Hello there!
Here is the next chapter for Cruel Angel Thesis, now on the review.
mrs. morgan 35: Ask and you shall receive.
Now story time.
It was two whole weeks since Sephylon had suggested the idea of some sort of club to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons, before the invitation arrived.
Saturday evening once the students got back from Hogsmeade.
The morning of the Hogsmeade visit dawned bright but windy. After breakfast they queued up in front of Filch, who matched their names to the long list of students who had permission from their parents or guardian to visit the village.
When Harry reached Filch, the caretaker gave a great sniff as though trying to detect a whiff of something from Harry. Then he gave a curt nod that set his jowls quiver again and Harry walked on, out on to the stone steps and the cold, sunlit day.
"I suppose he was checking for the smell of Dungbombs." Claire said, "Either that or he thought your new cologne smelled nice." Harry gave a laugh at her remark.
Charles and Fleur walked hand-in-hand down the main street past Zonko's Wizarding Joke Shop, where they were not surprised to see Fred, George and Lee, past the post office, from which owls issued at regular intervals.
As they entered the Three Broomsticks, they heard someone call out Fleur's name. It was her parents sitting at a table with her little sister.
"Here goes." Charles thought as they went for the table near the corner to meet his parents-in-law.
Fleur's beautiful blonde mother was dressed in long, leaf green robes. Monsieur Delacour was nowhere near as attractive as his wife; he was a head shorter and extremely plumb, with a little, pointed black beard. However, he looked good-natured.
"Charles Jeager, a pleasure to meet you at last." Monsieur Delacour said in French, shaking hands with him with his own plump one and beaming, "Sebastian Delacour! You have already met my wife, Apolline." he let go of his hand and gestured at his wife.
Madame Delacour stood up and kissed Charles on both cheeks, "It's been too long Charles Jeager." she said.
As he was about to sit down, he felt something small hugging him around his waist. Looking down he saw that it was Gabrielle, who still looked like a miniature of Fleur, with waist-length hair of pure, silvery blonde, who looked up at him with a dazzling smile.
"Hey there Gabrielle." Charles said as she finally let go of him, "You have grown a lot since I last saw you."
Gabrielle still gave him that same dazzling smile, "I did." she said proudly, "I have been drinking a lot of milk!" as they sat down.
"If you keep tis up, you will be taller than me in no time." Charles said with a small smile of his own, as he began to chat with everyone else at the table, and they began to talk about various things.
"So Charles, your French is pretty good." Monsieur Delacour asked after interrupting his youngest daughter who had gone on to unleash a barrage of questions about life at Hogwarts to the young couple, "Where did you learn to speak it so well?"
"After I finished school I traveled around a lot, wanted to see more of the world." Charles said, "During my travels I picked up a few languages."
At half past seven the Gryffindor six left the Gryffindor common room, fifth-years were allowed to be out in the corridors until nine o'clock, but all six of them kept looking around as they made their way along the seventh floor.
They hurried along the corridor to the place Sephylon's letter had described to, a stretch of blank wall opposite an enormous tapestry depicting Barnabas the Barmy's foolish attempt to train trolls for the ballet.
"Okay." Harry said quietly, while a moth-eaten troll paused in his relentless clubbing of the would-be ballet teacher to watch them, "The letter said to walk past this bit of wall three times, concentrating hard on what we need."
They did so, turning sharply at the window just beyond the blank stretch of wall, then at the man-sized vase on its other side.
"We need somewhere to learn to fight. Give us a place to practice. Somewhere they can't find us. Somewhere where we can become stronger."
Suddenly, Hermione let out a sharp yelp, as they wheeled around after their third walk past.
A highly polished door had appeared in the wall. Alex reached out, seized the brass handle, pulled open the door and led the way into a spacious room lit with flickering torches like those that illuminated the dungeons eight floors below.
The walls were lined with wooden bookcases and chairs, large silk cushions linde the wall. A set of shelves at the far end of the room carried a range of instruments such as Sneakoscopes, Secrecy Sensors and a large, cracked Foe-Glass.
"These will be good when we're practicing Stunning." Ron said enthusiastically, prodding one of the cushions with his foot.
"And just look at these books!" Hermione said excitedly, running a finger along the spines of the large leather-bound tomes, "'The Art Of War Magic', 'A Compendium of Common Curses and their Counter-Actions', 'The Dark Arts Outsmarted', 'Enchanter's Primer', 'Arcmoani Network: Beyond Realms', 'Self-Defensive Spellwork', 'Oghma Infinium' whoa..."
"I guess there's everything we need here..." Claire said, as she took out 'The Art Of War Magic' from its shelf, sank on to the nearest chair and began to read next to Hermione who had taken a book of her own.
There was a gentle knock on the door. First came Dean and Lavender, who were closely followed by Parvati and Padma with Cho and one of her usually-giggling girlfriends, then on her own and looking so dreamy she might have walked in by accident, Luna; then Katie, Alicia and Angelina, Colin, Ernie, Justin, Hannah, a Hufflepuff girl with a long plait hair whose name Harry did not know; three Ravenclaw boys he was pretty sure were called Anthony Goldstein, Michael Corner and Terry Boot, Ginny, closely followed by Tracy Davis and her friend Daphne Greengrass and, bringing up the rear, Fred and George with Lee.
"Whoa." Dean said, staring around, impressed, "What is this place?"
By the time eight o'clock arrived, every chair was occupied.
The key protruding from the lock turned; it clicked in a satisfyingly loud way and everybody fell silent. A door leading behind the elevated platform swung open, and flanked by what Harry assumed were two Knights of Sephylon, was the Cruel Angel himself.
"Welcome students of Hogwarts. Thank you for accepting my invitation." Sephylon spoke, commanding the attention of every soul in the room, "A dark storm is approaching, and just like I have done before during the first war, I have selected students who have the will to learn how to defend themselves, not that shit that Umbitch been trying to teach. I mean learning how to defend yourselves properly, not theory but doing the real thing. But tis is about more than your OWL's. Tis is about being properly trained in defending yourselves because Voldemort is back."
The reaction was immediate and predictable.
Cho's friend shrieked, Terry Boot gave a kind of involuntary twitch, and Padma shuddered. All of them, however, looked fixedly, even eagerly, at Sephylon.
Claire had to give it to him, Sephylon had a way of speaking that made you listen to him.
"Even if you don't believe he's back, even if you believe the Daily Prophet who denies he's back and how I'm a terrorist, there is still real danger out there. There are still Death Eaters out there that do cause trouble even when their alleged leader is 'dead', there are random horrible wizards that loves to torture or kill others." Sephylon continued as he looked over the gathered students, "You need to be able to defend yourselves against Death Eaters, boggarts, werewolves, vampires, and who knows what else lurks in the dark."
"Well said!" Ernie barked, who Claire had been expecting to speak long before this, "Personally, I think this is really important, possibly more important than anything else we'll do this year, even with our OWLs coming up!"
He looked around impressively, as though waiting for people to cry 'Surely not!'. When nobody spoke, he went on, "I, personally, am at a loss to see why the Ministry has foisted such a useless teacher on us at this critical period. Obviously, they are in denial about the return of You-Know-Who, but to give us a teacher who is trying to actively prevent us from using Defensive spells..."
"The reason Umbridge doesn't want you to be trained in Defense Against the Dark Arts, is that she's got some mad idea that Dumbledore could use the students in the school as a kind of private army." Sephylon said, "She thinks he'd mobilize us against the Ministry."
Nearly everybody looked stunned at this news; everybody except Luna, who piped up, "Well, that makes sense. After all, Cornelius Fudge has got his own private army."
"What?" Harry said, completely thrown by this unexpected piece of information.
"Yes." Luna said solemnly, "He's got an army of Heliopaths."
"No, he hasn't." Hermione snapped.
"Yes, he has." Luna said.
"It's not important at tis moment if Fudge has an army of Heliopaths or not." Sephylon interrupted, "Do you agreed you want to take lessons from me and the Knights of Sephylon?"
There was a murmur of general agreement.
"Hang on." Angelina said, "We need to make sure this doesn't clash with our Quidditch practice."
"I'm sure we can find a night that suits everyone." one of the Knights, one with a black cape spoke up, "But the meetings will be no less than once a week."
"Well, once a week sounds cool.", Lee said.
"If we are all in agreement... Raphion." he said turning to his Knight with the white mask, "Would you do the honors?"
Raphion nodded, removing a scroll from inside his black robes and placing it on the table. "Everyone who agrees needs to write their name down, just so we know who was here." Raphion spoke with his deep, booming voice, "This contract binds you, if you sign, you're agreeing to keep this meeting to the upmost secret..."
Fred reached out for the parchment and cheerfully wrote his signature, but Claire noticed at once that several people looked less than happy at the prospect of putting their names on the list.
"I... Well, we are prefects." Ernie burst out, "And if this list was found... Well, I mean to say... If Umbridge finds out..."
"You just said tis group was the most important thing you'd do tis year." Sephylon reminded him, Ernie was about to protest but he continued, "Do you really think I'm just going to leave that list lying around?"
"No." Ernie said, looking slightly less anxious, "No, of course not."
"Besides, I have put up a Charm that will make it unreadable to people who hasn't signed it." Sephylon said, "If your not comfortable making this commitment, you can leave through the door you entered. But if you do, you will never find this place again."
But nobody raised objections after Ernie, though Cho's friend give her a rather reproachful look before adding her own name. When the last person had signed, Raphion took the parchment back and slipped it carefully into his robes.
There was an odd feeling in the group now.
"Now I will appoint a leader to the group of students, they will oversee the lessons if either me nor my Knights can't make it. But know that in my absents, they speak with my authority." Sephylon said, "Now to keep things fair, we vote on it. So raise your hand if you think Harry ought to be your leader."
Claire raised her hand, everybody put up their hand.
"Okay... Right, thanks." Harry said, "Then I make Claire here my second in command." knowing his girlfriend was giving him an annoyed look.
"Fair enough." Sephylon said with a nod, "Welcome student, you have joined an organization dedicated to learn how to defend yourselves and those who can't defend themselves. We are the watchers against the coming darkness. We are becoming in essence an powerful army, we are the Ministry's worst fear."
"Welcome to Overwatch."
That's the chapter.
I know a bit shorter than usual but what can you do?
Many thanks to everyone who reads, favorite, follows or reviews this chapter.
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Mischief Managed.