Chapter Three

Lessons with the Games Keeper

The day went by slowly for Remy. He had gotten so little sleep last night that he could barely pay attention to his teachers, not that most of the class always did. When the last period was finally over, he met up with Sirius and James. Pete had also decided to tag along for their meeting with Mortimer. During the lunch break they had found out that Mortimer actually does have an office and it was on the third floor.

Mortimer's office was not the usual thing that any of the boys had expected. Instead of the usual shelves full of books and parchments, Mortimer had about half a shelf of books, a couple broomsticks, and even a few posters of quidditch players.

"Hello, I thought you might stop by. And I see you have brought some friends with you." Mortimer said to Remy and Sirius.

"Yes we did," Sirius told him. "Quite an office you have here to yourself."

"I'm quite proud of it actually." Mortimer replied.

"Anyway," Remy butted in before they could get side tracked too much. "We were wondering if you could um… help us with uh… avoiding punishment for um… avoiding unneeded rules." Remy felt quite awkward asking one of the Hogwarts staff to help them break rules.

Mortimer laughed. "I will not help you break rules." Sirius and Remy suddenly felt slightly dejected. "I will however show you a couple tricks. Some of the policies here are a bit strict for adventurous youngsters like you. But I do not expect you will learn it on your first try, just to warn you." the mood in the room suddenly brightened. "Are you still sure you want to?"

"Yes Sir!" Sirius shouted before anyone else could say anything.

"Don't 'Sir' me young man, or you may face yourself with detention!" Mortimer said back.

"No I won't." Sirius retorted.

"Well, maybe you won't, but don't call me sir. It reminds me of military school…"

"You went to military school?"

"Anyway," Mortimer said to change the subject. "The first thing I will teach you is not all that hard. It will show you anything hidden behind or in something. Not entirely that useful, but it may come in handy with secret entrances and such. I need one of you to demonstrate." Sirius immediately came forward. "How about you." Mortimer said, pointing to James. Sirius, disappointed, joined Remy and Pete again.

"What do I do?" said James.

"Well first, I want you to point your wand at that globe over there." James did as told. "Now, what you do is flick your wand up as if taking an invisible cover off the globe. While you do that, say 'decouverous' in your normal voice."

"Decouverous!" James said as he flicked his wand.

"No, you said it too loudly. When you want to see who is behind the door, do you want everyone in the room to hear you?"

"I guess not…" said James.

"Now try it again, more quietly this time."

"Decouverous."

"Now that's better, do you see anything? Don't say what it is just tell me if you see it."

"Yes I do!"

"Good job. Next volunteer. I choose you." Mortimer said and he pointed at Remy. Remy stepped forward and tried the spell, getting it on the first try.

"See, it's not that hard" Mortimer said. Next, Pete tried it, doing it on his second try because the first time he practically whispered the spell. Sirius then tried it, and he too got it on his second try. "Now there is a second step to this spell. It is identifying what you saw. You guys may have though you saw different things. James, what did you see?"

"Well, I don't really know, but I think it was some blue eggs."

"Blue eggs?" Sirius butted in. "It was definitely not eggs, nor was it blue! It was

a bunch of gallions, but I am not sure why they would be in his globe."

"Thank you for that, Sirius. What did you see, Pete?"

"Uh… well maybe it was eggs… but they were yellow, so they might have been gallions…"

"And you, Remy?"

"Well they were gallions, even though to me they were green."

"Precisely," said Mortimer. He opened up his globe through the split in the equator and showed them that he did have the golden coins hidden in is little world. "You all will see whatever is behind or in an object in a different color, but with practice you will be able to identify it anyway. Sirius, I think I would like you to try it again. There is something about you that is very interesting…" Mortimer directed Sirius over to a curtain. "I want you to direct the spell at what is behind this curtain."

"Decouverous." Said Sirius.

"What did you see?" Mortimer asked.

"There were lots of wooden boxes with a big dark brown cabinet in the back. And it wasn't all the same colour, what did you mean?"

"Very interesting…" Mortimer pulled back the curtain. "Is this what you saw?" behind the curtain, just as Sirius had said, there were boxes stacked on top of each other, and there was also a large cabinet.

"Exactly." Sirius said.

"You know I have never run into one like you before. No one I have ever known has seen anything with the decouverous spell in full color. I'm not sure what else it means for you, but there is one other thing I need to know. Have any of you ever heard of a boggart?"

"It's a creature that takes the form of a person's worst fear." Remy said from back where James and Pete were.

"Correct. And do you know what that means?"

"Well, um… I don't know."

"It means that no one will ever know what a boggart looks like when it is alone."

"Oh!" James said. "So you are saying that with the decouverous spell we can see the boggart? Then how come you said no one will ever know?"

"Because it is not that simple," Mortimer told them. "I have had that exact thought, and I have tried it. The thing is, for me it just comes out as a gray blur, not giving away anything. I have a feeling that with Sirius here we may actually get to know what it looks like. It's not all that useful, but I am curious." Sirius beamed. He felt proud of himself for being exceptional. "I hope you guys don't have any important homework to do? For we may be gone for a while." They all shook their heads, and Mortimer led them all through the corridors of Hogwarts. "We keep a boggart here for use in your defense against the dark arts classes. I am pretty sure that he is free right now, though." He told them. They entered a room with various cabinets and cages. There seemed to be various magical creatures in each one, most likely for use with defense against the dark arts. Mortimer led them to a large cabinet towards the back of the room.

"This is our boggart. Would you like to have an advanced lesson on one? I think they usually teach about the boggart in third year."

"We can do that after I see what it looks like" Sirius said.

"I do not really know if this will actually work, though, Sirius." Mortimer said. Sirius took a step toward the cabinet and performed the decouverous spell. At first, he felt confused. Inside the cabinet there was a swirl of what did not seem to be a gas, but acted like one. After a while it settled into a figure. The figure appeared to be that of a small pink elephant, but soon enough it evaporated again into the strange opaque mist. The mist was a dark greenish gray colour. It once again settled into a form again. The form was again a tiny pink elephant. The elephant walked around the cabinet for a while, but unable to maintain the spell, Sirius snapped back to outside the locked cabinet.

"Well?" asked Mortimer.

"It was weird." Sirius replied. "Most of the time it was just a green and black gass-ish thing, but sometimes it would change into a mini pink elephant."

"Oh, really? That's actually very interesting. I am guessing that different boggarts prefer different forms. This one apparently likes pink elephants… Well do you guys want to learn how do defend against a boggart?"

"Defend against a pink elephant?" James joked. "Somehow that doesn't seem a challenge worthy of school."

"Remember the boggart does take the form of your worse fear." Mortimer reminded him. "It may actually be quite frightening. The first thing you do is say 'Riddikulus!' while pointing your wand at the boggart, and also think of the most hilarious image you can possibly think of. Who wants to be first? Remy?"

"No, that's OK." Remy said.

"I'll do it" Sirius said.

"OK then. Do you have your funny image?"

"Yes"

"OK then. Get ready." Mortimer unlocked the door and unleashed the boggart. Instead of a tiny pink elephant, the boggart was a huge anaconda, and hissing and slithering it made its way towards Sirius. Sirius, taking a long moment to compose himself, pointed his wand out and attempted the spell.

"Riddikulus!" he shouted, but nothing happened. "Riddikulus! Riddikulus! RIDDIKULUS!!!" the snake still did not do anything, and it was still approaching Sirius.

"Riddikulus." Mortimer said and the snake turned into a bunny with a very long tail. "You don't need to be so tense when you do it, Sirius." After Mortimer levitated the funny looking bunny back into the cabinet, he asked Sirius "What image did you have in your head?"

"Well, something about my mom and penguins…"

"You need to have a clearer image. How about your mom serving dinner to a bunch of penguins?"

"That will work." Sirius said. When Sirius tried again, it did work. The snake grew a woman's head and penguin fins, and suddenly didn't look so scary, nor did it look like it knew how to move anymore. Next, Pete was up. It took him a while to get it right too, but when he did, the gorilla the boggart had been grew carrots for ears and both of his limbs disappeared. James went next, and for him the boggart became a big tiger with very long fangs. After riddikulus, the tiger was some kind of freak-like ballet dancer.

"Remy, would you like to go?" Mortimer asked.

"No… I think I will just watch…"

"Come on, Remy," said James, "It's not that scary."

"Yeah" Sirius said, "It's really easy too."

"Uh… OK, fine." Remy said. Mortimer opened the cabinet once more. Completely unexpected of the rest of the kids, Remy's worst fear was not a monster or any kind of animal. It was a hovering, glowing orb, very slowly rotating. "Ridikulus!" The orb suddenly grew a red and white suit and a beard, and became a very round Santa Claus.

"Very nice…" said Mortimer.

"What was that?" asked Sirius.

"It was an um… dodge ball. I got hit with a really big one when I was a kid, and it almost killed me."

"Uh… ok then." Sirius replied.

"OK guys, I think I'd better go now, I have to get out some quidditch balls for some second years."

"OK, bye" said Remy.

"Hey, I have a question. What do you do as a games keeper?" asked James.

Mortimer laughed. "Well, I rent out game supplies and manage quidditch pitch times and stuff like that. It's not all that busy a job, but it is fun."

"Oh, OK, thanks." Mortimer waited for all four boys to exit the room before locking it up again. He left to take care of his business and the boys headed back to the common room, talking about how great their day was.

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Well, now I have to thank Hannah (Prongs312, read her fan fiction) for looking up everything I did not want to for me. She told me to do that, because she is a Harry Potter freak (well not freak, just obsessed person) and she told me everything I did not know about it.