Idiosyncrasy |Harry Potter

Chapter Twenty Six

Zakari was ready to return to school with the happy memories of the past Christmas fresh in his mind as he arrived back to Hogwarts with Duncan and Franklin at his side. The first day back, he was greeted by Eve and Jean who told him all sorts of stories about their Christmases, all in sign. They obviously had been practicing quite a bit over break much to the boy's delight. He sat with them in the Great Hall enjoying dinner as Duncan rested at his feet, nibbling on several scraps that had been careless dropped to the floor by the boy as he attempted to sign and eat at the same time.

He glanced up, his eyes resting on the Gryffindor Table where he caught sight of Harry sitting with his usual friends. The boy didn't look very happy even among his friends, which brought Zakari to feel bad for him, wondering what was wrong. What had caused the boy to be upset?

A few seconds later, Harry looked up and Zakari let out a small squeak as he tried to avert his attention, however, his quick jagged actions caused him to knock a small bowl of steamed vegetables off the table and into Franklin's lap. The man cried out and jumped up and while Zakari cried out in horror, and tried to help him, the rest of the students laughed.

Slowly, he crouched down and decided to hide under the table with Duncan.

While he thought his time away from school would result in all the strange events dying down, it seemed the school was still in a paranoid state as a Dueling Club had been put together during the Christmas break. While Zakari was not one for dueling, he was certainly disappointed that he had missed out on the show of Professor Snape taking out Professor Lockhart. Unfortunately, he learned from Jean that several other instances had occurred including people learning that Harry could speak Parseltongue .

Unlike the rest of the student body, Zakari wasn't convinced that Harry was the Heir of Slytherin, despite plenty of evidence being directed towards him. Luckily for Zakari, due to his absence from the school during the Christmas Break, people no longer held any concern that he was the Heir of Slytherin. 

Although, Zakari couldn't believe that people had actually considered it at one point. He could hardly get his wand to work half the time, yet some people had actually considered him capable of petrifying several beings.

Looking at his wand that rested in his lap, Zakari turned to look at his hands, moving his fingers about. He thought for a moment of how sign language had developed with different countries coming up with their own form of the language to fit for their people. His mind began to focus on how people had developed signs for words and wondered if he could do it too, except specifically for magical incantations.

 He would just have to try and find out.

Duncan had his own routine of sniffing several corridors in between classes, leaving Zakari to follow him about. Often times, they lost Franklin in the midst of student traffic, and didn't notice it until it was too late.

With a tired yawn, Zakari looked outside the window across from him and leaned his head against the wall.

His daydreaming was disrupted when Duncan began pulling at the leg of his trousers. Zakari let out a frustrated noise that caused the corgi to stop, but then Duncan began barking at him profusely.

"Stop!" Zakari signed to him.

Duncan stopped barking but continued to look up at him, pawing in place and moving his head down the corridor.

Zakari was about to question the dog's sanity, when he felt the same vibrations again coming from the wall. The boy's eyes widened as he pressed both hands flatly against the wall. He began following it, determined to figure out what was behind the hall causing the vibrations.

Duncan tried to stop his owner from going any further, but unfortunately, Zakari was a lot stronger especially when he had his mind set to do something.

He let out a pitiful whine as his ears flattened as he loyally followed the child.

There wasn't enough treats in the world that would settle the dog's mind.

Harry couldn't believe that he had come across yet another scene of petrification as he came upon Justin Finch-Fletchley and also a petrified, Nearly-Headless Nick. His luck only decreased as Peeves was the one who found him near the two and decided that alerting the whole school would be a good idea.

To his surprise, Zakari didn't show up that time, and it was one of the times that he really wanted the boy to be there as he was the only one who seemed to be onto something. He was fully convinced that Zakari knew something, he just had to figure out what. He had spent some of the Christmas break learning some sign language, so he was ready to have a conversation with the boy.

The vibrations suddenly died around a corner, leaving Zakari stumbled once more. He sighed in defeat before he turned around to go find Franklin when he suddenly crashed into a body....hard.