I read uploaded this chapter, because I noticed there were issues with part of it when trying to read. I hoped this fixed the issue.
Chapter 4: Keeping with the Plan
It has been two weeks since there had been any reports of attacks in England by Death Eaters. Serena sat at her desk grading papers when the door to her classroom opened to reveal Hotaru. However, Serena was so absorbed into her grading she had no clue that the young woman was even in the room.
"There you are." Hotaru said at seeing the blond woman grading at her desk. Serena looked up startled by the sudden voice out of nowhere. She started to get up out of her seat and into a defensive stance but realized quickly it was only Hotaru and stopped what she was doing. Serena took a deep breath of relief and sat back down in her seat. Hotaru held an amused look on her face as she came up to the blonde's desk.
"I'd take it we're a little jumpy today?" Hotaru asked jokingly to her friend. Serena by now had a slight blush on her cheeks, embarrassed from her actions.
"Sorry, I was engrossed with grading and did not hear you come in." Serena admitted. "So what brings you to look for me?" Serena asked quickly changing the subject to no longer speak of the embarrassing moment she had just had.
"Well, I just spoke to Trista." Hotaru said as she pulled up a chair to sit down. Upon hearing this Serena's attention perked curious to know what news Trista had to bring to them at this point.
"Any news?" Serena asked.
"The youma attacks in Japan have been consistent for a while now. There are at least three a week." Hotaru informed her. Serena sat there for a moment pondering on the tidbit of information she had gotten thus far before answering.
"It makes sense why he is keeping it consistent. He is trying to keep us thinking he is in Japan and up to something big." Serena replied.
"And keep our eyes away to anything going on here." Hotaru added. Serena nodded her head in agreement.
"Exactly, Darien will do anything to keep us from coming here to protect Harry and fight Voldermort."
"It seems that Darien does not suspect anything at the moment about your lack of appearance in Japan or where everyone is station for the moment."
"That's good, but regardless, he will be coming here at some point for Harry and we have to be ready." Serena said still thinking about the information she had just gotten wondering when Darien's move will take place.
"That is why we are here and a plan for when he does show up." Hotaru said with a smile and glint of determination in her purple eyes causing Serena to come out of her thoughts to look at the woman next to her. "But until then we grade." She finished in a joking manner trying to keep the mood light. Serena just smiled at her friend's attempt to keep Serena in none serious mood. Just then a sudden clearing of the throat was made catching both women's attention rather promptly. They both turned their attention to the direction of the noise to find Severus Snape at the door. He wore his usual black robes and his eyes seemed cold, distant, with the usual frown on his lips.
"Serena may we talk?" He asked her. Serena was a bit surprised by his sudden appearance but did not show it. She hadn't spoken to him since the night she yelled at him for his mistreatment towards Harry all these years. Hotaru look on between the two curiously. She was aware that Serena and Severus were friends when Serena attended Hogwarts and were still good friends now.
"Of course." Serena said simply before getting up to find out what he had to say. She was still upset with the mistreatment of Harry and was not about to let him off the hook so easily. "I'll be right back." She told Hotaru before making her way towards the classroom toward. Hotaru just nodded her head in understanding before making herself busy by grabbing some papers to grade as she wait for Serena to return. Serena and Severus stepped outside of the classroom so they may speak privately. It was late in the evening and all the students were to be in their common rooms for the night. Serena was wondering why Severus had come to speak to her so late this evening. The two stood in silence for a moment before Severus broke it to speak to the blonde before him.
"Serena, I took some time to think about what you said, and you were right." He stated to her. Hearing this come from him shocked. However, she hid her reaction because she also knew this was not easy for him to come to her to admit either. "As much as I care for her, I am not honoring her memory by treating her son this way, which I did not even considered until the other night. So I will do better, but I do have a reputation to keep as head of Slytherine." He finished saying to her. Serena smile at him at hearing his apology.
"Thank you, Severus that means a lot to mean, and I understand." She said to him.
"Now, I must continue, my patrol for the evening." He stated to her evenly. Serena just smiled shaking her head as she watched the potions mater head off in search of students out of the common rooms at this late hour. Severus left knowing now that his friend was no longer upset with him, and glad to be on her good side again.
~ Common Room ~
Harry, Ron, and Hermione sat in the common room working on their homework. The three friends were working on the DADA homework for the time being.
"This is stupid. All this stuff we are going over we have done already. I don't see why we need to do it again." Ron stated aggravated at the review homework they had for that evening. Hermione rolled her eyes at the behavior of Ron before answering him.
"Stop complaining Ron, I would think you would be happy that this stuff is easy since we already had it." Hermione replied to him.
"Yeah….well if we are going to beat you know who we should be learning new stuff so we are better prepared." He shot back at her.
"We will be Ron, but remember when we had our first day of class and what the professor said?" Hermione asked him in a frustrated tone. Ron just look at her dumbfounded, which both Harry and Hermione notice, but before things got worse between the two Harry jumped in.
"She said that we will be going over the basics and eventually moving on to actual spells at the some point but for now the basics are to be covered to make sure nothing was missed since we had so many different teachers over the years." Harry stated to his friend.
"This is a good thing to do especially with Lockheart in our second year we had." Hermione pointed out to both in a matter of fact tone.
"That does make sense. I don't think we learned much that year having that git as our teacher." Ron stated with a smile on his face. The three friends then start talking about the past and the stupid things their teacher did in their second year of school.
~ Serena's Room ~
Serena had just finished her grading for the night and was back in her room when she suddenly heard her communicator go off on her dresser. She quickly made her way over to it to find out what was going on. The picture showed the Time Guardian on the other end in the small window.
"What is the problem?" Serena asked her. The Time Guardian notice the concern through the small screen.
"There is a youma attack in downtown London. Venus, myself, Neptune, and Uranus are fighting it as we speak." She informed her princess right away.
"We'll stick to the plan if we can. We are on our way." Serena stated seriously.
"Of course." Pluto said before the screen went blank. Serena left her room and went down the hall to Hotaru's room and open her door without even knocking. The princess found Hotaru on her bed reading a book contently. Upon hearing her door open Hotaru look up to see Serena barge in without knocking.
"I apologize for the sudden intrusion Hotaru, but Pluto just called me, and there is an attack in London as we speak." Serena stated seriously to the woman before her. At hearing this Hotaru was out of her bed in seconds to help her fellow senshi. "We must hurry and aid them the best we can." Serena finished saying. Hotaru look at Serena as she made her way over to the blonde in preparation to leave to help their friends.
"What about the plan?"
"We stick to it the best we can for now." Serena stated back simply. Hotaru nodded her head in understanding.
~Attack ~
Serena stood wearing her white cloak in downtown London, England, in the shadows, of two buildings watching the fight go on between her fellow senshi and the youma. The lunarian princess did not like the idea of not being in battle with her fellow senshi, but she knew for their plan to work she had to stay in hiding for the time. She stood watching Uranus, Venus, Neptune, and Saturn fight the youma to the best of their abilities. The four senshi had the youma completely surrounded and were doing a good job keeping it away from a popular shopping area where it had originally appeared not to long ago. Venus used her crescent beam attack to hit the youma right in the chest causing it to go unbalance. Then Neptune used her deep submerge attack next hit it further off balance. However, the youma recovered a lot faster than the senshi expected and it was able to dodge the attack. Saturn than ran up to it to use her staff to hit it, but it doge that blow, and sent one at her, with its arm, which she quickly move away from it. This lasted for several minutes between the senshi and the youma. Finally, Uranus used her world shaking attack which hit the youma right in the chest causing it to slam against a building not to far away. The youma was stunned by the attack. At that moment Neptune used her deep submerge attack again and Venus her love chain attack together killing the youma for good. As Serena watched the youma explode into silver dust, Serena let out the breath she had not realized she had been holding while watching her senshi fight. She was relieved to see the youma gone and her senshi safe.
~ Next Morning ~
Hermione was in the grand hall getting breakfast when owls arrived to deliver mail to the students. Hermione received the Daily Prophet from Hedwig. She gave the white owl a treat before taking the newspaper. The white owl pecked Hermione nicely on the cheek causing the brunette to giggle lightly before taking off. Hermione open it once Hedwig was gone to find the headlines of the front page to be about an attack in London. Hermione right away start to read the article waiting for her friends to arrive for breakfast. The article stated:
Reports have officially confirmed an attack by a youma happened late last night in downtown London. It seems that the damaged done by the youma was great, but would have been much worse, had the senshi not arrive to stop it. However, there appears to be few witnesses to tell us who came to stop the youma from destroying more of the city. One witness said that one senshi arrived to gain the youma's attention before making it follow her to a different part of town. However, the witness could not tell us which senshi it was. Most likely to keep it away from heavily populate areas of muggles and wizards reside. However, some speculate that there was at least three senshi who arrived at the scene….
Hermione read the rest of the article about the attack. She had just finished reading it and was thinking about the information she had learned from it. As she sat there pondering she turned her head over to the head table to notice that Professor Tuskino and Tomoe were missing from the table.
'I wonder where they are.' Hermione thought noticing their absence.
'Could they be part of this somehow…?' she wondered to herself
~ Later that Day ~
Harry was heading back to the dorm room to meet up with Ron and Hermione. As he made his way down the hall Malfoy turned the corner and started heading in his direction. Once Malfoy started to make his way down the hallway he realized that Harry was there. Malfoy decided to make sure he ran into the 'potter boy' while glaring at him until he was right up in front of him. Harry did his best to try to avoid Malfoy but it was no use because Malfoy had different idea in mind. Harry tries to move around Malfoy but is unable to because he keeps blocking his path.
"Trying to get somewhere, potter?" Malfoy sneered at him angrily.
"Get out of my way." Harry replied back while staring at Malfoy.
"Or what?" Malfoy asked him before pushing Harry back quite forcefully putting a bit of space between the two students. "Are you going to send me to Azkaban like you did to my father?" he replied back angrily to Harry.
"Your father got himself there, not me, Malfoy!" Harry shot back furiously to Malfoy.
"It is your fault and I am going to make sure you pay." Malfoy pulled out his wand which Harry also did too not trusting Malfoy, ready to defend whatever attack to come his way.
Meanwhile, Serena happened to be heading back to her room when she heard shouting not to far from her. She hurriedly made her way towards the voices to find out what was cause for the shouting. She eventually rounded a corner to find Harry and Draco Malfoy pointing wants at one another.
"What is going on here?" Serena asked sternly to both boys as she made her way to them immediately. Serena was very aware of the relationship or lack of one between Harry and Malfoy. Both boys pointed their wants down once they heard Serena's voice. Serena made her way to them and look at each of them sternly with her hands on her hips.
"Well?" She asked them.
"Nothing professor." Both boys mumbled to her.
"Really?" She stated as she looked at both with skepticism. "If that is the case then I suggest you continue on your way then Mr. Malfoy." She said sharply to him. Malfoy nodded his head before moving along again towards his original destination. Serena watches Malfoy until he was down the hallway and out of sight before addressing Harry. Her gaze softens as she looks at the young boy before her who she cares for very much.
"Now, Harry why do I have a feeling this has something to do with Malfoy's father." She stated to him. Harry was surprise to hear that professor say this and it was obvious on his features causing Serena to smile at his reaction.
"How did you know, professor?" he asked her.
"Now, I maybe from Japan, Harry, but I am very aware of the situations here in Hogwarts and my students. If I didn't then I would not be doing my job." She replied back to him. She motion for Harry to follow her as she walked the way she had just come. "Mr. Malfoy is very upset about what happened to his father and has every right to be. However, he thinks you're the person to take the blame out on because he cannot take it out on his father." She said to him.
"But it's not my fault that is father got in trouble." Harry said defensively. Serena stopped walking to turn to Harry with a soft smile on her lips.
"You are absolutely right, Harry, that it is not your fault, but his father's fault. However, Draco is just trying to get his feelings out the best way he knows how to, even if it is not the right way to handle them at the moment. Do you understand now? "
"Yes, professor." Harry was amazed at how much the Professor seems to care for her students and know so much about them without being at Hogwarts for very long. She treated them all like she had been there with them for years without any absence existing it seemed. She also seemed to really try to understand all her student's issues including Malfoy which not many of the teachers did that.
"Good, then my best suggestion is for you to stay away from him until this blows over, as best as you can, alright?"
"Yes."
"I'm glad to hear that because the next time I may not be around to stop you two." She said before winking at young Harry causing him to smile. "Alright, then you should head back to your dorms before it gets too late. You don't want Professor Snape catching you roaming the halls after hours." She said to him before sending him off to his dorm room. Harry smiled at Serena before starting his way to his dorm room. He stopped and turned around one more time.
"Good night, professor." He said happily before continuing on his way. Serena just smile blissfully to herself for getting some time with him alone even if it was only brief.
I know this chapter was short, but I hoped you liked it none the less. I apologize for the long wait for this chapter. I am currently working on the next one as we speak. I am also working on the next chapter for The Present and Future Coming together too. Hopefully, they will both be out not long after the holidays. Have a happy and safe holiday! Enjoy! Please review too!