Disclaimer: Harry Potter and associated characters are property of J.K.
Rowling
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Chapter 10: Encounter in Diagon Alley
It was late afternoon when Harry finally came around, however instead of finding himself in a cave or at the inn where they were staying, he found himself lying in Ron's room at the Burrow. Hermione was sitting next to his bed, asleep with her favourite book, 'Hogwarts: A History,' in her lap. It looked like she hadn't slept for several days from the bags under her eyes.
"Hermione?" he said turning his head to look at her. He thought it was very sweet of her to stay by him after he passed out from having spent all his energy summoning those Earth Guardians. Out of all the guardians, they took the most energy toll on the caster due to the fact that they were very hard to summon and control.
When she didn't respond, he reached from where he was and touched her hand. She immediately jolted awake at the touch and when her eyes fell on Harry, she stood up, letting her book fall to the ground, went over to him and gave him a hug.
"Hermione!" Harry said in surprise.
"Oh Harry, I was so worried when you lost consciousness after fighting Nobert," she said still hugging him tightly as he laid in bed. "You used those Elemental spells again, didn't you?"
"I had to. How else was I supposed to defeat a dragon all by myself? I didn't have my broom like I did in the Triwizard Tournament and the cavern wasn't big enough to really fly around in anyway."
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say those spells were really hazardous to your health. You almost killed yourself casting those. You should be more careful," she said as she let go of him and scolded him as she usually did when he and Ron weren't doing their homework.
Harry smiled at her and said, "Hermione, Charlie and I probably wouldn't be alive if I didn't use them. Be glad that I'm still alive, but please don't tell Ron about the elemental magic. He'd get really mad at me for keeping stuff from him."
She smiled back before saying, "It wouldn't be the first time, but I won't tell him. I'll just say you got Nobert to knock himself out by hitting his head against the wall if he asks."
"Thanks Hermione. Also, would you happen to know what happened to the barrier I cast and is Charlie alright?"
"What barrier? We didn't notice anything when we went back in there other than the fact that Nobert had a lot of dirt on him. Charlie is fine, he was bleeding from his forehead when we got him, but he's alive thanks to you. Though I wonder what caused Nobert to go bezerk all of a sudden," she said thoughtfully.
"Charlie did say that dragons could sense fear or evil in a person. It could be that since Vol- I mean, you-know-who transferred some of his dark energy to me when he failed to kill me, it's possible that Nobert could have sensed it and thought that we were going to hurt him. So he attacked us," Harry reasoned.
"I suppose... Oh I almost forgot, you should get ready, we're going to Diagon alley in a bit to get our materials for the term. It starts next week. I'm so excited. I can't wait to get back to Hogwarts," Hermione said.
"A WEEK? How long have I been out?" Harry asked, shocked at how much time passed.
"You've been out for at least 5 days. Mrs. Weasley cut the trip short because she thought your state of being was more important. We used floo powder to get you back here instead of the portkey. Your leg was pretty badly burned, but she did a good job of healing it."
"And you - I mean did you stay in here all five days since I've been here? Where's Charlie?" Harry asked.
"Yes I did and Charlie is still in Romania. We thought that you would get better care here than over there and Charlie doesn't know about your elemental magic. I made sure of it," Hermione said smiling.
"Thanks Hermione. I appreciate it."
"You're welcome," she said, blushing. "Now you really owe me a lesson in elemental magic."
"I said I'd give you one, but since there's a lot of people around, I haven't been able to transform or use any of the elemental magic unless it's a life or death situation."
"Fine, I'll wait until we get to Hogwarts. Now get changed. Your clothes are in your trunk," Hermione said as she walked out of the room.
Harry got out of bed and changed out of his burned clothing into a pair of new pants and a dark blue shirt. As he changed, he noticed that the burns on his right leg had healed completely and there were no scars. Once finished, he grabbed his wand and his bag of money from his trunk before going downstairs.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When Harry got downstairs, he saw that Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Mrs. Weasley were waiting. Ron was overjoyed to see that he had recovered from his injuries and greeted him enthusiastically.
"Hey mate, how are you feeling? Nice to see you up and around." Ron said clapping him on the back.
"I'm doing just fine thanks to you, Mrs. Weasley," Harry replied turning to Mrs. Weasley who was standing next to the fireplace with what looked like a bag of floo powder.
"You're welcome dear. We were all so worried when we heard that you had collapsed when you got out of the cave," Mrs. Weasley said.
"Hey Harry, how did you manage to knock out Nobert? It normally takes several grown wizards to even subdue one dragon," Ron said.
"I had him chase me around until he hit his head against the wall and knocked himself out," Harry said, using the story Hermione made up earlier.
"Really? That's bloody brilliant! Too bad you couldn't use that one during the Triwizard Tournament. It would have been really funny," said Ron, taking Harry's story at face value.
"Yeah, it would have been great," Harry said, not convinced.
"Well, let's get going so we can get back before evening," said Mrs. Weasley, breaking up the conversation. "We're going to use floo powder to get there, so here you go."
They stood in front of the fireplace and took a pinch of floo powder from Mrs. Weasley.
Harry went first and tossed the floo powder into the fireplace, yelling "Diagon Alley" before walking in.
~*~*~*~*~*~
A few seconds later, he found himself in the cellar of Flourish and Blotts and Ron and Hermione soon followed with Molly Weasley and Ginny.
"Alright, now let's go upstairs and get your things. We'll meet back here in about 2 hours. You have all your lists?" Molly Weasley asked.
"Oh great, I didn't bring my list," said Harry with a panicked look on his face.
"Don't worry, your books are the same as mine, so you can use my list," said Ron.
"Thanks," Harry said as they walked upstairs to the bookstore.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When they got upstairs, Harry, Hermione, and Ron looked around for their books while Ginny went with Molly Weasley to get her things. They were taking the usual subjects, Transfiguration, Potions, Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Care of Magical Creatures, History of Magic, and Divination (Hermione took Arithmancy and Runes), however, this year, they also had an additional class: Duelling & Defense.
It took them about an hour to find all their books as some of them tried to hide from view whenever they came near them and they had to go digging through the shelves to find them. When Harry, Ron, and Hermione finally emerged from the shop, each carrying a load of books in their bag, and headed towards the Apothecary to get their potions supplies. However, along the way, Ron insisted that they stopped by the Quidditch Supplies shop to look at the latest brooms.
"Look Harry, it's the latest broom," Ron said, pointing at the store window. "The SilverSwift. It's supposedly faster than even the firebolt and those are pretty quick as they are."
"Ron - Harry, let's go, we still need to go get our potions supplies and we now have less than an hour because you two can't stop gazing at the brooms," Hermione said reprovingly.
Harry moved on, but since Ron didn't budge, they both dragged him by the collar, even as he was shouting "let me go," down the street to the Apothecary.
Once in the Apothecary, Harry and Hermione finally let go of Ron and they searched for about 15 minutes before finding what they needed. During that time Ron brought up the new dueling class.
"What do you think the dueling class will be like?" Ron asked Harry.
"I don't know, I just hope that it doesn't end up to be a joke like that dueling club Lockhart started," Harry stated. Gilderoy Lockhart was their Defense Against the Dark Arts professor their second year at Hogwarts and he turned out to be a joke since he didn't really know what he was doing.
"I do hope we get a good Dark Arts teacher this year," Hermione join in.
"Yeah, maybe Professor Lupin will come back. He was really good, or maybe the real Mad-Eye Moody," Ron said happily. The Mad-Eye Moody they had last year turned out to be one of Voldemort's more zealous supporters, Barty Crouch, who used a polyjuice potion to get into Hogwarts and he subjected them to learning all sorts of curses, including the unforgivable curses during their Dark Arts class.
"Well, I think that should do it for our potions supplies," Hermione said, grabbing a jar full of Cyclops eyes.
They went to the counter to pay for their supplies and exited the store. That was when they saw a large black dog running towards them.
"Hello Snuffles, fancy seeing you here," Hermione said, petting the dog on the head, who returned her affection by licking her hand.
The dog gave them a small growl and went into an alley with the trio following.
Once they got into the alley, the dog transformed into Sirius Black who gave them all a big hug.
"Hello you three. What are you doing here and how have you been?" said Sirius.
"We're doing fine. We're just getting our school supplies," said Harry.
"That's great. I didn't expect to see you here. I was going to owl you, but since you're here, I might as well tell you some of the news."
"What news?" asked Hermione with a curious look on her face.
"Well, I've been lying low at Remus' place, and I've managed to contact the old crowd that Dumbledore wanted to get a hold of. They'll be in Hogwarts this year and you t-," Sirius was about to finish but he was cut off by Harry.
"That's great Sirius. It'll be great to meet some new people this year," Harry said quickly. He didn't want Sirius to reveal the Order of the Phoenix to Ron for fear that he would spread it around the school. Ron was a really good friend, but when it came to keeping information, he had a loud mouth and didn't really think before he said anything.
"Something wrong Harry? You don't sound like yourself," Sirius asked.
"He just defeated a dragon all by himself a few days ago and he's still recovering, so don't feel bad if he's feeling edgy," Hermione said, covering for Harry. He would be sure to thank her for that later.
"Really now? That's a great accomplishment. I'm proud of you Harry. I've never heard of anyone take on a dragon by himself and come out alive," Sirius said, beaming at him and patting him on the back.
"Thanks Sirius," Harry said, turning red in embarrassment.
"Sirius, did you hear of the new dueling class at school? Why didn't they have that in previous years and how come the Dark Arts class isn't doing it?" Hermione asked, wanting more information about her new classes.
"Hermione, only you would be curious about your classes," Ron said sarcastically.
"Shut up Ron, you're supposed to be a prefect this year. I just hope you'll be able to set a good example for the other students," she countered.
"Hey, how did you know I was a prefect this year? I never told you," he giving her a quizzical look.
"It was mentioned in the letters who the other prefect was. Honestly, don't you ever read them?" Hermione said, now glaring at Ron.
"Is there anything going on between those two?" Sirius whispered to Harry, grinning.
"No, they're always like that," he said, though he too suspected something might be going on that he wasn't aware of and it hurt him to think of Hermione with Ron, but he didn't say anything.
"Oh I see," he said under his breath before answering Hermione's question. "Well, to answer your question Hermione, Dumbledore told me that there was a new dueling class and that he would find someone to teach it, but he didn't tell me why or who the new teacher was. One thing I'm sure of, Remus isn't teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts or dueling."
"Oh darn, I was hoping that he would be teaching it this year. He was such a good teacher in our third year," Hermione said now as disappointed as Harry was that Professor Lupin wouldn't be teaching any classes this year.
"Anyway, I need to go now so I'll see you three at Hogwarts. Bye," Sirius said before he transformed back into the dog and disappeared into the crowd while Harry, Ron, and Hermione made their way back to Flourish and Blotts.
~*~*~*~**~*~*~*~*~
A/N: I think this chapter was written better than the last one. The previous chapter, I plan to redo. I can't believe I let the quality deteriorate ugh. It really annoyed me, but at least the quality of this chapter is up to the par of the previous chapters. Hope you enjoyed it.
To everyone who reviewed: Thank you so much.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Chapter 10: Encounter in Diagon Alley
It was late afternoon when Harry finally came around, however instead of finding himself in a cave or at the inn where they were staying, he found himself lying in Ron's room at the Burrow. Hermione was sitting next to his bed, asleep with her favourite book, 'Hogwarts: A History,' in her lap. It looked like she hadn't slept for several days from the bags under her eyes.
"Hermione?" he said turning his head to look at her. He thought it was very sweet of her to stay by him after he passed out from having spent all his energy summoning those Earth Guardians. Out of all the guardians, they took the most energy toll on the caster due to the fact that they were very hard to summon and control.
When she didn't respond, he reached from where he was and touched her hand. She immediately jolted awake at the touch and when her eyes fell on Harry, she stood up, letting her book fall to the ground, went over to him and gave him a hug.
"Hermione!" Harry said in surprise.
"Oh Harry, I was so worried when you lost consciousness after fighting Nobert," she said still hugging him tightly as he laid in bed. "You used those Elemental spells again, didn't you?"
"I had to. How else was I supposed to defeat a dragon all by myself? I didn't have my broom like I did in the Triwizard Tournament and the cavern wasn't big enough to really fly around in anyway."
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say those spells were really hazardous to your health. You almost killed yourself casting those. You should be more careful," she said as she let go of him and scolded him as she usually did when he and Ron weren't doing their homework.
Harry smiled at her and said, "Hermione, Charlie and I probably wouldn't be alive if I didn't use them. Be glad that I'm still alive, but please don't tell Ron about the elemental magic. He'd get really mad at me for keeping stuff from him."
She smiled back before saying, "It wouldn't be the first time, but I won't tell him. I'll just say you got Nobert to knock himself out by hitting his head against the wall if he asks."
"Thanks Hermione. Also, would you happen to know what happened to the barrier I cast and is Charlie alright?"
"What barrier? We didn't notice anything when we went back in there other than the fact that Nobert had a lot of dirt on him. Charlie is fine, he was bleeding from his forehead when we got him, but he's alive thanks to you. Though I wonder what caused Nobert to go bezerk all of a sudden," she said thoughtfully.
"Charlie did say that dragons could sense fear or evil in a person. It could be that since Vol- I mean, you-know-who transferred some of his dark energy to me when he failed to kill me, it's possible that Nobert could have sensed it and thought that we were going to hurt him. So he attacked us," Harry reasoned.
"I suppose... Oh I almost forgot, you should get ready, we're going to Diagon alley in a bit to get our materials for the term. It starts next week. I'm so excited. I can't wait to get back to Hogwarts," Hermione said.
"A WEEK? How long have I been out?" Harry asked, shocked at how much time passed.
"You've been out for at least 5 days. Mrs. Weasley cut the trip short because she thought your state of being was more important. We used floo powder to get you back here instead of the portkey. Your leg was pretty badly burned, but she did a good job of healing it."
"And you - I mean did you stay in here all five days since I've been here? Where's Charlie?" Harry asked.
"Yes I did and Charlie is still in Romania. We thought that you would get better care here than over there and Charlie doesn't know about your elemental magic. I made sure of it," Hermione said smiling.
"Thanks Hermione. I appreciate it."
"You're welcome," she said, blushing. "Now you really owe me a lesson in elemental magic."
"I said I'd give you one, but since there's a lot of people around, I haven't been able to transform or use any of the elemental magic unless it's a life or death situation."
"Fine, I'll wait until we get to Hogwarts. Now get changed. Your clothes are in your trunk," Hermione said as she walked out of the room.
Harry got out of bed and changed out of his burned clothing into a pair of new pants and a dark blue shirt. As he changed, he noticed that the burns on his right leg had healed completely and there were no scars. Once finished, he grabbed his wand and his bag of money from his trunk before going downstairs.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When Harry got downstairs, he saw that Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Mrs. Weasley were waiting. Ron was overjoyed to see that he had recovered from his injuries and greeted him enthusiastically.
"Hey mate, how are you feeling? Nice to see you up and around." Ron said clapping him on the back.
"I'm doing just fine thanks to you, Mrs. Weasley," Harry replied turning to Mrs. Weasley who was standing next to the fireplace with what looked like a bag of floo powder.
"You're welcome dear. We were all so worried when we heard that you had collapsed when you got out of the cave," Mrs. Weasley said.
"Hey Harry, how did you manage to knock out Nobert? It normally takes several grown wizards to even subdue one dragon," Ron said.
"I had him chase me around until he hit his head against the wall and knocked himself out," Harry said, using the story Hermione made up earlier.
"Really? That's bloody brilliant! Too bad you couldn't use that one during the Triwizard Tournament. It would have been really funny," said Ron, taking Harry's story at face value.
"Yeah, it would have been great," Harry said, not convinced.
"Well, let's get going so we can get back before evening," said Mrs. Weasley, breaking up the conversation. "We're going to use floo powder to get there, so here you go."
They stood in front of the fireplace and took a pinch of floo powder from Mrs. Weasley.
Harry went first and tossed the floo powder into the fireplace, yelling "Diagon Alley" before walking in.
~*~*~*~*~*~
A few seconds later, he found himself in the cellar of Flourish and Blotts and Ron and Hermione soon followed with Molly Weasley and Ginny.
"Alright, now let's go upstairs and get your things. We'll meet back here in about 2 hours. You have all your lists?" Molly Weasley asked.
"Oh great, I didn't bring my list," said Harry with a panicked look on his face.
"Don't worry, your books are the same as mine, so you can use my list," said Ron.
"Thanks," Harry said as they walked upstairs to the bookstore.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When they got upstairs, Harry, Hermione, and Ron looked around for their books while Ginny went with Molly Weasley to get her things. They were taking the usual subjects, Transfiguration, Potions, Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Care of Magical Creatures, History of Magic, and Divination (Hermione took Arithmancy and Runes), however, this year, they also had an additional class: Duelling & Defense.
It took them about an hour to find all their books as some of them tried to hide from view whenever they came near them and they had to go digging through the shelves to find them. When Harry, Ron, and Hermione finally emerged from the shop, each carrying a load of books in their bag, and headed towards the Apothecary to get their potions supplies. However, along the way, Ron insisted that they stopped by the Quidditch Supplies shop to look at the latest brooms.
"Look Harry, it's the latest broom," Ron said, pointing at the store window. "The SilverSwift. It's supposedly faster than even the firebolt and those are pretty quick as they are."
"Ron - Harry, let's go, we still need to go get our potions supplies and we now have less than an hour because you two can't stop gazing at the brooms," Hermione said reprovingly.
Harry moved on, but since Ron didn't budge, they both dragged him by the collar, even as he was shouting "let me go," down the street to the Apothecary.
Once in the Apothecary, Harry and Hermione finally let go of Ron and they searched for about 15 minutes before finding what they needed. During that time Ron brought up the new dueling class.
"What do you think the dueling class will be like?" Ron asked Harry.
"I don't know, I just hope that it doesn't end up to be a joke like that dueling club Lockhart started," Harry stated. Gilderoy Lockhart was their Defense Against the Dark Arts professor their second year at Hogwarts and he turned out to be a joke since he didn't really know what he was doing.
"I do hope we get a good Dark Arts teacher this year," Hermione join in.
"Yeah, maybe Professor Lupin will come back. He was really good, or maybe the real Mad-Eye Moody," Ron said happily. The Mad-Eye Moody they had last year turned out to be one of Voldemort's more zealous supporters, Barty Crouch, who used a polyjuice potion to get into Hogwarts and he subjected them to learning all sorts of curses, including the unforgivable curses during their Dark Arts class.
"Well, I think that should do it for our potions supplies," Hermione said, grabbing a jar full of Cyclops eyes.
They went to the counter to pay for their supplies and exited the store. That was when they saw a large black dog running towards them.
"Hello Snuffles, fancy seeing you here," Hermione said, petting the dog on the head, who returned her affection by licking her hand.
The dog gave them a small growl and went into an alley with the trio following.
Once they got into the alley, the dog transformed into Sirius Black who gave them all a big hug.
"Hello you three. What are you doing here and how have you been?" said Sirius.
"We're doing fine. We're just getting our school supplies," said Harry.
"That's great. I didn't expect to see you here. I was going to owl you, but since you're here, I might as well tell you some of the news."
"What news?" asked Hermione with a curious look on her face.
"Well, I've been lying low at Remus' place, and I've managed to contact the old crowd that Dumbledore wanted to get a hold of. They'll be in Hogwarts this year and you t-," Sirius was about to finish but he was cut off by Harry.
"That's great Sirius. It'll be great to meet some new people this year," Harry said quickly. He didn't want Sirius to reveal the Order of the Phoenix to Ron for fear that he would spread it around the school. Ron was a really good friend, but when it came to keeping information, he had a loud mouth and didn't really think before he said anything.
"Something wrong Harry? You don't sound like yourself," Sirius asked.
"He just defeated a dragon all by himself a few days ago and he's still recovering, so don't feel bad if he's feeling edgy," Hermione said, covering for Harry. He would be sure to thank her for that later.
"Really now? That's a great accomplishment. I'm proud of you Harry. I've never heard of anyone take on a dragon by himself and come out alive," Sirius said, beaming at him and patting him on the back.
"Thanks Sirius," Harry said, turning red in embarrassment.
"Sirius, did you hear of the new dueling class at school? Why didn't they have that in previous years and how come the Dark Arts class isn't doing it?" Hermione asked, wanting more information about her new classes.
"Hermione, only you would be curious about your classes," Ron said sarcastically.
"Shut up Ron, you're supposed to be a prefect this year. I just hope you'll be able to set a good example for the other students," she countered.
"Hey, how did you know I was a prefect this year? I never told you," he giving her a quizzical look.
"It was mentioned in the letters who the other prefect was. Honestly, don't you ever read them?" Hermione said, now glaring at Ron.
"Is there anything going on between those two?" Sirius whispered to Harry, grinning.
"No, they're always like that," he said, though he too suspected something might be going on that he wasn't aware of and it hurt him to think of Hermione with Ron, but he didn't say anything.
"Oh I see," he said under his breath before answering Hermione's question. "Well, to answer your question Hermione, Dumbledore told me that there was a new dueling class and that he would find someone to teach it, but he didn't tell me why or who the new teacher was. One thing I'm sure of, Remus isn't teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts or dueling."
"Oh darn, I was hoping that he would be teaching it this year. He was such a good teacher in our third year," Hermione said now as disappointed as Harry was that Professor Lupin wouldn't be teaching any classes this year.
"Anyway, I need to go now so I'll see you three at Hogwarts. Bye," Sirius said before he transformed back into the dog and disappeared into the crowd while Harry, Ron, and Hermione made their way back to Flourish and Blotts.
~*~*~*~**~*~*~*~*~
A/N: I think this chapter was written better than the last one. The previous chapter, I plan to redo. I can't believe I let the quality deteriorate ugh. It really annoyed me, but at least the quality of this chapter is up to the par of the previous chapters. Hope you enjoyed it.
To everyone who reviewed: Thank you so much.