Of Wizards, Akuma, and Exorcist
Twenty-Three: Out of the FireDisclaimers: I do not own any D. Gray-Man or Harry Potter characters/settings. They rightfully belong to Mr. Hoshino (D. Gray-Man) and Ms. Rowling (Harry Potter). Also, some conversations between the Harry Potter characters are direct quotes from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and that also does not belong to me!
"The fireplace won't give you any answers if you're doing an essay for Potions," Lavi said to Harry that evening in the Gryffindor common room. "But of course, if you're thinking of ways to skip that class, you might want to look the other way where Fred and George are demonstrating ways to throw up in class and then stop the moment you're outside earshot."
"Lavi!" Lenalee snapped, marching up to the red haired Exorcist. She gave him a sharp look and said, "You can't ruin people's education like that- and Harry's not thinking of ways to skip class or asking the fire for answers. He's waiting."
"For whom?" Lavi asked.
"For-"
"For his godfather," Allen said from his seat, slumped in the armchair with a large book resting on his chest. He'd given up on reading the darn thing a long time ago, but was too lazy to put it back. "He got a letter this morning, remember, Lavi?"
"Oh yeah, Hedwig," Lavi mumbled, understanding. "She alright?"
"Grubby-Plank's taking care of her."
Hermione sniffed loudly, looking disapprovingly at Fred and George.
"Just go and stop them, then!" Harry told her irritably, crossing out something on his parchment. He'd done that four times now.
"I can't, they're not technically doing anything wrong," Hermione said through gritted teeth. "They're quite within their rights to eat the foul things themselves, and I can't a find a rule that says the other idiots aren't entitled to buy then, not unless they're proven to be dangerous in some way, and it doesn't look as though they are..."
Harry, Ron, and Hermione watched the twins and their show for a minute. "You know," Harry said as Jordan Lee collected gold from an eager crowd, "I don't get why Fred and George only got three O.W.L.s each. They really know their stuff..."
"Oh, they know flashy stuff that's no real use to anyone," Hermione grumbled.
"No real use?" Ron repeated in disbelief. "Hermione, they've got about twenty-six Galleons already..."
During the while until the audience around Fred and George dispersed and disappeared completely, Allen had fallen asleep in his chair and was twitching occasionally, his face contorted in a painful way, groaning and moaning out inaudible words. When Harry, Ron, and Hermione sent him alarmed looks, Lavi and Lenalee dismissed it as nothing to worry about. Lavi and Lenalee were watching Hermione's cat Crookshanks chase Lavi's hammer across the floor, and Ron, too, fell asleep sitting in his chair. But just when the twins went up to the dormitory, Hermione following them with a hard glare, and Harry was cleaning up his books, having given up on his essay, both he and Allen grunted, woke up, and Ron looked blearily into the fire.
"Sirius!" he gasped.
"Hi," the man said with a grin, and nodded at the Exorcists, who were standing off to the side, watching him in wonder.
"Hi," Harry, Ron, and Hermione chorused. Crookshanks gave up on Lavi's hammer and proceeded to try touching Sirius's face with his own.
"How're things?" Sirius asked.
"Not that good," Harry answered, watching as Hermione dragged her cat away from the flames. "The Ministry's forced through another decree, which means we're not allowed to have Quidditch teams-"
"-or secret Defense Against the Dark Arts groups?" Sirius finished.
There was a small pause.
"How did you know about that?" Harry demanded.
"You want to choose your meeting places more carefully," Sirius told him, grinning all the more broadly. "The Hog's Head, I ask you..."
"Well, it was better than the Three Broomsticks!" Hermione said indignantly. "That's always packed with people-"
"-which means you'd have been harder to overhear," Sirius said. "You've got a lot to learn, Hermione."
"Who overheard us?" Harry asked.
"Mundungus, of course," Sirius answered. At everyone's puzzled looks, he laughed. "He was the witch under the veil."
"That was Mundungus?" Harry said, shocked. "What was he doing in the Hog's Head?"
"What do you think he was doing?" Sirius replied impatiently. "Keeping an eye on you, of course."
"I'm still being followed?" Harry demanded angrily. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the three Exorcists stiffen and exchange nervous looks with each other.
"Yeah, you are," Sirius answered, "and just as well, isn't it, if the first thing you're going to do on your weekend off is organize an illegal defense group." He peered at Harry with, not anger or worry, but with obvious pride.
"Why was Dung hiding from us?" Ron asked. "We'd've liked to've seen him."
"He was banned from the Hog's Head twenty years ago," Sirius said, "ans that barman's got a long memory. We lost Moody's spare Invisibility Cloak when Sturgis was arrested, so Dung's been dressing as a witch a lot lately...Anyway...First of all, Ron- I've sworn to pass on a message from you mother."
"Oh yeah?" Ron gulped.
"She says on no account whatsoever are you to take part in an illegal secret Defense Against the Dark Arts group. She says you'll be expelled for sure and you future will be ruined. She says there will be plenty of time to learn how to defend yourself later and that you are too young to be worrying about that right now. She also"- Sirius turned to Harry and Hermione- "advices Harry and Hermione no to proceed with the group, though she accepts that she has no authority over either of them and simply begs them to remember that she has their best interests at heart. She would have written all this to you, but if the owl had been intercepted you'd have been in real trouble, and she can't say it for herself because she's on duty tonight."
"On duty doing what?" Ron asked quickly.
"Never you mind, just stuff for the Order," Sirius said sharply. "So it's fallen to me to be the messenger and make sure you tell her I passed it all on, because I don't think she trusts me to.
"And you," he said to the Exorcists, who jumped slightly, apparently not having expected to be talked to. "Some of the other members've asked me to talk to you."
"To us?" Lavi repeated.
"Wants me to see if we could trust you, you see," Sirius said. "In this time, people from other places are hard to trust, you know."
"We understand," Allen said with a smile. "Well, what do you think?"
"I trust you all completely, seeing as Dumbledore is alright with you lot," Sirius grinned. "But you know, some people, ehm..."
"We might drop in sometime, seeing as we're no longer supposed to be in the classrooms," Lenalee said. "Over the holidays would be ideal for both of us, seeing as we can't leave the grounds while all the students are still here. We will come in groups of three so that half of us could protect the remaining students."
"I've heard about you from Komui," Sirius chuckled. "His sister. You're pretty smart- like Hermione."
Both girls flushed.
Ron was fiddling with a hole in the rug. "So you want me to say I'm not going to take part in the defense group?" he muttered.
"Me? Certainly not! I think it's an excellent idea!"
"You do?" Harry asked.
"Of course I do!" Sirius answered heartily. "D'you think your father and I would've lain down and taken orders from an old hag like Umbridge?"
"But- last term all you did was tell me to be careful and not take risks-"
'Last year all the evidence was that someone inside Hogwarts was trying to kill you, Harry!" Sirius said, sounding impatient once again. "This year we know that there's someone outside Hogwarts who'd like to kill us all, so I think learning to defend yourselves properly is a very good idea!"
"And if we do get expelled?" Hermione asked, looking quizzical.
"Hermione, this whole thing was your idea!" Harry said, stunned.
"I know it was...I just wondered what Sirius thought," she said, shrugging.
"Well, better expelled and able to defend yourselves than sitting safely in school without a clue," Sirius shrugged back.
"Hear, hear," Harry, Ron, and Lavi said enthusiastically.
"So, how are you organizing this group?" Sirius asked. "Where are you meeting?"
"Well, that's a bit of a problem now," Harry said. "Dunno where we're going to be able to go..."
"How about the Shrieking Shack?" Sirius suggested.
"Hey, that's an idea!" Ron said, but Hermione shook her head and made a skeptical noise, making everyone turn to her.
"Well, Sirius, it's just that there were only four of you meeting in the Shrieking Shack when you were at school," she said, "and all of you could transform into animals and I suppose you could all have squeezed under a Invisibility Cloak if you'd wanted to. But there are twenty-eight of us and none of us is an Animagus, so we wouldn't need so much an Invisibility Cloak as an Invisibility Marquee-"
"Fair point," Sirius said, looking crestfallen. "Well, I'm sure you'll come up with somewhere...There used to be a pretty roomy passageway behind that big mirror on the fourth floor, you might have enough space to practice jinxes in there-"
"Fred and George told me it's blocked," Harry said with a shake of his head. "Caved in or something."
"Oh..." Sirius frowned. He glanced once at Lavi, who was whispering something into Allen's ear. "Well, I'll have a think and get back to-"
He broke off, and that was when Allen gasped. "Sirius," the boy said hastily. "Communications are..-"
"What are you talking about, Allen?" Ron asked, and Harry said, "Sirius?" but the man was staring intently into the solid brick wall of the fireplace.
And he vanished. Harry goggled at the empty flames for a moment, then looked at Ron and Hermione in alarm.
"Why did he-?"
Hermione jerked back from the fire with a terrified gasp, staring at it, as a large hand flew out of the flames, groping around, as if looking for something. It was a chubby hand, with short stubby fingers, wearing ugly old-fashioned rings that Harry recognized with a sinking heart.
"Let's go," Lavi said, his eye glued on the fat hand, as if it was a monster ready to strike. "Dormitory." When no one moved, he said louder, "Come on!"
They all ran for it at the sound of Lavi's voice. When he reached the door to the boys' dormitory, Harry turned around. The hand of Dolores Umbridge was still snatching at the flames, as if it knew exactly where Sirius Black's hair had been and was dead-set on seizing him.
Behind him, Allen and Lavi were also staring at Umbridge's hand, but on their faces were looks of exasperation and weariness, as if the appearance of the hand was like the appearance of another army of Akuma to them. Harry guessed it probably was.
The boys bid good-night to the girls, and Harry and Ron immediately fell asleep in their beds. Allen waited until he heard them snoring, and then he walked over to the window nearby his bed. He gingerly fiddled with the lose windowpane, shaking it from side to side until it came loose, and gently put it on the floor.
"Timcampy, come here," he whispered, one foot resting on the sill. When his golden golem was perched safely on his shoulder, Allen hoisted himself out of the window and onto a brick sticking out of the tower wall. Repeating in his mind to not look down at the five hundred feet drop below, he carefully climbed to the roof and sat down.
Overhead, the nearly full moon shone bright. Allen doubted that anyone knew about his secret place on the tall tower, and he hoped no one did. It was only because of his natural sense of balance that Allen was able to stay on the titling surface without falling and killing himself.
"Beautiful, isn't it, Timcampy?" he asked, and Timcampy shivered as if in response. "Wish Mana's seeing this too, through me."
An owl flew by, a handsome barn owl, with a rat held tightly in his beak. He circled Allen in a wide circle, and Timcampy took it as an invitation to fly after it. Allen guessed the golem had a fascination for other flying animals, for Timcampy often chased after butterflies during their missions. Allen didn't mind, but of course, if there ever as a flying horse, he hoped Timcampy would never chase after that one...
It was at that moment when something large and winged flew out of the forest by the castle. From afar, Allen could only tell that its wings were slightly bat-like, and that it was shaped like a horse.
"What was that?" he said, stunned, as the creature disappeared into the trees once again.