lomonaaeren

Theo stared at the letter in his hand and said nothing to Hedwig, who had landed on the windowsill and was staring at him irritably. She leaned over and pecked him when Theo just stood there and held the letter.

“Yes, I know,” Theo snapped at her. “I don’t know why Harry isn’t getting the letters I sent with you either!”

Hedwig gave a mournful hoot and flew over to the perch in the corner of Theo’s room where he kept water and treats for her. In the end, he hadn’t been able to exile her to the owlery. And it wasn’t like he wouldn’t have warning if his father decided to visit his room and he needed to tell Hedwig to make herself scarce. Father made his visits to Theo’s room ones of such intense ceremony that he would send word half an hour in advance, with a house-elf.

Theo stared at the letter again, and then his head snapped up as he realized something. Before this, Hedwig had always come back with empty claws and no reply from Harry. This time, she had brought the message back.

“Hedwig,” he said. “What if there’s something at Harry’s house that’s preventing him from getting his letters?”

Hedwig twisted her head upside-down, giving him a look of intense skepticism. She was the most expressive animal Theo had ever met.

“But it could be happening,” Theo insisted. “So what I want you to do is take the letter and just fly close enough to the window or the house or whatever that he can see you. Tempt him outside to get the letter.”

Hedwig stared at him, and Theo suffered a moment of doubt. Most owls weren’t that smart—

Hedwig gave a happy clatter of her wings and swooped over to gather up the letter again right away, even though Theo had thought she would be tired. Then she soared back out through the window, and Theo sat down and hoped that he would hear soon from his best friend.

That he still had a best friend. That Harry hadn’t spontaneously decided Theo wasn’t worth writing to.

*

Harry hadn’t been let out of his room except to use the loo since the stupid house-elf had ruined Uncle Vernon’s dinner with the Masons.

Harry didn’t know who had sent the elf, or what the “terrible danger and evil” he was talking about at Hogwarts was. Harry had tried to reassure the elf by pointing out that he hadn’t been involved in the quest for the Stone or fighting You-Know-Who at Hogwarts last year. But the elf had just wailed a lot and said that he’d stolen Harry’s post and then Disapparated.

Harry was glaring out the barred window when he saw Hedwig fly by.

He caught his breath and looked more closely. Maybe he was just imagining things because he wanted so badly to speak to someone—

But no, it really looked like her. Hedwig twisted and flew back towards him, and Harry couldn’t help extending his hand through the window. Hedwig fluttered up and held out a letter to show him on her leg.

But she didn’t hand it to him.

“Come on, Hedwig!”

She clacked her beak at him and continued hovering, which looked as though it was costing her a lot of effort. Harry wondered why in the world she didn’t just hand him the letter—

And then he thought he knew. Hedwig didn’t know that Dobby had been the one stealing his post, or that the house-elf had revealed himself now. That meant she didn’t know she could just hand the letter to him and nothing would happen (probably).

Which meant that she must want him to do something else.

Harry concentrated on the letter tied on her leg and felt as if his world was expanding and narrowing all at once. His head pounded, and dark red blood surged around the edges of his vision. He reached out and reached out and reached out—

The letter abruptly untied itself from Hedwig’s leg and slid towards him. Hedwig made a happy noise and flew away to land in a tree in the neighbor’s garden that was thick enough to hide a snowy owl, as long as she didn’t move around too much.

Harry, his hands shaking, ripped open the letter and couldn’t help smiling at the familiar sight of Theo’s handwriting.

Dear Harry,

I didn’t think that you’d given up on being my friend, but I wanted to be sure…

*

Hedwig flew back down to Theo’s window the next night with a triumphant clack of her beak, and a letter tied to her leg. Theo nearly broke the shutter getting the window open.

Harry’s letter explained about the house-elf situation and ended with the lines, As if I could give up on my first and best friend.

Theo spent a long time tracing the words with a finger, until Hedwig made a questioning sound. Flushing, Theo looked up at her, and realized that she was extending a leg as though she expected to be given another message right this minute.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Theo snapped. “You’ll rest first.”

Hedwig fluffed up her wings and glared at him.

“That doesn’t work on me. You’re my only means of communication with Harry. If you want to help your wizard, then you’ll eat and rest.” Theo gestured towards the tray on the table next to her perch that held a pair of arched-back, frozen mice. “One of the elves brought this up for you, and you’ll agree to eat them and some owl treats, then hunt for anything else you need.”

Hedwig turned her head upside-down as if trying to view the situation from Theo’s perspective. Then she flew over to the perch. The charms on the tray dissolved in the presence of an owl, and the mice began to run frantically in circles, still constrained by the shield over the tray. Hedwig lifted her talons and pounced.

Theo turned back to the letter, tracing the last words with his fingers again.

The holiday he was forcing Hedwig to take would be beneficial to her, but it would also give Theo some time to think of what to write back that would be worth this. He never wanted Harry to regret his decision to befriend Theo.

*

“Harry! Harry!”

Harry grinned and waved at Ron. He had just arrived on the platform at King’s Cross; threatening the Dursleys with the notion that “freaks” would come looking for Harry if he missed Hogwarts had finally made them let him out of his room. There had been a bit of trouble with the barrier, when it had apparently tried to firm up and bounce him off, but one of the adult witches behind him had cast a charm that had made it relax.

“Come on, mate, let’s get a compartment together.”

“Only if you don’t mind if Theo joins us.”

Ron’s lower lip stuck out enough for the crazy house-elf to jump on if he came back. “Do we have to? You know I don’t like Nott.”

“Right, but I didn’t get to see anyone this summer, and I don’t want to wander around the train looking for everyone I’d like to speak to.”

Ron sighed as though Harry was the most exhausting person in existence, but he nodded, and he and Harry went to find a compartment that would seat all four of them as well as some other people. They found one about halfway down the train, and Harry floated his trunk onto the luggage rack, relishing in being able to use magic again.

“Hi, Harry. Ron.”

Hermione’s voice was a little colder when she spoke to Ron, but Harry couldn’t really hold that against her. She had become friends with Ron after the troll incident when he’d apologized, but they’d fought again and again since.

“Hi, Hermione,” Ron said, not sounding as cold, and sprawled back on the seat across from Harry. “Go anywhere this summer?”

That was all it took for Hermione to start telling them about her holidays in France, and Harry leaned next to the window and looked out. He saw some more people darting towards the train, late and frantic, but he didn’t see Theo among them, or a white owl that looked like Hedwig. Harry frowned. Theo had sometimes spoken as though his father didn’t want to let him come back to Hogwarts last year. If he was trapped at home—

“Harry.”

Harry spun around, feeling as though his heart wanted to leap out of his chest, and smiled slowly when he saw Theo standing there, holding Hedwig’s cage along with his own trunk. Even the way that Hedwig promptly started fluttering her wings and hooting, trying to get to him, couldn’t hold Harry’s attention away from his best friend.

“Hi, Theo,” he managed to say, casually, because he had the feeling that Theo wouldn’t want Ron and Hermione to see a big scene.

“Nott.”

“Weasley. Granger.” Theo opened Hedwig’s cage, and she swooped across the compartment and landed on Harry’s shoulder, hooting and butting her head against his. Harry stroked her and closed his eyes as he leaned his cheek on the soft feathers. “Your owl was certainly excitable this summer, Harry.”

“Why did you have Hedwig, Nott?”

“Unlike some people, Harry’s Muggle relatives don’t much like owls.”

“That’s just a stereotype, Nott. I’ll have you know that my Muggle parents are very supportive—”

Theo nodded along with Hermione’s lecture, but he wasn’t paying attention, not if you really knew him. His eyes kept seeking and finding Harry, and Harry kept smiling back.

Ron and Hermione were great friends, and Hermione seemed to have forgiven Harry for tying her up last year so that she couldn’t go after the Stone. But Harry had to admit that he was always going to enjoy spending time with Theo most. Something in him relaxed around Theo in a way that it didn’t around anyone else.

From the way that Theo inclined his head before he lowered his eyes to the floor of the compartment, Harry knew he felt the same way.

*

“And that crazy house-elf didn’t listen when you said that you hadn’t been involved in anything that happened in the school last year?”

“No. He just seemed to think that no matter what happened, I was going to be involved somehow.”

Theo snorted and stretched out on his bed beside Harry. “Someone might have thought that last year, when they still believed that the Boy-Who-Lived was going to be a Gryffindor who walked around looking for Dark wizards to fight, but anyone who still thinks it doesn’t know you very well.”

“It’s kind of creepy how you only talk to each other and never us, you know?”

Theo rolled over to look at Stephen Cornfoot, one of those idiots who had asked Harry last year how many dragons he’d ridden. On the first bloody night they were both Sorted into Ravenclaw, no less.

Under his stare, Cornfoot flushed a dull red and turned away. Theo nodded.

“It is kind of creepy,” said Corner.

“The rest of you lot wanted to talk about my scar and what I’d done, as though I didn’t grow up with Muggles and I weren’t eleven years old,” Harry said, with a roll of his eyes that was vicious enough Theo thought Harry must have studied him when Theo wasn’t looking. “Or you only wanted to talk about Gobstones and Quidditch,” he added, with a glance at Goldstein.

“The rest of you never have anything interesting to say,” Goldstein said idly from behind his Quidditch magazine.

That got Corner and Cornfoot and even Boot, who was the quietest of their roommates besides Theo himself, to turn on Goldstein. Theo caught a quick wink from the other boy as he set aside his magazine to argue, and blinked a little.

It seemed that Goldstein was more interesting, and more aware of the undercurrents between people, than he’d thought.

Theo made a mental note to worry about him if he ever became relevant, and turned back to continue a discussion with Harry of advanced Charms that they’d begun on the train. More and more, he was happy that he, or the Hat, had chosen Ravenclaw instead of Slytherin.

*

“Just want to know, that’s all.”

“You don’t understand anything, Ron!”

Harry blinked as he stepped around the corner in the library where he’d been supposed to meet Ron and was nearly knocked down by a tiny red-haired girl clutching a black book in her arms. She ran away from him without appearing to notice him, tears streaming down her face.

With an effort, Harry recalled the girl he’d seen at King’s Cross with Mrs. Weasley last year. Yeah, this looked like her, and she would have been old enough to come to Hogwarts this year. Ron’s sister. Jenny, or something?

Ron came around the corner of the shelf then, and turned his usual dull red when he saw Harry standing there. “You heard that?”

“Just the ending of it,” Harry said honestly. “Is she okay? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I—she’s writing endlessly in this diary she found, and she says it’s magical, and I looked at it, and I don’t like it.” Ron frowned and shook his head. “It seems like it’s way more powerful than a book should be, at least if it didn’t come out of the Restricted Section or something. Ginny said she found it in her books from Flourish and Blotts and insisted they had to have given it to her as a free sample or something. I—don’t think that’s true.”

“Huh. And she gets upset when you try to take it away?”

“Yeah. I just asked to see it, and she got all defensive, even though she was telling me non-stop about it before that.”

“Hmm.”

“What are you thinking, Harry?”

“Mostly that it does sound like it’s pretty powerful and it’s interesting,” Harry said, honestly. And not honestly. A book that had a hold like that over someone might have put Ginny under a compulsion. But that wasn’t the kind of thing he was going to say to Ginny’s worried brother. “Where does she usually spend her time?”

“In Gryffindor Tower. She’s a Gryffindor.”

“I mean outside that.”

“I don’t know.”

Harry kept his opinion of siblings who didn’t know anything about their siblings’ lives to himself, and nodded. It wasn’t like he had a little sister. Maybe this was just what it was like. “Well, maybe Theo and I can find her and talk some sense into her. At least let us see the book. We’re not overprotective big brothers.”

“I’m not overprotective!”

At least in the argument that followed, Ron seemed to forget some of his worry about Ginny.

*

“A powerful magical book is interesting.”

All Theo had had to do was say that to Harry, and Harry thought he had agreed to investigate Ginny Weasley. But, well, it was more interesting than going over Charms theory for the fiftieth time. Theo enjoyed actually casting Charms, but he hated how slowly Filius went to accommodate the dunderheads in the class.

“Lovegood said she saw Weasley here.”

“Wait, who’s Lovegood?”

“That little blonde first-year with the butterbeer cork necklace?”

Theo frowned. He did remember Lovegood getting Sorted, if he really strained his memory. He was just astonished that Harry had bothered to remember her.

“Isn’t she the one who got locked out of the Tower the other day?”

“Yes. I let her in.”

“How did they manage to even lock her out? She should have just been able to answer a riddle and get back in.”

“I don’t know.”

Theo sighed. Harry’s voice was tense. That probably meant he was about to adopt Lovegood’s safety as a personal crusade. Theo would have to be the voice of sanity, as per usual.

But right now, they were tracking down Weasley, and they did spot a glimpse of red hair around a corner a second later. Theo put his arm out and barely managed to stop Harry from stepping into Weasley’s line of sight.

Weasley leaned over the table in front of her, writing feverishly in a small black book that very well might be a diary. Theo focused on it and let a few of the mental guards that he usually kept up relax.

A second later, he reeled back with a curse that he barely kept quiet enough to avoid attracting Weasley’s attention.

“Theo?”

“I can feel that thing,” Theo hissed. “It feels exactly like the—the objects that my father used to train me to enhance my senses and extend them beyond my body. My sense of magic, not my sight or hearing.”

“It’s a Dark object.”

Theo whipped around to face Harry, who just looked at him steadily.

“I know that your father was a Death Eater, and it makes sense that he would have trained you to sense those kinds of objects,” Harry said quietly. “He couldn’t have his son and heir wandering into a trap that he’d set for someone else or touching just any object he might have lying around the house.”

“Harry,” Theo began, his throat working.

“It doesn’t matter, Theo! Haven’t I said over and over again that I’m your best friend? That I don’t care if your father’s a Death Eater?”

Theo just stood there and said nothing. Because it was one thing for Harry to say that and send him Christmas gifts and defend him to Weasley, who was annoying, and another to just accept that Theo had been trained to sense Dark objects.

“How bad is it?” Harry asked, softly, coaxingly.

Theo chose to interpret that as a reference to the book and not anything else Harry might have meant. “It’s the Darkest thing that I’ve felt in a long, long time,” he whispered. “Maybe ever. It’s powerful. It absolutely could compel someone to write in it, I think. We’re going to have to be so, so careful if we take that away from Weasley, Harry. So careful.”

Harry just nodded as if that didn’t surprise him. “Okay. So we can’t just ask her to look at it.”

“No. She was probably enjoying telling her brother about something that was unique and just hers, but the magic of the book would compel her to protect it, too, and not let it out of her sight. Unless it did something to badly frighten her, I suppose. It hasn’t yet.”

“Is it safe for us to touch it with bare skin?”

“You managed to pick up the one useful part of that idiot Lockhart’s book.”

Harry gave him a fleeting smile. “I don’t think he could have invented something like iron and lead and dragonhide neutralizing Dark objects. Well? Is it?”

“I don’t think that it just traps someone the minute they touch it. I think it’s more subtle than that. But Harry, I don’t know for sure. Not really, completely for sure.”

“Then we go find a container, or make one, and come and get it when we’re completely sure.”

“Why don’t we just go tell a professor?”

Theo would never have suggested that if they were in Slytherin, but it was a reasonable conclusion for a Ravenclaw to come to. After all, a lot of their Housemates were huge rules-followers and would always run to a professor the moment there was a conflict.

“You know what they said about you last year.”

Theo felt a moment’s confusion before he remembered what Professor McGonagall had said to Harry about Theo’s father. He blinked. “You think that—that they would just assume we were making it up? Or that the object wasn’t Dark?”

“Or that we were trying to get a blameless Gryffindor in trouble. Yeah. And if we didn’t tell them that we took it away from Weasley, it would go even worse.”

Theo nodded. McGonagall and perhaps some of the others would think it was something Theo had brought from home. “I agree. We take it and then we—destroy it? Try to destroy it? Bury it somewhere?”

“Bury it somewhere, if we can’t destroy it. We shouldn’t open it or read it or write in it the way Weasley’s doing.”

Theo peered back between the shelves, and shuddered a little at the way Weasley’s quill moved. She looked like she was entranced, her lips parted and her cheeks so red that she might have been running a fever.

“We’ll do that.”