A Cloak
Harry loved looking up at the Head table the following morning to find a rather grumpy looking Headmaster. Well, the man was certainly trying to hide it, and his new wand as he tapped the table to summon the meal, but when you have seen many of the faces of the man it was rather easy to see that he was grumpy. Angry even. His eyes were thinner, creased at the edges. His lips were also thin, and seemed to be twitching almost.
He almost wanted to snicker at the sight. But he held back. He didn’t want to annoy the man even more and risk himself and his family. He could tell, however, that his family were also struggling to keep it together.
Then in came another spectacle.
James Potter was livid.
The boy stormed into the hall with murder in his eyes as he spotted Harry and George, his eyes darkening further as he stomped over to them like a petulant child.
“You fucking bastards.”
“Five points for language, Mister Potter,” said McGonagal, though Potter didn’t pay attention. No one did, really.
“You think you can just walk into this school like you own the place, don’t you? You think you have the right to take my cloak from me? The right to tell my parents what to do?” Potter practically screeched.
“Well, we do. Technically,” Harry said calmly.
“You can’t just own an entire family, and demand our stuff,” Potter said.
“We can if we are the head of your family. Which we are. You are descended from the Peverell family. The Peverell family holds a lot more sway than the Potter one. And the particular cloak that you have is the one that belongs to the Peverell family. Therefore, it is ours, you were just looking after it for us. And I thank you for looking after it so well. But we will be needing it back now. If you’re good, though, we might consider letting you borrow it at times. Only if you want to use it for good, though. Can’t have you using it for bad,” Harry said.
“You are the Slytherins, not me,” Potter said indignantly.
“That means nothing. You don’t know us. Though, rest assured that we are very determined to get to know our extended family,” Harry said threatheningly. “However, we happen to know what a bully you are. To many of the younger, or same age students of this school. You and your friends openly abuse so many students that I am honestly surprised that you are still students here. I know the staff have seen at least some of the things you have done, or the repercussions of what you have done, and yet here you are. So, of course, I feel like it is very prudent for you not to have a cloak of invisibility accessible to you at all hours of the day. I don’t want you using it to sneak up on people and hurt them. This kind of behaviour will only turn into actual criminal behaviour, if left unchecked, and we don’t want that do we? So, give me the cloak, if you don’t then the goblins and others may get involved, and again, we don’t want that. If you behave, and by that I mean stop bullying other students, then I might, supposing it is for a good reason, let you borrow it. We are family after all, if distant, and sharing is caring,” Harry grinned at the boy.
“You can’t just come in here and act like you own the place,” said Potter, flustered.
“I’m not acting like I own the place at all, am I?” Harry said, acting hurt as he looked to his family, who all shook their heads with grins on their faces, he grinned too as he looked back up at the boy who would grow to be the man he had thought was his father. “I don’t own Hogwarts, obviously. But, George and I are now the Heads of your family. The Guardians of your family, if you will. And that cloak belongs to our family, not yours. Now, of course, you are family, our ancestor married yours, and I have said that you may borrow the cloak on occasion so long as you use it for good and don’t continue to harm others, which I think is very reasonable. You are a Gryffindor after all, it shouldn’t be in you to want to hurt others, right?” Harry raised an eyebrow at him.
“I-I… I don’t know what you are talking about. They are just pranks,” Potter muttered.
“Pranks have consequences. Pranks can hurt. Pranks can be dangerous. Perhaps you should see the consequences of some of the pranks you have pulled. Maybe then you will understand. Maybe if you see some of the scars that you have left behind on the innocent children in this school, you might come to your senses and realise that what you and your friends are doing is morally wrong. Some pranks are fine, yes. But only if the person being pranked is laughing, too. Only if they aren’t being hurt. My brother, here, has an astounding ability to make prank products. Ones that don’t hurt people, and are genuinely good,
“You and your friends however go out of your way to hurt others and call it a prank so that it is justified. And the staff here do nothing to punish you even as the students continuously end up needing medical attention. So, James, you will give me the bloody cloak that you have been using to ease your ability to hurt others, or I will call upon the goblins to get it back for me. And I shall mention to them all that you and your friends have done to the children in this school. I am sure many of them will be overjoyed to provide me with a list of the hurts afflicted upon them if it means that you will actually be punished. Harshly. Give me the cloak, and I will consider letting you borrow it from time to time. So long as you don’t hurt anyone else, and you want to use it with good intentions,” Harry said, his voice stern, and angry. “You have until the end of the day to give me the cloak before I call upon the goblins for help, and your parents.”
“Surely you can’t just take my cloak like that,” Potter said, although really it was more of a whine.
“Oh, I assure you, we can. The goblins said so. And so did Death and our shared ancestor Ignotus Peverell,” Harry said.
Potter blanched, “You can… You are a necromancer.”
“Yep,” George said with a grin. “We both are.”
“We can call Death and Ignotus here, if you’d like. If you need more confirmation that we do, in fact, get to take the cloak back,” Harry said, raising an eyebrow.
“No,” Potter said quickly. “I knew you were bad.”
“Why does being necromancers make us bad?” Harry practically growled. “Do you know what necromancers are actually capable of?”
“You-you can bring people back from the dead. You can kill people. You are too powerful. You-”
“No, we can’t bring people back from the dead. I mean, sure we can make inferi, but any powerful wizard or witch can, in fact, make inferi. And they’re really just zombies, not the actual person brought back to life. Just walking dead. And yes, we can kill people, but so can literally anyone in this world, including you. Just because we can kill people though, doesn’t mean we will. Or that we want to. Which we don’t by the way. We don’t want to kill people. Yes, we are powerful. But so are plenty of other wizards and witches. No, what we can do is speak to the dead, and Death himself. We can allow others to speak to their dead loved ones for brief periods of time, if the dead soul wants to do so anyways. We can make a death less painful for the person dying. And we might, depending on what is killing someone, be able to stop that person from dying. But that is all we can do. Nothing nearly as dark as certain people have made it out to seem over the years,” Harry said, his voice a tad harsh. “Would you like us to call anyone here to speak to you? A dead relative perhaps? Ignotus Peverell? Death himself?”
“Er, no, I think I’m okay. But… It’s my cloak,” Potter whined.
“No, it’s the Peverell family cloak which was passed onto your family because there was no one else, in close vicinity, that it could be passed onto. How many times do I have to repeat myself. You are not a young child anymore. You are nearly an adult. Act like it. If you behave, we will let you borrow it on occasion. If you don’t, then we won’t. But still, if we don’t have the cloak in our possession by dinner tonight, we will write to your parents again, and the goblins, and they will get it back to us,” Harry said.
Potter stomped away with a groan, and Harry grinned as he watched him leave the Hall.
“Thank you for letting me deal with him,” Harry said to George.
“No problem, brother. It was very entertaining indeed. Didn’t want to ruin the moment,” George said with a grin of his own.
“You did, indeed, handle him very beautifully,” Narcissa said, and everyone else nodded.
“Thank you,” Harry said.
“Will you really let him borrow it, though?” Severus asked, a tad nervously.
“If he behaves, yes. But what he doesn’t know is that he will need to tell me, and George, of course, under the influence of veritaserum, precisely what he plans to use it for. Can’t have him using it for nefarious purposes now, can we?” Harry said, looking at Severus with understanding, warmth filling him as Severus’ lips tugged upwards in a small smile.
Harry smiled back at the young man sitting next to him, and Merlin, he hoped he had done the right thing. He hoped that Potter would actually use his brain and stop hurting Severus, and everyone else he had been hurting. That the other Marauders would stop also. Though, the hope was rather small. After everything he had been through he didn’t think he could really afford much hope anymore.
If it didn’t work, though, then he would do whatever he could to protect the students from the four bullies.
…
Harry was shocked to find James Potter waiting outside the entrance to the Slytherin Common Room for him. Cloak in hand.
“Here you go,” Potter grumbled as he shoved the cloak at him.
“Thank you,” Harry said calmly.
“My parents said to tell you that they wish to meet you and George properly, either on a weekend or over the Christmas holidays. To welcome you both to the family or whatever,” Potter said, glaring slightly at him.
“Thank you, James, for letting me know. I shall be sure to write to them to let them know when we are available,” Harry said.
Potter nodded once and stormed off. And Harry grinned again as he watched him leave.
He entered the Common Room to find his family huddled around a table by the large window looking out into the depths of the lake, working on their homework. He went over to them and deposited the books he had gotten from the library for them all on the table.
“Thank you,” they said.
“No problem. I just have to run upstairs quickly to deposit the cloak in our room. But I shall be back shortly,” Harry said.
And they all looked at him, and the cloak he held in his arms.
“He actually gave it to you,” George said.
“Yeah. He was waiting outside the Common Room, actually. He told me that his parents told him to tell us that they want to meet us properly, welcome us to the family or whatever, either one weekend or over the Christmas holidays,” Harry shrugged.
“Oh, cool. That will certainly be interesting,” George said, raising an eyebrow. “Is Potter going to be there too?”
“I assume so, he didn’t seem very happy about the whole thing. But who knows?” Harry said with a grin. “I’ll be back in a mo.”
Harry rushed upstairs to his dorm room and placed the cloak gently in George’s trunk, knowing that he had the other cloak, the one from their own timeline, in his own one. Then he was rushing back downstairs to finish his own homework now that he had collected the books that they needed before they went off to dinner.
Overall, it was a nice evening.