HARRY POTTER AND THE SECRET ENEMY

Harry Potter and all associated characters and situations are the property of J.K. Rowling. I make no claim to ownership.

CHAPTER 19:Team-Building Exercises (Pt. 3)

4:00 p.m.

Team Protector

At four o'clock, Harry and Flint entered the DADA class room. Harry was pleased to see that Neville was also on this team, but he didn't really know any of the others very well. The room had been cleared of most of the chairs, leaving enough for each team member arranged in a loose circle. There were five other students, all upperclassmen: three Puffs and two Gryffs, one of whom was Head Girl Emily Rossen. Harry was somewhat surprised to note that no Ravenclaws were assigned to this team, and Flint said that other than Harry and Neville, everyone else in this research group was Fifth Year or higher. After a minute or so, Lockhart strode into the room with his typical flair.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentle-wizards, welcome to Research Team Protector. Please take a seat. Before we start, I should warn you in advance that I believe this group will face the most challenging year of all the research teams. While your assignment will be difficult, I have every confidence that you will give me your best effort, and I promise you that I will be fully satisfied with your best effort, even if you ultimately fail to attain this team's objective. You see, you have each been selected for this research team so that you may hopefully learn one of the most powerful and yet most difficult defensive Charms known to wizarding kind – the Patronus Charm!" With that, Lockhart pulled out his wand, pointed at the floor in the center of the group.

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" he intoned. Instantly, there was a blast of a glowing fog that erupted from the tip of his wand, a fog which quickly coalesced into a strange translucent silvery beast the likes of which Harry had never seen before. It was a lithe and sinewy quadruped with a long thin tail, oddly shaped hind legs, and black stripes along its back. From the head, Harry couldn't tell if it was a dog or a cat, but it was clearly a predator of some kind to judge by the size of its teeth and the obvious strength of its jaws. The creature walked slowly around the center of the room sniffing the air as if looking for some kind of threat. Then, it yawned, frightening several of the students, as the strange beast was able to open its jaws unnaturally to well over ninety degrees.

"That, ladies and gentle-wizards, is my Patronus. A Patronus is, for lack of a better description, a spirit guardian – a creature of pure magic drawn from the wizard or witch's positive thoughts and summoned into existence as a protector and guardian. The Patronus can defend you against nearly any predator. It can follow fairly complex instructions so long as the task you give it involves protecting yourself or others. It is the only known spell capable of inflicting any harm at all on either a Dementor or a lethifold, and it can ward off vampires, werewolves and most other 'Dark' creatures. It is also a highly effective form of communication. A wizard can will his Patronus to deliver a message to anyone in the world provided it is someone the wizard considers a friend or ally, and it will instantly apparate to that location to open up a line of communication." The class was enthralled watching the beautiful yet deadly looking creature as it walked around the room. Lockhart waved his wand, and the Patronus faded away.

"The Charm has two deficiencies, however. First, it is a tremendous drain on power, and only the most formidable of wizards can maintain a Patronus for more than a few minutes. Secondly, and more importantly, the Patronus Charm is extremely difficult to cast and maintain. Not because of the wand movements or the incantation – no, no, both of those are quite simple. No, my students, the Patronus Charm is difficult because it falls within that class of spells known as esoteric magic. I see some of you recognize the term from the pop quiz I gave you, though no one below Sixth Year had any idea what it meant. You see, virtually all the Charms you will learn during your Hogwarts studies are categorized as standard spells. You speak the right words. You wave your wand in the right way. And voila! The magic happens. Even so-called wandless and wordless magic are still considered standard magic, as they both require the wizard to imagine that he is casting the spell with wand and incantation and do so with sufficient mental clarity to satisfy the spell's requirements. Esoteric spells, however, require a third ingredient. You must actually think a certain way while casting and maintain that requisite state of mind for as long as the magical effect lasts. Allow your self to become distracted and thus unable to maintain that necessary state of mind, and the spell will fail."

"We will be exploring several different esoteric spells in this class as a prelude to studying the Patronus Charm, and don't be upset if you're not able to master it, at least this year. As I said, it is one of the most difficult spells to learn, mainly due to its complex esoteric components. You see, to cast the Patronus Charm successfully, you must be able to focus on your happiest memory for the duration of the casting. Many people are completely unable to cast the Patronus Charm because they simply don't have memories that are happy enough to satisfy the spell's requirements. Such truly happy memories are, sadly, rare in these fallen times. Conversely, other people who are generally happy in their lives are also unable to cast the Patronus because they do not have enough unhappy memories to provide a meaningful contrast to the happy ones. Surprisingly, the wizards who have the easiest time casting the spell are those whose lives have been marred by tragedy and thus can genuinely treasure the happy moments. That is why I asked several questions on my quiz designed to force students to articulate what reviewing a particularly happy memory felt like, and those of you who demonstrated evidence of a strong happy memory were chosen for this group."

"Unfortunately, there is a second requirement which makes the spell even harder. For you see, it is not enough to think of a happy memory. You must also maintain those feelings of happiness even when you are afraid for your life. Only the most disciplined mind is able to continue focusing on a happy memory while, say, a Dementor is bearing down on you ready to suck all your happy memories away! And the converse is also true. To summon the Patronus under safe conditions, as I just did, you must be able to focus on a sufficiently happy memory while imagining feelings of extreme danger. It is this dual thought process that presents most of the spell's difficulty."

Harry took all this in impassively. He still distrusted Lockhart because he obviously acted like a buffoon before his fans while downplaying his obvious knowledge of obscure and powerful magic. And he certainly wasn't going to answer any questions about what his own happy memory was: the first time he entered the Lair and talked with the Hydra. That said, Harry knew that Olivia Kolumbiko had learned to summon a corporeal Patronus as a Fifth Year because doing so gave a considerable number of bonus points on the DADA OWL, so it wasn't impossible for a student. Of course, Olivia was brilliant, and according to her, only five other students had mastered the Charm during her time at Hogwarts, all of them Sixth or Seventh Years. It seemed remarkable that Lockhart would presume to think he could teach the Charm to eight students, two of them just Second Years, in the space of one school year. On the other hand, he could cast the Charm himself, so he obviously knew more about the Patronus than most people. And what was that strange creature? Harry had never seen or heard of any animal like the one Lockhart summoned as a Patronus!

"We will not begin with the Patronus initially, of course," Lockhart continued. "Rather, we will start off with simpler esoteric spells. Over the next two weeks, please spend some time reviewing the notes accompanying Gadding with Ghouls that pertain to the illusive boggart as well as the Boggart-Banishing Charm, which requires you to look upon the face of your deepest fears ... and then imagine it instead as something funny. And between now and then, meditate on what frightens you the most, and then, on how to make it look ... ridiculous."

8:00 p.m.

Team Backdoor

George Weasley looked around the room warily. As a Fourth Year, he was one of the youngest member of Team Backdoor and so far, it looked like he was the only Gryffindor as well, but the true reason for his nervousness lay in the fact that he had been picked for this group, while his twin brother Fred was stuck doing early morning P.E. along with Ron and most of the other Gryffs. It was ... a sore subject between the Twins. It didn't help that the older team members looked to be a Slytherin-Ravenclaw mix, and they were all looking at him with overt suspicion, especially Warrington, the biggest Pureblood tosser in their year. Lucian Bole and Melissa Bulstrode, while not as bigoted, didn't seem any friendlier, and for that matter, neither did any of the 'Claws. Nestled as he and Fred had been within the cocoon of Gryffindor tomfoolery for the past three years, he was rather unnerved to suddenly realize just how much hostility there was for the Weasley Terrors in the more serious-minded Houses.

Soon, Lockhart came in and gave his introductory speech to the group. The purpose of Team Backdoor, according to the man, was to study the nature of certain high level wards, learn how to improve upon them and eventually how to circumvent them. Specifically, his goal was to develop what he called a "Super-Portkey" that could pass through an anti-Portkey ward. Apparently, during the War, the Dark Mark cast up in the night sky by attacking Death Eaters was not just a symbol of terror. It also generated anti-apparation and anti-portkey jinxes over the targeted building so that the victims could not escape. George was also a bit surprised when Lockhart gave several surprisingly lurid descriptions of the sorts of things that Death Eaters did to Muggleborn who were unable to escape their clutches, and by the time he was done, even Warrington looked a bit shaken.

The Super-Portkey, according to Lockhart, would be able to punch through the strongest anti-portkey wards and carry people to safety. However, since the aurors legitimately used anti-portkey jinxes to prevent criminals from escaping, the team members would have to agree to secrecy oaths, and if they succeeded in creating a Super-Portkey, any prototypes they created would be turned over to the Ministry, which could then provide them to targeted populations in the event of future terrorism or insurrection. Since the Ministry would control the Super-Portkeys, they would most likely be limited to sending travelers either to St. Mungo's or to a DMLE facility.

After explaining the nature of the group's work and assigning a number of books to review which were held in reserve for the team in the school library, Lockhart dismissed the group after just twenty minutes but asked George to remain behind.

"Well, Mr. Weasley, now that you've heard what Team Backdoor is all about, what do you think?" Lockhart asked conversationally.

"It's a good idea, sir. I wish they'd had something like this during the War." He hesitated. "My uncles, Gideon and Fabian Prewitt, well, they got trapped by the kind of wards you've been talking about when the Death Eaters came for them. A Super-Portkey like what you're proposing might have saved their lives."

"I'm glad to see you're taking it so seriously ... or at least that you seem to be taking it seriously. I hope you won't take offense to this, Mr. Weasley, but, well, I'd been warned about you by some of the other teachers. Actually, to be honest, it was all of the other teachers. You and your twin have a bit of a reputation." George grimaced at that.

"In fact," Lockhart continued. "I was somewhat surprised by your test results, especially compared to his. Although your scores were, to be frank, near the bottom edge of those students who I accepted for research teams, you were nevertheless one of the highest performing Fourth Years, behind only Mr. Diggory and Miss Chang. Your peer Mr. Warrington barely snuck in because his father works in the Department of Magical Transportation and so Warrington is more familiar with the Portkey procedures than the average student. However, your twin brother actually scored a perfect zero and, in fact, deliberately misspelled his own name on the top of the first page. So I suppose I am compelled to ask – are you going to be serious about this work? Or is this part of some grand prank you and your brother have planned for the future? Because, Mr. Weasley, I enjoy a prank as much as the next wizard, but I also want to save lives, and I think these projects can help to achieve that."

George swallowed. He was not in the habit of opening up to teachers. Or really anyone other than a family member, and sometimes not even then. But for some reason, this was suddenly important to him, even more so now that he knew what the project was actually about, and honestly, it still annoyed him that Fred felt so differently about it.

"My brother and I ... had an argument the night before we took the test. We'd been talking about how we're Fourth Years now and maybe it's time to grow up a little. I said that this might be a good start. Do good on your test and show everyone that we're not just a couple of goof-offs. But Fred figured that our younger brother Ron wasn't likely to make any of the teams and ..." He hesitated for a few seconds. "Well, the thing of it is – we haven't rightly treated Ron well over the last few years. Fred wanted to make sure we got into the P.E. class so we could spend a little more time with him, since Second Years and Fourth Years don't normally share classes. I didn't exactly disagree with that, but I still wanted to see what I could do on your test if I really tried. I honestly wasn't expecting to make it in."

"And now that you are 'in,' how do you feel about it? I can't help but notice that you seemed uncomfortable during the orientation session. Is that a Gryffindor-Slytherin thing? Or is there something specific that troubles you about this group? If you don't think you would be able to work well with Warrington and the others, I can tell you that I almost put you on Team Chameleon with your brother Percy and with Miss Lavender Brown. It's primarily a potion-brewing team and I thought that might bore you, but I still can switch you to that group or even to the morning P.E. group, whichever you prefer, if you don't believe you can work effectively with a group that's half Slytherin. To be honest, while I wish my students could overcome their House rivalries, I consider this project too-important to risk it being disrupted by such conflicts."

George looked down at the table in front of him. Oddly, his thoughts were filled by what Ginny had told him about her Sorting. "Do you want people to think you're brave? Or do you want to be brave?" the Hat had said. He took a deep breath.

"If it's all the same to you, sir. I'd rather stick it out with this group. I promise you that I won't be the one to start anything. I'll still defend myself if Warrington or somebody comes after me, but I won't start anything."

"Excellent! Well, I think that's all. I'll see you in class later this week." George nodded and headed for the door when Lockhart stopped him. "Oh, and Mr. Weasley? Two things. First, I didn't know Gideon and Fabian Prewitt well, but from their reputations, they were both fine wizards. You are a credit to their memory."

George smiled bashfully. "Thank you, sir."

"And second, don't let any of this drive a wedge between you and your brothers. Family is important. A lot of people never realize how much until it's too late."

The Gryffindor was surprised at how serious the man seemed. He nodded. "I won't, sir. I promise."

8:30 p.m.

The Prince's Lair

"Right," said Harry as he showed Melissa Bulstrode around the Prince's Lair. "And over here is the part you'll actually care about: the Slytherin Library. And specifically, this book." He pulled out the weighty, unlabeled tome and laid it on the table. "The NEWTs Book. It has every question that has been asked on every NEWT exam given in the last fifty years. The answers aren't included but there are citations to where the answers can be found, so it won't actually let you cheat but it's still an impressive study aid. You can also help yourself to all three volumes of Salazar Slytherin's memoirs, as well as any of these books here." Harry gestured towards three shelves of old grimoires. "Unfortunately, the rest of the library is still heavily warded and will be until I'm confirmed as Prince, which is somewhat unlikely to happen before the start of my Fifth Year at the earliest."

Melissa nodded. "And I'm assuming nobody can take any of these books out of here?"

"Correct. Only the actual Prince can carry anything out past the threshold of the Lair without special permission from the Hydra. And while the Hydra likes me – well, most of it does – it's still stingy with the books. And the Floo is completely out of the question, never mind how incredibly convenient it would be."

Suddenly, Melissa was startled as the silver boomslang head of the Hydra twisted around and hissed something at Harry. She was even more unnerved when he hissed something right back and then went over and tickled the snake under the chin causing it to laugh softly. Then, the krait head twisted around and up towards his hand and snapped at it, though apparently more in annoyance than any actual hostility. Harry jerked his hand back and then hissed at the krait in a tone that, for some reason, Melissa thought sounded sarcastic. Harry looked back at the older girl and noticed her expression.

"Sorry. Delilah here was reassuring me that if she had her way, I'd already be Prince. I told her that I understand and that I can be patient. Then, Nidhogg snapped at me because he's a grumpy old krait and flirtatiousness annoys him." At that, the krait hissed petulantly.

"Uh-huh," she replied nonchalantly. "And just to clarify one more time: You're absolutely sure that you're not a dark wizard who wants to raise an army of dark creatures to conquer Britain?"

Harry sighed. "Absolutely 100% sure. I'm a perfectly bona fide wizard who wants to take over Magical Britain through completely legal political maneuvers."

Marcus, who was sitting in one of the other chairs with his feet propped up on the table, snickered at that. "Good one, Potter. Oh, and before you forget and leave us stuck in here all night, what's the new password?"

"Moldy Shorts," replied Harry, causing Marcus to laugh again even louder and Melissa to roll her eyes. Harry turned back to her. "Oh, and the password won't work if anyone is in the corridor who hasn't been cleared to enter, by which I mean the three of us, plus Blaise Zabini and Theo Nott. I may let Malfoy in on it if he plays nice this year. Anything else?" Both prefects shook their heads. "Good. I'm off to bed then." And with that, Harry passed through the portal, leaving the Lair to the two Seventh Years.

"Gotta say, Bulstrode," said Flint. "You're adapting to all this pretty well."

She shrugged. "I'm a Halfblood Slytherin, Flint. Adaptation is just part of the game. Besides, I can see already why you follow him. He's charismatic, disturbingly intelligent, ruthless with his enemies, protective of his friends. Plus, for a twelve-year-old, he's kinda cute."

Flint coughed. "I wouldn't know anything about that, Bulstrode."

"Of course not, Flint," Melissa replied sweetly. "I wouldn't dream of implying otherwise."

He glowered at that. "Just shut up and hand me the NEWT book."

She snickered, sat down at the table, and slid the book across to him.

10:45 p.m.

Gryffindor Common Room

"Honestly, are you still mad about this?" asked George.

"I'm not ... mad," replied Fred. "I'm just disappointed. I mean, we've never been split up into different classes before."

"Well, we may be twins, Brother-Of-Mine, but we're not ... conjoined. I mean, we're both fourteen. If I ask a girl out on a date, are you gonna want to come along?"

"Who are you looking to ask out on a date?!" asked Fred in surprised.

"Not. The. Point." said George through gritted teeth. "You know, Lockhart knows you deliberately failed his test. I mean, you weren't exactly subtle about it. If you went and talked to him, he might let you retake it."

Fred thought for a moment and then shook his head. "Nah. I made my bed. I guess I can lie in it. Or do early morning calisthenics in it, I suppose. Besides, we'd talked about spending more time with Ron. This gives me an excuse to do it."

"Why Fred! I didn't know you cared!" said Ron snarkily from behind the sofa. Both Twins jumped up with a joint "Gaah!"

"Ron! What the devil are you doing back there? Spying on us?"

"Actually, I was here first. I was trying to finish my reading for tomorrow and hiding out from everyone who keeps bugging me to play chess with them. And then, you two sat down and started getting sappy. Sorry if I startled you."

"No problem." "Anyway, since you're here..." The twins suddenly paused in their back-and-forth. "Well, we've been talking a lot about what you said last week" "and ... we really are sorry." "What can we do" "to make it up to you?"

Ron laughed genially as he rose to walk around the sofa and sit between the two Twins, stuffing his notebook and Potions text in his book bag as he did. "It's okay. Really. And I'm sorry too, guys. I was just ... really upset about that Howler and I took it out on you. Can you forgive me?"

Both Twins seemed genuinely touched that Ron would ask forgiveness of them after everything that had been said.

"Let's just all forgive each other and start over, okay" said George. "So, um, are you upset that you didn't get onto a research team?"

The boy shrugged. "Not too many Second Years did. Only about eight, I think, out of a class of forty. In fact, Jim's pretty sure that he and Draco only made it in because of Quidditch. Something to do with an experiment in eye-hand coordination Lockhart's running. Anyway, Jim says that even though he's on a research team, he'll still be joining us most days for P.E. We'd both planned to run and workout in the mornings anyway, so this way we'll just be doing it in a crowd. Might make it easier to get up on time in the mornings." He snickered and then turned to George. "Say, if you're really feeling bad because you're on a research Team and me and Fred aren't, you're welcome to get up at dawn with the rest of us. I'm sure the exercise would do you good."

Ron managed to keep a straight face for almost three seconds before he burst out laughing at George's horrified expression. Fred was confused for a second, but then, he started laughing as well.

"Well, how about that, Brother-Of-Mine? Our little Ron can do pranks after all. I didn't know he had it in him!"

Ron smiled. "How would you have known? You never involve me in any of your pranks except when I'm the target of them." The Twins suddenly grew quiet, and Ron rolled his eyes. "I didn't mean it like that. I'm just saying it might be ... nice to be involved in your pranks sometime. Did it ever occur to you that your little brother might want follow in your footsteps?"

The Twins eyes lit up at that, and they smiled in unison. "Do you have anything specific in mind?" "Oh, dear under-appreciated brother of ours?"

Ron smiled. "Oh, I don't know. I did have a few ideas that might ... liven things up around here."

And that was how the Great Prank War of 1992 got started.

11:55 p.m.

Gilderoy Lockhart's Private Quarters

The DADA instructor sat at the private desk in his living quarters reading a book. Specifically, if one were to judge a book by its cover, Lockhart was reading once more from his own autobiography, Magical Me. The book was floating in mid-air, and when he finished one page, a lazy flick of his wand caused it to flip to the next without him ever actually touching it. He considered himself an avid reader with a keen interest in a great many subjects, magical and mundane. That was part of why he'd come to Hogwarts. True, he was quite looking forward to watching the progress in his research teams, observing as all the bright young minds he'd taken under his wing delved into magical mysteries of all kinds, ranging from the Patronus to advanced ward design to refinement of the Polyjuice potion. Perhaps he'd even find out what in Merlin's name a nargle was. But he also had a secondary purpose in accepting this position: the unfettered access it gave him to the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts Library, one of the largest repositories of obscure and dangerous magic in all of Europe.

Lockhart yawned and glanced at the clock on the wall. He thought he'd best be off to bed now, as he'd have only six hours of sleep before the first day of his Physical Fitness class. He was rather looking forward to putting the Hogwarts students – well, those who weren't better suited for research work – through their paces. With another flick of his wand, the book closed itself and dropped onto the desk, emitting an angry snarl as it did. Lockhart glanced down at the cover in mild surprise.

It was, as one might expect, a picture of Gilderoy Lockhart, but one that looked far different than the wizard's normal appearance. His hair was not perfectly styled but instead rather bedraggled. His skin was pale and his cheeks sallow and sunken. His eyes seemed to blaze with a murderous hatred, and his "winning smile" was replaced with a feral snarl that suggested he wanted to leap out of the picture and maul anyone he could reach with his grasping, talon-like hands.

The DADA instructor shook his head and sighed in annoyance. From a drawer in the desk, he withdrew a pair of white silk gloves which he then donned. He glanced in the drawer as he did and was pleased to see that there was still a few dozen pairs of gloves inside. He'd probably need them all at this rate. Once protected, he carefully removed the dust jacket (and its moving picture of a crazed frothing Gilderoy Lockhart) from the book before wadding the paper up and placing it into a lidded brass container on the desk. Then, he arose from the desk and crossed to the other side of the room where his trunk rested. From inside, he pulled a new dust jacket from the stack of them hidden inside, this one still depicting the face of the handsome and debonair Gilderoy Lockhart that he was accustomed to showing the world. Carefully, he wrapped the enchanted paper around the old leather-bound book, and while the new picture of Lockhart retained his normal appearance and genial mood, there was already the faintest hint of distress in his eyes and his award-winning smile immediately seemed the tiniest bit forced.

Having once more covered the library book with a false dust cover, Lockhart removed his gloves and dropped them into the brass jar where he had placed the previous dust jacket. Then, he waved his wand over the jar and whispered "INCENDIO." There was a burst of yellow flame, accompanied by an agonized squeal from the burning paper, as he slammed the lid down tightly. Lockhart shook his head in annoyance. The frequency with which he needed to replace the dust jacket due to magical corruption from the book within was becoming tedious, but he knew it was necessary. After all, he was Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin (Third Class) and Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League.

It simply wouldn't do for a wizard of his standing and reputation to be seen wandering around the school brazenly reading out of a book with a title as provocative as Magick Moste Evile.

The next chapter will be uploaded on October 30, 2015. "Pranks and Other Diversions (Pt 1)," featuring Potions complications for Neville, important revelations from Snape, flying lessons for the First Year Slytherins, and a new fashion accessory for Jim.