Chapter 21
The Boy Who Knew Too Little
After getting over the shock of seeing the Dark Mark plastered on Malfoy's arm, Harry left the stunned Slytherins unconscious on the floor of the trophy room and led the other's back to the Gryffindor common room.
"This is bad," Hermione said as they finally made it back. "Recruiting underage wizards?"
"Well it's not as though You Know Who cares about what is proper is it?" Ron replied while still gingerly blotting his now swollen nose with the towel.
"You have to tell the headmaster Harry." Ginny said quietly. It was always difficult to have private conversations in Hogwarts, you never really knew for sure who was listening.
"I'll meet him tomorrow morning." Harry replied as he began to drag his exhausted body toward the boy's staircase. "I also have to check on our friend in the Chamber tomorrow." The rest of them nodded. Ron and Neville began to follow Harry while Ginny and Hermione went in the opposite direction.
"Wait." Hermione said before the boys were out of earshot. "Are we going to have a special meeting with just the six of us tomorrow?"
"Yea." Harry replied. "How about 7:00 in the Room of Requirements. You'll remind Luna Ginny?"
"It'll have to be nine." Ron broke in. "Remember we have another Quidditch practice tomorrow. Have to get ready for Hufflepuff."
"Right." Harry replied. "Nine tomorrow." Ginny nodded in agreement and they all said their goodnights and made their way to their respective dorm rooms as a sustained crash of thunder echoed outside.
"Hopefully tomorrow we will get to see what Hermione's been so secretive about." Ron said as they opened the door to the sounds of Dean and Seamus snoring.
Harry knew that he had a big day ahead of him so he woke up early. He grabbed his invisibility cloak and headed out of the dorm. He wanted to try and talk to Aberforth before breakfast. The rest of his Gryffindor bunkmates were fast asleep and Harry hoped that he could avoid seeing anyone on his way through the common room.
However, when he got there he saw a small first year boy practicing spells in the corner.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" The boy shouted as he began shaking his wand feverishly at one of the couch cushions. Although the cushion stayed where it was, a candleholder on the wall flew off and shattered.
"Hey, watch where you're waving that thing." Harry said humorously as he approached Mark Evans. "You have to be calm and it's important to have the right wrist movements. Watch."
"Wingardium Leviosa." Harry said calmly aiming his wand at Evans. And with a simple swish and a flick the first year boy was hovering a few feet off the ground. He was a little taken aback at first, but then a smile broke freely across his face.
Harry lowered him back to the ground gingerly. "Now you try. Nice and easy. Aim at that pillow, say the incantation and use an easy swish and flick."
The boy did as he was told and the pillow started to float softly in the air. "Thanks Harry!" Mark shouted in a very excited tone. "I didn't think that I would ever get it. Was it as hard for you to pick up magic after coming from a muggle family?"
"Yea it was a little at first." Harry reassured him. "I mean a lot of the kids in your year have probably been around magic their whole life. But don't worry, you will pick things up." Harry patted him on the back and started to get up.
"Thanks again Harry." Mark replied as he waved goodbye.
Harry continued on out of the common room and headed to the headmasters quarters. He was happy that he was able to help Mark. Harry knew how hard it was to adjust to the magical world and he thought to himself that he would do his best to help Mark out. Harry felt a certain obligation to Mark Evans. It was probably because they were similar in a lot of ways. They both grew up in the same neighborhood and neither knew anything of the magical world until they came to Hogwarts. Plus they had both been on the receiving end of a Dudley Dursley punch.
"Ton Tongue Toffee." Harry said once he reached the familiar gargoyles that led to the headmasters office. The spiraling staircase took him up and Harry opened the door to find Aberforth alone in his office furiously scribbling away at a piece of parchment.
"Uh uh." Harry cleared his throat to get his attention.
"Ah Harry. Come in, sit down." Aberforth said, quickly putting the piece of parchment away. "Is anything the matter? Something with Albus?"
"Well yes there is something the matter but it doesn't have to do with your brother." Harry started. "I had an unfortunate encounter with Draco Malfoy last night and found out that he has the Dark Mark."
"I see." Aberforth said twirling his long fingers together in a similar manner to his brother. "Unfortunately, there is not much we can do about that except keep a close eye on things. We don't want to cause a panic by letting it be known that there are Death Eaters among us, and we also don't want to let the Death Eaters know that we are aware." Aberforth put his hands to his head and looked as though he was entranced in deep thought.
"Do you think there are other Slytherin students who are Death Eaters?" Harry asked breaking Aberforth out of his trance.
"I'm afraid it's very likely that there are." He replied in an almost defeated tone. "But Harry, you must not just look at Slytherins to find Voldemort supporters. I know that you have experienced first hand that being a Gryffindor for instance doesn't inherently mean that a person will do what is right." Harry nodded and his thoughts went immediately went to Peter Pettigrew. A "friend" of his parents who betrayed their trust and turned them over to Voldemort.
"I understand." Harry replied and attempted to change the subject. "Is there any news on Hagrid?"
"I'm afraid not Harry." He responded. "But rest assured that the Order is working day and night to find him. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to head out to the forbidden forest."
"Why are you going there sir?" Harry asked trying not to sound too nosey.
"Well, It has come to my attention that there was some thunder last night without the benefit of a storm. I came to the conclusion that a certain friend of ours in the forest is becoming uneasy from not speaking to his brother." Aberforth got up and began to show Harry out. "It will not be easy but I will need to tell him of Hagrid's plight."
Harry nodded and left the Headmaster to his duties. It sure wouldn't be easy to tell Grawp that Hagrid had been taken and Harry was glad that it wasn't him that had to do it. Grawp was likely to rip out half the trees in the forest upon hearing the news.
Next thing Harry had to do was check on Dumbledore. Thankfully, it was still fairly early in the morning so he was able to sneak into Myrtle's bathroom fairly easily without anyone noticing. Harry made his way quickly to the familiar sink and beckoned for the Chamber to open itself up.
"What have you got going on down there Harry?" Myrtle said as she swooped down and flew right through Harry. "I've been hearing terrible screaming going on. It's actually been quite nice."
"Screaming?" Harry asked. "How often?"
"Quite often actually." Myrtle said with a smile. "It's nice to know that there are other people who..." But Harry didn't listen to the rest of her statement. He jumped quickly down the pipe that led to the Chamber. If Dumbledore had been screaming then maybe there was something wrong with him.
When he got there and began to survey Dumbledore's body, he couldn't really see any change except for his color. He had looked quite pale last time he saw him, but it seemed that the color had come back into his face. Upon touching him, Harry also noticed that his body was also very warm where as before it had been very cold.
"I wish you would wake up." Harry said starring intently at the headmaster. Dumbledore blinked which caused Harry to jump back a little in fright. He came closer again and grabbed on to Dumbledore's wrist.
"Can you hear me?" Harry asked. After about ten seconds, Dumbledore blinked again. Harry wasn't sure if this meant that he could here him or if this was simply an involuntary reaction. "If you can hear me, we need you to come back from wherever you are." Harry went on to explain everything that was going on including finding the Dark Mark on Malfoy. Occasionally, Harry saw Dumbledore blink or twitch and he hoped everything he said was getting through.
"I'll be back again soon." Harry said as he made his way over to the rope that Aberforth installed and was jettisoned out of the Chamber and back into Myrtle's bathroom. Myrtle was no where to be found and Harry was happy about this because she would probably yell about the fact that he left her while she was in the middle of a sentence. Harry thought to himself that it had certainly been an encouraging visit. Hopefully Dumbledore would wake up soon because they sure needed him.
Harry was about to exit Myrtle's bathroom when he heard voices outside. It was apparent that people were starting to wake up and head to breakfast and it would not look good if anyone saw Harry walk out of a girl's bathroom. Luckily, he had remembered to bring his invisibility cloak so he threw it on and was able to escape from the bathroom undetected. He then pulled off the cloak the first chance he got and headed to the Great Hall to get a spot of breakfast for himself.
After breakfast, Harry headed back to the Gryffindor common room where he met up with Ron and Hermione who were having a game of Wizards Chess.
"This game is so barbaric." Hermione said as one of Ron's nights viciously smashed one of her pawns clear across the board.
"You're just mad that you're losing." Ron sniggered.
"Am not." Hermione said with a huff and began to move one of her pawns who yelled at her that it wasn't a wise move.
"Hey Harry." Hermione said jumping up from the table to walk over to him. It was clear that she was glad to have any excuse to stop the game.
"Hermione, we're not finished." Ron yelled to her. But just then Crookshanks who had been lying on the floor at Hermione's feet jumped up and rather purposefully knocked over the game.
"Oh well, it looks as though we can't finish the game now." Hermione said trying to stifle a laugh. Ron was muttering something to himself as he came over and joined Harry and Hermione. "So how did things go today?" Hermione continued.
"Fine." Harry replied. "Aberforth said that we should keep a closer eye on things. Monitor anyone who acts suspiciously. And not just Slytherins. Anyone could be an enemy." Ron and Hermione appeared to get his point immediately and both shook their heads accordingly.
"What about Dumbledore." Ron said quietly because the common room was starting to fill up more now that students were getting back from breakfast.
"He seemed better." Harry replied. "He had a lot more color in his face and I saw him blink a few times."
"That's great news Harry." Hermione said brightly as she got up. "Well I am going to go to the library and prepare for our lesson tonight."
"What are we going to practice Hermione? Come on just tell us." Ron whined. It was clear from the expression on Hermione's face that Ron had been bugging her about it all morning.
"Oh Ron stop. You'll find out tonight." She said as she walked off exasperated. Harry and Ron exchanged a brief chuckle as she left the common room.
Harry and Ron relaxed the rest of the afternoon until it came time for Quidditch practice.
Practice was pretty grueling and in Harry's estimation, Ron was becoming a more demanding captain then Oliver Wood. Ron was focusing on conditioning. He made everyone fly around in circles around the pitch for a half hour before he even started practice and then made them do it again at the end of practice.
"Ron, how are we supposed to play in a proper game when you run us into the ground in practice?" Ginny asked angrily as they landed and made their way back into the castle. Ginny pretended like she was fainting and collapsed into Harry's arms. He was glad to have a reason to put his arms around her and just smiled as he took the opportunity to give her a quick hug.
"Believe me, you'll thank me when your holding the Quidditch cup." Ron replied in a very serious tone. Ginny just rolled her eyes and reluctantly escaped from Harry's grasp and continued on into the castle.
"We need to hurry." Harry said as he glanced at his watch. "Thanks to Ron the slave driver, we only have twenty minutes until we need to meet Hermione in the Room of Requirements." Ron gave Harry a sarcastic smile and they continued on into the castle.
After showering up and changing, Harry, Ginny and Ron were about fifteen minutes late getting to the Room of Requirements.
"It's about time." Hermione said as they finally walked through the door. The room was set up in a similar fashion to when they held DA meetings in there. It was very large with a lot of open space to practice.
"Sorry." Ginny replied. "But Ron felt that it was necessary for us to practice until our arms fell off." Luna snickered a little and Hermione shot her a stern look.
"So Hermione," Harry chimed in. "What is our first lesson going to be?"
"Well, It is illegal and we probably shouldn't be doing it." She started.
"Oh just get on with it Hermione." Ron interrupted. "It's not like we've never broken a few rules here and there in the past."
"Like I was saying." Hermione said sending a piercing glance towards Ron. "Although it is illegal, it is a quite useful tool and as far as I can tell the punishment we would receive would not be too severe." Harry could tell that Ron was about to snap if Hermione didn't come clean fast so he spoke up.
"We all understand the risks Hermione." Harry said calmly. "So what is your idea?"
"I think we should all learn to apparate." Hermione finally said. "It really is one of the most useful tools there is for a witch or wizard."
"Can we really learn to do that ourselves?" Neville asked timidly.
"I expect we can." Hermione responded. "I've read three full books on the subject that I found in the restricted section of the library and as you can see..." Hermione disappeared with a pop and rematerialized behind Neville. "I have already learned how to do it."
They all looked at Hermione with very surprised and shocked expressions except for Luna who seemed to be closely examining the walls of the room.
"Of course, I have been practicing it in private for two weeks now so you shouldn't expect that you will pick it up right away." Hermione added.
"But I thought apparition was monitored very closely. Won't the ministry find out if we do it?" Ginny asked.
"Yes it is monitored very closely, but from what I have been able to gather, they won't be able to detect us doing it in Hogwarts." Hermione stated.
"Excuse me Hermione," Ron spoke up. "Wasn't it you that always said, (At this point Ron started doing an imitation of Hermione's voice that wasn't at all accurate but was very funny) If you have read Hogwarts A History you would know that you can't apparate in Hogwarts."
"Of course that's true Ron," Hermione responded with a roll of her eyes, obviously not impressed with Ron's impression of her. "And thankfully that is why we can practice in here without being detected. Because the ministry knows that you can't apparate in Hogwarts so they won't be monitoring it."
"If it's true," Ron was starting to get frustrated. "Then how the bloody hell are we supposed to do it?"
"The reason we can do it," Hermione said ignoring Ron's frustration and focusing on the rest of her school mates. "Is because this is the room of requirements. We require to learn how to apparate and the room obliges."
"That's brilliant." Harry replied.
"However, if we ever have to do it outside of Hogwarts then it will probably be detected. That is why we must not do it except in the most dire of circumstances. My hope is that if we had to do it in a life or death situation the Ministry would understand and not punish us too harshly."
"All right." Harry said. "Where do we begin?"
"Everyone come over here." Hermione pleaded. Just then a brick wall, which was about ten feet high and ten feet across, appeared out of nowhere. "The incantation is Aperio. Eventually you won't need to use your wand to do it but it helps at first. Just tap your wand twice against your leg and say Aperio. Then you have to visualize yourself appearing wherever it is that you want to appear." Hermione pulled out her wand and demonstrated as she quickly disappeared and reappeared on the other side of the brick wall.
One by one they attempted it. At one point, Ron reappeared in mid air near the ceiling and promptly fell hard to the ground. Harry ended up on top of the brick wall once and Neville disappeared altogether once only to come back into the room via the door about ten minutes later pronouncing that he had somehow ended up in the owlery. Ginny could never quite get her distance down as she kept ending up clear across the room and Luna once reappeared in Ron's arms which made Hermione scowl as she obviously wasn't convinced that it was an accident as Luna had said it was.
"I think Quidditch practice took it out of me." Harry said as he collapsed on a couch that appeared when he had been feeling particularly tired. "I don't think that I can practice anymore." Neville, Luna, Ginny and Ron all joined him and looked equally as tired.
"Well apparating does take a lot of energy out of you." Hermione replied. "I think you have all made great progress today. We can get together again next weekend and try to perfect it then." They all agreed and exhausted made for the door to head back to the common room. However, before Harry could leave Neville tapped him on the shoulder.
"Harry." He said quietly. "Can I talk to you?"
"Sure." Harry said venturing back into the room a bit. "What's going on?"
The others stopped when the noticed that Harry and Neville weren't behind him and made their way back into the room.
"It's okay guys." Harry said assuring them that they could go ahead without him. "I just need to talk to Neville for a second." They all got the pictured and quickly made their way back out of the room. Harry put a quick silencing charm around himself and Neville to make sure that no extendable ears could crack this conversation.
"The thing is Harry." Neville started. "You know how I'm often clumsy and forgetful?"
"Don't worry about that Neville." Harry said. "You're getting a lot better, it's nothing to be too worried about."
"That's not quite it." He responded. "You see I've been doing a lot of reading on memory charms lately and it seems that I may have been the victim of a rather powerful one myself." Harry was shocked initially, but it did make sense.
"So you think that you saw something that you weren't supposed to." Harry asked calmly. Neville just nodded.
"I have all the symptoms of someone who has had a strong memory charm put on them. Clumsiness, loss of short-term memory, headaches. It all fits."
"Do you have any idea what they could have erased?" Harry asked sympathetically.
"I think it has to do with the night my parents were tortured." Neville said, his voice cracking a bit. "I've had strange dreams in the past about that night even though I don't know if I was even there. I've tried to ask my gran about it, but you've seen how she is. She won't tell me anything."
"Maybe we can tell Aberforth about it and he can come up with a solution." Harry suggested.
"I'm not so sure that's a good idea Harry." Neville replied. "You said it yourself, we don't know who we can trust and if someone finds out that I'm trying to recover a memory that they wanted me to forget then they will probably come after me."
"I understand." Harry responded. "I think we can trust Aberforth but for now we'll just keep it between ourselves."
"Thanks Harry." Neville said. "I think next week we can tell the rest of the group and maybe together we can all find a solution." Harry nodded and threw his arm around Neville and led him out of the room all the time wondering what mystery Neville has locked up inside him.
Author's Note: Hey everyone. I hope you enjoy this chapter. My computer got a nasty virus and was completely wiped out. I had to get it rebuilt and it was really frustrating. But everything is back now and I'm anxious to get some chapters out. The story is going to accelerate a little in the next couple of chapters. There will be Halloween, the first quidditch match of the year, and the first Hogsmeade visit. So keep reviewing and I'll keep writing. Thanks.
P.S.: I have been getting some reviews where people are reminding me that you can't apparate in Hogwarts. I was always under the impression that Hermione always says that you can't apparate into or out of Hogwarts but I never remember her saying that you can't apparate within Hogwarts. If anyone knows the answer to this, PLEASE let me know because I want to keep my story as accurate as possible. Thanks.
The Boy Who Knew Too Little
After getting over the shock of seeing the Dark Mark plastered on Malfoy's arm, Harry left the stunned Slytherins unconscious on the floor of the trophy room and led the other's back to the Gryffindor common room.
"This is bad," Hermione said as they finally made it back. "Recruiting underage wizards?"
"Well it's not as though You Know Who cares about what is proper is it?" Ron replied while still gingerly blotting his now swollen nose with the towel.
"You have to tell the headmaster Harry." Ginny said quietly. It was always difficult to have private conversations in Hogwarts, you never really knew for sure who was listening.
"I'll meet him tomorrow morning." Harry replied as he began to drag his exhausted body toward the boy's staircase. "I also have to check on our friend in the Chamber tomorrow." The rest of them nodded. Ron and Neville began to follow Harry while Ginny and Hermione went in the opposite direction.
"Wait." Hermione said before the boys were out of earshot. "Are we going to have a special meeting with just the six of us tomorrow?"
"Yea." Harry replied. "How about 7:00 in the Room of Requirements. You'll remind Luna Ginny?"
"It'll have to be nine." Ron broke in. "Remember we have another Quidditch practice tomorrow. Have to get ready for Hufflepuff."
"Right." Harry replied. "Nine tomorrow." Ginny nodded in agreement and they all said their goodnights and made their way to their respective dorm rooms as a sustained crash of thunder echoed outside.
"Hopefully tomorrow we will get to see what Hermione's been so secretive about." Ron said as they opened the door to the sounds of Dean and Seamus snoring.
Harry knew that he had a big day ahead of him so he woke up early. He grabbed his invisibility cloak and headed out of the dorm. He wanted to try and talk to Aberforth before breakfast. The rest of his Gryffindor bunkmates were fast asleep and Harry hoped that he could avoid seeing anyone on his way through the common room.
However, when he got there he saw a small first year boy practicing spells in the corner.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" The boy shouted as he began shaking his wand feverishly at one of the couch cushions. Although the cushion stayed where it was, a candleholder on the wall flew off and shattered.
"Hey, watch where you're waving that thing." Harry said humorously as he approached Mark Evans. "You have to be calm and it's important to have the right wrist movements. Watch."
"Wingardium Leviosa." Harry said calmly aiming his wand at Evans. And with a simple swish and a flick the first year boy was hovering a few feet off the ground. He was a little taken aback at first, but then a smile broke freely across his face.
Harry lowered him back to the ground gingerly. "Now you try. Nice and easy. Aim at that pillow, say the incantation and use an easy swish and flick."
The boy did as he was told and the pillow started to float softly in the air. "Thanks Harry!" Mark shouted in a very excited tone. "I didn't think that I would ever get it. Was it as hard for you to pick up magic after coming from a muggle family?"
"Yea it was a little at first." Harry reassured him. "I mean a lot of the kids in your year have probably been around magic their whole life. But don't worry, you will pick things up." Harry patted him on the back and started to get up.
"Thanks again Harry." Mark replied as he waved goodbye.
Harry continued on out of the common room and headed to the headmasters quarters. He was happy that he was able to help Mark. Harry knew how hard it was to adjust to the magical world and he thought to himself that he would do his best to help Mark out. Harry felt a certain obligation to Mark Evans. It was probably because they were similar in a lot of ways. They both grew up in the same neighborhood and neither knew anything of the magical world until they came to Hogwarts. Plus they had both been on the receiving end of a Dudley Dursley punch.
"Ton Tongue Toffee." Harry said once he reached the familiar gargoyles that led to the headmasters office. The spiraling staircase took him up and Harry opened the door to find Aberforth alone in his office furiously scribbling away at a piece of parchment.
"Uh uh." Harry cleared his throat to get his attention.
"Ah Harry. Come in, sit down." Aberforth said, quickly putting the piece of parchment away. "Is anything the matter? Something with Albus?"
"Well yes there is something the matter but it doesn't have to do with your brother." Harry started. "I had an unfortunate encounter with Draco Malfoy last night and found out that he has the Dark Mark."
"I see." Aberforth said twirling his long fingers together in a similar manner to his brother. "Unfortunately, there is not much we can do about that except keep a close eye on things. We don't want to cause a panic by letting it be known that there are Death Eaters among us, and we also don't want to let the Death Eaters know that we are aware." Aberforth put his hands to his head and looked as though he was entranced in deep thought.
"Do you think there are other Slytherin students who are Death Eaters?" Harry asked breaking Aberforth out of his trance.
"I'm afraid it's very likely that there are." He replied in an almost defeated tone. "But Harry, you must not just look at Slytherins to find Voldemort supporters. I know that you have experienced first hand that being a Gryffindor for instance doesn't inherently mean that a person will do what is right." Harry nodded and his thoughts went immediately went to Peter Pettigrew. A "friend" of his parents who betrayed their trust and turned them over to Voldemort.
"I understand." Harry replied and attempted to change the subject. "Is there any news on Hagrid?"
"I'm afraid not Harry." He responded. "But rest assured that the Order is working day and night to find him. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to head out to the forbidden forest."
"Why are you going there sir?" Harry asked trying not to sound too nosey.
"Well, It has come to my attention that there was some thunder last night without the benefit of a storm. I came to the conclusion that a certain friend of ours in the forest is becoming uneasy from not speaking to his brother." Aberforth got up and began to show Harry out. "It will not be easy but I will need to tell him of Hagrid's plight."
Harry nodded and left the Headmaster to his duties. It sure wouldn't be easy to tell Grawp that Hagrid had been taken and Harry was glad that it wasn't him that had to do it. Grawp was likely to rip out half the trees in the forest upon hearing the news.
Next thing Harry had to do was check on Dumbledore. Thankfully, it was still fairly early in the morning so he was able to sneak into Myrtle's bathroom fairly easily without anyone noticing. Harry made his way quickly to the familiar sink and beckoned for the Chamber to open itself up.
"What have you got going on down there Harry?" Myrtle said as she swooped down and flew right through Harry. "I've been hearing terrible screaming going on. It's actually been quite nice."
"Screaming?" Harry asked. "How often?"
"Quite often actually." Myrtle said with a smile. "It's nice to know that there are other people who..." But Harry didn't listen to the rest of her statement. He jumped quickly down the pipe that led to the Chamber. If Dumbledore had been screaming then maybe there was something wrong with him.
When he got there and began to survey Dumbledore's body, he couldn't really see any change except for his color. He had looked quite pale last time he saw him, but it seemed that the color had come back into his face. Upon touching him, Harry also noticed that his body was also very warm where as before it had been very cold.
"I wish you would wake up." Harry said starring intently at the headmaster. Dumbledore blinked which caused Harry to jump back a little in fright. He came closer again and grabbed on to Dumbledore's wrist.
"Can you hear me?" Harry asked. After about ten seconds, Dumbledore blinked again. Harry wasn't sure if this meant that he could here him or if this was simply an involuntary reaction. "If you can hear me, we need you to come back from wherever you are." Harry went on to explain everything that was going on including finding the Dark Mark on Malfoy. Occasionally, Harry saw Dumbledore blink or twitch and he hoped everything he said was getting through.
"I'll be back again soon." Harry said as he made his way over to the rope that Aberforth installed and was jettisoned out of the Chamber and back into Myrtle's bathroom. Myrtle was no where to be found and Harry was happy about this because she would probably yell about the fact that he left her while she was in the middle of a sentence. Harry thought to himself that it had certainly been an encouraging visit. Hopefully Dumbledore would wake up soon because they sure needed him.
Harry was about to exit Myrtle's bathroom when he heard voices outside. It was apparent that people were starting to wake up and head to breakfast and it would not look good if anyone saw Harry walk out of a girl's bathroom. Luckily, he had remembered to bring his invisibility cloak so he threw it on and was able to escape from the bathroom undetected. He then pulled off the cloak the first chance he got and headed to the Great Hall to get a spot of breakfast for himself.
After breakfast, Harry headed back to the Gryffindor common room where he met up with Ron and Hermione who were having a game of Wizards Chess.
"This game is so barbaric." Hermione said as one of Ron's nights viciously smashed one of her pawns clear across the board.
"You're just mad that you're losing." Ron sniggered.
"Am not." Hermione said with a huff and began to move one of her pawns who yelled at her that it wasn't a wise move.
"Hey Harry." Hermione said jumping up from the table to walk over to him. It was clear that she was glad to have any excuse to stop the game.
"Hermione, we're not finished." Ron yelled to her. But just then Crookshanks who had been lying on the floor at Hermione's feet jumped up and rather purposefully knocked over the game.
"Oh well, it looks as though we can't finish the game now." Hermione said trying to stifle a laugh. Ron was muttering something to himself as he came over and joined Harry and Hermione. "So how did things go today?" Hermione continued.
"Fine." Harry replied. "Aberforth said that we should keep a closer eye on things. Monitor anyone who acts suspiciously. And not just Slytherins. Anyone could be an enemy." Ron and Hermione appeared to get his point immediately and both shook their heads accordingly.
"What about Dumbledore." Ron said quietly because the common room was starting to fill up more now that students were getting back from breakfast.
"He seemed better." Harry replied. "He had a lot more color in his face and I saw him blink a few times."
"That's great news Harry." Hermione said brightly as she got up. "Well I am going to go to the library and prepare for our lesson tonight."
"What are we going to practice Hermione? Come on just tell us." Ron whined. It was clear from the expression on Hermione's face that Ron had been bugging her about it all morning.
"Oh Ron stop. You'll find out tonight." She said as she walked off exasperated. Harry and Ron exchanged a brief chuckle as she left the common room.
Harry and Ron relaxed the rest of the afternoon until it came time for Quidditch practice.
Practice was pretty grueling and in Harry's estimation, Ron was becoming a more demanding captain then Oliver Wood. Ron was focusing on conditioning. He made everyone fly around in circles around the pitch for a half hour before he even started practice and then made them do it again at the end of practice.
"Ron, how are we supposed to play in a proper game when you run us into the ground in practice?" Ginny asked angrily as they landed and made their way back into the castle. Ginny pretended like she was fainting and collapsed into Harry's arms. He was glad to have a reason to put his arms around her and just smiled as he took the opportunity to give her a quick hug.
"Believe me, you'll thank me when your holding the Quidditch cup." Ron replied in a very serious tone. Ginny just rolled her eyes and reluctantly escaped from Harry's grasp and continued on into the castle.
"We need to hurry." Harry said as he glanced at his watch. "Thanks to Ron the slave driver, we only have twenty minutes until we need to meet Hermione in the Room of Requirements." Ron gave Harry a sarcastic smile and they continued on into the castle.
After showering up and changing, Harry, Ginny and Ron were about fifteen minutes late getting to the Room of Requirements.
"It's about time." Hermione said as they finally walked through the door. The room was set up in a similar fashion to when they held DA meetings in there. It was very large with a lot of open space to practice.
"Sorry." Ginny replied. "But Ron felt that it was necessary for us to practice until our arms fell off." Luna snickered a little and Hermione shot her a stern look.
"So Hermione," Harry chimed in. "What is our first lesson going to be?"
"Well, It is illegal and we probably shouldn't be doing it." She started.
"Oh just get on with it Hermione." Ron interrupted. "It's not like we've never broken a few rules here and there in the past."
"Like I was saying." Hermione said sending a piercing glance towards Ron. "Although it is illegal, it is a quite useful tool and as far as I can tell the punishment we would receive would not be too severe." Harry could tell that Ron was about to snap if Hermione didn't come clean fast so he spoke up.
"We all understand the risks Hermione." Harry said calmly. "So what is your idea?"
"I think we should all learn to apparate." Hermione finally said. "It really is one of the most useful tools there is for a witch or wizard."
"Can we really learn to do that ourselves?" Neville asked timidly.
"I expect we can." Hermione responded. "I've read three full books on the subject that I found in the restricted section of the library and as you can see..." Hermione disappeared with a pop and rematerialized behind Neville. "I have already learned how to do it."
They all looked at Hermione with very surprised and shocked expressions except for Luna who seemed to be closely examining the walls of the room.
"Of course, I have been practicing it in private for two weeks now so you shouldn't expect that you will pick it up right away." Hermione added.
"But I thought apparition was monitored very closely. Won't the ministry find out if we do it?" Ginny asked.
"Yes it is monitored very closely, but from what I have been able to gather, they won't be able to detect us doing it in Hogwarts." Hermione stated.
"Excuse me Hermione," Ron spoke up. "Wasn't it you that always said, (At this point Ron started doing an imitation of Hermione's voice that wasn't at all accurate but was very funny) If you have read Hogwarts A History you would know that you can't apparate in Hogwarts."
"Of course that's true Ron," Hermione responded with a roll of her eyes, obviously not impressed with Ron's impression of her. "And thankfully that is why we can practice in here without being detected. Because the ministry knows that you can't apparate in Hogwarts so they won't be monitoring it."
"If it's true," Ron was starting to get frustrated. "Then how the bloody hell are we supposed to do it?"
"The reason we can do it," Hermione said ignoring Ron's frustration and focusing on the rest of her school mates. "Is because this is the room of requirements. We require to learn how to apparate and the room obliges."
"That's brilliant." Harry replied.
"However, if we ever have to do it outside of Hogwarts then it will probably be detected. That is why we must not do it except in the most dire of circumstances. My hope is that if we had to do it in a life or death situation the Ministry would understand and not punish us too harshly."
"All right." Harry said. "Where do we begin?"
"Everyone come over here." Hermione pleaded. Just then a brick wall, which was about ten feet high and ten feet across, appeared out of nowhere. "The incantation is Aperio. Eventually you won't need to use your wand to do it but it helps at first. Just tap your wand twice against your leg and say Aperio. Then you have to visualize yourself appearing wherever it is that you want to appear." Hermione pulled out her wand and demonstrated as she quickly disappeared and reappeared on the other side of the brick wall.
One by one they attempted it. At one point, Ron reappeared in mid air near the ceiling and promptly fell hard to the ground. Harry ended up on top of the brick wall once and Neville disappeared altogether once only to come back into the room via the door about ten minutes later pronouncing that he had somehow ended up in the owlery. Ginny could never quite get her distance down as she kept ending up clear across the room and Luna once reappeared in Ron's arms which made Hermione scowl as she obviously wasn't convinced that it was an accident as Luna had said it was.
"I think Quidditch practice took it out of me." Harry said as he collapsed on a couch that appeared when he had been feeling particularly tired. "I don't think that I can practice anymore." Neville, Luna, Ginny and Ron all joined him and looked equally as tired.
"Well apparating does take a lot of energy out of you." Hermione replied. "I think you have all made great progress today. We can get together again next weekend and try to perfect it then." They all agreed and exhausted made for the door to head back to the common room. However, before Harry could leave Neville tapped him on the shoulder.
"Harry." He said quietly. "Can I talk to you?"
"Sure." Harry said venturing back into the room a bit. "What's going on?"
The others stopped when the noticed that Harry and Neville weren't behind him and made their way back into the room.
"It's okay guys." Harry said assuring them that they could go ahead without him. "I just need to talk to Neville for a second." They all got the pictured and quickly made their way back out of the room. Harry put a quick silencing charm around himself and Neville to make sure that no extendable ears could crack this conversation.
"The thing is Harry." Neville started. "You know how I'm often clumsy and forgetful?"
"Don't worry about that Neville." Harry said. "You're getting a lot better, it's nothing to be too worried about."
"That's not quite it." He responded. "You see I've been doing a lot of reading on memory charms lately and it seems that I may have been the victim of a rather powerful one myself." Harry was shocked initially, but it did make sense.
"So you think that you saw something that you weren't supposed to." Harry asked calmly. Neville just nodded.
"I have all the symptoms of someone who has had a strong memory charm put on them. Clumsiness, loss of short-term memory, headaches. It all fits."
"Do you have any idea what they could have erased?" Harry asked sympathetically.
"I think it has to do with the night my parents were tortured." Neville said, his voice cracking a bit. "I've had strange dreams in the past about that night even though I don't know if I was even there. I've tried to ask my gran about it, but you've seen how she is. She won't tell me anything."
"Maybe we can tell Aberforth about it and he can come up with a solution." Harry suggested.
"I'm not so sure that's a good idea Harry." Neville replied. "You said it yourself, we don't know who we can trust and if someone finds out that I'm trying to recover a memory that they wanted me to forget then they will probably come after me."
"I understand." Harry responded. "I think we can trust Aberforth but for now we'll just keep it between ourselves."
"Thanks Harry." Neville said. "I think next week we can tell the rest of the group and maybe together we can all find a solution." Harry nodded and threw his arm around Neville and led him out of the room all the time wondering what mystery Neville has locked up inside him.
Author's Note: Hey everyone. I hope you enjoy this chapter. My computer got a nasty virus and was completely wiped out. I had to get it rebuilt and it was really frustrating. But everything is back now and I'm anxious to get some chapters out. The story is going to accelerate a little in the next couple of chapters. There will be Halloween, the first quidditch match of the year, and the first Hogsmeade visit. So keep reviewing and I'll keep writing. Thanks.
P.S.: I have been getting some reviews where people are reminding me that you can't apparate in Hogwarts. I was always under the impression that Hermione always says that you can't apparate into or out of Hogwarts but I never remember her saying that you can't apparate within Hogwarts. If anyone knows the answer to this, PLEASE let me know because I want to keep my story as accurate as possible. Thanks.