Disclaimer: I own all the adventures, actions, etc. in this story. The characters belong mostly to Jo.
Author: zimagesto
Author's Note: Don't play hero unless you're capable of being a martyr, but not willing to be one.
Author's Note 2: I may have forgotten to mention Harry's age. He's 17.
Author's Note 3: Do not assume that characters who aren't mentioned are naturally in the Order. They may not be.
Chapter Three(Read the author notes. Last two at least).
Harry grinned his most bright and charming grin.
"Why, of course not, Professor McGonagall. Would I ever do that?"
The Slytherins snickered and the Gryffindors growled. They were having Transfiguration lessons in Underground 6 with the infamous catwoman (they'd just hat lessons with batman, too! Man, Snape could be such a… Never mind). The elder, stern woman with square glasses narrowed her eyes at the young man in front of her.
The room was very much bare except for chairs and tables and some objects on each table that seemed to be either normal or in the process of being transfigured. Most of them were dolls, the others were palm-trees.
"What was that spell you cast behind my back, Harry?" McGonagall asked, not amused and deciding that asking the boy if he did it was not the best approach. "It better not be something destructive."
"I have no clue what spell you're talking about, Professor," Harry said, batting his eyelashes innocently.
"Dur-Pott-Harry, don't deny it, I…"
Well, actually, there had been more than one spell, too bad McGonagall had seen the next to last one, now what was he to do? But then the Professor sighed and shook her head. She had dealt with the infamous Harry stubbornness before and knew she had next to no chances of having him confess… besides, he was a good student, so if anything visible would happen, she'd just put him in detention (the Underground 6 corridor needed a good cleanup anyway).
"Very well. Back to work!" she said and turned towards her desk. And then she saw a spell zip by. She turned towards Harry, this time pissed and his lips started quirking slightly. "Harry James Dursley Potter!" she said, ready to charge at him.
Voices from her desk stopped her, though and made her stare, just in time for Harry to cast another spell.
The dolls on her desk had gotten up on their feet and started singing in unison, dancing in a nice circly pattern.
"It's the hard knock Life for us! It's the hard knock life for us! 'Steada played with we get charmed! 'Steada kisses… we get harmed!"
The dolls dropped to their knees and some instruments were heard. Harry grinned. Ron glared. A Gryffindor bookworm that hadn't ended up in Ravenclaw for some reason or another seemed angry with Harry. The Slytherins and the Gryffindors who weren't anti-Slyths laughed.
The dolls continued their dancing around and Harry smiled widely to himself. Yes, indeed, this idea was one of the best he'd ever had. Dancing dolls on McGonagall's desk, begging for a more human treatment… If they weren't dolls, they'd have made everybody actually consider laying off them. But of course, they were just dolls, so giving them a break wouldn't mean too much.
When they finished, McGonagall turned to him thoughtfully and said:
"A wonderful piece of magical animation, Harry. But you should never do it again in my classes. You have a detention today and you will clean the corridors on Underground 6 magically so well that anybody can eat right off the floor."
"Yes, ma'am," Harry replied, having the decency to look the least bit humble.
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"I can't believe you did that!" Pansy said, grinning. "It was excellent, did you see the look on her face? Oh, and the song was soooo touching, made me feel sorry for all the bad transfigurations I've done!"
Harry grinned charmingly at the blonde Slyth. They were just getting out of McGonagall's class and, if everything went well, he'd have a date for tonight. He just opened his mouth to pop up an invitation when Hermione Granger stopped next to him.
"How could you do that, interrupting classes like that?" she demanded.
"Well, I'd say it was very brilliant of me, you see," Harry started. "First I used charms to determine what the dolls would do, and those would be triggered by an extra charm so that they'd be well tuned to each other and…"
"That is not what I meant and you know it," Hermione spat. "Professor McGonagall is probably fed up by now with your childish games, it's about time you started taking things seriously!"
Harry pouted and gave her a puppy-eyed look.
"But I am…"
She rolled her eyes and sighed.
"Listen here, Dursley…"
"Potter."
"Huh?"
"I don't particularly like my parents and I resemble my aunt and uncle better. Call me Potter."
"Fine, Potter, you should stop these things and stop fooling around! What we do here is crucial for most of human kind and these things are not to be taken lightly!"
"And not too seriously either, I think, but I can see that you don't agree," Harry replied. "Now go, before I decide to put an Imperius on you so that you kiss Severus Snape next Potions class."
"That's illegal!" she said, horrified.
"And that should stop me… why?" Harry asked and Pansy giggled. "Yes, I know the punishments, so don't bother. And Granger, since Hogwarts doesn't exist, and magic doesn't exist, there is no law to forbid using Imperius."
"You know what I mean," she spat and left, leaving Harry and Pansy behind, laughing.
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Defense Against the Dark Arts, the most wonderful subject in Harry's opinion, was taught by Remus Lupin, a nice werewolf, friend with Sirius and James Potter. Werewolves weren't a problem for anybody here, except for the night of the full moon, when Lupin willingly went down to Underground 15, so some of the very trained agents of the Order could study him. Well, he wasn't too pleased about having wizards monitor the transformation all the time and check to see if anything from his human body remained while he was transformed. Basically, they'd measured him in human shape many more times than he cared to remember, then in werewolf shape, colored his eyes to see if anything changed while he transformed (yes, the eye color was partially transferred), they albino-ed him to see if the wolf would be white (yes), they gave him a giggling potion before transformation and checked to see if it had any effect on the wolf (nope) and tried to give him a tattoo to see if it was transferred, but that's where Lupin said stop.
He was an ok fellow, smart and kind and ready to explain everything to the students, who generally respected him. He had an obsession for dark magical creatures and brought as many types to class as he could (or brought the class to the creatures, that could always happen). The obsession was explainable, of course, due to being a dark creature himself.
"Well, tonight's the full moon, so please don't search for me," Remus said, smiling kindly. "Unless you want to be a werewolf. But trust me, you don't, those scientists in Underground 15 are quite annoying… well, there's also the excruciating pain you experience when transforming and feeling bad around the full moon, won't tell you about the migraines I have right now, but they are nothing compared to having them poke you with iron spears to see how badly you are harmed next morning, trust me."
"They actually did that, Professor?" Pansy asked.
"Well, yes… blamed it on scientific research, you see."
"Ouch," Harry muttered, and then spoke up. "So, what did they discover, Professor?"
"Well, you see, they did have some effect, but apparently my body tried to heal itself during the transformation, after all, it healing was also a type of transformation… But I don't want to know what would happen if they tried giving me rabies, they mentioned it, I told them that if they ever tried it I'd turn them into werewolves too, and bring other scientists… That calmed them down."
"And what about the distinctive signs of each werewolf-"
The door opened and everybody turned to see the person who did it. Harry paused in mid-speech and looked at the new man curiously. It was Severus.
"Lupin, I need to borrow one of your students," the dark haired man said gravely.
"Which one?"
"Harry."
Harry stared.
"Very well, but don't take him away forever, I have some important lessons to teach these days."
"Of course."
Harry stared again. Severus Snape, being polite, without sarcasm and grave? Something was wrong. Very wrong. He got up and, at a sign of Severus's gathered his things. After that he followed his mentor through the door.
"What happened?" he asked after the door closed behind him and they went on their way to the stairs. "And don't you have class now?"
"It's about Lily and James," he said and Harry stopped in his tracks. Severus stopped too and turned towards his young pupil, looking worn out.
"Are they… alive, Severus?" he whispered.
"Yes," the older man nodded gravely. "But apparently Voldemort is much more powerful than we'd expected. We never knew… We never knew many things about him Harry, it was only when Shacklebolt returned from the mission alone that we found out that Voldemort is nearly as powerful as Dumbledore and that he was a leader in Azkaban."
"Azkaban!" Harry asked, eyes widened. "That dark world!"
"Yes. That is where your aunt and uncle are. That is where Voldemort's actual headquarters are. Come."
Harry followed Severus as if in a trance, walking up the stairs and into the older man quarters and lying down on the couch, staring blankly at the ceiling. Azkaban… Azkaban… That place was a different world, a dark world, full of strange creatures. At one point, it had been a prison used by elves, dwarves and other creatures that the Order knew well now. Actually, not the whole world had been a prison, just the Maze had been one and an extremely well designed one, too. The short number of portals back to the original worlds were outside it and they made it nearly impossible for prisoners to escape back where they'd come from. The darkness of the world was a depressing one.
And the Maze… A huge maze built of thick, tall walls of stone that even giants found too high to climb over. The elves designed it, the dwarfs built it, the dark elves guarded it, many creatures used it and then they all abandoned it. Why?… nobody really knew. The prisoners sentenced to life-imprisonment remained on the worlds they'd been sentenced on, maybe so that they could be found again and taken care of so they would not die too soon. The Maze was slowly abandoned and the dark elves moved away from it, leaving it to itself. The gates were left open, so that the world of Azkaban could reclaim the territory, but the hard walls of pure dwarfish stone were too great and hard to be brought down. So, a territory maybe as large as an entire country (a country like Germany or UK, not like Vatican) was one of the strangest things ever to be found in any world… at least that was what Harry had heard. There were no pictures of Azkaban or the Maze, there were no paintings, no drawings, there were just stories about dementors and hippogriffs and thestrals and large dark trees that grew inside the Maze (making some wonder just how large the corridors in it were), about strange creatures that came from God-knew-where and settled between the walls… They said it was a place that was as deadly as a rampaging dragon, that some things were more poisonous than cobras and scorpions combined, that there were things there that could hurt you more than you could imagine…
"Please tell me that they're not in the Maze, Severus."
"They are."
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AN: Ok, I've finished this chapter and soon we'll be moving on to the very exciting part:-D.
Reviewing is very much appreciated, flaming is also appreciated, and telling me about any random thing that crosses your mind is extremely appreciated!
Thanks to those who reviewed: Lady-Serena-Snape, donstu82.