A/N: Because someone reminded me that I had forgotten this little detail...
"No ones will ever finds Dobby here..." The little House Elf squeaked with nervous tension, hiding himself beneath a large feathery blanket. Of course his hiding place might have been a bit better if it had been a blanket.
"Squawk!" Buckbeak ruffled his wings, jostling the little elf around before settling down to sleep. He hadn't taken too well to the idea that Dobby absolutely refused to leave his room.
Dobby patted Buckbeak's side. "There, there... Nice friend. You won't hurt Dobby. You know Dobby didn't means to take the twinses chocolate." Giving a yawn, Dobby soon fell asleep next to the hippogriff.
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Less than an hour after breakfast, Oliver Wood found himself leading five very disgruntled looking young wizards out into the cold January air. All were warmly wrapped in soft layers and given the extra benefit of a warming charm. Looking at the youngsters, Oliver took them to the area Molly had marked out before the first snow fall.
"I shouldn't be doing this!" The whine was almost predictable. "When my father hears that you're trying to work me like a House Elf..."
"Oh shut up. At least it's too cold to worry about degnoming." Bill glared at the little Malfoy. Despite the day of play, it seemed that the Weasley/Malfoy rivalry still existed.
Draco narrowed silver eyes at Bill. "Just because Weasleys are too poor to afford House Elves doesn't mean that you should attempt to force such work on your bette.." Draco was cut off mid-tirade by a hard bonk against his head. "Ow!"
Turning, Draco was about to start screeching about abuse when his words were halted by the angry glare of the blue haired Weasley... Charlie crossed his arms, his miniature dragon hybrid body larger than all of the boys outside for punishment.
"Do not make fun of Weasleys." Charlie's eyes were bright with internal fire, showing Draco just why he was given the nickname FireEye.
"You boys knock it off and get over here." Oliver snagged Charlie and Draco by their ears and pushed them into the area they were to clear. "Get busy before I find a worse punishment." He frowned slightly, watching as the two Weasley boys reluctantly started helping Harry Potter.
Harry was diligently picking up rocks and tossing them beyond the area marked for the garden as if he were used to such tasks. Charlie and Bill, both growing up with Molly Weasley as a mother, were soon as hard at work as Harry. Sirius Black and Draco Malfoy were the problems.
Both Sirius and Draco were raised as spoiled brats in Dark families. It was entirely probable that their behavior the previous day would have been overlooked, met with painful punishments, or encouraged! As such, it took quite a bit for Oliver to convince the two to start helping. In the end, he had to threaten to tie them to bludgers and set them loose before they pitched in and helped Harry and the Weasley boys. This led to a question from Harry...
"What's a bludger?"
Stunned, it took all of three minutes before Oliver remembered Harry hadn't grown up in the wizarding world and, with his current memory and age problem, wouldn't remember years of Quidditch playing. Once he had recovered, the Quidditch Keeper went off teaching young Harry all about his favorite sport. Soon the other boys had joined in and the work was forgotten.
Nearly an hour later, Oliver seemed to remember himself and sent the boys back to work. This only lasted a good ten minutes before the rock throwing turned into snowball throwing and the fact that they were supposed to be doing chores was forgotten.
None of them seemed to notice a sinister shadow creeping around the yard and toward the house...
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Upstairs, Hermione and Severus were gazing out the window of the room the girls had been sharing. They had already cleaned up the mess and were waiting for Katie to come and check up on them.
"That's hardly fair... Why does Sirius get to play while we have to work?" Severus pouted, crossing his arms as he glared down the window at the snowball fight.
Hermione wasn't really listening. She was watching Charlie. "I've always wanted a dragon, you know. I didn't think they were real before yesterday..."
Severus rolled his eyes. It just figured he'd get stuck working with a girl. "Of course they're real. Where do you think they get the hides for dragonhide boots and gloves and other clothes?"
Squeaking, Hermione turned horrified amber eyes to the slightly shorter boy. "They skin the dragons?"
"Not all of them." Quick to reassure the half-feline girl that would probably beat him to a pulp if she got upset, Severus turned to look back out the window. "We should go sneak dow-..."
"What was that?" Hermione whipped around, glaring at the cleaned room. "Did you see it?"
Whirling in place, Severus gazed around the room. "See what?"
"It looked like a shadow..." Hermione narrowed her eyes. "Probably just my... What's that?" She pointed under one of the beds where something gold glimmered.
"Gold? Why didn't we see that when we were cleaning..." Severus joined Hermione in heading over to investigate the glimmer of gold. Extracting the glittering object, Severus' eyes grew to the size of tennis balls. "Bloody Hell!"
"What? It's just a gold broom..."
"I've never seen a broom like this! It must be worth a fortune..."
"Why would a broom be worth a fortune?"
"Silly girl! Wizards and witches fly on brooms! I've never seen one like this before..." Severus turned it over before making a disgusted sound. "Figures, it's your's." He handed it to Hermione.
Hermione blinked, taking the broom in her hands and gazed at it. The handle glittered golden, obviously well polished, and the tail twigs were straight and neat, also golden in color. The whole broom sparkled like a forbidden treasure. But the gold color wasn't the most interesting part. On one side of the handle, the nickname Wildcat was shimmering with claw-slash style letters that seemed to burn like eternal flames. The other side held a pure gold intricate circle in a Celtic weave. The circle seemed to be made of three pieces and was pierced with a lightning bolt etched of the same shimmering fire that the Wildcat name burned.
"But who would give me a broom? Such a fancy one too..." Then it dawned on Hermione what Severus had said. "Witches can really fly on brooms?"
Severus nodded. "Yes, now get on that broom! I want to see how fast it flies..." Severus went over to open the door, gesturing to the broom.
"Ok... Here goes..." Hermione mounted the broom in a clumsy way that spoke of her Muggle heritage and before she knew what she was doing, she was out the door in a flash!
"AHHHHHH!"
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Little Remus Lupin was heading upstairs, arms filled with the newly washed clothes that Neville had given him to take into the room he was helping Arthur and Molly clean when he suddenly felt... Odd. Thinking that perhaps it was just a bad time of the month for him, he didn't pay it much mind. Then the odd sensation became much stronger.
About to scream for Katie, Remus' attention was diverted when a scream came from upstairs. He saw heads poking out of bedrooms and others out of bathrooms before a glimmer of gold caught his eye.
A glimmer of gold heading right toward him!
Remus was about to duck when that sickening jolt hit him again and suddenly he shot up nearly twice as tall as he had been and a killer migraine kicked in. "What the..."
He never even had a chance to wonder at what happened before Hermione, mounted on a golden broom, barrelled into him and knocked him down the stairs.
Still screaming, and now covered in various garments, Hermione's broom went into a spin before shooting off with the feline hybrid clinging to the handle. The broom seemed to rev itself before breaking through a window and shooting outside.
Startled screams came from the snowball fight as the broom barely skimmed over their heads before angling up and zipping into the air!
Acting fast, Oliver darted inside. "Was that Hermione on her special edition Firebolt?" Not waiting for an answer, the Quidditch star grabbed his own Firebolt and zipped off in hopes of catching up to the faster, not to mention out of control, broom.
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It took nearly two hours for Oliver to catch Hermione and by then it was hard to tell if she was still screaming in fright or if it was delight! All he knew was that he had to confiscate her broom when they got back as well as Harry and Ron's special edition firebolts and every other broom they might have used in other such stunts.
"Wish I'd been part of the Golden Trio. Maybe then I'd have gotten one of those brooms." Oliver was clearly impressed.
Remus wasn't as impressed, having gotten a broken leg in his tumble down the stairs. As it was, the werewolf now adult once more, was sitting with his head in his hands. His leg had been mended and all was well, but he was absolutely mortified.
"How could you let me dance around naked?"
Fred and George, who had emerged from their lab only half an hour before Oliver got back, found this hilarious.
"Are you kidding? You helped tie Fred to a spit!"
"Did you have to remind me?" Fred was soon in a similar pose to that of the lycan.
As it had turned out, only Angelina and Alicia had managed to successfully punish their charges. Katie was apologizing profusely to Remus, not certain how Hermione had gotten the broom when it should have been in a completely different room.
After much deliberation, they finally decided that they couldn't find out just who was to blame for the accident. The twins were hopeful that it would help with Hermione's dislike of flying when she reverted to normal, however.
At dinner that night, Sirius seemed rather upset that 'Remus' had turned adult on them and glared daggers at the boy-turned-man. Remus found it amusing, but then got worried when he saw Sirius turn and start whispering to Severus in a familiar Marauder-ish manner...
"I knew it!" George startled everyone at the table, standing upand pointing at Remus. "It creeps him out just as much as us!" He was rewarded with a roll being tossed into his face!
Not a good idea...
Once the first missile was thrown, that was all it took as little hands snatched up food and yet another food fight broke out at the table!
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That night, gathered in the sitting room, Fred and George entertained the children with an awesome tale of 'The Boy Who Lived' battling a mighty basilisk. Those wizarding children of the right age to know who 'The Boy Who Lived' was, were awed and some glanced at little Harry who blushed through the entire story.
"Why did you have to make me The Boy Who Lived in the story?" Harry grumbled, attempting to pat his hair down.
The older ones snickered to themselves at the question and the twins didn't really answer the question as they were still enacting the tale.
"And finally, once the foul dark wizard had once more been defeated, the mighty Boy Who Lived gave the fair maiden Ginevra a kiss! And the kiss woke the maiden from her enchanted sleep, falling even more in love with the Boy Who Lived To Be Her Hero!"
Ginny, her face flaming, applauded loudly with the other kids as the twins bowed.
"You two are going to be great dads one day... Will you let me meet your kids?"
Choking over thin air, the twins turned suddenly beet red faces to find little Molly Prewett looking questioningly at them. "Er... Well, if we get married and have kids, you'll be one of the first to know." They grinned.
Molly smiled, happy with that answer and immediately asked for another story.
"Tell us another one about the Boy Who Lived!" Ron cheered.
Thinking about it, the twins shared an evil grin. "This one is the story of the Boy Who Lived, the Werewolf, and the Evil Ratman..."
It only took them about five minutes to convince Remus to step into the role of the Werewolf as the kids listened raptly to the tale.
A/N: I know it took me forever to get this one out, and I do apologize. But there was a very good reason for me to take so long! I wrote a special chapter for Animality! It has been appended to the end of Animality and all those interested may want to go take a peek! The next chapter will be the end of Chips and the third installment in the Animality Series will begin!