The Road Not Taken: Book II
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Standard Disclaimer: This is definitively AU, I'm not JK, don't make any claim to these characters, am making no profit from the writing of this, and rated PG-13 for death, weird stuff, and wonky symbolism.
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At the breakfast table the next day, Professor Trelawney, the rather excitable Divinations professor, spent most of the meal loudly complaining to anyone who would listen that she had known this year would begin in death.
Most of the students, however, bravely tried to ignore it. Most of the population of the school was nursing very unpleasant headaches, and the Gryffindor table was no exception. Apparently, Parvati Pavil had figured out Neville had a mandrake in the school, and in the ensuing scuffle to get it out of the Great Hall, the roots had been pulled out of the dirt, resulting in the school-wide fainting spell.
Money changed hands regarding a sort of running bet as to which house lost points first, and both Neville and Parvati had retreated into melancholy. Harry felt that as the two students closest to the mandrake at the time of detonation, they'd suffered enough, but the Slytherins especially seemed to think differently.
Although, he noted with some relief, he and Draco seemed to have some sort of unspoken truce, and the blond boy stayed out of the event, merely watching from afar.
It was odd, but when the two were in the same room, Harry often got the unpleasant feeling that Draco was watching him. Not just looking at, but watching, as if waiting for something...sometimes, he was reminded of his odd dreams from before the year began, and the visit of the house-elf, something that only a very rich student could have arranged...
Because the other possibility was that Draco was watching him the way that Ginny occasionally looked at him, only with a confidence the first-year student would never match.
The day began with Potions, and with Severus Snape far from his normally cheery mood.
He virtually snarled, "Good morning" to the class, and when asked about the year's curriculum, he nearly hexed Hermione.
It was going to be a long day for everybody.
---
It was the next day when they had their first DADA class of the term, and Professor Lockhart was in (what it would soon prove) usual high spirits.
"Welcome, welcome, all!" he announced to the group of students, many hidden behind high stacks of his own autobiographical works, the assigned texts. "Now, I know you're all eager to jump right in and tackle the hard stuff, but I think that first, we need to see how well you know your Dark Arts, eh?" And with a flourish, he produced a thick stack of papers. "I'm certain you've all had time to look through your textbooks a bit, but I want to see if you've picked anything up. Here's a pop quiz."
It was not, as Harry expected, a quiz on Dark creatures and magic, but rather, a test about the specifics of Lockhart's life. Ranging from questions about Lockhart's personal ambitions ("If all the Dark creatures in the world were to vanish, how would I then contribute to society?") to inane questions whose only connection to Defense Against the Dark Arts was Lockhart himself ("What is my favorite shade of black?"), Harry knew he failed miserably.
He really hoped this test wasn't graded.
After an inordinately short amount of time, Lockhart announced the end of the test and whisked up all of the papers. Oddly, he did this by going around the room to everyone's desk, as opposed to the much quicker manner of most of the other teachers, simply summoning the tests to his desk in a stack.
Then Lockhart clapped his hands and took roll. When he called "Longbottom, Neville," he paused for a very long moment, and then gave a thousand-watt grin.
"Mr. Longbottom. Well, I quite imagine there's not much I can teach you, eh? Anyone who can take He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named must be phenomenal at Defense. Come on up and show us something, hmm?" Most of the males in the class managed some sympathy for Neville as he pushed himself from his seat, but Harry decided to take more direct action.
"Professor, maybe you could show us instead how you would have handled the situation," he said.
His gut feeling had been right; the opportunity to show off to the class seemed to take Lockhart over.
"That's a splendid idea," he exclaimed. He moved as if to bound up the stairs in the room to his office, but paused for just a moment, examining Harry's face. "Wait a moment...I've met you before. You're Lupin's boy, right? What is your name?"
"Harry P-"
"Ah, Harry Lupin...can't quite say it rolls off the tongue like Gilderoy Lockhart, but it's a fine name, fine name. Wait just here a moment. Sean!"
Lockhart vanished up the stairs, leaving the class to its own devices. Neville offered Harry a grateful smile.
"I wasn't sure what I was going to do," he muttered. "I certainly can't-" He broke off, flushing, and Harry nodded. Neville couldn't even remember the fateful day still celebrated by most of the wizarding world, and thus couldn't manage to demonstrate anything to the class, even if he wanted to. And Harry didn't blame him for not wanting to remember that day. He himself had had a run-in with the (sort of) late wizard, and the memory had the power to leave him in a cold sweat.
And then Lockhart reappeared, trailed by Sirius, who looked murderous and was carrying a cage covered with a black cloth.
"I'm afraid I won't be able to humor you, Mr. Lupin, but I've got a lovely way to begin this year." He reached back and whipped off the cloth, revealing...
"Cornish pixies?" Ron demanded. "Cornish pixies?! You've got to be bloody-" He stopped suddenly as Lockhart flicked the cage with his wand; the door exploded open, followed only a moment later by the flood of tiny blue creatures.
"Don't worry," Lockhart shouted over the screams as pixies picked up backpacks, papers, students, throwing the room into utter chaos, "I've got this completely under control. Peskipiksi Pesternomi!"
A passing pixie snatched his wand from his hand, and Professor Lockhart paled.
In his rush to return to his office, he shoved Sirius out of his way, nearly unbalancing him. When he reached the top of the stairs, he shouted down at his assistant,
"Sean, could you be a dear and show them how to capture the pixies? Thank you, I knew you'd help!" With that, he slammed the door to his office closed, leaving only four people in the room, the remaining students having fled the classroom.
Sirius calmly placed the remains of the cage onto the floor, and turned to Harry, Ron, and Neville, the only students who had not been involved in the mass exodus.
"Would you mind helping out?" he asked, flashing them the winning grin he always used when he knew his quarry couldn't resist the 'Sirius smile'. He yanked his wand from his robes, and flicked it negligently towards a pixie. "Calidi sangue," he snapped, and the pixie, its chirping growing faint and tired, began to slow, until it came to rest on a desk, its wings barely flapping. "It's a simple charm, and one I would have chosen for this."
And then the next few minutes passed into students practicing a stunning charm with an almost-teacher, and when it was done, the three boys left the class chatting, and Harry wondering why Dumbledore hadn't told Lockhart to go packing when he could have Sirius teaching. Because in his opinion, Lockhart hadn't known how to handle the pixies.
"That was a brilliant lesson!" Hermione announced when she met the boys outside the classroom. Harry exchanged a weary glance with Ron; Neville seemed to have retreated into his own world, and wasn't responding to much.
Hermione was flushed and bright, as if she'd just been given a book with more than a thousand pages in it.
Harry couldn't quite figure out why. She'd spent the past hour outside of the classroom while her teacher hid in his office from pixies!
Even Professor Quirrel had proved competent in his field, even though his field had ended up including more Dark Arts than Defense...
"Oh, yes, Professor Lockhart came out through a side passage and told us how he once helped eliminate a pixie infestation in Surrey. He wanted us to understand how dangerous pixies can be, and that you always need to be prepared for the unexpected."
"'Mione, the man fled from a roomful of pixies like You-Know-Who was on his trail! We had to help Sirius capture them because Professor Blondie couldn't handle them himself!"
"Really, Mr. Weasley, it is to be expected that you speak about your professors with more respect. Five points from Gryffindor." With a startled gasp, Ron spun around to meet the gaze of Professor Snape. The Potions master merely gave Ron a thin smile, and then brushed past the students towards the dungeons.
"Bloody stupid Snape," he muttered, folding his arms. "I'll bet he knows that Lockhart's incompetent, and is just out to get me."
"No, Ron, you need to treat your teachers with respect," Hermione growled. "I don't see where you get off talking about Professor Lockhart like that. He's a genius and I won't hear a word against him."
With that, she turned, heading towards Herbology.
---
It was midway through October when Hermione threw herself onto a chair in the Common Room and complained she was bored.
Harry gave her a sharp look, and asked her what first came to mind.
"'Mione, you've always got some homework you think you should be doing, or someone to bother about studying, or someone to tutor..."
"No, I don't," Hermione complained. "Neville was studying over the summer, and he's gotten much better. I'm surprised you haven't noticed."
Now that she'd mentioned it, Harry could see what Hermione was talking about. Neville had been more confident in classes, speaking up a little more often, not stammering when called upon, even growing less terrified during Potions.
A sudden laugh caught his attention, and another aspect of the changing Neville occurred to Harry. The boy had been growing more confident socially, as well. He'd started gathering some of the more nervous first-years around him, and took some of the stares he still got with cheerful dismissal. He suspected Neville was a shoo-in for prefect fifth year. And that was surprising, given the way Neville had been even up until the end of their first year.
But leading fellow students through a maze, and taking a risk that could lead to your own death, and then...
Neville hadn't met Lord Voldemort face-to-face, but the night must have changed him, as well.
"Well, Hermione, you can't rely on tutoring helpless people all your life," Harry said, shrugging as Neville began telling a rather animated story to a small group of students that included Ginny Weasley.
She was looking at Neville in a distinctly moist way, and Harry found himself wondering, rather relieved, if her crush had undergone a shift. Neville was a nice boy...but he wasn't certain if he should let Ron know about it.
"Of course I can, as long as you and Ron continue to skive off your Astronomy homework," Hermione retorted. Harry snorted, and retreated upstairs to his room. 'The Book of Ages' was sitting, rather innocently, on his bed, next to a rather beaten set of tarot cards. Harry frowned. Sometimes, it seemed like that book had a mind of its own.
Ron had given Harry the tarot cards; the redhead didn't believe in Divination, but Harry had wondered about it enough to try it out.
Sitting on his bed, he set aside the book and picked up the cards. He began to shuffle them, letting his mind drift. He wondered what the year would bring. He was looking forward to it, but the warning still rung in his mind. Warnings from a dream, and from a house-elf.
With quick movements, he revealed the top three cards of the deck.
The Eight of Swords. The Moon. The Ten of Swords. Seeing the three images, Harry's mind began to swim.
Restriction. Reflection. Bondage. Control.
The Eight and the Ten, so close, yet a thousand miles apart.
And between them...illusion. Falsehoods.
Death.
Trembling, Harry glanced at the next card in the series.
It was not Death. For that, he was grateful. It was the Five of Cups; a black-robed figure stood before five overturned goblets. With a sigh, Harry put away the cards, and then glanced at the window.
The sun was edging close to the horizon. He hadn't realized it had gotten late. A shiver touched him, even though it was still warm. He'd heard stories about the Sight, how men and women granted with the ability to see the future could lose hours, days, when taken by a vision.
True Seers had few friends; one never knew when the Sight would appear, giving warnings of a friend's death, or a tragedy to both of them. Harry shook himself. He'd simply fallen asleep, lost track of time.
Hermione thought Divination was a waste of time. And she was usually right about these things.
He went down to dinner, confident in his decision.
He didn't think to ponder what the Five of Cups meant. He hadn't read enough to know that the Five of Cups was a card of loss, of bereavement.
He didn't know it was the card to fear when you feared death.
---
The weeks dragged on, until the first Quidditch match, the day before Halloween. Harry was fairly vibrating by the morning of the match, and Ron almost as nervous as he was.
"Honestly, you two," Hermione groaned, shooting them both a sharp glare over the breakfast table, "You're acting like Harry's going to Azkaban for the rest of his life. It's a Quidditch match."
"Against Slytherin," Ron muttered. "Which is almost as bad. They cheat."
"That's an unfair generalization and you know it," Hermione snapped. "Nothing untoward is going to happen to Harry, I assure you. Now eat your breakfast and stop worrying. Harry will do fine, won't you, Harry?"
Harry shrugged, and glanced up at the Slytherin table. Draco, looking towards the Gryffindors, gave a weak smile, and then looked down at his meal. Harry understood. Draco Malfoy had replaced the Slytherins' old Seeker, and that meant the two of them were competing today. There seemed to be a tacit agreement that they would try and keep their teammates in line, but there were some things you couldn't halt, and among them was the ancient rivalry between Slytherin and Gryffindor.
Although his almost-friendship with Draco Malfoy made a mockery of the whole thing. Harry smiled privately at that. He felt very rebellious doing something Sirius would disapprove of, Sirius, who approved of everything from drinking and smoking to wild parties and raunchy jokes. It made things feel a little balanced, knowing what his father and Sirius must have put their respective parents through.
Well, really just the Potters. The Blacks, as a whole, deserved every ounce of misery they received. Vega Black, especially, made Harry's whole body tingle. He'd met her only once, and if he never saw her again, he'd be delighted.
---
"And Gryffindor SCORES! That puts Gryffindor in the lead, 100 to 90. And it looks like both Potter and Malfoy are scouring the field. Neither one's spotted the Snitch yet. This might turn out to be a long game, folks. I hope you're fed up well."
Harry grimaced as he executed another wide turn, eyes flicking across the field. The game had been going on for nearly an hour now, and the Snitch had evaded all notice. He wondered idly how they kept it inside the pitch, and whether it had fled. That would be a horrible joke, to play for days, only to realize the Snitch was inside the castle or something.
Responding to what could only be an extra sense, Harry pulled right just as a Bludger sped past him, followed immediately by George Weasley, who batted the black ball towards Marcus Flint, the Slytherin captain.
The ball made it halfway before it turned around and shot towards Harry.
Harry dodged again, only this time, he kept moving as the Bludger, homing in on him like a Muggle missile, followed.
George barely holding up behind him, Harry swerved through the other players, trying to pull the Bludger close enough to someone else to shift its attention onto them. But nothing worked.
With a desperate shout, George gave his broom a burst of speed and came between Harry and the Bludger. Harry turned to face forward, but whipped his head back around when he heard a horrible 'crack'. George's bat was shattered, and his hand was poised at a very bad angle. And the Bludger was still coming.
With a shout, Harry plunged forward, eyes still scanning the air for the Snitch, the goal that would end this game and get the Bludger away from him.
Vaguely, he saw a flash of blond at his side, and heard someone shout a spell. The Bludger rocked, but didn't deviate from its murderous course. Harry began a complicated pattern of movement, forcing the Bludger to weave after him; if he hadn't taken such an evasive course, he might not have noticed the Snitch, hovering just above Draco's head.
Harry grinned, and pushed his broom towards the other boy. Draco's eyes widened in shock when he realized that both Harry and the Bludger were heading straight for him. Harry laughed in triumph as Draco pulled away, fleeing the apparently suicidal Seeker. And then his hand was around the fluttering golden ball, Dean Thomas was shouting in ecstasy, and Draco's warning hit his ears a fraction of a moment too late.
"Watch out, you bloody-"
CRACK!
Harry fell from his broom, his arm numb from the shock of the plummeting Bludger. He didn't remember hitting the ground, supposing he'd lost consciousness sometime during the fall.
When he awoke, the sight of lavender nearly sent him into a fit.
"Oh, poor boy's obviously been given a Madness Hex; I've got just the solution for that-" Professor Lockhart was muttering. Harry just tried to struggle out from under the man, but the sharp pain that suddenly dominated his senses left him gasping for breath. "And a broken arm-I'll fix that right up."
"Shouldn't you wait for Madam Pomfrey?" Harry heard Draco ask in the background. Harry tried to send a mental thought along the lines of 'get him away from me', but it seemed the panicked look on his face was the only communication he was going to be sending. It seemed to be enough, however, when Sirius got close enough.
His godfather's eyes were a cross between enraged and terrified, and Harry would have been amused had he not been in so much pain and had Gilderoy Lockhart not been about to try and fix a broken arm.
"Get away from him!" Sirius snarled, and there was a sudden blur of movement, a flash of black, and then Sirius ran into the Defense Teacher, who dropped his wand with a squeak and fell back a few feet. And then Harry saw Madam Pomfrey approaching, and his heart lifted. She would be able to handle things, and...
"Mr. Black! Get off Mr. Lockhart right this moment!" She then was at Harry's side, clucking at him. "I knew I'd see you again. It's just like your father, couldn't go a single year without some injury or another. Now, can anyone help us up?" Remus and Sirius both appeared by her side and obligingly helped carry Harry up to the castle, much to Harry's embarrassment. He tried telling them his arm was broken, not his legs, but neither seemed inclined to care. And Madam Pomfrey seemed pleased, whether at Harry's being forced to act with common sense for once, or Sirius being responsible, Harry wasn't sure which. After all, Sirius had ended up in the Infirmary far more than Harry had; it was a point of personal pride, however, that Sirius had never been as worse off as the people sent to the Infirmary at the same time.
But the train of thought made Harry tired, and he fell asleep before they got inside.
---
A quiet noise woke Harry, and he reached out towards the sound before his eyes were even open. He must have moved pretty quickly, because there was a high-pitched squeak, and then something hit the floor with a soft 'thud'.
Harry thought he recognized the sound, and when he got his glasses back on, the face of Dobby looked up at him mournfully from the floor.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded, glaring at the small creature. At first Dobby didn't respond, and that gave Harry a moment to examine the house-elf. The creature cowered on the floor, a small bottle clutched in his hands. There was a strange scent rising from the bottle, one of roses, and...
"And what in the world are you doing with a Draught of the Living Dead?"
Dobby squeaked and tried to hide the bottle, but Harry jumped off his bed and snatched it from him. Professor Snape kept a bottle of the Draught of the Living Dead on his desk; it was said that he threatened the more serious offenders in his class with a sip from it. The fact that it was over twenty years old made the potion even more dubious than it otherwise would.
It was also highly illegal.
"Er..."
Harry narrowed his eyes. He had his suspicions about Dobby. That the little creature appeared so soon after his odd dream of a warning was more than coincidence. And now that he was skulking around Harry's hospital bed, with a highly potent demi-poison.
"Out with it."
"Harry Potter is in terrible danger! Dobby wants to get Harry Potter away from Hogwarts. So when Harry got to school anyway, Dobby thought if Harry was hurt very badly..." Harry shook the elf violently, growling.
"That was you?" Dobby only bent his head as Harry shook him back and forth. "Lockhart nearly got near me with a wand because of that! I'm going to kill you..."
"Dobby hears that a lot. Master is a wonderful man, but he thinks Dobby does not do well, and he thinks Dobby is too much trouble." Harry slowed his shaking down, and then stopped. Dobby hung loosely in his grasp.
"I have to stay here, Dobby," Harry explained. "I've got friends here. Hermione, Ron, Neville...and Ron expects me to keep an eye out for Ginny." Dobby nodded, his eyes sad.
"Dobby understands. If Dobby had friends, Dobby would want to protect them, too. Dobby understands that Harry Potter has friends. But Harry Potter does not have as many friends as he thinks he does. You would do well to remember that." There was a sharp crack, and both house-elf and bottle vanished, leaving Harry alone in the Infirmary.
---
"It'sssss Halloweeen...letssss usssss go. Letsssss ussss out. Letsss usssss kill."
Harry sat up, shouting in surprise. However, even as he woke, the voice grew faint, moving...somewhere else. Harry threw himself out of bed, only bothering to grab his glasses before he fled the room. He followed the faint sounds of a speaking voice through the hallways, stumbling over stone and rugs in his pajamas. He remembered that voice, and he knew it was bad.
He skidded around a corner, just barely avoiding a collision with Sirius, who was wandering in the opposite direction, clothed only in an ungodly pink bathrobe.
"Harry?" he asked, sounding unusually energetic for five in the morning. Harry took no notice, sprinting down the hall as the voice in his head rose to an almost (he hated to think it) orgasmic crescendo.
"Yesssss..."
Harry grabbed his wand, which burned to the touch, slammed into the door from which the voice came, and shouted at the terror he was sure laid within.
And he came face-to-face with a full-grown werewolf.
He had forgotten that it was still the night of the full moon, and that the moon didn't set for another 15 minutes.
He forgot to move, to breathe, or to think, which is why it took him nearly a minute to realize the wolf wasn't moving. Or breathing. His godfather's finace, in fact, looked stuffed. Harry stepped away, tears gathering in his eyes.
"Oh, shit."
"Wha-Harry? Harry, what did you do?" Harry started, and turned to face Sirius. The question was obviously rhetorical, as Sirius could see into the room. And, beyond that, Sirius looked heartbroken.
"I-I don't know," Harry managed to choke out. "I just-"
"It is obvious what has happened here," Professor Snape said from the side in his smooth, cutting voice. "Harry Potter has killed his teacher."
"I'm quite certain your initial assessment is mistaken, Severus," a new voice intoned. Professor Dumbledore swept past the tableau, the dead wolf, and pointed at a corner of the room nearly invisible from the hall.
For, written in blood on the stone of the room was a message. 'THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. DIRTY BLOOD WILL MARK YOU FOR DEATH.'
---
Ooh...yeah, I like cliffhangers. The next part is already in the works, so you won't have to wait long.
I think.
Anyhoo, enjoy!
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Standard Disclaimer: This is definitively AU, I'm not JK, don't make any claim to these characters, am making no profit from the writing of this, and rated PG-13 for death, weird stuff, and wonky symbolism.
---
At the breakfast table the next day, Professor Trelawney, the rather excitable Divinations professor, spent most of the meal loudly complaining to anyone who would listen that she had known this year would begin in death.
Most of the students, however, bravely tried to ignore it. Most of the population of the school was nursing very unpleasant headaches, and the Gryffindor table was no exception. Apparently, Parvati Pavil had figured out Neville had a mandrake in the school, and in the ensuing scuffle to get it out of the Great Hall, the roots had been pulled out of the dirt, resulting in the school-wide fainting spell.
Money changed hands regarding a sort of running bet as to which house lost points first, and both Neville and Parvati had retreated into melancholy. Harry felt that as the two students closest to the mandrake at the time of detonation, they'd suffered enough, but the Slytherins especially seemed to think differently.
Although, he noted with some relief, he and Draco seemed to have some sort of unspoken truce, and the blond boy stayed out of the event, merely watching from afar.
It was odd, but when the two were in the same room, Harry often got the unpleasant feeling that Draco was watching him. Not just looking at, but watching, as if waiting for something...sometimes, he was reminded of his odd dreams from before the year began, and the visit of the house-elf, something that only a very rich student could have arranged...
Because the other possibility was that Draco was watching him the way that Ginny occasionally looked at him, only with a confidence the first-year student would never match.
The day began with Potions, and with Severus Snape far from his normally cheery mood.
He virtually snarled, "Good morning" to the class, and when asked about the year's curriculum, he nearly hexed Hermione.
It was going to be a long day for everybody.
---
It was the next day when they had their first DADA class of the term, and Professor Lockhart was in (what it would soon prove) usual high spirits.
"Welcome, welcome, all!" he announced to the group of students, many hidden behind high stacks of his own autobiographical works, the assigned texts. "Now, I know you're all eager to jump right in and tackle the hard stuff, but I think that first, we need to see how well you know your Dark Arts, eh?" And with a flourish, he produced a thick stack of papers. "I'm certain you've all had time to look through your textbooks a bit, but I want to see if you've picked anything up. Here's a pop quiz."
It was not, as Harry expected, a quiz on Dark creatures and magic, but rather, a test about the specifics of Lockhart's life. Ranging from questions about Lockhart's personal ambitions ("If all the Dark creatures in the world were to vanish, how would I then contribute to society?") to inane questions whose only connection to Defense Against the Dark Arts was Lockhart himself ("What is my favorite shade of black?"), Harry knew he failed miserably.
He really hoped this test wasn't graded.
After an inordinately short amount of time, Lockhart announced the end of the test and whisked up all of the papers. Oddly, he did this by going around the room to everyone's desk, as opposed to the much quicker manner of most of the other teachers, simply summoning the tests to his desk in a stack.
Then Lockhart clapped his hands and took roll. When he called "Longbottom, Neville," he paused for a very long moment, and then gave a thousand-watt grin.
"Mr. Longbottom. Well, I quite imagine there's not much I can teach you, eh? Anyone who can take He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named must be phenomenal at Defense. Come on up and show us something, hmm?" Most of the males in the class managed some sympathy for Neville as he pushed himself from his seat, but Harry decided to take more direct action.
"Professor, maybe you could show us instead how you would have handled the situation," he said.
His gut feeling had been right; the opportunity to show off to the class seemed to take Lockhart over.
"That's a splendid idea," he exclaimed. He moved as if to bound up the stairs in the room to his office, but paused for just a moment, examining Harry's face. "Wait a moment...I've met you before. You're Lupin's boy, right? What is your name?"
"Harry P-"
"Ah, Harry Lupin...can't quite say it rolls off the tongue like Gilderoy Lockhart, but it's a fine name, fine name. Wait just here a moment. Sean!"
Lockhart vanished up the stairs, leaving the class to its own devices. Neville offered Harry a grateful smile.
"I wasn't sure what I was going to do," he muttered. "I certainly can't-" He broke off, flushing, and Harry nodded. Neville couldn't even remember the fateful day still celebrated by most of the wizarding world, and thus couldn't manage to demonstrate anything to the class, even if he wanted to. And Harry didn't blame him for not wanting to remember that day. He himself had had a run-in with the (sort of) late wizard, and the memory had the power to leave him in a cold sweat.
And then Lockhart reappeared, trailed by Sirius, who looked murderous and was carrying a cage covered with a black cloth.
"I'm afraid I won't be able to humor you, Mr. Lupin, but I've got a lovely way to begin this year." He reached back and whipped off the cloth, revealing...
"Cornish pixies?" Ron demanded. "Cornish pixies?! You've got to be bloody-" He stopped suddenly as Lockhart flicked the cage with his wand; the door exploded open, followed only a moment later by the flood of tiny blue creatures.
"Don't worry," Lockhart shouted over the screams as pixies picked up backpacks, papers, students, throwing the room into utter chaos, "I've got this completely under control. Peskipiksi Pesternomi!"
A passing pixie snatched his wand from his hand, and Professor Lockhart paled.
In his rush to return to his office, he shoved Sirius out of his way, nearly unbalancing him. When he reached the top of the stairs, he shouted down at his assistant,
"Sean, could you be a dear and show them how to capture the pixies? Thank you, I knew you'd help!" With that, he slammed the door to his office closed, leaving only four people in the room, the remaining students having fled the classroom.
Sirius calmly placed the remains of the cage onto the floor, and turned to Harry, Ron, and Neville, the only students who had not been involved in the mass exodus.
"Would you mind helping out?" he asked, flashing them the winning grin he always used when he knew his quarry couldn't resist the 'Sirius smile'. He yanked his wand from his robes, and flicked it negligently towards a pixie. "Calidi sangue," he snapped, and the pixie, its chirping growing faint and tired, began to slow, until it came to rest on a desk, its wings barely flapping. "It's a simple charm, and one I would have chosen for this."
And then the next few minutes passed into students practicing a stunning charm with an almost-teacher, and when it was done, the three boys left the class chatting, and Harry wondering why Dumbledore hadn't told Lockhart to go packing when he could have Sirius teaching. Because in his opinion, Lockhart hadn't known how to handle the pixies.
"That was a brilliant lesson!" Hermione announced when she met the boys outside the classroom. Harry exchanged a weary glance with Ron; Neville seemed to have retreated into his own world, and wasn't responding to much.
Hermione was flushed and bright, as if she'd just been given a book with more than a thousand pages in it.
Harry couldn't quite figure out why. She'd spent the past hour outside of the classroom while her teacher hid in his office from pixies!
Even Professor Quirrel had proved competent in his field, even though his field had ended up including more Dark Arts than Defense...
"Oh, yes, Professor Lockhart came out through a side passage and told us how he once helped eliminate a pixie infestation in Surrey. He wanted us to understand how dangerous pixies can be, and that you always need to be prepared for the unexpected."
"'Mione, the man fled from a roomful of pixies like You-Know-Who was on his trail! We had to help Sirius capture them because Professor Blondie couldn't handle them himself!"
"Really, Mr. Weasley, it is to be expected that you speak about your professors with more respect. Five points from Gryffindor." With a startled gasp, Ron spun around to meet the gaze of Professor Snape. The Potions master merely gave Ron a thin smile, and then brushed past the students towards the dungeons.
"Bloody stupid Snape," he muttered, folding his arms. "I'll bet he knows that Lockhart's incompetent, and is just out to get me."
"No, Ron, you need to treat your teachers with respect," Hermione growled. "I don't see where you get off talking about Professor Lockhart like that. He's a genius and I won't hear a word against him."
With that, she turned, heading towards Herbology.
---
It was midway through October when Hermione threw herself onto a chair in the Common Room and complained she was bored.
Harry gave her a sharp look, and asked her what first came to mind.
"'Mione, you've always got some homework you think you should be doing, or someone to bother about studying, or someone to tutor..."
"No, I don't," Hermione complained. "Neville was studying over the summer, and he's gotten much better. I'm surprised you haven't noticed."
Now that she'd mentioned it, Harry could see what Hermione was talking about. Neville had been more confident in classes, speaking up a little more often, not stammering when called upon, even growing less terrified during Potions.
A sudden laugh caught his attention, and another aspect of the changing Neville occurred to Harry. The boy had been growing more confident socially, as well. He'd started gathering some of the more nervous first-years around him, and took some of the stares he still got with cheerful dismissal. He suspected Neville was a shoo-in for prefect fifth year. And that was surprising, given the way Neville had been even up until the end of their first year.
But leading fellow students through a maze, and taking a risk that could lead to your own death, and then...
Neville hadn't met Lord Voldemort face-to-face, but the night must have changed him, as well.
"Well, Hermione, you can't rely on tutoring helpless people all your life," Harry said, shrugging as Neville began telling a rather animated story to a small group of students that included Ginny Weasley.
She was looking at Neville in a distinctly moist way, and Harry found himself wondering, rather relieved, if her crush had undergone a shift. Neville was a nice boy...but he wasn't certain if he should let Ron know about it.
"Of course I can, as long as you and Ron continue to skive off your Astronomy homework," Hermione retorted. Harry snorted, and retreated upstairs to his room. 'The Book of Ages' was sitting, rather innocently, on his bed, next to a rather beaten set of tarot cards. Harry frowned. Sometimes, it seemed like that book had a mind of its own.
Ron had given Harry the tarot cards; the redhead didn't believe in Divination, but Harry had wondered about it enough to try it out.
Sitting on his bed, he set aside the book and picked up the cards. He began to shuffle them, letting his mind drift. He wondered what the year would bring. He was looking forward to it, but the warning still rung in his mind. Warnings from a dream, and from a house-elf.
With quick movements, he revealed the top three cards of the deck.
The Eight of Swords. The Moon. The Ten of Swords. Seeing the three images, Harry's mind began to swim.
Restriction. Reflection. Bondage. Control.
The Eight and the Ten, so close, yet a thousand miles apart.
And between them...illusion. Falsehoods.
Death.
Trembling, Harry glanced at the next card in the series.
It was not Death. For that, he was grateful. It was the Five of Cups; a black-robed figure stood before five overturned goblets. With a sigh, Harry put away the cards, and then glanced at the window.
The sun was edging close to the horizon. He hadn't realized it had gotten late. A shiver touched him, even though it was still warm. He'd heard stories about the Sight, how men and women granted with the ability to see the future could lose hours, days, when taken by a vision.
True Seers had few friends; one never knew when the Sight would appear, giving warnings of a friend's death, or a tragedy to both of them. Harry shook himself. He'd simply fallen asleep, lost track of time.
Hermione thought Divination was a waste of time. And she was usually right about these things.
He went down to dinner, confident in his decision.
He didn't think to ponder what the Five of Cups meant. He hadn't read enough to know that the Five of Cups was a card of loss, of bereavement.
He didn't know it was the card to fear when you feared death.
---
The weeks dragged on, until the first Quidditch match, the day before Halloween. Harry was fairly vibrating by the morning of the match, and Ron almost as nervous as he was.
"Honestly, you two," Hermione groaned, shooting them both a sharp glare over the breakfast table, "You're acting like Harry's going to Azkaban for the rest of his life. It's a Quidditch match."
"Against Slytherin," Ron muttered. "Which is almost as bad. They cheat."
"That's an unfair generalization and you know it," Hermione snapped. "Nothing untoward is going to happen to Harry, I assure you. Now eat your breakfast and stop worrying. Harry will do fine, won't you, Harry?"
Harry shrugged, and glanced up at the Slytherin table. Draco, looking towards the Gryffindors, gave a weak smile, and then looked down at his meal. Harry understood. Draco Malfoy had replaced the Slytherins' old Seeker, and that meant the two of them were competing today. There seemed to be a tacit agreement that they would try and keep their teammates in line, but there were some things you couldn't halt, and among them was the ancient rivalry between Slytherin and Gryffindor.
Although his almost-friendship with Draco Malfoy made a mockery of the whole thing. Harry smiled privately at that. He felt very rebellious doing something Sirius would disapprove of, Sirius, who approved of everything from drinking and smoking to wild parties and raunchy jokes. It made things feel a little balanced, knowing what his father and Sirius must have put their respective parents through.
Well, really just the Potters. The Blacks, as a whole, deserved every ounce of misery they received. Vega Black, especially, made Harry's whole body tingle. He'd met her only once, and if he never saw her again, he'd be delighted.
---
"And Gryffindor SCORES! That puts Gryffindor in the lead, 100 to 90. And it looks like both Potter and Malfoy are scouring the field. Neither one's spotted the Snitch yet. This might turn out to be a long game, folks. I hope you're fed up well."
Harry grimaced as he executed another wide turn, eyes flicking across the field. The game had been going on for nearly an hour now, and the Snitch had evaded all notice. He wondered idly how they kept it inside the pitch, and whether it had fled. That would be a horrible joke, to play for days, only to realize the Snitch was inside the castle or something.
Responding to what could only be an extra sense, Harry pulled right just as a Bludger sped past him, followed immediately by George Weasley, who batted the black ball towards Marcus Flint, the Slytherin captain.
The ball made it halfway before it turned around and shot towards Harry.
Harry dodged again, only this time, he kept moving as the Bludger, homing in on him like a Muggle missile, followed.
George barely holding up behind him, Harry swerved through the other players, trying to pull the Bludger close enough to someone else to shift its attention onto them. But nothing worked.
With a desperate shout, George gave his broom a burst of speed and came between Harry and the Bludger. Harry turned to face forward, but whipped his head back around when he heard a horrible 'crack'. George's bat was shattered, and his hand was poised at a very bad angle. And the Bludger was still coming.
With a shout, Harry plunged forward, eyes still scanning the air for the Snitch, the goal that would end this game and get the Bludger away from him.
Vaguely, he saw a flash of blond at his side, and heard someone shout a spell. The Bludger rocked, but didn't deviate from its murderous course. Harry began a complicated pattern of movement, forcing the Bludger to weave after him; if he hadn't taken such an evasive course, he might not have noticed the Snitch, hovering just above Draco's head.
Harry grinned, and pushed his broom towards the other boy. Draco's eyes widened in shock when he realized that both Harry and the Bludger were heading straight for him. Harry laughed in triumph as Draco pulled away, fleeing the apparently suicidal Seeker. And then his hand was around the fluttering golden ball, Dean Thomas was shouting in ecstasy, and Draco's warning hit his ears a fraction of a moment too late.
"Watch out, you bloody-"
CRACK!
Harry fell from his broom, his arm numb from the shock of the plummeting Bludger. He didn't remember hitting the ground, supposing he'd lost consciousness sometime during the fall.
When he awoke, the sight of lavender nearly sent him into a fit.
"Oh, poor boy's obviously been given a Madness Hex; I've got just the solution for that-" Professor Lockhart was muttering. Harry just tried to struggle out from under the man, but the sharp pain that suddenly dominated his senses left him gasping for breath. "And a broken arm-I'll fix that right up."
"Shouldn't you wait for Madam Pomfrey?" Harry heard Draco ask in the background. Harry tried to send a mental thought along the lines of 'get him away from me', but it seemed the panicked look on his face was the only communication he was going to be sending. It seemed to be enough, however, when Sirius got close enough.
His godfather's eyes were a cross between enraged and terrified, and Harry would have been amused had he not been in so much pain and had Gilderoy Lockhart not been about to try and fix a broken arm.
"Get away from him!" Sirius snarled, and there was a sudden blur of movement, a flash of black, and then Sirius ran into the Defense Teacher, who dropped his wand with a squeak and fell back a few feet. And then Harry saw Madam Pomfrey approaching, and his heart lifted. She would be able to handle things, and...
"Mr. Black! Get off Mr. Lockhart right this moment!" She then was at Harry's side, clucking at him. "I knew I'd see you again. It's just like your father, couldn't go a single year without some injury or another. Now, can anyone help us up?" Remus and Sirius both appeared by her side and obligingly helped carry Harry up to the castle, much to Harry's embarrassment. He tried telling them his arm was broken, not his legs, but neither seemed inclined to care. And Madam Pomfrey seemed pleased, whether at Harry's being forced to act with common sense for once, or Sirius being responsible, Harry wasn't sure which. After all, Sirius had ended up in the Infirmary far more than Harry had; it was a point of personal pride, however, that Sirius had never been as worse off as the people sent to the Infirmary at the same time.
But the train of thought made Harry tired, and he fell asleep before they got inside.
---
A quiet noise woke Harry, and he reached out towards the sound before his eyes were even open. He must have moved pretty quickly, because there was a high-pitched squeak, and then something hit the floor with a soft 'thud'.
Harry thought he recognized the sound, and when he got his glasses back on, the face of Dobby looked up at him mournfully from the floor.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded, glaring at the small creature. At first Dobby didn't respond, and that gave Harry a moment to examine the house-elf. The creature cowered on the floor, a small bottle clutched in his hands. There was a strange scent rising from the bottle, one of roses, and...
"And what in the world are you doing with a Draught of the Living Dead?"
Dobby squeaked and tried to hide the bottle, but Harry jumped off his bed and snatched it from him. Professor Snape kept a bottle of the Draught of the Living Dead on his desk; it was said that he threatened the more serious offenders in his class with a sip from it. The fact that it was over twenty years old made the potion even more dubious than it otherwise would.
It was also highly illegal.
"Er..."
Harry narrowed his eyes. He had his suspicions about Dobby. That the little creature appeared so soon after his odd dream of a warning was more than coincidence. And now that he was skulking around Harry's hospital bed, with a highly potent demi-poison.
"Out with it."
"Harry Potter is in terrible danger! Dobby wants to get Harry Potter away from Hogwarts. So when Harry got to school anyway, Dobby thought if Harry was hurt very badly..." Harry shook the elf violently, growling.
"That was you?" Dobby only bent his head as Harry shook him back and forth. "Lockhart nearly got near me with a wand because of that! I'm going to kill you..."
"Dobby hears that a lot. Master is a wonderful man, but he thinks Dobby does not do well, and he thinks Dobby is too much trouble." Harry slowed his shaking down, and then stopped. Dobby hung loosely in his grasp.
"I have to stay here, Dobby," Harry explained. "I've got friends here. Hermione, Ron, Neville...and Ron expects me to keep an eye out for Ginny." Dobby nodded, his eyes sad.
"Dobby understands. If Dobby had friends, Dobby would want to protect them, too. Dobby understands that Harry Potter has friends. But Harry Potter does not have as many friends as he thinks he does. You would do well to remember that." There was a sharp crack, and both house-elf and bottle vanished, leaving Harry alone in the Infirmary.
---
"It'sssss Halloweeen...letssss usssss go. Letsssss ussss out. Letsss usssss kill."
Harry sat up, shouting in surprise. However, even as he woke, the voice grew faint, moving...somewhere else. Harry threw himself out of bed, only bothering to grab his glasses before he fled the room. He followed the faint sounds of a speaking voice through the hallways, stumbling over stone and rugs in his pajamas. He remembered that voice, and he knew it was bad.
He skidded around a corner, just barely avoiding a collision with Sirius, who was wandering in the opposite direction, clothed only in an ungodly pink bathrobe.
"Harry?" he asked, sounding unusually energetic for five in the morning. Harry took no notice, sprinting down the hall as the voice in his head rose to an almost (he hated to think it) orgasmic crescendo.
"Yesssss..."
Harry grabbed his wand, which burned to the touch, slammed into the door from which the voice came, and shouted at the terror he was sure laid within.
And he came face-to-face with a full-grown werewolf.
He had forgotten that it was still the night of the full moon, and that the moon didn't set for another 15 minutes.
He forgot to move, to breathe, or to think, which is why it took him nearly a minute to realize the wolf wasn't moving. Or breathing. His godfather's finace, in fact, looked stuffed. Harry stepped away, tears gathering in his eyes.
"Oh, shit."
"Wha-Harry? Harry, what did you do?" Harry started, and turned to face Sirius. The question was obviously rhetorical, as Sirius could see into the room. And, beyond that, Sirius looked heartbroken.
"I-I don't know," Harry managed to choke out. "I just-"
"It is obvious what has happened here," Professor Snape said from the side in his smooth, cutting voice. "Harry Potter has killed his teacher."
"I'm quite certain your initial assessment is mistaken, Severus," a new voice intoned. Professor Dumbledore swept past the tableau, the dead wolf, and pointed at a corner of the room nearly invisible from the hall.
For, written in blood on the stone of the room was a message. 'THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. DIRTY BLOOD WILL MARK YOU FOR DEATH.'
---
Ooh...yeah, I like cliffhangers. The next part is already in the works, so you won't have to wait long.
I think.
Anyhoo, enjoy!