Disclaimer: JK Rowling deserves only the best after creating such intense characters. (Did she have to go and kill off Sirius though? I thought he was too much of a hottie to die!!!)
Chapter Nine -
A Meeting With Mark
The Hogwarts Express pulled into Hogsmeade station and everyone clambered off quickly, trying to get to the front carriages, which were to take them to Hogwarts' gates. Harry eyed the ghostly winged black horses that stood quietly in their harnesses while he loaded his trunk onto one of the middle ones.
Thestrals were only visible to people who had seen death. And Harry had seen more death than most. The sight of these creatures sent a shiver down Harry's spine.
They were not so much an omen of death as some people made them out to be, but they did unintentionally make Harry replay all of the deaths he had ever witnessed in his mind. Luckily none of the others except Neville had been present when Sirius went through the veil, so they were still innocently staring into invisible space, and asking him questions about what the thestrals were doing. Neville and Luna had been able to see them before Sirius' death, so they remained silent. They were probably thinking their own dark thoughts.
Harry, Ron, Neville and Hermione got their carriage together, and Ginny and Luna took one with a couple of other fifth years. The group reassembled when they finally arrived at the school's front gates.
They all trooped into the great hall, and all but Luna plunked themselves down at the long Gryffindor table, waiting for the new first-years and their sorting. She floated over to the Ravenclaw table, and sat quietly between two other fifth-year girls, who both turned their noses up at her, and rudely moved a few inches away to either side.
Harry looked up at the professor's long table near the front of the room, and was surprised to see that Firenze, the Centaur who had taught divination briefly last year was still there. Harry was even more flabbergasted when he looked further over, and there sat professor Sybill Trelawney. She was the regular divination teacher, who had supposedly been sacked by the ever-annoying Umbridge last year.
"Hey, Ron! What do you think she's doing here?" Harry asked in a whisper. "I thought she would have gone!"
"Not only that, but doesn't she normally stay secluded in her tower for the start of school feast?" Ron replied with a cynical look on his face. "You would have thought she felt the outside world clouding her inner eye!"
Trelawney was swaying contentedly in her chair, and when Harry looked a closer, he could see that her nose was a little red and her smile was more dreamy than usual.
"She's drunk!" Harry said, a little too loudly, and he hurried to look as though he had not said anything when a few faces turned to stare.
Last year, Trelawney had faced quite a few unneeded pressures, starting with Professor Umbridge and all of her 'inquisitorial squad' led by Draco Malfoy and his cronies. After all of that harassment, professor Trelawney seemed to have traded in her mysterious ways for a bottle of Sherry. It looked as though she had yet to give up the stress-related habit.
Nearly everyone in the vicinity who had heard Harry's comment -which was all of the sixth-year Gryffindors- were now staring unabashedly at Trelawney, since Ron had not had the decency not to point out who Harry was talking about. Most were snickering. Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil were frowning and glaring at everyone with expressions of disgust, then at Trelawney with deep pity.
The school settled down as the frightened-looking first-years trundled in following a very haughty professor McGonagall.
She walked immediately to the dais at the front of the room, where the sorting hat sat on a small three-legged stool.
Once they had all grouped at the base of the dais, McGonagall paused and looked patiently at the hat.
A rip in the brim opened, and the hat began to sing.
000000
I am the sorting hat
Hear that I roar
The name of your home
For seven years or more
000000
For Ravenclaw the wise
Stayed fourty and ten
She kept many a book
In the library den000000
Busiest Hufflepuff
She worked thirty years
She treated all equal
And soothed student fears
000000
Gryffindor the brave
He stayed twenty-six
By the time that he left
He'd a war to go fix
000000
Alas for Shrewd Slytherin
He stayed least of all
Just twelve powerful years
In this magical hall
000000
Slytherin warred with Gryiffindor
Hufflepuff consoledRavenclaw wrote the whole story
Lost in times that were old
000000
So place me now
On top of your head
My task is to sort
Then I'll let you be fed.
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The hat took a sort of bow, and the students all clapped politely.
"Odd sort of song, that one..." Ron commented.
Harry wondered if it were true that Rowena Ravenclaw had written the whole story of the four founders down somewhere. It definitely wasn't in 'Hogwarts; A History', since just to shut Hermione up, he and Ron had finally read the book. Nowhere did it have any mention of the personal lives of the founders, or even how long they had stayed at the school to teach.
If Ravenclaw had written something, then where was her book? He might like to read it. The sorting hat seemed to think that the book had been lost. He saw Hermione's eyes light up, as if she had a new quest to fulfill, and Harry knew it wouldn't be long before she'd be quoting the book to him.
In a way, Harry wondered if the sorting hat wasn't issuing a sort of trial. To see if any of the students knew what he was talking about, or if they were curious enough to look the book up. It seemed to have piqued a bit of interest at the Ravenclaw table, since they were all whispering excitedly.
As the noise died down, McGonagall picked up her list of student names, and said to the small crowd before her, "When I call your names, please come to the stool, and put on the sorting hat. When you have been sorted, please take a seat at the table that cheers the loudest."
Everyone chuckled. It was a time-honoured tradition to cheer on ones new house-mates, but no one had bothered to put it that way before.
"Addams, Cecilia." Professor McGonagall called out, and a small girl with long blonde braids on either side of her head nearly tripped on her way up to the stool.
The hat was placed on her head, and one moment later the brim opened wide... "HUFFLEPUFF!" the hat shouted, and the table one over from Gryffindor howled and stomped their feet in appreciation.
Cecilia let out a heavy breath in relief, and she went and sat with her house.
"Billows, Daniel."
"SLYTHERIN!"
"Boyd, Petunia."
"SLYTHERIN!"
"Coombs, Matthew."
"RAVENCLAW!"
"Evans, Mark."
Harry started at the name, and watched as a young boy with light brown hair crept up the dais, his nerves making him shake slightly.
"I know him!" Harry whispered to Hermione. "He lives in my neighbourhood!"
"Really?"
They waited for a moment in silence, while the hat made its decision.
"GRYFFINDOR!"
Harry clapped as loudly as he could. As Mark Evans walked down to their table, Harry spoke over the din. "Yeah! He's another one of Dudley's favorite punchbags! I don't know him well. I don't think he talks much."
The applause at the Gryffindor table died down, and they sat back to watch the group of first-years dwindle down until only "Young, Phoebe" was left, and she was sorted into Ravenclaw.
Dumbledore clapped politely, and rose from his seat. "My speeches will save quite well for later. I'm hungry. Let's eat!" The plates filled with food before everyone's eyes, and the feast began. Harry stuffed a torn off piece of bread into his mouth, and pulled away from the bench.
"I'll be right back." He jogged along the line of students all filling their mouths with food, until he arrived at the end where the first-years sat. He tapped Mark Evans on the shoulder, and Mark dropped a piece of chicken onto his lap in surprise.
"Harry Potter?" he asked in confusion. "What are you doing here?"
"I go to school here." Harry responded unnecessarily, smiling at the bewilderment written on the younger boy's face. "How are you Mark?"
Mark didn't answer him. "You're a wizard? I thought... aren't you supposed to go to St. Brutus' Secure Center or something?"
Harry rolled his eyes. "No, that's my aunt and uncle's lie they've told everyone to keep people as far away from me as possible. They don't like magic."
"I'm sorry." Mark looked uncomfortable. "My parents told my relatives I had to go to a remedial school because I was slow." He said the last word with obvious distaste.
Harry patted the young boy on the shoulder. "I guess we've got a lot in common. We should team up back at home, you and I. With us being stupid and violent, surely we could take the neighbourhood by storm!"
Mark smiled. "I don't think that would phase Dudley one bit. He's got enough stupidity and violence to put anyone else to shame."
Harry laughed. "He does seem to have a thicker than usual skull doesn't he? I've been threatening him for the last five years with a bit of accidental magic."
Mark laughed too, and looked over at his new first-year friends. He almost did a double-take at the looks of fear, amazement, reverence, and confusion with which they were all staring at Harry. They were each hanging on his every word.
Mark decided to try to introduce Harry anyhow. Harry nodded to each one as he heard their names, but they didn't shake the looks in their eyes, and they didn't nod back.
"Why are they looking at you like that?" Mark whispered to Harry.
"They're looking at my scar." Harry answered honestly. "I'll tell you more about it later... or maybe you'll hear something about it sooner than that. It's not exactly a secret." He said, eyeing the curly-haired blond girl who had been Malfoy's victim at Kings Cross. She sat next to Mark and looked as if she would explode if she didn't tell him exactly who it was he was talking to in the next three seconds.
Harry nodded to Mark, and beat a hasty retreat, calling over his shoulder, "If you need anything, you can ask me or my friends. They're the sixth-year prefects. See you!"
Harry returned to his spot with the rest of the sixth-years, and sat back down next to Hermione. He briefly looked back at the first-years, and saw them chatting animatedly all at once to Mark, whose eyes were widening further and further with every word. Mark looked over at Harry once, and his eyes flicked away when he saw that Harry was watching him.
Ron, on Hermione's other side swallowed hard, and asked, "You thinking about recruiting him or something?"
Harry started to shake his head, but stopped. "Actually, that's not a bad idea. I'd like to have a meeting as soon as possible, and get everyone else to pinky swear to me. It couldn't really hurt to have him tag along."
"Why not tonight?" Hermione suggested. "We've got a bit of time after the feast before curfew."
Harry reached into his pocket, and pulled out a small round gold coin. He pulled out his wand as inconspicuously as possible, and touched the coin.
Both Hermione and Ron reached down, and touched their pockets. Ginny, Neville, Dean, Seamus, Colin Creevey, Lavender and Parvati, having not heard the conversation, reached down into their pockets and pulled out their matching coins. They all looked up at Harry and nodded. Harry saw similar looks being thrown at him from the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables, and he nodded back to them too. He carefully avoided direct eye contact with Cho Chang and Marietta Edgecombe, but he certainly couldn't tell them not to come now. He figured he would make it their decision. If they didn't show up, then he would just ask them politely to pinky swear with him not to reveal any of the secrets.
He was immensely proud of the fact that everyone seemed to have kept their fake coins nearby. It made him feel like they had been waiting with anticipation for his decision to start up the DA again.His head filled with a contented buzzing at the thought.
After the pudding had been consumed, Dumbledore stood and made his usual speeches about not going into the forbidden forest and the new list of banned objects on Filch, the caretaker's, door. He did not, however introduce any new teachers, or let them know what new teacher was missing. This was odd, because he had told Harry that they had a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, and Harry could see no one who looked like they filled the requirements.
Harry jumped up with Ron, Hermione, Ginny and the other fifth-year prefect, Colin, to where the first-years sat. Harry rushed, and got there first.
"Mark, can I talk to you?" Harry asked quickly.
"Sure Harry." Harry noted that Mark was suddenly looking very wide-eyed and shy around him. Obviously his friends had told him a thing or two about Harry's exploits and about his famous scar.
"Can I trust you not to say anything if I tell you a secret?"
Mark's eyes widened even further, and he nodded serenely.
"Good. Meet me in the Gryffindor common room in a few minutes, after the others have gone up to bed. I'll tell you then." Harry backed away, just as Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Colin appeared.
Harry followed the straggly group of prefects and first-years up to the common room, and moved past them up to his dormitory while Ginny and Colin talked the group through the tour of the common room. Nearly all of Gryffindor went on up to their new dorms to get an early night, but Mark and a few other older students remained behind.
When Harry returned, he pulled Mark aside. "I have to ask you if you know about the current situation in the wizarding world."
"Well," Mark began, "some of my friends kind of filled me in, and they warned my parents a month ago that the wizarding world is at war in my letter..."
"Are you willing to break a few rules in order to learn the magic you need to protect yourself?" Harry asked in a whisper.
Mark nodded, slightly nervously.
"Good, follow us."
Hermione, Ron, Neville, Ginny, Dean, Seamus, Parvati, Lavender, and one or two others in the older and younger grades followed one by one, trying to look inconspicuous. Harry pulled out a ragged piece of parchment, and eyed it critically. He checked his watch before turning and whispering to the group behind him.
"We have only got a total of thirty-five minutes before curfew, I suggest we make the most of it."
Many of them nodded. Harry checked the map, and pushed the portrait of the fat-lady open.
Mark looked confused, but stayed silent as Harry led the group through the halls to the seventh floor. He looked at the parchment once more to make sure that the only people coming were other members of the DA, and he began to pace.
"What's happening?" Mark whispered to Ron.
Ron shushed him. "Not yet."
A door appeared in the wall behind Harry, and he rushed to get it open, and watched the map as students filed in after him.
The room of requirement was just as it had been the year before.
Absolutely perfect.
All of the members grabbed cushions, and plunked themselves down on the yellow brick floor, some of them taking a book or two down from one of the shelves and spent a few minutes reading. Harry stayed standing until everyone who should be there had arrived. He noticed that both Cho and Marietta had come, and he nodded politely to them, slightly pleased that they didn't completely hate him now. Marietta was looking very nervous, but she seemed to have resigned herself to being a part of the group. Harry's nod of greeting made her relax a little, but she still held herself ramrod straight as if she thought someone might hex her or force her to leave.
"I wasn't able to tell anyone this until now, and this is something that we're only allowed to talk about in this room from now on. I wanted you all to know that I was given permission to practice defensive magic over the summer holidays, starting on my sixteenth birthday."
Almost everyone there looked amazed. Ginny however, laughed. "I knew it!" she giggled.
Harry looked at her, confused. "You knew?"
"I almost walked into your little session with professor Lupin one morning, and I stopped to listen. I didn't mean to eavesdrop and I'm sorry, but I just couldn't figure out at first what was going on. He was showing you how to levitate or something. Anyway, I didn't stay long, but I figured you must have gotten some special permission from the ministry and weren't allowed to tell us."
Harry was bewildered by Ginny's strangely perceptive nature, and her willingness to remain silent until Harry was ready to tell. It was something he had never noticed about her before. He shook his head to get himself back on track. Many of the other students who hadn't known where Harry had spent the last seven weeks of his summer were looking at Ginny thoughtfully. Many of them were smirking.
"You spent the summer with Professor Lupin?" Dennis Creevey asked.
"Among others." Harry answered evasively. "He was a friend of my parents' years ago. Anyhow, I was allowed to attempt quite a few interesting things, so I already have a pretty big repertoire of jinxes and things I thought we should all learn."
Harry peeked over at Mark, who was looking more than a little confused.
"First, I'd like to introduce a new member to our group, and after that I'd like to talk about the importance of secrecy. Mark." He turned to their newest member. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to explain more about this group before, but we can't afford any slip-ups where other people can overhear. It's happened before, and it got us into heaps of trouble.
"This is a defense group we started last year in the hopes that everyone involved would learn how to defend themselves against magical attack if ever the case may arise. It was illegal for us to start this group last year, and even though that law has been since rescinded, I'd rather keep this as quiet as possible. This is still a secret society, attended only by those specifically invited, and we do not mention it outside this room."
Harry saw Mark gulp. "If you decide not to join, I must still have a promise from you that you will not reveal the nature of our meeting tonight to anyone, be it teacher or student."
Mark nodded nervously. "It sounds like a good idea, but don't we have some Defense training in class?" he said in a near whisper.
"I'm not certain of this year, but the teachers in that subject tend to be a little less than what we truly need. Once we had a good one, Professor Lupin, but none of them have lasted more than a year. We've had quite a stunted education in that respect."
"We think the job is cursed." Said Ron.
Seamus laughed. "Let's see if this is right. In our time here, one teacher died and turned to ash. One lost his memory." Ron blushed as he said this, remembering just how it was that professor Lockhart had lost his memory. "One quit after being forced to admit that he was a werewolf. One was a Death-Eater in disguise and got his soul sucked out of his body by a dementor. And the last one was an evil toad from the ministry, who has been in St. Mungo's in a near trance-like state ever since her run-in with a herd of centaurs in the Forbidden Forest. That cover them all?" he asked.
Harry smiled at Mark's pale face. "We don't know who Dumbledore has picked for the job this time, but I have the feeling that this year's class isn't going to be all that different. Dumbledore's been having a really hard time convincing anyone that the job's safe to take."
"All right," said Mark tentatively, "I'll join."
Harry smiled. "Pinky-swear that you promise not to reveal the location or the secret of our meetings. Promise that you will refer to us only as the DA outside of this room, and only to other members."
Mark locked his pinky with Harry's and they shook on it.
"Mark Evans, Welcome to Dumbledore's Army."
Mark's face paled. "Are we an Army?" he asked in a squeak.
Giggling laughter filled the room.
"Not really, it was supposed to be a slur against the Ministry of Magic. They were trying to keep Dumbledore from taking over Minister Fudge's job. They thought he would build an army of students to go against the Ministry. Dumbledore didn't organize this group, nor does he apparently have any intentions to usurp the minister. We're not really against the ministry, but we were sort of trying to show that we supported him with the name."
Mark nodded, still with eyes like saucers.
"Right, back to the issue at hand, I've been able to practice quite a few new jinxes and things, but I thought I'd start by getting into Wandless and Soundless magic with the more advanced group and begin by teaching Mark some of the basics like 'lumos', and 'expelliarmus'. We can actually work as a whole group right now, but I might get some of the people who catch on faster to work with our beginner, so I can help the advanced group."
"You can do wandless magic?" Hermione cut in looking surprised.
Harry put his wand down on the shelf next to him, thought really hard about how excited and happy he was to be back at school, and said "Lumos."
The wand tip lit up, and quite a few people gasped.
"This is just the beginning step for wandless magic, as it still uses a wand, but you aren't connected with it. Later, we'll go more in depth with this, and do things like this."
Harry walked away from the shelf, and stood across the room. "Accio, wand."
The wand flew into his outstretched hand, and he took it and placed it back on another bookshelf. "Or we'll do things that don't have anything to do with a wand at all, like this."
Harry thought hard about Sirius, and the pensieve he had received from both him and Remus for his birthday. He felt love wash though him, and the power that accompanied it made him suddenly decide to try something a little different. "Wingardium Leviosa." Harry said, stiffening his spine and pointing his fingers at his own feet. He lifted up off the yellow brick floor, and hovered for a moment, while the group gasped.
Harry smiled down at the group of students below him. "Obviously, I haven't done this version of the levitating charm with you yet, but we'll get to it, and maybe some people could try it wandless like this."
Harry's feet touched down again, and he smiled, while the rest of the group stared at him in amazement. "Obviously if you get into a scrape and lose your wand, you don't want to be completely defenseless." People around the room nodded eagerly. "Everyone -except Mark- put your wands down somewhere, and think really hard about a time you felt some intense emotion. It can be love, or sadness or even intense anger –some of you might want to try and think about Umbridge last year." Twitttering vengeful laughter rolled through the group at this. "Once you have that emotion in your head, feel it moving out to the fingers of your wand hand. Sometimes it helps to close your eyes."
Harry saw several people close their eyes. He waited for a moment while people got comfortable. Mark was staring at the group of students, looking enraptured.
"If you can feel the power of the emotion almost tingling in your fingers, then why use a wand?" Harry asked them. "If you're feeling so intense about it, then why should you have to use a stick of wood to channel that power? Try and light the tip."
The murmurs of "Lumos" went though the room, and Harry smiled when he saw Hermione's wand light up. Mark was staring at it in amazement. Harry could see he was itching to try the charm himself.
A loud pop came from one side of the classroom, and Harry had to shield his eyes as a white light suddenly seemed to overwhelm the whole class.
"Sorry." Neville muttered, grabbing his wand, and quickly extinguishing the searchlight that had just errupted from it.
"Right." Harry said. "Better work on toning that down Neville. It's pretty good, but you're really putting your all into it. It doesn't need that sort of power yet."
"Right." He answered blushing, but grinning slightly all the same.
"Hermione, could you help Mark with the lumos spell? I'm going to work with the others. Oh, and he should have a coin for himself if you can manage it."
"That shouldn't be a problem. I'll explain it to him." Hermione beamed as bright as Neville's wand just had, and moved over to Mark's side.
"Okay, we're going to try that again." Harry explained. "The most important thing in this is that we don't get discouraged or frustrated. It can affect the power levels, so try and stay positive. Try switching your emotions to see which ones work the best for you."
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The meeting went by incredibly quickly, and Harry had to carefully watch the Marauder's map he carried with him, just to make sure people were getting back to their dorms safely. The little named dots scurried about until all of them had disappeared into dormitories. Harry sighed with relief.
"Harry, that was amazing!" Hermione puffed, sounding out of breath, and she slumped into a tall winged armchair in the now empty common room.
"Yeah mate!" Ron agreed. "You were saying all that stuff about not getting disappointed about not having it perfect, and I just knew that I'd be able to do it if I just kept trying. As soon as I thought that, My wand lit up! It was awesome!"
Harry had been particularily impressed with Neville's wandless magic. After five years of using a wand that didn't work with him very well, Neville had obviously been forced to channel some of his magic wandless without even realizing it. It was impressive to see. He was still having a bit of difficulty with soundless magic, but Harry was certain that it was only because of his low confidence levels. He would almost certainly be able to pick it up very quickly, especially if he were to realize how much he could now do with this new wand. "I'm glad you enjoyed yourselves." Harry smiled. "I thought that part of things might be pretty fun."
"Harry," Ron suddenly looked worried, "You seem to have a pretty good grasp of all of this wandless and soundless stuff... How'd you learn it so quickly if you've only been able to do magic since your birthday? I mean... Some of those things you showed us were pretty incredible..."
Harry shrugged. "I guess I just feel that I need to learn quickly, so I just...do."
Hermione looked as though she wanted to say something. Harry waited until she was ready. "It's just that you've... changed quite a bit from last year. To be honest, I'm a little surprised." She trailed off.
"I was pretty stupid to you guys last year." Harry mumbled, looking away. "I'm sorry."
"No need to apologize, you were angry. I can understand that." Ron waved his hand to brush off Harry's actions of the last year. "You're just acting very..." he waved his hand in a circle, searching for the correct word.
"Wise." Hermione finished for him. Ron nodded at her.
Harry didn't know what they were getting at, so he remained silent. He was both pleased and upset that his friends had come to this conclusion about him. Pleased because it meant he was finally able to control his temper, and upset because he knew that same temper was always just simmering below the surface. It made him a little sad to think that he could never let his anger out again for fear of hurting someone. Still, having control over his own actions was turning out to be as much a blessing as a curse, so he really didn't want to go back.
"It's a little weird, you know to be seeing you with the temperament of a Guru or something. It doesn't seem much like... well... like you." Hermione said.
Harry nodded sagely, as if to prove their point. "I'll try to be a little angrier and more emotional around you two, okay?" He said laughingly. The joke was halfhearted, but he could see that neither Hermione or Ron thought so.
"See, that's what I'm talking about!" Ron said pointedly. "The old Harry would have bitten our heads off as if he thought we were insulting him or something!"
"Would you like me to bite your heads off?"
Hermione and Ron began to shake their heads vigorously, pretending to look terrified. "No! not at all!" Hermione snorted.
Ron sighed. "I guess I just wanted to point it out." He sat back, looking suddenly very sobered. "We're a little worried."
Harry nodded, and looked at his feet. "I'll talk to you guys. I really want to, but I'm not ready yet. Give me a bit more time."
Ron slapped Harry's shoulder. "We'll be here when you need us."
Hermione nodded in agreement.
"Thanks. I think I'll head off to bed." Harry said, and wandered up to his dormitory, clutching the Marauder's map.
"Guru?" Said Ron quietly to Hermione from behind him, "What's that?"
