Ok Here's Chapter 11 Guys! Sorry it took so long for me to update! I was helping at an all day camp so didn't have much time to write.

I do have some bad news... I'm going to be out of the country next week, which means I won't be able to update my story for a while. But please stay loyal to it! I promise to upload a brand new chapter when I get back.

But enough of my sob story, please enjoy my story, and if you love it or have suggestions, write a review! I'm open to criticism if you absolutely hate something. Anyway, here you go!

Ch. 11:

Instantly Hermione and Harry were apart with their wands in hand. Neither had time to reflect on their almost pleasurable sin as they heard more screams of terror from below.

Tents were being blown away or incinerated in seconds; an unseen force bellowed sand through the wind covering all progress made in the group's discover (not that the people seemed to notice). As the chaos ensued, the men and women on the sight tried to run for shelter only to find their homes gone. Couples desperately searched through the sand clouds in hope of finding their partner. The sight brought up old memories and feelings into Harry, and they weren't ones he ever wanted to feel again.

Despite the havoc, Harry couldn't not see the offenders through the raging sand storm, but that didn't matter to him. He had seen too much suffering in his young life and was not going to just stand and watch more people die.

He started sprinting down the sand dune ignoring Hermione's pleas behind him. The camp was at least a mile from him, and he knew it would take him still a few minutes before he could come to their aid (and every second could mean another life was gone). But Harry never went close enough to the camp to get a clear image of it needed for apparating. Though as if feeling his desperation, his magic took over for him and now every so often a small 'pop' could be heard and one could see Harry now hundreds of feet ahead of where he just was.

With this form of traveling, Harry was at the camp in under two minutes, and not a moment to soon. He had to squint at first to see through to towering sand walls that now stood tall in the sky and formed a dome over the site. The winds raged around Harry trying to lift him off the ground so he wouldn't stop their fun; only a strongly placed weight charm did keep him running ahead. As he reached the eye of the sand hurricane, it was clear of the sand storm, but not of evil.

People ran helplessly around the walls looking hopelessly for a way out that wouldn't kill them, but to no avail. Some of the older members had already accepted their fate and laid on the ground praying. Without the distance and sand blocking his view Harry could now clearly see the offenders (once he quickly cleaned the sand from his lenses). They were unlike any creatures Harry had ever seen.

The only term Harry could use to describe them with was 'snake men'. The six men had pale skin covering their visible head and hands, but intricate scales lines weaved around them as well. Their eyes were menacing black orbs that screamed for blood shed, and they only had slits for a nose. On their forehead unlike the pale color of the rest of the head, a sickly green color formed a sphere shape that ran down the back of their heads and seemed to mesh with the black cloaks each member wore. On the back of the cloaks the sphere continued to the ground where it flew up into the air swishing with the men's' movement like a real snake tail. The only varying object each person processed was a long piece of wood that Harry quickly assumed to be their wands, but in their other hand they also carried a scythe. It was one of most intimidating sights Harry had ever seen.

Like on the sand dune, Harry wanted to immediately jump into the battle, but this time restrained himself to strategize. Going unnoticed, harry casted a silent disillusionment spell on himself and notice-me-not charm and then jumped into the feeding frenzy. Quickly he cast a disarming and binding spell at the closest enemy and hit his target. The others noticed their fallen companion, but were unable to locate Harry. Their confusion gave Harry enough time to stun one of the men whom was about to stab a young woman.

The remaining four members now were solely looking for their opposer. One of the more sadistic yet slow men charged at the spot Harry was just moments ago, firing off easily all of the unforgivables. Harry aimed his wand and fired off a blasting spell towards him, which successfully knocked him easily 20 feet and helplessly into the sand walls.

Seeing another fallen companion, the tallest, and most likely the smartest snake man (also whom Harry thought to be the leader) conjured another wave of sand to fly around. While this covered him and others in sand, it successfully revealed Harry's location.

Guess that was the easy part, Harry thought. Laughing menacingly, the three remaining killers stalked towards Harry. Despite his improvement in spell casting and dueling, it was near impossible for anyone to take on three fully trained wizards alone (including the fact Harry already felt a drain in his energy).

Almost instantly, the three men started blasting curses at Harry. The first three he was able to block with a large shield, but he had to start dodging the next three as the came to quickly to cast anything. Now Desperate, Harry kept conjuring rocks out of thin air to hide behind and mutter a spell when he could. Though the problem was, Harry could only detain two of them at once, and the remaining would just go help his comrade.

Just as Harry was losing hope, he heard a loud voice shout, "LEVICORPUS!" The voice came from no other than Hermione, whom finally arrived to aid Harry. Her spell hit its mark, and sent one of the snake men flying into the air and into the raging sand storm.

Harry was so relieved for Hermione's arrival he felt light headed, but quickly recovering, he too casted spell to the last remaining men, now with more confidence and vigor. Now that the numbers had been reduced, both teens could stick to fighting the other opponent in a duel.

Harry was dueling with the minion of the leader who while big and slow had robust power in his curses. He knew to beat him Harry couldn't just use pure power. Cunningly, Harry silently apparated to just behind the goon who was none the wiser, and cast a stunning spell.

Hermione saw Harry's conquest and turned to most likely compliment him, but was interrupted as a sickly purple spell sped towards her, missing her head my mere inches.

Rage built up inside Harry. He knew all to well what the spell could and did do to Hermione. Past memories of pain, guilt, and most of all helplessness filled Harry as he thought of Hermione falling in the Ministry. He couldn't save her then, but he vowed to now.

For a split second, the world seemed to stop to Harry, but did not notice. He only thought of Hermione's limp body in the DOM, and a spell to kill this man, no-foul beast that dare hurt his Hermione.

A bright green color formed in Harry's eyes that wasn't his own, but glowed with inner power. Without even muttering an incantation, Harry lifted his wand-time still seemingly stopped- to the man.

A huge green light shot from his Phoenix feathered wand with so much force that it knocked Harry to the ground. The spell seemed to fly so fast that the snake man didn't even see it make contact with him.

Once it did a burst of wind three times as powerful as the sand storm circulated around the monster, but payed no harm to any of the hostages or other wizards. But it did seize the raging sand storm causing it the fall harmlessly to the ground, and once it had cleared, the leader of the snake man was gone.

Without a second thought Harry ran towards Hermione and yelled urgently,"Hermione! Are you alright? Did he hurt you!" When Harry got closer he could see she was pale and wide eyed, but not because of her attacker.

"Ha-ha-Harry" she stammered out. "Ho-how did you do that?!" Harry wrinkled his face in confusion at the question and answered,"I don't know... I was just trying to protect you."

Hermione was about to respond but looked over his shoulder and screamed,"HARRY! LOOK OUT!" One of the men who Harry earlier stunned had awoken and fired a killing curse towards Harry. It was shot so quickly and without notice both knew they would have no time to try and reflect it.

But suddenly, a metal wall appeared out of no where and protected the two easily absorbing the spell while giving off a small explosion. Abubakar had arrived.

Once sure the two were unharmed, Abe turned to the remaining wizard and cast a slicing charm at his neck. Harry was shocked at Abe's merciless treatment of the man, and even more so if the pure rage on his face.

He moved towards his bleeding victim and said with pure venom,"Tell me whom you're working for and I'll ease your passing."

This only made the snake man chuckle (albeit a very painful one). Gushing with blood from his mouth he choked out,"Our loyalties lie with the All Great and Powerful Lazaras." Before Abr could ask him anything else, he was already dead.

"Who were they? And what did they want!" Harry demanded to Abe. The three now we're safley back in their tent and were sitting in the L.K.S's infirmary. Once checking all of the men were either captured or dead, they tended to the injured and dead. Sadly, three people had perished; two men and a woman, and out of the seventeen remaining, eleven were injured in some way or another.

Diligently the three wizards had healed them to the best of their abilities in their infirmary. Fortunately, all of the injured had only minor cuts and bruises so no surgery was needed.

Once they had finished that, they Obliviated them all, set them back at their camp site, and used one of their muggle phones to call the police reporting an unplanned sand storm.

Now the three were healing their own battle injuries back in their tent. Hermione has only a slight cut on her right ear from where the purple spell flew next to it from, but Harry had much more cuts and bruises from dodging the attacks.

Despite Hermione's insistent of healing the wounds immediately, Harry refused to do so until he got some answers. He had tried asking Abe who or what they were when he first arrived, but he refused saying they needed to handle the other matters first. Now Harry expected the truth.

Abe sighed and began running at his temples; Harry could see his age showing now more than ever. "Now a days they are called Desert Ravagers, but in the Dark Days they were known as the Shade."

"They were known to ravage towns and cities throughout the Middle East; burning everything and everyone to ashes. Their goal: to annihilate Muggles in this land. They think this land, much like others, to be the birthplace of magic, and want to kill any and all that get in their way.

The Shades were formed by this foreign wizard who only went by Lazaras. Legends say he taught any who would listen the deep secrets of dark magic, and placed the weak minded into trances to work for him. Some believe his true goal was to kill any 'dirty blooded' individual, but Egypt had no such prejudice; they valued all wizards equally. But Muggles... That's a different story."

Since the times of the Pharohs, Egyptians felt only those of magical blood were fit to rule. This caused many wars and bloodshed. Things which Lazaras only took advantage of. Those who joined his cause willingly had to test their loyalty extensively. These test would all but ensure the

The Shades terrorized Egypt unchallenged for many years until one day it just stopped. No one knows why or how. Some believe the hypnotized wizards broke free and murdered the leader, others think they stopped their cause; but most people now think Lazaras died of old age and that the Shade was unable to continue without him.

This time of peace continued for hundreds of years, but one day small groups of ravagers began showing up in different parts of the land. They ransacked every nomadic group they could find, and did their best to invoke fear upon their victims. But strangely enough, they never killed until tonight.

And now, now they told me their allegiance! Yes...yes it makes sense now that these gangs would worship Lazaras, but why now? I mean surely.." Abe began to ramble like this for a while until Harry lost his entire train of thought. "Professor...Sir...ABE!" Harry shouted loud enough to break Abe from his thoughts.

"Isn't this a good thing? I mean they made a mistake by telling us who they follow...Perhaps they didn't mean to kill those people!" Hermione said to the two boys.

Harry shook his head in response and replied, "No Hermione, you guys didn't see the looks on their faces... they didn't just kill, they wanted too. They enjoyed it."

"Harry's right, Ms. Granger." Abe said breaking the silent mourning. "Killing those innocent people was no accident. They started killing tonight for a reason, and it's our job to figure out what that reason is."

"But! It shall not be tonight. It is already late, and I feel all of us should have some well-needed rest. Ms. Granger, be free to stay the night if you so please, but I think it would be best if both you and Harry returned to your schooling the very next day (both blushed under his gaze but said nothing). Right so...Goodnight!" And with that, Abe had made his way through the Mona Lisa passageway and into his room, leaving Hermione and Harry alone.

An awkward silence filled the room; it was not the same one as before, for it was there for an entirely different reason. During the life-threatening situation and blitz attack of the so called 'Shade', the pair had not time to talk about what would've been their kiss.

Looking back on it Harry felt rather ashamed by his actions. He had almost kissed his friend's girlfriend, and his best friend for that matter! Just one second later two of the best friendships he ever had would've ended.

Despite this, a small part of Harry (albeit one he kept beating with a stick) felt deflated that he didn't get to kiss Hermione. Why am I thinking this! She's my best friend! And Ron's girlfriend. Besides, she probably didn't want to kiss me anyway. If she knew what I was doing she would've surely hexed me.

Still, some of Harry still hoped that he was wrong.

What Harry didn't know was that Hermione was having very similar thoughts to him. And almost simultaneously the two blurted out, "We should talk."

This made both wizards smile slightly and eased the tension if only a little bit. Harry was about to say something but Hermione put up her hand to stop and said firmly, "No Harry, I know what you're going to say. This wasn't just your fault... it was both of ours." Here Hermione lowered her head guiltily but still continued. "I don't know why we did that! Perhaps it was the moment, or just stupid bloody hormones.

Either way we both need to follow three things. One: We do NOT tell Ron. Yes yes I know you think we should but think about it! Ron's never been one to take these things lightly, and he will accuse both of us of wanting to be together, which isn't the truth." Harry in fact was going to protest not telling Ron at first, but after hearing Hermione he knew her logic was true.

"Two:" Hermione continued, but had to take a deep breath before she could choke it out. "Two: We...we can't talk or mention this ever happened, not even to each other. You're my best friend Harry, and I don't want something like this to ruin that. It's already hard enough not having you or Ron around as much. Please...pleas just for me, can we forget about this?"

Harry too was going to disagree with this rule (after all even Hermione had to see the illogicalness in ignoring the problem), but after seeing the pleading look of desperation in her chocolate brown eyes, that small part of Harry (the one now tied up and gaged) refused him let him do anything else but agree.

Hermione smiled at Harry's agreement to her items, and he could see a big weight lifted off her shoulder. He offered to let her stay the night in what he called 'Hermione's cot' which now was an almost permanent feature in his room, but she waved it off saying she had to meet with McGonagall in the morning and also wouldn't want to disturb Harry by leaving early.

With a quick hug goodbye (and an awkward moment where Hermione usually kisses him on the cheek), the two friends were departed once more.

Now noticing how tired her was, Harry yawned and walked clumsily to his room. He was greeted by a sympathetic Ariana (whom just earlier saved a man from the brink of death with her tears)who curled up on top of Harry once he collapsed on the bed.

His last coherent thought before blacking out was, Guess I'll never have a normal Halloween.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The next month and a half passed in a blur to Harry. The very next day both Hermione and Harry told their friends about the attack (leaving out details on who they were in a mutual agreement) and we met with lots of 'Thank Merlin you guys are ok' and even more so of 'It's always you two.'

When the pair saw Ron they stiffened a bit. Ron of course was oblivious and was just happy his girlfriend and best mate were okay. Harry could feel the guilt chewing away at him on the inside, and he almost broke down right there and yelled it out his deep and dark secret to the world. Only the steady presence of Hermione's shaking hand kept him from doing so. Slowly and painfully, the days wore on and the guilty feelings became less and less.

Harry's training continued with Abe, and as Harry's strength continued to grow both physically and magically the difficulty rose too. This didn't bother Harry the most part because the extra work kept him distracted, and the more his practice the better he seemed to get.

In just that period of time Harry had regained his former Quidditch muscles if not more, and as his diet improved from the months in the tent, so did his figure. For the first time in Harry's life, he was not scrawny or even below average in height. He was at a respectable 6ft 2 in and showed off a 6 pack only growing in definement (not that Harry noticed these things, he was just glad he wouldn't die of exhaustion anymore).

And Harry could now successfully clear his mind, and Abe let him begin his first steps to Occulmency shields. He had to first sort his memories and place them in appropriate categories. The ones most important to Harry would be under the highest defenses. Once beginning to sort his memories, he didn't feel as flustered in his daily work, and actually improved in his magical theory. It was as if he straightened out some loose papers.

Abe and Harry also began researching the history of Lazaras and the Shade. Their were very few scroll stalking about them (for those who did were murdered), and so far they had found very minimal and trivial information. And it seemed to Harry at least that Lazaras had appeared in Egypt from no where. No other records ever mentioned him, and this unnerved him. Despite this drawback, the next weeks were overall enjoyable ones.

The only thing that disappointed Harry at all were the more infrequent visits from Hermione. As bother of their educations continued and became harder, it was difficult to find times when both of them were free. Despite this, Harry refused to go a week without seeing her (even if that meant sneaking to Hogwarts under his cloak).

And to both of their reliefs, no hanging tension was between them. As long as they avoided anything to do with kissing, sunsets, and Halloween, they could talk and act normally. If mention of any of those words came up, an unbreakable wall of awkward would form between them.

Yes, the past month had been for the most part, enjoyable. But now as the holidays neared, Abe kick him out for a vacation. "Out out! You deserve a break as much as I do!" Abe persisted to Harry.

Part of Harry wanted him to stay with Abe and continue his training, but an even bigger part of him wanted to see his friends and godson. As he was leaving for the time being he was bombarded by an Abe in a swimsuit and towel in his hand (not the best going away view).

He walked toward Harry oblivious to his discomfort and shoved a poorly wrapped package in his hand that had seen better days. "Here" Abe said. "Merry Chirstmas!"

Harry looked down guiltily and said embarrassed, "I didn't get you a present". Abe gave a deep chuckle and said, "Don't worry about it Harry! This is just something I pulled out of my collection. It's very useful, but I haven't used it for years.

He unfolded the package to reveal a simple pair of muggle earplugs. They were a bright blue that hurt to look at for too long. Seeing the confused face on Harry Abe explained.

"Those are magical translators; something of my own invention. What you do is place them in your ear, and they will instantly fade from view until you wish to remove them. While on, you are able to understand any spoken language:muggle and magical. So it could be anything from goblin to Chinese. They come in handle for ease dropping."

Harry was in shock by the gift and didn't know what to say; certainly these were worth a fortune. "Wow-um- thank you." Harry stuttered. He really wasn't good at showing his appreciation.

Despite this, Abe seemed to understand how much these meant to Harry and gave a small smile; one perhaps a grandfather would give their grandchild. It was something completely new for the both of them.

"Well, we both best be off!" Abe said with a clap of his hands. "After all, Australian Mermaids only come out at night." With a wink, Abe disapparated leaving Harry alone.

Harry shuddered at the thought of Abe and the mermaids, which earned a noise from Ariana he took as a laugh. "You need to learn some manners." Harry chuckled to his bird.

She made the noise again and without warning hopped onto his shoulder transporting him to Grimmauld Place.