A/N: I would like to thank everyone who had reviewed and/or read my story thus far. I apologize that this chapter's a bit longer than the previous chapters, but I wanted to get some action into this chapter. Let me know what you think. By the way, I'm grateful that I've been getting some favorable reviews, but I'd also appreciate criticism where applicable. Thanks for reading, enjoy!
Chapter 7
Late Night Patrol
The letter that Tonks received had no noticeable effect on life at Hogwarts for the next couple days. Harry asked Tonks what the letter had been about, but she refused to say. He had noticed, however, that when she got back from her emergency meeting with Dumbledore (which had taken her up until about half way through the class), she stuck the letter in a drawer of her desk, as if for filing purposes.
She then used the rest of the class to teach them the rest of the information about the charm, which was called the "Disabling Charm," which was performed using the incantation Debilitatus.
On Thursday night, Harry had his first lesson with McGonagall. She set him on his way after simply writing the instructions on the board as Snape had done, and telling him to sit down at his normal transfiguration desk, where there were now potions ingredients.
"This potion is used to reverse the effects of the last potion that the drinker has tasted. It is, therefore, extremely useful. Your homework for next week is to write one foot of parchment on the topic of why this potion is not more commonly carried. Now, be careful not to mess this potion up too badly. I expect at least a satisfactory level potion, because that's what you pulled on your O.W.L. and we can't afford you to slip at all," concluded McGonagall sternly.
During the rest of the lesson, she simply sat at her desk and graded Transfiguration papers. Harry felt pretty confident that he was doing well, and at the end of the lesson, he took the potion up to McGonagall's desk. "All right," said McGonagall, "I will give you a grade for this during our next lesson." Then Harry left.
Harry made his first executive decision as Captain of the House Team as he reserved the Quidditch Pitch on Wednesday night for the purpose of holding team tryouts.
Until then, all of his classes went normally, and Hagrid seemed to be completely recovered from his row with the centaurs. On Friday morning, it was announced that anyone venturing onto the grounds must do so in groups of at least 5, and Harry naturally assumed that this was a direct, although somewhat belated result, of Hagrid's injuries at the hands of the centaurs.
In other news, Harry was still quite pleased with his situation with Ginny. They were still "going together" but without all the tearful implications that had been involved when he had been going out with Cho. On the night before Quidditch tryouts, they had sat up an hour after Ron and Hermione had gone to sleep and had a nice pleasant conversation about Quidditch strategy. Harry had enjoyed it thoroughly. And then, before they went to bed, they had kissed. Harry had enjoyed that too.
Quidditch tryouts went well enough. After allowing everyone who wanted to tryout for Chaser (including, as it happened, Colin Creevey, who, though terribly enthusiastic, turned out to be a bad enough flier that he would have rammed straight into Harry, probably causing him to plummet off his broom to injury or death, had Harry not been quick enough to dodge) a vote of the returning members (including Ginny, as she had been Seeker the year before) produced the following team:
Seeker: Harry Potter
Keeper: Ron Weasley
Beaters: Andrew Kirke, Jack Sloper
Chasers: Amy Bell, Ginny Weasley, and Seamus Finnigan
Amy was almost as good as her sister had been, Ginny was good and showed ability to be great with lots of practice, and Seamus was far from spectacular, but still better than Harry would have expected from a rookie.
"Okay," Harry said, addressing his new team. "So far, I've got the field booked for us on Wednesday evenings and Saturday afternoons. If we work really hard, we may just be able to get the cup again. First practice will be this Saturday starting at one."
Colin, who had not left with the others who were told they had not made the team, asked, "Harry, do you mind if I watch the practices? I'd really like to watch how real Quidditch players play, so that I can get better."
Harry was hesitant at first, but he couldn't deny that Colin needed all the help he could have at getting better, and figured that there would be no harm in it. He was a Gryffindor after all, and still had the chance to make it on the team some other year. "Does anyone have any objections?" Harry asked the rest of the team.
Nobody said anything, and it seemed to Harry that everyone was kind of glad to have an audience. Must make them feel like celebrities or something, thought Harry, who had had quite enough of being a celebrity, and given the choice, would have less celebrity status rather than more. But Harry gave in and allowed Colin permission to come watch practices.
By the time they all made their way back up toward the castle, it was already dark, and Harry and Ron, who were leading the group, made a conscious effort to stay as far away from the Forbidden Forest as possible. By the time they got up to portrait-hole, it was two minutes past curfew, but as they had been out practicing for Quidditch, Harry did not expect that they'd get in trouble.
He expected even less that there would be somebody standing guard outside of the portrait hole. But there was, and that person was Remus Lupin.
"What're you doing here?" asked Harry, surprised.
Lupin seemed hesitant to answer at all, and when he did answer, what he said was not terribly revealing, "I have been asked to guard Gryffindor Tower," stated Lupin simply.
"But why?" asked Harry.
"I… I can't tell you," said Lupin, as if it was painful for him to say so. "But Harry, don't go looking for the reason. Stay in Gryffindor Tower after curfew. All of you. You hear?"
"Yes," Harry answered. Each of the other members of the Quidditch team answered as well, and Colin, in a somewhat squeaky voice, said, "Yes, sir." Harry glanced at Colin, who seemed somewhat shaken at the reappearance of Lupin inside the school. Harry figured that it must be because of the fact that everybody knew that Lupin was a werewolf, and there was still a great stigma surrounding that.
That night, Harry was too exhausted from Quidditch tryouts (he had played different positions all throughout the night to help test people's skills) to even think much about the mysterious need to guard the castle at night, but the topic of conversation the next morning at breakfast predictably focused around that mystery.
"So, why do you think there are guards?" Harry asked Hermione once he had related the events of the previous night to her.
"I don't really know," admitted Hermione, "but I would advise against you trying to find out what it is."
"Why?" asked Harry, surprised.
"Because apparently Dumbeldore already knows about the problem, and he'll be able to take care of it," Hermione said.
"Yes, but remember first year?" asked Harry. "We had to take matters into our own hands."
"Do you remember last time we tried to take things into our own hands?" asked Hermione scathingly, obviously referring to the events of last spring which had ended with Sirius dead.
Ron glared at Hermione for a second before saying, "Look, Harry, that last comment was a little bit below the belt, I grant you. But the fact remains, there's really no reason to go looking for trouble."
"Fine," said Harry, who still had every intention of examining the situation. "Fine. We won't do anything."
That night, Harry stayed in the library until curfew, keeping his invisibility cloak in his backpack. At about two minutes before curfew, he went into the hall and slipped the invisibility cloak on. He had a destination in mind already. He was going to go to the D.A.D.A. room and find out what the letter that Tonks had received was about, and whether that might have anything to do with the raised security at Hogwarts.
He made his way stealthily (which was not terribly hard to do considering the cloak) to the DADA room. When he got to the room, he closed himself in and, after a quick glance around the room, took it off, because that would make it easier to handle the letter and whatnot.
Suddenly, Harry heard something stir in the corner of the room. And then, emerging from beneath an invisibility cloak of her own, was Bellatrix Lestrange. Many thoughts rushed through Harry's mind at once, including the following:
1. Cursing himself for forgetting to look at the Marauder's Map to find out if anyone was in the room.
2. Hatred boiling inside him against Bellatrix Lestrange.
3. Fear of this woman who was apparently a very competent witch, if she was good enough to kill Sirius.
4. The beginnings of a plan of action.
Lestrange cried, "Expelliarmus!"
"Protego!" yelled Harry, and watched with satisfaction as the spell disarmed Lestrange. Then he said, "Debilitatus."
Lestrange picked up her wand, and Harry, who was feeling somewhat safer knowing that she couldn't hurt or kill him, let down his guard. "Petrificus Totalus!" she said, and Harry felt his body stiffen beneath him. So, maybe she couldn't hurt him with her wand, but now that he was frozen there in place, she could certainly think of more muggle ways to hurt him. Harry was just thinking that maybe a quick death would have been preferable to this when Lestrange's face began to change.
Seconds later, Harry found that he shared the room with not Lestrange, but a very angry looking Tonks. "Blast it, Harry! You were told to stay inside Gryffindor tower after curfew! I had a feeling you might come though, and so I planned this out to show you why you cannot, under any circumstances, ever be foolish enough to leave your room at night again. You could be seriously hurt! And don't think you'll get out of this without punishment either. You will have 10 detentions."
"I just want to know what the letter says. If I knew what it says, maybe I'd see the seriousness of staying in the tower," Harry reasoned.
"I will let you see the letter. But in return, you will give me the invisibility cloak, as insurance that you will not have the means to sneak out late at night." Harry seemed to be weighing this trade-off in his mind, but Tonks clarified, "This deal really isn't negotiable."
"Well, all right then," he said. "Can you un-petrify me though?"
Tonks did, and then Harry handed over the invisibility cloak.
Tonks, true to her word, proffered the letter, which read as follows:
To the current Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher,
Let us see if you can live up to your title. I have found a way to get some of my top agents into Hogwarts, notably, Peter Pettigrew. I would advise you to be on your guard against possible ways of entering the school.
--Lord Voldemort
"Now," said Tonks, "the reason we did not show you this originally is because we believed, quite correctly it seems, that you would try to take it into your own hands to stand guard for him yourself. And that simply would be stupid. You simply can't expect to fend for yourself when put up against dark wizards." She glared at him, but then her mood softened a bit. "Although you did do quite well in defending yourself against me. You seem to have mastered the Disabling charm." She pause, pointed her wand at Harry and said, "Crucio," and was pleased to see that nothing happened. She continued, "And if you had been a bit quicker to shield yourself against my last curse, you would have beat me. You're just out of practice with dueling. Maybe we'll practice dueling during the detentions which I just gave you. And I suppose we can space those out over the next ten weeks on-- Which night is your Quidditch practice?"
"Wednesday," answered Harry.
"Well, then we'll make the detentions on Tuesdays," said Tonks.
"Thank you," Harry said weakly, still somewhat shaken by his recent brush with death.
Chapter 7
Late Night Patrol
The letter that Tonks received had no noticeable effect on life at Hogwarts for the next couple days. Harry asked Tonks what the letter had been about, but she refused to say. He had noticed, however, that when she got back from her emergency meeting with Dumbledore (which had taken her up until about half way through the class), she stuck the letter in a drawer of her desk, as if for filing purposes.
She then used the rest of the class to teach them the rest of the information about the charm, which was called the "Disabling Charm," which was performed using the incantation Debilitatus.
On Thursday night, Harry had his first lesson with McGonagall. She set him on his way after simply writing the instructions on the board as Snape had done, and telling him to sit down at his normal transfiguration desk, where there were now potions ingredients.
"This potion is used to reverse the effects of the last potion that the drinker has tasted. It is, therefore, extremely useful. Your homework for next week is to write one foot of parchment on the topic of why this potion is not more commonly carried. Now, be careful not to mess this potion up too badly. I expect at least a satisfactory level potion, because that's what you pulled on your O.W.L. and we can't afford you to slip at all," concluded McGonagall sternly.
During the rest of the lesson, she simply sat at her desk and graded Transfiguration papers. Harry felt pretty confident that he was doing well, and at the end of the lesson, he took the potion up to McGonagall's desk. "All right," said McGonagall, "I will give you a grade for this during our next lesson." Then Harry left.
Harry made his first executive decision as Captain of the House Team as he reserved the Quidditch Pitch on Wednesday night for the purpose of holding team tryouts.
Until then, all of his classes went normally, and Hagrid seemed to be completely recovered from his row with the centaurs. On Friday morning, it was announced that anyone venturing onto the grounds must do so in groups of at least 5, and Harry naturally assumed that this was a direct, although somewhat belated result, of Hagrid's injuries at the hands of the centaurs.
In other news, Harry was still quite pleased with his situation with Ginny. They were still "going together" but without all the tearful implications that had been involved when he had been going out with Cho. On the night before Quidditch tryouts, they had sat up an hour after Ron and Hermione had gone to sleep and had a nice pleasant conversation about Quidditch strategy. Harry had enjoyed it thoroughly. And then, before they went to bed, they had kissed. Harry had enjoyed that too.
Quidditch tryouts went well enough. After allowing everyone who wanted to tryout for Chaser (including, as it happened, Colin Creevey, who, though terribly enthusiastic, turned out to be a bad enough flier that he would have rammed straight into Harry, probably causing him to plummet off his broom to injury or death, had Harry not been quick enough to dodge) a vote of the returning members (including Ginny, as she had been Seeker the year before) produced the following team:
Seeker: Harry Potter
Keeper: Ron Weasley
Beaters: Andrew Kirke, Jack Sloper
Chasers: Amy Bell, Ginny Weasley, and Seamus Finnigan
Amy was almost as good as her sister had been, Ginny was good and showed ability to be great with lots of practice, and Seamus was far from spectacular, but still better than Harry would have expected from a rookie.
"Okay," Harry said, addressing his new team. "So far, I've got the field booked for us on Wednesday evenings and Saturday afternoons. If we work really hard, we may just be able to get the cup again. First practice will be this Saturday starting at one."
Colin, who had not left with the others who were told they had not made the team, asked, "Harry, do you mind if I watch the practices? I'd really like to watch how real Quidditch players play, so that I can get better."
Harry was hesitant at first, but he couldn't deny that Colin needed all the help he could have at getting better, and figured that there would be no harm in it. He was a Gryffindor after all, and still had the chance to make it on the team some other year. "Does anyone have any objections?" Harry asked the rest of the team.
Nobody said anything, and it seemed to Harry that everyone was kind of glad to have an audience. Must make them feel like celebrities or something, thought Harry, who had had quite enough of being a celebrity, and given the choice, would have less celebrity status rather than more. But Harry gave in and allowed Colin permission to come watch practices.
By the time they all made their way back up toward the castle, it was already dark, and Harry and Ron, who were leading the group, made a conscious effort to stay as far away from the Forbidden Forest as possible. By the time they got up to portrait-hole, it was two minutes past curfew, but as they had been out practicing for Quidditch, Harry did not expect that they'd get in trouble.
He expected even less that there would be somebody standing guard outside of the portrait hole. But there was, and that person was Remus Lupin.
"What're you doing here?" asked Harry, surprised.
Lupin seemed hesitant to answer at all, and when he did answer, what he said was not terribly revealing, "I have been asked to guard Gryffindor Tower," stated Lupin simply.
"But why?" asked Harry.
"I… I can't tell you," said Lupin, as if it was painful for him to say so. "But Harry, don't go looking for the reason. Stay in Gryffindor Tower after curfew. All of you. You hear?"
"Yes," Harry answered. Each of the other members of the Quidditch team answered as well, and Colin, in a somewhat squeaky voice, said, "Yes, sir." Harry glanced at Colin, who seemed somewhat shaken at the reappearance of Lupin inside the school. Harry figured that it must be because of the fact that everybody knew that Lupin was a werewolf, and there was still a great stigma surrounding that.
That night, Harry was too exhausted from Quidditch tryouts (he had played different positions all throughout the night to help test people's skills) to even think much about the mysterious need to guard the castle at night, but the topic of conversation the next morning at breakfast predictably focused around that mystery.
"So, why do you think there are guards?" Harry asked Hermione once he had related the events of the previous night to her.
"I don't really know," admitted Hermione, "but I would advise against you trying to find out what it is."
"Why?" asked Harry, surprised.
"Because apparently Dumbeldore already knows about the problem, and he'll be able to take care of it," Hermione said.
"Yes, but remember first year?" asked Harry. "We had to take matters into our own hands."
"Do you remember last time we tried to take things into our own hands?" asked Hermione scathingly, obviously referring to the events of last spring which had ended with Sirius dead.
Ron glared at Hermione for a second before saying, "Look, Harry, that last comment was a little bit below the belt, I grant you. But the fact remains, there's really no reason to go looking for trouble."
"Fine," said Harry, who still had every intention of examining the situation. "Fine. We won't do anything."
That night, Harry stayed in the library until curfew, keeping his invisibility cloak in his backpack. At about two minutes before curfew, he went into the hall and slipped the invisibility cloak on. He had a destination in mind already. He was going to go to the D.A.D.A. room and find out what the letter that Tonks had received was about, and whether that might have anything to do with the raised security at Hogwarts.
He made his way stealthily (which was not terribly hard to do considering the cloak) to the DADA room. When he got to the room, he closed himself in and, after a quick glance around the room, took it off, because that would make it easier to handle the letter and whatnot.
Suddenly, Harry heard something stir in the corner of the room. And then, emerging from beneath an invisibility cloak of her own, was Bellatrix Lestrange. Many thoughts rushed through Harry's mind at once, including the following:
1. Cursing himself for forgetting to look at the Marauder's Map to find out if anyone was in the room.
2. Hatred boiling inside him against Bellatrix Lestrange.
3. Fear of this woman who was apparently a very competent witch, if she was good enough to kill Sirius.
4. The beginnings of a plan of action.
Lestrange cried, "Expelliarmus!"
"Protego!" yelled Harry, and watched with satisfaction as the spell disarmed Lestrange. Then he said, "Debilitatus."
Lestrange picked up her wand, and Harry, who was feeling somewhat safer knowing that she couldn't hurt or kill him, let down his guard. "Petrificus Totalus!" she said, and Harry felt his body stiffen beneath him. So, maybe she couldn't hurt him with her wand, but now that he was frozen there in place, she could certainly think of more muggle ways to hurt him. Harry was just thinking that maybe a quick death would have been preferable to this when Lestrange's face began to change.
Seconds later, Harry found that he shared the room with not Lestrange, but a very angry looking Tonks. "Blast it, Harry! You were told to stay inside Gryffindor tower after curfew! I had a feeling you might come though, and so I planned this out to show you why you cannot, under any circumstances, ever be foolish enough to leave your room at night again. You could be seriously hurt! And don't think you'll get out of this without punishment either. You will have 10 detentions."
"I just want to know what the letter says. If I knew what it says, maybe I'd see the seriousness of staying in the tower," Harry reasoned.
"I will let you see the letter. But in return, you will give me the invisibility cloak, as insurance that you will not have the means to sneak out late at night." Harry seemed to be weighing this trade-off in his mind, but Tonks clarified, "This deal really isn't negotiable."
"Well, all right then," he said. "Can you un-petrify me though?"
Tonks did, and then Harry handed over the invisibility cloak.
Tonks, true to her word, proffered the letter, which read as follows:
To the current Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher,
Let us see if you can live up to your title. I have found a way to get some of my top agents into Hogwarts, notably, Peter Pettigrew. I would advise you to be on your guard against possible ways of entering the school.
--Lord Voldemort
"Now," said Tonks, "the reason we did not show you this originally is because we believed, quite correctly it seems, that you would try to take it into your own hands to stand guard for him yourself. And that simply would be stupid. You simply can't expect to fend for yourself when put up against dark wizards." She glared at him, but then her mood softened a bit. "Although you did do quite well in defending yourself against me. You seem to have mastered the Disabling charm." She pause, pointed her wand at Harry and said, "Crucio," and was pleased to see that nothing happened. She continued, "And if you had been a bit quicker to shield yourself against my last curse, you would have beat me. You're just out of practice with dueling. Maybe we'll practice dueling during the detentions which I just gave you. And I suppose we can space those out over the next ten weeks on-- Which night is your Quidditch practice?"
"Wednesday," answered Harry.
"Well, then we'll make the detentions on Tuesdays," said Tonks.
"Thank you," Harry said weakly, still somewhat shaken by his recent brush with death.