A/N: Well, I'm back again. I just saw the new trailer for Prisoner of
Azkaban. It was pretty good, but can someone tell me if that's Ron roaring
at the very end? Just after the dog/werewolf roars? It was odd. But anyway,
back to writing again. Hopefully my code wasn't too out there, and Harry
didn't look too stupid. I tried to make him pretty darn smart, but kind of
like he is in the books.
And by the way, if you have not read the story Cor Ne Edito, read it. It is so awesome!
Since I've noticed that ff.net eats my italics, all things in italics will now have around them.
Disclaimer: All I own is my laptop. Wait a second....I don't even own that. Ouch.
Harry restlessly paced around his room. It was the afternoon after he had sent the reply to Hermione, and no one had come yet. He wondered how the Order would be coming. Portkey? Brooms? Floo Powder? Since the Ministry had finally come to their senses and realized that Voldemort was actually out and about, the networks were no longer being watched. Overcome with boredom, Harry listened to Uncle Vernon downstairs as he was rumbling to Aunt Petunia.
"I don't suppose you heard Petunia?" he asked her. There was a silence, and Harry supposed that she had made some answer, because Uncle Vernon continued. "HIS kind have offered to take him. About time I say. Bloody owls flying through here all the time, Dudley being attacked, I've had enough. If it were up to me, then he wouldn't even be here," Uncle Vernon said with a definite edge to his voice.
"But it's not up to you dear," Aunt Petunia said. Harry sighed. They had been having this argument ever since the Howler came for Aunt Petunia. It was quite odd to see them divided when they were usually so united in their hatred of Harry. In a way, it was gratifying to see them angry at someone else besides him for a change. The twins were right. When they were yelling at someone else instead of him, it was really quite refreshing.
Harry glanced out of his window to look at the sky again. Hermione had said that someone would be coming for him on brooms, so why didn't he see any brooms in the air? He listened again to Uncle Vernon's and Aunt Petunia's conversation.
"Petunia, what was that letter about?" Vernon asked curiously. Harry heard a loud sniff and a rumble of irritation from his uncle. "I just thought that you might want to tell me," Uncle Vernon said. "If we're going to harbor one of THOSE people in our house, I'd like to know evethi- ARGH!"
His uncle's sentence tailed off in a roar of surprise, fright, and irritation. Desperate for something interesting, Harry risked the punishment and went downstairs. When he made it into the sitting room, he choked in laughter.
Fred and George Weasley were sitting calmly on the couch as if they didn't have a care in the world, while Tonks was walking around the room, examining the TV, VCR and DVD player. George turned as he saw Harry come into the room.
"Hello Harry," he said, as if it was perfectly normal to have two old school friends suddenly pop into existence in front of your Muggle Uncle and Aunt. Harry's face was turning red with the effort of keeping his laughs in. It was obvious to him that Fred, George and Tonks had Apparated into Harry's sitting room, but it was not so with the other occupants of the house. Aunt Petunia for one was looking suspiciously at her sofa as if it had always concealed two eighteen year old red haired boys and had just chosen this particular moment to reveal them.
Tonks hair was around her waist, and a long deep black. Aunt Petunia kept on looking at her like she had seen Tonks before, but just couldn't place her. It was amazing the things that Muggles missed. Tonks turned around and smiled when she saw Harry.
"Wotcher Harry!" she greeted. "Got your things?" she swept by Harry, pointedly ignoring the bustling Uncle Vernon, who was standing straight up. Fred was a bit more polite. He held up a hat that he had just brought out of his back pocket, and tipped it slightly to Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia.
Aunt Petunia relaxed, until Fred put the hat on. For a second his grinning face was visible under a hat with a ridiculously large blue feather, and then both hat and head disappeared. Aunt Petunia screamed, and fainted dead away. Uncle Vernon missed catching her, and she crashed into the coffee table.
Fred and George came into Harry's room just after Harry. Fred had removed the hat. It was fortunate he did so, for Tonks looked at him suspiciously. "I'm not saying that they don't deserve to be mocked, but it was a pretty cruel thing to do," she said severly. "Harry's got to come back here next year."
"Do I?" Harry asked. He felt better about returning to the Dursley's house now that there was a reason for him to be there, but it was still miserable. He had no problem with Muggles in general, just with these Muggles. "I honestly don't mind if they get so angry they want to chuck me out of the house."
"Harry, Harry, Harry," George said, adopting a look that Harry thought looked close to the mothering look that Mrs. Weasley always gave him. "Dumbledore has his reasons, and you just must follow them. Shame on you." Fred nodded at his twins side like George was giving a gospel ceremony.
"Anyway, I've got my broom already," Harry said, but Tonks cut him off.
"We're not taking brooms," she said brusquely. "We're taking the Knight Bus instead." Harry, Fred, and George all groaned.
"You're too much trouble Harry," George said as he heaved Harry's trunk down the stairs. Fred grunted in agreement.
"I reckon we should spend our time elsewhere rather than saving your sorry arse all the time," Fred agreed as he picked up one end of the trunk. Harry peeked into the sitting room as he left. Aunt Petunia had revived consciousness, and she was glaring at Harry.
Tonks walked into the room. "Really sorry about that," she said as she knocked over one of their lamps. It crashed to the floor, sending shards everywhere. "Anyway, suppose that we'll be saying goodbye." Uncle Vernon glared at her, but didn't dare to make a move. "And just so you'll let Harry stay here next year....OBLIVIATE!"
Uncle Vernon's and Aunt Petunia's faces went oddly slack. Uncle Vernon nodded vaguely. "Get out of here boy," he said softly to Harry as he nodded at him.
"You wasted our tricks," George said resentfully to Tonks. "And just when we had perfected the Invisibility Hats," he added wistfully.
"Joke shop coming on all right?" Harry asked. Fred nodded, and launched into a talk of how well they had been doing while Harry's trunk and Hedwig's cage made their way down the driveway.
George stuck out his right hand and with an enormous BANG; the Knight Bus appeared in front of them. Harry stumbled back a few steps and tripped over his trunk. Fred sniggered, and hoisted Harry to his feet.
"'Ello 'Arry!" the pimply conductor, Stan Shunpike cried out in absolute joy as Harry climbed onto the bus.
In her room, Angelina Johnson restlessly paced. She was stuck for a decision about what to do. She hated being stuck. She liked control. Alicia sat on the bed, nervously jiggling her foot. Nothing had happened since that afternoon. They'd worried a little bit, Angelina had actually screamed when her over-active imagination had imagined Wood being slammed with the Cruciatious Curse. Moody or the madman pretending to be Moody had showed them what the curse could do in her sixth year. She winced as she imagined Oliver Wood rocking back and forth like the spider did, his mouth opened in a soundless scream. But his scream wouldn't be soundless. His scream would be hoarse, deep, pain-filled, the Scottish brogue being ripped out of his soul.
Angelina began to cry as she imagined that. Alicia got up off of the bed and began to retrace Angelina's route as Angelina took Alicia's spot on the bed. It just hurt so much to imagine that Oliver Wood was somewhere in North Russia and no one knew where he was, or how he got there, or even if he was alive! And then, to think back on the pictures that the-person- pretending-to-be-Moody had shown them when they were studying curses. They were pictures of what the Cruciatious Curse could do, and putting Oliver's face in that picture was all too easy....she gave a dry sob and buried her face in her hands.
She gave a small shriek as she heard an almighty crunching noise. When it appeared that nothing else was happening, she hesitantly got up from her bed, wiping tears away from her face. She turned a corner in her room, and was confronted with the image of Alicia with half of her arm inside the wall.
"Well," Alicia said, grimacing in pain, "a little tension, anger, and now...I appear to be stuck." Her worry for Oliver now forgotten in her worry for Alicia, Angelina walked over and examined Alicia's forearm in interest.
Alicia craned her head as she heard a galumphing up the stairs. Katie Bell stuck her sandy brown head through the door. "Oh my god!" were her first words, looking at the scene in front of her. It had to look odd, Alicia with half her arm inside the wall. "What happened?"
"Alicia decided that she blamed the wall," Angelina said tartly. Alicia made a rude face at Angelina. "So you got our letter?" Angelina asked Katie, quickly changing the topic.
"Yeah, Circe came in just as we got back from Germany; it was great," Katie said, flashing one of her trademark smiles at Angelina. "Why'd you name her that anyway?" she asked, gesturing to Angelina's barn owl that was perched on top of her school books.
"Seemed right," Angelina said, as Circe proceeded to tear a page out of her old Defense Against the Dark Arts book. Alicia shrugged, and then looked purposefully at Angelina.
"Who did the walling in this house anyway?" Katie asked with interest as she looked at Alicia trying to move her hand. Angelina tried to help turn Alicia's wrist, but gave it up as a lost cause. The hand was stuck very tightly inside the wall. Evidently all the muscle exercises that Wood kept on making them do had paid off.
"I don't know, crappy Muggle house," Angelina said. "I can always hear the pipes running. All right, clench your fist," she told Alicia. "Now unclench, and PULL!" Both Angelina and Alicia pulled with all of their might, and Alicia's hand came free. All three girls fell on the ground. Katie was the first to get up, shaking some sawdust out of her eyes.
"Ewww," Katie said, grimacing at Alicia's hand. A nail had scraped it, and blood was pouring down her hand. "All right, Angelina, I passed your mum as I was going up the stairs, so I suppose that I'd better go get her," she said as she got to her feet.
"Don't bother," Angelina said, bringing out her wand. She muttered a spell, and the blood disappeared from Alicia's hand. Angelina said something else, and fresh clean linens came out on Alicia's hand. "You forget that we're of age, and out of school. We can do magic whenever we want."
"I hate you," Katie said. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to have your older brother coming home, floating around the house, and doing magic in front of you? He knows perfectly well that I'm not allowed to do magic at home for another year, but he persists in doing magic in front of me. And he purposefully leaves my things on the other side of the room, because he knows that I'll have to get up and get them, instead of just doing a Summoning Charm like a person who could do magic over the summer!"
Katie finally took a breath. Angelina saw this as her moment to jump in and ask some questions. "Alicia, why'd you hit the wall?" she asked, looking at the large hole in her wall. "It seems like that would be something that I would do."
"I felt like it," Alicia said, shrugging her shoulders. "Are you hungry?" she asked Katie.
"I thought you'd never ask," Katie said, nodding her head and rubbing her stomach. "I'm famished. We left this afternoon, and I hadn't had a chance to eat lunch because I forgot to pack half of my things. And then Circe got in, and you asked me to come over, so I had to talk to my parents about letting me go to your house, which took some time, and then they had to find the Floo power, which got misplaced-"
Angelina, knowing well how long Katie's rants could go on, stopped her. "Hey, let's just go downstairs and get something to eat," she said. Alicia rose, and put her arm around Katie.
"Why'd you want me here anyway?" Katie asked, ignoring a large rumble from Alicia's stomach. "Not that I'm not happy to see you two, but you knew that we were going on holiday to Germany for two weeks. I told you that my parents wanted me to 'spend more time at home'," she said in a singsong voice. "Believe me, it was a time trying to get them to let me go, especially after all this business with You-Know-Who..." her voice trailed off as she looked inside the kitchen.
Angelina's mother was sitting by the table, talking to another wizard. His back was turned to the three girls, but Angelina knew immediately who he was. There was no mistaking that long, silver, hair. "Professor Dumbledore?" Alicia asked in disbelief, her mouth hanging open.
Dumbledore turned around to face the flabbergasted girls. "Yes, Ms. Spinnet," he said kindly. "Ms. Bell, already here? Good, good. And Ms. Johnson, it is always a pleasure." Angelina felt that something was going on here that she couldn't see.
Katie said it first. "Professor Dumbledore, not that we're not happy to see you, but why are you here?" she asked faintly. Dumbledore nodded, like he had been expecting this question.
"Ah, I beg your company for a short time," he said to them. "If you will do me the great honor of joining me to a small meeting, I would be most gracious. The owls have already been sent, your parents will be receiving them shortly."
"Go where?" Alicia asked suspiciously. "What's all this about?"
"Mum?" Angelina appealed to her mother. "What's going on?" Her mother just shook her head, and blinked a few tears out of her eyes. "Mum?" Angelina asked again, her voice breaking. "What's happening? Why's Dumbledore here?"
"I believe you already know the answer to that," Dumbledore said. "But I suspected no more than this confusion. I shall explain everything now. Mrs. Johnson, if you will excuse us?" Angelina's mother nodded numbly as Dumbledore led the girls into the dining room and shut the door. Angelina was now painfully aware that the house had not been properly cleaned in over a year, and that dust bunnies were populating the rarely used dining room.
"What's all this about?" Alicia asked in her soft voice. "Is it Wood?" Katie looked back and forth from Dumbledore, to Angelina, to Alicia. Dumbledore nodded gravely and sat down at the head of the table.
"I believe you already know what has happened to your friend," he said to Angelina and Alicia. "Ms. Bell, does not know, and will therefore have to be told." He paused for a moment before looking at them all with his light blue eyes. For once, they were not twinkling. "Mr. Wood has been captured by Voldemort."
"What?" Katie asked, shuddering despite herself at the name. "You- Know-Who's....got Oliver? That's absurd!" she said, trying to deny it. "Angelina...Alicia?" she looked at the other two Chasers, as if they would agree with her that Dumbledore had finally gone off his rocker. Instead they refused to meet her gaze, looking down at the ground dejectedly.
"No, he does have young Mr. Wood," Dumbledore said calmly. "That was the reason that your friends summoned you here on such short notice. An owl happened to intercept me as I was traveling here, carrying an urgent message from Ms. Johnson. It demanded to know what was happening with Oliver, and where he was, and why I wasn't doing anything to help him," he said, quoting Angelina's hastily written letter word for word.
"Sorry," Angelina muttered. "I didn't think that it would get to you that fast," she said. "Do you know where he is?" Dumbledore shook his head slowly. "Then why are you sitting here?" she asked, her voice rising into a hysterical pitch. "Why AREN'T you going to look for him?"
"Please calm down Ms. Johnson," Dumbledore said calmly. "We are trying to find him. When Voldemort," there were shudders from all the witches, "kidnaps someone, he takes steps to make sure that they are not easily found. I spoke earlier of a meeting. I shall now tell you what group is meeting."
"When Voldemort was first in power, there was a small group of witches and wizards, the smartest wizards in their day, which stood against him. This group suffered its losses, but one of its tiniest members managed to finally defeat the Dark Lord," Dumbledore said. "This was called the Order of the Phoenix. I myself belong to it, and that is one of my greater honors, and between the three of us, that is saying something." He winked coyly at them, and Alicia gave a small, dry chuckle.
"So, you want us to come to this Order meeting so we can help find Oliver?" Angelina asked. Dumbledore nodded. "Once we find him, can we go get him?"
"That requires joining the Order, and I doubt that either you or your parents are ready to let you do that," Dumbledore said firmly. Angelina made a noise of disbelief.
"We're of age!" she said angrily. "We're out of school, we're legally adults, and I'm almost nineteen! Why can't I go find Oliver if I want to?"
"Ms. Johnson, you think too quickly and too rashly," Dumbledore said, keeping the same, sane tone, but Angelina could tell that she was being scolded. "Please, just come to the Order meeting," he said. "Your knowledge of Quidditch and Mr. Wood may prove invaluable."
"Excuse me, Professor Dumbledore?" Alicia said, speaking up for the first time. Katie and Angelina turned to look at her in disbelief. "It seems to me like you want to protect us, but I don't see how we can help just by giving you information about Oliver. I'm sure that there's some spell which says that loved ones can help find the person in trouble, but if you needed us for that, then you could just do the spell here. You wouldn't need us to go to the meeting. So it seems to me like you somehow want us to join this Order and look for Oliver.
"We were put in Gryffindor for a reason. Maybe this is it," Alicia said evenly, never wavering as Dumbledore looked at her light blue eyes. Angelina and Katie both looked at Alicia in astonishment. Dumbledore smiled that maddening smile, as if the things that she had just said were not only unsurprising, they were expected.
"Well Ms. Spinnet, it is obvious that you were the highest witch in your year," Dumbledore said. "That was spoken with the bravery of a Gryffindor, the slyness of a Slytherin, the intelligence of a Ravenclaw, and the honesty of a Hufflepuff." Alicia coloured a little at the compliment, but didn't say anything.
Angelina sat back in her chair astonished. She would have given anything to be able to speak like that. Angelina was always the tomboy of the Chasers, the one who was considered to be one of the guys. Katie was the loveable ditz, the one who knew the exact amount of seriousness and silliness to make everyone comfortable and content. Alicia was the quiet, serious one. She was a beautiful listener, but not a wonderful person to go play practical jokes with.
Dumbledore stood up. "I promise you, if you have any remaining questions after this encounter, they will all be answered at the meeting," he said. Alicia was the first to rise, her eyes still locked on their former Headmaster. "Come." It was not a command, it was a polite request.
They left the dining room to go back into the kitchen. Angelina's mother was still sitting at the table, her face buried in her handkerchief. Angelina went to her, and embraced her around the shoulders. "Mum, I have to go, but I swear I'll be right back," she said, trying to soothe her mother.
"I know," her mother choked out. "I know. Just be careful Angie. And...make me and your father proud," she sobbed. Angelina hugged her mother tightly, and was soon joined by Alicia and Katie. The three Chasers had spent all of their summer holidays at Angelina's house, and Angelina's mother had taken them all in like second and third daughters.
"Bye Mrs. Johnson," Katie said, her eyes puffy and red, and her permanently laughing expression gone for once.
"See you soon Mrs. Johnson," Alicia said, her eyes over-bright and sparkling with unshed tears. Dumbledore picked up an ordinary cutting board.
"Portus," he mumbled. The cutting board turned blue for a moment, and then regained its normal hue. He motioned the three girls to touch it.
"Um...Professor?" Katie asked hesitantly, her arm raised in the air just as if she were in class. "Isn't that supposed to be illegal? We learned it first year in Hogwarts," she explained when he turned his blue eyes on her.
"Yes, yes," he said idly, waving his hand in the air. "Well Ms. Bell, desperate moments call for desperate measures. Please touch the Portkey, we don't have much time."
Angelina put a shaking brown hand on the cutting board. Nothing happened for a minute, then she felt a tugging behind her navel, and she was gone.
"So what's wrong with Wood?" Harry asked George later that night. It was very late, and all the other witches and wizards had fallen asleep. Harry and George were the only ones in the entire floor that were left completely awake. Tonks was dozing, her head against the window, and Fred's soft snores could be distinguished from all the other noises of sleeping wizards and witches.
"Hmm?" George asked, looking up with the end of a quill in his mouth. "Sorry Harry," he apologized swiftly, noticing the look on Harry's face. "Just checking some of the figures," he motioned to the parchment, which had a lot of numbers and diagrams scribbled on it, "and I didn't hear your dulcet tones ringing. What'd you want?"
"I was just asking what's wrong with Wood," Harry said impatiently. Grateful as he was to be away from Privet Drive and the Dursleys, if he was going to be contacted by the Order of the Phoenix, he wanted to have a good idea why. "Hermione's letter didn't say anything, and you three haven't told me anything either."
"We haven't told you anything because we don't know ourselves," George said. "Now that Fred and I are in the Order, we get to listen to the meetings, but that's about it. Mum still doesn't trust us when we're doing anything dangerous. She's afraid that we'll blow one of the other members of the Order up. This is our first real mission for the Order. Thank your lucky stars that Mad-Eye had somewhere else to be tonight and that he wasn't here to pick you up. You'd be freezing your buttocks off somewhere around Jupiter, he'd have you flying so far out of attacking range."
"Yeah, thanks for that," Harry said. For a summer night, tonight was unusually cold and windy. The Knight Bus, loud, erratic, and as uncomfortable as it was, was much better than riding a broom around in the murk. He could never quite forget the long broom ride that Moody had made him take last year when the Order picked him up.
"We know as much as you do right now," George said seriously. "Dear old Oliver's got himself in a bit of a scrape, and Dumbledore wants the Order to get him out of it. Apparently he was in the Order, though I can't imagine why....I didn't even know that Wood could DO magic, let alone do it well. As far as I knew, he was only at Hogwarts so he could play Quidditch, and get a better chance at playing professionally."
"How was his career?" Harry asked, his insides cringing. "I...don't follow the papers much anymore," he explained to George's look.
"With all the rubbish they've printed about you, I wouldn't either," the red-haired twin said easily. "Apparently it was going rather well. Angelina was so scary last year when she was Captain, we decided that we would write Puddlemere United to make sure that Wood hadn't been killed in a Bludger accident and had possessed Angelina. Just the sort of thing he would do too," George mused thoughtfully. "But anyway, he said that he had been taken off the reserve list, and that he was the main Keeper. Course, with the Tornadoes winning the league, that wasn't too good, but other than that, he's had a good time."
"Hope he's all right," Harry said softly. George nodded, and made a noise of agreement. Harry went back to thinking about Lord Voldemort and Wood, while George went back to the records and inventory.
"Wood, wake up," a churlish voice called his name. "Wood, you bloody bastard, wake up." Oliver groaned, and slid open one eye. The leering face of Marcus Flint looked at him, buck teeth and all. Oliver groaned and closed his eyes tightly.
Isn't it enough that he made my life in school living hell for me? Does he have to come here and torture me too? Aw, this sucks.
A toe nudged his solar plexus and Wood cried out softly in pain. Oh balls. "Wood, you pansy, get up off this floor and face me like a man!" Flint yelled. Wood groaned, and rolled slowly onto his back.
Marcus Flint hadn't changed at all since he left Hogwarts, save that he was meaner and bigger. And he might have a better grasp of magic than he did at school. Lord Voldemort's followers often had a very good grasp of the minor curses at least. And Flint had always had a great sense of brutality.
"Look what the dog drug in," Flint chortled to his two cohorts. "The Master told us what you had done to him," Flint continued, explaining why he was here. "Obviously, a, and I laughingly use the phrase wizard, in your position should not be tempting the forces of the greatest wizard in the world!"
"You're wrong," Wood choked out, his eyes rolling in the back of his head. "Voldemort isn't the greatest wizard in the world. Albus...Dumbledore...is the greatest sorcerer in the world. Sorry to mess up your day."
"You'll pay for that one Wood!" Flint hissed through his teeth. For a second Oliver thought that he was about to be hit with the Cruciatious Curse again, and he tensed in preparation. But this was not the case. Instead, Flint motioned to the people behind him, who brought out a small trunk that was shaking in their grasp. Feeling that thinking was probably not the best thing for him right now, Wood rolled on his back, and coughed out a little bit of blood.
"I think you know what this is, don't you Wood?" Flint asked. Oliver turned his head over to see a small, jet-black ball clutched in Marcus's hand. It was straining towards him, and Oliver fancied that if the ball could have screamed in frustration, it would have. "Rogue Bludger," Flint explained, in case Wood was denser than everyone thought. "Not a nice thing to have. Especially," he gave Oliver a smile of pure evil, "if you're the one that the Bludger's after."
He released the Bludger.
Oliver screamed in pain as the Bludger hit his ribs, cracking at least two. He rolled over into a fetal position, trying to protect as much of his body as he could. The Bludger was not deterred, and began attacking his head and legs. Within seconds, Oliver had a large cut on his forehead, and he could have sworn that he had a broken kneecap.
"What's wrong Wood?" Flint sneered at him. "Is this too hard for you? And I thought you were actually a tough one."
The words hit Oliver like a sledgehammer. He waited for a minute, listening to the Bludger whirr around his head, looking for a piece of unscathed flesh that it could attack. He felt incredibly cold, and angry, but a strange thing was happening. All the emotion was leaving him...he just wanted one thing now.
Flint.
Oliver bit his lip as he concentrated entirely on the Bludger. He would get one chance, and he had to make sure that it worked. His breaths became smooth and regular as he focused on the sound of the small ball whizzing around his head. Come here, come here, come on....
The Bludger decided that it had found an acceptable target, and dove down at him. Wood wasn't worried; this was no more than hitting a Quaffle at a Quidditch match against a particularly nasty opponent. His leg muscles tightened in preparation. The Bludger dove at his legs, and Wood acted.
His legs shot out and nailed the Bludger firmly, spinning it back where it came from. Flint was turning around when the Bludger came flying straight back at him. The Bludger hit him square on the nose, sending blood flying everywhere. Flint cursed loudly and hit the ground. The two people with him picked him up and set him on his feet.
"Finite Incanatem," someone said, and the Bludger exploded, sending bright sparks all over the dark room. Wood was lying on his side laughing. It didn't matter what happened to him now, he didn't care how much blood came out of his mouth...it was worth it just to see the look on Flint's face. Flint came over to Oliver, his hands linked over a nose that was obviously broken.
"You just wait Wood, you've done it now," he threatened to the hysterically laughing Oliver. Flint waited for a moment, staring at Wood, who was alternately laughing and choking on his own blood.
Part of Oliver was wondering why this was so funny, and then he realized that it didn't matter. He was going to die; it didn't matter whether or not he told Voldemort and the Death Eaters everything or nothing. He was still going to die. And Oliver had always been rather stubborn when it came to people forcing him what to do. So, he was going to fight for as long as he possibly could.
"Why are you laughing?" Flint asked his eyes wide and astonished. Oliver stopped laughing for a moment, and looked seriously at them.
"With any luck I will either annoy you to death, or cause permanent ear damage and make you deaf," he said matter-of-factly. And that set him off laughing again. Maybe I'm delirious. That would explain a great deal.
"Wood, you're mad," Flint said, walking slowly away, as if Oliver was a dangerous animal that would attack him. "Completely mad."
"At least I'm not a Death Eater," Oliver said, suddenly serious and full of purpose. Flint stormed out of the door, and slammed it behind him. It could be that his ears were deceiving him, but Oliver could swear that he didn't hear the familiar click of the lock falling into place.
He wished that he could laugh, and he tried to, but all that came out was a small shuddering sigh. Feeling a burning in his chest that had nothing to do with curses and Bludgers, Oliver blinked his eyes, trying to get the moisture out of them. He had been raised with the firm adage that boys did not cry. That only girls cried, and it was a boy's solemn duty to stop them crying and be cheerful again. Everyone was just so much happier when they were cheerful.
"Stop that you foolish boy," said a voice in the room. Oliver started, and looked around at the room. At first he could see nothing, but soon a human-sized figure separated itself from the wall.
"Wha..?" Oliver tried to speak, but his throat had gone suddenly dry. That voice was very familiar...if only he could place it...
"You must not do anything to annoy the Dark Lord," they said urgently. "It is both of our necks at risk here, so I shall tell you again in case your intellect is such that you didn't understand me the first time. You must NOT annoy the Dark Lord."
He walked over to Oliver. The Keeper flinched and turned his head, expecting an attack. He was surprised when the person grabbed his hand instead, wrenching it open. He cried out in pain as sore fingers were pulled and prodded. Something soft was put in his fingers.
The door opened, sending a moonbeam in the door, and then closed. Oliver heard the click of a lock, about fifty times magnified now.
He looked down at his hand. Clenched tightly in his bleeding fingers was a single, scarlet, phoenix feather.
Please review.
And by the way, if you have not read the story Cor Ne Edito, read it. It is so awesome!
Since I've noticed that ff.net eats my italics, all things in italics will now have around them.
Disclaimer: All I own is my laptop. Wait a second....I don't even own that. Ouch.
Harry restlessly paced around his room. It was the afternoon after he had sent the reply to Hermione, and no one had come yet. He wondered how the Order would be coming. Portkey? Brooms? Floo Powder? Since the Ministry had finally come to their senses and realized that Voldemort was actually out and about, the networks were no longer being watched. Overcome with boredom, Harry listened to Uncle Vernon downstairs as he was rumbling to Aunt Petunia.
"I don't suppose you heard Petunia?" he asked her. There was a silence, and Harry supposed that she had made some answer, because Uncle Vernon continued. "HIS kind have offered to take him. About time I say. Bloody owls flying through here all the time, Dudley being attacked, I've had enough. If it were up to me, then he wouldn't even be here," Uncle Vernon said with a definite edge to his voice.
"But it's not up to you dear," Aunt Petunia said. Harry sighed. They had been having this argument ever since the Howler came for Aunt Petunia. It was quite odd to see them divided when they were usually so united in their hatred of Harry. In a way, it was gratifying to see them angry at someone else besides him for a change. The twins were right. When they were yelling at someone else instead of him, it was really quite refreshing.
Harry glanced out of his window to look at the sky again. Hermione had said that someone would be coming for him on brooms, so why didn't he see any brooms in the air? He listened again to Uncle Vernon's and Aunt Petunia's conversation.
"Petunia, what was that letter about?" Vernon asked curiously. Harry heard a loud sniff and a rumble of irritation from his uncle. "I just thought that you might want to tell me," Uncle Vernon said. "If we're going to harbor one of THOSE people in our house, I'd like to know evethi- ARGH!"
His uncle's sentence tailed off in a roar of surprise, fright, and irritation. Desperate for something interesting, Harry risked the punishment and went downstairs. When he made it into the sitting room, he choked in laughter.
Fred and George Weasley were sitting calmly on the couch as if they didn't have a care in the world, while Tonks was walking around the room, examining the TV, VCR and DVD player. George turned as he saw Harry come into the room.
"Hello Harry," he said, as if it was perfectly normal to have two old school friends suddenly pop into existence in front of your Muggle Uncle and Aunt. Harry's face was turning red with the effort of keeping his laughs in. It was obvious to him that Fred, George and Tonks had Apparated into Harry's sitting room, but it was not so with the other occupants of the house. Aunt Petunia for one was looking suspiciously at her sofa as if it had always concealed two eighteen year old red haired boys and had just chosen this particular moment to reveal them.
Tonks hair was around her waist, and a long deep black. Aunt Petunia kept on looking at her like she had seen Tonks before, but just couldn't place her. It was amazing the things that Muggles missed. Tonks turned around and smiled when she saw Harry.
"Wotcher Harry!" she greeted. "Got your things?" she swept by Harry, pointedly ignoring the bustling Uncle Vernon, who was standing straight up. Fred was a bit more polite. He held up a hat that he had just brought out of his back pocket, and tipped it slightly to Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia.
Aunt Petunia relaxed, until Fred put the hat on. For a second his grinning face was visible under a hat with a ridiculously large blue feather, and then both hat and head disappeared. Aunt Petunia screamed, and fainted dead away. Uncle Vernon missed catching her, and she crashed into the coffee table.
Fred and George came into Harry's room just after Harry. Fred had removed the hat. It was fortunate he did so, for Tonks looked at him suspiciously. "I'm not saying that they don't deserve to be mocked, but it was a pretty cruel thing to do," she said severly. "Harry's got to come back here next year."
"Do I?" Harry asked. He felt better about returning to the Dursley's house now that there was a reason for him to be there, but it was still miserable. He had no problem with Muggles in general, just with these Muggles. "I honestly don't mind if they get so angry they want to chuck me out of the house."
"Harry, Harry, Harry," George said, adopting a look that Harry thought looked close to the mothering look that Mrs. Weasley always gave him. "Dumbledore has his reasons, and you just must follow them. Shame on you." Fred nodded at his twins side like George was giving a gospel ceremony.
"Anyway, I've got my broom already," Harry said, but Tonks cut him off.
"We're not taking brooms," she said brusquely. "We're taking the Knight Bus instead." Harry, Fred, and George all groaned.
"You're too much trouble Harry," George said as he heaved Harry's trunk down the stairs. Fred grunted in agreement.
"I reckon we should spend our time elsewhere rather than saving your sorry arse all the time," Fred agreed as he picked up one end of the trunk. Harry peeked into the sitting room as he left. Aunt Petunia had revived consciousness, and she was glaring at Harry.
Tonks walked into the room. "Really sorry about that," she said as she knocked over one of their lamps. It crashed to the floor, sending shards everywhere. "Anyway, suppose that we'll be saying goodbye." Uncle Vernon glared at her, but didn't dare to make a move. "And just so you'll let Harry stay here next year....OBLIVIATE!"
Uncle Vernon's and Aunt Petunia's faces went oddly slack. Uncle Vernon nodded vaguely. "Get out of here boy," he said softly to Harry as he nodded at him.
"You wasted our tricks," George said resentfully to Tonks. "And just when we had perfected the Invisibility Hats," he added wistfully.
"Joke shop coming on all right?" Harry asked. Fred nodded, and launched into a talk of how well they had been doing while Harry's trunk and Hedwig's cage made their way down the driveway.
George stuck out his right hand and with an enormous BANG; the Knight Bus appeared in front of them. Harry stumbled back a few steps and tripped over his trunk. Fred sniggered, and hoisted Harry to his feet.
"'Ello 'Arry!" the pimply conductor, Stan Shunpike cried out in absolute joy as Harry climbed onto the bus.
In her room, Angelina Johnson restlessly paced. She was stuck for a decision about what to do. She hated being stuck. She liked control. Alicia sat on the bed, nervously jiggling her foot. Nothing had happened since that afternoon. They'd worried a little bit, Angelina had actually screamed when her over-active imagination had imagined Wood being slammed with the Cruciatious Curse. Moody or the madman pretending to be Moody had showed them what the curse could do in her sixth year. She winced as she imagined Oliver Wood rocking back and forth like the spider did, his mouth opened in a soundless scream. But his scream wouldn't be soundless. His scream would be hoarse, deep, pain-filled, the Scottish brogue being ripped out of his soul.
Angelina began to cry as she imagined that. Alicia got up off of the bed and began to retrace Angelina's route as Angelina took Alicia's spot on the bed. It just hurt so much to imagine that Oliver Wood was somewhere in North Russia and no one knew where he was, or how he got there, or even if he was alive! And then, to think back on the pictures that the-person- pretending-to-be-Moody had shown them when they were studying curses. They were pictures of what the Cruciatious Curse could do, and putting Oliver's face in that picture was all too easy....she gave a dry sob and buried her face in her hands.
She gave a small shriek as she heard an almighty crunching noise. When it appeared that nothing else was happening, she hesitantly got up from her bed, wiping tears away from her face. She turned a corner in her room, and was confronted with the image of Alicia with half of her arm inside the wall.
"Well," Alicia said, grimacing in pain, "a little tension, anger, and now...I appear to be stuck." Her worry for Oliver now forgotten in her worry for Alicia, Angelina walked over and examined Alicia's forearm in interest.
Alicia craned her head as she heard a galumphing up the stairs. Katie Bell stuck her sandy brown head through the door. "Oh my god!" were her first words, looking at the scene in front of her. It had to look odd, Alicia with half her arm inside the wall. "What happened?"
"Alicia decided that she blamed the wall," Angelina said tartly. Alicia made a rude face at Angelina. "So you got our letter?" Angelina asked Katie, quickly changing the topic.
"Yeah, Circe came in just as we got back from Germany; it was great," Katie said, flashing one of her trademark smiles at Angelina. "Why'd you name her that anyway?" she asked, gesturing to Angelina's barn owl that was perched on top of her school books.
"Seemed right," Angelina said, as Circe proceeded to tear a page out of her old Defense Against the Dark Arts book. Alicia shrugged, and then looked purposefully at Angelina.
"Who did the walling in this house anyway?" Katie asked with interest as she looked at Alicia trying to move her hand. Angelina tried to help turn Alicia's wrist, but gave it up as a lost cause. The hand was stuck very tightly inside the wall. Evidently all the muscle exercises that Wood kept on making them do had paid off.
"I don't know, crappy Muggle house," Angelina said. "I can always hear the pipes running. All right, clench your fist," she told Alicia. "Now unclench, and PULL!" Both Angelina and Alicia pulled with all of their might, and Alicia's hand came free. All three girls fell on the ground. Katie was the first to get up, shaking some sawdust out of her eyes.
"Ewww," Katie said, grimacing at Alicia's hand. A nail had scraped it, and blood was pouring down her hand. "All right, Angelina, I passed your mum as I was going up the stairs, so I suppose that I'd better go get her," she said as she got to her feet.
"Don't bother," Angelina said, bringing out her wand. She muttered a spell, and the blood disappeared from Alicia's hand. Angelina said something else, and fresh clean linens came out on Alicia's hand. "You forget that we're of age, and out of school. We can do magic whenever we want."
"I hate you," Katie said. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to have your older brother coming home, floating around the house, and doing magic in front of you? He knows perfectly well that I'm not allowed to do magic at home for another year, but he persists in doing magic in front of me. And he purposefully leaves my things on the other side of the room, because he knows that I'll have to get up and get them, instead of just doing a Summoning Charm like a person who could do magic over the summer!"
Katie finally took a breath. Angelina saw this as her moment to jump in and ask some questions. "Alicia, why'd you hit the wall?" she asked, looking at the large hole in her wall. "It seems like that would be something that I would do."
"I felt like it," Alicia said, shrugging her shoulders. "Are you hungry?" she asked Katie.
"I thought you'd never ask," Katie said, nodding her head and rubbing her stomach. "I'm famished. We left this afternoon, and I hadn't had a chance to eat lunch because I forgot to pack half of my things. And then Circe got in, and you asked me to come over, so I had to talk to my parents about letting me go to your house, which took some time, and then they had to find the Floo power, which got misplaced-"
Angelina, knowing well how long Katie's rants could go on, stopped her. "Hey, let's just go downstairs and get something to eat," she said. Alicia rose, and put her arm around Katie.
"Why'd you want me here anyway?" Katie asked, ignoring a large rumble from Alicia's stomach. "Not that I'm not happy to see you two, but you knew that we were going on holiday to Germany for two weeks. I told you that my parents wanted me to 'spend more time at home'," she said in a singsong voice. "Believe me, it was a time trying to get them to let me go, especially after all this business with You-Know-Who..." her voice trailed off as she looked inside the kitchen.
Angelina's mother was sitting by the table, talking to another wizard. His back was turned to the three girls, but Angelina knew immediately who he was. There was no mistaking that long, silver, hair. "Professor Dumbledore?" Alicia asked in disbelief, her mouth hanging open.
Dumbledore turned around to face the flabbergasted girls. "Yes, Ms. Spinnet," he said kindly. "Ms. Bell, already here? Good, good. And Ms. Johnson, it is always a pleasure." Angelina felt that something was going on here that she couldn't see.
Katie said it first. "Professor Dumbledore, not that we're not happy to see you, but why are you here?" she asked faintly. Dumbledore nodded, like he had been expecting this question.
"Ah, I beg your company for a short time," he said to them. "If you will do me the great honor of joining me to a small meeting, I would be most gracious. The owls have already been sent, your parents will be receiving them shortly."
"Go where?" Alicia asked suspiciously. "What's all this about?"
"Mum?" Angelina appealed to her mother. "What's going on?" Her mother just shook her head, and blinked a few tears out of her eyes. "Mum?" Angelina asked again, her voice breaking. "What's happening? Why's Dumbledore here?"
"I believe you already know the answer to that," Dumbledore said. "But I suspected no more than this confusion. I shall explain everything now. Mrs. Johnson, if you will excuse us?" Angelina's mother nodded numbly as Dumbledore led the girls into the dining room and shut the door. Angelina was now painfully aware that the house had not been properly cleaned in over a year, and that dust bunnies were populating the rarely used dining room.
"What's all this about?" Alicia asked in her soft voice. "Is it Wood?" Katie looked back and forth from Dumbledore, to Angelina, to Alicia. Dumbledore nodded gravely and sat down at the head of the table.
"I believe you already know what has happened to your friend," he said to Angelina and Alicia. "Ms. Bell, does not know, and will therefore have to be told." He paused for a moment before looking at them all with his light blue eyes. For once, they were not twinkling. "Mr. Wood has been captured by Voldemort."
"What?" Katie asked, shuddering despite herself at the name. "You- Know-Who's....got Oliver? That's absurd!" she said, trying to deny it. "Angelina...Alicia?" she looked at the other two Chasers, as if they would agree with her that Dumbledore had finally gone off his rocker. Instead they refused to meet her gaze, looking down at the ground dejectedly.
"No, he does have young Mr. Wood," Dumbledore said calmly. "That was the reason that your friends summoned you here on such short notice. An owl happened to intercept me as I was traveling here, carrying an urgent message from Ms. Johnson. It demanded to know what was happening with Oliver, and where he was, and why I wasn't doing anything to help him," he said, quoting Angelina's hastily written letter word for word.
"Sorry," Angelina muttered. "I didn't think that it would get to you that fast," she said. "Do you know where he is?" Dumbledore shook his head slowly. "Then why are you sitting here?" she asked, her voice rising into a hysterical pitch. "Why AREN'T you going to look for him?"
"Please calm down Ms. Johnson," Dumbledore said calmly. "We are trying to find him. When Voldemort," there were shudders from all the witches, "kidnaps someone, he takes steps to make sure that they are not easily found. I spoke earlier of a meeting. I shall now tell you what group is meeting."
"When Voldemort was first in power, there was a small group of witches and wizards, the smartest wizards in their day, which stood against him. This group suffered its losses, but one of its tiniest members managed to finally defeat the Dark Lord," Dumbledore said. "This was called the Order of the Phoenix. I myself belong to it, and that is one of my greater honors, and between the three of us, that is saying something." He winked coyly at them, and Alicia gave a small, dry chuckle.
"So, you want us to come to this Order meeting so we can help find Oliver?" Angelina asked. Dumbledore nodded. "Once we find him, can we go get him?"
"That requires joining the Order, and I doubt that either you or your parents are ready to let you do that," Dumbledore said firmly. Angelina made a noise of disbelief.
"We're of age!" she said angrily. "We're out of school, we're legally adults, and I'm almost nineteen! Why can't I go find Oliver if I want to?"
"Ms. Johnson, you think too quickly and too rashly," Dumbledore said, keeping the same, sane tone, but Angelina could tell that she was being scolded. "Please, just come to the Order meeting," he said. "Your knowledge of Quidditch and Mr. Wood may prove invaluable."
"Excuse me, Professor Dumbledore?" Alicia said, speaking up for the first time. Katie and Angelina turned to look at her in disbelief. "It seems to me like you want to protect us, but I don't see how we can help just by giving you information about Oliver. I'm sure that there's some spell which says that loved ones can help find the person in trouble, but if you needed us for that, then you could just do the spell here. You wouldn't need us to go to the meeting. So it seems to me like you somehow want us to join this Order and look for Oliver.
"We were put in Gryffindor for a reason. Maybe this is it," Alicia said evenly, never wavering as Dumbledore looked at her light blue eyes. Angelina and Katie both looked at Alicia in astonishment. Dumbledore smiled that maddening smile, as if the things that she had just said were not only unsurprising, they were expected.
"Well Ms. Spinnet, it is obvious that you were the highest witch in your year," Dumbledore said. "That was spoken with the bravery of a Gryffindor, the slyness of a Slytherin, the intelligence of a Ravenclaw, and the honesty of a Hufflepuff." Alicia coloured a little at the compliment, but didn't say anything.
Angelina sat back in her chair astonished. She would have given anything to be able to speak like that. Angelina was always the tomboy of the Chasers, the one who was considered to be one of the guys. Katie was the loveable ditz, the one who knew the exact amount of seriousness and silliness to make everyone comfortable and content. Alicia was the quiet, serious one. She was a beautiful listener, but not a wonderful person to go play practical jokes with.
Dumbledore stood up. "I promise you, if you have any remaining questions after this encounter, they will all be answered at the meeting," he said. Alicia was the first to rise, her eyes still locked on their former Headmaster. "Come." It was not a command, it was a polite request.
They left the dining room to go back into the kitchen. Angelina's mother was still sitting at the table, her face buried in her handkerchief. Angelina went to her, and embraced her around the shoulders. "Mum, I have to go, but I swear I'll be right back," she said, trying to soothe her mother.
"I know," her mother choked out. "I know. Just be careful Angie. And...make me and your father proud," she sobbed. Angelina hugged her mother tightly, and was soon joined by Alicia and Katie. The three Chasers had spent all of their summer holidays at Angelina's house, and Angelina's mother had taken them all in like second and third daughters.
"Bye Mrs. Johnson," Katie said, her eyes puffy and red, and her permanently laughing expression gone for once.
"See you soon Mrs. Johnson," Alicia said, her eyes over-bright and sparkling with unshed tears. Dumbledore picked up an ordinary cutting board.
"Portus," he mumbled. The cutting board turned blue for a moment, and then regained its normal hue. He motioned the three girls to touch it.
"Um...Professor?" Katie asked hesitantly, her arm raised in the air just as if she were in class. "Isn't that supposed to be illegal? We learned it first year in Hogwarts," she explained when he turned his blue eyes on her.
"Yes, yes," he said idly, waving his hand in the air. "Well Ms. Bell, desperate moments call for desperate measures. Please touch the Portkey, we don't have much time."
Angelina put a shaking brown hand on the cutting board. Nothing happened for a minute, then she felt a tugging behind her navel, and she was gone.
"So what's wrong with Wood?" Harry asked George later that night. It was very late, and all the other witches and wizards had fallen asleep. Harry and George were the only ones in the entire floor that were left completely awake. Tonks was dozing, her head against the window, and Fred's soft snores could be distinguished from all the other noises of sleeping wizards and witches.
"Hmm?" George asked, looking up with the end of a quill in his mouth. "Sorry Harry," he apologized swiftly, noticing the look on Harry's face. "Just checking some of the figures," he motioned to the parchment, which had a lot of numbers and diagrams scribbled on it, "and I didn't hear your dulcet tones ringing. What'd you want?"
"I was just asking what's wrong with Wood," Harry said impatiently. Grateful as he was to be away from Privet Drive and the Dursleys, if he was going to be contacted by the Order of the Phoenix, he wanted to have a good idea why. "Hermione's letter didn't say anything, and you three haven't told me anything either."
"We haven't told you anything because we don't know ourselves," George said. "Now that Fred and I are in the Order, we get to listen to the meetings, but that's about it. Mum still doesn't trust us when we're doing anything dangerous. She's afraid that we'll blow one of the other members of the Order up. This is our first real mission for the Order. Thank your lucky stars that Mad-Eye had somewhere else to be tonight and that he wasn't here to pick you up. You'd be freezing your buttocks off somewhere around Jupiter, he'd have you flying so far out of attacking range."
"Yeah, thanks for that," Harry said. For a summer night, tonight was unusually cold and windy. The Knight Bus, loud, erratic, and as uncomfortable as it was, was much better than riding a broom around in the murk. He could never quite forget the long broom ride that Moody had made him take last year when the Order picked him up.
"We know as much as you do right now," George said seriously. "Dear old Oliver's got himself in a bit of a scrape, and Dumbledore wants the Order to get him out of it. Apparently he was in the Order, though I can't imagine why....I didn't even know that Wood could DO magic, let alone do it well. As far as I knew, he was only at Hogwarts so he could play Quidditch, and get a better chance at playing professionally."
"How was his career?" Harry asked, his insides cringing. "I...don't follow the papers much anymore," he explained to George's look.
"With all the rubbish they've printed about you, I wouldn't either," the red-haired twin said easily. "Apparently it was going rather well. Angelina was so scary last year when she was Captain, we decided that we would write Puddlemere United to make sure that Wood hadn't been killed in a Bludger accident and had possessed Angelina. Just the sort of thing he would do too," George mused thoughtfully. "But anyway, he said that he had been taken off the reserve list, and that he was the main Keeper. Course, with the Tornadoes winning the league, that wasn't too good, but other than that, he's had a good time."
"Hope he's all right," Harry said softly. George nodded, and made a noise of agreement. Harry went back to thinking about Lord Voldemort and Wood, while George went back to the records and inventory.
"Wood, wake up," a churlish voice called his name. "Wood, you bloody bastard, wake up." Oliver groaned, and slid open one eye. The leering face of Marcus Flint looked at him, buck teeth and all. Oliver groaned and closed his eyes tightly.
Isn't it enough that he made my life in school living hell for me? Does he have to come here and torture me too? Aw, this sucks.
A toe nudged his solar plexus and Wood cried out softly in pain. Oh balls. "Wood, you pansy, get up off this floor and face me like a man!" Flint yelled. Wood groaned, and rolled slowly onto his back.
Marcus Flint hadn't changed at all since he left Hogwarts, save that he was meaner and bigger. And he might have a better grasp of magic than he did at school. Lord Voldemort's followers often had a very good grasp of the minor curses at least. And Flint had always had a great sense of brutality.
"Look what the dog drug in," Flint chortled to his two cohorts. "The Master told us what you had done to him," Flint continued, explaining why he was here. "Obviously, a, and I laughingly use the phrase wizard, in your position should not be tempting the forces of the greatest wizard in the world!"
"You're wrong," Wood choked out, his eyes rolling in the back of his head. "Voldemort isn't the greatest wizard in the world. Albus...Dumbledore...is the greatest sorcerer in the world. Sorry to mess up your day."
"You'll pay for that one Wood!" Flint hissed through his teeth. For a second Oliver thought that he was about to be hit with the Cruciatious Curse again, and he tensed in preparation. But this was not the case. Instead, Flint motioned to the people behind him, who brought out a small trunk that was shaking in their grasp. Feeling that thinking was probably not the best thing for him right now, Wood rolled on his back, and coughed out a little bit of blood.
"I think you know what this is, don't you Wood?" Flint asked. Oliver turned his head over to see a small, jet-black ball clutched in Marcus's hand. It was straining towards him, and Oliver fancied that if the ball could have screamed in frustration, it would have. "Rogue Bludger," Flint explained, in case Wood was denser than everyone thought. "Not a nice thing to have. Especially," he gave Oliver a smile of pure evil, "if you're the one that the Bludger's after."
He released the Bludger.
Oliver screamed in pain as the Bludger hit his ribs, cracking at least two. He rolled over into a fetal position, trying to protect as much of his body as he could. The Bludger was not deterred, and began attacking his head and legs. Within seconds, Oliver had a large cut on his forehead, and he could have sworn that he had a broken kneecap.
"What's wrong Wood?" Flint sneered at him. "Is this too hard for you? And I thought you were actually a tough one."
The words hit Oliver like a sledgehammer. He waited for a minute, listening to the Bludger whirr around his head, looking for a piece of unscathed flesh that it could attack. He felt incredibly cold, and angry, but a strange thing was happening. All the emotion was leaving him...he just wanted one thing now.
Flint.
Oliver bit his lip as he concentrated entirely on the Bludger. He would get one chance, and he had to make sure that it worked. His breaths became smooth and regular as he focused on the sound of the small ball whizzing around his head. Come here, come here, come on....
The Bludger decided that it had found an acceptable target, and dove down at him. Wood wasn't worried; this was no more than hitting a Quaffle at a Quidditch match against a particularly nasty opponent. His leg muscles tightened in preparation. The Bludger dove at his legs, and Wood acted.
His legs shot out and nailed the Bludger firmly, spinning it back where it came from. Flint was turning around when the Bludger came flying straight back at him. The Bludger hit him square on the nose, sending blood flying everywhere. Flint cursed loudly and hit the ground. The two people with him picked him up and set him on his feet.
"Finite Incanatem," someone said, and the Bludger exploded, sending bright sparks all over the dark room. Wood was lying on his side laughing. It didn't matter what happened to him now, he didn't care how much blood came out of his mouth...it was worth it just to see the look on Flint's face. Flint came over to Oliver, his hands linked over a nose that was obviously broken.
"You just wait Wood, you've done it now," he threatened to the hysterically laughing Oliver. Flint waited for a moment, staring at Wood, who was alternately laughing and choking on his own blood.
Part of Oliver was wondering why this was so funny, and then he realized that it didn't matter. He was going to die; it didn't matter whether or not he told Voldemort and the Death Eaters everything or nothing. He was still going to die. And Oliver had always been rather stubborn when it came to people forcing him what to do. So, he was going to fight for as long as he possibly could.
"Why are you laughing?" Flint asked his eyes wide and astonished. Oliver stopped laughing for a moment, and looked seriously at them.
"With any luck I will either annoy you to death, or cause permanent ear damage and make you deaf," he said matter-of-factly. And that set him off laughing again. Maybe I'm delirious. That would explain a great deal.
"Wood, you're mad," Flint said, walking slowly away, as if Oliver was a dangerous animal that would attack him. "Completely mad."
"At least I'm not a Death Eater," Oliver said, suddenly serious and full of purpose. Flint stormed out of the door, and slammed it behind him. It could be that his ears were deceiving him, but Oliver could swear that he didn't hear the familiar click of the lock falling into place.
He wished that he could laugh, and he tried to, but all that came out was a small shuddering sigh. Feeling a burning in his chest that had nothing to do with curses and Bludgers, Oliver blinked his eyes, trying to get the moisture out of them. He had been raised with the firm adage that boys did not cry. That only girls cried, and it was a boy's solemn duty to stop them crying and be cheerful again. Everyone was just so much happier when they were cheerful.
"Stop that you foolish boy," said a voice in the room. Oliver started, and looked around at the room. At first he could see nothing, but soon a human-sized figure separated itself from the wall.
"Wha..?" Oliver tried to speak, but his throat had gone suddenly dry. That voice was very familiar...if only he could place it...
"You must not do anything to annoy the Dark Lord," they said urgently. "It is both of our necks at risk here, so I shall tell you again in case your intellect is such that you didn't understand me the first time. You must NOT annoy the Dark Lord."
He walked over to Oliver. The Keeper flinched and turned his head, expecting an attack. He was surprised when the person grabbed his hand instead, wrenching it open. He cried out in pain as sore fingers were pulled and prodded. Something soft was put in his fingers.
The door opened, sending a moonbeam in the door, and then closed. Oliver heard the click of a lock, about fifty times magnified now.
He looked down at his hand. Clenched tightly in his bleeding fingers was a single, scarlet, phoenix feather.
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