Darkness and Light
Chapter Nine
Updated as of 5/11/10
Harry had waited upstairs in the room for quite some time now, a bit frustrated and a bit bored. Frustrated because after everything that had happened between him and Hermione in the changing tents, she ran off to the library right after the game had ended. Bored because he was mulling these things over in his head much too much.
After a while, Ron had come up. He didn't get any more information out of the Mousetsu girls and was getting a bit fed up with them. Harry desperately needed someone to rant to about the entire situation, but he wasn't sure if his best mate was the right person. The right person would be...Hermione. Except it was Hermione he wanted to rant about.
A very brief and terrible thought crossed his mind, only for a split second; Maybe we should break up? Harry dispelled the thought the instant he realized he was thinking it - no! He loved her, didn't he? Maybe Hermione would snap out of this phase soon enough. At least, he thought grimly, he was cheating on him with books and friends rather then, well, a man.
"So how's your scar been feeling?" Ron asked suddenly. Harry figured it was just an attempt to clear the silence which had settled over the room.
"It's been hurting, but not too terribly." Harry said. "It's kind of just a constant headache."
Ron didn't really have a good reply for that, so that is how the conversation ended. Eventually, the two started working on their Transfiguration essay, a task which would have gone much quicker if they were downstairs on a real desk, ad if Hermione were there. Harry kept checking the time - night fell fast and Sirius was due to floo at one. Would those girls still be there?
Harry and Ron took turns checking to see if the girls were still there. Though most f them had laid out on the couches, Rei sat straight by the fire, looking almost like a young Professor Trelawny.
"What do we do?" Ron asked as the hour drew close. "Do we just tell them to leave?"
"Cho needs to get back to the Ravenclaw common room anyways, she should have left!" Harry said. This made no sense. "And Hermione never stays out past curfew!"
Ron was about to say something helpful when there was a crash and a few screams from the lower level. The two boys turned to one another and nodded before trying to head down the stairs - try be the key word. One of the tapestries the lined the staircases had caught on fire, a fire that seemed to stem from the common room. The tapestry fell from the wall, right in front of them. The two had their wands out, but...
"Really need you now, Hermione!" Ron cried, c;early having forgetting the spell. Harry concentrated hard for a second. He heard more noises from downstairs, more shouts. Suddenly it came to him--
"Aguamente!" He exclaimed, wand thrust forward. The flamed were doused in a miniature sea of water. The two continued down the stairs, the fire had somehow disappeared.
But what Harry saw when he got downstairs was not at all what he could have imagined, not that he really knew what he was imagining. There didn't seem to be many traces of a fire, though the fire in the floo was now out and there were a few burn marks on the carpet and the furniture. Closest to the fire was Cho, Rei, and Chibiusa, and for some reason, Makoto, Ami and Minako had joined them. Each of them looked very scared, yet they all held some sort of colorful object in their hands. In front of the other staircase was a girl who looked very much like Ginny, but there was some sort of magic surrounding her that didn't feel like Ginny at all, and she was wearing an odd sailor-like outfit of green and pink. But standing in front of the portrait hole, in front of an out of breath Usagi, was another girl in an odd sailor uniform with a similar magic surrounding her, bits of blue in her bushy hair. It was definitely a cloaking magic that surrounded the girls, but Harry could still tell that it was Hermione standing before him.
"G-Ginny!" Ron exclaimed, staring at the other sailor suited girl. Harry could see it now, too; the red hair and defiant look, it was definitely Ginny. She looked scared and didn't seem to understand why there was a tiara on her head and she was no longer in her pajamas.
"Ron! What's happened?" Ginny said nervously glancing at her new clothes. She looked at Hermione and seemed to know immediately who it was.
"Well..." Makoto said, stepping forward. At that moment, four more came through the portrait hole, all wearing identical sailor outfits in various colors. Looking carefully, Harry could tell it was Haruka, Michiru, Hotaru, and Professor Meioh, all wearing short skirts and brandishing some sort of weapon.
"We seem to have arrived too late," Michiru said, as if they had showed up for a tea party.
"What do we do about this?" Haruka asked, jerking her thumb at Harry and Ron. Harry was so engrossed in the fact that Haruka wasn't wearing pants that it took him a second to realize the amount of threat under her voice.
"It's just Harry and Ron!" Hermione exclaimed. "You must have known them last year!"
"I wish I remembered." Usagi pouted.
"Um, what's going on here?" Harry finally exclaimed, never being very fond of friends leaving him out of very important discussions.
"I think we'd all like to know that." Said someone. Professor McGonagall came in behind Hermione, her face both shocked and upset. The Professor glanced at the scene; Burn marks everywhere, many of the girls (including a colleague) in short mini-skirts, one of which holding a glaive with a very sharp edge and one of them holding a saber. Girls from other houses were there and all looked very involved, and Ron Weasley was calling one of these ridiculously-clothed girls Ginny.
"Well...um..." Usagi started. Not even calm Professor Meioh seemed to know what to say.
"I'm sure this was planned! This is the second one tonight, and at the other end of the castle! The culprit's been assigned detention and whoever planned this...well, whatever you like to call this disturbance shall be as well!" McGonagall said, voice unusually high. Harry felt the very same way she did, confused and upset, and wished he were in a position to yell.
"There was another?" Chibiusa asked, not seeing how upset the deputy headmistress was. She turned to Usagi, "That would mean the final one awakened, right?"
"It would seem so." Professor Meioh said. She walked up to McGonagall, looking at her fellow teacher like, well, like Harry's Uncle Vernon would look at a wizard. "Where is she?"
"Whom?" McGonagall asked. "Professor, there is some serious explaining that-"
"The one you caught. We need to know." Michiru said.
"In Dumbledore's office, but-" She started.
"Thank you!" Chibiusa slipped out behind McGonagall. Harry could feel the confusion seeping out of Ron, who hadn't moved an inch.
"Go with her, would you? Take her with you as well." Rei instructed Hermione, motioning to Cho and Ginny. Hermione looked at her Professor, who made no move to stop her (yet glared at her with a thousand daggers) and followed Cho climbing out of the portrait hole, Ginny following awkwardly behind.
"Now will SOMEone please tell me what's going on here!" McGonagall exclaimed. She looked briefly at Harry, who did his very best to look confused, if he did not look so already. He did not want to be caught up in this, but he already knew he would be.
"Perhaps we should ALL go to Dumbledore's office." Professor Meioh said, her calming voice having little to no effect on McGonagall. "You too, Harry, Ron. We need to explain everything, and I feel it is best if Dumbledore helps us out."
"And Professor Snape as well." McGonagall said to try to regain her charge.
"Is there any particular reason for that?" Minako spoke up. It was clear she, too, did not like the bitter potions professor.
"The incident happened in his House, when he was in there."McGonagall said, straightening up and leading the way out.
"I...I still don't understand." Ginny said. She was now de-transformed and very pale, sitting inside of Dumbledore's office. The older man had stepped out after the girls entered, going to fetch the final warrior (save for the mysterious sixth) from the other room. Chibiusa, aided by Hermione and Cho, had tried to explain as best they could what had happened. Chibiusa did most of the talking, the other two piping in when it came to how they felt as confused as she did.
"You're a soldier for justice in a legendary system of warriors. We supposedly gain our final member, who still hasn't awakened, on the Moon Kingdom of the present time and the first Five-Point star supposedly originated in the Moon Kingdom of the past. We also have one person somewhere who is able to give is strength for our big battle and there's some myth that someone will die because of it. I didn't really worry about that, because I know it will all work out." Chibiusa said.
"That is how I feel, too." Dumbledore said, re-entering the room with another person. The four looked at the fifth, and none of them could think of a single thing to say. Luckily, the door to the office opened right then and Professor McGonagall led the way, the office soon becoming very crowded very quickly. The newcomers, however, did have something to say about the new Venus. This Venus, however, was not wearing the same shirt skirted outfit as the others...as this warrior was a male.
"Knew it." Rei said.
"W-What? Him?" Usagi exclaimed. Clearly, she had no same. Draco Malfoy did nothing but glare at the gawks and stares he was getting.
"Do you think I want to be in here any more than you?" He drawled, arms crossed firmly over his chest. His top was similar to a sailor top, separate from the pants which were baggy and white, elastic halting them around halfway down his legs, and his shoes were flat and white, very Chinese -like. The only thing not white on him was the orange symbol of Venus on his head in place of a tiara.
"Are you saying that Malfoy is one of you?" Harry asked.
"I am NOT letting Ginny into this...group thing or whatever with HIM!" Ron yelled.
"I don't mean to interrupt," Dumbledore said, the only one in the room smiling,though the smile was faint, "But it seems that the final of your new warriors has awakened just in time."
"Ah!" Usagi exclaimed. She was looking down at her hands, which were in front of her. Harry looked as well, and realized he could see right through them. All of the Mousetsu girls, except for Chibiusa and Professor Meioh, were now nothing more then a hologram of sorts.
In this chaos, Usagi, Ami, Rei, Makoto, and Minako began to sparkle and shine, and suddenly they were also in sailor uniforms, Usagi with large white wings, like the angel in his dream.
"Oh." Usagi said softly. "It's been two weeks." Before anyone could say anything else, a light flashed in what little space was left in the center if the room. Harry was suddenly hit with intense deja vu and it was if a memory had been unlocked - the woman that appeared was Cosmos, the same woman from his dream. All these girls, he had seen them in his dream.
"Well." Cosmos said quite calmly. She surveyed the room, from those who looked very confused, to the see-through warriors of justice, to Dumbledore who was smiling at the goddess's presence. "It seems like time has run out. But I feel before you depart, I owe your friends and your future warriors an explanation."