Harry Potter & the Price of Mercy

by: NecessaryEvil

Chapter Nine: We All Can Use a Little Help From a Friend

Disclaimer: They aint mine, foo.

A/N: Thanks to my reviewers.

Yo!: Thanks for the compliment, but about your thrashing of D.L., read what I said to him, it goes both ways.

D.L.:David, mate, be accepting of those that are different than you. A atheist like m'self doesn't go "Oh you're a Christian, you're wrong," I may think it, but I dun say it out loud, I let them have their "mirage" and let them see if they are wrong all by themselves. As for the love triangle, I've got this ones plot worked out to a t, maybe in the sequel.

Bon: I'm already a little bit into the plot, remember Rem, he's an important piece, so is any distance between the guys and Hermione, everything is plot, character development, or both.

Now on with the show.

The scene is set, surprisingly enough considering who's in the scene, in the Hogwarts library. Harry and Ron were sitting at one of the tables in the back with piles of books stacked in front of them as they searched through text after text looking for instructions on how to become Animagus. They had so far found only vague instructions, which referred to other texts which referred to still further texts in a so far unending wild goose chase. Harry had sent off for help from his godfather, but Sirius was still on a mission and probably wouldn't be able to get back to them for months.

So Harry and Ron searched every possible nook of every book they could get their hands on that even casually mentioned Animagus until the library closed and then they would go back to Gryffindor tower, slip under the invisibility cloak and look until dawn.

***

Wednesday in Transfiguration was when Harry figured out what they were missing, besides sleep that is. All of the texts referred to concentrating on what it feels like to be the animal you're going to become, Harry and Ron had never been animals, while slightly disheartened by the fact that he had to start back at square two in the search phase, Harry was happy that he now knew a little more about what he was looking for.

Ron noticed Harry get a huge grin and elbowed him, asking, "What's so great about a ten foot essay?"

Harry's grin didn't even fade when he heard that he had obviously missed a very long assignment, "I think I just made a breakthrough on our project,"

Ron looked characteristically puzzled for a moment, then a large grin spread over his face.

***

The next class was their first Defense Against the Dark Arts of the year. Harry was disappointed to note that they had the class with Slytherin. He walked to the classroom that had taken on so many different styles over the last five years that he didn't even remembered how it had looked in his first year anymore. Krum had the classroom set up like a slightly more friendly version of Snape's dungeons, complete with a few sets of chains on the walls. As everyone walked in to take their seats Krum walked in and yelled, "Stop," everyone turned to him curiously, "I will be partnering you up, you will be taking a seat next to your partner. Now everyone please stand in a line by the door and you will sit in the pairings of desks I assign,"

All the students lined up and Krum began walking down the rows pointing to two seats at a time and calling out the partners' names;

"Avery, James and ...Weasely, Ron."

Ron and a blonde Slytherin walked over to the desks indicated,

"Brown, Lavender and...Goyle, Gregory,"

"Bulstrode, Millicent and...Thomas, Dean,"

"Crabbe, Vincent and...Granger, Hermioninny," All of the Slytherins laughed,

"Davis, Tracey and....Patil, Parvati,"

"Finnigan,Seamus and...Zabini,Blaise,"

"Greengrass,Russel and...Diggory, Cecily,"

"Longbottom, Neville and...Parkinson, Pansy,"

"Malfoy, Draco and...Potter, Harry," there were roars of disapproval from both houses, but Harry and Malfoy simply sat in their indicated seats.

"Moon, Megan and...Nott, Terrence. You may have noticed a pattern in the partnering," everyone groaned, "Yes, I have paired each of you with someone from your rival house. I did not see the need to do this with Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, but it seemed to me that one of your houses isn't that well liked and the other is quite popular, this is my way of trying to create a unified Hogwarts,"

"Unity is strength, the first rule of many forms of defense. You can't fight well if you don't trust whose at your back,"

After ten minutes of talking about how he would be covering a broad variety of Defense Against the Dark Arts subjects, Krum let them all leave. Harry noticed Hermione staying behind, but decided that if Ron didn't have a problem with that then he shouldn't so he followed Ron out. Ron immediately let out a series of obviously suppressed laughs before saying, "The only thing a Slytherin would have to do with my back is stabbing it,"

***

That night as Harry and Ron were looking for something to temporarily turn them into an animal Cho came over to their table.

"What are you two studying?" Ron quickly covered the title of the book he was skimming, but Cho simply picked up another book entitled 'The Animal Without,'

Harry grinned, "Special project,"

Cho grinned back and threw the book back on the table, "Well unless you're interested in becoming Lycanthropes this one won't help,"

"You know what we're doing," Harry asked hopefully,

"Animagus?"

"Yup," Ron answered, "Want in?"

Cho grinned mischievously, "I've been waiting days for you two to ask me that,"

A/N: All of this could be important.