The Sleepover
On Monday the 10th, exactly a week after his Healer´s appointment, Harry finally felt the rest of his symptoms abate, leaving the boy in high spirits. He skipped down to breakfast that day, greeting the Lestrange portraits on the way. He was still humming a soft tune when he slid into his seat and tucked into his breakfast, glancing at Babbling every now and then to catch sight of a few articles in the Daily Prophet, before Sinistra could decide to incinerate the paper again.
There were potions lying next to his plate that he examined curiously before drinking them down. One was a bone strengthener, another a nutrition potion, and the third was labelled as language potion for some reason. Maybe in preparation for their visit to Leon this summer?
“Feeling better, Harry?”, Sinistra asked, making the raven-haired boy nod slightly.
“You will be starting your chores today, then”, Snape told the boy. “Leave a note when you finish breakfast with what you need to make dinner, and I´ll see to it that you find it this afternoon.”
“Uh… Thank you, sir.”, the Gryffindor started. “I´ll think about it.”
“How is your summer homework coming along?”, Babbling now asked, making Harry stop mid-motion to stare at him.
“I haven´t started yet”, he admitted in a mumble, hunching his back.
“See to it that it is finished until the 30th of July”, Snape ordered mildly.
Harry was confused. They didn´t seem to be angry, but why had they asked in the first place then, if not to be angry at his response. Surely, they knew he wouldn´t have been able to do much yet, with how sick he´d been in the last week. But was it really bad that they weren´t angry? Urgh, why was this all so confusing. He already felt like a broken record, seeing as his mind kept repeating the same things over and over again.
“Are there any plans for the week?”, the Gryffindor asked tentatively after a minute of silence.
“Let´s see…”, Sinistra started, cocking her head in obvious though. “On Wednesday, you will have your first Mind Healer appointment, then we thought you might like to visit your friends, maybe even stay over for a night?”
“Mind Healer?”, Harry asked. “Do you really think I need that?”
“In the last years alone, you have been attacked by two teachers, a giant snake, a werewolf, and a convict. That alone requires Mind Healer sessions”, Snape interjected, not looking up from his food.
“Sirius is innocent”, Harry hissed in defence of his godfather, only to shrink into himself as he noticed whom he was speaking to.
“Nevertheless, he attacked you”, Snape said drily, making the Gryffindor blink at the mild answer.
“Uhm… ok, then”, the raven-haired boy finally agreed, looking everywhere but his guardians. “Any other plans I should know about?”
“We shall meet once a week to make you catch up to your classmates in Potions, if at all possible”, Snape told his ward, making Harry mumble another OK and nod at his breakfast.
---
Harry spent most of the day exploring the house and grounds again, now that he could do so without getting tired every few minutes. He eventually settled down in the treehouse for a few hours of quiet study, where he managed to get through two of his summer assignments in rapid succession. Admittedly, having the Astronomy and Ancient Runes teachers living in the same house might have something to do with why he wanted to have those two assignments finished as soon as possible, so what if the Ancient Runes assignment was just copied from Hermione in the last week of class. Babbling likely would still expect him to do is, seeing as he would be joining his year´s class in the next school year.
Harry dreaded the coming Potion lessons with Snape, but still, when the time came the next morning, he followed his guardian dutifully towards his Potions laboratory, looking around the room in quiet awe as they entered together. There were multiple worktables spread out around the room, on some of which rested cauldrons that were currently in use, the potions inside slowly bubbling away. An entire wall was dedicated to ingredients, sorted by type, and then again alphabetically. One table held notebooks that were filled with writing in Snape spiky scrawl, some filled with additional sheets of paper in various sizes and shapes to accommodate more notes than would have been possible on a specific page otherwise.
“We will start with the basics”, Snape said imperiously, stalking over to one of the worktables to clear a station for them.
A cutting board was quickly selected, together with a knife and a bundle of vegetables. Harry couldn´t imagine what Snape would be doing with them in his laboratory in the first place, but he guessed the professor would have some use for them.
They did, indeed start with the basics, Snape demonstrating cutting and mashing techniques before he had Harry copy them repeatedly until he got them just the way the professor wanted him to. Then, they went over ingredients and ingredient preparation, for which Snape handed already filled cue cards to Harry for practice in between their lessons. The Gryffindor took notes anyway, as his teacher gave him a much better overview than what was written on the cards, as well as explaining interactions that were present in whole ingredient fields, instead of with individual ingredients.
All in all, the lesson went better than Harry had hoped for. He didn´t even get berated once for slaughtering the ingredients! The homework he got wasn´t bad either. He just had to take someone with him into the forest, then find three plants for which he didn´t already know the use in potions, look them up in the library, and write a short essay about them. The Gryffindor had taken to completing his task immediately, eager to explore the forest surrounding Babble House, choosing Sinistra to accompany him.
---
On Wednesday, Harry started his day early. He had chosen this day for cleaning to distract him from the Mind Healer appointment that he would have to suffer through before finally seeing some of his friends again in the afternoon. While cleaning the library didn´t help as much as he had hoped against the nervousness, he had found another stack of books to read, including one that could help him with his Transfiguration assignment.
At exactly 11:30, Snape collected Harry and took him to the apparition point to travel to his Mind Healer´s practice. Unlike the Niffler´s cub clinic, Genevieve Fawley had set up her practice not on a cliffside, but in a small village in the countryside. When they checked in for their appointment, the receptionist greeted them in a friendly tone and asked them to wait in the waiting room until they were called in by Mind Healer Fawley.
“Master Snape and ward”, a voice called, making Harry look up.
A woman in her thirties was standing in the door of the waiting room. She was wearing a dark green robe and her copper red hair was bound together in an elaborate updo. She had a charming smile directed at Harry, seemingly already knowing he was the one she had been calling for.
“Will you be staying for this session, Potions Master Snape?”, the woman asked kindly as she led them out of the room and into the next one over.
“I will be taking my leave. I will be collecting my ward when the hour is over, Healer Fawley”, He denied.
Snape nodded to her, then turned to Harry to do the same, before leaving the Gryffindor alone with the Mind Healer. The raven-haired boy turned on his spot awkwardly, looking around the room in hopes of finding something, anything, to break the silence about. It wasn´t until now that he noticed the room wasn´t like he had expected a Mind Healer´s room to be at all. There were no couch or examination table. Instead, there were toys and boardgames spread out around the rooms, though the boardgames were mostly found in a large shelf next to a small table with two chairs facing each other at opposite ends of the table.
“Harry. Can I call you Harry? We won´t be doing much today, just get to know each other a bit. I´m Genevieve Fawley, your Mind Healer, if you will have me. Please, call me Genevieve.”, the woman spoke up.
“Uh, sure. You can call me Harry.”, the Gryffindor agreed easily. “What am I supposed to do then?”
“Ah”, Genevieve said, waving a hand to indicate the room. “Just pick something to do. I will be fine with anything you like.”
Harry eyed her suspiciously before deciding to follow the instruction. He examined the toys and boardgames in the room carefully, eventually deciding on a game called Hogwarts: House war. It held a floorplan of Hogwarts as a playing field, some cards, and a lot of coloured pieces in green, blue, yellow, and red.
Genevieve explained that the colours stood for a Hogwarts house and brought with it specific game moves that could be made. The goal was to get twelve game points that could be earned in various ways. Each room that was held by a player brought in resources, if the corresponding number was rolled with the two dies that each player would roll at the beginning of their turn.
Slytherin could use two resources of the same kind to move a thief from one room to another, stealing either a resource, or a development card from whoever held that room and blocking them from expanding from that position. The thief could also be put into an empty room to block anyone from settling there. Ravenclaw only needed to pay half of the usual resources to gain a development card and, if they held the library, everyone else needed to pay an additional scroll if they wanted to get a development card. Hufflepuff held the ability to exchange two resources of a type for one resource of another. Now, Gryffindor use a number of resources to take over the dominion of another house as long as a territory of House Gryffindor neighboured the targeted territory, the number of resources required depending on which type of territory was set up in the targeted room.
Harry picked Gryffindor, naturally, and they started the game, Genevieve picking Hufflepuff. They each started their territory at their house´s dormitories, expanding from there into the school. It wasn´t long until the Gryffindor found out he had seriously underestimated his opponent as he reached a room he had been aiming for, only to find out it already belong to Hufflepuff and was secured with the most expensive of dominion types, cutting Harry off from exactly the type of resource he needed to be able to take over other territories.
“So, Harry, tell me a bit about yourself”, Genevieve finally asked ten minutes into their game.
The Gryffindor shrugged: “What´s there to talk about? I´m not really something special. All that Boy-Who-Lived crap is just… well, crap.
“That´s not what I meant”, the Mind Healer said, a small smile on her face as she took another strategic position with the library, earning herself two free development cards. “Tell me about you, Harry, not Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived. What do you like? How about… What´s your favourite colour.”
“Green”, the boy admitted hesitantly. “It´s green.”
“I chose the right dress today then, didn´t I”, Genevieve said, throwing Harry a friendly wink before focusing back on her cards to play a “Sacred House connections” card.
“What? You just won, didn´t you?”, Harry said, slightly annoyed.
Truth be told, he liked his Mind Healer surprisingly well, sneaky and mildly terrifying as she was.
---
Snape picked up Harry after exactly one hours, already waiting for him in the waiting room when Genevieve led him back to the reception area. He brought with him the small bag that Harry had packed the night before, when he had finally gotten word back from Fred and George Weasley that he could come over to Prewitt Manor for a sleepover.
They reached the Manor with another apparition, landing next to a field in a beautiful meadow. The Manor itself stood on a small hill, next to a tall oak. It was much larger than Babble house and would have been considered huge if you compared it to the Burrow. At Harry´s knock on the door, an older woman opened it and let them inside with a welcoming smile, introducing herself as Lady Muriel Prewitt, aunt of the “rambunctious twins”.
“Harrykins!”, a shout interrupted the introductions. “Come quick! He´s here, George!”
Loud footsteps stormed echoed until Harry could see two gingers storming towards him and tackling him to the ground in a hug. Taken by surprise, the young boy went down immediately, landing on a surprisingly soft floor where he relaxed into the hug after a second of tension. The Weasley twins might be loud, but they also knew how to break tension and make Harry comfortable even in an unknown situation such as this.
“And that´s the reason I have cushioning charms in every corner of this manor”, the older woman said sternly, jabbing George lightly with a foot. “Get up, you little tricksters and introduce yourself properly!”
“But Aunt Muri, we already know them!”, the twins whined in unison, sitting up to give their aunt puppy dog eyes.
Lady Prewitt shook her head, not falling prey to their expressions: “They´re still guests and will be treated as such. Get up. Now!”
In an instant, both boys were up on their feet, drawing their friend up with them: “Heirs Fred –”
“and George Prewitt.”
“It´s a pleasure –“
“to properly make your acquaintance.”
“Well, done, boys”, Lady Prewitt praised. “Now, take your friend up to your room so he may settle in. I will be expecting you down for dinner at eight. Call in lunch from the house elves, I will be going out to Longbottom Manor later.”
Harry shyly waved goodbye to his guardian before following the twins up the stairs several floors into a room encompassing the entire top floor of the manor. The walls were decorated with murals of a snake biting its tail, a wolf fletching its teeth, ranking vines in green and red, and a complicated Celtic knot of two snakes winding in a deliberate pattern. Books were lying in stacks all around the room, though the twins did seem to have a corner filled with half-empty bookcases. A small potions workspace was set up right next to a small kitchen that didn´t seem to be in use very often. Two desks stood smushed together in front of a large window overlooking the meadow and, on the opposite side of the room, wooden stairs led up to a large platform that Harry couldn´t look on top of from his position. A stepladder and vines led up to the same platform, the latter blending in with the wall mural at the corner where the two met.
“Wow”, Harry said unintelligently, looking around the room.
The twins grinned back at him, obvious pride shining in their eyes: “This, dear Harrykins –”
“is the Prewitt heir loft.”
“Welcome to –”
“Our most humble –”
“abode”, they finished together.
“The paintings look wicked!”, the younger boy said, still in awe of the room.
“Aunt Muriel painted the one with the Loki´s symbol for our eleventh birthday”, George told him proudly.
“And the one with the vines followed after we got sorted. Green for our chosen god and red for our house”, Fred added, a smile in his lips. “I remember coming back home for the summer to see the whole area redone. It was great!”
“Your Aunt made these?”, Harry asked. “Wicked!”
---
“And then Ginny upended the entire bowl of icing on his head”, Fred said, his twin already giggling madly at Harrys feet.
They were all curled up together on the twin´s bed, which turned out to be on top of the platform. A house-elf had brought them sandwiches and vegetables to snack on when George had called for them as Fred had already been telling Harry the first silly story about their siblings in their earlier years. Surprisingly, the more relaxed the twins got, the less they finished the other´s sentences, though they would still take over often, if the other was taking a bite or just didn´t feel like doing it himself.
“So, Harry.”, George started after their combined laughter abated. “What are your plans for the rest of the summer?”
The young Gryffindor´s eyes lit up: “Do you remember Leon Black? We´re planning to visit him and his family in Germany for the whole of August! And the best thing is, Susan and Terry will be there as well! It´s going to be so great!”
“That sounds wicked!”, Fred agreed. “We´ll just go back to the Burrow to be silently judged in August.”
“About that…”, Harry started, unsure if he should ask. “What´s up with you staying here for half the summer? Shouldn´t you be at the Burrow, too? Or otherwise, shouldn´t your siblings be here with you.”
“Ah, that”, George said, stretching himself like a cat before snatching another sandwich and curling into a new position.
“It´s because we´re the heirs to the Prewitt family. Since our uncles died before our birth, Aunt Muriel got shared custody of us to teach us family customs and beliefs. We´ve always spend half the year here before we started Hogwarts, and now it´s half the summers”, Fred explained.
“Honestly, it´s a lot more relaxed here”, George said between bites.
“What he means is our mother doesn´t really understand our dreams. Ever since we´ve chosen to take up the Prewitt mantle once we´re old enough, we´ve been getting a lot of backlash from her. By now, we´ve taken to only truly work on our plans for our shop here at the Manor”, Fred added.
“Wait, you´re planning to open a shop?”, Harry asked, cocking his head to think. “Have you told me already and I´ve forgotten? Let me guess: A joke shop?”
“Bingo”, the twins said in unison, their smiles wide as they grinned at their friend.
“Aunt Muriel said she´s gonna help finance it, if we get good enough NEWTS next year!”, Fred declared happily.
“Mum isn´t happy about it at all, of course”, George mumbled, a bit of bitterness shining through in his tone.
“On a better note, we´re thinking about asking Solana to supply us with a few of her crazy artifacts”, Fred said brightly.
“Oh, yes, that will be fun, if she agrees!”, George added, immediately brighter himself.
---
---