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DucksRMagical Joined: 28 December 2006 Posts: 2535 Location: Going through LeakyCon withdrawal	Posted: Monday 15 September 2008 12 48 05 pm    Post subject: Re: In Moonlight's Shadow in topic:In Moonlight's Shadow Here's the next chapter. Comments, questions, and general reviews are always appreciated! Chapter 11: Life Goes On At School I was still tired when I got up the next morning, probably because I spent half the night looking through my telescope. The house was quiet like usual as I went to the kitchen to find something to eat. Even Mum was no where to be seen, but I noticed that the door to Dad's study was closed, which meant she was probably in there. I was starting to get vaguely curious about what she and Dad were doing when they were by themselves in there. I couldn't really tell if Dad was in there with her or not. It was Saturday, which meant that Dad shouldn't be at work, but he had been working the past few Saturdays. After I ate brekkie, I spent the remainder of the morning working on various potions. There was no way I would get behind in Potions, whether Mum actually taught me anything or not. How she expected to home school me when she was cooped up in Dad's study all the time was beyond me, not that I really cared. The only schooling I wanted was schooling from the Australian School of Sorcery anyway. Olivia's owl was sitting on my balcony when I forced myself to stop brewing and start packing for my stay at Richard and Cinda's. All thoughts of packing flew out of my head when I saw the owl. I retrieved the letter, gave the owl a piece of a biscuit that I had on my desk, and sat down on my bed to read the letter. [i]Dear Amy, I still can't believe that you're not here. It totally sucks. The train ride was dead boring without you there. I wound up sitting with a couple of first years. One of them kept picking his nose the whole ride. Ew. The feast was just like it always is. The food was great and Killigan's speech was boring. We've got a new Transfiguration teacher. He looks nicer than the old one, but I won't really know until I've been to one of his classes. The dormitory is so quiet without you here. I hate it. It's kind of sad, really. I only decorated my half, because it felt really weird to take over the whole room. That way if your parents change their minds, you'll have your half back. Thank Merlin they didn't stick some first year in with me. I think I would have just left if they did. Everyone is wondering where you are. Well, ok, not everyone. The rest of our year kept asking me if I knew where you were. I told them that your parents had a row with Killigan and you weren't coming back. They were all surprised and wanted to know what the row was about. I told them I didn't know, which is the truth anyway. Carmen is jealous of my room now. She wants her own room and has been whining all evening that it's not fair how I've got my own now. I told her to just stuff it and have been ignoring her ever since. She's such a bitch. Doesn't even care that you're not going to come back. The other girls haven't been that bad. Izzy is even kind of sympathetic. I wish you were here. Write back soon about all the new stuff about your move! I want to know everything as soon as it happens. I'll keep you updated about everything here at school. Good luck with all the moving stuff. Your friend, Olivia[/i] I bit back tears as I folded the letter. Reading it just made me miss school even more. Merlin, I was even starting to miss Carmen and her bitchiness. She and I have disliked each other ever since first year. Olivia can't stand her either. She's just very snotty and thinks that just because her parents are rich she can do whatever she wants. I guess she kind of thought we'd be friends, since my parents are rich too, but I couldn't stand being around her. She wasn't too happy about that. Olivia wasn't even going to use the entire dormitory, that was so sweet. She's really the best friend I could ever have. I wished she didn't have to deal with everyone asking questions about me. I felt guilty that I couldn't even tell her the truth. She was such a good friend to me and I had to lie to her and keep secrets from her. It just wasn't fair. I put the letter in my desk and pulled my overnight bag out from my closet. This thing would be getting a lot of use the next few months. I tossed a bunch of Muggle clothes haphazardly into it and realized that I wouldn't be wearing robes very much for the next few months. A few hours later, which I spent writing my Astronomy essay, it was time for me to go to Richard and Cinda's. I still hadn't seen much of Mum, Dad, or Matt, but found them all in the living room when it was time for me to leave. Matt was laying on the couch with her head on Mum's lap while Mum leaved through a pamphlet of some kind. Dad was in his work robes and was sitting in an armchair reading a piece of parchment while rubbing his temple. "Did you go to work today, Dad?" I asked as I entered the room. "Yeah," Dad said absentmindedly, "Loads of work to do right now." "Are you going back later?" Mum asked, looking up from her pamphlet. Dad nodded, "I've got to. I'll be back later this evening. I should have all of tomorrow off, though." "Good," Mum said and then turned to me, "Bye, Amy. I'll see you in a few days, ok?" I nodded and bent down to give her a hug. "Bye, Mum." "I love you, Amy," Mum hugged me back. "Love you, too," I replied and stood up again. "See ya, Matt." "Bye," Matt mumbled sleepily. Dad and I Apparated a few moments later and reappeared in the same bit of secluded woods. We walked to the gate, got buzzed in, and walked to the house. Richard and Cinda greeted us and Dad left shortly after. I went to my room and dropped off my bag in my horribly ugly and flowery room. Richard and Cinda were both sitting in the living room when I entered a few moments later. "Anything you want to do today, Amy?" Cinda asked. I raised my eyebrow at her. That was odd. Usually when I went over there, my grandparents just continued about their business and I did whatever I wanted. Maybe they felt bad that I wasn't going back to school and wanted to be extra nice or something. "Er, I thought maybe I'd just call Kenzie and see if she was home. I've got to tell her that I'm not going back to school." "That's fine. If you two want to go into town and do anything, just let me know," Cinda replied. "Um, thanks," I said, "I'll just go call Kenzie." To say Kenzie was shocked that I was at my grandparents' house was an understatement. She shrieked so loudly that Richard could hear it in the other room. She immediately demanded to know what I was doing there, but I told her I'd rather tell her face to face. I suggested she come to Richard and Cinda's, where we could talk in private. I loved Kenzie's siblings and her chaotic house, but it was impossible to talk without interruptions there. I buzzed Kenzie in a little while later and met her at the door. She was completely out of breath and drenched with sweat. "I...ran...all the way...here," she panted. "Do you want something to drink?" I asked as she stepped in. "Yeah...thanks." I grabbed a couple sodas from the fridge and we went up to my room. Kenzie downed her entire soda and collapsed onto the floor. I sat down next to her and leaned up against my bed. "Ok, tell me what's up. Why are you here? I thought your school started again this weekend." I toyed with the top to my soda, "Yeah, it did." "Then why aren't you there?" "I'm not going back to that school," I said quietly. Kenzie sat up and stared at me, "What? Why?" I sighed. Here it goes, more lying. "My parents got into a big row with the headmaster." "Are you serious?" "Yeah. Apparently they have very different views about certain things." "What things?" Things you don't even know about, I thought. "No idea. They won't tell me." Kenzie laid back down, "Well that's stupid. They should at least tell you." "I know. And my parents have lost all respect for the headmaster." So have I, but it's not like I really interacted with him at school. "They can't stand him. They won't let me go back to school because of it." Kenzie rolled over and stared at me with wide eyes. "Wow. What do you think about it?" "It sucks," I replied, "It's not fair. I loved that school, and now I can't go back just because of my parents." And my brother, I thought. "What school are you going to go to now? Maybe you could transfer to mine?" Kenzie asked hopefully. I shook my head, "I don't think so. I've got to go to another school like the other one." When I first started attending the Australian School of Sorcery, I told Kenzie that it was a school for people who like to live really simple lives without many electronics. It was kind of true since with magic, we have no need for electricity. "Oh, right," Kenzie said, "Where is the new school?" I took a deep breath and stared at the ceiling, "That's the other thing I've got to tell you. I've got no idea where the new school is because my parents haven't decided on one yet. But the thing is, there aren't any other schools like mine in Australia." Kenzie sat bolt upright and put her hands on my shoulders, "What do you mean?" "I mean," my voice cracked, "That we're moving." "What?!" Kenzie shouted, "You can't move!" "I know, it totally sucks!" I agreed, "But I've got no say in the matter!" Kenzie sat down next to me, "Any idea where you're moving to? How many of these weird schools are there?" "I don't really know. There's usually one school per country, except the States has a bunch since there's so many people there. China must have a bunch, too. "My parents said they're looking at schools in the States, Canada, and Scotland." "Are they insane? Those are on an opposite hemisphere! What about New Zealand?" "Nope. They said that the New Zealand headmaster has the same opinions as the one at my school," I sighed. "Oh, Amy," Kenzie frowned, "This is awful. You can't move across the world." "I think I'm going to have to," I whispered, "My parents want to go to New York if possible, around where my uncle lives." "New York," Kenzie repeated, "Like the City? I can't see you in a city." "No. I'm sure we'd move somewhere else in the state. Maybe near my uncle. He lives in this town called Horseheads." "That's a strange name," Kenzie giggled. "I know. But I don't want to live there, despite it's odd name." Kenzie laughed, "You've been there, right?" I nodded, "It was all right, but I wouldn't to move there." "When are you moving?" "No idea. Mum's plan is to move sometime before September so I can start as a fourth year at the beginning of term. The school years up there start in September." "So it could be anytime between now and then?" "I guess. I assume we'll move as soon as Mum finds a school for me," I bit my lip, "And...and...we find a house." "Oh, right," Kenzie said, "I hadn't thought about that." "I don't want to move. I don't want someone else living in my house. I think my parents are going to sell it, Kenzie." "Maybe you'll find a nice house in New York or wherever you move," Kenzie replied. "I doubt it'll be as nice as the one we've got now. I've lived there practically my whole life. I can't imagine living anywhere else." "I know what you mean. I've lived in mine my whole life. I wouldn't want to move either." I nodded, "It's just going to be strange." "You'll come back and visit, right?" "Yeah, since my grandparents will still be here. I'll still see you, just probably not as often." "We already hardly see each other," Kenzie sighed, "Since you, er, used to go to a boarding school." "Well, I'll be here once a month until we move." "We'll just have to spend every moment you're here together," Kenzie decided. "Hey, what are you going to do while your brother's getting treatment if you move? You can't fly back here every month." Why hadn't I thought about that? What were my parents going to do about that? I couldn't possibly come back to Australia during every full moon. Of course, I'd be in school for most of them, but still. Maybe they would actually let me stay home. I doubted it, though. They would surely figure something out that would keep me out of the house for a couple days before, during, and after the full moon. I shrugged, "I'm not really sure. I hadn't even thought about it. I'm sure they'll figure something out." "I just can't believe you're going to move," Kenzie said quietly. "Me either," I agreed. Kenzie stood up. "Let's go do something. We should make the most of the time we've got before you move." "What do you want to do?" "Let's go swimming in your grandparents' pool. That thing is freaking huge!" "Sure, why not?" I smiled and stood up. Kenzie always knew how to cheer me up. Merlin, I was going to miss that. ****** Kenzie and I spent the rest of the day with each other in my grandparents' backyard. Richard even decided to barbecue. I actually had a really good time and it kept my mind off moving. "I wish you could sleep over," I said to Kenzie as we laid on lounge chairs next to the pool. We had just finished dinner and were watching the sunset. The two of us had begged Kenzie's parents to let her sleep over, but they said no since Kenzie's first day of school was the next day. "Me too," Kenzie sighed, "I wish I didn't have school tomorrow." "I kind of wish I did," I confessed, "Who knows when I'll next go to school." "Just don't think about that right now. Think about all you can do with six months off. You can sleep-in everyday, stay in your pajamas all day, and stay up all night." "I never sleep-in, you know that. I'm always up early. And Mum is making me do the homework I got at the end of last term." "Really? That sucks," Kenzie replied. "Yeah, she's going to home school me so I don't forget anything," I rolled my eyes. "Ugh," Kenzie agreed, "What a way to ruin six months of freedom." "But it's not like I would've been free anyway. You're in school and so is Olivia. My house has been so quiet lately it's driving me mad. My mum and dad are hardly ever around. Dad's always at work and when he isn't, he and Mum are shut up in his study doing who knows what. Even when Dad isn't at home, Mum spends all her time in there. "I've just been hanging around by myself. Or with Matt when he feels the need to follow me around." "Sounds boring," Kenzie commented. "It is." "How long are you staying this time?" Kenzie asked. "Erm, not sure," I shrugged. My parents never really told me how long I would spend at my grandparents'. It always depended on Matt. "At least until Tuesday." "Oh, then I won't get to sleep over this time." "There's always next month," I replied, although I wasn't sure what day of the week the full moon fell on the following month. "Amy! Kenzie!" I turned around and saw Cinda waving at us from the deck. "What?" I shouted back. "Kenzie's mum just called! She's got to go home now." "Crap," Kenzie said and got up from the lounge chair. "Good luck at school tomorrow," I said and walked with her into the house. "Thanks," Kenzie replied and grabbed her stuff from the kitchen. "I'll come over as soon as school's out, ok?" "Sure. I'll be here," I said. Kenzie smiled at me, "Don't worry. You're going to get through this." I nodded, "I know. I just don't want to do it." "I wouldn't either," Kenzie said, "But it's not the end of the world. We'll still see each other every once in a while. And we can write." "Yeah, we'll write," I agreed. "Well, I'll see you tomorrow." "Definitely. Bye!" "Bye!" I shouted as Kenzie walked down the driveway. I sighed and shut the door. It was strange, I was going to be seeing Kenzie a whole lot more now that I wasn't in school. Well, in the next six months that is. But I couldn't help but feel that we were being pulled apart. How often would we really see each other after I moved? Once a year, maybe. I would only get to see her when we visited Richard and Cinda and I wasn't sure how often we would do that. I wandered into the living room and found Richard and Cinda talking quietly to each other. They stopped as soon as I walked in. No doubt they were talking about me. "Hi Amy, darling," Cinda greeted me and set down her drink. "Kenzie leave?" I nodded and sat down across from my grandparents. "She's coming back tomorrow after school, though." "That's fine," Cinda replied. "I'd like to talk to you about something." "What?" I asked. "I really would like to throw you a goodbye party," Cinda said. I raised my eyebrows, "That's probably not a good idea, Cinda. Mum said she didn't want one." "Nonsense. She probably just doesn't want to be involved with planning it since she's got so much on her plate." I groaned inwardly, "I'm pretty sure she just doesn't want one." "Would you like to help plan it, Amy?" I stared at her with my eyes wide open. Was she insane? Me helping with the party would be a one-way ticket to Mum's bad side for the remainder of time. "Are. You. Mad?" "Of course not! It would be fun. We can plan it when you're here during the full moon next month. Of course it would be helpful to know exactly when you're leaving. You haven't the slightest clue, do you?" "Uh, no. Mum and Dad really aren't telling me much." "I'll just plan for April or so. You won't have left by then." "I really don't think this is a good idea," I warned her. "Mum doesn't want a party." "Lacinda," Richard interjected, "I think you ought to listen to Amy." "I'm throwing them a party, Richard." At that point I knew it was a lost cause. When Cinda got something into her head, there was no stopping her. She was going to throw us a party. I just had to make sure to make myself scarce whenever she asked for help in planning it. That and make sure Mum knew I had nothing to do with it. ****** I was incredibly bored the next day. I got up early as usual and Richard and Cinda had not yet woken up. I wandered around the house and finally decided to read my Potions book in the living room. Richard and Cinda got up when I was half-way through with the chapter and both of them offered to hang out with me. They were really trying to be extra nice to me in the wake of the news of us moving. I declined both offers and decided to write my Potions essay. I really didn't feel like doing anything with my grandparents anyway. I wanted to do something with Kenzie, but unfortunately, she was at school. Kenzie came over as soon as she was done in school. We spent the afternoon and evening lounging in the pool again. The next day was pretty much the same, with Kenzie coming over after school. "Are you leaving tomorrow?" Kenzie asked as we collected our stuff from a table by the pool. "Yeah," I replied. Mum had sent an owl earlier in the day to let me know that Dad would be coming to get me early the next morning, before he had to go to work. "Really early, though. Seven in the morning." "I guess I'll see you next month, then," Kenzie said as we walked back through the house. "Yeah, I'll be back," I replied. Kenzie gave me a hug. "Write me if you find out where you're moving or anything like that." "I will," I replied and hugged her back, "See you then." "See ya," Kenzie said and left the house. I quietly shut the door behind her and went up to my room. With Kenzie gone, my mind immediately returned to thoughts of moving. If I saw Kenzie once a month until July, or so, I would get to see her six more times. Six, that was it. After that, who knew how often I'd see her. Of course, I really didn't see her that often now since I was usually in school all the time. Six times in six months was actually quite a few times compared to the past three years. I guess it was just because I knew that after those six or so times, we'd rarely see each other. Even though I didn't see her that often the past three years, it wasn't that bad since I always knew we'd see each other the next school holiday. Even though I was sure we'd visit Richard and Cinda after we moved, that wouldn't necessarily mean I'd get to spend a whole lot of time with Kenzie. We'd surely visit my grandparents during school holidays and school holidays in New York might not be the same as Kenzie's. Despite our different schools in Australia, the holidays usually coincided. I fell asleep before I even had a chance to stargaze, but I was up bright and early the next day. Good thing, too, since Dad was coming to get me so early. I got out of bed, packed my bag, and went down to the kitchen. Cinda had bought Lucky Charms a couple days ago and I poured myself a bowl. Cinda never bought Lucky Charms and I mean never. I couldn't remember a time when I'd had them at her house. Probably more of her sympathy about moving, I thought as I munched on the colorful marshmallows. Richard and Cinda were still sleeping when I finished my brekkie. I tip-toed up to their bedroom and slowly pushed the door open. Richard was laying on his back and was snoring. I had no idea how Cinda could possibly sleep through it, but she was. "Cinda," I whispered after I crept over to her side of the bed. "Wake up." Cinda rolled over and opened her eyes. "What is it?" she groaned. She looked about ten years older without her make-up on. Her hair was disheveled and kind of resembled the hair that witches that Muggles come up with have. It was a bit strange since I rarely ever see her without her make-up and hair done. I kind of thought she looked more grandmotherly without her make-up, but that was the exact reason she chose to wear it. If I told her what she looked like right now, she would make an appointment for more Botox. "It's almost seven," I told her, "Dad will be here anytime to get me." "Oh, right," Cinda said and sat up. "I'll be right down." I nodded and left the room. Dad rang the intercom when I was half-way down the stairs. I ran into the kitchen and buzzed him in. A few minutes later, he was at the door. I opened it and he walked inside, looking extremely tired. The lines on his face seemed more pronounced and there were purplish bags under his eyes. I wondered when the last time he got a decent night's sleep was. He still wore his usual tense look and I was starting to get used to the fact that he and Mum were constantly stressed nowadays. "Hey, Dad," I said. "Hi Amy," he replied. "Are you all ready?" "Yes. I just woke Cinda up, she said she'd be down soon." "All right." "Um, are you ok, Dad?" I asked tentatively, "You look kind of tired." "I am. Nothing for you to worry about, though. Just work stuff." Right. I turned away from him and rolled my eyes. It was always work stuff. Always something he couldn't share with me. I was beginning to wonder if he wasn't just using work as an excuse. There was something else going on and I had a feeling it probably had to do with the move. "Hello, Walter," Cinda strolled down the stairs and smiled at my dad. "How are you?" Cinda was looking much better now. She had put on a bit of make-up and brushed her hair. She wasn't dressed in a trademark pants suite yet, though. She had donned a fancy pale pink robe. The buttons on the thing looked like they were real silver. It was utterly excessive in my opinion. "Hanging in there," Dad replied, "You?" "I'm fine," Cinda said and then turned to me, "I'll see you next month, then. If not earlier." "Earlier," Dad interjected, "Matt's birthday is next week." "Oh, how could I have forgotten!" Cinda exclaimed. "No parties," Dad said flatly. "Don't worry," Cinda said, "I couldn't throw a party in a week anyway." She probably could, I thought, but she just didn't want to throw my family two unwanted parties. "We'll see you in a week, then, Cinda," Dad said, "Thanks for everything." "No problem. Bye, Amy. I hope you had fun." I smiled at her. I actually had fun this time, although it was mainly due to spending time with Kenzie. "I did. See you next week." I picked up my bag and Dad wrapped his arms around me. A few seconds later we Apparated back to our house. Back to the only place I could call home, but would be forced to leave in only a few short months.
Comma Joined: 4 September 2008 Posts: 14	Posted: Wednesday 10 September 2008 07 11 56 pm    Post subject: Re: A Gaunt Tale in topic:A Gaunt Tale teyannanecole wrote: I like it! I set up a feed of it on harrypotterfanfiction.com, but I'll keep checking this site if you'll be posting here. Hmm, I haven't been on that site in forever, I think I posted one chapter of this one there. I'm going to post it here a couple chapters at a time, I think. Thanks for the comment, though ^_^ since you're the only person who [i]has[/i] commented and everything. Anywho. Next couple chapters: ---- Chapter 3 When it came around time to get to Hogwarts, Katalina and Lily headed into a different compartment to change into their school uniforms: black cloaks with a white, collared shirt, a tie with their house colors, and a grey skirt with their house colors on them around the end, in trimming. Lily was laughing about something when they re-entered their compartment. "What's so funny?" James said as they walked in, and Katalina shot a glare worthy of a true Gaunt in his direction. "Just asking..." "Nothing," she and Lily said at the same time; Lily was still laughing, but Katalina's voice had no humor in it. "Nothing at all happened," she said firmly. "I think something happened," Sirius said to James. "No," Lily said, still giggling a little. "Nothing." "And it wasn't funny!" Katalina said angrily; she laughed harder again. "Well, I don't see what's so funny about nothing..." James said. "It's funny that she's capable of laughing that hard at anything," Sirius said. "Which is how she's laughing at nothing, since she's not capable of laughing that hard at anything," Katalina reasoned. They looked at her blankly. "You'll figure it out later," she said. "How much later?" Sirius said. "Few years, maybe," she said, looking out the window, just in time to feel the train stop. "Are we here?" she asked. Lily managed to calm down. "It wasn't that that I was laughing at," Lily said. "It was the pack of first years that was there when --" "Nothing!" Katalina said loudly, in a frantic voice, over Lily. She remembered the pack of first year boys that had been walking past and Katalina had to do an engorgement charm on the top of her shirt to make it fit over her chest. Lily had put the curtains back up, thinking Katalina was done. They had stopped at the window to gape at her, and got a few seconds of black bra before Lily rolled the curtains back down, giggling. "And if you ever do that again, I won't be very happy..." "Alright," she said. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize." "Do what?" James and Sirius both asked at the same time, eagerly. "Probably not what you're hoping it was," Katalina said. James's face turned somewhat pink. Sirius looked out the window and chose not to respond in any way. Getting up, laughing, Katalina and Lily left together, Severus with them. "I swear to God..." Katalina grumbled on the way to the carriages, “if you two don’t cut it out, I’m going to hex you both." Lily was giggling again, and Severus was laughing too, now, as she had told him. The same group of first years walked past her as she, Severus, and Lily made their way to where they had to go. The first years gaped at her again. One poked another, pointed at Katalina, and whispered something. Lily had to grip the side of the carriage they were apparently taking to the school to keep from falling over with laughter. It was then that Katalina saw the school, gleaming in the distance. "Is that Hogwarts?" she asked Severus, who had control of his voice at the time. "Yeah." It was a magnificent castle, and the lake they were crossing over in the carriages was like its moat. "Wow..." she said, climbing into the carriage. "And it’s thestrals pulling these?" she asked. "What?" Lily said, calming down. "There's not... anything there." She was out of breath. "You can only see them if you've seen someone die," she said. "Who'd you see die?" she asked curiously. "Old muggle that lived in the village I lived in," she said. "Handing out church pamphlets... my dad was having a bad day... he happened to knock on our door that day... my dad doesn't like dealing with muggles on his bad days." "He killed him?" she asked, getting in the carriage, as did Severus. "Yeah..." she said. "Horrid, i'n'it?" "Just a tad," Lily said, with a definite note of sarcasm in her voice. The carriages were also designed to fit eight people; the other four caught up with them fast enough. Seeing them and remembering what happened, Lily couldn't help but laugh again. "What the bloody hell is she laughing about?" Sirius demanded of the three of them. Lily only laughed harder, Severus started laughing, and Katalina's face turned red, matching her hair. "So you told him and not us?" James said. "No, Lily told him..." "Who else knows?" Sirius asked. "About every first year in the school, by now," Lily said through her laughter. "Nooooo..." Katalina groaned, hiding her face, which turned from red to pale in under five seconds. "They're all going to be pointing... and staring... noooooo... Lily, I'm going to kill you, I swear it..." Lily responded by laughing harder; her face was now red. "What --" "Ask one of the first years!" Katalina snapped at James. "Alright, fine!" he said. He looked next to the cart, and a group of first year boys was walking by, pointing at her. James jumped off the carriage. "What happened involving them and a group of first years?" James asked, pointing at Katalina and Lily. One of them beckoned him closer, and whispered whatever it was. "You're kidding," he said, laughing and looking up as well. "Thanks for that." He got back up and sat in his seat in the carriage, which started moving then. "She definitely does have grounds to kill you," he said to Lily. "What happened?" Sirius demanded. "Apparently, Lily thought they were done changing before she was," he told Sirius. "She opened the curtains back up, and a few first years were standing there, who stopped to look in. She turned, saw that her shirt was still opened, and attempted to close the blinds as fast as she could while laughing that hard." Apparently hearing the story again made it even funnier. Lily laughed harder, leaning over on Kat, who still hadn't taken her face out of her hands. "I'm sorry, Kat," Lily said. "But the looks on their faces, that was priceless, and at least you had a bra on --" "A halfway fecking transparent one..." she grumbled. "What made you think she was done in the first place?" James said, joining the laughing. "Ummm..." "Shut up," Katalina warned her. "Embarrassing enough already..." "It makes it look like I did it on purpose if I don’t..." Lily said, trying not to laugh now. "Oh, alright..." she snapped, her voice still muffled. "I didn't realize, she just about had her shirt buttoned when I walked over to the window, and it turns out it didn't fit right in... places... so she had to do an Engorgement charm on the top half of the shirt, and I didn't realize she was doing that when I opened the curtains back up." She had to steadily increase her voice the entire time, as everyone but Katalina was laughing now. "So they got a free show and none of us have?" Sirius said. "Shut up," she said. "All of you, just shut up..." she finished, in more of a begging plea than a command. "Oh, c'mon, it's funny," James said. "No..." she said, shaking her head. "It isn't... they're all going to be ogling when I go in... all of them... stupid short people..." she added, quite seriously, but this made them all laugh even harder. "Please don't say anything to anyone who doesn't know..." she said. "Please?" They agreed not to, even still laughing, except Sirius, who said he wouldn't agree until they got a free show, too. She threatened to tell everyone in the school that he had grown his hair out for the same reason he liked to wear dresses when he was alone (a complete lie, but good blackmail anyway) -- he agreed then. After the sorting of first years and the feast in the Great Hall, they all headed off to their Common Rooms. As they'd all gotten there late, almost everyone went to bed. Katalina went into the girls' dormitory only to put her kitten, Alice, back in her cage to sleep for the night. She headed back down after, with her invisibility cloak. Sirius was still lying on the couch in front of the lit fireplace in main area of the common room. "What's the password to get in again?" she asked. "Flabbergroit," he said. "Where're you headed?" he added, sitting up. "Just to sit out by the lake," she said. "I slept last night," she added. "I don't need to tonight." "Same here, actually..." he said. "Or I'd be up in the boys dormitories... I was thinking about heading out myself... I wanted to talk to you, anyway." He held up an invisibility cloak. "James was half asleep when I asked to borrow it," he said. "Never would've said yeah otherwise." "About what?" she asked suspiciously. "I swear if you leave me suspended by my ankle out there all night as revenge --" "No," he said. "Just meet me there and we'll talk." She shrugged and threw the cloak over herself. She walked down the seven flights of stairs that tended to like to change around; nonetheless, she made it to the bottom, the entry hall, and she headed out the double oak front doors, just barely opening them. She heard them close behind her; apparently he was right behind her. She rushed over to the edge of the lake and pulled off her cloak. A few moments later, as she was sitting down at the very edge of the lake, against a large, thick elm tree, he pulled his cloak off, already sitting against the same tree, easily with room for more than one person to sit against it. "So?" she said quietly. "I just really wanted to apologize for everything that went bad today," he said. "It's your first day here and you're already having trouble." "Well thank you," she said. "Have any veritaserum on you?" "Wha... no, why?" "So I can prove you're just someone else using polyjuice potion." He laughed a little. "I'm not," he said. "I really wanted to apologize for me and James trying to get information on your family out of you. I had no idea how bad it was, and I've felt horrible since I did. I'm in a fairly similar situation at home myself, except my mom didn't stop me going to Hogwarts. My dad's dead, but he wasn't any better than that old bat, and I don't like talking about them either." "It's alright...” she said. “I wasn’t helping by being secretive. And James was asking more of the questions, anyway.” “That’s because he kept beating me to them as I thought of them, honestly,” he said, with guilty grin. “It’s alright,” she repeated, smiling kindly. “I know how secretive I can get; I even almost resisted the Parselmouth thing under Veritaserum... I really didn’t want to say that... but again, I don’t blame anyone but myself. And I guess I should say before people start spreading rumors...” she added with a sigh. “My surname is Gaunt. Yes, he’s my brother, and yes I despise him, I only helped him because I was pissed off at how you were talking to Lily, as she was the only person nice enough to talk to me.” “No wonder you didn’t want to say what your surname was...” he said. “He claims relation to --” “I know, Voldemort himself...” she said with a sigh. “I hope it’s not true...” she added. “Probably just him showing off, I know Al even if I do hate him, but it’s still weird... he was always up for sticking up with my dad in bullying me, and his theory is that Voldemort is the son of my great great aunt and a muggle she ran off with, who ran out on her while she was pregnant, and that the baby she had in an orphanage was him. She died an hour after his death, there’s no way to trace.... My dad calls the child a filthy halfbreed bastard with a muggleloving blood traitorous wretch for a mother. And my brother always agreed with him. Always, without fail, just to show me how much they despised me.” She smiled. “Maybe I’m lucky,” she said. “I would’ve been the same as them, had I ended up in Slytherin... in Gryffindor, I suffered, but I’m not them...” “So...” Sirius said, looking at her. “He’d use the Cruciatus Curse on his own sister...?” “He did at home,” she scoffed. “Why not here, if no one’s looking? It’s how I was punished for contradiction, I sometimes managed to escape under my invisibility cloak, nothing can penetrate it except for the Killing Curse. Usually, though, I was in the sitting room and the cloak was in my room. My dad, quite often, let my brother have the honors of the punishment. He’s afraid of me now, without his daddy to back him up. He’s afraid I’ll get revenge.” “And you will?” Sirius asked, as though to make sure she would. “Ahhh... I don’t know...” she said. “He’s my brother and all...” “Who hates you.” “But I don’t like to hate people...” “It’s kind of mandatory in this case...” “No, not if I don’t want to.” “Alright, but I’m getting revenge for you,” he said, sitting up straighter, putting an arm over her shoulders, and looking down at her. “Justice will be served.” She sat up straighter as well. “No, it won’t,” she said. “Don’t. You won’t be getting your ass in trouble for revenge that isn’t even for your sake.” “And you won’t be commanding me. “And as for the first year incident on the train... I can honestly say I’ve never felt this much pity for anyone.” “Shut up,” she said, laughing with him and elbowing him in the side. “I have one favor to ask.” “What’s that?” “Could you stop picking on Severus? It doesn't make any sense why you do, anyway, he doesn't seem bad for a Slytherin.” He looked as though he were thinking for a moment. “No, definitely can't do that.” “Why?” “Because it’s fun.” “It’s not right...” “Life’s not right,” he said. “I thought it wasn’t fair?” she said. “That, too." "Really! It's mean!" "Are you really a parselmouth?" he asked, changing subjects quickly. “I can’t prove it without there being a snake around...” she said. “And it’d just scare you off, anyway, it’s what it does to everyone.” “It won’t,” he said. “I promise it won’t.” “Well, there aren’t any snakes around.” He pulled his wand out of his pocket. “Accio Snake,” he said, flicking it in no general direction. A small, green snake zoomed towards him. He caught it. “Yeah there are,” he said. “Think if I put it down, you’d be able to tell it not to bite me?” “I don’t know how well it’d listen...” she said, watching it squirm angrily. “Oh, give it a shot; it’s only a garden snake.” “Alright...” she said uncertainly. He set it down, a few feet away, and moved back against the tree. It slithered quickly towards him, and she watched it. As it got in a striking position, she spoke to it, in what felt and sounded to her like normal English. “Sssstop it,” she said. The snake, its tail curled and the rest of it sticking up, looked curiously over. “You can sspeak to me?” “Yes.” “He woke me just to sssummon me here for nothing.” “He was bored. Not his fault he wasn’t born with a larger brain...” “I ssuppose that’s true, but nonethelessssss --” “Bite him and I’ll break you like a twig.” “Well said, girl. I like not being broken, I’ll leave.” At that, it lay back down, turned, and slithered off. Sirius was gaping at her. After a long moment of silence, he spoke. “That was brilliant,” he said finally. “I can’t believe that’s considered evil... well, yeah, sure, it sounds evil and all, but it’s still wicked.” She smiled a little. “I’d give it up in a heartbeat if I could change things so I belonged to another family...” “I can imagine...” he said. “It’s still considered quite evil, even if it isn’t really, it all depends how you use it.” “Be nice if other people understood that...” she said with a sigh, looking back down at her feet. She could feel his eyes, looking down at her. After a moment, he pulled her a little closer, so she was facing sideways a little. She put her head against his shoulder. At least he had an idea of how she had to feel, outcasted by her own family. “They might not get it right now,” he said. “But they will,” he said. “One day when Voldemort’s finally gone, they’ll realize that it’s not what magic someone can do that matters, it’s whether they choose to use it for good or bad. Even if you are related to Voldemort, it doesn’t mean anything, you’re not like him just because of blood.” “It’s not what you can do that makes you who you are,” she said. “I know. I’ve told myself that forever. I just don’t listen, I guess. I don’t understand it, personally. Any time I’m angry, I loose all sense of self control I may have had before, I act like a reckless fool. And it worsens with my age, I don’t want to end up killing some poor old muggle like my dad did...” He pulled her a little closer with the arm he had around her shoulders. “You’ll be able to get a grip on it,” he said. “I’m the same way, how do you think your brother ended up dangling in midair in the middle of the hall?” She smiled a little, and he thought he heard a small laugh. “I’ll try to help you out, I’ve been working on it myself. He just pissed me off.” “He does that,” she said. They both laughed a little, but stopped upon making eye contact. Her pulse quickened, as she stared into that reckless, handsome face, suddenly etched with both care and the same nervousness she was feeling. The tension was horrible -- she was afraid to keep looking into his blue eyes, but she didn’t want to look away. He spared her the trouble, as he cleared his throat a little and looked at his watch. He yawned. “It’s already two in the morning, our classes start tomorrow.” “Detention...” she said. “Yeah...” “How bad is detention?” she asked. “Depends who you have it with, Filch just takes us to our assigned people.” “We should get back to the common room...” she said, a little awkwardly. “Yeah...” he said. “We probably should...” They both moved away from each other and stood with their cloaks. She put hers on, and he put his on. They headed for the castle. He was ahead of her, and he sat on the couch in the Gryffindor commonroom five minutes before she got there, time to reflect on what had happened. She got there and pulled off her own cloak, reluctantly; she’d been debating whether or not to. She did, when she got into the common room. He was already heading towards the stairs, but he stopped when he saw her. She walked over to the wall separating the boys' and girls' dorms, where he was already standing. "Well..." he said a little awkwardly. "Good night..." "'Night..." she said. Apparently wanting to show that they were still just friends after that one moment by the lake, he awkwardly wrapped his arms around her waist. She wrapped her own arms around his waist as well. They pulled apart at the same time, and they both headed upstairs. She rushed upstairs, not willing to tell anyone anything. Luckily, everyone in the girls’ fourth year dormitory was fast asleep. She fell into her bed and thought of what it would have been like if he hadn’t nervously looked away... Had he kept his eyes locked with hers…. Her heart beat faster with every passing second. It seemed as though their faces were slowly coming closer together. Her heart threatened to beat out of her chest until, finally, his lips touched hers; it completely stopped beating for a fleeting moment then, but shortly after began beating at the same quickened pace. It was just a soft brush of his lips against hers, but their lips came back together almost immediately in a slow, romantic kiss. He put his hand on one side of her face, leaving his other arm draped around her shoulders. Her hands found the collar of his shirt and gripped it tightly. And, at that moment, she was being shaken awake by Lily. ------- Chapter 4 “We’re going to be late! Transfiguration!” Lily was yelling and shaking Katalina’s arm. It was too early in the morning for Katalina to comprehend yelling. “Gah...?” she said groggily. “Classes!” “Oh, shit!” she yelled, jumping out of bed. She changed quickly, pointed her wand at her hair, making it smooth and shiny, as it had been before she fell asleep, as it had been last night while she was with him... She grabbed her books and ran, up the hall, with Lily. The tardy bell rang. “No...” Lily said. “We’re dead...” “Why?” Katalina asked. “We’re only going to be a few minutes late.” “What’s this, I wonder?” said a high pitched, cackling voice. “Two girlies late for their first lesson of the entire year?” A halfway see-through man in a funny, checkered purple and yellow suit with a large, black bowtie and a flower pinned to the right side of his chest, appeared before them, floating upside down. “Peeves,” Lily said. “School poltergeist. Get out of the way, McGonagall’s going to kill us as it is!” “Oooh, and McGonagall teaching... two of her own students!” Peeves tsked at them. “Really, really, the student body keeps getting more and more careless...” “Peeves,” Katalina said kindly. “Won’t you please let us through?” “And why should I?” he asked. “When I could just as easily tell Filch and have the fun of watching two poor little girlies get detention?” “Because I know how I can get you in trouble, Peeves,” she said. “Had any interesting conversations with the Bloody Baron lately?” She made a mental note to remember to thank Lily later on for telling her about the school ghosts durring the sorting ceremony. He looked at her with wide eyes. “Alright...” he said, grumbling. “Go...” “Thank you, Peevesie, you’re such a nice ghoulie,” she said, imitating Peeves's high-pitched, intimidating voice quite well. As they walked swiftly away, Katalina looked over her shoulder and waved. Peeves made a rude hand gesture at her and floated off. They made it to their first class of the day fifteen minutes late. There were a few glances back at them as they entered the Transfiguration classroom as well as a few sniggers. There was even a snore; Sirius had fallen asleep at the table he and James were seated at in the back, using his open Transfiguration book as a pillow. “Thank God, she’s not here right now...” Katalina sighed with relief as she and Lily walked to the front of the classroom, where there was an empty desk that seated two. “I thought we were dead...” The cat sitting on the desk with spectacle markings looked over at them as they sat. It jumped off the desk and, as it did so, transformed into a stern woman in black robes with square glasses. Katalina gulped, and her eyes were as wide as they had been on the train when McGonagall had come frantically into their compartment asking who produced the Patronus Charm. "G-good morning, professor," Katalina said nervously. "Didn't... didn't see you there..." "Late for your first class at Hogwarts, Miss –" Katalina nodded gravely, indicated McGonagall to use her name by birth. "– Gaunt. And Lily, I'm quite surprised, you've never been late for my class once in the past." "We would have been on time, Professor," she said. "Peeves wouldn't let us through; we were close enough to get here just on time." "I-I-I didn't get to sleep until six o' clock in the morning, Lily couldn't wake me up, she stayed behind to try to help me," Katalina lied. "It's my own fault, if anyone gets a detention it should be Peeves." Professor McGonagall looked a bit confused by the sudden change of course of her entire confession and apology. The class sniggered. "Miss Gaunt, I wasn't going to give you a detention, but –" "Sorry," she said immediately. "I couldn't resist." "I believe ten points from Gryffindor will do fine, as will a double detention tonight will do fine, since you already had one set for tonight for the scene you and Mr. Black made on the Hogwarts Express." At hearing his name, Sirius quickly sat up straight in the back, and said, quite loudly, "I'm awake!" "I somehow doubt that," Professor McGonagall said disapprovingly. "And that's the third time this morning." "I didn't sleep last night and –" "You'll be doing double detention tonight as well." "Who else is?" he asked curiously. "Well, you were awake, Mr. Black," she said. "You should know, shouldn't you?" He grumbled in agreement. “In this class today, we're practicing Vanishing Spells," she said. "Look in the indexes of your textbooks, Misses Gaunt and Evans, to find the page numbers for Vanishing Spells. Read them, then attempt to -" "– make the swallows sitting on our desks disappear?" Katalina asked curiously, having just done so in a silent spell. Professor McGonagall looked astounded. "And, as you can see –" She put her hand through the spot the swallow had been. "– it certainly wasn't Disillusionment, was it?" "All right…" she said. "Yes, that is the correct. Now...” McGonagall conjured another swallow onto Katalina's desk. “With the enchantment, if you don’t mind." "Evanesco," she said, flicking her wand at the bird; it promptly vanished. Lily made hers do so as well, with the incantation, at the same time. Professor McGonagall looked from one to the other, who both looked back, smiling. "Alright,” McGonagall said. “Ten points to Gryffindor. Awarded to each of you." "I think mine's a shade lighter..." Sirius muttered to James in the back; Sirius hadn't managed to make his bird disappear, but he had managed to change it from black to pink. "I think your screwy spell’s trying to tell us something." James laughed, looking at the pink swallow in amusement. Sirius elbowed James out of his chair. "Is there a problem back there?" McGonagall asked James, who was just getting back in his seat. "No, ma'am," he said, rubbing his side where he’d been elbowed. "Except I think Sirius's spell just tried to show his feminine side." Now everyone was looking back and laughing at the pink swallow, including Sirius himself. "That is a good first attempt, however," said Professor McGonagall, walking to the back of the classroom to their desk to examine the bird. "Especially considering all you heard was the incantation before everything else was drowned out by snoring, Mr. Black." "I'm going through the change early, ma'am" he said. "Hot flashes make me tired." The sniggering around the classroom grew a little louder. Professor McGonagall shook her head and walked away from Sirius and James's desk. James was getting back up off the floor again, as he'd just fallen out of his chair laughing. The next person to get it was Remus Lupin, followed by Peter Pettigrew, who Katalina was sure hadn't actually done the spell himself; he was rather unskilled with magic as it were, and Remus was sitting right next to him. Sirius managed to make his swallow slightly see-though, though still pink, and was begging to be allowed to keep it at the end of class. "Oh, fine," Professor McGonagall said, annoyed with him. "Keep it. And practice!" "But I already named him..." he said solemnly, putting on his act quite strong for the rest of the class's enjoyment. He patted the bird on the head with his finger. "Isn't that right, Pinky?" "Then practice on something else before I have to give you triple detention!" she yelled at him. He sank back in his seat sheepishly and slid under the desk. A moment later, he elbowed James in the knee. "What?" James said. "Is it safe yet?" he asked in a loud whisper. "No," James said in an equally loud whisper. "But don't worry, I don't think she knows where you're hiding." It wasn’t too much longer in the class before the bell rang. It was double Potions with the Slytherins next. The class headed down to the dungeons, where both the Potions classroom and the Slytherin Common Room were, apparently. They all gradually stopped at a door where a group of Slytherins were already gathered, Severus among them. "Are you still hanging out with that mudblood, Sev?" one of the Slytherins asked loudly as Katalina and Lily approached the door. "You know, that Evans girl that's in Gryffindor? And the blood traitor she's friends with, Gaunt? Her brother's a prefect for Slytherin, the things he's told us about her –" "Yes, I am," he said to the other Slytherin. "Now shut up, Avery." "I can't believe you're friends with a mudblood and traitorous filth," said one of the other Slytherins. "The Dark Lord wouldn't like that." "Who said I was going over to him?" Sev demanded. Katalina and Lily were just stopping by the crowd of Gryffindors on the opposite side of the dungeon corridor near the door. "What, you're not going to be a Death Eater?" Avery asked. "I never said I would be!" "But hanging with mudbloods and – hey, stop it, you bitch!" Katalina had just lunged forward and pinned Avery against the wall. She punched him in the face so it hit his nose; the impact of the hit was hard enough to make his head hit the stone wall behind him. He, to his amazement as much as anyone else’s, hadn’t been knocked out by the blow. "I can only hear the word Mudblood so many times in one minute without having to punch the person who's said it," she said through gritted teeth. "Guess my brother didn't tell you that." She let go of him, pushing him into the wall again. Sev, with a glare at the two Slytherins he'd been talking to, joined Lily. Katalina stood off to the side of them a little; she didn’t much feel like being confronted about her loss of temper. When the teacher, Slughorn, arrived, she was the first to rush through the door. She took a seat close to the front of the class. Lily sat next to her and Sev sat with them when he made it inside. Naturally, Sirius, James, Remus, and Peter were sitting behind them. Sirius and James had apparently decided it would be fun to attempt throwing small bits of parchment into Katalina and Lily’s hair. Katalina realized what they were doing instantly and turned her chair around, glaring. She picked a small piece paper out of her hair. She pulled out her wand and set it on fire in her hand. "If you ever throw anything in my hair again," she said coldly, "then remember, this'll be your head." She held up the ashes in her hand that had been parchment, and let them fall out of her hand like snow. She smiled and the blank expressions on their faces and turned back around. Katalina pulled out her potions book and looked through it; she had already made various notes on its different pages, from when she'd bought extra supplies at the apothecary in Diagon Alley so she could practice potions before she went to school. Inside the classroom, there were various large cauldrons, all full of different potions. Katalina recognized all of them; one was Draught of Living Death. Another was the most powerful love potion possible to make. Another was Felix Felecis. Another, as it was colorless and scentless, had to be Veritaserum. The last one, oozing and bubbling, was most definitely Polyjuice Potion. When the bell rang, Slughorn rushed to the front of the class. "Hello, everyone!" he said brightly, beaming around at his class. "Now before we get started today, I would like to check and see how much you remembered about identifying potions over the summer, if all of it hasn't slipped your minds. I'm sure you see all these potions around the room?" There were mumbles of agreement. "I want at least one of you to be able to identify at least one of them. Now." He indicated the purple potion with light pink smoke wafting from it. It was emitting a mixed smell of roses and chocolate… or it was to Katalina, anyway. "Can anyone tell me what this one is?" Katalina's hand shot up faster than anyone else's. Potions were the one thing her father had taught her during her homeschooling, so, naturally, it was one of her best subjects. "Miss Gaunt," he said as enthusiastically as she had raised her hand. "Yes?" "It's a Love Potion," she said. "While it is called a Love Potion, and it is the most powerful type of Love Potion, it does not create love, but more of an obsession. It is identifiable by its lilac color, pink fumes, and its scent, which is different to everyone." "Very well said, very well said! Ten points to Gryffindor. It's disappointing your brother doesn't do as well in the art of potions." "It's more disappointing to me that we're related," she said brightly. All the Gryffindors in the class laughed. "Now, now, that's enough," Slughorn said, as the class gradually quieted. "And how about this one? Miss Evans." He was indicating a pale blue potion, with fumes that seemed to be putting the Slytherin student Avery and his group of friends to sleep. "That's Draught of Living Death, or just Draught of Death. It puts anyone who drinks it into such a deep sleep that they appear to be dead because they cannot be awoken; their heart can even stop under the influence of the potion, though it starts again after its effects wear off. It's easily recognized from its pale blue color and watery consistency, and its invisible fumes that make anyone near it drowsy." Everyone looked over at the Slytherins; Avery had started to snore loudly. "Very good, Miss Evans, very in depth, as always," he beamed. "Now, this one?" He indicated a silvery potion that was bubbling to the point that the bubbles appeared to be almost happy, and it was emitting thin, silver, streaky fumes. Remus raised his hand for this one from behind them. "Mr. Lupin, isn’t it? Go ahead." "Felix Felecis," he said. "Its color is silvery, as are the scentless fumes it emits, which is common in many potions, but this is recognizable by its bubbling and thin consistency. Its effect is luck; it can make the drinker lucky for weeks, depending on the amount consumed. A small vial of it can work for a whole day." "Very good, Mr. Lupin. And now, how about this one?" He indicated a muddy looking, bubbling potion. Severus raised his hand. "Severus, finally someone from my own house," he said, again beaming. "That is Polyjuice Potion," he said. "Its consistency is much like that of mud, and its color before its last ingredient is added is a pale grey. It can transform its drinker into another entirely different person for an hour, but only another person, since animal transformations do not work and are dangerous, as well as the fact that they can be permanent if not treated in time. It only can transform its drinker if the drinker has DNA from the person they wish to change into, such as a few pieces of hair; the last ingredient. Its color after the DNA is added depends on the person, it can turn any color imaginable, and each and every person's potion has its own distinctive color." "Very good, very thorough, ten points to Slytherin. And now, here is the trickiest one." He stepped over to the cauldron of clear potion, and no one seemed to know what it was. "This is a bonus," he added. "We didn't learn about this, but if you've read ahead in your course books, you might know what it is." After a moment, Katalina raised her hand. "Miss Gaunt, again." "Veritaserum," she said. "It's colorless, scentless, and tasteless, with the consistency of water, and can easily be mistaken as such. This makes it easier for its true purpose; if you slip this into someone's pumpkin juice, they won't see it or taste it, but they will feel the effects: Veritaserum makes its drinker tell the full truth about anything asked of them. You-Know-Who himself would spill his darkest secrets if it was given to him. A small vial of it can work for over an hour, depending on the ratio of amount of potion to the drinker's weight – but lets not get into math here, the Draught over there is putting us to sleep enough already, I believe." The Gryffindors sniggered as Avery snored loudly again. His friend nudged him and he sprung awake. "Also, Veritaserum is banned for use in this school on any student under almost all circumstances." "Very good, I see someone's been reading their course books," he said brightly. "Ten more points to Gryffindor. "Now, for today's lesson, we'll be brewing up our very own Draught of Living Death," he said. "The best attempt will be awarded a small vial of liquid luck, Felix Felecis," he said. "Enough to last for twenty-four hours. Make it known, to any Quidditch players, it is not permitted for use in sporting events by the law." Excited whispers echoed around the classroom from almost everyone. Katalina, however, spared no time. She got out her potions kit as she flipped to the page on Draught of Living Death, which she'd already made notes on. When it became time to start, she took out her cauldron and commenced with making her own Draught and finished it before the time was even up – she had practiced her course book for potions so much she'd found shortcuts that actually made the potion better than the official directions. Apparently Sev had done the same thing, as he finished barely a minute later. After about five minutes, they heard someone behind them laugh triumphantly. "I think he did it," James said to Sirius, looking into Remus's cauldron. "Awesome!" Katalina looked back into it as well. "So how far've you gotten?" she asked, looking into James’s cauldron – a blob of what looked like burned licorice was sitting at the bottom. She couldn't help but laugh a bit. "You're just pissed because you can't do it," James said. "I finished mine five minutes ago," she said with a laugh. "And mine's way better than that blob in the bottom of yours." "Shut up..." he grumbled. She laughed and turned back around as Lily was finishing hers. Katalina looked into her cauldron. "Nice," she said. She yawned. "God, of all the potions to make... and we've got History of Magic next, don't we?" "I think s-s-s-sooo," Lily managed through a yawn. "Lord... I'm not going to be able to stay awake... I might need that Felix Felecis just to be lucky enough to keep my eyes open." Five minutes later, the time was up; Katalina, Lily, Sev, and Remus, who had all made perfect potions, each got a small vial of Felix Felecis, and were asked to stay after class for a minute. "Why?" Katalina asked Lily as they packed their things. "Probably because of how well we did in class," she said. "Slughorn likes having connections with people, and he has a knack for spotting people who'll do well later in life. He's formed a club within Hogwarts called the Slug Club for his more exceptional students; we're probably finding out when the first party is." "Party?" she asked, quite intrigued. "I like parties. Alcohol?" "Probably so with the really big parties, but nothing we can't have underage." "That figures. I'll have to sneak some in." "Oh God, you sound like Sirius and James now," she said, laughing. "No, they sound like me," she said. "There’s a difference there." They headed up to his desk in the front, still laughing. Slughorn beamed at them from his chair. "I believe Severus and Lily know about this already, but I believe neither of you do?" He addressed Remus and Katalina. Remus shook his head no. "The Slug Club?" Katalina suggested. "Lily was just telling me." "Ah, yes," he said. "Yes. It's a club for my more exceptional students; we occasionally have small parties and get-togethers, usually on Saturdays, and generally a huge party on the day before Christmas holidays. It's your choice whether you want to be in it or not, but the first get together is this Saturday at the time of supper in the Great Hall." They left with passes for their next classes explaining why they were so late. Professor Binns, their History of Magic teacher, was a ghost as it turned out. He'd died at the school when he was taking a nap and his study caught fire. He went back to teach classes after his nap, stepping right out of his body without even realizing it. His tone was generally melancholy, and boring enough to put anyone to sleep. The class droned by; the most interesting thing that happened was when Professor Binns caught Sirius and James at the back of the class passing notes that read "See other side" on both sides of the parchment – apparently, this happened quite often in that class as there was absolutely nothing else to do. Katalina simply tuned out Binns’s talking and read her book at her own pace. After that class was her Divination class; she and Lily split up, as Lily headed off to Arithmancy. To Katalina’s dread, she realized she had Divination with James and Sirius, and the tables, with crystal balls in the middle, were made for three people to sit at. She cast a bit of a glare at them as they sat at her table. "I think she wants us to move," Sirius said. "Yeah, I think she just tried to do some kind of Basilisk thing with that glare," James agreed. "No," she said. "But if you bug me, I won't resist throwing the crystal ball at your head." James looked at the crystal ball. "I definitely foresee quite a bit of pain in our futures, then, mate," he said to Sirius. He looked at it as well with his head tilted to the side a little. "I see that my world is going to be turned upside down." "What?" James said, and then looked at the reversed, upside down reflection of the classroom in the crystal. "Holy shit, I see it too…" The bell rang. Their teacher walked in – she certainly was an odd looking woman. Her hair was huge, frizzy, and blonde, but graying in places. She wore large, circular, black, thick-rimed glasses that magnified her eyes several times their normal size. She wore a head shawl and even more shawls draped over her shoulders, and a green, button up shirt over a darker green dress. She also wore several necklaces, bangle bracelets, and rings on all her fingers. "Good day, class," she said in a dreamy, out-there sort of voice. "Though today is not the day we worry about – as you all know, the noble art of Divination teaches you to look beyond the boundaries of the present and into the future, through the stars, through your own eyes. Today, we'll be working with crystal balls, a subject that we just barely touched on last year." Katalina was boredly flipping through her Divination book, as she listened to the speech about true Seers and prophets and so on and so forth. She found a page on different depictions that one might see in their crystal ball, and read through them, so she was ready when it was finally time to attempt to see something in the foggy, swirling, circular crystal. "Open your minds!" the teacher, Trelawney, kept telling them. "Allow your Inner Eye to see beyond the mundane!" Sirius raised his hand. "Yes, Mr. Black?" "How do we see with our Inner Eye if it's not on the outside where it can see, Professor?" he asked sarcastically. "Broaden your mind," she said. "All the answers you seek, you already have, you just aren't aware of them yet!" Katalina boredly gazed into the crystal ball, her mind miles away. She hadn't broadened it, she'd just decided to take it on a trip. However, nonetheless, she snapped back when she was sure she saw something within the crystal. When she jumped, Trelawney was walking past. She quickly came back and kneeled down next to Katalina's chair, her already wide eyes widening even more. "Dear girl – what is it you have seen?" "I – I – I-I-I don't know yet," she stammered in surprise. "It looked like a face. I was barely even paying attention to the crystal, I was miles away," she admitted. "But I saw it, snapped back and it was gone." "You understand what you've done?" Trelawney asked. "N-not really..." Katalina said uncertainly. "Your Inner-Eye reflected what it has Seen within your own mind into the depths of the crystal for you to see! When you allow your mind to wander, you allow your Inner Eye to see where it has gone. It could be seeing something in your past that's passed so long ago that you didn't even know you still remembered it, or even something to happen in the future!" "Oh..." she said, trying to comprehend this. "Alright." "So you're saying," James said, "that all I had to do to pass this class last year is go into daydreams every time I sat down? What a rip off! Why couldn't you have just told me that?" Katalina was back to the crystal again. This time, when she saw two figures, she didn't snap out of her daydream, but used her peripheral vision to distinguish the scene’s features. Once she'd done this, it was like the crystal turned into a television screen. She saw two people, and she clearly recognized one of them as her father. The other was a man about her father's age, maybe older. They were speaking indistinct words, but the scene was clear enough. She saw her father kneeling down as though worshipping the other man in billowing black robes. After what felt like hours of watching them speak indistinct, faint words, she finally heard her father's voice. "I didn't mean to!" It yelled. "She left on her own, I never would have –" Katalina was jerked out of the vision when she heard someone snore. Sirius appeared to have fallen asleep after doing the daydream idea that James had, and James was turning red, clearly straining to try to see anything other than clouds in the crystal ball. The bell rang about ten seconds later. Sirius almost fell out of his seat in surprise, and James let out the breath he’d been holding, shooting the crystal in front of him a glare. Katalina packed her bag quickly and headed downstairs to the Great Hall for lunch. ----------------- [i]Side notes: Trelaney isn't Sybill Trelawney from the books. It was mentioned that her grandmother had a gift for Divination - [u]that[/u] would be who this is. She seems like a quack, but she's not so much as her granddaughter - she's going to be important later. I'll post the next chapters in a bit.[/i]
Comma Joined: 4 September 2008 Posts: 14	Posted: Thursday 4 September 2008 08 43 39 pm    Post subject: A Gaunt Tale in topic:A Gaunt Tale [i]I've been working at this fic for a while. I've got about seventeen chapers posted up on fanfiction.net on my account. It's Marauder era, but it contains spoilers regarding the horcruxes and the deathly hallows themselves, so I figured I'd do best to post it here. It's centered around an original character of the Gaunt family (yep, Voldy's family), the Marauders, Lily, Snape, Voldy himself, and a few of his Hogwarts-bound followers (Bellatrix and Narcissa Black included). [b]There [u]will[/u] be a few grammatical errors within the first chapters that I never got around to fixing.[/b] [b]Genres[/b]: Fantasy, Romance, somewhat Suspense (as far as people have told me...) [b]The summary:[/b] Katalina Gaunt entered Hogwarts in her first year, only to be withdrawn from the school by her father immediately after she is sorted into Gryffindor, for homeschooling that he feels is more appropriate to someone of a herritage as "noble" as hers. She runs away at the age of fifteen to make it into Hogwarts for her fifth year, where she meets one troublemaker she would like nothing more than to hex, one she starts to develop a rather perturbing love/hate relationship with, a few new friends, and a few mortal enemies. Personal relationships turn out to be the least of her worries when she realizes there is a murderer on the loose within the school grounds and nothing she can do to prevent it without anyone close to her becoming the next victims. I think I'll post up the first two chapters to start with.[/i] ------------------------- [b]Chapter 1 Dementor's Search[/b] Katalina Gaunt was to be starting her fifth year at Hogwarts. She knew it would be a hard year, having never actually been to Hogwarts before. She was a member of the Gaunt family, a strictly pureblood family, a family that had been sorted into the Slytherin house for years, who was in Gryffindor. She was most definitely afraid. Had she not been homeschooled her whole life, she would have been alright with entering her fifth year at Hogwarts. However, since her fifth year was the equivalent of her first, it was impossible for her to feel at all comfortable with it. True, Katalina had come to Hogwarts when she was eleven, just like most other eleven year old witches and wizards. Then, a week after being sorted into Gryffindor, her father pulled her out of the school to teach her his own courses. The History of Magic became The History of the Dark Arts. Defense against the Dark Arts was just the Dark Arts. Potions included how to make undetectable poisons, and how to detect them. She still had Transfiguration, but the course was twisted to her father's style. The standard Charms course was a course for learning curses and hexes. She also had to study her family history and learn the connection of the dark arts with her ancestors. It just went back and back and back, right on back to Salazar Slytherin himself and further back even than him. Katalina had come from a long line of dark witches and wizards, most certainly. She herself was a break in the chain, and her father was attempting to mold her back into the chain. Her brother was perfectly okay with the dark arts. He was in his seventh year at Hogwarts, a Slytherin prefect. He was always willing to help discipline his disobedient sibling at home. There was only one method of discipline, and that was the Cruciatus Curse, the Torture Curse, one of the three Unforgivable Curses. Summer was a time she dreaded, for her brother and her father to be in the same house as her both at once was a nightmare. She definitely wasn't going to miss that at all. Now, here she stood, at Platform Nine and Three Quarters, just looking at the steam engine train. It was a sight that represented both her freedom from her father and her fear of the unknown. It gave her a scared feeling of relief that she could have never explained if she had tried to with all her might. Seeing all the loving families bidding their children goodbye was the one thing that seemed to damage her the most. Where was her caring family? Why couldn't she, just a fifteen year old with a hard life to put behind her, have what everyone else had? Was she not worthy of a family? Maybe she wasn't worthy of even having friends. She was a Gaunt in Gryffindor, after all, the rival house of Slytherin at Hogwarts. That didn't say much for her. Her last name said she was an evil, dark witch, but her house said that she wasn't even good at that. Who could ever befriend someone like her? Her question was answered in little more than a few seconds later, when a girl about her age stopped in front of her. She was about the same height as Katalina, and had a medium auburn hair color, and bright green eyes. The boy that was with her looked somewhat unsociable. His eyes were dark, his black hair was shoulder length and greasy, and he had a rather large nose and pale complexion that made him appear rather sinister. "Hi. I'm Lily Evans; this is my friend Severus Snape." She offered her hand, and they shook hands. Severus nodded in acknowledgement, so Katalina did the same. "Katalina... Gaunt..." she said, a little reluctant to release her surname. "Have you been to Hogwarts before?" Lily asked curiously. "We didn't recognize you." "I --" Katalina started, a little panicked about the question. She didn't think anyone would have asked it. Nonetheless, she managed a simple reply. "My father wouldn't let me come to Hogwarts, I was homeschooled." "Really?" Lily said. "With Albus Dumbledore headmaster?" She seemed a bit intrigued, and Katalina found herself walking onto the train with them. "He's been the best thing to happen to Hogwarts since it was founded, according to most." "Some don't believe..." she said evasively. "My dad doesn't like him... I didn't know why... mind if I hold onto that?" she asked one of the prefects, what was putting her larger luggage into one of the side compartments of the train; she grabbed her guitar case from him and continued in with Lily and Severus. Lily seemed nice enough, definitely, but the boy with her seemed distant; she, however, couldn't say much more for herself. "What about your mum?" Lily asked as the three of them found a compartment to sit in; an empty one. They all seemed larger inside than they were outside, clearly enough for eight people to easily fit into, four people per bench. The three of them took one bench, as Katalina's kitten jumped into her lap and mewed. "She couldn't have very well said with her current state..." Katalina said. "Our old house burned when I was a baby, her body was never even found. We still don't know what caused the fire… or who, if that's the case." She evaded any more questions on the subject of her mother’s death by continuing onto a different subject matter. "I just ran away from my dad, stayed in the Leaky Cauldron all summer. I took the key to my mum's account at Gringott’s; she'd left it all to me anyway. Got tired of being cooped up all day." "What year're you in? We're both in fifth." "Me too... and Gryffindor," she added. "Drove me dad nuts, he wanted another Slytherin in the family, we had all been for ages." "I can't believe parents get broken up over things so silly..." she said. "Muggleborn?" Katalina asked. "Yes," she said. "I never had to worry about it. Sev did..." she added, looking over a little cautiously -- he could apparently be rather touchy on this subject. "Mum kept saying I was a filthy half-breed and didn't deserve to be put in Slytherin," he said. "So I wanted to just to prove I did deserve it, and I did. Put her in her place, but she still doesn't like me very much. Nor does my dad, but he didn't know he was marrying a witch at the time." "My family had apparently been a long line of pure blood Slytherins that claimed to be descended from Salazar Slytherin himself... so, naturally, me being the first to break this cycle, my dad wanted me dead... I wouldn't doubt we did descend from him..." she added. "Been rumors about different bits of the Gaunt family everywhere..." "Gaunt..." Lily said, remembering something. "Are you related to Alfred Gaunt?" "Yes..." she said, quite grudgingly. "My brother... different mum than me, according to my dad. I don't really... get along with him." She sounded as though she were trying to put their feelings towards each other lightly. "Me and Dad had a huge row before I left, he told me I was just like my great aunt, running off against her father's wishes." She laughed slightly. "I told him if her dad was anything like him, then I couldn't blame her." "Why don't you try to find her?" "Couldn't if I wanted to," she said. "She died an hour after having a baby, turns out she'd given the muggle she'd run off with a love potion, but eventually stopped, and he left her, but she was already pregnant. She had the baby in an orphanage, it's possible whoever the child is now doesn't even have a clue who their parents are, so I couldn't track them down very well, and wouldn't be mentioned in our family history, being a... what was it my dad said... a 'filthy tainted half blood with an ungrateful blood traitor of a mother'." She sighed. "He really is quite a wonderful person," she added with sarcastic admiration; Lily and Severus both laughed. "Have you heard your brother's theory on the child?" Lily asked. "I try to avoid him and my dad during summer, them together is a nightmare." "He took a different view on it than your father, apparently," Severus said. "He claims that the child grew up to be Voldemort." "Really?" Katalina said, a little stunned at this. "He's always taken sides with my dad at home. Probably just looking to impress his friends. But then..." "What?" Lily said, a little fearful -- Voldemort was the wizard slowly working his way towards being the most feared dark wizard of all time. Most people didn't even dare speak his name aloud. She thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. "No, he's just being an arsehead, my brother's always been known for coming up with stories that benefit his own status." She shrugged it off, and as Severus appeared to be about to speak again, they were interrupted with guffaws of laughter outside, probably a few feet from the door. "God, not already." Lily gave an exasperated sigh. She got up and looked out the window, as did Severus. "What?" Katalina asked. She did the same, and managed to get a decent look out the window at a growing crowd. "The local baboons have broken out of their cage." Lily was scowling towards the front of the crowd. "James Potter and Sirius Black. The short chunkier one is Peter Pettigrew, follows the other two around worshipping them like Gods. Don't know who the fourth is, he must be new." She saw someone who was clearly a Slytherin prefect dangling upside down from his ankle in midair, a boy with shoulder length black hair controlling this, three of his friends with him, and a crowd of people around them, laughing. Katalina recognized this prefect, clearly, as her brother. She followed the other two out the door. She nearly laughed a little herself, but kindly decided not to. Alfred was most likely older than the boy and his friends, and begging to be put down. It was, however, a bit cruel. Katalina, who'd mastered silent spells extremely early and extremely well, was deciding between spells to use to kindly help out her brother. She took her time deciding, and Lily pushed her way to the front of the crowd. Katalina heard her speaking from the back. "Can't you idiots at least save it until you get off the train?" she snapped at the four in front. "No," said the one using the spell. "Gaunt here was mouthing off at us for being outside our compartment while the train's moving." "Well, it's dangerous!" she said. "And prefects're supposed to," she added. "You're not supposed to be out here." "And you are?" asked another, the one with black messy hair and glasses. "Or did you come out here just to tell us off? Not wise, you see what happened to Al. You're lucky, I'm too polite to hex a girl, and Sirius is occupied at the moment." "I could do two at once," Sirius said. "Just let me use your wand, James." "Nah, then I'd practically be doing it." Lily was pulling out her own wand now. "Oh, look, she's nice enough to let me use her own wand!" Sirius said with sarcastic enthusiasm. She pointed it at him. "Like you'll do anything," Sirius scoffed at her. Suddenly, he was being hoisted up by his ankle, but Lily wasn't doing it. Katalina made it to the front of the crowd, as he dropped his own wand and her brother fell with a small thud! on the carpet. Katalina had her own wand pointed at Sirius. "She's too polite," Katalina said. The crowed Oooohed at the sudden intervention. "Let me down!" Sirius said, trying and failing to reach his wand. Alfred stood up and grabbed his own wand. He put Sirius down, and Katalina directed her focus to him. "Look at this," Alfred said. "Two of the people I dislike most getting detentions before school's even started. Report to Filch at eight o' clock on Monday night." He grinned maliciously, then, grin fading, turned focus to Katalina. "I don't need help from any filthy blood traitors." Rather than glower at him, as most would have done, she grabbed his collar and pushed him into the wall, wand pointed in between his eyes. "And I don't need lip from people who's arses I've just saved by choice," she snarled back. Then, with a grin, she added, "And it didn't seem like you were about to get out of it yourself, you know." She put on a high pitched, mocking voice. "'Please, please put me down! I won't give you detention, I won't take points away from your house, please, please, please, I'm sorry! I'll never bother you again, I promise!' Yeah," she said, over guffaws of laughter at her impersonation, even from the boy she'd just used his own spell on. "I'm sure you had the situation completely under your control." She lowered her wand, then, as she'd expected, had to dodge a jet of red light; it could have easily been mistaken as a stunning spell, but she knew otherwise. She glanced over her shoulder. "You'd have been getting a lot worse than detention if that had hit me, Al," she said coldly. Her and Lily made their ways to the back of the crowd, followed by quite a few Ooooooo's at her last statement, from those who'd taken it as a threat. She, Lily, and Severus made their way back into their compartment, as the crowd faded. However, the other four, lingered for a moment, even as everyone else filed back into their compartments. The four of them; Sirius Black, James Potter, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew, waited until the rest of them were gone, except themselves and Al Gaunt, and Sirius spoke. "She doesn't get two detentions for that, at least?" he asked, a little disappointed. "Shut up!" Al snapped at him, walking off. "Alright, then..." James said, a bit confused, as they watched him walk away to his own compartment, then slam the door after him. "That's a little odd..." ------------------------------------------------- Inside their compartment, Severus and Lily were both questioning her as to how she'd known that spell. "What's the big deal?" she asked. "It's pretty much the same as Wingardium Leviosa, only directed exactly at an ankle. And besides, I could've learned it out of one of my spell books, for all you know." "That wouldn't be possible," he assured her. "Why not?" "Because I made that spell," he said. "Levicorpus. It was designed as you said, Wingardium Leviosa directed at an ankle, but it's easier just to have one incantation without worrying about where to direct the spell, as long as it's directed at a person in general. It's Libertacorpus to let them down, and it's usually used as a silent spell, so no one ever knows when they're going to be hoisted up by their ankle in the middle of a corridor at school." "How come you didn't get another detention when you threatened your brother like that? And twice, for that matter," Lily asked. "Deep down inside that cold exterior, I think he's afraid of what I'll do to him when I'm not under the watch of his daddy," she said, grinning. "And the second time wasn't a threat..." she added, both coldly and a little nervously. "Anyone who's dumb enough to do that under such close watch is dangerous..." "But it was just a Stunning spell," Lily said, confused. "No," Katalina said. "I assure you it wasn't. Stunning spells don't feel hot when they pass the side of your neck." She lifted her hair and pointed to a red mark that would most likely turn into a burn blister within the next hour. "Also, the shape they're fired in is a spiral of red sparks, not a straight jet." "Then what was it?" she asked. "The Cruciatus Curse..." she said. Lily gasped and clasped her hands over her mouth. Severus looked surprised as well. "The Cruciatus Curse?" he repeated. "On the Hogwarts Express?" "Like I said," she sighed. "Anyone to do that is stupid and dangerous. I wasn't threatening him, I was stating the facts..." "He could easily get arrested for it," Lily agreed. "Could you both do me a favor and not mention to anyone I'm related to him yet?" she asked. "People'll figure it out eventually, but I'd like to delay people knowing my relation to him for as long as possible..." They both agreed. At that time, they heard voices close to their door, one of them quite angry, the others amused. They burst into the compartment, Sirius with his wand out. He stopped in front of Katalina and pointed it at her. "How the bloody hell did you get out of that?" he demanded, while the other three laughed. Lily looked ready to chop off Sirius's arm, and Severus glared in the opposite direction. "Out of what?" she said incredulously, standing up as well. She pulled out her own wand and pushed him down onto the other bench-like seat unexpectedly; he dropped his wand next to him, staring crosseyed at the one now pointed between his own eyes. "In case you didn't notice, I've got a detention as well, and I for one hope we've got them with different teachers, or I'll end up hexing you halfway through and getting another!" "I'm talking about from threatening a school prefect twice in under a minute!" he shot back, but recoiled when he remembered he wasn't in the best position to mouth off. "He figured on using his own methods of punishment rather than detention," she said. "I suppose you didn't notice that that wasn't a normal Stunning spell he fired?" "Wha...?" She sighed and lowered her wand. She sat back down, as the other three came in and did the same, on the bench seat Sirius was on rather than the other. "That was the Cruciatus Curse, idiot. A Stunning spell can't burn your skin, and I've got one hell of a nasty burn mark on my neck, I'm lucky I dodged it when I did. And a stunning spell is spiraled, the Cruciatus Curse is a straight jet of sparks." "Get real," James said. "With all the guard around here he wouldn't have dared use that on another student." "Look it up," she said. "You'll see I'm one hundred percent correct, whether you like it or not. He's apparently not the brightest person in the world." "Apparently..." James said. "There're teachers on the train, we've seen a few of them, its surprising none of them came out to see what was going on." Their attention turned as Sirius spotted Severus. "Snivellus!" he said, in a mock friendly voice. He didn't turn his head from the window out into the hallway. "Didn't see you in our crowd of fans and admirers." "He was too scared he'd be next," James said, laughing. He appeared to be trying to ignore James's and Sirius's taunts. "Cut it out," Lily said. "Make us," James said. She and Katalina both, at the same time, pulled out their wands and stood. Lily pointed her wand at James, and Katalina pointed hers at Sirius. "I'm perfectly willing to," Katalina shot at both of them. "You, Lily?" she asked. "Definitely," she said, jabbing it into James's forehead. He winced. "That hurt!" he said. "It'll hurt even worse if you keep on with this nonsense!" she said. "Now stop it!" "I wasn't thinking of hurting, really," Katalina said, looking over at Lily. "I was thinking a good strong Confundus charm. Make them think they're baboons. They must have gotten Confunded in the past, too, seeing as they're under the illusion that they're people at the moment." Sirius had taken the opportunity in which she'd looked away to grab his own wand; when she turned back, he was pointing his at her. She sat down, and the both continued pointing and glaring. Lily looked down at them, shook her head, and sat down herself, putting her own wand away. ----------------------------------------- "Would you two call a truce already or something?" she said to Sirius and Katalina after half an hour of them still silently pointing their wands at each other and glaring. "You know, before you become mortal enemies?" "She's a Slytherin, I'm guessing?" Sirius asked spitefully. "Funny, I thought you'd be one," Katalina said. "Dangling people from their ankle in the middle of the hall, honestly!" "She's a Gryffindor," Lily said. "Wish I had been a Slytherin," Katalina said, a little thoughtfully, a little grudgingly. "I'm glad I'm in Gryffindor, I didn't want to be in Slytherin at first.... My dad had doubts I would be, and he wanted me to be, so he decided to home school me for the first year, just to see. When I was sorted, they send the Sorting Hat with a Hogwarts employee to houses of children who may be in Hogwarts the next year, I was put in Gryffindor." "How'd you get out of being homeschooled if it pissed him off that bad?" James asked. "Ran away," she said happily. "And I'm never going back to that place again. I don't care if I have to stay at inns for all my summers. I'd rather be alone. I've got inheritance money from my mum, stole the key to her vault, she left it all to me anyway, so I don't need financial support and I can easily pay for costs of inns and hotels." "Inheritance?" Sirius said, lowering his wand without realizing he had. "She died in a fire when I was about six months old," she said. "No big deal. If my dad was married to her, God only knows how horrible she was... I know that's no way to talk about your dead parents that you've never met, but it's the truth. He'd've never married a blood traitor muggle lover. Curious, they never found her body in the fire, but with the amount of her blood they found, it's been figured out she wouldn't have lasted long even if she had gotten out." "If it was a fire..." James said slowly, "... then how was there blood?" "The hell if I know," she said with a shrug. "My dad never gave me the full set of details of everything that happened; he didn't like talking about it. Only thing that ever got to him." James had started to speak again, but was distracted by the luggage rack. "Is that a guitar?" he asked, pointing. "Go near it and you'll regret that you were ever born," she said. Everyone looked over at her, even Severus, who'd been so keen on looking out the window. "Sorry," she said. "It's just that it's the last thing I have to remind me of how much my dad despised me. He always hated it. The fact I used electricity in his house. I purposely didn't bewitch the amplifier to run by magic until I left. Annoyed the hell out of him, but I'd hex him if he ever set a foot near it," she said relishingly. "Good times." "There aren't even any electrical outlets in my house..." Sirius said. She laughed. "I put one in my room myself. Without magic. Bought the tools to do it at the local hardware store. Annoyed him even more that I did that when I could have just conjured everything out of the air." Slowly, as they continued talking, the train began to come to a halt. By the time they were all properly introduced, the train had stopped. They noticed this. "We can't be there yet..." Sirius said, looking out the window, his hands pressed against it. "No," he said. "Someone's getting on, it looks like," he told them. As though burned or shocked, he pulled his hands back. "What the..." The window started to freeze and crack. "Dementors?" "Dementors?" Katalina repeated, disbelieving, and looked out the window herself. "There's been a rumor going around that Voldemort --" there were shudders within the compartment, except from Katalina, who was used to the name in her household, Severus, and Sirius. "-- tried to get a teaching job at Hogwarts," Severus said. "I heard that," Katalina said. "Then again, maybe they're coming to take away that prefect," she added hopefully. There were a few nervous laughs around the compartment; dementors were nearly as feared as Voldemort himself. Dementors were creatures that guarded the wizard prison, Azkaban. They were tall, hooded, and faceless, except for a gaping hole that was their mouth. They didn't see people, they felt fear. They went towards the source of the fear and would feed off of all the happy thoughts within the mind of that person, until nothing was left but the bad memories. They had once been people themselves, some of them, but had since had their own souls sucked from their bodies. They couldn't kill, but their finishing move was the Dementor's Kiss, where they'd clamp their jaws down on their victem's jaws and proceed to suck out their soul, leaving them a shell with a beating heart, but no will to live, and, eventually, they'd either waste away or become dementors themselves. "Still, to search Hogwarts and the train..." James said. "There've been plenty cases of dementors going bad," Lily said. "Especially lately, You-Know-Who's been persuading them over to his side. It's awfully risky bussiness..." "I suppose they'll search... all the compartments?" Katalina asked nervously, her grip tightening on her wand. "Yeah..." Lily said. "Probably..." They all sat silently in wait, and then, the lights in their compartment went out, and they could see their breath in little puffs of fog. "They're getting closer..." she said quietly, more to herself than the others. She tried to muster up an overpoweringly happy memory. Nothing seemed to do; the dementors seemed to be leaking fear and sorrow into their compartment already. A scabbed, black, skeletal hand reached over the window of their compartment. She was ready; she was remembering the moment she stepped onto Diagon Alley; the feeling of being freed. It opened the door, and there were at least five there. And no teachers keeping an eye on them? That was risky. The door opened, and they started to swoop in. Katalina stood, pointed her wand, and said the incantation clearly: "Expecto Patronum." She thought of nothing but that thought, and maintained focus on it, even as a silver phoenix burst out of the end of her wand and darted at the dementors. They turned quickly and left, making odd screaching noises that had to be their form of a scream. She flicked her wand, and the phoenix vanished, then the compartment door closed. The lights flicked back on; she had apparently scared the dementors off the train altogether. Lily hit her. "You could have said you knew how to do that!" she said loudly, hitting her in the arm again with her own wand. The four on the other bench were laughing at her reaction. "I didn't know if I'd be able to or not -- careful with that thing, you're about to catch my bleedin' arm on fire!" Lily made a noise of frustration, glared at Katalina for a moment as she put her wand away, then decided to stare at the bottom of the luggage rack over her head. "At least they're gone..." Katalina said sheepishly with a shrug. They heard someone running down the hall of the train. An old, stern looking witch stopped at the door of their compartment and opened it. Her hair was black and drawn back in a tight bun. She looked completely astounded. "Which of you conjured it?" she demanded of them. Sirius, James, Remus, and Peter stopped laughing immediately. "Which of you conjured the Patronus?" "The Pa-what-us?" Sirius said blankly, voicing what the rest of them were definitely thinking, except Katalina. She looked a little scared. She sheepishly raised her hand, her eyes even wider than usual. This made them laugh again. "Come with me," she said. Katalina got up and walked out of the compartment slowly with whomever the witch was that was standing there in emerald green robes. ----------------------------------- [i]Side info: -I have teachers placed on the train due to the fact that this is around the time that Voldemort would be at a height of power, and I figured Hogwarts would want to have more than train workers and prefects there in case anyone on Voldemorts side has been stationed on the train. -Lupin is a "new student" for reasons involving future things in this story that I can't give away -- I know it's not how it happened in the books or anything, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.[/i] --------------------------------------------- [b]Chapter 2: Veritaserum[/b] "Please don't send me home..." Katalina begged the witch sheepishly. "That's not what we're concerned with right now," she said. She most certainly looked concerned about something. Katalina followed her down the hallway after she shut the door. They stopped at a teacher's compartment, and the woman opened the door, and indicated for Katalina to go in first. She did so, and the woman closed the door after her. Three other people who were apparently teachers sat in the room. This witch took a seat behind a desk. "Sit," she said, indicating the chair in front of her desk. Katalina did as told. "I'm assuming you're Katalina Gaunt?" She grimaced a little. "I prefer Smith..." she mumbled. The woman looked at her oddly. "... Katalina Smith?" she asked. "I don't like my family very much..." "I'll address you as Gaunt for the time being, it's your enrollment name. "Now, Katalina, I am Professor McGonagall, the head of Gryffindor House and Transfiguration teacher. This --" She indicated a wizard with ginger hair, balding and graying, and a little on the chubby side. "-- is our potions master and head of Slytherin House, Professor Slughorn. This is Professor Sprout, your Herbology teacher and head of Hufflepuff. This is Professor Flitwick, Charms teacher and head of Ravenclaw." She nodded in turn to each of them as she was introduced to them. "Now, Miss Gaunt here," McGonagall said, resulting in another slight grimace on Katalina's part, "has produced a Patronus Charm. She is in only her fifth year. A Patronus Charm is seventh year level magic, and most of them have trouble with it. The dementors detected a presence in her compartment that they recognized to be in relation to what they were searching for, whether in family ties or personality, they could not say." Katalina was horribly afraid. "Professor Slughorn, you have the Veritaserum, I believe?" Slughorn handed over a tiny bottle of a clear liquid. "Katalina," Professor McGonagall said. "You seem quite sincere, but, by Ministry orders, we must use Veritaserum to interrogate you." She nodded, gulping. "Wh... what does... V-veritaserum do...?" she asked. "It forces the drinker to tell the truth at all costs." She nodded. "It is tasteless, scentless, and clear, as you can see. It'll be like water to you, but you will tell the truth upon drinking it, as it will force you to without thinking about your answer first." She nodded, yet again, taking the bottle. She uncorked it, and drank it. It did, indeed, seem like water. She didn't feel any difference in herself. "State your true name," Professor McGonagall said. "Katalina Arianna Gaunt," she said. "Why are you here?" "To go to Hogwarts." "For what reasons?" "To learn." "Learn what?" "Whatever the classes I have chosen to take this year offer me as learning material." "Do you have any relation to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?" "I do not know." "That's interesting..." Katalina heard Slughorn say. "Have you met him?" McGonagall continued. "No." "Do you have a family connection with him?" "Yes." "Very interesting, indeed," McGonagall said. "Who?" "My father is one of his most devoted and important followers, some have called him Voldemort's right-hand-man." "And how do you feel about you father's connection with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?" "It sickens me to the very pit of my stomach." "That's good... "Did you produce the Patronus charm that scared off the Death Eaters?" "Yes." "What form was it in?" "A phoenix." Everyone in the room gasped, except McGonagall, though she did appear astounded. "Could... could you show us?" Katalina took her wand from her pocket. She stood, walked behind the chair, and pointed it at the chair seat. "Expecto Patronum," she said aloud. The phoenix burst from her wand again, and it perched on the edge of the chair. "How long can you hold it there?" Professor McGonagall asked. Katalina pocketed her wand, and the bird was still there. "Until I tell her to go." "How long have you been able to make a Patronus?" "A few weeks," she said. "How did you learn?" "From a seventh year course book that I bought at Flourish and Blotts’ in Diagon Alley for a bit of light reading." "How long did it take to learn?" "Around five minutes." McGonagall swallowed nervously, looking around at the rest of the teachers. "How long does it normally take to learn for most students?" she asked them. "Weeks," Flitwick piped; his voice was as high as he was low; he was only tall enough to come up just past Katalina's knee. "And most of them give up before producing a true Patronus." "Is it true you were homeschooled by your father?" McGonagall asked Katalina. "Sort of." "What did he teach you?" "Nothing in the course books," she said. "He taught me dark magic, against my will, and of the history of it, and of my own family history." "And he did not include the Dark Lord in this family history?" "He did not," she said. "Was there anyone in particular that stuck out?" "Yes... an unknown halfblood child, and I heard that my brother is suspicious about it." "Does he know about the child’s parents?" "Yes. Its mother is my great-great aunt, Merope Gaunt. Its father was a muggle she made like her by love potions." "Do you know anything about the child's mother?" “According to my father, she 'disgraced our family name' when she ran off with him. She became pregnant by him, and stopped giving him the potion, thinking he'd still love her. He didn't, he left to live with his parents. She was broken, scared, and distraught, and had the baby at a muggle orphanage, where she herself died an hour after its birth." "The father," McGonagall choked out. "Did you know his name?" "Tom Riddle." McGonagall and Slughorn seemed to be particularly worried by this. "Do you know the Dark Lord's real name?" "No." "Good," McGonagall said. "And you won't until the time is right..." She raised her wand and pointed it at Katalina. "Obliviate," she said quietly. A blue beam of light hit Katalina, and she stared blankly ahead. "You are to forget this conversation. You will remember being here, but the conversation will be a complete blank. You will figure out that I Confunded you while you still are here." Katalina, still looking blankly ahead, nodded. McGonagall flicked her wand at Katalina again, who snapped back. "Why am I here?" she asked. "What do you mean, Miss Gaunt?" "I mean, aren't you going to interrogate me?" she asked. She looked down. Her phoenix was still there. "How'd my Patronus get there?" she demanded. She looked up at McGonagall. "You've Confunded my memory of the interrogation," she said accusingly, pointing at her. "I have," McGonagall agreed. "It's the only way to keep you safe." "Did you use anything that might make me tell you anything I didn't want to...?" she asked, suddenly noticing the miniature flask in her hand. She set it on the table. "Yes, Veritaserum, only a small dosage. It makes the drinker tell the complete truth about everything." "I want to know what I said!" "I cannot tell you that until another time, Miss Gaunt." "But if I said something I didn't know I knew or that incriminates someone --" "You didn't." "But I don't know what I said, how can I believe that?!" "You'll have to believe it for now, Miss Gaunt. You did say you learned the Patronus in around five minutes." "I did," she said. "I know. It was weird; the book said it could take up to a year, sometimes more, to get your Patronus to have a true form. It was extremely difficult magic. But I didn't find it to be, really. I can teleport it, too." She looked at the Patronus, as though communicating with it silently, and it disappeared, reappearing in front of Professor McGonagall, atop her desk, gazing at her. "And..." she said, and, focusing quite hard on the Patronus, it spoke with her voice, "I can make it speak for me." Professor McGonagall was astounded, as were the rest of the teachers. She looked almost afraid of this. "Is it... bad that I can...?" "No," McGonagall assured her. "Anything but bad. It's... it's amazing magic, we don't even teach that. Very few of the staff can do it, even. Out of curiosity, how far can you teleport it?" "As far as I want. As it is a piece of my memory, I can see through its eyes or my own when I teleport it. I can only teleport it to places I have an address for or places I've been before, though." "It's impossible to do otherwise," she assured her. "I thought it was impossible for a fifth year student to do at all, honestly, to make a perfect Patronus charm... but I've been proven wrong, I suppose. You may head back to your friends now. But, if James Potter and Sirius Black are still there, you may want to be careful not to tell them we've used Veritaserum. The effects won't wear off for the next hour." "Yes', ma'am," she said. She looked at her Patronus, and it dissolved on the desk in a puff of silvery smoke. Katalina turned and walked to the door. She opened it, stepped out, and, as she was closing it, heard Professor McGonagall's voice, speaking to another teacher, one word: "Amazing..." She shut the door and headed back to her compartment. She opened the door silently, shut it behind her, and took her seat next to the window outside. "So how long will they be letting you stay at the school?" James asked brightly. She glared at him. "I'd smack you if you were closer," she assured him coldly. "I'm not being chucked out, thank you; they only wanted to question me." "About what?" Remus asked. "I have no idea," she said. "What kind of questions? About the Patronus?" Sirius asked. "I really don't know," she said. "McGonagall Confunded me after the questioning." "Did they use Veritaserum?" James asked. "Yes," she said, though she really hadn't wanted to. She could tell it was working. "Has it worn off?" Sirius asked. "Professor McGonagall said it would stay for another hour." "Don't even think about it, you two," Lily said warningly. "Oh, why not?" James asked pleadingly. "It just seems like it would be so much fun! If she hadn't meant for us to question her ourselves, then she would have made her wait back in the teacher's compartment." "She told me not to mention I was under the influence of Veritaserum," she said. "Then why did you?" Lily demanded. "They asked me," she said. "You could've lie -- oh, right... never mind..." "Please don't ask me about my family," she said. "I really don't want to talk about them. I didn't want to say yes, but the effect is that it makes you tell the truth without giving you time to think and it doesn't let you lie after saying the true statement." "May we ask what your surname is, since you conveniently forgot to mention it earlier?" James asked. "You can…. Meaning you're capable of doing so. But I wish you wouldn't." "What if we do anyway?" "Then I'd tell the truth unwillingly." "Then what's --" "Don't!" Lily yelled at them. She pulled out her wand and pointed it at him. "She told me not to tell anyone, so her telling you unwillingly while I'm here is practically the same thing! Stop it! I will do it!" She stood up, still pointing it at him. "Thank you," Katalina said gratefully. "Is it that embarrassing?" Sirius asked. "Is to me." "Sounds funny?" James asked. "Not really, I guess." "She's ashamed of her family, alright?" Lily said. "Do you really need to know anything else?" "It's not because they're muggles? Or one of her parents was a muggle or a muggle born?" James said. "Because then I'd have to hex her." "No," Katalina said. "That's not why. I'd rather it be that way in fact." "Insufferable purebloods, I'll bet," Sirius said to James. "You would be one to know," James said to Sirius, nodding. “Alright, before we run out of time," James continued, Lily lowering her wand and sitting back down. "Un-family related shit. What to ask first..." "Where the bloody hell did you learn to do a Pa... Pa-thing-a-ma-what's-it-called?" Sirius asked. "Patronus." Lily corrected, laughing. "Oh, shut up, it's not my problem your brain's getting too bloody big for your skull..." "A seventh year course book," she said. "I bought it to read and see what the hardest things I'd learn would be, and I thought Patronuses sounded cool, so I gave it a go." "How long did it take to learn?" Lily asked. "About five minutes," she said. "They said it was a year before it would take actual form," she said. "But I didn't find it very hard at all. I can also make mine teleport and I can talk through it." "What kind of bird was it?" Lily asked. "It looked like a phoenix," she said. "It was a phoenix." "Wow..." she said. "Is the veritaserum still working?" James said. "Yes." "Thought it would be a good idea to double-check..." "Have you ever seen a dragon?" Sirius asked. They all looked at him oddly. "Hey, we're asking random questions now," he said. "I don't know anyone who's seen a dragon before." "No," she said. "Do you have any abilities that're rare to the wizarding world?" She didn't want to answer. She resisted. She resisted for nearly a minute. But she couldn't. "I can do magic without a wand," she breathed out. "And... and..." her voice quavered. "Is it wearing off already?" James asked. "No..." she strained. "I think she's trying to resist telling you something," Lily said. "I can talk to..." she said. "To... to..." She gulped. "I can talk to snakes." They were all quiet, staring at her oddly. She looked at the floor. It was exactly why she had resisted telling them. "When did you find out?" Lily asked. "I was two..." she said. "Two years old... I remember. My dad decided to test it... common in my family... I could already speak perfect English, he'd said, I remember, so we should see if I could speak Parseltongue like most of the rest of my family... and I could... I hate him for making me realize I could... I hate him..." "Don't all the Parselmouths end up in Slytherin?" Remus asked. "It's hard to track," Sev said. "I'd bet at least 99% had. But there's always odd cases in everything...." "Why did he want to know if you could?" Lily asked. "To... to... to make sure I really was his daughter..." she said. "Because his hatred of muggles wasn't reflected by me... or of muggleborns... halfbloods... he didn't understand why, so he tested... that... to see if I was truly a member of his family..." "So your entire family is?" Sirius asked. "Yes," she said. "As far back as we can trace it... all Parselmouths... all Slytherins... except me, and he doesn't like it, he tried to turn me into a Slytherin himself... please don't ask me any more about them..." she said. "I think I told McGonagall something about them that I hadn't put together myself and she managed to... she wouldn't tell me, but I think she did, and she wasn't telling me because she said it wasn't the right time to yet..." "But --" James started. "No," Lily said, amazingly at the same time as Sirius. Both of them looked at Sirius. "I'm ashamed of my family, and I know I'd be pissed as hell if someone force fed me Veritaserum and started asking me about them,” Sirius said. "If any of you tell anyone I'm a Parselmouth, I'll kill you," she said. "Literally?" James said. "Could be, depending on how upset I am," she said. "Okay," he said. "I value my life, I'm not going to. "Do you have an invisibility cloak?" "Yes," she said. "Yes, actually. Amazing thing, really, even when my dad tried to summon it, it would never come off me unless I physically pulled it off of myself. You could hide from Death himself under that cloak. And most of them, the charms wear off after a while; this one'd been in my mom's family for forever, according to her will. I thought it was amazing when I read about it. Reminded me of that one story in a collection of Beedle the Bard stories I read when I was young, the three brothers. My dad had that page marked and some symbol over it circled, it was weird." "I didn't ask her, in my defense," James said to Lily and Sirius. "I only --" "I know," Lily said. "It means the potion's starting to wear off. She can say things other than the answers now, but she tells the complete truth about them anyway." "What did the symbol look like?" Sirius asked. "Looked like a rune, but it isn't one," she said. "A triangle with a circle and a line in it. Book said something about the deathly hallows under there, where my dad had written in it, but I couldn’t make anything of it.” "The deathly hallows..." Lily said. "I've never heard of that before..." "Where’s the cloak?" James asked. She reached into her pocket and commenced to pulling something long and silvery out, that looked almost fluid-like, except that it couldn't have been, or it would have made the pocket of her skirt wet, or wouldn't have stayed in her pocket. She finished pulling it out; it was big enough to fit a fully grown adult. "There's no way that could have fit in your pocket without shrinking," Lily said. "I've read about invisibility cloaks --" "And everything else on God's green earth," James added. She kicked him in the knee. "I've read about them, none of them do that." "Do you know summoning spells?" she asked Lily. "You seem to be the smartest person in the compartment." "Yes," Lily said, laughing at the glares Katalina was getting from James and Sirius. "I'll put the cloak on, you summon something else first to prove you can, then try the cloak." "I know summoning spells too," Sirius said. "And so does James." "Alright," Lily said. Katalina threw the cloak over herself. Lily thought for a moment, then decided. "Accio wand," she said, pointing at James, whose wand flew out of his pocket and into her hand. "Hey!" he said. She handed it back, laughing. "Alright, now try the cloak," Katalina's apparently disembodied voice said. "Shall I put my hands out to prove I'm not holding it?" "Sure." Her hands appeared out of nowhere. "Accio invisibility cloak!" she said, clearly determined to make the spell work. The cloak didn't budge. She took it off, straightening out her hair. "Wish mine did that..." James said, admiring the cloak. "Mine doesn't even look the same..." "She just wasn't trying hard enough," Sirius said, pulling out his own wand. "It doesn't nescisarily have to be on," she said, folding it and placing it in her lap. "Try." "Accio invisibility cloak!" he said. It didn't budge. "Accio invisibility cloak!" he said, a little more forceful. "Careful," James said. "I don't want mine thinking it's being called and springing out of my luggage." "I don't get it..." he said, looking at the cloak, frowning. "Maybe it really is the cloak from the story," James said. "Yeah," Katalina said with a laugh. "And maybe a female Hungarian Horntail would give you her eggs without a fight if you asked her nicely. Kids stories," she concluded quite firmly. "They're made to entertain and teach a lesson. In this one, the lesson is actually the motto of the Ravenclaw House," she said. "'Wit beyond measure is a man's greatest treasure.' While the older brothers asked for material things that could be stolen or misused, the youngest, smartest brother decided to think of something that would fool Death, and hide him and his gift from the rest of the world so it couldn't be stolen." "You mean there're people out there who can actually decipher the hidden lessons?" James said, amazed. She kicked him in the knee this time. "That does hurt," he said, glaring at her and rubbing his knee. "There's a lesson here, too. If it hurts, you shouldn't do it again." "Is the potion still working?" Lily asked. "I don't know," she said, frowning. "Ask me something you've already asked me and I'll try to lie." "What form does your Patronus take?" "A cactus," she said, with no effort. "Wow," Lily said. "I don't think I've gotten that dumb of a sarcastic answer ever before. Even from the idiots." The "idiots" were too busy laughing at the thought of a cactus chasing after a dementor and sticking it in the arse to have heard what Lily had said. After around ten minutes, as they were about done laughing, Sirius said, "I hope my Patronus is a cactus..." That set them off again for another five minutes. "The things they'll laugh at..." Katalina said in amused disbelief to Lily, who was shaking her head at them. "And I thought maybe the new one might be somewhat intelligent. Maybe set them in line," Lily said. She sighed. "Wishful thinking," she said. "No one'll ever be able to set them straight..." ---------- [i]That's the first two chapters. Like I said, I've got about seventeen done so far. At this point, it's not into the true storyline yet, but it's getting there. I will post up more, but I don't want to post up too much at once, I figure two chapters is a decent start, right?[/i]
DucksRMagical Joined: 28 December 2006 Posts: 2535 Location: Going through LeakyCon withdrawal	Posted: Wednesday 27 August 2008 12 35 19 pm    Post subject: Re: Albus Potter and the Tracks They Left Behind in topic:Albus Potter and the Tracks They Left Behind Sorry about the cliffie. But the chapter was kind of long, so I had to split it up. Here's the rest of Albus's little adventure. As always, comments, questions, and general reviews are always appreciated! Chapter 18: Locked Out Albus had to admit, the thought did cross his mind every once in a while. But really, it wasn't very realistic. Yes, the Marauders had done it, but they were lucky it had worked out all right. There was a reason that hardly anyone could become an Animagus and why you had to be registered with the Ministry. Plus, they were only second years. The Marauders hadn't done it until their fifth year. They were exceptionally smart, too. Well, three of them were. Albus didn't think he was anywhere near being good enough at Transfiguration to pull it off. Rose was probably the only one of them who had a chance at succeeding. And even though Rose did not hesitate to break rules when she needed to, there was no way she would agree to this. "Oh come on, John, we can't be Animagi." "Why not?" John asked, "The Marauders did it." "They were really smart," Albus explained, "I'm definitely not that smart. And what did you get on your last Transfiguration test? A 50 or something?" "55, thank you," John corrected him, "And we'd figure it out. Rose could help us." "But this isn't as simple as figuring out a spell for class!" Albus shouted, "It's dangerous. What if we can't change back? What if we get stuck halfway? Rose doesn't know everything. Even she would have trouble with this." "It's worth the risk," John said adamantly, "I don't care if I mess up a few times. I'll just try again." "That's the thing. Sometimes when you mess up, you don't get the chance to try again. My dad explained this all to me over the summer. He talked to me about becoming an Animagus as soon as school was over last year because he knew the thought would cross my mind. He'll know if I try and he won't let me do it. I'd consider trying when we're older, but definitely not right now." John sighed, "It would be great if we could, though. I mean, we would be the ultimate new Marauders then. Imagine if we could even change into the same animals the Marauders were. I fancy myself as a dog." "I could see that," Albus agreed, relieved that John seemed to accept the fact that Albus wasn't going to budge on the issue. "I don't know if I'd be a stag, though. Maybe a fox or something, I dunno." "Can you see Kaden as a rat?" John asked, grinning. Albus smirked, "Not really. He'd probably be one of those yappy dogs, not a big cool dog like you'd be, but a tiny chihuahua or something that's always barking and jumping." "Definitely," John laughed, "It couldn't hurt to research Animagi, though. I mean, if anyone asks we could say it's for extra credit." "My dad would see right through that one," Albus told him. "Doesn't matter," Matt said quietly. He had been exceptionally quiet ever since John had first mentioned the idea. "You can't become Animagi with me on the full moon." "Why?" John asked. "We know it's dangerous. I don't care." "It's not that. You think I haven't thought about you lot becoming Animagi? That my parents haven't thought about doing it? Amy? They have. My parents have ever since we found out Wolfsbane didn't work for me. Amy has ever since she first saw me after a transformation. My parents actually started working on it. But then they decided to have me do the Wolfsbane study instead. You see, if anyone is with me as an Animagus on the full moon, I won't hurt myself and it'll seem like the potion actually worked. It'll mess up the study big time. My parents decided it would be better for me to find a potion that would work than to have to rely on other people's Animagus abilities. They even forbade Amy from trying it, she wasn't very happy." Albus hadn't thought about that. He was actually a little relieved. He didn't want to become an Animagus behind his dad's back. It was one thing to steal the Invisibility Cloak for a couple days, but to sneak around as an animal every full moon? That was just too secretive for Albus's liking. He hoped that John would give up on the idea now. "But if the study ever ends without finding me a potion that works, I won't stop you from trying." "Sounds fair," John replied, "How long does the study go?" "No idea. Probably at least another two years. It all depends on how many different forms of Wolfsbane people come up with," Matt closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall again. "Headache still there?" Albus asked. Matt nodded without opening his eyes. "Let's hurry up, then. Where should we put the parchment?" "Room behind the stairs," Matt shakily stood up. "That way Madam Pomfrey doesn't see it." "We'll do it, you stay here," John gently pushed his friend back onto the floor. "How much parchment should we put down?" "How much did you bring?" "About a half roll," Albus pulled a partially used roll of parchment out of his cloak. "All of it, then. Chances are most of it will get ripped." Albus nodded and stood up. He walked over to the stairs with John following and saw the small room Matt was talking about. It was also filled with various broken pieces of furniture. "We shouldn't have done this tonight. I didn't even think about the moon." "Me neither," John shook his head as he bent down to move some of the furniture aside. "But it's not as bad as the time with the detention. I think he'll be ok." "Yeah. He can sleep all tomorrow if he wants," Albus commented as he ripped pieces off the roll of parchment. "Him and me both," John yawned. "Wasn't expecting the tunnel to be that long." "Me neither, but it is a long way from the grounds to Hogsmeade, so it makes sense." Albus finished ripping the parchment and the two boys each took a stack to affix to the floor. It took them a few minutes and once they were done, the room was covered in pieces of parchment. "I can see why he didn't want Madam Pomfrey to see," John laughed as he re-lit his wand. "It would definitely raise some questions," Albus lit his own wand. "Let's just hope this works. I can't see any other way to safely get a werewolf's paw print." The two boys took one more look at the parchment coated room and then went back to the large main room. Matt was right where they left him, leaning against a partially broken chair. Albus nudged him awake. "Finished?" Matt yawned. "Yup, let's get back to the castle," Albus helped his friend up and the three of them left the shack. The trip back through the tunnel took a lot longer than when they were going to the shack. All three boys were incredibly tired and the thrill had worn off for Albus and John. Albus glanced at his watch as they neared the end of the tunnel and saw that it was nearly 1:30. He was very glad they had done this on a weekend. "It's harder getting out than getting in," Matt said tiredly as he removed the wards. "Whoever goes first has to dodge the branches and then push the knot on the trunk for the other two." Albus and John looked at each other, for both of them knew Matt was too exhausted to be able to dodge the branches properly. "I'll do it," Albus told him, "I'm making you get the rat." Albus climbed up the wall and crawled out of the hole. He was immediately hit in the shoulder with one of the flailing branches. "Ouch!" he shouted as he groped the trunk for the knot. His hand made contact with it and the branches immediately froze. "You can come out now," he whispered through the passageway. Albus stood aside and pulled the Invisibility Cloak out of his cloak. Matt appeared out of the hole first and shuddered as the moonlight hit him. John was right behind him and the two of them got under the cloak with Albus once Matt re-set the wards. "You ok?" John asked Albus once they were back on the path leading to the castle. "Yeah. Just got me in the shoulder," Albus replied. His shoulder stung and he could feel some blood dripping down his arm, but he couldn't go see Madam Pomfrey. She would know immediately what gave him the wound and would no doubt insist on knowing what they were up to. The boys trudged along through the cold night air. Albus looked up to the sky and saw that thick clouds were moving in. It would probably snow soon. Of course, Albus would be much too tired the next day to enjoy it, so it didn't much matter. It was worth it, though. Within a few days they would have one of the four paw prints needed to unlock the secrets of the new map. A little while later they reached the castle doors. Albus glanced quickly at the Map and saw that Filch was up on the sixth floor and Peeves was in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. No one else was wandering around. Albus grasped the handle of the door and pushed. It did not budge. He tried again, but no luck. "Filch must've remembered to lock it!" Albus muttered. "Try one of those spells Rose taught you," John suggested. Albus nodded and pointed his wand at the handle. He muttered a spell but the door remained locked. He tried a few more, but none of them worked. "I think we're locked out!" Albus said in a panicked tone. "We're locked out?" John questioned and pushed the door himself, "What do we do now?" "What do you mean we're locked out?" Matt groaned, "It was just unlocked a couple hours ago!" "I know it was," Albus replied anxiously, "Filch must've locked it!" "We can't stay out here all night!" Matt's voice cracked, "We'll freeze!" Albus swallowed hard as panic filled his body. What were they going to do now? Albus had been worrying mostly about getting out of the castle and into the tunnel without getting caught that the thought of being locked out hadn't even crossed his mind. I mean, what were the chances of the doors being unlocked when they left and locked when they came back? But what would they do? They couldn't stay out here, it was freezing and would snow soon. All three of them were shivering. "Any chance either of you knows how to conjure a Patronus?" Albus asked, thinking of the only way he knew to contact Rose and Amanda. "Are you mad?" John asked. "We're only second years." "Well, have you got any bright ideas on how to tell Rose and Amanda we're locked out?" John thought for a minute before answering, "You could break into the broom shed and steal a broom. Then fly it up to Gryffindor Tower." "Now you're mad. I'll get seen by someone. What if one of the professors is looking out their window? Or one of the students?" "Wear the Invisibility Cloak," John replied. "Then you two will get seen. And if I'm wearing the Cloak then Rose and Amanda won't see me." "Oh, right," John sighed. "How about Hagrid?" "Then we'll get in trouble," Albus reminded him, although unless they didn't think of something else soon, they would have to go to Hagrid's. "Well, we've got to think of something soon. He's got to get away from the moon," John gestured to Matt who was leaning against the door and breathing heavily. "The moon's almost covered by clouds," Albus pointed out, "And then we'll just have to worry about being snowed on." "Wonderful," John groaned. "Maybe we can curl up in piles of snow like wolves do and keep warm that way." "Very funny," Albus said flatly. He was really starting to get worried now. What would happen if they did go to Hagrid's? They'd surely get in trouble, but how much? Would they just get detention or would it be worse? Points would be taken away for sure, and that would not go over well with the other Gryffindors. "Hey, wait!" John's face brightened a bit, "What about the Shrieking Shack? We could just go back there and spend the night. Then we'll sneak back in tomorrow morning after Filch has unlocked the doors again." "That's...that's," Albus thought about this for a moment. "Not actually a bad idea. We'll be inside and we won't get caught." John grinned. "Let's go," he poked Matt in the side. "What?" Matt opened his eyes. "We're going back to the Shack," John explained. "Great," Matt said sarcastically, "I get to spend another night there. You two couldn't come up with a different idea?" "Nope," John answered, "I'd say it was pretty brilliant myself, so unless you've got a better one, we're going." Matt sighed, "Oh, fine. But we're not making a habit of this." "Me and Albus aren't," John laughed, "But you already do." "Oh, shut it," Matt groaned, "Let's just go." Albus couldn't help but feel a tiny bit excited about spending the night in the Shack. It would definitely be the worst thing he had ever done, as far as breaking rules was concerned. He also felt nervous about it. What if they did get caught? What if Rose and Amanda started to get worried and told someone about their plan? Albus pushed that thought out of his mind. Rose wouldn't do that, would she? She would if she thought they were in trouble. But they weren't in that big of trouble. The three of them would spend the night in the shack and that would be that. When morning came they would sneak back into the castle and no one would be the wiser. This might actually be kind of fun, it was thrilling and a tad bit dangerous. Something the Marauders would have done. Who knows, maybe they even had done it on occasion. The trip back to the shack, though exhausting, was uneventful. John, like Albus, had a look of excitement in his eyes when the three of them entered the shack once more. Matt looked like he didn't care where they were, as long as there was some place he could sleep. "This is pretty cool," John grinned, "Spending the night in Hogsmeade." "It's going to be cold, though," Matt shivered, "There aren't any heating charms in here." "Warmer than outside," Albus commented as he stowed the cloak back in his robes. "Are there any lights in here?" "Nope," Matt replied. "We'll just have to keep our wands lit." "What do you want to do now?" John asked with a look of mischief on his face, "So many possibilities in this place...." "How about we go to bed?" Matt suggested sarcastically. Albus, although excited about spending the night in the shack, was extremely tired and all he wanted to do was sleep. "Are there any beds here?" "One," Matt answered. He led Albus and John up the stairs and into the only bedroom. There was one large bed and a wardrobe, both surprisingly still intact. "They're charmed to be indestructible," Matt answered Albus's questioning look. John hopped onto the bed and started jumping on it. "Now we're talking! This bed is excellent for jumping." "Can't say I've ever tried it before," Matt joined him on the bed and started jumping as well. "You're right, it is quite nice for jumping." Albus jumped up with them and agreed. The bed was good for jumping. Even better than James's. James, Albus, and Lily had spent many hours jumping on James's bed, always to be interrupted and yelled at by their mother. The boys continued jumping on the bed and goofing off for a couple minutes. Albus smirked to himself as he remembered a story his Aunt Hermione had told him about monkeys jumping on a bed. "What's so funny?" John asked. "Just wondering who'll be the first to fall off and break his head," Albus laughed. "What?" John asked and Matt started to laugh as well. "It's a Muggle story," Albus explained and proceeded to tell John the story of the monkeys. "It's amazing what Muggles come up with for stories," John shook his head and jumped off the bed, landing on his feet like a cat. "I don't think any of us are going to break our heads." "Mine feels like it's broken," Matt announced as he jumped off the bed. He didn't land as gracefully as John and fell on his arm. "Ow!" Albus jumped down next to him. "You ok?" "Yeah," Matt pointed his lit wand at his arm. "No blood." "Good," John replied. "We should probably go to bed now," Albus suggested, "We've got to be up early so we can sneak back in before a lot of people wake up." "There's more blankets in the wardrobe," Matt yawned as he got back on the bed and curled up beneath the blanket that was already on the bed. Albus and John each grabbed a couple blankets and got into the bed alongside Matt. It was a good thing the bed was so big, Albus thought. It was much bigger than the four-poster beds in Gryffindor. "He's already asleep," John commented as he lay down. "Good," Albus replied, "Maybe his headache will go away. Good night." "'Night." ****** Albus woke up the next morning to slivers of light shining through the boarded up windows. Boarded up windows? There weren't boarded up windows in the dormitory. Albus's eyes shot open and he glanced around at his surroundings. Oh, right. The memories of the previous night flooded Albus as he realized that he was in the Shrieking Shack. Albus sat up and yawned. He felt more tired this morning than he had the previous night. One look at his watch told him why. It was only seven o'clock, he had only gotten about four hours of sleep. Just as well, Albus thought. They had to get back to the castle quickly anyway, if they wanted to sneak back in without anyone noticing. Albus nudged John awake and winced. He pulled up the sleeve of his robe and saw that the cut from the Whomping Willow looked thoroughly disgusting. It was probably infected and would require a trip to the hospital wing. Albus shook John with his uninjured arm. "John, wake up!" "No, lemme sleep," John groaned and turned away from Albus. "Get up or we'll get caught," Albus pushed him again. "Don't care," John murmured. "I'll push you out of bed," Albus warned. John muttered something incoherent and didn't move. "You asked for it," Albus muttered and rolled John over to the edge of the bed. He gave him one final nudge and John fell off the edge of the bed with a loud thump. "What the hell?" John shouted, sitting up with a dazed look on his face. "I told you to get up," Albus leaned over the bed and laughed. "We've got to get back to the castle or someone's going to see us come out of the tree." "Oh, fine," John grumbled, "But I'm going back to bed once we get back." "You and me both," Albus agreed and got out of bed. He picked up the spare blankets and stowed them back in the wardrobe so Madam Pomfrey wouldn't get suspicious. "You going to push him off the bed too?" John pointed to Matt's sleeping form as he stood up. "No," Albus replied simply. "Where's the justice?" John muttered. Albus grinned and shook Matt awake. "We've got to get back to the castle. We'll sleep more there." Matt groaned and got out of bed. "I think I'd rather just stay here." "I wouldn't suggest it," John responded, "Albus pushed me off the bed when I didn't get up. Can you believe that?" Matt laughed and looked from John to Albus and back again. "Yes." The boys left the shack quickly and started the long journey back to the Whomping Willow. All three of them were dragging and Albus was very glad that he didn't have any classes today. He had homework, but he wasn't even going to think about that until he got at least another six hours sleep. One quick check of the map told him that the coast was clear before they emerged from the tree. The three of them donned the Invisibility Cloak as soon as Matt was finished warding the tree and they set off for the castle. Since it was still early, the only one on the grounds was Hagrid. There was several more inches of snow and by the time they boys were back at the castle doors, their robes were wet and they were shivering. Halfway to the castle, it had started sowing again. "Rose and Amanda are in the Great Hall," Albus pointed to their two dots on the map. "But hardly anyone else is, and no one's in the Entrance Hall, so I think we're good." Albus pushed the doors open and the three invisible boys slipped inside. Albus immediately pulled the wet cloak off of them and hid it in his robes. "We should probably go talk to Rose and Amanda." "I've got to go see Madam Pomfrey sometime," Matt told them, "My arm still hurts, look." He pulled the sleeve of his robes up and showed them his black and blue arm. "I don't think it's broken, but it still hurts." "My shoulder still hurts," Albus replied, "I guess I'll have to go, too." At that moment, Rose and Amanda left the Great Hall and stopped a couple feet away from the boys. John pointed to where they were and Albus turned around. Both girls had a combination of relief and anger on their faces. Rose was fuming by the time she stomped over to Albus. "Where. Were. You," she demanded. "Er," Albus mumbled. He never liked being on the receiving end of his cousin's anger. "Room, now," Rose seethed and stalked off towards the stairs with Amanda at her side. Albus, John, and Matt followed wordlessly. All ideas of going to the Hospital Wing were driven from Albus's mind. Of course, after seeing Rose, he would much rather have been bombarded with questions about his shoulder than going to the Room with his cousin. Nobody said a word until they were in the Room. Albus, John, and Matt sat side by side on the couch, but Rose and Amanda remained standing in front of them. "Explain yourselves!" Rose shouted. "We-" Albus began. Rose cut him off, "You know what? I think I'll tell you about our night first! We were plenty worried about the three of you sneaking off to the Shack in the middle of the night, but it had to be done. What other choice did we have? It was safer than the alternative. How else were you going to get the paw print? I thought the plan would work. We had it all set. You three would sneak down there and put the parchment on the floor and then sneak back up. Simple." Rose stopped and began to pace around the room. "There were all kinds of things that could've gone wrong," Amanda picked up where Rose left off. "Filch, for one. Or one of the teachers. Peeves, even. Or how about when you got onto the grounds? There are all sorts of animals wandering around at night. Not to mention the Whomping Willow itself." "So what were we supposed to think when you three never showed up?!" Rose raised her voice even higher, if that was possible. "If you had been caught by Filch or a teacher, you would've came back to Gryffindor eventually! BUT YOU NEVER DID!" "But Rose-" John pleaded. Albus sent him a warning look. He knew it was never good to interrupt Rose when she was on a rampage. "Shut up, John! We thought some kind of animal had you! Or even worse, that Washburn had come back for the Hallows and found you and kidnapped you or something! Then you sneak back into the castle this morning, looking like you've just been at a party or something! "You kept us up all night worrying, when you probably just decided to have some fun last night. You know I was this close to telling Uncle Harry this morning. I wanted to last night, but Amanda convinced me to wait until morning. Of course now I wish I hadn't waited. Maybe a couple detentions would teach you not to stay out all night!" "Rose," Albus said tentatively, "Just let us explain." "Go ahead, Albus," Rose glared at him. "Convince me that what you did last night wasn't just stupidity." "We got locked out," Albus explained, "The doors to the castle weren't locked when we left, but Filch must've locked them after we were out of the castle. I tried all the charms you taught me, but none of them worked. So we decided to spend the night in the Shrieking Shack. And you're right, it was kind of fun." Rose and Amanda stared at him, dumbstruck. Neither of them said a word for the next minute. Albus and the other boys didn't dare say a word either. "Well," Rose said quietly, "Er, that does explain things. I'm, uh, sorry I yelled at you." "It's all right," Albus assured her. "But Albus?" Rose began, "You could've just gone to the Owlery and sent me a quick note telling me that you were locked out. Then we would've at least known what was going on." Albus, John, and Matt turned to look at each other. Albus felt his cheeks turning red. Of course! Why hadn't he thought of that? The only means of communication Albus had thought of was a Patronus. But the answer was there all along, a simple owl. He could have just made a quick trip to the owlery before they went back to the Shack. "We're idiots," John muttered softly. "Yes, but you're our idiots," Rose laughed. "Now, are you going to tell us about your little adventure?" Albus, John, and Matt spent the next half hour relaying every detail of their trips to the Shrieking Shack the previous night. Rose and Amanda both found it very entertaining, especially the part about Albus pushing John off the bed. After they were done telling the story, all five of them went to the hospital wing so Albus and Matt could get their wounds healed. Madam Pomfrey was sitting at her desk when they arrived and the ward was completely deserted of other patients. She took one look at the Gryffindors and came bustling out from behind the desk. "You lot again? What have you gotten yourselves into this time?" "Just these two," John pointed at Albus and Matt. Madam Pomfrey took one hard look at Matt and announced, "You were outside last night. Was someone giving you detention?" "Er, no." Madam Pomfrey looked at him for a few seconds longer and sighed, "Go sit down on a bed, both of you." Albus and Matt sat down on one of the beds and Madam Pomfrey returned a few moments later with a tray laden with potions. She told Matt to drink them all, which he did. "My arm's all bruised, too," Matt pulled up his sleeve, "I tripped over a book." Madam Pomfrey clucked her tongue and pulled out her wand. She had his arm healed in an instant. "I trust you'll get some sleep today? Or do I have to make you stay here?" "I'll sleep, I promise," Matt replied quickly. "What about you?" the nurse turned to Albus. "Hurt my shoulder," Albus answered, not elaborating on the subject. He pulled up his sleeve to reveal his injured shoulder. Madam Pomfrey studied it for a moment, then she cleaned it. Albus winced as the potion she used on it stung. The nurse looked at the injury for a little while longer and she looked from Albus to Matt and back again. "I know how you got that," she replied. "Er," Albus stuttered. Great, after all that, they were still going to get in trouble. "Whatever you boys did last night, don't do it again," Madam Pomfrey said sternly, looking Albus and then Matt in the eye, "I won't tell Professor Longbottom this time, or your father," she said to Albus, "But next time I will." Albus breathed a sigh of relief as Madam Pomfrey healed his shoulder with one swift wave of her wand. He'd have no trouble keeping his word to the nurse. There was no way that he was going to repeat last night. Well, unless they needed to for the map. But he'd try hard not to get hit by the Whomping Willow next time. "You're all set," Madam Pomfrey announced, "Now go get some sleep, both of you." Albus nodded as he stood up. He would have no problem doing that. He was practically falling asleep as he walked. The group went back to the common room and the boys immediately headed for their dormitory. Albus changed into his pajamas and climbed into his warm four-poster bed, feeling very satisfied that they hadn't been caught at all.
Ms. Elsewhere Joined: 13 January 2008 Posts: 881 Location: In role play game of course!	Posted: Saturday 23 August 2008 12 56 55 am    Post subject: Re: Next Generation 2 in topic:Next Generation 2 Geneve's eyes fluttered open and she found herself lying on the a very comfortable bed. She was shocked with the change of location, but didn't move until she knew where she was. She looked turned only her head and saw Damien looking at a piece of parchment on his table. It was very old looking, and when she squinted her eyes, she could see words forming on it. Her arms were by her sides and she instinctively reached for the pocket in her robes where the parchment from Nicolaus was stored away. When she couldn't feel it, she sat bolt upright and reached out as if to stop Damien where he stood. She yelled "Wait!!!" and Damien took such surprise that he looked up and drew his wand all in one motion. Geneve's breath caught in her throat; the look on Damien's face was like none she had seen on him before; he meant to harm her. "I...." Geneve stuttered. Damien's expression changed from defensive to relieved.
DucksRMagical Joined: 28 December 2006 Posts: 2535 Location: Going through LeakyCon withdrawal	Posted: Wednesday 20 August 2008 09 02 06 pm    Post subject: Re: Albus Potter and the Tracks They Left Behind in topic:Albus Potter and the Tracks They Left Behind Last chapter before I go to school! Not sure when I'll next update, but I'll try to do it soon. Comments, questions, and general reviews are always appreciated! Chapter 17: Animagi When Albus woke up the next morning, he found that he was overcome with nerves about stealing his father's Invisibility Cloak. Albus had been so caught up in the excitement about the map the night before that he hadn't really given it a second thought. But now that the idea had simmered overnight, he realized that the plan might go horribly wrong. What had he been thinking? Stealing the Invisibility Cloak? That was exactly what Washburn had been trying to do the previous year. Of course, Albus was technically only borrowing the Cloak, as he intended to sneak it back right after he was done with his late night stroll to the Shrieking Shack, but still. What if his dad discovered it missing? Was that even likely? Albus had no idea how often Harry used his cloak nowadays. He probably didn't have much use for it at Hogwarts because teachers could roam around wherever and whenever they wanted. Albus didn't even know where his father kept the cloak. He was planning on just trying a summoning charm as James had done to retrieve the Marauder's Map. Albus just hoped that the cloak attempt would go just as smoothly. Harry still hadn't noticed that the Map was missing. Either that or he knew James took it and was just letting him keep it. As Albus's thoughts went to the original Marauder's Map, he remembered that he still hadn't given it back to James. Albus remained distracted throughout his morning classes and by the time lunch came, he was almost as nervous as he had been for the first Quidditch match. Nobody said much as Albus picked at his food, well nobody except Kaden. Kaden rambled on about his morning classes until he had to leave for Potions a short while later. Once he was gone, Albus was free to talk about their plan. "I'm not sure if this is going to work." "It worked for the Marauder's Map," Rose reminded him. "I know, but still...." "It's got to work," John insisted, "How else will we sneak down to," he lowered his voice, "you know, without being caught?" "There isn't any other way," Matt replied, "We'll get caught if we don't have the cloak." "We might get caught when we're trying to steal it," Albus commented. "No we won't," John assured him, "And even if we do, we'll just be caught by your dad. It's not like we'll get in trouble with Filch or anything." "But we'll get caught by Filch if we try to sneak out at night without the cloak," Matt whispered. "Right," John agreed, "So we're off to steal the cloak." Albus groaned, "Doesn't anyone else think this might not work?" "Trust me, Albus," Rose said, "It'll work. We'll sneak the cloak back before Uncle Harry even knows it's gone." "He's leaving now," Amanda pointed to the staff table, "We'll just wait a couple more minutes." "I don't think we should all go," Rose announced, "It'll look suspicious if we all go into his office. I think just me and Albus should go." "Good idea," Matt agreed, "No one will think anything of it if the two of you go into his office." Albus nodded. That was probably the best way to do it. If all five of them went, chances are they would make enough noise to attract another teacher. Albus was relieved that Rose was going to go, though. She was much better at summoning charms than Albus was. "We'll wait for you in the Room," Matt stood up. John and Amanda followed suit. "See you in a bit." "Bye," Rose grinned at them. She and Albus loitered a few minutes longer at the Gryffindor table before Rose gestured that it was time to go. Albus and Rose had lingered long enough at the table that the corridors were practically empty, save for a few straggling students who were much more intent on making it to class than giving Albus and Rose a second glance. They quietly made their way to Harry's office, narrowly avoiding Peeves near Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Judging from the loud cries that were emitted from the bathroom, Peeves had just finished making fun of poor Myrtle. The corridor that Harry's office was in was entirely deserted when Albus and Rose descended upon it. Albus was very happy about this. Maybe they would get away with it. Albus tried to open the door, but it was locked. "Merlin!" he shouted and looked at Rose. Rose didn't look in phased in the least. "Just use Alohamora." Albus looked at her skeptically. Why would Harry bother to lock his door with a charm that anyone could open? "Just do it," Rose insisted, "He's got a charm on there that recognizes his magical signature. Yours will be close enough to his that it'll open for you, too. It worked with James last year. It won't work with me, though. I tried. James thought it was incredibly funny. "All right," Albus replied and pointed his wand at the lock. "Alohomora." The lock clicked and Albus turned the handle. It opened. The cousins quietly crept inside, carefully shutting the door behind them. Harry's office looked much like it had the last time Albus had been in it. Parchment, books, and other miscellaneous objects were strewn around all over the place, cluttering up the desk, couch, and chair. The bedroom door had been left open and Albus could see that that room was just as messy, with robes laying on the bed and copies of the Prophet on the floor. "Does he ever clean up?" Rose asked disgustedly, "I mean, really. This is worse than James's room." "James gets it from Dad," Albus laughed, "Mum makes both of them clean up but Mum's not here, so Dad can just do what he wants." "I'll bet it's somewhere in there," Albus pointed to the bedroom and started walking towards it. Rose followed and soon they were in the tiny bedroom. Albus guessed that the cloak was either in Harry's trunk or the wardrobe. Rose must have been thinking the same thing. She wrenched the trunk open and pointed her wand at it. "Accio Invisibility Cloak," she shouted. Nothing happened. "Great," Albus groaned, "It's not here." "Wait," Rose said as she crept closer to Harry's trunk, "I'm pretty sure Uncle Harry mentioned that you can't use a summoning charm on the cloak." Albus thought for a moment and then remembered his dad telling him that once. "Oh, yeah. Well, now what are we going to do?" "We'll do it the hard way," Rose sighed, "You take the wardrobe, I'll take the trunk." Albus shook his head as he stepped over to his dad's wardrobe. This was going to take forever. They would certainly get caught before they found it. Albus carefully weeded through his dad's stuff, being careful to put it all back exactly as he found it. "Got it!" Rose announced, "Bottom of the trunk!" Albus felt an immense relief as Rose held up the cloak. They did it! They actually found the cloak! Nothing was stopping them now. They were going to find out the secrets of the second map. "There. Told you we'd get it," Rose grinned, "Now let's get out of here." Albus nodded, happy to do as Rose said. He certainly didn't want to get caught in his dad's office with the Invisibility Cloak. Rose handed him the cloak and he stuffed it into his robes. Once Albus and Rose were certain that the room looked just as it had when they got there, they quietly left. Neither of them said a word as they walked quickly to the Room of Requirement. Relief washed over Albus like waves over sand when he made it into the Room a few minutes later. They hadn't been caught! Albus's heart still beat fast with adrenaline as he ran into the Room and grinned at his friends. The thrill of what he and Rose had done was starting to hit him. He had taken the Invisibility Cloak. It was the first Marauder-like thing he had done. He knew this was exactly what the Marauders had wanted him to do. To break rules and not get caught. "Did you get it?" John ran over with a glimmer of excitement in his eyes. Matt and Amanda were right behind him sporting identical grins on their faces. "Sure did," Albus smiled and pulled the silvery cloak out of his robes. "It was incredibly easy," Rose laughed. "I found it right in Uncle Harry's trunk." "Can I hold it?" Matt asked in awe. Albus handed him the cloak. "This is incredible," Matt whispered. "I'm holding one of the Hallows. I wish I could tell my dad about this." "You'll be able to eventually. My dad just wants to get to know him first." Matt put the cloak on and disappeared from view. He reappeared a few seconds later. "That is so cool." "Let me try," John took the cloak and wrapped it around himself. They spent the next few minutes passing the cloak around and trying it on. "You three ought to see if you fit," Rose announced. Albus nodded and took the cloak back from Amanda. John and Matt stood next to him as he threw the cloak over their heads. Albus had been under the cloak with James, Lily, and his cousins before, so he was used to how cramped it was, but his friends weren't. "Watch it," John snapped as Matt stepped on his foot. "Sorry," Matt muttered. "This is going to be difficult." "Can you see us?" Albus asked. "Nope," Rose said, "Walk around the room a few times." The boys walked slowly around the room, making sure not to expose any of their limbs. John and Matt started to get the hang of it after a few minutes of practice and they were soon able to go a little faster. "Perfect," Amanda announced after the fourth time they circled the room. "I'm still amazed by that cloak." "What night should we do this?" John asked after they took the cloak off. "I say Saturday because I've got Quidditch practice that morning and I'm going to have to get some sleep Friday night or Georgia will spend the whole time yelling at me to wake up," Albus explained, "That good with you two?" "Sure," John agreed. Matt nodded. "Then we're set," Albus replied, "Saturday night, we sneak into the Shrieking Shack." "You're turning into quite the trouble maker, Albus," Rose laughed, "The Marauders would be proud." ****** The next day Rose decided to start her research on the transference charm. Albus and the others went with her and it didn't take long to find the right book. Rose found it in a copy of Advanced Charms and after she read a bit about the charm she decided that it was going to be difficult but not impossible for her to do. She decided to master that charm before trying to find the charm to keep Kaden quiet. That one was going to be harder to find since they didn't even know the name of it. Rose checked out the Advanced Charms book under the menacing glare of Madam Pince. It looked to Albus like she was just burning to demand what they were up to and deny them the book. But, she couldn't since the book wasn't in the Restricted Section. Rose spent the next few days trying to figure the charm out. There wasn't much Albus could do to help her, so he just did his homework and watched her. Albus thought the charm looked incredibly complicated and he was glad that Rose had volunteered to learn it. Rose was having a bit of difficulty mastering the charm, though. By the time Saturday night rolled around, she still hadn't managed to reproduce much of anything. Albus kept reassuring her that she would eventually get it. The charm was well beyond the O.W.L. level and it stood to reason that it would be hard for her. This did not suit Rose well and she was quite frustrated by it. If there was one thing that drove Rose mad, it was having trouble learning something. "Why don't you take a break?" Albus suggested while they were in the common room on Saturday night. "You've been at it for days." "Maybe you're right," Rose sighed. She had been trying for the past hour to reproduce her name onto another piece of parchment. "I'll just relax for a while." She pulled out her Transfiguration book and opened it to one of the later chapters. "I don't know how you can consider that relaxing," John screwed up his face in disgust. "What are you doing anyway?" Kaden asked loudly, looking up from his Herbology essay. "Extra credit charms homework," Rose lied. "Oh," Kaden looked vaguely shocked that Rose would need extra credit. "I'm doing it for the fun of it," Rose explained. "You'll get it eventually," Kaden told her, "You're smart." "Thanks, Kaden," Rose smiled at him. Albus had no doubt that Rose would figure the charm out eventually. It was just taking her longer than she expected. Albus was in no rush because the charm would be useless until they got all the paw prints they needed. That wouldn't happen until after Christmas. John hadn't managed to find a rat in Potions on Friday, but he was keeping his eyes peeled. The group stayed in the common room for another couple hours, waiting until it was completely empty. Albus thought Kaden would never go to bed, but shortly after eleven he finally gave in to his fatigue and went up to his dormitory. Eventually, Albus and his friends were the only ones left. "Ready?" Albus asked. John and Matt nodded. Albus rummaged in his bag and pulled out the cloak. "I've got the parchment in my robe. I think we're set." "Let's do it," John stood up. "Good luck," Amanda said as the three boys pulled the cloak around themselves. "We'll be waiting." "See you in a bit," Rose told them as she held the portrait open for them to leave. "Don't get caught." "We won't," Albus assured her. "I've got the Map." Albus wasn't nearly as nervous about sneaking out of the castle as he had been about stealing the cloak. And clearly he was breaking more rules this evening than he had the other day. He figured it had something to do with the fact that stealing the cloak was something his father would be disappointed in, whereas sneaking out would just get him in trouble with another teacher. Whatever the reason, Albus felt almost excited about this evening. The only time he had really snuck out after curfew was when he had his first Occlumency dream the previous year. Tonight's escapade was a much better circumstance. Besides, Albus was a bit excited about following the tunnel to the Whomping Willow and seeing the inside of the Shrieking Shack. He felt kind of guilty about this because he knew Matt didn't want them to and was only agreeing to this for the sake of the new map. Albus motioned for them to stop before they started down the stairs. He took out the Map and scanned it for a couple minutes. Filch was currently striding along the third floor corridor. They would have to be careful about that. They could easily run right into him. Peeves was flitting around a classroom on the fourth floor, no doubt wreaking havoc for one of the teachers to fix in the morning. Luckily, all of the teachers were in their offices. All they had to worry about were Filch and Peeves. Albus wondered when Filch slept. It seemed that he was always patrolling the corridors. Albus, John, and Matt continued their cautious trek down to the Entrance Hall, with Albus glancing at the Map every few minutes. The boys made it down to the third floor corridor without trouble, but Albus immediately noticed Filch creeping along the corridor, muttering about insolent children. Albus gave his friends a worried look as they quietly moved towards the nearest stair case. Albus held his breath as Filch passed them. Filch continued on his way without even noticing the three invisible boys. Albus was very happy when they made it onto the second floor and even happier when they got to the front doors and found that Filch left them unlocked. That was the one thing that could have gone wrong with their plan. Rose had tried to teach him a few more complex unlocking spells but he wasn't very good at them and was hoping he wouldn't need to use them. "Made it!" John let out a huge breath once the castle doors were shut. "Not quite," Matt replied. "Yeah, but at least we can talk now. I wish this cloak would cover up noise, too. Reckon we can take the cloak off?" "No," Albus answered immediately. "What if one of the teachers is looking out the window? Or if Hagrid is wandering around?" Albus loved Hagrid, but he wouldn't want to have to explain why he was sneaking down to the Whomping Willow in the dead of night if the lovable half-giant caught them. The three boys continued along the path that lead them through the grounds. There was about six inches of snow on the ground and the air was bitingly cold. Albus was glad he remembered his cloak, but was still a bit chilly. He continued to check the Map every couple of minutes, but so far the grounds were deserted. Albus had hoped they would be able to walk faster once they were on the grounds, but he had been wrong. It was still awkward for the three of them to stay concealed under the cloak and it was even harder now because Matt was slowing down. "Are you all right?" Albus asked after the cloak almost slipped off of him. "Fine," he panted. "Just the moon. Let's keep going." Albus looked from his friend's tired face to the sky. The almost full moon was shining down on the ground, illuminating it enough that Albus hadn't bothered to light his wand. "We should have done this earlier in the week," Albus commented, remembering the disastrous detention with Filch the other month. "No, I'm fine," Matt assured him, "It won't be full until Tuesday." Albus looked at him skeptically but didn't say anything else. He and John slowed down their pace to match Matt's, although Albus thought it would be better for them to speed up in order to reach the tree faster. Eventually, they reached the Whomping Willow. The three boys paused just beyond the reach of the branches and Albus and John looked to Matt for instructions. "We're not going to be able to get into the hole wearing the cloak," Matt explained. Albus nodded and took it off, stuffing it into his robes. "All right," Matt continued, pulling out his wand. "I'll just disable the wards." He muttered something quietly and pointed his wand at the tree. Albus strained to listen to the spell but he couldn't hear it. "Now what?" John asked, jumping out of the way of one of the branches. Matt walked around to the other side of the tree with Albus and John following. Matt bent over, searched through the snow, and picked up a long stick, stumbling and shivering a little as he stood up. He pressed his hand to his head, wincing a little. "Headache," he answered to Albus and John's questioning stares. He dodged one of the tree's branches and stuck the long stick into the tree's trunks. The branches immediately froze and the Whomping Willow looked just as tame as any of the other trees on the grounds. "Quick, before they start again," Matt stumbled towards the tree and disappeared down the passageway. Albus, who had already been in the tunnel once, gestured for John to go first. Albus followed his friends and made it into the hole just as the branches started flailing again. Albus and John lit their wands and looked around the cramped tunnel while Matt put the wards back up. "Let's go," Matt announced once he was done. "This is honestly pretty cool," John said in awe as they started down the passageway, "Kinda spooky, but cool." Matt sent him a dirty look. "I mean, besides the whole werewolf thing," John replied quickly. Albus could see what John meant. It was kind of a neat tunnel, although very dark and sort of damp. The good thing was that it was slightly warmer than outside. The ceiling was low and Albus had to crouch down a little in order to walk. There were rocks and roots along the path, but the whole atmosphere was quite exciting. Albus loved wandering through secret passageways and this one wasn't any different. He was excited about finally being able to follow it. His dad had told him about this tunnel and the Shrieking Shack numerous times, but always said no when Albus asked if he could go explore it. Now he was finally getting to do it. Granted, he was breaking about a dozen school rules to do it, but it was worth it. They followed the tunnel for what felt like at least a half hour. The thrill of it was beginning to wear off as Albus got colder. The month of December was not a convenient time to be doing this. By the time they reached the Shrieking Shack, Albus was ready to crawl into his warm four-poster bed and go to sleep. John's excitement had waned as well and he was looking disgruntled from the long, chilly walk. Matt, despite the fact that they were no longer being pelted by the moonlight, didn't look much better than he had earlier. He looked incredibly exhausted and was breathing as heavily as if he'd just run a marathon. "How do you possibly make it here before the full moon?" John asked, out of breath. "You're practically falling asleep by the time you go down here." "I'm...not really...sure," Matt replied in between breaths, "Madam Pomfrey...helps." "Well, next time I can't sleep I'll just walk up and down this a few times," John joked. "In. Here," Matt panted as he opened an old looking door that creaked as he opened it. Albus and John quietly followed him through it, into a very decrepit looking room. Albus was shocked at what he saw. Broken furniture lay everywhere, a lot of it covered in dried blood. There wasn't anything that remained unbroken. Pieces of tables, chairs, and couches were all over the place with bite marks on them. There was a staircase nearby that looked like it had been gnawed on numerous times. Albus swallowed as he realized that his friend was the one who caused all the damage. "What did all this?" John asked slowly. Matt glared at him. "Use your brain," he snapped. John looked from him to the broken furniture and back again. "Oh," he said quietly, "sorry." "It's all right," Matt sighed and sat down on the floor near the fireplace. He leaned his head against the wall. "See why I didn't really want you to come here?" "Yeah," Albus and John nodded. "It's one thing for you to know what I am," Matt continued, "But another to see what I actually do, what I could do..." his voice trailed off. Albus knew what he wanted to say, but couldn't. What he could do if he wasn't in the Shrieking Shack during the full moon. "But you're not really you then. You're the wolf." "I guess," Matt said quietly. "You know what we could do, though," John replied, "Become Animagi." "What?!" Albus and Matt shouted at the same time. "Become Animagi," John repeated, "If we're trying to become the next Marauders, we might as well do it properly."
choki Joined: 1 May 2003 Posts: 3165 Location: Riding a black chocobo	Posted: Tuesday 19 August 2008 08 58 44 am    Post subject: Re: Next Generation 2 in topic:Next Generation 2 Nikolaus took a quick peek at Valencia. He was unsure if it would even be a good time to talk to her at the moment. Although she had hidden her emotions well, he could feel something was not right, especially the way she looked at him - a look he had never seen before. Figuring that it would be best to avoid a direct confrontation with her, Nikolaus stood up and straightened his robes. "Apologies, but I have some errands to run."
magicboy Joined: 24 May 2007 Posts: 71	Posted: Monday 18 August 2008 04 43 37 am    Post subject: Re: Cool game idea in topic:Cool game idea you have some good ideas, here is mine, riley gave some ideas aswel. I think that we should be able to go to diagon alley and well the game should evolve and we should be able to choose between the three schools. Visit the schools that are not shown like the school in salem and we choose our own wands and robes and what quidditch possition we want. We can upgrade our magic so we start off with basic spells. We can go through different lessons properly and and interact with everyone, we can start clubs, duel and go to hogsmeade and stuff. We could go to the forbidden forest and maybe own a shop, that being a future thing where we can play as the children of the future. How about we can create spells and houses, we can have a shop that sells spells and magical houses. Maybe we could explore forbbidden forest and maybe even discover creatures... You choose the side of good or evil... if these are some of the same stuff sorry
Ms. Elsewhere Joined: 13 January 2008 Posts: 881 Location: In role play game of course!	Posted: Friday 15 August 2008 09 08 00 am    Post subject: Re: Next Generation 2 in topic:Next Generation 2 Geneve watched as the words appeared on the partchment. She stood up and placed it in her robes. Leaving her quill and bag outside, she re entered the great hall. She closed her eyes and reached inside her robes for her wand. The bees were everywhere now, and ppl were too wrapped up in trying to get away from them to see what she was doing. She searched her mind, and a flash of images raced behind her eyelids. Then, she felt a rush a happiness overcome her as she opened her eyes, waved her wand and said "Mutatio Papilio" under her breath. The bees instantly turned to thousands of butterflies, in every colour and species. Geneve watched as they fluttered about. The whole Great Hall went quiet as the butterflies ascended up into the enchanted ceiling and then out the open windows. Geneve let her breath out, and then one of the teachers was trying to restore order. Geneve returned to her quill, took out the parchment and wrote "Mischief managed. I should like to learn how to cast happier spells like that more often. Can we start my lessons soon? And thank you."