Veiled Hearts ~ HP Fanfiction (Harry Potter X OC)

Chapter 29: Saturday morning calls

Celestia stared at him for a moment before bursting into laughter. "Were you eavesdropping on us yesterday, Harry?"

Harry didn't reply, but the flush creeping up his neck betrayed his embarrassment. "Arnold graduated last year, Ravenclaw. He met us at the Leaky Cauldron in the summer, offering to buy us whiskey after Tom asked us to leave when we tried to order firewhiskey."

"Firewhiskey?" Harry questioned, attempting to sound nonchalant. "We're underage."

"Yeah, and we've been having firewhiskey since we were fourteen," Celestia confessed with a grin. "We had firewhiskey twice this year in the common room, on the night of the welcoming feast and yesterday. But where are we going, anyway?"

"Owlery," Harry replied shortly. "I need to send a letter."

"Oh," Celestia replied, her mind momentarily blank. "Maybe we can make a few stops on the way?" she suggested hopefully.

Harry grinned, his eyes sparkling with affection as he looked at her. "We'll make several stops on our way back."

"I wouldn't go that way if I were you," said Nearly Headless Nick, drifting disconcertingly through a wall just ahead of Harry and Celestia as they walked down the passage. "Peeves is planning an amusing joke on the next person to pass the bust of Paracelsus halfway down the corridor."

"Yeah," Celestia said dryly, "like he'll dare to mess with a Slytherin."

The ghost zoomed ahead of them, fixating on their intertwined hands.

"Does it involve Paracelsus falling on top of the person's head?" asked Harry.

"Funnily enough, it does," said Nearly Headless Nick in a bored voice, still eyeing their clasped hands. "Subtlety has never been Peeves's strong point. I'm off to try and find the Bloody Baron… he might be able to put a stop to it… see you, Harry, Slytherin girl."

"Yeah, bye," said Harry, and instead of turning right, they turned left, opting for a longer but safer route up to the Owlery.

"Did he just call me Slytherin girl?"

"You are a Slytherin girl," Harry reminded her.

Celestia pouted, her annoyance evident.

Her spirits lifted as they passed window after window showcasing a brilliantly blue sky.

Harry glanced down, prompting Celestia to follow his gaze and spot the caretaker's skeletal grey cat, Mrs. Norris, slinking past them. She turned her lamplike yellow eyes on him before vanishing behind a statue of Wilfred the Wistful.

"I'm not doing anything wrong," Harry called after her.

Celestia burst into laughter. "Did you just call after a cat?"

"That monster is trouble," Harry replied, picking up his pace.

"Yeah, I liked her better in second year, petrified," Celestia confessed, mischief twinkling in her eyes. "Do you think our caretaker is married to that cat? I swear he was dancing with her at the Yule Ball."

Harry laughed. "He's a creep, I wouldn't doubt it."

"Imagine him having relations with a cat."

The couple dissolved into laughter, Harry struggling to catch his breath.

The sun was high in the sky as they entered the Owlery, the glassless windows casting silvery beams of sunlight across the circular room. Hundreds of owls nestled on rafters, some restless in the early-morning light, clearly just returned from hunting. The straw-covered floor crunched beneath Harry's feet as he craned his neck, searching for his owl, Hedwig.