Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of the characters you may recognise from the book. All of them belong to that wonderful writer J.K Rowlings.
Dom, Nicolas, J.P and Anita are all real people that are really enjoying being in my story.
I have created any creature and person you don't recognise from the books.
This story takes place after the publishing of The Prisoner of Azkaban, and the release of the second Harry Potter movie.
Harry is in his fourth year at Hogwarts.
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Chapter six: Banquets and new teachers .
Now that the sorting was over, Professor Dumbledore got to his feet and smiled to the students, his arms wide open in sign of welcome to all the students in the hall.
"I only have two words to say to you all.... Tuck in!"
Each at their separate table the four friends marvelled over the food that all of a sudden appeared on their plates, gawking at the different types of food. It took a second or two before they actually managed to realise the food in front of them was real and started doing as Professor Dumbledore had told them too, tucking in as much as they could.
Anita was looking at her fellow Ravenclaws, trying to find the few names she recognised from the books, Cho Chang and Padma Patil She spotted the two girls sitting at the opposite of her table, and apparently they had been speaking about her, because as her eyes moved to the two dark haired girls they stopped talking immediately and stared into their plates. Anita felt uncomfortable all of a sudden, she had never liked people to pay too much attention to her. She was actually quite shy, but hid that weakness behind a veil of sympathy and seemingly endless jokes. The only ones she had felt comfortable with were her three friends, that were now in different houses than her, no one was talking to her at the moment and she felt quite lonely. In silence she bowed over her plate and chewed on a piece of chocolate gateau that had appeared on her plate after the rests of her main course had disappeared, finding the sweet dessert quite tasteless.
By the Hufflepuff table Nicolas was eating so fast and so much that most students actually laid down their cutlery to look at the tall teen almost inhale his food without chewing it. Nicolas was oblivious both to their silence and to their stares as he continued chewing and eating as if there was no tomorrow, stopping only when the food on his plate disappears only to be replaced with tasty desserts. Never before had Nicolas ate this much, and he was still hungry.
Cedric Diggory was the first one to break the silence, with a friendly smile he looked toward Nicolas.
"Well... its good to have someone else with a healthy appetite in our house. But please do leave something for the rest of us."
Nicolas stopped eating and blushed, suddenly ashamed of his appetite. But the shame was dispelled as Cedric winked at him before stuffing his face with a huge piece of treacle tart, showing he was just as good as Nicolas to eat. Nicolas smiled slightly back before returning to his own piece of tart. He was already starting to feel at home among the cheerful Hufflepuffs.
Dom was eating slowly and with measure, his eyes moving over the many people at the Slytherin table, most f who were scowling at him. How could he, a muggle!, have been chosen into the prestigious Slytherin house. They all were pondering how the could get rid of him, and specially Draco was pondering his revenge for that little kiss Dom had blown to him.
Dom suddenly looked up, a rather evil glint in his eyes.
"Why are you ugly lot not talking? Voldemort got your tongues?"
The Snakes all gasped in unison, how could he say the name of You-Know-Who so easily? As if it didn't affect him in the slightest. He was a MUGGLE, the dark lord killed muggles whenever he felt like it. How could this simple muggle speak his name without shaking in fear?
Dom smirked as he saw the reaction of his housemates, this was going to be interesting.
At the Gryffindor table J.P was speaking with Fred and George while eating a bit from each plate, but staying far, far away from the kidney pie.
"So you and your friends actually got hexed by Aurors for throwing a prank in a cinema. Woh! You four are now our new heroes... But only until we think up a better prank than yours."
J.P chuckled and eye the two twins carefully, they seemed to be quite joyful and funny people to be around, he decided to never get on their bad side thou.
Suddenly a loud racket was heard from the end of the table as Hermione seemed to be discussing something with Ron and Harry, but he was too far away to actually hear what they were speaking about.
Soon the plates were all empty and the students were full, except Hermione that for some reason J.P didn't know had refused to eat anything after her discussion with Harry and Ron.
The Headmaster got to his feet and spoke to the large congregation of students that all listened in silence as he spoke
"So! Now that we are all fed and watered I must ask for your attention once again, while I give out a few important notices.
The Caretaker, Mr. Filch, has asked me to tell you that the list of objects forbidden inside the castle has this year been extended to include Ever-Bashing Boomerangs, Screaming Yo-yos and Fanged Frisbees. The full list comprises some four hundred and thirty-seven items, and can be viewed in Mr. Filch's office, if anybody would like to check it.
As always remind you all that the forest on the grounds is off-bounds to students, and so is the village of Hogsmeade to all below third year and those without their signed authorisation.
It is also my unpleasant duty to inform you all that this year there will be no Inter-House Quidditch Cup."
The words of Professor Dumbledore caused quite a bit of commotion in all the tables. No quidditch for a whole year? What was the reasons that could drive the teaching staff to such a decision. All the people that were on the quidditch teams of all the houses rised their voices in protest. Anita also protested, she was so eager to try her new WhirlWind that she could hardly wait. Professor Dumbledore waited for people to calm down slightly before taking once more.
"The reason for this is a very important event that will start in October and continue trough the whole school year. A event that will take up the strength and dedication of the teacher staff.
But I am pretty sure that you will all enjoy this event quite much. I have great pleasure in announcing that this year at Hogwarts- "
The words that should have left Dumbledore's mouth drowned in a deep rumbling thunder and the sound of the double doors of the great hall bursting open.
A man appeared in the doorway, leaning heavily upon a long walking stick, shrouded in a black and heavy looking cloak. He lowered the cowl of his cloak letting the grey locks of his grizzly looking mane fall down his shoulders before starting to walk toward the teachers' table. A dull clunk echoed through the hall as he walked, as if one of his shoes were heavier than the other and with a thicker sole. He paid no attention to the students that were all staring at him as he moved toward the head table, toward Dumbledore. A flash of lightning crossed the ceiling, as if wanting to reveal the features of the man. Anita could hear Hermione gasping, and she was about to let a gasp escape her too. The lightning had lit up the room and thrown the man's face into full view, a face unlike anything the four teens had ever seen. It looked as if it was made out of weathered wood, the features carved out by hands that had only a slight idea how a human face should look yet had failed in his attempt in making said face. Scar upon scar covered the skin of the face, the mouth resembling a open wound running in diagonal over the lower part of the face and a large piece of the crooked nose was missing. Yet it was not all these features that made the man scary, it was his eyes that made him really frightening. There was one small, beady, and dark as night. The other was unnaturally large, round and shiny as a sickle and as blue as the lightning as it crossed the sky. The blue eye was moving always, without blinking, rolling soon up, soon down, from side to side, seemingly completely independent of its normal twin. – suddenly it rolled completely back, as if staring straight trough the skull of the man, leaving only the white to be seen.
Several of the students seemed scared of the man as he glared at them before reaching the head table and stretching out his hand in greeting to Dumbledore. The hand as covered in scars as his features. Dumbledore didn't doubt in shake the hand of the man, his lips move in a mutter that was too low for anyone to actually hear what he was saying, excepting the stranger, who answered in his own mutter. Dumbledore nodded and made a gesture toward the seat that was at his right side, a seat that had been empty all the evening.
The strange man nodded and moved to seat himself, pulling a plate of sausages towards him, letting the slightly spicy smell reach to his nose before taking out a small and shiny knife, pinning one of the sausages on it and proceeding to eat it slowly. The only thing that didn't seem to rest was his blue eyes, that continued swirling around in its orbit ceaselessly.
Dumbledore turned to look at the students that were still completely transfixed, staring at the stranger as if they had never seen anything like him, which they probably hadn't. He lifted his arm as to ask for silence and then spoke out to the hall once more.
"I would like to introduce our new Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher. Professor Moody."
The silence in the hall was abysmal, no student, not teacher for that sake, dared to applaud at the new teacher. Usually there was always a warm welcome for the new members of the staff, but this time the appearance of the new teacher had been enough to scare the students to silence. Only the clapping of Dumbledore and Hagrid were heard in the great hall.
Anita looked over at her four friends, each of them returning a nod. They were all very confused about the new teacher, he looked like he had been almost ripped to pieces several times, how could he teach them to defend themselves, and would his training leave them as filled with scars as he was?
Only time would show.
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Suddenly attention returned to Dumbledore as Professor McGonagall cleared her throat loudly, making the older mage suddenly remember his prior announcement.
"Ah yes, the important announcement... Sorry.
The thing I was about to tell you all before professor Moody arrived was that we have the honour of hosting the Triwizard Tournament of this year."
The four new wizards could only watch as most of the students started speaking excitedly among them, some of them looking as confused at the four friends but most of them actually. Anita was too shy to actually try to speak with anyone at her table so she simply waited for an explanations from Professor Dumbledore, as was Dom, none of his fellow Slytherin's even looked in his direction, even less talked to him.
Nicolas and J.P were lucky enough to be seated close to someone that actually knew what the headmaster was talking about. The wide gestures of both Fred, George and Cedric coming to a abrupt halt as Professor Dumbledore started speaking once more.
"Some of the younger among us may not know what this tournament is about, so I hope those who know about it will forgive me for this little explanation. The Triwizard Tournament started as a friendly competition between the three wizardry schools on the European continent: Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang. A champion was chosen from each school to compete in three magical tasks. Each five years one of the schools would lend its grounds to the realisation of the games, everybody agreed this to be a quite good way to create friendly competition between the schools, creating ties of friendship between your wizards and witches from the different countries – at least they thought so until number of deaths grew so high that the tournament was deemed unsafe and banished."
The four friends once more exchanged scared looks with each others, so the sports in the wizard world were quite deadly, they were wondering if everything would be so dangerous, if so this would be a interesting and frightening life to live.
Dumbledore continued his explanations.
"Despite all this, our departments of International Magical Co-operation and Magical Games and Sports have decided that it is time to give the tournament another try. We have all worked over the summer to make sure that this time, no champion will find himself or herself in mortal danger of any sort.
The headmasters of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving with some of their students late October, and remaining housed on our grounds during most of the school year. I am certain that you all will know hot to be good host to our foreign guests, showing them courtesy while they are among all of us. I am also sure you all will give all your support to the elected Hogwarts champion after he or she is selected Champion selection will take place at Halloween. An impartial judge will decide which of the several students of all three schools are most worthy to compete for the Triwizard Cup, the honour and glory of their school, and a thousand Galleons that will be given to the winner.
I know all of you will eager, to say the least, be to bring the Triwizard Cup to Hogwarts
But for safety reasons we, the heads of the participating schools, along with the Ministry of Magic, have decided to impose an age restriction on contenders this year. Only students that are seventeen years or older will even be considerate as possible participants.."
Several yells of disappointment crossed the hall, most loudest were the protests from the Wesley twins. Both of them had already started to imagine what wonderful pranks they could do with a thousand galleons. Hey were extremely disappointed over the fact that they would not be able to even be up for election.
Dumbledore rised his arms once more asking for silence.
"We all feel that this measure is necessary, since there may be some challenges that our younger students are not yet apt to face, both in knowledge and in skills. I will personally make sure that no student under sixth year tries to enter the tournament, trying to make our impartial judge choose them as the Hogwarts champion. I suggest that you don't waste your time submitting your names if you are under seventeen.
This was all about the tournament. It is pretty late, we have all enjoyed a abundant meal and need rest. Since your classes start tomorrow I know you all need rest to be awake and ready for the first lessons early tomorrow. Bedtime for you all! The headboy and headgirl of each house will show you to your dormitories. Chop chop!"
Everybody started getting out of their seats and heading toward the exits, following the calls of the headboys and headgirls that were gathering the students of each house. Anita, J.P, Dom and Nicolas were about to leave the great hall when the voice of Dumbledore held them back, calling all four of them back to the main table.
The rest of the teachers had already left the room, only the Headmaster and the four students were left in the great hall. Dumbledore looked at the four of them, his periwinkle coloured eyes twinkling slightly, a soft smile curving the sides of his mouth.
"Well, well, well. It is a true pleasure to see you four again. I am glad all of you made it to Hogwarts without any problems. It was quite a suprise, I have to admit, that the sorting hat decided to put you all in different houses. But I suppose it knows what its doing, it is – after all – a very intelligent hat."
Dumbledore chuckled and nodded slightly toward the hat that was still sitting on the stool where McGonagall left if. The four teens listened in silence, not really knowing what to say.
"I shall not take too much of your time, I just wanted to announce that you four will have extra classes with all the teachers after your regular classes, after all you have quite some years so catch up with.
But there is one thing I want you to know. No one, not even Harry and his friends, can know that Lupin is in the castle. The Ministry has decided that he is a persona non grata on Hogwarts, so his presence here is better hidden than public.
Well now, off to your respective houses you go."
The four teens nodded in silence and walked toward the exit of the main hall, splitting up in the entrance hall, each of them following the distant calls of the headboys of their houses.
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Nicolas was the first one to reach his common room, the Hufflepuff common room being the second one in the dungeons. He tried to memorise the password ('fidem praestare') but to no avail, he decided to do it the next day, when he was rested. He walked across the common room, following the male students up to the boy dormitories. He was amazed to see that they actually had a bed that was long enough for him to sleep in without having to curl up. The wood didn't seemed to be new and there was no smell of paint coming from the bedposts. Could it be that they actually once had a student just as big, if not bigger than himself?
To tired to think more about it he unclothed and got into his pyjamas before laying down in his bed. His last thought before falling asleep was a hope for having the same classes as his friends the next day.
Dom was walking slowly after the rest of the Slytherins, having no need to speed after them, he actually was wondering what would happen when he was left alone with the group of people that actually loathed him for being what he was, a muggle endowed with magical powers. He stayed behind the group as they entered the common room, but close enough to the to learn the password ('Pure blood') and make a despective snort at the originality of the snakes. Once inside the common room he looked around and found himself trapped in a semi circle of the older students, all of them glaring hatefully at him.
"What do you think you are doing in here muggle, this is the dormitory of true pure bloods, not mud bloods as yourself."
Dom didn't seem at all phased by the words of the students, instead he placed his hands on his hips and smirked at them.
"Well then.. who is going to keep me out? Voldemort?!"
Once again the snakes cringed at the name of the Dark Lord, some of them paling considerably at the cold voice and calm of the student, he didn't seem to fear any of them, and not even the name of You-Know-Who was enough to break the icy demeanour of the former muggle.
Draco took one step forward and opened his mouth as if to reply to Dom.
With the speed of lightning Dom pulled out his wand and pointed it at Draco, remembering one of the hexes he had studied the night he had passed in the Leaky Cauldron and that he had used on Oddball when he had been protesting against being stuffed in a pocket prior their departure.
"CLUSUM!"
Draco felt as if someone had placed a giant hand over his mouth, holding in all the words he was about to say. He struggled to actually utter a word, but all that came out was air.
Dom smirked, looking quite happy with himself, pocketing his wand and simply making his way trough the mass of seemingly petrified students, turning on his heels before entering the boy's dormitory and bowing to the rest of the snakes.
"Good night to all... And don't try anything funny.... I sleep extremely light."
Anita had to walk quite a long way, speeding after the other students after she had lingered for too long in the stairs ( one of them had actually moved away while she was standing on it, forcing her to wait for another stair to come to her aid.) After quite an exhausting run she reached the last students of the group, they acknowledged her presence with a small nod, but nothing more. She once more felt the cold of loneliness covering her, she wished she had been sorted into any of the other houses, just to be close to her friends, even being sorted into Slytherin sounded like a good idea right now.
The doors to the common room opened as the headgirl said the password ('perspicientia') and let several of the students into their new home for the school year.
Anita saw the several gazes following her, specially those of Padma and Cho, both girls whispering among them as they pointed directly at her, not caring if she saw them it seemed. Anita felt a wave of shyness washing over her, and anger. Why did they treat her as she was a curios exotic animal on display, she hated that... she had always hated it. Finally anger won over shyness as she walked straight over to Padma and Cho, her green eyes seemingly quite poisonous behind the crystal of her glasses.
"Would you two stop staring at me... It is rude and it bothers me to no end. If you have anything to say to me then please do.. BUT TO MY FACE!
I am quite certain that you both understand what I am saying despite me being nothing more than a simple muggle that fortune has decided to put in your way. Well just so you know, I don't need magic to notice when you two are talking about me... I have ears and I have eyes and both of them work quite well.
Now if you excuse me I am going to bed. Good Night!"
Anita shook her head, her long chestnut ponytail dancing over her shoulder as she muttered to herself, now she had done it, again. Losing her temper like that, and no one around to calm her down afterwards. She felt like punching a hole in the wall. Instead she headed to the girls dormitory and go into her pyjama, some of the girls noticing the several scars over her legs but not saying anything. She laid out one of her old T-shirts on the floor for Devlin to sleep on and then, exhausted by the events of the day, she got to bed where she fell asleep almost inmediatly.
The students belonging to the Gryffindor house had long since reached their common room as J.P started searching for it. He tried to remember the way there according to the book but after a while he realised he was hopelessly lost. He looked around to see if he could find any of the others, but he didn't see or hear anyone. No..wait. There was someone, or rather something coming his way. His eyes grew wide as he saw that it was none less than Sir Nicholas Mimsy-Porpington, or to be more correct, his ghost. J.P bowed to the spectral figure when it noticed him and in the most polite tone he could he spoke to the spectre.
"Good evening sir, it seems I have lost my housemates and I am new to the school, would you be so kind to show me where the Gryffindor common room is?"
The ghost was pleasantly suprised over the fact that someone actually treated him with the respect someone of his high status deserved. He nodded at the young man (causing his head to sway dangerously on his doublet) as he started floating up some stairs.
"Of course I can young man. A new student belonging to the Gryffindor house can always ask for my help. I am, after all, the Gryffindor ghost. As you may have guessed I am Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington. And who may you be my young friend."
J.P was following the ghost, his eyes darting from side to side as they moved trough the corridors, several people in ancient paintings waved at him as they passed by. Soon they reached the painting of the Fat Lady. J.P bowed to both the lady in the painting and to the ghost.
"My name is Jean Phillipe Mailhot. It was a pleasure to meet you Sir Nicholas, and thank you once more for leading me here."
The ghost nodded once more at J.P, his head actually almost falling off this time, causing J.P to cringe slightly. The Fat Lady didn't ask for the password as she saw that he was in company of the Gryffindor ghost and swinged open, revealing the entrance to the Gryffindor common room.
J.P moved in and was slightly disappointed to see that there was no one in the room, he had hoped for some conversation. His eyes moved over the empty room and he was thrilled when he saw a fireplace and a quite comfortable looking chair in front of it. He decided to contemplate the flames for a while, just a short while.
He sat down and leaned back, the flames dancing their almost hypnotical dance in front of him. Slowly his eyes closed as he fell asleep in the chair.
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End chapter six.
Yes, yes. Lupin is going to be undercover in the school, actually for now no one except Dumbledore and the four knows that he is there.
Next chapter will be up soon
Any suggestions and ideas are accepted.
Thanks for reading and reviewing.
'fidem praestare' = Always faithful
"CLUSUM!" = Literally, shut up
'perspicientia' = Awareness of knowledge