Chapter 29: Strange Pairing
[POV: Dumbledore]
“Headmaster Dumbledore, two new students have gone exploring earlier than usual.” A painting had spoken into the air, in a dark room. The man in question slowly got up from his bed, wiping his eyes from the influence of sleep.
“What are they doing?” Dumbledore said.
“Currently just exploring the halls. They are standing their wands up and dropping them in a random direction, before following the direction it landed in,” The painting reported.
“How strange…” Dumbledore muttered, before getting out of his bed, and dressing up in his distinctive robing.
“Where are they now?” Dumbledore asked.
“They have just left the pathway to the Ravenclaw common room,” The painting responded.
Donning his glasses, he grabs his wand and exits his bed chambers before heading towards the direction of the two students. Turning a corner and nearing the student's previous location, Dumbledore hears the voices of the students and eavesdrops on them.
“… Luna, what way do we go?” Said the young boy.
“Why don’t we ask Meowser,” said a young girl, presumably Luna.
“Meowser, do you know where the kitchen is?” The young boy asked.
Dumbledore hid with silence charms and camouflage charms before attempting to follow the young pair of students. Before Dumbledore could step out into the open, his instinct flared up and warned him that he would be discovered if he stepped into the open. Unable to shake this feeling off, Dumbledore stays hidden around a corner and decides to follow the students from afar.
After tailing the pair of students and watching how they interact with each other, Dumbledore follows them to the kitchen, where he watches the two students go inside and ask for a meal to eat.
‘It doesn’t look like they are doing anything else, and are genuinely curious about the castle. However, such an early time is unreasonable, and I need to talk with Flitwick about enforcing normal sleeping habits.’
After thinking this, Dumbledore left the two students to their adventures, wandering into his office and getting an early start to the day.
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[Hagrid POV]
*Slurp slurp slurp slurp*
“Fang… stop…” the half-giant muttered, still half asleep.
*Schlop schlop schlop*
“Fang…” Wiping his face with his hands, Hagrid pushed Fang off his chest and sat up in his bed.
“Another early day, today,” Hagrid said.
Going through his morning routine, Hagrid prepared some basic animal feed for the flock of Hippogriffs that Hogwarts maintains for their Care of Magical Creatures classes. After preparing the meals for the Hippogriffs using his secret techniques, Hagrid grabs the buckets before leaving his modest Hut.
Before walking towards the Hippogriff pens, he patrols through the Forbidden Forest to check for any students that shouldn’t be there, as well as observing the inhabitant's health and mood. Making a mental note of things to report to Dumbledore, Hagrid makes his way towards the area where the Hippogriffs are and starts to groom one. Hearing the Hippogriff's sounds of delight while brushing his wing feathers, he prepares to do the other wing until he was interrupted by sudden voices behind him.
“Are you here to take over the world?” The strange, young voice asks. Hagrid had to stop and process what was asked of him, and in that time the young boy who had asked the question had begun to run away.
“He isn’t,” An equally strange voice replies to the young boy who had asked the question. Hagrid watches all of this in shock because it was the first time he had dealt with students who are awake so early and had asked him such questions. Unable to hold in his curiosity, he asks the two of them what they are doing so early in the morning.
“Two?” The young boy repeated as if confused.
Looking around, Hagrid didn’t see anyone else aside from these two students. Deciding not to question what he meant, he ask for their help feeding the Hippogriffs, as he could see they both are interested in magical animals.
After explaining how to feed a Hippogriff, Hagrid give them the buckets of feed that he had prepared and started to inspect all the Hippogriffs for any problems that might have arisen. Once Hagrid was done with inspecting all the Hippogriffs, he went to check on the two students, only to find that they were both feeding a Thestral and petting it.
Worried for their safety, Hagrid ran over to the two students and called out to them, asking if they were alright. After making sure that they weren’t attacked by the Thestral, Hagrid observed them feeding it. After they had run out of feed, the two students looked towards Hagrid and stared at him, waiting for Hagrid’s next words.
Sensing an unusual pressure, Hagrid started to sweat before trying to send them off to breakfast. Watching the two students leave, he felt the need to report to Dumbledore about the two new students who were difficult to deal with.
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[POV Dumbledore, Breakfast Time]
Sitting in the Headmasters position, Dumbledore sat there and ate the breakfast that the house elves had prepared for him. During his feast, he was eventually joined by Professor Flitwick, the head of Ravenclaw House.
“Ah! Just the man I want to see,” Dumbledore said.
“Hello, Headmaster, early breakfast?” Flitwick said.
“Yes, I was up early because of two students from Ravenclaw who decided to explore a bit too early and as a result, the paintings warned me of their adventures,”
“Oh dear, I’ll make sure to talk to them this afternoon,”
“Thank you Flitwick, now let us-“ Before Dumbledore could continue his sentence, a pair of students walked through the great hall’s entrance. Their appearance was covered in grass, and you could smell them before you saw them. The boy was wearing pyjamas underneath his robes and also giving off an aura of mysteriousness, and the girl had a cat entrapped in her arms, with an aura of eccentricity and dreaminess. The two make their way to the Ravenclaw table silently before starting to dig into their breakfast.
“Well, there they are,” Dumbledore said.
“It’s those two? I know who Luna Lovegood is and she has a bit of a reputation within the magical community, but the boy I have no idea about.”
“Don’t worry Flitwick, just tell them to maintain healthy sleeping habits,”
Dumbledore explained the behaviour he had seen during the morning to Flitwick, excluding his instincts that warned him of being discovered.
As Dumbledore was thinking about what to do with the two students, he saw Harry Potter and his friends walk up to the two. Subtly casting magic to listen into their conversation, he continued eating his breakfast while listening.
“How did you see us?” Hermione asked.
“Your real?!” The young boy said.
When Dumbledore heard this, he started to choke on the eggs he put into his mouth.
“Are you ok Headmaster?” Asked Flitwick.
“Yes, just forgot to chew,” Dumbledore made an excuse.
Dumbledore ignored the look he earned from Flitwick and continued to eavesdrop on Harry’s conversation with the young boy, however, nothing of interest was gained aside from Hermione’s initial question.
‘It seems that I need to keep an eye on the two.’ Dumbledore thought.
Dumbledore watched the trio leave them alone and turned his attention back to Luna and the young boy. It was then that Dumbledore noticed they had both fallen into a trance staring at the stars in the ceiling, with the surrounding magic subtly influencing their state of mind. All of this continued until the cat Luna was holding meowed at them and broke their trances.
‘How interesting,’ Dumbledore thought, making a mental note to keep checking on them. Watching the two of them leave the great hall, Dumbledore finished up his breakfast before heading back to his office, where Hagrid was waiting to report to him.
“So, you're telling me two students were up at the crack of dawn and helped you feed Hippogriffs then met a Thestral and instead of being scared of it, they both could see it, fed it and pet it?” Dumbledore said.
“I know tha’ sounds hard’ ta’ believe,” Hagrid went on to explain, before getting cut off by Dumbledore.
“No, I believe you, I know who they are, thank you Hagrid.”
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Author Corner:
Tell me how I went with the POV changes. I was going to do McGonagall and Snape’s POV but I don’t think I could add anything I didn’t add in the chapter beforehand. If anything, I am missing the general student body's reaction to their presence, but I intend to get into that in the next chapter or so.
Expect to speed up a bit because I've spent 4 chapters on one day! I want to do a lot with this series and ill get into the thousands before im at year 7 at this rate!
Reminder that you should surrender your soul- power stones, and that I have a discord server.
I want to do another chapter today, however, I am not 100% on my free time being a consistent thing in the future, I've started applying to jobs because I need money like yesterday.