This time I only have to thank Mystical Dragon for reviewing the second chapter ^_^ Anyway, are you also the Mystical Dragon that wrote that Snape-fic? I mean the Snape-fic where in the beginning Severus' mom tries to escape from death eaters (I can't remember the name anymore..). I've read the first part, then bookmarked it. I'll certainly read it when I find some time.
Didn't I say I couldn't keep deadlines? Now you see I spoke the truth! I was lazy, and thought I could postpone it until the last day. Of course that didn't work. So no more deadlines for me. Sorry if this chapter is a little bit short..
Alligatorem CognoscereChapter Three: The Alligator's Scales The scales on the alligator's back aren't very dangerous, but an alligator with scales looks more dangerous than one without scales. Scales keep you from coming close, they keep you from stroking his back. But when you take that first step, and touch a scale, you'll feel it's not sharp, and no danger to you at all. It's just there as a shield.
*~*~*~*
"What do you mean, gone?" Severus spat, and the girl, who Cassius now recognised as Ginny, reddened.
"They said they would be gone for a minute, and begged me not to tell anyone! But now they're already gone for half an hour…"
There was a short silence as Minerva smacked her hand to her mouth, and Severus folded his arms. "So," he said, scowling at the girl, "Orders of the famous Harry Potter are more important than school rules?"
Cassius saw how guilty Ginny was feeling, and he wanted to say something to reassure her a bit, but he couldn't find the right words. "They probably are just wandering about," he tried, but it didn't help. Minerva shook her head, Severus snorted, and Ginny just stared at the ground while tears fell down.
"We need to search for them, now." Minerva said. It was a decision, not a suggestion, but Cassius still nodded.
"I'll call the rest of the professors," Cassius said, and started to walk away when Severus stopped him.
"And then what? You want to leave the students alone while we go searching, so they're an easy target for an attack?"
"You're right, somebody will have to stay with them. What about you, Severus?" Minerva sounded serious, but Cassius rose his hand. Minerva, Severus and Ginny surprised looked up.
"What?" Severus said annoyed.
"You have to remember your transformation, right? When the Death Eaters attack, you can't transform in front of all your students." Cassius added quietly, so Ginny couldn't hear. He waited for a response, but Severus only nodded.
"Yes, Professor Ingaster would do a better job."
Cassius swallowed, imagining panicky students, crying students, students running away, and him standing in the middle of it, shouting everything would be fine, in an attempt to calm them down. Cassius quickly shook his head. "I don't think so. I mean, I'm a new face to the students, and I think they are likely to trust you, Minerva, more than they trust me."
Minerva considered it for a moment, and then agreed. "Alright," she said while she walked away with Ginny, "You'll go searching with some other teachers, and I'll keep an eye on the students with the rest."
Cassius walked out of the lane, and started to ask passers-by if they had seen Harry Potter (as far as it goes it was a lucky thing that Harry was the one to be missing: Everybody knew him). After innumerable "No, I'm sorry,"'s, Cassius found a little girl who said she did see something. She pointed in the direction of a shop. Cassius thanked her, and made his way to the shop with all kind of gadgets. His heart started to beat rapidly when he saw Harry standing next to the counter, his face turned to the shop owner.
"Harry!" Cassius shouted, running to the boy. When he wanted to grab his shoulder, his heart stood still for a moment; Harry was transparent, and Cassius' hand went trough the boy's body.
"Yes, it's looking really real, isn't it?" the shop owner said, and Cassius realized the boy wasn't a human: it was just a projection of the famous Harry Potter.
"Oh- eh, yeah, you can say that.." Cassius stammered. The boy turned around, and smiled to Cassius.
"Hi, I'm Harry! Do you want me to tell about my confrontation with You-Know-Who?"
Blushing furiously, Cassius turned, and left the shop. He watched the passing wizards and witches, and asked a few more times if they had seen Harry Potter with two other kids his age. Nobody had. He sighed as he sat down on a trashcan in an abandoned street. The clamour of the busy street couldn't be heard here, and the wind blew away some garbage.
"Where would I go if I was a 15-year-old.." Cassius asked himself, but the answer came from behind him.
"Maybe you would go to a place where nobody knows your face, and where you can think in peace. Maybe you would go to a place like this."
Cassius turned around to see Harry emerging from a side street.
"What has happened?" asked Cassius, and he walked to the boy, who looked exhausted. He was breathing heavily, and he had a strange look in his eyes. There was blood on his face, dirt on his clothes, and his back was curved. He pulled his cloak to give it to Harry, but the boy, looking like an old tramp, just slapped his arm away with a power that Cassius hadn't expected.
"Sorry!" Harry quickly said.
"Never mind.." Cassius responded, too surprised to say something else.
"Professor," Harry said in a serious voice, "I've lost my wand, could I borrow yours for a second? Just to repair my glasses."
Maybe it was just the weird situation, or he was afraid for Harry, but Cassius gave his wand. Immediately Harry pointed his wand at his professor, and started to laugh. "You're so stupid!" he shouted, and laughed louder. He abruptly shut his mouth. Cassius stared at the boy in horror.
"Harry, let's return to the castle," he said, stretching out his arm to the wand.
"Expelliarmus!" Harry shouted, and Cassius was blown to the ground. That boy really had strong powers. Cassius' head hurt, and when he opened his eyes again, he was seeing some stars. He tried to stand up, but lost his balance and fell back on the ground again. Harry laughed.
"Where are Ron and Hermione, Harry?" Cassius gasped, and stopped trying to stand up.
"Gone," Harry answered, and walked to Cassius. He didn't look like a tramp now, more like a psychopath. "So, you understand your end has come?"
Cassius did his best to faint; this all was too strange, and it was happening too fast. Harry's face straightened again, and he sighed, building up some energy. "Avada.-"
There was a flash, and Cassius thought it was the green flash of the Unforgivable Curse, but when it was gone, he didn't feel really dead. There was some groaning, and when Cassius opened his eyes and found he could sit up, he saw a stranger had knocked Harry on the ground, and tied the boy up with a rope that appeared out of nowhere. Suddenly Harry's muscles relaxed, and he let his head hang, and fall on the ground. The stranger looked around, and without paying any attention to Cassius, he ran to the side street where Harry had come from.
Cassius stood up, and stumbled after the man, wanting to know who he was, what he was doing. When he had reached the corner, he had to grab the wall to not fall again. The stranger was now duelling with another man, dressed as a Death Eater, and Cassius wondered what was going on. First Harry tries to kill him, then a man suddenly appears and saves his life, and then the man fighting against a death eater.
"Ingaster!" shouted the stranger, and he threw something to Cassius. It was his wand. He took a good look at the stranger. His face was young, his eyes shot fire, and the way he jumped away to avoid spells gave away he was very fit.
Cassius saw the man was on the losing side, he decided to help him.
"Furninculus!" was the first spell he could think of, and the surprised enemy was hit. Sores started to show up everywhere in his face, and the man screamed. The guy who had saved his life now also shot a spell at the Death Eater, who was slammed into the wall. The stranger ran to the death eater, and pulled the man's mask of. He cursed, and then turned to Cassius.
"Send the Ministry an owl, and tell them you've caught Barry Greyland."
"Wait!" Cassius yelled as the stranger turned to go. "I want an explanation!"
The man sighed. "Go ask somebody else," he said, and took off. With mouth hanging open Cassius stared after him. What a silly thing for the man to say. Then he gave a look at the death eater, who seemed to laugh. Cassius sighed, and with a spell he fastened the man, then walked to the nearest shop, and sent an owl to the ministry, like the man had told him to. He ignored the stars and the dizzy feeling, and was glad to bump into Minerva.
"Oh dear, Cassius!" she cried. Cassius felt his strength was almost gone.
"Not now!" he said roughly, interrupting her. "Death Eater is.. There-" pointing where he'd come from. Everything was vague, but Cassius refused to sit down.
Minerva gave him a sympathetic look. "Poor guy," she muttered, "Let's go to the hospital,"
"No," Cassius said, pushing Minerva away with his last strength. He stumbled over a chair, and fell back. Then everything went black.
*~*~*~*
When Cassius opened his eyes, he really thought he was in heaven. As far as he could see everything was white, and yes—that definitely was an angel.
"So, I lived well after all.." Cassius smiled. Then his vision sharpened, and he saw the angel was Madame Pomfrey. Minerva sat on a chair next to his bed, but she now stood up. "By Merlin," she said, "He's delirious! Give him something!"
Cassius quickly sat straight up in his bed. "No, I'm okay, really! How long have I been asleep?"
Madame Pomfrey pushed Cassius back under his blanket. Well, if there was one thing Cassius had learned, then it was not to underestimate the powers of people who don't look very strong. "Just one night."
Cassius thought through the events that had happened yesterday. Immediately he started to ask questions while Madame Pomfrey examined him.
"How is Harry? And Hermione and Ron? Have they found that Death Eater? And that stranger, have they thanked him too?"
"Well, I can only answer the first three questions." Minerva said, while she took her seat again, "Yes, Harry, Hermione and Ron are all okay. Professor Snape found Harry in a side street, and his two friends were found a street farther on, both unconscious, but nothing serious. The death eater was taken to the Ministry."
"Thank Merlin." Cassius sighed. "So, when can I leave hospital?"
Poppey twitched her mouth, like she didn't want to discharge him. "This afternoon, I guess. You lost a lot of blood, so take things a little bit easy, or you'll pass out again."
There was a knock on the door, and Dumbledore came in. His eyes flickered in the morning light, and his beard seemed to be whiter than before.
"Thank you, Minerva, I'll take it from here," he smiled. Minerva left the room, and at the request of the Headmaster, Pomfrey also went to do something else. Albus sighed, and sat down at the chair where Minerva had sat too.
"I thought I'd make sure somebody was here to answer some questions. Severus told me about yesterday," he said, and made a gesture with his hand. "About the Death Eater and Harry,"
Cassius raised his eyebrows. "You mean Severus Snape? But I'm sure I haven't seen him."
Albus smiled to him. "You have. He has fought against Barry Greyland, and gave you your wand back."
Cassius opened his mouth. "The transformation.. I'd forgotten about that…"
"He was just in time to save you from Barry..-"
"Barry?" Cassius interrupted Albus. "I thought it was Harry who tried to kill me, or was that a transformation too?"
Albus laughed loudly, and he grabbed Cassius' shoulder. "No, my friend, that Death Eater used a very powerful Imperius curse to make Harry kill you. No, Harry might have special powers, but no dark powers."
Cassius reddened. "Unbelievable that I wasn't able to figure that out myself…" he sighed.
"Oh, don't bother about it, you can't know everything," he laughed again.
"No, I should've at least sensed something wasn't right! After all I'm the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher."
"After all," Albus repeated, "it had a happy ending. Nobody's to blame, as there is no problem! Now, if that's okay with you, I'm going back to my office again. I still need to deliver a sermon to Harry and his friends for breaking school rules. But I'll be easy on them; Severus has already deducted 100 points from Gryffindor." He smiled and left the room. Cassius sighed, and stared at the ceiling.
