Hello, everyone. I'm sorry about such a long wait for this chapter. I've been rather busy, but I'm back into the habit of writing. Hope you enjoy and please review or I will sick my flying monkeys and killer bunnies after you.
Chapter 20
"You better take that potion everyday, Miss Krone!"
"I will!" Reina called back to Madam Pomfrey as she ran down the hall to catch up with Harry and Ron. "Come on, guys! Wait up!"
Being in a good mood since they were released from the hospital, both boys stopped halfway down the hall and waited patiently. It was then that they spotted Hermione coming towards them from the other end. Both girls reached the boys at the same time.
"Good morning, Hermione," Reina greeted the other girl. "How are you today?"
Hermione smiled, happy to see all three of her friends out of the Hospital Wing. "I'm doing fine. How about you? What did Madam Pomfrey say?"
Of the three Gryffindors who were in the infirmary, Reina was the only one to leave with long-term effects.
"I'm doing quite well actually. However," She held up a small bottle of a light red, almost pink, colored potion. "I have to take this stuff daily. Why is it that all medication tastes horrible?"
Hermione shook her head laughing. "That's why it's called medicine."
"True," Reina put the vial into her bag. "I've also got a note excusing me from using magic in class if I ever begin feeling bad."
'That's good. You need a break once in a while. Anyways, we better get going. Kaze and Kiku said they would meet us outside of the Great Hall."
Together the four Gryffindors walked through the halls towards the marble staircase that led to the Entrance Hall. On their way, the group was stopped by Luna Lovegood. After expressing her happiness at the boys' release, Luna handed Harry a note and then took off again.
"Is it from Dumbledore?" Ron asked.
Harry nodded. "He's set up another meeting for tonight." After reading the rest of the note, Harry folded the paper again and stuffed it in his pocket. "He also says to tell Reina to check on Mayoke soon."
"Mayoke?" Reina wasn't sure what that meant. She assumed the suggestion pointed to a letter Mayoke had for her. God forbid it meant the raven was hurt. "Um, guys, I'm going to go find Mayoke." Hermione offered to go with her, but the half-demon assured her friend she could do it alone. With Reina gone, the golden trio continued through the castle to the Great Hall.
As the group was coming down the last flight of stairs, they saw Kaze and Kiku standing outside of the Great Hall. They sped up their pace in stair hopping, but the presence of another student at the base slowed them again. Ron swallowed hard at the look Lavender Brown was giving him. Once at the bottom, Harry and Hermione rushed into the Great Hall with Kaze and Kiku. Ron was left alone to deal with Lavender and her ranting, which had already started even before the trio stepped off the stairs.
"Where's Reina?" Kiku asked, taking a seat beside Kaze at the Gryffindor table. Most of the Gryffindors and Slytherins were used to this by now, but that didn't diminish the dirty looks by much. It was obvious that it would take more than a few students to mend the differences between the two houses.
"She went to check on Mayoke," said Harry. He looked around the room for a minute, zoning out of the conversations going on. Intentionally or not, his eyes fell on the Slytherin table. He looked up and down the table for a certain student who wasn't there. Draco wasn't with his housemates nor was he anywhere else in the room. Where could he be?
Harry was forced out of his silent search when Ron sat down next to him on the bench with a heavy sigh. "I need food," he groaned. Both of his hands reached for food on the plates across the tabletop. Harry began to say something, but his words came out in a voice that wasn't his.
"Girl troubles, Ron?"
The boys and girls looked around to see Reina standing by the table. She sat down in the empty space next to Harry. "Sorry I'm late."
"Is Mayoke okay?" Kaze asked after sipping from her glass.
"Yeah, he's just got a full belly," said Reina smiling. "But he did have a letter for me." She pulled a folded sheet of parchment out of her pocket. "It's from my dad. He says he's coming back to visit next month." From the tone of her voice and the smile on her face, it was easy to tell that Reina was excited. All of her friends were relieved to see the half-demon happy again, especially with everything that's happened lately.
"That's great," said Kaze after taking another swig of her pumpkin juice. "Does that mean his girlfriend will be coming along?"
Reina shrugged before piling food on her plate. "I don't know," she said. "I don't really care either as long as I don't end up with a baby sibling anytime soon."
As innocent as that statement sounded it had a bad effect on the wind demon. Kaze had lowered her fork and stared blankly at Reina for a long moment. She suddenly shuddered while shaking her head violently. "That was wrong, Rei. Very wrong." Darikk was like a father figure to Kaze, which meant she didn't want certain images forming in her head.
The half-demon laughed. "I know. I've already been through the series of dirty images and thoughts."
The rest of the day went by smooth enough. Harry was a bit uneasy when he returned to the common room after his visit with Dumbledore. He told the others about it, including Dumbledore's urgency to get the memory of Tom Riddle from Professor Slughorn. Later that night when the Gryffindor common room was empty except for the golden trio and their demon friends, two house elves appeared to report to Harry. During the encounter, Harry and Ron drained the elves of information while Hermione protested the entire scheme. Reina and Kaze listened to the conversation, but said nothing themselves. Not long after Dobby and Kreacher disappeared, the teenagers dispersed and went to bed.
The next few days were normal enough, if normal was even the vocabulary used to describe the odd group's experiences. Harry had tried a couple of times to retrieve the memory from Slughorn, but failed miserably. The old man was just not going to give it up. Ron was still having trouble Apparating and the test that was to take place on April 21 was approaching fast. Besides these minor mishaps everything was going well. That is until the next trip to Hogsmeade came around.
"Are you sure, Harry?" Reina pressed. She had been trying to persuade her cousin to come to Hogsmeade, but he continued to refuse.
"I'm sorry, but I need to find out what Draco is up to in the Room of Requirement," explained Harry wearing an apologetic smile.
Reina sighed and pretended to pout. She knew that nothing could change Harry's mind now. "You're no fun," she said. "First Kiku isn't going and now you. Well, all I have to say is that you better feel sorry for Hermione, Kaze, and me. We're forced to put up with Ron."
"Wait, Kiku isn't…" Harry paused when he saw Ginny wave to them as she passed by with a group of friends. The wizard waved back with a smile. Reina watched the scene and beat her cousin to the punch.
"What's going on between you and Ginny?" the half-demon asked bluntly.
Harry looked back to Reina nervously. "W-What do you mean?"
"You know damn well what I mean. You like her, don't you?"
Now, Harry and Reina had become close over the school year, but not this close. Harry wasn't about to answer Reina's question whose answer both of them knew. "That's none of your business," stated Harry. "How would you like it if I asked you who you fancied?"
Leaning against the wall next to the stairs, Reina crossed her arms over her chest and smirked. "It would matter not because I can honestly say I fancy no one."
"And why should I believe that?"
"Because you should know by now how cautious I am about my relationships due to my condition. As much as I hate to admit it, no one would want to court a half-demon who can't control her powers."
Reina's last reply halted Harry's tongue. He always hated it when the girl used tough truths, most of which concerned her mixed blood, against him. This usually meant Harry had no comeback.
"Now, do you like her?" Reina asked smiling, acting as if what she just said wasn't a big deal.
Harry sighed in defeat. "You already know the answer, so why bother asking?"
"I enjoy tormenting you."
"You are cruel," muttered Harry. His cousin's cheerful expression was expected. "What were you assaying about Kiku not going to Hogsmeade?"
"Oh," Reina uncrossed her arms and pushed off the wall. "She said she had to finish a project for Divination, and then she is going to swim in the lake." A horde of students came rushing downstairs and into the Entrance Hall. All were dressed in street clothes, ready for the day in Hogsmeade. "I've got to go now, Harry. Bye." The half-demon clapped Harry on the back as she walked past him to join Kaze, Ron, and Hermione.
"Ow!"
Kiku quickly put a hand over her mouth to stop anymore groans of pain. Her shin was now throbbing after having run into the wall while trying to dodge Mrs. Norris. Hashi moved closer to the feline and growled as menacingly as possible for the fox cub. Over the school year Hashi had grown quite a bit, but he was still a pup. However, his stance worked to scare the cat away.
"Thanks, Hashi," whispered Kiku. She scratched the fox's ears before directing her attention back to her current activity of following Draco Malfoy.
From the time Draco left the Slytherin common room over an hour ago until now Kiku had been following him. It was getting rather tedious thought. Draco had gone to the library and checked out a couple of books, and then he stopped by the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. While Draco was inside the classroom, Kiku waited outside with her ear pressed against the door. Unfortunately, she couldn't hear any voices, which probably meant Snape and Draco were in Snape's office in the back. Once Draco came out of the classroom, he went back upstairs. That was the last stop Draco made before returning to the Slytherin common room. It didn't take long for Kiku to grow bored of watching Draco do homework. She eventually gave up and went to the lake to train.
"How was that, Hashi?" asked Kiku, sticking her head out of the water.
Hashi nodded his head happily in response. He bent down and picked up the stop watch in his mouth. Trotting over to the edge of the lake, the fox dropped the watch into Kiku's hand. Strangely enough, Kiku has taught the fox which button to push to start and stop the timer. Kiku looked down at the time and grinned broadly.
"Yes!" she exclaimed. "Two minutes and twelve seconds. That's a whole twenty seconds faster than last month. Just imagine how fast I'll be when I can breath under water."
Indeed, Kiku was becoming faster in her swimming every day. Her powers were steadily growing like every other young demon's should. Two great abilities of a water demon are being capable of breathing under water and conjuring water from thin air. In truth, water demons can't create water. Instead they are able to pull the moisture from the air or objects around them. Kiku was certainly coming close to acquiring these skills. She had already mastered the art of illusions, which could be viewed by the two tattoos across her body that always remained, and her illusion used to look like a human.
"Okay, now I'm bored," she muttered as she sat on the bank. Her light purple hair stuck to the skin of her shoulders and back, water droplets cascading down her torso. Kiku squeezed the excess water from her hair and then placed the strands behind pointed ears. "Maybe I should have gone to Hogsmeade with the others."
Before Kiku could think anymore on the subject, her sensitive ears picked up on the sound of someone approaching. Hashi, too, heard feet shuffling on grass. Kiku didn't even look to see who was coming before she dove back into the water. The white fox also went into hiding by circling a nearby tree until he was out of sight. Hiding amongst a plenty of Lilly pads, Kiku rose up out of the water just enough for her purple swirled eyes to peek over the surface.
Draco!
The Slytherin prefect walked across the grounds to the edge of the lake where Kiku had been a minute before. He looked around the area and the surrounding space. His gray eyes traveled over Kiku, who ducked back under the water. Through the rippling water, Kiku could see Draco mutter to himself and then turn to walk away. Once the water demon was sure that Draco was gone, she swam back over to the bank.
"Hashi," she called after getting out of the water. The fox cub came out of hiding and trotted over to his master. Kiku grabbed her things out of the hollow section of one of the trees. After drying off, she threw on her robe. "That was close," she said. "Now, back to a human appearance." With that said, Kiku made a swishing motion with her hand. Instantly her ears lost their pointed tip and the swirl in her eyes disappeared. Kiku then looked to Hashi once the illusion was successful. "Do I look human now?"
Hashi cocked his head at the girl and then he signaled a "no" by putting a paw over his nose.
"What?" Kiku glanced at her reflection in the water. "I never said I was trying for a normal human appearance." She picked up her things. "Come on." Together the water demon and arctic fox walked back to the castle.
Once Kiku was far enough away, Draco stepped out from behind a thick oak tree. He stared off after the retreating girl, an expression of shock and disbelief etched on his pale face. Although he didn't actually see the demons in Hagrid's class, Draco had heard enough and read enough about them to confidently identify one.
"Sukue's a…demon?"
"Are you guys ready for the Apparition test?" Kaze asked at breakfast. It was April 21, the day that those students who qualified were scheduled to take the Apparition test.
"I believe so," replied Hermione. She glanced across the table to Ron, who looked like he was going to be sick. "Ron, please eat something. You're never going to be able to Apparate on an empty stomach."
"She's right, Ron," said Harry. "Try to eat something."
Ron feebly shook his head. "Anything that goes down will come right back up again."
"Okay then," Kaze interjected. "Keep it to yourself."
Just then Reina entered the Great Hall. She walked over to her friends and sat down next to Harry. The half-demon was obviously down about something. "Here," she said handing Harry an envelope. "Hedwig had it."
Harry took the envelope and looked at the front. His name was scribbled in rough handwriting that the young wizard recognized as Hagrid's. After breaking the seal Harry pulled out the letter. He read through the writing, a frown developing as he did. When he was done, Harry looked back to Reina.
"I got one, too," she said. A small sigh followed her words.
"What's wrong?" Hermione asked.
"Aragog died last night," Harry said folding the parchment back up.
"Hagrid wants us to come tonight when he buries Aragog," Reina added. She was no longer hungry and didn't bother grabbing a plate. Instead she just knocked lightly on the table. A mug suddenly appeared in front of her. Reina sipped from her tea while the others continued speaking.
"Aragog?" Ron racked his brain for a minute. "Isn't that the gigantic spider that tried to feed us to its friends in our second year?" Harry nodded. "Hagrid's actually going to give it a funeral?"
"Harry," Hermione said trying to draw the conversation in a different direction. "I strongly doubt Ron and I can come. We'll have make-up work from the classes we're going to miss."
"And I have Arithmancy homework to catch up on," Kaze told Reina.
"I understand," Reina assured.
That day went by extremely slow. By the time last block Potions class came around, the five students making up the class were all ready to fall asleep where they sat. not reflecting the attitudes of his students, Professor Slughorn boisterously greeted them.
"Good afternoon!"
The reply consisted of two murmurs coming from Harry and Ernie. Draco was not courteous enough to say anything, and the two demon in the back had their head down buried in their arms. Slughorn clapped his stubby hands together loudly. "C'mon, little ones," he said. "Today's lesson will be very exciting."
"Azkrinma,"
"Chikusho,"
Harry recognized the foreign words the girls muttered as they lifted their heads. They were ones used frequently but the two demons. Both words had the same meaning, which happened to be "damn it", but one was demon tongue and the other was Japanese. Harry never knew there was a different language for demons until one incident a few months back. He had been walking with the three demons through the castle after lunch one day. Kiku and Kaze were attempting to poke Reina in the forehead over and over. When Kaze finally got a successful poke in, Reina dropped her bag and began chasing the wind demon around the bottom floor of the castle. The whole time Reina was yelling in a strange language. Through giggles, Kiku explained it was the language of demon. The water demon admitted that she couldn't speak it herself, but she'd heard it before.
Much to the girls' dismay, Slughorn made them move closer to the front of the room so he wouldn't have to walk so far. He saw no sense in having five students spread out all across the room. Reina had to kick Kiku in the shin in order to keep the water demon from cussing out Slughorn for making them move.
"Now," Slughorn stood at the front as he spoke. "Today you are going to mix up an Elixir to Induce Euphoria." He went on to describe the potion in mild detail. When he was done, he gave the students the signal to start.
"This is so stupid," Reina muttered as she uncorked a bottle of roots. "Five students, none of which are all together today, and we still have to do work." Kiku nodded in agreement, but seemed a bit distracted. She kept glancing over to Draco and quickly looked back to her cauldron when the other Slytherin's eyes moved up. The half-demon caught on to this pretty quickly. "Kiku, what's going on?"
Kiku poured a measured amount of pixie blood into her mixture. 'nothing," she said. With a quick glance to Slughorn, she saw that the man was focused on grading potions and papers. The water demon took this opportunity to stir the liquid in her cauldron using her powers.
"You're going to get caught one of these days," said Reina.
"You're one to talk," Kiku said with a sly grin. "Did you or did you not use your powers in DADA yesterday to redirect Snape's spell?"
This accusation brought a small smile to the half-demon's lips. "Snape shouldn't have shot that spell at me without warning and when I had a headache. Besides, I was able to cover it up."
"Thanks to Hermione," Kiku pointed out. "She was able to think of a spell that results in black and purple smoke before Snape could question it."
"Yeah, yeah," Reina mumbled. She dropped the mandrake leaves that she'd just grounded to powder into her cauldron. The potion was supposed to be a sunshine yellow. Reina was happy to see that her own concoction was well on its way there being a mustard color already. "But I am surprised that I didn't end up with detention. I was almost positive Snape would have me scrubbing floors for that mess."
Kiku paused in her mixing causing the potion to become still. She glanced to Draco and swallowed hard. What if Draco did see her? From the way Draco had been watching her earlier it was a possibility. It also meant that the boy could have mentioned it to Snape. And if Draco saw Kiku in demon form, then he could have connected her with the demons from Hagrid's class. If all of this was true then it was only a matter of time before Draco linked Kiku's secret to Reina and Kaze.
"Kiku," Reina nudged the water demon in the arm. "What is wrong with you today?" She knew Kiku was acting stranger than usual and the half-demon had a bad feeling that Malfoy was a part of it.
The water demon frowned. "Um, Reina," Kiku placed the vial she had in her hand back on the table. "While I was swimming the other day, someone came out by the lake."
Reina also stopped what she was doing and looked to Kiku. She was not liking where this was going. "Did this person see you?" she asked trying to remain calm.
"I don't know," Kiku admitted. "I sensed him and hid, but I don't know if he saw me without the illusion."
"Was it Draco?"
"Yes."