Chapter 5
Sirius
“Well Bella will you be of more help than?”, he hissed
It was surprising even now that his cousin was well innocent, he had seen Bella break in Azkaban, and when on occasions they had to share cells Bella had told him about how she had become the nightmare of Aurors, at first he was sceptical. Still, he knew occlumency and he knew that it was one of the fields where unspeakable’s had deeply researched. He had heard rumours of Rookwood betraying ministry and selling the occult knowledge gathered by unspeakable on-mind arts for a seat among the death eaters. With Voldemort being a master in the field of mind magic, it was not too much to assume that he had managed to create some form of mind control unlike imperius but far more complex, he didn’t understand what made Bella change so much but from what he understood of mind arts it involved creating split personalities and that too through a book.
It was ingenious of Voldemort and explained how Voldemort managed to get so many followers and convince people to betray their own families.
“Shut up Siri”, Bella hissed and then turned into a black cat and curled around into a ball and slept
He huffed and began pacing in the small cave they were hiding it helped that both he and Bella were Animagus or else he didn’t know how in the hell they would have escaped from that little hell hole to begin with.
After a long time of pacing, he finally decided to rest.
Neville
The odd boy Harry Potter was once again creeping around with the weird girl from Ravenclaw. He knew for a fact that the odd boy Potter had an invisibility cloak and used it to break curfews. He had learned about the cloak before the winter breaks of the first year. He remembered seeing Harry Potter sit in front of the Mirror of Erised and then vanish as he draped the Cloak.
“Neville”, cried Hermione and he shook his head
“Focus Neville, you are getting distracted, we need to learn Patronus I am almost there”, Hermione said to him
He nodded and quickly finished plotting Dittanty sapling with Hermione and quickly headed of to the office of Professor Lupin.
Harry
“Come on Luna we haven’t got all day let's move on”, he said to Luna who was completely engrossed with the weird plant with dark blue flowers.
“If you wanna check out the bow-truckle colony then we must move on”, he said
“Alright Harry I am coming”, Luna said and then quickly fell into step beside him.
She grabbed his arm with both her hands and half rested her head on his shoulder as they walked slowly into the forest.
“Have you bought Lice that we purchased from the Apothecary”, Luna asked
“Yes”, He replied, “I would not forget to bring lice when visiting Bowtruckles”, he said with mild offence in his tone
Luna simply smiled and he grumbled, He was an aspiring magizoologist and it was insulting to think that any competent Magizoologist would forget bringing Lice as a gift to Bowtruckles.
Finally, after half an hour of slowly strolling through the forest, they made their way towards the Holly tree where the colony of Bowtruckles resided.
He handed Luna the bowl of Lice and said, “Your nature Luna would make them more comfortable around you than around me take this bowl and perhaps then I can approach them”
Luna took the bowl and Placed a peck on his cheek he flushed but after officially going out with Luna on a trip to Hogsmeade he was no longer as uncomfortable around the physical intimacy shown by her and indeed sometimes looked forward to it.
Luna
She slowly made her way towards the base of the Holy tree and she could see hundreds of small button-like eyes of Bowtruckles fixed at her.
She removed the lid from the bowl and slowly placed it at the base of the tree. None of the Bowtruckles moved but after she had retreated a bit, she saw some of the smaller Bowtruckles approach the bowl and examine the contents.
She heard a lot of clicks and kee—s by the smaller bow-truckle on finding their favourite food inside the bowl and soon the whole bowl was being swarmed by hundreds of Bowtruckles.
She was staring at the creatures so mesmerized that when she felt Harry take her hand she was startled but did not cry out which would have drawn the attention of Bowtruckles and probably would have frightened them away.
“We must leave and not make haste in approaching them Luna…”, Harry said
“Mmm… I know it will take a few attempts before they get comfortable around us”, she said and upon seeing that Bowtruckles had finished the Lice and had once again retreated onto the tree she slowly approached the Bowl picked it up and retreated.
(Later)
She placed her head on Harry’s chest as they heard songs on Wizarding Wireless while both of them shared a bottle of butterbeer while watching the night sky from the astronomy tower, it was almost mesmerizing, she felt so serene and calm there was no describing the feeling of utter joy.
Neville
“Expecto Patronum”, he said for what was like the twentieth time
He had gotten closer to being able to cast a shield than ever before, from the letters that he had exchanged with his mother he knew that he needed to use a memory of real joy to fuel the spell and though he had some memories that he cherished deeply he had no Happy memory so strong to be able to fuel the Patronus charm on forming a shield though he was getting nearer to his goal with each time he practised and he knew that he could cast shield through the raw power of his magical core.
He took a deep breath and then held out his wand, and took a deep breath in and said,
“Expecto Patronum” while imagining his father tossing him in the air and catching him both of them giggling as his mother fumed at his father for taking such a risk.
He felt the room getting filled with the same cool mist and then he felt something leave his wand and when he opened his eyes he found himself being mesmerized by the white wall in front of him, but alas due to his mind straying away from the only memory of his father the spell failed and the shield collapsed.
“That was amazing Neville”, said Hermione
“Awesome Neville”, Said Ron
“I am proud that you were able to produce a Patronus shield, I think you are one of the youngest people in history to be able to cast the Patronus charm capable of resisting few dementors”, Professor Lupin said
He felt pride filling his heart and then smiled but found himself collapsing onto the ground suddenly feeling very tired.
“ That is to be expected, Patronus charm is a really draining spell, now Hermione and Ron take your friend Neville to dorms and Ahh… Hermione don’t be disheartened by your failure to cast Patronus charm it is really advanced and I know your potential you are one of the smartest in your year and my offer still stands, but we will talk later it is quite late for you all now”, Professor Lupin said all in one go
Hermione nodded and they quickly left Professor Lupin’s quarters having taken up a lot of his time already.
“What did he mean by one of the smartest, you are the smartest witch in our year and top in studies”, Ron said
“uhh… I am not Ron, Harry Potter from Slytherin consistently outscores me in Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures and in the rest subjects we are equally good while In DADA Neville here tops the class and Harry Potter again comes second.”, Hermione said
“We all know that you are really only behind in Potions because Snape is biased towards Slytherins”, Ron said.
While that might have been true for the likes of Malfoy and Zabini and Nott, He remembered How much Snape had hated Harry Potter in his first year and had tried to make life insufferable for the Harry Potter in Potions class.
He soon fell into other thoughts regarding Sirius black soon enough completely lost until he heard Ron complain about being hungry and leading them to the Great Hall for Dinner. His eyes scanned the table of Slytherins looking for a face but giving up after he started receiving stares from Malfoy and his Ilk.