Chapter 33:

Odds and Happenstance

Alex

Uncle Moony? What is he doing here? It was too early for him to be teaching, and why as the Flight Instructor? From what I remembered, he was a great Defense Professor. But then again, no one else knew that, did they? If Dumbledore had to choose between a Lockhart that actually seemed to live up to the hype and Uncle Moony well it was an obvious choice, wasn't it?

"Ah, music. Truly it is one of the greatest magic's humanity has ever produced," Dumbledore said wistfully before focusing back on the students. "Given tonight's revelations I sure some of you were too busy talking to eat so, to ensure no one goes to sleep with an empty belly, the Great Hall will remain open for another hour. Prefects, please give your new housemates a chance to eat before you take them to their new abodes, and please remember with the siege wards active finding your way may be a bit harder than you remember." His speech done Dumbledore made his way out of the hall and I turned back to my dinner.

I was in the process of bringing a piece of duck to my mouth when Hermione spoke up.

"Are you ready to leave?"

I looked from the piece of duck on my fork to my nearly full plate and the first thought that crossed my mind was not fit for public consumption.

"Not quite," I said instead and brought my fork to my mouth once more. Only to be interrupted, again.

"That's your third plate, you can't possibly be hungry," Hermione said.

"Is it? I honestly hadn't noticed. Ah well," I sighed and, after casting a quick Impervious charm on my napkin, rolled up my food before sticking it up my sleeve. At Hermione's furred brow I just smirked and stood. "Well, you ready or what?"

Hermione stood and we started for the entrance, where I could see Pansy already waiting for us, but before we'd even made it three steps when a voice from the Hufflepuff table drew us to a stop.

"Really Potter, couldn't even wait for the feast to end before disappearing?"

I turned towards the voice, a frown tugging on my lips before I forced my face into a look of neutrality. "I'm sorry?" I looked up and down the table trying to figure out who had spoken when the voice came again.

"I said." My eyes snapped to Sally-Ann Perks—bitch, lazy bitch—but no it wasn't her speaking. Sitting next to her, amongst a group of second years, was Ernie Macmillan. "Couldn't even wait for the feast to end before you disappear off to parts unknown. What, too good to spend time with the rest of us. Or do you do you have ghosts to cavort with?"

I stared at him for a long moment unsure how to even begin to respond.

"Did he just imply what I think he did?" Dragon asked, sounding as dumbfounded as I felt.

Yes.

"Kill him," Wolf said.

That's a little extreme, don't you think?

"So what do you suggest?" Dragon asked.

I blinked and a positively saintly smile appeared on my face as I decide what to do. I caught his eye and, never breaking contact, calmly walked over to Macmillan. His face steadily lost color the closer I got, and I pulled him into a hug.

"P-Potter?" Macmillan asked.

I started humming a little tune and rocking side to side.

"Potter!" Macmillan said.

I pulled back, my beauteous smile still firmly in place, and said. "I'm sorry you're having a bad day. I hope tomorrow is better for you." Actually killing the little bastard was off the table for moral, ethical and just plain practical reasons. But kindness, ohh, I could shove that down his little throat until he choked on it.

I let him go, grabbed Hermione's hand and made my way over to the doors where Pansy was waiting with a decidedly unhappy look on her face. Once the three of us were safely out of hearing range of the Great Hall I dropped Hermione's hand and started shuddering.

"Can one of you please Scourgify me, please? I feel dirty," I said. "Can't believe I touched the little bastard."

Hermione obliged and Pansy gave me a curious look.

"What was that all about?" Pansy asked.

"I have no idea," I said as the cat-tongue-like feel of Hermione's Scourgify washed over me.

"Maybe he likes you," Hermione said.

"What?!" I said.

"Well Mum always used to say if a boy is picking on you, it usually means he fancies you," Hermione said, a look of wide-eyed innocence on her face.

"Macmillan likes me?" I blanched. "Eww!"

"He's far too weak," Dragon said.

"Prey," Wolf agreed.

Pansy twitched and started up the stairs. "Potter, don't you think it's time we got to the Room?"

I swallowed my revulsion and followed her, behind me Hermione followed chuckling under her breath.

I glared at Pansy as we made our way to the seventh floor. "It's entirely your fault, you know."

"What's my fault?" Pansy asked tilting her head back to look at me.

I pointed to the still chuckling Hermione. "That!"

"I'm fairly positive she's laughing at you, not me," Pansy said, with an arched brow.

"Exactly!" I said. "Hermione used to be so nice. She wouldn't have so much as laughed at someone else before we started hanging out with you. Now she's teasing me about Macmillan, of all people. Ergo, this is all your fault." I nodded entirely satisfied with my unshakable logic.

Behind me, the chuckles turned into full-blown belly laughs.

"Is it really?" Pansy shook her head. "Whatever lets you sleep at night Ice Queen, whatever lets you sleep."

Behind me, I heard Hermione miss a step so I reached back and steadied her.

"Thank you," Hermione said. "Speaking of sleep, was I the only one who had trouble sleeping during the summer?"

"No, you aren't," Pansy said as we neared the painting of Barnabas the Barmy.

"So tonight?" I asked as I summed the Room.

"Sounds good to me," Hermione said as she opened the door and stepped inside.

"This is new," Pansy said as we entered the room.

"It's a copy of Rachel Jensen's office," I said.

"It's nice, but why are we here instead of our library?" Hermione asked.

"Because it has a TV and I want to show you two something," I said as we took a seat on the couch directly facing the fireplace. I reached over Pansy and grabbed a remote control from the side table and pressed a button causing a flat screen TV to descend from the ceiling. "You know how I said I was kidnapped by ghouls? Well someone took a video of it, and they sent it to the Jensens." Before they could respond I pressed another button and the lights dimmed, another and the video started.

I'd already watched the video more times than I ever wanted to so instead of enduring it another time I watched my friends. Would they react with the weary understanding of the Jensens? The fiery rage of Uncle Vernon? The shaken horror, followed by the deep worry of Aunt Petunia? Or something else entirely?

"…have fun screaming."

Hermione's hand covered her mouth as she stared wide-eyed at the screen.

Pansy, though, seemed to be following Uncle Vernon's example. Her fists were clenched and her narrowed eyes reflected the light off the screen, giving her a frightening visage. At least, until my cloak showed the ghoul that it was higher on the food chain than ghouls. At that point, her brows furred for a moment before they shot wide open and her head snapped around to stare at me.

"Did your cloak just eat someone?!" Pansy demanded.

I paused the video.

"Well A, it happened about a month ago and secondly it ate a ghoul. I'm not sure they actually count as people," I said. They were on The List just below 'people actively threating my family' and 'Active Nazis'. Pansy's eyes narrowed and her wand appeared in her hand. "But yes, it did."

"Did you know it ate people when you lent it to me?" Pansy asked, rolling her wand between her fingers.

"No, I didn't," I said, giving her wand a wary look. "But, I mean, it's fairly obvious that it only attacks people who are actively trying to hurt me and I gave it to you to keep you safe. As long as you didn't decide to murder me while wearing it, you were perfectly secure." I was ninetypercent sure I wasn't lying to her.

Pansy gave me a hard stare before leaning back into the couch, apparently satisfied with my answer.

Hermione was not.

"Invisibility cloaks don't eat people," Hermione said. "They do one thing and one thing only. Keeps people invisible for as long as the Demiguise fur remains potent. That," she pointed at the screen, "is not an invisibility cloak."

"Yes it is, it's just that it's the invisibility cloak rather than just an invisibility cloak," I said.

"You can't possibly be implying what I think you are," Pansy said. "Are you?"

I smirked.

"What?" Hermione asked. "What's she implying?"

During the summer, after things had calmed down, I had practiced with my cloak and I'd found that as long as I was touching it I could make it move with just a bit of focus.

My cloak slithered out from under my collar and pooled in my lap. "I'm implying that this is the cloak of Ignotus Peverell. Or more to the point, that this is Death's Cloak." The effect seemed to be lost on my friends. Oh wait, I am the only one who can see it aren't I? I barely managed to keep a blush from rising past my neck.

"Of course, it is," Pansy said pinching her nose. "Of course, it is."

"When you say it death's cloak…" Hermione said.

"I mean Death's cloak," I said. I focused for a moment and the cloak crept up my sleeve and settled on my shoulders.

"As in the Angel of Death?" Hermione asked, looking a little lost.

"I'm pretty sure they're different entities," I said. Didn't Dresden encounter an Angel of Death after he got shot? I frowned.

Should I call him, see if he managed to get in contact with his daughter? Because if he hadn't and things progressed as I remembered them—well honestly it may well be too late to change anything but I had to try, didn't I?

"Lady Death predates the first recorded mention of the White God by several millennia," Pansy said, raising her eyes to catch mine.

"Lady Death?" I frowned. "I've read the story, it only calls Death, Death. No titles or anything."

"The children's version, yes. The actual legend is more…accurate," Pansy said.

"Where did you learn about it?" I asked. "I haven't read any mention of it, except in the tales of Beedle the Bard."

"My Father, and he learned it from the Dark Lord," Pansy said a disgruntled frown settling on her face. "It's well known that he was obsessed with the gods' artifacts, their power. What wasn't well known was his obsession with the Deathly Hollows."

"Obsession?" I asked.

"The Dark Lord fancied himself," Pansy shook her head. "No—do you know what his name means?"

"Flight of Death, in French," Hermione said.

"Exactly," Pansy nodded. "Now the legend of the Deathly Hollows says that whoever collects all the Hollows becomes the Master of Death. What isn't commonly known is that Lady Death is dead."

"Isn't that kinda," I searched for the right word, "oxymoronic?"

"You'd think but that's not the point," Pansy said. "The point is, how can you be the Master of Death if there is no Lady Death to master?" She looked at us expectantly. "Well?"

"You can't," I said. "Well, unless bringing them together brings her back?" And wasn't that a lovely thought? Voldemort in command of a reincarnated Death, dispensing death and destruction without anything short of, possibly, the Swords of the Cross able to stand in his way. The very thought sent shivers down my spine.

"Unless he wanted them because, with Death dead—can't believe I just said that—he wouldn't have to worry about an angry god coming to collect its' property," Hermione said looking thoughtful.

Pansy arched an eyebrow and stared at Hermione for a long moment before speaking. "That's a good idea, but not why he wanted them. He wanted them, wants them because he believes that if he unites them he will become Lord Death."

I absently took Hermione's hand in my own and gave it a squeeze.

"Ah," I said faintly. That was worse than him being the Master of Death, wasn't it? At least, then there would be the hope of the divine equivalent of an angry jinn. Turning all his orders against him until he was a screaming pile of flesh just begging to die.

But Voldemort as Death that was an entirely different, and completely horrifying, ballgame.

"Did he ever get his hands on one?" I asked. If I remembered correctly Voldemort had made the ring a Horcrux. Or was it the stone in the ring?

"As far as I know he didn't," Pansy said. "But Father hadn't been part of the Death Eaters for years when the Dark Lord died."

"I didn't think Death Eaters got to retire," I said. "Even if they were allowed to retire, wouldn't he just Obliviate them?"

"Why would he?" Pansy's voice wasn't angry or sad, it was a mix of cynicism, bitterness, and resignation that had long since distilled into a dark humor. "They're all loyal, every last one of them."

Hermione and I traded uneasy looks.

"Pansy, is your Father still working for the Dark Lord?" I asked, with a sinking feeling in my gut. After all, you didn't actually need to be a Death Eater to help Voldemort, did you?

Would I have to do something about Pansy's Father?

Could I?

Given that he's Pansy's father, did I even want to?

"My Father is a bed-bound invalid!" Pansy snapped. "He couldn't help the Dark Lord even if it were his fondest wish!"

"Good, well not good, but, ah, you know what I mean," I said.

Hermione put her hand on my shoulder. "What Alex is trying to say is, he's your Father. Whatever he may or may not have done before is irrelevant."

"Yes, exactly!" I said. "Besides, he's obviously paid enough as it is." As long as he wasn't threatening my family, what did I care about his past?

Pansy slumped into the couch, her hands coring her face. "You have no idea." And then she started crying. Not big ugly sobs, but a silent shaking that was all the more disturbing for its lack of noise.

I felt my world tilt, Pansy, crying? It not that I didn't know she could cry but she always seemed so confident. So solid. To see her actually break down felt wrong.

As shocked as I felt I didn't let it stop me. I pulled Pansy in between Hermione and I and we held her until she stopped shaking.

888

By the time everything had settled down last night it was too late to make our way back to our dorms. So we elected to spend the night in the Room, rather than risk discovery by patrolling Professors.

I was the first one up the next day, but for once I didn't need to use the Switching spell to escape from bed. Pansy slept in my usual spot with Hermione's arms fastened around her waist. I smiled and quietly made my way to the bathroom.

I finished my morning activities and checked the time, nodded to myself, and went to wake my friends up. A transfigured feather, one lightly bruised sternum, and ten minutes later we were off to our respective dorms to retrieve our supplies for the day.

"I can't believe you thought it was a good idea to wake us up with a feather," Hermione lectured as we rounded the corner towards the Ravenclaw dorm entrance. "You should be happy the floor was carpeted otherwise we would have had to take you to the hospital wing. Then where would we be?"

"In the hospital wing, I'd imagine," I said, trying and failing to stifle a smile.

Hermione predicable ignored my response. "I'll tell you where we'd be. Late to class, that's where! Honestly, Alex, if you're going to pull an early morning prank, at least, have a shield charm ready." As we neared the bronze knocker that guarded the entrance to the Ravenclaw common room, the knocker started to speak its riddle only for Hermione to answer it before it could get more than a few syllables out. There was a moment of incredulous silence before the knocker swung open and we entered the tower.

I arched my brow at Hermione as we crossed the common room and started up the stairs towards our room. "Did you memorize all the riddles it gives or something?"

"No, but the answer was obvious, wasn't it?" Hermione said opening the door to our room.

"Not really," I said only to be distracted by the Emperor sized bed that had taken the place of our old beds. "That's new." I turned towards Hermione. "Did you?"

"I don't think so?" Hermione said, looking bewildered. "Do you think it's a prank?"

"How would this be a prank?" I asked. "If this is a prank I might just have to thank the pranksters behind it, because that bed looks nice. But just in case." I closed my eyes.

Breath. Focus. Sense.

I cast my senses out searching for anything out of place but found nothing. The bed only had the standard charms one would expect a bed to have, cushioning, quieting and an alarm spell. Even Hermione's trunk lacked the listening charm I'd sensed on it yesterday. I was about to stop when I noticed something odd, a weirdly stretched feeling combined with that sixth sense that lets you know something was near you without looking. It reminded me of nothing so much as the entrance to Platform 9 ¾.

I opened my eyes and frowned.

Wolf, can you check and see if you can smell anyone?

"Of course," Wolf said.

What happened next doesn't quite translate into English correctly but, for lack of a better way to put it, I took a mental step back and Wolf edged closer to the surface. I was still in control but Wolf had stepped into the metaphorical copilot's seat, allowing us to use her superior senses.

Most wizards, having only human level senses, wouldn't think to obscure their smell. Even those who would think to do so probably wouldn't unless they knew they were dealing with another member of the supernatural community, but given that no one but my family and the Jensens knew what I could do, I should be able to smell if someone else had been in our room.

I, Wolf and I, breathed deeply. We parceled through the scents quickly, looking for something that didn't belong. The only thing that stood out though was Pansy's sent. That in and of itself wasn't odd, she had spent a lot of time here last semester, but her sent was too fresh almost as if she were still here.

Wolf and I abruptly separated, no longer able to maintain shared control of our body.

"Curious," I focused on my sleeve. "Meter stick." The strip of wood slid into my hand as I moved towards the portal. It, like platform 9 ¾, looked like a completely normal wall.

"Alex, why do you have that in your hand? For that matter where did it come from?" Hermione asked.

"In reverse order, from my enchanted Mokeskin sleeves, and I have it so I can poke the portal with a stick," I hadn't realized until now that poking unfamiliar portals with sticks was on my bucket-list. Learn something new every day I suppose.

With that thought in mind, I reared back and proceeded to trust the meter stick into the portal as if I were trying to stab it through the heart.

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AN: So in an effort to increase review/comment count I've come up a few questions that I'd like my wonderful audience to answer.

Who is your favorite character, and why?

If you were a random Hogwarts student and you had to kill/destroy Alex Potter how would you go about doing so?

Is there anything specific you are looking forward to this year/further in the story?