Harry's sister

chapter seventeen

That night after dinner, once everyone had gone to bed and I had changed into my old robes we were about to leave when Neville appeared from a corner in the room behind an armchair and said "what are you doing?" He was clutching Trevor the toad, who looked as though he'd been making another bid for freedom. After harmione put the full body-bind curse on him and harmione, Harry and Ron were under the invisibility cloak I walked out of the portrait hole with them. I hid in the shadows as we went and held my breath when we came across peeves, I couldn't help but be proud when Harry fooled him by acting like the bloody Baron.

When we got to the room it was apparent Quirrell (or in the other three's minds Snape) had already gotten past fluffy, who was now growling. I sighed and began to sing:

Lay down your head and I'll sing you a lullaby
Back to the years of loo-li lai-lay
And I'll sing you to sleep and I'll sing you tomorrow
Bless you with love for the road that you go

May you sail far to the far fields of fortune
With diamonds and pearls at your head and your feet
And may you need never to banish misfortune
May you find kindness in all that you meet

May there always be angels to watch over you
To guide you each step of the way
To guard you and keep you safe from all harm
Loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay

May you bring love and may you bring happiness
Be loved in return to the end of your days
Now fall off to sleep, I'm not meaning to keep you
I'll just sit for a while and sing loo-li, lai-lay

May there always be angels to watch over you
To guide you each step of the way
To guard you and keep you safe from all harm-

As I finished the verse I jumped down the trap door. I gritted my teeth as their was a very familiar sharp pain in my leg, even with the devil's snare to cushion my fall the force had broken my leg. I sighed as the others panicked and closed my eyes surrounding myself in flames, causing the devil's snare to wither and coil away from everyone.

Ron was amazed and asked "is there anything you can't do!?" I chuckled bitterly but stayed silent as I kept myself surrounded by fire. I quickly reset my leg, groaning from the pain and looked towards my snake, whispering "alright little one I need you to bind my broken leg and keep the bones in place." It quickly slithered onto my leg and flattened itself on my thigh, tightly wrapping itself around the break. I heard Harry's worried voice ask "canis, are you alright? Why aren't you getting up?"

I glared down at my leg and forced myself to stand, putting all my weight on the leg that wasn't broken. I let the fire disappear and walked quickly to where they were. Tears rimmed my eyes from the pain but I blinked them away and kept walking, not wanting Harry to know I had gotten hurt, though I couldn't hide that I still had a slight limp no matter how hard I tried to walk normally.

"Can you hear something?" Ron whispered. I nodded listening, A soft rustling and clinking seemed to be coming from up ahead. "Do you think it's a ghost?" Harmione asked, I shook my head and said "I don't know... sounds like wings to me."

"There's light ahead -- I can see something moving." Harry said as We reached the end of the passageway and saw before us a brilliantly
lit chamber, its ceiling arching high above us. It was full of small,
jewel-bright birds, fluttering and tumbling all around the room. On the opposite side of the chamber was a heavy wooden door. "Do you think they'll attack us if we cross the room?" said Ron. "Probably," said Harry. "They don't look very vicious, but I suppose if they all swooped down at once... well, there's no other choice... I'll run." I would have stopped him but I couldn't help noticing the 'birds' were not, in fact birds at all and instead keys and seeing this I didn't think they'd attack Harry for crossing the room.

He took a deep breath, covered his face with his arms, sprinted
across the room and nothing happened, He reached the door untouched. He pulled the handle, but it was locked, which wasn't surprising seeing as how we were surrounded by flying keys.

We followed him. And harmione and Harry tugged and heaved at the door, but it wouldn't budge, not even when Hermione tried her Alohomora charm. "Now what?" said Ron. "These birds... they can't be here just for decoration," said Hermione. They watched the birds soaring overhead, glittering. I sighed and said "they aren't birds, they're keys." Harry looked around the chamber while
the other two squinted up at the flock of keys. "... yes -- look! Broomsticks! We've got to catch the key to the door!" That made me frown, I didn't like the sound of that, it seemed dangerous and to simple.

"But there are hundreds of them!" Harmione exclaimed, Ron examined the lock on the door and said "We're looking for a big, old-fashioned one - probably silver, like the handle." Harmione and Ron seized a broomstick and kicked off into the air, soaring into the midst of the cloud of keys. Everyone but me grabbed and snatched, but the bewitched keys darted and dived so quickly it was almost impossible to
catch one. I had an idea but I needed to know which key went into the lock first so I watched the three, besides i couldn't risk falling from the broom I already had one broken leg I didn't need to add onto it.

Not for nothing, though, was Harry the youngest Seeker in a century. He
had a knack for spotting things other people didn't. After a few minute's
weaving about through the whirl of rainbow feathers, he called out "That one! That big one -- there -- no, there
-- with bright blue wings -- the feathers are all crumpled on one side." Ron went speeding in the direction that Harry was pointing, crashed into the ceiling, and nearly fell off his broom. I chuckled, leaning against the wall and took out my wand pointing it at the mass of keys, not wanting to risk the spell messing up I said "accio blue winged key!" But of course it wasn't that easy because as soon as I said that all the keys came diving towards me. I didn't have time to put up a magical shield so I said "shield!" And as I fell to my knees on the floor the small snake sprung off my leg and flattened out to where I was fully covered, I could hear the keys hitting the metal and after a minute it stopped. I sighed and poked my head out from behind the snake shield only to see a key heading straight for my head, before I could react their was a sharp pain in my head and my vision went black.