Quest of the Seekers: A New Haven

Year Three at Hogwarts

(-)

Chapter 23: Lestrange Strikes

It seemed like the walk to the Slytherin common room from the village went by with a blur. Tyler couldn't remember walking the distance because his mind was on two things during that time: Morgan and the kiss that they shared. Of course, it was Morgan who kissed Tyler and not the other way around.

'Why did she kiss me back there? Did she like it? Did she hate it? I know I liked it. It was such a surprise, why did she do it?'

He kept having these types of thoughts until he was sitting down in a chair in a far off corner from anybody. They came back to a semi-empty common room. It wasn't surprising since they got back from the village about 45 minutes early from the time that the students were set to return. The first and second years that were there were seen with butterbeer bottles that evidently came from Regulus and Matt's little scheme to get a little extra spending money.

"Tyler...can I say something first?" Morgan said snapping Tyler out of his stupor. Her voice was small and shy which was so unlike her confident and strong one. It was mind boggling that it was obvious that she was just as uncomfortable as she was.

"Er...sure."

"Look, I want you to understand that the kiss was...oh merlin, who am I fooling? I loved it."

Tyler almost lost his eyes at that. It was almost like she could tell what he had been thinking. But there was still one question that was plaguing his mind making it almost an obsession. "Why did you kiss me anyway?"

She let out an impatient breath and gave him a look of impatient disbelief like someone would do to a hopeless person. "C'mon Tyler, even you can't be that clueless. I kissed you because I like you." Her voice was back to normal.

"Llll...like me?" Tyler stuttered. "But...why? When?" Tyler was barely able to say the words because he felt his throat dry up and face go hot.

Morgan let out a soft giggle which surprisingly made Tyler more edgy. Now that they've kissed, Morgan's girl antics had effects on him that they didn't before. "Er...I've liked since our second year. I still remember when I started to really like you. You were being jinxed by Matt in front of the class because of Arnold and everytime you got hit with a spell, you just got right back up every time and didn't let him have the satisfaction that you were hurting. I guess I have a thing for cute tough guys."

"Me? Sure I'm tough alright but...Cute?" Tyler said with a smirk like it was a joke.

"Tyler, you really need to look in a mirror more often. If you did then you would realize that many girls would double back to look at you."

"Yeah right." But Tyler didn't want to talk about that. He wanted to know more about why and how she got the idea to kiss him though he didn't sound like he was complaining because he was far from wanting to do that. "I'm the oddball housetraitor whose friends with a gryffindor, ravenclawand with a hufflepuff muggleborn."

"Well...yeah, but they still think that you're cute in the girls dorms, they sometimes say it's a shame that your looks were wasted on someone like you."

"Thanks, that really makes me feel more better. So...let me try to guess, after the dueling tournament, you wanted to take that leap of faith and get the chance to know me better to see if I was the guy you thought I was?"

"You know, I don't give you enough credit sometimes. Maybe you're not as clueless as Regulus said you were."

"And just WHAT did he say?" Tyler said trying to sound his best to be irritated.

"He said that you would never put anything together about girl stuff unless someone literally smacked you with it."

Tyler then went into remembering everything that Regulus and even his godfather had been saying to him all year. How he didn't get anything that was happening around him, how he didn't get what girls were thinking or that he was blind to what was in front of them. They knew! Tyler almost felt the need to slap himself because they were right. He never did notice it from Morgan before even though now that he looked back he should've realized it.

"Well...I didn't really get any of this until you gave me that smack on the lips so yeah, they were right. Maybe I should have one every time before a test so everything could come back to me."

"Tyler!" Morgan said slapping his arm with a glare.

"Kidding." Tyler was still finding it hard to make himself catch Morgan's eyes but was spared from trying...at a price.

"Well, well, well, not interupting anything are we?" came a teasing voice Tyler knew all to well and saw that it was both Matt and Regulus and they had sneaky grins on their faces at the sight of them. Morgan turned to glare at them but it looked like she was trying hard not to smile. Tyler felt himself turning red and feeling hot under his collar.

"Wow, maybe Tyler's right Morgan. He could use a good kiss from you to get him through potions. He really needs it." Matt said sitting beside Tyler.

"Or maybe it would be good to save a kiss for him after a quidditch match so he has an even better reason to chase the snitch," Regulus added in.

"Oh shut up." Tyler said trying to get them to stop but failed since it only made them laugh.

"But it finally got through to you huh?" Matt said cocking his eyebrows.

"You knew too?" Tyler said with a disbelieving voice since he thought that Matt was on the same level of understanding girls as he was.

"No," Regulus said cutting in. "He's even more hopeless than you. I told him when I found you two lovebirds come in the common room all nervous and uncomfortable."

"Okay enough," Morgan said in a forceful voice that made them all snap their mouths shut.

'Sometimes, Morgan can be scarier than a 30 foot dragon.' thought Tyler amusingly while he was a little scared.

(-)

The following days, Tyler was a little on edge. He tried very hard not to be a fool around Morgan even though she was acting or doing a better job than Tyler, of acting like she always had. What was mysterious was the fact that Tyler didn't tell Jacke, Reggie and Brad about her snogging him and yet they found out anyway. Jacke had given him a pat on the back which made Tyler smile completely like an idiot. Reggie gave him a "I know how it feels speech," and how he wasn't alone in actually getting to snog which made Jacke and Brad along with Tyler chase him to try to make him look like something not even the Giant Squid would even consider snogging. Even his godfather, Professor Squall, was talking to him about what happened. He relayed his previous experience with girls which made Tyler more confused at how they worked.

'Why are girls so hard to figure out?' he thought impatiently as he wrote to his dad for girl advice. It was official, he was very desperate for answers that he was asking his dad for girl help. Not that it was any good, his father had written back saying that he should brace himself for the troubles were only beginning which was the last thing that Tyler needed to hear.

The only thing that kept his mind off of Morgan was quidditch. Tanner had trained them for their last match against Ravenclaw. The weather for the match had a few clumps of clouds in the sky but other than that was clear as day. The match was a savage battle with Tyler's team members being the savage ones. Reggie was careful to avoid any bludger attacks from both Morgan and from Tanner. The plan was to keep directing the bludgers toward Reggie so he wouldn't have time to focus on finding the snitch giving Tyler the upperhand. He didn't like for Reggie to have to go through that so he tried to get Tanner to focus on the other players as well and not make it sound like begging. Of course, Tanner refused but he had to abandon the idea anyway because with the beaters only concentrating on Reggie, it left the other team's chasersto dominate and score without problems. Reggie placed himself by Tyler which he had to admit was smart because it meant that Tanner and Morgan couldn't try attacking him again because they would have to risk injuring him though he thought that Tanner might do it anyway if the fact that he was their only seeker stopped him. The match dragged on for about an hour and a half at least; by the time that Reggie caught sight of the snitch on the complete opposite of the field from where they were, Ravenclaw was leading by 110 points. Tyler sped toward that snitch as fast as he could when he felt Reggie shoot toward it.

"Sorry Tyler but this one's mine!"

"Yeah right. It's mine!" Tyler yelled back.

Reggieknew that ifhe caught the snitch with their lead then Ravenclaw would still have a chance for the cup especially after their loss to Gryffindor.

Tyler knew that if he caught the snitch then Slytherin would be in the prime running for the cup.

The both were drawing closer to the snitch's location until a green blur came and caused Reggie to spin and almost fall off his broom and caused Madam Hooch to blow the whistle. "FOUL!" She announced.

It was Gansley who fouled Reggie and it made it possible for Ravenclaw to get a foul shot giving them another 10 points. When the game restarted the snitch was out of sight again and Tyler let out a vent of frustration when Ravenclaw scored another 10 points. Sam, Gansley, and Crump tried to get by the Ravenclaw keeper but it wasn't working out too well. The beaters on the Ravenclaw end were targeting them whenever the quaffle was close to them so that they wouldn't intercept or attack to get it. Tyler had to admit that that strategy was better than Tanner telling Morgan that they were to focus on Reggie only.

After 25 more minutes, Ravenclaw was leading them at 340 to 190. Now, it was a matter of time before Ravenclaw claimed victory. Reggie was just motivated to look harder than he ever did for the snitch. He only wished that he could use his eagle form because his sight would get sharper and he would find it in no time but he couldn't waste his attention on wishing for hopeless things. He was going to move to another part of the quidditch pitch to avoid another bludger attack from Tanner when the whistle blew again.

'Not another foul?' he thought as he kept looking until he heard cheering. He looked and saw that Tyler had the snitch in his hand. 'What? When did that happen?' Reggie thought more confused than he ever been.

Tyler couldn't believe his luck as he raised the snitch for all to see. He was looking for the snitch as hard as he could and when Ravenclaw had scored the last goal he let out another frustrating sigh and looked up in impatience when he saw it right above him and then grabbed it without thinking. It wasn't long before the sound of Phil Villar rang through the stadium.

"The Slytherin seeker Solemn has caught the snitch! It's an EVEN score of 340 points a piece."

There was some general clapping from the Ravenclaws and among the Slytherins were some clapping but some were glaring or booing as if they lost.

Tyler headed down to the ground and decided to sit and wait for a while before heading to the changing rooms. He had no doubt that Tanner would start badgering him for not catching the snitch quicker. He would've loved to point out that it was his lame plan to focus the beaters' attention on only Reggie and not attack the other players but he knew he would be outnumbered and even though Morgan and Sam would agree with him, he was sure they wouldn't want to take on the other four team members since they were older and bigger than they were.

"Hey? Room for three more?" a voice said. Tyler turned and saw it was Brad and he was with Tyler and Reggie still in his gear.

"No, come on down."

"You know, I don't see why it's so bad. At least you didn't cause your team to lose," Jacke said trying to cheer his friend up.

"You're just saying that because now Gryffindor has a good chance at the cup," Tyler said narrowing his eyebrows and looking carefully at Jacke.

"Yeah, you're right about that," Jacke said a little cheerfully causing Tyler to smirk and made to slap the back of his head but he dodged. "C'mon, they can't blame you for what happened."

"Yeah, your friend Morgan and Tanner kept aiming at metrying to get me out of the match while my team's chasers and beater focused on your other players. The game plan you had really sucked."

"Hey Reggie, don't look at me. I didn't make those stupid calls. Tanner did and because of his stupidity, we didn't win."

"Neither did we," Reggie countered.

"Yeah, well, that's not the way that he and the other slytherins are going to see it. I'm going to dread going back to the common room. It's times like this that make me want to shock my housemates a little," Tyler said smirking at his punning joke.

"Well, you can't."

"Thanks Brad for ruining a little bit of peace I got from dreaming that."

"My pleasure."

"Thanks," he said sarcastically. Tyler felt a little better thanks to all this and decided that now was a good a time as ever to get changed. "Look, I gotta go change out of these robes. I'll see you later."

"Yeah, me too. I look completely a mess." Reggie said looking at his dirty and sweaty blue quidditch robes."

"I bet. You just want to change out of that before any cute girls get a good look of you up close," Brad said heading in his own direction.

"Hey I resent that!" Reggie yelled trying to sound offended before he took off.

"Well, I better go," Jacke said walking off as well.

Tyler headed for the Slytherin changing tent but on his way, he noticed a figure some distance away. He squinted to get a better look and recognized him as Lestrange. He was glaring at him and Tyler could only glare back. Obviously, he was upset at Tyler for catching the too late to win the game for them. He quickened his pace so he could avoid the chances of him getting jumped and nearly ran into the changing room. It was completely empty of anyone meaning that the other team members already changed. He changed into his school robes after he showered and then headed back out for the castle so he could meet up with Matt and the others but when he got to the lake he heard shouting.

"What do we have here?" a taunting voice said.

"Give that back!" another voice said with anger.

Tyler's stomach dropped since he recognized the two of them. It was Jacke's and Lestrange's voices. He saw two figures in the distance and saw that one was standing with his wand pointing down at him and the other was on the ground. He heard Lestrange's voice again.

"Why would a Gryffindor like yourself have something like this around your neck?"Lestrange said with a cross of taunting and anger.

"Give that back. I worked really hard to make that lionpendant and that snake charm was a gift!" Jacke said staring from Lestrange to the chain.

"A gift huh? Well, say no more since it's obvious where you got it from. I see that Solemn is more of a house traitor than I thought."

"Shut up and givethem back!" Jacke got up and ran for Lestrange but he cast another flipper hex to him sending him back down.

"Well, this should get you to take the message to stay out of Slytherin affairs Walker." Lestrange then took the snake charm off and through it toward the direction of the Giant Squid. It fell on one of it's tentacles causing the squid to grab it and eat it up like it was a treat.

Jacke's eyes opened in horror as he saw the silver snake that Tyler gave to him go to shreds at the hand or tentacles of the Giant Squid. "No!"

"Ah too bad. Now for charm number two."

"No, that's my pendant."Lestrange raised the chain with the lion charm that he worked so hard to make during the summer into a position to be thrown also toward the squid when something collided with him.

"Let that go Lestrange!" Tyler yelled standing over him. "Or else."

"Or else what Solemn?" Lestrange went and tackled Tyler to the ground. "It is good that you came, now, I have double the pleasure of throwing the garbage that Walker was wearing. No Gryffindor scum like him deserves to wear a proud symbol of Slytherin house and this lion pendant is better use as a part of a floor than around his neck." He raised is hand to throw the pendant while his other had his wand aimed at them but before he could complete his throw there was a angry hissing sound. They all looked down and saw that it was Chaos and he was beside Lestrange's feet. He had his fangs barred and let out a loud openmouth hiss at Lestrange. "Get back." Lestrange went to point his wand at Chaos and Tyler saw that as his chance.

He tackled Lestrange with all his might and ended up falling into the lake. Tyler tried very hard to wrestle the chain out of Lestrange's hands. Tugged at each other and kicked as they were spinning underwater. Tyler got a big break when one of the Giant Squid's tentacles went by Lestranges leg distracting him. It allowed Tyler to kick him in the head and free the chain and he quickly swam back to Jacke.

"Tyler? Are you okay."

Tyler was coughing a little but he smiled and held up Jacke's chain. "Yeah. I think you might want this back."

"You treacherous brats," Lestrange yelled as he surfaced. He had a broken nose and a scrap on his left cheek from when Tyler kicked him. He brandished his wand that started to have angry sparks leak out of it.

"What is going on here?" yelled a thunderous voice and they saw that it was the groundskeeper Hagrid. He looked from Tyler to Jacke to Lestrange with a look of curiousity. Even though Tyler and Jacke knew that Hagrid was gentle, he looked very intimidating.

Tyler could understand why he was concerned though. There was Jacke who had grass strewn all over his clothes, Lestrange wet with a bloody cheek and nose and himself completely drenched from head to toe. Jacke seemed a little worried and Lestrange had an emotional mask on so Tyler decided to jump in with an excuse. "Nothing Hagrid, we were just fooling around and we accidentally fell and landed in the lake with the Giant Squid having a go at us." He knew he was saving Lestrange's hide as well as his and Jacke's butif Lestrange was the only one who got in trouble then there would be no doubt he would strike back harder and with friends.

Hagrid seemed to accept this and said that Lestrange should go to the Hospital wing to get himself cleaned up. Lestrange passed by with a glare and muttered, "You'll regret this" as he passed by them.

"You should get going too. Suspect you'll be wantin' to talk to your friends about your match huh?" Hagrid said still looking

Jacke and Tyler nodded and took off for the castle together. "What happened to you?" Tyler asked when he was sure they were out of anyone's earshot.

"Lestrange. I was just sitting close to the lake and he came out and jumped me. I didn't have my wand so he brought me down easily and I couldn't use my elemental powers or animagus form so I was stuck. Said that I was part of the problem why you couldn't catch the snitch and he snatched up my chain for some kind of payback. Honestly, what is with that guy?"

"I don't know and frankly, I don't give a bloody damn. Keeps going on about how my cousin is going to get people like me, blood traitors like me, blah, blah, blah, blah. If I had the chance I'd give him a good fire whip to make him learn to shut up. Anyway," he said huffing the breath he'd been keeping in. "What were you doing out by the lake after the match anyway?"

"Oh," Jacke said turning his face away. "Just thinking." Jacke hid his face so Tyler wouldn't see him turn red. He had been thinking about Jennifer back at the lake. During the match, he had subconsciously grabbed Jenny's hand andit made him red and pull away from her before she would feel funny. Jacke spent the whole match trying not to look at her even though it was hard.

"Good place for it." Tyler said bewildered at how his best mate was acting. "Well, at least you still have your chain."

"Yeah, but, Lestrange destroyed the snake you gave me for it." He held out the chain to notice that the snake charm he gave him at the beginning of the term wasn't there anymore. "Sorry. I know what that snake meant to you."

"No...it's Lestrange's fault so don't apologize for it. You tried to save it. At least I was able to save your lion pendant. I know you wouldn't want to lose that after spending that time last summer making it. Don't worry."

"Oh and Tyler," Jacke said as they were about to separate on their different paths to their respective common rooms. "Thanks for helping me out back there."

"What's a best mate for?"

(-)

The month of May had arrived with a foul swoop. The seekers looked back and couldn't believe the time had passed by in a flash. It was as if they just got the Fecundity potion yesterday and now they were merely two weeks away from using it to create their sanctum of Avalon. Just to say the name made them excited to see all their hard work and planning come true was stimulating.

Jacke helped with drawing a blueprint map, as Brad liked to call it, of their island. So far itconsisted of a forest to the Northwestern region, a lake in the west, a small hill in the center with a tree that and they decided to make a manor to the north for themselves to do whatever they want or needed. The rest of Avalon was plain because they just couldn't make up their minds for what to put there; so they decided to leave it with plain grasslandsjust in case they had future ideas.

"This is it isn't it?" Brad asked as they finished the intial blueprint map. "We're finally going to be the first wizards since the founders to use the Potion of Fecundity."

"It is." Tyler said reminicing the memory. "Hard to believe that all this started with me having a tour of the Deep Level in my house because I was bored."

"Look what happened from boredom. Now if you guys could put more effort in getting your homework done instead of the last minute then who knows what that'll do for you," Reggie said with his own smirk.

"Nice try Reggie," Jacke said putting his hand on Reggie's shoulder. "Anyway, there isn't anything else to do. We've done everything we can do for Avalon. So, when do we use the potion? Tuesday? Wednesday? Saturday?"

"How about on Friday? Right after our last lessons. I think that would be good because if anyone notices us rushing then it won't look suspicious because everyone rushes to put their stuff away to enjoy the weekend." Reggie said shrugging.

"Once again Reggie, you've done it. You know, for someone who doesn't like breaking the rules, you sure have great ideas." Brad said nodding acceptance of his plan.

"Yeah, you sure are two faced." Jacke said giving him a lopsided grin.

"Well, even if it was Reggie who chose it, we are still using the potion in six days at last."

(-)

End of Chapter 23

Dark672: Thanks

Author Notes:

Whoa, hormones flying with Tyler and Jacke. I know Brad seems to be the only one that isn't getting any romantic action but don't give up hope for him since some are late bloomers. And isn't Lestrange such a git? Well he does become a Death Eater and was part of the torturing of the Longbottoms so it isn't unexpected. The next chapter will have the seekers using the potion at last and the school year will be wrapping up with a few othersurprises.

I'm sorry that this update wasn't as fast as usual but I've recently got less time on my hands so I'll hope you'll forgive me.

High Serpent King