XVII
“Normal speech”
“All-speech”
‘thoughts’
“Animal speech”
‘mind speech’
“Foreign speech”
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The first few weeks of school started of as any other, for the memories of future Harry that is. Hariwalt on the other hand was both amazed and disturbed with how much had gotten lost in history.
As usual, there was a big thing happening to start the gossip circles of the school, one of the few things that hadn’t changed. The first great drama of 1993 began with a newspaper declaring:
SIRIUS BLACK, INNOCENT?
By Rita skeeter
It was a beautiful article that asked who was to blame for such an oversight. A pureblood heir, incarnated in Azkaban without a trial. Many fingers where pointed at Both Crouch and Dumbledore, who both would have had to sign of his ticket to the prison island. The first as then Head of the DMLE and the latter as Chief Warlock.
The political outcry notwithstanding, it had been an easy trial. Sirius had pleaded innocence and had agreed to the use of veritasserum, thus spilling nothing but evidence form his lips. Pettigrew had, as a result to Sirius’ testimony, also been put on the truth serum.
Both Sirius and Peter had soon left the courtroom, the latter to Azkaban and the first to some secluded mind healing centre in the alps.
For Harry, this meant that he would have a godfather somewhere in the future, or a dogfather, as Moony called it.
Moony was another front he was happy with, the man had finally been able to live up to his role of honorary uncle. He had left bones manor all those years ago with the intention of tracking him down, as Dumbledore had refused to give away any location. It had now become a habit for Harry and Suzan, and sometimes Neville, to come and drink tea with him on Sunday afternoon.
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Cedric looked at his younger roommate with worry. He had become progressively more and more tired looking over the past few weeks.
Each and every night, when Harry thought Cedric was asleep, he snuck out of the room, only returning in the wee hours of morning. Tonight, he decided, he was going after him.
As usual, they both got in bed at about eleven o’ clock. As usual, they both pretended to fall asleep rather quickly. As usual, Cedric watched as the younger student somehow turned himself invisible and slipped out of the room. What wasn’t a common occurrence was how Cedric followed him.
It was hard to follow an invisible person, even harden when said person didn’t want to be followed. But, somehow, Cedric managed it. And, as he followed his trail, he watched how Harry became visible standing in a corner of the common room and said something to the portrait that wouldn’t talk. He then pressed a hand against the frame and walked through the passage way that opened.
Now more confused than anything, he did the same thing. A strong magic flowed through him, assessing him, testing him. And then, somehow, it opened. The room it lead into was obviously a personal room, it was designed as a Livingroom and from where he stood he could see an open doorway that lead to a little kitchen another two doorways presumably lead to a bathroom or a bedroom
In the middle of the ‘Livingroom’ was a couch faced towards 4 portraits and in said couch was Harry. And Harry was acting completely more at ease than he normally was. He was in a deep conversation about some potion magic that went completely over his head, but still understood some of the terms of. It was clear that only one of the portraits wasn’t really following, looking up an scanning the room
“what are you doing here?” the man dressed in red and gold asked as he saw Cedric, causing the conversation to stop
“uh.. well..” he stuttered, suddenly the centre of attention, “you see…”
“no I don’t particularly see,” the woman in blue and bronze said as he trailed of, “how did you get passed those wards?”
“I put my hand on the frame” Cedric latched onto something he could explain, “it evaluated my magic and then let me trough”
the four portraits looked at each other, “well then…” the man in green and silver said, looking down upon him over his nose, “why are you here?”
at this, Cedric motioned with his hand towards Harry, who had gone completely still when he had said the part about the wards. “I knew Harry was sneaking out a night because I once woke up and he wasn’t there, then I watched him leave a couple of times but it wasn’t really my business…” he took a breath, “but then he began to look more and more tired and I was abitworriedsoIdecidedtofollowhim” that last bit was rushed out as his head flushed red. A silence rang in the room as they all tried to untangle his mess of words. Then the woman in yellow and black, the same woman as in the common room Cedric noted, squealed loudly
“he’s perfect!”
That seemed to snap Harry out of his trance, looking at Cedric with more than a bit of wonder
“you all seem to know something I don’t” the older Hufflepuff finally accused
Harry’s look turned a bit guilty, “well, you see,… err…” he visibly took a moment to calm himself down, “when I put in those wards, it was with the intention of letting as little as possible people trough them. That meant soul wards, which only let through 2 people, besides those keyed in. The caster and their soulmate”
A look of understanding formed on Cedric’s face
“what I am saying is, we are soulmates” the fourteen-year-old finally said, confirming his thoughts
“we are soulmates” he whispered in wonder
He then promptly fainted