Harry Potter and the Serpent Items: Part 11

The following day the answers still looked the same as they had the night before and Harry had to stop off at the post office since Hedwig hadn't come back yet in order to send Luna a letter before settling in to read more about the founders and try and find out something about the Serpent Items that didn't involve Voldemort and his apparently rather impressive collection of souls.

He didn't get very far before Hedwig was back with just one letter. Harry recognised Hermione's handwriting almost instantly, having 'read' i.e. copied her homework one too many times not to, and tore open the letter, wincing in anticipation of the lecture that was to come.

He wasn't that far off either. Though she started the letter with an rant about the stupidity of running away from home without letting either Ron or her know where he was going or what he was planning, she did trail off after a couple of hundred words and start answering the questions he'd thrown at her about if she was able to visit him at the Leaky Cauldron any time soon, if she’d made any progress on their search, which was a bit redundant now he’d found what he had, and how her summer had been in general.

Quickly sending Hedwig off with a reply, his musings about why Ron hadn’t sent a letter back were disturbed by the fact a knock at the door set Padfoot barking.

Harry grinned as the words ‘Blimey, do you think we’ve got the right door?’ filtered through as he calmed his dog and opened the door to find the Wealsey twins hovering on the other side of it.

“Hello Harry!” One of them grinned at him as the other eyed Padfoot warily.

“Nice dog.” The other spoke up, moving into the room cautiously.

“Thanks. His name’s Padfoot. His owner gave him to me.” Harry moved aside, becoming surprised when Padfoot stopped growling the moment the rest of the Weasleys were revealed and settled quite happily at his side. “I wasn’t expecting a visit.”

“You told Ron that you’re staying at the Leaky Cauldron over the summer,” Molly spoke as she entered the room, sweeping across it and pulling Harry into a hug, “How could we not visit?”

Harry stiffed for a moment in the hug, unused to bodily contact that didn’t precede pain, then relaxed slightly when he remembered that it was Mrs Weasley doing the hugging. It was enough for Molly to let go quickly though and she backed off slightly and looked him and his great big pile of books over. “Of course you could have come to us. The Knight Bus would have brought you right to our door.”

“Sorry.” Harry apologised, though even if he’d known about the Knight Bus before he’d been thrown out of the Weasley’s, he wouldn’t have gone there. Not until he could get his blackouts under control. He didn’t want to get injured by accident and suddenly wake up having attacked one of them.

“You alright Harry?” Ron asked, giving his friend a concerned look as he did so.

Harry just nodded, not wanting to bring up the fact that he was being possessed by the spirit of his Bracer in front of the rest of the Weasleys.

“I just can’t believe that those blasted Muggles kicked you out. Especially with Black on the...” Molly trailed off as if she’d said too much, but Harry already knew what she’d been about to say, after all Black had taken a pot shot at him the night before last.

“Is that why you got the dog?” Ginny, who was distracted by the big dog trying to lick her to death, as if to say ‘I’m not scary really’, asked as she stroked Padfoot’s fur.

“No. He found me.” Harry answered, trying to avoid another Molly Weasley type glomp by avoiding mention of the attack, “And his owner said I could keep him. He seems to like me and I think he’d great,” Harry couldn’t help but think that after the dog had possibly saved his life, “So I did.”

“He seems nice...” Ron hesitated to get close to the huge canine who reminded him rather too well of the Grims in horror stories.

“Harry, dear.” Molly interrupted the conversation, “You always have a bed at our house. Why don’t you come and stay with us? A pub is no place for a child to stay for any length of time after all...”

“I would, but Minister Fudge has already booked out the room for me for the summer and arranged for Aurors to stand guard.” Harry shook his head, hoping Molly wouldn’t push it. He really didn’t want to risk living with the Weasleys. He liked them too much to do that.

Molly’s face fell at Harry’s words. “Oh.” She considered him for a moment longer then smiled at him, “That doesn’t mean we can’t come and visit.” She informed him, secretly planning to see if she could convince Arthur to try and get Harry transferred into their home. “Now...”

“What’s this?” Fred or George asked, picking up the notes Harry had been making on the history of Hogwarts, “Ickle Harry doing his homework?”

“Give me that.” Harry snatched at the paper, not wanting to share his research outside of Ron, Hermione and Luna, only for it to be dangled out of reach. “Guys!” He complained.

Before anyone could say anything, Ron’s rat, Scabbers, had leapt from Ron’s pocket and gone running out of the open door. Padfoot, with a loud bark and a deep growl shot off after him, causing both Harry and Ron to run after them, both calling their pets back to them.

Neither paid any attention and Scabbers finally took cover in a cupboard, while Padfoot stood outside barking like mad.

“Padfoot!” Harry shouted over the noise, getting embarrassed by his dog’s actions and the looks he was getting from other residents at the inn, “Padfoot sit.”

The dog sat but kept growling and Harry had to get George’s help to pull the huge canine away from the cupboard so Ron could retrieve his rat.

“Sorry Ron. I don’t know what’s gotten into him.” Harry groaned as he shut the dog in his room and they gathered in the corridor, “He’s been so well behaved.”

Ron just glowered at the door and the dog that was growling like mad on the other side. “Well he better leave Scabbers alone. He’s not been well. We were going to get some medicine from the pet store.”

“I’ll get him to behave.” Harry promised, “Give me one minute.”

Harry slipped into his room, just about managing to stop Padfoot from escaping as he did so and locked the door behind him. “Padfoot sit.”

The dog growled at door once more and then sat, looking incredibly pissed off.

“Those are my friends out there.” Harry growled at Padfoot, worried that the Weasleys might not come back if his dog wanted to eat their pets, “And that was their rat. You can’t eat their rat.”

Padfoot growled at him in response.

“No.” Harry told the dog firmly, trying not to roll his eyes at the fact while Harry wasn’t saying anything that the dog didn’t want to hear Padfoot understood him perfectly. When it came to understanding a command not to do something however, the comprehension was very much lacking. Harry had thought it was just cats that had that issue, but obviously not. “No eating Scabbers. No hunting Scabbers and no chasing Scabbers.”

Padfoot whined at him.

“No. I don’t want you scaring the Weasleys off. I don’t have many friends and I don’t want to lose the ones I have. If you won’t leave Scabbers alone then I’m just going to have to send you back where you came from.”

That made the dog shut up hastily and Padfoot hung his head in shame, licking Harry apologetically as the boy attached leash to collar.

“I’m not really mad.” Harry promised the dog with a sigh, “I just...” Harry trailed off. Perhaps the problem was that he needed a day or two for everything to sink in. The last few days had been rather hectic and he hadn’t really stopped yet.

When Padfoot licked him again, Harry chuckled and ruffled the fur on the dog’s head.

“Come on then you monster.” Harry chuckled as he opened the door, holding tightly onto the lead, just in case Padfoot decided to make a break for it again. No such incident occurred though and by the time they reached Diagon Alley, Harry was almost certain that Padfoot had only chased Scabbers out of boredom. Scabbers had poked his head out of Ron’s pocket twice since then and though Padfoot had let out a low growl the one time he had seen the rat, he did seem to be behaving otherwise.

They made a stop at the pet store for some Rat Tonic, which looked to quite possibly be the most vile substance in existence from what Harry could see of it and then headed for Fortescue’s ice cream parlor where Harry treated everyone to an ice cream and tried to ignore the blush on Ginny’s face whenever he said even a word to the girl.

Obviously whatever he’d said or done while he’d been possessed by Powel down in the Chamber of Secrets had only increased the crush she had on him.

“Hey Ginny?” Harry asked when something occurred to him.

The girl jumped a mile and stared at him for a moment, as if internally squeezing over the fact that he’d started a conversation with her, “Y…Yes Harry?”  

“What do you know about Luna Lovegood?”

“Loon...” Ginny paused at the look on Harry’s face, remembering too late that Harry was friends with the girl in question and mentally wincing at her own stupidity. “Only what everyone knows.”

“Which is?” Harry asked, wondering if Luna’s Comb had shown some of its powers off yet, or whether Luna had much better control over her item than he did. 

“She talks to herself.” Ginny started listing things off, “She often spaces out. She doesn’t really hear what you’re saying and we’re half convinced she’s a Seer, because she often talks about things that haven’t happened yet but happen hours later.”

“The poor girl lost her mother a couple of years ago.” Molly spoke up, her face a picture of concern, “Selene was a lovely woman, a little... different, like her daughter, but sweet enough. Unfortunately she was prone to playing with potions and got herself caught up in some dark arts ritual that went wrong and well...” Molly sighed, “Xenophilius has to raise her on his own now so it’s no wonder she’s a little strange, what with all the nonsense he believes.”

Harry gave the woman a curious look, but Molly wasn’t willing to share any other information and Ginny had gone quiet so instead Harry got to listen to the Weasley twins talking about the upcoming rollover in the lottery that was apparently held by the Daily Prophet.

Harry hadn’t known about the lottery, but the twins were more than willing to share what they knew. Including the fact that the upcoming prize was a couple of thousand Galleons but they were too young to enter.

That hadn’t apparently, stopped their parents from entering multiple times. Harry supposed, though he didn’t know how it worked, that the more times you entered the more chances you had to win, but if that was the case, then there would be people who entered hundreds of times. It seemed a bit pointless to him.

Still he kept his mouth closed and listened to the twins rambling on about what they’d do with a couple of thousand Galleons, liking their idea of starting up a joke shop. He had been about to inform them of that and offer some of the ridiculous amounts of money in his account towards that goal when Molly had started ranting about how ridiculous the idea was that if Fred and George didn’t take their studies seriously, then they’d never amount to anything.

Harry, who honestly thought the twins were awesome and envied their pranking ability, was surprised to hear her lay into them so harshly but filed the thought about giving them some money away for a later date.

Once they’d all finished their ice cream, Harry had all but dragged Ron to see the new broomstick and they, along with the other Weasley children, drooled over the Firebolt in the window. Horribly tempted to buy one for each of them, Harry wondered how many of those he could afford and if it would clean out the rest of the gold in his account.

Before he could do something ridiculous with his money, Mrs Weasley ushered all of the children away, muttering something about the time and how they needed to be getting back. They parted ways at the fireplace, where Molly told him that he was welcome to visit any time even if it was at some absurd time of the morning, and that all he’d need to do was call for ‘The Burrow’ when he used the floo and he’d end up in their kitchen.

It was a nice thought, having somewhere that he could go if he needed to, and it left Harry buzzing a little as he headed back upstairs and back to his research. Hermione would have been proud as he went through the texts carefully, scouring them for information.