Term ended with Harry at first place in class, still not on talking terms with his honourary bro Neville, but understood his reason. Neville had made friends with Hannah Abbot and Susan Bones, and liked spending time with them practically the whole day. It was a good change of pace for him, seeing as he helped Professor Sprout a lot and stayed happy instead of being alone as Harry was.
Aside from the dubious prank by his Dad to paint his whole room gold, he was practically laughing the whole day when he came back home. It was all about the prank he had done to the whole school on the last day of term.
The very next day, Uncle Paddy and Moony joined at breakfast. Harry was overjoyed. He'd eaten so many times alone that he forgot the pleasures of a family banter. It was much more peaceful and commonplace than the absurdities ranging in the Great Hall. Seamus blowing off his face, Ron singing the praise of the Canons (*cough *cough Losers *cough *cough), the older people doing their jobs at embarassing others and the girls giggling and laughing as always.
He was eating his food peacefully when the banter suddenly ended as if it was thoroughly planned and they suddenly turned their attention to Harry.
"Hey Harry! You know what! James told me you haven't tried to impress a single girl!", Sirius said in mock horror at which Harry's soup suddenly entered the wrong pipe.
"Come on Padfoot, stop doing that or otherwise he'll choke to death before doing so", Moony said which actually didn't help either.
"Alright Harry. You know what? I hear that you have lived up to the Marauders' name and gave them a term end to remember", Sirius said and everyone chuckled.
Ah, so the big time prank on the last day of term. He had taken it upon himself to contact the Weasley pranksters to set up a big time prank. 27 parchments, Harry's magical origami and the twins' sound effects, along with the flair of ridiculously real animation, the whole school was quite awed at the display.
Before realising the dungbombs blasted as the animations drew to a close.
"Who all did execute the plan?", Moony asked him.
"Well, I did the majority of the animations, while the twins added the sounds. They are ridiculously good at mimicry you know.
I animated the chimeras, dragons and stuff and then transfigured them into innocent pieces of parchment on the floor", he said to a fit of giggles of everyone,
"and then I told Fred and George Weasley of third year, who also happen to have the M&M v1, to place them underneath each table — no house animosity. Then they flicked their wands innocently and the rest is mentionable in Hogwarts: A History", he said proudly.
"So I take it you and the Weasley twins are close?", Moony asked. Harry immediately caught wind of where the conversation was heading to. Immediately calculating what would happen in his response's response, and what would he respond with, he lost tail of the conversation again.
"Harry?", Lily asked expectantly.
"Well, we are different pranking empires. They are old and classical, while I'm the new and innovative. The Marauder Gen 2 and the Weasley's Wheezes have made valuable alliances over time. We have been allies in many multi-layer plans and have shared treaties of non-targeting each other", he said in an aristocratic voice perfectly mimicking the Fudge Minister.
And added a brilliant and graceful bow, of course.
"Brilliant!", they said clapping.
He finished his breakfast and went to his room quietly. The secret order from the owner of Flourish and Blotts arrived at his window pane as he had told. It was a really rare book, for which he had to save aside a lot from his trust vault and put in ridiculous bets, but it was worth the cause.
𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕬𝖗𝖙𝖘 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝕬𝖇𝖎𝖑𝖎𝖙𝖎𝖊𝖘 𝖔𝖋 𝕻𝖆𝖗𝖘𝖊𝖑𝖒𝖆𝖌𝖎𝖈 in three volumes was really a paramount set of books he just had to get. Well, it was a really laughable way they had encountered that he was a parselmouth. Once, while cleaning a cupboard with his mother in the attic, they had encountered an old and big snake. Mom had freaked out, but yet what astonished him was what followed.
"§ Do not fear youngling §", he hissed.
"§ You can talk §", Harry said but Lily whisper-shouted at him, "Why are you trying to make fun of an actual snake?"
"§ At long last in my life I've encountered a speaker! §", he hissed loudly causing Lily to panick. She couldn't kill a living being. But would it be alright if she levitated it?
"§ A speaker? §"
"§ It's what we serpents call a parselmouth. But you speak the old tongue. Not all serpentine can speak the common tongue, you see §", he slowly hissed and slithered near Harry. Now Harry recognised the snake — a ball python. Wait a sec, how'd he know that the snake was old?
"§ What is your name? §", Harry asked, feeling a bit awkward.
"§ Us serpents don't have a name unless we're familiars with other creatures §"
"§ So will you be my familiar? §", Harry hiss-shouted.
"§ Sorry, youngling. You can't. I'm old and fragile. I won't sustain such magic long enough. And I'm not magical at all anyways §"
"§ So non magical snakes cannot be familiars? §"
"§ They can, youngling. But their bonds are weaker and they drain from their masters too much. It would be harmful to your eleven-year-old core to drain so much magic while growing, so chose a symbiotic serpent instead §"
"§ Oh thanks for telling §"
"§ And one more thing, youngling. Most serpents don't talk as much as me, but they will feel offended if you call them a 'snake' §", he spat in a disgusted tone.
"§ So is it ok if I levitate you? §"
The snake nodded. Harry carefully levitated the snake to the garden and then carefully left him in the nearby forest where he thanked him and slithered quickly inside.
"Harry James Potter! What do you think you were doing. He was hissing mad at you and you were behaving as if you were talking to it!", Lily shouted at him dangerously. Till then, Mrs. Bagshot from the nearby house came in and admonished Lily.
"Lily! I thought you as a kind young lady would appreciate such a rare ability in your son", Mrs. Bagshot said.
"He was trying to prank a snake, Bathilda!", Lily cried, seriously surprised at her tone.
"I think there might be a misunderstanding here. Your son was indeed talking to the snake. He's a parselmouth, Lily", she said switching to her normal calm tone.
"And what exactly is that?", and so they sat at the tea table while Mrs. Bagshot continued to tell on and on about his abilities. Although Harry was seriously sceptical of many bits at first, one trip to the Manor's library cleared all his and his mother's doubts.
"I like the quiet at the manor really, but nothing seems to beat our home", he told her mother when they had come back.
"Yes, Harry. And that's why we don't live there", she said kindly.
Another owl came flying by to his window pane and knocked at his door. It looked like a speed post owl. He opened and the letter dropped in. He quietly checked it for hexes, curses and jinxes, as he was doing from when he could do on his own. Nothing detected, he opened the letter.
Dear Harry,
I hope you are ok. I had thought of introducing you to my parents after we talked on the train together, but anyways, it would have been awkward, seeing we had talked so little before.
"Yeah it would've", he imagined saying to the Grangers, "Good morning, Mr. Granger, Mrs. Granger. I have talked with Hermione for 7 minutes!"
So first thing at home I opened up the books you sent me. And I realised that the book wasn't just on and on about theory but one which you read a part with hundreds of exercise. It feels like playing Secrets of the Monkey Island, you know. I got that as my new birthday gift this year from my Dad!
"Who would've thought she of all people would be interested in video games", he mused, but suddenly realised that he said it out loud and turned at the open door. No-one was there, but still, he cast a spell he had just learned from the Mage book.
"Spiritus Revelio", and the spirit of her mother became visible to him.
"Mom! You could've come inside!", he said out loud.
"I-I-I H-How did you know I was here?", she stammered.
"I have my methods", he said, mimicking his father's voice.
"Aside from the perfect mimicry, who is 'she'?", she asked, but without the jest that could be expected if the Marauders would've heard him.
"A pen pal", he said casually. He had proposed the idea seeing how joyous Hermione looked whenever he used wandless magic. And he had seen that even since the troll incident, she rarely talked to anyone and sat in the library alone.
"Ok then, I'll leave you to it", she said and walked away. Signing relief, he continued to read the letter.
Well, anyways, have you got any new books on your way back? You know, when I told my mother about the troll (I shouldn't hide anything, should I?), she thought it was like a princess saved by a knight in shining armour. Like what in the world!
Anyways, my mother is practically jumping at the chance of meeting you and thanking you properly. Although my Dad's expression is unreadable. I don't know why, though — he's never like that. Anyways, would you mind meeting over at some place at any point? I was thinking about asking my parents to invite you for Christmas, you know.
Write soon,
Hermione
And heck he knew exactly why Granger's, sorry, Hermione's Dad was behaving this way. He facepalmed at the thought, but then proceeded to chuckle to himself too.
'It's only kind I suppose to write back, I guess', he thought and summoned a piece of paper. Parchment, he thought was too hefty for letters.
"Um. . . ", 'Should I write Dear or Miss? Nah, both'd be too much'
Hello Hermione
I just got the letter from a postage owl. I'm glad you liked the books by the way. I thought that my spell could've gone wrong and I would have sent you a blank book! So, it is still a surprise the spell worked.
For the record, I'm much more adept at doing the Geminio spell now — and the Gemino curse too(don't tell this bit to anyone). Practice safely, if you want to, otherwise you'll be buried in a pile of things you duplicated with the removal of an 'I'. And don't try the curse yet, because you'd need enchanted dark fire to destroy it.
Well, I'd advise you to go slow about it. It can be tiring, and overdoing it (which you always do by the way, I've seen ya) could burn out your magical core. Shites! I'm feeling more like a teacher writing these precautions! I'd think about asking your parents to come here instead. It's much bigger here, we'd do it in a special place, with Aunt Min (Professor Minerva McGonagall for you) and Professor Dumbledore will be there, along with of course a lot of other guests. It'll be fun, I swear. And to tell the truth, it'd actually be helpful if you come. Of that, I'll tell you later.
Till then, Bye!
Honourable Marauder Gen 2
Harry James Potter
Content with what he'd written. He gazed at his chicken scratch of a handwriting once more before sending it off with Hedwig. 'If all goes to plan, then they'll stop trying to milk out whether I've made any friends or not', he thought to himself.