Magical Twins – Chapter 5
"Dudley!" Petunia said, pulling her son into a bear hug, before she held him at arm's length. "You look gorgeous. Happy birthday, my boy."
"Thank you, Mum," Dudley replied, stepping over to Julian. "Don't worry, Julian; nothing is going to happen." Glancing at his mother, he queried, "You didn't come to take us from here, did you? Because let me tell you it wouldn't work. Julian and I are very happy here, and this is our home now."
Petunia seemed to be trying hard to fight back the tears at her only son's words; however, she turned to Julian. "Julian, I just want to apologize for the treatment you received in my house. Vernon..." She slowly trailed off.
"It's all right, Aunt Petunia," Julian said softly, hesitantly stepping forward.
"Happy Birthday to you too, Julian. I was very relieved and happy when Professor McGonagall came and told me the two of you were living together as twins and were getting along well. I know that Lily was very happy here at Hogwarts, and I'm glad you're in good hands here."
Petunia and the boys talked for another thirty minutes. None of them noticed that Minerva had long transformed into her cat form and had made herself comfortable in front of the fireplace, not trusting the woman enough to leave her alone with the twins. Only when Petunia seemed to be ready to leave, she unobtrusively transformed back to present the woman with a parchment.
"If you don't mind leaving the children in Professor Snape's and my care, would you perhaps be willing to transfer the guardianship to us? We are already their guardians in the magical world; however, it would be reassuring to have the guardianship for the Muggle world as well, so they were in no danger to end up with your husband as their guardian in case something happened to you."
"You're completely right, Professor, and yes, I will sign the papers, provided you give me the chance to see my son and nephew from time to time."
"I assure you that I will not only arrange meetings between you and the boys, but I'll also make them write to you on a regular basis," Minerva promised, handing Petunia a quill.
A minute later, the parchment rolled itself up and vanished into thin air, causing Petunia, Dudley and Julian to look around in confusion.
"The guardianship papers are charmed to return to the Ministry of Magic as soon as they're signed. There is someone at the Ministry who deals with Muggle affairs like guardianships within the Muggle world, which makes the matter very easy for us. Thank you very much, Mrs. Dursley, for taking your time to visit us here today. Will you be comfortable taking the Floo network back to Mrs. Figg's house?"
"Yes, of course," Petunia replied, smiling. "Thank God my husband is at work and unaware of what I'm doing in the meantime." With that she stepped into the fireplace.
Minerva threw Floo powder in and shouted, "Arabella Figg's place."
Dudley and Julian watched in amazement as Petunia was whisked away.
"Well, shall we return to the Great Hall?" Minerva pulled them out of their reverie. "I believe you have a lot of attractions to play there and many presents to open."
HP
During the next two months, the twins enjoyed their summer holidays in their own ways. While Dudley loved to sleep in, Julian liked to get up early. Normally, he scrambled out of his bed and headed to the Great Hall for breakfast, where at least Minerva, Poppy, Pomona and Albus were assembled. Afterwards, he made his way back to his own room and over to Severus' quarters to help his guardian brew potions for the hospital wing.
Severus realised soon that Julian was at least as adept at brewing as his mother had been and began to properly teach the child, glad to have such a promising assistant. He had an incredibly long list of potions, which Poppy required for the next school year, and from that list he chose the easiest potions to begin with, knowing that there were a few that were based on first-year or second-year level potions. At first, he always made Julian prepare the ingredients; however, noticing how eager the boy was to brew, one day, he allowed him to try brewing an easy potion, while he assisted the child with skilled movements.
Every morning, Julian spent two or three hours with Severus, before he returned to his room, where he met with Dudley, and the two of them popped to the elves' quarters to have one or two hours of classes with the elves. Whenever Barney, the Head house-elf, had time, he taught the boys himself, and Dudley and Julian were amazed at the amount of stories the older elf could tell, which the younger elves, who normally taught them, didn't know yet.
HP
A few days before the end of the holidays, Barney told Julian and Dudley, "I'm very proud of you. You know much more about the elves than many of our own house-elves do. I believe it's time to show you to our elves' library."
"Library?" Dudley gasped, while Julian looked at the elf wide-eyed.
"Yes, we have a huge library here at Hogwarts. No human except for the Headmaster knows about the fact though, and I trust you'll be able to keep it at that. You may use our library whenever you wish, and you may also borrow books. I'll show you how to charm them so they'll look like normal books to the other humans."
"That would be so great!" Julian shouted excitedly. "I'd love to read more about the elves' history and culture. It's so interesting!"
Although Dudley was not as excited about learning more of these things, he kept quiet and agreed with everything Julian told Barney, observing his twin's excitement with amusement. Barney led them to a huge room within the elves' quarters that looked similar to the Hogwarts library and was all over filled with bookshelves, reaching up to the ceiling. Barney led them to a table at one side of the room, just underneath a charmed window and told them they had to write on the table what they were looking for, and the respective books would pop onto the table.
"If you want to return a book, you just put it with its back on top on the table," Barney explained, smiling at the excited children.
Julian looked around in amazement. 'I'll come here as often as I can,' he resolved, throwing Barney a happy look. "Thank you so much, Barney, for showing us to this brilliant room and allowing us to use it," he said gratefully.
"You're very welcome. I'm very glad that you're so interested in our elves' matters. Now, from next week onwards, classes are going to begin again, and I'm afraid we will mainly have to teach you Muggle primary school knowledge. However, if you're interested, we can also teach you easy Charms and Transfiguration, although you have already learned much about it during your house-elf training."
"Frankly speaking, I'm not interested in Muggle knowledge at all," Julian said sadly, turning to his brother. "What about you, Dudley?"
"No. Magic interests me much more," his twin agreed, causing Barney to laugh.
"We'll see what we can do," the Head elf promised, smirking.
HP
However, more or less by chance things developed completely differently than anticipated.
When Julian woke up in the morning of the first of September, he had a sore throat and didn't feel well at all. 'Oh no, I hope I'm not going to get sick now. I want to attend the Feast tonight and get to know the new students,' he mused, already having been looking forward to meeting the new first-years for weeks. 'Anyway, I shouldn't let anyone know that I'm not feeling well.' He dragged himself into Minerva's quarters and quickly excused himself for the day.
"Good morning, Minerva," he said hesitantly, hovering in the door to her office, where she was preparing time-tables. "I just wanted to say that I'm going to spend the whole day in the elves' quarters."
"All right, Julian. Will you have breakfast and lunch there as well?"
"Yes. I'll come to the Great Hall for the Welcoming Feast though. I'm looking forward to meet the new students. I just can't decide where to sit."
Minerva laughed. "Well, think about it. Have a good day, sweetie."
"Thank you," Julian replied and returned to his room, only to pop into the elves' library, where he spent the whole day except from a few visits to the elves' kitchen to drink something. Unfortunately, he felt worse by the hour, and by the time Dudley came looking for him an hour before the Welcoming Feast was going to begin, his throat and his neck had become so sore that he could hardly swallow and couldn't move his head anymore. Beside the pain, he felt hot and cold at the same time and the world around him seemed slightly blurry.
"Julian, are you feeling all right?" Dudley asked in concern. "You look ill."
"I feel ill," Julian admitted in a small voice, "but I don't want anyone to know, because I want to attend the Welcoming Feast."
Dudley frowned, pressing the back of his hand against his brother's forehead. "I won't tell, but you're burning up, and I think you should tell them at least before going to bed tonight."
"I'll do that," Julian promised, longing for a pain relieving potion.
Together, the two boys left the elves' quarters and slowly walked to the entrance hall to wait for the students to arrive, unaware of the fact that their presence at the Welcoming Feast would have far-reaching consequences for both of them.
tbc...
Thank you so much for your kind reviews. I hope you liked this chapter too. I'm sorry for the delay in updating my stories. Please be patient; I'll try to get back to my usual update speed as soon as possible.
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All recognizable characters belong to J. K. Rowling, and I am not earning anything by writing this story.