HARRY POTTER AND THE GREEN FLAME SWORD

Nat: You just saved Remus Lupin from the Kiss with you review. You should be so proud.

CHAPTER 8

JAKOB STRAUSS

Harry opened his eyes to see a pair of half-moon glasses peering over him. His head ached and he felt very weak. He suddenly remembered what had happened and sat up with a gasp, even as a pair of strong hands tried to restrain him.

"Professor, what happened?" asked Harry, looking around. Most of the people who had been with him were lying on the beds in the Hospital wing. "Are they all ok?" he added anxiously.

"It's all right Poppy, I'll make sure Harry has his chocolate" said Dumbledore, nodding at Madam Pomphrey, who let go of Harry making tutting sounds and left to attend to Hermione, who seemed to be shifting in her bed.

"Everyone's fine, no lasting harm done." said Dumbledore brightly, handing Harry large chunks of chocolate.

"That was quite some Patronus, Harry; you just saved Remus's life with it, not to mention that it's an extremely difficult feat to even produce a corporeal Patronus in such close vicinity of so many Dementors. Not even Professor Lupin or Professor McGonagall could have done it."

Harry remembered the wisps that had shot out of his Professors wands.

"What happened, I remember nothing after Prongs stumbled...how long have I been out, Professor?"

"Not too long, Harry...the Sorting is over, and all your stuff has been carried to your dormitory. Let's just say Harry; that the new guards who had been holding the captured Death Eaters helped out."

"You- You knew about the attack that it was going to happen" spluttered Harry, accidentally spewing out a bit of chocolate "why didn't you warn us or something?"

"I had no idea this would happen, Harry, but as soon as Professor Lupin sent out word of an attack, the guards were- requested to help. Well, I won't be keeping you any longer; I see that your friends are all up. I need to see you in my office tomorrow, Harry."

Harry watched him as he told Madam Pomphrey something, most probably letting her know that she was in charge of him too.

A while later, six weary friends walked into the Dining hall, the feast was already over, but the house-elves had enthusiastically agreed to take up the task of preparing a bit more food. None of them was very hungry, though, and they picked at their food, neither Ron nor Hermione questioned Harry's story that Aurors had helped them out. He hated lying to them, but the true story would bring out questions like 'What new guards' and 'When was Azkaban broken into'. Not that he knew the answers himself, but Ron and Hermione wouldn't believe him. He noticed however, that Ginny hadn't bought into his story at all.

After their dinner, Luna turned towards her house, but not before Harry had given her a hug and reminded her of their new relationship. Harry then watched as Neville rather nervously wished her a good night, flushing a deep pink.

Ginny giggled, and all of them waved her goodbye.

They walked up quietly to their House, gave the Fat Lady the password and climbed in.

They muttered goodnight sleepily to each other. Harry saw that Ron had been shooting anxious glances at Hermione, so he grinned and nudged him in the ribs.

"You know what, Ron, our dorm is this way, but if you really want to go along with Hermione, I won't stop you or anything" he called loudly, causing both Hermione and Ron to flush a deep red, they muttered goodnight rather hastily and hurried away, Hermione dragging Ginny along with her.

"That went rather well, don't you think, Neville" he said, smirking.

Neville grinned back, as they hurried after Ron, "rather well" he said.

They entered their dorm and saw that Seamus and Dean had already crashed.

"Night, both of you" called Harry.

"G'night" replied Neville. Ron simply gave Harry a glare as he turned around and presented his back to Harry.

Harry chuckled, it was always fun to be back at Hogwarts, and real exciting too.

8

Harry awoke the next morning to the sound of Pig whizzing and twittering around like mad.

He caught him in the palm of his hand, and found a letter addressed to Ron. He shook Ron awake and handed him the letter.

"It's from mum" said Ron, after finishing it "telling us to stay close together in case of any danger and not to go anywhere without Dumbledore's permission and so on..." he said "honestly, it's not like we go looking for trouble or something, eh."

They walked into the common room and waited while Hermione and Ginny joined them. Thankfully, the common room was more or less deserted this early in the morning.

They hurried to breakfast, not wanting to talk too much about the previous days attack, though Hermione had obviously been thinking it over, because she kept frowning at her breakfast.

Soon, the Great Hall was filled with people, all of whom broke into excited chatter on seeing them there.

"Harry, is it true that-"

"Hey, Harry, did the Dementors-"

"Potter, I told you you'd pay" muttered a nasty voice softly as Draco Malfoy brushed past him to join Pansy Parkinson at the Slytherin table.

Harry simply ignored him as Hermione came by and handed over forms in which they had to fill in what subjects they'd like to sit for in the NEWTS.

"What all are you going to fill in Ron?" asked Harry.

"Well, I'm just making sure that I dump Potions, Divination and History of Magic in the trash right where they belong"

Hermione made a noise indicating disapproval. Harry sighed, remembering that Potions was required if he wanted to be an Auror. He did have an A in potions; so he gloomily filled in Potions along with DADA and the other subjects.

Harry turned to Ron and said "Potions is necessary for Auror training, Ron".

"NO" hissed Ron, "What are Aurors gonna do with Potions anyway..." he glared at Snape, who was talking quietly to Dumbledore.

"Ron, I think you should just take-" began Hermione, but McGonagall had stepped over "Mr. Potter, I need you to go to the headmaster office right now" she cut in.

"Right now?" asked Harry.

"Yes" she said, and then walked away.

By then, all the students except the sixth years had started off for their classes. Sixth years had the day off as they had to hand in their forms and all.

Hermione and Ron looked curiously at Harry, who shrugged 'dunno' and walked off behind McGonagall.

"Erm- what's this about?" he asked, hurrying to catch up with her.

"The headmaster will tell you, Mr. Potter, whiz-bang" she said, giving the stone gargoyles the password. The gargoyles leapt aside to reveal a staircase.

McGonagall left Harry in the Headmaster's office where Harry was joined by Dumbledore, Lupin, and to his very great dislike, Snape.

"Ah, Harry, as you might have guessed, this is about yesterday's attacks" said Dumbledore gravely.

"We need you to do something for the Order, right here in Hogwarts" said Lupin. Snape simply glared, looking as though he wasn't a voluntary participant here.

"Think this over carefully Harry. I won't hide anything from you. The Dementors moved straight to your coach yesterday, they weren't even searching for you on the train, which was lucky in a way, because that meant that the other students didn't have to deal with them. This is impossible without help from someone who saw you in the Hogwarts Express. Can you think of any such person, Harry?"

"No" said Harry, stunned, 'Malfoy didn't even board the train' he thought... 'And I'm so blind, leading my friends into danger... I can't put their lives at risk, no matter what. As long as they remain close to me, they'll always be in danger; I will not have their blood on my hands even if it means that I have to stay away from them...'

"Harry" said Dumbledore, breaking into his thoughts, "I can understand exactly what you feel, but it's not your fault. So, I have a suggestion" he continued, while Lupin put his hand around Harry's shoulders.

"I need you to get into Slytherin and act as a spy for me" said Dumbledore.

Harry gave him a 'did I hear correctly, are you crazy' look.

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled.

"I believe that some students in Slytherin are not quite on our side, and we need any possible information we can get. Harry, you will be disguised as an exchange student from Durmstrang and sorted into Slytherin by the name of Jakob Strauss. You don't need to worry about details, Professor Lupin will hand them all over to you. So, are you ready for this?"

Harry didn't know what to say. "Um – What about the real me, won't Ron and Hermione and all know?"

"Not at all, Harry. You shall be away at Durmstrang, and need not reappear for as long as you require"

Harry thought about this for a moment. It might help him get rid of Malfoy for good... also; Voldemort would be told that Harry was away at Durmstrang, so his friends would be in much less danger at Hogwarts.

Harry nodded his acceptance.

"What's he here for? And what about other staff members?" he asked, glaring at Snape.

"Professor Snape will prepare Polyjuice potion and hand it to you every potions class, you will have to make sure that you are not caught, Harry, there is a lot at stake here. We mustn't let them know that we suspect a spy. None of the other staff members will be let in on this."

Harry nodded again.

"You will leave for Durmstrang tonight, Harry. Professor Lupin would like a few strands of your hair, please." he said, handing Harry an ordinary pair of scissors.

When Harry had cut out a little bit, he handed it over to Lupin, who took it and after ruffling Harry's hair a bit, left with Snape.

"You'll stay here for the rest of the day, Harry, while Professor Lupin goes about making your reasons for leaving, he'll be back tomorrow morning. There are a few charms I need to perform on you, so that you don't feel uncomfortable in your new identity. This is a sort of memory modification charm, so that you will respond to the name Jakob Strauss and not Harry Potter"

He whispered some kind of incantation and placed his wand on Harry's temple.

"What is your name?" he asked.

"Jakob Strauss" responded Harry immediately.

For all you H/G shippers, it's about to start.