Chapter 12

Murder News

Disclaimer: Everything in Harry Potter universe belongs to J.K. Rowling. I got nothing out of this except for enjoyment.

The rest of the weekend passed without much of an incident, a new week was about to start soon.

On Monday morning, Harry woke up, and got dressed, then he made his way to the hall for breakfast.

As soon as he entered the Hall, he began to fill his plate with food, after he had filled his plate, he walked to a table, and took his seat.

As he was eating, Hermione arrived with her plate filled with food, then she sat down.

After they had their breakfast, they stood up, put their plates away, and then they went to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.

As they arrived, they found that the door was open, so they entered.

Professor Bailey was sitting by his desk, and he glanced at them for a moment.

Hermione went to Professor Bailey's desk, and handed her homework in.

"This homework is being handed back today, Miss Granger, I shall mark this tonight and hand it back to you in our next lesson," he said.

A moment later, several students entered the room, and sat down.

"We will wait for another five minutes, and then we will start," Professor Bailey said.

Five minutes later, another group of students arrived into the classroom, and took their seats.

"All right everyone," Professor Bailey said, handing back everyone's homework. "Apparently most of you did pretty well in the homework you had handed in to me last week."

Harry looked at his homework, and discovered that he had managed to get an Exceeds Expectations grade.

Professor Bailey spent most of the class going over the theory of a new spell, called Throwing Spell, which would cause an opponent, be it human or animals, to be thrown into the air and fall down.

"This would be such a dangerous spell to practise on other people, Professor," Joshua said.

"This doesn't mean we cannot practise this spell here, I will be putting Cushioning Charm on the ground as we practise this spell on others," Professor Bailey said. "Be rest assured."

Joshua didn't say anything else, and he fell silent.

Professor Bailey then pulled out his wand, and waved it at the ground.

"Let's see," he said. "Mark Garcia, I want you to come here for a demonstration."

A boy with black hair stood up, and walked towards Professor Bailey.

"Trafitio!" Professor Bailey said, pointing his wand at Mark.

Mark was thrown into the air, and he landed down on the ground.

Several other students were shocked, but then Mark stood up.

"I am all right," he said.

"Now you may go back to your seat, Mr Garcia," Professor Bailey said.

After Mark got back to his seat, Professor Bailey started to speak again.

"The wand movement of this spell is particularly important, but it is not easily grasped, and if you use this spell without the correct movement, anything can happen. Therefore I want you to practise the wand movement of this spell only, do not attempt to use this spell on your own yet. We will be practising this spell in our next lesson."

The rest of the lesson passed with students practising the wand movement of Throwing Spell, and at the end of the lesson, even Harry and Hermione didn't fully grasp it.

"All right, your homework will be practising the wand movement of this spell," said Professor Bailey.

As soon as Harry and Hermione walked out of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, they headed for their Transfiguration class.

As soon as they entered the classroom, Harry went and sat down, while Hermione took her homework and handed it in to Professor Wagner, who told her he would mark hers this evening, then she went and sat down beside Harry, and looked ahead.

Professor Wagner was sitting at his desk, his eyes were fixed on a sheet of paper, it was apparent that he was marking something.

As more students arrived, Professor Wagner got to his feet, and started the class.

The class passed rather quickly, and Professor Wagner was asking the students to vanish more objects using the Vanishing Spell, as some students still hadn't fully mastered it yet, they had mostly failed to do so.

Professor Wagner complimented Harry and Hermione at the end of the class due to the fact that they had managed to vanish their objects, saying that they are two of the best students he had ever seen over years of teaching.

While Harry and Hermione were sitting outside during break, they felt a slight breeze, and they saw a few other students talking to each other in whispers.

/Scene Break/

That afternoon, Sirius arrived home at five past four, he sat down on the sofa, waiting for Dan and Emma, who would not be back until half past five.

He sat down on the sofa, and gazed outside.

Unwittingly, the time gone past, and then he could hear the key sound at the door, knowing it must have been Dan and Emma.

He walked to the door and greeted them.

Then he looked at the clock, and saw the short hand had pointed past five, and the long hand just gone past seven.

Dan walked to the kitchen, and started to cook.

"How are you today, Sirius?" Emma asked.

"Quite good, I had checked out more than ten books today," Sirius replied. "You two must have been busy."

"Right Sirius," Emma agreed. "I don't have any appointments tomorrow."

"What about Dan?" Sirius asked.

"He only have appointments tomorrow morning, that's all," Emma replied. "Sirius, how were you doing at work?"

"A good number of books were sold," Sirius replied. "There were not too many customers, though."

"Can you recall how many customers had bought the books in the shop you had worked?" asked Emma.

"I am not sure exactly, but I knew it was more than ten customers who had bought books from the shop that I worked," Sirius replied after a moment of thinking.

During dinner time, no one had talked much, and as everyone had finished their dinner, Emma and Sirius went to the living room.

As the night fall, Emma turned on the light, and closed the curtain, then she sat down with Sirius.

"Has Harry's parents been telling you anything recently?" she asked.

"No," Sirius said.

About half an hour later, Dan came in.

"You must have been busy today, Dan," Sirius said.

"We had about a dozen patients today," Dan said. "There had been a bunch of appointments made, the majority of them are only in our practice for the first time."

"Some of the new patients are old people," said Emma.

/Scene Break/

During the evening, Harry received the latest Wizarding newspapers of Canada.

He then began to read.

Students Died In Nesassino Wizarding Academy

Three students (two boys and one girl) attending Nesassino Wizarding Academy (one of the Wizarding schools in Canada) had died three days ago due to the consumption of mistakenly brewed Antidotes for a deadly disease that only happens to Wizards. Two of those students were in their final year at school, and the remaining one was only in his second year.

The person who brewed the potion (Professor Adrian Jones) were discovered as a Dark wizard under the disguise of Polyjuice Potion, and he scarpered before anyone could catch up with him, and the Minister of Magic in Canada, Matthew Taylor, is looking for him right now.

The parents of those dead students were very sad as they were informed about their children's deaths, and a funeral would be arranged for them some time soon.

Harry's heart sank, he had never expected such an incident like this to happen in the Wizarding world of Canada, although he knew that this incident was not exactly a new one.

Given his previous experience, this had happened in Hogwarts only once, that Barty Crouch Junior, who was disguised under Polyjuice Potion as Mad-Eye Moody, and he almost gotten attacked by him after he had entered the DADA office, luckily Dumbledore had arrived just in time and put a stop on it.

However, he knew that it would not be worthwhile to get involved into investigating anything like this, since it was not his business to do so.

"What's up Harry?"

Harry turned, and he saw Hermione looking at him.

"Look at this," he said, handing the Wizarding newspaper to her.

After Hermione had read it, she sighed.

"Are you worried that a teacher might be under the guise of Polyjuice Potion over here?" she asked.

"Not really," Harry said. "Is there any way to detect whether someone is under the guise of Polyjuice Potion quickly and effectively?"

Several students looked up, and they were astounded. Hermione, however, had placed her arm around Harry's neck, and she giggled.

"Nothing that I know of," she said.

"That person must have been tried his best to act like Professor Adrian Jones, otherwise anyone could have suspected him," Harry said. "I just hope that this sort of thing doesn't happen in our school."

"So what do you reckon happened to the real one?" asked Hermione.

Harry shook his head.

Then he leant closer to Hermione, and continued to read.

The real Professor Jones arrived back in Nesassino Wizarding Academy only one day ago, and he was frustrated to hear such a thing, and he wanted to get involved in investigating this matter. Meanwhile, the Minister of Magic and the Wizarding School Governors had urged the staff of the school to agree on security questions, as well as examining new staff members, to make sure that they are not disguised as someone else.

Harry and Hermione put the newspaper aside, and continued to do their homework.

As soon as they had finished their homework, Harry checked his watch.

"It is fifteen minutes to nine o'clock," he said.

"Let's go to bed, then," Hermione said.

Together, they parted their ways.

/Scene Break/

Over the next few days, the school hardly talked except for the deaths of the three students in Nesassino Academy, and some students wondered if Saint Acute is going to be attacked or not.

"It would not be likely for this incident to happen in this school, since I don't see a single hint of any professor who teaches here disguising themselves," Harry said one evening, after he had finished his homework.

"We still have to watch out, though," Hermione said, "even though this school is much more peaceful than Hogwarts."

"Not even a single Dementor exists in this country," Harry said, changing the subject.

"Maybe the Ministry of Magic in Canada does not use Dementors to guard Wizarding prisons," Hermione said. "I suppose that there must be other security measures set for it."

"Is Azkaban the only Wizarding prison existed?" asked Harry.

"I don't know, but I think that there are possibilities that some countries has its own Wizarding prisons," Hermione said.

"There are Wizarding prisons in Canada," a voice said.

Harry looked around, and saw Joshua.

"How many?" he asked.

"Twenty," said Joshua.

Harry stared at Joshua in disbelief.

"You do know about Azkaban, don't you?" he asked.

"I've heard of it, but Wizards who had committed a crime in Canada will not be sent to Azkaban for imprisonment, they will be sent to one of the Canada Wizarding prisons instead, although the Wizarding prison in Canada do have security measures, it doesn't use Dementors to guard them," Joshua replied. "Dementors are a foul way to guard the Wizarding prison."

"Security measures might have been a better way to protect the prison," Hermione said. "Newly created spells must have been used in the Wizarding prison of this country."

"Partially," Joshua said, "only that it wouldn't always be necessary to use newly created spells around the prison."

/Scene Break/

Sirius had also received the news about the deaths occurred in Nesassino Academy a few days ago, and he sighed as he apparated back home from work.

Fortunately it was not any of the Saint Acute students, he thought. Otherwise I would have to make sure that Harry and Hermione are all right.

He sat down on the sofa, and looked down at the ground for about one minute.

"Hopefully Harry had already received this news," Dan said.

"I hope so," Sirius said, without looking up. "I also hope that there's no disguised staff members in Saint Acute."

He sighed again, not knowing whether he should write a letter to warn Harry and Hermione to watch out for themselves.

"Let's just hope that it won't happen," Emma said.

Sirius nodded.

Then they turned on the TV.

"How many books have you sold today, Sirius?" asked Dan.

"Over a dozen," Sirius replied.

"We didn't have much patients today, so we arrived home early," said Emma.

Two hours later, Sirius looked at the clock, and he discovered that the short hand was almost pointing to nine, and the long hand was pointing to eleven.

"I think I will sleep now," he said.

Dan looked at his watch, and he nodded.

A/N: I know that this chapter is not as long as expected, but I don't think it matters, since some books has only about a few pages per chapter anyway, having a short chapter doesn't always make the story look bad.