Out of the Books

Chapter 23 - The Magic of Squibs

Hermione stared at Harry, so that he could almost see her brain working feverishly. "But if the legend refers to Ginny, it would mean that the Weasleys are direct descendents from Godric Gryffindor," she whispered with a quick glance at Ron. "Then how can it be that they have so little social prestige in the wizarding world, if they descend from one of Hogwarts' founders?"

"Just think how much prestige the Gaunts had in the Wizarding World as descendents of Salazar Slytherin," Harry couldn't help to comment ironically. "Maybe the Weasleys do not even know about their heritage," he added in a placatory way when he noticed Hermione's glare. "And even if they know about it, Ron's whole family never has overly cared about wealth and fame and all that.

"Well, Ron certainly doesn't know. Otherwise the whole school would have known, before he had even been sorted," Hermione commented with a smile.

Harry nodded, his lips also twitching. "I guess we should leave it like that for now."

"Yes, we'd better research Gryffindor's bloodline first, before we tell Ron something like that," Hermione agreed. "If their family really descends from Gryffindor, we might find a hint about another Horcrux, don't you think?"

Harry shrugged. "The best known relic of Gryffindor is his sword, which definitely is no Horcrux. Don't forget that Gryffindor has been dead for a thousand years. Any other relics of him might be gone fore--"

Harry was interrupted as Hermione stepped on his foot and made hectical movements with her eyes, indicating that Ron was approaching.

"What are you two talking about?" their best friend asked with a furrowed brow as he eyed Harry and Hermione suspiciously for a long moment.

"Oh nothing. Thanks for cheering up Leo and Amy. They have been practising to do some magic so hard all last week."

Ron nodded. "Yeah, too bad they are squibs, but who cares? They are still okay..."

That evening Harry went up to his room right after dinner, now having the pressure on his shoulders to finally get a birthday present ready for Ginny, as he had pushed it forward time and time again.

Sitting on his bed he leaned back his head and stretched. "Now, come on, Harry, just a little present," he enchanted himself. Already knowing that he wouldn't find the right thing for Ginny in there, he listlessly flicked through a catalogue of Flourish and Blotts. He wouldn't get her a book anyway. It had to be something very personal, but something, which he could give her as a good friend, not as a boyfriend. So jewellery was out of question too.

Harry's eyes wandered around the room, hoping to find inspiration somewhere. And suddenly Harry knew what he should be giving to Ginny. His glance had rested on a picture of the two of them in their Quidditch clothes, grinning broadly from extremely muddy faces, arms around each other's shoulders. Knowing that this was the perfect present, Harry felt totally elated. Now he only needed a nice frame to the picture. He took the Flourish and Blotts catalogue again to flip through the sections with gift ideas. There was a nice frame with chess pieces but that didn't really fit and all the others looked too childish.

If I make one on my own, I could probably have a much better one in the end, Harry thought, getting frustrated with the catalogue. Getting some old Quidditch magazines and his wand, he set to work.

Harry had lost his sense of time while working on the frame for Ginny's picture. So he was quite surprised to see that it was already dark outside when he finally looked up from his finished work. He was just transfiguring some newspaper pages into wrapping paper, when someone knocked on his door. In worry that it might be Ginny, he hastily stuffed everything into an already quite full drawer of his desk.

However, it wasn't Ginny. Hermione walked into the room, carrying two old books, smiling triumphantly.

"Look." She held two books towards him excitedly. "I hadn't imagined researching Gryffindor's ancestors would be so easy."

Harry gave up on shoving the drawer shut and came closer, so that he could see the titles of the books. "Chronic of the Great Four - The history of the Hogwarts Founders and their families," he read loudly. "Okay, this one I can understand, but 'Curious anecdotes on the Oldest Wizarding families'? Do you expect to find something useful in there?"

"Found already," she told him, grinning like a Cheshire cat, leafing through the pages. "Here - I got it."

A hairy love story

In the uncertain and dangerous times of the Great Muggle Emancipation and, connected with it, the Inquisition, there lived a young squib with the name of Frederick with his beautiful wife Mathilda, who was a daughter of Jason Gryffindor. Mathilda was awaiting a child while the war was raging fiercely in the country. The young family was in danger from the Pure Brothers, a group of wizards who fanatically believed in segregation of wizards and muggles, squibs and magical creatures. So Frederick and Mathilda had hidden in a cottage in the Welsh mountains. There they lived in relative peace with their dog Fox, which had long flaming red hair.

However, one day in late October even the hide-out in the mountains did not protect the young couple from the Pure Brothers. Half a dozen wizards with fiercely painted faces raided the hut and while Mathilda and Frederick did their best to defend themselves, they where soon cornered by the attackers due to Mathilda's pregnancy and Fredericks inability to do magic.

When all seemed lost already, Fox was the one who attacked the intruders from behind and took out four of them at once. And so the Pure Brothers were put to flight.

Frederick was so grateful. "The memory of Fox, the dog, shall live on forever in this family," he said. And indeed that was what happened. Even though it happened in a way neither Frederick nor Mathilda had foreseen. All of their seven children had hair in the flaming colour of Fox' fur. That was the only bit of magic Frederick had ever done in his life.

"Sounds a bit kitschy, if you ask me," Harry said with a shrug. "And apart from the red hair it has not much to do with the Weasleys, does it? I reckon there are thousands of wizards out there who have red hair."

Hermione smiled. "That's written in the other book." She opened 'Chronic of the Great Four' at a marked page and handed it to Harry. The page was covered in small and curved letters, which were not so easy for Harry to decipher. There was no headline on the page and Harry did not know where he should start to read. Hermione pointed somewhere at the bottom of the page.

"The bloodline of the honourable Gryffindor Family basically ended in 1383, when Mathilda Gryffindor married the squib F. Wesly, and thereby made the blood of the Gryffindors worthless."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Wow," he whispered. "I only wonder why nobody ever made this connection before."

Hermione shrugged. "Maybe some people did. I'm sure Dumbledore knew. And I wouldn't be surprised if Mrs. and Mr. Weasley know about it, too. And just look, how different these two books with the crucial information are. They definitely do not appeal to the same group of readers."

Harry nodded. "Do you think, we should tell Ron about it?"

Before Hermione could answer, horrible screaming and thudding was heard from downstairs. The two teens stared at each other with wide eyes for a second, before they lunged for the door, racing down the narrow staircase.

***

Ron was really nice. Leo hadn't thought that the red-head would spend so much time and energy to lighten up his mood. But Ron had sat with him, suffered his bad mood for nearly twenty minutes and finally had managed to make him laugh and even let him forget for a little while that he and his sister would never be fully accepted in the wizarding society.

However, now Ron was off to talking to Ginny, and Leo was alone again with his feeling of being incomplete and somehow handicapped. Not knowing what to do with himself, not even knowing whether he wanted to be alone or preferred company, Leo had taken to aimlessly wander the corridors of Grimmauld Place Number 12. Somehow he found the sinister atmosphere of the interior of the Black family home fitting to his mood.

How often had he dreamt of being in the same world as his brother, ever since his parents had told him about the wizarding world. How often had he imagined, how Harry and he would stand together against evil, fighting heroically against Voldemort and his Deatheaters - only never in those dreams had he guessed that he would be so utterly useless in this fight - only adding to the sorrows of the others. How shocked, sad and embarrassed they had all looked, when he and Amy had learned that they would never do magic. How they all had done their best to pretend that it was not so bad after those first shocked seconds. How they had tried to act optimistically for his and his sister's sake.

Leo felt all these thoughts circling in his mind wildly, leaving a funny, tight feeling in his stomach. It didn't feel as though he would be sick, it didn't hurt in any way - it didn't even feel particularly uncomfortable. Just tight. As though his guts were clenching hard around a box of explosives, which would blow up in the moment, when he could not hold on to it any longer - and holding on got harder from minute to minute.

Not even realizing how loud and struggled his breathing had become, he passed through the corridor in front of the kitchen and jumped in fright as suddenly the curtain in front of Mrs. Black's portrait swung aside, revealing the old and ugly witch.

"Scum! Worthless squib! Out of my house!" The screaming and screeching rang obtrusively through the whole house, ringing in Leo's ears.

A wild, slightly mad glint showed in his eyes. "Shut up! Shut the bloody hell up!" He darted forward and before he even realized what he was doing, his fist connected with the canvas. In frenzy he punched and kicked at the picture, losing himself in the surge of triumphant energy flowing through him, as he felt the canvas tear and heard Mrs. Black's pained screams. From far away he heard the hustled steps and shouts of Harry and his parents. Leo couldn't tell how long he had raged at the portrait, when suddenly the wooden wall behind it gave way to his kicks. With a startled cry he lost balance and fell against the wall, as his foot caught in the hole, he had kicked. Bumping his head hard and tearing the skin of his right leg at the splinters, he cursed loudly and foully.

Exhausted, emotionally drained and in pain he lay still in the rubble and groaned softly, while he slowly became aware of his family, all the Weasleys, Hermione, Remus, Tonks and Sirius staring at him.

Flushing deeply red, Leo slowly pushed himself up in between of all the wooden splinters and dust. "Well, er, I got rid of the picture. I had the feeling, nobody really liked it around here," he said quietly, not being able to look into the faces of the fourteen people, crowded around him.

"Respect! I've tried to take her down several times, but I've never thought of approaching that task without magic." Sirius grinned broadly, while he offered his hand to help the boy up.

"Don't worry about the wall. The good you have done, surpasses the damage," he added, still being visibly amused.

"Are you alright?" Lily rushed forward, her face pale. "Did you hurt yourself?"

"It's okay, Mum." Leo inconspicuously brushed his pants smooth above his injured leg.

"Really, it's nothing."

"What is behind that wall anyway?" asked Ginny, craning her neck to see inside the big hole in the wall, without having to step into the rubble.

Sirius shrugged, exchanging a glance with James. The two men stepped forward and together they started pulling at the remaining panels, Remus joining them a second later.

After less than ten minutes the hole was big enough for a man to crouch through.

"You won't believe it!" Sirius exclaimed from the other side of the wall. A second later his head appeared, a huge mischievous grin on his face, reaching from one ear to the other. As the others were looking at him expectantly, he held his hand forward. A small oval silver thing was dangling down from Sirius' hand.

In disbelief the fourteen people surrounding Sirius stared at the small silver piece of jewellery.

"Is that...? Sirius, if you dare joke about something like that...," said Molly Weasley, her voice shaking with a curious combination of hope, surprise and suspicion.

Harry shook his head and stepped forward to his godfather. "No, Mrs. Weasley, Sirius is not joking." Harry raised his hand to touch the cold silver, but when he was only a few centimetres away from it, he hesitated, a disgusted scowl on his face.

"Hey, Harry. Don't pull such a face! We found the Locket! Three down, three to go!" crowed Fred.

"Yeah, exactly! Half time before we can finish You-Know-Who!" added George.

Harry forced a small smile. The Locket made him feel uneasy, as if it was observing him. "You're right. We only need to find a way to destroy it."

"And look what else is in here!" came Sirius' voice again from the niche behind the destroyed portrait of Mrs. Black.

He held a thin, leather-bound book in his hand as he climbed back over the rubble in the corridor. "It's my brother's handwriting. He must have kept a journal."

Sirius had leafed through the pages and held it open to reveal a rough sketch of cup, with an H engraved in the front.

A proud smile lit up Sirius' face. "Regulus was really busy with his Horcrux hunt. I would have never thought that he had it in him."