4. The First Meeting
Hayden, James, Jen, Katie, Ashley, and Marie sat at the Gryffindor table Monday morning. Professor Lipton, the Gryffindor Head of House, handed each of them a copy of their schedules. Professor Lipton wasn't like Professor McGonagall used to be at all. He was more laid back and less strict, but like McGonagall he didn't have favorites, give special treatment to Gryffindors, and absolutely loved the quidditch games. He is also the Defense Against the Dart Arts teacher, the first one to last more than a year since Quirrell.
"What's your guys' first class?" Hayden asked the younger students.
"Um…" Marie looked down at her schedule. "Transfiguration. What about your guys'?"
"Defense," Katie replied.
"Only the best class ever!" Jen said excitedly.
"Is the Transfiguration teacher…Professor Treidson nice?" Ashley asked.
"He's a bit hard to understand as he's from Germany and has a heavy accent…but he's a pretty decent teacher," Katie answered.
"It's a pretty fun class if you ask me," Hayden said.
"You only like it that much because that's your best subject," Jen said.
"So."
"Well I personally can't wait to go to Defense. That's the one subject that interests me," James said.
"My personal favorite right now is…I don't know. But I can guarantee you that next year it will be either Astronomy or Divination," Jen exclaimed.
"Why Divination!" Hayden asked disgustedly.
"I don't know. I just find the future itself fascinating, so being able to predict the future would just be…amazing. As for Astronomy, I just love the stars and constellations and all that stuff."
"O-kay."
"Oh shut up, Hayden!"
"No…what kind of person like Divination or even finds it interesting?"
"Me…now shut your trap before I shut it for you," Jen replied heatedly. Hayden decided not to test Jen. He knew how hot-headed she could get.
The kids spent the rest of breakfast discussing school and what subjects they think would be or are the best. Then after breakfast they went off to their classes.
Forty or so people gathered in front of an intimidating woman with black hair and almost black eyes.
"Welcome to the first death eaters meeting since the downfall of my father," the woman said. "You all have been recruited to be apart of the next rebellion. This time we will be more powerful than ever as long as we accomplish one task before allowing ourselves to be known. You will call me your Mistress and only that."
She paused and looked around at the group of people before her. There were some familiar faces from the original death eaters such as the Lestrange's and the Nott's. But there were some who weren't familiar to her, but Cortez had introduced her to such as the Faison brothers and their wives, and the Davies (whom she knew the husband, Roger, went to school at around the same time as Potter). It wasn't a great turnout, but it was satisfying enough for now.
"Now, there is but one task other than the one at hand to help us to come to power, and that is to recruit others. In order to do this you must not let what you're doing be known to one's not on our side. Only recruit those who you know would be willing to join, which means keep the Malfoy's out of this…at least Draco and his wife. They mustn't know…as for the other task, that is up to me and a select few to do. I will let those who will be a part of it know when I decide when we shall do it. Until then, you are all dismissed."
Hayden, James, Marie, Katie, Jen, and Ashley sat down at lunch after a morning of classes.
"So how was your first morning of classes?" Jen asked as they all started to pile food onto their plates.
"It was okay. I mean the first day of classes is bound to be boring, but these two Slytherins, Hera Cortez and Mike Faison, were just fowl," Ashley answered.
"Oh yeah, we have Hera's brother, Dan, and one of the Lestrange's kids, Danielle. Her brother is the year above us along with Owen Nott. They all come from dark wizards," Hayden said.
"Well, duh, they're Slytherins…they've got to be bad. So, when is the first prank to be held?" James said.
"Hey, that's up to you guys. Remember your initiation? You three have to come up with a prank and successfully pull it off before you can 'officially' become one of the Marauders Next Generation or MNG."
"Oh yeah."
"Anyway, back to the original topic. How did your classes go? You know did you meet anyone knew?" Jen asked again.
"Well we met some Ravenclaws, Janie Kerie, Andrew Sidley, and Gerald Johnson. They were in our Transfiguration class," Marie said.
"Yeah, we met the stupid Slytherins in Herbology," James said.
"That's cool. Did you all have fun in your lessons besides the whole speeches in the beginning?" Katie asked.
"Eh…well all we really did besides that was go over the first chapters of our books," Ashley said.
"Hey, at least you didn't get homework yet. First years don't get homework on the first day, but everyone else does," Hayden complained.
"Oh you're such a drama queen," Jen said. "It's not that much. Just review the defense spells from last year in chapter one of our defense book and we didn't even get anything in Charms."
"Well I, unlike you, have a life that doesn't involve even the littlest bit of homework."
"Well we're only going to be getting a lot more as the year continues. So if I were you, I would get used to it."
Just then the Great Hall filled with owls carrying letters from home and copies of the Daily Prophet and other magazine orders. A tawny owl landed in front of Hayden and dropped a copy of the Daily Prophet in front of him. He scanned the first page and showed the others a small article about the death of Ludo Bagman. It read:
Ludo Bagman…dead?
Article by: Harrison Trald
When Ludo Bagman did not show up to work the other day, a co-worker decided that something was wrong as he seemed fine the other day.
"After work I decided to go over to his house to see if he was all right," the co-worker, Jason Nicht, age 35, told me yesterday. "When I arrived at his house I knocked several times, but no one answered. It was peculiar, because he always answered the door when I visited (he was a good friend of Bagman's). I decided then that I would go in and wait until he got home, but when I opened the door I found him lying on the ground in his living room. I went over to check his pulse, but there was none. I brought him to St. Mungo's and they pronounced him dead of a stroke."
It is not very common for a magical person to die of a stroke, heart attack, or any other one of those types of muggle attacks. But when it does occur not many are found in time to be saved. Ludo Bagman…
They all stopped reading the article not really interested in any other part of the article.
"Interesting…" Katie said.
"Whatever. I heard from Uncle Fred and Uncle George that he wasn't a very good man. They said that once he cheated them out of their money that they bet on a Quidditch World Cup game when they were in like their sixth year here and ended up winning a lot of money. He tried to pay them back in leprechaun gold, so it disappeared after a few hours. Then when they tried to get their money that they won he avoided them at all costs and never ended up giving it to them," Ashley explained.
"Wow. I would have been mad," Hayden said.
"Yeah, well they ended up receiving my dad's winnings from the Tri-Wizard tournament," James said.
They spent the rest of lunch just discussing other things that were in the Daily Prophet such as an Ogre sighting in London. After lunch they left for their evening classes.
Harry, Ron, and Draco crept down the dimly lit dungeon-like hallway with their wands at the ready. Harry was in front followed closely by Ron and Draco. At the end of the hall was a door with light seeping through underneath the door.
When they reached the end of the hallway and were outside the door Harry signaled that he would kick in the door and go in first with Ron and Draco as back-ups.
Harry stepped out from the side of the wall where he was standing and stood in front of the door. He kicked it open and ran inside followed closely by Draco. Inside the room were at least ten death eaters all huddled in the center and now facing Harry, Ron, and Draco with a surprised look on each face. It only took them a millisecond to realize they were there before whipping out there wands. A battle soon broke out.
Harry, Ron, and Draco took out three of them instantly during the millisecond they took to comprehend what was happening and were now each in a duel with two or three others.
Spells were flying everywhere. There were cuts and bruises on the bodies of not only the death eaters but also Harry, Ron, and Draco. Each of them were now only battling one death eater as they took out one or two of the others.
The battling went on a little longer before Ron was stunned and Harry and Draco were dueling three. They took out one and it was once again one on one. Some previously stunned death eaters were starting to stir so Harry quickly bound them with rope and resumed with the battle.
All of a sudden the death eaters all disappeared and the room changed into an empty tan colored room. All three men were standing in the middle of it as a fourth man, Remus, entered. "Great Job you guys. You all did excellent."
"Don't we always," Harry said jokingly. They were in their auror training. After Voldemort was destroyed the auror department decided to have a virtual training room where teams will go up against virtual death eaters. The whole thing looks, feels, and seems like its real, but the only thing is if you get hurt in the training you don't get hurt in real life. All of the auror's liked the set up and enjoyed training like it was real…being put in dangerous situations that could happen in the future and have happened in the past.
"Ha, ha, very funny Harry. Anyway I stopped your training because it's time for lunch and I left school for a bit so I could eat lunch with everyone. Do you guys want to eat with Shaina, Massie, and me?"
"Sure," Ron answered.
"Oh and how is Massie doing with the veil?" Draco asked.
"Why don't you ask her yourself at lunch?"
"Because every time it's brought up she goes into foul mood mode," Ron answered.
"Well I think that it's going pretty well right now, so I don't that it will put her in a foul mood today."