurt looked away, "should I risk finding out if it's a pattern?"
His father pulled him into a tight hug, "it doesn't mean you should be alone."
~0~
"Ms Hau," Kurt smiled shyly at the woman and she did a double take.
"Kurt," she gave a broad smile, "you speak."
"I do," Kurt pursed his lips, "I've ended my vow of silence. I wanted to ask you about Harry Potter's trial."
"What would you like to ask me?" her gaze was sharp, "as I recall, you and Harry Potter are friends."
"We are friends," Kurt nodded, "I was wondering if you would be working the case because I would have to recuse myself due to the conflict of interest."
"We will be working the case," she ran her fingers through her now messy hair, "we're an investigation unit, we just deal with cold hard facts and there is no conflict of interest when it comes to the truth." She gave a chuckle like wild bird, "now that you speak, please call me Xun."
"I'm the same age as your daughter," Kurt shook his head, "I don't think it would be appropriate."
"She calls me Xun," Ms Hau countered, "besides, you're a year ahead of her at Hogwarts, that should count for something."
"Would it be the end of the world if I called you Ms Hau?" Kurt raised a brow, she nodded.
"Dude," Kurt's 'colleague' rolled his chair over from the next desk, "Ms Hau is definitely the end of the world. Xun is too smoking hot to be anything but Xun."
"Mr Puckerman," Kurt pushed the man's chair back toward his desk but he quickly got to his feet, "I've been waiting to tell you this for so long." Kurt smiled as the man looked down at him expectantly, "Please don't call me 'dude'. I have a very lovely name, please use it. This is not California, Aspen or Sydney; I'm not going to catch a wave with you and I'm not going to shred the powder with you either."
"That is terrible stereotyping," the man laughed, "maybe eating a hamburger or-"
"My intention wasn't to stereotype your country," Kurt rolled his eyes, "I was creating a stereotype of the word dude and its users. Even that was done facetiously."
"I liked you better when you didn't speak," Noah Puckerman sulked. Then he smiled, "Let's make a deal, I'll call you Kurt or whatever, you have to call me Puck."
Kurt rolled his eyes, "fine."
"By the way," Puck smiled, "it's five past one."
Kurt pulled his hand back and checked his watch, finding that he was late. Kurt walked briskly, making it to the elevator in next to no time. He pushed the 'up' button and waited, Kurt entered the first elevator without checking the occupants.
"Mr Hummel," Kurt rolled his eyes, turning to face the Minister for Magic, "Enjoying your internship?"
"Ever so much Minister," Kurt flashed a saccharine smile, he turned away before the man could engage him.
The next floor the elevator stopped at, the man waiting did not enter, "You see Mr Hummel, it's customary to let the Minister ride alone in the elevator."
"I'm sorry," Kurt's face was fixed into a grin, "but you must have me confused with somebody who cares."
"I beg your pardon!"
"I'm in a hurry," Kurt explained, "I wasn't going to spend my whole life waiting for the next elevator." The elevator came to a stop, "this is my floor."
Kurt rushed to the fire places that connected the Ministry to the Floo Network and as soon as he was in the network he reached into his pocket and touched the portkey in his right pocket. The green flames of the floo began to spin and Kurt was standing in front of his house, where Harry was waiting for him with a note. Kurt took the note and read it, setting fire to it once he was done.
"Sorry I'm late," Kurt smiled down at Harry, "the people at work were so fascinated by the fact that I can speak."
"Is Tonks your cousin?" Harry asked as they crossed the road to number twelve Grimmauld Place.
"Yes," Kurt nodded as they climbed the stairs to the entrance of the dilapidated town house; Kurt was glad that most people couldn't see it because it was an eyesore. Harry opened the door, the interior of the house was exactly as Kurt had expected; old, derelict and outdated, waiting for him in the entrance hall were Hermione, Fred, George, Ginny and Ron. Kurt was once more in a situation where nobody spoke, waiting for him to make the first move, "Hi guys."
Hermione stepped forward, "love of my life."
"Don't let Viktor Krum hear you saying that," the pair giggled, not like they once did but times were different. Hermione pulled him into a tight hug, "Thank you for all the letter, cards, books and parcels. I missed you."
"We missed you too," Fred and George apparated to either side of the pair and hugged them tightly.
"Do you know how much mischief we've gotten away with in your absence?" George nuzzled into Kurt's shoulder, "never leave me."
"Or me," Fred squeezed tighter, "We had to talk to Ron."
"What's wrong with you?" a deep voice called beyond Kurt's peripheral vision.
"Kurt's back," Ginny spoke monotonously, "I think Fred and George are trying to eat him."
"We are not trying to eat him," Fred snapped, releasing the pair.
George let go as well, Kurt and Hermione were able to separate for the first time, "we're just showing some affection."
"After what felt like a lifetime without Ron's Kurt," the pair chorused.
"Still Ron's Kurt?" Bill chuckled.
"Till the day I die," Kurt shrugged from beside Ron, hugging the taller boy, "You grew."
"Maybe now my legs go all the way up too," Ron grinned broadly.
Kurt chuckled, "let's not push our luck."
"Like me, your legs will always go up the normal amount," Ginny spoke with a falsely reassuring tone, "Come to terms with it now and save yourself a lot of grief."
"Now," Kurt smiled at his friends, "Harry and I are going to need a moment alone."
"You heard us," Hermione shoed the rest off, "We need a moment with Harry."
"Not what I meant," Kurt shrugged as she led them into the formal lounge; Kurt suspected that because the house was so primitively decorated, there might not be another lounge. Looking around the Black house made Kurt aware of just how wealthy the Black family was and how much his own family's cosmetic renovations had done for their home; his home wasn't as dark or out of date, yet they were working with the same structure.
"So Harry," Hermione spoke, "About your trial."
"The investigation conducted by the Auror's office wasn't conclusive but it does suggest the possibility that dementors were present," Kurt explained.
"How do you know that?" Harry furrowed his brow.
"I've been interning in the Auror offices all summer, specifically the Investigation department," Kurt rolled his eyes, "Mad-Eye Moody set up for me because I might have been a little livid that I had been deprived of a learning opportunity."
"What learning opportunity was that?" Hermione side-eyed him.
"Learning from an Auror," Kurt rolled his eyes, "but that's beside the point." Kurt squared up with Harry, "You have to do one thing, stick to your story."
"And remember to bring up that Dudley already knew about magic," Hermione added, "there are two charges; one for under aged wizardry, and one for exposing a muggle to magic. Dudley was already exposed to magic."
I hope you like it! let me know what you think!