Hey, moving on up! Let's see here, this is...chapter 10?

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Chapter 10: Ocean Rhineback

The next few weeks passed by in a flurry of time. It was almost as if someone had bewitched Crono, whom I knew watched over time, to speed things up. What amazed me the most in all of this was the simple fact that it still wasn't Halloween yet.

Hermione still wasn't truly a friend of ours, but I knew she would be soon, if events progressed as they should. Then I'd stop myself and tell myself that I had changed that course of time and that Hermione might never become our friend. She was mostly an outcast among people, quite nosy as the book had portrayed her to be.

Pan and Chee had sort of broken off into another group of the Griffindor girls. They stayed mostly with them, though they assured me we were still friends and all. Everyone said it was a lot easier to distinguish me from them now that we were separate.

The entire school was hustling and bustling getting prepared for Halloween. Classes had become quite a lot harder since the excitement of my story-telling experience. We hadn't discovered at all who Dirken had inhabited, or whether he had at all.

Tom was an excellent student in all his classes, as was Trunks. Trunks, Harry, Ron, and him were fast friends, as were Bill and Charlie, whom had to follow me everywhere.

Since the two eldest Weasley boys were my "guardians" as they called themselves, they were with me constantly. But they were more of a help in my work than a hindrance to my privacy, for they were great friends. They knew all the lessons before they happened, well, with the exception of Defense of the Dark Arts, my favorite class. Because of this, I had a bit of a head start on everyone before the lesson, even over Hermione.

This turn of events made her quite bitter toward us all, even to me. She was paired with me in Charms as Professor Flitwick taught us to levitate objects, which wasn't so hard for me, considering I knew how to levitate myself into the air no problem. It was, of course, that fateful day of October 31, that the mountain troll was supposed to have been let into the school, leaving Harry and Ron to rescue a crying Hermione in the girls' bathroom.

Flitwick had divided us up into teams and I saw the familiar format of it instantly: Harry had been paired with Seamus Finnigan and Ron with Hermione. I couldn't tell which of them were more furious with the arrangements, but they set to work on trying to make the feather levitate without a single word.

I watched with amused delightedness as Seamus set fire to Harry and his feather and saw Neville actually make the feather topple off the table. This, however, was not caused by his words of magic or the swish and flick of his wand, but by his partner, a boy I'd never met, blowing it off the table.

Then I noticed the all-too-familiar events in Ron and Hermione's group.

"You're saying it wrong!" Hermione snapped at Ron. "It's Wing-gar-dium Levi-o-sa, make the gar nice and long." Ron was fuming beside her.

"You do it, then, if you're so clever," he shot back. Hermione swished and flicked her wand, saying the words, and the feather floated four feet above their heads. I rolled my eyes at the insanity of it all. Trunks headed for Ron to talk to him about being nice to Hermione, but I stopped him.
"Let them work this one out on their own, Trunks," I whispered. "If my calculations are correct, this is exactly what they need to give them friendship." Trunks looked skeptical, but remained in his seat, trying, as I had already succeeded, to make the feather levitate.

"Just a little more of a swish, Trunks, and you've got it," I told him as he swished much too short to allow the proper amount of magic to be emitted from the wand. Trunks followed my advice and was delighted to see the feather rise into the air.

The minute class was over, Ron began complaining loudly about Hermione, and very openly.

"It's no wonder no one can stand her," Ron retorted as he and Harry pushed through the crowd to get to the next class. "She's a nightmare, honestly." I was about to open my mouth to protest the opposite, but was surprised to see Hermione race past, tears fleeting from her eyes.

"I think she heard you, Ron," I told him curtly as his brothers followed behind me.

"You should never upset a lady, Ron," Bill told his youngest brother. "Sometimes things can happen to them you wish would never." I looked at him from the corner of my eyes and wondered if he knew something I didn't.

The day passed slowly, as there was no Hermione in any of the classes to speed them up with right answers for the teachers' questions. I began to get more worried and anxious as the day progressed and Tom and Trunks were quick to notice it, as well as Bill. Charlie, however, had his mind elsewhere and was seen in all our classes calculating carefully in the back of the room. He often looked up to see how I was and I gave him a little wave before we both returned to our work.

"Angel, are you sure that you don't know what's going to happen next?" Trunks asked me quietly as we headed for the Tower after our last class. It was time to prepare for the feast.

"Yeah, I'm sure," I said as I told the Fat Lady the password, "But I'm worried about Hermione. This happened in the book for certain, but I don't know. In the book, a mountain troll was released into the school by Quirrell, under the influence of Voldemort, but neither are here to release it."
"Doesn't mean someone else won't get the same idea," Tom warned as he overheard. We'd told him long ago all about our mission and I'd told him in secret all the horrible things Voldemort had done. And the boy had been genuinely shocked when I'd told him he looked a lot like him.

"I would never try and hurt people like that!" Tom had said, shivering at the very prospect, "And I hope he doesn't ever come back! I will do my best to prevent his return."
"As long as we remain on the side of good, Tom, he won't," I had told the boy with a slightly relieved smile.

"Yeah, you're right," I said as I put my pack in the corner of the common room. "Where are Jupiter and Ron? Have you seen them, Harry?" Harry had come into the common room just then.

"Jupiter is with her mom," Harry answered, "And I can't find Ron anywhere."
"Must feel pretty rotten for what he said to Hermione," I said grimly. I searched out the red-haired boy's ki and found it over my head. "He's in your room, Harry." I turned to see Charlie standing right in front of me.

"Eek! Charlie, don't scare me like that!" I said, jumping back and landing in Trunks' arms.
"Sorry," he looked sheepish, "But I've been looking at the planets' rotations and found an extremely weird looking pattern. Come here and take a look." He pulled out a sheet of parchment and rolled it out onto the empty table.

"Is that what you were working on in our classes?" I asked as I stared at the very detailed, and very good map of the Solar System. I looked at the planets he had set out and it dawned onto me what he meant.

"I-It's a 'D'," I said softly, looking at the planets carefully. Then, another letter came into focus from the inner-most planets. "And an 'M'. Must mean something, the planets don't normally align weirdly like this in this dimension without reason."

"Yeah, and check this out," he pulled another, small scaled map and pointed, "Orion is just to the left of the 'D'. And the Seven Sisters are just to the right of the 'M'. But it isn't seven stars now. It's eleven. It's as if they were joining up on purpose or something."
"That is peculiar," I said, running this thought through my brain carefully. "I wonder if it has any correlation to our mission against Dirken?"

"I don't know, Angel," Charlie told me with a sigh, "I just don't know." He looked at the map again intently. "But I can say this: I truly hope not."

The Halloween feast would start in ten minutes, so we began to make our way toward the Great Hall. I heard Parvati tell Lavender about Hermione and looked at a very uncomfortable-looking Ron, who had apparently overheard as well.

"Maybe you should apologize after the feast," I told him.

"Maybe..." he sounded distant and deep in thought. I don't think he really heard what I'd said. Just then, I noticed that Juu was not at the High Table. Our Defense of the Dark Arts teacher was normally quite punctual, so this worried me.

But I did not worry when I saw her sprint up to the front table, silencing the Hall. This scene was familiar as well, but it was she instead of Quirrell.

"Dragon!" She cried loudly, catching her breath. "In the dungeons! Come, quickly." She had caught her breath finally and Dumbledore was on his feet in an instant. The entire Hall had erupted in violent pandemonium.

"Prefects!" Dumbledore shouted once the ruckus had died out, "Take your Houses back to your dormitories immediately!"

Percy led the frightened first-years and up out of the Hall, heading for the picture. I, instead, headed for Hermione, which Harry and Ron caught immediately. Trunks and Tom did too and wanted to come.

"Trunks, go back to the dormitory!" I told him over the frightened shouts of a group of second-year girls. "I don't want you in that bathroom, something's supposed to happen and I'm gonna make sure it does." Trunks nodded and took Tom by the hand, leading the other boy away after Percy.

"I hope this works," I muttered as I used the Instant Transmission to catch up with Harry and Ron. If Harry, Ron, and Hermione didn't become the inseparable trio I knew them to be, then poor Hermione would be exactly like I was in my dimension. I didn't want to see her with the best grades the school could offer and without friends. It would just be too much.

"Let's get Hermione out of that bathroom," I said as we raced, the bathroom ahead. A sudden shuffling of feet told us something was coming. We ducked into the shadows of some armor, praying it wasn't the dragon.

What we saw was worse than a dragon. It was Snape.

He didn't see us as he passed us and crossed to the end of the hall, making his way toward the third floor. I hoped that he wasn't doing what I thought he was doing.

Suddenly, we saw it. A great huffing sound and a wind so hot, the tip of one of my hairs hanging out of the shadows caught fire. I put it out easily and watched as the dragon slinked its way past us like a snake, its forked tongue flicking out of its mouth. It was a strange shade of ocean blue and it was pretty small from what I knew of dragons. After all, it did fit in the passage.

The largest part of its body, the central coil, was about the diameter of six feet and its head was slightly smaller than my body was tall. It was surprisingly graceful as it made its way into the girls' bathroom, where I knew Hermione was hiding.

"Come on!" I told Ron and Harry sharply. "Hermione's in there!" They raced after me as I dashed into the bathroom, holding my wand. I had completely forgotten my Saiyan powers and was relying purely on human and Saiyan instincts.

"Help!" Hermione shouted from under the sinks. The dragon glared at her and I saw its torso expand substantially.

"It's gonna fire!" I cried. "Hermione, jump! Get out of the blast range!" She complied and barely escaping being completely burned to a crisp. However, the hem of her robes had caught fire and I put it out with a beat of my hand as she joined us.

"Ready to take him on, Ron?" I asked the redhead. "Surely Charlie's taught you some things in defense against dragons!"

"Yeah...stay out of blast range!" Ron cried out in fury.

"Oh, fine," I grimaced. "What'll we do now?"
"I know!" Harry said, but Ron was one step ahead of him.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" Ron shouted and a huge part of the broken sinks flew into the air and landed on the dragon's head. The dragon was only lightly dazed, however, and would round on us again if we didn't do something quick.

"Guys, help me out!" Harry shouted at us. "All together, lift up that stall!" The stall on the far end had come off its hinges and was dangling dangerously off the side. However, even I would not have been able to lift that particular door unless I'd done it physically and I had decided a while ago that if this happened, I wanted them to think they'd done it on their own.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" we shouted together as one and the door lifted off the ground, hovering a few meters above the dragon's head. We dropped it together and the dragon became even more disoriented than ever.
"Any more ideas?" I asked.

"None here," Harry said, panicking slightly.

"What about one of those ki attacks you've got, Angel?" Ron asked.

"I was saving it for a last resort, I don't want to kill it," I said testily. "But here goes. LILAC PETALS ATTACK!!!" I shouted instead of whispered the attack I had invented long ago and the purple ki lit in my hands. The dragon roared as it regained its strength and lunged at us with renewed strength, but it soon found itself taking a dozen little purple petals all along its flank, absorbing its powers until it passed out. The lilac petals returned to me and I felt a new power swell up inside me.
"Well, that's interesting," I said softly. "The ki is different."

A loud crash and the rustling of footsteps brought all four of us back to reality as we looked up to see three of our teachers make their way into the bathroom. First was Professor McGonagall, followed by Juu, and then Snape. Professor McGonagall looked more angry than I'd ever seen her.

"Angel Galis, I thought you had more sense than to try and-"

"It wasn't her fault, Professor," Hermione interrupted quietly. I turned to look at her in sheer shock and surprise. "S-She and Harry and Ron saved me. I-I thought I could take on the dragon alone, s-since I'd read all about them."

"Miss Granger!" Professor McGonagall said in surprise.

"I-If Ron and Harry hadn't dropped things on its head a-and she shot one of those-those-"
"Ki beams?" I offered hopefully.

"Ki beam things, I would have been dead." Hermione slumped. I was not at all shocked by this lie, as she had done the same thing in the novel, but Harry and Ron were stumped.

"In that case, you are a very foolish girl, Miss Granger. Five points will be taken from Griffindor for this." She then sent Hermione back to the House, where the others were eating the remainder of the feast.

"Angel, I know you are very strong and powerful, but there are certain creatures I'm thinking that even you can't handle with what little magic training you have," Professor McGonagall told me sternly. "But you and your companions have shown a great amount of bravery, so I will add five points to Griffindor for each of you. The Headmaster will be informed of this. You may go." The three of us left the room and made our way toward the Griffindor Tower.

"She's right, you know," I said, breaking the impeding silence. "There are some creatures even I cannot destroy without certain spells in this world." Charlie raced up to us, followed quickly by Bill.

"Angel, what were you thinking?!" Charlie proclaimed. "You could've been killed!"

"No, I couldn't have," I told him with a slight bit of sarcasm in my voice. "But I succeeded in what I wished to." He looked at me strangely before heading down the hall to help get the dragon out of the school, Bill leading us back toward the Tower.

"What did you mean by 'I couldn't have'?" Bill asked as he led the way.

"I couldn't have been killed by that dragon, not unless it was Dirken in disguise," I told him. "And I proved he wasn't by taking him out with one Lilac Petals." I smirked as I remembered something. "Of course, I did the same thing with Trunks, and he's much strong physically than I am."
"That little guy!?" Bill shouted, astonished. It was true, Trunks had lost the majority of his bulky muscle when he'd crossed into this world, as had I.

"He may be little to your eyes," I said with a razor-sharp edge to my tone that plainly said Bill had pressed a button he shouldn't have, "But he's much stronger than you'd think. Never judge a book by its cover, Bill. That was the mistake Voldemort made when he came across Harry ten years ago. And it's the same mistake the rest of the school is making with Tom now." I think he got the hint, as well as Harry and Ron, because they said nothing more on the subject.

"I wonder why Hermione stuck up for us?" Ron spoke inquisitively.

"She's a lot like I was back in school," I told him seriously. "The only thing she needed was a chance." He looked at me, startled to find I had been just like the girl he'd only hours ago been criticizing.

"What do you mean, like you?" Harry asked as we finally reached the statue.

"I'll explain later," I said with a glance at him that released my naturally furtive wink. "Right now, let's get some dinner, I'm starved!" Harry nodded and laughed as we told the Fat Lady the password ("Pig snout") and entered.

The others were all standing around, eating and laughing, not really paying much attention to the door. Hermione stood in a corner shyly, not looking up. We walked over to her and the four of us stood in an awkward silence.

"Thanks," we muttered all together as one and went to get plates. I guess Miss Rowling was right. There were some things you can live through that would make you friends for life. I guess that defeating a dragon (an Ocean Rhineback, as Charlie exuberated later) was one of them. Trunks found me and apologized again and again for not coming with me. I laughed at him and told him not to worry about it and he smiled gratefully upon hearing this. We rejoined Tom and we stood together like true friends should.

As the common room emptied, Jupiter made her way cautiously up to me.

"You knew the dragon would come in, didn't you?" She asked timidly. I nodded only just slightly and she stared on in shock. "Why didn't you warn the teachers ahead of time? We could've had a normal Halloween."
"Some things have to happen, Jupiter," I said softly. "And it takes a lot of responsibility to see that it is done." She looked sideways at me before retreating once more to finish her dinner.

"So, Angel," Ron said conversationally. Only Trunks, Hermione, Ron, Harry, and I were left in the common room, as the others had gone to bed. "How is Hermione like you used to be?"

"Huh?" Hermione asked dumbly.
"Angel said you were a lot like her when she was back in her old dimension," Harry explained to her. "Come on, Angel, we want to know."

"I used to be the top of my class," I told them. "I was the best kid in the entire school, I almost skipped three grades once, but my parents wouldn't sign for it. But I had no friends. Not one friend in that whole school. A thousand kids, and I was the only one without a friend. Hermione reminded me a lot of my days there, and how the other kids simply brushed me off as stuck-up just because I was shy. Of course, Hermione here is the exact opposite." Hermione smiled at me delightedly at this.

"We might want to get up to bed," Harry said, interrupting the conversation speedily. Ron nodded and stood, followed by Harry. "You coming, Trunks?"

"Yeah, in a minute," Trunks told him. "I'm just gonna get my things together for tomorrow's classes."
"Me too," I said, looking grimly at the mess I had finished, "Plus, I've still got that paper in Professor McGonagall's class."
"Paper?" Trunks questioned. Then his eyes shot open. "I forgot that!" Hermione chuckled and headed up to bed, leaving me scrambling for my quill to finish the paper I needed for Transfiguration.

By the time I'd gotten out my quill, ink, and some parchment, everyone with the exception of Trunks was gone. I wrote lightning fast because I knew what I was talking about and finished the paper. I looked over to see if Trunks had finished as well, and found he was no longer there. He'd probably finished and went upstairs, I reasoned.

I stood up and pushed my chair in, my homework gathered on the table and my pack sitting in the corner with all my books and parchment and such sitting beside it. I saw Charlie's map and unfolded it to see again and saw that the planets were moving ever so slowly on the paper. I shook my head and stood up straight.

I backed into a warm body and prepared to scream, but was cut short by a hand over my mouth, followed very swiftly by a hand over my eyes.

***

Ooh...scary! Who is it? Eek, wouldn't want to be in her shoes right now...

N-Neither would I, that's scary!

A-Yeah...well, ja, peeps.

N-Ja ne, nekos.

A-...I'm not going to say a word.