The Fifth House
Disclaimer: Let's see. What I own: Kylie, Tomas, Ray, plot, Terces, The five powers, etc. Does anyone see Harry Potter in there? Didn't think so.
Author's Note: I'm on a roll here, like a writing roll. I'm loving it! Keep the reviews coming people! By the way, I hope you all like Kylie, cause she's important and here to stay! And never go away, until the dying day! Ok, now I'm starting to talk like Eminem {don't own him either!}. Go figure.
I would like to take this moment to say: HURRAY FOR PEOPLE WHO LOOK UP 'R' WORDS!
Ahem, that said…
Oh my goshness, thanx so much for the reviews! It's like, 86 now!
*dances in decahedrons* Here we go!
Read.
Review.
Rhyme!
Curtains Up!
Chapter Seventeen
"Harry wake up!" Ron Weasley yelled, as he was running into the boys' dorm.
Harry woke up quickly to his friend's voice.
"What? Huh? Did something happen?" Harry asked groggily, trying to find his glasses.
"No, nothing too important. It's one o'clock in the afternoon, and Hermione was getting worried. Oh, and there's a scroll on your bed table,' Ron said.
"Okay, thanks,' Harry said, looking at the scroll after finally finding his glasses.
"Okay. I'll just tell Hermione that you're not dead or fatally ill. See you in a bit," Ron said as he walked towards the door.
Harry nodded. Then, he reached for the scroll.
He unrolled it and began to read the script.
It read:
Harry-
Our next meeting will be November the Sixteenth at midnight. Be sure that you are completely alone at this time, and wait for the portal, which will appear at exactly 12:00 a.m.
Be certain that you finish reading this scroll now, because when you roll it back up or put it down, it will spontaneously combust to insure that no one else reads it.
At the next meeting we will discuss beginning plans of action, as well as report anything new, like letters, suspicious behavior, and such.
Always remember that no matter how difficult these tasks may seem, you are fighting against people your own age, and be grateful that the advantage is on our side. The Fifth Power knows everything Terces does, but will only tell us as much as we need to conquer Terces.
With these words I will end:
Only in lack of light can darkness prevail.
Sincerely,
M.F.
Master of Games
Harry sighed and put down the scroll, to watch it spontaneously combust into flame. Harry had hoped it had all been a dream, but it all seemed just too real. If it had been a dream, which it wasn't, it would have been a very realistic one.
Only in lack of light can darkness prevail? What exactly did that mean? It sounded like something that Harry had heard before; it was familiar.
All too familiar.
Harry saw that the dorm room was empty now, which was a good thing. If anyone had seen the scroll burst into fire, they might have thought that something out-of-the-ordinary was going down. That would cause unnecessary attention for Harry, which was not needed at the present time.
As he tried to remember what had happened last night, he recalled what Kylie had said about her family. Her mother had been murdered? No wonder she always got a glazed look whenever she talked about her. Had Kylie said her mother was murdered by her grandfather? It was hard to remember. Kylie also mentioned that her dad was constantly moving around.
I wonder why, Harry thought to himself. Kylie had never really been his close friend, but she had always seemed to be an interesting person, regardless of that. He barely knew Raymond or Eleanor, but he would surely get to know them better now that they joined forces to defend Hogwarts.
Harry's stomach growled. He hadn't eaten anything at the masquerade last night. Then he remembered that he still didn't know what happened last night at the masquerade. He got out of his bed, dressed quickly, and walked into the common room.
It only contained a few people. Ron and Hermione were there, Ginny Weasley, and a few first years Harry knew by face but not by name.
"Hey guys," he said as he sat down on the couch near his two best friends.
"Hey," Ron said.
"Oh, hi Harry," Hermione said, not looking up from a book she was so clearly absorbed in.
"Er, I left the masquerade early last night-I was really tired. So can someone fill me in on what happened?" Harry asked slowly.
"If you left early, how did you know something happened?" Hermione asked, finally tearing her gaze away from the pages. She looked sad.
"I, er, heard someone talking abut it in the dorm last night. It took a while for me to fall asleep,' Harry fibbed quickly. It was a close shave.
"Oh, well, you kind of had to be there. It was, oh, it was really scary!" Hermione said, shutting her book.
"Yeah, it was. At the beginning, no one moved. After they disappeared, everyone ran,' Ron said, and Harry could swear he saw fear in his eyes.
"Harry, I don't think I can talk about it. I have to go," Hermione said, and with that she walked to the portrait hole and left the common room.
"It was freaky, nothing like you ever would have seen before. No one knows who they were. They just formed a circle and, they started an incantation up. It was awful,' Ron said. "Hermione didn't talk at all after it last night. She didn't smile, nod her head, or even blink, as far as I know. It terrified her," he continued. It seemed to Harry that he wouldn't be able to get any more out of Ron. He looked pretty shells-hocked himself.
"Oh. Thanks for telling me. I have to…go to the library, and finish some homework,' Harry said. Ron nodded, and Harry walked out of the portrait hole to find someone to talk to. He decided that maybe he should go to the library. Someone might be there to talk to.
* * * *
"So you really were turned into a ferret?" Kylie asked Draco Malfoy when she was at the library that morning.
"Yes, really. I don't want to talk too much more about this, I was just getting over it…" Malfoy said.
"But, did you really bounce?" Kylie asked, looking very amused.
"If you must know, yes I did. But I told my father about it, and it was all taken care of," he defended quickly.
"Wow. Teachers would be fired if they did that at my old school,' Kylie commented, more to herself than Malfoy.
"Yes, well, my father did as much as he could,' Draco drawled, though there was a hint of a lie in his voice.
This was the scene Harry walked in on. He knew that they were both Slytherins, but it never occurred to him that Draco Malfoy, his nemesis, and Kylie were friends.
"Hi Harry," Kylie said, not even looking at him, but seeing him out of the corner of her eye.
Malfoy jumped very slightly. "Hello Potter," he said, smirking. "I'll just be going now," he said to Kylie and left, his cloak swishing behind him.
"What's up?" Kylie asked him.
"Did you get it?" Harry said.
Kylie nodded. "This morning. It was just there. Pansy Parkinson tried to read it," she said, a look of disgust on her face.
"Did she?" Harry asked.
"No, it's actually funny, what happened. She was trying to lean over me, while I was sleeping, to take it off my bed table. She fell on top of me, and it hurt. Her excuse was that she was trying to put a glass of water on the table. There was no water, and I hate water anyway. But all the Slytherin girls saw, so it was a pointless lie," Kylie said, Harry noticed that her eyes sparkled at this.
"Ron and Hermione won't tell me what happened last night, do you know?" Harry asked her, finally getting around to what he had been trying to find out for a long time.
"Yeah, it took me an hour to get the whole story, though, " Kylie said.
"Who'd you here it from?" Harry asked; it seemed no one wanted to talk much about it.
"Draco, but it took blackmail. I said that if he didn't tell me, I'd mess up his hair," Kylie said.
"Mess up his hair?" Harry said. He knew that Draco Malfoy had interesting, and usually bad, excuses for doing all the stuff he did {Or not doing things}, but messing up his hair to get him to say something? That was just shallow.
"Yeah, well, he's not exactly the deepest person in the world. If I'd said I'd tell everyone he's deepest, darkest secret, he wouldn't care. But when I threatened with his hair, that just got him to cough it up, he didn't hesitate," Kylie said, smiling slightly. "But then again, his deepest, darkest, secret isn't all that deep and dark. It's kind of, shallow and light," she explained.
"Oh. So what happened?" Harry asked.
"Apparently, well it starts with what I saw, which was eight people in a circle with a purple cloud over them. I got kidnapped after that part. He said that after that, they said some sort of incantation; he couldn't remember it. He said it sounded Latin, or something. Everyone went completely silent, no one moved, and they kept saying the same thing, over and over. They got louder, until they were shouting. Were you there for this part?" Kylie asked.
"Yeah, I was taken just about then,' Harry said, straining to remember.
"Okay, so anyway. I guess the whole student body, and the teachers and staff and them, were put into some sort of trance. They were, like, hypnotized, only, not. Man, this is hard to explain. Draco said you kind of had to be there to get the effect, but I'm trying. Okay, so… Yeah. They were put in a trance-like thing, like they were under a spell. That's it! They were under a spell…" Kylie said. It was almost funny to hear her tell the story; she kept forgetting and then remembering things.
"So when they were under a spell, they were told all this stuff. No one seems to be able to remember what they were told, which is probably a good thing, because I wouldn't be able to remember that to tell you, but they had to repeat things. They had to repeat phrases to a spell, I think. After that, one of the people in the circle, a girl, said to everyone, 'Darkness rises over Hogwarts tonight.' The, the purple cloud, which, by the way, no one knows the purpose of, exploded. The eight people disappeared, it seemed like they were apparating, I've been told. Only, you can't apparate on Hogwarts grounds, so that could not have been it. Then the light s went back on, and it was silent for a few seconds. Then, everyone starting talking at once, and everyone ran for the doors, it was chaos," Kylie finished.
"And Malfoy remembered all of this?" Harry said, it seemed kind of suspicious.
" Yes, Draco remembered all of it. It seemed very traumatizing, I don't think it would be forgotten easily," Kylie said, putting extra emphasis on Draco's name.
"Well, yeah, but still…" Harry said.
"Harry, I know that you and Draco aren't exactly friends, and if he told this to you I can see why you'd think he was lying. But he told it to me, and he's never lied to me before, and I don't think he would. And I know he can be awful, but he isn't always, you've just never seen him like that," Kylie said.
"Well, maybe," Harry said. Kylie raised an eyebrow at him.
"Okay, okay, maybe he's not too bad sometimes. Like when he's around Slytherins," Harry said.
"I've tried convincing him that you aren't too bad either, but he's easier to convince than you. If you'll believe that," Kylie said.
"I find that very hard to believe," Harry said.
"Yes, well, next time I'll have to just make you guys shake hands, or truce, or something. And neither of you will be happy about that," Kylie said.
"You got that right. I have to go back to the common room, I'll see you around," Harry said.
"Later," Kylie said, and waved.
As Harry walked back to the common room, he ran into Raymond Cruz.
"Hey, "Harry said.
"What's up?" Ray said.
"Did you get your scroll?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, but it burst into flame a few seconds too early. All I didn't get to read was Mundungus Fletcher's name, though," Ray said.
"Kylie almost lost hers, Pansy Parkinson tried to steal it from her," Harry explained.
"Really? Ellie's was stolen, and by her best friend. But luckily, it burst into flame in her friend's hand before she could read it, so it's still a secret. I had to let Ellie see mine, though," Ray explained.
"It's weird, everyone's acting like they've never seen a scroll before," Harry said.
"I know, I just don't get it. You hear what happened last night?" Ray asked.
"Yeah, just now from Kylie. Did you hear?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, from Ellie," Ray answered.
"Does she like people to call her Ellie, then?" Harry asked, wondering what to call her next time he saw her.
"Yeah, and you can call me Ray. You like just Harry then, right?" Ray asked.
Harry nodded.
"Alright, I have to go finish a potions essay, blasted Snape had to make it four pieces of parchment long,' said Ray, scowling.
"Bye," Harry said.
Ray waved, and Harry continued to his common room. At least he wasn't alone doing this, like he had been other times when he had to fight Voldemort. Voldemort had always been Harry's major threat, but Terces superceded him. Who knew how powerful these people could be. Who wanted to know, was the better question.
Harry couldn't help but wonder how it was that four teenagers, without adult wizard licenses, could somehow get four huge powers to obey them. Maybe Mundungus Fletcher knew. He seemed to know a lot about Terces.
How was that? What connection did Mundungus have with Terces? It appeared that perhaps Mundungus had been on 'their' side once, and so he had this inside information. How else could he know about Terces? As a secret society, wouldn't no one know about them, because they were, plainly speaking, secret?
Yes, there certainly was a lot to learn about Mundungus Fletcher. Harry, out of all the students defending Hogwarts, needed to know the most. Sure, he wondered about his connection with Terces, but he also wanted to know about his mother. If Mundungus Fletcher played Chinese checkers with his mother, he must know a lot about her. Harry surmised this based on something Ron had once said about chess matches: "You learn more about the person your playing than you do about the game itself."
Harry was at the portrait hole now. "Hippogriff," he said to the Fat lady.
"Wouldn't accept anything else," she chirped cheerfully as she swung open.
In the common room, Ron was playing chess against himself, and Hermione was reading The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 5.
"Hey guys," Harry said. "Who's winning," he asked Ron.
"Hi Harry," Hermione said.
"Hey. I'm winning, by the way. It's no use playing against myself. I already know all my tricks!" Ron announced loudly. "Oh, there's a package on your bed, Harry, by the way," Ron said.
"Okay, thanks," Harry said and walked up the stairs to the boys dorms.
There was indeed a package on Harry's bed. It was oddly shaped, and Harry guessed that there were several objects in it.
It did not say who it was from. Harry opened it anyway, though, he already guessed what was in it.
He was right.
"It's your turn," Harry read off a small parchment that was inside the package.
Inside the package were two strange looking things. They were identical in shape and size, but they were different colors, and had different designs. "Wizard dice," Harry said to himself. He could expect no less from the Crevi Game.
He remembered Ron telling him about these. In wizard board games, there were two dice that looked very different than Muggle dice. They were shaped as stars, about five inches in diameter {though it was hard to tell, being star-shaped}. On each smooth part of the first die, which was silver, there was a moving picture. The pictures showed people walking forward, people walking backward, people giving things to each other, and people sword fighting. There were other pictures as well, but the weirdest was of a wolf.
Harry hoped that didn't mean what he thought it meant.
The other die was gold. It had a number on each smooth part. Harry noticed that the number range went one through fourteen, and each number appeared twice. Harry supposed that you would have to do whatever the picture you rolled showed as many times as the number you rolled. He wasn't sure though.
Harry took a deep breath, checked to make sure that no one was around him, then rolled both dice on the floor. The silver star spun on one of its points for a few seconds before Harry saw that a picture of someone walking forward was glowing. How the die knew which picture Harry rolled, he'd never know, because technically there were four smooth parts facing up, but this particular one was glowing.
The second die rolled behind Harry's bed, where he saw the number eight glowing. A piece of parchment suddenly appeared in front of Harry bearing a message. Harry read it:
You move forward eight spaces. The space you land on says:
" Great tasks lay ahead, while your heart stays behind. Change this before you separate your body and your mind."
You are the fifth person to take your turn.
Out of eight players, eight remain.
~Game Host~
Oh joy. Harry looked to find the dice, but they had disappeared. This was probably a good thing, because who knows what would have happened if one of the other boys had found the dice.
The message on the space Harry landed on sounded familiar. It was almost like P.1 Rebirth's letters.
Oh yeah, Harry remembered, I think I read this on one of those papers in a fortune cookie once. The only difference was that it rhymed. This, Harry decided was the strangest thing. But the Crevi Game itself was worth about twenty good minutes of wondering 'Why?'
* * * *
"I think we did pretty good," Enna announced to the other Terces sodalises.
"You should all be proud," Sammen said.
"It's only been two months into the school year, and you've all progressed so much," Reelle said.
"You did all right your first time," Plikttro said. Enna, Reelle, and Sammen glared at him. "Okay, okay, you did well," he said.
"Thank you," Brann said, trying to sound modest.
"I thought we'd mess it up," Ren said, only she was really modest.
"I thought we could have been better, but we weren't bad," said Strella, thought she was hiding a smile.
"I'm just happy I didn't get hurt," said Skully gratefully.
Yes, it was yet another Terces meeting; November the first.
"Well, we won't really be making plans, but I think that one of our next targets should be a Quidditch match," Enna said. Strella and Brann gave her suspicious looks.
"Oh really? I'm on a Quidditch team, you know, for the house I'm acting like I'm in," Brann said.
"Yeah, me too," said Strella.
"I know, of course, but it could be for other houses," Enna explained.
"Hey!" Ren said. "Now you just wait a minute!"
"I take that as a personal insult," Skully said, finally getting up the nerve to say something.
"Don't take it personally, after all, it's against the other houses, not Terces. We have our own house. And if our house ever does get discovered, which it better not, for the good of all of you, we can form a Quidditch team,' Sammen said quickly.
"Really?" Brann said.
"But- we don't plan on being discovered until we are sure- as in absolutely certain, with no doubts whatsoever- that our Evil has risen to full power and can never fall," Reelle said.
"Yeah, we don't want to repeat what happened last time," Plikttro said.
"Let's hope not!" Enna said.
"What happened?" asked Ren who was eagerly listening.
"We were almost discovered. Some stupid first year Gryffindor was spying on me, to see where I disappeared to every time the moon changed. He followed me here, but luckily Plikttro saw him, and he was properly taken care of," Enna said.
"Wha-what did you do to him?" Skully asked, not sure he wanted to know.
"Oh, we used a very strong memory charm. He just saw the hidden door, nothing else, so it didn't take any harsher remedy to get it out of his head. It doesn't matter now, he has to be dead, that being ten thousand years ago," Enna continued.
"I still don't completely get how all of you are still here…" asked Strella.
"We haven't been here for the past thousand years, waiting for all of you to arrive. We are simply, well, it isn't so simple, actually, but we're a type of ghost that can return to its initial form when it chooses to. There are, however, time limits. You can only be in the wizard world for so much time before you have to go back to the other side," Reelle explained.
"The other side? I don't think this is the best time to be discussing this… we're all really tired, so we'll probably just ask you again anyway," Ren said.
"We understand," Enna said, smiling slightly.
"However, please strain your minds to listen to what we have to discuss next-our plans for the year's first Quidditch match…"
* * * *
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Time is being quickly used. But that was okay. The sweet sound of the clock. Ah, the sweet sound. Mundungus Fletcher savored every second. It was only a matter of time before Terces discovered who the Fifth Power's successors were.
He wasn't leading them into a battle where they'd necessarily lose. But the odds were not in their favor, nor Terces favor. There were no odds, because not enough people ever knew about Terces to care.
But it was fact that people did care now. They did not know about Terces, so to speak, but they knew that there was something out there, in Hogwarts, that was plotting against them. Dumbledore knew. Of course, Dumbledore had suspected something all along. Ever since that fateful day that the first new Terces sodalis had walked into the Great Hall to be sorted.
Mundungus Fletcher was a strange man in many ways. He was often confused with the man from the game Monopoly, only by muggles, of course, but a few witches and wizards made the same connection between the two. But no one had realized that the man on the cover of the Monopoly box was him. Or, been inspired by his appearance, rather. But Mundungus Fletcher preferred to say that the more obvious connection between the two was their love of games.
Mundungus loved games. He was a true Chinese checker champ in his day, except for the great Lily Potter. She was by far the most talented of all Chinese checkers players. Never lost a game, that girl.
But she was dead now. He was sure that Harry would ask him questions about her, and Mundungus would have to answer him. Every kid has a right to know things about their mother, about their parents, actually. And Mundungus didn't know a live person who knew Lily Potter better than he did, and he was fairly certain that Harry thought this, too. Yes, Mundungus would have to tell Harry everything he wanted to know about his mother's past.
But there were parts to Lily's past that were perhaps best kept secret.
Curtains Close!
Author's Note: Go me! Another chapter! Okay, since it's Sunday night, I may not be able to get another chapter up for a couple of days, as I'm a busy seventh grader at the busiest part of the school year. So I'm sorry in advance if another chapter doesn't go up in a few days, let's say by Friday.
Words of Wisdom: Fantasy and Reality defy each other. Yet, to live in a world of such ceaseless debate, you need equal amounts of each to stay above the surface.
*looks proud of self* I made up that quote.
Okay, you rolled the wizard's dice. The silver die shows someone reviewing! Is that someone you? Hint: Yes! The gold die shows the number, wait, it shows infinity! I guess that means that you should review my story infinite times or else you may lose your next turn!
Thanx for all the reviews, guys!
I love you all {So, so, so, so, so, much! *Blows kisses to reviewers*}
Ciao!
~Starry