This chapter took a while. I was 900 words or so in and stopped, then the next day typed up to about, oh, 3500 words. I left it for a day or two, then got to I don't know, I think 6000 words. I come back; open up the document because somebody, I don't know who, had closed it. I open; I'm back to 900 or so words. Pissed me off. I lost hope and didn't type anymore because I was pissed. Sorry. Here I go though.

The Chronicles of Fayt

Chapter Twelve: "I Don't Care"

Jason Black's POV

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

I looked around the filled Great Hall as people obliviously munched on the tainted food. Ah, this would be good. I felt the tingle of magic start to take place. First, my hair started to grow out. "James, you gave me sexist stuff, not all girls must have long hair."

"Eh, makes it funnier." He grinned as he grew… um, assets. "Well, that's uncomfortable." He stared pointedly down. "Never thought I'd see the day where any guy would willingly do that."

"You two are behind this?!" Ashley hissed menacingly. She was a better she. I have to admit it.

"Of course not love. That would be rude and un-smart. I'm in the smart people house. I'm just saying, what are the odds that a girl would do a sex changing thingy?"

"I know you're behind this James Grant Thompson."

"Oooohhh. You got the full name. Scary." Ashley sent me a death glare and being the intelligent person I am, I promptly shut my mouth.

Dumbledore stood and moved to his podium. "Well, it seems somebody has decided to welcome the new term with a bang." As if on cue, there was well, a bang. And a rather gross smell. "If I may take a wild guess, I'd say our prankster, or pranksters, has a flare for the dramatics. Very well done. Unfortunately, I have no idea what potion, powder or spell they used, as this is obviously a prank, any attempt to dispel it will more than likely cause a rather unpleasant reaction." He waved his wand. "Fortunately, I can dispel dungbombs." The smell, which before was making me dizzy, dissipated.

Another wave of magic swept through the room, and several males… uh, females normally, lost their make-up and what remained of their hairstyles. There was a scream as several teachers pulled out their wands and stunned, bound and did some rather nasty spells on the incompetent fool known as Quirrel.

"It seems we have a small complication. That last spell undid any masking, make-up, or concealing spells. It seems the former professor wasn't too proficient." People were standing trying to look. "Filius, Minerva. Please take him to my office and call the Aurors. Send word to our old friends." The aforementioned professors levitated Quirrel and I got a good look at his face when he walked by. That meant I also saw the face that rather resembled a snake that was poking out of his skull. I hissed in pain and grabbed my forehead.

"James…" I hissed. "It hurts where my scar should be." I could barely hear me through the pounding in my head, but James heard. Luckily nobody but Hermione was looking. She was too far away to have heard.

"Jason." She looked worried. "Are you okay? You look like you're in pain."

"My head feels like it's splitting in two. God." I grabbed my head and pulled it down. Wave after wave hit me and I was seriously about to pass out. "It hurts." I almost was whimpering in pain.

James leaned closer. "Hold on little man. We'll get Snape to fix you up A.S.A.P."

I nodded and pulled my knees up so I was curled in a ball. I heard James talking through the pain but I wasn't paying attention. It hurt too badly.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and a voice whispered in my ear. "I'll tell Professor Snape it was a bad reaction to the potions you were slipped, even if I doubt that myself Mr. Potter." Dumbledore knew? He was in on it? "Yes, I know about you, but rest assured, your secret is safe with me. Who do you think gave you the cloak?"

So… the Headmaster knew, but it sounded like he didn't know that Snape knew. Snape kept his end of the bargain it seems. So, how did Dumbledore know? I guess that's the million dollar question. It's not like my letter was addressed to Harry Potter. Nope, it read:

Jason Black

Room 13, the Top Bunk

St. Mary's Orphanage

London, England

Still, how did the old man find out? James certainly didn't tell. By the time he put two and two together and got Jason, he knew enough to not tell. Being not only an orphan attending Hogwarts but a scholarship orphan from an orphanage and muggleborn, he'd seen the darker side of the world we lived in, muggle and wizard alike. He knew when to speak up and when to keep quiet. He thought telling would be bad. I knew it would be, I didn't want people to gape at me nor do anything dumb.

"I'd prefer to go by my real name, the one I'm used to." I whispered as I was lead out of the hall. "I just want to be me."

"Perfectly understandable, Mr. Black."

"How'd you figure it out?" That little detail bugged me.

Dumbledore smiled. "I learned the art of Legilimancy, or mind reading of a sort. I usually use it to detect lies and things of that nature. When I met you in the Great Hall, you looked me in the eye, and I got a reading of sorts. Both names you go by, the fact you are using a Metamorphagus ability to alter your face and hair."

Mystery solved I guess. Maybe I'd look into Legilimancy. See if there was a way to block it, if Dumbledore could make eye contact and get that much, what would somebody who really wanted information be able to get out of me? Plus, I'd like to keep secrets secret.

He pulled me out of my seat and led me down the halls to the dungeons, but a part of them I'd never been to. "Where are we going?" I asked.

"Professor Snape's office. He keeps potions in stock in case the Hospital Wing runs out of any." So they ordered potions. The ones Snape gave me were brewed by him. I guess he didn't have enough time to brew for the Demon Woman. Like it'd make a difference. She'd still poison people. Stupid nurses… At least I was safe from the Demon Woman. "Professor Snape will be here soon. He's getting the students to their dorms and getting food, untainted food, to the Commons so the students can finish."

My eyebrows knitted in confusion. "Why are we going to our Common Rooms?"

"There is a suspected criminal on school grounds. No students are allowed out of the safe zones without a teacher escort. Common Rooms are warded to lockdown in an emergency." Made sense… "Only keyed individual's can access them in a lockdown. Usually the Head of House, the Deputy Headmistress, or Headmaster, and the Headmaster. Occasionally, a teacher's office is closest to a House entrance so they are keyed in as well." Pretty sophisticated.

The door opened and Snape walked in. "Black. I have to say, you make a better male. No offense." That was… unusually nice of Snape. Weird. He walked to a cabinet and pulled out three little bean things. Bezoars? "These will reverse the potions. In addition to curing most poisons, they can also reverse any other potions." I'll keep that in mind. James was prankster at times. I swallowed the stone and my body morphed back along with Snape and Dumbledore. Snape tossed me a vial full of a light blue potion. "Pain Reliever. It should work." I knocked it back and the pounding faded before settling on a mild dull ache. Thank god. I could live with that. Snape went to a locked cabinet and whispered several words before grabbing a key from around his neck and opening the lock and pulling out a small vial with clear liquid.

"The minister is here then?" Dumbledore asked.

"He is. He asked if I kept any Vetiriserum on hand." Snape held up the bottle. "I never did trust Quirrel. He always seemed off." He shook his head, "I guess I was right about him."

"I'm sorry I didn't trust your instincts. I should rely on them more. They have saved you many times in the past and should be just as reliable now. However, it is too late for regrets now. Fudge won't wait for too long. I don't want to either. I'm not sure how bound Voldemort is to Quirrel. It depends on how weak Voldemort is and how much he is relying on his host." Voldemort. Who was that? James had mentioned a 'You-Know-Who' and a 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named' in passing once or twice and said he murdered my parents but wouldn't say another word on it.

"Who's Voldemort?" Both adults spun and gave me odd looks.

"You might know of him as You-Know-Who. Mr. Thompson might have told you about him."

I nodded. "James wouldn't say much about him other than he was a self-proclaimed Dark Lord who tried to take over the world and came damn close to taking over England. He was stopped by Harry Potter when he was a year old. I thought he was gone?"

"Most believe he was killed. I never quite believed it." Dumbledore was a smart cookie. I would've thought he was dead based on what James said. "The minister is waiting." Dumbledore left the room and Snape and I followed. "We'll escort you to your Common Room." I followed and we were stopped two feet later by the arrival of a man with twelve men in grey cloaks surrounding him. The guy they were protecting or escorting or whatever had a damn ugly bowler hat. Lime green? Honestly? "Minister." Dumbledore greeted. That was the minister…? Well fu-

"Where is he?" The man snapped as more people came around the corner. "I can't believe that you actually have a man with Voldemort sticking out the back of his head. It's absurd. To even think of it!"

"I saw it. When they took him out of the Great Hall. He was levitated right past me."

The minister glared at me. "And who are you?"

"Jason Black."

One of the new arrivals leaned over and whispered in his ear. "Your testimony means nothing. Listen well you impertinent little brat, the wizard world cares nothing for an orphaned muggleborn who's only even here because Dumbledore allows you here on a scholarship. Things may seem equal here but trust me. Once you get in the real world you'll wish you never even came to our world. You'll spend your entire life working for minimum wage in some shop barely scraping by."

"That is enough Cornelius." Dumbledore stepped in. "Your prejudice will only do you harm. Young Mr. Black here competes for the top of his class ranking with another muggleborn, a Ms. Granger. No pureblood is even in the running for the top five students."

Fudge scoffed. "Lies. Obviously your school isn't quite up to par if the purebloods are so bored in class because the teachers dumb the lessons down for the muggleborns that the purebloods do poorly." I tried not to gape at his pigheadedness or punch him or do something I'd regret. My fingers twitched towards my pocket and the Aurors did the same. I gulped and forced my hand down. Stupid idiotic retarded moronic minister, I really want to mess up his already ugly face. Asshole.

"Your opinions aside, I have to escort Mr. Black to his Common Room. The school is under lockdown and no student may be in the halls alone."

"Have your Potions Master escort him."

Snape sneered- he did the quite well- at the minister. "I would prefer to not do that, the Vetiriserum stays with me. You'd have to wait anyway."

Fudge rolled his eyes. Our minister is so mature. "Fine. Two of my Aurors will escort him. I don't see why you even bother with the muggleborns. Nobody truly cares. Sure the Prophet will run an article about the tragedy-"

"I'd appreciate you not degrading my students in front of me, and especially not in front of the student in question." Dumbledore looked pissed.

"What's he going to do? Whine to his dead Mummy and Daddy?" If I could punch the fucker! God I want to.

I settled for the next best thing. "No, I'll simply inform the press of how much you absolutely love the magical students of Hogwarts." I held up the Record-O-Sphere Snape just handed me. "Won't the Prophet just love a word-for-word translation of what just happened? I can see the papers now. Full front page. No article, just the entire conversation in print. Every single remark for the world to see. You're right, we muggleborns are obviously stupid. Stupid enough to record you."

Fudge sputtered. "SEIZE HIM! Take that away from him! You- you're under arrest!"

A woman stepped forward, one of the Aurors. "Um, we need an actual reason other than saving your political career."

"I said so! There is your damn reason! Take that from him or you're fired for disobeying a superior! Do it now you damn useless Aurors! DO IT!" I snickered as he fumed.

"You are aware it's still recording? The public will love you throwing an innocent first year in Azkaban to save yourself." I laughed.

Fudge turned red(der). "I- stop the stupid mudblood already!" I can hear his political career being flushed down the toilet. "I said stop him!"

"For what? Being smarter than you?"

"You little f*#%king mudblood!" He took a step forward and punched me full in the face. I hit the ground and rolled onto my hands and knees as I cradled the Record-O-Sphere.

"You punched me!" I shouted. I felt something hit my ribs. I groaned. "Ow…" I saw the Aurors dragging Fudge back.

"Minister." The Auror from earlier that had questioned him held up her badge in his face. "As an Auror for the Ministry of Magic I hereby declare you under arrest for the aggravated assault of a minor. You have the right to an attorney." She cast a spell as he shouted about firing her. His hands were bound and they dragged him away. "Can we use your floo to transport him to the Ministry Auror Headquarters?"

Dumbledore smiled. "Of course. You know where my office is Amelia."

Snape helped me to my feet. "Your nose is broken." He said looking at me. He waved his wand. "Cracked rib. I'll get you the potions." I was led to his storeroom again and given a few potions. "These will fix you up. Drink this in the morning when you wake up." I was given a bottle. "Rub this on your side to speed the bruises healing process. No more than three times a day."

Dumbledore came in. "Two Aurors will escort you to your Commons." I nodded and left the office cradling my sphere and potions. "By tomorrow, you will have reporters mailing you requesting interviews and that sphere. I'd hold off just giving it to them. I'm sure you'd like a bit of spending money, no?"

I gave Dumbledore a weak grin and nodded. "How much will they offer?"

"Oh, less than it's worth I'm sure. Just hold out for a couple of days." I nodded and left with my escorts. "I've keyed you in to your Common Room. Just get there in the next twenty minutes. I'm putting them back to normal then." I waved goodbye and I walked off.

"Pretty damn smart kid." One of the Aurors said quietly. "How'd you learn to make a Record-O-Sphere?"

I threw him a smirk reminiscent of Snape's trademark one. "I didn't make it. Snape gave it to me and I knew what it was and that it was recording everything."

The tall man laughed. "I'm Kingsley Shacklebolt by the way. I graduated four years back. It'll be nice to see my old housemates again."

I nodded. "Do you know James Thompson?"

He shook his head. "Who doesn't? That guy is crazy. The Defense teacher that year bet that none of the second years could take him down or even last ten seconds. Anybody that did would get ten points for every ten seconds they lasted, plus fifty for disarming him. Not one kid did it, and that crazy guy was one of the last. Nobody got any points. So, they were supposed to do it like a real duel, and James started as soon as he said "GO!" He stunned the teacher and stuck him to the roof of the Great Hall. He left the teacher up there for five minutes while he racked up points. He then disarmed him when Dumbledore made him and ended the duel. Guy got Ravenclaw three hundred and eighty points in five minutes." I was surprised, I never heard the story.

"How come I never heard the story?"

Kingsley shrugged. "As much as he brags about the little things, he tried to play that down, said he got lucky. The Defense teacher, Morris, said that his lucky shot might have saved him in a real fight. Recommended that if he didn't know which path to choose, go Auror. Morris convinced me I should be one. Never regretted it. Don't think I will either. Not many people can handle it but I love it."

"Why do you know so much about that?" The guy was creeping me out.

"I was watching the second years get beat up. It was in the Great Hall, most of the school was watching it. Pretty funny to see the twelve year olds get blasted around." He chuckled. "Nobody got hurt, but it was still funny."

The other Auror spoke up. "He's still a trainee so he was young enough to be here and watch that happen."

"If you're a trainee, why are you here?"

"We shadow other Aurors for six months before they set us loose on the general populace."

I nodded. Makes sense. "So you get trained for four years?" Overkill much?

"And get paid minimum wage as we get used as test dummies and have Aurors beat us up. Sucks really. Most of the time we get knocked around. Sucks really badly." Kingsley winced. "Moody was the worst and best trainer. He would randomly attack and scream, "Constant vigilance!" at us. Whenever he was in the room we were flinching at every sound. Probably save out asses though."

"Moody is brilliantly crazy. That man single handedly filled half of Azkaban." Obviously this Moody was respected. I'm pretty sure Azkaban is a wizarding prison used to house the Death Eaters that didn't buy their way out.

"Well, here you are kid." They stopped at the door. Kingsley knocked and the Ravenclaw guardian squawked out a question.

"What is the Hand of Glory?"

Kingsley told me the answer. "Only you can answer, tell him it's a magical artifact made by cutting off the hand of a thief and it only gives light to the holder of the hand." I repeated the answer and the door swung open. Kingsley looked around.

"I distinctly remember most of you as being of the opposite sex. Ravenclaws nowadays are easy to prank or all gender confused."

"I'm going with gender confused." I said with a grin.

James(ette?) looked confused and angry. "How are you back to normal? And who beat you up?" He scowled. "I need to go beat somebody up."

"That person's name is Ex-Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge and is currently in a prison cell awaiting trial for aggravated assault of a minor." Kingsley said with a grin. "He decided attacking a twelve year old boy with a Record-O-Sphere while fourteen Aurors watched was a good idea. Amelia Bones arrested him. I swear, that woman is going to be the Head of the Aurors and probably the entire Magical Law Enforcement one day."

"It's good to see you Kingsley." Somebody called. Seventh year named… Jones?

"Bezoars reverse the change by the way." I called loudly. James smacked himself on the forehead.

"Stupid! I should've known that." A couple more people were doing that as people ran off to go get bezoars. Kingsley and the other Auror (Never did catch his name) took their leave as people auctioned off spare bezoars for ridiculous amounts of money.

"So, somebody said something of a Record-O-Sphere. Care to share?" James, who was now male again, threw an arm around my shoulder as he sat next to me. "Hand it over little man." He held his free hand out. I set the ball of swirling smoke in his palm. "Gather 'round!" He called loudly. "The little firstie here has some entertainment. Who doesn't love politicians being idiots?" He tapped his wand on the sphere as Neville and Hermione sat down near us. Little ghost like people appeared and smoke-Fudge spoke in a loud clear voice about the idea of Voldemort being alive was idiotic. Then a very sexy smoke-Jason spoke up, telling him he was wrong. People snickered. Mini-Sexy told Fudge he was Jason Black and the aid whispered, and I finally heard what they said.

"Jason Black is the first year here from Saint Mary's Orphanage. He's on scholarship. Just a muggleborn, nothing to worry about." Fudge went on a rant about what an insignificant little idiot I was as people glared. After that the whole house was about to run off and kick his head in. Especially James. James had a look of murderous rage in his eyes. He really was protective. The whole house stared in shock as smoke-Snape handed me a small round ball.

The scene played out until Snape was done checking me over for injuries and we stood to leave. "Snape was behind this?" Neville asked from his spot in the nearest chair.

"Sometimes, snarky bastards are very awesome, very backstabbing snarky bastards that prove useful in a variety of ways." I said thoughtfully. That damn bastard was a cool bastard.

People laughed and James handed me the sphere. "So, is the press going to know about this?"

"Of course. And my wallet will know about it as well."

James slapped me on the back. "Good on you! I've taught you well young Jedi." The muggleborns laughed as the purebloods and magically raised half-bloods just looked plain confused. "Don't take the first offer either. Let them bid on it. Sell it to a big company. Witch Weekly or Wizard Times. Maybe the Prophet, but they'll screw it up." James looked thoughtful. "As your advisor I take a fifty percent cut, you are aware of this, right?" I smacked him, hard too. He rubbed his arm. "It was at least worth a shot. You are buying me a new broom, right? I'll sell mine to a pawn shop to help. I'm getting that broom, right!?"

"In your dreams."

~!#$%^&*()_+

Hmm, I think that I like the new chapter more than the old one. Yeah, I like it much, much more. Odd. I guess the old chapter getting deleted was a good thing.

Reviews- cyiusblack- I wouldn't call this soon, but I did update. :-) ams71080- I've never had Loracet but I have had codeine cough syrup. It wasn't bad for me, the Tylenol 3, or Tylenol and codeine, was bad. Didn't get me high but I felt really nauseous. So, the hospital (After they took me off morphine) gave me nausea pills. Those made my head hurt like hell. So they gave me 600mg pain pills. Callie258- Well, upside down triangles aside, thank you, thank you very much. Rainbow2007- I have this weird urge to say you are as straight as a rainbow… but thank you. I always love kind reviews. Amalin06- Ah, that's pretty damn funny. I would laugh too, anal probes… lol. ^^* ()- Odd choice of name. But, kind words are powerful ego boosters and make me write. Mefrancene- You review, and I write. Here's a chapter in exchange for a nice review!