Chapter 6
"An owl, Harry?"
"Yes. It was huge! I can't believe that you didn't see it."
"Well we were sort of busy you know."
"But still, it was right there…and it talked."
"You can talk to owls now?"
"Apparently."
"What did it say?"
"It said, 'Tell the man clothed in green to meet me on the new moon of next month by the lake on the north end.'"
"Professor Green?"
"That would make the most sense."
"Well your in luck then."
"Yeah, I know."
The three friends were now sitting patiently inside the Defense Against the Dark Arts room, waiting for their teacher to arrive. The rest of the class were chatting away, all with an excited aura about them.
While they were waiting, Harry noticed how different the room looked from past years. Unlike every other teacher that Harry had had, Professor Green didn't have a single piece of decoration anywhere. Professor Quirrel had many different artifacts in his room, Lockheart had pictures of himself, Lupin had cages and aquariums filled with wild beasts, Mad-eye had dark detectors stacked on every wall, and Umbridge had the most disguisting pink wallpaper lining the room. But Professor Green had nothing. No posters. No pictures. Not even stacks of books. All there was were desks; the students' desks and the teacher's. The room felt strange and uncomfortable now, and if it wasn't for the sunlight shining in through the window, Harry could of honestly mistaken it as one of the dungeons.
Finally, the door in the back opened up and out came the handsome, young Professor Green. The class quickly settled down and became silent.
"Good Morning class."
"Good Morning, Professor Green." replied the students. Professor Green smiled warmly in acknowledgement and did roll call. He went through the list of names, looking up each time a person called out in response. Harry waited for the usual double-take that people usually did when they saw him, but Professor Green didn't even flinch and moved along smoothly.
"Well, um…Welcome, to Defense Against The Defense Arts Level 6. For those of you who don't know, I'm Professor Green. And well, I'm going to be perfectly honest with you. I don't have any experience teaching. So this is going to be a learning experience for me as well as you."
Some students began to murmur. And Harry began to feel like something was about to go wrong. Professor Green quickly began to speak, quieting down the chatter of the students. "Anyway, if you would open up your books to page 20, we're going to jump into the first spell that's listed, which would be…the lasso spell. Now it says here that it is used to capture your enemies and stop them from evading you. Hmmm…that would be useful…Now it says here that the encantation is….Strigo motum. Okay then, lets all say that with our wands away. Say it with me now, Strigo motum."
"Strigo Motum."
"And when you say that, you will do this…" Green held out his wand and called "….Strigo motum!"
But nothing happened. Professor Green's wand just gave out a little spark."
"Come on now." He began to hit it on his desk, trying in vain to get his wand to do the spell. "Strigo motum!"
And then, a golden rope unfurled from his wand and immediately wrapped its way around the closest thing that the wand was pointing at; Ron's desk.
Ron jumped a little and quickly pushed backed in surprise. Some students snickered.
"Ah, there we go. The lasso spell. You can pull your enemies toward with just a flick of your wand." Green flicked his wand lightly to start slowly pulling Ron's desk toward him. He flicked it again to stop it.
"And in order to break the spell, all you have to do is pull straight back." Green did so and much to his suprise, the magical line did not break and instead the desk just came speeding toward him. Green quickly sidestepped out of the way before Ron's desk smashed into his own desk which crashed into the wall behind him. The desk was still tethered to Green's wand.
"Oops. Uh…well…that didn't work out as I expected it to. Maybe I need to use a little more force."
Before anyone could stop him, Green pulled back with all his might, which pulled Ron's desk toward him at an alarming rate. Green, with barely enough time to react, front flipped over the desk as it hurtled past him, straight into a window. The window broke instantaneously allowing Ron's desk to fly outside of the room, only to be stopped by the length of magical rope that still tethered it to Professor Green's wand. This made the desk stop and drop downward and hang by the side of the castle, right above the lake on the school grounds.
"Aw crap." Green muttered as he surveyed the damage. "Well, at least no one's hurt, right class? And look, I still have the desk." The class was talking excitedly throughout the entire experience and now were crowding around the windows to see what was happening to the wayward desk. Green flicked his wand to start pulling it up to the window. The weight of the desk didn't seem to cause any strain to the professor at all.
And then the students began to shout and suddenly a strange noise sounded from his wand as if it was straining against something. The wand suddenly began pulling him toward the broken window. He quickly flicked the wand to stop it.
"What the…"
"Professor! Professor! The giant squid has the desk."
"The giant what!"
With a sudden lurch, Professor Green was pulled right off his feet and dragged headfirst toward the open window. Green, managed to get his feet in front of him and place them on the walls on both sides of the now open window. He stopped moving and held on with all his might. However, the walls broke under the strain and the professor was sent hurtling downward into the lake.
"Crap, crap, crap, crap…." thought Link as he fell toward the lake, being pulled along by the spell that linked his wand to the ill-fated desk. Link, having been in similar situations before, put his body into a diving position to reduce the pain that he would take from such a fall.
SPLASH
Link hit the water and kept moving toward whatever was pulling the desk. The water was freezing and dark, nothing like Lake Hylia whose crystal clear waters always felt refreshing when he would decide to take a swim. Link was having hard time seeing, but the light from his magical rope clearly showed the desk being pulled by a giant tentacle in the distance. The illumination also showed several dark figures swarming around Link as he was pulled through the water. He pondered what the shadows belonged to, but more important areas of interest soon arose.
"Damn it….can't breath." thought Link as his lungs began to crave for air. He abandoned his wand and quickly swam upward. It took Link only five seconds to reach the top but each second that passed by seemed like an eternity to him.
But, finally Link hit the surface. He gasped for a air, and took several breaths to calm himself down.
"Stupid squid dragging me out into the middle of the Lake," grumbled Link, "taking my stupid wand. He's not going to get away with this." Link tried to think of a way to get his wand back but soon realized that he would need some of his other equipment to do so; and he had left most of it back in his office. Link usually never left his equipment behind him, but he had hadn't really planned on being pulled out of his office by a giant squid.
While treading water in the icy cold lake, he tried to see what the distance was between him and the shore. To his disappointment, he realized that the squid had pulled him out farther then he had first thought.
"Okay, if I swim back it'll take me about 10 minutes to reach the shore and then a good 20 minutes to run all the way back to my office…Crap, I still have a class going on…" Link moaned. "So much for a good first impression…man I must look like an idiot." Link continued to talk to himself, wondering how he could save himself from even more embarrassment and wishing that he had worn his blue tunic instead of his green. Then all of the sudden, something popped out of the water behind him. Link turned around to come face to face with one of the most repulsive faces he had ever seen in his life. It had grayish skin and long, wild, dark green hair. It's eyes were yellow, as were it's broken teeth. And it had a thick rope of pebbles around it's neck.
At first, Link thought that he was looking at some sort of hideously deformed Zora, but soon realized that it was different kind of water-dwelling species altogether. A few seconds of awkward silence passed.
"Um…hello?" Link said cautiously. Unsure of what language it spoke or whether it was friendly or not. Link still had his sword but he couldn't use it while treading water. It seemed friendly enough, it wasn't glaring menacingly at him. In fact it was looking at him with a very curious expression.
And then all of the sudden, another thing popped out of the water behind Link. Link turned around to come face to face with a Zora. Link sighed with relief at the sight of a more pleasant and recognizable face.
"Greetings Hero of Time," announced the Zora. "What brings you out to these murky waters."
"Greetings friend," announced Link. "I'm here because a squid pulled me out here and stole something from me."
"Ah yes. I believe my cousin has what you have lost." The Zora pointed to the creature beside him.
As Link turned around to face the creature. A slimy, scaly hand suddenly popped out . In it was his Link's wand.
"Oh…um…Thank you, very much." said Link taking his wand back. And then, as quickly as it had come, the creature vanished into the murky depths of the lake.
"Don't mind him." assured the Zora. "He's a merman. A race of water dwellers closely related to us, Zora. They have long since been believed to have died out many years ago, during the Great War."
"The Great War….the same one that my parents died in?"
"I believe so. The merman fought to control Lake Hylia while we Zora fought to control the rivers. It was believed that they were all exterminated by the enemy, but it seems that their remaining forces just migrated to this world."
"Ever since you discovered those ancient gates in your pursuit of Princess Zelda's captors. We realized that a gate very similar to those were located in the water temple. That is why I am here. It seems that the gate in the water temple leads to these murky waters."
"Well that's great news. A way back to Hyrule right in this lake. I can go for reinforcements if it ever comes to it…"
"I'm afraid it's more complicated then that."
"How?"
"The gate doesn't seem to open from this side. Which may explain why the mermen never returned."
"Damn…so it's just like the gate that I came through; you can come to this world but you can't go back."
"Indeed hero."
"So how many of you came through."
"Only a searching party."
"So only 10 then.
"Yes hero."
"Well it isn't a lot but any help will do."
"I agree hero."
"Could you give me a ride back to shore now? I lost the feeling in my legs three minutes ago."
"I would be honored to."
"Does anybody see him?"
"No, he got pulled out too far."
"That sure was exciting though."
"Yeah. But what kind of teacher gets himself pulled out of a window by a giant squid."
"I don't think he even knows what he's teaching."
All the student's were gathered by the windows trying to see what had happened to their unfortunate teacher. Harry was beginning to see why Dumbledore wasn't impressed with Professor Green. Not many teachers could botch up a spell demonstration this badly.
"You think he's alright?" said Hermione worryingly.
"I'm sure he's fine, Hermione." replied Ron.
"Yeah, but it may take him awhile to get back." interrupted Seamus.
"You know what that means…" said Dean
"Party time!" cheered Seamus.
"Wooo hooo!" students yelled and cheered in approval.
"Hey, how about we check out his office." called Parvati from in front of the Professor's door.
"Hey, we shouldn't be going in there!" Hermione argued
"Why not? He left it unlocked."
"That isn't a good reas..." But Hermione's objections were ignored and the class ventured into Professor Green's office. Harry and Ron tried to stay by Hermione, due to her guilt-inducing glances, and not go into Professor Green's office but soon found their curiosities taking the best of them.
Professor Green's office was very much like his classroom. It was clean and uncluttered; and there wasn't much in it. There was bed and a desk with several stacks of books on it, all of them about the Defense Against the Dark Arts. But that was about it. No paintings, no strange artifacts, nothing. Needless to say, the students were somewhat disappointed.
"Not much here…" said Harry.
"Hey, is there something under the bed?" asked Neville.
And indeed, there was something under the bed. Harry and Ron brought it out and found out that it was a trunk with seven key holes; just like the one that the fake Professor Moody had when he was here. Harry wondered if there was another Professor Green inside.
"Well somebody go ahead and unlock it." said Ron.
"You can't use a spell to unlock one those chests, Ron. Everyone knows that." Hermione replied.
"Well we don't need to." said Harry, "the keys are on his desk." And sure enough, they were. One by one the class opened each of the seven key holes to find different items each time they opened it. At first they found some clothes but unlike the Professor's green robes, these were not green. They weren't even robes. They were red and blue tunics. Why did the professor have these strange clothes.
The second key hole opened up a chest containing several maps. The maps seemed old but durable and they plotted out areas that the class had never seen of and they were labeled with runes that no one knew, not even Hermione could decipher them. Most of them looked like maps to giant caves. They also found several different compasses. An odd find since you usually would only need one. But perhaps the professor broke most of them because many of them were not pointing north at all.
Next they found a boomerang. Which seemed pretty strange to be in such a chest. Moving on they opened the fourth container to find a small, round, blue object. They figured that it was an instrument, most likely a type of flute, judging from the holes and mouthpiece. A small triangular decoration was located just a bit below the mouthpiece.
One of the students picked it up and blew into it. It resonated a pure, blissful note . Immediately entranced by it's heavenly sound, the students took turns blowing into the instrument, each trying to compose their own melodies. None of the students were very good at it, but the perfect sound of the wonderful instrument made anything sound good.
Harry was just able to get his hands on the instrument when the students heard a faint noise. It was footsteps; fast and very wet footsteps. Without thinking, the students quickly closed the chest, put the keys back and ran back to their seats. Without enough time to reopen the chest and put the instrument back, Harry quickly stashed it into his pocket and ran back to his seat hoping he could return it later without getting in trouble.
Harry was just able to make it back to his seat when the Professor barged through the door. He was soaked to the bone, and he was breathing heavily; it seemed like he ran all the way up through the castle. He quickly caught his breath and began speaking calmly.
"Well…I wasn't really planning on that to happen, but you get the point of the spell, right?"
The students nodded in agreement, hiding the smirks that were creeping onto their faces.
"Everybody just practice on their own then..." but he was interrupted when the bell rang, acknowledging the end of class. The students quickly rushed out before the professor could get out another word.
"Damn it all…"grumbled the professor. He started to go back to his office when Harry, Ron, and Hermione pulled up behind him.
"Um…excuse me professor." said Harry. Green turned around to face them.
"Hmmm? What is it?"
"Well, uhh, this may sound strange, but, there was this owl you see…a large owl…a very large owl and it sort of talked to me…"Harry said hesitantly. He didn't know if the professor would actually believe that he could speak to owls.
"Yeah? What did it say?" said Green with a blank expression.
"It said, 'tell the man clothed in green to meet me on the new moon of next month by the lake on the north end,' or something like that."
"…interesting. Well, if that's all, you three better get a move on to your next class. I apologize that this one didn't go very well; first time teaching you know. The next ones will be better, I promise." And with that, Professor Green started to go back to his office. Harry considered giving Green his instrument back to him as he was closing the door, but then decided that he could return it later without risking getting in trouble.
As Link closed the door, he pondered why that old owl went through the trouble of giving the message through Harry instead of giving it directly to him. It wasn't like him at all. It always delighted meeting Link face to face, usually taking pleasure in surprising him from above. It troubled Link that the owl would be in such a rush to not do so.
"No use in worrying I guess. Just got to get ready for my next class…"
