A/N: Thanks to Ninde Annare, Rain, Omair, seirra, Janet Lily, sanu and aks for taking out the time to review!
Calling ALL the readers of Shadows:
My request to those who have been reading and not reviewing; Please do try to drop a line or two after reading the updates that I've worked quite hard on. The updates will be regular from now on. For a writer, reviews mean the world, which make us write even faster. So, review, and review often, so that I know you are reading; so that I continue writing.
Thanks!
Ninde Annare, Always love to hear from my favorite authors. I'm loving your "Why Do you Stare," Keep at it :winks:
Rain, Another one of my favorite authors. Thanks for the pointers. Hope to see more updates of your brilliant Ginny fic.
Omair, I'm not planning to hook Luna with Harry, so rest assured! And threats? Oye! Merna hai kya:laughs: I'll try my best to update speedily!
seirra, You get my "Regular Reviewer Award." :smiles: Thanks for always telling me how you liked the updates. An ultimate wish of any writer.
Janet Lily, Another of my favorite and old reviewers! Thanks for sticking with this fic for so long. You will soon be rewarded with many updates.
Sanu, :hugs: Finally, made your way to Thanks for doing that girly. Appreciate your views and well caught. Mysteries will be resolved soon enough.
Aks, Thanks! And I'm sorry I've been a little off. Blame it on my final exams and what not but I'm finally free to update regularly.
Amelia Bones's visit to Hogwarts had been through one delay after another without any plausible reason. The students were told that many international matters were at hand and the Minister had to keep up with the new laws conceded by the International Confederation of Wizards about the coming unpredictable times.
After the appointment of the new Minister of Magic, for a change, laws were finally followed and every magical being was given their rightful status.
And in spite of the palpable dread in the air, there were little sparks of hope here and there which made the wizarding community believe that things would somehow be better for good.
Daily Prophet had finally abandoned the attempts of sliding Harry's name in every article; the Boy-Who-Lived charade was deserted, much to Harry's relief.
And Grawp became a celebrity overnight...
After the 'crooked incident', as Ron dubbed Grawp's appearance near the Forbidden Forest, there was a lot of hue and cry made by the parents over their children's well being, highlighting the points that Giants are suppose to be the pinnacle of cruelness, and how there are an infinite number of chances that they would eat the students alive.
However, when the Ministry officials came to investigate, they were very disappointed-to put it mildly-because the Giants turned out to be friendly and didn't harm anybody unless they were poked with tree branches repeatedly.
During their investigation, the Centaur leader Magorian paid them a visit, closely followed by some of his loyalists, to ward the humans off the forest. But a simple talk turned into a clash when the centaurs found that the humans were from the Ministry, much to Hagrid's amusement, because after that if their were any doubts left about the Giants, the officials overlooked them in a hurry.
So, after a lot of mumbling, squatting and scowling after the centaurs, the officials from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures gave their verdict that the Giants could indeed live in the Forbidden Forest to balance out the forest's habitat.
Hagrid threw a party to celebrate Grawp and Krucky's freedom, which turned out to consist of rock-cakes and tea. Harry, Ginny and Hermione almost broke their teeth trying to take a bite off the cakes, but still stayed back to keep Hagrid from consuming too much fire-whisky and were rewarded by Dumbledore's scrumptious cup cakes at the end, who visited the hut in the evening.
Within the Hogwarts grounds, the DA classes went on smoothly. They were scheduled to be three times a week, conducted by different professors, and the original DA classes conducted by Harry and Professor Lupin entered more undiscovered grounds, except no other fainting episodes were reported.
Ron was recovering speedily. Madam Pomfrey did her best for her patients, being extra careful after the incident of potion switching done by some crazed lunatic.
"Take that, you stupid git," Ron shouted, as he sent his knight after Harry's castle. The upper half of his body was still covered in bandages, but according to the Matron he was on the way to recovery. His bedside table was filled with 'Get well soon' cards from his family, team-mates and friends.
Harry was propped on Ron's bed and they were playing wizard's chess. As always, Harry was losing.
Without even missing a beat, Ron continued, "So, here I was surrounded by Dementors and Hermione comes shrieking, like I was dying or something... It was like, she was this fiery Queen saying, 'Get away from him! Don't hurt him!'" Ron mimicked Hermione's voice and was shaking his head but Harry could read beyond Ron's red face and pretence that he was more than pleased, like a kid who got his Christmas present early.
"And being injured has its plus points," Ron said grinning broadly, motioning to his bulging supply of Chocolate Frogs and cards. "No classes to attend, no homework to be done-"
"No DA classes to look forward to, which means that you would have to do the big binge later on," said Harry, giving him a sly smile.
Ron groaned. "I'm no Hermione that I would catch up on my homework here rather than relaxing, but can't I attend the DA classes?" Ron finished pleadingly.
"Well, I can't let you, because you haven't healed fully. Still, I'll teach you the missed lessons in Christmas holidays."
"C'mon, I'll be a good boy; I will just sit and watch," Ron gave him a boyish smile.
"Visiting time over," Madam Pomfrey hollered from her office.
"Ah well, time to go, mate, and that smile won't work on me, but you can try it on girls... especially, a bushy-haired girl," Harry said grinning wickedly, while Ron's ears went rather pink.
"I'll bring you some homework for a change in the evening." Harry winked while Ron blanched.
Harry made his way towards Dumbledore's office for his third Legilimency class. He was hugging his muffler tight around his neck from the encroaching frosty winds of December, bellowing through the windows, making his hair look messier than usual.
As he entered the office, Dumbledore mumbled, "Time already?"
He was signing some official looking papers.
"Sometimes, a day should have forty-eight hours, but alas! That is not to be... So, how are you, Harry?" Dumbledore asked, looking through his half moon spectacles.
"Fine. Er... Professor?"
Dumbledore smiled, as if he knew what was coming next. "Yes, Harry?"
"Can you tell me about that mysterious gateway?" Harry came right to the point.
"Oh... Well, why not?" Dumbledore stroked his beard as he pondered for awhile. "The gateway that you saw in the platform and in Hogsmeade could lead to anywhere. I don't precisely know its actual location because to discover that, you would have to journey through it. However, I can tell you this from reliable sources; it is not very pleasant."
Harry suddenly remembered the scream of the Death Eater who was sucked into the Gateway in Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.
"Err... does that mean that they are some kind of Portkeys?"
"Well, no, actually. Portkeys are used to reach places which are visible to people, with clear walls, surroundings, definition, etc; that is, places that are not bewitched to be hidden."
"Hidden places?" Harry questioned and before Dumbledore could answer he continued on, "Is Hogwarts one of those places?"
"No. Let's put it this way. It's another world all of its own with its own defined laws devised by some powerful wizard.
"There are places beyond, Harry, which are undiscovered; covert places unknown to man, or rightly said, Muggles. However, not all wizards know about it because they don't concern themselves with such things or simply are not aware of it. According to my knowledge, most of these places were sealed decades ago and you could only find reference to such places in old books which are out of the market or in the restricted section of Libraries."
"Are you telling me that there are worlds beyond our world?" Harry gave Dumbledore a quizzical expression.
"Yes, there are worlds beyond ours and some of us have traveled to the other side too... Many years ago, in nineteen thirty-six to be exact, when Grindelwald was gathering power, the time when Dementors were with the dark side, a unique prison was invented by a council of wizards, belonging to the old school of learning. By using a fusion of ancient spells, they formulated 'the Prison Hollow' for enslaving the dark wizards-A world to imprison the wrong doers."
"A prison like Azkaban?"
"Yes. But with Grindelwald's fall, there was no need to continue with such tight security and the travel through the gateway was getting on many wizards' nerves. So, like all tiring and lengthy ways are forgotten and abandoned with time, the Prison Hollow also became obsolete and with the Dementor's alliance, the Ministry became over confident and formed Azkaban Prison for the Dementors' delight. After that the way to the Prison Hollow was sealed."
Harry had predicted that Dumbledore would clear off the topic, but too much information was making his head spin. Now there was some covert world to deal with.
"The Prison Hollow was not the only hidden world, because many wizards and witches have formulated their own worlds to leave their mark on this one, but with the permission of the Ministry of course, to maintain tabs on them. The records are still stored at every Ministry Headquarters." With a pause, he continued, "With the course of time, these worlds became ancient and were finally abandoned, like old writings on walls. One thing that nobody observed was that many wizards were powerful enough to overwrite the Ministry procedures and many such worlds are still there which have never been discovered at all, except by their inventors or their predecessors."
"So, how do we find these undiscovered worlds?" Harry asked, totally engrossed in the discussion.
"There are explorers in our midst too, not the ones like Muggles wrecking havoc in ancient excavations of their ancestors, but the wizard explorers who find the Links scattered throughout to those undiscovered worlds. A whole branch of the Department of Mysteries deals with such portals, which are scrutinized by some handpicked Unspeakables."
Unspeakables! "Err... what kind of Links?"
"To reach any place, you have to find the way leading to it. The Links are the portals to the worlds beyond, which are extended and are made enterable by expanding that point. The revolving gateway that you saw was doing just that-opening some other world's doorway for you."
"The portals can be opened anywhere?"
"Yes, except only in Hogwarts and you can consider Gringotts too because of too much bewitchment. The witch or wizard only needs to find that Link and summon it anywhere and expand it to enter the world beyond."
"This means that anybody can summon the Link to expand it to a Gateway?"
"Well, it requires quite an advanced magical technique and strength. That's why I was worried that a student doing that is a red alert for us."
It was becoming difficult to digest all this information for Harry, because with every answer, new questions came popping to his mind like some chain-reaction.
"Can it be Voldemort? Doing all this, I mean?"
"I don't see any other explanation for it, Harry. Maybe he has found that spell and has formulated his own world..."
The mere thought of which made Harry shudder. A world of Voldemort would mean death and everything dark ever thought of by wizard-kind, which reminded him of the night at the graveyard where Cedric had died and Voldemort was resurrected. Harry gave another involuntary shudder.
"... or maybe he has found a Link to some other world. As you were present both the times the portal was summoned, the probability of him trying to capture you is too immense to disregard."
With a sudden golden spark, Fawkes came fluttering towards Dumbledore carrying a piece of parchment in his beak.
Dumbledore stood up after reading the note and went towards his cupboard; detached some silvery strands from his head and placed them in the Pensieve.
"Well, it seems that we'll have to postpone our lesson." And before Harry could utter another word, Dumbledore was gone with a flash, leaving a single golden phoenix-feather floating behind him.
Harry closed the office doors with a sigh and trudged towards the common room, thinking about the reason, why everything happened to him, when he was shoved by the most unlikely person he could think of.
Read? Don't forget to Review!
