Chapter 14- Surprises

"That's right Harry!" yelled Wormtail. It was an eerie sight. The thing had Wormtail's head, but the tiniest body in the world, not to mention fairy-like wings. Even though it was subduing Harry at the moment, he still had to try hard not to laugh. But, despite its comical look, Harry still had to do something.

"Cho!" Harry yelled. "Fly away and get help!"

"Oh yeah," said Harry. "What are you going to do? You can't hurt me… remember? I saved your life. Any spell you use on me will just be reflected back onto you."

To this, Wormtail just grinned.

"Yes, that is true," said Wormtail, reaching into his pocket for something. "But, that shield can only protect you from magic. There's nothing preventing me from using Muggle tools against you." From his pocket, he took out a small dagger.

"Fine! Fine!" said Harry, trying to quickly make a plan in his mind. "I'll give you the Ring, but leave Cho alone!"

"Hmm…" thought Wormtail. "I think… not."

"What?" yelled Harry, his plan suddenly being flushed down the drain. Wormtail grabbed hold of Harry's hand, the one with the rings on it.

"I think I'll keep the girl… and just cut the ring off!"

"NO!"

Wormtail brought the knife back to get some momentum on it and then brought it forward, aiming right for Harry's finger.

An instant before the cold, sharp metal came in contact with Harry's flesh, he did the only thing he could think off. Harry did the fastest Gryffin transformation he ever did in his life. Wormtail missed his now invisible paw.

With his increased Gryffin strength, Harry flipped Wormtail over onto the hard pavement. He ran over to Cho who was still pinned on the ground by the now fully grown Death Eater. Harry head-butted him off of her and threw her onto his own back.

"Cho!" Harry yelled, quickly transforming his head into his normal form. "Hit the hand holding my broom with some sort of spell and get it off! Wormtail must have enchanted it or something!" "Alright," she said, looking a little shaken. She took her wand out and aimed it at the hand holding onto Harry's broom. "Sirus!"

There was a small explosion on the wall, and when the smoke cleared, the hand was severely damaged, more than enough for Harry to easily pluck his broom off of it. Harry transformed his head back into the gryffin form, and flew high into the air, well out of the way of the magical beams that Wormtail and his cohort were shooting at them.

"Here, you can get on your broom now," said Harry after they had been flying for a little while, only transforming his mouth this time.

"No," said Cho, breathing deeply. "I think I'd rather just ride you home the rest of the way."

She put her arms around his mane, and gripped tightly.

Even though Cho couldn't tell through Harry's transformed gryffin mouth, he had the biggest smile on his face that he had ever had in his life.

"I really had fun tonight, Harry," said Cho once they reached Hogwarts. Harry had purposely taken a longer route back to the castle, with the hopes of having an empty castle to themselves. But, with the later curfew instituted my Dumbledore, children were crawling throughout the halls everywhere. The two of them didn't want to take too much of a risk, so they decided to call it a night. They stopped at the hallways coming out of the Great Hall that led to the four houses' common rooms.

"Even though falling off the broom wasn't too hot, those two idiots taking our room, and then that whole attacking thing at the end totally wrecked it," continued Cho, "flying home on you made up for it."

"Any time," smiled Harry.

"Let's try to do this again sometime… that is, without all the bad parts," said Cho as she bent down a little and gave Harry a kiss.

"I think that's a great idea," grinned Harry.

"See you later," said Cho, walking back to the Ravenclaw Common Room.

"See you," said Harry waving good-bye. After she walked out of sight, Harry did a few spins out of pure happiness and then started on his way back to the Gryffindor Room.

As he was walking, thoughts were buzzing in Harry's mind. All that he had seen, heard and experienced this night was coming back to him. Dumbledore confirming Harry's suspicions that Voldemort was after the Ingredients for the Immortal Potion, Cho, the Extreme Quidditch match, Cho, Dumbledore establishing a very violent method for exterminating criminals, Cho, and Wormtail attacking him and demanding the Ring, and last but definitely not least, Cho… again.

So… Voldemort was taking more desperate measures to get Harry's Ring. He wasn't just coming into his dreams anymore, now he was all out attacking him in a public place. Harry had to be careful, especially when field trip time came around.

"Speaking of which," said Harry to himself when he had reached the door to the common room. "The field trip's not too far away now… only about two months…. Wizard Duel." The portrait of the Fat Lady swung open after hearing the password that Harry had insisted upon. When he walked in, he saw that Ron and Hermione, along with only about one or two others, were the only ones still up. They were sitting in the two massive chairs that were before the fire, but Harry noticed that the chairs were pushed closer together now than they usually were.

"Hey there you two," called Harry to them when he walked in.

"Oh, hello Harry," said Ron back, turning around. "You're back kind of quick. Did you have a fun night?"

"Oh…nothing too out of the ordinary," said Harry back, pulling up a chair next to them. "A little Quidditch match, a lot of fire, and even a cameo appearance by Wormtail. Yeah, it was fun."

"Wormtail was there?" said Hermione concernedly.

"Yeah, him and another Death Eater," said Harry, sitting down. "They were disguised as little fairly-like creatures with big heads."

"What were they doing there?" asked Ron.

"What do you think?" said Harry sarcastically, holding up his hand and pointing to his skull ring. "They want this… or at least, Voldemort does."

"So he does know about the Ring… not good," said Hermione.

"Yeah, but that's not all he knows about," sighed Harry.

"Why, what else does he know?"

"Well," said Harry, scooting in even closer to them and checking around to make sure that the others in the room were nowhere near hearing distance of the three of them. "When I was walking back from my room to meet Cho, I accidentally found myself in

this part of the castle that I'd never seen before. From there, I managed to get out into the main hallway and I heard Dumbledore talking to Quirrell."

"Quirrell?" asked Ron, scrunching his face a little.

"Yeah, Quirrell," continued Harry. "Anyway, Dumbledore said to him that Voldemort already has one of the Ingredients, and he's failed to get it from him."

"He said Voldemort's got one?" exclaimed Hermione.

"Yeah," said Harry, remembering that Dumbledore referred to Voldemort as You-Know-Who and not by his real name.

"Well," said Hermione, trying to find something to be cheerful about, "he's only got one. I have one too, the Bracelet; and Dumbledore has the other, the Watch; and Professor McGonagall has the Sorcerer's Stone; and you, Harry, have the Ring. So, as long as things stay the same as they are now, we're in no trouble."

"Yeah… if things stay the way they are," sighed Ron.

"Oh come on Ron!" said Hermione, hitting him on the arm. "Try and look on the bright side of life."

"Anyway," said Harry, trying to follow Hermione's advice and change the subject, "what are you two doing down here anyway?"

To this, Hermione and Ron looked at each other and grinned.

"Oh Harry…" said Hermione. "You know we'd never pass up a chance to hear how it went with you and Cho."

The weeks went by, and the excitement for the field trip was building to almost the point of explosion. All that anyone was talking about, except for the first years of course, was the trip. Even Harry, Malfoy, Ron, and Hermione were drawn into a few conversations. From these, they figured out that it would actually be a very exciting time. Students would form groups of five, and along with a guide, they could go anywhere they wanted inside the pyramid. In fact, the only bad part about the trip was that it started the day after Christmas. Even though this didn't affect Harry too much, students that would like to see their families over the winter holidays were a little hurt. But, their pain was short-lived. Once they remembered why they would not be seeing their families this holiday, they practically forgot all about them.

Despite all of this excitement, December twenty-fifth rolled around, much faster than Harry expected it to. As usual, and it was practically a tradition now, Harry was awoken by a forcefully thrown present from Ron, right on his face.

"Arg!" groaned Harry from the impact. This year, he had perfected his aim and had hit Harry's face with a corner of the box. "Stop doing that!"

"Sorry," said Ron, not very apologetically. "Force of habit."

Harry sat up and pulled his glasses on over his face, letting the world come into focus around him. He saw that Ron was at the end of his bed, piling his presents up in one massive stack. Seamus and Dean were getting right down to the point and tearing the paper off of their gifts, revealing the goodies hidden within. Harry looked down at Neville's bed and was unsurprised to see that he wasn't there, and neither were his presents. He was probably spending his Christmas with Voldemort…. In fact, that's probably where he had spent the nights for the past two months, no one had seen him anywhere but classes since the last Dueling Club meeting.

"Come on Harry!" yelled Ron again, making his gigantic stack of piles float in the air in front of him as he walked behind them. "Hermione wants us to open them together… again."

"Yeah, that's so bad," said Harry, climbing out of bed and waddling over to his gifts. He gave a big yawn and put the same spell on his that Ron did to the presents he got. He magically lifted them up, too tired to carry them manually. He followed Ron downstairs to the common room which was filled with students, all taking part in the holiday cheer.

"Hey Harry!" called Mike, swinging a massive mug of Butterbeer from side to side, looking almost intoxicated. "Come and join our fun!" He waved his arm in the direction of Akshay, Joe and Chris, each of whom was doing the same, only their arms were around each other's necks, and they were swaying from side to side, each drunkenly singing a different song.

"No, that's okay," said Harry, squinting an eye.

"I didn't think that stuff was so strong," said Ron, looking over in their direction.

"For some… I guess it is."

The two of them walked over to the same corner that they went to last year, with Hermione already there, with her small pile of presents too.

"What took you so long?" she demanded.

"Harry slept in again," said Ron, setting his pile down and walking over to her. "Like usual."

"Hey, it's not my fault you take so long to wake me up," grinned Harry, sitting down next to them with his stack nearby.

"Yeah yeah, sure," Ron said, already working on his first gift, along with Hermione who was furiously opening hers.

Harry went along with the crowd and started on his presents. He opened the first one, the usual: a cake from Mrs. Weasley, along with a new sweater for him that was just his size. There were a few other things from Mrs. Figg, Hagrid, Sirius, and even Lupin this time. But, the one Harry was most looking forward to opening was the one from Fred and George.

"I've never gotten a present from just the two of them before," said Harry, holding the gift up to his ear and shaking it.

"Well, they've never had anything to really give before now," said Ron, looking over his pile of wrappings and empty boxes to see if there was anything else left to be opened.

Harry set the present down and grabbed the ribbon. He pulled it off, and the gift opened itself, like another one of their magical toys. Once it was fully open, a note shot up right at Harry's face. He grabbed it and read it to himself:

Dear Harry,

We know how much you love these things, and you're not alone. These packs of cards are still the fastest selling and hottest items at our store. We would have given you more, but at the time when we sent the present, there weren't many of them left. Don't worry, though, we'll make up for it soon.

See you later,

Fred and George

"Hmm…" said Harry sarcastically to himself. "I wonder what it could be now?" He opened the small box, tore past the next layer of packaging and revealed his present.

"What is it?" asked Ron, peering over.

"Wizard Duel card packs!" grinned Harry, picking up the four packages and showing them to Ron.

"Only four packages?" said Ron.

"Yeah, well, it's four more than I would have normally gotten," said Harry, setting three of them down so he could begin by opening one of them. He pulled the thin, shiny paper apart, and started shuffling through the cards inside, to get to the end quickly and see what his rare one would be. When Harry saw what it was, he dropped the other cards in the pack on the floor, and his mouth fell open.

"What!" yelled Ron, seeing Harry's expression. "What did you get?"

"I got…" gasped Harry, turning the card around so they could see it. "I got… Dumbledore!"

"Dumbledore!" exclaimed Ron and Hermione. Ron quickly grabbed it out of Harry's hand and looked at it with an awestruck expression on his face.

"Wow!" he said, reading it over. "This thing is even better than Voldemort… and its even rarer too!"

"Well I would certainly hope so," said Hermione, trying her best not to look interested. Harry grabbed the card out of Ron's hand and looked at it. It showed Dumbledore in a very interesting situation: he was in a long and flowing blue robe and was dancing around, making it billow out every now and then. Like Voldemort's card, this one was also holographic; the image was popping out of the card.

"Well… aren't you going to open your other packs?" asked Hermione after Harry spent the next several seconds drooling over his new card.

"What…? Oh! Yeah!" Harry quickly shoved his Dumbledore card into his deck, and grabbed one of his other packs. He tore the packaging right off and looked through them until he got to the rare one.

"Oh… my… god…" whispered Harry.

"What?" asked Ron.

"Look at this!" yelled Harry, showing him the card.

"Another Dumbledore!" yelled Ron, looking as if he was an a state of disbelief.

"Wow Harry," said Hermione. "I don't know much about the game, but I'd say the odds of getting two Dumbledores is pretty high."

"Yeah, come one Harry," said Ron. "Open your next pack! Who knows… maybe you'll get another Dumbledore."

"Yeah right," said Harry, still in a state of shock as he put his next Dumbledore into his deck and opened his next pack. "Imagine if I did get another-" Harry stopped. He got to the rare card in his pack and could have fainted right there.

"Another Dumbledore?" sighed Ron.

"Yeah," gasped Harry, showing it to them.

Ron grunted.

"Man, I can't believe you!"

Harry quickly opened his last pack and just threw all the non-rare cards in the air, to get to it faster. As expected, there was another dancing Dumbledore, right there before him. Harry quickly turned it to show his two friends, and then collapsed on the floor.

"Geez Harry," said Ron, crawling over to him. "First you're made Prefect, then you're Gryffindor Quidditch team captain, then you're the Dueling Club captain and champion, then you get Cho, then you get a near perfect O.W.L score, and now… now you have four Dumbledores."

"Yeah," said Harry, thinking just how lucky he really was. "But… I didn't beat Ak at the Wizard Duel club."

Ron shook his head and snapped his fingers.

"Well, I guess you're just a failure," he grinned.

"Yeah, I am really pathetic," smiled Harry, sitting up and putting his last two new cards into his deck.

"Come on you two," said Hermione. "We should get packed up a little… we are leaving tomorrow after all."

After a few more laughs on how bad Harry was at everything, the three of them cleaned up their massive mess and trudged back to their rooms, where they packed their bags in preparation of the trip.

Harry, along with most of the rest of the school, didn't get much sleep that night. Even after the lights went out, it still took several hours for him to finally fall asleep, and when he did he might as well not have seeing as he woke up only a few minutes later.

This time, Harry didn't want to be woken up by Ron's shakings, so he set a magical alarm for the first time in his life. Harry set it so that only he could hear it, and woke up before anyone else. He grabbed the small trunk that he had packed the day before and walked downstairs when the sun was just beginning to rise outside. Harry took a moment to look at the beautiful sight, and when he turned around to peer out the glass, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around and sighed when he saw who it was.

"Good morning Dobby," he groaned.

"Sir!" he piped. "This is your last chance! You is must leaving with me now!"

"No Dobby!" yelled Harry, loudly enough to scare Dobby a little, but quietly enough so that he wouldn't wake anyone else up. "I am going on the field trip and nothing bad is going to happen!"

"Please sir! If-"

"NO!" yelled Harry, much louder this time. "No. Please… just let me go."

"Oh sir…" he sighed. "You is going to be wishing you had not gone…."

"Don't count on it Dobby," said Harry, picking up his trunk again and leaving the common room. "I'll see you in a few days."

"I is doubting it," he squeaked a moment before he disappeared.

Harry walked all the way down to the Great Hall, keeping a close eye out for Dobby the whole time. When he arrived down in the room, Harry was surprised by seeing a few others down there, including Joe.

"What are you doing down here so early?" Harry asked, sitting down.

"Meh couldn't sleep," he groaned, leaning one side of his face on his hand. "Too excited."

"I know what you mean," said Harry, lying back in his chair and trying to work in a few minutes of rest before they left. But, his moment of peace didn't last very long. Just a little while later, the rest of the school came pouring down into the room.

"Hey!" called Ron when he and Hermione arrived down. "You're up before me for once!"

"First time for everything," yawned Harry, getting himself up from his little nap.

"How much longer until we go?" asked Ron, sitting down and checking his watch.

"It should only be a few minutes now," said Hermione. "Dumbledore is supposed to make an announcement-"

"Hello students!" Dumbledore suddenly spoke. "Hello! Good morning to you all. Are you ready for a field trip?"

"YEAH!" everyone yelled. Harry looked around and saw that now, all the second years and above were in the room. That place sure filled up quickly when people were excited.

"Well…" he continued, sounding a little less enthusiastic. "I have a very big surprise for you all then."

"What is it?" screamed Joe and Mike together, still acting a little drunk from the Butterbeer.

"Well… you see, I'm afraid the trip has been cancelled."