Map or Cloak! Part-2
{Potter Manor, Unplottable}
{7:43 A.M, 1st September 1991}
...
"What's this about do you know?" Alex asked Harry who was looking at the door anxiously. Alex was the king of small talk so he didn't mind conversing with Harry, other than being more confident with his canon self Harry was still the same, though a bit more possessive toward Rose.
"Yeah don't you-" Harry paused as he realized what he was about to say could be insensitive, "...Do you remember the stories that dad told us about, the Marauders?" Harry asked. His eyes shifted as he sighed as if he had prevented a disastrous uncomfortable silence that their usual talks descended to.
"Yeah?" Alex answered. The stories were almost a tradition, whenever James and Sirius were alone with the rest of the kids, they would tell stories about their adventures exploring Hogwarts during the night time.
"So, Dad promised me before, that the day we leave for Hogwarts we could have his cloak and the map," Harry replied, the excitement of receiving two gifts that had been at the center of James and Sirius's adventure.
'Right, how could I forget about those? But wasn't the map confiscated by Filch and then taken away by the Weasely twins.' Alex thought. He wasn't entirely sure how the map came back into James' position but it likely was because the Weasely twins also grew up listening to James and Sirius's adventures.
"So, are you excited to explore Hogwarts hidden behind an invincibility cloak?" Alex asked, since he had decided to get involved with the world more. This was a pretty good chance to begin establishing his bonds.
"Well..." Harry hesitated, "the invisibility cloak is passed down to the heir apparent so that would be you."
The sofa descended into uncomfortable silence again, "Uh, if I do get it, you can always take it from me you know. And I can use the map sometimes, you know have some fun?" Alex asked, getting a nod and a smile from Harry, his hair covering his forehead to hide his mark.
Ever since Alex's mark was healed by Lily, Harry had changed his hairstyle. Alex wasn't aware of what was going on in his teenage head so he hadn't commented on it.
The small moment was broken as both of them heard the sound of footsteps coming into the living room. Lily was fusing over Harry's trunk as she levitated it down, while James brought Alex's trunk down.
It was a simple trunk with a more advanced security feature, not one of the fancy ones that had its own Library and a living room. When he asked about it, James said that those trunks are not allowed in Hogwarts as it is a place to bond and socialize while learning magic.
Rose jogged behind James and Lily as she collapsed beside Harry, quietly hugging him while looking around. In the past month, Alex hadn't interacted much with her as she had stuck close to Harry, and trying to play nice with two kids wasn't in his playbook.
Harry allowed being smothered by Rose as Lily looked at the two of them and smiled, "See how cute you two look, maybe I should take a photo."
Alex watched in amusement as Harry swiftly turned to look at her and suggestively wiggled his eyebrows and head to deny her request. Rose wasn't against the idea.
"Alright, before you two go to Hogwarts and get lost in the magical castle, I want to talk to you about some stuff, I was supposed to do it last night but someone dist-" Lily slapped James' shoulders and he smiled, his smiling face turned a little serious though as he continued.
"I don't care about the fights you ge- off" James coughed as Lily elbowed him, "...I mean to avoid causing as much trouble as possible. Both of you represent the Most Ancient and Noble House of Potter, I want to make sure that you don't cause unnecessary trouble."
Alex wasn't sure how James was able to say that with a straight face after some of the stories they had told him. Harry though was quite vocal as he asked, "Dad, from the stories you have told us-"
"HmHHMmhmmmm..." James loudly cleared his throat interrupting Harry's words while Lily stared at him suspiciously.
"The family motto of the Potter House is 'Novissima autem inimica destruetur mors'. It means-" James began but this time Harry interrupted him.
"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" Harry spoke in a surprisingly good imitation of James. Rose smiled for the first time today as she stared at Harry's impersonation of Dad.
"..." James glared at Harry, the promise of a prank during the Christmas holiday remained unsaid as he coughed and continued, "as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted. The motto of our family is 'The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death'. Which means to survive at all costs, ironically, most potters have rushed at trouble given the Gryffindors that we are-"
Lily once again smashed into James interrupting his propaganda again, while not as bad as he was in Hogwarts, he still was quite proud of his House. She sighed as she spoke, "Your House doesn't matter, I have friends in all four houses and the color of their ties doesn't matter. I don't want to hear you two getting into any fights based on houses."
Lily spoke before she sighed and she motioned for James to continue, this was something he had to do and she even saw him preparing this in front of the mirror.
"There are two things that I want to pass on to you, one was passed down to me by my father, it was one of the most important things to me growing up," James spoke as he bent down and opened Harry's trunk a little and pulled out a dark grey looking coth.
It didn't scream invisibility but in the next moment, he draped it around his shoulders and his whole body simply disappeared. The change was so magical that Alex stood up. While he could marvel at the fact that both Harry from the original timeline and James had the same way of showing off the invisibility cloak.
He could only stare and look at...nothing. Seeing Alex circle around him with an amazed expression on his face made James realize that he had made a critical error.
'Stupid, I should have bought this out first, I knew that Alex had a natural inclination and curiosity toward magic. Once the ice was broken everything should have followed.' James cursed in his mind a little.
"This is simply called the 'Cloak of Invisibility'. It has passed down in our family from generations and is a family heirloom." James spoke as he extended it toward Alex.
Alex nodded as with a fascinated expression he grabbed onto the cool fabric. The cloak was not only slippery but also also cold. He didn't remember how it was described in the original novel but one side of it looked like it was made of a dark grey stitched piece of cloth. While the other side was completely transparent.
As if on instinct Alex whirled the cloak around and draped it around his shoulders, he looked down and he couldn't see his body. It was a surreal feeling not being able to see his body and still feeling himself moving around. He jumped a little but nothing changed except his head bobbing around.
"Hahahaha!!" He looked around and saw Rose looking around at his head bobbing around and she cackled, his gaze shifted to Harry who was looking at the cloak with a longing expression on his face.
Now Alex was a selfish person by nature, and normally he would have ignored anyone else's needs he ignored his instincts and removed the cloak from his body.
"Here..." Alex extended the cloak toward Harry. Harry looked into Alex's eyes for a moment as he nodded and took the cloak from him. It was clear how much this meant to Harry as he looked at the cloak for a solid few seconds before he draped it on himself and vanished from everyone's sight.
"Whaa~" Rose exclaimed as she whirled around trying to find Harry, meanwhile Alex was startled as he realized that the name hovering above Harry's head was gone. The knowledge that there were ways to avoid even his inherent power's foresight was enlightening as two hands appeared behind Rose.
"Whaaa~" Rose exclaimed as Harry grabbed her and lifted her up. Her face exclaimed delight as she whirled around and pretended to fly. She did a weird imitation of Superman for a moment which led to Alex thinking in a tangent.
...
After a while, Harry put Rose down and he returned to the land of visibility, his face had a massive grin as he gave the cloak back to Alex with a nod.
Alex waited but no notification about a quest came, to be honest, no quest had ever been generated by his gamer system which was a little odd. But he forgot about that as he focused on the cloak in front of him.
...
[Cloak of Invisibility(Legendary) {True Invisibility}: A fragment of death itself, a part of a legendary three-piece set that grants the user some of the powers of Death itself. The Cloak of Invisibility is a part of Death's own cloak and can shield the user from any form of surveillance charm.
True Invisibility {Activated}]
...
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AN - Who has a theory on how Moddy was able to see through Harry's cloak.