Chapter 18 - Lessons

The Gryffindor common room had erupted when Darren and Neville had returned. Harry and Ron had already told everyone what had happened in Dumbledore's office and the rest of the house had spent the afternoon reveling in Malfoy's comeuppance. The Gryffindor quidditch had taken new hope in the fact that Slytherin, who had become favorites for the Quidditch Cup when they beat Gryffindor a month ago, were going to have to play without their seeker for the next two games.

"Darren, I really appreciate what you did for me," Hermione told him as she gave him a hug of thanks.

Darren waited for Hermione to wipe away the tears before he answered her. "It was no problem Hermione. It was a pleasure to both get you out of trouble and to get Malfoy in trouble. I couldn't think of a better way to spend the afternoon."

Hermione laughed at his remark and hugged him again. After she walked away Ron and Harry came over.

"I wasn't too excited about a Slytherin joining our house Darren, but I can admit it when I am wrong. Thanks for what you did for Hermione," Ron said. He shook Darren's hand and Darren could not help but feel accepted in Gryffindor finally.

"I agree Darren, it was good of you to tell what you knew, to not let something like that happen and just sit by and watch it happen," Harry told him. "Why don't you and Neville come and sit with us?"

"Okay," Darren said.

He and Neville went over to the big couch in front of the fire and sat with the three friends. Ron was especially polite, and with good reason. After all, Darren had just kept his girlfriend from possibly getting expelled.

"So Darren, who do you think will win the quidditch match on Saturday?" Ron asked. The next match on the schedule was Hufflepuff versus Ravenclaw and that was the coming weekend.

"I think Ravenclaw will. Cho is too good a seeker to be beaten by Hopkins."

Wayne Hopkins was the new Hufflepuff seeker and had not been tested in a game yet. He was a sixth year but had not played so far at Hogwarts. He had joined the team that year when Hufflepuff had held tryouts for the position.

"Yeah, but Hopkins is pretty fast from what I nave seen," Harry said. "If he is any good at all, he just might give Cho and Ravenclaw all that they can handle in the match."

"Well, then it might come down to the chasers and beaters. If the Ravenclaw ones are good enough to get and hold a big enough lead then it might not matter who gets the Snitch," Darren replied.

"And don't forget about the keeper either. They are important too you know," Ron blurted.

"Of course they know the keeper is important Ron, but just because you play the position doesn't make it more important than any of the others," Hermione told him as she rolled her eyes in mock frustration.

"I think what Ron means Hermione is that the Ravenclaw keeper is also new and might have a hard time in the first game," Darren answered for Ron.

"Yeah, that's what I meant, thanks Darren," Ron said.

The conversation then turned to strategy and tactics for the next Gryffindor game against Hufflepuff even though it was more than two months away. Seamus had been asked to join them and Hermione and Neville had wandered off because the conversation was not very interesting to them. After three hours talking quidditch the team had still not noticed that everyone else had gone to bed and that they were all alone in the common room. Darren looked at his watch finally and saw that it was almost midnight. The group all said goodnight to each other and headed up to the dormitories. When Darren fell asleep, he had visions of glory and riches on the quidditch pitch. Those thoughts were soon replaced by things much darker and disturbing that kept him awake for several more hours and it was almost daylight when he finally drifted off for less than an hour of sleep.

The next week had gone smoothly. Neville had done surprisingly well on his Human Transfiguration test when he had managed to turn Darren into a perfect collie and received an E grade. Neville had been ecstatic all week from that grade. His good mood did not get a reprieve in Potions however. Snape was even more evil towards Darren and Neville now that they had gotten Snape's favorite student in trouble and managed to make Snape look like the vindictive git he truly was. Neville had gotten a failing grade on the Draught of Courage exam that had been rescheduled for the next class time. He had forgotten to add the Borage at the right time and the potion had boiled instead of cooled and Snape had a berated him publicly again. Darren cheered him up afterwards though when he reminded Neville that he could always turn Snape into a collie if need be. That at least had made Neville laugh and seemed to cheer him up a bit.

"Besides Neville, you and I both knew he was going to grade us more harshly than anybody else after what happened this week," he had told Neville.

"Yeah, and at least Malfoy is keeping his big mouth shut for now," Neville told Darren.

It was true. Malfoy had not spoken to or threatened anyone outside of Slytherin all week from what Darren could tell. It was great for everybody at the school to see Malfoy humiliated, and humiliated by people in his own house too. The whole school had been talking about how Blaise had corroborated Darren and Neville's story, but Darren could not help but worry a bit about his old friend having to sleep in the same dormitory as Draco and his thugs that passed as friends. Darren had tried to talk to Blaise after the Potions exam, but Blaise had just made a weak excuse and walked off. At dinner that night Darren had noticed that Blaise had sat alone at the Slytherin table and that no other student got within a meter of him and Darren could not help but feel bad for Blaise, even after what Blaise had said to him after he had been re-sorted. Darren had tried to make eye contact with Blaise across the Great Hall that night, but Blaise had appeared to be intentionally looking away from him and Darren decided to let it go for the time being.

The weekend had finally arrived and it was the day of the Ravenclaw versus Hufflepuff match. Darren had joined the rest of the Gryffindor team in the stadium that surrounded the Hogwarts quidditch pitch and joined in with the yelling and screaming. His girlfriend, that had been determined the night of the Halloween Ball when Cho had told him she wanted to date him exclusively, was the Ravenclaw seeker and whether he was on the Gryffindor team or not, he would root for her to do well. The two teams walked out onto the pitch and mounted their brooms. Both teams did a flyover of the stands and Cho waved and blew a kiss to Darren that made him blush a little. Neville gave him a good natured poke in the ribs that made Darren laugh at himself and then Madam Hooch blew her whistle to get the teams ready to start the game. The bludgers and snitch were released and then she threw the quaffle up and the game was on. Cho immediately took a high position in order to try to spot the snitch easier but Hopkins stayed low. It seemed to Darren that he was hoping to be nearer the snitch when he saw it than Cho would be and therefore have less ground to cover to catch it.

After twenty minutes, the Ravenclaw chasers had scored ninety points to Hufflepuff's twenty. However, if Cho did not get the snitch and Hopkins did, the game would go to Hufflepuff. Then Darren saw Cho make a bee line for the opposite end of the pitch.

"She's seen it," he heard Harry say a few feet away.

Cho was moving incredibly fast and Hopkins was hot in the tail. They both flew the same broom and the speed seemed to be equal. It would come down to flying to determine who would win the match. Cho and Hopkins were neck and neck as they raced each other up and down the pitch and over the gathered crowd as they were both locked on to the snitch.

"Come on Cho, come on Cho, come on Cho," Darren kept saying over and over to himself.

The two seekers were at the far end when Darren saw Cho give Hopkins a small nudge and reach out and grab the snitch with her right hand. The game was over. Ravenclaw had won two hundred seventy to twenty. Ravenclaw had soundly defeated Hufflepuff and had taken the points lead from Slytherin. Cho landed with her teammates and celebrated as Darren clapped and cheered loudly for her. The crowd started to leave ad Darren waited to meet Cho after she came out of the locker room.

Half an hour later they were walking to the castle together hand in hand. Cho kept talking about the match and Darren just listened and nodded politely as she talked. She was happy to have won and Darren was happy that she was happy. Soon the talk turned to what they would do with each other tat afternoon. Cho wanted to go to Hogsmeade since it was a day that they could go so Darren agreed to go with her.

"Besides, I want to teach you something today anyway Darren," she said with a mischievous smile.

"What is that?" he asked.

"Maybe I'll try to teach you to apparate today," she told him.

"Really?"

'This could be useful,' he thought to himself.

"Really," she answered playfully. "Come on, lets go Darren." And then she broke out in a run towards Hogsmeade.

Thirty minutes later they were on the main street through the town and looking for a place to work on teaching him to apparate. She said she knew the perfect place and led him out of town past the Hogshead Inn and right to the spot where Darren had met Lucius Malfoy and Darren stopped dead in his tracks when he realized where they were.

"What's wrong Darren?" Cho asked innocently.

Darren did not answer immediately. Why had Cho chosen this spot? Was it coincidence, or something else?

"Oh, I am just nervous about trying this, that's all."

"There is nothing to be nervous about. Yu are a very good wizard and I doubt that you will find it too hard to accomplish with a little practice."

Darren had to admit that she was probably right. He was not arrogant about it, but he did know that he was a good wizard and he did want to learn to apparate, and to learn it quickly.

"Okay, so how do we start then?" he asked her.

"Well, first you have to clear your head of everything that doesn't have to do with what you are going to do. Then, you have to concentrate on where it is exactly that you want to apparate to, which in this case should be about no more than six inches from where you are now so as not to get yourself splinched."

"Yeah, that would be bad, not to mention hard to explain to Dumbledore as well," he said sarcastically.

"Well, lets just make sure it doesn't happen then, okay?"

"Okay," he answered.

"Now, like I said, you concentrate on where you want to go and say Abolesco after the place you want to go. So, if you want to go right next to yourself you would say your name and then the spell word after it. Give it a try then."

"Now?"

"Well, when else would you do it, tomorrow Darren?" she said playfully with crossed arms. She then took her wand and drew a large X in the soil six inches away from Darren and then traced an outline around both of his feet.

"Apparate here then Darren."

Darren could not help but think that Ravenclaw was the perfect house for Cho and that she would also someday be a professor at Hogwarts too.

"Okay, here goes then," he told her.

Darren took a deep breath and said X Abolesco and then felt like his entire body was floating in mid air. He could feel himself moving through space but everything else was standing still. He could see Cho for an instant then she disappeared and everything went dark and it felt as if he was inside a powerful wind as the air whipped by him with great force. Then, the sunlight came back and he felt his feet hit solid ground again. It had seemed to take a long time to happen, but he could tell that it had been almost instantaneous because Cho was still in the exact same spot and cross armed pose as she was in before he had apparated. His knees wobbled a bit when his feet touched solid ground and his stomach felt a bit queasy, but he did not lose his balance despite his body's attempt to fall over on its own.

"You did it Darren, you did it. Look," Cho was telling him.

Cho was pointing at his feet and he could see that he was standing on the X that Cho had drawn to be his target. Six inches to his left he saw the outlines of his shoes and he realized that he had indeed done it. He had apparated, if only six inches, but he had still done it.

Darren could not quite believe that he had accomplished it on his first go, but he had. He stood staring at the foot outlines for a moment before moving as if he wanted to let it sink in. He wanted to try to go a little further, but he could hear people coming on the pathway and decided it might not be such a good idea to be seen trying to apparate by someone that might tell on him at the school, or worse, the Ministry.

"What we need is somewhere to work where we won't be disturbed," Cho told him.

"Like where?" he asked in return.

"Well, somewhere that is preferably in doors and isn't likely to have people around that might disturb us while we work."

Darren thought for a while and then he had an idea.

"What about the Shrieking Shack?"

Cho looked shocked that he would suggest such a thing and Darren explained his reasoning.

"It isn't really haunted you know. It is just a legend that people still believe in. We can work there all day and nobody will bother us at all."

Cho didn't look like she believed him.

"Come on Cho, trust me. I know what I am talking about."

It was true. He did know what he was talking about. He also knew that the Shrieking Shack was sitting over the end of a tunnel that started at the Whomping Willow and ended in the Shrieking Shack itself. It was another passageway that he had been told about by Peter Pettigrew.

"Okay, I'll go Darren, but the first sign of a ghost and I am leaving."

"Okay, fine. Now, lets go then," he said.

They walked slowly so as not to draw attention and when they got to the old building they saw that nobody was around. They went up to the door and eased it open to make sure there was not some student looking around inside. The old house was abandoned, as Darren knew it would be, and he and Cho found a place to work in what used to be the dining room. The house was covered in dust and grime and smelled horribly but the cold air kept the odor to a minimum. Darren stood in the middle of the room and Cho went into the kitchen.

"Okay Darren, concentrate on me and try to apparate right next to me!" she yelled through the wall.

Darren took out his wand and concentrated on Cho. He made the proper incantation and felt the same rush as before. He could see the world dissolve around him and then the floor under his feet as he appeared n the kitchen. He was in the kitchen, but nowhere near her. She was at least ten feet away.

"Why am I so far away from you?" he asked.

"It helps if you nave a mental picture in your mind of where it is tat you want to go. That helps the wand focus more exactly on a particular spot and you are more likely to hit the target that you picked. Try going back into the other room where you just were."

Darren did just that and found that by concentrating on the spot where he had already been, he could land there when he disapparated. He spent the next few minutes going back and forth between the kitchen and dining rooms and then Cho decided he had done enough for the day.

"No. I want to try going upstairs and back to see if I can do it when different heights are involved," he told her.

"No Darren, it is getting dark and we have to get back to school. We'll barely make it as it is now."

He had to grudgingly admit that she was right and they left together and headed back to the castle. Along the way they chatted about mundane things and then Cho abruptly changed the subject.

"Darren, I want to tell you something."

"Okay, go ahead."

"Well, first I think I should tell you that I have had a bad time with, well, boyfriends since I have been here at school."

Darren knew full well what she was talking about. Cedric Diggory and Harry Potter to be exact.

"I know all about it, or well, most of it Cho."

"Well, it's just that I never thought I would fall in love with someone here at school. I always thought it would be years after graduation."

She stopped talking to let what she had just said be absorbed by Darren, who was quiet with shock. He had never thought that she would say this to him. He had hoped to hear it on many occasions, but he had never actually believed it would happen.

"Did you hear me Darren? I said I love you."

"I heard you. I just can't believe that you are telling me this."

Cho looked crestfallen and Darren immediately realized that she had taken what he had just said the wrong way. A tear was running down her cheek as Darren took her hand in his.

"Cho, what I mean is that I never thought I would hear those words from you. To be honest, I have been in love with you for over three years and I never thought I would ever say that to you."

She looked in his eyes and saw the truth there. He did love her. He had loved her from afar for a long time, and how it was out in the open. No more playing. No more hiding emotions. She threw herself into his arms and kissed him passionately. Darren could feel the emotion in him that had been building for three years start to flood out of him. As he held her he could feel her grip on him tighten as if she didn't want to let him go.

The rest of the walk back to the castle went too quickly for Darren. He held Cho's hand up until the minute he had to let go so she could go to her common room. They had shared a last kiss in the Entrance Hall. Darren went back to Gryffindor tower a changed man. He had experienced the most base and powerful emotion a human could ever experience. He had been told he was loved by someone he loved in return. Someone who loved him for who he was. Someone he would go anything for.

When he got to his dormitory Neville was there reading his Herbology textbook.

"You got a letter while you were away. I saw the owl flying around for a while, but I have never seen a mail owl that couldn't find somebody before," Neville told him.

"Well, it got the right room at least," Darren replied.

Secretly he wondered if the owl couldn't find him because he had been in the Shrieking Shack while it had been looking for him. He too the letter and immediately recognized the handwriting.

Darren,

Use the other thing that you talked about with our friend to help you with your schoolwork. The first study program didn't work, so new ways of thinking are necessary. I will pick you up at King's Cross for the Christmas holiday.

Grandpa Alex

His heart sank. He knew full well that the study program referred to his questioning of Neville, and he also knew that the new program referred to something else as well. It was referring to the Imperius Curse, and Neville Longbottom.