Harry Potter and the Life Unlived
by
Vulpine Nox
Underlined is writing
Italics is telepathy
Bold is parseltouge
Last Chapter
"Trolls---in the dungeon---though you ought to know." He fell onto his face in a dead faint, in front of the teachers' table. There was silence for a moment and then the hall burst into screams. Dumbledore had to let off several conjured firecrackers before he could bring silence.
This Chapter
"Prefect lead you Houses back to their Dormitories immediately."
The Slytherins pack together tightly, the younger years on the inside. As soon they were out of sight from the other houses Elfi told them to halt and barked out orders
"Seventh years stay with the main group, Sixth years who know the disillusionment charm pair up and use it to scout ahead, if you see a troll come back and report it. Fifth years that know offensive and defensive spells line up behind the seventh years. I want the first year in the center with the older years around them. Myst, can you cast a invisibility rune?" At Silver nod she continued, "Good cast it on yourself and Potter and scout ahead."
It was unsaid that the troll might be after Harry Potter, in which case it would come after the large group endangering them. "Go to your tasks now." Everyone quickly departed and the Duo, once everyone was gone, sniffed out the way the Quirrell had come from. Before they had gotten near the dungeons they smelt two of the trolls trails. Shade took the one going down, Silver the one going up.
–
Silver crept along the passage, hearing shouting she rushed into what she noted was a girls' bathroom. Neville Longbottom was slumped against one wall, half of his chest crushed hovering near death watching as his friends tried to fight the troll. Hermione Granger was leaning against a wall, eyes unfocused, most likely due to giant goose egg on the side of her head, but watching nonetheless. Cat was in the middle of the room, favoring one leg, hand dripping in troll's blood. The troll itself was also injured though less than the others, it had lost an eye and a long set of scratches along it arms were the extent of its injuries. Hermione let go of another weave, it rapped around Neville trying to heal him, it collapsed and she gasped at losing it. The troll swung its club and Cat didn't move fast enough, it slammed her into a stall she stopped moving after a moment and Silver felt her start to die. She unleashed her necromancy powers and healed both Cat and Longbottom to the extent that they could live unaided for another few hours without help. Silver growled startling the troll, which turned around. Her robes ripped and in an instant there was a horse sized Kitsune standing in her place. It leaped forward, slammed the troll into the wall and leaped back. The troll roared in fury and swung a sink at her, having lost its club. She ducked under it and slashed a razor sharp claw at the troll's swinging arm, nearly cutting it off. The troll howled and Silver hit it at and odd angle, there was an audible snap and the troll fell lifelessly to the floor. Silver cloaked herself in illusion when she changed back. She could feel Dumbledore magic approaching, it was currently about four floors away.
"Sear correct?" Silver barked at Hermione, who nodded dazedly. "Come over here." She grabbed, her ruined robes, Neville, Sear and Cat, snapped her fingers, touched a splatter of blood on the wall and teleported out.
Terra, Jade, Onyx meet me in the lab now! Forge I need a favor, meet me in the classroom below your common now!
Silver reappeared in the lab and there were the three girls. They rushed to help their sister and placed her on a table, then Neville. Silver touched the bump on Hermione's head and it shrank away to nothing, she blinked and looked at Silver.
"You're from the Isles? I don't recognize you. Is it wise to become friend with Harry Potter?" Silver smiled and change into her favorite form, the one everyone on the isles knew her as. She was one of the many minor masters of Necromancy and because of that many people recognized her.
Hermione gasped, "Lady Silverfox please forgive me. I-" Silver held up a hand.
"It's quite alright Sear, you didn't know. Are you feeling all right otherwise? We must hurry I don't want Dumbledore to know what happened."
"What about Neville and Cat? And how did you find out that I was from the Isles, milady?"
"They will be fine, I'll heal them here and in the mean time Jade and Onyx will take their place. I need you to be reclusive until they are healed all right? We can't have anyone finding out what happened." She snapped her fingers and two of the girls transformed into exact look-alikes. Sear was impressed, it was no small feat to create such a good illusion without even looking.
"Are you ready?" Sear nodded. Silver hissed at the lookalikes Are you to comfortable doing this? 'Yes' both the Cat double and Longbottom double hissed. Sear nearly jumped, she had known that Silverfox was a reptile speaker but hadn't thought that that gift was so common that two of her apprentices would have it. Sear stepped forward as Silver transformed into a fox.
"Why take that form Lady?" she asked as she realized who Fox was.
My friends in Griffins Tower don't know who I am. Grab onto a tail everyone. Teleporting was a funny thing, there was no sense of motion you were just in one place one second another the next instant. Forge didn't even jump when Fox appeared beside him, but was quite surprised when he saw the resident bookworm, geek, and Griffindor Myst. He had been quite worried when Fox mentally yelled at him to come down to the classroom when the troll was out. Luckily the call had come before he had entered the common room and was able to slip away.
"Questionable company Granger, this might just go on your permanent record." Forge quipped, speaking in stereo.
"Shut up you twit. You don't have enough wit for one body let alone two, so stop trying to make jokes, they come out rather half assed." Silver let out a bark of laughter and the doubles snickered. Forge was looking at the supposed bookworm of Gryffindor in astonishment.
As amusing as this is you all need to get to back to Lions Tower.
Silver disappeared as soon as she finished thinking. There was a scramble for the door and the twins were able to sneak in the common with the others without being seen.
–
Shade felt Silver break her magical dams and winced, that would hurt tomorrow. Shade followed the troll's scent until it met with that of the Slytherins. He transformed into a huge animal slightly larger than that of the kitsune. Flashes of light in the hall showed that someone was fending off a troll.
–
Elfi was cursing the inadequacy of the remain of the Slytherin party, she had sent most everyone down a different path to the dorms, thinking that they would be less likely to meet the troll. She was wrong, the troll had appeared from the shadows and the younger years scattered like mice. The older years had held their ground until she had told them to find the young students, after all there were still an unknown number of trolls about. She and fifth, seventh year stayed to distract the troll. Three of the seventh years had fallen to the club and when the club was about to hit a fourth a huge black blur knock it to the ground. The two creatures slid along the floor for several yards, growling and snapping. The black creature leapt off the troll, which had stopped moving. Elfi looked closer and realized that the thing throat had been ripped open. She stared in morbid fascination as the black blood pooled on the floor, shining in the flickering firelight from the torches. She gave a start as the black creature walked forward into the light, it was a Dire Wolf. She raised her wand when it continued past the troll it looked into her eyes and wagged its tail slightly. The dark green eyes captivated her, she didn't notice when she lowered her wand or when the wolf was close enough to touch. She was only woken from her daze when the creature walked past her and sniffed the injured students.
"Hey don't do that." One of the seventh years shouted when the wolf sniffed his fellow. The wolf bared his teeth and grabbed a hold of the unconscious student's robe and started dragging him down the hall, walking slightly bowlegged. The seventh year was about to yell again when Elfi shot a silencing spell at him.
"Shut up," she snarled. "The wolf is obviously taking him somewhere, not eating him and we couldn't stop it if we tried. Get the others and follow it." The students cautiously followed the wolf to a familiar place, the potions classroom. The silenced student tried to speak forgetting that he was silenced. Elfi shot him a threatening look.
"Thank you wolf, we are in your debt." The wolf gave a toothy smile and howled. Very loudly. The student covered ears wincing, the wolf stopped howling, licked Elfi and bounded of up the nearest staircase.
Shade turned back to human as soon as he was out of sight cast a cleaning charm and started collecting students. Silver joined him after a time, as soon as they had gathered as many students as they could the headed back to the Slytherin Common Room. Where they would meet with a very perplexed Snape quite soon.
–
"Prefects lead the Houses back to their Dormitories immediately." There was a furry of activity at his words.
"Shall we split up and look for the troll Albus?" He nodded gravely and the teacher left the Hall before all the students had. 'How the devil did trolls get in? None of the wards were breached.' Albus thought to himself. He headed down towards the dungeons and after several minutes of fruitless searching felt a huge amount of power being wielded floors above him. He curse mentally and hurried up a staircase. Serverus and Minerva met him on the way to the source of the power. It had disappeared just moment before they entered a girls' bathroom. Dumbledore withdrew his wand from his robes mimicked by the two professors, he flicked his wand and the door opened to reveal the damage.
McGonagall gasped when she saw the troll "By Merlin, Albus what happened?" Dumbledore had a look of grim determination on his face as he bent over to inspect the troll.
"It appears to have been attacked by a large animal, the odd thing is that all the blood, even the troll's blood has been burned up, leaving no trace of it. I have never seen this before. Serverus, have you even heard of a potion that causes this?" Dumbledore said as he walked around the room observing the rest of the damage. His question was one more of Serverus's past experience with the Dark, than one of his potions knowledge.
Albus frowned, his brows coming together after a moment and gasped when he turned around.
Hello slowpokes,
Sorry about the damage. It is quite hard to avoid when there is a troll involved. You really need better security.
See you soon.
Fox
The message was burned into the wall behind the Professors above it was another black kitsune fox.
"Albus who could this Fox person be? We've already checked the students for animagus forms and we know that none of their possible forms are Kitsunes." Snape's eye questioned, black eyes somber.
"I am unsure Seve-"he was interrupted by a ghostly howl echoing through the halls. McGonagall and Snape exchanged looks of worried interest.
"It seems," Dumbledore spoke with grim humor, "We are being called. Come we must hurry." The professors hurried quickly through the empty hall going into the dungeons, toward the source of the howl. McGonagall nearly shot off a spell when the potions classroom door cracked open.
"Professors! Headmaster, there are injured students in here, we are healing them the best we can but we don't know that much about healing. Come help us, please. The wolf already took care of one of the trolls." The adults stared at her in shock, there were two black canine ear perched atop her head, one turned back into the lab, apparently listening to the progress inside
"Ms. Lonic care to explain the wolf ears on your head? What do you mean Wolf took care of the troll?" Snape snapped because was very annoyed that the head of Gryffindor had seen one of his students out of character. The professors walked into the lab and McGonagall started healing the injured students.
"A huge wolf came and killed the troll," she pointed in the general direction of the attack. "Then it licked me and now I have wolf ears. I haven't been able to remove them." A flicker of amusement in McGonagall's eyes shown for a moment, she flicked her wand is a complicated motion and the student's ear glowed but stayed the same. Her ears drooped but the rest of her face was of calm indifference, "It didn't work did it?" McGonagall frowned and jabbed her wand in the direction of the ears. The loud yelp from Lonic was enough to draw Dumbledore's attention from the now healing students.
"Ms. Lonic would you be so kind as to lead us to the sight of the troll's demise? The rest of you stay here and watch the injured. The ears look quite are quite stylish." Dumbledore held the door open for the others and motioned with his hand.
"Can you remove them?" She asked her ears perking up at the question.
"Most probably but there are other matters at hand, and as the Professor McGonagall has show it is a complicated spell."
She sighed, "Follow me." And led them to the troll's corpse. "Will that be all professors?"
"Yes thank you Ms. Lonic."
–
Once she was out of their sight she leaned against a wall and sighed loudly, she hated acting so childish around the teachers. "Hello, nice ears," she whirled and shot off a curse.
No one made fun of her without being seriously reprimanded. Shade and Silver stepped in opposite direction and two of the students behind them, some second years, collapsed.
"Potter I'm am not in the mood for your antics, how many student do you have?" She snapped while casting the counter curse on the unfortunate second years.
"Most all the second years and a few from third. We are heading back, would you like to accompany us?" Miranda nodded and motioned for them to follow. The halls were eerily silent and all the students had their wands out, but there was no trouble on their was to their commonroom. The door slid quietly open and the chatter of voices inside died momentarily only start up again when they students saw that it wasn't a teacher. The students were spread around in the common room all chair, sofas, and couches aimed toward the center of the room, where the Nine were gather in discussion.
"How many are missing?" Elfi questioned when she sat down next to a fire in a cushy armchair facing the Nine.
"At this moment, thirty-one, we have some of the older years looking for them." Mark Parkinson said, her biggest opponent in the Nine, and leader of the Purists in the House sounded disheartened, he wasn't even sneering at her. She heard the door slid open and Professor Snape walk in.
"Everyone will be sleeping here tonight and get the rest of the house here, the trolls have been taken care of. Any injured report to the hospital wing. Sleep lightly." With that the Head of Slytherin house stormed out no doubt to discover the culprit behind tonight attack. Few noticed him limping.
"Your heard our head, everyone above fifth year go look for the rest of our house." Lonic snapped. There was a scurry of activity as almost half of the Slytherins present departed in search of their fellows. The fourth year made the remaining students go to bed. Once settled in bed Silver and Shade spoke mentally.
Did you see him limping Shade?
Of course, he was bleeding rather badly.
Its my guess that he met the dog attacked him.
What dog?
I didn't tell you about the three-headed dog?
No.
Eh, must of slipped my mind, its guarding the package, or what I think is the package, on the third floor corridor.
Hn, have you come across the name Nicholas Flamel during your copying?
No but I can check my computer. Silver grasped her necklace and gave it a mental prod. Her little runic computer was just up to the task of storing all the books in the Hogwarts's Library that she had copied. She had made a few changes to her Copying Quills/Pens, now they were linked to a small rock sphere. It absorbed ambient magic and used it to float. It scanned the words of any book by floating it out into the open and turning the pages. She developed it because she found that it was impractical to check out all the books in the library and Madame Pince was becoming suspicious. All her quills worked like mad after curfew and were the spheres were programmed to hide if they sensed anyone. At their current pace the Quill had copied over a tenth of the Library books in two months. All of which were stored in Silver's primitive computer, which was only able to store information. Which she now accessed with a simple thought.
Nicholas Flamel, widely known as the man who rediscovered the Philosopher's Stone and alchemist partner with Albus Dumbledore. That would explain Quirrel's possession.
He's possessed?
From what I can sense, it's very well hidden.
It's possible that it's Voldemort. But that is a very foolish move with Dumbledore here.
Yes indeed, but we must ask why whoever it is willing to risk so much.
–
The week after the troll incident all the Slytherins were on edge. This resulted it several interesting curses being used on the younger students stupid enough to sneak up on them.
Jade and Onyx were easily pulling off the impersonation of Cat and Neville. Cat healed completely after three days and had gone back to Gryffindor. Neville was healing nicely, and was just stirring, ten days after the troll incident. He moaned and opened his eyes. There was a bleary shape above him he blinked.
A.N.
Hello all, what do you think is going to happen with Neville? I don't think what I have planned has ever been done. Please review, I got three reviews for the last chapter and I can't even thank one them properly cause it wasn't signed. I know that many people are following the story and if you are please, please review!
I still am in need of a beta, seriously people just send me a note that you want to, hopefully someone will want to, you get to read the chapter before the rest of the peoples.
Could someone recommend some good stories? I'll gladly read any reviewers work and also review it from now on.
thank you Hikarisailorcat, good morning starshine the earth says hello- Debbs, Heather, Hollyowl, Nickcartersloverboy, Ranko66, cirecris, dreadnoughtdeathstalker, Fate Dagger, kylynn, I know I've missed someone but I don't want to delay putting out this chapter any longer.
Toodles
Vulpine Nox