Chapter 4: JD
By: Nyte
Raven sighed as he entered his room. The Hogworts alumni had been chasing him around all afternoon, questioning him frequently and trying to get him to go back to Grimmauld Place. Raven lay down on his bed and stared up at the ceiling. He was just drifting off when Shade rushed into his room.
"There you are, Raven! I've been looking for you everywhere!" Shade cried as he sat down on Raven's bed.
"What for?" Raven asked.
"Huh?" Shade replied, shaking his head as he came out of a daze.
"What were you looking for me for?" Raven repeated, exasperated.
"Oh, that. I wanted to ask you a question," Shade stated.
"Well, what is it?" Raven prompted.
"Oh, umm, I was wondering if you would come with me to your father's room as I have to ask him if it would be possible to go on a small vacation," Shade said impassively.
"And I have to go on this pointless excursion, why?" Raven demanded.
"It isn't pointless!" Shade snapped.
Raven raised an eyebrow.
"If you come with me, it'll have more consideration on your father's part anyway," Shade said.
"Well, I suppose I could go to watch you get turned down," Raven replied, sitting up.
"Oh thank you, Rave- wait a second. I'm asking you to go mostly for moral support, you know. How can you give me moral support if you believe I'm going to be turned down! Your father's bloody scary enough as it is!" Shade cried.
"I don't believe you're going to be turned down. I know you're going to be turned down. However, I do have to agree with you on one point. Ada is quite scary, especially to idiots that put forth stupid and dangerous ideas," Raven nodded.
Shade stuck his tongue out at his friend before rushing out of the room, Raven walking behind him.
Zane raised an eyebrow at Shaden's odd request. He turned to look at Raven, who was staring off into space. Raven had been doing that a lot lately. Zane assumed that something had happened to him while Raven was in Voldemort's lair that his son would not tell him of. Perhaps a vacation would do both boys good but it would be too dangerous at the moment. Zane was not going to chance anything happening to his young son and nephew during these hard times.
"I'm afraid, Shade, that it is much too dangerous for yourself and Raven to take a vacation away from the castle at this time," Zane stated firmly.
Shade's face fell, yet he nodded respectively, knowing not to object.
"I can, however, ask the wizards to leave the castle so they aren't putting you under so much stress. Perhaps after everything with the wizards and their war dies down, you two can take a vacation," Zane offered.
Shade nodded eagerly while Raven was still in a daze about whatever he was thinking of. Both boys quickly got up and left the office, deciding to go for a walk around the castle.
"What's wrong, Raven?" Shade asked curiously.
"I can't shake the feeling that something's wrong. That someone has managed to get in here without an invitation. Someone is here at the manor that shouldn't be," Raven said quietly.
"Yeah! Those damnable wizards have no place here!" Shade sneered.
"No, that isn't what I mean. I mean that I have this horrible feeling that one of Voldemort's people somehow snuck through the wards and is spying on us. I don't know why I feel this way, but I do. It's overpowering every other feeling I have. It's distracting me ten-fold. I can't concentrate with a spy in our midst," Raven stated.
"Well then we'll just have to find that spy and eliminate it," Shade said seriously.
Raven shrugged. "I don't know where to look, but I'm sure we'll stumble across him soon. And then, he will exist no more."
"Yes, well, I don't really feel safe with you running around with a spy lurking in the shadows, especially with what happened a few days ago. I'll feel better only when the spy is caught. Until then, I am not letting you out of my sight," Shade stated as Raven rolled his eyes.
Shade kept his promise throughout the week, even opting to sleep in Raven's room rather than take the chance that he should be captured. After a week of Sake's constant watch, Raven was beginning to get a little annoyed with his older friend. Raven had quickly decided that perhaps being captured would be better than Shade's mothering. Raven dismissed the idea of letting himself be captured, in fear of what his father and friends would do if they were to find out. So, it was a very reluctant Raven that got up in the morning, allowing himself to be ushered to breakfast under the careful eye of his friend.
"Please, Shade, stop your constant watch, if only for a little while. I fear that if you do not let up, I will have to take serious action immediately. I swear to Hades I will kick your arse," Raven vowed.
Shade's eyes widened, and he nodded. "Umm, of course, Raven, calm down. I'll leave you alone, alright. I just want to make sure that you're safe and everything."
"I know, and I appreciate that, really and truly I do, however keeping constant watch over me is not going to accomplish that. It is just going to make me more annoyed. So, Shade, in the future if you could keep it to a minimum, I'll be very grateful," Raven replied. Shade sighed, but nodded his agreement.
"Good. Now, let's go to breakfast, shall we?" Raven asked. Shade nodded once more and both boys walked out of the room and down to the dining hall to get breakfast.
Shade and Raven were growing increasingly bored over the next week. It seemed that even though Shade had let up a little on watching over Raven, Zane had not. Instead of watching over only Raven, Zane had begun to keep an eye on shade as well. So far, both boys were banned from leaving the castle grounds, and after a few close calls, were banned from leaving the actual castle itself without at least 5 guards. Seeing as how Zane had all of the guards already stationed or on missions, Shade and Raven were not about to round up 5 guards so they could go outside any time soon. Both boys had pretty much given up on the hope that they would ever go outside. The only good part about this, was the fact that Zane had made the wizards leave Achilles Sanctuary. Raven and Shade remembered the day they left quite well.
The wizards had just been called to Zane's office. Earlier, Shade had turned Snape's hair pink with orange polka-dots, and the man was fuming. To top it all off, Raven had gone into each of the wizard's rooms and put nude pictures of Minerva McGonagall and Hagrid all over the walls of each room. No one was about to ask where he got them from, and the screams that came from the rooms when the wizards discovered the redecoration that had occurred had been heard throughout the castle.
Needless-to-say, each of the wizards were objecting loudly to the new additions adorning their walls as the walked into the Vampire King's office.
"Silence!" Zane commanded.
All of the wizards fell silent at Zane's harsh command.
"Now, you are to leave this place at once. You are bothering my son and nephew and quite frankly, the whole castle. We have very honored guests residing here at the present time, so I have to think of them and their peace. Gentlemen, I would like for you to be gone within the hour. I will have some friends escort you out and perhaps Raven and Shade will see you on September first. Other than that, that is all I wished to speak to you about," Zane said, before getting up and exiting the office, leaving behind a group of sputtering wizards.
Raven and Shade continued their walk around the castle, before Rye rushed up to them.
"Ah, there you are Shade. I wanted to talk to you, privately, if you would," Rye replied.
"But, what about Raven…" Shade trailed off.
"I'll be fine, Shade. Chill out. Go and talk with Rye and I'll meet up with you later, okay?" Raven replied.
"Yeah," Shade nodded reluctantly.
Rye tugged on Shade's arm and they both walked away, Shade looking over his shoulder a few times to see Raven smirking at him, glad to finally be out from under his watchful eye.
Raven had just finished having lunch with his father and had gone back to his rooms. He read for a little while, and studied his potions, finishing up on some last-minute homework and essays he had yet to do. Raven knew there was only a slight chance that both he and Shade would go to Hogworts in the fall, but that chance was enough to encourage him to finish all of the homework assigned by the professors in the previous school year. The homework only took Raven about a half hour to compete and pack away, and then Raven cleaned his room. After doing all of that, Raven decided that he'd had enough of lazing around in his room all day, which is what he'd been doing for the past week and a half, and decided to go for a walk through the unused castle halls in the dungeons. He grabbed a light sweater, as it sometimes got cold in the dungeons at this time, and left the note that he knew Shade would want to see when he got to Raven's room. After that, Raven pulled on his sweater, locked his room, and then set off to the dungeons.
Raven was walking around the dungeons for about two hours when he finally realized he had gotten a bit lost. He turned down a corridor that he was positive had not been there when Raven had walked past the first few times he'd come down here, and saw that he'd turned into a whole new hallway. Raven had just rounded another corner, when he'd heard a voice.
"Ravenous Black. My, my, my, wandering all alone today, are we? Where on earth is your lovely friend Shaden? Ah, well, all the better for me, I suppose, to catch you on the only time you've been alone for the past two weeks. I would have hated to kidnap you with him around," The voice stated.
Raven turned around to see…
"Jayden!" Raven cried happily. Jayden, or Jay, was one of Raven's two older brothers. Jay was 4 years older than Raven at the age of 20. Raven's oldest brother, Cepheus, or Ceph, was 7 years older than Raven at the age of 23. Both boys were incredibly overprotective of their littlest brother, because of the age difference and the fact that they had both wanted another child in the family that they could care for. It was then that Raven realized whom his spy was. His own brother had been scaring the shit out of him for the past two weeks.
"Jay! I could kill you right about now! I've been thinking these terrible thoughts that there was a spy here after me all this time!" Raven shouted as Jay picked him up, spun him around, and hugged him tightly before setting him back down again.
"Well, instead of killing me, why don't we go back to your room and catch up? Ada already knows I'm here, and that's why he had Rye take Shade away. I knew you'd eventually come down to the dungeons, so I waited, but I needed you to be alone so you wouldn't attack me before I could say anything," Jay laughed as he led his little brother to his room.
"So, Raven, what have you been up to lately?" Jay asked curiously.
"Not much," Raven replied innocently.
"Uh huh, sure. You're seriously going to tell me that you, Raven, have not been playing any pranks or doing anything you shouldn't be doing in the time that I've been away?" Jay demanded.
Raven shrugged. "Well, perhaps I've done a few things that I shouldn't have done," He admitted.
"Like what?" Jay asked eagerly.
"Umm, well, nothing!" Raven stated quickly before rushing out of the room.
Jay looked after him in confusion before going to the mirror and staring at his own green face with yellow stripes and his bright orange hair. He looked down to see that he had a small blue goatee growing and his eyebrows and lips had been charmed blue as well. He was going to kill Raven when he caught him! With that, Jay quickly left the room, running after his younger brother as fast as possible.
Some of the vampires and werewolves that were staying at the castle stared as the young princes rushed by, their hair and skin dyed a myriad of colors, and still hexing and cursing each other.
Jay quickly caught up with Raven and got his revenge. He then dragged Raven back to his room, both laughing and panting, out of breath from their earlier excursions. All in all, it was a very exciting homecoming for Jay, and Raven was already planning more pranks to make his brother's stay more interesting.
Raven and Jay spent the rest of the day talking and laughing about old times. Raven wished that Ceph was there too, but he, unfortunately, was in India at the moment (or so Jay said), and could not come to visit anytime soon.
Raven missed Jay and Ceph uncontrollably when they were away, and while he was extremely happy to have Jay home, he couldn't help but feel a little disappointed that Ceph was no there to join in on the fun as well. Raven hardly saw Ceph anymore. He was always at school or having to stay at the Dursleys or at Headquarters whenever Cepheus was in the country. It was especially hard to hide his disappointment when Raven was at Hogworts, because Ron and Hermoine would always question him about why he was depressed. He certainly was not going to tell them that he missed his older brothers and was depressed because he couldn't go to see them. They would think he was on drugs or something. Raven, though, simply decided to be happy that Jay was here and concentrate on making his older brother's stay eventful.
That night at supper, Jay was greeted by everyone and welcomed home repeatedly. Shade and Jay hugged as soon as they saw one another and Raven and Zane just sat back and watched, small smiles on their faces. Jay turned around and laughed.
"Raven, you get more and more like Ada every time I see you. Soon you'll be old and serious like him as well. I'll bet you'll even have a stick-shoved-up-your-arse-look just like he does," Jay smirked as both Raven and Zane glared at him.
"Oh look! There it is! That look really suits you, Raven," Jay laughed.
"Jayden…" Zane said threateningly. Jay simply shrugged, not caring.
"Well, boys, this is definitely going to be the best month in the history of months!" Jay cried happily as he sat down.
"I'm not so sure about that," Raven frowned, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that Jay was not the only unplanned visitor in the castle at the moment.