03. All Work and No Play

Ronan was on a not-so-random patrol when he passed near the clearing that was the site of that large magical discharge from just over two weeks ago. There was no physical sign that anything unusual had ever happened here, he was pleased to note. He could not sense any residual magical effects, nor could he see anything that might have been affected, either.

They were periodically checking the clearing for anything unusual. So far, there hadn't been anything to report. It was just a normal clearing in the forest.

There had been a hint in the stars that something . . . unusual . . . was happening. Major changes had been detected in the portents — Saturn was especially bright. Hence his patrol so far from the camp.

He was about to continue on when he saw a Snowy Owl glide in over the trees to land on a branch not far away from him. It was the same owl as from the incident in the clearing — the one that had seemed to have forgotten how to fly.

The edges of his mouth twitched slightly, almost as if he were about to uncharacteristically smile. He made himself comfortable, and checked that he was in good cover.

He was satisfied to see that it appeared to have made a full recovery. Then he frowned. Why was it here? Why had it returned? Was there indeed something special about this place? He studied the bird carefully. This time, it had a pouch — a bag of some kind — in its claws.

He watched, perplexed, as it set its burden down beside it on the branch. It held out its right leg, and suddenly a stick shot out into the clearing. He almost laughed at what happened next, but his lips only twitched in an aborted smile. The owl, still holding the branch it was on with its left foot, shot backwards in response. Its claws stripped the bark from the branch, and the bird ended up hanging upside down facing the wrong way. It hung there a moment by one leg, seemingly surprised and confused at what had happened. Finally, the bird huffed loudly, and let go. It twisted while falling and turned the fall into a shallow dive that became almost a grass-top glide. It stuck out its feet to grab the stick, but missed and tumbled across the clearing. Lying on its back, it huffed again, stood, and hopped over to the stick. He watched, astounded as it appeared to use its beak to shove the stick into its foot. A stick that was clearly longer than it was tall — far too long to fit!

He knew about bags that were bigger on the inside than the outside. Mokes, due to the properties of their skin, were a highly sought-after commodity among the Centaurs. But this wasn't a bag the bird had wrapped around its foot.

A moment later, back on the branch, it again held out its right foot. Watching closely, he saw a stick shoot out into the clearing and the owl spun backwards, once more, to end up upside-down. The bird had tried to catch the stick with its claws, but had been a fraction of a second too late. The bird sighed, landed beside the stick, and replaced it in its foot.

Roman made himself a bit more comfortable. While perplexing, this had the signs of another story for the foals.

This continued for some time. Finally, the bird started catching the stick before it could completely escape, which had the consequence of the bird not falling over backwards and stripping more bark from the branch. The owl persevered, and was finally able to catch it every time. The owl didn't stop, though. He seemed to be trying to make so that he caught it in a firm grip, as if he were going to use it for something.

Once he seemed satisfied with that, he started flying low over the ground and catching the stick as it shot out while he was flying. The first dozen times were just like when he had started, the stick falling to the ground as he circled back around. Occasionally, the bird misjudged the stick's position, or the stick was trapped under a small root, and it tumbled across the glade.

It was getting close to sundown when the bird apparently decided that it had done enough for the day, and flew away. Ronan shook his head, and resumed his leisurely patrol. That stick the owl had been playing with so diligently reminded Ronan of the sticks, wands, the wizards used. But he knew that they restricted their use only to those who were wizards and witches. The other bipedal creatures, such as goblins, house-elves, dwarves, and gnomes, were denied their usage. As were all other non-human creatures: sphinxes, mermen, and Centaurs, for example.

How an owl had acquired such an item left him puzzled.

Ah, well, at least he had another story for the foals. Not as funny as before, but a few embellishments wouldn't hurt, would they? Perhaps a few more flips upside down on the branch, swinging back and forth like a pendulum? A few more tumbles and flips while retrieving the wand? Yes. A few embellishments were needed, indeed. The other adults might suspect, but they would laugh along with the foals — they, too, enjoyed a funny story, especially a new one.

A rare occurrence in the forest.

-===(o|o)===-

While it was sundown in the Scottish Highlands, the mountains blocking the horizon, it was still daylight in the flatlands around Little Whinging. After his third trip on the Knight Bus, Harry just took up station in a tree in the park, and took a short nap until it was after eleven, three hours later.

As promised, HtB's window was open, and Harry glided though without anyone outside noticing. Once he had the trick of using his new wand, he'd disguise himself around Little Whinging with a muggle aversion spell. Or, he'd could change his colouring to that of a non-descript grey owl. No one would ever make the connection to him, as Harry Potter's owl. They would merely see a regular owl. He could even cast an illusion in non-wizarding areas that he looked like a common seagull, dove, or black bird.

The invisibility ring was only for emergencies

He settled onto the perch, downed an owl treat, took several large gulps of water, and then almost immediately fell asleep as HtB watched, astonished.

No doubt the boy was wondering what he had been up to.

-===(o|o)===-

Harry slept until the late afternoon the next day. Apparently, what little magic he had done yesterday had been far more exhausting than he had suspected. He wasn't the magical powerhouse he used to be if he found such simple spells from yesterday so tiring. Disguising himself might be more difficult than he had anticipated.

Looking around, he was pleased to note that Harry was reading one of his school books, and making notes. He must have finished his chores, and then been sent to his room until it was time to start dinner. There was no sign of his trunk.

He wasn't pleased to see that the Dursleys, like last time, had confiscated Harry's trunk and locked it away. On the other hand . . . wing? . . . why should he expect something like that to be different? He hadn't done anything to change the way people treated HtB. Not yet, at least. No one even knew he had stolen the Sorcerer's Stone right out from under Voldemort's and Dumbledore's noses! Nor that he had already secreted Rowena's Diadem. Those wouldn't affect any outside events for several years, if ever.

With the mirror broken, Dumbledore probably thought the Stone was truly lost.

Which meant he could look forward to the diary incident and Gilderoy this term, and the Tri-wizard tournament in fourth year. He had plans for Wormtail that would, hopefully, make third year rather like his first in terms of general atmosphere. Second year would be more difficult to control, of course. Dobby's inept attempts to "protect" him, attempts on his life in Quidditch by a professor, a basilisk wandering the school, Hermione getting petrified, and so forth.

In the meantime, if he could wrangle it, he would take care of Barty Crouch, both of them, for what they had done and would do.

Which should also help get his dogfather free.

Which would lead to the revelation that Wormtail was the villain and Sirius Black the wronged innocent. Having his godfather free, and not a hunted criminal, would see him getting medical treatment for his years in Azkaban.

Meanwhile, he could improve HtB's skills. There were so many things that the boy needed to learn, things that would make his life soo much easier, later. And fun. He hadn't appreciated Sirius' panty-removing charm until well after he had left Hogwarts. It worked on bras, too, he had discovered. And if the target wasn't wearing said item? Well, it would give the girl a tickle, instead. There were a few other spells he wanted to make sure the boy learned before the term was out, too. Not all of them as much fun as the panty spell, though. A couple might even save a life or two.

It had taken him years to realize that getting an "A" for acceptable on his grading card would be seen as getting an "A" primary while his cousin, the miniature whale, got only "C" or lower. They wouldn't understand that the "A" was more like average, and not really, really good. They would simply stop reading on seeing the "A" and punish him accordingly.

Plus, he had dumbed himself down in fear of losing his friend, Ron. He had seen how the boy reacted to Hermione, and greatly feared the same treatment from his very first friend. Far better to be seen as average than lose a friend. Now, he knew, that wouldn't have happened. He could easily have studied more while still letting the boy beat him badly in chess and the other strategy games the redhead loved. Plus, there were ways to make the game more exciting for both of them.

The first, of course, would be to teach the child how to study, how to organize, and how to write — the very basics of being a good student. The benefits would be immediately noticeable next term as he picked up spells faster and earned better grades on assignments. He'd never be as good as Hermione, but, then, who was?

He stretched his wings and ruffled his feathers. He would need to learn a few new spells, himself. Something to help him keep his feathers in good shape would be an excellent start.

"Ah!" he heard the boy say, "You're awake." He got up and came over to the perch. "Was it a long flight, girl?" he said, stroking the feathers on Harry's chest.

Might as well fix that first, Harry decided. He slapped HtB upside the head with a wing and glared him.

"Ow!" the wizard said, rubbing his head, "Why'd you do that for? It wasn't that far was it? You said you wanted to fly instead of taking the train."

Harry shook his head and krekked irritably. "I'm not a girl," he tried to say. All that came out were a series of "hoos," "wuhs," and "guhs."

HtB tilted his head and studied the bird. Then he shook his head. "Sorry, Hedwig, I didn't quite get that."

Harry just grumped. If it weren't such an unnatural movement for an owl, he would have crossed his wings in front of himself and glared. As it was, he turned and bobbed his head. He did let Harry fuss over him for a few minutes, though. But every time the boy said, "girl," he cuffed him on the side of the head.

Harry figured that by the time term started, he'd have gotten the boy to understand he was a boy. Although, now that he thought about it, how did one determine one's gender when one was an owl? He'd better get a book on owls and find out. There was probably a simple wizarding spell that would do the job.

Eventually, the little wizard sighed and went back to his book and note-taking.

Harry considered what he needed to do today.

First, was to get the equivalent of an owl rucksack. The mokeskin bag was wonderful for what it could carry, but hanging loose on his neck affected his flight and threw off the airflow. He constantly had to make corrections instead of just . . . gliding or flying. Carrying it in his claws was awkward, as well. It made landing and standing more than a bit difficult, especially the landings. Perhaps he could get someone to make a harness for it? With his ability to turn his head backwards, he could have it mounted on his back and still be able to access what was in it. It would have the advantage of not being easily visible while he was flying, too. Oh! A white colour charm would work even better at hiding it.

Once that was handled, he could go about with the other things he needed done this summer — getting things to make it easier to communicate with the boy was next on his list. A typewriter would be a godsend. Haggling with that merchant had been so much easier when he could simply point at the number rather than laboriously spell it out with coins or try to write. A manual one would do, but an electric one should be perfect. After all, an electric typewriter was just a mess of manual switches with a motor to provide power to move the keys. Just replace the motor with a spinning spell on the armature and it would work just as well as the gramophone in the Gryffindor Common Room.

That could turn out to be a money-maker for Remus, converting used motorized typewriters to magical typewriters for business correspondence. They could even enchant one key as an eraser key. No more messy writing for Auror reports!

He also needed a more portable method of communication.

Then came a hat for the little wizard. A fisherman's hat or a boy's wool cap would do nicely. Once he taught the boy the charms, HtB could cover his scar with a piece of cloth, colour-changed to match his skin and stick over his scar. With a ragged edge, instead of square or round, it would blend in quite well with the rest of his forehead. With his fringe partially obscuring it, wizards and witches would never notice what he had done. In fact, he could even charm the cloth with a notice-me-not and that would simply add to its invisibility. Changing his eye and hair colour would complete the disguise. No one would suspect that The-Boy-Who-Lived was standing in front of them.

Clothes came next, but he hoped Remus would take care of that. On the other claw, the werewolf probably would end up with HtB in a suit. Harry needed to get Tonks involved. She, at least, had some muggle fashion sense of what a boy would wear. And Harry needed clothes other than his school robes for the wizarding world, too.

Next came the rat. He would secure the rat this summer, when the Weasley's came to rescue him.

Right. Dobby. That would be his birthday. Harry would have to be sure he was out of the room that night. Remus' presence in his life, at this point, would probably prevent the bars on the windows and the locks on the door, but the twins would still come to "rescue" him.

Unless Harry could arrange an early release from Dursleystan?

He had to be careful. Dobby was definitely not on the sane side of the line that separated normal from blatantly not. Who knew what the house-elf might do to the boy to keep him "safe"? Even if HtB was already at The Burrow, home of the Weasleys. It would be obvious he was going to go to Hogwarts in the Autumn with the Weasleys.

Harry shuddered to think what the demented house-elf might come up with to discourage the Weasleys from taking HtB to Hogwarts. Tripping HtB down the stairs, or messing with one of their brooms while they were playing Quidditch, would be entirely in the realm of possibilities.

Plus, books. There were several the boy needed, immediately. He would do that today, and maybe see about getting an owl rucksack later.

Nodding firmly, his objectives planned, Harry flew outside, picked up his hidden moke-skin bag, and set off to London. Part way there, he realized he needed to write a letter. He sighed, and landed beside a rural road. An hour later, he flew into Flourish & Blotts, landed on the counter and held out the crumpled, ragged, hole-ridden, ink-stained parchment.

.

Dear Bookstore Clerk.

I need your best books on

- Learning quill writing

- Essays and reports

- Organizing

- Research

- Wizard society

- Owl care spells, not potions.

Thanks.

.

It was splotchy and badly written, but could be read.

By the time the clerk returned with nine books, Harry had already counted out a dozen galleons and had his pouch open.

The clerk put the books on the counter, and put the list beside them. She took in his expectant posture, the open pouch, and the small pile of galleons, and gave her head a tiny shake. "We don't have a book specifically on owls, you'll need to go to Eeylops," she said, drawing lines through the first five items on his list. "I brought you the two best of each," she continued, "except the Quill Writing trainer, because there really isn't just one book that does the best job in the other categories." She flipped the parchment over and wrote the name of the owl shop. She rang up the books and took the galleons off the counter. "You need three galleons, five sickles, and thirteen knuts more," she said, and arched an eyebrow.

Harry pulled out four more galleons.

She grinned. "You're really smart, as well as beautiful, you know that?" she said, taking the additional funds. She fed the books, receipt, and his change into the mokeskin pouch.

He grabbed parchment in his beak and took off out the front door as a customer came in, making him duck and exclaim, "Bloody hell!"

The trip to Eeylops Owl Emporium was short.

He waited patiently until after dinner. That was when the Dursleys typically banished him to his room so they could "enjoy" their evening without his disturbing presence. No chores in the evenings for Harry! Doing household chores in the evening was not "normal."

So it was that HtB stared at the books stacked on his bed in stunned disbelief. "The Quill Primer by Calli G. Raphy? Essay Essentials by E. Z. Righter? The Art of Grammar by Graham Cracker, Writing a Report: Just the Facts, Dummy by Aleister Crowley, Occlumency: Organize Your Mind by Knot Al Thar, Organize Your Life by Lou Ser, The Proper Wizard's Guide to Society by Ima Nob, Mudbloods and How to Spot Them by Barrett Fay, Finding Things by Miss Place, and You and Your Owl by U. R. Fowl?" He looked at Harry, horrified.

Harry flew from his perch and grabbed The Quill Primer. He dropped it on the parchment of notes that the wizard had so far accumulated on the wobbly desk. Harry landed and tapped on the parchment, shaking his head. Then he tapped on the book, nodding. He flew over to the pile of broken toys stacked in the overflowing closet, and "rescued" a discarded notebook. Dudley had apparently liked the cover for all of two days before discarding the notebook as "too childish." Harry dropped it beside the primer, landed, and started tapping his talon.

HtB's shoulder's slumped and he got a wry look. "Yeah," he said, "I know my writing is terrible . . . but a first-year primer?" he complained.

Harry tapped his talon on the primer and glared at the boy.

"All right. You win." The little wizard sighed resignedly. "It's not like I have anything else to do, right?" he murmured. He grabbed the book and opened to the first page. Then he closed it, got his quill, inkpot, and notebook ready, and reopened it. Sighing heavily, he began copying the strokes the book demonstrated.

Harry hooted approvingly and returned to his perch.

It was boring watching as the boy filled page after page of his notebook with letters of the alphabet. However, it gave the owl time to consider his next move. He would let the boy practice for an hour, then have him read from the essay book for the next hour. The book about how to do proper research would follow that, then the wizarding society guide and the mud-blood book. After that would come the occlumency book. Those would take until bed time. Tomorrow . . . hmm.

He frowned. It was unrealistic to expect the boy to maintain focus on chores and studying all day — he wasn't a Hermione clone. He would have to think of something that would keep the boy's interest that was entertaining. All work and no play would lead to rebellion — and refusal to cooperate. The Dursleys used violence to ensure compliance, but Harry wouldn't do that. He needed a reward system, instead.

For today, though, at least, it would have to wait. He sighed. While the boy was so occupied, he could peruse the owl book and mark those spells that might be of most use to him.

After a while, surprising Harry, HtB looked up at him. "You know," the boy said reflectively, "this book actually has some good advice."

Harry hoo-hooed softly.

"And I can see some improvement, already." He sighed. "They should have told us we needed something like this instead of just handing us a quill and saying, 'go to it!'" He shook his head ruefully.

Harry just nodded. A supplemental list of beginner books for the muggle-born would have certainly been useful! It was almost like the pure-bloods wanted the muggle-borns to fail.

Imagine that!

Harry sighed, again.

They quickly worked out a routine. HtB only had one book out of his mokeskin bag at a time, to lessen the odds that the Dursleys might figure out that they hadn't locked away his school supplies. The boy, at the owl's instigation, took the cover off of one of Dudley's vandalized and discarded books and used it as decoy over the book he was working on. With Harry's superior owl hearing, they should have enough time to hide the items he had out, and for Harry to hide in the closet until whomever it was, was gone.

That would be the routine. Chores in the daytime, with occasional breaks, and studying in the evenings.

-===(o|o)===-

HtB was lying in bed, reading Finding Things. Harry had read some of it, over the boy's shoulder, and it seemed to be offering pretty good advice on how to go about researching a subject, either by talking to people, looking for clues and evidence, or by canvassing books. There was even a chapter with different strategies on how to look for physically lost things, either your own, or someone else's, with several useful spells.

It was obvious from the more mundane searching methods and tactics mentioned that the author had either been a muggle-born or a half-blood, and took most of the advice from the numerous muggle books on that subject.

The last chapter, suitably, was on how to decide if you had done enough research and it was time to stop.

At the rate the wizard was going, he should finish the books on writing essays and reports this week. With those under his belt, he should be able to do his summer hols assignments without too much difficulty. Harry would make him reread them just before term started, as a refresher.

It was time for his next purchase. He needed a better way to communicate with the boy. Pantomime just took too long.

Harry made his way to the next town over, a short flight. After landing in the town park on a picnic table, he took out a quill, parchment, and inkpot, and wrote down, laboriously, several destinations. Then he tore the parchment into strips, put what he was finished with into his bag, and picked up the parchment strip he wanted, with a galleon. He glided to the side of the road, ejected his wand, and held it up in the air. Soon enough, there was a loud BANG, and the purple Knight Bus rolled into view. Using the kerb, he pushed his wand into the holster and waited for the bus to come to a stop.

As he had expected, the conductor hopped off the bus and started reading from a small card. "Welcome to the Knight Bus," he said loudly, "emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. Just stick out your wand hand, step on board, and we can take you anywhere you want to go on land. My name is Stan . . .." his voice trailed off to a stop as he looked around for whomever it was that had signalled for them.

"What's this, then," he said, puzzled.

Harry flew up to the handrail and leaned his head forward, nodding slightly so that the parchment piece flipped up and down to attract the wizard's attention.

Startled, the man hesitantly took the proffered galleon and parchment.

"Ern," he said over his should, shouting uncertainly to the front of the bus. "A bird just give me a galleon and a parchment," he glanced at it and wrinkled his brow. "What says Blackpool, it does . . . the parchment." He looked over at Harry.

Ern's bored voice came from the front, "Is it a white owl?"

"Yeah?"

"So, give 'em his change!" came the order.

"Right," Stan said more to himself than anyone else. He dropped the Galleon in his collection box, and counted back the change — six sickles. He stood there uncertainly for a moment, but Harry leaned forward with his head tilted back to show the open pouch. Stan dropped the coins into the pouch. He held up a small piece of paper. "You want the receipt with that?"

Harry nodded, so Stan stuffed that inside the pouch, too.

As soon as he stepped back, Harry flew to the ceiling handhold, again, and hung on, upside down. Upside down, because he knew he would end up that way, anyway. Fortunately, the brass handhold was at the open part of the staircase, so he didn't have to worry about banging his head every time the bus lurched. With part of the strap of his pouch running between his feet, he didn't have to worry about his pouch dropping off.

Stan stared at him and called out, "Ready here!"

The bus lurched into movement.

It must have been a slow night, because he was the only one on the bus. So, a few minutes later, he flew out into the night sky of Stanley Park, Blackpool. Soon, he was gliding along Promenade, the main street running along the shore, looking for what he needed — a toy and game shop. The brilliant lights on the shore road easily outshone the moon and lit the street like daylight.

He coasted up and down the street a couple of times, checking out the various shops along the stretch. He extended his search to the side streets, as well, as most of the Promenade businesses seemed to be restaurant or ice cream parlours. Finally finding a likely prospect, he landed on a roof ledge across the street from his objective, and stared inside.

Owls, he had discovered, did not have twenty-to-twenty vision. They had three-hundred-to-one. That is, what people could see and read clearly at one foot, owls could see at three hundred feet, if they wanted. He took prime advantage of that fact to scan the shelves of the shop across the street for what he wanted. The angle was bad for seeing deeply into the shop, but he could see well enough to determine that this shop held what he was searching for. He could even read the price tag on the box without effort.

The only difficulty would be getting the box. Fortunately, the game he wanted was small and light. Plus, it being a nice summer night, the shop's front door was wide open, both to keep it cooler inside and to entice prospective customers off the street, of which there were a more than a few taking the night air for a stroll.

Harry rummaged around in his pouch for two fivers and two singles. The game didn't cost that much, but, unfortunately, he didn't have any coinage. As a result, he would have to overpay. He gripped the paper money tightly in his beak, then took a long shallow dive through the shop's open door. He banked right to head down the correct aisle. The game he wanted was fairly close to the front, and prominently displayed. He grabbed the small box in his claws, and back-winged hard to pull it off the shelf.

The clerk had jumped to her feet with a "Blimey! What was that!" as he had flown in. She wasn't the only one in the shop, and they, too, let out startled exclamations.

Once he had it firmly in claw, he flew down the rest of the aisle and up to the ceiling, glided around in a tight u-turn at the back wall, and coasted back to the front of the shop and the register. The clerk hadn't had much of a chance to move by the time he arrived. He back-winged again at the register, making the clerk shy back and raise her arm to protect her face.

He balanced for a moment with the box on the counter, dropped the bills he had in his beak, and then flew out into the night. He heard her yell, "Bloody hell!" as he flew up onto the roof façade. "Did anyone else see that?"

Fortunately, as he had hoped, the game box wasn't too large to fit in his pouch, although it did make a disturbing swallowing sound, followed by a belch.

While he was struggling with that, he could hear the clerk below. Apparently, she was using the shop's phone.

"Henry, you'll never believe what just happened!" She sounded wound up, and disbelieving of what had just happened — who could blame her? The customers had apparently joined her up front, he could tell from their loud voices that they, too, were astonished at what they had seen.

". . .."

"A great bloody bird just flew in here and bought a game!" she said excitedly. One or two of the customers agreed loudly enough that the person on the other end of the line could easily hear them.

". . . !"

"No, I'm not joking. And no, I haven't been drinking," she denied emphatically, sounding offended. "Although, I sure would like a drink right now," she added fervently. A customer agreed.

". . . ?"

"Like I said, the great bloody bird flew into the shop!" she said defensively.

". . . ?"

"O' course the door was open! It's bloody hot out!" Still on the defensive, unhappy at the questioning implying she trying to pull a prank.

". . . ?"

"No, no, I don't think it was a seagull."

She had calmed down quickly, Harry thought.

". . .."

"Well, it didn't exactly stop and chat me up, now, did it!?"

Back on the defensive.

". . . ?"

"Well, anyway, it flew down the boards' aisle, and grabbed a game. At least I think it did."

". . . ?"

"I didn't see it carryin' anything, anyway, when it came in."

Now she was back to explaining what had happened.

". . . ?"

"How should I know? It didn't exactly hand me the game to ring up, now did it?"

". . . ?"

"I haven't looked yet, I wanted to ring you first."

". . .."

"Yeah, I'll check. Anyway, as the bird flew out, it dropped two fivers and two singles on me!"

". . ..!?"

"Yeah! So even if it did take a game, it paid for it. How's that for weird?"

". . .."

"Well, I'll check and see if I can figure out what the bird took. It's all rather dodgy, you know?"

". . .."

"Yeah, I'll ring you in a few. Bye."

He shook his head wryly as he heard her hang up. The customers burst into conversation, discussing what they each had seen. One was offering to take the young lady out for a drink when she closed shop.

This would be one story no one would believe, Harry knew. As he had heard more than once while in the muggle world, "No pictures? Then it didn't happen!"

He would almost worry that the wizards would catch wind of this. Fortunately, the fact that he had dropped quid instead of galleons would leave them disinterested. If they ever heard about it in the first place.

In the meantime, he tucked his pouch securely to his chest, or as securely as he could, and started back home. The flying would give him some time to exercise his wings. He should be home in about four hours. If he got too tired, he could just take the Knight Bus the rest of the way home.

Tomorrow, he would show the boy the Travel Scrabble™ game. The included bag for the alphabet pieces would make it a concise and portable system. Not fast, but better than pantomiming or trying to scratch out a message with an inkpot and his claws.

It would also allow him to quickly teach the boy morse code. That would provide a way for them to communicate when in public or somewhere else where they couldn't use the scrabble tiles. Hermione had certainly proved its usefulness when dealing with wizards, they could send a message from across the room just by blinking or tapping a finger, and no one else would notice the wiser. All they had to do was make it look like a nervous twitch.

Besides, a few scrabble games would be fun, and improve the boy's vocabulary.

-===(o|o)===-