Disclaimer: Harry Potter and associated characters belong to J.K. Rowling
(I'm starting to get tired of typing this, but I must, just in case) and
the Frozen orb spell belongs to Blizzard entertainment.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Chapter 14: Walter
When classes finally started on Monday, Harry was still shaken from the duel against the Count but nevertheless, he was still looking forward to his Defense Against the Dark Arts class with Walter. Even if the Count was going to turn into another Snape, maybe Walter would be a lot nicer to him. He still carried around his sword under his robes, just as Hermione had her dagger hidden under her robes at all times. The sword supposedly had some type of magical power, but Harry didn't have a clue as to what it did.
At the moment, Harry was eating breakfast with Ron and Hermione in the Great Hall and lost in his thoughts about what the day would be like when Ron's voice interrupted his thinking.
"Hey Harry," Ron said. "What class do we have first?"
"Let me check," Harry replied and took out his schedule so that he could look at it.
"Oh great," Harry said, looking at the schedule. "Our first day and Snape gets a chance to take points away from Gryffindor. We have double potions with the Slytherins followed by lunch, then transfiguration and finally Defense Against the Dark Arts, with the Slytherins again."
"Today must not be our day. The Slytherins must be overjoyed to see us," Ron commented sarcastically. "What do you think Hermione?"
Hermione, who was looking at the teacher's table at the moment, wasn't paying attention to what Ron said, so when he called her name, she was absolutely clueless as to what he was talking about.
"Huh?" she said, turning her attention back to Ron. "You were saying something Ron? Sorry, I wasn't paying attention."
"Hermione not paying attention? What's wrong with you lately? You and Harry haven't been yourselves," Ron said.
"Sorry, I was looking over at the teachers table - Harry where's Professor Sepet? This is the third time he's been missing. Did Walter say anything to you about that yesterday?" she asked.
"Yes, did," Harry said. "He told me that Professor Sepet always reports to the International Ministry every morning."
"Really? I thought he was working for Dumbledore now," Ron added.
"He is, but he's also working as an auror for the International Ministry," Harry replied.
"Well, I really don't see why Dumbledore hired him. He certainly doesn't seem to follow the rules very often," Hermione said.
"I'm sure Dumbledore has his reasons. Remember what he said to Snape when we were trying to sign up for additional classes?" Harry pointed out.
"Yes, I know he knows what he's doing but I think this is one time where he may have miscalculated. - Well, I'm off to class. If nothing else I'm not going to give Snape a chance to take points off for being late," Hermione said and she got up, heading out of the Great Hall.
Harry and Ron got up as well and followed her out of the Hall down to the dungeons where they were supposed to have their classes.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When they got down to the dungeons, they found that they were the first one to arrive, so they went in and found their seats, near the back of the room where Snape couldn't really bother them. Hermione got out her potions book while Harry and Ron sat and talked about Quidditch. This year they would be playing Quidditch again since there wasn't a tournament like the Triwizard Tournament to take up all their time and Ron wanted to try out for the team since they would be needing someone to replace their keeper and one of the chaser positions since Oliver Wood and Angelina Johnson had graduated when they were in their third year.
A few minutes later, they heard the door open and Malfoy walked in, alone, which was rather unusual. Normally he had his two goons, Crabbe and Goyle, with him wherever he went. In fact, Harry didn't seem to remember seeing Malfoy's two goons since the incident on the train where Cho had cast the 'Confusion' curse on him. However, Harry noticed that Malfoy was carrying his sword that he got on the second day of school, around his waist in plain sight.
"Well, if it isn't Potter, Weasel, and Mudblood," Malfoy said arrogantly, walking up to their table.
"What do you want Malfoy?" Ron asked, glaring at him, and was going to get up to attack him, but he was held back by Harry and Hermione.
"Oh, just wanted to see if Potter ever got his mudblood girlfriend back from you, or if you managed to steal her away from him," Malfoy said with a sneer.
"Malfoy, I suggest you sit down before something bad happens to you," Harry said, now getting up, while Hermione looked at him worriedly.
"Oh, I don't think so Potter, not when I have this," Malfoy said, drawing his sword.
"Where did you get that?" Ron asked.
"Professor Sepet gave it to me. Unlike the other professors, he sure knows how to treat us purebloods with respect," Malfoy continued, still holding his sword, drawn in front of him. "Pity you don't have one Weasel. Must be because of the company you keep."
By now, Ron really wanted to punch the living daylights out of Malfoy, but since he had drawn his sword, Ron could only sit back and glare at him to the best of his abilities.
"Malfoy, do you even know how to use that?" Harry said, his hand now moving to his own sword, hidden under his robes.
"Probably a lot better than you do Potter," came the reply. Malfoy was really pushing them to their limits by continuing to insult them. However, Harry could now hear the other students coming down the hall. Soon they would be here and Malfoy would be outnumbered. "Unlike you, I was given lessons on how to handle a sword. You didn't even last two seconds against Professor Sepet in that duel."
Now it was Hermione's turn to stand up to Malfoy. "I don't remember you wanting to fight him Malfoy. I don't think you would have lasted as long as Harry did. If I remember correctly, you were cowering in fear at the sight of him."
By now, the footsteps in the hall reached the door and when the door opened, Harry was disappointed to see that the students that entered weren't Gryffindors but more Slytherins.
"Oh look Potter, more of my friends," Malfoy said, smirking. "With my sword and them around, you won't be able to do anything at all."
Now Malfoy was pushing all of Harry's buttons. It was taking all of his self-control not to draw out his wand and curse him. He decided he couldn't use his sword since everyone would know about it if he drew it and he didn't need that.
Unfortunately, Ron was sitting in his seat fumbling with his wand while Malfoy had his sword pointed at him, and Hermione was eyeing all of the Slytherins in the room, who were looking at them and making faces. She had her hand in her pocket, probably wondering if she should draw her wand or not. If it came to firing curses at each other, Harry was severely outnumbered, with only Hermione to back him up.
Harry heard more footsteps in coming down the hall now, and this time he knew that they had to be Gryffindors. When they arrived, Harry wouldn't be outnumbered anymore, but they sure were taking their time he thought.
"Malfoy, take your sword away from Ron," Harry finally said.
"Or what? You'll draw your sword?" Malfoy said, quickly looking in his direction. "If you faced me in a duel, you wouldn't last two seconds, not with the way you handled your sword that night. The Count knocked it out of your hand the moment you drew it."
The Slytherins in the room laughed, and now Harry lost it. He drew out his wand and fired a blinding spell at Malfoy. The beam hit Malfoy in the eyes and he staggered back, dropping his sword and his hands going to his eyes.
"AHH I CAN'T SEE," he screamed. "HELP ME SOMEONE!"
The Slytherins stopped laughing as Malfoy stumbled backward onto the floor and they all drew their wands pointing them at the three Gryffindors in the room.
Hermione had drawn her wand as well, and prepared to defend herself, but Harry knew that even if he could put up a shield to defend himself, he didn't know if it would cover Ron and Hermione as well. Fortunately for him, the Gryffindors entered the room at that exact time, to see the Slytherins pointing their wands at them.
In response, the Gryffindors drew out their wands as well, though Neville looked nervous, and pointed them back at the Slytherins.
*This won't be good if we start throwing curses at each other, * Harry thought. *Snape will be sure to try to expel all of us. *
The Gryffindor students formed a circle on the inside of the dungeon while the Slytherins stood along the walls, a few blocking the door before all the Gryffindors could enter. The situation was starting to get out of hand, when the door blew open, throwing the Slytherins who had been holding it shut, to the floor.
In the doorway stood Walter looking very enraged at the sight that was before him and Harry could feel that the aura that Walter gave out was indeed very powerful, but not anywhere near the one that Dumbledore had when he came to rescue Harry last year from Barty Crouch.
"WHAT IS GOING ON IN HERE?" he yelled.
Malfoy, hearing the voice and thinking that it was Snape, spoke up, trying to sound as hurt as possible. "Professor, Potter blinded me with a blinding curse."
"Mr. Potter, is that true?" Walter said, turning to face Harry while the Gryffindors backed away in a group and the Slytherins pressed up against the wall. Clearly, Walter wasn't someone to mess around with, even though he smiled on occasion.
"I - It is Professor, but he was pointing his sword at Ron and taunting us, so I had to do something to defend him," Harry said, though Ron scowled at him, looking upset at having to be defended by his friends.
With that, Walter walked up to Malfoy and passed his hand over his eyes, muttering something.
Immediately, Malfoy's sight returned to him and he now saw that it was Walter looking down at him, still upset at the fact that they had almost come to firing curses at each other.
"Mr. Malfoy, explain yourself," Walter said and he stood up.
"Uh, I came in here and those three decided to curse me, so I drew my sword to defend myself," he said, pointing at Harry, Ron and Hermione.
"I don't think so Mr. Malfoy," Walter said, looking down at him. "You're lying. Your eyes give you away."
"I hereby take 10 points away from Slytherin for lying to a professor, another 40 points and a detention for threatening another student, and you will hand your sword over to me," Walter continued as Malfoy's eyes bulged in surprise at what he was hearing. "I will retain your weapon until further notice, but you may keep your wand. You no longer deserve to carry such a weapon if you aren't going to use it responsibly and I will be sure to make your detention fit the crime."
"B-But you can't do that. Professor Sepet gave that sword to me. You can't take it away. My father will see that I get it back," Malfoy stated in surprise. Harry was enjoying the sight of Malfoy on the floor trying to hide behind his father.
"My lord gave it to you. It is a privilege to carry it, abuse that privilege and you forfeit your right to carry it," Walter countered. "As for your father, I would like to see him try to get it back for you. He may be influential, but that influence doesn't extend to my circle."
Walter walked over and picked up Malfoy's sword from the ground. "Just be glad Mr. Malfoy that you are in this school. If you had done this at my lord's castle, I would have killed you and resurrected you as one of my undead servants."
Malfoy now looked at Walter with horror since he really was a coward and didn't like the idea of becoming anyone's undead servant.
"However, I am not unfair, therefore Mr. Potter, I will take away 15 points from Gryffindor for attacking another student," Walter said seriously, looking in Harry's direction.
Harry thought that Walter was rather nice. Rather than give him detention like Snape would, Walter only took away points, which could easily be recovered.
At that moment Snape walked into the room and looked around. He noticed Walter and glared at him, but Walter only smiled at him and explained to him what happened before walking out of the room.
Snape was enraged at what he had heard. Malfoy threatening a student and getting blinded, while his own house was trying to start a fight with the Gryffindors. Nevertheless, his own bias kicked in and he turned a blind eye at it.
"GET BACK TO YOUR SEATS!" Snape yelled and everyone quickly scurried back to their seats.
"Potter, this is all your fault. I'm going to take away 25 points from Gryffindor for attacking another student and you'll be serving detention with Walter later on. He gave two detentions earlier and I hear he'll have something interesting for you to do," Snape continued, smiling evilly at Harry while Malfoy turned around in his seat and smirked at him.
Harry just kept his mouth shut. As much as he'd like to do more damage to Malfoy, he couldn't risk Snape taking away anymore points from Gryffindor.
However, the rest of the class didn't go so well as Snape paired Harry with Neville, who was very clumsy and it took all of Harry's quick reflexes to stop all of the potion ingredients from falling to the ground and breaking. Unfortunately, Neville melted his cauldron as usual and Snape had them clean up their mess.
"Longbottom! Another 10 points from Gryffindor. Don't leave this room until you clean up that mess," Snape growled as Neville nervously attempted to clean up the spill.
Harry sighed and helped Neville clean up. Fortunately for him, the class was now over and it was time to go to lunch, so once the spill was clean up, he and Neville headed over to the Great Hall for lunch.
"Thanks for helping me back there Harry," Neville asked, his round face still pale from having had to deal with Snape.
"No problem, I think Snape just enjoys making our lives miserable, so don't think about it" Harry replied and he walked ahead so that he could find Ron and Hermione.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When Harry got to the Hall, he found Ron and Hermione sitting at the Gryffindor table already eating. They had saved him a seat so he sat down next to Hermione and started to pile some food onto his plate.
"Harry, some mail came for you," said Hermione, handing him a letter that the owls apparently delivered while he was still down in the dungeons cleaning up the spilled potion.
"Thanks," he said, taking the letter from her and opening it.
He saw that there was only a blank parchment with two things on it. A phoenix and 8:00 this evening. He looked at Hermione who nodded and he quickly put away the letter. Unfortunately, Ron caught this and looked at them suspiciously.
"Hey, are you two up to something?" Ron asked disgruntled a bit that his two friends might be doing something behind his back.
"No, why would you think that?" Hermione asked.
"Oh, because Harry just looked at you and you nodded. Must have something to do with that letter he got. You aren't dating each other behind my back are you?" he asked accusingly.
"Ron, why would we do that?" Hermione asked, now looking back at Ron. This wasn't going well and Harry was really worried that this business with the Phoenix might end up ruining his friendship with Ron.
"Because you've both been acting very strange lately and don't think I haven't noticed," said Ron, his cheeks turning pink in anger. "You two have also been gone until late at night twice already."
"Ron - Harry and I aren't dating behind your back. It's just that Professor Sepet wanted to teach us dueling and since he's always gone in the morning and afternoon, he can only tell us when he wants to meet by either owling us or having Professor Laikov tell us," Hermione lied, hoping that Ron would believe her. She rather hated lying to Ron, but she did give her word to Dumbledore that she wouldn't reveal the existence of the Phoenix Order and she would keep that promise.
Ron's face expression softened a bit, but he was still suspicious. "Oh, alright."
"We better get to class, we have transfiguration next," Harry said, hoping that there wouldn't be another argument between his two friends. Hemione was able to cover up what they'd been doing for Dumbledore, but he didn't really know if they could really keep it quiet for the entire year.
With that, Harry got up and walked out of the Great Hall with Ron and Hermione following.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When they got to transfiguration, they found Professor McGonagall waiting for them.
"Alright, everyone take a seat and open your books to page 4," she said. "This year, we'll be learning how to transfigure each other into different objects. Since the Dark Lord's return, this will come in handy should you need to conceal yourselves from his agents."
Oddly enough, Harry thought Professor McGonagall was looking at Hermione and him while she was talking. Maybe it was her way of helping them prepare for their excursions against Voldemort.
"Miss Granger, did you have a question?" McGonagall said, noticing Hermione's hand go up.
"I was wondering if we were going to learn how to become animagi at all this year," she said, looking enthusiastic at the thought of being able to change into an animal like Harry.
"Unfortunately, I won't be teaching you that until this year," came the reply.
Hermione was visibly disappointed, but Harry leaned over and whispered to her much to the dismay of Ron.
"Don't worry, I'm sure Sirius will teach you," Harry whispered, smiling at her.
"Thanks Harry," she whispered back.
During the class, they broke into pairs, Ron with Hermione, leaving a disappointed Harry to be paired up with Seamus. They were supposed to transfigure each other into chairs for this particular period.
Harry let Seamus go first and he could feel his legs turn into wood and he fell backwards since he couldn't balance too well on wooden legs, which caused Seamus to burst out laughing. Harry grinned and pointed his wand at Seamus and transfigured his legs and hands into wood so that he too fell to the ground, only when he tried to stop his fall, his wooden hands slipped on the stone floor and Seamus fell flat on his face instead.
Now it was Harry's turn to laugh and he looked over at Ron and Hermione to see how they were doing. He saw that Hermione had transformed Ron completely into a chair and Hermione was smiling as Professor McGonagall came over to award her some points.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Once class was over, Harry, Ron and Hermione made their way over to their next class, Defense Against the Dark Arts, which they were having with the Slytherins again. Along the way, they exchanged stories on what they did during transfiguration.
"Harry, that was very mean of you to do that to Seamus," Hermione said, making an attempt to scold him, but she burst out laughing instead and Harry grinned at her.
"Well, you did manage to transform Ron into a chair," said Harry. "It was amazing that he was so quiet."
Ron's ears turned pink and he whacked Harry on the arm.
"Hey, what was that for?" Harry said, laughing.
"Just paying you back for making a joke at my expense," Ron replied, grinning. "But it was funny watching you fall over on those wooden legs of yours."
They got to their class on time and were surprised to find the Gryffindors and Slytherins sitting quietly. Apparently the incident earlier with Malfoy had scared them out of their wits and Harry could see that Malfoy was also behaving himself, though probably still fuming at having his sword taken away.
Harry, Ron and Hermione took their seats at the front of the class, since they saw that the first row was completely empty, due to the fact that all the students in the room wanted as much distance between them and Walter.
Eventually Walter walked in and Harry noted that he didn't have much of a problem like Snape or Professor McGonagall in keeping the class under control.
"Good afternoon everyone," Walter said as he strode to the front of the room, only this time he was wearing black robes over his plate armour. "I hope that everything goes well this class so that you can all learn something useful."
"Today we'll be learning about undead creatures that you may encounter in the graveyard, though with Voldemort's (everyone in the classroom flinches, but Harry) return, it is entirely possible that you may encounter them when you least expect it. Therefore I think it is best that you learn about them."
"The first creature we'll learn about is a ghoul, also known as zombies. They are rather resilient to physical attacks and since they are dead and don't feel any pain, they will be stronger than your average human," Walter explained. "Does anyone know how they are created?"
Hermione raised her hand and Walter called on her. "Miss Granger?"
"They are created when a live human is killed by a vampire. Then they are brought back as one of their servants," Hermione said. "They can also be created when a body hasn't decomposed entirely and are brought back to life by either a vampire or a necromancer."
"Thank you Miss Granger, 10 points to Gryffindor," said Walter. "Though I am a necromancer, I can't bring dead people back to life as a ghoul. The next time we meet, some of you will be able to try to fight against a ghoul. Don't worry though, I will not allow you to be killed by them."
"Since the ghouls are stronger than your average human, they can tear you limb from limb," he continued to the horror of some of the students. "And if you allow them to get too close and their bite can turn you into one of them as well. So be very careful not to let them near you. Fortunately, they are very slow and chances are they won't even get close to you because you'll be able to kill them before they come close. Does anyone know how to kill them?"
It was Harry's turn to raise his hand. "Mr. Potter?"
"They can be killed by fire since they are made of flesh, most of which is rotten already and so they are very flammable," Harry said.
"Very good, another 10 points to Gryffindor," Walter said. "There are other ways to kill them with physical weapons, but swords and daggers aren't suggested. Javelins, throwing knives, arrows, or any piercing weapon that can be thrown can be used against them, provided you hit them in either the heart or in the head. A sword only works if you cut their head off cleanly."
They took notes for the remainder of the class on how to kill some of the stronger undead creatures, such as skeletons and wraiths. Though Harry was enjoying the class, he was starting to wonder about what Dumbledore wanted this evening.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
At dinner, the entire Gryffindor table was talking about Quidditch. Alicia Spinnet had announced that there would be tryouts for the keeper and chaser positions on the team, though Ron seemed more interested in who the new captain of the team would be.
"Hey Harry, why don't you go for the captain position," Ron said, looking over at him.
"I don't know Ron, I think Alicia would make a better captain than I ever would," he replied.
"Harry, I think you would make a great captain," Hermione said, beaming at him. "You have the ability and skill to become one, so why don't you try it?"
"We'll see, but right now, we need to go meet Professor Sepet," Harry said as he finished the last of his dinner and got up.
"See you later Ron," Hermione called and she got up to follow him.
They walked over to Dumbledore's office talking along the way about what they could possibly be doing this time and making sure no one was following them.
By the time they got up to Dumbledore's office, they saw that almost everyone was there already and Sirus greeted them enthusiastically, while Snape looked disgruntled as usual. Only the other students were missing though eventually they came and Dumbledore began the meeting.
"Today, we'll be discussing our first mission, but I believe Professor Snape has a report to deliver first," Dumbledore said. "Please give your report Serverus.
Snape stood up and strode to the middle of the room to give his report.
"During one of my recent trips to see the Dark Lord, one of his servants delivered a report saying that they had established a staging area in the wizarding town of Kilndar, which happens to be very close to Hogsmeade," Snape said. "I believe that they are planning to move against Hogsmeade and are just going to use the town so that they may gather in one place but it is also entirely possible that they want to take over the town, but I do not have any solid evidence yet. As of now, they have control over one of the houses."
"Thank you Serverus," Dumbledore said as Snape sat down again. "In order to find out what they are up to, we will be conducting a little raid on the house in one month. Right now, Alastor, we will need about 10 aurors from the ministry. See if you can gather them up and make sure that they are ready to go in one month's time."
"I shouldn't have a problem with that," Moody said in a scratchy voice.
"Good, now it is only a matter of picking another 9 members, other than Alastor, who will go. I will start with volunteers," Dumbledore said.
"Walter and I will volunteer to go," said Professor Sepet from his seat.
"I'll volunteer as well," Remus piped in
"If he goes, I go, so that I can keep an eye on him," Sirus added with a grin.
"I'll come along," Percy said airily. "I don't think there should be any problem with that, right dad?"
"Alright Perce, but if you go, I come along too," Arthur said.
"That makes six, three more," Dumbledore said. "Oh and Minerva, since the raid will be done on a Hogsmeade weekend, we will need you to stay back and watch the students so that they don't suspect that we are gone. Anyone else wish to volunteer?"
The room was quiet for a moment and Harry looked around. No one really wished to volunteer since there was a chance he or she could get killed, yet who wasn't afraid of death? He wasn't, but only because he had encountered it so many times that sooner or later, he wouldn't be surprised if he did get killed.
"I'll volunteer," Harry finally said and everyone looked in his direction.
"Very well Harry, you may go."
If Harry thought that Dumbledore was going to say anything else, he was surprised because Dumbledore kept quiet and looked around the room for another volunteer.
"If Harry goes, he'll need someone to watch his back," Hermione said seriously. "So I'll go."
Harry turned to Hermione in surprise and looked at her, but she gave him a look that said that she meant it and although Harry was worried about what could happen to her, he was glad that he would have a caring friend coming along.
"Thanks Hermione, I'm glad I have you coming along," he whispered.
"That's what friends are for," she whispered back. "Besides, I can't let you have all the fun."
"Alright, anyone else? One more person," Dumbledore said.
"I'll be your last person Professor," Harry heard someone say, but he was surprised to see that it came from Malfoy.
"Very well Mr. Malfoy," Dumbledore said. "Perhaps its time you prove to us that you do not wish to follow in your father's footsteps."
Harry's suspicion of Malfoy increased with his statement. He knew that Malfoy was a coward and wouldn't put his life in danger unless it meant that he would gain a lot out of it. Yet something about the way the statement was made told Harry that Malfoy meant what he said. Nevertheless, he was one to watch for, just in case.
"Alright. The nine of you must be prepared to go in a month's time. I suggest that you three," Dumbledore said, looking at Harry, Hermione, and Malfoy, "brush up on your counter curses since there is a very good chance you may get injured or killed. That will be all, you are dismissed."
With that, everyone got up and started filing out of the room. Harry got up too, and called Sirus aside for a moment to ask him if he could teach Hermione to become an animagus. Sirus walked over while Hermione waited for him in the doorway.
"Hey Sirius," Harry whispered to him. "Do you think you could teach Hermione how to be an animagus like us?"
"Sure, I'll talk to her about it," Sirus said grinning. "You can come along too since I'd like to see how much progress you've made."
"Thanks," Harry said and he gave Sirus a hug before he walked out. Or at least tried to.
"Mr. Potter," he heard a voice call from behind. "Professor Snape tells me that you are to serve detention with me this evening."
He turned around to see that it was Walter calling him and he groaned to himself. He had forgotten about the detention and he didn't like what Snape said earlier when he thought it would be rather interesting.
"Mr. Malfoy and Miss Chang," Walter continued. "You two also are serving detention with me this evening."
Malfoy and Cho turned around and walked back to Walter, groaning as well, since they both wanted to get back to their dorms to get some sleep.
"Hermione, this shouldn't take long. You can go ahead to the Gryffindor tower," Harry said to Hermione, who was still waiting in the doorway.
"Alright, I'll wait for you," Hermione said and she walked out of the office with Sirus.
Soon Harry, Cho, Malfoy, Walter, and Dumbledore were the only ones left in the office.
"Now, let's go get our fourth person and you can all serve your detentions," Walter said. "Please follow me."
With that, he walked out of the room with Harry, Cho and Malfoy following.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
As they walked down the corridors, Harry talked with Cho, while Malfoy walked behind keeping his mouth shut. Maybe his experience with Walter really did change him, Harry thought.
"Hey Cho," Harry said as he walked beside her. "What are you serving detention for?"
"Oh, some Slytherin named Montague or something like that, said something horrible about you and Cedric," Cho said. "So I cursed him and that's why I'm here. What about you?"
"Snape gave me detention for cursing Malfoy," Harry said, pointing to Malfoy behind him. "Walter was the one who interfered first though and he only took away points from us, but he gave Malfoy a fright and a detention. Only Snape didn't think that it was enough."
Soon enough, the three of them found themselves outside and they found Montague, who was a rather large person with dark brown hair and a large nose on his pale face, waiting with Filch.
"Thank you for taking him out here," Walter said to Filch who gave him a nasty look and walked back inside the school.
Walter then turned back to them. "We will now head over to the graveyard. We will be capturing some ghouls for tomorrow's Dark Arts lesson. Normally they don't last too long in the sunlight, but they should live if we bring them to the dungeons."
They walked off in the direction of the graveyard, which was located on the other side of the forbidden forest, and along the way, Harry could see that it didn't look much different from the previous time he was here with Hermione, Neville and Malfoy.
He looked back at Malfoy and he was glad to see that he was shaking in fear, but he had his wand drawn, in case. Walter was ahead of them, with his dagger drawn as if he was expecting to get attacked, which was entirely possible since there were deadly creatures that roamed the forest at night.
Turning to Cho, he could see that she had her wand drawn, but she wasn't so frightened as Malfoy. As for Montague, he too had his wand drawn, but he kept it by his side, instead of in front of him, ready to curse if necessary, as Malfoy did.
Since Walter was expecting to get attacked, Harry thought that it was best if he was able to provide some support and he too drew his wand, holding it in front of him.
Finally, they reached the opposite end of the forest and Harry could see a graveyard in front of him. Walter walked ahead and held out his free hand, mumbling something. As he did, Harry saw that a spear made entirely of bone took shape in his hand. Once the spear had taken shape, Walter continued to say something, though it was inaudible and the spear started to glow a bright green, just like the one that Harry saw kill the vampire in the graveyard during the summer.
"Alright, does everyone have their wand drawn?" Walter asked.
They all nodded and entered the graveyard. It was very quiet and all Harry could hear was the wind blowing calmly, however, as they went in further, he thought he could hear some moans along with the wind.
"Here they come," he heard Walter say behind him, and he turned around to see that there were about fifteen ghouls advancing slowly towards them. Walter threw his spear at one of them, hitting it in the heart.
The ghoul moaned loudly before turning to dust, the spear disappearing along with it and looking back at Walter, Harry saw another spear, similar to the one that he had just thrown take shape in his hand.
"You four," Walter said, throwing the second spear at another ghoul, again piercing it through the heart, turning it to dust. "Kill another 5 ghouls and we can capture the rest."
With that, Harry lost no time in firing a fireball at the nearest ghoul. The fireball hit the ghoul in the chest, and it burst into flames, moaning loudly as it turned to dust, the flames going out with it.
He saw another fireball fly near him to his right and he looked over to see who it came from. It came from Cho who smiled at him when she saw that he was looking at her and Harry thought that he saw her blush as well, but he dismissed it as his mind playing tricks on him in the dark. He then looked behind him to Malfoy and Montague. Both of them were too scared out of their wits to do anything and they just stood there frozen with their wands by their side.
By now there were about 10 ghouls left. 2 more and they could capture the rest and go back to the castle. Cho fired a second fireball at a ghoul, setting it on fire and turning it to dust while Walter threw another glowing spear at a ghoul, piercing it in the heart once again. The ghoul crumbled to the ground before turning to dust and the spear disappeared.
After watching Walter kill the ghouls with such accuracy, Harry could see why the Count had made him his bodyguard. To his knowledge, Walter didn't miss a single ghoul each time he threw a spear and each of them had hit the ghoul in the heart.
"Finally, we can capture them. Use freezing charms only," Walter commanded and he walked over to some of the graves, probably to raise some skeletons.
"Cho, do you know how to use a freezing charm?" Harry asked looking over at her.
"Yes I do. Professor Flitwick taught it to us in class today," she replied and fired a freezing charm at one of the ghouls. The charm hit the ghoul and it froze in place.
"One down and seven more to go," she said, quite delighted that her charm had worked.
Now it was Harry's turn. He fired an ice bolt at the nearest ghoul, hitting it and freezing it like Cho's freezing charm had done. There was a faster method, but he thought that Malfoy and Montague would spread it around the school if they found out.
"Cho, I'm going to try using a spell that will freeze all of the ghouls if it works," Harry said.
"Ok, go for it," Cho said.
"I need you to do a memory charm on Malfoy and Montague after I cast it, but get them on the ground first, otherwise they'll get hit," he said to her and she cast a body-bind spell on the two Slytherins behind them.
"Alright, they're taken care of, now cast it," she said and she got down on the ground in a prone position.
Harry then raised his wand in above him and said "Orbis Glacialis" to cast the frozen orb spell. A ball of ice took shape above him and it started rotating quickly, sending out a shard of ice at each of the ghouls as it rotated.
The ice shards hit the remaining six ghouls and they were all frozen solid. Once that was done, Harry waved his wand again and the ball above him disappeared.
Harry walked over to Cho and helped her up before going over to Malfoy and Montague to remove the body bind spell that Cho cast earlier.
"Alright Cho, use the memory charm on them," Harry said and Cho walked over to the two Slytherins who were starting to get up off the ground and cast a memory charm on each of them, wiping away their memories of what they had just seen.
"Thanks Cho," Harry said, and he quickly pointed his wand at Cho before saying "Obliviate," to wipe her memory of what she had just seen. He didn't really like to pull something a Slytherin wouldn't hesitate to do, but he had to make sure that not even she knew about his Elemental magic.
"Huh?" Cho said, now dazed after the memory charm hit her. "Harry, what am I doing here?"
"You're here serving detention with Malfoy and Montague, remember?" Harry said.
"Yes, I remember that, but why are all these ghouls frozen?"
"Oh, I froze them so that Walter could capture them."
Walter returned with a group of sixteen skeletons and Malfoy, Cho, and Montague looked at them with horror, but were too frightened to do anything.
"Please don't be frightened," Walter said. "These will only help us transport them back to the castle."
With that, Walter went up to the ghouls and he put both hands in front of him, palms facing up before raising his hands into the air. The ground rumbled a bit and Harry saw a cage made entirely of bones spring up from the ground and form around each of the ghouls.
After each of the frozen ghouls was in their respective cages, Walter motioned to the skeletons who turned the cages on their sides, careful not to shatter the frozen ghouls within them, and carried them, two skeletons per cage, back to the castle.
Now that was done, Harry, Cho, Malfoy, and Montague headed back to the castle with Walter leading.
~*~*~*~*~
When they got back to the castle, it was already 1:00 AM and they were all yawning. Detention on the first day of classes wasn't exactly what Harry had in mind, but he was looking forward to seeing Hermione back at the Gryffindor tower, though he assumed that she would probably be up in her dorm, sleeping by now.
"Thank you for your help," Walter said as he led the skeletons down to the dungeons. "Good night."
"Good night Professor," Harry called and he started walking towards the Gryffindor tower when Cho caught up with him.
"Harry, that was fun working with you. I hope we can keep working like that," she said.
"I hope so too. Well, we should be going off to bed. Good Night Cho," Harry said and he continued walking in the direction of the Gryffindor tower.
"Good night Harry," Cho called back before she walked in the opposite direction to the Ravenclaw tower.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When he got to the portrait of the fat lady, he said the password and the portrait opened, though the fat lady was very disgruntled at having been woken at such a late hour.
He entered and when he got to the common room, he saw Hermione, sleeping on one of the chairs next to the fire with one of her transfiguration books on her lap. He smiled to himself. Hermione had actually kept her promise and had waited for him in the common room. He was glad to have a friend like her.
Since he didn't want to wake her, he quietly walked up to the boys' dorms and grabbed some blankets from his bed before going back down. He took away her book and placed some of the blankets on her before standing up and gazing at her.
She looks beautiful in this light, Harry thought to himself and he leant down and kissed Hermione on her forehead. Hermione's lips formed a smile in her sleep and Harry couldn't help but smile as well before sitting in the armchair across from her with the rest of the blankets and falling into a blissful slumber.
A/N: Well, I'm back from vacation. This chapter is rather lengthy but hope you like it. Sorry I can't post the 2nd chapter up yet where they'll be off on their first mission because its not finished. I hope to do that tomorrow.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Chapter 14: Walter
When classes finally started on Monday, Harry was still shaken from the duel against the Count but nevertheless, he was still looking forward to his Defense Against the Dark Arts class with Walter. Even if the Count was going to turn into another Snape, maybe Walter would be a lot nicer to him. He still carried around his sword under his robes, just as Hermione had her dagger hidden under her robes at all times. The sword supposedly had some type of magical power, but Harry didn't have a clue as to what it did.
At the moment, Harry was eating breakfast with Ron and Hermione in the Great Hall and lost in his thoughts about what the day would be like when Ron's voice interrupted his thinking.
"Hey Harry," Ron said. "What class do we have first?"
"Let me check," Harry replied and took out his schedule so that he could look at it.
"Oh great," Harry said, looking at the schedule. "Our first day and Snape gets a chance to take points away from Gryffindor. We have double potions with the Slytherins followed by lunch, then transfiguration and finally Defense Against the Dark Arts, with the Slytherins again."
"Today must not be our day. The Slytherins must be overjoyed to see us," Ron commented sarcastically. "What do you think Hermione?"
Hermione, who was looking at the teacher's table at the moment, wasn't paying attention to what Ron said, so when he called her name, she was absolutely clueless as to what he was talking about.
"Huh?" she said, turning her attention back to Ron. "You were saying something Ron? Sorry, I wasn't paying attention."
"Hermione not paying attention? What's wrong with you lately? You and Harry haven't been yourselves," Ron said.
"Sorry, I was looking over at the teachers table - Harry where's Professor Sepet? This is the third time he's been missing. Did Walter say anything to you about that yesterday?" she asked.
"Yes, did," Harry said. "He told me that Professor Sepet always reports to the International Ministry every morning."
"Really? I thought he was working for Dumbledore now," Ron added.
"He is, but he's also working as an auror for the International Ministry," Harry replied.
"Well, I really don't see why Dumbledore hired him. He certainly doesn't seem to follow the rules very often," Hermione said.
"I'm sure Dumbledore has his reasons. Remember what he said to Snape when we were trying to sign up for additional classes?" Harry pointed out.
"Yes, I know he knows what he's doing but I think this is one time where he may have miscalculated. - Well, I'm off to class. If nothing else I'm not going to give Snape a chance to take points off for being late," Hermione said and she got up, heading out of the Great Hall.
Harry and Ron got up as well and followed her out of the Hall down to the dungeons where they were supposed to have their classes.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When they got down to the dungeons, they found that they were the first one to arrive, so they went in and found their seats, near the back of the room where Snape couldn't really bother them. Hermione got out her potions book while Harry and Ron sat and talked about Quidditch. This year they would be playing Quidditch again since there wasn't a tournament like the Triwizard Tournament to take up all their time and Ron wanted to try out for the team since they would be needing someone to replace their keeper and one of the chaser positions since Oliver Wood and Angelina Johnson had graduated when they were in their third year.
A few minutes later, they heard the door open and Malfoy walked in, alone, which was rather unusual. Normally he had his two goons, Crabbe and Goyle, with him wherever he went. In fact, Harry didn't seem to remember seeing Malfoy's two goons since the incident on the train where Cho had cast the 'Confusion' curse on him. However, Harry noticed that Malfoy was carrying his sword that he got on the second day of school, around his waist in plain sight.
"Well, if it isn't Potter, Weasel, and Mudblood," Malfoy said arrogantly, walking up to their table.
"What do you want Malfoy?" Ron asked, glaring at him, and was going to get up to attack him, but he was held back by Harry and Hermione.
"Oh, just wanted to see if Potter ever got his mudblood girlfriend back from you, or if you managed to steal her away from him," Malfoy said with a sneer.
"Malfoy, I suggest you sit down before something bad happens to you," Harry said, now getting up, while Hermione looked at him worriedly.
"Oh, I don't think so Potter, not when I have this," Malfoy said, drawing his sword.
"Where did you get that?" Ron asked.
"Professor Sepet gave it to me. Unlike the other professors, he sure knows how to treat us purebloods with respect," Malfoy continued, still holding his sword, drawn in front of him. "Pity you don't have one Weasel. Must be because of the company you keep."
By now, Ron really wanted to punch the living daylights out of Malfoy, but since he had drawn his sword, Ron could only sit back and glare at him to the best of his abilities.
"Malfoy, do you even know how to use that?" Harry said, his hand now moving to his own sword, hidden under his robes.
"Probably a lot better than you do Potter," came the reply. Malfoy was really pushing them to their limits by continuing to insult them. However, Harry could now hear the other students coming down the hall. Soon they would be here and Malfoy would be outnumbered. "Unlike you, I was given lessons on how to handle a sword. You didn't even last two seconds against Professor Sepet in that duel."
Now it was Hermione's turn to stand up to Malfoy. "I don't remember you wanting to fight him Malfoy. I don't think you would have lasted as long as Harry did. If I remember correctly, you were cowering in fear at the sight of him."
By now, the footsteps in the hall reached the door and when the door opened, Harry was disappointed to see that the students that entered weren't Gryffindors but more Slytherins.
"Oh look Potter, more of my friends," Malfoy said, smirking. "With my sword and them around, you won't be able to do anything at all."
Now Malfoy was pushing all of Harry's buttons. It was taking all of his self-control not to draw out his wand and curse him. He decided he couldn't use his sword since everyone would know about it if he drew it and he didn't need that.
Unfortunately, Ron was sitting in his seat fumbling with his wand while Malfoy had his sword pointed at him, and Hermione was eyeing all of the Slytherins in the room, who were looking at them and making faces. She had her hand in her pocket, probably wondering if she should draw her wand or not. If it came to firing curses at each other, Harry was severely outnumbered, with only Hermione to back him up.
Harry heard more footsteps in coming down the hall now, and this time he knew that they had to be Gryffindors. When they arrived, Harry wouldn't be outnumbered anymore, but they sure were taking their time he thought.
"Malfoy, take your sword away from Ron," Harry finally said.
"Or what? You'll draw your sword?" Malfoy said, quickly looking in his direction. "If you faced me in a duel, you wouldn't last two seconds, not with the way you handled your sword that night. The Count knocked it out of your hand the moment you drew it."
The Slytherins in the room laughed, and now Harry lost it. He drew out his wand and fired a blinding spell at Malfoy. The beam hit Malfoy in the eyes and he staggered back, dropping his sword and his hands going to his eyes.
"AHH I CAN'T SEE," he screamed. "HELP ME SOMEONE!"
The Slytherins stopped laughing as Malfoy stumbled backward onto the floor and they all drew their wands pointing them at the three Gryffindors in the room.
Hermione had drawn her wand as well, and prepared to defend herself, but Harry knew that even if he could put up a shield to defend himself, he didn't know if it would cover Ron and Hermione as well. Fortunately for him, the Gryffindors entered the room at that exact time, to see the Slytherins pointing their wands at them.
In response, the Gryffindors drew out their wands as well, though Neville looked nervous, and pointed them back at the Slytherins.
*This won't be good if we start throwing curses at each other, * Harry thought. *Snape will be sure to try to expel all of us. *
The Gryffindor students formed a circle on the inside of the dungeon while the Slytherins stood along the walls, a few blocking the door before all the Gryffindors could enter. The situation was starting to get out of hand, when the door blew open, throwing the Slytherins who had been holding it shut, to the floor.
In the doorway stood Walter looking very enraged at the sight that was before him and Harry could feel that the aura that Walter gave out was indeed very powerful, but not anywhere near the one that Dumbledore had when he came to rescue Harry last year from Barty Crouch.
"WHAT IS GOING ON IN HERE?" he yelled.
Malfoy, hearing the voice and thinking that it was Snape, spoke up, trying to sound as hurt as possible. "Professor, Potter blinded me with a blinding curse."
"Mr. Potter, is that true?" Walter said, turning to face Harry while the Gryffindors backed away in a group and the Slytherins pressed up against the wall. Clearly, Walter wasn't someone to mess around with, even though he smiled on occasion.
"I - It is Professor, but he was pointing his sword at Ron and taunting us, so I had to do something to defend him," Harry said, though Ron scowled at him, looking upset at having to be defended by his friends.
With that, Walter walked up to Malfoy and passed his hand over his eyes, muttering something.
Immediately, Malfoy's sight returned to him and he now saw that it was Walter looking down at him, still upset at the fact that they had almost come to firing curses at each other.
"Mr. Malfoy, explain yourself," Walter said and he stood up.
"Uh, I came in here and those three decided to curse me, so I drew my sword to defend myself," he said, pointing at Harry, Ron and Hermione.
"I don't think so Mr. Malfoy," Walter said, looking down at him. "You're lying. Your eyes give you away."
"I hereby take 10 points away from Slytherin for lying to a professor, another 40 points and a detention for threatening another student, and you will hand your sword over to me," Walter continued as Malfoy's eyes bulged in surprise at what he was hearing. "I will retain your weapon until further notice, but you may keep your wand. You no longer deserve to carry such a weapon if you aren't going to use it responsibly and I will be sure to make your detention fit the crime."
"B-But you can't do that. Professor Sepet gave that sword to me. You can't take it away. My father will see that I get it back," Malfoy stated in surprise. Harry was enjoying the sight of Malfoy on the floor trying to hide behind his father.
"My lord gave it to you. It is a privilege to carry it, abuse that privilege and you forfeit your right to carry it," Walter countered. "As for your father, I would like to see him try to get it back for you. He may be influential, but that influence doesn't extend to my circle."
Walter walked over and picked up Malfoy's sword from the ground. "Just be glad Mr. Malfoy that you are in this school. If you had done this at my lord's castle, I would have killed you and resurrected you as one of my undead servants."
Malfoy now looked at Walter with horror since he really was a coward and didn't like the idea of becoming anyone's undead servant.
"However, I am not unfair, therefore Mr. Potter, I will take away 15 points from Gryffindor for attacking another student," Walter said seriously, looking in Harry's direction.
Harry thought that Walter was rather nice. Rather than give him detention like Snape would, Walter only took away points, which could easily be recovered.
At that moment Snape walked into the room and looked around. He noticed Walter and glared at him, but Walter only smiled at him and explained to him what happened before walking out of the room.
Snape was enraged at what he had heard. Malfoy threatening a student and getting blinded, while his own house was trying to start a fight with the Gryffindors. Nevertheless, his own bias kicked in and he turned a blind eye at it.
"GET BACK TO YOUR SEATS!" Snape yelled and everyone quickly scurried back to their seats.
"Potter, this is all your fault. I'm going to take away 25 points from Gryffindor for attacking another student and you'll be serving detention with Walter later on. He gave two detentions earlier and I hear he'll have something interesting for you to do," Snape continued, smiling evilly at Harry while Malfoy turned around in his seat and smirked at him.
Harry just kept his mouth shut. As much as he'd like to do more damage to Malfoy, he couldn't risk Snape taking away anymore points from Gryffindor.
However, the rest of the class didn't go so well as Snape paired Harry with Neville, who was very clumsy and it took all of Harry's quick reflexes to stop all of the potion ingredients from falling to the ground and breaking. Unfortunately, Neville melted his cauldron as usual and Snape had them clean up their mess.
"Longbottom! Another 10 points from Gryffindor. Don't leave this room until you clean up that mess," Snape growled as Neville nervously attempted to clean up the spill.
Harry sighed and helped Neville clean up. Fortunately for him, the class was now over and it was time to go to lunch, so once the spill was clean up, he and Neville headed over to the Great Hall for lunch.
"Thanks for helping me back there Harry," Neville asked, his round face still pale from having had to deal with Snape.
"No problem, I think Snape just enjoys making our lives miserable, so don't think about it" Harry replied and he walked ahead so that he could find Ron and Hermione.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When Harry got to the Hall, he found Ron and Hermione sitting at the Gryffindor table already eating. They had saved him a seat so he sat down next to Hermione and started to pile some food onto his plate.
"Harry, some mail came for you," said Hermione, handing him a letter that the owls apparently delivered while he was still down in the dungeons cleaning up the spilled potion.
"Thanks," he said, taking the letter from her and opening it.
He saw that there was only a blank parchment with two things on it. A phoenix and 8:00 this evening. He looked at Hermione who nodded and he quickly put away the letter. Unfortunately, Ron caught this and looked at them suspiciously.
"Hey, are you two up to something?" Ron asked disgruntled a bit that his two friends might be doing something behind his back.
"No, why would you think that?" Hermione asked.
"Oh, because Harry just looked at you and you nodded. Must have something to do with that letter he got. You aren't dating each other behind my back are you?" he asked accusingly.
"Ron, why would we do that?" Hermione asked, now looking back at Ron. This wasn't going well and Harry was really worried that this business with the Phoenix might end up ruining his friendship with Ron.
"Because you've both been acting very strange lately and don't think I haven't noticed," said Ron, his cheeks turning pink in anger. "You two have also been gone until late at night twice already."
"Ron - Harry and I aren't dating behind your back. It's just that Professor Sepet wanted to teach us dueling and since he's always gone in the morning and afternoon, he can only tell us when he wants to meet by either owling us or having Professor Laikov tell us," Hermione lied, hoping that Ron would believe her. She rather hated lying to Ron, but she did give her word to Dumbledore that she wouldn't reveal the existence of the Phoenix Order and she would keep that promise.
Ron's face expression softened a bit, but he was still suspicious. "Oh, alright."
"We better get to class, we have transfiguration next," Harry said, hoping that there wouldn't be another argument between his two friends. Hemione was able to cover up what they'd been doing for Dumbledore, but he didn't really know if they could really keep it quiet for the entire year.
With that, Harry got up and walked out of the Great Hall with Ron and Hermione following.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When they got to transfiguration, they found Professor McGonagall waiting for them.
"Alright, everyone take a seat and open your books to page 4," she said. "This year, we'll be learning how to transfigure each other into different objects. Since the Dark Lord's return, this will come in handy should you need to conceal yourselves from his agents."
Oddly enough, Harry thought Professor McGonagall was looking at Hermione and him while she was talking. Maybe it was her way of helping them prepare for their excursions against Voldemort.
"Miss Granger, did you have a question?" McGonagall said, noticing Hermione's hand go up.
"I was wondering if we were going to learn how to become animagi at all this year," she said, looking enthusiastic at the thought of being able to change into an animal like Harry.
"Unfortunately, I won't be teaching you that until this year," came the reply.
Hermione was visibly disappointed, but Harry leaned over and whispered to her much to the dismay of Ron.
"Don't worry, I'm sure Sirius will teach you," Harry whispered, smiling at her.
"Thanks Harry," she whispered back.
During the class, they broke into pairs, Ron with Hermione, leaving a disappointed Harry to be paired up with Seamus. They were supposed to transfigure each other into chairs for this particular period.
Harry let Seamus go first and he could feel his legs turn into wood and he fell backwards since he couldn't balance too well on wooden legs, which caused Seamus to burst out laughing. Harry grinned and pointed his wand at Seamus and transfigured his legs and hands into wood so that he too fell to the ground, only when he tried to stop his fall, his wooden hands slipped on the stone floor and Seamus fell flat on his face instead.
Now it was Harry's turn to laugh and he looked over at Ron and Hermione to see how they were doing. He saw that Hermione had transformed Ron completely into a chair and Hermione was smiling as Professor McGonagall came over to award her some points.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Once class was over, Harry, Ron and Hermione made their way over to their next class, Defense Against the Dark Arts, which they were having with the Slytherins again. Along the way, they exchanged stories on what they did during transfiguration.
"Harry, that was very mean of you to do that to Seamus," Hermione said, making an attempt to scold him, but she burst out laughing instead and Harry grinned at her.
"Well, you did manage to transform Ron into a chair," said Harry. "It was amazing that he was so quiet."
Ron's ears turned pink and he whacked Harry on the arm.
"Hey, what was that for?" Harry said, laughing.
"Just paying you back for making a joke at my expense," Ron replied, grinning. "But it was funny watching you fall over on those wooden legs of yours."
They got to their class on time and were surprised to find the Gryffindors and Slytherins sitting quietly. Apparently the incident earlier with Malfoy had scared them out of their wits and Harry could see that Malfoy was also behaving himself, though probably still fuming at having his sword taken away.
Harry, Ron and Hermione took their seats at the front of the class, since they saw that the first row was completely empty, due to the fact that all the students in the room wanted as much distance between them and Walter.
Eventually Walter walked in and Harry noted that he didn't have much of a problem like Snape or Professor McGonagall in keeping the class under control.
"Good afternoon everyone," Walter said as he strode to the front of the room, only this time he was wearing black robes over his plate armour. "I hope that everything goes well this class so that you can all learn something useful."
"Today we'll be learning about undead creatures that you may encounter in the graveyard, though with Voldemort's (everyone in the classroom flinches, but Harry) return, it is entirely possible that you may encounter them when you least expect it. Therefore I think it is best that you learn about them."
"The first creature we'll learn about is a ghoul, also known as zombies. They are rather resilient to physical attacks and since they are dead and don't feel any pain, they will be stronger than your average human," Walter explained. "Does anyone know how they are created?"
Hermione raised her hand and Walter called on her. "Miss Granger?"
"They are created when a live human is killed by a vampire. Then they are brought back as one of their servants," Hermione said. "They can also be created when a body hasn't decomposed entirely and are brought back to life by either a vampire or a necromancer."
"Thank you Miss Granger, 10 points to Gryffindor," said Walter. "Though I am a necromancer, I can't bring dead people back to life as a ghoul. The next time we meet, some of you will be able to try to fight against a ghoul. Don't worry though, I will not allow you to be killed by them."
"Since the ghouls are stronger than your average human, they can tear you limb from limb," he continued to the horror of some of the students. "And if you allow them to get too close and their bite can turn you into one of them as well. So be very careful not to let them near you. Fortunately, they are very slow and chances are they won't even get close to you because you'll be able to kill them before they come close. Does anyone know how to kill them?"
It was Harry's turn to raise his hand. "Mr. Potter?"
"They can be killed by fire since they are made of flesh, most of which is rotten already and so they are very flammable," Harry said.
"Very good, another 10 points to Gryffindor," Walter said. "There are other ways to kill them with physical weapons, but swords and daggers aren't suggested. Javelins, throwing knives, arrows, or any piercing weapon that can be thrown can be used against them, provided you hit them in either the heart or in the head. A sword only works if you cut their head off cleanly."
They took notes for the remainder of the class on how to kill some of the stronger undead creatures, such as skeletons and wraiths. Though Harry was enjoying the class, he was starting to wonder about what Dumbledore wanted this evening.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
At dinner, the entire Gryffindor table was talking about Quidditch. Alicia Spinnet had announced that there would be tryouts for the keeper and chaser positions on the team, though Ron seemed more interested in who the new captain of the team would be.
"Hey Harry, why don't you go for the captain position," Ron said, looking over at him.
"I don't know Ron, I think Alicia would make a better captain than I ever would," he replied.
"Harry, I think you would make a great captain," Hermione said, beaming at him. "You have the ability and skill to become one, so why don't you try it?"
"We'll see, but right now, we need to go meet Professor Sepet," Harry said as he finished the last of his dinner and got up.
"See you later Ron," Hermione called and she got up to follow him.
They walked over to Dumbledore's office talking along the way about what they could possibly be doing this time and making sure no one was following them.
By the time they got up to Dumbledore's office, they saw that almost everyone was there already and Sirus greeted them enthusiastically, while Snape looked disgruntled as usual. Only the other students were missing though eventually they came and Dumbledore began the meeting.
"Today, we'll be discussing our first mission, but I believe Professor Snape has a report to deliver first," Dumbledore said. "Please give your report Serverus.
Snape stood up and strode to the middle of the room to give his report.
"During one of my recent trips to see the Dark Lord, one of his servants delivered a report saying that they had established a staging area in the wizarding town of Kilndar, which happens to be very close to Hogsmeade," Snape said. "I believe that they are planning to move against Hogsmeade and are just going to use the town so that they may gather in one place but it is also entirely possible that they want to take over the town, but I do not have any solid evidence yet. As of now, they have control over one of the houses."
"Thank you Serverus," Dumbledore said as Snape sat down again. "In order to find out what they are up to, we will be conducting a little raid on the house in one month. Right now, Alastor, we will need about 10 aurors from the ministry. See if you can gather them up and make sure that they are ready to go in one month's time."
"I shouldn't have a problem with that," Moody said in a scratchy voice.
"Good, now it is only a matter of picking another 9 members, other than Alastor, who will go. I will start with volunteers," Dumbledore said.
"Walter and I will volunteer to go," said Professor Sepet from his seat.
"I'll volunteer as well," Remus piped in
"If he goes, I go, so that I can keep an eye on him," Sirus added with a grin.
"I'll come along," Percy said airily. "I don't think there should be any problem with that, right dad?"
"Alright Perce, but if you go, I come along too," Arthur said.
"That makes six, three more," Dumbledore said. "Oh and Minerva, since the raid will be done on a Hogsmeade weekend, we will need you to stay back and watch the students so that they don't suspect that we are gone. Anyone else wish to volunteer?"
The room was quiet for a moment and Harry looked around. No one really wished to volunteer since there was a chance he or she could get killed, yet who wasn't afraid of death? He wasn't, but only because he had encountered it so many times that sooner or later, he wouldn't be surprised if he did get killed.
"I'll volunteer," Harry finally said and everyone looked in his direction.
"Very well Harry, you may go."
If Harry thought that Dumbledore was going to say anything else, he was surprised because Dumbledore kept quiet and looked around the room for another volunteer.
"If Harry goes, he'll need someone to watch his back," Hermione said seriously. "So I'll go."
Harry turned to Hermione in surprise and looked at her, but she gave him a look that said that she meant it and although Harry was worried about what could happen to her, he was glad that he would have a caring friend coming along.
"Thanks Hermione, I'm glad I have you coming along," he whispered.
"That's what friends are for," she whispered back. "Besides, I can't let you have all the fun."
"Alright, anyone else? One more person," Dumbledore said.
"I'll be your last person Professor," Harry heard someone say, but he was surprised to see that it came from Malfoy.
"Very well Mr. Malfoy," Dumbledore said. "Perhaps its time you prove to us that you do not wish to follow in your father's footsteps."
Harry's suspicion of Malfoy increased with his statement. He knew that Malfoy was a coward and wouldn't put his life in danger unless it meant that he would gain a lot out of it. Yet something about the way the statement was made told Harry that Malfoy meant what he said. Nevertheless, he was one to watch for, just in case.
"Alright. The nine of you must be prepared to go in a month's time. I suggest that you three," Dumbledore said, looking at Harry, Hermione, and Malfoy, "brush up on your counter curses since there is a very good chance you may get injured or killed. That will be all, you are dismissed."
With that, everyone got up and started filing out of the room. Harry got up too, and called Sirus aside for a moment to ask him if he could teach Hermione to become an animagus. Sirus walked over while Hermione waited for him in the doorway.
"Hey Sirius," Harry whispered to him. "Do you think you could teach Hermione how to be an animagus like us?"
"Sure, I'll talk to her about it," Sirus said grinning. "You can come along too since I'd like to see how much progress you've made."
"Thanks," Harry said and he gave Sirus a hug before he walked out. Or at least tried to.
"Mr. Potter," he heard a voice call from behind. "Professor Snape tells me that you are to serve detention with me this evening."
He turned around to see that it was Walter calling him and he groaned to himself. He had forgotten about the detention and he didn't like what Snape said earlier when he thought it would be rather interesting.
"Mr. Malfoy and Miss Chang," Walter continued. "You two also are serving detention with me this evening."
Malfoy and Cho turned around and walked back to Walter, groaning as well, since they both wanted to get back to their dorms to get some sleep.
"Hermione, this shouldn't take long. You can go ahead to the Gryffindor tower," Harry said to Hermione, who was still waiting in the doorway.
"Alright, I'll wait for you," Hermione said and she walked out of the office with Sirus.
Soon Harry, Cho, Malfoy, Walter, and Dumbledore were the only ones left in the office.
"Now, let's go get our fourth person and you can all serve your detentions," Walter said. "Please follow me."
With that, he walked out of the room with Harry, Cho and Malfoy following.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
As they walked down the corridors, Harry talked with Cho, while Malfoy walked behind keeping his mouth shut. Maybe his experience with Walter really did change him, Harry thought.
"Hey Cho," Harry said as he walked beside her. "What are you serving detention for?"
"Oh, some Slytherin named Montague or something like that, said something horrible about you and Cedric," Cho said. "So I cursed him and that's why I'm here. What about you?"
"Snape gave me detention for cursing Malfoy," Harry said, pointing to Malfoy behind him. "Walter was the one who interfered first though and he only took away points from us, but he gave Malfoy a fright and a detention. Only Snape didn't think that it was enough."
Soon enough, the three of them found themselves outside and they found Montague, who was a rather large person with dark brown hair and a large nose on his pale face, waiting with Filch.
"Thank you for taking him out here," Walter said to Filch who gave him a nasty look and walked back inside the school.
Walter then turned back to them. "We will now head over to the graveyard. We will be capturing some ghouls for tomorrow's Dark Arts lesson. Normally they don't last too long in the sunlight, but they should live if we bring them to the dungeons."
They walked off in the direction of the graveyard, which was located on the other side of the forbidden forest, and along the way, Harry could see that it didn't look much different from the previous time he was here with Hermione, Neville and Malfoy.
He looked back at Malfoy and he was glad to see that he was shaking in fear, but he had his wand drawn, in case. Walter was ahead of them, with his dagger drawn as if he was expecting to get attacked, which was entirely possible since there were deadly creatures that roamed the forest at night.
Turning to Cho, he could see that she had her wand drawn, but she wasn't so frightened as Malfoy. As for Montague, he too had his wand drawn, but he kept it by his side, instead of in front of him, ready to curse if necessary, as Malfoy did.
Since Walter was expecting to get attacked, Harry thought that it was best if he was able to provide some support and he too drew his wand, holding it in front of him.
Finally, they reached the opposite end of the forest and Harry could see a graveyard in front of him. Walter walked ahead and held out his free hand, mumbling something. As he did, Harry saw that a spear made entirely of bone took shape in his hand. Once the spear had taken shape, Walter continued to say something, though it was inaudible and the spear started to glow a bright green, just like the one that Harry saw kill the vampire in the graveyard during the summer.
"Alright, does everyone have their wand drawn?" Walter asked.
They all nodded and entered the graveyard. It was very quiet and all Harry could hear was the wind blowing calmly, however, as they went in further, he thought he could hear some moans along with the wind.
"Here they come," he heard Walter say behind him, and he turned around to see that there were about fifteen ghouls advancing slowly towards them. Walter threw his spear at one of them, hitting it in the heart.
The ghoul moaned loudly before turning to dust, the spear disappearing along with it and looking back at Walter, Harry saw another spear, similar to the one that he had just thrown take shape in his hand.
"You four," Walter said, throwing the second spear at another ghoul, again piercing it through the heart, turning it to dust. "Kill another 5 ghouls and we can capture the rest."
With that, Harry lost no time in firing a fireball at the nearest ghoul. The fireball hit the ghoul in the chest, and it burst into flames, moaning loudly as it turned to dust, the flames going out with it.
He saw another fireball fly near him to his right and he looked over to see who it came from. It came from Cho who smiled at him when she saw that he was looking at her and Harry thought that he saw her blush as well, but he dismissed it as his mind playing tricks on him in the dark. He then looked behind him to Malfoy and Montague. Both of them were too scared out of their wits to do anything and they just stood there frozen with their wands by their side.
By now there were about 10 ghouls left. 2 more and they could capture the rest and go back to the castle. Cho fired a second fireball at a ghoul, setting it on fire and turning it to dust while Walter threw another glowing spear at a ghoul, piercing it in the heart once again. The ghoul crumbled to the ground before turning to dust and the spear disappeared.
After watching Walter kill the ghouls with such accuracy, Harry could see why the Count had made him his bodyguard. To his knowledge, Walter didn't miss a single ghoul each time he threw a spear and each of them had hit the ghoul in the heart.
"Finally, we can capture them. Use freezing charms only," Walter commanded and he walked over to some of the graves, probably to raise some skeletons.
"Cho, do you know how to use a freezing charm?" Harry asked looking over at her.
"Yes I do. Professor Flitwick taught it to us in class today," she replied and fired a freezing charm at one of the ghouls. The charm hit the ghoul and it froze in place.
"One down and seven more to go," she said, quite delighted that her charm had worked.
Now it was Harry's turn. He fired an ice bolt at the nearest ghoul, hitting it and freezing it like Cho's freezing charm had done. There was a faster method, but he thought that Malfoy and Montague would spread it around the school if they found out.
"Cho, I'm going to try using a spell that will freeze all of the ghouls if it works," Harry said.
"Ok, go for it," Cho said.
"I need you to do a memory charm on Malfoy and Montague after I cast it, but get them on the ground first, otherwise they'll get hit," he said to her and she cast a body-bind spell on the two Slytherins behind them.
"Alright, they're taken care of, now cast it," she said and she got down on the ground in a prone position.
Harry then raised his wand in above him and said "Orbis Glacialis" to cast the frozen orb spell. A ball of ice took shape above him and it started rotating quickly, sending out a shard of ice at each of the ghouls as it rotated.
The ice shards hit the remaining six ghouls and they were all frozen solid. Once that was done, Harry waved his wand again and the ball above him disappeared.
Harry walked over to Cho and helped her up before going over to Malfoy and Montague to remove the body bind spell that Cho cast earlier.
"Alright Cho, use the memory charm on them," Harry said and Cho walked over to the two Slytherins who were starting to get up off the ground and cast a memory charm on each of them, wiping away their memories of what they had just seen.
"Thanks Cho," Harry said, and he quickly pointed his wand at Cho before saying "Obliviate," to wipe her memory of what she had just seen. He didn't really like to pull something a Slytherin wouldn't hesitate to do, but he had to make sure that not even she knew about his Elemental magic.
"Huh?" Cho said, now dazed after the memory charm hit her. "Harry, what am I doing here?"
"You're here serving detention with Malfoy and Montague, remember?" Harry said.
"Yes, I remember that, but why are all these ghouls frozen?"
"Oh, I froze them so that Walter could capture them."
Walter returned with a group of sixteen skeletons and Malfoy, Cho, and Montague looked at them with horror, but were too frightened to do anything.
"Please don't be frightened," Walter said. "These will only help us transport them back to the castle."
With that, Walter went up to the ghouls and he put both hands in front of him, palms facing up before raising his hands into the air. The ground rumbled a bit and Harry saw a cage made entirely of bones spring up from the ground and form around each of the ghouls.
After each of the frozen ghouls was in their respective cages, Walter motioned to the skeletons who turned the cages on their sides, careful not to shatter the frozen ghouls within them, and carried them, two skeletons per cage, back to the castle.
Now that was done, Harry, Cho, Malfoy, and Montague headed back to the castle with Walter leading.
~*~*~*~*~
When they got back to the castle, it was already 1:00 AM and they were all yawning. Detention on the first day of classes wasn't exactly what Harry had in mind, but he was looking forward to seeing Hermione back at the Gryffindor tower, though he assumed that she would probably be up in her dorm, sleeping by now.
"Thank you for your help," Walter said as he led the skeletons down to the dungeons. "Good night."
"Good night Professor," Harry called and he started walking towards the Gryffindor tower when Cho caught up with him.
"Harry, that was fun working with you. I hope we can keep working like that," she said.
"I hope so too. Well, we should be going off to bed. Good Night Cho," Harry said and he continued walking in the direction of the Gryffindor tower.
"Good night Harry," Cho called back before she walked in the opposite direction to the Ravenclaw tower.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When he got to the portrait of the fat lady, he said the password and the portrait opened, though the fat lady was very disgruntled at having been woken at such a late hour.
He entered and when he got to the common room, he saw Hermione, sleeping on one of the chairs next to the fire with one of her transfiguration books on her lap. He smiled to himself. Hermione had actually kept her promise and had waited for him in the common room. He was glad to have a friend like her.
Since he didn't want to wake her, he quietly walked up to the boys' dorms and grabbed some blankets from his bed before going back down. He took away her book and placed some of the blankets on her before standing up and gazing at her.
She looks beautiful in this light, Harry thought to himself and he leant down and kissed Hermione on her forehead. Hermione's lips formed a smile in her sleep and Harry couldn't help but smile as well before sitting in the armchair across from her with the rest of the blankets and falling into a blissful slumber.
A/N: Well, I'm back from vacation. This chapter is rather lengthy but hope you like it. Sorry I can't post the 2nd chapter up yet where they'll be off on their first mission because its not finished. I hope to do that tomorrow.