Harry Potter and the Gift of the Seraphim or Curse of the Stars

Chapter 7- Findings and Withholdings

"I’m not going to leave the question enitrely up to you, Harry, but I would appreciate your input," Harry nodded slowly, never taking his green eyes off the blue ones in front of him. "Would you like to modify his memory or leave it intact?"
Harry was bewildered. Modify someone’s memory? This couldn’t be up to him alone. He couldn’t handle that responsibility. He desperately wished that Hermione, Ron and Ginny hadn’t left the room just minutes before. He would have given anything to be able to share the obligation. But he had no one to lean on. Yet again, he was alone.
"I, I don’t know what to say, sir," he said after a minute of silence. He was surprised to see his mentor, Dumbledore, smile.
"I’m glad, Harry. Had you jumped to an immediate decision, it would have exposed your lack of abilities to handle a problem such as this."
Harry was still confused. He wasn’t ready to handle this. Sure, he didn’t like Neville, but did he want to mess with his mind? Moreover, wasn’t this against the law? He couldn’t handle all of this to make a decision right then, and he was thankful when Dumbledore realised this.
"Take your time, Harry," Dumbledore soothed. "Neville won’t break his vow of silence for a long time now, if ever, and Sirius is safe for the time being. But there will need to be a decision made about this in the near future. Perhaps we should have am meeting in a months time with your godfather?" Harry, finding no words to voice his apprehension, agreed. He then rose and exited out of the Headmaster’s office, climbing onto the circular stairway without a sound.
His two best friends outside greeted him. "Ginny had to run," Ron explained, shooting a look at Hermione. She and Ginny had fallen into a quarrel but would not let on what about. "But what did Dumbledore say?" he asked anxiously. He was almost as concerned with Sirius’ well being as Harry was and Hermione’s eyes mirrored the same interest. But Harry was not ready to reveal anything. There were far too many thoughts swirling around his head, and before he could speak to anyone about them he needed to sort them out by himself. So he just shook his head, preferring not to speak at all. Immediately, both his friends understood and quickly changed conversation while walking to their first class, Care of Magical Creatures.
As they were walking towards the large side doors towards Hagrid’s hut, Harry realised he hadn’t been on a pleasure trip to Hagrid’s hut at all that year. He pushed thoughts of Dumbledore, Neville and Sirius to the very back of his mind and vowed to himself to visit Hagrid on Thursday afternoon. He pushed open the wooden door and held it open for Ron and Hermione and then pulled it shut after them. He buttoned up his cloak as he felt the first winds of winter blowing. Quickly, Ron did the same and Hermione tutted at both of them; she of course had had the foresight to dress warmer beforehand. They spent the whole of their outdoor class warming their hands and huddling together in small packs, trying to keep warm. Even though this was Harry’s favorite class, he was as ready as anyone to go back inside.
After lunch all three had History of Magic with Professor Binns. As always, this was mainly a class to catch up on sleep and Ron took full advantage to this. But today Ron wouldn’t be able to nap; Professor Binns actually had something to say,
"We are starting a new unit today, class," he droned on in his wheezy, ancient voice. He either ignored or did not hear the whispered murmurs of "New? Since when have we done any units?"
"The next month will be a Self-Exploration month," and then he announced, again ignoring the much louder groans. The students with older siblings had already heard of this infamous week in 5th year. The stories of notoriously long family tree papers that took weeks to finish had been passed down from generation to generation.
"We will not only be researching out family trees but also exploring your magical self. We have a new addition, just added to the curriculum last year. I would like to introduce Christos Delphiki, a Greek alchemist specialising in self-tests." The students looked over at a middle age man whom they could have sworn had not been there a moment before. Nonetheless, he had their undivided attention as he stood from his stool in the corner and nervously introduced himself.
"Er, I am Julian Delphiki, from the European Alchemist Association. Just recently, we have developed a battery of self-tests that measure your magical aptitude, resonance, et cetera. Professor Binns has invited me today to check your, er, animagi aptitude. These tests will be done in the most complete confidence. Thank you," he finished, and nervously sat down again, almost missing his seat. Due to all his bumbling and stuttering, his speech was almost unintelligible but most students recognised the word animagi and immediately became interested in whatever the odd man had to do.
Professor Binns rose again and called the first person to be tested. "Brown, Lavender," he called. "Please accompany Professor Delphiki into the hall. The rest of the class may begin to gather information for their complete magical family trees, dating back to the founding of Hogwarts, due three weeks from now." Done with his announcement, he sat back down and began to pore over an excruciatingly boring book that even Hermione would not bother to read.
"This is so exciting!" Hermione said to Ron and Harry who sat on either side of her at their own desks. Neither mirrored Hermione’s interest. Ron was sketching Quidditch players flying around on page 486 of his textbook and Harry was fighting both sleep and reccurring thoughts of Sirius’ capture. Finally after about four minutes of Hermione raving about how interesting this was going to be, Ron finally asked in a monotone tone, "What is so great about this, Hermione?"
"I’m so glad you asked!" Hermione cried. "I’ve read all about these in my book about Animagi. You know not everyone can become one, don’t you?"
"Well, sure," Ron said surprisingly. "People like Muggle’s and squibs, of course."
Hermione sighed. "Not that, you git. I mean wizards and witches! It’s a gene, and if you don’t have it you can’t become one. It has nothing to do with power at all. It’s exactly like Muggle genetics."
"Wow," said Ron, in the same bored voice. "How absolutely amazing." But Harry found part of this conversation interesting.
"That’s odd," he said. "How would Muggle-born witches or wizards get it? Their parents must not have it, I don’t know any animagi Muggle’s."
Hermione was absolutely delighted to explain. "It's extremely complicated," she said and her eyes were shining. "Most people have the gene, it's really and extra, like the magical gene." At this, Harry and Ron exhanged glances. Magical gene? They had never heard of that before. "...But really that's just a theory," Hermione continued, "But it's said that some Muggle's have it, usually the one's who have magical children. Even then, the gene must be dominant and not recessive. Most wizards have the gene, but saome are Recessive-Recessive." By now, both of her friends had almost lost all interest, and their eyes began to glaze over. "If I weren’t a witch, I would be a geneticist. It’s absolutely amazing," she said with a sigh. Finally Harry had lost interest and turned his gaze over to the pictures Ron was doodling, erasing a line or two there and adding details. Hermione began to write down notes for her family tree project but Harry and Ron didn’t stop drawing until they heard Hermione’s name called.
"Good luck," they said uncertainly. Hermione laughed.
"This can’t be luck, silly," she teased, but did not completely hide her nervousness. "I can’t do a single thing to change the outcome, so there’s no luck involved. It’s already determined, I’m just finding out." Mustering up confidence, she walked out of the classroom into the hall. About five minutes later, she returned into the room, beaming. She slid into her seat and excitedly announced: "I can be an animagus! He said it was pretty remarkable since there hasn’t been any known wizards in our family at all, but I have the Dominant-Dominant gene!" she said proudly. Somehow, you got the feeling she knew she had the animagi gene all along.
Soon enough it was Harry’s turn. He was strangely nervous and gave Ron and Hermione a strangled bye as he left to walk into the hall. He saw the makeshift desk and chair set up along a side corridor and sank into the chair gratefully, he felt as if he knees were going to give out almost any second.
Why am I so nervous? He asked himself. My father was an animagus; I really have nothing to worry about. Don’t I? But his apprehension continued to mount until the Professor exited the boy’s loo, smoothing his rumpled striped cloak. He pulled out a wooden chair from behind the desk and quickly greeted Harry. He asked him to take out his wand and put it in his outstretched palm, and place them both on the desk. Hesitantly, Harry did so. He immediately became alarmed when the Professor took out a little silver pin and proceeded to prick Harry’s index finger with it.
Alarmed, Harry snatched back his arm. "What are you doing?" he shouted to the startled alchemist. "Are you mad?" Surprised, the man answered, "No, of course not."
"Well then what were you thinking?" he demanded.
"It’s all part of the testing process, Mr. Potter," he explained. "Your DNA is in your blood, so of course we need it for the spell."
"Oh," said Harry, feeling foolish. But ever since the last school year, he had been extremely wary of anything to do with his blood. When he had tripped on a rock and skinned his knee while doing work in the garden for Aunt Petunia, he had stared at his blood for a full five minutes. He almost expected it to look different, for it to give some sign that it had been tampered with only months before. This time, again when he saw his own blood, it startled him that it remained so ordinary- red, just like everyone else’s. Embarrassed now, realising it must be part of the test; he replaced his right arm on the table again.
But Professor Delphiki just shook his head. "It won’t work on that arm now," he said. "You’ll need to give me your left arm."
"But I thought you needed my wand arm?" Harry asked. He knew his face was still flushed and hoped that it would return to its normal colour soon.
"I know, but we’ll still be able to use this arm. It just lowers the accuracy rate. Now it will only be about ninety-five percent," he said patiently as Harry laid his left arm on the desk. He threw away the old pin and pulled out another one from a black bag.
"Put your wand in your left palm now," he instructed. Carefully he pricked Harry’s index finger and Harry tried to ignore the rising red droplet of blood on his finger, but curiosity overcame him. He also felt a rising panic coming as he realised this man would be able to inspect his blood. What if his blood showed that it was used in dark magic to bring back a Dark Lord? It wasn't everyday it happened; would it show up as a red-flag on the test? As his panic mounted, he tried to keep his breathing to a regular rate. Please, he prayed inside, please let him do nothing but test for Animagi. I’ll never break another rule in my life. He didn’t know who he was praying too, but it calmed his nerves a little as he felt the Professor lift his wand from his open palm and dip it into the little pool of blood on his finger. Then, he got out his own wand and said a very long spell. At first Harry was not paying attention, but then as he didn’t hear the end of the spell, he caught the last few words of the spell:

"quaero si animagus adsum est in corpu."

Suddenly, a multicoloured haze shot out from Professor Delphiki’s wand. Slowly, it became clearer and the two colours more distinct. A light green fog and a clear red haze were entwined in each other. Professor Delphiki sat back in his chair and sighed. Harry looked up into his eyes and realised what had happened. The funny Greek man didn’t need to tell him, he could read his expression as thought it was a large billboard sign. Harry would never be an animagus.
During the same period, Draco Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle entered the familiar dungeons of the Potions class. They sat in their usual seats, second row, lined up with the door. So far, this year had been a far more pleasant experience, seeing as they didn’t share the class with the horrible Gryffindors. They did have double potions with the slow Hufflepuffs, but they were much easier to deal with than the arrogant lions.
"I wonder why we didn’t get a weekend essay?" Malfoy asked Vincent. "It was very unlike Snape."
"Must have been in a good mood," commented Vincent off-handedly. As soon as he said it, he realised how unlikely it was and chuckled to himself. He was pulling out his books when Gregory gave him a sharp nudge in the side with his elbow.
"Look," he whispered loudly, pointing to the chalkboard in the centre of the room. His stage whisper also caught the attention of several other students and they looked up as and we’re equally startled to see who was writing on the board.
Professor Fletcher’s pale hand and blood-red fingernails were moving furiously across the board, a worn down piece of chalk in her hands. Already there were two recipes for potions on the board and she was in the process of writing a third. When the time for class started, she continued to write. Some students sat and watched her write, too surprised to do anything else. Others, (mostly Slytherins), took advantage of the lax discipline and got up to talk to friends and finish last minute homework for other classes. But when she was done with the last potion, she whirled around. She gave a quick nod to the quiet students who were seated and gave a venomous glare to those who weren’t. Some saw and shrank into their seats, but most didn’t. One of the neglectful students was Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson, shouting at each other in a corner of the room. The room steadily began to grow quieter as each one of the students realised the teacher was now paying attention; they sat and began copying off the board. Soon, the only one’s left were Draco and Pansy, still going at it.
"What I don’t understand, Pansy, is what you were doing under there!" he shouted. His grey eyes were hard and cold and showed no compassion towards his ex-girlfriend, whose eyes were full of tears threatening to spill.
"You know what I was doing! I know what’s going on Draco, don’t lie to me," she screeched back. As she finished this last threat, she turned to find the rest of the classroom quiet and working. Nobody was staring, but they were listening with all their might, not daring to turn around. The only person whose eyes she could see were those of Professor Fletcher. Her dull brown eyes stared hard at Pansy. Meekly, she made her way through rows of desks and found her seat. She could feel herself turning red. Draco remained cool and collected as usual and merely sat down without showing and traces of embarrassment.
Luckily for them, Professor Fletcher did not reprimand them. Instead, she introduced herself. "I," she began, shattering the uneasy silence of the room, "Am Professor Fletcher. I will be the new Potions teacher for the remainder of this term." She surveyed the room. There were no hands raised. Good, she said. Not that I had been expecting questions anyway. "Today we will start by reading in our textbooks about the following three protective potions- the Heartshield Potion, Meus Servo and-" a Hufflepuff student raised their hand. "Yes, Mr. Donnelley?" she asked, a slight edge to her voice.
"Where is Professor Snape?" he asked, not at all intimidated by the Professor’s icy voice. Nor was he impressed that she knew his name even though this was the first day he had been present in her class.
She scowled. "Was that an important enough question to interrupt my lesson for?" she asked meanly. But the boy just shrugged. "I didn’t think so," she spit out, "But to prevent any further waste of my time, I shall answer to the best of my knowledge. Professor Snape is attending to other business at he moment that takes him out of the country. He will not be back this term, and may or may not be present for the next. That is all the information I have." She finished her impromptu speech and was about to continue her lecture on potions when another hand lazily drifted into the air.
A Malfoy. She hated that word and she hated the images it put into her mind. She desperately wanted to lash out against the boy, but knew it wouldn't be justified. Her grudge was with the father, not the son. Strongly, she pushed all bias aside and called on Draco. "Yes, Mr. Malfoy?" she asked.
"Who is the head of Slytherin house in his absence?" he drawled, managing to look smug even asking such a simple question.
"Headmaster Dumbledore will serve as the temporary head of Slytherin," she said, biting back the urge to ridicule this Malfoy in anyway she could. She was controlling her anger until she heard a snort coming from Draco Malfoy’s desk, shared with Blaise Zabini.
This was too much. Any more disrespect and she might find herself unable to control her building hatred for his family name. "What was that, Mr. Malfoy?"
Malfoy grinned. "Nothing, Professor. Just had a cough."
"A cough, Mr. Malfoy?" she repeated. He nodded, throwing a private grin to Blaise. "Was there any reason that cough surfaced so suddenly?" Malfoy was prepared to shake his head, but Goyle chortled, "Dumbledore, head of Slytherin?" in what he must have meant to be a quiet whisper to his seat mate, Crabbe, but instead was a loud stage whisper the whole class could hear.
"You three," said Professor Fletcher, her eyes flashing angrily, "out." She pointed a long fingernail towards the door. Embarrassed, Crabbe and Goyle began to shuffle to the door. But Malfoy stayed seated. "You too, Mr. Malfoy." she instructed, barely suppressing her contempt.
"Me?" he asked, astonished. "What have I done?"
"Would you like me to announce all your faults to the whole class, Mr. Malfoy?" she taunted, no longer able to resist. Mutely, he shook his head 'no'. "Well, then, I suggest you think about them to yourself in the hall. Go," she motioned to the door again. "We will discuss punishments after class. And, oh," she added as an afterthought, "15 points from Slytherin."
She watched, satisfied, as Draco Malfoy cheek's gathered a slight red tint. Nevertheless, he still had Malfoy pride and did nit shuffle out the door as Vincent and Greg did, but walked quietly, holding his books and cauldron in front of him, his head held high.

***

Just before Dumbledore was going to lock his office for the day and retire to his bedchambers, it opened one last time. To his surprise, Professor McGonogall walked in. She slumped into the first available seat at removed her hat.
"I suppose you’ve heard the news," she said tiredly. "I hope not though, for that would make my whole run here pointless."
Dumbledore’s eyes shined, and one could almost picture him thinking of the prim and proper Professor tearing through the halls of the school. "No, Professor, I haven’t. Do you care to indulge?"
"Of course I do, that why I’m here, isn’t it?" she snapped. Immediately after, she met eyes with Dumbledore. "I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. It’s the stress of…everything. I assume you know what I’m speaking of Headmaster."
Dumbledore nodded. "I understand. Would you like your work load to be lightened?"
Professor McGonogall was insulted. "Or course not!" she proclaimed indignantly. "I was just letting you know. I am perfectly able to cope."
Eyes twinkling once again, Dumbledore assured her that he knew she was perfectly able. "But we may never speak of such matters again," he said mysteriously, but McGonogall got the message. She would never speak of her outside work in that office again. "But really, Albus," she said, becoming more relaxed, "I came here to tell you about Harry."
Dumbledore became alarmed. "Harry? What’s wrong?"
"So you haven’t heard," she sighed. "He’s in the hospital wing again."
"What for?"
"The same reason as he was earlier this year. I honestly think the time is ripe to tell him."
"Didn’t we have this discussion only a little while ago, Minerva?" she didn’t respond. "He has enough on his plate. I assume you’ve heard about the trouble with Black."
"Assumptions are usually wrong. What is happening with Black? The crazy kid hasn’t gone out and got himself caught, has he?" she asked with obvious affection for the subject.
"No, but it is not good news. A student in your house has found about his contact with Mr. Potter."
"No!" Professor McGonogall said, obviously shocked. "What student are we speaking of?"
"Neville Longbottom."
"He’ll have it all over the school by sundown!" she proclaimed, obviously ready to jump into action at once to stop this piece of information from spreading.
"Calm yourself, Minerva," Dumbledore chided gently. "We ought to give the boy more credit. He’s kept this secret in confidence, indulging only to me at the present time. He seems genuinely worried about Harry’s safety."
"Haven’t they recently had a falling out?" asked Professor McGonogall, confused. "And does Harry know about this?"
"I know nothing of quarrels, and Harry is aware of the situation. I have left some of the decision up to him."
"Is that wise, Headmaster?"
"We shall see, Professor."
"Speaking of Harry once again," said Professor McGonogall, "I think we ought to let Harry know why he is being hospitalised."
"For what it is," said Dumbledore. "He is nauseous, has frequent headaches and a ravenous appetite. Those can all be written off as signs of puberty."
"But you know as well as I do, Albus, that they are not. Shouldn’t Harry be aware of why this is happening to him?" she demanded.
"No. On this, I stand firm," he said, resolving his will to stand firm against this great debater. Many other times she had changed his mind, but he could not afford to let it happen this time.
Professor McGonogall sighed. "What about Quidditch?" she asked, a small smile creeping to her face. Dumbledore smiled as well.
"The first game for Gryffindor is almost three weeks away. He will be much better by then." Once agian, Professor McGonogall opened her mouth and prepared to ask a question, but Dumbledore cut her off. "No, Minerva, we won't tell him then either," he said, correctly predicting her query.
"Then, again, what do you suppose we ought to do?"
"My answer remains the same," responded Dumbledore. "Say nothing, and don’t give out passes to the Restricted Section."