In Every Darkness
Chapter Eighty One: Aftermath
It was amazing, Harry thought, the next morning when The Daily Prophet reported the attacks that they never once mentioned that he'd been the one to alert everyone to the danger in the first place.
The teachers had, of course, been easily able to deal with the Death Eaters, but had unfortunately been unable to catch any of them. In an astounding moment of team work, those Death Eaters still conscious and standing had levitated their fallen comrades and summoned brooms, to be gone before any of the teachers could actually manage to do anything about the escape.
"We thought that you would rather your name stayed out of the papers – Albus always said that you had quite an aversion to fame, and I must admit that you have been on the receiving end of a lot of bad publicity," McGonagall told in a quiet aside after Transfiguration that day. "But your work in alerting us to the problem was well done, so I award fifty points to Gryffindor for your bravery."
Harry smiled slightly. It was much better that only his close friends and the rest of the teachers know about his involvement in the affair, he thought. This way all of those who actually mattered would know about it, and he wouldn't get teased or annoyed by those who didn't matter.
"Well done," Ron said when he heard about the points that Harry had won, and what for. "We're way in the lead now!"
Harry smiled. "Yeah," he agreed. "We just have to stay this way for quite a while, if we want to win the House Cup at the end of the year."
"I'm sure we'll manage it," Hermione said firmly. "And you are very brave Harry, going down there like that, all alone when you were already sure that they were Death Eaters down there."
Harry caught the slightly jealous look on Ron's face and shrugged. "I couldn't let them get to the castle. I'm sure either of you would have done the same thing in my place."
Ron looked slightly gratified by the comment.
Gryfas, you know that one of them would probably not have done that at all! Grypis informed him. You are without fear now, my friend, but last night you were also without caution! Fear helps caution stick, so you'll have to work extra hard to be cautious, now that you don't have fear to help you with it!
I know, Grypis. I realised that last night, but it seemed the best thing to do at the time, Harry replied.
Next time you see something like that happening call me and I'll tell you what you should do, until you can manage to work it out yourself!
Yes, Grypis, Harry said, much as a child might say to the parent who tells them 'Clean your room within the hour."
Don't you 'yes Grypis' me, the griffin said, pretending to sniff. I hope that Tatsu returns soon, before you manage to let this new fearlessness of yours get you killed!
Harry smiled faintly, though his friends did not really notice. He wanted Tatsu to return too. Do you have any idea when he might come back? He asked the griffin.
No. I think he is still in Japan. It could be a long time, it could be a short time, Grypis replied.
Harry sighed, but it was so soft that only Lily noticed, and shot him a questioning glance. Harry shrugged faintly, and she shrugged in return. If he didn't want to talk about it, that was his own business, of course.
Draco lazed in the Slytherin common room. He was tired. He hadn't gotten much sleep the night before at all, and then this morning he got the news of the attack. It was said that someone had seen his father here …
Had Lucius Malfoy been on the grounds last night? Draco wondered. Was he one of those who had to be levitated away from Hogwarts by people who couldn't actually care less about him? And more importantly, did he, Draco, want to be one of those people?
He wanted to be on the winners side – he had a strong survival streak – but now he had to wonder which side that actually was … The side that he'd always believed it to be, or Potters side?
Not Dumbledore's any more … No, Dumbledore was dead and gone. Draco was surprised how much he missed the somewhat odd and most definitely eccentric Hogwarts Headmaster – it wasn't an 'oh dear, Dumbledore's dead, I miss him' kind of thing but rather the lack of that annoying blue eyed twinkle the ancient man had had, and the amusing way that the former Headmaster had addressed the school.
Draco sighed. When you had to look for answers for yourself – when there was no one you could threaten to get them, or someone older who you trusted enough to ask – finding them could be very difficult indeed.
Oh well, he'd find the answers to his questions eventually, he supposed. He just hoped it was soon enough, before he was bound in the path that he would have to follow …
"So, will you help?"
Tatsu stood in the centre of a group of people, all friends of his from long ago, all Modifiers. They were those who had trained him, and those who had been trained by him.
"You have told us of this place in England," one of them spoke out. "You have described it in great detail for us. This place is called Hogwarts, and it is a school for teaching the magic that we were denied – why should we want to help?"
"Because there are those there who do not look down upon talents like ours. Certainly there are those who do – one of them is my own nephew, though he does not know that – but Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter, the leaders of the teachers and the main student body, are in our favour, and accept our magic as a form of magic."
"Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter," the man repeated. "Both are names of legend… But not our legends."
The gather muttered in assent at this remark, and Tatsu cursed inwardly.
"They stand against Lord Voldemort," he pointed out.
"This means what to us? He is in Europe, and we are here, far from his reach," a woman shrugged.
"He hates half bloods, Muggleborns and squibs, simply because they don't have his magic!" Tatsu said. "What better reason is there to side against anyone? If we can get rid of him, we could become accepted by the Wizarding society as a whole, and be able to find and train any likely youngsters!"
"Why do we want this? We've lived fine as we are."
"Don't tell me you haven't wanted to show the Wizarding society that we're just as good as they are?" Tatsu demanded. "Surely not!"
"OK, so we've all hosted dreams of that," snorted another woman, "That doesn't mean that anything could ever come of it!"
"But something can come of it!" Tatsu tried desperately to sway his old friends to his side. "If you join with Dumbledore and Harry!"
"If you just stay here, you'll forget all about this idiocy," the first man said firmly.
"No! I've thrown my lot in with Dumbledore and Harry. Harry Potter is the son of one of those who helped me leave Britain in the first place, the godson of the other, and my ward. I will not abandon him."
"Your ward?" whispers broke out amongst those who surrounded Tatsu.
"Well, you can't abandon family, and as your ward is your family, so are you ours. We are with you," a firm, young male voice spoke out.
Tatsu relaxed. They were with him.
"Sh!" a voice hissed in Harry's ear.
"You sh," Ron snarled back at Hermione, who'd spoke first.
"Both of you, shut up," Harry growled.
It had been a long time since the three of them had snuck out under the Invisibility Cloak after hours to visit with their friend Hagrid. They had offered to allow Lily to come with them (the first time that anyone else had been invited) but Lily had declined.
Harry was the only one that knew that this was because she was going to go out into the forest and do whatever it was that the Wild Children did. Everyone else thought that the Durmstrang girl was giving Gryffindors Golden Trio a chance to be on their own, as they hadn't been for quite some time.
Harry was relieved when both Ron and Hermione went quiet. Their constant chattering was annoying him, and he didn't want to be caught out … Not that Arabella was likely to do anything to them, but it was a matter of pride that they'd never actually been caught on one of these excursions.
Soon enough the most arduous part of the journey was over and the little group stumbled out across the grounds, which were lit faintly by the light of a quarter moon.
It was very pretty, Harry thought, staring about himself. The absence of fear was still a new feeling, but it still allowed him to realise how pretty everything was, rather than worry about being caught, or some monster coming running out of the Forbidden Forest to eat them, or something.
A short distance away, Hagrid's windows glowed in the darkness.
"Well, at least he's home, for once," Harry remarked.
"Yeah, we'd feel really stupid if we got all the way down here, and then realised that Hagrid wasn't home," Ron agreed.
"Oh, you two!" Hermione groaned. "D'you really think I'd have come on this venture if I hadn't already checked that Hagrid was home?"
"How would you know?" Ron asked, "I mean, without coming down here to look, of course."
"Idiot," Hermione sighed, then continued, "I believe it's called a 'window', there are several of them in the Gryffindor tower, which all look down on the grounds!"
"Oh!" Ron said, his voice showing that he felt foolish for not having realised this before. Harry just kept quiet, as he'd found to be best when Ron and Hermione were arguing like this.
Harry raised his fist and knocked a few times on the door. Hagrid opened it swiftly.
"Well! It's been a fair little while since I saw you outside of classes," the half-giant smiled at them. "Come in! Would you like a rock cake? I've found a new recipe for them."
Harry, Ron and Hermione looked at each other. Should they risk it?
It was, in the end, Harry who broke the silence. "Yeah, sure Hagrid. I'd love to try one!"
The others quickly agreed as well. "We probably won't fit too many in though, dinner wasn't all that long ago," Hermione warned, and Harry smiled faintly. Just like Hermione, make sure that there was a back way out.
"Great!" Hagrid beamed. "Here y'are then!" he took a plate from under a tea-towel and handed it to his three younger friends.
A hot, sweet aroma drifted up from the cakes, and despite the fact that, as Hermione had said, dinner had not been all the long ago, the scent made Harry's mouth water.
All three of them hastily bit into the warm rock cakes, and tentatively raised them to their mouths to bite carefully.
To Harry's surprise, there was no resistance, and his teeth passed easily through the moist interior of what could no longer be called a 'rock' cake.
It was absolutely delicious.
"Great Hagrid!" Harry said enthusiastically after swallowing the first bite, and his friends were quick to agree – for the first time giving their sincere opinion on Hagrid's cooking.
"Yeah, I think that the one's I've been making were a little bit stale," Hagrid said, "but this seems to be fine now! Just needed a bit of fine tuning."
"Well, it was good before," Hermione lied with a straight face.
"But it's even better now," Harry said firmly. "Absolutely perfect!"
Ron nodded, his mouth too full to speak.
Hagrid beamed delightedly, obviously pleased by the praise. "Ye can take some with you and share 'em with yer friends."
"Yes, we'd be delighted to, Hagrid," Hermione said, for once not lying as she said this. Despite his horrendous cooking skills, none of Hagrid's young friends had ever had the heart to tell him that nothing he cooked tasted at all good.
That, however, had all changed. This new recipe was, quite frankly, divine.
"Ye would?"
"Yes, of course!"
"Look guys, it's getting pretty late, and we've had a night attack once in the last little while, I think that ye should be getting yerselves up to the castle, really," Hagrid said.
Hagrid quickly packed up a box of cakes, which he gave to Hermione and then stood back to allow his student friends to slip under the Invisibility Cloak and walk off into the night.
***
There we go! Another chapter! I'm working on the chapter for AtD: PS, and I hope to have it up fairly soon … However, I'm about to move into a new room at my place (which I have been waiting for since I was about seven), so this may interrupt things a little …
Thanks to:
Dumbledave, Nicoletta, HermioneGreen, Nphipps, athenakitty, Wynjara, Xyverz, TuxedoMac, Jaded Angel8, texasjeanette, Nasser Himura, AnnabelleLeigh, Stix-the-Rebel, Sammy Solo, MiakaChan5, Kelei, Nadia Greenleaf, Charmed88, gaul1, Lord of Darkness13, telpesir, Naurien, fcuking cathy, dweem-angel, ReflectionsOfReality, jbfritz, Romm, ScruffyWes, Goldengirl2, Elvira, Clare, moony*padfoot, Songbreeze Swifteye, harryluvzginny, The Lady Reaper of the Shadows, Black Vengeance, Black Vengeance, boin_bang_kerplunk, Gryffindors-Light, rebelutionary, Lintethoron, Talix, orangutangirl, Avvy Kavvy, a reader, misty43, r, schmanski, Shadowface.
Clare – I'm year 10 by Australian standards, which most people enter in their 16th year. The third last year of schooling.
R – I don't get to update often because I'm always at school or studying for tests. I'm also writing three different stories at present.