A.N. I'd like to wish a Happy (belated) Birthday to AJaKe!!!!! I'd like to thank Phobiac, who provided the idea for a Weapons Master (how did I miss that one!) You may be seeing a Weapons Master in future chapters!!!! I hope that everyone enjoys this chapter!!!!!!!
"Should we tell Dumbledore?" Sphinx asked.
"Why are you asking me this?" Harry asked.
"Well everything that has to do with the Dark Lord is your business now," Sphinx hissed.
"I'll handle this, one moment," Harry said. He walked away from the Slytherin table and up to where Dumbledore was sitting.
"Could I talk to you for a moment over there?" Harry whispered. Dumbledore stood up and followed him. For the first time Harry realized how tall that he had gotten. He was looking straight into Dumbledore's blue eyes when he said, "Are you aware that one of your staff is a Death Eater?"
Dumbledore simply said, "Professor Snape is not a Death Eater, Stealth. He returned to our side before the fall of Voldemort and was a spy for our side."
"I am sorry Mr. Dumbledore, but I'm not talking about Professor Snape, we are familiar with him. I was referring to your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."
Dumbledore turned and looked at the man who was chatting with Professor Sinistra.
"Evan Yerrington? Never! We check everyone of our new teachers and we are sure that they are not Death Eaters."
"Then why does he have a Dark Mark burned into his arm?" Harry said. "If you don't mind, I would like to handle this myself." Dumbledore gave Harry a piercing glare and Harry felt as though he was being x-rayed.
"As you wish," Dumbledore finally said with a sigh. He returned to his chair.
"Professor Yerrington," Harry said, faking to look at his list. "I am so sorry but we don't have you on our list."
"Oh," said the man, getting up and slowly walking over to Harry. "You don't. Well I'm so sorry if we caused you any trouble-"
"No big deal," Harry said, waving his hand and forcing a smile. "We just need to have some information from you."
Harry recorded down his name, age, weight, and a whole bunch of other things. He finally stopped at the last question and said, "I'm sorry to have to ask you this but have you ever been or are a Death Eater?"
Harry saw Yerrington hesitate at that last question.
"No, of course not!" Yerrington said, laughing slightly. "I mean, what kind of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher would I be if I was a Death Eater?"
"Right," Harry said, laughing as well. "Okay…hehehe… I know this doesn't really matter now that you've told me that, but could you please lift up your left arm sleeve?"
"What?" Yerrington said, his smile fading slightly. "Is that absolutely necessary?"
"I'm afraid it is," Harry said.
"Listen Steel, or whatever your name was-"
"Stealth."
"Right… Listen Stealth I feel as if you are invading my privacy by asking me to-"
"Well," Harry said. "If you're not a Death Eater than you have nothing to hide, am I correct?" Yerrington blinked and then smiled and said, "Of course not." He lifted up his left arm sleeve and Harry could clearly see the Dark Mark on his arm. He took off his sunglasses and saw that he was looking at a patch of bare skin.
"See," Yerrington said. "Now I think that you owe me apology Sonny."
"My name is Stealth, not Sonny," Harry said. Harry took out his wand and said, "Aparecium." Instantly a Dark Mark appeared on his arm.
"Now we've got a problem," Harry said, smiling slightly. "Sphinx! We've got a winner here!" Harry suddenly became very aware of all of the teachers and students staring at him, some with their mouths hanging open in shock. Harry knew how they felt.
Sphinx slowly walked up to Yerrington and said, "We need to take you in for questioning and-" The Death Eater started to run for the door.
"And if you run we will be forced to use-er-force!" Sphinx yelled after him. "FREEZE!"
The Death Eater stopped in mid-run, frozen solid.
"So that's what your talent is," Harry said thoughtfully. Sphinx snapped her fingers and Yerrington fell limply to the ground in a shivering heap. Sphinx put on a fake smile, tossed her hair and walked over to the man who was still shivering on the floor.
"I am so sorry about that!" Sphinx said in a sugary-sweet voice. Then she frowned, bent down, and picked Yerrington up by his neck. "But if you ever do that again, I will personally kill you. No one runs from an Order of the Phoenix agent unless they seriously want to die."
Yerrington was making choking noises as Sphinx tightened her grip, sticking her two inch long nails further into his neck.
"Wait, I've changed my mind," Sphinx said, ignoring the noises that were coming from the Death Eater. "If you try that again, I'll turn you over to Stealth. He isn't nearly as forgiving as I am. Got it?"
Yerrington made another choking noise.
"Good." Sphinx released him from her grip and he fell limply to the floor, taking deep gulps of air. "Now it's time to take you in for questioning. Stealth, have you got the Mission Room set up yet?"
"No," Harry replied.
"All right then," Sphinx said. She grabbed Yerrington by the hair and dragged him kicking and yelling out of the Great Hall. All of the Ministry officials seemed to be in shock as they let Sphinx go through the door. Harry heard a ping and knew that she had Molecularized. Harry tentatively turned around to Dumbledore. He took off his glasses to look the teacher in the eye and said, "I am sorry the students had to witness that. I recommend that you get a replacement Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."
Dumbledore seemed to be in a small state of shock, and when he turned to Harry he jumped slightly.
"All right," Dumbledore said. He left the room and made his way to his office.
"How-how old are you?" McGonnagal said, looking a bit startled.
"It doesn't matter what my age is, only the level of my skill and powers," Harry said. He looked down at his roll list and said, "I'm 17."
He heard people whispering around the hall.
"He's 17!"
"I'm older than him!"
"Wow!"
Suddenly Sphinx appeared next to him.
"Damn Death Eater punched me," Sphinx said, rubbing her jaw.
"What'd you do?"
"Killed him," Sphinx said. "I told him when we went to the V.D that I could kill him if I felt threatened, but that idiot-" Harry noticed Angelina walking past the doors.
"Jaleesa!" Harry yelled. "How's the search going?"
"Well…" Angelina said, walking up to where Harry and Sphinx were standing, "We found this." She held up a tiny object connected to a wand.
"It's feeding off of the wand's power. Will took a look at it and said that it was copying down everything that someone said." Harry took it in his hand and said, "Where did you find this?"
"Teacher's lounge. We were just about to go down to the Chamber of Secrets in order to see if there's anything down there."
"You're going down to the Chamber of Secrets?" Snape spoke up. "Why?"
"It is to our attention that the Dark Lord used it many years ago before he was known as Lord Voldemort," Will said, appearing next to Angelina. "We need to check it out."
"Who are you?" Snape said.
"This is Will." Angelina said.
"And are you aware that you have to be a Parselmouth in order to get into the Chamber of Secrets?" Snape snapped.
"Jaleesa here is a Parselmouth," Will said, putting his arm around Angelina's shoulders.
"Really?" Both of them nodded.
"Continue please," Sphinx said. "The other five should be arriving shortly and we haven't even had time to set up the Mission room." Angelina and Will both disappeared with a ping!
"You can't Apparate or Disapparate in Hogwarts," said a familiar voice. Harry turned around and saw Hermione Granger looking over at them.
"That was not Apparation, Miss Granger," Harry said softly. "That was Molecularization. Only Order of the Phoenix agents are able to do it."
"Oh," Hermione said. "How do you know my name?"
"We were required to memorize everyone in this school by name and picture," Sphinx said. "So that in case of an emergency we would be able to take roll quickly."
"I don't even know the names of everyone in this school," Professor Sprout whispered to Hagrid.
"We really should set up that Mission room," Harry said to Sphinx. Sphinx waved her wand and a door appeared near the back of the Great Hall.
"Done," Sphinx said. "Let's finish taking roll." The two of them went back to their table and started to take roll again.
"Oh wow! Great decorations!" Harry heard Ivy's voice echo from the doorway. Harry glanced around the room. Out of all the excitement he had totally forgotten that it was Halloween today. The Hall was decorated with streamers, huge carved pumpkins and the usual hundred or so bats fluttering around the room.
"Hello Ivy," Harry said. "You can go dump your things in the Mission Room. Harry said, pointing to the door.
"Stealth!" She exclaimed with an American accent. She was wearing a short, tie-dyed purple tank-top that exposed her newly pierced navel. She was also wearing Capri pants and sneakers. Her dark green cloak had ivy around the edges. She bounded up to Harry. "My main man! How've you been boy!"
"Good, considering that I just saw you 30 or so minutes ago," Harry said, not looking up from his roll sheet.
"Don't be such a spoilsport," Ivy said.
"Go dump your things and then get back out here so you can help out with roll and stuff. We also need to put up a surveillance device." Harry said.
"Who was that?" Professor McGonnagal.
"That was Ivy Brown," Harry replied. "She is our Fighting Master."
"She doesn't look capable of hurting a fly," Snape spat.
"I know, but don't get her mad. You'll be singing soprano before you can even blink," Jeff said, coming up to the teacher's table. "I'm Jefferson Armando. You can call me Jeff."
"They sure do 'ave a lot of young agents at da' Order of the Phoenix," Hagrid remarked.
"We can get a job at age 13 and we go on our first missions at age 16," Harry said. "Ivy is my age. We are the youngest Agents on this mission."
About ten minutes later Professor Dumbledore returned and said to Sphinx, "I have contacted Remus Lupin and he will be here shortly for the Defense Against the Dark Arts job."
"We'll have to set up a profile on him," Sphinx said. Professor Dumbledore looked warily at Sphinx for a moment, but agreed. Harry watched as Cedric/Ethan, Nelson, Elsa, and Brian came into the room.
"These are our remaining Agents," Harry said. "Ethan, Nelson, Elsa and Brian." They all waved slightly, most of them looking around the room with astonished looks on their faces.
"Now all we have to do is set up a surveillance device," Harry said. "And then we'll be done."
"I'll help you with that," Ivy said. "Where are you going to put it?" Harry pointed to a high spot on the wall. "Oh. Well, then give me a boost." Harry kneeled down and allowed Ivy to step onto his hands. He slowly lifted her up until she was fully into the air. She magically welded the device to the wall and then said, "I'm going to fall!"
She jumped off of Harry's hands and then fell, and Harry caught her before she hit the ground. She pulled herself out of Harry's arms and then said, "Now what?"
"Dinner is over," called Professor Dumbledore. "Happy Halloween everyone." All of the students started to file out of the room.
"Where's Anna?" Jeff asked.
"She said that she was going to search the Divination room, you know she'll probably be up there until 2 this morning," Angelina said. Harry called her over his earpiece and she appeared a few minutes later.
"We have to go to our posts," Sphinx said. "Does everyone have their Sleepless Pills?"
"Yes," said everyone.
"Does everyone remember the passwords."
"Yes," said everyone but Ivy.
"Ivy why don't you know the passwords?" Sphinx said, rubbing her eyes.
"Well, I have all of my posts with Stealth, he can just tell me the passwords," Ivy said.
"What if Stealth dies, or is not there?" Jeff said.
"Then I'm screwed."
"All right, all right, let's go," Sphinx said. All of them split up, except Nelson stayed back in order to guard the Mission Room and the Great Hall.
Harry and Ivy started walking up to the Gryffindor Common room, where they had their first shift. Harry started to tell Ivy about the Death Eater that was teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts.
"So Sphinx froze him?" Ivy asked as they approached the familiar picture of the Fat Lady in a pink dress.
"Yep, and when she dragged him to the Order he punched her," Harry said.
"Password," squawked the Fat Lady.
"Bludger," Harry said. The portrait hole opened up and Ivy crawled in first.
"Oh this is awesome!" Ivy exclaimed when she was fully in. Harry scrambled in after her, pulled off his sunglasses, and looked around. Nothing seemed to have changed. There were still several plush chairs positioned around the room, and a large fireplace. Harry could see the two doors that lead up to the dorm rooms.
Harry also noticed that the room had gotten deathly quiet when Ivy and Harry had entered the room.
"Hi y'all," Ivy said. "How're you?" No one answered but continued to stare at the two of them. Finally someone spoke up.
"You-you're standing g-guard in Gryffindor Tower?" said the semi-frightened voice that Harry recognized to be Dennis Creevy.
"Yep!" Ivy said. "All of the other Houses only get 1 guardian but you get two!"
"Yay," Harry said dryly.
"Should we say something else?" Ivy whispered to Harry. "Introduce ourselves or something?"
"Go ahead, I'm not going to," Harry said. Ivy turned back to the crowd of people still staring at them and said, "In case you didn't know, I'm Ivy. And this is Stealth. If you need help with homework or anything, feel free to ask Stealth-"
"Hey-"
"Well it's true! You're the best person to ask for homework!" Ivy exclaimed. "Speaking of homework help, will you help me with mine?"
Harry stared at her.
"You haven't finished your homework?" Harry said.
"No," Ivy said. "Don't worry, I've only got the logic section to go-"
"Are you aware that this is all due tomorrow?"
"Yes," Ivy replied. "But it's easy, we just have to fill out paper of logic questions-"
"What's this 'we' business?"
"And then we have to play 2 games of Muggle Chess-"
"We? What 'we?'" Ivy frowned at him.
"Look, you are going to help me unless you want to be singing Soprano, if you know what I mean." A few of the students chuckled nervously.
"All right! All right! I'll help you." Harry said hurriedly. Ivy gave him a smile and said, "Good, sit down." Ivy waved her wand and a small table with two chairs appeared in front of them. Ivy took a packet of homework and sat down next to Harry. The students seemed to relax and started to talk among themselves again.
"Stealth, here's a question. Charlie Chromedome went outside without wearing any raingear, no boots, no hats, and he didn't have an umbrella, yet not one hair on his head got wet. How is this possible?" Ivy said.
"That's simple," said a familiar voice behind Harry. He turned around and saw Hermione standing behind him. Her hair was less bushy and she was taller than he had remembered her. She still had a look about her that said, "I'm smart, get used to it."
"That's simple," she repeated. "It wasn't raining outside."
"Yeah, that's right," Harry said, still staring at Hermione. Hermione grinned at Harry and then frowned.
"Those are the strangest eyes that I have ever seen," she said. "I've never seen gold and silver eyes."
"It runs in the family," Ivy said. "He has his mother's eyes." Harry raised an eyebrow at Ivy and she winked back.
"Cool," Hermione said, not picking up on the hint that Ivy had just given her. "You probably already know this, but I'm-"
"Hermione Granger, yes, I know," Harry said. "I'm Stealth Wilson."
"It's nice to meet you," Hermione replied, shaking Harry's hand and making Harry feel another pang of sadness. She didn't even know who she was talking too…
"Stealth shouldn't we get back to my homework?" Ivy said.
"Yeah," Harry replied. He returned to the problems and after they were finished Ivy magicked them to the teacher.
"Okay, now we have to play two games of chess," Ivy said. She flicked her wand and a Muggle chessboard appeared in front of them and a timer was beside the board.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ron's familiar red hair. He saw Ron looking over in interest. Harry quickly moved his pawn and pushed the button on top of his timer, telling it to start timing Ivy. After she moved hurriedly she pushed the button and it was once again Harry's turn. Ron finally got up from where he was sitting and walked over to watch them play. He brought over a chair and sat down, studying the board hard. Harry moved his queen three spaces to the right and pressed the button again. After making a move Ivy said, "Do you want to play winner?" Harry looked up and saw that she was talking to Ron.
"Um… sure," Ron said, looking a little nervous. "I don't think I've ever played Muggle chess before."
"Checkmate," Harry said. Ivy looked down at the board and saw that her king was cornered by Harry's pieces.
"Damn," she said. "All right, I play winner in the next round." Harry flicked his wand and caused all of the pieces to move back into their place.
"Instead of commanding the pieces you have to pick them up and move them. You also have to make your move in less than 2 minutes, that's why we're timed," Harry said, looking at Ron. "If you fail to move in the two minutes than it's my turn. Got it Ron?"
Ron looked up and nodded.
"You go first," Harry said. Ron had seemed to get better at Chess since Harry had last seen him. Even with being timed Ron beat Harry. When Ron proclaimed checkmate, he got a proud look on his face and said, "Wait till I tell my friends that I beat an Order of the Phoenix member at chess."
"Good game," Harry said, shaking Ron's hand. Ron smiled and Harry felt sad again. All of a sudden the portrait hole opened and a man with a dog walked in.
"Remus?" Ron said. Harry looked up. Sure enough, standing there was Remus Lupin, looking tired and still wearing slightly ragged looking robes.
"Hello Ron," Remus said. "I'm going to be your new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher until Professor Dumbledore gets a replacement for Professor Yerrington." Ivy grinned at Harry and he felt himself turning slightly red.
"I was wondering if the Gryffindors could do something for me," Remus said. "I'm going to be busy and I don't have time to look after Snuffles, I was wondering if he could stay in here." Harry looked down at the dog and saw that it was actually Sirius Black in his Animagus form. Harry's heart sank slightly as he remembered the last time he spoke to Sirius in person.
"Sure!" exclaimed several of the Gryffindor students.
"Great," Remus said, giving a tired smile. "It means a lot to me."
"We'll take care of him," Hermione said, taking Sirius's leash.
"Okay," Remus said, before turning and exiting the Gryffindor Common room. Sirius was immediately surrounded by people and was being patted and scratched.
"Is that dog a friend of yours?" Ivy whispered.
"What makes you say that?" Harry asked.
"You get the same expression when you look at that dog as you do when you look at anyone in this room. Particularly Ron or Hermione."
"Yeah, he was my godfather," Harry said softly.
"So that's Sirius," Ivy said. Seeing the startled look on Harry's face she said, "Everyone in the Order knows that Sirius Black is innocent. That's one of the reasons the Ministry hates us so much, because we wouldn't help to search for him."
"Good," Harry said. "Well, we have another game of chess to play, don't we."
"Yeah, let's play…"
As the night slowly passed, Harry and Ivy played some chess, and Harry helped 3 first years with their homework. Of course, they were swooning over him and didn't seem very interested in homework at all. Finally Harry sat down in one of the familiar plush chairs by the fire. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Hermione, Ron, Neville, Dean, and Seamus talking in a corner. Beside them was Sirius and Hermione's cat, Crookshanks. Harry remembered when Crookshanks had befriended Sirius back in Harry's third year, when everyone still thought Sirius to be a murderer. Now both of them were barking and meowing at each other softly, seeming to have a conversation. Harry turned back to the fire and ran a hand through his blond hair…
At midnight the Common Room was deserted except for Ivy and Harry. Ivy had fallen asleep on one of the couches. Harry covered her up with a blanket as he himself took some No-Sleep pills. He then noticed Sirius scratching at the door, wanting to go out of the common room. He looked at Harry and then back at the portrait door. Harry went over and opened the door. Sirius jumped halfway out, turned around, and grabbed Harry's cloak with his teeth. He dragged Harry out of the Common room and over to an empty classroom. Harry felt quite startled as Sirius let go of his cloak and instantly transformed into Harry's godfather.
"I know who you are," Sirius said.