Happy early September gift! the Chapter is early, merely because I will not have access to a computer on this Thursday (I will be attending the Salt Lake ComicCon, you might find me if you are there and look for Darth Sidious, I would LOVE to talk to a fan in person!) so wonderful for all! please R&R, and as always enjoy! ~F
Chapter Ten
Plots and Blocks
The rest of the Christmas holiday was rather tense, owing to Ron and Hermione.
Unlike Harry and Faykan, who had had the distraction of the Malfoy's party to take their minds off the Firebolt being confiscated, Ron was still feeling the sting of it as though it was his own broom being stripped down. Hermione, who remained convinced that she had acted for the best, started avoiding the common room. The three boys supposed she had taken refuge in the library and didn't try to persuade her to come back. All in all, they were glad when the rest of the school returned shortly after New Year, and Gryffindor Tower became crowded and noisy again. Wood sought Harry out on the night before term started.
"Had a good Christmas?" Oliver said, and then, without waiting for an answer, he sat down, lowered his voice, and said, "I've been, doing some thinking over Christmas, Harry. After last match, you know. If the dementors come to the next one, I mean... we can't afford you to, well…"
Wood broke off, looking awkward.
"I'm working on it," said Harry quickly. "Professor Lupin said he'd train me to ward off the dementors. We should be starting this week. He said he'd have time after Christmas."
"Ah," said Wood, his expression clearing. "Well, in that case… I really didn't want to lose you as Seeker, Harry. And have you ordered a new broom yet?"
"No," said Harry.
"What!" Wood exclaimed. "You'd better get a move on; you know… you can't ride that Shooting Star against Ravenclaw!"
"He got a Firebolt for Christmas," Ron chimed in.
"A Firebolt?" Oliver replied, looking thunderstruck, turning from Ron to look at Harry for confirmation. "No! Seriously? A-a real Firebolt?"
"Don't get too excited, Oliver," said Harry gloomily. "I haven't got it anymore. It was confiscated." And he explained all about how the Firebolt was now being checked for jinxes.
"Jinxed? How could it be jinxed?" Wood half-shouted, outraged.
"Sirius Black," Harry said wearily. "He's supposed to be after me, so McGonagall reckons he might have sent it."
Waving aside the information that a famous murderer was after his Seeker, Wood continued, "but Black couldn't have bought a Firebolt! He's on the run! The whole country's on the lookout for him! How could he just walk into Quality Quidditch Supplies and buy a broomstick?"
Faykan coughed slightly and looked away, but Wood paid him no mind.
"I know," said Harry, glancing momentarily at his friend in confusion, "but McGonagall still wants to strip it down…"
Wood went pale. "I'll go and talk to her, Harry," he promised. "I'll make her see reason... A Firebolt... a real Firebolt, on our team... She wants Gryffindor to win as much as we do... I'll make her see sense. A Firebolt..."
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Draco blinked as he returned from seeing inside his own mind. "That was, different…" he said.
Draco had some lessons in Occlumency before from his godfather, but nothing so simple or all encompassing. Faykan, who was currently grinning across the table at Draco's astonishment, must have special talents with the ability.
Draco looked back at the other three Gryffindors. Ron and Harry were in the center of the room, sparring with the swords conjured from the room, while Hermione was in the back with a pile of books surrounding her. "Now that all of you have the Occlumency shields in place, we must decide what to start on first. I do advise you all, these things will be very difficult and very complex, so you may not be able to make a lot of progress for a few years, but learning the theory at minimum would be valuable."
That started a long debate between everyone. Draco wanted to start with the elvish spells that they had all seen Faykan use, while Hermione wanted to attempt advanced transfiguration, possibly even attempt animagus change. Ron wanted to learn healing and ward magic, and Harry wanted to be able to cast spells silently, wandlessly, or both.
"Well," Faykan said after everyone made their wishes known, "First off, Draco, elvish magic is not difficult after learning wandless and wordless magic, and very difficult otherwise, so Harry's request would have priority over yours, sorry." He smiled apologetically, but Draco didn't mind. He presumed learning any of these sorts of things would be amazing.
Faykan continued, "Ward magic and healing work marginally off transfiguration, so those two can be learned in conjunction with each other. Wandless magic and wordless magic would be the best staring place, I think, while we also do mid to advanced transfiguration. Animagus forms I don't think you'll be ready for until fourth or fifth year at least. And of course we will be continuing with dueling spells and martial combat."
Ron sighed heavily, "Why do we need to learn to fight like medieval muggles anyway?" he asked.
"It's obvious isn't it," interjected Hermione, "lots of dark creatures are resistant or partially immune to magic, and what would you do if your wand was destroyed in the middle of a duel?"
Ron deflated slightly, scowling. He was finally seeing sense, or more likely he was still angry at Hermione about the Firebolt, Draco thought.
Faykan also commented that Harry should still learn the Patronus charm from Professor Lupin, to keep Dumbledore out of the loop of what they were up to. Draco saw Hermione frown at Faykan's wish to keep things hidden from the Headmaster. But, she held her tongue for the time being as Faykan explained that he would eventually teach the others the spell also, just in case Harry needed help with the dementors.
Draco personally was just heavily curious as to how much magic Faykan actually knew, and how much he was planning to learn alongside them. From what he had experienced with his good friend, and quite obviously the leader of their group, it was very suspicious how the thirteen-year-old wizard had so much knowledge, let alone the magic to actually do half of what he did.
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Classes started again the next day. The last thing anyone felt like doing was spending two hours on the grounds on a raw January morning, but Hagrid had provided a bonfire full of salamanders for the student's enjoyment, and they spent an unusually good lesson collecting dry wood and leaves to keep the fire blazing while the flame loving lizards scampered up and down the crumbling, white hot logs. The first Divination lesson of the new term was much less fun; Professor Trelawney was now teaching them palmistry, and she lost no time in informing Harry that he had the shortest life line she had ever seen.
Hermione was growing quite sick of the old fraud's rubbish, how she kept praising Faykan, Lavender Brown, and Parvarti Patil of their "Highly developed Inner Eyes."
Hermione was growing more and more suspicious at how Faykan knew about her Time-Turner, because of all the small time related jokes he would start whenever she used it. Thankfully Ron, Harry, and even Draco remained oblivious to it, allowing her to move from her classes with ease.
The only other thing that greatly bothered her was Faykan's lack of trust towards Dumbledore. Wasn't the Headmaster supposed to be the great leader of the light, the most powerful wizard in Britain, and the only person He-who-must-not-be-Named had been afraid of?
It was illogical for anyone to distrust him, unless they had their own hidden agenda that would undermine the causes of Dumbledore… but Hermione couldn't find anything that pointed to Faykan working against the Headmaster, other than their advanced training, but there was nothing wrong with extra learning, right?
Could it possibly be the powerful magical object Faykan had used to shroud their minds; the Palantír as he called it? Hermione would have to investigate it, if it was dangerous, she would definitely be having a long stern talking to the boy.
She almost didn't even trust going to the library to try and find anything about it. The last time she had tried to research anything thet Faykan had brought up so casually in his lessons, the amount she found for reference material summed up to myths and legends, and while she was trustful of the idea that all myths had a basis in fact, there were just too many coincidences to arguable point to the young teen knowing so much that had been lost or hidden away from the majority of the Wizarding world for tens, if not hundreds, of years.
She had contemplated going to the Headmaster anyway, and telling at least some of these things to him, but when she thought of that, she envisioned the terribly disappointed faces of her friends, and shuddered at the thought of losing the first group of friends that she had ever had.
Still, she wondered where she could look for some measure of confirmation that Faykan wasn't just highly imaginative or else under some sort of strange ideas regarding their lessons. It was almost as though he felt that he was preparing them all for a war… but that was absurd, wasn't it? She had to find out something, and soon… for their own safety, or at least her own peace of mind.
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At eight o'clock on Thursday evening, Harry left Gryffindor Tower with Faykan for the History of Magic classroom. Professor Lupin had chosen it as the place for the dementor lessons. It was dark and empty when they arrived, but Harry lit the lamps with his wand and together they had waited only five minutes when Professor Lupin turned up, carrying a large packing case, which he heaved onto Professor Binns' desk.
"What's that?" said Harry.
"Another boggart." said Lupin, stripping off his cloak. "I've been combing the castle ever since Tuesday, and very luckily, I found this one lurking inside Mr. Filch's filing cabinet. It's the nearest we'll get to a real dementor. The boggart will turn into a dementor when he sees you, so we'll be able to practice on him. I can store him in my office when we're not using him; there's a cupboard under my desk he'll like."
"Okay." said Harry, trying to sound as though he wasn't apprehensive at all and merely glad that Lupin had found such a good substitute for a real dementor.
"So..." Professor Lupin had taken out his own wand, and indicated that Harry should do the same. "The spell I am going to try and teach you is highly advanced magic, Harry… well beyond Ordinary Wizarding Level. It is called the Patronus Charm." Faykan nodded to himself, smiling.
"How does it work?" said Harry nervously.
"Well, when it works correctly, it conjures up a Patronus," said Lupin, "which is a kind of anti-dementor, a guardian that acts as a shield between you and the dementor."
Harry had a sudden vision of himself crouching behind a Hagrid-sized figure holding a large club. Professor Lupin continued, "The Patronus is a kind of positive force, a projection of the very things that the dementor feeds upon: hope, happiness, the desire to survive, but it cannot feel despair, as real humans can, so the dementors can't hurt it. But I must warn you, Harry that the charm might be too advanced for you. Many qualified wizards have difficulty with it." Lupin looked over at Faykan for a moment, "But as you may or may not know, your friend Mr. Undol can conjure one. A Giant Eagle if I wasn't mistaken?" he asked. Faykan nodded once, confirming whatever Lupin meant.
"What does a Patronus look like?" said Harry curiously.
"Each one is unique to the wizard who conjures it." Lupin replied.
"And how do you conjure it?" Harry pressed, wanting to know everything before even thinking of confronting another dementor, even if it was just a pretend one.
The Professor smiled, "With an incantation, which works only if you are concentrating with all your might on a single happy memory."
Harry cast his mind about for a happy memory. Certainly, nothing that had happened to him at the Dursleys' was going to do. Finally, he settled on the moment when he had first ridden a broomstick.
"Right," he said, trying to recall as exactly as possible the wonderful, soaring sensation of his stomach.
"The incantation is this…" Lupin cleared his throat. "Expecto Patronum!"
"Expecto Patronum," Harry repeated under his breath, "Expecto Patronum."
"Concentrating hard on your happy memory?"
"Oh, yeah…" said Harry, quickly forcing his thoughts back to that first broom ride. "Expecto patrono, no, Patronum… sorry, Expecto Patronum, Expecto Patronum…"
Something whooshed suddenly out of the end of his wand; it looked like a wisp of silvery gas.
"Did you see that?" said Harry excitedly. "Something happened!"
"Very good," said Lupin, smiling. Faykan was also smiling, as he crossed to stand behind Professor Lupin, giving Harry a clear field for the boggart "Right, then, ready to try it on a dementor?" Lupin continued.
"Yes," Harry said, gripping his wand very tightly, and moving into the middle of the deserted classroom. He tried to keep his mind on flying, but something else kept intruding... Any second now, he might hear his mother again... but he shouldn't think that, or he would hear her again, and he didn't want to... or did he?
Lupin grasped the lid of the packing case and pulled…
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It had taken three attempts for Harry to fight off the boggart-dementor. During his second try Faykan had had to intervene and summoned his own Patronus to protect Harry. The final try Harry was able to make enough vapors to keep the boggart-dementor from knocking him unconscious, but not enough to drive it away, which Faykan had to do again. Professor Lupin gave both of them large amounts of chocolate before dismissing them for the evening, encouraging Harry and setting up an appointment for them to continue the following week.
When they returned to the Tower that night, Harry had asked Faykan what memory he used to power his Patronus, causing Faykan to blush bright red and stammer for several minutes before quietly murmuring that it was the day he first met Harry in the park.
Harry mentally smacked himself for not thinking of that memory himself; he had been using things like the first time he rode a broom, winning the house cup last year, and finally only succeeded with the memory of Faykan telling him that he was a wizard, and coming to Hogwarts, leaving the Dursleys. Then Harry's thoughts wandered back to his mother and father...
He felt drained and strangely empty, even though he was so full of chocolate. All three times, he had heard his mother pleading with Voldemort not to kill him, and on the horrible second attempt, he had even heard his father, James, yell for Lily to take Harry and run. Terrible though it was to hear his parents' last moments replayed inside his head, these were the only times Harry had heard their voices since he was a very small child. But he'd never be able to produce a proper Patronus if he half wanted to hear his parents again...
Harry shook the thoughts from his mind as he and Faykan reached the portrait hole and climbed through. Harry distracted himself with thoughts about Quidditch.
Ravenclaw played Slytherin a week after the start of term. Slytherin won, though narrowly. According to Wood, this was good news for Gryffindor, who would take second place if they beat Ravenclaw too. He therefore increased the number of team practices to four a week.
This meant that with Lupin's anti-dementor classes, which in themselves were more draining than six Quidditch practices, and the advanced training that Faykan was putting them all through, Harry had just one night a week to do all his homework. Even so, he was showing the strain nearly as much as Hermione, whose immense workload finally seemed to be getting to her.
Every night, without fail, Hermione was to be seen in a corner of the common room, several tables spread with books, Arithmancy charts, rune dictionaries, diagrams of Muggles lifting heavy objects, and file upon file of extensive notes; she barely spoke to anybody and snapped when she was interrupted.
"How's she doing it?" Ron muttered to Harry one evening as Harry sat in the Room of Requirement finishing a nasty essay on Undetectable Poisons for Snape. Harry looked up. Hermione was barely visible behind a tottering pile of books.
"Doing what?"
"Getting to all her classes!" Ron said. "I heard her talking to Professor Vector, that Arithmancy witch, this morning. They were going on about yesterday's lesson, but Hermione can't have been there, because she was with us in Care of Magical Creatures! And Ernie McMillan told me she's never missed a Muggle Studies class, but half of them are at the same time as Divination, and she's never missed one of them either!"
Harry didn't have time to fathom the mystery of Hermione's impossible schedule at the moment; he really needed to get on with Snape's essay. A moment later, Faykan the Fox crept into the room from the Gryffindor side door, and changed immediately.
"Wood is so very annoying; I don't understand how you deal with him Harry. He practically ran me over looking for you, shouting about McGonagall not releasing your Firebolt yet." He said while rubbing his backside, Wood had apparently stepped on him while he was transformed.
"Well, what are you going to do about it?" Harry replied, unconcerned. Wood was Wood; his fanaticism was something that Harry had adjusted to since his first year on the team. Faykan just rolled his eyes and conjured several targets across the room, blasting each of them in turn with wandless, silent magic. Harry watched, slightly envious; he was very eager to start learning to cast without speaking or using his wand. It would be very handy when Voldemort came for him again, not if but when; Harry had accepted that Voldemort was not going to stop trying to kill him.
Faykan caught Harry watching him, and beckoned him over. Harry glanced at the essay he really should be finishing, and shrugged, stood, and moved to stand next to Faykan, Ron right behind him. Hermione looked up from her book, and contented herself to just watch them with one eye, while working on her homework with the other.
Draco came in through the seventh floor entrance, "Hello… Hey! Are you teaching without me!" he whined, running over to join the Harry, Faykan, and Ron in the center of the room, dropping his book bag along the way. Draco had been very adamant about them all being taught at the same time, so they had equal foundations to build on. Harry saw the sense in it, but on the other hand, he really was excited to get started.
"Lucky for you," Faykan said with a grin, "we were just starting." He turned to Hermione, "Do you want to join us or just watch for now, Hermione?"
She simply waved her hand at them, continuing to read her 'Monster Book Of Monsters.' Faykan simply nodded, and turned back to the three boys.
"So, wandless magic; as the name implies, you use your own body as the conduit for your magic instead of an exterior focus; a very powerful adaptation of magic, allowing more flexibility and control. To begin," he waved his hand, and more wooden targets appeared on the far side of the room, one for each of them, Harry noticed that they targets slightly resembled Wood, "You will try to cast the spells you normally would with your wand at these targets. To do so, use your hand to mimic the wand movement, and think the incantation in your mind. Pour your will for the spell to work behind the thought, imagining the effect on the dummy."
He demonstrated on the largest dummy, slashing his hand like a karate chop, and the target splintered with a cutting hex. He waved his hand again, softly, and the dummy repaired itself.
"Eventually you will lose the need for most hand gestures for wandless spells, as well as the need to pour all your thought behind its casting. They will become second nature to cast, even superseding spells with a wand. Now try a simple Diffindo on the targets, and if you manage to damage them, try to repair the damage and try a new spell."
Harry, Ron, and Draco faced the three smaller targets. Hermione paused, her quill poised over the parchment, as she watched their first attempts. The three boys concentrated, Ron even scrunching his face up in the effort. And one by one they slashed their hands through the air. Harry felt a soft breeze whip around him, and hit an invisible wall, preventing his cutting hex from impacting the target very hard, causing only a minor scratch. Ron hadn't managed to cause any effect, but Draco had also caused a small cut on his target.
Faykan patted Ron on the back, muttering "Good attempt, try to envision the dummy being sliced instead of focusing on keeping your mind free of thought." then he turned to Harry and Draco. He nodded at Draco, acknowledging his success, but watched as Harry attempted the spell again. The wind, which Harry realized was his magic, whipped around him and hit the same block, barely marking his target.
"Something keeps blocking my magic!" Harry said, frustrated, as Faykan placed a hand on his shoulder. Faykan closed his eyes, and Harry felt magic swirling around both of them, entering Harry and searching for something.
Moments later Faykan spoke, "There's a block on your magic, a seal that was placed when you were young. It's preventing you from using your magic to its fullest potential, but… there's a massive crack in the ward. It's allowing a tiny amount of your magic to seep slowly from it," he opened his eyes to look at Harry. "Until that seal shatters, you won't be able to do a lot of damage with your wandless magic, but that won't stop you from learning the spells, or using wandless magic for transfiguration or healing."
Harry frowned, who could have put that kind of a block on his magic, and why? A bubble of frustration surged up inside of him. Why did his life have to be so complicated. As quickly as it came, it vanished, and Harry realized that Faykan's hand was still on his shoulder. His best friend was looking at him with those cool, piercing eyes, and Harry understood the empathy within them. Faykan couldn't stand seeing the amount of difficulty that Harry went through either, and that allowed Harry to calm down. It was good that at least someone perfectly understood what he was going through.
Draco and Ron practiced the cutting hex for twenty more minutes, and Harry used his magic to repair the damage they caused their targets. Finally, Harry knew he really had to get back to the Potions essay, thankfully Draco decided to help him out, which allowed Harry to finish the essay quickly, rather than having to stay up into the night.
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Albus smiled as Severus Snape entered his office. "Ah, Severus. How nice of you to come. Would you care for a Lemon Drop?" he asked, gesturing to a bowl of the yellow sweets on his desk, casually sitting next to a pensieve. "No thank you, Headmaster." Severus said with a slight scowl. 'Pity,' thought Dumbledore, 'I'm so certain that Severus would like these if he just tried one. Maybe I'll slip one into his drink in the Great Hall one day.'
"Why did you summon me Albus?" Severus asked bluntly. He was always rather touchy when he was researching a new potion to brew. Albus was aware that he was experimenting with the Athelas leaves that he acquired from Poppy after Mr. Undol's unfortunate accident in Defense Against the Dark Arts with the boggart.
"Ah, yes, Severus." Albus began slowly. This needed to be done delicately, or Severus might suspect what Albus was beginning to deduce about the young Gryffindor. "I was wondering, if you would mind allowing me to view several of your memories about Mr. Faykan Undol, not the one you know today, but his father, the one you were learning here with for your first three years."
Severus raised his eyebrows in mild surprise, "Why do you think that the boy's father would have anything to do with the boy himself?"
Albus took a small breath, to simulate an internal struggle for Severus to believe that he was going to reveal potentially dangerous information, "I think that he may have inherited some sort of dangerous object or power that might threaten Harry Potter and all our hopes for the wizarding world."
Whatever Severus had thought was the reason, it certainly wasn't that. "But…" he spluttered slightly before regaining control of himself and settling in a seat across from Albus' desk, "but if he had such a thing, why would he have waited for so long to use it?"
"I do not know Severus, that's why I need your memories of the father, to determine if there's anything he may have tried to hide." Albus knew that lying to Severus was going to be problematic if he ever found out, but Albus was confident that it was for the greater good, to prevent anyone from interfering with the prophecy. Harry must defeat Voldemort. Severus was nodding, and lifted his wand to his temple, once, twice, thrice… twelve times, depositing the silvery strands of memory into the pensieve.
"Thank you for trusting me Severus." Albus said. Severus merely nodded once, and swept from the room, his cloak billowing behind him.
'Now,' thought Albus, 'we may see if Mr. Undol of the nineteen seventies is any different from the Mr. Undol of today.'
With that, Albus leaned into the pensieve, tipping himself into the swirl of Severus' memories about his first friend at Hogwarts.
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Severus stalked back down to his private potions lab after his short meeting with the Headmaster, his mind spinning with the information he had learned. Albus suspected Undol of having dark artifacts or powers and possibly the intent to harm Potter.
Sure the boy was powerful, bloodlines had great testimony to the passing of magical gifts and the Undols were no expection, but to be dark? Thinking back to his own memories, Severus conceded that the father, the one he had known as a boy had indeed had the ability to be very vindictive and spiteful, sometimes borderline malicious, but never to anyone innocent.
The truth of the matter was that he had not known the family long, despite the closeness with the older Undol that he had shared for the short time they were in Hogwarts together, the possibilities of what came after Hogwarts could be endless. Could the older Undol have joined Voldemort and hunted the Potters? Had they been Death Eaters?
It could even be possible that this younger Undol had joined forces with Sirius Black in the convict's attempts to murder the boy, Severus had no idea. The level of plots that could be going on in that boy's head were a mystery to him, and that troubled him more than anything.
All he knew was that he would be watching the boy like a hawk for the rest of the term. If he showed even the slightest hint of wanting to harm Potter, Severus would transfigure the boy into ingredients and brew him into poison to use on Black without hesitation.
His thoughts of Undol led him back to his small project that he had been working on before Albus had fire-called him. Severus was attempting to see if Athelas could be used as a powerful base for healing potions.
If Severus was successful, it would be a breakthrough unheard of in the wizarding world. The only problem he was having was finding possible ingredients to add without diluting the restorative leaves: perhaps essence of dittany, or ground unicorn horn, perhaps even bezoars. Severus had very few leaves to waste in failure, so he had to plan out the potion carefully after studying the magical properties of the plant. That could take the rest of term just in itself.
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Sirius was wandering the roads of Hogsmeade, giving random people the infamous 'doggy eyes' that had won him many meals in the months he had spent in the village. Most people fell in love with the adorable looks and playful attitude of the giant grim dog, after the initial shock of seeing him, and he was living very well off given the circumstances.
Sirius was making his way back to the Shrieking Shack, when he saw a smaller body turn out from an alley and watch him with most familiar blue eyes. Sirius' ears perked, and with his tail wagging, he turned and followed Faykan's animagus form deep into the alley between buildings, transforming only when the boy had laid privacy wards around them.
"Mr. Undol, what a pleasant surprise." Sirius said quietly. He didn't feel safe transformed in the middle of Hogsmeade.
Faykan handed him a piece of parchment. "These are the passwords to the Gryffindor common room for the next week, Crookshanks informed me that you need to get someone in there. He kept going on about a rat, but I'm not completely sure what he meant. I really wish you would let me help you more." He looked up pleadingly.
Sirius shook his head, "I'm sorry, but I must do this alone. He must pay…" he stop mid sentence, knowing he had been seconds away from spilling important information.
"Well," the boy responded, ignoring the fact that he was being refused for the twentieth time, "As long as you swear your not going after Harry, I wish you luck in finding whomever it is your trying to find."
With that, they both transformed, and whisked away to the Shrieking Shack, and Sirius watched Faykan continue on back to Hogwarts.
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February came with no change in the bitterly cold weather. The match against Ravenclaw was drawing nearer and nearer, but Harry still hadn't ordered a new broom, hoping that he would get his Firebolt back. He was now asking Professor McGonagall for news of it after every Transfiguration lesson, Ron and Faykan standing hopefully at his shoulder, Hermione rushing past with her face averted.
"No, Potter, you can't have it back yet," Professor McGonagall told him the twelfth time this happened, before he'd even opened his mouth. "We've checked for most of the usual curses, but Professor Flitwick believes the broom might be carrying a Hurling Hex. I shall tell you once we've finished checking it. Now, please stop badgering me."
To make matters even worse, Harry's anti-dementor lessons were not going nearly as well as he had hoped. Several sessions on, he was able to produce an indistinct, silvery shadow every time the boggart-dementor approached him, but his Patronus was too feeble to drive the dementor away. All it did was hover, like a semitransparent cloud, draining Harry of energy as he fought to keep it there. Harry felt angry with himself, guilty about his secret desire to hear his parents' voices again.
"You're expecting too much of yourself," said Professor Lupin, sternly in their fourth week of practice. "For a thirteen-year-old wizard, even an indistinct Patronus is a huge achievement. You aren't passing out anymore, are you?"
"I thought a Patronus would… charge the dementors down or something," said Harry dispiritedly. "Make them disappear, like Faykan's can."
"The true Patronus does do that," said Lupin. "But you've achieved a great deal in a very short space of time. If the dementors put in an appearance at your next Quidditch match, you will be able to keep them at bay long enough to get back to the ground."
"Or until I get my hands on them." Faykan added angrily.
"You said it's harder if there are loads of them," said Harry.
"I have complete confidence in you," said Lupin, smiling. "Here, you've earned a drink - something from the Three Broomsticks. You won't have tried it before…"
He pulled three bottles out of his briefcase.
"Butterbeer!" said Harry, without thinking. "Yeah, I like that stuff!"
Lupin raised an eyebrow.
"Harry was at my house this summer," Faykan explained quickly, "I have stocks of it since it's difficult for me to get around to Hogsmeade and other places when I can't use magic."
"I see," said Lupin, though he still looked slightly suspicious. "Well… let's drink to a Gryffindor victory against Ravenclaw! Not that I'm supposed to take sides, as a teacher..." he added hastily
They drank the butterbeer in silence, until Harry voiced something he'd been wondering for a while.
"What's under a dementor's hood?" Harry asked out of the blue, the thought springing to his mind and refusing to depart until he had an answer.
Professor Lupin lowered his bottle thoughtfully. "Hmmm... well, the only people who really know are in no condition to tell us. You see, the dementor lowers its hood only to use its last and worst weapon."
"What's that?" Harry asked, morbidly curious.
"They call it the Dementor's Kiss," said Lupin, with a slightly twisted smile. "It's what dementors do to those they wish to destroy utterly. I suppose there must be some kind of mouth under there, because they clamp their jaws upon the mouth of the victim and… and suck out his soul."
Harry accidentally spat out a bit of butterbeer. "What! They kill…" he asked, choking.
"Oh no," said Lupin, "much worse than that. You can exist without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and heart are still working. But you'll have no sense of self anymore, no memory, no... anything. There's no chance at all of recovery. You'll just exist. As an empty shell. And your soul is gone forever... lost."
"If you remain in that state long enough, around dementors, you body becomes like them. Sucking happiness out of the world to fill the void that they made in you." Faykan added, looking up from the book on transfiguration he was reading.
Lupin drank a little more butterbeer, and then said, "It's the fate that awaits Sirius Black. It was in the Daily Prophet this morning. The Ministry has given the dementors permission to perform it if they find him."
Harry sat stunned for a moment at the idea of someone having their soul sucked out through their mouth. "That's awful." He said.
Lupin raised his eyebrows, "Yes." He said, "Yes it is…"
~~Sina tea kirma : This is a line break~~
Hermione was sitting in the Gryffindor common room, working on essays for Ancient Runes and Muggle Studies. Faykan was watching her from across the several tables she had claimed for all her things, absently petting Crookshanks as the cat stretched lazily on his lap.
Hermione smiled to herself, Faykan had bonded quiet closely with her cat, and Crookshanks came to him all the time for seemingly no reason, rubbing against his legs or mewling for his attention. He seemed to favor Faykan almost as much as he did Hermione.
"Hermione," Faykan said, breaking her out of her thoughts, "I know about it. You really should consider taken fewer classes, the strain is starting to affect you. The others are starting to notice, especially Ron."
Hermione opened her mouth to retort loudly, but just then the portrait hole opened, and Harry and Ron bounded in, the Firebolt over Harry's shoulder. There was a sudden, excited murmur as every head turned and the next moment, Harry was surrounded by people exclaiming over his Firebolt.
Hermione watched the crowd for a moment, and then turned to look at Faykan. He was watching Harry, his face seeming to glow with happiness at the joy on Harry's face.
"You love him, don't you?" Hermione asked, softly.
Hermione's suspicions were confirmed as Faykan's eye widened and he started to squirm in his seat, clearly startled that she had even asked. "I, um… well…" he sputtered for several minutes, and finally, his face bright red, he murmured so quietly that Hermione barley heard it, "Its complicated…"
The crowd finally dispersed, the interest over the Firebolt ebbing, and Ron and Harry moved over to where Hermione and Faykan sat. Faykan focused on scratching Crookshanks ears, avoiding looking up at the other two boys, as they gloated about the broom to Hermione.
Finally, Harry decided he should put him broom away, and Ron took up the charge of guarding it up the stairs, which Hermione found funny. Ron could be so strange about brooms sometimes. Harry moved to the couch that Faykan was sitting in, and sat next to him, not noticing the small squirms Faykan took to edge away from Harry slightly. Hermione noticed, and smiled slightly. Boys were so easy to read, especially ones with deep crushes like Faykan.
Crookshanks nudged Harry with his head, striving to get both boys petting him, and Hermione laughed in her mind at the small motions Faykan made to avoid touching Harry's hands by accident. Harry voiced his own concerns about Hermione's overfilled schedule, and Hermione declined losing any of the classes, there was simply too much to learn, and she wanted every drop of knowledge she could get.
She was about to explain why she loved Arithmancy to Harry, when a strangled yell echoed down the boys' staircase. Hermione jumped in her seat, as did both Faykan and Harry. Crookshanks dived off their laps and became a blur as he dashed under a chair.
The whole common room fell silent, staring, petrified, at the entrance. Then came hurried footsteps, growing louder and louder, and then Ron came leaping into view, dragging with him a bed sheet.
"LOOK!" he bellowed, striding over to Hermione's table.
"LOOK!" he yelled again, shaking the sheets in her face.
"Ron, what…?" Hermione tried to ask but Ron interrupted her.
"SCABBERS! LOOK! SCABBERS!"
Hermione leaned away from Ron utterly bewildered. She snuck a glance at the other two boys. Both Faykan and Harry were looking down at the sheet Ron was holding, but she smiled to notice that Faykan was clutching Harry's hand, although both boys were oblivious to the fact they were touching. Hermione returned to looking at the sheets that Ron was waving in her face. There was something red on them, something that looked horribly like…
"BLOOD!" Ron yelled into the stunned silence. "HE'S GONE! AND YOU KNOW WHAT WAS ON THE FLOOR?"
"N-no," said Hermione in a trembling voice.
Ron threw something down onto Hermione's rune translation. Hermione, Faykan and Harry leaned forward. Lying on top of the weird, spiky shapes were several long, ginger cat hairs…
Potential Spoilers Ahead, you have Been Warned!
So, added more to Hermione's first section here, emphesising her doubts and fears regarding Faykan's desire to keep Dumbledore out of the loop, while meanwhile adding to both Severus and Albus' portions, albeit less so. I am planning a plot point that had been dropped during the first round of this story's production, where Hermione actually betrays the trust of her friends for their safety, and it will revolve around the Palantir, and things seen within. I chose to drop it at the time, but now I feel it would add more to the reasons that Albus would hasten his plans to separate Faykan and Harry, or at the least enforce that Faykan would fall into line with Albus' plan... as those who read the original know, this leads to Faykan's "death" and the plotline for book 5.
for those shippers who badgered me for years about FaykanXHarry, it will not happen! I planned it from the start, as it comes primarily through Hermione's perspective, to appear that their relationship had the potential for romance, but in fact be a brotherly love that is closer than that of real blood brothers, due to events learned at the end of book 6 and throughout 7... ironically, the original thought was to use this as an intention tease against those shippers to eventually prove to them that a platonic love was just as realistic, if not more so, than the romantic love that is so often desired between characters of the same gender. So, sorry, but it works better this way, and I found it amusing...
as always, care for you all, and hope maybe to see some of you at SLCC! until two weeks time! ~F