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Once they gave the Painting another code, they headed in the common room and were met by loud yells and accusations.
"Your bloody cat did this!"
"You have no proof Crookshanks is the culprit! For all we know it was a damn owl!"
Andrew had to admit that he was slightly happy that he influenced Hermione enough to have her cursing when she was in high emotion moments.
"What's going on?!" Harry asked as he stepped forward.
"Her cat ate Scabbers!" he said pointing a finger at Hermione and showing the boys an empty cage with a blood splattered on the bottom.
Book 3 – Chapter 12: From Bad to Worse
"Okay hold on. What proof do you have?" Andrew asked turning to Ron.
"This!" he exclaimed rattling the empty cage.
"Are you sure he didn't just hurt himself while trying to escape?" Harry asked with a raised brow.
"Positive!"
"Well... This is a predicament." Andrew commented with a shrug. "We can't really do much at this point can we?" he continued.
"What y'do mean?!" Ron cried out.
"Garfield, it's a cat! What are you planning to do? Take it to court? Besides that Rat was ancient anyway! Just... forget about it, man."
Harry sighed. "I hate to admit it Ron, but Andrew's right. There isn't much we can do about it."
The red head looked about ready to blow a gasket. Hermione's comment didn't help defuse the tension.
"See, I told you so."
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The week passed relatively quickly and before the boys knew it they were headed for their first class of defense for the new week. As they entered the room they were instantly met with an unforgivably chilly sensation which traveled up their spines.
They shared a look before shaking their heads with a smile on their faces. "Nah." they synchronized.
As the rest of the class dragged themselves into the classroom the door slammed behind them and a billowing black bat entered the room with a flourish.
"Take your seats and shut up!" he waved his wand lazily and the blinds shut closed as the projector in front of the class turned itself on. "Turn to page 394."
The Potters turned to each other. "Shit." they synchronized.
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The lesson itself was... weird, they had been learning about Grindylows and now they were getting a rather in-depth lesson about Werewolves. Hermione; oh sweet, innocent Hermione, tried to convince Snape that they had been learning about those miniature water demons when Snape berated her in front of the class and deducted even more points from Gryffindor.
"Now who can tell me the difference between an Animagus and a Werewolf?" Snape asked in a bored tone, as if he hadn't been aiming for this position for years.
Hermione's hand shot up but he pointedly ignored her. "Potter 2! Answer."
Andrew grumbled under his breath before looking up at the oily haired man.
"An Animagus can turn into an animal at will. A Werewolf however doesn't have a choice and is forced to transform during a full moon." he answered in a monotone.
Snape sneered, Andrew stared back blankly and waited for the man to continue. "5 points from Gryffindor." he sneered before turning away. Andrew sighed, "Of course." he muttered tiredly.
The class continued in this manner for the rest of the period before they were finally released. Hermione broke away and told the boys she was headed to the library for research. Andrew offered to come with but she quickly turned him down and said they'd meet up later.
Andrew shrugged. Free periods did offer freedom. He thought. He smirked and broke away from the other two boys.
"Where are you off to?" Ron asked.
"I'll see you later." He called as he jogged down the hallway.
Ron turned to Harry and sighed. "Chess?"
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Andrew walked into his private area and took a deep breath.
"Ooh, tea." he muttered as he stepped further into the room.
"Potter." his buddy greeted.
"Hey, so haven't seen you in a while. How you been?" he asked curiously.
"Same as always." they replied in a bored tone. "Though to be honest I'm not surprised you haven't been here as often as usual... you have been spending a lot of your free time with the Mu- with Granger and the rest of your herd lately." they commented offhandedly.
"Oh come now, don't be jealous. You know there's a mad, mass murderer on our tail. We have to... you know. Stick together." Andrew responded with a smirk ignoring the near insulting slip.
"I am not jealous, Potter."
"Could've fooled me."
"You listen here, you bastard..."
"Any new news about your father's... dealings?" he asked cutting them off.
They sighed and shook their heads at the sudden change in topic. "No, he hasn't mentioned much. All I know is what I told you last year."
"And you have no way to fight this? I mean you know more about the law in the wizarding world than I do. There must be some sort of clause..."
"I've looked everywhere." they responded while sipping their tea, Andrew noticed their hand shaking.
"I'm doing everything I can. But we're only thirteen. There isn't much we can do right now."
"I know, I just thought... I hoped you might have found some loophole or something, you know, having an outsiders opinion and all that."
"Well, you could just get disowned."
They looked at the dark skinned boy with a look of undisguised shock, horror and fear.
Andrew chuckled. "But of course, that isn't a real option in your case."
"Look the best I could come up with is... your dad having an... accident that rendered him unable to continue with the dealings." Andrew provided.
They looked down sadly. "I came to the same conclusion but..." they hesitated.
"Yeah, killing someone isn't high up on my to do list either." Andrew looked back to them. "We'll figure something out, okay?" he reassured while he patted their leg in a show of support.
"Right, of course we will. Now what really brings you here?" she asked with narrowed eyes.
"Great question, I need some help. How would one go about, animating many... things at a time to do what you wanted?"
"How many... things are we talking?"
"Hmm, currently? 30."
They gaped at him in shock.
"What? I plan to end this year on a high note." he said while grinning at them.
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A few more weeks passed and the boys were in another lesson with Professor Lupin and were once again working on their Shielding and Disarming spells. They found that pushing themselves to near exhaustion the few times before definitely helped sustain their spells for a longer period. Not much but enough to be noticeable. Lupin congratulated the boys on their progress and had let them out earlier.
As the they left the classroom they couldn't help but notice just how tired the man seemed, his scars looked like they were only recently healed and he had a small limp they were sure he thought they hadn't noticed.
Without much else they could do, they headed up to the common room to freshen up. They had a pretty tame breakfast and made their way to bed to get some much needed sleep.
It was probably around 2 in the morning when Andrew felt someone shake him violently.
"Mmmm What...?" he groaned.
"Andy, look at this!" his brother's voice sounded very... distressed.
He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and glared slightly at Harry's wand which had the Lumos spell turned on.
He looked at where his brother had been pointing and it took a moment for his eyes to readjust and differentiate between the brown and black before they finally focused and he saw what had had his brother on such high alert.
The was a dot, showing the movement of someone they knew shouldn't be walking around. But the name jumped out at him; the characters screamed at them in bold, black ink and moved along with the dot.
Peter Pettigrew.
The boys shot each other a look and quickly moved to put their shoes on and as quietly as they could bolted from the boys' dormitory, passed the dead silent common room and out of the sleepily complaining portrait.
They hurried along the corridor and made their way down to the four floor and stopped at the end of the hallway. The dot hadn't moved much, constantly moving around in a circle.
The boys held up their wands, Harry having the lumos spell lit and Andrew ready to Stun anything that popped out.
They started creeping down the hall occasionally checking the map to see where the dot had been.
"This is stupid, we should get a professor." Andrew thought to his brother.
"Glad to see I'm not the only one freaked out by this." Harry responded. Andrew would never suggest going to an adult unless he was extremely uneasy. It made sense though, seeing what the adults in their lives had done to them before.
They continued to creep down the hallway until they were less than ten meters away from the dot. They took a breath and continued to move, only to freeze when the dot suddenly lurched and ran straight towards them. They jumped in surprise and stared wide eyed at the direction it was coming from.
5 meters away. They readied their wands for an attack.
3 meters away. The anticipation rose and they felt themselves ready to cast.
1 meter away. The froze, their primitive fight or flight response coiled in preparation.
Then the dot moved passed them. They looked around and found no sign of... anything in the hallway. Just an empty, dark and cold walkway.
They looked back at the map and saw a dot named Severus Snape walking towards their position.
"Shit... Quick!" Andrew muttered as he tapped his wand to the parchment. "Mischief Managed." he muttered desperately while his brother cast the nox charm on his wand, extinguishing the light.
That didn't matter though as less than ten seconds later they had a bright light pointed under their noses.
"Crap." Andrew muttered.
Snape chose to ignore that and sneered at the two boys. "What are you two doing?" he demanded.
"We couldn't sleep, professor." Harry responded.
Andrew said nothing but closed his eyes. He thought he'd taught his brother to lie better than that.
"Turn out your pockets." The instructor demanded again.
They shot each other a look but complied turning out their pockets, which revealed the map, as nothing more than a large piece of parchment.
"What is that?" he asked with a raised brow.
"... spare parchment." Andrew responded with a small shrug.
"Show it to me."
They presented the parchment and then.
"Reveal your secrets." he said pointing his wand at the map.
Words started to appear and he commanded the boys read it. When they looked back at the parchment Andrew suddenly coughed, but it came out sounding suspiciously like a laugh.
"Messrs Moody, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs would like to congratulate Severus Snape for the discovery of this and would request..." Harry paused as Andrew had another 'coughing fit'.
"Go on." Snape sneered.
"... and would request that he keep his abnormally large nose out of other people's business." he finished and flood gate opened as Andrew let out a low chuckle.
"Why you little...!"
"Severus." the three patrons froze as Remus Lupin appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.
"Lupin, out for a stroll in the moonlight?" he asked the man with strange look the boys couldn't decipher.
"Hmm, I was on patrol when I saw your lumos from down the hall. So what's happening?"
"I have just confiscated this parchment from the boys." he responded snatching the map from Harry's grasp. "Here take a look, as it is in your area of expertise, no doubt it's riddled with dark magic."
Lupin read the parchment and snickered at what he read.
"Oh Severus I very much doubt this is 'riddled with dark magic' if anything its quite harmless, if not a little insulting. But as you stated it is very much in my area of expertise so I'll keep an eye on this. Harry, Andrew my office please."
He turned to leave and looked back to Snape.
"Good night, Severus."
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When they arrived at the Defense office, Lupin tore into the boys reminding them of the mad murderer who was after them and what this map in his hands could mean. Feeling defeated the boys turned to leave the office when they stopped and turned back to him.
"Sir, we don't think the map works very well." Harry said sorrowfully.
"Oh?" he asked curiously.
"We saw a name, a name of someone we know is dead." he said again.
At his face Andrew finished for his brother. "Peter Pettigrew."
Lupin's eyes widened and it looked as though he couldn't breathe. "That's not possible."
"We're just telling you what we saw." Andrew replied before leaving the room with Harry in tow.
As they walked through the empty halls of Hogawarts back to Gryffindor tower Andrew's face suddenly morphed into a look of confusion.
"How'd he know it was a map?" he asked out loud.
"What do you mean?" Harry questioned.
"He just spent the last five minutes tearing into us about Black finding the map and using it to find us. What I mean is; how did he know it was a map? For all he knows it's a parchment that insults people who try to read it."
Harry's face slowly turned to one of confusion as well.
"Which brings me back to my first question: How did he know it was a map?"
Harry didn't know what to say at that so decided to keep quiet.
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More weeks passed without any more incidents regarding the map or Lupin or even Black. Hell things were so normal, the boys had basically completely forgotten about their parents betrayer. Harry and Ron were daydreaming in Divination when the bell rang.
Making their way down the multiple staircases Harry paused and groaned loudly.
"What's wrong?" Ron asked with an amused look.
"I forgot my quills in Trelawney's class." he moaned. "I'll be right back." he told his ginger haired friend as he walked back up the multiple stairs.
When he finally arrived and suppressed another groan as he thought about how McGonagall was going to tear him a new one when he finally arrived to her class. He found his desk and located his quills, sighing he turned and jumped when he saw his Divination teacher no more than a meter in front of him. Her scented perfume assaulted his nostrils and he recoiled in shock.
"Oh, sorry, ma'am I was just getting my quills." Harry explained.
He noticed her glazed look and frowned slightly. Then everything got weird.
The servant of the Dark Lord approaches.
Should the servant succeed, death shall befall many.
Should the servant fail, the Dark Lord's wrath shall engulf many.
Under the glow of the full moon one choice shall be made.
Choose incorrectly and suffer the consequences.
The servant of the Dark Lord approaches.
Harry watched the woman in front of her wide eyed and rushed out of the classroom. He rushed down the stairs and in a brief moment stopped and thought of his brother with a quick nod he sent his brother the memory and continued on his way.
Andrew currently sat in Ancient Runes between Su and Hermione, the class had to string together the basic rune sequence of the floating charm.
Low level strength rune, low level power rune and an inverted weight rune. He smiled, sure he had everything he needed. He placed his wand against the runes and channeled a small amount of magic into them that is until Harry's memory entered his mind.
Just as the last sentence was uttered he felt his magic flare and stared back at his rune sequences and the brick they had to levitate. Everything was charred to hell.
"Shit." he said deadpanned.
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Three weeks passed since Trelawney made those weird statements. Harry and Andrew agreed that it was probably just some weird Divination thing she tried to scare Harry with. The four Gryffindor's along with Tonks and Su; who Tonks had decided to bring along made their way down to Hagrid's cottage, it was the day BuckBeak would be executed and on their way they saw a man sharpening what seemed to be a giant Ax.
"Subtle." Andrew commented sarcastically as the group moved passed him.
As they approached the staircase which lead to the giant mans home they ran into a small group... of Slytherins, lead by Malfoy... because of course it would be.
"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" Ron glared as the two groups faced off.
"Oh, we're here to watch the show. Would you care to join us?" he asked with an evil smirk.
"You vile, disgusting little cretin!" Hermione yelled as she pulled her wand on him and he instantly backed up against the wall of the school with a terrified look on his face.
Everything happened in a flash. Pansy pulled her wand and pointed it at Hermione. Ron pulled his on Pansy. Blaise pointed his at Harry who countered and his wand at Goyle. Tonks her wand trained on Crabbe and the large boy pointed his at Ron, Daphne had her wand pointed between Su's eyes and Andrew had his wand pointed at the blonde's temple while Su and Tracey Davis as Andrew remembered her, both looked on in surprise.
"Alright. Why don't we all calm down?" Andrew suggested staring at Daphne, basically daring her to pull something.
"Tell your little mudblood to drop her wand." Pansy sneered.
"Call her that again and I'll blow your head off." Ron commented darkly.
"Everyone just put your wand away. This is ridiculous." Harry said glaring at the Italian boy who looked between him and Andrew with a bored expression.
"Hermione." Andrew called out. "Put it down, he really isn't worth it." he continued which earned him a glare from Pansy.
Their bushy haired friend lowered her arm but didn't stop glaring at the boy. Slowly but surely everyone did the same.
Malfoy opened his eyes nervously before chuckling at the group. He immediately stopped laughing when a fist connected with his jaw. Parkinson's wand returned to hand before she too was punched, but not by Hermione, but by someone Andrew who have never suspected; Su.
The two purebloods looked utterly shocked before rushing off, quickly being followed by their friends Andrew shot 'them' a look before turning away and facing his friends. He looked at the two girls and grinned.
"That was awesome." he told them with grin, the moment was short lived though as he and Harry grabbed their heads and let out a loud shout.
"What the fuck was that?!" Harry asked glaring at his brother.
"Fuck am I supposed to know?! Jesus Christ!" Andrew exclaimed as he too glared at his brother.
"Are you guys okay?" Tonks asked her eyebrows knitted.
"Yeah, sorry, let's just... let's just go to Hagrids." Harry responded.
The group made their way down Hagrids hut and knocked after a minute the group was met by a large man holding a terrifyingly large crossbow.
"Whoa..." Tonks breathed while she stared at the man. She never actually met Hagrid so seeing him up close was certainly a treat.
"Oh... what are you lot doing out here? It's nearly curfew." he told them before ushering them into his hut.
"Well, we came down to see how you were doing?" Hermione told the large man.
"Yeah with... well, y'know." Ron added.
"Oh it's... tough, certainly tough but... aint nothing I can do about it." Hagrid said with a sad smile.
"Well that's what we thought with Norbert, look how that turned out." Ron muttered.
Hermione elbowed him in the ribs but it was too late.
"Norbert? Who's that?" Tonks asked looking at the others with a frown.
They turned to look at Hagrid who nodded his head.
"He was a dragon someone gave Hagrid back in our first year, we had to smuggle it out of the school." Andrew told the other two in the room.
"So that's why you guys wrote to Charlie!" Tonks said snapping her fingers.
They nodded in agreement and they turned to Su who was staring at them with a shocked expression.
"Wait, you mean when Malfoy went on that massive tirade about you lot getting a dragon in the school, he wasn't exaggerating?!" she asked her eyes widened.
"No, that really happened." Harry replied with a nod.
While her brain paused to comprehend what they had just heard Hagrid snapped his, massive fingers.
"Ah Ron, I believe this belongs to you." he said with a smile as he pulled a rat out of a vase.
"Scabbers!" he yelled happily.
"Dammit, I was so happy when I thought that damn rat was dead." Andrew muttered angrily. He turned to look out of the window and saw something.
"See Ron, I told you Crookshanks was innocent!" Hermione replied pointing a finger at the red haired boy.
Before Ron could respond, Andrew spoke; his voice sounding desperate. "Guy's we've got to get the hell out of here!"
"Why?" Harry asked with a frown.
"Fudge, Dumbledore and the Executioner have arrived, and..." he cast a quick tempest charm. "Yeah, we're well past the curfew to be in the castle." he responded.
Acting quickly the group left the hut through the back and waited until Hagrid let the adults into his hut they made a quick run for it and glanced back one last time to see the Headmaster leading Hagrid back into the hut while Fudge and the Executioner walked a little ways into the forbidden forest and before the distinct sound of an Ax hitting wood and the students all shivered in morbid fascination.
There was a moment of silence before Ron yelped.
"Ah, bloody hell! Scabbers... he bit me."
The others looked at his hand that had just a second ago held the common garden rat and true enough there was blood pouring around his thumb.
Ron turned and looked at the ground where he saw the rat run off and without a second thought he ran after it.
The others called after him before they too gave chase. They ran for a little while before they saw Ron dive and catch the animal under a tree.
"Scabbers, what the hell? Why'd you bite me?" he asked the rat with a look of confusion.
The others froze.
"Is that what I think it is?" Hermione asked in a small whisper.
"Oh." Su muttered her eyes wide at what she saw.
"We have to get him away from there!" Harry said urgently.
"Shit, Gar- Ron! You need to get away from there now!" Andrew called out, staring at the imposing figure of the Whomping Willow.
But evidently the red head didn't hear him as he too looked up at the group and cried out.
"Harry, guys! Run it's the Grim!" he yelled out.
The others turned and true to form everything went from bad to worse as they stared at the large... very large, pitch black dog which growled and raised it's heckles at the small group.
"Oh for fuck sakes!" Andrew called out angrily as he stared at the canine.
Yeah I know it feels rushed, honestly I felt as though the third book is dragging a bit and so I've used a few time jumps to get the ball rolling faster.
Sorry if some of you don't like that.
Enjoy the next chapter!
Peace, Love and Respect
Zak
