Harry and the Pirates, Chapter 12

by Technomad

At the end of the holidays, Harry and Dudley were more than ready to head back to school. The break from school routine had been wonderful, but they were both eager to find out what their friends had been up to over the Christmas season.

At Kings Cross, they both hugged Petunia goodbye, and shook hands with Balalaika. Then they heard a familiar voice from behind them. "Oi! Harry! Dudley! How was your holidays?" They turned just in time to see Ron Weasley, with a smile clear across his face, charging toward them, with his mother, sister and brothers in his wake.

"Just great, Ron!" Harry replied. The friends all clasped hands. "Aunt Petunia, this is Ron Weasley. He's our Housemate…and our friend. Ron, this is my Aunt Petunia. She's Dudley's mum, and she raised me."

"A pleasure to meet you, ma'am!" Ron shook Petunia's hand, then turned. "And let me introduce my mother, and my family…at least most of us. This is my mum, my brothers Percy, Fred and George, and my sister Ginny."

Petunia beamed at the Weasleys. "Oh, how lucky you are!" she exclaimed. "I only had the one child, and although I got the good fortune to have two to raise, it was at a price I'd never have wanted to pay! When I was young, I always wanted a house full of children and laughter and fun!"

Molly Weasley grinned. "Well, you should come visit us sometime, maybe when all of us are around. We've always room for more guests, and I've two more boys and a husband who aren't here. One of my boys works for Gringott's Bank, the other herds dragons."

"Herds dragons? That sounds interesting. I wonder if he'd be willing to talk to me about changing careers? Anybody who herds dragons has to have qualities I could use." That was Balalaika; Harry and Dudley hadn't seen her until just then. "Please pardon me, Petunia. I had some business I had to take care of, and it took longer than I thought it would."

"Oh, dear! Where are my manners?" Petunia blushed. "Balalaika, this is Mrs. Weasley, the mother of one of the boys' Housemates. Mrs. Weasley, this is Balalaika. I work for her in Thailand."

"A pleasure to meet you, Miss Balalaika. From what my Ron says, Harry and Dudley both worship the water they think you walk on." Molly turned to gather in her children. "This is my brood: Percy's the tallest, the twins are Fred and George, then Ron, and the girl is Ginny, my youngest."

The younger Weasleys all stared openly at Balalaika. Bolder than her brothers, Ginny said: "Ma'am…doesn't that hurt?" She was staring at Balalaika's scarred face.

Petunia and Molly both whirled on Ginny to hush her, only to be stopped by a gesture from Balalaika. "Yes, Miss Ginny, it did. But that was years ago, in another country, and by now it doesn't hurt. It's an honorable battle scar." She raised an eyebrow. "I take it that your arts could have made it go right away when I got it?"

Molly Weasley cocked her head on one side, consideringly. "Difficult to say, ma'am. I've seen Aurors…that's a kind of policeman…who're chewed up a lot worse. A lot depends on how you came by it, and from what."

Percy glanced at his watch. "Blimey! We've got to get moving if we're to catch that train! Terribly sorry, but I've got to go! A pleasure meeting you, Miss Balalaika, Mrs. Dursley," and he turned to go through the barrier. Reminded, the other Weasleys bade farewell and made ready to leave. Harry and Dudley hugged Petunia and shook Balalaika's hand, and lined up to go through as well.

Once they were on the other side, they were swarmed by Hermione. "Harry! Dudley! Ron! It's so good to see you!" She hugged them all. "How was your Christmas hols? Did you have a good time?"

"We did," Dudley said, his voice slightly muffled by the girl clinging to him. When Hermione hugged someone, they were hugged. "Balalaika was here, of course, and we had a wonderful time together. She hadn't had a holiday in some time, and we went to see shows, and concerts."

Harry winked at their female friend. "I think she's kind of looking forward to having you visit us in Roanapur this summer. From what she said to us, she was very favorably impressed with you."

Ron snorted. "She can't have got a good impression of my family from Ginny asking her about those awful scars! Thank Merlin, you'd told me about them, so at least I wasn't staring like Tom Fool at the fair!"

Ginny looked like she was about to cry, and Harry took pity on her. "Lay off your sister, Ron! Look, Ginny," Harry bent down a little, so that he and Ginny were eye-to-eye, "Balalaika's used to that sort of reaction, and I think she actually banks on it in some ways to throw people off their balance when she's dealing with them. She also understands that you're a kid, and doesn't expect as much from you as she would from an adult."

Ginny gave Harry a beaming smile, and Harry suddenly felt slightly uncomfortable. He wasn't sure why. This was Ron's little sister, for pity's sake! Why would knowing that she liked him make him uncomfortable? He felt a little like he did back in Roanapur, with Revy or Eda teasing him.

The train ride was a pleasant interlude, and a chance to change gears from "holiday" to "school." The four friends from Slytherin claimed a compartment to themselves, and since Harry, Dudley and Hermione had all been well-provided with spending money by their respective adults, they had a respectable pile of goodies after the lady with the snack cart had come by.

Ron looked a little diffident, but the others urged him to tuck on in. "We're mates! Whatever we have we share!" With that, all four of them took a share of the yummies. Hermione looked slightly guilty.

"If my parents found out I was eating sweets, they'd hit the ceiling," she confessed. "They're dentists, and they're a bit fanatical on the subject of 'no sweets.'"

"But, Hermione, don't you know that a Healer can put your teeth right in no time at all?" Ron looked at Hermione, slightly wide-eyed. When Hermione explained what Muggle dentists had to do, Ron looked slightly green. "On second thought, you lot can have this stuff. All of a sudden I'm not very hungry." Harry and Dudley grinned at each other as they divvied up most of Ron's share of their plunder.

They were very glad to see the towers of Hogwarts off across the distance. "That's as close to a home as we have, at least in Britain," Harry murmured to Dudley, who nodded.

The foursome were soon ensconced cozily in the Slytherin common room, down in the dungeons. "It's so cozy in here, particularly when the weather's horrible outside," Ron commented, luxuriating in a leather chair.

"Tell us about it!" Harry replied feelingly. While he liked a lot of things about Britain, the weather and climate were emphatically not on that list. He had become acclimated to the tropics in his years there, and did not like cold and damp combined.

A few days after classes started again, Hermione signalled her three male friends to join her at a quiet corner of the Great Hall. When they were all together, she looked around uneasily. "Do you ever get the idea that something's awfully odd around here?"

At her friends' exasperated looks, she went on: "There's something hidden in the school, and I think Professor Snape is after it for some reason! Remember at that Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Slytherin? He and Quirrell were squabbling about something." Harry, Dudley and Ron all nodded. They remembered. "Well, Snape's been prowling around the school! He turned up hurt at one point. Wouldn't it be a hoot if we figured out what it was ahead of him?"

"We'd get a ton of points for our house," Dudley gloated. Of all of them, he was the one who took the point totals the most seriously.

"And we'd be doing Snape a big favor. 'A Slytherin always pays his debts,' remember? If he owed us, we could call it in sometime." Harry leaned forward. "Let's put our minds on this and see what we can suss out about what's been going on around here."

"There was some sort of brouhaha about Hagrid, about a month before the hols," mused Hermione. "I wonder what he knows?"

"Hagrid did say he'd like to see me," Harry answered. "He was apparently the one who delivered me to Aunt Petunia's doorstep. Maybe we should make time to go visit him."

A few days later, the four friends were sitting side-by-side in Hagrid's hut. The huge man had been delighted to hear from Harry, and eagerly offered to have Harry and his friends over to talk.

"Grand to see ya, Harry! You look just like your father, except for those green eyes. Those you got from your mum." Hagrid paused to wipe away a tear. "Yer mum and dad…they were some of the best."

"What were they like?"

"Yer dad was top of his class at Transfiguration, an' your mum was a whiz at Charms. Head Boy an' Girl in their year! An' both Gryffindors! I wonder what they'd think to see you in green an' white?" Hagrid grinned. "I was the one who left you at your aunt's place, you know! Dumbledore's orders!"

"Best favor you could have done me," Harry answered. "Without that, I might never have met Dudley, here, and Dudley's like my brother!" Dudley grinned as Harry slapped him companionably on the back. "I can't imagine life without him!"

"And I can't picture what life would have been like without you!" For a second, Dudley looked sad. "I wish my dad and your folks could have lived…but things turned out all right, didn't they?"

"I saw you boys in Diagon Alley, bein' taken around by Professor McGonagall," Hagrid confided. "I'd have loved to chat with ye…but I was on business. Had to get somethin' from Gringott's. Somethin' special."

"What was that?" Hermione asked.

"Can't tell ye. More'n my job's worth to tell ye. But it's in the castle now. Safest place for it. Fluffy'll keep it safe."

"And what is a 'Fluffy?'" Ron took a sip of the tea. Unlike the rock cakes, which all four Slytherins had quietly disposed of in their pockets to be gotten rid of without hurting their host's feelings, the tea was quite good.

"Fluffy's me dog. Sweetest li'l three-headed dog ye ever saw in yer lives. Mind, he's a big 'un, but just play 'im some music an' he goes right off to sleep." Hagrid suddenly looked slightly startled. "Oops! Forget I said that!"

"Oh, we will, Hagrid. Consider it forgotten!" Harry flashed a grin at his friends, and let them see the fingers he had crossed behind his back.

Once they got back to the safety of the Slytherin quarters, the four put their heads together. Ron said: "There was a report of a break-in attempt at Gringott's, before school started. What day did McGonagall take you there?" When Harry and Dudley told him, Ron pulled out a piece of parchment and a quill, noting the date down.

"And I wonder where in this school could they hide a three-headed dog?" Hermione mused. "That corridor on the third floor, the one that's out of bounds?"

All four of them nodded. "At least we can investigate that area first," Harry concluded. Just then, one of the Slytherin seventh-year prefects cleared her throat to signal the beginning of the designated evening study hours, and they pulled out books and bundles of notes from their classes, bending to their burden of schoolwork.

END Chapter 12