Lord Of Time

21

Chapter 21

Slughorn gripped both of them tightly on the shoulder, flicking his wand around the area to ensure that no Muggle was in the vicinity to where he was about to Apparate.

When the wand came back with just three presences in the radius miles, he relaxed and looked back to make sure they had a hold of their trunks before wrapping his magic in the three of them and Apparating to the Leaky Cauldron.

"Is it going to be safe here? I mean what would happen if a bomb came near?" Harry asked curiously, looking around it was very neat and tidy, nothing like the dingy place he had known. There was actual light in the room, he was distracted and looked immediately up at Slughorn when he spoke.

"The wards on the Leaky Cauldron will ensure nothing happens," Slughorn said grimly, when he'd received that letter from his Slytherins realizing their living conditions he hadn't been able to help himself but help.

He knew they would go on to do amazing things these boys' mark his words, but to do that they need to be alive not killed or at the mercy of the bombs that dropped relentlessly. "The Ministry has added a few as well, making it next to impossible for any damage to be sustained." he soothed him as they waited in the albeit small queue.

"Wouldn't that be odd? I mean if everything around it is utterly destroyed?" Tom enquired neutrally, arching an eyebrow hiding his boredom.

"The wards stretch out in a mile radius, it protects the buildings next to it, and so no it wouldn't be odd." Slughorn informed him, "You will be learning about warding this year if I'm not mistaken! Professor Meadowes usually begins teaching that after the winter holidays." he knew Felix quite well, and his schedule rarely changed if at all. He knew how curious Tom was, unfortunately he had somewhere to be, and couldn't quite take he necessary time to educate the curious youngster about warding.

"Horace how can I help you?" the owner of the Leaky Cauldron said with a smile, "You're usual?"

"Not today, Ross, these boys need a room for the remainder of the summer," Slughorn said, patting both of them on the shoulders. "Is there any available?"

"You're in luck, there is one," Ross said nodding his agreement, moving over he grabbed a key with long strip of plastic beside it, that prevented anyone from unlocking the door magically whether they were in or not.

The strip of plastic was just placed on the back of the door for the duration of the stay. Even housekeeping had to knock on the door and be granted entrance otherwise they wouldn't get in. "Fill that in," he added also floating a clipboard over to the teacher.

Slughorn nodded, "Three Butterbeers," he added moving towards a table realizing he wasn't going to get away as quick as he thought, thankfully though he had hopefully enough time before he was expected at. The boys followed him as he quickly wrote with the self inking quill, as the boys Head of House he knew everything about them, so had no trouble filling the blank spaces.

"Thank you, Ross!" Slughorn said joyfully taking a large gulp from the brown glass bottle. "Have you boys finished your homework?"

"We've not had a chance to do it," Harry admitted pensively, "We're down in the underground all night, when we get back we're so tired that we fall straight to sleep. We get up around lunch time and we have chores to do all the way to dinner then the Sirens go again."

Slughorn grimaced, that wasn't a summer holiday anybody wanted, at least here they would be able to relax and not worry about the damn sirens. He noticed it was just the single parchment, no others tucked underneath it, good that made it less complicated as he flicked the paper up to observe this.