Ok, I'm back! Whoo! Ok, TheGenkiGirl…um…to quote Fred and George, "Ask us no questions and we'll tell you no lies." Naw, really, cant say. I shoulda proof read…*grumbles* what she should have said was…well, cant tell you that, either. Let's just say, she wasn't a broom, but she might have been one of the backup guard. However, you will find out…sooner or later…
Disclaimer: Don't own Harry Potter or the other characters. Just Phoebe and her cat…ehh…thing…Zebidia
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"HARRY! WAKE UP!"
Harry rolled over and put his hands over his ears. No…no, not yet. He wanted to sleep. Needed to sleep.
But Ron's voice persisted.
"Harry! Please, you've gotta get up! It's Hedwig!"
At those words, Harry shot up like a bolt. His owl, he had to know what was wrong.
"What? Where is she? Whats wrong?"
Ron shook his head. It was then that Harry noticed he was grinning.
"Nah, mate, theres nothing wrong…" Ron grinned, "Unless, ofcourse, you don't want a load of little owlets…"
"What do you mean, owlets?" Harry replied, not believing his ears.
"She's just laid a load of eggs." Smirked Ron, "Hedwig's gonna be a Mum!"
Harry lay back down, breathing slowly again and feeling light-headed. He looked at the window. No light shone through it. Then he looked at his watch. 4:30.
"Ron, go back to sleep!" moaned Harry.
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A few hours later and Harry was dragged from sleep again. This time someone was yelling in the hall.
"You coulda screwed it all up!"
"Calm down, it's all ok!"
"No it's not. I'm fed up of you, getting on my case for-"
"But nothing went wrong!"
"Everything! And it's not like your completely-"
"Idiotic fool. You ought to grow up sometime, if you want to-"
"Faultless, because your not! Your just as-"
"Keep your job! I know your only 21, but you need to grow up! Take my-"
"Clumsy as the rest of us, but you try and hide it by acting all high and mighty like your-"
"Advice for once, get a brain!"
"Better than the rest of us! Get a life!"
Harry crept to his door and over to the banister. He looked down and saw Tonks and Kingsley glaring at each other, wands out and looking furious. Phoebe was standing slightly away, looking flustered and helpless. From what he had heard, he figured that Phoebe had been trying to calm them down, while Kingsley told Tonks to grow up.
"I have one! But mine has purpose!" Kingsley yelled.
"Oh really?" snapped Tonks, her face going red in anger, "All work and no play, is it? Cause that's what you reflect! And ofcourse, mine doesn't count, does it? I have fun, but ofcourse I'm not supposed to mention that in front of you!"
That had done it. Kingsley drew out his wand and muttered something. The wand wiggled slightly and doubled itself. It's double turned into a sword.
Apparently, Tonks was thinking along the same lines because her wand did the same.
All the while, Phoebe was looking on, still helpless.
Kingsley took two steps forward. Tonks did the same. They drew out the swords and became involved in a vicious and dangerous sword battle.
About fifteen minutes later, Phoebe had became very fed up and said something (A/N: which, because I don't want this story deleted if someone reports it, I wont print.) loudly. She glanced up, saw Harry and Apparated beside him.
"Hi," she sighed.
"Whats going on?" Harry asked.
"Same old," she replied gloomily, "It's always like that these days. Nymphadora had a little mishap involving a very head-strong Troll and Kingsley blew. We got it under control…" Phoebe grimanced. "Eventually." She mumbled.
"Oh…" Harry replied, not really knowing what to say.
"No serious injuries, though," Phoebe said, looking brighter, "Yet."
"This," said a worried voice from above them, "Is just what Dumbledore always warned us about. Good fighting good."
Harry and Phoebe looked up to see Hermione leaning over a banister above.
"Yes, but-" Phoebe began, but glancing down she groaned, "It's getting bad now. Better go break it up."
Phoebe Disapparated downstairs.
"Look, if you two don't stop fighting like Deatheater and…well…Deatheater, I'm going to tell Mum!" she snapped at her sister. Then turning to Kingsley, "And I'll tell yours, too!"
Kingsley and Tonks muttered something to their swords, which disappeared. But they continued to glare at each other.
"That's good, just keep walking." Phoebe said with a forced smile on her face, "Ignore each other…that's it…"
With that, Phoebe turned around and Harry saw what he had only seen a few times in his life. It was like watching a person shrinking and changing shape. Phoebe had turned into a large white wolf and ran off.
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Harry decided someone really didn't want him to sleep today so he got dressed and went downstairs. No one else was up, but the slamming of two doors told him that Tonks and Kingsley had went to their own rooms in a huff. Harry made his way to the window, where a tapping noise was coming. He opened it and a small owl fluttered in looking extremely tired. Harry realised it was Pigwidgeon.
And he had a letter with Harry's name on it.
Harry unfolded the letter quickly and read it.
"Harry,
I don't know what to tell you first-that I'm fine, or not to write. Well, I suppose I'd better tell you not to write first-then maybe you'll listen! There are some reasons I don't want you to send an owl-mainly because they're on their guard now, and I don't want it to be intercepted. Then because I'm hiding now, and I don't want anyone to know where I am.
Secondly, I am fine. Don't worry, and don't be sad. Despite hiding, I'm happy. I heard Malfoy's in Azkaban-that's great! I'm really happy about that!
I will write again soon, I have much to tell you. But now I have to go feed something."
Harry read and re-read the letter. It hadn't been signed. He had an idea, a vague hope though it was, that maybe, just maybe…
But it couldn't be. He'd seen him die…it was too much to hope for, after he'd got top marks on his Potions OWL.
But he kept that hope in his heart. After all, he, more than anyone, deserved hope, for it was something he rarely had.
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All that day, Tonks and Kingsley seemed very cold towards each other. They didn't speak once and kept throwing each other nasty looks from across the table at dinner.
"Kingsley, you should really try and make it up!" Hermione begged from where she was sitting with Kingsley and Ginny at dinner.
"No." Kingsley said stubbornly.
"Tonks, I'm sure he didn't mean much by it!" Harry tried from where he was sitting with Tonks and Ron.
"Forget it." Replied Tonks, "He's stupid, he is. He's got a stick shoved so far up his-"
"Just try!" Ron and Harry tried again.
No matter how they tried, neither Ginny, Hermione, Ron or Harry could get them to talk again. It was depressing sitting near them at all.
And apparently Phoebe thought along the same lines, as no one had seen her since Tonks and Kingsley had fought, though Lupin guessed she was spending the night in a nearby dog shelters.
"Why would she do that?" asked Ron, bewildered.
"Oh, she often does that." Chuckled Lupin, "Frightens the life out of the owners in the morning, when they go to check on her and she's gone."
Ron raised an eyebrow and said, "Did someone, by any chance, play Quidditch with her when she was a baby, using her as the Bludger?"
Lupin laughed, "No. She just cant stand being under the same roof as her sister and Kingsley when they fight."
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But the next day, Phoebe didn't come back. Nor the next, or the one following that. Infact, on the third day, some of the other members of the Order seemed worried.
"Are you sure you checked all of the dog shelters or animal rescue centres in the country?" Tonks asked Kingsley worriedly.
They had seemed to melt the ice once Phoebe had been missing for a few days. Kingsley felt sorry for Tonks and both had reached an un-spoken agreement to try and be friendlier towards each other.
"I'm sure," he replied, "What about cat shelters?"
"Done. She would never be a cat, anyway, she doesn't really like them." Tonks replied.
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The afternoon that followed, however brought Mad Eye Moody, and any hope of finding Phoebe alive again, for Harry and Ron, was extinguished.
"This is the way things were in the old days," Moody told Harry and Ron, "It all started this way. Someone'd go missing…"
"Then what?" asked Ron cautiously.
"They'd be found a couple of weeks later. Maybe in a ditch, maybe in a shed." Moody replied, "Didn't matter much in the end. They all had one thing in common. They were dead."
Harry exchanged glances with Ron, though feeling that maybe Moody was right. Maybe Phoebe had met a Deatheater.
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That night, Harry was looking out his window to the lane below. True, if someone was standing in that lane, looking up at the Manor, they wouldn't be able to see it. That was when he noticed two frighteningly yellow little lights shining up at him. No, he decided, no, they weren't lights. They couldn't be lights, what lights were almond shaped and yellow with two black slits in the middle?
The light…things…stayed in the shadows for a few more minutes. They started to move forward slowly but steadily. Harry realised what he was looking at were two eyes, belonging to a magnificent little black cat, with some small pattern on its right fore-leg. What that pattern was, Harry couldn't see, but it was there nonetheless. The cat had sat down again. It began cleaning itself, first rising it's right paw up to its little white nose and bringing it down again, then rising it's left to its eyes and bringing it down again. All the while, Harry was watching it's little paws with their white claws going up and down. As he watched it, the cat didn't take it's yellow eyes off the same spot. Harry yawned and moved closer to the glass, trying to make out exactly what the cat could be watching. Something stirred behind the cat, making it's silky black form move forward. Harry watched as glossy coat shone in the moonlight as it sat back down again.
And it was watching him.
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There! I wanted to make it longer, but I couldn't cause what I had in mind wouldn't fit in this chapter. What happened to Phoebe? Who wrote that letter?
(A/N: As of September 1 st, I'll be at school again L that means that, maybe, the chapters wont come as freequently, but I'll certainly try. And I'll try hard!)
