Hey guys, sorry for the super-long time it's taken me to get this chapter up. I've had a lot of stuff going on. School's just started and there's been a lot of drama in my life lately, it hasn't left much time for writing. I did eventually get here though, and I will update Amnesia and all my other stories soon too.
Anyway, I'm introducing a new character in this chapter, hope you enjoy. As always I love to hear what you guys think of my work, so pretty please review? Please?
Chapter Five: Orion the Hunter
The Burrow seemed to come to life with Harry there. Even George, who had previously been completely despondent, managed to greet Harry with some enthusiasm. Dudley no longer wondered at skinny Harry Potter heading the attack against Voldemort and the Death Eaters, he was clearly a leader, someone that people looked to for hope and guidance.
He had only been in the house for twenty minutes and already Mrs. Weasley was asking his opinion of everything on the dinner table and Ginny wouldn't leave his side. Of course, all the attention that Harry was getting was making it very hard for Dudley to have a proper conversation with his cousin. The most he'd managed was a couple of sentences when his cousin had first arrived.
Dudley liked to think that even though he'd only uttered a few sentences, he had made some progress towards making amends to his cousin. Harry certainly wasn't trying to ignore the fact that he existed like he had at Privet Drive, instead he smiled whenever their eyes met. It was a pleasant change.
Mrs. Weasley's dinner was as always, delicious, but Dudley was preoccupied, thinking about Quidditch. He had no idea how he was going to get out of it, after all he had promised Roxanne that he would play. Still, he had a bad feeling about the entire thing, he was pretty sure that he was going to stuff up and make a fool of himself and now Harry, an amazing Quidditch player, would be there to see it. It was going to be humiliating.
Dudley's only hope was that everyone would forget about Quidditch entirely because of Harry's arrival. He wasn't counting on it though; he'd noticed that Ginny had a memory that never failed her. He sighed and ate another spoonful of mash potatoes looking almost as melancholy as George.
Not wanting to dwell on unhappy thoughts, Dudley tried to tune into the conversations that were going on around him. Harry was speaking to Mrs. Weasley and Ginny both of whom had concerned looks on their faces, George was looking at the floor but every now and then he'd sneak a glance at Harry, leaving Dudley sure that he was listening to the conversation too.
"No, they're alright Mrs. Weasley. Didn't Ron tell you what he was going to be doing the last time he dropped by?" Harry was asking, it seemed that he was upset with his best friend.
Ginny snorted, "You know Ron, Harry. He's not exactly the best at explaining things. He just said that you lot were off to do some 'stuff'," she laughed, but her expression remained worried.
"I still don't get it...Why can't the Dementors guard Azkaban?" Mrs. Weasley now looked confused. Dudley's ears pricked up at the word Dementors. He looked at Harry waiting for his next response.
"We don't trust them. If the Death Eaters wanted to stage a breakout and offered them something good enough, I think that they'd help them to get out." Dudley remembered reading an article in the newspaper about this, but he'd always thought that the Ministry would eventually allow the Dementors their old spot back. What else could they do? You couldn't exactly have Dementors swooping left right and centre amongst the Muggle population now could you? How many people would lose their souls, like he almost had?
"What are they going to do with the Dementors then?" Dudley asked, his voice slightly panicky.
Harry looked at him sympathetically and Dudley assumed that he too must have been thinking about that night. "We're trying to round them up," he said looking worried for the first time, "but we haven't had much success. It turns out the Ministry had plans in place for the Dementors if they did turn against us for a second time. They've managed to build these rooms in the Department of Mysteries, just about the only thing that wasn't destroyed when Voldemort took over, and they're filled with...happiness. I don't know how they work really, but it's like the essence of a Patronus guards that room and once they get into it, they can't get out."
Dudley felt slightly happier knowing that people were working to get the Dementors under control, but what if it didn't work? He felt a bundle of nerves twisting and turning around in his stomach at the thought of defenseless people, like him, getting attacked by the invisible Dementors. He wasn't the only one either; he noticed that Mrs. Weasley and Ginny had both shuddered slightly during Harry's speech.
Deciding once more that now was not the time to be lost in thought, Dudley plunged into his food. It was much easier to eat properly when your mind wasn't focused on something that was depressing. A feeling of fullness had replaced the knot of nerves by the time he was done with his large plate of dinner. Somehow it was impossible to feel anything but satisfied when you were stuffed full of one of Mrs. Weasleys' excellent dinners.
Feeling completely at peace with the world, Dudley leant back in his chair and let the conversation flow over him. It was mostly light-hearted now, all of the serious stuff had been talked about earlier, when Dudley had been too deep in thought to pay any attention. He'd only just caught that little bit about the Dementors.
In fact, it was not just Dudley who was happy, everybody seemed quite content, that is except for George. George was silent and more often than not looking at the floor and that was an improvement. He didn't usually eat dinner with the rest; his mother took it to him up in his room. Dudley thought that the family dinners might remind him too much of his lost twin, so he avoided them.
As the dinner party began to break up Dudley noticed Harry and George walk off into the yard together, assuming that they had something to talk about in private he ignored this. He walked to the kitchen and placed his plate into the now full sink, once they were all in Mrs. Weasley would simply whip out her wand and they'd be clean in a second. It was more effective than any dishwasher Dudley had ever seen.
Yawning heavily he headed to the staircase, he had reached the foot of it when something smacked into his shoulder-blades with considerable force. He turned to see a red ball lying on the ground and Roxanne and Ginny. They were both wearing identical, evil grins.
"You forgot didn't you?" Ginny smiled at him, at least she's having fun Dudley thought grimly.
"Yeah," he admitted, rubbing the side of his neck sheepishly. There was no way he was going to get out of it now, so he decided to just give up. Picking up the heavy red ball he walked over towards the two girls. Roxanne extended her hand for the ball, but Dudley shook his head in mock fear, there was no way he was going to give her back the weapon.
Together they walked up towards the apple orchard where they would be playing Quidditch, his mother joining them at the door of the Burrow. Dudley was glad to see that he was not the only one who was feeling nervous, his mother looked absolutely petrified, her face was white and her hands were shaking.
"Don't we have to get the brooms before we play?" Dudley asked when they reached the edge of the orchard. He would do anything to delay actually having to fly.
Ginny grinned, seeming to know that he was just trying to delay, "No, Harry and George got them earlier," so they had walked off into that field for more sinister reasons than just talking.
"Time to fly," said Roxanne as she darted through the trees into the orchard. Ginny rolled her eyes after her friends back and muttered something that Dudley didn't quite catch, then she too had walked into the orchard. Dudley and his mother cast each other one last terrified look before entering themselves.
The orchard was not too big, it had a cozy feel to it that reminded Dudley a lot of the Burrow. Most of the trees had been cleared so that there was just a large ring of them surrounding a clearing. The others were standing in the very centre of this clearing, George looking at the ground as usual.
Dudley and Petunia approached them tentatively, as they all looked on with amusement. When they finally reached their teachers, or more fittingly torturers, Dudley noticed the three brooms on the ground. "There aren't enough brooms," he said flatly.
Roxanne laughed, "We're not all flying, are we?" she said sweetly, handing him one of the brooms. Dudley took it, then promptly dropped it, the broom had burned his hand in the instant he had gripped it. He stepped back and looked at the broom that now lay on the ground warily. Harry looked alarmed too, but he was the only one who did. Everybody else was laughing.
Unaware of having done anything funny, Dudley looked at them all in shock. "What?" he asked, when he had finally found his voice.
"Sorry," Ginny was still laughing, "It's just your expression when you couldn't touch it!" she gave in to the laughter once more.
"What?" this time it was Harry who asked the question. The two cousins looked at each other in confusion, while Dudley's mother just looked horrified.
"Broomsticks have anti-muggle repelling charms on them, you get scorched when you touch them and so you think it's a bad broom. Then you chuck it out. If you didn't, you'd get Muggles all over England flying around on broomsticks, and then they'd know that magic existed. Muggles can generally use enchanted objects, it's just that we thought it wise to take precautions with broomsticks just in case they strayed into Muggle hands." George was the one who had to explain, because the others were still laughing. Harry nodded at this explanation, but Dudley was still confused.
"If we can't touch the brooms," he indicated himself and Petunia, "then we can't fly, right?" He waited for his answer tensely, hoping that they would say he was right.
"No, silly," Roxanne laughed, "You can fly, just not alone. They made a loop-hole in the charm in case Muggle-borns needed to fly their family places. You're going to have to take one of us on the back of your brooms. Well, not one of us, either Harry or Ginny, because George and I aren't quite that great at flying to have someone else on our broom too."
"No, I'm not flying at all remember," George reminded her. She pouted, she'd clearly been hoping he would.
"So, um, Dudley, you coming with me?" Harry asked. Dudley nearly laughed, he was pleased that his cousin had asked him, but he thought it had more to do with avoiding his mother than anything else. Dudley grinned and walked over to stand beside Harry, who was already lifting his Firebolt up, ready to mount it.
"That leaves you and me Mrs. Dursley," said Ginny with a grin, as she beckoned Petunia over Petunia walked gingerly over to the broomstick as Ginny swung herself lithely onto the thin stick. Dudley gulped as he thought of things that could go very wrong when he did the same thing. Petunia looked absolutely terrified as she clambered on behind Ginny, with very little grace, in fact she had broken a sweat by the time she had managed to heave herself up onto the broom.
Once she was on, Ginny rose a few feet into the air and called for the others to join her. Roxanne was off in a moment, dashing onto her broom and flying up to hover near the tree-tops. Her face looked even prettier than usual in the moonlit orchard and Dudley took a second to just observe her. Then it was his turn.
Harry had mounted already and was patiently waiting for him to clamber on. Dudley had been expecting Harry to be up the front and him to be on the back, but Harry had put himself as far as possible down the broomstick and was now gesturing for Dudley to hop onto the front portion. "You have to steer," he told Dudley with a grin.
The bundle of nerves in his stomach seemed to take over his whole body at that. Moving in a faster-than-usual lumber, he hurled himself onto the broom. If Harry hadn't been gripping it so firmly it would have tipped over, throwing them both onto the mushy ground. He turned and looked at his cousin apologetically, but Harry just smiled. Then he kicked off.
Dudley screamed, they were going unbelievably fast, he could feel the adrenaline going off inside him, as well as the terror. They were bolting straight towards a tree. He remembered that Harry had said he was supposed to steer but how? Dudley would have wrung his hands if he'd dared to move them from the handle of the broomstick, there was no wheel, no brakes...
They had about ten seconds until they hit the tree, why wasn't Harry telling him what to do? Maybe they were travelling too fast for his cousin to speak? At the very last instant, Dudley jerked his body right and the broom swerved in the direction his body moved. He sighed, relief flooding his body. So that was how you steered, you just moved. It seemed pretty obvious now that he thought about it.
They were still hurtling towards the other side of the orchard though, going much too fast for Dudley's liking. Wasn't there some way that he could slow the Firebolt down? After all everyone else was fluttering slowly through the air, not hurtling around like a cannon-ball.
Just as he was beginning to panic, Dudley felt a firm arm wrap around his midsection and pull him back so that he was leaning backwards, the broom immediately slowed. "God Dudley, what are you trying to give me whiplash?" Harry laughed as he pulled his cousin backwards, "You only sit out flat on the broom like that when you want to go really fast."
Dudley just nodded, feeling embarrassed, maybe he hadn't fallen off the broom yet, but he was pretty sure he was going to. Even his mother had figured out how to control the broomstick faster than he had, she was now floating around at a reasonable pace, sitting in front of Ginny and smiling in an uncomfortable sort of way, but still smiling.
Dudley was roused from his reverie by the sight of a tree, looming very close; there would be no time for them to avoid it. Dudley opened his mouth to scream, but he stopped abruptly when he noticed that the broom was swerving, he could hear Harry laughing again as he steered the broom away.
"Dudders," Harry teased, "You can do better than that." Dudley stared at his cousin in shock, realising that they were actually having fun together, that is when he wasn't paralyzed by fear.
It wasn't smooth sailing after that, the broom never seemed to move smoothly there was always a jerky motion to it when Dudley steered and it wasn't much, but it made the ride uncomfortable. There was something about flying though, you just felt so free. Dudley could imagine people getting hooked on flying, using it as a drug.
After they'd been flying for about an hour and both Dudley and Petunia had gotten a little more comfortable with flying, Roxanne decided that it was time for them to play proper Quidditch. She asked George to release the Bludgers, Dudley gulped when he saw that, and then the snitch, which fluttered away looking exceedingly delicate.
The last of the balls, the Quaffle, was the heavy red one that had hit him before. George swung his arm back and forth, trying to gather the energy that would be needed to lob the ball high up into the air. Dudley watched the motion of the arm, anticipation tight in his chest, when the Quaffle was released then the game of Quidditch would begin.
Unfortunately the Quaffle never was released, George's hand completed one more swing and then it hung there, limp by his side. "What?" Harry asked, clearly frustrated.
George didn't care though, he was staring at the trees on the right side of the clearing an unreadable expression on his face. Dudley turned the broom around so that they could see whatever was there, he had already decided it must be something to be making George act this weirdly.
The only thing he could see, though, was a dark figure, standing on the edge of the pitch. He assumed it must be Mrs. Weasley, who else would come to watch them play? Suddenly George shrieked and began to dash across the field towards the figure. Had he gone mad? Was he attacking his own mother?
Harry was clearly panicking too, he took over the broom and began to fly it as fast as he could in the same direction that George was running. The girls had both already taken off, but the Firebolt was faster and it quickly outstripped their slower brooms. As they approached the figure, Dudley noticed that it was most definitely not Mrs. Weasley.
It was a man, a tall rugged man, who looked as though he would have been handsome had he not been covered in wounds. Blood matted his hair and his grey eyes rolled wildly in their sockets. Still, he clutched his wand in his hand, determined to fight to the end if he had too.
George had also gotten closer and was now drawing his own wand, "You're supposed to be in Azkaban! How did you get free?" he snarled at the wounded man.
Dudley could feel Harry tensing behind him, he too recognised the stranger. "Lynx Lestrange," Harry said. Dudley did not recognise the man's first name, but he recognised the last. Bellatrix Lestrange had been the woman who had killed his cousin's godfather. Dudley could only suppose that this man was a relation of hers, and a Death Eater to boot.
George had just opened his mouth to cast a spell that would no doubt have Lynx in considerable pain when another voice spoke, "Expelliarmus!" Roxanne's normally cool voice had an edge of fear and desperation to it. Dudley was now confused, was Roxanne protecting a Death Eater?
It certainly appeared so, she landed her broom just as she caught George's wand. She then dashed over to put her slim frame between Harry and Lynx. Harry was fuming, Dudley could practically feel the heat rolling off him, "What are you doing?" he demanded of her.
"I'm," Roxanne panted as she met their eyes, "Please, just let me explain. I need a second," and indeed she did, she was completely out of breath and was clutching her sides gasping for air.
George looked mutinous, but Harry said they should wait for an explanation, and as Dudley was learning, Harry's word was law. Eventually Roxanne seemed to regain enough of her strength so as to be coherent, but instead of turning to them, she turned to the man behind her. "You ok, Ry?" she asked him softly.
Ry? Try as he might Dudley could not fathom how she could use Ry as a nickname for Lynx. Perhaps the others had mistaken this man's identity, he was after all covered in a lot of grime and blood.
"This, is not, as you believe Lynx Lestrange," said Roxanne, her voice still weary. "This is Orion. I have no idea how he got here, but he's been a friend of mine since I was three and I refuse to let you touch him," her voice glinted with anger and defiance here and George looked mutinous. He lifted his arm to jinx either her or him, but then remembered that Roxanne had disarmed him and dropped it in defeat.
Harry stared at her blankly for a few seconds then, "But...if he's a Death Eater, we have to Roxanne," he said in a gentle but hopeless tone.
Roxanne just laughed, "Ry? A Death Eater? Don't be ridiculous," she snickered as though the idea was ridiculous.
"I saw him, Roxanne! I saw him at the bloody battle at Hogwarts! Your mate there has blood on his hands," George seemed to be having some kind of breakdown and Dudley could not help but wonder whether this Orion man was really as horrible as George was making him out to be.
"That wasn't me," the man managed to choke out. "That was Lynx. You see we look very similar, we're twins," he finished off sadly.
At this George somehow managed to get past Roxanne and drive his fist into the man's face, "How the hell can you say that? Do you think it's funny, poking fun at me, after you killed my brother? You bastard! Let me go Harry, I'm going to kill him!" Harry refused to let go off the neck of George's robes and George let off a stream of profanities to vent his frustration.
"What?" Orion was clutching his nose, which was now bleeding. "I didn't kill your brother, you idiot!" He stopped here and tried to regain his composure, he was clearly very angry with George and who wouldn't be after someone had just punched them? "Look I'm sorry, about whatever my brother did. It would've been horrible. I loved Lynx, with all my heart, but he always had dark tendencies. If it will help you get some closure, Lynx is dead." He sounded toneless. His eyes had become dark tunnels. His face, matted in blood and hair was somehow heroic and noble, when he spoke like that.
"Lynx is what?" Roxanne practically screamed, she sank to the floor, face white. "He's dead? How? How? How?"
Orion seemed to be choking on something as he tried to reply, "You know how he always said there was one organisation more important to him than the Death Eaters? One person he loved more than the Dark Lord? He died trying to stop our mother, dear Bellatrix, from trying to kill me. She got him instead and then your mother," he gestured to George, "Killed her."
"I've been running now, for five days. They're trying to get me. Well what's left of them anyway. Their imperiused puppets are on the look out too," here he turned to Harry, "It wasn't so bad, till yesterday, that was when Rodolphus got out. My father, somehow escaped from under the eye of your guards and came to kill me," Orion sounded concerned, "Perhaps Azkaban is not as secure as you think it is?"
Harry sighed, "You may be right, I'll have to check with Ron and Hermione, which means I'll have to leave earlier than I thought I would, maybe by tomorrow."
"Roxy, I'm so sorry, I had no-one else."
"That's ok Ry, you know that I'm here for you whenever you need me," she smiled weakly, her face still pale with shock and grief.
"I can't believe this, are we supposed to believe this slimy git?" George asked.
"Yes!" Roxanne sounded just as aggressive, "Orion's done nothing wrong. He just looks like someone who has."
"We need to get him cleaned up a bit. Then we'll question him a bit more, mate," Harry seemed like he was just trying to placate George. Dudley had noticed that his cousin was quite the diplomat.
Wondering whether life with wizards could be any more complicated than this, Dudley trekked out of the orchard. The others slightly in front of him, Roxanne supporting Orion's mass with her slim frame.