Chapter 5: Lions and Snakes
Harry woke up the next morning and headed down to the Great Hall. He found Dumbledore waiting for him.
"Hello Harry, I was wondering how your summer went, and if your scar hurt you at any time."
"Hello to you too Professor. My summer went exceedingly well considering I was at the Dursley's and no my scar didn't hurt once the entire summer."
"Good, then it seems that Voldemort is still recovering from being reborn. We still have time to warn people, and try to convince the minister that Voldemort really is back."
"He still doesn't believe us?" Harry asked amazed. All the signs, the attack on the village not long ago. Why in the hell is he so stupid?"
"Calm down Harry, Minister Fudge just - just has some problems with Voldemort's return, he doesn't want the people to turn against him. Granted, he is their minister and should warn them -"
"Exactly," Harry said interrupting Dumbledore, who just smiled.
"Anyway, you had better hurry Harry, you have a busy day today."
"Alright Professor. Nice talking to you," Harry added as he walked towards the Gryfindor table, which was nearly empty this early.
He grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed out towards Hagrid's hut, where he could have some privacy.
"Accio Sword," he said pointing his wand towards his tower window, and sure enough he saw his sword flying down to him. He unsheathed it and began practicing his swordplay. After a half-hour or so he retired and went to shower. He decided on using the prefect's bathrooms. After showering he again went to the Great Hall. This time his friends were up and he chatted with them before they headed off to their first class, potions.
"Ugg," Ron said simply. The others agreed, well, all except Angie who had never had potions before. Every year they had potions with Slytheran, and potions was taught by Snape, the Slytheran headmaster. They made their way down to the dungeons where the potions classroom was. It was much cooler down in the dungeons than in the rest of Hogwarts, much cooler. As they entered the classroom they looked around and found Snape working on a potion at his desk. It bubbled and hissed and after a few more minutes of this, Snape took it off the burner. He set it on his desk to cool.
"Hello, class." Harry could've sworn that Snape had hissed this second word. "There will be no grace period this year, we will get straight to work. If you will turn to page 312 of your potions text you will see a simple healing potion. I want you to brew this. When you are done, it should look very much like mine." He held his vial up so that everyone could see. "Now get to work!" he snapped at them.
Everyone obeyed; Neville unfortunately, was not quite quick enough for Snape's taste. "Five points from Gryfindor for holding up the class." The Gryfindors wanted to refute this saying that it wasn't fair, but all held their tongues. The penalty for speaking now would be more lost points.
Very soon everybody was getting out the required ingredients and chopping, slicing, and mashing them. They did whatever the book told them to. Then added them in a predefined order. Harry was adding his sliced ginseng when Neville stood up and in the process knocked over their table. Harry immediately cast some levitation charms and saved both his and Neville's potions from spilling.
"Quick thinking Potter, but five points from Gryfindor for turning over a table in class." This last bit was directed at Neville, who was quite shaken. He had already lost ten points.
"That's not fair!" yelled Harry.
"What?" cried Snape, "Not fair you say. I'll tell you what's fair and what isn't. I'm the teacher around here. Show some respect boy. Detention. Tonight. ME!"
Soon everybody had finished his or her potions and class ended. Harry and Ron met outside with Hermione.
"Well, that was eventful. Very nice with the levitation charms Harry. Too bad you had to get so mad at Snape. He probably would've just let it go with five points."
"Thanks Angie. But I don't need the criticism right now." He smiled at her. "So what is our next class?" this bit was directed at Hermione, who knew everything.
"Defense, it should be interesting. I wonder what they will be teaching?"
"Hmm, no idea. What's after that?"
"Defense Against the Dark Arts, then Dueling."
"Interesting. Well, lets go." With that they left towards the great hall, where defense was taking place.
***********
Dumbledore stepped up onto the stage in the Great Hall. "Hello," he began. "As you know, this is Defense. In this class you will be taught counter- curses, healing spells, and most importantly, physical combat. I want you all to show great respect and courtesy to our new teacher here at Hogwarts. He was recently cleared by the ministry so now I can hire him. I present to you your teacher, Sirius Black!"
Harry's jaw dropped, along with Ron, Angie, and Hermione's. Everyone else applauded him and congratulated him on his innocence. After he had thanked them he started.
"Today, you will meet your classmates and will chose a partner. Just one partner. This will be your defense partner for the rest of the year. You have five minutes, go."
Harry immediately chose Angie as his partner and Ron chose Hermione. Once everybody had a partner, Sirius continued, "Your partner will heal you, your partner will spar with you, and you and your partner will become a well coordinated team. You will keep this partner in both this class and dueling, which I will also be teaching." At this smiles came from Harry and Ron. "Now, let us begin. The first thing that I will teach you is how to throw off the Imperius curse. I know that you had this last year with the fake Moody, but Dumbledore insists that each one of you be able to throw it off with little or no difficulty. Harry, let's start with you."
Harry walked up to the stage as Sirius said, "Imperio." Harry felt blissfully ignorant. All he had to do was listen to the voice. 'Start Dancing' it told him. 'Why not,' one part of his brain said while the other part refused. 'Start Dancing' it told him again. 'I really don't think that that would look good, I would look rather silly.' Harry thought to himself.
'Start Dancing NOW!' Yelled the voice. "NO!" yelled Harry as loud as he could. He had beat the Imperius curse yet again.
"Very good Harry. Did all of you see that. Harry fought the curse and won. He didn't do what I told him to. Now, for the rest of you." Before long Sirius had half the class doing wild an silly things like acting like a monkey, dancing in a pink tutu, and trying to juggle cats. The other half of the class had resisted the curse. Ron, Angie, and Hermione were with him in this group. Then Sirius released the rest of the class from his control. "To those of you that beat it, very good. For those of you who didn't, we will try again and again until you do. Now, I want those of you who beat the curse to spar with each other." He conjured up blunted swords for everyone that had beaten the Imperious curse.
Harry picked up the sword. 'A little heavy for my taste,' he decided. He summoned both of his swords that Hagrid had given him for his birthday. He took one and handed the other to Angie, who gratefully accepted it. Then he lifted up his sword and attacked. He started off slow, testing her, finding her weaknesses and trying to utilize them. However, every time he thought he had her, she used a move that caught him off guard. And so the duel progressed.
Both blades began to move faster and faster until all that could be seen were blurs. The sounds however told a different story. Harry and Angie were involved in their duel, they did not notice that everyone had stopped what they were doing and were watching them.
Harry could not find his opening and was getting frustrated. Then he saw a sudden movement. Angie had pulled her wand.
"Expellimarius!" Harry lost his sword to the disarming charm but quickly pulled his own wand.
"Accio Sword! Stupefy!" He yelled these two charms out in succession. He recovered his sword and Angie dodged his stunning spell. The duel grew faster and faster. Only the names of the spells and the 'clangs' of the swords could be heard.
"Forvise!" Harry was heard to yell. Just then Angie flew back and hit the wall. "Stupefy!" Angie did not have enough room to dodge and the spell hit her flat in the chest. She was stunned.
"WOO-HOO!!" The class erupted. "Jeez Harry, that was the best duel I have ever seen! How can you move so fast?"
"Dang Harry, where did you learn that banishing charm? That was bloody brilliant!"
"Wow Harry, I can see why Voldemort wants you dead."
"Harry! Do you think you could teach me that style of sword fighting?"
Harry ignored all the questions and walked over to Angie. "Enervate," he said. She woke up. He smiled at her and she returned his smile. "You did very well Angie. I thought you had me when you pulled your wand."
"Well," she laughed, "I wasn't quite good enough to beat the famous Harry Potter." She drew these last three words out as he moved closer to her. Their faces were less than an inch apart, then they connected. Angie felt so light all of a sudden, then just gave into his kiss. She parted his lips and the kiss became deeper.
"*Cough*, um excuse me, could you two get a room?" Ron had thought this funny until Harry lifted out of the kiss and hit Ron with the same banishing charm he had hit Angie with, sending him flying across the Great Hall. Nobody else dared to say anything as Harry took Angie out of the Great Hall.
Sirius took this time to excuse the class. "Until next time. Thank you all for being good sports today and I will see you in two periods. Good- bye."
The rest of the day was quite fun and Harry especially enjoyed Dumbledore's DADA, and Sirius's Dueling classes. In DADA, Dumbledore had let the students learn to banish gnomes and they had tried it out on the Hogwarts yard. It worked quite well. Dumbledore of course, knew that gnomes weren't naturally evil, but commented that they could do evil things, such as ruin your dinner if they messed with a garden. The class had laughed at this and the fun had begun.
In Dueling they re-learned the disarming charm and stunning charm. These were practiced on their partners over and over until all were sore. It had been fun though, everybody agreed afterwards.
Later that evening, Harry said good-bye to Ron and Hermione, gave a farewell kiss to Angie, and left towards the dungeons, to meet Snape for his detention. He knocked on the door and Snape answered.
"Hello, Potter." Snape had hissed Harry's name. "I will take you out beyond Hogwarts grounds and then apparate with you to an undisclosed location. You will have to run back to Hogwarts. Use the spell "point me" to find the direction. That is all the help I will give you. A tracking charm will be put on you so Dumbledore and I will be watching at all times. Let's go, now!"
He walked out of the room, and Harry followed. They walked a long way, past Hogsmede. They finally stopped at the end of Hogwarts protection charms. Snape apparated them to a mountainous area left Harry there and disaparated back leaving Harry all alone.
"Point me," Harry said and his wand started to spin. It stopped pointing forward and to his right a little. That is the way he started to run. The wind felt good as he jogged along. It cooled him. 'It is a good thing that I have been doing physical exercise in the morning,' Harry thought to himself. He continued on this course for roughly an hour and a half. He stopped for a short rest.
"Grr," Harry heard. He looked around frantically for whatever had made the noise. Then he saw it. It was a dire wolf. These wolves are quite a bit larger than regular wolves and much more aggressive. Harry immediately pulled his wand out of his robes and yelled, "Stivine!" The dire wolf's fur turned to icicles and its feet became frozen to the ground as a blast of artic air blew out from Harry's wand. Harry began to run to get far away from the creature when it broke out of its ice prison.
"Impedimenta!" Harry yelled. His slowing curse hit the dire wolf whose movements became slower, uncoordinated. Harry continued running. Finally, he could not see the beast anymore. He was safe.
He smelt the air. It was moist, rain was coming. 'Good,' he thought, 'I will be cooled. I need to be after that run.' Then it came, it rained harder than he had expected. Each raindrop stung his face but he enjoyed it. He enjoyed being out in the elements. He challenged it with a call, "Is that the best you can do?" Just then there was a flash of light, which blinded him, and he heard a distant roar as all his senses started to fade. He remembered now, he remembered the dream. Just then it started, the voice.
Once thought lost
Never found
Never seen
Always around
Powers old
Long since forgotten
Through you now
Again begotten
'What the?' Harry thought, 'what do you mean.' It only repeated the rhyme. "What does it mean?" he shouted. "WHY ME?!" he shouted one more time before he lost all conciseness.
Harry woke up the next morning and headed down to the Great Hall. He found Dumbledore waiting for him.
"Hello Harry, I was wondering how your summer went, and if your scar hurt you at any time."
"Hello to you too Professor. My summer went exceedingly well considering I was at the Dursley's and no my scar didn't hurt once the entire summer."
"Good, then it seems that Voldemort is still recovering from being reborn. We still have time to warn people, and try to convince the minister that Voldemort really is back."
"He still doesn't believe us?" Harry asked amazed. All the signs, the attack on the village not long ago. Why in the hell is he so stupid?"
"Calm down Harry, Minister Fudge just - just has some problems with Voldemort's return, he doesn't want the people to turn against him. Granted, he is their minister and should warn them -"
"Exactly," Harry said interrupting Dumbledore, who just smiled.
"Anyway, you had better hurry Harry, you have a busy day today."
"Alright Professor. Nice talking to you," Harry added as he walked towards the Gryfindor table, which was nearly empty this early.
He grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed out towards Hagrid's hut, where he could have some privacy.
"Accio Sword," he said pointing his wand towards his tower window, and sure enough he saw his sword flying down to him. He unsheathed it and began practicing his swordplay. After a half-hour or so he retired and went to shower. He decided on using the prefect's bathrooms. After showering he again went to the Great Hall. This time his friends were up and he chatted with them before they headed off to their first class, potions.
"Ugg," Ron said simply. The others agreed, well, all except Angie who had never had potions before. Every year they had potions with Slytheran, and potions was taught by Snape, the Slytheran headmaster. They made their way down to the dungeons where the potions classroom was. It was much cooler down in the dungeons than in the rest of Hogwarts, much cooler. As they entered the classroom they looked around and found Snape working on a potion at his desk. It bubbled and hissed and after a few more minutes of this, Snape took it off the burner. He set it on his desk to cool.
"Hello, class." Harry could've sworn that Snape had hissed this second word. "There will be no grace period this year, we will get straight to work. If you will turn to page 312 of your potions text you will see a simple healing potion. I want you to brew this. When you are done, it should look very much like mine." He held his vial up so that everyone could see. "Now get to work!" he snapped at them.
Everyone obeyed; Neville unfortunately, was not quite quick enough for Snape's taste. "Five points from Gryfindor for holding up the class." The Gryfindors wanted to refute this saying that it wasn't fair, but all held their tongues. The penalty for speaking now would be more lost points.
Very soon everybody was getting out the required ingredients and chopping, slicing, and mashing them. They did whatever the book told them to. Then added them in a predefined order. Harry was adding his sliced ginseng when Neville stood up and in the process knocked over their table. Harry immediately cast some levitation charms and saved both his and Neville's potions from spilling.
"Quick thinking Potter, but five points from Gryfindor for turning over a table in class." This last bit was directed at Neville, who was quite shaken. He had already lost ten points.
"That's not fair!" yelled Harry.
"What?" cried Snape, "Not fair you say. I'll tell you what's fair and what isn't. I'm the teacher around here. Show some respect boy. Detention. Tonight. ME!"
Soon everybody had finished his or her potions and class ended. Harry and Ron met outside with Hermione.
"Well, that was eventful. Very nice with the levitation charms Harry. Too bad you had to get so mad at Snape. He probably would've just let it go with five points."
"Thanks Angie. But I don't need the criticism right now." He smiled at her. "So what is our next class?" this bit was directed at Hermione, who knew everything.
"Defense, it should be interesting. I wonder what they will be teaching?"
"Hmm, no idea. What's after that?"
"Defense Against the Dark Arts, then Dueling."
"Interesting. Well, lets go." With that they left towards the great hall, where defense was taking place.
***********
Dumbledore stepped up onto the stage in the Great Hall. "Hello," he began. "As you know, this is Defense. In this class you will be taught counter- curses, healing spells, and most importantly, physical combat. I want you all to show great respect and courtesy to our new teacher here at Hogwarts. He was recently cleared by the ministry so now I can hire him. I present to you your teacher, Sirius Black!"
Harry's jaw dropped, along with Ron, Angie, and Hermione's. Everyone else applauded him and congratulated him on his innocence. After he had thanked them he started.
"Today, you will meet your classmates and will chose a partner. Just one partner. This will be your defense partner for the rest of the year. You have five minutes, go."
Harry immediately chose Angie as his partner and Ron chose Hermione. Once everybody had a partner, Sirius continued, "Your partner will heal you, your partner will spar with you, and you and your partner will become a well coordinated team. You will keep this partner in both this class and dueling, which I will also be teaching." At this smiles came from Harry and Ron. "Now, let us begin. The first thing that I will teach you is how to throw off the Imperius curse. I know that you had this last year with the fake Moody, but Dumbledore insists that each one of you be able to throw it off with little or no difficulty. Harry, let's start with you."
Harry walked up to the stage as Sirius said, "Imperio." Harry felt blissfully ignorant. All he had to do was listen to the voice. 'Start Dancing' it told him. 'Why not,' one part of his brain said while the other part refused. 'Start Dancing' it told him again. 'I really don't think that that would look good, I would look rather silly.' Harry thought to himself.
'Start Dancing NOW!' Yelled the voice. "NO!" yelled Harry as loud as he could. He had beat the Imperius curse yet again.
"Very good Harry. Did all of you see that. Harry fought the curse and won. He didn't do what I told him to. Now, for the rest of you." Before long Sirius had half the class doing wild an silly things like acting like a monkey, dancing in a pink tutu, and trying to juggle cats. The other half of the class had resisted the curse. Ron, Angie, and Hermione were with him in this group. Then Sirius released the rest of the class from his control. "To those of you that beat it, very good. For those of you who didn't, we will try again and again until you do. Now, I want those of you who beat the curse to spar with each other." He conjured up blunted swords for everyone that had beaten the Imperious curse.
Harry picked up the sword. 'A little heavy for my taste,' he decided. He summoned both of his swords that Hagrid had given him for his birthday. He took one and handed the other to Angie, who gratefully accepted it. Then he lifted up his sword and attacked. He started off slow, testing her, finding her weaknesses and trying to utilize them. However, every time he thought he had her, she used a move that caught him off guard. And so the duel progressed.
Both blades began to move faster and faster until all that could be seen were blurs. The sounds however told a different story. Harry and Angie were involved in their duel, they did not notice that everyone had stopped what they were doing and were watching them.
Harry could not find his opening and was getting frustrated. Then he saw a sudden movement. Angie had pulled her wand.
"Expellimarius!" Harry lost his sword to the disarming charm but quickly pulled his own wand.
"Accio Sword! Stupefy!" He yelled these two charms out in succession. He recovered his sword and Angie dodged his stunning spell. The duel grew faster and faster. Only the names of the spells and the 'clangs' of the swords could be heard.
"Forvise!" Harry was heard to yell. Just then Angie flew back and hit the wall. "Stupefy!" Angie did not have enough room to dodge and the spell hit her flat in the chest. She was stunned.
"WOO-HOO!!" The class erupted. "Jeez Harry, that was the best duel I have ever seen! How can you move so fast?"
"Dang Harry, where did you learn that banishing charm? That was bloody brilliant!"
"Wow Harry, I can see why Voldemort wants you dead."
"Harry! Do you think you could teach me that style of sword fighting?"
Harry ignored all the questions and walked over to Angie. "Enervate," he said. She woke up. He smiled at her and she returned his smile. "You did very well Angie. I thought you had me when you pulled your wand."
"Well," she laughed, "I wasn't quite good enough to beat the famous Harry Potter." She drew these last three words out as he moved closer to her. Their faces were less than an inch apart, then they connected. Angie felt so light all of a sudden, then just gave into his kiss. She parted his lips and the kiss became deeper.
"*Cough*, um excuse me, could you two get a room?" Ron had thought this funny until Harry lifted out of the kiss and hit Ron with the same banishing charm he had hit Angie with, sending him flying across the Great Hall. Nobody else dared to say anything as Harry took Angie out of the Great Hall.
Sirius took this time to excuse the class. "Until next time. Thank you all for being good sports today and I will see you in two periods. Good- bye."
The rest of the day was quite fun and Harry especially enjoyed Dumbledore's DADA, and Sirius's Dueling classes. In DADA, Dumbledore had let the students learn to banish gnomes and they had tried it out on the Hogwarts yard. It worked quite well. Dumbledore of course, knew that gnomes weren't naturally evil, but commented that they could do evil things, such as ruin your dinner if they messed with a garden. The class had laughed at this and the fun had begun.
In Dueling they re-learned the disarming charm and stunning charm. These were practiced on their partners over and over until all were sore. It had been fun though, everybody agreed afterwards.
Later that evening, Harry said good-bye to Ron and Hermione, gave a farewell kiss to Angie, and left towards the dungeons, to meet Snape for his detention. He knocked on the door and Snape answered.
"Hello, Potter." Snape had hissed Harry's name. "I will take you out beyond Hogwarts grounds and then apparate with you to an undisclosed location. You will have to run back to Hogwarts. Use the spell "point me" to find the direction. That is all the help I will give you. A tracking charm will be put on you so Dumbledore and I will be watching at all times. Let's go, now!"
He walked out of the room, and Harry followed. They walked a long way, past Hogsmede. They finally stopped at the end of Hogwarts protection charms. Snape apparated them to a mountainous area left Harry there and disaparated back leaving Harry all alone.
"Point me," Harry said and his wand started to spin. It stopped pointing forward and to his right a little. That is the way he started to run. The wind felt good as he jogged along. It cooled him. 'It is a good thing that I have been doing physical exercise in the morning,' Harry thought to himself. He continued on this course for roughly an hour and a half. He stopped for a short rest.
"Grr," Harry heard. He looked around frantically for whatever had made the noise. Then he saw it. It was a dire wolf. These wolves are quite a bit larger than regular wolves and much more aggressive. Harry immediately pulled his wand out of his robes and yelled, "Stivine!" The dire wolf's fur turned to icicles and its feet became frozen to the ground as a blast of artic air blew out from Harry's wand. Harry began to run to get far away from the creature when it broke out of its ice prison.
"Impedimenta!" Harry yelled. His slowing curse hit the dire wolf whose movements became slower, uncoordinated. Harry continued running. Finally, he could not see the beast anymore. He was safe.
He smelt the air. It was moist, rain was coming. 'Good,' he thought, 'I will be cooled. I need to be after that run.' Then it came, it rained harder than he had expected. Each raindrop stung his face but he enjoyed it. He enjoyed being out in the elements. He challenged it with a call, "Is that the best you can do?" Just then there was a flash of light, which blinded him, and he heard a distant roar as all his senses started to fade. He remembered now, he remembered the dream. Just then it started, the voice.
Once thought lost
Never found
Never seen
Always around
Powers old
Long since forgotten
Through you now
Again begotten
'What the?' Harry thought, 'what do you mean.' It only repeated the rhyme. "What does it mean?" he shouted. "WHY ME?!" he shouted one more time before he lost all conciseness.