Freaks: Year Two

Quack, Quack, Quack

"I have an owl named Peaches now."

Harry looked up from the book he was reading on one of the chairs in the common room. He stared at his friend, thinking he had misheard because why would Jasper somehow come in possession of an owl after the scene in the Great Hall about how much they were little devils? "What?"

"Professor Dumbledore gave me an owl, and its name is Peaches," Jasper informed him, taking a seat on the chair next to him. "I am not sure how to feel about it yet..."

Because Jasper felt like what he had told the Headmaster had gone unheard. Yes, he got an owl that was personally approved by Dumbledore and deep down he knew his pleas to get his brothers or at least Toby to come to Hogwarts would fail, but he still felt frustrated and disappointed that the only way he could communicate with his brothers was by parchment and quill.

"Have you met her yet?" Harry asked.

Jasper shook his head. "No, but I guess if Dumbledore is giving me an owl directly it should be better, right?"

Harry nodded. "It should be." He noticed that Jasper still looked down. "Are you okay?"

Jasper sighed. "Yeah."

Harry shut his book. "You aren't. What's wrong?"

Jasper leaned his head back against the yellow chair so he was now staring up at the wooden, flower-filled ceiling. "I just wish my brothers could go here."

"I know mate," Harry said, looking sadly at his friend. He wished there was some way to cheer Jasper up, but how could he? There was no way for his brothers to come to Hogwarts unless they were magical. There had to be some way for Jasper and his brothers to communicate that wasn't just by owl.

If only Hogwarts had a telephone.

However, Harry was sure there had to be some type of spell to communicate with someone without the use of letters or the floo network. Magic had many different forms of communication, some were just tougher than others.

"Jaz?" Harry asked. "Why don't we try to figure out a way for you to speak to your family that doesn't involve writing letters?" Jasper looked over. "Maybe there is something where you can communicate at any time."

Jasper nodded. He really liked that idea. "But how?"

"Maybe we can ask Cara or Allen for help?" Harry put out. "Or just go to the library? I am sure the books will have something."

Jasper agreed and at the mention of the library, he remembered that he needed to read more about the information in the Defence Against The Dark Arts books he got from the Restricted Section.

After the first day, the rest of the week passed by relatively quickly.

Defence Against The Dark Arts was pretty uneventful as Professor Blythe just had them taking notes about new and old spells they would be practising that year. Jasper hoped that they would be using their wands in the next class, and learning new defensive spells as soon as possible. Jasper needed something to last all year round when he wasn't at his house to recast the spell. There had to be something.

However, Jasper knew that if there was anything like the spell he was thinking about. he would not be learning it in second year.

So his options were the books he had gotten from the Restricted Section, and asking some older students without raising too much suspicion of why he wanted to know if such a spell existed.

Charms class went as it usually did. They went over reviewing the rules and going over some new, and old spells they did the year prior.

In Transfiguration, Professor McGonagall assigned them an essay, and the Hufflepuffs practised turning beetles into buttons which in both Harry's and Jasper's opinion was fun, but Harry was not a fan that it was a beetle as he hated bugs.