Ch. 6: Headmaster's wish
On the first day of October, Harry got a note from Dumbledore, asking Harry to visit him in his office in the evening.
'I wonder what he wants,' Ron asked when Harry told him and Hermione about the note, while they were having breakfast. As usual, the exchange students didn't come to the Great Hall in the morning, although they have taken to eating lunches and dinners with the other students when they started attending some classes.
'No idea, but I'm glad. I have so many things to ask him about,' Harry replied truthfully. Since a couple of nights, he has been having dreams about something that he couldn't understand, but it felt like the dreams belonged to Voldemort. Was it possible for two sleeping brains to connect? Or was Voldemort sending him confusing images on purpose?
'About those dreams?' Hermione guessed, her tone serious. Harry almost regretted mentioning the dreams to her and Ron, because his two best friends freaked out at the mention of Voldemort invading Harry's brain.
'Yeah,' he replied, folding the note away and getting up, because it was time to go for classes. His friends followed him and they made their way to the dungeons, where Snape was probably waiting with some mean ideas. This year the Potions professor was even nastier than the years before and Harry had no doubt that it was because Voldemort has risen.
They suffered through the lesson, full of snide remarks and contempt-filled glares, in silence, grateful when the time was to leave the dungeon for lunch. Much to Harry's dislike, the second lesson that day was Care of Magical Creatures and he had to stand everybody's prise of Professor Grubbly-Plank. The worst was that he couldn't quite disagree with them because the lessons now were probably more pedagogic and safe. However, he would be damned if he let anybody know that, if only because Hagrid was his friend.
The last lesson was Divination for Harry and Ron and Ancient Runes for Hermione, completing Harry's "day in hell", as he privately dubbed Tuesdays since the beginning of this year. As always, Trelawney figured out a way to mention Harry dying in some gruesome way. The fact that she believed him about the return of Voldemort was small consolation in comparison.
Arriving to the Great Hall, relieved that the day was nearly over and looking forward to the meeting with Dumbledore, he was surprised to see Oz and Alice already seated at the Gryffindor table. Alice was busy eating, but Oz waved at Harry and Ron happily.
'Snape let you out early?' Ron asked as they sat down opposite to the two students.
'Yup, he had to do something else or whatever,' Oz replied carelessly, but Harry and Ron exchanged worried glances. Was Snape going to some Deatheater meeting? Would there be more death in the Daily Prophet the following day?
Harry glanced at the Slytherin table, where Malfoy was in the centre of attention of the fifth-year students, talking about something. With the corner of his eye, Harry noticed Elliot sitting together with the sixth years. The oldest of the exchange students took to chatting with the Slytherins every once in a while and, from what Harry could see, he was talking much more than when he was sitting with them.
'So Elliot doesn't like us?' Harry asked, itching to warn Oz again about the Slytherins and their probable allegiance to Voldemort. What if the Deatheaters kidnapped Elliot and asked for his family to surrender to them in exchange for the boy's life? Would Elliot's father be able to resist such blackmail? When he asked that the other day, Oz just looked at him strangely and said that Elliot would not be kidnapped and used against his family, because Raven and Hatter would protect him.
'I think Fred and George are above Elliot's tolerance of carefreeness,' Oz replied diplomatically, eliciting a laugh from Alice. 'He'll eventually recalibrate and come back here because, from what he's saying, the Slytherins are annoying as well. He tried talking with Draco, but that guy is only interested in followers, not friends. And Elliot is not a follower, he's a leader.'
'That sounds awfully grown up,' Ron muttered under his breath as Hermione arrived. Oz looked like he was going to say something, but Alice asking Hermione about any new, cool spells that she's learned effectively changed the topic of the conversation.
'I saw Leo talking with the Ravenclaws from my Ancient Runes class,' Hermione replied. 'He's getting real good in Charms so you should ask him,' she added, piling food on her plate, even as her spoon danced in front of Alice, much to the girl's delight.
'Hermione! This is wandless magic,' Harry exclaimed, realising that the spoon was dancing to Hermione's wishes. The young witch laughed and the spoon fell down onto the table.
'I cannot be worse than Leo now, can I?' she asked cheerfully and started eating, talking with Alice in between, trying to teach her to make the spoon dance. Ron muttered something about how Hermione didn't need encouragement from anybody and focused his attention on the chicken legs in front of him.
'You know, I never thought I would meet somebody who eats as much as Alice does,' Oz commented, nibbling on his food.
'We never thought we would meet anybody who eats as much as Ron does,' said Ginny, sitting down next to Harry with a laugh. 'I want to know her secrets for keeping slim with the amount of food she eats,' she added, putting some food on her own plate.
'Me too,' Hermione chimed in from Alice's side. The latter looked slightly confused and asked what secrets about keeping slim she could have.
'Work out,' Ron exclaimed. 'If you could battle that thing in the Defence against the Dark Arts class, you sure as hell work out.'
'What is work out?' Alice asked. Harry blinked at her incredulously, noticing with the corner of his eye that so did Hermione, Ron and Ginny. Not getting her answer, Alice turned to Oz who said that he supposed Ron meant physical exercise.
'By the way,' Ginny started after a moment of silence that followed Oz's explanation. 'Is that dark-haired guy with you?' she asked, looking at Oz intently. Hermione seemed also interested in the topic, because she looked up at Oz as well.
'Dark-haired guy?' Oz repeated. 'Ah, you mean the guy dressed all in black, sulking in the shadows?' he asked with a laugh.
'Raven,' Alice muttered with some dislike, before either Hermione or Ginny had the time to confirm that it was the guy they were talking about. The latter frowned and repeated the word, while Hermione's eyes widened slightly.
'That is your bodyguard?' she asked with some amazement and laughed. 'I kind of imagined your bodyguards to be more of the muscle type for some reason,' she added. Ron asked Harry if he had seen any dark-haired guy in the corridors. He hasn't. 'I was wondering who that man was, since he's not with the Order and I didn't think that Dumbledore would allow anybody else into the castle.'
'Do you know all the members of the Order of the Phoenix?' Alice asked with some sort of surprise. 'Is it that small?'
'It's big enough to do what it's supposed to do,' Ron snapped at the brown-haired girl, who didn't seem to take offense, but just looked at him doubtfully.
'If you say so,' she muttered and went back to trying to make the spoon dance.
'Yeah, so that guy is Raven and the white-haired guy with weird clothes is Hatter,' Oz amended, watching the spoon twitch under Alice's extended hand. Apparently Professor Flitwick told the exchange students that trying to focus the magic through an extended hand might make it easier to cast spells.
'Raven is very handsome,' Hermione noted, blushing almost immediately, as Oz laughed out at her statement. She had tried to make it sound like a neutral observation, but if her blush was any indication, Harry would guess that it was her personal opinion. Ron frowned and muttered that he didn't like that Raven guy.
'It's refreshing to have a sexy guy walking around the corridors,' Ginny noted with a smirk, laughing when Ron shouted at her to not be thinking about this kind of things. Oz said something about Hatter always being disappointed when Raven got all the attention of women.
'But don't let that fool you, Raven has a one-track mind,' Alice grumbled, glaring at the spoon. As silence fell, she looked up at the Gryffindors and a strange expression flitted across her face, before she added that he took his task of protecting the heirs of the Dukedoms really seriously. Afterwards, she went back to her spoon and Harry watched for a moment how the utensil twitched.
'Harry, shouldn't you be going?' Hermione asked suddenly and Harry realised that it was almost the time for his meeting with Dumbledore. Just as Oz asked him where he was going, Alice exclaimed that she managed to make the spoon dance and Harry couldn't have wished for a better diversion.
He slipped away from the Great Hall, knowing somehow that it wouldn't have been good if he had said anything about meeting the headmaster. Normal students didn't meet the headmaster and the exchange guests were deeply suspicious to anything that was out of routine. He didn't want to lose their trust over something that didn't concern them in the slightest.
Feeling observed as he rushed down the corridor, Harry stopped and turned, his eyes meeting a golden gaze that belonged to a black-clad man. Raven, he thought immediately, not only because it simply couldn't have been anybody else, but also because the name somehow fitted.
He smiled at the man, thinking that, if he continues being friends with Oz and Alice, he would probably meet him sooner or later and there was no point in starting on a bad note. However, the man didn't smile back at all, rather turned away and all but melted into the shadows, where Harry thought he could see a red eye gleam.
Uh, I must be more tired than I thought, he told himself, dismissing the gleaming eye as a hallucination. After all, there were no gleaming-eyed creatures in the castle and no red-eyed people either. With a sigh, Harry turned to go on towards the headmaster's office. On the way, he thought about the strange encounter, not sure why the man didn't fit into Hermione's idea of a bodyguard. Sure, he was nothing like Mad-Eyed Moody, Harry had to admit that, but Mad-Eye was an exception of exceptions after all. Raven was, however, tall and imposing and probably could dissuade half of dangers just by glaring at them with those unnaturally coloured eyes. Harry didn't see anything handsome or sexy about the man, rather he felt that it was a very dangerous person. He didn't know where that thought came from, but he hoped to never meet Raven again in an empty corridor.
It could just be that he looks like that from far, Harry reasoned. He's probably a pretty nice guy in the end.
With that thought firmly in his mind, Harry finally arrived at the headmaster's office and was let in by the gargoyle, who was probably informed about Harry's awaited arrival. He wasted no time in reaching the door and opening it after a brisk knock.
'Ah, Harry,' Dumbledore welcomed him, looking up from some notes on his desk. 'Do come in my boy. How are you doing this school year?' he asked with his friendly tone, however, Harry noticed that Dumbledore's eyes were serious.
'Quite fine professor, except-'
'Are you enjoying the company of the exchange students?' Dumbledore asked, probably for the first time ever cutting off Harry's sentence like that. The boy stared for a moment, before realising that the headmaster was waiting for the answer.
'They're real nice kids,' he said finally, uncertain about his words all of the sudden. Now that he thought about it, they were not much of "kids". 'We get along very well with Oz and Alice and Leo,' he added, feeling like something more was expected from him. 'Elliot is a bit closed off, but Oz says that he'll warm up to us eventually.'
'Yes, it seems that Lord Nightray chooses to spend his free time with the Slytherin students,' Dumbledore mused and Harry had to wonder if the headmaster was keeping such close attention on every student. Himself, he always thought to be an exception, due to the events that took place when he was one year old.
'Professor, are they really the heirs of the Duke families?' Harry asked, realising that even the headmaster used a title when talking about Elliot, while normally he would use the student's name.
'So they say, Harry, so they say,' Dumbledore muttered and sighed. 'We have no choice but to trust what is being told to us about them, because we have no knowledge about their land,' he added.
'Why did the Four Great Dukedoms isolate themselves so thoroughly?' Harry asked, remembering Hermione's frustration at the lack of information in the library. 'Why did they stop their isolation now?' he added, remembering Ron's suspicions. Dumbledore sighed and motioned for him to sit down.
'The answer to both questions is "I don't know", my dear boy. The Duke Barma wrote to me in the summer, asking if we would like to teach four children,' he said. 'Incidentally, would you like to tell me what Professor Lunettes is teaching you?' he asked. Surprised, Harry summarised what he had heard about the Core of Magic so far.
Dumbledore didn't interrupt him once, nodding every now and then and scribbling something on a piece of parchment. When Harry was finished and asked the headmaster what he was writing, he was shocked by the answer.
'You see, Harry, I would very much like to know what the Core of Magic really is,' he said with a small smile. 'I would like to know how it is incompatible with wands if it is the same magic as ours, just differently named,' he added in a tone that even Harry could interpret as disbelief. Harry would lie if he said that it didn't make him curious when the headmaster phrased it like that.