Heirs of Middle Earth

Chapter 2

Reunions upon Returning

"Firs' years this way," Hagrid yelled over the jumble. The gruff half-giant stood above all the students, though he waved his lamp as though no one saw him. When he spotted Harry, Ron and Hermione, he waved and motioned them to go to him, saying, "come 'ere. I've got a message for ya."

Harry raced to his friend, flanked by Ron and Hermione, and embraced him. After a few moments, Hagrid was able to get to his pocket, from which he pulled a letter. He gingerly handed the letter to Harry.

"You know I'd love to hang around and chat for a bit, but I've got to get these firs' years off. Come by me cabin tomorrow some time and we can have some proper time together."

"All right, Hagrid," they replied. Once he had walked off, still waving his lamp, they gathered around the letter and they began reading it together.

Hermione, Ron and Harry

Welcome back to your fourth year at Hogwarts. I hope you three had a nice vacation, but due to recent events, some serious situations may affect you or even involve you. I feel I must explain this and so, with Dumbledore's approval, I have arranged a time to meet with you. I apologize for the inconvenience, but you must meet me in Dumbledore's office during the sorting ceremony. The password is licorice lily. Tell no one and come immediately.

Snuffles

"I believe whatever he might tell us could explain the portkey," Ron concluded. Harry's mouth was agape and his eyes shone through his glasses. His excitement was overwhelming. He almost forgot in his bliss that something dreadfully evil must be at work.

"Harry?" Hermione asked, gazing up at him. She nudged him with her elbow and he startled. "He said to go immediately. Don't you think we should hurry to get a carriage?"

He vacantly nodded at her and began walking towards the levitating coaches. Ron and Hermione followed, glancing at one another nervously. Ginny spotted them and jogged over. After giving Harry a curious stare, she looked at Hermione.

"Do you think I could ride with you three? Míriel and Arda won't stop laughing at my new accent."

"It's fine with me, Ginny. I rather like your new accent. Have you been in Scotland over the break?"

"Yes. I stayed with my cousin Amanda for a while. They live in a castle in a bustling non-muggle town, and it is simply amazing."

"Don't let her get started," Ron interrupted. "She'll go on for days and still have more to tell."

"Shut up, Ron. You're always exaggerating," she retorted. Only siblings could use such a tone as she used without taking offense.

"That is a mighty fine hyperbole, Gin. I hope someday you can teach me how to make hyperboles. Strange literary devices, those are..." he babbled. By this time, they had reached the coaches and Harry was standing by one, looking inside the window.

"Harry, someone's in there. This next one is open," Ron called, jogging over to him. He peered inside the carriage and saw Malfoy twitching on the seat. Suddenly he convulsed and then he vanished.

"Bloody Hell!" Ron yelped as he leapt backwards. Within moments, Draco reappeared and continued twitching. Hermione and Ginny began calling for a teacher as Harry and Ron climbed in the coach to investigate. Harry didn't dare touch him, but his conscience kept him from leaving the boy. Within moments, Professor Snape arrived.

"Get out of my way, Potter." He brandished his wand and cast a spell on Malfoy that made him go limp. He then began levitating him and led him out of the carriage. "If I find that you had anything to do with this, I'll have you in detention for a month."

"Harry, come on. Let's get in a carriage," Hermione gently whispered. She put her hand on his arm and steered him away from the eyes of the other students.

"I have never seen anyone have a seizure before. I know how horrible it feels, but I never knew how horrid it looks," Ginny mentioned softly to no one. The students began piling back into carriages once Snape and Draco had boarded the first in line and dashed off to the school.

"Something about him looked wrong..." Harry began.

"How could you tell? He bloody disappeared," Ron interjected.

"It wasn't that, Ron. His ears seemed wrong, and his hair was longer. He usually takes much better care of his appearance. I wonder if he grew his hair to hide his ears."

"Harry, I don't think Malfoy's changes in style are of importance at the moment. I wonder what caused his seizure," Hermione stated thoughtfully. "Perhaps a poorly concocted potion could have caused that, but honestly, I've never heard of such a thing."

"Maybe he was bitten by a flea that has magical powers and he happens to be allergic. Or he could've been bitten by a hippogriff with rabies," Ron jested. Ginny glared at him angrily and punched his shoulder.

"That isn't very nice."

"I don't care. It's only Malfoy, Gin. He deserves it."

"Cut it out guys. We're here," Harry ordered. The terse tone in his voice demanded obedience, so the three were silenced until they began climbing the front stairs.

"We will have to sneak away from Ginny without being seen by anyone else," whispered Hermione to Ron.

"Getting away from Ginny isn't a problem. Look: she left us for her friends," he pointed out. "Our problem will be getting Harry to come back to reality."

"Ready to go, you two?" Harry whispered into their ears. He had startled them by sneaking up behind them, which made Hermione gasp and Ron jump. They both nodded at him, so he began leading the way through the crowd. At the first opportunity, they slipped away from the multitude and began a mad dash for Dumbledore's office. The same gargoyle stood guard at the entrance. The three stepped on the rounded platform and Hermione spoke the password. They began rising and quickly reached the top. Voices from inside the office made them hesitate. Two people were having an argument and after listening in, Harry determined the voices were those of Sirius and Snape.

"I don't think we ought to interrupt," Ron said simply.

"But it would really anger Snape if he found us loitering out here, eavesdropping on their conversation," Hermione insisted.

"I'm going in," Harry stated, as he burst through the door.

"What are you doing here, Potter?" Snape growled, curling his lip maliciously.

"I am here to see him," he retorted, pointing at Sirius.

"Of course," he snarled. "And I presume you wish to be left alone."

"If you insist, Severus. I know how much you would just love to stay for a chat, so I appreciate the gracious offer," Sirius laughed. Snape glared at him before spinning on his heels to face the exit. Hermione stepped forward to stop him.

"How is Draco?"

"His seizure has passed, but the cause has yet to be found," he said, maliciously eyeing Harry. "Madam Pomphrey will have some words with the eye witnesses tomorrow before noon. I must say, Mister Malfoy asked for you, Potter. He also called you a few other names, that I couldn't quite comprehend."

"Oh," Ron began obnoxiously. "Have his ears gotten any bigger?"

"What are you talking about Weasley?"

"Didn't you see? His ears are wicked big and kinda pointy."

"Oh, are you jealous of Mister Malfoy?"

"Say what? Jealous of Malfoy? I know every guy wants to be known as having something big and pointy, but not necessarily their ears."

"RON!" Hermione gasped, astonished. She slapped his arm for offending her.

"I'm sure Mister Malfoy will be pleased to know that you are all so concerned about his well being. I intend to inform him. Farewell."

As soon as Snape left, Ron closed the door after him while Sirius rose from his chair. He walked to Harry and clapped his hands on the boy's shoulders.

"My how you've grown. You are getting to look more and more like your father." He paused to tousle Harry's hair. A few sighs passed before he turned to Hermione and Ron to greet them. "Look at you both. Already you have changed so much since I met you."

Harry looked over his godfather with sad eyes. He had worn so thin since he last saw him. Sirius resembled his animagus form more than one would think possible. His hair was long, thick and matted and his clothes were so full of holes that no amount of patching could save them. He had no shoes and his feet were muddy and callused. Harry wondered where he had been staying.

Sirius turned slightly to show them that food had been laid out on the coffee table. It was a little more than they would need for the four of them, but they were hungry teenagers after all.

"Come and sit down. Dumbledore provided us dinner since we pulled you three away from the feast downstairs," he offered. They all chose their seats and they began catching up with one another. That is to say, Sirius listened to most everything Harry had to say, with the occasional interjections of Hermione and Ron. Eventually, they had eaten their fill and were leaning back in the large armchairs. When Sirius noticed the lapse in the conversation provided by his young friends, he took the opportunity as his own time to talk.

"We have some business to attend to. Evidence has pointed to a new direction Voldemort's loyalists have taken. A powerful artifact made its way onto the black market, and our spies tell us that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is searching for it."

"How does this relate to us?" Hermione asked.

"I'm coming to it, dearie. We have yet to identify the item, but we have learned somehow that it has come to Hogwarts. You three need to help us figure out what it is so that we can retrieve it."

"Who has it?"

"Another minor complication. We don't know."

"Do you know what the item does or what it looks like at least?" Harry inquired.

"We have managed to identify the type of item, but we have decided that the knowledge is so confidential that no one knows who knows what it is."

"Who is this 'we' you keep referring to?" Hermione asked.

"I can't tell you."

"So basically, what you're telling us is that you need us to find some thing we know nothing about that some random person at Hogwarts has so we can hand it over to a bunch of people we don't know in order to thwart some unknown plan the Dark Lord has? That's bloody insane. If we were to assign variables to each unknown, we would run out of letters, even if we turned to the Greek alphabet," Ron laughed sarcastically.

"I apologize, Sirius. I accidentally introduced Ron to exaggeration this summer and he took to it marvelously. Unfortunately for us, he tends to use it quite too often," said Hermione.

"It's fine. I understand exactly where he's coming from. I know that this task will be difficult, but we need you three to help us. I'm counting on you. I know you won't let me down. Go on back to the common room, now. Password is qui serbit bis discit. I will talk to you soon."

"Do we have to go now?" Harry pleaded.

"I have to hit the road as soon as I speak with Dumbledore, so I can't dawdle. Don't forget to owl me if you find anything. Keep a look out, Harry."

"Okay, Sirius. Be careful, yourself."

"Don't worry about me. I've spent enough time on my own to know how to take care of myself."

Harry sincerely wanted to believe him, but doubt kept creeping into his mind. Sirius had only escaped from Azkaban the year before, so he hadn't been on his own for a long time. One year on your own does not compare to twelve years of the terrible prison. By looking at him, Harry guessed that until just now, Sirius hadn't had a real meal for a long time. Hopefully, he would take some food from the kitchens before he left.

Once they were away from the office and well down the hall, they began talking, though only in whispers.

"That's not a pleasant reason to miss out on the socializing. I'd really rather have gone to the feast," Ron whined.

"Oh, shut it, Ron. We've more important things to discuss, such as who could possibly have whatever the thing is," Hermione interjected.

"I wonder if whoever it is knows they have something powerful. If they know how to use the thing, we could be in big trouble," concluded Harry.

"Well, if Neville had it, he would probably figure it out on accident. We better interrogate him later," chuckled Ron lightheartedly. They progressed through the school, discussing all the while the possibilities. The feasibility of their suggestions and guesses was severely limited. Several of the portraits on the walls laughed at them as they guessed at the powers of the item. When they finally entered the common room, they found themselves alone, so they continued the conversation.

"I think it's some sort of muggle machine that no one knows how to work. Or it could be one so old that it doesn't work anyway," Harry said halfheartedly.

"It could be one of those newfangled muggle machines that no one can figure out like the DBD thing my dad was telling us about," Ron mentioned. "You know, that thing that makes pictures appear on a telly. My dad brought one home from work after he fixed it up. We could never figure out how to make the pictures work."

"Ron, your DVD player doesn't work at all because you have no DVDs."

"What is a DVD?"

"It's a round disk like a CD."

"What's that?"

"Nevermind, Ron. Harry, you know he won't understand these muggle things we talk about," Hermione interjected. "Anyways, it's not practical for the Dark Lord to want an enchanted DVD player. I suspect that the item, whatever it is, is a historical artifact. Something old and not well known."

"So you'll check out the library then," the boys insisted.

"Yes. And you both will help me. There's a lot of ground to cover."

"Speaking of the library, could I borrow your homework now?" Ron meekly inquired.

~*~

All the students had drug themselves out of bed in time for breakfast, and apparently most had beaten Harry and Ron to the Great Hall. They had hurried down after they realized they had slept in. Hermione was passing the time with Ginny, and both girls looked up at the boys with scowling looks.

"Here are your class schedules," Hermione said, extending her hand with two parchments. "You two should work on getting up sooner. We have thirty minutes before our first class starts today."

"What do we have first?" Harry asked as he and Ron sat down across from Hermione, unrolling the parchments.

"Potions. Why does it have to be potions?" Ron exclaimed.

"Sorry guys. I have arithmancy first. I'll bet you can get over having Snape first, though," Ginny said.

"Gin, it isn't just Snape. We always have potions with Slytherin. That means we get publicly humiliated in front of Malfoy."

"Speaking of Malfoy, guys, look who decided to come to breakfast," Hermione noted. Draco was just then making his entrance into the Great Hall, but with less than his usual grace and flair. He was dressed in massive grey sweats that hung on him very loosely. His head hung with tiredness. He wore a cap that covered his hair, but the ends were still sticking out from underneath it, obviously much too long to be Malfoy's hair. Hardly anyone seemed to notice him other than the four of them and they stared at him as he walked solemnly towards the Slytherin table. He sat by himself and glanced around searchingly. Harry's gaze met his and he thought he sensed a feeling of longing in Draco's eyes, but their contact was broken as Draco rested his head on the table.

"Did you guys see that?" Harry nearly whispered.

"See Draco walk in like a druggie with a hang over? Who didn't?!" Ron exclaimed.

"Not that. Did you see that look in his eyes? It was like something was paining him."

"Yeah. That would be his hangover."

"Well, I think it's suspicious how he sat alone. Draco is never alone," Ginny mentioned mournfully. She sounded as though she felt sorry for him, as Harry had. Ron looked at them both with abhorrence.

"Cut it out! This is Draco Malfoy! He has tortured us enough that we have no Draco-pity! Nobody has Draco-pity; not even Slytherins. They might have Draco-envy, but not Draco-pity!"

"Maybe we should have some pity for him," Harry muttered thoughtfully, not really speaking to anyone.

"We should go to class," Hermione said as she stood in an attempt to change the subject from Draco. The boys rose with her and said bye to Ginny before hustling off towards class. They arrived in the dungeons a quarter of an hour early, but were not the first to class. Draco's goons were sitting together by a cauldron laughing dull-wittedly at something. Harry dropped off his things by his usual seat and approached them.

"... and did you see those ears?" One chortled at the other, making him explode in a new round of laughter. Harry interrupted the laughter for a discussion of his own.

"Hello, Crabbe and Goyle. I trust you've had an enjoyable summer. I have a pressing matter I am trying to resolve and I am in need of your assistance," he said, trying to baffle them into helping him obediently. They stared at him blankly, telling him he succeeded. "Ron and I have been arguing over your friend Malfoy's disposition. We would like to know what he suffered from and how he is faring now."

"You mean you wanna know how he's doin", right?" Crabbe asked, stumbling over his words. At a nod from Harry, he continued, saying, "Professor Snape told us it was a concussion. Now, he's acting really funny. He hasn't eaten since yesterday afternoon, and he didn't order us around or anything."

"Yeah, he hasn't told us to do anything since a few weeks ago I think. He doesn't talk to us anymore, other than to tell us to go away."

"He called me an uruk the other day, and I don't know what that means, but I don't like it."

"Thank you, boys, for your help," Harry stated before walking away hurriedly as other students began entering the room. He returned to Ron to relay whatever he hadn't heard properly. "Where's Hermione?"

"I think she said she went to the bathroom. It's a girl thing to be early, and then miraculously find some way to be late. Anyway, what made you think of going to talk to Brute One and Brute Two?"

"It just occurred to me when I realized they weren't with Draco. Did you hear all that?"

"Yeah, but please, don't call him Draco. He's Malfoy, remember?"

"Sure. He's Malfoy," Harry said resignedly.

~*~

Hermione was running down the hall, trying to get back to class on time. Why can't there be any bathrooms in the dungeons, she thought as she dashed along. As she got within three halls of the classroom, she spotted Dumbledore ahead of her. Immediately, she slipped to a halt and followed walking properly. He turned the corner, and she approached it silently as he began talking to someone.

"Good morning, Draco," she heard him say. Her ears pricked up at the mention of his name, so she sneakily popped her head around the corner to watch. A crashing noise resounded through the stone walls when Draco dropped his books, having been startled by Dumbledore.

"Gand- Headmaster," he gasped as he turned around. He kneeled to pick up his things, as he listened to Dumbledore.

"I heard about your illness yesterday. Are you feeling well?"

"Yes, Headmaster. I am feeling much better."

"Is there anything you wish to tell me?"

"No, sir. Should there be?"

"No, Draco. No," he said, patting the boy's shoulder. "Should there be anything you wish to talk to me about in the future, though, please come find me."

"Yes, sir. I will," Draco nodded. He scooped up the rest of his things and hurried along to potions as Dumbledore turned. When he rounded the corner, he found Hermione, and his eyes gleamed at her.

"I trust you will be helpful to Mister Malfoy. He is in need of good friends now."

"I will try, sir," she said, the words fumbling in her mouth. He almost disappeared, and Hermione turned to walk to class, but stopped as soon as she turned the corner. Draco must have dropped something. She picked it up and slipped it in her pocket then continued to class.