Hello there!
Welcome to the next chapter of Cruel Angel Thesis. I know another CAT update, but I'm busy with other things and story projects. I hope you enjoy and now on to the review.
girani4: Yeah, I can see your points. Though what does Clark reading a book with the adventure's have to do with it? It would have to be, though it's not like it would be my first time with Alt/parallel universes. Okay I see the mistakes made in this chapter.
And now story time.
One summer evening on the outskirts of a town up north. Despite the cloudless sky, the old trees ahead cast deep, dark, cool shadows, a cave was half-hidden amongst the tangle of trunks. It seemed to him a very strange location. the trees grew all around, blocking all light and the view of the valley below.
"And?" one of the Knights of Sephylon named Sandaion said, a cape draped on his shoulders, "Do you have it?"
His masked face looked towards the tree trunk where another Knight appeared. Wrapped in black robes, his face obscured by the accompanying black hood and white mask. This Knight's name was Raphion.
"I have." Raphion said with his deep booming voice, showing off the small golden cup with two handles and a badger engraving, "Just as our lord has foretold."
"You know how he hates being called that." Sandaion said as his fellow Knight stored the ring inside his robes.
"I know, it's just difficult sometimes." Raphion said as the two men began to walk away from the trunk and back to the path, "When you see him call meteors from the skies to smite Voldemort's forces... it is difficult not to think of him as a god."
"Just take a page out of Gabrion's book." Sandaion said, referring to their newest member and youngest member, "Let's hope the others have succeeded in their mission as well."
As the end of the holidays approached. Claire began daydreaming about Hogwarts more and more as the end of the holidays approached; she could not wait to see Hagrid again, to play Quidditch, even to stroll across the vegetable patches to the Herbology greenhouses; it would be a treat just to leave this dusty, musty house, where half of the cupboards were still bolted shut and Kreacher wheezed insults out of the shadows as you passed.
"I just realized something." Claire said as she and Harry were sitting in the backyard, in the shadow of a nearby tree. "Remember how you told me how Voldemort was on the back of Quirrell in your first year?"
Harry gave a nod, wondering where she was going with this, "And Fred and George jinxed snowballs to hit Quirrell's turban." she explained, "They were unknowingly smacking Voldemort in the face."
The young couple broke down in laughter, "Can you just imagine Voldemort under the turban going 'don't blow your cover, don't blow your cover, don't blow your'..." Harry said as suddenly the scar on his forehead burned so badly that he clapped his hand to it.
"Your scar..." Claire said, looking alarmed, "It's burning..."
"Y-Yeah... But it's nothing..." Harry mumbled, "It happens all the time now...",
On the very last day of the holidays Harry was sweeping up Hedwig's owl droppings from the top of the wardrobe when Alex, Ron and Neville entered their bedroom carrying a couple of envelopes.
"Booklists have arrived." Ron said, throwing one of the envelopes up to Harry, who was standing on a chair, "About time, I thought they'd forgotten, they usually come much earlier than this..."
Harry swept the last of the droppings into a rubbish bag and threw the bag over Neville's head into the wastepaper basket in the corner, which swallowed it and belched loudly.
He then opened his letter. It contained two pieces of parchment: one the usual reminder that term started on the first of September; the other telling him which books he would need for the coming year.
"Only two new ones." Neville said, reading his own list, "'The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 5', by Miranda Goshawk, and 'Defensive Magical Theory', by Wilbert Slinkhard."
Crack
Fred and George Apparated right beside Harry. He was so used to them doing this by now that he didn't even fall off his chair.
"We were just wondering who set the Slinkhard book." Fred said conversationally.
"Because it means Dumbledore's found a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher." George said.
"And about time too." Alex said with a letter in hand, "Mum said Dumbledore was having real trouble finding anyone to do the job tis year."
"Not really a surprise." Neville said, "When you look at what's happened to the last four."
"One sacked, one dead, one's disappeared from the face of the earth and one locked in a trunk for nine months." Harry said counting them off on his fingers, "Yeah, I see what you mean. Let's just drop Defense Against the Dark Arts and replace it with Combat Classes."
"Yeah!" Ron said, "Professor Jeager all week around!"
"What's up with you, Alex?" Fred said.
Alex did not answer, he was standing very still with his mouth slightly open, gaping at his letter from Hogwarts.
"What's the matter?" Fred said impatiently, moving around Alex to look over his shoulder at the parchment.
Fred's mouth fell open, too. "Prefect?", he said, staring incredulously at the letter.
"Prefect?" George said, leaping forward, seized the envelope in Alex's other hand and turned it upside-down.
Harry saw something scarlet and gold fall into George's palm.
"No way." George said in a hushed voice.
"There's been a mistake." Fred said, snatching the letter out of Alex's grasp and holding it up to the light as though checking for a watermark, "No one in their right mind would make Alex a prefect. We raised him better than that."
"I know! I'm just as surprised as you are." Alex said, turning to Harry, "Thought you would get it. I had my money on Dumbledore to pick you! Think of all the trouble I caused just to fix that bet!"
"Yeah." Fred said slowly, "Well, at least you got your priorities right." he clapped Alex on the back.
Alex thrusted the prefect badge to Harry as though it might contaminate him.
Harry took it, a large 'P' was superimposed on the Gryffindor lion. He had seen a badge just like this on Percy's chest on his very first day at Hogwarts. The door banged open. Hermione came tearing into the room, followed by Claire, her cheeks flushed and her hair flying. There was an envelope in her hand.
"Did you... Did you get?" Hermione said as she spotted the badge in Harry's hand and let out a shriek, "I knew it!", brandishing her letter.
"No." Harry said, pushing the badge back into Alex's hand, "It's Alex, not me."
"...Say what now?" Claire said.
"But... are you sure?" Hermione said, turning red, "I mean..."
"I'm just as surprised as you are!" Alex repeated himself, "But it's my name on the letter."
"I..." Hermione said looking thoroughly bewildered, "I... well... wow! Well done, Alex! That's really..."
"Unexpected." Claire said, nodding.
"No." Hermione said, blushing harder than ever, "No it's not... Alex's done loads of..."
"Shagging in broom closets." Alex said letting out a tired sigh, "I don't want the responsibility. Only prats become prefects!" and he walked out of the room.
Not long after, Ron, Neville, Hermione, Fred and George also left the room, leaving only Harry and Claire.
For some reason, Harry found he did not want to look at Claire. He turned to his bed, picked up the pile of clean robes and crossed the room to his trunk.
A few moments passed; Harry heard the door close but remained bent double, listening; the only sounds he could hear were the blank picture on the wall sniggering again and the wastepaper basket in the corner coughing up the owl droppings.
"I had completely forgotten about prefects being chosen in the fifth year..." Harry said as he felt Claire sit next to him.
"So did I." Claire said as she saw Harry screwed up his face and buried it in his hands, "I had expected the prefect badge to you."
"Me too... I thought it would be me and you." Harry said, "Does that make me as arrogant as Malfoy?"
"Don't compare yourself with that snake. You are great at a lot of things, but you don't lord it over others." Claire said, placing an arm around her boyfriend, "Beside, who wants to be a prefect anyway? Even Alex doesn't want to be. I'm not going to sulk because I haven't got a badge, and neither should you."
This slightly relieved the bad feeling he was having, "Claire, you always know what to say to make me feel better." Harry said, scooting over and leaning towards her.
Down in the living room, Mrs. Weasley had hung a scarlet banner over the heavily laden dinner table, which read:
Congratulations
Alex and Hermione
New Prefects.
Sirius, Margaret, Lupin, Tonks and Kingsley Shacklebolt were already there and Mad-Eye Moody stumped in shortly after Harry had got himself a Butterbeer.
"Oh, Alastor, I am glad you're here." Mrs. Weasley said as Mad-Eye shrugged off his travelling cloak, "We've been wanting to ask you for ages, could you have a look in the writing desk in the drawing room and tell us what's inside it? We haven't wanted to open it, just in case it's something really nasty."
"No problem, Molly..."
Moody's electric-blue eye swiveled upwards and stared fixedly through the ceiling of the kitchen, "Drawing room..." he growled, as the pupil contracted, "Desk in the corner? Yeah, I see it... Yeah, it's a Boggart... Want me to go up and get rid of it, Molly?"
"No, no, I'll do it myself later." Mrs. Weasley said, "You have your drink. We're having a little bit of a celebration, actually..." She gestured at the scarlet banner.
"Another prefect in the family!" Margaret said fondly, ruffling Alex's hair.
"What a joyeus moment." Alex muttered.
"Prefect, eh?" Moody growled, his normal eye on Alex and his magical eye swiveling around to gaze into the side of his head, "Well, congratulations. Authority figures always attract trouble, but I suppose Dumbledore thinks you can withstand most major jinxes or he wouldn't have appointed you..."
"Well, I think a toast is in order." Sirius said when everyone had a drink, he raised his goblet, "To Alex and Hermione, the new Gryffindor prefects!"
Alex looked annoyed as he rubbed his face with his hand while Hermione beamed as everyone drank to them, and then applauded.
"I was never a prefect myself." Tonks said brightly from behind Claire as everybody moved towards the table to help themselves to food. Her hair was tomato red and waist-length today; she looked like Ginny's older sister, "Professor Sprout said I lacked certain necessary qualities."
"Like what?" Ginny said, who was choosing a baked potato.
"Like the ability to behave myself." Tonks said, "Though Sky mentioned it's one of my better qualities."
Neville and Ginny laughed; Hermione looked as though she did not know whether to smile or not and compromised by taking an extra large gulp of Butterbeer and choking on it.
"What about you, Sirius?" Alex said, thumping Hermione on the back.
Sirius, who was right beside Claire, let out his usual bark-like laugh. "No one would have made me a prefect, I spent too much time in detention with James and Elizabeth."
"It was me thought, I got the badge." Margaret said with a grin, "Me and Remus. Dumbledore might have thought Moony and me would be able to exercise some control over our best friends."
"I need scarcely say that I failed dismally." Lupin said with a slight grin.
"Not the only thing you failed at." Margaret said bitterly.
"I wonder what that is." Alex said with an uneasy smile as his mother's eyes widen for a split second.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Moony?" Fred said, having heard Margaret use Lupin's nickname. "Lupin, are you the Moony? From the..."
"Yes." Lupin said, taking a sip from his drink, "I am Moony from the Marauders."
"Then you two must be..." George said, pointing at Sirius and Margaret.
"And we are Padfoot and Amaruq." Sirius said gesturing to himself and his sister-in-law.
With wide eyes of shock, Fred and George immediately dropped to their knees, "They are gods!" the twins bowed before them, "Gods I say!"
All at once the party seemed much more enjoyable; Fred and George kept asking questions to Sirius, Margaret and Lupin about their time in school, the two being completely ecstatic to meet their idols.
Mrs. Weasley and Bill were having their usual argument about Bill's hair. "...getting really out of hand, and you're so good-looking, it would look much better shorter, wouldn't it, Alex?"
"Your... asking me? Seriously?" Alex said dryly, gesturing to his own long hair.
"I like your bangs." Ginny said rolling a finger through it, "It gives you a confident and carefree look."
"Oh, Ginny stop." Alex said with a slight smile, "Your going to make me blush!"
Mad-Eye Moody was sniffing at a chicken-leg with what remained of his nose; evidently he could not detect any trace of poison, because he then tore a strip off it with his teeth. "Potter, Claire. Come here, I've got something that might interest you." he said.
Harry and Claire looked surprised, but walked over to him. From an inner pocket of his robes Moody pulled a very tattered old wizarding photograph.
"Original Order of the Phoenix." Moody growled, "Found it last night when I was looking for my spare Invisibility Cloak, seeing as Podmore hasn't had the manners to return my best one... thought people might like to see it."
Claire took the photograph, Harry looking over her shoulder. A small crowd of people, some waving, others lifting their glasses, looked back up at them.
"There's me." Moody said unnecessarily pointing at himself.
The Moody in the picture was unmistakable, though his hair was slightly less grey and his nose was intact, "And there's Dumbledore beside me, Dedalus Diggle on the other side... That's Marlene McKinnon, she was killed two weeks after this was taken, they got her whole family. That's Frank and Alice Longbottom... That's Emmeline Vance, you've met her... Benjy Fenwick, he copped it too, we only ever found bits of him... shift aside there.", he added, poking the picture, and the little photographic people edged sideways, so that those who were partially obscured could move to the front.
"That's Edgar Bones... brother of Amelia Bones, they got him and his family, too, he was a great wizard... Sturgis Podmore, blimey, he looks young... Caradoc Dearborn, vanished six months after this, we never found his body... Hagrid, of course, looks exactly the same as ever... Elphias Doge, you've met him, I'd forgotten he used to wear that stupid hat... Gideon Prewett, it took five Death Eaters to kill him and his brother Fabian, they fought like heroes..."
"That's Dumbledore's brother Aberforth, only time I ever met him, strange bloke. Sirius, when he still had short hair, and there..."
"Mum." Claire said seeing a woman looking exactly like her aunt.
Next to Margaret who was holding hands with Lupin, stood Elizabeth having an arm of Sirius around her waist as they stood next to James and Lily Potter, who in turn stood next to a small, watery-eyed man whom Claire recognized at once as Wormtail.
Claire looked up into Moody's heavily scarred and pitted face. Evidently Moody was under the impression he had just given her a bit of a treat. She was saved for thinking up an excuse when she heard her father ask, "What's that you've got there, Mad-Eye?" and Moody had turned towards him.
Claire had a troubled nights sleep. Her mother wove in and out of her dreams, never speaking. She awoke abruptly to find a lot of commotion in the house.
From what she heard as she dressed at top speed, Claire gathered that Fred and George had bewitched their trunks to fly downstairs to save the bother of carrying them, with the result that they had hurtled straight into Ginny and knocked her down two flights of stairs into the hall; Mrs. Weasley was screaming at the top of her voice.
"Could have done her a serious injury, you idiots."
Alex came hurrying into the room, "Are you ready yet?"
"Nearly." Claire said, putting her shoes on, "Is Ginny all right?"
"She will be fine." Alex said casually, "But now Mad-Eye's complaining that we can't leave unless Sturgis Podmore's here, otherwise the guard will be one short."
"Guard?" Harry said coming down the stairs, "We have to go to King's Cross with a guard?'
"No." Alex said shaking his head, "You have to go to King's Cross with a guard."
"Why?" Harry said irritably, "I thought Voldemort was supposed to be lying low, or are you telling me he's going to jump out from behind a dustbin to try and do me in."
"Seeing as Mad-Eye is in charge... It wouldn't surprise me if he thought it could happen." Claire said, looking at her watch, "But if we don't leave soon we're definitely going to miss the train..."
"Harry, you're to come with me and Tonks." Margaret said, "Leave your trunk and Hedwig, Alastor's going to deal with the luggage."
It took them twenty minutes to reach King's Cross on foot under the weak September sunlight and nothing more eventful happened during that time than Sirius becoming a dog to scare a couple of cats for his kids entertainment.
Once inside the station they lingered casually beside the barrier between platforms nine and ten until the coast was clear, then each of them leaned against it in turn and fell easily through on to platform nine and three-quarters, where the Hogwarts Express stood belching sooty steam over a platform packed with departing students and their families.
"Well, look after yourselves." Lupin said, shaking hands all round. He reached Alex last and gave him a clap on the shoulder. "You too, Alex. Be careful."
"Of course... Remus!" Alex said with a forced grin, looking at the man who didn't knew that he knew that he was his father.
"Yeah, keep your head down and your eyes peeled." Moody said, shaking Claire's hand, "And don't forget, all of you, careful what you put in writing. If in doubt, don't put it in a letter at all."
"It's been great meeting all of you." Tonks said, hugging Hermione and Ginny before hugging Alex too, "I hope to see you soon."
"That can't come soon enough." Alex said with a wink and a sly smile.
A warning whistle sounded; the students still on the platform started hurrying on to the train.
"Quick, quick." Margaret said, hugging them at random, "Write, if you've forgotten anything we'll send it. On to the train, now, hurry."
"See you!" Alex called out of the open window as the train began to move, while Harry, Claire, Alex, Ron, Neville, Hermione, and Ginny waved beside her.
The figures of Sirius, Margaret, Lupin, Tonks, Moody and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley shrank rapidly then they rounded a bend.
"Well." Fred said, clapping his hands together, "Can't stand around chatting all day, we've got business to discuss with Lee. See you later." and he and George disappeared down the corridor to the right.
The train was gathering still more speed, so that the houses outside the window flashed past, and they swayed where they stood.
"Shall we go and find a compartment, then?", Harry asked.
"We're... Well..." Hermione said awkwardly, "Alex and I are supposed to go into the prefect compartment."
"Do I have too?" Alex said annoyed.
"I don't think we'll have to stay there all journey." Hermione said quickly, "Our letters said we just get instructions from the Head Boy and Girl and then patrol the corridors from time to time."
"Do not want!" Alex said as Hermione dragged him along with her towards the engine end of the train.
They struggled off down the corridor, peering through the glass-paneled doors into the compartments they passed, which were already full. Claire could not help noticing that a lot of people stared back at them with great interest and that several of them nudged their neighbors and pointed her out.
After they had met this behavior in five consecutive carriages, in the very last carriage they met Luna Lovegood, Neville's girlfriend sitting alone in a carriage.
"Hi, Luna." Neville said, "Is it okay if we take these seats?"
Luna had straggly, waist-length, dirty blonde hair, very pale eyebrows and protuberant eyes that gave her a permanently surprised look. She had stuck her wand behind her left ear for safekeeping, she had chosen to wear a necklace of Butterbeer corks, and she was reading a magazine upside-down. She nodded, smiling at Neville.
"Thanks, Lulu." Neville said, returning the smile.
"Lulu, really Neville?" Claire said amused as they stowed their trunks and Hedwig's cage in the luggage rack and sat down.
"Yes well..." Neville muttered, "Try doing that with Harry!"
"He got a point you know?" Harry said with a slight smirk.
Luna watched them over her upside-down magazine, which was called The Quibbler. She did not seem to need to blink as much as normal humans, "Had a good summer, Luna?", Neville asked.
"Yes." Luna said dreamily, without taking her eyes off Neville, "Yes, it was quite enjoyable, you know. Dad wondered why you didn't visit over the summer."
Alternative Chapter Title: Why Alex's Is Still The Best Character In This story.
Many thanks to everyone who read, review, favorite or follows this story as usual.
For now I wish you all a fantastic day, if you enjoyed my work don't forget to leave a review and I hope to see you ladies and gents next time.
Mischief Managed.