Author's Note: I like the HTML formatting better, even though it has a lot of white space in it. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 9: Bat Hunting Lessons.

Samuel arrived at the campsite after a good twenty minute walk. There was a small fire blazing and a few logs had been circled around it. Gene and Filch sat one one side of the fire, and McGonagall and Hagrid on the other. The four were laughing and enjoying the coffee that Gene had prepared for them. Samuel sat on a log next to his father and helped himself to a cup of coffee. Gene slapped Samuel and the back and greeted him warmly.

"Sorry it took so long, I had to arrange for safe passage out of the school for our students." Samuel said.

"Who is sneaking them out?" asked McGonagall.

"Fred and George Weasley, I expect James will find his own way here."

"Oh dear. Tell me the twins aren't coming out here." McGonagall groaned, staring hard at Samuel.

"The twins aren't coming out here." Samuel said, with the straight face.

"Are you lying?" McGonagall asked.

"Sure am." Samuel said. "It won't be bad, just a good ol' family camp out."

Darkness slowly fell and James arrived at the fire and sat down beside Hagrid. He poured himself a cup of coffee and then removed a pack that was hanging on his shoulder.

"Got everything?" Gene asked.

"Sure do, Even the net." James said, then took a sip from his coffee. "Nothing like coffee over a camp fire."

A rustling noise came from the grass behind the camp and McGonagall drew her wand. Fred and George Weasley  came into view each carrying a small satchel on their shoulder, followed by Harry, Ginny, Hermione and Ron. Harry held his broom stick in his hand while the rest only carried a small blanket each. Fred and George sat down on one of the logs and stared at the small pot that sat on a grill over the fire.

"May we?" asked George.

"Go for it." Samuel said.

"Wow." Ginny said. "Look at all the stars."

The twins poured themselves coffee and sipped at it slowly. The younger students looked completely dumbfounded at the campsite.

"Pull up a log." Gene said. The four children sat down and Harry poured himself a cup as well.

"Gonna be a long night, hope ya'll are up to it." James said as he finished his first cup and then folded his hands in his lap.

"Got the omniculars?" asked Elanus of Ron.

"Yeah." Ron said as he pulled the modified omniculars from his pocket.

"Shall we take turns watching?" asked McGonagall.

"I can do it." Ron said.

"Know what you're looking for?" Samuel asked.

"Probably the one that flies off in a weird direction." Ron said.

"How do you propose we catch the bat?" McGonagall asked.

"Simple, Harry here flies up behind it, puts it to sleep and then catches it." Samuel said. "No problem for a Gryffindor Seeker I imagine."

"I can't put stuff to sleep." Harry said.

"That certainly makes it tough. Any other flyers here?" asked Samuel.

"We're the House beaters." Fred commented. "I think we can do it."

"Do you have a broomstick?" McGonagall asked.

"Sure do, could you hand me that pack over there, Hermione?" asked George. Hermione handed George a small cloth satchel that was resting behind one of the logs. George opened the satchel and started to pull things out. Many of the objects were much larger then the satchel itself. Finally George pulled out an old broom stick and then a second one.

"We'll both go up." Fred commented.

The campers talked quietly and Ron stared through his omniculars at Hogwarts. It steadily grew darker as night fell. Soon there was only the light of the stars, and the moon to see by.

"So there I was standing in the middle of Azkaba…" Hagrid said.

"The bats have left the tower." Ron said loudly. Everyone hushed as Harry, Fred and George took to their brooms.

"Do you see the stray?" asked Gene quietly.

"No." Ron said as he slowly scanned the sky for rogue bats. "Wait a minute. One just left the tower, it's flying into the flock. I lost it." Ron said in frustration.

"Patience." Samuel said. "It'll break off soon."

Minutes passed by like hours as Ron watched the bats. "They're diving into the forest." Ron said. "One kept flying. It's gonna fly right past us. It has a metal tube on it's back"

"I think I see it." Harry said pointing to a barely visible, and small moving object that glinted occasionally in the star light.

"It's about fifteen yards out, and I'd say a quarter mile away." Ron said.

"Wait 'til it passes by us so you can catch it from behind." Elanus said.

The bat flew past the campsite about twenty yards away from the campsite, due north. Harry, and the twins hovered over the trees for a few moments and then they started flying behind the bat. They closed in on the bat and George drew his wand and waved it at the bat. The bat started flapping slower, and slower and finally it fell from flight and plummeted to the ground. Harry shot off after the bat and dove down after it. He gave the twins some sort of signal and they flew back to the campsite and slowly landed.

"Quickly!" Elanus said.

James removed a small box, a few pieces of paper and a board with clamps on it from his pack. He handed Samuel a pair of rubber surgical gloves. Harry handed the bat over to Samuel, who carefully opened the tube on it's back.

"Tweezers." Samuel said.

James passed a long set of tweezers to Samuel, who reached into the tube with them and carefully extracted a rolled up piece of paper. The message was sealed with wax and a small ribbon.

"They'll know it's been tampered with." McGonagall said.

"No they won't." said James as he removed another set of tweezers from his box. He took the message from Samuel and placed it under a clamp on his board being careful not to crease it. He took another set of gloves from his pack and a small pen knife and carefully removed the seal by slowly prying it up from the paper and slipping it and the ribbon off. He unclamped the message and unrolled it slowly.

"It's encoded." He said.

James clamped the message flat on the board and studied it for a short moment. He removed what looked like a fountain pen from his box and placed another paper on the board. After copying the message he rolled it back up and placed the seal on it again. He heated the underside of the wax with his pen knife which he held over the fire for a few seconds and carefully pushed it down onto the message.

"Good as new." James said as he handed Samuel the message with the tweezers. Samuel carefully placed the message back into the tube on the bat's back and placed the cap back on it.

"Alright carry it back out to where it was flying. Toss it out a few feet then revive it, then fly back as fast as you can before it realizes where it's at." Samuel said, handing the still sleeping bat back to Harry. The flyers nodded and took off back to where they had caught the bat. Harry threw the bat out a few feet and flew back while Fred revived the bat with an enervate spell. The twins flew back and landed shortly after Harry.

"What's it say?" asked George.

"It's encoded, give me a bit." James said as he studied the copy of the message.

"It looks just like her handwriting." Hagrid said.

"Of course it does." James said. "We can find out who it is with this."

"Where'd you learn to forge handwriting?" George asked curiously.

"Don't get any ideas." McGonagall scolded. "This could take days to decipher."

"Not really, if it's in English James can break almost any code in an hour or two. He can read simple codes like replacing a letter with the one after or before it like they weren't encoded at all." Gene said. "He can read other kinds almost as well."

"It's definitely English." James said quietly. "The punctuation is correct."

"It could be German." McGonagall noted. "Or enchanted."

"I don't think so, none of the words are over a few letters long." James said. "It'd be too obvious if it were magic. I think they're using plain old fashioned means of doing it."

"What has that got to do with anything?" Hermione asked.

"German has longer words." James said. "It follows English writing patterns, trust me. Wizards would resort to magic first. They wouldn't think there'd be muggles helping."

"Better let him work." Samuel said.

Gene turned to Harry and chuckled. "Your last name is Potter?" he asked.

"Yes sir." Harry replied.

"Are you by any chance related to Lily Potter and her husband James?" asked Gene.

"They were my parents." Harry said, gazing into the fire.

"The look on your face answers my next question." Gene said.

"Did you know them?" asked Harry.

"Lily more then James, but yes I did. Though I only really met her a few times. Is Petunia still alive?" asked Gene.

"Yes, I live with her and my Uncle Dursley." Harry said. "How did you know them?"

Gene took a deep breath and exhaled with a thoughtful look on his face. "Harry, Petunia and Lily are my sisters." McGonagall raised an eyebrow at Gene and everyone else suddenly went quiet.

"How can that be? You're old enough to be their father." Harry said after a few moments staring at Gene.

"My half sisters, really. My father, your grandfather was married twice. My mother died when I was about Samuel's age, maybe a little older." Gene said. "I was on my own, and decided to go to America to finish my schooling. I received a letter from my father one day that he had remarried, and he wanted me to meet my step mother. I caught a flight to England, which at that point there were still boats travelling the Atlantic. After a short visit I headed home and then some ten months later I received a letter telling about my new sister, then another one after that. About fifteen years passed and I married finally, and Samuel was born. When Samuel was about four, maybe five, I took him and his mother to England to meet his aunts, and so I could see my sisters for the first time. They were both pretty well grown and my father was old by then. I myself was in my forties. Your aunt was already married, and your mother was about to be. We stayed a week, which was about all I could take of your uncle's constant badgering me for help with his drill business. That was the only time I ever saw my sisters. My father, and step mother died soon afterward."

The camp was totally silent, except for the crackling of the fire, and James' writing on the paper.

"I knew something about them reminded me of Lily." Hagrid said. "It's written all over them."

"Lily's maiden name was Evans. Samuel's last name is Green." McGonagall said.

"No it's not." Elanus said. "His name is Samuel Evans. I had him go by Green so it'd be more obvious that we were related. I'm his cousin on Gene's wife's side."

"You're a wizard and he's a muggle though." Hermione commented.

"There were some wizards on my side of the family." Elanus said. "I had no idea he was related to the Potters."

"If what you're saying is true." Harry said. "That makes you my uncle, and Professor Green and James my cousins. How could you not know if they names were the same?"

Gene chuckled. "Evans is like Smith in many ways, there are a lot of us. Some are Irish, some are English, it'd be like saying Elanus was related to my mother who had relatives named Green, even though he's not. The Department of Mysteries itself wouldn't even think to try to connect the two, even if they could."

"I wonder why we didn't know about this. Harry would have been far better off with you then those muggles he lives with now." McGonagall commented.

"Would he?" asked Samuel. "On the other side of the world?"

"It was not common knowledge." Gene said. "That my father had a son. You have to remember he wasn't even twenty years my senior as he married when he was barely sixteen. Anyone who saw us together would hardly believe we were father and son. I am so much older then Petunia and Lily that no one ever connected me to them the one whole week I actually saw them. Also my being in America, even though I was born here had a lot to do with it. There was no way that anyone could have known that. The way Vernon and Petunia are, I doubt seriously that they would even mention my name, especially after I refused to help supply Vernon with the metals he needed for what he could pay for them."

"Well cousin." Samuel said slapping Harry on the back. "I guess you do have family out there."

"It's just so hard to take in, hard to believe. First Sirius now this." Harry said.

"Well I don't know how make you feel better. I do have this though." Gene said as he pulled his wallet from his pocket. There were several pictures in the center fold of the wallet, and Gene removed one of them. He handed the photograph to Harry, it was now old and a bit wrinkled. Harry looked at it and gasped.

"It's my mother and aunt. Is that you in the center?" asked Harry.

Gene nodded. "It is, back home I have another picture you might find interesting. Lily, James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus, all standing together. Sirius got a kick out of the camera, and how the pictures didn't move."

"You met them all?" asked Harry.

"Yes, the last day I was here. They were interested in meeting me, I managed to get a picture of them." Gene said. "I wonder why they never told you about me. Not that they knew me really. I would have gladly taken you in, had I known of Lily's death."

"There would be no one to protect him." McGonagall said. "Well, at least not like Dumbledore wanted if he had known."

"I think he does." Samuel said. "He commented on my heritage many times. That's how I figured it out."

"Figured what out?" asked Gene.

"Nothing, I'll tell you later." Samuel said, looking down at the ground.

"Sorry to interrupt, but I figured it out." James said, as he put his board down. "It's a weekly report." James said as he handed Samuel the paper. He started reading it aloud.

I am happy to report I recruited another student this week. That makes our number eight. He was eager to join, after I promised him what he wanted, he still doesn't know who I am. The others are ready to follow you and do your wishes, we eagerly await instruction. I've begun teaching them the dark arts as well. The strike should come soon, the tension regarding the dementors at Azkaban is fading. The professors will be totally off guard, especially when their own attack from within. Hogwarts has little defence, and what it does have can be easily sabotaged.

"They're planning an attack." Elanus said. "On Hogwarts."

"Yes, but who is 'they'." Samuel commented.

"Voldemort." Harry said.

"We need to prepare in secret, and catch this girl, as well as those who follow her." Samuel said.

"How do you propose we do that?" asked McGonagall.

"Dad, can you and James stay here 'til New Years at least? I need some help. Elanus, I know you have work to do but…."

"This is by far more important. I know what you're thinking, and we'll do it." Elanus said with a sigh. "I hate to, but it's the only way. I'll send the proper missives out soon."

"Can we help?" the students asked.

"Certainly not." McGonagall said. "There is no place for children in this."

Samuel chuckled. "I agree, but there may be something you can do that's not dangerous at all. We know where they meet, we don't know when. We also know that no one knows the grounds better then Fred and George Weasley. The other thing we know is, no one is more adept at sneaking out after hours then the people sitting right here at this campfire. Filch, James, the twins, Harry and I can intercept the messages, or anyone that can use a broomstick. The rest of you need to be observant, though I really doubt anyone in this group is from Gryffindor. They'd be easily caught, since the biggest rule breakers at the school are in Gryffindor. There is a girl named Mary Jenkins that has some better information on these things. I suggest you each talk to her in the next few days."

"I suggest getting Madam Hooch, and Professor Flitwick involved in the message retrieval." McGonagall said. "Someone will notice if these six start sneaking out every night. Lee Jordan especially. No one will think twice if a few professors go out for an evening walk."

"The last thing we need is this spy getting suspicious. We'll keep intercepting their messages, and figure what they're up to. Finding the students that follow her is our next priority. We mustn't take action until the time is right, and we know as much as possible. If my cover is blown, and they find out what I am, we won't have a chance at finding these students. Right now they're confident; and they don't know we're watching. Are we in agreement?" asked Samuel.

Everyone's head nodded in unison.

"Alright then, we need defences. From what I've seen the castle is or was well fortified against attack at once point. We'll need ways to defend, Elanus I'm sure you and dad can come up with something." Elanus and Gene nodded. "I have an idea on who to get to help us fight if this 'strike' happens to be a violent one, though I'm not ready to share that just yet. Hagrid I'm sure you can get help as well." Hagrid nodded. " The rest of you keep watch."

They discussed plans briefly and the campfire was put out, and they all returned to the school. Harry's head swam with thoughts of his new found family, and events to come. The rest were simply disgusted that students of Hogwarts were actually following Voldemort.