Magical Twins – Chapter 8
Julian threw the upset elf a terrified look and told her in a hardly audible voice how he had spent the morning. "Please don't tell Aunt Poppy or my guardians," he begged Misty, who was looking at him in disapproval.
"Very well, I'll not tell the humans; however, I'll inform Barney, and you wills serve detention with me looking after the sick elves for seven days."
"All right," Julian agreed immediately, sighing in relief as he heard his punishment. 'That could be much worse,' he realised, having seen small elves get spankings by the older ones.
"Misty," he croaked, "could you perhaps ask Barney if Dudley and I could perhaps attend the first-years classes instead of learning Muggle things? We promise to do all the work the students have to do and hand them in to Barney or one of the elves he makes responsible for us."
Misty sighed in exasperation. "Julian, Misty wills speaks to Barney. However, you is going to do what Mistress Poppy and I says." She laid two fingers on his forehead, causing a red number to appear in the air. "You wills remain in bed this afternoon. Your fever is too high considering Mistress Poppy just gaves you a fever reducer." She gently moved her index finger over the boy's face, causing Julian to lean into the cold touch.
"That feels so good," he whispered gratefully. "Thank you, Misty."
"That's my special healing magic," the elf smiled. "Now let me see your throat." Again, she used her healing magic, causing his burning throat to cool down a little and the swelling to recede a bit. "That's all I cans do for you at the moment, but I'll come back to check on you again in an hour." With that, she waved her hand over Julian, causing him to drift off to sleep before he could do as much as blink.
HP
Due to Poppy's treatment and Misty's Healing magic Julian's condition improved quickly, although he still remained ill, and Poppy kept him in bed for the whole week. However, unbeknownst to the humans, Misty allowed him to attend the first two morning classes every day, provided he popped back to bed and called her as soon as he felt worse.
Julian loved the classes he attended together with the twins, and as soon as Poppy finally allowed him out of bed, he popped himself to Barney and, with the help of Misty and Dudley, convinced the Head house-elf to allow Dudley and him to attend the first-years' classes.
Barney, who had already heard about the matter from Misty, grudgingly agreed. "However, you must fulfil a few conditions," he said sternly. "First of all, you must remain invisible at all times. Secondly, you must do all the homework the human students have to do. You will hand them in to me the evening before they are due in class. Thirdly, we'll have one class together, during which I'm going to teach you Muggle knowledge, right after dinner every evening."
Julian agreed immediately, causing Dudley to groan. "But we won't have time to play or hang out with the Weasley twins at all."
"You may enjoy your time or do your homework together with your friends between the last afternoon class and dinner as well as on the weekends," Barney replied firmly. "You will also have time after our evening class, which will only take one hour."
HP
From the following day onwards, Dudley and Julian attended classes together with the twins. They noticed soon that it was not only much fun, but also a lot of work, especially as they also had their evening classes with Barney, who gave them homework as well. To the twins' relief, Barney didn't only make them study Muggle knowledge but also made them brew the potions, which they hadn't been able to brew in class or practise the spells their classmates had learned in class.
Out of class, they spent most of the time either in the elves' library or together with the Weasley twins in the Room of Requirement, since they couldn't do their homework in their own room, fearing that Minerva or Severus might discover their secret.
The human teachers didn't notice the two invisible students at all, and their guardians and god parents merely wondered why the twins came down with several illnesses even more frequently than during the last school year, although they seemed to spend the whole day in the elves' quarters.
"Don't forget that they take all their meals at the House tables," Severus said thoughtfully. "That should be enough to catch whatever is ailing the students."
"I'm surprised how much time they spend with the Weasley twins," Minerva spoke up. "Julian told me last week the twins had taught them to fly, when I saw them play Quidditch together with the Gryffindor first-years."
Unbeknownst to the adults, Barney even made the twins take the tests the first-years took in class, and Dudley and Julian managed to pass all of their tests faultlessly. The two boys were very proud when Barney showed them the corrected tests on the first day of the winter holidays and told them they had done extremely well on all of their tests.
"I'm very proud of you, children," he told them, causing the twins to blush with pride, knowing that Barney was not one to easily praise someone.
"Thank you so much for allowing us to attend classes. They're a lot of fun," Julian said gratefully.
"I love it, too," Dudley agreed. "Are we going to have classes with you during the holidays?"
Barney remained thoughtful for a moment. "No," he said finally. "I believe that you worked very hard, taking my classes in addition to the human classes. So, no; I just want you to rest and enjoy Christmas. You have to do your homework of course, but that's all."
"All right; that's good, because I'd love to make Christmas presents for everyone," Julian said excitedly, before his face all of a sudden took on a sad expression.
"What's wrong?" Dudley and Barney queried simultaneously, looking at the boy in concern.
"Father Christmas won't bring me anything anyway; he never did," Julian replied in a small voice, averting his eyes to the floor.
"Julian was never allowed to have Christmas with us," Dudley explained quietly. "Julian, I think Father Christmas will bring you something, or else I won't receive anything either. But it doesn't matter. I'm going to draw pictures for everyone. Professor Flitwick promised to help me charm them, so they can move."
"All right. I'm going to write a story and give it to everyone then," Julian replied, feeling very much consoled, and his expression changed to one of determination.
During the next few days, the twins were very busy preparing Christmas presents. While Dudley drew pictures of Santa Clause in wizarding robes handing out presents to people in the Great Hall, Julian made up a story of a little elf with the name Liltyke, who had lost his elf family in a thunderstorm and was looking for his family that he finally found at Hogwarts after an exciting travel, during which he made friends with several kinds of animals. The story was quite long and it was hard work to write it down several times, but he did his best, determined to give his story to Minerva, Severus, Poppy, Barney and Misty.
"Dudley, shouldn't you send a picture to your mother?" Julian suddenly remembered to ask in the morning of Christmas Eve.
"Oh yes, I did that," Dudley replied, smiling. "Minerva told me I should owl it to Mrs. Figg; she'd give it to Mum."
As pleased as Julian was with his twin's answer, thinking of the Dursleys caused him to reflect on his time at his relatives' house. 'What if Dudley and Barney were wrong, and Father Christmas won't bring anything for me?' he mused. 'Everyone will know that I'm a bad boy. What if they only keep Dudley and throw me out?' A small voice at the back of his mind told him, 'That's nonsense. Minerva told you often enough that she loves you and that she's proud of you and Dudley. This is your home now, and they won't send you away.'
However, Julian didn't want to listen to the small, reasoning voice. He made himself so upset that he spent most part of the night awake, pondering what to do if the worst happened. Unfortunately, after thinking about the matter for hours, he felt very sick to his stomach, and just when Severus entered the room to check on the boys before going to bed at two o'clock in the morning, Julian's stomach decided to relieve itself of its contents.
"Julian, what happened?" Severus asked in surprise and concern as he scourgified the mess with a flick of his wand. "Are you sick?"
"No, I'm fine," Julian muttered, taking small sips of water from the glass Severus pressed against his lips.
"Did you wake up feeling unwell?" Severus asked, and a cool, slender hand found its way to Julian's forehead, where it remained for a moment.
"No, I couldn't sleep," Julian confessed in a small voice, pondering if he should tell Severus what was bothering him.
"Why not? Did you have a bad dream?" Severus asked, gently wiping sweat off the child's forehead with a conjured cloth.
"Yes," Julian lied and averted his eyes to his bedcovers, suddenly feeling bad to lie to his kind guardian.
tbc...
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I'm not a native speaker of English. Please excuse my mistakes or help me to correct them.
All recognizable characters belong to J. K. Rowling, and I am not earning anything by writing this story.