Chapter 13: Player 3 enters the game
Grimmauld Place number 12 - Monday, 30th of December, 1995
Hermione:
"So The Prophet is just keeping quiet about all that?" Harry and Ron stared at me in disbelief. Honestly? Why were they even still surprised by that?
"Yeah, I don't know, maybe they just don't care about it? It's only muggles, so why would any wizard be interested?" I replied sarcastically, now angry. I had been feeling riled the whole day and it was slowly getting worse.
With Hagrid's return; his catastrophic first lesson and Umbridge (who became increasingly more determined to bust the DA) making up another stupid educational degree each week and having Harry do detentions with her every evening, school had become very stressful these last two months. Not to mention Harry's stupid obsession with whatever Malfoy was up to when he vanished from the Marauder's Map.
All of that had really made me look forward to Christmas and a week with my parents in the quiet, peaceful, muggle world, before spending the second week of the holidays at Grimmauld Place with the Weasleys. Christmas had been fantastic, but I had soon found out that the muggle world wasn't quiet as peaceful any more.
"Well, I get that they don't really care about a serial killer or the vanishing people, but what about the animal attacks? What kind of animal attacks a human in the middle of the city?" Harry questioned me, his voice sounded angry. I could understand him. While the Daily Prophet kept trashing Dumbledore and Harry and reported what a 'great job' Umbridge was doing in Hogwarts, they had not even written a single word about all the dead muggles. But before I could get angry again, Ron interrupted my dwellings.
"Do you think that it could be You-Know-Who's doing? But wouldn't he just use the Avada?" He whispered, confused, throwing a quick glance at Molly to make sure she wasn't listening. She was still determined to keep us out of the order's work and wouldn't take well to us discussing Voldemort. But right now she was sitting far away at the other end of the table, where the adults seemed to be in a heated discussion about the ministry's educational politics and Umbridge.
Molly had convinced some of the order members to join us for dinner and with all the Weasleys staying here in the holidays, the kitchen was quite stuffed. Only Lupin had already gone upstairs. He was currently living with Sirius – officially because he couldn't find an apartment, but I suspected he wanted someone to keep him company and make sure he wasn't doing anything stupid – and because today was a full moon, he had locked himself into his bedroom to sleep there until he changed back. Molly had looked a bit worried at that, but Lupin and Sirius had assured her, that he was fine and completely harmless after taking the Wolfsbane Potion. I turned back to Harry and Ron, lowering my voice so Fred, George and Ginny, who were sitting across from us, talking about Quidditch, wouldn't overhear.
"I don't really think so. Those people died of blood loss without any great wounds. That wasn't done by deatheaters. But I doubt it was an animal either." I told them slowly and starred into my soup, stirring it thoughtfully.
"So who do you think did it?" Harry pressed on. I've had time to think this over already and had only come to one logical solution.
"It has to be vampires, that's the only thing that makes sense. I'm just not sure where they suddenly came from." I explained. Harry frowned and starred at his soup, like I had done, thinking about what I had just told him.
We were both ripped out of our thoughts by a low buzzing noise that made everyone at the table break off in the middle of their sentence. Suddenly, instead of the loud chatter that had filled the whole kitchen, the only thing that could be heard was the buzzing. Everyone was looking around confused, trying to find the source of the sound, until Elijah rose from his seat, taking his vibrating mobile phone out of his suit pocket. He quickly checked the caller ID and then threw us an apologetic glance.
"Please do excuse me for a moment." He quickly walked out of the kitchen while answering the call. "Kol. I take it you received my letter?" I noticed the small smile on his face before he stepped into the hallway.
Kol? I had heard the name before… Right! His little brother. The wiza-
"Oh, is that one of those fellytones? But where was the cable? And the buttons?" Arthur questioned Harry delighted, his eyes sparkling with excitement. I quickly looked around the table and noticed the confused expressions on the faces of the others and could barely contain a chuckle. They were reminding me a bit of muggles seeing magic for the first time.
"It's a mobile phone, that's nearly the same but..." Harry beat me to an explanation of mobile phones and I quickly droned him out when I heard Elijah's low voice from the hallway again.
"Okay, so what is the problem?" A short pause, then much louder: "You're what?! Why would you-" He seemed to be listening, then sighed. "Never mind. I'm going to talk to him. It will take a moment."
He re-entered the room, the phone still in his hand, but he seemed to have ended the call and now looked at Dumbledore.
"I just talked to my brother and it seems as though he may be able help us with the issue I wrote to him about." he told him cryptically, but Dumbledore seemed to understand him instantly and started smiling.
"Well, that is very fortunate. So you know where it is?" He asked Elijah, sounding relieved, happy almost. Whatever the hell they were talking about seemed to be very important.
"I'm afraid it's not that easy. He doesn't have it. But he has decided to drop in for a surprise visit, so if you do wish to speak to him personally, he's waiting outside." Elijah explained frowning, obviously not quite as happy with this turn of events as Dumbledore seemed to be, whose eyes lit up at his words.
"Oh I would not pass on that opportunity. The things I could ask him…" He was still smiling and then turned to Sirius.
"Sirius, do you mind if I invite him to join us?" Dumbledore asked and Sirius shrugged.
"Elijah's brother? If he's going to help us, sure. The more, the merrier." He agreed happily, slurring a bit, already quite drunk. But then looked at Elijah and frowned.
"Oh, do you need me to come too?" He asked and half-rose from his seat, wavering a bit. I noticed the disapproving look Molly threw him and the empty bottle of fire whiskey, which he and Lupin had emptied while waiting for dinner.
"I should think that will be unnecessary." Elijah quickly told him and Sirius slumped back onto the bench.
Elijah and Dumbledore strode out of the room and I turned to look at Harry and Ron, but it was Fred who spoke first.
"So what do you think he's like? Mikaelson's brother?"
"Well if he looks anything like him..." Ginny trailed off and her brothers started chuckling.
"Well, we'll find out soon, right?" Ron didn't seem to be very interested in this topic and instead turned his attention towards his second plate of soup. That seemed to be the cue for everyone else to resume eating and I took this opportunity to finally finish my own soup too, which was cold now. I could hear Dumbledore and Elijah talking, but couldn't make out their words.
When they re-entered the room, the guy that was with them looked nothing like Elijah. He was a bit taller than him, seemed to be around twenty years old, with brown, curly hair and blue eyes. He was wearing jeans, a simple black t-shirt and a light brown jacket. But the most noticeable thing about him was the bright smirk on his face and the mischievous glint in his eyes. When he stepped further into the room, Ginny bent across the table to me.
"I take everything back. He doesn't even have to look like Prof. Mikaelson." She whispered, winked and then blushed a bit as I snorted. But she had a point. The guy was definitely good-looking.
"Oh wow so many witches in one place, did I crash a party?" He asked, still smiling brightly, curiously in a heavy British accent. Where did he get that one from?
Everyone was staring at him now, but he didn't seem to be uncomfortable at all. His stance exuded self-confidence.
"You should have told me that you were having so much fun here, I would have visited much earlier." He accused Elijah, an expression of faked disbelief on his face, then he turned to us.
"I'm Kol by the way. His brother. You probably already knew that. But don't judge me, not everyone in our family has swallowed a giant broomstick. I'm much more fun than he is." He told us, smirking. Elijah only raised his eyebrows and sighed at his antics, but I could hear a few people chuckle.
"It's so great that you came all the way here to visit your brother!" Molly greeted him and quickly stood up to rush to the oven. "Are you hungry? Oh, what a stupid question, of course you are! Come on, sit down! I'm afraid we don't have any leftover soup, but you're just in time for the chicken and ham pie! We only need another plate and cutlery. Now where did that damn house-elf put the forks again? I could swear he hides them on purpose!" While she was rushing around to find a fork, Kol was staring at her, slightly taken aback. Elijah sat back down and I noticed Fred whispering something in George's ear and grinning, before both of them moved a bit down the bench to make room for Kol to sit down between Fred and Elijah.
As soon as Kol had sat down, Molly put a plate of food in front of him, then charmed the pie to pass itself down the table. Kol thanked her, smiling brightly, but it didn't completely reach his eyes. He frowned, then stared at the plate. Fred seemed to have noticed too and nudged him.
"You better eat if you don't want her to force feed you." He chuckled.
"Don't worry, she can be a bit overbearing sometimes but you'll get used to it." George added. Kol just shook his head.
"Oh it's fine. It's just been a really long time since anyone urged me to eat anything." He chuckled and Elijah threw him an amused look.
"Nobody ever needed too. Most of the time I was busy cleaning up the horrible mess you made when you… had a meal." He smirked and Kol grinned innocently and shrugged, causing Elijah to sigh. Then he picked up his fork to dive into the pie.
By now, everyone else had started eating again and the chatter from before had returned. Some people were throwing an occasional glance at Kol, but nobody tried to talk to him. Fred was still whispering with George and from the expressions in their faces I could tell they were planning some kind of prank and Ginny, Harry and Ron were now talking about Quidditch – again. So, while eating, I couldn't help but overhear Elijah and Kol's conversation, which I wasn't too sad about. I was still eager to find out what Kol was supposed to be doing for the order. Why was Dumbledore so fascinated by this guy? He wasn't much older than we were, how much of a great wizard could he be?
"So, what exactly are you doing here, Kol? Should you not be helping Davina lead the witch faction?" Elijah asked him confused and Kol snorted.
"Oh come on, Davina is perfectly able to do that on her own. She's done so for years and still found the time to kick your and Nik's butt. Besides, do I really need an excuse to visit my favorite brother?" Kol smirked at Elijah, who raised his eyebrows.
"Favorite brother?"
"Ouch, Elijah. Of course you are!" He proclaimed, but then smirked. "Okay, usually that would be Nik. But he's still blaming me for everything because I changed that damn dagger that started your squabble. I don't particularly fancy being the third wheel either." Kol complained. "And, from what Beks told me, you seem to have become a lot more fun in the last years. So, for now, you're officially my favorite brother. I thought that feeling would be mutual, but if I'm not wanted here..." He trailed of, clutching his chest theatrically and threw Elijah a look of faked hurt.
Nik? So that was their other brother's name? Elijah had never mentioned it, probably because of their difficult relationship.
"Oh please, brother, you haven't come here to visit me. Davina would not let you leave so easily after she just got you back." Somehow it was really sad that Elijah didn't believe that Kol was here to visit him. They were family. Kol shouldn't have to have an excuse for wanting to see his brother in the Christmas holidays.
"Yeah, well, she didn't object much either when our dear sister kicked me out of New Orleans." Kol answered bitterly. Okay, so maybe Elijah was right…
"Rebekah banned you from the city? What did you do now?" Elijah sounded only mildly surprised at this news and Kol smirked.
"Aww well, the Major had a little accident that involved him flying out of a window." I nearly choked on the pie at Kol's downright gleeful tone of voice. Elijah only sighed, exasperated.
"You killed the new Major? How wonderful."
"No! I didn't! Why does everyone instantly assume it was me? Not that you had any right to be so judgy, even if I did." Kol pouted, still smirking. I completely froze in my seat at those words. Did he really kill that man? And he didn't sound guilty in the least. On the contrary. At Elijah's unbelieving look, Kol turned serious.
"I really didn't kill him. I might have suggested something like that once or twice, but I never even got the chance. Someone did this to set me up. Probably Marcel or Hayley. Anyone could have thrown him out of the window. Hell, he could have decided to jump, for all we know! But of course I'm the one who gets blamed! Why does everyone even care? The guy was only human. And an extremely annoying one at that. But suddenly everyone is so concerned with the peace with the humans and gives in to their demands? It's not like they can pose any real threat. The council just used this as an excuse to make me leave. But I'm going to find out who did this and then I'm going to make them pay." Kol ranted, now angry. He seemed really hurt that nobody had believed him, and with good reason! How could his own sister and his girlfriend just assume he was a murderer? And Elijah did too! What was wrong with that family?
I decided to give them a bit of privacy and focused back on eating. Nobody else seemed to have overheard Kol and Elijah's conversation and I now turned my attention to Fred and George, who weren't whispering any more.
"I don't know why it doesn't work on everyone, maybe if we can find a pattern..." I had absolutely no clue what they were talking about, probably some problems with a new product they had invented. I was about to focus on Harry, Ginny and Ron's discussion instead, when I overheard what Fred said next.
"Yeah, but there is no pattern! We already went through this. It doesn't depend on anything. It worked on most of the kids, but some still only get a running nose instead of a nosebleed. Maybe if we add-" This time I did choke – ironically on the last bite of my pie – and started coughing loudly, interrupting whatever he was going to say next.
When I finally was able to breathe again I remembered what had caused me to choke.
"Tell me you're not using younger students as your lab rats?!" I stared at them, completely horrified by that idea. How long had that gone on? What if something had happened? I felt my anger raise to the surface again and balled my hands to fists.
"It's not like that, we first test the products on ourselves. We only want to make sure everyone reacts in the same way." George tried to placate me, throwing a worried glance in Molly's direction, but his words only made me angrier. So they had tried them on little kids? How could they?!
I was fuming, my whole body shaking with anger. Why was I so angry? I couldn't remember ever being so angry. And it had come so suddenly. But they did deserve it. They could have hurt the kids. They probably did. They had been talking about giving them a bleeding nose.
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! YOU THINK YOU CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT, DO YOU?! I WON'T LET YOU GO AROUND TEST THIS STUFF-"
"Hermione!" Elijah's sharp voice cut through the red fog in my brain, letting me think straight again for a moment. I couldn't remember standing up, but I apparently had. Now I was bent forward over the table towards Fred, clutching a shard of a broken plate in my hand. The only thing that had apparently prevented me from attacking the twins was the broad table between us.
I was still shaking with rage and I closed my eyes and tried to take a deep breath to calm me down. It didn't work very well and when I opened my eyes again, I noticed everyone staring at me. I quickly sat back down and blushed, embarrassment now the most overpowering feeling. Great. Now I at least knew what to do next time when I felt so angry, utterly embarrass myself. I tried to make myself as small as possible and preferably vanish into the ground. Of course that didn't work, but finally Kol broke the shocked silence.
"That is quite a temper for such a pretty girl like you." He said, smirking, somehow he nearly seemed to be a bit impressed. His comment effectively diffused the tension in the room and some people politely started a conversation again. I could still feel my face burning.
"Hermione? Are you alright?" Harry quietly asked me and I nodded weakly.
"Listen we're sorry, and-"
"Don't, Fred. Let's not talk about that now!" I hissed angrily again. I really didn't want to lose it again. The boys obviously got the message, decided to leave me alone and turned back to their conversation about Quidditch. Honestly? How much could you talk about that?
I looked down at the shards of my plate. Luckily I hadn't cut my hands.
"Do you feel better now?" Elijah was looking at me worried and I sighed.
"Yeah, it just… It seems to be getting worse. I've felt riled up the whole day. But this just was… I didn't even register what happened..." I told him quietly, hoping nobody was listening. Suddenly Kol's face lit up and a wide grin appeared on his face.
"Of course! You're the little wo-"
"Yes, Kol. She's the witch who punched me during my own lesson. I should never have told Rebekah. Are you two ever going to forget about that?" Elijah quickly interrupted him and now Kol was staring at him, something about Elijah's statement seemed to have utterly confused him.
"But I thought she was…?" He trailed off when he noticed Elijah's intense, meaningful look.
"Yes, that too. But let's not talk about this, okay?" They seemed to be having some kind of secret conversation going on between them in their cryptic sentences and the looks they exchanged. Were they talking about me?
"So… A bit like Nik? Only the much more awesome version? And she doesn't know?" Kol finally seemed to have understood something. Okay, I had no idea what they were talking about, but it probably wasn't about me. What would I have in common with their brother? Maybe they were talking about Rebekah. That made much more sense. They had mentioned her earlier and why else would they want no one else to understand what they were talking about?
"Exactly. And I would prefer if it stayed this way." They were keeping something from their sister? Whatever. I decided to just give up on trying to decipher their codes.
"Wow. That's cool." Kol grinned and then turned his head to look at me. "But I think we have ignored this lovely witch long enough." He winked at me and I snorted. Really? He had just witnessed me losing my temper and nearly attack Fred and George and this guy was flirting with me? He smirked amused when he saw my disbelieving look. Then he seemed to remember something.
"Let me make that up to you with a little gift?" He offered and I frowned. A gift? He rummaged around in one of the pockets of his jacket and finally took out something silvery.
"Elijah asked me to make this. It should… uhmm… help you not to lose your temper this easily. I'm not sure how well it will work, since my brother forget to mention just how exceptional you are." His tone was flirty and he was grinning at me, but I didn't miss the short annoyed glance he threw Elijah. Then he put a bracelet on the table before me.
So that was the magical object Elijah asked him to make for me? I felt myself blush involuntarily. But then my curiosity took over and I carefully picked the bracelet up.
I didn't like wearing jewelry very much, but even I couldn't deny it was pretty. It was made out of silver, with tiny colorful gemstones embedded every centimeter or so. Between those, runes were engraved into the silver. I curiously studied them. They seemed not to be the magical runes that we studied in school, those usually were Germanic. These looked to be Viking. They probably were part of the charm placed on the bracelet. Interesting. All of the books I had read about Ancient Runes, had claimed that using Viking runes for charms was very rare. I quickly looked back up at Kol and Elijah, who were watching me.
"Wow, thanks. What kind of charm did you use to make that?" I asked Kol interestedly while slipping it on my arm. Kol seemed delighted by my interest.
"I used a spell I've learned from my mother's grimoire long ago and with the things I know about dark objects I was able to change it that it won't weaken you as a side effect. I hope it will work. My mother had much more power than I have now, but with the silver and the runes as a binder it should probably be enough." He started explaining and I only stared at him fascinated. Dark Objects were very difficult to create, and he was confident enough to experiment with them? And what the heck was a grimoire?
Kol seemed to have noticed my confused look and frowned.
"Don't you guys learn such things in that school you're going to?" he asked a bit taken aback, but then snorted amused. "Well, what can you expect from a school for magic that lets my brother teach? It can't have very high standards." He teased Elijah, smirking, who only raised his eyebrows, amused. He had been watching the interaction between us with a smile. Now Elijah smirked back at Kol.
"I don't know brother, from what Albus has told me, you probably know more of Hogwarts's history than I." His tone was a bit teasing too. Kol blinked at those words, staring at Elijah in disbelief.
"Hogwarts? Really? You are teaching at Hogwarts? That place still exists?" He asked Elijah, surprised, shaking his head in confusion.
"You know Hogwarts?" I asked him curiously. He wasn't that much older than us, but I couldn't remember him ever being a student there. He probably went to some magical school in America. Maybe he had heard about Hogwarts there? But then why would he be so surprised that it still existed?
He turned back to me and started smirking again.
"Oh yeah. Ages ago, I met a really lovely witch that went to Hogwarts. She told me a bit about the school. Her mother was one of the…teachers there. Bunch of lunatics if you ask me. Bickering even worse than my family. But I never got to see the castle. They always claimed they would never let anyone of my family get even near it." He looked at Elijah amused and shook his head. "Well, times change I guess."
xxx
After dinner, when we all were stuffed with Molly's delicious homemade ice cream, Fred and George seemed to be getting bored again. I noticed them whispering excitedly with each other, until Fred grinned and turned to Kol.
"Hey, do you want us to show you the house?"
"Yeah, if you're helping the order now, you'll probably be here sometimes." Fred and George asked Kol, grinning, and interrupting his discussion with Elijah, about who in New Orleans had the most reason to want to get rid of Kol.
"Besides, this used to be the house of a dark wizard family, there's some pretty cool stuff hidden here." George whispered and I noticed Kol's eyes light up a bit excitedly.
"Sure. Sounds good." He agreed and all three of them stood up. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Fred and George exchange a mischievous look, but before I could stop Kol, they were already leaving the room. What were they planning? I seriously doubted they just wanted to show him the house. They were planning some kind of prank… And Kol was the perfect victim. Of course they would jump at the opportunity to prank the younger brother of our teacher. They had given up on trying to prank Elijah pretty soon. Somehow he always seemed to know their plans. But Kol was completely obvious to the twins' penchant for mischief. Worriedly, I looked at Elijah, but he was deep in a conversation with Kingsley and Tonks and I didn't want to interrupt them.
Well, I didn't really have much else to do. I quickly stood up and stepped behind Harry and Ron and nudged them.
"Hey, want to help me save Kol from the twins?" They were eager to agree, also already a bit bored and, at the least, what the twins had planned could turn out to be funny. Maybe. Sometimes they went a bit too far in with their pranks.
While we were walking up the stairs I tried to focus on their voices to figure out where they were.
"So what's in there?" I heard Kol ask them curiously.
"Oh no, we don't go in there."
"Much too scary."
"And too dangerous."
"Yeah, you really don't want to go in there."
"You've probably never seen anything that scary."
"We don't want you to be afraid to come here again."
"So we're going to skip this room."
"Unless you insist, of course…"
I heard the twins tease Kol. Their tone of voice clearly daring Kol to enter whatever room they were talking about. What did they want to scare him with? What room in this house was that scary? I wrecked my brain while hurrying up the stairs. Now I could hear Kol starting to chuckle.
"Guys, whatever is in there, I've seen much scarier things, trust me."
"Well, if you say so..."
"Don't say we didn't warn you." I heard Fred mumbling "Alohomora" and the creaking of a door that swung open. A locked door? There was no locked room on this floor. There were only some bedrooms. Then it hit me. Lupin!
Without bothering to explain anything to Harry and Ron, I sprinted up the remaining stairs and along the right hallway, but when I turned around the corner, the empty hallway told me I was too late. When I came to a screeching stop next to the open door, they had already entered the room.
They had apparently woken Lupin by entering the room and the werewolf was now fixing them with a glare. He didn't look dangerous or aggressive, the Wolfsbane potion was keeping him sane, but his stare seemed to be angry. He didn't like people knowing about his condition and for someone to see him like that? What were those idiots thinking?
No one had bothered acknowledging my presence, as Fred and George's eyes were fixed on Kol and he was still staring at Lupin. Surprisingly he didn't look scared by the werewolf, instead he seemed confused. Frowning he turned to Fred and George.
"What the hell is that thing?" He asked them and I heard Lupin growling slightly at the barely hidden disgust in his voice. The twins seemed confused by his reaction but then George grinned.
"Oh, that's Remus Lupin, our former Professor. Remus, that's Kol Mikaelson." He introduced them good-naturally, but flinched when Lupin growled loudly at those words. This wasn't good. Lupin might have his human mind, but that didn't mean he couldn't be dangerous when he got angry or felt threatened in this form. And the name Mikaelson definitely seemed to make him angry. Carefully I drew my wand – still remembering how frightening Lupin had been that night in our third year. There wasn't much I could do against an angry werewolf, but it was better than nothing.
"We have to leave. Now." I told them and Fred and George even took a few steps back towards the door. I don't think they had expected Lupin to get angry. How much control did he really have in this form?
But instead of leaving, Kol started grinning, amused: not caring that Lupin was still snarling at him.
"Wait, you say this ugly goblin-hyena-crossbreed was your teacher? Can it even talk? Or did you just take it for walks every now and then?" He chuckled and, before I could rise my wand, Lupin lunged at him. The twins both stumbled back, blocking the doorway and my view into the room.
"Kol!" I know my warning was too late when I heard a loud crash and quickly pushed George away to rush to help Kol, my wand raised.
I stopped dead in my tracks at what I saw.
There was Kol, standing relaxed in the middle in the room, looking mildly irritated, one of his hands still raised. And, on the other end of the room, the werewolf Lupin was slowly picking itself up from the floor, growling - a hole in the wall behind him. Had Kol somehow used unintentional magic and thrown him across the room?
I quickly raised my wand as Lupin growled again and threateningly started to near Kol, his posture stiff, ready to attack again at any moment. I was still debating with myself whether to rather use the 'Petrificus Totalus' or the 'Impedimenta' spell, when the werewolf suddenly doubled over and started whimpering in pain. What was going on?
I turned to Kol and saw him slowly crooking his fingers, his hand pointed at Lupin. Was he doing this? How? He didn't have a wand? But a quick look at the others confirmed that indeed had to be him. Fred and George still seemed to be frozen at the door and were only staring at Kol. Harry and Ron had arrived sometime in the middle of this whole fiasco, but Ron was standing in the doorway just as frozen as his brothers. Harry had entered the room and was standing next to me, wand also raised, but he seemed to be just as confused as me.
A loud, pain-filled whine from Lupin got us all moving again. Harry quickly rushed over to try and help him and I turned to Kol
"Kol, you're hurting him. Stop that!"
"Are you kidding? That thing jumped at me!" He looked, disbelieving, from me to Harry, who glared at him angrily.
"Kol!" where had Elijah suddenly come from? "I believe that is quite enough, brother. I should think Remus will not attack again." He put a calming hand on Kol's shoulder and, when Kol relaxed his hand, Lupin's whimpering stopped.
"Fine. Now, would someone please tell me what that thing is?" Kol asked us all, confused. By now, the remaining Weasleys and Dumbledore has also appeared in the room and everyone was staring at him again.
"It's a werewolf." Wasn't that obvious? Kol stared at me, then at Lupin again, who was shakily raising to his feet again.
"That is supposed to be a werewolf? What happened to him? I've never seen such an ugly wolf." Kol was now looking at Lupin curiously. What was he talking about? That was what werewolves looked like, they didn't look like normal wolves. Maybe he had never seen a werewolf? But somehow from the way he acted, I doubted that. Suddenly Elijah spoke up.
"He was not born with the werewolf gene, Kol, he was bitten by another werewolf, like him." Elijah smirked and now everyone was looking at him confused. What was he talking about? Werewolf gene? So it was possible to inherit being a werewolf? It kind of made sense, but I had never heard of a werewolf having kids. Kol snorted.
"Oh come on, Elijah, do you believe in fairy tales now? You don't turn into a werewolf by being bitten by one, that was just made up by some ignorant humans. If you get bitten by a werewolf you die. Well, you don't. But the venom kills everyone else. Humans and Witches and Vampires, doesn't matter." Kol's tone of voice clearly suggested that he thought the idea was ridiculous. I also noted that he was always talking about 'humans' as if he himself wasn't one. Or maybe the wizards in the USA used that term to talk about muggles?
"You're right, brother, usually that is the case. But it would appear as if the wizards here found a way to save wizards bitten by a werewolf. And this is the result." Elijah gestured towards Lupin. "The real werewolves have long been nearly extinct here in Britain, and, instead, this other kind flourished here, biting more wizards to extend their population." Elijah explained and Kol looked at him confused.
"Oh… okay. But there still are real werewolves here, right? Because I have no idea how well some magic will work on this new kind." He was staring at Elijah as if silently inquiring about something. When Elijah didn't seem to understand, Kol threw me a quick glance, but I could only shrug. I too had no idea what he was talking about. But now Elijah seemed to have caught on.
"There still are a few who carry the werewolf gene, yes brother." Elijah answered, which somehow seemed to answer Kol's silent question as well, who was smirking at Elijah again.
"And I shouldn't worry about magic not working. The wolves changed by the venom aren't nearly as strong as those we're used to. Most of them are more powerful in their human form, as they're all also wizards. I'm surprised you have never heard of them before." Elijah continued, his last sentence slightly teasing and Kol pouted.
"I don't really much care about werewolves, that would be Nik's new-found obsession." Kol tried to defend himself. "Meeting wand-using hyenas never was on the top of my to-do-list." At that comment Lupin hissed, offended, with seemed to be Molly's cue to lose it too.
"Now, could someone please tell me what you were doing in this room in the first place?!" She turned towards Fred and George, her voice dangerously calm and they took a few steps back.
"Listen mom."
"We can explain..."
"It was only supposed to be a joke..." Before Molly could start screaming, I grabbed Ginny and towed her to our room.
This was more than enough action for one evening and I was really tired by now. Not to mention I had to process all the information I had gotten today.
xxx
I was just about to fall asleep when the door to our room opened and Harry and Ron entered.
"Hey, Hermione." Harry whispered and I sat up in my bed, trying not to wake Ginny, who was snoring softly.
"What do you want?" I whispered back, irritated and Harry at least had the decency to look a bit guilty.
"Well, Dumbledore is downstairs, talking to Elijah and Kol about some super-secret mission, he didn't even want the other order members to know. And we have an Extendable Ear." The boys looked at me excitedly and I sighed. It was wrong to spy on Dumbledore, but damn it if I wasn't bursting with curiosity too. I quickly got out of bed and we carefully sneaked down to the entrance hall, as close to the kitchen as we dared, hiding under the stairs to the first floor, so we couldn't be seen from above. I shivered a bit, wearing only my pajamas and wished I had at least put on socks. Well, it was too late for that now.
Harry had let the Extendable Ear crawl under the kitchen door and we huddled together to listen to the conversation.
The first thing I could hear was Kol's teasing, amused voice.
"One day you two have to tell me why you are so obsessed with finding a princess costume. Sound's kinky." Then his voice turned serious. "But there's really no way he could have it. I never told anyone where I hid it and the place was sealed with a very powerful spell."
"Are you sure it is still there?" Whatever they were talking about seemed to be really important for Dumbledore. His voice sounded strained.
"Yes, I am. I don't even know if even I could find a way to retrieve it now. The witch bloodline necessary to undo the spell might not even exist anymore." Kol insisted, but Dumbledore still wasn't convinced.
"Voldemort has got ways to get what he wants, however unlikely it seems at first. If you don't want to tell me where it is, would you mind going yourself and check if it is indeed still there?"
"Well, I could, if you're so concerned about that. I only need a vial with Elijah's blood." Kol agreed.
"Why would you need my blood?" Elijah asked him suspiciously.
"Oh, afraid what I could use it for?" Kol teased him, then: "The witch needed a powerful magical binding agent that would not be easy to come by and could also work as a security measure. So I made her use my blood. But I'm not in my Original body anymore, so my blood is pretty useless now." Kol explained. Wow, magical objects, wandless magic, spells bound by blood, this guy seemed to know a lot about really strange branches of witchcraft. No wonder Dumbledore was interested to meet him. But what did he mean by 'original' body? Was he using Polyjuice Potion to look like someone else now? That didn't make much sense…
"But if you don't trust me, you could come with me? That would be much more fun. And it would be the perfect opportunity for you to get a break from all the bagged instant food." Kol teased Elijah. What was that about now? The house-elves didn't cook instant food…
"If you want me to help you, fine. If we leave as soon as possible, we might manage to be back when school starts again." Elijah agreed. Ron groaned.
"Do they really have to be back by then? I wouldn't mind a few additional free periods." He whispered and Harry nodded.
"Great. Now, let's talk about my price for helping you." We could hear Kol's voice again.
"If you would both excuse me for just a moment? It would seem that our conversation isn't quite as private as we would like for it to be." Elijah suddenly interrupted and I heard a chair scraping on the ground. Harry hastily tried to pull the Extendable Ear back, while we were looking from somewhere to hide. How did Elijah know? He couldn't have heard us talking, could he?
Then the door of the kitchen opened and Elijah slowly walked towards us, eying the Extendable Ear with distaste and throwing us a disapproving look.
"I do believe you should all be sleeping. I don't particularly enjoy people eavesdropping on me." He told us with a smirk, luckily not as angry as I had suspected and we quickly apologized and hurried upstairs.
When I finally snuggled into my bed again, I dimly realized that I hadn't gotten angry again after the dinner. Even despite the twins' dangerous stunt with Kol and Lupin, I had not felt the urge to murder them. The bracelet seemed to be working.