Sword-Sister 3
It was time to go. Harry packed his trunk carefully, adding the potions suitcase on top of his trunk, and called, "Dobby?" When the house elf arrived, he smiled, "Could you pop me to the Leaky Cauldron, please? Preferably the alley outside? I'll call you later to pick my things up and drop them off."
"Of course Dobby can, Harry Sir!" With that, the hyperactive elf grabbed him and Harry found himself elsewhere. Pulling a rugby cap over his head, he headed into the Leaky Cauldron and asked Tom, "Hey, can I have a room for a few days?"
Tom blinked in surprise as he saw Harry, "Of course, Mr..." Harry lifted a finger over his lips, and Tom continued, "Single occupancy, I take it?"
"That'll do me fine, yes," Harry agreed. "Three meals a day delivered to the room, and make them hearty ones, I'll pay extra of course." Thanks to a set of potions Annwyl taught him how to brew, he was rapidly recovering from the malnutrition the Dursleys caused.
"None for me?" Annwyl teased him.
"Aren't you the one who said I should hide you? Hard to do that if I'm ordering food for you." asked Harry dryly. "Dobby will be more than happy to pick up food for you, I'm sure."
Accepting the key Tom game him, Harry headed up the steps to his room. Entering, he shut and locked the door, placing the key on a nearby table. Pulling out Annwyl, he placed her on the bed and when she appeared, said, "I should pick up my books, right?"
"Yes. Take me with you, though. We don't want Dumbledore popping up wondering why you're not at Privet Drive and reading your mind." As she spoke, she called, "Dobby?"
"What does Harry Sir's Annie need from Dobby?" the elf asked after he appeared.
"Could you collect Harry's trunk and things and deliver them here?" Annwyl asked.
"Dobby will do that," the house elf replied, disappearing. Not long after, his trunk and potion suitcase appeared at the foot of the bed.
Harry commented to the seemingly empty room, "Thank you, Dobby."
Bending down, he looked through his trunk, digging through it and pulled out one of the new robes that Dobby had purchased for him. Dobby insisted that the dark green looked good on him. Pulling it on, Harry offered a hand to Annwyl, who took it and turned into a wand. Slipping the wand into the pocket in his sleeve, he placed his money, keys, and holly wand in an inner pocket of his robe and shut the door, locking it behind him.
Making sure his cap covered his scar, Harry walked through the Cauldron, heading for Diagon Alley.
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Harry's shopping trip didn't take long; the longest portion was spent purchasing a trunk big enough for all of his new books. He settled on a four-compartment trunk, two expanded spaces, one library, and one closet space. Annwyl insisted that he spend extra on magical protections, which eventually resulted in the trunk's price almost doubling.
Emerging from the book store after a brief shopping spree, Harry asked Annwyl, "Are you sure that I needed all of those protections? Almost two hundred galleons is a lot of money for a trunk."
"I think so. You want to be sure that your possessions are safe. With the protections on the trunk, you can carry the trunk with you at all times, and if someone did manage to access it, they would have a difficult time opening it" Annwyl's words were prosaic. "Eventually, you will have things you don't want anyone else to see."
Heading into the Leaky Cauldron, Harry went upstairs to his room, unlocking it. Shutting the door and locking it again, he set her down on the bed. Even as she turned into her human form, he asked, "Aren't you being a little paranoid?" He set his trunk down, unshrinking it with a thought as he touched its latch plate, and began to transfer all of his things into the new trunk.
"One can never be too paranoid," Annwyl stated. "That's what Uncle Sal would say. Now, you can act too paranoid, or let your caution overwhelm your reason, but that's something altogether different." As she spoke, she watched him finish packing his clothes and begin to slide his books into the library compartment. "Besides, think of what I said before. Don't think you think a little excess caution is warranted?"
"I suppose you're right; I'm just not used to thinking like that yet," Harry admitted as he opened the last compartment, putting his potion suitcase and his broom inside the large closet-sized space. Shutting the trunk, he sighed, touching the latch to shrink it and putting it into his pocket. "I'll admit that the Notice-Me-Not will be useful if I'm searched, they won't find the trunk."
"That was the main reason I suggested that enchantment, yes," admitted Annwyl as she tucked a leg underneath herself. "We might want to pick up a medical potions trunk, at some point. They have spells to preserve potions in a magical stasis. Most potions have a shelf life. With those trunks, potions can last years. We can have a stock of useful potions."
"Now that's a really good idea, I didn't know that was possible." Harry considered, "How much would one cost?"
"A small one that can hold a hundred or so potions might cost ten galleons. A larger one, up to twenty-five or so?" Annwyl said with a shrug.
"I'll be sure to pick one up," Harry agreed. "I can't count the number of times I would've liked something to heal me."
"We can do that this evening. Why don't you practice your meditation while I take some notes on things you need to learn, and you can stop in at Gringotts and get a snack at Florean Fortescue's after dinner?" Annwyl suggested.
"That works for me," Harry agreed, moving to sit on the bed, and closed his eyes. As usual, meditation wasn't easy for him, but he was getting better. Annwyl was a good teacher.
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Later that evening, Harry found himself wandering through the alley. Making his way towards the ice cream parlour, he staggered as someone ran into him. Looking down, he saw a familiar figure. "Hello Padma, are you all right?" he asked, offering a hand.
"I wasn't looking where I was going. I'm sorry," the girl offered as she let him help her stand. "What brings you out and about?" Padma brushed her clothing with a hand.
"Oh, she's pretty. Look at her hair. I wish my hair was like that," sighed Annwyl in his head. "You should ask her to join you for ice cream."
"Annwyl! I don't even know her, just that she's Parvati's sister," Harry thought, cheeks flushing at the sword's words. "I was picking up some things earlier for school. Having eaten dinner, I was going to get some ice cream as a treat," Harry admitted. "Would you like to join me?" After he said it, Harry internally winced. Why did he ask that?
After a moment in which Harry started to worry he'd been rude, the girl perked up, "Sure, I'd like that."
The pair entered Fortescue's, and at Annwyl's prompting, Harry pulled out a seat for Padma. "What sort of ice cream would you like? My treat," He said, still listening to what Annwyl told him. It's not like Harry had any clue in this situation.
"Mint, please," Padma answered, and Harry made his way to the counter. Offering a few coins, he made his way back after a few moments with two bowls, sliding across Padma's while he ate his own vanilla.
"I know some might say it's boring, but I love vanilla," Harry told her. "Looking forward to next year's classes?" he asked after a moment. "What else do I say? You put me in this situation," he thought to Annwyl.
"Calm down, you're doing fine. You need to have more friends, I told you that. Besides, she's cute, she could be more of a friend to you," Annwyl pointed out. "I could see you dragging her into a broom closet in a year or two."
"Annwyl!" Harry thought.
"Oh yes, I'm really looking forward to Ancient Runes. I'm a little sad that we won't be studying Devanagari, but I suppose it is far afield for Hogwarts," Padma admitted. "I'll probably learn that on the side, I can get books on the subject from India."
"Devanagari?" Harry asked curiously.
"Devanagari is an Indian script; it works like the Latin alphabet. But there are runic variations that magicals use as well," Padma clarified for him. "Devanagari runes are known to be very versatile magically; you can accomplish many tasks very easily using them. They lack the ability of say, Norse runes to focus magical power in excess, so you wouldn't want them for powerful wards or other effects, though. It's very well suited for intricate tasks."
Harry perked up. "I don't suppose you could suggest any books written in English that could teach them? I admit, I prefer Arithmancy, but Runes looks interesting and what you describe sounds fun."
"You are going to take Runes?" Padma sounded surprised, "I heard from my sister that you were going to take Care of Magical Creatures and Divination."
"I was, actually. That's what Ron suggested. But I did some research over break and discovered that the occupations I'm interested in use Ancient Runes and Arithmancy." He shrugged, "Couple that with my not having the sight, and I mailed Professor McGonagall. I'm now taking Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, and Care of Magical Creatures."
Padma beamed, "Those are what I'm taking. I almost took Muggle Studies instead of Care of Magical Creatures, but I heard from other Ravenclaws that it's way behind the times, so didn't bother."
Harry snorted, "If you want to learn about the muggle world, just ask a muggle-born or muggle-raised to show you around. You'll learn more from what I can tell. I looked through one of the books Percy had once. It's almost a hundred years out of date in places, I swear."
Slowly nodding, Padma ate her ice cream, before asking curiously, "How could you tell who I was? I and my sister look alike, and I'm not wearing my uniform."
"You and Parvati aren't entirely the same," Harry said with a shrug. "She styles her hair so it's..." He paused, "I'm not sure how to describe it, but it's all fluffy and styled and stuff. Yours is long and straight. When she smiles, it's this big, wide smile. You're quieter when you smile."
"Oh!" Padma blushed slightly at Harry's words and continued to eat. "You prefer Arithmancy, you said?"
"Yeah," was Harry's response after he swallowed, covering his mouth with a napkin momentarily before continuing, "I always liked maths in school, and Arithmancy looks like magical maths that let you figure out how magic works. I'm not so interested in the predictive stuff, as that looks more like muggle statistics."
"That makes sense. I and Parvati had tutors as children. I liked maths well enough, but I liked languages more, so I'm more looking forward to Ancient Runes," Padma said to him as she finished her ice cream, gently wiping her fingers with a napkin and pushing her dish away.
"I wish I spoke more languages," Harry said wistfully. "I went to a muggle primary, and you don't learn languages till secondary, and there are no language courses at Hogwarts."
"What languages would you learn?" Padma wondered.
"Hmm." Harry considered, "I suppose I'd split my interests into two types. The immediately useful ones would be French, Spanish, or maybe Latin due to most spells being based on it. Stuff I'm likely to use if I travel Europe or for school. For fun, I'd want to learn a really different language and from a far land, like Japanese or...Indian? I'm sorry, what's the language spoken in India? I don't mean to be rude; I'm just clueless."
Padma's lips twitched, "It's all right, Harry. There's a lot of languages spoken in India. The most common is Hindi, but others like Bengali, Marathi, and Tamil are also spoken."
"Well there you go, I'd learn Japanese or Hindi or such." Harry shrugged. "It'd be nice learning something just to learn about a place I don't know anything about, you know? So I could learn more about other places."
"That makes sense. That's why I studied a bit of Mandarin. It did help break the ice with Su Li, though," Padma said with a smile. "If you want to learn Hindi, I could help? Or Tamil for that matter."
Harry perked up, "I'd love that, thank you. I can pick up some books and then you could help me practice and laugh at me when I mean to say 'How are you' and say something like 'My head is a fish.'" He grinned.
Padma giggled, "It'd be my pleasure."
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The next few weeks were good ones for Harry. He met Padma again later, this time with Parvati, and he showed the girls one or two of the books on the Hindi language he'd purchased from a muggle store. He was surprised by how happy Parvati was that he was interested in the language. Harry also bumped into Neville and Dean, though both were with their guardians so they didn't get to speak much.
He continued to study with Annwyl, who was splitting her time between teaching him Charms and Transfiguration and teaching him about the wizarding world and etiquette. Harry hated the latter, but Annwyl insisted that it would be useful. Or as she said, "It's rude to not learn about the culture in another country you're visiting, right? Think of Wizarding Britain as another country; it might as well be."
"In that case, I want to get deported," Harry muttered after a particularly annoying session. At least the various noble systems had fallen to the wayside a hundred years ago. The idea of yet more ways to greet people filled Harry with dread.
One day only a few days before the return to Hogwarts found Harry wandering Diagon Alley, or rather Practik Alley, a small offshoot of Diagon where a lot of muggle-born had their businesses. He'd heard from Padma that a small shop there sold a variety of eclectic magical items, and he'd gone to look. The instant he found a scientific calculator that apparently would work in high magical areas like Hogwarts? He purchased it immediately.
Emerging from the small shop, Harry headed down the street when he heard, "Harry, stop. You're being followed."
Pausing, Harry slipped a hand into his pocket, as if looking for something, "Oh? Who? I didn't see anyone."
"The large black dog in the alley. It's been following you all afternoon. It is also Sirius Black," Annwyl answered.
Harry's mind went back to McGonagall. "Sirius Black is an animagus?"
"Yes. He learned how to be one with your father and another friend called Peter Pettigrew," Annwyl answered. "You should return to the Leaky Cauldron." About to say more, he could actually hear her mental gasp, "Wait, Peter Pettigrew? He's still alive, Hogwarts tells me."
Harry ignored her, instead heading down a little side street and waiting behind a set of trash bins. Soon, the black dog could be seen, and Harry pulled Annwyl, who said worried in his mind, "Harry?"
"Petrificus Totalus," Harry stated, and the dog keeled over, paralyzed. Harry approached the animal, dragging it deeper in the alley.
"That was incredibly dangerous, Harry. You were in an alley, what if he had a wand and managed to dodge the spell?" asked Annwyl.
"I'd have run out the other end and into a busy shop. I did think things through, though I admit it was a risk," Harry told her. "I have been listening to you, I promise." As he spoke, he cast the Imperturbable Charm to block sound around them, hiding the dog behind the trash bins. After a moment, he murmured, "Incarcerous," to the spells binding the dog, and waited for the animal to wake up.
When it did, Harry waved his wand at it, "Hello, Sirius Black. I have a few questions for you. Feel free to change into human form, but if you do anything else, I will quite happily use the Severing Charm." He paused, and added for effect, "On your neck."
The dog whined a moment, before blurred and became a man. Harry carefully cast the Incarcerous Spell once more, and waited for him to speak, "Hello, Harry," the man said in a rasping voice.
"Hello, Harry? Is that the best you can do? After getting my parents killed?" Harry asked, his green eyes looking into the other man's - no, glaring. "Perhaps I should just get this over with."
"Harry, I didn't kill your parents. Merlin, I swear. It's my fault," he broke down, "But I didn't kill them."
"Harry, calm down. You want the truth, don't you? Talk to him, before acting," Annwyl's words calmed Harry down, and he took a deep breath.
"All right, speak. You didn't kill my parents? What happened," Harry ordered.
"I was supposed to be the Secret Keeper. But I thought I was the obvious choice, and it'd be safer if I wasn't. That way if I was taken, I couldn't tell where they were. I told everyone I was, so the real Secret Keeper wouldn't be suspected." The gaunt man breathed shakily, "But he betrayed your parents, he worked for Voldemort. I went after dear Peter, and he blew up the street, yelling that I'd betrayed your mum and dad, and he fled in his animagus form. And it was my fault, if I'd not suggested we make him the Secret Keeper, they'd be alive. It was my fault..." Harry could see that he was crying.
"You said Peter Pettigrew was alive? Why didn't you tell me before?" Harry asked Annwyl.
"Yes. I don't personally know everything Hogwarts knows, I'm only human. Or human-ish. Think of it like, oh, a library book. I need information and Hogwarts supplies it to me. Until I know I need information, I don't have it," Annwyl explained. "It's more complicated than that, as more than raw information can be conveyed, but it works as a simple metaphor."
"I guess that makes sense. I bet Hogwarts knows more than any human being could fit in their head," Harry thought, before looking at Sirius, "Any proof you can offer me?"
Sirius laughed, voice still raspy. "I'm going to slip a hand into my pocket. I will move slowly, I need to show you something." He pulled a small scrap of newspaper out of his pocket, and put it on the ground, backing up. Harry waved his wand, muttering, "Leviosa," and levitated the paper towards him rather than approach. He looked at it. "What about it? The Weasleys won a prize."
"Look at the rat on the young boy's shoulder. It's missing a finger, just like Pettigrew. And I'd recognize that bastard anywhere," Sirius spat.
"Wait. You're saying that Scabbers is Peter Pettigrew?" Harry asked with a sigh. "Great. I've been sleeping near the bloody fellow at Hogwarts."
"He is. I'm rather upset I didn't realize this before, but I didn't think to probe Hogwarts' memories that far until we started talking about how he was an animagus," Annwyl said in his mind.
"I'd recognize the rat anywhere," Sirius snarled, taking a step back as Harry lifted his wand cautiously.
"All right, if this is true, then there's some supporting evidence. If we can get Scabbers." Harry considered, "Do you have someplace to stay? They're searching for you, and you showing up at Hogwarts would be bad. From what I saw in the paper, you'll die if you're caught."
"I'm on the run. I don't really have anyplace to go. I could return to the old Black Townhouse, but not only is that known, but I hate that place," Sirius said, wrinkling his nose.
"The Chamber," suggested Annwyl. "You can purchase a tent and have Dobby provide him with food. There's no way anyone would find him there. The only reason Fawkes could enter is he was trying to save your life."
Harry considered this then suggested it to Sirius, adding, "The best part is no one will find you there. You'd be totally safe." Of course, if he was lying, he was trapped.
Harry was learning.
"That makes sense," Sirius admitted. "How do you want to get me there, I could sneak into the castle?"
"You'd have to wait too long, there's still a week till the first," Harry said. "Dobby?"
"Harry Sir called Dobby?" announced the elf as he popped in. Spotting Sirius, he startled, "It's bad doggie! Dobby will protect!"
"Calm, Dobby, he may be innocent. We're going on the assumption he is for now." Harry ignored Sirius' hurt look. He couldn't be sure yet, after all. "I need you to take him to the Chamber of Secrets, you know where it is from me, right? After that, buy a two-bedroom wizarding tent plus some food and deliver it to him?"
"Dobby knows. Doggie better behave, or Dobby will neuter him," the house elf said fiercely before going to take touch Sirius' shoulder. The pair disappeared, even as Sirius opened his mouth to argue.
"Well, that worked," Harry quipped. "If he was telling the truth, good. If he wasn't, then he'll be trapped in the Chamber, and I can remove him at my leisure."