The Fifth House
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, or anything that appears familiar to you from the Harry Potter books. I own the Plot, Kylie, a few other characters, Terces, and some other minor things.
Author's Note: Didn't I say that you would all be wondering what the flashback chapter had anything to do with the plot! I so said that! Yes, Violet eyes, all things will be explained. Not necessarily in this chapter, but I promise it will make sense in the end. If you want to get an idea of how confusing it might be, try reading Philosolyphe, some story by Pendragon on fictionpress.net. It's really cool, and I hope my fic will make you think just as much. Pendragon is one of my old friends, by the way.
So read Pendragon's story. Go ahead, I dare you!
Curtains Up!
Chapter Nineteen
Harry woke up on November the fourth by the Weasley twins yelling in his face.
"Really, Harry, could you sleep any sounder? First Quidditch practice is today! Surprise!" Fred said.
"What, it is?" Harry asked, feeling around for his glasses.
"Yes, we though it would be best to start training a few days before tryouts. We need a new keeper, you know," George informed him.
"Okay, so who's the captain?" Harry asked.
"We are!" the twins said in unison.
"Oliver couldn't decide between us, so we're co-captains," George said.
"Yes, he actually trusted us with the team!" Fred said happily.
Harry could only guess what was going on in the twins' minds.
"Can you be at the pitch in a half an hour?" Fred asked Harry.
"Yeah, sure," Harry answered, through a yawn.
The twins left the dorm, and Harry struggled to get out of bed. He got dressed and searched his trunk for his Firebolt broomstick. Once he found it, he walked into the common room.
"Hey Harry," Ron said.
"Hi Harry!" Hermione greeted him.
Harry waved meekly. It killed him to know that he had to hide so much from his two best friends. There was no way they could ever be told about Terces. Harry sighed. No matter what happened in his life, he would always have some huge secret that, for some reason, no one could find out about.
Harry walked down to the Great Hall with Ron and Hermione. Even if he couldn't tell them about Terces, it felt good to not have to think about it until November the sixteenth.
He watched the owls fly in to deliver the daily mail. He hadn't been expecting anything, but Hedwig flew in and dropped a letter in front of him.
He opened it slowly, careful not to rip it.
It was unbelievable. He'd said it was the last time, hadn't he? P.1 Rebirth had said that he would never contact Harry again.
Harry stuffed the letter in his robes to read later.
"What'd you get, Harry?" Hermione asked good-naturedly.
"Nothing important, just some letter. Wrong address kind of thing. I don't know how Hedwig got hold of it," Harry said quickly.
Hermione's smile faltered a little. "Okay," she said.
* * * *
Harry woke up a little more as he walked onto the Quidditch pitch. He was expecting to see the all-too familiar stands decorated in house colors, the lush green grass, the hoops on the ends of the pitch that gleamed in the morning sun.
It was nothing of the sort.
The pitch looked as if it had been torn apart. The stands were just wooden beams, no house decorations, and several of them had fallen down. The grass had been dug into, so there was dirt and mud. The hoops were lying on the ground.
Harry looked at one end of the pitch to see the Gryffindor team standing there. He walked over to them.
"What's going on?" he asked them.
"No idea. It wasn't like this last night, when Fred and I came down to look at it," George said.
"How could it have been ruined so quickly?" Angelina Johnson asked quietly.
"How could it have been ruined?" Alicia Spinnet asked.
"What would Oliver say?" Katie Bell asked, causing the team to pause and ponder the thought.
"I bet he'd cry," Fred said.
"Probably," Harry agreed. Oliver Wood, the former Gryffindor captain, had practically worshipped the game.
"What do we do now?" Katie asked.
Harry thought about this. His mind came to Terces. Then he spoke up.
"We go to Dumbledore."
* * * *
"This is very strange indeed," Dumbledore said, looking out at the pitch through his office window. He appeared to be deep in thought.
"Who would have done this sort of thing?" Fred asked.
"Who indeed?" Dumbledore murmured.
"Don't you have any idea of who it could have been?" Harry asked.
Dumbledore sensed something in Harry's voice; he knew Harry wasn't telling him something.
"No. Do you?" Dumbledore asked the team. They shook their heads no.
"What are we going to do?" Angelina asked.
"Well, there is of course a spell we can use. It varies in time to complete the process, depending on the damage. The Quidditch pitch seems to be severely damaged. It will take at least a month to take care of," Dumbledore said.
"What? But, Professor, the first match, practice, what about that?" George said.
"Of, don't worry about that. There is another pitch, but it is farther away. It is still on the Hogwarts grounds, but it is on the mountain. We'll have to use magic to get anyone there," Dumbledore explained.
Harry never knew that Hogwarts grounds went far enough to have a mountain on them. He learned something new every day.
"Where is it?" Alicia asked curiously.
"It is on Mount Maldade, one of the Mountains of Macabre. They are mountains that do not appear to muggles, so we won't have to worry about that," Dumbledore said.
Albus Dumbledore tapped his finger to his chin while thinking. "Yes, I suppose that is best. I will contact the staff and other team members, as well as make an announcement at dinner tonight," he said.
"You all may go now, except Harry," he said.
The others left Harry and Dumbledore in the office.
"Harry, I have asked you this before. Is there anything you would like to tell me?" Dumbledore asked concernedly.
"I will not make you say anything, but there is one thing I'd like you to remember. Last year I asked you this same question, and you said that you had nothing to say. Now, do you still have nothing to say?" Dumbledore asked Harry.
Harry thought about this. He almost told Dumbledore everything, all about Terces, the letters, the cloud, how he has to beat Hogwarts' resident evil, and everything that goes with it. But then he remembered some things.
Terces would find out if Dumbledore knew.
Dumbledore would find out…eventually.
Finally, Mundungus Fletcher was an Unspeakable, so no one should know what it is he does.
"No, nothing. I'm just sad about the Quidditch pitch, that's all," Harry lied.
Dumbledore knew that he was lying, but he pressed no further questions.
"All right, you may go," Dumbledore said; and Harry left.
Once Harry had gone, Albus Dumbledore got up from his chair, walked across the room, and began looking at a bookcase. The man looked for a few minutes before pulling out a book and opening it up to a page in the middle. Though the book was old and dusty, the print stating the name of its previous owner was still visible on the first page.
* * * *
"Oh where, oh where has my favorite book gone? Oh where, oh where could it be?" Kylie sang while she was searching through her trunk.
"Could you yell any louder?" said a familiar drawling voice from the doorway.
"Hi Draco," said Kylie without turning. "It isn't yelling, it's singing."
"It doesn't sound that way. What book is it?" Draco asked.
"I can't tell you that," Kylie said, throwing several things outside of the trunk.
"How do you expect me to help look for it if you don't tell me what it is?" Draco asked, thoroughly confused.
"Maybe because I didn't really expect you to help, since you don't usually help people, so I thought that there was simply no point in telling you the title," Kylie said smiling.
"What makes you so sure I don't help people? What did you say the title was?" Draco asked starting to go through a huge pile of books in a corner of the dorm.
"Did you really think that would work?" Kylie asked looking at him suspiciously.
"What would work?" Draco asked, trying very hard to appear completely innocent.
"I know that tone, Draco Malfoy! You thought that by asking me what I had said that I would say the title of the book, even though I never said it in the first place!" Kylie said, almost glaring at him.
"That makes absolute nonsense, try speaking English. And, I would do nothing of the sort," Draco said.
"I do speak English, and it makes sense in my mind. And, if you didn't know what I meant, how did you think you were innocent?" Kylie challenged.
"Because I figured that whatever you thought I did I didn't do, and just went along with it,' Draco shrugged, pulling some books out of Kylie's trunk. He held up one, "Is this it?"
"You're an annoyingly clever man, Draco Malfoy. And no, the book I'm looking for is old," Kylie said.
"Why can't I just know the title?" he asked.
"Because."
"Because why?"
"Just because."
"But why?"
"Because it's illegal to have a copy. Not like you've never done anything illegal," Kylie said.
"Okay, so I've broken a few laws here and there. I won't tell anyone that you're not supposed to have it, if that's what you think," Draco said.
"A few laws? I know you won't tell anyone if I have it. But do you know that not telling anyone includes your father?" Kylie asked.
"Why would I tell him?" Draco asked.
"You wouldn't, intentionally. But he would know that you were keeping something from him, then he'd make you tell him," Kylie said matter-of-factly.
"He might, but that doesn't mean anything. I could lie," Draco reasoned.
"He'd know, and he'd keep asking you to tell him," Kylie said.
"Well, I wouldn't,' Draco said.
"And he wouldn't get the least bit mad?" Kylie asked.
"It isn't like he's never not mad. He's a stressed businessman, that's all. He's very busy, he has an important job; people need him all the time. He's going to be stressed," Draco defended weakly.
"Draco, I don't care how important your father is, but if he gets as bad as you've said…" Kylie started, but trailed off knowing that Draco might take it the wrong way.
"Maybe I've exaggerated a little, so what? It isn't like I can't help it sometimes, you can't know what it's like being judged by what your parents do," Draco said.
"No, I don't know what it's like. But at least you know your father. Mine's, well, I don't know where he is, actually. I only know his name. He left a while ago, when I was one year old. He got into some trouble with the ministry and ran for it," Kylie said quickly, then regretting she said half of it. Draco softened a little {which does not happen very often}.
"You don't remember him at all?" Draco asked.
"I have zero memories," Kylie said.
Draco thought for a few seconds. "Does your mom ever tell you stuff about him?" he asked.
"She used to," Kylie said. Her eyes were watering slightly.
"And, what, one day she just stopped?" Draco asked curiously.
"Well, it's not like she can tell me anything now," Kylie said.
"Why?"
"She can't. I mean, well, she's dead. My mother's dead, my father's gone, my godparents are dead, I have no family left," Kylie said. "I have to go," she said and walked away.
Draco Malfoy was a highly strange boy. His father was one of Voldemort's highest supporters, his mother agreed with his father, and Draco was expected to be the same. He did have the Malfoy temper, the Malfoy appearance, and that drawl to his voice.
But he really wasn't like his father at all. He had a short temper, but that was basically all that he got from his father's side. He had an ability to snap some cruel remark off his tongue in the tightest of times, and it got him in trouble more often then not. He meant to treat people in such bad ways sometimes, but only when they really deserved it. All the other times it was purely instinct; he'd been brought up that way.
Disagreeing with his father was a definite restriction. He had to go by whatever his father said. From appearance to personality, Lucius Malfoy tried to make Draco his carbon copy. Draco was expected to act sinister and evil. It was in his blood.
Draco thought to himself a final thing before leaving the Slytherin dungeon.
Father may think I can't be evil, but he doesn't even know what I'm up to this time.
Curtains Close!
Author's Note: I'm not really making Draco OCC; I'm just expanding on what we all already know about him in an off-character way. I am pleased to announce that I now know exactly where this story is going! I have the months {of Harry's school year} planned out for April through June. Once this story gets to April {in the Hogwarts school year}, there will be a huge major thing happening. Watch out!
Words of Wisdom: Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
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I love you all!
Ciao!
~Starry